Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Beyond Growth - The Secret Fails Harris, Threatens to Sue McDuffee

I think it is important that people in the spiritual and personal growth communities know about this issue - I have never liked Bill Harris and I think his holosync stuff is a load of crap. Anyone associated with The Secret is suspect at best.

Those are my opinions, just as Duff's original article was his opinion - Harris has no legal ground to stand on, and his threats of a lawsuit and financial ruin come off as the threats of a little boy. Enlightenment my ass. Proves the worth of his holosync scam (please note that the use of the word "scam" implies my personal opinion). Harris is simply another New Age guru with no substance behind the marketing. It's all about the money.

The Secret Fails Harris, Threatens to Sue McDuffee

written by Eric Schiller on December 28th, 2009

Sink Hole

On December 22, Duff McDuffee received an email message from Bill Harris, the founder of “Holo-sync” and the “CenterPointe Institute” claiming that he had been served with a cease and desist letter regarding the post titled “The Hollow Sink of Push-Button Enlightenment.” Harris claims that he intends to file suit against Duff for “defamation” in federal court. As of today (December, 28), Duff has received no such cease and desist letter. In response to Harris’ email, Duff revised the post to insure no defamatory statements exist within it, and that it is clear that everything contained therein is his opinion. This effort itself was mainly done to in good-will, as we do not actually believe that anything in the original post was defamatory simply because it was clear that the post itself was an opinion piece on a variety of intangible and unprovable subjects.

First off, I want to make a few things clear about what we do here on Beyond Growth. We are not a news organization, and as such do not claim to offer any sort of “objective” reporting therefore all of our articles are critical, subjective, and opinion based. While many of our contributors share similar views, each of the opinions expressed in our articles solely represent their authors and no one else. Thus far, we have found this to be quite implicit that these are our opinions, nothing more. We generally use forms of literary and critical analysis, of which do not imply nor suggest we are making statements of objective fact.

With that in mind, I will take this opportunity to express my supreme disappointment with Bill Harris’ behavior on this matter. Harris is a man who claims to be enlightened, and as such I would think the frivolous and childish threat of a “federal lawsuit” directed at small time blogger would be quite beneath him. Unfortunately it appears that this is not the case. He has made no effort to speak to us about this matter before jumping the gun and threatening a lawsuit. In his email message, Harris effectively threatens to ruin Duff’s life:

Perhaps you do not realize the severity of the consequences for the defamatory statements you have made and how a Federal lawsuit to enforce those rights would work. The costs of such a suit will be huge, both financially and also in terms of time and stress. Legal fees for such a lawsuit can be, at minimum, over $150,000, the time commitment will be extensive, and the stress will be enormous. It will change your life in a way I suspect you will not like.

What Bill Harris does not realize is that Duff McDuffee (and I for that matter) have zero monetary assets to speak of. Additionally, if Harris does actually bring suit against Duff, we will do everything in our power to make it as public as possible. This publicity would negate the whole point of a defamation lawsuit in the first place, the preservation of the “public image” that Harris’ seemingly holds so near and dear. Finally, Harris will have to prove in the court of law that he does not use manipulative marketing techniques and that his “holosync” program does exactly what he says it does. We are confident that Harris would not be able to prove either of these things in any manner enough to satisfy a federal judge.

Shouldn’t an arahat be able to handle a little criticism without threatening lawsuits? Threatening to sue Duff in order to maintain a positive public opinion seems to be nothing more than bullying via the courts, in a manner that is quite reminiscent of the legal behavior of the Church of Scientology:

Critics state that the ultimate aim of Scientology lawsuits is to destroy church opponents by forcing them into bankruptcy or submission, using its resources to pursue frivolous lawsuits at considerable cost to defendants. In doing so, they draw particular attention to certain controversial statements made by the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, in the 1950s and 1960s.

In my mind this is not the way an enlightened being should be behaving. If anything this action by Bill Harris indicates that we are doing something very right on Beyond Growth. Expect more in the coming days.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yo William
Some excerpts of my comments to beyond growth(Duffy and Eric) group:
Delusion is your song Eric and Duffy's too but you can turn it into insight.

First shadow spotted:

"What Bill Harris does not realize is that Duff McDuffee (and I for that matter) have zero monetary assets to speak of "- so you hate anybody who have some assets, because they've got it and you don't. So you both disowned the aspect of your self system and then organize Beyond Growth which main goal is to hunt your own shadows. You find people who agree with you both and start hunting everybody who is selling spirituality. So its your version of postmodern witch hunt? It's nothing new, cuz most people do the same and it DOESN'T HELP. I really doubt context you are presenting it in. And context is your shadow which is not showing clear picture. So you dip whole situation in your disowned shadow aspect. You need help? Repeat after me: I want to earn fat bucks on selling spirituality, I love money, money, I want everything, I despise Bill cause he is doing what i want to do, Bill represents what i don't accept in myself, I love money, I need and desire huge amounts of money and things, I want millions of dollars...etc..got an idea?
More to come...as I just started to read.

Anonymous said...

