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..."
26 comments:
LOL Connie, didn't Scientist Bob have a fools afloat thing happening last year some time? Maybe it's catching on. Its a wonder its not floating above the water with so much hot air onboard.
Oh, yeah, Anon, Scientist Bob has his annual cruises, as do numerous other New-Wage gurus. And I understand that "Secret" star Dr. John Demartini, who is also of course a quantum physics expert, actually lives on a ship that constantly circumnavigates the globe. But it probably doesn't spend much time off the coast of Somalia (though we can only wish...) Oh, bad, bad Connie.
But actually, I think Scientist Bob may have borrowed the idea from Abraham-Hicks. They've been doing those cruises for a few years now, and it was on one of their cruises that Rhonda Byrne did her interviews with the Hicks for the original edition of The Secret (of course, the Hicks were later ousted from the franchise when Rhonda got too greedy).
But speaking of hot air, one wonders why some of the New-Wage gurus don't sponsor exclusive overpriced Blimp Tours. "Soaring Mastermind sessions to literally take you above it all!" It's something to consider...
Actually, "shipoffools.com" is a real religion-debating group. Your post title reminded me of the way cool 3-D "virtual church" they constructed as an experiment ages ago.
It was a Shockwave application that required high-speed internet and even then it was REALLY hard to get into. You could get in as a "ghost" avatar, but getting in as an actual participant was darn well impossible.
I only got in there as an "actual" virtual person once, trying every day (goofing off at work!) for MONTHS. It was kinda cool. Your avatar could walk and kneel and all sorts of things. You could walk around this churchy-sort of 3-D environment and chat with fellow parishioners if you so desired.
But the only thing I really remembered was, there were these snack vending machines in the gathering-hall portion of the church building, and they developed a "cult" of people who would kneel in front of the vending machines and pray to the snacks, much as someone might pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Lots of stuff like "I pray for your bountiful crunchy, nutty goodness" and whatnot. It was mildly amusing, but the practice apparently pissed off the users who were honestly attempting to use it as a real church.
Oh, hey, it's open again:
http://www.churchoffools.com
It was kinda fun back then, but a little clunky and dull after a while. (There was only three rooms or so in the whole building.) Don't know if they jazzed it up any since then. And back then they were threatening to "smite" people who were caught praying at the vending machines--don't know if they still have the snacks or not...
Thanks, Mojo, I will definitely check it out. LOL about those “prayers.”
Traditional religion isn't normally my beat on this blog, but my pal Chris Locke at Mystic B sent me some links were sent to him by one of his pals. There are some seriously (over)Flash-animated web sites among God's People. Not content to have their ornate palaces, many churches and religious orgs have an ornate web presence as well.
F’rinistance, there’s
http://www.iccm-1.org/
This is an organization that is working hard to keep Church and State separate – or, rather, they're working to keep the State out of churchly coffers. (They describe an “atmosphere of suspicion” because the IRS had the gall to audit nonprofit orgs.) Here’s the page detailing their statement of purpose:
http://www.iccm-1.org/welcome.htm
Chris wrote to me, “You MUST sample the K&K Mime one. Holy S—t!”
http://www.sharperfx.com/kkmime/index13.htm
There really is something kinda weird about two black guys in white face calling themselves Mime Ministers.
But here’s the really elaborate one, a combo of Tony Robbins-inspired hustledorkery and traditional Come-To-Jesus-ism:
http://www.evangelcathedral.net/
(Chris said his pal who sent him this one wrote, “If you can make it through the full intro, it's worth it for the killer guitar riffs. Also, does anyone else think there's something distinctly odd about the colour spread between the congregation and the two overfed white folk up on the altar?”)
Apparently all of these sites are designed by this company:
http://www.sharperfx.com/
I’ll say this for the designer: He’s a hell of a Web artist.
Prog rock and video game imagery, the church is getting 'down with the kids'---kewl.
I love the bit about the cult forming around the snack machine--tee hee---reality bites.
Hail Eris!
Hey Connie,
Have to share something with you, since I heard you mention (Dr.?) Demartini.
