Elaine/Elena Avila & Joy Parker

[educatedindian]

From Bryant about a fake curandera and her ghost writer.

Bryant" <bryanth@...> Date: Wed Apr 26, 2006  JOY PARKER TAKES ME ON!!!
"This is hilarious!! Joy Parker, the notorious New Age writer, actually wrote a long screed against me for taking on the book that she "ghost wrote" for that disgusting fake curandera, Elaine "Elena" Avila! Read it at Amazon. Or heck, I will put her rant, followed by my earlier one, and we can have a little fun here!
Interesting thing - she has only written one review on Amazon before this - one where she heaps praises on the ex-Jewish-turned-Celtic New Age guru-ess Starhawk!
By the way, I talked to someone who knows Elena personally and considers her to be rather petty and dislikeable, interested mostly in acquiring and maintaining boy toys.
I really find her to be quite harmful to anyone who would be interested in finding out what curanderismo is all about, because she seems to have worked herself into a position of practically cornering
the market on the word itself, turning into a sort of personal financial and ego building province for herself, and for Joy, also, who gets part of the royalties for the book she wrote.
These people remind me of the crystal skull bunch, only I find them to be a lot more serious, because they actually take their little dog and pony show into medical venues and use the race card as a way to
promote their business. This is not just regular old new age fraud. This is quackery being snuck into the medical world through the back door, IMO.
Bryant

-------------------------------
From the Horse's Mouth, August 27, 2005
I am the co-author of Woman Who Glows in the Dark. I had not visited this page for quite some time and was deeply troubled to read the review written by Edward B. Holman. While everyone is entitled to
their opinion, I feel that Mr. Holman has made some grave misjudgements about an author he has never met. He has also reported information, inaccurately and out of context, regarding a book I find
it difficult to believe he has read. None of his references get beyond p. 28, and Chapter 1 starts on p. 41.

