The Faith Healers is a 1987 book by conjurer and skeptic James Randi. In this book, Randi documents his exploration of the world of faith healing, exposing the tricks that religious con artists use in their healing shows to fool the audience. Randi's expertise in performing stage magic and mentalism allowed him to easily identify the same techniques when used by con artists. Randi analyzes the methods used by A. A. Allen, Ernest Angley, Willard Fuller, WV Grant, Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Ralph DiOrio and others, exposing their tricks. Popoff was dramatically exposed as a fraud by Randi on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Randi expended considerable effort contacting people who were supposedly cured by these faith-healers. He found there was a lot of disappointment and not a single verifiable case of healing. Randi describes the "calling out trick," the "wheelchair trick," the "leg-stretching trick," the "how many fingers trick," the "shotgun technique," as well as methods used to gain personal information about potential victims in the audience. He also describes methods used, often by mail, to convince people to make large donations.
Randi also examines claims of miracles at holy sites such as at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes again finding fraud and no verifiable cases of healing.
Prior to turning his attention to faith healing, Randi spent many years exposing fraud by psychics and mediums such as the famous Uri Geller. An updated edition of this book was released in 1989, and an e-book edition was released in 2011.
Contents and synopsis of the e-book edition
The information in the book, summarized below, was correct when the book was originally published in 1987, except information in the update section which was correct when that was first published in 1989. Many of the faith healers discussed in the book have Wikipedia pages which may have more up to date information on their activities. These pages can be accessed by clicking on their names, when highlighted, in the synopsis below. Some have died since the book was written; reference to these individuals matches Randi's depiction in the book.
Foreword The foreword is written by Carl Sagan, author of numerous science books for the general public, creator of the Cosmos television series about the mysteries of the universe, promoter of the SETI program to search for scientific evidence of extraterrestrial life, and author of over 600 scientific papers (see his Wikipedia page). Sagan starts off discussing Hippocrates and his success in promoting the scientific method in medicine. He points out the difficulty in getting people to view disease rationally, especially in regards to medically incurable diseases, leaving them vulnerable to people who falsely claim to be able to cure for their personal gain. Sagan characterizes Randi as "fearless, angry, anecdotal, crotchety, and ecumenically offensive"; he describes the book as a tirade; but, he says, "We ignore him at our peril."
Introduction James Randi worked for 40 years as a professional conjurer, e.g. a performer of stage magic. Having seen all the tricks, he became an expert at detecting fakery and was able to apply this knowledge to examine claims about the occult, supernatural, and paranormal. He later turned his expertise to claims about faith healing which led to the publication of this book. For a time he and his colleagues followed various well known faith healers around the country, recording their activities. As a result, they were the first investigators to expose the faith healing racket. He notes that in spite of the extensive evidence they had gathered, law enforcement failed to act. Philosopher Paul Kurtz defines three types of faith: intransigent faith which is unaffected by any sort of contrary evidence, willful belief which is choosing to believe with little or no evidence either way, and hypotheses based on evidence. Randi comments that probably only those in the third category are likely to be persuaded to change their minds. He goes on to discuss the "Freireich experimental plan (FEP)" which was first described by Emil J. Freireich, as an illegitimate experimental method that allows ineffective medical treatments including faith healing to appear to be effective even if the patient gets worse or dies.
The origins of faith healing Many religions have a history of faith healing with holy objects. The Roman Catholic Church in particular has saved thousands of relics of saints (clothing, bone fragments, etc.) that are supposed to have healing powers. Beginning in the early 1300s, European royalty claimed to have the ability to heal by touching. In the 1500s, Christian reformer Martin Luther took credit for miraculous cures. In the 1600s, a practitioner called Valentine Greatrakes claimed to be able to cure a variety of diseases and acquired a large following. Many tombs and shrines were claimed to have curative powers. Lourdes in particular became a pilgrimage site for those in need of a cure. Established in 1876, it receives 5million visitors annually. Although it is claimed that 30,000 are healed every year, only 64 in total were accepted as "miracles" by the Catholic Church. Lacking any proof in most cases that the ailments were real, Randi points out that the principle of parsimony (or Occam's razor) would suggest that most, if not all, of the supposed cures did not actually occur. Randi explores some of the difficulties of examining claims and discusses in detail two claims from Lourdes.
