Author Topic: Andras Corban-Arthen  (Read 28730 times)

Offline JeelyPiece

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Andras Corban-Arthen
« on: October 08, 2014, 09:56:29 pm »
I stumbled across this guy a while ago, and then stumbled across him again yesterday when I saw a video of him giving a prayer during the Climate march some weeks back (I saw it on Facebook but I'm not sure how to link just the video, sorry). Which reminded me to do a little digging; he claims to be trained in an "ancient Scottish witch tradition," but only the last two lines of the prayer there are from anything remotely Scottish (Gaelic, in fact, though he gives it in English). He also claims to represent or advocate for indigenous and "ethnic European religions" so I'm wondering if there's more going on as well.

The website talks a lot about "indigenous" this and that, when at the same time they don't seem to have anything to do with actually indigenous peoples here, as far as I can tell. They seem to be encroaching on a term they have no business using when what they're trying to say is that they're not neopagan. It seems to me that Andras is nothing but neopagan, and going by the video above along with some digging around I've been doing, I have to wonder if he might be appropriating some Native American spiritualities (in some way or another) too. In an interview he's done, he says:

Quote
For the past several years, I have offered a presentation entitled “The ‘Indians’ of Old Europe” (a title which was given to me by a Hopi elder), describing in greater detail some of my experiences, limited though they be, exploring the perspective of the old pagan cultures as indigenous traditions, as well as my efforts to find current survivals of them. I’m hoping to be able to offer it in book form by next year.

He also goes on to talk about the years he spent learning shamanism, trances, and all that, prompted by an "American Indian friend."

This all screams fraud to me, but I'm not in a position to say how far he might have pushed it when it comes to any misappropriation. So on that front, I thought maybe you guys might be interested in looking into it. I can say that he's certainly made fraudulent claims elsewhere. His claims about having been trained/initiated in a Scottish tradition of witchcraft, taught to him by a Scottish couple are complete bull. In an older version of a bio about himself he claims to be "a cunningman of the Glenshire witches, as well as an elder in three other branches of contemporary witchcraft..." but I can tell you now that there's no such place as "Glenshire" in Scotland (and I notice he doesn't seem to mention it at all in more recent interviews... I'm not sure if anyone's called him on this?). In some places he's tried to give Glenshire in Gaelic, calling it "Glainn Sidhr" but that's not even actual Gaelic! Considering the fact that he claims that the husband (of the couple who taught him) was a fluent Gaelic speaker, he should know better. Of course, the couple themselves were based in Edinburgh because their families had to flee the Highlands during the Clearances. These stories of mysterious individuals (or grannies) passing on ancient traditions is so overplayed by wannabe big name neopagans. 

On top of that, nobody in Scotland would go round claiming to be a witch because our traditions and folklore see them as a really bad thing - people who go round stealing your luck, or setting out to hurt or kill you. They're completely the opposite of "cunningmen" (and they're not really called cunning men or women here, that's more an English term, too). The only time these things are put together is by neopagans, who tend to see witchcraft as a religious tradition in its own right, and want to believe that it survived in secret for a thousand or so years while they hid from Christians or something. It's not a religion. It's not a good thing. It's certainly not something anyone would call themselves and go round giving blessings and doing interfaith work. Although I guess the whole lying, fraud, and probable appropriation is in keeping.

But this is what he's doing, trading on these kinds of lies, making a living as part of an organisation that tries to claim that it has nothing to do with neopaganism, and claiming to represent people like me when he's got nothing to do with Scotland beyond fantasies and bits of Scottish prayers he probably found on the web and then stuck on the end of something he (probably, mostly) made up. I'm sure there's more.

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2014, 10:18:35 pm »
Attached you will find a screenshot of his appropriated "blessing." It is a combination of things he's heard Natives say at Interfaith gatherings, along with some Wicca, with the English bit he stole from a Gaelic prayer at the end. None of this is original, yet he has tried to copyright it as his own words.

This is particularly evil as I'm pretty sure he has lifted some of this from a traditional Mohawk prayer he heard Jake Swamp deliver.

This American witch showed up at the Parliament of World Religions a few years ago and insisted on being part of the Indigenous councils. Jake Swamp confronted him and told him he's not Indigenous and does not belong in Indigenous spaces.  Around that time word spread through Native networks, and other Natives who dealt with him at the white-run "Parliament" had similar things to say about this witch and his lies.  But the "Parliament" has chosen to keep Arthen and other self-described witches on, while the real Indigenous people have left or, in Elder Swamp's case, died suddenly.

What the witch may not want to remember is that people from his first witchcraft covens know some Natives. Natives have checked out some of his events. We've known about this guy for a long time, and heard warnings about him.  Mr. Arthen (which is an assumed name) has changed his story many times. Recently he has claimed to be from Spain, but as a teenager in the seventies he was living in the US. All reports say he's a Puerto Rican American, not Spanish, and that his only training is Wiccan. His Wiccan initiators have denounced him and warned others about him.