I spent eight months writing this book with Elena. That work involved traveling through Guatemala and Mexico with her, meeting her Aztec teacher Ehekateotl, staying at her home in New Mexico for weeks at a time, and meeting and interviewing her students and some clients. As someone who knows her personally and had to do extensive research to write this book, let me tell you, from the proverbial horse's mouth, what really happened and something of who this woman is.
Mr. Holman writes "Curanderismo is mainly the province of the people who are, essentially, exorcists, and their conterparts, brujos, brujas, and hechiceros, are people who are paid by their clients to
place hexes on others."
This is incorrect. First of all, many modern curanderos are midwives, herbalists, chiropractors, bone-setters, and counselors. For a more in-depth discussion of this topic, please see, Chapter 1: Types of
Curanderos and Their Specialties (beginning on p. 69).
Second, to infer that this class of healers, and Elena by extension, deals only with the darker arts is a gross mistatement.
Elena is a healer of the highest integrity--and, I might add, an inspiring humility. Every time we met to write, she spoke of the responsibility that healers have toward their clients. She never claimed any "magical powers" for herself but emphasized over and over that she was just God's instrument.
The stories she tells in this book are of clients who were healed in a profound way. You have only to read them to see the love and commitment she brings to this work. Writing this book with her
brought profound healing into my own life.
I also saw the fruits of her work in her students, whom I met and interviewed for the book. The foundation in healing that she gave them was solid and rich. I refer you to Chapter 6, which is filled
with stories about what she taught them about curanderismo. Read the book and let these students, who have worked and traveled with her for years, speak for themselves.
Mr. Holman goes on to say, "she replaces it [the 'conventional wisdom of curanderismo']with a concoction that she largely invented herself, with the help of a couple of fraudulent pretenders from Mexico who claim to be the heirs of the magical and religious traditions of the Aztec Indians."
Again, I was there. I traveled with her to Mexico and spent time in the community center of her teacher Ehekateotl, who is truly one of the spiritual heirs of the Mexica (Aztec) tradition. How do I know
this is true? Because I met the people he helps in his community and found them to be good and intelligent souls. I helped them to build a huge altar for the Dia de los Muertos ceremony and did ceremony with them. I was permitted to visit some of their sacred sites. I listened to their stories, I met other healers who deeply respected Ehe.
All I can say is that Ehekateotl is a man of deep humility, great humor, and dedication to his people. To call such a kind and generous man, sight unseen, a "fraudulent pretender," as Mr. Homan does, is
inexcusable. Ehe lives very humbly, has little money, and spends his days healing people who come to the community center where he lives.
(And they keep coming, obvously, because they get results.) He is really quite overworked and kind, and carries on with a lot of courage.
To really understand how a culture could go underground to survive the Spanish Conquest, take a look at Chapter 7: The Gods That Refused to Die. It's not unthinkable that cultures go underground. When I
wrote A FOREST OF KINGS and MAYA COSMOS with Linda Schele and David Friedel, it was the same story. The Aztecs, as well as the Maya, are alive and well.
On the subject of cursing, Mr. Holman quotes Elena as writing, "'Some times the "cursed" individual is suffering from some kind of chemical imbalance, such as schizophrenia, and needs medication and
psychiatric help.'... That is the impression I get of her. People come to her expecting to be treated in the way that any other curandera would treat them, and she sends them off to someone who will get them started on Prozac. Thanks a lot, Ms. Avila!"
This is taken entirely out of context. I quote from p. 53 of the book, "Recently, I saw an elder named Anna who had give a 'curandero' her life savings--ten thousand dollars--to take away a hex. I was
deeply saddened by her story. Her thirty-six-year-old daughter had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia but was refusing to take her medication."
Elena goes on to say that the daughter was becoming violent and was unable to care for her small children. When the woman brought her daughter to Elena, who is also a trained psychiatric nurse, "It was
obvious to me that her daughter had a chronic condition and needed to take her medication. Not taking her medication was what was causing her to become violent with her children."
This brings up an important point, that there is, as Mr. Holman implies, some sort of "right" or "orthodox" way to be a curandera.
This is a terribly limited way of looking at any healing modality. A true healer applies the APPROPRIATE AND EFFECTIVE cure for the situation, not some kind of rigid prescription.
What Elena writes about in this book is how she has taken what she learned of curanderismo and applied it to THIS culture. Sometimes that looks very, very traditional indeed; and sometimes it looks
creative and appropriate and effective. The stories told in the book, particularly the story of Donna and her soul retrieval in Chapter 4:"

[educatedindian]

Pt 2, continuing with Parker's complaint.

