Horse farts and related matters

"The people who are skeptical are the people who are the most unhappy, the most broke, the most struggling...the people you don't want to be with, let alone BE, because they're not radiating a passionate vibe of ecstatic life. You want to be around the happy, buoyant, vibrant people, the people who are doing things, the people like you and me."
~ Joe Vitale to Kevin Trudeau, in an interview on the Kevin Trudeau Radio Network, 15 July 2009

First of all, Dear Ones, I apologize for my extended absence from this Whirled. I was preoccupied with being sort of...er...um...skeptical, though far from unhappy, because I am nothing if not easily amused. I can always find something that makes me smile – horses, for example, and there are plenty of 'em around here. The daughter of the ranch owner rescues and boards horses in the stables and pastures that surround our house, and she was grateful when Ron helped save a colicky bay gelding a few weeks ago. The triple-digit heat and drought around here have really contributed to equine stress. Ron saw that the horse was down and that his sides seemed to be a bit swollen, so he went into the pasture to try to get him to stand up. The bay tried several times and finally got to his feet, farting loudly in the process, but he was obviously in distress, and his sides were still a bit swollen, though observably not quite as swollen as they had been before the gas-passing. Almost immediately he lay back down, and nothing Ron could do would get him back up. After a series of phone calls we were able to get help for the horse, and now he's doing fine.

Following that, the ranch owner's daughter asked if we'd mind checking up on all of the horses every day just to make sure none of them are in distress. Certainly we don't mind! We love walking around this place and we love horses. There are ranch hands around here to see to the horses' needs, but there's a lot of work to do on this place, and the hands can't always be everywhere. So Ron and I have taken to visiting all of the horses at the end of the day, every day, and have gained some new equine buddies. Several of the sweet things whinny greetings to us as we approach their stalls, as if they're happy to see us or something. Of course, they don't get out much so maybe they're kind of like me – easily amused.

The good news is that I have apparently become a horse whisperer. To tell the truth, I don't even have to whisper. I merely have to think certain thoughts, and the horses pick up on it, judging by an experience I had the other day with a dark brown and white pinto gelding whose real name I don't know yet, but whom Ron and I now call Thundercloud, for reasons that will soon become obvious. After talking with the pinto a few minutes on a recent evening, we walked on to look at some pigs that are in a pen adjacent to the horse's enclosure. There are two young feral hogs and what looks like a potbelly pig, and though they're all just cute as can be, I fear they are destined for what one of our local goat farmers refers to as "freezer camp." I am kind of afraid to ask.

Anyway, as we made our way towards the porcine ghetto, the pinto followed us for the length of his fence, and I found myself stopping several times to gaze at him, thinking about what a handsome fellow he is. I imagined seeing him a couple of hundred years ago, being ridden by some native across the plains, and then I saw myself riding him bareback (although the truth is that I kind of suck at riding, even with a saddle), and I thought how marvelous it would be to see him galloping across an open field. I'd sure love to see him run, I thought to myself, and at the same moment the old Christopher Cross song, "Ride Like The Wind," popped into my head.

No sooner had these thoughts formed themselves than the object of my admiration snorted and broke into a run, tearing around his enclosure a couple of times. He ended with a flourish, kicking up his heels, raising a cloud of dust and letting loose with a truly thunderous fart that put the above-mentioned colicky horse's efforts to shame, loudness-wise.

"Geez, you really know how to impress a gal," I muttered. But I was indeed impressed by his obvious ability to pick up on my thoughts, as well as by his performance, notwithstanding the flatulence. (I know, I know... I shouldn't have thought about "wind.")

Anyhow, it's good to be back in the saddle, so to speak, and I appreciate your comments and support during my hiatus. Now that I am feeling a little more buoyant and vibrant, I am ready to get this blog rolling again.

Equine flatulence has nothing on this
Poking around cyberspace, I see that nothing much changed while I was gone. The hustlers are still hustling, the scammers are still scamming, and the oceans of my Whirled are swirling with snark chum.

So let's get down to business, beginning with that quotation at the beginning of the post. The first thing you should know is that a "skeptic," in the context of the discussion from which the quotation was extracted, is anyone who pooh-poohs the validity (scientific and otherwise) of the Law Of Attraction. LOA was the topic of the recent conversation between the infamous serial conner Kevin Trudeau and his new b.f.f., Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale. Back in January, I wrote at length about the first meeting between True-dough and Mr. Fire. The relationship has apparently only grown stronger; as noted, Joe was featured on a recent Trudeau radio show, and if you go to the show's web site you'll see that his name appears on Kevin's short blogroll as well. They recently had dinner together in Chicago, and Joe's sweetie, Nerissa, got a chance to meet Kevin. She apparently has some food sensitivities and other health issues, and was delighted to have an opportunity to discuss them with him. As we all know, health issues are right down Kevin's alley. (Apropos of that, on another radio show segmemt Kevin supposedly gives the real story of what happened between him and that pesky FDA.)

When introducing Joe, after the obligatory mention of Joe's Secret stardom, numerous bestselling books, etc., Kevin adds that Joe has "something very, very, very unique...a website that actually creates a group of people to send out vibrations for you to make the things that you want to happen, happen faster." This would be Joe's Attract Miracles online community, which, of course, was discussed at length a few months ago on this very blog. Kevin talks about it as if he's a true believer. My guess is that he really doesn't buy into all of the woo stuff, and may even secretly hold some of it in contempt, but he recognizes a good cash cow when he sees it. As I've previously speculated, perhaps he sees his alliance with Mr. Fire as a good solid foot in the door of the lucrative New-Wage/selfish-help market.

Throughout the interview Joe and Kevin use their very best radio voices, both of them enunciating very, very, very cleaaaaarly, extending their words and emphasizing every other word so their listeners can reaaaallly understand what they say. I know this will probably come as a huge surprise to you, but they begin the interview with a lengthy discussion of...hold on to your hats.... JOE'S CARS. And that's pretty much how the interview ends as well. Once again, Joe uses his immense car collection as proof that his stuff not only works for him but can work for anyone, and that his own life and thinking are in order.

At one point fairly early on, Kevin asks if Joe's $5,000.00-a-head Rolls-Royce MasterMind sessions are really effective. "Do they really make a difference in the lives of the people who go on these rides?" Kevin asks (I'm paraphrasing here but that's the gist of the question). Joe says it seems so, because people are RAVING about their experiences. He claims that in the nearly one year he has been the RR MasterMinds, "Everybody has had a breakthrough!" He explains that these aren't billionaires; they're just ord'nary folk who are ready to take their dreams and visions to the next level.

Ord'nary folk who just happen to have five grand to throw around.

One such dreamer and visionary is Don Wilde, whose web site you absolutely owe it to yourself to read. (But remember, the address he gives on the site is not a retail location, so please do not visit without calling him first.) Don wants to change the world and make it a better place. He says he went on the Phantom ride at the urging of his "coach," a guy in New Mexico named Darshan Shanti (you have to wonder if that is his given name). Darshan describes himself as, among other things, a "professional ontologist." That's not oncologist, as in cancer doc, but ontologist. I am not sure exactly what it means to be a professional ontologist, but I suppose it's not relevant at the moment because this is about Don Wilde, not Coach Darshan. Anyhoo, Darshan apparently turned Don on to the idea of going on the Phantom Ride. (I can't help wondering why he would do this. Finder's fee? Or just because he truly had Don's best interests at heart? Heck if I know.)

So Don went on the ride, and was thrilled not only by the experience but by the fact that, incredibly, Joe invited him to a seminar to be held the following weekend by one of Joe's buddies, Pat O'Bryan. How lucky can one man get?!? Don went to that too, and apparently was on fire with excitement when it was over, but then he crashed and burned when he got home. All of his old "stuff" came right back to haunt him, gosh darn it. Now, I think most of us could have told him that the high always wears off, for some sooner than others, but he didn't ask most of us. Fortunately he didn't need to, because Joe had given Don the obligatory bag o'books and other goodies at the end of the Rolls Royce session, so Don dragged them out and somehow got his inspiration renewed. Now he's psyched and ready to expand his vision, thanks to Joe.

Here's a bit from the products page of his web site:

Do you want to be wealthy? Of course you do. We want everybody in the world to become wealthy, and we're going to make that happen with our new product!

Here's why: "Make Everybody Rich", by Frederick Turner

I have been dealing with money issues since shifting out of 'job mode'* in March, and Darshan, who I've known as a friend and coach since 2002, suggested that I do his money workshop. He gave me the gift of it, that he normally charges $1,500.00 for! I had just read the Turner paper the other day after it was pointed to by Michael Strong, Chief Vision Officer of Freedom Lights Our World, and as I came through the transformation caused by Darshan's questions I put the two together and came up with a product plan which I am now executing with Darshan's blessing.

We're going to give away the most important piece of it as a free paper and we will create a Gratitude Fund to translate it into every language on Earth. As hundreds of thousands of people start to transform their lives with it, people will start to lift themselves out of poverty and despair and the chains of abusive power.

For those who have computers and the Internet, we're creating a software desktop application containing the whole workshop -- and again, we're making the key piece work for free! Think of it as an Interactive Mindset Trainer^TM , it's really powerful!

That's right. We believe you will get so much wealth and value in your life from the transformation caused by our free gift that not only will you gladly buy the rest, you'll bring so much wealth into your life that you'll gratefully shower our Gratitude Fund with money so that the rest of the world can benefit from this amazing system.

And so on. Be sure to follow that "Make Everybody Rich" link as well. Talk about brilliant satire; my hat is off to Frederick Turner.

You can see numerous other testimonials on the site promoting the Phantom rides, and some of the enthusiastic riders also list their web sites. I urge you to visit those too. My point is that there's no doubt that most of the folks who have been on the Rolls rides "rave" about the experience, and are glad to write their testimonials for Joe's site. But does all that raving translate into their actually making buckets of money, particularly over the long term, as Joe implies they will? Time will tell, but the evidence so far, judging from those web sites and blogs and such, is just not all that impressive.**

But then, what do I know? I'm the skeptical gal who attracts horse farts.

Those darned skeptics again
Kevin Trudeau has never been one to shy away from controversy, and in his interview with Joe he eventually gets down to the nitty-gritty, acknowledging that there's a bit of criticism regarding the Law Of Attraction. He asks Joe to 'splain the main criticisms of LOA.

