Spiritual Scooby Snack IN A ONCE mysterious and magical world rendered mundane and boring by the unrelenting glare of Mankind's rational thought, the New Agers stand like goofy, acid-tripping hippies in a vast, sterile parking lot. They see meaning and personal significance where the rest of us see only an endless grid of, well, parking spaces. Sure, we'd like to join them, but we can't--malls to cruise before we sleep, and all that. Patricia Pereira's book, Songs of the Arcturians ($12.95, Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.), is a sadly sincere New Age attempt to reanimate the human soul. The former medical transcriptionist claims to have channeled messages from "multidimensional beings" from the system of Arcturus (that large, bright star toward which the Big Dipper's handle points). While her writing is concise and intelligent, her message is the same old religious pap we've been feeding ourselves for millennia, this time spiced up with modern-day space-alien sprinkles and a dollop or two of environmental consciousness. Like some oddly colorful, but ultimately tasteless Jell-O casserole consumed at an end-of-the-millennium tailgate party, this book leaves the spiritual seeker longing for a big, honking corn dog of truly sacred sustenance.

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