(email me if you want info on how to use EFT, where to tap etc.)

Using EFT for Money, Abundance & Success

from Gary Craig's web site

Dr. Carol Look provides us with a remarkable foundational article on using EFT to help create financial abundance in our lives. It is rich in concepts and specific language to use.

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By Dr. Carol Look, Cht

I have read more than 20 books on the subject of attracting abundance, trying to figure out the trick to having (“manifesting”) more of what I want in my life. What I learned was that money is just another form of energy, and that there is a particular VIBRATION associated with abundance. While I understood the concepts, nothing ever changed when I “applied” what I had learned. It was not until I combined the book knowledge with EFT and the energy of love and gratitude that I was able to change my limiting beliefs, expand my comfort zones, neutralize my deserving issues , direct my feelings and expand my prosperity consciousness---all of which had been driving the results in my life. Using EFT, I was able to change my VIBRATION in my daily life around money, worry, and the future, which in turn opened the door for success and abundance.

Over the past few years, I have conducted seminars and some teleclass series covering the topic “EFT for Success and Abundance.” The blocks and themes keep recurring, as do the progress reports of people that persistently use tapping for abundance in their lives. Below are some of the themes that need to be addressed.

COMFORT ZONES: When I first started using EFT for success in my own life, I didn’t “believe” in comfort zones---what Gary refers to as ceilings on your progress based on the “writing on your walls.” When I noticed my income for two years running was exactly the same, I realized this was evidence of a comfort zone operating in my financial life.

This may not seem strange unless you are a private practitioner in the mental health field. There are so many variables---holidays that fall on different days of the week, my own vacation time, clients’ vacation time, illness, referrals, the economic situation etc--- that it is virtually impossible to predict your annual income. Two years in a row, despite all these variables, I made the exact (within $1000) same income working as a full time private practitioner. Once I used EFT to break through these comfort zones (after some resistance of course) my income shot up over 20% the next year. I had not raised my fee, had not done any advertising, and the country’s economic situation had in fact worsened. I used phrases such as:

“Even though I don’t dare raise my income, I deeply and completely accept myself…

“Even though I obviously have a block to earning more than $ XXX, I deeply and completely love and accept this conflict.”

“Even though I have trouble seeing myself earning more than $ XXX, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

“Even though I don’t feel safe making more than $ XXX because they’ll be jealous, I deeply and completely accept and love who I am.”

LIMITING BELIEFS: Dozens of clients in my abundance classes have told me that they had siblings who were seen as either “slow learners” or having some form of “difficulty” in school. Some of these siblings turned out to be brilliant while some are still struggling to this day. The point is that my clients learned from their families “I’m not supposed to shine” and that if they did shine, they were taking attention away from their struggling sibling. It didn’t seem to matter if the sibling was older, younger, the same sex or not. What mattered was that the parents compared the two, and scolded the “fast learner” for looking good, or “showing off.” The message was “don’t succeed or you’ll hurt someone else.”

“Even though I’m not supposed to shine because it will hurt my sister, I deeply and completely accept my brilliance.”

“Even though I will lose their approval if I do well, I deeply and completely accept my talents.”

“Even though it’s not safe to succeed, I choose to feel safe when I am doing what I love.”

“Even though they don’t feel comfortable when I succeed, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”

“Even though I’ll never forget his scolding me when I succeeded, I deeply and completely forgive myself be being so fast.”

