Meet the new year, same as the old year(s) in Scamworld

A belated Happy New Year to everyone who observes the Gregorian calendar, and a Happy New Decade if you're on Team Zero. It may be a new year/decade, but the scammers are still up to their same old tricks. Let's revisit three of my unfavorites.

Death Ray still trying to convince himself that he's on a "hero's journey"
Late last month my friend and fellow blogger Chris Locke (aka Kat Herding) gave me a heads-up about a December 23, 2019 tweet by star of The Secret/convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray. Ray had tweeted:

Each and every hero of all myths (no exception) went through tremendous suffering, agony, pain, disillusionment, and sometimes premature death. All of them!

The tweet included a link to a blog post written by Ray, titled, "Life is Yours for the Taking." Though there's no date header on the post, a scroll down to the comments section shows that it was actually written in 2014; for some reason Ray dredged it up again for that December tweet. The post offers a bit of drivel about how suffering can potentially be the path to salvation, a concept that Ray has often exploited, using his own life as an example. It's congruent with that whole hero's journey/martyr theme that he has been flogging ever since he was sprung from an Arizona prison where he'd served a far-too-short sentence for killing Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman.

Maybe I am being an overly sensitive snowflake again, but I think that "Life is Yours for the Taking" is a distasteful title for a blog post penned by a reckless, ruthless sociopath whose unheroic actions have demonstrated that he believed other people's lives were his for the taking as well. Even more offensive is Ray's ongoing narrative that casts him in the light of the wise hero who has suffered much but has emerged stronger for the suffering, and is willing to guide others through their own tribulations (for a price).

Twitter was reluctant to show me this at first, describing it as possibly offensive -- I'm guessing that's because it contains the word "asshole" -- but I insisted on seeing it, and what I saw was that my friend Dave Cook made a Christmas Day comment to Death Ray's tweet.

You tell him, Dave.

Nefarious Silicone [sic] Valley leftist plot against Kevin Trudeau
On my previous post -- and my last one of 2019 -- I wrote about a new-ish fake-guru scam that's being orchestrated by imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, and some of his most loyal proxies. Said proxies were terribly upset because Katie's main Facebook page had been temporarily suspended by Facebook, supposedly because of new rules about Facebook pages that use celebrity names but are handled by third parties.

A little later that month, on December 23, 2019, to be exact, the Free Kevin Trudeau page announced that the embattled main page, which had more than 40,000 followers, had been permanently deleted. This being Katie fan territory, there had to be a sinister "they" behind this outrageous action.

We’ve just been informed that the official Kevin Trudeau Facebook page (with 42,000 followers) has been permanently deleted. It’s totally clear that the exercise of “free speech” is now 100% at the mercy of a handful of Left-Wing Silicone [sic] Valley tech giants. Unbelievable!

Please share this post so that as many people are aware of this as possible. Our page and “Kevin Trudeau Teachings” are all that’s left in terms of promoting KT on Facebook. We will do our very best to continue to build, inspire and inform KT’s support base to best of our ability.

The fans rallied in the comments following the post. A person whose name I recognized as that of a long-time Katie fan wrote:

Who deleted it and for what pretext or reason, does anyone know?
The lesson is, for adminstrators [sic] in the future, to always safeguard a separate copy of the page, in case of cyber-attacks, accident or politically motivated censorship.
Have the administrators of his Official Facebook Page kept a copy of it anywhere?
What are the legal recourses (if any) against such unjustified censorship?
Let's rebuild what they've been trying to destroy or stiffle [sic], and learn from our past mistakes.
Merry Christmas to all lightworkers.

The Free Kevin Trudeau admin responded to the fan with a reiteration of Facebook's new policy, adding, "Was this the real reason? Who knows?"

I really hate to rain on that conspiranoid parade about left-wing political bias... well, no, I don't. Look, Katie fans, I know that y'all get a big kick out of riding your leader's martyr coattails; I get that it gives you a sense of being part of something grand and righteous. But there is abundant evidence that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has actually been working overtime, especially over this past year, to court the rabid right-wing political camp, including and especially the big sick Trump machine. Since so many of you seem to be Trump fans, like your hero is, you should be cheering rather than jeering Facebook.

As Politico reported in October 2019:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hosting informal talks and small, off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists, commentators and at least one Republican lawmaker in recent months to talk about issues like free speech and discuss partnerships.

The dinners, which began in July, are part of Zuckerberg’s broader effort to cultivate friends on the right amid outrage by President Donald Trump and his allies over alleged “bias” against conservatives at Facebook and other major social media companies. "I’m under no illusions that he’s a conservative but I think he does care about some of our concerns,” said one person familiar with the gatherings, which multiple sources have confirmed.

News of the outreach is likely to further fuel suspicions on the left that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the White House and stay out of Trump’s crosshairs. The president threatened to sue Facebook and Google in June and has in the past pressured the Justice Department to take action against his perceived foes.

An opinion piece penned by Daniel Newman in early December 2019 on the MapLight site was more blunt.

Mark Zuckerberg has rigged the rules of Facebook political advertising, making him complicit in lies and voter manipulation. The result is the most powerful propaganda amplifier in history, boosting campaigns that traffic in falsehoods.

Zuckerberg’s company screens some paid political advertising for lies. But since early October, it makes an exception: When candidates pay for the ads, it will run any ad — even those with blatant lies. Who does this exception help? Politicians who lie.

The most prominent lying politician in America is, of course, President Trump. Of more than 700 of Trump’s claims reviewed by the fact-checking site Politifact, more than 70% were rated “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants-on-fire” lies....

