A person trained in post-conventional tools might have the following internal dialogue whilst scanning the Mindwave advertisement's claims and memes.

"A scientific technology for uncovering and changing beliefs."

Are you talking about Neuro-Linguistic Programming? No.

"A feelings-and-body-based exploration of pleasure and flow."

Maybe you mean Hatha Yoga or Polish-American psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi's studies of optimal psychology ("flow" states)? No.

"Success and abundance training for the powerful and potentially powerful."

Uh, you don't want to leave anyone out of this, do you? So, you're talking about the techniques used by Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar and Anthony Robbins? No.

So, what exactly is this Motherwave stuff?

"A term for the 'mother of all waves', the organizing principle of all waves of energy and information in all dimensions, which can only be known by direct experience when it creates a spontaneous "sacred marriage" between polarities (especially spirit/matter, mind/body and male/female), as well as a direct, felt experience of Source that is nurturing and wave-like."

The above paragraph alludes to mystical/noetic experiences. A person operating from a strictly Rationalist reality-tunnel would dismiss it as psycho-babble, whilst a New Ager would understand - and probably know - many of the theoretical references. Linguistic analysis goes even further.

The paragraph's surface structure includes memes scavenged from Carl Jung, Sufism, Alchemy, Information Theory and General Systems Theory. The paragraph's deep structure (its logic, not content) includes Delusional Verbal Splits (mind-body as holon, not mind/body: proof alone that the copywriters aren't hip to the latest "integral" studies), hypnotic Pseudo-orientations in Time ("when it creates"), Categorical Imperatives ("which can only be known"), Subject Deletions ("only be known" by whom?) and Over/Under-defined Words ("sacred marriage", "Source"). What's so alluring about a wave, anyway?

The Motherwave advertisement was subtly designed, using direct marketing techniques, to stir interest. At the bottom of the page, Motherwave.com was in red capital letters. The contact number "Call 1-888-MA-WAVE-1" (which connected you with an outsourced call center, not Nirvana) was in orange upper capitals. The copy exhorted readers to "take your fluid experience to new levels!" Readers would become part of an "Open-walled Community" (a term designed to confront customer fears about joining a cult).

Key terms such as "embodied", "palpable", "mind/body" and "male/female" were defined in bold text. Alfred Korzybski often told people to put under/over-defined terms in quotation marks, to remind themselves that these words were manipulable constructs, not static realities.

The advertising hook was a "Motherwave Pop Quiz" (in red upper capital letters). Who can resist a harmless pop quiz? First, the copy asked "Are you literate . . ." in green lower case letters, scrawled across the page, tapping into both the quest for knowledge and possible fears about continuous learning. Well, of course you are, if you're reading this magazine. "Dynamically" (in red) "literate, that is?" the ad asked (orange lower case letters). The obvious question on the reader's mind was to discover more about dynamical literacy.

"Dynamical literacy," the ad copy continued, "is a term derived from the new science of chaos theory, used here to describe the direct embodied experience of the Self and Universe as a moving system of waves, united by the mother of all waves."

You can decipher the above paragraph for yourself, but note that it contains a Static Word ("chaos theory") that is also an Under/Over Defined term within New Age cosmology. Chaos Theory according to who, exactly? The prestigious Santa Fe Institute? Or the Gary Zukav-inspired genre of pop physics best sellers? How is Chaos Theory applied as a transformative methodology ("changing the map-maker, not just the map," as Ken Wilber has described it)?

"You May Make Severe The Ordeals . . ."

Those ad readers who had journeyed this far were invited to take a "Dynamic Literacy" test. Rather than relying on testimonials or case studies, the ad copywriters used the test, emphasizing the important answers in bold green letters, to explain what Motherwave offered its potential clientele. It was "a multi-dimensional mystery school for self-renewal, based on chaos theory and new sciences" (Jean Houston, take note). It was "a multi-dimensional tech for creating preferred realities" (as sex and drugs are). The techniques could dissolve "your body's tension and habitual movement patterns into fluidity" (Alexander Technique and Holotropic Breathwork?). Buyer's Remorse was staved off by humor: a key question contained all of the correct answers "except for, you guessed it, waterless cookware!"

Respondents who mainly scored 'A' answers in the "Dynamic Literacy" test (emphasized by purple/blue lettering) were directed to take the three-level Motherwave training. Respondents who mainly scored 'B' answers (emphasized by green lettering) were told that they had probably already been searching for such a community, that "expanded by the shared evolutionary field people experiencing it" (100th Monkey? Rupert Sheldrake's Morphogenetic Fields?).

Motherwave may be a legitimate organization with very high goals (feel free to email me your experiences if you decide to join it). The "Dynamic Literacy" test and ad copy, however, demonstrates that the search for spiritual growth can be framed within a larger context (meta-level) of pre-determined outcomes. The Mindwave advertisement was crafted to appeal to both linear and non-linear sorting styles. Crafted for a person with highly advanced information-sorting strategies (conceptual, imaginative, intuitive and metaphorical) but a lower threshold for internal critical reflection (impulsive, emotional, spontaneous and rhythmic). In short, the typical Seeker After Truth that mercantile-capitalist society has produced (Colin Wilson's "Outsider", Howard Bloom's "Faustian Introvert").

The pre-suppositions of such Seekers After Truth (particularly from the West) are well known, as the often-invented history of occultnik titles and organizational legacies will demonstrate. Keep your eyes wide open at all times, and pay particular attention to the Magus behind the curtain . . .

Deconstructionist (not "-ism" according to Jacques Derrida), hermeneutic and linguistic/semiotic analytical methods have been savaged by their critics. They are no substitute for the majestic and sublime experience of Platonic noesis: that "Aha!" flash when the universe makes sense. But they are useful tools in the low-level cultural warfare that pollutes our mental landscape. Knowledge of the memes that have shaped New Age culture is a defense against its destructive and irrational extremes. An appreciation that all the books, courses and yes, even Web sites are no substitute for personal and hard-won truths.

Still, the Motherwave advertisement beats flicking through twenty-seven pages (not 23!) of Wired Magazine's December 2000 issue, just to get to the contents page, which was really hiding a three-page IBM Thinkpad foldout.