I Heart Access!

Happy Valentine's Day, Dear Ones. I can't believe this month is already halfway gone. It has been a busy few weeks. While some of my fellow critical bloggers are frying the really big fish such as Utah's corrupt Attorney General and boiler-room buddy, Mark Shurtleff, I'm still slumming around the New-Wage outposts taking potshots at some of the little fish. One of those little fishies is Access Consciousness, the (con) artists formerly known as Access Energy Transformation. Access is probably a far too easy target, but one I find irresistible, so I've blogged about them many times. They make my blogging job nearly effortless. And so, since I've been too distracted with Real Work again to do any Real Writing here at the moment, I thought I'd take a few moments to catch you up on some Access activities.

To begin with, it seems that Access has been creating quite a stir of late in my former and perhaps future home state of Colorado. A completely non-critical article about a dog-and-pony show put on by Access's ambassador of music and cleavage, Rikka Zimmerman, was published a couple of months ago in the Colorado State University Collegian.

Ten-year-old Kira Cookson bites her tongue, her will focused on the fork clutched between her tiny hands. Slowly, the metal twists to match her contorted face and Kira lets out a triumphant yelp, thrusting her fists into their [sic] air.

As the crowd turns to look, their grins grow to match her own, their eyes locked on the pair of forks –– bent like noodles –– she’s raised to the sky. The room erupts with cheers and applause.
Soon, the only person in the room with a wider smile than Kira is facilitator Rikka Zimmerman, and Zimmerman’s smile hasn’t faded a bit all night.

Kira isn’t the first of the group to bend a fork, but she’s far from last, so Zimmerman prods the crowd a little more. Let go of your judgments and limitations, she tells them. Be aware of the fork’s energy and bend it like Kira did...

Indeed, Access seems to be focusing a lot lately on sucking in the easily impressed by using cheap parlor tricks. If the cleavage or the magical eyelids don't get 'em, the cheap tricks will do it every time. Actually, fork-bending and wine transformation seem to be the only two tricks Accessories know, but they're getting as much mileage out of these as they can. They could also possibly be infringing on the Harry Potter® copyright but hey, I'm not an intellectual-property attorney. In any case, "Wizard's Parties" are the happening thing in Colorado right now.

Unofficial outposts of Harry Potter’s school Hogwarts have been springing up all over the state of Colorado, thanks to “Wizards’ Parties” created by Access Facilitator, Rikka Zimmerman.
Participants at the Colorado wizards’ parties actually leave saying, “Holy sh*t! That Harry Potter stuff is really possible!”
Cynthia Torp, who hosted a wizards’ party for 50 people in Ft. Collins, CO, found that the friends she invited called her the next day and said, “Oh my gosh, everything’s different in my life today!”

Memo to my friends Duff McDuffee, Steven Sashen, and Chris Locke: I know y'all are in Boulder, but could one or more of you go slap some sense into Fort Collins?

Accessories are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to exploitation of current themes. The media have been making a big fuss about Ronald Reagan in the wake of his 100th birthday and his son's new book. Not to be outdone, Access has come forth with the implication that their famous "Bars" trick can prevent Alzheimer's and, possibly, incontinence.

Nothing is as vital to the enjoyment of your later years and your quality of life than [sic] the three pounds of gray matter between your ears. Yes, your brain.
This was dramatically illustrated by the state of Ronald Reagan, once considered one of the most powerful men in the world, who was reduced to lying in bed wearing diapers before his death from Alzheimer’s disease, the disease that perhaps best demonstrates how essential the brain is to quality of life...

And it goes on about how the Bars can save your brain. I'm just waiting for Access to take credit for that whole Egyptian Revolution thing.
Finally, just in time for Valentines Day, we have some truly garbled thoughts on relationships and the law of attraction, presented by...well, I'm not sure who authored this first example. The title of the blog post is "Excerpts from the Divorceless Relationship A Book By Gary M. Douglas and Dr. Dain Heer." But the URL indicates that the book was written by someone named Jan Silk: http://access-consciousness-blog.com/2011/01/excerpts-from-the-divorceless-relationship-a-book-by-jan-silk/. And even though Jan Silk is not mentioned in the body of the blog post, "Jan Silk" is one of the tags at the end.

Well, who the heck is Jan silk? She's an Access facilitator in Kiwi Land, apparently. But I can't find an actual listing for a book called The Divorceless Relationship by either Gary Douglas and Dain Heer or Jan Silk.
Anyhow, according to this article, the Law of Attraction is actually the Law of Contraction, because when you use it to attract something that you want to do, be, or have, you're actually thinking of yourself as not presently doing, being, or having what you're trying to attract, which only keeps you stuck in your limited little life. At least I think that is what the writer(s) is/are trying to say:

...So when you have the point of view you that you have to attract something to you so you can be it or have it, you always have to make sure that you are not what you are trying to attract.
This is the chink in the armor of the law of attraction. What you will do is you will attract to you those things that create a smaller life, rather than a larger life, even when you believe you are trying to attract a larger life. This is why the law of attraction, instead of creating expansion, creates a contraction.

Isn’t it amazing how brilliant we are at creating the most convoluted methods to control and diminish our lives? This is one of the ways you make sure you never get to be more than 10% of you.

There's more cutting-edge information to digest: Apparently the people we are usually attracted to diminish us.

Have you ever noticed that you are attracted to people that are usually less than you? Why is it that somebody who is less than you is attractive to you but somebody who is more than you is not attractive?

It goes on...

When you take on fixed points of view about relationship, the real difficulty is that you don’t function from choice anymore. You try to put relationship into the box of what it’s supposed to be rather than asking what do I really want to choose for me?

If you did relationship from the question of “Will this give me more of the joy and value of me?” that alone would change your life. Whether its [sic] copulation or relationship or both, if you were to look for it to create the joy and the value of you; how different would that be from what you have been looking for so far?

And then, a little later...

What if you could move beyond where anybody else was capable of living? Would that be of interest to you? Would that be more fun than what you are currently doing? Would that be more fun than anybody else is having? You would never know what was going to come next, which means you would never be bored again.
Would that be exciting? Or have you bought the lie that that it would be fearful for you to not know what the next moment brings? What about the joy of living? What is more fun? Having sex with the same person over and over again in the same way, or trying new ways and new people?

