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This cult's beliefs were centered around self-help. The main idea was later centered around 5 self-help pillars, including financial, relational, spiritual, mental, and physical. The primary purpose of joining his group was to upgrade your current self and live the best life possible.

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Ray was born in Hawaii and later moved to Oklahoma. He dropped out of college and worked as a salesman at AT&T. At work, he would often help people and motivate his coworkers with the teachings of the author Stephen Covey, who wrote "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." He then left his job and began giving motivational seminars on his own. His first company was created in Las Vegas in the early 2000s. He ended up making it on the Oprah show, which was the most popular show at the time, and people seemed to like him. After this, he went on Larry King's show and so on. Eventually, he held a retreat in Sedona, Arizona, where three people died due to the insane heat they were put in while in the sweat lodge in Arizona.

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Often a lot of his followers were female and around their 30s and 40s. Most of the time, the courses and seminars that he held were pretty expensive, so members were most likely around the middle to upper middle class and they were mostly while folks.

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Strategies for Resisting the Routinization of Charisma

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Strategies for Resisting the Routinization of Charisma

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James would often use the first strategy when creating his seminars and or courses for people. They would usually not introduce new ways of thinking, but rather a deeper level of thinking about his previously developed workshops and topics. He also employed the second strategy, focusing on loyalty and reaffirmation. He created the Sedona retreat for people to attend with him and begin their spiritual awakening, and it would cost a significant amount to participate in these events. Ray often discussed enlightened people versus non-enlightened people, almost a "us vs. them" idea, which is linked to the third point about having enemies. The fourth point is about dominance and focal point, which makes sense because all the seminars were simply him and his teachings. There is not much when it comes to the fifth point, but the sixth point is right up his alley, where he switched locations and had a retreat in Arizona.

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When it came to a big sense of self-importance, I feel that Ray could hear. He would often lie about his life and achievements. At one point he said he studied a special breathing pattern under some of the most prominent leaders of breathing, which was later found out to be not true. The second personality aligns with him because he believes that one can achieve a perfect life if all six pillars are full and leads to a harmonious life. He told his followers that they could live lives as big as they wanted if they followed his teachings. He did not fit with the 3rd point, but the fourth point was spot on because it's about high amounts of admiration, and James did like that. Often at his seminars, he would have the members chant his name and praise him for his work. The fifth point does not align with him, but the sixth does because he exploited his followers, primarily through money. The retreat he hosted, which aligns with the seventh point, cost more than $9,000 per person. The seventh point is about a lack of empathy. When asked about the deaths at the retreat, James never took any responsibility, and the families were left furious about it. Points eight and nine do not align with James.

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In 2009, James held a retreat called the Spiritual Warrior. It was a five-day retreat held in October. The retreat cost over 9,000 dollars to attend. This retreat included a day and a half of fasting and a role-playing game, where James played God. There was a sweat lodge in the retreat where they held meetings and could push people to their supposed breaking point where they could really make improvements. The sweat lodge was the finale of the group as we know it. A group entered, and they would try to stay in the sweat lodge as long as they could. James would try to negotiate with the members who were leaving the meeting to stay and try to fight the battle in their minds. Eventually, everyone came out of the lodge except for 3 people. They died of heat exhaustion and organ failure inside the lodge. James was arrested after this and sentenced to 3 counts of manslaughter and sued for over 3 million dollars.

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Arizona Sweat Lodge: The Inside Story of James Ray’s Fatal Retreat

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For about 60 high-achieving professionals, gathered from around the country in Sedona, AZ, last fall, it was to be a 5-day retreat, called the “Spiritual Warrior,” the culmination of their guru’s teachings, to be capped by an intense sweat lodge “re-birthing” on the final day. Instead, for three of them, their spiritual journey went horribly wrong, ending in their deaths, after the ceremonial sauna became too hot to bear. One man was badly burned and dozens of others were hospitalized that day last October. Guru James Arthur Ray, then one of the biggest names in the $11 billion industry of self-help, is now awaiting trial in Arizona on three counts of manslaughter. His was a spectacular rise and fall.

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Since this group was mostly seminar-based, leaving the group was not too difficult because you could not go to another seminar. But if you were at the retreat and you maybe wanted to leave or possibly you tried to leave the sweat lodge and James tried to get you back in, you might have thought about how much money you spent on the retreat and that maybe he is right because supposedly he is all knowing and more. The fact that it was so expensive to go to this retreat made it harder for the people in the sweat lodge to leave the activity.