CNN Shows Up Late to James Ray Sweat Lodge Trial

CNN Schedule Showing James Ray Trial

Promises, promises... So 12:15 came and went and CNN continued it's cutting edge news offerings of empty feeds and weather maps. Eventually, they revised their schedule listing a 5:00 PM arrival. Meanwhile, back in Camp Verde, Dr. Ian Paul took the stand where he was questioned by that precocious tween Truc Do. Oh, how I wish I could have heard the esteemed forensic pathologist explain how the none of the patients had heatstroke.

Thanks to some occasional tweets from April Santiago, we know that Dr. Paul found the symptoms consistent with organophosphate poisoning. He did not find that there was evidence of severe dehydration or that high body temperature of 105° F. Dr. Paul did not think the medical records support a finding of heatstroke or that organophosphate testing was done in a timely fashion.

So, thanks to April Santiago, we know that the defense's paid medical expert is testifying to the key elements of their case. But I have been waiting for weeks to hear how strongly he endorses the organophosphate theory that isn't in his official report and that, according to Truc Do, he has only said he couldn't "rule out." I was really looking forward to Do's examination of the heavily credentialed Dr. Paul and thrilled to learn that he was testifying on this one final day of CNNLive's streaming of the trial. Oh well... I guess CNN had far more important news to cover.

Or not.

CNN did eventually start streaming the trial much later in the afternoon covering the bitter end of Truc Do's direct examination of the defense's star witness and the beginning of Bill Hughes's cross.

Frankly, I expected to be more impressed with the Medical Examiner Dr. Mosley compared to Superman. Mostly, I expected him to talk like a medical science professional; not a shill for the defense. Every other medical expert we've heard from, including the State's paid witness Dr. Dickson, has been at least somewhat circumspect. Dr. Dickson expressed the closest thing to certitude of any of them but he supported his conclusions with research documentation and very specific elements of his own clinical experience to justify that 99% certainty. Dr. Paul on the other hand contradicted his own research sources and gave evasive, if impressively technical sounding non-answers, when questioned about those inconsistencies.

Truc Do has said repeatedly that Dr. Paul came to the defense and offered his services even though he has never testified for a criminal defendant before. During her questioning of Dr. Mosley, Do described Dr. Paul as a State Medical Examiner and not "available for private hire." He made an exception in this case, the defense has implied, because he was so troubled by the incorrect conclusions of heat related death reached by Drs. Mosely and Lyon that he felt compelled to come forward and set the record straight.

After watching Dr. Paul in action for ten minutes or so I began to doubt that he was offering his testimony out of any such moral imperative. He just struck me as too slick by half. I rapidly came to the conclusion that while he may never have been available for hire by criminal defendants before, Ray will not be the last. I got the sense that this is just the beginning of his budding career as a professional witness. That intuitive leap was at least partially confirmed when another trial watcher posted a link to his new and still under construction website where he will advertise his services as a "Forensic Pathology Consultant."

So, as Dr. Paul embarks on this new career trajectory, I'd like to pass along a few tips from my wealth of experience in forensics, which is to say, competitive public speaking:

  Firstly, visual aids are a real asset in an informative presentation but they shouldn't upstage you. This is one case where bigger isn't necessarily better. Especially if they're so large that people have trouble seeing you.

  Or if they evoke nothing so much as one of those giant, novelty checks people get when they win the Publishers Clearing House or Lotto. Remember. You're being paid for this now. Best not to draw too much attention what a cash cow this is for you.

  Or if they dwarf the visual aids prepared by your employers in both size and quality.

  Finally, when answering difficult questions from opposing counsel, it's best not to keep looking nervously at the defense table. Look at the jury. They're your intended audience; not your employers.

In the small amount of direct testimony I was able to hear today, there wasn't much in the way of surprise. Although Dr. Paul did in fact hew more closely to the defense's case than I'd expected. I don't know where I got the idea that he'd convey some intellectual independence. At times this sounded more like the scripted dialog in an infomercial than an interview. One slightly unexpected answer came when Do asked him if pinpoint pupils can occur in heatstroke and he said that they could, echoing Dr. Dickson's testimony about the range of pupil presentations in heatstroke patients. But he was still confident that miotic pupils are a hallmark of a toxidrome and that that was what was indicated here.

I've also found it very interesting to hear how different Do sounds with a defense witness. It turns out that she doesn't always talk faster than the speed of sound and is capable of a conversational tone. I've also learned that she doesn't always end sentences with "correct?" Sadly, even with her more measured and less dictatorial tone, she's still nigh well unbearable to listen to.

Bill Hughes Cross Examines Dr. Ian Paul

Bill Hughes went straight for one of my biggest questions. Why weren't organophosphates suggested in Dr. Paul's written report? Dr. Paul said it was because he had still been waiting for information on Stephen Ray and the report was, therefore, incomplete. He said organophosphates were always part of his differential diagnosis. So, he felt confident enough to say it was a toxidrome, not heatstroke, without Stephen Ray's medical record but not confident enough to say what likely toxin he was contemplating? This makes no sense whatsoever but he said it with a patina of such reasonableness, it was hard not to accept the answer... He's really smooth.

As questioning went on, however, he began to look uncomfortable. Hughes confronted him directly on some of the central planks of his case.

Under direct Paul had claimed that the surviving victims had recovered fully and that this was consistent with organophosphate poisoning, whereas heatstroke would likely cause long-term neurological damage. Hughes pointed out that both Stephen Ray and Sidney Spencer described a litany of symptoms: memory problems, ringing in the head, trouble swallowing, numbness in the limbs, kidney pain, malaise, blurred vision, disequilibrium... Paul seemed to go out of his way to discount each symptom as unlikely caused by heatstroke because he would expect to the see the brain injury confined to the cerebellum instead of the parts of the brain indicated by those symptoms, or because they could be caused by other things, or because they are not specific to heatstroke -- anything but admitting that they could, in fact, be caused by heat related brain injury. Although he allowed that he was not a neurologist so he couldn't be certain.

Dr. Paul had claimed that Liz Neuman's "clammy" skin was an indication that she did not have heat stroke. Hughes pointed out that his own attached article said that not all heatstroke patients present with anhidrosis -- lack of perspiration. Rather than concede the point, he cited a problem with his own reference material. The article didn't differentiate between exertional and non-exertional heatstroke.

Hughes: Can you show us the article then that says that that would only apply to exertional heatstroke.

Paul: I'm not saying that it would only apply to exertional heatstroke but it would be much more common, uh, finding in exertional heatstroke, uh, and this area's not differentiating between the two.

Hughes: Okay, can you show us the article that says that it'd be much more common in exertional heatstroke as opposed to non-exertional.

Paul: Uh, I'm not exactly sure what source or I couldn't identify the, what source I read that in.

Hughes: Is that do you believe in one of the articles that you provided to Ms. Do when you were asked to provide the articles you had relied upon in making your report.

Paul: Yes.

Hughes: You believe it's in here?

Paul: Oh I don't know if it's in there or not.

Hughes: Well, are there other articles then that you relied upon that you didn't provide to Ms. Do?

Paul: I've had training in heat related injury. Um. I'm an ER physician. Uh, it would be a very common subject for me to read either during my training, um, or after my training. And I can't tell you exactly where I read that source, um, it would be basically understood in the medical literature, uh, that there's a clear differentiation between exertional and non-exertional heatstroke. I think it's imperative that you make that difference because they can present in different ways and they affect a completely different group of patients.