As you may or may not be aware, Demartini was in Brisbane two nights ago, touting his "Breakthrough" camp. A friend invited me along, and I thought I'd check it out and give you the scope.
Aaannyway, to cut a long story short, it turned into two hours of boredom. It was the same stuff "the secret" spurned out, more or less (at one point in the seminar he even used the exact words from the informercial).
In fairness to Demartini, he's an excellent speaker, with remarkable body language congruency. I was amazed with his effectiveness as a public speaker. He really did manage to captivate the audience.
Unfortunately, I, along with other members of the audience, got a bit wary when he started crying because of his admiration for his original teacher (Paul Gregg or someone? Wasn't paying attention). It honestly looked pathetic and was definitely choreographed.
What offended me during that Seminar was something he said which I took to heart. It was: "The Bible says to give, give, give... this is wrong. You have to give AND take, in a fair exchange'
Of course, my immediate vision was of starving african children with hands outstretched begging for food, and a plump and pompous demartini standing by saying 'no sorry, you've got nothing to offer me so I won't bother giving you anything - but let me know when you want to exchange'.
Of course, most idiots in the audience (ok, in fairness, not ALL of them were idiots, one or two walked out and I heard murmurs of disbelief from other audience members) just stood there and nodded as if to understand.
At one point, Mr. Demartini emphasised that, after Brisbane, he would be "flying to Ireland to assist in the peace process there as an advisor to the Irish government"... whatever that meant.
Of course, after his speech, and his "emotional breakdown" (yes he really did cry during the seminar) came the pitch, from his obvious sponsor Global1Training.
The pitch was "the breakthrough seminar" where Demartini offered to 'stay up until 5am with his clients, until they brokethrough whatever was blocking them from allowing money to come into life'.
In short Connie, it was a crock of crap seasoned with leeching maggots, dished up steaming hot to the 1000 people that attended the seminar.
I just loooooooved global1training's approach to people who couldn't afford the 2000 or so upfront price tag. Conveniently, if one put a deposit down on the night, the rest could be manageable by 'easy installment payments'. Oh, and yes, by signing up that one, one also got something like 800 bucks worth of demartini's dvd's and books and crap for free. And of course, if one signed up that night, demartini would be waiting - that night - to meet the people who's 'lives he was about to change'.
*sigh*
Anyway. That's the rundown.
"At one point, Mr. Demartini emphasised that, after Brisbane, he would be "flying to Ireland to assist in the peace process there as an advisor to the Irish government"... whatever that meant."
Oh please not. Ireland has quite enough to contend with already. Please keep him contained safely elsewhere :-)
Anon 7:08 AM: Ever since the '60s, churches have been trying to "get down with the kids," but with all of these cool tools and the Internet and such, they just have more ways to do it. As for me, I'll take the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Yeah, I realize you don't focus on organized religion. Just that this has been a wildly synchronistic week, and while intellectually I recognize it's just a random clustering I can still enjoy the "woo" effect nonetheless. (Which I honestly do, heartless monster though I may be.)
Ron's talking about the Buddha on his blog got me reminiscing about my own Adventures With Roshi, which of course opened up in my brain a WHOLE can o' worms regarding my own Sordid Past, and the poles-apart philosophies of "just ignore the bad in this world by DE-FRIENDING anything you don't agree with" vs. the peacemaker order's philosophy of "bearing witness" and fully acknowledging some really, REALLY awful, unpleasant things.
And while I went through a brief snarky period of sarcastically wondering what horrible thing the ex-friend did to ATTRACT a HORRIBLE BEAST such as RON into their life in the first place (ditto ME, I suppose!), it eventually got me reflecting on what I see as an inherent NEED to dwell on and reflect on "negative" experiences so that one may learn from them. Since I am of the opinion that most people's serious learning and growth comes mostly from events one would classify as "negative" and "unpleasant" instead of happy-happy joy-joy all the time.
Around this same time the Simpsons last weekend had Lisa getting too depressed dwelling on the crummy state of the world and they drugged her with a happy drug called "ignorital" (which Elizabeth brought up in a discussion over on Steve's shambook blog), which made her see happy faces no matter what was happening. (Barney the drunk vomited a puddle of happy faces, Chief Wiggum got shot and bled a big pool of happy faces, etc.) Which of course I found amusing, and applicable to the sticky morass of thinking I was enjoying at the time.
