A belated Happy New Year to everyone who
observes the Gregorian calendar, and a Happy New Decade if you're on Team Zero. It may be a new
year/decade, but the scammers are still up to their same old tricks. Let's revisit three of my unfavorites.
Death Ray still trying to convince
himself that he's on a "hero's journey"
Late last month my friend and fellow
blogger Chris Locke (aka Kat Herding)
gave me a heads-up about a December 23, 2019 tweet by star of The Secret/convicted
killer James Arthur "Death" Ray. Ray had tweeted:
Each and every hero of all myths (no
exception) went through tremendous suffering, agony, pain,
disillusionment, and sometimes premature death. All of them!
The tweet included a link to a blog post
written by Ray, titled, "Life is Yours for the Taking." Though there's no date header on the post, a scroll
down to the comments section shows that it was actually written
in 2014; for some reason Ray dredged it up again for that
December tweet. The post offers a bit of drivel about how
suffering can potentially be the path to salvation, a concept
that Ray has often exploited, using his own life as an example.
It's congruent with that whole hero's journey/martyr theme that he has been
flogging ever since he was sprung from an Arizona prison where
he'd served a far-too-short sentence for killing Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Neuman.
Maybe I am being an overly sensitive snowflake again, but I think
that "Life is Yours for the Taking" is a distasteful
title for a blog post penned by a reckless, ruthless sociopath
whose unheroic actions have demonstrated that he believed other
people's lives were his for the taking as well. Even more
offensive is Ray's ongoing narrative that casts him in the light
of the wise hero who has suffered much but has emerged stronger
for the suffering, and is willing to guide others through their
own tribulations (for a price).
Twitter was reluctant to show me this at first, describing it as
possibly offensive -- I'm guessing that's because it contains the
word "asshole" -- but I insisted on seeing it, and what
I saw was that my friend Dave Cook made a Christmas Day comment
to Death Ray's tweet.
You tell him, Dave.
Nefarious Silicone [sic] Valley
leftist plot against Kevin Trudeau
On my previous post -- and my last one of 2019 -- I wrote about a new-ish fake-guru scam that's being
orchestrated by imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, and some of his most loyal proxies.
Said proxies were terribly upset because Katie's main Facebook
page had been temporarily suspended by Facebook, supposedly
because of new rules about Facebook pages that use celebrity
names but are handled by third parties.
A little later that month, on December 23, 2019, to be
exact, the Free Kevin Trudeau page
announced that the embattled main page, which had more than 40,000
followers, had been permanently deleted. This being Katie fan
territory, there had to be a sinister "they" behind
this outrageous action.
We’ve just been informed that the
official Kevin Trudeau Facebook page (with 42,000 followers)
has been permanently deleted. It’s totally clear that the
exercise of “free speech” is now 100% at the mercy of a
handful of Left-Wing Silicone [sic] Valley tech giants.
Unbelievable!
Please share this post so that as many people are aware of
this as possible. Our page and “Kevin Trudeau Teachings”
are all that’s left in terms of promoting KT on Facebook.
We will do our very best to continue to build, inspire and
inform KT’s support base to best of our ability.
The fans rallied in the comments following the
post. A person whose name I recognized as that of a long-time
Katie fan wrote:
Who deleted it and for what pretext or
reason, does anyone know?
The lesson is, for adminstrators [sic] in the future, to always
safeguard a separate copy of the page, in case of
cyber-attacks, accident or politically motivated censorship.
Have the administrators of his Official Facebook Page kept a
copy of it anywhere?
What are the legal recourses (if any) against such
unjustified censorship?
Let's rebuild what they've been trying to destroy or stiffle
[sic], and learn from our past mistakes.
Merry Christmas to all lightworkers.
The Free Kevin Trudeau admin responded to the
fan with a reiteration of Facebook's new policy, adding,
"Was this the real reason? Who knows?"
I really hate to rain on that conspiranoid parade
about left-wing political bias... well, no, I don't. Look, Katie fans, I know that y'all get a big kick out
of riding your leader's martyr coattails; I get that it gives you
a sense of being part of something grand and righteous. But there
is abundant evidence that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has
actually been working overtime, especially over this past year, to
court the rabid right-wing political camp, including and
especially the big sick Trump machine. Since so many of you seem to be Trump fans, like your hero is, you should be cheering rather than jeering
Facebook.
