Death lodge anniversary: We will not forget

Today, October 8, 2012, marks the three-year anniversary of James Arthur Ray's fatal sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona. Two people, James Shore and Kirby Brown, died that day, and a third, Liz Neuman, went into a coma and died nine days later. Ray is currently serving a too-short prison sentence for three counts of negligent homicide. When he gets out of prison he will no doubt try to resume his career as a New-Wage guru. In fact, his promotional machine is still sending out spam to his list, even though he is locked up.

Here again is the post I wrote on the one-year anniversary of the death lodge.

My pal Salty Droid has written a lot about Ray on his blog; here's a post he wrote in July, on the three-year anniversary of the death of another Ray victim, Colleen Conaway, who died at an event in San Diego. Colleen's family has yet to see any justice... but that may be in the works.

We. Will. Not. Forget.

* * * * *

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Call out the instigators...

...because there's something in the air. (In the words of the  revolutionary classic from a couple of generations back.)

Another month is almost over, and as you can see, I haven't been very active on the Whirled this month. But don't despair. My seeming absence from the blog doesn't mean I have been inactive in the world of scammer-baiting. Indeed, it has been a busy and an interesting month behind the scenes, and it looks as if October is shaping up to be a stellar month as well.

For one thing, there may be big news about one of this blog's favorite snargets, Kevin Trudeau, and his scammy, Ponzi-ish Global Information Network (GIN). At the very least, there will be some more paper shuffling in court regarding that huge, nearly-forty-million-dollar FTC fine that True-dough has been fighting for years.

Better stock up on the popcorn.

Mainstream(ish) media peeps have expressed interest in several of this Whirled's other pet snargets as well. It doesn't feel so lonely in this little corner of the blogosphere any more.

Indeed, there is something in the air. So stay tuned; I'll have more soon.

Leonard Coldwell and Fred Van Liew: Pot, meet kettle

When things go terribly wrong in Scamworld, as they so often do, sometimes the A-teamers like to get their B-team bitches (as Salty Droid might put it), to do their dirty work for them. To my knowledge, serial huckster Kevin Trudeau -- whose crumbling Global Information Network (GIN) empire* has been a topic of intense discussion on Facebook and a few blogs for the past few months -- hasn't said much publicly about his ex-B-lister, "Dr." Leonard Coldwell, the former Bernd Klein of Germany. I wrote about Bernd/Lenny at length in May of this year, a week and a half after having featured him as one of the first canaries to sing about the scam that is GIN.

Ever since he got kicked out of the party, Coldwell has mouthed off plenty about GIN and what a con artist and cult leader he believes Trudeau to be. A lot of the mouthing off has been on Facebook (I mentioned and linked to some of the Facebook rants in this Whirled post), but Coldwell also wrote a blog post about it early on. But Trudeau seems to have been strangely silent about his former "personal physician."

Not to worry, though: his smirking sycophant Fred Van Liew, aka The Water Doctor, aka Fred Van Loony, has taken up the slack. And he has done so on Facebook, no less -- although, according to several ex-GIN members I've communicated with, Trudeau himself has said that only losers spend time on Facebook.

And whom did Freddy Van L use as his source of information about the bad doctor C?

He used Salty Droid, one of the fiercest scam-fighters on the Internet, and clearly no fan of Trudeau or GIN. Yes, Salty Droid, who, in his first post about Lenny Coldwell, had also knocked GIN and Trudeau to hell and back in just a few paragraphs. Here's what Salty had written about Freddy's biggest cash cow:

...Leonard Coldwell set up remote servers with family in Germany in order to process email leads generated by Kevin Trudeau’s fraudulent activities. Leonard would reply to emails as “Dr. Hohn” {who is a real person … and actual doctor} … and refer victims to his own products.

Such elaborate measures were prolly required because America’s Federal Trade Commission was crawling up the ass of Trudeau’s operation. I suspects they even sniffed out this fake Dr. Hohn situation. But they suck :: so they accomplished jackshit … and Trudeau and Coldwell scam on unabated.
B-team bitch Leonard Coldwell at his side :: Trudeau moved on to the not next not big thing … MLM.

His Global Information Network is an MLM based “club” where you deposit all your money :: and all the money of any friends or family you can successfully pressure pitch :: in the “club” until you reach the Level 5 Inner Council and Xenu clears all your thetans.

Or something :: who cares? :: GIN failed … cause like fellow anti-scam crusader Dr. Jon Taylor recently told The New York Observer regarding MLM funtime disaster WorldVentures …

“A good MLM is really an oxymoron.”

But before GIN started to finish imploding like all MLMs always do :: totally unqualified to do anything sack of shit Leonard Coldwell was making good money suckling on Kevin’s pasty white scam teets.

Well, actually, the "membership levels" in GIN are a separate arm of the scam from the MLM. I was confused about that myself at first till someone 'splained it to me. But no matter how you look at it, GIN is a huge and elaborate farce and an obvious money grab for Trudeau and for a few of his close cronies (including Freddy, and until recently Lenny too) -- a fact that more and more former devotees are finally realizing.

But it was Salty's second post about Lenny -- the one that laid open some ugly allegations -- that really got Freddy Van L salivating. On the evening of the day Salty published that post, Thursday, September 6, Freddy provided a link to the post on his own Facebook page, writing:

Fred Van Liew Thursday at 7:01pm

• This is not good news regarding Coldwell. Sorry to have to post, however my radio program and my life is about health, and this man evidently represents anything but. The article will keep you from going anywhere near this man.
  http://saltydroid.info/dr-leonard-coldwells-handson-healing/

"To share is to care!" sez Fred van Loony, later in the thread.

Here is the link to the thread, for those of you who can access it. If you can't access it, maybe this screen shot will enlighten you. It doesn't reflect the latest comments (which include a link to my Bernd bridges blog post, as well as a link to Salty's first Lenny blog post), but it will give you an idea about the convo. (Click on pic to enlarge.)

