Wednesday 30 October 2013

James Burgess (Sufi) - 7 Words Personal Development System - 11 Reasons "7 Words Personal Development System" is Most Likely a Sham






Eleven Reasons "7 Words" is Most Likely a Sham

James Burgess claims to be a Professional Astrologer, Sufi teacher, Spiritual Leader, Spiritual healer, business owner and etc. and etc. I understand that he offers “psychotherapy” and “relationship counseling” sessions along with many other abilities he claims to have without having any valid endorsements or qualifications for them.

By this James Burgess actively putting in danger anyone who trusts his claims for abilities he doesn’t have (eg. psychotherapy) 

Many blogs have been written on James Burgess and inconsistencies in his ideas and actions. For example You want to know this about him and 7Words a Cover to a Quackery Practice but as these are more analytical and their scope is beyond the interest of a public audience I am going to represent you with 11 Reasons about James Burgess and "7 Words Personal Development", hoping that you reach the same conclusion as I reached about this by reading below facts:

1) James Burgess and his partner (a person called Richard Grey) work under cover of a company called 7 Words: http://www.7words.co.uk/ they call it a “Management Consultancy firm” and at the same time they offer a so called “Personal Development System” and provide "Psychotherapy Counselling" So they seem to be both a "healthcare institute" (they even claim their courses are now being accreditated by NHSs of UK and Lithuanian lol I will come back to this later on) also at the same time they claim they provide advise on management issues in corporate world! fantastic!
2) They claim that in this company they provide/sell management consultancy, decision-making methods, personality improvement courses, self realization courses,  and also even though it doesn't appear on the menu but I am aware they also offer "spiritual healing" and "spiritual counselling", "spiritual guidance" and etc. which are some sort of quackery in the field of psychotherapy. 
As well as in UK they are active in Eastern Europe specially in Lithuania and they already have an established setting there. Of course they don't mention on their website that their services also include "spiritual healing" and other types of quackery because obviously that would make them the laughing stock of the world and make it obvious what type of "company" they are. So those services are offered off the menu.
3) When it comes to their Psychotherapy and Personal Development programs they push members to take “personality tests” and/or ”do confessions” and/or ”ask for advise in regards of their private affairs from the guru(James Burgess)”. This is very suspicious. Because cultist organizations do the same thing in order to learn their followers secrets, weaknesses and concerns in order to be able to better manipulate them to their own advantage. Why they do the same in the "7 Words"? 
4) The reason James Burgess thinks he is able/allowed to practice psychotherapy is by giving a new and unique definition to Astrology!
James Burgess in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BAZKNbDyFQ at 3:00 defines Astrology as: 
JB: Astrologers study the breadth and the depth of human psychology in a very specific way;
JB: And you can't understand it with a rational mind
JB: it is a bit like Chinese ideograms
JB: you have to right brain and ....
Real definition of Astrology in freeonlinedictionary: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/astrology 
The reason James Burgess tries to change the definition of Astrology is because he has been an astrologer for many decades and he just can’t suddenly say he no longer is an astrologer and he was wrong most of his life for being an Astrologer. Also he can't just claims that he is a psychotherapist as it is in fact a hard and long process in order to become a psychotherapist and James Burgess never done any psychotherapeutic training as a matter of fact.
So James Burgess trick in order to solve these two problems simultaneously is by changing the definition of "Astrology" as he mentions in this video! By this he first justifies himself for having been an Astrologer for most of his life (such a waste of life) and also by this definition he claims that he is legitimately able to practice psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy is the most dangerous aspect of James Burgess activities. He is not qualified as a psychologist and apart from the direct harm he can cause to individual by impostering as a psychotherapist he also doesn't have any real commitment to confidentiality of the information he gets from his followers. 
Also as  members of this so called "7 Words Personal Development System" are categorized and ranked as Associate, Certified Practitioner and Graduate under authoritative leadership of James Burgess (as a Guide) he can potentially use the information he gains in his psychotherapy sessions in order to mentally and emotionally manipulate the members to his own advantage. This is very very dangerous.
5) James Burgess claims their therapies under "7 Words Personal Development System" are being accredited by UK and Lithuania’s National Health Services (http://www.7words.co.uk/other-applications/ please role down the page) I have contacted NHS in UK and they confirmed they provide no form of accreditation to any organization in UK and/or abroad and that "7 Words Personal Development" is no exception of this rule.
Since James Burgess has shown a great tendency of online evasion and is continually changing their websites in response to the points I raise in my blogs I also add a screenshot of this claim here (this way they can't just remove this claim from their website tomorrow lol ) :
7 Words claim of Accreditation by UK and Lithuanian National Health Systems
(30-Oct-2013)

