Plastic shaman

The phrase "plastic shaman" is a pejorative colloquialism used for individuals who try to pass themselves off as shamans, or other traditional spiritual leaders, but who actually have no genuine connection to the traditions they claim to represent. Rather, plastic shamans use the mystique of these cultural traditions, and the legitimate curiosity of sincere seekers, for personal gain. This exploitation of students and traditional culture can involve the selling of fake "traditional" spiritual ceremonies, fake artifacts, fictional accounts in books, illegitimate tours of sacred sites, and often the chance to buy spiritual titles.Armbuster, J.; Beacham, D.; et al (2005) "They Call Us Indians". Göteborg, Sweden. The World in Our Hands ISBN 9789163155185] Carroll, Al (2005) [http://www.americanindianprisoners.com/Pages/Al%20Carroll.htm Apache Presentation] ] G. Hobson, "The Rise of the White Shaman as a New Version of Cultural Imperialism." in: Hobson, G., ed. The Remembered Earth. Albuquerque, NM: Red Earth Press; 1978: 100-108.]

Overview

Though the term "plastic shaman" originated among Native American and First Nations activists, and is most often applied to people posing as Native American medicine men and women, the term has also been applied to those posing as other types of traditional and alternative healers. People who have been referred to as "plastic shamans" include fraudulent spiritual advisors, seers, psychics, or other practitioners of non-traditional modalities of spirituality and healing who are operating on a fraudulent basis.

Critics of those who have been called plastic shamans believe one danger is that students who come to learn from plastic shamans may be exposing themselves to physical, as well as psychological and emotional risk. This is because the methods used by a fraudulent teacher may have been invented, "adapted" or stolen from other cultures and taught without reference to a real tradition, or to the precautions such a tradition would normally have in place in regard to sacred ceremonies and guidelines for ethical behaviour.cite news|first=RW|last=Byard|work=Forensic Science SA|title=Dehydration and heat-related death: sweat lodge syndrome|url=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16121078&dopt=Abstract|date=2005-09-26|accessdate=2006-09-26] cite news|first=Suzanne|last=Herel|work=San Francisco Chronicle|publisher=Hearst Communications|title=2 seeking spiritual enlightenment die in new-age sweat lodge|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/06/27/BA212763.DTL|date=2002-06-27|accessdate=2006-09-26]

Those using the term "plastic shaman" to describe these sorts of fraudulent teachers and exploiters of traditional cultures believe plastic shamans are also dangerous because they harm the reputations of the cultures and communities they claim to represent. There is evidence that fraudulent and sometimes criminal acts have been committed by a number of these imposters. It is also claimed by traditional peoples that in some cases these plastic shamans may be using corrupt, negative and sometimes harmful aspects of authentic practices. In many cases this has led to the actual traditional spiritual elders declaring the plastic shaman and their work to be "dark" or "evil".

Plastic shamans are also believed to be dangerous because they give people false ideas about traditional spirituality and ceremonies. For example, people have been injured, and some have died, in fraudulent sweat lodge ceremonies. Frequently, the plastic shamans will require that the ceremonies are performed in the nude, and that men and women participate in the ceremony together, even when these things are in direct conflict with all that is known of the actual traditions (and with the way these ceremonies are still performed in the traditional communities that have maintained the traditions as they were received from their ancestors). Also in conflict with traditional teachings, sex is sometimes brought into the ceremonies. This has in some cases caused a degree of shame significant enough to keep people quiet about the abuses they have seen or experienced, even after they escape from the influence of a sexually abusive plastic shaman and the cults of personality that tend to develop around these individuals.

For example, a sexually oriented organization claiming a Native North American or Mesoamerican cultural heritage, called the Chuluaqui-Quodoushka or the "Q" by its adherents, is regarded by most indigenous people and their supporters as an example of plastic shamanism. This organization is claimed by many to have produced harmful results, and has been soundly denounced as wholly fraudulent by the Cherokee Nation from which the leader initially claimed to have received the teachings.cite news|first=Susy|last=Buchanan|work=Phoenix New Times|publisher=New Times Media|title=Sacred Orgasm|url=http://phoenixnewtimes.com./issues/2002-06-13/news/feature_full.html|date=2002-06-13|accessdate=2006-06-12] cite news|first=Helene E.|last=Hagan|publisher=Sonoma County Free Press|title=The Plastic Medicine People Circle|url=http://www.sonomacountyfreepress.com/features/spirg-hagan.html|date=September 1992] [cite news|url=http://users.pandora.be/gohiyuhi/frauds/frd0011b.htm|title="Real Sex" Offends Cherokees, Tribes Demands Apology from HBO|author=Avis Little Eagle|publisher=Lakota Times|date=1992-03-11]

Many of those who work to expose plastic shamans believe that the abuses perpetuated by spiritual frauds can only exist when there is ignorance about the cultures a fraudulent practitioner claims to represent. Activists working to uphold the rights of traditional cultures work not only to expose the liars and predators that exploit Indigenous traditions, and Indigenous communities, but also to educate seekers about the differences between traditional cultures and what has been described as the New Age, quick-fix, monetary-based, individual approach to spirituality.

