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Faith Healing · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we do what we do.
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  Speaker 2: I am your Hallelujah, your magic words, healed my glaucoma
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  Speaker 2: host Abraham, and.
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  Speaker 3: I'm your holy Man host Shane.
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  Speaker 2: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: that humans and non human animals do, and today it
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: feels like we're talking more about non human animals, but
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I guess technically speaking, they are human animals, and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: we talk about the crazy things that humans do that
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: are bad, and so that's what we're tackling in this
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  Speaker 2: particular episode. If you're joining us for the first time,
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  Speaker 2: then welcome. I hope that you enjoy what you get
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• 1:02
  Speaker 2: tell a friend. I'll talk more about those things at
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: the end of this discussion. But as I said, we
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: are here to talk psychology things. But it is June third,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: so Happy Chimborazo Day.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I learned that Chimborazo is the highest point on Earth.
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  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I didn't know that, but.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, because of the equatorial bulge. Yeah yeah, pretty fascinating stuff.
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  Speaker 3: It's the closest point to the sun. Okay, take that Everest.
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  Speaker 2: And maybe the moon in the middle of the night.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah me, and also the moon, yes,
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  Speaker 3: you're right, also another celestial body. It is global running day.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Run around the globe. You luck with the oceans. It
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: is impersonate authority day. Oh boy, that is that is
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  Speaker 2: like a felony.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems troublesome. It is Love conquers all day.
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  Speaker 3: I just want to watch somebody them love just beating
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  Speaker 3: the crap out of this administration right now, just like
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  Speaker 3: that's what it is. Love conquers these guys.
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  Speaker 2: Word word. I feel like there's a boxer with the
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  Speaker 2: last name love. That's actually impossible. I don't know. It's
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: National Chocolate macaroon Day.
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  Speaker 3: Yep, it's National egg Day. Chocolate eggs. I mean if
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  Speaker 3: it's chocolate dipped eggs, not great chocolate eggs for Easter delicious.
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  Speaker 2: Sure you might need those chocolate eggs for the macaroons too.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: It is a National itch Day.
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  Speaker 3: Why are we celebrating that it's Repeat Day.
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  Speaker 2: And it's Repeat Day.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, I knew it.
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  Speaker 2: It's the World Bicycle Day, Yes it is.
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  Speaker 3: It's also World club Foot Day. Oh.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Oedipus boy. I don't think we've ever actually talked about
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  Speaker 2: the story of Oedipus on here. I wonder if that
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  Speaker 2: needs to happen.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like we. I feel like we've mentioned
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  Speaker 3: as complex before, that beautiful building, series of buildings that
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  Speaker 3: he's got.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is Repeat Day, just kidding. It is Canadian
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  Speaker 2: environment a.
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  Speaker 3: It's a national CPR and AED awareness week.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I am certified in CPR, me too, and I
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  Speaker 2: know how to use an AED uh huh.
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  Speaker 3: I love it.
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  Speaker 2: It is step parents weak.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. Step parents deserve more credit sometimes.
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  Speaker 2: They do, you know. They serve an important role, sometimes good,
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  Speaker 2: sometimes less good, but sometimes good.
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  Speaker 3: Was not celebrating this week, that's right.
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  Speaker 2: Let's acknowledge the good in general, and Cirella can just
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  Speaker 2: sit on it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Anyway, let's get to the topic at hand. We are
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  Speaker 2: talking about faith healing scams. We're going to talk a
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  Speaker 2: bit about the history of some of the more well
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  Speaker 2: known ones, as well as the specific types of faith
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  Speaker 2: healing tricks that they have done, how they do them,
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  Speaker 2: and some thoughts around all of that. Maybe we'll even
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  Speaker 2: speculate on why these sort of things work a little
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  Speaker 2: bit and how they are supposed to work. I guess
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  Speaker 2: I think that sets us up nicely. But I feel like,
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  Speaker 2: is there anything I'm missing for our preamble before we
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  Speaker 2: get into our topic.
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  Speaker 3: No, I think we're ready to go.
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  Speaker 2: All right, let's do this.
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  Speaker 3: Hallelujah. So, faith healing presentations or performances in which someone
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  Speaker 3: claims to channel the power of God, often a Christian
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  Speaker 3: God or the Christian God, not a Christian God. If
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  Speaker 3: I said a Christian God, not the Christian God, then
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  Speaker 3: I would be remissing because it's a monotheistic religion.
