Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1 - The Origins of Faith-Healing A Plethora of Religious Flotsam The Royal Touch The Most Famous Christian Shrine Virgins Galore The Afflicted Visionary There Is a Baby in the Bath Water The Problems of Examining Claims A Remarkable Case from Lourdes The Search for Evidence on Micheli The Latest Official “Miracle” Chapter 2 - Faith-Healing in Modern Times The Pattern Is Established A Similarity to Witchcraft An Orthodox Service It’s Magic Sacred Babble A Minor Test The Most Important Ingredient A Trick with Biblical Roots The “Gift of Knowledge” A Smooth Act The Family Bible Tells All A Disclaimer An Old Act The Art of Mnemonics All Sorts of Trickery Chapter 3 - The Church View More Orthodox Views How Do Their Associates Feel About the Faith-Healers? Caution: Demons at Work Send in the Demons The Roman Catholic Bestiary Christianity and Voodoo: Are They That Different? An Early Skeptic Anointing by the Anointed A Lutheran Point of View Chapter 4 - The Financial Aspects God as Terrorist Saved from the Unthinkable Gold Bars and Cut Diamonds A Very Private Matter The Mail Operation Living High on the Hog Religion, Texas-style Revelations of a Decorator More Real Estate High Living in Texas, Too A Bold Admission Chapter 5 - The Mail Operations of Faith-Healers I Have a Little List The Biggest Little Mail Room in California The Eagle’s Nest Mail Room The Tulsa Postman’s Burden Copying a Good Idea Faulty Computer Programming Chapter 6 - A. A. Allen and Miracle Valley A Disclaimer—Just in Case A Colorful Start A Tough Customer The Evidence for Healing The Dream Ends The King Is Dead Chapter 7 - Leroy Jenkins and the $100,000 Challenge A Fortuitous Encounter Trouble in Paradise and a Touching Defense Suspicious Signs and Wonders A Man with a Lot of Enemies The Preacher in Prison Enter a New Character, the Reverend Peter Popoff Caught in the Act Back in the Saddle Again A Simple Act to Follow Chapter 8 - W. V. Grant and the Eagle’s Nest The Big Operator from Big D Diversity of Operations The Elusive Truth Miracle Time How Blind Is “Blind”? A Careful Observer The Wheelchair Trick A Theologian’s Opinion Behind the Scenes Does Grant Ever Heal Anyone? An Unhappy Customer The Pretending Game Not Blind Enough to Be Deceived The Media Attitude A Devastating Exposé in Rochester An Odd Coincidence The Story Starts Falling Apart The Haitian Orphanages W. V. Grant Replies to WOKR-TV A Brother in Trouble Another Well-Informed Reporter The Trash Detail A Sad Record of Problems with No Solutions The Written Evidence The “Leg-Stretching” Miracle Celebrities at His Feet A Disillusioned Employee A Brooklyn Encounter with Grant An On-the-Seene Report The Interior Decorator Tells All Chapter 9 - Peter Popoff and His Wonderful Machine A Rellglous Entrepreneur A Major Exposure The Leaflet Campaign Revelations Sophisticated Technology at Work An Intended Deception Case for the Defense A Valuable Colleague The Electronic Evidence A Different Brand of People They’ll Believe Anything The Popoff Camp Answers by Mail Backs to the Wall An Unhappy Toiler in the Vineyard And Then There’s the Other Sherrill Family An Important Character One Broken Promise Too Many Electronics to the Rescue The “Russian Bibles” Vandalism Scam The Plot Thickens The Vandals Strike The Appeal to Repair the Devil’s Work The Smoking Videotape Selling the Snake Oil The Damning Evidence of Popoff’s Personal Involvement The Mail Campaign No Refunds in the Religion Business A Plea from a Colleague A Similar Case in Chicago Expert Advice Is Sought—and Ignored High-Powered Mail Chapter 10 - Oral Roberts and the City of Faith A Losing Proposition Divine Financial Advice Get Thee Behind Me, Poverty The Canvas Cathedral Economy-Size Miracles The Midas Touch A Few Paradoxes and Second Thoughts The Ultimate Presumption Chapter 11 - A Word of Knowledge from Pat Robertson The Political Power of the Evangelists Other Wonders, Too A Sour Note from a Colleague A Redefinition The TV Special to End Them All Chapter 12 - The Psychic Dentist and an Unamazing Grace Skimpy Evidence Going to the Top Trouble Down Under Improving the Account Dentistry by Alchemy A Serious, Direct Health Hazard The Shirley Temple of Faith-Healing Six More Failed Examples An Amazing Lack of Evidence and Loss of Memory The Gift of Knowledge Backfires Chapter 13 - Father DiOrio: Vatican-Approved Wizard Down Syndrome “Cured” A Superior’s Opinion More Incredible Claims, But No Evidence Sidestepping the Question The Heavy Burden of Guilt Chapter 14 - The Lesser