October 12, 2009 10:20 AM

Sweat Lodge Death Investigation Turns to Self-Help Guru James Arthur Ray

By
Neil Katz
Topics
Daily Blotter
(JamesRay.com)
Photo: James Arthur Ray.

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (CBS/AP) Police have now turned their attention to television self-help guru James Arthur Ray in their investigation of an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony that left two dead and 19 hospitalized.

Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh said Saturday that his detectives were focusing on the self-help expert and his staff as they try to determine if criminal negligence played a role in the tragic deaths at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Sedona, Ariz., on Oct. 9.

The town is a desert vacation spot two hours north of Phoenix that is popular with those seeking meditation and spiritual health.

Waugh said Ray refused to speak with authorities and has since left the state.

"We will continue this investigation down every road that is possible to find out if there is culpability on anybody relative to the deaths of these individuals," Waugh said. He said it could be three to four weeks before they knew if criminal charges would be filed.

Ray's recent postings on his Twitter account said he was "shocked and saddened" by the tragedy.

"My deep heartfelt condolences to family and friends of those who lost their lives," he wrote. "I am spending the weekend in prayer and meditation for all involved in this difficult time; and I ask you to join me in doing the same."

Ray claims to help people achieve both spiritual and financial wealth. "The real key to creating the life of your dreams is achieving true Harmonic Wealth?," he says on his Web site, trademark included.

The self-styled success guru, who has appeared on Oprah, Larry King and the movie "The Secret," says people are ready for his wisdom if "You simply (and deeply) want to make more money and become more successful" and "want to double, triple, even multiply by ten the size of your business."

It's not clear what type of financial wizardry was being taught inside the 415-square-foot homemade sweat lodge when a 38-year-old female surfer and a 40-year-old father of three dropped dead.

Ray's company, James Ray International, is based in Carlsbad, Calif. Ray's publicist, Howard Bragman, expressed condolences in a statement Friday but declined to speak about the deaths. Bragman didn't return a call for additional comment Saturday.

The Angel Valley Retreat Center is owned by Michael and Amayra Hamilton, who rented it to Ray for a five-day "Spiritual Warrior" retreat that promised to "absolutely change your life."

On Saturday, Amayra Hamilton said Ray has held the event at the resort for seven years, and there never have been any problems.

Hamilton said the resort remains closed to the public. The sweat lodge has been dismantled and a ceremony was conducted for those affected by Thursday's incident.

"The whole situation is very traumatizing for everybody," she said.

The people at Ray's retreat, whose ages ranged from 30 to the 60s, paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend.

Ray and his staff constructed the temporary sweat lodge with a wood frame and covered it with layers of tarps and blankets, Waugh said. The sweat lodge — a structure commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events — was 53 inches high at the center and about 30 inches high around the outer edges.

(AP/Tom Tingle, Arizona Republic)
Photo: Investigators look over a "sweat lodge" on the grounds of Angel Valley Retreat Center, near Sedona, Ariz.

Between 55 and 65 people were crowded into the 415-square-foot space during a two-hour period that included various spiritual exercises led by Ray, Waugh said. Every 15 minutes, a flap was raised to allow more volcanic rocks the size of cantaloupes to be brought inside.

Authorities said participants were highly encouraged but not forced to remain in the sweat lodge for the entire time.

Joseph Bruchac, author of "The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends," called the number of participants in the lodge "appalling."

"If you put people in a restrictive, airtight structure, you are going to use up all oxygen," he said by phone Saturday from his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "And if you're doing a sweat, you're going to use it up that much faster."

American Indian sweat lodges typically hold about 12 people and are covered with blankets made of natural materials, such as cotton or wool, and the air flow isn't restricted, he said.

"I don't see how the person running that lodge could have been aware of the health and well-being of that many people," he said.

The participants had fasted for 36 hours as part of a personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness, then ate a breakfast buffet Thursday morning. After various seminars, they entered the sweat lodge lightly dressed at 3 p.m.

Two hours later, a woman dialed 911 to say that two people, whom Waugh identified as 38-year old New Yorker Kirby Brown and 40-year-old James Shore of Milwaukee, did not have a pulse and weren't breathing.

According to a family spokesperson, Brown was an avid surfer and hiker who was "in top shape," before the mysterious sweat lodge death.

(AP Photo/Family of Kirby Brown)
Photo: Kirby Brown in undated family image.

A nurse hired by Ray was directing rescue efforts including CPR when emergency crews arrived, Waugh said. Shore and Brown were pronounced dead when they arrived at a hospital.

