Original subtitles

♪♪♪

- [man]: Are you with me?

Yeah? OK.

Let me just-- Let me start over, because let me tell you,

I will be all over the place.

So just be prepared for that. I've had camera guys...

I used to have, you know, projection on either side,

because the audiences were really large,

and I'd every once in a while look up and I'm not on the screen.

I'd be like, seriously? You know, come on.

You're getting paid to do what?

Alright.

So I'm reminded of the story

of a young, 6-year-old boy.

He bounded out of bed on this particular morning

because he was excited.

You remember how, when you were young and really young,

and you got excited about...

well, anything?

Well, I mean, that's how he was. He was excited,

because today was the day that he began...

kindergarten.

And he wanted to go new places and meet new people,

he wanted to colour... All kinds of things.

And so he left his familiar surroundings

and he began to interact very quickly

with a different group of people.

And it wasn't very long before he realized

that he was different.

- [woman]: [Edward 4-9, communicate: emergency assist.]

[Sedona. CPR in progress. Two subjects passed out.]

- [man]: [4-5 code right now,]

[there's about another 15, 20 people down.]

- [woman]: [Be advised, we just had an additional call.]

[Possible third victim. We're going to be sending]

[an additional ambulance from Sedona as well.]

- [man]: [We now have three codes and one burn victim.]

- [Three codes and one burn victim?]

- [Yep.] - [All at the same call?] - [All at the same place.]

- [The first two code patients are being transported right now]

[to the hospital and the third one's being flown out.]

[We need to try to get over there and figure out]

[what type of crime scene we have.]

- [reporter]: It was supposed to be a journey

into spiritual discovery and wholeness.

- [second reporter]: Around 60 people sat in a packed sweat lodge

in the Arizona desert. They were on a retreat organized

by self-help guru James Arthur Ray.

- But now, a third person has died after being overcome

by extreme heat, and authorities are classifying the deaths

as homicides.

[rumbling] - [man]: I'm rolling.

Tell us what people are going to expect at this event tonight.

- Well, at any of my events, what people should expect

is to have a lot of fun. I teach individuals

how to create wealth and harmony in all areas of their life.

Everything I do is extremely experiential,

whether it's a two-hour presentation like tonight

or up to an eight-day event,

which... I do that and everything in between.

♪♪♪

- Hello. - Hey, how are you?

- Alright, good. Can you head this way, sir?

- Yeah.

- James was one of the top speakers in his field.

There were less than 10 people

who were in the category that James was in.

- [woman on mic]: Self-made millionaire James Arthur Ray

is transforming the way the world thinks.

Called the "rockstar of personal transformation" by the press,

please join me in welcoming Mr. James Arthur Ray.

[applause]

- Thank you! What I'd like to share with you this evening

in the short amount of time that we have -- two hours will go very quickly, I promise --

is the secrets behind what it takes and how to operate

to truly create the life that you desire and deserve.

If I have any gift, it's that I'm able to take complex ideas

and simplify them into a very practical

and easy-to-apply formula.

And that's what we're going to do here this evening...

- When I first went to a James event,

I was kind of skeptical. I didn't know anybody there.

And it was your traditional hotel banquet room

filled with chairs, with a stage in front,

which kind of looked similar to some of the personal development programs I'd taken in the past.

- I'm not sure exactly why you're here tonight, yet.

But there's two things I absolutely know about you.

- Everybody in that room,

there was something going on in their life.

Could have been anything. Could have been a divorce.

It could have been, um... financial.

It could have been anything.

- [Ray]: There's at least one area of your life...

- Part of me was in a haze, and I wanted that part to wake up.

I want to be happier. I want to be more successful.

I'm not quite sure what that means yet,

so I'm looking, I'm searching.

- I knew that I was an intelligent person.

I was very motivated. I felt like I could do anything,

but I always felt like there was just some

little piece missing that I didn't have the answer for.

- How many of you are truly committed

to taking your life to the next level of solid achievement?

Really committed? - I thought, maybe James Ray

has the one thing that I need to hear.

- So let me ask you this question. If I told you exactly

what you needed to do to accomplish anything and everything

you choose to accomplish, would you do it? No or yes?

- [crowd]: Yes! - Even if it seemed unusual,

would you do it? No or yes? - [crowd]: Yes!

- Good. I want to congratulate you for being here,

and I can help you. I really can.

[car passing]

- He's gonna be in heaven.

Kombucha tea.

He loves it.

Protein bars and...

blueberries and strawberries.

He hasn't had any real fruit.

I think he gets one apple a week.

We're going to get James out of prison.

It's, um, exciting

to have him come out

and be free.

But I think we're just starting, you know?

It's starting over.

- [reporter]: Good morning, everyone. We're here in Buckeye,

Arizona, at the Lewis State Prison. You see the guard shack here.

We've been watching cars go by that guard shack.

A lot of media out here right now.

- [other reporter]: He was once a popular motivational speaker.

He had appeared on Oprah, in the movieThe Secret...

James Arthur Ray, though, has spent the last two years

behind bars after a deadly sweat lodge ceremony in 2009.

Today, after paying his debt to society --

about two years in prison --

he's about to be released.

- [man]: Ryan, I think that's him.

Do you think it's him, or no? - I think it is him.

- I think it is too.

- [reporter]: James Ray was indeed released

from the Lewis prison and now, he will be on probation

for the remainder of his sentence, right here in Phoenix.

[patting] [small grunt]

[sniffling]

[dog barking] [woman shushing]

- Don't cry, man.

You're gonna make me cry. [laughing]

- Couldn't have made it without you.

- Yeah, you could've. It just would've not been the same.

[groaning]

It's all good, man. You're... You're good.

You're good.

- A new day. - Yeah.

- I found myself sitting in a chair today,

really talking to myself and saying, OK, James,

get your head on and be grateful.

You know, when I first went in,

it spun me out really hard.

And I went through everything:

from shock to anger

to victim to hating God,

blaming God.

You know, look, why?

I tried to help people and this is my reward?

And now I look back at that and I think, how arrogant.

Who am I

to think that I should

not have any challenges because I'm trying to do something good?

And what's your motive for doing it?

- Be strong. - I will.

- You got this. - I will, bud. I will.

Appreciate it.

- [woman]: How do you feel right now?

- Just really blessed,

because, um...

again, I...

I have nothing to complain about.

- It's painful, because I know who he is

and I know what he has to offer.

Can he still help people? Absolutely.

But you know, he's got to help himself right now.

I guess the irony is that

really, to help himself he's got to help other people.

Because that's what he does.

[clapping and cheering]

- Whoa, yes! OK.

- Hello. This is... I'm Laura,

from Kelowna, British Columbia.

I've been working on control all week.

- Are you controlling control?

[scattered laughs] - I'm not really sure.

I was there looking for transformation.

I was at a point in my life where something needed to change

in order for me to move to the next level.

- So what could you do right now,

just to prove to yourself that you don't care

what anyone else in here thinks?

- Singing would be a problem.

- Singing would be a problem? - [laughing]: Yeah.

- Because you're worried about what other people think

of your voice. - Yeah.

- OK. So... what song are you going to sing?

[chuckling]

- O Canada.

- O Canada. [crowd laughing]

- As the workshop progressed,

I could feel my wall coming down.

♪♪ We stand on guard

I really did learn how to take my guard down with people.