“Even though I’m afraid I’ll be rejected if I succeed…”

Other common limiting beliefs that block financial wealth are prejudices against wealthy people. “Fran” told me she thought rich people were “shallow and mean.” Apparently her mother had taught her this concept, based on feelings of jealousy and a scarring incident with a neighbor when growing up. Fran adopted this belief, but was unaware that she could therefore never BETHOSE PEOPLE) for if she became one, she would not only be seen as shallow and mean (her assumption), more importantly, she would risk the deep disapproval of her mother (her deepest fear). These prejudices about wealthy people come in all shapes and sizes. They must be uncovered and treated with EFT if you want to improve your financial situation. rich, (one of

“Even though I’m convinced ALL rich people are mean and shallow…”

“Even though she’ll judge me if I make more money…”

“Even though I’m afraid to be successful because my mother will reject me…”

“Even though I’ll be envied too much if I’m rich…”

DESERVING ISSUES: I have many individual clients who feel guilty when they have desires to do well financially. When I asked “Jeff” why, he said that he already “had it good” because his father worked hard to educate him and he was a superb athlete… “why should I take more away from other people?” (1) The belief that his success would hurt someone else is a mistake. (2) The belief that there is a limited supply of abundance is also, in my opinion, off base. (3) As long as he thinks he has had “his share” he will sabotage progress or inadvertently reject opportunities. Jeff didn’t feel deserving of financial success, and was finally able to see a pattern of rejecting terrific opportunities for advancement in his job. He realized he was working hard to tread water, just making ends meet, much like friends of his who struggled with comfort zone issues in sports.

“Even though I don’t deserve any more, I’ve had enough, I deeply and completely accept myself anyway.”

“Even though my mother said we were lucky to have what we had, I deeply…

“Even though I don’t want to be selfish and take more than my share, I accept and love myself for having desires.”

“Even though my father scolded me for wanting more, I deeply and completely…”

PROSPERITY CONSCIOUSNESS: Whether you believe you don’t have enough time, money, love or success, the consciousness behind your belief will block you from receiving financial abundance. Your level of belief exudes a particular vibration. In energetic terms, the theory states that your consciousness about abundance has a certain capacity; you will receive exactly what your consciousness is capable of handling. The good news is that your consciousness can be expanded to believe there is enough to go around.

“Even though there was never enough money when I was a kid, I deeply and completely accept my fears.”

“Even though I remember the fight my parents had about money, and I think money is bad, I deeply…”

“Even though I’m afraid there won’t be enough, so I need to hold on tight, I deeply and completely accept who I am.

“Even though she told me there wasn’t enough, I choose to believe there is enough now.”

FEELINGS: Do you feel rich? If not in your bank account, do you at least feel rich in love or compassion or some other way? My point is you can’t get rich if you feel poor. So you will need to find some way of FEELING rich in your life. Notice the abundance in nature, or notice how many clients you do have, or how many good friends are in your life. However you do it, you must change the vibration you have and feel wealthy on an emotional level.

“Even though my father said we would always be poor, I choose to remember how much love I feel.”

“Even though I feel poor and anxious about money, I deeply and completely accept these fears.

“Even though my mother taught me it was better to be poor, I love and accept her anyway.”

Combining EFT with the energy of love and gratitude has contributed to huge payoffs in my life and the lives of my clients. EFT was the missing piece all along. Believe in PLENTY… THERE IS ENOUGH!

Carol Look

How absurd can the RC Church get?

December 26, 2005

Backers Join Ousted Priest in 'Illicit' Mass

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ST. LOUIS - At least 1,500 people attended Christmas Eve Mass with an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest presiding, despite warnings from the archbishop that participating would be a mortal sin.

The Rev. Marek Bozek left his previous parish without his bishop's permission and was hired by St. Stanislaus Kostka Church this month. As a result, Father Bozek and the parish's six-member lay board were excommunicated last week by Archbishop Raymond Burke for committing an act of schism.

Archbishop Burke said it would be a mortal sin for anyone to participate in a Mass celebrated by a priest who was excommunicated.

The archbishop, who could not stop the Mass, said it would be "valid" but "illicit."

Despite the warning, Catholics and others from as far as Oregon and Washington, D.C., filled the church. An overflow crowd viewed the Mass by closed-circuit television in an adjoining parish center.

"I'm not worried about mortal sin," said Matt Morrison, 50, a worshiper.

"I'll take a stand for what I believe is right," Mr. Morrison said.

