Fifteen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, McSpirituality guru and Trumpanzee James Arthur Ray is still hustling and lying (and his victims are still dead)

 

Today, October 8, 2024, is the 15th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru/cult leader James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers: Kirby Brown and James Shore, and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman.

The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona. Dozens of other participants were also injured and emotionally traumatized. The phony sweat lodge had been the "final challenge" at Ray's pricey "Spiritual Warrior" workshop, and unfortunately for three good people, it really was final.

Ray, who had shot to fame following his appearance in the simplistic and crassly materialistic New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as Spiritual Warrior would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. His homicide creds are right there at the top of the page on Google search results along with the promotional stuff, and although he has been struggling mightily to make a comeback since his release from prison in July of 2013, framing the whole Sedona thing as a terrible trial and tribulation for him, his audience -- both live and online -- has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

Though his base of followers remains as shrunken as his nads, Ray keeps on keeping on with his various shticks, because it's all he knows how to do. These days he spends a lot of time on Xitter alternating between spouting Bible verses like the man-o-God he wants you to think he is, and stumping for the American fascist movement popularly known as MAGA, kissing up shamelessly to the Mango Mussolini.

Naturally, much of Ray's MAGAt efforts center around demonizing the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, an angle I wrote about here back in August. He hasn't let up on his attacks on VP Harris, continually reposting highly edited videos and anti-Kamala memes that paint her as the destroyer of American democracy and an evil manipulator. If you know anything about Ray it should be clear that there's a lot of projection in those tweets and re-tweets, and a mercenary angle as well. As I wrote on my August post, in the context of Ray tweeting that Harris is evil and an abuser of power:

Well, I must say that Ray is a fine one to talk about "evil." Obviously he's projecting again. In any case it should come as no surprise that he is an ardent Trump supporter who is perfectly willing to paint Madame Vice President as an evil, dangerous, power-crazed demon, while totally overlooking Mango Mussolini's lies, felonies, authoritarian obsessions, and total lack of moral compass.

Ray, like his serial-scammer colleague Kevin Trudeau, is just another sorry illustration of the marriage-made-in-hell between Scamworld and reich-wing politix. Grifters are attracted to reich-wing/republican philosophies and policies, and I've been saying for years that this is due in large part to the reich's traditional disdain for consumer protection laws and regulations, the very tools that, apart from education, are necessary to protect the rest of us from the crooks.

Even as he has no room to talk about evil, Ray has zero standing in any discussion about the abuse of power. For years he abused his power over his followers, resulting in numerous injuries and at least four deaths of said followers.

I will repeat what I wrote on last year's Death Lodge anniversary post: as long as he continues to try to claw his way back to the top of an industry that has more than its share of sociopaths and predators, I feel duty-bound to post periodic reminders of why you should not listen to James Arthur Ray. In addition to being a MAGA social media warrior, he is still playing his dual role of faux-hero and martyr -- and most of all, still refusing to take any blame for the deaths and injuries of his faithful followers. And the people he killed are still dead.

Never forget.

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle. That's another one you need to read.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar. In this one we focus on Ray's efforts to brand himself as a "Crisis Coach."
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  Of the three "whiny babies" I wrote about in this post, James Arthur Ray is the worst, because even after being directly responsible for the deaths of four people at his events, and directly responsible for the physical and emotional injuries of countless others, he continues to paint himself as the real victim.
• October 2022: 13 years after James Arthur Ray's deadly sweat lodge, cults are still a danger
  This post, published last year on the Death Lodge anniversary, was a tale of two Virginias, one despicable one (that would be the infamous Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, insurrectionist extraordinaire, who was once a member of a selfish-help cult), and one admirable one: Virginia Brown, mother of one of James Arthur Ray's death lodge victims, Kirby Brown. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus. Even if you don't read my post, I urge you to visit the SEEK Safely site, which is continually expanding. You will find a wealth of useful information, as well as opportunities to get involved if you're so inclined.*
  October 2023: Fourteen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, James Arthur Ray, now a full-on reich-wing conspiranoid, is still hustling and whining (and his victims are still dead)
  Published on last year's Death Lodge anniversary, this is the first post where I discussed at length Ray's new-ish alliance with reich-wing conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians.

* Currently on the SEEK Safely site:
Join us for SEEK Week, October 7-11. Streaming Live each night at 8pm ET on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Before you leave...
This has been, through what is no apparent fault of her own (excluding, perhaps karmic matters that are quite beyond her ability to comprehend), a nightmare of a year for the ruler of this Whirled. Money, alas, cannot make the nightmare go away, but it can make it easier to bear. Now more than ever, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
  New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to Cosmic Connie's PayPal page.
  Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account of Cosmic Connie's husband, RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is a gift, which it is (as opposed to a conventional purchase, for which PayPal deducts a percentage for their fee).

