Although a very lucrative scam, it’s relatively harmless for David Copperfield to entertain gullible people with illusions during which he makes elephants disappear or saws pretty women in half. (Incidentally, has anyone ever seen this illusion performed on an ugly woman, or a man for that matter?)   But it amounts to an unconscionable fraud for him to use his acclaim as a master illusionist to lure people to The Bahamas with the promise of “perpetual youth”.

Anthony L. Hall is a descendant of the Turks & Caicos Islands, international lawyer and political consultant - headquartered in Washington DC - who publishes his own Internet Weblog at www.theipinionsjournal.com offering commentaries on current events from a Caribbean perspective

Perhaps you read Jane Sutton’s report here on Wednesday about Copperfield’s fantastical claim that he has found the fabled fountain of youth amidst a cluster of Bahamian atolls he bought recently. (In fact, if you hear people referencing Ponce de León in this context, please inform them that this sea-faring adventurer was not looking for any fountain of youth; that, instead, he was pillaging for gold and hunting for slaves for the glory of Spain – hoping to upstage his predecessor Christopher Columbus.)

At any rate, here’s how Copperfield spouted his sales... um, er, miraculous find:

“I've discovered a true phenomenon... You can take dead leaves, they come in contact with the water, they become full of life again. ... Bugs or insects that are near death, come in contact with the water, they'll fly away. It's an amazing thing, very, very exciting.”

Indeed.  

Naturally, one wonders why no minister of tourism ever thought of promoting the truly holistic waters of The Bahamas in this shrewd manner.  After all, just consider how much cash the town of Lourdes rakes in each year from Catholics making pilgrimages to receive miraculous “cures” - for everything from inoperable cancer to gout. And, if Copperfield takes in only one tenth of that, he could make a killing! 

But aye, there’s the rub; for the people of The Bahamas may have a cognizable claim for a share of his revenues if Copperfield’s fountains are not confined to his atolls but steam into our national portion of the Caribbean Sea...

Alas, despite ridiculing this claim, I am painfully aware that too many islanders have spent their hard-earned savings on the “Miracle Spring Water” that televangelist-quack Peter Popoff has been peddling to them for years. But in fairness to Copperfield, X-Ray divorcees from New York and aging stars from Hollywood are far more worthy suckers.  And if, as reported, these folks are already renting thatched-huts on his coral reefs for $300,000 per week, just imagine how much he could charge them to fly down for a dip in, or drink of, his river Styx...

But oooh to see their faces when the naked truth is laid bare when they get back home...

CAVEAT EMPTOR:  Any one who buys into this illusion should beware that even if Copperfield’s “Fountain of Youth” can make “unsightly bags and wrinkles” disappear, they will return just as fast as the Statue of Liberty did after he supposedly made it disappear...