Woo Is A Girl's Best Friend?

On Fridays Orac has started having regular posts on "woo" he's encountered. I would think this story would fit the category. Canadian singer Sherrie Lea Laird claims to be the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe, something she supposedly first realised when she was 12. She is now the subject of a book Marilyn Monroe Returns: The Healing of a Soul. Written by California pyschiatrist Adrian Finklestein it chronicles her "past life regression" and the supposed details it reveals about Monroe's life, such as that she wasn't murdered, as has often been speculated.

Laird claims she's not doing this for publicity, and that it might "ruin" her career. That's doubtful. Plenty of entertainers believe in equally flaky things without apparent career harm. Just ask Tom Cruise. The fact that Laird is 43 and a rock band singer might make one a little bit skeptical of such a claim, as it's not hard to see this as an attempt to bolster a career that's getting a bit long in the tooth. The fact that she'll get a cut of the sales may be a better reason to be cynical, as Marilyn Monroe being the focus is sure to make this book much more likely to be a hit than if she claimed to be the reincarnation of some lesser known figure. Rather convenient for both Finklestein and Laird. You can bet that many of the details supposedly found via hypnosis actually came from Laird, and for that matter Finklestein, being exposed to the tonnes of Monroe material produced over the last 40 some years.