Of course everyone knows about Salty Droid, but there are some good comments in the thread on the Ray sentence. [saltydroid.info]

Lots of deserved criticism of Judge Darrow.
As was said, the case was investigated longer than James Ray will be in prison.

Why did Judge Darrow go so soft on James Ray?
Others are saying that Judge Darrow was blaming the victims, and Darrow believed Ray was trying to help people.

So Judge Darrow is either naive, not too smart, or something else?

According to Judge Darrow, you can have a seminar or event, not have any proper safety procedures in place, and through gross negligence or maliciousness, have 3 people die.

Then you get 20 months in jail, so 7 months for each human life.
Judge Darrow thinks a human life is worth 7 months?

So even some Judges are not there to protect the public.
Why?

But on top of all this, the idea of coercive techniques in these seminars, are not really covered in the justice system...yet.
If you think about it, its an entire new area of law, as these seminar Gurus are able to manipulate and engineer your seeming 'free choice', which is what the entire justice system is based on.

There have been other deaths related to other LGAT seminars, and the Gurus have gotten away with it every single time.


One sympathies are with the families who now have to cope with this ridiculous 2 year slap on the wrist for James Ray.

And thanks a lot too to Oprah, for putting this obvious crooked scammer named James Ray on her TV show 3 times, with no criticism of James Ray or the other fakers allowed.
Oprah carries the bag for this too.
She should have allowed real critics on every single show like this, to point out the fallacies and dangers.
Shame on Oprah for making James Ray a star.

And shame on Judge Darrow for his pathetic light-sentence, ridiculous comments and victim blaming.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2011 04:33AM by The Anticult.

One useful thing to come out of this nightmare, is that a wider audience has begun to understand that these fake Gurus like James Ray, are not just salesmen and con-artists.
But are using very advanced covert persuasion techniques on people, using NLP techniques, covert conversational hypnosis, and everything else, amounting to forms of thought-reform on the victims.
And the victims have no idea of what is being done to them.

That is why so many people risked their lives in that manner.

Before James Ray, no one really knew about these techniques, outside trained professionals. But now a few more people have at least heard a little about them.
Of course, understanding them takes months and years of study, its very complex.

One notices that the entire NLP persuasion field has been absolutely silent about the James Ray case.
They designed these techniques, and now criminals are using them.
The NLP world fears for itself, so it says nothing, and does nothing to educate the public.

Its probably too early yet to make such a statement around people feeling let down by the system, but this case--if the judgement and sentence stand- has set a bit of a precedent with regard to the law recognising the influence at work in these white collar 'spiritual' scammers.
DeathRay is in the slammer for his slimy work, and that is something.

I think Darrow did his best job of being even-handed to avoid having the judgement or sentence thrown out on appeal. He has to think of the bigger picture too and keep his personal thoughts and wishes to himself.

I'd like to see DeathRay strung up myself, but know that bias makes me a very bad judge in this case as I cannot maintain any semblance of objectivity.



Jeannika has posted a good blog on the aftermath, particularly interesting is the probation officers pre-sentence report where JAR (inevitably) attempts to snow the officer and IMO fails dismally.

[apps.supremecourt.az.gov]

[my-gratitude-project.blogspot.com]

Also worth a second look is a CNN video on the first reports on Colleen's death being connected with the Harmonic BS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2011 05:04AM by Stoic.

Sure, of course a judge has to be objective.
And a conviction is better than nothing.

BUT, we have all seen much much harsher sentences for far lessor crimes.
Some people get years for fairly moderate financial fraud, or obstruction of justice, like removing a box of papers they were not supposed to touch.

And many judges harshly lash out and criticize offenders for lying to the court, and they get more years for that perjury.

But of course, the legal system is wildly unpredictable, and can go either way.
False convictions, to crooks getting away with murder.


but the legal system is in a tough bind with this kind of case where people's "free will" has been tampered with using these techniques.
The entire legal system is based on that assumption of "free will".
Tricky stuff.

What irks me about Darrow is his refusal to see Ray for what he is. The prosecutors saw it, most of the jury saw it, and those who didn't would have seen it more clearly had they known about Colleen's death and all the other stuff. So the jury cut him some slack, reluctant to make him face 39 years max. Darrow then cut him even more slack on top of that, rather than using his brain a bit to see why the jury went for the lesser charge and imposing the maximum (greatly reduced) sentence.

I'm sure everything Darrow did was to the letter of the law, but I also think he could and should have shown more initiative in using the law as a tool rather than adjusting reality to fit the legal framework. His comments blaming the victims are extremely disappointing in this light.

Polk and her team, on the other hand have done a great service, placing an enormous amount of damning facts and analysis of ray's evil workings on the public record. It is a clear demonstration of the absolute lack of standards in the New Age and the motivational torture movement. A culture of exploitation has grown up where absolutely none of the leading lights have any integrity whatsoever, and absolutely no other systems are in place, even to save them from themselves, to say nothing of consumer protection.

