Sunday, June 22, 2008

Let us prey


Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
~ Leonard Cohen,
Story of Isaac

"Story of Isaac" has always been one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs.* It was, of course, inspired by the Biblical tale of Abraham, who apparently hallucinated that G-d had commanded him to kill his kid, and was on the verge of doing so when the Lord said, "Never mind!" Of course if this incident had taken place today instead of in Biblical times, it would have been a local news story for a moment or two. Abe would have probably been locked up for a while, and Isaac, for better or worse, would most likely have been placed in a series of foster homes. And the world would have had one less puzzling Bible story, and one less lovely LC song. As it is, the story of Abraham and Isaac, like many Biblical tales, has been a subject of controversy for centuries.

Now, don't worry, Dear Ones; I'm not going all Bible on you or anything. I'll leave that to the true Bible experts in the blogosphere, such as Saint David of Victoria, who has likened his own suffering at the hands of his detractors to that of martyred saints in earlier times. These days, besides being a Law Of Attraction expert, star of The Secret, Biblical scholar and frequent though unwilling participant in Australia's Federal Court system, Saint David is a spirit-filled, faith walking Christian.

You've probably already guessed that this post isn't really about Abraham and Isaac. It's also not the first and won't be the last time I've co-opted a Cohen quotation to suit my purpose. Like many good quotations, this one works even better when taken out of context, and for me it works quite well indeed as an expression of the ambiguities of the New-Wage/selfish-help world.

I've snarked a lot about David Schirmer here because he's an easy target and I am a lazy blogger – more so these past few months than usual, due to having had so many other things to deal with. (I sincerely apologize to anyone whom I've bored with this stuff.) As you have no doubt guessed, most of what I've heard and read about Schirmer has been negative. Yet I've never hesitated to publish comments from the few people who have stepped up to defend him – or, more rarely, to attack me for snarking about him.

In the eyes of most people I've heard from on my blog, Schirmer is definitely more in the "vulture" category. But one or two people seem determined to put him up there with the eagles. He does have a few stalwart defenders, among them Aussie actor and sci-fi series producer Adrian Sherlock,** who apparently attended a Schirmer workshop, thought he got his money's worth, and really can't see what all of the fuss is about. In a recent comment to my January 30, 2008 post, "Journey To Fantasyland," he wrote:

It's important to remember that any human being who attempts to rise to a level of success above that of simply being an employee of someone else's company is going to face a long, complex and at times difficult life journey. How many people never make a mistake in their career or get fined for some infraction, etc? When the pursuit is so much bigger, the potholes will be bigger too. But the case you cite doesn't make the man a con artist or a bad person...

...If someone invested some money in the Stock Exchange and lost it, then they need to try again. Persistence and learning from mistakes is all part of the process of success.

If the people on ACA [the Aussie tabloid show, A Current Affair] are to be believed, then anyone who loses money should be able to get their stock broker on TV and say "This guy recommended I buy these stocks! I want my money back! He's a crook! Jail him!" What rubbish! The stock market's not a sure thing. You want the big returns, you take the bigger risks. They had a choice. But if that makes DS a monster, well, why only six people out of thousands of people? Why no complaints from the rest?

I'm being totally straight with you. I have not got any vested interest in the guy, I've met him once only. But he did me a good turn and I enjoyed his seminar. It was not over-priced, he was very frank and candid about things which had gone wrong in his life, everyone there seemed happy.

Con man? Proof required, innocent until proven guilty. And The Secret? One of the most encouraging things ever made, it's helped a huge amount of people. Fantasy land? Not at all. Without imagination, your house would be a pile of bricks. Someone needed to imagine your house and draw it first.

If you follow this link and scroll down a bit, you will see my reply to Adrian. I concluded it by telling Adrian that I will take him at face value when he says he has no vested interest in Schirmer's enterprises. However, I added, he does seem to have an emotional stake in the matter; something is compelling him to continue to defend Schirmer. I wrote, "Either you sincerely believe he's a stand-up guy, or you just aren't looking at all of the evidence."

