James Arthur Ray | Dangers of Spiritual and Motivational Gurus

hello this is dr grande today's question is can i analyze the case of james arthur ray ray was featured in a documentary titled enlighten us the rise and fall of james arthur ray just a reminder i'm not diagnosing anybody in this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this if you enjoyed this video please like it subscribe to my channel and consider supporting me on patreon i'll put the link to patreon in the description for this video so first i'll look at the background of james arthur ray i'll move to the timeline of the crime then i'll offer my analysis james arthur ray was born in honolulu hawaii on november 22 1957. his father was in the navy in hawaii but after being discharged the family moved to iowa then to tulsa oklahoma his father was a protestant minister in downtown tulsa his mother worked from home as i go through some of the early experiences of rey it is important to note that many of the details come from rey's writings some have accused rey of having a poor relationship with the truth growing up in oklahoma ray would listen to his father's sermons the passage in the bible about a camel having an easier time moving through the eye of a needle than a rich man entering the kingdom of god really struck rey as unfair his parents were hard working yet they did not have a lot of money they didn't even have their own house rather they lived next to the church ray developed his own belief system inspired by this outlook one of his beliefs is that it's a sin to be poor ray was ridiculed when he was young because he was not athletic he wore thick glasses and he had buck teeth he graduated from high school in 1976 he went on to earn an associate's degree from a community college in the area he became quite focused on his physical appearance his regular workouts included lifting weights he bought a motorcycle but he was soon in an accident when he was recovering from his injuries from that accident he came to the conclusion that bodybuilding was a distraction from his mind which he believed was the real source of his problems he married when he was 26 years old two years later the couple would divorce he started working as a telemarketer for a t eventually moving up into a supervisory or management position he claimed he worked with stephen covey's company for four years covay was the writer of the self-help book seven habits of highly effective people covay's company denies that rey ever worked for them later rey would say that he never claimed to be an actual employee ray's time with att and whatever else he did convinced him that he should be in business for himself he started a company called quantum consulting group he moved to san diego and changed the company's name to ray transformation technologies and then changed it again to james ray and associates he mostly was keynote speaking multi-level marketers really liked him for example he spent a lot of time in front of amway affiliates he referred to the seminars he presented as the science of success although they actually involved no science and not much success either so that name wasn't really a good fit another company claimed to have trademarked that phrase so ray discontinued using it from 1996 to 2006 ray was having trouble financially he claimed that he started to go on a spiritual journey in may of 2005 he found himself at the summit of mount sinai he was on top of the mountain holding a small candle and shivering from the cold when it all came together for him it's interesting because moses received the ten commandments at mount sinai rey suggested that when this epiphany occurred he then integrated quantum physics into his new belief system in july 2005 he was recorded by an australian television producer named rhonda byrne as part of an unpaid project meaning ray didn't get paid for it her project went on to become a book and film titled the secret which came out in 2006. essentially the secret is nothing more than the law of attraction which i'll talk about in the analysis the deception would have been a more accurate title than the secret ray's inclusion and the secret led him to be on oprah winfrey which in turn led him to achieving massive popularity very rapidly after the secret we see that the spiritual component was much more pronounced in rey's belief system with his new belief system religion or whatever it was in place ray used his newfound popularity to stage a number of seminars he included physical challenges in many of the seminars like asking people to fast walk on glass walk on fire avoid sleep bend rebar with their throats break boards and pieces of concrete with their hands and sit in a sweat lodge a few people were hurt in these adventures like one woman shattered her hand trying to break a board in 2008 his company which was now called james ray international made 9.4 million dollars he had this whole system worked out like levels that people would obtain in his belief system the levels are expressed in the shape of a pyramid like from the term pyramid scheme at the bottom of the pyramid was the harmonic wealth level as one moved up the levels they would go through creating absolute wealth quantum leap practical mysticism modern magic and finally reached the top of the pyramid with spiritual warrior in october 2009 at a retreat center in sedona arizona ray held a five day retreat for that top level spiritual warrior people paid nine thousand six hundred ninety five dollars to attend many of them were skipping right from the harmonic wealth level to the spiritual warrior level so this was an opportunity to bypass all those levels in the middle of the pyramid what better way to move out of that wealth level than paying rey almost ten thousand dollars it gets rid