Maui tragedy fans the flames of conspiranoia

It should come as no surprise to anyone who is even marginally in tune with contemporary culture that the tragic wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui have sparked an explosive round of conspiracy narratives by -- in no particular order of significance -- (1) climate change deniers; (2) anti-government keyboard warriors; (3) conspicuous contrarians who, like teenagers rebelling against Mom and Dad, automatically reject anything reported by the "mainstream" or "legacy" media; and (4) random worshipers at the Universal Church of Conspiranoia. Many if not most of these folks reside quite comfortably in all four groups.

You've no doubt heard some variation on the saying, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," an aphorism variously attributed originally to Winston Churchill, Niccolo Machiavelli, and several others. Today's cynics like to haul out that saying and brandish it like a weapon in the service of blasting pretty much any contemporary person or group (usually political) whose opinions or actions, in response to the crisis du jour, they oppose. (And many like to put the saying into practice themselves; witness the barrage of criticisms, most of them politically motivated, of President Biden regarding his administration's responses to the Maui disaster.)

In any event, while the identity of the individual who coined the phrase is a matter that will probably never be settled, what is certain is that the conspiranoid crowd will never, ever let a crisis such as a natural disaster or other tragic event go to waste. The moment the news breaks, the hysteria is flying around social media and blogs and chat forums.

DEWs and dont's
Some experts who have weighed in about the Maui disaster have indicated that extreme weather, driven by human-induced climate change, has contributed to the fires -- if not outright causing them, then making them far more severe than they might have ordinarily been. Others have said pish-posh to that, claiming instead that decades of poor land management and declining agriculture are to blame. I think it's reasonable to speculate that it's not an either-or situation and is very likely a combination of those factors. (Which is congruent with most credible analyses I've seen so far of the Maui fires.)

But that's not good enough for the conspiranoids, many of whom are stalwart climate change deniers and will reflexively argue against any explanation that even remotely suggests climate change. One of their pet narratives is that the fires were deliberately set though government use of Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs). And these folks are more than willing to share photographic "evidence," even if some of those photos are bogus.

This just raises the question of why the big bad gummit would be doing such a thing to the innocent residents of Maui. Apparently it's all part of a plot to turn Maui into a "smart island," and/or to transform the city of Lahaina -- which has been devastated -- into a "15-minute city." From Vice.com, August 15, 2023:

For the Maui wildfires, the conspiracy theorists have added a new twist to their claims, asserting baselessly that the fires were purposely started to fulfill the World Economic Forum’s goal of creating a smart island on Maui or a 15-minute city in Lahaina, depending on which conspiracy theorist you listen to.

Some social media users pointed to a conference that took place on Maui in January, where scientists discussed the idea of 15-minute cities—an urban planning concept where all amenities would be available within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.

While the claims about the government seeking to create a smart island or turn the fire-razed city of Lahaina into a 15-minute city are new, the idea that laser weapon systems developed by the government have been used to start the wildfires are nothing new, dating back to at least the devastating wildfires that raged across California in October 2017.

These claims merge two distinct conspiracy narratives: a deep distrust of governments, and claims that undermine the role of climate change in the dramatic increase in the number of wildfires raging across North America in recent years.

And, as noted above, the conspiranoids don't care about facts, and they'll share photographic or video "evidence" for their claims, even if that "evidence" is totally made up. Also from the Vice article:

On X, where much of the conspiracies have been spread, video claiming to show a “direct energy weapon” or DEW being fired in Maui was viewed 10 million times before a Community Note was added pointing out that the footage actually showed a transformer explosion in Chile earlier this year.

Another post on X showed what appeared to be a laser beam pointing at a burning church in Maui, but a review of the original image taken by an Associated Press photographer shows the image had been doctored. That post racked up 9 million views.

One claim made by the conspiracy-minded to reinforce their argument is that a "smart city conference" was held in Maui in January 2023, presumably in preparation for an attack later in the year. Another related claim is that the upcoming Hawaii Digital Government Summit, scheduled for September 25, 2023, will include the formulation of plans to make Maui the first "smart" island. Those claims have been debunked, but that has apparently done little to discourage the conspiranoids.

In a further attempt to validate their accusations, some of those embracing the DEWs narrative have shared links that offer valid information about the weapons, accompanying their posts with some comment such as, "See, Directed Energy Weapons are REAL!" But that's a straw-man argument, as nobody credible is arguing that these weapons are not real. The US government has been researching them for decades, spending billions of dollars on the research, but so far nobody has been able to get them out of the lab and into the battlefield (or onto Maui, as the case may be).

"That's what they WANT you to think," I can hear the conspiranoids and contrarians sniffing now. Unlike we the sheeple, they refuse to be placated.

One small book for Amazon, one giant leap to conclusions for the conspiranoids
The conspiracy buzz has only heightened with the publication of a "book" titled Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change, by someone (or something, if you lean towards the theory that it was AI-generated) going by the puckish pseudonym of "Dr. Miles Stones." (Milestones, get it?) So far the book has a one-star review average on Amazon, with some reviewers being indignant climate-change deniers who know beyond a doubt that this work is socialist propaganda. Nevertheless as I write this, Amazon lists it as the #1 bestseller under the category "Natural disasters."

Beyond their resistance to climate science, what has so many of the "netizens" up in arms is the fact that the book was generated so quickly, while the tragedy is still ongoing. To those folks, the work clearly had to have been prepared ahead of the (deliberately-set) fires. Typical of the responses I've seen to this book is a Facebook post where the poster asked:

Who on Earth can write a book and get it out four days after such a tragedy? Oh, the rulers.Guess what the angle is...

Who on Earth can write a book and get it out in four days? I think the answer is, pretty much anyone with an Amazon account and a valid payment method, due to something that is commonly called "technology." Currently this title is listed as being available in two formats: e-book (Kindle) and a paperback print version. Amazon’s well-oiled self-publishing machine allows for rapid publishing of an e-book, and print versions are print-on-demand, meaning that if there’s an order for a print copy, a copy will be printed and shipped. Even if there are no orders for the print book it will still be listed as an option if the author is willing to pay for that option. If the author of this book had been willing to spring for a hard bound print copy, that would have been listed as well.

And Amazon, of course, doesn’t care about the merits of a work. Even if it’s crap that was hammered out in a half hour and uploaded, as long as the writer also provides valid payment information to Amazon, a book is born.

Also worth noting is that, according to the product descriptions on Amazon, this particular title is a mere 44 pages if you print out the Kindle version, and only 86 pages in the actual print version. If you're a prolific or long-winded writer, writing that much in a day, or even a couple of hours, is NBD. It's also entirely possible that in creating this work, the author simply copied and pasted material he/she/it had already composed elsewhere since news of the disaster broke, and then cobbled it into something he/she/it could sell as a book, and then uploaded it to the big Amazon self-publishing machine. Or, as several folks have mentioned, AI could have been used to generate the content. These days you never know.

Is it exploitative to publish a book about a tragedy while it's still raging on? No doubt. But it doesn't take any paranoid conspiracy narrative to explain how this work could have gotten published so quickly.