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

Fourteen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, James Arthur Ray, now a full-on reich-wing conspiranoid, is still hustling and whining (and his victims are still dead)

 

Today, October 8, 2023, is the 14th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru/cult leader James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers: Kirby Brown and James Shore, and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman. The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, that also injured dozens of other participants. The phony sweat lodge was the "final challenge" at Ray's pricey "Spiritual Warrior" workshop.

Ray, who had shot to fame following his appearance in the simplistic and crassly materialistic New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as Spiritual Warrior would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. His homicide creds are right there at the top of the page on Google search results along with the promotional stuff, and although he has been struggling mightily to make a comeback since his release from prison more than 10 years ago, framing the whole Sedona thing as a super-major trial and tribulation for him, his audience -- both live and online -- has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

JAR joins up with the reich-wing conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians
For instance, a glance at Ray's Xitter account shows a pathetic level of engagement via responses and reposts, and a minuscule number of views. Granted, the same could be said about my Xitter account too, which gets even less engagement and fewer views than Ray's, but I'm a social media nobody and never pretended to be anything but that.

When I checked out Ray's Xitter today, I admit to feeling a stab of pity for him, so I decided to engage, since nobody else was doing so. I responded to a post on which he wrote, "We have seen more real time footage of Israel in the last two days than we've seen in 3 years from Ukraine. What's really going on in Ukraine?"

I had already seen those very words from numerous reich-wing politicos and proud contrarians who litter my feed despite my best efforts. Actually I remember first seeing it as a Xitter post by Donald J Trump Junior, aka DJTJ, aka Traitor Tot, the eternally triggered, coked-up elder son of #NeverWasMyPresident Donald J Trump. And from what I've seen, the commentators who have cited this post, either agreeing with it or scoffing about it, have all attributed it to DJTJ.

This clearly was not an original thought, in other words, despite the fact that Ray presented it as his own, rather than as a repost or a quote post. So I complimented him on his parroting of right-wing talking points before casually mentioning that October 8, 2023 is the 14th anniversary of his Death Lodge. (I didn't take the time to point out that, especially in the days and weeks following the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine back in February 2022, there was nonstop, wall-to-wall, multimedia coverage of the matter, and a slew of real time footage. Even now there's abundant coverage.)

Ray engaged right back, telling me that I was parroting "mainstream propaganda" and that I should watch the video pinned in his feed, but insinuating that I probably won't because I am "rooted in mind control." My first thought upon reading this was that James Arthur Ray has zero standing when it comes to calling out mind control, since relentless, aggressive, targeted mind control was his stock in trade for years, and was a central cause of the deaths and injuries of his followers.

And in case you're wondering, the reason his response does not show up on the screenshot that appears at the beginning of this post is that he hadn't yet responded at the time I created the graphic, and I didn't feel like going back and revising it. But you can see the exchange for yourself right here. You might also observe that so far, nobody has "liked" either my response or his response to me; at least that was the case last time I checked. [Update: It now appears that my response has one "like." His response to me still has zero likes, although it does have more views than my comment, for some reason. I guess he checks back frequently.]

I think it's pointless for me to engage further in that particular conversation, but between you and me, it looks as if Jimmy A Ray has jumped aboard the reich-wing conspiranoia train. A closer look at his Xitter feed reveals that in between the usual self-promo posts, bits of McSpirituality wisdumb, and whining about being censored on social media for being a truth-teller, there is an abundance of reich-wing political pearl clutching about Biden, Obama, immigrants invading the US through the Southern border, and so forth. Oh, yeah, and retweeting vintage Donald J Trump, or retweeting posts that lionize Orange Droolius.

Which comes as no surprise on this Whirled: in the past few years it has become increasingly clear that Scamworld and reich-wing politix go together like peas and carrots. And the scammers all seem to luv their Mango Mussolini.

Ray, like so many others, seems to have discovered a $weet $pot in the marketplace of ideas, prompting him to pander to the gullible, the disillusioned, and the broken: people who, if they're at all politically inclined, are for the most part moving steadily rightward, lured by the deeply toxic siren song of Trumpism. He welcomes with open arms the conspiranoids and conspicuous contrarians who see a demonic (leftist/liberal) plot behind every adverse event, and who, like rebellious tweenagers, reflexively reject everything that they perceive as "mainstream" if it doesn't fit their narrative.

Many of these are the same folks who flock to serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, who has been crapitalizing for years on "forbidden" information that "they" (the government, Big Pharma, mainstream culture, et al.) "don't want you to know." And in many cases, they're the same ones who have donned the red caps and prostrated themselves before the MAGA maniac. You can hardly blame JAR for wanting some of that action.

"Yes! We are all individuals!"
What's amusing is that Ray is taking great pains to brand himself as the guru of "Independent Thinking" (it's right there in his Xitter description), when in fact -- and forgive me for stating the obvious -- that's nothing more than a ruse to suck people into his web. In the pinned video that he urged me to watch but scornfully concluded that I probably wouldn't -- but that I did in fact watch (there's a YouTube link to it in the second to last paragraph of this post) -- he declared that even though he had become famous via the The Secret for teaching the Law of Attraction, his core specialty for decades had been teaching people how to think independently and reject the mainstream narrative. (He also claimed his teachings were Bible-based. Uh-huh.)