At least Sheila Polk and co have managed to get a jail term - something I for one only partly expected. There was also a point in the trial where it looked to me like he would be found not guilty. (Dr Dickson, the guy who refused to be bullied or seduced by Truc Do on the cause of death changed all that.) A jail term is a little more difficult to explain away for Ray's supporters.

Dr Dickson was a star, no doubt about that.
Some of the other witnesses were impressive too, Ted's wife and daughter impressed me--even without Dr Dickson's education and experience they not only stood up in court but took useful practical action in the chaos.

I bet they'd never read DeathRay's opus 'Practical Spirituality' either. Just as well, maybe, or then they would have been inside the sweat-tent needing some practical action, not outside giving it.

@Stoic,

Yup....

I singled Dickson out as a turning point, and as a professional who could have slept through the cross examination from Truc Do like the others did, finishing up discovering they'd testified that they were only fifty percent certain heat was the cause of death. Dickson seemed to be a someone who genuinely cared for his work, his profession and for public education as much as for the truth.

I found many of the witnesses impressive. Must have been hard being on TV and exposed to public ridicule as well facing professional manipulators on a million dollar budget. The Mercers had the added stress of knowing Ray had tried to throw Ted under the bus for the deaths. For all Ray's blubbering and "apologies" he would have felt perfectly at peace sitting at home watching Ted in the dock on his plasma screen.

If you look at the images of James Ray on his own facebook page...
[www.facebook.com]

His main image was chose by Ray to give an image of Satan, as a visual cue about Magick "dark powers" [www.facebook.com]
You see the red background, it looks smokey, etc.
People have mentioned he looks Satanic in that photo, and that is a deliberate strategy.

Of course James Ray picked that, as he was trying to make people believe he had Magick dark powers, which he didn't. Just the black arts of covert persuasion.
It ain't Magick, its a technique.

And James Ray chose another photo with iconic sunglasses, that made him look like a Jim Jones, but with a puppy and a blackberry. Again, totally deliberate.
James Ray would have "admired" Jim Jones, in that he thought Jim Jones "persuaded" people to end their lives for him. (of course that is false, they were murdered, and terrorized, but many were also brainwashed at Jonestown)

What James Ray did was so obvious to the trained eye.
But even now, he still has some followers cheering him on, believing that it was an "accident" and that is why Ray got 2 years.

James Ray will use his prison time, to write more shitty books, and try to leverage his prison time into making himself like Mandela.
He'll talk about the life lessons of prison, make up lies about rehabilitating criminals, blah blah blah.

Probably the only way to control James Ray, is for him to get smothered with lawsuits, so if he does make any money later, then those people can go after it.
Of course, all the new companies will be in his brothers name, or one of his followers name.

Thanks a lot Oprah, for making James Arthur Ray famous by putting him on your show 3 times, with NO CRITICAL ANALYSIS allowed. Oprah in fact, made James Ray. Oprah crowned the sleazy salesman James Ray as the new Werner Erhard on her TV show.

Geez, looks like it was almost 5 years ago that Oprah turned James Ray into a TV celebrity and unleashed James Ray on her own TV viewers, and Oprah got away with it scot-free.

[forum.culteducation.com]
posted February 17, 2007

So I watched, painfully, the horrendous second episode of Oprah's Infomercial for The Secret, Part 2, of probably 10 in the next year.

It was actually much worse than I thought it would be. There were absolutely no critics allowed to speak at all. Zero....
...
You had desperate people with horrible pain and clinical depression, claiming 24 hour Miracle Cures, people with their eyes bugging out in a Manic state, talking about an Awakening, and Transformation. Oprah came right out and said the ONLY reason she is doing her show is to create "MOMENTS OF TRANSFORMATION" inside people. That is the LGAT moment. She admitted what she is doing to people.
...
Oprah has also unleashed 2 more new Age Gurus on the soccer moms of America to be milked like fattened cattle.

James Ray: who is a new Werner Erhard type, very slick and sleazy, and who is a Tony Robbins clone, repeating Robbins exact words verbatim, over and over.
He said there is World Peace in HIS world, because he ignores the world.
Oprah just crowned this sleazy salesman James Ray the new Werner Erhard. There were some horrible complaints about this guy on the Oprah boards, people getting ripped off 10K, and lots of people burning their feet in his "fire-walk" and not being allowed to go to the hospital. This guy is very bad.
[forum.culteducation.com]
posted February 17, 2007



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/2011 07:00AM by The Anticult.

Aleister Crowley milked that 'satanic' image. So did Anton Levay.

There are just too many people who go for this Bad Boy imagry.

look at all the rock stars who've traded in it.

yes exactly, its show-biz.
Just like many people like the Scarface characters in movies, both men and women.

And James Ray the conman tried to make naive people believe he has some kind of dark Magick satanic powers, which he obviously did not.
Just advanced persuasion techniques.

Advanced covert group persuasion techniques.
Advanced covert group persuasion techniques.

And the young women who are still followers of James Ray, they better wake up fast, or they could wind up the next victim of their next "James Ray" guru.
Truly a reality horror show, the young women still professing their love for their minds delusion of "James Ray" on his facebook page.
That is a reality horror show.