Meditation 1205
And the monster returns for a sequel
by: John Tyrrell
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In the most successful horror movies, the monster is never really killed. It may look like it in the finale, but somehow in the sequel(s), a way is found to reanimate the monster to once more inflict horror on living.
Four years ago I wrote about deaths in a sweat lodge during a spiritual retreat in Sedona (A Miscellany 227: And they claim religion is good for you) and expanded on what had happened (Discussion 1, 2, & 3) as more information became available.
In the end, James Arthur Ray, the person collecting nearly $10,000 a head for the spiritual retreat, was found guilty of three counts of negligent homicide and went to jail for a couple of years.
James Arthur Ray is one of the "brilliant" minds behind "The Secret" and "The Law of Attraction" - or the thoroughly mindless concept of "wish for it and it will come." He's been out of jail for a year and a half. And he's back in business.
He's running seminars, once again.
What does he have to say about the three people who died as a result of his "negligent homicide"?
From his website:
"In 2009, after rising to the top of his industry, James was involved in a terrible accident that claimed the lives of three people he cared about deeply." [emphasis added]
Terrible accident? No - it was no accident. It was negligent homicide! And if he had cared deeply about them, they would not be dead. Calling it an accident is effectively a denial of his personal responsibility for the deaths.
Personal responsibility is an important point to make because, currently that is what Ray is preaching - responsibility - not a very different concept from the ideas of "integrity of action" and "life of honor" that he was preaching before. And still - this man who preaches responsibility - calls the death of three people due to his negligence an accident.
Back in 2011, he was claiming that his experiences "required me to think and act more differently than I've ever had to before. " Now, on his website he is saying "In the process of losing everything…I actually found myself." Or in brief it works out to "my experiences have changed me."
Both what he is teaching and his argument for being qualified to teach amount to essentially the same old recycled bullshit. He has learned nothing. He has not changed.
As he's starting over, he's not getting $10,000 per person for a weekend anymore - but still he's getting away with over $600 per person for one day sessions promoting nonsensical woo-woo such as:
"Chemistry teaches us that when structures, be they your business, your relationship or your body, go past threshold they always reorganize with greater capacity and capability. Learn how to turn psychic entropy into order." (Life Unleashed Live)
Unfortunately, people are once again buying this stuff.
The Secret is nonsense. The Law of Attraction is nonsense. And Ray in preaching both is nothing more than a fraud talking platitudes.
His claims of combining modern science with ancient tribal spiritual wisdom is nothing more than woo-woo.
Integrity, honor, and responsibility actually are ideals worth living up to. All three are ideals that Ray - with his continued identification as an accident of the three deaths he was found legally responsible for due to negligence - has no concept of and which he is unqualified to teach. I see no sign of integrity, honor, or responsibility in anything Ray has preached in the past or currently preaches. His talent seems to be that of separating the suckers from their cash - a talent which requires no integrity or honor at all.
We can be thankful that James Arthur Ray is not doing sweat lodges any more, but like the monster in a horror movie sequel - he has returned.
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