Why Do People Believe In Faith Healing?

duff Leppard. No, I don't think that's pour some sugar on me, good cob. What it's wrong with you to pour some hands on me? No? Lay your hands on me? On me is like, Uh, I think it's a Tompson Twins song or something like that. Well, that's not the one I'm thinking of. I don't know what you're thinking of. I'm thinking of the bon Jovi song. I'll be the bon Jovi song is dirtier than this song. Uh. Then Thompson Twins, Yeah, yeah, I would say so. Yeah, Thompson

Twins were real clean cut, not bon Jovi. Ended up weirdly seeing bon Jovi in concert. Uh two times. I'll bet that was rid. I'll bet you're like, what am I doing here? Well? One time they opened up for thirty eight Special? How did I get here? Wait? Wait, wait, wait, wait a second, I'm sorry you walk right that's that way? Yeah? Does that mean you intended to be at the thirty eight Special concerts? Oh yeah, dude. Yeah. It was like twelve all right, way into the southern rock scene back then,

and still am to some degree. I still like me them some thirty eight Special. Uh. And then bon Jovi opened up. It was before they were uh, you know, before they were bond VI, like they were opening up for bands. Well, sure, yeah. And then I saw them again. I won't name names, but I saw them again in high school at the peak of their fame, when a person at my high school had bought two tickets and could not get any of the girls at school to

go with him. Weird, during the height of bon Jovi's fame. Yeah, and so this guy must have been a real dog. I felt bad for this person, and so I went and saw bon Jovi with this person. And that's just the kind of guy I was back then. These days, I would have said buzz off. Are you still friends with this guy? Okay? Does he listen to the podcast? Uh? Maybe? Well, let's just edit out me calling him a dog. Then

I'm sure he grew into a fine specimen. Okay. Well, as you know, I can play all of bon Jovi's Slippery when Wet on the Quaker oat Boxes in my air band. Oh that's right, yep. Although I never saw him in concert, well, I gotta say that that second Uh, like, I never would have paid to go see them, But it wasn't bad. Yeah, I wouldn't think it would be. I mean, they're they're they're pros. They know what they're doing. You know. So the first concert not so great. I

mean for an opening band. You know, I got Runaway. That was kind of the only notable song they had at the time. Um, that Tom Petty's song. No, No No, No, She's a little Runaway. I didn't know it was. I thought that was Thompson Twins. This has been a great open Yeah, especially for people who are interested in faith healing. You're like, who are these guys. Let's get to it, shall we? Yes? Okay, so we're talking today about faith healing.

We've actually talked about some of this before, I would refer everybody to our two thousand eight twenty minute long how Prayer Healing episode works? Remember of that. Nope, that that whole that cardiology study about intercessory prayer didn't ring a bell with you at all. A little bit that was that's where it found. It's it's purchased originally. So

this is much much bigger, broader picture that we're looking at. Right, But when you talk about faith healing, there are basically two types that people kind of lump into two different categories.

One is prayer. Right, There's this idea and it's it's a pretty widely held idea among people all around the world of different religions, of different cultures that by praying to God, you're kind of beaming some well wishes to God in the hopes that He acts as a bit of a satellite and beams them down onto the person you're you're praying for, whether it be like that they they the ants that have taken up residents in their cast go away, or um, that they get over their cancer,

or that they have a better day than you know they're having, um, whatever it is. If you step back and look at it, what you're talking about is completely senseless as far as science is concerned. And it's a form of faith healing. It's it's saying I believe that by praying, I can affect something about this this person's physical or mental state, and that's one form of faith healing. Yeah, and for me, I'm not a religious guy anymore as

people know. But uh, if someone says to me for any reason that they're going to pray for me, depending on who it is in the mood I'm in, it can vary from me just sort of quality, Like I would never confront someone over that or say don't do that. I don't believe in that. You don't bear your teeth and hiss at him. But it might in my own brain either be like whatever all the way to you

know what, I'll take that, thank you. Well, depending on what kind of um procedure you're going in for, somebody says that you may want to be like whoa, whoa, Just hold off on that one. Okay, what do you mean? So there was a study, Yeah, there was a study on intercessory prayer and it was a pretty good study using the scientific method that cut people up into three

different categories. It was and I think two patients all receiving the exact same procedure coronary bypass surgery at six different hospitals, and three groups of people, um who I think like represented Catholics, uh nondenominational Christians, and I think Carmelite nuns were all approached and asked to pray for these people. These carmelized nuns, carmel lite nuns, they're not

nearly as delicious they're they're regular nuns. So the the three groups prayed for these people, and they said they prayed for them based on their first name and last initial, so please help John C. To feel better. And then they specifically, all of them prayed specifically for a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications. Those are the two the two requirements that they used their first name, last initial, and then they include that however