Of course Access, with its strong belief in sexual experimentation with as many people as possible, is truly a strong foundation for great relationships. Just ask someone such as "Stephen," whose story I told here a couple of years ago.

I should note that Accessories seem to have a love-hate...um...relationship with the very idea of relationships. Or with "relationship" as they call it, following the New-Wage-therapist convention that implies "relationship" is a defined state of being, kind of like coma or torpor. A few years ago Access' founder Gary Douglas and his sidekick Dain Heer published a "book" whose title sums up the Access philosophy on relationships: Sex Is Not a Four-Letter Word but Relationship Often Times Is. I've mentioned it here before. To date the work has eight reader reviews on Amazon; all but one are five-star raves. The other person, who gave it a mere two stars, said she had bought the book as a result of reading the raves, but that it was poorly written and pretty expensive for only being 65 pages long.

A California Access facilitator and psychologist named Dr. Kacie Crisp has her own Access-tainted ideas about relationship, which in this blog post she seems to be implying is a bad thing.

Did you know that relationship by definition is the distance between two objects, like the distance between the earth and the moon? If you’re in a relationship with another person, you have to continually create and maintain that distance! Is that what you’re really looking for?

There is an alternative: one word for it is communion. Communion is not the little white cookie they give you in church. Well, it can be that but it’s also much more than that. It’s a being oneness with everyone and everything, where there is no need to make boundaries or separations of any kind.

When you walk in the woods or on the beach, you know how expanded you feel? Like there’s more space between your molecules? And you don’t have to keep score about how much oxygen the trees give you or how much CO2 they take from you? And there’s no judgment of the leaves being wrong or the wrong color or anything else?

What if you could have that feeling in relationship with everything, not just when you walk in the woods? THAT is my target in facilitating people about relationships–to invite people to that place.

While in that post Dr. Crisp seems to be suggesting that "healthy relationship" is an oxymoron, in her very next blog post she appears to contradict herself.

“He feels he has to have a girlfriend or he’s not all right as a person,” was my son’s reply. How many people much older than my son or his friend have that point of view? How much freedom does that allow you? Hanging around with people who have that point of view can easily invite yourself into a stalker situation if you do cut your ties with the person. That can be a chilling thought…..

Even if it doesn’t go into stalker-dom, how can a healthy relationship ever develop from this point of view? Can anyone come from anything but a sense of desperation if they feel they HAVE to have a partner to be complete?

Whew. I just can't keep up with the whirling thoughts on that blog. In any event it seems that with Access, relationship is almost never about the other person. Instead it's all about me, me, me. (You would think that as an insufferable narcissist I would find this appealing; I don't know what's wrong with me.) 

But enough about that already. There's more great news on the sex and romance front: sex can be as meaningless as a game of Frisbee!

What if sex didn’t mean anything?
How could the subject that sets people a twittering and guffawing faster than any other not mean anything?
It all depends on what you mean by meaning, according to Gary Douglas, best selling author and founder of Access Consciousness.

Gary Douglas, by the way, is a noted expert on word meanings. Or perhaps he is not; I suppose it all depends upon what you mean by "is." Here's more:

What would sex look like if it had no meaning? For one thing, there would be no relationship expectations attached to it. Having sex could be as casual and non-entangling as a casual game of Frisbee-and with no greater expectations of a phone call in the morning....Sex without significance would be sex without caring if you played Frisbee with that particular person or group ever again. Don’t you have full confidence that you could always find somebody to play Frisbee with if that’s what you really most desired to do at any given time? And if the people you played Frisbee with yesterday play with someone else today, is that a problem for you?

Um... it might be a problem if you could get STDs from Frisbees, or if playing Frisbee had sex's potential to affect your mind, body, and emotions. Oops, there I go, thinking like a human again, as opposed to a humanoid.
I know I've given you a lot to think about, Dear Ones, perhaps too much. So let me leave you with some very bad music inspired by Access and their Ocean 300 project. Here's the link: http://www.ocean300.com/Articles-Info/love-this-planet-earth-by-delany-delaney.html

Give it a listen, and then go out and...um...play Frisbee with your Valentine. Even if you do feel that he or she is less than you, or is not truly giving you the joy and value of you.

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ACCESS: The incredible lightness of boinking

Well, Dear Ones, I think it's high time for us to revisit one of the best-kept secrets in New-Wage cultdom (or should that be "cultdumb"?): ACCESS Consciousness, formerly known as ACCESS Energy Transformation.* I've written about this relatively obscure but nevertheless steadily expanding group a few times previously: on June 6 and June 12 of 2007; in May of 2008 (scroll down to the second item, "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose"); and then again the following July (scroll down to second item, "ACCESS: It just gets worse").

For those of you who aren't familiar with ACCESS or simply want a brief refresher, and don't feel like following all of those links above, allow me to quote from my own May 2008 blog post:

ACCESS, according to a tale that seems to be strangely absent from the current official ACCESS sites (but can be found here and here), was founded in the early 1990s. It all started when a "being of light" (or, alternatively, "beings of light") called Novian used the late Russian faux-monk/Whirled-class charlatan Grigori Rasputin to channel an "energy transformation technique" to a Santa Barbara, California realtor named Gary Douglas. Gary decided to call the technique ACCESS, and it now has followers all over the world. But he seems to be concentrating on the US, Australia, and New Zealand. And what's really scary, in my view, is that Gary and gang want to ACCESSorize the younger generation with their ACCESS kids' camps...

