From looking at the evidence and context of Colleen Conaway, a "suicide" obviously does not add up.

The Guru James Ray constantly berated and pushed his followers past the point of no return at his LGAT seminars. Even big hulking men spoke of being pushed to their breaking point by James Ray, and people were risking their lives with arrows to the jugular vein, and worse.

Considering that James Ray cloned the methods of Carlos Castaneda, and REQUIRED his followers to indoctrinate themselves with the ENTIRE set of books by Castaneda read IN ORDER, what follows from that?

Its entirely plausible that the disturbed and reckless Guru "challenged" someone in a mentally vulnerable and dissociated state from these LGAT seminars and sleep and food deprivation, to test their "belief" that they could "fly" like Don Juan from Castaneda, and to jump from the upper balcony in a mall.
Perhaps they didn't think the person would really do it, and would stop, and then the Guru can use that against the person for not believing enough and being stuck in "fear".
But the person in a mentally broken down state, jumps, and then they jump into action to leave the scene, and cover it up in an organized manner involving a number of people. To their surprise they totally get away with it, no questions asked, no media coverage.

Colleen Conaway's family say she was making future plans at that very moment.
The report is that JRI destroyed Colleen Conaway's journals, why?

For any former James Ray advanced seminar attendees, its now time to come forward if they have any information about James Ray telling people they could "fly" like Don Juan in Castaneda.
Is there any written text about this anyone can find?

Can search the internet for keywords, as they've scrubbed their website: (and use other words in the place of Castaneda)

site:jamesray.com castaneda

Quote
shakti
MOST Castaneda readers did not view this as "metaphor" but truly believed that "Don Juan can fly... and if he can fly, so can I! I just need to open my doors of perception more". To this day, Random House markets these books as religion and non-fiction, rather than fiction. Which they are.

I read a good and funny account of one man's investigation into the fakir tricks that are touted as evidence of 'mind over matter.' Tahir Shah is the journalist son of one of the first popularisers of Sufism in the UK.
I'm pretty sure that he covers the firewalk scam in that, leaping flames and all, and I do remember the walnut in the armpit trick to stop blood flow and pulse. The story is good as a travelogue too, just don't forget that it is a story. I like best the stories that manage to be both informative and entertaining.

[www.amazon.co.uk]

The Anitcult: From looking at the evidence and context of Colleen Conaway, a "suicide" obviously does not add up.

The fact that Colleen paid in advance for two more JAR groups is surely proof enough that she had committed herself to her future plans.

The fact that Death Ray and and his hench-people got the police to view it as a suicide is really beyond the pale. They took her money promising to help her plan her future, then told the police she didn't want to live anymore. Depraved people.

Personally, I suspect that rather than metaphors of flying, Ray's "break through your limits" BS was what probably pushed her most strongly. Maybe psychosis plus a feeling she was too "weak" to achieve the breakthroughs Ray was pushing her.
........

According to Josh F all Ray's seminars were audio recorded, and many video taped. Police should have grabbed the tapes and be examining them.

Other participants who ever attended CAW in any years should be giving details of the program and methods to police. Or posting them on the net.

There was a great rerun of Law and Order Criminal Intent on last night that dealt with self-help gurus, manipulation, deprivation and forced 'suicide': [en.wikipedia.org].
It was very well done, a self-help guru gets an emotionally unstable follower to give him a "gift" of a million dollars (by convincing him to kill his wealthy father). I wonder what research the writers did for the story. The wikipedia link says it bears resemblance to the McPherson Scientology case, but it sounded like pure Byron Katie, the follower kept saying "that's just a story" when confronted with the facts.
If they have the Law and Order: CI DVDs for rent, I'd highly recommend it. It's on Season Two, the episode is called Con-Text.

Yakaru, 'break through your limits' is a metaphor. We are earthbound, subject to the law of gravity, that limits us to remain on the ground. The imagination 'takes flight', another metaphor. Language is constructed from metaphor.

If we take these metaphors literally in a moment of vulnerability after suffering sleep deprivation, dietary restrictions, and some slick operator working 'full out' over days to establish his authority and the primacy of his metaphors and given that all his methods are tailored to undermine any sense of individual autonomy, psychosis is not required.

