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The first thing you need to know
about a master con artist is that
his mark, his sucker, his target
never ever realizes that he/she has
(they have) been swindled.
The ultimate crook is the one who
never gets caught. He or
she is either invisible to the
public media or is thought of as a
respected member and/or leader of
the community.
As an
example, see the section
below,
Confessions of
a Con Artist.
For an in-depth analysis of con
artists and how they function, see
the page titled:
How to Win with a Losing Issue.
Confessions of
a Con Artist:
Imagine for a moment, that you have
just found the secret journal of a
religious preacher named Argy Rodes.
Argy was one of the minority of
people who were immoral, unethical,
and would do anything to make a buck
except work to earn it.
Here's the essence of what you found
in his journal:
When I was still in
high school, I got to thinking that
the world out there was a pretty
tough place. My
dad, on the few occasions that I saw
him, told me that there weren't very
many life-long, free lunch counters,
so I'd better start figuring out
what I was going to do to (in his
words) "keep my ass out of the
gutter." I'm not
much for hard labor, so when
my dad also told me that working
smart was better than working hard,
I actually paid attention to
him.
I started looking for
a work-smart career. My
dad was a currier for one of the
small-time, local crime families, so
I saw first hand that crime
attracted the attention of guys with
guns and badges and jails.
I knew dad's business wasn't for me.
When I was sixteen,
two important things happened to me
in the same month and when I
connected the two, a flash of
lightning hit my brain.
The first thing occurred when a
circus came to town. I
went there with my buddy and lost
all the money I had in a slick
carnival game. When my
mom found out, she just laughed and
quoted P. T. Barnum, "There's
a sucker born every minute."
About two weeks later I saw the
film, "Elmer Gantry" which was about
a vacuum cleaner salesman turned
tent preacher in the 1920's.
Talking and telling stories came
natural to me, so when I walked out
of that theater, I knew I'd found my
career.
I started reading the
Bible and checking out local
churches. Mom thought
I'd gotten religion and was pleased.
She started encouraging me.
I never mentioned that I didn't buy
into the religious stories because
there were just too many things that
didn't make any sense.
There was, however, one thing that
made really good sense to me.
I saw hundreds of people giving
money to people who talked about
God. As a test, I
started making up stories that I
thought were so outlandish that
nobody would believe them.
To my amazement, many of my
listeners would respond to my
stories with an open mouth stare and
say, "Really?"
The first time I got
my hand into a girl's panties by
telling her she was doing God a
favor, I knew I was going to be a
king of the hill. At
that point, I knew that I was headed
straight into the religion business;
not for Jesus, not for saving souls,
or for helping widows, but to make
money; to be a pillar of the
community; to make easy money;
to be safe from those men with guns
and badges; to make lots of money;
to "live high on the hog," to have a
big home with servants, drive or be
driven in luxury cars, drink the
finest wines, and have lots of great
sex.
Over the years, I've
made millions, hobnobbed with the
rich and famous, been invited to
places that most people don't even
dream about, and had secret sex with
more beautiful women than anybody I
can imagine except perhaps rock
stars and Hugh Hefner.
There are tens of
thousands of dedicated, kind,
honest, loving individuals who are
leaders in numerous religious
faiths and who are truly working for
what they honestly believe are God's
wishes. To walk among
them, wearing their costumes and
pretending to be one of them,
has been, for me, so simple and
so easy that I'm amazed that I don't
find very many others like me.
But then, perhaps there are numerous
others who are as good at the con
game as I have been.
Who's to say for sure what someone
else's motives really are?
As my life nears it's
conclusion, there's one thing I can
say with absolute certainty:
Religion is the home of some of the
greatest con artists on the planet.
I hold myself up as a shining, but
still invisible, example of a master
of con artist. I've
lived my entire adult life in a
lifestyle at a level that is beyond
the reach of 99.99 percent of the
other humans on this planet and
never, even once, got caught at my
game.
So the next time
someone starts peddling religion to
you, look at his life style.
If he lives a modest life, he's
almost certainly genuine, but if he
spends large amounts of church money
on himself, watch out.
My advice to the world is to simply
offer two quotes from Jesus:
"Beware of the wolves in sheep's
clothing." and "By their
fruits you shall know them."
In order to believe
that there are no con artists hiding
among today's religious and
political leaders, one has to be
either, incredibly naive or believe
that Jesus was lying when he warned
about wolves in sheep's clothing.
The best this author can add to the
above quote is to invite you to
apply two rules to your life, first
question your religious beliefs and
second, question every decision that
you are asked to make that triggers
an emotional response in you.
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