Lifestyle
'It’s a lot of UFO stuff and a lot of healing': Inside L.A.'s wackiest spiritual convention
On the first new moon in February, not long after Pluto had entered Aquarius, Shima Moore stood like a priestess in flowing white robes behind a podium in the Los Angeles Ballroom at the LAX Hilton. She was there to officially open the 22nd Conscious Life Expo with a 12th dimensional stargate meditation.
“When we’re in the 12th dimension, we’re more receptive so the angels and ascended masters, nature spirits and our own higher selves can come to us,” she said in a deep, resonant voice as celestial music played softly in the background. It was 10:30 a.m. on a Friday and a crowd of 220 attendees nodded appreciatively.
Moore shared the stage with Asil Toksal, a former advertising executive-turned-channeler, and Viviane Chauvet, a Phoenix-based woman who claims to be a member of an ancient alien race sent to Earth to share her civilization’s wisdom.
Shima Moore, co-founder of the Conscious Life Expo, Asil Toksal, a healer and channel, and Viviane Chauvet, who says she is an interstellar Arcturian being who ascended thousands of years ago, use a Stargate, far right, to conduct a 5D-StarPortal Stargate Activation during the convention’s opening ceremonies.
“I know I look a lot like a human, but that’s the idea,” Chauvet said as members of the audience chuckled. “This was the best way to be a conduit.”
Even an open-minded resident of this most open-minded of cities might balk at these far-out proclamations, but fringe beliefs are business as usual at the annual L.A. convention, which took place Feb. 9-12.
For 22 years, the gathering has been a meetinghouse for astrologers, channelers, aura readers, quantum life coaches, psychics, hypnotists and a growing number of “starseeds” — people like Chauvet who believe they are galactic volunteers that have taken on a human form to help “the children of Gaia.”
“It’s a lot of UFO stuff and a lot of healing,” said Robert Quicksilver, 75, who co-founded the expo in 2003 and has been running it since. “I think of it as offering a Space Age translation of the cosmic wisdom.”
Sacred geometry pendants sold on the Conscious Life Expo’s convention floor.
Justin, an activist who declined to give his last name, spreads the word about his claim that hostile aliens are already here to takeover the Earth, while attending the expo.
Cosmic Contact, a mist that claims to cleanse auras, is one of many healing products on display on at the annual three-day gathering
Over the years, the convention has also become ground zero for many of the wellness trends that have made their way into high-end boutiques, gyms and grocery stores. Today, the same black garlic spread offered at an expo booth may end up on the shelves of Erewhon. Earlier iterations of the event hosted some of the first panels on the use of crystals for healing and helped popularize ancient Eastern practices like acupuncture and tai chi in the West.
But in recent years, the Expo has encountered new challenges. The occasional conspiracy theorist speaker has drawn negative coverage of the convention. And Quicksilver recently began enforcing new standards for who can be featured at the festival. He values free speech but draws the line at promoting QAnon-like rhetoric.
Weighing more heavily on his mind is the future of the Expo itself. Most of the convention’s tried-and-true regulars came of age in the 1960s and ’70s. As they enter their twilight years some have grown too infirm to make the annual trip while others have died. Now, he and his partners are grappling with how to update the conference to ensure that it attracts a new and younger audience, including bringing in speakers less likely to be accused of cultural appropriation and more likely to have hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok.
“It’s so important for the Expo to transcend generations,” said Quicksilver’s son Michael Satva, 41, who took on more organizing and booking responsibilities this year. “As the boomers retire and move on there are so many amazing younger people in this space pushing the culture forward.”
Irena Kurland of Woodland Hills, left, and Francis Ortiz of Houston, Texas, undergo red light therapy while attending the Conscious Life Expo at the LAX Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.
Rooted in California
The first seeds for the Conscious Life Expo were planted in the early 1980s, at a separate gathering inspired by the New Age and human potential spiritual movements. The Whole Life Expo was founded in San Francisco in 1982 and soon began traveling to cities like New York, Albuquerque, Denver, Seattle, Las Vegas and Ashland, Ore. It reliably drew its largest audience — up to 20,000 seekers, according to some reports — each year in Los Angeles, where it eventually moved to the same LAX Hilton that hosts the Conscious Life Expo now.