It is unclear why more people don't speak out about how many times he has changed his origin story. There are hundreds, maybe thousands who've witnessed him change it over and over in his quest for publicity and fame.

I don't believe there were any Hopi elders in contact with him. Arthen used to teach a "Witch as Shaman" workshop that was based on... Castaneda. His "Native friends" are frauds. He has spent a lot of time with fraud Francis Talbot, aka "Medicine Story" and others who have their own threads in frauds.

He knows what he is doing is wrong. When confronted, he just shifts his focus and changes his story yet again.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2014, 11:46:15 pm by RedRightHand »

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2014, 01:46:44 pm »
Corban claims to be Spanish and Basque here, and growing up in Puerto Rico and Cuba.
http://ecer-org.eu/interview-with-andras-corban-arthen-by-christopher-blackwell/

This account says the "Indians from Europe" was a casual comment by Thomas Banyacya.
-----
http://miniver.blogspot.com/2013/03/pagan-cultural-appropriation.html
....another story that Pagan teacher Andras Corban-Arthen tells about an encounter with Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya. After hearing Corban-Arthen's description of European Pagan thought and practice, Banyacya said, “I didn't know there had once been Indians in Europe!”

-----

So it wasn't a title. It wasn't given to him. Banyacya did not teach him in any way. Banyacya certainly did not waste time as one who taught whites or bestow training or titles on them. At the time Banyacya was concerned with far greater matters, protesting nuclear war and the arms race. He made a comment, probably a joke, that Corban has distorted out of all recognition.

There's no sign that Corban was ever in Banyacya's presence more than this one time. Notice how there's not even any real conversation between them. The encounter is vague enough to where it could be Corban spoke and then Banyacya made the comment/joke to the audience, not to Corban himself.

And I haven't found any accounts except Corban's, so even that might be fictional.

Offline JeelyPiece

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #3 on: October 09, 2014, 03:49:15 pm »
I guess it's not surprising he's using his lies to muscle in on actually indigenous spaces ::)

It looks like he's writing a book based on his talk about the 'Indians of Europe.' And along with that talk, it seems he also gives a talk on 'The Witch as Shaman:'

Quote
A talk on the relationship between witchcraft and shamanism, starting with the concept that the people who were originally called ‘witches’ might have been, in effect, Western European shamans, and proceeding  to explore the many correspondences that can be found between these two traditions. It includes a discussion of ways in which contemporary witchcraft can emphasize some of its shamanistic elements.

There's so much wrong there I don't even know where to begin.

Looking at one of the events he helps run, there's a mix of presenters and some of them are obvious appropriators. They're also all obviously neopagan; I don't see any actually "indigenous" (no matter how loosely you define the word) presenters there. The website for the Earthspirit community that Arthen runs and helped found also has a collection of "Pagan Chants," some of which are claimed to be Native American (Hopi, Arapaho, Navajo and one of them's just listed as "Native American"), mixed in with very obviously neopagan "chants." None of this shows any truth to his claims, for what he or his "community" are claiming to do or represent. Where they're not appropriating, they're just outright misrepresenting. For all that he talks critically about appropriation and plastic shamans, he shows himself to be a complete hypocrite and liar.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2014, 03:51:11 pm by JeelyPiece »

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2014, 04:23:49 pm »
I forgot you can't see attachments if you're not signed in. This is the text from the attachments above.

First the "invocation" he delivered in New York at the Climate March, where he tries to copyright generic bits swiped from Natives as well as the last two lines which are a bad English translation of a well known Gaelic prayer:

Post by Andras Corban-Arthen.

    In the Spirit of the Earth, we are coming together;
    in the Spirit of the Earth, we are one…” *
    We come from the north, and we come from the south;
    we come from the west, and we come from the east.
    We gather from all directions
    to march for this living planet
    who is our home, who is what we are.
    But we do not march only for ourselves,
    we march for all beings of the Earth.
    And so we call to sun, to wind and rain;
    we call to mountains and glaciers;
    we call to all who walk and crawl, who fly and swim;
    we call to our ancestors, both seen and unseen;
    we call to oceans and streams,
    to trees, and grasses and stones
    to guide and bless every step we take,
    that we may once again live in harmony
    with our Mother the Earth.
    As it was, as it is, as it ever shall be;
    with the flow and the ebb, as it ever shall be.