Oprah did it! (Along with Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, et al.)
For various reasons, I'm not a big fan of Oprah Winfrey. But I'm not at all willing to believe, as some apparently do, that she was part of a conspiracy of "elites" who own property on Maui and were responsible for the fires, presumably in order to force indigenous people and other less fortunate folks to sell their properties. Nevertheless that's one of the other pet narratives that the conspiranoids are pushing. Their key "evidence" is their (false) claim that all of the properties belonging to the celebs has remained mysteriously undamaged, as reported on, among other sources, news.com.au (August 15, 2023):

Twitter user Matt Wallace, who has 1.2 million followers on the social media platform now officially known as X, claimed on Sunday that “locals in Maui were refusing to sell their land to the elites”.

“The part of the island mainly destroyed by the fires was prime area right next to lavish mega-mansions,” he wrote in the post which has been viewed nearly 12 million times. “Now, a lot of those locals are forced to sell their land and many tragically died in the flames.”

He claimed “Oprah Winfrey has a luxury mansion in Maui — it’s completely fine”, repeating the statement for Jeff Bezos, Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, Morgan Freeman, Will Smith and Julia Roberts.

There have also been reports that investors have been calling victims who had to evacuate their land, with offers to buy that land. Now that is one claim that I'm willing to believe; unfortunately, these tragedies attract scummy opportunists. But the celeb-blaming? Just more conspiranoia fiction.

Into the fiery archives...
Of the various conspiracy narratives that are swirling around the Interwebs about the Maui fires, it's the celebrity-focused one that interests me the most, especially the suspicious harrumphing about homes of "the elite" mysteriously being untouched by the flames. That puts me in mind of a long-ago online conflagration ignited by none other than career huckster Joe Vitale, one of this blog's former favorite subjects, who years ago and apparently without irony took on the nickname "Mr. Fire."

Waaaay back in the autumn of 2007, back in the daze when the crassly materialistic new-wage moviemercial The Secret was still the rage, Mr. Fire, one of the "stars" of that big hit, wrote a controversial blog post about the devastating San Diego wildfires. His post generated so much heat, so to speak, that not long afterward he scrubbed all of the critical comments to the post, and has since wiped that post, and a followup, from his archives altogether. Since his original writings are long gone, you'll just have to take my Whirled's word for it, starting with this October 26, 2007 post (see the first item, "How to avoid getting your house burned down").

If you don't feel like following that link, I'll just quote myself, and quote myself quoting Joe, right here.

There has been an incredible amount of pain, suffering, and loss of life and property on the Left Coast this past week or so, what with those pesky wildfires. But much of this could possibly have been avoided if only all of the residents had been Law Of Attraction hustledorks. How do I know? I know because it’s all there in black and white on the blog of Mr. Fire himself. Apparently if you have a fire in your soul and are focused on that, your house won’t burn down. To me this sort of contradicts the "like attracts like" idea so popular with LOA-ers, but then again, it does fit in nicely with that whole concept of "fighting fire with fire." Or even with "like cures like," which is the basis of the well-respected science of homeopathy.

Mr. Fire tells us that while 45 homes burned near the home of Secret star John Asshat Assaraf, John’s home is safe! And so are the home and office of another Secret star, James Earl Ray…oops, I mean James ARTHUR Ray. (James EARL Ray is deceased, and so, because of him, is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sorry; I keep getting my James Rays mixed up.) Furthermore, the manager of yet another Secret star, Lisa "Hairdo" Nichols also escaped the fires unscathed.

"Instead of wondering why they attracted a fire," writes Mr. Fire, "it might be wiser to wonder how they didn’t attract a fire." Mr. Fire says he has spent the last day or so with Lisa and John, who, he says, "are not focused on fires. They are focused on the fire in their soul." What sets them apart from others, apparently, is that they "spend their time working, making a difference, writing, speaking, and changing lives." Same goes with Dr. John Demartini, yet another Secret star and a friend of Joe’s for more than 20 years. Like the others, Dr. Demartini lives a life of passion and purpose.

"Fires," says Mr. Fire, "don’t stop people like this."

Given the content of his post, and in the context of Joe's many other declarations about the magic of the "Law of Attraction," it's hardly a shocker that the message most people took from Joe's words was that these Secret stars -- who were of course experts in the Law of Attraction -- were somehow able to lasso said law and keep it from damaging their homes. And lots of folks called Joe on that.

In an indignant and defensive followup post, which I wrote about in my own followup (but which, like the original Mr. Fire post, is long gone), Joe said that his post had been a sort of Rorschach test for his readers. He essentially declared that if people had a problem with his original post, that was purely a result of their own bias/limited vision/spiritual flaws. And he also explained that he had deleted most of the comments to that original post because too many of them contained "personal attacks, insults, wild claims, and dark negativity."

In retrospect, the old online battles over The Secret and the ridiculous hype by flopportunists such as Mr. Fire seem like such innocent times. Given the milieu of "alternative facts" and formerly-fringe-but-now-mainstream conspiranoia narratives in which we now live, I'm almost nostalgic for the good old daze when the ludicrousness of The Secret, and the foibles of its cast of hustledorks, were the most pressing issues on this Whirled.

Addendum, August 23, 2023: The other day I was discussing the Maui wildfires with a good friend who said she was sure that the rethuglicans would find a way to blame President Biden for the disaster (or for making it worse). I added that they would probably blame "wokeness" too. Both my friend's and my predictions were no-brainers, of course; Biden had already been catching flak from the reich, and it seems that the reich blame wokeness for virtually every bad thing that happens these days. Regarding the latter, on August 16, 2023 The New Republic ran a piece about -- yes, far-reich figures blaming the wildfires on wokeness. Or at least, they're accusing wokeness, specifically DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) ideas and policies of being responsible for a five-hour delay in diverting water to firefighters in Lahaina.

As Hawaii reels from devastating wildfires and considers how to rebuild, far-right figures are… blaming wokeness for the whole thing.

The conspiracy theory essentially goes like this: An Obama-backed Hawaii official delayed the diversion of water to firefighters during the wildfires in Maui, because that official is a native Hawaiian who respects how water is used...

...“[W]e’re learning that the official who delayed the approval is an Obama Foundation ‘Asia Pacific Leader’ & a climate activist,” [GOP presidential candidate Vivek ] Ramaswamy tweeted. He’s a “climate activist who believes water should be ‘revered’ first and foremost. The DEI agenda is literally costing people their lives.” 

Ramaswamy and his fellow fascists based their entire blame-DEI narrative on the fact that in 2022, as a member of a panel on sustainability, the official in question, M. Kaleo Manuel, had made comments about how native Hawaiians consider water to be one of the "earthly manifestations of God." Somehow this got twisted into Manuel declaring that water itself is more important than human lives. Just take a look at some of the recent comments on the YouTube video linked to in this paragraph. The same types of comments are littering Twitter/X too, with reich-wing hysterics blaming DEI and liberals and so forth for the fact that little children were burned alive. They're calling for imprisonment or even the death penalty for Mr. Manuel and other scapegoats.

