NAFPS Forum

A friend of mine attended those sundances and she never mentioned drugs. She was strongly anti drugs. She passed away so I can't ask her.

Concerning the "Ghosthorse" activities in Florida:

QuoteGhost Horse and his crew "were doing acid and sending people out on their vision quests while they were tripping on LSD.

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=44.0

Eventually the group located in Goldendale, Klickitat, WA. Many followers claim powerful experiences during summer ceremonies there. Were drugs in use? If so, did everyone consent?

QuoteIn time, a Helper handed me a paper cup with a tea-brown liquid. I asked what it was. "Medicine," he said. "Drink it."

https://www.fusionmagazine.org/dance-looking-at-the-sun/

What is in this liquid given to ceremony participants?

Grandmother Sarah on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/myenthios

Bicknell isn't slowing down, in fact she appears more active. She has updated her branding. She travels for paid events, including an upcoming trip to Egypt.

Bicknell might be making a healthy profit. She's set up many income streams https://sarahmacleanbicknell.com/

Her Washington state nonprofit "The Night Turtle Dance Foundation" is active.

I wonder if she has an inner circle of students. Her online presence has a cult leader vibe.

Bergstrom is still active:

QuoteFor over 30 years, Betsy Bergstrom has taught spirit-based mystery traditions and healing. Raised by her animist mother of Coastal Salish tradition, Betsy focuses on remembering that the world is alive and much of what we encounter in nature has a consciousness of its own.

Her heritage also reaches back in to Viking Scandinavia and Clan Macdonald in Scotland and in more contemporary times into the Forest Finn or Skogfinnene tradition in Sweden. She has been lovingly encouraged by her teachers in Nordic, Swedish, Scottish, Finnish, Nepali and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, to share her insight, techniques and experiences. This is the foundation from which Spirit-Wise was launched.

QuoteIn later years, following ancestral threads, she has become one of the premier teachers of Norse Seidr in the United States, bringing the practice from England and Denmark.

QuoteMind-Rooms, from Swedish folkloric tradition, are adapted to modern life and support our dreams to become reality.

https://www.spirit-wise.com/betsy-bergstrom

Many paid classes including:

QuoteSovereignty for Self

Join Betsy Bergstrom in an exploration of Sovereignty for the Self with guided imagery and  journey. Dive into this 4.5 hour pre-recorded workshop and look at the contemporary meaning of Sovereignty as the right to be self governing and look farther back into the past to its more ancient origins. What does sovereignty entail?  Who are the Guardians of Sovereignty?

https://www.spirit-wise.com/recorded-courses

"seider hoods" https://www.spirit-wise.com/seidr-hoods

24 students listed here: https://www.spirit-wise.com/referrals

Quote from: Babeloner on June 29, 2019, 03:50:50 AM
Previous mention of Sarah Bicknell (Ghost Horse connection): http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3760.msg46174#msg46174

From her website:https://sarahmacleanbicknell.com/about-sarah/

....In 1991, Sarah was adopted by ceremony, into the Ghost Horse, Hunka Waye, Lakota Nation. She stands in deep honor to her elder council/mentors and ceremonial collaborators which over the years have been Adalberto Rivera (Maya), Wallace Black Elk, Buck Ghosthorse (Lakota), Paul Ghosthorse, Rod Mcafee, Vicky Ghosthorse (Sungleska), Grandmother Red Leaf (Cherokee), Donna Carlita, Hernando Salazar (Inca, Peru), Silvia Calisaya Chuquimia (Aymarra, Lake Titicaca), Youseff Bashir (Berber, N. Africa), Betsy Bergstrom (NW coastal, Norse, Scottish), Francesca Boring (Shoshone, N Native European), Harold Blood, Carolyn Hillier, K.Trevelyan (N Native European), Stephan Hausner (Germany), and to the many around the world that she has sat, dreamt and stood in ceremony with....