else they wanted to pray is just totally fine. And they studied these groups that were actually prayed for and they divided them up into three groups. Right, there was a group that did not receive any prayer. There was a group that did receive prayer, but we're told they may or may not be receiving prayer. Then there was a third group that was that received prayer and were

told that they were receiving prayer. And then when they went back and looked at these two patients, they found that the group that received prayer and knew they were receiving prayer fared worse than both to the other groups, and that actually the group that didn't receive any prayer at all fair the best of the three. So if you're going and getting a cardiac bypass surgery, you may want to say, just just don't pray for me this

time around. Okay. Yeah, And was this a Grabster article? Yeah? Um, he points out in what we may get touch on this a bit more later, but he points out that it's just it's really tough to scientifically study intercessory prayer. And I don't remember if we covered that ten years ago or not. Um, but it's just, you know, sample sizes are tough. Um. The measuring of the health outcome like is hard because did they live for a week, did they live for the rest of their you know,

what would have been a long long life. Uh. He mentions the sharpshooter effect, which is there are so many potential outcomes that anyone can group something together and say what we learned this, and then you know who's doing the praying, How hard are they praying, how long are they praying, what God are they praying to. It's just

it's tough to study something like that. And if if prayer actually does have an impact, if there's a group that's a control group that's not being prayed for, how do you control for like the friends and family who are actually praying for them and interfering in the study. So there's you know, people have taken this quite seriously. They studied it seriously, but they've they keep running up into these conceptual walls as far as the structure of the study is concerned, and no one's been able to

figure it out. But that coronary bypass study was about as close as any of them came. But even still, that one was fraught with methodological methodological problems. So intercessory prayer, out of all of the types of faith healing, are probably the most investigated through science and scientific studies pure

viewed journal studies. The other side of faith healing is the kind that probably comes to mind when somebody brings up faith healing and that is usually an evangelical preacher putting his hands on you and casting out the demons or casting out the disease, or doing something to where the power of God is coursing through that person and getting rid of your disease or condition or whatever. That's the other type of faith healing, and that's the one

that most people think of you. In the last however, many minutes that was had a great band name, and I wonder if you can guess what it was, cast the Demons Out? No, that would be the album title profitbly Lay evangelical Preacher, No no, no conceptual balls. Oh nice, Okay,

that would be kind of like a Thompson Twins cover band. Uh. So you said he in the terms of the faith healers, and you generally see this more as a man that does this um in my research at least, But there was a woman UM in the sixties and seventies it was very popular named Catherine Coleman who UM was a faith healer. And you know, it looks like she should have been on the on he haa or something with her. This just great lacey long dresses that they were in

the sixties and seventies. Uh, and in nineteen sixty seven, they did a case study and again these are problematic but because of sample size, but they studied twenty three people that she supposedly healed, um and they found out later on that none of them were healed. And in fact, one woman, they do this this old trick where they're like, you know, get out of your wheelchair and walk over to me. Uh. And this woman in a wheelchair had spinal cancer. She threw off her back brace and ran

across the stage. Uh. And then they followed up with her. Her spine collapsed the next day and she died four

months later. So these mentioning that because all of these people are when you go to one of these performances, everyone thinks that they're healed, and no one here's the follow up story that's in that auditorium, right, Yeah, And a lot of the success stories are anecdotal for sure, with with little or no follow up, and when there is follow up, it's usually finds that that's not the case.

But so how about this, chuck, Let's go take a commercial and when'll come back, we'll tell we'll tell everybody what it would be like to go to a faith healing sermon and then after that we'll talk about the skeptical view of the whole thing. Alright, so we promised to, um tell you what it's like to go to one of these faith healing Um what do you call them? I call them performances. But um, it depends on what type it is. It could be a service, a sermon,

a revival. Um. Yeah, probably a revival is usually a good way to put it, which is also a sermon in a service. Uh. One thing you're gonna have in your pocket is some cash, money or a checkbook, alright.