I am sure UK and Lithuanian National Health Services and Education System have no interest to see pseudo-sciences (such as Nero Linguistic Programming) or other type of quackeries in shape of "Spiritual Healing" to become a legitimate method of health care in their respective countries. Therefore this can be only considered as a shameless lie. A prove that James Burgess is also a lier..
6) James Burgess claims to be “enlightened” as a Sufi teacher and therefore claims some sort of “prophecy” and he expects his students to trust him unconditionally. Also he excludes himself from having to explain his ideas and actions to his students and "public" when he sets the scene in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVXgY62E6SU
A. at 5:40 James Burgess says:  “Sufi teacher is enlightened and the students suppose to trust that!” 
So as he is a Sufi Teacher by this he tells his students that they have to trust his authoritative leadership, he does see himself as being entitled to his students trust, due to the prophecy he claims. 
B. at  5:22 James Burgess says: “And yet Sufism just tells you the way it is, it doesn't explain and defend its arguments at all!” 
So by this he implies that as a Sufi teacher he just knows what he says and he doesn't need to justify and explain his arguments. In a way he demands total obedience from his students and places himself at the top of the pyramid as a Guide to rule over the AssociateCertified Practitioner and Graduate members in "7 Words Personal Development Group" by this.
7) I requested to meet James Burgess and talk with him in regards of his ideas, and put many questions to him in regards of things he says through email. He refused to meet me, and also never answered to my questions and criticism of his ideas. He instead offered to pray for me to find my “faith” as from his point of view only people who have “faith” in him are capable to understand him (I have all the emails trails)  
He is a man who is actively refusing to take responsibility of his actions and ideas. This is very dangerous to have this type of people roaming around our streets influencing our world and our loved ones with their ideas and actions which they take no responsibility for.
8) James Burgess claims the 7Words is derived from NLP (Nero Linguistic Programming – which is scientifically discredited as a pseudo-science) and Sufism.
James Burgess defines Sufism in his own terms– similar to astrology example I showed above – The only aspect of Sufism which is used by James Burgess in "7 Words Development System" is where he justifies the “Master/Follower” relationship he is setting up in his group in order to give himself authority over his followers. Other than that every other thing that James Burgess defines and say under his definition of Sufism is totally different and irrelevant to what "real" Sufism is. He is again selling his own hallucinations and superstitions by trying to redefine a dictionary word in his own terms.
Due to its pseudo-scientific and superstitious nature "7 Words Personal Development System" is a dangerous setting, specially in the hands of a man who as I showed above is quiet comfortable with lying as well. 
James Burgess by taing advantage of this "7 Words Personal Development" venture is actively exposing his followers to pseudo scientific (NLP) practices/exercises and his own superstitions (that he sells as Sufism). This is dangerous as he is causing more harm than good to those who trust him with their psychological issues and allow this man to practice psychotherapy on them.
For example at least in one occasion he suggested to an abused wife who was treated violently by her husband to try to mellow the husband down by healing her solar plexus by consulting a "Spiritual Healer" in this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raOSHGfvphg at 18:45
As you can see this approach to consultancy and psychotherapy keeps individuals in risky situations while the used method of solving the issue fails to provide a viable chance of solving the problem (in this case healing the solar plexus) as there is no rational/scientific/common sense reason on why healing a wife’s solar plexus can cause an abusive and violent husband to stop being that way (feel free to try) 
These types of remedies that James Burgess offers are New Age quackery. They are just a false hope he is giving to his followers in order to gather and keep them around his 7 Words (his victims basically) in order to milk them by charging them for seminar fees and camp fees and etc. and by this he is semi-actively prolongs his followers psychological/emotional suffering because as I showed previously in the case of the distressed wife example, healing a solar plexus by a spiritual healer is in no way a viable solution for calming a violent husband down, or as a matter of fact to solve any other type of psychological problems.
9) http://www.7words.co.uk/criteria-membership/ Even though this information is being concealed on "7 Words Personal Development System" official membership page, Members need to pay in order to receive courses and to become certified practitioners.  
Membership Requirements (30-Oct-2013)