Adalberto Rivera calls himself Gnostic, from Christian tradition, not Mayan.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Quetzil-Castaneda/publication/230483826_Approaching_Ruins_a_Photo-Ethnographic_Essay_on_the_Busy_Intersections_of_Chichen_Itza/links/00b4952adffd384f16000000/Approaching-Ruins-a-Photo-Ethnographic-Essay-on-the-Busy-Intersections-of-Chichen-Itza.pdf
"Adalberto Rivera A. (1989)-an archaeo-astronomer and Maya gnostic - was one of the leaders of the event. His group of Cancun gnosticos...."

Wallace Black Elk Cow is mentioned numerous times on the site. Lakota, but posing as a healer and one of the Black Elk family over the objections of the actual Black Elks, relatives of Nicholas Black Elk of the book Black Elk Speaks.

Garneau calling herself Red Leaf is discussed here. http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3623.0

Hernando Salazar claiming to be "Inca" I haven't found online except for Bicknell claiming him. No one in Peru calls themselves Inca except the delusional or those posing for the gullible who don't know basic history. It'd be as silly as an Italian claiming to be from the tribe of Caesar. The descendants of Incas are mostly Quechua or Aymara.

Silvia Calisaya Chuquimia is a tourist guide and museum coordinator.
https://www.facebook.com/silvia.calisayachuquimia/
"Fundadora y Coordinadora at Museo de la Coca y Costumbres
Guia espiritual at Trabaja Lic.Turismo freelance guide"

Youseff Bashir with two Fs also doesn't show up online except for Bicknell's sites. Yousef Bashir with one F is Palestinian American peace activist and author, not Bicknell's "shaman." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yousef_Bashir

Betsy Bergstrom is discussed here. http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4136.0

Francesca Boring is Shoshone and gives nature walks she describes as healing for $215.
https://allmyrelationsconstellations.com/on-line-nature-constellation-course/

Haven't found Harold Blood or K.Trevelyan.

Carolyn Hillier is an English woman musician who claims to teach Celtic or Sami healing charging 15 pounds per month per person for ceremony. https://accidentalgods.life/fierce-tenderness

Stephan Hausner is a German alt medicine type. Homoeopathy, "Physioenergetic," and Osteopathy. Unlike the US, there's no licensing or standards for training for homeopathy and osteopathy in Germany. The second, it's unclear what it even is.

Not much impressive in who she claims as supporters. And that's on top of her long associations with some of the most destructive deeply racist frauds, the Matterns AKA "Ghosthorses." She doesn't even mention that Mattern was a Klansman and outright violent terrorist. Moved to Frauds.

Bicknell has changed how she refers to Leonard Mattern/Buck Ghosthorse:

QuoteShe also acknowledges the complex legacy of Buck Ghost Horse, who played a significant role in her early ceremonial life. While he was a powerful and transformative teacher, it has since come to light that he was not of Lakota ancestry as once believed. Sarah holds both the real impact of his teachings and the responsibility to walk in truth, honoring the lineages he claimed with greater care and clarity now.

https://sarahmacleanbicknell.com/about-sarah/

Bicknell needs to state clearly that she learned from a manipulative con artist that had been active in the KKK.

Bicknell and Vicki Ghost Horse do events together: https://sarahmacleanbicknell.com/wallace-black-elk-book-study-group/

QuoteThroughout the 1990s, Sarah and Vicki experienced countless unforgettable moments with Wallace Black Elk, whom they embraced as a member of their Sundance family, known as Sungleska Oyate.

This particular "Sungleska Oyate" is a nonprofit corporation in Washington state. Run by followers of the fraud Mattern/Ghosthorse.

QuoteThis Sunday,  November 30, 2025 at 11am, we welcome Paul Ghosthorse, A Lakota Chief of a Sundance in Washington, which he inherited from his father 16 years ago, and a professional cellist, which he might bring. He will be speaking about:
"How the Lakota Traditional Way of Life Supports and Nurtures Spiritual Growth and Development."

Spiritual Light Center (North Carolina) https://www.facebook.com/spirituallightcenter

---------
Paul Sahayda / Paul Ghosthorse is described as a "Lakota lineage holder" in various posts on Facebook.

He is not Lakota. Nor was his "father" Leonard Albert Mattern/Buck Ghosthorse http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=3760.0

"inherited from his father 16 years ago" 16 years ago was 2009. Leonard Mattern died in 2007.