...What is Zuckerberg’s motive? He is afraid of a president that will rein in Facebook’s power. Several Democratic candidates have said that they would do exactly that: seek to break up Zuckerberg’s company. This would “suck,” said Zuckerberg in leaked audio recordings. “If someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”

Newman goes on to explain that several key executives advising Zuck on ad policies have ties to Trump and Trump's allies. For instance...

Peter Thiel, a prominent Trump supporter, is a longtime Facebook board member. Zuckerberg and Thiel dined with Trump at the White House in late October, in a secret meeting uncovered by NBC News. What did Trump and Zuckerberg discuss during this meeting, held so soon after Zuckerberg changed his company’s ad rules to help lying politicians? And why was the meeting secret? Neither Zuckerberg nor Trump will say. Based on what we have learned from the impeachment hearings about how Trump does business, he may have offered benefits to Zuckerberg. Perhaps he suggested that he won’t ever regulate Facebook — if Zuckerberg keeps the ad rules that help him get re-elected. This is Zuckerberg’s quid pro quo, whether explicitly spoken or not.

MapLight, by the way, is a worthy org that has been exposing negative influences on American democracy for more than fifteen years. Their mission includes illuminating the influence of money in politics, and empowering voters with facts. Check 'em out here.

I realize I've probably wasted my time trying to address the diehard fans of Kevin Trudeau, to whom facts or informed opinions have never really mattered. And in case you're wondering, I would be saying all of this directly to the Katie fans' faces on Facebook, but as I've mentioned previously, I am blocked from commenting or even responding to all posts on the Free Kevin Trudeau page, just as I was blocked from the now-defunct Kevin Trudeau page.

In any case the intrepid Trudolts are working round the Web to rebuild what Facebook has so ruthlessly destroyed, creating social media pages and web sites to carry on the "teachings" of their guru while they continue to campaign for his liberation from government custody. Their worship of this incorrigible con artist has not diminished at all, but has only increased, as he continues to languish at Camp Cupcake. Apparently he has been elevated to the status of GOAT in the selfish-help rogue's gallery. Plus, he can change your DNA.

Need your face, boobs, butt, or wallet lifted? Try the Access Energetic Facegrift ^TM
It's been a while since I've written about the vaguely Scientology-inspired sex-and-money scampire known as Access Consciousness. Figuring it was time for at least a brief check-in, I popped onto their Facebook page and came across a couple of recent posts about something called the Access Energetic Facelift^TM, which has actually been a thing for a few years now, but I hadn't written about it yet. Some of the posts link to a fairly creepy video that apparently gives a general idea of the process.

The Facebook posts also link to a blog post on the Access web site, which invites aging targets to explore some exciting new possibilities.

What if you could undo the ravages of aging so you could appear younger and more vibrant, without surgery, injections, creams or pills?

And what if, as you experience these physical changes, you could experience other changes, too, as your points of views (aka judgments) about aging shift?

How might this change how you view yourself in the mirror, no matter your age or appearance?

Would you be interested in this other possibility? If so…

Welcome to the Access Facelift™.

The Access Energetic Facelift is a wonderful way to rejuvenate and reverse the appearance of aging on the face, while creating similar effects throughout the body. It reverses the effects of gravity and activates the muscle structure in the face that can become less dynamic as you get older. All by having someone place their hands, in a non-invasive way, on your face and upper body.

It may be non-invasive, but if that video I linked to above is any indication, you still have to take your clothes off.

Want proof that the Access Energetic Facelift really works? Well, there's a very blurry series of pics of a woman in Mumbai, India, who claimed the Facelift caused subtle but desired shifts in her facial skin texture and chubbiness. Here, judge for yourself.

The blog post has a link to a page on the Access site that has more "information" as well as a class schedule. The page answers burning questions such as, "What occurs during class?"

This class is a one-day, hands-on class in which participants learn the Access Energetic Facelift and participate in gifting two sessions and receiving two sessions.

During this class, you will work with the energies in the body and face, and while applying these, discover what can be released.

Once we get rid of the judgments we project at our faces and bodies daily in the mirror, our body has the space to regenerate itself.

Well, okay. Regeneration is a big thing in some New-Wage/alt-health circles; I wrote about it back in 2011. At any rate, the Access Energetic Facelift can apparently lift more than just the face.

People have reported changes in the following:

• The light and luminosity of the face
• Elasticity of the skin
• Clarity of the eyes
• Glow in the hair
• Lifting of breasts and buttocks
• Improved energy
• Increased relaxation

What are the prerequisites for the Access Energetic Facelift? You may be pleased to know that there are absolutely none. Even if you're an Access virgin you can take advantage of this wonderful flopportunity.

But how much does it cost? Sorry, that's a seekrit until you register:

Pricing
Global pricing, Repeat pricing and Age pricing applies.
Your individual and applied pricing can be seen under Billing & Payments after registering.

I'm not going to register, but if you do, let me know how much they're trying to stick you for. And as always, I'm interested in hearing from folks who have experienced this miracle for themselves.

That's it for now, and I'm guessing you get the drift, or the grift. It may be a new year/decade, but where New-Wage crapitalists are concerned, it's the same old story.

March For Our Lives kids: run for your lives from Access Consciousness

It has been quite a while since I wrote about the cultish, partially Scientology-inspired, word-salad-tossing and deviously wacko phenomenon known as Access Consciousness. In past years Access has been a frequent topic on this Whirled, and it remains the most frequently-searched Whirled topic on Google. I'm still getting correspondence from people who have been bewildered, befuddled, and bothered by their own experiences with Access or by witnessing loved ones who seem to have gone off the deep end. I've been threatened with lawsuits by Access founder Gary Douglas, fake-love-bombed by doting Access members, and cited in both anti- and pro-Access content online.

