Sweat lodge

So yes, I am very connected with indigenous here on Turtle Island with the natives here in this area.

I belong to a community where we do sweat lodge.

It's a Lakota style based lineage.

And I've been keeping fire for the women's lodge for many years, like six years now.

So I don't usually talk about medicine work.

I don't usually talk about ceremony.

My my inipi, my sweat lodge prayers.

But it's something that I feel very blessed because this particular community is intertribal.

But when I was 18, I then went to the US where he had set up with his family and And they were very involved with Native American friends in the reservation and beyond the reservation.

And one of the gifts that he gave me, which stayed with me for a very long time, was he invited me while I was over there to a Native American purification ceremony called the Sweat Lodge.

And this, if you can imagine, at the age of 18, again, somebody who was very, very clearly an open channel, really, to, you know, just like, you know, always very creative.

I always thought very differently.

And we all get together once a week, and he often leads a meditation practice.

And we did a visualization practice, and, uh, he had recently been to Sweat Lodge, where you sit shoulder to shoulder in a small space, uh, with grandfathers, the stones that are heated up and poured over water.

Water's poured over them.

It's dark, and you're meant to go deep, spiritually deep.

Well, this next one's from Peter and is very relevant to the past two episodes in the case we've covered.

This one is called Sweat Lodges.

Hey, ladies, I don't know if there are enough words in the English language to describe the joy you bring me and my partner.

Every Wednesday evening, we ask one another, did you listen to the new Sinisterhood today? So much love for you both.

Thank you so much, Peter.

Peter continues to preface.

I'm a standard issue white guy that has been in a lot of different sweat lodges.

I participated in Lakota lodges as well as just a casual sauna at a community owned land trust.

After promising health, wealth, and happiness to his followers, in the end, all this grifter gave them was a hard sales pitch, injury, and death.

This week's episode is Sweat Lodge Guru, James Arthur Ray, part two.

A bump in the night, your heart fills with dread.

Probably a murder of who wants you dead.

the releasing of your limitations, carve out your own destiny, and gain a gut-level understanding of the four enemies of

power.

The retreat combined an extended fast, a solo overnight vision quest alone in the desert, and as its final defining ritual, a large group sweat lodge ceremony framed as a symbolic death and rebirth.

Ray told participants ahead of the 2009 ceremony that it would be hellacious and that they would feel like they were dying, but only metaphorically.

His journey from unknown to one of the biggest stars in the industry came to a screeching halt once his use of extreme methods caused it all to come crumbling down.

This week's episode is Sweat Lodge Guru, James Arthur Ray, part one.

A bump in the night, your heart fills with dread.

Probably a murderer who wants you dead.

lot

that break and also the first sign of the recklessness that would define his methods arrived in 2005 in may of that year at an event he held at walt disney world in florida a new jersey woman shattered her hand during a board breaking exercise ray had pressured her into attempting After several unsuccessful, untrained attempts, the woman sustained multiple fractures.

That same year, at Angel Valley Ranch near Sedona, a serious injury involving hospitalization was reported during a spiritual warrior retreat led by Ray after a 42-year-old man collapsed unconscious inside a sweat lodge.

I think you're right about earlier that the more the bigger the audience gets, the more it's like riskier as it goes.

But this time, we're going to ask a larger question.

How did this happen? And have we learned anything from it? This is episode 383, The Sedona Sweat Lodge Tragedy.

We'd like to thank today's sponsor, Vinted.

I have a confession, you guys.

Participants were subjected to exercises designed to break through emotional and physical barriers.

some punched boards or bricks, some bent metal rods.

At previous retreats, people had already become ill during sweat lodge exercises.

In 2005, a participant named Daniel Van Cook became seriously ill following one of Ray's sweat lodge ceremonies and required emergency medical treatment.