1952 ~ 2013
James Christian Torgersen, affectionately known by all as "Torg", was born on February 18, 1952 in Virginia to Earl and Ruth Torgersen. He passed from this world near midnight as Monday June 10 became Tuesday June 11, 2013. He was surrounded by four of his five children, Ashley, Bethany, Daniel and Katie, as well as his little sister Suzy. His daughter Caitlynn was always in his thoughts. 
As a child, Torg started on his lifelong mission for knowledge and innovation. He followed that mission both in the traditional way through organized education, and through his own experimentation, experience and research. Much of that centered on his deep love of nature. 
His traditional education included college and medical school at the University of Utah. He used that knowledge to join the forefront of teaching and learning about holistic medicine. As a member of the National Institute of Health, he went to seminars in Washington DC with other doctors and healers to discuss and promote non-western forms of healthcare and healing. 
His less traditional education came from his various life experiences. He helped his dad construct their family home from the ground up. That was how he gained his life long love of working with his hands. A love that he often used to help his friends with anything from leaky faucets to remodeled kitchens. 
If you asked Torg what he did he would tell you that he was an "Urban Shaman" (a person who walks in harmony with the earth, communes with the unseen world, and helps to facilitate healing). He did not consider it a career it was a description of who he was and what he represented and he took every opportunity he could to teach anyone who would listen that everybody could be an urban shaman. 
To promote his many varied ideas he founded the Open Mind Foundation, a not for profit corporation dedicated to research and development of non-western medicine, earth friendly and sustainable products and technologies. True to his love of nature, he was a founding member of a local off-grid, sustainable community called Safe Haven Villages where he designed a community for people to live in closer contact with the earth. He started or worked on countless other business ventures, and held the patents for several inventions. 
Torg was a modern day renaissance man, an author, healer, shaman, artist, inventor, spiritual adviser, friend, father, and grandfather. One of his great loves was art. His artistic pursuits included making drums, didgeridoos, flutes, walking sticks (or Wizard staffs, if you asked him) and wands; he made wood carvings, leather goods, jewelry and even some things that only he understood. 
A lifelong member of the LDS church, Torg cherished his faith. On a normal Sunday Torg would attend his LDS ward service in the morning then take the drum he made himself to Liberty Park to participate in the weekly drum circle. 
His legacy as an urban shaman will be carried on by his partner and closest friend Renee Shaw, and an enormous community of friends and family (biological and adopted) that are too vast to name. 
He was preceded in death by his father Gene Earl, and is survived by his mother Ruth, five younger brothers and sisters, his five children Ashley Torgersen Barba, Bethany Torgersen, Daniel Torgersen, Katie Torgersen and Caitlynn Stone, as well as his two grandchildren Madeline and Eleanor.