TONY QUINN, MEDICINE MAN

Case study







Do you want to change your life? Well, Tony Quinn will help you for just £15,000. And don`t worry if you don`t have the cash because he`ll also help you to get that, too. In the first of a two-part series, The Sunday Tribune examines how his organisation operates and finds money to be a top priority

Harry McGee

Richard Oakley



It drops through your letterbox a couple of times a year, along with all the unwanted flyers from auctioneers, Indian takeaways and late-night pizza joints. The first thing you notice is that vaguely familiar face that beams out at you from the cover - that long jaw, the neat beard, the damson-cheeked smile and that oh so 1980s coiffure. "Dr Tony Quinn," it always says, "doctor of clinical hypnotherapy, Master of Science in psychotherapy."

Blueprint for Successful Living. Only good news, it promises. There`ll be at least 30 photographs of people with chorus-line smiles. There`s always an interview with the great one on the cover, which reveals a man not overly familiar with the concept of modesty.

Q; How would you describe yourself?

A: In many ways as a philosopher... What happened in my own case is that I spent so much time trying to learn the secrets of life that I began to have insights.

The good doctor is always involved in some ground-breaking research that`s "causing a stir in scientific circles" In universities everywhere, academics are poring over his findings with barely concealed envy.

Q: Tony, you`ve just completed what has been hailed as ground-breaking research.

A: Yes, the study took place in conjunction with a university and under university research conditions.

The strange thing is that there`s one thing that`s never advertised among all the seminars, and ki-therapy courses, and successful living tapes, life-extension mixes, postal requests and slimming formulas that fill the space in Blueprint. Strange, because it is the one vehicle that has elevated Tony from being merely rich to being a multi-millionaire, living in the tax haven of the Bahamas , the "highly favoured cruise destination of the rich and famous", as Blueprint describes it so eloquently. We`ll phrase it in Blueprint`s own inimitable style:

Q: How did Tony make his millions?

A: By getting hundreds of people to go on his Educo seminars at £15,000 a pop.



Sometime between the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tony Quinn - former apprentice butcher, former body-builder, former yoga guru - reinvented himself. Armed with his doctorate, and later his masters, he devised the "Educo" system, which he described as new mind technology. His "mind-training" of boxer Steve Collins when he became world champion gave the Educo system a huge - and continuing -advertising boost, though Collins wouldn`t share Quinn`s view of his role. "He was one of many people who helped me on the way. He was useful for a little while. I used a couple of hypnotists to help me focus. In my opinion, the best of them all was Tony Sadar," says Collins.

The connection did Quinn no harm. In the past four years, his courses have mushroomed from short local seminars to two-week courses in exotic climes, run on an almost monthly basis. In the same period he has built up a following of what may be thousands of supporters, some of whom believe him to be world`s best life coach. An estimated 600 of these - some sources say many more - have gone on these £15,000 seminars, some more than once, where he promises to dramatically change your life by using "unconscious attention".

Quinn says he has developed a breakthrough system. He claims to be more than a new age or alternative therapy guru and can point to 18 qualifications, to his systems and theories which he says are validated by original research carried out in conjunction with universities.

However, an in-depth investigation by The Sunday Tribune (in conjunction with TV3`s 20-20 programme) shows that Quinn`s organisation is a business empire with financial gain a priority, using hard-sell techniques that push the concept of OPM (Other`s People`s Money) to its limit, and includes sell-on procedures that are designed to increase recruitment. The investigation also shows that some of his qualifications are not all they appear and that elements of the research and the theories he has built his system on have little scientific basis, according to two of Ireland`s leading academics.

The one aspect of Quinn`s organisation that is never advertised in his Blueprint for Successful Living are his seminars - the mainstay of his business for the last number of years. The basic one costs £15,000 for a two-week course held at a sunny resort. It is believed there are more expensive options where the customer receives one-on-one attention from Quinn. Representatives of Quinn say that the seminars are advertised within the organisation and that news of them is spread by word of mouth.

The Sunday Tribune, however, has for the first time secured tapes of what is said at these seminars and found them to be sold on a hard-sell basis. There is evidence that Quinn tells people, while under his influence at the seminars, that the best way for them to realise the life of their dreams is to sell his seminars to others. And it can be shown that whether or not you have the finance to attend is not a problem as Quinn`s organisation can point you in the direction of someone who can lend you the money.

Money, and the attainment of it, in fact, is one of the recurrent themes of all Tony Quinn`s seminars. You can get that sport`s car, that holiday, those riches, that successful life you dream about, he promises. "Imagine the following ideal scenario," he says in one seminar. "You have left your penthouse on Paradise Island and you are out in your yacht on the bay... You are sitting with a group of friends and they are envying your lifestyle. They ask how you achieved it. You talk about the seminar and how you went from fixed to flow and self-expression; of the exciting adventures you are having since living outside of thought."

It`s almost as if Quinn is describing himself. The man born in a small cottage on Arbour Hill in Dublin 55 years ago now lives in a luxurious mansion in the Bahamas , a tax haven. The company that runs his seminars, Human Potential Research Seminars Ltd, is registered in St Helier, Jersey , and thus is not subject to Irish taxes.

A lifestyle like that of Quinn`s is what he promises his followers. In a tape recorded at one of his seminars, Quinn, having put his audience in a relaxed state, tells those attending to picture an exotic island with a cave in the middle. He then tells them to go into the cave where they find jewels and riches. Listeners to the tape can hear hysterical calling out, loud laughter and shouts of joy from those at the seminar who are clearly under Quinn`s influence. His talk is delivered in his slow voice and strong Dublin accent.

