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Shaman conference/Alan Shoemaker/Soga de Alma

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OneWorldOneTribe:
Came across this on Facebook while researching religious links...didn't find anything here with search feature.

Alan Shoemaker, www.soga-del-alma.org , / www.chinchilejo-tours.com

His bio http://www.soga-del-alma.org/featuring/presenters-a-speakers/alan-shoemaker.html

Thoughts anyone?

Lodro:
It all revolves around Ayahuasca

educatedindian:
It's not a conference at all as most people understand a conference to be. It's not a meeting of academics, nor of Native traditionalists. It's a couple days of pay to pray. They advertise it on the net so dabblers and curious people and spiritual tourist types can come there with the guarantee of getting to take ayahuasca.

Shoemaker is basically someone who believes in using the drug for his own (and other whites) enlightenment, but also wants to have a successful business. He's charged with trying to smuggle the drug to another country and there's a legal defense fund set up for him, but I have no sympathy for him. Trying to peddle it outside the communities is a formula for disaster, completely stripping it of its cultural context, and is even worse than peddling it to tourists.

The pay to pray "conference" speakers don't seem to even be made up of so called "shamans." It's all outsiders, European or white American dabblers or advocates. Most of them are not in academia, only one is. But the one name I do recognize is a white practicer of voodoo, Ross Heaven, whose in threads here already.

They do have a listing for curanderos, some of whom, again, are white dabblers, including one who reminds me of a white boy scout leader dressed up to play Indian. Some of the locals seem way too young to be the healers they claim to be.

educatedindian:
Taking a closer look at the conference speakers confirms my concerns.

Shoemaker- dabbler and peddler or spiritual tourism, would be leader of what they claim is a church

Peter Gorman- journalist

Howard Charing- says he is a director of Eagle's Wing, which is a fraud outfit in England founded by the late exploiter Leo Rutherford.

Dennis McKenna- brother of the late Terence McKenna, a drug use advocate and numerology quack behind much of the 2012 nonsense. Dennis actually brags of the work done with his brother. He is a pharmacologist, and seems to be using his academic credentials to legitmize his brother's work.

Richard Grossman- acupuncture, but dabbles in just about everything. His bio on the site describes how he became such a fanatic vegetarian he almost starved himself to death.
"...studied Asian philosophy, martial arts, massage, macrobiotics, juice fasting, yoga, aikido and herbal medicine." Outside of the last, no idea why anyone would think anything else he's studied would make him an expert on ayahuasca.

Andres Ostepenko- "Visual artist"? WTH is he being presented as an expert?

Richard Fowler- "famous Amazon adventure explorer, ex Army Airborne Ranger." His sole claim to expertise is having licked frogs for the drugs on them.  ::)
Seriously! And the silly looking paint on his face doesn't inspire confidence.

"The Teafaerie"- Yes, that is the actual name she goes by. The photo of her is amusing...
"At various times she has been a writer, nanny, actress, childbirth doula, homeless person, live-action storyteller, toy inventor, street performer, and party promoter."
Oh brother. That makes two complete flakes whose sole seeming expertise is liking to get high.

Isabella Stoloff- "Trained by Dr. Alberto Villoldo and The Four Winds Society"
IOW, a franchisee of a fraud.

Wendy Luckey- another mix and match type making the unlikely claim of being an expert in many traditions.
"Her background combines wisdom gained over many years of study, with elders in different traditions, including Native American, African, Celtic, and Dreamtime.....don Augustin Rivas Vasquez....ayahuasquera Maria Cristina Mendoza Vidal, and curandero don Theo Paredes, considered a master of plant medicines, and others that are less well known."

It's really disturbing when the least dubious person at the conference is Terence McKenna's brother...

Looking at the "curanderos" it's obvious some of them are not. One of them, Adela Navas, is a 73 year old white woman who says she has been working as a healer for 11 years. I've never heard of any healer waiting so late to begin learning. It seems likely to me that she, just like many Europeans and white Americans, probably began learning late in life from dubious people, and is now spreading that misinformation herself.

Another claims descent from the Chavin civlization. They've been gone over 2000 years.

OneWorldOneTribe:
Guessing that this will be moved to the "Fraud" section then...

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