Is Schirmer an eagle or a vulture? He seems to be doing everything he can to paint himself as the former, mostly by ignoring or glossing over any unsavory accusations. He's also still trying to ride on the coattails of those who are more well-known than he. Although Bob Proctor recently dissociated himself from Schirmer, Schirmer continues to feature Bob's wisdom prominently in his Succeed Magazine enterprise, and apparently in some of his email campaigns as well. I am sure he's within his rights to do that, as long as he doesn't actually try to make people think he's collaborating with Bob on anything any more. And I'm sure Bob isn't griping about all the free publicity either. But still...

Schirmer's right-hand man, Warren Henningsen,*** is exploiting the Proctor association in his own way as well. At least he's bragging about being pals with one of Proctor's assistants. Warren is perhaps best known in some circles for bravely protecting his boss last year when Schirmer hid in the men's room to avoid those vultures from A Current Affair.

On a recent blog post associated with his Powerful Intentions site, Henningsen wrote about how, after watching The Secret DVD back in November of 2006, he found Bob Proctor's email address and sent him an email. Lo and behold, not long after that he heard from a guy named Mark Low, who said he worked in Proctor's Toronto office:

[Mark] spent about forty minutes on the phone to me, letting me know that Bob had read my email and asked him to get in touch with me. I was beside myself!! I recognized this call as the first step toward my certainty that I would be working with the teachers of The Secret. Now, like me you are probably thinking that Bob, a man who has over one hundred and fifty different sources of income, and any number of businesses and conferences and speaking engagements to run and oversee, must receive a vast number of emails each day, how shocked was I to think that he had read my email and asked his “right arm” to contact me!!! Tell me this secret stuff doesn’t work!!!

True to his word Mark stayed in touch and we communicated by both emails and phone calls regularly, which continues to this day.

Wow...who says miracles don't happen? (I wonder how long Mark is going to stay in Bob's employ if he keeps hanging with DS's Mini-Me.)

More recently, Schirmer has really been playing up his association with Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale. Joe contributed an article to the April/May issue of Succeed Magazine, and then was featured in a cover story/interview for the following issue. When someone recently commented on Joe's blog about this association, Joe denied even knowing Schirmer or knowing that Schirmer had anything to do with Succeed Magazine until "after all was said and done." Uh-huh.

Undaunted, Schirmer bragged on his blog last week that he'd recently had another chat with Joe, this time a long and friendly one, which Schirmer is now promoting as a teleseminar.

It is clear that Schirmer is still getting all of the mileage he can out of having been in The Secret, as well as his association with his "co-teachers" in the world's most famous New-Wage infomercial. Meanwhile, there seems to be a lot going on in the background, and a number of things that have not yet been publicized. I'll be glad to share details as I learn them, and, yes, I'll do it whether they point to "eagledom" or "vulturedom" for Schirmer.

The David Schirmer saga, of course, is just one of hundreds of similar stories. In a broader sense, it is immensely difficult to judge whether the selfish help/New Wage is largely malignant or mostly benign. While I applaud the efforts of people such as Steve Salerno (thank goodness he has decided to continue SHAMblog), as well as anti-self-help-fraud activist John Curtis, and, of course, Rick Ross, I suspect that the truth lies somewhere squarely in between.

Few people from either side of the argument are willing to concede to that, however, because, gosh, it's just so boring.

Though I definitely err on the side of snarkiness on this blog, I have always stopped well short of declaring that the New Wage is either evil or dangerous. Unlike most of the defenders of the faith, however, I don't hold to the idea that critics are all pathetic, cynical, small-minded, fearful and deeply unhappy sorts. Maybe some are, but then again, I've seen loads of pretty pathetic stuff on the pro-New-Wage forums too.

And fairly frequently I hear from people who have experienced the darker side of the movement.