"And go inside now, go inside now and see this incredible treasure. Wow, look at that treasure, look at all those gold bars, aren`t they beautiful, see all those jewels, wow, run over there and run your hand through all those jewels. And look as far as your eye can see, all that treasure, mountains of it, it`s beautiful, wow it`s beautiful. It is all yours. You are going to mine all of this. And it is unlimited and never ending," he states.

Not everyone who attends can easily afford £15,000, but it appears this is not an obstacle. Representatives of the organisation, in an interview with The Sunday Tribune, say it is often the case that people are advised to borrow money to go on one of Tony Quinn`s seminars and readily admitted that they can point people in the direction of specific money lenders that have a working knowledge of Quinn`s system.

"Look at it this way," says Martin Forde, a spokesman for the Quinn organisation. "What`s it going to cost you to buy a car? What`s it going to cost to take a year out and do a university course?... Some of the guru business people, Tony Robbins for example, cost much more. The level at which it`s pitched is comparable to all other types of mid-life reorientation training."

Some of those encouraged to go told The Sunday Tribune that the enthusiasm shown by Quinn`s supporters made them feel compelled to attend, even if they couldnt afford to. One woman, Kathleen White from the Lough area in Cork , says she was advised to remortgage her house to find the £15,000 seminar fee.

Some former Tony Quinn staff members say that they also came across hard-sell techniques. They say that other members of the organisation aggressively marketed the seminars and would go out of their way to convince others to go on them. Two people to whom The Sunday Tribune spoke severed all connections with the organisation soon after the £15,000 seminars were introduced because of their unease about the manner in which they were being promoted.

During this investigation, a reporter built up a relationship with an employee of Quinn`s, who runs one of his health stores. The woman heavily promoted the seminars when the subject was raised and suggested the reporter borrow from a bank or a credit union to finance his attendance. She said not to tell the institutions what the money was really for but to say it was for a car or a holiday.

She said the money could be made back easily. The Tony Quinn organisation admitted that people are encouraged to tell other people about the seminars and that some people may do so a little too enthusiastically. "The best way to have the life of your dreams is to show people how to live the life of theirs," is one of the points made. However, Quinn`s representatives, Martin Forde and Colette Millea, say people would never be encouraged to lie to financial institutions.

They confirmed, however, that there is a financial incentive which effectively encourages people to sell the seminars. "We know the average person can`t pull £15,000 from their back pocket," said Forde. "What we will say to you is that you are likely to be able to pull it back very well and that will apply for promotion in a job, starting a business or expanding an existing business. Or if you decide that you can send a couple of people out, you could do that." They also confirmed that there is an official system in place whereby people can sell seminars to others. They said, however, that only people who request to be part of the system are included. A person who has attended a seminar is urged to get others to attend subsequent ones. If a new customer signs up for a £15,000 seminar, the person who made the introduction gets £1,000, and if the newcomer then introduces a new customer, the original agent gets a further £2,000. The agent, however, must commit to going to at least one Quinn seminar a year.

"Many people find that everything can expand if they get other people to go out [to the seminars]," said Forde. "People will be encouraged to talk about it, to actually give it away... That`s the phrase that`s used, to give it away."According to the Quinn organisation, a person can make their money back in this way with little effort. It is described as a unique financial opportunity Ð a statement repeated over and over again.

Also central to Quinn`s theory is the idea of OPM (Other People`s Money). Quinn claims that anyone who has become rich and famous has done so using OPM or credit. He says that people like Aristotle Onassis and Richard Branson became rich through using other people and he and his organisation use this idea to promote their seminars and to encourage people to borrow money to attend them.

The Sunday Tribune has obtained a copy of a document entitled "Onassis: living in the money flow" and another called "Financial Freedom". They are clearly marked with a special note which states that they are "intended only for people who have completed at least a two-week seminar". In the Onassis leaflet, OPM is explained and the idea of paying as little tax as possible is outlined. "By using other people`s money and in turn paying minimal taxes, Onassis accumulated a stupendous fortune," it states.

The financial freedom document is described as a blueprint that can take a person "into another dimension of living". "I believe that when you experience the results of the seminar, you will want others to share in the benefits," Quinn is quoted as saying. But it would seem that the main motive for sharing the dream with other people is to get them to go on the seminar as well.

"...You can do the perfect work of helping people and have the life they want. This gives you an ever-growing circle of friends who truly owe their lives to you. In addition, you have ever-growing financial freedom to practise the art of ultimate living in any country that you choose."

These documents reveal the emphasis put on sales techniques and of encouraging people to sell the seminars. However, they only give a small indication of the out-and-out hard-sell spin Quinn has used in at least one of his seminars that The Sunday Tribune knows of.

In the tape mentioned at the beginning of this article it is apparent that the people Quinn is talking to are under his influence. There are hysterical sounds from the crowd. At the beginning, Quinn makes them concentrate on relaxing. When they are relaxed, he then sets about explaining the selling technique that "never fails" and tries to convince those present that the only way they can live the full life of their dreams is to sell the seminars to other people.

Sean Collins is a hypnotherapist and president of the Irish Institute of Counselling and Hypnotherapy. Having listened to the tapes, he said: "It sounded as if [the people] were in an altered state and [Quinn] was guiding them into some sort of delusional place because he was absolutely leaving out any possibility of failure and possibility of negativity. This is always worrisome because the reality is that things go wrong in life."

