The past and present search for the riches of gold, yellow as well as black, has and still sounds the death knell of indigenous cultures. From the Spanish invaders of Mexico, Central America and South American to the present day Oil Barons, indigenous cultures and land have been raped and destroyed—all in the name of greed and capitalism. The ‘lungs’ of our planet, the rainforests, have been ripped and torn apart to provide access to the oil demons so that they can drill and get fatter and richer off of the backs of the indigenous peoples.

From the Polynesians to the Mesoamericans, the appearance of the Church-controlled and wealth-seeking Europeans spelled doom to the beliefs and the natural resources of the native people. As I noted in the Preface; “A new relationship with the divine emerged from 1517 for a growing portion of humanity that equated wealth with divine salvation…. This initiated an unparalleled period of frantic activity that enabled the birth of capitalism as a doctrine of exploitation of people and natural resources.”[i]

However, there is another aspect of exploitation that has been rarely reported on or written about. This is the desecration of sacred sites by an excessive influx of New Agers and tourists. Supposedly for spiritual elevation, more for ego, hoards of New Agers following Caucasian ’neo-shamans’ have invaded sacred places to the detriment of them. And the tourists have followed in droves. With such an increase in popularity, governments and capitalistic elites saw opportunity and the building frenzy was on.

I know first hand the desecration that has been done due to profit and greed. In the 80’s I hiked the Inca Trail into Machu Picchu with other spiritual seekers. I relate this journey in my book, “The Return of the Feathered Serpent.” In October 2007, I returned with two of our apprentices. This time we took the train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the town that has sprung up at the base of the mountain to Machu Picchu. The last time I was here in the 80’s there was no town only the train station. What a change; and one for the worst. Where there used to be peace and harmony while waiting for the train back to Cusco, there was now chaos and excessive commercialism. Hundreds of tourists’ flock off the trains into waiting buses to chug them up the mountain to the sacred Inca ruins. And for the ones that want to stay a few days, there are places of respite ranging from $30 a night in town to over a thousand in the ‘palace’ outside the gates of Machu Picchu.

The price to enter the ruins is ridiculous: $40. However, it would be worth it if we could still do our spiritual work without the hordes and places of power within the ruins blocked off and off limits. The last time I was here, it was quite a different story. Not only was I able to meditate on the ‘hitching post to the sun’ but was able to conduct ritual and ceremony within the ruins all nightlong. And speaking of the ‘hitching post,’ during the making of a beer commercial, I believe, one of the camera booms dropped unexpectedly and cracked a piece off of the sacred stone.

After the horse has left the barn, let’s shut the door. To allow a commercial to be made in the first place in such a sacred place is wrong, a tragedy and demonstrates the scourge of Capitalism. After this happened a rope barrier was put up around the sacred stone. In a scene right out of Monty Python, gaggles of tourists reach their hands out to within inches of the stone to ‘receive its energy.’ Giggling, chattering a mile a minute while ‘receiving energy,’ the New Agers aka tourists are once again observers of spirit but not participants.

If Machu Picchu was an isolated case, it would be tragic enough; but it isn’t. From the Tor in Glastonbury England to Tulum on the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula to Kobo Daishi’s sacred mountain of Koyasan, the story is the same. Hordes of New Agers, tourists and supposed spiritual seekers have over-run sacred sites with the willing help of the Tourist Industry, local governments and merchants—Capitalism at its finest.