Hughes: Do you believe that's an important distinction?

Paul: Yes.

Hughes: Would it surprise you not a single one of these articles on heatstroke you provided make that distinction?

. . .

Hughes: Doctor, can you point out to me then a single article that you provided that make that distinction?

Paul: Uh, I don't know if it's in there or not in those articles. I don't recall them.

. . .

Hughes: Would you look through them and tell if it's in any of those articles?

After a brief recess was called by Judge Darrow, Hughes asked Dr. Paul if he'd had a chance to review the articles and locate a citation for his claim.

Paul: So, uh, the point I was trying to make is that in exertional heatstroke... some people maintain the ability to sweat and um, as compared to patients that have non-exertional heatstroke. In non-exertional heatstroke, patients do not maintain the ability to sweat and, uh, that it stated in this article that I provided and, um, I'll read the sentence. "Because their ability to sweat remains intact patients with EHS (which stands for exertional heatstroke) are able to cool down after cessation of physical activity and may present for medical treatment with temperatures well below 41° C."

Hughes: Now where in there does it say that patients with non-exertional heatstroke, uh, will always lose the ability to sweat? 

Paul: Uh, so I'd have to go through this again but the hallmark of non-exertional heatstroke is anhidrosis, mental status changes, and elevated temperature. 

Hughes: And you believe you saw in there that it indicates that a patient with non-exertional heatstroke would always have lost the ability to sweat?

Paul: It's a hallmark of that process but I did not read specifically that they always lose the ability to sweat.

Hughes: Did you look through the article?

Paul: Yes, and um, I don't see it. 

Hughes: Okay.

So that was a lot of time and energy for Dr. Paul to establish that, in fact, he could provide zero documentation to support one of the central claims of his, and by extension, the defense's case.

As I've discussed at length, dehydration, the underlying cause anhidrosis, is not a necessary cause of heatstroke and is not always present in heatstroke. Nor, obviously, is anhidrosis, as this eMedicine article points out. (Like Dr. Dickson, Dr. Paul relies heavily on eMedicine's scholarly articles and he extolled the virtues of the resource Do derided during her questioning of Dr. Dickson.)

Similarly, some patients may retain the ability to sweat, removing anhidrosis as a criterion for the diagnosis of heatstroke. Therefore, strict adherence to the definition is not advised because it may result in dangerous delays in diagnosis and therapy.

. . .

Anhidrosis due to cessation of sweating [in NEHS] is a late occurrence in heatstroke and may not be present when patients are examined.

The discussion is emblematic of most of Hughes's questioning of Dr. Paul. Hughes asked pointed questions in an attempt to clarify Dr. Paul's claims with Paul avoiding directly answering for as long as possible.

When Hughes asked the Medical Examiner why he used a different diagnostic criteria for heatstroke death than the National Association of Medical Examiners to which he belongs, the dance went on for quite some time. Their position paper does not require a determination of dehydration to diagnose heatstroke.

Dr. Paul would not answer how much the bodies of participants may have cooled in the lengthy process of getting them to the hospital where their rectal temperatures could be measured. He refused to try to calculate how much the cool, breezy, evening air, the wetting down with cold water, and the air conditioned ambulance rides, would have lowered their temperatures after upwards of an hour. Probably because it's hard to argue that they would not have cooled substantially. Instead we got a lot doubletalk about how it would impossible to calculate the temperature drop with certainty. It sure would be easy to cite a ballpark figure, though, which he would not do.

Most tellingly, he had no answer as to what quantity and concentration of organophosphates in pesticides would have been necessary to cause the deaths and injuries. He had done no research on what products could have poisoned people. After claiming that organophosphates had always been part of his differential diagnosis -- despite their lack of inclusion in his report -- his response to questions about what sort of exposure could have caused this tragedy he responded, "That's outside my area of expertise."

Dr. Paul testified today that he's never seen an actual case of organophosphate poisoning -- alive or dead. And yet, unlike every other expert to testify he's the only one willing to say that it's the likely culprit. Dr. Dickson remains the only one of the medical experts to testify who has treated patients with organophosphate poisoning and he is the only willing to dismiss the possibility with near certainty. What does that tell you?

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James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge Trial to Continue

Judge Darrow Rules on Defense Motion

With a hundred pages of briefing and about an hour and half of argument, it would be very difficult for this court just to start in and go through a number of factors that would go into my decision on a Rule 20. Rule 20 rulings in my experience are often conclusory and that may not be, uh, satisfactory or satisfying to the parties but this ruling is going to be necessarily conclusory as well.

The first point has to do with whether or not there's a legal duty. That's a question for the court. That's not a question of whether there's substantial evidence as an element. It's a question for the court. And I conclude that the, uh, defendant Mr. Ray owed a legal duty to the decedents. That question maybe first was, uh, addressed in the admissibility of evidence about amounts paid for the event. And I'm aware of the distinction between Mr. Ray personally and JRI. The defense has argued that throughout the case. So in making this conclusion and stating this conclusion, I am aware of the distinction between entities; between a person and the corporate or business structure. But there is an element of a contractual basis for the duty and that's what's been noted. There may be others.

The State has presented substantial evidence as to voluntary acts as well as omissions and I'll state right now and Mr. Li, you've raised this. There may be real questions regarding duplicity. And, and, that's I think a separate issue. I find that it is a separate issue. [inaudible]

Ruling on the Rule 20: With regard to mens rea I conclude there is substantial evidence of the mental state of recklessness. With regard to causation I conclude there is substantial evidence going to both cause and fact or but for causation as well as proximate cause. I'll note, uh, Dr. Dickson's testimony with regard to causation.

With regard to the First Amendment I note in a prior ruling I did mention that; the importance of the context of legal duty. And I conclude that there has not been a violation of First Amendment principles in presentation of evidence. And I also conclude in this Rule 20 context that there has not been a due process violation.

In summary, it's ordered denying the motion pursuant to Rule 20.

With those words Judge Darrow dispensed with the latest attempt by Ray's defense team to abrogate this trial.

Motions for a directed verdict are typical in criminal cases, but Loyola Law School professor Stan Goldman said they are rarely granted even if there's a basis for them.

"Usually the judge wants to wait for what the jury has to say," he said.

Egads! Can you imagine being a juror in this trial, having already given up over two months of your life to hear this case only to be dismissed a couple of weeks from the end? I know I would have been pissed. For that reason, alone, I would have been surprised if Judge Darrow had granted the defense's motion.

As the above cited Wall Street Journal points out, such motions are kind of pro forma, so I was a little surprised to learn that CNN had taken enough of an interest in today's proceedings to return to Yavapai County just to air them. I can't help thinking they were expecting this to be the fiery finish they'd been waiting for. Their talking heads on In Session argued for weeks that the State could not make the case for reckless manslaughter, just as the defense argued in their motion for Rule 20 acquittal. But the idea that the State had not met its burden was pretty firmly rebuked by Judge Darrow today.

Luis Li Argues for Directed Verdict

The judge's ruling was sober and meticulous and a sharp contrast to Luis Li's hyperbolic insistence that the State's case was basically ludicrous. I think Li was just trying to make up in bluster what he lacked in factual basis, but as he so often he does, he came across like the big city lawyer lecturing the local yokels about the law. I doubt he means to sound like he's talking down to a Superior Court Judge but every phrase and every affectation of incredulity just drips with condescension.

