NAFPS Forum

General => Frauds => Topic started by: educatedindian on June 18, 2005, 06:40:13 am

Title: Tom Brown Jr and "Stalking Wolf"
Post by: educatedindian on June 18, 2005, 06:40:13 am
A Nuage cop in Sweden talked his bosses into paying for him to go to Brown´s Tracking School and seems determined to embarass himself in public by defending Brown and attacking me in an article for the police newsletter. So...the evidence against Brown.

Brown claims to have been taught by "Stalking Wolf" an Apache who livedin Mexico and taught him when he was 17, conveniently dying with no evidence of himever having lived and designating Brown as his successor, initiating him in "numerous vision quests".

Porblem is, Stalking Wolf is not an Apache name, Apaches dont have a vision quest (there is a ceremony for young boys but its not called that) , and why would Brown go on "numerous" ones when a quest is a once in your life thing?

Brown´s real teachers came forward.
http://www.trackertrail.com/tombrown/controversies/fraud.html

More problems with his claims
http://www.trackertrail.com/tombrown/controversies/
http://www.trackertrail.com/publications/inthenews/newjerseymonthly1987.html

And  a lot of his writing (actually ghost writing since sci fi authors wrote it forhim) is a pretty obvious rip off of the Book of Revelations.
http://wovoca.com/prophecy-stalking-wolf.htm
Title: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: Guest on September 08, 2005, 12:32:23 am
Hello, can anyone here tell me about the "authenticity" of these two people?  I have included some info snippets and links.  TY

Tom Brown, Jr. is America's premier outdoorsman, renown tracker, teacher, and author. Starting when he was only seven, Tom was taught by Stalking Wolf (Grandfather), an Apache elder, shaman, and scout. For ten years Tom was mentored in the skills of tracking, wilderness survival, and awareness. After Stalking Wolf's death, when Brown was 17, Tom spent the next ten years living in the wilderness throughout the United States with no manufactured tools - in most instances not even a knife - perfecting these skills and teachings. Brown came back to "civilization" looking for people interested in all that he had learned. He felt lost and confused until a local sheriff who knew Tom called him in to track a lost person. Tom found the missing person and in the process, found his path in life.

Tom has authored 16 books on the wilderness including, The Tracker, The Way of the Scout,

https://www.trackerschool.com/TDBJ.cfm


Stalking Wolf was raised free of the reservations in the mountains of northern Mexico. Born in the 1870's during a time of great warfare and violence, he was part of a band of Lipan Apache that never surrendered. He was taught the traditional ways of his people and excelled as a healer and a scout. When he was twenty, a vision sent him away from his people, and for the next sixty-three years he wandered the Americas seeking teachers, and learning the old ways of many native peoples. Stalking Wolf traveled the height and breadth of the Americas, living on his own as a free man. He never held a job, drove a car, paid taxes, or participated in modern society. When he was eighty-three years old, he encountered a small boy gathering fossils in a stream bed. He recognized that boy as the person he would spend his final years with, teaching him all that he knew. That boy was Tom Brown, Jr. Tom became the recipient of not only all that Stalking Wolf had learned during his travels, but the distillation of hundreds of years of Apache culture as well. These teachings are what Tom teaches at his famous Tracking, Nature, and Wilderness Survival School.

related? links....
https://www.trackerschool.com/StalkingWolf.cfm

http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/rhea2.htm

http://livingnow.com.au/spirit/s1spiritstories3.htm

http://www.kstrom.net/isk/books/adult/ad530.html

Not sure if this is related or not:
Michael Stalking Wolf's WolfDancer Creations

http://www.wolfdancer.net/
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: educatedindian on September 08, 2005, 05:46:33 pm
http://newagefraud.org/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=frauds;action=display;num=1119076813

Where to begin? His tracking ability is greatly overrated, as many of his own former students found out the hard way. His most famous alleged success was actually a huge failure, with him facing a lawsuit. He learned from whites playing at being primitive, not Natives. Nothing he describes comes anywhere close to being a truthful picture of Apaches. And above all...

...Tom Brown's writing was just so loaded with racist stereotypes I wondered how anyone could take him seriously. Except for those so unaware of the racism they'd been fed they start to see it as normal. All of his equating white=civilized, white=modern, Indian=primitive, Indian=uncivilized is so in-your-face racist.

To be fair though, most of his books were ghost written, so he shares the blame.

Michael Stalking Wolf is Lakota, BTW. Don't see anything of his related to Brown's claims.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: Guest on September 08, 2005, 08:28:59 pm
"Michael Stalking Wolf is Lakota, BTW. Don't see anything of his related to Brown's claims."

Oops, my mistake, Sorry
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: NanticokePiney on December 05, 2007, 01:26:54 am
  There is a series of  outdoor books written by a Quaker named Ernest Thompson Seton between 1910 and 1920. Tom Browns writings and knowledge come directly from these books.
  Stalking Wolf and his grandson Rick were proven to have never existed by a Alibamu-Kosati writer and researcher for NAIDV named Sondra Ball.


  Peace- Rich Joseph
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: educatedindian on January 07, 2009, 04:08:25 am
Could you tell us what you went through, how you met him, what tipped you off he was fake, etc? Firsthand accounts are very valuable.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: steve2 on June 21, 2009, 05:13:46 am
I've attended three classes with Brown myself: the Standard, Philosophy 1 and the Advanced  Tracking and Nature Awareness. I no longer believe that Brown is authentic because of some of the things I saw at these classes. I need to know how Sondra Ball was able to disprove the existence of Stalking Wolf and Rick.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: educatedindian on June 22, 2009, 01:13:31 am
This book critiques Brown's claims, though done from a humorous angle.
http://www.amazon.com/Fraud-Essays-David-Rakoff/dp/0767906314#

RationalWiki's article
---------------------
http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Tom_Brown,_Jr.
Tom Brown, Jr. is the author of a number of fiction books with titles like The Tracker, The Vision, The Way of the Scout, and The Quest, that oddly are found in the non-fiction or autobiography sections. In these books, he tells of how as a boy in New Jersey, he and a childhood friend "Rick" (whom nobody can seem to locate to corroborate the story) were approached by an old Apache tracker named Stalking Wolf who took them under his wing as his apprentices and taught them wilderness tracking, along with loads of supernatural woo such as how to make themselves invisible, walk through walls, kill deer using their bare hands while falling out of a tree, go on shamanic journeys, permanently frostbite-proof themselves by taking a hike, change shape, spend a summer living naked in the forest foraging plants for survival, magically escape from a pack of wild dogs who think they are wolves, trick their parents into thinking they were at home doing homework when in fact they were spending weeks at a time in the New Jersey pine barrens being taught by an Apache tracker, and too much else to list here.

