Josh Fredrickson was interviewed by police on 11/10/09 and appears to be more cooperative than his wife, James Ray International Director of Operations Megan Fredrickson. Keep in mind, Megan declined to be interviewed until January of 2010 so it must be noted that between November and January there was a shift of game plan at JRI headquarters. Back in November they still thought they were going to get away with everything and pull one over on the police. There is another interview with Josh Fredrickson that took place in January so it will be interesting to compare the two.
This interview is 61 pages long, but many of the questions get stock answers that are part of James Ray’s public spiel. Quite frankly, they aren’t very interesting, so I cut them. Overall, if I had to sum up the interview it would get one word, “bland”.
Josh says the death game was added to the Spiritual Warrior retreat in 2005, when The Last Samurai came out. I know I’ve mentioned before that I thought it was strange how James Ray used a movie starring Scientologist Tom Cruise, but in case you haven’t heard – James Ray has self-admitted roots in Scientology (check out the Rick Ross forum for a discussion with links). Josh isn’t exactly right about the dates, The Last Samurai was a 2003 release, but that gets a pass for being basically irrelevant and probably unintentional.
Josh sticks firm to the story that James Ray learned the death game in his early days when he worked for AT&T. It doesn’t say specifically, but I’m pretty sure Josh didn’t know James Ray back then and so would be relying on what James Ray tells others for this assessment.
“Josh: Yeah. He had done it with like other managers at AT&T and it ended up that AT&T wanted to roll it out to the whole company but it ended up that it was I guess too intense for corporate environment and so they decided against it to rolling out to the entire company. But he learned it at AT&T and when The Last Samurai came out, he decided he would start using these clips.”
It’s hard to say one way or the other if AT&T ever used this “game” or if James Ray butchered some other game for his own nefarious purposes, or if it’s a complete load of B.S.
“Det. Poling: Tell me if I am correct here. James Ray has a specific, to the minute agenda, of everything he does, he's very precise; is that true?”
“Josh: It's called the syntax and it's the event as it should be but the running joke is that James is always at least an hour or two hours overtime on the syntax. So the syntax is kind of like the event coordinator's wish for him to stick to but he never does. So that kind of answers your question. There's not a specific syntax for the sweat lodge if that's what you are asking.”
What Josh isn’t pointing out here is that James Ray already has participants time scheduled from very early in the morning, all through the day, and straight through the night. Adding on extra hours runs the participants schedule into the wee hours of the morning, at which point they still have hours of “homework” to complete while James Ray is sleeping. The “syntax” isn’t about keeping to a schedule, it’s about manipulating people through a schedule. Also, I find "syntax" a strange label for a schedule because it normally means "the rules and principles of sentence structure" although it is also sometimes used to describe the rules and principles inherent in governing systems other than language, such as logic, mathmatics, or programming. Either way, that is a loaded word that means more than "schedule".
Josh initially appears more compliant than Megan, but as we go it seems he is just better at repeating back what James Ray says about everything to participants. Sadly, these things are not exactly true. The more I read, the more I get the impression that Josh isn’t actually trying be helpful but is taking the patient tone he might use while explaining these things to particularly belligerent people who are disgruntled with the events.
The detective asks what would happen if someone tried to leave the death lodge in the middle of a round.
“Josh: Again I will use the church analogy that's I think pretty much the only thing that I recall Jim saying (Inaudible) is to not leave in between rounds because it would be considered disrespectful. It's like church so if you were to leave in the middle that sort of thing. To my knowledge, I don't recall anyone ever trying to get to the door in any of the four years that I have been in the sweat lodge and leave in the middle of a lodge so I don't know what would happen there and I also to my knowledge have never seen anyone physically turned away if they went to the door.”
Do people call James Ray “Jim” or is that a typo? Because that is the only time during the interview that Josh calls him that. Unless he’s referring to some other Jim, I don’t know, but either way it doesn’t change the fact that James Ray did not allow people to exit the lodge many different times, over many different years. Let’s face it, only a handful of James Ray employees are spouting the story that people were allowed to leave the death lodge. I don’t think James Ray and co. realized that even participants who adore James Ray aren’t going to lie about what happened. I think maybe they confused tricking people into killing themselves with “My followers are willing to die for me!”
The truth is quite different. If you ask participants from the James Ray Spiritual Warrior retreat if they are willing to die for James Ray, you will likely get a response something like “%#$@ no! Are you %#$@^&* crazy?! What the %$@# is wrong with you?!” and even his most ardent supporters come crashing to a screeching halt when confronted with evidence.
