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Last September, I published on our homepage an article entitled ” Do You Want to Know a Secret? “—my response to the depressing news of the phenomenal success that is that exercise in New Age dimwittery The Secret .

Seeking to profit from the general public’s inability to distinguish true religion from gimme-gimme hokum, I invented my own magical mystery con, entitled The 7 Laws of the Key .

Would you believe that, since the publication of my article, at least two books have come out referencing the power that is “The Key”?!

Am I credited anywhere with inspiring this glut of flapdoodle? Forget it. If you’re going to lead the gullible masses away from the narrow gate that leads to life down the broad road that leads to the unquenchable flames of hellfire, where the worm never dies and there’s nothing but reruns of Scrubs 24/7—at least do so honestly . But to plagiarize! If I had a lawyer, I’d sue! Why, if I had a lawyer, I’d probably be making enough money that I wouldn’t have to sue—I could just go home about now and take a nap.

Instead I see that the Oracle that is Oprah has succeeded in selling the public on another bit of faux-spiritual malarkey entitled A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose , written by the same man who brought you The Power of Now (a sequel, I believe, to Zen and the Power of Then ).

“Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness?” Tolle asks in A New Earth , with all the wide-eyed wonder that it is possible to muster while contemplating the redwood trim on a new Bentley.

O what I wouldn’t give to break through with a 336-page paean to self-aggrandizement of my own! O the joys of soft-soaping the soap-opera crowd with the promise of dreams manifested and a cholesterol level in the 180s!

Dear Reader,

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