At the local grocery store, they have a free magazine called Conscious Choice. The magazine appears in a few cities from what I can tell, and it covers things like yoga, the 100 mile diet, sexy farmers and pet psychics. There also are a huge number of ads for NLP practitioners and hypnotherapists. It seems to be your pretty standard grab bag of new New Age stuff: lots of shit, a few gems.
One of the real gems appeared on the back of the magazine, a full-page ad for a new venture from Visa called the Enlightenment Card. Check out the sweet designs this magical mystical piece of plastic comes in:
In other words, now budding metrospirituals can feel (more) magical as they spend money. Or as their corporate site explains: “More than just a credit card, the Enlightenment Visa Card is a card for people who want to make a positive difference in their world.” A short piece on the SF Gate website explains:
This being the Enlightenment Reward Card which promises to “change your world with every point you earn.” Instead of frequent flyer miles, a Kitchen Aid mixer or a Hummel figurine, you get to choose from “enlightening” retreats, workshops, merchandise and giving to charity and non-profits. (Is it somehow telling that there are 1018 items under merchandise and 3 under charities?)
And you can check out their rewards options over at the Visa site as well. The author of that article quoted above, Amy Moon, goes on to waffle over whether or not this newest inroad of rampant commercialism is going to bring people closer to the experience of the divine.
I checked out the workshops and classes, and honestly, they all seem like they would be illuminating. And let’s face it, I’m gonna use my credit card anyway. It’s just…well, it’s a credit card. But maybe that’s the beauty of it. The paradox of our existence wrought in plastic. Perhaps any doorway to potential enlightenment is a worthy one. You think?
Groan… Did somebody pay her to say that? Or is it simply a case of that these people understanding their target market all too well? I can imagine some conversation in a planning boardroom about this topic going something like:
MAN 1: “Well, don’t you think people who are spiritual are going to maybe resent it being commercialized?”
MAN 2: (puzzled) “No, what do you mean?”
MAN 1: “Well, I mean, we have a picture of the Buddha on a credit card. Didn’t the Buddha teach people that they shouldn’t be attached to their material possessions?”
MAN 3: “Oh don’t worry. We went over this in our focus groups. We had a 95% success rate explaining this to people by saying that credit cards are tools of freedom and personal liberation. Using the Enlightenment Card doesn’t make you more attached to your possessions, but less attached to your own feelings of inadequacy caused by you lacking possessions.”
MAN 2: “And after all, aren’t credit cards designed to teach people about financial responsibility anyway…?”
(All look at one another and laugh in unison) “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.”
MAN 2: “But seriously, we just have to make sure that the rewards options are things our target demographic will actually use. The metrospirituality research we did last year and the foundation we laid through the media shows that any opposition potential customers may have to this on spiritual grounds will be washed away when we show them that we understand them and actually want to help promote their own spirituality and more importantly their social status of appearing to be a spiritual person in the eyes of themselves and others…”
MAN 1: “Yeah, you’re right. You guys are the greatest. Anybody wanna go drink some fresh baby blood after work?”
(All in unison as they high-five) “WHOOHOO!”
- END -
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17 Comments
Ever read American Gods by Neil Gaiman? It is a novel describing a battle between the old American gods and the new. The old gods were those brought to this country by natives, immigrants, slaves, etc — most all of which are eventually forgotten in place of “new” gods — things (today) like cell phone, highway, computer and (yup) credit cards.
I think this is pretty genius on Visa’s part. People don’t want to just do things religiously (shopping, in this case) — they want the conscious reminder that satisfying and worthwhile religion is an actual part of their lives… this being where the different images and symbols on the cards comes in, perhaps.
or maybe this will also serve as a badge of sorts:
Person #1: “So, what religion are you?”
Person #2: [pulls visa card out of wallet to flash symbol]
Oh Jesus Christ…come on, man…this is America…of course you can buy your “enlightenment”…who needs dedicated work/play…just buy yourself the buddha-mind…you even get reward points to chart your progress…Jesus Christ…
Is it wrong that I thought the aum card looked kinda cool…god, I hate myself sometimes…
“Anybody wanna go drink some fresh baby blood after work? hahahahahaha!…genius…
Ronin
we have been convinced that everything is for sale, including our souls.
I agree the AUM is definitely the best. It would probably attract the most meaningful and curious questions (regarding the meaning of the symbol) and will hopefully open up at least a few doors for those interested enough.
