A good blog on Ray from Salty Droid info, The Anticult gets a mention. Disclaimer: the language can get a bit ripe on this site so be warned: salty droid blog James Arthur Ray :: and his shriveled useless nut-sack :: were frequent guests of the news media. The media asked tough questions like: “Don’t you just love the smell of rain?” :: and :: “Why are you so gosh dang awesome?” You c
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'You can reject a particular guru, then walk around with a 'guru-shaped hole' in your psyche. Eventually someone will come along who matches that outline, and the game resumes.' That statement rang a bell for me. After I left my cult family at the earliest possible age I walked around with an 'abuse-shaped hole' in my psyche for decades. Despite an absolute c
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The 'shakti' doesn't come from BK, it comes from the audience who have been primed and prepped in anticipation of her entrance. BK's great con is the same as James Ray and Tony Robbins---- to imply, insinuate, and lead the audience to believe that the 'shakti' is something that she bestows on them. Anyone who has been to a rock concert or football game in a stadium
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Former LGAT Guru followers might consider a radical experiement...no Guru's for 5 years!' The best possible advice. I felt a bit queasy at the mention of Tony Parsons as Janaki's new friend. BK was always described as her friend rather than her Guru. As far as I know Parsons is a fairly low key non-dual teacher. The non-dual teachings have a perennial appeal and are th
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Janaki (former BK facilitator) has posted an update on her blog about the fall-out from her split with BK. She describes the depression she suffered after ceasing to do the 'Work' and how she came back to a more normal view on the world. Her commenters have interesting observations to make also. Janaki blog update Take heart, there is life after Byron Katie.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Funny how these fringe groups choose to operate only in the areas of the world where there is disposable income to be targeted. I have had no dealings with this group at all but I've been reading my way through this site for my own continuing education. What struck me about Ole's dismissal of an entire continent, Africa, as being unable to benefit from his 'wisdom teachings
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Cassandra Yorgey, who has access to pictures of some of the documents taken as evidence from James Ray, has another post analysing some of Ray's workings on his events. He seems to have been working out how to use LGAT techniques already in use by others and putting his own personal spin on them. Worth a read as it becomes clear that Ray was practising his delivery of fake sincerity along
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Both promoted Ray around the time of The Secret, but only Larry King has covered the Death Lodge.' Agreed. I find anyone who has been associated and who has profited from that association with Ray, who now cannot openly denounce his behaviour must be suspect. Silence on such an issue is appalling. I generally try to stay away from considering the ethics of others, I have enough t
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

According to this one source, doc release there will be a further release of the collected documented evidence on January 12. 'How did Oprah, Larry King and those other producers not vet this guy?' It didn't serve their purposes to vet him. They, after all, are in the same business of grabbing the audiences attention by any means possible in order to sell someth
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Special attention to working with one's own dark desires for power is part of learning about persuasion for self-defense.' Agreed. If I cannot recognise and exert a measure of control over my own dark human proclivities then studying the workings of human nature in others will be treacherous. With my personal history (I have a life-long morbid fear of authority and what is
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Just beware of the embedded persuasion tactics and upselling and self-marketing.' I think the above always has to be a given when dealing with any marketplace. The other person always has their own agenda and it is worth remembering that it is an agenda designed to serve their own interests and is unlikely to serve yours. This style of marketing is creeping into the mainstream a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The Salty Droid has a doctored video, intercutting Bill Harris' testimonial for Ray with footage about the sweat lodge. Very worthwhile watching at only two minutes: salty droid vid
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

A great analysis of the possible uses of the vast array of medications found when Death Ray fled, from a certified pharmocolgist on Scienceblogs:Death Ray's pharmacology The general gist seems to be that Ray was using this cocktail (prescribed by an internet Doctor of Osteopathy) for weight control and anti-aging and that such a concoction would have serious side effects which may or may
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

"What about the lies upon lies upon lies from guys like James Ray, who Oprah promoted? Of course she would fear getting entangled with it, but one has to wonder how someone can sleep at night, knowing they promoted a gang of ruthless scammers to exploit your audience? Maybe they just don't care, and just push it out of their mind." I think it fairly obvious that these people
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Dave Lakhani may have one foot in ethical persuasion, but he has the other placed right in the lion's den.' Agreed, his services are for sale so ethics often take second place to profit in such a situation. (I am not trying to puff him a 'one of the good guys' or particularly trustworthy) Knowing that, however, his analysis can, in this instance, still be of benefit t
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Is he actually teaching the specific techniques people can use to protect themselves? Or is he just appearing to teach some techniques, while upselling to his own products, and teaching the Persuasion sharks how to be more effective?' I think it very likely that he is positioning himself as an ethical practitioner of persuasion. I first came across him when he was very outspoken a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

