Charlotte Goodrich AKA Char Sundust

[kuljamu]

here's another twinkie with a "shamanic institute" claiming a go ahead from a half native man (who she doesn't identify) and claims a connection to  Barbara Means-Adams and her family. Is this for real? Looks like the typical new age and phony native teachings. Inquiring minds want to know.


http://sundustoracle.charsundust.com/soi-w/about/

[Epiphany]

Her name is Charlotte Goodrich. According to the book "With the Sun in My Eyes: The Story of Char Sundust" her mother told her that her father's mother was Cheyenne. And that her mother's mother was Apache "but she won't talk about it much".

Book details a difficult childhood, military family, home often in Washington state. "Keith, whose native name was Koheehut" said to be her Cheyenne teacher from her age 14, also "shamanic apprenticeship" with Sheila Belanger.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jcoeoAuOn7IC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=%22with+the+sun+in+my+eyes%22+goodrich&source=bl&ots=5aO_hbRgcy&sig=XJZitZz-d9U2mkGRP77wjprpSQM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jY_gUcGIOajNiwLR8oHACg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=koheehut&f=false

[educatedindian]

She describes her teacher as half Cheyenne half German. It would be an incredible coincidence if this were not Charles Storm, or she was using Storm's story to make up her claimed Cheyenne teacher. We have a thread about Storm and all his abuse and falsehoods.
She also learned from one of the core shamanism people, Harner.

This book about her shows quite a hodgepodge of beliefs, Greek goddesses like Demeter, Hindu goddesses like Kali, Christian angels, Tarot cards, frauds like Laduke/Sun Bear and Kenneth Meadows. The medicine wheels in the book do seem like Storm's usual teachings.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jcoeoAuOn7IC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=char+sundust+fake&source=bl&ots=5aO_hbSjhD&sig=pX38I2lU1sbmdX0Mt2XmMQag
mX8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2ZTgUe_THcX64APvrYBY&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=char%20sundust%20fake&f=false

She teaches at Bastyr University, a naturopath institute.
-------
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopathy/naturopathy.html
The leading naturopathy school, Bastyr University, in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 1978. Besides its N.D. program, Bastyr offers a B.S. degree program in Natural Health Sciences with majors in nutrition and Oriental medicine; a B.S. program in psychology; B.S. and M.A. programs in applied behavioral sciences; M.S. programs in nutrition and acupuncture/oriental medicine; and a certificate in midwifery. Bastyr has also provided health-food retailers and their employees with home-study programs that promote "natural" approaches for the gamut of disease....
Naturopathy schools receive much of their financial support from companies that market dietary supplements, homeopathic products, and/or herbal remedies.

In 1987, the U.S. Secretary of Education approved the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME) as an accrediting agency for the full-time schools. As with acupuncture and chiropractic schools, this recognition was not based upon the scientific validity of what is taught but on such factors as record-keeping, physical assets, financial status, makeup of the governing body, catalog characteristics, nondiscrimination policy, and self-evaluation system. NCNM, Bastyr, and Southwest became accredited.

In 1999, the U.S. Department of Education staff and the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) asked U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley to deny CNME's application for renewal of recognition. The recommendation was based on evidence that CNME did not respond appropriately to violations of its standards at Southwest College....

In January 2001, Riley agreed that CNME's approval should not be renewed, which means that naturopaths in the United States no longer have a national accrediting agency recognized by the United States Education [14]. Curiously, none of the naturopathic college Web sites mentioned that CNME lost its recognition.

-------
Bastyr has been less than well run. There was a scandal over faculty voting themselves high salaries.
http://www.aaup.org/report/academic-freedom-and-tenure-bastyr-university

And the founder is not exactly ethical, charged with harming two patients through negligence and then violating probation.
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/steenblock2.html
http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/steenblock1.html

[debbieredbear]

Bastyr has turned out some very good naturopathic doctors. I had one who helped memore than the western medically trained docs did. However, she told me she was unhappy that Bastyr was allowing frauds like Andy Rodriguez, aka, walks with thunder, access to campus and he was being promoted by faculty. She even went and argued with them over that. And got no where.

[kuljamu]

thanks for the info. Does anyone know what this connection to the Means family might be. Is it a tacit approval of her work?
thanks

[educatedindian]

This claims to be a bio of Ms Goodrich.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jcoeoAuOn7IC&pg=PR15&lpg=PR15&dq=char+sundust+real+name&source=bl&ots=5aP_k7Qhky&sig=RYqlK-E5j6foXBm-M-G3i-gLuxE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eRp9Uq-ZK-Xh4APko4DYCA&ved=0CFQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=char%20sundust%20real%20name&f=false

Much of it claims to show Goodrich's training as a healer. It reads like a Nuager who doesn't know much would imagine what Native healing is, arbitrary and mysterious, ie "He made me do this and I did not see the purpose."

One of the more amusing points is near the start when she mentions a Bear Tribe leader in Japan did not want her there because she didn't have much ancestry. I suppose the reader is being asked to feel sympathetic, "oh those Natives were persecuting her because she was mostly white." But since almost all the Bear Tribe cult were whites, this doesn't make sense.

And of course you have this supposed Native psychic trained by a supposed Cheyenne healer who had her make Apache dolls, plus Goodrich claiming to be a psychic who mixes together pagan Greek, Christian, and Nuage ideas like power animals, very confused.

[Epiphany]

Sundust is the medicine name given to Char by her first teacher at sixteen years of age after two years of intense training. It is an Apache family name.

http://www.eco-res.com/eco-res.asp?page=groups_assemblage

[Epiphany]

She legally changed her name in 2005, Washington state,  to Charlotte Monique Sundust.