♪ O Canada

♪ We stand on guard for thee ♪

[loud applause]

[Laura laughing] - You were awesome!

Great job!

Now wait, hang on a second. Now is that a breakthrough?

If I'd have asked you a week ago

if you'd stand up in front of 300 people and sing "O Canada,

we stand on guard for thee..." [chuckling]

...would you have told me I was insane?

- Yes. - Yes.

- [quietly]: Thanks.

- That's a breakthrough, huh? - Yeah.

[clapping] [James laughing]

- Who's next?

[crowd laughing]

- It takes unwavering self-confidence to say,

"I understand exactly how to fix not just myself" --

which alone would be a huge accomplishment --

"but all of you strangers who've just shown up in this room."

- I was sexually abused as a child

and I was so scared. I thought I wasn't important

and I've come full circle.

So I just wanted to share that with anybody

that's feeling like me, 'cause you can do it.

- We're all carrying all of this pain--

- You were. - We were.

- And looking back upon how you used to be,

how does it feel to be totally and completely different now?

- There will be no stopping me.

[cheering]

- That fundamental human need

to express your pain and try to find some way of ameliorating it

is at the heart of all of this.

The self-help industry is a huge industry.

It's $10 billion a year

and that desire to improve yourself,

that's not going anywhere.

It's the history of America.

We've always been seekers, on one level.

- It's scary to have to get into your emotional issues,

'cause it's uncomfortable.

But you know what's scarier, is not.

- James kind of represents his audience, in a way,

because he's a striver. He was saying,

"I have the tools and the skills and the this and the that

"to help you achieve your dreams,

"while I myself am actually...

This is me trying to achieve my dreams."

When I wrote about him in 2008,

his goal was to be the top.

- Most people look at their current state of affairs

and they say, this is who I am. - He had been inThe Secret,

which was this mega best-selling DVD of motivational gurus.

And now he was taking his shot to be that next big thing

in the motivational speaking world.

You had these giants of the industry.

- Things which matter most must never

be at the mercy of things which matter least.

- Stephen Covey is financial, Deepak Chopra, spiritual...

- You and your mind and your emotions

cannot be squeezed into the volume of a body

or even the span of a lifetime.

- Tony Robbins was really the king.

- Whatever you think you came for -- more energy, more focus,

more determination, more confidence, more certainty,

more love -- whatever it is, I can tell you this:

that's not why you came.

- But no one kind of ticked all the boxes. It was spiritual,

financial, wellness...

That's what James was trying to do.

- I've studied for three years with the Jivaro Indians,

who are the direct descendants of the Inca, at 16 500 feet

in the Peruvian Andes Mountains.

I've studied in the mystery schools of Egypt and I've crawled through probably

more temples and tombs than anyone you'll ever meet...

and I've studied in the business schools of AT&T.

[crowd laughing] Which kind of means I'm eclectic.

[birds chirping]

Any time I'm talking about the past I'm over here,

right? Young, 6-year-old boy. I'm taking you to the future

over here, because people read from left to right.

If I want you to think about your vision,

I'm going to do this.

What is it you're going to create in your life?

What are you going after?

Or if I want you to let go of something...

you know, those old doubts and insecurities and fears,

I'm going to put them into the past. Now that's really subtle,

but unconsciously, you start to organize these things.

If I really want you to get down into your heart,

I'm like, creating a different inside.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

OK.

- James was at the top of his game as a speaker,

and all of these opportunities were opening up to him.

And then the sweat lodge happened and literally,

bam, in one moment, all gone.

Friends, colleagues, business associates,

people he paid for years did not stick with him.

Didn't want to have anything to do with him.

Assumed he was guilty the moment they heard something

and literally ran for the hills.

- Come on, Sunshine.

- I don't think any of us know the lowest that it went,

or has gone, or if it's even hit that point.

But there's a lot of strength in him,

and he's not a quitter.

- Remember I said to you a few days ago

that it appears to be our fundamental truth

that the people who grow the most and evolve the most

are the people who experience the greatest amount of what?

- Pain? - Pain.

Challenges. Difficulty.

Because it's through those challenges

that we recognize who we really are.

- The movement that James Ray is part of really began

in the early 20th century.

There were books like Dale Carnegie's

How To Win Friends and Influence People,

or Norman Vincent Peale's Power of Positive Thinking.

The model was one of book- writing and speech-delivering.

[clapping]

But in the late 1960s, early 1970s,

the movement began to undergo a radical change,

due in part to the popularity

of what was called the Encounter Group.

- If you came in here to get better,

if you came in here to stroke yourself,

if you came in here for all that nonsense

it's the wrong place to be. This is not about getting better.

This is about completing your transformation.

- "Est" started in San Francisco in 1971.

A lot of people would note it today

as the progenitor of Landmark Forum.

People would come into a seminar room,

booked in a hotel over a weekend.

What it really became known for

was the kind of shockingly confrontational nature

of the actual seminar.

- Why do you have to be a nice guy?!

Why do you have to look hip?

Why do you have to look cool?

- It was challenging for the people that were there.

It was a little outrageous for the people who weren't.

Est was sort of a dam break.

Then you also had talk shows, Oprah to Dr. Phil,

that created this experience with a studio audience.

You have this wider acceptance

of the idea of, um, a group of people coming together

to be completely radically transformed.

- I guess I don't know the value of money.

I don't know what a penny's worth, I don't know

what a dollar's worth. I've never had very much in my life.

- Where'd you learn that one, Steve?

Mom or Dad? - I would say my mom.

- Mom. Mom a happy person?

- No. - No. Didn't think so.

Mom still alive? - She passed away two years ago.

- Mom still alive?

- I, I... You're getting into stuff that I didn't want,

want to talk... - I understand that.

But you see, you're right on the edge of a breakthrough here,

my friend.

[sniffling]

Do not touch him, please.

- James took, perhaps, a slightly different approach

to self-development than some of the other people

in the industry. He was a little more direct about it.

He didn't sugar-coat a lot of things,

but he really made you stop and think.

- Are you listening or are you wanting just to defend your position?

- I was going to agree, actually-- - Yeah, yeah, well, listen.

Because you see, so many times people ask me questions not to

get the answer. They ask me questions so that they can prove

what they know. And you don't like that,

'cause I called you on your shit.

But you know what? That's why you paid me money.

So do you want to learn, or do you want to stay where you are?

- I'm standing here. I want to learn.

- Then let go of pissed, right now,

and tell me what's good about me calling you on your shit.

Why are you happy that I called you on your shit?

- Makes me uncomfortable. I grow.

- Yeah, good! Nice job.

- He does have that flavour of, you know, pushing beyond limits.

He would say, "OK, you can get this far.

"OK, you got here, now you can go this far.

Now you got here, now you can go a little further."

- [Tucker]: One of the things that James understood very well

was that people grow, people transform in challenge.

[various voices yelling] - [woman]: Let it go and reach for the bar!

Come on, you can do it!

- So he would create these challenges.

[cheering]

They were manufactured challenges,

but they became an opportunity for

realizing that you could do something

that you didn't think that you could do.

[cheering]

- They seemed to get more and more

elevated in difficulty.

- Just look eye-to-eye. Connect eye-to-eye here.

- There was bending rebar. So two friends

would put a piece of rebar between them and then

you bend the rebar using your throat.