Continued...You are right Eric, what you are doing on Beyond Growth, would be beneficial IF you had more sophisticated cognitive apparatus, but you don't. I tell you how to get one: Go through ENTIRE centerpointe program - it takes only 7 years at least, integrate your shadow around money, lust and desire of material things, stop playing FIFA on playstation, go to good therapist and take Duff with you, try to see your victim mentality, the best methods I found: Hal and Sidra's voice dialogue, Genpos big mind, spiral dynamics, HOLOSYNC - the most powerful of all,gestalt, transactional analysis,3-2-1 process. Probably you know them all, but now USE THEM. Then maybe you will be able to see what you do do. Good Luck

william harryman said...

Michal,

You seem like a devoted student, er, uh, brain-washed follower, of Bill Harris - good for you.

But, as is always the case with such comments, you reveal much more about yourself than anything else.

Good luck with that.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, you are right...
But tell me what do I reveal so I can integrate it faster - I am serious. Since it is unconscious and I can t see it. But please try not to offend me next time saying that I'am brainwashed.I'm waiting for your reply.

Best wishes

william harryman said...

Seriously?

OK, you read a simple statement of fact (that Duff and Eric have no financial assets, and therefore suing them for damages would get Harris nothing) as a shadow projection on their part - which was much more indicative of your own shadows material than theirs. Because they have no money, you assume they hate Harris because he does have money - that's your stuff not theirs.

You then suggest that they need to do some serious shadow work, all based on your own projections onto them. You recommend some good approaches for shadow work (Voice Dialogue, Gestalt, 3-2-1, TA) and some not very good, Big Mind (which just a rip off of Voice Dialogue) and "the most powerful of all," holosync, which is (as near as I can tell) way overpriced and of very litter value, and Spiral Dynamics is not shadow work, it's a biopsychosocial developmental theory.

I have never done Harris's program and would never hand anyone that kind of money for something I can do for free by sitting in meditation, or reading a couple of FREE Buddhist texts online to learn good techniques for meditation and shadow work.

Bill Harris, Genpo Roshi, and the others trying to sell "enlightenment" are doing a real disservice to all true teachers who get painted as frauds because of a few greedy people.

Anonymous said...

ok William. But how do you know what benefits of holosync are for instance. It is like you are saying that you know what something is before even checking it. So you knew what driving a car was before driving yourself? I mean you know how apple tasted, before you try it? So you have experience or knowledge about something in advance? You know what meditation is and you associated this experience with experience of holosync(before trying it first), thinking that they must be similar (I just suspect it, or you could say intuit it,).And true teachers are those endorsed by you? What about people who choose sellers of enlightenment? Do they get less results? I have many ???????????? and i know you will answer them all. thanks for nice chat. Take care

Anonymous said...

Hi William
More interesting excerpts:

Duff Mcdufee:
Hi Michal. I used Holosync, it didn't give me meditation "deeper than a Zen monk at the push of a button." Why would I spend $2500 more for a product that didn't work for me?

I've also done Voice Dialogue (which I found useful), Big Mind with both Genpo Roshi and Diane Hamilton (which I found mildly useful, but not up to Bill Harris' and Wilber's hype), have read Spiral Dynamics as well as about 75% of Wilber's works, have personally interviewed Don Beck, etc. etc.

3-2-1 is a lame process Wilber made up one day in the loft based on reading about Gestalt I'm guessing, because he himself admits that he hasn't done much psychological shadow work (he admits this in writing in Grace and Grit). Wilber's still a genius, of course.

But more importantly than any of this, Bill Harris may have personally profited from the deaths of 3 an injury of 18. Harris promoted the work of James Arthur Ray, and now appears to be trying to cover up that fact rather than taking responsibility. Perhaps he should read something about Gestalt himself, which emphasizes taking responsibility for your actions rather than bullying and blaming others.

Michal Zoczek:

Hi Duff
It would, but you decided
otherwise. “Integral” means “construct-aware”, which is another name for “beginner' s mind”. It also means that whatever/whoever you are before this level, you are an interpretative process. Until you are firmly established at the Integral levels of development, you interpret yourself/others/world through your introjections, which include : language, ego, body, dreams, shadow, your ability to focus, strategies and defence mechanisms that you use, your worldview etc. I see that you are good at 3rd person cognitive understanding of integral theory, but you lack real experience of this stage in 1st person perspective . That affects your 2nd person relations and leads to creation of “beyond growth net”. When I said that Eric's cognitive apparatus is not sophisticated I meant exactly that, so his interpretative processes, which include language, ego, body, dreams, shadow, his ability to focus, strategies and defence mechanisms, his worldview etc. Before one reaches integral levels of development everything is a witch hunt.

Length of time used to invent anything is not an indicator of its effectiveness. This argument is false. Your interpretative process won't allow “3-2-1 process” to work. One reason Wilber might not need much therapy is that at integral levels you have 10 times more skills to deal with shadows, you really see them. Just as you see your hands now.

If I like my shop assistant and I introduce him to my friends and family and then he kills 10 people I am responsible?? Then I no longer think that’s an appropriate companion for me, cause he proofed otherwise. So you take devilish James Arthur Ray and combine this person with Bill Harris’ image and have a nice story. What happened at Sedona is James Arthur Ray's responsibility. You don't need to call him names, condemn him or instigate your own private investigation - your society has right structures to deal with this.

Unknown said...

All I can say is Holosync worked for me. Great product, worth the money. It's unfortunate you people have to be so cynical, seems like a painful way to live life.