Many wore large red buttons reading "Save St. Stanislaus" and said they wanted to offer solidarity to a parish that they believed had been wronged.

When Father Bozek entered from the rear of the church, the congregation rose and greeted him with thunderous applause.

"It was magic," said JoAnne La Sala of St. Louis, who described herself as a lapsed Catholic. "You could feel the spirit of the people."

The penalty of excommunication was the latest wrinkle in a long dispute over control of the parish's $9.5 million in assets.

The parish's property and finances have been managed by a lay board of directors for more than a century. Archbishop Burke has sought to make the parish conform to the same legal structure as other parishes in the diocese. As a result, he removed both the parish's priests in 2004.

Father Bozek, a Pole who came to the United States five years ago, said he agonized about leaving his previous parish but wanted to help a church that had been deprived of the sacraments for 17 months.

This is one of my favourite photos of Rose. Click on the picture to enlarge it

Young love

The secret love life of Laura-Anne, aged 9¾

Channel 4 faces fresh controversy over fly-on-the-wall film of pre-teen romance (Channel 4 is a British TV channel)
Lorna Martin and Nell Card

Sunday December 18, 2005

Observer (newspaper)

Laura-Anne Hanrahan is sitting on her doorstep, playing with a pumpkin as she describes how she felt when her boyfriend kissed her.

'Tingly,' she says, dreamily. 'He used to come over and cuddle me and put his hands up my top. It used to feel cosy. I feel desperate to go up to him and say "Ben, why don't we kiss any more". It hurts so much that we don't kiss that I want to rip my heart out and throw it away.'

Laura-Anne, from Siddick, a two-street village near Workington in Cumbria, is nine years old.

Next year she will become a star as the main character in a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the sexual awakening of Britain's pre-teens, with her every thought pored over by television critics and sociologists. The makers of How To Fall In Love, due for broadcast by Channel 4 in the new year, spent two years following the primary school pupil and her friends as they discovered the opposite sex.

The Observer has seen the film. To some it will be a sweet and tender portrayal of childhood love, while others will rage against the increasingly sexualised world in which children grow up.

Laura-Anne is shown massaging 11-year-old Steven Hilland while he watches TV and eats crisps. Asked later about the scene, she tilts her head coquettishly and says: 'Sometimes I dig my nails in and scratch him hard.'

'I love it when you do that,' Steven replies with a grin.

In another scene, a heartbroken Laura-Anne shakes her head in disbelief as she reads a 'Dear John' letter penned by her 'first love'. 'It is hard for me to write this letter,' states Ben Challenger, aged 10. 'But I think we should have some time apart, because Steven is forcing me to go out with you and it doesn't feel right.'

In one of the most contentious scenes, two 10-year-olds are seen energetically participating in the kind of kissing normally undertaken behind the school bike shed. It has prompted a debate about the ethics of using potentially vulnerable children as documentary subjects, with one parent saying he felt that his son had been 'exploited and manipulated'.

'I'm not suggesting he was made to do anything he didn't want to do,' Steven Hilland said about his son, also Steven. 'But he was definitely encouraged by promises of burgers, go-karting and ice-skating. He didn't want to have a full-on snog with his girlfriend in front of the cameras, but he said he was persuaded to, and now he is embarrassed about everyone seeing it.'

Marc Isaacs, the acclaimed director of the film, admitted that some of the scenes, including the one Hilland mentioned, involved 'set up' shots, but insisted it was an accurate portrayal of what he witnessed during the two years he spent following the children. 'At first they were very excited, but then quickly got bored of the filming,' said Isaacs, who won the Grierson directorial award for best newcomer in 2002.

'We spent two years with them, because I didn't want this to be a surface portrait - so of course we took them to the pictures and bought them lunch and gave them Christmas and birthday presents. We did intervene and create scenes, but all the things that happened are completely true.'

