Author Topic: Defending a White Ayahuasca Con Man Posing as Shaman  (Read 3028 times)

Offline educatedindian

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Defending a White Ayahuasca Con Man Posing as Shaman
« on: March 01, 2022, 02:33:06 pm »
Got this series of emails from a victim of a con man defending him, but refusing to name him.

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I am beyond disgusted with an outrageous thread slandering and destroying completely the reputation of a particular Shaman.  I find it criminal that despite your terms and conditions, you allow people to write absolute tripe, lies, and vicious opinions about someone only doing their best to serve others, with no right to reply, not counter opinions permitted in this Shaman’s defence.  You, and your contributors should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.  What right have you to keep in the public realm an incident that is 20 years old, that destroyed this individual?  So anyone looking for Shamanic healing may come across this and avoid his services, because like you and your contributors, they may not understand the nature of ancient healing and wisdom.  Is your life so perfect that you’ve never acted wrongly?  Who in life doesn’t deserve a second chance?  HOW DARE YOU. This level of mockery and abuse I would expect of a serial rapist or paedophile, but not this.

When you point the finger, 3 fingers are pointing back at you. You invite karma and divine retribution.  This is as vile as a pack of dogs being let loose upon a baby fox, I’ve never read anything so sickening.

By the way, with Shamanic healing on this level, YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU HAVE SPIRITUALLY EVOLVED & BEEN HUMBLE ENOUGH TO RECEIVE, NOTHING MORE, so these posts say more about the idiots writing them, than the medicine.  There are no get out of jail free cards with true healing, it demands a dark night of the soul, a stripping down of your ego, and full integration and that is why I am so enraged by this.  However, any vulnerable or desperate person looking for healing could easily be put off this Shaman, which he does not deserve.

Yes, it is true he made a grave error as a young, naïve man, but who are any of these clowns to judge who he really is, the level of dedication in his work and so on.

Along with my private trauma consultant, he has saved my soul and my life and I am honoured and humbled that these two men have given me so much in terms of extraordinarily powerful healing.  But guess what?  I bloody well earnt every shred of it, having had a life of [redacted] that you cannot imagine, plus a 25 year chronic disease that along with trauma left me at death’s door, courtesy of criminal psychopaths.

I was directed to this post by another person who is undergoing healing with this Shaman, so far very successfully, but who is intensely vulnerable and very ill at the moment.  This person was stable, was improving, was able to do more rather than being disabled, barely getting through the day in severe, crippling pain.  Now this person is in a terrified mess, falling back into addiction because trust has been thrown up into the air by this thread, and I’m calming them down.  Who the hell is anyone to judge another’s path if they have not experienced it, if they have not walked in those shoes, if they have no idea what formed that person, the lessons, hardships and traumas.

Tell me where on earth do people with such abused lives or complex disease go for effective healing?  Certainly not allopathic medicine or the NHS, certainly not any of the 230 therapists and alternative practitioners I was forced to try out over 25 years, in desperation to save my life.  Drugs don’t heal, they are only a sticking plaster, and why shouldn’t people have a cure? All other practitioners did in their arrogance, ignorance was fail me.  Some were nice, professional, good people, but hadn’t a damn clue how to handle my load or anyone like me, or frankly even someone with a chronic disease, or moderate trauma.  I’ve been subject myself to further abuse at the hands of several doctors and GPs on the NHS, who simply resorted to ridicule or subtle even once, misogynistic put downs, if a patient doesn’t shut up, take the pills, pull themselves together and go away.

The level of ignorance you permit to be vomited up on this page, which day in day out to any potential client repeatedly destroys this man’s reputation and ability to earn enough of a living to survive is heinous and disgraceful.  You owe him, me and anyone who has read that page desperately looking for help a heart felt apology, but that depends on whether you’ve the decency to do the right thing.   

I am no gullible fool but can spot them.  On that thread there was a person that rightly wrote with intelligence and clarity about the dangers of narcotics etc, that is the responsible thing to see on a website or thread like this.  Another merely listed and slandered a list of Shamanic or healer types lumping in the good with the bad, and some are criminal like John of God. You should give a damn, and care, otherwise allowing this makes your whole website nothing but toxic, vile, ignorant abuse, on the level of a public hanging for the town to witness and mock. You should remove this post. 

If you respond to me appropriately, asking which post (if you don’t already know), I will tell you, but for now I hope you take a long hard look at exactly what you are doing on this website, and the consequences of allowing such nonsense without any balance.

