The following is an excerpt from my Dec. 2007 book, 'Beyond "The Secret,"' in which I profiled James Arthur Ray.
In light of the recent tragic deaths of three participants of his $9,000-a-head "Spiritual Warrior" retreat, I couldn't help wondering whether his involvement with the lower astral entities that are entailed by his immersion in "magick" might not have been behind the these human sacrifices, even if unwittingly by Ray?
Having spent a lot of time in countries where Black Magick is in heavy use, all I can say is that its energy casts a pall of bad mojo over the whole place. I advise anyone who thinks they know what they're doing with that stuff to get that they most certainly do not.
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8.
THE MAGICK OF "THE SECRET"
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President and CEO of Carlsbad,
California-based James Ray International, he spends over 200 days a year at
public appearances and seminars, teaching his trademarked Journey of Power®
experience, which is “a fusion of wealth-building principles, success
strategies, and the teachings of all great spiritual traditions, mystery
schools, and esoteric studies that he has experienced and assimilated over the
last twenty-five years.”1
The Journey of Power® program
essentially shows participants how to bridge the gap between real-world success
and spiritual fulfillment. ....
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His prior experience included five
years as a sales manager with AT&T and four years as a “personal and
business growth expert” at AT&T’s National Education Center and the
AT&T School of Business. In 1991, he started working with bestselling
author (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) Steven Covey’s Covey Leadership
Center, teaching business leaders in Fortune 500 companies.....
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In 1992, Ray formed Quantum Consulting
Group, attracting large corporate clients such as Boeing Aircraft, Tropicana,
and AT&T, later forming his current company James Ray International.....
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Ray has been extremely successful at
marketing his company’s seminars. In addition to the Journey of Power®, he has
also trademarked Harmonic Wealth®, described as “what can be achieved when five
key areas of life are in harmony with one another: financial, relational,
intellectual, physical, and spiritual,” and Entrepreneurial Mindset® (Ray often
refers to himself as the "The Master of The Entrepreneurial
Mindset®.")....
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According to the website of speakers’
bureau Keynote Speakers, Inc., Ray charges $25-40,000 to give a lecture,
offering as speech titles “Harmonic Wealth” and “Turn Your Company Into a Raging,
Profit Producing Machine.”2
Of course it’s likely that his fees are now significantly higher, in the wake
of The Secret’s
success.....
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He is the author of several books
including The Science of Success: How to Attract Prosperity and Create Harmonic Wealth Through
Proven Principles and Practical Spirituality: How to Use Spiritual Power to Create Tangible Results and a DVD, Quantum Creations:
Create Wealth in All Areas of Your Life.......
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As just a taste of Ray’s teachings, consider a topic he frequently
lectures on ....
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Seven Secrets of
Top Performers....
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1) High achievers know
exactly what they want.....
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2) Top performers
visualize themselves in possession of their desired results.....
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3) Highly successful
people have an unbending belief in themselves and their abilities.....
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4) Achievers take
action "as if" they were already in possession of the goal they
desire.....
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5) Winners take full
responsibility for their own destiny.....
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6) Top performers
build high-leveraged partnerships.....
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7) Great achievers are
great givers.....
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Ray’s website offers several free
resources and many courses, books, CDs and DVDs for sale. Indeed, as with all
of the teachers in this chapter, the product Ray sells is the dream of
commercial success, which has many of the critics of The Secret (who are multiplying in direct
proportion to the increasing success of the book and film) furious about the
overt materialism of Byrne and her teachers.....
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Mr. Magick....
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Ray’s chief distinction among his peers
in The Secret is
his very public embrace of mysticism and the occult. More on his views can be
seen on his IBIS3 website,
where you can learn about his courses on Modern Magick and his IBIS spiritual
movement that draws on transpersonal, esoteric and shamanic traditions, both
modern and ancient, that are meant to deepen the participants’ personal
relationships with their “Creative Source.” ....
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In medieval times, of course, such
activities would have unleashed ingeniously elaborate desecrations of each
participant’s anatomical parts. Luckily for Ray and the rest of us that those
dark days are over! ....
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Ray’s detractors are not the usual
polite handwringers we’ve seen; those with genuine concern for the innocent
souls being misled by The Secret.