Joe is on that one like a fly on...um...a horse's eye. "Ah, the skeptics have several objections," he says, and you can almost see him rolling his eyes at the word "skeptic." Their chief objections, he says, are that LOA, as taught in The Secret, etc., doesn't work, that it's just magical thinking, and that it offers false hope. Well, Joe is here to tell the listeners that it does work, and other people, not just Joe, are proving every day that it does, not only by attracting cars and other material goodies, but by attracting good relationships, healing themselves of awful diseases, and the like. From there Joe and Kevin get into a brief but spirited scientifical discussion about brain vibes; Kevin points out the recent advances in brainwave-activated devices that help paralyzed people manipulate objects in their world. This is "proof" that thoughts have vibrations, and from there it's only logical to conclude that if you control those vibes you can lasso the LOA and make it do your will. Science has PROVEN this, Kevin asserts numerous times, and at one point Joe talks about how "the whole field of positive psychology has proven absolutely definitively that you get what you focus on."

Later in the interview, Kevin and Joe both spend a bit of time lamenting the plight of those poor pitiful schmucks whom Kevin refers to as "professional seminar attendees." These are the folks who go to all the motivational gurus' workshops and buy all the products, but are still flat broke. Joe says they're either not taking the right action (and he hastens to add that he was the one person in The Secret who said you have to take action), or they're being held back by subconscious beliefs. Naturally, Joe has products and services to remedy these problems, such as his famous Miracles Coaching program that helps you clear out all that unconscious gunk. The truth, though – and I think Joe and Kevin are all too aware of it – is that those poor schmucks are a New-Wage guru's bread and butter, and if half of the stuff really did work half as well as promised, they'd probably stop buying so many products and workshops from Joe and Kevin and every other deity in the New-Wage pantheon.

Towards the end of the interview, in the customary nod to conspicuous altruism, Joe assures Kevin that his success is about much more than just buying expensive toys for himself; it has allowed him to help others. "I started a movement to end homelessness in this country," Joe explains, referring to his Operation Y.E.S., which, though first introduced to the world in March of 2008, still apparently consists of a single-page web site that allows one to sign up to receive information about Operation Y.E.S. when it is "launched." Well, okay, Joe has mentioned that some of the proceeds from various products and workshops and web sites will go to Operation Y.E.S., but so far there's scant information about this "movement." One can be forgiven for speculating that the main "movement" is the steady flowing of funds into Joe's coffers.

The gist of the interview is that LOA and the stuff Joe teaches are for real and really do work, but you have to change your thinking. And when you do, your life will be transformed and miracles can occur. Kevin mentions that Joe has seen people who were transformed instantly when they finally "get it." Some have been transformed just from one conversation or session. Joe agrees, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if some of Kevin's multitudes of listeners experienced an epiphany just from listening to this radio interview, either in real time or on their computers later. They may be leaning forward towards the radio to listen, and suddenly they'll just GET IT, he says (and again, I'm paraphrasing). I kept expecting him to say, "Put your hands on the radio, brothers and sisters, and you will be HEALED!" a la those old-timey radio preachers. Matter of fact, I can't help thinking that he had that in mind, especially given his fascination with the master motivators/manipulators from times past.

In due course, the two get back to ragging on "the skeptics." Kevin asks, "Isn't it true that the broke people are the skeptics?"

Joe praises Kevin for his "brilliant insight," asserting that basically skeptics are broke because they're unhappy, and they're unhappy because typically they are "closed down, reserved, second-guessing everything." He wraps it up by declaring vehemently, "Well, to hell with them. I want to move on!"

Making a list, and checking it twice...
And move on he has. He's still doing his lucrative Rolls-Royce Masterminds, is also still busy on the lecture and interview circuit, and of course, he continues to churn out books and other products, either solo or as a joint venture with one or another of his pals. One solo book currently in the works is called Attract Money Now, and in a recent blog post publicizing the book, Joe offers a cheat sheet/teaser in the form of a list, "29 ways to attract money NOW." He explains that his book will go into much more detail about the items on the list, and will also include – and here is something devastatingly original – a seven-step formula for attracting money. Will the surprises just never stop coming?

Here are a few highlights from Joe's list (and hold on, because these tips will absolutely blow you away):

1. If you’re in the US, and in an emergency, call 211.
2. Call the Silent Unity prayer line in the US: 1-740-362-4214.
3. Give money to wherever you received inspiration or encouragement.
4. Buy something you want and can afford.

Shopaholics, are you paying attention? Break out that plastic that you promised the folks in your church's Dave Ramsey study group that you'd destroy, but that you really hid in your underwear drawer. It's time to dig them out of that pile of stained tidy-whities or faded Victoria's Secret thongs, and buy your way out of moneylessness! But only if you can afford it, of course.

There's much more. F'rinstance, who knew that watching movies could attract scads of cash to your doorstep?

7. Watch the movie The Secret.
8. Watch the movie The Compass.
9. Watch the movie Try It On Everything.

He saves the best for almost last, though:

26. Imagine what you would do if you won the lotto for $37,000,000. Do it.
28. Get a job. While you pursue your dream, feed yourself with work.

Oh. My. God. Who would have dreamed that getting a job could help you attract money? That whole problem of massive unemployment that the talking heads are always yawping about is unfortunate and in some cases even tragic but, as it turns out, soooo unnecessary. Those unemployed people should just get jobs. Have the news media picked up on this one yet? Oh. Wait. I guess it wouldn't matter much if they did, because number 11 on Joe's list is, "Turn off the mainstream news."

I have to admit that my first thought upon reading this list, which seemed a tad simplistic even by New-Wagey standards, was, "He has GOT to be on glue." But I am pretty sure that Joe is not into inhalants or any other illegal intoxicants, so my next thought was, "He's beating me at my own game. This is brilliant parody. Or self-parody." Upon further consideration, however, I came to the conclusion that this list is intended to be serious, or at least to seem serious enough to get people interested in his book. Then the more I looked at it, the more I became convinced that not only is the list serious, but it is profound in the way that only Joe can be profound. So I have completely changed my thinking, and now I believe that this country owes a big round of thanks to Mr. Fire. "Oprah" has already thanked him***, as have numerous other respondents.

And the world's most successful huckster, Kevin Trudeau, just can't seem to get enough of him. I think we can expect great things from the happy, buoyant, vibrant True-dough/Mr. Fire team in the future. It's enough to make you want to joyfully run and kick up your heels and...well, you know.

* "Shifting out of job mode" in this context sounds suspiciously like the result of an involuntary separation from one's job – a scenario that's all too common these days. Can you blame a New-Wage entrepreneur for glomming onto a money op with desperate, vulnerable, recently unemployed folks who just happen to have a bit of cash saved up? Of course, I'm reading between the lines here, as I sometimes do, and I could very well be wrong. If I am, I trust that someone will let me know so I can retract or revise my comments.
** Okay, I know my own business web site is less than impressive and is long overdue for an update/redesign (I'm working on it!), but at least Ron and I create tangible products (books), and we offer services that, I am reasonably certain, do not make you scratch your head and say, 'WTF?'
*** Another respondent actually asked if that was really Oprah. Yup, this is the market any New-Wage guru should aim for: the easily fooled.

On my way back...

Like Sauron or Lord Voldemort, I haven't regained my full strength yet, but I am on my way back. Stay tuned...and thanks for being part of my Whirled.

I am still here

I've not been blogging for a while, Dear Ones, because I am at the moment preoccupied with handling various Matters of Consequence. But you can't keep a good snarker down, and I will be back soon, no doubt snarkier than ever. Thanks for your patience, and meanwhile, do keep those comments coming. They will get published, sooner or later. Thank you all for your support.

Good news on the faux-degree front

On several occasions I have written about my plans to buy myself some genuine phony credentials to increase my credibility. (I even worked that idea into some song lyrics I recently published.) It seemed like a solid plan, not only because "credentials" and "credibility" probably come from the same root word, but also because some of the most successful hustlers in the New-Wage selfish-help industry have questionable doctoral degrees. So I was all set to buy myself a doctorate or two.

Then, tragically, some of my dreams were dashed when I found out about some potential legal problems regarding two of the prestigious online Universities (a word that probably comes from the same root word as "Universe") that I had been considering. It seemed that these two Universities were on the "illegal" list of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). In the great state of Texas, where I live, using these illegal degrees to promote one’s business could be a Class B misdemeanor.

I was dismayed to learn that both of the fine institutions I had been most seriously considering were on the bad list. There was Belford University ("No degree-granting authority from the CB & no accreditation from a CB [Coordinating Board] recognized accreditor. Under investigation by the AG [Attorney General] for operating from a mail forwarding service in Houston. Diplomas mailed from the UAE. Previously had a presence in NV or AZ."). And then there was the University of Metaphysics ("No accreditation from a CB recognized accreditor. AKA University of Sedona."). I was particularly disappointed about the University of Metaphysics, which counts among its alumni such notables as singer/actress/preacher Della Reese-Lett.

Oh, goodness.

Well, Dear Ones, I recently received some very good news about the University of Metaphysics. I announced this news as a May 8 addendum to my October 2007 post entitled, "Faux-degree plans on hold?", but thought it only fair to bring such an important (and long-overdue) announcement up to the front page as well.

Recently a commenter going by the moniker I.A.T.H. pointed out to me that the University of Metaphysics/University of Sedona are no longer on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board "illegal" list. According to this person, the institutions were mistakenly placed there and have since been removed (you can read this person's full comment by clicking here).

I sent an email to the THECB web site asking for more details, and even going so far as to ’splain why I wanted them. I received this reply:

Ms. Schmidt, The University of Metaphysics and the University of Sedona were removed from the list of Institutions whose degrees are illegal to use in Texas in 2007 following the ruling by the Texas Supreme Court in HEB Ministries, Inc. v Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) (no. 03-0995) that the THECB does not have oversight over religious institutions. I hope this answers your question and feel free to contact our agency if you have other questions.

You can read the brief about that case here. Although the case involved a Bible institute/ministry rather than a New-Wagey spiritual bidness such as U of Metaphysics, the ruling was all about re-establishing that the State cannot interfere with religion. In the wake of that ruling the THECB determined that U of Metaphysics is a religious institution. (I’m not the only person who has noticed how religions – mostly born-again Christian-type religions rather than New-Wage spiritual institutions – continually attempt to interfere with the State. The religionistas don’t seem to see any inconsistency with that, asserting that they are simply living their faith, the main tenet of which is apparently that they must shove their beliefs down as many people’s throats as possible. It's really all about power...but that's beyond the usual scope of this blog.)

But anyway. The point is that the University of Metaphysics is no longer on the Texas "illegal" list. And really, it never should have been, especially when you consider what an impressive and well-respected doctoral program they offer.

DOCTORAL DEGREES AWARDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF METAPHYSICS

• Doctor of Metaphysical Science, Msc.D.*
• Doctor of Metaphysical Counseling, Mc.D.*
• Doctor of Ministry, D.Min. specializing in:
  • New Thought Ministry
  • Holistic Counseling Ministry
  • Pastoral Counseling
  • Holistic Ministry
• Doctor of Divinity, D.D.,
• Doctor of Divinity, D.D., specializing in:
  • Pastoral Counseling
  • Spiritual Healing

The University helpfully adds this information:

*The title "Doctor of Metaphysical Science," and the degree letters "Msc.D." and "Doctor of Metaphysical Counseling," and the degree letters "Mc.D" are copyrighted and may not be used by any other school or organization.

