James Arthur Ray gets just 2 years, but he should have faced far more serious charges

Shyam 

This video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvMyoFLdQQ0 shows American television coverage of the trial of James Arthur Ray, and it also includes an interesting analysis of cultism by a psychologist.

It has now been announced that Mr. Ray has been sentenced to a total of just 2 years in prison for the 'negligent homicide' of three of his followers in Arizona. He has also been ordered to pay $57 000 to each of the families of his victims. In theory, Mr. Ray could have been sentenced to 27 years (i.e. 9 years for each count of negligent homicide). However, despite his tearful assurances to the judge that he has learnt his lesson, Mr. Ray has stated his arrogant intention to file an appeal. For years, he has exhibited the diagnostic criteria of severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personality Disorder; the tragic events of October 2009, had come very close to happening on previous occasions, but Mr. Ray had sought to prevent this damning evidence from being introduced into his recent trial.

Tellingly, Mr. Ray, who once declared his intention of becoming the world's first self-betterment billionaire, initially ran away from the scene of his crime in 2009.

Undoubtedly, Mr. Ray  remains a highly-dangerous charlatan/guru associated with'Amway' and 'Herbalife' and reputedly initiated into 'Scientology.'  Significant quantitiesof marijuana, vitamins, food-supplements and pseudo-medical products (some claimingto slow-down the process of human ageing), are reported to have been recovered during the investigation of 2009.  It seems that Mr. Ray was peddling all manner of over-priced wampum to his followers, and that they were being induced to recruit 'Spiritual Warriors' on the pretext that consumption and recruitment of more consumer/recruiters, ad infinitum, was a 'secret positive plan' which, if followed without question, could enable all 'Spiritual Warriors' to achieve their dreams and goals. Thus, Mr.  Ray was running his very own, pint-sized  'MLM'  racket in which victims were subjected to co-ordinated devious techniques of social, psychological and physical persuasion, designed to shut down their critical and evaluative faculties and render them incapable of distinguishing between what was, and what was not, in their own interests. The deaths and serious injuries which were inflicted on 21 of Mr. Ray's deluded followers in what was, in fact, a giant steam-oven for pushing persons to the limit of their physical endurance (and beyond) after having been previously deceived into a vulnerable psychological state where they had become unable to save themselves from what would obviously be a life-threatening situation, forms part of wider-pattern of racketeering activity as defined by the US federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, 1970.  Furthermore, since Mr. Ray is neither a qualified scientist nor a licensed medical practitioner, by posing as a form of scientist and trustworthy self-betterment mentor and by performing such an obviously-dangerous series of experiments on human beings (without their fully-informed consent and with the sole purpose of making money by means of a fraud), he was clearly in breach of the Nuremberg Code which, since 1947, has governed all physical and psychological experimentation on humans, in the USA.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_code

Under the Nuremberg Code, the voluntary consent of a human experimental subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him/her to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject , there should be made known to him/her the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his/her  health or person which may possibly come from his/her participation in the experiment. The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity.

 

The ten points of the Nuremberg Code are:

 

1. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
2. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.
3. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
4. No experiment should be conducted where there is a prior reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
5. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
6. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.
7. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
8. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty
9. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.

 

 

David Brear (copyright 2011)

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