{"id":1888,"date":"2010-10-20T10:10:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-20T16:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2010-10-20T10:14:27","modified_gmt":"2010-10-20T16:14:27","slug":"spiritual-tourism-drops-in-sedona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1888","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Tourism Drops in Sedona"},"content":{"rendered":"

An only slightly snarky article (it is the New York Times,<\/em> after all) reports on a decline in “spiritual tourism” in Sedona, Arizona.<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local New Agers seem divided as to whether the economy or the James Arthur Ray sweat lodge deaths<\/a> are more to blame.<\/p>\n

After all the sweat lodge deaths “could have happened anywhere.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very unfortunate and sad situation that could have happened anywhere,\u201d said Janelle Sparkman, president of the Sedona Metaphysical Spiritual Association, who attributes the woes that New Age practitioners are experiencing to a lack of disposable income for spiritual needs and not what happened that awful afternoon. \u201cIt was not indicative of Sedona or Sedona\u2019s practitioners at all.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But they happened in oversold Sedona, which has been touristy for much of its existence.<\/a><\/p>\n

My mother and stepfather moved there in the 1970s. She was teaching at Northern Arizona University<\/a>, but he had retired and claimed that he could not handle the altitude of Flagstaff (though he was from Colorado), so they lived in Sedona as a compromise.<\/p>\n

At that time, Sedona was mostly about art galleries and giving kitschy names to the big rock formations. There was one called Snoopy<\/a> (after the Peanuts <\/em>comic strip dog), no less. Young idealist that I was, I found it disgusting. As a newly come-home\u00a0 Pagan, I was not impressed by the desert chapel<\/a> either when they hauled me out to look at it.<\/p>\n

I had not yet developed the ability to appreciate the touristy stuff in a hip and ironic way!<\/p>\n

So between that and some family matters that I will skip over, I was unimpressed by Sedona. When the talk about earth vortices and spiritual power points began, all that I could think of was a rock called Snoopy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 deaths “could have happened anywhere.” […]<\/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],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-arizona"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-us","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1445,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1445","url_meta":{"origin":1888,"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":1888,"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":1227,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1227","url_meta":{"origin":1888,"position":2},"title":"Third Death in James Ray Sweat Lodge Case","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":1888,"position":3},"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":1219,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1219","url_meta":{"origin":1888,"position":4},"title":"Who Cares about ‘Cultural Appropriation’?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of the reaction in the Pagan blogosphere to the \"shamanic\" casualties in Sedona have trotted out that old horse named Cultural Appropriation.A couple of months ago, one of the Pagan lists in which I participate had a whole discussion of \"cultural appropriation.\" Cultural Appropriation was led by the halter\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=190571324X","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8041,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8041","url_meta":{"origin":1888,"position":5},"title":"Normal for Glastonbury, Normal for Boulder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love snarky local blogs. Unfortunately, the one for my little mountain county seems mostly devoted these days to attacking one county commissioner candidate, so I will spare you that. But thanks to a Facebook friend, I was introduced to Normal for Glastonbury, which contains such nuggets as these about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","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=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1893,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}