Spokespeople for Quinn denied that negativity and the possibility of failure were excluded from the seminars. They said what Quinn does is stack the odds in people`s favour. They also said that the people on the tape may have requested the seminar.

The following is a sample of some of the things Quinn tells those attending: "So just close your eyes now and let yourself begin to relax. That`s it. And let yourself now become more and more relaxed. As if you were going to just blend into the seat. And realise now that your mind is going to absorb this material and it will absorb it so much that you won`t really have to do anything about it. It will just start happening to you" It is so wonderful to be able to just walk up to people, which you can now do, and you can now say "I have the answer for you". You can say "If you want that life of your dreams and you want to be able to mine your unlimited treasure, then now is the time". You can tell them to take that ultimate adventure and really live, to really take that chance, that brave step and do the seminar. Of course, you know in reality that they are not really taking a big chance. They are just spending the price of a car. So let them see that you have done the seminar and reached a point that they can reach, the same point that you are at... where you are demonstrating to them now the selling system that never fails. You are demonstrating that to them. That`s it. To achieve that state of mind the seminar will help them to go from the point where they are at to the point where they want to be Let them see that you have this ability to operate this mental state of mind." That`s it and in this way now, you are doing the same work that I do. And from now on with each second you are gaining greater, financial freedom. And you are beginning to have the same lifestyle as I would have."

It should be noted also that during the seminars Quinn refers to opposition and negative thoughts. He tells those attending that they must block out all opposition and negative thinking and not allow it to stop them in their mission to sell his seminars so others can have the life of their dreams.

When he was a teenager, Tony Quinn idolised Charles Atlas, the puny kid who overcame getting sand kicked in his face to become Mr Universe. Quinn has said that he had exactly the same dimensions as Atlas at one time and refers to the fact that he has won "about 12 body-building contests in total including Mr Ireland ".

If you flick through Blueprint, you quickly notice an almost obsessive interest with the body beautiful and with the ageing process. The most extreme example of this is Bob Delmonteque, an 81-year-old man with a bodybuilder`s body.

The second obsession seems to be with Quinn himself. His smiling image is pervasive, he is always interviewed in the magazine, his name crops up more often than a Murphy in Cork . Some former employees and observers say that there`s a messianic aspect to Quinn and that something of a cult of personality has grown up around him.

But Forde and Millea emphatically deny any suggestion of cultish characteristics. "We are a business operating a service. We reject that allegation entirely. As for the interview with Tony, we like people to know where Tony is, what he`s doing, what approach he`s taking and what services are operating."

To the allegation that some subscribers to Tony Quinn`s life-changing programme consider him a guru, Forde says: "People are prepared to go on seminars because they think that Tony has something to offer. You have to ask yourself what allows a person to be anaesthetised. He has a capacity for original work in the academic sense. He has a capacity to help people use their minds."

"Also," adds Millea, "a guru is one who points. He points to them."

Quinn is a master of the metaphor and we will end this article with one of his classics:

"Have you ever been interested in cracking the system - so you can live life outside of it on your own terms? My whole life, this has interested me at all levels. I have always described it as the rat in the rat race that stops and sits looking for a hole in the wall through which to escape. At first there is only the solid wall, so it just sits there, looking. Then one day the hole just appears and the rat is free."

It`s the way you tell them, Tony.



Tony Quinn`s qualifications



The walls of Quinn`s occasional residence in Ireland, a Martello tower in Malahide, are festooned with framed certificates of his myriad qualifications, 18 in all. When you look through them, many are diplomas for practices that are beyond the fringes of conventional health studies - naturopathic medicine, neuro-linguistic programming, hypnotism. However, two degrees, in particular, are used to validate and give ballast to his self-styled "new mind technology" programmes.

These days, Quinn styles himself as Dr Tony Quinn, Doctor of Clinical Hypnotherapy (DCH). Such a lofty distinction was conferred by the American Institute of Hypnotherapy (AIH), based in Santa Ana , California , which awarded most of its degrees by distance learning.

However, nowadays when you access the AIH website, you are redirected to the American Pacific University (APU) in Hawaii . When contacted, the AIH said it was not "actively encouraging" any new students in California but would be offering DCH and PhD degrees by distance learning. An APU employee told The Sunday Tribune that the PhD could be done in two years by correspondence.

Dr John Bear, based in California , is the leading authority in the US on non-traditional education, ie private degree-giving schools. His guide to non-traditional colleges (the best and worst) is in its 13th edition and has become the standard work. He has given expert evidence on behalf of the FBI in cases involving unaccredited colleges and qualifications. In the 10th edition, he described AIH thus: "Offers doctorates in hypnotherapy, entirely through correspondence study. Students are encouraged to finish their PhD in less than one year... Authorised to grant degrees by the state of California ."

In the early 1990s, the college`s own prospectus said that because continuity of learning was important, students were encouraged to complete their doctorate in clinical hypnotherapy in a year or less. The fee was $3,300.

Bear told The Sunday Tribune that state approval did not mean that a college was accredited. Approval is regulated by the Office of Consumer Protection in California . However, accreditation means recognition of the degree as a doctorate by an agency approved by the US Department of Education. Bear said that the AIH was not accredited by any agency or organisation recognised by the US Department of Education. An AIH employee confirmed that the AIH has never had accreditation.

Sean Collins of the Irish Institute for Counselling and Hypnotherapy attended the AIH in the early 1990s and also received a DCH qualification. He was living in California at the time and spent two and a half years attending courses at its campus in Santa Ana . He said that he found the course to be very beneficial. He accepts that the doctorate would not have the same status as a conventional post-graduate doctorate from an established university. "It is a non-traditional route," he says. "It was the only place at that time that was offering training in hypnotherapy. I accept that it`s not a Trinity College PhD or an Oxford PhD. I must point out that the standard of lecturing was very high."