What's missing from the State's entire seventy-two minute presentation is any articulation of what conduct constituted the crime. And what, no articulation about how that with the mens rea connected to that particular conduct. It's critical, Your Honor. It's not just a disclosure obligation, where if we look at enough of the discovery we might be able to figure out what the State thinks it might be alleging. What, what we've gotten here is essentially the same that we've gotten throughout this trial which is just a barrage; a fire-hose of every fact that the State can think of but with no discrimination as between what fact is actually the crime. What is the mens rea? How is this court gonna make a ruling as to what the mens rea was when a particular conduct was done. We don't have that. We've never had that articulation. It's not a simple disclosure problem, Your Honor. It's a due process violation. And now, it's amazing that the State would take the position that, well, ya know, you could've figured out what we were thinking, uh, but no harm, no foul because we told ya the day after we closed, or, ya know, three days after we closed the case. That's not how our laws work, Your Honor. It, it never has. There's, there's scads of cases about how that's a violation of due process and frankly illegal.

He also derided participants who didn't conform to his concept of free will.

The State repeatedly says here's what all these other participants thought and felt. They felt ashamed. They wanted to do this. They felt about this. They felt about that. That's entirely irrelevant to what the particular decedents were thinking at a particular time. We have no idea what they were thinking. Some of the participants felt that they could leave anytime and were very strong and had all sorts of, you saw the testimony, and some were, were, in my opinion, a little odd.

Nice. So those participants who complied with his own client's directions and express desires that they  see through this trial by ordeal and embrace their metaphorical death were "odd." They presumably deserved whatever injury they sustained. Whereas those who ignored his client and shrugged off Ray's promises of transformation during the pinnacle event of a seminar for which they'd paid ten grand were normal.

One of the things Sheila Polk made clear in her argument today, is that the exact same physical symptoms that should have alerted participants that they were in serious physical peril and should leave, Ray had promised them were the transcendent experience they had paid for.

In what was probably a preview of her closing argument, Polk wove together the major elements of witness testimony into a seamless and damning narrative.

Weather in the Southwest

I did not see all of the legal arguments because CNN did not carry the whole thing. Luis Li's hour plus argument was not streamed. I do know that the weather at the time looked to be, um, clear. Frankly I'm ambivalent about having missed out on his primary argument. His twelve minute rebuttal to the State was about as much Luis Li as I could take. Only part of Sheila Polk's argument was streamed. It seems CNN aimed to show up with its broadcasting equipment just in time to hear Judge Darrow kick the case... Except he didn't.

Again, the briefs are available for download and state the legal arguments of both the defense and the prosecution.

Aside from the excitement of Judge Darrow smacking down yet another attempt by defense attorneys to keep this trial from going to the jury, I have to say CNN picked a really dull day to breeze through town and carry a few hours of this trial. The defense kicked off their case with some of the dullest testimony yet.

Dawn Sy

Dawn Sy was the criminalist who tested samples of the sweat lodge structure and rocks. She's the one who found those "trace" elements of the "inert" ingredient 2 ethyl 1 hexanol and the terpenes common to wood in, well, the wood.

As I expected she would, Sy made it abundantly clear that 2 ethyl 1 hexanol is in a lot of things including foods, and terpenes are natural, "aromatic" components in many types of wood. Their presence was "not surprising." What's odd about her clarification is that it came under direct questioning from Truc Do, who actually did more to establish the commonplace nature of those chemical compounds than the prosecution did.

I had actually been looking forward to Sy's testimony and I was wondering what had happened to her. It turns out that she was bumped from the prosecution's witness list due to time constraints. Do tried vainly, even feebly, to suggest that it was only after Sy had communicated with the State about organophosphates that they'd dropped her, but the suggestion crumbled even during Do's own questioning. Do had to acknowledge the simple truth. The State ran out of time and had to slash its witness list. During redirect, Bill Hughes clarified that Sy had shown up to testify for the prosecution but had been turned away due to the length of another witness's testimony. Unspoken, but possibly quite noticeable to the jury, is that it's been the defense's barrage of objections and sidebar requests that ran out the clock.

Ray's defense team, which has stressed that participants were free to leave, continuously barraged the court with objections. So strenuously have his attorneys fought that prosecutors have averaged not even one witness a day on the stand. Prosecutors wound up calling fewer than half of the witnesses they originally listed.

Sy was a cooperative and earnest witness but as the opener for the defense's case, surprisingly lackluster. That didn't stop Do from dragging the process out for hours. She spent an incredible amount of time establishing a timeline for all Sy's activities and communication with the State. She even pulled out the easel.

Truc Do Breaks Down Timeline

Most of Do's direct examination seemed intended to show that the State had dropped the ball in terms of timely and clear communication with Sy and her department and that important testing either wasn't done or was not given adequate attention. As ever, the argument is that police didn't turn over the entire, intact sweat lodge structure and bushels of soil samples and didn't test for any and every possible chemical contaminant. It's a fairly solid defense tactic because none of the above are possible in any police investigation. No one can follow up on every possibility including the possibilities they have no reason to be aware of. However, in Do's plodding, overly detailed presentation, the impact of such criticisms was blunted by sheer boredom.

It really wasn't until her redirect that Do became her characteristically pointed and aggressive self. She got in some not unexpected jabs against the State for not scrutinizing its "own evidence" and giving Sy the information she would have needed to timely test for organophosphates. Once again, the "clues" the State failed to find were background noise in a recorded interview that took place in a crowded dining hall, and what may or may not have been an EMT talking about the possibility of organophosphates and carbon monoxide. Yawn.

Dawn Sy was excused subject to recall.

"The way Do holds her hands reminds me of claws coming 
at the witness in a very aggressive manner." ~ Amy Hall

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Oprah, James Ray, and the Cult of Victim Blame

A link to this bit of sheer insanity was posted on Connie Joy's Facebook page the other day. Someone called patharding riffed on Oprah's commentary from her sign-off as follows:

Posted on May 27, 2011 5:40 PM

I'm curious what you people think of this:

“Time and again the theme that kept showing itself in our early
years on the show was PEOPLE MAKING BAD CHOICES…and then blaming
everybody but themselves for the state of their lives…”

“Nobody but YOU is responsible for YOUR LIFE! It doesn’t matter what
your momma did. It doesn’t matter what your daddy didn’t do. YOU are
responsible for YOUR LIFE!…”

“…you are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself
and you are responsible for the energy that you bring to others.”

–Oprah Winfrey (from her final show)

MY COMMENT:

I just had to share this from my personal recording of the final
Oprah Winfrey show because of how it applies to the James Arthur Ray
trial. Those people knew beforehand that the 2009 warrior workshop was
going to be tough. THAT’S WHAT THEY PAID FOR!!! If they read the
liability waiver, sent to them beforehand, THEY KNEW that there very
well may be a sweat lodge involved. If they didn’t read the liability
waiver before they signed it THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE for not reading what
they signed before they signed the liability waiver, NOT MR. RAY!!!

Those people who went back into the sweat lodge when they KNEW they
could not handle it have no one else to blame besides themselves for
whatever bad things may have happened as a result. If I was there, went
into the sweat lodge and felt I could not properly breathe it would
have been MY RESPONSIBILITY to get out of that sweat lodge and STAY
OUT!!!

