Bond. James' bond...

...that bond, as you probably know by now, is a cool five million dollars.*


By now it's all over the news: James Arthur Ray was arrested earlier today at his attorney's office in Prescott, Arizona. He has been charged with three counts of manslaughter for the three people who died last October after the infamous sweat lodge session at his Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona. You can keep up with the news here, and some of the many Tweets here.

PS added 4 February ~ This post is what Wikipedia would call a "stub," and, unlike my October 9 post linked to above, I'm probably not going to keep adding to it. However, while it's still "new" news, I did want to add a link to a few items:
The related story published on the Good Morning America web site on February 4.
The transcript of Anderson Cooper's CNN show on February 3, refuting James Ray's statements in a sham interview for New York Magazine.
And no discussion of this matter would be complete without Salty Droid's take on the matter (it's worth it for the Photoshopping alone).

* Not long after James Ray's arrest, it became known that he was having a bit of a "challenge" posting bond, which would have entailed coming up with $500,000 in cash to get out of the slammer. Once again Salty Droid was on it (this piece also has videos about James' plea and his attoney's comments) . Some people misinterpreted the statements from the Ray legal team as being that James doesn't have the money, raising questions of how it is that Mr. Harmonic Wealth himself could be so cash-poor. But, as former James Ray employee Amy Hall commented on the Droid's blog...

Amy Hall Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 7:34 pm

If you listen closely… the atty doesn’t say that James doesn’t have the money… just that it isn’t liquid enough to come up with the $500,000 cash that he needs. For God’s sake the man owns 5 houses! His parents own their own house, his brother owns properties in OK. They could come up with it if they wanted to. James is in solitary confinement. He’s on a Monk’s Holiday!

There's also an interesting discussion on the Rick Ross forum about James and his brand of Harmonic Asset Concealment, as well as the long tradition of same among LGAT gurus (Werner Erhard of est/Landmark Forum infamy comes to mind).

A little motion on the ocean

Another drive-by (or swim-by, as the case may be) post while I'm dealing with "real work" deadlines and trying to finish my long-promised piece based on interviews with a self-help industry insider...

As you probably know if you've been hanging around my Whirled for any length of time, there's an incredibly silly, kinda sex-culty thing going around called ACCESS Consciousness (formerly ACCESS Energy Transformation). My most recent post about ACCESS was in October of 2009, though it made its debut on this Whirled on June 6, 2007, and had an encore appearance on June 12 of the same year. I mentioned it again in May of 2008 (scroll down to the second item, "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose"); and then again the following July (scroll down to second item, "ACCESS: It just gets worse"). I would tell you exactly what ACCESS is, but after nearly three years of blogging till I'm blue in the face about it, I still don't really know. All I can really say for sure is that it seems to make people all silly and giggly, and apparently inspires women of all ages to show their cleavage.

"And that's a bad thing?" you ask. Okay, there's nothing wrong with cleavage, and maybe the silliness and giggling aren't so bad either (blog fodder, after all), but the cultishness is a little disturbing when you think about it. Thinking is frowned on in ACCESS, but not here on my Whirled.

At any rate, the ACCESSories are still doing their thing, and now, apparently, they are spreading the love to the world's oceans, which are choking with plastic. ACCESS is going to save the oceans, or part of one of them, anyway, by magically transforming the plastic into... oh, I don't know. Fish? Fish poop? A new info-product? They don't really say.

An alert reader gave me the heads-up about a new ACCESS-related website, Ocean 300. Although it doesn't seem to be fully functional yet, and doesn't yet mention ACCESS anywhere that either Alert Reader or I could see, the project has been touted in recent interviews given by Gary Douglas, an ex-Realtor and the founder of ACCESS. And the mantra, "How does it get any better than this?" is pure ACCESSspeak.

What the ACCESSories are gonna do, it seems, is utilize a technique that supposedly allows them to "transform matter at the molecular level," as described in the print-on-demand-published work, Magic: You Are It. Be It, by Gary Douglas and his sidekick, Rasputin. Oh, I'm just kidding about Rasputin, whom Gary fired a few years ago. (You can't really trust those dead Russian faux-monks, you know.) These days, Gary's main sidekick – and his co-author on Magic as well as several other books – is Dr. Dain Heer. Both Gary and Dain tout their proprietary brand of alchemy, which was originally "given" to Gary by Rasputin or someone or something from another dimension.

But lest I get too far off course, here is the skinny on Ocean 300, straight from their web site:

Ocean 300's target is to change the continent of plastic that is currently floating in the Pacific Ocean.

This mass of floating plastic has been called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," "The Plastic Ocean" and "The World's Biggest Garbage Dump." Ocean 300 asks, How does it get any better than this?

300 people will board a ship in 2011 and sail into the plastic zone. Using an energy called Molecular Demanifestation, they will invite all of that plastic to change and transform into elements that the ocean can handle and dissipate with ease. This has never been done before and may create an awareness in the world of what else is possible, beyond what many have decided is not.

Ocean 300 will be releasing information, videos and testimonials showing you how to change and transform things using Molecular Demanifestation. What if you could change a glass of wine to be the most delicious, refreshing and nutritious treat for you [sic] body?*

Is this going to be one of those luxury cruise-ship deals, such as those hosted by Esther and Jerry Hicks and their imaginary bud(s) Abraham, or "Scientist" Bob Proctor, or any number of other New-Wage gurus? At this point it's not clear, but my correspondent had a few questions about Ocean 300's planned mission:

...The goal is phrased rather vaguely -- transforming plastic into 'something the ocean can handle.' What does that mean, exactly? Convenient that nobody on the boat would be able to observe whether the transformation had occurred at all. And then, of course, they leave and whether what they did made any difference whatsoever would be determined how?

This is touted as a demonstration of their technique that is going to open the world's eyes to what they can do. So why pick something like this, in 2011? Why not go to Haiti now and transform earthquake rubble into down comforters and stacks of pancakes and save some lives? Now that would be a demonstration. (As if I didn't know why.)

The moving graphic of the ocean is a little odd -- a veiled shark and a little Nemo-like fish going in opposite directions. The accompanying photos of divers looking at stuff looks to me like a fishing net clump, not the problem in the ocean they are going to fix. The bits of plastic are tiny, tiny, things.

No price mentioned. I bet it is going to cost a lot.

And I bet they won't have much trouble finding 300 suckers to cough up whatever it's going to cost. After all, our precious oceans are at stake.

According to one of the Ocean300 legal pages, the enterprise is legally based in New Zealand, where, as it happens, ACCESS has a pretty strong presence. (Australia is similarly fortunate to have a significant ACCESS presence.) Here's the legal lowdown, in case any of you U.S. citizens should foolishly decide you want to sue Ocean300:

This Agreement shall all be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of New Zealand applicable to agreements made and to be performed in New Zealand. You agree that any legal action or proceeding between Ocean300 and you for any purpose concerning this Agreement or the parties' obligations hereunder shall be brought exclusively in a federal or state court of competent jurisdiction sitting in New Zealand . Any cause of action or claim you may have with respect to the Service must be commenced within one (1) year after the claim or cause of action arises or such claim or cause of action is barred. Ocean300's failure to insist upon or enforce strict performance of any provision of this Agreement shall not be construed as a waiver of any provision or right. Neither the course of conduct between the parties nor trade practice shall act to modify any provision of this Agreement. Ocean300 may assign its rights and duties under this Agreement to any party at any time without notice to you.

On Bonnie Coleen's Seeing Beyond radio show site, there is a recent (January 27, 2010) interview with Gary Douglas, but I'd be careful downloading that if I were you. When I tried to do it, it locked my computer up. That might have just been my slow satellite Internet connection, but it still might be better to err on the side of caution. If you do want to give it a whirl, here's the page that lists the show's recent Podcasts.

My correspondent, who happened to catch the interview, wrote:

Now I don't expect much science knowledge from a Santa Barbara Realtor, and maybe he was having a really bad day or had a bad night's sleep, but he does seem to be having basic troubles with language in the interview. He uses "evaporate" instead of "condense" when describing an accessory's business that removes water from the air. That could just be technical ignorance, falling in the sub-high school range of knowledge. But then he gets the words "past" and future" mixed up twice, then catches himself. It is almost like he just isn't paying any attention to what he is saying. And I think there is a third one where he gets two basic words reversed (increase and diminish, I think it was near the end of the softball "interview"). He also mentions what he charges for his seminars ($10,000) and I haven't heard that before.

Perhaps Gary was inspired by hearing about the cost of James "Death" Ray's infamous Spiritual Warrior retreat.

All right, maybe juxtaposing ACCESS with The Ray is unfair. As far as I know, ACCESS hasn't killed anyone yet, although arguably it has contributed to the deaths of a few marriages and other close relationships, and possibly a few billion brain cells.

On the other hand, it is apparently allowing people like Dain (they call him the "Body Whisperer") Heer to get laid. He has described himself as being pretty much an unhappy loser before he discovered ACCESS, but just look at him now. Dr. Dain seems to have truly become a sex starlet in the New-Wage industry. And it's not just the young ones like Summer and Rikka who are enchanted; apparently gals of all ages love him and his body workshops.

But now it looks as if Dr. Dain might have some competition in the sex-starlet category. I recently discovered an apparent up-and-Comer, a Dr. Steve, who is delivering three-day ACCESS "Body Workshops." Here's one of his promo vids, complete with candlelight, unwanted background noise, and strategically lowered eyelids. Here's another one, sans the candlelight but still with the strategic eyelids. As I asked on a recent Tweet, would you buy a three-day body workshop from this SNAG?

I'm sure Dr. Dain has nothing to worry about, though. There seems to be an endless supply of cleavage and giggles to go 'round.

Regarding "Dr. Steve's" videos, my correspondent mused, "This new guy, plus Dr. Dain, make me think the great Pacific garbage patch is going to get a treatment with oil, or grease." Not to mention slime...

If phony sexuality doesn't work for you, there's always just plain weird and creepy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYV0JAKGtvM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUH-Tu4LEuA&NR=1

You gotta love those computer-simulated voices.

Yep, ACCESS just keeps growing, and growing, and growing, much like that big wad of plastic in the ocean. The day may come when the rest of the world discovers it, but I am thinking that ACCESS or one of its "leaders" might have to actually kill someone for the rest of the blogosphere, not to mention the mainstream media, to take notice. For now, I will continue to try to keep you updated here on my little Whirled.

.....................

Can't get enough enlightened sexploitation? Get on your knees NOW, Slave, and click here.

In an oceanic frame of mind? Swim on over here. Or here.

* My correspondent said that in the above-mentioned radio interview, Gary Douglas claimed that by using his "molecular manifestation technique," he can wave his hand over a glass of bad wine and turn it into really good tasting wine. "I guess walking on water is next," mused my friend.

This is your brain on politix

The piece below was originally part of a longer post I wrote in September 2009, but I decided it didn't really belong in that post, which was already more than long enough. While I'm dealing with my real work, as well as trying to complete a more thoughtful piece based on lengthy conversations with a self-help industry "insider" (no, PW, I haven't forgotten you! Really!), I decided to go ahead and publish this one, since it was mostly written anyway. As you probably know, I don't normally "do" politix on this blog, but in light of some of the flak my partner Ron Kaye is fielding in other forums, I thought this might provide some marginally more balanced perspective. (Yeah, I know James Arthur Ray says, "Balance is bogus," but look where that got him.) I do think it's a shame that disagreement over politics can be so bitterly divisive, but I guess that's part of what makes online life so "interesting."

* * * * *

We have to get past this notion of politics-as-Super Bowl, where you root for your team and I root for mine, and all that matters is which team wins, and thus there's no hope (nor even any real reason) for conciliation on either side. If we don't defeat that, it will defeat us.
~ Steve Salerno, writing on SHAMblog about President Obama's State of the Union speech

A few months ago I read a fascinating book called Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley, Ph.D. (Prometheus Press, 2008). I think the book offers insight into the ruthless and power-hungry among us – politicians, corporate tycoons, and even some selfish-help/New-Wage gurus. (The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout may give more insight into the latter, but I haven't read it yet so I can't say for sure.)

But I promised you politix in my little prelude, so I'm sticking to that for now. In a section on 'feel good' politics (pp. 187-192 of the trade paperback edition of Evil Genes), Dr. Oakley cites a brain imaging study by psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues at Emory University. The study took place at the time of the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, and involved two groups: fifteen committed Democrats and fifteen equally committed Republicans. Participants were hooked up to MRIs to monitor their brain activity. Each group was presented with incidents in which "their" candidate appeared to contradict himself, as well as similar instances in which the opposing candidate appeared to contradict himself, and similar examples regarding a more "neutral" target, such as actor Tom Hanks, who is such a nice guy that most folks, regardless of politics, seem to like him.

Then the participants were asked to give opinions about their candidate, the opposing candidate, and the neutral target, based upon the information they had just been given. All of them, Democrats and Republicans alike, found a way to make their candidate look good, despite the ostensibly damning information, and the other candidate look not so good. As Drew Westen explained in the introduction to his own book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,* they clearly saw the opposing candidate's inconsistencies and contradictions, rating him close to an average of "4" on a 4-point rating scale. For their candidate, on the other hand, the ratings averaged closer to a "2."

As for the neutral target, their conclusions were more balanced and seemed to be based upon the information they'd been given. None of that is terribly noteworthy, but what was noteworthy was the difference in brain activity when emotions were at stake. Dr. Oakley writes:

When this "emote control" began to occur, parts of the brain normally involved in reasoning were not activated. Instead, a constellation of activations occurred in the same areas of the brain where punishment, pain, and negative emotions are experienced (that is, in the left insula, lateral frontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Once a way was found to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted, the neural punishment areas turned off, and the participant received a blast of activation in the circuits involving rewards – akin to the high an addict receives when getting his fix. In essence, the participants were not about to let facts get in the way of their hot-button decision making and quick buss of reward. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

On the other hand, when participants had no particular emotional investment in their opinion – as with statements concerning Tom Hanks – a completely different process occurred in the brain. It was a more straightforward, rational process, involving only the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is associated with reasoning as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion.

Oakley writes that Westen's study was the first to describe the neural processes underlying political judgment and decision making, though the significance of the findings ranges beyond the study of politics. One obvious takeaway lesson is that all of us are far less rational than we often like to believe, as Dr. Oakley writes:

...simply looking at the research results, one must conclude that people's first emotional response about what's wrong, who is to blame, or how to proceed, particularly in relation to complex issues, must always – always – be considered suspect. There is no simple algorithm for teasing rationality from emotion. An ardent Democrat or Republican, a dyed-in-the-wool communist union organizer, a young devotee of Scientology, a Palestinian suicide bomber, or a KKK grand kleagle could each read the above paragraphs and think, I'm not irrational – it's those other idiots who can't see the obvious. But we all have pockets of irrationality, some large, some small, no matter if we are mathematicians who make our living doing proofs, wealthy philanthropists, or stay-at-home housewives.

This research definitely raises the question of how the brain scans might differ between, say, livid Obama critics who originally protested his September 2009 speech to school kids but admitted that they changed their minds after reading or hearing the speech, and livid Obama critics who read or heard the speech but continued to grumble that it was "indoctrination," that the original speech had been "cleaned up," and that Obama has sinister hidden agendas for the US. Or, for that matter, the respective differences in the brains of those who thought his January 27 State of the Union speech was either (1) masterful and even brave, because he dared to criticize the Supreme Court; or (2) the same old crap from a "socialist" President who had the unmitigated gall to publicly criticize the Supreme Court; or (3) a pretty good speech overall but still not necessarily a harbinger of real change in this country. (I'm in category number (3), by the way; I thought it was a good speech and an eloquent plea for bipartisanship, but I rather suspect that we're in for another round of the same old politix. Call me jaded, but that's pretty much my default mode, though I would love to be proven wrong.**)

And Westen's research certainly sheds some light on why many folks are crowing triumphantly about Scott Brown's recent victory in Massachusetts, claiming that "the people have spoken" in that state about what they think of Obama's health care plan; and why many other folks are more easily able to see that Massachusetts already had a cushy state health care system in place, for which Brown himself voted. (For the record, I think the national health care plan(s) currently before us stink, being unthinkably costly and offering the worst of everything for everyone but the insurance companies. Something has to be done, but this ain't it.)

Let's face it: We all have an endless capacity for rationalization, especially when it comes to our politics or other belief systems. We all rationalize. I do it. You do it. Ron does it. The proud, patriotic, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-health-care-plan folks who love to bash Ron do it. Progressives do it. Conservatives do it. Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Green Party folks do it. For that matter, skeptics and believers do it. (Birds and bees and even ordinary fleas probably do it too, at least to the extent that their cognitive hardware will allow, but we just don't understand their respective languages yet enough to really tell.) Sometimes, agreeing to disagree is the best option, and it really can be done without childish name-calling or contemptuous dismissal of the other person.

