The Times from San Mateo, California • Page 13

Friday, March 7. 1975 THE TIMES Son Dr. Nolen Looks at Faith Healing By MARY JANE CLINTON IN SESSION The introduction of eight provisional members and plans for their eleventh annual invitational bridge tournament occupied members of the Auxiliary to the Society for Crippled Children and Adults of San Mateo County who met Wednesday at Mrs. Edgar H. Meakin's Hillsborough home New to the group -and ready to work on the April 16 tournament are Mesdames T.

Jack Foster Dennis Hession, David Jackson, William Key Sherrill Parsons, John Raisin, Glen W. Strawsburg and Henry J- Volonte. Mrs. Edwin B. Schwinger, bridge tournament chairman, announced a change in location for this year's play Games will be held in the homes of four Auxiliary members: Mesdarnes Robert Edwards, Ellett G.

Horsman, Jack How and Rodney E. Willoaghby Invitations will be in the mail shortly and all proceeds go to the workshop for Crippled Children and Adults. Mrs. Harry M. Lawson, newly-elected president, used the gathering as the opportunity to her board members They are Mesdames Walter K.

Morris, first vice president; Edwin E. Adams, second vice president; Robert Maxwell, recording secretary; William P. Wooldridge, corresponding secretary; and Marten Barry, treasurer. Later, Betty Chapman and Betty Wood told highlights of a Caribbean cruise on which they both took their mothers Betty Chapman was with Irene Johnson of Ann Arbor, Mich, and Betty Wood with Mary Palmer of Los Altos Becky Madding told of the group that she and her husband, Gordon, were newly returned from a trip to Phoenix and to St. Petersburg, Fla.

where she'was on hand for her father's 93rd birthday celebration Gladys Wenzell said that she and her husband, Albert, are back after a two month stay in Chile and noted much optimism for the future of that country Several members and their husbands had vacationed at the Balboa Club in Mexico, including the Clair Cullenbines, the Robert Maxwells, the Hal Etters and Ruth and Kemper Smith. MENTAL HEALTH PARTY Invitations have been posted for The Spring Ball, the April 4 benefit planned by the Committee for Special Events of the Mental Health Association of San Mateo The invitations, 2,000 of them, were displayed by committee member Elwood Hansen when the group met recently with Mrs. Hoyt Herrald of Atherton, chairman Hansen's Hillsborough home will be the setting on Wednesday for a kickoff luncheon. The evening, which will take place at the new Sheraton Inn in Burlingame, will include a fashion show, appearances by celebrities and dinner and dancing Paul Speegle will serve as master of ceremonies. Other committee members include Jeanne Redllck, formerly of Hillsborough and now of San Francisco; Mrs.

Stanley Stark of Hillsborough; and Paul Hanley, Mental Health Association director. BENEFIT DATED Research on Retinitis Pig- mentosa. a genetic malady that eventually causes blindness, will benefit from a wine and cheese party and tea dance on the afternoon of March 16 at the Airport Marina Hotel Bob Lucas will provide the music for the 3 to 6 p.m. event and a weekend at the La Playa in Carmel will be awarded Yvonne Giltain, chairman, has announced that tickets will be available at the door All proceeds will be sent to the Harvard Medical Center for further research on RP. Educators Slate Conference Date By MICHELLE CARTER Times Staff Writer Dr.

Nolen writes again -but don't expect any more comfortable homilies about the life and times of the small-town Minnesota surgeon. This time the good doctor who sometimes writes (as opposed to a writer who sometimes operates, he a i a i has sunk his teeth into a sensitive and topical issue faith healing. And he's come up a winner. Reporting seems to come as comfortably to William Nolen as removing appendices and reducing compound fractures. His conversational writing style which he perfected in his earlier books, "The Making of a Surgeon" and "A Surgeon's World," serves him well in "Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle." (Random House, In "Healing," Dr.

Nolen leads his readers into encounters with faith healers Kathryn Kuhlman and Norbu Chen and the psychic surgeons of the Philippines in an effort to discover if there actually were other avenues to renewed health besides those he learned in medical school. He admits to the usual doctor's prejudices: "I sincerely believed that we (doctors) did have a monopoly on the knowledge it took to heal people I also believed that if we doctors didn't know how to cure Local women educators who belong to Delta Kappa a a chapters in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties will meet Saturday for their annual Area IV Conference. The Mediterranean Center at the San Jose Hyatt House will be the setting for the 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. event.

"Changing Times: Challenge or Dilemma" will be the theme of the conference i i on the woman educator i.i changing times. Addressing the group in the morning will be Mrs. Mary Lou Zoglin, a member of the board of governors of the California Community Colleges. Her subject will be "The Road to the Top a Personal Viewpoint." At luncheon, a talk on someone, we could at least be certain that no one else did," he writes in the book. But then the discovery that acupuncture was a viable form of medical treatment changed his mind about the closed club of medical practitioners.