For example, I recently received a private email from a person who wanted to know if I could offer any information on another New-Wage guru I'd snarked about a few times. This person said that the guru had abandoned a child from a previous marriage, and now no one seems to know where the child is. My correspondent told me that the former spouse of the guru had been killed recently in an accident, and the dead ex-spouse's parents (friends of the writer) were desperate to know the whereabouts of their only grandchild. I put my correspondent in contact with someone who might have information or at least insight.

Of course I don't know the entire story. It could be that the guru and ex-spouse had an agreement about child custody and that it wasn't really a case of abandonment. However, given the apparent flakiness of this individual, I'm leaning on the side of believing my correspondent's spin on the matter. So many of these folks have left a ton of wreckage behind on their quest for the perfect New-Wage shtick.

Some apologists for New-Wage gurus have suggested I'm being too judgmental; after all, we all make mistakes and all that. Sure we do. I've made plenty. But I'm not going around making a fortune giving advice about how people should live their lives either. Even so, I'd still be willing to cut some of the gurus more slack if they didn't attempt to selectively exploit their private lives for their own gain. So many of them cherry-pick events from their lives in order to cast themselves in a heroic light, prompting their followers to ooh and ah over how candid they are. There's just one problem with this: the facts they leave out invariably tell much more about their character than the facts they choose to share. And I have personal knowledge of some of these folks' stories, so this isn't just hypothetical.

"Collateral damage" done to the families and loved ones of New-Wage gurus is one issue. The damage that can be done to followers and their families is another. There's no doubt that some people completely lose their heads when they get involved with a guru or group. Consider this recent comment on one of my posts about ACCESS Energy Transformation:

...my sister in law is doing some crazy things for this ACCESS group.She was left widowed with her two gorgeous little children, last July when my brother passed away within 6 months of being diagnosed with a brain tumour. She then got involved in ACCESS. The long and the short is that an american access 'chick' has moved into their home with them and my sister in law is having a sexual relationship with her!! we are so shocked and so worried for her kids and the confusion all this ACCESS rubbish is causing in their lives... she has already flown to Mission Beach leaving her kids with her mum in school holidays(!?) for another "course", came back declaring she is going to move to [Queensland] to live to help with the ACCESS school and become a teacher there!...We have suspicions this ACCESS woman that has moved in is probably some sort of converter or keeper...

The more I hear and read about ACCESS, the more patently absurd – and yet the scarier – it gets. I have to say that it mostly weighs in on the side of absurd, though. If you truly want to be left scratching your head and saying, "WTF?" , take a look at some of the videos of ACCESS presentations. You can find quite a few of them on a site called Potency Productions, which has nothing to do with male performance enhancement...well, on second thought, maybe it does. Anyway, I challenge you to try to make sense of, say, "Choice and the supermind" by Dr. Dain Heer, a chiropractor turned ACCESS leader. Or this one: "Facilitating through beingness." Almost puts me in mind of the last two paragraphs of a November 2006 post of mine, in which I lampooned another cult-like org called Avatar. It truly seems that the purpose of ACCESS is to render language utterly meaningless, and thought completely irrelevant. In return for losing the gift of meaningful conversation and your capacity for thinking, you get to have unlimited sex with anyone who who suits your fancy, as long as you don't try to actually enter into a "relationship" with them (horrors). At least I think that's how it goes.

So... is ACCESS helpful or harmful? Are the ACCESSories, particularly Dain Heer and ACCESS founder Gary Douglas (who reportedly "received" ACCESS from a disembodied being who in turn got it from the late Russian unholy man Grigori Rasputin), eagles or vultures?

That depends, I suppose, upon whether you're asking (1) the woman who is giddy with her newfound "knowledge" and infatuated with her ACCESSory lover, or (2) that woman's family.

It could certainly be argued that the whole "eagles or vultures" question is mostly a matter of individual perception. When it comes to self-help gurus, one person's eagle may be another's vulture, and vice-versa. Some may vacillate between perceiving any given guru as one or the other. And competent adults should have the right to choose who or what to follow without interference from what some refer to as the self-help police or the spiritual cops.