As Politico reported in October 2019:
Facebook
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hosting informal talks and
small, off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists,
commentators and at least one Republican lawmaker in recent
months to talk about issues like free speech and discuss
partnerships.
The dinners, which began in July, are part of Zuckerberg’s
broader effort to cultivate friends on the right amid outrage
by President Donald Trump and his allies over alleged “bias”
against conservatives at Facebook and other major social
media companies. "I’m under no illusions that he’s a
conservative but I think he does care about some of our
concerns,” said one person familiar with the gatherings,
which multiple sources have confirmed.
News of the outreach is likely to further fuel suspicions on
the left that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the White House
and stay out of Trump’s crosshairs. The president threatened to sue Facebook and Google in June and has in the past pressured the Justice Department to take action against his perceived foes.
An opinion piece penned by
Daniel Newman in early December 2019 on the MapLight site was
more blunt.
Mark Zuckerberg has rigged the rules of
Facebook political advertising, making him complicit in lies
and voter manipulation. The result is the most powerful
propaganda amplifier in history, boosting campaigns that
traffic in falsehoods.
Zuckerberg’s company screens some paid political
advertising for lies. But since early October, it makes an
exception: When candidates pay for the ads, it will run any
ad — even those with blatant lies. Who does this exception help? Politicians who
lie.
The most prominent lying politician in America is, of course,
President Trump. Of more than 700 of Trump’s claims
reviewed by the fact-checking site Politifact,
more than 70% were rated “mostly false,” “false,” or
“pants-on-fire” lies....
...What
is Zuckerberg’s motive? He is afraid of a president that
will rein in Facebook’s power. Several Democratic
candidates have said that they would do exactly that: seek to
break up Zuckerberg’s company. This would “suck,” said
Zuckerberg in leaked audio recordings. “If someone’s going to try to threaten
something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”
Newman goes on to explain that several key
executives advising Zuck on ad policies have ties to Trump and
Trump's allies. For instance...
Peter Thiel, a prominent Trump
supporter, is a longtime Facebook board member. Zuckerberg
and Thiel dined with Trump at the White House in late
October, in a secret meeting
uncovered by NBC News. What did Trump and Zuckerberg discuss
during this meeting, held so soon after Zuckerberg changed
his company’s ad rules to help lying politicians? And why
was the meeting secret? Neither Zuckerberg nor Trump will
say. Based on what we have learned from the impeachment
hearings about how Trump does business, he may have offered
benefits to Zuckerberg. Perhaps he suggested that he won’t
ever regulate Facebook — if Zuckerberg keeps the ad rules
that help him get re-elected. This is Zuckerberg’s quid pro
quo, whether explicitly spoken or not.
MapLight, by the way, is a worthy org that has
been exposing negative influences on American democracy for more
than fifteen years. Their mission includes illuminating the
influence of money in politics, and empowering voters with facts.
Check
'em out here.
I realize I've probably wasted my time trying to address the
diehard fans of Kevin Trudeau, to whom facts or informed opinions
have never really mattered. And in case you're wondering, I would
be saying all of this directly to the Katie fans' faces on
Facebook, but as I've mentioned previously, I am blocked from
commenting or even responding to all posts on the Free Kevin
Trudeau page, just as I was blocked from the now-defunct Kevin
Trudeau page.
In any case the intrepid Trudolts are working round the Web to
rebuild what Facebook has so ruthlessly destroyed, creating
social media pages and web sites to carry on the
"teachings" of their guru while they continue to
campaign for his liberation from government custody. Their
worship of this incorrigible con artist has not diminished at
all, but has only increased, as he continues to languish at Camp
Cupcake. Apparently he has been elevated to the status of GOAT in
the selfish-help rogue's gallery. Plus, he can change your DNA.
Need your face, boobs, butt, or wallet lifted? Try the Access Energetic Facegrift TM
It's been a while since I've written about the
vaguely Scientology-inspired sex-and-money scampire known as Access Consciousness. Figuring
it was time for at least a brief check-in, I popped onto their
Facebook page and came across a couple of recent posts about
something called the Access Energetic FaceliftTM, which has actually
been a thing for a few years now, but I hadn't written about it
yet. Some of the posts link to a fairly creepy video that apparently gives a general
idea of the process.
