The event was advertised as a way to learn how to harness positive emotions and live the life you want. It was based on a theory called the power of attraction, a theory that I believe has validity but that has become its own mini-industry with books and so-called professionals flooding shelves and airwaves to proclaim its magic. Simply put, the idea is that you get back what you put out. Positive attracts positive and passion draws passion, be it at work, home or play.

This meeting, which I found on the Meetup site I routinely peruse for unusual things to do, was based on the movie and book “The Secret.” I have never read the book but have read others like it, among them "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and heard enough to get the gist of it. Two friends I highly respect said "The Secret" was “worth a read.”

Beyond that, it was Wednesday night. And I needed a break from Exercise TV and boxed wine. What had I to lose besides a stomach not quite as taut as it could be?

The meeting was held at a remodeled convention studio in a sketchy part of town. The closer I came to it, the more I thought about turning around. My car was wending its way behind the Broncos stadium. The stadium looks nice on TV, but notice they never pan around the immediate area much. That’s cuz it’s ugly. A blue-collar neighborhood peppered with soup kitchens and dollar stores. I know. I love dollar stores.

But the building itself looked nice enough, and the only person I could see well wore a suit. Surely this was a respectable event.

About 20 people milled around a lobby, all of them wearing “Hi, My Name Is” tags. Two women sitting at a table asked me to register. I filled out a piece of paper with my name, address and phone (all fictional, as usual).

“What is your name?” asked one of the women as she prepared to fill out my name tag. “Oh, Jane!” She smiled at me. “I like that name.”

A dash of red lipstick clung to one of her front teeth. I debated telling her.

“Thanks,” I said. “You really don’t hear it much, even if people do think it’s common.”

“Oh, I agree!” she said, flashing her red tooth at me again. “Well, my name’s Linda. How often do you hear that?”

She winked at me. “Women of a certain age, Jane.”

I stared at her. She was at least 15 years older than me. She wore her gray hair cropped close to the sides of her head. She was heavy, and reminded me far more of my mother than any women my age I knew.

“What are you saying?” I asked, grinning sweetly. “I don’t even know Janes my own age, much less older.”

But Linda failed to note, or simply didn’t think, she’d gaffed. Well, fine, I decided. She could walk around all night with lipstick on her teeth. I would never tell her now!

It was at this point that I probably should have left. Barely in the door, I’d been, however unwittingly, insulted. Plus, they wanted me to wear a name tag. How much worse could it get?

But I stepped aside and gazed at the knots of people gathered here and there in the lobby. Among each group of regular looking folks, identifiable by their blue jeans, was a suit-and-tie wearing man, grinning – like good old Linda – a tad too widely. In each case, the suit was speaking and the people around him were listening intently, smiling in sync with him.

Instinctively, I steered clear of them and stood by myself near the back of the lobby, waiting for them to open the doors to the conference room.

One other person stood aside similarly, an Asian man in a tight black T-shirt and black jeans. He looked to be about my age. That is, about 15 years younger than Linda.

But I didn’t speak to him either. Something about this set-up felt, well, greasy to me and I didn’t trust anyone. It wasn’t just Linda, or the insanely happy suits. The huge black signs in the lobby added to my sense of unease.

“Welcome to SGR Club!” they heralded. Above, the words read, “The Science of Getting Rich Club.”

And below, a photo of an elderly gentlemen leaning on a desk. “I’ll teach you the principles of living the life you want and how to create income opportunities!”

None of this was what I had expected. The signs and material I’d seen so far seemed focused on wealth, not happiness. And “club” implied dues. I found the name, "Science of Getting Rich," repulsive.

Before I could come to a decision about staying, one of the happy suits opened the conference room doors and invited us in.

I trailed in among the last, along with the Asian man. We both sat at a table near the back with a large, blonde woman.

I saw more of the huge black signs, a computer set in Power Point mode and pointing at a massive screen. The elderly gentlemen smiled at us from every corner of the room.

“Pretty awesome, isn’t it?” said the woman next to us.

She slid a flyer across the table to us, her new companions.

“The Zen Swing,” it read, “Great for meditating, relaxing and entertaining.”

“This is mine!” she said, pointing excitedly to the picture on the card. “I’m getting a patent on it.”

I stared at the photo of a child seated in a canvas swing, one of the variety of chairs you see at Renaissance Festivals and arts and crafts shows nationwide.

I stared, too, at the woman’s hands, which were disturbingly large.

Her face was broad, full and bland. She wore a lavender tank top and I noticed a massive sweat stain underneath one breast. Or what appeared to be a breast. It was clear to me that my new friend was a man.

“What’s so different about this than any others like this I’ve seen?”

I asked.

She smiled at me indulgently. “Oh, it’s not that. It’s this!”

She pointed to the huge metal, triangular frame from which the swing hung. It looked like a frameless teepee, and occupied a space as big as my backyard.

“Wow,” said the man next to me. “I don’t have a yard that big.”

“Well,” she said, “you’d just have to buy one! And if you keep coming here, you’ll have the money for a yard that big!”

“You’re not here by accident, you know,” she said, leaning toward us both. “You were drawn here tonight for a reason. Every step in our life brings us closer to what we want, if we just listen. It’s all in the cards for you now. You’re in the right place.”

She smiled beatifically. I wished I’d chosen any other seat in the house, though I suspect similar messages were being relayed at those tables, too.

The woman asked for our business cards. I lied and said I didn’t have one with me. The man next to me pulled out his wallet and fumbled around in it, then looked up sheepishly. “Sorry, I don’t have one either.”

“Well that’s OK,” she said. “Just write it down here.”

She slid a piece of paper toward me. I wrote down a fictitious e-mail address. I saw the man’s pen pause, and then he scrawled what I also was sure was a false address on the paper.