“Det. Poling: Has he ever told a participant to wait till the end is completed?”
“Josh: I hesitate because I'm trying to think of specific instances and I don't recall specific and yet that sounds like something that could be said. And it would be again more from the personal trainer, you can make it, you're bigger than that kind of thing.”
Not so much Josh. No personal trainer in the world would say “C’mon, you’re bigger than your heatstroke! Just tough it through the initial organ failure and you’ll be fine!” It’s obvious from the next bit that Josh has been holding back. Up until this next part he’s been answering questions pretty smoothly, almost routinely if you will. But here, here’s where it starts to fall apart and Josh starts stuttering as bad as his wife.
“Det. Poling: Okay. Uhm, have you ever been told by James Ray that when you're having an out of body; if someone is having an out of body experience, what are you to do? Are you told anything? Are you told to give them CPR, are you told to let them be, what are you told?”
“Josh: I don't have any, out of body I don't know as if to my, my, my first hand knowledge I've never experienced that so I don't, when people are coming out of the lodge I don't know if they're experiencing that, it's their own experience. So I don't, I mean I don't, I've never heard any kind of training or instruction in terms of who can bring someone out of that because I, I, I mean I don't know what the symptoms are of out of body, I mean if there is I mean.”
Right, that certainly cleared that up. Perhaps I can be of more assistance. James Ray staff members were supposed to stop participants from helping those in distress. They would force people to sit down, pin participants’ arms to their sides, etc and say things like “No, you have to let them have their own experience.” “You’re going to ruin it for them.” I’d like to take a moment to mention that every last one of you is welcome to ruin the dying experience for me. Should you stumble across me in the process of dying, or in danger of dying, or anything that could be interpreted as ending with death or grievous bodily harm to myself, please take a minute to ruin that for me and make sure I pull through alive and with as little harm to my person as possible. No matter what anyone says. In fact, if anyone tries to stop you, you have my full permission to punch them right in the uvula.
But back to Josh and how he clearly asserts to the detectives that James Ray would never stop someone from calling 911 or yell at them for doing so, or even so much as tell people not to do it. This is followed by the detectives calling B.S. again.
“Det. Poling: Okay. In 2005 when this was happening, weren't you around when he was yelling at Amayra [Hamilton; owner of Angel Valley retreat] for calling 911?”
“Josh: You know I do remember them arguing, I don't remember the argument. I mean I know he was mad that, that, that an ambulance had to come.”
“Det. Poling: Amayra was mad? Amayra called the ambulance.”
“Josh: No but I mean she was mad that she had to even call the ambulance.”
“Det. Poling: Right. How was James Ray?”
“Josh: I wasn't, I mean I wasn't, they were, to the side arguing and I didn't talk to him afterwards, it wasn't my place to talk to them about (Inaudible).”
I think that can be safely interpreted as “We’re not allowed to question James Ray in front of others, but we all totally heard.”
The detective asks about the meeting after the 2005 incident that Megan doesn't recall.
“Josh: And then we also, I know that throughout all this is you know, we've gone to, we kind of relied on our insurance company and our uhm legal team to one, shape, shape the waivers for the legal team and then for the insurance company to tell us what, what's required.”
That sounds true enough, but reading between the lines it says a lot. If JRI just claimed ignorance and a freak accident they would be left well enough alone, especially since they managed to mostly contain the incident and hide it from other participants and the general public.
“Det. Poling: the team isn't doing the Vision Quest. So we have people out here going on the Vision Quest; what is your job here while the Vision Quest is going on to do? What are you instructed to do? What's the purpose of you guys? What do you do?”
“Josh: While people are on the Vision Quest, the Dream Team splits up into two groups into two shifts and so they're instructed to stay in the dining hall area with a walkie-talkie just in case someone comes back or they're needed. So they're, they're instructed to be on-call so to speak so if someone from Angel Valley needs them for a participant or if they see a participant come back so each shift, there is a morning shift and then an evening shift.”
We know this account conflicts with Lorena Bathey's experience, as she said the staff and James Ray were nowhere to be found when she returned with her broken arm in 2007.
The detectives ask about what Liz Neuman was doing that she wasn't supposed to be doing while participants were abandoned in the desert.