As is very often the case, the real story is much more nuanced than reich-wing pearl clutchers tell it. Battles over water rights have been raging in Maui for generations, but access to water for firefighting is a priority even among the "woke." And in this case, there's no clear evidence that it would have made any difference even if the request for diversion had not been delayed for five hours. Other factors, such as melted pipes and powerless pumps, not to mention winds that were too strong to drop water from helicopters, made reservoir levels moot.

A series of blunders and miscommunications probably did hamper the firefighting efforts overall, costing people their lives. But to blame "wokeness" for this is either stupid or cynical or both. But that's the American reich for you.

Note: If you want to help the victims of the Maui fires, here is a list of resources.

Related on this Whirled:

• August 31, 2017: Harvey is bringing out the conspiranoids -- Wildfires are far from the only conspiranoid attractants; hurricanes bring 'em out too. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated my former hometown of Houston, Texas, as well as numerous smaller cities in southeast Texas. Even other states were affected. For their part, the conspiranoids claimed that Hurricane Harvey was engineered as a "weather terrorism" weapon, and they provided all sorts of "evidence" to prove it.
• August 9, 2019: Conspiranoid claptrap & manipulative manifestos cloud narrative about El Paso & Dayton shootings -- Mass shootings are also magnets for conspiranoids, and the El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio shootings, which took place in early August 2019, were no exception. From conspiracy-porn crapitalists like Alex Jones and Mike Adams to republican "leaders" including then-president Trump, the American reich was out in force with a variety of conspiracy narratives and targeted scapegoating. Many of them blamed "antifa" and/or "the Deep State" for the shootings, while accusing Democrats/liberals/gun safety advocates of exploiting or even engineering the tragedies in efforts to advance a nefarious gun-control agenda.
• September 11, 2011: Farces of nature -- Back in 2011, during a terrible drought and a plague of Texas wildfires, Ron and I experienced firsthand the awful fear that happens when fires hit much too close to home. We were fortunate that the fire didn't reach our house, but we and our multiple fur babies did have to evacuate, and it was a very stressful time. Many of the people around us fared much worse. Meanwhile, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale was working his McSpirituality magick on his blog and other forums, offering spiritual explanations for the fires that were raging across Texas. He also invited his readers to help him stop the wildfires, the way they had previously helped him "stop" a couple of hurricanes (or so he claimed), using only the awesome power of their collective minds. Of note, he has so far not made a similar public invitation to help stop the Maui wildfires -- at least not that I've seen; perhaps he issued the invitation on more exclusive forums, having learned his lesson from being so soundly ridiculed for previous such missives.

A dozen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, James Arthur Ray is still hustling, and his victims are still dead

 

Today, October 8, 2021 is the 12th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers -- Kirby Brown and James Shore -- and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman. The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, that also injured dozens of other participants. The phony sweat lodge was the "final challenge" at Ray's egregiously overpriced "Spiritual Warrior" workshop.

Ray, who had skyrocketed to fame following his appearance in the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

The families and friends of the four people killed by James Arthur Ray have all learned to cope with their losses in their own ways. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus.

Yet another way they found to come to terms with Kirby's death, while helping many other people who are dealing with profound loss and pain, was through the 2020 memoir, This Sweet Life: How We Lived After Kirby Died, by Kirby's mother Ginny and her baby sister Jean. It is truly a lovely and haunting book, which I read last year and have yet to keep my commitment to fully review here -- but never mind my own negligence; I urge you to read the book.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as Spiritual Warrior would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. Though he has been struggling mightily to make a comeback since his release from prison, framing the whole Sedona thing as a super-major trial and tribulation for him, his audience has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

For instance, so far he's only earned 2 "likes" for his September 29. 2021 tweet about yet another "Warrior" workshop -- this one called "The Way of the Warrior," and set to be delivered via Zoom over eight weeks, with the co-deliverer being a drugged-out-looking brunette who calls herself "Bear" (short for Bersabeh), and who apparently had the appallingly bad taste to enter into a "committed relationship" with James. The promo video linked to on that tweet has only gotten nine views on YouTube so far. So... I'm guessing not much of a turnout for the "Way of the Warrior" Zoomer.

Even so, as long as he continues to try to claw his way back to the top of an industry that has more than its share of sociopaths and predators, and yet continues to attract millions via false promises and insidious lies, I feel duty-bound to post periodic reminders of why you should not listen to James Arthur Ray. He is still spewing his toxins, and the people he killed are still dead.

Never forget.

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle. That's another one you need to read.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar. In this one we focus on Ray's efforts to brand himself as a "Crisis Coach."
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  Of the three "whiny babies" I wrote about in this post, James Arthur Ray is the worst, because even after being directly responsible for the deaths of four people at his events, and directly responsible for the physical and emotional injuries of countless others, he continues to paint himself as the real victim.

 

Colleen Conaway: twelve years since her death at a James Arthur Ray event

Another year has gone by... and we've reached yet another sad anniversary.

On July 25, 2009, 46-year-old Colleen Conaway died during a San Diego event held by New-Wage/McSpirituality guru James Arthur "Death" Ray, of whom Colleen was a devoted follower. She plummeted to her death from an upper-level balcony of a San Diego mall during one of Ray's weekend "wealth creation" seminars, and when Ray and his top people discovered she was missing, and later learned of her death, they kept it under wraps and partied on.

Ray was later convicted of negligent homicide, not for Colleen's death but for the October 2009 deaths of three other people -- Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman -- in a phony and dangerous sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona. He served less than two years in an Arizona state prison, and has been spending the time since he got out of prison trying desperately to make a comeback in Scamworld.

Today marks the 12th anniversary of Colleen's death. If you want more information, start with the post I published in 2019, on the 10th anniversary. I included a number of external links, including to content by bloggers who have told Colleen's story much more comprehensively than I have.

In that 2019 post I wrote about the connection between Ray and the Transformational Leadership Council, or TLC, aka the Trained Liars Cartel, a group of "elite" New-Wage/McSpirituality "thought leaders" who meet semi-annually, in late January and late July, at some desirable resort location. (Well, except for the past two meetings anyway, due most likely to the pandemic: the location for the July 2020 and the January 2021 gathering was listed simply as "Earth," so it was probably a Zoom meeting.) The most recent meeting began July 21 and wraps up today, according to the TLC schedule page, though the location has yet to be revealed on the TLC web site. I'm guessing... um... Earth again.

It was at a 2005 TLC meeting in Aspen, Colorado, Aussie film that producer Rhonda Byrne shot most of her infamous moviemercial, The Secret... and the rest is Scamworld History. At that time, Ray was a TLC member and so he became a "star" of The Secret, which shot him to new heights of fame and infamy, ultimately leading to the deaths of four people and the injuries of many more. I'm wondering if the TLC will have a tribute to Colleen during their wrap-up meeting today... but I'm guessing not.

As for Ray, these days he is (still) branding himself as "One of the World's Foremost Leadership and Redemption Advisors," explaining his qualifications thusly:

Because of his experience in building from humble beginnings and scratch, as well as rebuilding after hitting rock bottom post terrible crises, James has the unique experience and ability to help those at the top, those on the climb, and those who must put their life back together to get up and climb again.

It's too bad that Colleen Conaway -- and Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman -- won't have the opportunity to put their lives back together.