The story is simply too implausible to take seriously, yet it is marketed as non-fiction and is popular especially in New Age bookstores, where people desparately want to believe in tripe like this.

Some obvious questions come to mind immediately: An Apache tracker just picks two boys out of the blue - in New Jersey of all places - to become his apprentices? How did these boys manage to spend to much time running around in the woods without their parents noticing?

The story bears more than a casual resemblance to the 1903 childrens novel Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton (who was largely responsible for all the pseudo-Indian woo in the Boy Scouts of America), and to Boy Scout pseudo-Indian woo in general, making it possible that Brown read and was inspired by Seton's book, which is about two boys who go into the woods to "live as Indians" for a while, learning woodcraft, tracking, and other woods skills. Brown's story is also a classic childhood "apprenticeship" fantasy to which lonely, nerdy, and shy boys are especially prone, in which the lonely misunderstood boy fantasizes about being taken under the tutelage of a usually wizardly "Gandalf"-type adult who is an expert at some arcane, often super-human skill. Under the influence of Ernest Thompson Seton's book it is not hard to speculate how such a fantasy can develop around a Native American tracker. One may speculate further that such a fantasy, once elaborately constructed, could be believed by the child and writing about it as an adult as if it actually happened could become the basis of a lucrative career as a "tracking" expert.

Speculation aside, Tom Brown Jr. does run a tracking school and is a recognized go-to person in the field of tracking (although even there, he makes some claims that are not widely accepted among other trackers, such as claiming to be able to detect if a person is ill from their tracks). He is likely self-taught. Look, if you want to believe the silly Indian apprenticeship fantasies, you are more than welcome to, but the whole thing smells a little too much like Mike Warnke's "Satanism" tall tales.

Brown's tracking school has been the subject of a Penn and Teller Bullshit! investigation as part of an episode covering survivalism and doomsday scenarios.

-------------------

The most relevant posts from a survivalist discussion board describes the lies and cultism of his tracker school.
---------------------
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=34860
SuvivalDude  

I am surprised that he is jsut putting his name on other peoples work like he is. He seems to be simply tagging his name on the efforts of others at this point. Other than his religion/"PHILOSOPHY" courses. LOL
He should be on the list for militia extremist watch list.
He pushes his "PHILOSOPHY" under the guise of Survival Tracker Teachings of the Bushcraft. I find this disgusting.
I will never attend another course.
 
Wilderness Survival Tracking Bushcraft disguising HIS Philosophy to his unsuspecting students. lol
They are under the belief they are there to learn a skill set, Which they do, but are also indoctrinated with the cult like beliefs and philosophy of Brown.
Some guys and gals really get sucked into this.
Sounds like a Dave Koresh beginnings.


Swamp Shuck  

I went to a few of Brown's training and I have to admit he became crazier as he became older. Most people are aware that Tom Brown made up most of his bio but then that is not unusual for wilderness type people, they are constantly reinventing themselves. His tracking skills, which at one time were excellent, seem to have faded as he spends more and more time talking in fantasy than he does in actual reality. Brown was the first person I took a formal outdoor education class from. I thought I learned alot. Now I would say do Elpel or Hood before you took any of TB's classes.

I wouldn't mind the religious context of his classes if they help a little substance. I put up with others trying to force their religious beliefs on me all the time. His classes just have less and less skills being taught and more and more new age ideas being thrown around. Not for me anymore.

BLT


SuvivalDude  

Well said. couldn't agree more. It seems to be becoming more and more Cult Like than a school. You can definitely see a division among students who are looking for content vs. the groupies that are sold on the New Age ideology.
No wonder he lost his training contract with the Military. Seems he lost the Search and Rescue stuff as well according to his excuse for getting rid of the HUMMERS. Sounds like he is in financial trouble tho with Karl telling the Instructors that TRACKER is broke and doesn't have the money to pay them.
Maybe he can't afford them any longer. Attendance seems to have declined according to some of the guys. Perhaps his ego has outgrown his pocket book?


Leif the Lucky  

Royal you need to read one of his "biographical" books. When you read them remind yourself that Tom is telling stories of incredible detail about a man named grandfather who of which there is no proof he ever existed. Not to mention the level of detail he sites from when he was 7 to 10 or so years old. It is a load of horseshlt.

From his original story of Grandfather to his new one he changes his entire meeting with Grandfather from one that is normal to one that is now mythical and epic.

He meets him from his friend Rick. Now the new story is that he and grandfather saw each other in a vision through "talking stones" years before they met.(I shlt you not)

Tom then blames editors for messing up the story haha. It is nothing more than snowballing his own legend as he became more popular.

That is just a tiny example of the bullshlt in his books.


 Swamp Shuck  

First, let me say that I don't mind his religious view if he wants to keep it himself. What I didn't like was when he starteds turning his "Practicals" or his nuts and bolts classes into religious teachings. If I was paying to go to his religious classes then I would have no problem with it but the Practicals should contain more skills training and less religion as they did back in the 70s and 80s.

He has a very strong End Of The World belief right now. He has been given visions that tell him that soon only those with strong wilderness survival skills will survive the coming changes to the end of the world. His "Brownies" or groupies are preparing for the coming changes. We have to be of his religion, meaning we have to be able to take information from him when Grandfather, long dead, contacts TB and tells him about the coming changes.