of that wealth right away the participants were told the experience would be unpleasant and challenging a number of services were available at the retreat including vortex healing dolphin energy healing and soul retrieval they probably just reviewed how to install the find my soul app the participants were advised to fast for 36 hours in preparation for a vision quest exercise in the sweat lodge the sweat lodge experience was supposed to resemble a symbolic death and rebirth as the participants were fasting they were left in the desert with a sleeping bag at one point ray made ponchos available for 250 each they would enter the sweat lodge on october 8 2009 at about 2 30 p.m after eating a light breakfast the structure was like a large circular tent that was low to the ground it was about 24 feet wide and four and a half feet tall about 50 participants were told to cram into the structure there wasn't much room to move the temperature in the sweat lodge was never measured estimates range from around 150 degrees all the way up to 200 degrees so it was exceedingly hot at the high temperature in that tent ray told the participants they could leave at any time but also encourage them to stay strong to stay in the tent to remain there and this would help them achieve some type of breakthrough the participants were in there for several hours conducting exercises guided by rey when people started to exhibit clear signs of distress due to the heat at one point a woman started breathing irregularly this was brought to the attention of rey he said we will deal with it after the next round so these exercises occurred in rounds that would last so many minutes as a result of the heat two participants died and a third one would die nine days later after being transported to hospital 18 other participants were hospitalized for a variety of problems including hyperthermia respiratory distress dehydration kidney failure and burns in addition to paramedics and other rescue workers arriving at the scene the police arrived ray was nowhere to be found he would later claim that he left the scene because he was scared and advised to do so by an attorney a homicide investigation was initiated ray was arrested on february 3 2010 and charged with manslaughter and negligent homicide after a trial in may and june of 2011 rey was convicted on three counts of negligent homicide but he was found not guilty of manslaughter essentially what this is saying is that the jury believed that rey should have known what he was doing was dangerous but he didn't actually know manslaughter would be where he knew his behavior was dangerous and he did it anyway so manslaughter is reckless and negligent homicide is negligent negligent homicide is a less serious offense than manslaughter but they are both felonies in november of 2011 ray was sentenced to two years in prison i was thinking that he could have given seminars in prison instead of unlock your inner self he just had to change the word self to sell it would have been a big hit ray would be released on july 12 2013 he soon relaunched his self-help business despite having caused the deaths of three people and being a convicted felon ray was very much in demand now moving to my analysis before i get into his belief system i want to briefly cover the trial there are a variety of beliefs and feelings regarding the outcome some people believe that rey was actually guilty of manslaughter and should have gone to prison for much longer others believed that he should have never been prosecuted for any crime it was only a civil matter the participants were intelligent well-educated people who should have known better than to enter that tent or remain in the tent here's how i look at it ray was the leader of that group people trusted him even though they should not have they paid him to be there so they were expecting some type of care some type of service that was responsibly delivered he said he had carried out the exercise many times before which was true although there were some problems that occurred before but no one had died he told them beforehand you are not going to die you might think you are but you are not going to die so he really set this expectation that death was not going to occur and essentially was saying when warning signs occur don't worry about it and there were many warning signs of course before those individuals died on top of all this as i mentioned he had everybody wait when one victim was in clear distress so he slowed down the care that could have come to that victim i didn't see this as a manslaughter case but i think the verdict of negligent homicide was fair instead of two years in prison i think six years would have been more reasonable i also think a long period of probation should have been required that stipulated no more self-help businesses for rey ray doing that type of work is not safe for the public so now moving to a description of rey's belief system essentially his belief system is based on what is referred to as the law of attraction this theory says that thoughts are pure energy positive thoughts attract positivity and negative thoughts attract negativity as part of this rey adds in what is referred to as the new thought belief that is the positive thinking in addition to attracting positivity also heals physical health problems the quantum physics piece comes in due to the ostensible role of heisenberg's uncertainty principle in his belief system essentially rey just made up something that's sort of like a religion some would call it a cult there's no basis for the idea that positive thoughts attract positivity now ray can believe anything that he wants he can teach anything that he wants as well but he shouldn't claim that it's based on any type of science science has nothing to do