Self-help regulation: necessary safeguard, or Nanny-state nonsense?

Here's another post I've had in the hopper for a few months. It's one of those more "serious" pieces. Frankly, I'd rather be snarking, but once in a while I have to shed the snark-skin and join the larger conversation. So on a whim, I dragged this thing out of the archives, shook the dust off of it, threw in a few updates... and, well, here it is. The focus of this post is not on "new news"; rather, it is a summary of various perspectives on the James Arthur Ray sweat-lodge tragedy and the self-help industry at large. The big issue it addresses, in an admittedly circuitous fashion, is one that won't go away: whether or not the self-help biz should be regulated.

As I've done with previous lengthy offerings, I'll warn you right off that, well, this is long. Painfully long, maybe, almost like an LGAT session (except free, and you can leave whenever you want). I know that the sensible thing to do would be to break it into two or more parts, but I wanted to publish it all at once, since it is, in a sense, paving the way to a multi-part post I will be publishing soon. But hey, at least I divided it into sub-headed sections. You can just read it in bits and pieces if you want. Feel free to skip over the stuff you already know (but at least read the "'historical' perspective" section. You might find it interesting.).
And remember, if screen fatigue threatens to make you as blind as a Russian wish dolly, you can always draw an extra pair of eyeballs on your lids, or, better yet, print this thing out. Just circle the links that look interesting to you and follow 'em later.
~CC

In the wake of the infamous incident that has alternately been called Death Lodge, Sweatgate, and the beginning of the end of the self-help industry as we know it, there's a big question being bandied about: Should the self-help industry in the U.S. be regulated? If you have Libertarian or pro-business leanings you might frame the question like this: Is throwing more legislation at the problems going to fix them, or will more stringent oversight simply strangle the industry? In lieu of government regulations, should there simply be more self-policing? 

These issues have been discussed in various ways on numerous other blogs and, increasingly, in the mainstream media, such as ABC's Nightline. CNN has tackled the matter too, one example being the link below regarding Deepak Chopra.

For a few who are involved in the industry – specifically, those who have engaged in online marketing scams – the question is moot because the party is pretty much over. The Federal Trade Commission's new disclosure requirements, implemented on December 1, 2009, have put a bit of a damper on deceptive online marketing, which, of course, has significant overlap into the self-help world, and not simply because most of the self-help gurus market their stuff online. There's also a "cultural overlap," if you will, as well, mostly in the form of some incestuous joint-venturing and cross-promoting. Also affecting some businesses were new credit card policies that became effective earlier this year. Thanks to those new regs, a few online scammers have had their merchant accounts canceled.

However, those new laws and policies were targeted to Internet marketing, not the stuff that goes on at week-long "spiritual" retreats. More than likely, none of the new initiatives would have prevented the tragedy at Sedona in October of 2009, the one in San Diego in July 2009, or any number of other deaths and injuries related to self-help events over the years.

In other parts of the world – Australia, for instance – there's a movement afoot to exert tighter controls on the multi-billion dollar self-help industry. If you've been hanging around some of the "critical" blogs for any length of time, you're probably familiar with the sad case of Rebekah Lawrence, whom I wrote about in September of 2009. Rebekah was a young Australian woman whose psychosis and resulting suicide in December 2005 have been linked to a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT)/self-help program called The Turning Point. A couple of other suicides have also been linked to the same program. "Turning Point" seems an apt name, as the Rebekah Lawrence case, and the spotlight on those other tragedies, did indeed seem to mark a turning point in the way Australia deals with the self-help industry.

Even before Sweatgate made world news, there was considerable buzz in Oz about stricter regulations and licensing requirements. (On the other hand, the Aussies are apparently not having a lot of luck pursuing a formal parliamentary inquiry into the Church of Scientology. The stumbling block is that CoS is an organized religion, and Australia has much the same reluctance as the US when it comes to the state interfering with religion.)

So what about the good old U.S. of A., the epicenter of selfish-help/New-Wage/McSpirituality?

Right off the bat, I know a few folks who will say, "Hell, yeah, Cosmic Connie, the self-help industry should be regulated! Where have you been for the past few months?" Well, I've been right here in front of my computer, and I know that many have spoken out for more controls. One of the most vocal is Terry Hall at the Bizsayer blog. Terry and his wife Amy, a former employee of James Ray International, arguably have more inside information on which to base their opinion than do many of the rest of us. Helping to put the reins on the dangerous aspects of the industry has pretty much become the Halls' mission in life. In a December 2009 post Terry makes a case for regulation, framing it in a discussion of the retrospectively disturbing "waiver" form that participants in the fatal Sedona event had to sign. He notes that such waiver forms are common in the industry.

Terry further explains his position in a sidebar on his Bizsayer blog:

I am typically dead set against regulation of any kind. But, after the deaths caused by James Ray in Sedona I am changing my position for Seminars and Coaching Reform.

I want to see seminar companies licensed & regulated.

I want to see "coaches" licensed.

I want to see accurate results reflected in seminar advertising.

I want to see "fair business practices" defined for the seminar industry.

I want full disclosure of credentials, certificates, licenses and methods used during seminar programs.

(Here, by the way, is Terry's response to a detractor who apparently thinks Terry is just going to go away if James Ray is cleared.)

I think that at one point I may have exasperated Terry and perhaps some of my other allies by consistently expressing the opinion that the last thing we need are a bunch more rules, regulations, licensing requirements, and whatnot. Believe me, this opinion doesn't come from any lack of sympathy for the victims of self-help gurus, and certainly not from any sympathy for the victimizers. At any rate, in a comment he made this past January to my long James Ray post (comment #240, which may not show up on the initial screen), Terry wrote:

Connie,

It's interesting to see your shift about seminar regulation. The seminar/self-help industry is already subject to FTC guidelines and it has not prevented financial, emotional and physical harm to their customers.

The Real Estate, Financial Services, Insurance, Contracting, Massage Industries have been licensed due to their propensity toward unethical business practices and behaviors which have caused harm to consumers and the general public.

While licensing does NOT ensure the public is protected, it does provide a "code of ethics", "business standards & practices", "a barrier to entry", "a grievance process" and "stipulated recourse for violations" which serves to protect consumers from charlatans.

The $11,000,000,000 self-help & personal growth industry, in my mind has proven that it will not "self-regulate" and continue to take everything it can, including human life from their customers.

I replied:

Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Terry. Actually I haven't shifted on my position (not yet, anyway); being the quasi-Libertarian I am, my first tendency is to advocate freedom of information rather than more laws and restrictions.

Am I being too idealistic? Maybe. It is one of the questions I've been weighing since long before the James Ray debacle came to light. On the one hand, there is the prospect of a "Nanny State," which I find a bit unsettling. How far are we prepared to go to protect people from their own choices?

On the other hand, I realize that consumers aren't necessarily making *informed* choices when they sign up for an event and aren't told ahead of time exactly what will occur during that event. (The waivers that participants are made to sign don't count.)

I also realize that businesses have a tendency to try to get away with anything they can get away with in order to make a profit. Sometimes it does seem that it takes a heavy hand to keep this impulse in check, to prevent people from being scammed or physically harmed, and to give victims some recourse. 

So I can certainly understand why many people think there should be more regulation of the self-help industry. I'm just not prepared at this point to say the government should put a stranglehold on the industry.
I think the issue is further complicated by the fact that so many of the gurus deal in the realm of the spiritual as well as more mundane areas such as, say, finances and fitness. So I wonder if freedom-of-religion issues would come into play. [Kind of like the problems that Australia is currently facing with the Church of Scientology. ~CC]

The issues are complex and I am open to more discussions about this. And I want you to know, Terry, that I respect what you and Amy are trying to accomplish, and it looks to me as if you are both motivated by a desire to help people. 

On the other hand, another vocal advocate of regulating the self-help industry is the (in)famous Deepak Chopra, who seems to be more interested in protecting his turf than in protecting consumers. That's how it looks to me, anyway. My sense is that he feels that because he is an M.D., he would be insulated from any attempts to clip *his* wings. Never mind that in the opinion of many other M.D.s (and other folks as well), he is pushing an insidious form of pseudoscience...
Anyway, thanks for weighing in on this important issue.

Regarding Chopra's stated opinions on the matter, here is a transcript of his December 8, 2009 interview on Anderson Cooper 360. He seems to think the regulation needs to come from "within the healing professions: from psychotherapists, from spiritual pastors, from people who are offering these therapies; I think this needs to be done." Could this mean that he assumes that he would have a hand in those regulations for the entire industry? Shudder. Whatever you think about Chopra, however, he did tell Anderson Cooper that the Chopra Center performs a thorough psychological screening of clients, adding, "...suicides occur in hospitals; suicides occur even in intensive psychiatric therapy treatments and in facilities. So when people can escape the vigilance of such professional institutions, it's a bit foolish for people to think that they can take vulnerable people and subject them to intensive therapies without knowing their psychological status or their psychiatric background."

Moreover, there does seem to be a problem with certain types of "life coaches" practicing therapy or even medicine without a license, as writers such as SHAMblog's Steve Salerno have discussed extensively (and I've even touched on the topic myself). I realize there are many good, sincere, and qualified people in the life-coaching industry. Responsible coaches know when to refer their clients to therapists, and do so. It's the irresponsible ones we need to worry about.

But how do we determine what is "therapy" and what isn't? And do we really want the likes of Chopra deciding who can practice in the self-help industry?

When thinking about Chopra and other industry insiders who might possibly be in favor of more regulation, I wondered if more regulations might possibly have some unintended consequences for consumers as well as speakers or workshop leaders who might not have the "proper" credentials, licenses, or whatever (or, more realistically, the money or desire to join all of the "proper" organizations). Although the analogy is far from perfect, I couldn't help thinking of the recent discussion over IRS plans to regulate and control tax preparers in the U.S. Of that issue one blogger wrote:

Unsurprisingly, major industry incumbents have voiced their support for the new policy, because it will mean that they “won't be competing against people who aren't regulated”. Caught between increasingly burdensome taxes and IRS prohibitions on alternative services, taxpayers will have little choice but to do business with them.

Ah, the Iron Triangle between regulators, established interests, and consumers. Guess who gets the pointy end?

As I said, the analogy isn't perfect, but it's something to think about.

