[ACC25082]

Just about any American Indian can tell you from experience how much they are forced to deal with New Age and so-called ‘shamanism’ cults. The situation has gotten bad enough that some tribes bar outsiders during their ceremonies and have issued warnings or even filed lawsuits against the worst exploiters. I’d say, from looking at these New Agers, that five things drive their involvement: Abuse-it truly astonishes me how many New Agers are victims of abuse, terminally or chronically ill, or have other mental problems. These people are easy prey for slick con men using religion as a cover. Prejudice-many of these fringe groups are overtly or covertly racist. I don’t mean just the obvious ones. Many New Age groups that claim to admire Native people are quite racist towards us when you get down to it. Many of them admire racist books like The Education of Little Tree, written by a Grand Wizard of the KKK and speechwriter for George Wallace, Forrest Carter. Some New Age cults, like Harley ‘Swiftdeer’ Reagan’s ‘Deer Tribe’, are paramilitary doomsday cults who are preparing for race war. As bizarre as it sounds, they are whites who ‘play Indian’ and train to fight actual Natives and Latinos. These fringe cults provide an outlet for prejudice of the most extreme kinds to find shelter. Escapism- there a fantasy element to these groups, an insulated bubble where a cult leader can make up their own rules. Harley Reagan’s followers make porn movies which they then market as ‘Cherokee Sex Magic’. This fantasy even appealed to the executives at HBO, who aired a special on and were then forced to apologize to the Cherokee Nation. Alienation-how many of these cult members come from stable homes? Many of their poor followers are so desperate to belong somewhere. Exploitation-a cult settting is ideal for con artists. Many of these New Age frauds ‘franchise.’ This appeals to their more ambitious cult followers who hope that someday they might be the ones who are adored and showered with money and sex. Go online and you can see exploiters like Michael Harner offer ‘advanced shamanism courses’. The cycle of abuse is multiplied exponentially. The one thing we should never do is dismiss these groups as nuts. These groups DO have the ability to harm large numbers of people, and we should all work to halt this abuse.

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Name : ACC25082, Race : Mexican and American Indian, Religion : Traditional American Indian/Catholic, City : Phoenix, State : AZ, Country : United States, Occupation : Teacher, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower class, 

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