Is James Arthur Ray Losin' It?

I don't check James Ray's social media often, but when I do, I totally spin out on the colossal arrogance, the indulgent self-pity, the insensitivity -- nay, cruelty -- of his posts. That's probably why I don't check it often. But my darling husband keeps sticking these posts under my nose and insisting I register the sheer insanity of them.

Ray's post-prison marketing has long been either tone deaf or deliberately twisted (my money's on the latter), but in recent months, it's taken a turn for the worse. He seems to be having some sort of meltdown. His "motivational" messages have gotten really angry and seem more like an excuse to vent his personal grudges. The weirdest part is that he seems to be really proud of these petulant rants disguised as advice and keeps putting them out across all of his platforms. In a recent set of postings, Ray set out to illustrate the common axiom "only hurt people hurt people," by whining about non-paying clients and how betrayed he was by friends who testified against him in the sweat lodge trial. It can be found on his Instagram and Facebook pages, as well as in this podcast on his site. Note that he keeps moving from the general ("you") to the specific (his personal gripes and grudges).

Has any client made financial promises they don't keep?
Have they ever gotten angry WITH YOU when you ask them to pay and keep the commitment THAT THEY made?
Have they ever thought about the fact that YOU have expenses (both personally and professionally) that you have committed to, based upon THEIR commitment to you?
Probably not.
If you're in business I'm sure you KNOW what I mean.
Here's a good one: Has anyone ever told you they love you and then turned around and stabbed you in the back hard?
Like telling you "You've changed my life and I'll stand with you forever" and then testifying UNDER OATH in trial against you, telling absolute lies, when the state is attempting to send you to prison for 30 years?

I mean... haven't we all been prosecuted for killing people and had our friends testify against us? That's relatable, right? We've ALL been there!

James Arthur Ray On How To Leverage Self-Pity

James Arthur Ray is declaring himself an expert on the career comeback, which is weird, because he really hasn't made one. Don't tell him that, though. His marketing angle, ever since he was released from prison, has been an evolving narrative about how well he's been able to make killing people work for him. Kirby Brown, Liz Neuman, James Shore, they just had to be "sacrificed" so that he could rise like a phoenix from the ashes of their lives. It "had to happen" so he could "learn and grow." Noticeably absent in this new pitch is any reference to the "full and complete responsibility" he previously claimed to have taken for those deaths. Now it's a nameless bad thing that damaged his career. Every single element of this pitch is a study in self-pity and exploitation. What follows is a trip down that page.

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One teensy, little mistake! You cook a few people to death and no one'll let you forget it. It's just so unfair!

James Arthur Ray and His Business of Death

"The fact that he would do this suggests to me he hasn't learned all that much -- the idea of trying to turn what he did into somehow generating money by the redemption book or whatever.... I think this is just rubbing salt right back in the wounds for all of them and the people who are either financially ruined or mentally damaged by that entire event..." ~ Connie Joy, author of Tragedy in Sedona

It appears that James Arthur Ray has a new book coming out, and I say "appears" because I can find no record of it anywhere but on his website. Yet Ray has already kicked promotion of this book into gear, pitching The Business of Redemption on his local FOX, CBS, and ABC affiliates. As a former book publicist, I find this whole thing very odd. Normally, media appearances would not be scheduled until the pub date, when finished books are in stores and available for purchase. This book doesn't even have a pub date, only vague allusions to "next year."

I looked at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and found no listings or pre-order options for this book. That is something that is generally set up well in advance by publishers. But that's the other piece of information that seems to be missing. There is no mention of a publisher. My back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me that this is a self-published book and a poorly coordinated one at that. I am speculating somewhat, but unless I miss my guess, Ray is counting on pre-orders through his website to fund the production of finished books, hence the vague pub date, which is probably contingent on how many orders come in and when.

This leads us to the most disturbing aspect of this venture. Why start promotion of this project in October, the very month that three people died on his watch? Not for the first time, Ray's attachment to this tragedy seems more ghoulish than respectful, let alone repentant. I mean... what did that press release look like?! Did he send it out on October 8th? I would not put it past him.

James Arthur Ray's Alternative Facts

Yesterday James Ray went before a judge to argue that he was unfairly burdened by his felony conviction and that it should be set aside. But unlike the recent documentary Enlighten Us, that enabled Ray to play the victim without challenge or rebuttal, the judge allowed the family members of his victims to speak. It did not go his way. Some of his civil rights were restored, but his conviction was not vacated and his travel restrictions remain in place.

