If you want to understand the blind alley NewAge leads you down, first you have to understand the landscape:
As Fleming reiterates about this period, “The mainstream of European thought was not materialist but sacramental. In the sacramental view, the material and visible world paralleled another that was immaterial and invisible.” Science, magic, religion — they are all attempts to understand what is hidden from us, and sometimes the three blur together. Isaac Newton, as is well known, left hundreds of pages of notes on alchemy and astrology. Benjamin Franklin was a member of an elite Freemason Lodge called “The Nine Sisters.”
“The basic premise of occult knowledge is that a search for hidden causes in nature may lead towards something higher than nature: absolute wisdom, supernatural power or the divine.” Naturally such an ambition can readily verge on the heterodox, not to say the diabolical, given its echo of the serpent’s insidious promise, “You shall be as gods.”
Which we've heard from Oprah, Shirley MacLain, J.Z. Knight, Rhonda Byrne - all of 'em. And while everyone's laughing, they're taking our money - and believing it. Oprah's ruling. Get it?
You will if you add a dose of this guy for seasoning,...
Another movie with a NewAge theme (I've lost count of how many this is now) but in the case of The Bling Ring, the subject is it's effect on teens - and it sounds like Sophia Coppola got it right:
Though on the surface “The Bling Ring” is slight of aim and repetitive of structure, it is actually a slam-dunk conservative critique of American culture: As if with a checklist at hand, Coppola hits the collapse in Judeo-Christian teaching, decaying educational standards, loose ethics, broken families, drugs, Hollywood and a permissive criminal justice system. (Sex is missing — the only boy in the group seems to be gay, or at least more interested in trying on women’s pumps than getting in their pants. But these girls are so in love with themselves it’s tough to imagine anyone else meeting their standards.)
NOW we're getting somewhere, huh? C'mon, this could've been a TMR production. But get this:
It's a based on a true story!
Of course it is - I've been saying it's the real world for years.
And not only that, but while this movie could've been told from almost any point of view, Coppola even chose mine, in a blender:
...Watson, who is amusingly convincing as the vapid Nicki and does a flawless American accent, plays a kid who is being home-schooled by her airhead mom (Leslie Mann). Nicki has a foster sister, Sam (Taissa Farmiga) who is living in the house because her mother washed away on a tide of booze and drugs.
The mother is teaching the girls a goofball religion based on “The Secret” — prayer as catalog shopping,..
I am so there.
I finally caught Kumaré: A True Film About a False Prophet, and it was a little too cute for my taste. That's not to say I didn't like it, or can't recommend it (I did and can) but disliked director/star Vikram Gandhi's clever scheme to avoid the resolution he builds towards. Sorry, I can't say more without giving it away:
Get it, watch it, enjoy it, and then marvel we're here at all,...
“The more convoluted the explanation, the more unintelligible the practitioners are, the more people may be inclined to believe them. It makes it appear as though it is privileged knowledge, like real medicine and auto tech.”
Now, synchronize that with this one on L. Ron Hubbard's zombie schtick:
I was convinced that Scientology had layered meanings and that, by continuing, I’d become more “causative,” and less sucker. So, getting suckered here and there only served to confirm for me that I needed more Scientology, not less, because here I am getting suckered by other Scientologists. Stating it slightly differently, I figured there were enough hidden gems waiting somewhere, hopefully, that it would all be worthwhile. And to the extent things were getting costly and for little gain, I figured that I had to mentally commit more in order to get more gains.
The negative aspect of the Law of Attraction, the truly vile part of it is that, if you are sick, it means that you’re “attracting” negativity and sickness to yourself,...If you think happy, healing thoughts, you’ll be healthy. If you don’t, if you think unhappy thoughts, if you have the slightest bit of negativity, the slightest negative mood (no matter how intangible, as Chopra himself says), you’re screwed. Chopra said so. You bear the responsibility for it. Chopra said so, and the result is the negative energy being transmitted to your cells.
Now, after looking over how quackery, the occult, Scientology, The Secret, and Deepak Chopra interconnect, your Question Of The Day is:
What is NewAge?
Let me try:
A convoluted message, endeavor, or treatment that - since it's assumed to have layered meanings - can never be blamed for it's lack of success because, darn it, if you're really so damned special, you'll "get it" one day even if it kills you.
The focus of many conversations has been on how to free NPR of federal funding, so it can avoid this kind of circus in the future. But to serve the public, a news organization must be insulated from the will of its donors—individuals, foundations, corporations. Seeing this video of Ron Schiller disturbs me, but maybe not as much as imagining other meals with other prospective donors. What do they think they’re getting for their contributions?
That's easy to answer since, long ago, I did a few posts on Louise Hay - the so-called "Queen of the NewAge".