The Facebook posts also link to a blog post on the Access web site, which invites aging targets to explore some exciting
new possibilities.
What if you could undo the ravages of
aging so you could appear younger and more vibrant, without
surgery, injections, creams or pills?
And what if, as you experience these
physical changes, you could experience
other changes, too, as
your points of views (aka judgments) about aging shift?
How might this change how you view yourself in
the mirror, no matter your age or appearance?
Would you be interested in this other possibility? If so…
Welcome to the Access Facelift™.
The Access Energetic Facelift is a wonderful way
to rejuvenate and reverse the appearance of aging on the
face, while creating similar effects throughout the body. It
reverses the effects of gravity and activates the muscle
structure in the face that can become less dynamic as you get
older. All by having someone place their hands, in a
non-invasive way, on your face and upper body.
It may be non-invasive, but if that video I
linked to above is any indication, you still have to take your
clothes off.
Want proof that the Access Energetic Facelift
really works? Well, there's a very blurry series of pics of a
woman in Mumbai, India, who claimed the Facelift caused subtle
but desired shifts in her facial skin texture and chubbiness.
Here, judge for yourself.
The blog post has a link to a page on the Access site that
has more "information" as well as a class schedule. The
page answers burning questions such as, "What occurs during
class?"
This class is a one-day, hands-on class
in which participants learn the Access Energetic Facelift and
participate in gifting two sessions and receiving two
sessions.
During this class, you will work with the energies in the
body and face, and while applying these, discover what can be
released.
Once we get rid of the judgments we project at our faces and
bodies daily in the mirror, our body has the space to
regenerate itself.
Well, okay. Regeneration is a big thing in some
New-Wage/alt-health circles; I wrote about it back in 2011. At any rate, the Access Energetic Facelift can apparently lift more than just
the face.
People have reported changes in the
following:
- The light and luminosity of the
face
- Elasticity of the skin
- Clarity of the eyes
- Glow in the hair
- Lifting of breasts and buttocks
- Improved energy
- Increased relaxation
What are the prerequisites for the Access
Energetic Facelift? You may be pleased to know that there are
absolutely none. Even if you're an Access virgin you can take
advantage of this wonderful flopportunity.
But how much does it cost? Sorry, that's a seekrit until you
register:
Pricing
Global pricing, Repeat pricing and Age pricing applies.
Your individual and applied pricing can be seen under Billing
& Payments after registering.
I'm not going to register, but if you do, let
me know how much they're trying to stick you for. And as always,
I'm interested in hearing from folks who have experienced this miracle for themselves.
That's it for now, and I'm guessing you get the drift, or the
grift. It may be a new year/decade, but where New-Wage
crapitalists are concerned, it's the same old story.
It has been ten long years since James Arthur Ray,
selfish-help/McSpirituality guru and egomaniacal star of the
New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, held his
infamous phony sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona, resulting in the deaths of three people: James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman. And as I
have mentioned on this blog numerous times, one of the most recent occasions being in April of this
year, Death Ray is still trying to make
his comeback in the industry after having served less than two
years in an Arizona state prison, on charges of negligent
homicide, for the deaths of these people.
As I've also mentioned several times, Ray never served any prison
time at all for another death for which he was responsible, that
of Colleen Conaway in San Diego
in July 2009.
Ignoring all the considerable flak he has gotten from many
directions since he's been out of the clink, Ray continues to
play on his "redemption" shtick, and is still promoting his utter failure of a book about
same on his web site. (What appears to
be an earlier version of the book is listed as being out of
print, and Google Books couldn't even be bothered to get an
accurate description of the book's contents.)
In late October of last year, San Diego's ABC affiliate, KGTV,
ran a
story about Ray's comeback efforts and his attempts to frame his
offerings in that redemption theme.
It's worth a watch.
In case you haven't been following this story over the years, and
would like some insights into the sociopathic behavior of James
Ray and how that behavior led up to Death Lodge, see this post, which I wrote on the first anniversary of
Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona.
There's also a public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.
