Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I am focusing on raising my level of consciousness and bringing about an inner spiritual transformation. If I understand your concept of the Fifth Way, one should drink liquor often.  My wife left me and the only inner transformation thus far is one hell of a bleeding ulcer.

Wayne LeRoy

Garfield, NJ

Dear Wayne,

Good riddance to the bitch.  See?  You are already free to liver your dreams. You are starting to awaken.  Through a deep magic (and mixers) an inner transformation will change everything!  Except toilet paper; that is always a manual job.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I recently paid Pay Pal for one of your on-line ‘classes’ on Long Distance Healing.  I am physically very ill and money is tight.  To pay you over a hundred dollars, that I didn’t have, just to tell me to switch from Alltel to Verizon?!  There are peoples’ lives at stake here, you low life, bastard!

Phil Bower

Gilroy, CA

Dear Phil,

Don’t speak. I know just what you’re saying so please stop explaining. Don’t tell me ’cause it hurts

…Really, dude, just shut the hell up.  The family plan on Verizon is much cheaper than the one you use.  You could use that savings to drink yourself to death.  Just a thought.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

Enlightenment seems such a mystery to me. The ego must be strong before it is destroyed? Striving for enlightenment is a barrier to enlightenment itself? There are so many ‘sound of one hand clapping’ type paradoxes that the main point keeps eluding me.

Dedra Farley

Tempe, AZ

Dear Dedra,

Very true, Dedra. At the heart of Zen are confounding paradoxes designed to help focus the mind. For example, to the untrained eye, even I myself may appear like an addicted amoral opportunistic, criminal-minded type, but in actuality, er……all right, bad example.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

In your book The Enlightened Mind on Crack at the end of the chapter entitled The Tao of Skull Fucking, what exactly are the Booty Sutras? I can not find any references to them anywhere.

Elsa Potter

Salinas, CA

Dear Elsa,

I don’t even remember that book. I was on crack; what part of that don’t you understand, Elsa?

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I read your book Lost Mojitos of Mesoamerica and, first off, what the heck is an Aikido Hummer?  Second, you say that you have a strong affinity for the Hopi Indians, yet you condone some very antithethical views such as secret prisons, enhanced interrogation techniques, and even torture.

Ellen Frazier

Billings, Mt

Dear Ellen,

Torture? You are confusing information from my chapter on ‘things I like to do to women’.  The Hopi have influenced my work in other ways. For instance, their peyote is primo.  Oh, and an Aikido Hummer should never be tried outside of one of my Midget Reiki sessions.  I make people sign a waiver and everything.  It’s the everything part that usually results in therapy.

Hopi this helps.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I read your book Happy Hour Healer: A Shaman’s Ale and I must admit to some confusion.  I normally like stream of consciousness stuff, but what is Midget Reiki, who exactly are the Jersey Chuds, and why do you spend weeks at a time in a bar room toilet trying to contact the Malt Liquor Gods?

Sincerely,

Michael Raney

Hagerstown, MD

Dear Michael,

Indeed, I call that style Manic-Binge writing.

First off, Midget Reiki is only for the adept.  A better place to start would be at one of my Yoga Parties. Yo-ga!  Yo-ga!

The Jersey Chuds are minions of the Chaos Pigeons; those feathery adversaries to all that is sacred.   Mick Zano and Dr. Sterling Hogbein have written extensively about them. I would recommend their works, but, as a rule I only plug my own books.

As for your third question: a Shaman’s job is to become in-tune with energies constantly percolating on the energetic plane and then alter those energies prior to their manifestation back here on the earthly plane.  I drink malt liquor products and frequent the men’s room in hopes of one day harnessing the energy of the sacred beer fart (See Fartori Experience). I believe these energies will one day power the unfolding Universe itself.  Pokey McDooris is single-colonly pushing this particular boundary.  What he can do with a burrito and forty ounces of Big Jug Xtra Malt Liquor is legendary.

Hope this helps.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I just read your book entitled Open Your Body, Mind, and Wallet and let me say this, sir: spirit guides are not pubcrawl organizers, there is no such thing as a double-vision quest, and soul extractions have nothing to do with removing one’s shoe from another person’s ass.  You are a drunk and a charlatan, sir!

Jay Compiretti

Haymarket, VA

Dear Jay,

Go back and read the chapter on ‘open your mind’ again.  I think somebody skipped that part. What we attack in others are really characteristics we do not like about our selves.  Remember the old saying…I am rubber, you’re a dick.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I heard through the grapevine you were in a fire of some sort?  Are you OK?

Stanley Milton

Harrisburg, PA

Dear Stanley,

No big deal.  I made a slight alchemical miscalculation and my crystal yoga lab exploded.  Luckily, I was wearing my girlfriend at the time. 

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

I read somewhere that people can smoke dung?   What’s this all about?

Sincerely,

Jack Tibolla

South Bend, Indiana

Dear Carl,

At times I have not had shit to smoke—beyond that it is sensationalism.

The Ghetto Shaman

Dear Ghetto Shaman,

While searching for deeper shamanic states, I seem to only experience manic depressive states.  I hear voices and see shadows during the height of these manic phases.  Am I getting close?

Nancy O’Leary

Erie, PA

Dear Nancy,

Getting close?  Getting Clozaril is more like it.  Look, try harnessing your manic phases by pushing your creativity into higher vibrational frequencies, and then ask your doctor if an inpatient psych stay is right for you.

The Ghetto Shaman