To echo and paraphrase the words of Oprah Winfrey, on her last show:
Certain people at the 2009 Sedona Warrior Workshop made bad choices and
want to blame others for the the state of their lives as a result of
those bad choices

Nobody but YOU is responsible for YOUR LIFE! It doesn’t matter what
your momma did. It doesn’t matter what your daddy didn’t do. IT DOESN’T
MATTER WHAT JAMES ARTHUR RAY DID OR DIDN’T DO!!!

YOU are responsible for YOUR LIFE!…”

A just court of law will force you adults to take responsibility for
your actions at that workshop. Liz, Kirby & James Shore should have
told people they needed help. Instead they said they were fine and paid
for that lie with their lives. THEY HAD NO ONE TO BLAME BUT THEMSELVES
FOR WHAT HAPPENED!!!!

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!

Get it? Probably not

Oh well….

It can be easily proven that the 2009 Angel Valley sweat lodge was
NOT A SAFE STRUCTURE!!! James Arthur Ray had nothing whatsoever to do
with the construction of the 2009 Angel Valley sweat lodge. If you want
someone to pay for those three deaths then go after the real culprits:

ANGEL VALLEY!!!!

So James Arthur Ray is not responsible for the deaths in the sweat lodge he conducted because James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman were responsible for their own lives. Yet, somehow, Angel Valley is responsible for the whole fiasco. Get it? You're responsible for your own death even if someone deprives you of food and water for more than a day and then super-heats you into delirium. But you're not responsible if the structure is bad. So poor tent architecture is now the single exception to the "YOU are responsible for YOUR LIFE!!!" meme.

The dizzying illogic and internal contradictions of patharding's comment are their own fascinating study. Such cognitive dissonance is not atypical of "law of attraction" true believers I've encountered. But I don't want to take a lot of time examining the thought patterns of someone who is most likely Lee Kuan under one of many pseudonyms. Kuan is well known amongst followers of James Ray's catastrophic fall from grace. Were I James Ray, I'd probably think long and hard about Stephen King's Misery when it comes to some of these hardcore fans.

I think this merits discussion because it's Oprah herself who puts this sort of insanity in play with woefully irresponsible commentary like the above. I didn't watch her sign-off show. I haven't watched Oprah in years. I lost interest in the format after years of job-related immersion in it. Mostly I lost interest in sound-bite answers to complex questions and, sadly, that's Oprah's stock in trade.

I'm happy for Oprah that she managed to put the poverty, racism, and abuse, that marked her early years, more or less, behind her. I'm happy for her that she made peace with all that and created a spectacular life for herself. But to suggest that the sort dimestore psychology she dispensed on her show should put such issues to rest for everybody else is vanity.

Hey, you bunch of losers! It's not about what your momma, or your daddy, or your priest, or that IED did, that left you emotionally and/or physically damaged. Buck up. Suck up. And read The Secret.

Whether Oprah realizes it or not, she's propounding a kind of Social Darwinism. It's a common trope. People can achieve whatever they want against all socio-economic odds. Just look at this exceptional, poor, black person who rose from poverty and became a multimillionaire! Now just never you mind that people in positions of power are, to this day, disproportionately white, male, and affluent. You can do anything, I tell you. Anything! And if you can't, you have no one and nothing to blame but yourself.

It's a very convenient way to excuse any form of social injustice. And it's an equally convenient way to excuse horrific abuses at the microcosmic level. In the case raised by Lee Kuan/patharding's post, James Arthur Ray. But it's not just Ray's apparently loony fan. It's an attitude that's been echoed across the media (see In Session), the public discourse and, more to the point, by Ray's attorneys.

Defense attorney Thomas Kelly repeatedly clashed with participants over whether they were free to leave. Some agreed they were, but jurors also heard extensive testimony from others who said they felt obligated or even bullied to stay. Nearly all said they had trusted Ray's assurances that they could make it through all the rounds.

There's a central, if somewhat philosophical, question raised by this trial about the nature of free will itself. Is a man free if he doesn't know or understand that he is free? And there are more germane questions about how free a person is under various forms of mental manipulation. Witness after witness has testified that to this day they don't really understand why they didn't leave. Most pointedly was Dennis Mehravar, who admitted that he probably would not have saved a dying Luis Li because it might have upset Mr. Ray.

Over and over defense attorneys have cajoled and lectured witnesses about their free will and extracted some concession that, yes, they could have left... even if they were still baffled, even tortured, by their own inexplicable inaction. They have brandished those concession trophies in court with other witnesses and even, in legal arguments before Judge Darrow. Laura Tucker said she wasn't in a cult. Therefore, no one was manipulated by Ray, reasoned Li.

The members of Heaven's Gate also scoffed at the idea that they were victims of cult brainwashing, as Glnody did in her "exit statement."

Many humans assume that if you live privately and do not put down roots, then you must have something to hide -- like a drug dealer or other criminal, or might be, at the very least, a part of a "dangerous cult."

As Steven Hassan points out in Releasing the Bonds, members of that group all proclaimed some version of having freely chosen their deaths in a mass suicide.

Members of the Heaven's Gate cult took turns making video-taped farewell statements that explained why they had decided to leave their "vehicles" behind and commit suicide. All of them claimed that they were exercising their own free will, and that they were happy to perform this radical act of dying.

When former member Steven Hill spoke to the Washington Post, his version of events spoke to the time and distance from his immersion in Applewhite's teachings.

The story Steven Hill tells of life inside Heaven's Gate has little in common with the serene testimonials of other former cult members. Hill offers no assurances that the tidy suicides were acts of enlightened free will. He does not believe the departed have reached a Mother Ship. The cheery "farewell video" sickens him.

Although Hill says he feels some responsibility for bringing Yvonne McCurdy-Hill with him into the orbit of cult leader Marshall Herff Applewhite, he maintains that she was ushered to her death by a self-styled messiah he had come to recognize as "a cold, calculating, manipulating" hypocrite.

. . .

Dependence on the cult was total. "There was choice to leave," Hill says. "But there was a lot of pressure" to stay.

A "choice to leave" but "a lot of pressure" to stay... Sound familiar? It should to anyone who's been following the James Ray sweat lodge trial.

I'm not saying that James Ray and his students constitute a full-blown cult like Heaven's Gate, or Hare Krishna, or the Moonies. But the similarities should make us all a little nervous about the influence of charismatic leaders, from the religious to the political, and the very nature of our "freedoms." I'm also not saying that such manipulation is or should be illegal. There are definitely "slippery slope" issues raised regarding the free speech and freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment. Moral culpability and legal culpability are sometimes, necessarily, quite different. (Personally, I think Ray is legally responsible for far more pragmatic reasons some of which will probably be hashed out today in court as the defense argues for a directed verdict. Here are the defense's request and the prosecution's response.)

Increasingly, here in the United States, our "freedom" has been equated not with our right to have a free mind but with our "God-given right" to buy stuff. We are strongly influenced by politicians and advertisers alike. How dare anyone try to interfere with our right to buy gas guzzling SUVs and take out variable rate mortgages on more house than we can afford?! Now, take a good hard look at your credit card bills and ask yourself, am I free?

James Ray pitched his events as "investments" in themselves and told participants that such "investing" in themselves was good even if it meant maxing out their credit cards. In keeping with the central message of The Secret, he assured people that the state of the economy wouldn't affect them if they just got their thinking in order. And, as Connie Joy explained in her recent interview, he persuaded people to rack up massive debt just as every economic indicator was heading south. Strangely, despite their investiture in Ray's teachings, many of them now find themselves under water.

