The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby divideandconquer » Sat Feb 01, 2014 1:17 am

This is kind of interesting considering the topic:

Revealed: How the CIA helped Disney conquer Florida and buy super-cheap land that is 'above the law' http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309291/How-CIA-helped-Disney-conquer-Florida-buy-super-cheap-land.html

It appears Disney World is its own sovereign nation complete with its own underground government and laws.They have total immunity from state and local land use law. Celebration, Florida is a town that was planned, zoned, wired, and controlled by Disney. There is no elected government in the 11square mile town with approximately 8,000 people. Many people compare the people--both male and female-- of the town to the "Stepford Wives",
On the day of the magic kingdom's inauguration, Walt Disney, speaking from beyond the grave in a recorded presentation, boasted of creating a new kind of America. 'By turning the State of Florida and its statutes into their enablers, Disney and his successors pioneered a business model based on public subsidy of private profit coupled with corporate immunity from the laws, regulations, and taxes imposed on actual people that now increasingly characterizes the economy of the United States.'
[...]
Disney and his advisers then sought a way to 'limit the voting power of the private residents' of the area, to control the impact that local democracy might have on the company's plans...employed a scheme devised by senior CIA operative Paul Helliwell to establish two phantom cities... The cities were based around Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, two artificial reservoirs Disney engineers created by obstructing the area's natural water flow. The company could then 'use these fake governments to control land use and make sure the public monies the theme park generated stayed in Disney's private hands, Teams of Disney lawyers... drafted the legislation to establish the two pseudo-cities, passed by the Florida legislature in 1967.

One night I watched Jimmy Fallon interview a very popular actress (I forget her name), who grew up in a town near Disney, and strangely enough she said many other popular young stars grew up in the same neighborhood, either on the same street or right around the corner from her. Now I wonder if that town was Celebration, FL I wish I could find that interview because I thought it was so strange.

Internalizing Externalities Through Private Zoning: The Case of Walt Disney Company’s Celebration, Florida http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/132444/2/10-2-1.pdf
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Luther Blissett » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:13 pm

This awful person I grew up with defended the elite libertarian eden explained herein:

How theme parks like Disney World left the middle class behind

When Walt Disney World opened in an Orlando swamp in 1971, with its penny arcade and marching-band parade down Main Street U.S.A., admission for an adult cost $3.50, about as much then as three gallons of milk.

Disney has raised the gate price for the Magic Kingdom 41 times since, nearly doubling it over the past decade. This year, a ticket inside the “most magical place on Earth” rocketed past $100 for the first time in history.

Ballooning costs have not slowed the mouse-eared masses flooding into the world’s busiest theme park. Disney’s main attraction hosted a record 19 million visitors last year, a number nearly as large as the population of New York state.

But rising prices have changed the character of Big Mouse’s family-friendly empire in unavoidably glitzy ways. A visitor to Disney’s central Florida fantasy-land can now dine on a $115 steak, enjoy a $53-per-plate dessert party and sleep in a bungalow overlooking the Seven Seas Lagoon starting at $2,100 a night.

For America’s middle-income vacationers, the Mickey Mouse club, long promoted as “made for you and me,” seems increasingly made for someone else. But far from easing back, the theme-park giant’s prices are expected to climb even more through a surge-pricing system that could value a summer’s day of rides and lines at $125.

“If Walt [Disney] were alive today, he would probably be uncomfortable with the prices they’re charging right now,” said Scott Smith, an assistant professor of hospitality at the University of South Carolina whose first job was as a cast member in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. “They’ve priced middle-class families out.”

As one of the biggest man-made attractions on the planet, Disney World has led the way for the theme-park industry to boost its prices, often on a yearly basis. Universal, Six Flags and other parks in Orlando, Southern California and elsewhere have followed in Mickey’s big footprints, worried they will otherwise look like bargain-barrel runners-up.

Disney and theme-park leaders have defended their rising prices as a logical response to record-setting attendance, with Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler saying the company is “committed to ensuring all our guests have a magical experience.”

“We continually add new experiences, and many of our guests select multi-day tickets or annual passes, which provide great value and additional savings,” Wahler said. “A day at a Disney park is unlike any other in the world.”

