I have a strange relationship with the folk at Life Technology.
They sell a lot of things.
Every single one of those things is outrageously, hilariously fraudulent.
Seriously. Go and have a look. It's great.
I have mentioned Life Technology from time to time on dansdata.com, and the Life Technology people, who do not think like you and me, have as a result alternated between asking to buy ads, being very cross with me, and sending me press releases.
Like this one, which turned up the other day (spelling original; a few strange high-ASCII characters redacted):
HI DAN, WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS
THE TESLA SHIELD™ HYPERSPACE VERSION 1.0
The Tesla Purple Ennergy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.0 is the most powerful and advanced Tesla Shield that we have created so far and has taken many months in design and beta testing. The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.0 incorporates all of the enhanced design and componentry characteristics of The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Ultra Advanced Version 1.0, but more importantly The Tesla PPurple Energy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.0 integrates an internal radionics struuctural link to a RAD 5 Radionics Machine running at full power at the Life Technology™ laboratories 24/7/365.The RAD 5 Radionics Machine is a state of the art remote influence / transformational radionics machine designed by the esteemed quantum physicist and radionics technology pioneer Karl Welz of Hyperspace Communications Technologies International (www.hscti.com). The RAD 5 is undoubtedly the most sophisticated and powerful radionics machine available today. The integral radionics structural link enables The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Hyyperspace Version 1.0 to be permanently recharged by an unlimited source of subtle energy.
The upgraded internal componentry in synergy with the new integral structural link with the RAD 5 Radionics Machine enhances the subtle energy properties of The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.00 by a factor of up to x100. Incredibly, Thats one hundred times more power than the original Tesla Shield™ ! Life Technology™ can confidently assert thathat The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.0 is the most powerful and advannced personal transformational energy tool available anywhere today.
The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ Hyperspace Version 1.0 is priceed at $299.95.
Ordering :
All variants of The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™ aare available through The Life Technology site at
http://www.lifetechnology.org/teslashield.htm
Whoo-ee. That ought to attract some really choice Google ads.
(But none for Life themselves - I've blocked their ads. There are plenty of other people happy to take your money to fool you into thinking their "radionic" devices do something useful, though, and I'm confident that some of them will be glad to advertise here.)
Life's products are modern updates of the potions and talismans I imagine travelling shamans selling to peasants in the Dark Ages. Some people are clearly happy to be counted as part of the filthy peasant demographic today, though, because stores like Life Technology's are quite numerous.
While Life's site is full of quantum this and electronic that (don't miss The Ultra Advanced Psychotronic Money Magnet™ EECS Version 1.0!), some of the promotional lingo hasn't changed for thousands of years.
Life Technology are, for instance, very much in favour of the modern "alchemy" movement, which has given rise to a marvellous substance called "White Powder Gold".
White Powder Gold resembles the actual conventional kind of gold in no way whatsoever, apparently because it is "monatomic", a quality not normally seen in solid substances. But have no fear, this monatomic gold is much better than regular old metallic gold. It's widely alleged to be very very good for whatever ails you.
Life's own version of the product comes with an entertainingly lengthy explanation of its origin and benefits, which I believe I can sum up as "it'll make you schizophrenic, but also immortal".
If you buy Life's monatomic gold in quantity it only costs about a third as much per gram as metallic gold (the Bush presidency has been good to the price of the kind of money that'll be useful after the collapse of civilisation...). Regrettably, however, the substance's stated "Philosopher's Stone" nature does not give it the ability to turn anything, including itself, into metallic gold.
(I note that the white-powder-gold enthusiasts have been repelled from the Wikipedia Philosopher's Stone article. Regrettably, the blinkered science-worshippers who rule Wikipedia with iron-fists-that-will-never-become-golden-fists have deleted the article that explained all about these Orbitally Rearranged Monatomic Elements, on the entirely unfair grounds that it was utter claptrap. This made someone very cross. But the video will not be silenced!!1!!one!)
[UPDATE: A few months later, Life Technology got back to me!]
28 April 2007 at 7:32 pm
Life Technology's blog is interesting. Not because of what's written there, but because of the sheer number of social bookmarking sites you can recommend their posts to.
Did you even KNOW there were 94? Makes you really respect the big names.. digg, technorati, del.icio.us, etc...
28 April 2007 at 10:42 pm
The classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions draws a pretty good line through alchemy to animal magnetism/mesmerism, and I'm sure there's a fantastic book waiting to be written which continues the story into the modern form of the Woo-Woo Movement. "From astral projection to zygomancy, it's a mish-mash of idiocy."
3 May 2007 at 3:38 am
"...But the video will not be silenced!!1!!one!"
Spelling out the "one" had me spitting tea out of my nose.
Dan, great stuff as usual.
3 May 2007 at 3:50 am
> Spelling out the "one" had me spitting tea out of my nose.
That one's (see what I did there?) not mine.
17 September 2008 at 2:20 am
Would it be worth $199 to reverse engineer this piece of junktanium? Take an X-Ray, break the sacred seal, void the perpetual warranty and die an ignominious death? I would offer to trade my shielded capsule of Element 115 Absurdassium for joy of research.
9 October 2012 at 11:49 pm
I know I'm late to the party here. But there is something magical about people like this. I love 'em. I don't love the damage they do, but I find their utterly unreal worldview fascinating. How can you even function in society with a mind that accepts this sort of thing? Maybe back when a developed country meant you swept the chicken droppings out of your plague infested hut, but today? How can such incredibly disconnected people survive?