But I think we'd all do well to remember that despite the noble attributes often assigned to eagles (as opposed to the general disdain in which vultures are held), both are fierce predators and blatant opportunists – eagles no less so than vultures. An eagle will snatch a cute little puppy right out of your backyard if it gets half a chance. Moreover, like most other flying birds, even the most gloriously lovely, awe-inspiring eagle is not above taking a big messy poop in midair. So as you're driving down the road to enlightenment, watch out. You never know what might hit your windshield.

*although I prefer the version by Suzanne Vega, on the Tower Of Song tribute album, to the Cohen original
** Update, 2010: Not long after this post was written, Adrian apparently saw the light and ceased defending David Schirmer.
*** Update, 2010: Warren Henningsen has long since left Schirmer's employ and is now doing his own motivational thing.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

"So many of these folks have left a ton of wreckage behind on their quest for the perfect New-Wage shtick."

You said it best and that is the crux of all of this crap. Noone gives a toss if these guy get rich, want to be rich, want fame and glame, want their face on every book and magazine. The real problem is what they are doing to other peoples lives by manipulating the truth to make themselves appear the god figures. They all seem to have a similar theme going on, using and abusing people that they pretended to care about. They throw peoples lives into turmoil because some people really believed in them, trusted that they would do the right thing and trusted that the purpose of it all was so that everyone won not just them. What it has exposed is an enormous problem in this industry where pedaphiles and frauds and hucksters rain supreme. What they have achieved is that they have turned the majority of the population away from the very things that they were attempting to teach them but yes there is a sucker born every minute they say so they will always have a little following to support their ego and pad their pockets just enough to get to the next gig for the next high.

Sad sad life. Sad because it is totally dependent upon other people. These people could not possibly live self sufficient in any way shape or form.

This is the demon of this century, the one where no-one wins.

Anonymous said...

I read your blog and did a search on Schirmer and WOW. I just looked at david schirmers blog and yep sure enough he is stooping to USING his family to quote some story that is plastered all over the web (and probably made up like all that spam stuff is but it tugs at the heart strings so it's useful for these types of people). In true egotistical style the only things that get aired publicly are the things that can be used to manipulate people.

What about all the other crap that has apparently gone down in that family because if you look at the Federal Court there is enough to make you want to run and hide. I just can't believe that people stoop to such low levels to try to get compassion from the public when they know that the only reason why they are doing it is out of fear for themselves.

If that guy truly believed in a higher power he would say nothing publicly but he would live it and he would grow the balls to confront his accusers and make amends. In my view his life has been ruled by lies and greed and I have no sympathy for whatever situation they find themselves in as a result.

Its as if they feel they are above the law or above the power of the higher powers.

To use family and friends in an attempt to persuade the public to feel sympathy towards them is criminal in my view. That shows just the type of person he is, very shallow and selfish and I don't care who he thinks he is. Lets face it the guy has admitted spending his whole life pretending he is something that he is not and now he teaches other people to do it. How deluded can you get.

The majority of the public and probably even including the people who are accusing him have not begged for sympathy like this guy does. He is just using his smalle minded perceived place to manipulate the public and that is really wrong in my view.

There I've had my bit to say.

Anonymous said...

Some people see value in using ficticous stories to make money for themselves.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/alligator.htm

Sick!

Anonymous said...

Whatever Schirmer gets involved with becomes tainted, no matter what it is. Schirmer is neither a "share trading" or a "personal development" guru, and whatever the merits or otherwise of those industries they do exist and there are some credible people in them.

Schirmer is simply using them as fronts to extract money out of people, and has no understanding of them or care for anyone other than himself.

Whatever inductry he decided to get involved in he would be that one bad apple in the bunch that discredits that inductry. Every industry has them, and the share trading and personal development industry has Schirmer.

But like everyone that lives their lives scurrying around in the shadows their misdeeds mount up over time until eventually there are too many to hide.

