Wednesday, January 17, 2018

It's Being Looked At

It hardly seems fair, but I guess now, on the list of things you must not do after your first trimester of pregnancy, we can add "being gazed at by Braco." Braco is a healer. A healer who gazes. At you. Not one on one, so much, but at special Gazing Events with lots of other people in attendance. People show up from miles around to attend Braco's gazing sessions and a whole lot of them report feeling better about things.

Braco himself does not claim to be a healer, and says at best he is a conduit for healing energy that comes from somewhere else, most likely the sun. Remarkably, attendees at a gazing Braco performed from the top of the Sun pyramid in Mexico reported seeing a circle of white surrounding the sun afterwards, which might have been a refraction of the sun's light off the tiny ice crystals in high, thin cirrus clouds but might also have totally been a personal how-do-you-do from one star to another; there's simply no way of knowing.

Braco (pronounced Braht-zo) was born Josip Grbavac in a vowel-poor region of Croatia, and was aware of his power to channel the Unknown Infinity early on, although he went ahead and got a degree in Economics just in case. He met and was mentored by an older healer, Ivica Provic (pronounced Shlotz-kaputz), who had also shown signs of being special early in life, when, as he reported, a little piece of the sun entered his left leg and traveled through his body to his groins. This had troubled him for years until he had a vision of a boy with a big injection who came to inject him. After that he met the young man he renamed Braco, and they really hit it off. Ivica was an economist too, if you can imagine that! He had had more than one near-death experience before having the all-the-way one, to which poor Braco had the misfortune of being the sole witness. Ivica, who never wore less than a kilogram of gold, uncharacteristically removed all his jewelry and his wallet and was then swept away by a rogue wave. Unfortunately for him, his pal Braco did not discover his own healing powers until a day or two later.

At first he trained his Giving Gaze on individuals but too many people clamored for a gazing, and now he gazes only at big groups. He charges eight dollars for a ten-minute session, or four dollars an eyeball if you buy both, which is a pretty good deal, considering a plumber won't show up for less than a hundred bucks. He attracts very large crowds because a lot of people have something wrong with them. In addition to barring women past their first trimesters (when hormones make them skeptical and grouchy), he does not allow people under the age of 18 to attend, due to the intensity of the energy, and also they might fidget and make fart noises. He does allow live streaming of his gaze for free. (In fact, he's live-streaming today through the 18th.)

Also, and only at the sessions, his trademark jewelry is available for purchase, such as his double-sided thirteen-point gold-and-diamond sun pendants at $470 a pop.

All the healing gaze you need.
All he does is gaze, and as a writer, I find this his greatest power. There are approximately eight thousand ways in English to describe a look, from glimpsing or glancing to peering and staring, and eyes can drill, and cut to the side, and flash, and drop, and be cast down or askance, and be daggers or gimlets, or what have you, and in spite of the sheer poundage of eye-related pages in the thesaurus, by the time you're a quarter of the way through your novel you have completely run out of them. Try to sneak one in you've already used in chapter one and your readers will hate you for it. They will roll their eyes. They can do that more than once, but you can't. Maybe it's easier in Croatian.

Because Braco has lots of books for sale. Also DVDs. Just with the gaze. The audio versions didn't get any traction.

Hat tip to Pat Lichen for introducing me to Braco, whom she discovered the standard way, by finding his card while rummaging though an old box in church.

39 comments:

  1. It's 33 minutes until his next gaze! This I gotta see. My own gaze has been described as slicing cheesecake, but it is very low calorie.

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    1. I just checked it out. I did my durndest to gaze back, but I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. It's probably a sign I'm a bad person.

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  2. And then there is the Crystal Light Bed invented by John of God. My daughter won a session at the one in LA. Amazingly, she felt no different after the session than she did before! http://www.johnofgodcrystalbed.com/crystal_bed_faq

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    1. Oh thanks! I must go see. And I must begin referring to myself as Murr of God.

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    2. Or you could go all HANDMAID'S TALE and call yourself Murr Ofdave.

      (Like that's gonna happen.)

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    3. Murr Ofdave. Can you even imagine? Jeez, I did not like that book.

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  3. Holy Bratwurst! I don't know what to think.

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  4. NO virgins allowed. He sounds pretty cock-eyed.

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  5. Forget Braco! You've got Pootie. And his gaze is stronger; steadier, deeper, so much more thoughtful! I had a sore foot from stepping on broken glass, and I gazed into Pootie's eyes for a minute, and now my foot feels better! (It still hurts, but that's just the glass working its way out.)

    Hail Pootie!

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    1. He is powerful. And charismatic. He could run an operation like that, and HE'D do it for M&Ms, too.

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  6. eat your heart out, Joel Osteen. You have to tell a joke and whip up enthusiasm. This guy is far more efficient

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  7. Is it just me or is that man's gaze really, really creepy? I don't even want to go check it out online. CREEPY.

    Pootie, on the other hand, is just cute.

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  8. People will willingly pay $8 for someone to just gaze at them?? 'Scuse me while I go and park myself on any corner of the city's streets and earn myself a few bucks (*~*)
    Possibly gazing at Pootie or having Pootie gaze at you would be just as effective and cheaper too.

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    1. I wonder how many people I could get to tune into live-streaming Pootie's gaze. It'd be a pretty easy setup.

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    2. Do it! And fill your PayPal account!

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  9. I made a New Years Resolution a few years back to become more accepting of the incredible. Less skeptical of others' experiences and beliefs, and more attuned to "magical thinking." It didn't work out too well. You can stretch incredulity only so far.

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    1. I occasionally resolve to be--not less skeptical, but more close-mouthed about other people's magical experiences.

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  10. I made a New Years Resolution a few years back to become more accepting of the incredible. Less skeptical of others' experiences and beliefs, and more attuned to "magical thinking." It didn't work out too well. You can stretch incredulity only so far.

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  11. I tried gazing at a few people once, but I had to stop when the first six people died instantly. Now I just stay on my basement and never go out, by court order. (And for some reason, my favorite movie has become "Phantom of the Opera", the 1925 version.)

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    1. We'll open the door and throw down a raw steak every now and then so you can keep making comments.

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  12. A vowel poor region of Croatia. It’s 430 am and I’m trying to read myself back to sleep and this is not helping. Plus I laughed Rich awake. Thanks. (Really. This is a great one.)

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  13. There are several paragraphs of rather surprising observations about gazing into someone's eyes in this piece about falling in love. I'd try Braco, but cannot bear the thought of the pain involved if his gaze wanders to people around me, which it seems bound to do in a group. I'd jealously want the entire gaze. Maybe he's on to something with the internet gaze, if you don't have to share it. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html?_r=0

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    1. You reminded me of a touchy-feely exercise a teacher had us do in high school. We all paired off, randomly, and gazed into each others' eyes for five minutes. At the end I reported all sorts of things, and then my partner said he'd just been staring at his reflection.

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  14. Golleee, if I had only known. Truly missed a calling and I can gaze with the best of them. As a matter of fact I get complaints from family that I gaze too much! The long hair is essential as is being in white.

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    1. I think his hairline is beginning to pull back from his eyes.

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    2. I think his hairline is beginning to back away from his eyes.

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  15. I hope the folks on the bus to work ask me what all the giggling was about as I’d love to get more fans for Murr. You’ve got some pretty comedic commenters too.

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  16. Hey, that's a scam, I mean, gig, I'd like to try. Except, I'm legally blind in one eye so it'd be half as good. But half price.

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    1. That's probably the magic eye though.

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    2. I am definitely going to start telling people this. I may make some money out of this yet ...

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