Not that this is going to keep me from my own childish snarking about the stuff in the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry that I find snarkworthy, mind you, but I just thought I'd put in my two-cents' worth about politix.

* Regarding Drew Westen's book, some have criticized him for going beyond reporting on the data, and suggesting that politicians can use his research to their advantage, or, as one reviewer on Amazon put it, "actually encouraging political candidates to explicitly rely on fallacious red herring tactics in political debate."

**As for that controversial Supreme Court decision striking down part of a campaign financing reform law that no lesser a Republican than Senator John McCain co-sponsored, perhaps we need to, as a widely quoted AlterNet blogger put it, "rid ourselves of "the perverse notion of corporate personhood."

On January 28, syndicated newspaper columnist Clarence Page published a good piece on corporate personhood as it relates to human rights historically and currently. He notes:

If the populist Tea Party movement is truly worthy of its touted “populist” crusade against Wall Street and other powerful interests, it could find common ground with President Obama's call to curb runaway political spending — unless the Tea Party believers think corporations are people, too.

Good point, Mr. Page, but I think it's going to go over a lot of folks' heads.

D/s, I love you

Warning: Today's topic is very adult in nature, so if you are easily offended by such things, I suggest that you skip this one.

I have always believed that what two or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom, kitchen, back yard swimming pool, or dungeon is their own business and no one else's, even if some of their activities would make Dana Carvey's Church Lady purse her lips and say, "Well, isn't that SPECIAL?" But what if they blog about their sexual activities nonstop or otherwise make their private lives very public? The Church Lady might not approve but it's still NBD, in my book, because there's a lot of that going around, and this isn't a sex blog, most of the time.* But what if someone uses his kinky sex play as part of a New-Wage/selfish-help shtick? What if he claims that his quirky activities are not just a fun way to get off, but also a means of learning and teaching powerful life lessons?

Well, that's when he walks right into my Whirled.

I can hear the wheels turning in some of your heads now. Capitalize on one's kinky love play by convincing others that it is deeply relevant to their own business and personal lives? "Genius!" I can hear some of you saying. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Well, Steve Pavlina, owner of the Personal Development for Smart People blog, author of a book by the same name, and "active member" of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC),** did think of it. As you may recall, Steve was featured briefly on my Whirled last July when he was going on and on about being in Bermuda for the Top Seekrit TLC summit. (My pal Duff McDuffee also blogged about Steve (and a few other New-Wage gurus) in September. Do read Duff's post, if you haven't already.) As it happens, another TLC meeting began Wednesday, January 20, in Puerto Rico, and will culminate this Sunday, January 24, which is Cosmic Connie Day, aka My Birthday. Steve Pavlina is in Puerto Rico with this gang of New-Wage elites, and once again has been Tweeting about it, as he did last July. He wrote of hugging a dozen TLC-ers upon his arrival in humid PR, and apparently a lot of them have been visiting his hotel room as well, as evidenced by this Tweet:

Going to visit a rainforest tomorrow for the first time ever. Lots of different insects have been visiting my hotel room to say hi.

But what does that have to do with kinky sex? Not much, probably, but you know how I get sidetracked sometimes. Anyway, in a PS that I later added to my July 2009 post, I mentioned Steve's foray into the wild world of "polyamory," which is a sophisticated social-anthropological sounding way of referring to an arrangement whereby one or both partners in a marriage or other close committed relationship get to boink whomever they want, and everyone is cool with it. Steve first announced his polyamorous intentions at the end of 2008, saying that was what he was going to focus on in his personal life in 2009. One got the distinct sense that his wife, Erin, was not nearly so enthusiastic about the new arrangement. Around the time that he decided to explore polyamory, Steve apparently also became involved with promoting the "Man Transformation" products by David DeAngelo, aka Eben Pagan, which teach men to transform themselves so they can get attractive women. Announcement of the Pavlinas' separation and impending divorce came towards the end of 2009.

And then Steve was off to the races, bound (oops, poor choice of words, as you'll see in a moment) and determined to become a real player in the field of enlightened promiscuity...I mean, "intimacy abundance." He got a fashion makeover and new hair color and 'do that would have driven those wild and crazy guys, Georg and Yortuk Festrunk, mad with envy, and must surely have attracted many big-breasted foxes to his lair. Life was just getting better and better for him.

It got even better when, after what must have been weeks of intense self-exploration and mulling over how best to take advantage of being a single guy again, he discovered the world of dominance and submission, aka Dom/sub, aka D/s. He first wrote about this at length on his January 2, 2010 post (scroll down to 'Alternative Relationship Styles'). He further explored the topic on January 4 and then again on January 7. "I really love my life!" he enthused on his January 4 post.

In case you haven't guessed it, Steve is a Dom, and is currently exploring a relationship with a "consensual sex slave." Although so far he has shielded her identity, it seems he's fairly bursting at the seams to tell more. Recently he tweeted:

I can't share a status update because nothing happening in my life right now is PG-rated, but she sure is yummy!

In his blog posts, he goes into a great deal of rationalization about the dynamics of the Dom/sub relationship. "It should be abundantly clear," he writes in his January 4 post, "that D/s can be a tremendous growth accelerator, assuming you approach it with such an intention."

So, obviously, this is about much more than just getting off with yummy sex slaves. It's also about personal growth and business development, as Master Steve 'splains in even more detail on his January 7 post, which you really must read. At one point he expounds upon why a partnership of non-equals can work as well or better than a partnership of equals. He posits two different scenarios, in which a business owner either has a free slave to do the owner's bidding, or a free manager who tells the owner exactly what to do. He concludes:

...So would you agree that all else being equal, you’d be more likely to succeed as an entrepreneur if you could start your business with either a free slave or a free manager, assuming they’re competent? And if you can see in advance that you’re likely to succeed, wouldn’t you be more willing to dive in and try it? Wouldn’t you also be willing to stretch and take more risks in your business?

Now consider this. Would these businesses also be good experiences for the slave and the manager? Could you fathom that they might also benefit tremendously from it? For example, what if the slave is, in real life, someone just starting out on their career path, and even though they work for free, they gain tremendously valuable experience. This “slave” is essentially an intern. Similarly, the manager could be thought of as a mentor or board member.

Many variations are also possible, whereby the slave and manager could easily share in the rewards of the business.

Hopefully you get the idea. The point is that a partnership with an unequal power structure can have some serious advantages, and it could very well turn out much better than a partnership with two equal partners who share responsibility for all decisions and actions in a more balanced way.

Well, this is essentially how a D/s relationship works behind the scenes, except that instead of trying to build a business, the partners come together to help each other grow as human beings.

Although it looks asymmetrical on the surface, D/s actually has a very balanced way of fostering new growth experiences for both partners. One simple reason this happens is that it reduces the risk of failure. It also creates a dynamic whereby if a failure experience does happen, it’s no big deal.

So there, you naysayers. And before you go all snarky or judgmental about this whole Dom/sub game, Master Steve admonishes you:

Perhaps an even more important point is to be careful not to dismiss a potential new growth experience out of hand. Be cautious about judging what you’ve never experienced or what you’ve experienced only in a limited way. If you’ve never experienced a particular dynamic firsthand, it’s safe to say you don’t have a clue what it’s really like. If you cast judgment from the outside looking in, all you’re doing is limiting yourself. I think it’s better to keep an open mind about that which you’ve never tried. Don’t buy into the social conditioning that encourages you to pre-condemn with prejudice. Our society cannot progress much until we drop such limiting thoughts.

And just for good measure, he repeats the lesson on his Twitter page:

Educate yourself first before forming an opinion on something with which you have little or no experience.

Anticipating critics, he notes on his January 2 ("2010 Focus") post:

I’m looking to see how much maturity my readers can summon in terms of watching me explore this path without going kittywompus, especially since other people are involved. In the past I’ve been largely disappointed, but perhaps the New Year will bring a new level of genuine acceptance and curiosity...

... Commence with the criticism now if you must, but just remember that ultimately it’s all about you anyway… and a harsh reaction could be a sign of a repressed desire to be dominated. Or perhaps you just need to be introduced to a particularly skilled sadist to soften you up a bit. ;-)

I noticed that the "Related Articles" at the end of his January 7 post begins with these two items:

Domination and Submission

Million Dollar Experiment – Submissions Rolling In (Shouldn't that be "submissives rolling in?")

Comments are turned off for the D/m posts, but you can discuss it all on the Steve Pavlina forum. Here's the link to one thread.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think Steve's plan to mix his kinky sex life with his personal-growth shtick really is sheer genius.*** For one thing, he could very well be on the verge of tapping into a grievously under-served market: the conspicuously enlightened porn consumer. A few years ago I suggested the possibility of New-Wage porn movies (it was really just a passing mention on this post; look for the paragraph on "Spiritual Sinema"), but Steve Pavlina has actually had the courage to go forth with a New-Wage porn lifestyle.

More importantly, I believe he is providing an excellent working model for the ideal relationship between a selfish-help/McSpirituality/New-Wage guru and his/her devoted followers. I think the Transformational Leadership Council should be very proud. At their Puerto Rico summit Steve is scheduled to speak about building traffic. And he should know about that; after all, as he told his friend Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale when they were hanging together at the TLC party last year in Bermuda, his blog gets two million visitors a month.

Maybe if more of the Transformational gurus take a page from Steve's book, they can divert some of that easy money from the multi-billion dollar porn industry into their own coffers. The new FTC regs and other factors may have rained on the parades of some of the gurus, and Sweatgate may have also put a damper on the festivities, but all is not lost. There's still that prurient-interest angle!

By the way, Steve's most recent blog post, as of today, offers another lesson that many selfish-help gurus or wannabes surely need: How to Build a Stronger Ego. Once again he mentions that he is at the TLC meeting in Puerto Rico, and notes that several of the TLC-ers...

...gushed over how much they liked my new hair. By making a small change to my avatar, it created a fun shift in the way people relate to me, even people who already know me. But prior to making this change, I was one of those guys who could criticize others for fussing over their appearance. It took me a while to realize that I was giving my power away to others so as to avoid taking full ownership of my own avatar’s appearance.

As the Church Lady might say, "We like ourselves, don't we?"

So let's hear it for Master Steve and his courageous decision not only to spiff up his avatar by getting new hair, but, more importantly, to plunge headlong into the world of D/s.*** And all of you harsh critics out there, before you go all kittywompus or something, just remember that the Master has your number. It's painfully obvious that you are harboring a deep desire to be dominated. Get on your knees now and thank him for being brave enough to show you the light. And be sure to gush over his new hair while you're at it.

PS ~ On a related note, here's a little blast from the past: a page from my old work, Cosmic Relief, showing that once again I was ahead of my time. The "ad" was a take-off on a business book that was a bestseller back in the 1990s, The Discipline of Market Leaders, by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema (the Amazon page is for the expanded edition published in 1997). Click on the pic for an enlargement. (And I must apologize for the relative crudity of the comp above, but I'm sort of busy today and didn't have time to lovingly labor over every pixel, as I have done at times in the past. But hey, it's the thought that counts. And I don't know about you, but I'm kind of feeling inspired to break out into a verse of 'Rose Tint My World.')

PPS ~ For even more enlightened sexploitation, check out ACCESS Consciousness. (The link is to my most recent post about ACCESS, but the post contains links to my earlier articles on the topic as well.)

* As I said above, this is not a sex blog most of the time, but believe me, that is not from lack of material. I've learned more than I care to know about the private lives of some of the New-Wage luminaries I write about. Let's just say they're a randy bunch and don't mind "sharing the love," whether they're in an allegedly monogamous relationship or not. At least Steve Pavlina, for better or worse, is more honest and open about his shenanigans than most of that crew.
** Incidentally, when I checked the Transformational Leadership Council site a little while ago, I noticed that Steve Pavlina is still not listed as a member in good standing, but then, neither are others who say they are TLC members. At least I haven't seen their names there on the times I visited. Perhaps TLC just doesn't have the resources to keep their web site updated. On the other hand, James Arthur Ray's name was on the TLC membership roster at one time – he was listed as a founding member – but apparently his name was removed some time ago. (He was listed at the time I wrote about the TLC back in July, but that, of course, was before Sweatgate.)
*** I feel compelled to add a huge sarcasm alert here, just in case there was any doubt.

Whirled wars

Warning: This post is a long and winding road, as mine sometimes are. I could have either condensed it greatly or published it in several parts, but I thought, what the heck, just get it over with in one fell swoop. So you know the drill: if you're prone to screen fatigue, print it out and take it into the "reading room." Or just peruse a few segments if you don't feel up to making your way through the whole thing. You won't hurt my feelings a bit. ~CC


Can you believe it's been nearly a month since I've published a real post here? Do not fret, Dear Ones; although the year is coming to an end (and already has, for my friends on the Other Side of the globe), my Whirled is not, as much as some folks might wish that to be the case. I have simply been busy with other matters of consequence. A couple of clients who had put their projects on hold during the Great Recession of '09 have recently taken them off hold, and they now want the projects done yesterday. That's a good thing, and believe me, if Ron and I could travel back in time in order to get the projects completed yesterday, we would. But we're doing the next best thing and putting our noses to the grindstone now. New clients have emerged as well, and in addition, Ron and I have been in talks with a couple of colleagues regarding plans to expand our business and explore new ventures. And then this major holiday came up...well, actually, it's still going on.

All in all, I've been too preoccupied to indulge very much in my hobby of "snarking lividly," as one of my detractors put it not long ago, though I have been participating on a few other forums. (If you're interested, I've mostly been hanging around "The Pyre" and Salty Droid's blog, as well as Duff McDuffee's and Eric Schiller's party, and Cassandra Yorgey's place too. I've also been enjoying Terry Hall's Bizsayer blog. Terry, by the way, is married to Amy, an ex-employee of James Ray International.)

If you've been hanging around these blogs, you know it's been a veritable sh-t storm lately, as my pal at The Pyre noted a while back. The Pyre has done a terrific job of documenting some of these matters, as have the Droid, Duff and Eric, Cassandra, and Terry. The big news of the moment is that Duff has been on the receiving end of intimidation efforts by Secret star and former James Arthur Ray joint-venture partner Bill Harris, of Holosync infamy (and of course I will have more about that later on, but scroll down to "The hustledorks circle the wagons" if you can't wait).

On second thought, in the spirit of the holidaze, scratch that sh-t storm metaphor. It has been one big happy snowball fight here in the blogosphere.

To add to the lively fun, I've recently been pelted with a few snowballs myself, and I truly hope you will pardon me for going on about myself, but I am a narcissist, as you know. In fact, I've been dodging snowballs from both sides in the New-Wage wars. Although I've discussed some of this on other forums, I'm thinking that a recap here is also in order – not merely to rehash some silly and perhaps pointless online battles, but to summarize a few issues these conflicts are bringing to the surface. These are issues that affect all of us, no matter where we are on the belief (or non-belief) spectrum. It goes without saying, but in light of current issues I feel compelled to say it anyway, that this blog post reflects my interpretation of events. Maybe you'll find something of value here for you as well.

Revenge of the snargets
Earlier this month one of my minor snargets (snark targets) wrote a blog post in which he criticized the critics of the self-help industry. Before I go any further let me make one thing clear: I refer to him as a minor snarget not to diminish his importance in the big scheme of things, but merely to indicate that he has not been a frequent subject on this blog.

Minor Snarget has referred to some critics as "haters," and it appears that I am one of those "haters." On a Twitter post he wrote some weeks before the blog post, he had defined those "haters" as "a bunch of losers who got their noses out of joint over The Secret and can't get over it."

Though his blog post was not only about critics, it was clearly a reaction to said critics' increasingly pointed Tweets and blog posts, some of which were about him. Accordingly, he let us have it with both barrels, and mounted a spirited defense of the selfish-help industry in the process. He expressed disdain for the alarmists in the news media, saying they are using the James Ray sweat lodge tragedy to indict the entire industry. He implied that everyone who criticizes James Ray or the self-help industry wants to put an end to the entire industry just because some folks died at one little event.

In a special rant section in his original post, he said he understands the motives of the news media and their need to engage in what was once commonly known as "yellow journalism," because they are, after all, primarily concerned with ratings and money. More puzzling, he wrote, are the "pro-bono" critics, the snarky bloggers such as yours truly – those "haters," in other words. He went to some length to rant about me, though he didn't mention me by name. He called me "a first-rate writer with a second-rate mind," and went on to describe me as incoherent and incapable of logic. He claimed that my blog is full of inaccuracies and that I'm wrong more often than I'm right, though he provided no examples.

