The Secret’s James Ray Arthur arrested on manslaughter
It’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.
Let’s see Oprah talk about how wonderful he is now!
its a shame these guys get greedy , about the only decent one of these lifestyle gurus is Wayne Dyer, and Louise Hay , the rest seem to be in it for the money
In a word, yes, do your own research! Well said.
it appears to me that all the big wigs from liberty and polaris have now planted there flags at lifepath. would you do your regular investigative reports oz and tell us what you find?
Physical injury and death are definitely not expected when you pay thousands of dollars for a personal development event! I bet James Arthur Ray wishes he could keep this a secret!
The interesting thing about PMG is that they go for the subconscious – everything is meant to “safepoint” you for Scientology. Beyond Freedom Evolution is Scientology, pure and simple. Once you accept “Departure,” you move into “Decision” then “Action,” and before you know it you’re thinking like a Scientologist! And you paid several thousand dollars to make that happen!
And I’m not bagging on Scientology; everyone has a right to believe as they choose… but I do wonder if they back the PMG venture?
Or does Shane Krider fancy himself as the next L. Ron Hubbard?
From what i’ve read Life Path is exactly the same thing , selling overpriced seminars
i’ve come to the conclusion that life path is nothing more than liberty league reborn. i hear the same dodgy jokers i used to hear when i was at liberty.
sounds like they are heading to sydney to rape us again. lavish and exotic = run.
As many have said before, no one and nothing will ever come close to Tony Robbins. Am so grateful I know that without a doubt having experienced his UPW seminar and going to Date with Destiny in April this year – can’t wait!
He was not the author of ‘The Secret’, Rhonda Byrne is. Many of the ‘teachers’ featured in the book and the movie are far from the caliber Ray has proven out to be. Seems that Ray let his experience with success and fame go to his head and went overboard. However, with that said, we cannot remove the responsibility from those who participated in his ‘sweat lodge’ voluntarily and blindly.
The principles in The Secret say nothing about giving up your own mind to follow another’s blindly. It teaches you to trust your own inner mind and to focus on that which you are wanting.
It’s sad that people are blaming The Secret for this event rather than look at one individual for his responsibility and the others for their participation.
I think when people mention Arthur’s secret they’re talking about his harmonic book, which mentions the secret to attracting what you want or something.
I dunno it’s hard to tell, so many people seem to have piggy backed onto the original book and come out with their own versions and what not.
As for blaming the followers, well I’m not saying they’re the smartest of the bunch. However if you read something and think it’s credible and then someone involved says ‘hey do this with me’, is it your fault it goes horribly wrong or theres? Especially if it’s not a random out-of-my-hands chain of events.
Thought you’d enjoy this Oz
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/nightline-challenges-ray-radio-11043927
Hah that was amusing. The ‘Think yourself healthy clip that followed was pretty informative too: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/healthy–11039539
I think “the Secret” and LOA is a very hypnotic and seductive teaching. The hypnotic teaching of “loa” claims you attract everything into your life. The seduction of “The Secret” is, you can have whatever you want.
The beauty of this? It is beautiful for the LOA and Secret teachers, alone. If you are not “manifesting your everything you want, It’s all your fault, according to this teaching. Whatever happens, according to LOA, you attracted it into your life. If you get , mugged, raped, or if your spouse cheats, you attracted it.
This is a dangerous “cult” type teaching. This teaching enables any victim, to blame themself , because the LOA followers, are brainwashed into beleiving they attracted everything that happens into their lives. It leaves these LOA and Secret Teachers, responsiblity free while their followers are left blaming themselves …
These ‘master hypnotic seductive teachers’ have been laughing all the way to the bank…
Hopefully, many are awaking from the trance of the “Secret LOA…. And realize the truth…
The trial seems to be slowly progressing. The latest is that James Ray’s lawyers are claiming that pesticides in the wood of the lodge ‘could have factored into the deaths‘ (how’s that for taking responsibility for your actions…).
Meanwhile prosecutors have been arguing that the deats were directly related to the heat in the lodge. Up until now ‘medical experts have testified that they could not rule out the chemical‘, however one doctor has now testified that ‘the signs and symptoms of the victims were inconsistent with a chemical typically found in pesticides‘.
The trial continues…