Celebrities get in the spirit with a real blast from the past
Anytime something new is discovered that seems both spiritual and fun, Hollywood jumps on it first and we all jump next. So it is with kabbala.
For those still trying to figure out Kwanzaa and quinceanera, kabbala is a mystical Hebrew religion that, though hundreds of years old, has been more recently discovered by such L.A. spiritual icons as Madonna, Roseanne Barr and Courtney Love.
It is quickly becoming, you’ll forgive the vernacular, the thing to do.
To simplify, which is what I do, kabbala, in addition to being a kind of direct line to God, seeks a way to truth with the aid of a personal guide, much as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi led the Beatles to the light when their music was first rocking the world back in the 1960s.
According to Britannica, which is my spiritual guide, kabbala lays claim to a secret knowledge of the unwritten Torah, communicated by God to Moses and Adam. Author Perle Besserman, in her book “The Shambhala Guide to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism,” notes that kabbala may assume any shape or form, “as an angel, a holy fool, a Torah scholar or a beautiful woman.”
Combining the essential elements of holy fools and beautiful women pretty much explains the drawing power of kabbala in Hollywood, where fools -- both holy and unholy -- and beautiful women abound.
People in show biz are eternally seeking both wisdom, which they rarely achieve, and something beyond pills and booze to get them through the long night of their souls. Their quest for a kind of quick nirvana ideally involves methods that are easy to understand and create the possibility of meeting new lovers, who are similarly inclined.
Physically, they’ve tried everything from colonic hydrotherapy to Yin-Yang tea, and drinking other barely palatable concoctions that range from blackstrap molasses to seaweed cocktails. I’ve tried both, and shortly thereafter needed a double coronary bypass, which gives you some idea how life-inducing they were.
Though practiced for a good many years, even before the birth of MTV or Brad Pitt, kabbala is currently enjoying something of a revival due in part to word circulating through the industry that it was something Madonna was doing. You remember her. She was author and star of the book “Sex,” which featured various photographs of her naked, and is now producing children’s books which, it is said, are based on kabbala teachings.
When Madonna embraced kabbala, so, I’m told, did Britney Spears, Sandra Bernhard and perhaps Demi Moore, whose notable spiritual connection up to now has been her role in “Ghost.” All of this is according to Us magazine, from which I glean much of my celebrity information, along with People and Entertainment Weekly, all journals that specialize in the peculiarities of Western culture.
We are also informed by Us that kabbalists can often be identified by red string worn on the left wrist as a protection against evil glances, which, as we know, are caused by the current Hollywood female style of exposing as much of themselves as they legally can. Told to cover up, the women probably resisted and so instead of morality opted for the red string. Is the red string thong bikini far away? Probably not.
I don’t mean to mock kabbala. I’m for anything within reason that gets one through the night. While it lacks the tambourine-banging popularity of some of the other religions, it does have a well-known following. Just as Scientology can boast of Tom Cruise’s membership, so kabbala can feature Madonna in its, well, advertising campaigns, as a kind of pilgrim of enlightenment.
Celebrities have always been attracted to the arcane in their quest for salvation. When the Beatles turned to Transcendental Meditation, or TM for the metaphysically unhip, and adopted the aforementioned Maharishi as their guru, everyone who was anyone in show biz had a guru. Some journeyed to India to pray, others to the bar at the old Brown Derby, but they were all, as we say, “into it” just the same.
The Maharishi’s fame, like that of a sitcom star, faded after its initial burst of popularity, and was essentially dormant until the early ‘90s when he offered to cleanse L.A. of crime for $165 million a year. It would have been accomplished, he claimed, by employing 9,000 “coherence creating” experts to basically think good thoughts simultaneously. I asked then-Mayor Tom Bradley if the city would be willing to try this and he replied, rather churlishly, “If I had $165 million, I’d hire more cops.”
TM is still around, kabbala is making inroads and Scientology is doing well, all of which are favored by celebrities seeking pop redemption. Scientology intrigues me the most because it was founded by a writer, which leads me to consider creating my own temple of atonement, seeking wisdom in the stars and enlightenment in a martini. I believe I’ll hold services now. Just a whisper of vermouth, please, and hold the olives.
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Al’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.