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'A GOOD DAY TO DIE' How terrified followers of disgraced self-help guru boiled to DEATH in 90C sweat lodges at ‘cult-like’ desert camp
BRANDY Amstel felt the scalding steam burning her throat, sending a searing heat into her lungs as she struggled to breath.
Blood-curdling screams came from the 54 people packed into the small sauna-like tent, as the temperature rose to more than 90C, and a distraught man shouted that he was dying of a heart attack.
“Today is a good day to die,” came the chilling response from self-help guru James Arthur Ray - as he called for more hot rocks to raise the temperature.
This was no torture chamber, but part of an £8,000 spiritual retreat in the Arizona desert where attendees had their hair shaved, were left in the desert for 36 hours, then herded into a “sweat lodge” and subjected to extreme temperature for a “death and rebirth” experience.
The hellish heat left three dead and 18 hospitalised in October 2009 after the popular guru - who starred in The Secret and appeared on Oprah - ignored their screams of distress.
Ray was sentenced to two years for negligent homicide in 2011 but is now free and still holding seminars and workshops promising followers he
