Monday musings

A few snippets to start your week out right...

Creative recycling: it's the New-Wage way!

A reader and occasional correspondent, "T" from London, recently wrote to me: "Looks like Joe Vitale [in partnership with his good friend Pat O'Bryan] has discovered another 'secret.' They're selling it, of course, and, apparently, we're saving ourselves $200 if we buy it."

"T" was referring to Joe and Pat's "Pelmanism Online" site, which is listed thusly on Google:

The Lost Art of Pelmanism -- O'Bryan and Vitale
Dr. Joe Vitale and Pat O'Bryan bring an ancient mind-control method back to life.

On this site, Joe himself writes:

Lucky for you and me, Pat O'Bryan dug up the entire original Pelmanism course. It wasn't easy. This material is long lost, very rare, and almost buried in the vaults of history. If you do an intense search, you can find a volume or two here and there, but rarely more than that.

"Lo and behold," added my friend T, "a quick bit of Googling reveals this site: http://www.pelmanism.co.za/, which offers what I'm assuming are the same lessons, FREE!"

T subsequently wrote that the material might not be exactly identical, but I replied that it seemed similar enough.

According to the Weird Universe blog, "The Pelman Institutes of England and America apparently once claimed over half a million followers. But now they're long gone. Yet that has not stopped at least two folks from trying to resurrect the copyright-abandoned mind-strengthening course and claim and market it as their own." The blogger linked to Joe and Pat's site, as well as this one.

Pelmanism was named after British psychologist Christopher Louis Pelman; a colleague of his founded the Pelman Institute for the Scientific Development of Mind, Memory and Personality in London in 1899. I'm not sure if something that originated in 1899 could actually be classified as "an ancient mind-control method," but New-Wagers have never been all that good with historical perspective.

Little seems to be known of Pelman himself; the person responsible for both the founding of the Institute and the original Pelman courses was one William Joseph Ennever. If you follow the link in that previous sentence you'll see a portrait of a philanderer who had an almost obsessive fear of aging, a man who made and lost his fortune with his Pelmanism shtick, and spent most of the last years of his life in poverty.

Perhaps you are tempted to ask, "If Pelmanism apparently didn't work all that well even for its founder, why should we believe it would be such a miracle method for today's grasping New-Wage materialist?" I sure can't answer that, but I have a feeling there are some who would think that you ask too many questions.

And in all fairness, there are those who would probably say that the question is moot, such as John Karp, who, towards the conclusion of a fairly comprehensive article about Ennever, wrote this:

Ennever's life is not a cautionary tale, nor a didactic lesson in success and failure - he lived the same highs and lows that everybody does. Nor is it important to read about his life and apply it to the modern world. But nevertheless, in a world in which our knowledge of the past is unparalleled, it is strange that W.J. Ennever should have slipped under the radar and into obscurity. His life's work is the strangest quirk: a mind training system that drew on both the frauds of the past and the brightening world of empirical science, and that found success all over the world. In a historical backflip, the Internet has seen the resurgence of the frauds who use their Internet presence to sell all manners of magic and mysticism. They have discovered Pelmanism, and market it now as a lost miracle⁷⁶

If you follow that footnote link, you'll see this:

See The Lost Art of Pelmanism, <http://www.pelmanismonline.com/>, Pelmanism, the success secrets that almost got lost, <http://www.sector51.com/>, and Powers of the Mind Personal Development Self-Help Course, <http://www.powersofthemindcourse.com/>.

So we're right back where we started, with the Internet marketing geniuses who have taken these "ancient" teachings and repackaged them to sell to you. And if Pelmanism doesn't work for you, there's always Pyschic Demand. No matter how "ancient" (and absurd) it is, someone will find a way to recycle it and try to make money from it. As I said, that's the New-Wage way!

[By the way, the image of WJ Ennever is courtesy of www.ennever.com. Thank you to Barry Ennever.]