Never forget.

Whiny babies of Scamworld

Scamworld whiners all seem to operate by a common motto: "You've made your bed, now lie about it."

Hello, and welcome to August. Despite being nearly overcome by my normal summer doldrums (I do not much like summer), my aim is to be a little less lazy this month, Whirled-wise anyway, than I was in July. Let's start out the month by raising a glass to some of the whiniest babies of Scamworld.

Everybody cries, but some crybabies cry louder and longer
I've actually written quite a bit about whiners over the years -- not only in Scamworld but also in the increasingly related field of American politix. Some of the most notorious whiners, like conspiranoid right-wingers Alex Jones and Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, often manage to blend their personal Scamworld whines with political whining. (Here is a link to a specific post in which I reviewed some of the raspy whines of both Jones and Adams, as well as those of one of this blog's least favorite whiners, fake doctor and viciously daft little hater-man Leonard Coldwell.)

And then of course there is the Whiner-in-Chief, who has bungled careers in both politix and Scamworld, #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump. (Don Jr. is quite the whiner too.)

It's really not much of an exaggeration to state that whining has become nearly as popular a marketing strategy in Scamworld as has boasting. Sometimes there's a fine line to walk: on the one hand, holding oneself up as a model of "success" -- by flaunting material wealth and bragging about "perfect" relationships -- is pretty much essential to sucking in new customers and retaining existing ones. But on the other hand, relating dramatic stories about being "hard done by" is irresistible, especially when one's wealth or even freedom is at stake: for instance, the authorities are breathing down one's back, or one is involved in a personal crisis such as an acrimonious divorce, or one simply can't seem to make a go of reviving a crumbling scampire and needs someone or something else to blame.

Let's take a look at what some of the most notorious Scamworld whiners have been up to lately. None of these individuals is new to this blog.

Kevin Trudeau: the serial scammer that "they" have been working so hard to silence
For a few months, imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, was being quite the chatterbox, via proxies, on his "official" Facebook fan page. For a while he was having those enablers post COVID-19 "updates" every few days. The COVID posts reiterated misinformation and conspiracy theories that are pretty much all over the Internet, though Katie insisted that he is one of the very few sources of this valuable information, which of course you can't find anywhere else because "they" don't want you to know it.

But then, suddenly... radio silence. The COVID updates and other bits of Katie wisdom ceased, and there were few "FROM KEVIN" messages on the Facebook page. The reason for the silence? Anyone's guess, though Trudeau had made mention of increased lockdowns, due to COVID-19, at his facility (FPC Montgomery, Alabama), which would further limit his already limited access to email. In lieu of "FROM KEVIN" missives, the admins simply wrote posts inviting fans to share pro-Kevin stories on the page, and to write to Kevin himself, explaining how he had made their lives better. The admins also posted an endorsement of the COVID conspiracy-porn crockumentary, "Plandemic," saying that even though he most likely hadn't seen the vid, Kevin would probably like it because it resonated so well with his teachings and preachings.

Finally in late July, there was another message "directly" from Kevin, thanking his fans for the "literally thousands of letters, cards and messages I have gotten over the last few weeks." Following that was a list of links that Kevin suggested his worshipers read in order to better understand "how I am doing and how I can handle such injustice and adversity."

One item on that list really stood out for me:

4.) Read my "Missing Messages" by clicking here. These are very powerful messages I wrote to be posted on Facebook but were "censored" and deleted! We found them. Read them and you will see what "They" did not want you to read. https://kevintrudeau.com/lost-prison-messages/

I made one comment on the thread:

Those "missing messages" that were supposedly "censored" by Facebook say pretty much the same things that he said in dozens and dozens of other messages that were not "censored," so if they disappeared I'd say that it was either a Facebook glitch or bungling by previous admins of Kevin's various pages.

As is the case with most of my comments on that page, the response was underwhelming, which is to say that the comment has been totally ignored. Which is hardly surprising, since Katie's fans vastly prefer the censorship narrative. They shy away from Occam's razor, for fear that it will slice their KT illusions to ribbons.

On this Whirled I had been snarkily documenting Kevin's jailhouse messages since way back when he was being held at Chicago's notorious Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). I first wrote about the matter in November 2013. And then there's this December 2013 post about a jailhouse McMiracle. "Censored" or not, Kevin's prison messages have, as I noted in my Facebook comment, all been pretty much the same. The content is redundant, and the explicit or implicit purpose is always to promote present scams or to lay the groundwork for new or revived ones upon his release. And it's all a crock. (I even wrote some lyrics about how crocky it all is.)

You may argue that because Kevin's dispatches from the cage have been, at least on the surface, chiefly about empowerment and enlightenment and making the most of a bad situation, he is anything but a whiner. But you would be wrong, and just a little bit of research might reveal the fact that he is quite the whiny baby when he thinks it will help him get his way. He has whined repeatedly over the years, and sometimes has actually shed real crocodile tears, to various judges, government agencies, and other authorities in his desperate attempts to avoid paying fines, to keep from being charged/convicted/incarcerated, to have his conviction overturned and/or his sentence commuted, and so on and so forth. Not to mention that he has very successfully marketed himself for many years as a hero/martyr for the First Amendment and free speech.

Even from prison, Trudeau has consistently been on-message about being "censored" and "silenced." This latest Facebook post, with its mention of "injustice and adversity" and of "missing messages" that he claims were Facebook-censored, is at best a very thinly disguised whine. So yes, Kevin Trudeau definitely qualifies as a whiner.

Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale (and his paramour): dealing with the "divorce from hell"
Over the years I've written a lot about Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, selfish-help huckster, McSpirituality guru, and star of The Secret. In July of last year I wrote a two-parter about his divorce from the former love of his life, Nerissa Oden (here's the link to Part 1). Normally I don't really delve into my subjects' personal lives, but I made an exception in this case because, as I explained in the prelude to Part 1, Joe and his paramour, New-Wage dilettante Lisa Winston, have been...

...clearly exploiting their personal relationship as a public marketing tool, while holding themselves forth as motivational and spiritual leaders -- and by extension, as examples to be followed. But as we've discussed on these pages numerous time, it's always a smart idea to look beyond the carefully crafted, love-and-lightwashed narratives -- personal or otherwise -- of hucksters who are trying to sell you something.

So there.

Over a year later, and well over a year and a half since (as documented on public record) Joe first filed for divorce, it's not over. And increasingly, both Joe and Lisa have been whining on social media about "the divorce from hell."

To my knowledge, Joe himself first started publicly whining in earnest about the matter in late 2019, though he had been whining in general about abuse and trauma and whatnot for months before that. But in November of 2019, his friend Mark Joyner posted a Facebook vid of a conversation between Mark and Joe. Mark described it as a "stunningly candid and heartfelt conversation," and Joe called it a "brutally honest interview." It was about as "candid and heartfelt" -- and as "honest" -- as you would expect from seasoned hucksters. Here is a direct link to the Facebook video. But I warn you that if you watch it, that's time that you'll never get back. I watched it so you don't have to.


