Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. As an oversimplification, Cybernetics is information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form. (Second-order cybernetics has crucial methodological and epistemological implications that are fundamental to the field as a whole.) Both in its origins and in its evolution in the second half of the 20th century, cybernetics is equally applicable to physical and social (that is, language-based) systems. thumb|360px|Example of cybernetic thinking. On the one hand a company is approached as a system in an [[wikt:environment|environment. On the other hand cybernetic factory can be modeled as a control system.]]

Overview[link]

Cybernetics is only applicable when the system being analysed is involved in a closed signal loop; that is, where action by the system causes some change in its environment and that change is fed to the system via information (feedback) that enables the system to change its behavior. This "circular causal" relationship is necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic perspective. System Dynamics, a related field, originated with applications of electrical engineering control theory to other kinds of simulation models (especially business systems) by Jay Forrester at MIT in the 1950s.

Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology in the 1940s, often attributed to the Macy Conferences.

Other fields of study which have influenced or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), perceptual control theory, sociology, psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology), philosophy, and architecture and organizational theory.

Definition [link]

The term ''cybernetics'' stems from the Greek κυβερνήτης (''kybernētēs'', steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — the same root as government). Cybernetics is a broad field of study, but the essential goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and again to action. Studies in cybernetics provide a means for examining the design and function of any system, including social systems such as business management and organizational learning, including for the purpose of making them more efficient and effective.

Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener, in his book of the same title, as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Stafford Beer called it the science of effective organization and Gordon Pask called it "the art of defensible metaphors" (emphasizing its constructivist epistemology) though he later extended it to include information flows "in all media" from stars to brains. It includes the study of feedback, black boxes and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organizations including self-organization. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks. A more philosophical definition, suggested in 1956 by Louis Couffignal, one of the pioneers of cybernetics, characterizes cybernetics as "the art of ensuring the efficacy of action." The most recent definition has been proposed by Louis Kauffman, President of the American Society for Cybernetics, "Cybernetics is the study of systems and processes that interact with themselves and produce themselves from themselves."

Concepts studied by cyberneticists (or, as some prefer, cyberneticians) include, but are not limited to: learning, cognition, adaption, social control, emergence, communication, efficiency, efficacy and connectivity. These concepts are studied by other subjects such as engineering and biology, but in cybernetics these are removed from the context of the individual organism or device.

History[link]

The roots of cybernetic theory[link]

The word ''cybernetics'' was first used in the context of "the study of self-governance" by Plato in The Alcibiades to signify the governance of people. The word 'cybernétique' was also used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge. The first artificial automatic regulatory system, a water clock, was invented by the mechanician Ktesibios. In his water clocks, water flowed from a source such as a holding tank into a reservoir, then from the reservoir to the mechanisms of the clock. Ktesibios's device used a cone-shaped float to monitor the level of the water in its reservoir and adjust the rate of flow of the water accordingly to maintain a constant level of water in the reservoir, so that it neither overflowed nor was allowed to run dry. This was the first artificial truly automatic self-regulatory device that required no outside intervention between the feedback and the controls of the mechanism. Although they did not refer to this concept by the name of Cybernetics (they considered it a field of engineering), Ktesibios and others such as Heron and Su Song are considered to be some of the first to study cybernetic principles.

The study of ''teleological mechanisms'' (from the Greek τέλος or ''telos'' for ''end'', ''goal'', or ''purpose'') in machines with ''corrective feedback'' dates from as far back as the late 18th century when James Watt's steam engine was equipped with a governor, a centrifugal feedback valve for controlling the speed of the engine. Alfred Russel Wallace identified this as the principle of evolution in his famous 1858 paper. In 1868 James Clerk Maxwell published a theoretical article on governors, one of the first to discuss and refine the principles of self-regulating devices. Jakob von Uexküll applied the feedback mechanism via his model of functional cycle (''Funktionskreis'') in order to explain animal behaviour and the origins of meaning in general.

The early 20th century[link]

Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s. Electronic control systems originated with the 1927 work of Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer Harold S. Black on using negative feedback to control amplifiers. The ideas are also related to the biological work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in General Systems Theory.

Early applications of negative feedback in electronic circuits included the control of gun mounts and radar antenna during World War II. Jay Forrester, a graduate student at the Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT during WWII working with Gordon S. Brown to develop electronic control systems for the U.S. Navy, later applied these ideas to social organizations such as corporations and cities as an original organizer of the MIT School of Industrial Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Forrester is known as the founder of System Dynamics.