A few years ago Gary Douglas took Cali chiropractor Dain Heer under his wing, and now ACCESS is, for all practical purposes, The Gary & Dain Show. Actually, to hear some disgruntled followers tell it, it's more like The Gary & Dain Get Laid Show, but apparently Gary and Dain are not the only ones using ACCESS to get a lot of "free" sex. We'll get into that more in a moment.
From time to time I receive emails from people who say they have firsthand information about the damage that ACCESS's wacky teachings can do. Some have experienced ACCESS themselves and became disgruntled, but more often I've heard from people worried about siblings, in-laws, cousins, and colleagues who have been sucked into the ACCESS vortex and whose family lives are now in shambles. "Well, jeez, Cosmic Connie, isn't that what transformation (or elevated consciousness, or salvation, for that matter) is supposed to be all about?" you may be asking. "Isn't it all about being shaken up and spit out as a brand new person with a brand new way of looking at things? Isn't it all about escaping the same-old same-old and re-creating your life?"
Yeah, well, it can be, and maybe it should be, if your life completely sucks. But what if you're living a fairly happy life that, hey, could stand some improvements here and there, but doesn't really suck? Perhaps more importantly, what if there are people in your life who love and depend upon you, and then, after just one "life-changing" weekend, you just suddenly decide to dump them, or you try to make them agree to outrageous new terms for your relationship?
Or, to look at it from the other side of the situation... What if, for example, you're a baffled husband, struggling with the normal problems of a midlife marriage, and your wife suddenly goes off the deep end?
Last week I heard from a man who wants to shield his identity but said he wants his story told here. "Stephen"** is in his forties and has been married for twenty years. He says that overall, his has been a solid marriage with a limited number of truly difficult times, and the usual types of fights – money problems, in-laws, and the like. "Like many people at this age, mid-life can be a tough transition," he wrote. "My wife and I had some problems in the marriage develop after many many good years."
Then, Stephen says, his wife went to an ACCESS workshop last January. When she came home she was beyond excited, and of course Stephen was interested in knowing what had gone on in the class. "She proceeded to tell me that the presenter was this older woman who looked so much younger than her real age, and was married, but had had sex with hundreds of people over the years," Stephen wrote. According to his wife, the presenter told the class that having sex just one time with a new partner was perfectly okay because it "expanded" you and made you a "lighter being." When Stephen wanted to know what the rationale was for the just-one-time bit, his wife explained that if you do it more than once, you create a relationship, and that can cause problems.
Indeed, this would seem to be in keeping with one of Gary and Dain's many books, Sex Is Not A Four-Letter Word, But Relationship Often Times Is.
Stephen continues:

My wife than asked me curiously what I thought about an "open marriage." At that very moment a huge red flag went up for me. This was...not like her at all. I knew at this moment that my wife was at a pivotal point in her life, that something had developed in her and that a serious change [in] her was likely coming down the pike. I said I didn't think that open marriage was a good idea and that it would complicate our marriage. Besides, if I liked someone that much, I wouldn't just want to sleep with them one time. I said, " We aren't that type of people; we care about people, not use them."
Two weeks later my wife had a mysterious new person in her life. A patient of hers. My wife is in the health field, is licensed and touches people to heal their bodies. I could be more specific but let's just leave it at that.

At that point Stephen's wife became more insistent with her inquiries about the open-marriage idea, and Stephen knew she had someone specific in mind; otherwise she wouldn't have been so persistent. Stephen let her know there was no way he would even consider an open-marriage arrangement.
And that, he said, was the beginning of the breakdown of their marriage. His wife got angry, and before he knew it, the two were sleeping in separate bedrooms. Stephen's wife asked him to start reading her ACCESS books so he could try to understand. She wanted to reassure him that he too could also enjoy expanding as a person with new sex partners. So he began reading one of the books and "quickly realized it was totally crazy," as he put it. "The sentence structure of much of the key writing is designed to be inaccessible." (Which is a bit ironic, considering the name, ACCESS.)
To Stephen, the writing actually made no sense at all, but his wife explained that it was meant to be that way because it was intended to bypass the part of our minds that puts limitations on us.
For my own part, I have to say that what I've read and heard from Gary and Dain and various ACCESS enthusiasts has certainly bypassed the part of my mind dedicated to logic, sense, and anything remotely resembling comprehension. (Be sure to follow the video links in the PS below, and read the PPS for additional insight on ACCESS wackiness.)
Stephen wrote that from late spring to the present, his marriage has slowly been disintegrating.

My wife not only seems to have a new sex partner (whom she also got into Access) but she no longer wants to be constrained by marriage. She wants to be like Gary and Dain, she says. She believes they are truly happy infinite beings and she wants hideous amounts of money too because Access teaches you that if you cannot accept money the Universe will never give you money. If you cannot accept abundance of money you will have problems getting abundance of love, joy and ease in your life.
In Access everything is suppose to come with ease, joy and glory.
In just six short months there is a new being possessing my wife's body. She is a totally different person. We have two kids and it seems divorce is going to follow a separation that she feels she really needs so she can pursue her Access teachings. Apparently my reaction to her falling for another person, leaving our marriage bedroom, and wanting to sleep with multiple people has made me "heavy" and she wants to be a "light being" in full awareness and consciousness so that the Universe can provide her infinite possibilities. She wants to be BIG she says, truly conscious like Gary and Dain.

Stephen says his heart is completely broken and that his life has been "semi-destroyed" by Access. He qualifies: "I say 'semi' because it takes a hurt or struggling person to get snared in these scams in the first place, and our mid-life woes are partly to blame for that." I think that what sets Stephen apart from many other disillusioned followers, or loved ones of followers, of New-Wage scams is that he doesn't completely blame the scam. He realizes that it takes two (or more) to tango, as it were.
Stephen wrote that he believes his wife is actually just confused and depressed about her life, but that instead of facing her pain and disappointments honestly, she is, as he put it, "reconstructing a new type of reality to live by. One where she needs nobody to make her happy and complete. One where the model of Access is the way to a life of abundant joy and love."
His own heartbreak would be bad enough, but it seems that Stephen's wife also wants to get their preteen son involved with ACCESS (as mentioned above, they do have numerous programs for kids, and are apparently even setting up ACCESS-based schools). Stephen writes that the prospect of his son getting involved with ACCESS "just terrifies me."
He adds:

I would love to help you in any way to bring to light what a scam ACCESS really is. My wife has really gone off the deep end with this. Access gave my wife the justification to explore, which led to another person who happens to be into New Age stuff as well. This person turned my wife against me in a very slow and methodical way. I had a honeymoon like experience with my wife (which she planned and paid for) back in February, and by late May my marriage was in shambles and I never did anything different as a person between those times.
I am trying my best to save it but Access-based thinking is making it pretty much impossible. They don't believe in relationships unless they are based on complete "allowance." Everything about Access has to based around complete allowance for yourself. Otherwise you cannot be open to the "infinite" possibilities which the Universe may send to you based on your consciousness. My wife and her new lover are all into this now, together. The other person is also destroying their marriage. So my story is one about two marriages linked together, each with kids, being destroyed because two vulnerable people found each other around new age thinking and Access Consciousness thought.
It is totally ridiculous and destructive.

