And so following friends disclosure about where she'd found work I did a little digging, and went down more than a few rabbit holes.
First of all, I'm not providing any links. This is a small town, and it's pretty hard to be critical of anything - especially reason - without it coming back to haunt you. But do a little of your own digging and you'll find that what I'm telling you is 100% legit. If anything I'm understating it. Anyways, to begin:
Charlatans and Mountebanks:
I'm intrigued, I mean, I know it's a load of BS but I do my own googling, find their website, a few of their webinars.
Watch the video. A no-name spiritual "influencer" is asking "the founders" nonsensical questions. It's an infomercial - essentially, for their spiritual brand of techno-karma. The influencer, he's in on it, gets a commission on every referral. They're spreading the wealth. The interview setting, the dress of the interviewers, the smile and mannerisms, it's all meant to subtly remind you of their spirituality - their inner peace and life's purpose realized in this - the age of anxiety.
I'm filled with a feeling - half of envy, the other of loathing First - why in the hell with all these crystals did I not invent a machine? I mean...they're making hundreds of thousands a month providing absolutely nothing but a sense of spiritual superiority.
No promises, careful about making promises, but they qualify with anecdotal examples, testimonials of how their raised consciousness beam has affected people, people calling in to talk about their experiences in the energy field - more friends, happier pets and plants, and a general feeling of raised consciousness.
One founder, he's explaining the "Machine" - well, first his background - he'd spent 3 years developing an "Over-Unity" machine - that's Perpetual Motion - before going bankrupt and deciding to turn his attention to something a little less empirical.
I recall James - the enlightened son of a former roommate of mine - who made films - 2nd rate films that emulated the formula of "What the Bleep do We Know?", filled with stock images of happy, vacuous people, exotic places, and interviews with quacks, charlatans, Yogini's, Anti-Vaxxers, feel good movies that promised the secrets to material abundance and eternal youth and great health, I look up his website. He's still around, a bad blue suit, artificial tan, uncannily perfect teeth. He looks like a bad evangelical minister who wants to talk about Jesus and how you can put your "seed" money or tithe on your Mastercard and never miss a payment. I always wondered why he needed to sleep on sofas, stay at his parents, but see his teeth? - he'll be paying for those until he dies. His website - full of the smug satisfaction of the "Enlightened", a section on "Suggested" interview questions and "News and Story Ideas", guidelines to ensure a friction-free experience for him and an unenlightening one for you. He has an online course in enlightenment that can be purchased; "Proven Methods" that can be found in a million places online for 0$, the implied superiority (he's not!), "His Passion" *(Your Money and unswerving adulation), a section of cornball pictures of him - every one of them photoshopped - meditating, doing yoga, speaking, on the beach, "Living Life", as they say, a brand that he himself can't even begin to live up to - but - for a few monthly installments he'd be glad to share with you his secrets...
CREDENTIALS FOR THOSE WITH NO CREDENTIALS...
Everywhere, the inanity of their titles, "Credentials" or "Qualifications" or "Skills" - Leader, Motivator, Healer, Shaman, Influencer, Mentor, Coach, Channeler, Sage, Prophet, Communicator, Personal Development, Educator, Visionary, Minister, Yogi, Swami, Pastor, Priest, Wizard...
***
Back to the Interview - the founders, the have a catchy brand, an Acronym, "Quackronym", that makes it all easy to remember: "Quantum Unified Assistive Convergent Kineseology", and they're still discussing "The Machine", this machine - it's an enigma, they don't' like to give away proprietary secrets, it's based on Tesla's secret notebooks, he knew (Always, always Tesla. He was crazy at the end - getting calls from the Venusians on the Wireless...they do know that, don't they?), sacred geometry, Shungite (for some reason popular in New Age circles), they misappropriate hip terms from science, phrases like "Quantum" and "Kinesiology" and "Homeopathic Nutrition" and "Epigenetic Triggers" in what can be seen as desperate grabs at legitimacy, they've expanded upon David R. Hawkins model of the "Hierarchy of Universal Consciousness" to include Dolphins, Bigfoot and Angels, and all the while they avoid discussing "The Machine", deflect, parry, reroute the conversation, and the way they're talking, you can tell, they want to be on a TED talk like the new Tesla, Musk, Gates, Bezos, Ikea, Ghandi, they've found the easy way to salvation - don't ask such difficult questions - merely send us your money, debit or credit card, and the Machine, it will work for you -
They Know, They Know, And - even if they don't - this willful ignorance, self-deception, is worse.
The interviewer/influencer obliges, turns the questions from the machine, and they continue tossing complements back and forth. Even he is a bit curious, but not so curious he'd risk losing a commission...
The quack mechanics that power The invisible machine that no one has ever seen must by necessity remain unknown. How does it connect to the internet? Is it possible that this energy, this chi, prana, aura, vibration, could descend, set fire to your house? Bring back a lost love or turn your wife to Salt?
The absence of answers is making me ever more curious. More webinars, a free trial, perhaps, is in order.
***
The website recommends you drink lots of water. Take Magnesium and Omega 3 supplements. Try to meditate twice a day. If you do all of these things you will feel the vibration keenly, you will be more open to the inevitable rise in consciousness the machine will indubitably provide. That said, not every is so delicately attuned they can feel the effects of the Machine. No, there are no pictures of the machine.
For subscribers to the website there's a little button that will give you a little boost of energy - sent to your home, place of work, telephone or license plate. It lasts 15 minutes. Every subscriber is allowed ONE boost per day.
"Giving Back" is done through hiring employees, there are no promises of free energy showers or food bank donations, nothing at all, merely we need people to help us to get rich. Phrased almost as bluntly.
For a moment or two I wanted to work there, go undercover, see if I could pass their "energy" tests, be a CSR to all the wing-nuts of the world, but really, I know myself better, I couldn't pull it off for 5 minutes. My interactions with fellow staff, though, clients: "Don't want to turn up the energy too much...can't afford another case of Spontaneous Human Combustion!!" ...I mean - what fun I could have...
***
Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Idiots! Every one! Did they ever build a machine? Make a million dollars? Fucking Ass-Holes!
***
Is it wrong? Really? I mean, a fool and his money will be soon parted and all of that. The cost of subscription gives you a feeling - that part of being something bigger, gives you that mindfulness, that focus, that awareness - why, the machine, it eliminates the 5G, for an additional...$X.00 a month you can cast it on your phone, your computer, your license plate, cast it on your friends, pay for extra boosts, turn up the frequency, it will mitigate all the negative effects of the EMF, the FM, AM Radio, it will bathe you in it's aura, leave you awash in the minute near imperceptible vibrations of enlightenment...
***
I'm jealous. I want to build my own machine, my own quantum-potentiator energy transducer, vortex-positron-grafenberg accumulator, style myself a mystic, healer, shaman and scientist, selling techno-spirituality to people who understand neither science or spirituality, fuck doctors I'll just wrap my crystals in the selected blends of copper, silver, gold wires, suspend coils, bend mobiles, create my own sacred geometries, I've considered it but the lifetime company of idiots, well, it's a bit more than I can pull off, sooner or later someone's going to catch me reading a book and the gig would be up, "EXPOSED!!!"...
***
I could go on. I mean, it's a damned big website full of resources and helpful life tips like: "If you can't afford the service the machine provides many former subscribers report getting similar benefits through cleaning their house". I'm not making this up. I'm not making any of it up, only the names and the Acronyms have been changed, and, now really, REALLY, I need to get a job...