Sundust, Charlotte Monique
New Name
King County District    55-008750    10-19-2005

Goodrich, Charlotte Monique
Old Name    
King County District    55-008750    10-19-2005

[Epiphany]

2002

Char Sundust is a shamanic practitioner of Iroquois and German ancestry.

http://web.archive.org/web/20020531051443/http://charsundust.com/

2008

At the age of fourteen, Char began her training where she started learning medicine work in the Cheyenne tradition taught by her stepfather.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080821103547/http://www.charsundust.com/char/

[Epiphany]

Charlotte Sundust is vice president of this non profit charity called Village. http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603077928

Village Wellness & Birth Center
http://www.sos.wa.gov/charities/search_detail.aspx?charity_id=34006

Village is a collective impact healthcare & research mosaic that transforms people's experience of birth, family & community wellbeing.

... this organization devoted 67% of its total expenses to program services during the year reported.

The president Tara Shelby is a ND.
-----
As Charlotte Goodrich she has Sundust Oracle Institute LLC http://www.sos.wa.gov/corps/search_detail.aspx?ubi=603102031

[Epiphany]

I'm skimming through a Kindle copy of With the Sun in My Eyes: The Story of Char Sundust, Psychic Healer and Shamanic Practitioner. I find it disturbed and disturbing.

The author writes that she's "partially fictionalized' the earlier years of Char's life to "make the story readable, to round out the facts that were relayed to me by Char herself, her mother, and her brothers.". Author claims that the portrayal of Char's healing power as an adult are all true. The author also writes that Char, as a healer, has unimpeachable integrity.

Char claims she learned shamanism from her step father Keith, starting when she was 14 years old, this would have been in about 1977. He was tall and had "striking blue eyes inherited from his white father". Char in this book says that her own father was white also. Keith took her to his home in Wenatchee, Washington. He named her "Little Fawn" in a cerermony. He took her out of school and kept her locked up at home.

"Keith, whose native name was Koheehut, was known in certain circles as a healer.". People came to the house for healings. Keith also used the chanupa "with different herbal mixtures for different situations". He could read minds. He was a Vietnam vet, a binge alcoholic, abusive and violent. He molested Char often and told her this was his way of transferring information to her. Char says he died when she was 21, about 1984.

Char claims to be incredibly psychic and gifted. She claims that she can find missing children and adults, and that police often consult with her. She claims that a PI consulted with her about a death of a young woman who had died in New York, he brought a box of bloody sheets from NY to Char in Seattle, she stuck the box in a closet for a few days and then when she took the box back out, the bloody sheets smelled like roses.

She describes witnessing a healing of a mentally ill woman by Kenny Moses "last of the real West Coast medicine men".

Char also drops Johnny Moses' name, says he lived in an apartment building she managed.

Char claims a connection with Yemaya, which is an entirely different culture and spiritual system, so she is ripping that off also.

She sees dead people too.

[debbieredbear]

I am sorry to have Kenny Moses' name associated with this. He would heal anyone who asked and was a good man. Johnny Moses is known for associating with twinkies. He is still a respected storyteller.

[Epiphany]

I am sorry to have Kenny Moses' name associated with this. He would heal anyone who asked and was a good man. Johnny Moses is known for associating with twinkies. He is still a respected storyteller.

Char claims she could see what Kenny Moses did during the healing, "in other realms". Char says she was impressed, wanted to learn how to do that work herself, and that she eventually decided that much of what he did was a "soul retrieval". She says Barbara Means Adams was at the healing also.

So Char is pretty much trying to buff up her reputation by connecting herself in some manner to Kenny Moses.

If Char really did do what she claims in this book,she could be charged with false imprisonment, she claims she locked up a suicidal, psychotic woman in a house. Also in a later event she claims she treated a homicidal, psychotic woman.

Other ways that Char claims she is special and cool is by claiming that she knows how to deal with people in the throes of crack addiction, also that gay men love her. All of this reads like she is trying to claim street cred, that she is cool and hip. Much of this supposedly does take place in Seattle and rings true for the actual preoccupations of some white Nuager women in Seattle, in my own experience.

Char's stuff is a mish mash of Nuage fakery. "Letting go of scarcity mentality", praying in medicine wheels, power animals, tarot cards, psychic powers, poltergeists, speaking with spirits, goddess worship, astral realms, possession, "Lakota buffalo rattle", spirit allies, shapeshifting, pseudo hinduism, auras, crystals, and more, all mashed together.

[educatedindian]

Sundust is the medicine name given to Char by her first teacher at sixteen years of age after two years of intense training. It is an Apache family name.

http://www.eco-res.com/eco-res.asp?page=groups_assemblage

 
My impression is she must be a very dumb naïve hippie to think that...
Apache names are mostly Latino. Or Anglo, both given by missionaries. If they still have the original name meaning, they keep the name in the Apache dialect, not an English translation.

[Epiphany]

Char claims that one day while sorting through animal hides in a leather store, one of the hides told her to make prayer dolls out of it. Char had seen Apache dolls before and the hide itself told her what do do. She eventually made tribes of dolls. "Each one told her how much to charge. They might say, 'The person who is going to buy me needs to spend $230... ' "

Char says she was asked to show these at the Seattle Art Museum.

On another note, Char says then when she worked as a certified nurses's aide at a nursing home - "A number of other very sick people died while she worked there, perhaps because she gave them permission to depart.".