Hay is one of The Secret's crew of "Law of Attraction" phonies (collected by Rhonda Byrne and promoted by Oprah) along with this now-infamous "sweat lodge" favorite:
"Though you may not know it, you live in Louise Hay’s world. Are you a black man who thinks psychics are nonsense but reads the affirmations of Tavis Smiley? Hay House has a special imprint just for Smiley. Are you a TV-loathing snob who occasionally condescends to watch PBS? The pledge-drive specials that Hay House has produced for Wayne (“Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling”) Dyer have helped raise more than $100 million for public television — they are one of PBS’s most-successful fund-raising tools."
NPR's Muslim Brotherhood connection becomes more understandable when you see the second post we did on Hay, because this producer for PBS programming admitted to thinking the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves, and it was also revealed her publishing arm, Hay House, "was not, in the beginning, very well run, the staff was a cult,..."
I knew, one day, that was going to come back to bite her and PBS (why it didn't when it was first revealed will have to be left for another day,...)
Now, of course, I can hear you saying, "But Crack (and then thinking, "Butt Crack") that's PBS and this sting is on NPR."
I'll remind you that, as you can see in the first example (with Smiley above) something else Louise Hay got for her donations and participation with PBS was influence over what they covered - resulting in a three-night program like "PBS Tackles Happiness In 'This Emotional Life'" - as well as insertion in those programs, and their promotional spots, on NPR. Think about that:
An acknowledged NewAge cult leader getting airtime on government paid-for broadcasting.
Unfortunately, except for name recognition and promotion, it didn't seem to do her much good in certain quarters. Here's a conversation between Daniel Gilbert, the host of PBS' "This Emotional Life", and NPR host Madeleine Brand:
BRAND: You also delve into the multibillion-dollar self-help industry, and you interview a woman who is the - I guess the dean of it. Her name is Louise Hay, and this is what she says is the secret to happiness.
Ms. LOUISE HAY (Self-help movement founder): Happiness is choosing thoughts that make you feel good. It's really very simple.
BRAND: What is your response to that?
Mr. GILBERT: Well, I agree with her that happiness has something to do with choosing thoughts that make you feel good. I don't agree it's very simple. Long before Louise Hay, this is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, the most widely practiced kind of psychotherapy, that if we can change our thoughts, change our cognition, then we can also change the way we feel about the world.
I had to part company with Louise Hay, though, because she has more extreme beliefs than I do. She believes, for example, that we can cure illnesses like cancer, AIDS, leprosy, simply by changing the thoughts we think. And I don't see any evidence whatsoever for that. When I asked her about how she felt about the scientific evidence, she said she didn't think that much of science. So we have to part ways there, too.
BRAND: Um-hum.
Um-hum. But that, plus a background in NewAge cultism - and the stench of death from all the AIDS patients she gave wrong-headed information to - was never enough for PBS, or NPR, to get away from Hay. A cult leader. A NewAge fruitcake. She blames the Jews for being murdered. She oversaw the deaths of AIDS and cancer patients as she gave them bogus information. She doesn't "think that much of science".
Oh, what an important void PBS and NPR filled for the American public with this woman's input, huh?
Well, once they lose public funding, they're going to need her more than ever.
Not Rhonda Byrne - which would be bad enough - but the woman who also promoted James Arthur "Sweatlodge Deaths" Ray, plus got a girl raped at her school in Africa, helped kill a woman with cancer, destroyed another's face with a 30-minute makeover, and the endless parade of frauds and quackery on her TV show that Chris Matthews never reports on. And, of course, there's also the wonder of Obama, who Oprah dubbed "The One". Chris also hearts Obama. Obama sends a tingle up Chris' leg. Fraud must send a tingle up Chris' leg. Chris is a fraud. Chris used to be a journalist.
We watch things like this and wonder, not only how so many others miss it, but how ideas that are so patently wrong could ever catch on to begin with - to the point where they're the dominant thoughts in the corporate world. It paints a picture of a nation of idiots.
Your thoughts control the world? That's not Rhonda Byrne and The Secret - it's the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi! This is why we're always dissing baby Boomers and the 1960s - all of this comes from them being too stupid to see through it, and then inflicting it on the rest of us. (We've lost countless jobs because we wouldn't go along with this kind of thinking, and there was nothing we could do, and no one we could appeal to, to save our jobs because every imbecile in the organization "believed" in this NewAge nonsense.)
Another problem, here, is that Barbara Ehrenreich is a hardcore socialist. So, while we can accept her spot-on critique of destructive cultish NewAge thinking, we're also stuck enduring her gratuitous shot at George W. Bush which (as we have seen over the last few months) is nothing like his detractors have ever sold him as. Needless to say, when it comes to politics, we don't trust this woman and we suggest you don't either.
