James Arthur & Bersabeh Ray’s Inspiring Journey to Spiritual Growth & Reclaiming Power

Pamela Bardhi: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Underdog podcast. Today I have two incredible guests, not one, but two magical guests here. James and Brissava. How are you?

James Arthur Ray: We’re doing really, really well. We’re doing our best to keep our focus and to remain somewhat realistic and believe that the future is bright. Even though sometimes it tends to look a little dark.

Bersabeh Ray: That’s a good way to open up, you know?

James Arthur Ray: Yeah. But it’s true.

Pamela Bardhi: We.

James Arthur Ray: We work at it daily.

Bersabeh Ray: Yes.

Pamela Bardhi: Amen. I’m super excited to meet you both. Your work and everything that you’re doing is just absolutely incredible to me as we were talking kind of beforehand. Everyone knows how. Yes, I’m big in business, real estate development, whatever, all that whole world. But on top of that, it’s spirituality over everything. Because your business is an extension of you, therefore it’s all connected. Right. So when I was reading up about you both, I was just so mind blowing. I was like, oh, man, the conversations are going to be unreal.

Pamela, what did you want to be when you grew up

And before we jumped into all that, I wanted to rewind it back quite a bit. For both of you, I would love to know. Like, as kids, what did you want to be when you grew up? Because this magicalness did not come from random. Right. I feel like it always starts at the source from the very beginning.

James Arthur Ray: Why don’t you take it first? I tend to be a mic hog, so we’ll let bear.

Bersabeh Ray: You’re going to let me go first?

James Arthur Ray: Let her go first.

Bersabeh Ray: So that’s a setup that he’ll take the rest of the.

James Arthur Ray: No, not true, not true.

Bersabeh Ray: That is okay. I don’t mind. What did I want to be when I grow up? Mine is, the. That’s a little difficult question, given the background where I grew up. Yeah, in Iran at a time of war. My thing that I’ve always wanted as a kid was a close relationship or a relationship with God. And I always wanted to know, what is, our capabilities as a human being that we have in this life. So I’ve always gone after it to reach this ultimate potential of whatever it is. However it looks to know the truth and see the truth and distinguish illusion from truth.

That’s always been with me, then. I’ve always had a sense of, you could say it’s an intuitive ability of feeling way too much. I’ll put that out there because it’s when you’re growing up with it. As a kid and as a teenager in younger years, when you don’t know what it is. It could be very chaotic, and it could hinder you if you don’t know what it is and how it works. So I’ve always gone after that, and that kind of pushed me into, well, what we are now. What we do for other people and what we do in the world is from.

James Arthur Ray: That space, through a long, dark journey.

Bersabeh Ray: Oh, yes, mine. I went through a very long and super dark journey to be able to see what I was looking for. Which is the truth is in the light. You have to experience a lot of darkness to be able to even realize what light even is. It wasn’t easy, it’s never easy. And it was a struggle. I’ve gone through terror, which is the violence of war, actual war, where we had bombs dropping in our neighborhoods. Escaping the country, being smuggled out. Father was thrown in prison by military, mom was raped by military forces. Coming to the United States, ended up, I experienced sexual abuse in Iran. Coming to the United States, there was a lot of drug abuse and hanging out with gang, group members and so forth. So I’ve gone through hell. Yeah. Really gone through hell.

Pamela Bardhi: Yeah.

Bersabeh Ray: I mean, that’s all I knew. Having that kind of a background and being where I am now was. Only I never thought it would even be possible, given the things that I went through. And I think as far as traumas go, I’ve experienced pretty much, I think all of them. We sat down and talked about this once. Was it, was there one trauma that I did not experience and we could not find it. So there you have it.

James Arthur Ray: No, speechless there for Pamela, rather, was speechless there for a minute.

Pamela Bardhi: I was just, you know, I reflect upon things like this because I’ve always, so mesmerized and honored and privileged. Whenever I meet somebody who’s been through that type of darkness and still shines the way that they do. Right. That’s the whole reason I started this. This podcast was really to show people that, like, hey, whoever you want to emulate.

Pamela Bardhi: Whoever you see that’s successful in business, like there’s a journey in life, we’re successful in anything in life. And for you to say that and open that up, I honor you for that, I thank you for that. I just thank you for sharing that with the world. Because there’s someone listening right now that needed, to hear that. Any part of your journey or any sort of motivation or something that really helped you get through. If you would like to share, that would be amazing. Just because you just never know who’s listening and needs it, you know?

Bersabeh Ray: Sure. One major thing I will say that got me through it as well, is that usually when an individual has experienced such things. Especially with drug addiction, and that all sources out from whatever traumatic experiences you had as a child. That led you to those things to begin with, is that they feel broken. They feel broken to a point where they think there is, that I can’t even experience normal. There’s no such thing as normal, and in their mind, they’re right, there isn’t. They’ve never experienced it. So I came from that. And going through my journey of cleaning up and so forth was. I wanted to be able to experience life from a point of view of, like, completely normal.

Like, these experiences had no emotional attachment to me. Therefore it didn’t run, my behavior, and I never thought, like, that is possible, like I want to. Because being an addict, one thing I dreamed of, and I’m sure people can relate to this. I want to be able to sit in my living room and not need anything. Be perfectly okay in my body, just totally content, you know? And I will tell you, I will tell those people that it’s absolutely possible that you can definitely do that. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of cleaning up. It’s not easy, I will never minimize it. Yet you can absolutely do that.