The other qualification that Quinn most proudly advertises is a Masters of Science Degree from the University of East London (UEL), which he was awarded in 1995. However, he claims that it is an MSc in clinical psychotherapy. According to the UEL, it is an MSc by independent study. His thesis was entitled "An Investigation into the Hypnotic Effects of Hypnotic communication on the Individual’s Subjective Experience of Pain". Quinn`s research involved the hypnosis of four patients undergoing elective, and minor, surgery (a video of the operations was shown on The Late Late Show).

Quinn makes extraordinary claims about the qualification and its significance to the pool of learning. In the latest Blueprint, he has this to say. `Working with a university, I discovered what has now become known as unconscious attention. For this I received a master of science degree, the highest award to date for original research in the area of "how to use more of your brain and mind" Unconscious attention proved to be THE breakthrough and has since played the key role in all of my work.`

A spokeswoman for UEL said that it would be impossible to comment on his claim without revisiting his thesis. However, she pointed out that the claims were stated in the passive voice (without reference to who considered it to be THE breakthrough) and seemed to be his own interpretation of the significance of the degree.

There is no reference to unconscious attention in the thesis title. Martin Forde, a spokesman for Tony Quinn, explains that for academic reasons the title of the thesis was confined to hypnosis. (Incidentally, the use of hypnosis in surgical procedures is nothing new - it was used extensively until it was superceded by anaesthetics.) There is some confusion as to what comprised Quinn`s research for the thesis. He has stated more than once that the operations were part of his research for the MSc. However, Forde now says that the operations formed part of research work undertaken after Quinn had completed his masters.

Quinn continues to work with a university (presumably the UEL) on "ground-breaking research which is causing quite a stir in scientific circles". In one study, sales revenue increased by 70% in a company when sales staff used unconscious attention. The results were monitored by Price Waterhouse.The company which achieved this amazing result was, in fact, Quinn`s own health stores, selling Quinn`s own health products. Hardly objective research.

Forde responds: "Tony had not been involved with the companies for some years. We had taken on new staff as well as old staff. There were about 20 new staff. It was with those staff that the great leap forward was made." Forde also said that Quinn was currently working towards a PhD.

The Educo System

and what the experts think of it



"Simplistic in the extreme and without any acceptable research," is how one of Ireland`s leading academic psychologists, Professor Ciaran Benson, describes Tony Quinn`s Educo "breakthrough", developed in the early 1990s. For most of his life, Quinn says he had "researched the mind". Somewhere along the way, eureka!, Educo was born.

Quinn sets out his stall for it in an extraordinary 1993 tape, a mishmash of metaphors and "insight" that spends almost two hours explaining his "new mind technology".

The formula that underlies Quinn`s Educo system is set out in a mantra: "If you want something believe that you have it without any inner doubt and it will come about."

One piece of research that is repeated ad nauseam is that humans use less than 10% of the mind – "now it`s sometimes said to be as little as 1-3%", Quinn states confidently. He claims he can tap into the unconscious. Likening the mind to a computer, he says our true selves have been ruined by thought programmes. "To the self, thoughts can be added and subtracted. Thoughts can be in the form of education, experience, conditioning. They can be beliefs, worries, phobias, creeds, complexes, etc. These solidify into what we call our personality... This programmed personality is not yourself."

Quinn`s solution is that we step out of thoughts, "anti-life programmes" as he calls them, and install new programmes instead. If you can get your whole mind to accept a goal that you have, he says, then it will come about effortlessly. You get into a state of "unconscious attention" where everything is effortless and you can be 100 times more aware than ever before; you can then "photograph" your goal or install a new programme (frequently expressed in terms of riches and material success) and you will instinctively follow that goal like a heat-seeking missile.

Benson, the head of the psychology department in University College Dublin, was already familiar with Tony Quinn`s philosophies before he was approached by this newspaper and had this to say after perusing extensive material on Quinn`s Educo system, including the Educo tapes. "I have read all the documentation supplied by you and on foot of it, whatever persuasiveness Mr Quinn has, it has nothing to do with his grasp of psychology. I found it simplistic in the extreme and without any acceptable research support."

He continued: "If he is persuasive with some types of people, it is a persuasiveness which seems to be based on identifying such people’s needs and distresses rather than on any scientific or theoretical understanding of contemporary human psychology. He purports to give people an understanding that he has developed on the basis of research that he has been conducting for most of his adult life. Nothing of what I have read shows anything other than the most banal and superficial understanding of psychology or of other human beings."

He describes Quinn`s theories as primitive. "His use of key concepts such as self and mind is extraordinarily primitive and confused. His metaphors such as `thought programmes` are very misleading. They obscure more than they reveal. In his talk, he moves from one crude metaphor to another. These metaphors have no defensible relationship to a scientific or philosophical understanding of human psychology," he says.

Some of the psychological propositions and research that Quinn uses simply do not stand up to scientific scrutiny, according to both Benson and Professor Ian Robertson, head of the psychology department in Trinity College , Dublin , and the director of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. Robertson had not heard of Quinn before The Sunday Tribune approached him and had never seen any of his materials. He answered specific questions that were put to him about the brain without knowledge of, or reference to, Quinn`s claims or activities.

