The Charismatic Grift

I don’t have an angel to sell you

I’m out of town while I’m writing this, in New Mexico. I didn’t sleep much last night so I’m peevish. I have bad hips. Travel is often painful for me. As a recovering alcoholic, I have specific calculations around pharmacological help with the pain. If they put me under and cut me open I’ll take opioids, which I give to someone else to dole out to me. Otherwise, I just have to deal with the genetic lottery that gave me the bad hips of a German Shepard in my early 40s. Managing pain without opioids is a job. The anti-inflammatory diet, the supplements, the physical therapy and targeted strength training. And the Advil. All the Advil.

I wonder why none of the Airbnb’s we frequent ever has a teapot, as I shuttle tea bags from one dainty teacup into another to get my caffeine fix. This is one of those Airbnb’s with lots of notes, like the prominent sign next to the door announcing this is a no-shoes house. A house which we are paying a pretty penny to stay in so I figure if want to wear my shoes on the cold floors while it’s storming outside, yeah, I’m going to.

Like I said, I’m peevish.

I’m working on promoting my book, which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now instead of writing this. And I keep getting the same question.

What about the God thing?

Phrased one way or another, I’ve gotten this question from various professionals who are helping me market my book. The book is about discernment, a spiritual practice generally associated with Catholicism. I want to make discernment available to people who are spiritual but not religious. So, I talk about the Divine in the context of the 12 Step “Higher Power” concept. You pick your Higher Power. It might be Nature, Ancestors, God by any name, your Higher Self. It's not anyone else’s business.

But when it comes to marketing a book, there needs to be a hook. Apparently any mention of the Divine is like grease on the proverbial pig and makes that hook hard to grab, a marketing message that much more challenging to pin down into the requisite sound bite.

There’s a reason for that. Because people talk absurd foolishness about religion, spirituality, right and wrong and any and all holy books. Take the pastor who is selling angelic protection.

This piece, by David French in the New York Times, is about “individual charismatics” who believe they can call down God’s favor, which will is expressed in wealth and success. The Deity and the Heavenly Host are apparently at their beck and call. French writes about Paula White, “one of President Trump’s most faithful and powerful evangelical supporters and a senior adviser to his new White House Faith Office.” She has a deal for you. You pay her $1000 and she’ll get God to give you an angel who will “be an enemy to your enemies, he’ll give you prosperity, he’ll take sickness away from you, he will give you long life, he’ll bring increase in inheritance, and he’ll bring a special year of blessing.” We’re talking an actual angelic entity bestowed upon you for a measly grand. Oh, and she’ll throw in a crystal cross.

The piece goes on to talk about how a group in the evangelical movement is all in on the prosperity gospel which believes God’s favor is shown through material wealth. This small faction drives much larger narratives around leadership. Pastors and by extension any leader, including the President, are supposed to profit and get rich. That shows God’s favor. Someone who pays their tithe to their church is going to look at their pastor’s private jet as a confirmation of the pastor’s blessedness, not a sign of his greed and mendacity. There is a whole ethos of leadership buttressed by a very selective cherry picking of certain Biblical verses.

But the part I keep coming back to is the charismatic grift of this pastor saying she can get you into God’s good graces. In my experience, that’s not how it works.

I have a spiritual practice. I have and teach about getting a real and useful connection to your own inner knowing through whatever practice works for you. But there’s no angel taking away my hip pain.

We love the spirituality of comfort in this country. We want to be and feel comfortable at all times, including in our spiritual practice. We demand it. But in my experience spiritual practice isn’t comfortable. Over time I’ve had to look at the dark places in my mind and soul. I’ve been buffeted by doubt and despair. I’ve considered the ways in which my woundedness makes me unskillful over and over again. But those practices have made me a better person, and brought me closer to whatever sort of energy is around us. And I’m not a particularly good person, so if I can do it so can anyone else.

There is no gate to God. You don’t need a religion, or a pastor or priest, or a holy book. You don’t have to buy anything. You can saunter up to your Higher Power and say hey, want to hang out? Some people just turn their head and realize, oh, there you are. I didn’t see you at first. Others know very clearly what the Divine is NOT and build a robust and mature spiritual life around that Not-God. Lots of religious people hate that, and condemn them for not buying into what they were told by someone else God was. Which, in this case, is a Deity who is at the beck and call of charismatic grifters.

So, the problem isn’t really the God thing. It’s the charismatic grifter thing. And I’m not the only one who has to figure out a strategy to separate myself and my work from the grifters. Public health experts and doctors have to separate themselves from the MAHA grifters selling supplements, Ivermectin and fairy tales. I’ll keep fighting the good fight, running the race. It just feels really uphill right now.

Help an author out! My book The Saint and the Drunk A Guide to Making the Big Decisions In Your Life comes out in May and is now available for pre-order in the U.S. Or pre-order here for the UK. Pre-orders really help.

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