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  Speaker 2: We all know that, Well, this is the Holy Trinity.
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  Speaker 2: It's I feel like it's sort of loose.
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  Speaker 3: God's That's weird. God is O kid? That's strange, Like,
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  Speaker 3: let's what are we doing here now? What they do
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  Speaker 3: is a channel a Christian God, and they successfully cure
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  Speaker 3: people of their various ailments, whatever those ailments might.
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  Speaker 2: Be, whatever those ailments may be. Said more accurately, though, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: said more accurately though. Faith healing scams are theatrical performances
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  Speaker 2: in which some huckster does magic tricks, sleight of hand,
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  Speaker 2: illusions and whatnot to convince people that they have miraculously
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  Speaker 2: cured someone of virtually any number of afflictions and uses
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  Speaker 2: the to take their money.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and arguably they're not even magic tricks at this
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  Speaker 3: point in time, Like, it's so easy for them to
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  Speaker 3: just go, you're healed, and then people feel like that anyway. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it's a whole thing. Now. The idea of using prayer
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  Speaker 3: to aid in or completely heal someone as likely as
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  Speaker 3: old as people believing in anything supernatural. People might simply
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  Speaker 3: ask that God spare the life of or reverse the
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  Speaker 3: course of disease in a loved one or themselves.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like, this is a such an old tradition.
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  Speaker 2: I think even people who aren't necessarily talking to a
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  Speaker 2: god specifically might appeal to the universe and say, please
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  Speaker 2: let things improve for this this one, the person I
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  Speaker 2: care about, or for myself or you know anything.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's important. It's somebody who is experiencing
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: some need. Yeah, I think that I'd like to I
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  Speaker 3: really want to focus on that. Part of this is
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  Speaker 3: it somebody who is in need, who's asking for this help.
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  Speaker 2: You're right, that is a critical foundational step here is
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  Speaker 2: the motivation is high to find a way to manage
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  Speaker 2: an unmanaged situation, to seek some kind of way to
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  Speaker 2: overcome an unavoidable obstacle like that is essentially the premise
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  Speaker 2: here is you are faced with a horrible situation, and
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  Speaker 2: when phase of the horrible situation, the natural inclination is
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  Speaker 2: to try and get out of that horrible situation. Sometimes
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  Speaker 2: it is run away, sometimes it is panic. Sometimes it
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  Speaker 2: is appeal to anyone and everyone who is nearby. See
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: our episode on grief for sort of dive of the
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  Speaker 2: various ways that this shows up for people. But nevertheless,
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  Speaker 2: that is a very important context to understand. So starting
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  Speaker 2: with that understanding that this is the essential situation we're
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  Speaker 2: in is someone is desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.
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  Speaker 2: And when people are desperate, someone is going to show
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  Speaker 2: up to take their money, because desperate people will buy
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  Speaker 2: things to desperately and in modern times, one of the
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  Speaker 2: most popular and definitely one of the most financially successful
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  Speaker 2: of these was a man named Peter pop Off and
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  Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighties, which was just a heyday for
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  Speaker 2: this stuff. Although I ever went away. This was man,
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  Speaker 2: it was really happening here. In eighties, pop Off was
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  Speaker 2: conducting these live televised sermons in which he screamed charismatic
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  Speaker 2: promises and would on TV know things he couldn't know
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  Speaker 2: and demonstrate his ability to heal people of ailments that
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  Speaker 2: you could not heal with your words, and he did
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  Speaker 2: so by invoking the idea that he's channeling the power
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  Speaker 2: of God, or is like appealing to God so effectively
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  Speaker 2: that God will do pop Off's bidding right now.
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  Speaker 3: He would ask people to throw their prescription medication on stage,
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  Speaker 3: which they did, and would then theatrically perform healing miracles.
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  Speaker 3: He would command people to rise from their wheelchairs and
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  Speaker 3: break free. He would claim to restore sight of the
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  Speaker 3: blind or to the blind. Specifically, he claimed to cure cancer,
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  Speaker 3: lung disease, heart conditions, intestinal diseases, drug addiction, and diabetes.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, this guy was like a one stop shop.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if he claims to bring someone
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  Speaker 2: back from the dead at any point, but everything short
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  Speaker 2: of death he would claim to be able to heal
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  Speaker 2: via this method. It kind of makes me think you know,
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  Speaker 2: people like to say God works in mysterious ways and
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  Speaker 2: you never know what God's plan is, and then you
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  Speaker 2: pray and hope, but you never know if that's actually
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  Speaker 2: going to come true because things might not work out.