Ray’s nemeses are Christian rabble-rousers with an angry streak and a
particular obsession with a so-called “Rosicrucian”/“Masonic” conspiracy which
looms in the shadows, quietly slinking around in our TV sets, movie theaters
and magazine racks, from the pierced belly rings of nubile popstars to the
self-help messages of such films as The Secret. The ultimate aim of the nefarious
“Rosicrucian” plot is to destroy all Christian decency before taking over the
world with a global, godless, sexually profligate, fascist dictatorship, à la George Orwell’s 1984.....
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Therefore, it was hardly surprising to
find the following posts on the über-conservative chatboard, “Free Republic,” soon after The
Secret appeared on Oprah:....
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New Spiritual Method Called 'The Secret' Promoted On TV Has A Hidden
Occult Link....
Posted on
02/19/2007 12:42:01 PM PST by Coleus....
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We have to issue an
occult watch -- perhaps “warning” is more like it -- for a new self-help trend
that apparently is sweeping or beginning to sweep segments of
America. The “method” is now on DVD as a movie called The Secret, and has been
featured, among other places, on Oprah and Larry King Live….....
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Due to the power of
the Winfrey show, and previous complaints of flirtation with the New Age, we
recommend that Christians stay away from this “method” and even the movie…4....
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To: Coleus....
The Secret: …The Secret teachers are not
followers of Jesus Christ and have rejected the God of the Bible, and
the
truth of God's word, and have rejected faith in His Son, Jesus. They have
fashioned a system of personal power, based on human power. This philosophy and
method is just the doorway/lowest level
of the world of deep occultic mystery
religion, which is the belief that either lucifer is god, or "we are
god"…This is satan's religion; it is very popular…Those who pervert true
Biblical faith make it about what we want, when true
Biblical faith is about
what God wants, and our faith and trust in Him, and obeying Him because of our
love for Him, and because He is God… God has openly revealed all truth that we need, and He has not kept it a secret.
Secret philosophies that come from the world of occult and sorcery have
been
keeping these philosophies secret for a long time, but now they are
beginning to introduce
them to the general public, because the whole world is
being prepared
for Antichrist. ....
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50
posted on 02/19/2007 7:53:59 PM PST by Gal.5:1
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(stand firm, speak truth in love)5
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IBIS & Modern Magick™....
According to Ray, he Institute of Balanced and Integrated
Spirituality is the result of
more that two decades that he devoted to the immersive study of the world’s
great esoteric disciplines, from the shamans of the Andes and the Amazon, to
the mystery schools of Egypt, to the teachers in far-flung spots in the South
Pacific. There were many times when he was extremely uncomfortable and his life
was at risk but he claims that it was all worth it. Having synthesized what he
learned, he now offers the life-changing insights he gleaned from these extreme
experiences in his Modern Magick
workshops, given once a year, in Kona Hawaii for $5,695 per person.....
Now I'm going to let you in on a
little secret. These real life teachers, gurus and shaman are not the meek,
mild, mousy people you might think. They have thunderous personalities and were
some of the wildest, most interesting characters I've ever met.....
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The belief that to be spiritual we
must be meek and mild and talk in a harmonious whisper is a bunch of baloney…....
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Individuals of true power
typically have more of the things that misguided thinkers believe cause
internal conflict (money, sex, food, power), and yet, for some strange
reason.......
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...they're not
troubled...and
they suffer no internal
conflicts.....
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This is why they're really fun to
be around. They have so much in their life, they're joyous about it, and when
in their presence...things light up!6....
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Ray’s Theory about “Ascenders”
and “Descenders”....
Ray’s theory
about “Ascenders” and “Descenders” would surely make the Freeper chatboard
posters’ heads spin!....
[The] ascenders want to get the
hell out of here, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the
"descenders…" The descending mentality believes that everything to do
with Earth is spiritual and sacred, and anything that denies these things is
"sin."....
...The descending approach has most often been pegged by
the ascenders as "pagan," which really translates to mean
"anything that doesn't agree with us."....
Check around, and you'll notice increasing numbers of
Shamanic teachings, Native American and indigenous events, Wicca workshops and
many others. These traditions embrace and celebrate the physical journey and
the joys of Earth.7 ....
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