One final word, and it's the same message I've conveyed
repeatedly on post after post after post about Ray over the
years. In fact, if you don't mind me quoting myself verbatim from
that post I wrote in April of this year...
...if you're at all tempted to give
money to James Arthur Ray for any reason: Give it instead to
a worthwhile organization, such as, say... Seek
Safely, which was founded
by Kirby Brown's family to guide consumers and make self-help
practitioners more accountable for their actions through
legislation. (Here
is the link to donation info.)
So far, more than 160 leading lights in the industry have
been invited to sign the "Seek Safely" promise...
and not one of them has yet done so. In all fairness, some of them are now dead,
such as Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. But as for the rest...
well, the invitation has been open for years, but nobody
who's anybody in the industry seems very interested. That
should tell you something.
When Googling around just a while ago, I found this on-point opinion piece from the Deadspin site, published in February 2019. The headline says it all:
Too bad, James: there are tons of folks -- and I'm one of them --
who will never forget.
* * * * *
Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit
card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank
you!
Death, it seems, has dominated the news even more
than usual for the past several weeks: there is the death and destruction caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (and we're holding our
collective breaths about Nate as I write this); and, of course,
there is the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas a week ago today.
I don't expect the mainstream -- or even most of the independent
-- news media to remember, much less focus upon, deaths that
occurred years ago on a much smaller and less dramatic scale;
after all, the journos and commentators can barely keep up with
all of the mass shootings in America, much less the deaths caused
by the arrogance and reckless actions of a sociopathic
selfish-help "leader." But here in this obscure little
outpost of the blogosphere, the deaths of three people in
New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray's phony "sweat lodge" in
Sedona, Arizona will never be
forgotten.
It was on this day, eight years ago, that Kirby Brown and James Shore perished as a
result of their heavily manipulated/coerced participation in
Ray's torture chamber. Nine days later a third participant, Liz Neuman, passed away as
well, without ever awakening from a coma.
As I've written in previous anniversary posts, I knew none of
them, though some of the family members are now my Facebook
friends. But I think of them every year at this time. Mostly it
is with sadness but also with anger, because the man whose
recklessness was responsible for these three deaths (four, if you
count Colleen Conaway's death at
another Ray event in July 2009), served a prison sentence of less
than two years for the Sedona deaths. (He served no time at all
for Colleen's death, and wasn't even charged, to say nothing of
tried or convicted, although my understanding is that there was a
civil settlement.)
But James Ray goes merrily on his way, scrabbling to reclaim his
elevated spot in the selfish-help pantheon while spinning Sedona
as his own personal tragedy. As I wrote here last year:
...these days, James Ray is
exploiting the Sedona tragedy and his time in prison for his
own purposes, still
parading as a success guru but with a new hook: he uses the
pain and loss of others to portray himself as the hero who
has walked through fire.
He may have walked through fire, figuratively speaking, but
he did not die by fire, literally, as did James Shore, Kirby
Brown and Liz Neuman.
He may have lost a lot, but he is still alive and capable of
writing unmitigated crap such as, "In the process of
losing everything...I actually found myself."
That theme -- redemption through profound loss -- is the one
that Death Ray is still flogging.
Kirby Brown's family, trying to pick up the pieces
and create something good and useful from the horror that James
Ray bestowed upon their family and on so many others, continues
to promote their non-profit, Seek Safely, whose purpose is to educate people about how to safely
participate in the self-help industry. Check it out.
Others are doing their part too. As you probably
know if you've been hanging around here for any length of time,
one of my favorite blogging colleagues, who wrote in great depth
about the James Ray nightmare, is Salty Droid, aka Jason Jones.
He is a practicing lawyer again,
and as I noted here, is using the law
to go after destructive and potentially dangerous Scamworld
players, e.g., MLM giant Herbalife, a company that, as he explained last month, he
first began thinking about in 2009...
… when Liz Neuman died in James Arthur Ray’s fake sweat lodge. Liz got her first tastes of
Death Ray’s self-help poison while attending Herbalife
related events.
The deadly fake sweat lodge {that killed three people and
seriously injured many others} was the culmination of James
Ray International’s “Spiritual Warrior” weekend :: a
deeply manipulative $10,000 event … the most expensive in a
never ending sequence of events that Ray dubbed the “Journey
of Power.
