The legitimacy of Dr. John Gray's degrees are in the news

MSNBC online has a piece concerning the legitimacy of Dr. John Gray's doctorate, masters and bachelor degrees. Dr.Gray is the well known author of "Men are from Mars, Women from Venus" series. The allegation was made by CultNews.com.

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/970617.asp?0cv=CB20


CultNews.com
http://www.cultnews.com/

 

Old news. Glad they finally woke up and ran it.

Gray's bachelor's and master's are from the regionally accredited Maharishi University of Management. His Ph.D. is from Columbia Pacific.

 

The article says his lower degrees are from an unfindable Maharishi school in Switzerland.

Columbia Pacific, since losing California approval, has been labeled a degree mill. Many would disagree. I assume that a CPU doctorate would have qualified one to take the psychologist exams in California. I also assume that Gray would not have had enough training, lacking a bachelors or masters in psychology.

Pop culture isn't about education. Hasn't anyone figured that out yet.

 

As do other articles. I always got the impression that the MUM awarded the degrees, but I guess that was wrong.

I would also have to disagree with labeling CPU as a degree mill. But there is plenty of anecdotal evidence (whether or not you agree with the state's action against them) that they were failing--in some cases--to maintain proper standards. The extent of this is hard to assess, though.

 

The Maharishi University of Management is an accredited school in Fairfield, Iowa. Dr. John Hagelin, two-time Natural Law Party Presidential candidate, teaches there. The NLP is connected to the school and part of the NLP platform is solving world problems using Transendental Meditation. The Switzerland connection is part of the University's Rotating University. Maharishi U has Rotating Universities in Japan, Italy, Australia and India as well.

 

Without speaking to the quality of Columbia Pacific, it's worth pointing out that a good number of doctoral programs in psychology will take learners who do not have a bachelors or masters in psychology.

Regards,
GE

 

CPU's doctorates would not have qualified one to take the CA psych exams because they did not offer degrees in psychology. They offered PhD's in Human Resources (or something like that). I received a number of their catalogs when they were in operation before their troubles with CA. Gray is a Certified Family Therapist.

 

The first item is actually a short segment in a celebrity gossip column. The column leads off with speculation about Meg Ryan's nose.

The text doesn't present any new information. I think that most Degreeinfo readers are already aware that Gray did his doctorate at a CA-approved university. Considering that Gray is a popular psychology author, a field where academic credentials are kind of tangential, I find that fact unremarkable.

The link to something called "CultNews" is much more interesting.

It's the work of a gentleman named Rick Ross, who operates his own 'Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Controversial Groups and Movements.' Ross' own highest educational qualification is an Arizona high school diploma.

http://www.rickross.com/cv.html

Ross bills himself as "America's foremost cultbuster". He conducts "interventions" in which he harangues adult "cult members" about their religious beliefs over a three day period for some eight hour a day. On his ethics page he repudiates physically restraining "clients", but it's hard to imagine adherents of heterodox religious beliefs voluntarily agreeing to this kind of treatment.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/interview/interview2.html

Ross' use of the word 'cult' is disingenuous.

He gives us a dictionary definition of the word and acknowledges that the word's non-technical meaning is so vague that it could include just about anything. He proceeds to tell us that "cult apologists" argue that the word 'cult' is perjorative and should be replaced with the phrase 'new religious movements', apparently unaware that most academic religious studies scholars take that position. Ross summarily dismisses the idea and without any further discussion moves into a discussion of charismatic leaders, coercive persuasion and economic exploitation. (He doesn't tells us how 'coercive persuasion' differs from his own "interventions").

http://www.rickross.com/faq.html

But when it comes time to actually discuss cases, Ross is back using the word 'cult' to refer to pretty much anything that he doesn't personally like.

He tells us that "Relationship guru John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, is established seemingly as a permanent fixture in popular culture and has something of a cult following." That's clearly a very different use of the word 'cult'. It's ridiculous to equate a celebrity author with a charismatic religious leader, Gray practices no coercive persuasion that I can see, and the only economic exploitation taking place are book sales.

Gray is just a pop-psychology author whose books (I haven't read them) are by all accounts entertaining.

But Ross seems to me to be something else entirely. His specialty is scare-mongering and religious intolerance, and if his claims of being an advisor to law enforcement, the media and government have any truth, that becomes positively scary.

 

It is true that many individuals who participate in this forum are aware of Gray's questionable credentials. However, the fact that this information was presented along with the piece concerning Meg Ryan does not negate its value in informing the majority of the public, including many fans of Gray's works, who were not aware of this information.

 

Rat own, Bill.

I heard one of these cult specialists say that Gnesio-Lutherans were a cult because we don't condemn smoking and drinking.
I mean, the guy I ran into never even brought up the pork sacrifices (the German sacred tribal meat) before statues of Luther or the beer libations to the sacred dead (for or to whom we do NOT pray, however, because of justification by faith) or going to the current Luther movie to throw jujubes at the screen when the pope comes on (this rite is confined to the elderly, so kids sit down in front and get lots of free candy since Otto and Fritz won't get their cataracts done and can't aim very well anymore).