Otherwise, we think this video - and her book on the subject, Bright-Sided - are fine contributions to the emerging thinking on the perils of cultism in American society. We need more of it, and - as the Democrats continue to lose their grip on power - it certainly looks like we're going to get it.
Big thanks to Beth! Click the tags, below, for more on these topics.
First it was the scientists. Then it was Newsweek Magazine. And now it's The L.A. Times, but, still this crazy bitch doesn't listen. She helped bring about the era of "Hope & Change", but - more than any conservative on the planet - it's she who refuses to change the most. Listen:
Dear Ms. Winfrey:
I get it.
I understand why you have so many guests on your show offering advice about health. I'm not a fan of alternative medicine, but I know sensationalism sells. Stuff that stands up to scientific scrutiny often lacks the pizazz that makes for scintillating television.
And just because I'm not into aligning my chi or awakening my Tony Robbins giant within doesn't mean other people don't have the right to seek alternatives to modern medicine. I know you are interested in presenting the millions of people who watch "Oprah" with different options.
However, I'm concerned that some of the people you have had as guests on your show and highlighted on your website may have led you astray when it comes to your own battles with weight, a topic about which you've been admirably frank. For instance, it might be a good idea to get advice from a doctor who doesn't say things like many women develop thyroid problems due to "an energy blockage in the throat region" that develops over "a lifetime of 'swallowing' words one is aching to say," as your frequent guest Dr. Christiane Northrup writes in her book, "The Wisdom of Menopause," which you discussed and endorsed on your show.
You're not known for swallowing words, are you?
You seem to have an affinity for the Law of Attraction — the idea that your thoughts "are sent out into the universe" and "magnetically attract" your desires, as Rhonda Byrne explains in her bestselling book "The Secret" and discussed on your show — but I don't think you believe that you can achieve your ideal weight just by thinking about it.
Shut up, bitch. This is Oprah Winfrey we're talking about. She believes in any damned thing that can be pawned off on her gullible followers for a buck.
To paraphrase George W. Bush, that's what a cult leader does.
There's no point in trying to reason with her. She's rich and you ain't, and that's the only metric that anyone in the world has given a damn about for the last 25 years:
Fuck that girl who got raped by going to Oprah's school (wait - that didn't exactly come out right. Whatever: Oprah said it probably wouldn't have happened if she had spent more time interviewing the staff and less time picking out the sheets and curtains - well, yeah.)
Fuck everything, because nothing else matters except she's rich and you ain't, and that's the only metric that anyone in the world has given a damn about for the last 25 years.
Stupid thinking person. Leave Oprah alone so she can make enough money that, after she finally finishes taking you NewAge idiots for a ride, she can continue stuffing her fat face in peace.
And - we must repeat - James Arthur Ray was introduced to the general public by The Secret's Rhonda Byrne and, later, through promotions with Oprah Winfrey.
For over four years, the NewAge has been punishing anyone who is correct in their assessment of things - in favor of what NewAgers wanted to "believe". If we didn't have faith in their unsubstantiated Utopian NewAge bullshit (or their declarations of the "end times" if we didn't follow their lead) then it has been more-than-allowed for us to be pilloried, to death if necessary, as NewAgers entered politics and threw America's money and hopes and dreams down a fucking hole.
As a matter of fact, they insisted on it - they wanted applause - were you not entertained?
We told you, repeatedly, hanging onto American values - which started with utilizing The Macho Response - would win the day.
So, please, spare us the excuses now - about what you thought you were doing politically (with Oprah) or the wisdom of your current metaphysical insights (purchased from Eckhart Tolle and Rhonda Byrne) or how you view our lack of compassion (for socialists) or just our unwillingness to play ball - and be glad we didn't go in for more firearms training.
This long political/spiritual struggle is almost over - the tide is finally turning for sure - and the next one, to start destroying what the NewAge idiots thought they were building, is certainly beginning. Their lies are having no effect now, and are all going to (eventually) be exposed, for the rest of their sorry lives, if only as our entertainment.
Yea, we're all going to laugh at you, too - forever.
But believe it or not, because (so far) it's only ridicule, you sleazeball cultists are still getting off luckier than any of the individuals you decided to torment as a group:
"The Secret and Oprah's role in its wild popularity--she's devoted two entire shows to it and there's a 15-page feature on it at oprah.com--have already attracted censure: many reviewers have poked holes in the book's profoundly flawed central premise that our thoughts determine every circumstance of our lives, as well as its promotion of selfishness and self-delusion. But illogic and irresponsibility are not the extent of The Secret's faults. While many of the quotations Byrne uses to prop up her philosophy are shockingly divorced from their context, one has entirely eluded an extensive search for its origin: 'The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be,' attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson on page 183.
To be clear, what I've come to suspect--strongly--is that Rhonda Byrne may have made it up.
