The Wacky Things People Will Do for a "Spiritual" Exerience

Two people died and 19 others were seriously injured during some sort of wacky "spiritual" retreat in Arizona:

The Angel Valley Retreat Center is owned by Michael and Amayra Hamilton, who rented it to Ray for a five-day "Spiritual Warrior" retreat that promised to "absolutely change your life."

On Saturday, Amayra Hamilton said Ray has held the event at the resort for seven years, and there never have been any problems.

Hamilton said the resort remains closed to the public. The sweat lodge has been dismantled and a ceremony was conducted for those affected by Thursday's incident.

"The whole situation is very traumatizing for everybody," she said.

The people at Ray's retreat, whose ages ranged from 30 to the 60s, paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend.

Ray and his staff constructed the temporary sweat lodge with a wood frame and covered it with layers of tarps and blankets, Waugh said. The sweat lodge — a structure commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events — was 53 inches high at the center and about 30 inches high around the outer edges.

Between 55 and 65 people were crowded into the 415-square-foot space during a two-hour period that included various spiritual exercises led by Ray, Waugh said. Every 15 minutes, a flap was raised to allow more volcanic rocks the size of cantaloupes to be brought inside.

Authorities said participants were highly encouraged but not forced to remain in the sweat lodge for the entire time.

Joseph Bruchac, author of "The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends," called the number of participants in the lodge "appalling."

"If you put people in a restrictive, airtight structure, you are going to use up all oxygen," he said by phone Saturday from his home in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. "And if you're doing a sweat, you're going to use it up that much faster."

American Indian sweat lodges typically hold about 12 people and are covered with blankets made of natural materials, such as cotton or wool, and the air flow isn't restricted, he said.

"I don't see how the person running that lodge could have been aware of the health and well-being of that many people," he said.

The participants had fasted for 36 hours as part of a personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness, then ate a breakfast buffet Thursday morning. After various seminars, they entered the sweat lodge lightly dressed at 3 p.m.

Two hours later, a woman dialed 911 to say that two people, whom Waugh identified as Brown and Shore, did not have a pulse and weren't breathing.

A nurse hired by Ray was directing rescue efforts including CPR when emergency crews arrived, Waugh said. Shore and Brown were pronounced dead when they arrived at a hospital.

Well, the event "absolutely changed" at least two lives. The struggle some people go through to find meaning in their life can really take some sad turns.