Sweat Lodge Deaths

I was recently watching CNN and there was a news piece that involved three people dying after being in a sweat lodge alongside the self-help guru James Ray. The story explained that Ray was a multi-millionaire who built his fortune giving self-help seminars and speeches and had many loyal followers. The sweat lodge was supposed to be a part of his "spiritual warriors" program in which his followers were to sit in a dome-like structure for several hours in a steam room type of atmosphere. The news show explained that witnesses inside the room said that people were going delirious from the heat and getting sick all over the place. While the show made it seem like Ray was inside the sweat lodge with his followers, he did not seem to care about the terror going on around him. For that, he is being charged with manslaughter for the death of three people who ended up dying in the sweat lodge or soon after. This whole news piece struck me as crazy. First of all because these people were brainwashed into thinking this guy knew what he was doing and second because Ray saw what was going on and did nothing to stop it. I can't imagine what emotions were going on inside Ray as he watched people going crazy and dying right before his eyes, or why he didn't think to let these people out. Seeing as how the sweat lodge is supposed to be a spiritual experience, maybe he didn't want to mess with the emotional connections he thought people were experiencing? Maybe he himself was going delirious and thought they were actually being cleansed by the spirits? Could it have been that Ray had such power over these people they trusted him and his eccentric methods? After all, the people that took place in the sweat lodge looked to Ray for motivation and enlightenment in all aspects of their lives, why wouldn't they trust him?
 
I found an article that basically talks about everything the news show did and it can be found at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/04/arizona.sweat.lodge/index.html?hpt=T2