'Today is a good day to die': New podcast examines how a weekend at self-help guru James Arthur Ray's retreat started with devotees' heads being shaved and ended with three people dead in a sweat lodge where temperatures spiked at 120F in 2009

Laura Tucker hesitated about the head shaving.

A follower of James Arthur Ray – the self-help guru who soared to new heights after appearing in the juggernaut film The Secret and on Oprah – Tucker believed in his teachings. She also spent a year on what Ray called his dream team: people sporting bright blue shirts who would cheerlead at his free workshops that then tried to sell DVDs, books and expensive experiences to attendees during breaks.

'Spiritual Warrior' had just started and the gathered participants were told it was time to shave their heads. The weekend retreat in October 2009 near Sedona, Arizona was, for many, the pinnacle of Ray's events. Ray promised to help people find the 'happiness, money and love' they sought if they adhered to his mantras, such as 'play full on.'

After a colleague lent her a DVD of The Secret, Laura Tucker, above, was impressed by James Arthur Ray, a self-help guru featured in the film. She signed up for one of his seminars and 'was riveted by James and she found herself opening up to the people around her,' said Matt Stroud, the host of a new Wondery podcast called Guru

Tucker relented, the clippers buzzed and her long blonde hair fell to the floor. 'There was a fair amount of pressure,' she later testified at Ray's trial.

For that weekend would end in tragedy. Three people - James Shore, Kirby Brown and Liz Neuman - died after spending around two hours in a superheated so-called sweat lodge where the temperature spiked to about 120 degrees and steam sizzled off rocks.

'I could feel it going in my nose and down my throat - actually physically burning the inside of my body as it was going in,' Brandy Amstel said of the steam in a new Wondery podcast called Guru: The Dark Side of Enlightenment, which examines what happened in Sedona, its aftermath, Ray's trial and what he has been doing since prison.

'The sounds that were going on in the tent were so intense. People screaming blood-curling screams. There was… wow.'

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For years, self-help guru James Arthur Ray worked to build his business. Then he appeared in a film called The Secret that became a sensation. He was only in the film for about three minutes, said Matt Stroud, an investigative journalist who is the host of a new Wondery podcast called Guru: The Dark Side of Enlightenment. Ray appeared on Oprah's New Year's Day 2006 show and his popularity skyrocketed. 'In the mid-2000s, Oprah Winfrey was a kingmaker,' Stroud explains on the podcast. Above, a screenshot taken from an Oprah Winfrey's show in 2006. James Arthur Ray is on the left

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'Something that I really have believed in for years is that the energy you put out into the world is always going to be coming back to you – that's the basic principle,' Oprah said on her show that featured a panel of five self-help gurus that had been featured in The Secret, according to the podcast. The Secret asserts that thoughts - both negative and positive - bring things into people's lives and is called the law of attraction. 'It was such a big hit that she invited some of the guests back on her show to talk more about its teaching,' Stroud said. 'James was a hit – funny, warm, always connecting with the audience.' Above, Ray in a screenshot from The Secret

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'I could feel it going in my nose and down my throat - actually physically burning the inside of my body as it was going in,' Brandy Amstel said of the steam during her experience at self-help guru James Arthur Ray's so-called sweat lodge where the temperature hit around 120 degrees. 'The sounds that were going on in the tent were so intense. People screaming blood-curling screams. There was… wow.' When Amstel finally left the rounded structure, staff dosed her with cold water and steam was coming off her body. Above, the Angel Valley Retreat Center near Sedona, Arizona on October 9, 2009 where the Ray event called Spiritual Warrior took place that left three people dead and 19 ill

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'James had had a following before but Oprah's thumbs-up had propelled him to another level. By 2009, James Ray was selling out his events. Some people were paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to have him as their guru, to learn his thoughts on the law of attraction,' Stroud said on the podcast. Ginny Brown, the mother of Kirby Brown, pictured above, who died on October 8, 2009 at one of Ray's retreats called 'Spiritual Warrior,' told DailyMail.com her daughter's 'desire for self-improvement was very big.' Brown said Kirby had spent her life savings of $10,000 to attend that Ray event

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At the beginning of Spiritual Warrior, attendees were told it was time to shave their heads. They then participated in a grueling game in which Ray declared, 'I am God,' at its start. Next, they were led to different locations in the desert to spend the night without food or water. After these experiences, Ray laid out what they should expect for his so-called sweat lodge. 'You just have to let go and say, if I'm going to die, it's ok because I don't ever die – not really,' Ray said on the podcast. 'My body dies. I don't die.' For eight rounds of about 15 minutes, people sat in the superheated structure where the temperature spiked to about 120 degrees. Kirby Brown, James Shore, pictured above left with his wife Alyssa Gillespie, and Liz Neuman, right, died after the lodge

Investigative journalist Matt Stroud first reported on what happened in Sedona in 2013 for a feature published at the tail end of that year. Stroud, the host of Guru, told DailyMail.com that when he talks about the story, he is always asked: 'Why did these people stay in the lodge?'