Quicksilver ran a chain of cosmic gift shops called Star Magic in the 1990s and was a regular at the Whole Life Expo. When it ended abruptly in 2001 — the Sept. 11 attacks scared people from gathering in large groups — he created the Conscious Life Expo.
“It just showed up in the field for me to do this,” he said. “I had all the skill sets and I knew all the people.”
Today, the Conscious Life Expo is the largest of its kind in the United States, drawing between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees per year. Past speakers include spiritual leader and presidential also-ran Marianne Williamson and disgraced comedian-turned-self-help guru Russell Brand.
Quicksilver has experimented over the years with bringing the Expo to other locations, including San Francisco and London, but it never caught on outside Southern California, where new religious movements have long found a steady stream of willing believers.
Bastian Trachte of Glendale wears a head pyramid used for meditation and healing.
A woman soaks her feet while doing a “gencel ion cell cleanse.”
Eric Villhauer holds a giant tuning fork used as a sound therapy tool on the forehead of Denise Visco. The forks sell for $1,111, $2,222 and $3,333, based on size and “sound healing modalities.”
An ideological grab bag
Organizers say the Expo was always designed as a clearing house for far out ideas but there have been times when its open-minded, anything-goes attitude has gone too far. Last year, filmmaker Mikki Willis gave a baseless talk on how the COVID industrial complex was used to advance a century-old agenda to overtake America in a basement area of the hotel dubbed “the Rabbit Hole” devoted to “alternative realities and censored world views.” This year, Quicksilver had to cut a speaker from the roster after finding out he had links on his website to a conspiracy theorist who cited a Nazi sympathizer.
“It’s getting too negative, too right wing, too go get your gun kind of s— that doesn’t work at all,” he said. “I’m not doing it again.”
Conspiracy was always a sideline at the convention anyway, he said. More representative of its cosmic carnival ethos are the vendors advertising dolphin and whale wisdom retreats, cat psychic services and crystals carved in the shape of praying mantis heads (designed to help people connect with their “galactic guides”). At Booth 400 in the International Ballroom, Joshua Reff demonstrated his super-size tuning forks that sell for $1,111, $2,222 and $3,333, based on size, and “sound healing modalities.”
Taking it all in can feel like you’re wandering along the far-flung fringes of the spiritual landscape. But Amanda Lucia, a religion professor at UC Riverside who has attended several Conscious Life Expos, doesn’t see it that way.
Instead, she sees similarities between the 250 exhibitors and 200 speakers that come to sell their wares each year and more mainstream belief systems. If you’ve ever bought a supplement to help you sleep better at night, talked with your friends about manifesting your goals or worn a bracelet with the word gratitude engraved on it, then you are engaging with the same themes that thrive at the Expo.
“People who believe they can create their own destiny, people who believe they can contact divine presences — that’s very common across religious traditions,” she said. “California and Los Angeles are the epicenters of it, but it’s a common belief among the general populace.”
Corey Halls of Minneapolis, Minnesota tries out a portable infrared sauna, advertised as a balm for aches and pains, on display at the Conscious Life Expo.
Facing the future
Dannion Brinkley, bestselling author of “Saved by the Light” and a survivor of three near death experiences (including being struck by lightning), has been speaking at the Conscious Life Expo since its inception. He was also a regular at the Whole Life Expo.
Now in his mid-70s, he said these annual gatherings introduced him to a number of tools that he brought to Veterans Affairs as part of his decades’ long work providing hospice care for veterans.
“The VA has tai chi and yoga — aromatherapy is now part of the standard model of care, and they got it from the Conscious Life Expo,” he said. “How do I know? I drove it there.”
With trim white hair and a white mustache, Brinkely looks and sounds like a Southern gentleman. Like many Expo old-timers, he made his name with a New York Times bestselling book. (In his case, it describes a personal encounter with 13 angels and the profound revelations they shared with him while he was clinically dead.)
In recent years, however, the convention has seen an influx of digital-first spiritual influencers who earn their clout from massive social media presences.
