Norbu Chen

[educatedindian]

"burnswagons" <burnswagons@y...>  
Date:  Sat Oct 16, 2004  7:59 pm  
Subject:  Norbu Chen - bizarre background

I found an interesting book in the library about Norbu Chen.
It's published by Random House in New York copyright 1974.
RC 498 N64 1975
http://www.pathguy.com/lectures/perspect.htm

In the book, Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle, William A.
Nolen, a M.D. devotes 47 pages to exposing Norbu Chen as a
"pompous, arrogant, and vulgar" (p 123) fraud. Nolen spent a
great deal of time investigating Chen's claims and visited him in
Texas.

The parallels to other known frauds are astonishing.

He was in the Marine Corps and fought in Korea. He has a long
history of lying about his background and accomplishments. He made
claims in the sixties about working for the Kennedy campaign. He
changed his name in 1972 and started making claims about his training
to be a healer that can be traced to a popular work of literature.
He is described as very temperamental and prone to angry outbursts
when physicians or skeptics questions him on the specifics of
his "gift."

On page 125 Nolen does an excellent job of illuminating Norbu's
character as well as documenting Chen's admission of fraud:

"Every now and then Norbu would talk about the gullibility of
people. "A few years ago this 'past-life reading' stuff was popular,
so I pretended to do it. Some guy came to me with narcolepsy [a
condition which the patient often drifts off to sleep unwillingly and
at any time]. He was six feet four inches tall and two hundred and
fifty pounds and all man. I told him that in one of his past lives
he was a hermit and lived in a cave, and some guy used to come in
once in a while and suck his thingy. He didn't want to remember that,
so he kept dropping off to sleep.

"An old woman came to me and I told her that in one of her
previous lives she was the Queen of Sheba. But she had stuck a
corncob up King Solomon's ass and that's why she's white now.
"And can you imagine? They both believed me. How dumb can you
get?"

I don't know many people who would be surprised to learn that a guy
who makes bizarre statements like this is a sex offender.

The most striking and bizarre account of Norbu's character is on page
117.

Norbu claimed to get his psychic powers from the practice
of "Rolang."

"Rolang means dancing with a corpse. You lie down on a
dead body, and a body that's been dead about seven days, and you put
your mouth on its mouth. Then the corpse gets up and starts dancing
around. You hang on to that corpse while it jumps up and starts
dancing around. You hand on to that corpse while it jumps and
dances, and you keep your mouth on its mouth."

This guy seems pretty unbalanced to me.

[educatedindian]

When Nolen checked into Norbu's background he received urgent phone
calls from Norbu urging him not to investigate him. Nolen checked
the offices in Harris County, Texas and found that Norbu Chen was
really Charles Vernon Alexander II who changed his name legally to
Norbu Chen on August 22, 1972. Alexander gave his birth date as
November 13, 1934. Nolen obtained a copy of his birth certificate
that revealed he was born in Lexington, Kentucky on November 13,
1924.

Alexander was briefly committed to a state mental hospital. Nolen
doesn't believe it was because he had a mental problem. He spoke to
an attorney that knew Alexander well who stated "they stuck him in
this state hospital while they were trying to decide what to do with
him. Whatever he was, even in prison, he was nothing but trouble for
everyone." (p. 136)

So we know he was incarcerated for something prior to 1961. Between
1961 and 1971 Nolen believes he lived in North Caroline and in
Wisconsin. He walked away from the State Mental Hospital in 1961 and
became Norbu Chen in 1972.

He had many different aliases. He went by Sam Jones – the name of
the doctor who owned a house he was renting. He also went by Mike or
Michael Alexander.

Most of his claims about studying with Lamas can be traced back to a
book by Madame David-Neel entitled Magic and Mystery in Tibet.

Colin Dangaard wrote about him in the Chicago Daily News on August
27, 1973 p. 15. He stated that "Norbu Chen sees about 20 patients a
week." He told Nolen he charges $500.00 per patient. His minimum
earnings would be $10,000 a week or $520,000 a year.

This doesn't sound like any legitimate healer I've ever heard of.

Nolen concludes his second chapter on Chen by stating, "I haven't
written about Norbu Chen, his background and his credentials to
discredit him; his record speaks for itself. I've written this
chapter about him because he affords an excellent example of the fact
that intelligent people, well-meaning people, can easily be persuaded
by "healers" particularly when those intelligent people want to
believe." (p. 13)

It's a question of people wanting to believe something so strongly
that they believe it regardless of the evidence.

There's a web site about "Max" that states that Jo Ann Parks was
Norbu Chen's secretary:

Interview with A Rock Star:
Max the Crystal Skull Reveals All By Lori Lothian

I wouldn't be surprised if Norbu has a history or fraud and/or sexual
misconduct. The best place to start would be with county records in
all the places he was known to have resided – start with Harris
County, Texas. Alexander is deceased, so these records are now
public and can be obtained easily through FOIA (Freedom of
Information Act) requests. If there is a history of fraud and sexual
misconduct, it should be very simple to document.

Danny

[Bryant]

I have that book, and it is almost like the Norbu Chen in the book is just a bad as the one who was sued in California, that JoAnn is so adamant about his being onother person. Grant that he was, but he does not look any better, because this one looks very bad, and this does not make JoAnn and "Max" look any better. In fact, in my opinion, it speaks very badly of JoAnn. If she was so close to Norbu, it can only mean one of two things. One is that she was perfectly aware of his fraudulent behavior and his arrogance and bad manners, or else she is so incredibly naive that she is simply hopeless.

[180IQ]

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