'They had invested thousands of dollar to be there,' he said.

Amstel had spent over $50,000 and Kirby Brown had used her life's savings to cover the retreat's $10,000 cost.

But beyond the monetary, Stroud pointed out that before people had entered the rounded structure on the morning of October 8, 2009, Ray had made it seem that the symptoms they experienced from heat exhaustion was part of the process they had to push through to achieve their goals.

'You're most likely will feel like your skin is going to fell off of your body. It is hellacious hot,' Ray said in a recording played on the podcast. 'I'm the master of the lodge and so when I tell you to do something, that's when you do it. You don't say anything unless you're asked to say anything.'

An earlier exercise that weekend also silenced attendees. Wearing a white flowing robe, according to the podcast, Ray 'walked to the center of the room, raised a megaphone to his mouth and said: "I am God."'

He divided the participants into two groups for a version of the Samurai Game. Stroud explained that it is typically a team-building exercise at corporate retreats where people are asked to do tasks such as balancing an egg on a spoon. Ray's version was different: no one could talk because he was 'God,' and if they did, they were 'dead' and had to lie on the floor.

This went on for almost five hours. It ended with Ray instructing those still in the game to pull out imaginary swords and mime slicing their own throats. Next, participants were led to different locations in the desert to spend the night without food or water.

It was after these experiences that Ray laid out what they should expect for his heat endurance challenge. Ray said they will be in an altered state and they should try to keep it together as much as possible. Nor was leaving encouraged when it got tough.

'You just have to let go and say, if I'm going to die, it's ok because I don't ever die – not really,' Ray said. 'My body dies. I don't die.'  

In the lodge, Brandy Amstel had positioned herself near Ray, who was close to the structure's opening. During the rounds of escalating heat, some people left, and at one point, Amstel did as well. Ray, she said, was trying to get her to stay, but she was 'crying' and 'panicking.' Once out, staff dosed her with cold water.

'It felt surreal - like I was watching from up above some stuff happening,' she recalled on the podcast. 'There was steam coming off of my body as they poured the water on it. That is not right.'

Laura Tucker entered the lodge with her friend Liz Neuman and they sat together. 'It was this pie and every person had their slice,' Tucker said of how the 56 people sat in two concentric circles in the lodge around the pit. She added that the 'rolling heat' was 'oppressive.'

When a man started screaming that he was having a heart attack, Ray told him to pull it together, Stroud said. When the man said he felt as if he was going to die, 'James responded, it's a good day to die,' according to the podcast.

'After eight rounds of about 15 minutes each, after more than two hours, James finally ended the ceremony,' Stroud said. Because Ray had been near the door, 'he emerged unscathed – a little sweaty.'

Brandy Amstel, above, felt that her life wasn't going the way she wanted, according to the podcast Guru, and started attending James Arthur Ray's events. She attended the Spiritual Warrior weekend in October 2009 and described her harrowing experience in the superheated lodge

The scene after the lodge was one of disarray and disorder. Amstel recalled others that had staggered out or were carried out were throwing up, freaking out and flailing. Two people were still inside the structure and 911 was called. The helicopter arrived first about 30 minutes later and then the ambulance. Liz Neuman was taken to the nearest hospital and was in intensive care for a week before she died.

James Shore and Kirby Brown were dead. Nineteen people had become ill.

After Detective Ross Diskin arrived at the scene, he said: 'I didn't understand or know what had happened. I didn't know if this was some kind of a cult or mass suicide or what. I could see women walking around with shaved heads. They were walking around almost like zombies like they were in shock.'

Diskin recalled that he would have loved to talk to Ray then, but he was gone. Stroud said that after the lodge, Ray 'walked to his rental car, climbed in and drove away.'

Initially, the detective did not think that a crime had occurred because, he said, 'it appeared that people stayed inside the sweat lodge voluntarily until they cooked to death.' That changed during the investigation.

'We realized that it really wasn't their decision to stay in. They had been conditioned to do what James Ray said,' Diskin said on the podcast. 'He basically lined out the symptoms of heat stroke to them and presented that as if that were the desired effect.'

Four months later, Ray was charged three counts of manslaughter.

