Seventh Day Grace, like any other cult, has some really questionable offerings. And the lure? Grace. Lots and lots of grace.A HARMONIC WEALTH OF GRACE
Mr. James Arthur Ray "is a well-known author and TV personality. James Ray is a New York Times best selling author who has
made appearances on Oprah and Larry King Live." (Family of woman killed at Sedona sweat lodge speaks out, ABC 15.com, 13 Oct 2009)He's on a mission to help people "create harmonic wealth in all areas of your life". And the way?
Glad you asked. You just need to spend money on DVDs or a Harmonic Health Weekend.
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Or even better, a Spiritual Warrior seminar.
SERIOUS MONEY - FOR THE SPIRIT
In October of 2009, Mr. Ray had rented the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Sedona, Arizona, for this special event. Which was not free: "The "Spiritual Warrior" event is arguably the most physical of Ray's events, and participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend." (Felicia Fonseca, 3rd person dies in Ariz. sweat lodge; suit planned, AP, 18 Oct 2009) And you can easily spend that much on "grace" at the Seventh Day Grace cult.LOW-COST PRODUCTION MODEL
So the food was really good? Maybe, but there was not too much of it. The warriors "engaged in a 36-hour fast during a "vision quest" in the nearby wilderness and were served a breakfast
buffet before entering the sweat lodge". (Fonseca, supra) That was for a two-hour "sweat lodge ceremony" to crown the event. (Fonseca, supra)BUT REALLY, REALLY EXPENSIVE WHEN IT COSTS YOUR LIFE
The warriors had been in training for about 5 days, but some were still too weak in the spirit: "Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake suffered multiple organ damage and was in a coma before she died Saturday at a Flagstaff hospital. She was among dozens crowded into the sweat lodge on Oct. 8". (Fonseca, supra)
In fact, out of the "55 and 65 people were in the makeshift sweat lodge over a two-hour period", there were many who failed the test of endurance: "Twenty-one people were taken to area hospitals with illnesses ranging from dehydration to kidney failure. Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee, died upon arrival at a hospital." (Fonseca, supra)
WARNING SIGNS
The problem was simple -- too much sweating, and too little drinking. "Avoiding dehydration is simple: drink frequently so the water can be gradually absorbed and used." http://tkdtutor.com/11Training/Dehydration/Dehydration02.htm
But it looks like the participants in this sweat lodge ceremony were under the control of someone else, and so they didn't leave the lodge, didn't drink enough, and so many paid the price. And for three of the participants, that price was their lives.
As in the sweat lodge, so in the world of computing: "In computers, a Trojan horse is a program in which malicious or harmful code is contained inside apparently harmless programming or data in such a way that it can get control and do its chosen form of damage, such as ruining the file allocation table on your hard disk. In one celebrated case, a Trojan horse was a program that was supposed to find and destroy computer viruses. A Trojan horse may be widely redistributed as part of a computer virus.The term comes from Greek mythology about the Trojan War, as told in the Aeneid by Virgil and mentioned in the Odyssey by Homer. According to legend, the Greeks presented the citizens of Troy with a large wooden horse in which they had secretly hidden their warriors. During the night, the warriors emerged from the wooden horse and overran the city." (Trojan horse, SearchSecurity.com)
Do we see some "apparently harmless programming or data" (as per Trojan horse, SearchSecurity.com)? "A Contemporary Christian Fellowship". "Come just as you are to worship".That sounds harmless, doesn't it?
A little bit like a sweat lodge ceremony to top off the spiritual warrior camp.
But when I did the simple google search at left, I got a malware warning about the Seventh Day Grace cult website.Without even clicking on the cult's link.
Well, that's a warning. A little bit like a price tag of $10,000 for "a three-day fast and various spiritual exercises". All topped off with "sweat lodge cleanse ... to achieve "an out of body experience."" (Family of woman killed at Sedona sweat lodge speaks out, ABC 15.com, 13 Oct 2009)
"a Trojan horse is a program in which malicious or harmful code is contained" (Trojan horse, SearchSecurity.com). This apparent software trojan horse is just a small part of what lies in store at this cult:
"For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality" (Jude 1:4, NIV, Holy Bible)
Sure they talk grace, but when I was just eight years old I was on the receiving end of some of that "changed grace" (per Jude 1:4, NIV, Holy Bible) which felt a lot more like "a license for immorality" (per Jude 1:4, NIV, Holy Bible).
And if you ignore the warning signals and end up trapped in this cult, be prepared to part with a lot of money:
"A sweat lodge is a small shelter where water is poured over hot rocks, emitting steam and warming the inside. They are used in traditional Indian ceremonies to cleanse the mind, body and soul.
PUTTING A PRICE TAG ON IT
"It also represents the womb of the mother earth for many tribes, and once you put a price on that, we call it prostitution," said Black Wolf." (Family of woman killed at Sedona sweat lodge speaks out, ABC 15.com, 13 Oct 2009)
In the name of grace.