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  Speaker 2: And Peter pop Off is sort of saying, like, no,
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  Speaker 2: you just need to ask. Like God doesn't listen to you.
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  Speaker 2: God listens to me, right, So, like you can pray
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  Speaker 2: all you want, but I've got God's ear, so like
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  Speaker 2: what you do?
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  Speaker 3: I got it then?
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm I'm like on good, I'm buddies with him.
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  Speaker 2: That's the implication that I hear in this that I
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  Speaker 2: think most people do not, But there it is. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: Peter Popoff gets on the stage again this is televised.
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  Speaker 2: Didn't wasn't always that way, but it definitely got that way,
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  Speaker 2: and that was where this the story sort of begins.
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  Speaker 2: He's standing in front of an audience. He would call
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  Speaker 2: out the name of a specific person and their specific ailment,
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  Speaker 2: as if blessed with divine knowledge about this person and
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  Speaker 2: the issue that they're facing, why they're there in the
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  Speaker 2: first place, and lo, that exact person with that exact
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  Speaker 2: problem would raise their hand and come forward miraculously right shocking.
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  Speaker 2: It was also clear that these were not plants. These
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  Speaker 2: were people who showed up for this. They would be surprised.
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  Speaker 2: They would be just enamored with the spectacle of it
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  Speaker 2: all and ready to receive the divine blessing and pop
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  Speaker 2: off wood. When this person raises their hand they approach.
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  Speaker 2: He's gonna come to these people in this intoxicatingly enthusiastic display.
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  Speaker 2: He places his hand on the person. He's gonna give
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  Speaker 2: him a big hug, and he's gonna yell so something
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  Speaker 2: glottal like la la la la, and then you're healed,
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  Speaker 2: doing my best here and good thank you. And the
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  Speaker 2: people around the freshly healed person are gonna congratulate them.
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  Speaker 2: They're gonna whisper prayers to them. They're gonna whisper blessings
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  Speaker 2: to them and praise. They're gonna path them on the
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  Speaker 2: shoulder're gonna surround them with compassion and love and attention
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  Speaker 2: and like congratulations. And that's sort of what the ceremony
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  Speaker 2: looks like in these performances.
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  Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Now for remote viewers, he would send prayers
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  Speaker 3: to people and ask them to send back their biggest
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  Speaker 3: bill or biggest check that they could write, and when
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  Speaker 3: they'd ask for trinkets, jewels, gold, it arrived in boatloads.
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  Speaker 3: People would just send all kinds of stuff, precious jewels, gems,
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: family heirlooms, they'd send whatever. They would send whatever that
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  Speaker 3: was like valuable to these folks.
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  Speaker 2: They made it clear that you too could receive pop
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  Speaker 2: offs support and blessing, not just Bono, the whole band
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  Speaker 2: and anyone who is watching. Anyway. You could reach out
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: to him and he would send you his prayers and
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: be like, I'm praying for you, you have my support.
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  Speaker 2: Send me as much money as you can possibly send me.
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  Speaker 2: Then that will really show your commitment to this, your conviction.
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  Speaker 2: By doing that, God sees that God will reward you.
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  Speaker 2: For a lot of these early people, it wasn't always
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  Speaker 2: medical problems. Sometimes it was financial problems, which makes it
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  Speaker 2: even grosser. Yeah, it would be like, you're someone who
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  Speaker 2: is suffering financially, give me as much money as you can,
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  Speaker 2: and God will bless you with more money. It will
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: be returned to you. Here is an ad for that.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: All right, we're back. We've been describing the sermon and
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  Speaker 2: the commercial operation that is Peter Popoff's sort of legacy
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  Speaker 2: as he's rising to fame in the nineteen eighties.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so he starts still list setting donations to send
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  Speaker 3: bibles to people of the Soviet Union, and even taking
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  Speaker 3: a photo of himself at the head of the boat
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  Speaker 3: of a boat holding bibles fanned out in his hands,
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  Speaker 3: that he would presumably place these waterproof styrofoam containers, that
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: he would put these bibles in these waterproof styrofoam containers
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  Speaker 3: so that they would reach the shores of communists or
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: would be delivered via helium balloon. He was just like
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  Speaker 3: like drones before drones.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just he's like, I'm bringing God to the Communists,
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  Speaker 2: That's what we're doing. He claimed at some point to
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: reach communist Russia or Communist China. I forget which one.