So here we have Fred the Water Doctor and frauduct peddler extraordinaire, fairly gloating as he blusters about how the evil Coldwell should be exposed because it is the right thing to do. Fred even implies that Salty Droid is a hero for bringing this matter about Coldwell to light. I don't dispute the assessment of Salty's heroism myself, but...um... apparently Fred failed to consider what that Part 1 post said about the fearless leader Trudeau.

Instead, Fred seems to be taking full advantage of the information Salty Droid shared on his blog. Fred also claims to have read the entire police report on Coldwell, and word has it that the Trudeau camp has had that report in their possession for some time now and plans to use it to bolster their own case against Coldwell -- at the very least to help justify why he was booted out of GIN. I haven't verified any of that scuttlebutt, but here is what Freddy Van L wrote on his Facebook page about the information:

...I have had my concerns [about Coldwell], however when I get hard proof that someone is harming others or abusing their delegated authority, I speak up. Whether government or in this case Coldwell. I only just saw the legal documents regarding Leonard's sexual abuse of women. As far as KT, it is my belief that he was conned by Leonard like the rest of us. Believe as you will, KT is still just a man, though extraordinary. His teachings have positively influenced tens of thousands in a permanent manner. I will speak up if I find different. As of now, it is only Coldwell that is the scam.

Oh, what a hero you are, Freddy. I notice how you seem to be leaving the door open so you can scuttle out like the Harry Potter character Peter Pettigrew, aka Wormtail, when the law finally comes slamming down on True-dough and GIN, and you can plead for mercy in the court of public opinion and claim that by golly, you were conned by Kevin too.

[NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: As it turned out, I was wrong about Freddy turning on Kevin. He was defending Kevin in 2013, and still speaking as his friend/defender in 2015, and as of 2016 he still seems quite loyal to his now-imprisoned long-time buddy. And Fred is still defending the original GIN as it was under Kevin Trudeau. GIN did not die on the vine, as I was speculating might happen back when this post was first published, but it exists under "new management" -- a group of Trudeau cohorts headed by Troy McClain/AXS Investment Group. There's plenty of info about that elsewhere on this Whirled. In 2014 Fred spoke out against the new GIN management, and in favor of a GIN ripoff called WIN -- and again, there's plenty of info about WIN elsewhere on this blog.]

But the really amusing part of the thread is Freddy accusing Lenny of "slander," and Freddy saying Lenny conned KT...rich stuff.

And on the other side we have Lenny accusing anyone who criticizes him of "slander"... and of course he is accusing Trudeau of conning him...

Pass the popcorn.

One of the participants who was obviously not a Lenny fan wrote this about the infamous police report on Coldwell:

As far as the women not pressing charges because they were scared, this also doesn't surprise me. Coldwell has a team of lawyers and the financial resources to bury any regular person. I sent him an email once, asking him for answers about why he can't prove his 92.3% cure rate, and he threatened me with libel/slander and criminal harassment if I ever tried to contact him again or post anything about him online. But as long as I remind everyone that this is my OPINION, he can't touch me.

Intimidation. Threats. Accusations of libel/slander just for asking questions about his extravagant claims and phony creds. Yeah, that pretty much sounds like Lenny.

Many, though certainly not all, of the responses on the Fred-thread seem to be coming from those who are still on the deck of the sinking GINtanic, struggling not to hear the orchestra playing, "Nearer My Fraud To Thee." "We are GIN!" one person wrote, bringing to mind this video, taken on the 2012 GIN "Leadership" cruise (I can't seem to embed it, but here is the link)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZAH1Zyd2DU

One of the GINfolk on the Facebook thread I linked to above also took umbrage at the GIN logo on the Photoshopped image that appears on the link to Salty's blog post. Salty had created this little photo-comp especially for his post. The GIN person actually suggested that someone should Photoshop the GIN logo out of Salty's pic, because it just wouldn't do to have GIN associated with the evil Dr. C. It would mess with people's subconscious or something like that. Photoshop the Photoshop to make it more palatable to GIN drinkers, in other words. That should go over well.

The consensus among the pro-GINs, however, was that all of this stuff was much too negative, when good GIN cult members should be focusing on the future. After all... "WE ARE GIN!"

Yeah, more popcorn -- and a large drink.

Not exactly the DSM: "Dr." Lenny puts those fake psych degrees to work
Perhaps Freddy has felt an extra surge of vindication after having been recently been run through "Dr." Coldwell's professional psychoanalysis. Back in June of this year, when the anti-GIN revolution was just hitting its stride, and many of the revolutionaries still apparently believed that Lenny would lead them to economic salvation through his "class action lawsuit" against GIN and Trudeau, one of my Facebook friends shared Lenny's "professional" opinion of Fred van Loony. Of course Lenny is well qualified to give a professional opinion because he has a fake PhD or two in psychology. Here is Lenny's analysis of his former GINbuddy, broken up into paragraphs for easier reading, although apparently the original was one huge block of text:

Fred van Liew in my personal and professional opinion, I fear, sufferers from delusional paranoia with a multiple personality disorder and a high degree of schizophrenia (borderline disease!) I believe: He is psychotic and delusional and is in my professional opinion therefore pathological psychiatrically (mentally and emotionally disturbed) ill. In short I concluded based on my personal observations, to put it in simple terms, I believe that he is crazy. He sees demons ( his own words ) and is practicing exorcism as I understand it, with the poor people that fall into his hands and let him work ( practicing medicine without a license as I see it – He was diagnosing people and treating them in my presence ).

He told myself and a witness that his pendant is simply pressed and polished plastic dust and that he pays about 26 cents for it ( I have no way to confirm that ) and I personally had the value of his bulldozer pack evaluated and found it is to me dirt cheap in production cost and most comparable products are in my opinion much more effective or equal but only cost about 10% of what he is charging for it. He himself told me that he reverse osmosis system from Costco ( $200 dollars or so ) is better or equal to what he sells for his enormous amount of money. His entire EMF protective devices are in my personal experience useless and worthless. I got much more out of the qulink or other products. ( as a subjective experience for myself ) if I look at the production costs of similar and I believe more often much better products his prices are simply ridiculous and not based on any realistic value in my conclusions based on personal research.

