Every social group I have ever investigated has tricksters, that is people who speak or act out the group beliefs in a particularly charming way and earn a living doing so. The honest ones call themselves entertainers, and they sing, write, speak and act out the stories that members of the group believe and enjoy. The dishonest ones present their stories as The Truth, or themselves as The Saviors, and claim some sort of special access to The Truth.
Once a person accepts as authentic these dishonest con artists, that person leaves herself or himself open to all sorts of exploitation - financial, emotional, sexual and spiritual. The usual rewards of money, power, prestige and adoring followers seem to adequately answer why con artists exist. For myself, the interesting questions are: Why is it so easy for hoaxers to attract believers, what are the mechanisms they use to convince others they are telling the truth when they are lying, and what tools can we learn to protect ourselves from being taken? I write this article not to discourage anyone from spiritual training and exploration; quite the contrary. But I encourage people to avoid blind followership and being taken for a ride.
Authenticity in every field is a big problem, whether in medicine, law or other licensed professions, in telling real art from forgeries, in finances, in judging safety in food and drugs or in any subject that impacts our lives. There is so much counterfeit U.S. money circulating in the world that the United States just issued new $100 bills. The stability of trade throughout the world is made possible by the authenticity and stability of the major world currencies - the U.S. dollar, the yen and the German mark. Times when these currencies have become unstable have not been pleasant, particularly for those not at the top of the food chain, so these currencies' authenticity has significant consequences for everyone who works for a living.
It's because the stakes are high that con artists abound. A very popular and lucrative method used to separate people from their cash is to become a member of a group, whether a church, golf club or professional society, and then begin helping the group members invest their money. Often the "expert" who is helping others with their money claims "inside information," whether from friends inside the system or divinely or psychically inspired. The con artist has enough capital to pay off the initial investors extremely well; then word gets around, and the second or third wave gets taken to the cleaners.
Investment manias have on occasion swept across the world, such as the "tulipomania" craziness in the 1630s where individual bulbs became valued at thousands of dollars. Many ordinary working-class people jumped in and bet their life savings on tulips, only to have the bubble burst. A good book to read about human foolishness is Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, by Charles McKay. It devotes 100 pages to the "witch mania," again showing us how lies can impact people.
Similarly, the scientific world usually has a scandal going in some area, where a major researcher is found to have either been careless with his or her data or to have faked the whole thing. Though decisions that affect the daily lives of most citizens are based on scientific data, most people are not scientifically literate enough to be able to evaluate "scientific" claims. Becoming scientifically literate entails quite a bit of hard work, so not that many people bother. But it's worth considering that, particularly in the social sciences, it is much more difficult to do research that actually produces useful data than it is to design a study, whether deliberately or through blindness to one's own bias, that "proves" the opinion of the researcher.
Professional liars are found in every community and occupation. Some have pretended to be doctors and performed surgeries on patients before they were unmasked. Others have claimed to be war heroes or escapees from concentration camps. Some lies and hoaxes are criminal; others just self-serving. For example, a white man who murdered his wife lied and told the police that a black mugger had forced his way into their automobile, killed his pregnant wife and attempted to kill him. A massive manhunt of a very racist nature blossomed. It ended when the man's brother went to the police with his suspicions, and the man committed suicide rather than face punishment for killing his wife and unborn child.
Those who do personal spiritual work might be interested in considering the ever-growing list of spiritual teachers who think themselves deserving of financial support from their followers. An apparently endless number of people, past and present, widely accepted as spiritual teachers, guides, leaders, advisors, experts and so on, claim to have been initiated into indigenous religious traditions by the elders of those teachings, or to have had similar experiences that give them the authority to teach, accept students or followers and be financially supported by their followers. The only problem with many of these folks is that they simply made up their stories. Most of them continue to stick to their lies in the face of contrary evidence.
Who are these people who lie for money and fame? Certain self-labeled Christians, who claim to previously have been "Satanists" (and remember, pagan equals Satanist in the minds of some non-pagans), have been exposed as frauds by Christian investigative journalists. It is fairly common for a spiritual con artist to claim previous experience in another, rival religion, only now to see the light and the way to the true religion - a typical version of "Trust me, I'm on your side."
Michelle Smith, who wrote Michelle Remembers in 1980, started the "satanic ritual abuse" fiasco that is now beginning to wind down. After millions of dollars have been wasted, hundreds of people prosecuted and, via "repressed and recovered memories," tens of thousands of people convinced that their families and themselves practiced rape, murder and cannibalism for years, insurance companies are beginning to refuse to insure therapists who practice such hokum.
Still, there remain perhaps as many as 50,000 people in the United States alone who have been convinced, via hypnosis and other trance work guided by therapists and self-help groups, that they were "satanically" or otherwise tortured and need to be in therapy, dependent on the therapist or self-help group for years in order to recover. Unfortunately, this craziness has been exported to Australia, New Zealand, England and Canada.
Smith is far from being the only self-proclaimed former Satanist. Mike Warnke, who claimed to have been a satanic high priest, wrote The Satan Seller, a book about how he came to Jesus via the low road. On the book jacket, he also claims to have been several other kinds of hero - obviously a very shy and retiring guy. None of it is true, and his books and records are no longer sold at Christian stores. He did very well for a while, however, undoubtedly in the process causing a great many people to fear pagans as well as Satanists.
