Sweating spirituality

There’s something about the story of three deaths in a faux-Indian sweat lodge ceremony earlier this month in Sedona that grabs me.

It’s a pity about the three people who lost their lives, of course. But what strikes me is this whole phenomenon of adults so in search of…something that they pay money (in large sums) to any fast-talking self-proclaimed spiritual leader who'll put them through an ordeal that, if mandated by some government, say, or an employer, would spark class-action lawsuits.

I guess what surprises me is that there aren’t more deaths resulting from this sort of thing.

In the “spiritual warrior” experience led by James Arthur Ray, “nationally known New Age guru”, 50 people paid $9,695 for the privilege of spending 36 hours without food or water in the Arizona desert on a vision quest and then three hours in the sweat lodge. (For those unfamiliar with the term “sweat lodge”, think unregulated, smoke-filled sauna.)

I don’t know why this wasn’t seen as a recipe for disaster. Fifty people in a space 24 feet wide and 4.5 feet high. Twenty-one people ended up in local hospitals, with three eventually dying. Despite several participants showing signs of serious trouble, Ray, it seems, blocked the exit.

Yavapai County sheriff investigating the incident as a homicide, but so far no one’s been charged.

Ray, whose company made $9.4M last year from speeches, seminars, retreats, books and videos, says he’s cooperating. It’s gotta bite, after all, if you lose paying customers in such close proximity to your “empowering” events.

Now, here’s my issue. What is it with people who scoff at organized religion as institutional superstition but fall slack-jawed in awe at any caftan-wearing self-proclaimed guru with bad teeth and a worse haircut who promises them spiritual enlightenment if they’ll only [insert ceremony here].

I have a friend who falls into that category. About eight years ago she tried to get me to go on a trip to Sedona run by someone who was supposed to be au fait with all types of spiritual practices. I never told her but the prospect of spending ten days in a mini-van/Comfort Inn with 11 middle-aged white women oohing and ahing about Hopi ceremonies and then engaging in replicas of same just gave me the willies. Their mission, and I am not making this up, was to focus cosmic energy on righting 400 years of wrongs done to the Native Americans.

They were conducted around by some local middle-aged white woman who was supposed to be connected to the local tribes, although there were apparently a couple of instances where the women had to stand at quite a distance because the Hopis weren’t wild about interlopers, no matter how sterling their intent.

When she returned, totally enthused about the experience, my friend showed me her photos of the events. There was one of the women seated in a circle on the ground. It was some sort of prayer circle, meant to concentrate their spiritual powers. She said that the picture was taken just before the heavens opened up and poured rain down on them.

“But that’s okay—it was a cleansing rain.”

Apparently the thought that the gods might be pissed off at the effrontery of 12 middle-aged white women from Virginia thinking that they could erase 400 years of policies in ten days at the Comfort Inn and were expressing their displeasure with the downpour never occurred to them.

So many of these spiritual guides make a very, very good living out of their vision quests and seminars and retreats. Maybe not $9.4M, but comfortable. (And I’m not saying that some don’t indeed have some spiritual gifts that they do share with their followers—maybe without even charging.) But when a New Age guru accepts MasterCard or Discover, how is that different from Jim and Tammi Faye?

BTW, for that vision quest, Ray sent his paying guests out into the October desert for 36 hours with only a sleeping bag. Although he offered to sell them Peruvian ponchos for $250.

I rest my case.

However this investigation turns out, I’d like to think that at least one charlatan has been revealed. But even if he is, his acolytes are sure to stick by him.

Or move on to the next one.