Stephen has tried to reach a popular news-magazine TV show to try to persuade them to do an expose on ACCESS, but he hasn't had any luck so far. And he may have a challenge ahead of him there, since awareness of ACCESS hasn't yet reached critical mass. Unlike celebrity-infested Scientology, ACCESS so far appears to be just another pale imitation of Scientology and other higher-profile groups. But Stephen firmly believes a prime-time story on Gary Douglas and Dr. Dain Heer is in order. "Pushing people to believe this sh-t about multiple sex partners, about relationships being limited and bad unless they're based on complete 'allowance,' is personally and socially destructive," he says.
And I have to agree. In an earlier post on ACCESS I speculated that perhaps some of the free-sex stuff supposedly being taught was open to interpretation. But the more I hear from people who have more "inside" information, the more I'm inclined to believe that ACCESS is little more than a glorified moneymaking and seduction scheme by a couple of two-bit California hustlers who have somehow convinced thousands of gullible people that their crap actually makes sense.
And it's people such as Stephen who really pay the price.***

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PS ~ If you want to "experience" a little bit o'ACCESS for yourself, here is some bloody marvelous video entertainment:
First, here's Dain with some gorgeous blonde babes, Rikka and Summer (it really starts to get good at about 6:53, when chiro Dain has one of the girls on his table for what looks like a little quasi-orgasmic "bars"**** action, while the other watches lustfully in the background):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fthvy7T_uW0&feature=related
And here's the link to the main page of one of the ACCESS YouTube Channels:
http://www.youtube.com/user/accessconsciousness
And there's plenty more where that came from. Just don't expect any of it to make sense. It's not supposed to, you see.
PPS ~ If you think you'd like to take the next step with sex expert Dr. Dain, there's always the 7 Steps To Orgasm teleclass:

This 6 week teleclass will cover the 7 steps to orgasm and an orgasmic life. What if you were willing to ask anything? What if your life could be a walking, talking orgasm? Would you like to uncover the possibilities of full body orgasm? Have you always known so much more was possible with sex? "Dain Heer creates an environment on the phone where nothing is too personal to ask." "My life and has expanded a thousand time beyond what I thought was possible." "My body is so grateful we took this course!"

And this group phone sex will only set you back $485 USD. No word on whether or not Rikka and Summer will be participating.
PPPS ~ Regarding ACCESS-followers' beliefs, or lack thereof, as well as their penchant for obscurantism, another correspondent of mine has written to me on several occasions about ACCESS. This person, who also wishes to remain anonymous and whom I shall simply call "R," has a close relative who is deeply into ACCESS, as is the relative's spouse and child. "R" shared these thoughts with me:

You wrote that it is not clear what, exactly, [ACCESS followers] believe, and in fact they make it particularly difficult to figure that out. (One of their sayings is that they can't explain it and when they can, they will quit. 'Every class is different depending on who shows up,' etc. etc. Much of it does appear to be basically Scientology Lite, using many, but not all, new names for familiar concepts. Some terms are Scientology hold overs like "clearing.")
If you want to take the really long view of it, and I generally do, this is essentially a support group for narcissists; i.e., You really ARE special. People don't like you because you ARE so special and talented and extraordinary. (It can't be because you are an interminably self-centered pain in the ass who uses people every chance you get....)
Well, not being one to be so quickly put off about the core beliefs/concepts of this group I have been trying nevertheless to figure that out. [Gary Douglas and various ACCESS followers] have appeared for several years as guests on a [local] radio program and I have collected the broadcasts as they appear (briefly) in their archives. Much of this has been numbingly repetitive and vague but eventually you do get a handle on the core concepts, which are often more bizarre than anything suggested so far on your blog, with the exception of the Rasputin business that they seem to be burying pretty deep these days. Beyond that, there are threads of a political/revolutionary aspect to the movement, which is supposed to transform the world when they hit a certain round number (of course) of adherents...
They believe that Gary D. can control the weather, for example, which makes [his] horse whispering look pretty tame.They believe that their adherents will (by staying in the group, of course) live to be oh, say, 800 years old or older. (But if you leave, you throw all that away, of course. And it does appear that [my relative who is into ACCESS] is aging at the usual rate, based on the photos on the website).
[ACCESS adherents] claim to cure diseases like cancer, though the statements are unsupported and artfully phrased. He "turned that around," for example. Or "there were no signs of cancer," with no explanation of what the previous "signs" were or how someone looked for them to establish the cure. My relative's vagueness in such boasts is surprising given how much science s/he had to study in order to become a [health care professional].
[ACCESS followers also] believe that the earth is populated by two "species," humans and humanoids, in a ratio of 49% to 51%, with all of business and government being controlled by the boring, non-creative species...
...And Gary and Dain claim they can perform essentially what is alchemy, using the energy of the universe to transform one object into another. This is supported by anecdotes that are pretty lame and unconvincing, naturally.

Wow. The things people will believe (or, as I suspect is the case with some, will pretend they believe just to get laid)...*****