Cult shmult. Look, there are real cults out there which do use coercion in various forms. However, the influence of some alleged cultbusters is just as nefarious. Your point about uselessly broad definitions is well taken, and the tendency to get basic facts wrong is pretty awful. Hollering "cult" is often a substitute for reasonable explanation of differences and careful delineation of, on one's own terms, actual false doctrine or outright evil.

For example, many so-called conservative Christians will holler "cult" about the (Utah) Latter-Day Saints. Nonsense. Is the theological gulf so great that they and we can't possibly both be anywhere close to the truth? Yup. Does that gap mean that one side or the other is in profoundly wrong relationship with whatever god(s) may be. Yup. But yelling cult is just defamatory, explaining nothing, helping no one, and merely engendering an (unwarranted) intellectual pride.

Some would say that "false religion" is just as bad a term, but I don't think so. It does challenge the presuppositions of American civil religion, but so what? Such a term presupposes the ability of people to made sober judgments about religious truth and falsehood--and that those judgments have genuine consequences--while "cult" sets up a criterion of human irresponsibility and a creepy hunt for arcane manipulation. It also presupposes inherence within a particular tradition, so can be accepted or dismissed by those outside as they see fit. It avoids an ad hominem attack, since it is certainly possible for honorable people to be mistaken about religion and to believe falsehood, whereas calling someone a"cultist" imputes either nefariousness or stupidity. Anticult writers often do as much harm by creating paranoid Christians as cults do by inducing Christians (or Jews) to apostatize.

Sorry for the rant, Bill. I liked your comments on cults. But I never heard of this Gray character.

 

For many years I cooked 100 pounds of sauerbrauten for an Octoberfest.

Always got helpful hints that it should be pork, not beef.

My province though has 3 million people and 6 million cattle. With the mad cow scare beef consumption doubled. Sort of a beef cult.

 

Re: Re: The legitimacy of Dr. John Gray's degrees are in the news

A far more dangerous man, in my opinion, and one who really has a cult following, is John Bradshaw. Bradshaw has the following accredited degrees: University of Toronto, B.A. and S.T.B.; M.A. in Philosophy, Rice University, as well as having done graduate work in Psychology and Religion at Rice. Bradshaw is a leader in the movement to convince adults they are still children and that they have been sexually abused as children, even when they haven't. Bradshaw once made the statement that 96% of all American families are dysfuncitonal! He also said "Accept the theory that you were sexually abused, live consciously with that idea for six months...and see whether any memories come to you." In the meantime families are destroyed. I'll take Gray over Bradshaw any day and I don't care for Gray as much of his work suspiciously resembles Dr. Deborah Tannen's, the foremost linguistics expert in America.

 

Take that, Noam Chomsky!

 

Always preferred the writings of the unschooled Eric Hoffer over Chomsky!

 

Is there any beer left after the libations, Unk? I'm kinda thirsty.

 

Sure, Mike, there's always more beer.

 

What is really remarkable regarding this topic is the level of success Gray achieved without a regionally accredited doctorate or training in a mental health profession. Yet his books deal with the psychological differences in communication and interactions between men and women

It demonstrates the importance of self-marketing as well as the strong possiblity that for many, the public is not as concerned regarding issues of legitimacy of degrees or whether an author's education and training are congruent with the subject they write about. Interesting possible doctoral topic !

 

I don't think that we should be surprised by successful people without RA doctorates. The vast majority of successful people aren't doctors. Bill Gates managed to became the richest man on earth without a bachelors degree, let alone an MBA. Degrees aren't a necessary prerequisite for success.

What's more, I'm still not convinced that Gray's doctorate is illegitimate. The only criticism of it that I've heard is that it is CA-approved rather than RA. At one time Columbia Pacific had a surprisingly good reputation around the bay area, particularly in more 'alternative' circles. (In the late 70's, DL itself was alternative.)

According to the biographical blurbs one finds on bookstore websites, Gray's degree is in psychology and sexuality. That subject would seem to be very congruent with what he now writes about.

So bottom line, I don't really have any problem with the guy. He's a popular author of popular mass-market books, not a clinical psychologist. (In California many clinical psychologists do have CA-approved degrees.) He's writing relationship books, not treating patients. Actually, a state-approved degree might be entirely appropriate for the kind of thing that he's doing.

 

When did you suddenly get smart - I mean agree with me?

 

What you have to remember here is that most of Gray's work is not original. Much of what he expresses in his books in regards to the differences in communications between men and women comes from the writings of Dr. Deborah Tannen. She is the premier author and expert regarding communications. Her books such as That's Not What I Meant (1986) and You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990) predate the book that started it all for Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (1992).