Tetherd Cow Ahead

Few things annoy me as much as complete out-and-out pseudoscience, but one of those few things is motivational/aspirational vampires speakers like Anthony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. While I have no doubt that some motivational speakers really believe what they’re saying, and have the best intentions to make people’s lives better, it is certain that many of these lecturn-huggers are nothing more than carnival sideshow spruikers selling a glimpse of a two-headed chicken. ((And in most cases a glimpse of a two-headed chicken would be better value for your dollar.))

Normally, I can’t be bothered with these idiots, but when they spam the Reverend, well then, they’re fair game.

Today I received an email extolling the virtues of some guff called ‘Brain Power – Peak Performance Training’. The person we can expect on stage with the boater and cane is someone called Mark Jansen, whose credentials are so ephemeral that an extensive Search™ turns up little more than a bunch of links back to his Brain Power site. ((Assuming he is not also the lead singer of a heavy metal band.)) The number one endorsement of Mr Jansen on his spam email comes from a personage named Max Kaan, who does have some credentials… as a stage hypnotist. I leave you to reflect on that for a moment.

I don’t aim to reproduce the entire Brain Power spam here – it’s long-winded and tedious – but it does have a few clangers that I know you will appreciate.

The email begins with a bunch of questions, among which are:

Oh no! Not again. The hoary old ‘we only use 10% of our brain’ myth. Man, that thing has been thoroughly debunked for the better part of two decades – if it ever had any credibility in the first place.

Then we have:

Accredited expert Mark Jansen will help you understand and unleash your innate Brain Power. It’s the fascinating bridge between logic and magic…

Uh-oh. The only bridge between logic and magic is of the precarious long wooden suspension kind, with frayed rope at both ends and a lot of slats missing.

With Brain Power Peak Performance Training, you can, so the email promises, enjoy many benefits, including:

8. Access the Infinite Potential that resides inside everyone; and not just the Einstein’s of the World.

Infinite Potential that is not quite infinite enough to cover grammar, punctuation and sentence structure, it would appear.

Elsewhere on the Brain Power site (oh yes, I visited) we find a lot of dreary guff about all manner of things, including numerous references to ’emotional intelligence’, a staple of touchy-feely fringe psychology which basically says that if you’re not actually intelligent then that’s OK, because there’s another kind of intelligent which is probably the kind you’ve got! There’s no way you could really be genuinely stupid right? Especially if you’re thinking of spending your hard-earned Rand ((Mark Jansen and his buddy Max Kaan are both South African. As is the location of the seminar being advertised. And for this they spammed probably millions of email accounts worldwide. Now that’s brain power.)) on a Brain Power seminar.

They also wheel out this piece of insipid idiocy:

While reason will allow you to solve a linear mathematical problem, a creative brain will allow you to find inspiring solutions that are beyond the obvious. Eg:- E = MC2

Oh for fuck’s sake. Like other snake-oil venders with whom we are familiar, the ‘brains’ behind Brain Power are spewing out the only piece of ‘high end’ math they know because they think it will be impressive. Well, impressive it may be to the Zombie Armies of the Emotionally Intelligent but any genuinely intelligent person can simplify out that equation for this special context to mean: ‘I am an ignorant twat! Look – I have a Rolex!’.

The site also has the most boring and least informative FAQ I’ve seen in quite some time, which asks only one relevant question and provides an illuminating answer:

6. Is it worth it?

That will be up to the individual. If the attendee absorbs the material and applies the concepts daily, it can and will have the effect of changing one’s life. In terms of value, twelve years of research on the Human Brain in one day. How does one place a value on knowledge?

Alrighty! There we have it – the old Get Out of Jail Free card. You can fork out for Mr Jansen’s seminar, but if you walk away the idiot you were when you handed over your money, then IT’S YOUR FAULT! Perfect!

It remains for us to ask only this question of our own – if Mark Jansen’s ‘Brain Power’ is so successful at turning people (including himself, if he’s behind his own product) into Einstein’s, ((Einstein’s what????)) what the fuck is he doing spamming me and schlepping around the motivational speaking circuit?

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King Willy points me to a site where ‘Melbourne’ ex-smoker and mom ‘Rachel Bell’ on her ‘A Mom’s blog about beauty, cosmetics & staying young’ tells us of a wonderful new discovery that has totally changed her life!

My name is Rachel Bell. I live in Melbourne, 07 (sic) and I want to tell you how I changed my teeth from being something I was ashamed of to being something I’m proud to show off. This teeth whitening trick changed my life and I hope it can change yours too. I’m not a dentist, doctor or medical expert, I’m just a mom[tippy title=”*”]If you really want us to believe she lives in Melbourne you stupid twats, then you’d best do some homework and find out that no-one in Australia spells it like that…[/tippy] who stumbled upon a special combination of two different products that work wonders when put together. This is my story.

This is Rachel:

Isn’t she wholesome-looking? Such a lovely honest girl. This is what Rachel’s teeth looked like before the astonishing teeth-whitening process:

And this is what they looked like after.

Yes, Cowpokes, the two amazing products that Rachel has discovered for whitening her teeth are called a computer and Photoshop!

I’d like to find out more about Rachel, and maybe get a few more of tips for staying young and looking beautiful, but golly, it looks like she’s only made one post on her ‘blog’. And, sadly, the comments to it are closed ‘due to spam’.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t link to it. I think Rachel probably already gets an ample quotient of visitors.

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*If you really want us to believe she lives in Melbourne you stupid twats, then you’d best do some homework and find out that no-one in Australia spells it like that…

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I dunno. The catchy slogan isn’t really selling it for me. Lose weight with your mate? It’s not like setting out on a hang-gliding adventure or forest walk together. “C’mon honey! The bathroom’s free! Now’s our chance to update the Captain’s log!”

At least we can be sure that they gave this concept to the right advertising person – someone who was totally full of shit.

(Spammers are sending me a most perplexing and inane variety of stuff lately – I’ve had them trying to sell me everything from sandals to magic wands (yes, that’s right – “magic” wands – not big penises). And psychics! I must get at least twenty advertisements for psychics per day. This tells me one thing for certain – they’re really not psychic. Otherwise they would have a very clear picture of what I would do with them – Hint: it involves large quantities of MaxColon)

For an atheist such as myself, one of the most aggravating things about dealing with the religiously inclined is countering the attitude that, since I don’t believe in any fatherly supernatural deity, I must therefore be entirely wanting of a moral compass (because where could I possibly get any guidance without it coming from Heaven?)

It seems to me that I don’t really need to try too hard to demonstrate that just because someone believes in God they necessarily behave any better than I do. The discussion should be an open and shut one.

Take the above piece of email spam that I received this morning, and the usual caveat attached to such efforts:

The fact is, Mr Jesus Joy, that you are plain lying – you got my email address in exactly the same way as You Need a Psychic!, Supersized Tomato Plants! and Fat OFF Now! got it: by buying a list of email addresses from some filthy rotten scam merchant.

Funny how, that even when you have Jesus to guide you, you do no better than a porn merchant or a swindler.

This just in:

From: Jesus Dawkins
Subject: Classy watches for people from any economic class.
Date: 28 May 2009 1:59:12 PM
To: reverend@tca.com

The only thing that differs our fantastic watches and brand watches is the price. Instead of having one timepiece you can have five or ten. Who would reject such an offer?

Putting on our semiotic hats we can read the real message beneath the subtext here: Jesus Dawkins is surely the Antichrist offspring of God and Richard Dawkins, so this message can’t be anything other than a sign that we should watch for the End Times.

Nothing.

Sob.

She’s found someone else, I just know it.