Lee Davis was standing naked at the edge of Lake Merritt in Downtown Oakland, enacting the strange steps of a ceremony only she knew. It was 1999 and she was 25 years old. As she performed the sacred dance that would heal the world, she called on higher gods by first sacrificing beads, and then her body, into the murky urban waters of Merritt’s lagoon. Time was both meaningless and moving backward. The ritual was an otherworldly plea and a cleansing that would make everything better — if only she did it right. But this wasn’t reality. Davis’ swan dive into the freezing water that afternoon was...