Dirk Schröder is a German photographer, film maker, - and seller of ceremonies.
Research suggests that Schröder keeps his fields of activity selectively separated, i.e. sites promoting his photography, or the docu he did on the annual ride to Wounded Knee, won' t mention his activities selling and doing ceremony. At the same time, he e.g. uses his visits to Pine Ridge to contribute to his credibility on nuage sites.
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/93-0-dirk-schroeder-biografie.html His biography from his site selling ceremonies:
As a journalist and photographer, I covered various primitive peoples*. In 1996, the picture of the Indian Archi [sic] Fire Lame Deer, in a brochure promoting his sweatlodges, attracted me in a magical way. I simply had to go there and already in my first sweatlodge, incredible things were happening for me. I experienced messages from the spirit world like I did not know before. I quickly learned to pray with my heart. Since then, the „Indian path“ with sweatlodge, vision quest, sun dance etc has been an important part of my life. But also rituals like fire-walking, agnihotra (fire pyramid) and ordinary time festivities changed my life.
Already some time ago, the spirit world made it very clear to me to pass on my experience and share it with others. I was resistant, because I believed I wasn't prepared for this as of then. You certainly know these inner voices! Today I know that it is our responsibility to pass on gifts and share them with others. So in 1999 I completed a one-year training in shamanic work with Foxfire Institute (Colorado), and in 2001, completed a training as a fire-walk trainer with Peggy Dylan, Sundoor, California (master trainer in 2003, company coach in 2004), I offer sweatlodges and initiations for young men and vision quests. My own „vision quest“ in Lakota tradition at the age of 40 inexpectedly became my own initiation. I realized how much we need these rituals.
The wilderness schools introduced further important aspects to my life. At an event organized by Bear Tribe, I met Wolfgang Peham who poured during my first sweatlodge. During following years, I attended almost all seminars on wilderness knowledge of wilderness school, and in 2005 I completed a training as a wilderness pedagogue and founded Wilderness School Chiemgau.
My knowledge and experience was enriched by numerous visits with Indians in North and South America and in 2008 by living with the bushmen, the Hadzabe in Tanzania. They are the only gatherer-hunters in Africa who still live free. But their habitat is highly endangered, too.
With the propositions at this site, me and my team mean to contribute to re-establishing a connection to earth and thus to one's own roots. It always touches my heart when participants return from a ritual with a radiant smile. With young persons and grown-ups I make the experience they open up and change with experiencing nature, making fire, carving, gathering plants or tracking.
I do not mean to list further data regarding my teachers and trainings like in a curriculum vitae. In my experience, everybody will be teacher and student. So I keep learning from participants.
My workshops also integrate all the shamanic practices I learned over years in seminars, but also in contact with primitive peoples. In individual work I want to support persons to get into their strength, to receive mediumistic messages, to let their energy flow or to clear their environment by dowsing. […]
* [translator's note: Schröder uses a term which according to my dictionary translates as 'primitive peoples', „Naturvölker“ which means peoples living 'in nature'. Both terms, however, imply an inferiority of such peoples and suggest a modest (if any) level of civilization, so both terms carry racist notions.]
Schröder also presents a list of links:
Links to persons or organisation who were and are important on my path of life:
Foxfireinstitut
[The "Institute" links to the annual summer camp of Francis Talbot!]
SUNDOOR, Feuerlauftraining
Wolfgang Peham, Wilderness School
[This is a German student of Tom Brown. Peham's school offers vision quests and initiation rituals, and Peham is listed as a sweatlodge leader in a brochure published by German Bear Tribe:
http://www.baerenstamm.de/fileadmin/pdf/BS-Programm-06.pdf. ]
Jon Young, Wildernes Awarnesschool USA
Tom Brown Trakkerschool
Bärenstamm nach Sunbear
[German Bear Tribe]
Reinkarnation, Channeling
[site of a German selling seminars on reincarnation and channeling]
Foundation for Shamanic Studies (Paul Uccusic)
Jasmuheen - Leben von kosmischer Energie
Amani Virani, a modern shaman [Another German shame-on]
Schröder also publishes PDF documents: one is an interview with Jasmuheen (an Australian claiming she stopped eating and drinking several years ago – cf. further down), the second a text written by Schröder titled „My experience with light nourishment“, and the third an interview with Schröder on his work with boys.
