Deep Retreat

The Frangipani Path

At the top of the hill, twelve white-robed women filed into a clearing in the forest. In the centre grew a frangipani tree in full bloom, emanating elegant fragrance. On the other side, veiled by a pink thicket of quisqualum, a dark entrance was barely visible.

“Wait, my sisters, and anoint yourself with the sacred oil,” said Elysia, the group’s leader. “We have arrived for your ascension. You first, Arcolia. Your vibrational energy is exceptional.”

Through the hoop pines, the solstice sun flickered its morning rays across the clearing, illuminating the mouth of the cavern. Arcolia smiled serenely at the other women, knowing her journey to the photon band had succeeded. Finally, she was to be initiated into the Frangipani Sisterhood.

Grasping her carved quartz sound bowl, Arcolia followed Elysia to the secret sanctum of the High Priestess Frantia.

….

“Just smell these high frequency aromas, Wendy, absolutely spectacular,” Carol gushed and beamed.

I had to admit they were delicious.

Carol had always loved yoga classes. She stumbled across the Frangipani Path through a goat meditation yoga workshop at Byron Bay. On her return, she paid up eagerly for the introductory 12 week online Franginitiate course. A cool thousand seemed like a lot to me for a couple of zoom sessions a week with Mother Frantia. And the scented oils and lotions to complement the meditation exercises cost a mint too, as did the Frangipani chakra toning tapes.

After the sixth week, Carol was hooked.

“Mother Frantia tells me I have perfect potential to become one of their best teachers. During meditation, she introduced me to my Archangel guide Razeel from the Pleiades. He spoke to me and promised to reveal all my past lives and merge them into me. First I must achieve the ceremonial initiation into the Frangipani Sisterhood.”

“What do you mean he ‘spoke’ to you. Did you actually see him?” I struggled to conceal my mirth.

“I saw a golden cloud in the zoomroom and his voice came from the cloud. They call it sound alchemy.”

Sounded like a lot of hooey to me.

“Where does the money go, Carol?”

“The Frangipani Sisterhood has a wonderful network of retreats, oracles, sound healers and spiritual trainers. It’s really exclusive. They only take women who are truly suited for the holy tasks. Because of my potential, they’re giving me a really big discount.”

Four weeks of arcane ministrations and meditations at these retreats would still cost her $60,000.

“Nothing but the best, look at the gorgeous website, Wendy. The High Sisters can levitate. I’ve seen them in my net sessions.”

“Carol, anything can be faked over the internet. More likely they lift your bank account and leave you with a credit card burden.”

“No, my darling, these are holy women who have gained their knowledge at the best ashrams in India and Native American sweat lodges. Mother Frantia even met the Dalai Lama and stayed in a real ancient Egyptian temple of Isis near Cairo. The sisters have thousands of years of experience with only the best mystic guides and past lives from all over the world and time. And their Archangels visit from throughout the galaxy. We come from the stars and return to them eventually, you know. I’m longing to bathe in my Archangel’s divine energy.”

None of my sensible questions could divert her enthusiasm, not even when I told her if she could prove any of this, the Australian Skeptics Association would give her a cool million.

“It’s not about the money, don’t be so crass, Wendy. These are sweet, loving, enlightened women!”

In a month, Carol had finished her course and attained her Franginame, Arcolia. She received a plaque of commemoration recognising her candidature which she displayed proudly in her tasteful meditation room.

The retreat itinerary was frantic. First, some Maori chanting with taonga puoro communication with the deities, then chakra tonings, frangiopathy, a didg and drum circle, frangireiki and a variety of yoga styles, karanas and kahuna massage. Set in lush rural seclusion, the lodgings seemed very luxurious, clean and white on the web, with shining devotee faces grinning ecstatically at each other as they carried scented candles through aisles strewn with frangipanis. The food at least looked interesting – a panoply of exotic oriental menus, with frangipanis ever present in the food or as decorations.

Still, I was worried. What if they wanted even more of her hard-earned savings? I searched the net and located the company which owned the web site in Sydney. I rang the number, pretending to be an Ayurvedic artisanal frangipani oil maker.

“Oh, we’re just an accountancy firm,” a woman’s efficient voice replied. “You will want to speak with the company direct. They are based in the US. We just handle their local branch business. You can email them from their site.”

I was running in dwindling, swindling circles.

In case, I kept a careful record of the information and took screenshots of the Frangipani site.

Next week, I farewelled my friend as she flew down to Brisbane to begin her adventure.

