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Oprah and the Sweat Lodge Guru
by Lloyd Grove
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
The Angel Valley Retreat Center in Sedona, Arizona. (Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo)
Did Oprah help legitimize James Ray, now under investigation for his role in a sweat-lodge retreat that resulted in three deaths? Lloyd Grove reports.
When three people died and dozens more were hospitalized from the effects of a faux Indian sweat lodge two weeks ago—during a “spiritual warrior weekend” in Sedona, Arizona, for which participants paid nearly $10,000 apiece—a harsh light was cast on the so-called New Age Movement and its greedier entrepreneurs.
The shocking incident has received worldwide attention and revived troubling questions about the harmful potential of pseudo-science, the limitless nature of human credulity—and even the cosmic influence of Oprah Winfrey, who has passionately promoted all manner of unified field theories of health, wealth and spiritual renewal on her television program, in her magazine and on her Web site.
“Oprah has no personal or business relationship with James Arthur Ray,” the spokesman told The Daily Beast. “She, like everyone else, was shocked and saddened to hear of the tragedy in Arizona and hopes that a thorough investigation will help find answers for those who lost loved ones."
“Oprah has mainstreamed a lot of very questionable characters, in my opinion,” says anti-cult therapist Steven Hassan, a former official of the Unification Church who rebelled, escaped and became a prominent debunker (and was himself a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1989). “I would like to believe that this incident could be something that would cause people like Oprah to do more responsible research and to question whether or not they are serving their viewers, as opposed to just promoting people and ideas that are fundamentally flawed.”
It turns out that Oprah—whose multimedia empire reaches an estimated 40 million fans—gave a massive career boost to the New Age guru who was presiding over the lethal sweat lodge. According to news reports, James Arthur Ray was actively dissuading the victims—some 50 of whom were packed into a cramped enclosure, vomiting and collapsing in searing heat—from trying to save themselves. Ray’s Los Angeles publicist, Howard Bragman, who has asked for people to wait for the facts and not rush to judgment, declined to comment for this story.
JamesRay.com
Ray is a handsome, charismatic prophet of profit; during the “warrior weekend”—for which paying customers were required to spend 36 hours in the Arizona desert without food or water—he reportedly offered to sell them Peruvian ponchos for an additional $250 a pop. In early 2007, Ray took over Oprah’s couch for two highly-rated shows devoted to The Secret, a New Age documentary purporting to unlock the mysteries of life and the universe, and show the way to happiness and success.
"Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy,” Ray told Oprah’s vast audience in a typically glib outburst of pseudo-scientific sermonizing. “Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it's just a field of energy and a rate of vibration. And so are we. So if you think you’re this meat suit running around, you have to think again.”
On one level, the 51-year-old Ray—who, the year after his life-altering television appearance authored the runaway bestseller Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want, and these days is involved in a homicide investigation—is just another Oprah guest gone bad. On another level, he is a wakeup call for anyone who would dismiss all New Age dabbling as merely risk-free recreation, like incense and crystals.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Meursault
James Arthur Ray, Jim Jones, David Koresh, the list goes on way too long. People who's "charisma" has inspired or led others to their death because these sanctified twits believed harder than anyone else that they know a better way. Enough.
And Oprah, while fully acknowledging your intelligence, talent and many gifts, please keep the cosmic answer to yourself.
Bettie
Oprah's "television followers" are goofy to me. People screaming and crying for her attention is creepy. Also that new feel good show "Dr. Oz". It is truly humiliating to women to watch them fawn over this man.
All of the above mentioned, plus Oprah and yes, even Barack Obama are being worshiped in parts of the world. I was so shocked at Reverand Wright of Chicago and wondered how on earth anybody could follow him. I now believe that people are willing to submit themselves to be followers of ??? (fill in the blank).
MOZART
As usual, another time, another place and another so called "GURU".
Every ten years or so, especially when economic conditions get more difficult, out of the woodwork comes another "GURU".
In the last month or so has surfaced another bunch calling their workshops "Motivations"
Back in the early eighties there was a group called EST. Made millions of dollars across this country by teaching people to be quiet and mumbling mm-mm-mm-mm.
The leader was finally charged with fraud and that organization dissappeared to be replaced by another... etc. and etc.
These so called meetings cost, my God, as much as ten thousand dollars for a thirty hour week. I would suggest, that if you have that much money to waste.. please give it to some hungry child.
If you are having a personal problem, look into yourself, get quiet and see what you can do to help yourself. You do not need some charlatan to tell you what to do and charging you $350.00 an hour. And all this while he asks you to die in some jerry-mandered sauna.
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socialworklady
Three words:
Snake. Oil. Salesman
tomgtv
Darwin's theories are alive and well! If you're stupid enough to pay $10,000 to be locked in a hut in the AZ desert and and let a guy dressed up like God give you orders.......well check out and step aside and make room for a more "fitter" member of the species!
It's hard to believe in this day and time of almost perfect information that people get sucked into these cults.
Wallysmom
Obviously a group of rich people who need to find another hobby or something else to occupy their empty days...try a job.
jus1drun
very interesting
Chuckv
The Buddha's last words to his disciples were: "Be a lamp unto yourselves. Work out your own salvation with diligence." In contemporary American terms: Figure it out for yourself. Never turn off your bullshit detector.
I would like to think that Americans, with our traditions of independence and self reliance, our less susceptible than average to crackpots. Don't know if it is true, but I like to think so....