Mc.D… hmm, that could almost stand for McDoctorate.

And here’s the rundown on the "doctorates" sold by U of Metaphysics’ sister institution, the University of Sedona:

DOCTORAL DEGREES AWARDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SEDONA

• Doctor of Metaphysical Science, Msc.D.
• Metaphysical Hypnosis, Mhyp.D.®
• Doctor of Divinity, D.D.
• Metaphysical Psychology, Mpsy.D. ®
• Doctor of Theology, D.Th.
• Bible Interpretation, D.D.
• Doctor of Holistic Ministry, Mh.D.
• Doctor of Philosophy, D.Phil
• Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D. specializing in:
  • Pastoral Counseling Psychology
  • Metaphysical Counseling
  • Holistic Life Coaching
  • Metaphysical Parapsychology
  • Holistic Life Counseling
  • Mystical Research
  • Transpersonal Counseling
  • Comparative Religion

I know I’ve mentioned this before on this blog (second item down, "Doctoring up your credibility"), and I still don’t know who originally said it, but it’s worth quoting (or perhaps paraphrasing) again: "Nothing says ‘credibility’ like a degree followed by an ® sign!"

The problem some of you may have is that a U of Metaphysics/Sedona eddycashun could get to be a little bit expensive, and in these tough economic times that is a serious consideration. Well, there is a low-cost alternative for those seeking a phony education on a budget. I’ve previously mentioned these folks too (third item down, "A degree of confusion"). At InstantDegrees.com, you can earn your doctorate degree for under $200, with no coursework, and it’s "100 percent legal!"

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME with a Fake, Replica or Counterfeit degree, diploma or transcript. We provide various types of LEGALLY issued and privately accredited college & university degrees entirely via our online service. Trusted providers online since 2001.

And you even get a bunch of bonus e-books with the deal, including "Hypnotic Writing" by Joe Vitale. (This is not to imply that Joe Vitale has a degree from Instant Degrees.com, or that he has any interest in that company whatsoever.)

If you are concerned that your Instant Degrees may not look real, or at least real-ish, you need not be. You can learn all you need to know about the quality of your Graduation Package right here.

Still, if you want to go for the best, and especially if you live in Texas or some other state that might frown on inexpensive degrees, you really ought to consider the University of Metaphysics. In fact, U of Metaphysics takes pains to explain why you might run into problems if you go for a cheap-o degree.

And that brings me back to the main point of this post, which is that U of Metaphysics being taken off the Texas illegal list is really, really good news. Do you realize what this means, Dear Ones? Not only does it mean that one of the people I've snarked about now has only one fraudulent doctorate (legally speaking) instead of two, but it also means that maybe I really can realize my dream of getting the best flaky degree possible without running afoul of the law.

Who said the Universe (or at least the University) isn't on my side?

Where's Rhonda?

When people borrow or steal the ideas of others and later claim these same great ideas came miraculously to them, direct from The Universe, it makes you wonder why The Universe sent the great idea to the wrong person in the first place. Is this merely the case of misaligned universal antennae or something of a more sinister nature?

~ Anonymous wag

It has occurred to me more than once in recent months that we haven't seen much media coverage lately about Rhonda Byrne, the famous (or infamous, depending upon your point of view) producer of the world's most successful New-Wage moviemercial, The Secret. In the months after the DVD's release in March 2006, Rhonda seemed to be everywhere, sporting her signature miniskirts, her yards of bling and that costume-jewel tilak* on her forehead, smiling big for the camera, and gushing giddily about how the Universe had helped her every step of the way in the creation and marketing of The Secret. Once the inevitable backlash began, however, she all but disappeared.

In the more than three years since the original DVD was spewed across the Internet, there has been a nonstop effluvium of product from Secret stars and wannabes, all claiming to reveal "the missing Secret," or tell you everything that The Secret left out, or give you the key to really making The Secret work, or take you beyond The Secret. One of the most eminently ludicrous offerings came from Secret star Bob Proctor, who recently released a product claiming to teach the eleven "forgotten" laws that The Secret left out. (In the process of promoting his product, he totally dissed The Secret, even as he wrote, "But perhaps what I'm most famous now at this point is for my appearance in The Secret.")

Significantly, however, the long-awaited "official" sequel to The Secret has yet to be released. And Rhonda Byrne herself has, for the most part, become as elusive as Waldo.

In fact, for the past year and a half or so, virtually the only mention of her in the news media have been pieces here and there about certain Secret-related lawsuits, most notably involving Drew Heriot, the original director and co-creator of The Secret, and Dan Hollings, Rhonda's original Web marketing strategist. Drew claims – credibly, in my opinion – to be a co-creator and therefore to have co-ownership of The Secret; you can find the details here. Dan seems merely to be trying to collect all of the money that Rhonda originally promised him, although she has claimed, among other things, that The Secret didn't make enough money to pay him. You can find those details here.

If you read Drew's and Dan's stories (and I realize you may have already done so, but I linked to them for the benefit of those who haven't), you will see a remarkable difference between their respective versions of how The Secret was created, and the "official" version as told on The Secret web site. The official fairy tale...er...account is right here. Although the Universe, and proper usage of the Law of Attraction, are given their due credit, and there is some mention of a "team," the clear implication is that Rhonda was always the main brains and creative force behind The Secret.

Some folks beg to differ.

I first wrote about the Secret legal woes here in December of 2007. (Not to pat myself on the back too much, but I was one of the very first to publicly write about the legal difficulties brewing in Secretville, and I still think that the accompanying pic was one of my finer Photoshopping efforts (and is certainly more artful than today's crude effort)). A little over a year ago the word was finally out officially about the pending lawsuits, and I blogged about it then as well, although a piece in the New York Times was what really grabbed public attention. (A few months later I blogged about the topic yet again, with another Photoshop offering that continued on the same theme as the December work.)

In the months since the story officially broke there have been numerous articles, pieces of commentary, and blog discussions about how Rhonda Byrne "attracted" all of this trouble to herself. That theme has been done to death by now, but people keep returning to it because it is so rich in irony. And last week in the Huffington Post, self-help gurus Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks wrote a thoughtful piece about what we can learn from The Secret lawsuits.

Now, setting aside the facts that (1) Gay and Kathlyn have their own New-Wage cottage industry, and don't hesitate to plug their new book in the HuffPost article; and (2) They claim to be admirers of two of my favorite snark targets, imaginary-friends-industry leaders Esther and Jerry Hicks, I think they make some valid points in their article. Some might speculate that they are suffering from sour grapes or envy because they were interviewed for The Secret but didn't make the cut, but I don't really see it that way. If their account is accurate, it appears that they didn't make it into The Secret because they displayed a little too much integrity. Or at the very least, they tried to inject a little too much reality into that whole Magic Universe Genie meme:

The interview went fine, but it was clear that Rhonda wanted to focus the interview only on the positive side of the Law of Attraction. There were two key points we wanted to make sure got into the movie, but when we tried to bring them up Rhonda steered us away from them.

Here are the key points about the Law of Attraction that didn't make it into the movie: Key point #1 is that unless you combine the Law of Attraction with impeccable integrity, you can attract a peck of troubles along with anything positive that comes your way...

...Key point #2: Using the Law of Attraction is a quick way to trigger your Upper Limit Problem, an issue I describe in detail in my new book, The Big Leap. The Upper Limit Problem is the tendency to sabotage yourself when you experience a rapid upsurge in success. If you haven't built a solid foundation of integrity under you, a rapid upturn in your fortunes can bring forth old self-esteem issues that cause you to bring yourself back down to your more familiar lower level of success...

...After the interviews, we didn't hear anything from Rhonda for a while. I began to grow more and more concerned that The Secret was not going to give "air-time" to concepts such as integrity, honesty and the keeping of agreements. Then, we heard that Esther and Jerry Hicks, two people of high integrity whom I admire very much, decided to pull out of the project. At that point Kathlyn and I lost interest in the project and began a two-year process of trying to get our footage back...

Kathyln and Gay did get their footage back and plan to make it available soon.

I think the Hendrickses really nailed it when writing about the significance of The Secret lawsuits:

On the surface, it looks like a movie business squabble, but there's a lot more to it. If it were just one movie-type trying to squeeze money out of another, it would be easy to understand. We generally don't expect much in the way of integrity from people in the movie business. A Hollywood wag once said something along the lines of "You can take all the integrity in Hollywood, put it in a gnat's eye, and still have room left over for an agent's heart."

However, most of us have higher standards for those who speak on behalf of God or purport to teach us the laws of the universe. What grips our attention about The Secret lawsuits is the same thing that compels many of us to read stories about preachers who get busted for sexual shenanigans or priests who molest children. Such events remind us of the dangers of hypocrisy and the ever-present possibility of having life turn ironical on us. When a massively successful movie about the Law of Attraction ends up attracting equally massive lawsuits, it blows the lid off the irony-meter, bringing to mind Lily Tomlin's observation that "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."

One point on which I don't entirely agree with the Hendrickses is their observation that New Age scandals usually involve sex rather than money. While that arguably may be true of the stories that most frequently become public, in my experience and observation there are just as many financial shenanigans as sexual ones in the New-Wage industry. Maybe more. But the icky sexual stuff is certainly there, and not all of it does become public. (I'm sitting on a couple of potentially explosive secrets about some New-Wage gurus whom you'd never suspect of illicit and even criminal sexual dalliances...but I can't blog about that yet.)

So let's get back to The Secret lawsuits. As Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks write, "'The Secret' scandal is different, and not only because it's about a huge amount of money. At a deeper level it is about the interface of integrity and the power of manifestation, a subject that has truly life-changing consequences."

And that, of course, is what has all of the tongues wagging about how the Law of Attraction has bitten Rhonda in the butt.

So...where IS Rhonda right now?
As it happens, the question in the title of today's post is not rhetorical, and I can tell you where Rhonda has been for at least part of this week: in court. The aforementioned Drew Heriot's case against her went to a jury trial, much to the surprise of some insiders who were expecting an out-of-court settlement. That trial is now in full swing in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

So why aren't we hearing anything about it? Word has it that there seem to be no press or media at all covering the trial. If that's so, you have to wonder why. Are the media simply bored with The Secret? Or have there been concerted attempts to keep this part of the story out of the public eye? I have no idea, but you can bet that if I were in Chicago, I would be at that courthouse live-blogging nonstop. [As it turns out, someone is blogging about it. See my addendum under "For further reading" below. ~CC]

Drew Heriot may have a tough hurdle to clear, especially in light of the fact that Rhonda and gang have the big bucks for top-flight attorneys. But I'm rooting for him. And I will be rooting for Dan Hollings, too, when and if his case goes to trial.