In a nutshell, so to speak, the conversation was more than an hour and a half of Joe and Mark (figuratively) stroking each other off. In the process they managed to convey a common form of selfish-help elitism and condescension that centered around presenting themselves as uniquely knowledgeable on things of which "the public" is for the most part totally ignorant. Much of the video was about the infamous New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, and what a brilliant example of genius marketing it was and is.

But then Joe got into some personal stuff, and that's where the whining came in.

Slightly past the 58:00 mark, he began a narrative of the personal dramas and traumas he had been through over the past year. He mentioned his father's death and his youngest brother's suicide attempt and the death of his "best friend" -- whom he subsequently revealed to be Michael Abedin, publisher of the New-Wage/McSpirituality glossy rag Austin All Natural. Understand that I am not making light of the grief of losing a parent or a dear friend, or nearly losing a sibling. I don't consider talking about that to be whining. Not at all.

The whiny part began when Joe started griping about his pending divorce. Chokingly he lamented that the divorce should have been easy and effortless because "I wasn't resisting anything, I was pretty much giving away the farm." But instead of being easy and effortless, he said, it has been "nasty, an emotional drain, expensive," and his ex has been "causing a ruckus." He acknowledged she is most likely suffering her own trauma, but it is "kind of breaking her and making her unreasonable."

[Fun fact: Public records indicate that Joe's lawyer for the split is Austin family law attorney Michael Burnett, who has also been one of the aforementioned Alex Jones' lawyers, helping Jones not with a divorce but rather with his ongoing legal battles over the loathsome things that Jones has said about the Sandy Hook massacre. He may not be representing Jones any more; I cannot find current info on that. But he was on Jones' legal team for a while, anyway. Make of that what you will. But I digress.]

Joe told Mark that he still had to travel and be inspirational while all of the traumatic and abusive events were going on. What helped him most, and helped him survive, he said, was stoicism, as taught by Marcus Aurelius. He told Mark that he'd decided that what the world needs now is a blend of positive thinking and stoicism, e.g., "The Secret Stoic," "The Happy Stoic," etc. Mark of course loved the idea, and you could just hear those old marketing wheels turning yet again.

But then Joe got back into the personal stuff again a little while later (starting about 1:18:29). He described how his "old partner" (that would be Nerissa, who was not just an "old partner" but still an actual WIFE) had "crashed" his father's funeral in order to "have an encounter" with Joe. Crashed? I didn't know that funerals were invitation only, and I do recall from reading her public Facebook feed that Nerissa had on numerous occasions expressed her love and respect for her father-in-law; I'm thinking that maybe that's why she traveled from Texas to Ohio to pay her final respects. But Joe said she "crashed" the funeral, and he indicated that it was done solely in order to cause trouble for him.

Mark expressed shock and sympathy, and shortly thereafter asked if the intended confrontation actually took place. Joe says that yes, it happened about a minute after he had delivered his dad's eulogy, over his father's casket. "You're shittin' me!" Mark responded, adding that it was "unfathomable" and had to be one of the ugliest things he's ever heard. ("I could tell you worse," Joe said, "but I won't.")

Then he got into the fact that he now has a new relationship with a hot woman (that would be Lisa). "We're doing things together, going back to Italy," he said. Of course that declaration was made a couple of months before COVID-19 put a damper on the happy couple's travel plans... and on everyone's plans, travel and otherwise, for that matter.

Apparently, experiencing these traumas helped drive home a point to Joe that even though we as individuals have an enormous amount of power in creating our lives, there's something bigger at work: an "objective reality" beyond the reality you create for yourself. He said that this was the one important point The Secret left out. Well, yes. In fact this is the very same painfully obvious point that many of us have been making for years and years and years, first in response to the new-age "you create your own reality" mantra and, later on, to the Secret-fueled law of attraction mindset. But we were called naysayers and haters for raining on the parades of the reality-creators and law-of-attractors.

In Joe's case, though, it seems particularly disingenuous to insinuate that the divorce trauma has been totally beyond his control. He is the one who -- again, according to public records -- initiated the whole thing. He made his bed... 

And that dramatic tale about Nerissa's alleged bad behavior at the elder Vitale's funeral? Given Joe's history of exaggerations, inconsistencies, and outright fibbing -- all of which, of course, make him no different from most selfish-help/McSpirituality hucksters and malignant narcissists -- I would approach that one with a healthy dose of skepticism if I were you. Until and unless I see confirmation from a third party who was actually there, I'll assume that this is just Joe being Joe, waxing histrionic in an attempt to wangle sympathy and support from his friends and fans (and perhaps from the judge who is presiding over the divorce proceedings). For various reasons he may be trying to build some sort of case that his "old partner" is being "abusive" and that he is the real victim. I'm not buying it.

Since that November 2019 conversation between Mark and Joe, both Joe and Lisa have continued to whine and snark, in increasingly blatant ways, about the "divorce from hell." In their narrative, they are the patient sufferers who are soldiering bravely on, dispensing their cosmic love and wisdom, despite the ongoing abuse from the third party in this unhappy triangle. Lisa has done some of her whining on Facebook, and some via her Instagram page. Meanwhile the two of them continue to market themselves as an enlightened power couple, or some such.

But it's hard for me to see their light through the thick sludge of astringent whine.

James Arthur "Death" Ray: convicted killer sure isn't killing it on the scumback trail
I've saved the worst for last. Katie and Mr. Fire may be serial hucksters and whiners, but at least they are not killers, at least not to my knowledge. I'll make this segment brief, because others have written much more powerfully about it than I can. But no post about Scamworld whiny babies would be complete without a nod to another star of The Secret, convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray.

Ray served less than two years in an Arizona state prison for the October 2009 deaths of three people -- Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman -- in a phony sweat lodge in Sedona. Ever since then, he has desperately been trying to reclaim his status as a Scamworld A-lister, and has not been afraid to incorporate whining into his marketing strategy. (Actually he began whining not long after he was arrested; for instance, he whined about being poor and not able to afford bail, and so forth. On the surface that's kind of an odd whine for a supposed "wealth guru" who marketed himself as rich and successful, but it's actually SOP for scoundrels who have been cornered in some way.)
 
Ray's promotional whining began in earnest after his release from prison, and it seems to be growing louder and angrier. Today I noticed for the first time a July 5, 2020 post on the public Facebook group page James Arthur Ray Is A Felon. The post was written by blogger LaVaughn Slaven, who has done a fine job of covering the Death Lodge debacle since the story first broke.

Ray's post-prison marketing has long been either tone deaf or deliberately twisted (my money's on the latter), but in recent months, it's taken a turn for the worse. He seems to be having some sort of meltdown. His "motivational" messages have gotten really angry and seem more like an excuse to vent his personal grudges. The weirdest part is that he seems to be really proud of these petulant rants disguised as advice and keeps putting them out across all of his platforms. In a recent set of postings, Ray set out to illustrate the common axiom "only hurt people hurt people," by whining about non-paying clients and how betrayed he was by friends who testified against him in the sweat lodge trial. It can be found on his Instagram and Facebook pages, as well as in this podcast on his site. Note that he keeps moving from the general ("you") to the specific (his personal gripes and grudges).