I would get one - if just for the bitter, bitter irony. I mean, you could hand one of these in MOMA or SAM and people would take pictures of it - art students would come to sketch it. Philly-stines would claim not to get it.
Eventually, someone would use the number on the image to buy some porn and the DHS would arrest the artist in question.
sorry, read hang instead of hand
some type of freudian slip i guess
Damn! They don’t have a Gnosticky Abraxas version…
Is that baby blood low fat? I’m on this great program…
what was it rene guenon said about the counter-initiation?
“however far it carries the imitation, will never succeed in being anything but a parody, but it will be the most extreme and the most gigantic of all parodies, and we have only so far seen, despite all the falsification of the modern world, some very partial “trials†and some very pale “prefigurations†of it; something much more formidable is in preparation for a future considered by some to be near, and the growing rapidity of the succession of events today is an indication of its proximity”….
It only gains the importance you assign it, isnt that how most spiritual people would feel about something so innane and obvious? But if I’m understanding u correctly you aren’t against the idea of the card and its convenience, merely the marketing devices attached to it.
So are credit cards innately evil? or just necessary in the way the world is structured today?
I have never owned one and do not intend to.
A little off topic.
I ran across a few things you might find interesting, unless of course you’ve already seen them.
Surviving the Singularity
Ray Kurzweil in the Singularity is Near argues that science and technology are creating change so dramatic that it qualifies as a … all » singularity or point at which all the rules change. video here -> http://tinyurl.com/hfyek
Augmented Reality
http://tinyurl.com/ewakn You can type Augmented Reality in Google Video to come up with others like it, but few are as good or as creepy as this one.
LMAO
Tim, you could write a killer screenplay:
hmmm smells like a sendup to me. no information on the backing bank, pages missing from the website, etc.
Fair play to you Prunes, may your life continue to be one of simplicity without the evils of credit cards, or mortgages. But the good news is there is discernment among us, we’re not all cash strapped sheeple who buy into the very first advert we see in a mainstream magazine or TV commercial. one can choose to use credit responsibly, or like you not at all. I, myself chose the evils of a mortgage to purchase a farm far from the city, for others renting a flat in the city may be fine, but it was not my dream. Although I applaud your idealism, with every brilliant sunset and every repair bill I pay on my few acres of paradise.
Cheers
Hmmm…its not that credit cards are “innately evil,” its just that the system is set up to cripple people into a financial slavery. Miss one payment on one card and bamn! the apr on every card you have is suddenly 30%…I mean 30% itself is like old-school loan-shark “I’m gonna break your knees” kinda interest…Hell, I don’t think the mob even charged 30%. Under the current administration (and possibly the previous one, though not as much) the credit card companies have pretty much been able to rewrite the laws into thier own favor. bankruptcy laws, credit reevaluations, linked interest rates,etc.
And personally, its not so much the materialism or credit or consumerism or whatever–I can deal with that–its the fact that the industry always promises freedom and security at face and then swoops in when no-one’s looking to put shackles on your arms and legs.
Ronin
HILARIOUS. truly amazing.
there can be no end to this. a credit card with a glowing sanskrit OM. we’ve crossed some kind of line here, collectively.
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[...] The Enlightenment Card The Enlightenment Card At the local grocery store, they have a free magazine called Conscious Choice. The magazine appears in a few cities from what I can tell, and it… [...]
[...] By the way, should you feel the need to mock VISA personally you can visit their site at http://www.enlightenmentcard.com and if you want an excellent description of what the card is about and why it should be disdained, avoided and generally abhorred please read Tim Boucher’s wise words on the subject. He gives an apt parody of the way large corporations jump on the “LOHAS” (ew, ew, ew) bandwagon. [...]
[...] Trying to tap into your spirituality and politics. The Enlightenment Visa is a points-based credit card that directly targets … well, environmentalists and Buddhists. The rewards catalog for this card features some impressively overpriced and focuses entirely on tchotchkes of direct appeal to what I often describe as the SUV environmentalist crowd or, perhaps more commonly, metrospiritualists. I have no problem with someone who authentically subscribes to such a spiritual worldview, but it seems to me that such a worldview shouldn’t be expressed through use of a Visa card. Yet it apparently has appeal to people seeking out a “socially conscious” credit card. [...]