The shower filters I buy from internet sources seem to do the job they are supposed to, but do cost only a fraction of what he is charging for similar devices. His energy mugs and the prices for them are simply a joke to me that is not even worth talking about. If someone is simple minded enough to believe in that and to pay these ridicules amounts of money for them – bless them! He told us that without Kevin’s support he could never ever have made it financially and never could. So it is obviously based on his own statements a matter of financial survival to protect and support the guy that ensures his financial survival. His crazy outbursts and delusionary comments on FB and other media outlets maybe explained by his mental state of mind and his to me obvious inability to grasp, accept and understand reality.

He even told me in lately that he was “forced” or his hand was forced to write some of his comments. His OCD can easily be shown by the amount of senseless emails and texts or comments he does send out. Of course if you don’t have business to attend to and nothing else to do with your life, you live on the internet, right? I wish him well because I know of his physical state of health too, as well as his mental and emotional state of health and hope he finds peace outside of government institutions, because I believe personally if he does not, he may have time in the future, to enjoy the hospitality of the government to find inner peace. Funny is that I could write down for you how he is going to react when he reads this. All these guys are so predictable. You push a button and they jump.

My lawyers , are already working on the legal part of dealing Van Liew ( the name in Germany in slang, means: On Credit without any collateral to back it up – how funny is that ) right now too. All statements above are the conclusion of my subjective opinions, observations, use of common sense and professional conclusions. But since I am just a human being I could be wrong. “ It is just my personal opinion but I may be right”™

Here, for those who can access it, is the link to the June Facebook convo.

If it's true that Freddy told Lenny his hand was "forced" to write some of his comments, I think that rivals Lenny's own frequent claims that he has been "hacked."

It's amusing that Lenny is making fun of the German slang meaning for Van Liew's name, when in fact Lenny's own birth name, Klein, comes from a word meaning "little" in German. Little, little, little. Maybe that's the reason Bernd changed his name. I don't know. All I know is that he apparently does not like to be asked about it.

But what's really funny is that whole Lenny-accusing-Freddy-of-practicing-medicine-without-a-license-thing. Been to the Salty Droid blog lately, Lenny?

Make that a jumbo bag of popcorn. With extra butter. And some Snickers bars.

Lenny and Freddy in happier days
By July of this year, more and more questions about Lenny were popping up on some of the ex-GIN Facebook threads. The moderators of these threads didn't really like it, but folks kept asking. This was before the police report story broke, but a few brave and rebellious peeps were questioning Lenny's name change, phony credentials, mysterious past, and so forth. Someone wrote:

And regarding Dr. C, why is it that people are claiming that when they ask for his credentials he blocks them? Is he hiding something? I saw a post of Dr. C bashing Fred [van Liew] and typed a huge paragraph saying Fred was delusional, a fraud, etc. And he said Fred's products were crap and worthless. But did you know that a year ago Dr. C was heavily promoting Fred's products? He even said they were "proven" to work. Why the change all of a sudden? It could be possible that he is angry at Fred for other reasons, and just decided to start bashing everything about the guy.

The commenter was referring to Lenny's Fred-head shrink session I quoted above. Said commenter also linked to this March 2011 newsletter in which Lenny, under the flag of one of his numerous proxies, "Dr. Libertarian," sang Freddy's praises to the world. Lenny touted Freddy's frauducts -- the same frauducts he later confessed were bogus -- as well as Freddy's professionalism and integrity. Follow that link and you'll see what I mean.

Ah, those were the days. You can Google or Bing your way around and find many more examples of Lenny and Freddy stroking each other off in happier times. It was all for the Greater Good, the Larger Cause: getting more suckers into GIN and more money into their respective bank accounts. Any backstabbing they might have done was non-public, which is the way backstabbing is usually done in Scamworld.

Skeptics and snarkers, then and now
The skeptics have actually been on Fred Van Liew's a$$ for years. For instance, there's this January 2000 newsletter from the North Texas Skeptics: http://www.ntskeptics.org/2000/2000january/january2000.htm.

Then there's this UK skeptics' newsletter from August 2004: http://number80.co.uk/page79.htm (scroll down to "Mugged by Gobbledegook").

But those are the more or less hardcore skeptics, the ones that many of the alt-health and self-help crowd hold in disdain for their alleged closed-mindedness. More recently, however, ex-GIN Bernie O'Mahony at GINtruth.com wrote about Fred in the context of a Facebook exchange involving Freddy and his son. In response to a gruesome beheading video that Fred had posted along with the implication that Obama was connected to the atrocity, the son had called Freddy a "SICK DELUSIONAL HATEFUL FEARMONGER" and accused him of "fleecing hopeful people of their money and hiding it in tax havens." That sounds about right! Of course, Freddy blamed his son's rebellion on the horrors of a liberal education, or something like that.

Bernie had some up-close-and-personal observations about Freddy:

Fred Van Liew is well known for accusing people of being ‘possessed by demons’ and the like. Indeed, he seems to think he has some intrinsic knowledge of the after life and how it works, as well as claiming that he can see auras, etc.

Pity that didn’t work for you on the 2012 GIN cruise eh Fred? I was sitting on the poker table behind you in the ship’s casino on the last night of the cruise, listening to you cursing like -- well, like a demon -- because you were losing $5 bets! Watching you get irate and walk out of the casino pissed, was funny enough, but it was even funnier when I went to the same table and won your money!

Bernie seems to be remaining somewhat neutral on the most recent and serious Coldwell flap, but I have a strong sense that he does not hold the little tan man in as high a regard as he formally did.

Memo to the Kool-Aid guzzlers: a Coldwell critic is NOT necessarily a friend of GIN
In the original preamble to my late May "Bernd bridges" post, I explained very carefully, solely for the benefit of new readers I was expecting, that my criticisms of Coldwell did NOT mean I am or ever was a fan of Trudeau or GIN. I have since changed my preamble to reflect recent additions and clarifications to that post, but I sometimes wonder if I need to 'splain all over again that having a common "enemy" does not necessarily constitute an alliance.