A limit is exactly that, beyond which you cannot go. If you can go beyond it, it is not a limit, the limit has moved further out. The only place that limits can move in this way is in the imagination. The limits of what the body can do or tolerate do not change.

Because I can imagine what Harmonic Wealth might mean to me does not make it real or attainable in any way. 'Harmonic Wealth' has become a metaphor for all my deepest desires, and I do not even have to specify to myself what those deepest desires might be, because I have mistaken the map, the metaphor, for the territory.

Death Ray, with his endless one-pointed positivity, neglects to mention that we all have deep unspoken fears as well as deep desires and his methods manipulate those just as much as they manipulate the positive desires. You can't have one without the other.
He plays on the unspoken fears to draw his customers close to him. What fear in the sweatlodge was greater than the fear of dying of heatstroke?----the fear of not living up to the bogus standard Death Ray demanded of playing full-out, breaking through limits, "you are greater than that"

He pretended to be a superman and presented himself as just that to his customers, then encouraged them to believe they too could be superpeople with no limits also.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 05:05AM by Stoic.

Stoic,
Interesting points. I can relate more easily to it happening through psychosis, but that's based on a very narrow set of personal (2nd hand) experience. I didn't realise the degree of manipulation Ray and others use, so I don't consider myself informed to enough to agree or disagree. I'm interested in knowing more.

I've speculated about the possibility of psychosis numerous times in numerous places, not because I consider myself to have any real understanding, but because I think it's important to oppose the far fetched conclusion that Colleen committed suicide. It's unfair of police to leave Colleen's family dealing with the guilt associated with suicide, instead of at least charging Ray with negligent homicide and his staff with misleading police.

For me that's the most important step. Of course, this forum brings the chance to look deeper, and I'm all ears for that.

When I say psychosis, I'm not excluding the influence Ray's manipulative techniques - quite the opposite. Maybe more details will emerge in the trial about exactly what happened inthat group. At least one of the witnesses also attended it.

PS
That interview with Ray's brother is quite damning. Ray was cooling himself and Megan F with water during the lodge.

Quote
Yakaru
PS
That interview with Ray's brother is quite damning. Ray was cooling himself and Megan F with water during the lodge.

I was not aware Ray's brother attended the Death Lodge. I don't believe he did; can someone confirm/deny?

watch Law & Order episode here >>> [www.tudou.com]

From witness statements:

Quote

Melinda Martiin, Marta Reis I/V at Flagstaff Medical Center, 10/9/09
Interview was not recorded due to technical difficulties.
Marta or Melinda told me Stephen Ray was dragged out the front of the lodge at the conclusion of the ceremony; he was unconscious and his eyes were fluttering, as if he was having a seizure. She said he was the first flown out and Liz was the second one flown. Marta told me Liz has done five of James Ray's sweat lodges prior to this one.

I can't find a link to it at the moment. I downloaded the whole thing a while ago.

Christa, the last witness statement posted above at 05.15 am Mar 19 is an addendum to a previous statement that was taken from Death Ray's brother Stephen, some info within it confirms that.

Yakaru, psychosis is a sustained and prolonged episode of the person losing touch with reality. The person is existing inside the altered state and sees that altered state as reality for days or weeks or sometimes permanently.

What Death Ray was inducing was momentary breakthroughs in the line between the altered state and what we accept as mundane reality. String enough of them together over a long enough period and the person has a good chance of experiencing an episode of psychosis proper but that did not happen even to Daniel Pfankuch. Once his hyperthermia was controlled his strange behaviour ceased. JAR was intrigued though, enough to continue pushing his luck.

Experiencing an altered state can be bliss or it can be utterly terrifying, depending on a multitude of triggers and other factors that are unique to the mind of the individual. My guess would be that Colleen experienced an altered state that led her to think that stepping off the ledge was a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances that existed in her mind as reality at that moment.

I would not call that suicide given the heavy and completely irresponsible messing with minds that Death Ray engaged in. Whether that can ever be proved to a legal standard in a court room is debatable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 07:34AM by Stoic.