“Josh: So we uhm, Megan and I we're, we're out and we're going through the, the event and we get a call from James about James was out and had dinner and then came back or some; he had lunch and he came back and he's gonna rest up, take a nap or whatever and I guess the women had come back, they had a great day in town. And then they came back and they were I guess giggly would be the term or excited or, or kind of loud. And so they were loud enough to wake James up from two doors down. And so James came in, was like what are you doing? Shut up basically and then uhm, so then they're kind of like oh what's going on or whatever, they you know, they had a bottle of wine or two to my knowledge.”
“Josh: I didn't see the wine, no. So the girls kind of came back and were in more of a party mood than, you know not like crazy but than, than kind of respecting the space. And so James came back out later and they sat down and talked through and what it meant and what it brought up for each of them.”
At this point I’d like to refer back to the Top 9 Reasons James Ray is Innocent, because now we have a tenth to add; “People don’t have to listen to me, it’s not like I kill them for disagreeing or anything!” Also, note how James Ray and staff eat and sleep, unlike participants. I wonder what kind of fake justification they have for that.
If you remember from Megan Fredrickson’s interview we discussed how a participant that was passed out for several hours in 2008 was also the same person who passed along JR's message of "The participants didn't die, they were just having too much fun outside of their bodies!" The detectives also go over this with Josh. It turns out she wanted to go back into the lodge in 2009 but was told she couldn't and had to stay outside.
The detective asks if this has anything to do with the woman not having paid her World Wealth Society dues. Josh says no, but who can tell at this point.
“Det. Poling: What's the goal of the sweat lodge? Why do you go in there?”
“Josh: The goal for the sweat lodge; it's a metaphor work for death and rebirth. Sweat lodge is, is, is likened to a womb in Native American tradition so basically you're going in. I mean before the sweat lodge they burned all the crap if they wanted to; their journals that they wrote, that they wrote in for the week. They had two journals, one that they wrote, they just wrote in and then one that they took notes in. So you know if they wanted to burn the stuff they could and just kind of symbolically release it. So you go into the lodge with that intention of letting that stuff go and becoming a new person and then when you exit the lodge and James says it's like exiting the womb and you're reborn, you're new person.”
What Josh neglects to say is that after the lodge they burned the remaining journals that they could find and other evidence. For people who claim to want to create, they sure seem better at destroying things. Also note how Josh refers to the stuff as “crap”. It sounds like even he doesn’t buy into what he’s saying.
Josh says everyone was laid off from JRI, except for one employee. He neglects to mention that he is still independently contracting for JRI, but does admit to it when the detective asks. Is anyone else wondering if his wife is the other employee?
“Det. Poling: When people are outside in distress, what is James doing?”
“Josh: I was helping Megan because she was one of the first ones out too. So I was helping Megan because she was kind of weak and walking so I got her sat her down and was giving her drinks and that sort of thing because I knew that we would kind of need to spring in action to help people; to the degree of what the help was needed, I had no idea but you know I know that that's our purpose there is to help people, do the best that we can. And so I was helping get Megan back into things, back into action mode I would say and that's when I heard someone yell for a nurse. You know, we need a nurse behind the sweat lodge. And so that's, by the time, when I heard that, I went around the sweat lodge and Megan was there and James had joined us by the time, while we were walking around the back of the sweat lodge and there were James Shore and Kirby Brown laying on the ground and they were already both getting CPR.”
Josh seems to be missing about 10 or 20 minutes because Kirby Brown and James Shore were not pulled out of the death lodge immediately. Those two weren't found until after everyone else was out of the tent and the Mercer's found them as well as Liz Neuman. Debra Mercer couldn't get anyone to help pull them out so she and her daughter pulled them out of the back of the tent. Apparently, it was more important to tend to Megan feeling a bit weak, instead of people who were dying.
“Josh: After the EMT's came and everybody was getting taken care of that's when the sun started to go down and so I, I told, I told James to go back to his room and shower up and to get into warm, dry clothes. And Megan and I took turns and ran in and turned into, changed into dry clothes cause it was getting cold really fast and we were in these wet clothes. And so at that point, he, he went back to his room once the, once the paramedics were there taking care of things.”
Josh stumbles over the part where he gives James Ray an order, and I’d bet it's because it's not true.
Josh Fredrickson says he was helping people the whole time. I don't know how true that is, because we know there is a picture of him, Megan, and James Ray casually standing around during the emergency but I suspect Josh was slightly more helpful than James Ray was.
Josh says James Ray left Angel Valley around 2 or 3 am. Remind me how that's not abandoning the participants again? Because I know James Ray keeps saying that he didn't abandon them, but sneaking off at 2 am sounds like abandonment.
The detective asks about the "channeler" talked about on the conference call.
