Thomas J. McFeeley Communications

I’m often approached by exeuctives and small business owners before they conduct their  first media interview. They feel excited.  They feel nervous. They feel  lost. 

My simple advice? Listen to the band R.E.M.: “Stand in the Place Where You Work.”  

Let me explain. 

(We will assume that the interview is via telephone; not one in front of a camera. TV interviews are another ball game altogether. But many of the same principles apply.)

I tell them: Close It. Shut It. And Stand Up.  You will want to eliminate as many distractions as possible. So before the interview, close the door to your office. Shut down your email (or preferably the computer itself). And conduct the interview standing up.

If you “Stand in the Place Where You Work” you will sound more energized, you will project your words more, and you will be focused on the questions and, just as importantly, your answers.  Otherwise, you will probably sink back in your (hopefully) plush and comfortable office chair, stare at your incoming e-mail or doddle on your too long to-do list. All of those things feel normal to you.

And a media interview is anything but normal.

One more tip? Figure out what one thing you need the reporter to take away from the interview. And repeat it. And repeat it again. Maybe even say “If there’s one thing about this subject you should know it’s ……”  Maybe use a dramatic pause. That will leave an impression with a reporter.

Unless you stay seated, too comfortable and distracted. Then your results may feel like  “The End of the World As You Know It.”

We are offended by the publicity stunt of PETA in the form of an offensive remark about the deaths of three people. Our loved ones died in an imitation sweat lodge at the hands of a narcissistic self-proclaimed guru who lied about his qualifications and whose actions – not the lodge itself – have been found as the ultimate cause of these deaths.

We are offended that these three deaths and numerous injuries have been ridiculed by this proposed billboard and represents the ignorance we now seek to eliminate – the lack of knowledge that self-help leaders have an unchecked ability to mislead, lie, and put hard-working decent people in harm’s way for the sake of ego and wealth.

We all know the justice system never delivers the truth. Despite asking witnesses to give “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” lawyers want anything but. They ask questions that will yield only a fraction of the truth, or a certain angle of truth. The slice of truth that helps their client, or their chance of a conviction.

In the James Ray manslaughter trial phrases such as prior bad acts, 404(b), causation, disclosure,  and relevant case law have limited the scope of testimony (or the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth).

I don’t think anyone was fooled into believing the entire story would come out at trial. It’s a defense attorney’s job to limit damaging testimony. And this case has a ton of it.

I was prepared to be frustrated.

I wasn’t prepared to be scared.

Over the last two days, the defense has argued for a mistrial (for the second time in a week) based on a simple two-page email  that the prosecution failed to turn over to the defense. (Over 8,000 pages of evidence has been given to Mr. Ray’s team. But 7,998 pages out of 8,000 could – it turns out – be good enough for a mistrial.)

The notion that James Ray will walk out of that courthouse a free man, legally blameless for these deaths, has crossed my mind. However my mental version had the jury (at least one or two stubborn members of it) hung up on some reasonable doubt.

I wasn’t prepared for that to come via a technicality.

Since the trial began, any watcher has noticed the approach of Sheila Polk, the lead prosecutor. What she lacks in style points she more than makes up in intelligence, strategy, and an unflappable nature that allows her to cover all of the bases. She has been impressive to say the least.

But over the last 48 hours, the notion that Sheila’s team could lose the whole ball game because someone didn’t hit “fwd:” on an email seemed impossible. And it taught me just how important this trial and its outcome really is to me.

Judge Warren R. Darrow took just a few hours to make his ruling. But as I mindlessly sat in my backyard swing, I didn’t think. I just felt.

I called Kirby’s mother, my Aunt Ginny, to see how she was. She was at work and she was, in her words, “horrible.” Contrary to my reasons for calling her, neither of us felt better for hearing each other’s voices.  I heard the fear in her voice; I was reminded how much more important these proceedings in Camp Verde, AZ are to her.

She buried a child.

We had a bad connection and the call dropped after just a couple of minutes. Neither of us tried to reconnect. I felt hollow. I texted Kirby’s brother, who had encouraging words for me. But mostly I waited.

This couldn’t be over today; the search for (part of) the truth, the (legal) responsibility for the death of three amazing people, the closure sought by so many for a large part of this senseless tragedy. It hung in the balance because 0.00025 percent of all the documents were not sent to Mr. Ray’s lawyers.

Thankfully, Judge Darrow ruled against a mistrial. Though he said a “Brady violation” was committed (that’s the legal jargon for failure to disclose a document), his belief was the evidence included in that two-page email was not different than evidence already known by both parties.

