Insights into Sweat Lodge Guru James Ray
James Arthur Ray, age 51, is the spiritual leader who is on the hot seat while investigations continue on the possible homicide of three individuals who participated in a sweat-lodge event on October 8, 2009. Ray was conducting the ritual inside a 415-foot dome-shaped enclosure that was crammed with approximately sixty people. Eyewitness accounting of this event by sweat participant Beverly Bunn is particularly disturbing. Ray has reportedly hired his own team of investigators to "find out the truth." He is also moving forward with his work. In his most recent blog posting Ray wrote "I have chosen to continue with my work. It's too important not to. One of the lessons I teach is that you have to confront and embrace adversity and learn and grow from it. I promise you I am doing a lot of learning and growing. I have taken heat for that decision, but if I chose to lock myself in my home, I am sure I would be criticized for hiding and not practicing what I preach."
Since this story first broke I've been wondering if the retreat participants had been required to sign any type of waiver freeing Ray and his organization from any responsibility or wrong doing... and sure enough, they were.
From the Arizona Republic article:
Ryan Croy, a James spokesman, said 3,281 people attended various Journey of Power events from August 2008 to August 2009. All program participants are required to sign an all-encompassing waiver. The document purportedly releases Ray and his staff from liability in the event of injury, death or other damage, even if there was negligence.Now I'm curious if the signed waiver will be given any credence by the authorities or in a court of law."I am fully aware that I may suffer physical, emotional, financial and other injury during any of the activities," the waiver says.
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Early last year, I signed up for two of Mr. James Ray’s seminars. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I paid $6000.00 but there are two contributing factors. One, the pressure to do so is high, almost overwhelming. And two, I’d been assured, verbally, when I signed up and prepaid that Mr. Ray would absolutely “stand behind his product” (he attested to as much on Larry King) and that if I were dissatisfied after taking the seminar(s) that a refund would not be a problem. I had taken other personal growth seminars in the past, and all of them (all far less expensive) honored the simple, and to me, obvious, principle of customer satisfaction.
I left the first seminar “Creating Absolute Wealth” following one of the “warrior games”. Approximately 175 participants, including myself, were outfitted with thrift store clothing (courtesy of Mr. Ray), told to remove any makeup and jewelry, after which our hair was gelled and messed up and dirt (literally) rubbed on our bodies. We were told to leave our wallets, money, ID, cell phones etc. behind. We were loaded onto buses and dropped off in downtown San Diego, without food or water and told not to associate with one another and to “live by our wits” for the next several hours.
“Creating Absolute Wealth”, in addition to being on the edge of danger, was a ridiculous waste of time and clearly, at least to me, a wealth-creation vehicle for only one person – James Ray. That I was unable to get a refund for this seminar was bad enough. I was also unable to get a refund for the future seminar (the second of the two I’d paid for) which was still 6 months in the future. My problem was that I trusted Mr. Ray. I’d seen him, well-presented, in the movie “The Secret”, and then, very favorably portrayed, on Larry King and Oprah, both trustworthy public figures. He looked like the real deal and I believed that he was a man of honor. And he puts on a great and convincing show. But that’s all it is. A show. I understand why the people in the sweat lodge stayed and why they ignored their own instincts and listened instead to Mr. Ray’s exhortations to stay inside the “death chamber” and overcome your body. He is a charismatic and powerful figure, and for those of us looking for our own personal power, he appears to hold a key. I’m out $6000.00, which hurts, but not my life. As to self-help seminars? Finally, I’m cured. And considering recent events, I guess I got off cheap.
Yeah, It’s stupid to believe what happens on a stage. At least maybe you learned the lesson of humility. The only good that can come of this is you keep telling others about your experiences.
This man is a dangerous charlatan who put himself (literally) in a god-like position, according to reports. And unfortunately, these people fell for it. Maybe they were gullible, but they still didn’t deserve to die or be harmed, and I hope he is held responsible for these deaths and injuries, criminally as well as civilly.
What’s also sad for me about this is that I *do* think the Law of Attraction has merit, and now he’s tainted it. However, anyone truly versed in both the subject and in this type of compassionate “teaching” (not just in it for ego and money) would be telling people to learn to listen to and respect themselves first and foremost, not to some external authority figure — even them. They’d also make special efforts to watch out for anyone willing to suspend their own critical thinking in favor of blind obedience and bring them back to trusting in themselves first. Ray did none of that. I just hope he truly has to face consequences for what he did (and didn’t) do.
Hubris=excessive pride and self confidence
What he did was stupid in creating what seems like a gas chamber that killed! Building a structure covered in PLASTIC and then heating it up to very high tempertures that had to create toxic gases IMHO! …then having it filled with people for very long periods of time and no proper ventilation… I’m surprized that more people did not die!
Sad story, very sad to think people like him exist to do this to the unexpected!
All done in greed selling new age spiritual practices he created yesterday and that also comes from spiritual practices that he had no right to try to use. Like in this case calling it a sweat lodge! That was no sweat lodge!…that to me was a plastic covered gas chamber from what I read!
There are some things I think you can’t sell and money can’t buy… one is when it comes to Spiritual practices such as doing sweat lodges!
I’ve seen interviews calling this man God-like… to me he is more Satan-like!
This tragic event should never have happened. It was a dangerous and unneccessary attempt to achieve altered states.
James Ray should have stuck to his fine teaching/lecture style like fellow mentors Dov Baron, Randy Gage, etc.
Instead we now see a media inspired pigpile of the ignorant masses upon the entire concept of the law of attraction in general.
I’d like to see each person pronouncing it a fraud be asked to exmpalin even one sentence about the loa.
Better yet I’d like to see their face when you show them any list/survey of the traits/habits/beliefs of successful people tracks identically to what loa mentors teach.
Are Donald Trump and Mother Theresa the victoms of a fraud?
In the early 1900’s Charles Haanel taught a course called the masterkey system to businessmen. They were so impressed that they wanted to pay him NOT to show ayone else. The system was the same as many loa mentors teach today.
Were all these already successful businessmen victims of a fraud or charlatan?
Joel Osteen’s sermons can be seen to track exactly with the law of attrcation. Is he or all those thousands of people in the compaq center victims of fraud?
Sadly, critical thinking is practiced less and less in today society where evryone is fed a constant diet of soundbites and internet searches.
Show any selfmade businessman the basic tenets of loa and he would grin, already knowing them.
What a ridiculous thing – always thought there was something about the LOA gurus. Once you join their e-mail list you are inundated with mails trying to sell you something on a regular basis. I guess I’m cured as well (like a previous writer). I see most of these gurus as bandwagon jumpers. One single concept that sounds like a winning recipe and they all jump on the bandwagon to squeeze the last penny out of you – and being LOA followers, we fall for it!
I do not understand why James Ray has not been placed under arrest yet. It has been over a month.
The Law of Karma will probably supersede the Law of Attraction in this case. Yes, Mr. Ray went too far. He actually ran away from the scene of his crime! Talk about cowardly…..He will face this and hopefully be given justice. I have lost much faith in our justice system, given the facts that O.J. got away with murder and M.J. got away with pedophilia. We will see. Perhaps the greatest lesson could be for Mr. Ray, the lesson of hubris. He needs to come down a few notches with that ego of his. Otherwise, he won’t learn lessos. I think it will be very difficult for him to remove his negative ego, but he has, if he really wants to learn about spirit and the huge lessons that are here for each of us.