W. Edwards Deming, the Total Quality Management guru for whom Japan named its top post-WWII industrial prize, was an intern at Bell Telephone Labs in 1927 and may have been influenced by network theory. Deming made "Understanding Systems" one of the four pillars of what he described as "Profound Knowledge" in his book "The New Economics."

Numerous papers spearheaded the coalescing of the field. In 1935 Russian physiologist P.K. Anokhin published a book in which the concept of feedback ("back afferentation") was studied. The study and mathematical modelling of regulatory processes became a continuing research effort and two key articles were published in 1943. These papers were "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow; and the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts.

Cybernetics as a discipline was firmly established by Wiener, McCulloch and others, such as W. Ross Ashby and W. Grey Walter. Walter was one of the first to build autonomous robots as an aid to the study of animal behaviour. Together with the US and UK, an important geographical locus of early cybernetics was France.

In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on harmonic analysis, held in Nancy, France. The event was organized by the Bourbaki, a French scientific society, and mathematician Szolem Mandelbrojt (1899–1983), uncle of the world-famous mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot. During this stay in France, Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of Brownian motion and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism cybernetics into his scientific theory. The name ''cybernetics'' was coined to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms" and was popularized through his book ''Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine'' (Hermann & Cie, Paris, 1948). In the UK this became the focus for the Ratio Club.

In the early 1940s John von Neumann, although better known for his work in mathematics and computer science, did contribute a unique and unusual addition to the world of cybernetics: Von Neumann cellular automata, and their logical follow up the Von Neumann Universal Constructor. The result of these deceptively simple thought-experiments was the concept of self replication which cybernetics adopted as a core concept. The concept that the same properties of genetic reproduction applied to social memes, living cells, and even computer viruses is further proof of the somewhat surprising universality of cybernetic study.

Wiener popularized the social implications of cybernetics, drawing analogies between automatic systems (such as a regulated steam engine) and human institutions in his best-selling ''The Human Use of Human Beings : Cybernetics and Society'' (Houghton-Mifflin, 1950).

While not the only instance of a research organization focused on cybernetics, the Biological Computer Lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, under the direction of Heinz von Foerster, was a major center of cybernetic research for almost 20 years, beginning in 1958.

The rebirth of cybernetics[link]

In the 1970s, new cyberneticians emerged in multiple fields, but especially in biology. The ideas of Maturana, Varela and Atlan, according to Dupuy (1986) "realized that the cybernetic metaphors of the program upon which molecular biology had been based rendered a conception of the autonomy of the living being impossible. Consequently, these thinkers were led to invent a new cybernetics, one more suited to the organizations which mankind discovers in nature - organizations he has not himself invented". However, during the 1980s the question of whether the features of this new cybernetics could be applied to social forms of organization remained open to debate.

In political science, Project Cybersyn attempted to introduce a cybernetically controlled economy during the early 1970s. In the 1980s, according to Harries-Jones (1988) "unlike its predecessor, the new cybernetics concerns itself with the interaction of autonomous political actors and subgroups, and the practical and reflexive consciousness of the subjects who produce and reproduce the structure of a political community. A dominant consideration is that of recursiveness, or self-reference of political action both with regards to the expression of political consciousness and with the ways in which systems build upon themselves".

One characteristic of the emerging new cybernetics considered in that time by Geyer and van der Zouwen, according to Bailey (1994), was "that it views information as constructed and reconstructed by an individual interacting with the environment. This provides an epistemological foundation of science, by viewing it as observer-dependent. Another characteristic of the new cybernetics is its contribution towards bridging the "micro-macro gap". That is, it links the individual with the society". Another characteristic noted was the "transition from classical cybernetics to the new cybernetics [that] involves a transition from classical problems to new problems. These shifts in thinking involve, among others, (a) a change from emphasis on the system being steered to the system doing the steering, and the factor which guides the steering decisions.; and (b) new emphasis on communication between several systems which are trying to steer each other". The work of Gregory Bateson was also strongly influenced by cybernetics.

Recent endeavors into the true focus of cybernetics, systems of control and emergent behavior, by such related fields as game theory (the analysis of group interaction), systems of feedback in evolution, and metamaterials (the study of materials with properties beyond the Newtonian properties of their constituent atoms), have led to a revived interest in this increasingly relevant field.