    © 2014, Andras Corban-Arthen [sic]
    *© 2000, Deirdre Pulgram-Arthen


- See more at: http://wildhunt.org/2014/09/praying-with-their-feet-pagans-join-peoples-climate-march.html#disqus_thread


And his bio before he updated his website:

Andras Corban Arthen       

Andras Corban Arthen was adopted into the traditional practices of a Scottish family of witches in 1969. He is cunningman of the Glenshire witches, as well as an elder in three other branches of contemporary witchcraft, and is director of the EarthSpirit Community, a pagan educational and service organization with an international membership, founded in 1980.

Andras was chosen to represent the pagan traditions at the United Nations Interfaith Conference in 1991, and was a speaker at the Parliament of the World's Religions --- the world’s oldest and largest interfaith gathering --- in Chicago in 1993 and in Barcelona in 2004; he currently serves on the Parliament’s Board of Trustees. In 1990, he was one of the organizers and celebrants of the interfaith ceremony that launched Boston’s twentieth celebration of Earth Day, which drew 250,000 people.

Andras has been featured in the books Witches and Witchcraft (Time-Life Books), Fire in the Head, Never Again the Burning Times, People of the Earth, Drawing Down the Moon, A Community of Witches, and The New Pagans, and in the award-winning television program Smithsonian World. He has taught and lectured widely at conferences and academic institutions throughout the country and abroad. He is proud to have been singled out as "a bad role-model for the youth of America" by right-wing Christian zealot Pat Robertson on the "700 Club" in 1996.

Andras is a folk musician, storyteller and poet. With Deirdre Pulgram Arthen, he has released We Believe, an album of bardic songs. He also performs with MotherTongue, EarthSpirit's internationally-acclaimed ritual performance group.

Andras lives as part of an intentional family in Glenwood, a 135-acre pagan nature preserve in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts.

For bookings and consultations, please contact the EarthSpirit Community at info@earthspirit.com or by phone at (413) 238-4240.
 
Articles by Andras on this site:

    Witch As Shaman Part I
    Witch As Shaman Part II
    Of Visions Changes and Community
    From Roots To Dreams
    TED MILLS - An Appreciation
    The Boy Who Longed to Fly
    The Flame in the Snow: A Desultory Musing on an Imbolg Night
    The First Song: A tale of how Yule got its name
    EarthSpirit at the Parliament of the World's Religions
    An Introduction to Paganism and Witchcraft


- From https://web.archive.org/web/20080326223101/http://www.earthspirit.com/andras.html


Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2014, 06:03:32 pm »
This is his idea of Scottish, er, I mean Spanish, er I mean Basque, er... regalia:

A made-in-India bedspread.

Bedspread: http://www.indianbedspreads.net/ss078-01.aspx

Corban in bedspread: http://harmonytribe.org/content/sacred-harvest-festival-national-guest-workshops

That's not the "Indians of Europe" that's the Indians of India.

This is what people do when they don't know who they are. Or when they hate who they are and try to become something they are not.

What's wrong with being Puerto Rican?  Is this because Puerto Ricans were looked down on where he lived in Massachusetts? Is this because he broke all ties with his family of origin and was desperate to re-invent himself (over and over)? Why pretend to some fake, exotic identity? (Exotic to him, of course, not to the real people from these cultures he is vampirizing).

And for a Wiccan to now claim he's not a neopagan... he has thrown his base under the bus. He's just as neopagan as the Wiccans who trained him, and as the Wiccans who continue to support him.

Epiphany

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2014, 08:11:41 pm »
Andras C Corban was born in 1949 https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/2Q6R-BHR

Occasionally he and his wife Deidre Pulgram were in the press for Halloween feature articles, in 1983 one such article includes the info that he and his wife were teaching classes in witchcraft at the Boston Adult Education Center. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19831029&id=cFocAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vFIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6731,6341385

Uploaded here are some of their corporation filings.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2014, 08:27:46 pm by Piff »

Epiphany

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2014, 08:38:26 pm »
Another repurposed bed spread sighting

Offline Diana

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2014, 08:56:43 pm »
Another repurposed bed spread sighting

Lol Piff, what's up with the bedspread stuff??? And why is he wearing one? Weird.

Offline Ardal

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2014, 09:35:16 pm »
I thought we had a long thread about him on here, but I searched and couldn't find anything. Perhaps it was something I saw elsewhere. I'll take a look. But it catalogs well his claims, changing claims, and such.

Epiphany

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2014, 09:45:24 pm »
Another repurposed bed spread sighting

Lol Piff, what's up with the bedspread stuff??? And why is he wearing one? Weird.

Maybe bedspreads are an inexpensive source of special paganish looking material, dunno. :)

I notice Andras identified as Anamamta Tradition here http://www.eco-spirituality.org/tdgr09-andr.htm http://www.earthspirit.com/events/thesoulof.html

Anamanta is trademarked http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:y9voue.2.1 by his company Tamelin Productions, LLC

http://tamelinproductions.com/

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2014, 09:04:15 pm »
Another repurposed bed spread sighting

Lol Piff, what's up with the bedspread stuff??? And why is he wearing one? Weird.