James Arthur Ray: True.

Bersabeh Ray: You just have to keep at it. You can’t, you can never, ever give up, you just keep moving forward. And if you know that something like this, the outcome is possible. That you could feel like a completely brand new person, it’s completely different individual, then that’ll keep you going.

You’ve been through a lot of darkness since 22,009

James Arthur Ray: Yeah, and here’s. I’d like to punctuate that. Because I’ve been blessed in a painful kind of way to share the majority of that journey with bears. And it’s been a very dark time, and yet sometimes you have to go through hell to get to heaven. If you’re going through hell, which so many of us are right now in our world, collective. It’s a very apparently, as I mentioned, dark time, and yet it’s in the darkness. After the darkest night is when the brightest dawn comes. So you have to keep the focus and the vision on that, and here’s what I can promise. The forces of darkness must give way to he or she who refuses to give up.

You know, you’ve just got to keep going is impossible sometimes as it feels. We know that as difficult as it feels, and we know that you have to keep going. It’s that darkness which strengthens us and often, most often, in fact, almost always points us to the light. It gets us back to the heart and to what’s truly important for us. So we were really excited to be here. Just because you have, underdog in your title of this podcast. And, you know. He or she who falls down and gets back up is wiser and stronger than he or she who never fell. Just take that to heart, and so, anyway, I’m.

Bersabeh Ray: You’re hogging him.

James Arthur Ray: Yeah, well, I’m playing off of what you said because I. You’ve got so many good things to say that I want to. I’m going to make sure and emphasize those.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah, no, he’s great.

James Arthur Ray: I’ve been through a lot of darkness, too, particularly since 22,009, and I’ll just. In answer to your question, to me, I’ll encapsulate it. It’s a very long and arduous and difficult journey, and I went from the peak of success. If you will, in the physical world, a net worth of north of $20 million. Everyone wanted me, Larry King and Oprah Winfrey and the Today show. I worked with over a million people coming to me to ask me how to build a business and a life. Really thought that I had reached the summit. It was interesting because in 2006, I asked God to help me have a greater message. And a mission in the world in a positive way. So at that point, it wasn’t showing up in the physical world.

Then all of a sudden, when the secret hit, which some of your viewers may remember. You know, I was a guy in the secret that didn’t have grey hair then. Because I wasn’t married and I hadn’t been through nearly enough hell, which will tend to do that to you. But nonetheless, when that hit, things just blew up for me, and I thought, okay, well, this is God’s gift. Well, the challenge is that I started to kind of think that I was God’s gift. I thought, you know, I’ve kind of got it figured out, and it wasn’t. My intention was always pure, but sometimes pure intention is not enough. Sometimes execution is more important than intention. And so life loved me enough. God loved me enough to think, to say to me, okay, you think you have it figured out?

Try this, and it always yanked away from me. And I was one of the harbingers of the weaponization of the legal system. I was so big and so well known within my genre, and everybody wanted a piece of me. So I was an incredible target to take down. If you look at the justice system in our world, it’s supposed to be a search for truth. Well, it’s not really, I’m sorry to say, it’s driven by power and greed. The DA, you know, I went, I had an event where some people lost their lives. It broke my heart, it was a horrible accident. Anyone who was, who is a thinking individual knew it was a horrible accident. And yet the state of Arizona decided to charge me with a crime. They made it an intentional crime, which was manslaughter.

Well, let me, it blew my mind because I’m an American, right? It was easier for beer Soba, to look at what’s going on and say, well, you know. The government’s not always in your favor, and things are not always as they seem because of where she grew up. But for me, it was shocking, it shattered me. I thought all I’ve done is do my best to help people and to support them and to empower them. Everyone will know, you know, James Arthur Ray is about those things. Well, no, they don’t know, because the media is a powerful force and the media drives sensationalism. And so consequently, I went from, you know, this great messenger. If you will, to Satan in a matter of a heartbeat, and I lost everything.

I lost my home, I lost my inc. 500 company, I lost all my friends that were supposedly my friends. And, you know, it’s interesting because the people who are in the industry of helping people. And the people who, in the industry of being, quote, spiritual were some of the most heinous. The most attacking and the most backstabbing, and that really, it just shocked me and it hurt. So, long story short, I was acquitted of manslaughter because the jury couldn’t find. After a four month trial, they couldn’t find one shred of evidence for intentional harm. It wasn’t there, it was an accident. But during that trial, and this is what I experienced in the justice system, and we’re seeing it today. There were 32 counts of prosecutorial misconduct.

By the way, this is all public record. You can look it up. That was, by the DA, 32 counts, well, one count of prosecutorial misconduct is grounds for a mistrial. There is no mistrial, there was a Brady violation, which. And the state was fined for suppressing evidence in my favor. Well, that’s grounds for mistrial, there was no mistrial, but thank God, the state wanted 30 years. If they got what they wanted, I wouldn’t be here with you today and with your group, but they didn’t. But what I did get was two years, and it was a horrific experience. Came out in 2013, and which wasn’t that long ago, 2013, I was 20 million m dollars in debt. I had seven foreclosures.