Wondering what Access had been up to lately, I ventured onto their Facebook page, and was met with a gaudy announcement of an upcoming "free" event on July 20, 2018 in Washington, D.C., dubbed "The Leaders of the Future." Here's the bit that really caught my attention:

Inspired by the group of kids who started March for Our Lives. If you're one of them, please come so we can learn how to support you because you are the leaders of the future! A statesman of possibility!

Word to "kids who started March For Our Lives": Run, don't march, away from this one. If you thought you were being exploited by politicians, advocacy groups and the news media, that's nothing compared to the potential exploitation by Access.

One of the commenters on the Facebook thread carried the "Statesman" motif to silly lengths with a graphic, somewhat in the style of the famous and egregiously over-imitated Obama/Hope poster, suggesting that Gary Douglas himself is A True Statesman.

The Facebook post contained a link to info on the Access web site about the upcoming event in Washington. Though "free," the event is conveniently being held in the same location as a three-day Access event that is definitely not free, Choice of Possibilities, in which "you will gain access to a space where you begin to recognize your capacities as an infinite being." Far out, man. That's heavy. (Accessories would most likely argue with that last statement, insisting that on the contrary, Access is all about being light, not heavy.) 

I would tell you how much Choice of Possibilities costs, but Access is very coy about it, merely stating on the public pages that "Country pricing and Age pricing applies," and that "Your individual and applied pricing can be seen under Billing & Payments after registering." Suffice to say that there are prerequisites; you can only take Choice of Possibilities class if you have already given lots of money to Access for more basic classes. Even so I have no doubt that the "free" Leaders of the Future event will provide a platform for some aggressively loving upselling.

The Leaders of the Future page gives a rundown of some of the problems facing the leaders of the future and those of today and all of the rest of us:

Human rights have been abolished, National Parks have lost protection, Nations are being divided and young lives are being lost to gunfire. It seems obvious that change is required and yet the people seem lost for direction when looking at the current leaders of the world. That is why I am asking you to stand up and take action, be the leader of your future and demand that this changes no matter what it takes.

Now, some might point out to me that at least Access appears to be on the side of progressive, socially-conscious causes, unlike so many of the scams and scammers these days, who seem to lean heavily towards the alt-right -- as discussed in one of my recent posts about elitism (see under "Left, right, left, right"). In that sense Access is congruent with the "liberal" roots of the New-Age movement. But Access's social consciousness is a Trojan horse. Don't be fooled; in the end, it's really all about the money (and possibly the sex) for Gary and his boy Dain Heer, and perhaps a few of the upper echelon of Access "facilitators."

At best, Access' attempts to create a better planet will be about as effective as efforts by the original psychobabbling LGAT, est, to tackle world hunger -- as reported in Mother Jones 40years ago. Or for that matter, this latest stab at conspicuous social consciousness will be as effective as Access's Ocean 300 farce a few years ago, which promised to clean up that plastic flustercuck in the Pacific Ocean. Some things just never change.

In any case, as far as I'm concerned, this is a far more honest take on Access:

In Access, as in so many other scams, your mind, if it functions properly, really is a dangerous thing -- dangerous to the leaders' money stream, anyway.

* * * * *

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Sex cults, dead dogs, dead docs, scammer skirmishes, sticky fingers... just another day on my Whirled

It has been a busy and crazy few weeks, both in the real world and on my own Whirled beat, though you might not think the latter, judging by the couple of weeks of silence on this blog, which, incidentally, will celebrate its tenth birthday on July 27, 2016. It isn't that there is nothing to write about; on the contrary, there's almost too much, and I've been busy with other things. But I wanted to throw together a few snippets and musings to catch you up so you'll have something to occupy your brain while you're monitoring the coverage of the Clown Party Convention in Cleveland, Ohio.

Since this isn't a political blog, except of course when it is, I won't delve too deeply into the clown show; there are plenty of other blogs and sites to do that, and they'll do a far more thorough job because that's what they do. But I did want to share this Mother Jones piece that nailed what the GOP, the fabled "party of Lincoln" has become: the party that from all appearances has finally and fully embraced the politics of being an a$$hole.

So this week the Republican Party is poised to anoint a man whom House Speaker Paul Ryan, the GOP's highest ranking elected leader, has said made racist remarks. That is—or should be—stunning. But even this highly significant fact becomes lost in the torrent of Trump's offensive conduct. And most of the GOP has accepted him as the nominee, enabling and legitimizing his behavior. Per its electorate's wishes, the party has shoved aside traditional conservative principles, basic decency, and fundamental standards of competence—this guy didn't know what the nuclear triad is—to embrace hatred, nastiness, and cruelty. With malice toward none, with charity for all? No, it's opposite day. This convention marks the moment when the party of Lincoln has become the party of reality-show trash talking. As Trump might say, sad!

Apropos of that, and particularly of the pre-Trump-tive Clown Party nominee, my husband Ron Kaye wrote a short blog post today about the decline of real journalism, which he worries about as much as he does "the rise of bullies who would lie, threaten, bully, and frighten their way into public office, because journalists who are brave enough to demand truth are our single best weapon against tyrants."

Yeah, what Ron said.

And now to the snippets and musings. I've posted some but not all of what follows on Facebook, so if some of it seems familiar, I apologize for the redundancy.

Access Consciousness in the news again; Whirled Musings, not so much
As long-time followers of this blog know, I've been writing about the wackadoodle sex-and-money-obsessed cultlike scam known as Access Consciousness (formerly Access Energy Transfer) since 2007. My Access posts remain the most-read posts on this blog, which probably isn't saying much since this is not exactly the world's most hottest spot in the blogosphere, but it's something.