"In the meantime," say Kathlyn and Gay Henricks at the conclusion of their HuffPost article (which I'll link to again here), "let's all use the legal dramas around The Secret as a good lesson on using the Law of Attraction in the context of a focus on impeccable integrity."

Amen.

For further reading...
THIS JUST IN (15 May 2009): Blogger Stephen Foley says he is sitting in on the trial and is providing updates. Here's the link.

The complete text of the complaints against Rhonda Byrne et al. are available on Amazon:

Drew Heriot's complaint

Dan Hollings' complaint

And here is another lawsuit against a Secret "star," Marie Diamond. Sometimes Diamonds are not a girl's best friend, apparently...

* Re tilak: Yes, that's really what it is (sometimes) called. Ironically enough, Rhonda had a brief fling with a phony guru and alleged sexual predator named Tilak. I wonder where he disappeared to?

All that's missing is the music

Is this simply bad poetry, or the beginning of a schlocky Whirled Musings musical (Whirled Musical?), or just some dopey lyrics in search of a tune? You decide. But I finally sat down and turned my favorite phrase into...well...this. It pretty much wrote itself. Or maybe I channeled it. Yeah...that's it.


I’ve Gotta Find Me A Scam
lyrics by Cosmic Connie
Music by ??

I’ve gotta find me a scam
Make people think
That I’m more than I am
Give ’em a little and make ’em want more
And herd ’em in droves to my Internet store.

They’re gonna make me a star
If I make ’em believe
That they’re more than they are
Make ’em believe that the world can be theirs
And that they’re all destined to be zillionaires.

I’ll forge an online community
Make folks believe
They’ll get special immunity –
Shelter from plagues or a stock market crash –
If only they’ll give me their trust. And their cash.

I’m gonna buy me some phony degrees
A B.S., an M.A., two fake Ph.D.s
I’ll talk quantum physics, I’ll quote from the Buddha,
And no one will know (much less care) if I’ve screwed a
Few thousand folks on my way to success
Long as I bilk with a bit of finesse.

Maybe they’ll pay me to pray
Or simply to chant
All their problems away
With four magic phrases, or one magic word
That rational folk would find droll or absurd.

All I’ll be selling is hope
Worth more by far
Than the best Maui dope
Granted, the high doesn’t last quite as long
And costs a lot more. But is that so wrong?

It’s what people want, after all:
Bright shiny visions
To keep them in thrall
It’s all in the packaging, all in the hype
Oh, I can make millions by marketing tripe!

I’m gonna bundle some mixed esoterica,
Pilfer some symbols from Native America,
Quote Albert Einstein, channel some dead guys,
Make up some buzzwords to make me appear wise.
Claim I’m a healer, say I’m hypnotic,
And hook ’em on hope (it’s the greatest narcotic).

I’ll sell a miracle pill
And maybe concoct
A fantastical swill:
Blue solar water with pale yellow “tea”
Will magically morph into more “green” for me!

I’ll buy a grandiose house,
Ditch my old friends
And dump my old spouse,
Replace ’em with new ones befitting my lot
To prove to the world – and myself – that I’m hot.

Yeah, I’m gonna find me a scam
Make folks believe
That I’m more than I am
Make ’em believe that I’m endlessly wise
Till I even believe my own ludicrous lies!

copyright © 2009 by Connie L. Schmidt

Viral woes

By now the flu hysteria is dying down, the current scuttlebutt being that perhaps the would-be pandemic isn't quite as serious as previously thought. Or maybe it isn't nearly as serious as previously thought. Or maybe it's just that the talking heads are getting bored with it. Or maybe the public is. Darn it all, I was just getting ready to introduce my new line of pandemic-chic outerwear, footwear and jewelry, featuring designer face masks, haz-maxi dresses and biohaz jumpsuits, biohaz-symbol earrings and pendants, hazmat high-heeled boots, and the like. All is not lost, though: we are in the Age of Pandemics, and there will no doubt be many more product ops, so I'll keep my sketches handy.

Even though the current pandemic scare is fizzling, damage has been done. There has been widespread alarm, if not quite a worldwide panic. There have been renewed hysterical campaigns to "close the border" with Mexico. Untold thousands of folks probably began taking powerful anti-flu drugs unnecessarily, thus not only risking personal harm but also unwittingly speeding up the development of newer and more resistant strains of flu, or maybe even a stronger "second wave" of the current bug. (I apologize to any anti-evolutionists who are firmly convinced that G_d created life, the Universe and everything in six days a few thousand years ago, and that evolution is a big hoax. But work with me here, okay? Besides, what are you doing on this blog anyway?)

Even as the micro-critters become steadily more resistant to everything we can throw at them, we bigger critters are in danger of becoming more resistant to public-health warnings. When something really serious and deadly comes down the pike, many may be far less likely to take proper precautions.

More subtle ill effects have also occurred. For one thing, domestic pigs have once again gotten a bad rap. Although officially designated H1N1 flu, the bug that caused such a stir in the Americas and raised a few eyebrows worldwide has most commonly been referred to as "swine flu." Yet the experts say it's a combination of human, swine, and avian strains. I was thinking that maybe it should be called huswavian (pronounced hyoo-SWAY-vian) flu, but huswavian has way too many syllables for the average busy American, and it sounds more like an Armenian surname than a disease. So maybe I'll just call it noofloo. The point is that I seriously think we need to stop blaming Porcine-Americans for stuff that isn't their fault.

On the up side, the manufacturers of waterless hand sanitizers are really cleaning up, so to speak. Once again I've proven myself to be ahead of the curve; I have been carrying itty-bitty bottles of waterless hand sanitizer in my purse for years and years.

"Oh, Cosmic Connie," I can hear some of you groaning. "No matter what you call it, the flu flap is soooo other-blogs and MSM. Not to mention très overdone. Don't you have better things to write about? Besides, how can this possibly be related to your beat?"

Those are good questions, Dear Ones, but, apart from the fact that I reserve the right to occasionally stray from my normal beat, this is in fact a topic that is entirely relevant to my Whirled. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that some of you already know where I'm going with this. (I am nothing if not predictable.)

First of all, many in the New-Wage/selfish-help biz have had something to say about the noofloo. F'rinstance, Secret star David Schirmer, Australia's leading expert on everything, offered his professional opinions on Twitter:

SWINE FLU! HOW STUPID! Dis-ease is always created in the mind. Amazing how drug companies purpetuate [sic] such fear.9:57 PM Apr 28th from web

@missjordanoslie drug co.'s + media. Disease is ALWAYS creatd [sic] in the mind frm fear. Fear causes the mind 2 be not-at-ease (dis-ease)10:29 PM Apr 28th from TweetDeck in reply to missjordanoslie

@m1ch43lf Yes Micheal, reporters & media is responsible for so much damage in society. Fear creates reality.10:26 PM Apr 28th from TweetDeck in reply to m1ch43lf

@missjordanoslie We will never know y those 159 people died. Many ppl take what the media delivers & believe it as truth without question!10:35 PM Apr 28th from TweetDeck in reply to missjordanoslie

@missjordanoslie A great book to read is the Bird Flu Hoax, will give you a different perception about the dreaded swine flu10:37 PM Apr 28th from TweetDeck in reply to missjordanoslie

Don't bother to try to follow those links to "missjordanoslie." She protects her updates. Well, lah-de-dah.

Naturally, I had been wondering whether Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale would have anything to say about the noofloo. Since Joe has a tendency to gloss over or completely ignore the worldly woes that dominate the headlines (or to put his foot in his mouth when he does mention them), I had been wondering if he would acknowledge the noofloo at all. If he did mention it, I wondered, would he simply advise his followers to "refuse to participate" in the pandemic by ignoring the mainstream media, in much the same way that he advised them about the recession? Or would he acknowledge the existence of a flu bug scare but dismiss it as an overreaction due to the machinations of the mainstream media, the drug companies, etc., kind of like David Schirmer did?

As it turned out, Joe did mention the noofloo several times on Twitter – all in the service of promoting a new health blog by one Marcus L. Gitterle, MD:

3 May, 2009: Get the inside scoop about #swineflu from an ER med doc I trust http://www.health-sense.com

2 May, 2009: New health info http://www.health-sense.com

30 April 2009: Truth about Swine Flu http://tinyurl.com/clctgd

That April 30 link leads to a post that has since been removed. More on that in a moment.

Dr. Gitterle, who among other things is an emergency room director in a central Texas hospital, recently found himself at the center of a controversy. For the past week or so, Internet noofloo watchers and random alarmists have been all agog about an email Dr. G. sent out to a few folks last week, following his attendance at a public-health meeting about the noofloodemic. Apparently he was exposed to some alarming information at the meeting, and his good wife suggested that he share that information with a few people. (I don't think he was going all Adam-and-Eve or anything (as in, "The woman whom you put here with me--she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it!"). More likely, he was simply trying to give his wife proper credit.)

The gist of his message – at least according to the version appearing on this site* – was that the epidemic was many times worse than had been publicized so far. Among other things, the email claimed that the virulence, or deadliness, of the virus was as bad in the US as in Mexico, and that there were swine flu victims on ventilators in the US, fighting for their lives, even as he was writing his email.

The version of the email linked to above also noted that some fudging was going on in the reporting of the cases, and it stated that the virus had "crossed the threshold" for a Phase 6 global pandemic status. Finally, it suggested that a nutritional supplement called N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC) might be helpful, as might a homeopathic remedy known as Oscillococinum.

Dr. G. later explained that he had intended his email to be only for close friends and family. I have no doubt that this is the case, but I would think that anyone who has been on the Internet for more than a couple of weeks would know how "close friends and family" have a tendency to forward even marginally interesting emails to everyone they know, plus everyone's dog, plus the horse that everyone rode in on. This is especially likely to happen if the topic is a hot one, and it is almost certainly bound to occur if you don't warn your recipients to keep it confidential, which apparently the doctor did not do.

The upshot was that Dr. Gitterle's "private" email went viral. In the process, according to Dr. G., it was edited and added to and just generally distorted. It was also exploited by some with their own agendas, such as one of those whack-job conspiracy journos who perpetrates a radio show and a few web sites that dare to tell you the "truths" the lib'ruls and the MSM and the New-World-Orderites are deliberately and maliciously keeping from you. (In that sense the conspiro-journos are much like New-Wage marketeers who trade in revealing all the secrets that "they" don't want you to know.) My own brief Googling revealed that some born-agains waiting for Jeezus to return also found Dr. G.'s email worthy of sharing.

To make matters worse, some people apparently included Dr. G.'s full contact information in the forwarded emails, and some even told folks that they could reach the doctor through the hospital that employed him. (The hospital was obliged to inform the media that the doctor was not speaking on the hospital's behalf.)