Subdivisions of the field[link]

Cybernetics is an earlier but still-used generic term for many types of subject matter. These subjects also extend into many others areas of science, but are united in their study of control of systems.

Basic cybernetics [link]

Cybernetics studies systems of control as a concept, attempting to discover the basic principles underlying such things as

Artificial intelligence

Robotics

Computer Vision

Control systems

Emergence

Learning organization

New Cybernetics

Second-order cybernetics

Interactions of Actors Theory

Conversation Theory

Self-organization in cybernetics

In biology [link]

Cybernetics in biology is the study of cybernetic systems present in biological organisms, primarily focusing on how animals adapt to their environment, and how information in the form of genes is passed from generation to generation. There is also a secondary focus on combining artificial systems with biological systems.

Bioengineering

Biocybernetics

Bionics

Homeostasis

Medical cybernetics

Synthetic Biology

Systems Biology

In computer science [link]

Computer science directly applies the concepts of cybernetics to the control of devices and the analysis of information.

Design Patterns

Robotics

Decision support system

Cellular automaton

Simulation

Technology

In engineering [link]

Cybernetics in engineering is used to analyze cascading failures and System Accidents, in which the small errors and imperfections in a system can generate disasters. Other topics studied include:

Adaptive systems

Engineering cybernetics

Ergonomics

Biomedical engineering

Systems engineering

In management [link]

Entrepreneurial cybernetics

Management cybernetics

Organizational cybernetics

Operations research

Systems engineering

In mathematics [link]

Mathematical Cybernetics focuses on the factors of information, interaction of parts in systems, and the structure of systems.

Dynamical system

Information theory

Systems theory

In psychology [link]

Homunculus

Psycho-Cybernetics

Systems psychology

Perceptual Control Theory

Psychovector Analysis

Attachment Theory

Human-robot interaction

Consciousness

Embodied cognition

Cognitive psychology

Mind-body problem

In sociology [link]

By examining group behavior through the lens of cybernetics, sociologists can seek the reasons for such spontaneous events as smart mobs and riots, as well as how communities develop rules such as etiquette by consensus without formal discussion. Affect Control Theory explains role behavior, emotions, and labeling theory in terms of homeostatic maintenance of sentiments associated with cultural categories. The most comprehensive attempt ever made in the social sciences to increase cybernetics in a generalized theory of society was made by Talcott Parsons. In this way, cybernetics establishes the basic hierarchy in Parsons' AGIL paradigm, which is the ordering system-dimension of his action theory. These and other cybernetic models in sociology are reviewed in a book edited by McClelland and Fararo.

Affect Control Theory

Memetics

Sociocybernetics

In art[link]

Nicolas Schöffer's ''CYSP I'' (1956) was perhaps the first artwork to explicitly employ cybernetic principles (CYSP is an acronym that joins the first two letters of the words "CYbernetic" and "SPatiodynamic"). The artist Roy Ascott elaborated an extensive theory of cybernetic art in "Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision" (Cybernetica, Journal of the International Association for Cybernetics (Namur), Volume IX, No.4, 1966; Volume X No.1, 1967) and in "The Cybernetic Stance: My Process and Purpose" (Leonardo Vol 1, No 2, 1968). Art historian Edward A. Shanken has written about the history of art and cybernetics in essays including "Cybernetics and Art: Cultural Convergence in the 1960s" and "From Cybernetics to Telematics: The Art, Pedagogy, and Theory of Roy Ascott"(2003), which traces the trajectory of Ascott's work from cybernetic art to telematic art (art using computer networking as its medium, a precursor to net.art.)

Telematic art

Interactive Art

Systems art

earth_system_science">In Earth system science

Geocybernetics aims to study and control the complex co-evolution of ecosphere and anthroposphere.

Related fields[link]

Complexity science [link]

Complexity science attempts to understand the nature of complex systems.

Complex Adaptive System

Complex systems

Complexity theory

See also [link]

Artificial life

Automation

Brain-computer interface

Chaos theory

Connectionism

Decision theory

Family therapy

Earth system science

Gaia hypothesis

Industrial Ecology

Intelligence amplification

Management science

Perceptual control theory

Principia Cybernetica

Project Cybersyn

Viable System Model

Semiotics

Superorganisms

Synergetics

References[link]

Further reading [link]

Eden Medina (2011) '' Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile'' MIT Press.

Andrew Pickering (2010) '' The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future'' University Of Chicago Press.

Slava Gerovitch (2002) '' From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics'' MIT Press.

