A letter to the Reiki master

Colin Cobalt recently wrote to the fully qualified Reiki master, crystal healer, homeopath and certified Angel Therapist Practitioner Christina Moore:

Dear Christina,

Sorry I have not had the chance to write to you for the first time until now, but I was involved in an accident at work and my time has been taken up in trying to understand the court settlement.

Anyway, I have recently come into a little money and am looking to invest it in some Reiki and you came very highly recommended (second hit on Google - Congratulations!).  I have always felt I have a gift for healing and have noticed that people are very rarely ill when I am around.  My ultimate dream is to become a fully paid up professional Reikist, just like you!   I just have a few questions about the courses you run, and hopefully you can get a sense for the course that is best for me.

I see you offer to teach all levels of Reiki.  I do have a BSc(hons), so is it possible for me to move straight on to the Masters Degree?  I have plenty of transferable skills and came third in my class for my second year poster presentation.

Is it a problem that I recently lost a hand in a freak industrial accident?  I was trying to fix the aeration pump in tank 77 at the fish farm, but my hand became caught in the pump blades.  Luckily, I was used to the sight of large amounts of blood in the water from all the Salmon clubbing I had to do, or I would have been really distressed!  On the plus side, my other hand is absolutely fine, in fact, if it were an eye it would have 20-20 vision (I do wear glasses, however).  Should I be concerned about the 'high pressure hose pipe effect' of the healing energy as it leaves my stump?  Do I need to invest in a diffuser attachment?  Could you provide this through your Reiki suppliers, or could I fashion my own with material from a garden centre and some duct tape?

Strangely, my accident has led me to much more compassionate feelings towards fish and all other creatures of the deep.  I think I would have left my job anyway, even without the lawsuit.  Have you ever tried to heal fish with Reiki?  I once heard of a man who rendered a Portuguese man-o-war safe for children to handle using energised crystals and ear candles.  It is now being kept as a family pet.  I would love to be able to give something back to the fish community in recompense for the thousands I butchered and sent off to be minced into pies.  Could I incorporate an aquatic element into my studies?  Have you any experience in SCUBA Reiki?

When I gain my Reiki Masters degree, do you have any advice for setting up my own practice?  I could even use my monodextrous status as a unique selling point! 

I look forward to your response and to giving you my compensation payment in exchange for unlocking the secrets of your long lineage of Reikists.

Colin Cobalt BSc(hons)
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Letter to David Treddinick, MP for Bosworth: In support of homeopathy

Dear Mr Tredinnick,

Holy Jesus Effing Christ on high, why do people have to keep on having a go at homeopathy? 

I have been a long standing supporter of homeopathy and alternative medicine for some time now; from astrology and acupuncture to  lesser known remedies such as Tactile Pipistrelle Therapy, Activated Yams and Colonic Coelacanth Flushing.  Like you, it beggars my beliefs why Brussels bureaucrats and the Liberal/Labour Aristocracy are so intent on cutting funding for these miracles of nature and stopping me from putting whatever  I like in my bathwater!

I am glad to hear that you are one seat in politics that is standing up against this outrage.  Now is the time for action!  Also, now is the time for anecdote:  Use of alternative therapy has a long history in my family.  I remember my old mother saying: "I've only gone to hospital once in my life, and they sent me home with this bloody baby!  Never again, that son of mine!"  I took that to heart and have never knowingly gone to a hospital, although I did once wake up in one after I made a serious misjudgement about the potential danger associated with a rutting male trout in the main breeding pool (I work in a fish farm as a trout clubber - the money is ok, but it is difficult to get the stench of fish death off your skin).  I know what you mean about the moon as well.  The only time I have ever been arrested was during a full moon, and what is more, it took the renewal of the lunar cycle for all the charges to be dropped due to ambiguous forensic evidence.  If it wasn't for that, I could have been put away for a LONG time!  Thanks, moon!

I want you to know that in the coming election campaign that I am behind you 100% (Not in the 'scary stalker hiding behind the horse-chestnut tree while you walk your dog in the morning' kind of way).  I agree with you.  We should put a stop to all surgical medicine and replace it with complementary therapies.  Just think of all the money we could save cutting all those lying doctors' salaries.  We know this will work because biblical medicine was entirely homeopathic.  Noah Ark and his wife, Joan, both lived to 302 and never went near a hospital!  Jesus, as well - He is still alive now, even after being crucified!  I'd like to see Michael Brooks try that!  He wouldn't last three days!

Can I help you in any small way?  Maybe I could feature on one of your campaign leaflets with my thumbs up(Possible byline: "Using homeopathy to treat childhood diarrhorea - what's the worst that could happen?" or "If you don't use Lahiri-based medicine, you are a racist")?

Anyway, best of luck with the campaigning, you can count my vote on May 6th.

Best wishes and distance healing,

Colin Cobalt, BSc (hons)

Colin Cobalt: Letter to the Ghost hunters

I recently wrote this email to the ghost investigation team of Manchester Paranormal, following an esoteric incident I had last week. (Be sure to vote for them in the Haunted England top 100 most effective ghost hunters):



Dear Ghosthunting team,

I found your site after looking for it on a web, and was hoping that you will be able to help me with my confusing and ghostly problems, as I know you are constantly looking for answers to the paranormal.