James Arthur Ray started from worse than broke in 2013

All my bank accounts had been closed. I was standing in the middle of the Arizona desert and I was in horrible physical condition. Was just broken mentally and emotionally, and shocked, and I was alone, I didn’t know this amazing woman yet. And I was homeless, and I was 54. Now, I started from worse than broke in 2013 because for me, broke looked good. You know, $20 million, I was $20 million underwater from broke. So at that point, I had to really go inside and ask myself. What’s the, you know, James Arthur Ray 3.0 going to be about? That presupposes there was a 1.0 and a 2.0, which there was. We can talk about that another time. But I had to get back to my heart and say, what do I want the next chapter of my life to be about?

It was a very cathartic experience and it was a very enlightening experience, and it’s been a difficult climb. Bershaba met me shortly thereafter. Because of what she’d been through, you know, by the way, Wikipedia and Google are not my friends. If you look me up, they’re pretty hateful. We’ve done our best to try to get it updated, and the powers that be just aren’t going to update it. And so now, you just had to learn to run at the dog and you deal with it. You don’t run from it. So she saw beyond that because of the experiences she’d been through. She saw something in me that I didn’t even really see in myself at the time. That’s invaluable, if you have someone, if you can find someone.

If you’re at a low today who believes in you and sees potential in you. I don’t even know you, and I’m talking to the viewer today, but I know what works through you. The power that works through you is greater than anything life can throw at you, and that’s just a fact. You have to become a greater vessel on a vehicle for that power. And when you do, then you can turn your life around. Does that mean that you’ll be a billionaire? Well, no. Not everyone’s meant to be a billionaire. I’ll tell you, you know, I was never a billionaire, but I was a mega, mega millionaire. It’s not that sexy or exciting, you know, you not, like we’ve been conditioned to believe.

When I was worth north of $20 million and making $10 million a year. I had $10 million a year problems, and that I had to deal with on a consistent basis. That just comes with the territory, and so, anyway, you know, here we are today. Our real enthusiasm, I love that word. The prefix n, from the Latin, means to be, and then theos is God. So enthusiasm is to be filled with God, the enthusiasm we have is to remind you as the viewer. I’ll talk to you, too, Pamela, and all of us, of who we really are and what we’re capable of. And what the power that works through us. There’s so much more that can come through us than what comes from us. If that makes sense to you.

Pamela Bardhi: That was mind blowing. You both are, like, such a powerful force. I’m just here just like, whoa. Incredible stuff. Well, because there’s so many things in your journey, that both definitions of underdog could get that hands down. And it’s amazing. Adversity is the best thing you could ever give your children, right? Like, without adversity, without these hardships our lessons would not be what they are, right? So, James, like, if you had nothing been down that bad, would you ever have met Percival?

James Arthur Ray: No. She told me that if I had met her, she wouldn’t have been attracted to me. Because she’s seen old clips of me where I was a little filled with hubris. I’m such a better man and a better human being. And I’m a better husband than I would have ever been had I not been tenderized. If you eat meat, you know how you tenderize it? You pound it, you know, I’ve been tenderized by God and by life, and that’s a good thing. It’s not fun, no, it’s pain but here’s the reality, pain is the mother of all growth. Now, that’s not popular, but pain is not a signal to suffer. Pain is a signal to grow, pain is a signal to you to say, hey, you have pain. Something’s out of whack, something needs to be adjusted.

You’re doing something that’s not in alignment with universal will. And when you can find that, then the pain will go away. So I encourage everyone in these very potentially painful and dark times to say, there’s no better time to be alive. There’s no better time than right now to be able to realize who I am. To practice in the greatest adversity, you know, the things that I can potentially do and what comes through me. Because, you know, if you look at mythology, and I’m on a roll. I know, but if you look at mythology, every great hero from Heracles to name the name the hero is, was a hero. Because of the adversity, to your point, the demons, the dragons, the difficulties that they faced. You can’t be a hero unless you face those things.

Pamela Bardhi: I absolutely agree. That’s why hearing both of your stories is so powerful because it’s like you had your own dragons to slay. If you will, right, to get to where you are today. The key is, what was the process or what, in jumping back into self discovery. Then leading that to your transformation and kind of the bounce back, right? Because that’s the number one thing everyone loves to hear about, the underdog. It’s like, all right, we fell badly, got right back up, and kept on going. And that process is so, so, so powerful.

James Arthur Ray: We have replaced God with money and materialism

So throughout your journeys, you know, Brisbane, you kind of talked about was important for you. But I’d love to hear it from you, too. James is like, you know, after that moment when you, lost it all and you were literally from ground zero. What is my next chapter looking like? What were some of the steps that you took that led you to. First of all, for example, like, certain things that you maybe mantras or things that you went through. Because there could be someone listening right now. That they might be at that very spot or close to being in that very spot and terrified.

James Arthur Ray: I’ve been really blessed to have some great mentors in my life. And I’ve had six major mentors throughout my life, some in business and some in spirituality and even in mysticism. I studied behavioral sciences and was really big into philosophy in my traditional studies. So I reflected back, and I think this is really important when you realize what you’ve spent your entire life on and for. I write about this in my latest book God, money and sex. How to understand and overcome the three major human dilemmas, and those are the God, money and sex. What we’ve become in our world is a very secular society, lost our connection to a controlling principle. Call that God, call it what you will.