But some see Disney’s magically ascending price tag as a reflection of the country’s economy, where stagnant wages and growing inequality have transformed even the way Americans take time off.

When Walt created Disneyland, this was a middle-class country. But Disney now . . . as far as pricing out the middle class, they think: What middle class?” said Robert Niles, the editor of Theme Park Insider, an industry blog.

“Disney’s made a strategic decision that they’re not going to discount to hold onto people at the middle part of the economy,” he said. “They’re going to set their prices at the top 10 percent of family incomes and make their money where the money is.”

Prices rise, but business booms

American theme parks were built on deep roots in middle-class family entertainment, having expanded as outgrowths of low-cost getaways such as New York’s Coney Island, dubbed the “Nickel Empire” for its thrift.

When Walt Disney, the cartoon and business mogul, opened Disneyland in Southern California in the mid-’50s for $1 a ticket, many expected it would fail. Most amusement parks then were raucous affairs, with free admission.

“I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible,” Disney famously said, “because dreams offer too little collateral.”

But over the years, as Disney’s movie and toy deals helped it explode into a $184 billion behemoth, its theme parks became one of Mickey’s most unstoppable moneymakers. Disney’s parks and resorts’ profits have nearly doubled over the past five years, to $2.6 billion in fiscal 2014.

Advertised for years as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Disney’s parks have continually set new visitor records: During the winter holidays, its Orlando parks hosted 250,000 guests at a time, chief executive Bob Iger told analysts this year. Attendance rose 17 percent last year at Universal Studios Florida, America’s biggest non-Disney park, because of the success of its Harry Potter-themed mini-towns.

Disney park admissions revenue has grown about 10 percent every year for the past decade, to total more than $5 billion in 2014, financial filings show. (That’s not including park food, drinks or merchandise, which brought in another $5 billion.)

The parks have faced little resistance, even as prices have climbed. Tickets for the Magic Kingdom were increased 6 percent this year, to $105 plus tax, while entrance to other Orlando parks — Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Universal Studios — can’t be bought for less than $90.

Those costs have in recent years helped shunt tourists to smaller regional parks — but many of those have raised prices as well. Six Flags, which runs 800 rides across 18 North American parks, increased prices last spring and now charges $62 at its Maryland park. At American theme parks, per-person spending has climbed 33 percent since 2008, to about $56.23, data from the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions show.

Park watchers have worried that the rising costs are blocking out wishful visitors, especially because a third of the Americans visiting the country’s theme parks are younger than 18, data from industry researcher IBISWorld show. In a report this month, the Themed Entertainment Association, an industry group, called “the continued stagnation of -middle-class incomes” one of its biggest challenges.

But as long as places like the Magic Kingdom can pull in more than 80,000 visitors a day, experts said the industry is happy to profit off a richer clientele. In recent years, Orlando tourists’ average household income peaked at about $93,000, more than $20,000 higher than the average U.S. household wage, data from the tourism bureau Visit Orlando show.

The price hikes won’t slow until the park sees a dip in demand, experts say. If anything, Disney is experimenting with how to persuade parkgoers to pay even more. Disney surveys sent last month to guests suggested the giant was considering a tiered pricing structure that would clock peak-time “Gold” tickets, during summer and winter holidays, at $125. “Bronze”-level $105 tickets would allow entrance during less busy times, such as weekdays.

Wahler, the Disney spokeswoman, would not say whether the pricing would change, adding, “We regularly survey our guests on a variety of ideas.” But analysts said it could prove to be one of Disney’s biggest, boldest pricing hikes yet.

“They’ve been aggressively raising pricing because they’re looking at themselves as a premium price, a premium brand,” said Scott Sanders, vice president of pricing for Disney’s parks and resorts between 2004 and 2009.

“Every child feels like they’re entitled to a Disney vacation, and I think they’ve played off that, letting the emotions lay in until the family says to do it. They’re recognizing they can capture demand across the price curve. So why not take advantage of what people are willing to pay?”

