14 ICSA TODAY
When I first observed neoshamanism, I participated in a sweat-
lodge ceremony in New Mexico around 1980. No drugs were
introduced (I had stopped all drug use including psychedelics
by 1975), but the idea of connecting with ancestors, spiritual
inspiration, and self-healing were themes common with Peyote
cults and the emerging Ayahuasca cult retreats. The dozen or so
folks at the sweat were a mixed bunch, some veterans of many
sweats and some seeking relief from addictions or anxieties.
There was a definite protocol using a tent made from tarp
draped over bent branches, heated rocks in an outside fire pit
tended ritually by a fireman, and most participants going in to
sweat after sunset skyclad,9 although that was optional because
some people wore swim gear. Someone beat on a drum and
chanted. The leader’s language was spiced with Native American
derivatives, and we passed a pipe stoked with burning tobacco.
Not everyone chose to inhale. In other this was a typically
hybridized Indian-style sweat not attended by Natives.
When I lived in New Mexico, I lectured several
times to Apache and Zuni tribes about the cult problem and the
effects of occult experimentation. I lived around Pueblo Indians
and got to know some of the leaders. Indians on reservations
struggle to maintain identity and tradition as youth lose the
language and appreciation for ritual. The elders were both
amused and disturbed by fake Indians and New Agers using
Native tradition to further selfish ends. The New Age is all about
the self. For example, in the mid-1990s, I had a case in America
involving a young military man who got caught up with an
unofficial Indian tribe influenced by a self-proclaimed medicine
man. Thunder Horse Harjo was a black man who parlayed his
medicine services to a small band of makeshift Seminole Indians
who were trying to incorporate as a tribe with the federal
government. A gambling casino company was backing them.
I met with perhaps 30 members of the tribe during a powwow—
all but one or two looked like white persons, yet most claimed
traceable Indian blood lineage. Some had been adopted into the
tribe.
Several members of the tribe told me that Thunder Horse
(Wayne Bowen) caused havoc among them with his unlicensed
counseling services. The medicine man’s approach proved to
be little more than manipulative self-awareness trainings and
an attempt to grab a leadership position. Thunder Horse’s basic
teachings were in his self-published booklet, The Thunder Horse
Medicine, Volume 1: Becoming Your True Self (1996).10
My client’s son, 21, was totally taken in by the ersatz medicine
man even after members of the tribe had distanced from Bowen.
The tribe was willing to adopt the military man, who was not
of Native heritage. Anyone could become an Indian if formally
adopted by the tribe—this has been true of tribal customs in
general in America. In any case, the military brass were very
concerned about Thunder Horse’s control over a serviceman with
top-secret clearance. With evidence I had with me, I managed
to convince the young man that Thunder Horse had run his
unauthorized medicine services before in Arizona (where he
irritated the Navajo) and also in Hawaii. The young man came to
see that Thunder Horse was inauthentic and ceased his devotion.
Neoshamans have offered their medicine in the form of drug
intensives to both First Nations peoples in Canada and Native
Americans in the United States. Laura Dutheil, 54, a nonnative
woman who was for a time adopted into a Haida clan, had a
damaging experience with a neoshaman who claimed to be of
Mayan spirituality. Laura has given written permission to use
her story and name. She is now married to a First Nation Haida
man and lives in the Skidegate area of Haida Gwaii (Islands of
the People) off Canada’s west coast. She contacted me earlier
this year to help educate Haida about cults. For the past 7 years,
she and some Haida elders and community leaders have been
working among their Haida clans to expose the harm done by
neoshaman Erick Gonzalez, who heads Earth Peoples United
(EPU). Dutheil also participated in a high-demand New Age
enterprise called Psychology of Vision (PoV)11 that has affected
many Haida members.
Psychology of Vision was founded by Chuck Spezzano, who
mixes an array of New Age teachings, including A Course in
Miracles, a manipulative mass-training style he learned as a
follower of Lifespring, and the Oneness Movement that borrows
from Asian religion. Long sessions of emoting and breaking
down the purportedly false ego are techniques in nearly all mass
therapies, including PoV. Former members of similar unlicensed
mass therapies have complained of seriously debilitating
aftereffects that include panic attacks and confusion, and long
months of recovery to get back to a sense of a sane self again.
Others praise these workshops, claiming to have overcome
issues such as fear of taking on challenges and low-self-esteem.
Dutheil was caught up in PoV from 1995 through 2007. She
was recruited from within that group into EPU around 2004 by
someone who was also a follower of Erick Gonzalez. Gonzalez
claims grandiose titles, including Tata OmeAkaEhekatl of Mayan
Shamanism—the title is an Aztec derivative, not Mayan.12 Like
Thunder Horse, Erick has managed to gain status among many
Haida as a legitimate medicine man. From records kept by
the Haida Gwaii Trust, tens of thousands of dollars have been
spent since 2004 to pay for workshops with Ngystle Society, a
front group connected with Erick Gonzalez. In 2002, the Ngystle
Society got more than $3,000 to teach Reiki Level 1 classes
to Haida residential school survivors, a vulnerable target for
healing scams.13The value of offerings by Ngystle has never been
properly vetted. As for Erick Gonzalez and his neoshamanism,
in September, 2012 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police issued
a warning about Gonzalez for the suspected use of drugs such
The elders were both amused
and disturbed by fake
Indians and New Agers
using Native tradition
to further selfish ends.words,
When I first observed neoshamanism, I participated in a sweat-
lodge ceremony in New Mexico around 1980. No drugs were
introduced (I had stopped all drug use including psychedelics
by 1975), but the idea of connecting with ancestors, spiritual
inspiration, and self-healing were themes common with Peyote
cults and the emerging Ayahuasca cult retreats. The dozen or so
folks at the sweat were a mixed bunch, some veterans of many
sweats and some seeking relief from addictions or anxieties.