John Johnston, (2008) '' The Allure of Machinic Life: Cybernetics, Artificial Life, and the New AI'', MIT Press

Heikki Hyötyniemi (2006). ''Neocybernetics in Biological Systems''. Espoo: Helsinki University of Technology, Control Engineering Laboratory.

Francis Heylighen, and Cliff Joslyn (2001). "Cybernetics and Second Order Cybernetics", in: R.A. Meyers (ed.), ''Encyclopedia of Physical Science & Technology'' (3rd ed.), Vol. 4, (Academic Press, New York), p. 155-170.

Charles François (1999). "Systemics and cybernetics in a historical perspective". In: ''Systems Research and Behavioral Science''. Vol 16, pp. 203–219 (1999)

Heinz von Foerster, (1995), Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics.

Steve J. Heims (1993), ''Constructing a Social Science for Postwar America. The Cybernetics Group, 1946-1953'', Cambridge University Press, London, UK.

Paul Pangaro (1990), "Cybernetics — A Definition", Eprint.

Stuart Umpleby (1989), "The science of cybernetics and the cybernetics of science", in: ''Cybernetics and Systems", Vol. 21, No. 1, (1990), pp. 109–121.

Michael A. Arbib (1987, 1964) '' Brains, Machines, and Mathematics'' Springer.

B.C. Patten, and E.P. Odum (1981), "The Cybernetic Nature of Ecosystems", ''The American Naturalist'' 118, 886-895.

Hans Joachim Ilgauds (1980), ''Norbert Wiener'', Leipzig.

Stafford Beer (1974), ''Designing Freedom'', John Wiley, London and New York, 1975.

Gordon Pask (1972), "Cybernetics", entry in ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 1972.

Helvey, T.C. The Age of Information: An Interdisciplinary Survey of Cybernetics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology Publications, 1971.

Roy Ascott (1967). Behaviourist Art and the Cybernetic Vision. Cybernetica, Journal of the International Association for Cybernetics (Namur), 10, pp. 25–56

W. Ross Ashby (1956), ''Introduction to Cybernetics''. Methuen, London, UK. PDF text.

Norbert Wiener (1948), ''Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'', (Hermann & Cie Editeurs, Paris, The Technology Press, Cambridge, Mass., John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 1948).

External links[link]

;General

Norbert Wiener and Stefan Odobleja - A Comparative Analysis

Reading List for Cybernetics

''Principia Cybernetica Web''

Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems

Glossary Slideshow (136 slides)

Basics of Cybernetics

What is Cybernetics? Livas short introductory videos on YouTube

A History of Systemic and Cybernetic Thought. From Homeostasis to the Teardrop

;Societies

American Society for Cybernetics

IEEE Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Society

International Society for Cybernetics and Systems Research

The Cybernetics Society

Category:Control theory Category:Formal sciences Category:Robotics Category:Systems Category:Systems theory

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Maxwell Maltz (March 10, 1899 – April 7, 1975) was an American cosmetic surgeon and author of ''Psycho-Cybernetics'' (1960), which was a system of ideas that he claimed could improve one's self-image. In turn, the person would lead a more successful and fulfilling life. He wrote several books, among which ''Psycho-Cybernetics'' was a long-time bestseller — influencing many subsequent self-help teachers. His orientation towards a system of ideas that would provide self help is considered the forerunner of the now popular self help books.

In 1923, Maltz graduated with a doctorate in medicine from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

In 1960, ''Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living out of Life'' was first published by Prentice-Hall and appeared in a pocket book edition by 1969. The book introduced Maltz's views where a person must have an accurate and positive view of his or her self before setting goals; otherwise he or she will get stuck in a continuing pattern of limiting beliefs. His ideas focus on visualizing one's goals and he believes that self-image is the cornerstone of all the changes that take place in a person. According to Maltz, if one's self-image is unhealthy or faulty — all of his or her efforts will end in failure.

Maltz also wrote fiction, including a play called ''Unseen Scar'' (1946) and a novel, ''The Time is Now'' (1975). His autobiography, ''Doctor Pygmalion: The Autobiography of a Plastic Surgeon'' (1953), was popular and influential, being discussed in many subsequent books on body and identity. It was re-titled ''Doctor Psycho-Cybernetics'' after his self-help work was published.

Although the book ''Psycho-Cybernetics'' was first published in 1960, as of 2008 the book is one of 50 recommended in the book ''50 Self-Help Classics''.