- It's going, it's going, it's going!

Come on, come on, come on! Come on, dig in!

Dig, dig, dig, dig! Good! Yeah! Yeah!

[cheering and whistling]

- You would also walk across fire.

- Make sure, remember to wipe your feet.

There's a water bucket right on the end.

Let's go. [drum beating]

YEAH! [cheering]

[applause and yelling]

Sticking your hand in a pit of snakes.

Why the hell would you do this?

[squealing]

If you don't go through that brick, it'll sting.

But you will go through that brick and you can,

and it has nothing to do with strength. It's about energy.

We've talked about this all week; here's a chance to practice it. Do whatever

you need to do. Breathe from the now, bring that energy up.

Circulate that energy. Bring it out your arm.

BAM! Right through the brick. - You see some people

freaking out about just the thought

that they would break a board.

[loud cheering]

And then you'll see them break through it, and you'll just see,

like, the sheer joy that comes across their face

of, like, being able to accomplish something that

they thought was impossible.

♪♪♪

It's pretty powerful. [cheering]

- Give yourselves a big round of applause! You kicked ass!

[clapping]

You faced your fears,

you went forward and you gave it everything you've got,

so I want you to remember that.

You see, only he or she who is willing to go too far

will ever find

how far one can go.

Are you willing

to play so fully

that you maybe go too far,

to realize who you really are?

- This isPiers Morgan Live. Welcome to our viewers

in the United States and around the world.

I want to begin with the story of how it all went so very wrong

for the king of self-help. Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.

- At the peak of his popularity, self-help author

James Arthur Ray was one of the world's top motivators.

But in October 2009, he pushed too far.

- [911, where is your emergency?]

- [woman]: [Angel Valley Road.] - [OK, what's the problem?]

- [Two people aren't breathing.]

[There's no pulse.] - [Not breathing?]

- [Yes.] - [OK, is this the result of a shooting or something?]

- [No, it was a sweat lodge.] - [A sweat lodge?]

- [Yes.] - It was James Ray's version

of a Native American sweat lodge ceremony,

where temperatures reportedly reach 120 degrees,

killing three of his followers and sending 19 to the hospital.

Ray was charged with three counts of manslaughter

for the deaths of 38-year-old Kirby Brown,

40-year-old James Shore and 49-year-old Liz Newman.

- And James Ray now joins me exclusively, to remind viewers,

the first time he has spoken since coming out of prison

after all this dreadful tragedy.

So James, you know, your career was rocketing.

Were you a nice person then, when you look back on yourself?

Do you look back at yourself with a certain degree

of disgust, perhaps, at your actions,

and recognize that there was a character trait in you

that you had to change?

- There was definitely character traits in me

that I had to change. Um...

And there still are.

I don't know that I would say disgust, you know? I'm human.

- To go from that kind of wealth to getting wiped out

and to lose your liberty,

it's a huge toll on anybody.

But do you think, looking back,

it was an appropriate punishment?

Given that three people who paid money to be in your tutelage

lost their lives? - I... I have no complaints.

You know? I feel like

I've taken the punishment

and that God gives us what we deserve.

Until I create a compelling now and future,

what's the topic? The past.

It's been years

of people telling me what to do and where to be

and what to say, what not to say.

I, I, I gotta get back in the driver's seat again.

Hey. - Hi.

- Thanks for meeting me.

- Hi Juliana, nice to meet you.

You guys all part of James Ray's team?

- This is James Ray. - Oh, hi!

- Hi. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me.

- Oh, we're so excited. - How are you?

- Good. Just coming to kind of look at the room.

You said you keep a cool room? They're going to cool this down?

- Yeah, I just told them. It's going to go way down.

- Yeah, 'cause this is... - It's way too hot. - Stifling in here.

Do we have a stool for me to sit on?

- Yep, I have it. - I'll give you my notebook

and my water and all that, and if we just have a glass...

- Make sure it's up there. - ...and tissues.

And I'll just pick the stool up and walk over here

and set it down and climb up on it and go.

- OK, good. - That'll work.

OK, good.

- Sure.

[crowd cheering]

[clapping] [distant music]

- Um, I got a mail, and I've been reading The Secret.

And... - That was a long time ago.

That was 2005. - Yeah, that was like a boom!

- Yeah. - Yeah. Have you seen the movie?

- [all]: Yeah. - Movie and the book.

- After this movie,

I start dreaming about America, that I have to go to America.

- Good for you. Where'd you come from?

- From Russia. - Oh, yeah? So make sure

you stay and listen, because I think, I think there'll

be some good information. - Do you have something more to say besides secrets?

- A lot more. A lot more. - OK.

[continuous cheering]

- Thank you.

[applause] Thank you!

On October 8th, 2009,

I was involved in a terrible accident.

[voice breaking]: And I lost three friends.

People who I really cared about.

And I can't tell you

how much anguish and pain

that caused, and still does for me.

Can we bring the lights up, please?

Have you ever had a situation in your life

where you felt like

you got hit so hard in your stomach

that you can't even breathe?

Life is hard.

False or true? - [various]: True!

- And life sometimes deals you some really tough blows.

False or true? - [various]: True.

- And at some point in time,

you have to decide --

we all have to decide --

if we're going to fold or move forward in faith.

Life has taken some really tough swings at me,

and by the grace of God,

I'm still here. I'm still here.

[clapping and cheering]

Thank you. [whistling]

[continuous applause]

Thank you. Thank you.

♪♪♪

What do I do? - What do you do?

- That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?

You get it? OK. My pleasure.

I really believe that I help people

experience more life.

- Thank you very, very much. - My pleasure. Thank you,

sweetie. Thanks for being here. I started my search

when I was really young, because I wanted to find --

as a very insecure, skinny, frail,

buck-toothed young man

with an extremely domineering father --

I wanted to find myself.

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

in the Bible Belt. Right in the buckle of the Bible Belt.

My father was Protestant minister.

- Jesus' miraculous ministry of the flesh was coming to a close.

- He was very charismatic.

He really could touch

his congregation.

And he was my first "wow."

- Back then, he was a hellfire and brimstone preacher, to tell you the truth.

And he went very far with that,

because our church was very strict.

- We all never went to the hospital or anything.

We prayed and we believed in healing and...

- God healed us. - God healed us.

And we weren't making a whole bunch of money

in those days, either.

- Dad was pretty easy.

Mom was extremely strict.

She was brought up in a very, very staunch,

religious family,

and everything was a sin.

We couldn't go to movies,

we couldn't play pinball, because Mom considered that

a form of gambling. Because if you

played well enough, you could win a free game.

-[Joyce Ray]: It's basically that you just keep yourself away

from the world and all the world's foils.

He's only six weeks old. Ha!

James and I were together day in and day out for four years

before Jon-Jon came along.

He was my life.

I always believed in him and I always knew

he had a special calling.

I told him that from childhood.

I don't know if I put it in him,

and I wondered if I was wrong in doing so.

But I really felt like he was a special child.

- I love them both, but, uh,

I think his mother's closer to James than I am.

With Jon-Jon,

I have a lot more fun.

- James was always very, very disciplined.

I mean, I remember when he had a morning paper route

and he would get up at four o'clock in the morning.

To me, he was always larger than life,

because he was my bigger brother.

But he was actually kind of reserved.