Siddick, where the documentary was shot, is surrounded on one side by an enormous paper factory and on the other by a row of wind turbines. Visitors are welcomed by signs reading 'Please Die Carefully'. Once a busy mining area, it is now plagued with high unemployment. Despite this, there is a palpable sense of trust and community. Doors are left unlocked and children play outside until late in the evening. Now there is much talk about the impact the film, to be shown at a special screening in the local cinema on Tuesday, might have on the village and its residents.

Laura-Anne, who is now 11, Ben, 12, and Steven, 13, have mixed feelings. 'Most people my age think about boys and falling in love all the time,' said Laura-Anne. 'It is good to make a film about it rather than pretend it doesn't happen.'

'You have to have a girlfriend,' said Ben. 'Otherwise you just get wound up and people think you're not attractive.'

Although the programme is not sexually explicit, Steven told The Observer he first had full sex when he was 11, and had been several times to the family planning clinic. All the children said they had their first 'proper kiss with tongues' when they were six or seven.

This month The Observer revealed plans to introduce compulsory sex lessons for primary school children as young as five. Although the government later distanced itself from the report, which sparked fury among some church groups, there is growing support for sex education to begin much earlier.

Janice Hanrahan, Laura-Anne's mother, said: 'It can be very uncomfortable to see your nine-year-old on TV talking about being in love but it actually reminded me of having those feelings at a similar age. You simply forget as you grow up.

'People who say they want to keep children safe and innocent for as long as they can are fooling themselves. If children are not given sex education at home or in school, they will gather their impressions anywhere and everywhere: from explicit prime-time television jokes, soaps, magazines and the net.'

While many parents will be horrified at the thought of their pre-pubescent children engaging in any kind of sexual activity, some experts argue that we are all sexual beings, that children learn about touch and loving relationships from day one and that parents need to be comfortable talking about sexuality with their children early on.

Others expressed concern about a film showing nine-year-olds as sexually curious. 'There is already so much pressure on children to grow up,' said Mallory Hensen, a senior educational psychologist with Milton Keynes council.

'We hear about young girls wearing Playboy T-shirts and G-strings. We are already sexualising children far too much and treating them as young adults.'

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

An invition to gratitude

From Michael Winn, at www.HealingTaoUSA.com ,
or
www.HealingDao.com

A Soul-stice Blessing and Meditation on Gratitude:

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...
you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace...
you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...
you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church or other gathering without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If your parents are still alive and still married... you are blessed with a family that is very rare.

If you hold your head up with a smile on your face and are truly thankful...you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If today, you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder ...
you are blessed because you have made contact with another human being.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Count your blessings, and pass this message along to remind others how blessed we all are. Gratitude to the Life Force that manifests everything is a powerful way to come into intimate relationship with the Tao. The Life Force is the life blood of the Tao, our only means of communicating with the Great Mystery of the Unknown (wuji).

After contemplating this feeling of gratitude, I recommend sitting in the stillness of the Deep Cosmic Yin Inner Smile that is naturally happening at this time. Silence, but with an open heart.

Bless you and those you love this Solstice time, in whatever form you celebrate it!

May the Inner Light of the Tao Shine in Us,

Michael Winn

Boriska - an Indigo child?

From Pravda June 2004


Boriska-boy from Mars
03/12/2004 19:38

Sometimes, some children are born with quite fascinating talents, unusual abilities.

I was told the story of an unusual boy named Boriska from members of an expedition to the anomaly zone located in the north of the Volgograd region, most commonly referred to as "Medvedetskaya gryada".

"Can you imagine, while everyone was sitting around the campfire at night, some little boy (about 7 years of age) suddenly asked everyone's attention. Turned out, he wanted to tell them all about life on Mars, about its inhabitants and their flights to earth," shares one of the witnesses. Silence followed. It was incredible! The little boy with gigantic lively eyes was about to tell a magnificent story about the Martian civilization, about megalithic cities, their spaceships and flights to various planets, about a wonderful country Lemuria, life of which he knew in details since he happened to descend there from Mars, had friends there.

