Manuel Rufino & Golden Drum in Brooklyn

[educatedindian]

This one has Polish followers selling sweatlodges in London.
Rufino's claims.

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http://www.goldendrum.org/founder-and-lineage/
Manuel Rufino is a recognized elder in the Taino tradition and World Director of M.A.I.S.C. He is a spiritual guide, gifted ceremonial leader and teacher of sacred initiatic traditions of the world. Maestro Manuel is also an artist, certified iridologist, naturo-therapist, vegetarian chef & the visionary guiding the Golden Drum community and many vegetarian restaurants including Jungle Café in Brooklyn. Guided by his teacher, Maestro Domingo Dias Porta, Maestro Manuel has been following the trails of indigenous healing arts for over 40 years. Maestro Manuel travels around the world sharing initiatic traditions, leading workshops, lectures, sweat lodges and healing rituals.
In 2010 Maestro Manuel and a number of his students opened Golden Drum as a space for sacred traditions in New York City. Founded to give voice to the worldview of Native Americans...

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Iridology is the claim you tell fortunes by reading the irises of eyes. Rufino is obviously Black. Whether he has Taino ancestry or not, none of what he's peddling is anything close to Taino beliefs or traditions.

His videos show a mangling of claims about shamanism, Hinduism, Mideastern tribal beliefs, astrology, Buddhism, and Nuage imitations of Lakota. There is nothing Taino at all, and those who consume his "teachings" should be warned they are false.
And he peddles ayahuasca, very dangerous since he has no traditional training in it.
http://realitysandwich.com/8076/moon_ayhuasca/
Peddling a cacao ceremony. What doesn't he sell?
https://omgwhen.com/event/dream-seed-day-of-the-dead-cacao-ceremony-with-maestro-manuel-ruf/3RMWsoEjSeq5zMDQ0D_vJA

Rufino's teacher Domingo Dias Portas is a white Venezuelan posing as a Mayan elder while peddling yoga. Dias founded MAIS, the full name in Spanish translating to Movement for the American Indian Solar Cultures. One MAIS member is Carlos Mena, the fraud calling himself Hunbatz Men.

MAIS seems to be pretty much dead. It's listed as a nonprofit in Brooklyn, run by Rufino, with assets of $1. There may be tax reasons for doing that. The only place Diaz or MAIS are listed online is in forewords to Mena's books under his Hunbatz pseudonym.
More on Mena here http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=1035.0
And the many frauds he franchised out to. http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?action=search2

Moved to Frauds.