If you don't like religion, stop reading now. Still here? Ok. My comments interspersed in bold.
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(I want to note before getting started on the article itself that the reporter apparently accepts the entire premise uncritically. I can't imagine the reporter employing similar treatment to a Christian telling the reporter what God had just said.)
Canadian children’s entertainer Raffi Cavoukian told millions of children in the 1980s that you have to sing when the spirit says sing.
And when the spirit says go to Billings, you go to Billings (Can we ask, which spirit? Who is "the spirit?")
Even if it gives you pause, as it did with Cheryl Barry, (Why would it give anyone pause? Perhaps because it is kooky and weird?)
psychic and owner of the Bozeman metaphysical center, A Soul’s Own Place, located at 103 S. Eighth Ave, in the Community Food Co-op’s former offices (Wow, quite a sentence. What, no hours of operation? Why not make the sentence run on even more by giving us a list of services provided?).
About four years ago, Barry had been meditating on where in the world her family was supposed to move when guiding spirits gave her the “very specific answer” of Billings, Mont (Now they are "spirits," not a "spirit." Who or what are these spirits, and why should we listen to them? How do we know they are telling the truth? What is the source of their knowledge? I wonder, is there any incredulity at all from this reporter?).
“I went, ‘What?’” said Barry, who was living in Seattle at the time. “I sat back down and I asked them again, and I’m like, ‘Are you sure it’s Billings?’”
The spirits — which are difficult for Barry to explain, (No kidding?)
but are angels or “ascended masters” who help guide her toward the answers to difficult questions during meditation — directed her to go to Montana’s most populous city and look into the earth’s energy grids. There she learned to use a pendulum and map to find her way. At each four-way stop, Barry would pull over and put the pendulum over the map, ask where to go, and be directed by its pull, she said. (Yet again the reporter relaties this information to us in a completely uncritical way. Does any of Ms. Berry's beliefs make any sense at all? How dose Barry know they are angels or ascended masters? What does that mean? Is there any evidence at all that energy grids exist? What are they, exactly? What benefit do they serve? Why does a pendulum engender such trust?)
“We would’ve gone north once and the next time it would tell me I needed to go south,” Barry said. “We were everywhere and it got really annoying after a while.” (How dependable and trustworthy is a "system" that sends her around randomly? And what does that say about Ms. Barry's unquestioning obedience?)
She and her kids went to Big Timber for a week while Barry worked with the pendulum. She got frustrated and decided to go to Bozeman to replace a crystal. The town didn’t have a metaphysical store at the time, however. The image of one flooded into Barry’s mind immediately.
It took a few years, but Barry and her husband, a software developer, moved to Bozeman about a year ago. A Soul’s Own Place opened in March last year. It expanded into the rest of the building on the corner of South Eighth Avenue and West Babcock Street several weeks ago and held a grand opening in December.
“It’s been really good. Terrifying, but good,” Barry said.
(I mean no disrespect toward Ms. Barry, but it is only proper we question her beliefs and practices. After all, she chose to make them public, didn't she? She presented them to us, and the reporter notes she is unable to explain the basic premise upon which she bases her entire world view.
She clearly does not completely trust these spirit guides, which suggests that she might want to consider why they're entitled to her trust at all. How does she know they are unswervingly benevolent? How does she know they don't lie? Such questions are reasonably asked by inquiring minds.
I have noticed that beliefs like this have gained access to the mainstream. It's as though asking questions about such things is frowned upon. But the same people who so vehemently oppose the mixing of church and state seem to have no problem with other forms of spirituality. Even some atheists embrace various kinds of spirituality. I think it's worth the time to ask why, and to expect a good answer.)
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