I have been reading lately about James Arthur Ray, the “self help guru” whose sweat lodge ceremonies in Sedona lead to several people dying in October 2009. It appears that he had a large number of fans and people paid a lot of money to attend any self help course he ran. I remember seeing him on “The Secret” and so I became interested enough to investigate what had happened. How could a positive thinking guru fall into such negative territory?
Understanding this has helped me understand better some of the flaws in some corners of the world of positive thinking psychology in general.
The first thing I discovered was that the more his techniques have been revealed, the worse things look for him. An illuminating report in the Washington Post, December 29th reads:
“In documents released Monday, a man Ray hired to build the sweat lodge told investigators that he was hesitant to assist with the ceremony for a third year because participants previously had emerged in medical distress, and emergency help wasn't summoned. Theodore Mercer said the latest ceremony was hotter than in years past, but Ray repeatedly told participants, "You are not going to die. You might think you are, but you're not going to die."
Mercer's wife, Debra, told investigators that one man emerged from the sweat lodge halfway through the October ceremony believing he was having a heart attack and would die. She said that instead of summoning medical aid, Ray said "It's a good day to die," according to a search warrant affidavit.
When Ray was advised that two participants were unconscious near the end of the two-hour ceremony, Debra Mercer said Ray did not appear overly concerned and said they would be OK until the end.
Authorities have interviewed most of the more than 50 people who attended the event and detailed about a dozen of the interviews in documents released Monday after a judge ruled last week that they be made public.
Some of the people told investigators that Ray responded to cries for help from a man who was burned and warned other participants not to leave the sweat lodge during eight 15-minute rounds so they wouldn't also be scorched by the hot rocks in the center.
Others who were interviewed by investigators described suffering broken bones at other Ray-led events after being instructed to break bricks with their hands. Others said they vomited and slipped into altered states of consciousness.”
...I went on to his website to learn more about the kind of self help course he teaches and the philosophy he espouses and instantly 2 warning signs jumped out at me:
First, he talks about “harmonic wealth”. The concept here is that we can operate in our lives at an optimum level – one in which we are succeeding in all key areas of our lives at the same time. It is like tuning into a frequency where everything goes right for us, and his philosophy teaches you how to find it. In describing it he states “balance is baloney!” This is something I could not disagree with more. While it’s a good thing to aim for optimal performance in all areas of life, no philosophy can ever be healthy if it denies the possibility of things going wrong in some parts of our lives some of the time. Balance is not baloney, it is inevitable.
This strikes at the very heart of the problem with a lot of positive thinking fundamentalism. Don’t get me wrong. I am all in favour of positive thinking in general, but it is important to balance it out with the realisation that there will always be negatives in the world too. One balances out the other, in fact, each pole needs the other to exist. I would warn anyone away from a self help course that did not acknowledge space for counterbalancing negatives in life. The key here, is not whether or not you experience negatives, it is how you learn to utilise those dark episodes, harness their power and continue an upward trajectory of growth and success. This is a lesson that Mr James is well placed to try and learn in his current predicament.
My other alarm bell rang when I read the part of the thinking behind his self help course that states, “from every unclear chaos, a new order arises that did not exist before the chaos”. Now, I see truth in this insofar as the Universe – given the negatives and positives that coexist within it – exists in states of intermittent chaos all the time. As I mention above, I believe that these varieties are an inevitable part of the Universal Flow, and, as such are necessary for all the more positive and ordered moments and dimensions in life to exist too. The problem, however, comes about when you try to create chaos yourself in order to experience what comes after it. This is not living in the now or the reality of life – but using artificial means to force yourself into happiness. It is the same age old trap that gurus have fallen into over the ages with an unfortunate self help course ideology that recommends anything from drug taking to orgiastic sex. There is enough chaos in the Universe without anyone trying to create more of it. That only leads to... well... more chaos.
In all, then I see some major intellectual holes in the thinking behind Mr Ray’s self help course which seem to have lead directly to the currently tragic state of affairs. If I were able to pass any message on to him right now it would be this; the greatest gift of all is not the ability to avoid darkness, but the ability to grow through it. Accepting this is half the journey. You have that opportunity to do that now.
