After reading a comment at the Salty Droid, I did some research about the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (the RICO Act) which could tack on additional years to any James Ray criminal sentence, should he be found guilty of criminal acts. RICO may also give additional merit to the pending Class Action Law Suit being prepared in Arizona.
I am not an attorney. I’m just a reformed seminar junkie and insider who feels these Seminar Schmucks have done enough damage. After looking into this, RICO may make it possible to expand the Class Action Lawsuit to include the entire Seminar & Coaching Industry for harm and damages caused to their customers .
Fraud seems to be the most likely offense Ray & JRI committed under RICO. A Fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. In particular charlatanism. A charlatan (also called swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, fame or other advantages via some form of pretense or deception). As I drilled down I discovered that our friend James Arthur Ray seems (IMO) to have built his business based on quackery.
Specifically, a charlatan is usually a salesperson. He does not try to create a personal relationship with his marks, or set up an elaborate hoax using role playing. Rather, the person called a charlatan is being accused of resorting to quackery, pseudoscience, or some knowingly employed bogus means of impressing people in order to swindle his victims by selling them worthless nostrums and similar goods or services that will not deliver on the promises made for them…. Do Seminars count?
A “quack” is a “fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill” or “a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or qualifications he or she does not possess; “a charlatan.”
Let’s see if this all fits together:
- James Arthur Ray sells a seminar called “Spiritual Warrior” for approximately $9,000 promising lots of “benefits” but does not tell customers exactly what they are buying. Ray claims this seminar is the only place to get these experiences and benefits. About 50 people buy this seminar. This may be considered “Intentional Deception“.
- James Arthur Ray meets his customers in Sedona and has them do the “vision quest“, “fast for 36 hours“, play the “God Death Ray Game” & the “sweat lodge experience” where 2 die on site, another dies 9 days later and 19 others taken to the hospital. Apparently Ray has no Native American Shamanistic Training and only pretended to be qualified. This may be considered quackery. Ray’s was ignorant about “pouring a sweat lodge”. IMO this was Ray and the Fredrickson’s “deliberately deceiving” JRI’s customers for their own personal gain.
- James Arthur Ray’s refusal to speak with authorities seems to me to be the actions of someone with something to hide.
- JRI & James Arthur Ray’s “business as usual” after killing 2 people further supports a possible claim that Ray is a Charlatan who’s only concern is getting in front of the next group of people to be swindled.
As far as intentional wrong doing: Ray hurt people in earlier “sweat lodge” experiences. Ray & JRI appear to have conspired to cover up the death of Colleen Conaway. Ray had no medical professionals on staff and did not train his staff in CPR….
I’ve seen critical comments about Melinda Martin and her interview on ABC.
On the cusp of possible criminal charges against James Arthur Ray, a former employee who was on site at the Seminar in Sedona is “blowing the whistle” about what she saw.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the Seminar Industry Needs Regulation, Licensing & Accountability.
I met Helice Bridges in the early 90′s at T Harv Eker’s first Street Smart Business School (my first weekend seminar). During the weekend, Helice gave me my first of many “blue ribbons” in a quick but life changing “who you are makes a difference” ceremony. I’ve crossed paths with Helice many times over the past 15 years and she is always walking her talk, demonstrating and practicing what she preaches. All the time.
One of the ways he made his millions was authoring programs like The $cience of $uccess. From his website, The $cience of $uccess is billed as: (copy and pasted straight from the website)
It wasn’t until after I quit the seminar industry in 2007 that I realized how much stress I put myself through. I was numb and felt dead. I was a good student and always worked and tried harder, but the harder I tried the worse I got. After decompressing in early 2008, I realized how far astray I was from my true feelings, beliefs and core values. I made big mistakes in judgment in my business, financial and my personal life.