Reclaim Your Ancient Self With Simone

"Would the owner of the lost ancient self please report to the..." Carol A. Simone, a clairaudient medium and hypnotherapist, conducts a workshop in, well, reclaiming one's ancient self. What or who is this old bugger gone missing? Beats me. Viewers are advised to go down within themselves to their "sacred space" where, apparently, there resides "the god light." As with every video I've seen of this kind, you're supposed to watch a good portion of it with your eyes closed (a small contradiction which invariably escapes the makers of "new age" videotapes). After the ancient self bit, the workshop shifts into what might be called "a mood ring made flesh" mode. Workshop participants look at various pieces of colored fabric and talk about the emotions and sounds (what does turquoise sound like?) associated with the colors. This crayola training is important because we need to understand the "colors that we send out from our souls." Conjoining new age claptrap with Hindu mysticism, viewers are given a waltz through the seven chakras and their concomitant colors. For example, the area of the fourth chakra is the heart, and the color associated with it is green--viewers are advised to "take that green deeply into your arteries and veins." There is also an extensive hands-on section of the workshop, during which participants place their hands some inches away from their partner's body and read their "aura." Anybody can do this since "everyone is 100% clairvoyant." The world's greatest thinkers on the subjects of philosophy, religion, and physics, have struggled for centuries with the issues germane to these subjects; yet Simone manages to undo about 2,000 years worth of intelligent and serious thought in the space of a couple of sentences. Concepts which have engaged the finest minds the world has known are reduced to buzzwords and verbs. (Interestingly, when Simone is not working with individuals, she conducts workshops in metaphysics, no less; I suspect that Aristotle is turning over in his grave.) What really baffles me, though, is how the clairvoyant makers of this tape could have chosen Video Librarian to review the program--my mind's an open book on the subject of new age tapes: they're mostly bogus. Not recommended. (Available from: Video Transform Inc., 2450 Embarcadero Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303.)