Faith Healing: Miracle or
dirty scam preying on the
desperate and gullible?
My money is on faith healing being a dirty scam preying on
the desperate and gullible but I guess I had better not
just leave it at that and present some kind of reasoning
behind my conclusion.
Exposed
The James Randi Million Dollar Challenge. Job done!! Hmmmm, it
would make for a very short article if I left it at just this,
and I guess I should present a couple of premises just to add
weight so let me digress.
We can start with the wonderful James Randi. Here is his bio
from Wiki:
James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7,
1928) is a Canadian-American retired stage magician and
scientific skeptic who has extensively challenged paranormal
and pseudoscientific claims. Randi is the co-founder of
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and the founder of the
James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). He began his career
as a magician under the stage name, The Amazing Randi, and
later chose to devote most of his time to investigating
paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he
collectively calls “woo-woo”. Randi retired from practicing
magic aged 60, and from the JREF aged 87.
Although often referred to as a “debunker“, Randi has said he
dislikes the term’s connotations and prefers to describe
himself as an “investigator”. He has written about the
paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He
was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny
Carson and was occasionally featured on the television program
Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
Mr James Randi
Prior to Randi’s retirement, JREF sponsored the One Million
Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offered a prize of
US$1,000,000 to eligible applicants who could demonstrate
evidence of any paranormal, supernatural or occult power or
event under test conditions agreed to by both parties. The
paranormal challenge was officially terminated by the JREF in
2015. The foundation continues to make grants to non-profit
groups that encourage critical thinking and a fact-based world
view.
Randi’s One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge was somewhat
swamped by crazy claimants so they had to eventually limit it
to well known personalities in the faith healing, TV psychic
world. There were very few takers, Yuri Geller had a few
attempts but strangely under controlled circumstances he was
never able to perform his psychic acts. Randi’s people reached
out and directly invited several other personalities such as
“psychics” Sylvia Browne, Leigh Catherine (aka Leigh-Catherine
Salway), Rosemary Altea. They all accepted but then failed to
make it happen. One cited as saying, “As expected – dodgy as
legally & set up to make it impossible to pass!”.
No faith healers were up to performing their “miracles” under
Randi’s clinical environments. Zip, zero, diddly squat, nada
and none!! If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed then
Mohammed will come to the mountain, and that is just what
Randi did. He used his investigative skills to expose several
high profile charlatan faith healers Including A. A. Allen,
Ernest Angley, Willard Fuller, WV Grant, Peter Popoff, Oral
Roberts, Pat Robertson, and Ralph DiOrio. He reported his
findings and debunking in his book The Faith Healers which had
the added bonus of a foreword by the great Carl Sagan. He went
on to expose the likes of Peter Popoff, James Hydrick. You can
see videos here relating to Yuri Geller, James Hydrick and
Peter Popoff by clicking on their names.
And it is not just James Randi exposing these con men. The TV
show Inside Edition expose Leroy Jenkins, ABC News have run
reports on PrimeTime Live exposing W V Grant. Grant for
instance relies on the fact that religious people wish to
preserve the illusion and dont want to give him away. He will
grab up a cane next to a member of the audience and tell them
not to use it and to run up and down the aisle. The cane will
however belong to the person next to the runner and the runner
actually has a wrist problem. He will seat walking audience
members in wheelchairs and get them to stand and walk, just in
case he has agents and confederates in the crowd.
Here we have a full length documentary by Derren Brown called
Miracles For Sale where he shows the tricks used by “healing
pastors” and how easy it is to trick the gullible. This is a
multi-million dollar industry, make no mistake about it. Video
here
So far I have just mentioned US faith healers, I have been
given a handful of names of some Nigerian pastors fleecing the
believers in West Africa with promises of blessed handkerchifs
being able to raise the dead. This is the claim of Pastor
Enoch Adeboye. The internet is awash with Christian websites
warning their congregation not to give this man money. Here
let me google that for you .
Tricks of the trade
Lengthening legs simply slipping a shoe off slightly
Healing blindness and deafness is usually partially sighted
people of hearing impaired being asked if they can hear or
see. Truth is they could hear and see what they were asked to
before the “healing”
Healing the lame is the charlatan grabbing the walking stick
of the person next to someone that is not lame and getting the
afflicted person to walk or run in the aisle.
Pastor giveth, pastor taketh away is when a healer tells a
believing member god told him that the member had cancer but
he could cure it with his healing hands. Then when the member
is tested for cancer some time later he has a “miraculous”
bill of clean health.
Hired stooges are employed to fake illness or disability
Psychic surgery is sleight of hand and chicken guts
Causing pain to a believer and specifically talking about this
pain as opposed to the pain they are afflicted with usually.