True believers in The Secret would tell you it's still their own fault because they're just not doing it right and they need to buy still more of their products and lectures to perfect their ability to press the universe into their service.

The message we get over and over from adherents of The Secret and similarly simplistic spiritual teachings is that YOU created YOUR problems with YOUR thoughts. You, you, you... It's a road map to distancing ourselves from the problems of the world and from the attendant responsibility. All those bad things that happen to other people? THEY created it. I don't need to worry about any of it because I know how to control my own thoughts and my own reality. See ya later, suckas!

As Christina Pratt explained in an episode of Why Shamanism Now? devoted to The Secret, this completely misses the point. We're not all just creating our own, individual, discrete reality. We are part of a collective reality that we are constantly co-creating. She calls this "the big dream." Says Pratt:

Do not think that you can use this idea that we are dreaming our reality to bludgeon other people who are suffering. In other words, if there is a drought-ridden country somewhere, you can't just go, "Oh well those people dreamt up that drought." Not only is that, um, ignorant, and not remotely compassionate, but you're missing the point, entirely, which is that we are dreaming. We, the entire family of humanity is dreaming life as we know it. And so the drought over there is most likely the manifestation of a dream that is dreaming excess somewhere else. That the dream -- because, we are never not dreaming -- but we have not been trained the responsibility of being a dreamer. We've not been trained to dream well; to dream with maturity for easily, oh, two thousand years or more. And so, consequently, we are dreaming constantly pollution, toxicity, excess, deficiency, and what results then in disease in our human lives into the dream. Because we are not disciplined, we are not even aware, that we, every moment, we are contributing to the dream. And so The Secret says, you know, every moment you're manifesting your life. Well, yes, you are. Every moment you're also manifesting mine and I'm manifesting yours.

Another point that Pratt makes early on is that not everything can be simply thought in or out of existence. She addresses this in terms of our physical health but I've found this to be true across the board.

The body is an amazing creature and there are some deep-running currents that affect our health that we cannot change by thinking or feeling differently. There's soul loss. There is power, energy, and theft. [sic] There is the healing of the unresolved energy of the ancestors. You cannot think that into difference. You have to go do that work. And there's also a shaman's illness. There are some illnesses that are the very transformation we are longing for to take us to where we are meant to be. And so health: bad health, good health, health is not always what it seems to be. 

So what's important here is that if we continue to focus on what I want in the moment and what I think will make me happy in the moment and disregard the innate wisdom in the moment in the world around us and learn to engage, instead, with the world as a teacher, versus learning to impose my will on the world.

Where there is soul loss, power theft, energy theft, ancestral wounding, unresolved past life issues, and the like, healing has to be done at that level. And where there is significant mental and emotional damage, some long-term therapeutic process is may be in order. It's not as simple as changing your thoughts, feelings, or even your actions.

I mention this because it speaks to one of the specific problems with Oprah's formulation. You can't  just change your attitude or feelings, forgive and forget -- none of which is remotely simple -- and start recreating your life. Where there is significant damage, injury, and loss, at any level of our being, none of the tools offered by The Secret work very well.

What many of us who undertook those positive affirmation and visualization tools found -- long before The Secret brought a whole new popularity to these ideas -- is that they were effective for a while and up to a point and then we hit roadblocks. In some cases, we started manifesting unintended and unfathomable catastrophes. And the response from "new thought" proponents was, Well, you're doing it wrong. You're not "positive" enough. You don't really "want" to change. You're still caught up in your "story." Lather, rinse, repeat.

The truth, though, is that sometimes you find that you have significant healing work to do and a magnificent process of discovery to undertake. And the universe, in its infinite wisdom, far from bringing you your every vain wish, brings opportunities to heal on a deeper level so that you truly can manifest your piece of that "big dream."

In truth, the universe cannot do otherwise because the universe is us -- all of us; not just the parts we like and want to cultivate. We will invariably see ourselves reflected all around us: people, events, experiences, nature, everything. So the only question is, are we willing to accept the challenge of healing the world we observe by healing ourselves. Shutting down around big pieces of it, ignoring it because it's "negative" and we want to focus on the "positive" will not work. That kind of myopia has lead and continues to lead to incredible destruction.

As much as we might want to put the problems we see before us "over there," we can't because those problems are reflections of us. They are the result of our constant, collective dreaming.

Saying YOU or THEY created their own problems ignores the fact that there is no you or they. There is only oneness. In LaK'ech Al K'in, as the Maya say, "I am you and you are me." My former teacher, Cherokee Mystic Virginia Sandlin puts it this simply, "There is only one person here."

To the mystical thinker, the question is not, "Why did YOU manifest that for YOURSELF?" The question is, "What is MY piece in this? Why am I seeing this particular reflection that is expressing as you?" That's what we ask ourselves when we are truly taking responsibility at a spiritual level for all that we manifest.

Note: I recommend listening to Christina Pratt's entire show "The Secret or The Big Dream." It can be found in the show archives here or downloaded from iTunes. As I have previously mentioned, I have known Christina for years and recommend all aspects of her work very highly.

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James Ray Sweat Lodge Trial Roundup June 3

Weather Map of Northeast

The State wrapped up its case yesterday, as promised, with testimony from Dawn Gordon and Sean Ronan. Ray's lawyers will open its case with a Rule 20 motion for immediate acquittal. In other news, the weather in the Northeast was really quite lovely.

Prosecutors in a self-help author's manslaughter trial rested their case Friday after months of testimony from participants of an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony whose experiences were sometimes as different as night and day.

The trial could end early next week if the judge grants a defense motion for acquittal of James Arthur Ray, who is facing three counts of manslaughter stemming from the October 2009 ceremony he led near Sedona. Oral arguments on the motion in which the defense contends the state hasn't proven its case are scheduled Tuesday.

. . .

Gordon told jurors that she had no idea that James Shore would die after he helped dragged a woman out of an Arizona sweat lodge and was propped up on his elbow encouraging one of the victims with "sweet words."

Nor did she know that the last she'd hear out of Kirby Brown, who had planned to paint a mural in her house, would be heavy breathing and gurgling that sounded like someone with a cold.

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As per Mark Duncan, Luis Li's cross examination broke new ground for the defense... in that it contradicted their position with every other sweat lodge participant so far. After reducing witnesses like Beverley Bunn and Lou Caci to tears by reminding them of their own inaction as James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman were dying, Li abruptly changed tack.Yesterday, he informed the jury that the progressing illness of other participants really wasn't the responsibility of people like Gordon who'd paid thousands of dollars to "have their own experience." No. It was the responsibility of unpaid volunteers like Mark Rock.

Gordon, continuing her testimony from Thursday, allowed that she had not called for help for Brown despite hearing her heavy, labored breathing. She did help Shore get Brown off of her back, but then returned her attention inward.

"I was in the environment for experiential reasons for my own growth and I was not in a position to partner in gaining help," she said. "My mindset was one of continuing a journey that I had set out to complete."

In his cross-examination of Gordon, defense attorney Luis Li made the point that she was not charged with responsibility for the well-being of other participants, as was dream team volunteer and prior witness Mark Rock, who sat near Gordon in the sweat lodge and testified earlier that he heard Brown's struggling breath and did nothing to help.

"Did you hear Mark Rock say, 'I believe I've just heard Kirby Brown's last breath?' Did Mark Rock say, 'Hey, we've got a problem over here'?"

As for the man who collected tens of thousands of dollars from participants while staffing the event with volunteers who not only weren't paid but had to pay for their food and lodging? He apparently had no responsibility whatsoever.

