Over a year ago I was flown out to Hawaii to give a workshop for an organization run by a man who has been described as a "New Age Self-Help Guru," James Arthur Ray. Mr. Ray has appeared on Oprah and Larry King, and was seen in the film version of the book, The Secret, which, like some popular New Age books, takes one aspect occultism, the "law" of attraction, and focuses on it (often superficially). Although I was glad to give the workshop, I actually think—without any proof—that Mr. Ray may have wanted me there primarily to legitimize the title he used for his week-long session, "Modern Magick," even though his training had nothing directly to do with my book. My workshop went very

I like Wikipedia. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia, the concept is simple. It's based on the idea that nobody can be an expert on everything, but many people can be experts on individual topics. Thus, instead of creating an encyclopedia run by a limited panel of experts, Wikipedia invites everyone to share their expertise. The result has been astoundingly successful. The largest software company in the world, Microsoft, was cowed by Wikipedia. At the end of this month they will close all of their Encarta on-line encyclopedia websites. Wikipedia is a colossus that resulted in the failure of Encarta. In a recent blog post I wrote that Wikipedia was "maligned." This