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  Speaker 2: I think it was Communist Russia, and that he would
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  Speaker 2: normally be stopped by like the comrades, the guards, you know,
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  Speaker 2: who are there, like you can't you can't just walk here,
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  Speaker 2: But he claimed like they were so eager to hear
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  Speaker 2: the words of God, they just let him through even
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: though they weren't supposed to. That definitely never happened, Sure,
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  Speaker 2: but he did perform some aspect of this, so he
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  Speaker 2: solicited all these donations, got a ton of money so
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  Speaker 2: that he had this bring God to the communist campaign.
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  Speaker 2: And when they asked about it, like, hey, how's this
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  Speaker 2: campaign going, he all right, let me be really careful here.
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  Speaker 2: There was apparently a very conveniently timed break in and
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  Speaker 2: all that money was stolen. Everybody who is thinking about
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  Speaker 2: this in any conceivably intelligent way understands that he staged
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: this break in. But sure, we'll just say allegedly staged
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the break in.
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  Speaker 3: That's what our lawyers told us to say.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, lawyers said. The money mysteriously disappeared and
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: was never heard from again, and he was much richer
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: and afterward somehow.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's a shame that he didn't get like
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: a Bible canon, like a T shirt cannon. That would
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: have been such a great spectacle, just firing books into
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: a crowd, just like a T shirt. I think it'd
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  Speaker 3: be great.
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  Speaker 2: If he'd been around, just like fifteen or twenty years later.
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  Speaker 2: I think that would have been exactly the thing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm gonna copyright that.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it would have been like the the money
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: guns that you can buy, like as seen on TV
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  Speaker 2: money Gun where you like put it in there to
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: shoot after be like Maddy scripture, just like helting it out.
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  Speaker 2: Someone needs to hear this. They're gonna go do that
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: exact thing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's just John three sixteen, over and over
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  Speaker 3: and over again.
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  Speaker 2: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: Now, pop Off reported an income of over one hundred
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars per month when purchasing his beloved Bentley and
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: owns a ten million dollar home in Texas, with the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: Ministry estimated the value of thirty four million dollars. We're
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: gonna come back to pop Off, but I think it
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: sounds like maybe that break in didn't happen.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Well, and that was I mean that was like from
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: all of his regular monthly stuff too. Like the big
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: campaign to like bring God to the Communist is one thing.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: But yeah, even without that, his regular monthly get donations
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: from people Operation was pulling in reportedly over one hundred
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars a month just for him, because like that
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: doesn't even account for what the Ministry is worthwhich for
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: thirty million dollars. Now let's talk about someone else though,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: because there's a few more of these type people. So
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Jim Baker, he was another televangelist preacher. In the nineteen
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: seventies and nineteen eighties. He first got started hosting a
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: televised preaching program that ran locally in North Carolina and
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: was called Praise the Lord, commonly abbreviated to PTL, which
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: sometimes they referred to as People that Love and maybe
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: now pumpkin Te Latte as they could PSL. Yeah, but anyway,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: so he really got famous in the nineteen eighties, but
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: he got to start in the nineteen seventies doing these
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: local TV programs where he's doing preaching.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Now. They grew extremely popular and started purchasing access to
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: a satellite network for broader distribution, and came up with
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: the idea that they could go on television and just
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: ask people for donations. Ask and you shall receive. They
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: reported getting deeds, diamonds, mink coats, and all sorts of
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: other possessions, not just monetary donations.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd go on. They would be they would say
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: something along the lines of like, we're trying to bring
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: God to the people. We have to purchase more airtime.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: We need your support. Send us your donations, send us
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: your goods so that we can purchase more airtime to
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: bring God to more people, and the money just ruled.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And it was kind of a novel idea. Like I
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: think at the time people were of the mind that
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: you don't just go on TV and say, hey, please
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: give me money and then people would just do it.
