Deeper Reflections on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Incident

I was talking to a girlfriend who I sit with every Friday in “Women’s Lodge.”  We were reflecting on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Tragedy with James Ray and I was telling her I had just written an article about this.  The irony is we were also celebrating my CD “Emergence” going to manufacturing that day.  And the theme of “Emergence” is really about the emerging of the feminine into her rightful place of power right along side of the masculine.

The masculine energy is all about the push.  It is about the “doing!”  There is a place for pushing and doing but there is also a place for surrender and being.  These qualities have gotten a bad rap in our primarily patriarchal society.  James Ray is a prime example of focusing on the “push” to get ahead in life.  And for so many people “financial gain” is what it is all about.  It is the financial gain that gives people a sense of worth and value in their lives.  The more money one has the more admiration he/she receives.  It is the ultimate sign of success.

Spiritual enlightenment and the ability to sit still and reflect don’t figure very prominently in the average persons view of success.

From the information I have gathered James Ray’s Spiritual Warriors program was not about success but rather survival.  It was a survival program and several did not survive.  Did this make them weak?  Did it make them failures?  Or did it make them a victim of a man who was playing God?

For those who have been reading my writing you know I don’t like to use the word victim lightly.  We are all responsible for our own course of action in life and we all have free will.  But sometimes we find ourselves in very confusing situations and it is difficult to understand what is happening.  Without clarity it is sometimes really hard to make a good choice.  It can be easier to be passive and wait until we understand what is going on.  It is in this passive state we become victims of a subtle force that is manipulating us against our knowing.   This is what happens when in the presence of narcissists.

As my girlfriend and I talked more about the Arizona incident we realized that there really was a projection going on in that sweat lodge.  The leader, who sat up next to the door of the lodge could not know what it was like for those people in the back.  They didn’t have access to the same oxygen the leader did.  This leader was running from his own weakness and pushing his unconscious burdens out onto those around him.  He had to learn the “push” to get from a poor boy to a rich man.  He had to, on many levels, ignore his weaknesses and push them into the shadows.  But when we push our weaknesses into the shadows we project them onto others and punish those who mirror our weaknesses back to us.  We punish them by turning our backs on them, spitting on them, abandoning them or whatever we need to do in order to prevent those weaknesses from emerging in our lives.

The truth is, I don’t know this man James Ray and I don’t have a right to talk about him as if I did.  What I do know is narcissism and the tragedy it creates in people who align with it whether it be in personal relationship or following a spiritual guru who has his own agenda.  I’m picking on James Ray and making an example out of him.  Because I did my research enough to know enough.  What happened in that lodge should never have happened.  It was the result of very poor and narcissistic leadership.

Perhaps we can learn from this incident.  Something good can always come out of tragedy and trauma.  Some of the retreat participants said Ray was teaching the participants to trust.  There is a place for blind faith.  But putting our faith in others has to be an earned action.  We don’t blindly put our faith in those who could lead us astray.  Trust is something that has to be earned by trustworthy people.  We can initially choose to trust someone but still be a little suspicious.  This tad bit of suspicion can be a healthy thing because so many people are not trustworthy.

The most important trust we can develop is trust in our own instincts and intuition.  This is really trusting in God/Goddess, the source of our life.  This source will communicate with us if we listen.  But in the unbalanced world of the patriarch we have forgotten how to listen.  We are too busy pushing and blindly trusting those who promise us the world on a silver platter.   Our own egoic desires to be accepted, loved and approved of lead us down the road of wanting.  We push to get something we don’t have.  What we really need to learn to do is sit still and take account of what we do have.  Count our blessings for what life has given us and expand on that.  Being financially wealthy is not a sign of success.  It is a sign of financial wealth, period!  Some of the most enlightened masters of our time didn’t have much money.  Money was not their goal and if it was given to them they would often just pass it right on.  They learned to trust in the spirit of their being and know they are provided for.  They could receive a great deal of money and selflessly give it to the needy without a thought for their own needs.  Because the most enlightened people on the planet don’t see themselves as needy.  All their needs are provided for.  They don’t judge themselves by what clothing they wear, what house they live in, what car they drive and how many books they sell.

I’m not saying we should all take a vow of poverty.  That is not necessary.  Money is not in itself evil.  It is the focus on money at the expense of all else that brings about evil.  Money is simply a medium of exchange.  In our current society it is necessary to have money and it is perfectly fine to charge a fair compensation for products and services offered.  It is when money becomes our focus rather than offering a quality product, that we shift from being a giver to a taker.