He was a goofy-looking kid. [chuckling]

If you put goofy-looking kid

and introspective together,

it's a recipe for inadequacy.

[everyone clapping]

- Nice. Oh, yes!

Grab a seat. Just humour me for a moment,

because two of the most important people

in my entire life are in the room.

I call them Mom and Dad, so if they'll stand up right here...

[applause]

My mom is the most loving, beautiful,

um...

angelic...

[small laugh] ...person I've ever known.

And she has to be to live with Dad

for all those years. [crowd laughing]

Give them one more round of applause for me, please. Thanks.

[cheering and clapping]

Thank you for proving my point. Um, now...

My dad and I have always had

this "frictionous" relationship.

You know, he never really wanted to allow me to do what I do,

and he always... It was always like this competition,

for whatever reason. It's bizarre.

And it was really tough growing up,

because it was never good enough for Dad,

and it was never anything close to what he'd accomplished.

He wanted me to become a Protestant minister,

but I went into business and I did really well.

I worked for AT&T in a telemarketing office.

I ran the morning crew and I didn't follow the manual.

Like, when my people would come in...

I remember this was back in the 80s

and I've always been a big rock and roll fan.

And so when they'd come in in the morning I would play

Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N' Roses, you know?

And I still love that song today.

I had it up loud and I had it on a boom box,

and nobody was doing anything like that.

And my people were like, "Yeah, this is cool!" You know?

And they're all psyched up. And it was so very cool for me,

because I realized, man, I can get people inspired

and they can do things that they don't think they can do.

It felt like I had an ability

that I didn't know I had.

It made me feel like I could conquer the world.

- [Joyce Ray]: Come in, Jimmy. - This is the finest...

- This is clear... - ...turkey carver in the universe.

- Yeah. [laughing]

- I'm not putting up with that!

- I started my first little company and it was called

the Quantum Consulting Group.

- There's James A. Ray, my first son.

President of...

- I taught everything, from time management to team building

toThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

by Stephen Covey. Good job.

But at night, I was reading all these kinds of mystical books.

- [Joyce Ray]: What is it? "Emotional Intelligence."

- Emotional Intelligence. And I knew that if I could take

this study into mysticism and personal development

and psychology and, and, and...

and mould it into a business model,

I was like, wow, there's something here.

- James Ray has devoted the last decade

to studying the thoughts, actions and habits

of successful individuals.

And tonight, he's going to share some of those secrets with you.

- I'm excited and I'm challenged to be here this evening.

And I started keynote speaking.

And it was hard.

I can't tell you how many hours I spent

standing in my living room,

telling my stories to my couch.

...very quickly left his familiar environment

and started interacting with different people.

And it wasn't very long before he found out

that HE was different.

- The life of a self-help speaker is very hard,

and it's very hard to break into the field.

It's a tiny, tiny fraction who ever have their own

television show, or who are speaking in arenas

wearing a headset. More often, they're speaking

at a lunchtime meeting

of insurance managers or at a New Age centre.

- James showing Dad the pictures

of his beautiful house in La Jolla, California.

He moved to California. That was a huge, huge leap of faith.

- [Joyce Ray]: Did you land on it last time?

- You know, he was his product.

So if he wasn't selling himself, he had no income.

- It was hit and miss.

And I was just like, man,

you know...

I'm getting older

and I thought I was going to do something great,

and I haven't,

and it's probably not going to happen.

- How many came 'cause you want more? How many came 'cause you want more? Say "ah"!

[cheering] Oh, say "ah"!

- [crowd]: AH! - I went to a Tony Robbins

seminar. I was like, holy shit.

- Whoa!

- It was like a rock concert.

[applause]

I remember saying to one of his coaches

at the time... I said, one of these days

I'm going to be doing this.

-[reporter]: A motivational speaker and best-selling author

who served nearly two years in an Arizona prison

is in Scottsdale this weekend, hosting motivational seminars.

-[second reporter]: James Arthur Ray is charging 300 bucks

for a one-on-one self-help session.

- He believes he can help more people.

The family of one of his victims believes he's done enough.

- [woman]: I still think he's dangerous,

because he doesn't understand that his actions

actually made these deaths inevitable.

- We're having an event for James

that is designed to be an intimate room full of people...

- Small number. - ...who can bring...

It's ask what you want.

This is Steve. - Hi, Steve. I'm Joanna.

- Having been in a room of several hundred people

with James, and being in our living room,

it's got a whole different personality to it.

- Hey. Thanks for coming. - [both]: Hi. You're welcome.

- Are you guys here local? - No, we're from Canada,

actually. - Holy Moses! You know...

Well, thank you, double thank you for coming.

- I was at one of your events in 2009

and I never got to get that hug from you. Ever.

That's the one thing I've always wanted to get,

'cause I owe you so much.

- Thank you, buddy. - You're welcome.

- I appreciate that a lot. - And I love your new spin on everything,

compared to your old stuff and your new stuff. It's just got

so much more soul and passion to it and I just...

- Hi. James. - Karen.

- Hi, Karen. Thanks for coming. I appreciate you being here.

How do you expand awareness? There's only one way.

[marker squeaking]

Pardon me? - Especially bad experiences.

- Especially... Well, but bad is relative, right?

Was my prison experience bad?

Yep.

Was it good? Yep.

I mean, you're here only because I went to prison.

I wouldn't have met you otherwise.

- It feels a little bit like you're picking and choosing

which experiences we're talking about here,

in terms of the struggles that you went through. I mean,

it wasn't just about prison. It was about--

- But let me ask you... And I appreciate this question.

What determines bad?

- But what happened in the sweat lodge seems bad to the people.

- So you're saying that death is objectively bad.

- And death, definitely, when you don't think

you're going to die would be-- - But you are.

- This to me seems like a rationale. Honestly, like,

that kind of thinking, I'm just saying, I feel like

there's a baseline that can be established

that you can move on and new decisions can be made,

but I think there can be things that go wrong.

- Yes. You know, all these tangents

are valuable and a whole night in themselves,

and I'd like to come back to it, but I will come back to it.

So let me ask you...

- The sweat lodge tested our relationship with James,

but we've been supportive because this work

really had some profound effects on our lives.

We were going through a tremendously difficult time.

- Hey, thanks for being here.

- To us, to me, James was a "god," a guru,

or whatever you want to call him. He was bigger than life.

One, two, three.

He came into our life right at the point

when we were starting to rethink ourselves.

There you go. Good.

Our business was falling apart. They were, you know,

foreclosing on our house.

And Donnita had picked up this CD

called The Secret.

- An all-newOprah.

It's making its way around the world, and the buzz keeps building.

It is "the secret" to creating the life you truly want.

Make more money? Lose weight? Fall in love?

Land your dream job? Find out "the secret."

- So many times, people say to me, "Well, I'd like to double

my income in the next year." - It may be calledThe Secret,

but it sure isn't much of a secret anymore.

- The hottest self-help program in years...

- And I guess the obvious question here is,

what is the secret?

- Do you want me to tell you the secret?

- Yeah. - The secret, spoiler alert,

is that if you think positively,

positive things will happen to you.

- Think of it as positive thinking on steroids, perhaps.

Sales are soaring, in part because of Oprah,

and in part because self-help sells.

- The idea that you can just sort of think more positively

and awesome stuff is going to happen?

That just had amazing resonance.

It was the kind of thing people could pass one to the other,

would buy for gifts for each other.

