Goateed Easter Island Head Tony Robbins

Crossposted from Reflections Journal.

The Colbert Report
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Stephen Colbert's take-down of Tony Robbins and his firewalk fiasco is a must see. Hilarious!!! I do have one small concern: That James Ray will see this -- when he gets out of jail -- and steal some of Colbert's ideas. Can't you just hear Ray telling people that they need to "play full on" as they're rolling in a pit of broken glass? I know I can.

But you know what strikes me? Tony Robbins charges less for seminars than James Ray. And he apparently offers a range of rates based on different levels of access. I also found this which shows a top rate of about half of what James Ray charged for the Spiritual Warrior seminar which was about half as long and killed three people. I'm sure Robbins's income is greater -- many, many more people. James Ray, on the other hand, groomed a substantially smaller following and used a variety of mind manipulation techniques to soak their credit cards for vast sums. You know what else I noticed looking at Robbins's website? He has a clear refund policy... as opposed to a strict no refund policy. If you don't like a Robbins event, you can turn in your materials and get a refund. Compare that to being constantly reminded that you paid a lot of money if you don't want to participate in an activity or you choose to leave. No one got a refund from James Ray. Not even the people he cooked to death.

I say none of this because I think Tony Robbins is a really great guy. And I'd rather roll around in broken glass than go to one of his events. I say it because it puts into such sharp relief what a horrible, awful, dangerous person James Ray is by comparison.