Sweat lodge guru faces murder investigation

A leaked police report has revealed the horrifying final moments of participants in a new age retreat where a "sweat lodge" session killed three and injured 20.

The spiritual retreat, where people paid thousands of dollars for five days of motivational talks and physical tasks, was led by James Arthur Ray, one of America's best known spiritual gurus.

The retreat's Arizona sweat lodge ended up steaming people to death last October. The tragedy was first thought to be an accident, but Ray is now the subject of a murder investigation.

The police report has cast a spotlight on America's self-help industry, where self-proclaimed gurus make millions by urging people into bizarre and extreme behaviour.

The report showed participants vomited, passed out and screamed for help. Ray was outside the only entrance, controlling the flap that let people in and out. One witness, Theodore Mercer, who helped run the lodge, said Ray told scared participants three times: "You are not going to die. You might think you are, but you are not going to die."

The two-hour ceremony, which saw red-hot rocks passed into the lodge every 15 minutes, came after two days of fasting and not drinking water. After an hour, two people were dragged out, one saying: "I don't want to die, I don't want to die." Ray allegedly responded: "It's a good day to die."

Almost at the end of the ceremony, with one more round of rocks to be put in, it emerged two people had passed out. They were kept inside.

When the ceremony was over and people were trying to get the victims out, Ray called attempts to remove blankets from the walls "sacrilegious". One victim had been subjected to such intense heat his lungs were scorched.

Ray has not been charged with any crime, although he has been sued by some victims. "The tragedy was a terrible accident that no one, including James Ray, could have seen coming," Ray's lawyer, Brad Brian, said.

But the leaked report does reveal previous incidents when problems arose at Ray's sweat lodge. One man described Ray telling him to shatter bricks with his bare hands, which he did, breaking bones in his hand. The same man was at the fatal October sweat lodge ceremony. He staggered out halfway through, severely burned by the hot rocks, yet went back in for the last round.

Critics say that such tasks are a sort of confidence trick that exists at the extreme end of America's US$11.5 billion ($15.8 billion) self-help industry.

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