* As of July 2009, Access is no longer officially Access Energy Transformation; it is now Access Consciousness, since they now deem that more descriptive of what they are about.
** Not his real name, of course.
*** Some critics might point out that I am only presenting one side of the story, and I acknowledge this. If this were a piece of "real" journalism, I would certainly attempt to contact the other parties and get their viewpoints, as Steve Salerno (to name but one example) tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to do when writing his "collateral damage" series on SHAMblog a couple of years ago. (Here's a link to the first post in the series.) That said, I welcome comments from people who are fans of ACCESS and who feel it has enriched their lives, and/or who feel their spouses or other loved ones just don't "get it."
**** If you're curious about ACCESS "bars," here's a page that 'splains it all. The site on which this page appears is not ACCESS's official site but apparently belongs to an ACCESS facilitator. The "bars" session, normally free for newcomers, is most people's initial introduction to ACCESS; as my correspondent "R" wrote, "I think they use 'the bars' as a not-too-crazy way to get people in the door, kind of like the free 'personality' or 'IQ Test' offered by Scientology for the same purpose."
"R" also points out the similarity to Scientology terminology such as "implants." There's no denying ACCESS is derivative; of course, ACCESS is far from the only New-Wage scheme to draw inspiration from Scientology. By the way, the site I linked to above makes reference to another site, accessraz.com, which no longer seems to be valid. "R" speculates that this was an old site making a sly reference to Rasputin (hence, "Raz"), whom ACCESS founder Gary Douglas once claimed was instrumental in revealing the secret of "the bars" and other ACCESS info to him back in the early 1990s. As mentioned above, however, ACCESS principals seem to have distanced themselves from the Rasputin connection, perhaps thinking it sounded a little too crazy for everyday folks. Actually, though, I would think Rasputin could add a bit of color and historical flavor to the ACCESS scam. Besides, New-Wage followers have shown their willingness to embrace imaginary friends such as Esther and Jerry Hicks' "Abraham"; why wouldn't they be equally willing to embrace a departed historical figure, particularly a mystic such as "Raz"?
***** Enlightened promiscuity isn't just an ACCESS phenomenon, of course. Consider, for example, Steve Pavlina of the "Personal Development for Smart People" site and forum. (Steve, as you may recall, made an appearance on my Whirled last July while he was hobnobbing with the big-name hustledorks in Bermuda.) My new friend, and fellow blogger, Duff McDuffee, who runs the excellent Beyond Growth blog, wrote an interesting post mentioning Steve in September of this year, "The Unquestioned Gurus of the Religion of the Self." At the time Duff wrote this post, Steve had recently announced his own affiliation with and promotion of a fairly pricey DVD set, Eben Pagan's "Man Transformation," which pretty much seems to be one of those pseudo-sophisticated how-to-pick-up-and-pork-as-many-wimmin-as-possible guides for the horny but enlightened male consumer. Duff writes, "Pavlina seems to have become interested in dating advice right around the time he announced that he and his wife decided to have an open marriage and explore polyamory." Here's the link to Steve's first blog post on the polyamory experiment. And here's his follow-up post. Perhaps the Pavlinas should look into ACCESS Consciousness.

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
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Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
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More dark than snark today

Although I believe that the stuff I write about here is mostly harmless, there is, as I've noted here before, a darker side. A couple of cases in point...

Another good argument for researching your guru's credentials
So here's yet another example of why the characteristic new-age/New-Wage reluctance to question and be judgmental is not a sign of enlightenment, open-mindedness or advanced spiritual development.

Seems there was this natural healer/therapist in Eastern Europe, name of Dragan Dabic. A wise-looking man with a long bushy gray beard, "doktora Dabica" knew all about herbs and Yoga, mind-body control, bioenergy, meditation, and spiritual cleansing. He claimed that he had an "energy healing treatment," Human Quantum Energy, that could fix everything from erectile dysfunction to autism. (Hey, if it has "quantum" in its name, it's gotta work, right?)

The biography on his web site painted him as a budding healer from the time he was a youngster in the Serbian village of Kovaci.

As a young boy he liked to explore nearby forests and mountains, spending a lot of time on Kopaonik mountain where he tended to pick the omnipresent, natural and potent medicinal herbs that grew at those green pastures. As a young man he moved to Belgrade, and then on to Moscow where he graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree (spec. in Psychiatry) at the Moscow State University (Lomonosov). After Russia, he travelled around India and Japan, after which he settled in China where he specialized in alternative medicine, with a special emphasis on the mind-body control, meditation, Yoga, spiritual cleansing, as well as Chinese herbs.

In mid-1990s he returned back to mother Serbia for good, and ever since then emerged as one of the most prominent experts in the field of alternative medicine, bioenergy, and macrobiotic diet in the whole of the Balkans, and is frequent contributor to the regional alternative health magazines, and guest expert with numerous TV appearances and on many public forums, seminars and symposiums (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Pancevo, Sombor, Smederevo, Kikinda...) dedicated to these issues and topics.

And the people came from miles around to soak up the wisdom of this well-traveled man with the impressive credentials.

The one credential the web site failed to mention was that the good doctor also happened to be the world's most wanted war criminal, and his real name was Radovan Karadžić, Bosnian Serb leader suspected of being responsible for the deaths of at least 20,000 people in what have been described as some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II. He'd been in hiding since 1996. "Dragan Dabic" was apparently the name of a dead guy whose identity he stole.

Oops.

From a July 23 article in the (UK) Independent:

Jubilant European leaders yesterday celebrated Karadzic's arrest by Serbian security forces, who snatched him from a bus, while it emerged that during more than a decade in hiding he had lived under an assumed identity practising alternative medicine at a private clinic under the noses of the international community whose armies were hunting him on genocide charges...

...The former psychiatrist had been utterly transformed from the bulky official who defied the world as he swaggered round the Balkans with the Bosnian military commander, [Ratko] Mladic, in their joint ruthless quest to impose a "Greater Serbia", which left tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats dead, and sent waves of ethnic cleansing across the land. His employers and his landlord said they were completely taken in by the ingenious disguise, as was a magazine editor who commissioned articles on meditation and "peace of mind" from the "therapist" known as Dragan Dabic.

According to a Reuters article, a woman who worked at one of the New-Wage rags to which he contributed said, "He was very religious. He had his hair in a plait in order to be able to receive different energies. He was a very nice man."

The editor of that magazine, Goran Kojic, described him as "a kind man, with good manners, quiet and witty." He said Doktor Dabic had claimed he had a degree but, said Kojic, "I doubted he had a degree because he didn't specify where he was working. He never showed me his diploma, he said his wife left it in the United States." Naturally, the editor was among those who were deeply shocked upon learning of the "doctor's" true identity: "I cannot believe it was him...I feel miserable."

Dr. Dabic, aka Karadžić, is certainly not the first New-Wage "healer" to have changed his identity in order to hide an unsavory past. He's definitely one of the more extreme cases, of course, but who knows how many lesser criminals (sexual predators, embezzlers, etc.), or just plain phonies, are out there plying their trade among the bobbleheads who never bother to examine the past or question the credentials of their favorite guru?

And although the often fraudulent practices of taking on a new I.D. or simply fudging the facts about one's past are not the sole province of New-Wage/selfish-help practitioners, these things are arguably easier to get away with in that realm, simply because many followers are so eager to believe, and so reluctant to judge or question.

As the search continues for Karadžić's partner in crime, Ratko Mladic, I wouldn't be too surprised if he turned out to be working somewhere as a wholistic intuitive Vedic astrologer/trance channeler/psychic massage therapist.

By the way, the quotation on the "ad" above was taken from Karadžić's bilingual web site, in the section listing "10 favorite ancient Chinese proverbs as selected personally by Dr. Dabic."

Another from the list: "Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere."

So, apparently, are war crimes.

