Author Topic: Who ISN'T a fraud?  (Read 31133 times)

Offline Tzununa

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Who ISN'T a fraud?
« on: November 03, 2013, 10:10:54 pm »
Hello,

I am new here and registered specifically to ask this question so that I may understand.

I have noticed that a number of the people I know doing good ceremonial and spiritual work who help a lot of people are listed here as "frauds."

I am wondering the purpose and intent of this forum and website because this is confusing to me. I was hoping someone could explain.

There is one person I know listed here, for example, who I would prefer not to mention. I have personally witnessed many of hundreds of people come through his ceremonies. He is a white person who shares a community chanupa in a weekly ceremony and offers huachuma healing ceremonies on some weekends. He has been doing this for many years and has been trained by native healers, who I have noticed are also listed here. He doesn't do things in a strictly traditional way because he is not working with native people. I know that his mission is to get as much medicine in as many white people as possible to affect change in the world in a collective way. Although he has a decent house and everything he needs materially, he is not a rich man and lives a humble life of constant service. Many other close-to-70 year olds are sitting around watching TV and taking naps, or traveling on their pensions, not sitting up all night with their aching bodies doctoring people, counseling them and cleaning up vomit.

I have watched so many people come through his NAC and get healed of addictions, clean up their lives, repair broken relationships, wake up their families, recreate community and heal the lost sense of tribe that so many of us feel, graduate beyond the self-focused healing and into stewardship with the people and the earth and peel away layers of cultural conditioning having been born into white American culture but with good hearts and good intentions to go on and support the causes of the indigenous people.

It is not perfect and it is certainly not the way things were done in a different time. But it is a way that is serving the place and time that he finds himself in, and I see him as a gateway healer, a first level medicine person, a bridge between cultures and a doorway in for people who would otherwise be kept distant from these healing ways and this level of consciousness.

The importance of those who keep the old ways in the purest manner is obviously crucial. The people like the Kogis and Arahuaco, for example, who are doing work that helps everyone in existence. But also it seems helpful to have these people who are really on the front lines, in the darkest of places - American cities, doing this work. It is hard to dwell in the dark places without getting some of the sludge on you, and sometimes they have do wear the costume of the people they are trying to heal so that they can blend in and get close to it. To me that is better than crying too far from the listener and not effecting change. Not better than other ways but just a different and necessary approach given the challenge.

It is a kind of spiritual MacGyvering, working with what you have in the best way you can. A real tool would be better but sometimes you have to do what you can with a paper clip and a piece of string to get the job done. Sometimes doing something is better than doing nothing.

It does actually feel like a lot of projected hate and negativity in many of the criticisms I read here and makes me wonder if this is the dark side working in some clever disguise to confuse people.

I am not native, but I share the grief that we all feel when we have awakened to what has happened and where we find ourselves at this time in our humanity. I have personally devoted myself to supporting and living this way of life, to learning and doing it completely on my own, without a culture to identify with or a family who supports me. I am ever taking more steps toward that as best I can given what I'm surrounded with. And often with opposition because I am white but I do it quietly and without need for validation.

We all share the same human failings, fears and ego and what is the point anymore to this divisiveness and separation? It feels like such a drain.

I feel sad that these few people who are doing such powerful and important work in the world at this time to help people are so criticized and pulled down for their efforts and imperfections. Many of the native elders I have met and worked with are they same way, but they are not criticized because they are native. This is not a glamorous or lucrative path. I can't imagine who could be doing this for any kind of glory. Healing work is a dirty and often thankless job.

Can someone please explain to me what I am missing here to put my heart at ease?

With love and respect.

LM


Offline earthw7

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2013, 03:10:03 am »
Hello
I guess the first step would be are you willing to listen?
I am Native and live on the reservation.
The first lesson is
* I dont care who you are
but if you in anyway claim to use my way of life (Native-Indian) as a way to make money you are in the wrong.
* If you charge people to come to a ceremony you are wrong.
* If you charge for workshop on ceremonies
* If you claim to be Native but you are not that is a lie as many of those you see on this site.
* No we dont adopted people and make them medicine men or women.
* No we dont teach people go out in the world to teach others that is kind like those christians that do that.

We have different catagory the fraud section are the ones we know that are lying about who they are and committing fraud
to those misguild people look for something that is not their.
The fraud section are people who are really hurting people using our name that is fraud.
The Research Section is for people who are sent to us asking if we know about them, we do the research on if they
are native who they really are,  who taught them and if they are on the fraud list.

