The COO (Church Of Oprah)

Much has been said over the last several years about Oprah Winfrey. In the last few weeks the buzz that always seems to surround her has gone on steroids.

Recently, a link to a video was distributed to my email by a friend. When I looked at it that morning I was amazed to see what the video was espousing. By 10 o'clock that night I was awestruck when I noticed that the viewing stats had risen from a mere 800,000 plus to over 4.8 million. At the time of this writing it has reached over 5.3 million.

Reportedly, over 2.5 million people are following hard after this celebrated talk show host. They have signed on for a 10 week course of free online classes about the new age guru Eckart Tolle's book "The New Earth." These classes have started a controversial firestorm across the globe because they are in direct conflict with Judeo- Christian beliefs. Oprah seems to be announcing to the world that her "New Earth" beliefs should be the standard that everyone believes globally.

I have never seen more crackpots coming out of the woodwork to give their take on all of this. The hostess with the mostest extraordinaire has opened her book club readers up to a different slice of the religious or spiritualist pie and the general public seems to smell a rat attached to a big old cash register.

They encourage the members of the "class" to discover self- perpetuated salvation. They say that there is no sin, don't worry of think about what happens after death and that faith in God does not require believing at all.

I would have to say that these COOites (Church of Oprah - ites), Opraholics and or Oprahphiles (or whatever you want to call them) are submitting yet another bubble wrapped package that contains a routinely similar doctrine or dogma that has been spread and taught by alternative so- called gurus, pseudo Christians and cult leaders alike for centuries.

It seems that most everyone is inflamed right now because the queen of talk has taken her love of the new age and mysticism to levels we never knew she'd even dare to tread. We have witnessed her parading and endorsements of a succession of people from eastern religious belief sets on her show for the last two decades but never wondered where this would eventually end up.

We all know the words to her theme mantra song but many of us never listened to them as we danced to the beat at the introduction of her shows. Hind sight is 20/20 and had we listened we might not have been so surprised to see what this media darling was endeavoring to do.

Read between the lines of the words of this song that has been sung by the likes of Chaka Khan and Witney Houston to see if anything grabs your attention.

"I'm Every Woman"

I'm every woman, its all in me

Anything you want done, baby

I'll do it naturally

I'm every woman, its all in me

I can read your thoughts right now

Every one from a to z

I can cast a spell

With secrets you can't tell

Mix a special brew

Put fire inside of you

But anytime you feel

Danger or fear

Instantly I will appear, cause

Chorus

I can sense your needs

Like rain on to the seeds

I can make a rhyme

Of confusion in your mind

And when it comes down

To some good old fashioned love

That's what I've got plenty of, cause

Chorus

I ain't braggin' cause I'm the one

You just ask me ooh and it shall be done

And don't bother to compare cause I've got it I've got it, I've got it, yeah

I'm every woman (repeat and fade)

What strikes me as very thought provoking is the lines that say "I can cast a spell, With secrets you can't tell. How do the lines "Mix a special brew or Put a fire inside of you" suite your fancy? Did we ever think that Oprah would ever want to cause confusion in our minds?

By and large, our ride with Oprah has been enjoyable and most would call it yummy. We watched complete strangers get new cars, loads of goodie bags and so many other great gifts from her. From that we believed that she was oh so giving and that she wanted everyone to just be happy.

Somehow all of this made us never question her motives. We attributed her unparalleled desire to give to others as wonderful. This made Oprah very trustworthy in our eyes.

Quiet is kept, Oprah put over 100 black men through college and nobody we know in Hollywood has done that. She built schools and communities in Africa by just writing a check. Oprah has out given just about every Hollywood star on record (and most of them combined), so for that we have to say that the girl has it goin' on! "Ok!"

It's unfortunate though that Ms. Oprah's show is likely to tank at the Crash and Burn shipyard for cancelled talkshows. If you think it could never happen you'd better get a clue, take and audience vote, and grab for a lifeline.

When husbands and boyfriends start processing and dealing with the backlash of Oprah's show and online classes newest big give, more remote controls than ever are going to become reposessed or at least her show and online website address will be blocked. Then Oprah may likely be hanging out with the likes of Jenny Jones, Sally Jesse Raphael and Phil Donahue.

Don't worry about Oprah though. Even though I think that lawsuits against her as a result of her newest add on are going to start being stacked to the heavens, I doubt if she'll ever go broke.