Imagine they probably take credit cards these days, because there is generally some kind of money changing hands at one of these events, whether or not you have paid a fee to get in or made a quote unquote donation while you were there to get up on stage and have your your chance to faint in front of thousands of people. Right. So usually, UM, we'll take Benny Hin as an example of what these things can be like. So Benny Hin is a he's a faith healer. Um,

I'm not sure I believe he's nondenominational. But all of this stuff traces back. Actually I didn't realize this. I don't know if you did or not. But all evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity actually finds its source in one place in nineteen o six called the Azeusus Street Revival. Have you heard of that? Yeah? And and we should

point out you said charismatic. Um Ed is quick to point out that charismatic religion doesn't mean boy, that that person up there preaching shore has a lot of charisma. It's actually a form of Christianity that is rooted in uh, Pentecostalism. Yes, that that basically means that they believe that God is in the building that day and literally can do things in that room. Yep. So there's a lot so and this is actually I didn't realize this either until I

started researching this article. There's a pretty big schism actually in Christianity today between Pentecostalism, which is a form of charismatic Christianity, and traditional Christianity. And with Pentecostalism and charismatic Christianity. Because you believe that God is in the room, you also believe that God can operate through you, and there's certain gifts that are available to you. There's the gift of knowledge, which is just you just know stuff because

the Holy Spirit or God is telling you this. There's the gift of tongues called gloss alalia, where you suddenly start speaking in tongues. We cover that in earnest I don't think so. Man. If not, we definitely should. We did snake handling, which definitely fits a great one charismatic. It definitely does. But the basis of charismatic is that God is part of your everyday life and can do things to you, imbue you with divine ours. And one

of those divine gifts is called the gift of healing. Now, not everybody has it, but potentially anybody could have it if if you your soul has been baptized anointed to where you are saved. Plus basically, and that's a big theme that you find in charismatic religion is that the more somebody speaks in tongues, the more somebody is able to heal through faith. The more somebody is wealthy, I think we need to do a prosperity gospel episode by itself,

but this ties into that as well. The idea of all behind all those things is that those people who are the wealthiest who speak in tongues, the most who can faith heal? Are the are the ones who are UM who are saved more than other people. That's charismatic religion. The other side, the traditional origin religion that you're probably familiar with, is like WHOA, the scriptures, the Bible, that stuff doesn't talk about any of this, and it does, it is not in the way that you guys are

interpreting it. So there's a real there's a collision going on in Christianity today between people who say God is part of your everyday life and other people say, no, God is in scripture and that's where you where you find your answers to God, not in you know, Holy Laughter or gloss Lalia or anything like that. And so there's this kind of traditional Christian group in America that is losing ground very quickly to charismatic Christians who are UM gaining more and more members, and one of the

ways that they're doing that is through faith healing. Is that true? Is it growing? Yeah? Apparently one and every four American Christians is a UM Pentecostal. Now interesting, I think it's the fastest growing group in America by far. So none of this is new. This this all started in the nineteenth century. As far as faith healing goes. Uh, people like John Alexander Dowie, Um, people like uh ru uh Hepapa Tippappetta. So I like the second one more tip.

I'll bet Rule likes it more too. Uh. Frank Sandford not Fred Sandford, Benson Idahosa. These are all faith healers who have done everything from said I can he'll like raise people from the dead too. I am actually Jesus Christ. So it kind of has run the gamut throughout history. People like Benny hen and um, who's the other guy, Yeah, Peter pop Off are some of the well not they've been around for a while too, but they're they're the the newer version of this nineteenth century um huckster. Yeah.

And so so as I was starting with the Benny Hint thing, that Benny Hints service or revival is about twenty four hours long. Man, they maybe actually a little longer because I think it can. It's usually of six services each about four and a half hours each. Okay, so we're talking like twenty seven hours of this revival.

And the whole thing is basically stage. You're created or carried out in a way that you you're getting more and more excited, more and more jazzed, and and from the perspective of the believers who are there, the Holy Spirit is now coming to this place. And you've got all this, like all the its appearances going on through holy laughter where people are just ecstatically laughing and they feel so great, or they're speaking in tongues and they're

writhing on the floor. The Holy Spirit is present in the building. Right and after everybody is good and worked up and the Holy Spirit is present, finally Benny Hin will come onto the stage and the revival really truly begins. Then then that's when the healing starts. Yeah, but here's the thing. Like growing up in church, like the Holy Spirit was in the room every Sunday, but it's just a different thing with these more um. I guess any kind of preaching as some kind of a performance um

or sermon is. But like in the nineteen twenties is when, especially with Amy Simple McPherson, is when these really highly produced, dramatic stage shows started to kind of take place. I was I was reading about her. It blows my mind that she does not have multiple movies made about her. Yeah, she was extraordinarily interesting and she was based in l A too. That means we're really surprised there should be. Uh, I'm trying to think of I would cast who should

