Sun 30 Jan 2011
Stare-way to Heaven?
Posted by anaglyph under Hokum, Insane People, Skeptical Thinking, WooWoo
[28] Comments
If you’re a purveyor of teh Woo looking to make yourself a few dollars at the expense of gullible people with damaged lives, what could be better than selling them water that does nothing, plastic cards that do nothing or plastic bracelets that do nothing?
Croation ‘mystic’ and healer, Braco, has discovered the answer to that question: you bypass the costly manufacture process entirely and sell 100% unadulterated nothing at all to your credulous victims .
This is how it works. Braco (pronounced ‘braht-zoh’) merely walks into a room full of people and stares ((Or ‘gazes’, as his followers say…)) at them. To understand the true magnitude of the vacuousness of this, you might like to watch Braco in action:
This kind of thing just makes me want to throw up my hands in despair. ((Or just plain throw up.)) Just take look at that audience of predominately white, affluent middle-aged women who probably owe everything they have to modern science, and wonder how it is that they have quite so comprehensively dropped their brains on the floor.
Braco’s website is a treasure-trove of idiocy and banality:
Experts are impressed that Braco has been able to have such a strong impact on his visitor, and began his work at the extraordinarily young age of 26
He began staring at people at the age of 26. Yep, that sounds like an extraordinary achievement. Why, I didn’t master the art of staring at things until last week!
Braco does not take any money for his help, he does not accept donations and the sessions are always free at his Center in Zagreb.
Can I have a job where I get flown all around the world and fêted at other peoples’ expense in exchange for doing nothing at all? Oh, and all those books and CDs I see advertised on the site. They’re free too, right?
“We all carry a seed inside, which can become a beautiful fruit one day.” – Braco.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anything quite so profound. I wonder if Braco came up with that all by himself, or if he has a team of writers?
Journalists and scientists who have studied Braco and his energy have been impressed by him and by the impact of his work
Braco’s website fails to give the names of any scientists so impressed. I think we can suppose that when they use the term ‘scientist’ they mean someone like ‘Doctor’ Charlene Werner or ‘Professor’ William Nelson. And as for journalists… yeah, they’re really known for their perspicacity.
Braco is a conduit for the Source energy that is not governed by linear time and space, and it instead unifies us beyond the constructs of the mind.
Or, to put it another way: ‘Baffling phrase appended to vacuous nonsense followed by equivocal waffling equals meaningless conclusion’.
And best of all, from the FAQ:
Children may be overburdened by the energy, so it is required that an individual be 18 years of age or over to attend a gazing session.
I wonder if they would explode?
Braco’s special thirteen-ray gold sun pendant (also sun earrings and rings) are ONLY available at live Braco events.
Oooh. I’d like one of those free pendants! They are free, right? ‘Cos, like, I know that Braco doesn’t make any money out of what he does… What’s that you say? $290??? But…
Braco himself does not explain the energy and the great healing and transformative effect this energy can have upon people.
It’s much easier that way. Provide a whole bunch of nothing at all and then avoid explaining why it works! The homeopathy crowd could really take a leaf from Braco’s book. All they need to do is dispense with all that tricky science stuff – things would be so much simpler!
Braco’s power is so strong that it can be lethal over the internet. Or something.
Whatever you do, don’t edit any of those Braco staring sequences into segments longer than seven seconds. Who knows what kind of chaos could be unleashed!
I leave you with this last fact from the Braco blog:
Special Travel Notice: Braco was officially granted an Extraordinary Talent Visa by the U.S. Immigration Department in October 2010. The approval of this specific Visa recognizes the importance of Braco’s work, and enables him to freely enter the U.S.A.
I want you to contemplate this deeply. The US Department of Immigration has given a highly sort-after ‘O’ class visa to some guy who does nothing more than stand on a stage and stare at the audience. That’s defined as an ‘extraordinary’ talent
Elsewhere, Braco’s power is explained as a phenomenon of ‘non local reality’. I think that’s another way of spelling ‘horse shit’.
His energy is even more astonishing, when you consider that he can short-circuit some people’s brains even before he gazes at ’em.
That would be the non local reality at work.
He is a conduit. You know, like sewer pipes are conduits.
He’s a conduit like Monster cables are conduits.
He’s at least a con.
Do it!
How often do you guys rehearse?
Nightly.
The Gaze works best if you have your hair cut into a mullet before submitting
And wear a pink shirt.
By the way, I forgot to thank you for discovering Braco and sending him my way! x (Now, can you get him to stop staring at me. It’s creeping me out).
I have no control over the gazer
You know why kids aren’t allowed, right? This kinda stuff is considered 18+ ever since the Emperor got himself a new outfit.
Kids *ask questions*.
And I wish I’d thought of applying for an O-1: they seem to be ridonkulously easy to get. Though it’s an “Extraordinary ABILITY Visa” – it says nothing whatsoever about talent. Abilities considered valuable, according to their FAQ, include: making fistfuls of money; getting journalists to write articles about you; getting your own articles published; being important to your own company; being able to test people on what you do.
The visa is mostly aimed at, and used by, the entertainment industry, though others can use it too. So, he’ll have got it as an entertainer.
Thinking about it, I’d love to see his app for that. I bet he’d come out and admit he’s just an entertainer on that.
I mostly work in the US under an O-1. I wouldn’t say that it’s ‘ridonkulously’ easy to get (you have to jump through a lot of hoops) but it does have the advantage of being unassailable; a successful challenge to ‘extraordinary ability’ is hard to sustain. Mind you, if I was a woo purveyor in the US, I’d be a little worried about Mr Braco coming in and stealing all the gullibility dollars.
What’s that you say? There’s a never-ending supply of those?
Oh, right.
Admit it, Rev.
You have an extraordinary ability.
That’s the only reason we Yanks ever have ya over here.
I thought it was because of my dashing good looks and sparkling wit…
You should trade them good looks for powerful gazes.
Yea, improve your gaze with sompm like this.
I’d pay to see me on stage looking super amusive!
Wow, I missed my life’s calling there
That may well be the truest thing you’ve ever said.
He looks a lot like the foolish middle aged women he’s fleecing!
I love the woman with the crazy eyes holding the microphone – I seem to remember her from the original video NM sent out a while back…
Bravo Braco, you’ve made it to The Cow, it’s all downhill from here my friend.
The King
The original Braco video that NM sent me was removed from the site unfortunately. I think I’m probably correct in assuming that this is because it featured more than 7 seconds of staring. Evidently no-one informed the Hawaiian tv channel of that limitation. It had rather extended sequences of Braco
standing on stage and looking like a twatgazing.Don’t got underestimating the power of the gaze, Reverend.
The conclusion that:
“…it may lead to a vicious cycle in which women are first objectified and, as a result, underperform, confirming the notion that women’s looks are more important than what they can do.”
… works both ways though. Attractive women (and men) are not averse to exploiting that phenomenon. In my experience, a good looking woman doesn’t de-emphasize her charms if she thinks it’s advantageous.
Just saying.
I wish you hadn’t shown the modified pronunciation of his name, because Brack-oh rhymes really nicely with wacko.
True enough, but given the circumstances I think that the rhyme (and the connotations) are poetically implied.