Someone’s right to a fair trial is not to be taken lightly. It’s a notion on which our legal system rests. As much as a defendant may not be likable (and this one is far from warm and fuzzy), he deserves his day in court, and he deserves a fair trial.

It was hard to fathom that a two-page email by an expert that the state did not hire, was not ultimately called as a witness, and the contents of which were not a formal report, could derail Mr. Ray’s fair trial.

I wondered what rights Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman were built into this system.  Life is not fair. Death, it seems, might be less fair.

Anyone following this trial has been walking on eggshells for weeks. With each witness, each piece of testimony, and the momentum of one side over another, we tread carefully. But starting today, we move on, walking on another layer of figurative eggshells – just to get to the end of the trial.

And we hope everyone’s rights are protected and realized. Including those of Kirby, James Shore, and Liz.

I don’t like conflict.

I mean I love to debate meaningless things: Whether a Sugar Daddy is a candy bar (It is, the stick is for convenience); whether cats can prefer one food over another (you can’t prove it; preference is a human word/concept cats can’t communicate; guess away though); whether the designated hitter is necessary (It’s not; pitchers should hit).

But I hate fighting.

Fights themselves, obviously, are uncomfortable. But the atmosphere after a fight, or during an ongoing longer-term disagreement, has everyone walking on eggshells.

Debbie Mercer, a former volunteer at Angel Valley retreat center, is testifying on egg shells today in the James Ray manslaughter trial.

Tom Kelly, one of the defense attorneys, is vehemently objecting to 30-40 percent of questions and replies. Obviously, her testimony about the conditions of people in sweat lodges at Angel Valley (both James Ray’s and others) is potentially very damaging to Mr. Kelly’s case and excluding as much of it is in the defense’s best interests.

So when we arrive at a portion in which almost every question is objected to, the witness is confused with his or her eyes darting around. Their answers are tentative and cagey. And as a viewer, I feel as if we are not getting the “whole truth” as we were promised.

Since Judge Warren Darrow has allowed a limited amount of evidence about “prior acts” to be admitted earlier this week, the prosecution has seized that opportunity; the defense quite obviously is sitting on the edge of its seat waiting for what it believes to be inappropriate questions and evidence to be presented to the jury.

The stakes are just as high as they have always been. Three families (and thousands of friends) have lost loved ones in this horrific story. But the trial, as you hope ever y official proceeding in this country does, started civilly with great respect for the process. The state respects the court and the defense and vice versa. The fate of one self-help guru (and in a way the future of the industry) sits in the balance.

But when the judge admonishes the parties that “personal attacks” won’t be permitted, everyone knows a new, critical level has been reached. The case is expected to last another couple of months. With no love lost at this point, every day should be tense and very charged.

But let’s hope that the truth is the real winner. That witnesses are able to testify despite their discomfort and fear. And that everyone pays respect to the three victims who died; and remembers there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of other victims. And despite our differences, and our fighting, that we hold them up a little bit higher than our enemies.

When I think about my cousin Kirby Brown, I often think of imperfect people.  She cared about everyone, but she paid special attention to those who might have had a checkered background, who might have been left behind by society, or otherwise was an afterthought.

So when Fawn Foster (a worker at Angel Valley) took the stand today, I immediately thought about Kirby. Foster has a history of arrests (including a DUI about 15 years ago, possession of drug paraphernalia) that the defense plans to use to impeach her credibility. (A witness’s past is relevant; the defendant’s is not?)

As I watched her testimony, I learned that she stayed down by the sweat lodge during the imitation ceremony “because my gut told me to” and that she helped people she didn’t know “because that’s what you do.”

A veteran of about 10 sweat lodges, Miss Foster was concerned by what she saw and called the scene after the lodge as “about the worst thing you could imagine.” She had very good recall of what she saw and heard, including:

• Dream Team members pushing a participant back into the sweat lodge until someone spoke up for the woman;
• Someone saying “We have three people down back here” after round 7 of the ceremony, and Mr. Ray responding by saying they would have wait another round (about 15-20 minutes)
• Mr. Ray calling for 18 rocks in the lodge for one round, a number she called “astronomical.”

When she testified about the burning of the lodge two days after the deaths, Foster became emotional. Foster, who is at least 50 percent Native American, clearly respected the sweat lodge ceremony and was moved by the tragedy.