"I've never told this story before..."
And speaking of recycling, Joe Vitale has found a new way to recycle his famous tale of former homelessness.

In his recent blog post, "The Cure For Despair," he claims he finally came clean about exactly how he became homeless. It was difficult to talk about, he says, but he just had to do it. He says he was persuaded to tell his story by a woman who participated in his $5,000.00-a-head Rolls-Royce MasterMind dinner the other night. Well, I guess if someone is paying you $5,000.00 for a ride in your car, dinner and a bit of face time, they deserve to hear a good story. So he spilled the beans, albeit reluctantly of course, and he says that everyone at the table was open-mouthed. A close friend of his who was also in attendance claimed that even he didn't know the whole story up till then. "You just have to tell this to the world!" the astounded dinner attendees said, according to Joe. "It's riveting! This will change everything!"

And tell it he did, inviting people to spread his post far and wide to those they thought would benefit.

Not surprisingly, his fans have chimed in, praising him for the courage it must have taken to write this "inspirational" blog post and to finally confess what he claims he never wanted to talk about. One regular contributor wrote:

Joe. Thank you for sharing this! What an inspiring story. I’m sure you didn’t know that then and were quite mired in the struggle and survival of it.

It is VERY CLEAR to me why you never shared this before, even though some might think it was your embarrassment. You shared it now because it is PERFECT to be shared now. Right now. It was Divinely orchestrated. The woman who asked, divinely guided.

This story right now probably is helping countless people, many more than would have years, or even a year, months or even a month or days ago.

But it seems that in reality Joe is all too eager to talk about it, and in fact, he has even told "the whole story" before. More than once.

To begin with, an abbreviated version of it appeared in an Ohio newspaper article in September of 2007. (He even mentioned the article in a blog post.)

According to this article...

[Joe] attended Kent State University, majoring in public relations and journalism, but left just shy of a degree because he couldn't pass economics, didn't like Ohio winters and had the promise of work in Texas.

In the late 1970s, Vitale gave all his money to a company that promised to find him work building pipelines overseas, but the company folded, leaving him homeless and without a penny.

He recalls those times as "desperate and unhappy" but made his way to Houston where he held various temp positions and worked as a car salesman, reporter, laborer and cab driver.

He was unhappy with them all but held onto his dream of becoming an author, saying he kept writing the whole time.

The link to that article is here. (It also provides a little insight about Joe's "doctorate degrees.")

But it gets better. A person on Joe's own blog, while praising him for telling the story, mentioned that he'd told it before.

Hello Joe,

Just two nights ago, I watched you tell this story on a YouTube Video from an interview in Maui.

On YouTube search: Life on Maui #23 with Steven Freid (5 Parts).

Great Interview.

To hear you claim it and share it again (for me in such a short time) is amazing.

Blessings,

Barry

Barry is exactly right, although I noticed he didn't overtly challenge Joe's assertion that the blog post was the first time he'd told the story publicly. In a December 2007 interview on Maui with super-SNAG Steven Freid (who, incidentally, also conducted a fawning interview with one of my favorite snark targets, Dreaming-Bear), Joe did indeed tell the story – almost exactly as he says he told it at that MasterMind dinner. Actually he told it in even more detail, though in the Maui version version he kind of makes it sound as if the owner of the company that screwed him committed suicide when Joe tried to get his money back. I'm sure that's not what he meant, but it sounds like it. The Maui interview appears as a five-parter on YouTube, but if you want to save yourself some time, the nitty-gritty of the homeless tale is here in Part 3, beginning at about 1:36.

Notably absent from Joe's various narratives about those poverty years is the fact that beginning in the late 1970s, and for about seven years thereafter, he was involved in the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's cult. Maybe it's not relevant but I thought it worth a mention anyway.

At any rate, it seems clear that Joe's followers either have short memories or aren't willing to do much research. As I've said here before, I imagine that's one of the things that Joe and most New-Wage leaders are banking on.

