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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > North American Indigenous Spirituality

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  #31  
Old 27-04-2018, 08:05 AM
SaturninePluto SaturninePluto is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
A very controversial subject matter to bring up - I know – that will stir up a lot of emotions, but once and for all, I would like to get to the bottom of this and hear sentiments from all sides and not just dance around this subject matter.

Very recently I watched a youtube interview with Rainbow Eagle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2qP3Ji6do

Who - by Al Carroll has been declared to be a fraud?
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index...14135#msg14135

Who in turn has been declared to be a fraud?
https://lookingbackwoman.wordpress.c...mmaking-buddy/

Who in turn has been declared a fraud …….. and so on ……..
So where is the truth in all of this, I wonder?


And why are Europeans so fascinated by Native Americans?
Is it because of our long lost European tribal Aboriginality (i.e. invasions by Near Eastern agriculturalists and Indo-Europeans)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbCar3aGadc

Or is it because of the Hollywood influence i.e. portrayal of Native Americans as the last true ‘Natives’ on Earth?
But how genuine is this portrayal?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNZBpn9asng


And why do people in general mix Native American Spirituality with Shamanism?
How true/right or wrong is this association?


I do not understand people.

Why this name calling and labeling the wannabees, the frauds, this association with shamanism, why this need to distinguish the true shamans, from the plastics, the frauds, the fakes the deceivers?

I truly do not mean to pick here at you, or at your post, at all in the way this may be perceived. I mean to address that I see this everywhere.

I can not state how I feel, or my faith, or the very path I have followed, and strived and yes have in my own way suffered for- for the very sake and lives of others. Without hearing all this.

I understand very well that your intent is not to harm at all. But this is everywhere.

Recently I have watched a youtube interview with rainbow eagle,

who was by al carrol

Who was also declared to be a fraud.

Presumably by someone else.

From this I gather rainbow eagle- I've never heard of them- random trivia- Was declared a fraud by al carrol - whom I've not heard of, whom was declared a fraud by someone else- I don't know whom.

From that I can't help but feel- Becky I heard from Tiffany that Joe said you stink, but I heard also from Amanda, that Tiffany has a reek about her herself, but Joe doesn't seem to think this way, but what does Joe know anyway? Of course he'll defend Tiffany tooth and nail anyway, he likes her you know, I know, Rachel told me so.

Truth be told. You asked where the truth in all the rampant fraud declarations is- My personal belief is, there truly isn't any.

Someone whomever declaring another a fraud does not make this so, this other being declared as such does not make it so.

These types of declarations are rude, disrespectful, petty, from all sides, in this type of very public eye, this public machine.

It is unnecessary judgment, bullying, name calling that is going on in our global society, that will continue to go on, and has been for quite a very long while.

In my view. Which essentially by the reactions to most here by me speaking, topic posting, and trying to help, being disagreed with much, thanked much for help I offered, and otherwise ignored- does not amount to much but a pot to urinate in.

I suppose?

If you must know about my background in Shamanism- and fraudulence.

And my literal genetics.

I am 33 percent Scottish in Blood. Descended. Born in Maine in the USA- West. Currently residing in my birth state I have never left.

I am also white- hear me? As a ghost. Pale.

I am also French Canadian. 25 percent. As well as an English mix I can't rightly remember this exactly, perhaps it is more than Scottish it very well could be. My Grandfather's family was Scottish, my Grandmother's- both of these on my father's side- English.

My mother's side is where French Canadian comes in- 25 percent.

Oh and my Native blood? How does any of this even matter?

3 percent. What little of it being a mix of Mikmaq and Abenaki. I have a general idea of the tribe what little I can find about my own ancestors. I am not too sure if what I have been told from family is the exact tribe. I do know Abenaki- which is more a class of peoples.

Tribe I have been told was, pequawket. If this is true whomever google is there listing as the last known pequawket probably isn't the last- last full blood. And full blood does NOT make anyone any better than anyone else. Or any more a Shaman than any other.

Yes as far as Shamanism goes and who is worthy of practicing. I really don't care who says what about what, or if I practice my white skin makes me a fraud. Or if I make a mistake in what Natives believe and mess something up as humans will do, prepare to be called a fraud.

I have dealt with many hardships, many of them bordering on the unbelievable.

I do not need anyone to tell me which Faith I love, which path I love, which path I have walked for many many years now. The work I have put into learning what little I know of it, the work to help others, to be at their service, to get messages through, to SAVE Lives.

I do not believe anyone deserves to be called a fraud for something they genuinely love. Even if they are, but it isn't hurting anyone in the end, and they may have good intentions at heart, and who knows perhaps have helped others upon the way.