A victory and a defeat for convicted self- help entrepreneur James Arthur Ray.

A Yavapai County Superior Court judge restored Ray’s civil rights, except his right to carry a gun, but he denied Ray’s request to have his convictions set aside.

. . .

Ray told the judge he wanted his convictions set aside because the international travel restrictions on him were limiting his ability to rebuild his self-help enterprise.

“It will help me in some countries and it will help me in Canada. That's why I’m asking for this,” Ray told Yavapai Superior Court Judge Michael R. Bluff.

In James Ray's alternate universe, his work was never on trial. (It was.) And his conviction for "negligence" means he didn't kill anyone. (He was convicted on three counts of negligent HOMICIDE.)

A Second Look at James Ray Documentary

CNN will be re-airing Enlighten Us this Saturday evening at 9:00 (check local listings), so if you missed it, you have another opportunity. As I wrote here, I don't think it's good, or fair, but it is worth seeing. I've been doing a little more digging into the odd bits of media coverage surrounding its television debut, because I was left with lingering questions about the director's choices and perspective.

One of the main things I've learned is that there really isn't a lot of interest in this documentary or in James Arthur Ray, as demonstrated by the dearth of coverage. The debut in the Tribeca Film Festival got a little coverage, but not as much as you might expect. I did find a smattering of new material, however. CNN pimped the television debut with some interviews, and, like the documentary, they're worth seeing if only for Ray's unconscious self-reveals.

I also rummaged up a few articles. The most in-depth piece I could find is in People magazine. People is owned by Time Inc., which is part of Time Warner, which owns CNN.

In all these interviews, Ray paints himself as a victim of the legal system, but explains that Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman weren't victims at all. They were heroes. He's kind of heroic himself and hopes his ability to survive all he has suffered can serve as an inspiration to struggling people everywhere. He's taken responsibility, though. He's definitely taken responsibility.

“My work was never on trial,” he says. “The tragedy was on trial. The jury found absolutely no shred of evidence of intentional misconduct or harm. It was a tragic accident, and it was determined to be negligent, and because three people died, it was determined to be criminally negligent.”

So "it" – the "tragedy" – was on trial and found guilty, not Ray. I guess it was the tragedy that was convicted of negligent homicide and went to prison?

CNN Ignores Victims in James Ray Doco

The year 2016 has been dubbed "post-truth" by the Oxford English Dictionary, "an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’." Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Exhibit A) Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray.
 
The CNN produced documentary is slick, compelling, and far more revealing than its subject probably intended, but it is also very nearly fact free. Director Jenny Carchman wove together media footage and personal interviews without commentary. The lack of narration, which can be a very effective documentary style, meant, in this case, that one outrageous falsehood after another went unchecked. The passive narration was particularly troubling, given that the victims' families were completely excluded.

Jean Brown, sister of the late Kirby Brown, was quick to respond to James Ray's lies about her sister and her family, posting the above video the day the documentary aired. (see above) It is unfortunate that she was not given the opportunity to do so in the documentary itself. And it was not for lack of trying. As discussed here, both Jean and her mother Ginny took it upon themselves to contact the director, but Carchman evinced no interest.

Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman, were little more than footnotes in this story of their gruesome deaths. Make no mistake. This documentary is entirely about how their deaths affected the man who caused them.

CNN to Air James Ray Documentary

Set your DVRs, folks. CNN will air Enlighten Us, the James Ray documentary of dubious quality I wrote about here. The details can be found on the CNN website.

ENLIGHTEN US: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray, directed by Jenny Carchman, will premiere Thursday, Dec. 01 at 9:00pm and 11:00pm Eastern on CNN/U.S., with limited commercial interruption, the network announced today.  ENLIGHTEN US made its world debut at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in April and also screened at Telluride Mountainfilm in Colorado and Tallgrass Film Festival in Kansas.

The film explores the story of the motivational speaker’s meteoric rise, fall, and attempt to return to the $11 billion personal growth industry following his conviction for negligent homicide in the deaths of three of Ray’s clients at one of his events.  The film explores the origins of the self-help industry, what followers of the industry are looking for, who is offering answers to those followers, and why some are willing to risk so much for that guidance.

