The Trap Got Set': Self-Help Cult Retreat Leads To Agonizing Sweat Lodge Deaths

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The Trap Got Set': Self-Help Cult Retreat Leads To Agonizing Sweat Lodge Deaths.

Followers of James Ray went to the “Spiritual Warrior” retreat seeking enlightenment; what they found was misery and death.

When authorities responded to an emergency in Yavapai County, Arizona in October 2009, they were greeted by the sight of dozens of people milling around aimlessly, and some writhing or unconscious on the ground. 

“I noticed women with their heads shaved walking around in a daze,” Yavapai County Sheriff's Sgt. Ross Diskin said. “I initially thought, this has got to be some kind of cult.” 

Three people were dead and 18 others were hospitalized after a sweat lodge ritual went terrible wrong. And authorities quickly realized they weren't investigating an accident, but a homicide, according to the season premiere of “Deadly Cults” on Oxygen. 

The sweat lodge was the climactic event of a multi-day retreat organized by self-help guru James Arthur Ray, whose doctrine of personal improvement and enlightenment had exploded in popularity after he was featured in the hit 2007 film “The Secret.” 

Melissa Phillips, a survivor of the sweat lodge incident, said that Ray promised that enduring — and shelling out thousands of dollars for — his intense course of ritual challenges would change their lives. 

“I believed it. I really did believe it,” she told “Deadly Cults.” 

James Arthur Ray Photo: AP

The sweat lodge was meant to be a grueling ordeal, Ray told his followers. The peak of a five-event retreat called the “Journey of Power,” “Spiritual Warrior” would allegedly cause a spiritual breakthrough. Ray allegedly prepared followers for the trial by describing the effects of heat stroke — and painting them as signs of success. 

Participants had shelled out thousands of dollars. Introductory events in Ray's school of positive thinking and the so-called “Law of Attraction” were often free, but successive retreats could cost as much as $10,000.  

At the Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat ranch, Ray's followers were asked to shave their heads — and ridiculed if they demurred, according to survivors interviewed on “Deadly Cults.” 

First, they spent 36 hours without food or water in the desert. Ray played “God,” forcing people to lie on the ground motionless when he said they were dead, in something he called the “Samurai Game,” the Verge reported. 

Ray warned his followers that they would feel like they were going to die.  

“You might think you are, but you are not going to die,” he told them, according to the Verge report. 

Followers had been conditioned by weeks spent among happy, like-minded people and Ray's insistence that a breakthrough was imminent. Phillips described the experience as “thrilling” and “addictive” — until the deadly sweat lodge trial. 

“The events program you to accept his instructions, even if it's personally detrimental,” she told producers. “You had to challenge yourself. That's how the trap got set for the people inside the sweat lodge.” 

The trap Phillips described claimed the lives of Kirby Brown, 38; James Shore, 40, and Li Neuman, 49, inside a tent where hot rocks were piled upon a fire and participants were forbidden from leaving as they sweltered and some called for help. 

Kirby Brown Photo: Family Photo

Kirby Brown “cooked to death,” her mother, Virginia, told CNN.  

And authorities' investigation of Ray and the event soon made it plain that the self-help guru was well-aware of the dangers the sweat lodge posed. Ray would eventually go on trial and be convicted of negligent homicide, but the story is still not over. 

For more on James Arthur Ray's deadly “Spiritual Warrior” trial, including disturbing accounts by survivors of how it sounded and felt inside the lodge and what happened to Ray afterward, don't miss the season premiere of “Deadly Cults”...

Remembering the deadly Sedona sweat lodge 11 years later

[Morell Sunweaver]

Yeah, that Sweat lodge incident is alarming for cults. The guy served his time in prison and once he got out, he returned to doing what he is good at. Brainwashing people and gaining their money. Took him like a week to get back on his feet again.

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Blow me down!!,and I just cant fathom to why the police cant totally stop a person like him from doing what he does,he killed a person FFS,even though he did his time in prison he shouldn't be able to continue to have the chance to simply do it again aye,his ego is so huge..and these people who follow men like him have a illness..

[Morell Sunweaver]

It's not really a surprise, he knows how to do a business with seminars and those are not illegal. I think he'll be little more careful about what he does as person like him is not a prison lover. 

He probably got lower sentence in prison for being a stupid idiot, instead of murdering maniac.

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Hard to believe that humans can be so gullible to fall for his manipulative mannerisms and take their money from them still,even knowing he killed someone though aye...

[Morell Sunweaver]

Yeah, but one thing the guy got right, the people who survived the Sweat Lodge really became different. They saw through his manipulations. Very hard way, but they did.

[Tara]

Scientology has a similar procedure, to sweat out drugs. Actually that whole scene is too insane to even discuss. Stay away from cults. They are more prevalent as people try to find answers. There are no answers just living, loving, appreciating . 

[Morell Sunweaver]

Oh there are answers. For many the name of them is "common sense." Also the important answer is: you live your own life, none else, you are to make decisions and learn from them. If you let another to decide for you, you waste your time, because you learn less if anything at all. And life learning is very important and useful, it leads to independence.

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You cant just sweep not knowing about these things under the carpet as if they dont exist.. just because they are too insane to discuss,or disgustingly wrong..isnt it better to discuss & know about them so you learn not to go there, learn whats bad or what brainwashing actually is thus to recognise it anywhere else to prevent being drawn in to them...plus when you do learn you create soul growth..Oh and Scientology is another topic that could be discussed in here too..

Tara said:

Scientology has a similar procedure, to sweat out drugs. Actually that whole scene is too insane to even discuss. Stay away from cults. They are more prevalent as people try to find answers. There are no answers just living, loving, appreciating . 

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Good points for sure..

Morell Sunweaver said:

Oh there are answers. For many the name of them is "common sense." Also the important answer is: you live your own life, none else, you are to make decisions and learn from them. If you let another to decide for you, you waste your time, because you learn less if anything at all. And life learning is very important and useful, it leads to independence.