So what? you may be asking. The question came up a lot in discussions of Frey's dishonesty, and back then the only answer with any weight was that we value truth for truth's sake. Many readers were inspired by what they believed to be a true story, but it's hard to show that Frey's lies did any real damage. But The Secret has potential to cause tangible harm to both believers and bystanders."
Here is Oprah Winfrey hosting "the mother of NewAge", Louise Hay.
Using The Secret's "Law of Attraction" as a basis for her beliefs, Louise Hay blames the Holocaust on the Jews.
Like Barack Obama's Democrats, blaming America, George W. Bush, Israel, and anyone and everything else for whatever goes wrong during his administration, these are all messages Oprah seemed determined to give credibility and get out to the public.
Gullibility is the tax on American optimism. That tax was worth paying for most of our history. The Great Recession and Era of Cheats might change that.
Oprah Winfrey was almost as much the focus of Election Night as the Obama's were, but now - during a nation-wide discussion of the President's beliefs - it's almost as though our "spiritual icon" of the NewAge is non-existent to journalists.
It reminds me of when Kitty Kelly wrote a biography of Oprah and the press refused to promote it - these, of course, being the same unbiased journalists who overwhelmingly voted for Obama and are, even now, reluctant to print anything negative about him.
"Though the demonism of the Middle Ages seems to have disappeared, there is abundant evidence that in many forms of modern thought - especially the so-called 'prosperity' psychology, 'willpower-building' metaphysics, and systems of 'high-pressure' salesmanship - black magic has merely passed through a metamorphosis, and although its name be changed its nature remains the same."
-- Manly P. Hall, Secret Teachings of All Ages, pp. 101-2, late 1920s
Oprah Winfrey is a NewAger who, both, attended and then left Trinity Baptist Church - just as the President did.
Oprah Winfrey knew Barack Obama before he ran for president.
Oprah Winfrey held fundraisers for Obama's election.
Oprah Winfrey stumped with the President.
Oprah Winfrey told us he was "The One".
Oprah Winfrey said he would transcend us and transform us - whether we wanted it or not.
The President's beliefs are a mystery - even though the President, the First Lady, and other top-level Democrats have stated, in various ways, their desire to "save the planet"?
Or let's flip it around:
Are Michelle Obama's beliefs a mystery - even after she made the NewAge claim, during the election, that Barack Obama knew that "before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls"?
Are Michelle Obama's beliefs a mystery - even after her vegetable garden?
Is Michelle Obama's vegetable garden a mystery - after we know Michelle got hooked on Oprah's pal, Alice Waters?
"[Anthony] Bourdain is a food hedonist, and has little truck with those who want to load up our eating habits with moralism. Consider the way he wades into the so-called ‘Mother of Slow Food’ and the epitome of Californian organic, locally produced cuisine, Alice Waters. Bourdain notes that the labour-intensive, pastoral vision that Waters promotes means that either lots of the citizens of wealthy countries like America and Italy are going to have to take up farming again - unlikely - or ‘we’ll revert to the traditional method: importing huge numbers of poor brown people from elsewhere - to grow those tasty, crunchy vegetables for more comfortable white masters. So, while animals of the future might be cruelty-free… what about life for those who have to shovel the shit from their stalls?’
So Waters is not exactly his favourite human being: ‘And with Waters’ fondness for buzzwords like “purity” and “wholesomeness”, there is a whiff of the jackboot, isn’t there? A certainty, a potentially dangerous lack of self-doubt, the kind of talk that, so often in history, leads to actions undertaken for the “common good”. While it was excessive and bombastic of me to compare Alice to “Pol Pot in a muumuu”, it is useful to remember that he was once a practising Buddhist and, later, attended the Sorbonne.’"
And even though NewAgers were quite open in their (overwhelming) support for Obama's candidacy?
Really?
"Neither The Secret nor the rest of the prosperity gospel hype that Christianity is now plagued with comes with a disclaimer, but if the fine print were included, it would read like this. In case of a stock market crash and/or an entire economic crash, the shelf life of these claims is limited to one week...maybe.
It is also no secret that Obama stands in full opposition to the repeal of Roe V Wade and is openly endorsing gay marriage. By association, this is Oprah's stand as well and it will take more than her fifteen minutes of fame to sway over two hundred years of American faith in the sanctity of life and a reasonable national morality. America doesn't need a doctrine that sways in every new wind that blows across the fruited plains."
With only a slight change of focus, it is possible for an entirely familiar story to achieve a unique shift in narrative - with a look away, from being enthralled with charlatans, as a starting point - making it interesting to see how long the effect of Oprah's beliefs influencing the President will be allowed to remain, lost in the ether, for all the others dying for anything they can finally say they actually understand.
