The name of that female "psychic" on Oprah was Allison Dubois.
[www.twopercentco.com]

It was very clear to me she was an outright fraud, and her Cold-Hot Reading was so blatant, it was a joke. But hey, she has a nice smile, and is slick, and promotes a network TV show...so people just Believe her. No one could lie on Tv like that...right?

there is an entire list of Skeptic Blogs down the left of this page, looks interesting. [skeptico.blogs.com]

also, it appears that my rough guesses were close to accurate. About 95% of the population just basically believes most of what they are told, and don't seem to evaluate it.
Only a few percent of the population seem to have any training in critical thinking or analysis.

So that is where the motherload of money is.
All cult leaders know this, that is why they just go Fishing in the population, its an easy numbers game.

The James Randi newsletter has an initial story on The Secret, they should have more detailed info in the following weeks.

[www.randi.org]

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BIG SECRET

Reader Scott Marshall, a proud JREF member, tells us of yet another film that presents woo-woo as fact:

A friend at work gave me the DVD movie, "The Secret," a 90-minute movie from Australia that promises to reveal the answer to all of one's hopes and dreams. He said it was recently featured on Oprah. If Oprah covers it, it must be real, right?

In the first few minutes of the film, I was drawn in just a little by the familiar promise that it would change my life, though I was skeptical, since this had been promised by so many other works, so many times before. The movie spends a good part of its opening dramatically and slickly portraying ancient Egyptians coveting and hiding the Secret of the Ages, plus other similar exciting historical dramatizations. It brings us up-to-date with a modern boardroom of executives using their knowledge of "The Secret" to expand their wealth and power. It lists historical figures supposedly privy to this secret – Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Edison, Shakespeare, Einstein – although backing this up with no supporting evidence. The implication is that I could achieve similar heights of fame and accomplishment if I were to follow the upcoming advice contained on that very disk. The onscreen pundits worried me, e.g. a New Age Minister, a Quantum Physicist.

Then they revealed "The Secret."

Called "The Law of Attraction," it basically means that thinking things makes them happen because of “quantum effects.” They express this visually as a shock wave emanating from the head that, when passing things nearby, causes the world to fall in line with one's expectations: one "attracts" what one expects. The video is not content, however, to suggest that a good or bad attitude makes you see the world in a better or worse light and leads you indirectly to obtain these things you are thinking about. It's not content to suggest that these waves emanating from our brains are metaphorical. It really suggest that, for example, if you worry that you will be stuck in a traffic jam, the quantum waves from your brain will cause the traffic to jam and make you late. They back up their magical promise with irrelevant ramblings from their Quantum Physicist, and a dramatization of an Aladdin-style Genie – a 20-foot-tall black bodybuilder – granting our every wish.

That was enough for me. I've sent this disk to you since it seems to be a fairly loud cannon blast. Defenders of the rational need to know of this incoming missile from New Age woo-woos.

Thank you, Scott. I’ll look this over and have my own comments, anon.

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The Anticult
I guess that is why you rarely see a cult leader "quit". Can anyone think of one?

Assuming Jesus Christ was real, didn't he quit by accepting his fate on the cross?

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Vigilant
Connie's Site is [www.cosmicconnie.blogspot.com]

That's a great find, Vigilant!

Regarding your mock-Oprah scenario, it's kind of sad how predicable it has all become. This wacky New Age stuff yearns for the same things and responds in exactly the same way. It must get frustrating for the fools and idiots to live such a stubborn life of DENIAL. I mean, thinking for yourself is kind of dangerous and involves lots of hard work. Dangerous because they might drown in their own thoughts (and what a vast, empty ocean it must be); hard work cos' they have to read (and I'm not talking The Da Vinci Code - yuk!). But, more importantly, this wacky mindf*ck stuff is about hiding from one's vulnerabilities. In a culture of WIN, WIN, WIN, it can be very painful to have to accept LOSE ... perhaps, a bit like being afraid of the dark.