On or about April 30, Dr. Gitterle published a blog post, "From the Front Lines of the Pandemic: An Update," that appeared to be a somewhat toned-down version of the email he had sent. Some accused him of backpedaling, but, giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he was simply clarifying. In retrospect, it appears that the post was his first attempt at damage control. But the point is pretty much irrelevant, because that blog post is now gone.

On May 1, however, he published two more posts, the first one simply stating that a fraudlent and edited email of his was circulating the Internet, and the second one detailing his frustrations about the event. "In the future," he wrote, "if I send such a message to friends and family, I will certainly be careful to enjoin folks against forwarding it, if it could be a source of controversy or misunderstanding."

According to a May 1 story in the Austin-American Statesman...

Dr. Marcus Gitterle...said he regretted calling the virus deadlier and doesn't believe it's any worse than seasonal flu, which causes an estimated 36,000 U.S. deaths annually. But he said he does believe the case count is probably many times higher than the state or federal government is reporting.

Despite the blowback, many lauded Dr. G. as a hero for sharing important information that no one else was sharing. Even though it would seem that some of the concerns expressed in his email turned out to be exaggerated, and some of the information turned out to be erroneous, some people were willing to give the doctor props for good intentions.

Follow the money trail
Dr. Marc Gitterle is a longtime friend and business partner of Joe Vitale, who has promoted or written about Dr. G. several times on his own blog. Dr. G. returned the favor, writing a cover blurb for Zero Limits, Joe's 2007 book about the Hawai'ian healing method, Ho'oponopono (you knew you'd seen his name here before, didn't you?). Said Dr. G about ZL:

I love this book! I feel it will be the definitive personal-change/self-help book for at least a generation and viewed as a watershed event by historians. There is real potential for this book to start a movement that will end war, poverty, and the environmental devastation of our beloved planet.

Dr. G. and Joe are partners, along with Internet marketer and product creator Jeff Sargent, in a company called Frontier Nutritional Research. So far they've created a cholesterol-lowering nutritional supplement called CardioSecret (which, according to the site, is no longer available, though no explanation is given), and a bodybuilding supplement called A-Pac. They are also creators of the Fit-A-Rita, a "healthy" margarita mix. Frontier Research is also involved in research about longevity and alternative energy.

Since he devoted not one, not two, but three Twitter entries (thus far) to Dr. Gitterle's blog, my first thought was that Joe was either (1) going above and beyond the call of duty to show his support to his pal and business partner in light of the Internet furor; or (2) prepping for a launch (or re-launch) of a line of Dr. G-and-Joe supplements and/or info-products (perhaps to aid people in dealing with this and future "pandemics"); or (3) both.

On one of his May 1 blog posts, Dr. Gitterle wrote that he had been planning his new blog for some time as a means to discuss various health issues, and particularly to share information on the use of nutritional supplements to bolster the immune system. He explained that he never intended the blog to be a forum for discussing the noofloo, but added that he will try to post anything that in his opinion is "objective, rational information that might help us, as citizens, to partner with public officials in minimizing the impact of the pandemic."

I have no reason to doubt that Dr. G. is a competent physician who is genuinely concerned about public welfare and patient health. Moreover, I am sure he is a loving family man and friend, and I imagine that he had some altruistic motives for writing that initial email, as well as the "disappeared" blog post. However, as this incident no doubt reminded him, a public health professional – particularly an emergency-room physician who describes himself as being "on the front lines of the pandemic" – needs to err on the side of caution and discretion when sharing information with anyone, especially in writing. Because of his professional standing, anything he says or writes, even, unfortunately, in a "private" communication, will have considerably more import than the words of some garden-variety alarmist layperson. That's why the media, both legit and otherwise (and fairly or unfairly) jumped on Dr. G.

In addition, I have a feeling that some folks, particularly those in the medical profession, were put off by the fact that Dr. G.'s email contained a recommendation for a homeopathic remedy such as Oscillococcinum for flu symptoms. (I should note, however, that he does not seem to be advocating these alternatives as a substitute for allopathic medicine, only as a complement.)

For me, the central point is the fact that Dr. Gitterle is a business partner of Joe Vitale. This is not to say that Dr. G. was or is motivated chiefly by a desire to promote products or services in which he might have some kind of financial interest. I do not know him, so I have no idea. I am simply suggesting that when evaluating any information he shares, it might be useful to be aware of his other interests. The same is true of any doctor or other professional. Doctors are certainly not immune to letting their vision be clouded by dollar signs. (An early-1990s incident with Deepak Chopra and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) comes to mind. Dr. Chopra, an M.D., swore to the JAMA that he did not stand to gain financially from an article he'd co-authored about the traditional Indian healing method, Ayurveda, although in point of fact he had financial interest in a line of Ayurvedic products mentioned in the article.)

In other words, it is always a good idea to follow the money trail.

Yada, yada...yagya?!?
Dr. G. has another interest that might raise a few eyebrows. Besides being an M.D. and a creator and peddler of nutriproducts, he is apparently a long-time advocate of yagyas, or yagnas, those pricey Hindu prayer rituals that he and his pal Joe Vitale have referred to as "karmic surgery." Joe wrote about yagyas in his book The Attractor Factor, and also mentioned them on his blog a few years ago as one of the aids that helped him to finally lose weight permanently. (Well, maybe "permanently" was a bit of an overstatement. Irrational exuberance, as it were. Or overly enthusiastic marketing.) Joe even credited a yagya for bringing Spiritual Marketing, the book that eventually became The Attractor Factor, to a mainstream publisher's attention.

I've written about this matter here before, but for the benefit of those who don't know, here is a link to a piece about yagyas that mentions both Joe and Dr. Gitterle. This story was apparently taken straight from The Attractor Factor, the first edition of which was published in 2005. The tale appeared unchanged in the revised edition of the book, which came out in 2008. The "best friend" Joe mentioned in his yagya anecdote was his late ex-wife, who passed away in October of 2004, nearly four years after their divorce was final. Although her passing was noted elsewhere in both editions of The Attractor Factor, it was not mentioned in the story of how she was miraculously saved from death by a yagya. I am sure it was just an oversight.

Now, whether Dr. Gitterle and/or Joe have or had any financial interest in any company or organization that sells or brokers yagyas, I couldn't tell you. To me, the very fact that they advocate yagyas is noteworthy, whether or not they stand to gain financially. It's one of those things that makes you go, "Hmmm," as the late comedian George Carlin would say. However, FYI, here is the link to the yagya company mentioned in the article I linked to in the paragraph above. It also happens to be the yagya resource recommended in the list at the back of The Attractor Factor. Although the yagyas are actually performed in India, the company appears to be owned by an Asheville, North Carolina couple, Chuck and Annette Hunner. You have to go through them to make arrangements for a yagya. Chuck and Annette are also into sculpting, jewelry making, and labyrinths.** Here's another one of their web sites.

But back to the noofloo. I think I understand something of the frustration and dismay that Dr. Gitterle has experienced as a result of his impulsive email. But I have a feeling that with Joe Vitale in his corner, he will emerge from this mess just fine, and the two of them will even be able to squeeze a few products from it. In fact, I think we can count on it.

Meanwhile, the people who are really suffering from the noofloo are the pig farmers. They need your prayers.

For that matter, so do the poor pigs.

* Some folks wrote to Dr. Gitterle's blog asking him why he didn't publish his original email so people could compare it to any altered forms that may have been distributed. Thus far he has yet to answer those questions, but he did publish a comment from a contributor named Kevin C., who shared the email he had received (it's on this post, 8th comment). This seemed to be the same email that appeared on the page I linked to above. As Dr. G. did not refute Kevin's implication that this was the email that had originally been sent I will assume that the bits I quoted above were in fact in Dr. Gitterle's original email.
** Speaking of the labyrinth trend, I made fun of it here a couple of years ago.

For more:

Snopes on the noofloo:
http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/swineflu.asp

A forum that contains the text of both the most commonly shared version of Dr. Gitterle's email and his deleted April 30 blog post:
http://www.thetreeofliberty.com/vb/showthread.php?t=59310

Greetings from the "lower levels"

I've previously snarked, albeit briefly, about Dr. David R. Hawkins, inventor of the Hawkins Scale, which purports to be a "map of consciousness." Or, in light of the fact that Dr. Hawkins seems to be extraordinarily protective of his work, perhaps I should capitalize that and put a TM sign after it or something:

Map of Consciousness ^TM

There. I feel better.

Anyway, as it turns out, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale is a big Hawkins fan, as he explains in a recent blog post:

I’m a big fan of David R. Hawkins. He’s the medical doctor/psychiatrist who cured himself of various illnesses and went on to muscle test his way to Nirvana. He’s either enlightened or at least mapped out the path to enlightenment. His “map of consciousness” — a roadmap of our spiritual evolutionary potential — is brilliant...

And he goes on to 'splain more about why Dr. Hawkins is so brilliant.

Shockingly, a somewhat cynical response came in to Joe's post, but Joe rose to the occasion:

# mark says
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…oh I’m sorry what are you trying to sell?
April 29th, 2009 | #

# Joe Vitale says
Yes, Mark, what AM I trying to sell here?
Blessings,
joe

Perhaps I am reading it wrong, but it seems to me that Joe is implying to "Mark" that he is not, after all, trying to sell anything. Knowing Joe, however, I think we can safely assume that he is always selling, and that his Hawkins blog post is no different. (The fact that he conveniently provides links to some of his products in the post would be one indication.) To me that is no big deal; after all, he created his blog to promote himself and his products, and he does a superb job of that.

In this post, though, he seems to be selling more than products or services. Apart from my hunch that he either has or is planning some lucrative joint-venture deal with Dr. Hawkins (after all, he rarely wastes time or energy promoting something or someone unless there's a direct payoff for him), what Joe seems to be selling is something a bit more abstract than a product. He is clearly promoting himself as one of those higher-consciousness types, Hawkins-Scale-wise. Which comes right back down to selling stuff, because golly, who wouldn't want to buy a few books or workshops from such an evolved being?

For us lower-level types who might find Dr. Hawkins' work confusing, Joe offers this advice:

I’ve twittered that I was reading [Hawkins' new book] Healing and Recovery and some people said they found Hawkins confusing. Ironically, that makes sense, as Hawkins’ “map of consciousness” reveals where you are mentally.

If you are at a lower level (in fear, for example) his higher levels (acceptance, for example) won’t make any sense to you.

If you are on the lower level of desire, the higher level of unconditional love won’t compute to you.

I’ve been saying for some time now that life is a process of awakening. The goal is to keep going up the ladder of consciousness. By reading David Hawkins — especially this recent book — you can gently expand your thinking, open your heart, and glide upwards.

