@ earthw7 and Kathryn: Points taken
So even though sauna is also (and now mostly) used in a secular manner, both in the originating countries and throughout the world in health clubs, etc. There is a big difference between an authentic, traditional sauna ceremony and disrespectful newagers making stuff up.
Even if James Ray had called his death sweat a sauna, he did it wrong by the standards of any culture that uses steam baths. I was writing late at night with little sleep and obviously did not express myself clearly. I actually edited out a lot of what a originally wrote, trying (not successfully) to avoid my usual rambling style, and I did have a long section about how any kind of "purification" can be dangerous. I think I used the example that it's possible for full-immersion baptism to lead to a drowning, which is why Baptist preachers do it in a certain, tried-and-true way. I cut that part out to make the post shorter, but it seems like I should have left it in for the sake of clarity.
"According to the customs of your country" means just that, according to the tried-and-true practices that the local people know will work and avoid harm. I had in mind the standard American steambath such as found in health clubs and gyms. These always have a laundry list of dos and don'ts posted on the wall, a thermometer inside that can be looked at, and the people who use them generally know how long to stay and when to get out. That's how it's done according to the customs of my country. Building a structure out in the desert as big as a small apartment, covering it with plastic, stuffing it with a herd of people, stoking up the heat as high as possible, burning incense inside it, and letting people stay there for hours--that definitely is not, and any American who has his head on straight would know that.
I try not to speak for any culture but my own, but I'm sure the Swedes, Finns, Russians, and others have their own list of dos and don'ts, written or not. Apart from American steambaths, I've also participated in the Russian banya, which has its own customs different from ours. I went with friends, and scrupulously did everything I was told to do, and likewise avoided what I was told not to do. (Examples: DO let other people swat you with birch branches; DON'T drink alcohol inside the steam compartment.) I've done this fairly often, and done lots of reading about the practice, but I would never presume that I had the right and knowledge to build a Russian banya and charge people for using it, let alone claiming that I was conducting a pagan Slavic ritual to bring people closer to the spirits of nature.
As to that part about Newagers and a "holy sauna", I neglected to put that in quotes. I was trying to be make a joke at their expense, I guess it didn't work.
I should have elaborated on what I meant--I was thinking something like, rather than ripping off the practices of other cultures, they should do what they do best and make something up out of old science-fiction cliches, such as that their practice was channeled by a sixth-density entity from Venus, that the structure represents the Space Brothers' flying saucer, and it has to be hot inside because, well, that's what it's like on Venus. My fuzzy thinking at the time was that if they do it like this and make sure they know how to build and run such a thing without endangering the people involved, then let them have their fun. I realize now this wasn't right, especially after I re-read what that one idiot said, that the people who died were just enjoying astral traveling so much they didn't want to come back. These people are so out of touch with reality, they can't be trusted with anything more dangerous than chicken feathers. As earthw7 so rightly puts it:
Here is where we run into problems more dead newagers because even a little encourgment to these unbalanced people will cause more deaths
So now, let me state unequivocally my opinion: NOBODY outside the cultures that created them should be building anything of the sort, whether they call it steambath, sauna, sweat lodge, or Venusian flying saucer. If they want a purification-by-heat experience, they can go to the local gym; and if they're any kind of a spiritual person, they know they can pray in their heart anywhere.
Nor should they call it by the name of any other ceremony, from any other culture that has standards for physical and spiritual safety.That's one reason I'm here, to listen and to learn. I realize now that I've heard the words "sweat lodge" and "medicine lodge", etc., so much over most of my life, that it sort of goes right by me. If he had called his practice a "banya", I would have immediately said, "Now just a minute here...." It seems that from now on, I need to define the terms a little more clearly in my own mind.
My main point, in the last sentence of my previous post, seems to have gotten lost, but I'll clarify that, too. Religious practices are a kind of technology, and any technology can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Not only do the Newagers steal technology from other cultures rather than looking deeply into their own cultures for what is good, true, and spiritual, but once they get their hands on it, they have no idea how to make it work. Most of this is harmless, if offensive; but only a blithering idiot would think that starvation and exposure (vision quest) and screwing around with the body's temperature regulation (sweat lodge) can be done by anyone, anywhere, anytime, as long as it "done from the heart."
