Read the most ridiculous funny thing today! It is a website for an upcoming ‘event’. The event has a sufficiently corny name – New Reality Transmission – and it is this global event that is going to solve all of world’s problems instantaneously! And how? Through meditation! The description of the event in their own words:

“On 11-11, 2010, one million people across the globe will mentally project a unified vision of a new paradigm for our species… a new reality. The very real physics that connects human consciousness with molecular structure will be harnessed en masse during the largest scale simultaneous manifestation transmission in recorded history.”

What they basically explain on the website via a series of slides is that if a million people or more meditate simultaneously thinking of a better world, a better world will manifest itself. It uses some real scientific facts, draws completely incorrect and biased conclusions and asserts that such a thing is inevitable. This sounds similar to concepts propounded in Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, though that deals with more self-centred goals and objectives. (I have not read the book in full (or rather, I could not, despite my best efforts!), but I got the gist and the rest was accomplished via reading the Wikipedia entry and also other discussions, both in favour and against, about the book on the internet.)

I have nothing against the concept of meditation – if it helps one to achieve peace, or serves as a form of relaxation or introspection, it is mostly a healthy practice. And meditating or praying for a better world – what could be more noble? But just wishing for something does not work in the real world. If it did, the world would have been at least slightly better considering that many religious people (I am being optimistic here!) do pray about the state of the world after they have finished asking for their own health and prosperity. What will work is changing the mindset of the vast majority of our species and working towards creating a ‘new paradigm’ and not indulging in wishful thinking that we can wish it to fruition.

Frankly, I would normally ignore this kind of new-age crap since it is largely harmless, and might even have some use, if only in its adherents being more civilized and humane than the sociopaths that the dominant medieval religions breed. But my problem with this particular effort is in the attempts at deception and the extreme secrecy as to who is behind this.

The deception primarily is in the form of using pseudo Science to mislead people who (should, but) don’t know any better and are gullible enough to fear and worship anything they cannot comprehend. Coupled with this are claims from the people behind this endeavour of being “a fulltime international team of physicists and mathematicians”. (Well, I for one have never heard of part-time physicians and mathematicians!) What takes the cake is this,

“Unfortunately, we are not staffed to handle incoming e-mails or contact from the public or the media at this point.”

(For that would reveal the truth which is probably closer to the fact that we are a fulltime international team of quacks or fraudsters or both!)

That basically underlines the extreme secrecy associated with the perpetrators of this. I tried searching for over an hour on the internet to see if I can gather some information, to no avail. The website registration is private which in itself is not a big thing. But nothing on the website or on their Facebook or YouTube page or anywhere else on the internet correctly identifies what group is organising this event. That strikes me as odd and for the sake of all those well-meaning people who are registering I hope this is not just an elaborate scheme of some email harvesters and spammers. On 11-11, 2010, I will pray for you guys instead!