Self Help Cults & Their Leaders Ruining My Day

Today, I watched a rerun of an ABC 20/20 episode from 2010, called Deadly Devotion, about self-help guru / cult leader, James Arthur Ray. He is a proponent of the so-called "Law of Attraction" from the oh-so-deceitful book, The Secret, which says that, if you want whatever it is you want hard enough, and visualize it, you'll get it. And if bad things happen to you, it's because you didn't visualize a good life hard enough. He was featured on Oprah's talk show - she's also an advocate for this way of thinking.

Colleen Conaway, James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman are all dead because of their devotion to Ray's philosophy. Conaway jumped off a roof during an exercise where she was supposed to pretend to be homeless - she'd been directed to pretend this by Ray, as part of a seminar she was attending, and paid a substantial sum to attend. The other three were killed during a sweat lodge exercise lead by Ray. This article from The Verge chronicles these deaths and the activities and methods of this dangerous man.

When you read articles and see clips of Ray talking, you will read about and see methods you've heard before, by Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Joseph Di Mambro, and the Church of Scientology: intense physical experiences, extreme fasting, isolation, and other exercises that can alter a person's mental state and make them more pliable by a charismatic leader. You will see delivery in the style of Tony Robbins and Joel Osteen, and it's really easy to draw parallels between the philosophy promoted by The Secret and the Christian prosperity theology. Just want something badly enough, just visualize it, and follow the rules set out for you by Mr. Successful, and you, too, can achieve all you desire.

When you hear people that follow, or followed, Ray, you hear from people who are, or were, vulnerable in some way psychologically or emotionally - and with a lot of money. They are looking for something - they often aren't even sure what - and they think they can find it in a seminar or video or magic book. They paid, or are still paying, hundreds, even thousands of dollars to Ray - he's not doing anything charitable. These people are intelligent, often with university degrees, but they are also emotionally-hungry, even damaged, people who get caught up in this scam, this cult, and some, even after the deaths of Conaway, Shore, Brown and Neuman, still follow him. Arthur Deikman, a San Francisco psychiatrist, wrote The Wrong Way Home, and in it, he says, as quoted on this page: “I began to see that cults form and thrive not because people are crazy, but because people have two kinds of wishes. They want a meaningful life, to serve God or humanity, and they want to be taken care of, to feel protected and secure, to find a home.”

I guess the reason this piece on Ray is really bothering me in particular is because I've recently been coaching a dear friend who regularly attends spiritual retreats lead by various folks, and who became involved with a group in Costa Rica I'm convinced is scam at best and a cult in the making at worst. He lost a few thousand dollars to the two leaders of this "retreat," and I fear he could have lost much more had he stayed - and fear it's only a matter of time that more people do. These two retreat leaders frame their oh-so-remote location as a place to volunteer, to interact with local people, to work and live simply, in nature, to get back in touch with simplicity, and blah blah blah blah blah. In truth, they are just like Ray: they take some ceremonial practices by Native Americans and twist them into activities that may leave participants feeling fulfilled or weakened and even more vulnerable - either way, perfect prey for exploitation. They isolate. They push people to engage in hard physical labor and then berate them for not doing the activity "correctly." They probe deeply into a person's past, asking lots of incredibly intimate questions. They lash out at those who question, and if a person leaves the retreat in anger, they paint that person as negative, as someone that needed to leave before he or she brought the others down.

My friend is a warm, giving, talented, intelligent person, but he's also fragile in some ways and is looking to come to terms with some horrific events in his past, to heal emotionally. I have to be careful how I coach him through this - I can't shake him and say "Stop this nonsense!" I can't make him feel stupid. I have to be gentle in my encouragement of him - I encourage him to ask questions, to never assume someone's goodness just because they have a fancy web page or a book, to look to medical professionals to address the dark spots in his soul, to look for all of the many happy people around him who don't follow any gurus, and to believe that honest inspiration doesn't come with an expensive retreat or subscription to something. There are healthy ways to cultivate friendships, to create your own identity, to feel secure, and to be a part of something larger than yourself that don't require you to humiliate yourself, to learn a special language or to adhere to some creed filled with lots of psycho babble. It's a tough assignment - he'd be offended that I just called what he believed in psycho babble.

There was one bright spot in all this: this episode of 20/20, renamed "Deadly Devotion", was shown on Oprah's network, OWN. So, there's that, at least.

I look around me and I see dozens of ways to cultivate friendships, create an identity or definition for myself, to feel secure, and to feel a part of something large than myself: nonprofits with events I can attend and with volunteering opportunities in which I can participate, a community theatre company with productions I could audition for or just work behind the scenes or in the front of hour on event night, a citizens academy run twice yearly by the local police, all sorts of civic groups (Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, etc.), a farmer's market that would welcome me in any way I wanted to help each week, events at the library, a jazzercise class, a karaoke night, and on and on. I invite my neighbors over for a cookout and corn hole. I walk my dog through the neighborhood and say howdy to anyone I pass. It feels good, real, authentic. It brings beautiful people into my life. And I never have to use my credit card for any of it.