I will give Joe credit for honesty about one point in his blog post. He says his family in Ohio would have taken him back in, but he was too proud to let them know of his plight. Granted, given the abuse Joe suffered when growing up (which he wrote about in his spiritual autobiography, Adventures Within), you'll know that this was not a very desirable option. He had a lot of good reasons to get away and stay away from home. However, I think it worth noting that he did have a safety net, unlike many if not most of the folks today who are being forced out of their own homes because of the foreclosure crisis – and unlike many of the chronically homeless who are mentally ill or have other serious problems.

Lest you dismiss me as a complete cynic or hopeless curmudgeoness, I don't have a problem with what Joe purports to be the real message in his blog post, which is that any situation, no matter how bad, is temporary.* Yes, the sun will shine again, so you should never give up but should just keep on keeping on, and so on. Everyone needs to hear this message at one time or another.

My issue is with the disingenuous way Joe has exploited his "homeless" story all along. Putting aside the fact that I think it's kind of an insult for him to even imply that his situation compares to that of people who really are homeless for one reason or another (and don't have families to take them in), I've pretty much had it up to here with the rags-to-riches tales told by so many New-Wage luminaries. Many of them have made a big deal out of being formerly "homeless," and most of them, formerly homeless or not, finally became rich only after years or decades of trying one thing after another.

It's true that most of them – including Joe – are pretty honest about not being overnight successes. But then they use their success stories to sell you on the idea that the product/service/miracle weekend du jour that they're offering will save you similar years of struggle; you have but to fork over your money for their stuff and you can be rich and happy and successful almost overnight. That's pretty clever, I must admit. But it's also pretty deceptive.

Moreover, these rags-to-riches tales, whether they're completely true or are partly (or mostly) embellished, give people a distorted idea of what it takes to really become successful. Tales that purport to be inspirational, but are often little more than marketing ruses, actually serve to discourage many people. Why? Well, maybe because we all have a tendency to compare our own lives to others' stories. And our lives almost always come up short, no matter how many books or seminars we invest in. My pal Blair Warren wrote an excellent post about this on his blog, Crooked Wisdom.

As it happens, Blair also had this to say on a recent Tweet on Twitter:

If you begin a story with "I've never told this before" it's wise to have never told it before. Especially to the people you're talking to.

Somehow it seems appropriate here.

Even so, I think we can expect Joe to continue to recycle his homeless tale and milk it for all it's worth. Perhaps he'll even continue to reveal yet more details that he was previously "too embarrassed to talk about."

And the Joebots will continue to heap praise and money upon him.

Shameless Schirmer strives for new levels of shamelessness
I suppose I need to modify my previous remarks that the troubled Aussie Secret star David Schirmer has abandoned the "wealth coach" gig in favor of being merely a Christian hustledork (see, for instance, this post; scroll down to, "Onward Christian wankers"). David is still peddling his wares in the New-Wage market via his new web page, Wealth By Choice.

For example, he's still promoting himself as a stock market expert, despite the fact that, according to various sources, he has never shown anyone any trade sheets and in fact has never actually shown that he can make money from the stock market. In addition, word has it that the two people giving testimonials on his stock market page now have nothing to do with him and would probably, for various reasons, be embarrassed to be associated with him in any way.

He is also apparently challenging the authorities with his Entrepreneurship 101 course, in which he deliberately tells people how to find a way around the system in order to avoid lawsuits as well as taxes. He writes:

There is a right way and a wrong way to set up your asset protection.

You need to make sure that this is done the right way from the start. If you get it wrong and you get sued it will be too late to change it then.

The reason I know all of this is that I discovered it the hard way. I found that my accountant, who is great, really had no idea. My lawyer, good as he is, really couldn’t give me a definitive answer…

Finally I found someone in the legal industry who (like me had to find out the hard way) had spent years of research to get it right, and I found out exactly what needed to happen to ensure my wealth and assets were protected....

