Kirby Brown was not inclined to give up, easily or otherwise.
She was anticipating the most intense experience of her life.
The air grew thick with steam and sweat, but Brown held firm.
Although this was her first self-help retreat, the adventurous 38-year-old had long been a seeker.
And in Ray, she thought she had found a path to fulfillment.
She had buzz-cut her flowing hair in order, Ray said, to see herself in a new light.
She’d slept little, spending her nights scribbling her fears and dreams in a journal.
“I am a warrior!
“Ray shouted near the entrance of the tent.
“Yell out what you are.
Youcanpush past your so-called limitations.
You are stronger than this!”
Brown had no doubt.
She rode horses and scaled mountains.
She was also adamant about safety.
On 5-mile hikes, she carried a backpack full of water and supplies.
She had admonished her friends to take breaks and know when it’s time to stop.
“But only if she expected the person running things would keep her safe.”
Ninety minutes into the ceremony, a nearby man called Brown’s name.
She didn’t answer.
“She’s passed out!”
“Kirby’s passed out!”
No one rushed to Brown’s aid.
Not the man who’d called out, who soon became silent himself.
And not James Ray, who one witness says told them Brown would be helped at the next break.
Ray has said he didn’t realize anyone was in danger until it was too late.
Meanwhile, Brown stayed in the tent, her body temperature soaring.
By then, Kirby Brown was already dead.
How could someone have stayed in a sweat lodge so long that she died?
Forty-year-old James Shore, who was likely the man who tried to help Brown, had also perished.
Liz Neuman, 49, had fallen into a coma and died of multiple organ failure nine days later.
They trusted one another.
And they trusted Ray.
And if your leader tells you it’s OK, you’re going to believe him.
As you spend time together, a group mentality develops.”
Of course, not all self-help programs are equal, or equally helpful.
Experts like Norcross and Whelan agree self-help advice can work.
Instead, they encourage students to take from them what they find helpful and skip the rest.
No one can give ironclad answers.”
Visualize yourself with it.
Be open to getting it.
One teacher explains in the DVD that he always gets parking spots because he believes he can.
Byrne writes she lost and kept off weight simply because she stopped thinking that food made her fat.
This thinking refutes common science, of course.
“It can make people feel responsible for events and actions outside their control.
That can be dangerous: When it doesn’t work, people blame themselves and become demoralized.
And they are being led away from other, demonstrably effective treatments and self-help resources.”
Regardless,The Secretwas good to Ray.
AfterThe Secrethit, suddenly he was everywhere.
Between 2007 and 2009, he appeared onThe Oprah Show, Larry King Liveand theTodayshow.
To support this idea, he blends pseudospirituality with pseudoscience.
(This is a popular metaphor among self-help gurus.)
“Quantum physics is a physics of the gods,” Ray says.
“Science and spirituality are sister subjects.”
This messageand his appealing, jocular deliveryclearly resonated.
(She did but is now dating her ex.)
Even a night spent in the hospital because of dehydration has not soured her on the experience.
“I can’t change the fact that those three people died,” Bivins says.
I consider James Ray a mentor."
Kirby Brown encountered Ray’s teachings at just the right timein her life.
says her sister Kate Holmes, 35, who also lives in Cabo.
“That was infectious.
You felt better about yourself when you were with her.”
But Brown had her worries.
She wanted to get married, have a family.
Then she sawThe SecretDVD and found something that she connected with.
“Kirby came to believe that you create your own reality,” Brazil says.
She was working to improve her relationships and her relationship to herself."
“People who go to self-help seminars are affluent, well-educated, with self-control,” Whelan says.
“One of the reasons people get depressed is that they don’t see hope for the future.
These people are on the other end of the spectrum.
Throughout, he led the group in exercises to help reveal their inhibitions.
Ray pulled a couple of them onstage.
“Why did you hold back?
Do you do the same thing in your relationships?”
he demanded, and intimate confessions poured forth.
Still, Ray impressed her.
“He had an ability to intuit people’s needs.
He would ask the sort of follow-up questions that I would with a client,” she says.
“He seemed mainstream; the people there seemed mainstream.
What he said was rational and reasonable.
No one in the family thought this was dangerous.”
Ray told the woman she could get the answers she needed at his upcoming Spiritual Warrior weekend.
A few minutes later, at a table in the back of the room, Brown signed up.
(The group has denied the allegations.)
“Life doesn’t have to be complicated,” Brown enthused to the group.
Before Ray’s followers entered the tent, he told them to expect a struggle.
“You’re not going to die,” he said.
“You might think you are, but you’re not.”
He adds that Ray’s lodge was far too cramped, with four times more people than is traditional.
Amid the moaning and gasping for breath, friends called out for each other.
Former Ray employee Melinda Martin has said that Ray did little to help those who were hurt.
Her eyes were open, but she never regained consciousness.
No one from James Ray International called Brown’s familyto tell them what had happened.
“She was so strong.”
Ray called the family five days later.
On his blog, Ray wrote that he was “shocked and saddened by the tragedy.”
But he would soon add that his work was “too important” not to continue.
I promise you I am doing a lot of learning and growing.”
(He sent Ginny Brown $5,000not even half of what Kirby spent for the retreat.
The check remains uncashed.)
Three weeks after the sweat lodge deaths, Ray announced he was suspending his public appearances.
He has, mostly in early statements from his lawyers, denied any criminal responsibility.
Of course, neither did any of his followerswhich critics say is part of the problem.
Accountability exists only in the courtsafter damage has already been done.
Or, Curtis suggests, the Federal Trade Commission could apply its truth-in-advertising standards to self-help promises.
In the short term, consumers themselves must be responsible for ferreting out which self-help will benefitand not threatenthem.
As Whelan puts it, “Being convinced and eager to try something is totally OK.
Blindly following is not.”
She says it’s important to remember that the key to self-help isself.
“People looked at James Ray like he was the answer to their prayers,” Bowen says.
“But these people don’t have the answers for you.
They’re reminding you of the answers for yourself.
You cannot leave your own judgment behind.”
Still, the Browns say it was not Kirby’s judgment that failed her.
Ray, who was on the call, said nothing.
“That’s one of the things that’s so horrifying,” Ginny Brown says.
“What he taught and what I know Kirby believed was the idea of ‘be impeccable.’
That is very different from how she was treated.
People should not lose their life for trying to make their life better.”
Sensory deprivationNo session should hold you captive for hours without breaks.
Going to extremesSeverely restrictive diets aren’t healthy.
Sleep on it before you buy.Sara Austin
