By Ox Drover
The ABC network has a new program called Mind Games that plays on Tuesday evening, and I caught their first show. The show was about James Arthur Ray, who is an advocate of the “Law of Attraction” and was one of the people interviewed on the movie The Secret.
Ray has written several “best —selling” books including, Harmonic Wealth as New York Times bestseller. Ray also charges as much as $10,000 for seminars.
Ray’s biography from Wikipedia states that he was born in 1957, the son of a Christian minister who was so poor at times that the family lived in the Church offices. Ray’s teachings are described as a “mix of spirituality, motivational speaking and quantum physics.”
Critics say that Ray is a charlatan who preys on the insecurities of the rich who are looking for meaning. In one exercise Ray even dressed in flowing white robes and designated himself as “God.”
In an exercise in October 2009, participants paid almost $10,000 each to attend and were pushed to physical and emotional limits in various exercises, one of which included being in the Arizona desert alone for 36 hours without food or water in a “vision quest.” He left them with only a sleeping bag, but did offer them Peruvian ponchos for an additional $250. After coming back from that, the participants were given a buffet breakfast and sent, still dehydrated, into a large sweat lodge. Three people ended up dying as a result of the sweat lodge, during which they were discouraged by Ray from leaving the lodge even though after about an hour they were disoriented and vomiting. One individual who had fallen into the hot rocks and suffered burns in which his skin was “hanging off” his arm, according to a witness, would not let it be dressed but went back into the lodge.
On February 3, 2010, Ray was arrested and charged with three counts of manslaughter for the deaths in October, 2009. Interestingly enough, the former followers of Ray, even though they state that he is a charlatan, still believe that they received “benefits” from his teachings, and would, if they had the money, which they don’t, pay another $10,000 to attend such an event.
Guru? Or charlatan?
“Why is it that so many believe in what ’they’ say instead of what they themselves ’know’ in their heart. ” – style1
It is easier to have someone else think for you so you do not have to assert your own psychological and spiritual freewill. Maybe this is the function of sociopaths? To light a fire under our backsides so we finally look in the mirror? I dunno. It’s a tough call.
Another thing is, people are perhaps the least intelligent we have been since the Middle Ages. If you read letters written by even the most ordinary folk from 100 to 200 years ago, they were so much more wise and articulate than the people in Western society today who are obsessed with celebs and the like.
A lot of this is due to the education system which is not about teching people how to think for themselves, rather it is a machine to destroy their independence to create workers. TV has been a gigantic social disaster too. I threw mine away last year and its been wonderful in our home ever since.
Couple this the collapse of the family and you have a society eager for gurus and all kinds of father figures to save them. Hence why this was until recently a golden age for sociopaths. Not anymore…
OxDrover — Very good overview on this issue. Like you, I believe to a certain extent that we “attract” what we want.
I also think we get programmed early to believe or want things we may later find we don’t really want or value.
Style1’s points on this matter, and OxDrover’s summary of how gurus are taken at face value as if they have all the answers, should give us pause.
Do we really believe something because of our own views/experiences OR are we just absorbing what others (family, friends, media, society) have helped to plant in our minds?
The inner journey involves much confusion to sort through it all: Who/what we really are, compared to what we’ve bought into that doesn’t really fit/or work for us and what others TELL US is important to want/value.
Trusting ourselves — and honoring what is right for us — evolves more when we become more clear with boundaries/distinguishing between ourselves and rest of the world.
I think it also allows us to accept that others can be legitimately different from us and value different things, without feeling a need to view them as completely wrong because they differ.
Deaar Fannie,
I agree! We need to be TOLERANT of others and to be TOLERANT of ourselves as well.
We need to be OPEN MINDED, but NOT so “open minded” that our BRAINS fall out! LOL
It is scary to me when I realize that people DO follow the Hitlers of this world, which includes HURTING OTHERS, not just a belief system that is benign.
It is scary to me when charlatans like Ray take advantage of people, and put them in danger—or even kill them—and sometimes I wonder if I have a “right” to disagree with those people who do that to themselves (worship this guru or that guru) they are adults and have FREE CHOICE like I do.
There are a lot of philosophical questions in life that I don’t know the answer to. Probably don’t even know all the questions, much less the answers.
Is abortion murder or free choice of a woman’s body?
Is suicide, assisted or otherwise, always wrong?
Is it my business if a person over 18 does drugs and lays on the street stoned out of their mind (as long as they are not harming someone else or neglecting a child etc.)?
If a person over 18 wants to “earn” their living selliing their bodies sexually to people who want to buy sex, is that my business?
If a person wants to give their money to some person to go to a “sweat lodge” and risk their own life, is that my business?
I do think it is the STATE’s business if someone is harming others without cautioning them about the dangers of what they are selling. Tobacco kills way many more people than street drugs every year, drunk drivers kill more people and injure more people every year than illegal drugs, yet we are not very “harsh” about drunk drivers and the people they injure or kill. WHY? I’m not sure about that.