...So the key to preventing/minimizing lawsuits is NOT TO OWN ANYTHING IN YOUR NAME. The key to protecting your assets - is to make sure predator-plaintiffs and their gold-digging lawyers can’t get their hands on your money. When plaintiffs’ lawyers discover they can’t get your money, they won’t waste any time trying. Why should they!, they will get 1/3 of nothing? They can find someone else to sue....

Granted, David Schirmer is working in Australia, having been stymied in his efforts to enter the US market, so presumably his lessons apply to Australian laws. Still, he seems to be kind of rubbing the authorities' noses in it, not to mention the noses of those to whom he allegedly owes so much money.

But since we're on the topic, I have no doubt that many American hustledorks have set up their own businesses to take advantage of applicable laws that will render them impervious to lawsuits – just in case they're not fully protected by (1) the myriad legal disclaimers they put on the web sites where they advertise junk with 100%-guaranteed miracle results; and (2) the fact that most of their promises are sufficiently vague to prevent any actual fraud charge from sticking.

David Schirmer seems absolutely incorrigible. But, as the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And by the way, his much-touted Succeed magazine really does seem to be on the brink of failure, if not already there; no one seems to have received any issues after the August-September 2008 issue. Trouble in publishing paradise, perhaps? Who would have guessed?

Another reason the chickens might have human arms...
Okay, first of all, if you don't understand the title of this snippet, you need to go here. (Standard warning: If you are offended by the "f" word and/or by mention of recreational drug use, don't go there. Just continue to puzzle over the title, and enjoy the mystery!)

Anyway...

According to a recent AP article, British stem cell research has officially entered a brave new world: the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for research has won final approval from Brit lawmakers. The current plan is for this process to involve injecting an empty cow or rabbit egg with human DNA; the resulting embryos will supposedly not be allowed to survive beyond fourteen days, enough time to harvest stem cells. This skirts the whole abortion issue, since technically the embryo is not human.

I definitely support stem-cell research, but this particular development has me a little worried. Apart from the enormous potential for abuse, resulting in various science-fiction nightmare scenarios and ethical problems, my first thought was that the foreign proteins or whatever from those other species might end up in the stem cells and cause some serious trouble in the ultimate recipients. Maybe it's something we need to consider. But I have a feeling that the barn door has already been flung wide open and the chimeras have escaped. Yikes.

On the other hand, we might be able to train chickens with human arms to collect their own eggs, so maybe there's some commercial potential in this after all. I probably need to keep an open mind.

Well, that's it for now. I'll be back as soon as I can, and I hope you have a great week.

PS ~ If you need a jolt of real inspiration, here are some powerful life lessons from the guy who brought you the song I linked to above.

* Of course the opposite is also true; any situation, no matter how good, is also temporary. But that truth is not the stuff of which "inspirational" blog posts are made.

Another fried day

Snippets and scraps again on this steamy hot August Friday evening (or Saturday, for those in other parts of the world)…

Another Dean (this one not a hurricane)
Mega-bestselling author Dean Koontz, whose quirky suspense novels have sold circles around those of most of the New-Wage/selfish-help gurus, takes some pretty good potshots at the New-Wage industry in his 2003 novel, The Face. In this novel, protagonist Ethan Truman, an ex-cop who’s now security chief for a famous movie star, teams up with his former partner Lester "Hazard" Yancy to foil a possible kidnapping and murder plot against Ethan's employer. Several murders have already been committed that seem related to their case, and the two men have some strong clues that the brains behind these murders, as well as the dastardly plot against the film star, is a local college professor. They’re just not certain which professor. One of the profs they track down turns out not to be the murderer, but something infinitely more annoying: a professional hustledork.

The professor who had organized the one-day seminar on publicity and self-promotion was Dr. Robert Vebbler. He preferred to be called Dr. Bob, as he was known on the motivational-speaking circuit, where he promised to turn ordinary, self-doubting men and women into doubt-free dynamos of self-interest and superhuman achievement.

