Selling the sacred...at what cost to us?

It's been an epidemic among the native community for years; sweat ceremonies for $2500, vision quest for $4000, Naming ceremonies for $500. It seems there is never a shortage of scammers, frauds, culture vultures, plastic medicine men, shame-ons, con artist, and charlatans. But, what are we as true Indigenous people doing when it comes to our sacred ceremonies? Are we inviting those who share our culture and traditions, or are we mixing with pupils of new age philosophies? Are we conducting ceremonies for the right reasons or for showing of to non-Native how much we know of those sacred ways? We become the exploiters when we allow such people to learn of our ceremonies without teaching them the proper respect for those ceremonies. Without proper respect, we lose our traditions and ceremonies to those who would profit off them or mix them with eastern religious teachings or far worse. Every culture has deep respect for the spiritual traditions of their people, and have for centuries stressed proper protocol and procedures for carrying out these sacred tasks. Most of all the stress the importance of respecting those ceremonies that they hold most sacred of all. We need to do the same, or we will continue to have these people take advantage of our own people. When we facilitate our own exploitation by letting New Agers partake of our ceremonies without teaching them the importance of not mixing beliefs with our sacred teachings, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. All of us need to do our part in keeping our teachings in a undiluted form and teach proper respect- for with Knowledge comes a great responsibility.