Another long-time advocate for more oversight of the self-help industry is John Curtis, Ph.D., founder of Americans Against Self-Help Fraud (and originator of the annual Scammy Awards, which, I imagine, will have some entirely new categories this year, thanks to Sweatgate). In the discussions on several blogs, including that of a pharmacology/toxicology expert who goes by the name of Abel Pharmboy, Dr. Curtis wrote:

It's easy to vilify Mr. Ray, however, the consequences of his actions are now in the hands of the judicial system... but what of the REST of the self-help "industrial complex?" I respectfully submit that we (consumers and producers of self-help) establish the Association of Self-Help Professionals or whatever name seems most appropriate to elevate the professional and protect the public. All that is lacking now is the motivation and leadership. If you consider yourself a self-help expert OR if you are a consumer of self-help products, I urge you to consider working together to turn the Sedona Sweat Lodge deaths into a legacy that salutes the work of the earliest self-help experts like Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, honors the efforts of well-intentioned, self-help professionals of today and turns the deaths of those who died in the Sweat Lodge... Liz Neuman, Kirby Brown and James Shore into a legacy for the betterment of the self-help profession and society.

On the discussion on Abel Pharmboy's blog, Salty Droid responded:

@DrCurtis :: I echo your cry that this incident be used to cast a harsh light on the "self help" "industry" as a whole. But I wonder if the underlying science is objective enough to keep an association from becoming a part of the problem over time. Bernie Madoff as the head of NASDAQ comes to mind. Associations have a dangerous tendency to become cartels.

On a discussion on his own blog (here's the link to the post, and you seriously need to check out his video on that post, if you haven't already), the Droid responded to an "absolutely nameless" detractor who seemed to be the same one who had made some snide and nebulously threatening comments on the blog previously. "Nameless" told Droid to "show some 'nads" and either come out and say James Ray is guilty of first-degree murder, or shut the f--k up. (This discussion took place before James was officially charged and arrested.) Droid responded that it is clear that James will not be prosecuted of first-degree murder, so that point is moot, and he is not going to shut up, because...

I’m much more interested in showing how this was a long term pattern of abuse :: how it was just business as usual. The public deaths were an above average mistake :: but they only serve to illustrate how dangerous and horrible the situation with ConMen has become.

Of course, showing “nads” on that subject will be super bad for all the other “gurus” :: because they would like nothing more than to label Death Ray [an] aberrant bad apple. But that’s not the case. He’s just one of many cogs in a sick machine.

And Droid is busily and happily attempting to deconstruct that machine even as I write this. It is a rare and wondrous thing to see a blogger who loves his work as much as the Droid does.

Defending the faith
Everybody and his or her dog knows by now that James Ray's defense team has been very busy, as evidenced by these "white papers" that were released to the public earlier this year. In case you and your dog missed it, here's the link to White Paper No. 1 and here's the link to No. 2. From the beginning it all sounded like "number two" to most of us. Nevertheless the legal eagles did their job with great care, meticulously painting James as a hero of personal growth and all of his followers as strong, educated, capable people who knew exactly what they were getting into and willingly did so. If anyone was to blame for the terrible accident, it was those awful folks who built that darn sweat lodge. Of course, as we now know, the whitewash papers didn't prevent James from being charged on three counts of reckless manslaughter for the Sedona tragedy.

While James Ray's defense and PR teams are doing their lawyer-ly and spinny stuff, and James himself continues his own bizarre nattering on Twitter, his colleagues in the self-help biz are still, for the most part, reticent. Although a few of his close associates and fans have steadfastly defended him and continue to do so, and beleaguered Aussie Secret star David Schirmer said early on that he is in James' corner, the silence among most of his colleagues has been deafening. With the exception of Deepak Chopra, who made the dubious claim that he'd never really, truly heard of James Ray before Sweatgate, very few in the top tier of the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry have made any public statements about the matter. Most who have made public utterances have been as neutral (and yawn-inducing) as possible. Bob Proctor, for example, who was one of James' earlier mentors, said James is basically a good person who is dedicated to helping people, adding that he, Bob, hopes James will learn from the experience. (See what I mean? Yawn. Here's the link to the article quoting Scientist Bob.)

Several people have mentioned that so far there seems to be no official statement from the gurus' secret society, the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC), of which James Ray was a founding member. (I briefly visited the TLC when they were in Bermuda in July 2009, and mentioned them again in January of 2009 when discussing the New-Wage kinky-sex experiments of one of their esteemed members.) While there may be no public statement from the TLC, though, James Ray's name is no longer listed on the appropriate "Members in Good Standing" page. 

The discretion among the gurus is understandable, of course. While I'm sure that most of them would say they simply have better things to do with their time than focus on negative stuff, my take on it is that it's good old professional courtesy, and it's good business too. They want to keep all of their options open. If James is completely cleared of any wrongdoing, those who have any sort of joint-venture deals or cross-promotional schemes with him will want to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. Should a genuine backlash against the current wave of self-help criticism arise as a result of James being cleared, he could end up being the poster martyr – a true hero in gurudom – and they'll all want a piece of that.

I know many of y'all think such a scenario is unlikely, and you may be right, but I'm not ruling out any possibility at this point. If he is convicted, then the gurus can officially cut all of their ties with him and either denounce him or just pretend he never existed. If he isn't convicted of criminal charges but has to spend the rest of his life and all of his resources defending civil suits, and is no longer a "player" in the New-Wage biz, they can still turn the page on him and forget he ever happened. For now, it's really better for them all around if they just sit on the fence.

But not everyone has been silent or even particularly discreet. A few apologists have shifted out of neutral, declaring that both the mainstream media and blogopshere critics have seriously overreacted to the tragedies. Sweatgate, some of these apologists claim, was just one isolated example in a basically benign industry. Well, okay, it was one of two examples, if you count the Colleen Conaway suicide at a James Ray wealth event in San Diego in July of 2009. Or...well, all right... it was one of maybe a few examples, if you count the broken bones and other injuries suffered by others during exercises at various James Ray events. (Naturally, all of those unfortunate events are neatly 'splained away in the aforementioned "white papers," and I'm sure the defense team is honing their 'splanations as I write this.)

I admit to a certain annoyance myself at some of the mainstream media for hammering away at this matter. But that's mainly because some of the same media outlets that expressed such shock and outrage over Sweatgate were the very same ones who provided a platform – essentially, free publicity – for James Ray and his colleagues for years, particularly after The Secret became such a hit. But I suppose I should keep in mind that the news divisions are more about ratings than about taking a stand, to say nothing of a consistent stand. ("Just like you, you incoherent, illogical little mosquito," I hear at least one of you muttering to me.)

Some defenders of the self-help industry claim that the critics are illogically arguing that because people died at James Ray events, all self-help is dangerous or destructive, and therefore the entire industry needs to be eradicated. Although in my opinion such an argument would indeed be illogical, the truth is that very few if any critics are actually saying they think we should do away with the industry entirely, and throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. That is simply a straw man that enables some self-help apologists to more easily dismiss or demonize the critics.

As for the notion that the James Ray-induced tragedy is an aberration, well, see Droid's "sick machine" quotation above.

Going back in time: a little "historical" perspective
I think it's important to remember that at least some of those who have staunchly refused to criticize James Ray, or have even halfway defended him, are veterans of the untamed era of the early human potential movement. Long ago, though not so very far away, before the Internet and smart phones (yes, before cell phones, even!), some really crazy stuff was going on. Those were the days before est became The Forum and then the Landmark Forum, and the anything-goes formats of various encounter groups were shocking the buttoned-down world. 

Although numerous bloggers and mainstream journalists have written about the casualties of those early encounter-group days (particularly those associated with the ever-controversial est), I have a feeling that some people, particularly younger ones, still fail to realize how jaded these experiences might have made some of today's defenders of the faith. To some who lived through those wild times and participated in their share of wacko workshops, the techniques and exercises utilized by James Ray and others like him can be summarized in three words: No. Big. Deal.

But it's not just a generational thing; the same NBD attitude seems to exist among some younger participants in "experiential" workshops and other events that have sprung up in more recent years. To those who are into "extreme" activities, a New-Wage retreat utilizing potentially hazardous techniques is nothing to get hysterical about. And although I would like to believe that none of the older encounter-group veterans or younger workshop participants dismiss the Sedona or San Diego deaths as NBD, I suspect some of them think that participant injuries at an LGAT event aren't all that extraordinary. It's all simply part of experiencing life "full-on," as James Ray himself (in)famously liked to say. Yes, you might break your arm or shatter your skull or accidentally end your life. But if you survive, you just might have a breakthrough.

A couple of months ago I was re-reading a story that reminded me of all this stuff. Although I've snarked many times about Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, I have enjoyed several of his books, including Adventures Within: Confessions Of An Inner-World Journalist, which he self-published through the print-on-demand company AuthorHouse in 2003. Adventures Within is sort of a spiritual autobiography, and I find it noteworthy for Joe's frankness about his early life as well as his personal insights into various LGAT and cultish organizations. To me it seems a far more honest work than some of his later books and many of his current writings.

In a chapter titled, "The Orange Blossom Train Ride (and Crash) of Rajneesh," Joe writes about his experiences as a disciple of the late guru, Bhaghwan Shree Rajneesh (later known as "Osho"). As you're no doubt aware, to call Rajneesh controversial would be erring very much on the side of understatement. A flamboyant Indian (of the Eastern variety) who owned not one, not two, but one-hundred Rolls-Royces, give or take a few, Rajneesh was easily one of the most notorious spiritual leaders of the 1980s. Even today, twenty years after his death, he has a worldwide following. As a matter of fact, one of the most vocal relatives of one of James Ray's Sedona victims has been known to quote from "Osho" on his Twitter page.

During the more than seven years that Joe Vitale followed Bhagwan, he ran Bhagwan's Houston meditation center, visited Bhagwan twice when the guru was in Oregon, attended some of his discourses, and arranged major publicity events for him in Texas. He writes that he became interested in Bhagwan's work while he was living in Houston and working as a truck driver in the late 1970s. (Yes, I know he says he was homeless on the streets of Dallas in the late 1970s, but perhaps that was the earlier late 1970s. On some of his sites he says he was homeless on the streets of Houston. I have just plain given up on trying to keep all of the stories straight. But that doesn't matter for the purposes of this story.) Joe writes that he received his official welcome-to-the-fold letter from Bhagwan, along with his new disciple name, Swami Anand Manjushri, in September of 1979. He used his disciple name in various capacities for years, even publishing his first book, Zen and the Art of Writing, under the name Manjushri Joseph Vitale.