In other news, Ray doesn't want to be a convicted felon anymore. Connie Joy has learned that he is petitioning the court to set aside the verdict that put him in prison briefly, for the small matter of killing three people.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

The Enemy Within the Codependent Heart

BBC America has been celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek by playing full, uncut episodes of the original show. I must confess that it dominated my television screen for an entire weekend. I think I may have even begun to convince my teenage daughter of its genius.

A standout episode for me is "The Enemy Within." Captain Kirk is split in two after a transporter accident. His "strange alter-ego," his dark half, becomes a sentient Kirk look-alike. But, no one sees this Mr. Hyde materialize on the platform moments after a very normal appearing Kirk has left the transporter room. He goes about functioning much as our internal shadow does, with neither Kirk, nor anyone else aware of his existence. Yet, a drunken, rampaging lout, who looks a lot like Captain Kirk, begins acting out his worst impulses.

Kirk's better half seems at first to be in every way the Kirk they all know – the split-off shadow like some foreign monster, "a thoughtless brutal animal" that the apparently normal Kirk would rather live without. But, it rapidly becomes clear that this calm, reasonable Kirk has lost some key components of his personality. He's indecisive. His instincts are dulled. "Good" Kirk is unqualified for command.

Eventually, the disowned shadow does what it will do. It overpowers the weakened, good-natured Kirk and takes command. It takes all that's left of his strength and support from his crew for the saner Kirk to confront and embrace his dark nature and reintegrate it.

"I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see."  ~ Capt. James T. Kirk

CNN Still Soft-Soaping James Ray

A magician never reveals his secrets... unless he's a down on his luck, ex-con, trying to mount a comeback, and you stick a camera in his face.

Sometimes I miss New York. This is one of those times, because this week's debut of Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray at the Tribeca Film Festival is an event I'm actually sorry to miss, if only for stunning reveals like the above. You want to see how I played my followers like fiddles? Watch my hands, as I subliminally conduct your thoughts and feelings. See? ACTING!!!

This is not to say that it's a great film. I'm hearing not very good things about its effectiveness in conveying the horror of James Ray's actions, or holding him to account. For starters, the families of his victims were never even contacted by the filmmakers, so their voices and continuing concerns are notably absent. According to The Verge, Virginia Brown, mother of the late Kirby Brown, took it upon herself to contact the director, Jenny Carchman, and met with her over lunch. Kirby's sister Jean Brown's calls were unreturned, and Carchman declined to interview any family members on film. Ginny has posted a letter under the auspices of SEEK Safely, Inc., the organization of which she is a founding member.

We were disturbed to see clips of Ray “at work” before and after his incarceration serving as an infomercial for his comeback. The film failed to look critically at the tactics Ray had used prior to his incarceration and continues to use that put his customers at risk of emotional, financial,and physical harm; the film even omitted important facts such as the suicide of another attendee at a Ray event just months prior to the three deaths in Sedona. Many of these tactics, such as encouraging participants to share about personal trauma in a group setting, are commonly used in the unregulated selfhelp industry and are exactly the sorts of “red flags” SEEK wants to alert consumers to.

When asked at the end of the film how and why Sedona happened, Ray’s declares, “Sedona had to happen. It was the only way I could experience and learn… A test of character. I think I did ok.” Unfortunately, the people who were injured and traumatized, and especially those who died, are not so “ok."

James Ray Under the Radar

Since leaving his prison cell, James Arthur Ray has quite predictably been working on a comeback. My biggest concern about a post-incarceration Ray has never been that he would once again ascend to the dizzying heights he attained as part of The Secret. It's that he would consolidate a small, devoted following, without ever becoming big enough to invite much media scrutiny. If I had to guess, I'd say that this is precisely his strategy.

Ray is not courting media as he once did. He's avoiding all but the most sycophantic and controllable outlets. If they won't lob him softballs like the thoroughly compromised media whore Piers Morgan, he's not interested. So, when Bloomberg reporter Matt Stroud came calling, Ray declined to be interviewed on the record. 

The result is a fairly even-handed article about Ray's appearances in small rooms anywhere he can scrape together an audience. Unlike Morgan, Stroud also interviewed Ginny Brown, who lost her daughter Kirby to Ray's sweat lodge inferno. The writing is dispassionate. The facts are damning.