And Connie just flinging out the phrase "Ship of Fools" reminded me of the online 3-D church made by the Ship of Fools people, for it was at this job with Roshi B and the peacemakers that I first heard of this application, and we on the staff all tried every day to get into the church, which was SWAMPED with users. I don't think a day went by when I didn't spend ten minutes or so visiting the site trying to get in. Finally one day after WEEKS of trying I finally DID get in, and I made a huge excited announcement to the staff, and we all gathered around my computer as I wandered around the environment. And that's when it slowly dawned on me that it was the CHALLENGE of getting in that was so appealing, and once I was in I realized it really wasn't for me and it was sort of a letdown. I just kinda wandered around like a tourist and exchanged vapid pleasantries with other users, but I felt like I was intruding so I very quickly left. It was the quintessential "Is THIS all there is?" after a big build-up in my brain, which I think is a common failing of pursuing only that which you THINK will make you happy.
(Incidentally I got on yesterday with no problem whatsoever, but the "church" was totally empty. Apparently they "fixed" it so you are only in there by yourself. That makes it an even BIGGER letdown, since interacting with all the others was the great appeal of it back then. This was a few years before Second Life caught on, so at the time it was REALLY COOL. But yesterday wandering around all alone was just "eh". They took all the fun out of it when they made it single-user...)
And around that whole time we were goofing off with THAT (while diligently doing our jobs, ahem) the whole staff got together and decided to throw enough money in a pot to send one of us to that year's Auschwitz Retreat, which the organization put on every year. I would have LOVED to go, but apparently not badly enough, since the name pulled from the hat was NOT MINE (even though I shut my eyes and crossed my fingers and chanted "Oh please please please please please" during the drawing) but instead a dear friend and co-worker (damn her! Oh, um, I mean, hey, congrats!).
So SHE went, and when she came back one of my fondest memories (for lack of a better word, since I don't know that "fond" is really what I mean) is her vainly attempting to describe the indescribable. For part of her experience involved spending the night sitting alone on the floor in the middle of one of the children's barracks at Auschwitz, just meditating and thinking and bearing witness and acknowledging some of the unimaginable horrible things suffered in the history of that place. (I refer to "meditation" in the more casual sense, since--like most of the staff at the time--she was not technically Buddhist. The organization at the time was not exclusively Buddhist, either--that has since changed.) Which was REALLY AMAZING just listening to her talk about it.
AND, as if my life and reminisces and blabbing aren't tiresome ENOUGH, about a month ago I bought a bunch of Pema Chodron tapes for the library, and I've been driving around listening to her, and during all this swirling mishmash of synchronicity last week I pop in the next thing on the pile into my car's CD deck which is called something like "The Places That Scare You". Which again promotes the philosophy that ignoring things does not work and you really need to sit and fully experience discomfort when and as it arises. And wouldn't you know it--about halfway through she brings up the phrase "bearing witness", and my roshi boss/friend by name, and starts gabbing on and on about the whole peacemaker order and their work and how nicely it dovetails with her whole "leaning into discomfort" idea that she advocates. (Which, don't get me wrong, is like ONE TINY ASPECT of all that she teaches...)
So in a nutshell (gadzooks, why can't she just SAY this in first place and SPARE US ALL?), it's just been a week of oddly synchronistic reminiscing. The "Ship of Fools" reference just capped it.
Anon 9:16 AM, thank you for the rundown about the Demartini event in Brisbane. And yes, it is *Dr.* Demartini, who by training is a chiropractor. Somehow none of what you wrote comes as a surprise, and yet I think input such as yours is very valuable because it illustrates, in a far better way than my drive-by snarking ever could, that these New-Wage showmen are heavy on style and light on substance.
The fact that a few people walked out, and a few expressed disbelief or shock about some of Demartini's more arrogant statements, gives me hope that this crap is reaching a saturation point. Could it be that people are wising up?