Accordingly, his accusation that I was parroting mainstream propaganda was right on-brand, even if it was totally off the mark. Ray's shtick is anything but original, of course. Kevin Trudeau and numerous others in Scamworld -- not to mention Trump himself -- have claimed in their own ways to nurture "individuality" and "independent thinking" and other flavors of empowerment, when in fact they're only encouraging rejection of the mainstream in order to redirect loyalty to themselves. You know, just like cult leaders do. Again, forgive me for stating the obvious.

As for that video that Ray cited in his response to me, I suppose I can also be forgiven for thinking at first that it might be an examination, however misguided, of the truth about the wars in Ukraine and Israel, since that was the topic of his original post, and since it was that post to which I was referring when I said he was parroting right-wing talking points. But I should have known better, should have immediately snapped to the fact that Ray, ever the malignant narcissist, makes everything about him.

He was focused not on the matter of the two wars, or to the issue of partisan talking points, but on my mention of the Death Lodge anniversary. And that pinned video (to which, again, there's a YouTube link in the next paragraph) was indeed all about him, presenting a very skewed narrative of the horrible events in 2009, and how unfairly and unjustly he had been treated for something that wasn't his fault, but that the mainstream media painted as his fault. We've heard it all before.

In any case, as long as he continues to try to claw his way back to the top of an industry that has more than its share of sociopaths and predators, I feel duty-bound to post periodic reminders of why you should not listen to James Arthur Ray. He is still spewing his toxic lies, still playing his dual role of faux-hero and martyr -- and most of all, still refusing to take any blame for the deaths and injuries of his faithful followers -- and the people he killed are still dead.

Never forget.

This post has been expanded and updated since its original publication on October 8, 2023.
~ CC

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle. That's another one you need to read.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar. In this one we focus on Ray's efforts to brand himself as a "Crisis Coach."
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  Of the three "whiny babies" I wrote about in this post, James Arthur Ray is the worst, because even after being directly responsible for the deaths of four people at his events, and directly responsible for the physical and emotional injuries of countless others, he continues to paint himself as the real victim.
• October 2022: 13 years after James Arthur Ray's deadly sweat lodge, cults are still a danger
  This post, published last year on the Death Lodge anniversary, was a tale of two Virginias, one despicable one (that would be the infamous Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, insurrectionist extraordinaire, who was once a member of a selfish-help cult), and one admirable one: Virginia Brown, mother of one of James Arthur Ray's death lodge victims, Kirby Brown. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus. Even if you don't read my post, I urge you to visit the SEEK Safely site, which is continually expanding. You will find a wealth of useful information, as well as opportunities to get involved if you're so inclined.

13 years after James Arthur Ray's deadly sweat lodge, cults are still a danger

Today, October 8, 2022, is the 13th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru/cult leader James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers: Kirby Brown and James Shore, and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman. The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, that also injured dozens of other participants. The phony sweat lodge was the "final challenge" at Ray's pricey "Spiritual Warrior" workshop.

Ray, who had shot to fame following his appearance in the simplistic and crassly materialistic New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

Every year since October 8, 2009, I've commemorated the horror in Sedona on this blog, and this year is no exception. But this year, I'm going to inject some politics into my annual observation, because, unfortunately, cults and cultishness have slithered their way into American (right-wing) politics, and I don't think the threat that they represent can be overstated.

In a way, this is a tale of two Virginias, and I only hope that the Virginia I greatly admire will not be insulted by appearing in the same blog post as the "other" Virginia, for whom I have nothing but contempt. Let's get that "other" V out of the way first.

Virginia Thomas: there and back again -- from cult member, to anti-cult crusader, back to cult member
Today Virginia "Ginni" Thomas is best known as the conspiracy-mongering -- and possibly seditious -- wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence "Long Dong Silver" Thomas. But not everyone is aware that Ginni was once a member of a cult, and at some point became aware that it was a cult, and underwent "deprogramming," after which she became an anti-cult crusader for years.

The cult with which Ginni, then known by her maiden name of Virginia Lamp, was involved was a Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT): the now-defunct Lifespring, a product of the "human potential movement" that began in the late 1960s and came to fruition in the 70s and 80s. Lifespring was founded by several colleagues of Werner Erhard, the perpetrator of the even more infamous Erhard Seminars Training, or est (which later became The Forum, which later became Landmark Forum, which later became Landmark Education, which is now Landmark Worldwide).

NBC News was one of several media outlets covering Ginni's journey there and back again. A June 14, 2022 article on the NBC News web site offers a brief summary of what Lifespring was and did (and in the process, I couldn't help but notice, mentions Ray's "sweat lodge").

Lifespring, like NXIVM and “Sweat Lodge Guru” James Arthur Ray’s course that led to three deaths in 2009, are what some experts call Large Group Awareness Trainings, New Age self-help programs that paradoxically promise to deliver almost superhuman mental abilities that can be achieved only through total submission.

