True Crime Campfire - Unenlightened: The Toxic Cult of James Arthur Ray

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

Osho said of enlightenment, “You have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them.” I think this is probably true. But that doesn’t stop us from trying our damnedest to find that ready-made road to the truth. And as we’ve seen before on True Crime Campfire, there’s no shortage of self-proclaimed gurus, teachers and self-help experts who claim they can lead us there. Sometimes, following them is harmless. Sometimes it’s even beneficial. But sometimes, if we get swept up in the teachings of the wrong kind of person, we can end up following the leader right over a cliff. Sources:Documentary "Enlighten Us"Oxygen's "Deadly Cults," Episode "Spiritual Warriors"Investigation Discovery's "Deadly Devotion," Episode "Fatal Healing"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Arthur_Rayhttps://nypost.com/2009/10/19/mystics-past-is-guru-some/Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/true-crime-campfire/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Oshow, said of Enlightenment, you have to walk and create the way by your walking. You will not find a ready-made path. It is just like the sky. The birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints.

You cannot follow them. I think this is probably true, but that doesn't stop us from trying our damnedest to find that ready-made road to the truth. And as we've seen before here on True Crime Campfire, there's no shortage of self-proclaimed gurus, teachers, and self-help experts who claim they can lead us there. Sometimes following them is harmless. Sometimes it's even beneficial. But sometimes, if we get swept up in the teachings of the wrong kind of person, we can end up following the leader right over a cliff.

This is Uninlightened, the toxic cult of James Arthur Ray. So, campers, for this one, we're in Angel Valley, Sedona, Arizona, October 8th, 2009. The 911 dispatch in Yavapai County got a panicky call from an out-of-breath staffer at a nearby resort. We've got people not breathing. The dispatcher, trying to get a handle on what was happening, said, okay, is this the result of a shooting or, no, the caller said it's a sweat lodge. They had a bunch of people down, she said. They needed medical help fast.

The first deputy on the scene drove up on a bizarre. our sight. A big, low tent sat on the dirt covered in plastic. And outside it, dozens of people were lying on the ground, stumbling around or down on their hands and knees. It was clear that a lot of them were struggling to breathe, struggling to walk. Strangely, most of the women had shaved heads. It looked like the aftermath of a mass attempted suicide or a war zone. Something as awful as that. Looking at all the shaved heads, the deputy thought, this has got to be occult. He wondered if maybe these people had been given some kind of hallucinogen or poison. He called for backup and a lot of medical personnel. They were going to need ambulances and

helicopters to airlift the sickest people out. In those first moments of information gathering, the deputy learned that these people were here for a retreat, a five-day event called spiritual warrior, run by a famous self-help guru named James Arthur Ray. So who is James Arthur Ray? Well, by 2009, he'd amassed a huge following, not a million, a multi-million dollar fortune, partly helped along by his role in the 2006 movie The Secret, based on the self-help book of the same name. The secret is about the law of attraction, the theory that you can have everything you want in life by manifesting it for yourself, basically thinking hard enough about it, although I'm sure it's more complex than that. It focuses a lot on positive thinking, the idea that you can attract things, events, people, states of

being through your own thoughts and feelings. I got to say, I'm dubious about this, because if that worked, I can think of a few people who'd have burst into flames by now, just from the sheer ire of people all over the world. And we'd be the number one true crime podcast in the world. I mean, we're working on it, but we're not there yet. Yeah, I mean, it's like if you're focused on doing something or procuring something or achieving something, you're probably going to take steps to make it happen, right? You and I practice our meanest glares and are constantly finding new and worse scumbags to roast.

So really it's only a matter of time for us. Yeah. Well, we got a ripe scumbag for you for this one. Oh. Y'all are going to detest this guy by the end. So anyway, after a few years as a motivational speaker, he landed that part in the secret where he appeared alongside other self-help luminaries like that chicken soup for the soul dude whose name I forget. I think it's Jack Canfield, maybe, but I'm not sure.

and the guy who wrote men are from Mars, women are from Venus. So, you know, they gathered the best of the best, right? So, of course, the secret was a huge hit, and then James Arthur Ray got the attention of the oracle herself, Oprah.

Oprah had him on her show in 2006 on an episode title Discovering the Secret, and he blew up. Now, I know a lot of y'all love Oprah, and I get it, I do. But Oprah, girl, you have some shit to answer for it. She has now inflicted no fewer than three raging dumpster fires on the American

public. We have this chucklehead, who we're about to tell you all about. We have Dr. Oz, who's such a flippin' egotical greed goblin that he got dragged in front of Congress to explain himself. And last but not least, Dr. Flip and Phil, who just don't even get me started, because we will be here all day. So, Oprah, please, for the love of God, stop. You are not a good judge of Character. Oprah. Just stop. Stop. Yeah, there's not enough hours in the day for Whitney to watch one more asshole on YouTube. I can't take anymore. We hate watch Dr. Fell over here, so that's what I'm referring to. James Ray had all the markings of a self-help superstar. He was good-looking in a shiny-toothy Kendall sort of way, and he was really charismatic and good at reading people.

