Sweat Lodge: Homicide at …

1/1 unique remix – recorded live from handmade, on site radio station with analog FM radio proof of work: https://youtu.be/ttDI0kmW4_M He was an American motivational speaker and a popular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. The bestselling author was also the monger of a series of sweat lodge* ceremonies as part of his intense "Spiritual Warrior" retreats in Sedona, Arizona. On October 8th, 2009, James Shore, Kirby Brown, and Liz Neuman died at his urging, while eighteen other followers suffered severe heat injuries. In the aftermath, it was revealed that several participants had been personally misinformed about the risks associated with the sweat lodge ceremony by the guru himself. He cajoled them, shamed them, and said it was a good day to die. James Arthur Ray, the owner of the Fortune 500 company James Ray International, was soon charged with manslaughter. As people fell unconscious, Ray’s workers laid them on tarps and sprayed them with hoses but were unable to revive everyone. After delays, authorities were notified. This led to a full-scale medical disaster response, including life flights, and an utterly chaotic scene at the Angel Valley retreat center, from which James Ray fled. At first, he refused to cooperate with the investigation but settled many lawsuits. On June 22, 2011, Ray was found guilty on three counts of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison. * Beyond the tragic negligent homicide of his manipulated seekers, the injuries and deaths also underscored Ray’s cultural appropriation of sacred Native American sweat lodge ceremonies. Ray had literally turned up the temperature on otherwise safe and respected spiritual practices by ordering the unsafe overfiring of sixty stones in the sweat lodge, then applying water and covering the dugout entrance, trapping his clients in barely survivable hot steam. Victims reported attempting to cool themselves by digging their arms and legs into the dirt of the hole as they lost consciousness. Oprah Winfrey has never commented. The work is an electro-metal musique descriptive intended to convey the suffering involved in being steamed to death by your guru. The violence of it comes through two algorithmically modified square waves, leaning into the distortion created by feeding two such signals – all that an Arduino Uno Rev 3 can generate at a time – into each stereo channel of the transmitter, modified only by some electrolytic capacitors. Each is 1/1, a unique automated remix. The larger NFT project is about cults and their poorly deceased, but I am also exploring the technical space: What range of sound, what rage of sound, can a $3 computer make within the constraints such hardware presents? The music lines up with the fury I feel over this felon and coward, his facile teachings, and horror-show homicides. Indeed, toward anyone who capitalizes on spirituality or uses it to profit, abuse, and kill. Today, the retreat center is under new ownership. Only the airwaves bear witness to the crimes committed in the area.