To the notion that humans use less than 10% of their minds, he had this to say: "This idea that we only use 10% of our minds is a modern myth without any scientific foundation. There are no areas of brain tissue that are lying dormant, waiting to be awakened. There are no magic bullets here."

Asked about research that Quinn claims shows the unconscious to be a site of a far larger portion of mental life than Freud ever envisaged, Robertson said this proposition could not be substantiated. "Much of our brain`s activity goes on outside of consciousness and we can be influenced by events and stimuli of which we are not aware. The nature of this unconscious activity studied by experimental psychologists is, however, quite different from Freud`s notion of the unconscious and there is no evidence that it is greater in scope."

Another piece of research, quoted by a tutor at Quinn courses, is a study said to have been carried out in an old person`s home that showed that the majority of people who were senile had been exposed to people who were senile when they were children. The children unconsciously "photographed" the memory which became a blueprint that continued into old age. The basis for this, according to Quinn, is a study called Mindfullness carried out by Ellen Langer at Harvard and Yale universities.

However, Robertson refutes this. "Senility is a layman`s term for a range of brain diseases that are determined by molecular changes in the brain and could not be affected by early exposure to people with dementia. There is no scientific basis for such a statement," he said.

In the latest Blueprint for Living, Quinn says that he can help people become two or three times more aware than they normally are. Benson says that this is ridiculous. "In psychology you can rarely say that any capacity is two or more times as much as some other capacity. To make such statements presupposes being able to specify what zero capacity is. It is in the nature of most psychological functioning that this cannot be done. To claim to be able to do so is either to betray a profound ignorance about the use of numbers in psychological research or to deliberately mislead."

Quinn also operates an extremely profitable postal requests system that is linked to Educo. His literature says that the Educo system can be used to obtain results in every aspects of a person`s life from business, health, healing, success to self and life improvement, and can even be used to achieve results for people who are not aware that they are the subject of a request.

The postal requests have to be accompanied by a cheque for £25, or £40 for a family, and have to be renewed monthly. Quinn invites people to write down their goals and to send them in with a photograph. Alternatively, you can ring them in. He and a long-time Quinn associate, Aideen Cowman, promise to apply their minds for the desired outcome.

"Often I find I receive requests for third parties who don`t know of the request, yet it still works," Quinn has said of the system. "In fact, if the request seems impossible, like a terminal illness, then I always advocate third parties making a request not to tell the person concerned in case they include my prayer in their anti-life thought programmes. I truly feel that it is better if they don`t know and it increases the chances of a positive outcome.

“When I put my hands together and I really believe wholeheartedly in truth, effortlessly expecting a result, I notice that a feeling of energy comes from inside me, runs down my hands and into the request. I really do feel like that magician pouring that magic energy into those requests."

Asked could the human mind work in such an extraordinary telepathic capacity, Robertson simply replied "No".

Martin Forde says that postal requests involve Quinn working in conjunction with the requester but agreed that when a person was seriously ill, they were passive. He said that these things were the subject of much research, which would substantiate the practice. He also said that Tony Quinn absolutely stands over everything he says and is in a position to back it up.

Quinn "spoke with voice of Jesus"

Film director Jim Sheridan was "unnerved" by meeting, write Richard Oakley and Harry McGee

Award-winning film director Jim Sheridan has claimed that controversial lifestyle guru Tony Quinn told him that he once had a vision in which the voice of Jesus was coming from inside him.

In an interview with The Sunday Tribune, the director of Oscar-winning movies such as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father said Quinn approached him two years ago through a mutual friend who was involved with Quinn`s organisation.

Quinn, according to Sheridan, wanted to make a film about a hypnotist. They met in the Malahide home of the figurehead of the positive living group, whose activities have led to concern among the families of some of those involved.

"I had met him before and I was once interviewed for his newspaper. I agreed to meet him because a friend of mine asked me to. He started telling me all about himself and the idea for a film he had about a hypnotist."

"He was telling me all sorts of stuff about himself, some of which I couldn`t believe. He told me he was walking along one day when all of a sudden a group of some sort of Middle Eastern people appeared to him.

"He said he became aware that he was walking on sand and he followed the people to the top of a hill. He said there were thousands of people there and that he thought he heard Jesus speaking to them, but then he realised it was him. That is verbatim what he told me. I found the whole meeting unnerving."

The Sunday Tribune asked representatives of the Tony Quinn organisation if the event occurred. Tony Quinn was uncontactable but a spokesman spoke to someone who was present at the meeting. He confirmed that Quinn had an idea about a film and described it as a "sci-fi" one. However, he denied that Quinn referred to himself as a Jesus-type figure or told the story recalled by Sheridan .

Dublin-born Quinn is now a multi-millionaire thanks to his £15,000 "life-changing" seminars. Some of Quinn`s own clients told RTE`s Liveline programme last week that Quinn had similarities to Jesus.

However, this claim has been denied by Quinn`s organisation. "Tony Quinn does not have an identity crisis. He does not think he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ," the spokesman said.

Sheridan said yesterday that after the meeting he made it clear that he did not want to have anything to do with Quinn. He said he was approached again about the project but that he refused to get involved.

News Focus,

Pages 14-15

THE MIGHT OF QUINN





Relatives of those who have become committed to Tony Quinn describe how it has affected their lives.

It was the last day of one of Tony Quinn`s £15,000 seminars. The exotic location this time was Paradise Island in the Bahamas , where Quinn has lived for the past five years. There were about 20 people on this particular trip, less than the usual attendance. Some have had up to 50 people attending, such as the one in Monte Carlo last year. As a special treat, the group was brought on a bus to Quinn`s residence, a sumptuous building with its own private beach, two swimming pools, and a garden stretching across many acres. It is worth many millions of dollars, according to a former associate of Quinn.

