Free Republic

Monday, February 16, 2015 A Revisionist Muslim History of America Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blogTurkish President Erdogan’s claim that Columbus encountered a mosque in Cuba (the explorer actually saw a rock whose shape he compared to the dome of a mosque) and a Saudi Imam claiming that Columbus had sailed to America to attack Muslims are typical of an emerging genre of Muslim revisionist history that lays claim to America based on an imaginary earlier Muslim presence here. While these examples may be laughable, Muslim historical revisionism has taken root in academia. It can be found...

Shamans can tie strings around a neck and wrist. A red string around the neck helps in healing, and a white string around a wrist maintains a soul during hospitalization. A shaman, or "txiv neeb" in Hmong, can ask the Mercy hospital staff for permission to do ceremonies that go beyond chanting. An example would be a request to sprinkle water over incisions. According to Mercy's policy, hospital staff are to try to make accommodations. The ceremonies can occur in patient rooms, in the emergency department or in surgery preparation areas. The hospital ceremonies are brief -- 10 to 15...

The patient in Room 328 had diabetes and hypertension. But when Va Meng Lee, a Hmong shaman, began the healing process by looping a coiled thread around the patient’s wrist, Mr. Lee’s chief concern was summoning the ailing man’s runaway soul. “Doctors are good at disease,” Mr. Lee said as he encircled the patient, Chang Teng Thao, a widower from Laos, in an invisible “protective shield” traced in the air with his finger. “The soul is the shaman’s responsibility.” At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, where roughly four patients a day are Hmong from northern Laos, healing includes more than...

An ancient grave unearthed in modern-day Israel containing 50 tortoise shells, a human foot and body parts from numerous animals is likely one of the earliest known shaman burial sites, researchers said on Monday. The 12,000-year-old grave dates back to the Natufian people who were the first society to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher Leore Grosman and colleagues said. "The interment rituals and the method used to construct and seal the grave suggest this is the burial of an ancient shaman, one of the earliest known from the archaeological record," they wrote in the Proceedings of...

Jose Juarez is a shaman, a Mesoamerican healer from a village in Mexico. He owns a botanica, called New Age Store Leecatzin, in Clifton's Botany Village. In the background an Aztec drawing represents life, strength and prosperity, with a reminder to rem A shaman helps clients with a variety of problemsAlbert Ponce had a broken spirit. Life for the 25-year-old Clifton resident had recently hit a bumpy patch. He couldn't land a job working in an office. He didn't want to settle for a retail job, or working in a factory; he wanted to make use of his business...

In the patois of punditry, “charismatic” has come to mean little more than “like a rock star.” But the striking thing about the charismatic leader is the extent to which his followers regard him as a healer of wounds, an alleviator of pain. In this sense, surely, Senator Barack Obama is charismatic. The carefully knotted ties and the dark, conservatively tailored suits only accentuate the exoticness of his shamanism; he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer. The country, or much of it, has longed for such a figure, a man from the once-oppressed...

The candidate’s post-masculine charisma tempts America in the age of Oprah. Summer 2008 In the patois of punditry, “charismatic” has come to mean little more than “like a rock star.” But the striking thing about the charismatic leader is the extent to which his followers regard him as a healer of wounds, an alleviator of pain. In this sense, surely, Senator Barack Obama is charismatic. The carefully knotted ties and the dark, conservatively tailored suits only accentuate the exoticness of his shamanism; he has entered the American psyche not as a hero but as a healer. The country, or much...

Lima, Peru (AHN) - A man died of poisoning this week after drinking a miracle herb potion to ward off his family's bad luck. The Peruvian government has since warned that not every person who calls himself a medicine man or shaman is trustworthy. The government cautioned its citizens to steer clear of secretive or street-corner practices, warning that they may be given potions that could make them sick or even kill them. The country's Health Ministry said in a statement, "Avoid consuming brews made with herbs of questionable origin or hallucinogenic plants prepared by so-called Shamans." Many newspapers in...

ST. JOHN, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS -- She's drinking pink rum punch. The sailboat lights are twinkling and the steel-drum band is clinking. Alison Leeds, 38, a full-time mother on an anniversary getaway, came to listen to the waves and to unwind. "Your phone," says Robert, 43, her hedge-fund husband, in a voice that's tight. Their kids, 5 and 8, were calling from New York. It was bedtime. Could their parents please come home? Relaxation is elusive for Robert and Alison, which is why they've hired a shaman. Shamans believe in healing people by balancing their spirits with their bodies and...

Last Updated: Thursday, 28 April, 2005, 17:34 GMT 18:34 UK In pictures: Shaman initiation   1 of 9For the first time a public initiation has been held for a shaman (spiritual chief) in Russia's Far East. Vasily Dunkai is one of about 1,000 Udege people living in the Primorye region. 2 of 9A highlight of the ritual was Vasily Dunkai's dousing in water from three different springs. 3 of 9The water was heated over stones brought from five hills. First the stones were placed in a fire. 4 of 9During the initiation, the villagers left food at their place...

<p>Shaman Christopher Beaver conducted a smudging ceremony in the Telluride Town Council chambers earlier this summer after he declared the basement room full of negative, even violent, energy.</p> <p>Town leaders are reluctant to attribute the more agreeable atmosphere to Beaver's ceremony, which included burning imported menthol and wafting the smoke into every corner of the hall. But they say it opened their minds.</p>