James Arthur Ray, an Oprah-endorsed motivational speaker who spent two years in jail for manslaughter after the 2009 deaths of three individuals 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 demise on social media. He didn’t say the place in Henderson Mr. Ray died or cite a trigger, however he did say the demise was sudden.
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 that 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 a whole bunch, then 1000’s. 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 listing.
He was, Fortune journal declared in 2008, “the subsequent large factor within the extremely aggressive world of motivational gurus.”
Mr. Ray blended self-help {and professional} growth with a dollop of mysticism — a potent mixture of Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey and Deepak Chopra. He was tall and charismatic, with a simple smile and simply the correct quantity of self-deprecation to win over a crowd.
He supplied a hierarchy of programs, every costlier 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 employees members had ample coaching to run a sweat lodge.
Nonetheless, nobody was ready for what occurred on Oct. 8, 2009. Mr. Ray packed about 50 individuals into a brief construction manufactured from a spherical wooden body lined 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 scorching steam.
Although he advised members they might go away at any time, many mentioned later that they felt pressured by him to remain. Finally the situations inside grew insufferable, and the gang flooded out; many individuals collapsed on the bottom.
Somebody known as 911; one first responder later mentioned that the scene regarded like the location of a mass suicide. Twenty-one individuals had been taken to the hospital.
Three of them died — James Shore and Kirby Brown had been declared useless 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, by which Colorado dad and mom 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 courtroom 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 choose 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 connected to his father’s church. However he additionally mentioned his father’s talent 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 may contact his congregation. He was my first wow.”
Mr. Ray attended Tulsa Group Faculty 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 professional and speaker and the creator of “The 7 Habits of Extremely Efficient Individuals” (1989). Mr. Ray determined he may do one thing comparable, and he left AT&T to discovered an organization known as Quantum Consulting.
Motivational talking is tough, typically 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 1000’s of {dollars} to listen to him, typically over a number of lengthy days in huge convention halls.
These prepared to pay much more had 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 embrace his spouse, Bersabeh. Data on different survivors was not instantly accessible.
Mr. Ray was launched from jail in 2013, and by the subsequent 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 concerning the sweat-lodge catastrophe.
On the finish of the movie, he added: “It needed to occur, as a result of it was the one method I may discover and be taught and develop by way of the issues that I’ve carried out. Am I consuming the Kool-Assist? Perhaps, however the Kool-Assist works for me.”
