The strange connections of James "Death" Ray and the "Secret" cult

Despite a serious time crunch, I must write a follow-up to my previous piece on James Arthur Ray -- a.k.a. "Death" Ray -- the cult leader associated with the Oprah-approved self-help movement known as The Secret. Ray killed three people during a fake sweat lodge rite held in Sedona, Arizona. Yes, I do consider him guilty of murder, or at least of manslaughter.

At first, I thought that he was merely a money-hungry scamster out to bilk modestly affluent egomaniacs desperate to become immodestly affluent egomaniacs. But Ray turns out to be something worse.

I strongly urge you to read this inside view of his cult, written by one Cassandra Yorgey. She says that all participants (even women) were forced to shave their heads and to undergo severe sleep deprivation. They were also told not to urinate.

One of the brave and recovering victims described a game they all had to play in which James Ray played God. Yep, you read that right; James Ray cast himself in the role of God and would then command participants to die. He would point at someone and they would have to fall down and play dead. They would be covered with a blanket and if they moved another person would "die".

I find the biggest red flags of dangerous indoctrination to be restriction of water, food, or bathroom breaks – So when I heard James Ray dropped everyone off in the desert with no food, no water, and nothing but a sleeping bag, the clothes on their back, and a notebook I start to sputter obscenities. No water, in the desert, for 36+ hours is dangerous.

Sleep was still hard to come by because most participants were not prepared for the devastating cold that comes over the desert at night. Participants were coerced into buying thickly woven Peruvian ponchos for additional charges of $250.00. While that price may seem exorbitant, one victim I interviewed was happy to have paid it, repeatedly stating that it was literally life-saving. The tightly woven material also kept out the intermittent rain, helping to keep participants dry.

All of that physical hardship preceded the sweat lodge ordeal, in which 64 people were packed into a tight, heated space. Ray told these dazed participants to "push through" their thresholds. When people began to pass out, Ray told the others to "focus on your own journey." There are reports of physical duress used on people who tried to leave.

Would a mere scam artist endanger the lives of his followers/victims? Even a heroin peddler wants to keep his customers alive as long as possible.

After the tragedy, "Death" Ray called up the victims/witnesses to assert his innocence, to dissuade them from seeking proper therapy, and to encourage them to enroll in more courses.

This isn't the first death associated with Ray's cultish activities. Last July 25, a 46 year-old woman named Colleen Conaway committed suicide during a Ray group retreat. To give you an indication of Ray's egomania, I am reproducing here the "tweets" Ray emitted on the day of Conaway's death, and on the days before and after.

She had a "life changing experience" all right! Ray, alas, did not consider her death worthy of mention.

The Conaway death remains quite mysterious. Her family reported that she was in good spirits just days before. The body had no identification. One report holds that the people involved in that workshop operated on a "buddy system" -- if so, then why have we not heard from Conaway's partner?

Connection, connections...

"Death" Ray has also contributed to the Huffington Post. In one essay, he compares Michael Jackson to -- of all people! -- Nietzsche:

In college, I devoured Nietzsche mostly because he was provocative and deep. I also thought it was cool to be controversial. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" became my mantra.

Of course, a lot of college kids go through a Nietzschean I-am-the-Superman phase; they usually grow out of it. Still, I'm intrigued by Arianna Huffington association with Ray. Arianna does not publicize her own weakness for New Age guru John-Roger, one of the more unpleasant and manipulative individuals ever to enter the racket.

Is there a John-Roger link to the "Secret" cult? More research needs to be done.

The photo reproduced at the top of this page is of no small interest. Ray chose as a background graphic a rather infernal sign reading "Modern Magick" -- spelled with a K. That's the spelling favored by followers of Aleister Crowley.

Crowley gave varying explanations for the antique spelling. On at least one occasion, he said that the K stood for kteis, the Greek word for vagina; the reference goes to his practice of sex magick. About twenty years ago, a member of the OTO (an occult order which Crowley once headed) published a popular volume titled Modern Magick. Ray may have stolen the phrase from that book.

