The Lincoln Journal Star
Journalstar.com
www.journalstar.com/native.php?story_id=46652
May 13, 2003
Psychologist lost all under spiritual leader
BY JODI RAVE LEE / Lincoln Journal Star
Edwin Sause had full faith in his spiritual leader, a self-professed medicine man who claimed the ability to control flies and weather, to stand in fire and hold red-hot rocks.
The Metis medicine man also had an uncanny ability to control Sause.
The New York psychologist lost his pension fund.
He lost his wife.
He lost his sanity.
It all seems an unlikely path for Sause, described by his friends as articulate, intelligent, friendly and successful.
But Sause, 60, fell for the teachings of an unscrupulous medicine man.
"You're really talking about a sick dude here," said Sause, a licensed psychologist for 33 years. "Sociopath doesn't even describe it."
Sause, a non-Native, has made Native-based spirituality a part of his life for 15 years.
Lines can be blurred when the spiritual seeker is unfamiliar with traditional Native teachings.
If one ventures into another religious faith, it's best to know your teacher.
"You basically take your signals from your host, hoping that the host is relatively mainstream," said Martin Marty, University of Chicago School of Divinity emeritus professor. "You don't want a radical."
Sause's teacher gradually took him on a "campaign of terror," he said, one that began four years ago when he met the Canadian Metis who practiced Lakota-based ceremonies.
The man could not be reached to comment on Sause's claims.
Another New Yorker, Joanne Cohon, met the medicine man nearly a decade ago and invited him into her circle of friends.
She became his apprentice, sharing her Manhattan apartment with him when he arrived from Canada.
She also helped recruit others to his sweat lodge ceremonies, where Sause met him.
Cohon cherished her place among a core group of the man's followers.
"I was willing to give up the potential of having a family, of getting married," she said. "I was so devoted to this that I would have done anything.
"The role that he had me in the beginning was the role eventually Ed moved into," she said.
After the clan started to reject her, she moved to California.
And Sause took her place.
The medicine man moved into Sause's home, and into his wife's bedroom.
During this time, Sause said he was in denial about anything that seemed out of the ordinary.
He believed in the teacher.
"He had told so many truths and he was so charming," said Eileen Pray, who also attended sweat lodge ceremonies. "I don't think Edwin was the only person who was pulled in."
Sause said the medicine man drained his $250,000 pension fund and racked up $60,000 in credit card bills.
His wife left.
He considered suicide.
"At that point, he was just sitting in his house in a room debating if he should kill himself or check himself into a psychiatric hospital," said William Ryan, a psychologist and Sause's longtime friend.
Sause finally sought psychiatric care at the suggestion of one of his patients. Still, he tried to go back to the clan. It ignored him.
"No one was to acknowledge his presence, which was distressing to him," said John Lieberman, a friend and fellow psychologist. "He considered the clan his family."
Lieberman and his wife invited Sause to live with them as he recovered from the two-week psychiatric hospitalization. Their 5-foot-7 friend had dropped from 165 to 140 pounds. His ponytail and beard were gone. He dressed differently.
"I didn't recognize him," Lieberman said.
Ryan said Sause was nearing a total breakdown when he and his wife later convinced Sause to stay with them for several months.
"Because of our experience in working with people with trauma in addition to the area of loving Ed we talked him through this whole trauma," Ryan said. "We worked as deprogrammers really for several months, almost 24 hours a day."
Sause was not mentally feeble, Ryan said.
"That's what people usually think this could only happen to someone who's a weak person, a dependent person. And that's totally inaccurate. It could happen to any person."
Today, Sause continues to participate in Native ceremonies because he doesn't want to give up something "so meaningful and powerful."
He has new teachers, a Cherokee and a Lenni Lenape who also practice Great Plains ceremonies.
He's rebuilding his business and even has some former clients.
"It seemed pretty dark there for awhile, that maybe he would not make it psychologically or physically," Ryan said. "It's a hopeful thing. Actually, he's even stronger than he was before.
"But he's had to go through a hell of a lot to get there."
Reach Jodi Rave Lee at 402-473-7240 or jrave@journalstar.com
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