I do not mean to sound as if I want nor intend to scold, I absolutely do not.

I am simply an empathetic creature and can be overwhelmed at times, by the thoughts and feelings of others- not specifically you yourself or what you have posted it.

And I am glad you brought the topic to light.

As far as truth goes, what I can offer is simply my perspective and my own personal truth, and it is I do not feel anyone should be called a fraud for what they believe in- if they truly believe it, if it causes others no malice, if it is intended for good, and if they love the path they Choose to walk.

It is a choice.

That is my perspective of my truth.

It is like any other's, mine alone. To walk.
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  #32  
Old 27-04-2018, 06:54 PM
Little Creek77 Little Creek77 is offline
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NAFPS is all about bullying and promoting oneself at the expense of others. They have no right to tell us what to fear or who to fear, or is authentic or not authentic. We see this kind of bullying and propaganda in modern politics as well. It is all about Control.
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  #33  
Old 27-04-2018, 10:02 PM
Native spirit Native spirit is offline
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Many people are affected by Name calling etc it is a form of bullying.i myself have not had an easy life.plus I have been ridiculed told I'm a fraud and don't know people.
all this because of who I am and what I do.i was born Hearing and Seeing spirit so I'm a natural medium I am also a Healer and a counsellor. my hair is Black I used to be called little indian when I was growing up.I have got Native blood in me.but I used to be told I just wanted to be so I was a fraud. by ignorant people,
I am a spiritualist I walk my own path.i have more compassion and empathy for people than a lot of people I know.
yet I'm a fraud according to them. I ignore people like that their ignorance is obvious. I am no fraud
I am what I am and who I am I am me.people who think otherwise are entitled to think what they like.
my heart is pure.people who force their views or thoughts on others are nothing but cowards because that is what a bully is.

Namaste
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  #34  
Old 29-04-2018, 04:52 PM
Little Creek77 Little Creek77 is offline
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It is all about controlling you, out of anger and fear. They do it out of total ignorance.
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  #35  
Old 29-04-2018, 05:36 PM
TheGlow TheGlow is offline
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It's funny you use the word shaman and native american as if the two are the same. Shaman is a Russian word for their indigenous healers.

If anything that word has been stolen and applied to other cultures but I don't hear them complaining. All nations and cultures had a spiritual connection to earth before religion came and forced a non earth based belief system on them basically encouraging the belief we are not connected to the earth/creation.

Unfortunately the witch hunts and missionaries forcibly converting people wiped out most of the ancient cultural knowledge from most of the old world.
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  #36  
Old 29-04-2018, 09:27 PM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Little Creek77
I seen authentic stories called "Fake" by these bullies.
Quote:
Native spirit
Many people are affected by Name calling etc
This does become a very hurtful problematic situation.

Besides, what Indigenous group on the planet hasn’t suffered loss?
Because of assimilation etc. etc. (in my experience) many feel like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing and how one then goes about making one’s self whole again is an individual choice or path. Plus if one now is a racial mixture there is that duality within to come to terms with, to reconcile, to juggle and the divided/mixed loyalties to observe - unless one wants to become a self-hater, but that doesn’t work in the long run.
So I cannot see how one can compartmentalize people into neat little boxes or moulds with definite black (red) & white borders such as bullies perhaps would have people conform into.

One mixed heritage artist's work I admire:
Quote:
Aboriginal artist Lin Onus uses pieces of jigsaw puzzle to symbolise the pieces of his story that are missing. None of these pieces quite fits back correctly showing that the damage to Aboriginal people and culture can never fully recover even if the pieces are all found. This predominantly Western style persists throughout his career partly because of his love of the environment and admiration for its beauty, but possibly also to acknowledge his mother’s Scottish heritage.

One of my own (jigsaw) missing pieces was a Saami Noaidi/Noita (‘Shaman’) in our family tree, who during the Swedish occupation & witch hunts was sentenced to death for being one – which made my grandparents go totally silent about that side of family - in fear - they still carried because their/our culture had been so demonized and shamed.
As was my (more recent) Siberian ancestor kept hidden & I think because of fears about racial discrimination set by the "racial purity - ethnic hygiene" policies of their time.


SaturninePluto
Quote:
I do not understand people.

Why this name calling and labeling the wannabees, the frauds, this association with shamanism, why this need to distinguish the true shamans, from the plastics, the frauds, the fakes the deceivers?