Logs were cracking, night's fog enveloped the area and the immense dark sky with myriads of brightly lit stars seemed to conceal some sort of a mystery. His story lasted for about an hour and a half. One guy was smart enough to tape the entire narration.

Many were stunned by the two distinctive factors. First of all, the boy possessed exceptionally profound knowledge. His intellect was obviously far from that of a typical 7-year-old. Not every professor is capable of narrating the entire history of Lemuria and Lemurians and its inhabitants in such details. You will be unable to find any mentioning of this country in school textbooks. Modern science has not yet proved existence of other civilizations.

Second of all, we were all amazed by the actual speech of this young boy. It was far from the kind kids his age usually use. His knowledge of specific terminology, details and facts from Mars' and Earth's past fascinated everyone.

"Why did he start the conversation in the first place," said my interlocutor. "Perhaps, he was simply touched by the overall atmosphere of our camp with many knowledgeable and open-minded people," continued he.

"Could he make this all up?"

"Doubtful", objected my friend". "To me this looks more like the boy was sharing his personal memories from past births. It is virtually impossible to make up such stories; one really had to know them."

Today, after meeting with Boris' parents and getting to know the boy better, I begin to carefully sort out all the information obtained around that campfire. He was born in Volzhskii town in a suburban hospital, even though officially, based on the paperwork, his birthplace is the town of Zhirnovsk of Volgograd region. His birthday is January 11th, 1996. (Perhaps it will be helpful for astrologers).

His parents seem to be wonderful people. Nadezhda, Boriska's mother, is a dermatologist in a public clinic. She graduated from Volgograd medical institute not so long ago in 1991. The boy"s father is a retired officer. Both of them would be happy if someone could shed the light onto the mystery behind their child. In the meantime, they simply observe him and watch him grow.

-After Boriska was born, I noticed he was able to hold his head [up] in 15 days, recalls Nadezhda. His first word "baba" he uttered when he was 4 months old and very soon afterward started talking. At age 7 [months], he constructed his first sentence, "I want a nail." He said this particular phrase after noticing a nail stuck in the wall. Most notably, his intellectual abilities surpassed his physical ones.

-How did those abilities manifest themselves?

-When Boris was just one year old, I started giving him letters (based on the Nikitin's system) and guess what, at 1,5 he was able to read large newspaper print. It didn"t take long for him to get acquainted with colors and their shades. He began to paint at 2.

Then, soon after he turned 2, we took him to the children day care center. Teachers were all stunned by his talents and his unusual way of thinking. The boy possesses exceptional memory and an unbelievable ability to grasp new information. However, his parents soon noticed that their child had been acquiring information in his own unique way, from some place else.

-No one has ever taught him that, recalls Nadya. But sometimes, he would sit in a lotus position and start all these talks. He would talk about Mars, about planetary systems, distant civilizations.we couldn"t believe our own ears. How can a kid know all this? Cosmos, never-ending stories of other worlds and the immense skies, are like daily mantras for him since he was 2.

It was then that Boriska told us about his previous life on Mars, about the fact that the planet was in fact inhabited, but as a result of the most powerful and destructive catastrophe had lost its atmosphere and that nowadays all its inhabitants have to live in underground cities. Back then, he used to fly to earth quite often for trade and other research purposes. It seems that Boriska piloted his spaceship himself. This was during the times of the Lemurian civilizations. He had a Lemurian friend who had been killed right before his own eyes.

-A major catastrophe took place on earth. A gigantic continent was consumed by stormy waters. Then suddenly, a massive rock fell on a construction. My friend was there, tells Boriska. I could not safe him. We are destined to meet some time in this life.

The boy envisions the entire picture of the fall of Lemuria as though it happened yesterday. He grieves the death of his best friend as though it was his fault.

One day, he noticed a book in his mother's bag entitled "Where do we come from?" by Ernst Muldashev. One should have seen the kind of happiness and fascination this discovery triggered in the little boy. He's been flipping through pages for hours, looking at sketches of Lemurians, photos of Tibet. He then started talking about high intellect of the Lemurians.