If so -- if this is indeed an indication of some sort of turnaround -- I am more than aware that the turnaround could reverse again in a moment if some enterprising hustledork were to come up with something new enough or different enough to grab people's attention. But I’m also thinking that the bar has been raised so high (with whiz-bang special effects, carefully scripted speeches, sophisticated "persuasion" techniques, etc.) that finding something "different enough" could be a challenge. Perhaps a return to the low-tech and stunningly simple would be the ultimate tool of persuasion…until, of course, people got burned out on simplicity and low-tech.
Besides, the fact that most in that audience were being Bobbleheads leads me to believe that we’re probably still a long ways from the saturation point. Part of me wants to give the audience, and all similar audiences, the benefit of the doubt and speculate that their main motive in Bobbleheading was simply to be polite and supportive of the person on stage. (That has certainly been my own motive for Bobbleheading during some speeches I’ve sat through.) But somehow I doubt that Demartini has reached his level of fortune and fame due to the politeness of his market.
By the way, Demartini’s original “teacher,” the one whose very name apparently now evokes crocodile tears, was the late Paul C. Bragg, who turned him on to natural foods and health and such. Even after meeting Bragg, however, it was years and years and YEARS before Demartini was finally able to break through to his current income level.
I wrote about Demartini’s long, slow road to fame in a 2007 article for the Skeptical Inquirer web site:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/secretrons.html
If you’ll allow me the indulgence of quoting myself for a moment…
==BEGIN QUOTE==
[Demartini] dropped out of school at fourteen, headed for the California coast and became a surfer dude, ending up in Hawaii by seventeen. His life in paradise nearly came to an abrupt halt when he almost died from strychnine poisoning. The bio page on his web site does not specify exactly how he got strychnine poisoning, so one can only speculate (I suspect a recreational-drug connection). Whatever the source of the alleged poisoning, the near-death experience apparently turned Demartini’s life around. On the road to recovery he found Dr. Paul Bragg, a nutritionist and founding father of the health food industry, who, according to Demartini’s web site, “would change his life forever by instructing him to repeat one simple affirmation every day: ‘I am a genius and I apply my wisdom.’” The affirmation did not make Demartini rich overnight. Eventually he went to college and then went through chiropractic training. He also began doing public speaking, and at one presentation in the mid 1980s he was introduced to self-help giant Dr. Wayne Dyer, who shared life-changing advice with him about how to become a successful international speaker.
Even Dyer’s tip wasn’t the key to overnight wealth for Demartini, who continued to grow his chiropractic practice, while developing seminars on wisdom and wealth, always working towards his goal to become a famous public speaker. After many years of small-time speaking engagements that grew increasingly larger, after countless hours spent honing his wisdom and turning it into a marketable shtick, he hit the big time and became the self-help/motivational star he’d long wanted to be. Today Demartini owns several homes all over the world, with his main residence being a luxury cruise liner, The World, described on his web site as “the only resort community to continually circumnavigate the globe.”
== END QUOTE==
BTW, in that article I provided a link to a bio page on Paul Bragg’s web site. That link no longer seems to be valid, but you can still find out about Bragg & his legacy by visiting
http://www.bragg.com/
It’s interesting that Demartini – who also happens to be a long-time buddy of Joe Vitale’s – would be so adamant about life being about fair exchanges rather than giving. Another bud of Vitale’s, not nearly so famous and I’m guessing not nearly so rich, is Dr. Rick Barrett, who is also a chiropractor. Rick’s big thing is his ‘Give To Live’ book and program, and he says it’s all ABOUT giving without thinking about what you’re going to get in return. Of course the implicit message in his work is that if you give, you’re going to automatically receive all sorts of emotional, spiritual and material blessings…but it’s fundamentally all about giving.
But back to Demartini...I received a private email some time back from a person who is good friends with a guy who actually is an expert in quantum physics. My correspondent's friend went to a Demartini event and apparently asked some challenging questions of Demartini, and apparently Demartini was amazingly arrogant. Gee, who woulda thunk?