And it became this just absurd best-seller,

translated into 50 different languages.

-The Secret changed my life.

I'll remember the day as long as I live.

I was sitting in my office

and my assistant came running in and she said,

"James, Oprah's on the phone."

Oprah?!

- James, I love what you said during the commercial break.

I hadn't heard that before. What did you just say?

- "Thank you for giving me that experience" is true forgiveness;

when you can get to that point where you can truly say that.

- I've been here since 1875.

I hadn't heard it put that way. [crowd laughing]

That's pretty good.

- I had several friends who got involved in that book and film,

but because James is so articulate,

and "intelligenic,"

he was one of the people they chose to be on the talk shows.

- There were four of us on Oprah and I got a callback

the very next day: "Oprah wants you to come back."

- We have some Secretteachers

back to talk about... [applause]

- And that really was... was his, you know,

his rocket ship to fame.

[cheering and whistling]

- Over the course of 2008, 2009,

I did all of the events. [cheering]

- We went everywhere his events were,

from California to Georgia...

- Aloha. - ...Hawaii...

- Breathe in and out. - In 2008,

we went to Egypt with James. [loud exhale]

That was part of his World Wealth Society.

- Just wanted to congratulate you on all you've done.

Nice job. Great job. [clapping]

- The World Wealth Society was like James's inner circle

where you had some one-on-one face time with James.

- You have a chakra in the palm of your hand.

- It was amazing.

- And how much did it cost to be in it?

- It was over 100 grand.

- For you and your wife? - Yes.

- Per year? - Yes.

- Grab a couple of hugs and congratulate each other!

- The moment someone starts getting attention,

everybody starts calling, because they believe there's money there.

- He's been called the rockstar of personal transformation.

Now self-made millionaire James Arthur Ray wants you to achieve

your dreams. He'll be here to tell you just how to do it.

- We took a book deal out with him

and closed it very big. It was a seven figure book deal.

- He's a renowned success strategist as well as the author

of Harmonic Wealth.He's here to help YOU, 'cause you know who you are.

- I spoke in front of my largest crowd in Toronto, Canada.

14 000 people. It was a rush.

I was just buzzing. And then it struck me.

I could speak to 20 million people

in the same timeframe on television.

I felt this inspiration, I felt this pull and it's going to happen.

- I was introducing James to different producers.

You know, looking at potential TV appearances and things where he could do his own show.

Warner Brothers Telepictures, it was Harpo, Oprah's company...

- I'm James Arthur Ray and I help individuals

all around the world create harmony and wellbeing

in every area of their life.

- We shot a lot of tape. - Hulk Hogan, probably

one of the most recognized figures in the entire world...

- He had built a business and build a frenzy. We figured,

if we can get him on the air, he's gonna build a following.

[applause]

- I love you! Until we meet each other again,

have a great journey. God bless. Remember you're great.

I love you! Thank you!

[cheering]

[car driving]

- Hello, son. - How are you doing?

- Better since I've seen you, man.

- Looks OK. - We got it all, man.

- [Joyce Ray]: Thank goodness I'm not bent over.

[indistinct conversation]

[keyboard tapping]

- I've always had this intuition

that I would write a memoir someday.

I hooked up with a writing partner

who loved the idea

and I came up with a working title, calledThe Fall,

and we went out and met with

four major publishers in New York.

Well, story came back. Every one of them:

"Great guy, great story,

"needs to be told...

Where's the comeback?"

[heavy breathing]

Here I am a year and three months after my release,

and I'm extremely grateful -- don't get me wrong --

to be here and to have a second chance at life.

I'm incredibly grateful.

And yet, nobody wants to be starting over again in their mid-50s.

[heavy breathing]

[grunting]

I worked for 20 years

to get a certain mind share of the population.

And I got a nice little chunk.

That's like a piece of real estate in the brain, right?

You know, OK... And those people, once they connect it,

it's like, "OK, he does another event and another,

"and this one and this one, oh, and this one you learn something

different than you do in this one." And you know,

after a while, you hit this groove and there's a rapport

and you get a piece of real estate in the mind, if you will.

Well, where are all those people?

Where did they all go? I mean, they were beating down the door

to get into my events. Where are they?

You guys have had a phenomenal week of productivity over there,

to say the least... Here I am, a startup again.

And I know what it takes. And I get up and I'm like, shit.

You know? Do I still have that in me?

How are we doing, numbers wise?

- [Numbers as in sales?] - Yeah, total sales.

- [Well, I think the last count was a total of...]

[up to 10?]

- [Yeah.] - [Maybe 10.]

- I mean, this has been a tough year.

You ready? - Yeah. Let me get you mic'd up.

- I came out of prison in debt.

My credit is crap.

I'd like to begin a conversation with you today

that I think you're going to be interested in.

It's about the topic of wealth,

abundance and prosperity.

I've got nothing tucked away!

It's in the challenge, the crucible of challenge,

that greatness is born.

You don't grow, develop and advance

by tripping through the tulips.

[scattered laughter]

Going to prison sucked!

But you know what? What greater place

to recognize what's truly important?

What greater place to build discipline and commitment?

What greater place to practice what you espouse?

It's been an honour and a privilege. You've been a great

audience today. I really love and appreciate you

for your acceptance and your participation.

Three words I'll leave you with: start immediately,

begin flamboyantly, no exceptions.

God bless. God bless you. [clapping]

- [woman]: Thank you, James Arthur Ray.

And as he and his team are getting ready to go upstairs,

if our ushers will come forward. - My pleasure, thank you.

[indistinct voices]

- Thank you very much. - Hey, my pleasure.

Thanks for being here. - Yeah, it was great.

I'll see you again. - Keep doing good work. - Thanks.

- What we're offering today is the same investment

we normally offer for just three online mentoring sessions.

- OK, alright. - Yeah. You can talk to Maria

or Bear, they can answer any questions you have.

- OK, thanks. - OK? OK, hope to see you.

- I just wanted to come see how handsome you are,

'cause I couldn't tell. Can I give you a hug?

- Thank you. Sure, absolutely. - Thank you, sweetie.

- I am coming in October. - Oh, good! Did you sign up yesterday?

- No, I haven't signed up yet. - Well, right there!

Just go on. Come on, Carrie. Make it happen.

Hey, Mike. Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you too.

In August I was almost in a fatal car accident.

- Wow! - This January my wife wanted

a divorce, and then at the end of January I lost my job,

but I am so focused on the positive

and I'm going to be there on the 3rd--

- Good. - And I do have a purpose.

- Thank you. That was wonderful. - Thanks for being here.

- Very nice. I heard a lot of things I needed to hear.

- That was rock 'n' roll. I'm like, perfect place,

perfect time. You said something that grabbed me.

Good one, good one. - OK.

- Um...

So I started a meditation carpet company.

I believe that meditation carpets

should be in every household like the Bible.

- I think I'm going to do this one.

- Is there a reason why you haven't considered this one?

What I would love to do is work with you

over the next six months. If you got a little inspiration today,

think about getting that every single month.

Thank you very much for that palm reading. I did not expect to get that today.

- I'm going where you are, as far as speaking and motivating.

- Good. Well, let me help you. - I've been in my own,

my own crisis thing. It's not what you went through--

- Let me help you. I'd love to help you.

Thank you. - So where do I sign up?