But if you go back historically, we always came back to this controlling principle. Which gave us a foundation and a construct to work within. Now, if you study the great philosophers who, none of them had an easy life, by the way. You could look at any of them, Plato, Socrates, many of them gave their life, certainly the Christ, the Buddha. None of them had an easy life, and they went through tremendous adversity and not many followers. And not many followers, because if you tend to follow the crowd, you tend to get lost in the crowd. That’s just a fact. So I had to come back to, what are the morals and the principles that life should be grounded in? It’s not money, unfortunately. 

And I talk about this in the book, we kneel at the altar of money and materialism. That’s a fact, in today’s world we have replaced God with money and materialism. That what’s brought us to the precipice of where we are today. It’s driving crazy, dark behavior, because people are doing absolutely ludicrous things because they’re getting a lot of money to do it. They want a lot of power and so on and so forth, it’s very seductive. And I know that when everyone wanted to talk to me and everyone wanted a piece of me, it was very seductive. I was making a whole lot of money, and I lived in Beverly Hills and all this grand thing, supposedly.

And yet. But when I step back and I really, began to contemplate. That’s one of the things that all the great teachers teach and all the mystical traditions teach. You have to contemplate your life, and you have to think about all of it in perspective. When I began to contemplate. I realized that all the things that had been given to me in the physical world were literally given to me. There were people who worked as hard as I did, and they didn’t get the same things I got. Why is that? Because we have certain gifts that are given to us now. It’s our responsibility to decide what we’re going to do with those gifts. If we start to get seduced into the gifts, then that’s where you fall.

That’s where you really lose it. So for me, as I stood in the desert long answered your question. When I stood in the desert in 2013, homeless and broken and alone and $20 million in debt. I had to say, okay, let me get back to the heart. Let me think about who does, James Arthur Ray 3.0 wants to be? Really want to be a moral person, I want to be a principal person. I want to be virtuous, you know, all those things which money can’t buy, and that’s real wealth. You know, your wealth is not what you have. Your wealth is what you’re left with when all you have is gone. And that’s a hard pill to swallow in today’s secular world.

But that was the first step for me, Pamela. Is to come back to center and to say, okay, let me reboot here. Given all the things I’ve been through and all the hell that this world. The third dimension, has put me through, you know, what’s really important and what’s going to be important. And the only things that are really, truly valuable are those things which can be ever lost or taken away. If they can be lost or taken away, then they’re not really valuable, it doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. You know, a nice house is valuable, but it’s got, use value. It doesn’t really have intrinsic value if you get the difference. So that was the first step for me, and I decided to start my next journey from that perspective.

Pamela Bardhi: I absolutely love that, I love that you grounded in that. It’s crazy, because in our world, we don’t realize how intrinsically money motivated we are until we get to that pillar. I’ve talked to so many entrepreneurs about this. Like, by the time I hit 27, I was featured in Forbes, Inside magazine. And I had, hitting that seven figures, and I was like, holy crap, I’m killing it. Life is so good.

James Arthur Ray: Whoa.

Pamela Bardhi: This is everything I ever worked for. You know, being a kid who came to the US when we were five years old. Watching your parents build everything from the ground up and grind, grind, grind. It was cool for, like, two days. Then after that, I was like, you know, I had that little God tap. That was like, hey, pam, you’re doing great things for yourself. What are you doing for the world? I’m just like, well, shit, you know? And this was like my whole, like, you know, and so I’ve been in, like, this rabbit hole. That’s how I started diving into so many different things, because I was like, man. Like, how did I actually get here, and one of my biggest things was the connection to the other side.

You know, God, whatever everyone wants to identify with, whatever it is that you identify with, like, identify with it. I just. This is, you know, I resonate with God. So for me, it was like I was always into, intuitively driven and all of that. It’s crazy to realize that, like, okay, that you were so intrinsically buddy motivated. But now it’s like you’ve gotten all these gifts, you made it through all these things. Now what’s next? Kind of bringing all that into the business world is kind of where I’ve landed with all this stuff. It is amazing, right, what you said it was, you know, what is it that you want to be known for? What do you want to teach people? And its impact, and the thing that.

Bible says love of money is the root of all evil

And I would love to hear your perspective on this, because I know that you guys do a lot with alchemy. Do a lot with business, and it’s all about, just incredible. I just can’t wait to hear you have to say about this. But, you know, business is a spiritual game, and it’s an extension of yourself. We’ve been programmed to think that money is bad. It’s a horrible thing, but in the right hands, it can change the world. If in the right hands. Right. Because money only amplifies who you are.

James Arthur Ray: That is right, and what’s been misquoted from the Bible. Which is an incredible source so many times, is money is the root of all evil. That’s not what it says. It says the love of money is the root of all evil. What we need to understand is that we use money and we love people. We love humanity. When you start to fall in love with money, that’s where it becomes evil. And evil, by the way, is just the word live spelled backwards. To be evil is to live in a backwards way. You’re living out of alignment with universal.

Everything in this physical form is a reflection of the spiritual

And so maybe you want to talk a little bit about, because she mentioned something about the other side. I think, what we’re dealing with in today’s world, if we’re really aware. Something more than just what’s happening in the physical world.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah, I would say, like you said, your business is an extension of you, it’s also a spiritual act. I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I realized everything in this physical form is a reflection of the spiritual. Everything you do is spiritual, what are you tapping into and bringing into form? Because you’re always doing that. Now, are you tapping into, let’s call it God. Which is of light, or are you tapping into the dark energies and bringing into form? What are you doing exactly? For me, and given our experience in the life that we live. It’s not just about sitting down and meditating and doing, bowls or whatever. Name your, you know, I say burning incense. Burning incense or mantras. It is about fully living this life and being productive, having, adding value to the world that you live in.

