How dangerous is it to follow a sage? Or a self-help guru? And did James Arthur Ray actually help his followers find inner power, right before he steamed them to death?
How far would you be willing to go to achieve inner strength? To unlock your true, actualized self? Would you try meditation for thirty minutes once a week? Once a day? Would you pay to attend a self-help seminar? A yoga retreat? A weekend meditation event? What if I told you the manslaughter case involving James Arthur Ray started off as commonplace and benign as all that? What if I told you, given the right circumstances, we’d be meditating right alongside the men and women who died in the ‘Sweat Lodge Murders’?
On today’s episode we’ll also explore the ‘Bitter Pill Effect’ and a few other psychological studies and articles that reveal that, as humans, we might not be as flawed as we seem for following these Gurus, Sages, and Pied Pipers of Instagram. And when you’ve dominated the basic needs of life - food, water, shelter, love, your next step should naturally be to seek out a leader. Kind of like James Arthur Ray. Just, maybe, not someone so dagnasty sinister...
History Links: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/03/14/ray.sweat.lodge.witnesses/index.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43501833
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arthur_Ray#:~:text=Participants%20of%20a%20James%20Ray,and%20lean%20against%20the%20tip.
https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/us/sweat-lodge-james-arthur-ray-victims/index.html
Science Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/01/why-smart-people-are-more-likely-to-believe-fake-news
https://www.ej4.com/blog/is-emotional-intelligence-eq-real
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/a-bitter-placebo-to-swallow-08-11-10/
