The Church of Disney

We all know that Disney has its hands in everything, but church? Heed this cautionary tale before you think about entering a house of worship.

I'm not a religious man, but I had a standing promise to my wife that if she found a church she wanted to try, I'd go with her. Little did I know that her theological compass is bat-shit wonky. One Sunday, she led me to a discreet, seemingly un-insane brick building a couple of blocks from the Disney Studios in Burbank.

It turned out to be a New Thought "spiritual center." New Thought, to the layman, is Hippy 2.0: children of love who've washed and shaved and taken aggressive marketing classes. These are the folks who peddle The Secret on Oprah and preach the Law of Attraction that all you need to attain wealth is to think about attaining wealth. If that were true, of course, I'd have two thousand baby mamas and 47 life sentences for murder.

As my wife and I entered the sanctuary, I couldn't help but sense the gleeful surprise of the worshipers sitting in the pews. It was almost as if they could taste us. As the service began, I discovered that the center had its own theme song, a bouncy ditty that merely repeated the name of the "church" over and over again to what can only be described as "old-timey" music. Everyone clapped on the one and three.

The service, led by a red-faced man in his 50s named Dr. Barry, was an assortment of every bad New Age cliché. Dr. Barry spoke in shallow affirmations and meaningless mantras like "I am a lucky magnet for miracles" and "Practice the now." We exhaled together in drawn-out "Ohhhhhms." I was forced to touch myself as a reminder that "I am."

They made every effort to be non-denominational. There were no crosses, and instead of "Amen" we said "And so it is." But strangest of all were the hymns. In an attempt to piece together a songbook of positive, non-religious, non-offensive music, the primary source material turned out to be Disney films. We sang "A Whole New World" from Aladdin, "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas and, of course, that damn Lion King theme song. Was this "spiritual center" really a Mousethedral?

I wasn't about to find out, but my wife actually went back for more. Dr. Barry was so geeked to have her that he fired his musical director and hired my wife. It seems he thinks that she can use her magical blackness to insert some semblance of soul into "When You Wish Upon a Star." To this day, she still goes to the Church of Disney and has gotten her cold, soulless grin down pat -- a little too good, if you ask me -- while I sleep with mousetraps under my pillow.