I his career? Should I make Jennifer Lawrence would probably do a pretty good Amy simple McPherson. You think, yeah, I think so. I think she could carry that. All right, Well, stay tuned. We'll see if you have the casting powers as well. What if it turns out to be Hugh Jackman very brave performance? Um so she Yeah, she really got things going in the nineteen twenties and she used

everything from props like ships and and trojan horses to motorcycles. Um, Benny, hen, I mean did you watch did you go into too? A YouTube rabbit hole? With these things like he will he's one of the most um physically uh say, charismatic, but I don't want to confuse it, but in the true sense of the word charismatic, physically aggressive and charismatic. And that he's he's running all over the place, He's

using his coat, his jacket. Two, he will wave it over the crowd and the first twenty rows of people will fall back into their seats as if blown by back by the spirit. Um. He will you know, put his hands on on a guy who will jump up and kick his feet out and land on his back. He'll get up and he'll do it again. He'll get

up and he'll do it again. And they have what's called catchers on stage, these uh, these kind of big men usually who who catch these people and put them on the stage, help him back up again, and they're all a part of the if you've ever seen well, you never saw Fletch one, right, No? I didn't. Was there a preacher in Flesh one? No? And Fletch two. I'm waiting for you like, oh, no, I saw the sequel. I don't know. I didn't fledged two. That's what the

story was, was what's his face? Arlie Army from Full Metal Jacket played a faith healer um who was using I mean, we can go ahead and say it here. A lot of these people use tricks like earpieces and there's someone off stage reading them cards that people fill in and say, Hi, I'm so and so and I have this ailment. And then they will put in the

earpiece and they will say I'm thinking of someone. Uh, perhaps their name is James or Jim or Jamie and they have something wrong with their foot and then all of a sudden, the guy who filled out that card says, oh, you're talking about me. Get him on stage, lay the hands, and by all accounts, these people are so caught up in this religious hysteri area of the moment and the drama that sometimes they do faint, right, So this is that's I'm glad you brought that up, because I think

it's really important to get across. Like, the people who attend these revivals are true believers and they are caught up in What they would say is they would describe all this to the Holy Spirit flowing through them being at this revival, being you know, the part of the energy in the air. What skeptics would say is, well, actually this is all just part of a you know, masssteria, mass delusion regardless, it's basically two sides of the same coin.

Whether it's divine or whether it's internal. These people are experiencing fainting. They are they are falling backwards, and to them, they feel like they're just being lifted right off of their feet. They are like experiencing this holy laughter or whatever. They're not they're not faking in in the sense that you and I would be like, Oh, these these people

are faking. They're participating in something that is happening, that's connecting them to everybody around them and the people on stage at the very least in the ones that are the most legitimate. Well yeah, they're they're either that or they sometimes they are actual plants. Okay, So so here's so there's let me give you three examples. Benny Hin, Peter pop Off in Hobart Freeman. They represent three different

versions of faith healers. Benny Hin, his thing is is, like you're saying, he runs around on stage and waves his coat. His thing is he is healing like a specific disease. At that moment, he'll be like, I can feel the cancer being healed in this room. And then after that he'll be like, who's felt that? Whose cancer was? Just He'll come on up here and somebody will run up and be like, you just here my cancer. Thanks

a lot, right. He apparently does not use He was tracked by a documentary filmmaker and investigated pretty thoroughly back in two thousand. He apparently does not use plants. Um he apparently did. I don't really know enough about the guy to know how true his faith is, but it's it says a lot that he wasn't caught using plants or any kind of technical assistance whatsoever. People have planted people there though, that are healthy, like sting operations at

Benny Hin shows. Yeah. Yeah, so that they would plant it like a whatever, some new show would plant someone in the audience, have them go up on stage and said they were healed, and he would tout them as being healed. And then when he's interviewed and said, hey, this person was a plant. They weren't even sick, and he said that she was sick and you healed. And his response was literally like, well, you know, I'm I'm just a man like you, and I'm trying to do better,

and I'm always trying to do better. So that's not an answer. So that's actually a pretty pretty common um investigation. What they're doing is that's remember how we said like that the God or the Holy Spirit gives you divine gifts, and one of those gifts is the gift of knowledge. Well, what they were doing was challenging the idea that God was giving them information based on the idea, right, God wouldn't have given you this bad information That was a lie,

so therefore you don't have this pipeline to God. I could see Bennie Hin just being like, hey, as happens, right, He's he's famous for the saying that, uh, the second category is exposed legitimate, straight up fraud, and that the poster child of that is Peter pop Off. He was he was exposed, exposed at the kind of the height of his earlier career. Yet he still makes a ton of money today selling holy water water. He don't he

doesn't sell it. If you send a donation and as a thank you gifts, he'll send you your holy spring water. Get it right, So, and then people who have gotten this holy spring water come on and say, right after that, I got a check from the I R S that I wasn't expecting and now my house is paid off. Thank you Peter pop Off. Right, that's what he's doing now. So he went bankrupt getting caught red handed. The amazing Randy James Randy exposed Peter pop Off on Johnny Carson's

