Burned By Bad Self-Help ? Acculturated

By Christine B. Whelan

What would you do for spiritual enlightenment and personal success? Would you walk barefoot over 1,000-degree hot coals? Would you agree to spend 36 hours alone in the desert without food or water to help clear your mind and find your true potential? Would you follow a trusted leader into a dark, hot room to experience some version of a centuries-old Native American sweat lodge ritual? Decades of psychological research suggest, in the right circumstances, you would do just that?and more.

Last week more than 21 people were treated for second- and third-degree burns in San Jose, CA, after walking over hot coals at a Tony Robbins self-help workshop. One witness described ?wails of pain and screams of agony? as people were burned. The guru, who has led people through similar exercises for since the 1980s, is just one of many inspirational leaders asking participants to push their physical limits and overcome fears?sometimes at great personal cost.

In 2010, three people died and more than a dozen others were injured during a James Arthur Ray retreat in Sedona, AZ. At that event, within hours of returning from a desert ?vision quest,? and still dehydrated from a lack of food or water in the previous days, Ray led more than 50 people into a makeshift sweat lodge of wood, plastic tarps and blankets.

What happened in San Jose and Sedona are not simply fringe events gone awry. We have a long history of self-help in America and to properly understand the horror of these injuries and deaths, we must first understand the inspiration and guidance that Tony Robbins and James Ray offer. Robbins and Ray, and many other gurus like them, inspire thousands of smart, accomplished adults by borrowing from two very powerful thought traditions?modern psychology and esoteric spirituality?creating a one-two punch that?s nearly impossible to resist.

Many of the most popular inspirational self-help leaders combine the spiritual wisdom of the ancients with cutting-edge science have been popular tools of American self-help gurus for more than a century?pairing logic and emotion, usually with benign results. The New Thought movement, which rose to prominence between 1900 and 1920, offered a path to success through ?mind power,? sincere prayer, and positive thinking. For New Thought adherents, doctors and priests were a team joined together to harness the power of God and the skills of man, and faith was a psychological medicine that would cure all ills. Before long, these ideas became mainstream: New Thought writers had a column in Good Housekeeping, and Norman Vincent Peale?s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) sold more than 5 million copies and spent 186 consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

In the last several decades, the quest for self-improvement in the United States has continued to blossom: By sampling from cognitive behavioral therapies and incorporating increasingly exotic spiritual practices, motivational gurus build their brand and hold the attention of their audience by claiming skills well beyond their field of expertise.

Charismatic leaders from Tony Robbins to Deepak Chopra create special vocabulary and rituals for their group. If you know the definition of terms like ?rapid planning methods? and ?synchrodestiny? you are part of the club. In addition, a good motivational speaker uses repetition of core concepts, alternating ideas of empowerment (you can do it!) and victimization (you?ve been hurt and must heal!) to encourage listeners to follow their particular protocol.

Beyond the jargon, though, it?s the spiritual element that has the most persuasive effect. Religious authority figures claim to have knowledge not just about our fate in this life?why we?re in a dead-end job and what to do about it?but our eternal wellbeing as well.

Like self-help gurus before him, Robbins and Ray borrow from different cultural and spiritual traditions. When run properly, walking on hot coals isn?t especially dangerous?you don?t linger on the coals, and the coals themselves don?t conduct enough heat to burn your feet?rather, it?s an ancient rite of passage that has been used for centuries as a display of courage. Similarly, a sweat lodge is an ancient Native American purification ritual, not a physical endurance test.

The self-help tradition blends the certainty we respect in medical science with the gut-level search for truth we seek through our faith lives. There was no one forcing the men and women at the Robbins event to walk over hot coals. There was no locked door trapping the men and women inside the sweat lodge tent. But Robbins and Ray used something equally powerful: They tapped into persuasive psychological and spiritual traditions, and in doing so with apparent recklessness, reaped a dangerous result.

Dr. Christine B. Whelan is an author, speaker and professor. She is one of the foremost experts on the genre of self-help literature and her latest publication is?Generation WTF:?From ?What the %#$@?? to a Wise, Tenacious, and?Fearless?You.

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Tags: acculturated, Christine Whelan, Deepak Chopra, firewalk, James Arthur Ray, New Thought, Norman Vincent Peale, Power of Positive Thinking, self help, sweatlodge, Tony Robbins

Source: http://acculturated.com/2012/07/23/burned-by-bad-self-help/

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