References[link]

Category:1899 births Category:1975 deaths Category:American motivational writers Category:American self-help writers Category:American plastic surgeons

fr:Maxwell Maltz he:מקסוול מלץ pt:Maxwell Maltz

name	James Arthur Ray
birth date	November 22, 1957
occupation	New Thought author, motivational speaker
spouse	}}

James Arthur Ray (born November 22, 1957) is a motivational speaker and author. He is the author of ''Harmonic Wealth'', a ''New York Times'' bestseller frequently featured on the ''Today'' Show. In 2006 he appeared on CNN's ''Larry King Live'' and was a guest speaker in the film ''The Secret''. Ray had taught Stephen Covey Motivational seminars while employed at AT&T; and claimed he later worked two years for the Covey foundation, although the company has no record of him as an employee or contractor. As of October 2009 Ray's company, James Ray International, was not Better Business Bureau accredited, which gives the company a C rating for seven complaints filed and two unresolved.

On February 3, 2010, Ray was arrested in connection with deaths of participants at one of his sweat lodge ceremonies and was tried for manslaughter. Ray was acquitted of manslaughter but convicted of three counts of negligent homicide.

Childhood[link]

James' father was an Oklahoma preacher in occasional poverty for a decade until 1973 at Red Fork Church of God in Tulsa. At times they had to live in the church office. Money and spirituality were central to him. "The hardest part of my childhood was reconciling how Dad poured his heart into his work, how he helped so many people and yet he couldn't afford to pay for haircuts for me and my brother," Ray wrote in his 2008 book ''Harmonic Wealth''. "How could a loving God keep me from Cub Scouts on account of not being able to afford a uniform?" However, a classmate of James recalled that "Ray always dressed well and knew he'd make something of himself."

Career[link]

Ray is an advocate of the Law of Attraction; his teachings have been described as "including a mix of spirituality, motivational speaking, and quantum physics". In an interview, Ray answered about personal responsibility, "I fully know, for me, that there is no blame. Every single thing is your responsibility ... and nothing is your fault. Because every single thing that comes to you is gift ... a lesson."

Concerns were raised since at least 2000 regarding the safety and soundness of his methods.

According to Grant Cardone, in 2000 Ray consulted him for methods to increase sales at business seminars, and was warned to teach only sound business practices. After this time, Ray began incorporating sleep deprivation, fasting, fire and glass walking, and sweat lodge methods after studying in South America.

Former attendees of Ray's seminars have reported unsafe practices and lack of properly trained medical staff in 2005. A New Jersey woman shattered her hand after she was pressured by Ray to participate in a quasi-martial arts board-breaking exercise. After several unsuccessful untrained attempts, the woman sustained multiple fractures during the seminar that was held at Disney World.

Participants of a James Ray "Spiritual Warrior" exercise in 2006, after signing waivers, were told to put the sharp point of an arrow used in archery against the soft part of their necks and lean against the tip. A man named Kurt sustained injuries during this exercise as the shaft snapped and the arrow point deeply penetrated his eyebrow.

In July 2009, Colleen Conaway attended a seminar hosted by James Ray International in which the attendees were directed to dress as homeless people. She fell to her death at the Horton Plaza Mall in San Diego. She died as a result of injuries, and according to police, she had no identification on her person.

In 2005, preceding the tragic events of October 2009, a serious injury involving hospitalization was reported at the Angel Valley Ranch during a "Spiritual Warrior" retreat led by Ray. Verde Valley Fire Chief Jerry Doerksen's department responded to an emergency call that a 42 year old man had fallen unconscious after exercises inside the sweat-lodge.

Sweat lodge deaths[link]

On October 8, 2009, at a New Age "Spiritual Warrior" retreat conceived and hosted by Ray at the Angel Valley Retreat Center in Yavapai County near Sedona, Arizona, two participants, James Shore and Kirby Brown, died as a result of being in a sweat lodge exercise. Eighteen others were hospitalized after suffering burns, dehydration, breathing problems, kidney failure, or elevated body temperature. Liz Neuman, another attendee, died October 17 after being comatose for a week.

The attendees, who had paid up to $10,000 to participate in the retreat, had fasted for 36 hours during a vision quest exercise before the next day's sweat lodge. During this vision quest, participants were left alone in the Arizona desert with a sleeping bag, although Ray offered them Peruvian ponchos for an additional $250. After this experience, participants ate a large buffet breakfast before entering the sweat lodge. A site owner reported she learned after the event that participants went two days without water before entering the lodge.