Like most chapters in Adventures Within, the Rajneesh chapter is divided into sub-headed sections. In the section titled, "Broken Arms, Bloody Noses," Joe describes some of the intensive and extreme experiences to which Bhagwan's followers were subjected. There was, for example, the extraordinarily strenuous hour-long "Dynamic Meditation" that included a lot of maniacal jumping around, screaming, and the like. The days-long "encounter" groups were even more grueling, and offered a hefty dose of what most of us would view as extreme physical and psychological abuse. Joe writes:

Bhagwan's groups became known for their no-holds approach to growth. He attracted some of the most respected therapists in the world, people from Esalen and England, Switzerland and Germany, and Bhagwan gave these leaders freedom. The encounter groups were often so intense that arms were broken. Yet no one -- that I know of -- ever complained. They willingly signed up for the groups and, scared as they might be, willingly went through them.

Emotional and even sexual abuse were not uncommon either in the land of the Rajneeshees. Joe goes on to describe an "intensive" he attended at the Rajneesh meditation center in Austin. He didn't get any broken bones but did suffer a bad nosebleed while watching a new disciple be humiliated in front of the attendees by the group's facilitator.

The new guy was on all fours in front of the room, bare-chested, and two big men physically restrained him while the leader taunted him. The leader said, "Your wife slept with two other men last night. How does that make you feel?" (Rajneesh's groups were infamous for encouraging promiscuous sex, which was one reason Rajneesh was sometimes called "the sex guru.") As the hapless man struggled to free himself, the leader called for the two men who had allegedly slept with the disciple's wife to come up to the front of the room. They did, and the leader continued to taunt the man, asking him, "What do you want to do?" The disciple answered, "I want to f----g kill YOU!" and he lunged at the leader, but his captors held him firmly in place. The leader encouraged him to "feel the anger" and let it go through him. The man groaned and screamed and howled like a wolf, and finally he collapsed. "My nose was bleeding now," Joe writes. "We all watched as the disciple cried and cried. It was pitiful." 

Yet he adds that as tragic and insane as it sounded, the guy was transformed, "feeling better and looking happier" after the incident. Joe writes that the disciple needed to "dump his pain about his wife's infidelity before he could relax." (All of which just raises the question of whether there would have been any infidelity in the first place were it not for the sexually-charged environment of Rajneeshee culture.) 

Joe describes other incidents as well, such as watching while the meditation center's leader masturbated an attractive female disciple as about thirty other disciples sat in a circle around her. Since the female disciple was fully clothed, Joe at first thought the leader was doing some kind of "energy work" on her. Turns out he was right. He says that Bhagwan and his group leaders encouraged people to act on their impulses, whatever those might be. Joe writes, "This sort of freedom of expression, as you can imagine, got a lot of disciples in trouble." But he adds, "Despite the insanity in these groups, sanity was usually the result of them. In a paradoxical way the madness led to peace."

He explains that encounter groups "were popular in the sixties and are still done today," adding, "But none of them gave such complete freedom – nearly a license to kill – as did the groups sanctioned by Bhagwan." Joe wrote that despite his flaws Bhagwan was a "super-psychologist" and that there was "an overall divine purpose for going through such intense encounter groups." He adds, "After all, Hemingway said a broken arm is stronger after it's healed. And lord knows I was able to breathe better after the blood came out of my nose." No word on what the long-term effects were for that hapless disciple, though. One wonders if this man or his marriage became stronger as a result of his being cuckolded by his wife and then humiliated in a room full of people by the leader of the Bhagwan group. 

Of course, all of this took place a very long time ago, perhaps before some of the people reading this blog post were even born. Joe is no longer a Rajneeshee and has not been one for many years. He had been out of the group a few years at the time I met him. In Adventures Within, Joe writes that although he maintained his love for his guru even during the time Rajneesh's organization was being accused of embezzlement, sexual misconduct, political misdeeds, and even bioterrorism, he did eventually become disillusioned. He thinks Rajneesh was a genuine teacher with a sincere desire to serve, but let his ego get the better of him. "He put himself in a dangerous position – many would hate him, many would love him – but his life would never be ignored. Or forgotten," Joe writes. He says he is grateful that he wasn’t more involved with him; many folks left their families and work, sold all their possessions, and completely redirected their lives in order to be with Bhagwan.

In Adventures Within, Joe also has an interesting chapter about his experience with The Forum, the kinder, gentler version of est. As in the Bhagwan chapter, he describes intensive encounters during the long weekends of the course. At the end of the chapter he says he's glad he took The Forum but would not recommend it to his readers, for several reasons. He explains that too much time and energy were devoted to aggressive upselling and warns that you should "be prepared for a snow job" if you go to one of their introductory sessions. (I know: the grousing about upselling is a bit ironic coming from one of the reigning princes of upselling, but there you are.) He says that the whole thing seemed too random and wasn't all that effective (pp. 115-117 in Adventures Within). Keep in mind that he wrote this in the early 1990s. I believe that was before Landmark bought out the company and Erhard pretended to go away entirely (yes, I'm one of many who believe Erhard still has a few fingers in the pie, particularly since his little brother, Harry Rosenberg, heads up Landmark Forum these days).

As for Joe, his more recent opinions of The Forum seem to be on the positive side. On the promo page for his republished edition of a 1970s work, The Book of est, Joe writes, "I did The Forum and endorse it today. But it's no est." The implication is that it isn't as effective as est, but I'll leave it to you to figure out exactly what he means. Or he can write a comment here and explain it himself. Maybe he does endorse the Landmark version of The Forum today, which seems determined to distance itself from the icky side of Erhard (though the Landmark folks are not above giving some credit to him for setting the foundation so many years ago). Maybe the caveats Joe wrote in Adventures Within only apply to the version of The Forum that he took nearly twenty years ago. However, that version was closer in spirit to Erhard's est than is the modern incarnation, and Joe wrote that he didn't particularly like it...and yet he now seems to be praising est and Erhard on the sales page for The Book of est... and oh, goodness, my brain is hurting again.

Flashing forward to much more recent events, Joe hasn't gone out of his way to publicly defend James Ray, whom he has referred to as a friend on numerous occasions on his blog (mainly by virtue of their being in The Secret together), but he has not publicly spoken out against him either. And he has been a bit snippy on his blog at the mention of Sweatgate. Like most of his colleagues in the top tiers of the industry, he seems to be taking the "let's reserve judgment" tack.

All appearances to the contrary, the point of telling those stories isn't to pick on Joe. I've picked on him plenty on this blog, some say unfairly, but that's not the purpose here. Joe's experience with Bhagwan, and for that matter with The Forum, are but two examples of many similar tales of long-time seekers. And that's my point: After hundreds and hundreds of hours of workshops and seminars, of trying one breakthrough technique or spiritual path or LGAT training after another after another, many people do have a tendency to accept as normal what many other folks would think of as pretty disturbing. Crazy becomes the new normal. 

This is not to excuse anyone who uses LGAT techniques or any kind of persuasion or manipulation to harm others, of course; it is merely an attempt to explain how some people's attitudes may have been formed. And I think it only fair for me to add that many long-time observers/critics have also developed a certain nonchalance about the wackiness that prevails in the New-Wage world. This is particularly true of those of us who have participated in LGATs ourselves at some time in the past.

In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that before Sweatgate, I was pretty complacent regarding what I thought I knew about what really goes on in these events. (I won't presume to analyze other critics' complacency/jadedness or lack thereof; I can only speak for myself.) As I've discussed here before, I've always more or less had the attitude that most of the self-help stuff is more silly or annoying than harmful. That's why Sweatgate took me somewhat by surprise.

And that's why I'm always interested in the perspectives of those who, viewing these issues with fresh eyes, are utterly appalled by some of the things that even I took for granted. Cassandra Yorgey, for example, got a bit of flak for expressing shock about the detailed and intimate questionnaires that James Ray's Spiritual Warrior participants had to answer. She wrote about it on October 29 and October 30, 2009. I'm sure that many people who have participated in or have any extensive knowledge of LGATs might think there's nothing terribly out of the ordinary about this or similar questionnaires. (I still intend to write a post about my own LGAT experiences, but the passing mention in this 1996 piece (under "What I did with a bunch of strangers in a hotel") will have to do for now.)

But really, the sex questionnaires do seem pretty smarmy, particularly in light of what apparently goes on behind the scenes with some of these New-Wage gurus. Even some people who are veterans of the self-help industry agreed with Cassandra, e.g., Andrea de Michaelis, publisher of the Florida New-Age magazine Horizons. In response to Cassandra's October 29 post (October 31, 9:45 AM) Andrea wrote, "No responsible teacher brings up anyone's shame-based, especially sexual issues in an unprotected setting, period."

Given that criterion, it seems there have been an awful lot of irresponsible "teachers" in the business over the years. Here's an example of James Ray being irresponsible with a Harmonic Wealth Weekend participant who had money and grief issues. This seems wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. But it does remind me of how much has not changed since my own LGAT days.

And yet much has changed over the years. We live in a culture that is more sensitive to things that were more or less taken for granted not so long ago, and our laws and policies reflect this. For example, it almost used to be a rite of passage for young guys to have a fling with an older woman, even — gasp! – a hot young teacher. Today that teacher would be hauled up on charges of sexual abuse of a minor. It would be the top story on the local or even the national news, and the teacher would almost certainly lose her job.

More relevant to this post: although encounter groups were certainly controversial in the 1960s and '70s, there was still a certain degree of acceptance of them in the larger society. Maybe it's more accurate to say they were ignored, for the most part, or not taken all that seriously, since they were so non-mainstream at the time. Human potential/self-help hadn't reached a critical mass in our culture. Today, if something bad happens at a seminar and it gets publicized, it's more likely to get lots of negative attention from the media.

Of course, cooking people to death in a sweat lodge, or watching an event participant jump off a balcony and then trying to cover it up, are pretty awful things by yesterday's and today's standards.

Caught between two worlds...
Despite the silence among most of the upper-tier self-help gurus, there are a few people – I guess you could call them the working grunts of the self-help industry – who cut James Ray no slack, such as Michael Port, author of the Think Big blog. In a January post he wrote, "This is not the first time a narcissistic sociopath with a god-complex has lead people to their deaths and unfortunately it won't be the last time." He also writes about how he sometimes feels caught between two worlds....

...the world of traditional, time-honored medical and psychological practices and the world of ontology or the study of being, existence, from a philosophical and personal development perspective. At times these worlds are at odds and at other times they are aligned. I grew up in a psychologically-minded home. As I mentioned above, my father is a Psychiatrist. My mother is also a mental health professional, a Clinical Social Worker, who specializes in early childhood development with almost as many years experience working with psychologically, physically and sexually abused children. My parents operate with a degree of integrity I rarely see displayed elsewhere. I imagine, it's one of the reasons that I'm so upset by what happened in Sedona.

