Motivational speaker charged in sweat lodge deaths

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Motivational speaker James Arthur Ray was arrested Wednesday afternoon on
three counts of manslaughter for deaths that happened after a sweat lodge ceremony he led in northern Arizona last year. Ray was taken into custody on an indictment at his attorney's office in Prescott, and was to be booked into the Yavapai County jail in Camp Verde, sheriff's officials said. His bond was set at $5 million.

Ray's attorneys said Wednesday he surrendered to authorities but that the charges were unjust and they were confident he would be exonerated in court.

"This was a terrible accident, but it was an accident, not a criminal act," Ray attorney Luis Li said. "James Ray cooperated at every step of the way, providing information and witnesses to the authorities showing that no one could have foreseen this accident."

The Oct. 8 sweat lodge ceremony was intended to be the highlight of Ray's five-day "Spiritual Warrior" event at a retreat he rented just outside Sedona. He told participants, who paid more than $9,000 each to attend, that it would be one of the most intense experiences of their lives.

About halfway through the two-hour ceremony, some began feeling ill, vomiting and collapsing inside the 415-square-foot structure. Despite that, Ray urged participants to push past their physical weaknesses and chided those who wanted to leave, authorities and participants have said.

Two people — Kirby Brown, 38, of Westtown, N.Y., and James Shore, 40, of Milwaukee — passed out inside the sweat lodge and died that night at a hospital. Liz Neuman, 49, of Prior Lake, Minn., slipped into a coma and died a week later. Eighteen others were hospitalized.

Neuman's daughter, Andrea Puckett, said Wednesday she was pleased with Ray's arrest and the effort authorities put into the investigation.

"It helps that he is, for now, being stopped from doing what he's doing, from harming anyone else, and that's the biggest relief for me and my family right now," said Puckett, of Bloomington, Minn.

Participant Beverley Bunn previously told The Associated Press that Ray did nothing to help the sick during the October sweat lodge ceremony. Following Ray's arrest Wednesday, she said she had "many tears of joy."

"It's kind of a strange feeling," said Bunn, who was not among the hospitalized. "We've been waiting a long time."

Ray's attorneys have said he took all necessary safety precautions and wasn't aware of any medical problems until the ceremony was over. Ray declined to speak with authorities that night, on the advice of his attorneys, public records have shown.

Authorities said they quickly determined the deaths were not accidental and focused their investigation on Ray. They conducted hundreds of interviews that reached into Ray's past ceremonies and events, including one in which a man fell unconscious during a 2005 sweat lodge ceremony at the same retreat near Sedona.

The self-help superstar who teaches people about financial and spiritual wealth uses free seminars to recruit followers to more expensive events. His company, James Ray International, is based in Carlsbad, Ca.

Ray's representatives have said there was no way Ray could have predicted the night's tragic events. Had he heard any pleas for help inside the pitch-black sweat lodge, he would have stopped the ceremony immediately, Ray's attorneys said.

Documents released in the investigation showed that some people lost consciousness and others suffered broken bones at past Ray-led events and that Ray largely ignored medical problems that arose.

In the weeks after the deaths, lawsuits accused Ray and the owners of the Angel Valley Retreat Center where the sweat lodge was held of negligence and fraud. Ray's publisher postponed two book releases, and Ray canceled his appearances amid heavy criticism from survivors.

Amayra Hamilton, one of the Angel Valley owners, has said the staff had minimal contact with Ray over the seven years he held sweat lodges there, and that other groups had used the same lodge for ceremonies without any problems.

Bunn said she believes the "Spiritual Warrior" events should be called off indefinitely.

"It frightens me that I didn't stand back a little more," she said.

Religion & Women

January 10, 2010,Op-Ed Columnist NY Times - NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

It is not that warlords in Congo cite Scripture to justify their mass rapes (although the last warlord I met there called himself a pastor and wore a button reading “rebels for Christ”). It’s not that brides are burned in India as part of a Hindu ritual. And there’s no verse in the Koran that instructs Afghan thugs to throw acid in the faces of girls who dare to go to school.

