Hello NAFPS, I have been lurking on your forum a while. I only realized in the past few years that when I hear, mostly via acquaintances, about 'native' people who are promoting what they are doing or especially people involved with pop 'shaman' stuff, I need to look up where they are from and whether they actually have any connection with the people they claim to be from. For instance I was reading about children's books and found Debbie Reese's lovely blog, which I think I have learned something from, she makes the point that genuine native Americans will generally say precisely where they are from. So when I hear about 'shamans' or whatever I started looking people up with a quick web search, I kept ending up here, and I now realize that several of these people out in the public domain are not genuine or even have a hideous record of offences. So thank you for what you are doing, I love that people here are doing this important work of keeping track of frauds so there are easily available records here to look up to find out about the worst offenders.
About me, I am another middle aged white woman
, I'm from England, I'm raising kids, we do some Forest school which is an outdoor learning thing and try to live a pretty down to earth life. I'm involved with Quakers who I know don't have a great reputation in some circles. I had heard about the dreadful Quaker guy over in the USA who was running "Quaker Sweatlodge" and wouldn't stop even when asked, even before I found the thread here
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=859.0. Also I have heard of Chuck Fager, who was a vocal supporter of the "sweatlodge guy"
. Anyway, I hope Quakers over here in England are not all like those guys. I know a few Quakers in the USA by email so may be able to ask connections to find out something if Quakers over there are misbehaving still/again at any point.
Anyway, I decided to take the plunge and sign up to this forum because I saw a thread go active about "Chief Standing Cloud" who has a connection in the midlands of England, Diane Gower
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=702.30, seems to be based in Rutland which is just a few counties away from where I live. I thought I might be able to find something out which could be of use in resolving who exactly this 'chief' is and where from etc. I emailed Diane to ask and will append that reply in that thread.
