A Midwest Journal

How to figure out if a company or product is a scam.

Also, how you can see it you are scamming in your own life – or if you simply want to improve how people view you or your business.

If you’ve read “Get Your Self Scam Free” or the lessons from that book, you’re already well ahead of the game. You already know how to get your own freedom and happiness back.

In that book, I tell you that Cialdini, Maslow, and Lester Levenson have the key points you need to find and get scams out of your life. Those same key principles can be used as a checklist to rate the products and services in your life to see how much of a scam they are. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an Internet Marketing or Coaching scam, online fraud, or someone selling at your doorstep – or a telemarketer.

I’ve made a little checklist below. You just check off what you find they are using (or misusing) to get you to do what they say or to buy their products and services. The total number of checked-off items tells you their “Scam Free Rating“. The higher the number, the  more likely they are scammers.

Scam Free Checklist and Rating Guide

_____ 1. Reciprocation - are they giving you a “free” gift in return for your email, phone, or (worse yet) your credit card number. Do they want you to pay for “shipping only”?

_____ 2. Commitment and consistency – Do they just want you to “try the first lesson free” and then pay for the rest on a monthly basis (with your credit card, again)? Monthly books, fruit baskets, or “try it and you’ll be amazed“? Rediculous money-back guarantee you hear about over and over in a 30-second ad?

_____ 3. Social proof – Is this a fad? Is “everyone” doing it? Do they tell you “don’t be the last on your block”? Are they trying to get you to be a lemming and jump off because everyone else is doing it? Does it have a fan club?

_____ 4. Liking - Are the models they use incredibly gorgeous (and well-proportioned)? Have they hired a spokesperson who is “just like you”? Is the sound of the voice and mannerisms such that you would really like to just sit and chat with such a person for hours? (Not that ugly models ever sell products, but there is the reverse of this used in advertising sometimes as well – someone so honestly homely that you begin to feel can trust them with your charge-card implicitly…)

_____ 5. Authority - Are they using a well-known celebrity who you used to watch on TV when you were growing up? Or someone in a doctor’s garb, dressed up like a chef, or maybe a minister – but these people don’t have clients or a congregation and are only actors? Is the government mentioned? IRS? Or some executive of a well-known business?

_____ 6. Scarcity - Are there only a limited number of these? Is the offer only good for a limited time? Are you one of a select few which have been specially chosen to receive this pre-release version? Is the price going up shortly?

_____ 7. Control - Does this product help you control others or get out of being controlled? Does having this product (or voting a certain way) take control away from others? Will this make you free from some sort of nasty situation – like the IRS garnishing your wages? Does this help you “get what you deserve” (favorite of laywers)?

_____ 8. Approval - Will this make people like you? Will this get you noticed? Will this help you have more friends? Does their ads have huge crowds gathered to cheer you (or someone) on?

_____ 9. Security - Does this make your life more secure in some fashion? Will you sleep better at night once you buy one of these or have it installed? Will this politician keep your neighborhood, state, or country safer?

_____ 10. Self-actualization – Is this company actually out to help you on a continuing basis as one of their clients, or are they just wanting a customer (habitual buyer) or pitching a one-off product (in order to get your phone number and credit card so that telemarketers can call you incessantly?!?) Is this company actually interested in your well-being enough to stick with you regardless of how much you spend with them?

- – - -

This post is simply to lay out this checklist. Obviously, there is much more discussion and review of this.

Some examples of organizations which rate a “perfect 10″:

• Any program (and most people) from or representing any government – 10
• Any insurance company – 10
• Any company who uses telemarketers – 9
• Any and all advertising (but not all promotion) – 10
• Most organized religions (not their original scriptures or philosophies) – 9
• Any diet plan advertised on TV or other media – 10
• All media or any company which relies on advertising for all or most of their business income – 9
• Most “big label” Record companies and the RIAA/MPAA – 10

Some examples of products which rate a “perfect 0″:

• Any product you hear about from a neighbor or friend who has actually bought it and used it, and found it works (word of mouth) – 0
• Books or recordings you’ve read which actually help you improve your life, the ones you’ve tested for yourself – 0
• Some writers and companies who tell you not to believe what they say, but try it for yourself first - 0

(Now, I don’t rate a perfect “0″ myself. So don’t think I’m not a scammer to some degree.)

But do try all this out for yourself and see if this works for you. If you have suggestions on how this could be improved, leave a comment. But don’t accept this until you’ve checked it out personally.

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Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”

Of course, any Master would say probably that it was a waste of time even making this blog post.

Because it is really that obvious.

It’s just that I’ve been studying right along with the early Lester Levenson material – not that anything is missing from Larry Crane’s or Hale Dwoskin’s versions of this – I’m just a bit hard-core in my research. Always wanting to dive straight into the deep end before I am in anyway certified in dog-paddling.