Trudeau and Coldwell may be feuding or divorced, but they are, as I've said so many times before about these two and other scam-couples, turds of a feather. Trudeau may or may not have known about the police report, but he had to have known, or at least have strongly suspected, that Coldwell had a dodgy past. Similarly, Coldwell had to have known about Trudeau's criminal past and ongoing troubles, since so much of that has been public information for years.

But while the money was flowing, they kept on going. I still don't know all of the reasons for their split. There's a lot of evidence that GIN was and is rapidly running out of money, so unloading some of the paid speakers (Lenny was getting $200,000 a year) might have been a strategy for downsizing without sacrificing the basic con. But there have also been many reports of Coldwell's crass behavior at GIN events -- his blatant womanizing, drunkenness, and the sometimes unwelcome and very aggressive attention he lavished upon women attendees -- and more of those details are coming out now in various places, including on Salty's blog.

For now on this Whirled, I'm concentrating on this comic relief of a sideshow as the scoundrels fight each other. I felt I just had to share it with y'all.

After all, as Fred Van Liew himself wrote, "To share is to care."

* In all fairness, I should note that some GIN members continue to deny that GIN is crumbling, insisting that to the contrary it is growing.

PS added 13 September, 2012 ~ More comic relief, this time on Salty's blog: Lenny puts out a reward for information about Salty Droid -- information that is easily available on the Interwebz for those who know how to read.

PS added 18 September, 2012: Still more comic relief on Facebook. Lenny is still mouthing off about Trudeau being a cult leader, and he is still trying to form another club like GIN, but "free, except for cost." (As usual, click on pic for an enlarged view.)




More True-dough (and Lenny) on this Whirled:

• August 2012: Truth is better than GIN any day
• July 2012: Drunk on GIN, and you can too!
• July 2012: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine
• July 2012: Independence Daze
• May 2012 (updated September 2012): Paging Dr. C: Bernd bridges in Deutschland?
• May 2012: Can alien DNA save Kevin Trudeau's GIN?
• May 2012: Does a canary with a GIN hangover sing as sweetly?
• April 2012: Viva Lost Wages: Sin City Become GIN City for a weekend
• February 2012: A. Rose by any other name would shill as sweet
• December 2011: True-dough updates: Bad poetry for KT, hate mail for CC
• November 2011: A jumpsuit for Jimmy
• August 2011: First Amendment Stuporhero
• August 2011: Calling all lazy men: let's build a pyramid together!
• August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name), Part 1 of 2
• June 2011: Holy Guacamole! True-dough's racist rants
• June 2011: For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray
• December 2009: Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
• November 2009: How to take over the world
• July 2009: Horse farts and related matters
• January 2009: Mr. Fire meets up with true dough

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
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If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

Truth is better than GIN any day

Well, Dear Ones, this has been a very busy month, and I haven't been tending my Whirled as I should, and now the month is nearly over. Lots of stuff is going on. Some of it I could write about but am just too busy, and some of it I just can't write about yet because it is too horrid. But no worries; it will all work out.

One hopeful development is that serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's Ponzi-ish Global Information Network (GIN) continues to erode from within. Peeps have been urging me to get back to writing about True-dough and GIN, and oh, I will, I will... but so many things are going on, and... well, enough excuses. There's a lot of evidence that GIN's days are numbered, and if you want to see some of the best evidence there's no better place to look these days than Bernie O'Mahony's GINtruth.com. While I've been blogging for the past nearly-three years that GIN is a scam, Bernie and some of the other ex-GIN members and fans are providing real evidence.

If you're curious, go visit GINtruth.com and poke around a bit. And while you're there, donate a little. It won't hurt you, and it will help keep that site up and running. I have a feeling it's going to get a lot more traffic in the weeks and months to come.

Thank you, and I'll see you in September, which is just hours away as I write this.

More True-dough on this Whirled:

• July 2012: Drunk on GIN, and you can too!
• July 2012: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine
• July 2012: Independence Daze
• June 2012: Paging Dr. C: Bernd bridges in Deutschland?
• May 2012: Can alien DNA save Kevin Trudeau's GIN?
• May 2012: Does a canary with a GIN hangover sing as sweetly?
• April 2012: Viva Lost Wages: Sin City Become GIN City for a weekend
• February 2012: A. Rose by any other name would shill as sweet
• December 2011: True-dough updates: Bad poetry for KT, hate mail for CC
• November 2011: A jumpsuit for Jimmy
• August 2011: First Amendment Stuporhero
• August 2011: Calling all lazy men: let's build a pyramid together!
• August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name), Part 1 of 2
• June 2011: Holy Guacamole! True-dough's racist rants
• June 2011: For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray
• December 2009: Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
• November 2009: How to take over the world
• July 2009: Horse farts and related matters
• January 2009: Mr. Fire meets up with true dough

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

Access Consciousness wants kids, and lots of 'em

This post is a bit overdue, and the "news" isn't all that new any more, but I felt it was important enough for a commentary. And don't worry; I will get back to my coverage, such as it is, of the collapse of the Global Information Network (GIN), which is serial scam artist Kevin True-dough's brilliant but doomed-from-the-start Ponzi scheme that apparently sucked in thousands of people the world over, but is now reportedly shedding members faster than my dog Kali sheds hair in the summer time. And I am also still working on the next installment in the tale of a particularly nasty little mustachioed tan man with a taste for pink, and I mean that in more ways than one. For now, though, let's revisit one of my favorite snargets, Access Consciousness, formerly Access Energy Transformation.
~CC

For several years I've been writing on this blog about the crazy, mixed-up, increasingly cult-like sex-and-money organization called Access Consciousness. In case you are unfamiliar with my Access posts and don't feel like going back and searching for all of the posts (though here's a link if you are), no worries: this August 2011 post sums up my views pretty well.