Anyway, Access made the news again earlier this month when Complex.com posted an article announcing that "Ricky Williams is in a Cult." Williams is a former Pro Bowl NFL player who has also recently made the news for his cannabis-centered gym. He first made Access-related news in 2012 when he accepted a $50,000 donation for his Ricky Williams Foundation from none other than Access founder Gary Douglas. Natch, I wrote about that here.

As such articles go, the Complex piece is a pretty good one, despite the fact that, as the Houston Press's Craig Malisow wrote in a short post about the piece, "...we wish the writer had prodded Williams a little more about the most troubling aspect of Access, which is this: Douglas, the group's founder, believes that 'young children are incredibly sexy.' To those of us who aren't card-carrying members of NAMBLA, language like that is a bit spooky."

Craig, to whom I'd given assistance and information while he was writing his November 2012 feature article on Access, gave a passing nod to all of the writing I've done on this topic. Craig said my research into Access "still stands as some of the best work on the subject."

Alas, the Complex article didn't acknowledge my blog at all, merely noting, "There are over a dozen blogs and forums that have lent considerable bandwidth to deconstructing the validity of Access Consciousness." The link embedded in the word "blogs" directs to post on a Christian blog, "Women of Grace," warning about the evils of Access.

So -- no love for Whirled Musings in most of the media, despite the fact that I was the first blogger to write about many loony things regarding Access, including the fact that the scam originated in the 1990s when founder Gary Douglas started channeling Grigori Rasputin and assorted other entities. That detailed story was published in June 2010, and I'd made a big fat snarky deal about the matter in my first Access post in June 2007. I was also the first to snark about the "9 Trannies" (May 2011). And so on, and so forth.

But at least I got a mention on this Access apologist site a few years ago, a site whose main purpose seems to be to invalidate Craig's 2012 article. Being the phony good sports that Accessories are known to be, the person or persons responsible for the page wrote: "Connie Schmidt writes a blog that is very funny and her articles poke fun at Gary, Dain and Access Consciousness in general. Her work is provocative and engaging so it usually inspires people to go to Access Consciousness website for more information. Her 'Whirled Musings' are not really a creditable source of accurate information about Access Consciousness."

(Pssst. Yes, they are.)

And a former "Accessory" who "did" Access Consciousness for quite a few years wrote in an email to me a few months ago, "I remember Gary Douglas mentioning you on a number of occasions. He basically vilified you and also the journalist Malisow... It clearly rattled him and he was reacting and trying to deny and dismiss any negative comments."

This person also wrote, "In the upper echelons of Access I've heard that Gary and Dain [have claimed] that if people are causing problems for them or those close [to them] that they will crush their universes."

Gary Douglas himself had actually written to this blog several years previous to that. He fake-thanked me for making people aware of Access. My former Accessory correspondent said that Gary told his classes about writing to my blog, but this person seemed to share my opinion that Gary's good-sport response was just a veneer, perhaps a way of whistling past the graveyard. "Clearly," my correspondent wrote, "you've gotten to him, or he wouldn't mention it."

Take that, mainstream media people who think that you're being really scoopy when you tell the world about about Ricky Williams' "cult." I may be doomed to eternal obscurity, but I still manage to get under scammers' skins.

And despite my narcissistic whining about getting no love, the important point is that Access's lunacy continues to receive publicity, which one can only hope will encourage parents to carefully vet any activity that is even remotely related to Access before they entrust their kids to the care of crazies.

Dog daze and deja Blue (or: LoonyC gets Snopesed...again)
Earlier this month the scourge of Germany, fake doctor Leonard Coldwell, copied and pasted a fake news article to the blog on his main web site, regarding the supposed arrest of Snopes founder David Mikkelson for involvement in pit bull fighting.

The dog pictures in the fake news article were taken from various real stories about incidents that had taken place in various parts of the country over the past couple of years. A reverse Google image search can easily uncover this fact. But if you don't feel like reverse-Google-image-searching, the author of this article from the hoax alert section of the Lead Stories site has done it for you. The picture of Mikkelson supposedly being arrested was a poorly Photoshopped piece that had been used for another fake Mikkelson arrest story last year. I wrote about that here. The Lead Stories site also covered it.

But just as he did with last year's hoax, LoonyC copied and pasted the pit bull article to his own site as if it were real. He soon deleted last year's post, but the latest one is still on his site as of this posting.

The source of the current hoax article about Mikkelson is News 4 KTLA, a fake news/clickbait site, Granted, unlike some other sites, News 4 KTLA doesn't trumpet the fact that it's a fake news/parody/satire site. But the clues are in the text, for those with the snap to see them. The Snopes/pit bull piece, for instance, begins like this:

Nearly a dozen people are in custody, including Snopes CEO David Mikkelson, following a bust of a major dogfighting ring. The San Fernando Police Department and the FBI all took part in the early morning raids targeting the home of the popular Internet “writer” who is known for making his money by copying the original writings of fake news sites. [emphasis mine ~CC]

I tried twice to post a comment on Coldwell's blog post, using my full real name. I 'splained that the article was a hoax and that the source of the article is a notorious fake news site, and I also cited the original sources of the photos used in the fake article. I was respectful, despite the fact that Coldwell deserves no respect whatsoever, but my first comment was not published. And when I tried to post a second time, it appeared that I had been blocked from even trying to comment.

But these people were allowed to comment. The second commenter, who posted twice, is particularly disturbing.

Don't get me wrong. As a lifelong dog lover I think people who abuse dogs and our other fellow creatures should be dealt with harshly. But David Mikkelson did not do what the fake article accuses him of doing. Yet LoonyC's idiot followers, who apparently bear the same irrational hatred of Snopes that Loony does, didn't even question the veracity of the article.