These events are dangerous :: weaponized fraud … and they
permeate the scam industry. Every wretched festering scamhole
I’ve climbed down has contained one of these escalating
event sequences at the heart of the harm … anchoring
victims to the bottom of Lake Misery.
Here is a direct link to the extended version of the Herbalife
lawsuit (Rodgers et al. v Herbalife).
(Jason is also representing, pro bono, a
blogger, Christina Hinks of the MommyGyver blog, who is being targeted and harassed by
billion-dollar fashion MLM LuLaRue. According to the Truth In
Advertising site, LuLaRue seems most upset by the blogger and
other critics calling it a cult. Well, MLMs very often are cults in a sense, and it seems to me that the more cultish they are, the
more likely they are to sue you for calling them cults or even
hinting that they might be (consider the example of LGAT (large group awareness training) giant Landmark, f'rinstance...). Anyway, you can read Jason's take on the LuLaRue
case here.)
I have neither a nonprofit nor a law degree, but as always I will
continue, as I have for the past eight years, to do my part to
make sure that people never forget what happened on October 8,
2009.
For insights into the sociopathic behavior of James Ray, and
how it led up to Death Lodge, see this post, written on the first anniversary of
Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's
book, Tragedy in Sedona. There's
also a public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.
* * * * *
Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit
card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank
you!
This past April I mentioned a documentary on the rise and fall and attempted rise again of
convicted killer James Arthur "Death" Ray: Enlighten Us, in advance of the film's
premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Mostly I wrote about Salty Droid, aka jason Jones,
writing about it, since he actually attended the premiere.
Now the work is finally coming to a wider audience; it is
currently scheduled to premiere on CNN on Saturday, December 3, 2016 (that's tomorrow, as I write this) at 8 PM ET. There
will be several encores later in the month; they're listed in the
link above. No doubt it will be available for even wider viewing
in due time via Internet outlets, Blu-Ray/DVD and the like. I'll
wait.
Not surprisingly Salty weighed in again, ahead of the CNN
premiere; he never did publish his full review of the documentary
on his blog, but on
today's post he did include snippets
from one of his efforts. He describes meeting Ginny Brown, mother
of one of Ray's victims, Kirby Brown. It was an emotional
experience, to say the least.
This thing, The Salty Droid, is all
about computer screens. I observe and capture the world as
seen on my screens, and then I interact with that world via a
half-crazed half-fictional character. The layers of
abstraction help to keep my brain safe while I’m inhabiting
one dark mire after the next; I try to crossover as rarely as
possible. This is the first article I’ve ever published as
myself.
Ginny and George are out trying to raise awareness for SEEK
Safely [the Browns' nonprofit that
attempts to bring responsibility and accountability into the
self-help industry]. They feel like they’ve been
completely shutout by the film makers. They’ve not been
represented on camera, and their input has not been sought
off camera. They haven’t even been invited to attend the
premiere. They are visibly upset, and that makes me upset.
Jason noted that Ray was not in the theater
where Enlighten Us was screening." Too bad ::
because he missed the audience’s overwhelmingly negative
reaction to him :: which manifested via audible groans :: and
again during the Q&A with director Jenny Carchman."
Despite the seemingly uncritical lens through which the film
presented Ray, Jason wrote that he "still comes off as a
horrible disgusting monster." Not to mention a hypocritical
one:
Ray tells the film maker’s camera …
I came out of prison in debt. My credit
is crap. I’ve got nothing tucked away.
Juxtapose Ray telling a marketer’s
camera …
I’d like to begin a conversation with
you here today… it’s about the topic of wealth,
abundance, and prosperity.
Scamworld in a James Arthur Ray
nutshell.
Yep. It's all about Ray "pitching himself
as a specialist in comebacks … while perpetually waiting for
his own comeback to come." Salty also took some potshots at
CNN for providing such a golden platform for Ray for years, and
he got some shots in at Ray's "old-as-dirt mentor-in-scam
Bob Proctor" (who has also been a frequent guest on my Whirled, particularly back in the heyday of The Secret).
Salty/Jason wasn't the only one of my pals to write about Ray in
the wake of the CNN premiere buzz. Steve Salerno of SHAMblog had an excellent piece on Slate yesterday. And he published some "outtakes" on SHAMblog yesterday as well.