- Right here. Bear? - I just need you to sign

with your finger here. - My funny finger? OK.

- Hi, Carla. Nice to meet you. - Hi. I like it much better

this way. [chuckling]

- Can I work for you? I mean, I worked my ass off on this.

I did this all by myself. You can ask Dr. Sharon. Can I do it?

I'm not an ass. I'm a really sweet lady.

Because I'm going to be famous, you see?

- That's the wrong objective-- - I'd be happy to let the...

I'd let the whole world know... - Please. No, now.

- ...that you were my mentor. - See, no. No, see...

- I am glad for you. Thank you.

- Thank you. - It was wonderful.

[people laughing]

I'm not arguing anymore! - I'd like to see you soon.

♪♪♪

- The truth is, James never got quite as close to the sun

as he felt he was destined to get.

You know,The Secret got him on Oprah, got him

a fair amount of attention by association with it,

but he was not a household name.

He's not Tony Robbins. He's not Deepak Chopra.

In 2008, when I spoke to him,

he was quite open about how what he was doing,

at the level he was doing it at, was not really sustainable.

- Hey, I just got out of a meeting and I wanted to

connect with you quickly. I know I've sent you some emails

and a previous message about my upcoming event

that happens once every four years...

- He was basically working every day,

every weekend, doing something with somebody,

trying to get people to buy more stuff all the time.

- By this time, my overhead was astronomical.

My events would cost a quarter of a million dollars to produce.

My company had to generate $6 million a year

just to break even,

before I ever got paid a nickel.

Hey, this is James again. Still backstage at Practical Mysticism

and I still want to connect with you...

And then, 2008, the economy was going sideways...

...the most important time in your life.

People didn't care about Harmonic Wealth.

They cared about "save my house."

You must surround yourself

with people who think, feel and act resourceful.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

I was getting frazzled. - Something...

...was going to shift, eventually.

- James always had a pyramid. Harmonic Wealth is the bottom

and the pinnacle is Spiritual Warrior.

But you were supposed to kind of graduate.

You're supposed to: grade one, grade two, grade three.

But when I went to Harmonic Wealth in 2009,

he had a special that day.

"Just for this group. I've never done this before.

We're going to allow people to go straight to Spiritual Warrior."

- Most of you have seen this before. Can we see the pyramid?

- It was a retreat, so we're the upsell for the business.

There's volume and then there's price, right? So volume is,

"You can fill the stadium," and price is

"You've paid $1000 to come to this conference,

but you can spend 10,000 to do this retreat."

- So here's the opportunity. Let's see it.

- That was where the real money was made.

- These are people just like you!

They're making an investment in themselves. That means...

- I had met this girl Kirby at the event.

She had done two Harmonic Wealths,

I had only done one, but we were

kind of like, why not go straight to the top?

- [Ray]: Spiritual Warrior was a five-day retreat

that was difficult.

And I would tell people, hey,

don't come to Spiritual Warrior unless you're ready

to roll up your sleeves and do some hard work.

- He recommended from the beginning that it wasn't

for everybody, that it was going to definitely challenge you,

and if you really wanted and needed

a way to push through your boundaries,

this was it.

And I thought, well, everything else that I've tried

hasn't been enough.

And so if this is what he's advertising,

I would like to try it.

-[Ray]: Welcome to Spiritual Warrior.

Time is short. Time is short.

Question's not if you're going to die... You are.

Question is, how did you live? Time is short.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

The theme of the week was:

there's been a lot of painful events in my life,

and I'm going to acknowledge that they're painful.

I gave them a series of exercises

to dive deeply into their own psyche.

Why is it you can't have a great relationship?

Well, let's see how you were programmed about relationships

and what did Mom and Dad do and how did that affect you

and how... You know, all these kinds of things, which is not comfortable work.

If you really, truly set an unbending commitment --

"I'm really going to do whatever it takes, no matter how uncomfortable it is,

no matter how frightening" -- then you will have

a breakthrough.

That's what you really want, isn't it?

- James would pick, like, two or three people

at each Spiritual Warrior that he would mentor,

and he actually picked me as one of them.

- There's a reason for everything

that we're doing here. I want you

to get out of your traditional ways of behaving.

In that way, I can push your threshold.

You can push your threshold; I can help you facilitate that.

- He said, "This week, to get the most out of it,

"you need to do this. You need to follow the rules

and play full-on."

[buzzing]

- The head shaving started on the first day.

He asked, "Is this going to be just another

"program that you sit through,

"or is this going to be the program where

"you really take it on

"and take your life to the next level? How serious are you?

"And how are you going to demonstrate to the universe

that you're really serious about it?"

And so immediately, some people get up

and they go get their head shaved.

- I warned you in advance it was intense.

Have I kept my word so far? -[crowd]: Yeah.

- Yeah, well, we're just getting started.

- He told us some of the psychological practices

he was using. It was all designed to push

physical limitations and mental limitations,

so our natural intellectual resistances would be weakened.

- You can choose to sleep, but I wouldn't suggest it,

because it's going to be over before you know it,

and the work you get done here is the work you get done here.

- There was usually a main event that happened every day.

One day we played a samurai game,

one day we did the vision quest...

Everybody was pretty much on a huge high.

We had had all these breakthroughs

and now we were going to go into the sweat lodge,

and it was going to be a rebirthing process.

- Symbolically, when you're going into a lodge,

you're going back into the womb.

And symbolically, what you're going to do is to die.

I approach the lodge with great respect.

I've been anticipating it all day long,

because by about the second or third round,

I'm normally thinking, why the hell am I me?

[crowd laughing]

It will be the most intense heat that you've ever experienced

in your entire life. You will feel as if you're going to die.

When you emerge,

you will be a different person.

- When he was saying what we're going to experience

in the sweat lodge, I was like, OK, it's going to be

somewhat intense, but not anything like what he described.

Then when I saw it, I was like, what the heck?

It wasn't even a tent; it was a dome.

And it was covered in plastic. I was like, wow,

how's this going to work?

Aren't we going to, like, suffocate in there?

- It was way worse than I anticipated,

but I sit down.

I'm like, OK, trying to give myself some space here,

and he's like, "Oh, no, you have to scoot in."

So people would, like, touch you. I'm like, oh, really. Wow.

And then the next group of people would come in,

and they sat right in front of you.

And so now you're sitting cross-legged,

and now there's people in front of you

and they're smooshed up against you, kind of using you

as back support.

And so my space is literally,

like, this big.

- I was beside Liz Newman.

Liz was a member of the team

that was helping to facilitate the event.

She had been at this event numerous times in the past

and she gave us some tips on what to do when it got hot.

- As we're all sitting there, they close the flap.

A few people just panicked.

Like, screamed. Just the initial of like,

holy moly, I'm in this really claustrophobic space.

And then he says, "Bring in the rocks."

And it starts getting hotter and hotter.

- You could hear various people talking

and some people were in distress

and unhappy about being there,

and trying to talk themselves through it.

- He keeps bringing in more and more rocks,

and at one point he pours on,

like, a five-gallon bucket of water

and the whole thing filled up with steam,

and it just kind of waved over you.

Like, you could just feel it touching your face,

burning your face. It went down my nostrils

and into my throat and I was freaking out.

- It was so, so, so intense.

You couldn't breathe.