My question why do you think you have a right to my way of life?
What is wrong with your own life?
I find so many damaged people trying to steal my way of life and my way of life is not for sell nor do you have rights to it.



In Spirit

Offline earthw7

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2013, 03:22:39 am »
I guess I dont consider myself a fraud because I was born, enrolled in my tribe and live among my people,
I know my culture, history, traditions, spirituality and way of life. I dont need to steal from another culture to define who i am
I am born me, i dont do ceremonies and i dont share my way of life with general people.
I get upset when i see people telling stories that are untrue about my people, making up my culture, and
doing damage to those people who have no center or self identifty

In Spirit

Offline Superdog

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2013, 09:31:50 pm »

Can someone please explain to me what I am missing here to put my heart at ease?

With love and respect.

LM

Without mentioning who you are talking about...it's hard to comment.  First hand accounts are always welcome on this board.  If you believe someone is listed here wrongly, you have the right to say so.  In fact, it's encouraged.  Otherwise, we're just talking hypotheticals which is rather pointless.

Superdog

Epiphany

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #4 on: November 05, 2013, 02:54:17 am »

It does actually feel like a lot of projected hate and negativity in many of the criticisms I read here and makes me wonder if this is the dark side working in some clever disguise to confuse people.


You are saying that we are projecting hate and negativity? And that "the dark side" is sneakily working through us to confuse people?

Offline debbieredbear

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #5 on: November 05, 2013, 05:07:09 pm »
 
Quote
It does actually feel like a lot of projected hate and negativity in many of the criticisms I read here and makes me wonder if this is the dark side working in some clever disguise to confuse people.


Wow, that's insulting! Because you don't like what actual native people say, you insult us?

Offline Laurel

  • Posts: 150
Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #6 on: November 05, 2013, 06:58:21 pm »
Tzununa, speaking as a white person who's made an ass of herself any number of ways in the past, I'd suggest you apologize... and then lurk more before you presume to lecture people on who and who can't use their traditions.

We white people spent a lot of time and energy destroying our own traditions (whatever they were) and substituting Christianity. We then imposed our ways on everyone else. Nice, giving, caring people may want to or choose to help whitefolks "recreate community and heal [our] lost sense of tribe," but it's not their work, it's ours, and they are under no obligation to assist. In the case of Native Americans, they have many, many more important things to worry about than the "lost sense" of white people...and that's our doing, too.

Nor is it their, or anyone else's job, to put your "heart at ease." That's for you to do. When your heart hurts because you've discovered things you believe are merely pretty lies, begging to hear more pretty lies from the people those lies have harmed the most is not going to ease it.

Offline Diana

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #7 on: November 05, 2013, 07:02:19 pm »
Quote
It does actually feel like a lot of projected hate and negativity in many of the criticisms I read here and makes me wonder if this is the dark side working in some clever disguise to confuse people.


Wow, that's insulting! Because you don't like what actual native people say, you insult us?

Not only is it insulting Debbie, it's RACIST! I'm so sick and tired of these white whiners coming here sniveling and boo hooing about how mean and selfish Indians are. As if we owe this tzununa person anything. @ tzununa, you are the epitome of the racist oppressor. It is not up to us to educate your ignorant white ass. You and people like you are the reason we have to a forum like this.

I hope this tzununa person reads this and really reflects on her words and the hurt she has caused.


Lim lemtsh,

Diana

Offline Defend the Sacred

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2013, 10:56:52 pm »
Tzununa/LM, if you actually felt respect for Native people and communities, you would have taken the time to get a sense of how this board functions. You would have read the pinned threads that already answer your questions and not expected Native people to do 101 work you should have done for yourself. And you would have introduced yourself in the proper section, instead of posting in News & Announcements.

Moving this to "etc"

Stealing from Natives doesn't make you a better person, it makes you a worse person.

Non-Natives exploiting Native ways aren't helping other non-Natives, they are implicating them - you - in cultural genocide. That is not spiritual, or helpful, or peaceful , or good.

You wrote: " recreate community and heal the lost sense of tribe that so many of us feel, graduate beyond the self-focused healing and into stewardship with the people and the earth and peel away layers of cultural conditioning having been born into white American culture but with good hearts and good intentions to go on and support the causes of the indigenous people."

That is delusional. Ceremony-stealing, ceremony-selling, being a pretendian is not supporting Indigenous people. It is the opposite.

