I've been having chronic back pain the last 6 months. Every one of my Dear Readers knows this. Today was a really good day; I had a treatment massage with GLR (Gohl Ligamentous Release, tm), and then went to the chiropractor. The last time I was at the chiropractor's office, he said, "you could really use an emotional release treatment."

Gulp. What was that? He didn't explain, just told me to book a half-hour appointment for it. So I did. He called it "nutritional counseling". Still no clue.

It was nothing like I expected. He tested my energy field by pushing down on my outstretched arm while asking my body questions. How many, how much, what color . . . he asked all kinds of things. I put on yellow glasses. He asked my body which frequency I needed, and selected a tuning fork. As the fork resonated, he moved it in an arc over my head, from one ear over the top of my head to the other ear and back. He recited affirmations from the book that goes with the glasses. Then he changed my glasses to another color and repeated.

Then came the weirdest one. During the treatments, he had me tap at my thymus, at the top of my sternum. This last treatment included that, but I had to do the recitation. This time it was, "I love myself even though I am unable to care for others." The premise behind all this says that I may have had beliefs stored up from past traumas, and though the affirmation is not immediately relevant to my conscious mind, it somehow is needing to be said for the benefit of what's trapped in my subconscious.

Okay.

I felt pretty awkward, because I'm not really woo-woo. There are some faith-based phenomena that I have simply come to accept, but this is, so far, not one of them. I felt a little like Leonard Neeble and Alan Mendelssohn, being scammed by Samuel Klugarsh at the bookstore.

Bring me a bowl of Green Death Chili, a corn muffin and a cup of fleegix with extra marshmallows. I'm heading for State Twenty-Six. You can come, too.