“It’s a real generational divide,” Satva said. “For the boomers, it’s all about prestige; for the millennials, it’s all about reach.”
Elizabeth April, 31, is one of the convention’s new, young stars. She alternately describes herself as a YouTuber, life coach, author, channeler or past life regression specialist, depending on who’s asking. Her first book, “You’re Not Dying, You’re Just Waking Up” was published in March 2021, but the legion of fans that stood in line for her workshop at the convention know her from the videos she posts regularly to Instagram (200,000 followers) and YouTube (216,000 subscribers).
Like Brinkley, April’s personal story may be hard for skeptics to swallow. Dressed in ripped black jeans and a T-shirt, she detailed her spiritual journey in an interview on the convention floor.
She claimed to have been clairvoyant as a child, that she was introduced to past life regressions in her teens and that she was abducted by aliens on a meditation retreat in her early 20s.
Mantis crystal skulls for sale at the expo.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
People participate in a “Tesla biocharged meditation” — said to combine the power of Tesla tech, heart based meditation and the quantum field to amplify synergy, vibration and intentions — during the expo.
Feeling isolated, she began publicly sharing her experience on social media and at conferences to lift the fear around aliens and connect with other abductees. Now, she sees it as part of her mission to help fellow starseeds wake up and find their mission.
“We’re all here to make the planet better,” she said. “We’re all needed.”
It’s a universal message of affirmation that has come in many different packages at the Expo since its inception, and one that many still need to hear today.
Back at the opening ceremony, the robe-clad Moore — an astrologer who has helped run the Expo since its beginning — described the convention as a portal that would help attendees step into a whole new experience of their lives.
“This is our family, this is our tribe, these are our kindred spirits,” she said. “You can’t get this energy anywhere else.”
Mara is a single mother of two in Minnesota. She and her family have depended on SNAP benefits to make ends meet.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although Mara is unemployed, she is busier than ever.
When she is not taking care of her two children, Mara is at her desk applying for jobs. She is surveying her belongings to see what she can pawn off to buy toiletries. Or she is sifting through bills, calculating which ones can wait and which need to be paid right away.
Soon, Mara, a single mom in Minnesota, may have another task on her busy schedule: figuring out how to afford food for her and her family.
That’s because of new work requirements for people receiving aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said. “Without SNAP, there’s no funds for food.” Mara asked for her last name to be withheld given the stigma tied to receiving government assistance. She is also worried that speaking publicly will affect her chances of getting a job.
Previously, SNAP recipients with children under 18 were exempt from work requirements mandating that recipients work, volunteer or participate in job training at least 80 hours a month. But now, under President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that exemption only applies to those with children under 14 — which is how old Mara’s youngest child turned in December.
“It would be so beyond hard” to lose SNAP benefits, Mara said.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The Trump administration has argued that the mission of the nation’s largest anti-hunger program has failed.
“SNAP was intended to be temporary help for those who encounter tough times. Now, it’s become so bloated that it is leaving fewer resources for those who truly need help,” the White House said in a statement in June.
But policy experts say the SNAP changes do not fully take into account the unique challenges faced by single parents like Mara or the sluggish job market in many parts of the country. They argue that losing food assistance will only create more barriers for recipients struggling to find work.
The timeline for implementing the new SNAP policy varies based on state and county. In Mara’s home state of Minnesota, recipients who don’t qualify for an exemption or meet work requirements will be at risk of losing assistance as early as April 1. Others may have more months depending on when they next need to certify they are eligible for benefits.
Over 100 job applications
Mara imagined she would have a job by now.
It was August when she was let go from her part-time administrative assistant role due to her workplace restructuring. Since then, Mara estimates that she has applied for over 100 positions. She has also attended job fairs and taken free workshops on resume writing.
She has been working since high school, she said, but “ I’ve never been out of work for more than one month, so it’s very difficult.”
Mara spends time working at the computer at CareerForce, a resource for job seekers in Minnesota, on March 4.
Caroline Yang for NPR
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Caroline Yang for NPR
Although she misses her old job, Mara said it didn’t pay enough to support her and her kids, so she relied on SNAP benefits.