He also puzzled over why I – and other critical bloggers – spend so much time snarking and criticizing when most of us aren't making any money from this activity. He said we are all snarking in a vacuum anyway, since it is clear that we have very few readers. He based his judgment about our dearth of readers on what he imagines our collective Twitter following to be, falsely claiming that among all of us we barely have 200 followers on Twitter. He also falsely claimed that all we do is Tweet and blog about how our lives suck. I can only suppose that he deliberately wrote those untruths partly because he was trying to get back at me for what he seems to think are intentional untruths here on my Whirled. (I'll address that point below.)

He added that we pro-bono critics hate people who have money because we don't have any ourselves, that we have no useful tools to make our lives better, and that we don't want anyone else to have those tools either.

Part of the remainder of the post was dedicated to explaining the real value of self-help, which, Minor Snarget noted, is an individual judgment each of us has to make for ourselves. He devoted a bit of time to justifying what many people perceive as exorbitant fees charged by some self-help gurus. He scoffed at the media and critical bloggers who seemed shocked that people paid nearly $10,000 to attend the fatal sweat lodge event. Minor Snarget explained that high fees for events are justified by the experience and expertise of the events' leaders. He reminded his readers that the sweat lodge was but one portion of a five-day event. He mentioned that billionaires such as Sir Richard Branson would laugh in your face if you tried to offer them so paltry a sum as ten grand for even a few hours of consultation. He added that he would pay ten grand to spend a few days with someone like the Dalai Lama. In other words, when you're in the presence of greatness, ten grand is nothing compared to what you're getting in return. That amount or much more can be a real bargain if you're getting what you need from an event.

He added that his own consulting fee is now a thousand bucks an hour. This, he explained, is due to his years of experience and study, plus his success at helping numerous other people start businesses of their own, plus the fact that he has read a bunch of books over the years. For good measure, he also threw out some somewhat condescending lessons about business, such as the eye-opening fact that "in business, we keep score with dollars." He implied that this is a concept the critics are too dense to get.

Despite the condescension and obvious anger in his post, there were some basic points on which I agreed with him. I disagreed with him on numerous details, of course, but I felt we could have a civil exchange about all of it anyway, so I decided to join in the discussion on his blog. Ron did too. (Here's a link to Ron's blog, by the way.) All of the comments preceding ours had pretty much been favorable to Minor Snarget, with some commenters tsk-tsk'ing over the terrible things the critics were saying about poor James Ray. Ron and I were the first dissenters, apparently, and it was clear from the beginning that our input was not welcome. Although we were civil, Minor Snarget repeatedly shot us down, attacking our personal and professional credibility. He questioned our qualifications to express an opinion about "his" industry. He challenged us to list all of the great products we've created, the implication being that because we are not actively churning out bestselling self-help products, and don't have a bunch of bestselling books on Amazon, we know nothing about the industry and are therefore not qualified to judge it.

He did not question the qualifications of those who agreed with him, though none of them seemed to be Amazon bestselling authors either. He simply agreed with them and congratulated them for their insightful comments and evolved way of looking at things.

He said any putz can tear stuff down, but he, on the other hand, is working to build things and make the world a better place, and he suggested we do so too. In the end, he declared victory by virtue of having "proved" that Ron and I are incapable of creating anything of value.

He was similarly dismissive of anyone else who expressed a dissenting opinion about his piece, including one of my regular readers, Dave, an admitted non-fan of self-help. I was moved that Dave, who is currently risking his neck every day in Afghanistan, would take the time to defend my blog. Dave's remark wasn't only about me, though; he also summarized the points that bug him most about self-help gurus, including his opinion that they sell half-truths and shortcuts more often than not. Minor Snarget was having none of it. He lashed out at Dave as well, saying Dave doesn't know him or his work and was apparently basing his own opinion of Minor Snarget on what he'd read on my blog. He added that Dave's comment was yet another example of what the anti-critic rant was all about in the first place.

Admittedly, Minor Snarg was probably letting out years of pent-up anger, not only for my occasional potshots at him but also for my more frequent ones at his buddy and business partner – let's just call him Major Snarget* – who took him under his wing a few years back and saved him from a life of being broke. One would expect such loyalty, especially since Major Snarget probably believes he can't afford to sully his own name by getting down in the trenches with those filthy critics. I speculate that to some degree, Minor Snarg was simply running interference for his bud.

But he also seemed enraged about what I and others have written about him. While I haven't criticized his primary enterprise of coaching online entrepreneurs, and I actually agree with him on many matters (including politics and social trends), and think that he is a talented writer, musician, and photographer, and have even had friendly exchanges with him in the past, it is also true that I've devoted a bit of attention to a couple of his products that I think are quite silly. He markets them as joint-venture deals with Major Snarget, and I am sure they make up a minuscule portion of Major and Minor Snargets' respective and collective income stream. But apparently the stuff I wrote about these products got under Minor Snarg's skin.

That said, Ron and I weren't the only ones who thought he was unnecessarily rude in his comments to us and others who disagreed with his take on critics. That's not the way I treat people who take the time to comment my blog, even if they've said snarky things to or about me in other forums. But who said everyone has to follow the same rules I've set for myself? Besides, in fairness, he did mention that he had told his therapist...I mean, his meditation mentor...that this is not his incarnation for sainthood. Well, then, that excuses it.

Moreover, he thinks I have been unnecessarily snarky for several years and that he has been more than patient. He accused me of writing with "ill will" and indulging in "character assassination" of his bud, Major Snarget. He suggested that I should remember I am writing about real people, and should therefore be more empathetic and "mindful" in my writing. He also claimed that I am "inciting" others to write negative blogs about his buddy and others in the industry.

My first thought upon reading the incitement claim was that in his opinion, nobody reads my blog anyway, except perhaps for those other critics whom no one reads either, so why is he so concerned? At any rate, one of the bloggers whom he claimed I was "inciting" addressed that point by stating that the "incited" blog was inspired by Major Snarget (and to a lesser degree Minor Snarget), not by moi.

In the days that followed publication of his confrontational blog post, as the discussion grew to what seemed to be an unprecedented number of comments for his blog, Minor Snarg also created a counter-blog to my little Whirled, apparently for the sole purpose of humiliating and completely discrediting the critics. I believe his plan was to crush me first, since I'm the easiest target, and then go after the rest. He also created a couple of Twitter accounts to have a little fun with the "haters." While he was at it, he locked out his main Twitter account so critics couldn't get as easy access to his immortal Tweets as before. And he Tweeted about hiring lawyers and private detectives to help him deal with the critics. "I'm rich; I can afford it," he boasted.

A few days later, however, he deleted the part in his blog post that contained his rant about me. He also deleted all of the dissenting comments – not just mine and Ron's – and his own responses to same. His explanation to someone who asked about the disappearing comments was that he had tried an "experiment" on his blog and it didn't work, so it was back to the regularly scheduled programming. My sense is that he either realized on his own, or was reminded by his buddy Major Snarget, that the rancorous discussion made both of them look pretty bad, while giving those pesky critics unnecessary publicity. Besides, there were fine cigars to be smoked, good Scotch to be consumed, and new ventures to be planned.

In the time since then, however, Major Snarget has written several posts on his blog, explaining why all of the critics of the selfish-help/New-Wage industry are wrong. Here is Cosmic Connie's capsule summary of his critique of the critics: We all think money is evil, and we're beating up on those who have money because we harbor these false ideas about wealth, but in reality those we criticize are all about love and Spirit and all of that good stuff, which we would be able to clearly see if only we weren't so blinded by our own false beliefs. (Fortunately, Major Snarget sells an expensive program to help people "clear" such beliefs. He links to it several times in every one of his blog posts, and there's a link on every page of his new free e-book, which he seems to have created for the sole purpose of marketing the pricey program.) In addition, Jesus, Mother Teresa, Buddha, and a few famous churches would all agree that money and marketing are always good. Money is Spirit; there is no distinction, so there is nothing wrong with making tons of money, especially since the snargets are making the world a better place in the process. Nor is there anything wrong with using some of that spiritual energy known as money to buy expensive cars and houses and such. So in reality, the critics have no basis for their criticism.

I'm oversimplifying, of course, but not by much.

In one post, Major Snarget went on a bit about how history rarely remembers the critics, who are doomed to obscurity, whereas the targets of their criticism will no doubt be remembered forever, because they are doing important things with their lives. (So there, you critics.) He also suggested that engaging in criticism is keeping the critics from their true calling. A couple of points he didn't mention: (1) Not everyone is a fame-whore; though fame is a form of currency these days more than ever, not everyone aspires to be "wealthy" in that way, and many folks, including me, don't give a hoot if history remembers them or not; and (2) As the blogger on The Pyre implied, there's always the possibility that some folks' true calling is parody, satire, or even...gasp...criticism – even if they're not currently getting paid handsomely for their efforts.

It's probably all moot anyway, for it seems to be back to bidness as usual with the snargets and their buddies, who, last time I checked, were indeed still sitting around puffing on pricey cigars, plotting new ways to separate people from their money, and congratulating themselves for being masters of their little corner of the Universe.

That's how it looks to me, anyway. Your perceptions may vary.

And now a few words from the other side...
An anti-New-Wage blogger who had once been sort of an ally, but whose politics as well as his views on the evils of New-Wage culture are a bit too radical even for me, recently published a blog post about what a complete and utter hypocrite I am. One big point of contention is that I live with and deeply love Ron, and my detractor has issues with Ron. Not the least of his issues is that Ron has long been a student of a form of Buddhism, and the blogger despises Buddhism as well as most other flavors of religion and spirituality. Since I've frequently snarked about the McSpirituality factions of the New-Wage industry, my detractor wonders why I continue to tolerate Ron, whom he has called a "faux-Buddhist" (as if he is in any way qualified to know a "real" from a faux-Buddhist). In addition, since Ron and I ghostwrite, edit, and design books, and in the course of our years in business have worked on numerous self-help or spiritual titles, he accused us of knowingly running a scam and helping "scumbags" make money off of others.

I should note that he had previously published a derogatory post about Ron and me, but in this latest one he really went to town. What set him off was that I made the mistake of mentioning his name recently in a post dedicated to another one of my frequent and recent snargets, a notoriously deceptive but very successful marketer who has actually served prison time for fraud. Angry Blogger said I was using that guy's name to discredit him.

Actually, I wasn't. My reason for mentioning him in my post was simply to illustrate that not only politics, but commerce, makes strange bedfellows, as the old saying goes. Angry Blogger pretty much places New-Wagers in the same category as the liberal left, and he hates both, for he feels they are destroying our culture. My point was that the hustler extraordinaire who was the real topic of my offending blog post has somewhat invalidated the belief that New-Wage is inexorably tied to the liberal left. Said hustler seems on the one hand to pander to the conservative/anti-government paranoia crowd, but he is also catering increasingly to New-Wagers and the Law of Attraction crowd, who are indeed traditionally more likely to be political liberals. His appeal to both factions is that he is trading in "forbidden" information that "they" don't want the rest of us to know about. Naturally, his real agenda is capturing as large a market as he possibly can, so politics and belief systems don't matter nearly as much as having a valid credit or debit card and possessing the ability to sign up, wittingly or unwittingly, for automatic-billing schemes.

Angry Blogger himself is another illustration of "strange bedfellows," though in his case it's more related to politics and belief than to commerce. He's a right-winger who, unlike most right-wingers in the US, also happens to be an atheist. However, he is also anti-New-Wage to the extreme, which has led to what seems to be an uneasy alliance at best with some Christians who agree with his political opinions and/or his anti-New-Wage views. He has acknowledged the oddity of his alliances, explaining to me in the discussion accompanying his blog post that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I responded that while this may work for the short term, it doesn't bode well for the future of the "friendship" once the common "enemy" has been properly smitten. He replied that he simply doesn't feel nearly as threatened by the Christian Right agenda as by that of the New-Wagers and the liberal left. He thinks the Christian Right is about preserving America, while the liberal left/New-Wagers are all about tearing it down. I'm the opposite; I feel more threatened by the Christian Right than by the New-Wagers. I would have suggested that we simply agree to disagree on that point, but in previous exchanges he had made it clear that "agreeing to disagree" is for wimps.

Although the point I was trying to make in my discussion with him was that things are not all black-and-white, he declares that they are all black-and-white, at least to those few who can see the world as clearly as he. There is good and there is evil and there is no in-between. He truly seems to believe he is fighting the good fight, and he says it will be a fight to the death. And not only was he angry that I had mentioned his name in conjunction with the notorious marketer, but he said that I, by refusing to acknowledge that all self-help/New-Wage is patently evil, am simply playing dumb. He speculated that this is either to preserve what he imagines to be my source of income, or to protect my relationship with Ron, or both.

This conflict could have gone on indefinitely, but I did a little blog sanitizing of my own, for the sake of restoring some peace. I simply deleted his name from the offending post, as well as two comments about him in the discussion section. After all, my big issue was and is with the actual subject of my blog post, not with him. As wrong as Angry Blogger is about Ron, and as much as I disagree with his politics, I also feel he's right about some, though not all, of his observations about New-Wage culture.** In the end, he made what I feel was a wise decision to remove his entire blog post.

Cognitive dissonance and me
I suppose by now it's pretty clear that I've received criticism from more than one faction in the belief spectrum. This could mean I am doing something very wrong and am indeed an incoherent hypocrite. Or it could signify that I'm just doing my job as a pot-stirrer. Or it could simply be an indication that I have mood swings and feel strongly about something one day, and not so strongly the next, and that I am always weighing my own beliefs and thoughts, and that this blog is an expression of all that stuff.

The one factor that both Minor Snarget and Angry Blogger have in common is that they have, in their own ways, suggested that I must surely be suffering from some form of cognitive dissonance, and that my writing reflects it. Take Minor Snarget, for example, who, as I noted above, has written that he believes the media are using the James Ray sweat lodge tragedy to try to destroy the entire industry. Not only does he feel that is unfair, but he also feels the critics are wasting their time, as neither James Ray nor the victims can hear us. He recommended that instead of playing judge, jury and jailer for James' gang, we devote our time and energy to worrying about and working to change real problems in the world, such as AIDS or genocide.

He even noted that he himself has participated in sweat lodges and wasn't harmed. He said that James Ray has led sweat lodge ceremonies at previous events and nobody died. He added that some of the folks "popped out" of the fatal sweat lodge "feeling just fine."

Increasingly, such declarations seem callous or just plain absurd to those who have really been following this story, particularly as more and more information comes to light about the October 2009 Sedona tragedy and previous James Ray events. This recently released affidavit for a search warrant is just one example of many. Although this document was released a couple of weeks after Minor Snarget wrote his blog post, a great deal of similar information had already been made public. Most people who have been following this story are well aware that there were problems at previous James Ray sweat lodges too.

Despite his ludicrous sweat lodge statements, however, there were some points on which I agreed with Minor Snarget regarding the media hysteria, and in my first comment to his post, I tried to express those points of agreement as well as the points of disagreement. Here's what I wrote, in part:

As for your larger points about the fear-mongering in the wake of the James Ray debacle, I completely agree with you that the talking heads have jumped on this story because it is sensationalist, and they're out for ratings. After The Secret came out, they were all over it, mostly in a positive way, for the first few months. Then when the waves of criticism hit, they took that and ran with it. Now comes the Death Lodge, and they're on that as well, playing up the tragedy from every angle...

Even so, the James Ray incident *was* a real tragedy. Moreover, I think it is disingenuous to try to dismiss the incident as just one extreme exception in a generally benign industry. There are some real issues and hard questions about the industry that I think need to be openly discussed, and "Sweatgate" brought some of these issues out into the open.

Personally, I don't advocate more laws. My general position is that there is already too much government interference in business and other aspects of our lives, and we don't need more policing. We do need to do a better job of teaching critical-thinking skills, and exercising those skills. We also very much need the free exchange of information, and yes, that includes criticism.

Minor Snarget replied that my comment was well-written but "perfectly incoherent" as usual, adding that my remarks didn't sound as if they came from the same writer who had gone on about "Death Ray" on my own blog. I responded that I do indeed have mixed feelings about certain aspects of this case, adding that I have used my long "Sweatgate" post to provide links to differing opinions on James Ray, and while most of them are anti-Ray, not all of them are. (And by the way, I don't advocate more laws and regulations governing the selfish-help industry. I have been consistent on this point throughout.) But those points of agreement were irrelevant, and the conversation rapidly deteriorated as Minor Snarget turned his focus on attempting to discredit Ron and me. His main point seemed to be that Ron and I are ignorant of our subject matter and therefore have no right to criticize it. End of story.

Though Angry Blogger and Minor Snarget are united in their annoyance with my apparent inconsistency, they couldn't be more different in their respective attitudes towards the self-help industry. While Minor Snarget thinks the industry creates enormous value for its producers as well as its consumers, and that for the most part the critics have their heads up their asses, Angry Blogger thinks the industry is made up of killers – of whom he feels James Ray is one, but far from the only one – as well as liars, thieves, sociopaths, psychopaths, and two-bit con artists.