You have to take care of your body, you have to take care of your home, your family. And so forth and so on. That’s the ultimate, to be spiritual. Some of the things that go along with that, that opens up actually more energy sources. More power to you is through being very much disciplined. Believe it or not, is to have structure in your life. Because if you can’t control your eating habits. If you can’t control your lifestyle, to be able to be disciplined, to choose what you’re going to do. So if you’ve got greater power coming through you, how are you ever going to control that? To be able to point it in the right direction, you can’t. We’re very much, you know, not. What is the saying? You say not to be of this world.

James Arthur Ray: No, that’s the christ.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah. I’m sorry.

James Arthur Ray: Yeah, he says we. He said we need to be in the world, not of the world.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah.

James Arthur Ray: And that’s one of the big spiritual misnomers is that so many people are so called spiritual. Oh, the world doesn’t matter. You know, I just want to say, I want to sand.

Bersabeh Ray: I long here.

James Arthur Ray: I don’t belong here.

Pamela Bardhi: Well, then why doesn’t exist was my favorite time. Doesn’t exist. I’m like, but it does. It’s 04:00 p.m. let’s go.

James Arthur Ray: If you’re not supposed to be here, why the heck did you come? You know?

Bersabeh Ray: Then why are you here? Yeah, it’s, the whole thing is, you know what it is? We’ve been conditioned into a system by a small group of people that have taken control. Let’s say, of this earth. And have played out this, how the perception that they want the mass majority of people to have. Now, if the mass majority of people were to unplug from that and, able to see what’s really happening. Come out, then you start tapping into your true power and potential. But that means you got to turn off the tv, you got to turn off the so-called music. You think you’re listening to tv programs, movies, and you name it.

You have to unplug, from all those things to be able to start even seeing what the truth possibly is. And for you, in the time of the world that we live, right now. To say that, oh, there’s no such thing as light and dark energies or demons and angels, oh, there. It’s kind of hard to argue against that now, even for the non-believers. They’re going, wait a minute. What the heck is going on in the world right now? It is absolutely insane too.

James Arthur Ray: And what’s happening? We’re in a spiritual war right now, that’s for sure. We really are. It’s not a war between Republicans and Democrats. No, it’s not a war between liberal and conservative, it’s a spiritual war. Every great tradition, and I’ve studied so much of the mysteries. My father was a protestant minister, so I grew up studying, you know, the christian tradition. The fact is that every tradition, you know, from the hindu to mystic. All of them have predicted that there would be a time where there are forces beyond this world. This is where it seems a little mystical for some, maybe, but it’s true nonetheless. Just keep an open mind.

There are forces beyond this world that are at war with each other, and they both want control. Let’s call one God and the other is Lucifer, and that’s a fact. So what tends to rule this world is the luciferian perspective. Which says, I am my car, I am my money, I am my this or my that, well, no. First of all, in the Bible, in the book of Genesis. I am, is the name of God, according to what he told Moses. And so, well, I am, is way more, who you are is way more than what you have. Yet we tend to define ourselves by that. Well, it’s very hard to escape the chains of that prison until you start. As Bersiba said, to disconnect from the programming.

It’s all around us, Pamela, it really is. I mean, the fluoride in the toothpaste, our food system, hinders the pineal gland, which is the gateway to God. All the things in the tap water. You know, our food system, and all the drugs and all the chemicals and all those things. They dumb us down, and they suppress who we are and what we’re capable of. And unfortunately, I. My experience tells me it’s intentional because, if we really knew who we were. We would rise above all of that and we would be so powerful that none of it could touch us. So I know that’s quite mystical, but hopefully it’s empowering because we all have the ability to take that power back.

We really do, and part of it, a big part of the work we do is with unresolved emotional issues. You know, psychology tells us 95% of what we do every single day is driven by our unconscious mind. Well, that means you operate on 5% of your potential. By the way, interestingly enough, as above, so below, they say in the mysteries we live in a 5% universe. The realm of visible light is only 5% of what’s in existence. 95% of it is so far beyond our sensory capacity that we don’t have the ability to access that. And so we’re never going to access that if we’re constantly defined and imprisoned in the 5% world.

James, how does one get into spiritual alignment? Alignment, just in general

And it takes a. Like Berserk said, it takes a lot of work, and it took a lot of work for both of us. We continue to work. You know, I’ve been doing this work literally since I was in my early twenties, and that’s a long time. Yet I’m not done, I still, you know, I realize things need to grow and expand and I need things. I know things are driving behaviors that are not at my optimum. So that’s where I’m really blessed to go to Bersova and say, hey, I need some help here. Let’s do some work, and vice versa, you know, we’re able to help and support each other. That’s the work we primarily do to help people become, in a nutshell, independent thinkers. To think for yourself.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah, absolutely.

Pamela Bardhi: I absolutely love that, so I just met Doctor Bruce Lipton over this past weekend here in Boston. He was here and, so studying kind of the biology piece of it. And I, you know, I’ve studied NLP, studied the subconscious and the known subconscious mind. Conscious and subconscious mind, and it’s absolutely incredible. Like, all of this is such mind blowing facts that are obviously not public knowledge, right? So one of the things, as you were talking, I was like, you’re dead on with everything. It’s like, how do you kind of not escape reality but fall into alignment then? Because once you know your purpose and you’re in alignment with who you are, that accesses that independent thinking.