My initial reaction to this was (I think) similar to yours. Bewilderment, disbelief, hurt, anger (as masked hurt), defensiveness, especially since I had never irl. come across this phenomena called “Plastic Shamans” and thought I never would – and feeling really hurt because - just for being an Euro one can and does even end up being accused of Native American practices one has never even seen, let alone practiced (nor understood why people would even want to in the first place!)

*

But a workshop: “Many people, now you too can become a Shaman” - is coming to town, and the teacher is claiming to be a representative of my ancestry who is channelling a Siberian Shaman – yet carries a Native American “Medicine People” ‘title’ (we are not “Medicine Men/Women”) and the channelled Siberian Shaman’s name (meaning “True Path”) is not Siberian either.
So things just do not add up and the whole thing starts to sound like one of those anti-cultural-appropriation-group-think-script soap opera propaganda episodes (and I am not even kidding).
So - Is this a scam targeting gullible people (New Agers) who do not know anything about FennoScandian/Saami/Siberian history or culture? (As people generally do not, so they can easily be taken for a ‘ride’)?

I don’t know.

But SaturninePluto, - What would you do if somebody claimed to be from your ancestry/ethnicity and culture, if/when they aren’t?
And if you did discover that the whole thing is a scam?

If neither bullying: naming, shaming and ridiculing (i.e. creating a modern day witch hunt) the leader and the followers is not the appropriate response to this – is doing nothing either? As in - letting the phenomena of the scammers, their marketing enablers and ‘victims’ play itself out as their Karma only, ignoring that your cultural identity has been ‘stolen’ and/or misrepresented?

This is a problematic situation also.
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  #37  
Old 29-04-2018, 10:39 PM
SaturninePluto SaturninePluto is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
This does become a very hurtful problematic situation.

Besides, what Indigenous group on the planet hasn’t suffered loss?
Because of assimilation etc. etc. (in my experience) many feel like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing and how one then goes about making one’s self whole again is an individual choice or path. Plus if one now is a racial mixture there is that duality within to come to terms with, to reconcile, to juggle and the divided/mixed loyalties to observe - unless one wants to become a self-hater, but that doesn’t work in the long run.
So I cannot see how one can compartmentalize people into neat little boxes or moulds with definite black (red) & white borders such as bullies perhaps would have people conform into.

One mixed heritage artist's work I admire:


One of my own (jigsaw) missing pieces was a Saami Noaidi/Noita (‘Shaman’) in our family tree, who during the Swedish occupation & witch hunts was sentenced to death for being one – which made my grandparents go totally silent about that side of family - in fear - they still carried because their/our culture had been so demonized and shamed.
As was my (more recent) Siberian ancestor kept hidden & I think because of fears about racial discrimination set by the "racial purity - ethnic hygiene" policies of their time.


SaturninePluto

My initial reaction to this was (I think) similar to yours. Bewilderment, disbelief, hurt, anger (as masked hurt), defensiveness, especially since I had never irl. come across this phenomena called “Plastic Shamans” and thought I never would – and feeling really hurt because - just for being an Euro one can and does even end up being accused of Native American practices one has never even seen, let alone practiced (nor understood why people would even want to in the first place!)

*

But a workshop: “Many people, now you too can become a Shaman” - is coming to town, and the teacher is claiming to be a representative of my ancestry who is channelling a Siberian Shaman – yet carries a Native American “Medicine People” ‘title’ (we are not “Medicine Men/Women”) and the channelled Siberian Shaman’s name (meaning “True Path”) is not Siberian either.
So things just do not add up and the whole thing starts to sound like one of those anti-cultural-appropriation-group-think-script soap opera propaganda episodes (and I am not even kidding).
So - Is this a scam targeting gullible people (New Agers) who do not know anything about FennoScandian/Saami/Siberian history or culture? (As people generally do not, so they can easily be taken for a ‘ride’)?

I don’t know.

But SaturninePluto, - What would you do if somebody claimed to be from your ancestry/ethnicity and culture, if/when they aren’t?
And if you did discover that the whole thing is a scam?

If neither bullying: naming, shaming and ridiculing (i.e. creating a modern day witch hunt) the leader and the followers is not the appropriate response to this – is doing nothing either? As in - letting the phenomena of the scammers, their marketing enablers and ‘victims’ play itself out as their Karma only, ignoring that your cultural identity has been ‘stolen’ and/or misrepresented?

This is a problematic situation also.

You asked what if someone claimed to be from my ancestry and turned out not to be, and if I did discover it to be a scam.

In order for me to discover it to be a scam to begin with, I would have to have evidence, documented as to their lineage and genealogy. I would have to see their medical blood work to prove to me that beyond a doubt that they did not share some genealogy of Mikmaq or pequawket, or some blood proof that they have no percentage of Scottish in them.

