American Faith Healers

Keith Lockett - 1 November 1987

No two American faith healers are exactly alike since they are competing in a crowded market place, but they do have enough features in common to make a general survey possible. This account of how ‘big name’ healers work is put together from reports by skeptics who have attended their meetings.

1/ The general pattern of events. Meetings are held either in the preacher’s own chapel or, if in another city, in the largest auditorium in town, seating several thousand. In Houston, the Coliseum will be used; in San Francisco, the Cow Palace. It will be filled. The meeting begins with hymns, accompanied by a choir often of several hundred people, usually robed. There will be at least an organ but more often a band with electric guitars and percussion. Then follow prayers for healing, ‘speaking in tongue’ for everyone and various group activities, everyone is asked to wave their hands above their heads as a ‘wave offering’. Then, when excitement is at its height, the preacher appears. What is his message?

2/ The preacher must be described, for his appearance is as much part of his message as his words. He will be dressed in a dark, well-tailored suit, he will be squeaky clean, he will be earnest, he will be modest, even skeptics will be moved by his appeal. He will warn that hell and damnation await those who do not repent. It is not God’s will that anyone will suffer. He will explain at length that it is not he that heals, but Jesus.

He is merely the conduit through which divine healing flows. This healing is available to all who repent of their sins and who firmly believe that they will be healed. “All who wish to be healed will be healed— now, today!” “Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t heal a fly with a headache, it’s Doctor Jesus who heals” He will then move among the audience and perform some healing tasks, calling out the person’s name and ailment often striking the afflicted on the forehead, pushing them to the ground. As each ‘cure’ is effected, most give thanks to God for the healing and there are always cheers and applause from the audience and continuous cries of ‘Praise the Lord, Amen Amen’. There will then be a second sermon, to allow the temperature to drop a little and then a second set of healings. Collection buckets will be passed round at least twice. The whole meeting will last at least three hours and will be very efficiently run.

3/ How do healers know the names and ailments of their victims? The healers are adept at cold reading techniques and can usually recognize diseases. “I’m hearing Jack; I’m led to say, Jack; I see a Jack” and the victim replies “I’m Jack” to loud applause. The healer having spoken to the invalid some time before. The invalid thinks that the information is merely being confirmed. The audience thinks it’s a message from heaven. To help them, the sick are asked to fill out ‘prayer cards’ by the very efficient group of earnest young men who are aides to the chief healer. Various means are used to get this information to the healer. In some cases, the cards are ‘palmed’ or trick boxes are used. Alternatively the healer can easily memorise the basic facts before the service begins and while his ‘warm-up’ man is on. Skeptics have retrieved some of these cards thrown away after a meeting and fascinating reading they make. The most ingenious way is to use a radio transmitter. The following are examples of such messages recorded by a tape recorder, via a radio receiver smuggled in; “Way over to the other side of the balcony is Josephine Parino, no further over, second row, yes in blue, she lives at 4267 Masterton, she’s got cancer of the stomach” and “Rosa Camir, she’s on the right side of the balcony too, no, Camir, that’s it; she’s got hives, she takes a lot of medication, she’s got her son, Clipper, with her, he’s got a lump on his chest”,

