They Entered a Sweat Lodge Seeking Self-Help. Three of Them Never Came Home.
Getting to Angel Valley, Arizona in October 2009 required crossing a rainbow bridge.
Painted in a palette of pleasing pastels, the colorful bridge stretching across the silver waters of Sedona’s Oak Creek was charming. It was also much more than that for guests arriving at the isolated New Age retreat center who were of a certain spiritual orientation. The bridge was a kind of welcome sign to the fifth dimension, placed there by the retreat center’s owners who had named their 70-acre property Angel Valley because they believed the land nine miles west of town was occupied by angels, galactic beings, and other non-human forces. The bridge was code for: “You are now entering another realm. The veil is thin here.”
- This is an excerpt from the 2026 book Plastic Shaman: The True Story of a Deadly Self-Help Retreat and America’s Misguided Quest for Wellness by Outside contributor Annette McGivney.
No doubt the expectations of James Arthur Ray’s followers were high as they drove across the rainbow bridge on October 3, 2009. After being featured in the 2006 blockbuster movie The Secret, Ray’s fame had skyrocketed thanks to several guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. His 2008 book, Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want, was a New York Times bestseller. Ray’s company, James Ray International, was earning more than $9 million a year with its national seminar circuit. More than anything, what made Ray so popular was the perception that he was not like other famous motivational speakers and self-help authors. Ray was a guru.
For those who wanted to be financially successful but also become enlightened, Ray’s Spiritual Warrior Retreat at Angel Valley was—according to his marketing material—the opportunity of a lifetime. The six-day event cost nearly $10,000 and was far more intense than what Ray offered during his weekend seminars in hotel ballrooms. And there was no better place to play “full on,” as Ray liked to say, than Angel Valley, a location steeped in Native American history and the New Age mysticism of Sedona’s red rock landscape. Most of Ray’s followers were urban white-collar professionals who were drawn to the unique pairing of experiences at Spiritual Warrior. In addition to promising answers about how to make more money, the pricey retreat offered a rare opportunity to connect with the spiritual aspects of authentic Native American culture and the natural world.
The Spiritual Warrior Participant Guide sent in advance of the 2009 retreat described Angel Valley as being located in a place of intense Earth energy. A list of what to bring included yoga clothes, power objects (“objects that hold special meaning for you”), Ray’s various CD collections of seminar recordings, and a bathing suit that could get “possibly dirty.”
But the itinerary that Ray shared for the six-day retreat was sparse. He liked to surprise his followers and keep them on edge. The first surprise was challenging participants to shave their heads upon arrival at Angel Valley as a sign of their commitment to a week of spiritual transformation. Several days later, he would send the 54 participants on a so-called Native American vision quest where they sat alone in the arid national forest lands around Angel Valley for approximately 36 hours. Each person was dropped off in an isolated location without food, water, or a cell phone. They were instructed to stay put, journal on their innermost thoughts, and chart a new path forward for themselves.
Upon safely returning from two nights in the desert, just about everyone assumed they had completed the seminar’s capstone experience. Many felt they had received some kind of epiphany. They were also exhausted, dirty, and dehydrated. Now it was time to go home.
But Ray had one last surprise for his followers: a Native American sweat lodge ceremony—or, more precisely, his corrupted version of the ritual.
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