Lifespring put inductees through grueling multiday “educational” sessions where they were psychologically broken down. In a 1987 Washington Post exposé of the group, Thomas gave an interview describing one session in which trainees were made to strip down to bathing suits and subjected to body shaming.

“The emphasis was upon abandonment to an undifferentiated, unknowable other,” psychologist Janice Haaken and sociologist Richard Adams wrote in an academic journal article on Lifespring. They participated in a 1981 training in Seattle where they witnessed a man have a psychotic break while organizers berated him, concluding that the impact of the training “was essentially pathological” for even the people who enjoyed the experience.

Several trainees died, including a 27-year-old model who was refused medical attention during an asthma attack, leading to a $450,000 settlement with her family, according to a 1987 article in The Washington Post. The group, which claimed to have trained hundreds of thousands, went defunct in the 1990s after a series of lawsuits.

Following Ginni Lamp's realization that Lifespring was a destructive cult, and her escape/deprogramming, she became a force for good -- for a while, anyway. From the NBC piece cited above:

“When you come away from a cult, you’ve got to find a balance in your life as far as getting involved with fighting the cult or exposing it,” Thomas told attendees at a 1986 Cult Awareness Network panel in Kansas City, Missouri. “And kind of the other angle is getting a sense of yourself and what was it that made you get into that group. And what open questions are there that still need to be answered.”

It’s difficult to reconcile Thomas then and now, four people who worked with her at the height of her anti-cult activism through the late 1980s said in interviews. After she spent years trying to expose cults, these people found Thomas’ efforts to promote outlandish plans to overturn the 2020 results, particularly the text messages and emails in which she referenced false election conspiracies that originated in QAnon circles on the internet, surprising. Democrats and Republicans alike have said QAnon supporters exhibit cult-like behavior.

“Ginni Thomas was out there active in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and then she really went a different path,” said Rick Ross, a prominent expert on cults and a former “deprogrammer” who knew Thomas through their anti-cult activism. “I admire the work she did back in the ‘80s. And she should be given credit for that.”

No disrespect intended to Rick Ross, whose work I've long supported, and I've always been willing to give credit where credit is due, but isn't there a point at which today's awful deeds cancel out yesterday's good ones? In any case, at the risk of overstating the obvious, Ginni Thomas née Lamp is in an even worse cult now -- not just QAnon in particular, as noted by various media outlets that have explored her curious journey, but the Trumpcult in general. Ginni loves her Trump, and apparently the love is returned.

While Ginni Thomas is a high-profile example, her story isn't all that unusual; for many folks, susceptibility to cults and manipulation is apparently a lifelong condition, somewhat like traditional recovery circles claim is the case with alcoholism and other drug addictions. In my previous post, and in a different though related context, I quoted myself quoting my pal Jason "Salty Droid" Jones, but I think another quotation of a quotation of a quotation is in order here.

...None of this is really surprising.... As my pal Salty Droid has both documented on his blog and has mentioned in private correspondence, quitting one manipulative scam or scammer doesn't cure one of the thinking pattern errors that got them sucked in in the first place. "Manipulation causes susceptibility to manipulation as a side effect," sez Salty.

Indeed. A July 24, 2022 piece on the Business Insider site not only suggests that Ginni Thomas has "fallen back into old habits" but also offers some insight from cult expert Steven Hassan, himself a former cult member who worked with Ginni back in her anti-cult activism days. Hassan said he actually wasn't surprised by Ginni's apparent infatuation with QAnon.

"Ginni Thomas was in a cult, and anyone who has ever been in a cult is vulnerable to another cult if they haven't properly counseled and done their homework," Hassan said...

..."I haven't called [Ginni Thomas] stupid or crazy, which the media does, because I know that she's been unduly influenced into these beliefs. She's a very intelligent, educated person, but her brain has been hacked," [Hassan] claimed. 

With all due respect to Steven Hassan, while Ginni is almost certainly not stupid, she is, in my unprofessional opinion, bat-crap crazy.

Unfortunately, she's far from the only American who believes in QAnon's batty conspiracy narratives. A PRRI Report from February of this year revealed that nearly one in five Americans in general, and one in four republicans in particular, still believe in QAnon conspiracy theories. And Americans who most trust far-right "news" are nearly five times more likely to be QAnon believers than those who lean towards mainstream news media. It would be all be merely humorous, were it not for the fact that this deep toxic ocean of irrationality threatens to drown American democracy.

So you really can't talk about cults in general without injecting a little bit of politix in the mix.

Virginia Brown: turning profound grief into a force for good
Now we come to the Virginia I admire: Virginia "Ginny" Brown, mother of one of James Arthur Ray's death lodge victims, Kirby Brown.

The families and friends of the four people killed by Ray have all learned to cope with their losses in their own ways. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus.