Sometimes it is good to ask yourself what would John Wayne do? If he had been sitting next to a person who fainted in the sweat lodge, he would have picked her up and carried her out regardless what the leader said. And it is not rocket science to know that a sweat lodge is not so good for already dehydrated people.
If you want to study Native American spirituality, by all means do so, but get it from the source, not a TV personality who charges $10,000 a pop.
And one other rule of thumb: Unless you are reading a book about physics, any book with "quantum" in the title is bullshit.
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GPatton
Never in the history of human endeavor has a TV celebrity chatfester put his/her photo on every issue of a monthly magazine that bears his/her name. This tops even Trump. She lives in an O-centric world that is coming apart. George Patton
MOZART
morecowbell...Then there's the 'anti ageing 'gurus' who, surprise
launch cosmetic lines, like that Perricon clown.
****************************
Thanks.....
You reminded me of something I have not thought about lately but is food for thought.
Some years ago I was in Canada visiting an older Aunt of mine who had worked outside of Toronto in an enormous cosmetic Laboratory.
Behind this industrial complex was the usual railroad tracks with box cars waiting to be filled up with cosmetics.
She said maybe forty - fifty cosmetic companies bought their cosmetics from her Laboratory.
The buyers brought their own containers which consisted of the drugstore type to very expensive containers that would eventually end up in someones trash heap.
What she was telling me is that the most inexpensive and the most expensive companies bought THE SAME COSMETICS.
So when you are paying a hundred and forty dollars for some junk in the posh store in your city remember that the same stuff in being sold in your drugstore for eight dollars and fifty cents.
Oh, yeah, she told me that the only thing that was sometimes changed was the scent..
KateTheGreat
This is absolutely true...most lipsticks, glosses, and eyeliner pencils are made by 6 manufacturers: 2 in China,1 each in Germany, France, and some wee island nobodies heard of (can't recall sorry!)...same thing with foundation and other cosmetics.
nortonclybourn
At least this plague afflicted only the wealthy worried well with too much time on their hands. Oprah's publicizing of the Satanic Ritual Abuse/Recovered Memory hysteria devastated many more lives and families. In any case, whether it's harmless nonsense like The Secret or a deadly snare for those with more money than sense, Oprah is too credulous to lead others. She must still be racking her brain trying to figure out why the President hasn't called to offer her a cabinet post.
Granite
I'm sorry but I think the time honored sweat lodge tradition is crap. If you fast and sweat for 36 hours are you having a spiritual experience? No! Your body goes into survival mode and you become delusional.
The same, if not better, outcomes can be had through meditation, journaling, therapy, etc..
Some people don't have enough confidence in themselves to find the "right answer" within themselves, so they look to a guru to bestow right answer upon them. They would have better luck with a magic 8 ball.
Here's some advice to these people: If you are going to spend $10,000, spent it on a mental health professional--just refer to him/her as your Quantum Cosmic Guru, to impress your friends.
Bahooka
Sweat Lodges and Temezcals are body purifying if nothing less - they can help with spiritual enlightenment too, but you need a knowledgeable practicioner or shaman to guide you and make your journey as confortable as possible. Allowing you to leave if it becomes hard for you to breathe, not have more than 8 to 10 people max. (I prefer around 4 people...) to be able to keep a constant watch over everybody's state of health. Plus, in a Temezcal you do not charge for the service, they only accept donations - no $10 Peruvian ponchos being sold for $250 in the real spiritual word.
As for Oprah, again...... she makes a mess of things more than she does good (child sweat shops, destroying the rain forest because she promotes acacia berries...) and when she tags around with Obama, she makes him look like even a more untrustable fool than normal.
vboone
It seems like some common sense would have saved those people, I would have kicked my way out if I had to.
Veronicaxy
@Vboone: And there's the rub: many religions and spiritual leaders tell you to leave behind your common sense to enter into a greater reality.
MOZART
I do not have the time or the inclination to watch Oprah but I understand that she is a good, generous person and probably harming others is the very last thing on her agenda.
However, in her organization, there is some serious firing to be done . Now.
From the bogus book she blessed a year or so ago to the school in Africa where supervisors abused children, people in Oprah's organization have betrayed her.
She needs to weed these people out and expose them. They obviously have their own agendas or are plain stupid.
Noontime
MOZART:
Finally, a voice of reason. So much animosity for Oprah Winfrey in these parts. With a big heart and sharp business sense the woman built an incredible empire and, as you astutely point out, she's being betrayed.
but is seems this has become yet another means to celebrate someone's fall from grace. I mean, how unlikely was it for a large, dark skinned, black woman--who wasnt blessed with the traditional standards of beauty--to rise to the heights she has?
Sorry, George Patton, Steff47, I just don't get your take on this..
Veronicaxy
She can't blame anyone else for her endorsement of these people.
She completely lost my respect when she endorsed "The Secret", about the most greedy take on New Ageism I've seen and I grew up with that stuff.
steff47
Will someone tell Oprah to just go away she is no longer required
MedicineHunter
As someone who has engaged in a great many shamanic rituals and practices with highly trained people, I am saddened that such a total reckless hack even gets press. Ray does a grave disservice to time-honored practices developed in native communities, and proves that people will gravitate to fakers, fiends and misfits. People died, and he should be up for manslaughter. Today. A good start will be for Oprah to totally denounce this nit.
Thank you.
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