David Cantu wrote:
> Absorbed wrote:
>> David Cantu wrote:
>>> I have applied the model successfully on several occasions and on
>>> several “planes”, including the social and intellectual to achieve
>>> material results, and once the connections are made for actualization
>>> the tap has a tendency to flow far beyond initial needs, even to
>>> become a flood.
>>
>> Can you provide a real-life example?
>
> Sorry, this is going to be long.
>
> Ok, I've decided to site two examples. Both are pretty much played out
> (so I'm not worried about dispelling them by talking about them) and
> both can be at least partially verified. One is small, the other is
> quite large. I agree with Erwin in that it is not magick without
> intention, so I assure you that both of these were entirely intentional.
> However, there will be no wand waving here, no god names, or assistants
> - angelic or demonic. And where oh where is Satan?
> And, no, I won't put this in Physics terms.
> First the small.
> As a guitarist I like guitars, but they can be quite expensive. My
> initial work was to grease the wheels at the local Guitar Center. I
> made myself very well known there and gifted some of the "sales
> engineers" with music according to their tastes. This resulted in
> massive discounts, they wouldn't think of selling me anything at floor
> price. But this wasn't good enough. So I encouraged my brother to
> start a business building guitars and to start chumming up guitar makers
> at NAMM conventions. I then suggested to him that it might be a good
> idea to distribute guitars made by promising Boutique artisans. This
> lead to a flow of very expensive guitars and prototypes through my
> hands, some of which I have kept at cost, often at a savings of about
> 3,000 dollars. I now have so many that I would have to stop and count
> them.
> Here is my brother's web site as partial verification:
>
>
http://www.rahanguitars.com/
>
> Ironically, my brother is a chistian and the Warrior Guitars he sells
> are consecrated to Jesus.
You convinced your brother to make guitars so you could get them cheap?
How did your "model" help you specifically in this example? As far as I
can see the skills required were a little charisma and persuasion and
the ability to notice the opportunity.
> So, on to the big one, probably the biggest I have ever attempted with
> this level of success.
>
> In the mid 80s I was selling occult books and supplies at a fantasy
> convention in Memphis. We had sold well so decided to take the final
> day off and look around. I wasn't interested in the convention per say
> but what did catch my eye was a guy selling bootlegs of something called
> Anime, or Japanese animation. I purchased a few based on cover art and
> watched them when I got back to Houston. There were several thing I
> found interesting about the one's I got. One of them was about a love
> affair between a young boy and a demon (a common theme as it turned out)
> and another was the most violent thing I had seen in a while. I
> realized right away that there was a great deal of potential here.
> Consulting my diary of the time I noted that bringing this stuff to
> America in a big way was beyond my means but imagined young children
> defying their parents wishes to see the forbidden. Plus I just wanted
> more for myself, and in those days the bootlegs were raw, without
> subtitles or dubbing, and I wanted that to change as well.
> But how to achieve my ends?
> Well, I'm not very obsessive about stuff, but some people are so the
> first thing I did was to find someone who lived and breathed Anime. I
> found him in the person of Matt Greefield, who ran an Anime club near
> NASA. A few years went by and I had benefited a little by getting a
> direct line to stuff Matt was importing, but I wanted more.
> One day, around '88 or '89 I tripped into a store that sold import
> Japanese video games and got to know the owner well enough that he
> started giving me games for free when they came in to try out. I
> quickly realized that the owner of the store, John Ledford had a
> connection to Japan that might be put to use but he knew nothing of
> Anime even though many of the game titles were derived from animated
> series. John was also highly motivated to be rich.
> I got Matt and John together one day for a brainstorming session. We
> needed one more person to complete the circle and this was a student of
> mine named Toshiro, sorry can't recall his last name, who spoke fluent
> Japanese and English.
> Another couple of companies had tried to bring Anime into America but
> with very limited success, so the first thing was to figure out how to
> make the connections to Japan (John already had an in there)and to work
> out what went wrong with the other guys. This was pretty simple, they
> concentrated on giant robots which have a limited appeal so we decided
> to concentrate on sex and violence. We chose the name for the company
> based on my suggestion that we randomly stack up some Japanese Laser
> disks and choose a two part name from words randomly selected. This
> lead to the name A.D Visions (since renamed ADV Films). Our first
> selection was a film called Devil Hunter Yohko, a little light weight by
> some standards but a good place to start (we didn't want to shock
> America right away but instead to slowly acclimatize America to the more
> extreme forms of the genre).
> Before going on it should be understood that though I benefited greatly
> from this work and initiated it, I never claimed any part of the company
> or its profits aside from my goals, I just made the connections and
> pushed psychological buttons to help it happen.
It seems to me you just introduced the right people together who then
went on to beat the competition. Obviously, I don't know all of what you
did, but I wouldn't be surprised if you credit yourself with much more
than you actually contributed. That you didn't claim any part of the
company is telling, as is the fact that that you've turned a supposed
example into a drawn-out story -- one that I suspect you've told over
and over.
> Anyway, our choice was a great success and with our second choice
> (Vampire Princess Myu) John heard interest from Blockbuster (a little
> less restrictive in those days) so we got the stuff into blockbuster and
> from there it took off.
> Before A.D.Visions the Japanese had no interest in bringing Anime to
> America and in fact were adamant that it was made for the Japanese
> people and that Americans would not understand it. After A.D. Visions
> they understood the smell of money and the gates were broken through. I
> measured this as a great success when Bandai (the biggest) got into the
> act and now encounter young students who grew up wathching the rather
> violent and somewhat Satanic Dragon Ball series all these many years later.
> Me, I burned out on the stuff once it became a flood and rarely watch
> it, though I sometimes fulfill the urge.
>
> Here is a link to the current incarnation of the company, it is now
> their 15th anniversary:
>
>
http://www.advfilms.com/
>
> Names and such can be verified on Wiki, looks like John has just sold it
> to a Japanese firm and I am sure he is quite rich by now.
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADV_Films
>
> Of course I could have made this all up but I didn't and at least you
> can verify that the company started in Houston.
> Hope this has been helpful. But it will probably lead to more bloodshed.
In both examples you haven't described how your "model" helped you
specifically. I accept that you spotted an opportunity and could have
used some inter-personal skills, but you've failed to mention how you
applied your model. I think your model isn't necessary, and that if
anything your examples support this claim.