Offline educatedindian

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #9 on: November 06, 2013, 04:08:43 am »

There is one person I know listed here, for example, who I would prefer not to mention. I have personally witnessed many of hundreds of people come through his ceremonies. He is a white person who shares a community chanupa in a weekly ceremony and offers huachuma healing ceremonies on some weekends. He has been doing this for many years and has been trained by native healers, who I have noticed are also listed here. He doesn't do things in a strictly traditional way because he is not working with native people. I know that his mission is to get as much medicine in as many white people as possible to affect change in the world in a collective way. Although he has a decent house and everything he needs materially, he is not a rich man and lives a humble life of constant service. Many other close-to-70 year olds are sitting around watching TV and taking naps, or traveling on their pensions, not sitting up all night with their aching bodies doctoring people, counseling them and cleaning up vomit.

I have watched so many people come through his NAC and get healed of addictions, clean up their lives, repair broken relationships, wake up their families, recreate community and heal the lost sense of tribe that so many of us feel, graduate beyond the self-focused healing and into stewardship with the people and the earth and peel away layers of cultural conditioning having been born into white American culture but with good hearts and good intentions to go on and support the causes of the indigenous people.

It is not perfect and it is certainly not the way things were done in a different time. But it is a way that is serving the place and time that he finds himself in, and I see him as a gateway healer, a first level medicine person, a bridge between cultures and a doorway in for people who would otherwise be kept distant from these healing ways and this level of consciousness.

The importance of those who keep the old ways in the purest manner is obviously crucial. The people like the Kogis and Arahuaco, for example, who are doing work that helps everyone in existence. But also it seems helpful to have these people who are really on the front lines, in the darkest of places - American cities, doing this work. It is hard to dwell in the dark places without getting some of the sludge on you, and sometimes they have do wear the costume of the people they are trying to heal so that they can blend in and get close to it. To me that is better than crying too far from the listener and not effecting change. Not better than other ways but just a different and necessary approach given the challenge.

It is a kind of spiritual MacGyvering, working with what you have in the best way you can. A real tool would be better but sometimes you have to do what you can with a paper clip and a piece of string to get the job done. Sometimes doing something is better than doing nothing...

Can someone please explain to me what I am missing here to put my heart at ease?

With love and respect.

LM

Ms. Muschinski is referring to fraud Erick Gonzalez of the Earth Peoples United cult.

Ms., contrary to what you think he is NOT Native. He is a Guatemalan of entirely European ancestry doing a fraudulent knock off of Mayan ways mangled together with faux Lakota ceremony.

And that you take a faux Native name yourself is a further illustration of the harm imposters like Gonzalez do.

You do realize MacGyver is fiction right?  :)
Haphazard and invented on the spot is not what anyone wants or should get when it comes to healing, counseling, or spiritual tradition.

You ask what else could you do? Almost literally anything would be better than play acting Native with an imposter, esp one leading a cult whose harmed huge numbers of people.

Start off with simply being a decent human being for a change. Get involved with human rights or environmental or other just causes. I have a hard time thinking of a worser course of action you could have taken.

Try doing what is right instead what makes you feel good and tells you lies you wish were true.

Offline Ingeborg

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #10 on: November 06, 2013, 11:27:32 am »

There is one person I know listed here, for example, who I would prefer not to mention. I have personally witnessed many of hundreds of people come through his ceremonies. He is a white person who shares a community chanupa in a weekly ceremony and offers huachuma healing ceremonies on some weekends. He has been doing this for many years and has been trained by native healers, who I have noticed are also listed here. He doesn't do things in a strictly traditional way because he is not working with native people. I know that his mission is to get as much medicine in as many white people as possible to affect change in the world in a collective way. Although he has a decent house and everything he needs materially, he is not a rich man and lives a humble life of constant service. Many other close-to-70 year olds are sitting around watching TV and taking naps, or traveling on their pensions, not sitting up all night with their aching bodies doctoring people, counseling them and cleaning up vomit.
[...]

Ms. Muschinski is referring to fraud Erick Gonzalez of the Earth Peoples United cult.

Ms., contrary to what you think he is NOT Native. He is a Guatemalan of entirely European ancestry doing a fraudulent knock off of Mayan ways mangled together with faux Lakota ceremony.
Emphasis mine


Actually, Ms M is confirming our suspicion and, at the same time, ruining her guru's scheme: I've emphasised the sentence above in which she clearly says Gonzalez is a white person!

So that says everything about his claims to be Maya and to have been taught Maya spirituality be "his elders". In other words: this is no more than a legend Gonzalez is using to promote his business. Of course 'legend' is just another word for 'bunch of lies'.

