Expounding on the article Autumn posted -
"All that was missing was an Indian. The 40 or so people gathered in the circle, sitting cross-legged on pillows and futons, were white. They are adherents of the growing New Age movement, which emulates Indian ways in a spiritual quest.
But many Indian tribes and organizations, far from being flattered by the imitators, have denounced the movement as cultural robbery. 'Declaration of War'
"This is the final phase of genocide," said John Lavelle, a Santee Sioux who is the director of the Center for Support and Protection of Indian Religions and Indigenous Traditions. "First whites took the land and all that was physical. Now they're going after what is intangible."
"The pipe smokers here, who gathered on the second-floor of an office building over a pizzeria, are members of the Church of Gaia: Council of the Six Directions, a group named for the Greek earth goddess. The congregation of about 100 people includes teachers, pharmacists and I.B.M. executives.
"We're baby boomers, middle-class whites," said Stephen Buhner, a founder of the church, which was incorporated in 1990. He described his church as a blend of mysticism and ecology, a spirituality that "allows you to re-establish your harmony and proper relationship with the web of life."
Mr. Buhner, who is 41, said he grew up in suburban Dallas as a Methodist, a religion he found "boring and not very much fun at all." He said he experienced a spiritual revelation in 1969 while attending a Jefferson Airplane concert in San Francisco, and began a quest for an "earth-centered" religion that led him to Boulder.
His wife, Trishuwa, who does not use a last name, leads the pipe ceremony. The couple lives in a solar home on 35 acres of pine-covered land in the foothills west of Boulder, where they sponsor vision quests and the rites of the sweat lodge. Mr. Buhner also works as a "spiritual mentor" at $20 an hour per student.
He said he knew that many Indians considered his church to be a mockery of sacred rituals. In fact, he said, some Indians have threatened harm to the church unless it closes. But Mr. Buhner accuses those critics, whom he described as "Indian fundamentalists," of practicing "reverse racism.""