It enables you to live in flow, it enables you to live in your power. And like you said, take that power back. So I think that, the biggest thing that people are struggling with these days, they’re lonely and they just feel like it’s crazy. We’re as connected as ever technologically, but we feel alone as ever. Which is why depression rates and everything is so high. Because I feel like we’ve moved so far away from the self. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs that say that too. They’re like, oh, bam, you know, I don’t feel like I’m in alignment.

I’m like, well, you could be making like, to your point, James, millions of dollars a year, but are you fulfilled? Like, is that, are you actually in alignment or not? So I think one of the things that I would love to hear your tips on. And it can involve the unresolved, trauma, whatever comes to your heart. But how does one get into spiritual alignment? Alignment, just in general, so that they can live in flow and how to really access that. Because that’s a game changer to help finding that purpose and living in alignment.

James Arthur Ray: It really is. And I, we both do that kind of work. We do it from a different kind of perspective. I’ll just give my little piece there and then turn it over to Bersaba.

Toltec tradition states no one is willing to do what’s necessary

But here. Here’s, what an unfortunate truth. It doesn’t have to be true. But it typically is one of the traditions I’ve been blessed to study with a teacher in the Andes mountains. A true shaman, not a drugstore shaman. Or not some guy who just wrote a book, but a real shaman in the Andes mountains of Peru. I’ve gone back and forth and I’ve been in the Amazon and all those things is, the toltec tradition states. That no one is willing to do what’s necessary until they’re backed into a corner with a dagger hanging over their head. And one of the things I love about the Toltec is they’re very graphic and they’re very straightforward.

Now, that doesn’t have to be the case. It sounds like, can you make a choice without being backed in the corner with a dagger? It sounds like you did, and we have that potential to do that, but most don’t because that’s what forces. That’s what happened for Berciba and I when life dropped me to worse than zero and I was homeless. I was pretty backed in a corner and I wasn’t a young buck anymore. And I thought, wow, I have got to do something here. So that leads us into the answer to your question.

That’s where it starts in most cases, and very few people choose to do that just out of a move towards. I’ll reference NLP because I’ve studied it as well. You have a move towards or a move away. Most people are more motivated by, move away from pain than they are moved towards potential. And, you know, my approach is very much grounded in psychology and business, much more of those tools and technologies. Neuro linguistics and hypnotherapy. Beer Sabah’s are very intuitive, and she’s incredibly gifted.

Toltec shamanic is soul retrieval

So why don’t you talk a little bit about the work you do?

Bersabeh Ray: Mine is, the. Okay, so the practice part of it is more shamanic. Toltec shamanic is soul retrieval. What I mainly do is go through if they have traumas and unresolved emotional issues. Sometimes they’re not even aware of what it is that’s blocking them to go, to get the results I want to get. I’ll give you a good example of someone, came to me and said, I just feel like I’m static. I can, I can’t get myself going, I can’t do anything, I just. I’m not motivated to move. And I don’t know why, I don’t know why I feel this way. So then I said, okay. Then in the process, I will take them through and we will find out what’s keeping that block.

Why is, why have you gotten to a point where you’ve got no more movement whatsoever? And that’s the whole soul. Retrieval process is you have to, ah, peel away at all the layers. Because if we think about it, all of us are either, we’re an amalgamation of our mom, dad. I’m talking about thoughts and feelings, too. Mom, dad, school teachers, friends, movies, music, whatever that you’ve consumed, that’s who you’ve become. So now you have to take that and say, okay, well, that’s not you. Let me help you find you, which is in your center. The main thing that I do is take that person and get them familiarized.

Or even open that for themselves to go, holy crap, I sense who I am in here. And that’s a game changer. Then you can’t, then they go all the way. Because once you feel that and who you truly are meant to be, it changes the entire game. But we have to realize that the reason we feel depressed and we feel more disconnected than ever. Is because of the things that we’re being fed. Social media is really not our friend. The way that it works on our brain is absolute destruction, the instant gratification is horrific for us. Dopamine spike, dopamine spike, dopamine spike.

James Arthur Ray: If you get likes.

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah, you’re looking for. And then you’re comparing yourself, oh, this person, you know, you can’t do that. That’s no way of living, that’s not even reality. I mean, it’s you. We think this life is not real. Well, now we’ve created another one that’s digital, and then it’s online. Now we got two layers that you.

James Arthur Ray: Have to peel back, at least.

The dark forces are in all things digital, says Mkultra

Bersabeh Ray: Yeah, I’ve had a vision, and this is the first time I’ll share it on a podcast. I was told that the devil is in all things digital, and I thought, what? It just blew me away, and the more I pay attention, it absolutely is. The dark forces are in all things digital. Because what are they going after? Don’t know if you guys are familiar with the movie matrix. I’ll just draw some corollaries there, where they’re using human beings as batteries. Okay. Well, the energy that you’re giving to these devices or whatever is taking your attention to is sucking you dry. It’s taking your life force from you, and that’s how it’s done. And it’s done through mostly fear. Most people, I can say mass. Majority of people, especially right now, are in fear.

James Arthur Ray: Yes.

