Declan: Thanks again for your opinions and info.
I'll elaborate from my last post; what I think will be best for me is to continue to read and go outside and practice for awhile without formal training. I am getting married next year, so all my money and time-off goes to that; I can't afford time-wise to take an entire week off for wilderness education. I am lucky, though, in that there are acres and acres of woods and wilderness in my backyard, and in my area. So I can continue to practice and learn and improve on my skills on weekends, holidays, mornings/evenings and such. After I am married, I'll seek out a school that will best help me fill in blanks; in other words, one that will help me learn any essentials that I haven't been able to learn on my own; this may or may not be Tom Browns school. Money and quality will indeed be taken into account. Then, once I have a good base, and if I still see the value, I'll take the general class at Tom Brown's school. From what I am learning from digging around, the school seems good. Like anything, you learn what you put into it. Even people who dislike Tom Brown seem to vouch for the man's skills, and for his school. This tells me that it might be worth checking out. If I am able to meet Tom Brown himself, then that is the only way I can personally get a read on him. I have to meet someone and look into their eyes to be able to read them. My conclusion regarding Tom Brown is that he is at the very least vastly misunderstood. He is probably not as big of a 'fraud' as people who dislike him claim he is, and he is probably not as much of a 'diety' as his "groupies" think that he is. The truth lies somewhere in between, I am sure. I need to find whatever that truth is for myself and through my own experience, and decide for myself what I am willing to believe and tolerate.
LongBow50:
If Mr. Brown is selling "spirituality" in his classes, then I would personally look elsewhere for the skills, because the spirit is already inside of me.
This may be true (spirit being inside of you part, and that is not what you were looking for) but the reality is he is 'selling' spitituality to a degree as part of the total package. This part does not bother me per say. I actually like the fact that Native American philosophy and spirituality is the perspective of his teachings (provided that it isn't made up B.S., but I have been told by more then one native american teacher that it is not). But the problem that you run into any time your teaching anything in regards to morality is that you must practice what you preach, otherwise you are a hypocrite. This is the parodox. So, let's face it...he is teaching morality/philosophy/spirituality along with survival skills. The question that we now have to ask is he practicing the morality/philosephy/spirituality that he is teaching? If no, then he is hypocritical to a degree. Some evidence I see points to the idea that he does practice what he preaches, and that he is just misunderstood by some. Other evidence points in the opposite direction. I don't have enough to make an assessment either way yet. But, I can't in good sense say to myself "I will go to his school and learn skills because they are good, and I'll just ignore the other aspects that I don't like..." because the fact is, there are other schools out their that will teach me the same skills without the "B.S.". If I meet him myself and experience the school for myself, and if I find that the spiritual part is B.S., I'll make no bones about saying so. I am not saying that the man is a hypocrite...but I am saying that I will not accept a hypocrite as my teacher.
Also...about his stories...of course all of his narrations are not true. There are clear discrepencies among his books in terms of narration. That doesn't nessicarily make him a liar or hipocrite; the reasons 'why' the stories are embelished or 'not true' is what makes the difference. I'll use ancient cultural examples to explain...in my culture (celtic) stories were often embelished to get a desired effect; whether to convey a certain emotion, or to tell a certain moral. In ancient Hebrew culture, for example, it was important, especially in holy/sacred stories, to tell a story 'correctly' without omitting or changing ANY material facts. So, where in one cultural example your expected to change the facts, in another you could actually be persecuted for changing the facts. So, what's Mr. Brown's motives? If his stories are designed to convey an emotion, a thought, an idea, or a message and not ment to be taken as "Gospel," then these aren't "lies," just stories. If they are ment to be taken as "gospel," yet facts are changed, then they are "lies." The evidence seems to point to the idea that Tom Brown's stories aren't ment by him to be taken as "Gospel"; they are just stories, in other words.
So...hypocrite or not...I will have to see for myself, it looks like.
It's unfortunate, but there will be groupies no matter what he does because right now, Indian spirituality is the "in thing to do" and many of the people who seek the Indian way are looking for self impowerment, not spiritual fulfillment.
That is probably the most annoying part for me. I am a Catholic (as my chosen faith), yet I am very open minded, and I anjoy the study of religion and religious philosophies in general. I have been involved in indiginous 'martial arts' for 14 years (general 'martial arts for 19), so I am facinated with indiginous spirituality and philosophy from around the world. It adds a new and refreshing way of looking at my own faith, and it introduces me to an alternative (and often less destructive) way of thinking. Ancient Celtic spirituality is a facination of mine, but most of it is essentially lost; all that is left is "neopaganism," for people, as you say, who are looking for self impowerment. So, I would like to learn more about native american spirituality to further my own spiritual growth, but unfortunatily so many low self-esteemed hippie dorks out there are trying to "empower" themselves with it, and even bigger dorks are preying on these people by teaching "false" native american spirituality. Because of this, I can't help but be on guard for dorks...it is very difficult to find out who is teaching the real deal, and who has tainted their teachings with new aged hoopla. What further complicates matters is that whether we like it or not, our american history has done a bang up job of snuffing native history from existance. It wasn't til' 1978 (the year I was born, ironically) that Native Americans were free to practice their religious beliefs through some "religious tolerance act" that was passed. 1978 is still too close to our history. There are still many cultural misconceptions in existance, and there is still distrust by a lot of those who know real native american spirituality in teaching a white person like myself anything...and I don't blame em', unfortunatily.
So...the flaky groupie thing is really friggin' annoying to me too...and I haven't even gone to his school yet!
Well...I hope you all don't mind my mammoth post. I figured I'd express my thoughts so that if anyone else is in a similar circumstance as I, then they can see the way I am working through it, and it may benefit them.
Later...
PAUL