Following the deaths Ray refused to speak to authorities and left Arizona. According to sweat lodge participants, a note was left that said Ray was unavailable as he was in "prayer and meditation".

Investigations were commenced by the Yavapai County Sheriff department. Initial investigations concerned construction of the sweat lodge, which according to investigators was constructed by a local group under hire. Jack Judd, the county building safety manager, said that there was no record of a permit or an application for a permit to build the sweat lodge.

On October 15, 2009, the Yavapai County sheriff's office upgraded the investigations into the deaths of James Shore and Kirby Brown to a homicide investigation after talking with participants. Officials claimed the sweat lodge lacked the necessary building permits. Print media began reporting that Mr. Ray conducted a conference call with some victims, one of whom recorded the call and provided it to the AP. During this call, a self-described channeler said that they had communicated with the dead and they had said they "were having so much fun" out of their bodies that they didn't want to return. On October 27, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the event to complement the local investigations. On October 30, a wrongful death lawsuit claiming negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud and other actions on the part of Ray and the site owners was filed for the family of Liz Neuman. A similar action was filed for Sidney Spencer who was seriously injured. The suits sought compensatory and punitive damages alleging that defendants failed to provide adequate prior warnings, to monitor the participants' well being in the sweat lodge, and to provide medical treatment. On November 10 Dennis Mehravar, an injured attendee from Canada, joined the Spenser suit.

Ray was arrested in connection with the deaths on February 3, 2010, and bond was set at $5 million. Ray's attorney stated that he could not afford the $5 million. Ray was released on February 26, 2010, after bail was reduced to $250,000.

The court case began on May 1, 2011. The prosecution rested its case on June 3, 2011, after 34 witnesses had taken the stand and 43 days of testimony. On June 22, 2011, Ray was found guilty on three counts of negligent homicide, and not guilty of the manslaughter charges brought against him. On November 18, 2011, Ray was sentenced to two years in prison.

Native American perspective[link]

Native American experts on sweat lodges have criticized the reported construction and conduct of the lodge as not meeting traditional ways (the words "bastardized", "mocked" and "desecrated" have been used). Native American leaders expressed concerns and uttered prayers for the dead and injured. The leaders say the ceremony is their way of life and not a religion. It is Native American property, protected by US laws and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The ceremony should only be in the hands of sanctioned lodge carriers from legitimate nations. Objections included a lack of training (typically up to eight years of apprenticeship in the native American tradition), unusual construction from non-breathable materials, charging for the ceremony (seen as extremely inappropriate), too many participants, and excessive length of the ceremony.

The Native American community actively seeks to prevent abuses of their traditions. The Angel Valley owners announced they have accepted Native American friends' help to "heal the land". On November 12, news reported a Lakota Nation lawsuit against the U.S., Arizona, Ray and site owners, to have Ray and the site owners arrested and punished under the Sioux Treaty of 1868 between the United States and the Lakota Nation, which states that:

if bad men among the whites or other people subject to the authority of the United States shall commit any wrong upon the person or the property of the Indians, the United States will (...) proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained.

The Lakota Nation holds that James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center have “violated the peace between the United States and the Lakota Nation” and have caused the “desecration of our Sacred ''Oinikiga'' (''onikare'', sweat lodge) by causing the death of Liz Neuman, Kirby Brown and James Shore".

The Lakota also claim that James Arthur Ray and the Angel Valley Retreat Center fraudulently impersonated Indians and must be held responsible for causing the deaths and injuries, and for evidence destruction through dismantling of the sweat lodge. The lawsuit seeks to have the treaty enforced and does not seek monetary compensation.

Published books[link]

''The Science of Success'', SunArk Press 2003, ISBN 978-0-9667400-1-1

''Practical Spirituality: How to Use Spiritual Power to Create Tangible Results'', SunArk Press 2003, ISBN 978-0-9667400-3-5

''Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want'', Hyperion Books 2008, ISBN 978-1-4013-2264-9

''The Seven Laws of True Wealth: Create the Life You Desire and Deserve'', Hyperion Books Books 2009, ISBN 978-1-4013-2284-7

See also[link]

Cultural appropriation

Neoshamanism

References[link]

External links[link]

James Ray International

Coverage of sweat lodge deaths

Time Line

Category:1957 births Category:American motivational speakers Category:American motivational writers Category:Living people Category:New Age writers Category:New Thought writers Category:People from Honolulu, Hawaii