Here's more on the capture of Dr. Evil.

PS added August 4 ~ Giving credit where it is due, the Crack Emcee at The Macho Response blog was on this story like a pack of hungry hounds on a rabbit. The difference between CMC and me regarding this issue is that I do NOT view this incident as a wholesale indictment of all New-Wagers or all "alternative" treatments / practitioners / spirituality. I don't think the lot of them should all be incarcerated or worse, as CMC apparently does – although undoubtedly some of them should be locked up somewhere. (And as for Karadžić, he should, if found guilty, be punished to the full extent of the law for his crimes.) Nor do I think that New-Wagers are incapable of judging right from wrong and of viewing genocide as the atrocity that it is (as CMC seems to imply).

I do, however, think that many if not most New-Wage followers are extraordinarily gullible and generally reluctant to question the credentials, character or motives of their "leaders," thus playing right into the hands of many who are criminals at worst, and ridiculous phonies at best.

ACCESS: it just gets worse
I've written a few times on this blog about that loony cultish thing called ACCESS Energy Transformation, the most recent post being this one (second item down, "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose"). The other day I got another public comment from a woman who goes by the moniker, "Sis." She had previously written a comment to an earlier ACCESS post of mine. This woman's recently widowed sister-in-law has apparently been sucked into the ACCESS sinkhole, and the woman and the rest of the family are at wits' end. It's even more worrisome because young children are involved. My correspondent wrote:

Thanks for comments posted so far, things are only getting worse from where we sit! and trying all avenues to get Sis in Law out of this Access 'relationship' but don't know what to do, without losing her. We are suspicious the Access woman who has moved in[to her house with her and her kids] is probably, through Access treatments, hypnotising her and maybe kids too. Complete personality changes happening - Access woman with her 24hrs a day! will not allow sister-in-law to be alone with others. Anyone have any approaches/ideas? I would love to email directly with someone directly who has been involved with Access but don't know how to do this on this site without giving world my email?

I think the easiest way for me to handle this is to solicit suggestions from readers, and I'll publish them on this blog. Sis, just keep checking back here and maybe you'll find something helpful. And if you haven't done so already, why not contact a cult-buster such as Rick A. Ross? There still doesn't seem to be much info about ACCESS on his web site, but maybe there should be.

So that's it from the dark side for now. Till next time, Dear Ones, stay close to shore, and watch out for snarks.

On a would-be marriage, and a horse's ACCESS

Just a couple of updates before I return to my "day job"...


"What did the president know, and when did he know it?"
Boy, do I have egg on my face. I've been writing about what I perceived as the alliance between Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale and David "Succeed Magazine" Schirmer. Well, it turns out that, according to Joe, there is no such alliance after all. On Joe's blog today I saw this comment, sent in response to Joe's post about making the cover of Succeed:

1. Joe Kersey says

   Congratulations, Joe! I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more out of your collaboration with David Schirmer. It’s obvious from his blog that he’s excited about it. The two of you should make a really powerful team!

   May 21st, 2008 | #

2. Joe Vitale says

   Hi Joe. I don’t know David and am not collaborating on anything with him, so not sure what you know that I don’t. Succeed magazine simply did a feature on me, which I’m grateful for. I didn’t even know he was associated with the magazine till after it was all said and done. Anyway, I apprecaite [sic] your words of congratulations. Succeed is a great and inspiring magazine. Richard Branson was on the last cover, so my being on the next one is beyond flattering. Now I want to receive as much wealth as Branson - or more.
   Blessings,
   joe

Oh, dear. So I guess there never really was a marriage in the first place. And I guess we are also to assume that Joe didn't know David Schirmer himself was listening in on the conversation when the editor of Succeed Magazine did the interview. Schirmer recently wrote on his own blog:

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

Opps!! [sic] I'd better write another blog.

Time flies so fast when you're having fun! I can hardly believe it is so long since I wrote my last blog. A friend on msn suggested today that I should post again ... so here I am.

There is much too much to write about to bring you up to date, so I'll share with you just a little of my day today.

At 7:30am the editor of our Succeed Magazine phoned Texas, USA. It was a special call to an amazing man, friend and co-presenter on The Secret, Dr Joe Vitale. I enjoyed immensely sitting in and listening to Joe's story.

Shame on Schirmer for eavesdropping without informing Joe he was doing so. And shame on him for claiming that Joe is a friend of his when Joe says he doesn't even know David.

I guess we can also assume that someone besides David Schirmer contacted Joe about being in/on Succeed Magazine in the first place – and being in/on it not once, but twice (an article of Joe's also appeared in the April-May issue). So maybe Succeed was being a little less than honest for not disclosing to Joe that David Schirmer was the publisher. But heck, it's "a great and inspiring magazine," according to Joe, so I guess a little duplicity is okay.

If we are to take Joe literally, Succeed merely featured him and that was that; no further affiliation. I imagine this means that if you click on the specific "Mr. Fire" link to subscribe to Succeed – the link that Joe helpfully published on his blog – Mr. Fire will not receive a percentage or anything like that.

So now you know. Just thought I'd pass the information along, in the interests of being fair and balanced here.

By the way, Succeed magazine also recently featured a profile of David Schirmer's ex joint-venture partner, noted quantum physics expert and "Law Of Attraction guru" Bob Proctor. So even though he can't market Proctor's stuff any more, by court order, Schirmer apparently can still exploit Proctor's name to sell his magazine.

Warning: ACCESSories on the loose
As if Australia didn't have enough on its mind, what with David Schirmer still running around loose, there is also this creepy cultish thing called ACCESS Energy Transformation, which seems more determined than ever to dig its claws in Down Under. I wrote about ACCESS here last year, and then did a follow-up post a few days later.

ACCESS, according to a tale that seems to be strangely absent from the current official ACCESS sites (but can be found here and here), was founded in the early 1990s. It all started when a "being of light" (or, alternatively, "beings of light") called Novian used the late Russian faux-monk/Whirled-class charlatan Grigori Rasputin to channel an "energy transformation technique" to a Santa Barbara, California realtor named Gary Douglas. Gary decided to call the technique ACCESS, and it now has followers all over the world. But he seems to be concentrating on the US, Australia, and New Zealand. And what's really scary, in my view, is that Gary and gang want to ACCESSorize the younger generation with their ACCESS kids' camps.