The above links range from Foxfire Institute to Tom Brown (whom we already got in the Frauds' section), alleged students of Brown's, to the German Bear Tribe site, and all belong to the nuage scene.
For Tom Brown pls see:
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=269.0 http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=390.0 Schröder sells a variety of ceremonies, e.g. initiation ceremonies for boys and girls:
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/106-0-Uebergangsrituale.html vision quests:
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/33-0-visonssuche.html From his price list we learn that Schröder charges € 430 plus € 110 for accom and food.
The vision quests will take place in Bavaria, or in a 'retreat' in the Egyptian desert:
http://www.feuerlauf-rituale.de/ On my path, I also experienced vision quest, a very powerful ritual which is done by the Indians. I offer this possibility to go into the silence and find answers to personal questions in Bavaria and as a retreat in the Egyptian desert.
Sweat lodges:
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/34-0-schwitzhuette.html Schröder charges € 40 for so-called additional charges specified with „food, premises, bureau, accom“, while the ceremony must be paid on top of that, by a „give away“, presumably a donation. Participants of sweats are explicitely advised to bring food for the buffet.
There are also courses on 'power objects', 'shamanic journeys' etc:
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/35-0-schamanische-kraftgegenstaende.html Shamanic tools
Manufacture and basics of application
Shamans in the entire world use personal objects of power. Since centuries, drums are used to get into trance by the steady
„heartbeat“ and shamans thus journeyed into another dimension. For North American Indians, the hand drum is still important in ceremonies.
In this seminar, you will have the possibility to manufacture your own protective bundle, your own drum, and your own rattle and to make them come to life. As everybody manufactures these objects themselves, the connection to them is far deeper than to an object purchased, and they are charged with personal energy.
You will learn the basics of arranging a ceremonial space, to create your own personal sacred place, different ways of fumigation etc.....
We will also go into the shamanic world view and speak about the medicine wheel.
A five-days' course on 'shamanic tools' will amount to € 430 plus € 190 for additional charges.
Shamanic journeys
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/36-0-schamanische-reise.html 2012 and a new leap in consciousness gets discussed a lot. There will certainly be no better point in time than NOW to unveil this once more. To advance into new or „familiar“ worlds. We usually remember very fast then.
This seminar points out ways to discover these worlds cautiously. You will get to know „maps“ and fix waypoints, so that you will find your way there more and more and feel „at home“ there again. You will practice techniques making it possible to go to the otherworld anytime, even without a meditation cushion, everywhere! These methods go beyond a „shamanic journey“ as known from Paul Uccusic.
What you get to know here was understood practice for the shamans of North America, especially the Apache shamans. It was their path into other dimensions where they healed, received answers to their questions, where they met counsellors and ambassadors.
'Shamanic journeys' apparently may be done faster than doing 'shamanic tools', so it's only a two-day seminar at a fee of € 230 plus € 95 for additional charges.
Clients may also book seminars on 'eagle dance':
http://www.elementar-erfahrungen.de/138-0-adlertanz.html Eagle Dance
Revive your dream
Do you want to orientate anew, bundle your strength, feel your potential and do you want to get into your very own vision?
The eagle dance is a powerful Indian ritual in which you can do that.
This is a one-day event for which clients pay € 50 for additional charges, while there is no fixed price given for the seminar which is done on donation basis ('give away').