In short, I think I am the victim of a haunting, and want your help in dealing with this, ideally while taking a few photographs for my family journal, which has been quite un-appended to since most of my family went into hiding after a national Sunday newspaper got hold of their address and they had trouble with mobs.

I found a lovely pair of trousers at my local charity shop. They cost me £2.75 and are a rather fetching blue corduroy. The fit is excellent, which was a pleasant surprise for me, as it has often been commented that I have an unusually shaped behind, a little like a Yampie Yam. I did look really quite flash!

My astral-plane conundrums started the very next night, however, when my trousers levitated across my bedroom while I slept, suspended by orbs. This is the only explanation I can think of, since I am sure I hung them up and didn't leave them in that damp patch under the window. The weirdness continued the next night, when I felt a distinct feeling of coldness after I took them off, as if some mischievous spirit wanted me to wear them constantly and go out on some kind of violent attack. By now you can imagine I was becoming worried about this Pantaloon possession. Late that night I woke up to hear a smashing sound in my kitchenette. When I went to look, I saw that a jar had fallen off a windowsill and the window was ajar. I found this all very jarring, and my trousers remained suspiciously silent, although they were folded on the floor in such a way that they looked like they were smirking, you know the look: like a gloating box jellyfish after paralysing a surfer.

I went and spoke to the lady who sold me the trousers. Her name is Viv, and she likes to have a natter after her husband had the accident with the electric carving knife the Christmas before last. She said that she had heard of criminal types disposing of their old clothes in charity shops before changing into the expensive new suits they would buy with their ill-gotten gains. She said that it is possible that those trousers were worn by a robber who kicked his victim to a tragic conclusion at the back of some garages, and the tortured and lost soul of the victim found its way into the creases of the corduroy. Is this something that you see a lot?

Would your team consider investigating my trousers? I am free most evenings, other than Thursdays (when I wash) and am happy for you to film them for your website. Do you think we would be more likely to see ghostly activity if I am wearing them, or will my own movements confuse things? I am prepared to stand very still for a couple of hours if needs be, as long as I have had some sugar. Do you supply a priest to do the exorcism, or must I provide my own? I used to know one called Father Gary, but he was sent off to start a new missionary in Canada, and people round here don't talk about him any more.

If you need any more information, please let me know. I can probably send you a Polaroid of the trousers, if I can find an envelope.

Hope to hear from you,

Colin Cobalt BSc (hons)

Letter to the most remarkable healer of his generation

A of Q contributor Colin Cobalt recently wrote to the Energy Worker, teacher, psychic and 'most remarkable healer of his generation', Adrian Pengelli:

Dear Dr Pengelli,

I have been searching for some time for some healing and was impressed by your 100% success rate for many conditions.  I have also often thought of healing as being 'both simple and complex'. Are you happy for me to plump for some free distance healing first, before I 'dive in' with a one-on-one session?  Please don't think that I am doing this merely to test you out or to get something for nothing (I know just how valuable your healing time is!).

I know you say on your website that you don't need to know my name, address or anything at all about me to heal me of all of my problems, but I thought I would tell you a little about myself, so perhaps you could address my issues more specifically.  Also, I have a cousin with the same name as me who lives only a few miles away.  We fell out a few years ago after I caught him trying to break into my garden shed and damage my wormery.  I wouldn't want my healing to go to him by mistake as, frankly, he doesn't deserve it.  He still rings me from time to time and just breathes heavily down the phone. It is very off-putting.

Anyway, enough about me.  I work on a fish farm in the UK, and it is a pretty miserable existence, I can tell you!  Most of my days are spent measuring fish such as salmon and cod to get an estimate of their size and then repeatedly clubbing them in their heads before throwing their still-thrashing bodies on to an ice block.  Some days I can see off around 3000 fish, and by the end of it I am covered with blood and fish brains.  The stench is appalling.

I am worried that all of this carnage is having an unbalancing effect on my Chi.  Particularly I am concerned that I may have lost my heart chakra and it is stagnating somewhere at the bottom of pond #4, buried under some fetid fish meal, following a particularly heavy cull last month. I had a poke around with a boat hook but to no avail.  How long can someone survive without one?  I hope long enough for you to heal me.

You say that your best results have been on people who were not aware they were being healed.  That is just amazing!  A friend of someone I know had a perfect and remarkably rapid recovery from a bayleaf-in-the-throat-home-made-curry incident, for which the hospital was almost no help at all.  Perhaps that was you and she didn't even know it?  Thank you if it was!  Would it be better if I didn't know you were going to heal me?  Maybe you could email me back, refusing healing before actually healing me anyway.  Or you could make me forget I ever sent this email, surely for someone who cures cancer from a thousand miles away this must be a trifle?

Finally, would you mind holding off for the healing until after Monday, as I was planning on a sick day (This is honestly the first time I have done this all year - I am no immoral toad!), and would feel more guilty if you healed me beforehand.

Finally again, do you think, with the job I do, it would be better for my karma if I stopped eating fish?

Really looking forward to the healing,

Yours faithfully,

Colin Cobalt BSc (hons)