MIND POWERS LECTURE
(Investigator 9, November 1989)
Thousands of people have trained to do miracles by the power of their mind including 100 in Adelaide.
The speaker promised:
"When you become proficient in using the power of your mind you will be able to perform miracles."
"You will be a success at whatever you take on."
"You will have a happy successful rich and fulfilling life."
The "free lecture" on August 28 was a one hour sales pitch to pay $465 to attend a further four 1½-hour lectures.
The hiring of Adelaide's Convention Centre together with 18 x 20
centimeter ads in major newspapers, and numerous radio announcements,
must have cost $ thousands.
The newspaper ad this writer responded to was titled "Free Lecture Mind
powers" and named Chris D'Souza as the speaker. It offered:
•
Discover the simple concepts of the tools used by high performance
people who are enjoying the secrets of success.
• Learn to use the power of your mind to acquire and achieve anything you want in life.
• Eliminate worry, stress and illness from your life and develop excellent health.
• Develop the power of concentration and visualisation for sport, business, work performance and much more.
The free lecture was preceded by a 12-minute movie about the hurdles
that prevent success. These are: passively waiting for things to
happen, procrastination, poor concentration, inflexibility, passing the
blame, self defeatism, lack of enthusiasm and lack of energy — all
leading to self inhibition.
After the movie Chris D'Souza delivered a pep talk, the sort my high-school teacher used to give:
"Every one of us has the capacity and talent to achieve anything we want in life."
"An intelligent person who has learned to harness the power of his mind can achieve anything."
"There is nothing on the face of the earth that can stop you; only negative attitudes of your mind."
The four subsequent lectures, costing $465, would apparently teach
people to think positive thoughts to psych themselves up by repeating
positive slogans: "Negative thoughts make it impossible to achieve. I
will teach you powerful techniques of affirmation and visualization."
Another short film followed. Then a further pep talk: "You can become whatever you want to be."
Then came details of fees and how 800 were turned away in Sydney
because seats were limited: "I have met people who borrowed the money
and it was the greatest investment in their life... There's no such
thing as luck, fate or chance."
$20 deposits were requested.
During the interval prior to a question and answer session about 20
persons paid the deposit. About half of the 900 present left.
To guarantee success irrespective of "luck or chance" to the 100
expected to sign up seems risky. An ancient lecturer once said: "The
race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to
the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all."
(BS)