Ray no longer commands huge auditoriums at thousands of dollars a head. Stroud caught up with him at the Tatum Ranch Community Center teaching "around 30 name-tagged men and women who last week shelled out $495 for his daylong presentation." The event is ironically titled "Resources for Epic Living."

James Ray: Man on Fire – UPDATED

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The winner of the tin ear award has to go to Dr. Sharron Stroud who writes:

James Arthur Ray will be speaking for Innerfaith Spiritual Center Worldwide February 22nd. He has lifted himself Phoenix-Like from the Ashes of his former experience and is making a difference with what he has learned. Our Way of Life teaches the Power of Forgiveness and the Evolution of the Soul. The Path of each Being is filled with Spiritual Contracts and Karmic Experiences, the point being, what will we do with them?

What "hellacious hot" furnace did the old bird rise from, you ask? Why the one that consumed the lives of Kirby Brown, Liz Neuman, and James Shore, of course.

Stroud has stiff competition from Ray himself, though. Of all his new products, which does he choose to feature in the copy for this event? An ebook called Answers to Life's 11 Most Burning Questions. Natch! Reserve your ticket today, and you too can receive a free memento of the burning ring of fire that was that deadly sweat lodge.

News for the Soul Cancels James Ray

I got this in my email earlier today. News for the Soul's Nicole Marie Whitney has canceled an interview with James Arthur Ray which had been scheduled for Sunday. Here is her statement:

Wow. Ok. We started our day with quite the barrage of emails regarding my announcement yesterday.

The emails were regarding my announcement of the scheduled James Ray interview on Sunday which has since been cancelled.

I had planned to do this interview (not as a promotional fluff piece) from day one because I have questions and I felt our conscious community needed some closure and maybe even healing on this matter. And learning. Many teachers out there – some of them reading this right now – conduct very similar events and ceremonies. And some of them have almost had very similar things occur.

I am speaking from first hand knowledge and experience.

We all have questions and need some sort of closure on that event – none of which OUR community has had the hutspa to do as yet. A Pierce Morgan interview is no substitute for a conscious and real perspective on the situation. There is more to say but clearly our community (or at least a vocal section of it) is not ready for this to happen. Thus I have chosen to cancel the James Ray interview that I had announced for Sunday.

James Ray's Crisis of Character

So what's on sale? The jacket???

I had hoped to never write about James Arthur Ray again. But then they let him out of prison. Try as I might I can't ignore the madness.

Connie Joy has really been keeping pace with his disturbing attempts to reboot his career. And well, he's on tour!

What will he be teaching in small, sad rooms in three whole cities? As near as I can tell, Murphy's Law. Yes, according to the new, less law of attractiony James Ray, no matter what you do, shit happens.

This is honestly the strangest pitch for one of these things I've ever seen. It starts out in a predictable manner, with a series of questions specifically engineered to make you feel like something is wrong with your life that you need this seminar to fix:

Does it ever seem that just when you feel like you’re

getting everything together… something else goes wrong?

Do you ever feel like you just get through one set of challenges,

And then the next shoe (or possibly bomb) drops?

Do you ever find yourself accomplishing what you desired

but there’s still something missing?

Are you possibly right in the dead center of

a difficult challenge or crisis in your Life,

Business, or Career right now?

James Ray's New Tune

I saw this on Connie Joy's Tragdedy in Sedona page and, well, yuck. As we know James Arthur Ray was unfortunately turned loose on the public a while ago and he's plying his craft once again. He's posted some clips of his new spiel. I hate to give him the traffic but ya gotta see it to believe it. As with his recent, hideous appearance on the since canceled Piers Morgan, he's a font of crocodile tears and self-pity. It's so sad that a "terrible accident" claimed his "3 great friends." No mention of how he was convicted for causing said "accident" with his own gross negligence.

Note the comment from Liz Neuman's son Bryan in the comment thread on Connie's page. No, he did not even deign to visit his "great friend" as she lay in hospital, for nine days, dying from hyperthermia. I would add that friends don't let friends remain listed as Jane Doe in the hospital registry when they have all their paperwork on file, but are too busy hiding said paperwork from law enforcement to consider their medical needs.

I'm still waiting for this man to have a single, genuine moment.