It all reminds me eerily of what I was going through two years ago at this exact time, when Coldwell was publicly and repeatedly and falsely accusing me of poisoning his pit bull dog, Blue (and publicly and repeatedly publishing my home address and cell phone number, and telling his sympathetic fans to get in touch with me). I wrote about this at great length here and here. (Those of you who have been with me a while know this whole story, so again, my apologies for the redundancy.)

His fans, who had no idea who I am and apparently didn't bother to question his claims, were ranting on his Facebook pages about the horrible things that should be done to me in punishment for the crime I had supposedly committed against Lenny and his dog. They were suggesting that I should be hunted down, shot, poisoned, tortured. Someone even threatened to burn my house down in the middle of the night. It was pretty scary. And I had no legal recourse; though I reported the matter, law enforcement said there wasn't enough evidence to pursue the matter.

So I feel for David Mikkelson.

Dead holistic docs conspiracy rages on
One topic I addressed in last year's Lenny-got-Snopesed post -- and here's that link again -- was the dead holistic doctor conspiracy drama that so may people refuse to relinquish. Here is one of all too few rational articles about the matter, published last year. Granted, the body count was lower back then, but this doesn't invalidate the need to be skeptical of the conspiracy narrative, particularly since not all of the people on the supposed list of dead docs were even doctors, and of those who were, not all of them could be considered "holistic."

Some of the deceased parties in the conspiracy narrative have been murdered, while the deaths of some were reported as suicides, and some died of heart attacks or other ailments. Not surprisingly, the conspiracy buffs refuse to accept that any of these good people committed suicide, despite the fact that doctors and other medical professionals have a relatively high suicide rate, at least in the US. And the conspiracy fans insist that the docs who died of various ailments had been in perfect health up until their deaths. The deaths reported as homicides, of course, are self-explanatory and fit perfectly into the dastardly-plot narrative: Clearly, Big Pharma and/or other forces opposed to natural healing are somehow responsible.

In any case, as of this writing the latest so-called "holistic doctor" supposedly done away with by some nefarious cabal of Big Pharma and New World Order operatives was a 65-year-old Asian woman living in Palo Alto, California, Jenny Shi, whose stabbing death Health Nut blogger Erin Elizabeth announced with her customary "heavy hearts" on July 13. Erin has remained front and center in the parade of dead-doc conspiracy alarmists, despite continuing to insist that she is not implying a conspiracy of any kind.

Apart from the fact that she owned a chain of acupuncture clinics, Jenny Shi had much more going on in her life than "holistic" doctoring. She was an international businesswoman with enterprises that included real estate and angel investment, and she had business connections in Shanghai and Beijing, China. Investigators suspect that Shi knew her attacker. She reportedly rented rooms in her home to multiple tenants, and detectives are investigating these as well as her numerous business relationships.

But the conspiracy believers are out in force, apparently because according to them, the late Dr. Shi spoke out against "the vaccine establishment."

As the debunking article I linked to above concluded:

Saying that these deaths are a coincidence may be supported by the facts and our understanding of statistics, but it is emotionally unsatisfying to our pattern-seeking brains. We find apparent patterns in the world very compelling, and we want there to be an underlying explanation. We just don’t like the idea that the pattern is an illusion. That is why we fall prey to excessive pattern recognition and hyperactive agency detection (seeing a deliberate agent in random or natural events).

When the apparent pattern fits our pre-existing narrative or world view, the temptation to accept the pattern becomes overwhelming. Only the most diligent application of critical thinking can overcome such a temptation.

But don't expect much of that critical-thinking stuff from Erin and gang.


Katie and the Supremes
As reported here in Febuary 2016, currently imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie -- also a frequent snarget on this blog -- lost the appeal on his criminal case. Now he is trying to do take his battle to the Supreme Court.

Here's a link to the Petition. Stay tuned.

Has Troy McClain become an impotent figurehead in GIN?
Speaking of Katie, his biggest scam ever, the Global Information Network, or GIN, is still chugging along. I've heard from more than one knowledgeable source that there has been a massive power struggle because the GIN principals and staff just don't care for GIN CEO Troy McClain, former star of Donald J. Drumpf's "reality" TV show, The Apprentice. The mass dislike apparently has something to do with Troy's yuuuge ego and lack of ethics. (I thought those were job requirements for a Scamworld player, but there do seem to be some actual decent human beings on the remaining GIN staff who seem genuinely dismayed by the unethical stuff. As for the principals, it's just one big clash of egos and behind-the-scenes scammer skirmishes.)

Our most recent Whirled visit with Troy was back in March of this year, when Troy was making a big self-righteous stink about removing someone from "our Club" for some great ethics violation. Well, apparently lots has happened since then. Long-time Katie buddies Chris "Voldemort" McGarahan and Blaine Athorn, a couple of the co-owners of GIN (along with Troy and another fellow), are reportedly trying to force Troy out of their tree house club altogether. Blaine is reportedly in charge of GIN now. That may prove to be a win for Katie, eventually, since Troy reportedly does not like Katie, but Blaine presumably still does.

But Troy has worked hard on revamping the GIN branding, particularly with the new GIN Evolve web site. Gone is the old GIN site; it's Troy's brand baby now. And Troy still apparently owns the KT Legal Defense Fund site, leaving me to wonder again if all of the online donations to help Katie actually go to help Katie and not Troy.

So I wonder how this will all play out. As I find out more, I'll be sure to tell you. Or you can tell me, if you know more. We all help each other around here. In any case, as far as I'm concerned... Troy, Blaine, Chris... meh. They're all turds of a feather.


Speaking of The Apprentice...
Salty Droid has been busy, and here he is again, ruminating on The Donald and some of the scammers Drumpf hath wrought. Important stuff here.