Ethan and Hazard found the professor on the mostly deserted campus, in his office, preparing for a January speaking tour. The walls of the two-room space were papered with portrait posters of Dr. Bob in a size popularized by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung.

He had a shaved head, a handlebar mustache, a red-bronze tan that established his contempt for melanoma, and laser-whitened teeth brighter than irradiated piano keys...

…Dr. Bob managed so successfully to turn the answer to every question into a mini-lecture on self-esteem that Ethan wanted Hazard to arrest him on charges of felony cliché and practicing philosophy without an idea.

(That last bit sure sounds like a lot of those Secret stars, doesn’t it? Such as this one…)

Ethan and Hazard soon conclude that Dr. Bob is not their man:

He was just as quacky as Donald Duck, but he was no more a murderer than was that excitable mallard. He hungered to be famous, not infamous. Donald had on occasion attempted to kill Chip and Dale, that pair of pesky chipmunks, but Dr. Bob would instead motivate them to give up their rodent ways and become successful entrepreneurs.

God…I mean Prime Source…has some political advice
You may have thought the Creator of the Universe was solely on the side of the religious right. But it turns out He/She/It is a Democrat, and not only that, He/She/It names names when it comes to telling us who the good guys and gals are.

I just received this info from Extreme Lightworker Bryan James via my favorite New-Wage spam service. Bryan is the dad of two Indigo kids and is also the owner of Circle of Lights, whose mission, he says, "is to provide support for Lightworkers and their families, through state-of-the-art services and products that enhance their Light and prepare them for greater service to the planet, our universe and all creation. Our goal is to help create a critical mass of higher frequency energy that will raise the planet's vibration and lead all creation into the New Age."

Anyway, Bryan had a very important message from Prime Source (or "God" to you unenlightened souls) regarding a US politician:

Prime Source says: "It is important that we provide support for those who are supporting the ascension process on Earth. We can do this by establishing contact with them through our Higher Selves as we offer our hearts to them.

"As we draw closer to the end, we will raise up several who will lead you to ascension. They will help prepare the Earth and your society for the changes that will come. One such person is Nancy Pelosi. She will be working very closely with us as we move your planet forward to the next level. Please support her all you can."

All-righty, then! Bryan does not say what it is about Nancy Pelosi that is so vibrationally advanced, or what she is doing to aid in the Earth's ascension, or, for that matter, what we need to be doing to support her, so I guess you're on your own there. I just thought I'd pass the news along.

By the way, Bryan adds that the Nether Worlds Reclamation Project, in which souls stuck in Hell are being rescued and taken home, is still going well. According to Bryan, "…over 100,000 souls are now being rescued, rehabilitated and sent home every day. Please continue to send your Light, prayers and best wishes for the full recovery of the remaining souls currently undergoing treatment."

Lately, though, he hasn’t been encouraging the rest of us to go to Hell ourselves to help out, nor does he provide instructions on how to do so, as he once did. My guess is that the Holy Mother and Bryan had so many eager volunteers for their rescue effort that the place got way too crowded and chaotic. Or maybe they had too many folks who were merely claiming to have made the trip in order to get the free prize Bryan was offering (a chakra acceleration or something like that), but they had no way to substantiate that the claimants really had been to Hell and back, so the volunteer program was cancelled. Or maybe Bryan just got tired of my making fun of his project. (You see, it’s always all about me. I’m a narcissist, after all.)

Pro bonehead
It’s not enough that the New Wage has infiltrated the once pristine arena of politics; it is also seeping into the noble profession of law. I received an email ad from a pleasant looking fellow named Duane Light, a "California-licensed Holistic Lawyer and spiritual life coach with almost 20 years experience." Duane "offers spiritually-based coaching to Light-minded people throughout the US."

Here’s what he says, in part, about his holistic legal coaching and consulting:

As a Coach I help you analyze your situation and support you to clear emotionally, find your highest guidance, and plan the best way forward to implement your values. As a consultant I can guide you generally in how the legal system works and how best to navigate it to save time and money and reduce stress.