See?

And that is what I was talking about- an individual whom gets the facts mixed up, and has a youtube video come out- in order for me to believe they are a total scam artist- I would require that they shared willingly evidence of their genealogy, but who the heck am I to ask that of them?

I have a book on Mikmaq medicine. Now being of this descent you must realize how far back this goes, and how very little information there is out there on my particular North American heritage. With this in mind if it turns out a couple years from now someone posts a blog or a newspaper article about this particular book, and their blog or article speaks of how very very much of that information in the book, being, incorrect, or not so, or untrue...

It wouldn't actually surprise me if very much of it as it stands now, is already incorrect.

There is not very much left of the Native culture here in the west and this is true for many many other places, and their native people.

Many of the old beliefs have been lost.

Name calling, arguing, placing more and more blame, and arguing petty points as you are not a real Medicine Man/Woman Because You Are White. Or you are not a real Shaman because you are only 25 percent of this Russian heritage.

All this does is continue to promote racist thinking and behavior.

Now if there was an upcoming workshop in my area run by someone claiming to be Mikmaq and then channeling the spirit of a Navajo cheif, and what he said in his workshops according to others by word of mouth was majority Navajo beliefs, what would I do? If I could afford to I'd go attend his workshop and see what it actually is all about then. And after that, then I would make up my mind on whether or not I feel the workshop was worth my time. And if he did talk quite a bit about Navajo beliefs as opposed to Mikmaq it wouldn't bother me in the least. I happen to love to learn about the beliefs of others.

And even still if I seriously and adamantly did not particularly care for any of it, I personally would not openly and publicly call the person a fraud. And if someone elsewhere made mention of an interest of going to the workshop of said person, I would not in any way shape or form tell them- He's a fake! Don't bother!

Because what somebody else does or does not do is not at all for me to say, and they have to be the one's to make up their own minds.

And I expect to make up my own mind about others as well.

So when people say- Tom Brown Jr made both Rick and Grandfather up in his books, he learned from "White" professors at his college in New Jersey!

I auto think- "Tiffany told Amanda so and so punched your locker!"

All the response others are ever going to actually get out of me when people say such things is "So"?

Well she punched it...

Did she break it?

No.

Well alright then....

Personally I understand why Native people of certain areas would get upset if their beliefs are being misrepresented. Or if people not of their decent are making those claims.

It is reasonable to be upset and this is something the world really does need to bring to light and talk about, and talk about Honestly more.

It is not reasonable to keep feeding the fires of hatred in my perspective.
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  #38  
Old 30-04-2018, 08:09 PM
Little Creek77 Little Creek77 is offline
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It is not the responsibility of Groups like NAFPS to tell us who to fear or who is authentic. That is just plain bullying and control. Very destructive.
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  #39  
Old 30-04-2018, 08:49 PM
Native spirit Native spirit is offline
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You will know within your own heart who is Authentic you don't need anyone to tell you


Namaste
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  #40  
Old 08-06-2018, 11:22 PM
sentient sentient is offline
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I am glad I went to the New Age: “Many people, now you too can become a Shaman” - Shamanic gathering.

At first we did a “Shamanic Journey” – which was great.
I didn’t have any specific intent for my journey, so I was just accepting and unbiasedly open to whatever my subconscious chose to throw at me to ‘witness’.
Saw one of our totem animals up close (learning more about the details of its behaviour) and a tree associated with it and willing to be of service for ceremonial purposes. (We hold the ‘funeral’ ceremonies for the opposite moiety of totems).
Saw a Sacred Place up in Lapland and heard a person singing to a beat of a drum. (The oval or egg shaped drums correlates in the mythology with the Cosmic Egg, the symbol of the Universe), which the song (without words) I heard was about.

BUT when I narrated my journey vision to the 2 “Siberian Shamen of North European lineage” ( well actually 2 Brits) leading the group – I was instantly told that: “We don’t buy into what has been written about shamanism in the books, here we are not adopting outside influences but rather, we are bringing out the Shaman within".

And I agree. If you do not come from an authentic shamanic cultural background – why pretend?!

BUT HELLO!
My vision came straight from my subconscious, from the North European lineage (which overlaps with Siberian Shamanism), which IS our belief system, our culture, our history, the cellular memory or the collective subconscious of my people or our Culture as a “morphic field” - I find my belonging in.

So why – for this New Age Shamanic group – was my vision altogether ‘wrong’ and not acceptable?

Last edited by sentient : 09-06-2018 at 01:28 AM.
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