At the fourth round I said I had had enough,

and I crawled over

and James was at the door, and he's like, "Beverley, you know,

"you can do this. You can do this. You're stronger than this.

You can get through this. Play full-on."

- As a good mentor that they paid me to be, I would say,

come on, now. Come on. You can do this. Can't you? Come on,

you can stick it out. You know? I would encourage them.

- I was like, yeah, OK, OK.

- What am I doing here?

Why am I putting myself through this?

What is the point of me, you know,

sitting here with all these other people,

and is it worth it?

- I had to leave. But then I was sitting there blaming myself,

like, golly, is there something wrong with me

that I wasn't able to, like, stick it out?

- Yes, there were people that were having a hard time.

But every year there were people having a hard time.

You know?

To me, it was no different than running a marathon.

- At the end of the seventh round,

James Shore was laying right next to Kirby,

and he was saying, "She's not moving.

She's not moving. She's not breathing. She can't breathe."

And James said,

"Well, the door's closed. This round has now begun,

and we'll deal with that at the end of this next round."

- I became concerned about Liz.

I don't know if it was the way she was breathing,

but I raised my voice and I said,

"James, I'm concerned about Liz." And he said,

"Liz has done this before, Laura.

She knows what she's doing."

So I asked her if she needed to leave,

and I got a head shake and a "no."

When it was over, we were amongst the last to leave.

I stayed in

until people came in and took her

and she didn't get out under her own steam.

And then I made my way out into...

I just remember how bright it was

and how chaotic.

- I was laying on the ground and the woman to my right,

I saw that she was unconscious.

And then she started seizing.

- Some people had passed out.

Somebody went back in to check whether everybody was out,

and there were still three people in.

They lifted the sides, pulled them outside.

- When they told me there were people in serious distress,

I was like, what? You know?

And...

I just... I was in shock.

I mean, my entire life...

...completely collapsed

within the period of about 15 minutes.

- [911, where is your emergency?]

- [You said to call if anything changed and one more]

[isn't breathing and one person is burnt.]

- [OK, so we've got three people not breathing...]

- [Yes.] - [...and one burn victim?]

- People were shaking

and calling names to people that were incoherent.

There was one lady who was, like,

laying down and her eyes were rolled back in her head,

and just... [tiny breathing sounds]

Just, like, puffs of breath, like she couldn't breathe.

- It looks like a MASHunit. Literally, a triage.

Like, there's people laid out everywhere on tarps.

Some of them are kicking and clawing.

It was not right and it wasn't under control.

And this is not how it's always been.

- I figured Kirby would be doing the same thing I was doing,

helping out. But I couldn't find Kirby anywhere.

Then I looked through the tent.

She was right next to James Shore,

getting CPR.

- The people who were unconscious,

they were taken out first.

[sirens blaring] I kept asking the policeman

who was coordinating, did you hear any news from the hospital?

And at some point he said, "Yeah.

"Two people were declared dead when they arrived

in the hospital."

And I said, whew.

After that, all police cars came driving in,

because now there was a crime.

[helicopter droning]

They asked, "Who is the leader of this?"

Well, James Ray. "Where is he?"

Well, he was not there. - I had gone back

to my room and I was like,

still not all together,

'cause I've just run this serious marathon

on the tail end of an extremely emotionally taxing week already,

and so I get in the shower,

and when I get out there's a rap on my door.

And it's the police.

"Are you James Ray?" Yes. "Did you run this lodge?" Yes.

"You know we're investigating this as a homicide."

What?!

You're scared shitless. You're in shock.

It's real! And so I grab my cellphone

and I call my lawyer and so he goes, "Well, you need

a criminal lawyer right away. Let me call someone I know."

And so this criminal guy,

his name is Steve, I've never talked to him before.

I've never met him. But he calls me back and he said,

"You need to leave."

In my mind, it's like:

investigating this as a homicide,

you might get arrested,

attorney's saying, "Get out of there..."

I mean, what would you do?

- We went to the main hall. That's what they told us to do.

And then they started taking depositions from us

as to what happened.

It was super confusing,

'cause nobody knew what each other was supposed to do.

We all wanted answers. How is everybody?

And then, where's James Ray?

Never to be seen again.

- He never came to the dining room.

Every time the door opened: James? No, not James.

- There was this opportunity

for him to really step into the role of teacher and leader,

and he failed.

- My whole entire vision is just this scared little boy...

running away from something that he's done.

- When I first got this case, I had never heard of James Ray.

I'd never even heard of the self-help movement. I didn't know there was one.

Initially, I thought that this was probably some kind of cult

and this was some kind of cult ritual.

Without having any of the facts,

that's what came to mind from just looking at the sweat lodge

structure and talking to some of the participants

who were still dazed.

Initially, we had no idea why these people died.

We didn't know if there was some kind of drug

that they were using to get to this altered state

that they were seeking.

Eventually, I felt it was clear what had happened,

that James Ray got the sweat lodge too hot.

The question was whether or not that's a crime.

- Whatever the reasons why these folks died,

there's no question but that it was an accident.

[shutter sounds]

Our first goal was to talk to the government

about why this was not a criminal case.

- [reporter]: It was supposed to be a spiritual retreat.

- But right off the bat, all the news trucks show up.

- Tonight, there is an intensifying swirl

of questions and intrigue.

- Pushing people to their limit or pushing too far?

- And we never saw James Ray ever again.

[sniffling]

And he doesn't know what some of us are going through.

- And so I think there was a lot of pressure

to bring criminal charges.

- [reporter]: James Ray is in serious trouble.

Three counts of manslaughter against him in Arizona --

that's recklessly causing the death of another --

each count carries the possibility

of four to ten years in prison.

- I was so naive.

I never thought they would ever prosecute.

I thought the world would know

that I was trying to help people.

It was a nightmare... It was a nightmare.

- [man]: Mr. Ray, do you have anything to say to the family members of the victims?

- [second man]: ...people who died in the sweat lodge. What would you say to them?

- Mr. Ray, do you have anything to say?

- Not this morning, no. - James, why do you believe

you're innocent?

[birds cawing]

- [reporter]: After months of awaiting a court date,

James Ray has arrived here, at the Yavapai County

Superior Court, after being charged for the murder

of three people. -Morning.

- The question for the jury will be,

did these people know what they were getting into?

Did they choose to stay because they wanted to push themselves,

or is Ray responsible for their deaths?

- On October 8th, 2009,

three vibrant, healthy adults

entered a sweat lodge at a retreat centre in Sedona.

Each one was seeking to learn personal growth

and the tools to success in their lives.

Instead of growth and enlightenment,

Kirby, James and Liz found death.

- The reason James Ray was very dangerous

is because he's so good at talking to people.

He can convince people to do anything.

- Mr. Ray, through his staff, recorded all of his sessions

with his participants during this seminar.

- [Ray]: It will be the most intense heat

that you've ever experienced in your entire life.

I guarantee that. We're not going to have lunch,

because the last thing you want in a lodge

is a full stomach that has to be emptied in the lodge.

- He tells the participants

that they're going to experience vomiting and an altered state

and that they might lose consciousness.

He essentially gives them the symptoms of hyperthermia

and tells them that that's what they're going to experience,

as if that were a positive thing.

- The state needs to prove beyond a reasonable doubt

that Mr. Ray killed the three deceased,

that he caused their deaths.

The state said that people had died from heatstroke.