A few things have happened since I published that post. For one, a new web site arose in June 2012 called Access Schism. Access Schism has taken a detailed, thoughtful, and very critical look at Access' teachings and doings, as well as those of a few other LGATs and cult-like orgs. It was off to a terrific start. However, as of last week, the site owner chose to temporarily suspend the site, though he says nothing nefarious is going on. He just has to tend to some other things for now. I'm hoping he'll be up and running again soon. Meanwhile, here's the Access Schism Facebook page, which has some interesting commentary and numerous external links.

Over the years I've tried several times to get some members of the mainstream media interested in Access, but have had zero results. Yet "Access Consciousness" seems to be one of the most common search parameters that lead visitors to my blog, so there has definitely been interest.

Within the past few weeks, however, interest in Access has really spiked, but not because of anything I did. No, the mainstream media finally took notice because an actual sports celebrity has come out in favor of Access in a big way. That would be retired NFL running back Ricky Williams, who seems to have formed an unholy alliance with Access founder Gary Douglas and Gary's younger sidekick, the lusty chiropractor Dain Heer. That is, Ricky Williams has partnered with Gary and Dain to raise some money for the Ricky Williams Foundation to benefit underprivileged kids.

Ricky himself is an Access facilitator. He's also known for being into all kinds of other "alternative" stuff, so it's not surprising that he would be open to Access. Access, however, is apparently his breakthrough du jour, and he seems to really admire Gary Douglas because of Gary's "willingness to be himself," whatever the heck that means.

In any case the mainstream media have finally...FINALLY... taken notice of Access. For instance, there's this from the Austin Chronicle. Sports writer Alex Dunlap explained some of the back story:

In December 2011, Williams thought his foundation had secured funding to the tune of $32 million. He was under the belief that the group donating the money shared his values about the importance of helping underprivileged children to understand they have choices in life, and could always aspire to be great. The anticipated funding never came through, according to Williams this was due to him no longer being an NFL player.

Williams, through the beginning of the spring, was contributing his own money with the expectation that his foundation would be receiving the $32 million. When it fell through, that's when the charismatic, rich Gary Douglas swooped in to help. Together, Douglas and Williams concluded that Williams, although never indoctrinated directly, was indeed unknowingly practicing Access Consciousness. It was the model of his whole foundation's program: Give the kids a choice, free their minds.

Williams is now a devout accessory of the Access movement, and the mission of his foundation has transformed into an outlet for delivering the controversial teachings of Access Consciousness to the underprivileged children who attend their camps. This is currently taking place, in Austin, on AISD property.

Douglas is a significant contributor and is bankrolling a large sum of costs by live streaming the event to devout accessories all over the globe for quite a pretty penny. (Replays of certain live streams can sell for upward of $1,200.) Williams was the camp's instructor last week for Level I of the course. "Advanced" levels II and III will be delivered to these children by the person who accessories all over the world call their "fearless leader," Gary Douglas himself.

Though Dunlap was relatively restrained in his commentary, for the most part, the media have been borderline hysterical about Ricky Williams being involved with a "cult." Whether Access is a cult or not is a matter of opinion, of course, but in my opinion, it is at the very least cult-like. Overall it seems that the journos are pretty sensitive to cults now that Scientology has been making the news again, what with that whole Tom and Katie split and so forth. Some are seeing the resemblance between Scientology and Access.

Understand that I am not complaining about the journos' negative coverage, just their tardiness in coming to the party. It's about fricking time.

And there's finally an Access tag on the Rick Ross web site, due to -- you guessed it -- Williams' involvement: http://www.rickross.com/groups/access_cons.html
That is truly a historic development.

As mentioned, there have been tons of other negative write-ups about Ricky Williams' involvement with Access (a few more links are below), with some alarmed writers saying or implying that this is the first time Access has been offered to kids on a wide-scale basis.

But that's not quite true. Actually, Access has been reaching out to the kiddos for years. I first wrote about some of their kids' programs in June of 2007. There's also the Access True Knowledge Foundation, a "not-for-profit organisation based in Australia and the United States," whose board includes Gary Douglas, Dain Heer, and a Houston heiress named Curry Glassell, among others. Founded in 2008, they say their mission is "to facilitate greater possibility and choice in the area of education and schools, particularly with children." Oh, Good Goddess, just imagine the range of nonsense covered by that euphemistic claptrap. And more recently Access has been advertising that kids 15 and under can get into many Access adult classes for free, and those ages 16-18 can get in for half price. I don't want to sound like a hysterical bluenose type myself, but it seems that this deal for kids includes even the potentially risque classes.

I wonder how many of the journos who have written alarmed commentary have seen this February 2011 discussion forum comment, which, if true, should be enough to raise a lot of alarm bells in parents whose kids have contact with Access:

...[Access promotes] the necessity to stop judging everything and everyone. And, in their doctrines, that includes sex regardless of the age of the individuals. They call that "playing" in order to eliminate all senses of accountability, especially from the adult who may desire to "play" with an underage individual. What you and I denounce as being a "pedophile behavior" is nothing more than "playing" to them. Several people who have left the cult remembered [hearing] the gurus say during seminars that as long as the teenage (therefore underage) boy or girl does not judge him/herself nor the adult who want[s] to "play," there is nothing wrong with... playing.
They promote the idea that "the body needs to be nurtured" which has led to sexual orgies (involving one of the two gurus) with parents while the kids were in the vicinity.
Cult business as usual...

(Actually, that entire conversation is interesting, and I urge you to read all of the comments if you've not already done so.) At any rate, whether the worst accusations are true or not, I've received numerous emails over the years from people worried about spouses, siblings, or friends who were already deeply involved in Access and were trying to get their kids involved too.

But it's true that Ricky Williams' involvement represents a new level of mainstreaming. Access, of course, is thrilled with the alliance, and they sent this email blast at the beginning of the month:

From: Access Consciousness Team <newsletter@accessconsciousness.com>
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 1, 2012 10:23 AM
Subject: Letter about Kids Class

Hi [Name],

As many of you know we had a really special event 10 days ago as a fundraiser for the Ricky Williams Foundation. It was the first ever [Access Level] 2/3 just for kids!

What showed up was amazing!

