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-- The Associated Press
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But his technique is not just motivational speaking. It's a combination of new age spiritualism, American Indian ritual, astrology and numerology. The sweat lodge experience was intended to be an almost religious awakening for the participants.
Ray uses free seminars to recruit people to his expensive seminars, starting with $4,000 three-day 'Quantum Leap' workshops and moving on to the weeklong $5,300 'Practical Mysticism' events and the $9,000-plus 'Spiritual Warrior' retreats like the one that led to the sweat lodge tragedy.
About 50 people attended the retreat near Sedona, the center of the new-age movement where practitioners draw energy from the surrounding Red Rocks and various vortexes to heal others.
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Whether Ray manages to maintain his success in the wake of the deaths depends in part on his supporters, and how long the tragedy dogs him as he goes from city to city recruiting paying customers for his wealth creation/spiritual harmony philosophy.
Critics point to the Sedona events as yet more evidence that Ray is a huckster, who, like other motivational speakers, present their philosophies as a magic bullet to all of life's problems.
'It's honing in on peoples' needs, their hopes and desires, telling them what they want to hear,' said Rick Ross, founder of a virtual library of information on controversial groups and movements. 'That's how any good con man makes his mark.'"
-- Felicia Fonseca and Bob Christie, never actually explaining how "practitioners draw energy from the surrounding Red Rocks" or whether those "various vortexes to heal others" are real - never mind: Oprah doesn't either (nor is she ever pressed to) - though they're getting a pretty clear picture of the NewAge huckster business, for The Associated Press.
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How much money do you think this one woman, Oprah Winfrey, was driven into the hands of con men and criminals? The Secret alone has to be in the billions. How much trust, goodwill, and gold, has she almost single-handedly directed into the clutches of bald-faced liars? How many lives has Oprah helped destroy - and in how many ways? She helped talk the country into backing Obama, need I say more?
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We need another Glenn Beck (or, at least, someone else who can see where the action is and - damn the laughter from the self-appointed smart set - dig into this shit) because it's pretty obvious Glenn "Mr. New Media" Reynolds ain't gonna be of much help.
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