Also well worth reading: the interview, published in The New Yorker, with the person who really wrote The Art of the Deal, ghostwriter Tony Schwartz. To this day Drumpf brandishes the book as proof that he's the greatests, and that he's qualified to be the leader of the free world. Schwartz has earned millions in advance and royalties for writing this book, but he never really felt good about it, and has pledged to donate royalties from here on out to groups of people that Trump's bigotry, xenophobia and elitism could seriously harm. Schwartz reveals some pretty disgusting things about Drumpf, which of course won't make a bit of difference to the Drumpfians, but go ahead, read it anyway.

Are Freddy's fingers in Coach Coral's scam pie?
Another Whirled unfavorite, Fred Van Liew, long-time friend and defender of Kevin Trudeau, is apparently involved in cross-promotional (or should that be crass-promotional?) shenanigans with scammy "life coach" Coral Grant and gang. In January I wrote about a lawsuit against Coral and her hubby Mac, but it appears that it's just business as usual for Coral despite the lawsuit. Fred posted on his Facebook page July 16 about an event he attended with "Best Life Coaching Society," a company in which Coral and Mac are currently involved. They're not listed as the owners of the company; that honor goes to Scott and Jen Kazmierczak, "the true power couple," according to the Best Life Coaching Society web site. Coral and Mac are simply listed as the head trainers, although according to the site, Scott and Jen "never got any real results until a few years ago, when they met Coral and Mac and learned their Subconscious Release Technique..."

But back to Fred, who posted a big picture of himself and Coral beaming into the camera. I made a comment on that pic, complete with a link, asking him how the lawsuit is coming. As of this writing he hasn't answered.

As you know if you've been here a while, apart from being a long time Trudeau buddy and now an apparent Coral buddy, Van Liew is also involved in multilevel marketing schemes -- particularly one that's a lot like Herbalife. It's a Youngevity/Livinity merger called 90forLife -- and again, there's a Trudeau connection, as Barb and Dave Pitcock, proteges of Trudeau, are principals in the MLM. And Fred has his own line of pseudo-scientific products to purify water and protect people from various evil electromagnetic forces.

As I've also mentioned here before, Fred was quoted in an excellent piece by Aaron Gell, published by Business Insider in January 2015. 

After high school, Trudeau found work at an auto dealership, where, Van Liew says, he soon became the No. 1 salesman by eagerly chatting up the customers whom his colleagues stereotyped as window shoppers and cheapskates. “The other guys would say, ‘This guy’s a loser,’ but Kevin didn’t do that. And he’d sell them car.”

He also became adept at pushing auto loans. “He would tell people, ‘Save your credit with your bank in case you need it for something else,’” Van Liew recalls. “Was it the best advice? No. Was he doing it to get you the best deal? Hell no. He was in it for profit and money! He knew most people are idiots.”

"He knew most people are idiots." To me that sums up the contempt in which most con artists hold their marks. My friend Julie Daniel, who formerly worked with some of the Trudeau enterprises, agrees. She says, "I heard some of the back-room conversations, and if people only knew what exactly was said about them... [Mark] Hamilton likes to say that his little group is a family. But when they are not listening, they are brain-washed sheep." (Mark Hamilton, aka Mark Scamilton, is the Neo-think founder and former co-scammer with Trudeau in GIN.)

Anyhow, it appears that Freddy and Coral have a good thing going on. Or maybe Fred is just trying to keep a close eye on Coral for the benefit of his true scambuddy Trudeau. I've heard scuttlebutt that Coral and Kevin aren't really as tight as Coral has implied in the promos where she brags that she is one of the few folks to have been personally mentored by Katie. Word has it that she pretty much pushed and shoved her way into Kevin's inner circle (not to be confused with the now-defunct GIN Inner Circle, whose members paid $50,000 to $75,000 for that privilege back in GIN's heyday).

At any rate Coral and Fred seem to be scratching each other's backs, which I assume is only a figure of speech because the thought of any literal physical contact between the two is enough to put you off your feed for a month -- but be that as it may, here's a disturbingly topless-looking Coral in mid-June 2016, praising Freddy after an "energy work" event at which he was one of the "trainers." She describes the training as "getting into it [whatever it is] on the scientific but not on the 'woo-woo' level." She also calls it, "...Insane... absolutely the best training I've ever been to..."

Well, okay. The "insane" part is probably correct.

In any case it seems pretty clear that Freddy and Coral have their sticky fingers in each other's schemes. The road goes on forever, and the scamming never ends.

That's it for now (isn't that enough?). Stay safe, stay cool, and don't let the circus this week or next week eat up too many of your brain cells. I'll be back soon.

Houston, we have a problem: Access Consciousness relocates HQ to H-Town

I don't know how I missed this one when the news first broke. I chalk it up to being altogether too preoccupied with shuffling through court documents regarding serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's civil and criminal cases, not to mention wading through the loony rants of Trudeau's ex-b.f.f. Mocktor Leonard Coldwell (here's the most recent post, which has links to many others). Anyhow, here's the scoop, precisely two months late as I write this: the cult-like sex-and-money org, Access Consciousness, a Whirled favorite since 2007 (and explored last November, with much Cosmic encouragement, by award-winning investigative journalist Craig Malisow of the Houston Press), has actually relocated their global headquarters to my former neck of the woods, Houston, Texas.

Here's the press release, dateline June 17, 2013.
 
If you don't know much about Access and want to get up to speed, follow the link in the first paragraph to Craig Malisow's Houston Press article, and/or explore some of the links to Whirled Access pieces, listed at the end of this post. I've been blogging about these jokers for more than six years.