“Email me, Carol, let me know how you go.”

“No phones on this trip, darling, the G vibrations interfer with the cosmic floral light codes and disrupt my DNA transformation, but there’s net access at the retreats. Can you make sure you cuddle Pussums every day for me?”

Every few days I received another happy note from her and my fears began to subside.

At the end of the four weeks a longer message arrived.

“We’re at our final retreat now, somewhere near Bellingen, darling. It’s so gorgeous here, and the guru, Swami Bababaa, he’s a dream boat. He stands in the temple of the Goddess and sees women as they truly are. His Arcturan tantric techniques are out of this world. I’ve never experienced anything like it. After my ascension to immortality tomorrow, he says I can stay on and teach. He is sure I have the gift. Please look after my cat till I can pick her up. Sunshine and celestial moonbeams to you.”

Sadly I stared at Pussums. The grey cat blinked back at me. Though I trusted she was well, I missed my friend.

After that, I received short emails sporadically about her wonderful new life embedded in the Frangipani Path community, the glories of psychometric angelic instruction with new initiates and the sublime wisdom of Bababaa. Yet Carol never asked about Pussums and didn’t respond to my questions about her exact location. One of the emails hinted she was considering a mission post at a new floral ashram in Bali.

Months passed. Then one year. My curious concerns transmuted to unease and I began considering a jaunt to the covid-ridden Northern NSW wilds to search for my friend.

Then, out of the blue the phone rang. It was a mutual acquaintance, Lucy, another yoga enthusiast on whose husband Carol once practised her new tantric skills. Whether Lucy knew or cared, I’d kept my mouth shut.

“Quick, turn on the news, they’ve found Carol!”

At the bottom of a mineshaft around two hundred women’s bodies had been discovered by bushwalkers, who’d smelt something strange above and beyond the sweetness of a frangipani grove.

Immediately I checked the Frangipani Sisters website. It had vanished along with all associated social media.

I collected my saved information, copied it to a USB stick and headed to the police station. Though I may not be able to bring Carol back, I could pursue justice for her and the others.

Yet it turned out the Australian retreats had been sold and they never found the Frangipani grifters who’d completely emptied their victims’ accounts as well. FBI corporate searches hit a dead end since the parent structures had dematerialised along with their fraudulent progenitors. Perhaps they’d ascended to some far flung tax haven in the West Indies, or had set up another sting for gullible fools elsewhere. Like their floral namesake, also the emblem of Palermo in Sicily, the scammers were great survivors even under extreme heat.

Today I can’t look at or smell a frangipani blossom without feeling nauseous.

Jinjirrie
December 2021

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Pass the Bubbly, Darling!

‘Another glass of bubbly, darling?’ Of course she would. And if her prim mouth was sipping on delicious Taitinger, I might squeeze a word in edgeways.

‘I was going to tell you about the absolutely best thing that happened last year – while you were in Iran.’ My niece Emma is a foreign correspondent for one of the better daily newspapers. She peered at me over her flute and grimaced. I pushed on before she could interrupt.

‘Malcolm asked us out on his yacht. Just a day out round the harbour. John and Peter were there too of course,’ I said.

Scowling, Emma interjected, ‘I bet no one mentioned the latest wealth distribution figures’.

Emma could be a real darling, but really, when would she grow up and forget her quaint socialist ideals? We all voted left in our twenties of course, yet there’s no excuse after one is over forty and successful for not supporting those who look after us. Emma liked to retort that people vote for the tories in their elder years because of neurological degeneration caused by too many alcohol-drenched cocktail dos.

‘What’s that you say? Not the P word! My goodness, John and Peter have run a very tight ship and you should be grateful. You know, darling, the poor are looked after as we become richer! Between you and me, the poor only deserve the scraps anyway. In these days of full employment, you must admit all the evidence points to the fact that they are genetically deficient and chronically lazy. They’d never make crew on Malcolm’s lovely super-maxi’.

Emma snorted.

‘As a matter of fact, there was a young thing on Malcolm’s yacht, a relative of Peter’s, I think, her name was Beth, who was moaning about the P word. I told her over drinkies “The poor will be cared for if us capable captains of industry are rewarded with lots of incentives for our expertise – more chunky remuneration packages, lovely options and rights issues – after all, we make the important wealth for ummmmm … everybody. Trickle down economics work, you know. More for us means more for them.” She was quite taken aback I think, because she began to look at me very strangely. More foie gras for you, sweetie?’

