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How does a person come to believe that we can use telepathy on horses and that schizophrenia is secretly a superpower?

Given the tidal wave of nonsense sustained by the Internet, the question of why people believe weird things keeps resurfacing. Some folks are just naturally prone to flights of fancy. Others, judgmental of their neighbours鈥� foolish beliefs, would do well to look in the mirror: their own idiosyncrasies may look just as preposterous as the ones they are quick to recognize as hokum. Despair in the face of chronic or terminal illness can also open the mind, because what is there to lose?

But another answer to the question is that nonsense can be delivered听bit by bit听as trust builds. Scientology is the quintessential example: on its surface, it鈥檚 simply a technique to measure someone鈥檚 distress, but spend enough years moving up its ranks and you learn about the aliens and the volcanoes. Coming out of the mouths of now-trusted friends, these science fiction scenarios sound more credible.

Until last week, I had never heard of Access Bars and Access Consciousness. At a glance, it鈥檚 a mishmash of Reiki and phrenology, yet another alternative cure-all supported by a handful of really bad 鈥渟tudies.鈥�

But dig deep enough and you鈥檒l find the horse telepathy, the repackaging of psychiatric illnesses as special powers, and even disturbing accusations of grooming, sexual assault, and cult-like behaviour.

Also: a man who claims he got the whole idea from the ghost of Rasputin.

The 32-bar cure-all

The tip of the Access Consciousness iceberg consists in a simple premise: your head has 32 points (somehow referred to as 鈥渂ars鈥�). Each point, much like in the debunked pseudoscience known as phrenology, represents something, like creativity or gratitude. According to the theory, our limitations can be released by a trained practitioner gently touching these points and allowing us to live out our full potential. Not making enough money? That鈥檚 because your money point hasn鈥檛 been rubbed by a specialized therapist.

Speaking of the money point鈥擨鈥檓 not making it up: it鈥檚听听in the belief system of Access Consciousness鈥攊t should be obvious to anyone who learned a bit of biology in school that our brain does not operate in this way. Financial ruminations are not consigned to a single region of the brain. But neurology is too complicated for the folks behind Access Consciousness, which is why they offer to 鈥渞un your bars鈥� and help you blossom.

The claimed benefits are recycled from every miraculous intervention marketed online: from bringing about relaxation and mental clarity to boosting your energy, to affecting your weight, sleep, sex, and bank account (more on that later). One practitioner听听that her client managed to stop their antidepressants after she ran their bars. Just in case regulatory agencies are paying attention, I didn鈥檛 see anyone directly claiming curative powers; rather, they 鈥渉elp the body heal itself,鈥� which at this point is basically a road sign pointing in the direction of Woo-Wooville.

No pseudoscience would be complete without the claim that studies show promising results. As expected, the studies here are all window dressing and no substance. For example, a psychologist by the name of Lisa Cooney claims to have听鈥攁 questionable heat-mapping technique apparently听鈥攖o show that the body detoxifies better after a session of Access Bars, even though detoxification is a grossly misused term in these circles. She also picked up on the dissipation of psychosomatic patterns of trauma. All of that with basically a fancy thermometer!

Jeffrey Fannin, a psychologist who claims we鈥檙e all connected听听ran another Access Bars study using electrodes on the scalp to show that lying down for an hour and receiving a gentle massage relaxes you. To anyone interested, naps do the same and you don鈥檛 have to pay to take them. Fannin, by the way, is behind a company called Thought Genius, whose website still shows a link to the听听that Wordpress provides as part of its website template. If you鈥檇 script this in a movie, you鈥檇 be called out for implausibility.

So far, running bars on someone is a simple cocktail of woo: put Reiki, acupressure, phrenology, and a massage in a blender and push the right button. Indeed, many people who offer Access Bars services also sell similar pseudoscientific interventions, like听听补苍诲听. These approaches are all based on playing pretend. 鈥淲hat if?鈥� may be the start of science but it is the endpoint of all pseudosciences. What if the brain had 32 points that could be massaged to unleash our potential? Why not?

Because if we鈥檙e simply following our instincts toward fantasyland, we can pretend to talk to animals, something which is taught to some Access Bars practitioners. (This paragraph will have a bigger impact if you read it while playing听听in the background.) The two leaders of Access Consciousness co-wrote a book titled听. Indeed, if the animal talks back, the adjective 鈥渆xtraordinary鈥� has been well earned. The book claims that animals telepathically pick up on our thoughts. One practitioner, Julie Mayo, offers 鈥渆quine services:鈥� she can apparently unlock the trauma听. She runs bars on horses. While we鈥檙e there, it鈥檚 worth mentioning that she can also exorcise ghosts from my little pony. 鈥淚t is common for horses to pick up entities,鈥� she writes. Fear not: the horse exorcist has arrived. For USD 400, she can even听. Is there anything these people can鈥檛 do?

