SWEATLODGE TRAVESTY TRAGEDY
SWEATLODGE TRAVESTY TRAGEDY
I have been wanting to write this blog for a month, but have been occupied and overwhelmed by other tragedies. However, there are some things that I want to say for those who read my words.
It was just about a month ago that an unimaginably horrible event happened in Arizona. As I remember, three people were killed and 22 people ended up in a hospital after experiencing what was called a sweat lodge ceremony. People had paid more than $9000 to go through five days of warrior training and purification. So much has happened to me since then that I may not have all of the details correct, but a New Age Guru had promised life changes to those who participated in this program. I suspect their lives did change, but not in the direction they had hoped.
Let me say categorically that this was not an Indian sweat Lodge nor was it done in the spirit of the Indian sweat. Let me list the differences:
There were 62 people in the Lodge. A trained Indian sweat lodge leader knows that one of his or her first jobs is to keep track of everyone in the Lodge and know what is happening to them. For that reason our lodges are small. The lodge at our house will hold a dozen participants at the most. The idea of 62 people in some kind of sweat ceremony just would not happen. There is no way that one can adequately take care of that many people. May I also add that I had seven years of training, sometimes being in six sweats a week, before my teacher turned me loose to have my own sweatlodge community.
We go into the Lodge to pray and to be purified. Certainly it is hot, very hot, but it is understood that if someone feels ill, it is expected that they would tell the leader and the door would be opened and they could leave. All of us have had to leave a sweat ceremony at some time or other. There is no shame in that. We have no interest in making people sick and certainly not in killing them. It is not a ceremony to demonstrate testosterone. It is a place for healing and prayer.
There is never a charge for a traditional native ceremony. It is not something that is done to make money. One cannot buy a sweat lodge ceremony for any amount of money, not if it is done by a traditionally trained and authorized ceremonialist. I know that there are good people who run sweats for money. I know of one physician who charges $500 for a sweat Lodge. I don’t question that he is a good man of honorable intentions, but that is contrary to what we believe about the nature of the sacred. It is not for sale. It is not the Indian way.
So what ever one wants to call that travesty in Arizona, it was not an Indian sweat Lodge. In a way it demonstrates what can happen when some eager person takes a ceremony out of the culture which birthed it and tries to rework it in a different culture for a different purpose. There are a lot of well-meaning New Age people who have sweat lodges and who have not been adequately trained to run them. They don’t know the cultural context nor do they know how to protect the participants. The one good thing that could come out of this terrible situation, is that it might slow down the proliferation of such sweat lodges.
Mitakuye oyas’in,
Sings-Alone
November 10th, 2009 at 1:44 am
thank you grandfather for your comments. Native people and their traditions have been persecuted enough. The media does not understand the differences from this tragedy and the Indian way. This non traditional tragedy in Arizona is portrayed in the media as a “sweatlodge” in which the general public identifies as Native American Indian craziness. It creates fear of our traditions. Thank you for explaining the difference to your readers. I pray for the spirits of the ones who met an untimely crossing and the families they leave behind. I also pray for the misguided leader of this tragedy in hopes that he can regain his balance from ego and greed.
All my relations
Otterheart
November 10th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Thank you for your prayers for the all the victims, including the leader, involved in this travesty. Let’s also pray that such a thing never happens again.
–Sings-Alone
December 17th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Thank you, Grandfather, for sharing your thoughts. When I heard the story, I thought of you and that this careless appropriation of sacred rituals for profit must be deeply saddening. But I was worried about asking for your thoughts on the matter because I did not want to compare your sweat lodges to theirs in any way other than that they were pretending to be you.
I believe this is part of the Secret nonsense, which seems to me to be profit-driven and predatory. If so, then I believe the participants were probably led to believe (whether or not it was ever voiced), that it was their own fault and their own minds which were creating this problem. Hence, asking to leave means they have failed and have brought illness on themselves.
The Secret’s philosophical system has perverted Frankl’s (and many others’) excellent idea of learning to live with or overcome a bad thing by changing the way you think about it and to find meaning in and despite it, and instead claims that not only can our minds help us overcome obstacles, but our minds create ALL the obstacles we face–including things others do to us or things that truly are beyond our physical capacity. The more honest practitioners have admitted this means that they believe molested children bring it on themselves, as do starving children, victims of genocide, etc.
Not only is it incredibly damaging to victims and dangerous to people who believe it, but it means that the people running these “lodges” can blame the dead and sickened people for not having faith or for worrying this whole thing into existence. As I said above, I find that group sick and predatory. There is enough guilt in the world without their having to add more to the innocent.