Catering to ‘Wall Street dads’

Disney says it has made an effort to keep its gates open to all, offering -packages such as multi-day tickets and yearly passes to help balance out the costs. The “Magical Express,” a free shuttle from the airport into the sprawling park’s center, also shepherds tourists past the rental cars and rival attractions that would allow them to spend more time and money outside its gates.

The fun-per-hour value of the experience is still high, Disney executives say, because a tourist can spend all day there (as opposed to, say, a blockbuster movie). They add that higher gate prices have helped Disney invest in new, better attractions.

Disney World last year spent $425 million to expand Fantasyland, marked by the opening of a new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster. Next spring at Epcot, Disney will retool its Norwegian-mythology flume ride, Maelstrom, into Frozen Ever After, where visitors will float past a skating Olaf and Elsa in an ice castle, singing “Let It Go” amid a sparkling, simulated snow.

But much of the recent innovation in the theme-park industry, experts said, has gone toward retooling it as a playground for the rich and their kids. The industry has increasingly “stratified its offerings,” said Sanders, Disney’s former pricing -executive, by offering more to attract visitors like “the ‘Wall Street dads,’ who have the obligation to bring the kids to Disney but want to do it as quickly as they can and are least sensitive to pricing of anyone.”

Parks now offer a variety of special upgrades aimed at the vacationing 1 percent, including after-hours parties, dine-with-princess events and guided tours such as SeaWorld Orlando’s “Private Elite VIP tour,” which bumps buyers to the fronts of lines and allows them to feed dolphins, sea lions and rays.

Disney’s two Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutiques sell a $195 pampering for little girls that includes a makeover, hair-styling, a costume and a princess sash.

The luxury has found its way back to the hotel room, as well. The Polynesian Village Resort — one of Disney World’s first themed hotels, where rents started at about $29 (or $171 in today’s dollars) — reopened this year with stilted Bora Bora Bungalows that can cost up to $3,400 a night.

In August, Orlando’s first five-star resort, a Four Seasons, opened on the Disney grounds, with a 1,000-pound chandelier imported from the Czech Republic and rooms starting at $449 a night.

With gilded offerings like that, Disney clearly has something going for it, and few expect the park will lose its luster with American vacationers anytime soon. If anything, the ascending prices could help solve another of Disney’s problems, by thinning its snaking lines and relentless crowds.

But that hasn’t stopped some Disney lovers from mourning a time when the magic of parks like Disneyland, the “happiest place on Earth,” was something nearly everyone could enjoy.

“As a business professor, it’s the right strategy,” said Smith, the University of South Carolina professor. “But as a kid who started there with his first job at 16, steeped in the tradition? It does make me sad that something that was set up by Walt, who wanted all families to be able to spend time together in a fun atmosphere and be able to afford it, is going by the wayside.”
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby 82_28 » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:19 pm

That's super "funny" because when I was about 21 or so we spent like $60 bucks apiece to get into Disney Land. We came from a stint in Vegas and I did not want to go at all. As soon as I got in there I said to my friend let's just leave, last night I lost the amount to come into this line-land with no alcohol and no smoking.

Also as a kid my entire family wanted to go to disney land and I demanded knott's berry farm. So that's where we went. Who knows? But I have always hated Disneyland. It must be my "inner Hugh" and love for PKD combined or something.

But Pirates of the Caribbean WAS cool. Now it's all "spruced" up with Johnny Depp bullshit from what I understand.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:05 pm

Via: http://www.glennbeck.com/2013/01/10/tak ... dependence

(Nick Land called this "NRx Disneyworld" which is almost unfair to NRx but they're a tough lot, or at least they better be)

What are the American Dream Labs building towards? Glenn gave a look at the big picture that everything is building towards: Independence, USA!

While Independence is very much a dream at this point, the proposed city-theme park hybrid would bring several of Glenn’s seemingly disconnected projects into one place. Media, live events, small business stores, educational projects, charity, entertainment, news, information, and technology R&D – all of these things would have a home in Independence. With the rest of the country and the world going away from the values of freedom, responsibility and truth, Independence would be a place built on the very foundation of those principles. A retreat from the world where entrepreneurs, artists, and creators could come to put their ideas to work. A place for families to bring their children to be inspired.