So I wondered if Fawn had said hello to Kirby during the week. Doubtful, but she was the type of person Kirby would spend an extra moment or two with. She would ask her about the locale or ask for a restaurant recommendation, or a great hiking trail. At the end of that conversation, Foster would feel a little better about herself, and seek out Kirby again. We all sought out Kirby.

Having met literally hundreds of people directly because of this tragedy, I’ve been reminded that Kirby had so many friends to whom I might not give a second chance. Or even a second glance.

She had that magical ability to instantly see something great in everyone, and to find it within one conversation.

So while Fawn Foster might be called an alcoholic or drug user (perhaps in court today, by the defense), I’ve learned to see something different. I choose to see her heart, her goodness, rather than her “record.”  I once heard that everything you can remember about your life is in your past. I don’t know who first said it, but it could just as well have been Kirby.  Today Fawn Foster is a hero; someone who is coming forth to tell the truth because “that’s just what you do.”

If we can all learn that lesson from Fawn and Kirby, we can make sure these senseless deaths actually have some meaning and we live a better today because of them.

I love baseball, as I mentioned a few days ago, because it is played most every night for six months. Following your favorite team from April through September is like a really great reality series – there are subplots, emerging stars, unexpected developments, injuries, rookies, trades and so many other factors that go into the season-long success for failure of a team

Some nights, though, it’s flat out boring.

In the four-month event that is the James Ray trial, some days are starting to get boring.

Actually, I should correct myself. Late yesterday, for the last 90 minutes or so, I stepped away. Rachel’s son had a school dance. As has become the custom for these 90-minute dances, I dropped him off, and killed time by having a couple of beers and, last night at least, watching the NCAA basketball tournament.

I had tried to pause the testimony in the case. For whatever reason, I could not go back to see Scott Barratt’s first 90 minutes on the stand. He was a name I was not overly familiar with, surely not a vital state’s witness. Between pausing the computer feed, my Twitter friends (with their #jamesray tweets and updates), some news stories and Facebook postings, I would get the essence of what I missed.

So when it came time today for Mr. Barratt to continue on the stand, I was into it less than almost every other witness so far.

He was important for the state in that he is a former military pilot, an impressive figure standing 6’5” and in very good shape for his 62 years of age. Earlier in life he was even a cowboy. (How cool – how often do you meet a real-life cowboy!) He was another likable figure to present a jury while the defense continues to utter words like “cultish” to describe the conventional wisdom about their client’s fans and events.

Mr. Barratt was often very funny, didn’t appear to have taken a “side” in the case, and was a good foil to defense attorney Tom Kelly, who handled the cross examination. He provided testimony that James Ray knew a larger woman was presumably passed out behind Mr. Barratt, that he thought the sweat lodge participants had been “hypnotized” during the week to participate in dangerous activities and to suspend their normal common sense.

Those types of statements need to come from almost all participant witnesses for the state now; it will be the essence of prosecutors’ arguments at the close of trial – combined with that idea the Mr. Ray knew there was trouble, and a reasonable risk of serious injury or death.

I only write about the statements I did see, either in highlights or on TV/computer today. I do not want to characterize his overall testimony.

But it’s Friday, and this is a tiring trial. And it was just a bit hard for me to get into today.

So when I hear the defense ask each witness if this waiver looks familiar, and if they put one foot in front of the other to walk into the lodge, and whether they exercised free will and choice to participate, my eyes glaze over or I check my e-mail.

I wonder what the 17 remaining jurors (5 will be picked as alternates) must be feeling. At least when the lawyers argue or they are in recess, I can make lunch or pay a bill or run to the store. They are stuck in probably a small non-descript jury room.

So I hope that the overall impression of a credible witness trumps the repetitive, often important, testimony that they may not be focused upon.

I mean even Derek Jeter takes a night off once in a while, right?

I’m a terrible golfer.

I know this. When I swing I have no idea where the ball is going, though I can reasonably assume it won’t go backwards, at least.  I’m more likely to chip a coffee mug than a golf ball into the hole. And, when on the putting green, I posses about as much touch as, say, Godzilla.

But I love to play. (If you define love as frequent pouting, throwing clubs and drinking enough beer during the round to eventually not care). So I’m very familiar with the term “mulligan.”

For non-golfers, a mulligan is essentially a do-over. When I hit a ball into the water, or the woods, or fail to reach the women’s tee – a got 1 or 2 chances a round to put down another ball and take my “mulligan”

Fellow Irishman Tom Kelly, the defense attorney for James Ray, seemed to take a mulligan today. After a round of questioning that he equated to “our fight” with prosecution witness Melinda Martin yesterday afternoon, he returned today in quite a different temperament.