According to Ronan, however, none other than Megan Fredrickson disagreed with that. He testified that he had heard her say, "James, these people are your responsibility," as a huge pile of heated rocks were delivered to the already excruciatingly hot tent.

As per Duncan, Ronan did not remember hearing anyone call out in distress. Of course he had passed out during the fifth round only to awaken as they were performing CPR on James Shore and Kirby Brown.  So, he missed quite a bit, really. He spent the rest of the night fighting for his life in the hospital.

When interviewed by police, Ronan withheld certain details because he still felt the need to protect James Ray... as Dawn Gordon still does, apparently.

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Dateline's April Santiago continued to tweet some details from the courtroom. I'm not sure if this was Luis Li's argument for why the Dream Team, as opposed to James Ray, was responsible for the sick people inside the sweat lodge. But according to Li, Ray couldn't hear anything in the giant structure he himself requested Angel Valley build for him. In a demonstration we've seen repeatedly from the defense team,  Li moved around the courtroom to demonstrate how it would have been impossible for people to be heard or to hear what they claim to have heard. The punchline on all of these tactics is that when these attorneys have stood at the back of the courtroom, they've still been perfectly audible to the people in the witness stand. Li used a "speaking tone" to demonstrate why James Shore's calls for help could not have been heard by Ray. I wonder how it was, then, that Gordon heard Ray's response to Shore's concerns -- or any of his statements, really -- so clearly. So I asked Santiago if Li was whispering in his demonstration. She responded that it was a "quiet speaking voice."

One juror may have been a little confused by Li's sotto voce performance. Santiago reports that one of the jury questions for Gordon was, "Did James Shore's voice get weaker after getting Sidney out of the lodge?"

The second jury question to financial adviser Gordon is also interesting: "Has JamesRay or JRI employees ever been clients of yours?" I wonder if that juror was maybe a little suspicious of Gordon's continuing fealty to Ray. (???)

One of the truly groundbreaking elements of Dawn Gordon's testimony is that we have, at long last, found an actual human who heard the mysterious EMT (?) who gave birth to the organophosphate theory. Li actually played the recording for Gordon, and as per Mark Duncan, she actually remembered hearing this odd bit of background noise. So, that's it then. It must have been organophosphates. Someone who may possibly have been an EMT mentioned it in a very preliminary presumptive diagnosis, along with that medically disproved carbon monoxide possibility. So now we'll, no doubt, get to hear how the State blew it by not only not picking up on background noise in a recording of a dining hall police interview, but by failing to extract that random bit of memory from their own witness Dawn Gordon. How could prosecutors possibly not have known to run down the theory of organophosphates when it was so remotely and tangentially available in their own evidence?! What a bunch of slackers.

Never mind that the entire organphosphate theory has been demonstrated to be ludicrous by evidence already presented by prosecutors and, in a rather ironic twist, the defense:

• If there was organophosphate poisoning, the paramedics did everything wrong. They would have killed a bunch of people by causing them drown in their own saliva... which did not happen. (See Dickson)
• Organophosphates were, in fact, ruled out at the hospital. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that cholinergics were not part of the differential diagnosis by the toxicologist, who found the symptoms consistent with carbon monoxide poisoning. (CO was subsequently ruled out by blood work.) I say this despite Truc Do's complete incapacity to grasp this simple fact. (See Dickson)
• None of the handful of pesticides so sparingly used at Angel Valley contain organophosphates. (As per Injun Samurai)
• As per Truc Do's own evidence, death from organophosphate poisoning is an extremely rare event and requires massive exposure. (See Dickson)

Dawn Gordon was excused subject to recall.

Some interesting elements of Ronan's testimony were also presented by Santiago. Ronan admitted having had some exposure to media after witnesses were ordered not to. I believe this was discussed a while ago. I'm not certain of this but, if memory serves, Ronan was confused as to whether or not he would be testifying.

Under direct questioning, Ronan testified that James Shore told him when they were waiting on line that he was looking forward to the sweat lodge. Talk about bitter irony.

Under cross examination, Ronan admitted that he had not revealed Megan Fredrickson's statement earlier to detectives. Truc Do reminded him that it could be considered "obstruction of justice."

It's kind of an interesting pattern that's evolving here. It's only the really damning testimony that brings threats of legal consequences by defense attorneys. It seems Dawn Gordon also said things were inconsistent with her police interviews, but it doesn't seem that brought any threats of perjury charges as the recanted testimony of Mark Rock did. Of course, I could be completely wrong on that score. For all I know she was charged and is seeking legal counsel as we speak. What do I know now that I have to rely on sketchy reports from the handful of reporters still covering this trial as CNN no longer delivers live courtroom proceedings to me daily.

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The Salty Droid has posted a characteristically HILARIOUS take on the media's new-found contempt for the sweat lodge trial. It seems James Ray's star has been eclipsed by WordMaster champion Jeremiah McDowell. The seventh grader is a real "up-and-comer" as the Propecia dependent "Harmonic HasBeen" heads for a life of obscurity.

I’ve been looking for James Ray :: have you seen him? He’s like a tall guy :: concave mouth :: spray on tan :: walks around like an angry chicken is nesting at the far end of his colon?

It’s not a big deal or anything :: it’s just that I found some of his pills near my grandpa’s socks :: and I wanted to give them back. I know how serious it can be for a fake Samurai to lose his insecurity pills.

You’d think he’d be easy to find :: I mean this guy was so famous and successful that he had to start a company just to tell everyone about how famous and successful he was :: and you can too!

Definitely a must read.

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James Ray Sweat Lodge Trial Roundup June 2

James Ray with Attorney Tom Kelly

As news out of the James Ray trial slows to a trickle, let's see what we can deduce from what is obviously so dull a story that it merits little to no coverage. Oh, here's a thing. Dawn Gordon testified that not only could no one leave when the sweat lodge when the flap was down, Ray responded to James Shore's concerns over Kirby Brown by saying, "No one is leaving at this time."

As per Mark Duncan, one of the handful of lonely reporters still covering the Yavapai County Courthouse beat, we learn that Spiritual Warrior participant Gordon had concerns over Brown's condition and labored breathing. She enlisted help from James Shore. Gordon was surprised that Shore had come back after dragging out an unconscious Sidney Spencer because he appeared to be struggling himself.

"He had his own free will to stay outside and he chose to come back in," she said.

By the time he did return, Gordon said, Brown had ceased her chant but was lying on her back, breathing loudly through what sounded like extreme congestion. Shore tried to move her onto her side to ease her airway but was unable and asked Gordon to help.

"I told him to get on the other side of her and that I would put my feet under her back and he could pull her arms," she said. "I stayed low...and as I was pushing and he was pulling we got her onto her side."

So why didn't they take the obviously ailing Brown out? Well, they all knew that once the flap was closed, that was it. And, for good measure James Ray reminded them when James Shore called out for help with Brown. Trouble breathing? Suck it up,  people. Flap's closed.

Brown's "chant" is one we've heard about from a number of witnesses. Brown had been chanting "We can do it," over and over again, loudly enough that several people told her to be quiet. Said Gordon:

"Partly because it was repetitive like a chant and it was disruptive for what I was perceiving as needing to take care of my well-being," she said, "both for my journey and what I was in the sweat lodge for in the first place."