Sheriff's Lt. David Rhodes said authorities were checking whether there was a lag time between the first signs of medical distress and the emergency call.

Autopsies on Brown and Shore were conducted Friday, but the results weren't disclosed pending additional tests. Authorities have ruled out carbon monoxide poising as the cause.

Matt Collins, who knew Shore since seventh grade, described his friend as a wonderful husband and father whose life revolved around his three kids. "Everybody who got to know him absolutely loved him," Collins told The Associated Press.

Brown, a graduate of the State University of New York at Geneseo, had two sisters who recently got married, two new nephews and a focus on "making the world more beautiful for someone, not only with her art but with her heart," family spokesman Tom McFeeley said. Although the family is saddened by her death, he said Brown created a roadmap by which others should live.

"She was the least selfish, kindest person I knew," he said.

McFeeley said Brown had attended similar retreats, although he wasn't certain whether any were hosted by Ray. He said Brown, who grew up in Brooklyn and Westtown and spent time in Mexico, saw the outing as a chance to continue on a positive path in life.

MORE ON CRIMESIDER
October 12, 2009 - Family Says New Yorker Kirby Brown was in Great Shape before Mysterious Sweat Lodge Death
October 9, 2009 - Angel Valley Resort: Two Dead, Many Hospitalized in Sedona Sweat Lodge Illness







Add a Comment See all 125 Comments
by ghanderman March 9, 2011 12:57 PM EST
I take great offense at the use of the term "sweat lodge" being used to describe the event James Ray held in Arizona that resulted in the deaths of two people. The event James Ray held was NOT a sweat lodge ceremony and there was NOTHING remotely authentic or American Indian about what he did. If anything, you should be calling what he did a new age cash-cow sauna. A sweat lodge ceremony is not done for money, is limited to a maximum of 5-8 people in a structure that is only used once and that does not use materials like tarpaulin. If you want a fair and balanced news report, CNN/HLN should invite members of the American Indian community to weigh in. Otherwise, they stand to do irreparable damage to public, outside perceptions of what Indigenous culture and ceremonies are really about and that's just irresponsible journalism. Seriously, it's 2011, you'd think mainstream America would have evolved by now and moved past tired old archetypes and stereotypes of indigenous peoples considering white people have been immigrating here since 1492. That's over 500 years to learn how to be respectful and stop thinking in distorted ways about indigenous people...more than enough time for any reasonable society to get it.
Reply to this comment
by weawakshte June 18, 2010 3:55 PM EDT
In English, my Lakhota name weawaste means: good woman.
Reply to this comment
by weawakshte June 18, 2010 3:50 PM EDT
PS His chant appears to be a variation of hoka he - a warrior's battle cry loosely (or literally by some) translated to mean: IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE!
Reply to this comment
by weawakshte June 18, 2010 3:37 PM EDT
Too bad Native Americans would not allow his imprisonment as I have suggested. EATING?? breakfast beforehand - INSANE! but how would those people know not to eat ahead of time.
This is distgusting, tragic, and horrifying.
My prayers are with the families of all participants, especially for those who died SENSELESSLY for no reason whatsoever.
Reply to this comment
by weawakshte June 18, 2010 3:28 PM EDT
James Ray needs to spend the rest of his life in a sweat lodge identical to the one he killed these people in. Prison isn't good enough for him.
This is an absolute disgrace to all Native Americans. My real name is posted here as my user name in the phonetic spelling. Native spelling is weawaste. I am Lakhota.
James Ray is evil, and I suspect he;s slipped off into madness. LOOk at his eyes - nothing there, people.
Packing 50+ plus people into a space that, even if correctly constructed and utilized could have held a maximum of 5 very very well prepared humans is utter insanity.
Reply to this comment
by catbyte June 18, 2010 1:59 PM EDT
You don't pay for the Medicine. All those people should have known better than to fork over their money to that crook. I hope they throw Ray's ass in jail.