Oh, and he's an alchemist now. Sure. Why not? Alchemists, you see, turn bad things into good things, which seems to be how he's interpreting the whole lead into gold thing. Mmmkay... He's an alchemist who quotes mysterious high level Zen masters -- the kind that don't have names, apparently. This one, though, is "the highest ranking outside of Japan." Seriously, I've searched his site and found a few references to various Zen masters. None of them have names. Well, sure. Because we all know what happened the last time Ray gave the name of one of his super, high level teachers. He turned out to be a tour guide. So best to keep those identifiers on the DL.

James Arthur Ray Has a Record

One thing I learned during the James Ray sweat lodge trial was that you can't rely on mainstream media to report the unvarnished truth about the man's character or his crimes. If the recent Piers Morgan puff piece proved anything, it's that CNN is not so much a news organization as it is a PR venue for criminals. But then, the media has always been an enabler for the rogues gallery behind The Secret, ignoring one financial misdealing after another.

But there is a record. It's scattered across teh internets on blogs, zines, and message boards. The latest installment can be found on The Verge, who not long ago brought us Scamworld. In The Death Dealer, Matt Stroud offers a crash course in what went so horribly wrong on that awful day in Sedona. He also delves into Ray's autobiographical details, separating fact from fiction.

In Harmonic Wealth Ray describes sitting in the front row of his father’s church as a child. There he first heard that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." He describes how angry he felt, how that Biblical verse made him question his family’s situation — even question God. His parents didn’t have money to buy nice clothes, or own a home — they had to live next to the church. Rather than pay a barber, his mother would cut his hair. From his upbringing he concluded: "Here’s what I know: it’s a sin to be poor." That belief stayed with him for the rest of his life.

"I was the kid with the big Coke-bottle glasses and buckteeth who everyone made fun of," Ray writes, painting himself as a stereotypical nerd, mocked for his gangliness and lack of athleticism. Later, a classmate told the Arizona Republic that, like much of his "rags-to-riches" biography, Ray’s tale of an impoverished, socially outcast childhood contained embellishments if not outright lies. He dressed well and carried himself with confidence, said the former classmate. "It depends on what you call poor, but his dad made more than my family made."

Yes, Ray has both under and over estimated his net worth throughout his career -- his financial picture has always been more narrative than balance sheet driven. But more to the point, it's a sin to be poor?! Words matter. To Ray, poverty and illness are not simply unfortunate, they're spiritual failings -- even indicators of moral turpitude. Except, somehow, when it's Ray who's in financial trouble.

For a man who knows "how the universe works" Ray's fortunes, on every level have fallen, yet Piers Morgan mysteriously deduced that his misfortune would make him a still better self help leader.

Ray is recasting himself as something even more frightening than a wannabe shaman and purveyor of pop spirituality. The more I think about his recent appearance, the more disturbed I am. Ray's disdain for Christian poverty consciousness aside, he has never stopped being a preacher's son. There have always dog whistles aimed at a Christian audience and his latest reinvention is no exception. Twice by my count he told Piers Morgan that his four years of struggle felt like forty. What kept popping into my head was Jesus Christ Superstar:

Listen surely I've exceeded
Expectations
Tried for three years
Seems like thirty
Could you ask as much
From any other man?

My husband heard a different tune. Moses led his people through the wilderness for forty years. It wouldn't be the first time he obliquely compared himself to Moses, as Matt Stroud points out.

In Harmonic Wealth Ray describes taking a self-imposed exile from his wealth because "a warrior doesn’t have or need anything." He began "by seeking out a wise kahuna in Hawaii and a Peruvian shaman." He writes unspecifically of his studies, which culminated in 2005 with an epiphany at the summit of Mount Sinai. "I was the only one there all night long, shivering from the cold on top of the mountain, and hovering over a tiny candle flame. This is where it all came together for me," he writes, "where the final pieces of Harmonic Wealth and the quantum physics material I had studied for over a decade took form for me in a kind of rapid download into my journal." According to his book, in the same cave where Moses received the Ten Commandments, James Arthur Ray received his own universal laws.

And how long was Moses at Mt. Sinai? That would have been forty days and nights.

The only thing more nauseating than Ray's self-pity over deaths he caused are the veiled allusions to martyrdom, sacrifice, and acquired wisdom.

Watch him. Watch carefully as he flounces about with his new Jesus coif and revisionist mythology. And just remember that, as the Salty Droid reminds us, we are watching, too. The bloggers, the authors, the survivors, the grieving families. We are watching. And we keep records.

