The Shaman and the Norwegian Princess

When an alleged conman falls in love with a real-life Princess. (Chapter 1 from The Europe Travelogue)

Greetings from Geiranger fjord in Norway.

The wedding venue: Union Hotel. Geirangerfjord, Norway.

Like Forrest Gump, I've ended up in some unexpected places on this trip through Europe.

Today, after 16 hours aboard a ferry, I'm in Geiranger, a tiny village perched at the foot of a Norwegian fjord, on the wedding day of an accused conman and cult leader with Norway’s Princess Martha Louise.

The groom is the self-styled shaman Durek Verret, a California opportunist whose colourful life includes allegations from a former female partner of migration fraud, from a former male partner of physical and emotional abuse ending in arrest, and from his own mother of lying about, among other things, his upbringing. Apparently he was not, as he claimed, a millionaire growing up in Sacramento.

He’s written a book on spiritual healing, with exercises on how to rid vaginas of bad spirits caused by having too many partners, and detailing how children cause their own cancers through their unhappy thoughts.