Faith healing in modern times Rev. William Branham is often credited with originating present day evangelical/fundamentalist faith healing in the 1940s. Radio became an important mechanism for expanding the audience and was used extensively by Rex Humbard and Oral Roberts. Faith healing is quite similar to witchcraft and the practices of African witch doctors in terms of healing by supposedly driving evil spirits from the body. Randi points out that thousands of doctors and nurses are members of the International Order of St. Luke the Physician, an Episcopal organization, thereby acknowledging that they accept that faith healing is valid. St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia offers faith healing services and Randi requested evidence of the many cures that they claimed to have achieved. He received no response. Estimates indicate that tens of millions of Americans are watching televangelists. Many televangelists promote speaking in tongues, telling their followers that the babble that they produce is a secret language to God. Randi recorded the babble produced by one member of a congregation in Toronto. When he played the recording back at a later time, the preacher gave a completely different translation of what was said than he had given the first time. The healers often tell their subjects that absolute, unquestioning faith is required to achieve lasting healing of their ailment. If the healing process fails, then "obviously" the recipient failed to "keep the faith," thus imposing a burden of guilt on the recipient. Many healers practice striking the recipient on the forehead, after which they are expected to fall backwards into the crowd and make some loud exclamation as the evil is supposedly driven from their body. This is known as "slaying in the spirit." Practitioners often use the technique of "calling out," in which they pick out audience members they do not know and disclose information about them, supposedly acquired by their special powers Randi and his associates attended many evangelists' performances and determined their methodology. In many cases, the information had been acquired earlier, before the performance, either by the minister or their associates by simply talking to early arrivals. Other times, questionnaires or "healing cards" were handed out before the show and allowed the desired information to be obtained. During a performance by W. V. Grant, one of Randi's associates brought in a Bible with some false family records recorded inside the front cover that Grant examined before the show. Sure enough, Grant repeated back the bogus information after calling out Randi's associate in the audience, giving the audience the impression that he received this information directly from God.
Religious views of faith healing As Randi puts it "Every denomination, sect, and cult of the Christian religion has attempted to explain, condone, deny, embrace, or denounce faith healing." Televangelist Glen Cole openly ridiculed those who chose medication for their illnesses rather than faith healing. The United Church of Canada first called faith healing illegitimate, but later changed their view to say that some of it was authentic without offering any evidence. The Christian Century (Episcopalian) called faith healing a heresy. Many Christian religions still accept the existence of demons of various sorts and the idea that they can be present in an individual, which is actively promoted by faith healers. Demons provide an explanation for suffering and disease as well as the possibility of a cure by casting them out. The Catholic Church has an official rite called exorcism to be used for this purpose. In 1962 the Lutheran Church came out against the "religious quackery" of faith healers and blamed it on their desire for money and personal power.
Financial aspects Faith healer A. A. Allen used to tell his followers that poverty was caused by demons, and he did not hesitate to demand donations from them in exchange for his efforts to remove them. Gene Ewing originated the idea of "seed faith" wherein money given to his church acts as a seed which, through the faith of the donor, will supposedly grow and make the donor wealthy. The IRS allows money acquired by faith healers in the operation of their "religion" to be exempt from taxes. The IRS seldom, if ever, examines the actual activities of religious organizations. Oral Roberts once announced in 1987 that if he was not able to raise a certain large sum of money by a certain date that God would take him to heaven before his time. Peter Popoff, a faith healer operating in Upland, California, had a walk-in vault in his home containing a large jewelry case with diamonds and gold bars and a large quantity of cash. After his performances, his wife Liz would pack the cash and checks collected into a large suitcase which they would take home with them. They lived a lavish lifestyle. His performance tricks were exposed by Randi on the Johnny Carson show in February 1986. This substantially reduced his income but did not eliminate it entirely. W. V. Grant and his wife were similar to the Popoffs in their financial success and expensive habits, owning numerous cars, expensive antique furniture and wearing lots of gold jewelry. Regarding Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, formerly of televisions "PTL Club", Randi says they "established in the mind of the public that money-hungry evangelists can flout every standard of moderation that has been established in civilization."
Mail operations of faith-healers