In the interests of bloggers stepping up and speaking the truth about James 'Death' Ray, I found this blog post, although a few months old, to be very educational and informative. stepping up blogpost Disclaimer: the blogger is well-known as a copywriter and persuasion expert, also a Master Practitioner of NLP so The Anticult's warnings apply when reading this piece. Howeve
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Another interesting post from Cassandra Yorgey where she looks at some of the documents seized and photographed at JRI offices, in particular the third quarter goals of various employees. As she notes, employees often call a spade, a spade amongst themselves and the goals are quite illuminating when stripped of the marketing-speak. JAR employees goals A sample goal: "Next we come t
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I don't really want to pull this off at a tangent from the JAR/Bill Harris, Wilber, Genpo Roshi mutual puffing, but I am still intigued that this Death Ray indulged in such copious self-medication for the natural process of aging while attempting to sell the dream (at an enormous and sometimes fatal price) of a perfect life to his customers. The following article goes into some detail on th
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I've just been looking through the police photo's of Death Ray's Sedona living quarters, taken after he had fled the scene, mainly because I was intrigued by the vast amount of questionable medication he was lugging about with him---Human Growth Hormone? Estrogen suppressors used by women suffering breast cancer? Stuff to prevent hair loss?---doesn't sound too much like a 
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Found a downloadable PDF of the October 23 affidavit for a search warrant on Saltydroid.info site: search warrant Scroll down for the PDF, makes quite horrifying reading but seems the police have trained a strong beady eye on this as negligent homicide. Colleen's death is also noted in the affidavit for the warrant.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Just want to say thanks, Anticult, buffman and others for the sterling work on this long overdue exposure. Eye-opening stuff.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

According to this report liability disclaimer there was the usual disclaimer for any unfortunate consequences for the victims of Ray's harmonic scam. On Ray's Web site, a guide for participants of the five-day "Spiritual Warrior Event" includes a lengthy release of liability that acknowledges participants may suffer "physical, emotional, financial or other injuries.&
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I'm not so sure about the multiple personalities explanation, sounds like a bit of a cop-out to me. George Orwell nailed it, as he did with so much of how totalitarianism works, in his novel '1984'. It's about pretending to accept the lie. Most totalitarian types do not expect the ordinary person to believe the lie, the ordinary person just has to pretend to believe it--ou
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'No wonder it was easy for her to talk about forgiving and forgetting. She was self medicating to support a personal flight path of denial and dissociation.' In a nutshell, what Byron Katie is advocating as a means of living 'blissfully'. If only it worked. I had similar problems, emotions were highly dangerous to display in my childhood, and the insistence that I forgi
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'This would be a good read,' I followed the link to "nonspiritual.net" you gave above, ar, and found this breathtakingly logical dissection of Jaggi's discourses by Harmanjit Singh on his blog 'Spiritual and Disingenuous.' spiritual and disingenuous Mr Singh has done a sterling job of gently showing the inane emptiness of Jaggi's schtick and pointin
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The word 'authenticity' itself is what is called in semiotics an empty or floating signifier, in that it has no concrete, easily accessible, agreed upon meaning and can be used along with similar empty signifiers like 'freedom' 'abundance' etc in argument, persuasion and sales as a thought stopper or confusion inducer. empty signifier Apparently NLP'ers call
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Well said, Christa. I found a very interesting blog-post on the irony of these PUA's seeking authenticity by being inauthentic. The writer is an admitted student of NLP but clearly not so enthralled with the narcissistic sociopathy advocated by these types. authenticity and PUA's
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

'Would they go this far, and post fanmail that is self concocted?' In the world of business marketing, which is Byron Katie's main business, the genuine untouched letter being published would be the real shocker. The primary purpose of BK's blog is advertising, selling her product, not dispensing accurate information at all. 'Dave' is probably a professional copy
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Thanks for filling me in, Corboy, and I found The Last Psychiatrist's take on this highly interesting also. I know we all learn best from our mistakes and I applaud disconnect's honesty in his post but I conclude that the lesson to be had from all of this is that, if we can, we are better served by accepting ourselves with all our foibles if we want a shot at genuine self-respect.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"