The irony of the Arizona retreat is that James Ray was probably sincerely trying to help people get out of their comfort zones, rely on their inner resources and trust in themselves but his own weaknesses got in the way.  We are neither all good or all bad.  We have both the good and the bad within us.  It really depends on what seeds we nurture what will take root and grow.  At any given moment we might have the opportunity to nurture a bad seed and if we take it there will be negative consequences.  James Ray may not be a narcissist at all, but he was exhibiting strong narcissistic behaviors at the retreat.  Pushing people to their death is narcissistic to say the least.  It is not that he was consciously aware that he was pushing people to their deaths.  It was more that he was pushing his own repressed weaknesses upon the people of that lodge.  He didn’t truly know himself.  It is my feeling that he had been running from that poor little boy for so long that he forgot this little kid was a part of him.  It is so common that we reject the part of us that is weak, fragile,  and sensitive.  We reject these parts of ourselves by shoving them into the deepest darkest corners of our psyche.  But they don’t really go away.  They become the demons in our closet because we have turned our backs on them.  If we don’t truly know ourselves we project our inner demons outward.  We put them on others!  This is what happened in that lodge.  James Ray, from what I learned, didn’t fast or go without sleep as the others did.  He didn’t deprive himself of water for 36 hours while wondering in the Arizona desert and then immediately be taken into blazing sweat lodge temperatures that took participants far beyond their physical ability to endure.  Put in a fire everyone will burn, I don’t care how strong you are!  We are human!  We have weaknesses!  We have limits!  Sooner or later we all die of something.  We are vulnerable!

It is the feminine qualities of compassion, kindness, intuition and nurturing that are sorely lacking in this world.  The good news is that these qualities are beginning to make a come-back.  The feminine is emerging!  And I believe it is the qualities of the feminine that many of those people attending the spiritual retreat were looking for.  Because it is these qualities that take us to that deep place within ourselves that is connected to God.  We don’t push our way to God!  It is my hope that those who survived that week have learned this lesson.  Had enough people been in touch with their instincts they would have torn that lodge apart to survive.  But they had already undergone certain conditioning that set them up to “trust the leader.”  This is a very dangerous thing.  It is why so many followed Hitler in Nazi Germany.   They were conditioned!  Had people trusted their own instincts and detached from the “group mind” they would never have gone along with the plan to kill millions of innocent people.

There is a place in this world for the patriarchal, masculine energies, and there is a place for the matriarchal feminine energies.  They are both equally important for balance on our planet.  As far as I am concerned this Arizona Sweat Lodge episode was far tilted to the patriarch.  It was a masculine based physical endurance test.

It is my hope that those who lost their lives in this incident didn’t do it in vain.  Will those of us paying attention get it?  The game of “follow the leader” is over!  Its time to trust in yourself!  Listen to your intuition and follow its guidance.  Learn from others, listen to what they say, but also listen to yourself and make a decision on if the information you are hearing is resonating with you.  Your own internal guidance system is the ultimate leader for your life.  Those in leadership positions merely share their knowledge, experience and information with you.  Put in through your filter first.  If it feels right to you, great!  If most of it feels right but some of it doesn’t, great!  Take only what you can use and leave the rest.  There is not one of us who step out onto the stage of life and share our knowledge with others, who has the answers for everyone.  We don’t!  We are only human!  We know what we know but most of us still have a whole lot to learn.  Take James Ray for example.  I’ll bet his life lessons are just beginning.  He may have believed he had it all figured out at fifty something, earned his guru’s license and the rest was downhill.  He couldn’t have planned for what life had waiting for him.  My guess is it won’t be business as usual in his corner.  Admirers and followers will be put to the test on this one.  People will either turn a blind eye and defend the man or they will look within and realize that they can no longer put their trust in someone who would guide so many into danger.

It is like the victims of narcissistic abuse I work with.  Initially most victims are very trusting of the narcissist in their life.  But when all is said and done the true colors come out and the trust is shattered.  As much as those of us who have been through this kind of abuse want to trust in that person, we can’t.  Its over!  We have awakened!  The demons have come out of the narcissists closet and we have taken the burden upon our own shoulders. But it is not ours to carry!  At what point would any of us allow this person we had elevated to God like status in our lives to take life itself from us?  How many of us get close?  Where do we draw the line?

The patriarch is crumbling!  Let it fall!   Patriarchal leadership has led us astray in government,  in business, the church and in our homes.  No doubt we all seek a positive change in our lives.  But that change truly comes from within.  It is time for us to be the leaders of our own lives and stop blindly putting faith in others to lead us.  Those who teach us to trust in our intuitive knowing offer the greatest value because they truly teach us to place the greatest importance on listening to the God within.  Follow the voice of your spirit and listen to its song.  It wants to sing through you.

note:  When I speak of the patriarch and masculine and feminine energies I am not talking about male versus female.  We all have both masculine and feminine qualities within us.  The Patriarch I refer to is masculine based leadership without the feminine qualities.  It is the lack of balance that I am referring to.