Tonight Show in front of millions of people. Totally ended the guy's career right there. He went bankrupt very quickly afterwards, like he was. They were the ones using the earpiece. Right. Yeah, So Peter pop Off was getting like you said, basically the premise of Fletch Too. His wife was going through prayer cards, saying people's names, saying the details they'd written down about what diseases they wanted cured and what their prayers were. And Peter Popoff was being fed this information

through an earpiece. Well, he was pretending that he was getting this information from God the gift of knowledge and wowing people seven days a week, six days a week at his revivals and making a lot of money. James Randy went to one of his revivals Number one, inserted a plant in there a couple of times, a few different plants, so disputed his gift of knowledge. But then also made a recording of the radio transmission of his wife and then plays it on the Carson Show. So

ends this guy's career. Um, this is in. By two thousand five, he was back to making like twenty four million dollars a year through divine debt relief. How did people not pick up on that in the audience, I don't know. I think it's probably all I know how they pick up on it, And that's part of what makes this so sad is they are so desperate for health,

good health that they will believe anything. They don't think, oh my god, this guy just called my name out of thin air, uh and said all these details that a weight that I wrote down on an index card on the way in and handed to somebody Like, they don't make that connection. So I think that's a pretty

good point. They're either desperate to be he old or this is like their genuine belief that some guy has come in and been like, oh, this is what you believe, Well, let me figure out how to work that into my into my scam. Either way, it's it's I mean, don't you you shouldn't. Shouldn't. I'm not saying you are. I'm talking to you people out on podcast Lane her like what suckers, what chumps? That's that's not for you to judge. These these people are are in some cases being very

much preyed upon. Oh yeah, not in all cases, though there are so so far, We've got Benny Hin, We've got Peter pop Off. I know it took me forever to be like that's not a that's not a typographical error. But I can't tell you how many times I tuned in to watch Benny Hill. I was like, man, when am I going to learn? They're both? And then the third type is um exemplified by a guy named Hobart Freeman.

You would call these people utterly and complete true believers, right, they are the ones who die because they're walking the walk. Actually not Hobart Freeman. He died in part of complications from gang green and his leg that he wouldn't go get medical treatment from. So he was actually preaching sitting down and not walking at all. But he died. He he prayed over his sicknesses, his pneumonia, his gang green,

and his leg. And he had something called faith assembly I believe in Indiana, and he was preaching that medical not just you know, come and get your your your faith healing. But medical interventions are not. It's not it's a sign of that's that's evil. That's basically a sign of a lack of faith in God. Yeah. I mean he was to the point where he was like, don't even clean my wound, like that's medical treatment, and I

refuse that, yea, And so he died. I'm not quite sure how old he was the problem is this is like he's an adult, he can make his own decisions, especially in the United States, where religious freedom is vehemently protected. It yea. The problem with him and his Faith Assembly was that he took like ninety people with him while he was doing this, including babies who were neglected um any kind of medical care, children who were um who

died of easily treatable diseases, women who died in childbirth. UM. Ninety people they decided died and I think between five and ten years at Faith Assembly who probably otherwise would have lived had they sought medical treatment as well as as faith healing. Yeah. And this this is where it can overlap with Christian science. Um, they don't believe that medical science is uh. They issue medical science and medical um assistance right. UM. I guess depending on there may

be a range. I don't know if I'm not. I don't know any Christian scientists, so I don't know if some of them are if they're a hardline there's and other people that are like, no, well we will take a little medicine for this and that. But ostensibly Christian scientists don't believe in medical intervention. UH. So there is some overlap there, but it's uh what they will say

if someone dies, even a child. Is it's either God's will or in the case of faith healing, if it doesn't work, they will say that they didn't truly believe they would have truly They put the vain the blame back on the sick person and say, if you didn't, uh, if you didn't get healed by my hand, then that means you didn't truly believe in that you aren't devout, which is it's that's one thing if like you're a true believer faith healer, but if you're a con man,

and that's how you're getting out of it is saying you don't have enough faith. What a crippling thing to do to some a person of faith. You know how despicable is that? Well? I think it was, um Benny hens Uh was it Benny Hinder pop Off, one of them's nephew. I read an article by him, and he's still very much a devout Christian, but he saw the light.