Schröder also got into another nuage fad: inedia, light nourishment. This is persons pretending they do not need to eat or drink. I kid you not. There are several of such persons, and some of them (at least) were already debunked as frauds – among them the lady whose – ermm: „teachings“ Schröder recommends:
http://www.mariaagostini.de/neu/pdf/Dirk-Schroeder-Lichtnahrung.pdf.
Dirk Schröder is a journalist and seminar leader. www.elementar-erfahrungen.de
…. In the following article, he describes his experience with adjusting to „prana“ (done in 2007). Within a short time, his book will be available: „Good-bye food, nibbling is okay“, in which he reports his experience, added by talks and interviews e.g. with Jasmuheen, Dr. Michael Werner, spirit healers, leaders of fasts, his doctor etc....
„For three months already, I am not eating any longer – no breakfast, no lunch, no dinner. The scale of feelings ranges from incredible to certainly. All the while I see I am being nourished, that I am connected to a cosmic energy source and that I do very well with this. It also makes daily life easy: no more shopping, no more cooking, no more doing the dishes.... But there is much more connected to the process of light nourishment.
It started more than two years ago when a new participant came to me sweatlodge ceremony from far away. He learned about it from the internet. At lunch, he told us casually about light nourishment and the 21-day process. I was electrified. It was more than just curiosity. I tried to hear as much as possible but I realized that I found hard to believe what I heard. From the Indian vision quest ritual, I knew what it meant not to eat and drink for four days, but to go beyond that. And still his experience sounded like everybody was able to do this – that one did not need to be a special person to live on light nourishment. I read the book Light Nourishment by Jasmuheen – no, I rather devoured it. I knew so much of what the Australian wrote about. Much went into resonance with what I had already experienced.
Dirk Schröder, born in Altena/Northrhine-Westfalia in 1954. Through his activities as a journalist, he came into contact with shamanism in Lappland and learned more about rituals with various Indians [sic], predominantly Lakota, in America. He is leading seminars in this way and fire-walks since many years (training as a Master Firewalker with Sundoor/California). More about him at: www.elementar-erfahrungen.de
Here is some info on the person going by the name of Jasmuheen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmuheen When the Australian television programme 60 Minutes challenged her to demonstrate how she could live without food and water, the supervising medical professional Dr. Beres Wenck found that after 48 hours Jasmuheen displayed symptoms of acute dehydration, stress and high blood pressure.[2] Jasmuheen claimed that this was a result of "polluted air". On day 3, Jasmuheen was moved to a mountainside retreat about 15 miles from the city, where she was filmed enjoying the fresh air she said she could now live on happily. However, as the filming progressed, her speech slowed, her pupils dilated and she lost over a stone (6 kg or 14 lb) in weight. After four days, Jasmuheen acknowledged that she had lost weight, but stated that she felt fine. Dr. Wenck stated "You are now quite dehydrated, probably over 10%, getting up to 11%." The doctor also announced, "Her pulse is about double what it was when she started. The risks if she goes any further are kidney failure."[2] Jasmuheen's condition continued to deteriorate rapidly in the clearly demonstrated context of acute dehydration, despite her insistence to the contrary. Dr. Wenck concluded that continuing the experiment would ultimately prove fatal. The film crew concurred with this assessment and ceased filming.
Jasmuheen has stated that she has lived on approximately 300 calories per day for the last fourteen years, maintaining full health through supplementing a fluid intake with 'cosmic particles' or micro-food, which she describes as prana. Jasmuheen has also stated that she has not yet mastered the ability to be fluid-free for more than short periods.
She was awarded the Bent Spoon Award by Australian Skeptics in 2000 ("presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle").[4] She was also awarded the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature for her book Pranic Nourishment — Living on Light, "which explains that although some people do eat food, they don't ever really need to."[5]
Three deaths have been directly linked to breatharianism and Jasmuheen's publications.[8] Jasmuheen has denied any moral responsibility for this. In reference to the death of Lani Morris, for example, she said that perhaps Morris was "not coming from a place of integrity and did not have the right motivation."[8]
Schröder also wrote a book on light nourishment:
http://www.bod.ch/index.php?id=296&objk_id=446142 Dirk Schröder,
born 1954, works as a freelance journalist and photographer. In January 2007, he experienced the light nourishment process and since then is independent from solid food.