He believes that those who learn tracking well can track an animal without ever leaving their couch. Track an animal (or human) with their mind. To get this in depth though you need to pay for ALL of his tracking classes starting with the Practicals. By the end of these classes you have paid out 6 or 7 thousand dollars. Brownies swear that it works but others complain because they have been taken. TB says that those who complain just didn't put enough work into their classes and it's not his fault.

The big thing that really stopped me from being a fan though was the Hummers. Here is a man that basically calls all people besides himself horrible because they can't live close to the land and they are busy destroying the earth. Then he has a fleet of Hummers. If you take a class from him personally he will insult you many times. I was okay with it if he also was teaching me something. But don't tell me I am destroying the earth while you drive around in your fleet of Hummers. I don't mind Hummers but don't drive one and then pretend to be the best envornmentalist ever. I'm not going to believe it.

If you take a class from many of his students you can end up hating wilderness survival skills. I took one class from one of his students who kept trying to hide from us. When we saw him every time he got mad and threw a temper tantrum. "You're lying, you didn't see me." He said to me once. I said yes I did, but I thought you were peeing on that tree over there so I gave you some privacy and didn't look. I kept wondering why you didn't go further into the woods to pee, but I thought you were just being rude.

Then there was one tracking class I took from one of his students where this really nice man found wolf tracks and we were all excited to see them (this was years ago when there weren't a whole lot of wolves around). The teacher was so mad that he didn't find the tracks that he said that if the guy who found the tracks was so smart he could teach the class, and then walked off and left us. I have to admit, we had alot more fun after that.

There was another class where the female instructor was a TB teacher and she tried to talk us all into doing a Sun Dance. She called us names when we said we weren't going to. If we really wanted to become good at wilderness survival we needed to do a Sun Dance or we would never see the Great Spirit. I have heard similar things from TB though not with the Sun Dance but with other American Indian ceremonies. Again, I am not cutting these ceremonies down. I just am not American Indian and I don't want to worship the way they do. I don't think that will make me less of a tracker or survivor but TB seems to think so.

Of course, I see this often that we can not survive without following some one elses god. I have read it on this forum and not in the religious section. So I'm not saying that this is totally a TB thing. It's just that when you are pay 4 or 5 hundred dollars per class to learn the Practicals, religion should not be forced onto you. If it is there should at least be some skills taught too. TB's classes are becoming less and less about skills and more and more about his spirituality. They aren't worth the money any more.

In the states for general bushcraft I would go with Hood. For primitive skills I would go with Elpel. Thayer is my favorite for wild edible plants just because he has lived off of them for many years. Barlow is another favorite for wild edibles because she feeds her family of four (with two very picky kids) off of mainly wild edibles all year long.

If other people have other instructors that they like I would love to hear about them. My son and I always take a few wilderness skills classes a year all over the country. I'd love to try someone new.

BLT



rodale  

When i was attending his school the farther you went the more crazy it got. the guy is huge into black magik, sorcery, spirit conjuring, whatever you want to call it. He claims it is native american religion and good for living with the earth. He also uses spells and chants beliving they work too. Part of his basic philosophy is there is no such thing as right and wrong. Do I dare say there is a criminal element in that school? There is and mr. brown knows all about it. Im wondering how long until it all comes out, and who is he going to pin the blame on?


Brother Buck  

OMG!
Hi Tom....getting so desperate you need to cop alter egos and bomb a thread?
You guys gotta read this wackos thread on how he can track fish in the ocean based on the sound of waves hitting the hull of a boat.
It's a riot.

What I have heard about Brown:
Tom Brown has lost his friggin mind.
He learned what he initially learned about bushcraft from the Society of Primitive Technology in New Jersey.
He took classes there and is remembered by the instructors.
He's a huge fraud. There was no Stalking Wolf or a Rick.
No one but Tom and apparently his politician brother know or have ever seen Stinky Drunk or Rick.
He marketed himself and his school well.
He hired, initially anyway, very competent instructors from the university where HE LEARNED from their anthropology program that ran the Society.
Mind you much of that is hearsay but it's hearsay from numerous sources.
He writes conflicting accounts of the same incident(shot twice in the exact same spot in his back by two different people but has never been hospitalized for a severe gunshot wound).
Claims he hunted assassins for the government.......yup....another CIA agent I guess.
Says he tracked and defeated a bunch of UDT in some field exercise somewhere.
He can make himself invisible.

I know a dude who took one of his classes and walked out about 4 hours into it.
He said it was just wacky, Tom was supposed to be teaching it but the class was told he was off doing things for the government....last minute high security stuff.
The dooods a looon

Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: shadow on July 19, 2009, 08:03:16 am
Hello, I found this site by typing "Tom Brown Jr is a fraud" on my search engine, this was one of several sites that came up. I read your mission statement and several things and found it peeked my interest. I am not going to bash on Tom Brown, but want to post a link to some notes I found online that were taken by one of his philosophy students during his class. I would like people who DO know about native culture, philosophy and religions to make an HONEST judgement about them. I wonder how athentic his teachings are, I am not native, I do not know much about natives, but have always found the native lifestyle before european influence to be fasinating.

I recently attended Tom's standard class. I learned of him from 2 of his field guides and think they were athentic. At standard class Tom told many stories that were pushing the boundries of truthfulness. Spiritualism was attached to every skill we were taught, spiritualism was a huge part of the whole class. I don't mind learning new religions, if I like it I would start practicing it, but I got the impression that something wasnt right, it felt like going to the theater to watch a interesting play but at every intermission they were asking for donations. I did enjoy the class, made some friends and learned survival skills, something doesn't feel right thou.

This is the link http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TrackerSchool/message/60678

Tomorrow I'll post my notes from class, and a list of books that Tom recommended we read to help us learn. I want to know if he is athentic before I return for other classes.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: educatedindian on July 19, 2009, 02:56:23 pm
There's nothing even remotely Indian in Brown's beliefs, other than his very unlikely story of having met an old Indian wise man who magically handed him "ancient Indian secrets." That's a story straight out of Boy Scouts fantasies.