He exuded confidence. Not only that, he claimed to have been trained in spiritual traditions from all over the world. He was a cahuna, trained by Hawaiians. He was a shaman, trained by Native Americans to run an authentic sweat lodge and lead vision quests. People, especially people who could afford to take his increasingly pricey seminars, ate it up. Gross. Stop piggybacking off cultures you're not part of to make money.

You shit heal. Hard agree. Stop it. Stop it. His core promise was that he could teach you to use the law of attraction to get and do whatever you wanted in life. You could even use your own will, the power of positive thinking to ward off illness. Basically, you could create your own reality, and he could show you how. You could achieve this. by joining James Ray on what he called

the Journey of Power. It was structured like a pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid was the first event, which was free. Just like the drug pushers in the old ABC after-school specials, first one's free, man. That's how they get you.

Yep. After that, the events start costing money. More money with every step. Quantum Leap, an event which I assume had nothing to do with Scott Macula, which is a shame. The Creating Wealth Experience, Legendary Leadership,

and then at the tippy top of the pyramid, spiritual warrior. At these events, Ray pushed people to climb out of their comfort zones and try stuff that scared them. Not a bad thing on its face. I mean, it's good to do things that scare us to show ourselves that we can. That principle, in and of itself, is legit. Sure. He'd have people break bored.

with their hands like martial artists do, he'd have them zipline from a height, walk over coals or glass, put their hand into an aquarium full of snakes. Now that last one just sounds nice, but I'm a fan of the danger noodles. I want to pet all the scaly boys. But yeah, I mean, this sounds less like a step along the journey to enlightenment to me and more like a cross between fear factor and American ninja warrior or something. Yeah, exactly. For James Arthur Ray, these kinds of stunts were a way for him to make people feel accomplished, like they were really making progress. Yeah, this despite the fact that most of that stuff isn't really that hard.

I mean, anybody can break a board. Anybody can walk over coals. It's a trick of physics, not a feat of will. At some of his retreat, they did trust falls. I mean, we did those at church camp, for God's sake, in middle school. You know, kids learn that board breaking thing in karate class, kids. Yeah, I did the board breaking thing in one of my classes in grad school. and it was extremely easy.

Yeah, it's not hard. Yeah, and my college sports team did zip lining for team bonding. And it was. You felt like a rush at the end, like, oh, my God, I accomplished something. We're together. Yeah, that's adrenaline. That's how it works. But it's not impressive.

But they got a tremendous high off this stuff anyway, because how could you not when a huge roomful of people are cheering you on? just like I just said. And the charismatic leader of the group is telling you that this is the way to change your life. The buzz they got from walking over coals or touching a scary snake would make them feel proud of themselves. Yeah, it's like fast-tracking people to fake sense of enlightenment with gimmicks, basically. Pay to play, baby. And more importantly, this helped the more observant people to quiet the little inner alarm bell.

that started ringing in their heads sometimes, like when James would talk about finances and push his wealth-building stuff on them, or when he'd single somebody out and angrily berate them for not doing well enough to please them, in front of everybody. If somebody burst into tears in the middle of one of these sessions, James would say, nobody touch him.

No comfort allowed, tough love only. But for the most part, people came away feeling like they were crushing it. they were really discovering their best selves pushing their limits and you know we're not trying to bag on that like that's i understand feeling a sense of accomplishment if you do something that scares you but i just i'm saying i don't think that's the same thing as enlightenment or as learning the law of attraction or whatever like it's you know pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is good but he was overselling it in my opinion and always the businessman james would always make sure to save the really good stuff for the next event. You'll find that out at the next one, right? So people kept coming back, paying more and more

money all the time, getting more and more invested. The same people would show up at every retreat, and they'd make friends. And at that point, you know, they didn't want to disappoint each other or the great leader. So if you ever thought about dropping out, if the word cult ever flitted across the back of your mind, there'd be an emotional and financial pull to stay in. For many of James's acolytes, the spiritual warrior retreat in Sedona, Arizona was the culmination of all their hard work. It was a five-day event, and like all of James's events, it was not cheap. 10 grand per person. 10 grand. Yeah. Ray held it at a resort in Sedona, a place called Angel Valley. Sedona has always attracted spiritual seekers, and it is easy to see why. It's a gorgeous, just

beautiful place. And the vast desert landscape with gigantic red rock formations against the bright blue sky, it feels almost magical unearthly, kind of like you're on an alien planet. So it's the perfect setting, really, for a spiritual quest. Yeah, and yeah, it's one of the most spiritual places in America. Most places have a Starbucks on every corner. Sedona has a crystal shop on every corner. Some say it's home to several vortexes or places of power. That's right. So the first thing participants had to do on arriving at the spiritual warrior retreat was sign a waiver, absolving James Arthur Ray of any liability in case of injury or death. Now, I don't know about you, but I think I'd be out right then and there. Like, seriously, sign something that says, I might die, and if I do, my family can't sue your ass?