Once the members made the initial payment they also have to re-affiliate themselves to the group (in order to show their loyalty) by going on to a pilgrimage every year to a camp near Bristol http://www.unicorncamps.com  
This Camp requires members to make further payments for camp fees and etc. (more than 200 GBP per week for every person for up to 3 weeks) So James Burgess is making sure his followers are "milked" very well during their affiliation to "7 Words Personal Development System" (at least once a year after their initial payment to become members) and he seem to be making a good living out of this venture.
So if there is any misunderstanding that James Burgess is doing this as he is such a Spiritual and nice person and wants to please God or to serve the mankind or to benefit the public. Please don't be simple; he is so obviously after your money. 
I am the one who is serving the public and mankind now by exposing James Burgess's devious intentions and plans. 
10) James Burgess introduces himself with contradictory ideological affiliations in different circumstances. For example when I initially emailed him while he didn’t know I got to know him through his activities in Lithuania, he told me that Sufism is a riddle which has lost its appeal for him, also he said that he is very disillusioned with New Age teaching. This was while I had already seen his videos on YouTube (uploaded one month prior to my correspondence) where he was introducing himself as an enlightened Sufi Teacher (Guru) while offering New Age remedies to a distressed wife. I came up with this table in regards of his circumstantial ideological identity:

Sufism
New Age
In response to Unknown UK based Ex-Muslim
10-Sep-2013
A riddle which has lost its appeal for him
Disillusioned about New Age
In video taken in Lithuania 
30-Jul-2013
claims to be an "enlightened" Sufi teacher who has to be trusted and followed by his students
Offers New Age remedies to an Abused Wife
Details of this correspondance to be found:  
http://sandbadbehzad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/james-burgesssufi-7words-sceptisem-why.html
Under: James Burgess Double Identity 
11) Once I started to question James Burgess about his affiliations with Sufism he evaded my questions by shutting down his website and removing most of the info he was representing about himself there in terms of his Sufi activities. Zikr, DUP (Dances of Universal Peace) etc. why he had to do this if he really is convicted to what he claims to be. 
Details of his online evasion to be found here : http://sandbadbehzad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/james-burgess-sufi-you-want-to-know.html
There are more analytical information on James Burgess and his activities in Lithuania and UK which you are more than welcome to read (7Words a Cover to a Quackery Practice and You want to know this about him). I do believe this man’s activities are harmful and are causing damage to the society in UK and especially in Lithuania where he seem to have a higher success as he uses his English-ness in order to appease the local population.

I do encourage freedom of thought and religion, however I do sincerely believe there should be a mechanism that should limit or stop the extent this types of sham businesses and groups can take their activities by abusing this types of freedoms.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Sojol, thanks for reading my blog and link to your website, but I prefer to take responsibility of my life and "development" myself. And I won't outsource this responsibility! And I encourage everyone to do the same ...

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