“Josh: Uhm, Barb was there for the channeling and she sent an email, kind of describing her experience of what, what, what was said or what the channeler said I guess. That was, the Channeler or somebody that Angel Valley called in so it was completely separate from anything that JRI had to do. So she happened to be there and she sent an email explaining that and then we forwarded that email to James and he suggested that she share her experience with the people on the call.”
Uh-oh Josh, here we find a big ol' lie. James Ray was spouting the "They aren't dead, they were just having an out of body party and didn't want to return!" crap. James Ray left very clear phrasing for participants to be told, Barb was merely parroting it back for James Ray. Participants who left before the destruction of evidence were surprised that a "channeler" just so happened to show up and say all the exact same things James Ray and staff had been saying.
“On the prior years when you were in the lodge have you seen people pass out or lose consciousness either inside the lodge or outside the lodge after they did their lodge experience?”
“Josh: Uhm, yeah. In terms of blacking out kind of thing or not being able to walk out of the lodge, needing to be carried out of the lodge, yeah it was similar.”
I find that very, very disturbing indeed.
“And here's another question to all the lawyers before you answer. Do you know has anyone from prior experiences in the lodge notified James Ray or his company or any of employees about adverse medical experiences resulting from a lodge experience?”
Josh says no, except for the person from 2005. Here is a problem. Megan said they didn't know that mans diagnosis, but if he contacted them it would have come up. Also, almost everybody I talked to that had become displeased at a JRI event had the same response "I wrote James Ray a letter (or email)." These letters were a completely disproportionate response, in my opinion. Some people were really hurt and only wrote the guy a letter, thinking that James Ray just didn't know there was a problem, or surely he would have fixed it. This letter writing is fixed into them throughout many of the programs as well, participants would write a letter to someone who had some extreme emotional reaction for them and then would burn it or something. After a while, participants equate letter writing with emotional release. This makes them susceptible to sending James Ray an emotionally charged message, trusting James Ray to do the right thing, feeling better, and not following up on it.
Josh specifically says he doesn't know of anyone contacting them legally about injuries. This has to be another lie, because there is a picture of an entire folder of civil suits in the crime scene photos. James Ray has paid big bucks to people who were injured at his seminars and Josh probably knows that.
Josh Fredrickson says he was not present for the Creating Absolute Wealth seminar in July 2009 in which Colleen Conaway died. That seems suspicious to me because his wife was certainly there. Hopefully Salty Droid will look into this for us.
I’ll leave you with this last little bit of the interview.
Det. Poling: Okay. During your 5 years with James Ray, how many events entailed breaking down the cinder blocks that you had been to personally?Josh: Two.Det. Poling: Was there more than that?Josh: No.Det. Poling: Just the two. So you've been to both the events and that's all?Josh: They're not cinder blocks, they are like garden pavers so it's not like you are actually breaking them.Unknown: Cinder block is being a big sort of a figure eight sort of, right?Josh: Yeah we are not breaking those, we are just breaking like probably this thick by that big.Det. Poling: Okay. How many injuries are you aware of?Josh: First year we did it, there were none. Second year we did it, we had probably a handful of people that broke the bones in their hands and we haven't done it since then.Det. Poling: You discontinued that practice?Josh: Yeah.Det. Poling: And how do you know this? How do you know that it was only the two times because in my research I have found more than a few times, that's why I am asking the question. What am I asking is what is done differently to stop this from happening? You know like if you went from a 1 inch brick to a half inch brick, you can still get through it; did he make any changes because there is injury?Unknown: I would have to get back to you on that because I got to believe that there is a bunch of lawyers sort of not us but guys looking at this.
Next up: the second police interview with Josh Fredrickson
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Comments
Cassandra, you tweeted a few days ago about people volunteering to go through interview transcripts in order to black out/remove people's names. I offered to help, but haven't heard back from you yet. Do you already have enough people helping?
My favorite part was when they say, it's like when you are on an airplane and they ask IS THERE A DOCTOR ON BOARD. How on god's green earth does that qualify as a response to people in distress? Are you kidding me? What a bunch of hacks.
Josh also claimed that it was he and not JR who ordered anyone who could walk to get up and go back to their room as soon as the first ambulances appeared coming down the hill. He seems like a nice obedient sort of fellow who doesn't realize what Ray has stood him in up to his neck.