Light nourishment
Expanding borders – living in light
Text on dust-jacket:
„Reporting experience, interviews and contribution spell out how different adjustment to light nourishment, the cosmic energy source, may be. Everybody is led to their limits which they can expand step by step. This experience surpasses everything we can grasp with our human brains. It sets free, it changes our life.
This book intends to suggest going an individual way, step by step at one's own pace, and to discover one's talents and abilities and live by them.
Books on Demand ISBN xxxxxx, Paperback, 208 pages
According to this site, Schröder also founded and runs „Wilderness School Chiemgau“:
http://www.wildnisschulen-bayern.de/wildnisschule-chiemgau-ueber-uns.html Dirk Schröder, founder of Wilderness School in Chiemgau
Nature and elements have always been fascinating for me. As a journalist, I have many contacts to primitive peoples in this world. They all taught me respect for earth – our mother, as the Indians say. From them, I was allowed to experience admission to other worlds through rituals.
By doing a training to be a wilderness pedagogue with Wolfgang Peham (the knowledge of the Apache Stalking Wolf as taught by Tom Brown and Jon Young) and many further seminars with him, I gained a new understanding of nature.[...]
Sites promoting his work as a photographer and journalist e.g. say:
http://www.reise-foto-text.de/dirk-schroeder.htm Special fields: traveling, culture, primitive peoples, reports on experience in nature and outdoors, contributions to hiking, climbing, winter sports.
I'm especially fond of „action tours“, be it in a canoe through the solitude of Canada, motor-biking through Africa, hiking in the mountains with heavy luggage, or crossing glaciers with climbing irons. During winter, I love to ski or snow-shoe in nature.[...]
I love to be in foreign cultures and don't shy at any stresses and strains, whether it is with nomads through the desert on camelback, in the tropic climate of the Amazon with the natives, or on horseback with Indians in severe cold, e.g. at a spiritual ride to Wounded Knee, or at the tracks of wolves in Estonia. I'm always close to events with my camera. In this, my empathy and my respect for human beings and their life often opened doors for me.
Empathy? Respect?
Here's some more:
http://www.reise-foto-text.de/indianer/indianer.htm Journalist and photographer Dirk Schröder since many years visits the Indians in America and has especially good contacts with the Sioux. He already reported on the situation of Indians for Progrom [sic] magazine of Society for Endangered Peoples and other magazines.
With his Indian Calendar with great photos and his slide show lectures, the journalist points to the situation of North America's Indians.
In 2000, Dirk Schröder was invited by the Indians to participate in the ride to Wounded Knee. He did a fascinating documentary from the view of a participant and he has got impressive photos in his archive.
In summer 2006, Dirk Schröder offers another trip to the Plains Indians. If you are interested to travel on the tracks of settlers and Indians in a small group of up to ten persons, please finde more information […].
Perhaps these trips did not work out, as Schröder does not seem to be offering them any longer.
http://www.alpenschamanismus.de/Netzwerk/Schwitzhutten/schwitzhutten.html A list of sellers of sweatlodges and other ceremonies in the Alp region, apart from Dirk Schröder there are a few names known here at NAFPS (e.g. Helmut Boljahn, Manfred Jobst aka Wacha Nabi, Christian Vogel, Inti Cesar Malasquez).
http://www.simeoni.de/blog/page/6 A blog publishing a report of a so-called „Keeper of the Earth“ festival in 2010, at which Dirk Schröder offered workshops.
Schröder will also do two lectures at the 2011 festival:
http://www.hde.at/m440-workshopleiterinnen.html 