Given the context of this post, I should probably emphasize that SEEK Safely is not a partisan political organization, the only connection with politics being an ongoing campaign for responsible legislation to rein in the self-help industry. Nor, contrary to what some might expect, is the organization anti-self-help. Rather, its message and mission center around empowerment, in the best sense of that egregiously overused word, i.e., by helping people make informed decisions when choosing to go the self-help-seminar route. I urge you to visit the SEEK Safely site, which is continually expanding. You will find a wealth of useful information, as well as opportunities to get involved if you're so inclined.

Yet another way the Brown family found to come to terms with Kirby's death, while helping many other people who are dealing with profound loss and pain, was through the 2020 memoir, This Sweet Life: How We Lived After Kirby Died, by Ginny and her younger daughter Jean. It is truly a lovely and haunting book, which I read shortly after it came out and have yet to keep my commitment to fully review here -- but never mind my own negligence; I urge you to read the book.

Before I wrap this up I also want to make the distinction between self-help cults (or cultlike organizations) and the whole QAnon/Trumpcult phenomenon, particularly regarding their respective followers. I think that many if not most of the people who get sucked in, to the point of harm, by charismatic self-help gurus have good intentions themselves, despite the malevolent intentions of the "leaders" they look up to, and that their original motivation for becoming involved is simply to improve their lives in some way. (This of course applies to those who get involved voluntarily and not because they were required to do so by employers or coerced by loved ones.) Many LGAT attendees are highly educated, high-achieving, even adventurous souls who like to challenge themselves and be challenged. Even Ginni Lamp Thomas, who was highly educated when she got into Lifespring, was reportedly drawn to the LGAT by a desire to improve her life.

QAnon, on the other hand, attracts a wide range of fringe "thinkers" and nutcakes, many of whom aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, and it's also a convenient weapon wielded by power-hungry cynics who don't actually believe the wackadoodle conspiracy theories pushed by Q but are all too happy to exploit the gullibility of those who do believe. Unlike many LGATs, and for that matter the Trumpcult, QAnon doesn't have a single specific high-profile cult leader at the helm, but the conspiranoid narratives pushed by Q advocates are in many ways more destructive than anything any LGAT guru could wreak. And the Trumpcult, which is fed by and feeds into the Q cult, poses an even greater danger than Q alone.

That said, it would be a mistake to underestimate the danger of self-help cults led by malignant narcissists. Like James Arthur Ray, for instance.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as the Spiritual Warrior travesty that culminated in the death lodge would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. Though he has been struggling to make a comeback since his release from prison, framing the whole Sedona thing as a super-major trial and tribulation for him, his audience has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

Today Ray merrily tweeted about something he calls "Steps to the Economy of Mind #5," which is apparently part of his "Modern Alchemy" shtick. He advises, "ONLY put things in your mind that cause YOU to improve." Spoken like a true narcissist. He didn't even mention the death lodge anniversary, not that I would expect him to, since putting that thought in his mind and out in the Twitterverse would most likely not cause him -- or his bottom line -- to improve, at least not by his definition of improvement. In any case, today's tweet, like most of his nuggets of wisdumb on Twitter, has earned very few likes, and zero responses so far. Even so, James Arthur Ray still has a fan base, and as long as he is in the business, he remains a danger, no matter how minor that danger may seem at the moment.

The takeaway: Whether it's a McSpirituality/selfish-help cult or a far-right political one, cults remain a threat. Do what you can to protect yourself and those you care about from their influence. (And make sure you're registered to vote, if you're eligible.)

And... never forget.

Related musings from the Whirled archives:

• March 2010: Self-help regulation: necessary safeguard, or Nanny-state nonsense?
  A long (and long-ago) post that explores questions raised in the wake of the death lodge debacle, regarding the need to regulate the self-help industry. Of particular interest for overall context of the "human potential movement": the segment under the subhead, "Going back in time: a little 'historical perspective." Several of the links are no longer active, but this is, after all, the Internet, and 2010 was a long time ago.
• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings
  Another long post, published on the one-year anniversary of Sedona and doubling as a review of former James Ray follower Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle.

A dozen years after Sedona "sweat lodge" deaths, James Arthur Ray is still hustling, and his victims are still dead

 

Today, October 8, 2021 is the 12th anniversary of the day that sociopathic New-Wage/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray killed two of his followers -- Kirby Brown and James Shore -- and set in motion the death, nine days later, of a third follower, Liz Neuman. The instrument of their deaths was a fake and utterly reckless "sweat lodge" ceremony in Sedona, Arizona, that also injured dozens of other participants. The phony sweat lodge was the "final challenge" at Ray's egregiously overpriced "Spiritual Warrior" workshop.

Ray, who had skyrocketed to fame following his appearance in the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, was convicted of negligent homicide for the three deaths in Sedona -- and consequently served less than two years in an Arizona state prison -- but he was never criminally charged in the death of yet another follower, Colleen Conaway, at a San Diego Ray event a couple of months before Sedona.

The families and friends of the four people killed by James Arthur Ray have all learned to cope with their losses in their own ways. One of the ways that Kirby Brown's family chose was to found a nonprofit organization, SEEK Safely to help educate the public, hold self-help leaders accountable, and hopefully avoid more deaths and injuries at the hands of reckless gurus.

