SEDONA, Ariz. – A sauna-like sweat lodge at an Arizona resort meant to provide spiritual cleansing became the scene of a police investigation Friday when more than 20 people became ill during a two-hour session and two later died. In all, 21 of the 64 people crowded inside the sweat lodge received medical care. Authorities haven’t determined the cause of the deaths and illnesses; tests for carbon monoxide and other contaminants were negative. Self-help author James Arthur Ray (who appeared in The Secret) rented the facility as part of his Spiritual Warrior Retreat. Sweat lodges, like that held on the final day of the Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center, are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for ceremonies and events. Stones are heated outside a lodge, brought inside and placed in a pail-sized hole. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins.
The spiritual purpose of the sweat lodge is to create a sacred place to pray, meditate, learn and heal. You enter the lodge for 30-45 minute rounds, and rotate out to give other attendees a turn in the lodge. You also come out of the lodge between rounds to rehydrate; to allow your body and brain to acclimate to the intense heat, so it can continue to function properly. If you’re used to intense heat, you may be able to do several rounds in a row without a break. But for most of us, a break between rounds is welcome. About half way in to my first sweat, I had to lie on the floor near the edge of the covering so I could sneak a fresh breath. Without that, I could not have lasted the first round. I was heavier back then, also a meat eater, and had eaten the day of the sweat. I learned a lot since that first sweat. Like about dehydration and heat-related death, in what is known as sweat lodge syndrome.
Through the years, I’ve sweated with many people of many traditions, for a variety of purposes. A standard purpose is the vision quest. You are looking for insight into some area of your life, and are asking Spirit for guidance. You enter the sweat as a ritual to create a change in consciousness, as an act of creating a sacred, receptive place in consciousness so you may clearly hear what Spirit has to say to you.
Through the years, I’ve sweated with those who were sincere seekers, and those who wanted to be known as teachers, so they put on sweat lodges like some people put on workshops. Some would pride themselves on how many rounds they could stand, and how many days they’d fast beforehand, and how wiped out they would be at the end of it all. Like their own personal crucifiction, their own monthly rebirth, as if there was entertainment value in the suffering and the release of it. And often they’d have students and followers who would begin to do the same thing, often to the detriment of their physical and mental health. You find this in any group setting, in any genre. Not just new age teachers.
I remember many sweats where attendees, and not all neophytes, gave themselves such a bad experience that they would never again try a sweat lodge. They overdid their time in, they failed to keep drinking water even if they didn’t want it, they ate too heavy and too soon before the sweat. They failed to know the state of their own health, or they failed to take precautions if they had heart or other health issues. But that’s not what happens to most attendees.
Most attendees have a pleasant experience and a water pourer who can judge the group to know how hot to keep the lodge. For most people, the rounds of chanting help purify the mind as the sweat purifies the cells of the body. You can indeed reach an altered state of consciousness in a sweat lodge, and it can be a powerful, illuminating and transformative event.
And you don’t have to sweat to do that. You can create your own altered state in a less invasive way. You can dim the lights in your favorite room and light some incense and candles. You can make a comfy mat of pillows in the middle of the floor and cover it with lots of blankets. Not your bed – not your couch – not anything that feels familiar beneath you. You can put headphones on with your favorite music, or even something tribal like Hemi-Sync’s Spirit Gathering, The Dreaming Gate, Shaman’s Heart. Maybe something like Drums on Fire or Oceania, music of New Zealand’s native people, the Maori, brought into the modern world.
You can create the space to bring on a transformation in consciousness in your own home, right here, right now if you are a sincere seeker. Maybe go into the session after having written a statement of intent about something you would like clarity on. Or maybe you’re just ready for the next step and want to be guided into it. Either way, write the intention and then release your attention from it.
Then just relax and listen to the music and let your mind drift where it may for an hour or several hours. The Universe will be sending you its subliminal messages and in the days following, many insights will come to you when you’re not even thinking about it. And that is how transformation occurs.
And you don’t have to pay $9,000 to attend a sweat lodge to do it.
Update from NPR on this matter
10-22-09: James Ray urged sweat lodge participants to stop prescription medications
Link to updated info on this matter in chronological order from the beginning
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The End of Death As We Know It
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