"The Weeping Soul, p. 193, attest to how skillfully Elena works with her patients and how astute she is about finding ways to help them.
I would also like to address Mr. Holman's remark "I am quite sure she charges for her sessions, her lectures and tours and workshops, and anything else she can charge people for. And I doubt if she is cheap, either."
It is true that in traditional cultures a healer works by accepting donations. But it is also true that they never have to go without food or lodging or the necessities of life because the community values them and takes care of them. To expect a curandera in America to accept only donations is just absurd. Elena started out this way, she told me, but soon discovered that people would give her $15 for two hours of work. One wealthy client, who had a $100-a-day cocaine habit, handed her a twenty for hours of work.
Why do we believe that traditional healers don't deserve to be paid? We pay our medical doctors, don't we? Yes, Elena does charge, reasonably, but I also know for a fact that she would not turn away
someone who really needed her help. When we were in Mexico City together doing research for the book, the owner of the hotel we stayed at found out she was a curandera and sent his whole staff to
her. She didn't charge a penny and willingly worked on everyone because that is her calling.
It is also very interesting that the book that Mr. Holman holds up as the ideal, CURANDERISMO by Robert Trotter, does not seem to have been well-reviewed by him. I quote from his review of that volume: "This book is what one would expect from a team of American academics starting from scratch trying to assemble a definitive body of knowledge while based on US soil and focusing on a population located inside of the US." On the other hand, Elena has lived her whole life in this culture and WOMAN WHO GLOWS IN THE DARK is written with depth and intelligence, honesty and passion.
I just do not believe that Mr. Holman carefully read this book and I am curious about the virulence of his attack.
I can only urge you to buy this book and judge for yourself. It is a wonderful record of the history of curanderismo, of love and service to others, and of deep respect for a wonderful, endlessly creative,
living healing tradition.
----------------------------------------------------
Okay, thanks for the free press, Joy. Now, here is the review she didn't like:
Another New Age book for the gullible, August 21, 2005
Reviewer: Edward B. Holman (Presidio, Texas United States) -
Lewt me start off by saying that I have been interviewing curanderos and curanderas in Mexico, along with their clients, for 15 years now, and I have read all of the major books on the subject, and I know
what curanderismo is and what it isn't. This book is just another New Age piece of fiction, such as the market abounds with, and the author is taking advantage of the gullible with this work.
Curanderismo is mainly the province of the people who are, essentially, exorcists, and their conterparts, brujos, brujas, and hechiceros, are people who are paid by their clients to place hexes on others. Besides that, they do treat regular illnesses, and also they treat "folk illnesses" such as "susto", with prayers and simple cleansing ceremonies known as limpias. In addition, they sometimes perform candle burning magic, usually wherein images and statues of saints are involved, and these are known as "trabajos" - "works".
Avila has concocted a scheme of things that overlooks and actually, at times, rejects the conventional wisdom about curanderismo and she replaces it with a concoction that she largely invented herself, with
the help of a couple of fraudulent pretenders from Mexico who claim to be the heirs of the magical and religious traditions of the Aztec Indians.
Here are just a very small sampling of the nonsense and contradictions that she offers, which, for anyone who is actually familiar with Mexican curanderismo, do not represent in any fashion
the conventional wisdom or what one would find on ones own if one were to interview real curanderos or their clients.
On page 21 she states: "Although I do not believe in curses, I respect the cultural perspective of those who do, and I listen to them with respect" ... "Some times the 'cursed' individual is suffering from some kind of chemical imbalance, such as schizophrenia, and needs medication and psychiatric help". So, what
she is saying is that she completely rejects and dismisses out of hand the very foundations of curanderismo, and since she obviously does not anything about curanderismo, she finds this very easy to do.
That is the impression I get of her. People come to her expecting to be treated in the way that any other curandera would treat them, and she sends them off to someone who will get them started on Prozac.
Thanks a lot, Ms. Avila!
More: "Curanderas build up a person's energy and self-esteem, and teach him or her how to break the vicious cycle of depression and hopelessness." So, here we can see that her concept of curanderas is
that they are essentially counselors who give pep talks to people, and this sort of speculation derives from her fumbling around to idealize them as some sort of folk psychoanalysts along with her not
having any contact with any real ones wherein she would find out soon enough that none of this is true.
Page 23: (in which she is making the assertion, apparently, that the principal roots of curanderismo come from Africa) "As a curandera, I use ritual, ceremonies, dances, drums, rattles, divinations, painting
of the face and the body during ceremony, and fasting as tools of healing." That all sound like the sort of thing your average New Age shaman would do, but I have never heard of a real curandera doing any
of that.
She says that she had "Aztec teachers" (p. 23). These people, it turns out, are a couple of men who claim that they are part of a tradition that has been kept alive secretly by members of the Aztec
priesthood who operated underground for the last 500 years ago before resurfacing and appearing in Northern New Mexico where they became Avila's gurus. What we have here is a tale that seems to be copied from Gardner (of Wicca fame) and Carlos Castaneda (with his ficticious Yaqui guru "Don Juan").
I won't elaborate on the text, but her description of the "spiritual theory" of curanderismo, as she describes it, on pages 27 and 28 indicates that she does not understand the core concepts of
curanderismo and brujería. This seems to indicate that she has always been insulated from actual curanderismo and its practice, and that, even though her clients keep trying to bring her into the fold, she seems to not be interested because she has been promoting this pseudo- curanderismo that she invented for so long that she cannot even begin to accept the conventional wisdom such as what the people who really did grow up steeped in this culture hold. She also thinks that people who are under curses are only suffering from "suggestion", and that this is the reason for their reactions. This is a point that we have discussed at length in the 1curanderismo group in earlier exchanges.
People who do not believe that curses are possible contend that this is all a psychological occurrence based on the fear reaction that occurs in people who believe themselves to be cursed, and this allows
an explanation as to why people might get sick or even die. It is all psychosomatic, according to these explanations. However, we know that brujos and hechiceros go to pains to prevent their victims from
knowing that they have been cursed. Avila also claims that people who supposedly cure the victims of these supposed fictitious curses are charging a lot of money and bilking their clients. Certainly, there are plenty who do that, but it is well known that the best curanderos never ask for money."

