SOURCE:

Deaths raise questions about spiritual quests

By Peter Hecht -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Wednesday,
June 26, 2002

It was to have been a cleansing ritual, preparation for a "sacred pause" in their lives.

About 30 people from Northern California had journeyed into the El Dorado County forest near Omo Ranch last week for a "vision quest." For four days, they were to isolate themselves in the Sierra Nevada, turning to nature in search of meaning.

Nationally, devotees to this growing spiritual movement may include adolescents moving into adulthood or people soon to be married or newly divorced. They may be changing careers or grieving for lost parents.

They gather in deserts or on mountaintops to cast aside their former selves and be born again in new stations in life. But Friday, something went tragically awry. A woman and man lost their lives.

In the dark, wee hours, four people entered a makeshift "sweat lodge" fashioned with a wood frame and made nearly air-tight blankets and plastic sheeting. In the cleansing ceremony to prepare for their vision quest in the wilderness, they gathered around heated rocks and chanted while breathing vapors of herbs and water poured over the stones.