Even if people don't end up dead, or even if marriages or other relationships don't break up because of the influence of some self-help guru, the industry is still harmful, he believes, because it forces its ludicrous and sometimes destructive ideas on our culture, often in insidious ways, and because, at best, its very survival depends upon persuading people to waste billions of dollars every year.

I realize that in most cases, whether or not folks are "wasting" their money or their time is their call, not yours or mine, and this is another point on which I essentially agree with Minor Snarget. (Of course this does not take into account instances in which people are coerced into purchasing products or participating in self-help activities, e.g., by bosses, teachers, parents, or other authority figures.) At any rate, I am simply explaining Angry Blogger's opinions of self-help. His opinions were formed by some harrowing personal experiences with some New-Wagers, as well as his own observations of New-Wage culture. He believes he is one of the few people who can clearly see what is going on, and he told me that by being even marginally involved in the industry, through having had self-help or spiritual authors as clients, I am participating in evil.

Got a gripe? Get in line.
It will probably come as no surprise that the two bloggers mentioned above are not the only folks who have criticized me. In the time since I first created The Whirled in late July of 2006, I've been lambasted at various times for being too skeptical or snarky, and for not being skeptical enough. Publicly and privately, I've been called stupid, naive, hypocritical, inconsistent, lame, incoherent, incapable of critical thinking, uneducated, unevolved, too willing to criticize things I don't understand, rage-filled, hate-filled.... and on and on and on. And those are just the criticisms I can publish. The others are random obscenities and death threats that, in my opinion, add nothing to the conversation.

Truth is, although I lean towards snarky more often than not, I do occasionally vacillate on some issues. This has been the case for many years, since long before I began writing this blog. And I generally am willing to listen to "the other side," allowing people who disagree vehemently with me have their say here, though I haven't and won't become a mouthpiece for them myself. (Apropos of hearing from the other side, I've recently spent nearly six hours talking on the phone with a self-help "insider" who is or has been very close to some of my major snargets, and I will be posting about those conversations soon.)

Regarding that accusation that my blog is fact-challenged: I never knowingly publish falsehoods, and with rare exceptions, such as this post, I provide links to all of the material I write about, so people can read it in context and make up their own minds. If I get a fact wrong, or if I make a wrong guess or speculation regarding something that is verifiable, anyone who notices it and doesn't like it is always free to inform me, and I'll publish a correction or retraction. I have always been pretty honest about being a lazy researcher at best when it comes to this blog – which is, after all, a hobby, not my livelihood – and I appreciate your help if you want to take the time to offer it.

More often than not, though, I get comments from people who say I'm spot-on in my observations and opinions. "Well, of course, Cosmic Connie; you're preaching to the choir here," you protesters might be saying. Perhaps, but some of those choir members have had some eye-opening personal experiences of their own with some of my snargets, not to mention years of experience in and around the self-help industry. In most cases, that's why they joined the choir in the first place.

Can the snark survive outside the "vacuum?"
Now we're getting to the part that's less about me and more about other folks. One point I hope to make with this rather long and convoluted piece is that critics of the self-help/New-Wage industry are not a tiny little group of broke, envious, uneducated losers, and they cannot be dismissed as easily as the gurus might wish.

First off, contrary to Minor Snarget's above-quoted Tweet, it's not just The Secret that has us "losers" up in arms. I don't think even he believes that, but that's the way he explained it to one of his followers on Twitter. Even I, with my second-rate mind, have been a critic of New-Wage culture since long before The Secret was, as I like to say, a gleam in Rhonda Byrne's third eye. The same is true of many other critical bloggers. The Secret merely brought much of what we've been satirizing and criticizing more into the mainstream.

Secondly, the criticism against self-help is not solely confined to a small group of "haters" on Twitter – again, contrary to Minor Snarg's claims. When Minor Snarg thinks of critical blogs he may be thinking of my Whirled, The Pyre, Salty Droid, Cassandra, and Terry Hall. He probably figures we are pretty easy targets (well, except for The Droid, who has legal expertise on his side, and doesn't hesitate to bite back).

But I wonder if Minor Snarg or his eager followers have ever so much as glanced at SHAMblog, written by Steve Salerno, author of a well-researched 2005 book called SHAM: How The Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (again, a pre-Secret work). Actually it was my discovery of and participation in SHAMblog that first inspired me to start Whirled Musings back in 2006.

I wonder too if Minor Snarg has taken the time to read the considerable research of tireless reader Chris Locke, who runs the Mystic Bourgeoisie blog. I don't always agree with the way Chris connects the dots, but his research is impressive and he is a wickedly entertaining writer when he really gets going, and I can't wait for the book version of Mystic B, which he assures me he is working on.

Then there's Jody Radzik's Guruphiliac blog. Jody generally deals with the Eastern gurus, but he has done his fair share of criticism of some of the Western/faux-Eastern New-Wage gurus as well.

I've already mentioned Duff McDuffee and Eric Schiller's Beyond Personal Growth blog. But I'm mentioning them again because these guys are about as far from "haters" as anyone I can think of, and their knowledge of the personal-growth industry and its products is both deeper and broader than my own. This is not to say that I am ignorant of the self-help industry, as Minor Snarget claimed – far from it. I'm simply saying that on their blog, Duff and Eric are not casual snarkers as I so often am. Yet you don't see them with their noses up the hustledorks' arses.

And there's Steven Sashen, who has fielded some of the same criticism I have. Some say he's playing both ends against the middle because, they say, he has a finger in the New-Wage pie, and yet he has a critical (and very funny) blog, the Anti-Guru Blog. Some have criticized me for quoting him rather than snarking about him. It doesn't bother me. Steven is clever and funny and he probably knows enough dirty little insider secrets to put a few gurus out of business if he were so inclined. But I suspect that he'd rather just be clever and funny, and here's yet more evidence of that.

And there is Skeptico's blog. I've had my differences with Skeptico (see the link in the PS below), but we've worked them out. I enjoy his blog. He takes no prisoners. (By the way, on his December 29 post he makes it clear that Minor Snarget isn't the only one who's gotten a bit snippy at the critics. Deep-Pockets Chopra has too.)

Last but far from least is Respectful Insolence, a thoughtful and well-researched blog written by an M.D. who goes by the name of Orac.

All of these writers and many more are, in their own way, a part of the growing wave of dissent against New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality.

Most of the bloggers listed above probably aren't nearly as easy to target as I am, so it could be a while before Minor Snarget gets to them. And, interestingly enough, not all of these folks are on Twitter. (By the way, Salty Droid, whom I mentioned a couple of times earlier, says he has been banned from Twitter. Even so, he seems to have a rapidly expanding audience.) Together all of the bloggers mentioned here have a pretty broad readership, and an influence that reaches far beyond that of my little Whirled.***

The hustledorks circle the wagons
It seems clear that many of the hustledorks and New-Wage leaders are now on the defensive. They're not just annoyed; some are scared that their source of income might dry up. The bad publicity surrounding the James Ray incidents is indeed shedding new light on the industry as a whole, and even if this doesn't result in crippling laws and regulations, it is raising more questions and perhaps inspiring more folks to examine the industry with a more critical eye than before.

Threatening critical bloggers with "defamation" seems to be more popular than ever these days. Minor Snarget is certainly not the only one who's been rattling the legal sabers, threatening to go after the Pyre blogger and other critics. As I mentioned above, another of my allies, the aforementioned Duff McDuffee, has been threatened by Bill Harris, star of The Secret and perpetrator of that Holosync gimmick. As I also noted above, Duff is pretty much into personal growth himself, much more so than I, but he's fed up with the New-Wage hustledorks too. (He was one of the participants in Minor Snarget's discussion, and has respectfully participated on Major Snarget's blog as well, but has had his comments summarily dismissed and "blessed" by the Major.)

Bill Harris took umbrage at a post Duff wrote, "The Hollow Sink of Push-Button Enlightenment," in the wake of the James Ray debacle. As participants in James' Spiritual Warrior event were required to invest in the Holosync system, and as Holosyncing was apparently a big part of the Spiritual Warrior event, this was a very timely article. In addition, Duff has tried Holosync and has discussed it with others who tried it. In his opinion, it's way over-hyped and over-priced. Bill didn't like that opinion one bit, and sent Duff a cease-and-desist, along with threats of further legal action. You can read all about it here, in this piece by Duff's co-blogger, Eric Schiller.

Apparently Bill is worried about his pristine reputation being compromised by Duff's opinion piece. In an email to Duff he summarized the unpleasant ways in which Duff's life would be changed if Bill chose to pursue a lawsuit. Eric pointed out something that perhaps Bill hadn't considered:

What Bill Harris does not realize is that Duff McDuffee (and I for that matter) have zero monetary assets to speak of. Additionally, if Harris does actually bring suit against Duff, we will do everything in our power to make it as public as possible. This publicity would negate the whole point of a defamation lawsuit in the first place, the preservation of the “public image” that Harris’ seemingly holds so near and dear. Finally, Harris will have to prove in the court of law that he does not use manipulative marketing techniques and that his “holosync” program does exactly what he says it does. We are confident that Harris would not be able to prove either of these things in any manner enough to satisfy a federal judge.

If you follow the link above and read the comments to Eric's post, you'll see that Duff has a lot of supporters (as well as a persistent detractor or two). And if you follow this link, you'll see what Salty Droid has to say, in his own inimitable way, about Bill Harris' lame attempt to silence Duff. And do follow that link. Salty Droid is always a fun read, and his Photoshopping is hilarious.

Speaking of someone who has been on the Droid's radar (and mine, too, for nearly three years), Aussie Secret star David Schirmer is a legal saber-rattler too. In March of 2009 David, who has been accused of and is apparently still being investigated for various wrongdoings in Oz, effectively put a chill on some of his critics on Twitter by threatening to sic "a top defamation barrister" on them. They took their critical Tweets down and issued identical apology Tweets: “I unreservedly apologise for posting any tweets directed towards @davidschirmer that have been proved wrong." Some even canceled their Twitter accounts.

I've heard that other New-Wage gurus have been issuing legal threats as well, though I'm not at liberty to share details right now.

Certainly the gurus have a right to protect their own interests, and if someone is deliberately spreading lies about them they have a right to act. And certainly bloggers have a responsibility to both their readers and their subjects to be as accurate as possible when reporting facts. (Opinion and satire are other matters entirely.) But if you're a New-Wage guru, hollering "Defamation!" whenever a critical blogger calls you a name or criticizes your product doesn't serve anyone except the lawyers, and it makes you look like a doofus.

Yet there has been a concerted effort of late to silence the critics. Well, guys (and gals), it's too late; the word is out. The critics have your number. Silence one, and three more will pop up.

Okay, we're back to talking about me now.
As for me, my Whirled just keeps turning. It has been a contentious few weeks in my corner of the blogosphere, but ya know what? I'm grateful for all of it, because it has given me yet another opportunity to re-examine my beliefs (or lack thereof), as well as my motives. Yes, really. I'm not so arrogant as to believe that there aren't lessons for me everywhere. Smart people learn more from critics than from the folks who love them, after all. I have actually mulled over the question of whether I do indeed create value, a question we all need to ask ourselves at various times in our lives. However, I was reminded once again, even as I was mulling, that "value" is in many ways a subjective judgment – which, as it happens, was one defense of the self-help industry offered by the very guy who told Ron and me that we are incapable of creating anything of value.

The various discussions have also given me another opportunity to think about whether I really am suffering from cognitive dissonance, something I've pondered at different times for many years, since long before I even knew what a blog was. And yes, sometimes I do feel conflicted about seemingly contradictory things in my life. Most of us do, if we're honest. I've sometimes wondered if I am being a little dishonest by working with self-help or spiritual or inspirational authors, when I snark so much about the culture from which they spring. Yet the truth is that I do enjoy some books in these genres, and most of the clients we have dealt with have been genuinely nice people who seem to want to help others. I make no attempt to hide my hobby blog from anyone, and you could say it serves as a screening device to help weed out the types of clients who would not be a good match for Ron and me. (I should add that Ron and I have turned away many more projects in this genre than we've accepted.)****

For the most part, I'm pretty comfortable with having mixed feelings about lots of things and few pat answers for anything.

Finally, the discussions in which I've been involved have served as a reminder to me that I do not always err on the side of kindness, empathy, or "mindfulness" (which, let's face it, means different things to different people, whether or not they are schooled in mindfulness meditation or whatever). It occurs to me that perhaps some of the people I've snarked about simply got their feelings hurt by my snarking, and maybe that's what their real issue is. That said, I cannot promise at this point to set a new course for kindness and gentleness. I sometimes feel I am being too kind anyway, and that I am wisely erring on the side of restraint if not kindness. And, obviously, when people end up dead, injured or scammed because of some New-Wage guru, kindness and gentleness towards that guru are not the first priority. Everyone deserves compassion, but I guess I'm not enough of an evolved being to have as much sympathy and empathy for James Ray at this point as I do for the families who had to deal with newly empty places at their holiday tables this year.

However, where my own snarks about certain subjects are concerned, I have taken the time to consider the hurt-feelings factor. Let's just say I'm taking it under advisement.

I'm wondering if some of the snargets and "critic watchers," or their followers, have been using these online discussions as opportunities to re-examine their own motives and practices. No doubt several of their recent blog posts were influenced by these conflicts as well as by the growing wave of criticism in the larger world. It's far more likely, however, that the conflicts have only strengthened the snargets' resolve to keep on doing what they're doing, and believing what they're believing. That's what it's looking like to me right now, based upon various Tweets and blog posts I've glanced at recently.

I am sure that to a certain degree all of us who were either involved in or have witnessed these recent conflicts have used the experience to justify our respective choices to think and do whatever it is we're thinking and doing. Some would call it rationalization. Whatever you call it, it seems to be what we human animals do, more often than not, in order to keep ourselves marginally sane in an insane world. I'm not excusing it, just stating an observation. Besides, I often suspect that we're all just fooling ourselves about being even marginally sane.

However it all plays out in the year to come, I hope all of you are having a happy holiday and that your new year is just grand – and that even goes for those of you who don't like me. To my friends on the road, and you know who you are, I wish you a safe trip and a joyful arrival at your destination. To those who like me, thank you for the support. To those who don't like me, thank you for the lessons.

And to all of you... hey, you're welcome.

PS ~The links below might provide a little more insight into the "incoherence" of your hostess. Those of you who have been with me a while have no doubt read all of these posts, but those who are fairly new might want to take a look at some of them. I'm thinking I should incorporate some of the points in the posts into a FAQ page for this blog.

• My backstory, and I'm sticking to it: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-i-got-so-cosmic-or-not.html (this one also has links to some older pieces I wrote that may provide more insight)
  
• In which The Snark gets all squishy and introspective at Yuletide: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2006/12/yule-blog.html
• Taking some of those Yule thoughts a few steps further: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2007/03/chopra-secret-and-unenchanted-world.html (this was written at the height of The Secret's popularity)

And here are a couple of posts about some of the criticism I've received from different fronts in the war between belief and disbelief. As I mentioned above, I've since worked out my differences with Skeptico, the guy in the "not-so-skepchick" post. However, after a brief email exchange, I never heard back from the "hell hath no fury" correspondent. I either shook up his world or set him more firmly on the path he was already on. Either way, I am confident I provided value for him.

• Some critical thinkers take me to task: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2007/02/confessions-of-not-so-skepchick.html
• A believer takes me to task: http://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2009/03/hell-hath-no-fury.html

* Re Minor Snarget and Major Snarget: Again, this is not a value judgment. The monikers are simply an allusion to the fact that I have snarked about one of these gentlemen much more frequently than the other guy.
** I should note that Angry Blogger is not representative of skeptics in general (and, by his own admission, has been banned from some skeptical forums). I simply consider him to be an extreme case of anti-New-Wage sentiment.
*** Some might think that when listing critics I am overlooking Barbara Ehrenreich, whose recent book, Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, had a few New-Wage gurus and their followers up in arms. Many dismissed the book as the work of someone who has lots of rage issues, and some even suggested that was why she contracted cancer. I am definitely a fan of Ehrenreich's work and I enjoy her blog, but I didn't list her with the others because she doesn't confine her commentary to New-Wage/selfish-help matters. (Of course it could be argued that Orac doesn't either, but he has discussed some of the New-Wage gurus, such as Deepak Chopra, at length, so I included him on the list.)
**** I was a writer, editor and author's advocate before I was a snarky blogger, and believe it or not, I even tried to be an author's advocate of sorts for Major Snarget when I noticed a borderline-insulting author's biography on the web site of the publisher of one of his recent books. It was lifted straight from a particularly unflattering incarnation of the man's now-defunct Wikipedia page. Why would a publisher allow such a thing? I wondered. Does this publisher or his webmaster dislike Major Snarg that much? Since Major Snarg had put me on his spam blocker, I couldn't send an email to him, so I sent one to his assistant. There was no response so I sent another one. There was still no response, and the entry stayed on the web site for several more weeks. Finally I sent an email to someone else in Major Snarg's circle of influence, and the entry was corrected not long after.

