PODCAST OF THE WEEK

Guru

As far as self-help gurus go, James Arthur Ray seemed pretty legit. He wrote a bunch of books about the power of positive thinking, appeared on Oprah’s show and graced the cover of her magazine. He was going to be the next Tony Robbins.

Then, in 2009, three people died and 18 were hospitalised while attending one of Ray’s Spiritual Warrior weekend retreats. That’s why there’s now a podcast about him from the people who made true-crime hits like Dr Death, Dirty John and The Shrink Next Door.

The Spiritual Warrior retreat was the final,

elite level in Ray’s self-help programme. The seminars started out pretty normal and commonsense, but by the time participants rocked up to this one they’d spent enough time and money following his teachings that they were willing to go along with just about anything.

Guru tells the story of that weekend and the subsequent police investigation and court trial over the course of its six episodes. From the ominous moment everybody is told to shave their heads, to the hellish and fatal "sweat lodge", it’s the kind of riveting, awful stuff we’ve come to expect from Wondery podcasts. You’ll never trust a selfhelp guru — or Oprah — again.