OUT THERE

It's just a coincidence -- although a happy one -- that the Edge Life Expo '09 opens on the same weekend as the movie "2012," which foretells the end of the world as we blow it.

"This 2012 thing is not hooey-hooey," Expo producer Gary Beckman said of the Mayan prophecy. "But we're the antithesis of that gloom-and-doom, shoot-them-out-of-the-water thing." So come Dec. 21, 2012, "there will be change, but it will be a pleasant change in how we perceive our life and how we love our life."

That potpourri of New Age mysticism, Norman Vincent Peale-ish positive thinking and holistic spiritualism pervades the program, which starts at 10 a.m. today and Sunday at the Minneapolis Hyatt Regency.

An example: "Wisdom and Wings," where, "With guidance from the Angelic Realm, Sandee Traeger & Lori Christenson will be offering Psychic Readings, Intuitive Life Coaching, and Mediumship utilizing their gifts of Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Claircognizance, and Clairsentience."

Clairtastic.

Beckman said that about 75 percent of Edge Life Expo attendees are women, but that men often gravitate to sessions involving intuition. "The men know they have intuition but are just learning why they need it," he said. "Men or women, the higher you go up the ladder, the more you need intuition to make decisions."

Admission is $9, which includes more than 50 workshops. There are about a dozen seminars that cost extra. Most of the speakers -- on topics such as "Awakening to the New Earth," "2012 and Your Ascension" and "Your Name Says It All" -- are women.

And with all those women, there's gotta be a chocolate booth, right?

Booth No. 519, right between the medium and the aura analyst.

BILL WARD