Maybe a lot of it comes back down to the question of whether or not self-help gurus are practicing therapy – or even medicine, in some cases – without a proper license. Michael Port points out that the mental-health professions are regulated because they mess with people's minds. Since so many of the self-help gurus do the same, shouldn't they be subject to stricter oversight?

Much more in-your-face than Michael Port is motivational/sales expert and author Grant Cardone, who threw some potshots at James Ray on the Huffington Post web site a few weeks after the sweat lodge tragedy took place. He wrote that he'd met James at his (Grant's) home in San Diego seven years ago when James was still trying to break into the seminar bidness. According to Grant, he warned James...

"Don't confuse me with some of the guys out there. I teach valid measurable business skills that can be transferred. We teach companies sales skills and best practices and implement measurable processes for the company. We don't do fire walks, board breaking, trust walks, or use tricks to sign people up...Guys that do these things are not experts at anything and harm people by giving them illusions of power with no valid improvement in skills."

Now, I sort of have to take this tale with a grain of salt, especially since Grant seems a bit on the hustledorky side, and I am being kind here. Of course, his area of expertise is sales of high-end items such as cars, so hustledorkiness kind of comes with the territory. He certainly doesn't seem to be above performing fear-conquering gimmicks himself, such as eating fire, but apparently he doesn't make his seminar participants do it (though he does seem to love "Eat the fire!" as a metaphor). And it appears that he is a Scientologist, which is a whole other level of evil, beyond the scope of this blog post. Still, I have to agree with his conclusion about James Ray and his ilk.

What these individuals [such as James Ray] provide is certainly impressionable, but not transferable. Experiential and memorable, absolutely, but unusable[.] [O]n Monday when the seminar is over, if you live through it, it's gone. These guys aren't gurus, but frauds who are short on valid teachable material that is applicable in the real world and will resort to anything and everything to electrify the audience, creating a false sense of power and making it easier to sign them up for future events.

One obvious point here is that people such as Michael Port and Grant Cardone are not in the top echelon of the self-help/motivational industry, and arguably don't have nearly as much to lose by throwing James Ray under the bus as, say, Bob Proctor or Joe Vitale. But it is precisely for that reason that they have more license, if you will, to speak their minds. (Again, notwithstanding the Scientology connection where Grant is concerned.) So I think they're worth listening to, even if in some cases their own agenda to promote their products and services is...well...searingly obvious. 

"Outsiders" with "inside" information
For those who don't want to listen to someone who has a dog in the self-help hunt, there are journalists and commentators who, though on the critical side of the fence, have some interesting things to say about the industry. Start with the aforementioned Steve Salerno, author of SHAM: How The Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. (And by the way, Steve just completed a three-part piece on SHAMblog about The Landmark Forum. Here's the link to Part 1. I think that the discussions following the posts are as interesting in their own way as the posts themselves.) Or try Barbara Ehrenreich, who tackles the positive-thinking movement in her book, Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Both Steve and Barbara tend to take a more serious view than I do about the insidiousness of the self-help/positive-thinking culture.

If you want the perspective of someone who is more spiritually oriented than many of the critics but still has no patience for hustledorks, my own Rev Ron (who, by the way, coined the word "hustledork") has published a blog post about James Ray's possible pathology. Ron doesn't think that more regulations are necessarily the answer, and here's his reason:

I don't propose establishing a system of strict regulation to oversee the self-help industry, mostly because it wouldn't work. Remember: You can't idiot-proof the system; they'll just come up with better idiots! The scammers would simply find ways to work around the rules, and their marks would just rationalize that some malevolent "they" are trying to deny humanity of its birthright. If you doubt the second statement, just go to your favorite "guru's" website and compare the bold-headline promises with the fine-print (and frequently difficult to find) disclaimer statement. What you'll find is a deft volley, in response to the FTC's latest serve. And if you're willing to lend as much credence to the former as you are willing to put "faith" in the latter, there's little chance you'll be hoodwinked, wounded, or even killed.

Above it all? 
Since we've been discussing the various attitudes that may ultimately help determine future policy or legislation, no discussion would be complete without a nod to those who scoff at the selfish-help/New-Wage industry but also look down their noses at the victims for being weak or stupid or gullible. The categorically unsympathetic seem to be in the minority, but were quite assertive in the time immediately following the breaking of Sweatgate. There are a few October 2009 posts on the Belch.com site that, out of respect for the victims and their families, I'm not going to link to here. You can look them up.

Blogger/law professor Ann Althouse is another person who wrote that she just couldn't understand how people could be so "stupid" as to stay in the sweat lodge when things were clearly going wrong. In a post written two weeks after the tragedy happened, she wrote, "...50 people can push one man out of the way. As they should have done, after the first hurl." 

While I admit I have gotten a chuckle at some of the Belch.com blogger's other posts that so clearly portray his impatience with the human species in general, I have to say I wasn't amused at all by the James Ray posts. As for Ann Althouse, I can only hope she's modified her views somewhat since more information has come to light, but, judging from a more recent and very succinct post, I tend to think that neither she nor most of her readers have wasted much energy on compassion for anyone involved in this tragedy.

People who lack sympathy for victims of New-Wage gurus or other 
persuasive leaders overlook the fact that any one of us could be susceptible to coercive persuasion techniques under the right circumstances. I think Cassandra Yorgey did a fine job of summarizing this topic as it relates to the James Ray tragedies. It has also been discussed at length on the James Ray thread on the Rick Ross forum. That thread is nearly 80 pages long as I write this, but if you haven't been following it, here's a pretty good place to start, and then you can go forward or backward as you wish. 

Those with a really personal stake
However you may feel about the wisdom – or folly – of more oversight of the self-help industry, it's difficult to ignore the pleas of the families of James Ray's victims. The family of Kirby Brown, one of the first two who died from the Sedona sweat lodge, has created a foundation in her name to explore regulation of the self-help industry. The site presents a pretty balanced view, all things considered:

There is value in this industry, and experts in it who genuinely have something to offer in a safe and responsible way. However, there are others in the industry who abuse the platform they have created, simply for their own gain. In seeking their own ends, they exploit their customers and even put these customers in danger, using psychological techniques they are not certified in, therapeutic treatments they are not trained in, and orchestrating dangerous physical challenges without proper safeguards in place.

Some claim that the victims of self-help fraud are weak. But anyone who knows Kirby knows she was far from weak. Many experts on the issue note that it is not just "weak" people who can become victims of this type of fraud. All types of people from all different backgrounds are susceptible. The issue is complicated, too, by the fact that the mainstream media can legitimize these fraudulent members of the self-help industry, simply by giving them the opportunity to promote themselves.

There is a great need for far more scrutiny on this industry, by both the public and the government. These people are breaking laws that already exist. It is very likely, though that there is also a gap in public policy to adequately regulate this industry. Our goal now is to bring attention to this issue, and call for some action--both in applying existing legal protections to the industry and developing new ways to help protect people from this type of fraud and recklessness.

Others who were deeply affected have spoken out in their own way. Among the most recent to raise his voice is Bryan Neuman, the son of one of the Sweatgate victims, Liz Neuman. He has been a participant on Salty Droid's blog for a while, and more recently has made some poignant and pointed remarks on Twitter, mostly in response to James Ray's own seemingly insensitive tweets. James is getting a lot of angry responses to those tweets, by the way, and seems to be responding to some of them in a rather passive-aggressive manner. (I know: big surprise that a New-Wage guru would be passive aggressive.)

Friends and family of James Shore, the other person who died after Sweatgate, and the family of Colleen Conaway, have also spoken out.

Back to the issue at hand...
Since this post has gone on more than long enough, I'll just bring it back to the original question (I warned you it might be circuitous): Should the self-help industry be regulated more than it is under existing laws? If you think it should be, what does "regulation" mean? Many people agree that there should be more safeguards in place, but exactly what are proper safeguards?

On the other hand, do you think that we might be opening up another can of worms, and running some genuinely good and well-meaning folks out of business (or preventing some from even going into business in the first place), by trying to impose new rules and regulations on yet another industry? Is calling for more regulations on the self-help biz paving the way to more government control of everything that every one of us does, says, or publishes?

Arizona blogger Trudy W. Schuett, publisher of the AZ Rural Times blog, summed up the quandary pretty well in a January 2010 post:

I think what would be called for if this industry were to be regulated in any way would require, ironically enough, not only the wisdom of Solomon but also a crystal ball to identify potential difficulties, while not impinging on the autonomy of the individual’s right to his or her beliefs. [Yep, there's that freedom-of-religion issue again. ~CC] There will always be people who are looking for shortcuts to wealth or spiritual growth, and unscrupulous providers of same. It may not even be possible to determine who those unscrupulous individuals and groups are before they cross the line into causing harm and breaking laws.

I still lean towards Libertarian-ish views myself (I'm stubborn that way). I think Ron's quotation above pretty much summarizes how I feel. But I can definitely see Terry and Amy Hall's points about some issues, particularly the need for full advance disclosure about events, so people can know ahead of time what they're getting themselves into. (Actually, even Terry says he is pretty much Libertarian-ish for the most part.)

On the issue of transparency and disclosure, Salty Droid, in his usual "fabulously hilarious" manner, gets right to the point on his March 9, 2010 post. He contrasts what the Spiritual Warrior participant guide – sent out by James Ray in July 2009 – actually said about the event...

Keep in mind that we will be working diligently to make this event memorable. For this reason, it is important that we do not disclose any further information regarding the event schedule or planned activities. However, we will tell you that it is going to be an exciting, unforgettable, and transformational week!

...with what it perhaps should have said:

Keep in mind that previous iterations of this event led to dreadful calamity and serious injury. Broken bones, broken bank accounts, brain damage, and long term health problems are all previously encountered outcomes. It is also important to note that nothing new will be learned, and that your guru for this event has not been trained in ANYTHING … EVER. He’s just a douche bag salesman with his own serious mental health issues. However, we will tell you that some people are going to die during this event … and it just doesn’t get any more transformational than that!

There's a lively discussion on that one, too. Naturally.

Even absent licensing requirements for anything marginally related to the personal growth industry, it seems clear that at the very least, consumers would benefit from more transparency regarding gurus' and coaches' credentials and qualifications, and certainly from more transparency about what to expect during a workshop or retreat. As a guest blogger on Terry Hall's Bizsayer blog wrote in February of this year:

Every professional field has the burden of being marred by idiots within that field....Hence: licensure. Even so, there are licensed idiots out there causing havoc in people’s lives. So I wonder sometimes if it is really possible to fully regulate any field that claims to help others. Ultimately, people will have to regulate themselves when they sign up for an experience (whether it is free or they are paying an obscene $9000+). But how can they do that without FULL DISCLOSURE? Doesn’t seem the attendees of JRI have full disclosure, nor did they receive their “waiver” in a timely manner!

