NAFPS Selections: Downloading/Joining Review: "Embodying the Divine Feminine"

[From the New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans forum, by "Sandy S," March 04, 2015]:

Downloading/Joining Review: "Embodying the Divine Feminine" (9:09) posted May 9, 2013.

Text introduction:

Quote

    Lency Spezzano is a leader in the world of spiritual healers. Together with her husband, Chuck Spezzano, she co-founded the healing model of Psychology of Vision. Lency teaches healing through an opening of the heart and channeling of Heaven's grace. Here Lency is channeling an engergic [sic] "Download" of the gift of Embodying the Divine Feminine. Open your heart and receive the gift as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=280lsAGqk38
[Removed from public view May 2015]

In this segment the demonstration partner is Susan How, a Canadian trainer who is also a SALPOV event coordinator in British Columbia and administrator of the First Nations Fund.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160619200302/http://povcanada.com/trainers/susan-how/
[Update, substitute link. Susan is no longer a POV trainer]

Quote

    LKS: Susie, happy birthday. Its belated, I guess. I usually remember your birthday. Anyway, happy birthday.

    SH: Thank you.

    LKS: You can have anything you want, because you are the beloved of Heaven.

Around 0:16 something interesting happens. Lenora gives some kind of facial signal to Susan, and How reacts with an expression that reads like, "Oh, yeah, right. I remember this from rehearsal. Sorry to be so slow on the uptake."

Quote

    LKS: What would you most love to receive? What would make your life the best?

    SH: I'd like to receive the Divine Feminine. [The audience ooohs and aaaahs] 'Cause its all about receiving.

    LKS: It is.

    SH: Yeah.

    LKS: It is.

    SH: So that's what I'd really like. And you're the one who can give it to me.

    LKS: [Makes a "zap" motion] Lay it on me!

"Embodying the Divine Feminine" is something of a cliché in the New Age world. Google the phrase and see just how many New Age commercial websites use it as a sales pitch. In SALPOV, the use of this term should not be confused with feminism. In a ca. 2008 Daily Mail article, "Fast track to femininity: Why competing with men has left women out of touch with their feminine side" by Anna Pasternak, the SALPOV party line was expressed by none other than Jeff Allen (one wonders if the error of calling him a "psychologist" and the SALPOV founder was by Pasternak or by Allen?)--

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1039030/Fast-track-femininity-Why-competing-men-left-women-touch-feminine-side.html

Quote

    Psychologist Jeff Allen, founder of Psychology of Vision, who coaches for relationship and business success, said: "Independent women look like they are tough and have their acts together, which is appealing, but really they are well-defended because they don't want to get hurt or be vulnerable."

    "But to be feminine, at some level you have got to be open."

    "Being open allows connection, intuition and compassion-these are the feminine gifts."

    So how do we open ourselves up to our feminine energy, especially if we also want to survive career-wise in a male-dominated world?

    "The feminine principle is about allowing things to unfold and happen, not always interfering."

    "Career women think that they have to be in control to make it happen, but if they stop and tap into some kind of emotional intelligence and empathy, it makes them better problem-solvers."

    According to Allen, you cannot have true success or a successful relationship without the balance of masculine and feminine: "The reason career women feel lonely within themselves and often have a deep sense of failure is because they are not connected to their hearts."
    
    "I'm not saying career women should chuck it all away, but if they connect to things that really matter to them, if they start to appreciate little beautiful things every day - literally stop and smell the roses - then what they will have to offer will be really quite profound."
    
    Allen also says we must stop competing with men, especially in relationships, as competition is totally destructive.

The UK comedian and activist Kate Smurthwaite pretty much made mincemeat out of Pasternak and Allen. Enjoy--

http://cruellablog.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-not-to-write-article-about-womens.html

Now let us return to the demonstration of stage hypnotism--

Quote

    LKS: [to audience] So we're just opening ourselves up to receive the download of "Embodying the Divine Feminine" and whether you're a man or a women, you know, this is what you want. You want that ability to receive, to be graced. Every person is half masculine/half feminine, and you know, Psychology of Vision is really dedicated to restoring the feminine to this world because we know that its our salvation, its what will save us.

    So you can probably feel your brain creeping around in there already. That's just the download, its replacing mistaken beliefs about the feminine, replacing it with the truth with our ability to receive because it is our nature to receive all of God's gifts because God is our father, our mother, our beloved and its our true relationship to receive and to share.
    [turns to Susan] So, here we go, Susie Q!


At 2:14 Lenora clasps How's hands and nods to the sound crew. "Love, Peace and Wisdom" by Bliss begins to play. Lenora points to her right eye at 2:23, bares her teeth, and the direct gaze method beings.

For some reason I have always felt very uncomfortable with this particular video whenever I walk through this weirdo half-world of SALPOV. In fact, until now I have never been able to watch this one in a single sitting. Interestingly our fellow writers on this thread debbieredbear and autumn have had the same experience of creepiness with this segment--

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4179.msg37541#msg37541

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4179.msg37557#msg37557

At around the 5:00 mark this video goes over the top in terms of Lenora's Master Thespian mode. And perhaps what makes us uneasy here is that we know we are not watching someone who is opening their inner self in order to "receive" a channeled Heaven's grace. Instead we are bearing witness to what appears to be one person being dominated by another through hypnotism masquerading as a very expensive New Age healing technique. We find ourselves feeling humiliated for Susan.

Lenora stage manages the obligatory turn to the audience and the two are on self-display until the music ends. The camera pans the Church of the Quivering Brethren.

Meanwhile, Susan has turned back to Lenora, who at 7:24 has to once again stage manage Susan to turn and face the others and the camera. I assume this is done in order to show us viewers what a wonderful thing "downloading/joining" can be. In the course of doing this, Lenora uses a motion where her finger is at eye level, which makes me wonder if Susan's hypnotic trance was still in progress at this point.

Thankfully, the music comes to an end and all we are liberated from this cringe-worthy video.