I wonder how many people Demartini really persuaded that night in Brisbane to sign up for the "breakthrough" or whatever it was supposed to be. And as for his claim that he was going to Ireland to help in the peace process....hmmm....it seems to me that there really isn't that much going on in Irleand any more. Maybe he should go to the Middle East. Or better yet, maybe he should take his big ship to the coast of Somalia. Now, that could be entertaining.
OTOH, Demartini would probably just recruit the pirates for a huge joint-venture deal, educating them in the art of more subtle piracy, and he'd wind up even richer. So...never mind!
Rational Thinking, I agree that Ireland probably has its challenges these days (though my understanding is that things are marginally better than they were a generation ago or so), but heck, maybe Demartini will provide a little entertainment.
Mojo, I for one appreciate your reminiscences. And just because org religion isn't normally my beat, that doesn't mean I'm averse to the occasional potshot. In fact, your previous comment gave me just the opening I needed to share the links to those special-effects-saturated church web sites.
It does seem that most of the New-Wage gurus, at least those who were in "The Secret," are peddling their own brand of ignorital -- even those who teach the idea of "taking complete responsibility" for everything and everyone around you (a la Ho'opononononononononono). Ron's ex-Facebook "Friend," who was so enthusiastically promoting the Ho'opo event she'd just attended, apparently decided that she would take total responsibility by wiping Ron completely from her Facebook experience. Well, after all, Ho'opo is all about "cleaning"....
"I just don't get it! I just don't get it!" she screamed as she jumped overboard.
Oh, but Lana, aren't you feeling the "joy, joy, joy?"
Actually I know how you feel. That "I can do it! Joy, joy, joy" song (from the vid I linked to in my post) is in my head. It will not leave. It makes me want to jump overboard too, except I am not on a ship so I can't.
I confess to feeling a surge of hope when I saw the brief footage of what looked like an iceberg in that vid...
Oh, bad, bad Connie.
Yeah, I went through the online portfolio of work on the Flash guy's site. At first I was overwhelmed with the ornateness of the decorations--like the guy was designing currency or something. But as I started looking at all the thumbnails it struck me that despite all the different swirligigs and doodads they were all ending up looking vaguely the same.
And then while trying to get a sense of how much this guy charges for such intense design--well, there's no mention of price, but one line mentions his offering "quick turnaround site products".
And that's when I went "ohhhhhh".
Although all the color schemes and individual swirligigs are all different, each site is based on a singular template. Each one has the elaborate "cage" on the top for the header, and some sort of columnar doodads along the sides, and it all starts looking very busily similar in a short period of time, especially when you gang 'em all together as thumbnails.
It's a little busy for my taste, plus on dialup it loads WAY too slow. Guess they're shooting for folks with the Big Money and not low level scum like me who can't get Verizon to string a new line out in the woods so Mojo can get DSL...
And yeah, the mime church looks way too freaky for me to want to click on it. In solidarity with our LOA friends, there ARE some things in life I am comfortable NOT knowing more about....
Yeah, Mojo, I noticed pretty quickly that there was a definite sameness to these sites. But the guy does have skill to have been able to work up the templates in the first place. He just seems a bit lazy Well, if he can make a living selling the same thing over and over again, more power to him. I looked at some of his other art work and portraiture and such and he is definitely talented.
No DSL, you say? We have that problem too out at the Edge of Nowhere. But we depend upon high-speed Internet for the survival of our bidness, so we get satellite Internet thru Wild Blue. It leaves a lot to be desired, but it's better than dialup!
I really think there needs to be a Mime Ministry for the Blind... now, THAT would be an accomplishment.
oh this is too much. These guys are the worlds worst wankers really. Look at Aussie David Schirmer. He's now preaching to the faithfull followers at a church telling them they they are idiots if they are not rich (or words to that effect anyway) and then he goes on to tell them that they must have multiple sources of income because it is Gods will. Well now what freakin idiot is not going to catch onto the guy now and realise that the whole thing is about finding more suckers he can latch onto to make money for himself. It is all about selling his own products what else could it be about when the man has been to court probably more times than I've changed my undies in the last year alone and really his credentials are seriously non existent not to mention his credibility in any area. These people are sad cases and are simply sucking money out of people at the worst possible time and I believe, I really do believe that it will backfire on them bigtime in the next few years. I'm happy to watch!