I didn't see anything Indian at all in the philosophy described at that post. Brown even admitted it's his own philosophy.

And I don't see anything Indian at all at that group, just nature buffs, survivalists, altmedicine types, and a few scary nutjobs like the one who joked he's threatened to kill the president but can't get anyone to take him seriously.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: shadow on December 10, 2009, 07:57:12 am
here are a few of the books tom brown recommended we read to help build our awareness. I havent read any of them and know nothing about them, so i wont comment on them. Super learning. silva mind control method. transindental meditation. Dr herbert bensen's books. relaxation response. seeing with the minds eye. dynamic meditation. the 4th world. and his own awakening spirits.

After doing my own research on the guy, and looking back on my experience at his school, i no longer think he's athentic.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: NanticokePiney on December 13, 2009, 10:19:17 pm
  Tom Brown's "The Tracker" is a rewrite of Ernest Thompson Seton's "Rolf in the Woods". His other books are a rehash and rearangement of all Seton's other books. Christ! In "The Tracker" his geography of the Pine Barrens is even wrong!  :D
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: seeker108 on February 01, 2010, 12:56:03 am
I'm coming into this thread pretty late so I don't know if I'll get any replies or not but here goes---
I don't really have a dog in this fight (so to speak) but there are a couple of things I noticed about this thread.
First of all, one of the main contentions seems to be that Brown doesn't offer any proof of the claims he makes of the existence of "Stalking Wolf" or "Rick" or of the "training" he claims to have received.
I can see how that would reduce his credibility.
Could you guys please provide some proof of a few of the claims that you make?
For example--

1. "I also witnessed brown himself hint at having connections with the mafia, and his cook jorge brana is a member of the mongols motorcycle gang."
I don't expect you to "prove" that Brown hinted at "mafia" connections--if you heard him do this, then I believe you-- but I do find it hard to believe that a member of the Mongols is a cook at a primitive skills school! Most of the Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, etc. make their living off of drugs, prostitution, etc. Are there others who mow lawns for a living or serve burgers at McDonald's? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist--LOL!).

2. "Stalking Wolf and his grandson Rick were proven to have never existed by a Alibamu-Kosati writer and researcher for NAIDV named Sondra Ball."
I entered every search term I could think of and couldn't find any evidence of Sondra Ball addressing this topic at all. Could you direct me to this "proof"?

3. "When i was attending his school the farther you went the more crazy it got. the guy is huge into black magik, sorcery, spirit conjuring, whatever you want to call it."
While I was waiting to be approved for this forum (I'm a newbie) I read some excerpts from one of Brown's books, "Awakening Spirits". In the book, at least, he says that all "power" emanates from the "Creator" and that he's a Christian (at the point where he mistakenly thinks he's seeing Jesus Christ in a vision). Are you saying that when the students get to his school for classes he suddenly reveals that he's into black magic?

There are other examples from this thread that I could point out also-- but I'm really just trying to make a point. Brown may be a con man and his whole story may be a fabrication. but, if you're going to go after his unsubstantiated claims, you shouldn't be guilty of the same thing!! BTW-- I obviously don't mean to include the claims in the thread where links or other corroboration IS provided. Just the allegations that offer no substantiation!!!
Hope I don't step on too many toes!!
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: critter - a white non-ndn person on February 01, 2010, 01:33:39 am
I read some excerpts from one of Brown's books, "Awakening Spirits". In the book, at least, he says that all "power" emanates from the "Creator" and that he's a Christian (at the point where he mistakenly thinks he's seeing Jesus Christ in a vision). Are you saying that when the students get to his school for classes he suddenly reveals that he's into black magic?

I don't know anything about Tom Brown or these wilderness schools.  But, I do know that most people into 'black magic' tend to keep that part private, shared only with the few who participate with them.  That is, if they are trying to appear as 'good' to the public.  Black magic is not necessarily sorcery or spirit conjuring. Sorcery and spirit conjuring can be used either way, just as anything can be.  Even money can be used for bad or good. 



Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: debbieredbear on February 01, 2010, 01:54:39 am
Quote
but I do find it hard to believe that a member of the Mongols is a cook at a primitive skills school! Most of the Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, etc. make their living off of drugs, prostitution, etc.


You may find it hard to believe, but having known bikers from Hells ANgels included, they do ordinary things and work jobs on occasion. Sorry to ruin any preconcieved notions on your part.;) One of my friends, now an ex-biker, worked as an electition even while he was a biker.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: debbieredbear on February 01, 2010, 02:09:44 am
Quote
but I do find it hard to believe that a member of the Mongols is a cook at a primitive skills school! Most of the Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, etc. make their living off of drugs, prostitution, etc.

Oh really? And how many bikers do you know? Or did you just read Hunter Thompson's book? Some bikers are thugs. Some are not. And I AM talking about Hells Angels etc.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: seeker108 on February 02, 2010, 03:17:49 am
Never read Hunter Thompson's Book. And I do know several bikers. Some of them are very good people-- as you mentioned-- but there is a difference between riding with these clubs and being a hardcore member. The inner circle of these groups seldom work outside of the gang. Organized crime IS the primary reason for the Angels, Mongols, etc. existence. Read Sonny Barger's book. You also need to look at what ntvwndr was trying to imply with his/her post. Jorge Brana being a member of the Mongols was not included to confer a good image of Brown or his school. The intent was to imply that Brown, Brana, etc. were all associated with the mafia, bikers, etc. and other "unsavory" elements of society.
Stating that Brana was a member of the Mongols was included in the same sentence as mentioning that Brown "hinted at" having mafia associations to establish criminal connections for both of them. ntvwndr was NOT trying to establish that Brana was "good people".
 As I said in my original post-- Brown may be a con man and his whole story may be a fabrication. I'm not trying to defend him. I just don't think it serves any purpose to make the same knid of unsubstantiated claims as he is accused of and expect to have much credibility.   
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: nmtm on February 06, 2010, 12:29:28 pm
From an earlier posting:

"Stalking Wolf and his grandson Rick were proven to have never existed by a Alibamu-Kosati writer and researcher for NAIDV named Sondra Ball.
Peace- Rich Joseph"

I am also interested in reading this article, but had no luck locating it online.  Does anyone have a link, or a copy to post in this forum?
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: NanticokePiney on February 06, 2010, 06:43:21 pm
From an earlier posting:

"Stalking Wolf and his grandson Rick were proven to have never existed by a Alibamu-Kosati writer and researcher for NAIDV named Sondra Ball.
Peace- Rich Joseph"

I am also interested in reading this article, but had no luck locating it online.  Does anyone have a link, or a copy to post in this forum?