The ambitious project, projected to cost over two billion dollars, has been heavily influenced by Walt Disney. As Glenn has been explaining throughout the week, Disneyland was originally intended to be a place where people would find happiness, inspiration, courage and hope. Over time, Walt Disney’s original vision has been lost. While hundreds of thousands still flock to the town, it’s become commercialized and the big dreams and the heart have been compromised.

Glenn believes that he can bring the heart and the spirit of Walt’s early Disneyland ideas into reality. Independence, USA wouldn’t be about rides and merchandise, but would be about community and freedom. The Marketplace would be a place where craftmen and artisan could open and run real small businesses and stores. The owners and tradesmen could hold apprenticeships and teach young people the skills and entrepreneurial spirit that has been lost in today’s entitlement state. There would also be an Media Center, where Glenn’s production company would film television, movies, documentaries, and more. Glenn hoped to include scripted television that would challenge viewers without resorting to a loss of human decency. He also said it would be a place where aspiring journalists would learn how to be great reporters.

Across the lake, there would be a church modelled after The Alamo which would act as a multi-denominational mission center. The town will also have a working ranch where visitors can learn how to farm and work the land. Independence would also be home to a Research and Development center where people would come to learn, innovate, educate, and create. There would be a theme park for people to recharge and have fun with their families.

People would also have the option to live in Independence, with a residential area where people of different incomes could all come together and be neighbors. While Glenn was clear that Independence, USA is very much a dream at this point, viewers and fans should watch both old shows and new shows to see how Glenn’s various projects all have their tie to this one place that currently exists only in Glenn’s vision. But just because Independence doesn’t exist yet, it doesn’t mean the American Dream Labs aren’t starting to build the pieces. The Dream Labs are currently working on special effects technology that would be featured in Independence in this summer’s The Man in the Moon show.


Edit: I'm putting this in the Florida thread because, come on, where the fuck else is this going to be?
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Zombie Glenn Beck » Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:04 am

Walt Disney’s original vision has been lost. While hundreds of thousands still flock to the town, it’s become commercialized


Theres no way he wrote that with a straight face.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby jingofever » Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:17 am

Zombie Glenn Beck » 17 Jun 2015 07:04 wrote:Theres no way he wrote that with a straight face.

Have you seen what he is doing with Santa Claus? The man is insane.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Wed Jun 17, 2015 9:56 am

Zombie Glenn Beck » Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:04 am wrote:
Walt Disney’s original vision has been lost. While hundreds of thousands still flock to the town, it’s become commercialized


Theres no way he wrote that with a straight face.


There's no way he wrote that, period.

Beck is a product, just like Fareed Zakaria, a meatsuit container for the work of a large staff of underpaid creatives.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Luther Blissett » Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:45 am

What Beck describes sounds a bit like my neighborhood (and while my neighborhood is my favorite community in the country, a bit like a few other radical little communities I've been to): extremely diverse (and has been since the 60s), furiously anti-corporate, cooperative, spotted with urban farms and community gardens where people exchange knowledge, and even though I rarely pay attention to them, a few large old churches that have since been converted into multi-denominational houses of worship/community centers/theaters all combined together. The only problem for Glenn is that the dominant culture is still black, there are a lot of lesbians and communes, people are anti-patriarchal, it's all fervently lefty, and there's no propaganda center.

But really, he is talking about old enclaves where the Panthers, freaks, or hippies really held it down (so long as they weren't all lily-white), and eventually younger people molded the community. In some places it's a facade, like it will be in Independence, but in other places there's a deeply ingrained spirit and we have to protect these communities.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby semper occultus » Sat Aug 08, 2015 3:12 pm

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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby Iamwhomiam » Thu Oct 08, 2015 1:38 am

This could find a proper place in a few other threads, imo.


School Board Settles With Families of Students Who Died After Being Hypnotized by Principal

Inside Edition
By Caitlin Nolan 12 hours ago

The families of three Florida students who died after being hypnotized by their then-principal will each receive $200,000 in a settlement with the school district.

The payout comes four years after former North Port High School Principal George Kenney hypnotized students Wesley McKinley, 16, Marcus Freeman, 16, and Brittany Palumbo, 17.