I'm still here...I'm just in a holidaze

I just wanted to pop in on this merry Christmas Eve and let you know, in case you were concerned, that my Whirled is still turning. Yes, it's been nearly three weeks since I've posted, and right now I am kind of preoccupied with some holiday-ish stuff, but don't worry, I haven't forgotten you, Dear Ones. I hope all of you are having a delightful holiday, and I'll be back soon... perhaps even as early as Boxing Day.

Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible

"I have free rein. I can sell whatever I want because I'm protected by the First Amendment. I can sell a book that says the moon is made of cheese, and it should be protected by the First Amendment."
~Kevin Trudeau, quoted on Mitch Lipka's WalletPop blog

Note: I have modified part of this post slightly since I first published it on December 4. In this piece I quote from the sales pages for Kevin Trudeau's "Your Wish Is Your Command" CD set, but some of the copy on the pages has changed in the two weeks since I first wrote the piece. Some of the items I quoted are no longer on the pages. But trust me, I didn't make them up. Just to make things easier, I'll write my annotations about the changing ad copy in this pretty color. And I might as well add this little disclaimer now: All of the sales copy I quote in this piece is subject to change, as is everything on the Interwebs. I cannot guarantee that it will still be there as I quoted it by the time you follow the links, should you choose to do so.
~CC, 18 December 2009

Kevin Trudeau's stories just keep getting better and better. So you thought that Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale's various versions of his success story were entertaining? Well, Joe has nothing on True-dough, who recently revealed to Mr. Fire and friends at a private dinner in Wimberley, Texas, that the real secret to True-dough's success is his membership in... are you ready for this?....a secret society called The Brotherhood. (This may or may not be The Brotherhood Kevin is talking about. I'm too lazy to really research it. But that's not the main point of this piece anyway.)

I have to wonder what True-dough will come up with next: perhaps the revelation that he has been receiving coded messages from the Pleiades since he was a child? Or that he discovered a lost tribe of sparkly blue people during his world travels, and they are the ones who truly possess the wisdom of the ages, which they taught to him and him alone? (He can always accuse James Cameron of stealing his idea.) Or maybe the startling confession that when he was in prison in the 1990s, someone slipped him some ancient secret scrolls from the Lemurians who dwell beneath Mount Shasta? (Actually, when he was in prison he did meet a guy, a former cocaine dealer named Jules Lieb, who became a joint-venture partner with him after the two men got out of da joint. Said JV was a company called Nutrition for Life, for which he and Jules were later sued by the State of Illinois for operating an illegal pyramid scheme.)

Actually, True-dough has been telling some form of the "secret society" tale for a few years now, at least since 2006 if not before, as evidenced on this piece on Dr. Stephen Barrett's Quackwatch site. But it was only recently that True-dough revealed his secret society connections to Mr. Fire, who then eagerly shared it with his mailing list.

Anyway, I digress. The story True-dough tells really doesn't matter any more. He clearly believes that from a First-Amendment standpoint it doesn't matter if he tells the truth or not, and from a marketing standpoint "truth" is apparently even less important. It appears that no matter how outrageous his tales become, people will still line up to give him their money. And he knows it.

Increasingly, lesser but endlessly ambitious hustledorks are grabbing on to his coattails as well, hoping to get a huge piece of a half-baked but nevertheless heartily substantial pie. Regarding True-dough's present big scheme, well, don't say you didn't see this one coming. I know I did, as far back as January of this year, and then again in July. And by late November, the signs were unmistakable (okay, on those last two links you'll have to scroll down a little to get to the truly relevant part). Then just yesterday, the aforementioned Joe Vitale sent a breathlessly excited message to his email list.*

From: Joe Vitale
Date: Thu, Dec 3, 2009
Subject: Learn the Law of Attraction secrets "they" don't want you to know

Over the past few months, I've been getting to know bestselling author and marketing legend Kevin Trudeau.

You've probably seen his famous infomercials for his books, including Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About, More Natural Cures Revealed, Debt Cures, and The Weight Loss Cure. He is also a multimillionaire who started from scratch.

Recently we got together for dinner here in Wimberley, TX at my private club, and I asked him how he became so wealthy and successful at such a young age - in such a short amount of time. (I was not going to let this opportunity pass me by without draining him of every bit of knowledge I could get out of him.)

What he said next almost floored me. He said, and I quote, "I follow a set of success secrets I learned at a young age while I was in a secret society called 'The Brotherhood.' Once I learned these success secrets, the law of attraction started working for me. These are secrets that are not available to the general public."

I was wide-eyed at hearing this.

Now, if you've been reading Joe's stuff for any length of time, you know that he's quite often wide-eyed, astonished, riveted, hypnotized, floored, or similarly overwrought, and on more than one occasion has gotten so excited over a product or a person that his hands shake. He's a pretty excitable guy overall, almost pathologically so, and his livelihood depends upon his infecting his followers with that pathology as well.

But this time...wow. This. Is. Beyond. Exciting.

What is truly exciting about it from Joe's perspective (and interesting from my own perspective) is that it represents a further fusion of the New-Wage/McSpirituality bidness and traditional hucksterism. True-dough really seems to be attempting to bring Joe into his schemes, and Joe is only too glad to be a part of it all. Using one of his favorite copywriting tools, the bulleted list, he explains the allure of Kevin's secrets.

Kevin said these secrets are so powerful, that he used them to attract:

• Billions of dollars
• His mega successful businesses
• All his homes and cars
• A healthy energetic body
• Multiple worldwide travels
• Celebrities and business mogul friends
• A fabulous romantic loving relationship

And much more!

Well, I can create bulleted lists too, and here are some items Joe forgot to add to the list of things Kevin has attracted:

• Convictions and a Federal prison sentence for larceny and credit card fraud
• Millions and millions of dollars in fines for deceptive trade practices and violation of court orders
• Hundreds upon hundreds of consumer complaints for his dodgy business practices (this being just one of many links)
• A ban on his TV infomercials (except for selling his books, as long as he doesn't misrepresent the material therein) through 2011
• The wrath of numerous participants who didn't get paid after his 2006 International Pool Tour event, which, according to a piece in the New York Times, had a crushing effect on the pool community as a whole
• Thousands of adoring fans who apparently possess the IQ of a pool cue but have valid credit cards

But never mind all that. I'm sure Kevin himself would say that it's all good for business, especially that last item. And indeed, he has long used his battles with the government as a marketing tool, as I've noted here before.

Excitedly, Joe continues in his email message:

[Kevin] then told me that he recently started doing something he's never done before ---- teaching a select few people the money attracting and success secrets he learned from "The Brotherhood" and other secret societies.

These are the exact same secrets only known by world leaders, celebrities, business leaders, royal families and other secret society members.

These are money attracting secrets that have never been told before - until now.

Next he reached into his briefcase and gave me a gift - a bottle of reusable laxative pills.

Ha, ha, just kidding about those reusable laxative pills. That's another story. What True-dough really gave Mr. Fire was...

...a set of his 14-CD program new called -"Your Wish Is Your Command". [link provided]

The program comes in two parts.

1. Your Wish Is Your Command/How To Manifest Your Desires
2. How Anyone Can Make Millions/The Money Making Secrets "They" Don't Want You To Know About

Kevin told me that "Your Wish Is Your Command" contains a 2-day weekend lecture he gave a few months ago to an invitation-only audience. Each attendee paid over $11,000 to attend and hear these secrets. (!)

I took the program home and listened to all 14 CDs over the next few days. I took pages and pages of notes and learned money making technique after money making technique. Techniques I never heard before or even knew existed. And the beauty is that not only do you learn the secrets - you will also hear Kevin's amazing rags to riches story - AND you will learn ALL of his money attracting secrets (which he will walk you through step-by-step). Secrets never released before to the general public.

Once you know these closely guarded secrets, you too can learn to become a millionaire, improve your health, experience quality business & personal relationships, influence others, and live the life you've only dreamed of.

I don't want to give away too much here as it is better that you hear all about "Your Wish Is Your Command" directly from Kevin.

To learn more about "Your Wish Is Your Command" and get it for a ridiculously low price, go here -- [link provided again]

Love,
Joe

Oh, my, yes, you can just feel the love from Joe. But Kevin is full of love too, and in case you have any doubt whatsoever about his altruistic motives, here's Joe again:

PS - Kevin is making these money attracting secrets available to you for next to nothing compared to what they're worth. I mean seriously next to nothing! He's also only releasing a limited amount of Your Wish Is Your Command programs. So see below to learn more -- [link provided yet again]

PPS - Kevin will also give you a personal invitation to join him in a "member only" wealth club that could allow you to personally meet and be mentored by some of the most successful people in the world. Don't miss this once in a lifetime oppourtunity [sic].
[link provided once again (in keeping with Mr. Fire's hypnotic formula of repeating a link several times within a message)]

So what's in it for Joe? Rest assured that he has no interest in the scheme whatsoever.

Note: I'm not in business with Kevin and I'm not an affiliate for his program, but I *do* personally endorse his audio cds. Get them.

Not in business with True-dough? Uh-huh.

Now, I don't know much about Internet marketing or affiliate programs, but each of those links Joe provided in his email contain an extension that I'm guessing is an identifier telling Kevin that the person was referred by Joe. If you leave off the extension entirely, you'll get to a similar but not identical page [I previously wrote that you will get to the same page, but that was incorrect.] So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Joe is getting some sort of consideration for driving traffic to Kevin's site. Moreover, if I know anything about Joe's M.O., he doesn't do a mass mailing unless there is something in it for him. Maybe his working relationship with Kevin is structured in such a way that Joe can truthfully say that he's not technically "in business" with Kevin, but how stupid does he think we are? Perhaps he's telling the truth about not being a direct affiliate in the CD scheme, but I'm willing to bet that Joe does have a pretty big stake in the scheme for which the CD set is an upsell (more on that momentarily). Or at the very least, Kevin has led Joe to believe he's going to reap a multitude of benefits from said scheme. I have the strong sense that Kevin is going to make even more money on this one than he already has, and Joe...well, not so much.

Even in the short term, it appears that Kevin made money merely from attending that dinner at Joe's "private club" (that would be the Vitale Cigar Bar) in Wimberley. (I can imagine Kevin paraphrasing Joe's email: "I was not going to let this opportunity go by without draining these gullible tools of every bit of scratch I could get out of them.") Here's Joe's buddy Pat O'Bryan, waxing enthusiastic on his blog about that historic session with True-dough (Pat shot a video of the momentous occasion):

In this video, Kevin talks about what he’s learned. Some of it is pretty mind-bending. Some of it I flat out don’t believe. Some… well, I’ve made a couple of purchases since this dinner. Everybody I’ve talked to who was there has changed something about their lives -- either added supplements, changed diet, or ordered an e-pendant. I did all three.

An e-pendant to go with your Russian Wish Dolly, Pat... that's great.**

Okay, so what is this "Your Wish Is Your Command" program, and how much is it going to cost you, since you're not Joe Vitale and probably will not be able to get it for free? Well, let's discuss cost first. You can get it for one payment of only $299.00, or ten easy payments of $39.95 each. That's a heck of a deal, especially when you consider what "Your Wish Is Your Command" really is at its core: an elaborate upsell scheme that will give you an unprecedented opportunity to spend even more money by joining True-dough's Global Information Network (GIN) scheme, as previously discussed here on this very Whirled. See, Joe isn't the only one who can repeat links.

Just for good measure, here's that Whirled link again. Hypnotic, yes?

But I've teased you long enough, and that's not very hypnotic. Here is the link that will lead you to the CD set revealing the secrets that Kevin himself learned in The Brotherhood. That is the link to the main sales page. (There's an affiliate version as well; type in /010 or /012 at the end of the previous link and you'll get to it.)

On both pages Kevin mentions an exclusive workshop he held in the Swiss Alps, an event for which he says 100 folks paid upwards of $10,000 apiece to attend. On one page he describes it as an event "that changed the entire landscape of success and how to achieve literally anything in life."

When the fireworks were over and the dust had settled just 2 days later, every person agreed that it was the most epic two days of their lives.

They all agreed that what they paid to attend the event paled in comparison to what the information they gleaned during those two days would do in their lives. (You can read their rabid testimonials further down on this page.)

Rabid? Well, that explains a lot.

Okay, now, that whole "rabid" bit is one example of what I mentioned in my little prelude above. It's no longer on either version of the sales page, as far as I can see.

Anyway, so far on that page there are only a few testimonials, and as far as I can tell these are from people who listened to the CD set, not folks who supposedly attended that exclusive summit in the Alps.

The above is another item that has apparently changed. On the main sales page (the one without the affiliate extension), there are now quite a few "testimonials" in a section under the header, "Here's what some of the attendees said." As there is no mention of the CD set in this section, these testimonials are all presumably from people who attended that exclusive $10,000 or $11,000 (or however much it was) event in the Alps. The testimonials (which have no attributions) mention such things as, “I used the technique taught and put REAL cash in my pocket in 24 hours!!” and “I would have paid 1 million dollars for this knowledge! I own a business and with this information my profits will go up 100 fold this year! In the first week I have already increased my profits over $50,000!”

Is it just me, or does that sound kind of small-time for people who can afford to attend an exclusive event in the Swiss Alps, taught by Kevin and a few big international tycoons and such?

But the important point is that Kevin does indeed go on a bit about secret societies, 'splainin':

For more than 30 years, I’ve been lucky enough to be a member of one such secret society. The ultra-secretive “Brotherhood” society. It’s [sic] members include some of the most successful people on the planet. They’re all mega-millionaires…billionaires…high-level government officials…heads of entire countries…33rd degree Freemasons (the highest ranking of all masons)…captains of industry (Andrew Carnegie and Aristotle Onassis were members of The Brotherhood)…and believe it or not, even members of Royal families.

And here we have yet another example of changing sales copy. If you read the copy above – which I swear was on one version of the sales page when I first wrote this – you would think that Kevin has been a member of The Brotherhood for thirty years and is still a member. Since he is only 46 (having been born in February of 1963), that would mean that he has been a member of this secret society since he was sixteen. This would mean that he was a member of The Brotherhood when he was all down and out, when he was unhappy, when he was going through hard times, when he was convicted of fraud and imprisoned for two years, and so on. This would not exactly be consistent with the story he now tells on the sales page, which is that when he was younger, he was approached and invited to become a member of The Brotherhood, and he became a member, and once he became a member his luck changed almost overnight.

Frankly, I am having a little trouble keeping his stories straight, and so, apparently, is he. Or maybe he just has some copywriting challenges. As I noted above, however, the story really doesn't seem to matter. What matters is his sheer genius, which became apparent to him soon after he joined The Brotherhood, and which he modestly describes for us:

I studied and learned the secrets (ONLY available to members) with more passion than anyone ever had in their history! It turned out I was gifted with the unique ability, much like Einstein, at “crunching” or simplifying complex concepts and making them easy to understand and apply. I totally integrated the “secrets” into my whole being and life! I APPLIED and USED this powerful, never before published, knowledge in my own REAL LIFE!

By the way, on the main sales page Kevin now promises that he will explain why he was chosen for The Brotherhood, and why he chose to leave the 'Hood.

Remember, I WAS a member of the “Brotherhood” secret society! I am NO LONGER a member! I LEFT! NOBODY has EVER left the society! NO ONE has EVER shared their secrets! Many powerful people are FURIOUS that I am exposing and revealing the SECRETS of one of the most powerful secret societies of all time! (Again, I’ll tell you why I left later.)

Well, I sure was interested in hearing that story. But I scanned the copy and couldn't find either an explanation of why he was invited in the first place or an explanation of why he left. In all fairness, he didn't specify how much later he would 'splain. Perhaps his copywriters are still working on that part of the tale.

Of note, Kevin also throws the majority of New-Wage/selfish-help authors under the bus, referring to the classics and bestsellers in the genre as "the Amazon.com list of shame":

You may have even heard about bestselling books like The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, Ask and It is Given, Rich Dad Poor Dad and others that promise to teach you how to make millions, be happy, and manifest all your desires. They have been talked about on Oprah, CNN, NBC, The Today Show, and written about in Time Magazine, The New York Times and hundreds of other publications. Major celebrities, famous billionaires, and members of Royal Families (all members of secret societies) have admitted to using the information in these books to achieve riches and fame. Please!

These books are good, but all of them miss the most important secret key ingredient that makes the information REALLY work FAST. This is why people never get the results they seek.

All of these books miss one thing that has been PURPOSELY OMITTED – and this key ingredient makes all the difference.