Apart from the fact that Death Ray is trying, mostly in vain, to
regain his superstar status in the selfish-help industry, he is also trying to get his criminal convictions set
aside so he can have all of his civil
rights restored. If the motion were to be granted he would regain
voting rights, and international travel would become less of a
hassle.
Back in 2013, following his release from prison in Arizona, Ray
had toyed with getting the convictions overturned, but in September of that year he moved to drop the
appeal. In an affidavit he wrote,
"I wish to ensure the prompt, complete and definitive
termination of these criminal proceedings by dismissing this
appeal and allowing the conviction and sentence to stand
undisturbed." Apparently he didn't want to risk re-trial and
possible re-sentencing. He insisted, however, that the
convictions were flawed.
And now he's trying to push that narrative through the courts.
As Steve Salerno wrote in the Slate piece linked
to above:
In both the film and in life, Ray is
poorly cast as the martyr of self-help culture. He’s far
from it: Ginny Brown, mother of 38-year-old victim Kirby
Brown, recalls that when Ray finally reached out to her after
her daughter’s death, a full five days later, he kept
saying over and over, that he “couldn’t believe this had
happened ... to him.” Seven years later, Ray does not seem
to have changed—indeed, he is currently petitioning to have
his conviction set aside. The state of Arizona is countering
the motion vigorously, as are families of those killed.
Legal maneuvers like the one Ray is attempting rarely succeed
in homicide cases. But the hubris of even trying reaffirms
that far from offering a story of redemption, Ray remains the
epitomic reminder that self-help culture may be less about
bettering the self than about creating alternative realities
in which your unimproved self is just fine.
Couldn't have said it better myself. (And as I've written about
numerous times on this blog, the selfish-help culture is full of
false heroes and martyrs, imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau being one of them.)
Here is a link to Ray's October 2016 motion and to the
State's response, requesting denial of the motion. If you aren't familiar with the events leading up to
his conviction, or just want to refresh your memory, you can get
a reasonably good overview by reading the response.
Ray may never get his luster restored, either legally or in the minds of a the public. But the very fact that he is still trying so desperately to do so says a lot about his character, or complete lack thereof.
Six years ago today, on July 25, 2009, Colleen Conaway died at a San
Diego mall during a seminar hosted by James Arthur Ray, the infamous
star of The Secret and now a convicted killer (though he
was convicted, and served a much-too-short prison sentence, for the deaths of three other people in Sedona, Arizona in October of 2009).
Here is my post about Colleen from two years ago. It has some good links, including a link to a post by
my pals Salty
Droid and Yakaru.
Reportedly Ray, who had a history of recklessness and arrogance where his followers are concerned, has paid civil
penalties for Colleen's death, but he has never been charged,
tried, or convicted on any criminal charges for same, and more
than likely never will be. And since his release from prison a little over two years ago, after serving time for the Sedona "sweat
lodge" deaths of James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman,
he has been making lame attempts to become the selfish-help star
he used to be. Not surprisingly he has been exploiting the deaths
of his followers, and his own time in prison, as something of a hero's
journey (with himself as the hero, of course).
In 2009, after rising to the top of his
industry, James was involved in a terrible accident that
claimed the lives of three people he cared about deeply. The
anguish of that event would have been enough… but it didn’t
end there.
James subsequently lost his business that took 20 years to
build, his entire life savings, his home, his reputation and
many so-called friends and colleagues deserted him.
Simultaneously, his Mother was diagnosed with cancer, his
Father with dementia…James eventually lost his freedom.
Through all of this, James states, “In the process of
losing everything…I actually found myself.”
His experience proves that it’s the challenges,
difficulties and austerities of life that we reset ourselves,
reboot, reassess and realize once again what’s truly
important. It’s our challenges and crisis that present the
greatest opportunities if we’re only willing to utilize
them in that way.
Of course, Colleen is not among those
"three people" whose lives were claimed in the
aforementioned "accident." She rates no mention at all in Death Ray's world, apparently.
Colleen may have been all but forgotten by many, but some of us
will never forget. My heart goes out to her family and friends on
this sad anniversary.
Related on this Whirled:
