James Arthur Ray, 67, Self-Help Guide Whose Retreat Became Deadly, Dies

James Arthur Ray, an Oprah-endorsed motivational speaker who spent two years in jail after the 2009 deaths of three folks in a sweat lodge, the end result of a three-day religious program he ran within the Arizona desert, died on Jan. 3 in Henderson, Nev. He was 67.

His brother, Jon Ray, introduced the loss of life on social media. He didn’t say the place in Henderson Mr. Ray died or cite a trigger, however he did say the loss of life was surprising.

Mr. Ray was struggling to succeed as a motivational speaker when he appeared in “The Secret,” a 2006 documentary made by the Australian tv producer Rhonda Byrne. The “secret,” which Mr. Ray and others espoused, was the concept constructive pondering can actually make the world shift in your favor.

Issues started to maneuver shortly for Mr. Ray. He appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s present, the place she lavished reward on him. Inside months he was standing in entrance of sold-out crowds of tons of, then hundreds. In 2008 he revealed “Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Need,” written with Linda Sivertsen, which reached The New York Instances’s best-seller checklist.

He was, Fortune journal declared in 2008, “the following massive factor within the extremely aggressive world of motivational gurus.”

Mr. Ray blended self-help {and professional} improvement with a dollop of mysticism — a potent mixture of Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey and Deepak Chopra. He was tall and charismatic, with a straightforward smile and simply the correct quantity of self-deprecation to win over a crowd.

He provided a hierarchy of programs, every dearer than the final, culminating in “Religious Warrior,” a $10,000 retreat close to Sedona, Ariz. After a collection of endurance workouts, together with prolonged fasting, members spent hours in a sweat lodge, the place temperatures soared above 150 levels.

Mr. Ray offered “Religious Warrior” a number of instances, and a few previous members had raised questions on whether or not he or his workers members had adequate coaching to run a sweat lodge.

Nonetheless, nobody was ready for what occurred on Oct. 8, 2009. Mr. Ray packed about 50 folks into a brief construction fabricated from a spherical wooden body coated in tarps, measuring about 25 toes in diameter and solely 5 toes on the heart. He poured gallons of water over fire-heated rocks, filling the lodge with sizzling steam.

Although he informed members they may go away at any time, many mentioned later that they felt pressured by him to remain. Ultimately the situations inside grew insufferable, and the gang flooded out; many individuals collapsed on the bottom.

Somebody referred to as 911; one first responder later mentioned that the scene appeared like the positioning of a mass suicide. Twenty-one folks have been taken to the hospital.

Three of them died — James Shore and Kirby Brown have been declared lifeless on arrival, whereas Liz Neumann died 9 days later. Mr. Ray was arrested shortly afterward on manslaughter expenses.

The story grew to become nationwide information in a season of scandals; it shared headlines with the “balloon boy” hoax, wherein Colorado mother and father falsely claimed their son was trapped in a big helium balloon, and the trial of Amanda Knox, an American scholar who was discovered responsible in an Italian court docket of murdering her roommate. (Her conviction was overturned in 2015.)

Mr. Ray’s trial unfolded within the spring of 2010 and ended along with his conviction on three counts of negligent murder. The decide sentenced him to 2 years in jail.

James Arthur Ray was born on Nov. 22, 1957, in Honolulu, the place his father, Gordon Ray, was serving within the Navy. The household later moved to Tulsa, Okla., the place his father grew to become a preacher and his mom, Joyce (Schott) Ray, managed the house.

Mr. Ray mentioned the household was so poor that they lived in an workplace hooked up to his father’s church. However he additionally mentioned his father’s ability as a minister impressed his later profession.

“He was very charismatic,” Mr. Ray mentioned in an interview for the CNN documentary “Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray” (2016), directed by Jenny Carchman. “He actually might contact his congregation. He was my first wow.”

Mr. Ray attended Tulsa Group School however left earlier than ending his diploma. He went to work for AT&T, beginning as a telemarketer and transferring as much as coaching and junior administration.

A part of the corporate’s coaching program relied on the work of Mr. Covey, a professional-development knowledgeable and speaker and the writer of “The 7 Habits of Extremely Efficient Folks” (1989). Mr. Ray determined he might do one thing comparable, and he left AT&T to discovered an organization referred to as Quantum Consulting.

Motivational talking is tough, usually thankless work, with most practitioners scraping by in entrance of luncheon crowds in Vacation Inn convention rooms. For greater than a decade, that was Mr. Ray, too — till Ms. Byrnes included him in “The Secret.”

By then he had moved past self-help speak to incorporate New Age philosophy and mysticism. He spoke of classes discovered from a Peruvian shaman and a Hawaiian religious information. Viewers members paid hundreds of {dollars} to listen to him, usually over a number of lengthy days in huge convention halls.

These prepared to pay much more have been taken far past the convention heart, on retreats that usually concerned intense bodily and psychological workouts — resulting in “Religious Warrior.”

Alongside along with his brother, Mr. Ray’s survivors embody his spouse, Bersabeh. Info on different survivors was not instantly out there.

Mr. Ray was launched from jail in 2013, and by the following yr he was as soon as extra talking professionally.

He was upfront in discussing the occasions of October 2009 along with his audiences. And he agreed to be interviewed at size by Ms. Carchman for “Enlighten Us.”

“I’m accountable,” he mentioned in regards to the sweat-lodge catastrophe.

On the finish of the movie, he added: “It needed to occur, as a result of it was the one approach I might discover and be taught and develop via the issues that I’ve accomplished. Am I ingesting the Kool-Support? Possibly, however the Kool-Support works for me.”