Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Pat Robertson, moderator of the popular 700 Club television program broadcast nationwide by his Christian Broadcasting Network, does faith healing during the program. He makes use of the “multiple out” (described in chapter 2) to make it appear that his cures are real. He typically “sees” some disease or problem and, after describing it, announces that it is being cured. For example, he might say, “I see a man with a hip problem. The Lord is curing you. There is a woman with a kidney illness. Jesus will cure you.” Days, weeks, or months later, a woman may write and report that, after she watched the broadcast, her kidney infection cleared up. A man may write to say that his sprained hip was much less painful after he had seen the program. These reports are then taken as evidence of specific, predicted cures.

It’s easy to see what is really going on here. The initial cure predictions are extremely vague. Robertson’s audience is huge, and there will certainly be many in it with problems resembling the type he vaguely describes. Like most illnesses, most of these problems will go away, either spontaneously or under medical treatment. However, Robertson may be given credit for the “cure,” even if the cured person was under a doctor’s care. If the problem disappears spontaneously, it is even more likely that the “cure” will be attributed to Robertson and not to the body’s natural, and considerable, ability to heal itself. Further, there is no medical verification that people claiming cures really had what they say they had. Further, people with kidney or hip problems who listened to the program but weren’t cured are hardly likely to write in and say so. Thus, Robertson and his staff are selectively exposed to reports of cures and—like cold readers who become convinced of their power to foretell the future because their victims keep telling them they can—become convinced that true cures are taking place.

Another popular faith healer is Sister Grace, also known as “Amazing Grace.” She makes impressive claims about the people she has cured and the miracles God has wrought through her. However, when actual evidence is requested to back up these claims, there is total silence. I had an interesting interaction with Grace on WCBS-TV in New York City in the spring of 1984. We briefly debated the issue of faith healing. Grace brought with her a man who claimed that she had cured him of lung cancer and of emphysema. He produced X rays and a medical record to support the claim. These were shown with great flourish on the air. I have no doubt that they impressed the viewing audience. After the debate, I asked if I could obtain a copy of the medical record and the X rays for further study and verification. Not only was the request flatly refused, but the name of the doctor who treated the patient was kept secret.

At her services, Grace claims that God tells her the names of audience members and what diseases they have. She then does the laying on of hands and “cures” the disease. In one particularly interesting case, Grace “cured” a man of a disease he didn’t have (Steiner 1986–87). Steiner had planted a “stinger” in Grace’s audience at one performance; she not only “cured” him of a disease he didn’t have but also called him by the pseudonym he had used to get into the performance, not his real name. Steiner comments, “This is not religion. This is a con game” (p. 31).

Psychic surgery, most popular from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, is one brand of faith healing where sleight of hand is relied on exclusively to achieve the “miracle.” Psychic surgeons claim to be able to insert their hands inside the patient’s body without making an incision and to remove dead and diseased tissue. As the psychic surgeon performs “surgery,” his hand is seen to disappear into the patient’s belly and a pool of blood appears. After groping around, apparently inside the body cavity, the psychic surgeon dramatically pulls his hand “out” of the body, clutching what is said to be the tumor or diseased tissue that was causing the patient’s problem. The offending tissue is promptly tossed in a handy nearby fire to be purified. When the patient’s belly is wiped clean of the blood, no incision is found.

Testimonials to and eyewitness reports of such miracle operations were common when psychic surgery was popular and still turn up from time to time. For example, in 1974 John Fuller wrote a glowing, credulous book on Brazilian psychic surgeon Arigo titled Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife. (This is the same author who wrote the “true” account of Betty and Barney Hill’s abduction by a UFO, discussed in chapter 8.) More recently, actor Andy Kaufman, who played in the television series Taxi, visited a psychic surgeon in the Philippines in hopes of curing his terminal cancer. Kaufman’s girlfriend was convinced that sleight of hand was not used (Gardner 1984) because she stood “not a foot away” (p. 8). Kaufman died of his cancer after his “cure.” The Philippines was home for most of the psychic surgeons during the time of their great popularity, and tens of thousands of often desperately ill Americans and Europeans trekked there in hopes of a miracle cure.

Both Nolen (1974) and Randi (1980) have exposed the methods the psychic surgeons used; Nolen actually went to the Philippines and was “operated on” by one. The “operation” starts as the hand appears to enter the patient’s belly. This is accomplished by creating an impression in the belly by pushing down and flexing the fingers slowly into a fist—the fingers thus appear to be moving into the belly, but are really simply hidden behind the hand. The blood that further disguises the true movement of the fingers and adds drama to the proceedings can come from two sources. One is a fake thumb, worn over the real thumb and filled with a red liquid. Such a fake thumb is a common magician’s implement. Blood can also be passed to the surgeon in red balloons hidden in cotton the psychic surgeon is using, the cotton and its hidden contents being passed to him by an “assistant.” The bits of “tumor” can also be passed to the psychic surgeon this way, or hidden in the false thumb. What is the “tumor” that is “removed” from the body, and what is the blood? Psychic surgeons are unwilling to give up samples of either material for analysis. When samples have been obtained—usually by grabbing the material before the surgeon can destroy it—the “tumor” material turns out to be chicken intestines or similar animal remains. The blood is either animal blood or red dye.

As if psychic surgery weren’t enough, there is even at least one psychic dentist—Willard Fuller, who has been helping God fill teeth and reshape maloccluded jaws for nearly twenty years. In spite of the usual testimonials, Fuller is nothing more than a practitioner of sleight of hand. One dentist examined twenty-eight people before they were “healed” by Fuller. Those claiming to be healed were reexamined after the healing. In one case “gold fillings miraculously bestowed turned out instead to be tobacco stains” (Radke, quoted in Hegstad 1974, p. 252). In another case, a woman reported a new silver filling where only a cavity had existed before the healing service. Dentist Radke had taken pictures of this woman’s teeth before the service and found, on reexamining those pictures, that the filling was indeed there when the pictures were taken. The woman then “readily admitted that she had forgotten that the filling was there” (Radke, quoted in Hegstad 1974, p. 253). In May 1986 Fuller went on a tour through Australia, where he was arrested, tried, and found guilty of practicing dentistry without a license and of fraud (Plummer 1986). This did not in any way impede a coast-to-coast tour of the United States upon his return from Australia.