the-secret-logoIt’s widely known that members of Polaris Media Group subscribe to the principles of James Arthur Ray’s ‘The Secret’.

Before everything became centralised via the Polaris website backend many distributors advertised that they had utilised the teachings of the Secret and were all too willing to pass their expertise on.

Late last year two people died during a ‘The Secret’ event (a third died a week after the article was written), and authorities were left to decide whether or not to prosecute Arthur Ray, who was running the event, for criminal negligence.

Sometime yesterday authorities arrested Arthur Ray and have charged him with three counts of manslaughter.

In Arthur Ray’s defense his lawyer stated;

James Ray co-operated at every step of the way, providing information and witnesses to the authorities showing that no one could have foreseen this accident.

On the day of the event, 63 people crowded into a ramshackle hobo tent sweat lodge for two hours.

The temperature inside the tent soared to forty nine degrees celsius.

Now I’m not a scientist but cmon, nobody saw this coming?

Additionally it has been reported that

about halfway through the two-hour ceremony – a sauna-type purification ritual – some began feeling ill, vomiting and collapsing inside the 38.55sq m structure. Mr Ray urged participants to push past their physical weaknesses and chided those who wanted to leave.

When addressing this issue, Arthur Ray’s lawyers stated that ‘he had taken all necessary safety precautions and was unaware of any medical problems until the ceremony was over.’

…really?

It’s forty nine degrees, people are feeling ill, collapsing and vomiting all over the place, you’re telling them to push through it because otherwise they’ll be failures and you don’t realise some people aren’t medically up to it?!

Apparently this isn’t the first time people have had medical problems during The Secret events either. During the investigation documents that were released to authorities

showed that some people had lost consciousness and others had suffered broken bones at past events and that Mr Ray had largely ignored medical problems that had arisen.

Since writing about the deaths last October my opinion on this whole debacle remains unchanged. Whether it’s Polaris Media Group, The Secret or some other ‘feel good change your life’ type operation if the people running the show are just armchair motivators the potential for disaster, medically, financially and even spiritually is enormous.

What’s more these people simply aren’t going to be equipped to deal with shit hitting the fan.  Broken bones and losing consciousness aren’t small potatoes injuries and if anything I hope the lack of formal training and expertise is a key point in the prosecution’s case against Arthur Ray.

I’ve always said I’m just a guy with a keyboard, so by all means if you read something on here you’re not sure about I encourage you to do your own further research.

If you’re taking something as important as personal development advice or are considering doing courses that claim to ‘change your life’ do yourself a favour and look into the sources.

It doesn’t matter how many people the course/dvd/event/company claims to have helped. If the person or persons behind it aren’t formally qualified or equipped to deal with speed bumps the end result is mismanagement and sadly in this case, the death of three people.