I am an elderly white man living in Guatemala, but many years ago I spent some 10 years living with the Lakota and Yaqui in USA. I have been in many hundreds of sweats, some crispy warm and some very, very hot. I was never injured in any way. Of the huge number of people with whom I sweated, I never knew anyone who was ever injured. Indeed I never even heard of any such occurrence.

As Arvol has explained, Indian Sweat Leaders go through a years long period of training before they are invited to pour water. Inside the sweat they are looking after the welfare of everybody else there, praying for them and being sure nobody is having a problem. Elders sweat, women sweat, little children sweat. The Sweat Leader looks after them in a loving, parental manner. Nobody ever gets hurt. Rather, they are cured of physical and mental problems.

Anybody who knows anything at all of the Red Road knows that this ¨thing¨ that occurred in Sedona, Arizona was not a sweat. Rather it was an offensive, sacrilgeous mockery of an ancient and sacred path to the divine. It must be thoroughly repudiated and condemned by everybody no matter what their race or religion.