His opening question to her was along the lines of “Would you agree that this jury is entitled to the truth without exaggeration, Miss Martin?”

Her claims to police and media in the days and weeks following the sweat lodge deaths that the scene was like a MASH unit and an EMT worker said it looked like a mass suicide (similar terms to participants descriptions by the way) served as exaggerations on her part. (Interestingly, with male witnesses, Ray’s attorneys tend to use sports analogies; with female witnesses, testimony is often guided or exaggerated by “emotion”)

Martin, Ray’s event coordinator (though her boss Megan Fredrickson served that role for the Spiritual Warrior event), hung tough. She thought carefully about her responses, at one point firing back “Now that’s an exaggeration on your part.”

Kelly also used her testimony to draw a legally-sketchy flowchart of the James Ray International Corporate structure. The new and improved, much friendlier Tom Kelly today, asked Melinda to walk him through various JRI employees to create a new (and surely more legal) flowchart.

Kelly’s questions were much less combative, he mentioned exaggeration only a couple of times almost matter-of-factly. As a result, Ms. Martin’s answers were more gentile and not as far-reaching. She never backed off those MASH/mass suicide statements, which I trust the state will revisit.

On a side note, Kelly’s numerous questions about the TV interviews Martin conducted may provide prosecutor Sheila Polk room to revisit them and their contents, either on redirect or perhaps as evidence. As Mr. Kelly knows, Ms. Martin mentioned the July death of Colleen Conaway during one of those interviews, including how the incident was kept from participants and herself.

James Shore and Lou Caci were among those who attended the event at which Conaway perished, and at which JRI employees lied about it.

If that evidence gets in, Mr. Kelly will not get a mulligan. He might have to put on the scuba gear to retrieve his “golf ball.” But it’s his client he would have sunk.

I have a very close friend I’ve known for about 25 years, since I was 14 years old. Let’s call him Bean, since that’s what I call him.

I’m his daughter’s godfather. He was in my wedding. He is my go-to. If I need anything, he’s the first friend I think of. We’ve been through a lot together. We needle each other and, because we are basically brothers, we do ruffle each other’s feathers. His family is my family and vice versa.

If we horse around in his pool, or he knocks me out with his remote while playing Wii swordfighting too aggressively, or anything ever happened to me, I know Bean would have my back. Without blame or fault, he would make sure I got the care I needed and, if necessary, ask the questions I failed to ask.

I couldn’t help think of Bean today while watching the James Ray trial. This morning’s witness – carried over from yesterday – was Lou Caci. Caci was a personal friend of Ray’s for almost 20 years. Ray was in his wedding party; Caci attended more than a half-dozen of Ray’s events over the years. They had gone drinking before doing “men stuff” according to Luis LI, Ray’s attorney.

Caci has been limited to answering very specific questions. When Li peppered him with questions about who constructed the sweat lodge at the center of three deaths in this case, Caci wanted to explain his answer, but Li cut him off. Repeatedly, Li said it would “work better” if Caci just answered his questions, and nothing more.

Caci talks about the lessons he’s learned from Ray, even calling him a “good man.” Many of these lessons have to do with life’s struggles, being a better man, and accepting your responsibility for your actions.

But instead, in this courtroom, he’s limited mostly to “yes/no” answers and what he thinks of his friend, and his friend’s actions, and the lack of responsibility his friend showed in a horrific situation – in which Caci himself burned his arm in three spots and needed hospitalization.

Ray never asked him about his arm, during or after the sweat lodge. Ray never sent a single representative of his organization to the hospital, to check on Caci or the 17 others transported by ambulance or helicopter to nearby medical facilities. Ray never acted like a friend would.

Ray didn’t act like Bean would have.

This, of course, has almost nothing to do with the legal case at hand. However, when a true friend acts in a way you wouldn’t expect, the natural question is “Why?”  I wonder if the jury will ponder this “human question” outside of the legal questions involved.

While the legal minds debate the litigious questions on the air, as a lay person I wonder about these other questions: friendship, responsibility, impeccability, and being a good man. If the members of the jury – individually or collectively – ponder those concepts, James Ray might be in deeper legal trouble than his lawyers might know.

(It should be noted that at the end of the defense cross-examination of Caci, as they were asking if Caci knew Liz Neuman was dying and if he would have helped her if he knew she was dying, James Ray broke down in tears. This is a man who can cry on cue; but maybe, just maybe, he thought about either his friendship and his responsibility. I don’t really care; I just hope it hurt him with the jury.)

