Fake Gurus

            Starting yoga every morning to get the stiffness out of my body is like trying open a tin of prunes with my fingers.

            I spent a lot of time on Friday working on my Shab-e She’r review. It was pretty much finished by the end of the day.

            That night I watched an Alfred Hitchcock Presents teleplay about a beautiful and wealthy young woman named Grace that has had bad luck with men because they are after her for her money. She decides to lead a double life as a modest secretary so that any man she meets that takes an interest in her will want her for herself. She also wants a guy that’s interested in Spiritualism like she is and so she posts a personal ad in a Spiritualist magazine. She begins to correspond with a United Statesian man named Keith who works as a mining engineer in Bolivia. Finally she receives word that Keith is coming to meet her and she tells her surrogate parent and former nanny, Minnie. Minnie is sceptical of Spiritualism and distrustful of the men that try to court Grace. Keith though appears to be the real deal. After a brief courtship, Keith asks Grace to marry him and she reveals that she is rich. He seems unphased by her wealth and so they make plans for her to come to Bolivia and marry him. But a few days later Grace receives a telegram from Bolivia informing her that Keith has been killed in a mining explosion. Keith had always believed that people that were truly connected with one another could make contact “beyond the sea of death”. Grace learns of an Indian mystic named Dr Shankara who uses that exact same phrase and claims to be able to contact people on the other side. Grace goes to see Shankara and he helps her to contact Keith. Shankara wants know payment for his help but as she comes to depend on him more and more she learns that he needs money to build a sanctuary for the poor in India. She tells Minnie that she is going to give her entire fortune to Shankara. Minnie is suspicious and goes to see Shankara under the pretence of needing help herself. She meets a wealthy woman named Lucy who is just leaving a session with Shankara and asks if they can have coffee. Millie finds out that Lucy is in the exact same situation as Grace. She fell in love with a mining engineer who died in a mining explosion in Bolivia and she is giving her money to Shankara. Minnie asks to see a picture of the man who died and it is Keith. The whole thing is a complicated grift involving Keith, Shankara and someone else in Bolivia and of course, Keith is not dead. When Minnie reveals the truth to Grace she refuses to accept the truth. She takes a gun and kills Minnie for destroying her faith.

            The actress that played Grace was Diana Hyland, who died of breast cancer in 1977 at the age of 41. She was dating the 18 years younger John Travolta at the time and she died in his arms.