He was a catcher for a while and to catch the people on stage and he was like, it wasn't until I met my wife, uh, and she couldn't speak in tongues and everyone was like, you gotta you can't marry her. She started opening his eyes too. I guess the um the other competing Christianity, which says, you don't speak in tongues, you don't um faith heal and he has put all that behind him and said that, I

mean he feels guilt now for this lavish lifestyle. I mean, that's the other part of this prosperity thing is they believe that God has is blessing them with all these riches and these Italian villas and the fleet of Mercedes in the driveway and the helicopter, and that it's all God's will. But he had a big, big problem with the fact that they would then in turn blame the people who didn't get healed because they weren't devout. It's

really sad. Yeah, it is sad. So there's a few there's a few really bad nag get of outcomes from this. One is you might die because you aren't going to seek medical treatment. And even if you're going to a faith healer and you're not say like a Christian science adherent, but you you are a true believer in faith healing. If you go to a faith healer and they're like, we I just cured your cancer, you might be like, well, I'm not gonna go spend any more money on co

pays for any follow up stuff. I'll just go home. I don't like going to the hospital. I hate chemotherapy. And then if that treatment was keeping you alive or prolonging your life, um, you might die from because you believe that the faith healer has healed you. Another one is that like you're you're losing money. If this stuff really actually doesn't work, then you're just throwing your money away, or put a different way, it's being conned out of you.

That's another negative outcome of it. Um. And then yes, the injuries like Catherine Coleman and the woman with the spinal cancer whose spine color lapsed. Should we take a break? I think so? Man, all right, we're gonna take a break and come back and talk a little bit about psychic surgery and a bit more on Christian science right after this. Alright, So psychic surgery is something that we have not mentioned yet. Uh. This is uh. I guess

it's a kind of faith healing. But um, if you ever saw or if you know anything about Andy Kaufman, or saw the movie Man on the Moon with Jim Carey as Andy Kaufman. You remember the scene where or if you grew up in the seven and eighties, you remember seeing this stuff on like sixty Minutes or PBS. It seems like it was a big thing. Then. Uh,

these psychic surgeons will um use their hands. Um. Most of the time it's on your like your your belly, and you'll lay you down with your shirt off, and it looks like they are reaching into your body with their hands and pulling out organs or tumors or something, right, pulling out some sort of fleshy, meaty product. Right. So what's really going on with psychic surgeons is it is a complete fraud. They are masters of slight of hand

and they are covering up um. If you've seen the video, they're always covering up what they're doing with the other hand. And they have blood packets in their hand, and they have like chicken gizzards or something tucked away that you don't see. And it's just a big slight of hand magic show. And in the Man in the Moon movie, it was very sad because Andy Kaufman was kind of

at his wits end. I was trying to heal him, you know, get healed of cancer medically, and he took a chance traveled to where Philippines was at the Philippines, and Um, I saw the guy palming the chicken gizzards knew it was a fake. This is a very sad moment in his life and in that movie. So I wondered. I remembered that being the case in that movie too. But I had read like an account of his experience there, and from what I could gather, he he left for

the Philippines feeling like the psychic surgery had worked. That the movie contrived or inserted that part. Yeah, because he spent I think six weeks over there getting almost daily psychic surgery, and he apparently improved. He started to gain some weight as spirits improved, so much so that he left the Philippines expecting to heal. But when he went back to the United States, he died pretty quickly after that.

It was pretty sad in the movie at least. Yeah, it really was, because he starts laughing at like the whole cosmic joke of the whole thing. Yeah, so, I mean, what can happen if some of these people maybe he did feel better. Uh, sometimes people do kick cancer. Um, and they will say it's because of the either intercessory prayer, the faith healing or both. Um. What skeptics will say is no, sometimes people heal from cancer. You know I do.

Here's the thing that chuck. This is where science has kind of fallen down and allowed faith heeling to continue on basically unabated. They they don't have in science doesn't understand why some cancer spontaneously remits. They just don't. They They know that some types of cancer are more likely

to undergo spontaneous remission. They also suspect that people may actually developed cancer and their body might overcome it and they will go their whole lives without realizing that they ever had cancer at some point, but they don't understand the mechanisms behind it. Where I feel like science has fallen down is this misunderstood. Frankly, faith based explanation has been has been used to replace another faith based explanation,

which is that the Holy Spirit healed these people. They're saying, no, it's spontaneous remission. Well what is that? Well, we don't really know, but it's not the Holy Spirit. And I feel like that's that's just that that doesn't fly at all. And for people who believe in in faith healing when they hear spontaneous remission and they ask, well, you know, how does that work? And science as we don't know,

but just trust us. That's what it is. That's not going to change anybody's view if you're a true believer in this kind of thing. Yeah. And it also points out that some of this could be due to the placebo effect, which can remember which show, but we've talked about that before. For sure, we did a placebo effect show. It was probably that one. Uh. And that's of course when fake treatments, uh, it seem like they have actual positive effects for the patient. Um. So some of that

could be this. Some of it could be they have comfort therefore reduced anxiety, and it has been shown when you have reduced anxiety and stress, then that can um, that can help your your case medically. Um. Which is also actually I think why that first study you talked about, UM with the bad outcome didn't wasn't one of the

explanations possibly that people it increased their anxiety. Yeah, like they gave them performance anxiety, Like they didn't want to let the people who were praying for them down right, or let God down. So they actually became anxious, which in turn created negative outcomes or complications from the surgery, Which is just someone surmising what that could mean, that

outcome could mean. Right again again. So like if if, if science is taking it upon itself to two challenge faith healing, I don't think it's doing a very good job right now because the polace Evo effect that's not explained very well either. Um, the idea that anxiety can can lead to negative outcomes. These are things that it's like, yes, science, you're on the right track. Keep going. Don't just stop there.