 There is no link or document. You have to contact her through the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quaker) Indian Committee.
 mIt's rather oblivious though. I grew up in Chatsworth, the Next town over, have friends and relatives in Toms River and nobody seems to remember Rick or Stalking Wolf and Tom nver seems to remember Rick's last name. Also all the legit trackers and guides all worked out of the Pine Barren Stove Company on Rt. 72. Nobody there knows Tom, Rick or Stalking Wolf.
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: tahcha_sapa on February 18, 2010, 04:46:55 am
Michael Stalking Wolf is Lakota, BTW. Don't see anything of his related to Brown's claims.
The person at that particular website who uses that name is not Lakhota. In fact, he was banned from an online Lakhota language group in 2002 after he first claimed to be an Oglala, then later denied he ever made that claim.  He also tried to run a scam on the group.  Apparently, he forgot that there were a few legitimate Lakhota members in that group.  Lakhota people have been scammed so many times that they can smell one coming down the trail.  But it all started to fall apart for Michael Stalking Wolf when he tried to play out an elaborate online romance -- his engagement to a woman, "Sky" -- that ended in online tragedy: She died of an aneurism in South Dakota prior to their "marriage."
He cried out, in the online way, to his pal "Chuck Two Fingers" (actually, Chuck Benson, who has been outted in NAFPS as another non-Lakhota fraud -- and, incidentally, still has a Lakhota language group on Yahoo Groups) who, too, was a member of that particular group -- to come and pray with Michael and do a Wiping of the Tears Ceremony.
The Lakhota members of that group checked with each other, checked obituaries: no one on the reservations, or anywhere near where "Sky" had "died" turned up. No one. No dead Sky.
Michael Stalking Wolf was confronted about this claim and, especially, his claim to be an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux tribe.  When he was reminded that it is a crime to sell arts and crafts and claim that they are made by an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe, when, in fact, that person is not, he denied he ever claimed to an enrolled member of the Oglala tribe.  But, his claim to be an enrolled member of the Oglala tribe and his later claim to not be an enrolled member of the Oglala tribe are both in the records of that group.
If he truly were an enrolled member of ANY tribe, it would be to his advantage to declare this on his business site, wouldn't it?  It seems like he would at least post the below information as a reminder to non-Lakhota frauds about the penalties they face:

Quote
"Native American Arts and Crafts Law, Public Law 101-644

The Indian Arts and Crafts Law
Public Law 101-644

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 give a recap (below) and also provides links to the actual Act.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-644) is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States. It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian Tribe or Indian arts and crafts organization, resident within the United States. For a first time violation of the Act, an individual can face civil or criminal penalties up to a $250,000 fine or a 5-year prison term, or both. If a business violates the Act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000.

Under the Act, an Indian is defined as a member of any federally or State recognized Indian Tribe, or an individual certified as an Indian artisan by an Indian Tribe."
Title: Re: Tom Brown jr/Stalking Wolf
Post by: steve2 on December 02, 2010, 05:23:34 pm
I found more new information about Tom Brown Jr from an old source. Brown was briefly employed by
Sheriff Johnny France in the search for two mountain men who kidnapped a women jogger
and killed a searcher. The source is: Incident at Big Sky: The True Story of Sheriff Johnny
France and the Capture of the Mountain Men
by Johnny France and Malcolm McConnell.
This book devotes quite a few pages to Brown who the Sheriff refers to as "the tracking
guru." Evidently the Sheriff and his colleagues were impressed by his tracking skills and
abilities but not by his honesty or integrity. This is a book and not a magazine article.
Title: Re: Tom Brown Jr and "Stalking Wolf"
Post by: ntvwndr on October 08, 2013, 02:25:27 am
I deleted every post I made concerning tom brown Jr for a few simple reasons. My daughter and her husband have been attending toms school and they enjoy it, they made sure that I knew I was wrong about tom and his school the last time we talked. So here I am looking like a jack ass, sorry tom and school.
Title: Re: Tom Brown Jr and "Stalking Wolf"
Post by: Laurel on October 08, 2013, 09:59:14 am
Oh! Well, if a couple of people like it, it must be legit....  ::)

Title: Re: Tom Brown Jr and "Stalking Wolf"
Post by: TaiChiJohn on February 02, 2020, 11:49:56 pm
I'm currently taking a college level course in "Ecopsychology" and was given a choice of books to read for this class. On was "Awakinging Spirits" by Tom Brown Jr. Not a great choice, but one I made thinking there might be some First NAtions content in the text.

Nope.

Sadly, the links initially provided in this thread are for the most part non-functional at this point in time. I'm spotted lots of flaws and holes in Brown's story as presented, but, the anecdotal evidence in this thread is every bit as compelling as that. But I think I'll focus on critiquing Browns "philosophy" (which is what he apparently claims to teach)  — my own particular field of expertise — when composing my report for class. If anyone is interested in that sort of thing, the long story made short is: Edmund Husserl, who developed modern phenomenology, was criticized by Jean Paul Sartre (in Sartre's seminal text "The Imaginary") for never examining the presupposition that the veracity of visual perception extended into mental imagery. Not so, demonstrated Sartre: the two are distinct and imaging consciousness is produced by the mind, not induced through the senses.

