The affluent suburbs of Los Angeles have always provided a fertile breeding ground for new wave religions or alternative mind therapies because Southern Californians know, albeit subconsciously, that they are living on a particularly unstable part of earth that might very well not be there the next time they wake up.

Consequently, The Hollywood Hills are alive with the sound of Re-Birthing and Whooshing, and the centres and seminars that cater to the needs of the seekers-of-self are as abundant as the health food and sushi restaurants that sprout up to feed them. The Krishna Society echoes with the chants of its followers in its palatial ashram on Sunset Boulevard. Life Centres and Past Life Centres, whose advertisements appear in the pages of all the free periodicals, solicit the masses to discover who they are, or in the case of the latter, were.

The inherent need of people living out their lives on a precarious seismic fault to access some form or other of awareness about themselves, God, and the universe is catered to in every conceivable manner by ever increasing numbers of self-styled and, for the most part, self-serving organisations.

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