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Jack Oskar Larm

But, more importantly, this wacky mindf*ck stuff is about hiding from one's vulnerabilities. In a culture of WIN, WIN, WIN, it can be very painful to have to accept LOSE ... perhaps, a bit like being afraid of the dark.

Yes! Fear of one's own vulnerability; fear of one's SELF, in other words. Dangerous stuff. The antithesis of psychotherapy, growth and healing yet marketed as such. In lgats, people are phobic of being dubbed losers. Afterall, everyone in the group wants to surround themselves only with WINNERS, so if you're a LOSER, no one wants to be around YOU! You are banished from the pack by way of being shunned.

And isn't it funny - a sad, old cliche - that we attract or become what we fear, ie. something like, if you're scared of spiders you'll be more aware of them. So, if you fear failure and/or being vulnerable and/or submissive and/or being a complete idiot - PRESTO! - you become that!

What were we saying about the Law Of Attraction?

So I watched, painfully, the horrendous second episode of Oprah's Infomercial for The Secret, Part 2, of probably 10 in the next year.

It was actually much worse than I thought it would be. There were absolutely no critics allowed to speak at all. Zero. There was one lady would was a Christian who had some problems with it, but they just blew her off with rapid-pseudo-babble.

So this show was literally a full-hour hard sell Infomercial for these products. Its clear Oprah believes in them personally, and is using her influence to get her audience of millions to believe them.

They had wall to wall TESTIMONIALS from desperate people. There were people saying just HEARING The Secret "changed their life in 24 hrs". Yeah? Talk to the fat, depressed, divorced, jobless people in about 2 weeks, or 6 months, to see how excited they are then.

Its clear with shows like this, Oprah is running the worlds biggest LGAT. Hearing these manic testimonials with tears, you felt you were in a Landmark testimonial pitch.
You had desperate people with horrible pain and clinical depression, claiming 24 hour Miracle Cures, people with their eyes bugging out in a Manic state, talking about an Awakening, and Transformation. Oprah came right out and said the ONLY reason she is doing her show is to create "MOMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION" inside people. That is the LGAT moment. She admitted what she is doing to people.

Oprah is running the worlds biggest LGAT in the world with tens of millions of people, and she knows it, and runs it very carefully, to produce the desired effect.

Oprah said her entire TV show is really about The Secret, she is a total believer and told people to "Follow The Secret".
She has also become extremely arrogant, she says this is the way the Universe is, its The TRUTH.
Power Corrupts, and its clear the power has gone to her head. She said she is literally doing the Work of God. She really said that, that is what she believes.

By the way, Oprah said those who are mediocre, criticize those who are excellent. She repeated it 5x, so that means she is excellent, and her critics are mediocre, and jealous of her.

Oprah has also unleashed 2 more new Age Gurus on the soccer moms of America to be milked like fattened cattle.

James Ray: who is a new Werner Erhard type, very slick and sleazy, and who is a Tony Robbins clone, repeating Robbins exact words verbatim, over and over.
He said there is World Peace in HIS world, because he ignores the world.
Oprah just crowned this sleazy salesman James Ray the new Werner Erhard. There were some horrible complaints about this guy on the Oprah boards, people getting ripped off 10K, and lots of people burning their feet in his "fire-walk" and not being allowed to go to the hospital. This guy is very bad.
[jamesray.com]

Michael Beckwith: is a slick guy, gift of the gab. He calls himself a Dr., but he is not a real doctor, he got a diploma a few years ago from the church of Religious Science, and then left their church, and started his own church. He claims 10,000 members, whereas he is listed as having 2,500.
This is Oprah's pet-project, maybe her new Dr. Phil.
This guy needs to be watched, he has started his own church, and is asking for cars, leases, gas money, phones, whatever you got, he'll take it!!
These guys have taken their sleazy DONATE page down, to hide it from the Oprah public, but its in the google cache.
[64.233.167.104]

So Oprah is selling this to her followers, with all of her power and influence. The reality is that Oprah is running a type of personality cult around herself, its a consumer cult, she says what to buy, and they buy it.
Power corrupts, and its corrupted her, like it would pretty much anyone else.
She is surrounded by acolytes, and the reality is that everyone around her will go along with her, as you would have to be nuts not to. Get on her show, you sell a million books. That's why Power Corrupts!!

