Alex Chiu
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Alexander Yuan-Chun Chiu (born February 8, 1971) is a San Francisco, California businessman who has invented a number of products that he claims achieve remarkable results in healing.
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[edit] Products
[edit] Magnetic devices
Alex Chiu markets plastic magnetic rings which he calls Immortality Devices. He claims that these can arrest and even reverse the aging process, lessen the intensity of most diseases, and lead to physical immortality when worn nightly. Chiu believes that the rings work by increasing the body's "cellular magnetic flux".
The rings are worn on the pinky finger of each hand and must be aligned in a certain direction. Wearing them incorrectly is supposed to reverse their effect, greatly harming the user's health.
Chiu provides free directions on how to construct his Immortality Devices. The devices consist of an adjustible ring of plastic (grey or white for normal 1000 Gauss, black for neodymium at 21,000 gauss) with teeth. Two magnets are set in each ring, one above and one below the finger, and they are marked on the plastic with a positive and negative sign.
His rings come in a cheaper and weaker variety of earth magnet, and neodymium, a superior form which he claims have a much stronger effect on health. Chui also sells magnetic foot braces, which accompany the rings.
Chui has claimed in the past to be working on a true "heal the handicap" machine, based upon coil magnets, and possibly electromagnetism. In 2006 he abandoned the concept claiming it did more harm than good and developed the alternative Gorgeouspil and Super Chi Flush products.
[edit] Food and ingested medicine
Chiu's Gorgeouspil is advertised as being able to make its users "more and more gorgeous everyday", and Chiu himself uses them. If taken daily in conjunction with the rings, Chiu believes that Gorgeouspils can alter the appearance of the user, eventually making them look "even more gorgeous than supermodels". He claims that his pill can change facial bone structure, shrink the skull, straighten the spine and cure any physical deformity. None of these claims have been independently verified.
Chiu's website also offers a Super Chi Flush herbal compound which he implies can cure herpes and cancer, although the site is careful to make no specific medical claims.
Chiu has also sold American ginseng and green tea through his website, which he believes enhance the effects of his immortality rings. He has also sold some sort of rose oil product.
The Gorgeouspil ingredients: Nettle leaf, Peppermint leaf, Garlic, Noto Ginseng, American Ginseng, St. John's Wort extract, Vaterian Root, Onion, Wild Yam, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Dong Quai, and Magnesium Stearate. (100% vegetarian)
His other herbal Super Chi Flush's ingredients: Dong Quai, Korean ginseng, Hoelen, Ramulus Mori, Shitake, Reishi, Kelp, barley grass, Marjoram, Basil, Thyme, Parsley, Ginkgo Biloba, American ginseng, ginger, black pepper, and Licorice. Most of it is Chinese herbs. Also 130 mg of Vitamin C in every teaspoon of Chi Flush.
[edit] Fortune telling
Chiu's website sells Bible Decoder software which he claims can predict the future by observing the implications of secret codes in the Old Testament, using existing bible code systems.
Chiu also believes in the use of I-Ching in telling the future.
[edit] Chiu's views
Chiu's claims about his products are based on the thousand-year-old Chinese alternative health treatment, magnet therapy, which he believes he has perfected with his ring system. Several pre-existing theories on his page are credited as being his own invention.
He is considered by skeptics to be an infamous snake oil salesman and quack.
[edit] Business dealings
Some claim that he has not honoured his refund policy because he claims his customers are lying or incapable of knowing that his device actually works.
[edit] Free rings for advertising
Chiu offers an online program which distributes free rings for clicks on a banner or link that directed to his site. For 80 clicks, an advertiser affiliate would receive a free pair of basic rings. This advertising tactic is largely responsible for his internet cult fandom and large levels of expansion. Some had claimed difficulty with this offer, in a variety of areas:
- Problems logging into the affiliate page at times.
- Time consuming calculation of unique clicks
- Lack of correlation between unique click count and bar-graph stated click counts
- Clicks lost when order is placed, yet order is not sent out
- The number of clicks required seems to increase, from previously 50, to 80 under direction of a business associate.
- Order said to have been sent out not received.
Most cases have been resolved due to Alex's keeping a phone line open at all times which he does personally answer. In one case, when the free earth magnet rings were not received, to make up for the trouble and delay he sent out Neodymium rings as compensation.
As time progresses many of the problems experiences have either been ironed out or are easily resolvable.
His website is available in a number of languages, including English, and has links to pages explaining his plans for, among other things, a world-wide corporation, a device for teleportation and a method for exactly divining the future. One of his web pages [1] claims that he is not Taiwanese but Chinese and that his device for eternal life is not designed for Taiwanese who deny being Chinese.
According to his website, he follows the Jewish religion and bases much of his philosophy on the Old Testament (referred to as the Tanakh by Jews). He claims that immortality is possible as described in the Tanakh [2], and offers predictions as to who he believes will be the Messiah. [3]. He is also a supporter of the state of Israel, believing its establishment to be a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
Alex Chiu has also achieved internet fame through pop-culture flash movies called animutations.
He has also been featured on the podcast Infected with Martin Sargent. While in a cemetery, he said to Martin Sargent "I am a loser, girls don't like me...it doesn't help [that] girls keep on thinking you're Frankenstein, because, you know, you think you can make people live forever." The podcast also featured Alex Chiu singing a karaoke version of Alphaville's Forever Young.
While not the rings specifically, magnet therapy in general has been featured in the Penn & Teller: Bullshit episode on Alternative Medicine, where it was shown to probably be placebo. A recent study does make the claim over its use in patients healing from Polio. [citation needed]
[edit] Google
As of August 2006, Alex Chiu's website has been blocked by Google, for unknown reasons; nevertheless it can be found through Yahoo and other search engines.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Alex Chiu's interview with Slashdot.org
- Interview of Alex Chiu in the Wackorama.
- Webdrifter Episode 1 - The Immortal Beauty of Alex Chiu (Interview with Martin Sargent)
