A handy guide for anyone who wishes to sound pompous, affected and self-obsessed, espe- cially in the alternative, eco-friendly or mind-body-spirit realms. A hilarious antidote to self- developers and social media geeks; a no-holds-barred parody of those navel-gazers and karmic sojourners who may just be taking themselves a little too seriously.

Sample entries:

Beaverweaver:

Male who poses as a shaman purely in order to pick up women.

Macroneurotics:

An obscure food cult and eating disorder, which came to the West from Japan in the nine- teen-fifties, and gained a considerable following among reformed drug dealers in the USA. Macroneurotics holds that food is the only important thing in the Universe. The three main foods, held to be able to create total health, happiness, success, fulfilment and enlightenment, are brown rice with miso soup, brown rice with seaweed, and brown rice on its own.

Mistake:

There isn’t any such thing as a mistake – there are only ‘learning experiences’.

Gerry Thompson is a stand-up comedian, author, script writer, and comedy trainer. He has been involved in the field of personal development since 1979. He is the author of Cats are from Venus, Dogs are from Mars: A Parody of Human Relationships and lives in the UK. Anne Ward is an il- lustrator who lives in Totnes, Devon.