My first job is to create a safe and confidential space where everything that you say, and all that you are, is held in compassion and confidentiality, and then to deeply listen. I aim to be your trusted advisor, friend and guide, to help you to move through whatever situation you have with your highest values intact and your heart open.

…I work with my clients to find the highest possible outcome for all involved.

If that doesn’t sound like your cup of legal tea, there’s always Houston-based Simmons & Fletcher, "the Christian trial lawyers." Speaking of which… oh, darn, I just missed the Christian Trial Lawyers Association "Major League Trial Tactics" seminar in my fair city. Apparently it took place last week, and Ken Starr, a true Christian lawyer if there ever was one, was the featured speaker. Oh, well...there's always next year.

Scientist Bob: take note!
My friend Tony Michalski pointed out an intriguing web site for people who are interested in quantum physics – the kind that is taught by real scientists, that is, not the kind they teach in The Secret and What The Bleep?!?

"When Bob Proctor and the gang can claim they've done what is listed on this web page, THEN and ONLY THEN can they talk about quantum physics," Tony wrote, adding, "And that goes for Rhonda and Ramtha and anyone else." Tony, by the way, is currently making his way through The Road To Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, by Roger Penrose. Which makes me feel like sort of an intellectual slacker for reading Dean Koontz, but there you are.

Blair Warren, who was in on the conversation, jokingly responded, "Nice try, Tony, but I don’t see a single book by [he named a few bestselling New-Wage gurus] or any other ‘real’ physicists on that list. How is all that pseudo-science going to ‘attract’ any wealth to us at all? I thought we were all looking for scams. This is no help at all."

To which Tony replied: "How about a course entitled ‘How to Use Super-Gravity and Super Symmetry to Lead a Super-Empowered Life!’? Or ‘You are Quantum ... Hear You ROAR!’ Or ‘How the Hyperbolic Nature of Space- Time Can Bring You Money, Cars, AND Even the Girl of Your Dreams.’

"How could you NOT see those possibilities?"

The thing is, Tony… some of the New-Wage gurus are already offering things like that. So, I’m sorry, but I think we’re going to have to look beyond the quantum world if we want to come up with a truly original scam.

Well, that’s it for now… it’s been a long day, and The Rev and I have a busy weekend ahead of us. See y'all soon!

Move over, quantum physics!

The cover story in today's Parade Magazine is about dark energy, which supposedly makes up two-thirds of the Universe. The story, which you'll be able to read online as of Tuesday, May 29, is by Meg Urry, who is an astrophysicist, Yale University professor, and soon-to-be chair of the Department of Physics at Yale. Meg says that what we discover about dark energy, once we figure out what the heck it really is, may very well impact our lives as much as – or more than – quantum physics.


Granted, Meg is just a physicist and not a real scientist like Bob Proctor, James Arthur Ray, and all of those other Secretrons who 'splained the scientific nature of the Law Of Attraction to us. At the very least, however, her ideas can be a starting point for a whole new generation of New-Wage wonders.

Can't you just see the possibilities unfolding? Not only is the concept of dark energy rich in metaphorical and mythopoetic potential, but the discovery of dark energy, when we previously had no concept of it, is one more example of what the conspicuously enlightened have been trying to tell the skeptics and naysayers for years: Science doesn't know everything. And there are always new things waiting to be discovered. Take that, naysayers!

So if you're a New-Wage capitalist, I urge you to read the Parade article. Do a little more research on dark energy if you think that will make you sound more credible and give you more scientists to quote out of context. And then go out and make a DVD, write a book, and offer expensive workshops that demonstrate how the concept of dark energy offers scientific validation of whatever New-Wage philosophy, modality or technology you happen to be selling. Oh, yeah, and if you're spiritually inclined, don't forget to include the notion that dark energy is proof that God exists.

C'mon, hustledorks, time's a-wasting!