However, the group wasn`t allowed across the threshold of the great man`s house, but had to be content with being entertained on the patio. No one could go beyond the hall door, it was explained, because in the past people had pocketed items from the house to keep as mementoes or souvenirs of Quinn, relics of the true cross, as it were. There was, however, a consolation prize. Quinn posed for photographs with the group and then autographed cards for them, some of which bore a portrait of him in white-toothed Cheshire Cat mode.

"Your new life starts here," he wrote on the cards. "Lots of Love, Tony xxx xxxx."

A seminar with a tea party on a patio as the grand finale - accompanied by a card with seven kisses on it - might seem a pretty paltry return for doling out 15 grand, but for Tony Quinn followers, it`s more than enough. For many, even a few seconds with Quinn himself counts as an out-of-body experience. Quinn, as The Sunday Tribune has discovered, is believed to be the next best thing to God by some of his followers and, quite possibly, by himself. Some say he shares similarities with Jesus. Such a view was expressed on RTE Radio`s Liveline last week during a discussion on Quinn prompted by the first part of this Sunday Tribune investigation.

Others describe him as a genius. One of his closest associates, Colette Millea, told this newspaper he is a genius whose achievements, like others who have gone before him, will not be fully recognised in his own lifetime.

Whatever way they see him, however, one thing is certainly true - most of Quinn`s followers are extremely loyal to the man who promises them he can change their lives, even though all the evidence shows that he is not all he claims to be. While people would claim to have benefited from any involvement with Quinn, The Sunday Tribune has spoken to others whose lives have been turned upside down by what they see as his organisation`s less-than benign influence on their loved ones. They say that relationships have been fractured and people distanced from their families because of their involvement with Tony Quinn. And there are others who are opposed to what Quinn is doing. A number of former followers are disillusioned with the organisation`s relentless pursuit of profit.

In the most detailed exploration of Quinn`s background and way of thinking, which includes extraordinary details never before examined, it can be seen that there is a heavy dependency culture among some of those involved and, in a number of cases, their entire lives seem to revolve around Quinn.

Very few people are prepared to speak out against Quinn. Those who do will generally ask for their identity to be protected. Some do not want the Quinn organisation to know that they have a problem with it. Others do not want their relatives, who are involved in the organisation, to know that they are opposed to what they are doing.

Gerry Murphy, a GAA employee, is one of the few people prepared to speak publicly about the Quinn organisation. Neither Murphy nor his wife had ever heard of Tony Quinn until he became ill and was told by a surgeon that he would have to start looking after himself properly. "The first time I had ever heard of Tony Quinn was when we visited one of his health stores in Carrickmacross. I took home some of his supplements and started a new diet. After about a week I didn`t feel any better so I decided the diet was useless. I told my wife, stopped using the supplements and my direct involvement with the Tony Quinn organisation ended there. Hers, however, was only starting."

Murphy`s wife started to attend Quinn`s classes. Within a short time, she began working for Quinn, using his products and believing strongly in his philosophy.

"Over the first two or three years, she changed in personality and in attitude. She became totally different to the woman I had married. Her whole life was dominated by Tony Quinn. She spent every spare moment working for Quinn at the expense of her family and friends. I wouldn`t see her from one end of the week to the other. She attended every seminar and travelled to Dublin all the time. In one six-month period, she clocked up 32,000 miles on the car. At the same time I noticed that no matter how much money we made, we never had any and I came to realise that the reason for this was she was spending huge amounts on Tony Quinn-related things," he says.

Murphy said the problem came to a head when he decided that he could no longer cope with his wife`s involvement with Quinn. He tried to stop her attending a seminar and in the ensuing argument asked her to choose between the Quinn organisation or him. "It was Friday, 26 June 1992 and at 6pm she walked out the door on her entire life and within two hours was in Tony Quinn`s house in Malahide," he said.

Murphy believes his wife is still involved in the Tony Quinn organisation. They are now legally separated. He has spent the last nine years trying to understand what happened and cannot come to terms with the level of loyalty his wife showed to the Quinn organisation or the level of control the organisation seemed to have over her. In that time, he has campaigned against what he believes is a harmful organisation and believes there needs to be government regulation of organisations like Quinn`s.

Murphy is not the only person who believes this. Two people whom we shall call Paul and Ann say that they have lost their partners to the Tony Quinn way of life and both tell very similar stories. Neither of the two will go on record about their experiences as their loved ones are still involved in the Quinn organisation - when they were interviewed for TV3, with whom this newspaper`s investigation was carried out, they both appeared in silhouette.

Paul`s wife has been involved in the Tony Quinn organisation for 10 years. The last four have been very problematic and his marriage has recently broken up. "Initially, when she became involved I had no problem with any of the activities, the gym, the healthy eating, the exercise. However, my concern developed over the years, when I came to understand more about Tony Quinn`s life-system and her involvement increased. At one stage, my wife, without discussing it with me, decided to leave her job to go to work for the Tony Quinn organisation. The move entailed a 50% drop in salary which just didn`t add up."

He said his wife changed dramatically from this point on. "My wife became totally dependent on all Tony Quinn things and she became what I can only describe as de-personalised. It got to a stage where she would get up in the morning and take six or seven Tony Quinn supplements, listen to Tony Quinn tapes throughout the day, wear Tony Quinn t-shirts and use Tony Quinn shampoo. She would keep turning off the news because she had been told not to listen to negative information"

He explains that this dependence is part of the reason his marriage broke up. "Eventually, I asked her to make a choice either to take a break from Tony Quinn or risk ending our marriage. She said she would rather end the marriage than take a break."