Lies, deceit and immoral actions all come to light eventually, and the light is getting quite bright in Schirmers world these days.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing" - Schirmer is now experiencing what happens when good people have had enough.

Anonymous said...

An eagle is a PREDATOR and a vulture is a SCAVENGER

both suit.

Cosmic Connie said...

Caroline wrote:
"These people could not possibly live self sufficient in any way shape or form."

Caroline, you make some good points. But even though many of the New-Wage gurus are leeches in a sense, I do believe that there are some who sincerely want to do good in the world. Then there are those who start out sincere and relatively benign, but let fame go to their head.

Whether they're "good" or "bad," most of them are clever marketers who have defined (or in some cases created) a need in the marketplace, and are fulfilling that need, or at least are convincing others that they are fulfilling the need.

I still have to say, as I always have, that on the one hand I'm grateful that we live in a culture where people *can* find creative, nontraditional ways to make a living. We need alternatives, what with the traditional job market being in flux (corporations downsizing and outsourcing in order to save money, etc.). But the same climate that creates genuine opportunities for victims of downsizing and outsourcing -- or people who are just plain burned out in their careers -- also creates opportunities for scammers. The New-Wage field is wide open because so many clients seem unwilling to inquire about a leader or teacher's background or even to question their credibility in any other way, for fear of seeming judgmental, negative, small-minded, or resistant to change.

Cosmic Connie said...

Thank you for your comments, Noreen. When I read Schirmer's blog post I immediately recognized the gator story as one of those disputed, probably-an-urban-legend things. Of course Schirmer isn't really trying to imply that this happened to anyone in his family; he's just saying his brother-in-law sent him the story. Nevertheless he is exploiting this probably fallacious tale to make a point.

Cosmic Connie said...

Thanks for the link, Anon 9:07 PM. That story did reek of "urban legend."

Cosmic Connie said...

Bruce, thanks for your comments and insights. It's interesting that Schirmer is still marketing himself as a stock market expert, even though he is focusing more on the selfish-help/New-Wage market these days.

Cosmic Connie said...

Peter said...
"An eagle is a PREDATOR and a vulture is a SCAVENGER

both suit."

Thanks, Peter. Actually, eagles and vultures are both considered birds of prey. And even though vultures prefer carrion, some species will kill live prey, especially the sick, wounded, dying or newborn. And even though eagles prefer live prey and can get sick if they eat carrion, some species aren't above feasting on roadkill.

All things considered, I wouldn't want to invite either one to dinner. :-)

Anonymous said...

Peter's comment reminded me (yeah, I'm a bird nerd) that, when America was debating what the national bird should be, Ben Franklin was totally against the Bald Eagle, due to its tendency to be a scavenger and a bully who stole food from other birds instead of hunting for itself.

Sure enough, the Wikipedia entry on Bald Eagles mentions his complaint, and many websites contain the pertinent text of Franklin's letter to his daughter about the choice. Franklin called the Bald Eagle "a Bird of bad moral Character" and a coward.

Not that I know anything of substance about any of the parties mentioned. I just thought it was a funny coincidence, given the topic.

Anonymous said...

Great comment mojo and worthy of noting. What type of bird or animal preys on its own? That might be more appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Well, I like animals in general, anon, but I've never been that huge of a fan of imposing human morals on a wild animal's instinctual behavior. I make the distinction of a wild animal only because I've owned dogs in my time who are so obviously GUILTY when they've done something wrong they practically punish themselves. So they've assumed some sort of right-and-wrong code, at least to save themselves from being yelled at. Humans at least have the capacity to change their behavior, but animals mostly run on instinct. I understand it's metaphorical, but there are times I think it's just not fair. If I REALLY don't like someone, and they get compared to an animal, I start sticking up for the poor animal.

I have a particular fondness for "underdog" animals that aren't cute and fluffy, or have the misfortune to eat disgusting things, since they are the most often misunderstood and vilified. Weasels, snakes, vultures etc. can't help doing what they're designed to do. Many times, too, their real behavior is radically different from the stereotyped image people have of them--wolves, for example, are nothing like snarling maneaters. Like Connie said, the truth is usually somewhere in between, which is nowhere near as interesting as the extremes.

