The New Age is a wild paradox. On one hand it is a viable, well-intentioned spiritual movement, on the other hand it is a greed-driven morass of predatory snake oil salesmen. Tragedies like the recent James Ray case uncover the dangerous even deadly side of the New Age. It begs the question whether those who charge huge sums to show us the way to be conscious truly are themselves or are they strictly in it for the money? Profit versus prophet. Kathleen and Philip relate some of their own recent experiences at a nightmarish carnival called the Conscious Life Expo and try to come up with some basic tenets to separate the legitimate from the snake oil.