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  Speaker 2: That seems very tacky, yeah, and Baker was just not
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: above that. He was like, that is exactly what I'm doing.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: So that's what they did and it worked. Moving on,
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  Speaker 2: Baker was obsessed with Walt Disney largely, I think the
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: success of the sort of conglomerate Disney was building at
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the time, and he wanted to build a Christian Disneyland,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: which is funny to me because that's like wanting to
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: have a procapitalist Amazon dot com. It already exists, it's
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: called Amazon dot com.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 2: Like I feel like, obviously Disney is not often pushing
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: the direct at Christian message, but they're not shying away
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  Speaker 2: from it and a lot of their stuff either, so
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  Speaker 2: right right, Anyway, I just thought it was silly. So
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  Speaker 2: here's this idea. He's like, he wants to build a
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  Speaker 2: Christian Disneyland, and they were use their donations and what
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  Speaker 2: not to purchase some twenty three hundred acres of land,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: a hotel on it, a water park that was like
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: there they were going to do up and turn it
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: all into this resort and whatnot, and was marketing this
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: as this really exclusive timeshare sort of resort limited to
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: twenty five thousand people because that's basically what they sort
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: of could handle, and it would be four Christians only.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they did like any kind of
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: vetting process, but I think only they sort of assumed
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: only Christians would apply because it's going to just be
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: filthy with Christian propaganda, so like people aren't gonna want
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: to come here who aren't ready to immerse themselves in that.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: So that's sort of the setup here is like we're
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: building Christian Disneyland, which was basically a hotel in the
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: water slide. There was more to it than that, but
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: like that was it was not no, yeah.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: But the water slide went into a baptismal pool for sure.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably obviously, And so they're like, well, we can
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: handle is twenty five thousand people, one thousand dollars a pop, easy,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: couple million dollars.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not too bad. So he
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: ended up selling over one hundred and fifty nine thousand
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: of these, which the hotel could not even remotely begin
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: to handle and was more than ten times what was
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: set up to manage and could not deliver on the
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: promise of his resort. So he took over one hundred
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: and fifty eight million dollars and use it to fund
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: an extremely lavish lifestyle. Welcome back to Jim Baker. I
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: was really hoping that this was going to turn into
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: the Holy Land Experience out in Orlando. I don't know
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: if you are I don't know if you remember that,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: But for those of you who don't know, the Holy
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Land Experience was a theme park in Orlando that was
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: part of the Christian experience where they would do the
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Passion of the Christ every day, so they as part
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: of the attraction. They would just torture Jesus in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: streets to be like here, there you go, folks, this
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: is what you paid for.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is uh well hell yeah no thanks crazy
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: all right. Then a lot more happened. It was revealed
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: that Baker's wife was a prescription drug addict, which caused
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: her to ode a little bit, have a panic attack, apparently,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: run around naked and retreat from the public for a while.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: It came to light that Baker had sexually assaulted a
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: young secretary who I believe was a miner at the time,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: paid her two hundred thousand dollars in hush money, which
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of course was the church's money, and had also been
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: engaged in some same sex affairs, which good for him,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: but also bad for his wife and for the people
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: he oppressed who preferred same sex partners, who he constantly
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: reeled against being terrible people.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So that is essentially what happens with Jim Baker's legacy now.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety seven, he was convicted of multiple felonies,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: including wire fraud, mail fraud, and conspiracy, and sentenced to
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: forty five years in prison, which he successfully appealed down
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: to eight and was then paroled before it had been
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: five years.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Yep, So there's that. So Baker's out of prison. He
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: started a new television program and has been working more
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: surreptitiously in the background, quietly ripping people off. Ever, since
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: he's still around, he's still doing his thing. He had
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: been hawking a dietary supplement called Silver Solution, and in
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty he started aggressively claiming that this was a
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: cure for COVID nineteen. In twenty twenty, that was more
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of a big deal for some people. And anyway, the
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: ag the Attorney General of Missouri, shut him down and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: forced him to pay one hundred and fifty nine thousand
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: dollars in restitution to the people to whom he had
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: sold his quack nonsense magical cure.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So we're going to move on
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: to another person. Here's a guy with a completely wholesome name.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: This guy's name is Jimmy Swaggert, and he was a
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: super famous nineteen eighties televangelist who fiercely preached against what
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: he called quote sexual immorality, which included, among other things, homosexuality, promiscuity,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: and prostitution.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Gonna spend as much time on him. This is kind
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: of just a small Have you've.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Seen him one? Have you've seen one of them? You've
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: seen all of them? Yeah?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: More or less?