Then, to our relief, the presentation began.

A young, suited man named Lance took the microphone and spoke, his tone overflowing with passion as he read every single word from a sheet of paper laid on a table before him. Occasionally, he’d look up, smile brilliantly and raise a fist or hand to emphasize a point. But even I, as a beginning Toastmaster, knew his speech skills needed serious work, not jut for presentation but content.

Lance explained that he’d come to the SRG by some miracle, I think it was. He had been, for all intents and purposes, saved from a life of poverty into one of huge wealth. Or at least he was sure it would be that way; he was with the program and walking it every day.

“Who would like more abundance?” he asked in a booming voice, looking up at the dozen tables scattered throughout the room.

To my shock, the response was rousing. “We would!”

“Who would like more happiness?” he asked.

“We would!”

“Are you ready to have fun tonight?” Lance asked.

“YES!” shouted what sounded like a massive crowd of people.

“I didn’t hear you!” he teased, grinning.

“YES!!!”

Someone whooped. Someone else cried, “Yeah!” with the excitement of a cowboy conquering a bucking bronc.

I was astounded. Who were these people? The Denverites I knew did not respond like this to anything but a sporting event.

Then I noticed that at every table but ours, either a suit or a commonly attired person wearing a black-and-yellow SGR name tag sat. Their grins were all identical – massive and nearly plastic. When they shouted, several of their tablemates seemed to get caught up in it all, and respond with equal gusto. I noted only a handful of people who sat back in their chairs, expressionless and reserved.

My Asian friend, who sat as I did with arms crossed, glanced back at me and very subtly rolled his eyes. I felt a flood of relief to know I was not alone in this insane asylum.

Lance introduced RaeAnn, a pert, middle-aged lady in an ill-fitting black suit who, I quickly learned, possessed speaking skills only slightly better than Lance’s. She only sneaked peeks at her notes, but still, she clung to them. Unfortunately, she also shared with Lance a strong set of lungs and a thunderstorm of passion.

“Hi, I’m RaeAnn and I am financially free!” she said. The crowd roared its excitement, applauding her wildly.

I thought again about leaving. I knew that within 20 minutes, we’d be asked to buy something. Something big. I knew also that the SRG Club felt like a cult with its leader, the elderly gentlemen on all the signs and flyers, appearing to me a grizzled version of Jim Jones.

But I was already there. The night was cold, the drive had been long and Wednesday night TV was crap. Most of all, I realized this would make a great blog.

RaeAnn reminded us that the principles of the SRG club were based on “The Secret.”

She looked at her notes, paused dramatically and, eyes still fastened on her cheat sheet, shouted into her microphone, “Based on what?”

“The Secret!”

“Welcome to this movement!” she said. Pause. “Welcome to this what?”

“Movement!”

It both amused and frightened me that no one else, except perhaps the Asian man whose back was turned to me, was fighting back laughter.

RaeAnn instructed us to figure out the most important thing in our lives.

“That’s your main thing,” she said. “Now, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Her radiant smile indicated to us she’d just passed along some golden pearl of wisdom.

Then she paused and I knew the audience participation part was next. “To keep the what?”

“Main thing!”

RaeAnn asked us to consider our passion, and then realize we could all make money doing what we loved best. We received worksheets on which to jot down the things we loved most.

The Asian man revealed he loved most of all to dance, but simply wasn’t good enough to earn a living at it. He indulged in salsa and swing outside of his civil engineering job. I noted again the tight shirt, and the muscles bulging underneath it. A dancer’s body. I liked him for having an artistic bent. I wanted to see him dance, but stopped short of asking him where he practiced his passion.

I revealed my love of writing, and the fact that journalism didn’t pay well enough.

Blessedly, the manly blonde had vanished somewhere between Lance and RaeAnn.

RaeAnn asked several audience members to talk about their passions. Each person who stood received a generous round of wild applause just because, RaeAnn said, “it’s nice to be recognized, isn’t it?”.

RaeAnn soon revealed that we were lucky to be there, lucky because just by coming, we were able to take advantage of a special membership fee offered to no one else. A membership package including CDs, books, an MP3 player, access to live conference calls with our elderly leader and a ticket to a future conference – that alone valued at more than $2,000 – all wrapped up in a leather binder.

The market value of this, she exclaimed excitedly, was $8,000. Ours for only $1,995.

RaeAnn emphasized there was no hurry or obligation associated with the offer. We could return to the weekly SRG meetings for free as long as we wanted. But of course, the knowledge we could glean from the meetings was limited. The true secrets were in the package!

My Asian friend, whose name I never learned, turned to me and whispered, “Are you coming back next week?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

He nodded, and in the way he studied me, I could see the law of attraction at work. I saw that if I did just one or two things differently, if I tipped my head, asked a single question or smiled with the right degree or sincerity, he would ask for my phone number.

The woman decides, a man had told me years ago. The woman always decides, he said, it’s never our choice.

For the first time in my life, I saw clearly that this was the case. I was startled by the realization. But I did none of those things, and am left to wonder if I made the right choice.

“Well hey, it was nice meeting you,” he said, gathering his notepad and scooting out of his chair. “Best of luck.”

“You, too,” I said. “Keep dancing.”

He was barely gone with a young suit stood before me, grinning maniacally. I wondered if his jacket concealed a winding mechanism, if RaeAnn or the elderly mentor possessed the key that kept these strange beings walking and talking in alien manner.

“What did you think?” he asked.

“Great,” I said. “But I’m gonna go home and think about it.”

He frowned for the first time all night. “What’s there to think about?”

I paused and stared at him, trying to think of an answer that would clearly indicate to him he was wasting his time.

“I’m really not sure,” I started, watching him lean toward me, “I want to be rich.”