Yesterday I heard from an anonymous commenter responding to my second ACCESS blog post. This person was concerned about the fact that Gary and the ACCESS teachings seem to encourage their followers to have sex with anyone they want to, even if they're married. That's not the first time I've heard this, and if it is true, it doesn't seem that ACCESS would be the best organization to be running a kids' camp. I'm just saying...

My correspondent also provided a link to an ABC MediaWatch page detailing a segment last year on Australia's Channel 7, featuring Gary Douglas himself. "Dr." Douglas appeared on a segment of Channel 7's The Morning Show as a "behavioural expert" sharing his views about kids with autism and ADD. The folks on the program later ended up apologizing (or apologising, for you Aussies and Brits) on the air for featuring this loony-tunes "doctor." Here's the link.

As the Media Watch writer noted, "Dr." Douglas doesn't restrict his "energy transformation" techniques to humans; he also works with horses. He even put together a TV pilot, Conscious Horse, Conscious Rider, about his remarkable equine communication skills.

Conscious Horse Conscious Rider is a remarkable TV Pilot, starring horse medium Gary Douglas, and created at the request of horses everywhere.

So not only is Gary Douglas a doctor who's an expert on kids with autism and ADD; he's also a horse's... a horse whisperer. And the horses themselves requested that he make his TV show. Take that, all you neigh-sayers!

It's a mad, mad Whirled, and I'd love to stay and chat, Dear Ones... but I gotta get back to work for a while. And then I think I'm going to go out and talk to the horses. I'll let you know what they have to say.

PS ~ It's not that I think there is no validity to "horse whispering." I do. People such as Monty Roberts and Pat and Linda Parelli have achieved remarkable results with horses, and I am endlessly fascinated with their work. But they utilize knowledge about equine behavior and body language, not telepathy or the voices in their heads or whatever it is that Gary Douglas claims to use.

The excess of ACCESS

Monday on SHAMblog, Steve Salerno began his series of "collateral-damage" self-help stories. Or perhaps I should say, "selfish-help" stories. All too often, people who become immersed in SHAM/New-Age/New-Wage paths get so absorbed in their own quest for personal fulfillment that they neglect and sometimes abandon their spouses, their children, their responsibilities. Not only are bank accounts depleted; that's just the beginning. Often marriages are wrecked, families are torn apart, lives are ruined. Irreparable harm may be done not just to the original follower or student or trainee of the SHAM method of choice, but also to his or her loved ones – hence, "collateral damage." This is a "dark side" of this subculture – a side that, as you’ve probably observed, I normally don’t get into on this blog, preferring instead to focus on the silly aspects.

Even so, I am eagerly following Steve’s new series.

Though I’m one of the designated class clowns of the anti-New-Wage movement, I am not completely isolated from the "dark side." For example, a couple of days after I wrote a smart-alecky post about a vacuous-sounding phenomenon known as ACCESS Energy Transformation, I received an email from someone whose spouse has recently become involved in ACCESS. The person who wrote to me was devastated, claiming that Gary Douglas, founder of ACCESS, had advised the spouse that "marriage is a four-letter word." The spouse was also allegedly told to begin having sex with new people in order to "learn more." My correspondent added, "He [Douglas] is now starting my two young kids [in ACCESS] and I am very scared and upset…"

Needless to say, I sympathize with this person, especially if the kids are being recruited into ACCESS as well. And that may very well be the case. 

According to the ACCESS Kids page on the web site, "Kids come for free to all Access classes until age 16 because they are willing to change." The ACCESS folks are currently offering a class called "X-Men: ACCESSing Conscious Children." Hmm… I wonder if they’re violating a copyright or two with that X-Men thing? Food for thought… Anyway, here’s what the blurb says:

One of our targets is to start Access Schools. The children coming in now are far more willing to be aware, they are more willing to change and have a different reality. What if we acknowledged the consciousness of the children? What if all the "labels" of disabilities such as OCD, Autism, ADD etc are actually talents and abilities? What if we acknowledged our kids for what they know? What if they were more physic (sic) than we have been willing to admit? What would it take to expand yours and their awareness of what else is possible? This truly is a unique class where we will offer tools to assist you in changing the way things are. It’s important for children to be able to access their abilities.

ACCESS schools? Now, that’s a truly frightening thought. And notice how the copy is structured to appeal to those who believe in the existence of Indigo children. (For the uninitiated, "Indigo child" is, more often than not, New-Wage code for "spoiled, obstreperous brat.")

As for ACCESS’s message that marriage is a four-letter word, that may be a matter of interpretation on my correspondent’s part, but, as I wrote to this person, the whole ACCESS spiel strikes me as being irresponsible at best in its approach to intimate relationships. Some of the classes – and much of the philosophy, as expressed through the founders and the attendees of the workshops and demo sessions – seem to encourage abject selfishness and even promiscuity. There is, for instance, the "intensive" class called "Truth of Sex," based upon a book by Gary Douglas and his cohort Dain Heer. That book is titled, Sex Is Not a Four Letter Word, But Relationship Often Times Is – a faintly clever (if somewhat cumbersome) title, and harmless enough in and of itself. But there’s no telling what they teach in the class. I did get the distinct impression, as I noted on my piece the other day, that ACCESS is very much about sex.

I realize, of course, that I am hearing this story only from my correspondent’s perspective and not from that of the errant spouse or, for that matter, from Gary Douglas. Still, knowing what I know about ACCESS, the story seems entirely plausible. Despite my compassion for my correspondent’s plight, however, I really could not offer much assistance, other than to provide a sympathetic ear and a link to the Rick A. Ross Institute, one of the best resources for information about cults and controversial groups and movements.

On a slightly lighter note, we have the story of a woman who was bilked by an "ACCESSory" (as ACCESS folk sometimes call themselves), but seems to have survived with her sense of humor intact, and was even able to get a small measure of revenge. On condition of anonymity she gave me permission to share her story.

Dear Cosmic Connie,
Once again, I thank you for bringing to light the bulls--t that is called ACCESS. I have been a victim of that scam because the ACCESSory that I consulted with happened to also be a lover (well, ex-lover) of mine. And I fell for him, hook, line, and sinker. I wanted to look for a better way to manage my bipolar disorder besides taking harmful pharmaceuticals. (Hey, that’s how Rhonda Byrne started believing that she could change her world – with thoughts, right?)