This is something I've found odd from the beginning. On the one hand, Ray apparently led many chants during this heat endurance exercise but apparently Brown's attempts to start a chant only served to annoy. Could it be because she sounded out of control and disturbing? That's how this has always read to me. Like she was starting to sound like an embarrassing drunk as her disordered mental state overcame her determination.

Also exempt from the media blackout on this trial is Dateline's April Santiago who continued to tweet from the courtroom yesterday. From her we learned that Kim Brinkley, a teacher from California, stuck her face in the dirt to try to stay cool during the sweat lodge. (No doubt hoping that Ray hadn't told too many people to piss on the floor of the "temple" as he did to Lou Caci.)

We also learned that Sheila Polk tried to raise the issue of the Ray's no refund policy and was shot down. Of all Judge Darrow's rulings regarding "prejudicial" information, this is the one that honks me off. In this case, Ray's dubious business practices are directly on point because the defense's argument has made them so. The defense has argued repeatedly that people could have walked away at any time -- and indeed some people did. More to the point, they have argued endlessly that participants knew what they were getting into because they signed a waiver. Leaving aside for a moment how uninformative those waivers were, what were people supposed to do if they found the minimal disclosures in those waivers off-putting enough that they reconsidered attending? (Something Linda Andresano apparently wrestled with only to be mislead by Ray's staff.) What jurors are not hearing is that anyone who had concerns for their health or safety and reconsidered participating would forfeit nearly $10 grand. California a mandates a three day period cooling off period, which JRI complied with by law. But any concerns after that point, like when the waivers came, would have meant a rather large financial loss. Given that, it's understandable that a lot of people would have simply rolled the dice and trusted Ray not to kill or maim them.

Brinkley also confirmed earlier testimony about Laura Tucker raising concerns about Liz Neuman's health and being told "Liz has done this before..."

Tom Kelly's cross of Brinkley Santiago described as "testy." Shocker. Kelly cross-examined a female witness and managed to make her uncomfortable. Kelly also learned that Brinkley had decided against participating in a class action suit against Ray.

On redirect Polk extracted some details about Brinkley's medical condition following the sweat lodge. She experienced nausea and was diagnosed with heat exhaustion.

Brinkley also reiterated what many have testified to; that Ray pushed people to their limits and that his students didn't want to disappoint him. And this is precisely what made this (and other Ray events) so dangerous. He sets things up as a test of will and the difference between being a success or a failure in life. And he makes himself their judge, jury, and, it would seem, executioner.

Kim Brinkley was excused subject to recall.

Santiago also provided some other details from Gordon's testimony. She actually heard Ray say twice that no one could leave once the flap was closed.

Gordon appears to have approached this event with a lot of determination to succeed. She hadn't known there'd be a sweat lodge but once confronted with it she pushed through her own feelings of physical weakness and was proud of her accomplishment.

I am always just saddened when I learn about people treating a sweat lodge ceremony like an obstacle to be surmounted.

Over on the In Session blog, Jim Kyle seems to have taken a scunner to both of these witnesses. He found them to be"unusually dispassionate" as they recounted the horrific events. From his telling, they do both come off as a bit oblivious to what surrounded them. It sounds like Kim Brinkley was really out of it.

After a lengthy description of how she entered the sweat lodge, the position she took ultimately took and where she sat in relation to various other participants, Brinkley talked about how the first sign of something unusual was Amy Grimes passing out and falling on her.  Brinkley said she called out for help for about 20 or 30 seconds before anyone came to take Grimes out of the sweat lodge, and she couldn’t recall who that person was.  Brinkley then recounted hearing someone scream as though they were in pain, but didn’t know who it was at the time.  Only much later did she discover it was Lou Caci who fell into the rock pit while exiting the sweat lodge.  Brinkley explained her lack of attentiveness to what was going on by saying that her memory was auditory rather than visual due to the darkness.  She went on to claim to have been in an altered state throughout the sweat lodge ceremony, was unaware of the passage of time and probably not even awake the entire time.

. . .


After leaving the sweat lodge at the end of the ceremony, Brinkley describes how very cold she felt.  All she wanted to do was to go to her cabin and lay down.  She makes somewhat vague reference to hearing the arrival of helicopters and ambulances, but nonetheless was taken to her cabin in a gold cart where she took a shower.  Absent was any reference to sweat lodge participants lying about outside the sweat lodge in various states of distress as we often heard from other witnesses.

After showering, fellow participant Lynette walked Brinkley to the dining hall where all she ate was some toast due to her nausea.  Afterward she went back to her cabin to sleep.  Soon thereafter, Brinkley was summoned back to the dining hall to be checked out by EMT personnel.  She later consented to be taken toVerde Valley Medical Centerfor a more complete examination.

Kyle also found Brinkley to argumentative with Kelly. He cited several discrepancies with police interviews. No talk of perjury charges, though. Nope. Hmmmm....

A bone of contention seems to have been the medical report which Brinkley apparently did not agree with. But from Kyle's reporting we don't really know what the disconnect was, even though Polk apparently clarified it on redirect. As stated above, according to Santiago, she was diagnosed with heat exhaustion. I'd sure like to know what the issue was but I'm guessing it has to do, once again, with what condition -- and body temperature -- she presented with at the hospital after showering and resting, as opposed to what she experienced in and immediately after the sweat lodge. Sadly, I doubt I'll ever know.

Kyle describes a lack of situational awareness in Gordon, as well.

Gordon was next willing to admit that Shore may have also been struggling.  “He was constantly sighing and she told him to keep breathing and stay calm.”  This happened around the fourth or fifth round.  In particular, at the close of the day’s direct examination, Gordon recalls that at the end of the eighth round Shore, who was near Brown, said that he “needed help over here.”  However, the lodge flap was closed and Ray announced that no one was leaving at that time.  Polk then suggested that Gordon consider that Shore may have been asking for help for himself and not necessarily for Brown.  However, Gordon offered that at this stage she no longer recalled even hearing Brown because she was not paying attention to her surroundings but simply wanted to “complete the process and get out of the sweat lodge.”

Gordon then described how she managed to drag herself out of the sweat lodge even though she was very weak.  As she was coming out no one else was moving so she had to go past people to get out.  She didn’t even observe the people she was passing.  Shore and Brown were right next to her.  She saw no movement from them, and her awareness was not really on them.  Nevertheless, she dragged herself out of the sweat lodge feeling very proud of what she had accomplished.

Kyle also posted on the previous day's testimony and it does flesh things out a little. For instance, he clarifies that Mark Rock had actually recanted statements made in early police interviews in October of last year. He did this after undertaking a "healing process" at Angel Valley, where he and his wife volunteered for some months. So he's been accused of perjury for contradicting testimony he already recanted in a later police interview?? That seems odd to me. But from what I've been able to deduce Kelly is claiming that Rock concocted a new narrative in collaboration with the Hamiltons, the Mercers, and Fawn Foster.

Kelly’s next tactic was to establish that Rock did not change his story until after spending several months at Angel Valley talking to the Hamiltons, the Mercers and Foster who presumably convinced Rock to make a statement that steered responsibility for what happened away from the Hamiltons who were facing numerous lawsuits.

If that's the case Mark Rock is remarkably willing to risk his own liberty to maybe, possibly improve the Hamilton's prospects in law suits that have already been settled.

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James Ray Sweat Lodge Trial Roundup June 1

Connie Joy was interviewed by Dr. Carole Lieberman, the psychiatrist who did the forward for her book Tragedy in Sedona. As ever Joy is informative and insightful about the dynamics that created this disaster. She provides a lot of the back-story that jurors will not hear. (Her earlier interview with Lieberman can be found here.)