To prove my point, just type “personal success” into Amazon.com and you’ll find thousands of books written on how to make/attract more money or how to be a success in every area of your life. 99.9% of these people are usually copying other people’s information or writing useless theories. Most of these author’s lives are in shambles and they have no money to speak of. And I know this is a fact because I know many of them!

THESE SO-CALLED GURUS ARE RIPPING PEOPLE OFF – perhaps it even happened to you. They are crushing the hopes, dreams and goals of millions of people. I know this is true because I’ve been there. I read all the popular success and money making books – I attended all the latest and greatest get-rich-quick seminars. And you know what? None of them did me any good. Why? Because I was being taught the wrong information by the wrong people. Information gathered by people from other people with bad information. I’ve never seen two wrongs make a right and I’m sure you haven’t either.

Once I finally learned the right information from the Brotherhood, billionaires, the politically elite, captains of industry and the members of the Illuminati, Freemasons, The Skull and Bones and other secret societies, I cracked the success code.

And now I live an exciting, fun and free life filled with financial wealth and happiness.

In case you are still not convinced and are prepared to dismiss the copy as mere hype, Kevin begs you, for your own good, to reconsider.

Please do not discount what I’m saying here. The strategies I revealed at this groundbreaking event are absolutely not theory. They’ve worked unfailingly for the thousands of lucky members in these secret societies. They’ve worked unfailingly in my life.

I went from a defeated, unsuccessful, high school dropout with more than $100,000 in credit card debts to living in some of the most affluent communities in the world. I’ve driven expensive cars like Rolls Royce‘s, Bentley’s and Ferrari‘s. I own a number of different, wildly successful businesses that routinely make tens of millions of dollars for me year in and year out.

These strategies worked for me…they’ve worked for the billionaire friends I brought along to teach their words of wisdom at the event…they’ve worked for untold thousands of members who huddle together in secret societies like the Skull and Bones…The Brotherhood…The Freemasons…and others. And they will work unfailingly for you, too.

The PS on the page will sound pretty familiar to anyone who has read Joe Vitale's sales copy:

PS -- What if I’m right? What if this time next year your dreams of wealth, health, success, and personal happiness and bliss have come true? Getting your hands on this breakthrough material will have been the smartest move you’ve ever made, right?

Shades of "What if it works?" Geez, all of these hypnotic copywriters sure do write hypnotically, don't they? I guess that's why they make the big bucks.

Once again: disappeared...poof! I can't find that darned PS on either version of the page now. Go figure.

A few other items of note on Kevin's main sales page. In one portion he has a list of the incredible things that happened once he applied what he calls the "5 second miracle," which, of course, he learned from The Brotherhood, and will teach you too, for a price. He said that things began to turn around for him almost overnight. Within days, he was dating beautiful sexy women. He soon got out of debt, and started making more money than he could ever have dreamed, and he got really healthy and lost weight, and had luxury cars and homes, and began traveling, and heck, was just "living a stress-free, magical life!" And here are some other things that started happening to him:

I could even begin seeing the future and started predicting events with uncanny accuracy!

I also felt he [sic] could “read minds” and felt totally in control of all situations and people.

My confidence was at an all time high and I had no fear in my life!

I have since made MILLIONS and have enjoyed a lifestyle that most people could not even imagine.

Notice that third-person pronoun in the second item? Either Kevin is having a multiple-personality experience, or he's talking about someone else, or his copywriters forgot to edit the copy they lifted from elsewhere. Tsk, tsk. Well, I imagine that copy will change too, as soon as his people get around to reading this blog post.

The major theme running through the "Your Wish Is Your Command" gimmick, and for that matter all of Kevin's body of work over the past fifteen years or so, is that there is a wealth of information out there, but "the elite" (or big government or big Pharma or Western medicine or what have you) are all deliberately withholding this info from the masses in order to keep them in a subservient role. As we know, this marketing strategy worked for Rhonda Byrne, having formed the bedrock of the promotions for The Secret, but Kevin's mastery of the forbidden-information angle puts Rhonda's puny little efforts to shame.

The forbidden-info theme has been embraced not only in the New-Wage bidness that Kevin reviles on one hand but exploits on the other, but on various wingnutty forums as well, such as that of radio host Alex Jones, another one of True-dough's b.f.f.'s. The following is from an article not written by Jones, but appearing on his web site:

Billionaire entrepreneur Kevin Trudeau, who has been constantly harassed and sued by the FTC for promoting alternative health treatments, told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that elitists and Bilderberg members who he had personally conversed with spoke of their desire to see “two thirds of the dumb people” wiped off the planet...

...Trudeau shockingly detailed conversations with elitists during which they brazenly admitted their desire for massive global population reduction.

“I’ve been sitting on the boats off the coast of Barbados with the guys who basically said we need to get two-thirds of the dumb people off the planet – I’ve been in the meetings,” said Trudeau, adding that such words were not spoken in an evil manner, but in a “matter of fact” way under the pretext that such a thing would be for the good of planet earth.

Revealingly, Trudeau said that elitists see Alex Jones as an annoyance but tolerate him because they believe Jones as well as Trudeau himself are, “desensitizing people to these realities,” – which in a way works to their benefit.

“I’ve been told that’s why I still get invited on the yachts,” added Trudeau.

Kevin, of course, is fiercely fighting the elitists' plans to eliminate dumb people, knowing that he has to protect and preserve his customer base. I imagine this is mighty reassuring to the dumb or the merely gullible, but even more compelling is Kevin's reassurance that despite the claims of the naysayers (Duff McDuffee, for example), anyone can "have it all":

Well, here’s good news. You can have it all. You can live in a beautiful home in an affluent community. You can drive the car of your dreams. You can wear expensive, stylish clothes. You can be tearfully happy. You can be the rich and successful person God intended you to be. In short, you can live your life…on your terms! You can have, be, or do whatever your heart desires.

How? By getting your hands on the recordings of the blockbusting event I held in Switzerland…

Now, even assuming that Kevin's motives are altruistic (stop snickering and work with me here for a moment, okay?), let's take a look at what he says on the site for his really BIG scheme, the Global Information Network, or GIN. If you didn't follow the links to that site in my previous post about this scheme, do so now. On the "Who We Are" page, Trudeau notes:

The Creed of the Global Information Network is:

• Every person on earth has the right to know all the knowledge available on planet earth
• Every person on earth has the right to pursue happiness
• Every person on earth has the right to be free to pursue his own dreams, goals, and desires
• Every person on earth has the right to know ALL the methods of curing and preventing disease and have dynamic vibrant health.
• Every person on earth has the right to know how to use their mind to create and manifest in their lives whatever they choose
• Every person on earth has the right to privacy from all governments and corporate entities
• Every person on earth has the right to be happy, secure, safe, and fulfilled as a human being
• Every person on earth has the same importance as every other person
• Every person on earth can have, be or do anything they desire
• The privileged elite class has NO right to hide the truth from the masses and keep them as virtual slaves
• Freedom of speech, freedom to express ideas, opinions, and what individuals believe to be statements of fact even if it is against worldwide consensus should never be impeded.

And then there's this...

The Global Information Network’s goal is to be the worldwide communication center that will spread previously secret and hidden knowledge that has been used by the ruling classes to keep the world uninformed, full of fear, impoverished and enslaved.

By educating the world with this secret data, The Global Information Network hopes to empower people to have, be or do everything and anything they desire. By doing so, happiness will increase, fear will fall away, people will become more prosperous than ever before, poverty, slavery, and despair will begin to vanish from the planet and violence and wars will cease to exist on planet earth.

I have one question: If everyone on the planet has the right to this information, and every person on earth has the same importance as every other person...well, since it's clear that not everyone can afford to join GIN and climb the ranks of membership, why doesn't Kevin just make all of the information freely available to everyone, with no membership levels, no fees, no sign-ups? Why doesn't he simply publish all of that information on an easily accessible web site? Why create an "elite" group at all? After all, he's said himself that he doesn't need any more money because he already has plenty.

While you're pondering that question, here's another: Just how much does it cost to be a member of Kevin's exclusive group? That one I can answer ...well, sort of. Check out the "Levels of Membership" page, if you've not done so already. There are twelve levels of membership, starting with Level 1. To be a Level 1 member requires a $1,000 "initiation fee," with $150 monthly dues. For that you get "Access to Membership Level 1 sections of the GIN web site." Other benefits are "classified." As for the remaining eleven levels, both the costs and benefits are listed as "classified."

How do you make money as a GIN member, possibly enabling you to live the life of luxury Kevin himself brags about? I quoted and linked to this page on my previous GIN post, but here 'tis again.

For everyone you get to join GIN as a member, or another way of saying it, for everyone you get to buy a membership in GIN, you are paid $200 commission. If you get just 5 people to join GIN as a member, you make $1000. That covers your initial membership dues. If you get 10 people to join GIN as a member, you make $2000. If you get 100 people to join GIN as a member you make $20,000. Anytime and every time you get someone to become a member in GIN you earn $200 commission. Because of the experts that are behind the GIN opportunity and their unparalleled successful track record generating over 100 Billion dollars in sales worldwide, we have insider marketing secrets using the internet and mass media marketing that can help you to potentially get many people to join as new GIN members. WE will provide you with all the secrets that can teach you how some members have signed up as many as 1000 new GIN members in just 60 days earning over $400,000 in just 60 days!

With the power of our specialized and proprietary marketing techniques, you could be earning thousands of dollars a month on this single bonus!

But that is just the beginning. Every person you sign up or “sponsor” is “tagged” to you, and has the same commission plan as you and all the same incentives and money making opportunities. The people you sign up or sponsor want to make money too! They will be taught how THEY can go and sell memberships, sponsor, or sign people up as members in GIN. When they sign up a new member or sell a membership they of course make their $200 commission just as you did when you signed up a new GIN member, but YOU ALSO get $200 on all the new members THEY get to join GIN!

Is this a pyramid scheme? Who cares? The point is probably moot anyway, since GIN is a company based on the West Indies isle of Nevis, presumably beyond the bounds of US law. (And do follow that link in the previous sentence; it will give you much more insight about Nevis as a business paradise than I am providing here.) More importantly for Kevin, there are probably boatloads of folks whose eyes will be on the imagined prize, and they won't care about those picky little details.

But fear not: there's still hope for the human race. When it comes to True-dough, there are plenty of doubters (I know, I know, he welcomes the controversy). Look at some of the comments on this discussion that took place in March 2009 on one of his own forums, apparently in relation to a mail-out advertising that famous "new" CD set he Joe Vitale is now pushing. (If it's not the same set, it nonetheless makes use of the "Secret Brotherhood" motif and apparently costs the same as that set.)

And, of course, scads of bloggers are doubters as well, such as Stupid Evil Bastard.

These are all well and good, but I'm thinking that maybe it's time for a parody of that dinner in Wimberley, on the order of this small classic, which I've also linked to previously but loved it so much that I am linking to it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5tIfJPFS0

I don't know about you, but while True-dough wrings every bit of profit he can from the Secret Brotherhood theme, I am eagerly awaiting his next tall tale. Maybe he can hire me to make something up for him. I am pretty creative, and the same rich mines of inspiration that nourish this blog could certainly enrich Kevin's ad copy. Meanwhile, you'll have to excuse me. It's time for me to prepare for a private meeting of the Secret Society of Snarky Bloggers and Knowledgeable Informants. There's a lot brewing, more than I could possibly tell you in one post... but I'm going to make you wait for it.

PS ~ While you're waiting, if you want to kill some time on a blog written by someone who knows a lot more about Internet marketing and Internet marketers than I do, pay a visit to Salty Droid's blog. The language is not for those with delicate sensibilities, but if you don't have a problem with that, you'll have a good time with SD, who is on a mission to expose the scams and the scammers.

PPS ~ And on a related note, here's a great article about Internet "gurus" and the law, as well as an article from the same site that illuminates "pig sty marketing." My only complaint re the latter is that it sort of insults the pig, an animal I've grown rather fond of since I've been living out in the sticks. (Thanks to Burned By Fire for the Tweets leading me to these).

PPPS ~ Okay, I see the GoogleAd at the top of this post. Not my doing; blame the Adbots.

PPPPS ~ Speaking of entertaining tales, a friend reminded me of some information about Kevin True-dough that I had linked to in a previous post but that I think bears linking to again. First, here's a 2005 article about how True-dough got started on a path of crime (I mean, "mistakes"). Good golly, it seems that it all had to do with his being adopted and his adoptive parents not being completely forthright with him about it. Second, there is a 12-page "Smoking Gun" piece entitled, "Would You Buy A Used Cure From This Man?" It's quite revealing. What I found most interesting: A three-page April 1991 letter from a psychiatrist pleading True-dough's case to the authorities (here's the link to page 1; each page has its own link). The letter features classic shrink-rap rationalizations such as: "Mr. Trudeau's drive to succeed has been so intense that it has on numerous occasions impaired his judgment," and "His offenses have stemmed from an inappropriate urgency to succeed..." Another classic: a six-page missive from Mama, pleading leniency (and again, here's the link to the first page of that letter).

Am I the only one in the room who has an urge to break out singing, "Gee, Officer Krupke" from West Side Story? (Lyrics here, if you don't want to watch the vid.) That last line in particular seems to mirror True-dough's own attitude towards the authorities that have tried to squelch his ambitions.

PPPPPS ~ This December 14 post on the AlterNet blog does a good job of 'splainin' our perennial fascination with "secret societies."

* Thank you to several alert readers who sent me the heads-up on Mr. Fire's latest True-dough email. By the way, Joe also published a blog post entitled "Kevin Trudeau's Secret Wish" on the same day he sent the email. And as it happens, Joe kind of answers the question I asked above, regarding why Kevin is charging for the Secret Information that everyone supposedly has an inborn right to possess, instead of just making it freely accessible on the Internet. Joe 'splains it thusly: "He's committed to making a difference in the world. He wants to make a profit while doing so, but that's the entrepreneurial mindset." Okey-dokey, now I understand. By the way, the meta-tag title on Joe's blog post (the title that appears at the top of the screen) is, "The Kevin Trudeau They Don't Want You To Know." Of course, this is a play on several of True-dough's book titles, but more than that, it is also an implication that the big bad "They" don't want you to know that in truth Kevin True-dough is a passionate, sincere man who only wants to help make this old world a better place.
** Okay, I don't know for certain if Kevin benefited directly from sales of the E-pendant or, for that matter, any of the supplements that the attendees at the private dinner felt inspired to begin taking. I just suspect that because Kevin is involved in numerous companies, and seems to have very specific recommendations for just about anything that ails you, it's highly plausible that he would indeed benefit in some way when people follow his recommendations. It appears to me that, like Joe Vitale, he rarely does anything unless there's something in it for him.

Thank you

I've used the above picture on a previous post here, but I'm using it again because...well...I think it pretty much says it all. It's a nod not only to my favorite scene in one of my very favorite movies of all times, Joe Versus The Volcano (which celebrates its 20th anniversary next year), but also to what I think Thanksgiving Day is all about. And even if you don't happen to live in a country that celebrates the holiday, I hope you always find something to be thankful about. And I want you to know that I am truly thankful for each and every one of you– those who love this blog, and, yes, even those who aren't so fond of it. (And I think some of you who aren't so fond should be thankful for me as well. You're getting a lot of free lessons in marketing and other matters on this Whirled.) I'll be back to snarky mode in short order, but I'm taking a little time off from that...just for today.

PS ~ One of the things I'm thankful for is that I've recently made a new friend, Martha Finney, who believes Joe Versus The Volcano is "the most underrated and underappreciated and misunderstood movie of all time." Visit her web site and read her blogs. And, oh, yeah, watch Joe Versus The Volcano.

How to take over the world

Those of you who have been with this blog for a while, or who have read a fair sampling of my earlier posts, may remember that there used to be a lot more variety here, back in the day. Besides tackling the bigwigs in the New-Wage biz, I had scads of posts about lesser luminaries and random loonies. There were many days when my blog just seemed to write itself.

A major reason for this bounty was that someone, somewhere, somehow had added my name to the database of a certain New-Wage email marketing service – a very active marketing service. As I've previously conjectured, perhaps someone thought the "Cosmic" in my handle was some indication that I would actually be a receptive audience for these marketing efforts. No matter; not a week went by that I didn't receive numerous emails advertising various gurus, techniques, technologies, health supplements, books, DVDs, and so forth, not to mention more MLM schemes than you could shake a talking stick at. And the vast majority of it was, well, bat-s--t crazy (and so, for that matter, were the owners of the New-Wage marketing service). But all of it was rich, rich fodder, and like the proverbial lizard on a rock, lazily waiting for bugs to fly by, all I had to do to find material for my blog was just sit by the computer and wait for my "in box" to fill up.