Amen. I'm just not so sure we should get the government deeply involved. In any case, I really am interested in all opinions about this issue.

Meanwhile, I wish peace and healing – and justice – for the families of Kirby Brown, James Shore, Liz Neuman, Colleen Conaway... and anyone else whose lives have been torn by the actions of James Ray or any other selfish-help gurus.

* * * * *

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A few little sight bites

We haven't had a Snippet Saturday on this Whirled in a while. I just wanted to share a few random quotations that caught my eye recently.

Life experience qualifies each of us to render judgment on any number of matters. I have no personal knowledge of a shotgun blast to the face, but I think I'm capable of appreciating the damage that such an occurrence is apt to cause on those who do have the experience...To assert otherwise is ridiculous—tantamount to arguing that a physician must actually be sick himself in order to accurately diagnose a patient with that same disorder. It bears noting that Landmark Forum does not have "personal knowledge" of the lives of the customers who attend its coursework, yet Landmark claims to possess a generic formula for helping those people improve their quality-of-life. Go figure.
~Steve Salerno on Part 1 of his SHAMblog Landmark Forum Series, addressing the notoriously litigious Landmark's implication that anyone who doesn't have personal experience with Landmark is unqualified to criticize it. In particular they were questioning the late Dr. Margaret Singer's qualifications to render judgment on damages claimed by a Landmark participant, because she had no "personal knowledge" of what goes on in Landmark Forum sessions.

Come to think of it...not that I am in any way comparing myself to Dr. Singer (or even to a journalist such as Steve), but this twisted judgment about critics' qualifications, or lack thereof, sounds a bit like some of the responses I've fielded from those who took umbrage at my critical remarks.

Here's Part 2 of Steve Salerno's Landmark series.
Here's Part 3, in which Steve clarifies the right to express an OPINION, although Landmark and other New-Wage schemes/gurus have been known to do their level best to suppress that right.

* * * * *

Whether or not you believe you are your story, don't trade your own story, however dire or crazy, for someone else's second-hand cockroach fable. Your own story has the potential to get very interesting, at least to yourself, if you take a good look.
~ "Stoic" on a fascinating thread on the Rick Ross Forum, in a side discussion on the merits and deceptions of storytelling.

The "cockroach fable" is a reference to the tale that New-Wage guru-ette Bryon Katie tells of her own "enlightenment." It seems to be an integral part of her marketing as well as her mythology. Seems she was startled awake one morning by a cockroach running across her leg, and she awakened into a state of enlightenment, and was never the same afterward. She went on to create a multimillion dollar New-Wage empire. More than one person has pointed out the irony that a major part of her shtick is to encourage people to divorce themselves from their own "stories." ("Who would you be without your story?") I blogged about Katie a while back.

* * * * *

The wounded in this world are dying and despairing by the thousands while prosperity preachers are offering up home-brewed remedies of Entitlement theology. These charlatans are selling salve to the sick when salvation is what people really need to fix what's ailing them.
~ Karen Spears Zacharias, Will Jesus Buy Me A Double-Wide? ('Cause I Need More Room For My Plasma TV) (Zondervan)

Okay, this is a link to a Christian book, and I don't often "do" mainstream religion (though I have on occasion), but since "Prosperity/Entitlement Gospel" has so much in common with New-Wage Entitlement "gospel," I thought it appropriate.

* * * * *

And finally... this isn't all that recent, and I didn't find it on the Internet, but it has stuck with me since I first read it. This is from a book called Taran Wanderer, Book 4 in the delightful classic children's/young-adult fantasy series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by the late Lloyd Alexander. It's a typical epic fantasy that takes place in the fictional land of Prydain, based loosely on Wales. Alexander took much of his inspiration from the Welsh myth cycle, The Mabinogion. (In 1985, Disney released an animated flick, The Black Cauldron, which was very loosely based on a couple of Alexander's books.)

One of the recurring characters in The Chronicles of Prydain is a somewhat bumbling but well-meaning bard named Fflewddur Fflam. Fflewddur isn't really a very good bard, though his cat seems to like his music. But he is a faithful friend and a brave fighter in his own way, although he has a marked tendency to exaggerate whenever he opens his mouth. However, he is constantly kept in line by his magical harp, which noisily busts a string whenever he tells a big one. If he even starts to tell a fib, the harp makes threatening noises. One day he and Taran, the main hero of the series, are discussing some of the area noblemen and their quirks, particularly the nobles' self-satisfaction and habit of boasting about their heroic deeds.

[Fflewddur said], "These...nobles are much alike, prickly as porcupines one moment and friendly as puppies the next. They all hoard their possessions, yet they can be generous to a fault. As for valor, they're no cowards.* Death rides in the saddle with them and they count it as nothing, and in battle I've seen them gladly lay down their lives for a comrade. At the same time," he added, "it's also been my experience, in all my wanderings, that the further from the deed, the greater it grows, and the most glorious battle is the one longest past. So it's hardly surprising how many heroes you run into.

"Had they harps like mine," said Fflewddur, warily glancing at his instrument, "what a din you'd hear from every stronghold in Prydain!"

Today instead of magical harps, we have snarky blogs. And I don't know about you, but it sounds to me as if the din is growing louder all the time.

* Hey, no analogy is perfect.

When "Enlightenment" really MEANT something

Don't give up on me, Dear Ones; as time permits I'm still working on (with every intention of finishing) my long-promised post(s) about my conversations with a self-help insider. Meanwhile, here's a quick & fun blast from the past.

The other day, just for the fun of it, I pulled an old book off the shelf and thumbed through it. The book is Age of Enlightenment, by Peter Gay and the editors of Time-Life Books. It's part of a long out-of-print Time-Life series, Great Ages of Man (yes, as I may have mentioned here before, there was a time, way back in the previous century, when Time-Life actually published books and not just nostalgic CD sets and DVD series).


Most of the old Time-Life book series stuck to a standard format of chapters followed by "picture essays," and the Great Ages of Man set is no exception. What caught my eye in Age of Enlightenment, which covers much of the eighteenth century, was the essay following Chapter 3, "In Search of an Ideal Society." Titled, "The Credulous Era," the section begins:

In the Enlightenment's mood of optimism, the difference between open-mindedness and gullibility was often indiscernible. The philosophes' insistence that old concepts be re-examined opened the door to a flock of irrational schemes and fakeries. If man's intelligence could solve all problems, then it seemed reasonable to believe that people with special gifts could manage special feats... Twenty-first Century Boulder/Austin/Santa Fe/San Diego, etc. Eighteenth Century Europe became a paradise for visionaries, pseudo scientists and outright quacks. They persuaded the educated and ignorant alike that they could perform a variety of wonders – e.g., transmitting invisible healing powers to others, giving birth to rabbits and even corresponding with the man in the moon.

The subtitles within the picture essay set the tone:

"A craze for easy cures." Magnetism was all the rage in the eighteenth century, and a few enterprising medical guys took advantage of this. Many folks know about Franz Mesmer and his "animal magnetism," but perhaps fewer know about a London doc named James Graham. Dr. Graham built a salon that contained a "Celestial Bed" supported by forty "magnetized" pillars. Apparently one purpose of this special bed was to treat men suffering from what is today called erectile dysfunction. Their powers could supposedly be fully restored by lying on the bed and sniffing incense while watching erotic dances. Today I believe such a setup would be called a "Gentleman's Club."
"A genius for mixing sense with nonsense." The Enlightenment was rife with "well-meaning savants who worked in the fringe area between science and fantasy." F'rinstance, there was German doctor Samuel Hahnemann, who discovered some worthwhile therapeutic drugs but also advocated remedies such as maiden's teardrops and crushed bedbugs. Hahnemann is perhaps best known for giving the world homeopathy.
"A booming market for frauds." The author notes, "So gullible were the rich and fashionable of the Enlightenment that a shrewd trickster needed only audacity to leap to wealth and fame." One example: a crude Sicilian peasant named Allesandro Cagliostro, who "became the toast of Paris when it was rumored that he could turn pebbles into diamonds and crones into lovely maidens." Then there was Mary Tofts (sometimes spelled "Toft"), pictured above in a William Hogarth engraving. Mary convinced half of England that she could give birth to rabbits and rabbit parts. I imagine she was in great demand around Easter time.
"A public bamboozled by bubbles." Now, here's something that could never happen today:

...Naive investors, confusing paper certificates with real wealth, were so eager to buy stock that at one point shares were even sold in England "for an undertaking of a Great Adventure but no one to know what it is." Two ventures in particular caught the public's fancy. London's South Sea Company was set up to trade with Spanish America, and Paris' Mississippi Company was founded to exploit the wealth of Louisiana. Both companies were backed by their governments, which saw the stock issues as a way to erase the public debt. Investors stampeded to speculate in what was soon worthless stock. Prices rose astronomically. In 1720 both bubbles burst. Prices plummeted, thousands were wiped out and the two governments were shaken...

But all of that crap happened a long, long time ago. Thank Goddess we're far too sophisticated today to fall for anything even remotely like the nonsense they believed back then.

PS ~ For a good time, read (or re-read) the Enlightenment-era classic, Voltaire's Candide. Tell me if that Pangloss character reminds you of anyone you know or have read about.

Bond. James' bond...

...that bond, as you probably know by now, is a cool five million dollars.* (See updates below. ~CC)

By now it's all over the news: James Arthur Ray was arrested earlier today at his attorney's office in Prescott, Arizona. He has been charged with three counts of manslaughter for the three people who died last October after the infamous sweat lodge session at his Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona. You can keep up with the news here, and some of the many Tweets here.

PS added 4 February ~ This post is what Wikipedia would call a "stub," and, unlike my October 9 post linked to above, I'm probably not going to keep adding to it. However, while it's still "new" news, I did want to add a link to a few items:

• The related story published on the Good Morning America web site on February 4.
• The transcript of Anderson Cooper's CNN show on February 3, refuting James Ray's statements in a sham interview for New York Magazine.
• And no discussion of this matter would be complete without Salty Droid's take on the matter (it's worth it for the Photoshopping alone).

* Not long after James Ray's arrest, it became known that he was having a bit of a "challenge" posting bond, which would have entailed coming up with $500,000 in cash to get out of the slammer. Once again Salty Droid was on it (this piece also has videos about James' plea and his attoney's comments) . Some people misinterpreted the statements from the Ray legal team as being that James doesn't have the money, raising questions of how it is that Mr. Harmonic Wealth himself could be so cash-poor. But, as former James Ray employee Amy Hall commented on the Droid's blog...