As a wise friend of mine noted, "Under the guise of informing his readers about Hawkins, he sets himself as someone with a superior 'consciousness,' one greater than his readers. It's a complete power play. I guarantee that when the comments start coming, at least one of them will be something like 'I can't wait until I am at your level, Joe!'"

According to Joe's post, Dr. Hawkins claims that every single line in his book Power Vs. Force was "tested" to, as Joe put it, "be sure the entire volume calibrated at a high level and would be spiritually enriching to read." Joe adds, "As an author, I can’t imagine muscle testing every line in a book. Hats off to you, David."

When I first heard of the Hawkins Scale, I wondered how people were measured or tested. Were they hooked up to some kind of high-tech machine? Nope, apparently it's all done by "muscle testing" via an alt-healing discipline known as applied kinesiology, or AK. According to some of its proponents, AK is a "lie detector" or rather a "truth detector" – it uncovers the "Truth with a capital T!" in any situation, as Joe might say. How books are tested I couldn't say, since books do not have muscles. They do have spines, though, and AK was invented by a chiropractor (George Goodheart, D.C.), so maybe it all works out.

I found more information about the Hawkins Scale and other scientifical consciousness-measuring/raising stuff on the blog of faithful Joebot Frank Butterfield, who describes himself as "a channel for the Communion of Light based out of Austin, Texas."

Some really big numbers
Now, suppose you are really ambitious and want to raise your vibe level waaaaaay above the ultimate Hawkins number of 1,000. Never mind that Jeezus H. Christ, Buddha, etc. were 1,000, and Hawkins himself is something like a 999.8. (And according to this web site, the SpongeBob Squarepants movie scores a fairly impressive 385. Yes, really; I wouldn't lie about something that important.) But let's say 1,000 isn't good enough for you; you want to go higher. Is such a thing even possible? You betcha! At least it is possible if a guy named Bryan James and his Indigo kiddos still perform frequency accelerations for people.

Come to think of it, I haven't received any emails from the James Gang in a long time. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that some time ago, my name was apparently dropped from what I once frequently referred to as "my favorite New-Wage spam service." Either the spam service went out of business, or they finally figured out that they were a rich mine of nuggets for my Whirled. As for the frequency-accelerating James family, I am sure they're busy with all sorts of enlightened projects. But I do wonder if they ever finished their project to empty out Hell, a topic on which I once reported fairly often.

Remind me to Google that and see if there are any updates.

But I digress. I am sure that Dr. Hawkins has nothing to do with the James family, and vice versa. And perhaps it is unfair of me to have even mentioned them in a blog post that is supposed to be about Dr Hawkins, although I have to say that the James' numbers are pretty impressive, according to the blog post I linked to above. Bryan James' daughter Katherine scored 900 Unvigintillion, and his son Kevin scored 500 Novemdecillion. His wife Lisa? A mere 240 billion. But still.

All snarking aside (well, not ALL snarking, but MY snarking), Robert Carroll, of The Skeptic's Dictionary / Skepdic web site, has some interesting comments on applied kinesiology and David Hawkins. He writes:

...AK has some formidable proponents, such as psychiatrist-cum-guru David Hawkins. He claims, among many other things, that he has proof that AK is a reliable "lie detector" and can be used to determine the truth or falsity of any statement. Hawkins also has developed a "scale of consciousness" and uses AK to determine how "enlightened" a book or person who wrote the book might be.* Hawkins claims he's calibrated The Skeptic's Dictionary at level 160, "which is that of sophomoric egotism."* Only 15% of humanity calibrate at above 200, according to Hawkins, so I'm in good company. By 'consciousness' Hawkins means some sort of developing spirituality. When you score between 700-1,000 you have reached "enlightenment." George W. Bush calibrates at 460, according to Hawkins, which is in the range of intellectual genius. (Need I add that Hawkins holds spirituality in high regard and has very conservative political values?) Hawkins goes so far as to claim that the Wikipedia article on him would calibrate at 400, instead of 200, if it removed the links to my criticisms.*

It's amazing how high the frequency of a piece of writing can rise when criticism is removed. And who knew Dubya is a bona-fide genius? I wonder how my blog would rate on the Hawkins Scale; I am thinking that it would probably be in the negative numbers. Or at the very least, it would be sharing the realm of "sophomoric egotism"* with The Skeptic's Dictionary.

A more balanced perspective
My friend David Portney, a public speaking expert, has extensive experience with applied kinesiology. David, who hangs his hat neither in Snarky Town nor in the Village of True Believers, has kindly given me permission to share his perspective about this whole Truth-o-meter thing:

I've trained extensively in AK and Touch for Health; I actually did take the 100 hour ICAK "for Doctors only" training with Robert Blaich. I have a ton of experience in this area and have been on both sides of the AK treatment table for many, many years. I feel very qualified to speak out on the topic of what AK and/or muscle testing can and cannot "do" or more specifically, discern.

When I heard that Hawkins was claiming to be able to use AK/muscle testing to discern the Truth of A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G, I could instantly find a few major holes in such a proposition (I'll spare the details here).

I then sought out and read Power vs. Force, and although I would say that this is an important work, the MAJOR problem (even after reading it closely and investigating his testing procedures) is his claim about discerning Truth using muscle testing.

In my direct experience, in the hands of a trained expert, AK/muscle testing can be used to uncover various kinds of imbalances and determine the needed correction(s). It takes some exposure to AK to get past the "this has to be bullsh*t" phase because it seems quite odd all the way around, but then when your problems start going away, it's pretty hard to argue with results, and it's definitely NOT a placebo effect. Beyond being treated by AK, getting in-depth "doctor level" training then pulls back the curtain, revealing the how and why it works the way it does. AK is some pretty serious stuff.

However, although Hawkins is far more credentialed and experienced than I am, I take SERIOUS issue with his claim to discern Truth via muscle testing. I can't even find a tiny glimmer of validity to his claim to be able to do so, not even a slight opening that might sway me in that direction.

I think his claim to discern Truth via muscle testing is just plain wrong. Yes, AK is a valid and important tool for detecting and correcting certain body imbalances when used by well-trained, sober, experienced persons.... But discern Truth in any context – past, present or (by his own admission limitations on future) future?--no. Uh-uh. Negative. Not-gonna-do-it.

It seems weird to me that this highly credentialed, experienced guy (Hawkins) could write such an important book with a ton of great observations and insights in it - yet at the exact same time make the foundation for everything in it based on what I see as a claim that just isn't true. The only thing I can figure is that perhaps he "needed" to provide some kind of *irrefutable" support for the points and assertions he makes.

Being highly AK trained, I performed my own little "Truth via muscle testing" experiment - I wrote down about 60 verifiably false statements (e.g., Tracy [my GF] was not born in Japan) and verifiably true statements (David was born in the United States), put them all into separate little envelopes, cleared Tracy of anything that might interfere with getting a proper muscle test, then blind-tested all the statements for "truth"; the results were all over the map - in short, no different than random chance.

It's worth noting that Hawkins claims to have discerned truth in 100% OF THE TESTS, WITH 100% OF THE TEST SUBJECTS.

Now, that is a very interesting claim indeed, Dr. Hawkins. I guess the good doctor just has a way of pulling the Truth out of everything and everybody. Or maybe just pulling his own "truth" out of his...oh, never mind.

Well, Dear Ones, I must get back to doing whatever it is we denizens of the lower levels do with our time. I'll have more soon!

*One wonders how the Hawkins Scale would categorize Mr. Fire's constant mentions of his fame, his expensive cars, etc. Graduate egotism, perhaps?

That's some funny ship!

Watch the video linked to below (and in the pic above). If you find yourself asking, "Where the &$%#! are those Somali pirates when we really need 'em?", trust me, you are not alone.

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/video/Abe_Generic_Cruise_.html

But I guess I shouldn't be snickering. After all, I'm not the one raking in millions and millions from affluent middle-aged seagullibles who pay thousands of dollars to accompany me on a ship to hear me babble to my imaginary friends.

All together now: "I gotta find me a scam..."

Jump thing to snark about

Just a few snippets for a busy Tuesday (or Wednesday, if you're in Another Part of the World)...

Cosmic Connie a Facebook Friend repellant?
I feel so bad, Dear Ones. My wonderful partner Ron, of RevRon's Rants, just lost a Friend on Facebook because of Yours Truly. He and his ex-Friend had known each other for years and years, and had previously exchanged friendly comments on Facebook, and all was well. But then the Friend attended the "final" (more on that in a moment) Zero Lemmings 3 event in Austin this past weekend to hear Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale and Dr. Hew Len reveal new Ho'oponopono cleaning secrets. Today Ms. Friend wrote an update on her Facebook page providing a link to Joe's blog post about the event.

And Ron, ever the helpful one, responded by offering a link to another perspective on the Zero Limits stuff. This link, as you'll see if you follow it, just so happens to be a page displaying all of the posts on my blog in which "Zero Limits" is mentioned. Among those posts are my two-part review of Joe's book, Zero Limits (here's the link to Part 1), and a piece telling the amazing story of my own miraculous experience with ancient Hawai'ian healing secrets.

Less than a half hour later, Ron saw that he had been removed from the ZL attendee's "Friends" list on Facebook.

Needless to say, he is devastated. (No, not really. I am being sarcastic again.)

Ron's ex-Friend was apparently in good company over the weekend, or at least a lot of company. According to Joe, hundreds of folks attended this "final" ZL event (at a thousand bucks a head). I'm thinking it was probably more like just a couple hundred, but hey, "hundreds" is still technically correct, and it sounds much better than "a couple of hundred." And Goddess only knows how many "absentee" attendees paid a hundred bucks a pop for an aloha-yagya* – the privilege of having their name put on a piece of paper and "cleaned on" by Joe, Dr. Hew Len, and the attendees.

Anyway, apparently there have been some exciting developments and discoveries in the Ho'oponopono field. For example, did you know that of those four magic Ho'opo phrases – "Thank you," "I love you," "I'm sorry," and "Please forgive me" – only the first two are actually necessary for cleaning and clearing? That's good news for those of you who are in a time crunch, as well as those who are sick of apologizing to the Divine. You still have to grovel a bit, but at least you don't have to apologize. On his blog post recapping the ZL3 event, Joe wrote:

Dr. Hew Len himself could be heard saying just the two phrases “I love you” and “Thank you.” Say the others if you like, or not. Follow your inspiration.

I guess love really does mean never having to say you're sorry!

But the really exciting development to come from ZL3 is a new cleaning/clearing technique using the classic retro toy Etch A Sketch® as your tool. And you don't even have to have a real Etch A Sketch®; you just think about having one and shaking it down to nothing. That's the whole idea with Ho'oponopono; you shake yourself down to "zero," which is the state where nothing exists and everything is possible. As Joe wrote:

Consider: What would you be if the etch-a-sketch in your mind got shaken right now and you went to zero?

