Phony "band" sells healing

A closer look contains hints of sham artist, not a shaman

By Jon TevlinA boy's life hangs in the balance in New Ulm, Minn., this week as a court decides if he should abide by the advice of prominent doctors or that of a group claiming to be American Indian healers whose website the boy's mother says she "found on the Internet."

The Internet is a funny thing. Perhaps Colleen Hauser, the mother of 13-year-old Danny, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, also looked a little deeper on the Web and discarded critical opinions about the group, the Nemenhah Band, but I doubt it.

Too bad, because Danny's life may depend on it.

If she had, she would have found case files in which Nemenhah's leader, Phillip (Cloudpiler) Landis, who submitted testimony in the case, had been convicted of fraud in two states. Or that another member of the band, James Mooney, won a case that allows him to claim religious exemption from law and sell drugs--peyote.

Maybe she researched all possibilities and still decided to take the word of a convicted criminal over that of Mayo Clinic doctors?

Apparently not.

Calvin Johnson, the attorney for the Hausers, said neither he nor the family were aware of any possible criminal behavior of anyone associated with Nemenhah. And he didn't seem particularly concerned about it. In fact, he bristled at anyone who might question the Hausers' beliefs.

"We don't trample on the quality of someone's religious path," he said. "We don't do that. Danny has a wonderful soul and beautiful heart."

No one disputes the last statement. But many, including Native Americans, take issue with a family that chooses the claims of Landis, who has been convicted of fraud for misleading investors in an alternative-health mushroom-growing business, instead of Mayo Clinic doctors.

One is Al Carroll, a Mescalero Apache, Ph.D.-holding author and Fulbright scholar who moderates a website (www.newagefraud.org) dedicated to exposing people who exploit American Indian traditions for profit.

"I would argue from what I see on their sites that Nemenhah are alt-medicine types who hide behind a laughable pseudo-native facade," Carroll said in an e-mail from Indonesia, where he's teaching about native history. "That's pure Hollywood and New Age nonsense."

The Hausers, who are not Native American, joined the group by paying a fee, now $250, plus $100 monthly. Though the group calls it a donation, they warn members not to "neglect this part of the Adoption Covenant ... if they do, the Nemenhah Band cannot continue in its important work and its offering to Humanity globally."

Nonsense, said Carroll, who calls the group's leaders "plastic shaman[s]."

"No reputable traditional native healer would demand someone deny medical treatment which would save their lives, especially to a child," he said. "It's reprehensible beyond words. Only a crackpot fanatic who thinks modern medicine is part of some type of grand conspiracy would let a young boy die when there are good options to save him."Comment:  There are probably thousands of families who are relying on pseudo-Native "shamans" for medical advice. Only a few such cases make it into the press.

This story is worth reporting because of the recent remarks of Kalisetsi and Angryindian. They've assured us that no right-thinking person can criticize Natives. That Natives are always "right" by dint of their experiences. And that anyone who says he's a Native is a Native, whether it's Ward Churchill or Landis the convicted criminal.

For more on the subject, see New Age Mystics, Healers, and Ceremonies.

P.S. Al Carroll is an occasional contributor to Blue Corn Comics. I believe he's an unenrolled Apache and has never claimed differently.

Below:  Every New Age organization has to include bears, wolves, and eagles in its words and images.