Susun Weed is Abusive.
Whispers and rumors of verbal and physical abuse by Susun Weed have circulated quietly in the herbal community for years. In 2018, a police report documenting the alleged choking of a student led to a flood of first-hand accounts of abuse by Susun. This website is an attempt to make sure the victims’ stories aren’t forgotten, and hopefully will deter continued abuse.
Has Susun been verbally or physically abusive to you? If you’d like your experience to be listed on this website, please submit your story.
Submit Your Story
Susun Weed in the News
Mid-Hudson Valley arrests report: July 3, 2018
“Obstruction of breathing: Susan Weed, 72, of 416 Fishcreek Road, Saugerties, was arrested by Saugerties police at police headquarters at 4:39 p.m. Thursday and charged with the misdemeanor of obstruction of breathing and blood circulation. Weed was allegedly having...
Ulster County Herbalist Arrested For Threatening Her Apprentice, Police Say
" A 74-year-old Ulster County herbalist who taught women to identify plants and initiated them as "Green Goddesses" and was arrested for choking a woman for incorrectly storing lettuce in 2018 allegedly threatened her apprentice with death for asking too many...
Saugerties herbalist, author faces harassment charge
"SAUGERTIES, N.Y. – A local herbalist and author has been charged with harassment by Saugerties police in connection with several alleged incidents involving an “apprentice” at her Fish Creek Road property. Susun S. Weed, 74, of Fish Creek Road, was arrested by...
Submitted Stories about Susun Weed
I am very sad and will not be going.
I'm a plant guy and have been curious about Susun Weed for decades and just before signing up for one of her Woodstock day courses (that guys are allowed in to take), I checked for reviews and found your website. What made me check is on her site she writes that when...
What a charlatan.
Susun was beating the shit out of lesbians in the 1970s that she was romantically involved with and was also financially, verbally and psychologically abusive. She cloaked being a lesbian batterer by terming the relationships consensual sadomasochism( guess who was...
I was a big fan…
I was a big fan and had many of her books. I stopped at her "center", assuming it was like other holistic health communities I had been to which were open to visitors. A man answered the door and Susan came flying toward me toward me yelling and calling me names. If...
I am filing a police report
Susun weed and her team drugged me. I escaped by sneaking out after her many threats to bodily harm. I ended up in the emergency room to come off of an unknown substance that rendered me severely confused. A woman found me wandering down highway 212 and thankfully...
Gaslighting
Gaslighting crazy making bat shit lunacy defined, complete with lecherous troll. I was screamed at, chastised, endured crude behavior, and had to del with filthy moldy housing. I did spend a day and night cleaning in reciprocation for being there. Was told by Susun I...
We cannot rely on public policing to do the work for us, we must enact our own security measures.
Around 2002 when I lived in Portland, Oregon and was an established clinical herbalist running a small underground herbal hospital, I was asked to pick Susun Weed up at her brother’s home down by Sauvie Island and deliver her to a lecture she was giving up past...
Susun Weed Stories from the Web
“I escaped with my life from her farm in Saugerties New York in 2020.” [with photos]
"Susun Weed and her adult daughter Justine Smythe and consort Michael J. Dattorre are running a dangerous operation at The Laughing Rock Farm (AKA Wise Woman Center) in upstate New York. My personal experience is one that caused me great physical and mental harm. My...
“She acted like a bully who elevates herself by tearing others down for no reason.”
"In June of 2016 I attended a Susun Weed workshop. If you were unfortunate enough to ask a question, or to ask for clarification on something, she was very rude. These were polite, paying attendees that she was rude to, and she turned the good energy in the room into...
“I took a workshop with her and I would never go back under any circumstances.”
"Is Susun Weed rude and angry? Ummm... yeah. Calling her rude and angry is like calling Charles Manson a bad guy. She is abusive, nasty and disrespectful in the extreme. My advice would be to stay away. I took a workshop with her and I would never go back under any...
“I can honestly say it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.”
"...I did a work exchange on her property and I can honestly say it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Susun even has a page on her website about her anger. But what she calls "intensity" is actually ferocious wrath ready to be unleashed on any...
“I […] have never seen someone leading a workshop be so abusive, mean and full of irrational prejudices and false statements.”
"I went to a Susun Weed workshop this past weekend (April 2017) and have never seen someone leading a workshop be so abusive, mean and full of irrational prejudices and false statements. The first evening she said that trans women are not women. (This in a community...
“After apprenticing with her for a few days, I have to say please do NOT go and study with this extremely abusive person.”
"After apprenticing with her for a few days, I have to say please do NOT go and study with this extremely abusive person. No matter what you say or do you will be abused. As someone who has worked on themselves all through their 20s I thought I would be ready for...
“She […] fell into a violent rage, screaming and yelling.”
"I attended one of her volunteer exchange weekends. Could only put up with less than one day. My assignment on the first day was to "clean the porch." The porch was a trash laden closed in shed on the back of her house. After straightening the half filled dead plant...
“She wants to hurt, humiliate, and show how much more she knows than us hapless students.”
"All of the horrible, nasty things you are reading about Susun Weed are absolutely true. We just participated in a class this past Saturday (never did one with her before) and it was just awful. I wish I had read the reviews first. And I used to admire her and owned...
“Belittling, authoritarian, shrill, caustic.”
"Belittling, authoritarian, shrill, caustic - that was my first & last workshop experience with Susun - there is nothing to be learned in this type of environment." Source Link
More Stories of Susun Weed
VICE Article on Susun Weed: “The Herbalism Community Is at War With Itself Over Abuse Allegations.”
"Famed herbalist and teacher Susun Weed says anger is part of her teaching method. Some of her former apprentices say it went too far. Many of the stories about the 76-year-old herbalist Susun Weed—positive and negative, frightening and tame—begin like a fairy tale,...
Podcast Episode: Surviving Susun Weed
"Susun Weed is a well-known herbalist living on a farm in Upstate New York. For decades, her survivors have told stories of being beaten, broken down, drugged and trafficked by her while paying for her courses and apprenticeships, yet Susun remains praised and...
Audio: “Abusive and threatening voicemail. Susan Weed.”
"Susun Weed - Herbalist and teacher arrested for multiple illegal activities on her Laughing Rock farm in Saugerties New York. Susan Weed runs the Wise Woman Center close to Woodstock New York. She is a famous author that promotes alternative healing modalities....