Mark Spencer Az

Participants in deadly sweat lodge give unusually dispassionate rendition of ...

Camp Verde , AZ – In Day 43 of AZ v. James Ray we heard testimony from two more participants in the deadly 2009 sweat lodge.  For the past two days we sat through the markedly emotional testimony of former Dream Team member Mark Rock who claims to still be haunted by the post-traumatic stress of that fatal day.  However, in contrast to the frequently weeping Rock, we moved on to the relatively dispassionate portrayal of the events of October 8, 2009 as portrayed by Kim Brinkley and Dawn Gordon.  From both these witnesses we heard the familiar litany of observations surrounding the deaths of Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman, nevertheless rendered in a much more sober manner, lacking much of the sense of urgency and of impending peril that characterized the testimony of previous witnesses.

First to take the stand was Kim Brinkley.  A resident of Southern California, Brinkley quickly became a veteran of James Ray International events after discovering Ray in the hugely popular film “The Secret.”  During a typical three plus hour long direct examination by prosecutor Sheila Polk, the decidedly confident and self-possessed Brinkley gave her version of the now very familiar string of occurrences and verbal exchanges that have already been testified to by numerous prior witnesses.

Brinkley reiterated Ray’s oft-repeated characterization of the sweat lodge experience.  She testified that Ray explained that you might feel like you’re going to die, but you won’t, that a Native American friend called it a “sweat lodge on steroids, and that it would be like dying and being reborn.”  Brinkley professed to being a bit concerned.  She really didn’t fully understand what the altered state as experienced in a sweat lodge was about, but she trusted Ray.

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.

Bibliography and index of geology

Knives 2008

California farmer

The Goar family history, 1806-1974, and personal memoirs

History of Arizona