Just don't empty your mind so much that you can't go to expensive workshops, or shop for new miracle products (especially those that involve automatically charging your credit card every month), okay? Since Joe is now officially using Etch A Sketch® as his own personal cleaning tool ("Shake it and I'm clear," he enthuses), I wonder how long it will be before he starts selling a specially Ho'opo-blessed/infused/cleaned Etch A Sketch® for accelerated Ho'oponopono cleaning/clearing (possibly a pocket or business-card-sized card Etch A Sketch®), or at least a DVD utilizing Etch A Sketch® imagery to aid in cleaning/clearing. I imagine he would run into a few copyright problems unless he came to an agreement with the Ohio Art Company. He really ought to consider it, though, because the lemmings would just eat it up. (And he ought to consider that Bobblehead idea too.)**

Notwithstanding all the hype about ZL3 being the "final chapter" of the Joe-and-Dr.-Len Ho'oponopony show, I wouldn't count on that, judging from these recent Tweets:

Dr Hew Len and I are talking about a second volume to our book Zero Limits.1:09 PM Apr 17th

Final day of final Zero Limits and no one wants this to end or be last event. 6:20 AM Apr 19th

But here's the biggest hint of all that Joe and Dr. Len have more in store for the Zero Lemmings:

Dr Hew Len just said "If anyone would put God first they'd make a lot of money." Lovin it. 1:42 PM Apr 17th

"Lovin it"...hmmm. That sort of puts me in mind of McDonalds commercials, which I suppose is entirely appropriate for McSpirituality.

Amazingly, the Zero Limits love spilled over onto Joe's hummingbird feeder.

4 hummingbirds drank in peace from same bottle this morning. A first. They usually fight. Zero Limits 3 spilled over. They are loving now. 8:03 AM Apr 20th

Actually, hummingbirds always fight over feeders, and, judging from what I've observed, they generally stop fighting so much when they finally get a clue that there's enough nectar to go around, especially if you hang up more than one feeder. But hey, who am I to argue with miracles?

I feel just terrible, though, about Ron losing his Facebook Friend because of me. Maybe I should clean on it. But I'm not going to say, "I'm sorry."

And speaking of lemmings...
A friend of mine sent me this old article on The Secret, book version, written by a book store clerk. While The Secret is old news by now, some things are timeless. (And as a former book store clerk myself, I can assure you that this clerk's attitude towards "lemming books" and their buyers is...shall we say...not atypical.)

And speaking of jumping...
Well, we weren't really speaking of jumping, but all that lemming imagery kind of brought it to mind. (I suspect that some of you will want to point out that real lemmings really don't commit mass suicide, but that belief does have a basis in truth – enough of a basis to work as an overused metaphor, for sure!)

Anyhow, I was recently Googling around and came across a marvelous new technique called Quantum Jumping: The Inter-dimensional Quest For A Better You. Quantum Jumping was discovered by a guy named Burt Goldman, who calls himself The American Monk. For over three decades, Brother Burt has been forced to keep this secret, but he can keep it no longer.

So just what is Quantum Jumping? Friend, I'm glad you asked.

"Quantum Jumping," writes Burt, "is the process of 'jumping' into parallel dimensions, and gaining skills, knowledge, wisdom and inspiration from alternate versions of yourself."

Interested? Then jump right over here.

And now I'm jumping outta here, and back into work mode.

* Re aloha-yagya: That's not what it's really called; I coined the term. It seems appropriate.
** No, no, you don't have to thank me, Joe. Generous royalties will be sufficient.

The more things change...

I have a collection of old Reader's Digest magazines that I found in my grandmother's basement years ago. Though it's not a complete collection by any means, the issues, which range from 1937 to 1967, provide some fascinating insights into the things that preoccupied America and the rest of the world in decades past. Magazines can do this in a way that books can't. That's why I am hopelessly hooked on old magazines, even the musty ones that make me sneeze and wonder if I am in danger of getting some gawd-awful ailment from ancient mold spores. It's a risk that we diligent researchers have to take sometimes.

Today while I was in the...um...reading room, I was flipping through a copy of the October 1967 Digest, and came across an article condensed from Today's Health, a general-readership magazine from bygone days (it was published by the American Medical Association). The article was titled, "The Menace of Mail-Order Medicine," penned by one Ralph Lee Smith. I would imagine that this is the same Ralph Lee Smith who wrote the 1960 book, The Health Hucksters: The Shocking Story of How Food and Drug Advertising Exploits Your Health. He also authored a 1969 book called At Your Own Risk: The Case Against Chiropractic, which several Amazon reader-reviewers said was biased and outdated. (Wrote one indignant reviewer: "The author was paid by the AMA to right [sic] this Third Reich dribble. Enough said.")

But this post isn't about chiropractic (and by the way, if you want one contemporary MD's view on chiropractic (among other "alternative" practices), click here). Nor is this about whether or not Ralph Lee Smith was paid off by those Nazis at the AMA. This is about an enterprising fellow who went by the name of Sri Dr. (or Dr. Sri) Abn Donahnji. You won't find much about him by Googling, but a few decades ago he was doing quite a brisk business helping people find health and happiness.

The good Sri Doctor placed a lot of ads, such as the one you see above, in the back pages of magazines. One of these ads caught the attention of a deaf-mute Georgia couple. For those who are offended, I'm sorry, but that's the way they were described in the article. Back in 1967 it wasn't politically incorrect to refer to people as "deaf" or "mute" or even "dumb." The copy that attracted the hearing-and-speech-impaired couple read, in part:

Dr. Abn Donahji, Yogi Healer and Clairvoyant Reader, will solve your problems.

Full of hope, the two wrote to Donahji, explaining that the wife was suffering from cancer and asking if Donahji could help. Well, of course he could! Donahji told the couple that he had cured many people of cancer through his psychic powers; for a $5 weekly "donation" he would cure the ailing wife.

And so the couple promptly began sending him their weekly payments of five bucks, the equivalent of thirtysomething bucks a week in today's dollars. In return, they would periodically receive letters from Donahji assuring them that "the vibrations are building up favorably."

Alas, within a year the woman died of cancer anyway.

Though the Digest article isn't clear about whether the subsequent investigation into Donahji's affairs was in direct response to a complaint by the grieving widower, the fact remains that postal inspectors did at some point begin investigating the mysterious "healer." They discovered that "Sri Dr. Abn Donahji, Ph.D., D.D.N.S."* had actually been born Donald Van Dyke Wilson in Des Moines, Iowa. At one time he had been an assembly-line worker in Detroit, but then he moved to El Lay, where he hit upon the idea of becoming a healer. Changing his name and donning a turban, he studied a bit of esoterica and picked up enough of an "occult vocabulary" to fool Californians. Now, we know that Californians are harder to fool than just about anyone anywhere, so this guy must have been really, really, really good.

The new Sri-Doc set up shop in a house that he renamed "Brmhayati Temple," and hung out his shingle as a spiritual healer, prophet, and marriage counselor. Before long he had acquired a local following, and ads placed in various occult and astrological publications brought him a nationwide clientele. As author Smith put it, "The swami from Des Moines was soon living in a fine house and cruising around in a gold Cadillac."

After an exhaustive investigation, which revealed the extent of his mail-order "medical" practice, Donahji/Wilson was indicted for mail fraud. His files were impounded by postal inspectors and US marshals, who uncovered correspondence with 4,000 people from coast to coast. These folks had been paying Wilson for services such as treatment of cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis – treatments that consisted essentially of "setting up vibrations." In addition, he sold his "patients" copper bracelets with "health-giving properties" for prices ranging from $18 to $76 each. (The wholesale cost of the bracelets was a mere 37 and a half cents.) In all, he had brought in about $400,000, which, in 1967 dollars, was equivalent to more than $2,500,000.00.

He was convicted and sent to jail, and, as far as I can Google, never heard from again.

All I can say is, thank goodness we're all far more sophisticated today, and a phony "healer" like Sri-Doc Donahji/Wilson would never be able to fool so many people for such a long time. And if by some odd chance he did manage to get away with it for a while (and he was working in the US), the Federal Trade Commission or some other government agency would come down hard on him and throw him in the slammer, especially since we have much more stringent consumer protection laws now than we did back in the prehistoric 1960s. And once he'd been to prison, the scammer's reputation would be forever ruined, and he would never be able to scam people again.

I'm truly grateful to be living in more enlightened times.

* Presumably Sri Doc's "degrees" were phony. Thank Goddess people can't get away with THAT these days either.

Back to Snarky Town...

...and not a moment too soon. Just a few little snippets tonight, Dear Ones.

Another dome idea
Yesterday I was Googling and Twittering and just generally drifting in the great ocean of online time wasters, when I swam across a web site about an ambitious project called the Dolphin Sound Dome. The Dolphin Sound Dome, according to its creators, is "a floating temple over the ocean," meaning that it is basically a place where a class of conspicuously enlightened humans who refer to themselves as "sound practitioners" can gather together to moan and howl in a deeply spiritual way so as to annoy any free-swimming dolphins and whales who might happen by. On the Dolphin Sound web site is a scrolling quotation that the Dolphin Sound people claim is straight from the dolphins themselves: "When you 'think' with your heart, the path becomes clear."

If you allow JavaScript while browsing the site, you'll get to hear some of the human sound practitioners "singing" to the dolphins. "Listen for the sounds of dolphins chuffing into our resonant tones at the beginning of the recording," the copy instructs.

I felt guided to let Chris Locke at Mystic B know about this. So I sent him the link, and Chris wrote back:

"Listen for the sounds of dolphins chuffing..." I happen to know a little Dolphin, and they are clearly saying: "Would you PLEASE shut the f--k up? We were trying to sleep down here!"

Just between you and me, I honestly don't think these so-called sound practitioners are really all that sound, if you know what I mean. I do think they should be a lot more careful, especially in light of the serious scientifical evidence that dolphins and whales really hate us. You've been warned, Dolphin Sound People!

And speaking of dolphins, here's a New-Agey movie I somehow missed. Darn.

Another miracle in a bottle...and another "permanent" weight-loss secret
I know this is going to come as a huge surprise to you, but Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale has discovered a miracle supplement. Recently he enthused on Twitter: "I'm told this is THE Fountain of Youth http://tinyurl.com/c9nva4 ."

The supplement in question is called, for some reason I've not yet figured out, Astral Fruit – not to be confused with the Astral Projection Pill I wrote about here back in October of 2006.

According to the web site, Astral Fruit contains "a natural small molecule Telomerase activator," and it "supports Cardiovascular Health, DNA Repair, Telomere Repair, lengthening [ahem], Cell Division and Chromosome Health." You can get it for a one-time price of $29.99 for a one-month supply, or get sucked into...er...signed onto an automatic-deduction-into-perpetuity deal for $27.99 a month.