"I didn't let the of acupuncture turn me into a gullible person, but I did resolve that I would no longer have a closed mind." So when he set out to uncover the truth about faith healers and the psychic surgeons, "1 was as objective as I could be. You can't dissociate yourself from your background, but I was determined not to prejudge them," he said in a recent interview. The book traces the steps he took on his investigation: A participating role in a Kathryn Kuhlman "miracle" service, a visit to Norbu Chen's "church" in Houston and an on-the-spot observation of psychic surgery in the Philippines. Through each investigation, patterns began to develop, and Dr. Nolen began to reach the conclusions that are the foundation of the book.

Namely that he was able to document not one single case "of direct intervention of an organic disease." The illnesses that respond to suggestion, Dr. Nolen said, are the ones which are "cured" the bad backs, the hearing problems, asthma, migraines. "But you never see a bald Dr. William A. Nolen man grow hair or a withered limb become normal.

These are things that you could actually see, but they never happen. "I could make out a list of patients who would never be helped by going to Kathryn a the organic diseases such as cancer, spinal column injuries or amputations. These are things she can never cure, but healers can't put limitations on things they can do. They never make promises, and she never claims that she's doing the healing. How can she say 'Here are the things the Holy Spirit can't do'." Dr.

Nolen followed up on a number of the patients who appeared on stage and claimed their "cures" at the Kuhlman service, and the results of that research supported his conclusions. The psychic surgeons of the Philippines presented a flifferent problem. People who claimed "cures" described "operations" in which psychic surgeons inserted their hands into the patients' bodies and removed cancerous organs and tumors and gall stones spilling only a trickle of blood and leaving no scars. Many of them had films of these "operations," and their "healing" was of special interest to Dr. Nolen.

He traveled to the Philippines with the father of a child who supposedly had been cured of a brain tumor by one of the surgeons (and who later died of that tumor), and what he found was chicanery, sleight of hand and sloppy magician- ship. "My one advantage was that I was a surgeon and I knew what an organ or a tumor looked like. People who go to them are ready to believe so they (the sur- geons) don't have to be very good. Surgery is so mysterious to lay people and the sight of blood so shocking that people dispense with their critical faculties." Dr. Nolen notes that the psychic surgeons are effective with the same kinds of illnesses that the faith healers succeed with.

"Anything helps people that they believe helps them. If symptoms are relieved (and they can be, by suggestion), they believe they are cured." They, too, never make promises and claim to receive their powers from a supernatural spirit so if a patient isn't cured, he believes it's his fault, not the surgeon's, Dr. Nolen said. In an attempt to explain how some "cures" are actually just the work of the body healing itself, Dr. Nolen cited some statistics: "Of every 10 patients, seven will probably get better whether or not they see a doctor.

The other 30 per cent, that's what medicine is all about. Of that 30 per cent, I may cure 70 per cent depending on the disease. "If 100 patients with skin cancer go to Norbu Chen or Kathryn Kuhlman, zero per cent will be cured. If 100 patients with skin cancer go to a doctor, 99 will be cured." Dr. Nolen carefully discussing motives in the book because "it's-impossible to tell.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt." But he goes on record charging irresponsibility to those sensational newspapers and magazines that build up the faith healers and psychic surgeons. "Imagine the frustration of the father of a child with a brain tumor who has no money and hears about a man in the Philippines that could cure his child for $3,000." He admits that in many cases the healers cause little harm beyond raising false hopes, but in the book he cites an example of a patient of bis who put off cancer surgery until she could try a psychic surgeon. By the time she came back to him, it was too late to save her. Despite his efforts, Dr. Nolen is realistic about the number of minds he will change.

"If it's someone's last hope, and he has'the money, he's probably going to give it a try." Dates on the Club Calendar "Women Leaders in California" will be given by Pamela Faust, executive director of the California Commission on the Status of Women. Vauden Nelson of Gamma Omega Chapter in San Jose is chairman of the Area Four Conference Committee. Ass i i her is Marjorie Myers of Sunnyvale, area four director. San Mateans Observe 31st Wedding Date Mr. and Mrs.

Clark L. Russell of San Mateo celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary at the matinee performance Andres Segovia gave at the Masonic in San Francisco. The couple also dined at the Ben Jonson restaurant in the Cannery. An open-house, i membership exhibition heads next week's roster of club activities. Thirty and One Larry Steelman, a Bay Area artist, will be a guest at the Thirty and One Artist' open-house, juried membership exhibition on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

at Baywood School, Alameda. de las Pulgas, San Mateo. The session is open to the public. Refreshments will be served at 7:30 p.m. before the 8 p.m.

program. Steelman, immediate past president of the Society of Western Artists, will demonstrate in oils his own style showing his use of the palette knife technique. Mrs. William B. Avison of San Carlos will greet the guests.

Par Avance John Ballo of Butterfield and Butterfield will discus "Antiques What Is an Antique" when Par Avance meets for luncheon Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in the French room of the Villa Hotel. Mrs. Rowland Moulton of Hillsborough, president, has asked Mrs. Worren Wert of San Mateo to arrange details.