Not only does Brown flub that now long established certitude, imparting to the imagination that certainty which the senses lay exclusive claim upon — he goes one step farther, insisting that the imagination can in turn impose within the real its whatever it produces, and this with certainty. As my old Metaphysics and Epistemology prof used to note, "It is a characteristic of the real that it resists acts of will."

Yup. So sign Tom Brown Jr. up as a fake philosopher as well.
Title: Re: Tom Brown Jr and "Stalking Wolf"
Post by: educatedindian on February 03, 2020, 12:34:49 pm
Links will work if archived.

--------
https://web.archive.org/web/20060720203754/http://www.trackertrail.com/tombrown/controversies/fraud.html
 About this capture

Tracker Trail
A website about Tom Brown Jr. and the Tracker School

 For Wilderness Survival and Tracking visit the Wildwood Survival website


Tom Brown Jr. - Controversies

Is Tom Brown Jr. a Fraud?

 
Every now and then the issue comes up ... Is Tom Brown Jr. a fraud? Did he really get taught by a full-blood Apache by the name of Stalking Wolf or did he make it all up? Can he really track mice across gravel, or is this a fantasy?

Probably the main reason that this issue arises is that no one seems to be alive who also knew Stalking Wolf. And Tom's childhood friend, Rick, is dead. So, there is a definite lack of 3rd party verification to his story, and that is a problem for some people.

Here are some emails on this topic from 1995.

These are posts from the NATCHAT (Nativenet) mailing list (archive #9502).
This list is no longer operational. Archives may be viewed here.

I have listed the first preliminary posts first, then the main one denouncing Tom Brown Jr.

Lyn Dearborn (lyn@anchor.engr.sgi.com)
Wed, 1 Feb 1995 19:58:25 GMT
Jordan Bacon asked:
>Does anyone know about the Tom Brown School of Tracking, and would they give me some information/opinions about it? It may just be this particular instructor, or it may be an attitude picked up from his training?

The people to ask about his School of Tracking would be someone like the guys who put on the "Rabbit Stick Rondezvous" every fall up in Montana. There is also a Primative Technology Society that you could write to. Sorry I don't know anything about him ... though I do know one "mtn. Man" that might have heard of him ... I'LL TRY to remember to ask him next month when we rendezvous at a PowWow in N. Calif.

Lyn

wpowell@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Mon, 6 Feb 1995 23:18:37 GMT
I was at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc) in Atlanta, GA this weekend and noticed three of the books by this person. The books say that he was raised Apache. A friend of mine said he had read the books and said he was impressed. So I know the books are available thru REI.
Will

James Roper (jroper@sas.upenn.edu)
Wed, 8 Feb 1995 04:46:34 GMT
I read some of his books as well. I can't figure out whether they were impressive because we wanted them to be, or because they were true... Also, he was not raised Apache, but rather he was in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey when a friend (Apache) had a dad who was stationed in NJ, who had a grandfather that taught him how to track. I am sure there is a difference.

Jim

Lyn Dearborn (lyn@anchor.engr.sgi.com)
Wed, 8 Feb 1995 05:38:07 GMT
I have a copy of the May/June 1994 in front of me in an article written by someone named Mark Baker called "Resigning My Domestic Happiness; A Pilgrims's Journey" ... included in this article on "period trekking" is a picture of Tom Brown fishing for trout ... the old way...
A month ago I'd never heard his name and now he's everywhere ... must be a conspiracy!

Lyn

Tom Brown's Tracking School (NOT!)

Lyn Dearborn (lyn@anchor.engr.sgi.com)
Wed, 8 Feb 1995 17:34:04 GMT

>Does anyone know about the Tom Brown School of Tracking, and would they
>give me some information/opinions about it? It may just be this
>particular instructor, or it may be an attitude picked up from his training

TOM BROWN JR. IS A FRAUD; some of his tracking instructors are pretty good. I have this info on him from the highest possible source (except "God", who will "get him" in the long run). Last night I spoke with a friend who is a Park Ranger & has just returned from a week-long Rendezvous in Arizona with the folks from the Society of Primitive Technology -- the group I recommended as a way of checking out this turkey.

You were right in your gut feelings that he is should be boycotted. He may have learned things since he initial training from First Nations peoples, for which he will pay dearly in the future.

No, he was NOT raised by or with the Apaches; Stalking Wolf, who supposedly trained him, doesn't exist. Tom Brown is from New Jersey and "bought" what knowledge he has from the workshops given through the Society of Primitive Technology. He actually learned quite a lot ... but it was from the teachers there, not First Nation's people that he got his knowledge. You were right in your gut feelings that he should be boycotted. He may have learned things since his initial training from First Nations peoples, for which he will pay dearly in the future.

There were quite a few of his "ex-teachers" at the Winter Count Rendezvous last week in Phoenix ... and they always get a kick out of it when some naive person who has come from one of Brown's workshops asks questions about him.

HOWEVER, THE BOOKS PUT OUT ***IN HIS NAME*** are quite good. The ghost writer Tom Brown hired to write them is quite knowledgeable and well respected FOR HIS KNOWLEDGE ... not his ethics for doing the job, but "we all gotta eat" as the saying goes.

My friend says "Tom Brown is a guru; a Cultive personality; the ultimate Con man, & if anyone has any ideas on how to stop his "school" ... go for it!

If any of you would like HONEST "Old Ways" training, contact the Society of Primitive Technology

SORRY I WASN'T ABLE TO GET "Official Word" sooner ... but I DID say I would keep checking ... ought to have a motto like the RCMP: "we always get our Man"!

Any of the people who work for/thru the Primitive Technology organization can verify what was reported to me.

Mii sago minick!

Lyn

... and please remember: when you think you "smell a rat", you probably do; we need to pay attention to those messages from "our higher self"; got with the gutt feeling, and "just say no!". Namaste.

This website has no official or informal connection to the Tracker School or Tom Brown Jr. whatsoever

-----------
https://web.archive.org/web/20100108092837/http://www.trackertrail.com/publications/inthenews/newjerseymonthly1987.html

Publications

Tom Brown & The Tracker School in the Media

 
Walk Like an Apache
New Jersey Monthly, July 1987
by Tom Dunkel
Celebrity Survivalist Tom Brown believes he could save the world -- if we'd just adopt his Indian ways.

