James Arthur Ray: Deadly Devotion

As star of The Secret and convicted killer James Arthur Ray, newly out of an Arizona prison, begins serving his probation in Phoenix, there's been a lot of speculation about what his next move is going to be. Which New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality gurus will he team up with first? Kevin Trudeau and his scammy, Ponzi-like Global Information Network (GIN)? After all, KT spoke up publicly in Death Ray's defense a couple of years ago, and last year, from behind bars, Ray shilled for GIN.

Or will he team up with one of numerous co-stars of The Secret, some of whom have also spoken out publicly in his defense? He has quite a few from which to choose. Joe Vitale, who has claimed several times that Ray is a "friend" of his (by virtue of their being in The Secret together) was rather snappish and defensive about the sweat lodge thing when asked about it shortly after it happened. And Bob Proctor has made several public remarks about how James Ray is really an okay guy.

The big question is: When will Ray start putting on solo events again? And will he be doing extreme physical events such as his phony sweat lodge again at some point? I seem to recall hearing him promise the courts that he wouldn't, back when he was begging the court for mercy.
 
However, while the thought of Ray holding another sweat lodge is frightening, according to an AP story, it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Nothing in his conditions of release prohibits him from holding self-help seminars or conducting another sweat lodge ceremony, but his brother said Ray has no immediate plans to resurrect his business. However, Jon Ray didn't rule out the possibility, maintaining the deaths weren't his brother's fault.

My sense is that you just can't keep a good psychopath down, and Ray apparently has no intention of getting out of the selfish-help/motivational racket.

Upon his release on Friday, July 12, he was sporting a new, longer hairstyle, and graying to boot. Whether this is only temporary or an attempt to re-brand himself as a SNAG-gy guru type -- sensitive but strong, caring but intense, and confident but fake-humbled by his too-short prison sentence -- also remains to be seen.

Whatever career choices Death Ray makes next, many of us are worried about the public's short memory, and the fact that a significant percentage of the public is only vaguely aware, or is completely unaware, of what happened in Sedona (and San Diego) in 2009.

But at least the media are waking up, and some channels and networks are starting to fill some of their 24/7/365 time slots with something besides the Kardashians, Real Housewives, and other "reality" shows featuring unlikeable people behaving badly. For instance, there's the Deadly Devotion series, part of Investigation Discovery on The Discovery Channel, currently airing Tuesdays at 9:00 PM Eastern, 8:00 PM Central. They've devoted a segment to Ray's deadly phony sweat lodge, focusing on Kirby Brown. Catch it if you can. Here's a preview.