Still, the question got me thinking--and the first thing that popped into my head was, of all things, a cuckoo. Not "cuckoo" in the slang crazy sense, but because many types of cuckoo birds don't bother building nests. They're parasitic. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests and make THEM do all the work. Every time I hear some gauche seminar huckster bragging about how he uses some MLM referral program and now "the money just comes POURING in and I don't have to lift a finger!", it somehow reminds me of all those pictures you see of a big fat cuckoo chick, completely outgrown its nest, but still being fed by its tiny, duped foster parents.

Like this picture here (assuming Blogger doesn't automatically throw this in the spam pile--I cut it into two lines so it might fit the column better):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/5/5c/Reed_warbler_cuckoo.jpg

Uncanny, huh? Right down to the big mouth!

Anonymous said...

Do I see a certain likeness to the person in discussion here in your image? The one in the middle is spot on. Beak, stance, puffed up, arrogant, I'm god get out of my way thing going on.

Cosmic Connie said...

Mojo, thanks for your input on the history of the bald eagle as the US national symbol. You also make some good points about the dangers of anthropomorphism.

BTW, I too have a fondness for "underdog" creatures (and that includes many species of "cold-blooded" creatures as well as many invertebrates too). As for wolves... having once experimented with having a wolf for a "pet," I know they're not the snarling maneaters (as you put it) that they're made out to be. OTOH, in no way are they suitable as pets, as I learned the hard way.

As for the "cuckoo" comparison -- I couldn't have put it better myself. :-)

Cosmic Connie said...

Anon 6:26 PM: Well, I didn't choose that pic because of any resemblance to any particular individual, but now that you mention it... :-)

Anonymous said...

I reckon a leopard because:

1. A leopard never changes its spots.
2. It stalks its prey, it slinks around pretending its not doing anything nasty until it is close enough to launch an attack.
3. It moves through its prey by showing its white fluffy underside fooling its prey that its friendly.
4. They are competitors and go out of their way to avoid one another because life is a competition or territory, food and females.
5. Its home range overlaps that of several females.
6. They growl and spit and roar when angry and purr when everything is going their way.
7. They urintate and leave claw marks to mark their territory and act very threatening to protect what they perceive is theirs.
8. They seldom stay in the same place for long need a variety of females and more exciting territory where they continue the competition always attempting to always be the winner.
9. They are the most secretive, ellusive and shrewdest of the large carnivores.
10. And they are capable of killing prey larger than themselves.

Ah but they are preyed upon by man, who covets their skins and fur and take great joy in showing them off. Their weapons are much more sophisticated and just one tiny bullet pulls them up dead. You see the leopard never took into account that just one tiny thing would be the very thing that will end it all for them. So yes, I think its the leopard.

Anonymous said...

LOL, Awesome and perfect!

Anonymous said...

Somewhat on topic: The good urban legends research people at snopes.com have a great word they've coined for inspirational stories involving terminally ill children, miracles, puppies, angels, etc. They call it "glurge". Glurge is defined as "chicken soup with several cups of sugar added to it" and they have a whole section of their website devoted to examples they've studied. Very entertaining.

Off topic, so feel free to snip: A belated "welcome to the sticks" to you, Connie, along with the vast array of internet choices available to us ultra-rural gals. (Rubbing two sticks together, or hamster on a wheel? Your choice!) Since you're bandwidth-challenged, you probably can't click on any of the videos (poor quality anyway--I need to redigitize), but the video stills make some pretty pictures, and perhaps might explain a bit about my shady background:

http://www.mojocrap.com/craptacular/node/152

Mojo is now known by the sordid company she once kept! Though from the sound of things on this blog, I STILL could have done worse, eh?

Cosmic Connie said...

Anon 8:06 PM: Re the leopard analogy -- I think you have the makings of a bestselling book there! :-)

Cosmic Connie said...