Though no explicit link tied the students’ deaths to Kenney’s hypnosis, the former principal admitted that he had hypnotized McKinley a day before the teenager killed himself in April 2011, the Herald-Tribune reported. Palumbo also took his life after being hypnotized.

Freeman died in a 2011 car accident after he hypnotized himself, a technique Kenney had taught him in order to help the quarterback concentrate and not worry about pain during games, according to court documents.

The 16-year-old football player was killed when he veered off a highway as he drove home from a painful dentist visit, the Herald-Tribune wrote. His girlfriend, who was also in the car and survived, said that Freeman got a strange look on his face before he went off the road, the paper reported.

An investigation found that Kenney had hypnotized as many as 75 students, staff members and others from 2006 until McKinley’s death. One student athlete recalled being hypnotized as many as 40 times to improve his concentration, the Herald-Tribune wrote.

Image


Kenney was placed on administrative leave from North Port High School in 2011 and he resigned in 2012. He served one year of probation after pleading no contest to unlawful practice and was prohibited from practicing hypnosis without a license at the time.

The Sarasota County School District’s Board unanimously approved the settlement with a 4-0 vote on Tuesday, which will pay out a total of $600,000 to the three students’ families. The settlement was approved a week before the parents’ civil case against the district would have gone to trial.

“It’s something they will never get over,” Damian Mallard, an attorney representing the three students’ families, told the Herald-Tribune. “It’s probably the worst loss that can happen to a parent is to lose a child, especially needlessly because you had someone who decided to perform medical services on kids without a license. He altered the underdeveloped brains of teenagers, and they all ended up dead because of it.”

Kenney gave up his teaching license in 2013 under pressure from the Florida Department of Education and cannot reapply for another, the Herald-Tribune noted. He now apparently operates a bed-and-breakfast in North Carolina.

“The thing that is the most disappointing to them is that he never apologized, never admitted wrongdoing and is now living comfortably in retirement in North Carolina with his pension,” Mallard reportedly said.

http://news.yahoo.com/school-board-settles-families-students-164530266.html
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby SonicG » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:19 am

Very curious story, so I ggled some more info:

Two of the deceased students hanged themselves and one drove off a freeway with his girlfriend, who survived the crash. The parents of Marcus Freeman, the student who died in the car crash, believe that he was trying to use self-hypnosis techniques that Kenney taught him to deal with the pain of a root canal before he died.

No comment on the fact that he tried to hypnotize himself while driving after a root canal...Can chalk that up to Florida but the suicides...

There doesn't appear to be any scientific evidence that hypnosis can increase the risk of suicide, nor does any coverage of the story suggest that Kenney had ill intentions or made any identifiable errors while performing hypnosis sessions, which are a relatively common form of therapy. A Tampa Bay Times piece from 2011 suggests that the suicides might have taken place after Kenney hypnotized students with pre-existing but unrecognized mental health issues. "The issue in working with hypnosis is that there can be latent things that are triggered, like past experiences and memories, and the patient can have a bad reaction," said a psychologist who spoke to the paper. "Does hypnosis cause suicide in and of itself? That's not really likely. Can it trigger some sort of mental health problem that was dormant? Yes.''
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... ttled.html


Shouldn't the hypnotist be able to recognize such an occurrence? Or, what if it happens during self-hypnosis? The Principal seems like a real die hard to the cause...
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby elfismiles » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:29 am

Thanks y'all for following-up and posting this - saw it yesterday and reposted it on fb and got more replies to that article from friends than most stuff I post.

I think hypnosis is a very powerful little understood tool and not something to be toyed with since there hasn't been enough (IMHO) open source white-ops research on it; whereas there has seemingly been a hella lotta black-ops mk-ultra (and ancient religions) work done with it.

MinM » 08 Oct 2015 09:03 wrote:
Image@NYDailyNews: Florida schools are paying $600K after three teens died following hypnotism from a principal. http://nydn.us/1OlydU9
Image
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby zangtang » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:40 am

'....now apparently operates a bed-and-breakfast in North Carolina.'

question is, is that a bed-and-breakfast with hypnosis to go?.........

dark weird indeed.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby nashvillebrook » Sat Oct 10, 2015 12:31 pm

Wombaticus Rex » 17 Jun 2015 13:56 wrote:
Zombie Glenn Beck » Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:04 am wrote:
Walt Disney’s original vision has been lost. While hundreds of thousands still flock to the town, it’s become commercialized


Theres no way he wrote that with a straight face.


