* I’m not buying it.

Wisdom can’t be bought; it can only be earned.

In two days, any reasonably bright person can master all the terms and concepts one needs to pass oneself off as a New Age guru.

Dick Sutphen may have done just that.

Researching other things, I happened upon his Kickstarter page.  He allows that all his assets, including his intellectual properties, were “stolen” from him in 2011.  This happens to coincide with a messy divorce.  He sought crowdsourcing to finance the reconstruction of his empire.

His beliefs and teachings, as set forth there, are practically identical to mine.  However, I find no sense of wisdom in them.  Wisdom being of the soul and not the mind, it may be that terms and concepts cannot show it.  But nowhere in his story have I ever found any report of growth, of work, of effort.

Back in the 1980s, I was on a certain snailing list and so received a quarterly catalog of his products.  With no background or credentials, he sold these audios and videos of guided meditations, hypnotic sessions, subliminal suggestion, billed as being the most effective in the world.  I asked myself, “Where is the underlying science?”  All this seemed to have been given him in an instant.

I have visited his current web page, and find it no different.  The consistent message seems to be, “Buy this product, and it will transform your life.”  No growth, no work, no effort; no indication that one may ever face adversity in life.

He has that in common with the human potential movement, which — the denial that everyone sometimes finds oneself in outer darkness — may be why that movement finally collapsed.

Related:  Life in the outer darkness

Buy, buy, buy.

I’m not buying it.

Bye-bye.

Reblogged 12/19/24.