King is one of the biggest names in Native studies and Native lit. From Wikipedia:

---------
Books
Medicine River (Viking Canada, 1990), novel
A Coyote Columbus Story (Douglas & McIntyre, 1992),– Governor General's Award finalist
Green Grass, Running Water (Houghton Mifflin, 1993), – Governor General's Award finalist
One Good Story, That One (1993), stories                Borders (1993)          Coyote Sings to the Moon (1998)
Truth and Bright Water (HarperFlamingo Canada, 1999)
The Truth About Stories (House of Anansi Press, 2003); US edition (U. of Minnesota Press, 2005) – Massey Lectures
Coyote's New Suit (2004)   
A Short History of Indians in Canada (HarperCollins, 2005), stories – McNally Robinson Award winner
A Coyote Solstice Tale (Groundwood Books, 2009)
The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (Doubleday Canada, 2012)
The Back of the Turtle (Doubleday, 2014) – Governor General's Award winner
77 Fragments of Familiar Ruin (2019) - Poems          Indians on Vacation (2020)         Sufferance (2021)
Aliens on the Moon (2025)
DreadfulWater Mysteries: Dreadful Water Shows Up (2002), The Red Power Murders (2006), Cold Skies (2018), A Matter of Malice (2019), Obsidian (2020), Deep House (2022), Double Eagle (2023), Black Ice (2024)
As editor
The Native in Literature (1987)
An Anthology of Short Fiction by Native Writers in Canada (1988)
All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990)
Scripts
Four Directions (CBC Television, 1996), drama anthology series, as editor and sometime writer
The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour (CBC Radio, 1997 to 2000) and its sequels (2002 and 2006)
I'm Not The Indian You Had In Mind, 2007, short film also directed by King

Awards and recognition
Literary awards
Nominated for a Governor General's Award in 1992 for A Coyote Columbus Story.
Nominated for a Governor General's Award in 1993 for Green Grass, Running Water.
Won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2021 for Indians on Vacation
Green Grass, Running Water was chosen for the inclusion in the 2004 edition of Canada Reads, and championed by then-Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray. In the 2015 edition of Canada Reads, his non-fiction book The Inconvenient Indian was defended by activist Craig Kielburger.
A Short History of Indians in Canada won the 2006 McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award.
The Inconvenient Indian won the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize,[14] and was a finalist for the 2013 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the 2014 Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature.
The Back of the Turtle won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at 2014 Governor General's Awards
Indians on Vacation was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2020 Governor General's Awards.

Honors
In 2004, King was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
In November 2020, King was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.[22] The naming was because of King's "enduring contributions to preservation and recognition of indigenous culture, as one of North America's most acclaimed literary figures.

---------

I really wonder why TAAF investigated him. 83 and retired for 5 years, no sign of willful fraud at all, a long history of accomplishment and doing good.

Basically he was told a false story of who his grandfather was. Grew up outside the culture but definitely learned it and became a leading advocate and activist, including several runs for Canadian parliament.

No ceremony selling or abuse. No spreading falsehoods or stereotypes like imposters such as "Jamake Highwater." No sign of deception by him, or by anyone involved except his grandmother. No gatekeeping to keep actual Natives out as we've seen with many imposters.

In fact when King found out, he was the one most hurt. I'm reminded of when Carlos Montezuma discovered he was Yavapai when he believed he was Apache his whole life. King says he'll give back one award intended for Natives only. But the others no. They were awarded for merit. And King, like nearly all Natives in academia, was hired based on ability. No such thing as "Native professor positions."

TAAF's entry on "Non-American Indian" Thomas Hunt King:

https://tribalallianceagainstfrauds.org/thomas-king

Includes "Fan chart" and "Ahnentafel" going back 8 generations.

Archived "A most inconvenient Indian
At 82, I feel as though I've been ripped in half, a one-legged man in a two-legged story. Not the Indian I had in mind. Not an Indian at all"

https://web.archive.org/web/20251124212744/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-a-most-inconvenient-indian/