Terminology

No traditional Native American or First Nations group calls their spiritual teachers, leaders or elders "shamans", which is a term native only to Siberia. However, the term was adopted in academia to describe a variety of otherwise unconnected spiritual traditions that bear certain superficial resemblances to one another. More recently, this lumping together of diverse spiritual traditions under the term "shamanism" has been falling out of favor.Fact|date=July 2007 But among some New Agers the term shamanism has continued to be misused in this over-generalized way, and come to refer to almost any type of spiritual path independent of hierarchically-structured religious traditions such as Christianity and Judaism. Contemporary, New Age, "global" shamanism is characterized by cultural appropriation, eclecticism and personal spiritual connections.

In Nepal the term "Chicken Shaman" is used. [cite book
last = Müller-Ebeling
first = Claudia
coauthors = Christian Rätsch & Surendra Bahadur Shahi
title = Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas
date = 2000
publisher = Thames & Hudson
pages = pp. 19, 24 & 156
isbn = 0-500-51108-X]

ee also

* Cultural appropriation
* Cultural imperialism
* Curandero
* Fraud
* NAFPS
* New Age
* Neoshamanism
* Noble savage
* Plastic Paddy
* Shamanism
* "Transamerica" — a character in the film calls himself a "peyote shaman"
* Wannabe
* Witch doctor
* Quackery

References

*Ward Churchill, "From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985-1995." 1996, Boston: South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-553-8
*Richard de Mille, "The Don Juan Papers: Further Castaneda Controversies." 1980, Santa Barbara, CA: Ross Erikson Publishers. ISBN 0-915520-25-7
*Mircea Eliade, "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy." 1964; reprint, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-691-11942-2
*Jay Courtney Fikes, "Carlos Castaneda: Academic Opportunism and the Psychedelic Sixties." Millenia Press, Canada, 1993 ISBN 0-9696960-0-0
*R. Green, "The Tribe Called Wannabee." Folklore. 1988; 99(1): 30-55.
*Michael Harner, "The Way of the Shaman." 1980, new edition, HarperSanFrancisco, 1990, ISBN 0-06-250373-1
*Graham Harvey, ed. "Shamanism: A Reader." New York and London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-25330-6.
*G. Hobson, "The Rise of the White Shaman as a New Version of Cultural Imperialism." in: Hobson, G., ed. The Remembered Earth. Albuquerque, NM: Red Earth Press; 1978: 100-108.
* Philip Jenkins, "Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality". New York: Oxford University Press; 2004. ISBN 0-19-516115-7
* A. B. Kehoe, "Primal Gaia: Primitivists and Plastic Medicine Men." in: Clifton, J., ed. The Invented Indian: Cultural Fictions and Government Policies. New Brunswick: Transaction; 1990: 193-209.
*Alice Kehoe, "Shamans and Religion: An Anthropoligical Exploration in Critical Thinking." 2000. London: Waveland Press. ISBN 1-57766-162-1
*Jeremy Narby and Francis Huxley, eds. "Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge." 2001; reprint, New York: Tarcher, 2004. ISBN 0-500-28327-3
*Daniel C. Noel, "Soul Of Shamanism: Western Fantasies, Imaginal Realities", Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN 0-8264-1081-2
*Daniel Pinchbeck, "Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism." New York: Broadway Books, 2002. ISBN 0-7679-0742-6
*Wendy Rose, "The Great Pretenders: Further Reflections on White Shamanism." in: Jaimes, M. A., ed. The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonisation and Resistance. Boston: South End; 1992: 403-421.
*Andy Smith, "For All Those Who Were Indian in a Former life." in: Adams, C., ed. Ecofeminism and the Sacred. New York: Continuum; 1994: 168-171.
*Robert J. Wallis, "Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans." London: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-30203-X
*Andrei Znamenski, ed. "Shamanism: Critical Concepts", 3 vols. London: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0-415-31192-6
* Fergus M. Bordewich, "Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century"
* Robert F. Berkhofer, "The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present"
* Peter C Rollins, "Hollywood's Indian : the portrayal of the Native American in film"
* Vine Deloria, Jr., "The Pretend Indian: Images of Native Americans in the Movies"

Documentary film

"White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men" (1996) Directors: Terry Macy and Daniel Hart" [http://www.com.washington.edu/nativevoices/film/Shamans.html White Shamans and Plastic Medicine Men] ," Terry Macy and Daniel Hart, Native Voices, Indigenous Documentary Film at the University of Washington]

Notes

External links

Native Sites denouncing plastic shamans
* [http://spiritways.org/plastic_medicine_men Plastic Medicine Men]
* [http://www.newagefraud.org/ New Age Frauds and Plastic Shamans]

Articles and editorials
* [http://www.aics.org/war.html Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality]
* [http://www.cs.org/publications/csq/csq-article.cfm?id=1661 Spiritual Hucksterism:The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men]
* [http://www.sustainedaction.org/Explorations/native_american_elders_reactions.htm Native American Elders' Reactions to Castaneda and 'don Juan']
* [http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/News2005-2006/Giago051107ExposingFakeMedicine.html Exposing The Fake Medicine Men and Women]
* [http://www.manataka.org/page23.html False Shamans]

Articles on Selling Native Spirituality
* [http://www.bluecorncomics.com/newage.htm Selling Native Spirituality]
* [http://mytwobeadsworth.com/PlasticShamans.html Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality]
* [http://www.williams.edu/go/native/natreligion.htm Native Religions and "Plastic Medicine Men"]
* [http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/selling_indian_culture.htm The Selling of Indian Culture]
* [http://www.hanksville.org/sand/intellect/image.html Ownership of Indigenous Cultures]