I think drunk drivers should be crucified and their bodies left for the crows on the side of the road even if they don’t kill anyone while they are driving drunk. I have no problem with anyone over 21 (or whatever is the legal age in that state) getting falling down drunk and puking on the living room floor til their guts hang out, because they are only hurting themselves. The ones who get behind the wheel are risking everyone else’s health.
We had a case here in this county where a DRUNK mother drove her car down a boat ramp into a lake and drowned her three kids under 10 years old. She first tried to sue the state because there wasn’t a guard rail that would have kept her from driving down the boat ramp, but she ended up being allowed to plead to 3 counts of child endangerment (endangerment, they DIED for goodness sakes) and she got 18 months, and will probably do 8 or 9 of that. The kids will still be DEAD when she gets out.
I personally think she should have been sterilized so she could never have any more kids, but what you wanna bet she ends up with more kids?
I also think anyone convicted of taking drugs while they are preg should be sterilized and all children taken away from them. But I am a radical old biddy and I know such a thing will never happen and there will continue to be thousands of kids damaged by drugs before they are born, and raised in hell on earth after birth by parents who drink and drug and neglect or abuse them.
So for me the “line” is, are you harming yourself or others? If what you do doesn’t harm others, I’m pretty tolerant of your behavior even if it is harmful to you, I may not want to be around you, or associate with you, and I sure won’t enable you, but if you are an adult, “you makes yer choices, and takes the consequences,” but in the event that your behavior harms others, then I think the STATE has a vested interest in stopping that behavior.
OxDrover: So well said…”for me the line is: are you harming yourself or others? If what you do doesn’t harm others, I’m pretty tolerant of your behavior even if it is harmful to you.”
Indeed — Tolerance has its limits.
My personal fave is this latest craze that is known as the LIFE COACH! 🙂 LMAO!!!
Yes!! We all need someone to coach us through life!! 🙂
I’m sorry….I’m being so sarcastic right now.
I’m feeling Sparky on the 4th of July! 🙂 (Firecracker emoticons go here)
Seriously, though….for a while, it seemed like these life coaches were appearing in huge numbers out of nowhere…..and charging a lot of $$ for their “knowledge?”.
Yea, some of those “life coaches” are pulling down BIG bucks for making your decisions for you! I guess it is like hiring a “mother” to boss you around in your personal life! I had one of those, but thanks, NO THANKS! I’m coaching my own team now! LOL
BOOOOOOM!!!!!!! Ka-BOOOOOM! Sparklys here!!!! Happy nearly the 4th!
Frank Lee Speaking
you say:
“To a point I agree. The problem the bible is not filled with sociopathic people, the issue is that the bible is filled with a socipathic god. Just not a healthy vantagepoint to deal with sociopath recovery, as every sociopath considers him or herself a god. Bit like going to a chcolate shop to cure type 2 diabetes”.
Such a daring, poignant statement, after a couple of glasses of wine it must be said!!. In my opinion, Jesus of Nazareth would actually agree! as for everyone else? probably not…the haters as you say have not faced the egoic death that is the hallmark of recovery from a psychopath…not easy, and I speak for myself (NO ONE ELSE), I am caught in a hate spiral towards the “perpetrator” and have little energy for anything else. That’s why I am here on this site instead of IN my life!!
So can I just affirm your words are healing for me, I welcome your controversial insight and incisive mind.
and no we do not attract what we want, we attract what we NEED…the discrepancy is worth looking at!
Not sure if my story is completely relevant to this post, but I actually used the Law of Attraction when I met my S. When I had a bad feeling about him, I would think positive thoughts and write positive affirmations about him and our relationship. This is what really got me into trouble, because when I had the bad feeling in my gut, I chose to turn it around into a positive. If I felt he was cheating, I would say that he was faithful to me and that he was true. If I felt that he was using me for money, I would say that he was true to me and prosperity was on it’s way to us.
I still believe in the power of positive thinking, but I think that I used it in the wrong way and it really got me into some serious trouble. I really am going through a rough weekend and so many of the things that I had believed in, just seem so distant right now.
The one thing that I know for sure is that God loves me and has answered my prayer to show me to truth about my S. At this point, I need God to guide me back to emotional health and help heal my pain.
“Rosa says: – My personal fave is this latest craze that is known as the LIFE COACH! 🙂 LMAO!!!”
I used to think that was a load of garbage as well and in terms of rich folks paying for a Life Coach it really is stupid. But I have a friend who is a young woman, but amazingly she is also an undertaker. She became a life coach (charges no fee) due to the insight she gained from dealing with dead people in a dignified way, coupling this with sensitive interactions with the family of the deceased. She is only 27 and one of the most wise and compassionate people I ever met and she calls herself a Life Coach and is proud of it.
Like I said, she charges no fee so she is not the kind of clown the average Hollywood flake keeps as a social status. But there really are some people who literally find life extremely difficult and need people like my freind just to be there for them when they can’t go on. Especially in this day and age were familes are in ruins and TV has made everyone’s view of reality so completely distorted that they really have no idea who they are or what their purpose in life is.
wheresmylife says: “The one thing that I know for sure is that God loves me and has answered my prayer to show me to truth about my S. At this point, I need God to guide me back to emotional health and help heal my pain. ”
and it will happen too.