This kind of magical thinking can easily cast you adrift in a sea of fantasy. In September 2011, a boat carrying 300 believers in Access Consciousness was supposed to sail all the way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Ocean. Bringing awareness to pressing environmental issues is great, but providing make-believe solutions is not. An archived version of the听听advertising the trip (and featuring a donation page) described the mission that these 300 souls were about to undertake: 鈥淯sing an energy, Molecular Demanifestation, they will invite all of that plastic to change and transform into elements that the ocean can handle and dissipate with ease.鈥� Attempting to visit听听led me to the following error message: 鈥淪afari can鈥檛 find the server.鈥� We can, however, still easily find the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

To track down the origin of this lunacy, we have to rewind to the 1980s. When night fell on the city of Santa Barbara, California, and beautiful homes were host to parties, there was one thing that would guarantee a hit: speaking to the dead.

鈥淏oys and Beyonds鈥�

Channeling, where a person claims to let their body and voice be used by a ghost, was having a moment, and Gary Douglas was paying attention. His real estate business had gone bust and he was hounded by collection agencies, according to an听听into the Access Consciousness movement by Craig Malisow for The听Houston Press. He also had ties to Scientology: his first wife was a Scientologist, his second wife was an ex-Scientologist and she and Douglas were friends with Mary Wernicke, a higher-up within the organization who left after a change in leadership.

In 1987, Douglas attended a party in which a man channeled an entity called Bashar, and he would go on to write in an early Access Consciousness document that he thought, why not me? 鈥淗ow come he can do that and I can鈥檛?鈥� he would write. 鈥淗e is no better looking than I, he鈥檚 no taller, he certainly doesn鈥檛 speak better鈥攈e鈥檚 from New Jersey.鈥�

In the wake of his source of income drying up, Gary Douglas suddenly and conveniently discovered that he too could channel the ghosts of the dearly departed, starting with a famous one: Grigori Rasputin, the mad monk himself, which听听of Douglas鈥� simply refers to as 鈥淩az.鈥� There were others, according to The听Houston Press: a wise old Chinese man鈥擨 can only imagine what that sounded like coming out of the mouth of a white man鈥攁nd a group of aliens, who had apparently abducted Douglas as a child and听. But it was Rasputin who revealed to Douglas the secret of the 32 bars, the day after Douglas discovered his new channeling power.

Years later, Douglas would be听, observing the clueless women sitting in front of him, thinking they were so lamentably听human. He, of course, had transcended his humanity and was now a听humanoid. Humans are limited, but humanoids recognize the oneness of the universe and can live out their full potential. The goal of Douglas鈥� Access Consciousness movement is to go from mere human to exalted humanoid.

On that plane ride, he was sitting next to his right-hand man, Dain Heer, a handsome ex-chiropractor in the Santa Barbara area who had previously hit rock bottom and had been contemplating ending his life. Stumbling upon a newspaper ad by Douglas鈥� own stepdaughter, he went to see her so she could run his bars, and she discovered that Heer had a healing gift. Douglas and Heer would go on to co-lead this emerging Access Consciousness movement.

On Instagram, you can see the听听, dressed like eccentric uncles who take everything with a smile, pose for an endless series of glossy posters announcing exclusive events, something you would expect to see endorsed by Oprah. They seem to be living the good life. If you鈥檙e not, it鈥檚 because you don鈥檛 want it enough. Maybe you鈥檙e not using their magic prayer phrase, which they call the Clearing Statement: Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, POD and POC, All 9, Shorts, Boys and Beyonds. This spell, just like the phrase 鈥淎ccess Bars,鈥� is a registered trademark, and good luck trying to make sense of it even听. (An Access Consciousness manual dated 1996 and which I gained access to is full of this patent jibberish, always ending with the Clearing Statement, like a mantra: 鈥淲hat are the RRRs for the SAS for suppressing anger and confrontation as the MPII of linearities through the AEA of consciousness as the eradication of simultaneity in all realities, relationships, BHCEEMCs and destruct universes? Right, Wrong, Good, Bad, POD, POC, All 9, shorts, boys, and beyonds.鈥�)

You will need this incantation if you want to earn enough money to pay for all of the Access Consciousness classes and workshops you鈥檒l need, and to maintain your license if you choose to run bars on your clients. A one-day practitioner training will cost you听, but why stop there? You could spend another day learning to give someone an Access Energetic Facelift鈩� for USD 560, or finish the week learning to become an MTVSS Body Process Practitioner for USD 450. You can accumulate a lot of letters after your name over the course of a single week. Why go to medical school when you can take a one-day class, get a title, and start seeing patients鈥攅rr, I mean, clients!