with his belief system the next area i want to talk about is the application of his belief system in the documentary i mentioned before enlighten us we see a few examples of how shallow and simplistic rey's intervention tactics are really these tactics are pretty much the same for all self-professed new age spiritual gurus these people who claim they can teach people to will their way to success fame and happiness essentially what rey does is this when talking to like an audience member at a seminar or whatever he picks out one thing they said to focus on he tries to find an angle pertinent to that item so he can essentially create a sound bite like a short statement that in theory is wise in reality of course it's usually nonsensical and simplistic sometimes it's not even relevant to the person's actual problem so essentially he shines a spotlight on some aspect of the participant their relationship with their mother or father their unwillingness to believe rey their lack of confidence their fear their anxiety he will deliver the sound bite in reference to that for example one participant said his mother died two years ago rey said is your mother still alive suggesting that the influence of the participant's mother is still affecting him like ray thought that was clever after a statement like this rey moves on as if he has revealed something incredible as if his insight should astound the audience amazingly the audience is usually totally enamored with rey they take easy to please to a new level another tactic we see with rey is consistent with this theory that all success would be possible if not for some unknown obstacle it's rarely about growth education or insight rather it's about this obstacle that's in the way of success if people could only face this obstacle whatever it is like fear or lack of confidence if they could just get by it they would have millions of dollars in all the happiness they could ever want rey's encouragement those statements that he repeats all these things he says are non-specific he doesn't actually tell anybody how to be wealthy he speaks in these generic platitudes which brings me to the question why do people believe all this stuff how come these new age spiritual and motivational gurus have become so popular there are a few reasons everybody carries pain going to mental health counseling is an effective way to deal with it but it's a lot of work and often the counselor is going to tell the client something the client doesn't necessarily want to hear something they know is true but again they don't want to hear it going to see a new age guru is more expensive but the person doesn't actually have to face the pain so it's a good trade-off in the eyes of some people the gurus claim that they encourage people to face the pain but they really encourage them to avoid the pain to focus on the positive and not the negative when the participant only focuses on the positive they start coming under the effects of confirmation bias they have adjusted their attention to only notice positive outcomes so if they're only looking at the positive outcomes then it appears as though the advice of the guru has been successful one problem of course is that now they're in a worse position because they can't see negative consequences on the road in front of them this leaves them vulnerable another reason these gurus are successful is because of the cult mentality essentially people like rey have created a materialistic religion his seminars are like church services people attend for a sense of community a sense of well-being they want encouragement many multi-level marketing companies know this dynamic well and exploit it to their advantage moving to the last item i will cover did james arthur wray show remorse for his crimes i don't think that he did here are three examples of why i doubt him first when answering a question about the homicides he said it had to happen because it was the only way i could experience and learn and grow through the things that i've done he went on to say i chose to see it as a test of character as a test through fire and i think i did okay second even though he said i am responsible he then made two excuses of why he really wasn't responsible he noted the victims were consenting adults and his conviction was unusual so he was suggesting that the prosecution pursued him when they would not normally have third when listening to ray talk about the negligent homicides it's always about how it affected him for example when talking about october 8 2009 he said my entire life collapsed in 15 minutes it doesn't seem like it was ever about the victims or perhaps a better way to put it would be he thought of himself as a victim so it was always about just one victim the truth is that spiritual gurus never want to face reality they are in the business of reframing the past to fit their distorted belief system it's one of the reasons they are so dangerous what lessons can be learned from this case of james arthur wray no one should underestimate the dangers of spiritual gurus it is their certainty that is so worrisome they invoke science to reinforce this idea that they have figured out the meaning of life when really what they figured out is how to separate people from their money to be fair they're brilliant in that endeavor the only true lesson that these self-appointed gurus teach is never listen to spiritual and motivational gurus those are my thoughts on james arthur ray please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always i hope you found my analysis of this topic to be enlightening thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 301,237

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Id: 7Ydco-uyhvM

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Thu May 13 2021