Hi again, Mojo! Don't worry about getting off-topic here; besides, I've blogged a few times about the joys of country livin'. Thanks for the welcome. I love living on the Edge of Nowhere; there are new pleasures to be discovered every day. Then again, that may be partly because I am easily amused.

This morning, for example, I was in the master bedroom and saw a bug on its back, struggling to right itself. At first I thought it was one of those smaller roaches (an underdog species I truly *don't* care for). I was just about to send it on to its next life when I noticed it was kind of skinny for a roach. It had to be something else, I thought. My suspicions were confirmed when it made a clicking noise and flipped itself aright. I was absolutely thrilled because I LOVE click beetles and had never seen such a big one. I gently picked it up and took it outside and freed it, enjoying the feel of the "clicking" against my fingertips as I carried it.

Like I said... I'm easily amused.

But wow...a really big click beetle! IN the 'burbs we only had tiny ones.

Anonymous said...

Schirmer quotes "The only difference between shocking failure and wildly successful is your mindset. How you are applying the law of attraction..."

Funny but to me his life appears a shocking failure but he probably considers hes successful because hes been successfully screwing people over for years it seems. It also looks like hes got away with it for a long time or for as long as he could shut people up maybe. I'm not sure you could consider the results very successful now but maybe that depends what results you are looking.

I personally consider him a loser in every way.

Anonymous said...

The funniest thing about the David Schirmers of this world is that they get up on stage and spruik about who they believe they are not realising that not manypeople out there really believe them then when they get told what people really think about them they spit the dummy and say they are being picked on so they start blaming everyone but themselves. Sound like school yard bitch sessions? I think it is incredibly amusing and they are satisfactorily making their crap even less believable.

Anonymous said...

I don't believe David Schirmer knows how to look inside himself and take responsibility for his own actions. He is still using Bob Proctors name despite the court orders so it appears that he enjoys flirting an arrogant and disrespectful attitude to everyone including the judges. Now the world can see for themselves what an arrogant prick he is. God who would want to do business with someone like that? Where is Joe Vitales head?

Anonymous said...

"Both are fierce predators and blatant opportunists"

What an achievement for a legacy.

Anonymous said...

I recently attented a seminar for Bob Proctor. He was at the seminar promoting his Bob Proctor Coaching Program. I decided to join his coaching program and feel I had to write a review about my experience with it.

I must say I was completely unsatisfied with his coaching program. It was not what I thought it would be and it definitely was not worth the $7000 that it cost me.

It was a coaching program that I feel was full of broken promises. First off, they make the coaching program seem as if you will have direct contact and communication with Bob Proctor. For $7000, I thought I would at least get to talk to the guy for a minute.

The program is basically this:

1. Mastermind groups that are from people all over the county that you have once per week for an hour. Nobody even supervises the calls. Somebody on Bob Proctors team shows you how to do them and then you are on your own. You are stuck on the phone once per week with complete strangers from all different walks of life who have all different occupations.

2. You are sent books and material to read throughout the year.

3. He has a few calls monthly that you can call in and listen in on. Most of them are pre-recorded and you can't even ask him any questions even if it is/was a live call. As soon as the call is over he hangs up.

4. The only contact you have with him are emails that he "supposedly" responds to. If I was a betting man, I could almost guarantee that one of his staff members, either Barbara or Carol, are responding for him. He is probably just sitting back laughing and counting his money.

To me, a coaching program should hold you accountable to stay on track. On this program nobody cares about you at all. They could care less. They get their money upfront, then you are screwed when you realize it wasn't what you expected.

I actually cannot believe that someone can get away with charging someone $7000 for this type of program. I just hope somebody reads this review and saves their hard earned $7000.

Cosmic Connie said...

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Anon 1:49. Come to think of it, they sound remarkably like some of the experiences others have been having with a certain Miracles Coaching Program that is aggressively promoted by one of Scientist Bob's b.f.f.'s.
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=123414