And later on in LaVaughn's post:

A post (also here) from about a month ago just made me gasp.

[Ray wrote;] Look, NO ONE knows suffering better than me.
You might know suffering as much as me, but there's NO WAY you know it better.

He killed people, but HE's the victim. Families lost their loved ones to the gruesome tragedy he caused, but they can't possibly be as good at suffering as he is. He's exceptional when it comes to suffering. The rest of us can only aspire to his mastery of the art of suffering.

Read the whole post, if you can stomach it. I am long past being surprised, but continue to be appalled, by the things Ray comes up with. These latest whines have left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

* * * * *

I really am tired of all of this whining from scalawags and rapscallions whose own terrible choices got them into the situations in which they find themselves. It's always someone else's fault. As I've said before, the best thing you can do is to refuse to take their version of their sob stories, as well as their "success" stories, at face value. Scammers lie; that's what they do. And I guess we all need to accept the reality that as long as there's an audience, and potential money to be made, the whining, like the boasting, will go on and on.

The Secret is still a Scamworld marketing hook, 14 years later

Quick take: Fourteen years after the launch of a cheesy, virally promoted DVD coyly titled The Secret, the craze that was sparked by its release shows no sign of dying down. Multitudes of derivative works, including a number of equally hokey imitation "movies," have been released since then, one of the most recent being Beyond The Secret: The Awakening, which had its "red carpet premiere" in January 2020.

The creator of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne, had no hand in these myriad derivative works; she has been too busy raking in the money from her own ever-expanding franchise. But for those who are looking for the "real thing," blessed by Rhonda herself, there's a new Secret movie just around the corner -- The Secret: Dare to Dream, due for limited theatrical release in April 2020 -- and this one has Rhonda's full blessing, right down to the famous "Secret seal" logo. And for better or for worse (most likely worse), it may very well breathe new life into a phenomenon that never really went away.

Way back in May of 2007, I wrote a short (for me, anyway) blog post, "The Secret" may fade, but stupid is forever. The reference, of course, was to The Secret, the intensely annoying and once-ubiquitous New-Wage/McSpirituality infomercial thinly disguised as a movie, which was truly in its glory days back then. Over the years I've written hundreds of pages and thousands of words about Rhonda Byrne's bloated cash cow, which all levels of hucksters and hustledorks and scammers continue to milk to this day.

Most of my writings re The Secret are on this blog, of course, but The Skeptical Inquirer site also published an essay of mine, "The Wrath of the Secretrons," which highlighted some of the absurdities of The Secret and the wrathful comments (and occasional threats) that I'd received on my blog for my opinions about the "movie."* I'm still getting responses to the "Secretron" piece years later, most of them supportive.

In retrospect the title of my May 2007 blog post may have reflected a bit of over-optimism regarding the shelf life of The Secret, which had popped onto the scene in March 2006 or thereabouts, a few months before this Whirled was created. The Secret may indeed fade, eventually, but we're not there yet. For an example of the continuing viability (or virulence, depending upon your perspective) of the franchise, look no further than one of this blog's top snargets, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, Secret "star" and Scamworld luminary. Mr. Fire is always finding new ways to exploit his role in this by-now-classic tribute to greed, narcissism, and the most facile variety of magical thinking.

Of course, he's not alone. But let's start with him.

On January 24, 2020 Joe boasted on Facebook -- or rather, he shared someone else's boast -- about attending the January 23 Hollywood "movie premiere" of something called Beyond The Secret: The Awakening. Joe, being one of the "stars" of the new work, was on the pretend red carpet along with his paramour and "Twin Flame," New-Wage dilettante Lisa Winston, who was first introduced here back in July of last year. Apparently Joe and Lisa are still going strong, ready to conquer the planet as one of Scamworld's newest MystiCouples, though public records indicate that Joe's divorce from Nerissa Oden is not yet final.

The person whose post Joe shared is a guy named Eric Zuley, whose own Facebook cover photo, as I write this, describes him as a "multi-media mogul; digital solutions concierge; speaker, branding and promotions expert; and host, actor, producer, entrepretainer, philanthropist." In the Intro section on the same page, he brags that he is a "TOP 10 SOC. MEDIA INFLUENCER."

If he hadn't lost me at "multi-media mogul" or "entrepretainer" or "philanthropist" on the cover photo, Eric most assuredly would have lost me at "SOC. MEDIA INFLUENCER." I am assuming this is an abbreviation of "social media influencer," which more often than not is code for "self-important attention whore, as useless as a Kardashian but not nearly as rich and famous."

There are several more photo-packed posts on Zuley's Facebook page about the premiere of Beyond The Secret. But Zuley didn't confine his crowing to Facebook, nor would one expect him to, since he is, after all, a "multi-media mogul" and "digital solutions concierge." Here's a link to the coverage on Zuley's EZWay Broadcasting site of the momentous "premiere" of "the most anticipated sequel of all time!"

But if you ask me, and even if you don't, Beyond The Secret: The Awakening is more like the most anticlimactic "sequel" of all time. (And if you really want to get technical, it's not even a sequel, because Rhonda Byrne had nothing to do with it.) But it is anticlimactic nevertheless.

Same song, different verse
To begin with -- and I've written about this numerous times over the years -- the original DVD of The Secret had no sooner been released than the "stars" of the moviemercial, as well as scads of other wannabes, were releasing their own Secret derivatives that claimed to be the "next step after The Secret," or to offer important information that The Secret left out, or to contain "the missing secret," or to reveal the "secret behind The Secret" or any one of dozens and dozens of variations on those themes.

For example, subsequent to the world debut of The Secret, our Mr. Fire offered, among many other info-frauducts, The Key: The Missing Secret for Attracting Anything You Want; and The Missing Secret: How to Use the Law of Attraction to Easily Attract Whatever You Want..Every Time; and The Secret to Attracting Money; and Install and Transcend The Secret; and... oh, I could probably go on for days, as there are "too many to list here," but you get the idea.

And as I mentioned earlier, Joe is far from the only huckster to crapitalize on The Secret. For instance, there were the Three Amigos -- Scientist Bob Proctor (noted quantum physics expert), Jack "Chicken Soup" Canfield, and Reverend Michael Beckwith -- and their $2,000 briefcase scam to promote their MLM, The Science of Getting Rich (inspired in part by the early 20th-century Wallace D. Wattles classic that Rhonda Byrne claimed was a major inspiration for The Secret). (Here's another Whirled post about the briefcase scheme; I wrote several, but this one is notable for the comments following the post.)

The Three Amigos' branding so closely resembled that of The Secret that many people apparently thought their shtick was an "official" offering, but Rhonda and her legal team were reportedly quite unhappy, and issued statements disclaiming any involvement in the scam. A couple of years later the briefcases and their contents were going for a deeply discounted price.

Apropos of the actions Rhonda and team may have taken against interlopers -- and I've written about this previously as well -- I don't blame Rhonda and her lawyers for wanting to protect her copyrights, but (1) It appears that she was a bit ambiguous in the beginning about letting her "stars" know how much leeway they had to use her work, apparently becoming less willing to let them share the glory as The Secret became more successful; and (2) as the The Secret soared to even greater heights of success, she became increasingly copyright-conscious (and greedy), leading to her involvement in several lawsuits against people whose work was instrumental in the unparalleled success of the early marketing. And I'm not talking about the "stars" of her boondoggle: I'm talking about folks who had apparently done work for hire, in good faith, and were understandably unhappy when she stiffed them.