Yet another way they found to come to terms with Kirby's death, while helping many other people who are dealing with profound loss and pain, was through the 2020 memoir, This Sweet Life: How We Lived After Kirby Died, by Kirby's mother Ginny and her baby sister Jean. It is truly a lovely and haunting book, which I read last year and have yet to keep my commitment to fully review here -- but never mind my own negligence; I urge you to read the book.

For Ray, the daze of the four- and five-figure live events such as Spiritual Warrior would seem to be over, and that's a good thing. Though he has been struggling mightily to make a comeback since his release from prison, framing the whole Sedona thing as a super-major trial and tribulation for him, his audience has shriveled like the balls of a long-time steroid user.

For instance, so far he's only earned 2 "likes" for his September 29. 2021 tweet about yet another "Warrior" workshop -- this one called "The Way of the Warrior," and set to be delivered via Zoom over eight weeks, with the co-deliverer being a drugged-out-looking brunette who calls herself "Bear" (short for Bersabeh), and who apparently had the appallingly bad taste to enter into a "committed relationship" with James. The promo video linked to on that tweet has only gotten nine views on YouTube so far. So... I'm guessing not much of a turnout for the "Way of the Warrior" Zoomer.

Even so, as long as he continues to try to claw his way back to the top of an industry that has more than its share of sociopaths and predators, and yet continues to attract millions via false promises and insidious lies, I feel duty-bound to post periodic reminders of why you should not listen to James Arthur Ray. He is still spewing his toxins, and the people he killed are still dead.

Never forget.

Related on this Whirled

• October 2010: Musings on a tragedy and its meanings.
  I published this on the one-year anniversary of the infamous "sweat lodge," framing my musings around a review of Connie Joy's Tragedy in Sedona: My Life in James Arthur Ray's Inner Circle. That's another one you need to read.
• April 2019: From drawn-and-quartered martyr to "Crisis Coach": James Arthur Ray's newest desperate gimmick
  This is just one of numerous posts about Ray's arrogant yet pathetic attempts to reestablish himself as a selfish-help superstar. In this one we focus on Ray's efforts to brand himself as a "Crisis Coach."
• August 2020: Whiny babies of Scamworld
  Of the three "whiny babies" I wrote about in this post, James Arthur Ray is the worst, because even after being directly responsible for the deaths of four people at his events, and directly responsible for the physical and emotional injuries of countless others, he continues to paint himself as the real victim.

 

James Arthur Ray Death Lodge 10th Anniversary: Never Forget

It has been ten long years since James Arthur Ray, selfish-help/McSpirituality guru and egomaniacal star of the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, held his infamous phony sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona, resulting in the deaths of three people: James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman. And as I have mentioned on this blog numerous times, one of the most recent occasions being in April of this year, Death Ray is still trying to make his comeback in the industry after having served less than two years in an Arizona state prison, on charges of negligent homicide, for the deaths of these people.

As I've also mentioned several times, Ray never served any prison time at all for another death for which he was responsible, that of Colleen Conaway in San Diego in July 2009.

Ignoring all the considerable flak he has gotten from many directions since he's been out of the clink, Ray continues to play on his "redemption" shtick, and is still promoting his utter failure of a book about same on his web site. (What appears to be an earlier version of the book is listed as being out of print, and Google Books couldn't even be bothered to get an accurate description of the book's contents.)

In late October of last year, San Diego's ABC affiliate, KGTV, ran a story about Ray's comeback efforts and his attempts to frame his offerings in that redemption theme. It's worth a watch.

In case you haven't been following this story over the years, and would like some insights into the sociopathic behavior of James Ray and how that behavior led up to Death Lodge, see this post, which I wrote on the first anniversary of Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona. There's also a public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.

One final word, and it's the same message I've conveyed repeatedly on post after post after post about Ray over the years. In fact, if you don't mind me quoting myself verbatim from that post I wrote in April of this year...

...if you're at all tempted to give money to James Arthur Ray for any reason: Give it instead to a worthwhile organization, such as, say... Seek Safely, which was founded by Kirby Brown's family to guide consumers and make self-help practitioners more accountable for their actions through legislation. (Here is the link to donation info.) So far, more than 160 leading lights in the industry have been invited to sign the "Seek Safely" promise... and not one of them has yet done so. In all fairness, some of them are now dead, such as Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer. But as for the rest... well, the invitation has been open for years, but nobody who's anybody in the industry seems very interested. That should tell you something.

When Googling around just a while ago, I found this on-point opinion piece from the Deadspin site, published in February 2019. The headline says it all:

Felonious Self-Help Guru James Arthur Ray Wants You To Remember Oprah Loves Him And Forget He's Killed People

Too bad, James: there are tons of folks -- and I'm one of them -- who will never forget.

