Excerpt from “Mystic Pete Chronicles – Book 1: Sex & Mysticism”

I can teach you to wield great mystic power, but be forewarned, to gain my promised knowledge you will have to wade through a treacherous lagoon of my humor. No worries, I’m a funny guy, regardless of the fact that I nearly lost a lover over my jokes. If your girlfriend says, “I love to eat,” you do not reply, “You ain’t kidding.” One time she was slow to orgasm, so I told her, “Just go ahead and fake it.”

Why the focus on sex? Many of the magical, mystery realms out beyond the clouds can only be entered by climbing the beanstalk of sexuality. And:

1) Our bodies are the vehicles we’ve been given for the spiritual journey through this world;

2) Sex figures at the top of bodily concerns, if not overall human concerns. While you probably don’t have impure thoughts, the rest of us do (as many as one in four internet searches is sex related);

3) On the one hand, society suppresses sex, and on the other, it obsesses over sex—really, two sides of the same counterfeit coin. This signifies a worldwide state of conflicted, confused, adolescent sexuality;

4) Because so much of who we are is linked to sex, much of human misery will fade away when we resolve just this one stratum of consciousness. When humanity reaches sexual maturity, earth will be a halfway pleasant place to live; and,

5) Sexual maturation comes from forcing men and women back into their traditional gender roles, and living lives bent to obedient chastity . . . Not. We find maturity through exploration and dialogue.

Let me explain why the world needs you to acquire mystical power at your earliest possible convenience. The earth is obviously in trouble. And, I’m guessing you’re the kind of person who would work hard to prevent the extermination of all life. A good thing, because we humans must reengineer ourselves from top to bottom, or we’ll shortly go extinct. Volatility around the globe will increase until we’re overwhelmed by calamity, unless we undergo a metaphysical metamorphosis. We have only a few years, a few decades at most, before we either evolve or perish. The law of survival of the fittest is in full effect, and mystical training will get you spiritually fit so you can survive.

I don’t understand how more people don’t recognize what is clearly the case—that a horrific nightmare is outside our front doors and about to enter our homes. But, no need to panic. There’s more than one way to skin a catastrophe. If we slack, however, the world will indeed end, and don’t you hate it when that happens? The challenge is to use the growing threats as motivation to open a mystical portal that will usher in a new age. As dangerous a time as this is, it’s also one of unprecedented possibility. Call me an “apocaloptomist,” someone who thinks the end is near, but the end is just the beginning.

In the late ‘70s, I was busy strutting my stuff at the disco when my life was rudely interrupted by a series of explosive awakenings. It was your typical mystic initiation: having visions of the future; feeling thousands of volts of energy pour through my body; and experiencing profound love for every being on earth. I felt like showering each person I met with kindness, and staring into people’s eyes to see the beauty in their souls. All this was a little much for my Uncle Morty.

I remember one night when I was 17, while working as a chef at a Raw/Macrobiotic Vegan restaurant in Venice, the doors of my perception blew off their hinges. So much psychic energy was blasting out of me that wine glasses, just sitting on their shelves, began shattering, one after the other. To keep from losing my mind (after all, a mind is a terrible thing to lose), and to limit my boss’s stemware expenses, I needed to channel my forces somewhere constructive. I walked over to the hunched, surly dishwasher, Luis, who spent hours every night scrubbing silverware barehanded in steaming, soapy water. The skin on his palms and forearms was always red, wrinkled and puffy. I said, “Feel this.” I placed my hands a few inches from his head and discharged raw energy. He stood bolt upright, blurted, “Dios Mio,” and gave me a long, sweaty, garlicky, nipple-to-nipple bear hug. My return hug, with attempted enthusiasm, was pretty convincing. I was happy that Luis found a better job shortly thereafter.

I’ve had years of experiences like the foregoing, which sound something like fiction. But, while mystical awakening can seem exciting—and it is—it can also be destabilizing and confusing. Our culture has little understanding of spiritual epiphany, and there is no one to guide neophytes. Mystics can wind up screaming at telephone poles, or get swept up in their revelation and form self-serving cults.

How I yearned back then for a wise man in long robes to appear and say, “Come to the temple, my son, and we will teach you the ways of the mystic.” I checked out all the gurus, but they were blind to the spiritual realities that were plain to my eyes. And their charisma did not atone for their abusiveness. I recall sensing something vaguely amiss when one such fellow, with an impressive turban, required my friend Danny to tithe over 25% of his earnings. This enlightened being was going to bless Danny’s marriage, but first needed to administer a private ceremony to insure a happy union. The guru gave Danny’s fiancée anal and oral sex—in that order—while Danny was instructed to watch, pray, love. The extra shocking part: as Danny recounted to me details of the “ceremony,” I could see he hadn’t the slightest idea that something was wrong. These methods were “the teachings of the guru.” Who was he to question the ways of the wise? I wanted to slap him.

Excerpted from the “Mystic Pete Chronicles – Book 1: Sex & Mysticism”

Humorist Mystic Pete is a host of the popular broadcast radio show In A Dream (KXLU, 88.9 fm, L.A.), which features the West Coast DJ community. He has taught and produced events internationally connecting spirituality and the Arts, and has humorous and edgy music videos getting strong response on YouTube. His book "Mystic Pete Chronicles - Book 1: Sex & Mysticism" is now available through his website www.MysticPete.com and at online bookstores worldwide.

ISBN 978-0-9858471-0-4 March 2013