Saturday, April 2, 2011

Arizona Sweat Lodge Deaths Trial

For those of you still living under a rock, or perhaps merely bombarded by the threat of earthly devastation in the form of news of earthquake tsunami's tipping Japan's Nuclear Reactor's (see photos) into deadly territory, or the domino of Government's toppling in the Middle East and North Africa, interspersed with dug-in tyrants massacring their own people. I could see why that could also take much of your attention, or the myriad of other concerns such as survival or enlightenment, what have you...

There is a trial underway in Arizona for the manslaughter charges levied against James Arthur Ray, and his sweat lodge which caused 3 people to die, and 18 injured. Ray is well known for his appearance in the movie The Secret, and his appearance on Oprah. The deadly sweat lodge occurred in Sedona in October 2009, and was part of his Spiritual Warrior program, a 5 day endurance test in which around 60 participants pay $10,000 each to experience James Ray's brand of self-help wizardry. This year things go terribly wrong, well that is not to say this is the first time things have gone wrong at a James Ray sponsored event, as a matter if fact it is not even the first time death has been associated with a James Ray group encounter. Earlier that year Colleen Conaway jumped off a ledge while performing a homeless exercise at a James Ray led event in a San Diego mall. The poor victim's suicide made even more atrocious on the part of the Ray gang by the fact they cleared out of the mall without her, and then threw a big party replete with dancing the night away. Not exactly good PR, I might imagine.

I am by no means an expert on all these shenanigans and as fact this is the first writing I've allowed myself to do on the topic after a week reading the blogs of Salty Droid and LaVaughn, following the tweets of the hashtag #jamesray and my twitter list, and catching the CNN live feed of the trial.

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