Plastic Shaman– A spiritual quest turns into a fatal disaster in this gripping true crime investigation of the wellness industry.

 

In October 2009, more than fifty people attended a $10,000-per-person wellness retreat led by a celebrity self-help guru. For these enlightenment seekers, their time in Sedona, Arizona, culminated in a fake Native American sweat lodge ceremony. Three of them would not make it out alive.

 

This tragedy exposes the dangerous truth about the booming $2 trillion wellness industry where promises of spiritual awakening and financial success often mask dangerous practices underpinned by cultural appropriation and commodification of nature. Journalist Annette McGivney explores this world, exposing the manipulation and greed that allow charismatic influencers to prey on vulnerable people in search of happiness and healing—no matter the cost.

Pure Land– A True Story of Three Lives, Three Cultures and the Search for Heavon on Earth.

 

This is the story of a brutal murder in the Grand Canyon, but it is also the story of how McGivney’s quest to investigate the victim’s life and death wound up guiding the author through her own life-threatening crisis. On this journey stretching from the southern tip of Japan to the bottom of Grand Canyon, and into the ugliest aspects of human behavior, Pure Land offers proof of the healing power of nature and the resiliency of the human spirit.

 

~While investigating this tragic crime, Annette recognized how childhood trauma was at the root of so much later suffering, including her own. Writing Pure Land inpired her to want to create healing for youth through time in nature, the same life-long healing tool that Annette had benefited from herself. Annette’s idea gained shape and momentum with help from Grand Canyon Youth, which led to the founding of the Healing Lands Project.~

Annette McGivney is an award-winning investigative journalist and author based in Cortez, Colorado. Plastic Shaman is her sixth book. Her previous book, Pure Land, about the murder of Tomomi Hanamure in the Grand Canyon, won the National Outdoor Book Award in 2018. Pure Land was the debut selection for Outside Magazine’s book club in 2017 and named by the magazine on a list of “outdoor books that shaped the last decade.”

Annette is a frequent contributor to the Guardian, Outside and Arizona Highways; her articles focus on Southwest culture, the environment and Indigenous issues. She is a professor emeritus in Journalism at Northern Arizona University where she taught for two decades. Annette is also the founder of the nonprofit Healing Lands Project, which is managed by Grand Canyon Youth, and provides guided wilderness expeditions to underserved populations.