Excerpt from Plastic Shaman by Annette McGivney:
The ceremony was one giant act of playing Indian, with Angel Valley’s owners and their staff as well as James Ray and his followers all taking part. Ray had told participants he was trained in the sweat lodge practice by a Lakota elder and was going to conduct the ceremony in a traditional, sacred manner. But the plastic shaman made up his own rules and methods.
Unlike leaders of the Lakota ceremony, who typically use a wooden ladle to gently scoop water from a two-gallon pail onto the hot rocks, Ray dumped water straight from a five-gallon bucket. This created a mushroom cloud of scalding steam that exploded throughout the sealed tent.
The deadly Sedona sweat lodge, high-dollar New Age shamans, and the clash between Native American ceremonies and non-Natives who sell them for profit—this is the introduction to Annette McGivney’s new book, Plastic Shaman. Her last book, Pure Land, was about a senseless murder that took place on the Havasupai Reservation and her brave solo investigation into what happened and why.
Most of us Sedona old-timers have read various accounts of what happened in the infamous James Arthur Ray/Angel Valley sweat lodge deaths, but very few of us know what it felt like inside the “heat endurance tent” at Angel Valley Retreat center in October of 2009.. Annette offers a sobering look inside the tent in a harrowing scene in Plastic Shaman.
As a fan of her work in Pure Land and someone who has followed the sweat lodge tragedy, I was interested in an advance copy of Plastic Shaman, due out in September. When I found many new details in the book I had not been aware of, I contacted her for an interview.
Q. What happened in the sweat lodge that you were surprised to learn in your investigation?
What surprised me about the sweat lodge- I mean I can't say i was really surprised but I was disappointed, the lack of compassion that most people inside that sweat lodge had-how they were literally crawling over the dying bodies of James Shore and Kirby Brown to get out of the sweat lodge, some people were in physical distress, others were being inconsiderate or even cruel, just thinking of themselves, over the people that were having problems, and the fact more people didnt try to rescue and help people inside the sweat lodge when they were clearly in distress. James Shore was the one hero. but no one else tried to help.
Q. After reviewing all the documents. and interviews, what fork in the road do you see where the sweat lodge deaths could have been stopped? Or could they have?
A.One-the provider of the self help retreat, should be required to be licenced in some form much like a massage therapist needs to be licensed.Even someone to cut your hair needs to be licensed, so how can someone who calls themselves a self help expert that involves potentially dangerous procedures be allowed to do that without any type of licencing or cerfification, like through a state board, like you do for barbers. That would have offered some oversight. Sweat Lodges over all should not be happening through non native people, so that comes down to the consumer, like buyer beware. Through my book I try to educate people how fraught offering Native American indgenous ceremonies is for money. That should not be happening. Spirituality should not be sold from indegenous people. Wellness consumers need to be more respectful of indegenous practices, and realize its not just for everyone to get benefit from. It needs to be under circumstances that Native people approve of and initiate themselves- not some con man who is just trying to make money.
Q.You have had a lot of experience working with Native Communities. Is there agreement among these communities about the teachings of traditional ceremonies to non Natives?
A. First of all I want to say, i don't want to be generalizing- all Native Americans think this or think that.It's the same as generalizing about all people from Europe. Every tribe has its unique ways of thinking, of language and spirituality and food traditions. I just want to preface generalizations on that but ha, I think now I'll generalize. It's pretty safe to safe that most Native Americans in North America do not support non native people practicing or selling their ceremonies or their spiritual traditions. That is just taboo. It is taboo for reasons of appropriation of non natives taking from native culture without their approval and its especially harmful when those ceremonies are being commercialized for profit. I think those two things are really despised and hated and viewed as just a continuation of the erasure and genocide of native cultures that the United States goverment and the American people have been inflicting on native cultures since 1776.
Q. For me, one of the biggest mysteries is that people want to pay money to be bossed around and verbally or emotionally abused by someone. Any ideas on why this is the case?
A. Now we are talking about James Arthur Ray and the psychology of this type of self-help retreat that seems very manipulative and cruel. They call it a “breakdown.” The leader is yelling and belittling people. Why would people even want that? I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist. As I explain in the book, there is something called Large Group Awareness Training. The culture of that has to do with a leader like Ray—or Tony Robbins—standing up on a stage and rattling people. You don’t see someone who is homeless go to one of these retreats and get yelled at. It’s usually well-off people, who are weirdly paying to have their world critiqued and have their cages rattled. They know they lead a comfortable life, and they think they’re going to get further in life by being challenged in this way.
Q. I found the scene where you met Michael Hamilton of Angel Valley striking and reminiscent of many exchanges I have witnessed through the years of living in Sedona where one person assumes the mantle of spiritual superiority. Can you comment on this interaction?
A. My interaction with him was similar in terms of the way Ray’s followers might have interacted with Ray, in that Michael had positioned himself and his business so that he was a spiritual knowledge keeper. He held information that he could impart to you, this wisdom from his life experience and by being metaphysically aware. That’s how he was promoting himself: that he was communicating with angels and other entities. In order to maintain that kind of dynamic, you set yourself up in this position of authority and as an expert where you don’t allow questioning. It’s also good for business, because you want people to buy what you are selling. The whole idea around the New Age idea is that what happens to you is your own creation. If you lose your job or get a divorce or become homeless, that the action you have done in your life, karmically—that you haven’t addressed in your past lives—is somehow manifested in this negative situation that is happening to you. On the flip side, if good things are happening for you, it’s also because you have created that. That philosophy is very commercially successful because it keeps people in this bubble of selfishness.
Q. Do you see hope 100 years from now for your descendants and Sylvia’s descendants for the wounds of colonization to have healed?
A. (Laughs) I don’t know if humans will be around 100 years from now because of climate change, but I definitely find hope in younger generations. Millennials and Gen Z seem way more understanding and open to embracing the painful history of the United States and the harms that colonization has caused. They’re like, “Of course, that history must be told.” They are very curious and wanting to learn more. I see younger people as far less likely to marginalize Native people. Even Baby Boomers that view themselves as progressive and outdoorsy—I’ve had them tell me, “I don’t know if we should return the Grand Canyon or National Parks to Native Americans because they wouldn’t manage it correctly.” Whereas younger people will say, “Of course we should return the Grand Canyon to Indigenous people,” and they don’t have that kind of bias. I think there is a lot of hope in that.
I recommend this book to my readers, as well as Pure Land.
It will give you a lot to ponder and chew over. Plastic Shaman would be an excellent book club selection. You can get it elsewhere if you wish but Annette appreciates an order through an indepedent online boookstore. If you read it, send me a note and let me know what you think.