There was a definite protocol using a tent made from tarp
draped over bent branches, heated rocks in an outside fire pit
tended ritually by a fireman, and most participants going in to
sweat after sunset skyclad,9 although that was optional because
some people wore swim gear. Someone beat on a drum and
chanted. The leader’s language was spiced with Native American
derivatives, and we passed a pipe stoked with burning tobacco.
Not everyone chose to inhale. In other this was a typically
hybridized Indian-style sweat not attended by Natives.
When I lived in New Mexico, I lectured several
times to Apache and Zuni tribes about the cult problem and the
effects of occult experimentation. I lived around Pueblo Indians
and got to know some of the leaders. Indians on reservations
struggle to maintain identity and tradition as youth lose the
language and appreciation for ritual. The elders were both
amused and disturbed by fake Indians and New Agers using
Native tradition to further selfish ends. The New Age is all about
the self. For example, in the mid-1990s, I had a case in America
involving a young military man who got caught up with an
unofficial Indian tribe influenced by a self-proclaimed medicine
man. Thunder Horse Harjo was a black man who parlayed his
medicine services to a small band of makeshift Seminole Indians
who were trying to incorporate as a tribe with the federal
government. A gambling casino company was backing them.
I met with perhaps 30 members of the tribe during a powwow—
all but one or two looked like white persons, yet most claimed
traceable Indian blood lineage. Some had been adopted into the
tribe.
Several members of the tribe told me that Thunder Horse
(Wayne Bowen) caused havoc among them with his unlicensed
counseling services. The medicine man’s approach proved to
be little more than manipulative self-awareness trainings and
an attempt to grab a leadership position. Thunder Horse’s basic
teachings were in his self-published booklet, The Thunder Horse
Medicine, Volume 1: Becoming Your True Self (1996).10
My client’s son, 21, was totally taken in by the ersatz medicine
man even after members of the tribe had distanced from Bowen.
The tribe was willing to adopt the military man, who was not
of Native heritage. Anyone could become an Indian if formally
adopted by the tribe—this has been true of tribal customs in
general in America. In any case, the military brass were very
concerned about Thunder Horse’s control over a serviceman with
top-secret clearance. With evidence I had with me, I managed
to convince the young man that Thunder Horse had run his
unauthorized medicine services before in Arizona (where he
irritated the Navajo) and also in Hawaii. The young man came to
see that Thunder Horse was inauthentic and ceased his devotion.
Neoshamans have offered their medicine in the form of drug
intensives to both First Nations peoples in Canada and Native
Americans in the United States. Laura Dutheil, 54, a nonnative
woman who was for a time adopted into a Haida clan, had a
damaging experience with a neoshaman who claimed to be of
Mayan spirituality. Laura has given written permission to use
her story and name. She is now married to a First Nation Haida
man and lives in the Skidegate area of Haida Gwaii (Islands of
the People) off Canada’s west coast. She contacted me earlier
this year to help educate Haida about cults. For the past 7 years,
she and some Haida elders and community leaders have been
working among their Haida clans to expose the harm done by
neoshaman Erick Gonzalez, who heads Earth Peoples United
(EPU). Dutheil also participated in a high-demand New Age
enterprise called Psychology of Vision (PoV)11 that has affected
many Haida members.
Psychology of Vision was founded by Chuck Spezzano, who
mixes an array of New Age teachings, including A Course in
Miracles, a manipulative mass-training style he learned as a
follower of Lifespring, and the Oneness Movement that borrows
from Asian religion. Long sessions of emoting and breaking
down the purportedly false ego are techniques in nearly all mass
therapies, including PoV. Former members of similar unlicensed
mass therapies have complained of seriously debilitating
aftereffects that include panic attacks and confusion, and long
months of recovery to get back to a sense of a sane self again.
Others praise these workshops, claiming to have overcome
issues such as fear of taking on challenges and low-self-esteem.
Dutheil was caught up in PoV from 1995 through 2007. She
was recruited from within that group into EPU around 2004 by
someone who was also a follower of Erick Gonzalez. Gonzalez
claims grandiose titles, including Tata OmeAkaEhekatl of Mayan
Shamanism—the title is an Aztec derivative, not Mayan.12 Like
Thunder Horse, Erick has managed to gain status among many
Haida as a legitimate medicine man. From records kept by
the Haida Gwaii Trust, tens of thousands of dollars have been
spent since 2004 to pay for workshops with Ngystle Society, a
front group connected with Erick Gonzalez. In 2002, the Ngystle
Society got more than $3,000 to teach Reiki Level 1 classes
to Haida residential school survivors, a vulnerable target for
healing scams.13The value of offerings by Ngystle has never been
properly vetted. As for Erick Gonzalez and his neoshamanism,
in September, 2012 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police issued
a warning about Gonzalez for the suspected use of drugs such
The elders were both amused
and disturbed by fake
Indians and New Agers
using Native tradition
to further selfish ends.words,