Mrs. Don Wallace of Hillsborough has arranged a BART tour for March 20. Members, husbands and special guests will leave San Francisco at 10 a.m. for the Oakland Museum where they will view the special Painters' Exhibition, the only showing in Northern California. Luncheon will follow.

Medical Society Laura Chapelone of the Burlingame Garden Center will speak to members and guests of the Woman's Auxiliary to the San Mateo County Medical Society at a meeting on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. at the Hillsborough home of Mrs. Dean Mawdsley. Emphasis of the talk will be on food-producing plants and trees. Persons attending are being asked to bring a brown bag lunch; dessert and coffee will be provided.

AAUW Jim Collins, instructor in the economics department, at Canada College will discuss "Economic Facts of Life Living with Less" when the San Carlos Branch of the American Association of University Women meets Tuesday at the First United Methodist Church, Broadway and Redwood City. Refreshments from 10 to 10:30 a.m. will precede the program. New members of the group are Lynn Brown, Andrea Clague, Olive Clardy, Gayle DeChaine, Mary Jane Dodson, Carmelia Engberg, Arlene Evans, Donna Farmer, June Farris, Lynne Firestone, Jane Hazlett, Sue Henson, Rachel Hughes, Beth Jay, Christina Kageyama, Beverly Or ton, Sandra Perry, Idalee Pitino, Catherine St. Clair, Patricia Stephens, Marilyn Stewart, Carol Tager, Louise Takamori, Barbara Tall and Cecily Zillmer.

Membership information may be obtained by contacting Lyla Schneider, 137 Ruby, San Carlos. Fuchsia Society Norma Grunke, president of the San Francisco Branch of the American Fuchsia Society, will speak on "Spring Fuchsia Culture" when the San Mateo County Branch meets Tuesday at 8 p.m. at the Machinists' Building, ISO South Bouleard, San Mateo. Grunke will include feeding and cultural practices, i i and shaping of plants and saving of cuttings for reproduction. He will be introduced by Jack Rehbock of Belmont, first vice president.

David Barbieri of Redwood City will preside at the meeting which is open to the public. Clubwomen "Spring and the Joy of Music" will be presented to members of the North Burlingame Woman's Club at a meeting Tuesday in the West Winchester Room of the Villa Chattier. A social hour at 11:30 a.m. will precede the 12:30 p.m. luncheon.

Mrs. Michael Roberts is in charge of arrangements. Joy Molder will sing accompanied by Mrs. Sylvio Massolo. Nairobi Day School Benefit Concert Set The Edwin Hawkins Singers will present a benefit concert Saturday in Palo Alto to raise funds to restore the building of the Nairobi Day School in East Palo Alto which was damaged by fire last month.

The Singers will perform at 8 p.m. at the Stanford Music Hall, 221 University Palo Alto. Tickets are available at 2358 University East Palo Alto, and at the door. The Nairobi Day School and i School were founded by Gertrude Wilks, who now serves as director, as an alternative school for blacks. The high school and day school both are operating in temporary quarters until the buildings can be restored.

The club will sponsor a St. Patrick's party on March 20 at Casa Madonna Convalescent Home for the Aged. PAGS Mary Laycock, math and logic specialist at Nueva Day School, will speak at Wednesday's meeting of the Peninsula Association for Gifted Students (PAGS). The session will start at 8 p.m. at the Gifted Resource Center, Suite 107, 609 Price Avenue, Redwood City.

Mrs. Laycock will present a workshop of games to be played with pre-school through upper grade students. The meeting is open to all parents. World Wings World Wings has invited all current and former Pan American Airways steward- a si no Night Benefit Slated For Saturday A Casino Night benefit including gaming, music and hors d'oeuvres has been planned for Saturday to raise funds for the Muscular Dystrophy Associations of America and the San Francisco Junior Chamber of Commerce. Jerry Schreck of San Mateo is chairman of the 8 p.m.

to midnight event which will conclude with an auction. Setting for the benefit will be the historic Maybeck building, now occupied by British Motor Car Distributors Ltd. It is located at 901 Van Ness San Francisco. Carter B. Smith of KNBR Radio will be master of ceremonies.

Reservations are limited, and may be made by writing MDA-SFJCC Casino Night, Suite 600, 24 California Street, San Francisco 94111. esses to attend a meeting Wednesday at the San Mateo home of Dianne Nowland. President is Dorothy Hushing. Mills Women The Mills Estate Women's Club will meet for luncheon Wednesday at the Villa Chartier. No-host cocktails at 11:30 a.m.

will precede the 12:30 p.m. session. Mrs. Richard Lapic is taking reservations. St.

Catherine's St. Catherine's Woman's Club will have a general i i on Wednesday at 1 p.m. in the school auditorium. A program on hair styles will follow the business session. Coffee and dessert will be served.

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12 to 5 SCANDINAVIAN ALL TTS ITEMS off DINNER DANCE More than $20,000 dollars was raised for the Nimitz Oceanography School in La Jolla at the Navy League's dinner dance a week ago this evening at Treasure Island. Among partygoers were Mr. and Mrs. Paul Hazelrig of Hillsborough, Richard Chase and D. Jersey Gurt of Millbrae.

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