Just to be clear... the "friend" who de-friended me is not a monster, in my opinion. I think she is simply very motivated toward making money, and perceives her friendship with Vitale as a potentially effective tool (I happen to agree that he is a tool, but probably apply a different, '60s-era definition to the word). By even tacitly allowing my presence in her e-world, she probably felt either that she was betraying another friend, or that allowing any disrespectful comments ran contrary to the source of her hoped-for affluence, threatening the schtick that she (and JV are presently riding. That in itself doesn't make her evil... we just have different priorities.
Anon 6:06 AM: You make some good points, and of course David Schirmer seems to be a prime example of the sort of hustler who is "sucking money out of people at the worst possible time," as you put it. The fact that Schirmer, as well as far more famous and successful members of the selfish-help/New-Wage industry, seem to still be able to do this indicates that the industry is basically recession-proof. Hope springs infernal, as SHAMblog's Steve Salerno might put it...
Ron, I hope I didn't come across as trying to portray your ex-"friend" as monstrous. IMO, she's just another wannabe who is trying (perhaps a bit desperately) to ride on the coattails of the more successful members of her chosen industry. OTOH, removing you from her Facebook experience might have just been another step in her Ho'opononononononononononononononononononono "cleaning" process. :-)
I'd have to say the only monster here is Connie. Who made enough hints about "joy joy joy" I finally broke down today and clicked the abraham-hicks video link.
I shall never forgive her for losing those two minutes of my life. I will never get them back. I hereby pledge to devote the rest of my life to quietly resenting her for it. Just so you know.
Mea culpa, Mojo!
LOL Connie,
It is amazing that you politely ignore references to the bible, delicately steering possible offense back to the new agers. Pluck up the courage to analyse mainstream religions. The new age industry pales in comparison to the tax free religious industry. Don't forget to have a stab at buddhists, who learn about self control and the 'middle road' from a morbidly obeese slob. Oh but that's right, you don't usually beat up on religions here. Which is a shame, since a significant portion of your readers detest new agers because it undermines their understanding of the bible. Give, give, give. God needs money to. Attack all the fakes, not just the insignificant minority.
How much could I offer you in 'donations' before you allowed me to control content here? $100, $10000, $1000000!? Could you be bought at all? I think we all know the answer to this. After all it is just a blog.
Anon, there are plenty of blogs that beat up on mainstream religions, of which I'm really no fan either. I've carved out my little niche of the blogosphere and I'm pretty happy with it.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying, "a significant portion of your readers detest new agers because it undermines their understanding of the bible." Sorry, you lost me.
I don't think new-agers are an insignificant minority any more. Come out of the 1980s and take a look around you.
As for how much in donations it would take for me to let you control the content here, why don't you donate and then just keep on donating, and we'll see what happens? :-)
I just wanted to add something to the response I wrote last night to Anon 4-15. To my knowledge, the "New Thought" (i.e., new-age/New-Wage) churches are in fact legally considered churches and enjoy the tax exemptions that Baptists, Catholics, etc. enjoy. In many ways, New-Wage is a force to be reckoned with, economically and culturally.
Moreover, the metaphysical university from which one of my favorite snargets got one of his questionable Ph.D.'s was taken off the Texas accreditation blacklist a few years ago because it is considered a "religious institution," not subject to accreditation requirements of secular universities.
As for Buddha being a "morbidly obeese [sic] slob," I'll call on my resident Buddhist to address that. (Ron? You game?)
"Don't forget to have a stab at buddhists, who learn about self control and the 'middle road' from a morbidly obeese slob."
"Morbidly obeese?" (sic). Morbid is such a judgmental term, after all. :-)
Siddhartha was, in fact, never obese. He is represented as such because the Chinese culture at the time interpreted the rotund caricature as being an expression of abundance and joviality (thus, the laughing "Ho Tei" Buddha).
If one is going to attempt to denigrate someone - especially a revered spiritual teacher - they would be advised to actually attempt to learn something about their target. Failure to do so only points to the commenter's ignorance.
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