{"id":1227,"date":"2009-10-18T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-18T14:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2009-10-18T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T14:56:00","slug":"third-death-in-james-ray-sweat-lodge-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1227","title":{"rendered":"Third Death in James Ray Sweat Lodge Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet another of the sixty-plus people crammed into James Arthur Ray’s Sedona sweat lodge<\/a> has died<\/a>. She evidently was one of his true believers:<\/p>\n

The Rev. Meredith Ann Murray of Bellingham, Wash., who has completed all of Ray’s retreats, said [Liz] Neuman was among Ray’s earliest followers and had attended dozens of his events.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Ray’s Web site, Neuman was the leader of the Minneapolis-area “Journey Expansion Team.” The teams, developed by Ray’s friends and followers around the country, meet to exchange ideas on his principles. The next Minneapolis-area meeting is scheduled for Oct. 23.<\/em><\/p>\n

But here is the delicious part. Ray, facing homicide charges, is evidently bobbing and weaving:<\/p>\n

In his first public appearance Tuesday in Los Angeles, Ray told a crowd of about 200 that he has hired his own investigative team to determine what went wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sheesh, Veronica Mars <\/a>could tell him what went wrong. He was greedy and heedless of the safety of his followers.<\/p>\n

Sweat lodges have been around for a long time in many places. I see them as part of the old Stone Age circumpolar religion, along with flat-headed drums and a special relationship with bears.<\/p>\n

Whether used for physical health, for contacting the spirits, or both together, they are a small-scale magical technology. It sounds as though Ray tried the “megachurch” approach to sweat lodges–at $9,000-plus per person.<\/p>\n

Aside from all the issues that this case raises, it speaks as well to the difficulty of turning small-scale mysteries into congregation-size events.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: <\/span>Tim Giago, a veteran American Indian journalist<\/a> in South Dakota, asks why, if traditional sweat-lodge ceremonies are so special and good, are they not doing more good for the Lakota:
<\/a>
Arvol [Looking Horse], why are the sacred rites you represent not being used to bring our own people back from the brink? Why aren’t they being used to bring back the good health our people once enjoyed? Why is there an unemployment rate of 80 percent on the lands you call home? Why is there such a high rate of STD’s and teen pregnancies in Lakota country?
<\/em><\/p>\n

What good does it do to speak out and criticize an event that happened in Sedona, Arizona, when it had no lasting impact upon the Sioux people? Aren’t there terrible things happening in our own homelands, right under our noses, to worry about and try to change?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet another of the sixty-plus people crammed into James Arthur Ray’s Sedona sweat lodge has died. She evidently was one of his true believers: The Rev. Meredith Ann Murray of Bellingham, Wash., who has completed all of Ray’s retreats, said [Liz] Neuman was among Ray’s earliest followers and had attended dozens of his events. According […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10,11],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-shamanism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-jN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1445,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1445","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":0},"title":"Can You Sue Your Shaman?\u2014Part 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Last October 9 I blogged on the deaths at a sweat-lodge ceremony conducted by James Arthur Ray near Sedona, Ariz. There has been a lot of discussion in the Pagan blogosphere about the case, particularly at The Wild Hunt. A lot of people piled on, and there was the usual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1217,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1217","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":1},"title":"Can You Sue Your Shaman?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Two dead, others sickened after lengthy sweat lodge ceremony at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in (where else?) Sedona, Arizona, which advertises, \"Angel Valley offers the opportunity to 'retreat' from the 'bus-i-ness' of life while providing the optimal condition and the services to assist in connecting with and expressing who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1220,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1220","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":2},"title":"It’s Time to Critique "Personal Growth"","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Pitzl-Waters offers more links on the Sedona sweat-lodge deaths, including to the Beyond Growth blog, which has been critiquing James Arthur Ray for some time.(Related: I want to read Barbara Ehrenreich's newest, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.)I sometimes wonder at the whole concept\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0805087494","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1888,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1888","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":3},"title":"Spiritual Tourism Drops in Sedona","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"An only slightly snarky article (it is the New York Times, after all) reports on a decline in \"spiritual tourism\" in Sedona, Arizona.. Local New Agers seem divided as to whether the economy or the James Arthur Ray sweat lodge deaths are more to blame. After all the sweat lodge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6794,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6794","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":4},"title":"Satan in Northern Ireland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Dennis Wheatley (1897\u20131977),\u00a0 British military intelligence operative and author of occult-horror novels, is supposed to have left the \"strategic military deception\" trade after World War II, but his spirit evidently lived on. According to a recent article in The Guardian newspaper, during \"the Troubles\" \u2014 the period of conflict between\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Ireland\"","block_context":{"text":"Ireland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ireland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":396,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=396","url_meta":{"origin":1227,"position":5},"title":"Holy Places EverywhereThe \"Neokoroi\" page\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Holy Places EverywhereThe \"Neokoroi\" page lists primarily civic sites with strong Graeco-Roman religious elements that might effectively function as holy places. Some examples:Woodside, Calfornia: The Pulgas Water Temple--beautiful Graeco-Roman style building open to the public, marking the place where the water from the Hetch Hatchey Reservoir in the mountains (which\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}