He denies that the break-up resulted from problems in his relationship that had nothing to do with Quinn. "There definitely was a total dependency. I know you can say that all husband and wives argue, and that is fair enough, but the Tony Quinn lifestyle also came between my wife and her family."

Ann`s husband is a wealthy businessman who attended one of the £100,000 one-on-one courses with Quinn. She had never heard of Quinn but since her husband went on the seminar, she has been fighting to prevent other members of her family being recruited to the Quinn system. "When my husband returned from the seminar, he was very much unrecognisable from the man I married. He was emotionally withdrawn from both myself and the children. The changes in him had a major effect, our marriage broke up and the children were devastated."

She said he seemed not to have control over his own mind. "I don`t know if I will ever get my husband back to his normal self. I am working very hard at it and I think I will eventually convince him to leave the Quinn organisation, because he does listen to me. At the moment, though, he is carried away on something that he has no control over."

As well as Murphy, Paul and Ann, The Sunday Tribune also spoke to six other families, all of whom had similar stories to tell. One mother said her daughter changed for the worse after she went to a seminar and the problems this caused have devastated her family. Another woman, from a farming background, said her husband recently received a large amount of money in compensation and that he spent £15,000 to go on a course in Egypt . Her family is distraught about the changes they have seen in him and she said her marriage is now destroyed.

In response, however, representatives of the Tony Quinn organisation, Martin Forde and Colette Millea, say that the instances in question were unfortunate, but denied that Quinn`s system was to blame. They say marriage break-ups are a part of life and that their courses have been attended by numerous couples who have stayed together. "We expect from the training people receive that changes can happen to their levels of awareness. I am very sorry to hear that families can be unhappy with it. However, there are at least 50 examples where one member of a marriage has sent the other out on seminars. They are all very happy with what has happened for them," Forde said.

Like the couples who the Tony Quinn organisation states are happy with the product on offer, there are plenty of single people who also find the Quinn life system to be of value. A large number of people use Quinn products, attend his courses or his gym and would say they have benefited greatly from the experience. "If I was to put a figure on it, the number of people unsatisfied it would be way less than 1%,"Forde said.

Shane Cradock, for example, is a chartered engineer. He said he went on a Quinn seminar in 1998 and found it "very helpful". Since then he has left his job and set up a business of his own. He still attends Quinn courses regularly, he believes he now has more control over his life and, he said, his health has radically improved.

John O`Doherty owns a steel company. Both he and his wife have been on Quinn seminars. Since he went, he said, his business has trebled because he has been able to work to his full potential. He claims only a proportion of what he has achieved would have been possible if he had not gone on Quinn`s seminar.

On Wednesday of last week, three women, all of whom had gone on Tony Quinn seminars, were featured on Liveline. Catherine, Barbara and Simone all said that going on the course was one of the best things they had ever done.

"I saw the £15,000 as an investment. My story is a very positive one. I invested in my own personal development and I got a fantastic return from the seminar. I am involved in sales and I found it brilliant. You go on the seminar for the information, it is stand-alone information," said Barbara. "I have to pinch myself in the morning - that is how good things are for me."

"An enigmatic character with huge powers of persuasion and influence"

Though his organisation purports to be nothing other than a business, there is much evidence, not least from Quinn himself, showing how it operates as a cult

There are aspects of Tony Quinn`s organisation that certainly appear to have more than a passing resemblance to those of a cult. And the more you delve into how he managed to build it into what it is today, the more similarities emerge. It is clear that he himself has grappled with this question. In an extraordinary tape never publicly revealed before, but a transcript of which has been obtained by this newspaper, Quinn tells those attending a seminar in 1994 about how he sees himself and in the process poses the central question.

"You might say, Am I trying to start a cult, am I trying to be a leader of something?" I don`t know. But if you have any suspicions about me, the beauty of it is that you are totally safe and you won`t line up with me anyway.

Mike Garde, a field worker with Dialogue Ireland , an independent group which monitors religions and cults, believes the Quinn organisation is a cult and says Quinn himself shares similarities with other cult leaders.

According to Garde, the aspects of the Quinn organisation which share similarities with a cult are its strong figurehead, the elimination of opposing thought, the unswerving loyalty of enthusiasts to Quinn, and the view that those who criticise Quinn do not fully understand and their objections should be discarded.

Spokespeople for Quinn`s organisation vehemently deny this, pointing out that it is a business offering a service which people can take or leave. They say that Quinn`s image is used to promote products and services that he originated. They particularly object to the use of the word "organisation" because of any connotations it may suggest.

Quinn`s detractors believe, however, that he has a strong messianic streak and that his personality dominates the lives of some of those who subscribe to his Educo mind-technology. The 1994 seminar espoused a philosophy that needs those who adhere to submit themselves totally to Quinn and align themselves to the force that Quinn claims exists within him.

The seminar is littered with religious metaphors and concludes that only submission works. "If you were to relate to me, by that I mean give up all your resistance, give up all your ideas that are in the way and align yourself to me, then I can bring out all the Self and put in a programme that you and I believe was best for you and give you this perfect life," says Quinn.

Later, he says: "Something in them, which I believe is their force, recognises the force in me and they instantly, quite frankly, would do anything that I told them and there is no problem."