Pass. No, thanks. That sounds shady as hell. But it seems like nobody batted an eye. I guess they were used to stuff like this with him. just a little reminder slash fun fact waivers contracts or non-disclosure agreements don't protect the receiver if something illegal happens right and usually depending on the jury you get they're not worth much regardless of what happens keep that in mind you don't need to be intimidated by legalese just because some asshole made you sign something after signing the waiver it was time for the first challenge james wanted everybody the women included to shave their heads Hmm

Let go of vanity It's just hair It grows back This is the kind of pointless nonsense James loves to use To create a sense of challenge And accomplishment in his followers Step outside your comfort zone

If you don't challenge yourself You're just mediocre Now personally, I don't know What the hell is so wrong with being mediocre Frankly, but apparently in James Town Mediocre is like the worst thing you can be Can you say narcissist Right

So they had a chair there and a guy with a pair of barbers clippers, and that was it. You were supposed to plop down in that chair and say goodbye to your vanity. And, of course, a lot of the women didn't want to do it because it's pointless and traumatizing, and because subconsciously or not, I'm sure some were aware that there's a long tradition of using head shaving as a way to publicly humiliate and control women.

Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, like they did it in Game of Thrones. Yeah. Yeah. I think James was aware of that tradition? Well, he sure seems to be aware of a lot of others. But of course, if you refused, it's not like anybody was going to take you by the shoulders and forcibly shove you back into the chair.

You know, nobody was going to hold you down and shear you like a sheep. That's not how it worked. Technically, nobody was being made to do anything. But in situations like this, it's not about brute force, is it? It's about groupthink. It's about psychological manipulation and coercion. The ones who didn't choose to get shorn were failing and they felt it. not just from James Arthur Ray

but from the others in the group too and when one would finally give into the pressure and sit down in the chair there was immediate positive reinforcement immediate love bombing yay Susan's letting go over vanity good job Susan and you know campers were social creatures

it's hard to fight that stuff off no matter how aware you might be the head shaving thing was just the beginning of the spiritual warriors five days in hell right from the start you were told that following James's rules to the letter was absolutely essential. Strict obedience. Nothing else would be tolerated. And James kept a tight grip on every aspect of his attendees' lives that week. First, there was the sleep deprivation. According to former

follower, Beverly Bonn, the warriors were lucky if they got to sleep an hour a night. Holy shit. James would say, you can sleep when you get home. They were paying a lot of money to be there. They needed to get their money's worth. Now, as you probably know, sleep deprivation is a classic tactic for anyone who wants to control another person. If you can control another person's sleep, you can make them incredibly vulnerable to manipulation. It happens in cults all the time. Yes, sleep deprivation is so brutal, in fact, that in 2014, the United Nations published a report

calling it a form of torture. James also controlled when the attendees could talk and when they had to see. stay silent. And he kept them on a strict, really restricted diet. They didn't get much food to start with, and what they did get lacked protein. So now, in addition to the sleep deprivation, we have a lack of nutrition. It's starting to sound like a prison camp yet? Yeah, I think so too. And by the way, remember Love has won with Mother God, one of the cults we talked about recently. She did this exact same stuff, the sleep deprivation and the calorie restriction. weekend and sleep deprived the warriors were then led into intense workshops where james pushed them to confront

their deepest darkest traumas and insecurities and fears and these were not supportive safe space type sessions james ray seemed to have taken a tough love approach and from what i've heard from former members this could veer into the realm of verbal abuse at the spiritual warrior retreat he apparently singled out one woman as the main focus for this, and he was so harsh with her that it really upset the other participants. Basically, yeah, you have PTSD, but have you tried, like, not? And as former disciple Beverly Bond pointed out on the show, Deadly Devotion, there was no support structure there to help people process that. No psychologist on staff or anything like that. Next came the samurai game. Based, James said,

On the Samurai Code, better dead than a failure. God, will you stop fucking dragging other cultures' sacred traditions into your little dog and pony show, you absolute prick. He seemed to pick out the most flashy part of every culture. Some of the samurai committed ritual suicide for dishonoring the Bushido Code. Some native tribes use sweat lodges. I can call myself a shaman. That seems exotic.

Yoink. Yeah. In this game, James played the role of God, supervising everybody and making comments on their performance. Well, I say making comments. According to some of the people who were there, a better word might be spouting venom. All with the aim allegedly of pushing you to play full on. Playful on was James' motto for everything. And to play full on meant to do whatever James said without question. It meant ignoring your physical needs, even to the point of exhaustion and dehydration. And it meant putting up with this jackass yelling in your face about how much you sucked at the samurai game. Anyway, this game basically involved a series of physical challenges, stuff like holding up a bunch of books until your arms gave out, that kind of thing.

When you failed, you were dead. And being dead meant you had to lie motionless on the hard concrete floor until the game was over. This might not sound like that big a deal, but go try it. Lie down on the hardest surface in your house. Try not to move a muscle for 15 minutes. Now imagine having to do that for hours. No bathroom breaks. No getting up to stretch your legs and have some water or a snack. It was excruciating. Absolutely. One of James's most devoted followers was a 38-year-old woman named Kirby Brown. Kirby was a force to be reckoned with.