Diane

Anishnabe in MI
Reply to this comment
by royalbow June 13, 2010 12:21 PM EDT
'The Secret' is that these and many other folks paid a snake oil salesman for $10K worth of 'enlightenment' and he's been laughing (and some crying I'd hope/suppose) all the way to the bank. I wouldnt suggest anything intentional for sure, but this seems like a Jim Jones scenario to me.. brainwashing of needy lemmings. If you need some real enlightenment, how about helping others - volunteer for a charity, etc, instead of spending your $10K on personal and self-centered 'fulfillment'. Geez. No offense intended - but you follow a gentleman like this and you get what you get. He's preyed on the weakness of the human condition for years, and now it's exposed. Anyone really surprised?
Reply to this comment
by Green582 June 13, 2010 7:37 AM EDT
A woman in one of the police interviews has some interesting things to say about the Giant Plastic Death Tent:

"James sits at the door... and there is you know chanting and praying and that kind of stuff in between and blah-blah-blah.... and there is a saying that's called Haiyaha, it's like I don't know and some kind of Native American thing like you know that's cool.... We called these things radical spiritual experiences, okay, so anytime we did something like this... the idea is to give yourself an out of, not so much in it, but I know that word "out of body experience" has been used, but it's more about knowing that you are more, I mean normal people can't bend rebar with their necks, would you agree?"

Whatever she experienced had nothing to do with any kind of valid Native American Sweat Lodge tradition. But it gets worse. See the next post, where she confirms how Ray just up and decided to do this lodge against the express wishes of Native American people.

The police interview continues:

"Okay so the sweat lodge, he borrows from everybody and that actually has been part of his brilliance in my opinion is that he had the ability to take material from all kinds of different sources and synthesize it together and deliver it in a very understandable way. So he would borrow from the Native American tradition, he borrowed from the Hawaiian traditions, he borrowed from the South American natives, and has read extensively and like weaves all this stuff together. So when you are doing the stuff in Arizona, you are of course heavily on the Native American side of things and you are experiencing the energy of Sedona which is why people go there and the red rocks, and okay now we are going to do a sweat lodge...."

Okay, so being in a Native sacred site makes it all OK. These sacred sites are just theme parks to Death Ray. Now get this. The interviewee was around when Death Ray was starting out in the Death Tent business. This is how Ray came by the sacred Death Tent "Ritual":

"I do remember the first time we did it, he said, he called around to try to find somebody who would facilitate this, host it and facilitate it. He couldn't find
anybody who was willing to do it, because he called some Native American places I
guess that do this. And they said well how many stones or how many rounds did you
want to do and I forget how many he said, but whatever his number was, they said no, white people can't do that. And he thought that was really funny then he said, well you don't know my white people, but yeah exactly you don't know my white people is what he said. So he took over and did it himself and found Angel Valley who was willing to let him do that, I guess."

After reading this, I had to do some checking up on what Ray was 'chanting'....it was as I expected...hogwash....
........"Haiyaha"..." a saying...that's cool".....well, I have never heard anything translated from my language that would be "that's cool"....I guess I'm not one of them "progressive Indians".( sigh....)

Oh, my goodness...someone fed her a big can of crap...Haiyaha is a lake in Colorado...inside Rocky Mountain National Park...very difficult to get to, as there is no blacktop to this lake...hike in, hike out...so, I would guess only avid hikers would recognize the name...there is also a Bear Lake, Nymph Lake, Emerald Lake & Dream Lake in the same vicinity...but they don't sound very native...oh, and Haiyaha is reported to be an "Indigenous Indian word meaning "rock".."........Okay, excuse me now while I go sit by the door of the sweat lodge and chant "rock"...feel free to join me...
Reply to this comment
by lltosta June 12, 2010 7:40 PM EDT
I read the comment that Mr. Ray stated he was like a coach to his people in the sweat lodge in the same way a marathoner has a coach, well he may have not intentionally murdered those people but he did not have a trained medical staff waiting outside the sweat lodge. It is disturbing that he did not do everything in his power to assist his people. I believe in the court of popular opinion the majority of people see him as a charlatan and will avoid his products and his advice.
Reply to this comment
by Green582 June 12, 2010 6:23 PM EDT
JasonDaro...
....you are as fake as Ray....

"Crazy Horse says:
May 31st, 2010 at 7:19 am
My spirit is from my father?s South American Indian/Spanish blood. It?s the same White Man religious story. Pretty much like the movie Avatar. The White Man wants and to hell with who or what may stand in his way. In the light of what he wants his treaties are practically worthless.

According to the treaty signed by the White participants James Arthur Ray and his company are protected by the law.

I wouldn?t doubt if the White Man finds some way around that treaty as well.

Breaking treaties is the White Man way!

Don?t we know it!"

This is a post of yours from another site...you are a fraud, and a fake...you have learned much from James Arthur Ray...when are you going to do a killer lodge and charge thousands of dollars?...

BTW....you are no where near the caliber of the real Crazy Horse....we all call you "crazy-troll"
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