But no amount of ambiguity and jealous copyright protections could prevent the flood of Secret-related content, in print, on audio, and online.

"Well, gee, Cosmic Connie," you might be saying, "all of those works you listed may have been inspired by The Secret, but they weren't specifically advertised as being a sequel to the movie, and many of the products you cited weren't even movies anyway, so that kind of weakens your argument about Beyond The Secret: The Awakening being anti-climactic, doesn't it?"

No, not really, especially if you look at it from the larger perspective that content is content regardless of the format, and that the market has been inundated with Secret derivatives for years and years.

But if you want to get picky, there has also been a flood of Secret-type "movies" that employed much the same format as The Secret: a string of New-Wage/McSpirituality/selfish-help gurus sharing their wisdumb under the umbrella of some vaguely unifying feel-good theme. These "movies" were often marketed using the same type of intriguingly mystical trailers and viral promotional strategies as The Secret, including affiliate programs to encourage people to hustle the products themselves. Early on I dubbed this genre of moviemercials "Hustledork Cinema," and although to my knowledge, not one of them was nearly as successful as The Secret, that clearly didn't stop the imitators from deluging the market.

Granted, the creators of these derivative moviemercials may not have overtly claimed their works to be a sequel to The Secret either. But a few came pretty close to doing so, and almost all of them referenced The Secret in their promos. And by the way, Joe Vitale was in quite a few of these mostly forgettable offerings.

In fact there is even another moviemercial called Beyond The Secret, which featured the aforementioned Bob Proctor and was released way back in 2009. Perhaps that's the reason that the new one also has a subtitle (The Awakening) so there won't be any brand confusion with the 2009 work, which got its share of bad reviews.

But as groundbreaking as it may have been, The Secret wasn't the first New-Wage moviemercial, and no discussion of Hustledork Cinema or New-Wage/McSpirituality moviemercials would be complete without at least a passing nod to the appalling 2004 work, What the Bleep Do We Know? This one had a corny storyline featuring actress Marlee Matlin, and some pretty terrible animations, but it also had a lineup of talking heads -- including a couple of discredited scientists (and at least one scientist who was peeved because his comments were taken out of context in the final product). Woven throughout the "movie" was a thick thread of psuedoscientific quantum-physics claptrap. Worst of all it featured that leading light of the imaginary-friends industry, J.Z. Knight, inventor of a 35,000-year-old being named Ramtha. My pal Skeptico debunked What the Bleep early on; here's a post from April 2005 explaining why this "movie" is crap.

Crap it may have been, but it was wildly popular, and its success must have surely inspired Rhonda when she was desperately searching for a lucrative shtick and a workable format in which to present it. Ultimately The Secret was much more successful than What the Bleep.

It's noteworthy, and I've previously noted it, that much of the derivative material spewed out since the 2006 release of The Secret -- whether in "movie" format or other media -- has been in a sense a disavowal of The Secret, an indictment of its limitations or inadequacies. This disavowal is all in the service of hucksters convincing marks that their own info-frauducts will provide the missing pieces. Joe Vitale has done this dozens and dozens of times over the years to advance his own brand; here's a blog post he wrote 11 years after The Secret came out. And here's Bob Proctor throwing The Secret under the bus back in 2008, in the service of pushing his crap. And so on.

Still, The Secret has always remained the point of reference to which the hucksters have felt compelled to return again and again and again.

Which brings us to 2020 and Beyond The Secret: The Awakening.

So, what's this new "movie" about?
You have probably already guessed the answer to this question, but let's look into it (superficially, which seems fitting) anyway. A January 22, 2020 press release for Beyond The Secret: The Awakening begins:

The premiere of “Beyond the Secret – The Awakening” brings global thought leaders together to dig deeper into the Law of Attraction at Universal Studios on Thursday, January 23rd...

Now, halt right there, press release writer. To define people like Joe Vitale and his colleagues as "thought leaders" is seriously stretching the definitions of both "thought" and "leaders." And to suggest that this work is in any way "deep" would be a clear case of journalistic malpractice if this were an actual news story instead of a hype-y press release.

Beyond The Secret: The Awakening features the expected lineup of the usual suspects. Besides Joe Vitale, there are other "stars" of The Secret such as Bob Proctor; John Asshat Assaraf, who famously went bankrupt a few years after his star turn in The Secret (here's the letter he wrote to his coaching clients); and Marie Diamond, who was involved in some legal battles of her own a few years back, and who probably jumped at the chance to have her "career" revived by appearing in another moviemercial. Also featured is a not-so-young-anymore hustledork, Doug Vermereen, whom I first wrote about in August of 2007 in conjunction with his "star" turn in The Opus, one of those aforementioned Secret imitators.

And there are quite a few others; go to the moviemercial's home page and see the lineup, and then, if you can stomach it, watch the trailer. You'll see, among other things, Mr. Fire with an earnest look on his face, waxing insincerely authentic about a whole new level of "creating your own reality."

In other words, there's not much new here.

Real or unreal?
It has occurred to me that some may object to my characterization of the original DVD of The Secret as not being a "real movie." They may protest that just because it didn't have a theatrical release, and it wasn't marketed as entertainment, this doesn't mean it's not a legit film. After all, with today's technology there are numerous legitimate ways of introducing movies besides through conventional theatrical releases. But my gripe was never with the unconventional distribution; it was with the content.

Then there's the fact that some people have referred to The Secret as a documentary -- and documentaries are real movies and even get Academy ® Awards, don't they? Yes, but documentaries generally provide a factual record or report about serious subjects such as social or political issues, scientific matters, history, biography, and the like. At best, The Secret is a pseudo-documentary pushing pseudo-science, and it would be a pseudo-documentary even if it had been introduced to the world via nationwide theatrical release.

But I prefer my own longstanding description, "New-Wage moviemercial." And in case it isn't obvious, that's because the hucksters who starred in The Secret -- as well as in the string of "motivational" "movies" since then -- have aggressively used the works to market themselves, and in fact many if not most of these "movies" have been thinly disguised lead generators for much more expensive frauducts and flopportunities, including horrendously overpriced "coaching" programs. I would be willing to bet that Beyond the Secret: The Awakening is a case in point.

And now for something completely different (or at least a little bit different, maybe)
If you're really desperate for something approaching an actual sequel to The Secret, there is, as it turns out, yet another Secret movie in the hopper. It's called The Secret: Dare to Dream, and -- hold on to your magickal genie lamp -- this one seems to have the full blessings of the grande dame of The Secret scampire, as it boasts Rhonda Byrne as one of its producers. And it actually features real film celebrities such as ex-Scientologist Katie Holmes, rather than the faux-lebrities of Scamworld; in addition, it is slated for a real theatrical release (albeit a limited one) on April 17, 2020.