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

James Arthur Ray Death Lodge 9th Anniversary: Never Forget

It has been nine years since James Arthur Ray, selfish-help/McSpirituality guru and star of the New-Wage moviemercial The Secret, held his infamous faux-sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona, that resulted in the deaths of three people: James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman. And as I mentioned just last month, Death Ray is still trying to make his comeback in the industry after having served less than two years in an Arizona state prison (for negligent homicide) for the deaths of these people. 

And he never served a moment of prison time for another death for which he was responsible, that of Colleen Conaway in San Diego in July 2009.

Since Blogger seems to be malfunctioning at the moment, I'm just going to post this as a "stub" for now. There is more information, as well as several relevant links, in my Death Lodge anniversary post last year. And of course, a quick Google search will yield much more

For now, I just want to say that my heart goes out to the family and friends of those who lost their lives, and to the many other survivors who were injured -- either physically, emotionally or both -- as a result of Ray's arrogance and recklessness. I wish all of you peace and comfort as you continue to come to terms, each in your own way, with your losses and your pain. And for what it's worth, there are still many of us who, though not directly affected by Ray, will...
Never Forget.

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

James Arthur Ray Death Lodge Eighth Anniversary: Never Forget

Death, it seems, has dominated the news even more than usual for the past several weeks: there is the death and destruction caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (and we're holding our collective breaths about Nate as I write this); and, of course, there is the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas a week ago today.

I don't expect the mainstream -- or even most of the independent -- news media to remember, much less focus upon, deaths that occurred years ago on a much smaller and less dramatic scale; after all, the journos and commentators can barely keep up with all of the mass shootings in America, much less the deaths caused by the arrogance and reckless actions of a sociopathic selfish-help "leader." But here in this obscure little outpost of the blogosphere, the deaths of three people in New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray's phony "sweat lodge" in Sedona, Arizona will never be forgotten.

It was on this day, eight years ago, that Kirby Brown and James Shore perished as a result of their heavily manipulated/coerced participation in Ray's torture chamber. Nine days later a third participant, Liz Neuman, passed away as well, without ever awakening from a coma.

As I've written in previous anniversary posts, I knew none of them, though some of the family members are now my Facebook friends. But I think of them every year at this time. Mostly it is with sadness but also with anger, because the man whose recklessness was responsible for these three deaths (four, if you count Colleen Conaway's death at another Ray event in July 2009), served a prison sentence of less than two years for the Sedona deaths. (He served no time at all for Colleen's death, and wasn't even charged, to say nothing of tried or convicted, although my understanding is that there was a civil settlement.)

But James Ray goes merrily on his way, scrabbling to reclaim his elevated spot in the selfish-help pantheon while spinning Sedona as his own personal tragedy. As I wrote here last year:

...these days, James Ray is exploiting the Sedona tragedy and his time in prison for his own purposes, still parading as a success guru but with a new hook: he uses the pain and loss of others to portray himself as the hero who has walked through fire.

He may have walked through fire, figuratively speaking, but he did not die by fire, literally, as did James Shore, Kirby Brown and Liz Neuman.

He may have lost a lot, but he is still alive and capable of writing unmitigated crap such as, "In the process of losing everything...I actually found myself."

That theme -- redemption through profound loss -- is the one that Death Ray is still flogging.

Kirby Brown's family, trying to pick up the pieces and create something good and useful from the horror that James Ray bestowed upon their family and on so many others, continues to promote their non-profit, Seek Safely, whose purpose is to educate people about how to safely participate in the self-help industry. Check it out.

Others are doing their part too. As you probably know if you've been hanging around here for any length of time, one of my favorite blogging colleagues, who wrote in great depth about the James Ray nightmare, is Salty Droid, aka Jason Jones. He is a practicing lawyer again, and as I noted here, is using the law to go after destructive and potentially dangerous Scamworld players, e.g., MLM giant Herbalife, a company that, as he explained last month, he first began thinking about in 2009...

… when Liz Neuman died in James Arthur Ray’s fake sweat lodge. Liz got her first tastes of Death Ray’s self-help poison while attending Herbalife related events.

The deadly fake sweat lodge {that killed three people and seriously injured many others} was the culmination of James Ray International’s “Spiritual Warrior” weekend :: a deeply manipulative $10,000 event … the most expensive in a never ending sequence of events that Ray dubbed the “Journey of Power.

These events are dangerous :: weaponized fraud … and they permeate the scam industry. Every wretched festering scamhole I’ve climbed down has contained one of these escalating event sequences at the heart of the harm … anchoring victims to the bottom of Lake Misery.

Here is a direct link to the extended version of the Herbalife lawsuit (Rodgers et al. v Herbalife).

(Jason is also representing, pro bono, a blogger, Christina Hinks of the MommyGyver blog, who is being targeted and harassed by billion-dollar fashion MLM LuLaRue. According to the Truth In Advertising site, LuLaRue seems most upset by the blogger and other critics calling it a cult. Well, MLMs very often are cults in a sense, and it seems to me that the more cultish they are, the more likely they are to sue you for calling them cults or even hinting that they might be (consider the example of LGAT (large group awareness training) giant Landmark, f'rinstance...). Anyway, you can read Jason's take on the LuLaRue case here.)

