General > Non-Frauds

Steve Greybraids/Tengerism

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Sarangerel:
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Tengerism is a new word in English but not so new in Russian, but it is really only coming into discussions about indigenous spirituality now.
Indigenous Siberian shamans or Tengerists practicing as lay people know that by our traditions charging any fee for ceremony is strictly taboo.  This is also mentioned on my Buryat Home Page on which I wrote about a fraudulent group using the same name as the officially recognized Golomt shamans' association that operated a healing center in Ulaanbaatar for a few months that was to our great embarassment featured in an Italian amateur film-maker's documentary.  Not only did they imitate the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and charge fixed fees for certain ceremonies but the "shaman" was allegedly drunk most of the time.  Thankfully that film did not become too popular!  That is also why by being an organization officially endorsed by the Mongolian government the Golomt Center is trying to make sure that people presenting themselves as Mongolian shamans are legitimate traditional shamans, since with the freedom of the democratic market society in Mongolia inevitably a lot of impostors have cropped up and some of them have even gone abroad, even to the United States.  I heard that one of them even attended a pow wow and participated!  Which culture is offended more?
The Circle of Tengerism is established for two purposes, to educate people about Siberian/Mongolian shamanism and to assure the integrity of indigenous teachers teaching in North America.  The workshops that the website refers to have not been scheduled yet since this is a new organization, but the purpose of any workshop that the Circle of Tengerism presents is not to give a quick education on how to be a shaman (after all haven't we tried to avoid the "s" word in our name?) but rather to educate people about what we believe and offer practical and interesting information that any person can use.  We have to do this because there are so many other people out there now who use our name and terms (Siberia, shamanism, Mongolia, Altai, etc.) who promise some easy solution in a weekend workshop, some 21st century instant spirituality.
That is not our way.  If a person is called by the spirits to become a shaman it takes years of personal instruction as well as ceremonial work to be a shaman worthy of being called that.  My own education has already been almost 20 years but I still feel like a baby compared to the shamans who teach me.  Anyone who thinks they can be a shaman from a few weekend workshops are fooling themselves.  This may be my own personal experience and opinion but it certainly reflects the views of anyone from the Circle of Tengerism and the indigenous organizations it represents.
Hopefully this will satisfy any concerns you have about our sincerity and dedication to the preservation of traditional ways.  We are on your side.

regards,

Sarangerel

Sarangerel:
Greetings again to all of you,
A week ago I wrote at length about the beliefs of our people and the real meaning of the Circle of Tengerism and tried to correct the misunderstanding about the connection with Greybraids.
Reading the new posts here I find that people trying to give a voice to GENUINE Native Siberians are still being listed as dubious next to some people who seem pretty slimy if not fraudulent!
Can't you give us some more respect please?  And get Greybraids' name off the thread!  With all due respect to a good man his chosen web name makes us sound like twinkies and I don't like it.
Furthermore if any of you read the Tengerism site it is all about debunking the fluff-bunny myths about our shamanism that are just as offensive to us as to Native Americans, it is all about education, not about making a buck off of gullible New Agers, what is questionable about that?
If any of you have a chance to go to a library or bookstore and find it read the book "A History of the Peoples of Siberia."  You will see that every single injustice and dirty trick and bad experience that happened in this country happened in Siberia too; it was almost as if the white folks on both continents were sharing notes on how best to crush the native peoples of the lands they were conquering.
Thus as a Buryat person I want to say, we might be a little different from Native Americans but we have gone through a lot of the same things and our spirituality is just as valid.  Please give it the respect it deserves.  We might not be Native American but we deserve to be moved to the non-frauds.  Educatedindian, if you refuse to, give me a good reason why.

regards,

Sarangerel

educatedindian:
Research Needed means "not sure". It's not the same as a fraud at all. And the only reason it has not been moved was because of having so much work at the moment that I overloked doing that. No harm intended, and certainly no insult.

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