We thought we'd share with you the energy of this class, the children, the change... and oh yeah.... We raised close to $50,000 for The Ricky Williams Foundation as well! You can find out more here: http://rickywilliamsfoundation.com

Imagine if you had been given these tools as a child what might have been different in your own life? What else can we change?

Here is a great audio clip from the class:
Click Here To Download Audio Clip

Hear first hand about the Class, The Bars, and Access Consciousness from the people who were there...!

Having trouble viewing this video? Click Here!

Having trouble viewing this video? Click Here!

Having trouble viewing this video? Click Here!

A Fun Transcript
Ricky: We had an incredible conversation. Last week, we were on a field trip and E (name has been shortened) was in the car with me and he started talking about faith. Do you remember this conversation, E?

E: Yes.

Ricky: And, I just said to have faith in something, and he just finished my sentence and said "Ok, I see you have to make yourself stupid, you have to shut your awareness off, to have faith." And he said, "Oh, I can just know!"

Gary: That's right.

E: Yeah, like for me, faith is a substantive thing. I've seen and believe, so you have to shut off your awareness, you have to turn off everything, so you can believe that you're gonna make it. So, it's not that you don't know that you're gonna make it, you just believe and hope you make it.

Gary: There's lots of people that have hope and they want to have a belief that they are going to make it, but they sort of give it a hope and a prayer instead of a real go.

E: Yeah!

Gary: There's an old poem that goes: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If daisies were watches, I'd wear one by my side." Literally, people have all kinds of wishes, but they don't actually accomplish much.

E: Yeah, if all of our wishes came true, or all of our prayers came true, the world would actually be kinda bad.

Gary: It would be bad?

E: Ok, here's what I'm trying to say. When you pray, you just don't pray about what you want. You have to pray that you be successful in what you're doing. It's not all about you and your prayers.

Gary: Right. You have to include everybody else in your prayers.

E: Yeah! And like especially when you have enemies, you can pray for your enemies , please help them out or please give me the wisdom to help them or whatever they need help.

 Quote From Ricky Williams:

"I've always known there had to be a different possibility for these kids, I just didn't see how to create that different possibility until I found Access Consciousness. It was this weird, wacky stuff, but it gave me what I had always been looking for, permission to be me. I just knew that if these kids had that, it could be the key to unlocking the different possibility I always knew existed for them."

Quote From Gary:

"Every staff member of Access volunteered their time, paid for their own ticket, paid for their own accommodation, paid for their own food and delivered as much as they could to contribute to these kids. This was all about the kids and funding Ricky Williams who is doing an amazing job of helping these kids who have no other source to change their lives."

   
A Letter From Dain...

Something totally shocking occurred for me at this event: the innocence and awareness of CHILDREN.

On the third day, I facilitated an Energetic Synthesis of Being Taster for these kids. In inviting them to be part of the ESB energy, I realized that they initially felt that they were excluded from it. I learned that I had to include them and include what else I knew, that I wasn't even aware that I knew, in a different
way than ever before!

This totally changed what the ESB is for me, and what the ESB Class will be from now on. It created it as something different, something even more inclusive and expansive. I don't know exactly how to explain it in words-but if you tap into the energy, you'll get it!

This week was one of the most amazing weeks of my life so far, thanks to these kids and their phenomenal courage and difference. I spent most of it with my eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

I'd like to share a bit of that energy with you. Click here to watch my latest Tour of Consciousness video

What else is possible with the new possibility that this group of underprivileged kids-or SUPPOSEDLY underprivileged kids-gifted us and the world with--THEIR VERY UNIQUE CAPACITY TO BE?

Yours truly,
Dain

Fun Transcript #2
10 year old to Gary: "Oh, if you have some belief, that limits you, because you can't see anything that isn't the same as the belief."
Gary: "You are really smart! Will you agree to be that smart always?"

10 year old: (Doesn't take his eyes off Gary, and smiles.)

Gary: I don't see many people who are as smart as I am, and you just might be one of them... Will you be that smart always?

10 year old: (Doesn't say anything. Keeps smiling.)

Gary: Double dog dare you to catch up to me.

10 year old: I probably already have.    

What People Had To Say

"Dear Gary and Dain, I already feel a change coming in my life, and, that is great. The ESC today was so powerful that I just started to cry. Thank you for this, and how it is just for us kids." ~ Colorado, Age 14

"So much has changed during these four days. The kids look different, they walk different, they sound different, they have a different feel to them ... more confident, expansive, more relaxed. They are enjoying being themselves!" ~ Ann M, Colorado

"Thank you for this class, this is what I asked for when I was 7... I feel like I`m 7 when I watch, and getting the information I wanted then..." ~ Sweden, Parent

"The boys have known about this class and I told them from the beginning that it is a class for them and only them. Within 5 minutes of your starting class yesterday, Jasper ran to me, pulled me by the arm to show me the computer. LOL! He was so excited, and kept exclaiming, "Mom! He knows! He really knows! This really IS a class for me!!" and I have been receiving gratitude hugs on your behalf regularly since yesterday morning. Thank you Thank you Thank you for bringing this to my children." ~ Colorado, Parent

"My children are physically glowing and sparkling. Hahahaha!" ~ Oregon, Parent

"I would like to send a BIG thank you and express my gratitude to Gary and Dain for Access tools because since I have been in Access, for the last three years, my school grades are much higher than before! How does it get any better than that?" ~ Poland, 15 years old .....

This is actually kind of disturbing stuff when you think about it too much, or even a little. But Access has always been about discouraging thinking.

A friend of this blog who is a long-time Access critic mentioned to me that Rasputin was the one missing element from most of the journalistic offerings about Ricky Williams and Access. He is referring to the fact that Gary Douglas once claimed that the late Russian faux-monk Rasputin helped deliver Access to him back in the early 1990s. I wrote about it here. My friend said that the mention of Rasputin in these stories should be enough to turn most people away from Access.

But at least one article did mention Rasputin (citing yours truly). Not that it apparently has made much difference. And "Raz" was evidently not a turn-off to a lot of folks, back in the day. As I've noted before, the leaders don't like to talk about Rasputin in Access these days, since they are trying to become more mainstream. Gary Douglas himself wrote on a comment to one of my blog posts, "Rasputin went away" several years ago. He claimed that almost none of the stuff taught in Access today came from Rasputin, or 'Raz,' as the Accessories used to fondly call the dead guy.