  In his book The Gospel of the Red Man, Ernest Thompson Seton, father of the American Boy Scout movement, tells of an encounter he had with a particularly energetic Indian. "In 1882 at Fort Ellice I saw a young Cree who on foot had just brought in dispatches from Fort Qu'Apelle 125 miles away in 25 hours. It created almost no comment."

   Tom "the Tracker" Brown -- Scottish by ancestry, a 37-year-old New Jerseyan by birth, and an Apache scout by choice -- often quotes that passage during the classes he teaches in wilderness survival. Seton's observation that the long-distance messenger failed to elicit so much as a "Jumpin' Jehoshaphat!" from onlookers is intended to impress upon students that Native Americans regularly performed seemingly extraordinary feats. It also may make it easier for them to accept some of Tom Brown's larger-than-life accomplishments, such as, oh, the time he hacked a hunk of hair off the behind of a hibernating grizzly bear, or his self-professed ability to diagnose cancer by examining someone's footprints.

   On a raw Monday night in April, 34 backpacking pilgrims from across the United States and Canada converged on the 200-acre Tracker farm in Asbury Township -- one of many Warren County hamlets that cling to Route 78 as if it's a highway made of corduroy and they are incorporated burrs -- to take Brown's entry-level "Standard Course." The students ranged in age from 17 to 48; six were women. They ran the lifestyle gamut from ordained Lutheran minister to Woodstock generation refugee. Each paid a $515 registration fee (which did not exempt anyone from cooking, cleanup, and wood-chopping chores), unrolled a sleeping bag in the loft of the open-faced barn that would be their live-in schoolhouse for the next week, eye­balled the grass tepee and squat sweat lodge that stand outside by the fire pit, dined from a pot of communal chow mein, and generally shuffled around like a shy summer camper waiting to be whistled into action.

   There was some nervous anticipation over the impending appearance of the man whom many people consider to be part Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, and Geronimo: a human trifecta of guile, guts, and backwoods know-how. Critics dismiss Brown as a P. T. Barnum in moccasins, but no one denies that he is a marquee name among outdoorsmen. Nearly 500,000 copies of his books -- which include two highly dramatized autobiographies, The Tracker and The Search, and six field guides -- have been sold. Brown has been featured in Reader's Digest and People. He has done several guest shots on Late Night with David Letterman, was one of Charles Kuralt's On the Road video pitstops, and a movie of his life is in the works. More than 15,000 students have passed through Brown's survival school since it opened nine years ago. A few have run the eleven-course gauntlet that takes one from the spiritual eye-openers of the Philosophy Workshop ("If you're ready to see thunder on a clear night and fire where there's no wood, this is the course for you," Brown cryptically remarked) to the Advanced Expert excursion, 21 days in the Pine Barrens -- in February -- equipped with only the clothes on their backs. The latter is a scaled-down version of Brown's most famous exploit: about 1970 (the exact year slips his mind) he walked naked into the prickly Pine Barrens, emerging some twelve months later swaddled in skins and twenty pounds heavier. During that time he never once had pizza delivered to his campsite.

   ....Brown went on to say that 38 of his students became light-footed enough to grab an unsuspecting deer after finishing this course, that he has been called upon to track 600 criminals and missing persons, and that FBI agents, police officers, and "all the Army survival groups" come to him for special training.

   Brown owes most of this sundry knowledge to Stalking Wolf, the mentor he reverentially refers to as "Grandfather." Stalking Wolf was a Lipan Apache scout who wandered the world for 63 years before coming to Southern New Jersey in the 1950s to be near his son, a serviceman stationed at McGuire Air Force Base. Brown, born and raised in Beachwood, was seven when he met the mysterious Indian through his pal Rick. Stalking Wolf was Rick's grandfather, but he made both boys his blood brothers. For ten years, Grandfather, who was 83 when the apprenticeship began, used the Pine Barrens as a wildlife laboratory to teach his two disciples how to live and think like Apaches. He taught them to hunt. He taught them to fish. He blindfolded them and turned them loose in the forest for a weekend. He taught them the edible plants and wildflowers. He had them spend so much time on their bellies tracking animals that Brown remembers having a callus on his diaphragm. "Grandfather was barely five-foot-seven, weighed maybe 135 pounds," he told his students, "and he beat the hell out of us at 90 years old. That man could outrun me by miles. He could outclimb me. He could outlift me. And he could outwork me." At an age when most men have trouble fetching their slippers, Grandfather "had the body of a 25-year-old gymnast" and could scamper across dry leaves without making a sound. So said Tom Brown.

   After graduating from Toms River High School, Brown put Grandfather's collective wisdom to the test by roaming North America alone for ten years. He followed the beat of his nomadic Indian heart to the Badlands, Death Valley, and beyond, perfecting his survival skills until he didn't even require a knife to subsist in the harshest terrain. He then returned home, married, began writing books -- recounting serial adventures that have Tom Brown rescuing a lost child from a pack of wild dogs and Tom Brown coaxing a badger into drinking water from his hand -- and opened his school. The transition from wanderer to teacher fulfilled a vision that Grandfather had had: that young Tom would some day spread the Native American phi­losophy in the white man's world, sensitizing all those muck­amucks who have poisoned the Earth Mother, depleted her precious natural resources, and imprisoned themselves in a ghost dance of conspicuous consumption.

   ...A subtle lesson in observation had also been slipped in during the day. At one point, Brown interrupted himself in mid-lecture to exclaim, "God, wasn't that a splendid herd of deer that passed this morning!" Not one student had seen them. Later, he claimed to have crept to within ten yards of the class during their debris hut demonstration. Not one student had seen him. "Pay attention," Brown warned. "Never get so involved in one thing. Do that in bear country, you get et!"

   ....Dave Wescott had trouble digesting a few things unrelated to lunch. He is the director of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School in Idaho, and Brown had invited him east to observe his operation. Westcott had mixed reactions.

