Sweat Lodge Guru Sat in Shade as Victims Roasted

James Arthur Ray sat outside a sweat lodge in a shaded chair as the guru’s adherents died inside, and even discouraged onlookers from aiding those struggling with the intense heat, say newly released police documents. It would be “sacrilegious” to disassemble the structure, he told one woman who had just pulled out an unconscious victim. She did so anyway. Three died and twenty were hospitalized in the October incident in Arizona.

“You are not going to die,” the woman recalls Ray telling people inside the lodge. “You might think you are, but you are not going to die.” The lodge had no safety plan despite serious medical issues at two previous ceremonies, reports the New York Times. The documents “only tell part of the story,” a Ray lawyer says. The documents disagree: “There were no indications explaining why there were deaths and why people were getting sick other than it was extremely hot inside the sweat lodge.” (More James Arthur Ray stories.)