There's no way he wrote that, period.

Beck is a product, just like Fareed Zakaria, a meatsuit container for the work of a large staff of underpaid creatives.



one day a giant sinkhole will swallow up Disney.
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Re: The Dark Weird Topology Of Florida

Postby cptmarginal » Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:27 pm

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-16/ ... -spiritual

The Other Gurus Who Guide the Stars

February 16, 1992 | TERRY PRISTIN

Greta Garbo was a follower of Krishnamurti, the late Indian philosopher who spent part of his time in Ojai, and it may have been his influence that caused her to abandon her movie career. Eastern mysticism also held a fascination for Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood.

After meeting a psychic who predicted the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mae West developed a deep interest in metaphysics and would invite friends to her house for demonstrations of ESP. Jayne Mansfield and Sammy Davis Jr. became priests in the First Church of Satan, founded by the well-connected but much-maligned Anton LaVey.

Years later, Hollywood still offers plenty of work for gurus of every stripe, from the mystical to the motivational.

From Steven Spielberg to Nick Nolte, celebrities are busy "liberating" their inner child under the guidance of John Bradshaw, the recovered alcoholic turned best-selling author and public television host. Barbra Streisand, Roseanne Arnold, Quincy Jones, Cathy Rigby, Carol Burnett, Carrie Hamilton and Oprah Winfrey are among the millions of Americans who have sought spiritual awakening and higher consciousness through Bradshaw's tapes and books, according to his assistant, Karen Fertita. Some even go to workshops where lullaby music is played and participants cradle or stroke one another.

Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta and Mimi Rogers are just a few of the big-name members of the Church of Scientology, whose roster also includes Anne Archer, Priscilla Presley, Karen Black, Chick Corea and Al Jarreau.

Celebrities whose names have been linked with Werner Erhard's est movement include Raul Julia, Valerie Harper, John Denver and Ted Danson.

[...]

As for Danson, he is one of many entertainment figures whose spiritual path has led them to a "channeled" entity. In Danson's case, it is Lazaris, a "spark of consciousness" who communicates through Jach Pursel, a former Florida business executive and ex-vice president of an investment company called FutureVision. Other Lazaris "friends"--the term he prefers to "disciple" or "master"--include Sharon Gless, Renee Taylor, Joe Bologna, Barry Manilow, Lesley Ann Warren and Michael York, said Andrew William, Pursel's spokesman.

Lazaris "represents a force of positivism and love that illuminates--like a bright, beneficent searchlight--the obscure and unknown corners of human life," York is quoted as saying in a blurb for the two-volume "Lazaris Interviews."


Image Image

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/200 ... channeling

The Lazaris Touch

Jach Pursel Has Turned `Channeling' For An Entity He Calls Lazaris Into A Golden Empire That Has Ardent Fans And Sneering Detractors.

December 12, 2003 | By Amy C. Rippel, Sentinel Staff Writer

It's a story that Orange County resident Jach Pursel has told probably hundreds of times: Sitting quietly on his bed one day in 1974, he slipped deep into meditation as his wife watched. Then words spilled from his lips, and Lazaris made his first appearance through Pursel.

For nearly three decades, Pursel has claimed to communicate, or channel, information from the "nonphysical entity" he said is called Lazaris (pronounced La-ZAR-is).

He has built a million-dollar business, Concept Synergy, around Lazaris -- a being that no one has ever seen. Since 1974, followers have shelled out money for Lazaris seminars, videotapes, audiotapes, books, calendars and music CDs.

Followers say Lazaris has taught them about love and friendship, but the mystery and intrigue surrounding Pursel have provided fuel for his detractors. Much of the skepticism stems from the 2001 accidental death of Pursel's ex-wife and the suicide of her husband the same day at the secluded southwest Orange County compound the trio shared.