Amy Hall Reply:February 5th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
If you listen closely… the atty doesn’t say that James doesn’t have the money… just that it isn’t liquid enough to come up with the $500,000 cash that he needs. For God’s sake the man owns 5 houses! His parents own their own house, his brother owns properties in OK. They could come up with it if they wanted to. James is in solitary confinement. He’s on a Monk’s Holiday!

There's also an interesting discussion on the Rick Ross forum about James and his brand of Harmonic Asset Concealment, as well as the long tradition of same among LGAT gurus (Werner Erhard of est/Landmark Forum infamy comes to mind).

Update, 28 February 2010: As most of you undoubtedly know, after much ballyhooing about his lack of funds to get him out of jail under that original five-mil bond, James' bond was reduced to $525,000 on February 25. (Here, from the Droid's blog, is a link to a PDF of the order.) The next day he walked out of jail a free man, sort of. There are conditions on his freedom as he awaits trial for three counts of manslaughter. Among these conditions: He had to surrender his passport and can't leave or attempt to leave the U.S.; he has to provide his lawyers with a written itinerary in advance of any travel within the U.S.; and he cannot conduct, supervise, or participate in sweat lodges or any other event that might induce a "significant risk of physical harm" to others.

That latter provision is open to debate, of course, since there are other varieties of physical harm besides cooking people to death or goading them into injuring themselves by striking a board or a brick. (Inducing psychosis that might lead them to kill themselves comes to mind. I'm just sayin'.)
Judging by some of his most recent tweets on Twitter, James is setting the stage for his newest shtick, playing on the theme of transforming darkness into light. (Well, hey, a guy has to make a living. And when life gives lemons...)

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, and as you've no doubt noticed, I have long since given up providing a blow-by-blow account of all of the developments in this ongoing story. Plenty of others have taken up the slack, though, and have done a remarkable job. Among them:

• Good old Salty Droid
• Cassandra Yorgey Since her blog does not appear to use tags, I am linking to her first post about James Ray, but on the right-hand side of the page is a complete list, with live links, of her posts on this matter.
• The participants on the Rick Ross forum Not surprisingly, the James Ray thread is very long; the link is to the page first mentioning the lowered bond. You can go backward or forward as you wish. I find this forum valuable not only for the discussion of the matter at hand but also for the insights into LGAT (Large Group Awareness Training) techniques.
• Terry Hall at the Bizsayer blog. Terry is married to former James Ray International employee Amy Hall, whom I quoted above.

A February 26 post by Steve Salerno at SHAMblog did give me pause for thought, however. Although Steve has by no means "switched sides"– as he takes some pains to explain – he did note:

...I'm getting a wee bit uneasy about the ardor of our collective assault on Ray. I think there is danger in piling on, as some of us have—including your host. I think that we run the risk of unwittingly marginalizing ourselves: that in our zeal to find and trumpet every last incriminating detail, background circumstance or untoward facial expression--while at the same time ignoring or rationalizing away any possible mitigating circumstances--we make ourselves look like, say, the liberals who once were accused of "Bush derangement syndrome"...

...while Ray may be the poster boy for reckless/venal self-help, we probably shouldn't make him out to be the Grim Reaper, Adolph Hitler and Bernie Madoff rolled into one. Certainly not until he has his day in court. The guy almost surely is a megalomaniac—but if you're telling me that he intended to kill those people, or that he didn't care if he did...I'm not buying it. I think that in the person of James Ray, we have a messianic blunderer with no sense of consequences who may have honestly felt that he was showing tough-love on that October day, driving clients to push beyond their limits. This is not in any way to excuse what happened in Sedona. If anything, it underscores why self-help is so stupid, so scary. And that is where our emphasis should now reside, in my opinion.

As is usually the case on SHAMblog, an interesting discussion follows.

 * * * * *

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A little motion on the ocean

Another drive-by (or swim-by, as the case may be) post while I'm dealing with "real work" deadlines and trying to finish my long-promised piece based on interviews with a self-help industry insider...

As you probably know if you've been hanging around my Whirled for any length of time, there's an incredibly silly, kinda sex-culty thing going around called ACCESS Consciousness (formerly ACCESS Energy Transformation). My most recent post about ACCESS was in October of 2009, though it made its debut on this Whirled on June 6, 2007, and had an encore appearance on June 12 of the same year. I mentioned it again in May of 2008 (scroll down to the second item, "Warning: ACCESSories on the loose"); and then again the following July (scroll down to second item, "ACCESS: It just gets worse"). I would tell you exactly what ACCESS is, but after nearly three years of blogging till I'm blue in the face about it, I still don't really know. All I can really say for sure is that it seems to make people all silly and giggly, and apparently inspires women of all ages to show their cleavage.

"And that's a bad thing?" you ask. Okay, there's nothing wrong with cleavage, and maybe the silliness and giggling aren't so bad either (blog fodder, after all), but the cultishness is a little disturbing when you think about it. Thinking is frowned on in ACCESS, but not here on my Whirled.

At any rate, the ACCESSories are still doing their thing, and now, apparently, they are spreading the love to the world's oceans, which are choking with plastic. ACCESS is going to save the oceans, or part of one of them, anyway, by magically transforming the plastic into... oh, I don't know. Fish? Fish poop? A new info-product? They don't really say. 

An alert reader gave me the heads-up about a new ACCESS-related website, Ocean 300. Although it doesn't seem to be fully functional yet, and doesn't yet mention ACCESS anywhere that either Alert Reader or I could see, the project has been touted in recent interviews given by Gary Douglas, an ex-Realtor and the founder of ACCESS. And the mantra, "How does it get any better than this?" is pure ACCESSspeak. 

What the ACCESSories are gonna do, it seems, is utilize a technique that supposedly allows them to "transform matter at the molecular level," as described in the print-on-demand-published work, Magic: You Are It. Be It, by Gary Douglas and his sidekick, Rasputin. Oh, I'm just kidding about Rasputin, whom Gary fired a few years ago. (You can't really trust those dead Russian faux-monks, you know.) These days, Gary's main sidekick – and his co-author on Magic as well as several other books – is Dr. Dain Heer. Both Gary and Dain tout their proprietary brand of alchemy, which was originally "given" to Gary by Rasputin or someone or something from another dimension.

But lest I get too far off course, here is the skinny on Ocean 300, straight from their web site:

Ocean 300's target is to change the continent of plastic that is currently floating in the Pacific Ocean.
This mass of floating plastic has been called the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," "The Plastic Ocean" and "The World's Biggest Garbage Dump." Ocean 300 asks, How does it get any better than this?
300 people will board a ship in 2011 and sail into the plastic zone. Using an energy called Molecular Demanifestation, they will invite all of that plastic to change and transform into elements that the ocean can handle and dissipate with ease. This has never been done before and may create an awareness in the world of what else is possible, beyond what many have decided is not.
Ocean 300 will be releasing information, videos and testimonials showing you how to change and transform things using Molecular Demanifestation. What if you could change a glass of wine to be the most delicious, refreshing and nutritious treat for you [sic] body?*

Is this going to be one of those luxury cruise-ship deals, such as those hosted by Esther and Jerry Hicks and their imaginary bud(s) Abraham, or "Scientist" Bob Proctor, or any number of other New-Wage gurus? At this point it's not clear, but my correspondent had a few questions about Ocean 300's planned mission:

...The goal is phrased rather vaguely -- transforming plastic into 'something the ocean can handle.' What does that mean, exactly? Convenient that nobody on the boat would be able to observe whether the transformation had occurred at all. And then, of course, they leave and whether what they did made any difference whatsoever would be determined how?
This is touted as a demonstration of their technique that is going to open the world's eyes to what they can do. So why pick something like this, in 2011? Why not go to Haiti now and transform earthquake rubble into down comforters and stacks of pancakes and save some lives? Now that would be a demonstration. (As if I didn't know why.)
The moving graphic of the ocean is a little odd -- a veiled shark and a little Nemo-like fish going in opposite directions. The accompanying photos of divers looking at stuff looks to me like a fishing net clump, not the problem in the ocean they are going to fix. The bits of plastic are tiny, tiny, things.
No price mentioned. I bet it is going to cost a lot.

And I bet they won't have much trouble finding 300 suckers to cough up whatever it's going to cost. After all, our precious oceans are at stake.

According to one of the Ocean300 legal pages, the enterprise is legally based in New Zealand, where, as it happens, ACCESS has a pretty strong presence. (Australia is similarly fortunate to have a significant ACCESS presence.) Here's the legal lowdown, in case any of you U.S. citizens should foolishly decide you want to sue Ocean300:

This Agreement shall all be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of New Zealand applicable to agreements made and to be performed in New Zealand. You agree that any legal action or proceeding between Ocean300 and you for any purpose concerning this Agreement or the parties' obligations hereunder shall be brought exclusively in a federal or state court of competent jurisdiction sitting in New Zealand . Any cause of action or claim you may have with respect to the Service must be commenced within one (1) year after the claim or cause of action arises or such claim or cause of action is barred. Ocean300's failure to insist upon or enforce strict performance of any provision of this Agreement shall not be construed as a waiver of any provision or right. Neither the course of conduct between the parties nor trade practice shall act to modify any provision of this Agreement. Ocean300 may assign its rights and duties under this Agreement to any party at any time without notice to you.

On Bonnie Coleen's Seeing Beyond radio show site, there is a recent (January 27, 2010) interview with Gary Douglas, but I'd be careful downloading that if I were you. When I tried to do it, it locked my computer up. That might have just been my slow satellite Internet connection, but it still might be better to err on the side of caution. If you do want to give it a whirl, here's the page that lists the show's recent Podcasts. 

My correspondent, who happened to catch the interview, wrote:

Now I don't expect much science knowledge from a Santa Barbara Realtor, and maybe he was having a really bad day or had a bad night's sleep, but he does seem to be having basic troubles with language in the interview. He uses "evaporate" instead of "condense" when describing an accessory's business that removes water from the air. That could just be technical ignorance, falling in the sub-high school range of knowledge. But then he gets the words "past" and future" mixed up twice, then catches himself. It is almost like he just isn't paying any attention to what he is saying. And I think there is a third one where he gets two basic words reversed (increase and diminish, I think it was near the end of the softball "interview"). He also mentions what he charges for his seminars ($10,000) and I haven't heard that before.

