What a lot of people miss about the New Age is that in philosophy and tone, it is very much aligned with latter-day conservatism and the sorts of things we saw happening, say, at AIG and Goldman-Sachs before the f all. The Secret , after all, is nothing if not wildly, irredeemably, unapologetically aspirational. Along with its philosophical sibling movements in the megachurches — such as that run by our friend Joel ("the gospel according to Vera Wang") Osteen — The Secret legitimizes the idea of endless upward mobility and a reality in which wealth is not zero-sum, but in fac t can be attained by everyone everywhere at the same time if "you just want it enough." Secret alum Lisa Nichols says it flat-out in the very title of her CD: " You Deserve It !" In the world according to Rhonda Byrne and her (pseudo-)philosophical protégés, every man (and woman) is an island, and all of those islands are the Caymans . Both The Secret and cons ervatism encourage a...
The "best of" a blog that published almost daily between 2005 and 2016. On life's scams, shams, and shames.