Yet these kinds of abuses — along with more banal injustices, like slapping a girlfriend or paying women less for their work — arise out of a social context in which women are, often, second-class citizens. That’s a context that religions have helped shape, and not pushed hard to change.

“Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths, creating an environment in which violations against women are justified,” former President Jimmy Carter noted in a speech last month to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Australia.

“The belief that women are inferior human beings in the eyes of God,” Mr. Carter continued, “gives excuses to the brutal husband who beats his wife, the soldier who rapes a woman, the employer who has a lower pay scale for women employees, or parents who decide to abort a female embryo.”

Mr. Carter, who sees religion as one of the “basic causes of the violation of women’s rights,” is a member of The Elders, a small council of retired leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela. The Elders are focusing on the role of religion in oppressing women, and they have issued a joint statement calling on religious leaders to “change all discriminatory practices within their own religions and traditions.”

The Elders are neither irreligious nor rabble-rousers. They include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and they begin their meetings with a moment for silent prayer.

“The Elders are not attacking religion as such,” noted Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and United Nations high commissioner for human rights. But she added, “We all recognized that if there’s one overarching issue for women it’s the way that religion can be manipulated to subjugate women.”

There is of course plenty of fodder, in both the Koran and the Bible, for those who seek a theology of discrimination.

The New Testament quotes St. Paul (I Timothy 2) as saying that women “must be silent.” Deuteronomy declares that if a woman does not bleed on her wedding night, “the men of her town shall stone her to death.” An Orthodox Jewish prayer thanks God, “who hast not made me a woman.” The Koran stipulates that a woman shall inherit less than a man, and that a woman’s testimony counts for half a man’s.

In fairness, many scholars believe that Paul did not in fact write the passages calling on women to be silent. And Islam started out as socially progressive for women — banning female infanticide and limiting polygamy — but did not continue to advance.

But religious leaders sanctified existing social structures, instead of pushing for justice. In Africa, it would help enormously if religious figures spoke up for widows disenfranchised by unjust inheritance traditions — or for rape victims, or for schoolgirls facing sexual demands from their teachers. Instead, in Uganda, the influence of conservative Christians is found in a grotesque push to execute gays.

Yet paradoxically, the churches in Africa that have done the most to empower women have been conservative ones led by evangelicals and especially Pentecostals. In particular, Pentecostals encourage women to take leadership roles, and for many women this is the first time they have been trusted with authority and found their opinions respected. In rural Africa, Pentecostal churches are becoming a significant force to emancipate women.

That’s a glimmer of hope that reminds us that while religion is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution. The Dalai Lama has taken that step and calls himself a feminist.

Another excellent precedent is slavery. Each of the Abrahamic faiths accepted slavery. Muhammad owned slaves, and St. Paul seems to have condoned slavery. Yet the pioneers of the abolitionist movement were Quakers and evangelicals like William Wilberforce. People of faith ultimately worked ferociously to overthrow an oppressive institution that churches had previously condoned.

Today, when religious institutions exclude women from their hierarchies and rituals, the inevitable implication is that females are inferior. The Elders are right that religious groups should stand up for a simple ethical principle: any person’s human rights should be sacred, and not depend on something as earthly as their genitals

People that Inspire Us "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." 
- Abraham Lincoln

I have a dream that one day
 this nation will rise up and live out the
true meaning of its creed:
 "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all
men are created equal."
- Martin Luther King

Organizations that Inspire Us

Children, Incorporated
http://www.peacecorps.gov/

http://www.amnesty.org/

 http://www.aclu.org/

http://www.adl.org/

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/

Rev Bates Sites:

Rev Bates on the Radio

www.revbates.tv

 www.palmspringschurch.com

 Rev Bates en español,La Ciencia de la Mente

living the science of mind