Perhaps Gary was inspired by hearing about the cost of James "Death" Ray's infamous Spiritual Warrior retreat. 

All right, maybe juxtaposing ACCESS with The Ray is unfair. As far as I know, ACCESS hasn't killed anyone yet, although arguably it has contributed to the deaths of a few marriages and other close relationships, and possibly a few billion brain cells.

On the other hand, it is apparently allowing people like Dain (they call him the "Body Whisperer") Heer to get laid. He has described himself as being pretty much an unhappy loser before he discovered ACCESS, but just look at him now. Dr. Dain seems to have truly become a sex starlet in the New-Wage industry. And it's not just the young ones like Summer and Rikka who are enchanted; apparently gals of all ages love him and his body workshops.

But now it looks as if Dr. Dain might have some competition in the sex-starlet category. I recently discovered an apparent up-and-Comer, a Dr. Steve, who is delivering three-day ACCESS "Body Workshops." Here's one of his promo vids, complete with candlelight, unwanted background noise, and strategically lowered eyelids. Here's another one, sans the candlelight but still with the strategic eyelids. As I asked on a recent Tweet, would you buy a three-day body workshop from this SNAG?

I'm sure Dr. Dain has nothing to worry about, though. There seems to be an endless supply of cleavage and giggles to go 'round.

Regarding "Dr. Steve's" videos, my correspondent mused, "This new guy, plus Dr. Dain, make me think the great Pacific garbage patch is going to get a treatment with oil, or grease." Not to mention slime... 

If phony sexuality doesn't work for you, there's always just plain weird and creepy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYV0JAKGtvM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUH-Tu4LEuA&NR=1

You gotta love those computer-simulated voices.

Yep, ACCESS just keeps growing, and growing, and growing, much like that big wad of plastic in the ocean. The day may come when the rest of the world discovers it, but I am thinking that ACCESS or one of its "leaders" might have to actually kill someone for the rest of the blogosphere, not to mention the mainstream media, to take notice. For now, I will continue to try to keep you updated here on my little Whirled.

.....................

Can't get enough enlightened sexploitation? Get on your knees NOW, Slave, and click here.

In an oceanic frame of mind? Swim on over here. Or here.

* My correspondent said that in the above-mentioned radio interview, Gary Douglas claimed that by using his "molecular manifestation technique," he can wave his hand over a glass of bad wine and turn it into really good tasting wine. "I guess walking on water is next," mused my friend.

* * * * *

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This is your brain on politix

The piece below was originally part of a longer post I wrote in September 2009, but I decided it didn't really belong in that post, which was already more than long enough. As you probably know, I don't normally "do" politix on this blog, but some things just need saying. I do think it's a shame that disagreement over politics can be so bitterly divisive, but I guess that's part of what makes online life so "interesting."

* * * * *

 

We have to get past this notion of politics-as-Super Bowl, where you root for your team and I root for mine, and all that matters is which team wins, and thus there's no hope (nor even any real reason) for conciliation on either side. If we don't defeat that, it will defeat us.
~ Steve Salerno, writing on SHAMblog about President Obama's State of the Union speech 

A few months ago I read a fascinating book called Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley, Ph.D. (Prometheus Press, 2008). I think the book offers insight into the ruthless and power-hungry among us – politicians, corporate tycoons, and even some selfish-help/New-Wage gurus. (The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout may give more insight into the latter, but I haven't read it yet so I can't say for sure.)

But I promised you politix in my little prelude, so I'm sticking to that for now. In a section on 'feel good' politics (pp. 187-192 of the trade paperback edition of Evil Genes), Dr. Oakley cites a brain imaging study by psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues at Emory University. The study took place at the time of the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, and involved two groups: fifteen committed Democrats and fifteen equally committed Republicans. Participants were hooked up to MRIs to monitor their brain activity. Each group was presented with incidents in which "their" candidate appeared to contradict himself, as well as similar instances in which the opposing candidate appeared to contradict himself, and similar examples regarding a more "neutral" target, such as actor Tom Hanks, who is such a nice guy that most folks, regardless of politics, seem to like him.

Then the participants were asked to give opinions about their candidate, the opposing candidate, and the neutral target, based upon the information they had just been given. All of them, Democrats and Republicans alike, found a way to put a positive spin on "their" candidate, despite the ostensibly damning information, and they also found a way to put a negative spin on the "other" candidate. As Drew Westen explained in the introduction to his own book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,* they clearly saw the opposing candidate's inconsistencies and contradictions, rating him close to an average of "4" on a 4-point rating scale. For their candidate, on the other hand, the ratings averaged closer to a "2."
As for the neutral target, their conclusions were more balanced and seemed to be based upon the information they'd been given. None of that is terribly noteworthy, but what was noteworthy was the difference in brain activity when emotions were at stake. Dr. Oakley writes:

When this "emote control" began to occur, parts of the brain normally involved in reasoning were not activated. Instead, a constellation of activations occurred in the same areas of the brain where punishment, pain, and negative emotions are experienced (that is, in the left insula, lateral frontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Once a way was found to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted, the neural punishment areas turned off, and the participant received a blast of activation in the circuits involving rewards – akin to the high an addict receives when getting his fix. In essence, the participants were not about to let facts get in the way of their hot-button decision making and quick buss of reward. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

On the other hand, when participants had no particular emotional investment in their opinion – as with statements concerning Tom Hanks – a completely different process occurred in the brain. It was a more straightforward, rational process, involving only the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is associated with reasoning as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion. 

Oakley writes that Westen's study was the first to describe the neural processes underlying political judgment and decision making, though the significance of the findings ranges beyond the study of politics. One obvious takeaway lesson is that all of us are far less rational than we often like to believe, as Dr. Oakley writes:

...simply looking at the research results, one must conclude that people's first emotional response about what's wrong, who is to blame, or how to proceed, particularly in relation to complex issues, must always – always – be considered suspect. There is no simple algorithm for teasing rationality from emotion. An ardent Democrat or Republican, a dyed-in-the-wool communist union organizer, a young devotee of Scientology, a Palestinian suicide bomber, or a KKK grand kleagle could each read the above paragraphs and think, I'm not irrational – it's those other idiots who can't see the obvious. But we all have pockets of irrationality, some large, some small, no matter if we are mathematicians who make our living doing proofs, wealthy philanthropists, or stay-at-home housewives.

This research definitely raises the question of how the brain scans might differ between, say, livid Obama critics who originally protested his September 2009 speech to school kids but admitted that they changed their minds after reading or hearing the speech, and livid Obama critics who read or heard the speech but continued to grumble that it was "indoctrination," that the original speech had been "cleaned up," and that Obama has sinister hidden agendas for the US. Or, for that matter, the respective differences in the brains of those who thought his January 27 State of the Union speech was either (1) masterful and even brave, because he dared to criticize the Supreme Court; or (2) the same old crap from a "socialist" President who had the unmitigated gall to publicly criticize the Supreme Court; or (3) a pretty good speech overall but still not necessarily a harbinger of real change in this country. (I'm in category number (3), by the way; I thought it was a good speech and an eloquent plea for bipartisanship, but I rather suspect that we're in for another round of the same old politix. Call me jaded, but that's pretty much my default mode, though I would love to be proven wrong.**)

And Westen's research certainly sheds some light on why many folks are crowing triumphantly about Scott Brown's recent victory in Massachusetts, claiming that "the people have spoken" in that state about what they think of Obama's health care plan; and why many other folks are more easily able to see that Massachusetts already had a cushy state health care system in place, for which Brown himself voted. (For the record, I think the national health care plan(s) currently before us stink, being unthinkably costly and offering the worst of everything for everyone but the insurance companies. Something has to be done, but this ain't it.)

Let's face it: We all have an endless capacity for rationalization, especially when it comes to our politics or other belief systems. We all rationalize. I do it. You do it. The proud, patriotic, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-health-care-plan folks who love to bash "the libtards" do it. Progressives do it. Conservatives do it. Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Green Party folks do it. For that matter, skeptics and believers do it. (Birds and bees and even educated fleas probably do it too, at least to the extent that their cognitive hardware will allow, but we just don't understand their respective languages yet enough to really tell.)

Sometimes, agreeing to disagree is the best option, and it really can be done without childish name-calling or contemptuous dismissal of the other person.

Not that this is going to keep me from my own childish snarking about the stuff in the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry that I find snarkworthy, mind you, but I just thought I'd put in my two-cents' worth about politix.

* Regarding Drew Westen's book, some have criticized him for going beyond reporting on the data, and suggesting that politicians can use his research to their advantage, or, as one reviewer on Amazon put it, "actually encouraging political candidates to explicitly rely on fallacious red herring tactics in political debate."

**As for that controversial Supreme Court decision striking down part of a campaign financing reform law that no lesser a Republican than Senator John McCain co-sponsored, perhaps we need to, as a widely quoted AlterNet blogger put it, "rid ourselves of "the perverse notion of corporate personhood."

On January 28, syndicated newspaper columnist Clarence Page published a good piece on corporate personhood as it relates to human rights historically and currently. He notes:

If the populist Tea Party movement is truly worthy of its touted “populist” crusade against Wall Street and other powerful interests, it could find common ground with President Obama's call to curb runaway political spending — unless the Tea Party believers think corporations are people, too.

Good point, Mr. Page, but I think it's going to go over a lot of folks' heads.

* * * * *

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D/s, I love you

Warning: Today's topic is very adult in nature, so if you are easily offended by such things, I suggest that you skip this one.
I have always believed that what two or more consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom, kitchen, back yard swimming pool, or dungeon is their own business and no one else's, even if some of their activities would make Dana Carvey's Church Lady purse her lips and say, "Well, isn't that SPECIAL?" But what if they blog about their sexual activities nonstop or otherwise make their private lives very public? The Church Lady might not approve but it's still NBD, in my book, because there's a lot of that going around, and this isn't a sex blog, most of the time.* But what if someone uses his kinky sex play as part of a New-Wage/selfish-help shtick? What if he claims that his quirky activities are not just a fun way to get off, but also a means of learning and teaching powerful life lessons?
Well, that's when he walks right into my Whirled.

