David Strike wrote:

> > JJ does control both Halcyon and GUE. Some of that influence will be
> swallowed by those that follow blindly. Those that seek and get benefit
from his
> > knowledge, but retain their own brains will filter the wheat from the
> chaff.

If my information is correct, JJ does not control Halcyon even though he's
certainly a major player.  Halcyon was started by Robert Carmichael, the man
who purchased Brownies Third Lung from it's inventor.  I've been told and
have to reason to disbelieve, that Robert continues to own a controlling
interest.  As far as I know, JJ does control GUE and, perhaps Extreme
Exposure.

> Which is what it's always been in diving!  :-)

This, in my opinion, is where the problem lies.  That's what it always
should have been in diving.  Here in the states, PADI used to be subject to
frequent criticism for the apparent corporate attitude that put sales of
education above its quality, claiming it was safe because telling people how
dangerous it could be for the careless would discourage potential customers.
Personally, I think a lot of the criticism was well deserved, but think it's
important to note that my problem is with the corporate attitude and not
with those who teach for PADI.  As one of my PADI Instructor friends has
said, he just got tired of the constant "Pump PADI" message.  I've also seen
the effect on this relative to newly certified divers.  Some are so
indoctrinated into the PADI way that they think PADI's recommendations are
rules and not only do they not consider the diversity of diving information
available to them, they don't even recognize it's there.  I think this group
is likely to agree.

Here in the States, GUE and DIR have done very much the same thing.  One of
my friends, who is now a very good diver, chose not to develop his own way
to check the gas in his tanks or, for that matter, that there was gas in
them.  His actual statement is that he wanted to wait so he could learn the
DIR way first.  He damned near killed himself when he dove a tank of the
wrong gas and had to call a second dive because the tank he brought was not
full.  I know this sounds crazy to us, like stuff that should have been
learned in the introductory course, but it's real life.  He was so involved
in the DIR program that he missed all things that experience brought to each
of us.  Please believe that I'm not exagerating when I tell you that there
are divers here that are doing double tank, trimix dives, with advanced
decompression who do not have enough time in the water to make any one of us
comfortable that they are qualified to do a single tank, recreational drift
dive unsupervised.  It's as much a religion as a sport and the acolytes
don't even know they've been indoctrinated.

All of this is to come to this point.  Filtering information through one's
own brain is what it always should have been in diving but when new divers
are exposed so such powerful messages from sources that appear so highly
respected, the amount of filtering that actually goes on often woefully
inadequate.

Lee