On the website for their foundations Seek Safely, which Kirby's parents created to help people safely navigate the world of self-help retreats, Kirby's described as someone who was drunk on life. Quote, she rode horses, mountain biked, hiked, surfed, loved blues and jazz, danced till dawn,

and was always the life of the party. She owned a decorative painting business in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, where she lived for 10 years. She sounds way cool, doesn't she? like somebody I'd like to have a beer with, although I bet I could not keep up with her. No. Kirby had been involved with James Arthur Ray for some time before she signed up for the spiritual warrior retreat in 2009,

and ever since she got there, she'd given it her absolute all. Shaved her head, journaled furiously about her experiences, did everything James Ray asked of her. Later, her friend Beverly, who was also her roommate at the retreat, said Kirby didn't sleep for three days while they were there. Kirby, quote-unquote, died fairly early in the samurai game, and as she lay on the floor trying not to move, she started to feel sick to her stomach. She needed to use the restroom, but they weren't allowed to get up. So she just lay there, trying not to think about the pain she was in. Eventually, she threw up. Now, you'd think her spiritual leader, the guy who's supposedly there to help her become her best self, to help her reach enlightenment, would offer her some water or help her to the

restroom, right? Hell no. He made her lie there in her own vomit until the game was over. There's a recording from the session. You can hear him saying, you can do this. It's just a matter of whether or not you will. Because lying in a puddle of your own sick for two hours is somehow going to help you find yourself or something. Fuck this guy. And again, when I say he made her lie there, like understand, we get that she technically could have stood up and flip James Arthur Ray off with both hands and walked out of there. And I wish to hell she had. But Remember, this is how cults work. The chains aren't physical.

They're psychological, and those are the strongest kind. And I'm sure some of you are having a hard time imagining that you'd ever do this. But think of it like this. Have you ever been pressured into doing something you didn't want to do by friends at work? Maybe your boss asks you to do a project that you know you didn't have time for, but instead of asking them to find someone else, you said yes and worked overtime? Mm-hmm. Or maybe your friend.

ask you to help her move and you really didn't have time or you didn't want to, but you said yes anyway and got roped into packing up a U-Haul on a Sunday. That's because a social contract is one hell of a drug. That's why it's so important to listen to your instincts, because sometimes the social contract of going along to get along can really be harmful or even deadly. It's like my parents always said, if you ever want to leave a sleepover, all you have to do is call and I'll come pick you up. think of your little voice as my mom and dad

letting you know you can leave anytime you like after the game ended James flew into a rage ranting that he'd never seen a group screw the pooch worse on the samurai game he probably says that every time I'm sure he feels this as motivating to his followers I suspect in reality is just confusing

but it probably did make them feel determined to do better at the next event can't please daddy want to please daddy this was James Arthur Ray always pushing pushing pushing everything he did had to be extreme intense everything was a test of

endurance fast track enlightenment so next up was what James called a vision quest they were going to drive out into the desert James was going to drop each person off by themselves and they had to stay out there for 36 hours alone

no food or water nothing but a journal to write in and a sleeping bag. Though, oh yeah, James did offer them the chance to buy ponchos too, for an extra $250. How generous. Out in the desert, with the fire ants and tarantulas, and God knows what else, for a full day and a half. No water, no food. Now remember, these people were already food and sleep deprived before this even started. This is incredibly dangerous, the dehydration especially. It's a flippin' miracle nobody died out there. And before they left, James told the group to expect to be in an altered state.

He said past attendees had gotten to the point where they didn't know where they were or why they were there. Now, I think this is crucial campers because to me this shows that James knew what he was doing was dangerous, that he'd seen people get to the point of suffering delirium before. But he sent him out there anyway. All alone, no paramedics on standby, no nothing, for 36 hours. full on, right? Unsurprisingly, many people did experience strange things. Kirby Brown told her friend she'd seen a vision of her dead uncle, who had told her to keep

things simple. When they got back to the cabins after their 36 hours in the desert, James told the group he had one final event for them. This would be the big one, the culmination of all their work. The sweat lodge. They just had time to change clothes, grab a quick breakfast, and it was time to go. Now, if you're not familiar with the Sweat Lodge, it's a traditional right for North American indigenous people, and it's intended to be led by someone who knows the tradition well,

someone who knows the history, the meaning, in somebody who knows how to keep it safe. It's not intended to be led by non-native people any more than the Catholic Holy Communion is intended to be led by non-Christians. The Sweat Lodge itself is a hut-type building. building, usually covered in cloth or skins, something breathable. You put hot rocks at the middle like you would in a sauna, and every 15 or 20 minutes you pour cold water on them to create hot steam. It's a religious ceremony, and tended her purification, prayer, and healing. As he lined up his warriors and led them into a low tent covered with plastic, James Ray pumped them up for the experience. He warned them it wasn't going to be pretty. It was going to be hot, he said. Hallacious hot is how he put

it, and he told them to expect to stay there for at least seven rounds. A round is 15 to 20 minutes. He said, you're going to feel like you're going to die. He told them they might faint, but it was okay. This was normal. This was how it was supposed to feel. He'd done this a million times before. He'd been trained by Native Americans. He knew what he was doing, and he'd take care of them. so before the first ladle full of cold water hit the hot rocks these people had already been primed to expect severe physical symptoms essentially ray had primed them to expect the symptoms of heat stroke and he told them it was normal it was okay he knew what he was doing and what he was doing was sending them into a death trap So you've probably already So you've probably already figured this out, but it desperately needs to be said that what this chucklehead was running was not a sweatludge.