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

On Watching Piers Morgan Interview James Ray -- UPDATED

Yes, Ladies! He's keeping the hair. Natch!

*See Update Below*

Well that was about insufferable.

Piers Morgan had an opportunity last night to hold James Ray's feet to the fire in a way that Arizona prosecutors could not. But it was Ray who was in control of that interview. Morgan could have had Ginny Brown on to offer a counterpoint, but Ray would not allow it. He would only deign to appear if he was the only guest. Why James Arthur Ray, convicted felon, is such a hot media property that he gets to set his terms is a mystery to me.

Morgan continued in the long CNN tradition of playing passive apologist for James Arthur Ray. This is, after all, the news organization that lost interest in covering the trial as it became increasingly apparent that Ray was going to be convicted. And that he's a horrible, horrible person.

For 45 minutes, Ray emoted for the camera about the totally unforeseeable events of October 8, 2009 and how painful it's been for himself and his family. Said Ray:

I think the most difficult thing I can ever imagine is investing your entire life in helping people, and then finding them getting hurt. It's just the antithesis of anything that I had ever stood for or wanted. [emphasis added] And so that anguish has continued every single day since that moment.

And much like when Lululemon announced that brutal murder was antithetical to their values, I gotta wonder why anyone would need to spell that out. Is Ray afraid we'll all think he asked his genie to bring him death and destruction? 

The sweat lodge, as Ray tells it now, was just a tiny piece of Spiritual Warrior -- "the sizzle on the steak." I wonder where all those people -- his students year after year -- got the idea that it was the pinnacle event.  No, says Ray to a nodding Piers Morgan, he really wasn't that into it. But you see, people had all these expectations and they had signed contracts. He didn't want to let them down. Some of them were really looking forward to it.

Except that the sweat lodge was only tangentially mentioned in the contract -- which was more of a tissue thin waiver really -- as something that "may" occur. No one was officially told about the sweat lodge until right before it happened. That would ruin the surprise!

Keep in mind that we will be working diligently to make this event memorable. For this reason, it is important that we do not disclose any further information regarding the event schedule or planned activities. However, we will tell you that it is going to be an exciting, unforgettable, and transformational week!

The rest of Ray's performance -- and I do mean that literally -- had about that much relationship to the truth.

He had no forewarning that something like those awful sweat lodge deaths could occur. Nothing remotely like this had ever happened before. Daniel Pfankuch? He just got a little dehydrated. And it's not like anybody -- students of his or a medical doctor, say -- had been telling him for years that he was risking people's lives with those temperatures. Nope. Never happened. That must be why his attorneys worked so hard to keep the evidence from previous years out of the trial -- previous years that looked like this.

Piers Morgan did a good job of looking grave and serious as he lobbed one softball after another and let Ray squirm out of the occasional tough question without scrutiny. But then, this is the hallmark of TV News in America now.

Only near the end did he ask the key question raised by Ray's recent communiques. "What about the families?" Why all the focus on the pain he has suffered? As he did throughout the interview, Ray cranked up the tear machine and talked about how he wished he could trade places with James, Kirby, or Liz. And how he knows he cannot -- which no doubt makes that sentiment a little easier to express, huh.

But I read Ray's self-indulgent twaddle and there is not a single mention of the people who died that day, or of their families, or of the people who were permanently harmed, or of the traumatized witnesses to that hellscape.

There's nothing in his email:

I know it's been quite a while since you heard from me, and I just want to begin by expressing my sincere thanks for staying with me over the last 4 years. For the last 4 months since my re-emergence I've been catching my breath and doing my best to rest, spend time with my family, and integrate the experiences of the last 4 years. Frankly understanding and integration will probably take the rest of my days.

After my birthday yesterday, it seemed the perfect time to begin a new chapter in my life; and continue to find ways in which I can be of service, given all that I've learned and experienced.

I've posted my first blog today and I plan on many more to come. If you'll take a moment and read it when you have a chance, my sincere hope and prayer is that it will be of value to you and your current situation in life.

Again thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued love and support, and I look forward to connecting again soon.

Much love and gratitude,

And there's nothing in his blog post, which is particularly odd because it's all about coming through the adversity of the last four years ("feels like forty"). He actually says that twice. Nowhere is there any mention of what happened that made it so rough. Just that he has been through hell. We're all supposed to be very impressed, I guess, that James Ray suffered the tortures of the damned in some vague, undefined way.