When thoughts become silly threads

I was all set to publish a blog post I’d just about completed. Then my faithful friend Tony Michalski sent me a couple of links to some recent threads on the official discussion forum of The Secret. Well, that threw me off schedule a bit, blogging-wise. "Darn you, Tony!" I e-mailed to him.

And he e’d back, "No use darning me, you keep me in stitches as it is!"

Damn. I wish I’d thought of that one. Anyway…

Looking at Tony’s emails, I was particularly taken by a thread titled, "Manifesting unicorns." A guy named Leo started the ball rolling by mentioning that according to The Secret video, "Thoughts become things." Here’s what Leo wanted to know:

What's the difference between manifesting 10 billion dollars and 10 thousand dollars?

Why do we settle for $10,000 when the universe, according to the secret video, doesn't make a distinction between how huge or tiny a wish that we make?

How about going to the extreme and wish for a unicorn?

Joe Vitale mentioned that it has to be something we can believe in.

However what we can believe in is probably what is already do-able in the physical plane.

For instance, a 40 year-old can never be 20 again. We can't genuinely believe in its happening.

If LOA only works on do-able things, so what's the difference between LOA and working out a plan to achieve what we wanted?

Just curious, how about a mentally ill person who genuinely believes and wishes for a unicorn? Well he believed it, and wished for it. Will his wish be granted?

To me that raises an even more fascinating question: Just what sort of unicorn would a mentally ill person manifest? So I did a little research and found out; see the pic to the left.

Anyway, Leo's question led to a brilliant discussion that surely must rival some of those legendary debates of old, regarding how many angels can stand on the point of a needle (no, the argument apparently never was about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin). Naturally, a few folks brought up Abraham’s opinion about such matters – not the Biblical Abraham, of course, but Esther and Jerry Hicks’ imaginary buds. One person pointed out that Abraham said something to the effect that when we agree to incarnate in this plane of existence, we also agree to abide by its physical laws. Others seemed to think that was too limiting. At one point a bubbly soul named Sandy wrote:

Unicorns.. fairies.. they exist energetically as do many other beautiful beings! :) And the manifesting is instant, because there is no space in between asking and connecting with them :)

Well, that should settle that.

This unicorn thread hit me for a couple of reasons, beyond its sheer absurdity. To begin with, I used to like unicorns and fairies and such myself…when I was a kid, that is. I suppose I could access my inner Little Connie (as I was recently advised to do), and see if she still fancies those things. But I’m afraid she’d kick the crap out of me.

At any rate, the main reason this thread hit me was that it somehow reminded me of a recent op-ed piece by author and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The topic was, "China needs an Einstein, and U.S. could use one, too." Friedman had been reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Albert Einstein, and it dawned on him that the book had a lot to say about the relationship between freedom and creativity – and, by extension, about China and the US.

Though China isn’t mentioned in the book, Friedman points out that Isaacson’s recounting of Einstein’s career is relevant to a couple of ongoing debates about China. One question is this: Can China become as innovative as America – can it truly become the force to be reckoned with in the twenty-first century, as so many have predicted – when it insists on censoring Google and maintaining tight political controls while establishing its market economy?

Einstein was a rebel all of his life, as Isaacson pointed out in a recent interview, and he fled Hitler’s Germany to come to America, where he resisted both Stalinism and McCarthyism. His major theories, Isaacson noted, "come from taking rebellious imaginative leaps that throw out old conventional wisdom." The implication is that a repressive cultural and political climate such as China’s could never have nurtured an Einstein.

On the other hand, Chinese students consistently outperform American students in math and science. China’s education system may not be set up to nurture a creative, rebellious genius such as Einstein, but it is apparently structured to produce a population of scientifically and mathematically literate students. China, in other words, is doing some things right. By comparison to their Chinese counterparts (and those from other countries as well), American students are still pretty abysmal in math and science. The fault, it could be argued, lies in large part with the way these subjects are taught in the US.

