# Is Brent Phillips a fraud or legit? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 12, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683 "2013-03-12T05:52:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Vitalis\_Kissmeoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f05b48/32.png) [@Vitalis\_Kissmeoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vitalis_Kissmeoff)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/1 "2013-03-12T05:52:23Z")
Won’t link to his site, but wonder if anyone has thoughts or insight or anything on this guy. Heard him on the radio today, claims he graduated tops at MIT. He was pegging my BS meter. Google and WolframAlpha didn’t show much. He’s essentially a faith healer best I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/2 "2013-03-12T11:18:53Z")
> [@Vitalis\_Kissmeoff](#): > > He’s essentially a faith healer best I can tell. This pretty much answers your question. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/3 "2013-03-12T12:11:00Z")
Ugh. His website is covered in shitloads of ® everywhere, and even his photos make him look untrustworthy. [QUOTE=Brent Phillips] He was so transformed by this experience that he gave up his career in technology and dedicated all of his science and engineering talent and experience to master instant healing and personal holistic transformation. [/QUOTE] Don’t trust anything with the word “holistic” in it. I would also question any uses of “synergy,” “wellness,” “clinically proven,” and “naturopathic.” ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/4 "2013-03-12T19:15:00Z")
> [@](#): > > The Formula for Miracles® is a holistic healing technique which directly addresses your subconscious mind to fix the “bugs in your software”, allowing miraculous instant healings and profound transformations. Whether you seek to transform your health, your finances, your relationships or your spirituality, the Formula for Miracles® is a surprisingly fast and easy way to make permanent, lasting, and effective changes in your life. So the only reason anybody stays sick is because their subconscious mind wants them to be sick? I guess is the pitch here? Yeah. I just want to add: being a MIT graduate doesn’t make you a sensible or even necessarily an intelligent person. ---
**Author:** ![S\_D\_Joe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@S\_D\_Joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/S_D_Joe)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/5 "2020-03-01T18:10:11Z")
I heard the same infomercial this morning. My eyes weren’t even fully open yet and already I smelled ‘scam’. #1: Scant as reliable information on this guy is, three names keep popping up re this ‘modality’: Phillips, Guy Stibal and Vianna Stibal. Whether they’re confederates or competitors I have yet to determine. But the m.o. of theta healing makes the suspicion that one, or all three, of these folks had some previous encounter with Scientology, overwhelming. Which makes sense: in his pulp-fiction-writing days Hubbard was known to remark that there’s no money in science fiction or fantasy - the real windfall comes from starting your own religion. So it makes perfect sense that one or more of his momentary acolytes had the same light bulb pop on in _their_ heads. #2: Even by infomercial standards, the theta-healing radio program was patently foolish - the human condition was analogized as being just like a computer program (overloaded with junk files, etc). Interestingly enough, the words “theta” and “theta healing” were never uttered. I guess after seven years, enough negative feedback had generated to dictate going low-profile in the sales pitch to new fish. #3: Apparently - given that my comment will be appearing seven YEARS after the last one - these folks are just cautious enough not to trigger investigation or prosecution (unless they were lying doggo these past few years until the coast was again clear). Thus far I have yet to encounter any former ‘students’ complaining that they were directed to disown their families or sign over power of attorney to their ‘instructors’. #4: Know that old folk-wisdom that says beware of salesmen bearing two first names? This guy’s got THREE. ---
**Author:** ![S\_D\_Joe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e0b2c6/32.png) [@S\_D\_Joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/S_D_Joe)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2020, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-brent-phillips-a-fraud-or-legit/652683/6 "2020-03-01T18:11:13Z")
I heard the same infomercial this morning. My eyes weren’t even fully open yet and already I smelled ‘scam’. #1: Scant as reliable information on this guy is, three names keep popping up re this ‘modality’: Phillips, Guy Stibal and Vianna Stibal. Whether they’re confederates or competitors I have yet to determine. But the m.o. of theta healing makes the suspicion that one, or all three, of these folks had some previous encounter with Scientology, overwhelming. Which makes sense: in his pulp-fiction-writing days Hubbard was known to remark that there’s no money in science fiction or fantasy - the real windfall comes from starting your own religion. So it makes perfect sense that one or more of his momentary acolytes had the same light bulb pop on in _their_ heads. #2: Even by infomercial standards, the theta-healing radio program was patently foolish - the human condition was analogized as being just like a computer program (overloaded with junk files, etc). Interestingly enough, the words “theta” and “theta healing” were never uttered. I guess after seven years, enough negative feedback had generated to dictate going low-profile in the sales pitch to new fish. #3: Apparently - given that my comment will be appearing seven YEARS after the last one - these folks are just cautious enough not to trigger investigation or prosecution (unless they were lying doggo these past few years until the coast was again clear). Thus far I have yet to encounter any former ‘students’ complaining that they were directed to disown their families or sign over power of attorney to their ‘instructors’. #4: Know that old folk-wisdom that says beware of salesmen bearing two first names? This guy’s got THREE.