[educatedindian]

And the last of Bryant's post. It pretty much seems like Parker's only defense is "OK, she charges but these are modern times."

-----
"They only accept donations. Inasmuch as she is willing to tar all legitimate curanderos and curanderas who are actually practicing curanderismo and doing what curanderos and curanderas do more often
that anything else with this sort of cynical charge, I think that no one should object to her being exposed for the way that she presents herself and how she does business either. Let us be perfectly honest
here. I am quite sure she charges for her sessions, her lectures and tours and workshops, and anything else she can charge people for. And I doubt if she is cheap, either.
If anyone wants to read about curanderismo from the standpoint of ligitimate researchers, you might try the Trotter book, which I think is the best in its field in English (some excellent studies have been
written in Mexico, but they are in Spanish). Such books, you will find, almost categorically contradict Avila's assertions. The shame of all this is that there are, no doubt, a lot of people who would
really like to know more about curanderismo, and as long as Avila is allowed to dominate the scene with this nonsense, people are going to have a hard time getting at the facts. I think that is about time
that she were exposed for the fraud that she is, if only for the sake of those who might benefit from actually knowing about curanderismo, which is a fascinating subject. One person who would likely benefit
from such knowledge is Avila herself."

[snorks]

I don't know Spanish - are those terms for real or just made up?

Linda Steele was a respected Maya researcher.  Do these frauds use other people's works to make themselves more authentic?

[snorks]

Linda Schele - I mispelled her name.  Sorry, my dyslexia go the better of me.

[educatedindian]

The terms are real. It's not unusual for frauds to try to cloak themselves using an association with more respected people. I think there was one fraud who claimed an association with Martin Luther King. Turned out she paid for having her name put on the wall of the King Center in Atlanta, that was it.

Parker seems to be mostly a freelance writer. Could be she actually believes what she claims, but if so she's pretty gullible. "Ehe" is an obvious fraud, his teachings about Atlantis and reincarnation are the most obvious clues I recall. I haven't been able to find anything about why the Steeles worked with Parker. It could simply be that anthros are not the most exciting writers and the publisher wanted the writing redone.

[Bryant]

It is true that Steele was a legitimate researcher. But she only researched one thing, the meaning of individual Maya glyphs. I think that she probably was not particularly aware of the issues of nuager colonization of this type of archeology or how she was being sucked into the world of this phonomena. In addition, the fellow who was later denounced by the Guatamalan Scholars Association was also an associate of Parker, her name appearing at the end of his fraudulent, nuage book. It is likely that, before he was explosed as a fraud, his connection to actual scholars and his reputation through them points to the path by which someone like Parker would be able to offer her services to them. First of all, when one looks at Parker's resume, one sees that she was a professor of creative writing, and so I think she has mainly been employed in that field, wherein she gets paid to either ghost write things or to completely organize the way things are going to be presented and so forth. So that was her function with Steele et al. In effect, she used Steele and company as stepping stones to go off and get involved in frauds-for-bucks, and thus she turns around and over the course the next decade, she esconses herself in the world of nuage shamans and such side by side with her clients and partners, helping mask them in an air of bogus legitimacy at the expense, in effect, of the reputation of Steele.

Bryant