I just stumbled over a really interesting line of research which reveals that Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Booth Blair is very well known for her interest in New Age and alternative spirituality. A 2002 article on the Guardian reports about an exotic ritual the pair underwent during a vacation:

During their stay at the Maroma Hotel, a pricey retreat on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a ‘Temazcal’, a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with ‘Mother Earth’. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced ‘inner-feelings and visions’. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of ‘rebirth’ were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.

It’s interesting to look at the reaction of various groups to this news. A Catholic website decries Mrs. Blair for being a bad Catholic. An anti-Freemasonry website reprints a story about this to prove how Blair was “reborn” under the sign of the serpent. A Humanist website tries to tear them a new one for engaging in superstitious rituals. An Australian website presents a radio show about how “celebrities like Princess Diana, Cherie Blair and Hillary Clinton who are deluded by crystals and healing stones, cults, gurus and other quackery in what he calls our post-political era.” Note that their “celebrities” are all actually political figures. A political blog uses the story to hammer Blair for making bad policy decisions.

It seems that nobody is content to let these gentle hippies worship as they may. I would call it ironic, but it’s simply hypocritical that a culture which prides itself on freedom of religion continually uses religious “aberrations” to bludgeon public figures and by association to shame us all into orthodox spirituality. Each group above, in turn, seems to have something to gain by smiting alternative spirituality. Catholics uphold church doctrine. Anti-masons point out “occult perversions” of world leaders (see also previous post). Humanists get to trumpet the virtues of reason and the dangers of irrationality in what they believe should be a scientifically run universe. Politicos jump on the bandwagon, indicting Blair’s reason and leadership for partaking in such silly superstitious stuff.

Together, these groups form a more powerful attack than any one could individually. Within the context of a “free and democratic” society, it’s left as your job to put together the final fusion of these viewpoints. Once you have assembled the fragmentary evidence and agendas scattered across various media outlets, you are rewarded with the feeling of having “figured it out” yourself. You think you originated the message which is being conveyed jointly across media: leaders who veer from accepted scientific practices and spiritual tradition are incompetent. And by extension of the natural human urge to model oneself after leaders, you are instructed to shun such things in your own life, even though you’re curious about them - a neat little double bind which is sure to cause you feelings of guilt and personal anguish should you take it’s message to heart.