Peter Popoff is an alleged faith healer who was proven a fraud by James "The Amazing" Randi. YouTube's dprjones has made a video "calling him out."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfBCiPfqFeY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL9EtqCCR_Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NhnMlP1tBM


People actually send this guy a lot of money. Many apologists will say that these guys might have helped people, but these frauds had people throwing up emergency life-saving medicines like insulin and nitroglycerin up on the stage!

Same old story. A few weeks ago I saw a TV episode on the same theme. It was from the first season of Hawaii Five-O. Forty years old. It was topical then, just as now. Same old story, generation after generation.

Over the years, and on more than one occasion--and with the help of the media--I have made a point of taking an in dept look at and exposing the fraudulent claims of several "faith healers". One fraud even threatened my life.

But the real challenge is: What can we do about people who, like those who are addicted to gambling, want to go on believing: "If I can believe hard enough, God will send me miracle".

BTW, some few people who play the lottery and the slots do win. And certain conditions are helped by the power of suggestion and blind faith.

BTW 2, as a student of psychology and pneumatology, especially the power of hypnotic suggestion, I know what works and what does not. But how many people are really interested in having a rational explanation and willing to take the trouble really understand?

It seems that many people want to be fooled. I refuse to be totally cynical, but when was the last time you saw an honest add? How honest is the financial industry?

What is a rational explanation, and who authorizes it for anyone of distinct personality, belief and opinion?

There are many things which people do that rely on faith and if these frauds comfort some of them, well what's wrong with that. Often when science or conventional medicine fails, patients and their families need to feel that they are doing everything they can to help. Spending their life savings seems correct, as only a huge sacrifice will ensure the 'cure'. Whilst there are always crooks who will delude people, there are an equal number of desperate people for whom even such faulty treatment brings comfort, and really for some it alleviates their suffering.

Maybe we would not do this ourselves, and although I do not have the faith required, I sympathise with anyone who wants to get well, or who tries to relieve the suffering of someone they love.

Ellis,
If it was just a matter of them making people "feel better," it would be offensive, but not evil. Popoff convinced people to throw their medicine like nitro and insulin up on the stage and to forgo seeing doctors, if they had sufficient faith.

Nowadays he's convincing poor people to send them their last dollars.

These people are not just repulsive, manipulative and evil. They are also very dangerous to their victims.

FF, to paraphrase Edmund Burke: Evil always succeeds the more when good people do nothing. In this sense, doing nothing is a form of evil by default.
http://www.google.ca/search?q=edmund+burke&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.mandriva:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
For me--one who has chosen to be and live in GOD (the highest good)--remaining neutral is not an option.

"Nowadays he's convincing poor people to send them their last dollars.

These people are not just repulsive, manipulative and evil. They are also very dangerous to their victims. "

Logically I agree, but the faith healer sells hope to people who have none. There is, I presume, no coercion to give up the medicine, just a blind unreasonable belief in the possibility of a cure when all else has failed. It is obviously morally deeply wrong to do this to such desperate people, but it is their choice how to spend their money, and their need for reassurance could outstrip their common sense...but who knows, perhaps at least some of the hope thus gained cheers them.

In my opinion the belief is in equillibrium with rational stance by the same way, like existence of capitalism is in equillibrium with strong central government and like the longitudinal waves are in equillibrium with transversal waves inside of every multicomponent system/environment. One cannot exist without another.

I think that I mentioned, way back, that a rational application of what I call pneumatherapy--the spiritual use of hypnotic technique, a form of "faith" therapy--actually saved my daughter's life when she was 7. On April 1, she just turned 53. Just the other day, when she called from Tofino, BC., I said to her: "You were my beautiful "April Fool!"

BTW, faith healers and fake healers will continue to flourish just so long as our doctors--including many good ones--and all involved in the healing arts, depend too much on physical solutions--drugs and surgery--as the only therapies needed for good health.

If they, and us their patients, do little or nothing about understanding the kind of mind/spirit/body needs (interdependent components of our being) we all have--and the Popoffs of the world are taping into--we have only ourselves to blame.

Faith,hope and love, even when offered by witch doctors, Bible thumpers and the like, are powerful tonics.

BTW, doubt, despair and hate can cause panic, and panic kills. Honest psychiatry agrees, we CAN be scared to death. Despair can turn us into criminals.

Look what the lack of faith, hope and love (dare I say lack of "healthy spirituality"?--the basis of lying and fraud--are doing to the financial industry--dominated by greed and fear. How many are dying because of the liars and frauds, and outright criminals, we have allowed to run the world?

Need I say more?

For those who are interested, in the following controversial web page I go into some detail about the role that spiritual-based faith, mind-based reason and physical reality all play in the prevention and treatment of the things which make us sick.

I make it clear that I have been influenced by, and respect, therapists, medical and otherwise, who take a holistic, integrative and inclusive (including the so-called patient) approach to the prevention and treatment of spiritual, mental and physical diseases.

One of the doctors, among other kinds of therapists, I write about is Dr. Milton Erickson (1901-1980)--MD, psychiatrist and originator of a very unique kind of hypnosis, which is quite unlike the commonly-held idea of hypnosis.


http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=18&t=17184

A very sad case in our papers today, of a girl aged 11 who died after her parents did not seek treatment for her but relied on faith. The child had diabetes, she needed insulin and water, and she would be alive now if she had received this basic treatment.