Bersabeh Ray: And that frequency of fear feeds the beast. It’s the number one food source for those dark entities. The good news is that you have to, as a person and, us, individuals. We have to think that you are so powerful that you have to be programmed. Like they’re trying to program you with all things digital and so forth. With your food, they have to. They’re literally trying to kill us. I mean, let’s just be honest. In our food source, they’re putting that much power in order to control us, because what does that tell you? That tells you that we’re forced to be reckoned with and we don’t even know it.

James Arthur Ray: Yeah, it’s time to remember the things we’ve forgotten to remember and forget the things we’ve forgotten to forget. Ruminate on that for a minute. But the reality is, here’s a couple of practical examples to what she was saying. Roll back the clock 40 years Alzheimer’s didn’t exist. Now it’s a big, big problem. Well, sugar is deadly to the brain. It literally is deadly to the brain. Try to find processed foods without sugar in, you’re going to be hard pressed. And so it’s almost as if, and we’re not conspiracy theorists at all, we just make observations. I mean, but why is that?

Well, I believe it’s what bears said. Because you’re a force to be reckoned with and you have to, you have to be controlled. And here’s another one, MK Ultra. Excuse me, Mkultra, if you’ve ever heard of that, it was a CIA operative, and it’s a fact. You can look it up, as documented. They were looking at how to program minds. One of the ways they found to be very efficient and effective in programming minds was blue light. Well, here we sit at the computer and we sit at the tv, and guess what’s coming out consistently?

Bersabeh Ray: Blue light.

James Arthur Ray: Blue light. There’s a reason why when you watch traditional tv, you pick a channel. What are they channelling? Think about that. Then once you pick a channel, you pick a program, what are they programming? If you look at the ads and you look at the subtleties. When I was in college, I was in marketing, and we looked at. And the professor was really great at having us analyze the hidden messages and the hidden things in marketing. In print and elsewhere, that we don’t tend to see, but they go into your unconscious. You know, you have to stay guarded, the gate. Because there are a million centurions wanting to keep you out of the gate, consistently. The good news is you have the ability to do that. You just have to have to clean up, grow up and wake up.

Bersabeh Ray: Dead on.

Pamela Bardhi: And this is why critical thinking and living in alignment and flow. All of this information is super critical because it’s not against, it’s not the norm. But here’s the beautiful part. We’re now in the era of the divine feminine. What I’m seeing is a lot of these systems are collapsing. So there’s a new era coming in, and I feel like people are actually waking up. Which, it’s amazing, and it’s such a blessing. I’m just sitting here and I’m like, all right, it’s time to recreate.

This is where it starts, from the top down. So we’ve had as dark as it is, there’s so much opportunity at the same time. I used to be that kid that, you know, always argued and rebelled against all the teachers. And every teacher would say, oh, pam, you know, it’s not really going to make a difference. Then there were some that were like, hey, it only takes one light to light up one room, right?

James Arthur Ray: Yeah, that’s right.

Bersabeh Ray: That’s right. Yes.

Pamela Bardhi: So the key is, be the light and focus on your alignment. Focus on yourself, and spirit will never lie, you know, true connection never will. And so, living in that alignment, I think we could help more people get there. That’s going to be absolutely magical. I know you guys are working on some amazing stuff in terms of your I alchemy course coming up. Which is really amazing. Any other events that you guys have got going on, like, in the next three to six months. With, you know, just putting this stuff to practice, it’s amazing to talk about.

And, like the discussions, I could literally go on for days. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about. Like, literally with Doctor Bruce lifted, I was there all day workshop. But I’m just listening and I’m like, so tuned into all of it, and I don’t watch tv. I don’t do anything, but, like, anything that has to do with him. Doctor Joe Dispenza, anything in those realms, I’m like, all over it.

Dion was studying alchemy before becoming a business consultant

So this, these practical, kind of steps and everything that you guys are working on. I would love to hear more on what’s happening in your world.

James Arthur Ray: Well, it’s really interesting because, you know, I grew up in business. I was a c suite consultant at and t school of business and consulting business leaders on things. Like leadership and team performance and communication and presentation skills and all those types of things. So I had that really solid business background. Which I’m grateful to for eternity for at and t giving me that, that to develop. Then when I got out. But even when I was in business, I was still studying the mysteries at night. I was devouring all this content about things that I wasn’t necessarily teaching during the day. Per se, but I started to bring some of those principles in. And I put them into a context where they were palatable, even for a CEO,

Then as time went on, I continued to speak more and more about the spiritual cause for every physical result. That’s a fact. There’s a spiritual cause for every physical result, because spirit is the life force that comes through us. A degree, we’re a great conduit. Then we are able to put that out and to create different and better physical results. And so little by little, I always. Studied alchemy, studied kabbalah, I studied with the shamans, as I said, in Brazil and in the Amazon. I’ve been in the toltec. Teacher I had for years, I’ve been really blessed to be exposed to a lot of these great things. I always thought someday I’d like to teach those. But I didn’t feel like it was quite time yet. And then beer Saba said to me about what, two years ago or three.

Bersabeh Ray: Years ago, I think.

James Arthur Ray: Was it three years ago? She said, hey, look, honey, you’re not getting any younger.

