In our last post, we considered A course in Miracles as a deceptive work used to lead people away from the truth. Oprah Winfrey promotes ACIM and 'The secret'. The star of the secret infomercial being Bill Harris. Bill Harris is the founder of HOLOSYNC. Thanks to our last comment from anonymous I did a quick google and found this article below. ACIM, Unity church, Landmark and Holosync all have one thing in common, they are man-made manipulative techniques distracting people from the truth. James uses ALL of these methods or had training in them.
As stated before, this whole thing is about James' power trip and those close to him are there because the effects of this power trip are extended to them and they feel it when they are with him. It takes REAL effort to release yourself from this man, the biggest effort you may ever have to make. The reward of this realization is true freedom.
So thank you anonymous for another of your enlightening comments:
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Bill Harris—star of popular New Age infomercial The Secret and former marketing partner of James Arthur Ray—is founder and CEO of the (in my opinion) manipulative marketing organization called Centerpointe Research Institute. His main product is the “Holosync” binaural beat meditation CDs, which I find very expensive compared to competitors products, and less effective as well.
While the name “Centerpointe Research Institute” makes it sound like this is a non-profit think tank, this organization is simply a for-profit business. Part of the “research” apparently includes that co-branding with killer gurus is good for business—at least until people die, at which point it’s most profitable to pretend like it never happened. Or at least that’s how it appears to me, given that Harris used to market products with James Arthur Ray, but since the “death lodge” incident of November 10th, 2009, Ray’s testimonial has disappeared from Holosync’s web page. But perhaps Bill Harris didn’t know Ray’s character, or perhaps no one could have predicted such an awful turn of events. But why not? Why did we all not see the signs?
Harris’ infamous tagline for Holosync is “meditate deeper than a Zen monk at the push of a button!” This is an exaggeration at best (in my opinion, based on using his product and in discussions with other Centerpointe customers), perhaps learned at the James Arthur Ray School of Hyperbole. Customer experiences (again—from me, friends, and other customers I’ve talked with) range from occasional deep meditation that fades as you adapt to the particular CD level, to subtle relaxation, to painful headaches and “overwhelm.” Ironically, Bill Harris—and his spiritual teacher Zen master Genpo Roshi—often complain about spiritual seekers who want quick results, avoiding responsibility for what he’s “attracted” through his avarice-focused marketing copy (again, this is what I’ve observed from reading Harris’ blog and email newsletter Mind Chatter, listening to talks of Harris and Roshi, etc. and from reading his marketing copy).
While typical meditation CDs cost about $15 and free binaural beat programs abound, Holosync can be yours all for the low, low price of $175 for the first CD and (if I remember correctly from when I was an Awakening Prologue customer) about $2,500+ for the 12 “advanced level” CDs—which are pushed on the unsuspecting customer with extremely manipulative (again, in my opinion and values) long-form sales letters sent to your home weekly. Since the effect of the CDs fades unless the “carrier frequency” is lowered, Harris hooks customers on getting an ever-stronger dose of his push-button Zen drug. (Harris has a different opinion of course, which is that each level pushes you to adapt to higher levels of chaos that are then integrated into higher orders of integrated complexity.)
Bill Harris’ long-form sales letter on his Centerpointe.com website is designed to give you your first hit for free, getting you into his sales cycle. The whole sales letter is geared to convince you to sign up for a “free” CD sample of his method. (UPDATE 12/29/2009: the other “call to action” on his sales page is to buy the 1st level of his program, Awakening Prologue, for $179.) But here’s the catch—as discussed in this excellent blog post from Mind Tweaks, Harris’ free sample uses the binaural beats to entrain your brain into a relaxed and suggestible state while he gives a sales pitch for his product! As the author at Mind Tweaks has written… If the entrainment/suggestion combo doesn’t work, then no harm done, but the product itself is useless. If the entrainment/hypnotic suggestion combo does work, then isn’t it unethical to use it in advertising the product? The higher levels of Holosync include personalized affirmations recorded in your own voice, which Harris says are more effective using binaural beats because the binaurals make you more suggestible. Other proponents of brain entrainment technology also say that brain entrainment increases suggestibility. Someone I know online called Harris “the used car salesman of spirituality,” and a former colleague of mine has taken a ride on what he said I think I recall him saying was Harris’ private jet—paid for by his push-button Zen customers. (UPDATE 12/29/2009: I’ve heard from another source that Harris does not in fact own a jet, but is a private pilot, so my first source was incorrect. UPDATE #2: An even more reliable source who wishes to remain anonymous has confirmed that Bill Harris owns an LLC that owns a plane, and this plane is chartered only for Bill Harris and his guests. Here is the plane records. Estimated operating costs are $250,000/year. UPDATE #3 on 9/5/2011: A reader emailed to clarify that the plane in question is not a jet but a single-engine propeller plane.) Others see Harris as a personal development leader and spiritual teacher who has an “ability to explain difficult subjects in a way that makes them easy to understand.” I find it easy to understand (in retrospect after becoming one of his customers myself) that Bill Harris greatly exaggerates what his product can do (at least in my personal experience and in the reports of others I have talked to and read online) in an effort to sell it at unreasonably high prices (compared to competitors products like BWGen—a free binaural beat software program—andNeuroProgrammer 2, $45 brain entrainment software with many programs included), but this doesn’t seem to be something Harris can explain away easily. Instead, Harris viciously attacks anyone who criticizes his aggressive marketing, claiming that ““Selling spirituality” is not a problem.” (Indeed, his sending me a cease and desist letter as his first communication with me about this article is also an example of his approach that I’ve observed with dealing with unwanted feedback.) Questioning his marketing practices means you have an “anti-marketplace shadow,” which seems to imply that if we did all enough therapy, the whole world would become free-market libertarians! At least we can both agree with this statement from Harris: The whole New Age movement, though, has a shitload of shadows about morality, integrity, money, race, political correctness, and a lot of other topics. That’s why many New Age people are immoral, out-of-integrity, poor, racist, and arragant [sic].
…although I think Mr. Harris doesn’t realize that he is the New Age. The movie The Secret epitomizes the New Age, making Bill Harris a New Age Superstar. (I should add that I too am part of the New Age in many ways as well, having read many personal development books, engaged in meditation, etc., although I don’t think “shadows” are things we can get rid of as long there is any “light.”)
Harris’ New Age marketing partner James Ray (who is fond of using Quantum Physics metaphors for teaching Midwestern soccer moms the secret to making ungodly sums of money) required that his Spiritual Warrior participants purchase “Awakening Prologue,” the first level of Harris’ Holosync program, at a cost of $175 each (according to page 7 of the Spiritual Warrior Participant guide and also this reporting from Cassandra Yorgey). This required purchase was in addition to the $9,695 price for the deadly 5-day workshop—not including room, board, travel, and the $250 Peruvian ponchos they were coerced into purchasing for their 36 hour dry fast in the desert. 65 people x $175 each = $11,375 for Mr. Harris direct from James Arthur Ray’s affiliate sales (assuming no discount and that every participant purchased a copy). Has Mr. Harris refunded the dead and injured spiritual warriors? Considering he’s removed evidence of his association with Ray from his website and has made no public comment (that I’m aware of), I sincerely doubt it. (There is a chance that Harris didn’t even know about these sales of course, but that seems unlikely to me given the mutual testimonials and previous affiliate marketing from Ray.)