Then releasing a grip which is causing the pain and asking if
they still feel the caused pain.
The falling faithful is achieved through suggestion. Hypnotic
states induced through induction. Repetition of phrases and so
on.
https://thewordonthewordoffaithinfoblog.com/2009/05/26/ex-fait
h-healer/
Why, oh why, oh why?
Quite obviously on the part of the believers it is desperation
to save them from terminal illness or crippling pain. One can
understand their desperation, but why do they believe it
works?
There are several reasons we will look at:
Group fervour and chemical release
In my article The Science of Belief I went in to some detail
regarding the release of chemicals.
We just need look to the ancient Kung San tribe from Africa or
the Australian Aborigines. Homo sapien religious ritual can be
traced back to these 2 ancient people’s. Stemming from very
different parts of the world yet their rituals share striking
similarities, song and dance and trance like states.
Activities which engage some of those previously mentioned
powerful brain chemicals. The birth of religious fervour,
throw in a crowd and you have group fervour. Serotonin and
dopamine are released in these activities. More so if we are
engaging in movement, the more strenuous the more will be
released. Pleasure responses in the brain firing like crazy.
Lets add some epinephrine, norepinephrine, endorphines and
finally some oxytocin, the love chemical. The chemical
released in great amounts at childbirth which help the bond
between mother and child.
These chemicals are natural pain killers.
Placebo effect
Today, we know that patients who are given empty injections or
pills that they believe contain medicine can experience an
improvement in a wide range of health conditions.
This kind of fake or empty medicine is often called a
“placebo”, and the improvement this causes is called the
“placebo effect”.
One well-known example of the placebo effect involves a
physical feeling we are all familiar with: pain.
In 1996, scientists assembled a group of students and told
them that they were going to take part in a study of a new
painkiller, called “trivaricaine”.
Trivaricaine was a brown lotion to be painted on the skin, and
that smelled like a medicine. But the students were not told
that, in fact, trivaricaine contained only water, iodine and
thyme oil – none of which are painkilling medicines. It was a
fake – or placebo – painkiller.
With each student, the trivaricaine was painted on one index
finger, and the other left untreated. In turn, each index
finger was squeezed in a vice. The students reported
significantly less pain in the treated finger, even though
trivaricaine was a fake.
In this example, expectation and belief produced real results.
The students expected the “medicine” to kill pain; and, sure
enough, they experienced less pain. This is the placebo
effect.
Read a summary of the study: Mechanisms of Placebo Pain
Reduction. – Courtesy of NHS UK
Desperation and trust
I cannot blame someone that has lived a life in pain or with a
disability trying anything at all. I can blame the charlatans
that wilfully take these poor individuals money knowing full
well they can not cure them.
The believers hold the pastor as a trusted authority figure
and do not question his abilities.
In this article Sorry, I’ll Pray for you my fellow contributor
Davidian lists some of the dangers of inaction relating to not
seeking medical attention due to illogical beliefs.
In Summary
So there are some liars, cheats, con men and charlatans which
have been exposed, but this obviously doesn’t mean all are,
however we just need to ask a few simple questions to throw
light on the matter.
When will one of the healers cure an amputee?
When will one cure someone under strict lab conditions?
When can we expect healers to go to hospitals and cure the
sick for free?
When can we expect them to rush in to areas with outbreaks of
Ebola or similar?
Why do faith healers head straight for the hospital when they
are afflicted by a health problem?
Until we see them attempting some of these tasks I would say
we can deduce they are not miracle workers and merely dirty
scam artists preying on the desperate and gullible.
I do hope this article has thrown some light on the subject
for our readers – Until next time take care and question
everything
Alan the Atheist
All rights to Metallica:
\m/
\m/
Leper Messiah – Master of Puppets 1986
Spineless from the start
Sucked into the part
Circus comes to town
You play the lead clown
Please, please
Spreading his disease
Living by his story
Knees, knees
Falling to your knees
Suffer for his glory, you will
Time for lust, time for lie
Time to give your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you’ll get a better seat
Bow to Leper Messiah
Marvel at his tricks
Need your Sunday fix
Blind devotion came
Rotting your brain
Chain, chain
Join the endless chain
Stinking by his glamor
Fame, fame
Infection is the game
Stinking drunk with power, we see
Time for lust, time for lie
Time to give your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you’ll get a better seat
Bow to Leper Messiah
Witchery, weakening
Sees the sheep are gathering
Set the trap, hypnotize
Now you follow
Time for lust, time for lie
Time to give your life goodbye
Send me money, send me green
Heaven you will meet
Make a contribution
And you’ll get a better seat
Lie, lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie, lie