Alas, at some point quite a while back, the light went out of my life. I stopped getting the emails. At first I thought the New-Wage marketing loons had gone out of business, and it made me a little sad, to tell the truth, but a perusal of their web site seemed to indicate that they were still active. "Ah, they finally got wise to me," I thought, not without a stab of regret. Perhaps, I thought, they had been getting complaints from some of their clients about whom I had snarked. Although I never named my source, referring to it only as "my favorite New-Wage spam service," it's possible that my targets put two and two together, particularly since there weren't all that many New-Wage spam services regularly sending out the kind of stuff I was writing about. In fact, I remember my pal Steve Salerno of SHAMblog was on a radio show some time before the spam service pulled the plug on me, and one of the other guests on the show was a New-Wage ninny who had received my loving attention more than once, thanks to her emails I had received via the New-Wage spam express. I didn't catch the show, but afterward Steve told me she'd said something to the effect that she didn't mind critics, but she took offense at people like "that Cosmic Connie person" who just engage in random sniping.

In truth my sniping was only as random as the marketing campaigns of my targets, but I felt kind of honored when Steve told me that. I wasn't surprised, though. As it happens, more than one person has complained about what they feel is gratuitous sniping, though that's just the tip of the iceberg, complaint-wise. (I've also been called a pathetic little loser who creates nothing of value and is not even worth the effort it would take to counter my criticisms (although many have made that effort nonetheless). I've been called far worse things than a loser, including a word that rhymes with "runt." I've had people call me a Nazi and a hate-monger, and some have said they wish I would die a horrid death. And so forth.) It pretty much all slides off my back.

But I have to admit that my feelings were a little hurt to realize I may have been rejected by the New-Wage spam email people.

I let it go for quite a while, though, since I had a sizable backlog of urgent matters to blog about. Then finally at one point I tried to sign up to get back on the loony-tunes email list, but their web site wouldn't allow it. I tried under another name and email address, and then another,and I tried from different computers, but the site still wouldn't allow it. However, it seemed to be a malfunction on their end. Finally I gave up, resigning myself to having to make do with my other sources of inspiration. But I sure missed my New-Wage spam service.

And then the other night I was browsing around the Net and found a web site that is, in its own way, a source of looniness that is surely as richly loony as anything my old friends had to offer. The battiness showed up not as emails but as display ads on the web site for the radio show of one of my more famous snargets. I looked at some of those ads and felt as if I had come home.

The first one that caught my eye was undeniably hypnotic, as another one of my favorite snargets might say. It read: "HOW TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD. MAN'S MASTERS REVEALED. BUY THE BOOK NOW."

Excitedly I followed the link. And what I found just blew me away. It was an ad for a book that promised to finally tell me what's really going on, who's really running the world, and how I can run the world myself, evidently replacing the nefarious forces that are in charge now. But I quickly learned this information wasn't for the faint of heart.

You must be warned however, that the information will rattle your current view on life. It isn't for the brainwashed imbeciles who the political giants sweep away with the wave of a hand. It isn't for those who whine, cry, and complain about their own circumstance. It isn't for people who expect to be saved by others. No, it is for those who are brave enough to swim in deep waters! For those open minded enough to challenge their own beliefs in search of the truth! For those who are tired of being dictated by external forces and wish to free themselves of the prison they are in! Yes, it will be tough for most to comprehend, but you have a choice. Either you continue your slumber, or you can choose to be awakened to the history of mankind that has been HIDDEN!

Look at your world. What do you see? A slave race. That's right, a heiarchy [sic] with a servant race. Human beings are programmed through a built-in slavery system to become workers for the rest of their lives. Human beings are an organic robotic race. They are not living free. They are living in a nightmare. They hate each other, fight wars, police one another, and use deception. You see, humans are being suppressed and it is breaking the limit. Life is not about working, it is about love.

And just to show how serious they are, the authors offer an excerpt from the book:

"How does one take the world? This question has been asked by many. You may be one of them. No, that doesn't make you bad, or guilty of anything except for asking the question. Most people at some time, or another have pondered about this. Many have tried! Throughout histroy [sic], there have been men and women who have fought and bled and sacrificed to accomplish this goal. Some have even come close! Go ahead, make a list of all the people you can think of who have tried to do it. Names like Napoleon, Stalin, Alexander The Great, The British Empire, Caesar, Hitler, and The Ancient Arab Kings may come to mind. Or characters from various fictional stories such as Star Wars, Superman, etc., fill that profile. However, they have all failed. You will learn from this book, WHY they all failed. Even those who have attained it were unable to sustain it. All of their glory was short lived. It's like an athlete doping himself up with hard core drugs to win the competition only to live a pityful [sic] existence after his glory days. This book is to educate you. Also, you will see how it is done correctly by those who have done it...and are continuing to do it."

However, I should warn you that their refund policy is not very liberal.

Warning: Due to the highly controversial nature of this book, no refunds are given. You are either ready for this, or not.

But hey, it's only $14.99 (marked down for Christmas from $29.99). And you'll get "12 Mini-Ebooks free on personal development!"

But wait, there's more! On the very same web site where I found the How To Take Over The World book, there was an ad for a site offering products that will help you survive whatever's coming. For example, here's one that tells you how to hoard food. And here's one that tells you exactly what to expect in 2012.

I bet that by now you are so excited you're about to wet your pants, if you're wearing pants. You are probably going to want me to reveal the site where I found these ads. Well, for only $500.00, I will tell you.

Okay, since it's almost the holidays, I'll give you a $500.00 discount.

So where did I see these marvelous loony ads?

Are you ready for the answer?

And do you like my short paragraphs?

Are they hypnotic?

Are you sure you don't want to give me $500.00 to tell you?

Well, it was worth a shot.

Okay. The site on which I saw the above ads is... The Kevin Trudeau Radio Network, or, as I now like to call it, Loony Central.

The Kevin Trudeau Radio Network site is a clearinghouse not only for political wingnutty stuff that would make Rush Limbaugh and FOX-TV proud, but also for healthnutty stuff – which is only fitting, since Kevin is a noted health expert – and, increasingly, New-Wage stuff. (Take a look at the banner ad that's currently on top of the page and you'll see what I mean, regarding the latter. The ad shows the mugs of Rev. Michael Beckwith and Dr. Wayne Dyer, and bears the tag line, "For health and happiness, you must be balanced!" And then look around at the other New-Wagey stuff on the site. This kind of invalidates some bloggers' longstanding observation that the New-Wage is inexorably bound to the liberal left. There doesn't seem to be much room for libs on Kevin's site, but there's plenty of room for New-Wage loons and hustledorks.)

Interestingly enough, two other ads in the section where I found the sites linked to above are the International Pool Tour and NaturalCures.com, which are Kevin's sites, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he also had some interest in the Take Over The World site, the Food Hoarding site, and the 2012 site. On the other hand, the latter three sites seem a tad unprofessional looking for a professional scammer of Kevin's caliber. So they probably aren't his. But the ads clearly have a place of honor as sponsors* of the Kevin Trudeau Radio Network, and I have no doubt that they are targeted to the same gullible audience Kevin targets.

As you may recall, I have paid homage to Kevin – who is more commonly known here as Kevin True-dough – on my Whirled previously, most notably in January of this year, and then again in July. It seems pretty obvious that all of the government's efforts to interfere with Kevin's livelihood have not stopped him. Although he is banned until 2011 from doing TV infomercials for his products, and has been fined out the kazoo by the government, he just keeps on keeping on. He just paid a visit to my home state this past weekend for some head-huddling with a few of his fellow entrepreneurs (Joe Vitale and Pat O'Bryan) in the little Hill Country town of Wimberley, Texas. (Pics and exclusive video interviews coming soon! Or, as one of the participants in the secret session wrote, "This is dynamite. You're not going to believe what you're seeing.")

So I'm sure we'll see some marvelous products and business ops coming out of that meeting. After all, Kevin may be banned from doing infomercials, but there's nothing to stop him from finding numerous other ways to extract money from the masses, particularly if he teams up with some in the New-Wage biz who are also experts in the Law of Extraction (as my friend Blair Warren once described on his late lamented Crooked Wisdom blog), and, most importantly, who have huge lists that Kevin wants to get his paws on.

Speaking of extraction, I also found something intriguing towards the very top of the pile of ads on Kevin's Radio Network site. This has to be the MLM scheme to end all MLM schemes. It's called the Global Information Network, or GIN for short. Actually it almost sounds as if whoever came up with this scheme either had a little too much gin themselves, or they're banking on the possibility that their marks will be a bit impaired.

What is GIN? According to the web site, it is "a Multi-Form Foundation organized in the country of Nevis." Nevis?!? Wow, if that doesn't have "in your face, U.S. Government!" written all over it, I don't know what does. But never mind that. One of the first things you learn is that GIN is a very, very, very, very exclusive network. It is also confidential. Don't believe me? Then take a look at this:

GIN provides its members with exclusive, confidential, never before released information regarding:

• Law of Attraction
• Money Making Opportunities
• Investing
• Worldwide Real Estate Opportunities
• Stocks, Bonds and Trading
• Commodities, Worldwide Currencies
• Off-shore Banking
• Asset Protection
• Natural Remedies and Cures for Illnesses
• And much more

So how do you join? Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but membership is by invitation only. On the other hand, there is a publicly accessible page where you can apply for membership. On still another hand, you apparently have to have some kind of invitation code from an affiliate in order to complete the form.

Apply today for membership. Simply go to the Global Information Network website and click Join now. Fill out the short application. Do it today.

Remember, you have been handpicked and hand selected to become a new member in the Global Information Network. You truly are special. Wealth can be yours. Emotional well being can be yours. Financial freedom is within your reach. Dynamic vibrant health and prosperity for you is now at hand.

Sign up today as a member of the Global Information Network and... May you never be the same.

The very fine print at the bottom says:

We are an informational organization. We are a "member sharing with other members" private association. We do not provide financial planning, tax, legal, investment, or medical advice. Consultation with independent expert advisors is strongly recommended. We are not a business opportunity.

Not a business opportunity, eh? And yet there is this page on how to make money with GIN, which says:

The first way to make money is to “sell” memberships in GIN. Another way of saying it is you “refer” people to join as members in GIN, or you “sponsor” people into GIN. All the terms are synonymous. The main issue here is that all commissions are based on the sale of a real product, which is a membership in the Global Information Network. Please refer to the GIN website and listen to the audio entitled “member benefits” describing GIN member benefits to see the amazing value of the product.

For everyone you get to join GIN as a member, or another way of saying it, for everyone you get to buy a membership in GIN, you are paid $200 commission. If you get just 5 people to join GIN as a member, you make $1000. That covers your initial membership dues. If you get 10 people to join GIN as a member, you make $2000. If you get 100 people to join GIN as a member you make $20,000. Anytime and every time you get someone to become a member in GIN you earn $200 commission. Because of the experts that are behind the GIN opportunity and their unparalleled successful track record generating over 100 Billion dollars in sales worldwide, we have insider marketing secrets using the internet and mass media marketing that can help you to potentially get many people to join as new GIN members. WE will provide you with all the secrets that can teach you how some members have signed up as many as 1000 new GIN members in just 60 days earning over $400,000 in just 60 days!

And yet, and yet...there's this, in small type at the bottom of the page:

Please note that all examples are for illustration purposes only. We make no income claims. Your income and success is solely based on your efforts, skills, market conditions, and a variety of factors. We do not promise nor claim you will make any money with this offer. Void where prohibited by law. Examples of past earnings do not guarantee future results. Individual results will vary. You could make more or less than discussed. Please review and fully understand the member agreement, terms and conditions, and affiliate agreement before joining. Never spend more money than you can afford to lose. All commissions are based on the sale of the product. The product is a GIN membership. You are not required to spend any money ever to join. There is no fee to join. You are not paid by recruiting people as affiliates. You are only paid commissions by selling memberships. You are not required to attend any meetings. You are not required to buy any sales or marketing tools. You are not, and never will be required to become a member in GIN. Based on a full legal review, we believe that this program complies with all laws where offered. Gin will comply with any and all changes in its affiliate commission marketing plan, that may be required from time to time as laws change where offered. Gin is not a business opportunity or franchise.

It's up to you to figure out what GIN (or "Gin," as it became towards the end of the copy) really is. But FYI, here's the link to the page explaining "Levels of Membership" (and the information on every level beyond Level 1 is "classified"). For even more insight, or perhaps just more confusion, here's a discussion about it on the Prison Planet forum. And really, you owe it to yourself to read this, for the laughs alone. Whether or not you can make mountains of money with GIN or Gin I can't tell you, but with Kevin Trudeau as one of your business partners, what can you lose?** So are you excited yet? Good, then go join GIN.*** Or go enjoy some gin. As for me, I'm just going to stay here and take over the world.

PS ~ The picture at the top has nothing to do with KT Radio Network or any of the ads I've found on that site so far. It is, very simply, a loving tribute to the owners of the New-Wage spam service I mentioned above. I was going to write another post on them to follow up my Ra Data post and my mention of them in the MystiCouples piece (second item down), but never got beyond this brief teaser. Someday, maybe.

PPS added 25 November: More on the exclusive Kevin True-dough video shot in Wimberley – something to whet your appetite (or perhaps ruin it).

PPPS ~ For more about True-dough's GIN scheme, see my December 4 post, "Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible."

* Here is a link to the complete list of "sponsors" of KT's radio show.
**Aside from your shirt.
** I feel compelled to add this disclaimer, for the benefit of those who might have any doubt whatsoever: I do NOT recommend that you join GIN. I was being facetious. This is clearly another True-dough scam in which, once again, he purports to offer some sort of forbidden knowledge that will transform your life and make you happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. And if he's bringing any of his New-Wage buds into this or any similar venture, you seriously need to hold on to your wallet.

The Mayans called. They want their calendar back.

12/21/2012 will be so uneventful that it’ll make Y2K look like the Harmonic Convergence.
~Steven Sashen

I wasn't going to even write about 2012. Really I wasn't, mainly because the topic has already been covered so well by some of my fellow wags and social commentators, such as the above-quoted Steven Sashen. Like most of them, I've known about the 2012 hysteria for many years, long before it actually became hysteria. For that matter, I was hip to it long before the Y2K panic became a panic. I first became cognizant of 2012 predictions way back when the world was still recovering from the utter letdown that was the Harmonic Convergence (the latter of which I mentioned in passing, along with one of the countless "ascensions" related to the number 11, in an old piece I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer).

I knew about 2012 by virtue of having friends, and later clients, who were into New-Agey stuff and were fascinated with the Mayan calendar and the usual hodgepodge of ancient prophecies. One of my clients, who later became a friend, did some channeling occasionally, and some of her Guides told her all sorts of stuff about massive catastrophic changes coming in 2012. One told her the s--t would actually start hitting the fan some time in 2009, and it would just begin escalating steadily for the next three years, culminating in the Big Whatever of 2012.

In the past couple of years, as it became apparent that 2012 was the new Y2K, I toyed with the idea of doing a blog post about it. Other topics captured my interest more, though, and I let it slide.

But now comes the new disaster flick, 2012, which opened in theaters across the United States today. (It's fitting, I suppose, that it would be on a Friday the 13th.) So far the movie critics have been less than kind, although reg'lar viewers have tended to cut the movie a little more slack. I'm pretty easy on movies myself, and will probably see 2012 at some point after it comes out on DVD; I've enjoyed several of director Roland Emmerich's other works, and I adore John Cusack, despite the fact that he may have some woo-ish leanings himself. During yesterday's interview on CBS' Early Show, Harry Smith asked John if he had been aware of the 2012 hoopla before he got involved in the movie. John said yeah, he'd been into that stuff for years. Here's a link to the video of that interview, which has become famous in its own right for the fact that the f-word just sort of popped out of John's mouth (at about 2:45 into the video).

In the past several months I've been seeing some more acerbic commentary about this whole 2012 thing. I don't know if any of it will make a dent in the growing hysteria, but I applaud the writers' efforts nonetheless. In October, Mark Stevenson published a piece on the MyWay site about how disgusted many people of Mayan descent are about the 2012 phenomenon. Astronomers are pretty irate as well.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

Although 2012 does have some archeological significance, which Stevenson explains in his article, it's just not gonna be the end of the world as we know it.

More recently, on the h+ Magazine site, Mark Dery wrote a scathing piece, 2012: Carnival of Bunkum. He rips into 2012 "expert" Daniel Pinchbeck (whose asininity has had my pal Chris Locke at the Mystic B blog tearing his own hair out for quite some time now). Dery writes:

But the worst of the 2012 bandwagon, epitomized by Pinchbeck’s lectures and writings, is the blithe cultural arrogance and staggering anthropological ignorance evident in the movement’s appropriation of Mayan beliefs and history. In a discussion hosted by Pinchbeck’s online magazine Reality Sandwich, the cultural theorist Erik Davis puts his finger on the minstrelsy implicit in the ventriloquization, by white, first-world New Agers, of the Maya. “[I]t seems to me that there is very little concrete sense of what ‘the Mayans’ (whoever that grand abstraction represents) thought about what would happen in the human world on 2012,” he writes. “To my mind it is kinda disrespectful to the Mayans to force them into our own narrative.”

