James Arthur Ray cancels remaining 2009 events.

James Arthur Ray announced today that he is canceling all of his remaining seminars and engagements for the rest of 2009. The announcement comes in the wake of the three tragic deaths that occurred during a sweat lodge ceremony that also left 19 people hospitalized. The sweat lodge ceremony was the culmination of a spiritual retreat led by James Ray in Sedona, Arizona.

The announcement, posted today, (October 29, 2009), on his website at www.jamesray.com, and in a duplicate message posted on the James Arthur Ray blog, states that:

“…I’m postponing all the events I had planned for the remainder of 2009. These events will be rescheduled as soon as possible in 2010—once the essential work that must be done on the Sedona tragedy has been completed.”

The work James Ray is referring to is getting to the bottom of the deaths and illnesses and discovering just what happened inside that sweat lodge.

“In the days following the terrible accident, I struggled to respond in the right way. This is the most emotionally wrenching situation I’ve ever faced, and it’s now clear I must dedicate all of my physical and emotional energies to helping bring some sort of closure to this matter. That means helping the authorities and the families get to the bottom of what happened.

I’m committed to devoting all of my time, for as long as it takes, to achieve this goal.

The lives of the families impacted by the Sedona tragedy have been changed forever. These families deserve to have the questions raised by the tragedy answered as quickly and authoritatively as possible. That is the goal I’m dedicated to achieving.”

This is a 180 degree turn around for the self help teacher who was running seminars and carrying on business as usual immediately following the sweat lodge deaths. In a blog post on October 20, 2009, James spoke about the ‘heat’ he was receiving for his decision to keep working, but that

“I have chosen to continue with my work. It’s too important not to. One of the lessons I teach is that you have to confront and embrace adversity and learn and grow from it. I promise you I am doing a lot of learning and growing. I have taken heat for that decision, but if I chose to lock myself in my home, I am sure I would be criticized for hiding and not practicing what I preach.”

I’ve spent some time reading various blogs and media reports about the incident and it was clear that some people seemed to support his decision to keep working and to keep running seminars and others seemed appalled that he could even think about running another seminar so soon after the tragic events in Sedona.

Evidently the pressure to stop became too great and resulted in today’s announcement that James will be canceling the remainder of his 2009 seminars.

In my opinion, this is the only right thing to do. There are so many unanswered questions about this tragedy and many of James Arthur Ray’s actions following the fiasco have appeared slightly less than honorable. Hopefully, he will cooperate with authorities and provide some of those answers that he claims to be looking for.

Yes, this might be a career ending event for James, only time will tell. I’m sure he is scared and I’m sure he has more than a few lawyers ‘advising’ him on what to do.

But come on!

If embracing adversity is what you preach, then stand up and take responsibility. Running seminars or not running seminars is not the issue… frankly, it doesn’t matter to me either way. The issue is communicating and cooperating with the authorities and families of the victims to get to the bottom of this.

Stay tuned for updates as I get them.

Peace,

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