Lights Danny Davis Kathryn (“The Great”) Kuhlman Daniel Atwood David Epley Brother (Reverend) Al (Warick) David Paul Ernest Angley The Happy Hunters Chapter 15 - Practical Limitations of Medical Science What Does Medical Science Offer? The Attitude of Orthodox Physicians The Experts Speak Up The French Attitude An Interested Anthropologist Looks at Faith-Healing Evangelists as Friends The Aim of Medical Science Chapter 16 - Where Is the Evidence? Ancient Precursors What You See Is Not What You Get An M.D. Refuses to Answer A Nlneteenth-Century Case and Its Conclusion Willful Blindness The Case of Rose Osha So What Harm Is Done, Anyway? The Nature of the Ailments The Elusive Proof The Mystery of the Discarded Crutches A Personal Experience in Canada The Anthropologist’s View Many Similar Conclusions A Proudly Quoted Miracle A Physician Answers My Request The Newspapers Have a Go at It Why Do They Continue to Believe? A Poor Body of Proof The Devil Known as Science The Refusal to Know A Religious Parallel The Art of Rationalization The Overlap of Magic and Science The Placebo Effect The Endorphin Effect Psychotherapy vs. Faith-Healing Keeping the Victims Dependent Standards of Evidence Oral Roberts Fails Examination An Epilepsy “Cure” by Peter Popoff A Nonexistent Tumor “Cured” by Peter Popoff The Bare Facts A Simple Challenge, Unanswered Chapter 17 - Legal Aspects Many More Cases of Dying Children A Wise Statement Seldom Heeded A Reluctance to Enforce the Law Other Legal Concerns Chapter 18 - Amen! Final Thoughts An Update Bibliography Appendix Also by James Randi The Truth About Uri Geller Houdini: His Life and Art (with Bert Sugar) Flim-Flaml Test Your ESP Potential Published 1989 by Prometheus Books. The Faith-Healers. Copyright © 1989 by James Randi. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Inquiries should be addressed to Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, New York 14228-2197, 716-691-0133, ext. 207. FAX: 716-564-2711. WWW.PROMETHEUSBOOKS.COM 03 02 01 8 7 6 5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Randi, James. The faith-healers. 1. Spiritual healing—Controversial literature. 2. Healers—Controversial literature. I. Title. BT732.5.R36 1987 615.8’.52 87-17241 ISBN 0-87975-369-2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper There was a small boy on crutches. I do not know his name, and I suspect I never will. But I will never forget his face, his smile, his sorrow. He is one of the millions robbed of hope and dignity by charlatans discussed in this book. Wherever and whoever he is, I apologize to him for not having been able to protect him from such an experience. I humbly dedicate this book to him and to the many others who have suffered because the rest of us began caring too late. Foreword by Carl Sagan Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered 2,500 years later by the Hippocratic Oath (a modified version of which is still commonly taken by medical students upon their graduation). But he is chiefly celebrated because of his efforts to bring medicine out of the pall of superstition and into the light of science. (A similar emergence of medical science from mysticism occurred a few centuries later in China under the tutelage of Bian Que.) In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates helped lay the foundations of the scientific method—urging careful observation, honest evaluation, and a willingness to admit the limitations of the physician’s knowledge. In a typical passage he wrote: “Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.” As knowledge of medicine has improved since the fourth century B.C., there is more and more that we understand and less and less that has to be attributed to divine intervention—either in the causes or in the treatment of disease. Childbirth and infant mortality have decreased, lifetimes have lengthened, and medicine has improved the quality of life for many people on Earth. But science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden. We are enjoined also to consider ourselves scientifically, to surmount as best we can our own hopes and wishes and beliefs, to view ourselves as we really are. We know that in looking deep within ourselves, we may challenge notions that give us great comfort in the face of the many terrors of the world. In a life short and uncertain, in a time when—precisely because of the success of medicine—people die mainly from medically incurable disease, it seems heartless to deprive them of the consolation of superstition when science cannot cure their anguish.