I can hear the wheels turning in some of your heads now. Capitalize on one's kinky love play by convincing others that it is deeply relevant to their own business and personal lives? "Genius!" I can hear some of you saying. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Well, Steve Pavlina, owner of the Personal Development for Smart People blog, author of a book by the same name, and "active member" of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC),** did think of it. As you may recall, Steve was featured briefly on my Whirled last July when he was going on and on about being in Bermuda for the Top Seekrit TLC summit. (My pal Duff McDuffee also blogged about Steve (and a few other New-Wage gurus) in September. Do read Duff's post, if you haven't already.) As it happens, another TLC meeting began Wednesday, January 20, in Puerto Rico, and will culminate this Sunday, January 24, which is Cosmic Connie Day, aka My Birthday. Steve Pavlina is in Puerto Rico with this gang of New-Wage elites, and once again has been Tweeting about it, as he did last July. He wrote of hugging a dozen TLC-ers upon his arrival in humid PR, and apparently a lot of them have been visiting his hotel room as well, as evidenced by this Tweet:

Going to visit a rainforest tomorrow for the first time ever. Lots of different insects have been visiting my hotel room to say hi.

But what does that have to do with kinky sex? Not much, probably, but you know how I get sidetracked sometimes. Anyway, in a PS that I later added to my July 2009 post, I mentioned Steve's foray into the wild world of "polyamory," which is a sophisticated social-anthropological sounding way of referring to an arrangement whereby one or both partners in a marriage or other close committed relationship get to boink whomever they want, and everyone is cool with it.

Steve first announced his polyamorous intentions at the end of 2008, saying that was what he was going to focus on in his personal life in 2009. One got the distinct sense that his wife, Erin, was not nearly so enthusiastic about the new arrangement. Around the time that he decided to explore polyamory, Steve apparently also became involved with promoting the "Man Transformation" products by David DeAngelo, aka Eben Pagan, which teach men to transform themselves so they can get attractive women. Announcement of the Pavlinas' separation and impending divorce came towards the end of 2009.

And then Steve was off to the races, bound (oops, poor choice of words, as you'll see in a moment) and determined to become a real player in the field of enlightened promiscuity...I mean, "intimacy abundance." He got a fashion makeover and new hair color and 'do that would have driven those wild and crazy guys, Georg and Yortuk Festrunk, mad with envy, and must surely have attracted many big-breasted foxes to his lair. Life was just getting better and better for him.

It got even better when, after what must have been weeks of intense self-exploration and mulling over how best to take advantage of being a single guy again, he discovered the world of dominance and submission, aka Dom/sub, aka D/s. He first wrote about this at length on his January 2, 2010 post (scroll down to 'Alternative Relationship Styles'). He further explored the topic on January 4 and then again on January 7. "I really love my life!" he enthused on his January 4 post.

In case you haven't guessed it, Steve is a Dom, and is currently exploring a relationship with a "consensual sex slave." Although so far he has shielded her identity, it seems he's fairly bursting at the seams to tell more. Recently he tweeted:

I can't share a status update because nothing happening in my life right now is PG-rated, but she sure is yummy!

In his blog posts, he goes into a great deal of rationalization about the dynamics of the Dom/sub relationship. "It should be abundantly clear," he writes in his January 4 post, "that D/s can be a tremendous growth accelerator, assuming you approach it with such an intention."

So, obviously, this is about much more than just getting off with yummy sex slaves. It's also about personal growth and business development, as Master Steve 'splains in even more detail on his January 7 post, which you really must read. At one point he expounds upon why a partnership of non-equals can work as well or better than a partnership of equals. He posits two different scenarios, in which a business owner either has a free slave to do the owner's bidding, or a free manager who tells the owner exactly what to do. He concludes:

...So would you agree that all else being equal, you’d be more likely to succeed as an entrepreneur if you could start your business with either a free slave or a free manager, assuming they’re competent? And if you can see in advance that you’re likely to succeed, wouldn’t you be more willing to dive in and try it? Wouldn’t you also be willing to stretch and take more risks in your business?
Now consider this. Would these businesses also be good experiences for the slave and the manager? Could you fathom that they might also benefit tremendously from it? For example, what if the slave is, in real life, someone just starting out on their career path, and even though they work for free, they gain tremendously valuable experience. This “slave” is essentially an intern. Similarly, the manager could be thought of as a mentor or board member.
Many variations are also possible, whereby the slave and manager could easily share in the rewards of the business.
Hopefully you get the idea. The point is that a partnership with an unequal power structure can have some serious advantages, and it could very well turn out much better than a partnership with two equal partners who share responsibility for all decisions and actions in a more balanced way.
Well, this is essentially how a D/s relationship works behind the scenes, except that instead of trying to build a business, the partners come together to help each other grow as human beings.
Although it looks asymmetrical on the surface, D/s actually has a very balanced way of fostering new growth experiences for both partners. One simple reason this happens is that it reduces the risk of failure. It also creates a dynamic whereby if a failure experience does happen, it’s no big deal.

So there, you naysayers. And before you go all snarky or judgmental about this whole Dom/sub game, Master Steve admonishes you:

Perhaps an even more important point is to be careful not to dismiss a potential new growth experience out of hand. Be cautious about judging what you’ve never experienced or what you’ve experienced only in a limited way. If you’ve never experienced a particular dynamic firsthand, it’s safe to say you don’t have a clue what it’s really like. If you cast judgment from the outside looking in, all you’re doing is limiting yourself. I think it’s better to keep an open mind about that which you’ve never tried. Don’t buy into the social conditioning that encourages you to pre-condemn with prejudice. Our society cannot progress much until we drop such limiting thoughts.

And just for good measure, he repeats the lesson on his Twitter page:

Educate yourself first before forming an opinion on something with which you have little or no experience.

Anticipating critics, he notes on his January 2 ("2010 Focus") post:

I’m looking to see how much maturity my readers can summon in terms of watching me explore this path without going kittywompus, especially since other people are involved. In the past I’ve been largely disappointed, but perhaps the New Year will bring a new level of genuine acceptance and curiosity...
... Commence with the criticism now if you must, but just remember that ultimately it’s all about you anyway… and a harsh reaction could be a sign of a repressed desire to be dominated. Or perhaps you just need to be introduced to a particularly skilled sadist to soften you up a bit. ;-)

I noticed that the "Related Articles" at the end of his January 7 post begins with these two items:

Domination and Submission

Million Dollar Experiment – Submissions Rolling In (Shouldn't that be "submissives rolling in?")

Comments are turned off for the D/m posts, but you can discuss it all on the Steve Pavlina forum. Here's the link to one thread.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think Steve's pla
n to mix his kinky sex life with his personal-growth shtick really is sheer genius.*** For one thing, he could very well be on the verge of tapping into a grievously under-served market: the conspicuously enlightened porn consumer. A few years ago I suggested the possibility of New-Wage porn movies (it was really just a passing mention on this post; look for the paragraph on "Spiritual Sinema"), but Steve Pavlina has actually had the courage to go forth with a New-Wage porn lifestyle.

More importantly, I believe he is providing an excellent working model for the ideal relationship between a selfish-help/McSpirituality/New-Wage guru and his/her devoted followers. I think the Transformational Leadership Council should be very proud. At their Puerto Rico summit Steve is scheduled to speak about building traffic. And he should know about that; after all, as he told his friend Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale when they were hanging together at the TLC party last year in Bermuda, his blog gets two million visitors a month.
Maybe if more of the Transformational gurus take a page from Steve's book, they can divert some of that easy money from the multi-billion dollar porn industry into their own coffers. The new FTC regs and other factors may have rained on the parades of some of the gurus, and Sweatgate may have also put a damper on the festivities, but all is not lost. There's still that prurient-interest angle!

By the way, Steve's most recent blog post, as of today, offers another lesson that many selfish-help gurus or wannabes surely need: How to Build a Stronger Ego. Once again he mentions that he is at the TLC meeting in Puerto Rico, and notes that several of the TLC-ers...

...gushed over how much they liked my new hair. By making a small change to my avatar, it created a fun shift in the way people relate to me, even people who already know me. But prior to making this change, I was one of those guys who could criticize others for fussing over their appearance. It took me a while to realize that I was giving my power away to others so as to avoid taking full ownership of my own avatar’s appearance.

As the Church Lady might say, "We like ourselves, don't we?"
So let's hear it for Master Steve and his courageous decision not only to spiff up his avatar by getting new hair, but, more importantly, to plunge headlong into the world of D/s.*** And all of you harsh critics out there, before you go all kittywompus or something, just remember that the Master has your number. It's painfully obvious that you are harboring a deep desire to be dominated. Get on your knees now and thank him for being brave enough to show you the light. And be sure to gush over his new hair while you're at it.

PS ~ On a related note, here's a little blast from the past: a page from my old work, Cosmic Relief, showing that once again I was ahead of my time. The "ad" was a take-off on a business book that was a bestseller back in the 1990s, The Discipline of Market Leaders, by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema (the Amazon page is for the expanded edition published in 1997). Click on the pic for an enlargement. (And I must apologize for the relative crudity of the comp above, but I'm sort of busy today and didn't have time to lovingly labor over every pixel, as I have done at times in the past. But hey, it's the thought that counts. And I don't know about you, but I'm kind of feeling inspired to break out into a verse of 'Rose Tint My World.')
PPS ~ For even more enlightened sexploitation, check out ACCESS Consciousness. (The link is to one of my most recent posts about ACCESS, but the post contains links to my earlier articles on the topic as well.)

Update, February 2010: Oh, dear. Nothing pokes holes in a cozy little master-slave relationship like Cupid's invasive arrows. Yes, Steve Pavlina and his sex slave have officially fallen in love with each other, and are apparently no longer so much into the D/s thing. In his February 12 blog post Pervlina reveals his former slave's identity and shares with us that she is a major Trekkie who beats the hell out of him...at Star Trek Trivia, that is. No word on whether they utter Klingon endearments to each other in moments of passion (thank Goddess for small favors). Anyway, so much for that New-Wage porn lifestyle.

* As I said above, this is not a sex blog most of the time, but believe me, that is not from lack of material. I've learned more than I care to know about the private lives of some of the New-Wage luminaries I write about. Let's just say they're a randy bunch and don't mind "sharing the love," whether they're in an allegedly monogamous relationship or not. At least Steve Pavlina, for better or worse, is more honest and open about his shenanigans than most of that crew.
** Incidentally, when I checked the Transformational Leadership Council site a little while ago, I noticed that Steve Pavlina is still not listed as a member in good standing, but then, neither are others who say they are TLC members. At least I haven't seen their names there on the times I visited. Perhaps TLC just doesn't have the resources to keep their web site updated. On the other hand, James Arthur Ray's name was on the TLC membership roster at one time – he was listed as a founding member – but apparently his name was removed some time ago. (He was listed at the time I wrote about the TLC back in July, but that, of course, was before Sweatgate.)
*** I feel compelled to add a huge sarcasm alert here, just in case there was any doubt.

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