I have neither a nonprofit nor a law degree, but as always I will continue, as I have for the past eight years, to do my part to make sure that people never forget what happened on October 8, 2009.

For insights into the sociopathic behavior of James Ray, and how it led up to Death Lodge, see this post, written on the first anniversary of Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona. There's also a public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.

* * * * *

Now more than ever, your donation is needed
to help keep this Whirled spinning.
Click here to donate via PayPal or debit/credit card.
If that link doesn't work, send PayPal payment directly to
scrivener66@hotmail.com
or to cosmic.connie@juno.com
If PayPal, be sure to specify that your contribution is a gift. Thank you!

James Arthur Ray Death Lodge Seventh Anniversary: Never Forget

Note: If you get a sense of deja vu as you read this, it is because I am lifting some of it from last year's anniversary post. It's okay; I gave me permission to plagiarize myself.
~CC

I always love October. I love the way it presents itself, more often than not, in such bright and perfect blue and gold -- yes, even down here where we don't have the stunning autumn colors that are seen further north. I love the way October always feels, even more than September does, like a beginning rather than the herald of any kind of ending.

But as much as I love October, there is an undercurrent of sadness in these pristine fall days. Most of the hummingbirds are gone by now, though a scant few stragglers remain, but that's not the core of my sadness. It's more of a general melancholy, rather subtle, perhaps best expressed by Rilke's poem, "Autumn," which is no doubt even more lovely in the original German, though the version in this blog post is the English translation that touches me the most (yes, despite my agnosticism).

This October day in particular is a sad one, for today is the seventh anniversary of the deaths of Kirby Brown and James Shore, two participants in New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality guru James Arthur Ray's phony "sweat lodge" in Sedona, Arizona. Nine days later a third participant, Liz Neuman, passed away as well, without ever awakening from a coma.

And after that, the world was never the same for untold numbers of family members and friends of these three lovely people.

I knew none of them, though some of the family members are now my Facebook friends, but I think of them every year at this time. Mostly it is with sadness but also with anger, because the man whose recklnessness was responsible for these three deaths (four, if you count Colleen Conaway's death at another Ray event in July 2009), served a prison sentence of less than two years for the Sedona deaths. (He served no time at all for Colleen's death, and wasn't even charged, much less tried or convicted, although my understanding is that there was a civil settlement of some kind, eventually.)

And these days, James Ray is exploiting the Sedona tragedy and his time in prison for his own purposes, still parading as a success guru but with a new hook: he uses the pain and loss of others to portray himself as the hero who has walked through fire.

He may have walked through fire, figuratively speaking, but he did not die by fire, literally, as did James Shore, Kirby Brown and Liz Neuman.

He may have lost a lot, but he is still alive and capable of writing unmitigated crap such as, "In the process of losing everything...I actually found myself."

That theme -- redemption through profound loss -- is the one that Death Ray is still flogging.

And as October inevitably gives way to November and December, there will still be empty places at the holiday tables of the families whose loved ones were killed by the arrogant recklessness of James Arthur Ray.

Regarding the latter, there are bright spots of joy with the sadness; in the years since Death Lodge, beautiful babies have been born to some of the family members of those who were lost. Life goes on, and for some, October is truly a time of beginnings.

And maybe, just maybe, no one is ever truly lost. Rilke:

...And yet there's One whose gently-holding hands
this universal falling can't fall through.

Kirby Brown's family, trying to create something good from the awfulness wrought by James Ray, is still promoting their non-profit, Seek Safely, whose purpose is to educate people about how to safely participate in the self-help industry. They have recently upgraded the site. Check it out.

I will mention once again, as I always do when writing about this organization, the Seek Safely Promise. In contrast to previous years, it now appears that several industry leaders have signed the pledge; the page linked to in the previous sentence includes not only the promise but also a list of both those who have signed and those who haven't. But I would be remiss if I were to imply that I believe that signing the pledge is a guarantee that the individual is "okay." For instance, several of the Internet marketing scammers Salty Droid has written about appear to have signed the promise, which may be a big reason that Salty/Jason has turned down requests to speak at Seek Safely events. He really cannot find much good to say about the self-help industry, and for that matter neither can I.

And I notice that Esther Hicks seems to have signed it too, although the Abraham-Hicks cult has arguably played a part in emotionally if not physically destroying numerous people over the years.

Still, Seek Safely is a worthy cause, especially since a big part of its mission is to educate consumers and prevent them from becoming victims, and I applaud Kirby's family for their efforts.

And me? I'll continue, as I have for the past seven years, to do my part to make sure that people never forget what happened on October 8, 2009.

For insights into the arrogance that led up to Death Lodge, and the arrogance Ray has displayed since then, see this post, written on the first anniversary of Sedona. Also read Connie Joy's book, Tragedy in Sedona. There's also a public Facebook group, James Arthur Ray is a Felon.