Lists of Deaths attributable to New Age fraud

[brain_box_babe]

Hello everyone!

My name is Marie, I'm Ojibwe from K.B.I.C (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community).

Someone asked in the old forum if anyone is tracking the deaths due to twinkie sweat lodges.

Probably the best source for sweat deaths is links page on the
Three Fires Cyber Warriors sites:

They post a memoriam every year - so no one forgets how deadly New Age irresponsibility can be.

Archie Fire Lame Deer was the first (recorded) twinkie to kill somebody in a 'Vision Quest" Since 1980 there have been 7 sweat lodge deaths.

 http://ca.geocities.com/dont_pay_to_pray/links.html

 http://ca.geocities.com/dont_pay_to_pray/SweatLodgeDeaths.html
 
Don’t' forget there have also been some deaths of young people who try Jimson Weed after reading Carlos Castaneda – I met someone in one of my classes who was taken to the hospital after trying to see a vision with a Jimson root extract potion he made weeds he found in his neighbor’s yard. He said he got the idea from the internet from someone in a chat room who was reading THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. ?

http://ca.geocities.com/dont_pay_to_pray/JimsonWeed.html

In Tucson Arizona July 2002 2 young boys died in 102 degree heat after reading Castenada's books.
However, the Arizona Daily Star refused to link the deaths to Castaneda or the New Age.

Some idiots still talk about it in alternative forums like these:

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/archives/best/1994/datura.html
http://www.lycaeum.org/forums/trip/Messages/453.html
http://www.alexgrey.com/aaz/viewtopic.php?topic=1242&forum=3&start=15

Brooke Medicine Eagle also almost killed a woman at the Michigan
 Womyn's Music festival in 1993 when she told all the women at her
 workshop they should use Pennyroyal to change their moon time to the
 new moon.  A woman almost bled to death from taking too much
 Pennyroyal in too strong a tincture.


Also, I remember that several years ago a lot of Ojibwe people were devastated when one their elders from Wiki (Wikwemikong Ontario) died of Ayahuasca vine poisoning.

http://ca.geocities.com/dont_pay_to_pray/AyahuascaDeath.html

The 'shaman' Juan Uyunkar only had to perform 150 hours of communitiy service for the negligent homicide of the beloved elder, Jane Maiangowi, a 71 year old woman with diabetes.

http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/ayahuasca_canada.html

Mrs. Maiangowi was fooled by a fraud named Juan Uyunkar who came to the reserve. ? The New Agers in the States organized a campaign against the Ojibwe who tried to run the guy out of business. ? The Canadian government eventually forced him out of Canada, but he went to the Ann Arbor area and found a whole new (up scale) audience. ?

Most of the recent deaths that I've heard of aren't from sweat
lodges, but from young people trying to have visions with stuff
like Jimson weed, Ayahuasca and Salvia Divinorum. ? Colleges are really good at covering up the link to the New Age. ? It would be a lot harder to track those deaths because they people who do hallucinogens want to keep the practice underground. Their deaths are usually attributed to recreational drug use and not linked to trendy spiritual practices. A couple of years ago, Jimson weed was fairly popular here at the University of Arizona, but it's being replaced by "Sally D" or Salvia Divinorum.

The latest death I know of was on January 23, 2006. Brett
Chidester, a 17 year old student, took his own life after smoking Salvia Divinourum leaves – He wasn't any different from a lot of young people - trying to get instant spirituality though hallucinogens.

Sally D is the hallucinogen of choice among the waanaabiiz here. Head shops sell it as a legal alternative to weed.  Dread-locked hippies claim it helps you see the "fourth dimension"

 NPR did a story on it Monday March 20, 2006
 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5290545

 
 Our elders have always told us that if you don't understand the powers that
 you're messing with, you can do great physical harm to yourself.


 Hope this is helpful for the person who asked.

 Marie

[AndreasWinsnes]

This was very interesting to read. In Norway we have Harnerists who are into entheogens. One of them is the Sami Ailo Gaup, my former teacher, and Norways most famous "shaman". He and some friends started a web page called the Shaman Zone (Sjamansonen) http://sjaman.com/ Last summer I spent many hours presenting arguments that they should not give information about Fly Agaric and other entheogenes on the internet, partly because it can inspire immature persons to experiment with them in a way that can be harmful. But Gaup said that this risk was less important than the need for spreading information according to "The Great Plan".

I finally understood that it is difficult, maybe useless, to discuss these matters, because Harnerists and traditionalists have different worldviews. They have what Wittgenstein called different language games. Harnerists believe that traditions are more or less different aspects of the "Absolute", that there is a common ground beneath the differences, and that the goal for everyone is to attain power, healing skills, wisdom and self-realization by freely using elements from the traditions as tools. For some, this evolution is so important for humanity that it is worth the risk of individual people getting hurt in the process. I think they have read to much Hegel: history will justify my actions. But we are discussing religion, something that can not be scientifically verified, so who can categorically say that they are wrong?