I was horrified the other night when I saw “Guru” James Ray on the news, seemingly un-daunted by the fact that he had just killed three people. And yes, in my opinion he did kill those people! But why they stayed in the sweat lodge after the first one passed out is beyond my comprehension. When you’re looking for self help I’m pretty sure you don’t want it to kill you!
They say James Ray liked to play “God.” But God doesn’t PUSH people to their limits to see how strong they are, yelling and screaming at them all the way. The lady who wrote the book on James Ray (Joy) said he took a group of followers to scale Machu Picchu in Peru and forced them to go at a dangerous pace. If I were a follower, I would have quit at that point.
Expert mountain climbers know that if you are doing a dangerous thing (like scaling a mountain), you need to be careful and make every step count. Not pretend you are spider man and go as fast as you can to prove something! I would say if you climbed safe and made it to the top, that qualifies as success!
The sweat lodge incident was uncalled for. Even if there were toxins in the material that the sweat lodge was made of, when the first person passed out – the lodge should have been cleared out! I suppose those people were just considered weak, and others didn’t want to leave and be considered weak. And, this is not the first time he’s done this. I just watched an exclusive ABC news report that showed similar happenings in a previous seminar like this – but fortunately no one died the first time.
Self help Gurus like James Ray – who like to pretend they are “all powerful” not only prey on weak people, but also those who really want to get more out of life and better themselves. I just don’t like self help speakers who charge enormous amounts for their seminars. Seems like basically, they’re only helping their self. . .
Sorry, I’m ranting here, but I just think this should be filed under cult activity and Mr. Guru Ray should be punished. Maybe he should be made to sit in that sweat lodge until he passes out! Oh, and don’t forget to make him sign that waiver so you don’t have to be responsible for ANYTHING that happens to you when you put yourself at the mercy of a self help guru who is so money hungry that he won’t stop a “session” even if people are passing out and dying around him!
P.S. I have done a “re-birthing” session in the past, it was a personally supervised breathing exercise and did NOT include frying my brain in a sweat lodge!
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