Sarah Liz Nichols

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And this follow up, a semi apology:

Further to my previous email, I read your home page and completely support, understand and sympathize with your true aspirations.  I am humbled by that wish to genuinely inform and safeguard others from abuses, because I completely agree that there are many fraudsters, psychopaths, even criminals that prey upon the vulnerable, and ANY healer should be held to the highest levels of ethics, standards and humility.

I wish to apologize for how hard-hitting, and angry my email was.  It kills me inside what has been done to indigenous peoples across the world, the inflictions of pain, trauma, the destruction of souls and lives, the child sacrifice particularly of native or indigenous children by the wicked, ignorant and selfish actions of others.   There aren’t enough words to express that outrage, this world has become utterly polarized and much evil or Wetiko is being revealed for those with eyes to see.

However, whilst I agree with the essence of all you’ve said,  I am still very upset by the unbridled, unmeasured abuse heaped upon a particular healer by different contributors.  Any genuinely valid points, which are most needed and I welcome that, but the good points get lost in the free for all that are sickening.

This whole world needs to evolve drastically, and the precious value of ancient wisdom and healing ways I very much hope finds it’s rightful place and is fully restored, and I wish justice for all native peoples, to empower them rightfully.  I am nothing, just a random woman who nearly lost her life more than once to trauma and inflicted abuse, but I really, really do care about what is right and socially just.  I have made many mistakes in my life too, I have many faults, but see life as a spiritual journey.  I apologize for any offence I may have caused for my anger.

Sarah

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Defending a White Ayahuasca Con Man Posing as Shaman
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2022, 02:36:49 pm »
This is my reply, followed by her answer back.

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Apology accepted. This is a good example of why it's a bad idea to write an email at 1AM.

It's an even worse idea for whites to white-splain to Natives about Native cultures.

We always welcome more information to try to get at the truth. Who do you believe is wrongly accused?

Could you describe your experience with them? How did you find them?

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Are you accusing me of white splaining your culture?

I am not of your country, but have a friend from your culture.   I feel very sad if you view me in that way.   What chance would anyone have outside who means well if you regard us negatively. I don't pretend to imagine or judge your experiences, I have no right,  but can relate to gross persecution and the devastation of culture and values. I have no political allegiance; I am not of this modern world.  What I am aware of is trauma irrespective of mine.  I try to understand and believe in these extreme times people need to find common ground if they have the good will and heart to, or we will all be lost soon.

I am very nervous, because this person does call himself a shaman but is not of your culture and I have no wish to cause further wounding to anyone because your ways are ancient and deserve respect, and people have not done that, and people take what is not theirs.  There are people who call themselves shamans or other types of healers and all they do is manipulate and prey upon vulnerable people.

  This person unfortunately performed a plant medicine ceremony with ayahuasca in a different country and was prosecuted.   However, he has strong healing power in my experience.  He is humble, has a good moral and ethical code, but because of his personal beliefs which I fear may clash with yours, and not fitting in with mainstream people he has been easy to ridicule and outcast.  He left his country with his partner and child.  Some of the posts against him were sickening.  I'm sorry, I don't want to get him into further trouble nor offend you further, and now feel very anxious about all this.

 I've had my own journey, forced into isolation and being abandoned because there is little understanding, care and community in the modern world, it is full of ignorance.  This caused me further terror and pain from such aloneness for so long, my family abandoned me too with ill health and complex trauma, but isolation let me develop certain intuitive abilities.  I see his real intent, even though he has made mistakes he genuinely tries to help people, even the judge agreed and made this statement.  In recent years I've been struggling with [redacted]  especially when I look at the world, but he has helped that, trauma, ancestral issues, and despite everything I'm starting to find some hope.  Many people spiritually bypass, avoid hard work that may be needed on a healing journey and so blame the healer if there is a healing crisis, but I see it as recapitulating the trauma to move on and that feels true.  People want short cuts and miracle cures, maybe that is possible I've no idea. The bulk of my healing has been with a trauma consultant, but it was so hard going over many years I was spiritually exhausted, but this man brought direction, hope, something good to lift me up to carry on.  He understands emotions.  In a session I can feel what's going on in my body.  I've had psychic experiences from it.  I have not finished the healing journey, perhaps from my own wounding I tend to defend those who have been treated cruelly or persecuted, and when triggered I over-react.   I am sorry.  I just don't think the comments should be there in perpetuity against him.  The level of shaming when one means well is viscerally excoriating, yet of course it is good to call out evil when one sees it and wish more people had the guts to do what is right. 