Pursel, who still lives at the waterfront compound near Walt Disney World, remains undaunted by his critics. His followers -- whom he says are mostly doctors, lawyers and business people -- are pleased with the lessons they learn from Lazaris, Pursel said.


"The criticisms are either very bizarre or untrue. Some people are jealous and envious," said Pursel, 56. "I'm not going to give it any energy. If other people reading those detractions decide they don't want anything to do with Lazaris or Concept Synergy, then good, they probably wouldn't have a good time anyway."

Born John W. Pursel, he later changed his first name to Jach as a believer in numerology -- the idea that numbers corresponding with certain letters can influence a person's life. Pursel said he attended the University of Michigan and, at age 20, married his childhood sweetheart, Peny Lake. He went to work as a claims adjuster for State Farm Insurance and was advancing to management, he said.

That was when Lazaris entered their lives. In 1972, after his wife read a Cosmopolitan article about Silva Mind Control -- a program that claims to develop clairvoyance and memory, among other things -- he attended a course and learned to meditate. "It wasn't something that I did particularly well. I mostly fell asleep," Pursel said.

Pursel said that in October 1974, while living in Lakeland, he was meditating with his wife sitting by his side and started speaking with a foreign accent. He identified himself to Peny as Lazaris. Pursel said he never remembers his channeling sessions, but his wife recorded the sessions with handwritten notes and tape recordings.

Peny Pursel told her husband after the first channeling session that Lazaris had never taken a physical form but had come through Jach Pursel to be closer to her.

In the years to follow, "tens of thousands of people have found their friendships with Lazaris," Pursel said on his Web site Lazaris.com. They have paid hundreds of dollars for one-on-one sessions, group workshops or videotapes of Pursel channeling Lazaris and preaching love, friendship and inner peace.

A SPARK OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Believers say Lazaris is a good friend who offers sound advice about life through workshops with titles such as "Developing Self-Confidence" and "Forgiving Yourself."

In the Awakening the Love video made in 1985, Pursel, speaking as Lazaris, explained who Lazaris is: "We are a spark of consciousness -- a spark of consciousness that does not have a form. Content without form. Therefore to talk with you we use this body, we use this mechanism so as to let you know we're communicating with you so that you know we are all the same."

In 1979, Pursel moved Concept Synergy -- the business behind the being -- from Florida to California, where the New Age movement was taking off. During the next decade, celebrities touted him. Actress Sharon Gless thanked him in her 1987 Emmy acceptance speech. Actress Shirley MacLaine lauded Lazaris as her "spiritual guide and teacher" in her 1987 book It's All in the Playing.

About the same time, Pursel and his wife divorced and she married Michaell Prestini, a Concept Synergy business partner, who later changed his name to Michaell North, also for numerology purposes. Instead of breaking up the partnership, Pursel and Peny and Michaell North became closer. They shared homes, bank accounts and work.

"The three of us had a connection. It was not a menage a trois, as some people suspected. It worked well. We shared everything; all the properties and other things were in all our names," Pursel said.

In 1988, with the cost of living skyrocketing in California, Pursel moved his business to Palm Beach.

In 1997 they moved to Orlando because, Pursel said, they liked the positive energy surrounding Central Florida. They lived in a four-house compound surrounded by a concrete privacy fence on a private road called Penny Lane Drive.

According to property records, the largest house is a two-story home listed on the Orange County tax rolls as worth $4.2 million. That home, which belonged to Peny and Michaell North, is about 20,000 square feet with six bedrooms and 10 bathrooms.

It was in that home that the couple died hours apart in 2001.

On May 9, 2001, investigators were called to the house to find Peny North, 54, dead in a wheelchair. Michaell North, 55, told authorities that his 313-pound wife had been in pain for weeks, taking codeine every two hours and drinking vodka to relieve the pain. Her death was determined to be an accident. She had toxic levels of codeine and aspirin in her system and was not able to metabolize the drugs fast enough because of her weight and myriad health problems, according to an Orange County Sheriff's investigative report.

Hours later Michaell North was found dead in a lounge chair at the screened-in pool. The Orange County medical examiner determined his death was a suicide from nitrous oxide poisoning. His suicide note said he didn't want to go on without his wife of 24 years, Orange County sheriff's investigators said.

