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whoyg10445 on Sunday, November 15, 2009 8:02:48 PM
By Craig Harris and Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX — Even as a boy, self-improvement guru James Arthur Ray was fixated on money and spirituality.
The son of an Oklahoma preacher
pearl jewelry recalls in his 2008 book, Harmonic Wealth, that his family was so poor they had to live in the church office.
"The hardest part of my childhood was reconciling how Dad poured his
heart into his work, how he helped so many people and yet he couldn't
afford to pay for haircuts for me and my brother," Ray wrote.
Ray, whose followers spend thousands of dollars to attend his wealth
and mysticism seminars, is a primary focus of a homicide investigation
into three deaths related to a sweat-lodge ceremony he led at a retreat
near Sedona, Ariz., on Oct. 8, Yavapai
Sheriff's authorities say 55 to 65 people attending the program were
crowded into the 415-square-foot, crudely built sweat lodge during a
two-hour period. Participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 for the
retreat.
The participants had fasted for
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36 hours as part of a personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness,
then ate a breakfast buffet before entering the sweat lodge around 3
p.m. A 911 call two hours later said two people weren't breathing.
Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee,
died upon arrival at a hospital. Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn.,
died more than a week later.
"This is the most difficult time I've ever faced," he told the crowd of
about 200 on Oct. 13. "I don't know how to deal with it, really."
How Ray built his own wealth
Ray started his business, James
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Ray International in Carlsbad, Calif., in 1992, working for years in
relative obscurity as one of many self-improvement teachers in an
industry that last year generated $11.3 billion, according to
Marketdata, a research firm.
By 2005, revenue from Ray's books, conferences and seminars reached $1.5 million, spokesman Ryan Croy said.
In 2006, Ray appeared in The Secret, a popular documentary in which he
and others promoted the philosophy that positive thinking makes good
things happen. He also appeared on Oprah.
Last year, according to the company, revenue hit $9.4 million.
Ray holds free two-hour workshops across the U.S. and Canada. The 41
events so far this year attracted 10,913 people, according to his
company. From that group, 1,752 people enrolled in Ray's two-day
Harmonic Wealth Weekend, which costs $1,297 a person and is the first
of six programs in his Journey of Power Experience. Croy said 3,281
people attended Journey of Power events between August 2008 and August
2009.
John Curtis, an Asheville, N.C., professor who operates the Americans
Against Self-Help Fraud website, said people who turn to
self-improvement gurus are typically intelligent, but seem to
voluntarily abandon rationality.
"There's a fear of leaving it, and there's a fear among the group of saying, 'The emperor is naked.' "
Steven Gunter, a professor of evangelism at Duke University, said the Sedona tragedy cannot be written off as a misfortune.
"You really can't simply call it an accident," he said. "You can call it misguided."