It IS true that ACCESS does put a heavy emphasis on sex. I know this because usually after an ACCESS "session", I'd ended up sleeping with him. He used that whole Rasputin-esque* swagger to lure me into his bed. I personally didn't object to the bed games, but when my wallet started becoming lighter, I thought, "Wait a second.....he's like a high-end earth crunchy New Wage gigolo."
When I was getting sick of the ACCESS sessions and [the ACCESSory] kept asking for $50 per session (which isn't as horrid as $125 per session, but then again I'm a struggling art student), I decided that after I had written a $50 check to him, I decided to cancel it as soon as I realized my mistake. Of course, that ACCESSory went apes--t when his money didn't go through....
Also, I was starting to really dig him and then coming to the harsh conclusion that he was manipulating me sexually to his own whim. (This also happened to me in the past at the hands of an ex-boyfriend, a hypno the-rapist who specialized in NLP.)
So he tried sending me "friendly" phone calls (always from private numbers), and I'd hang up on him. Then [he] texted me "Fine, continue feeling pathetic."

Sadly, I am $150 short. Luckily it hasn't affected me too much since it's summer break, but DAMN, I hate being ripped off in any fashion!!

I do not mind you sharing this story, in fact........I want EVERYONE to know this story, maybe it can be Google bombed to the #1 hit in a search engine. ACCESS is a f-----g fraud and it's the most severe since it IS under the radar of many die-hard skeptics and the like. A "bar" reading is just a ploy to get laid and take someone's money!!!
Arm everyone with knowledge!!!!

Not too long after sending me this email, my correspondent wrote me another one describing how she pranked her ACCESSory ex.

Dear Cosmic Connie,
I just recently did an IM [instant-messaging] prank on the guy who was doing the ACCESS. Basically, I had an IM bot pose as my fiancé and get real huffy on that guy. I didn't save the actual conversation, but the ACCESSory did call me and say, "This isn't funny!"
THEN [the ACCESSory] IMs me:

ACCESSORY: please stop all contact with me. i would really appreciate it
ME: give me my money back.
I KNOW you scammed me.
I told my fiancé EVERYTHING, and he is f-----g pissed.
ACCESSORY: That's not what someone with a supposed good nature would do.
i didnt scam you. the energy work we did together helped you a lot. whether you know it or not.
ME: No, that novelty wore off when my bank account was dry
ACCESSORY: you can think whatever you want
ME: You manipulated me
ACCESSORY: and you had the choice to do whatever you want.
and tell your fiancé if he has anything to say, he can call me
other than that, please delete me from your life
ME: you're already dead to me, so HAH

Notice how the ACCESSory argues that the "energy work" he and my correspondent "did together" was beneficial. He seems to be saying that she’s just too unenlightened, or simply too lacking in awareness, to realize how much it helped her.

I am not trying to portray my correspondent as an utterly innocent victim who had no choice in the matter, and she doesn’t appear to be making that claim either. To an extent, the ACCESSory is right; she did make choices. And, while losing $150.00 is a tough lesson, it certainly could have been much worse. She didn’t lose thousands of dollars, or, worse, her spouse or her family or her life. Still, if the story unfolded as she describes, it seems that her ACCESSory friend was manipulative and that he took advantage of her vulnerability. (Back in the day when I was hanging around New-Agers, I encountered quite a few guys who operated very much like this one, so her story sounds very plausible.)

Some might say that attempting to manage a serious health condition such as bipolar disorder with something like ACCESS is foolhardy at best, and they would point this out as an object lesson in the hazards of "alt-med" and the like. That’s a discussion for another day; all I'll say now, though some skeptics and critical thinkers will disagree with me on this matter, is that I honestly can’t fault someone for wanting to at least explore non-pharmaceutical or non-traditional methods. I think we can all agree, however, that ACCESS was clearly not the answer to this woman’s problems. And if the ACCESSory tried to lead her to believe it was the answer, shame on him.

Equally important, if not more so, her story is one that has been repeated time and again – not just with ACCESS, of course, but with countless other cults and cult-like groups. In the endless quest for self-gratification, the leaders and practitioners of these "paths" or "technologies" or "ways of life" all seem to resort to the same basic types of subterfuge. They are skilled manipulators, and words are their tools and their weapons. Whether they’re after money or sex or both, they couch their selfish desires in lofty, nebulous language, perhaps throwing a proprietary bit of pseudo-scientific or pseudo-spiritual lingo into the mix to make themselves sound advanced and evolved – and to confuse or intimidate their prey. I'm not saying that everyone who becomes involved in ACCESS is either a victimizer or a victim. But ACCESS, with its nonsensical mantras, "hands-on techniques," and the apparent focus on sex and body issues, does seem tailor-made for today's New-Wage predator.

As I’ve noted before, ACCESS is not really much more than a blip on the skeptics’ radar. With the exception of the brief description that I first saw on Quackwatch and have since seen on a few other sites as well, there’s little critical buzz about it. Most people haven’t even heard of it. Heck, I hadn’t heard of it myself until recently. ACCESS founder Gary Douglas is a former Scientology member, and some of the elements of ACCESS are clearly borrowed from Scientology, notwithstanding Gary’s claims about having "channeled" the information back in the early 1990s. But ACCESS has yet to achieve a fraction of the notoriety – or the membership – that Scientology has gained over the past few decades. According to a non-article on Wikipedia (follow the link and you’ll see what I mean by "non-article"), there are less than a thousand serious practitioners worldwide.

Yet ACCESS has quite a web presence, and there are numerous active groups in the US and Down Under; one can see its growth potential – not to mention its potential for doing real damage. Thanks to ACCESS, my second correspondent lost $150.00 and, perhaps, a bit of her faith in people. My first one may very well lose a spouse and kids.

So I’m keeping my eye on ACCESS. And, as usual, I’m open to hearing feedback, both pro and con.

* The allusion to Rasputin is relevant because supposedly Rasputin originally helped channel the ACCESS information to Gary Douglas back in the early 1990s.

PS ~ In honor of the subject of Steve Salerno’s first "horror story" – the tale of a follower of pop-spirituality guru Marianne Williamson, who popularized A Course In Miracles – here’s a recycled bit from my BLP (book-like product), Cosmic Relief. This was done back in the day when I had only vector clip art to work with, so it’s a bit crude… but it gets the point across. And though it's fifteen years old, it's really not all that outdated. (Click on the pic to access a larger and more readable version.)

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