http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/314664.phpIs there recourse if your healer doesn't balance your chakras?
By Tim Steller
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 10.24.2009
Arizona has no shaman licensing board, no reiki review center and no
sweat-lodge inspection department.
That means that in Tucson's booming alternative- healing sector, the
practitioners operate in a largely unregulated environment.
For customers, word of mouth, the Internet and the free market tend to guide
their decisions about whom to see for sessions that can cost $100 or more
per hour, local practitioners said. If something goes wrong, the
practitioner won't have a license revoked, but customers can take some
recourse by voting with their feet, spreading their opinion, complaining to
the Better Business Bureau, or in extreme cases, filing a civil lawsuit.
Perhaps the most extreme case of something going wrong happened in a crowded
sweat lodge near Sedona on Oct. 8, leading to the deaths of three people and
the injuries of about 20 others. Sidney Spencer of the Patagonia area was
one of the people in the lodge during the multi-day Spiritual Warrior
seminar led by James Arthur Ray, said her attorney, Ted Schmidt. She is
recovering in Tucson after suffering what appears to be neurological
problems in the two-hour sweat lodge session, Schmidt said.
Schmidt could not envision a regulatory structure that would work for the
variety of practitioners working today, he said.
"You could single out sweat lodges and say, 'Let's establish licensure
regulations for running a sweat lodge,' but there are so many other
activities that these shamans and such do, that it's hard to imagine
licensure for all the different activities that they do," he said.
A few alternative approaches are licensed: acupuncturists, massage
therapists, naturopathic physicians, homeopathic physicians and
chiropractors all have state boards regulating their practices. But the
unregulated alternative healing methods available in Tucson are numerous.
There are shamans, energy workers, sound healers, reiki practitioners, life
coaches, and medicine men and women, among many others. And healers'
services are available in places ranging from small home offices to large
wellness resorts like Miraval Life in Balance.
"Tucson is quite a spiritual mecca," said Nancy Newton, who opened A Wild
Purple Ranch and Retreat on the Northwest Side last year. "When I got to
Tucson (in 2001), I knew it was going to be a place for me to become
spiritual."
Some Tucson practitioners bridge the unregulated and regulated worlds: Lynne
Namka is a licensed psychologist using mainstream approaches such as
cognitive behavioral therapy, but she also maintains a practice as a shaman
carrying out "soul extractions" and other alternative activities. To stay in
good standing with the Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners, Namka keeps
the two activities separate, she said. She has one Web site,
Tucsonshaman. com, for her alternative practice, and another, Angriesout.com,
for her psychological practice. She has separate fee structures for the two
activities, and she only files insurance claims for her psychological
practice.
In an industry without broadly enforced standards, practitioners work to
highlight the validity of their training. Often that comes in the form of
abbreviations after their written names that can be hard for the untrained
eye to discern.
"CSP," for example, stands for Certified Shamanic Practitioner. "CHTP" means
Certified Healing Touch Practitioner.
"We're such a degree and certification- based society," said Tamra
RowlandZaher, a certified shamanic practitioner in Tucson, explaining why
people use the titles. "You're talking about an area where people are using
their gifts."
On the Web site of Newton's ranch, she spells out her qualifications in more
direct words: "Nancy Newton is an adopted medicine woman of the Nemenhah
Tribe."
The Nemenhah band, as leader Philip "Cloudpiler" Landis calls it, is not a
federally recognized tribe. Rather, Landis said, it is a branch of a Native
American church. Using that status, Landis offers "spiritual adoption" in
exchange for a donation.
Through this adoption process, he explained, the adoptee can become a
medicine man or woman and be protected by the Native American Freedom of
Expression and Religion Act, or NAFERA. As part of the adoption, the
Nemenhah Web site says, the adoptee takes part in a "Sacred Giveaway" in
which they make an "offering" of $250 at the outset, and $100 per year
thereafter.
But some question the legitimacy of Landis, the Nemenhah and the titles he
bestows, which also include "principal stone carrier." One critic is Al
Carroll, who operates the Web site newagefraud. com.
Asked whether being a Nemenhah medicine woman would protect a person under
the act, Carroll wrote: "No. I doubt any lawyer would argue that either.
Legally, Indian is a legal term that only applies to those enrolled in a
federally recognized tribe."
Alternative practitioners say many of their clients come to them through
word of mouth, referred by friends who have benefited from seeing the
practitioner. RowlandZaher said she only takes new clients by referral these
days.
Some clients find practitioners by attending fairs and open houses that
happen occasionally and are attended by a variety of practitioners, said
Newton. Her ranch and retreat has hosted several such fairs to show people
the services the ranch and its main healer, Darrell Hicks, offer.
She and others suggested that potential clients use their intuition - an
important power for many alternative healers - in deciding whether to go
with a given practitioner. Then afterwards, they can judge whether they got
what they wanted.
It may not be easy argue with a practitioner that your chakras weren't
properly balanced, but it is possible to file a complaint if an agreement or
contract isn't followed, said Nick Lafleur, of the Better Business Bureau of
Southern Arizona.
"If they came to us with a complaint, we'd contact the business and mediate
so that both sides reach some kind of understanding, " Lafleur said.
In the case of a greater problem, such as sexual abuse or fraud, attorney
Schmidt said, that's what county prosecutors and the Arizona Attorney
General's Office are for.
Contact reporter Tim Steller at 807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet. com
