"Go Native" Burning Man Event & AIM Protest, Oakland, CA

[my side of the street]

I wonder if the so-called Native American Church mentioned in the flyer is James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney's Oklavueha Native American Church which has given legal shelter to the Phoenix Goddess Temple and declared the Thai Massage and alternative therapies of a massage school near me "bonafide indigenous practices." I've seen videos of him talking about all the people he has cured of addiction and various psychological problems. The supposed experiments the money is intended to fund sound like something he would do to prove the effectiveness of his methods.

[Defend the Sacred]

AFAIK, the burners never gave a name of their alleged NAC contact to anyone. They kept refusing, not realizing how offensive that was, and what a big, red flag it was that they didn't know any Native people.  I think they eventually stopped making the claim of an NAC connection, but I don't think they ever cleared up whether the lie originated with them or with someone who lied to them.

[Diana]

AFAIK, the burners never gave a name of their alleged NAC contact to anyone. They kept refusing, not realizing how offensive that was, and what a big, red flag it was that they didn't know any Native people.  I think they eventually stopped making the claim of an NAC connection, but I don't think they ever cleared up whether the lie originated with them or with someone who lied to them.

I could be wrong....but I think someone contacted the NAC and found no connection to the burners and the NAC put out a statement saying so.

[my side of the street]

The Burners may well have made the whole thing up, of course. I was just speculating. But I think there are the legitimate NAC chapters, and then there are the chapters of James "Flaming Eagle" Mooney's Oklavueha NAC, which are a separate entity but trade on the NAC name and history. When I find listings of various NAC chapters throughout the U.S., none of James Mooney's ONAC chapters are listed. His ONAC website has only the branches specifically affiliated with him, like the Phoenix Goddess Temple in Arizona,  the Soma Veda Institute in Florida (a massage school that encourages nudism and does sweats), and Medicine Path Native American Church in the San Francisco Bay Area run by George Bertelstein who has a thread here in Frauds. The actual NAC might never have spoken to the people doing "Go Native," while George Bertelstein's Medicine Path Native American Church might have been very happy to take their donations. And they wouldn't have known the difference between the genuine N.A.C. and the plastic look alike.  Again, this is total speculation on my part. It just seemed plausible.