What James Ray's followers were about to experience bore no resemblance at all to the traditional right. First of all, a sweat lodge is not supposed to be an endurance test. That is not what it's about at all. No. Also, a real sweat lodge ceremony would never go on for seven or eight rounds. The structure would never be covered in plastic, which just seemed designed to cook people alive. There'd never be pressure to stay in the lodge if you were feeling sick. in a real sweat lodge, if you need to leave, you can leave, of course. And there'd never, ever be 58 people in there at a time, as there were at Ray's retreat. There might be four or five, not almost 60.

Sheila Polk, one of the prosecuting attorneys in this case, actually wrote an article about this for TG magazine because she was so disgusted by the disrespect Ray had showed the real Native American tradition of the sweat lodge. Now, remember, these people had just come off a day and a half, roughing it alone in the desert, no food or water, and almost no sleep. They had time to change clothes and eat a quick, meager breakfast. That was it. They were already dehydrated, weak with hunger and sleep deprivation.

These people were no shape to be herded into a makeshift oven and sweated for hours. It was completely insane. But for anyone who doubted that this was a good idea, there was the usual mantra, play full on. Don't want to be mediocre. Got to push yourself. You paid 10 grand to be here. You can rest when you get home. Plus, of course, massive peer pressure.

Nobody wanted to be the one who wussed out. So we've got 58 people packed in like sardines shoulder to shoulder. We've got a pile of red-hot rocks hit every 15 to 20 minutes with cold water. Scalding steam would blast the people sitting closest to the rocks. Within the first 20 minutes, it was so hot you could barely breathe. Temperatures reached as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit, dangerously hot. The tent flap was open between each round and people could go outside for a break if they wanted to, but as you can imagine, James heavily discouraged this.

Anytime somebody would start crawling toward the flap to leave, Ray would yell at them. Come on, warriors, we need you. You're better than that. He'd call them weak. He'd say, If you leave, you can't come back in. Shame campers is powerful stuff. Way more powerful than you might think. And cult leaders have always used it to their advantage. Oh, and by the way, James himself was positioned right next to the tent flap. So every time it was open, he got some air. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for people to start struggling. People were passing out. struggling to breathe, peeing on themselves, vomiting. About an hour into the event, on the side of the tent

furthest from the entrance, Kirby Brown was having trouble breathing. The guy next to her, James Shore, noticed she wasn't doing well. He wasn't doing so well himself, either. So he tried to tell James Arthur Ray, hey, Kirby needs help. Ray waved it away. A few minutes later, Kirby Brown passed out. By the seventh round, her breathing had become labored, loud and snorring. the way it gets when somebody's really in trouble.

Once again, James Shore tried to explain to James Arthur Ray that she was really in trouble and he wasn't feeling right either and they needed help. No look. Ray just said, well, deal with it after the next round. And moments later, James Shore lapsed into unconsciousness himself, collapsing right next to Kirby. Two and a half hours in, James Arthur Ray finally wrapped up the event, made a big show of leading everybody out of the tent.

Outside, it looked like a disaster area. People were on their hands and knees, dry heaving, in abject misery struggling for breath. People were calling for water, for help. People were passing out. One person started having a seizure. Kirby Brown and James Shore were still in the tent, unconscious. It took a few minutes for anybody to notice.

When they finally did, and they dragged them out and started CPR, James Arthur Ray just stood by watching with no apparent emotion on his face. He didn't try to help. He didn't rush to call an ambulance. He just stood there and watched. Fucking losers. Needed water and air and sleep

and to not be cooked alive. Ugh. What bunch of failures. And campers, if you thought this couldn't get any worse, it does. Apparently, the staff at the place that was hosting James Ray's retreat had been told that Ray absolutely forbid

calling 911 for his participants. Wow. It had happened once in the past at an earlier retreat, and he'd thrown a fit over it. So now, the policy was no 911 calls. But fortunately, after much hand-wringing, one of the staff finally knocked up the waivos to say, screw that, and call for help.