‘No thanks’, Emma replied stiffly.

‘Don’t clench your teeth, darling, it looks so unattractive,’ I cautioned. ‘Anyway, Beth said to me “You must admit that long term unemployed people need support – think of the soaring crime rate if they have nothing.”‘

‘Pull the other one, darling, I laughed at her. You know it’s their own fault. Lazy mental deficients who should be purged before they breed more like themselves, darling. They’re not worth worrying about. I know it sounds awful, darling, but really we should chain them in the mines along with their tawdry offspring from age five as they did in the good old days! Goodness knows we need more mine workers at the moment! Forget about them and concentrate on the Sydney to Hobart and your next fabulous allotment of free entitlements, darling. We’ve worked hard for all this.’

‘Really, Emma, her face was turning a dreadful shade of puce’. I giggled. ‘Please pour some more champagne, darling, I’m so glad we managed to close out our last company when we did and can still afford the good stuff. Pity about the shareholders but they should have taken more care – caveat emptor as Daddy, and you know what a successful property developer he was, well until those ghastly green bans, used to say’.

I pursed my lips. ‘Then Beth started in on Johnny’s media laws, defending that dreadful leftie ABC that *our* taxes pay for. She had the gall to insist that Johnny’s government is the highest taxing government in Australia’s history!’

‘Well, Emma, I put her straight.’ I smiled at Emma triumphantly.

‘If you are having tax problems, dear, I said, you should find yourself a new accountant. Pay taxes … you must be joking! none of our companies have *ever* paid a cent! yet look at all the jobs we created with the help of those wonderful government subsidies – six months of them, then when they run out, fire the little dears and take on new ones with new subsidies. Full employment is good for us all!’

‘When our last company went under … poor shareholders again, but there you go … the trainees were up for replacement anyway. In our next venture though, we’re going to import foreign workers … they’re all the rage, you know, they work for peanuts and don’t complain like the ungrateful local refuse.’
Howard grants to private schools
‘Meanwhile, we don’t want all our lovely tax money spent on no-hoping, genetically modified, bone-lazy, bludging dead weights … when it *should* be spent on making life easier for those who deserve it and who have the social qualifications – us, and our gifted, rich children, like you, darling. Private education costs the earth these days, you know.’

‘”And what about education for everybody?” Beth asked me’.

‘Well, I had her there, sweetie. “I’m sure dear Johnny would provide more funding for education of those disgusting long term unemployed menaces and their fifth rate offspring if he believed they were capable and willing. But they’re not, are they. They are just trash. It’s *their* fault and like breeds like, darling. We’re not responsible for their chromosomal failures. Obviously, we need more funding for *private* schools … because it’s people like *us* who were born to succeed. We must invest our money where it will do our country the most good.”‘

‘Well, Beth began yelling at me. “I expect you think disabled people are on the take too!”‘

‘”Well, yes actually, dear,” I replied. “Let’s not forget about those gouging fakers. Their lack of conscience and the way they pool their far more than generous allowances is dooming Australian society and our way of life.”

‘”I know people who could work a computer with their left foot if they wanted and who should be working right now! there’s plenty of work if only they’d try, but they just don’t seem to want to work, do they. Let’s take away their wheelchairs and catheters and see how they like it then.”‘

‘Well, dear, at that point, Beth began to move toward me with a look of total fury And right at that moment who should walk between us but dear John and Peter. Well, she bowled into them, the clumsy wench, didn’t she’.

‘Into the drink they went, both of them. Politicians overboard! John seemed to have trouble keeping his head above water, and between you and me, I could have sworn Peter was really trying to keep him under. Of course we contained our laughter – it wouldn’t do to upset them – threw life buoys, hauled them out and everyone swore to keep it out of the papers. Beth was posted to Swaziland not long after, I believe. Later, over canapes, John promised to look into an investment subsidy for our new company venture on the q.t. too – so thoughtful of him.’

‘Hahahaha, great story’, laughed Emma. ‘Don’t suppose anyone took photos?’

‘Not quite sure, darling, but Malcolm was snapping away earlier that day. Anyway darling, you must remember, dear, to trust the super-maxi you know, where we who deserve it are assured a place on the crew. After all, *we* are the captains of industry and backbone of this country and deserve every drop of this delicious champagne! Now would you please pass that bonus rights acceptance form if you wouldn’t mind? Emma … Emma?’

Through the window I watched her stalk to her car, mobile phone in hand. Oh dear. Surely no one would possibly believe her!