I should make clear that I once dated a member of the OTO, a group toward which I bear no animosity. (I also feel no antipathy toward above-cited book.) The modern Crowleyites do not engage in the kind of coercive, hyper-capitalistic, money-obsessed practices that characterize the "Secret" cult. To some degree, I even admire Crowley himself. Despite his monstrous reputation, I tend to view him as being little worse than a learned scalawag; he failed in his one great attempt to play cult leader because he lacked the ruthlessness displayed by today's gurus. True, he was supremely self-centered and self-destructive -- but he was also capable of great wit, erudition and original thought, three qualities which spiritual thugs like James Arthur Ray seldom display.

Did Ray used the phrase "modern magick" metaphorically? Perhaps, although most people doing so would employ the more common spelling: "magic." I admit that it's a bit of a reach to read large and sinister things into a single letter of the alphabet. Nevertheless, I've seen preliminary indications -- hardly conclusive evidence -- that there is an occult aspect to the "Secret" underground.

According to one writer, "James Ray claims lineage in the Western esoteric or occult tradition" -- a statement which, alas, lacks a citation. I'm looking for a direct quote. Perhaps needless to say, I don't consider the Western esoteric tradition to be inherently evil -- although if you catch me on a cynical day, I'll tell you that it is all rather silly.

One commenter offers this interesting observation about the documentary film version of The Secret (which I have not yet seen):

The whole “Secret” movie was full of shyte. There were subliminal flashes of “Rosicrucian” and at the very beginning when they people were chasing the man with the scrolls you saw a 10 second flash of a man with a french 1700;s wig sitting infront of what looked like a painting, but when you slow the frame down you see that it was a charted diagram of the baphomet. Then, throughout the whole thing you see little masonic or rosicrucian symbols in the back. I know for a fact that Michael Beckwith, one of the people in the Secret movie is into occult. He even sells Aleister Crowley and Aton Lavey books in his bookstore right at his Spiritual Center!!

And before anyone gets upset at me for mentioning this, I am not downing anyone’s spirituality or religion, even if you’re a Satanist or you’re into Crowley or whatever. I’m just making a point that the people that were in “The Secret” are not all what they appeared to be.

To some degree, this passage is itself "shyte." Despite what you've heard, subliminal imagery is impossible in film unless one is using an expensive device called a tachistiscope. A quick cut -- even a one-frame cut -- can be consciously perceived and is thus not subliminal. To a film editor, ten seconds is not a "flash" -- it's an eternity. I've discussed all of this before.

And I've seen no verification of the claim that Beckwith, Ray or any other "Secret" guru has had any association with an initiatory occult order. Beckwith runs a group called Agape and adopts a more-or-less Christian persona, although he does not actually call himself a Christian. (His website makes heavy use of the color purple, which seems a bit reminiscent of the old Guy Ballard cult or Elizabeth Clare Prophet's group.)

Still, this tale does remind me of the origins of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard was the very model of the modern self-help guru. His teachings derived from the works of Aleister Crowley, and from a number of other sources. The tale of Hubbard, Crowley and rocket scientist Jack Parsons has been told many times. Crowley considered Hubbard a common con artist, a description which many applied to Crowley himself. In a taped talk, Hubbard referred to Crowley as "my old friend," although the two never actually met.

Are the Secret culties simply trying to emulate Hubbard's success...?

With that thought in mind, I leave you with this half-hour BBC documentary on Scientology. Prepare to meet Tommy Davis, one of the more annoying individuals in all of human history. What amazes me about guys like Davis is that they have no awareness of the terrible impression left by their displays of paranoia and ultra-macho confrontational horseshit. I would have lost my temper with the guy a lot earlier. Of course, loss of temper is precisely what Davis had hoped to achieve.