But "the Bars" -- which for most people is the entry drug to Access -- did come from Raz, or so Gary initially claimed, and no doubt some of the other basic class material does as well.

The point is that even today, Raz probably wouldn't be too much of a deterrent with many folks. After all, look at the popularity of Abraham-Hicks -- Esther Hicks and her late hubby Jerry's shtick with a whole group of imaginary friends. Look at the popularity of Scientology. And so on.

Even so, the fact remains that Ricky W is getting a lot of criticism for his involvement with Access.

Here are more links:
http://www.sportsgrid.com/nfl/ricky-williams-is-trying-to-make-money-and-help-kids-by-associating-with-an-insane-cult/

http://thegrio.com/2012/07/25/ricky-williams-foundation-being-run-by-cult-like-access-consciousness-group/

http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2012/07/ricky-williams-running-a-cult/

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2012/07/ricky_williams_says_his_founda.php

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/07/24/ricky-williams-foundation-has-a-new-controversial-connection/

http://www.ebony.com/news-views/should-we-question-ricky-williams-charity-work-article534

http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/ricky-williams-access-consciousness-compared-to-this-marrying-dikta-seems-downright-sensible

Looking at this, one might think there is some hope for the human race. On the other hand, there's a lot of mainstream criticism about Scientology, and there has been for many years -- and yet those rich, nefarious, litigious nutcakes are still going stronger than ever. More to the point, some folks commenting on the negative articles about Ricky Williams said they didn't see what the big deal was about Access.

The comments on the SportsGrid piece linked to above are a case in point. One person wrote that the big companies that sponsor other athletes are a lot more evil than Access. And there's this, from someone who would apparently like to learn some of the stuff Access teaches -- though the comment sounds suspiciously like a troll or a sock puppet:

I have some friends who have taken classes with Access Consciousness.  In general they seem happier than I ever remember them.  2 have greatly improved their marriages, one quit a job she hated forever and is now doing something she loves, and our other friend has finally stopped dieting and is losing weight naturally.

I’ve been looking forward to taking a class for a long time!

I don’t know about any other readers, but many of the bullet points in this article sound awesome.  I’d love to find out if they can change wine!  And heck, i can even see how giving full body orgasms might be a very useful skill.

Why is it we have to leap to the absurdity of of miracles and assume people are insane?  What if there really is something different available?

And why is it so horrible that they would want to teach kids that they aren’t without a future and they can create their life?

Yep. Sock puppet. And there's this:

Ricky Williams is a very amazing, lovely person. Gary Douglas is an extremely brilliant, kind and giving man. I know both of them personally & they are both nothing but gentle, loving people who are here to give & help people.
I would recommend the person who wrote this article to go talk to Gary & Ricky in person before they begin to vilify them & see what they are really doing. Ricky is NOT crazy, he’s never been crazy, people are mis-identifying who he is. Access Consciousness is not a cult & no-where near a cult, and whoever made that up is just silly..
Ricky & Gary together raised over $50,000 for under-privledged [sic] kids & help changed their lives. I don’t really see what could be wrong with that...
...When everyone thought the world was flat, the people who challenged that were vilified… I’m pretty sure this is the case where people don’t want to see & believe what these guys are doing & how they are helping the world.

Oh, my, the flat-Earth analogy again.

It's going to be a long battle. But here's a word to wise moms and dads: Keep your kids away from Access. And keep yourself away from it too. Even if it isn't "dangerous" to everyone, it is pretty stupid.
PS ~ I’ve linked to this before on more than one occasion, but here, back by popular demand, is some commentary on one of Gary Douglas’s 2007 TV appearances. Apparently he fooled some Aussie TV producers into thinking he was a doctor who had some sort of expertise on autism. They weren’t fooled for long, though.

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Whirled blogaversary: six of fun, half a dozen of serious

Today, July 27, Whirled Musings turns six years old.

I am honored, humbled, and beyond thrilled that the world has chosen to host a more-than-two-weeks-long party in London in honor of this little blog's sixth birthday. I understand that some athletes are going to be performing to celebrate this occasion, and there will be torches and fireworks and stuff. (The angry villagers have tried to come after me with torches in the past, but all is forgiven.) It's too bad that I can't be in London for the festivities, but perhaps my good pal HHH can pop in on my behalf.

As a matter of fact, it was HHH who suggested to me that the dearth of comments here recently may have something to do with the fact that I have been focusing more on mundane scammers and con artists than on the more esoteric and endlessly amusing loons and wackadoodles whom I used to snark about on a regular basis.

It's true that the more "out-there" crazies were, once upon a time, my main stock in trade, and it's also true that I originally created this Whirled half a dozen years ago mainly as a humor and entertainment blog. And there's been humor aplenty; well, at least I have kept myself pretty well entertained. Then again, I am easily amused, so there's that to consider.

In the earlier years, though, I really did visit the wackos more frequently than I have lately. And oh, there were so many from which to choose. I found out about many of them from a New-Wage marketing service called StarDoves. I was on StarDoves' email list for several years -- not of my own choosing; it just happened. It was their doing, apparently. But I took full advantage of my membership until I was unceremoniously removed. Maybe they were tired of getting complaints from their clients about how I was making fun of them; I don't know.

In any case, StarDoves and their clients provided me with endless hours of easy-snarkin' delight. Who can forget, for example, a guy named Bryan who, along with his very own Indigo Children, Mother Mary, and a few other luminaries, was involved in a project to empty Hell and bring its inhabitants into the Light? A lot of those posts, along with some other random nuttiness, can be found under the "What Lies Beneath" label on my Whirled.

That's just the tip of the loony pile, and StarDoves were far from the only source of snark chum. I have, for example, gotten a lot of mileage out of the wacky, cultish, sex-and-money organization, Access Consciousness -- for instance, see this post -- though not all of my posts about Access have been humorous. Here's a link to the Google results, since the interior search engine on Blogger still seems to be kind of sucky.

