- The CIA's failed efforts to make UFO witnesses guillableDuring 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'.
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 extraterrestrial civilizations that have been visiting this planet since day one , and yet he chose to take what he considered to be 'the secret'of that with himself to the grave. But he is not dead yet , and still lives in our memories as a fun and entertaining person and extremely skillful master illusionist - but one who chose to let conscience and common sense step aside in his what could then be termed scientific research.
Today the current image of a scientific theory has changed - the burden of proof lies on it's proponent , not vice versa. Lots of seriously unattended one star reviews that hold important clues into how the mind of the insane 'scientific researchers into claims of the paranormal'functioned during the 60's , 70's and 80's and even 90's era. Today anyone can form an opinion on anything in an otherwise secular Divided States of America which had once been united federally. Any talk about where the money goes and what the state does with it really was kept under wraps at the insane asylums. UFO's and ET's were forbidden subjects and UFO abductees were at particular risk of being removed as witnesses by being victimized by quacker.
Many genuine psychics have been exposed as fraudalent in the past and this continues to be so in the present and from the hoaxers we learn even more about how to discern truth from fiction. Today hoaxes of the paranormal are carried out as part of private organizational propaganda against the civilians such as what is often termed 'the staged alien invasion'. To see a UFO or talk about reality the way it really is , made one dangerous during those times. William Cooper emphasized over and over again the concept of the importance of being dangerous in the eyes of those on the lunatic fringe who now run the show behind the scenes , the 'men behind the curtain' that are so carefully not mentioned in otherwise extremely fun to read books such as this.
They all seem to believe in the same official explanations which makes those official explanations even more guillable , such as that a gang of mad cavemen is responsible fir 9 - 11 rather than men in suits who can orchestrate the attacks from the nearest location.
Yet to talk about what was going on behind the scenes which would lead to the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank and the IceSave dept scandal in Iceland would doom many a perfectly sane and reliable soul into isolation and federal imprisonment at a facility disguised in the form of a mental asylum. So much effort has been put into covering up that the Holy Inquisition managed to escape and move underground in one form and stay into the open in the other that such a critical comment might not otherwise be posted by amazon.com - so I will have to be extremely careful and respectful towards the criticism that others have put on this book until so far both negatively and positively with a particular emphasis on the negative side.
The great skeptics brought us many fantastic new discoveries in science and technology but they also saw themselves in the same role as the Holy Inquisitionists , constantly on the look after lonely souls they could persecute in order to convince that soul to join their cult whose popularity was ever lessening by the passing of each new month.
You may think that secular materialism has died out alongside creationism or '3000 yers or else'in society , but you're sadly mistaken.
If that had been the case then people would be seriously interested in not keeping the mindset of the Inquisitionists near them. But unfortunately no , no , no , no , no that didn't happen and the power of the Inquisitors grew and enstrengthened until they could make a phonecall and munch anybody's mind by the minute and care not for the consequences because they were being protected by the federal government , itself run by insane people who wanted to keep their insanity away from the preying eyes , beating hearts and sensitive noses of private investigators.
After James Randi's youtube.com channel had been removed by the youtube.com team , it was realized by the whole wide world that a new version of skeptic was coming into being - one who can look at each claim of evidence for the emergence of a particular , paranormal or related event from multiple dimensional perspective.
I feel myself about this book , and I ironically admit I am judging it by the cover and have studied it at the academy , that it's text is mostly quackery. When the Inquisitionists began to lose control over the American and Russian nation , the Soviet Empire dissolved and the consciousness shift began in full force. Until then , untold numbers of brains had been sucked out from the skulls of their unwilling subjects and an equally untold number of people treated with bizzare and horrifying treatments which were justified on the ground of being 'psychological and therefore of benefit to science'.
The insane obsession the Inquisitors had with keeping a low profile and looking good at the same time resulted in tens of millions of people being unable to cope with the reality of their insanity and their trash being taught even in schools and places where it didn't belong.