I hope not. I don't think so. But you do get the impression that if you ask a scientist about faith healing, they just throw out, well that that holy spirit thing, that's just mass illusion. There's spontaneous remission of cancer, so just leave it at that and you get a little pat on the head. I just don't think that works. So who knows, Maybe twenty years down the road, when we understand spontaneous remission, we can say no, you were

not healed. This is what your body did. I think in that case, then the people say, well, yeah, God made my body do that through the faith healer. I don't think it's ever going to end well. Yeah, and there's also the ace that um, the Peter pop Offs of the world selling are sorry, not selling taking donations for Holy spring water. Um. At one point I think

he was a an actual company. And then of course the government starts poking around the books and fraud claims, and then he re registers as a as a religious group and their religious protections in this country and exemptions from the i r S such that they can get away with some of the stuff. They don't have to

show their books. It's tricky. Speaking of laws as well to um the the there are laws on the books that protect religious groups and I think like nine states from criminal negligent manslaughter, homicide charges for withholding um, withholding medical care from children. Yeah. It's weirdly. Just came up today actually in real time as we record today in the news. Did you see that in Idaho? I didn't. The article is called an Idaho and Idaho medical care

exemptions for faith healing come under fire. Uh. And this was breaking news like three hours ago. Uh. There's a cemetery in Boise called Peaceful Valley Cemetery, six hundred grave sites and nearly a third of them are children. And while it's impossible to tell how many UM died because of UM negligent parents, uh, they think that a great

many of them did. They've tried together corner reports, autopsy reports, UM advocates have tried to do this, uh, but basically, UH, they estimate that a hundred and eighty three Idaho children have died since the nineteen seventies because of parents withholding medical treatment. And I think they lead the nation in UM, yes, as more children die of faith based medical neglect in

Idaho than any other state. And so they had a rally I think today where they had UM hundred and eighty three child's eyes caskets delivered I think to the capital steps and Boise, and they're calling on reform and saying, you know, you can't do this anymore. Like I know that parents like these children's can't advocate children's. These children can't advocate for themselves, so it's up to the parents to make sure that they get medical treatment if they

need it. And and again though these parents will literally watch their kid die and say it was God's will right, And I mean like this, this country was founded on religious liberty, so there's just such a sticky situation where it's like, like, we have the technology to save your child and you're not letting us do it. And in Idaho, like you said, is the state that leads that. Other states don't have anything like that any and haven't for

a long time. Some have loopholes that allow that, but say like, if if this happens to multiple children of yours, like your you've let more than one kid die as

God's will, We're gonna actually come after you. And then other states, I think, like Florida and I can't remember the other state basically say yes, we're you're you're we're not going to criminally charge parents who withhold medical care, but the court can still come in and be like, uh, sorry, t Ys, your kid is getting this life saving medical care whether you like it or not. Well, apparently everything

changed in nineteen seventy four. That was um the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and at the time, the Department of HHS interpreted that to say that states must implement faith healing exclusions, and so in order to get uh federal funding, a lot of the states passed these faith healing exemptions so they could get funding, and later on the Department said, you know what we were send that interpretation. That's not what we meant. But it

was too late at that point. Yeah, And and I think it was two thousand three was when they finally rescinded it. But and so all of these these exemptions are relics from two thousand three at the latest, I think of the nineties, a lot of them were removed to So I have a feeling that's not gonna be around for much longer. They'll probably be like one state that's like the holdout state, and I'll be surprised if

it's not Idaho. But I don't think there's gonna be too many states with it around ten years from now or five years from now. I watched a lot of YouTube today, by the way, Yeah, yeah, I used to We used to watch. We used to watch in college. We would go to my friend Clay's house and he had VHS tapes of faith Healers and uh Peter pop Off for sure. And then although he wouldn't have Faith Healer, did you ever watch uh Robert Tilton? No, the name

sounds familiar. You've probably seen the fart compilation. He was a televangelist in the eighties. He's still around, I think, but I think he might have been one of us went broken then cut rich again. But he was a televangelis in the eighties that had this great, great show, um something power. I can't remember what it was called. But no, we're talking about I know exactly what you mean.