-But Lemuria ceased to exist minimum 800 000 years ago., I uttered in response to his statements. Lemurians were 9 meters tall! Is that so? How can you remember all this?

-I do remember, replied the boy.

Later, he began recalling another book by Muldashev entitled "In Search of the City of Gods." The book is mainly devoted to ancient tombs and pyramids. Boriska firmly stated that people will find knowledge under one of the pyramids (not the pyramid of Heops). It hasn't been discovered yet. "Life will change once the Sphinx will be opened," said he and added that the great Sphinx has an opening mechanism somewhere behind his ear (but he does not remember where exactly). The boy also talks with great passion and enthusiasm about the Mayan civilization. According to him, we know very little about this great civilization and its people.

Most interestingly, Boriska thinks that nowadays the time has finally come for the "special ones" to be born on earth. Planet's rebirth is approaching. New knowledge will be in great demand, a different mentality of earthlings.

-How do you know about these gifted kids and why this is happening? Are you aware that they are called "indigo" kids?

-I know that they are being born. However, I haven't met anyone in my town yet. Perhaps may be this one girl named Yulia Petrova. She is the only one who believes me. Others simply laugh at my stories. Something is going to happen on earth; that is why these kids are of importance. They will be able to help people. The Poles will shift. The first major catastrophe with one of the continents will happen in 2009. Next one will take place in 2013; it will be even more devastating.

-Aren't you scared that your life may also going to end as a result of that catastrophe?

-No. I'm not afraid. I have lived through one catastrophe on Mars already. There still live people like us out there. But after the nuclear war, everything has burnt down. Some of those people managed to survive. They built shelters, new weaponry. There was also a shift of continents there, although the continent was not as large. Martians breathe gas. In case they arrived to our planet, they would have been all standing next to pipes and breathing in fumes.

-Do you prefer breathing oxygen?

-Once you are in this body, you have to breathe oxygen. However, Martians dislike this air, earth's air, because it causes aging. Martians are all relatively young, about 30-35 years old. The amount of such Martian children will increase annually.

-Boris, why do our space stations crash before they reach Mars?

-Mars transmits special signals aimed at destroying them. Those stations contain harmful radiation.

I was amazed by his knowledge of this sort of radiation "Fabos". This is absolutely true. Back in 1988 resident of Volzhsky Yuri Lushnichenko, a man with extrasensory powers attempted to warn Soviet leaders about the inevitable crash of the first Soviet space stations "Fobos 1" and "Fobos-2". He also mentioned this sort of an "unfamiliar" and harmful for the planet radiation. Obviously, no one believed him then.

-What do you know about multiple dimensions? Do you know that one must fly not on straight trajectories, but maneuvering through the multi-dimensional space?

Boriska immediately rose to his feet and started to pour all the facts about UFOs. "We took off and landed on Earth almost momentarily! [instantaneously?]" The boy takes a chalk and begins drawing an oval object on a blackboard. "It consists of six layers," he says. 25%--outer layer, made of durable metal, 30%--second layer made of something similar to rubber, the third layer comprises 30%--once again metal. The final 4% is composed of a special magnetic layer. "If we are to charge this magnetic layer with energy, those machines will be able to fly anywhere in the Universe."

-Does Boriska have a special mission to fulfill? Is he aware of it?- I pose these questions to his parents and the boy himself.

-He says he can guess,- says his mother. He says he knows something about the future of Earth. He says information will play the most significant role in the future.

-Boris, how do you know all this?

-It is inside of me.

-Boris, tell us why do people get sick?

-Sickness comes from people's inability to live properly and be happy. You must wait for you cosmic half. One should never get involve and mess up other peoples' destinies. People should not suffer because of their past mistakes, but get in touch with what's been predestined for them and try to reach those heights and move on to conquer their dreams. (These are the exact words he was using).