He's born it all stoically, it would seem, and has learned about the transformational power of the darkness. He is, as the title of his post suggests, filled with gratitude.

At the beginning and end of each day, I’m grateful to be alive; to have the gift of life; and to have the opportunity to take all the lessons and experiences and move forward. I believe we should all be grateful for each and every single day of life… regardless of whether we perceive them as positive or negative, up or down.

He's glad to be alive with all the gifts and days of life that we should all be grateful to be living... says the man who was convicted for the deaths of three people.

Ray is just full of gratitude. He's made it through a "spiritual, mental, and physical tsunami."

In the depth of darkness I made a conscious choice to “utilize” everything to my advantage—to facilitate my own development, advancement, and growth. For isn’t that what you and I both really want? The entirety of life and the whole of the Universe are about fuller expression, experience and expansion. Aren’t they?

Yes, it's all about him -- about what he has gone through and what he has learned. Because James Ray can use anything to his advantage... and anyone I guess. 

Perhaps the biggest lie of all came near the very end of his interview. Asked if he'll go back into the self help industry, he says he just doesn't know. Oh, really. That must be why he's relaunched his blog, sent out emails to his list, and gotten himself booked on Piers Morgan. That he could say that with a straight face should tell you everything you'd ever want to know about his sincerity or the lack of it.


Update: Connie Joy has learned that James Ray and Piers Morgan are related by show biz marriage.

"Piers Morgan is represented (and proudly) by non other than Octagon entertainment. As a matter of fact, John Ferriter - who is now the media contact for James Arthur Ray - is also Piers Morgans' manager. Cozy, isn't it? A softball interview indeed. And the quotes Piers chose to repeat on his twitter account certainly make it look like a well-planned PR campaign."

I was just reflecting on how completely Morgan made himself an instrument of Ray's PR, even going so far as to suggest that Ray would make a better teacher after all he's lived through. That wasn't an interview. It was a dance.

And a scheduled follow up with Ginny Brown? Canceled.

Can we stop calling Piers Morgan a journalist yet? And how should we refer to CNN?

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

James Ray: Felon

James Ray Sports Guru-do Upon Release

James Arthur Ray will remain a convicted felon. Arizona's Court of Appeals has granted Ray's request of last week to drop his appeal. It appears that he weighed an attempt at clearing the conviction from his record against the very real possibility of being convicted again in any potential retrial and facing more than the paltry sentence he's already served. He's opted not to risk his recently gained freedom from incarceration.

In documents filed with the Arizona Court of Appeals Thursday, Ray, 55, signed an affidavit stating that he wishes to "avoid any possibility of a retrial and a resentencing."

Had he not dropped the appeal, oral arguments would have begun today. He would have also faced a cross-appeal from the State claiming, among other things, that the jury should have been informed of Ray's duty to act when participants were in distress.

Tom Kelly is unhappy with Ray's decision to let the matter drop.

His local attorney during the trial, Tom Kelly, said he was less than pleased with his former client's decision to abort the appeal. He said he met with Ray, who has remained in the Phoenix area pending the end of his parole, earlier this week.

"I was disappointed with his decision and I believe justice requires a resolution of the points raised on appeal," Kelly said.

But since it appears that Kelly's passion for "justice" does not include his continued representation of the harmonically destitute Ray, who cares.

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Announcing: The James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial

As you know, James Arthur Ray was released from prison last Friday. In honor of this inauspicious occasion, I'm unveiling The James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial page. I've been slowly organizing all the material from the Sweat Lodge Trial into a more easily navigable index, with a table of contents and a glossary of terms.

I started this project a little while after James Arthur Ray went to jail. It proved more challenging than I'd expected. It's not the busy work of it. I find that it forces me to relive the trial which, as it turns out, was even more emotionally grueling than I'd remembered. But think of it as a work in progress as I keep chipping away at it.

I welcome feedback and suggestions.

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He's Baaaaack!

Later today James Arthur Ray, possessor of The Secret, motivational speaker,  and criminally negligent homicider, will ooze out of his prison cell and resume his career as a professional mover and shaker... or maybe he'll just sleep on someone's couch.

