#328: Bob Proctor

Bob Proctor wants you to be successful, and can coach you – for a reasonable fee – on how to achieve your dreams. His method is detailed in Rhonda Byrne’s classic, well-research and documented scientifically revolutionary book “The Secret”, and its sequel. Proctor even calls himself “master of the law of attraction” and featured prominently in the movie adaption of Byrne’s ding-ding delusional, garbled nonsense. You can read an interview with Proctor here (interviewer is an obviously gullible idiot by the name of Allison Kugel).

“There is a Science of Getting Rich.  Scientific Laws that govern whether you are wealthy or poor and they are just as exact as those that govern the Universe. Learn and use them and you will attract money in abundance just as certainly as the force of gravity holds you to the earth,” says Proctor, and means it literally when he talks about how to use “the law of vibration and attraction” and the “vacuum law of prosperity” to attract whatever you want. And of course there is a conspiracy – scientists know about the law, of course, but don’t want to talk about it because it’s dangerous for their careers (never mind that there’s a rather obvious self-defeating element in that argument).

Diagnosis: Either a total moron or a fraud. In either case, people like Proctor are dangerous, both because they mislead people and because the strategy really is a positively formulated version of blame-the-victims-for-their-misfortunes so well-known from religious wingnuttia.