The Faith Healers

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 615.852
EAN: 9780879755355
Edition: Upd Sub
ISBN: 0879755350
Label: Prometheus Books
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 318
Publication Date: 1989-05
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Studio: Prometheus Books

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Celebrated magician James Randi uncovers the faith-healing fakery found in the disturbing performances of evangelist Peter Popoff, W.V. Grant, Leroy Jenkins, Oral Roberts, Pentecostal A.A. Allen, Roman Catholic Ralph DiOrio, and Pat Robertson. Illustrated.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Leo Perras
In 'Making Miracles: An Exploration into the Dynamics of Self-Healing', by Paul C. Roud (Paperback - Nov. 1990), the case of Leo Perras, who was healed by Father DiOrio, is fully covered in 26 pages. Oddly enough, Leo Perras was never even mentioned in James Randi's book. He does, however, claim that Father DiOrio never did any real faith healing. Strange...

Also, I saw the BBC documentary 'Homeopathy, the test (2002)' and in the end I was left wondering: why would Montagnier, a brilliant scientist, publish a phony test, which he knew would be thoroughly investigated afterwards (this was the main condition for having his test publicised).

There was another scientist in this docu who repeated this test and came to the same conclusions as Montagnier (but she backed off when Randi threatened to step in. Can't say I blame her...).

Here a few links which show that it's not so easy to just say homeopathy can't work:

[..] Ohh, okay, looks like Amazon doesn't alow links in the reviews... Here's some text then:

[The second trial, published in the February (2010) issue of the International Journal of Oncology, demonstrated that certain homeopathic remedies exerted preferential cytotoxic effects against 2 lines of breast cancer cells. These effects ultimately led to the delay and/or arrest of cell cycles and to apoptosis.

The authors note that, in the laboratory setting, the cytotoxic effect of 2 of the homeopathic remedies evaluated in this study, Carcinosin and Phytolacca, were similar to the activity of paclitaxel (Taxol).

"We felt that homeopathy needed to be tested in the same way that we test new chemotherapeutic drugs," said lead author Moshe Frenkel, MD, founder and former medical director of the Integrative Medicine Program at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, in a statement. "We were quite impressed to find that homeopathic remedies have similar effects to chemotherapy on breast cancer cells but without affecting normal cells, a very exciting finding."]

I guess it won't do you much good trying to stay in the safe shelter of science. As someone said: 'science has nothing meaningful to say about the things that are really important to people'.

By the way, Luc Montagnier publiced another very interesting study lately (google for: 'Electromagnetic Signals Are Produced by Aqueous Nanostructures Derived from Bacterial DNA ... Read More

Rating:

- Yet another sad example of Quack Journalism
THE CIA'S FAILURE TO MAKE UFO ABDUCTEES APPEAR GUILLABLE.
During the 1950's and 1960's the Holy Inquisition was at the height of it's powers. It had not truly died out at all because worldwide persecution against 'supposedly insane'people was taking place inside every person's home all across America while genuinely insane people were running the country and controlling the country's banking system. Yet it had been made look for too long that this terrifying organization had ceased to exist 'a few centuries ago'. Unlike last time , however , this time's 'Holy Inquisition'was people who had decided to work together to discredit and ridicule those that such organizations as 'the Holy Inquisition'and related political bodies had been doing in the past.
In the book The Faith Healers James Randi purports to expose every person who claims to have healing capabilities as a quacker and their science therefore a quackery.
Problem is , to be considered scientific I was taught when I was young that a theory had to be unproveable and once it had been proved it could no longer be considered scientific at all because the content of it's core subject could be measured like today's ghosts and ufo occupants.
We live in a shady , shadowy world run by people who are even more insane than those who ran the world in the 1960's. To talk about that has often invited disaster in the lives of those who dared to do so - those who dared to be critics of authority! Anyone who had problems with authority , anyone who felt that their behavior was being influenced by aliens , anyone who had witnessed a political crime and the innocent as well were 'guilty'of a worldwide , essentially non - existent epidemic of 'supposed insanity'.
Tens of millions of people , most of whom were perfectly sane and rational were incarcerrated into mental asylums and subjected to horrible , unimaginable maltreatment with numerous of the asylums being so haunted today that only extremely strong nerves can dare to enter their dark hallways but fortuately those are mostly museums and hotels these days and serve brilliantly as such. James Randi was one of the most senior and important figures in the history of magic trickery and showmanship during the 1980's and the 1990's , and after several scandals and after the existence of UFO's had been proved quite thoroughly , he lost his reptuation permanently. He knew that UFO's existed and that there is indeed an afterlife and that there are ... Read More

Rating:

- Heartbreaking Expose
Faith Healers / 0-87975-535-0

"Faith Healers" shows James Randi at his finest as an author and a dogged exposer of professional frauds. Carefully, Randi lays out his foundations, showing the basic how and why of faith healing scams. Then he lavishly devotes each following chapter to the main stars of faith healing at the time of publication: he runs the gamut of Popoff, Robertson, Roberts, and so many more. Each chapter methodically outlines their claims, the format of their services, the evidence that the healer is a fraud, follow-up interviews with the victims, and the attempts (usually ignored) to provide the 'healer' with a forum to produce evidence of their exceptional claims.