Many recipients are part of the low-wage labor market, where job security is often unpredictable and turnover tends to be high, according to Lauren Bauer, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who has studied SNAP extensively.
“SNAP is supposed to be there to help people smooth that and not let the bottom fall out when they experience job loss,” she said. “And this policy doesn’t account for that at all.”
Mara’s lowest point came in November when the government shutdown led to disruptions in SNAP benefits. Not only was she searching for a new job, but she was constantly figuring out where to get her family’s next meal.
“I might be looking for food stuff during the day when I should have been looking for a job,” she said. “Then, I’m trying to make up that time in the evening after my kids go to bed.”
During the pause, Mara turned to food banks, which revealed other challenges. First, food pantries do not always provide enough for an adult and two growing teenagers, she said. Second, they often lack gluten-free foods, which is essential for her daughter who has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes digestive problems if gluten is consumed. Gluten-free products tend to be more expensive.
If Mara loses access to SNAP again because of the new work requirements, she fears another stretch of long days spent looking for the right food and enough to feed her family.
“I would be so reliant on looking for food shelves or food banks,” she said. “There would not be time to even live.”
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that roughly 2.4 million people will lose food benefits in a typical month over the next decade as a result of the new SNAP requirements — including 300,000 parents like Mara with children 14 or older.
Gina Plata-Nino, the SNAP director at the nonprofit Food Research & Action Center, says many of the affected recipients will be single mothers who make up a majority of single parent households in the U.S. She added that the changes target a group that often lacks or struggles to afford a support system to help care for their children.
“How can they have a full-time job when they need to pick up their children [for] various activities?” she said. “And they are working — just not enough hours because they need to be there present for their children.”
Mara shops for groceries at a local discount grocery store.
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Caroline Yang for NPR
The new law also imposes work requirements on veterans, homeless people, young adults aging out of foster care, and able-bodied adults without dependents from ages 55 to 64.
It also toughened the criteria for waiving work requirements for recipients in areas with high unemployment. Previously, there were multiple ways to determine a weak labor market and secure a waiver. Now, it only applies to places with an unemployment rate above 10%. (Alaska and Hawaii have a different measure.)
For those who fail to meet the work requirement, SNAP provides assistance for up to three months within a three-year span. But Bauer from the Brookings Institution argues that it is not enough and the impact of SNAP changes will be widespread.
“We’re going to see increases in poverty. We’re going to see increases in food insecurity. We’re going to see increasing strain on the charitable food sector,” she said.
Mara holds her favorite anchor ring, which carries the inscription, “God for me provide thee.”
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Caroline Yang for NPR
As anxiety hangs over her head, Mara tries to put on a brave face for her children. She does not want them to worry, explaining that her recent struggles have reminded her how tough life can get as an adult.
“I remind them it’s not their responsibility and they’re not accountable for me or for what’s happening,” she said. “I say, just know you get to be a kid.”
Dylan Dreyer
Savannah Will Likely Come Back … Just Not Sure When
Published
TMZ.com
Dylan Dreyer is giving a small update on her embattled “Today” co-host, Savannah Guthrie, as the search continues for Savannah’s mom, Nancy — telling TMZ she does believe she’ll likely return to the show at some point.
We caught Dylan leaving NBC Tuesday afternoon, and she said while she thinks Savannah will come back, the timing is totally unclear — adding everyone at the show is simply giving her the space she needs because they care about her so much.
TMZ.com
Dylan also reflected on Savannah’s emotional visit to the “TODAY” studio last Thursday, saying the hug they shared was something they both really needed in that moment.
Catch the full clip — Dylan says the visit was incredibly emotional, adding Savannah clearly wants to get back to some sense of normal life … she just doesn’t quite know how yet.
Still, Savannah managed a few smiles during the brief stop by the studio, doing her best to keep moving forward during an incredibly tough time.
TMZ.com
As we reported, Nancy was taken from her Tucson home in the middle of the night on February 1. She was last seen entering the house just before 10 PM on January 31 after dinner with her daughter Annie and Annie’s husband, Tommaso Cioni.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
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David Giesbrecht/MGM+
American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
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