Faith Healer: Medic Or Charlatan?

The thought that a person can be healed by simply having another lay his hands on him is beyond silly, but faith healing and faith healers have become increasingly popular over the last few years. Thousands of cures have been reported over the last few years and several people actively venerate reputable faith healers like Benny Hinn, etc who have a world famous reputation as being healers of the first order.

One sensational case that made the headlines was the unmasking of faith healer Peter Pop off, an evangelist who would call out the names of the people in the audience who were sick. Then he would claim miraculous recoveries for the affected patient by telling the audience intimate details about the patient's life and what was going on in the person's life at that time.

But he was considered to be a fake and this was proven at the time. With considerable investigation, a researcher called as James Randi was able to show that Peter was not getting any divine messages but his wife and associates were helping him out by sending him messages from backstage.

There was tiny receiver in the faith healer's ear which was used to relay information to him about the sick and affected in the audience who had confessed previously to other members in the coterie. This created a sensation with many people publicly boycotting the faith healer and he was eventually arrested for cheating and lying.

The same process was exposed with faith healer W.V. Grant who followed the same procedure. Grant, however, got the information by taking relevant details from the letters that he got from his audience and he used this information to help him out when he mingled with his audience.

He also used to prepare crib sheets so he knew who the patient was and the condition they suffered from. The researcher Randi was able to find a complete set of the crib sheets when he sorted though the trash that was left behind after a healing session! And that was enough to bring down the faith healer.

There are several methods by which faith healers treat the sick and one of the primary ones is healing that occurs during the laying on of hands. When the faith healer lays hands on the sick, they fall back in a stupor or a coma-like condition. But it was also observed that people who did not want to fall were pushed gently till they were compelled to fall with the force of the pushing.

Is there actual evidence that faith healers do work and if so, why has that not been cataloged at all? Why do faith healers not step forward to have their miracles and recoveries be documented before and after by science and medicine? Why do faith healers not follow up with the so-called healed patient after a month or so to make sure that they have recovered? Has there been any independent agent that checks and verifies the healing performed by faith healers?

If none of these questions can be answered, then it's time to question what is believable about faith healing and faith healers.