But looking at the medical records at the time,

the doctors who were treating the people were saying,

"Have these people been poisoned from, like, an insecticide?"

One of the first things you would do

if you thought somebody had a poisoning

is you would do a drug test on them. They didn't do that.

What if you had a blood sample right now

that they took on the night of the accident,

'cause they could have. What if they submitted it

and it says "organophosphate poisoning"?

What are you doing charging Mr. Ray?

The fact is this case was,

"Is James Ray a good guy or a bad guy?"

And from the government's standpoint,

James is a really bad guy. He's a cult leader.

The state says that these folks were conditioned to obey.

"Conditioned."

- [Ray]: If you feel like you just cannot transcend

and overcome this, then when the gates are open,

if you have to leave, you leave, and you leave very,

very in a controlled manner.

- You heard it. "If you have to leave, you leave."

How does that

condition somebody not to leave?

- Would you please begin by stating your full name?

- Beverley Bunn.

- Would you tell us why you made the decision to stay?

- I felt that I had a lot of stuff

that I was dealing with and trying to get over,

and Mr. Ray obviously knows better than I do,

having been through these sweat lodges before.

Maybe he knew I needed a little bit more help,

or I needed to stay there a little bit longer.

And I also didn't want to let him down.

- James Ray did not want people to die. There's

no question in my mind. He wasn't trying to kill anybody.

What makes this a crime is that James Ray knew

that people were in medical distress.

The participants told James,

"Kirby Brown's not breathing right," and he says, "Leave her

there till the next round." That's on him.

- Remember, these people paid an enormous amount of money

for this New Age gibberish: $9600.

- People paid a premium fee

and were pushed to extreme limits

in the name of self-improvement.

- We were labelled as either a cult or cult-like.

- If you make James Ray out to be a guru,

you become a devotee. You become a follower.

- If I allowed myself to look at the news

or go online and read what people would write

and you know, particularly when it comes to

those comment sections on blogs and...

"Stupid," "fat,"

"deserved to be dead," all this stuff.

- You know, "Who pays $10,000 for a retreat?

What a bunch of wackos."

- Either, "She's mentally unstable,"

or, "She's not an intelligent person,"

or, "Was part of a cult," or you know,

"These people are idiots."

- What I learned from Spiritual Warrior

didn't come from the course.

It came from what I had to overcome

in my life as a result of having been there.

- We, the jury, do find the defendant, James Arthur Ray,

on the offense of manslaughter, not guilty.

We, the jury, in the above entitled action

and upon our oaths, do find the defendant, James Arthur Ray,

on the offense of negligent homicide, guilty.

[birds chirping]

- [man]: So where are we and what's the situation here?

- You know, um, this is my dream home.

In 2006, when The Secrethit,

I became very blessed and I went into a whole new arena,

and started getting into the media and all these things.

I thought, you know,

it's time for me to get my dream home.

What's happening next week

is an estate sales company is coming in.

I'm having to liquidate everything,

because my house is either going to be foreclosed upon

very shortly...

I haven't been able to make the payments

for almost a year now, since the accident.

I really need to sell as much as possible,

because I haven't worked in two years.

- Just catch us up. Where are we now

in the whole process?

- We're waiting for the judge to make a decision.

Potentially, I could go over and be sentenced.

I mean, the state is attempting to put me away for nine years.

So you know,

God willing that doesn't happen.

My prayer now is just to be

in the place I need to be,

and to embrace whatever the journey is.

As I look back now, really honestly,

I recognize my arrogance.

There's a lot of hubris

that comes with being a saviour.

I want to convey my deepest sorrow...

...to the families.

Nothing I can say or do would be enough.

I know that.

I'm so sorry.

[shaky breath]

I'm so sorry.

- The evidence from the trial and pre-sentence proceedings

show that Mr. Ray,

as misguided as he was,

believed he was helping people.

And the evidence is that

people believed they were being helped.

The court is still left to wonder,

how is it that so many educated,

knowledgeable people

ignored basic common sense?

But Mr. Ray, when a person has your incredible abilities

to gain people's trust,

there is a large, large responsibility

that goes with that trust.

And that responsibility was not honoured.

It was violated.

- [reporter]: James Arthur Ray has been sentenced

to two years in prison in the deaths of three people

in a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona.

-[woman]: Andy, really no one is happy

with the sentence tonight. -[other woman]: That's right.

He could have gotten nine years, but instead he will spend

two years in jail. And the victims' families lashed out,

saying two years is a joke for the loss of three lives.

- Hello, there! - What's up, buddy?

- How are you, my friend? Great to see you again.

- Good to see you. - Welcome to Phoenix. - Thank you.

This is a nice room you have.

- It's kind of like my living room. It's got a fireplace

and the whole bit, you know?

- David, there's your name tag and then workbooks for the two of you.

- OK. - We'll be getting you seated really soon.

- So with that we're going to say hiii...

- [all]: Ya ya! - Let's go. Come on, let's go.

In October

of 2009, my world changed

dramatically.

I... am... responsible.

There were things that were overlooked and missed.

I'm responsible.

There were people assigned to certain duties.

They were trained well. They were paid well.

That was their job.

Doesn't matter.

I am responsible.

The case that ensued set legal precedent:

the first time in the history of this country,

United States of America, that consenting adults --

not minors --

consenting adults

participated willfully in a legal activity...

Not drinking and driving.

An action occurred and it was prosecuted as a crime.

First time in the history of our country.

That doesn't matter.

I am responsible.

- This is the box that's got all of the course materials

and notebooks and my journals from that period of time.

I've moved three times

since October 2009,

including across the country,

and it's kind of a box that has followed me around.

I mean, I've got these journals that...

I filled them full of stuff.

I don't think of James anymore.

One of the things that I believe very strongly is that,

you know, our environment is important.

And...

I don't include him in my environment.

I stepped away,

very deliberately, from all things personal transformation

for a number of years.

And then over the course of the last year and a half or so,

I started to get back to one of those times in my life

where I started to realize that

in order to get to the next step,

I was going to need to go there again.

- I was very hesitant for a long time,

but now I feel like, you know,

I may be ready for somebody else's perspective.

- I haven't looked at this stuff for, like, a couple of years.

His book is in here.

The Secretis in here.

This is a board from Harmonic Wealth.

Talks about yourself and it says, "Not worth loving,

not worth living." And you're supposed to break this board

with your hand. And when you break the board,

that means that you get...

what I feel I have now.

Love, joy and happiness, and I deserve it.

I have it all.

Probably the biggest learning lesson of everything for me

was to be responsible for your choices in life.

I started travelling and I started taking time off,

and I didn't feel like I had to go to a networking project

to figure out how to make more money or more friends or,

you know, things like that.

It was just actually experiencing life, myself,

and letting myself experience.

So... And not forcing things.

[clapping]

- When I look at the event in Sedona, I ask myself,

like, how did that happen?

I wonder if you ask yourself that question.

- I think I know the answer to that question.

It had to happen,

because it was the only way I could experience and learn

and grow through the things that I've done.

That's what I think

is the reason for me.

Am I drinking the Kool-Aid? Maybe, but you know, that Kool-Aid works for me.

[indistinct conversation]

I think 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 OK.

[sigh]

[rock music]

[continuous clapping]

[crowd roaring]

[cheering]

♪♪♪

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