To my surprise and delight, Randi also uncharacteristically devotes space to explaining the methods behind the tricks of the faith healers - a practice he avoids in his other debunking books such as Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions because he feels a responsibility to shield the genuine entertainers and performers of the magic profession. In this case, however, the tricks used by the faith healers are unique to their scam and presumably Randi hurts no one but them in revealing their tricks.

The saddest thing about this book is the number of deaths recorded. Time after time, a faith healer demands that a "healed" devotee fling away their crutches, back braces, or other medicinal aids, and run up and down the aisles for the benefit of the TV cameras. The fact that the victim must be hospitalized the next day for a collapsed spine, heart attack, or other debilitating relapse does not apparently bother these men and women at all. Most heartbreaking of all, however, are the people who are convinced that they are healed and will not listen to their doctors who continue to insist that they have cancer, diabetes, or tumors. I know that this aspect of research would have been very hard for anyone, and I respect Randi greatly for having the strength to carry on the interviews and research necessary to produce this important book in the face of such overwhelming pain and heartbreak.

If you read no other Randi book, you should at least read "Faith Healers", to understand the damage that these scammers cause.

Rating:

- Fraud, Faith, and the Debunker
Overall, this is an excellent book about the techniques and history of faith healers. These frauds are not solely limited to big-tent, revival healers, but also for the Catholic church, Lourdes, and New-Age psychics. Randi, in addition to his associates, disguises himself and spends countless hours infiltrating the operations of faith healers.

This is not an academic treatise, and Randi is not a professional writer, so the text does wander into tangential stories, but overall, it stays focused on the horribly deceptive and deeply offensive methods used by frauds to give false impressions of healings.

Even more revealing than the facts of the frauds are the responses of the faith healers and their followers to Randi's questions. The healers bend facts every which way and refuse to provide any evidence for their claims. They will boldly assert that they want everyone to challenge their healings, but when Randi does so, they run and hide. Believers who are placed in wheelchairs at the beginning of the service by the evangelist's team and later receive a miracle healing by being able to walk (even though they could the whole time), will insist that they were healed.

Even worse, evangelists like Pat Robertson will "heal" an old man on national television and make him get out of his wheelchair for a few, feeble steps to prove the healing. But he never mentions that the "healed" man dies 10 days later of the very disease for which he was "healed".

These frauds blame the sick when a "healing" does not stick. They insist that there must be some secret sin or lack of faith that caused the disease to return. By doing this, they condemn the sick to wallow in guilt, self-loathing, and grief, as they give away even more of their few possessions to prove their faith and regain their "healing".

Be warned, this book can really make you angry. When you learn how the healers fleece the sickest and the poorest, you cannot help but become angry. Sick individuals pour their hearts out in letters to these evangelists, who promise to read every singe letter, yet in the end, the money is removed from the envelopes, and the letters are sent to the shredder.

This is a very special book. Randi and friends have dedicated their lives to unmasking these frauds and concentrate their years of research into this book. It is a singular, valuable view of how religion can destroy the lives of believers.
... Read More

Rating:

- Not bad but could have been better
The book exposed Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts, and others as the fakes they were/are. What I didn't like was the way Randi simply dismisses Earnest Angley as not an outright fraud, but someone who mistakenly thought he has some kind of powers. I know someone who was a Security Guard during one of Angely's shows. Backstage, the people waiting to be "healed" were all there, perfectly healthy and mobile. During the show, these people walk to the stages with canes, crutches, walkers, etc., and are miraculously "healed". Angely makes anyone working backstage sign an agreement never to reveal what they see backstage. Had Randi investigated this further, he could have had a scandal that would have dwarfed Popoff. So for that, only 3 stars. Oh, and I do believe there are genuine cases of faith healing. Kathryn Kuhlman has at least one documented case that I know of. In 1925 Orr lost the sight in one eye from a steel mill accident, when a piece of molten metal the size of a grain of wheat went into his eye. The injury left a permanent scar on his eyeball (Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry Claim Case #27413). Twenty-two years later on May 4th, 1947, Orr and his wife attended a service led by Kuhlman. Long story short, the scar had apparently "melted" away! Doctors who attended Orr were amazed. They said it would have been more likely for the entire eyeball to dissolve that just the tough scar tissue. This case is well documented and is a genuine miracle. Of course, Randi would dismiss such a case, since it didn't happen right in front of him.

But at any rate, buy the book for someone who wants to send money to a Televangelist (excluding Day of Discovery and a handful of shows that aren't simply con games). In fact, it should be read by everyone. And yes, I am a Christian.