PresentTense: A couple of months ago, I wrote about guardian angels - how much they're on call these days and how keen they are to drain your wallet.
I subsequently received an interesting e-mail from a reader. She told me how, during a nervy flight in which the plane struggled to land, she called on her guardian angel and those of everyone on the plane to guide them home safely.
Then she began reading my article.
On the next approach, the plane landed safely. The angels got the credit. I got a ticking off.
I suggested that, having proved this incredible power to change weather patterns using only the power of prayer, she should get straight to drought-stricken parts of Africa where she would be of great help. She replied: "There is a difference between altering the velocity of the wind at Shannon airport for a few minutes and changing the weather system of a whole continent!" But of course.
If a person's guardian angel really can treat isobars as if they are hula hoops, then anyone walking past the RDS this weekend may want to hold on to their hats. One of its halls is hosting the Irish International Mind, Body, Spirit and Healing Arts Festival. It means that a lot of guardian angels that were hoping for a lazy bank holiday weekend are in for a very big shock.
There will be workshops, lectures, demonstrations and stalls and it will feature some talks that, on the surface, are worthy: yoga, relaxation techniques for children, how nutrition is linked to behaviour, healthy eating. The problem is, these will be overwhelmed by the surrounding sideshows.
Get in early and you can catch the talk on Developing Intuition Through Your Tarot before running to another room for Secrets of Your Moon Sign in Your Horoscope. There will be angels and past lives. Hang around for a free talk on Star Signs to Your Soul's Sacred Quest and then get to the late show on Crystal Bowls and Sonic Meditation.
There's also a lecture on "animal communication", although I'm not sure if it's part of the trend in moggy mind-reading or just how to be more authoritative with your dog. "Rex! Stop gnawing on my guardian angel. Good boy."
What else? Well, there'll be a discourse on Detecting and Clearing Geopathic Stress the Traditional Way. The lecturer's website explains that geopathic stress is unwanted emotional residue.
"For instance, if a room in the house has been used for a long unhappy convalescence - more especially where the person subsequently died there - this of itself may leave residual pervading feelings of melancholy or coldness in the room." No wonder the hospitals are in such a state.
"In other instances, we might trace such an overwhelming atmosphere to a specific item of clothing or furniture perhaps. Sometimes 'charged' items generate discomfort in a room, or indeed throughout the whole house, as a direct result of their own 'held' memories of the past." Just what you need - a jumper that has "issues".
Also notable will be the demonstrations from a group going by the intriguing, teen-fiction title of the Rocky Mountain Mystery School. In the brochure, one of its talks is listed as: "To Assist in Lighting Your Healing Contracts That Await You." If that title is accurate then expect the whole thing to be delivered in the kind of English normally used in the welcome packs of Asian hotels.
The Rocky Mountain Mystery School - perhaps when not busy solving ghostly crimes at local amusement parks - is also interested in "22-Strand DNA Activation" which claims to activate the "spiritual" strands of your DNA.
"This process allows the clearing of genetic patterning for many diseases. Any change in your genetic structure will affect your ancestors and descendants three to five generations in the past, as well as into the future." Finally, your long dead great-great-grandfather will get some relief from that crippling gout.
And the list of talks goes on. Much is free, but you can pay extra to attend particular seminars.
A handful are scientifically sound and filled with simple, practical advice; but many talks will occupy a higher level of awareness that considers itself beyond the reach of science, but which is even further away from rationality.
The event is a reminder - in case any was needed - that in the early days of the 21st century the advance of unreason has not slackened.
But it also illustrates how much nonsense continues to be attached to claims of health and healing, so that it's not considered at all worrying that theories both sound and unsound share space not only in a Dublin hall but also in the minds of the people wandering it.
Of course, many of those attending the event will claim that it is healthy to keep an open mind. That's true. But when you open your mind too wide, all sorts of junk is likely to fall in there.