I'm sure that Joe wrote about this miracle in a bottle only because he has his readers' best interests in mind, and not because he is selling Astral Fruit himself, or writing on behalf of one of his buddies who is selling it. I'm sure Joe himself doesn't need another Fountain of Youth, particularly after he discovered that miraculous stem-cell enhancing supplement, StemEnhance, that he blogged about last year. That supplement solved all of his remaining health problems, including his asthma and his food sensitivities.

Something must be working for him, fountain-of-youth-wise, because a couple of nights ago, after his latest Rolls-Royce Mastermind session, he Tweeted:

Told tonite: "Joe, I'm a medical doctor and I can't explain how you look so young." Ahh, compliments. http://www.blog.mrfire.com 11:14 PM Apr 9th from web

Joe provided a link in his Tweet to his blog, in which, in a recent post, he once again promotes the work of his new pal, serial scammer Kevin Trudeau. The implication, I suppose, is that his "secret weight loss" formula, including the stuff he learned in True-Dough's weight-loss book, is what's making him look so youthful. And by the way, Joe also claims in that post to have finally found the permanent cure to weight loss. But I think we've heard that claim before... In fact, I know we have.

Here's what did the trick for Joe, weight-loss-wise, a few short years ago:

I've done several things you've never heard of, from investing $15,000 in a "time machine," to having "karmic surgery" done, to wearing a magic ring blessed by a group of Indian mystics, to training with world-famous body builder Frank Zane, to working out with T.R. Goodman, the man who trains actor James Caan, to -- well, I'm not going to tell you everything.

Of course, I also had to learn how to elevate my consciousness about food and exercise. I had to get mentally tough and spiritually aware. It's been a process of awakening.

As for the weight-loss secret du jour that Joe is currently sharing (and about which he is now apparently planning to write an entire book), an important part of it involves the program Kevin Trudeau touts in his weight-loss book. This program includes a 500-calorie-a-day diet. In his blog post, Joe writes:

Kevin says the diet is easy, which is the only thing I disagree with him about. Eating 500 calories a day (you get the rest of the fuel from HCG burning fat) is not easy, especially in social situations.

A little later, however, when responding to a comment from an MD who disagreed with Joe about the Trudeau-recommended program, Joe wrote:

I also found the diet a ssnap [sic] to follow. What you can eat is spelled out so its [sic] a no brainer. That’s easy. I admit eating in social situations was more of a challenge, as everyone is gorging while you aren’t, but I did it.

Unless "ssnap" is some code word for "challenging," it appears that Joe is contradicting himself. (I know: like that's never happened before.) Here is someone else's commentary about the weight-loss plan Trudeau outlines in his book, which might give you an idea of how "easy" it really is.

Joe claims that the real difference in this radical program – the factor that makes the caloric deprivation cause your body to lose unwanted fat instead of healthy muscle – is a substance called HCG, which, although not illegal in the US, requires medical supervision. Joe doesn't 'splain what HCG is, so I will. HCG, which is administered as daily injections (for 45 days!) during Phase 2 of the Trudeau program, is short for human chorionic gonadotrophin. This is a hormone found in the urine of pregnant women. (And yes, urine is a rich source of remedies. The traditional Rx drug for menopause is made from pregnant mare's pee (that would be Premarin). And HCG for weight loss is a substance found in the pee of pregnant women. Wait...pregnant women gain weight. Pregnancy can make a person huge. What the...?)

The HCG protocol was originally created in the 1950s by a Brit doc named Dr. Albert T. Simeons. It has been pretty much discredited, and today HCG injections are primarily used for treating fertility problems. (Now, that makes sense.)

With the exception of the M.D. who disagreed with Joe on the Trudeau...er...Simeons protocol, the majority of the comments to his secret-weight-loss formula post were positive. (One person did weigh in with her own scientifical explanation and protocol. She's Dr. Maureen Maples, a chiropractor and naturopathic physician who just happens to peddle a line of "emotion potions" that balance your chakras and such.)

At any rate, here's the real skinny on HCG, according to Dr. Stephen Barrett's Quackwatch site. As for Joe, he's looking fit and says he's feeling fine these days. But then again, he said that back in 2005 or so, when he named himself the Charles Atlas of the Internet. I'm just sayin'...

Cosmic Connie gets taken to task yet again
As you may recall, recently I was read the read the riot act about what a rage-filled and frightened twerp I am. Naturally, I was devastated (well, not really). But the criticism just keeps on coming. Today I received a comment to a post that is over two years old. This was actually one of my more thoughtful pieces, in which I expressed my doubts and ambivalence about some of life's deep questions, and discussed some of the factors that keep me from being a complete skeptic about everything.

A few folks liked the post. But a person named Anonymous (I get a lot of those) wasn't at all impressed. Here is what Anonymous wrote to me (my words, as quoted by Anon, are in pink, and Anon's remarks / "rereading" are in blue):

My reread of the amazing philospher [sic] and logician Cosmic Connie:
I’ve never been a big Deepak Chopra fan. (Does it show?) Chopra gets points off in my book for several things, including his considerable ego, unlike my own small, reasonable and totally deserving ego demonstrated by the fact that I've posted my thoughts, along with my photo here, for all the world to study:, the Q.M. (quantum mysticism) factor which he doesn't understand, but I do with my degree in quantum physics, quantum mechanics and Superstring Theory: his former close ties with the Maharishi,who I also don't like, disapprove of and arbitrarily declare a phony: and just the general fact that he's been a New-Wage cult figure for over fifteen years, and everybody kowns [sic] that trends, truths and fashions of the day change and we should move on. Who listens to Dr.Phil anymore?? I rest my case.

Setting aside the fact that my correspondent only addressed the first paragraph or so of my post, which actually had little to do with the deeper message I was attempting to convey, I have to admit that the idea of your Cosmic Connie as a logician or quantum physics expert is pretty hilarious. But then again...well, just click here for my response.

PS ~ Shortly after I published this post, I checked my email, and apparently the "Anonymous" person I quoted above does have another name. He sent not one but two private emails to me that repeated, verbatim, the comment sent to my blog (just in case I was too dense to get it the first time, I guess). The subject line: Free Speach [sic]: A Waste for those with Nothing (worthwhile) To Say. I know your name now, Anon, but don't worry; I won't share that it is John Gast in Canada. Oops.

Meaningless quotation(s) of the day
"The greatest gift u can give others is an attitude of 'unconditional positive regard' -- acception without limitation."

That gem comes to you from master motivator Brian Tracy. Never mind that "acception" isn't even a word, and that "unconditional positive regard" of someone or something is not necessarily a good thing, say nothing of "the greatest gift." Hey, it's Brian Tracy, after all! If he says it, it has to be profound.

Actually, I first ran across the Brian Tracy quotation as a "re-Tweet" on Secret teacher John Assaraf's Twitter page. Once again I was reminded of that "magic circle jerk of mutual self-admiration" that Chris Locke mentioned in the post I quoted the other day. I was reminded even more of it when I saw John Assaraf following the standard Twitter hustlers' practice of "re-Tweeting" a compliment given to him by someone else:

RT @InnoFuture: @OneCoach John, reading Answer, fantastic, your own twits r proof that u walk the walk &have a great life balance, congrats!

InnoFuture, the Twitterer who gave John Assaraf the compliment he felt compelled to re-Tweet, is a Melbourne, Australia woman named Margaret Manson, who describes herself on her Twitter page as, "Don Quichote [sic] for innovative Australia; collector of modern philosophers; hooked on innovation, coffee and Italian culture." The Tweet that apparently inspired her to praise John was this one:

using the next 10 minutes to think and be, no doing. Connect to the source as I call it.

Pretty darned profound, huh? By the way, John also recently Tweeted about a video of his "Best Year Ever" speech, a pep talk in which he told his audience that he refuses to play along with the recession. Frankly, though, he sounds just a tad desperate.

This one won't grow up and rip your best friend's face off
Finally, although this isn't about New-Wage stuff, it is about strange/silly/sad obsessions, so you could say it is marginally related to my normal subject matter.

A few months ago the ABC show 20/20 had a show about mothering, and there was one segment about how some women indulge their maternal instincts by collecting super-realistic baby dolls, also known as "reborns." This topic has been rather widely covered elsewhere as well. On a fairly frequent basis, I come across ads for one of those expensive "collectible" baby dolls in a magazine or Sunday newspaper supplement. They are noteworthy not only for the product itself but for the schlocky ad copy.

But the one that really takes the cake (or, more likely, the banana) is "Little Umi." I saw an ad for "Little Umi" not long after I watched that 20/20 segment (you don't suppose this could be one of those synchronicity things, do you?). "Little Umi" is lovingly brought to you by Ashton-Drake and beloved doll artist Wendy Dickison.

I scarcely knew whether to laugh, cry, or hurl as I read the ad copy:

Fall in love with Little Umi, a collectible orangutan baby doll you have to see to believe, and the first-ever So Truly Real® baby monkey doll! Beautifully crafted, her head and limbs are of collector-quality silicone that recreate every realistic detail of her face, hands and feet. Hand-rooted wispy red hair covers her from head to toe. Offer Little Umi her FREE pacifier and watch as she gazes up at you with gentle, trusting eyes.

This irresistible collectible monkey doll by renowned doll artist Wendy Dickison is available exclusively from The Ashton-Drake Galleries. Best of all, a portion of the proceeds from your purchase of Little Umi will be donated to support rainforest preservation! Don't wait to let your love for Little Umi nurture the miracle of birth and life across our beautiful world. Strong demand is expected, so order now!

In regard to the title I chose for this snippet*, I am aware that "Little Umi" is a baby orangutan (and, of course, not a live one),** whereas the ape that was recently in the news for attacking a woman was an adult chimpanzee (and, though once alive, no longer is). However, I think that maybe the kind of people who would buy a monkey doll are precisely the kind who should be reminded that orangutans, though cute and cuddly when infants, are just as dangerous to humans when they grow up as chimps are.

Unfortunately, these facts haven't stopped some people from trying to adopt apes as pets. And, of course, the apes' smaller brethren, monkeys, have long been popular pets (or at least they are popular until their owners find out how loud and messy monkeys really are). Take a look at this early-1960s back-pages magazine ad:

By the way, if you really want to get p.o.'d about how humans treat some of our fellow primates, click here.

Oh, but I don't want you to leave mad. I want you to leave here charmed and delighted. Here, then, is some real live cuteness. Yes, it's captive cuteness, but captive presumably in the interests of preserving a species rather than indulging someone's longing for an exotic pet.

So...from snarky to Snuzzy: that's quite a trip, and I'm tired. But I'll be back soon.

And more than likely, I'll be snarking.

* My alternative title was "Ape misbehavin'"...but I think I used that somewhere before.
** Memo to people actually considering buying this item: You do know that "Little Umi" is not a live monkey and is not literally gazing at you with trusting eyes, right?