I give Oprah an F on this.
My view is Oprah is running the worlds biggest LGAT, by her own words she wants MOMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION for her viewers, same thing as an LGAT wants.
Oprah is an extremely talented performer and persuader and communicator. But its clear its gone to her head, and now she thinks she knows the Secrets of the Universe, and she is going to get her legions of followers...to follow her. And they are mostly following her.

I have not watched her show really for a few years, but what I say in this was very ugly, and very sleazy and manipulative, and dishonest.
As they say, money talks, bullshit walks.
That's life. You don't get to be a Billionaire by magic, but you do by mass persuasion, which is what Oprah is doing.
And she's proud of it, after all, she is doing Gods Work revealing the Truth of the Universe to the unwashed multitude, and saving them from their clinical depression, joblessness, lonliness, debt, illness, no health insurance, and misery.

I thought Oprah was on at 3PM so I tuned in because I want to see it. Something different is on at 3, and guess what one segment will be about? You guessed it! John Gray, a Secret "teacher", will be talking about the law of attraction. Maybe Oprah's on at 4. I'll stay tuned

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question lady
Thanks for posting the link Anticult.

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The Anticult
Wow, look at the 'teachers' (cons) The Secret people are referring us to!
[shop.thesecret.tv]

I see that "The Sedona Method" guy, Hale Dwoskin, is there. My husband got sucked into the other strain of the Lester Levinson following called "The Release Technique" marketed by Larry Crane.

But I do have to admit they sometimes get quick results. Only 5 weeks after "The Release Technique" seminar, my husband "released" our marriage. We are separated now.

It is probably just my negativity that attracted this to me. Although I am generally a very positive person, I was definitely negative about Sedona/Release. Maybe I can buy one of those rocks and attract a man who can see through this kind of B.S.

Question lady, when I "lol-ed" earlier at this, I did not know that your husband very recently "released" your marriage; I just saw that in another thread. I was not laughing at that, not at all, as I know how insane and horrible can be the effects of lgats on relationships (happened to me with my sister). I laughed at your humorous way of saying what you did, also not knowing that it wasn't some time ago that your husband left.

I didn't watch the 'secret' horror show on oprah today. Sounds nasty though!

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Power Corrupts, and its clear the power has gone to her head. She said she is literally doing the Work of God. She really said that, that is what she believes.

I don't know if power has corrupted her but I most definately believe she is DECEIVED by it. If she's using her influence to sway others, she is believing that her power is intended for doing just that. She may be right but she is accountable for how and toward [i:b498bb75af]what [/i:b498bb75af] she sways those who trust her. Its not a freebee thing. If she is misleading people, sooner or later she will have to take responsibillity for it. Just like all the others will. We may not ever see it publicly but it doesn't matter, those directly involved with harming/deceiving/misleading others will see and know the weight of their error. I don't believe in karma but I do believe that we reap what we sow, sooner or later.

If she were doing the work of God, she would be encouraging people toward God versus detouring them toward the universe He created. That's where I shake my head at those who say stuff like 'just throw it out to the universe', or 'that's how it is in the universe'. The people who believe in the universe are convinced they have tapped into the ultimate power source in existence. I say they are deceived because I believe that there is a God who not only Created the universe but is the true ultimate power. The universe has as much power as any other natural creation we know of, and that's it. No more than a tree or a rock has the power to make you rich or healthy.
Maybe Oprah is serving a god, but it isn't the One who said not to have any other gods before Him. The universe being turned into one of those gods. Maybe I'm just being a bigoted Christian but I don't think the universe will ever disprove what I believe.