Remember James Arthur Ray from The Secret? The Self Help Guru Was Found Guilty of Negligent Homicide

self help guru James Arthur Ray founds guilty of negligent homocide

Say it isn’t so! James Arthur Ray, one of the teacher’s from the 2006 documentary film, The Secret, was found guilty on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 in an Arizona court of negligent homicide in the deaths of three clients (or loyal subjects?) during one of Ray’s sweat lodge ceremonies which took place in 2009 during his “Spiritual Warriors” retreat.

At the time of James Arthur Ray’s arrest and the subsequent public relations fallout, Ray and his attorney asserted Ray’s innocence, but after four months worth of compellig testimony to the contrary, it took the jury less than 12 hours to return a verdict of “guilty” on three counts of negligent homide for each of the 3 victims. The jury did, however, aquit James Arthur Ray of the more serious charge of manslaughter.

The victims; Kirby Brown, Liz Neuman and James Shore had blind trust in Ray’s extreme and unorthodox self-help tactics when the three were urged by James Arthur Ray to “ignore their bodies’ signs of distress” during a sweat lodge ceremony.

I’m all for mind over matter, but not at the expense of ignoring your body’s internal signals that tell you something is wrong and you are feeling sick. Editorially speaking, Ray was grossly negligent in advising his clients to ignore signs of bodily distress.

According to the LA Times, James Arthur Ray’s attorney callously argued to the jury that “all 56 partipants who attended Ray’s 2009 ‘Spiritual Warrior’ session each signed waivers, acknowledging that death was a risk” and supposedly releasing Ray from any liability. It was also alleged by Ray’s defense council that the investigation was “botched” and not conducted fairly, and that certain toxins in the area such as rat poison may have been contributing factors in the unfortunate deaths of Brown, Neuman and Shore.