Lauren Stratford, who wrote Satan's Underground: The Extraordinary Story of One Woman's Escape, popularized the idea that evil Satanists captured and held women, impregnated them and later sacrificed their babies. Stratford is another total fraud exposed by Christian investigative journalists. She continues to write and speak as a "survivor" about the "backlash" against those who are trying to expose the satanic conspiracy, especially at conferences for therapists who specialize in treating satanic and other ritual abuse. A number of these therapists have been successfully sued for the mayhem they have caused in people's lives.
We pagans also have our share of hoaxers who feed our fantasies. They are of varying levels of duplicity. Most of us at one point or another have fallen for the stories of writers such as Carlos Castenada with his crotchety old teacher Don Juan; Lynn Andrews with her ability to find women spiritual teachers in every undeveloped part of the globe willing to initiate her into all the deepest women's mysteries, in spite of her ditsiness and reluctance; Lobsang Rampa with his Tibetan fantasies; Marlo Morgan with Mutant Message from Down Under, yet another poorly written book with an underlying worthwhile ecological and spiritual message used to aggrandize the writer and romanticize the natives; Frederick Lenz, a.k.a. Rama, with his latest, Surfing the Himalayas: A Spiritual Adventure, which recounts the adventures of Fred in Tibet when he runs into a guru who convinces Fred to study with him because of Fred's "past-life achievements as a meditator and occultist"; and various others who teach elevator-music versions of indigenous traditions. The National Congress of American Indians, among others, has criticized the marketing of indigenous religious traditions to a spiritually hungry public.
These people encourage spiritual seekers to be "tourists" or consumers of flattering fantasies rather than doing the work of having a spiritual practice. Many people find it annoying to hear someone question the authenticity of their favorite source of spiritual teaching. If it is because you do not like to face it when you have fallen for a liar - oh well. That is how we all learn, and everyone will be suckered occasionally, particularly by oneself.
In some cases, believers say the teachings are so worthwhile it does not matter if the teachers are lying. Is lying harmless? If it does not matter whether a teacher has gone through the initiation he or she claims, does that mean the work the rest of us do toward our own initiations is irrelevant? Personally, I feel those who lay claim to spiritual knowledge based on falsehoods demean the effort it takes to wake up, since their own awakenings were mostly luck, according to them. (Or they were recognized as "the one who the legends told about," or "the one who appeared in the dreams.") But each person will have to decide individually if a teacher who lies should be accorded the respect given to a teacher who writes and teaches from actual experience.
While all of these books and teachings speak to the underlying hope of people living in this confusing high-tech age that somebody somewhere has a clue, they also speaks to our willingness to accept shoddy writing if someone labels it "fact," and our willingness to close our eyes to reality if someone keys into our hopes and dreams. Many of these books are very interesting and contain useful spiritual information, but in my opinion, they would be more valuable if the authors had labeled them as novels or "inspired" works rather than as factual accounts. Those who lie may be doing so unnecessarily, as many famous and successful teachers list dreams, channeling, meditation or other nonphysical sources for their material and still manage to attract those three F's - fame, fortune and followers - so desired by charming cons.
Carlos Castenada probably did an extraordinary job of library research for his earlier books, and much of the information is authentic, or close to factual. (His later books appear to have a much looser relationship with known indigenous traditions.) But while it is a lot of work to put in those library hours, it is undoubtedly easier than hanging out in the Mexican desert with snakes and bugs. Reaching enlightenment is much sweatier than doing research.
In other books, though fiction does not completely masquerade as fact, authors mix fact and opinion without making a serious attempt to warn the reader which is which. Riane Eisler in The Chalice and the Blade takes the excellent work of Marija Gimbutas and extends it deep into "women are inherently good, men are inherently bad" territory. Chaos scares all of us, but we don't have to pretend that women by virtue of their gender have a special ability to save us from the future. We need not romanticize the Goddess to follow her.
As Eisler mixed historical fact with wishful thinking and conjecture, James Redfield carefully skirted any statement about whether The Celestine Prophecy was fiction or fact for as long as possible. The book is now sold in the fiction section of bookstores, but so many people thought that he had really gone to Peru and that the Peruvian government was trying to suppress this information, the Peruvian government felt obligated to issue a denial.
The Celestine Prophecy sold almost 6 million copies, and Redfield's latest, The Tenth Insight, is also on the best-seller list. These books glamorize spiritual truths, while cleverly assuring us we boomers really are leading the world to enlightenment and - this is the best part - with very little work on our part.
Lying or bending the truth for a living is a path chosen by many. In looking at the research about liars and being able to spot them, it became clear to me the only really reliable way to tell if someone was lying is to examine what they were saying and determine if it is true. Without training, most people use emotional and body-language cues to determine truthfulness. In the studies, a truth-teller who was told to fidget and act funny was often labeled a liar by those watching. A sincere-appearing, relaxed, self-assured liar was often believed. The studies also show that people are more likely to believe information that flatters them, agrees with their own beliefs or claims to provide information that will make them safer or give them some sort of edge over others.
So there you have it. A spiritual teacher who promises you much, asks for your faith rather than that you learn to learn and who seems to be living well off followers' finances may not really have your spiritual well-being at heart. Smooth delivery and flattering answers are also clues to con artists.
I hope that this article has not discouraged anyone from becoming a spiritual seeker, and that it has provided some useful information to evaluate those who claim to lead. But I also hope those who feel drawn to the spirit will not be easily taken in by those who wish to exploit their desires and empty their pockets. The New Age is a $13 billion a year business.
When I began researching the information for this article, I was quickly overwhelmed with examples of those who lie for gain. No wonder we have become so cynical. But we do not have to ignore our common sense to feed our spirit. Magick is still alive.
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