Quantum Windbag
Gold Member
- May 9, 2010
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Fracking right wing cults letting people die in the desert.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/u...ds-in-a-grisly-death.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
The rescuers had rappelled from a helicopter, swaying in the brisk April winds as they bore down on a cave 7,000 feet up in a rugged desert mountain on the edge of this rural hamlet. There had been a call for help. Inside, they found a jug with about an inch of water, browned by floating leaves and twigs. They found a woman, Christie McNally, thirsty and delirious. And they found her husband, Ian Thorson, dead.
The puzzle only deepened when the authorities realized that the couple had been expelled from a nearby Buddhist retreat in which dozens of adherents, living in rustic conditions, had pledged to meditate silently for three years, three months and three days. Their spiritual leader was a charismatic Princeton-educated monk whom some have accused of running the retreat as a cult.
Strange tales come out of the American desert: lost cities of gold, bandit ambushes, mirages and peyote shamans. To that long list can now be added the story of the holy retreat that led to an ugly death.
The retreat in which adherents communicate only with pen and paper was designed to allow participants to employ yoga and deep meditation to try to answer some of lifes most profound questions. Mostly, though, it has only raised more questions.
Was it a genuine spiritual enclave? What happened to drive Ms. McNally and Mr. Thorson out of the camp and into the wilderness? And just why, in a quest for enlightenment, did Mr. Thorson, a 38-year-old Stanford graduate, end up dead, apparently from exposure and dehydration, in a remote region of rattlesnakes and drug smugglers?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/u...ds-in-a-grisly-death.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all