Learn CW while you sleep? If only!

This pile of bull droppings appeared at QRZ.com in a prominent position on their 'News' page, which somewhat got up my nose. It is clearly not news but a blatant piece of advertising for what in my not so humble opinion is someone selling Snake Oil. If it had simply appeared in the forums, so be it but in the Internet equivalent to the front page of a newspaper it got my heckles up and I just had to say something. There are plenty of effective ways of learning Morse code and most are available free. My advice would be to steer well clear, these charlatans continue to perpetuate the myth that success can be bought when we all know it takes perseverance and hard work.

Success Easy has just converted all their CW training CDs to MP3 downloads. To celebrate, they are offering 25% off during the rest of October. All the CDs were produced by Peter O'Dell, WB2D, who is a professional hypnotist and trainer. It is a fast, fun way to boost your CW speed, and this way you do not have to pay any S/H charges and you get 25% off. The link is http://www.success-is-easy.com/HamDownLoads.htm and the coupon code is OctoberFest. --K0CS

As someone who grew up with a father who was a professional illusionist I know all too well that hypnosis is no more than a stage trick and has no basis in reality. The whole thing works on the basis that a percentage of the population are completely gullible and will believe they are under the hypnotists control combined with use of plants in the audience. I find it somewhat surprising that the majority of people I speak to believe this bunkum. It is time someone in the know stood up to the charlatans the way Houdini stood up to Spiritualists. Not that it would make much difference as people are still taken for a ride by those nutters.

Undoubtedly some people find these so called self hypnosis things helpful. I have listened to a few myself and they usually offer advice on positive thinking that is quite logical, but then they tie it up in bunkum. There is no self-hypnosis or induced trance except in the mind of the gullible who believe they are 'under'. Some will say that if they believe they are hypnotized then they are but brain scans of people supposedly under hypnosis show otherwise.

Hypnosis is at best a placebo effect and at least it has persuaded thousands of people to give up smoking, but it is still not real. Many otherwise intelligent people such as those in the medical profession may be fooled, but it is just another pseudo-science proffered for sale by Snakeoil Salesmen. If only these guys would come clean and just sell positive thinking without the fake mysticism I would be happy, but in this world people need a crutch and the slick talking grease ball with the pocket watch will keep selling his placebo crutches.

I was quite pleased to see the number of sceptics that have already posted to the thread on QRZ, I think it shows most radio amateurs are men of science and not easily suckered. I now await the case for the defence starting with the one that starts "I bought these CDs yesterday and am already up to 40 words per minute."