4/ But how do they heal? They don’t. In the highly charged atmosphere of the service many people do have a temporary remission but it rarely lasts. At one meeting, ‘Karen’ was on a portable oxygen tank. The healer told her to remove the tubes inserted in her nose and said that her heart and lungs were diseased. He ‘healed’ her and told her to run, which she did, praising Jesus all the way. Five minutes later, by which time attention had moved elsewhere, she was back on her oxygen and experiencing great difficulty in breathing. Paul Kurtz tells a delightful story in this regard. He once attended a meeting in the Dome Arena, Rochester. Hoping to be called up for healing, he assumed a limp and carried a cane and to avoid recognition wore a false moustache. At opportune moments he, and others in his group, went about the hall, questioning the healed. When it became obvious that he was not going to be called up for healing, he dropped the limp and cane. After a while, the moustache worked loose so he yanked it off. Later, he got into an argument with a person who claimed that the healer was genuine. The argument raged back and forth, until the man said “Well, anyway, he cured you, You came in here limping, with a cane and now you’re able to walk perfectly. You look younger too.” Many healers keep a stock of empty wheelchairs and induce people with limps to sit in them so that ‘it will be easier for them to be brought up onto the stage’. One such, even lived in a third floor walk-up. In certain cases there is a disclaimer that time is needed for healing (and also an earnest of a need for cure via the collection plate), One healer claimed “to have given a man a new heart by ‘closed heart surgery’, gave the name of the patient, his usual church, the hospital and the six doctors involved and the date of the planned coronary operation. Pretty convincing. At the meeting, the patient trotted up the aisle to show how fit he was with his ‘new’ heart, When this case was investigated it turned out that the doctors did not exist, the hospital had never had that man as a patient and never undertook coronary surgery and that the church had no record of the man. The case was completely false. Another man said he had had sugar diabetes for twenty years until cured by the healer. When questioned he admitted that he was still taking insulin but still affirmed that he was cured. He could not consider discrediting the faith healer. Yet another man, suffering from degenerative eye disease was told by the healer that he was cured and his white stick thrown away in a dramatic gesture. At the end of the meeting, he had to ask for someone to give him his stick back as he could not see it. There are also people who, genuinely believing in the healer’s powers, come regularly to be healed, they want to attest the miracle they have been given. Many of them recognize each other and chat together before the meeting. Again, many diseases do show temporary remissions, thus a child 5 supposedly cured of epilepsy, a disease which, especially in children often clears up by itself.

5/ Are the healers self deceivers or rogues? As we have seen, sone the healers are definitely deceitful yet I think that they are merely deceiving themselves. However obvious the deception is to us, to them it is merely a way of getting the audience in a receptive mood, so that the Holy spirit may work the miracle. They do not see themselves as cynically manipulating gullible believers for ulterior motives. The end justifies the means. They do not seek to perform miracles but to create the predisposition that miracles can be experienced. If they are not, then faith must be strengthened. Thus if any miracle is seen not to work, the

audience will strive harder to suppress their criticisms next time. Moreover, the rehearsed drama of the healing meeting becomes the real performance for the believers. Their faith has become the supernatural reality. Most of the evangelists see themselves as God’s instruments for generating the faith for genuine miracles to happen. In this event, a little chicanery is pardonable. Most fans know that television wrestling matches are fixed and that excruciating pains are simulated by writhing figures on the mat, yet nevertheless allow themselves to be caught up in the pretence,

6/ Yet they make enormous sums of money? Indeed they all live in mansions, They, and their aides are all beautifully dressed. They all have flash cars. One healer proclaims that only one appeal for money will be made and then proceeded to make eleven calls for funds. The minimum asked is $20 but $50 is often demanded and 140 people will be asked for

$140 each. As a result of these appeals and those during their television services many evangelists will make at least $10 million, their television station fees being about $5 million. It should be observed that these evangelists are not ashamed of making these vast sums. On the contrary, financial acumen is the mark of the true Christian and great wealth shows that their work has been blessed. The labourer is worthy of his hire.

7/ Are they dangerous? Indubitably and should be suppressed. They claim to fill dental cavities, to straighten backs, to cure blindness, arthritis and all forms of cancer. There is no disease they can not cure. One claims to be able to reverse hysterectomies. Many believers think that it is better to trust Dr Jesus rather than their physician, with terrible results. Not only the mainstream churches but also many fundamentalists decry them. It is known that the exaggerated claims of the miracle workers have in the past brought reaction against all church-going. There may be some old fashioned envy at work as well.

8/ Will they come to New Zealand? Probably not, although there are many people who would welcome them. They can not have the access to television that they enjoy in America and this is essential for their fund raising, Moreover any large scale faith healer could almost certainly be prosecuted for practising medicine unlawfully. In America, where the local office of Attorney-General is elective, no aspirant for that post (or one seeking re-election) would dare to prosecute. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme court even threw out all limitations that a charity (and that includes some of these fabulously wealthy faith healers) can spend on administration. They are not required to make any financial disclosure and most of them do not belong to the more responsible groups that voluntarily tell of their profits. However, we must not be too complacent. Some of the ‘psychics’ who come here and speak to vast audiences verge on faith healing. Moreover, the profession in America is becoming over-loaded, we may well receive some of their more unwelcome exports. When that happens, skeptics must be quick to point out this folly and rescue the gullible from the malign effects of their credulity.

(See; Louis Rose; Faith healing, 1968 and William Nolen; Healing, a doctor in search of a airacle, 1974, publishers not known, Eve Simson: The Faith Healer, St Louis, Concordia publishing House, 1377).