I sent a note about the Access relocation to a California friend of mine who is, to egregiously understate his feelings, no fan of Access. My friend responded, "Ew. There goes the neighborhood. What's right about this you're not getting?"

The latter comment was a snarky nod to an Access cliche, one of numerous mantras which Accessories are encouraged to repeat endlessly and robotically when confronted with life's little and big problems. Access takes its cliches very seriously. Matter of fact, some of the Access cliches have now become registered copyrights, as indicated on the Access web site. "What's right" etc. does not seem to be copyrighted yet, but give it time.

When you have a situation that is not working well for you, do you define it as difficult or a disaster? What does that do energetically? It solidifies the situation as a problem and perpetuates the wrongness. What if you asked, "How does it get any better than this?^®" Or you could ask, "What else is possible?^®" Or even, "What's right about this that I'm not getting?" When you do something that you define as a mistake, then how long do you judge and punish yourself? Days? Weeks? Years? What if you asked, "What's right about me that I'm not getting?" What if there is truly nothing wrong with you? Questions such as these invite the universe to provide other possibilities, awarenesses, people and events to assist you.

If you don't believe that Access has actually and officially copyrighted some of its cliches, here's this. And this. And of course, Access Consciousness © itself is trademarked. I sense that little by little they are going to try to trademark more words and phrases until they have dibs on the entire English language. At least the stupid parts of it.

Anyway. Certainly from Access' perspective, there are a lot of things "right" about the move to the Bayou City. Most importantly, Texas has no state income tax. Texas, and particularly Houston, also offers a business-friendly environment -- and apart from being an icky sex cult and brain-cell destroyer, Access is, above all else, a business. These are heady times for growing businesses, as Houston has an economy that seems to be recovering more quickly than in other areas of the US, so there will be no dearth of local pockets to pick. And IAH (Bush Intercontinental Airport), is a hub, which is convenient for an organization that is hellbent on spreading its toxic sludge all over the globe. In other words, Houston boasts all of the advantages mentioned in the press release linked to above.

And then there are the other matters mentioned only indirectly -- such as a thriving metaphysical community, which is to say, a relatively dense population of gullibles who can give sunny Cali a run for its money any day. Or as Access founder Gary Douglas -- who first got his inspiration for Access by channeling the late Russian faux-monk Rasputin -- was quoted in that press release, Houston is "...an area with a greater capacity for achievement and openness to new ideas." Uh-huh. Granted, Austin would seem a more logical choice if the McSpirituality GQ (gullibility quotient) were the only consideration, but Houston apparently has enough other perks to make it more attractive than the state capital to Access. Ron and I even wrote about Houston's status as "Spaced City" years ago. Things have not changed much in that regard since that 1998 essay.

There are other factors not mentioned directly but oh-so-coyly hinted at in the press release, such as the fact that Space City also seems to have an unusually large number of gullible socialites and rich philanthropists with more money than sense. Most notably, there is long-time Access fa-silly-tator Curry Glassell, best known for whiningly contesting her rich daddy's will a few years ago -- and losing. She wanted more money from Daddy, but the court said no. She has apparently moved on, and is teaching Access Right Riches For You classes, in which she schools folks on "how to become money."

Apparently both Gary Douglas and his younger cohort Dain Heer are world-class altruists and philanthropists themselves. Or, as the press release puts it, "Dr. Heer and Mr. Douglas are both well-known for their charitable work and pursuit of a variety of entrepreneurial endeavors." Perhaps they want to rub elbows while they're picking pockets.

Moreover, Gary and Curry Glassell have also been involved in some "good causes" together. For instance, there's the Access True Knowledge Foundation, mentioned previously on this blog (and on Craig Malisow's Access article in the Houston Press), "a not-for-profit organisation based in Australia and the United States."

Here is Curry's page.

Here is Gary's page.

Access Schools... what a vision, huh?

Dain Heer is one of the founders too, along with a few other folks.

On the surface it appears that this Foundation hasn't really done much in the five years since it was created...so much for those big promises, eh? But appearances can be deceiving. And in any case, the alliance is the point. Who knows what other joint ventures Curry and Gary (and Dain) have created, and/or are planning? Maybe I'm stretching a bit, but somehow it all seems congruent with what I see as Gary's master plan, which appears to include the bilking of privileged but troubled women (much like his original mentor, Rasputin).

There are also a lot of horsey people in Houston and the surrounding areas, as well as, I surmise, a greater-than-average number of folks who are into various pursuits that sometimes border on the mystical, such as horse whispering and equine-assisted therapy. So Gary and to a lesser extent Dain can pursue that avenue too. Gary's all about the horsies, after all.

And then of course we have Gary's famous business consultancy business, which is a business that teaches businesses how they can become more conscious while they're wringing money from their customers. I'm sure there's a ripe market for that in bidness-friendly Houston, especially in light of the fact that for the past couple of decades, the corporate world has displayed an increasing openness to the insipid junk fabricated by New-Wage opportunists. I lampooned that very matter many years ago in my old book-like product, Cosmic Relief (here is a 2006 Whirled reprint).

I really can't wait to see how Houston warms up to the presence of Access and Gary and Dain. If this fluff piece from FOX-26 News (uploaded to the Tubes on August 14, 2013) is any indication, Access is off to a great start. (Sorry, I couldn't seem to embed the vid, but the link in this paragraph and on the leading graphic should work.) It's interesting that, at least in the video snippet I saw, there was no mention of Access Consciousness. Dain was merely introduced as an author and life coach.

And here's another vid, made by Dain, in which he shows off his new backyard that backs up to Buffalo Bayou in Houston. He and Gary recently bought a $1.6 million dollar home in Houston's lovely Memorial Villages area. I'm sure they'll be very happy. Scamworld can be very profitable for some folks.