Two people with no pulse, two unconscious, a whole lot more with a range of nasty symptoms. When the EMTs arrived, they were stunned at the scene in front of them. It was like a flippin' hieronymus bar. depiction of hell. One of the first responders later called it, accurately, a mass casualty event. They started airlifting the most critical patients to the nearest hospitals. Of the 58 people who took part in the event, 21 ended up in the hospital that day. As for Kirby Brown and James Shore,

the EMTs tried for 45 minutes to revive them, but it was no use. They were dead. The devoted Acolyte and the man who had tried to save her. Later, investigators found out that 40-year-old James Shore hadn't really wanted to participate in the retreat. He'd started to rethink it, but by then he'd already paid his money, so he figured he'd better go ahead anyway. Now he'd never wake up again. Kirby's parents got the knock at the door early

the next morning. They said later that it brought them to their knees. They couldn't believe this had happened to their healthy, vibrant 30-something daughter. All because she'd wanted to challenge herself and prove her life. Back at the hospital in Sedona, it quickly became clear that there was another serious casualty. Liz Newman was a longtime supporter and student of James Rays. She'd been to his retreats before. In fact, this wasn't the first of his sweat lodges she'd participated in. She'd passed out before the paramedics arrived. Now, as doctors

examined her, they'd realized that she'd lapsed into a coma. Liz would linger for a little less than a week before dying. She never regained consciousness. She was only 49 years old. The police realized right away that they needed to dig into the situation and find out what the hell happened. Obviously, the first thing they wanted to do

was talk to the guru himself, James Arthur Ray, but he was nowhere to be seen. When they finally tracked him down at his bungalow, he answered the door in a pair of boxer shorts eating a sandwich. which. He seemed annoyed that they were bothering him. He said, can't my assistant handle this? The detectives couldn't believe it. They were like, uh, no, it can't wait. And also, dude, your people are out there waiting for you. Shouldn't you be comforting them? But James made

it clear. He didn't want to talk to them. And if they had questions, they could speak to his attorney. The warriors who hadn't been taken to the hospital wanted to talk to James too. They sat up all night, shell-shocked and grief-stricken, waiting for their leader to come and talk to them, tell them what to do, comfort them, but he never came. What came was a terse-typed note. It said, to all who have been affected by recent tragic events. Recent, you mean like, today? We are deeply saddened by the loss of lives. James A. Ray is unavailable at the moment.

He is spending the weekend in prayer and meditation for all involved in this difficult time. Signed, spiritual warrior management. Wow. Wow. No soothing words for his students, no calls to victims' families, no nothing. Prayer and meditation, of course, is not what our boy was actually doing. What he was actually doing was running like a rabbit. he packed up his shit and took the earliest flight he could to get go talk to his attorney but maybe we're being unreasonable maybe it was a spiritual lawyer i'm sure the attorney got right to work he called up the PR guy who advised james to act like nothing had ever happened just get back to work promote your upcoming events don't worry about it we'll work on limiting your legal liability on our end and of course when he was having those discussions

with his team, three of his acolytes were being autopsied, while 18 others were treated for burns, kidney failure, heat exhaustion, and trouble breathing. Meanwhile, detectives began to dig up some serious dirt on James Ray. For one thing, he lied about his academic credentials and training. No. He was no more qualified to oversee the kinds of extreme events than I am. James Arthur Ray was nothing more than a con man. A liar.

As Kirby Brown's dad put it, a snake oil salesman. He'd been warned as far back as the year 2000 that his practices, sleep deprivation, for example, were putting people in danger. And he'd made millions of dollars doing it. Yeah, and guess what? This wasn't the first time people had been seriously heard at one of James's events. Not even close. know you're shocked to hear that, right? People had even fallen unconscious at his previous heat ceremonies. That was why somebody had called 911 years previously and incurred his fury.

Remember the board-breaking challenge he liked his followers to do? Well, the investigators were able to find over a dozen people who had shattered wrists or broken bones in their hands trying this. One of these folks was a woman who later said she hadn't wanted to try to break the board, but James Ray pressured her so much that she gave in, and boom, broke her damn hand. She ended up suing him for it, and he settled with her out of court. In 2006, James hosted an event where you had to put the sharp little tip of an arrow against your neck and lean against it. I guess because it's like super enlightened to poke holes in your neck. I don't know what the hell. Anyway, one guy ended up with the tip of an arrow lodged in his face, like an inch from his

eyeball just yeah and invariably anytime somebody got hurt at one of the retreats they'd be quickly and quietly shuffled off stage left to make sure the other participants you know didn't get the wrong idea wouldn't want people to think any of this stuff was like dangerous or anything right yeah whitney they just didn't uh believe enough to dull the arrow or make the right type of wood plank materialize. Honestly, it's like they were laymen with no experience whatsoever. And this, aside from what had just happened at the Heat Lodge, was the worst thing. Earlier that year, like just a few months before, a woman named Colleen Conaway had attended

one of James's events. An event, by the way, where he told everybody to come, quote, dressed as a homeless person. Can we just take a moment to let that one sink in? This man is literally the worst. Like, ooh, hey, let's play poor person. We're going to get so enlightened. At, may I remind you, an event people are paying thousands of dollars to attend. Oh, I hate this piece of shit.