Students who could read between the lines were told to put up and shut up if they came across any important clue which might expose the mind - set of the author of that book , or Carl Sagan as a payed CIA debunker ranking alongside Philip Klass in that field , even though two astronomers are said according to Dr. Steven M. Greer to have seen Carl Sagan's payroll.
The family lives and social lives of these 'gurus from the west'were as sorry as their mental state in many cases because they could not control their urges to attack innocent people and accuse them of being insane.
Even as I write there are still tens of millions of people being incarcerrated at mental asylums today who are mostly perfectly normal as a result of their tormentors having taken literally the claims of secular materialists. All this nonsense is focused primarily in my view on robot worship - if people did not behave , look like or treat others as if they were robots , then they had to be insane. The author of the book The Primal Scream defined this mental condition as neurosis and Sigmund Freud suggested that the individual be subjected to imprisonment by the masses in order to prevent himself from being dangerous to himself or his own environment , much less sanity. John Lennon put it brilliantly when he said he felt that his society was being run by insane people for maniacal ends and that he feared that he was going to be put away as insane if he talked about it when in public.
But he chose to put his fear aside and speak out these brilliant words.
As a result of all this habblebabble , our society has become so insane today that even the most dedicated conspiracy reseaarcher has hard time connecting the dots and has to spend unaccountable hours doing so.
'The Great Satan'of the Inquisitionist cult disguised as 'UFO skeptics and exposers of faith healers'was simply the people , and in particular those who read newspapers and watched television and drew conclusions from any research they conducted on an entirely independent basis.
This frightened the Inquisitors because they knew that once they admitted that they couldn't control or doupt that which cannot be doupted then the state could no longer afford paying them their services , and so began the mania about constructing all kinds of imaginative psychoses and neuroses such as ADHD , ADD and Asperger's.
To be able to make it through the day during this terrible time , a five children family mother had to work night and day and focus only on raising her children and being extremely un - emotional , with the result being a society run by an insane , seriously neurotic higher class whose sane members were not easily noticed due to the tendency of it's insane members to gather all kinds of pathological liars around them in order to hide the true identity of their sanity which would lead others to it's source.
That was considered 'likely to create the better world'that everyone wanted and therefore the least of all the insane dictators of the democratic dictatorship wanted - an informed population capable of critical thinking and drawing conclusions based on independent thought and research and independence of expression.
James Randi may disagree with me on my critical analysis in my review and that is fine , because I am not attempting to impose that view upon him or his followers.
They will nonetheless reverse the meaning of that statement in a lousy effort to keep their crunching empire from further collapse. I have very rarely been cheated on when people have come to visit me with incredible tales of paranormal events , and even in the case of those claimants who were pranking I saw no desire to request anyone to undergo any treatment of any kind. I would instead use the opportunity to learn more about the world of the paranormal , and important things such as where to draw the line between fantasy , imagination and creative fiction.
wishing you all a happy summer this year,
Rating:
- Heartbreaking ExposeFaith 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 DebunkerOverall, 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.
Buy this book; read it; read it again, and then start lending it to everyone you know. The lessons of this book can help future believers and skeptics to identify, avoid, and expose the current frauds among us, such as Benny Hinn.
Rating:
- Not bad but could have been betterThe 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.
Rating:
- Fascinating from cover to cover!I read a lot of science and skepticim books, so I don't usually get to "into" books, emotionally speaking. But this book is much, much different... so many times, i was absolutly infuriated at how evil people can be. The amount of physical, emotional, spiritual and financial pain that is caused by faith healers is unforgivable. Randi produces an overwhelming amount of evidence for each faith healer he investigates, showing without a shadow of a doubt that it is a giant scam. Unfortunatly, the truly faithful are never bothered by any such evidence... they believe Randi to be "of the devil."
This is a truly remarkable book, that will open everyones eyes to the absolute nastyness of faith healers, their unsatiable greed, and the faithful that throw thousands of dollars at them, hoping to recieve God's blessings.
Unfortunatly, I doub't that anyone that needs to hear the information that Randi has in this book will ever read it.