{"id":1445,"date":"2010-03-26T17:10:56","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T23:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2010-03-29T19:14:09","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T01:14:09","slug":"can-you-sue-your-shaman%e2%80%94part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1445","title":{"rendered":"Can You Sue Your Shaman?\u2014Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last October 9 I blogged on the deaths at a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1217\">sweat-lodge ceremony conducted by James Arthur Ray near Sedona, Ariz.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>There has been a lot of discussion in the Pagan blogosphere about the case, <a href=\"http:\/\/wildhunt.org\/blog\/tag\/james-arthur-ray\">particularly at <em>The Wild Hunt<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of people piled on, and there was the usual sloganeering about &#8220;cultural appropriation&#8221; and how &#8220;ceremonies were not for sale. &#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Actually, throughout much of the world (and throughout history), ceremonies are indeed for sale. How else do you pay for maintenance of the temple? Do you think the Shinto priest is going to bless your new Toyota for free?<\/p>\n<p>In Wicca, Gerald Gardner&#8217;s insistence on not taking money &#8220;for the art&#8221; was mostly about avoiding prosecution under anti-fortune-telling laws, not cultural appropriation.<\/p>\n<p>But back to <a href=\"http:\/\/jamesray.com\/\">James Arthur Ray<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In the latest issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/shamansdrum.org\/\"><em>Shaman&#8217;s Drum <\/em><\/a>magazine (no. 82), founding editor Timothy White makes some thoughtful points in an editorial titled &#8220;What Can We Learn from the Tragic Sedona Sweat Lodge Debacle?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>White points out several things that went wrong:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The sweat followed a 36-hour period of &#8220;visionary&#8221; fasting, meaning that participants were more dehydrated than they would normally have been.<\/li>\n<li>Ray was a &#8220;spiritual jock&#8221; (my term, not White&#8217;s), pushing people to &#8220;push past your self-imposed and conditional borders&#8221; and shaming participants into not leaving when they were suffering.<\/li>\n<li>The plastic tarp coverings may have trapped heat and retarded air circulation more than fiber blankets would have done, making the lodge even hotter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But he makes several other points as well. First of all, it appears that the lodge was built by the Angel Valley Retreat Center, not by Ray&#8217;s team, and had been used previously by other center visitors. Since participants signed a release, it may be difficult to prove criminal negligence in court.<\/p>\n<p>The Sedona location, with that area&#8217;s reputation for New Age activities, made it easier for those who &#8220;blamed the deaths on New Age spiritual practices &#8216;stolen&#8217; from Native American traditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>White&#8217;s conclusion: &#8220;I personally believe that the Sedona sweat lodge deaths were caused by a combination of preventable errors and manipulative mind games, due in large part to Ray&#8217;s negligence. . . . However, it may be difficult to prove that Ray&#8217;s behavior during the sweat was criminally malicious\u2014since he subjected himself to the same challenging conditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And one more thing: screaming for Ray&#8217;s head on a plate could encourage the prosecution of &#8220;all sorts of ceremonial leaders\u2014vision quest leaders, entheogenic ceremonialists, and even shamanic practitioners\u2014for other accidental deaths. [There have been some such prosecutions\u2014CSC] Although I believe that careless teachers and leaders should be held responsible for preventable mistakes, I think that civil suits may be the best way to encourage appropriate safety measures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I titled my first post &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1217\" target=\"_self\">Can You Sue Your Shaman?<\/a>&#8221;\u00a0 But should you? Shouldn&#8217;t people walking dangerous paths accept some responsibility?\u00a0 After all, we followers of magical religions insist that we are not sheep who need a shepherd (Latin: <em>pastor<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The secular law, after all, has fairly narrow definitions of what constitutes a crime and what constitutes a tort. &#8220;Bad spiritual teaching&#8221; or &#8220;improper ritual&#8221; or &#8220;malicious magic&#8221; do not quality.<\/p>\n<p>After all, there was a day\u2014a mere 400-500 years ago\u2014when &#8220;malicious magic&#8221; or sorcery <em>was<\/em> a criminal offense in\u00a0 Western secular courts, but do we want to go back to those standards of proof?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 sloganeering about &#8220;cultural appropriation&#8221; and [&hellip;]<\/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":[1],"tags":[10,118,117,11,6],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-arizona","tag-gerald-gardner","tag-shamanism","tag-wicca"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-nj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1121,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1121","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":0},"title":"Handbook of Contemporary Paganism in Print","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My contributor copy of the new Handbook of Contemporary Paganism from Brill arrived. (You can tell from the price that it is intended primarily for the institutional market.) Here is the table of contents:\"The Modern Magical Revival,\" Nevill Drury\"The Influence of Aleister Crowley on Gerald Gardner and the Early Witchcraft\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3626,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3626","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":1},"title":"Upcoming Gerald Gardner Documentary","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A commenter asked about the documentary on Gerald Gardner in which Ronald Hutton is involved. Here is the announcement. How long before it might be available outside Britain is a good question.","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1643,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1643","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":2},"title":"Donna Gardner a Wiccan? Unlikely.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In the current issue of The Cauldron, a writer known only as \"Tof\" tells us that Donna Gardner, wife of Gerald, chief founder of Wicca, was lying when she said that she was not involved in the Craft. First, though, Tof tells us, \"In all this [biographical summary] there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12980","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":3},"title":"How about Museum of Witchcraft Version 4.0?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You can buy the former mill (built 1828) in Castletown, Isle of Man, that once housed housed Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner's \"Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft,\" whose name went through various permutations, even as its little restaurant went from being \"The Folklore Restaurant\" to \"The Witches' Kitchen.\" All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gerald Gardner\"","block_context":{"text":"Gerald Gardner","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=gerald-gardner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":586,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=586","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":4},"title":"1939 and All ThatJason Pitzl-Waters\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"1939 and All ThatJason Pitzl-Waters draws attention to a 2001 interview with Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone recently re-published in the online zine The Wiccan-Pagan Times.Janet Farrar, who came to the Craft in the late 1960s, seems to dancing around a more skeptical position as regarding Gerald Gardner's finding a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3910,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3910","url_meta":{"origin":1445,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;Wicca Man&#8221; Trailer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is the trailer for the new British documentary on Gerald Gardner, theatrically introduced by Ronald Hutton rather like an episode of the archaeology program Secrets of the Dead. Britain's Wicca Man - (C) Matchlight from Matchlight on Vimeo. I am happy to hear Professor Hutton say that Wicca was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","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=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1464,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions\/1464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}