Lester spent many, many years reading and studying all he could to understand this state he wound up in after 3 months of self-inspection. So his lectures and talks are full of references to yogi’s and swami’s and so on. He even quotes Jesus and and Hebrew prophets with the same abandon.

Of course, anyone who is simply using releasing to get all the mess out of their lives, to get more stuff, to live a calmer life – you can just skip this particular post and continue with your successes. And anyone who simply follows any particular brand or kind of Sedona releasing method has success, almost regardless.

Except those, of course, who think it’s a scam. And for them – it is. They’ll get no results out of it. They’re right, of course.

But the rest of us can move right along with our practice and our studies and creating better lives for ourselves.

Back to my studies: this really starts to explain my recent seeming divergence into taking up Alan Watts, Zen, and the Tao.  Of course, I can get away with this as I work in Comparative Religions all the time. Even got a sheepskin that says I can.

Alan Watts starts to explain Levenson pretty well. I’ve been listening to Watts’ “Out of Your Mind” series. Quite entertaining. No-holds-barred and all that.

Where these two meet is in the Eastern studies, principally Hindu. Levenson hasn’t mentioned the Tao in any way, but what he describes as a top state undoubtedly contains what the Taoists and Zen devotees attain.

I see only that all the religions – in their basics, not in their interpretations – all are heading to a very similar if not identical goal. Buddhists are expected to become a Buddha in their own right. Christians are expected to emulate Jesus and attain a state of  the Christ (“…better things than these shall you do…”) All religions and philosophies have their various high states, but each of these compared show a similar end value.

The key point to take up here is that from an intellectual viewpoint, Watts sheds some light on Levenson’s idea of getting over the resistance you put up toward death. Levenson held that fear of Death was basic to all desires. Having to survive as an individual entity on this earth in this particular time seems of vital importance – or so it’s been called.

The study of Watts’ lectures tend to free up the intellectual points on this – how we’ve been trained through our life – and so we are then able to release these views more rapidly and let that internal peace of mind out, as well as all the happiness and freedom that’s in there as well.

And a friend pointed out recently that factually, you actually release releasing itself after a time. Which then tells that a person will essentially get to a point that releasing is just another factor in living life. No different than breathing or other organic rhythms we perform on a daily basis.

To this degree, we then let our own Zen master out. By simply releasing all the extraneous additives we’ve piled on for so long.

Worth some discovery if you aren’t already there.

And if you are, you can see that this really was an unnecessary post…

Thanks for visiting my blog and reading this entry.
If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”

You create the world around you. Actually. But the trick is to stay in harmony with everything.

Most people are stuck at just creating things around them. They are wanting that faster car, more stylish dress or suit, the huge house. Along with this, they want people to think well of them, to admire them. And they want to keep it all safe.

To have all this, they also support various scams. Insurance, so that it can’t get taken away – and they pay huge annual fees for this. Government, so that someone has police forces and attorneys and court systems to protect what they own – of course, that costs them in increased taxes and numerous laws. Any corporation will pay out additional sums in advertising and lobbyist firms so that they can continue to control whatever scene they want.

There are just three desires which keep all this happening – control, security, and approval. Lester Levenson worked this out awhile ago.

Now, supposing people really just worked out how to create the world around them they wanted instead of working so hard with all these scams? The funny thing is, once a person really starts to live in harmony with the world, anything you want or need just shows up.

All those old philosophies have held this as true for a very long time. Remember that old saying, “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither sow nor weave, but are clothed in the finest rainment…” Jesus was trying to tell us this over 2,000 years ago. Buddha said similar, as did Lao Tsu in the Tao. When you go back to the Sanskrit and earlier to Huna teachings, you keep finding the same thing over and over.

We are all here to create a better place, to establish more harmony for all those around us. And of course, that also includes the environment and all the various other species we co-exist with on this planet. It also means people who believe differently and live different lifestyles.

But once you get to this point of just accepting what is around you and releasing everything you consider non-survival to you, it all gets quite simple.

Some key points:

• Once you get up to the point you can have anything you want, you don’t have to have a lot of possessions.
• You’ll always get your Happiness, Joy, and Peace from within. So the external world doesn’t affect you.
• There will still be Goals, but they will be intuitional – as are the rest of your life at that point. Everything just flows through you.

For me, this came as a concept that you are constantly working to help the perfection of every atom of every entity and thing around you to shine forth more completely. Because everything is generally perfect anyway. Just might need some help to show it.

The point is that you drop the ego and just Be.

Releasing becomes constant and you simply keep going up to higher harmonious levels. And the rest of the world around you (which you actually created) starts getting more harmonious as well. That’s just the way it all goes.

So just quit all the efforting and start getting more and more stuff showing up around you by simply releasing.

Thanks for visiting my blog and reading this entry.
If you’ve found it valuable, please consider donating via PayPal to enable my continuing research.

Our latest upcoming release, “Freedom Is — (period.)”