You have to be more sympathetic and warmhearted. In case someone strikes you, hug your enemy, apologize yourself and kneel before him. In case someone hates you, love him with all your love and devotion and ask for forgiveness. These are the rules of love and humbleness. Do you know why the Lemurians died? I am also partially at blame. They did not wish to develop spiritually any more. They went astray from the predestined path thus destructing the overall wholeness of the planet. The Magic's Path leads to dead end. Love is a True Magic!

-How do you know all this???

-I know.Kailis.

-What did you say?

-I said "hello!" This is the language of my planet.



Gennady Belimov "NGN"



Read the original in Russian: http://science.pravda.ru/science/2004/6/79/308/16265_MARSIANIN.html (Translated by: Anna Ossipova)

A test for masculinity/femininity

Androgynous You scored 63 masculinity and 66 femininity!

You scored high on both masculinity and femininity. You have a strong personality exhibiting characteristics of both traditional sex roles.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on masculinity You scored higher than 0% on femininity

Link: The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test written by weirdscience on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

You like paintings? How about a genuine fake?

This must be saying something quite important about the value of art. From the Guardian, 8 Dec 2005:

The master forger

John Myatt was responsible for the biggest art con of the 20th century, and ended up going to jail for it. Now his story is being turned into a Hollywood movie - and a prestigious gallery is showing his 'genuine fakes'. He tells all to Mark Honigsbaum

Thursday December 8, 2005
The Guardian

John Myatt is showing me some of his recent creations. "That's a Giacometti," he says, pointing to an abstract in swirling whites and grays entitled Apples on a Stool, 1949. "I'm not sure it's quite finished yet." Next, Myatt walks me to another wall of The Air Gallery, in London's Mayfair, hung with a Modigliani, several Picassos and, in the centre, a large Ben Nicholson. "Now, this is actually a painting that failed," he says. "In the end I had to paint over it with primer and sand it back to the canvas.

For a painter who is celebrating his first London opening, Myatt is disarmingly honest about both his working methods and his failings as an artist. But then, this is not the first time that Myatt's versions of works by Giacometti and Nicholson have found their way into the West End.

Between 1986 and 1994, Myatt churned out more than 200 new works by surrealists, cubists and impressionists, passing them off as originals with the help of an accomplice, John Drewe, an expert at generating false provenances. Despite the fact that many of Myatt's paintings were laughably amateurish (they were executed in emulsion, not oil), they fooled the experts and were auctioned for hundreds of thousands of pounds by Christie's and Sotheby's. It was, said Scotland Yard's art and antiques squad when they finally caught up with Myatt in 1995, bursting into his Staffordshire studio at the crack of dawn, "the biggest art fraud of the 20th century". Indeed, to this day, some 120 "Myatts" are still said to be in circulation.

Now, having served his time - Myatt was sentenced to 12 months in prison in 1999 but was released for good behaviour after four months - and with Michael Douglas poised to turn his exploits into a feature film (working title, Art Con), he feels he has nothing to apologise for.

"If someone came to me with one of my fakes now I wouldn't let on," says Myatt, who is 60. "I figure that the paintings aren't doing any harm. Besides, I'd be losing a perfectly innocent person money."

Instead, he is seeking to forge a new career, so to speak, as a purveyor of what he calls "genuine fakes". These are works by the very same artists he used to imitate when he was a criminal - not only Giacomettis and Nicholsons but Monets, Matisses and Renoirs. They even come with the artist's signature. The only difference is that on the back of the canvas is a computer chip and the legend "Genuine fake" written in indelible ink.

In an age when a broken-down hut can win the Turner prize and Damien Hirst can make millions flogging "spot" paintings produced by teams of assistants, Myatt is hoping that his venture will be seen as a refreshing take on the question of what constitutes art. "So many things today are invented," he says. "I think genuine fakes slot into that rather nicely. With a fake painting, you're free to ask, does it go with the curtains? You can't do that with a genuine Van Gogh because it's worth millions."