You can afford five-figure torture camp, so why don't you come dressed as an offensively dressed frat boy on Halloween? That'll give you empathy for houseless people. Or, more likely for James' M.O. Humiliate you to make you mentally tougher, I guess. I guess. I don't know what the hell is motivation for that was, but it's fucking gross. Anyway, during this event, Colleen Conaway jumped off the balcony of her hotel room and took her own life. And very much in keeping with his PR guy's advice to act like the heat lodge deaths never happened, James Arthur Ray covered the whole thing up, telling the other members of the retreat that Colleen had just gotten sick and gone home.

Now, I don't know about you campers, but if I were at a retreat designed to help me find my true self, uncover the meaning of life, whatever, I would think the suicide of a fellow seeker might be a moment for contemplation, meditation, you know, maybe coming together with my fellow truth seekers to grieve together and support each other and talk about what happened.

I would not think it would be something an enlightened leader would sweep under the rug and lie about. Now, you'd think a series of unfortunate events like this would have made James Ray very cognizant of the possibility of injury and death at his events. and you think he'd want to avoid that, right? You'd think he'd want to start keeping paramedics or other health care providers on standby.

But, no, that is not how James rolls. Instead of taking a step back and rethinking his approach, James kicked it up a few notches instead. His events got more and more intense. People were pressured to do more and more extreme stunts. And that's the best word I can think of form stunts. Glass walking, firewalking, bending rebar with your neck. and James refused to hear any voices that tried to urge caution.

It took James five days to finally call Kirby Brown's parents. By that point, they'd spoken repeatedly with the investigators and knew James wasn't cooperating with them. On the call, all James wanted to do was talk about how hard this had been for him. He said, this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. He said this, campers, to Kirby's mother. Oh, my God. Holy shit.

And when she begged him to please cooperate with the investigation, James said, no, no, he was going to have it investigated himself, independently. To Kirby's mom, his reaction seemed, as she put it, sociopathic. And so, in my opinion, is this. According to the New York Times, John Doherty, James had set up a conference call with some of the victims a few weeks after the retreat. One of them had the foresight to record the conversation, and later gave the recording to the associate.

Press. Yeah. One of the people on the call claimed to be a, quote, channeler, capable of speaking with the dead. They said they'd talk to Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Newman, and they were, quote, having so much fun out of their bodies that they'd decided not to go back to them. Oh, my God. What this bizarre comment was supposed to accomplish, I'm not sure, but I suspect it was designed to help the victims feel okay about what happened.

Those people who died, they're loving being dead. They could have come back into their bodies, but they were just having so much fun heading for that bright light. They're super stoked that I killed them. Get fucked. Kirby Brown's mom later said, this was a young woman brimming with life. This was not a woman who would have chosen death.

Of course not. none of them would have. By now, the medical examiner in Sedona had declared the cause of death for all three victims. Heat stroke. What's more? The Emmy said that at some point during the event, all three had become incapacitated at the point where they would not have been physically capable of leaving the tent on their own. So we had three people dead and 18 more injured and sickened. Now, the police had to determine whether a crime had been committed, and if so, what kind of crime? James Ray had told Kirby Brown's parents that he just couldn't imagine how this could have happened. Like hell he couldn't. The fact was that his quote-unquote sweat lodges had been

getting more and more dangerous every year. He wanted to be able to say that he ran the most intense experience out there. He'd specifically ordered the ceiling of the lodge lowered to make it hotter. He chose heat-trapping plastic to cover the tent instead of cloth. He was cramming more and more people inside and keeping them in longer. It was unbelievably reckless. The detectives also discovered that there was no record of James Ray ever getting the proper permits to build the heat tent thing. I'm sorry, I just refused to call it a sweat lodge. It wasn't one and it's offensive to the indigenous people to call it that.

Yep. Add that to the increasingly extreme changes he'd made to the heat event over the years, despite past incidences, and you had three homicides. And on February 2nd, 2010, they put the habeas gravis on James Arthur Ray, charged him with three counts of manslaughter. Did you manifest that, JR? Huh? Was that on your vision board?

Prick. Of course, our boy took zero responsibility. At his trial in February 2011, His argument was basically, hey, nobody was forced to do anything. They could have left if they wanted to. Ignoring, of course, the cult-like atmosphere he created, the complicated psychology of groupthink, peer pressure, and coercion. The prosecution said, look, this is cult stuff here.

This man was employing the kind of tactics we used to brainwash people, to weaken people for interrogation. The whole week of the retreat, James Ray had primed these people for maximum malleability. They argued their... Ray's ego and greed had driven him to push and push just so he could have the most intense game in town, so people would talk him up. He seemed determined to force people all the way to the edge of the precipice right to the point of death, and then bring him back again. Of course, the problem with that was that three of them didn't come back. Ray's defense also argued that he'd had no way

of knowing what distress the victims were in. Damn it, Jim, I'm a fake self-help guru, not a doctor. Sure? Yeah, right. People were trying to tell him over and over that Kirby and James were in trouble. He just didn't want to listen. But infuriatingly, the jury must have bought some of this horseshit because they dropped the manslaughter charges and instead found him guilty of a much less serious charge, negligent homicide. He ended up serving about two years in prison. Got out in 2013. What an absolute travesty, just a slap on the wrist compared to what he deserved. in my opinion was to literally never see daylight again. Correct. I fucking hate this guy.