Granted, China’s rigorous education system is arguably a product of a repressive culture, and what works there might not necessarily work in our relatively free society. Even so, US schools could and should encourage interest in science and math. And they could do it, perhaps, by teaching these subjects in a more creative way.

As Friedman puts it, "[Einstein] found sheer beauty and creative joy in science and equations. If only we could convey that in the way we teach science and math, maybe we could nurture another Einstein – male or female – and not have to worry that so many engineers and scientists in our graduate schools are from China that the classes could be taught in Chinese."

Isaacson agrees, saying, "We have to remind our kids that a math equation or a scientific formula is just a brush stroke that the good Lord uses to paint one of the wonders of nature," Isaacson said, "and we should look at it as being as beautiful as art or literature or music."

Now, Isaacson may or may not have a handle on Einstein’s views of God, but his point is well taken nonetheless. Besides, my atheist friends tell me that it is not necessary to believe in God in order to appreciate the beauty and order in math equations. I’ll just have to take that on faith, since I am so mathematically ignorant that all I can see when I look at a math equation is a jumbled bunch of numbers. In fact that TV show Numb3rs makes me want to run out of the room screaming. Not only do I find the characters and dialogue annoying (I liked Rob Morrow way better as a whiny Jewish doc who’d been exiled to Alaska), but the math stuff is way above my head, even with the cool graphics and effects. Still, even I can intellectually grasp that math and physics can be things of beauty, and that if they were taught differently in our schools – maybe even using shows like Numb3rs – they could be as fascinating as fairies and unicorns.

I am particularly interested in Einstein these days not so much because of that new bio, but because he is one of the dead geniuses extracted from the pages of history by Rhonda Byrne and plunked into The Secret. Supposedly our pal Al was one of those who were privy to the Law Of Attraction, along with Jesus and Plato and Mother Theresa and other famous dead people. But darn those buggers; they kept LOA from the rest of us until Rhonda dug it up and repackaged it for the world. (There was an amusing discussion about this on Blair Warren’s blog not too long ago.) One of the major criticisms of The Secret is that it portrays LOA as a scientific law akin to the law of gravity; proponents say that LOA is backed by quantum physics. And as you probably know, quantum physics is a real big thing in New-Wage circles, as evidenced by the success of The Secret, Ramtha infomercial What The Bleep Do We Know?!?, and authors such as Gregg Braden and Bruce Lipton.

And that, to me, only reinforces Friedman and Isaacson’s points about the need for a new approach to science and math education in the US. The way I see it, we in the US have two choices in this matter.

We can insist that our schools revamp math and science ed – beginning at the elementary-school level – in a way that ensures that real science and math (as opposed to the mostly imaginary, magical-thinking "science" being touted by New-Wage hustlers) actually has a chance of being understood and embraced by students.

Or we can throw up our hands in exasperation as Asia continues to produce brilliant scientists and mathematicians, and Americans continue to make Rhonda Byrne and JZ Knight obscenely rich, as we look to The Secret and What The Bleep for our "science" information, and we spend our days engaging in scintillating discussions about manifesting unicorns.

The choice is ours.

PS – Though I’m no fan of The Secret, I understand its appeal. What I cannot understand is why huckster extraordinaire Kevin Trudeau’s latest scam, The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You To Know About is doing so well. It was number 3 in its category on the New York Times Bestseller list as of last week, and number 23 on Amazon as I write this. Well, okay… there’s the "weight loss" theme – a perennially popular one, to be sure – and there’s the "forbidden secrets" appeal. BUT HAVEN’T THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BUYING THIS BOOK READ ANYTHING ABOUT TRUDEAU?!? Don’t they know what a fraud this guy is? Don’t they know they shouldn’t trust him as far as they can throw one of his books? If nothing else, why don't they read the Amazon reader reviews, and the discussion forums at the bottom of the Amazon page, before they buy?

PPS – Now that I’m done ranting, I want to remind you: Don’t forget to vote in my MystiCouple contest if you haven’t already. Or even if you have.