All is fair in love and war. That’s what they say anyway.

But it still makes it hard to watch James Ray’s defense team cross-exam Dr. Beverley Bunn – the only Spiritual Warrior member to attend Kirby’s funeral or to ever make the trip to upstate New York to hug her parents.

Defense attorney Thomas Kelly was condescending, simplistic and insulting – all the things you would probably want in your lawyer if you were facing 30+ years in prison.

He needlessly asked her about her personal intentions for attending the event (dealing with relationships), suggested for a 2^nd time that she receive counseling following the sweat lodge and put her on the spot, asking if she – a medical doctor – offered help to Kirby, James or Liz in the sweat lodge. (She did not, not knowing the conditions of those affected in the pitch black tent. She did attempt to do CPR on Kirby and James after the lodge, but was held back by one of James Ray’s team)

Her distaste for Ray was palpable. Commentators on TV counted it as a negative, but so far she’s the witness who seemed closest to any of the participants. Bunn, Kirby’s roommate during the week, became close to Kirby over 5 days.  (For many people it only took 5 minutes. Some of those who cried the hardest after hearing of her death were those who met her only once.)

Beverley bravely stood her ground, often clarifying fine points for Kelly (Ray chose to work with her, she didn’t choose him, for example). She did not give the defense and inch, often answering that she could not answer a question (most of which she clarified for the prosecution on redirect).

Her discussion on Friday about the one person who skipped the “optional” yoga class resulted in an audio clip of Ray chiding that woman, saying she wasn’t playing “full-on” and that “if you’re half-assed here, you’ll be half-assed in life.”  She helped paint the picture that you did what Mr. Ray told you  and you assumed you’d be safe the whole time.

Bunn was followed by Stephen Ray (no relation to James Ray). Ray was a pleasant, credible man who had been to a number of James Ray events, but never to Spiritual Warrior or the sweat lodge. He listened to audio clips of both James Shore and James Ray.

Mr. Shore sounded strong, a man of strong faith, talked about his family being “the jewels of my life” and living honorably. Although Sheila Polk had played an audio clip of Kirby previously in the trial, it was difficult to hear James Shore’s voice. A hero in my book, he helped to drag one woman out of the lodge and returned to his place to help Kirby. The two, who had grown close during the week, died holding hands.

One of the James Ray clips played for Stephen Ray dealt with pushing your limits. And how honor comes from pushing through, even when things are uncomfortable. Stephen Ray had been to one sweat lodge previously. Admittedly he left quickly because it was uncomfortable. This time, though, he pushed through, trusting James Ray that he would learn from it, perhaps looking for a breakthrough.

Instead he powered through a few rounds. He did decide to leave – in the middle of a round. But before he made it to the door, he passed out. He woke up in the hospital a day or two later. He sustained long-term and permanent injuries.

All of this testimony made me pause and wonder what went through Kirby’s head. Did she feel like she was going to die? Did her early death in the Samurai game influence her decision to play full-on in the sweat lodge? Did James Ray’s encouragement-bordering-on-bullying of others convince her to stay one more round – that last round of her consciousness.

It was a moment I dreaded.

The first day of the James Arthur Ray manslaughter trial, in which he stands accused of the deaths of my cousin Kirby Brown, along with James Shore and Liz Neuman, two other seekers of leadership and self-improvement. We knew it was coming. It’s been longer than we hoped filled with one official delay, and hundreds of days of waiting.

I wondered what it would be like to be in the same room with the man who so callously treated those who paid a generous amount of money to follow him. I wondered what he thought about the loss of Kirby and James and Liz, the void it has created in our physical world where fear and loss and grieving are real emotions. He is fond of saying “Energy Flows Where Attention Goes” but even with a dozen journalists in the courtroom, he exuded little to no energy. At least to me, but I may not be like-minded enough to receive those vibrations.