Whilst the parents have the right to disallow treatment for themselves they should not be able to cause their child's death in the name of freedom of choice. The mother has been convicted of causing the death. The father is still to stand trial.

Doctors had nothing to do with this case as treatment, other than, I suppose, frantic prayer, had not been attempted.

A friend of mine has a daughter who is diabetic. She used her intuition to gage the insulin doses for her daughter. In every case when she would take the daughter in for her checkup the doctors would whisk away the daughter and give her the dose they prescribed as ideal for her condition with the threat to take her permanently and report her to child protective services. In each event that the doctors took the child, the child went into insulin shock from being over medicated. The doctors always insisted it was because she was not treated correctly by the mother, but the child never had or showed any symptoms of stress from being over or under medicated until the doctors put the girl in their care.

Yes indeed, Ellis!

The following is a sincere question, without any attempt to be sarcastic. I ask Christian Science followers and others: What answer do you get from "God" when you ask "Him", or is it "Her?": "God, our family trusted you and you let us down. What happened? You seem to help some people, but you failed us, how come? Why are the answers, generally speaking, you give to prayers so obviously arbitrary?"
BTW, TT, if it is brief and to the point, I will look at how you respond to this question. I agree, Ellis.

Meanwhile, I feel this is a good point for us to look at the question: How well are we being served by our family physicians, specialists, and the drug companies?

I think you might want to explore whether a Christian scientist prays in the same manner as your example. They may not think like you think they do.

"A very sad case in our papers today, of a girl aged 11 who died after her parents did not seek treatment for her but relied on faith."

You're aware of the case of the young boy and mother now fleeing. The boy has a form of cancer that is quite treatable. Prognosis is good, if treatment is immediate, but almost certainly fatal without it.

My undergraduate adviser was Chinese. I played chess with his son and worked at the appt complex where he lived. I had even unclogged his toilet. When I showed up to school first day and found out he was my adviser, I was despondent. He only knew me as the janitor and I thought he would judge me harshly. Turns out he was a decent guy. He had gone to uni in Taiwan, but had lived in the US for decades. His son was pretty smart and the prof was intent that the boy would graduate from MIT. His son went into the dr for tonsil removal, but the anethesiologist made a mistake that caused the boy to become brain-damaged. He sued and won, bought a houseboat and took the boy out every weekend to the lake where he continued to worship him and lavish attention on him. Years went by and no improvement. The boy was a vegetable. In desperation, he took the boy to a faith healer and made a large faith offering. When the preacher invited people to come down, he tried to move his truly ill boy down to the stage - but there were extremely big 'ushers' who kept him and the truly sick people away from the stage - and the cameras. I did not witness this - I was told it a few weeks later by some Chinese friends of mine who had gone with him. He was quite upset. A doctor had screwed up, but this faith healer was evil. He wasn't making people feel better. He was using people. He was stealing from them at their very weakest. But you, know, like, it all depends on how you define your terms I guess. You can't like, you know, ABSOLUTELY PROVE the guy is a charlatan.

postscript: the boy acquired some other medical condition - I forget what it was, but he required medicine. The pharmacist gave him the wrong medicine and he died. Two medical mistakes destroyed this family's life - that doesn't mean medicine is wrong. (Medical practice is not science, by the way: common misconception.) And the faith healer: regardless of the terms - he's evil and he's a charlatan.

Fair comment. But, instead of "Christian scientist", do you not mean: "Christian-Science believer"?

Be that as it may: I am very open to having any member of Christian-Science tell us how members of Christian Science members say their prayers, and how they differ from other religions.

Keep in mind, I mentioned others who believe in other kinds of transcendental prayer. We also need to keep in mind that many researchers agree that most illnesses are self-limiting, even when left untreated.

Meanwhile, I am still interested in finding out: What is the practical value of physicians and specialists?

Rev: I think that FF suggested this--- it's a matter of the intent of the 'healer' . Medical doctors are usually trying to heal their patients and sometimes our modern knowledge is not enough, or the drugs we need make us ill, are ineffective, or, in some countries they are too expensive, and the patient dies. But the intent had been to heal not harm. I truly believe that some faith healers are in this category too, they believe that their alternative treatments are superior to modern drugs. Often of course they aren't. There is nothing wrong with adults following this path but when children die from preventable disease the parents are culpable.

Then there are the miserable frauds who strip the desperate and deluded of their money and eventually of their hope. Their intent was always primarily to enrich themselves.

As to prayer. It often is a comfort for believers, even if they are seemingly not answered. Don't forget that for a believer death is the time of reunion with people they love and the start of an ever-lasting life unburdened by the troubles of their lives. Who would not want that?

To this I think we need to add: the intent of the person seeking the healing.

Perhaps we need to define 'healer'.

The process of healing poses so many questions:
What is the source of healing?
Is it simply a science?
Or is it a combination of science and art?
Should we place all healing under the authority of physicians, surgeons, psychiatrists, dentists and the like?
What are some other questions?
Should we exclude psychologists, chiropractors, homeopaths and the like?

I certainly agree: "Miserable frauds", wherever found--some have MD's and PhD's--need to feel the full force of the law.