Last October, three people died and more hospitalized after a sweat-lodge ritual during a Spiritual Warrior Retreat led by self-help author James Arthur Ray (pictured, via) and his employees in Sedona, Arizona. Following the deaths, the Sedona police mounted an investigation into the event led by the bestselling author of “Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want.”
This week, New York magazine interviewed Ray about the deaths. The author characterized the whole event as a “terrible accident” and referred readers to the White Papers his lawyers created to give Ray’s side of the story. His interview and the papers should give both critics and defenders plenty to argue about over the next few weeks.
What do you think? Here’s an excerpt from the interview, as addresses allegations that he told participants “You’re not going to die” inside the sweat lodge: “I think those statements have been—in fact, I don’t think, I know those statements have been taken completely out of context. There’s no one who would say that I was talking literally. If you look at the Judeo-Christian tradition, it’s full of references to death and rebirth. In fact, the apostle Paul, who was pretty much the founder of Christianity post-Jesus’s death, said, “I die daily.” Now, did he really mean that literally? No, of course not. What is meant there is that, you know, you let go of the things that no longer serve you and you move forward.”