#1881: Dennis Lee (I)

A legend in pseudoscience circles, Dennis Lee is the head of Better World Technologies and United Community Services of America, a company that markets pretty much every piece of ridiculous nonsense technology or “technology” you can imagine, from healing devices that use zero-point energy to an over-unity motor. For the most part, Lee is seeking investors for his devices (examples of revival meetings where Lee promotes his products to potential “investors” are described here), which are supposed to provide us with infinite free electricity. Like the over-unity motor, the devices in question violate the laws of physics (details can be found here if you are interested), and although he’s been in the business a long time, Lee has never managed to demonstrate that any of them work – indeed, his energy products are for the most part “not quite ready”, but you are nevertheless offered to buy a franchise for somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 and begin selling free energy devices yourself (note that in becoming a dealer, you waive your rights to legal recourse – Lee does, however, offer commissions to bring in new dealers and makes considerable effort to discourage dealers from communicating with one another). There’s a list of his excuses Lee has given for why he hasn’t shown that any of his devices work here.

As pseudoscientists and promoters of voodoo science are wont to do, Lee claims that Corporate America is doing everything in their power to suppress him – apparently the entire government and American industry is part of some huge international multi-generational conspiracy to suppress the truth he only can offer. Lee has also been indicted for fraud at least twice, and pleaded guilty to two felony counts of consumer fraud in California in 1990 in connection with the sale of an “energy-saving heat pump kit,” but those incidents presumably just show how afraid mainstream corporations are of competition – apparently Lee subsequently claimed to have invented the world’s most efficient heat pump, but that conspirators sabotaged his efforts, stole his company, and incarcerated him. So it goes.

According to Lee, all his instructions are dictated to him directly from God, and he has indeed created a following that, to the undiscerning eye, looks remarkably like a cult fuelled by religious fervor and paranoia (an interesting insider story about what it was like to work with Lee can be found here; this one is pretty telling, too). A nice illustration of Lee’s operations is Lee’s and his followers’ dismissal of critics, such as Eric Krieg (whose criticism of Lee is archived here): Lee’s wife called Krieg “CIA sponsored”, without a shred of evidence, and Lee’s followers have apparently been told that they are not allowed to even look at Krieg’s website.

Diagnosis: Pseudoscientific crackpot. We’ll just assume he’s a loon for present purposes. There are, of course, other interpretations of his behavior and his claims, but “pseudoscientific crackpot” would probably apply in any case.