Opening To Angels

"I would tune in to the vegetable in question," says Dorothy McLean, one of the founders of Scotland's Findhorn community, about drawing out the nature spirit of, say, the garden pea. Nature spirits are a subset of angels and are apparently universal ("If you have a houseplant, you have a nature spirit.") But, while there is some attention paid to nature spirits here, the majority of Opening to Angels is about the real live angels you see on the covers of bestselling trade paperbacks. Interviewed experts (i.e., those individuals who have found a lucrative calling in writing angel books) are incredibly precise in their descriptions of the properties of angels. Angels vibrate at a much higher frequency than humans, have no physical experience, are genderless but can appear as male or female (unless they are appearing to a new age artist, in which case they are overwhelmingly Barbie dolls with wings), and they enter humans through the ears and the throat. Best of all, each and every one of us has a guardian angel: in fact, an onscreen guided meditation encourages viewers to make that connection (I closed my eyes, concentrated, and was rewarded with a warm, wet sensation on my cheek...but it was just the dog licking my face.) But, the subject of angels is not all light and harp music; one expert reminds us that "angels are not mushy marshmallows; sometimes you run into a kickass angel." Many will think this is pure hokum; many others will consider it gospel truth. Production-wise, Opening to Angels is very nicely done: synthesizers, harps, soft focus lenses, radiant pictures...the works. Technically better (though much weirder) than Angels: True-Life Encounters (VL-5/94), this would still ordinarily be listed as an optional purchase. Yet, because of the subject's popularity, and the fact that patrons will snap this up like celestial hotcakes, we recommend seriously considering it for purchase. (R. Pitman)