Michaell and Peny North left a combined $6.2 million in assets to Pursel, according to their wills.

WEB SITE FOR SKEPTICS

Peny and Michaell North's deaths stunned Pursel's -- and Lazaris' -- fans.

Unaware that Peny North was so gravely ill, many followers questioned why Lazaris couldn't predict, or prevent, the deaths or help Peny overcome her health problems. Looking for answers, some turned to a Web site dedicated to skeptics.

The site, cosmicfool.com, was started in September 2000 by Katie Dean and Ted Vollmer. For 12 years they considered Lazaris a "loving, good-humored entity giving logical, common-sense information" and traveled to seminars and bought Lazaris audio- and videotapes. But they started questioning their relationship with Lazaris after witnessing Peny North's backbiting of some followers on the Lazaris Web message board, Vollmer said. They thought she should have been above that because of her close relationship with Lazaris.

"We were questioning and wanted to get other people's feedback," Vollmer said. "We wanted to see if anybody else was questioning."

Craig B., 46, of Lancaster, Pa., who doesn't want his last name used for fear of repercussions from work, spent more than a decade following Lazaris. Peny North's death was "a big red flag," he says.

"According to Lazaris, Peny was the most spiritually advanced soul," Craig, a computer software programmer, said from his home. "Then why would she die the way she did, especially since she had unlimited access to Lazaris?"

James Randi, a former magician who is known worldwide for debunking claims of the supernatural, paranormal and occult, said channelers such as Pursel are scam artists who eventually retire when "they get fabulously wealthy."

"These people are vultures. They sit and wait for the weak and vulnerable and eat them up," he said from his Fort Lauderdale office. "They don't offer any evidence. They don't offer any proof. They just ask people to believe."

But longtime followers say such criticism is motivated by jealousy.

Susannah Nathan, 58, moved to Orlando in 2001 from the Miami area to be closer to the Lazaris workshops. Nathan, who formerly worked in human resources for a large computer company and owned a holistic healing center, said that in the past decade she has received sound, practical advice about spirituality and life.

Now, Nathan teaches and lectures about holistic healing. She considers Lazaris a "private part of my spirituality."

"Lazaris isn't for everybody," she said from her Orlando home. "Not everybody wants to look at how they're creating their life and get in touch with how to change it."

Helen and Andrew Avalon of Orlando said they first saw a Lazaris videotape in 1986 and they felt as though they were getting sensible advice about work and their personal lives. They moved to Central Florida in 1998 from California, in part to be closer to the workshops.

Helen Avalon said she and her husband, a construction claims consultant, consider Lazaris a good friend. Helen Avalon, who works with her husband as a data analyst, said they were skeptical at first, but that quickly passed.

"I think that skepticism is very healthy," she said. "Lazaris has so much wisdom and so much insight, the likes of which I haven't seen anywhere else."

At a recent workshop in Orlando, about 500 participants lined up at the grand ballroom at the Caribe Royale Resort near Disney. Many paid $50 for a Thursday-night seminar or $325 for the Saturday and Sunday seminar.

When Pursel walked in, participants dashed to their seats. All eyes were on the distinguished-looking, silver-haired man wearing a simple blue shirt and khaki pants as he moved to his podium.

Sitting on a low chair, his face expressionless and hands folded in his lap, Pursel clenched his eyes and his head fell forward as he appeared to slip deep into meditation. The crowd was motionless.

Nearly a minute of silence passed before Pursel lifted his head to reveal a bright, toothy grin. His eyes still clenched, Lazaris spoke his first words in an accent that sounded somewhat Scottish -- nothing like Pursel's Midwestern voice.

Around the room, some Lazaris followers clutched crystals, which are thought to carry energy, while others furiously scrawled his words on notepads as they settled in for the five-hour lecture.

"All right, all right, all right. Well, well, well. Oh my, yes, yes. It is with great joy and deep reverence that we come to you this evening," Lazaris started, waving his arms in the air. "As it always is, it is a pleasure and a delight to be with you . . ."


(Google managed to conflate "Jach Pursel" with "Jack Pursel")

Also: "In 1972, after his wife read a Cosmopolitan article about Silva Mind Control"

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