I've also derived tons of amusement from what I call the Imaginary Friends segment of the New-Wage/McSpirituality/selfish-help industry. Let's see... there's Abraham-Hicks (aka Abrascam-Hicks)... there's Vladimir Megre and his nekkid blonde babe-in-the-woods, Anastasia...there's Gary Renard and the hot disembodied couple he found in his living room...there's Penny Torres/Mafu (the "Swami Blonde" on my Whirled, and a JZ Knight/Ramtha wannabe...and of course Access Consciousness Gary Douglas and the disembodied entities who originally "revealed" Access to him. Here are a few more Whirled-ish Google results for Imaginary Friends.

The world's most successful New-Wage moviemercial, The Secret, has also been a big inspiration to me, both for blog posts and graphics. In fact, many of us "haters" got a wealth of inspiration from The Secret, so much so that one of my favorite snargets' lap dogs once told his Twitter followers that we critics are just a bunch of losers who got our panties in a wad over The Secret and never got over it. (That has been a typical ploy used by snargets to dismiss the growing body of very legitimate criticism that is, in fact, not just limited to The Secret.) In any case, here are the Google search results for Whirled Musings Secret-related graphics, which in turn will lead to many Whirled posts about The Secret.

Those are just a few random examples. I've also concentrated on individual con artists, such as Kevin Trudeau and his scammy Global Information Network (GIN). Here's the link to the Google results for that. I've never been a GIN member and have known about Trudeau's cons since the 1990s, but am glad to say that GIN members are finally waking up to something that I've known was a scam since its inception in 2009. I can't take any credit for that, though; they apparently had to find out the hard way. But the important thing is that they found out, and I'm lending my moral support to them now.

In any case, in more recent years this blog has acquired a seriousness of purpose that wasn't really there in the beginning. A lot of that had to do with two factors: (1) The James Arthur "Death" Ray sweat lodge case in Sedona in October 2009 (which really woke me up to the more serious side of the stuff I'd been snarking about for years); and (2) my acquaintance with, and growing respect and admiration for, the work that Salty Droid is doing on his blog.

So while I still think humor and ridicule are great ways to fight the scammers, I also think that more serious education and editorializing are equally valid tools. (Not that Salty's blog is lacking in humor; even a superficial glance at the blog will prove that's not the case.) I'm still in this for the entertainment and easy snarks, but I think there is also a larger purpose, if you will. I've even joined in a nascent project Salty Droid has started, and you can too (if you are not a current or recent scammer).

I've truly enjoyed the six years I've been "snarking lividly," as one of my critics (in fact, the same snarget lap dog I mentioned above) described my activities on this Whirled. I appreciate everyone's support, and I hope to be lividly snarking for many more years, at least until I finally get bored with it, or until there is no more need. And by the way, if you want to lend a little monetary support to this effort, there's a "Donation" button up there on the left. (I even wrote a poem about it a couple of years ago.) There's also a donation link below.

Donation or not, I'm very glad you're here. And keep those comments coming.

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Tears for Colleen, jeers for the big sick machine

Today, July 25, is the three-year anniversary of the death of Colleen Conaway, the James Arthur Ray victim for whom there has still been no justice. Colleen, who reportedly had no history of emotional or mental problems, apparently had a psychotic episode at a James Ray event in San Diego in July 2009, and she leaped to her death from a third-story shopping mall balcony. After Ray found out about it, he and his top minions apparently worked to cover it up, shielding the rest of the attendees from the unfortunate event, and they all partied on that night. If you don't know Colleen's sad story, my pal Yakaru has written a good summary of this tragedy, linking to several Salty Droid posts. [Also see PS below. ~ CC, 8-06-12]

My friend Mariah at the Post-Aber blog (dedicated to people who are emerging from the Abrascam-Hicks trance) also commemorates Colleen (and relates Colleen's story to the larger question about the true body count from New-Wage gurus. Yes, there's a body count with Abrascam too.).

Here are more links. Take your pick.

And in related news (yes, all of this is related to the "big sick machine" -- see links below), the summer 2012 meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC) begins today as well. Death Ray was a founding member of that scam cartel, though rather unceremoniously dropped from the membership roster after the sweat lodge debacle. (Here's Salty's take on the TLC.) This confab is being held in the resort municipality of Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.

More soon.

PS added 6 August 2012: Salty Droid commemorated Colleen Conaway's death with a post that featured his poignant interview with Colleen's sister Lynn. Here is the link. And the good news is that Salty is helping Colleen's family pursue the civil case against Ray, which is finally underway. Salty wrote:

I’m here to fight this fight … however f--king long it takes. Gonna use all that we’ve become to help with this important case :: gonna have all that and a bag of chips waiting for James Arthur Ray when he exits the Arizona penal system … 25 years too early.

And the TLC meeting that commenced on the anniversary of Colleen's death was apparently fairly well attended, if the video of Joe “Mr. Fire” Vitale’s presentation is any indication. If you choose to watch it, it’s 45 minutes you’ll never get back, but then again, Colleen Conaway, James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman will never get their whole lives back.


In his blog post about the video, Joe, using an “advanced” Law of Attraction technique in which one “remembers” the future, writes that he “remembers” that I loved the track from his new CD, which he played at the end of his presentation while he wiped sweat off of his head and attempted to look spiritual and profound. His future memory is apparently not so good.

More on this Whirled about "the big sick machine" (both from July 2012):

• Back in Time with the big sick machine
• Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine

More about the New-Wage body count:

• January 2011: Men, men, men, men, manly men (the Man Kind Project)
• September 2009: Not to be confused with a leap of faith (Turning Point)
• July 2008: More dark than snark today ("Doktor" Dragan Dabic, aka war criminal Radovan Karadžić -- who apparently didn't kill any of his New-Wage followers but, due to people's need to believe and the New-Wage credo of open-mindedness and non-judgmentalism, was able to disguise his true identity as a killer for years) 

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Now more than ever, your donation is needed
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Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
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