Cassandra..Thank you so much for commenting on the interviews.. I read all 3 back to back and was amazed at all the mind numbing "I don't know"s or I don't remember"s that both he and Megan were spouting..you are right they were boring!!They said nothing!! Thanks for your insight as they were making me zone out..I hope that they will have to tell the truth at some point!
Went to SW 06. I talked on purpose so I could "die" immediately during the samurai game and wanted to be "dead" because I knew it was going to be boring. So I laid there and tried to nap. No luck, James talks too loud. Another guy died soon after and refused to stay on the floor and left. James was ticked. As far as the visionquest. It was a piece of cake. We were out there to think over our live, goals, dreams. I got a teepee to sleep in others got cabins. It really was no big deal. My husband left after the fourth round of sweat lodge with two other men. He was allowed out and came back in after a while.
Went to Kona. Watched several people injure their hands on blocks including Lou Caci. He was the "example" before the rest of the people tried. There were paramedics waiting outside. As far as Josh, he didn't always travel to the same events Megan did so it's possible one or the other would not be present at a certain event. James Ray grew out of control over the years.
Great article as usual Cassandra!
Does anyone know where I can find this complete interview?
Had Josh been given immunity at the time of this first interview? I am not clear on that.
You can see the docs on Tom McFeeley's site.
Hippo: Josh only got immunity for the second interview.
Good article Cassandra.
You know, you have got to tie the phrase "they aren't dead, they were just having an out of body party and didn't want to return" back to James' own experience of drug use.
If you go to JamesRay.com and go through the video/audio files, look for the interview with Nicole Whitney and at the 11:38 minute mark he talks about experiencing death and after a crazy string theory diatribe (at around the 13:05 mark) James said he didn't care if he came back from the death experience.
So I maintain that James projects that belief to everyone -- he tells people that this death experience is nothing more than a lucid dream that you can move in and out of at will. Sort of a combination of Vanilla Sky and Flatliners.
I hope that all those drives that the sheriff's office has all these audio -- because it sure sounds like Josh was in a rush to move the drives and destroy evidence.
Also, you forgot to mention that James has herpes.
Amayra (Who's REAL name is Divera) Hamilton, is running a cult out at Angel Valley. The reason she didn't want ambululences there is because she doesn't want it to come out that most of her cult followers are border-line white supremacists. The Mercer's live on the coumpound and are part of the kooky UFO/White supremacist cult. They weren't doing a Native Sweat lodge they were using it as a cover for their wacko cult beliefs. They talk about each round representing a sacred chakra and teh 8th one is where you transform your DNA and become like the aliens. That's the reason they didn't recognize that people were dead -- their wacko beliefs made them believe they were transfroming into space aliens - BLOND BLUE EYED ONES - from the Pleides. Do a little research into what goes on at Angle Valley and you won't be blaming James Ray for everything -although he is guilty as hell, he is, unfortunately, one of the sanest people that went to that retreat. Meagan drank the kool-aid too.
TSarten: It *would* be unfortunate if we went without mentioning James Ray's STD.
Sane, Rational Protestestant from Sedona: You totally win comment of the day.
The word syntax is being used by Ray, as he copied it from Tony Robbins, who took it from its uses in NLP. In this context, syntax means the order and sequence of the techniques within the seminar. Ray had carefully designed his seminars, which were copied from many other seminars, which had been tested for decades on people. The indoctrination techniques being used have to be used in a precise order and sequence for maximum effect. That is the syntax.
Josh and Megan are revolting liars, that is what it comes down to. They are trying to play dumb, when in fact they know the techniques being used on the Ray customers. Josh is aware of what syntax means in this context, but is just trying to play dumb, pretending its like a schedule, when it is not. Its the precise order and sequence of the powerful brainwashing techniques being used by Ray. They run them in precise order and sequence, that is the syntax. The timing on the clock doesn't matter, that is another lie by Josh. Real sickos
Following your articles with great interest. Thank you for doing the work!
Yakaru has posted about a new doc from Arizona LE on the Salty Droid site..Interesting reading!
Kudos to Cassandra - again. She recently heard and reported that the James Ray peeps were planning another conference call, and she was right. JR's followers posted about it at the "I Support James Ray" Facebook page. So wish I could have been a fly on the wall...
A thousand thanks, Cassandra, for staying on top of this.
To Megan and Josh, I hope you think of Liz Neuman and what you put my family through every time you see your own Mothers and I hope you have problems sleeping every night like I do. You deserve everything you’ve got coming. You had a chance to make things right, share the truth, and honor your immunity contract, but completely blew it in my opinion. I can’t believe I ever shook your hands.
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