But this is just the start. As听, a license to run bars (a bar license?) costs members up to AUD 30,000 to get and more money to maintain. There are after all at least听听to master, according to Heer. The parade of workshops, books, and products you can buy is apparently endless, and if you want to catch up from the comfort of your own home, you can fork over USD 250听a month听to access their exclusive听. The nonsensical beliefs can be delivered bit by bit, as you become more financially and emotionally invested.

According to听The Australian听again, Access Consciousness has made Douglas, Heer, and their third partner, the Australian Simone Milasas, very comfortable financially. They bought a resort in Costa Rica, and Douglas is said to own a fully restored castle in northern Italy. You can also book one of their waterfront properties in Queensland for AUD 1,000-2,000 a night. Not bad for a real estate business owner who went bankrupt in the 90s and discovered the gift of channeling just in time. Now, Access Consciousness is said to have over 23,000 facilitators and 20,000 practitioners, spread over 180 countries (out of a total of 195).

Yet, this New Age movement hides a dark side: predatory behaviour, both evident and alleged, toward vulnerable people. I find it hard not to feel revulsion when I see the times Heer has used World Suicide Prevention Day to drum up business for Access Consciousness听. Mental health problems should not be solved with expensive magical thinking.

Moreover, the same game of 鈥渨hat if?鈥� that gave us horse exorcism and plastic alchemy has led the Access Consciousness movement to ask, 鈥渨hat if all of the 鈥榙isorders鈥� that we鈥檝e labeled and diagnosed are actually abilities?鈥� People with schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder actually have brilliant abilities, apparently, and are referred to in the movement as听听Want to learn more? You鈥檒l have to spend 100 euros to watch the webinar this September.

Finally, and most disturbingly, we come to how women and children are seemingly treated by Douglas and Heer. As reported by The听Houston Press, a 2012 Access Consciousness manual asks the question of how to 鈥渉andle a demon b*tch,鈥� answering that you need to quietly say, 鈥淚f you do this again, I will kill you,鈥� three times. Douglas has been described as 鈥渞eally vicious,鈥� with 鈥渁 lot of unresolved anger toward women.鈥� Meanwhile, many women, including high-ranking members, have spoken to journalists about how听. One woman said to听The Australian听that, at a retreat in New Zealand, several women in attendance told her they had been听听by Access Consciousness massage therapists.

As for children and teenagers, I will simply list a few pieces of evidence I find distressing. In a 16-page manual called听Access Bars庐 for Youth听which I was able to access, children are shown where on top of their head their sexuality bar is located. The movement鈥檚 one-day Practitioner Training has听, which means they are actively trying to get teenagers to sign up. And as per The听Houston Press, Douglas is quoted as saying that 鈥測oung children are incredibly sexy,鈥� although this is apparently taken out of context. It鈥檚 not appropriate for adults to have sex with children; he simply means that children have a lot of a certain kind of energy. Humanoids get it. Also, in a manual quoted by the journalist, children who have been molested are said to have听allowed themselves听to be assaulted to avoid someone else becoming a victim. This was a sacrifice, you see?

I鈥檓 often asked what鈥檚 the harm in energy healing and other make-believe modalities. If people want to give credence to harmless nonsense to feel a bit better given the world in which we live, why not let them indulge in it? And certainly not every bit of quackery is as harmful as a cult, far from it. There are degrees of harm.

But it鈥檚 definitely not harmless, and in the hands of immoral individuals it can sow devastation.

And that鈥檚 not just me saying it. Rasputin says it too. Trust me. He鈥檚 in my body right now.

Take-home message:
- Access Consciousness and the concept of Access Bars were conceived by a former real estate business owner claiming to channel the ghost of Rasputin
- There is no robust scientific evidence showing that 鈥渞unning bars鈥� on someone has any benefit beyond what would be expected of a relaxing head massage
- Investigative journalism into the Access Consciousness movement has produced allegations of misogyny, grooming, and sexual assault