James Arthur Ray: You know, when would now be the time? She used my own line on me. When would now be the time? I, You know, how am I going to argue with my line? We just decided to put it out there. It’s not like people are rushing to it like they are to a lot of the hoopla kinds of things. But that’s okay. There’s people who are prepared and ready. And have been through a lot of the motivational things, and they realize that that wears off. Then they find their way, or they’re in some way guided to what we’re doing. So, well, we have a whole series of events, and we have one coming up. What’s the date? August.

Bersabeh Ray: August 15.

James Arthur Ray: August 15. It’s a twelve week course, meets every Monday night on Zoom, for twelve weeks and twelve to 14 weeks. And it’s called 21st Century Alchemy. We’re really excited about it, it’s one of the featured courses in a whole series of courses. Next year we’re teaching Kabulah, which is about as good as it gets when it’s properly understood. We go through a whole series of things that really are about understanding the alchemical processes. Right now we’re finishing up with hermetics and with a group of people, and it’s all understanding alchemy. True alchemy is not turning base metal into gold. That was a front to keep the catholic church off the door when they were destroying everything. True alchemy is about turning base metal, metaphorically, things of low value into gold, things of high value.

All true alchemical processes are an internal process. They’re an internal process of taking the base metal of the limited thinking, the doubts, the fears, the anxieties. The perceptions that are incorrect, expectations, all those things, things. Transmuting them into gold, which some traditions would call the Christ consciousness, if you will. So, we’ve got that coming up in August, and we’re really excited about that. We still work with businesses, and we work with a lot of entrepreneurs. A lot of entrepreneurs kind of reach a point where they’ve done a lot of things in business. They say, what’s next? You know, I’ve reached the top of the ladder, and I don’t see where to go next. Maybe it’s leaning against the wrong wall. And so they tend to find their way to us because not only can we talk, to those things.

Because we have a history of building an inc. 500 company and all those things. Nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with that, you know, Dion fortune, the great. One of the great mystics, said the descent into matter must be complete before the ascent into spirit can commence. That’s about as good as it gets because so many people want to ascend into spirit. But they can’t put their feet in the sand. Maybe you’ve met those people. They can’t function in this world. Well, to have true spiritual capabilities. You’re in this world, you’re not, of it. You don’t divorce yourself, you play the game, you just don’t buy in. And you don’t get fearful, and you don’t get uncertainty. So those, that’s what we have coming up course wise, we do events. We’re doing the emerald tablet, in October or November.

Bersabeh Ray: October.

James Arthur Ray: October, which is a one day course. If you know anything about the emerald tablet, it is the fundamental document of alchemy. And if you’ve ever tried to read it, good luck. Because without, without a good teacher, alchemy is all written in blinds and code and metaphors. You read it and you go, what the heck are they talking about? Well, fortunately, I’ve had some great teachers to help decipher that, and so we’re doing that. We have other events, too. But they can, you can find out about all of those on our, on our website, harmonicwealthglobal.com. So hopefully it answers your question.

Pamela Bardhi: I love that, I was literally just going to ask, where can we find you? And all this magic and all these events, everything coming up, which you just mentioned it, which is amazing. Oh, my goodness, I love that. Well, it’s so funny.

Pamela, thank you so much for joining us today

There’s so many things I want to mention, but we could be here forever. Because when it comes to alchemy, especially because, yeah, I’ve tried reading these books, and I was like, what is this? I was like, really? I need to, like, not be distracted by absolutely anything. And sit here for, like, 12 hours to try to figure out what’s happening here. So you’re right. Those books are, they’re no joke. I’m personally interested in that.

James Arthur Ray: What the heck is sulfur and what is salt and what are they talking about? It has a very deep meaning, but on harmonicwealthglobal.com, comma, we don’t just do that. We do business consulting, we come across the full spectrum because, as you mentioned, we totally are in alignment with. Everything is spiritual. You know, everything working out is spiritual because spirit is the animating life force. Eating spiritual, building a business is spiritual because the spirit is the animating life force. And so, we also have a gift, if your viewers are interested, if they’ll go to harmonicwealthglobal.com slash freedom. Isn’t that right?

Bersabeh Ray: For God, money and sex.

James Arthur Ray: For the.

Bersabeh Ray: Yes.

James Arthur Ray: Yeah. For the blueprint. The free blueprint.

Pamela Bardhi: I love that. Oh, my goodness. We’re so grateful for that. Thank you so much for sharing that with the audience. Who I’m sure has been listening this whole time is like, whoa, this is so cool. I mean, there’s stuff I could talk about all day. But again, the more that we talk about and the more that we unite and the more that people know. Knowledge is power, right? So this, I love the work that you both are doing. Your journeys are absolutely incredible, I commend you both, and I honor you truly. I’m so grateful for today. You guys are magical, and I can’t wait to see what you do. God willing, there’s a way to collaborate in the future because we’re, like, very synced with what we’re doing now. It’s just, it’s such a blessing, I appreciate you both so, so much.

Bersabeh Ray: Oh, thank you for having us. We appreciate you.

James Arthur Ray: We appreciate you, Pamela. Keep doing great work. Thank you for the opportunity.

Underdog is always dropping on Thursdays. 

Pamela Bardhi: So that’s it for today’s episode of Underdog. Catch us next week. Always dropping on Thursdays. And remember, if you’re interested in real estate or want to learn how to create more money and magic in your life. Check out meetwithpamela.com and let’s chat. Sending you so, so, so much love.

James Arthur Ray: All we know is overtime. Fucking like some underdog. On the dog, on the dog, on the dog.