The current upsurge in spiritual activity is actually one of commercial activity. Right now, spirituality sells. Prime linear footage in the big chain stores is being occupied these days by writers who see shamans as often as they do grain elevators-every eight miles or so-and by folks who, despite their claims, wouldn't know the difference between an eagle feather and a chicken feather (the offensive expression comes from an Ojibway friend of mine from Ottawa). The spirituality market is powered by the world's best-oiled capitalist machine, an irony that should surprise no-one. All this merchandising makes me glad of the historical accident that had me born a Jew. When the Hebrews became Jews, they had to lay down all their graven images (a precept of Mosaic law), thereby putting them out of reach of a whole series of errors, running from sentimental depictions of the Lord to today's embarrassing trinketry.
Spirituality is selling nowadays for the same reason that autobiography-based writing is. Readers are hungry for an authenticity that can be delivered, or so they mistakenly believe, only by an author claiming to have had a "real" experience. They are no longer buying the book; they are buying the author. Writing is secondary; experience is primary.
We here in the West are witnessing growth in the spirituality market for the same reason that all manner of sects and cults are flourishing in the former Soviet Union: people just don't know where to turn. In today's Russia, such confusion is understandable. We should know better here. But we have this nameless yearning, this hollowness in the midst of plenty, and this makes ours a spiritually dangerous time.
As such, the time is right for the return of the Messiah. Indeed, the stage is set. The word "stage" is carefully chosen, because when the Messiah does return it will be a major production number. Take our current spiritual yearning, our moral panic, and sexual confusion-and add to that a ferocious marketing machine. Remember, the Messiah returns only when he is needed. If you were to go back through the checkered history of that character and study the conditions surrounding the appearance of the best and brightest Messiahs (though by definition that word can have no plural form), you'd see that our era is particularly ripe for such goings-on.
In my Montreal neighbourhood, automobiles of considerable retail price come and go, bearing bumper-sticker inscriptions that read, "We Want the Messiah Now!" I am always struck by this incursion of spiritual yearning into the everyday world of four-way stops (which the drivers of these cars habitually flout). I find that the "Now!" on the bumper stickers has an impetuous, childish charm but, while dodging these aggressively piloted cars, I am led to a deeper meditation on this demand. It seems to me that the Messiah will bring a great day of reckoning, an upheaval that will have the living envying the dead. The nature of the Messiah is so awesome and terrible that I, personally, would think twice before beseeching him to make a speedy appearance via the medium of a bumper sticker.
You heard it here first: this will be the century of the new Messiah. Finally! There will be a great reckoning, a kind of spiritual naked lunch. Feathers will fly, and no-one will be able to tell if they are eagle or chicken. People will grab onto those feathers and attempt to fashion wings for themselves to get out of town, but there will be nowhere to go. They will have their commercially-minded ideas of spirituality changed, and it will be as rending an experience as a woman in travail, as the Old Testament says in its wonderful tongue. There will be no buying and selling, because money itself will have disappeared.
Oh, and by the way, the One who will bring us all this is a woman. It makes perfect sense.
David Homel is the author of Sonia & Jack, a novel, and the translator of many books.