All,

I am hesitant to send this e-mail; however I just got off of the the phone with James and time is becoming critical. As I am sure most of you know, James is due to be released on July 12th and as a condition of his parole, must stay in Arizona for 110 days following his release. I have been consistently reaching out to James’ friends in an effort to find him some type of lodging for his short stay in Arizona. Unfortunately, any lodging must be approved by his parole officer prior to his release, and he has been told that renting an apartment, or staying in a hotel will most likely NOT be acceptable to the state of Arizona. That being said… we are desperately looking for some type of spare room in someone’s home, or an empty home that he could use for his short time on parole.

As I am sure all of you assume… this unfortunate situation has left James financially destitute, so we would not be able to pay much for either type of above lodging. The additional caveat would be that if it was an empty home, we would need to also find bare minimums on furniture (bed, couch, etc) that he would have access to.

The alternative to us NOT being able to find him lodging, would be that he would have to stay in a “group home” (or halfway house) with other recently released prisoners. Although we all hope that newly released prisoners come into society with the intentions of leading a reformed life, the reality is that these halfway homes tend to be full of drugs, theft, and violence. James is simply hoping for a place to have solitude, and a location that he can begin to re-acclimate to life as we all know.

Once again… I apologize in sending out this straight to the point e-mail; however, I have simply exhausted my and James’ resources (me being 1200 miles away) and now am counting on the universe to guide someone to the right resource to help us in this desperate situation.

My love and respect to all of you that have already done so much for James. I truly believe each of us has tremendous hearts and want the best for James as his “new life” begins upon his release.

My best to all, and thanks in advance!

Jon C. Ray”

So now James and his brother Jon are counting on the universe to come through in the clinch, after it somehow left them desperate and destitute. And here I thought James Arthur Ray knew The Secret and all about "how the universe works." How did he get into this predicament? Oh, right. He killed three people because he didn't know enough about how life on earth works to not stuff them inside a hellish inferno.

Christine Whelan of USA Today is betting on Ray's getting right back in the saddle. Once a pitchman, always a pitchman She makes the point that he's never really stopped. Causing multiple deaths and serious injuries at his seminars wasn't enough to make him fold up his tent. He had to be told by his good friend Bob "How the Hell Does Electricity Work?" Proctor that it was in really bad taste to keep doing seminars before the bodies were even cold. He even teamed up with another convicted felon, while he was still in prison, to charge people money for advice on how to become a success. 

Let's face it. Common sense and dignity aren't really James Ray's long suit, so it's not so surprising that he'd have his brother go begging like a panhandler to a list of people who paid him tens of thousands of dollars for his stellar advice on how to achieve "harmonic wealth."

Comments on this entry are closed, on this blog. If you wish to comment, please find this and all newer blog entries crossposted on Celestial Reflections.

Dethroning the Hierophant

Article first published as Dethroning the Hierophant on Blogcritics.

A few years ago, I observed that the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was hitting a critical point, as a glut of news reports was beginning to directly implicate the Vatican. I suggested then that what was happening in the Catholic Church was an indicator of the dismantling of hierarchical systems more broadly and that in the Motherpeace Tarot, such patriarchal, spiritual authority is represented by the Hierophant.

At its root, the word "hierophant" means bringer to light of sacred things. In the traditional Tarot, the Hierophant represents a priest or Pope, the paternal religious authority.... Representing a hierarchical view of religion, the Hierophant stands on a pedestal, raised up from the earth, above the common person. In the Motherpeace image, he has taken over the robes and skirt of the High Priestess, along with her breasts which symbolize her sacred power, but he has forsaken her "Sophia" or wisdom.... The authority of the Hierophant is based, in large part, on repression of women and the natural instincts that women symbolize.

The The Motherpeace Tarot Playbook explains how to read the card when it comes up in a spread.

The Hierophant represents spiritual authority. He represents ritual and ceremonial magic which manifests as organized religion in this culture. Or he represents the psychic control exercised by mostly male, authority figures in our culture, such as psychiatrists, gurus, doctors and courtroom judges. Since he is also the internalized parent or superego authority, he represents conventional morality.

The text goes on to explain how to read this card when it presents as reversed, or ill-dignified.

The reversal shows a full-scale rebellion. You can no longer tolerate external roles and conventional morality; you have begun to call on your deeper conscience for advice You are able to stop kneeling to the priest or the doctor or the father, choosing instead to take your own advice, heed your own counsel.