If someone you know is reading books or watching videos by James Arthur Ray - yes, after being let out of prison, he's back in business - show them this blog. Show them this article from The Verge. Such people are reckless at best and deviant at worst.

warning for religious folks: demand more of humans representing your god

I’m looking at the web site of a church that many of my friends are joining. It's a new church, just a few years old. Its web site is one of the slickest I’ve ever seen. It’s gorgeous - there's no way this was designed by just a helpful congregation member. This is a professionally-designed web site. 

I’m deeply suspicious of this church, both because of their quick rise in numbers and because of the oh-so-slick web site that lacks of information about who is behind this institution. There are:

• no names of pastors/leaders or other staff listed
• no biographies of pastors/leaders or other staff, including where the leaders studied theology, where else they have lived, what other religious communities they have lead, etc. 
• no info about how money they raise for the church, temple, mosque, community is used (what percentage goes to property rent/mortgage/upkeep? to salaries? to cover costs incurred by volunteers/to support volunteers? to charities, nonprofits or overseas missions? to congregants in need?)

How are you supposed to know if this organization is fiscally responsible? And how are you supposed to know if the people leading this religious community:

• have the credentials to lead a religious community?
• have the knowledge to lead a religious community?
• haven’t been convicted or arrested, or involved in any scandal elsewhere?

I wonder what would happen if someone went to the leadership of this church and asked for this information to be posted publicly… maybe someone has? It would be interesting to see if the church embraced the idea and posted the info, or avoided doing it - and has been avoiding doing it. I find it odd that the site is otherwise SO well-designed.

Even if the pastors were listed, along with their credentials, I'd do some more digging, as I’ve looked at other web sites of churches and mosques, and often, the name of institute where someone says they studied theology cannot be found on a web search, or the institute has no accreditation by a recognized body. 

Surely you would want appropriate credentials of your accountant, teachers at your kids' school, the person that designed your in-ground pool, etc. Why not those that are telling you how to live?

Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jains, whatever: do you really want to believe that transparency isn’t necessary for churches, mosques, temples and other religious communities? Do you think your magical, invisible friend that won’t protect children from being raped will, however, protect the people going to your church/mosque/temple/whatever and you don’t need to do a little digging into these people that are telling you how to live, what to believe, and to give them money?

The apocalypse industry

The apocalypse industry disgusts me. Playing on the fear and misguided beliefs on Christians, Muslims - even non-Abrahamic religions - these hucksters make big profits selling books, videos, even screen savers about an event they cannot possibly actually believe in, as they are making more money than they could possibly spend before the world ends per their predictions.

The weirdest of these predators are the people marketing to those who fear being left behind - even though, as Christians, those fraidy-cat folks should believe that they'll be floating up in the sky with the human manifestation of their super powerful, usually invisible friend, and it's only people like me, and other Atheists, who are going to be left behind to be tortured by UN troops or whatever. These fraudsters peddle camping stoves, fuel containers, generators, guns, ammo and other survivalist equipment to people who, even though they believe in a super powerful, usually invisible friend, also believe that super friend isn't going to protect them from the marauding Atheist cannibals that will be running around (and, really what kind of super friend is that?!).

Since the beginning of human history, humans have been predicting the end of humankind. Over thousands of years, some humans have seen the wars, natural disasters, famines and social changes of their present time as signs that the end is just around the corner. Never mind that there have always been wars, natural disasters, famines and social changes... And deciphering "Bible codes" or "Torah codes" or some other ancient text, has been done again and again over the centuries, always to fit what the decoders are seeing in their present time. People will tell you that Nostradamus predicted all sorts of big historical events - but only ever in hindsight. And that's oh-so-easy to do, to take a vague quatrain and frame it, interpret it, in such as way as to say, "See, it clearly says that Donnie Osmond is going to win on Dancing with the Stars."

Why do I care? Why does this bother me? Because, like most Atheists, I have compassion for my fellow humans, and, therefore, I do not like seeing humans lied to or exploited. I don't like to see people profiting from the fears and superstitions of others.

In addition, these fraudsters' activities can lead to tragedy: the mass suicide at Jonestown, Guyana. The mass murder committed by the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda after the doomsday prophesies of its leaders failed to come true. The mass suicide and murders at Waco by the Branch Davidians. No one should be murdered, or coerced into killing themselves - including by religious folks who believe the end is nigh.

Learn more about how often different cultures and cults have declared it's all about to end. Start with the book The Last Days are Here Again: A History of the End Times by Richard Kyle. It's focused on Christian movements over time that have declared the world is about it end, but it's a good place to start your education about this practice when can also be found in Judaism, Islam, and even non-Abrahamic traditions, like Buddhisms. Educate yourself, and share that knowledge. Expect some push back from others who are stockpiling food and ammo. But in putting that knowledge out there, it's out there - there's no taking it back - and it often plants the seeds of doubt that can help bring people back from the brink of doing something stupid - and maybe, just maybe, lead to enlightenment.