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Defending a White Ayahuasca Con Man Posing as Shaman
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2022, 02:45:27 pm »
My next email to her, her ranting and often racist response, and my final brief response.

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I don't have to accuse. It's obvious, and you just did it again. You insist you know best about Native cutures than a forum of several thousand Natives immersed in their own cultures their whole lives. Some are in tribal govt or academia.

You seem reluctant to reveal the identity of the would be shaman because you sense that he is a fraud.
Start with the obvious. No one Native would use that title. No one indigenous anywhere does, except Siberia. Besides Siberians, only anthropologists and outsiders who are frauds use the term.

If your need to protect this likely fraud and imagine you went through anything like a genuine spiritual experience or healing instead of a hustle for cash and ego...

If that is stronger than finding out or admitting the truth, then there may be little I can say or write that would change your mind.

But realize this. Ayahuasca is not intended to be used by anyone except the most carefully trained traditional healers of those cultures, or those they deem needing it for healing under their guidance. It's a toxic poison, and dangerous not only to the body but to the mind. Anyone else using it is gambling with their life and sanity.

There's a huge industrial complex of western dilettantes and hustlers leaching off this tradition. The would be healers are often as deluded as their marks. And there are also unscrupulous mestizos in the jungles posing as Native. (If you don't know something as basic as what a mestizo is, you have no business trying to judge the accuracy of claims made by an outsider posing as an ayahuasca healer.)

Regardless of whether you reveal their name, get yourself to a trained reputable therapist to repair the harm this likely fraud did to you.

But I still hope you reveal their name and describe your experience because it'd be valuable as a way to warn others.

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OK, this is unfair and out of hand.  I have not insisted I know best about Native cultures, go and quote where I said that. I don't live in the USA.  My intent was only good, I have not claimed to know anything, but feel appalled as any decent person should at any atrocity committed upon any people, anywhere in the world. I will not apologize for that, and please do not put words into my mouth, you have no idea what is in my heart.  This feels like you venting spleen at a white person and I happen to be in the way.  There is nothing I can say here that won't be criticized.  Just because I cannot express myself perfectly to your taste, I'm struggling as it is to formulate words because I have a neurological disease with dissociation, that I'm trying to overcome.  I'm sure you've got your own endeavours and concerns in your everyday life too.

It is laughable that you think you have a right to comment about my healing and spiritual path, you have no idea whatsoever, and to carry on accusing me, including accusing me of hiding a fraud.  He is no fraud, charges little compared to the vast majority of healers, and frankly you know nothing.   Actually, I came in good faith, all you've done is come across as pre-judgemental, arrogant and hostile, unwilling to listen or even learn something, and I'm sorry to say I think [racist rant removed]. 

I have great respect for Native people everywhere, but I have no reason to respect you as an individual... I would have been more than happy to hear anything you have to say about your position, your outlook and experiences, so I could understand your perspective better and if I could have honoured that in some tiny way that would have been good...  And you accuse this shaman of being in his ego...

I completely agree with your statement about ayahuasca, I'm sure there would have been far more I would have agreed on had you given me the slightest chance.  I have faith that despite the vicious thread on your website, those who heal are needed in this world regardless of what their label is, and those with humility will be in demand.    I don't need you here, but would have liked found peace and understanding.  I genuinely wish you well and hope your path is blessed.  I'm not going to read a reply if it's along the same lines.

Sarah Liz Nichols

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There is so much projection in your answer. Apparently anything other than "Thank you" you regard as hostile.

Your email is, yet again, paragraph after paragraph of anger and hostility directed at all Natives. Hopefully you can see that.

Hopefully you can also be honest enough to look at how you fell for someone who had no right to do a dangerous imitation of Native ceremony.

That you continue to hide their identity says you have no real interest in the truth.

Offline Sparks

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Re: Defending a White Ayahuasca Con Man Posing as Shaman
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2022, 03:26:06 am »
I am beyond disgusted with an outrageous thread slandering and destroying completely the reputation of a particular Shaman.  I find it criminal that despite your terms and conditions, you allow people to write absolute tripe, lies, and vicious opinions about someone only doing their best to serve others, with no right to reply, not counter opinions permitted in this Shaman’s defence.  You, and your contributors should be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.  What right have you to keep in the public realm an incident that is 20 years old, that destroyed this individual?

My bolding. Simply not true. Hundreds of frauds, suspected frauds, and friends and supporters of them have registered and posted in defense of whoever was under scrutiny.

It would have been interesting to see this particular one named. Several dozen British "shamans" have been mentioned over the years; hard to single out one who fits the description. — As one of the contributors, I am not ashamed.