Most interesting is what Joy reveals about Ray's behavior in and around the courtroom which she's observed firsthand. Much in keeping with his horrifying "WooHooo!!" tweet immediately following the Brady violation ruling, his insensitivity to bereaved family members is stunning. She describes him "yucking it up" with his lawyers during breaks a few feet away from Ginny Brown and other family members. Joy also recounts his attempt to physically intimidate her by abruptly pushing past her, like she was invisible, to greet a reporter.

It's always disturbing to see the man behind the curtain when it turns out the hidden operator is probably a sociopath. Joy has learned a lesson I did some years ago about projecting our own values onto other people. In my own experience of dealing with sociopaths, which I have more than once,  they rely on a combination of their own ability to mimic human behavior and the tendency of people with normal emotions to rescript their red flag statements and behaviors. Seeing them for who they really are is too shocking and painful. The more compassion and empathy we have for others, the more inconceivable we find its lack. This is what con artists and their ilk count on. James Ray surrounded himself with lovely, generous, open-hearted people. Watching so many on the stand as they wrestle with the dawning realization of how really traumatized they are has been a painful reminder of how many people can be severely wounded by one man's pathology.

It would seem that Mark Rock is another of the walking wounded. If his testimony is to be believed, he is suffering from PTSD and repressed memories of his ordeal at the 2009 sweat lodge. I have no idea how Rock came across or whether or not I myself would find him credible because CNN no longer streams the trial onto my computer. But, according to Mark Duncan, that is how Rock explains the disconnect between his post-event police interview and his current testimony. Certainly one of the things we've seen a lot of with these witnesses is the various stages of eroding denial. Laurie Gennari comes to mind, just because she articulated it so well.

According to Rock, his healing process has forced him to address the guilt he felt for not saving Kirby Brown.

"At the end of the sixth round I heard Kirby gurgling her last breath, I thought, and I heard somebody say 'Kirby's in trouble - she needs to get out,' and I heard James Ray say, 'Close the gate. We'll get back to her at the end of this round.'"

Emotional at times, Rock tried to explain why his testimony was important to his ongoing healing process, a salve to the psychic wounds he suffered in the sweat lodge.

"Once I fully remembered everything I didn't do, it became impossible to forgive myself for that," he said, noting that his altered mental state froze him in a posture of futility.

"I was there for the people in the sweat lodge and I couldn't do anything to help them."

The other evening I noticed the M*A*S*H finale in the program lineup. I thought about watching it but the truth is I found it too upsetting the first time. I don't know if I could ever sit through it again. In it Hawkeye has a nervous breakdown after surviving an enemy attack and discovers in therapy that he's distorted his memory of the event because the reality is too painful.

During the final days of the Korean War, Capt. Hawkeye Pierce has been sent to a mental hospital for treatment by Dr. Sidney Freedman. Pierce's memories of what led to his breakdown have become repressed, and as he and Freedman draw them forth, Pierce at first remembers the details inaccurately.^[4] In Pierce’s first recollection, he was on a bus returning to the 4077th after a day of drinking at the beaches of Incheon. He called for a bottle of whiskey to be passed back to someone who “can’t wait”; later, he is able to more accurately recall this person was a wounded soldier, and that the bottle was filled with not whiskey, but plasma. The bus then picked up some South Korean refugees, followed by some wounded soldiers who brought news of an enemy patrol in the area. The bus later pulls off the road and everyone is told to stay quiet so they would not be discovered by the enemy. One woman carried a live chicken that would not stop squawking, prompting Pierce to angrily admonish her to “keep that damn chicken quiet!”, after which the noise suddenly stopped.

This last detail causes Pierce to break down sobbing as he finally reveals the true ending of the story. When Hawkeye snapped at the woman, he had told her to keep not a chicken quiet, but rather her baby. Unable to keep the baby from crying, the woman made the decision to smother her own child to silence it and protect the lives of the people on the bus. Upon seeing what had happened, Pierce was so traumatized that he repressed the memory of what occurred. Once back at camp, he attempted to operate on a patient without anesthesia, while accusing the anesthesiologist of trying to smother the patient. But it was a later incident, driving a jeep through the wall of the Officers' Club and ordering a double bourbon (which Pierce never drank), that caused Pierce to be committed to the mental hospital.

I don't know if Mark Rock is telling the truth when he says he is only now recalling buried truth and shame from that day. I do know that the our minds have an incredible capacity to protect us from pain. Denial is kind of band-aid. At some point we have to remove it because it no longer serves us. But ripping it off is invariably painful. Been there. 

Rock may have put himself in real jeopardy by testifying as he has. The defense has made a request to have his testimony stricken and cites his own attorney as saying that he was "determined" to perjure himself.

So far that's the only coverage of today's proceedings I've been able to find. Although April Santiago did some much appreciated live tweeting from the courtroom. She reported that Rock was very emotional as he described the impact on his life. She also reported that there was more legal wrangling over whether or not he could testify to the Dream Team's request that he not cooperate with authorities but that ultimately he was not able to give that testimony.

Also from Santiago, Tom Kelly grilled Rock about his inconsistencies and played recordings of his original interviews. Santiago also found them to be quite different in tone and notes that he attributes this to PTSD. Kelly also did some saber rattling about "lying under oath."

Mark Rock was excused subject to recall.

Santiago also tweeted that CNN may stream the closing arguments. I call that too little too late.

Also posted to the Yavapai County site were some jury questions for Brandy Rainey who testified last week. Of special interest is the following:

Click to Enlarge

I guess Kelly really stepped in it. As CNN has stopped streaming, I don't know whether or not Judge Darrow elected to pose this question to Rainey. I'm presuming not as it gets into hotly disputed material about prior events but it looks like there was enough presented during cross examination to raise a red flag for at least one juror. Damn. This is exactly the kind of courtroom drama I hate to miss.

For now, that's the extent of available media coverage from today.

A reader reminded me this morning that the In Session blog still provides some fairly decent, if spotty, coverage. Here's a recent write-up. The only really new piece of info is that Sheila Polk tried and failed to have Fawn Foster testify on causation because of her experience in a non-James Ray sweat lodge in the same structure.

Also worth noting on that blog is the lengths CNN and the In Session team will go to to bury any coverage of this trial. Here is their category listing. See their tags for James Arthur Ray or Sweat Lodge in that listing? Neither do I.

In Session Blog Tags

Make no mistake. CNN hates this trial. It's thinky. Making people think annoys advertisers. And they love James Ray. He and The Secret fueled consumer culture like a crack cocaine. I don't think the infotainment industry was prepared to see the whole phenomenon so tarnished by this trial. They've been trying to wish it into the cornfield ever since.

I checked in with CnnLive numerous times today while the James Ray trial was in session just because I wanted to see what other news is so bloody important. As you can see, a lot of it is weather and empty feeds. Not once during the hours of the trial did I see all four feeds taken up with actual, breaking news.

That "severe weather in northeast" is certainly newsworthy. We had a hailstorm here and people were killed by a tornado in Massachusetts. But that feed didn't cover any of that. It was actually just another weather map. Helpful. Obviously CNN really needs to dedicate feeds to something the weather channel does so much better.

Years ago, when Fox News began eroding CNN's market share, I thought their craven attempts to remake themselves into Fox Lite put them on a path to total irrelevancy. They're proceeding at a pace.

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