You'd probably recognize this guy. But Clay had a bunch of these dubbed and we would we would sit around late at night and watch Bob Tilton speaking tongues and stuff on his show. And he was I watched his bunch today. It took a stroll dumb memory lane. Yeah, it's really funny to watch Bob Tilton, I will say, so, what do you mean the fart accomplishing as he fared

a lot as well. No, years later someone did a He would make all these funny faces and herkey dierky movements, and of course someone later on dubbed in farts every time he closed his eyes real tight or made a funny move, And it's that's funny to watch. But it's also funny just to watch Bob Tilton because he is

like it's entertainment. It was hysterical but you know, people would write him big X and go broke and not be able to pay their mortgages because they're sending him money because they His whole deal was the prosperity thing, like you you will get rich if you if you send your money, it will come back tenfold. That kind of deal. Yeah, we definitely have to do an episode just on that. Back in the day, real quick, did you um, did you ever watch Cartoon Network when Adult

Swim was just like an hour long block at night? Yeah? Sometimes, so there was like Space Ghost Coast to Coast was like I think their first show. Yeah, our friend Dave Wallis was one of the creators right before Space Goest Coast to Coast. They kind of dipped their toe in it where they would run old Space Ghost um cartoons just normal, but they would dub in like inappropriate laugh tracks, and it made it like one of the most bizarrely

funny things you've ever seen. Like somebody would just deliver a line that was maybe mildly like like n S Space Ghost costoon fun, but then like the crowd in this the studio audience would just start laughing. It was. It was great stuff. Well, I just love that I'm like almost forty seven years old, and I have put myself out there in public as a learned, researched man, and there's nothing funnier to me than uh, Bob Tilton

part compilation. Nice. Hey, what's funny? It is funny? That's right. Well, if you want to know more about faith heeling, Um, I don't know, like, go on to YouTube, maybe goes check one out yourself. Who knows? Who knows what will happen? Uh? And since I said who knows what will happen, it's time for listener, ma'am. I'm gonna call this using us in the classroom. We've got a few of these lately, which always makes us happy. Hey, guys, big fan recently

saw you in San Francisco. It's sketch Fest and it was even better than what I've been hoping for. Uh. And by the way, I want to point out to people, when you come see us live, it is better than this. Yeah, you get a free dumb dumb sucker just for coming. Well, they're funnier, they're more fun, they're funnier shows. Uh. You get to hear say dirty words here and there. Um, we drink a hundred percent more than we do in the studio. That's true. Anyway, he went to to San Francisco.

Reason I'm writing is that I'm an eighth grade English teacher. My class has been reading about Harriet Tubman for the past few weeks. This morning, I woke up and saw that you release an episode about her. I knew what it was meant to be. It's part of my lesson plan. It was a bit nervous with my morning class because I hadn't listened to the episode yet, wondering if you might go off on some weird tangent that my students would be confused by. But you did an incredible job.

I feel like that one was pretty tangent free. It really was we we Yeah, we stuck to the story. We were both a little awe struck. That's right. Despite all the distractions inherent and being a teenager, my students were absorbed and entertained by your explanation of this amazing person's life and our contributions to America. Today was many of my students first time listening to a podcast, and I'm so happy I was able to introduce them to Josh and Chuckla And that is President Rob Carter so,

Mr Rob Carter's Class, I hope you enjoyed yourselves. I hope you started listening to our show regularly. You guys and gals are the best. Yeah, thanks a lot, Mr Carter and Mr Carter's Class. Did you call him President Rob Carter? No, I'm almost positive you said that was President Rob Carter. Really. Yeah, you just elected that gout of high office, so that would be a weird thing to say. You're welcome, President Carter. I just got a a gift of an edible arrangement from Hugh Jackman. Yeah,

so maybe he'll get this guy like your president. He can't wait for that. Amy simple McPherson role. I looked at her picture. I know you saw me over here. She I would go with Amy Adams. She do good. Sure. I think just about any actress working today, any of the big names, would do a pretty good job with it. There's some some pretty good actresses working today. Well, you

know what, your your future is not in casting. You don't think so who shouldn't be, Josh, You do not think any of the anyone it should be pretty good, right, just you know, throw a dart. They're all talented. They are all talented. Who was the one in um La La Land. Oh wow, I want to say Emma Blunt, but that's not Emma Blunt. Emma Stone, Emma Stone. Emily Blunt was in Cicaro, right, Yes, and then Amy Adams

was in a Arrival. Yes, Yes, she'd probably be pretty good at it too, But I still go with Jennifer Lawrence. Sounds like my dad. I feel like your dad right now? Hey, Well, at any rate, listen this episode? Shall we Yes? If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast or Josh onm Clark. You can hang out with us on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash

stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. M hmmm