Quinn refers to himself in terms of being a leader of some kind of movement, all aligned to the internal force which he has discovered. "I think that in some way I am meant to work with a large group of people - it could be millions." He speaks of how the force has made him into a healer, capable of making others into healers. "If I can line up enough people with me and keep it pure, I can change the world," he promises.

However, there was some levity. He came across, he says, as a " Dublin fellow who comes from Ireland , is a bit of a peasant, a bit of a thicko, says silly things, does silly things and has these childish hobbies where he believes that he must be faithful to his heroes".

His spokesman Martin Forde rejects that there is any element of proselytising in Quinn`s message or in the methods in which his Educo system is sold. But it`s clear Quinn claims a greater role for himself than the mere jawboning of business gurus who goad you to even greater selling techniques.

"This brings me back to whether I would see myself as some type of leader. There, I would say that my answer is yes. I have always felt that in some way I would be involved in great change in the world."

In 1972, when he was bringing yoga to the masses, Quinn had already assembled a loyal core of followers, some of whom have remained faithful to him to this day. He set up communes in suburban homes in Kilbarrack and Howth, where people could step outside ordinary existence and experience yogic states of being - the different states of existence, past lives, auras and karmas. Two people who were heavily involved with Quinn in those early days say that there was a messianic aspect to him, that some believed he was a reincarnated Jesus. Certainly, it is clear that he spawned a loyalty that bordered on devotion. Quinn enthusiasts nowadays often drive Japanese sportscars on the basis that Tony likes sportscars; they put a huge emphasis on the body beautiful (Quinn is a body-building enthusiast); and use the full range of Quinn food supplements and vitamins. There also seems to be a predilection for a certain type of look with Quinn enthusiasts - one former employee described what she saw as the "women in black" phenomenon, whereby some women involved with the organisation wore black clothes, a lot of make-up, and short skirts.

The loyalty has extended to being involved in many of his research "breakthroughs" – "working under strict university conditions". Three of the four patients who underwent operations without anaesthetic - one of the marketing bulwarks for Educo and described as "unremarkable" by experts - were employees of Quinn they included Colette Millea, and Imelda Farrell who runs the Tony Quinn Health Centre in Cork . The research "breakthroughs" involving dramatic improvement in sales were achieved in Quinn shops with Quinn employees. Some of the "before" and "after" pictures used to publicise his gyms and slimming products also use Quinn employees, such as Maire Lalor, an Educo seminar tutor.

The Sunday Tribune has spoken to six people who were involved with the Quinn organisation, some for protracted periods. All spoke on the basis that their anonymity would be guaranteed. All describe Quinn as an enigmatic character with huge powers of persuasion and influence. Some attributed it to a nebulous form of psychic powers, others to an ability to relentlessly focus on people, others to his ability to hypnotise. "I definitely believe he has a psychic power, a hold over people," said one, who was deeply involved with Quinn in the 1970s.

Quinn himself variously describes this power as a force, an energy, a healing power. "I noticed... that this force seemed to touch off some people and cause great changes in their lives," he says during a seminar in 1994. "I used to find that people might literally fall down and when they got up again they felt that they had an understanding, an awareness, an experience that was greater than anything that happened to them before and it changed their lives. It was as if their personality was overcome by this force."

On his Educo tape, he explains the effect that he has on the people at his seminars. "People speak of happiness, even euphoria, with their minds feeling crystal clear. People often talk about a brightness in their head. Some claim they get an increase in energy, that it feels like energy circulating through their body and going out to other people."

The thrust of one of Quinn`s 1994 seminars is submission to him and obeying the force – "lining themselves up" with the force that emanates from Quinn. Independent thinkers need not apply and it`s clear that the great man isn`t a fan of feminism.

"With fellows, they may want to be very egotistical with me. In other words, they want to be better than I am and once they are into that mode it won`t work because they are making great effort. I may sit down with girls and they are into something like women`s lib and again we are into problems. I reject all these things. I will shock you because sometimes I say to people, `Do what I tell you and if you don`t know what it is, ask me`. What I tell people is, `just line yourself up to me`."

There is no shortage of newcomers prepared to align themselves to Quinn, as testified by the numbers attending his seminars. However, some of the families of these people are concerned that the changes have adversely affected their relationships with spouses and families. These people firmly believe that Quinn`s organisation has had a cult-like draw on their families, which has caused a rift between them and their loved ones.

A former associate says: ÒI spent most of my adult life with Tony Quinn, believed everything that he said. Tony Quinn was my entire life. But Tony was obsessed with money and very few others within the organisation made any real money at all. They were collecting huge amounts of money from the postal requests, the health products, the gyms and the seminars, but very little of it was filtering down. Nobody ever questioned him.

"When I left, the shutters came down. I was excluded. You were either with Tony or you were completely out in the cold. That`s what happened to me."

Two others spoke about how they became personae non grata with the organisation once they had left, or were asked to leave. One expressed doubts about the necessity of selling seminars at £15,000 and was asked to leave shortly afterwards. Quinn, in his 1994 seminar, explicitly states that those whom he works with must align themselves to him and the force to which he speaks directly. In the mid-1990s, people who had lived in a communal house owned by Quinn for 20 years were asked to leave both the house and the Quinn organisation - some were said not to have wholeheartedly embraced Quinn`s relatively new departure into the Educo system.

"I am totally convinced that is the real problem that happened even in the organisation I was with - that people did not fully accept what I am outlining to you here. I am moving away from that at this stage. I don`t want to do this, but I feel that I must just work with whoever totally accepts what I call the Educo philosophy."