Myatt didn't set out to by a faker. As a young art student he had high hopes of establishing his own artistic style. But whenever he turned his hand to landscapes or portraiture, he says the result was invariably "academic" and "dull". Instead, he taught evening classes and began selling the odd fake to friends and colleagues. In 1983, he placed an ad in Private Eye that read: "Genuine fakes, 19th- and 20th-century paintings from £150." The ad ran four times before he received a call from Drewe. "He had a mohair coat, wore expensive hand-made shoes and drove a Bristol motor car," says Myatt. "He told me he was a professor of physics. I believed him."

Drewe began by commissioning a Matisse, followed by several Dutch-style portraits. Soon Myatt was visiting him at his home in Golders Green and was on first-name terms with his wife

The turning point came with the ninth commission. Drewe had run out of ideas, so Myatt suggested a painting by the German cubist Albert Gleizes. "It was based on a drawing I'd seen in a book. I called it Portrait of an Army Doctor. At first, John hung it on his stairway like all the others. It was only later that I think he got the idea to take it to Christie's."

The first thing Myatt knew about it was when he got a call from Drewe saying the auction house had offered him £25,000 and "how do you fancy £12,500 in a brown envelope?". "It did not take me any time at all to make the wrong decision," says Myatt. "It was as much money as I earned as a teacher in a year."

Although Myatt had recently separated from his wife and was having to bring up their young son and daughter alone, he does not wish to make excuses. The truth, he says, is that he also enjoyed it. He began by knocking off fake Giacomettis, driving to Liverpool to catch an exhibition of the Swiss surrealist's work, then rushing back to Staffordshire to make the first brush stroke.

"I try to get the artist's work to hypnotise me," says Myatt, who compares himself to an art-world Rory Bremner. "I also surround myself with lots of books. I like to know everything - where he was, what he was doing, what his relationship was like with his wife - when he was painting."

In retrospect, Myatt says it is incredible that any of his paintings fooled the experts (it was only by chance, for instance, that he used the same cotton duck canvas favoured by Giacometti). Gradually, however, Myatt learned to use the correct materials and water down his emulsion with KY jelly to give it an authentic-looking glaze. Meanwhile, Drewe devoted his energies to generating fake provenances, collecting old gallery receipts from places such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts and slipping new entries into the card indexes at the Tate and V&A.

The scam eventually unravelled in 1995 when Drewe's wife went to the police (they were going through a bitter separation) and Scotland Yard raided Myatt's house. At first he denied everything, but when the officers discovered an unposted letter to Drewe in his briefcase saying that he wanted out, Myatt realised that the game was up. "The letter more or less amounted to a signed confession. The police were very nice about it. We ended up sitting round the kitchen table discussing art."

Myatt survived Brixton prison by doing portraits of his fellow inmates in exchange for phone cards, earning himself the soubriquet "Picasso". But when he was released, he says, the last thing he wanted to do was pick up a paint brush. Then he got a phone call from the officer who had arrested him, asking for a portrait of his family. This was followed by a commission of a Giacometti from a member of the prosecution team at his trial and a version of Dufy's Casino at Nice for the Bar Council. Another convert is the TV presenter Anne Robinson, whom Myatt got to know while painting her portrait for a BBC2 documentary, Art Crime.

By 2002 Myatt was back to painting fakes in earnest - the difference being that he now found he could sell them under his own name for substantial sums of money (genuine Myatt fakes go for anywhere from £850 to £4,700). But while his prominent disclaimers are designed to keep him out of jail, he says he cannot vouch for what others in the art world may do.

"I went to a fraud conference in the summer and met a lady from the Giacometti foundation," he says. "She said it's no good putting 'Genuine fake' on the back; all they'll do is re-line the canvas.

"As long as you're selling in good faith, I'm told that you're not committing a crime. What happens to the paintings in 70 or 80 years' time is out of my control".

· Genuine Fakes, an exhibition of paintings by John Myatt, is at The Air Gallery, 32 Dover Street, London W1 until Saturday