'This was not a freak accident. These actions on his part created the conditions that made death in that event inevitable. And when people where in distress, he did not help them,' Ginny Brown, Kirby's mother, said on the podcast.

After a long trial, the jury found him guilty of negligent homicide and he was sentenced to 20 months in prison in November 2011. Ray served 18 months and was released on July 12, 2013.

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'As soon as this happened, we realized we needed to go public. This never should have happened,' Ginny Brown, pictures above, told DailyMail.com about her daughter Kirby's death at self-help guru James Arthur Ray's retreat. 'We felt compelled to speak. This was just not right.' Determined that something positive should come out of what happened, the Brown family launched the nonprofit SEEK Safely, which looks to educate and empower consumers searching for self-help teachings as well as to 'promote professional standards' in an industry that is unregulated and estimated to be worth $11 billion

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After Detective Ross Diskin, above, arrived at the scene, he said: 'I didn't understand or know what had happened. I didn't know if this was some kind of a cult or mass suicide or what. I could see women walking around with shaved heads. They were walking around almost like zombies like they were in shock.' Initially, Diskin did not think that a crime had occurred because it seemed that people had stayed in the lodge voluntarily. But then, 'we realized that it really wasn't their decision to stay in. They had been conditioned to do what James Ray said, Diskin said on the podcast. 'He basically lined out the symptoms of heat stroke to them and presented that as if that were the desired effect'

Stroud, the podcast host, said that 2013 was around when he became interested in writing a long-form story about what had happened in Sedona and its aftermath. 'I had been tracking his career and the question was what is James Ray going to do after prison.'

Ray continues to have events although the crowds are around 30 to 40 people, Stroud said. At his height, Ray said during a deposition that he was pulling in about $10 million in revenue. He also once owned properties in Hawaii, Nevada and 'a plush mansion' in Beverly Hills, according to the podcast.

Ray struggled for years to build his business until The Secret, which then led to an appearance on Oprah. The episode aired on New Year's Day 2006, and Oprah's audience responded so enthusiastically that he was invited on the show again.

Stroud pointed out that Ray is only featured in The Secret for about three minutes, but being on Oprah got many interested in him and his teachings. Stroud has asked Ray several times for an interview but he has never granted one on-the-record. Through her representatives, Oprah declined interview and comment requests. 

Stroud said he has seen no substantive statement from Oprah about what happened in Sedona, he said. 'To me and the folks who were there, it is pretty egregious,' he told DailyMail.com.

For the podcast, it was difficult to get people to talk about what had happened in Sedona for a number of reasons. Stroud said he tried to contact the 56 people who were in that lodge, but for some, it was too painful to revisit and others were embarrassed by happened. A cult-like stigma has been attached to the event.

Stroud outlined the different people who went to Ray's events. Some went for work, some went to Ray's and others workshops, such as Tony Robbins, and there were those who went only to his seminars and retreats.

'There is a lot of conversations whether James Ray was overseeing a cult. I don't think that he was,' Stroud said. 'But it is something that is open to discussion.'

Ginny Brown told DailyMail.com that her daughter Kirby was an independent thinker who was not suggestible. Kirby had invested her life savings of $10,000 for the Spiritual Warrior retreat and Brown said because of that her daughter had wanted to get the most of the experience.

'As soon as this happened, we realized we needed to go public. This never should have happened,' she said of her daughter's death. 'We felt compelled to speak. This was just not right.'

She decided to participate in the podcast so people can see 'how you can be pulled into something and get trapped.' Determined that something positive should come out of what happened, the Brown family launched the SEEK Safely, which looks to educate and empower consumers searching for self-help teachers as well as to 'promote professional standards' in an industry that is unregulated with an estimated worth of $11 billion a year, according to the nonprofit's site.

But Ginny Brown also wants people to know her daughter. On the podcast, Kirby is described as vibrant, alive, willing to try anything and relatives called her their 'action figure cousin.' Each year, family and friends have a celebration of her life called Kirby Jam.

She said: 'We honor Kirby by having adventures, by loving life, by really living and laughing and enjoying each other and gathering with others. I know that is what she would want.'

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Investigative journalist Matt Stroud first reported on what happened in Sedona in 2013 for a feature published at the tail end of that year. Stroud, the host of Wondery's Guru, above, told DailyMail.com that when he talks about the story, he is always asked: 'Why did these people stay in the lodge?' 'They had invested thousands of dollar to be there,' he said. But beyond the monetary, Stroud pointed out that before people had entered the rounded structure on the morning of October 8, 2009, Ray had made it seem that the symptoms they experienced from heat exhaustion was part of the process they had to push through to achieve their goals