I have to wonder if Dain really gave that FOX-26 buffoon a "free session" after the interview. But come to think of it... I really don't want to know.

Be it ever so humble... Rasputin would be so proud.

Update 19 August ~ Craig Malisow weighs in on the Hairballs blog on the Houston Press site. You gotta love the headline. Maybe FOX-26 will get a clue before they decide to feature "Dr. Dain" on any other fluff pieces. I expect we'll be hearing more from Craig on this matter soon... I hope so!

Update 21 August ~ I woke up this morning with Costa Rica on my mind. It was all in the context of thinking that Houston may not be the final destination for the Access visionaries. Could Costa Rica be calling? Long a second home, at least in the business sense, for Access, Gary, and Dain -- and the location of some of the more expensive Access events -- Costa Rica also boasts the spot that Gary says most closely matches the vibe in his "bestselling" novel, The Place, which a one-star reviewer on Amazon describes as...

...Laughable. And it says "#1 best seller" on the front: right! Maybe for 20 minutes on B&N.com after a concerted effort to get his whole Access list to buy from a single site during the same hour. It was expensive and pathetic. Truly a vanity project. An utter waste of my time. 

In September of 2012, Gary uploaded a video previewing El Lugar, a proposed Access paradise he was thinking of buying, not only to host the seven-day Access events but also to be an international hub of conscious sustainability or sustainable consciousness or something like that. Or, as the vid makers put it, "an international destination for those who want to learn bioenergetic land management techniques." I wonder if that has anything to do with Molecular De-manifestation and De-molecular manifestation, as taught in Access.


In the above-linked vid you can watch footage of Gary and Dain prancing around the verdant land on their pricey show horses like evil little princes, surveying their realm-to-be with a few other riders as one of those annoyingly preachy, conspicuously-conscious songs plays in the background. "Welcome to the world!" the female singer croons in her husky voice.

Come to think of it, the singer sounds a lot like the lady -- I forget her name, but I'll provide a link if I can still find it -- who crooned about jellyfish and whatnot on behalf of the epic fail known as Ocean 300. But she's not that lady; she is, instead, one Joy Voeth, singing, in the video below, at what looks like an Access sleepover. Gary slouches in the background, looking a tad uncomfortable whenever Joy rubs his leg or sidles up to him. She clearly wants him to get up and move with her, but he clearly doesn't want to. Maybe he's just tired after all of that Access partying. He does, however, have the strength and presence of mind to make a slight correction at the end of the performance, indicating that the real message should not be "Welcome to the World," but "Welcome to MY World," meaning HIS world, which, he acknowledges, is a "different" place to be.



When thinking of El Lugar, I can't help also thinking of Mocktor Loony Coldwell and his planned paradise in South Carolina, visited earlier in the year on this Whirled. Like GaryDain, Loony is a horsey type too, with big dreams of an equine Eden, except Loony plans for his little piece of heaven on Earth to have its own sovereign government, with plenty of guns on hand. Oh, yeah, and he intends for the property to be a "health resort," perhaps to practice more of that hands-on healing for which he is so infamous.

At any rate, apparently the purchase of the Central American Accessory paradise went through, and at the moment El Lugar is being promoted as, among the other things mentioned above, "a camp for kids where they can get together and explore the wonder and magic of nature…and maybe experience some of the magic that they too can be!"
 
Cue horrified gasp from anyone with a "human" (as opposed to Access-variety humanoid) sensibility. And guess what: you... yes, you!... have an opportunity to donate real money to this very worthwhile fraudject. You are asked to honor the vision by donating a minimum of $20USD, for which you will be rewarded with a copy of The Place. And Gary and Dain hope you will donate. After all, they have an estimated $6,500-a-month mortgage to pay. Costa Rica or not, when it comes to semi-permanent residences, it's Spaced City at present for these two predators partners and their growing cult.
 
More Whirled Access:

• August 2012: Access Consciousness gets a little more MSM lovin' (Musings on, and a link to, Craig Malisow's excellent Houston Press feature article)
• August 2012: Access Consciousness wants kids, and lots of 'em (The beginning of the mainstream media love affair with Access)
• August 2011: ACCESS Consciousness: a cult (or scam) by any other name... (My overview of issues related to Access, kind of the go-to critical piece on Access for a long time)
• May 2011: Calling all trannies! (and Harry Potter fans) (This one has one of my very favorite Photoshop efforts on my entire Whirled. I'm just wild about Harry. Potter, that is.)
• March 2011: What's next? Access death panels? (Musings on Access' amoral world view, and a certain Access facilitator's crass dismissal of her late parents' suffering)
• March 2011: Warning: Accessories on the loose in Houston!
• June 2010: Access asks: Are you humanoid, or merely human?
• June 2010: Mad monk makes eyes at riled Realtor...and the rest, as they say, is hysteria (First time ever told on the Interwebz: The full story of how Gary Douglas became best buds with Rasputin)
• June 2010: Now Heer this: Top ACCESSory woos Oprah! (Sexy miracle man Dain Heer tried -- and failed -- to get the attention of the Big O)
• February 2010: A little motion on the ocean (Access' failed project to magickally remove plastic pollution from a certain part of the ocean)
• October 2009: ACCESS: The incredible lightness of boinking (Another marriage tainted by Access' freewheeling approach to sex)
• May 2008: On a would-be marriage, and a horse's ACCESS (scroll down to "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose")
• June 2007: The excess of ACCESS (Access pandering to the kids' market, and more)
• June 2007: Grabbing a hot piece of ACCESS (My inaugural Access post, introducing Gary, Dain, and Rasputin)

* * * * *

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