And if Gonzalez is "sitting up all night ... doctoring people, counseling them and cleaning up vomit", then perhaps he should hand out less Ayahuasca to his customers, and of course also other less of drugs like the above mentioned wachuma/ huachuma.

I'm going to copy this post to our thread on Gonzalez to make the info on him being a white person available there, too.
The thread is to be found here:
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3420.0

« Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 11:34:59 am by Ingeborg »

Epiphany

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #11 on: November 06, 2013, 03:36:08 pm »
He doesn't do things in a strictly traditional way because he is not working with native people.

Erick Gonzalez does work with (and harm) native people, for instance people of the Haida Nation. http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3420.0

Offline milehighsalute

  • Posts: 357
Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #12 on: November 06, 2013, 09:31:30 pm »
Quote
It does actually feel like a lot of projected hate and negativity in many of the criticisms I read here and makes me wonder if this is the dark side working in some clever disguise to confuse people.


Wow, that's insulting! Because you don't like what actual native people say, you insult us?

Not only is it insulting Debbie, it's RACIST! I'm so sick and tired of these white whiners coming here sniveling and boo hooing about how mean and selfish Indians are. As if we owe this tzununa person anything. @ tzununa, you are the epitome of the racist oppressor. It is not up to us to educate your ignorant white ass. You and people like you are the reason we have to a forum like this.

I hope this tzununa person reads this and really reflects on her words and the hurt she has caused.


Lim lemtsh,

Diana
i use the term "SPIRITUAL COLONIZATION"

Offline Bishadi

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Re: Who ISN'T a fraud?
« Reply #13 on: November 22, 2013, 05:13:13 pm »
Hello,

I am new here and registered specifically to ask this question so that I may understand.

I have noticed that a number of the people I know doing good ceremonial and spiritual work who help a lot of people are listed here as "frauds."

What spiritual works?  Talking is spiritual work.

Your last question was asking to ease your spirit (peace of mind).

Anyone can enable another.  Dont worry about people telling you that 'they' have a proprietary to knowledge.  But on the flip side, if someone is telling you that they are offering a special kind of 'spiritual healing' and you are led to believe it is magic by ANY 'god(s)', just smile and keep in mind that you can create a lie or follow one, just as easily.
If existence only operates one way, is the math the name to know?  To me, existence is defining itself and 'we' as the conscious species are doing it.

Offline Bishadi

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Who's way?
« Reply #14 on: November 22, 2013, 05:56:00 pm »
Hello
I guess the first step would be are you willing to listen?
I am Native and live on the reservation.
The first lesson is
* I dont care who you are
but if you in anyway claim to use my way of life (Native-Indian) as a way to make money you are in the wrong.
* If you charge people to come to a ceremony you are wrong.
* If you charge for workshop on ceremonies
* If you claim to be Native but you are not that is a lie as many of those you see on this site.
* No we dont adopted people and make them medicine men or women.
* No we dont teach people go out in the world to teach others that is kind like those christians that do that.

We have different catagory the fraud section are the ones we know that are lying about who they are and committing fraud
to those misguild people look for something that is not their.
The fraud section are people who are really hurting people using our name that is fraud.
The Research Section is for people who are sent to us asking if we know about them, we do the research on if they
are native who they really are,  who taught them and if they are on the fraud list.

My question why do you think you have a right to my way of life?
What is wrong with your own life?
I find so many damaged people trying to steal my way of life and my way of life is not for sell nor do you have rights to it.

Wow!

How deep is your understanding on what 'life' is?

I agree, knowledge must not be for sale.  And I agree that taking money for a religious 'belief' or 'ritual' is a joke in itself.
But you dont have a 'my way of life' that is other than 'our' way without 'racist' ideology.
I am a mutt as far as geneology.  Most are but the core identifiers in race can be easily identified as red, yellow, black, white.  Here on this side of the lake, the red are who know how to live with mother but in other places, the black, then in another the yellow, then in another, the white.  Race is not a hierarchy but an equal footing on this taco stand, dood.

The indigenous way is 'the way' for 'the land between 2 seas'.  Heck I cant understand why the Navajo/Hopi havent hit up Ted Turner for at least 10,000 head of bison to return to the land.  Instead, they sell beef "the american way", instead!!!!!!!

How many know how to make dice from bison?   How many of you can live with mother, without a grocery store?
If existence only operates one way, is the math the name to know?  To me, existence is defining itself and 'we' as the conscious species are doing it.