Lost in Showbiz doesn't know about you, but when it comes to the unending question for some spiritual meaning and guidance in these troubled times, it invariably finds itself looking towards the former members of the Pussycat Dolls. This week, the gaze of its third eye eagerly alights on Ashley Roberts, 34, who revealed her secret to inner contentment. "I have a hugging guru, Amma, who I've followed for five years," she said. "She clears negative energy with blessed hugs."
A hugging guru clearing negative energy with blessed hugs? Where does Lost in Showbiz sign up? A quick glance at Amma the hugging guru's website only serves to whet the appetite further, not least the testimony from a journalist that succeeds in making a blessed hug sound like something Kendo Nagasaki would have used to defeat Giant Haystacks: "With great force, she took me in her arms … it was a powerful hug … I staggered offstage and sat down."
The more Lost in Showbiz reads, the more Lost in Showbiz is keen on Amma. She has apparently handed out 32 million hugs, which reminds Lost In Showbiz of the night in 1993 it took some particularly potent ecstasy at a rave in a disused airfield in Lydd. And she certainly seems like a woman of many parts. On the one hand, her followers attest she once sucked the pus out of a leper's contagious wound. On the other, according to a 2012 Rolling Stone profile, she has an impressive real-estate portfolio and a coterie of "staff", who pay $2,000 a year for the privilege and perform jobs including being a "stargazer", which involves sitting at Amma's feet looking at her raptly, and running the stall that sells offerings that devotees can buy to give to Amma: she's apparently fond of Toblerones. And if Lost in Showbiz is going to follow a guru, it might as well be one with an impressive range of merchandise including T-shirts, hoodies, books, DVDs, magnets, keychains, essential oils, body washes, mantra counters, blessed jewellery – $5,000 for a crown – and dolls.
Frankly, Lost in Showbiz is sold: it casts from its negative-energy-cleared mind the testimonies of former devotees, at least one of whom has written a book claiming that, when not handing out divine hugs, Amma was occasionally wont to give her a divine kick if they didn't cook her rice correctly. And it thanks Roberts for this latest stop on its ongoing path to spiritual enlightenment via the ex-members of girl groups: next week, perhaps a swami recommended by Liz from Atomic Kitten?