   "Probably the biggest service I've seen since I was here is the opening of the mind of the general public," said Wescott. "You know, 'Look around you because there's more to it than concrete and chain-link fences.' That I admire."

   He was less impressed with Brown's tales of surviving without equipment in 30-degree-below-zero weather, of spending a night in an oak tree in Montana during a lightning storm ("There are no oak trees in Montana," Wescott noted), and of Grandfather's superheroics. "The metaphor goes to the heart," he sighed, "but the literal translation gets stuck in the craw....It's just really hard to buy. But that's not to say it's not true."

  Tracking the Tracker is a formidable task. You might as well try to stalk a flea inside a coal mine or Weasel Walk across a hotplate. The biographical trail twists and turns. Much of it has grown cold. In his books, Brown says that Stalking Wolf eventually returned to the Southwest and died, while Rick (who is never given a surname) was killed in a horseback-riding accident in Europe. So much for the two principal corroborators. To complicate matters, Oscar Collier, who edited The Tracker and The Search, acknowledges that both names are pseudonyms, although that is never explained in the text. Collier, in fact, concedes that he himself "may have come up with" the folksy appellation Stalking Wolf.

   Other aspects of the Tracker legend seem to flirt with reality. Brown, for example, contends that he started his school partly because he was inundated with 10,000 letters after Reader's Digest published an excerpt from The Tracker in November 1978. One inside source puts the mail total at "tops, 200." Brown tells his students that he made the front page of the New York Times. That is so, and the 1977 news story -- which involved a rapist Brown tracked down in Bergen County -- garnered him national attention and led to a book contract. He does not mention, however, that the suspect was acquitted at the grand jury level and subsequently successfully sued Brown and the township for false arrest and libel. Furthermore, spokesmen for Army Special Operations Command say they have no record of Tom Brown's having trained any personnel. His wife claims the arrangement is kept hush-hush for security reasons.

   During his tracking lecture, Brown regaled his class with an anecdote about the Smithsonian Institution. Researchers there had brought him plaster casts of ancient footprints found at a dig in Africa. From analyzing the prehistoric pressure releases, Brown postulated that the walker had been carrying something in his right hand and looking over his left shoulder. He predicted that the man also had a hunting companion.

   "This so intrigued the Smithsonian Institute that now -- they're in the process, I'm waiting for it any day -- they're gonna dig in more and over to his left. If I'm right, I've read my oldest set of tracks correctly that I've ever read."

   That's interesting -- but not entirely correct. Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer, a Smithsonian anthropologist, took Brown's standard Course in 1984. She brought along with her photographs taken of casts made from footprints found in Kenya that were a million and a half years old. It just doesn't have anything to do with the Smithsonian," says Dr. Behrensmeyer. "The reason that I wan him to look at these tracks was because I thought his viewpoint would be interesting to me personally. Nothing more has been done." No additional digging is under way. No news of another find is due "any day."

   Embellishment has caused Brown problems in the past. He relied on three different co-authors for his first six books. Two of them admit to having lost faith in the veracity of the narrative. "I got real uncomfortable with it," says William Jon Watkins, a professor at Brookdale Community College who carried the writing load on The Tracker. Watkins got so uncomfortable he refused to do a sequel. Among other things, he was never able to determine whether "Rick" even existed or not.

   "It's a great story," Watkins says, "but the longer you're around Tom, the more you tend to think, 'Well, is this true or not?' There's nothing verifiable.... Tom is really twelve years old, and once you accept that basic fact you know exactly what you're dealing with. You can never really pin a twelve-year-old down....Once he [Brown] says something twice he really believes it. The weird thing is, every once in a while something will check out."

   ....According to Brown, the amount of "dirt time" he accumulated made for a painful journey to adulthood. As a kid he collected animal skulls, teeth, hair, and scat. After school he immediately bolted for the woods with Grandfather and Rick. His mind was filled with the spirit-that-moves-in-all-things -- not sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. John Young, the owner of a natural-food restaurant in Red Bank, grew up on the street in Holmdel where Brown lived in the early 1970s. Brown was a leader of Young's Boy Scout troop and often let him and his sister tag along on walks in the woods. Young has "verifiable evidence" that Brown did know an old Indian, although "the exact nature of the story isn't exactly as he says it is." The factual deviations, says Young, are simply a way of preserving and protecting sacred memories. He adds it's important to keep in mind that Indians place spiritual truth above literal truth. Don't expect hard facts from Tom Brown: "Tom is more of a native man than he is a white man, so he doesn't always subscribe to the principles of white people first."

   Young confirms that dancing to the beat of a different tom-tom brought Brown hard times. "He couldn't hold a job because he was always off in the woods," says Young. "He couldn't find a respectable position, and it seemed many people were always telling him he was a loser. My parents told me that he was some kind of nut. You know, 'He must be a queer or something. Why's he hanging around with all these young people?' Basically people his own age couldn't deal with him. People that were older than him just looked down on him as some kind of irresponsible bum. Because they didn't know anything about his native side."

  ....Tom Brown has adopted a black paw print as a personal and corporate logo. It is a coyote track. Among Native American Indians a coyote teacher is the most powerful and wil­iest of men. A trickster. A manipulator. He will lie to you, play dumb, fake you out -- anything to convey his lesson. Is Tom Brown a coyote teacher, a legitimate miracle man of the outdoors, or a slick businessman with a hyperactive imagination? Is he out to save the world or save a bundle? A former associate, who requested anonymity, notes that Brown barely made $2,000 a year chopping wood before he became a celebrity survivalist, whereupon his gross income rose to more than $300,000.

   Brown acknowledges that he's not entirely comfortable with his adopted role himself. "At times I feel like a cross between an old hellfire-and-brimstone minister and a snake-oil salesman. 'Trust me!' You know?"

 ....Questions about his background are addressed, but not in depth. No, he doesn't have any photos of Grandfather. "We never had cameras when we were kids.... We were too busy doing everything." His record, Brown in­sists, speaks for itself....