Maybe bedspreads are an inexpensive source of special paganish looking material, dunno. :)

I notice Andras identified as Anamamta Tradition here http://www.eco-spirituality.org/tdgr09-andr.htm http://www.earthspirit.com/events/thesoulof.html

Anamanta is trademarked http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:y9voue.2.1 by his company Tamelin Productions, LLC

http://tamelinproductions.com/

Bedspreads can be useful for fabric, and sometimes even the made-in-India kind have Celtic-"inspired" knotwork. A lot of people use them for, well, bedspreads. And sometimes for wall hangings or other decoration, if the patterns are at least based on something authentic (his aren't. he just bought them at the hippie store).  But to use something "Celtic-inspired" and made in India as his only regalia shows he doesn't know what people in the living cultures he claims to represent actually wear.  He is dressed as a generic neopagan, not anyone from the living cultures.

The things traditional people wear show their ancestry. But it's really bad form to wear them if you're not a member of those families. He is basically dressed as if he has no relatives.

Or, no Celtic ones.

Anamanta... I'm sure he's trying to say it means something like "the life force," as some of the root words are connected. But among people who actually speak the language it means "Animation." As in, Cartoons.

So, he's a cartoon character. A Sell-tique fraud.

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #12 on: November 12, 2016, 12:57:42 am »
It's gotten worse. Andras Corban-Arthen and his group, the Earthspirit community, are now attempting to exploit Chief Arvol Lookinghorse and the #NoDAPL situation at Standing Rock to advance his own agenda and further misrepresent himself.

Arthen or someone in Earthspirit posted this on his group's Facebook page:

"Later this week, EarthSpirit will send Andras Corban Arthen and Donovan Arthen to Standing Rock, at the invitation of Chief Arvol Looking Horse, to meet with some of the organizers of the camps and do ceremony with some of the indigenous Elders there."

A similar untrue announcement was sent out via the Parliament of the World Religions email list.

This resulted in Arvol's partner having to post on the Earthspirit Facebook page,

"Um Arvol does not know this person - sorry"

As we always do when people make these claims, we simply made contact and checked. Chief Lookinghorse did not invite this fraud to come do ceremony with the Elders at Standing Rock.

Like many of the spiritual leaders involved in this struggle, Chief Lookinghorse has regularly sent out public statements asking people of all faiths to pray in support. What Andras Corban-Arthen has done is grossly misrepresent a public comment about worldwide prayer as a personal invitation to ceremony - not only to ceremony but sacred ceremony with Indigenous Elders. This is egregious and fraudulent behaviour and this guy should be ashamed of himself.

(Uncredited photo in screen shots is by Dallas Goldtooth)

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban Arthen & the Earthspirit Community - Massachusetts
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2016, 11:39:00 pm »
After publicly insulting Chief Lookinghorse's wife, calling her a liar, and repeatedly insisting the public call to prayer to people of all faiths was a personal invitation for witches to come do sacred ceremony with the Oceti Sakown Elders, Andras Corban Arthen's wife grudgingly admitted that, no, there was no personal invitation extended to Arthen from the Indigenous Elders; no personal invitation to ceremony was ever issued from Chief Lookinghorse, or from any legitimate Indigenous spiritual leaders, to this eclectic neopagan group of witches.

Arthen's wife has now edited the post on the Earthspirit Facebook page to take out the lie about a personal invite from Chief Lookinghorse, but she is still claiming unnamed Oceti Sakowin Elders have invited a witch (Andras Corban Arthen) to sacred ceremony. Clearly, the Arthens have no clue what they have just claimed or the level of insult they have just committed against the leaders of the Oceti Sakowin.

Arthen has insisted on speaking for Indigenous people on interfaith councils. Native people have confronted him about this offensive behaviour. As the Parliament of World Religions supports Arthen over actual Indigenous people, few Indigneous people attend that event now. The exceptions are usually pay-to-pray types of the sort you'll find in the fraud section here. Chief Lookinghorse gave the Parliament a chance and agreed to speak at an event of theirs, and this is the result of that kindness on his part - misrepresentation and yet more non-Natives attempting to exploit his name.

Arthen, who has never lived in Europe, claims to represent for Europeans, but he isn't even aware that the cultures he claims to represent define "witch" the same way it's defined by Natives. Or, maybe he does know. He's acting like it.

Here are more screen shots in case the comments disappear.

Offline RedRightHand

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Re: Andras Corban-Arthen
« Reply #14 on: November 12, 2016, 11:40:27 pm »
Additional screencaps and photo of Arthen in his "ritual gear."