By the way, on the show Deadly Colts, one of the women who attended the spiritual warrior retreat said that while they were desperately trying to revive Kirby Brown and James Shore and his dozens more followers struggled to breathe all around them, someone asked James Ray, what should we do? And he said, how do I know? I'm not a nurse. And then he slunk back to his bungalow to have a samuel.

to have a sandwich. Yeah. Later, he told Larry King that he'd run away because he was scared. Yeah, I bet you were. I mentioned Kirby's parents' organizations seek safely earlier.

They started to try and raise awareness about the dangerous practices often used by self-appointed gurus like James Ray. The Browns have also spoken out about how worried they are that James hasn't learned a damn thing from the deaths of their daughter or the others,

that in his relentless quest for money and fame and adoration, there may be more casualties coming. And I'm worried too, because he's back out there now, still running the scam. And ever since he got out of prison, after that brutal two-year sentence he got, he's been working real hard at making it all about him. CNN made a documentary about him called Enlighten Us, and he's in it, and I could hardly stand to watch the damn thing. Like, I thought I was going to have an aneurysm.

Like, he just kept blubbering about how hard it was for him in prison, how old he's ever tried to do is help people and blah blah blah blah y'all I'm a peace-loving person I really am but watching that man get all weepy-eyed about how this tragic accident affected him and how he lost three good friends that day all I could think about was just how much this man for his own carmic good for the good of his soul needs a hard punch in the dick he just needs it he said to one of his audiences once the people who grow the most are the ones who experience the most pain and challenges.

Well, come on over here, bro. I got you. I would love to help you experience some pain and challenges. Come on. I'm kidding, of course, campers' violence solves nothing. Just, ugh. Ugh, indeed. In the CNN documentary, director Jenny Karchman asked Ray to talk about what,

if any ownership he takes in the deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Newman. brace yourselves for his answer because it may induce a rage stroke oh god he said and i quote it had to happen because it was the only way i could experience and learn and grow through the things i've done you come out of a situation like this and you're either bitter and angry or you're more awake and grateful and I choose awake and grateful and I choose to see it as a test of character and a test through fire and I think I did okay

a test just burst into flames my heart rate just my right now my Apple Watch just told me I need to take a second and breathe because my heart rage just spiked a test of character yes James and the character

is Peter Baylish little finger from Game of Thrones. If that ain't a master class in pure malignant narcissism, I don't know what is. Absolutely.

I'm sure Kirby, Liz, and James are just thrilled to have been the vehicle for your continued self-discovery, you absolute fucking nightmare of a human creature. So, Camper's, he's still out there, inflicting himself

and his toxic nonsense on anyone still willing to pay for it. On that dock enlighten us, there's a scene where he's getting ready for his first post-prison event. At one point, without a trace of irony, he tells the hotel manager that it's too hot in here. It's sweltering. Oh, my dear, sweet Jesus. And while they're futzing around getting things ready, this group of three or four fans comes up to meet him. They're all very young, very gorgeous women, and they apparently flew all the way from Eastern Europe to see this hosebag speak.

They saw the secret, and it changed their lives. and you can tell he's just eating it up, having these beautiful fans fawning all over him. Oh, you saw the secret? Just vomit-inducing. Of course, this is what narcissistic people do. They have no empathy, no concern for other people, because to a narcissistic person,

other people are just props in their movie. Incidental characters to move the main story along, and the main story, of course, is theirs. People are just there to provide what psychologists call narcissistic supply, not to be real people in their own right with their own needs and opinions and boundaries. To James Arthur Ray, the senseless, stupid, unnecessary tragedy of the deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore, and Liz Newman, are just something he can add to his resume, something for the brochures, a dramatic tale of pain and redemption.

Please understand, we don't intend any shade on people who quest for enlightenment. That's well worth doing, and our ire is not directed at the people who attended these things. It's directed at him. I don't think there's anything wrong or bad about pursuing something like the secret at all. If it works for you and makes your life better and helps you focus on your goals, I think that's awesome. We all use tools, you know, to make what we want to happen happen. What is not awesome is letting someone like James Ray talk you into substituting his judgment for your own.

We have to set boundaries and we have to remember that nobody has it all figured out. And if somebody tells you they do, then they're probably trying to sell you something. So, we'll leave you with this. According to ABC News, James once said in an interview, I fully know for me that there is no blame. Every single thing is your responsibility, and nothing is your fault, because every single thing that comes to you is a gift, a lesson. A story like this is a lesson, too, and I hope we've all learned it.

So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know we'll have another one. for you next week but for now lock your doors light your lights and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire and we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our newest patrons thank you so much to jody tina ashley william laura and barb and y'all if you're not yet a patron you're missing out patrons of our show get every episode ad free at least today early sometimes more plus an extra episode a month and once you hit the five dollar and up categories you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin while supplies last at 10, virtual events

with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us.