In other words, The Secret: Dare to Dream is a real movie, with, apparently, a plot, though more than likely a schlocky one, if the trailer I watched (and will link to in a little while) is any indication.
 
The Secret: Dare to Dream was first announced in 2017, with an expected release date of June 2018, but that was delayed by funding problems. Apparently Rhonda Byrne, who surely must have been a gazillionaire by then with her sprawling Secret franchise, didn't want to put up her own money. But at the time the project was announced, she did express her enthusiasm, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Byrne's book, published in 2006, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, been translated into 50 different languages and remained on the New York Times' best-seller list for 190 weeks. The book and nonfiction films of the same name suggest that thoughts and visualizations of one’s desires can lead to those things appearing in one’s life.

“I am so excited that the film version of The Secret is finally here," said Byrne. "This movie will not only be a great thrill for The Secret fans across the planet, it’s also certain to ripple out and touch millions more people. The Secret book was life-changing for so many, and this movie continues that legacy within a stunning piece of entertainment."

With that statement, even Rhonda seemed to be acknowledging that the original DVD of The Secret was not a real movie. Let's not get into that argument again, but for those who insist that The Secret was indeed a movie, then it would be technically correct to say that Dare to Dream is a movie based on a book based on a movie.

And while it may indeed end up being shlocky, at least it boasts some impressive acting and directing talent. On the other hand, What the Bleep?!? had some real H-wood movie stars, and a sort-of plot, and a limited theatrical release... and it was just as hokey as The Secret.

Here's the IMDb page for The Secret: Dare to Dream. And here's the Wikipedia page, which erroneously describes the book of The Secret as a novel. Actually, I guess it is fiction, but it wasn't intended to be or marketed as such.

And more importantly, here's the trailer, which, given the presence of the trademarked, copyrighted and jealously guarded "Secret seal" logo, should remove any doubt that this is an "official" Secret release (unlike -- not to belabor a point or anything -- Beyond The Secret: The Awakening).




Alas, Joe Vitale and the other hucksters who were in Rhonda's original, and in dozens of selfish-help/McSpirituality moviemercials since then, don't seem to be listed in the cast of The Secret: Dare to Dream.

But maybe that's okay with them. There's still plenty of life in that old Secret cash cow, and the hucksters are going to continue to milk it in any way they can for as long as they can get away with it. More than likely they'll continue to make and hype derivative "movies," striving to emulate the astounding marketing success of Rhonda's original, and attending cheap imitation "red carpet" events to "premiere" these works -- all in an effort to convince the world and themselves that they're true celebrities.

So I guess at this point you might as well get used to it. But that doesn't mean you have to like it.

Why this still matters, and why I won't just let it go
Maybe you're sick of hearing about The Secret and/or reading about it here. Perhaps you think I should just finally learn to shrug it off and adopt more of a "live and let live" attitude. And even if you're not a fan of The Secret and that whole Law of Attraction mindset that it popularized, you might feel a need to point out to me that there is obviously a continuing market for this stuff, and the content creators and providers are merely filling that market need, and that just because I personally don't like it, that doesn't mean it's bad or even that it lacks legitimacy.

I've heard all of these arguments before, 13 or 14 years ago, but I stand by my criticism. Moreover I think that most of the criticisms leveled against The Secret all those years ago -- not just mine, but hundreds of others as well -- still stand.

In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with objections to The Secret, here are just a few, though by no means all, of the reasons so many of us are not fans:

1. The Secret conflates abstract feel-good principles with real science.
   The so-called "Law of Attraction" is presented as a scientific "truth" that has something to do with quantum physics. No doubt this spurious claim, and some of the self-important talking heads (like Bob Proctor) who attempted to explain it in detail, hooked thousands of folks, but it just ain't so.
2. Despite the lofty claims of spiritual significance, The Secret and most of its derivatives encourage narcissism, selfishness, laziness, and greed -- again, all in the service of validating the spurious "Law of Attraction."
   The Secret placed a great deal of emphasis on magical thinking techniques to acquire material goods.
   Furthermore it encouraged mindlessness, victim-blaming, and selfishness, among several other less than desirable traits.
3. The Secret elevated some very questionable people to the position of "thought leaders" and role models, with sometimes dangerous -- even deadly -- results.
   The most notorious among these was James Arthur Ray, whose reckless behavior at one of his "Spiritual Warrior" events in October of 2009 resulted in the deaths of three of his followers. He had been clawing his way to the top in the aggressive sales/motivational rackets for years before he became the "genie" guy in The Secret. It was The Secret, though, that pushed him onto the A-list, expanding his platform and allowing him to attract many followers who probably would never have heard of him otherwise. But there are several other "stars" of The Secret who are also reprehensible. I covered a few of them in this April 2011 post, which happened to be while Ray's criminal trial was still going on, and before he was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide and sentenced to less than two years in an Arizona state prison. Ray has been out of prison for years now, and has been scrabbling to make a "comeback" since his release.

The countless Secret derivatives, including the latest ones, are simply reinforcing the validity of the original, often in the guise of providing a "deeper" or more "realistic" examination of the principles touted in Rhonda's 2006 work. At the same time, these works are definitely making a few folks in Scamworld even richer, and raising false hopes in many more.

For the most part, though, it's all a big pile of "staggering bullshit," as blogger Mark Manson wrote back in 2015 about the original Secret works. Or if you prefer, horse shit, as Hamilton Nolan put it in a Gawker piece, also in 2015. And yet herds of folks are still eagerly scooping up the turds as if they were the most precious of treasures, vainly believing that there must be a pony in there somewhere.

In other words, nothing has really changed.

And if The Secret: Dare to Dream is even moderately successful, it will almost certainly breathe new life into Rhonda's franchise, and the countless coattail riders will exploit it to their own purposes, to the extent that they can get away with it. You don't have to like it, but you might as well get used to it.

Update, April 30, 2020: In case you're wondering whether or not The Secret: Dare to Dream opened as scheduled on April 17, the opening was delayed, like that of so many other new films, because of the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. In fact the delay was announced a month before the planned premiere; here's a March 17, 2020 piece from Deadline.

A statement from Roadside Attractions Co-Presidents Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff read:

In light of our country’s fight to contain the coronavirus, Roadside Attractions is postponing the April 17th theatrical release of The Secret: Dare To Dream. Once clarity for a safe and comfortable moviegoing experience is established, we will announce the date for a full theatrical release. Until then, please take the necessary precautions to keep you, your family and friends healthy and safe.

So I guess Secret fans will have to wait a little while longer for this fresh pile of sh... er... inspiration.

Update, July 29, 2020: Finally we have a release date for The Secret: Dare to Dream. In keeping with the new normal imposed by COVID-19, a theatrical release is out; instead it will be released on Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) on July 31, 2020. For $19.99 that you'll never get back, you can rent it on on-demand platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and cable providers.

* Note: Although my essay, "The Wrathof the Secretrons," is dated September 2008 on the Skeptical Inquirer site, I wrote it nearly two years earlier, and SI originally published it in on their site in March of 2007, as this Whirled post indicates. Apparently the date got skewed when they did a site redesign. There were also links to the original 2007 SI page (now defunct) on the Democratic Underground site and on Boing Boing.)