Pictured: Patricia Lohan from Dublin. Picture by Conor McCabe.
There were a lot of strange happenings in D4 this Halloween. Aside from ghostly ghouls and scary spooks, odd events were occurring down at the RDS with the Mind Body and Spirit organisers holding their annual festival for lovers of all things spiritual and otherworldly.
Along with such established alternative therapies as yoga, massage and meditation, the festival introduced new-age newbies to even more unorthodox treatments to ponder.
There was photography that claimed to capture your aura, colour personality analysis, magnetic balancing, and a man who took you on a walk through a labyrinth to heal whatever ails you.
Aside from the myriad of stands offering everything from tarot readings to reflexology, there were countless talks across the three days on a variety of mysterious subjects. Probably the most interesting was the speaker who claims to have a direct line to the Angels of Atlantis and regularly receives divine transmission from a communion of twelve Orb Wanderers. Lucky man! NewsFour gave him a wide berth and went along instead to a talk on sound healing.
Whatever your opinion on the effectiveness of sound as a therapeutic technique, its effects on the body are fascinating. Tuning forks have been used medically to test for stress fractures and of course ultrasound is used in breaking down kidney stones and providing images of babies in the womb. Sound therapy is also widely used by physiotherapists to promote healing after injury. Additionally, played at the wrong frequency and intensity, sound can induce a thundering headache as anyone with noisy neighbours can attest to.
Amidst all the hocus pocus at the Royal Dublin Society over the October bank holiday, there were undoubtedly some interesting alternative talks and treatments. Whether they work or not, the acid test can surely be summed up in the words of the great Irish philosopher, Van Morrison. Did you get healed?
By Paul O’Rourke