I looked around the courtroom on the afternoon of March 1, 2011. The opening statements of the trial began around 1:30. I saw five lawyers with Mr. Ray; two on our side, the people’s side. I saw a panel of 18 regular people on the jury – people who needed to reserve four months to serve their civil duty to decide if the man who preached responsibility would be made responsible for what happened in his so-called sweat lodge. I saw curious journalists poised for the next detail or sound bite. I saw Mr. Ray’s parents, whom he has criticized in his own writings and performances, for not chasing wealth and therefore living incompletely.  And in the row in front of me, I saw Liz’s cousin, James Shore’s mother and sister, and I saw my own wonderful relatives – Kirby’s brother Bobby and her parents, Ginny and George Brown.
What isn’t known about Kirby’s parents is that they are the ones doing the kind of work Mr. Ray purported to exceed at. Ginny is a teacher, public speaker and social worker – teaching anger management, family and sexuality within church and the community. George (who could insist on being called Dr. Brown but prefers his grandchildren’s ‘Papa G’ label) counseled 9/11 firefighters until the funding was pulled. A brilliant psychologist, Papa G is a quiet man, but he sees, hears, and processes everything. When he speaks, he says in 3 sentences what you tried to say in 20 minutes; his words are the by-product of five sharp senses and a brilliant mind that tied them all together.

And today, on March 1, 2011, he does not get to speak – just to observe. He must sit there and watch the man he believes killed his oldest child sit expressionless at a plain state-issued table at which the defense team sits. He holds Ginny’s hand most of the time, their minds and hearts connected by an unspeakable grief that most people, fortunately, don’t ever experience. A few seats away, James Shore’s mother shares some version of those feelings – also the member of this small, exclusive, senseless club. Parents who have buried children.

Opening statements are not concluded today. Prosecutor Sheila Polk calmly – almost too calmly – chronologically brings the jury through the events of the entire Spiritual Warrior event, a five-day retreat designed to push your limits. She shows little emotion or passion, which can worry those on her side, I suspect, but she has a good reputation for convictions. Style points aside, I think the big picture is more important here.

She does rely on a number of startling clips of Mr. Ray himself, mostly lectures, instructions, and other teachings from throughout the week. I was not prepared to hear these tapes – which were ruled admissible only a day or two ago by judge Warren Darrow – within the opening statement. They were chilling in general but the most disturbing clip was one in which he instructs the students that in the sweat lodge they will feel like they are going to die, but will not. That they look death in the eye but live to tell about it. That even if their physical bodies don’t die, they live on.

It was one thing to read his tweet from that fateful day, that in order for something to be born, another thing must die – but I chalked that up to irony of language. This constant talk of death and rebirth and of games in which Mr. Ray assumes the role of God – all of that gives me a feeling in my stomach that this all was truly senseless.
The defense tended to argue a lot in it’s opening: that the state did not test possible other causes, that they looked in only one direction (to charge Mr. Ray of course), and Los Angeles lawyer Luis Li tried to be a peer to a jury of mostly middle aged Arizona residents. He put the spotlight on rat poison in the shed where the lodge’s tarps were kept; he wondered about the lodging and what materials were in those rooms, and Li muttered something about Legionaire’s Disease.
When he talked about the God game, he talked about it being just another “corporate seminar;” when he talked about the multiple altered states into which Mr.  Ray attempted to place his students, he likened it to “getting dizzy.” He even suggested that “falling in love” was an altered state.

Afterwards, I told the media that his argument blamed everyone but the bed bugs for these three deaths and that his version of events was “insulting.”  When you boast about your lodge being the hottest, and then 3 people die (2 of whom succumbed to heat stroke), blaming rat poison and suggesting that adults can choose for themselves is just that: insulting.
The participants were sleep deprived: Mr. Ray suggested that they could sleep “next week.” I remember my college days. If I pulled an all-nighter, I might get my paper completed, or retain enough information to get a passing grade on an exam. But all my activities the next day were compromised. I was less than 100 percent, and certainly wasn’t giving my full attention to anything.
So how can 50 people who were discouraged from sleeping after 17 hour days climb into a sweat lodge and make a rational decision? Deprived of food and water for 36 hours prior, they were told they would feel like they would die, and that they might pass out or be disoriented. But that was part of the experience. They would be okay, their leader assured them.
Beyond the three deaths, I can’t help feeling there were 50+ victims in this story. Everyone got packed in that tent; those who worked outside of it; those who happened upon the scene in its aftermath – they are all victims. Even Mr. Ray is a victim; a victim of his own hubris, a victim of his pride, a victim of a false sense of power and godliness.

No matter how this trial turns out, he has to live with the fact that three people died and dozens of others are scarred – physically and emotionally. And he could have prevented it. But he pushed.
And this very effective motivational speaker has been motivated to be silent; to sit at a plain defense table expressionless. To listen to his lawyers attempt to confuse a jury of ordinary people that Mr. Ray’s understanding of the Laws of the Universe did not violate the Laws of the State of Arizona.
It won’t be an easy trial, for anyone. But the lines are drawn. And there is no getting around the fact that it is very, very sad.