Kumare

I highly recommend the documentary Kumare (Koo-Mar-Aay). In this documentary an Indian man who grew up in New Jersey decides to make himself out to be a spiritual guru. He travels to India to study the mannerisms of gurus and guru followers. He returns to Arizona where he feels no on will recognize him and there will be plenty of would-be followers. He is a fake guru looking for people to believe he is real.



Long ago James Randi ran a similar experiment.



It is this kind of thinking that is at the root of all Cargo Cults. To make people believe in complete nonsense, you need to have a specific skill set. Kumare and Randi demonstrated how it's done. It's interesting how many similarities there are between these two scams and modern/science. Charismatic leaders from exalted institutions convince us that they have life extending elixirs and cancer curing pills.  

Our gurus wear suits and ties, white lab coats when the cameras are on. They have no intention of revealing the scam.  As someone who has friends and family currently dealing with cancer, I think we have to take our guru problem seriously. Let the foolish pharma people continue their quest for wealth. What we have to do is keep thinking, keep asking questions, and keep believing that science is indeed the belief in the ignorance of experts. It's okay not to believe the leaders.