Dery also talked to journalist Xeni Jardin, who does not claim to be an expert on or spokesperson for the Mayan people. However, her adoptive father is "of indigenous descent," and Xeni's work with his nonprofit organization in Guatemala to make things better for the poorest of the poor there has brought her in close contact with the Mayans. Here's what she had to say about Pinchbeck:

What makes me angriest about Pinchbeck’s bogus, profiteering bullsh-t isn’t so much him, but the fact that that many people are racist enough to believe any asshole white guy who declares himself an expert in Mayan culture. Did it ever occur to anyone to ask practicing Maya priests out in the villages? [...] It absolutely enrages me that while people I know in Guatemala, traditional priests, are struggling to figure out how to provide clean drinking water to their families, how to feed their communities, how to avoid being shot by the gangs and thieves that plague the roads more than ever---while they’re struggling to survive and keep their communities intact, assholes like Pinchbeck are making a buck off of white man’s parodies of their culture.

Of course, Native Americans have been hollering for years about the wholesale exploitation of their culture and religious traditions by New-Wage hustlers and their followers, the latest newsworthy example being James Arthur Ray's infamous Death Lodge. In fact, the Lakota tribes of North and South Dakota have just filed a lawsuit against James Ray, the owners of the Angel Valley Resort, the state of Arizona and the United States. Here is a PDF of the pleading. (And years before Sweatgate there were other disasters, not only with sweat lodges but with large-scale New-Wagey events such as the increasingly ludicrous Burning Man.)

But back to 2012. Despite the serious efforts of people such as Mark Dery and Mark Stevenson, people are going to believe what they want to believe. Almost certainly the silliness will continue unabated, and perhaps the best way to fight it is with yet more silliness. I kind of like Steven Sashen's approach. He has a mighty prophecy of what will occur on December 22, 2012, which is the day after the world is supposed to end.

...when the “planetary alignment” occurs, without the warned-about mayhem, here’s how the 12-ers will spin it:

“YOU DID IT, HUMANITY! You made the shift in consciousness that we needed to avert disaster and have ushered in a new era in global connection and enlightenment.”

One of his readers responded:

What’s amusing to me is that there’s pretty solid proof that the Mayan Calendar was created several hundred years after year zero. i.e., the makers extrapolated back to make things fit the way they wanted to. So year zero is completely arbitrary, just like year zero in CE calendars is arbitrary (seeing as how Jesus was probably born in 4 BC).

Here's my prophecy about 2012: The one thing the movie about it will accomplish, besides making big bucks at the box office, will be to finally bring the conversation even more into the mainstream. It will give the talking heads and the blogging hands something to talk about and blog about, and it will give the worrying public something else to worry about for a while, until the next trendy worry du jour comes along. End-timers of the New-Wage sort will come forward with still more products to help humanity through this "transition." (I wouldn't be surprised if Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, for example, came out with his own exploitation project – perhaps a moviemercial about "Hypnotic Marketing Secrets of the Mystical Maya." After all, he went to Peru last summer and got photographed looking deeply wise in Machu Picchu. That has to be good for at least one infoproduct. It would be just the thing to add to his world series of magickal offerings, such as the Russian Wish Dolly and the Polish Money Attractor.) Meanwhile, end-timers of the Christian fundamentalist kind will righteously assert that Jeezus H. Christ Himself said we don't know the hour or the day the world will end, but that in any event we shouldn't be listening to those pagan Mayans.

And the Whirled will just keep right on spinning.

PS ~ Here's the Wikipedia entry on 2012.
And here's the even more authoritative Uncyclopedia entry.

For those who have served

Warning: I'm sorry to disappoint those who live for the snark, but today's post isn't a snarky one. We will return to our regularly scheduled programming soon.
~CC

Most of us know the story: on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, The War To End All Wars was formally brought to a close with the German signing of the Armistice Treaty. That was in 1918, and, of course, what would later be designated as World War I did not mark the end of war at all, but merely the beginning of a whole new era of warfare. Nevertheless, November 11 became a day to honor veterans of that bloody war, and, later on, veterans of all wars. In the United States we know it as Veterans Day, and in other parts of the world it is Remembrance Day.

Veterans Day gives me cause to acknowledge and celebrate the veteran I live with, Ron Kaye. And I'll tell you right off that this post won't even begin to do him justice; these are just a few things off the top of my head.

The first thing that comes to my mind about Ron is that he is always doing what he can to help make things better for others – people and animals alike. Whether it's taking a day to go into Houston to tend to his aging "second parents," or spending hours helping our friends at a local goat dairy dig a trench to help fix a broken well pump, or helping to save the life of a colicky horse, he's there. He has helped his own children through some very rough spots as well, providing stability for them in the years following his divorce, and doing his part to nurture them through a tragic incident that nearly tore their lives apart when they were young adults. He has always been there for them, and for me as well, even when we didn't make it easy for him.

He's there for strangers too. A few months ago there was a grisly car crash on the relatively quiet country road that runs by our home. Some local teenagers had apparently had way too much to drink, and their car veered off the road, plunged through a fence and plowed into a tree. Since the road is about a half mile from our home – we have a long driveway – we weren't aware that anything was going on till the local law enforcement got to the scene and we saw the flashing lights. Without even hesitating, Ron ran up to the road, found out what was going on and asked what he could do to help, explaining that he had been a field medic in the military. Immediately he was handed a pair of disposable gloves and told, "There's one over there in the trees." Not knowing what he'd find, Ron raced over to where a young man who had been thrown from the car was lying bleeding. It was impossible for Ron to discern the extent of his injuries, but they were obviously pretty bad. All he could do was keep the young man immobilized and give what comfort he could till the EMTs got there. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say he helped save his life. I think what he did was heroic. Yet he shrugs it off, saying, "I just did what anyone would do."

Ron is the most kindhearted, loving, and even sentimental person I know, but he isn't afraid to go "toe-to-toe" with anyone, whether he's sticking up for someone he loves, advocating on behalf of a client, or calling someone out for their b.s. (I firmly believe it was his willingness to call things as he saw them that was instrumental in the breakdown of our "friendship" with a person who later became a well-known hustledork.) He has also gotten into his fair share of conflicts while arguing his point of view about various matters such as spirituality, social issues, or, especially, politics. Although he is always respectful and never abusive, he is sometimes...well...adamant. Some people have trouble with that, if they happen to hold an opposing view. Some have hurled abuse at him for his so-called "liberal" views. Some, not knowing his background but basing their judgment solely on, say, the fact that he was opposed to the U.S.'s 2003 invasion of Iraq, have accused him of being a contemptible '60s-era hippie who sat in a custom-painted van, smoking dope and listening to Grateful Dead tapes, while laughingly avoiding the draft. Little do they know... Some folks simply cannot understand how a person can be both a "liberal" (or a holder of anti-war views) and a veteran who actually volunteered for a cause beyond himself. These days, it seems he's getting some guff for expressing opinions that are not rabidly anti-Obama, and that are pro-health care reform. And so it goes.

In the years since he served, I think Ron has managed to make a good life. He has two fine kids (I can't take any credit for that, but I adore them). He does work he loves. And he has made me happy for sixteen years and counting. Most important of all, he has an uncanny ability to see into people's hearts. I sometimes wish more people could see into his.

So anyway. Here we are, on the 90th anniversary of the first official "Armistice Day" (it was first observed on November 11, 1919), which eventually morphed into Veterans Day. If I were you, I'd celebrate it by saying a big "Thank you" to the veteran(s) in your life. A big hug probably wouldn't hurt either. And if you're a veteran yourself, or currently serving, you have my thanks, and a big virtual hug as well.

PS ~ Here is a link to Ron's blog.

* * * * *

I've always liked this poem by the late French poet Louis Aragon, who was a part of the French Resistance during World War II. This translation is from the (out-of-print) 1976 book, Literature and Liberalism: An Anthology of Sixty Years of The New Republic, edited by Edward Zwick.

The Waltz of the Twenty-Year-Olds

Good for the wind, good for the night, good for the cold
Good for the march and the bullets and the mud
Good for legends, good for the stations of the cross
Good for absence and long evenings. Funny ball
At which I danced and, children, you will dance
To the same dehumanized orchestral score
Good for fear, good for machine guns, good for rats
Good as good bread and good as simple salad

But here is the rising of the conscript sun
The waltz of the twenty-year-olds sweeps over Paris
Good for a shot of brandy at dawn and the anguish before the attack
Good for the waiting, the storm and the patrols
Good for night silence under rocket flares
Good for youth passing and the rusting heart
Good for love and death, good to be forgotten
In the rain and shadow cloaking the battlefields
Child soldiers trundled in no other bed
But the ditch already tailored to their measure

The twenty-year-old waltz sweeps through the bistros
And breaks like a laugh at the entrance to the Métro

Army classes of yesterday, vanished dreams
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen: listen. They hum
Like us the trite refrain, like us believe it
And like us in those days, may God forgive them
Value more than their lives at a single moment
Of drunkenness or folly or delight
What do they know of the world? Does living mean
Quite simply, Mother, to die very young?

* * * * *

OMT: Today is as good a day as any to mention the ongoing problem of U.S. veterans – of all wars – getting the short end of the stick when it comes to health care. Here's a story about it.

Here's a link to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs web site.

The lies that blind

Today I heard from someone I'll call Pat, who recently discovered my blog. For several years Pat worked for an Internet marketing guru, and at first found the work fun and creative. Then as time went by, to Pat's dismay, the guru became more and more involved in the world of New-Wage/selfish-help stuff. Pat, a self-described skeptic and atheist who believes that "most self-help stuff is crap," found several of the guru's schemes to be morally objectionable. The fact that the guy was bilking people out of lots of money was what really got Pat's goat.

At first the guru's New-Wage leanings didn't pose too much of a problem, however, because there was still enough non-objectionable work for Pat to do. But as Pat's boss became increasingly more woo-ish, and then latched onto The Secret in a huge way, things became much less tolerable. Pat ultimately left the guru's employ with sanity and ethics intact, having learned some eye-opening lessons about the private worlds of selfish-help luminaries.

There were two paragraphs in Pat's email that particularly stuck out for me, and Pat has graciously given me permission to share them:

I think that the majority of the people that buy into these types of people and their products would be absolutely gobsmacked if they realized what these guys are like behind closed doors. Up on the stage, in the books, in the audios, in the videos, these guys are charming, upbeat, positive role model type people that you can look up to. But get them off stage and with the people that work for them, and they are completely different. [My ex-boss] holds the honor of being the absolute WORST boss I have ever had... One of his favorite pastimes appeared to be seeing how many times he could make an employee cry with his raving and name-calling in a week, and for someone that was able to command thousands of dollars for just one weekend of the yippety yap, he paid us all circus peanuts (which is one step down from real peanuts, which at least have some nutritional value).

In my experience, the others are no different than my former boss. As I read your blog, I keep coming across names of people I came into contact with while I was working with this guy, and I am torn between laughing in recognition and wanting to facepalm. Oh, the stories I could tell. Not only are these guys almost always complete doucherockets when they aren't in front of the trusting masses, the vast majority of them will readily admit (and laugh about) the fact that the crap they are pushing is indeed crap. Even these guys don't buy their own sales pitches.

And oh, the stories many of us could tell. I believe I could write a whole book on what I have experienced firsthand, and have heard from others (Pat being far from the only one), regarding the sometimes disturbing difference between many New-Wage hustledorks' public personas and their private raging, passive-aggressive, greedy, arrogant, narcissistic, occasionally borderline-sociopathic, or sometimes predatory selves.

Not everyone in the self-help industry fits these descriptions, of course. I believe there are some genuinely good folks in the business. And it could be argued that even the mostly horrid ones have at least a few good qualities and have produced work that has helped some people in some way. Moreover, I'm only hearing Pat's side of the story. Even given these qualifiers, however, there seems to be a distinct pattern of lamentable personality traits among New-Wage stars and superstars. In other words, Pat's ex-boss doesn't seem at all atypical.

Many people already know this stuff. Others might be aware of it but simply choose not to dwell on it because, perhaps, they find some value in the gurus' works. Separate the message from the messenger, in other words. Still others might ask why it even matters, because after all, most people in the public eye have their private quirks and foibles, and of course, even New-Wage gurus are only human. In other words... Yawn.

Well, stifle that yawn, if you can, while I attempt to answer the question of why it matters. (Come on, humor me.) I know we've discussed this matter on this blog before, but I think it's worth repeating, at the very least for the benefit of new readers, or people who might not have considered these matters previously.

Maybe it's not such a big deal to have a shiny happy public presence and yet be a butthead or a bitch or a cad in private life, if, say, you are a celebutante or a rock star or even, in some cases, a politician (that is, if you're a politician who sticks to serving your constituents and are not on some moralistic high horse yourself). Depending upon the degree of fame, the disparity between public image and private reality might be tabloid-worthy, but that's about the extent of it.

It's different with self-help leaders, particularly those who claim some sort of spiritual authority. In my opinion, they should be held to a higher standard because, unlike most other celebs, they are making their fortunes by instructing others in how to live their lives. Equally if not more important, unlike most celebrities (with the exception of those who cross over into the self-help world themselves, such as Suzanne Somers), selfish-help/New-Wage/McSpirituality gurus aggressively and disingenuously use their own ostensibly perfect lives as marketing tools. They are continually promoting themselves as being happy, healthy, wealthy, self-actualized, self-realized, fully awakened human beings who have everything they could possibly want, including amazing relationships. Occasionally, to make themselves seem likable and accessible, they will mention that they're only human and are still a "work in progress" or some such disclaimer. But the dominant message is that their astounding achievements (and, of course, their enviable possessions) prove that they are a cut above ordinary humans, and that they can sell you the secrets to make you a magnificent human specimen as well.

Most important of all, when other celebs, most notably Hollywood types, show off how successful they are, their main purpose is fairly innocuous: to draw attention to themselves. They aren't trying to manipulate people into forking over thousands of dollars for a weekend workshop in order to try to create a life just like theirs. By contrast, as noted above, all too many hustledorks use their carefully crafted public images as their primary marketing tool, their goal being to convince as many people as possible that anyone can have an exemplary life like theirs, if they are only willing to "invest" a few thousand bucks, or a few hundred thousand, in the right products and workshops and retreats.

And all too many people buy into the message, spending thousands of dollars they don't have, and not really seeing any genuine improvements in their lives. Some of them even end up dead, as we've seen this past month.

And meanwhile, the hustledorks hustle on.

I've written some variation of this message so many times, on this blog and on discussions on other blogs and forums, that I can practically write it in my sleep. In fact, I am pretty sure that I was mostly asleep while writing this. And I'm far from the only one who has snarked, sniped, and griped about the duplicity of New-Wage snake-oil pushers, whose real lives are full of ugly realities that differ radically from the pretty veneers they construct.

The take-away lesson, in case it isn't painfully obvious, is this: Don't believe the lies. Or, if you prefer something less incendiary, don't believe the marketing. Don't believe the gurus when they talk about how consistently glorious their lives are, and how self-realized and "awakened" they themselves are. (Wasn't it James Arthur Ray who, not long ago, wrote, "I don't have bad days"? And how many other successful New-Wage leaders have we heard making some variation of that claim?)

For that matter, even when the hucksters occasionally share their problems in the form of "confessions" about setbacks or disappointments, or tales of friends or associates who have supposedly betrayed them, you should take all of that with a few grains of salt as well. When hearing a sob story, if it sounds kind of one-sided or overly dramatic, always assume that the guru telling it is (1) selectively sharing details in order to preserve his/her image as a bearer of deep wisdom (while perhaps gaining cred as a martyred hero); or (2) so genuinely clueless, despite his/her "advanced" state of personal growth and spiritual development, that s/he honestly cannot see the true cause of the problem in question. More than likely both factors are at play.

Most of all, never, never assume that selfish-help hustlers literally believe in all of the stuff they are peddling. Privately, as my correspondent "Pat" said, "The vast majority of them will readily admit (and laugh about) the fact that the crap they are pushing is indeed crap. Even these guys don't buy their own sales pitches."

And Pat, as well as many other people whose stories I've seen and heard over the years, would know.

PS ~ I linked to this in my James Ray "Sweatgate" post but it's worth linking to again. This is from my friend Duff McDuffee, who says that, contrary to the hustlers' promises, you CAN'T have it all, but that this is actually good news.

PPS ~ As vanity and envy are two major factors that fuel the selfish-help industry, providing the very foundation of most hucksters' marketing plans, I think it's worth your while to read Steve Salerno's four-part series on the topic on SHAMblog. Here's Part 1, here's Part 2, here's Part 3, and here's Part 4.