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Swagger publicly chastised and led a moral crusade against a competitor, preacher,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gorman, for years, and Swaggert's preaching empire that was
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: built on demonizing the behaviors of other people and calling
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: people out brought him fame, wealth and power and enemies.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And we'll come back to Jimmy Swagger.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, you know, when you hear these things,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: you just go sure, like these these are like it's
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: it's not surprising that these people are seeking power, not
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: godliness or anything like that. Like, and you've probably seen
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: these people in your towns. And I also want to
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: point out I think that's something that's really important to
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: point out. We brought up three states so far that
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: have come up in this discussion, and it is Texas,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: North Carolina, and Missouri accurate. So I think there's something
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: to be said about how the Confederacy still lives for
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: some reason. Yeah, I mean, not that these people don't
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: exist in other places, but I mean, come on, it's
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: like a breeding ground here.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, breeding ground for ads. Okay, we're back. We've been
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: sort of just unpacking the history a few of these
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: people who were unsavory folks and the kind of scams
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: that they were pulling to rip people off of their money.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: It really was we got a little off track just
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: talking about unpacking various people in their various crimes, because
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: really the intention was to be to focus on faith Elaid.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: So we're going to turn to this. We'll actually come
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: back to all of them a little bit. But in
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six is where a lot of this comes
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: to the head. Yeah, right. First of all, Shane is
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: born and all things start improving.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Well that's not true. Ten days after I was born,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: the Challenger exploded. I think I was like a harbinger
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: for doom. It's been a real problem since I came around.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Well, something good happened in nineteen eighty six, and that
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: was that famed magician and in my opinion, general hero,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: James Randy, who had specialized in exposing the magic tricks
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: of Charlatan's, very much in the tradition of Harry Houdini,
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: also a very fascinating guy that might be fun to
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: talk about. At some point, Houdini hated Charlatan's and he
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: went about exposing their fraud because he was such a
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: good magician, he recognized the fraud and others, but he
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: was an entertainer, and other people who were frauds were
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: ripping people off. So you know, they call themselves the
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: honest liars because they're like, I'm telling you that I'm
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: lying to you because I'm doing this as like a gag,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: like this is for a show, and if you think
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the show is entertaining, and then you can pay me money.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: But like if I'm not going to trick you into
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: giving me money for something you don't understand. For some reason, anyway,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: James Randy infiltrated some of pop Off's sermons and what
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: he did is he placed radio receivers around the sort
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: of center in which these sermons were taking places, because
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: he sort of hypothesized how the trick was being done
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: and he was able to cap sure the mechanism behind
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: the scam. Pop Off had plants in the audience. These
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: are not the people who are being called on, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: what they were doing is the plants would engage audience
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: members and get their names and medical problems. And what
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: they would do is they would then radio this to
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: pop Off's wife, who's like off sort of behind the scenes,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: and then she would give this information to Peter pop
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Off through a small earpiece and would basically tell him
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: the name and the ailment so they could call it
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: out as if he had received this divine wisdom. And
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: this is part of pop Off's miraculous demonstration is being
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: fed information he could not possibly have, but they sort
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: of demonstrated he was just doing it with the radio.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: Sure. Now, other tricks were exposed as well. During the sermons,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: wheelchair bound people would magically stand and people with canes
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: would throw them down. For some of these people, they
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: were given wheelchairs, canes, hearing aids, and other accessibility devices
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: prior to the show. That is, they didn't need the
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: wheelchairs or the canes, they were just provided them. Then
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: when asked the stand is part of the miraculous healing,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: they would, of course stand up. That wasn't a problem,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: and they didn't need the chair of the can in
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the first place. But that hardly mattered for the rest
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: of the audience. They just saw someone in a wheelchair
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: stand and who cares how they got there.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've got to think from the audience perspective,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: when you came in, that person was in a wheelchair
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: and now they're standing up. Amazing, right, But part of
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the trick is you don't see the first part of
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: the trick. Yeah, for people who can't read, that's mind blowing.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, So that's part of it. You know, they
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: get these assisted devices and then they just they just
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: get rid of them and like they never actually needed
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: them in the first place, or like a lot of
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: times they would pick people who looked like they could
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: use them, older people perhaps, but they didn't actually need
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: to have them, so that was part of it. But
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: pop Up never asks like do you need to have
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: this wheelchair? Just says like, if you're in a wheelchair,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: stand up, I'm telling God send the crippled this out
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: of you. Stand up. Sorry for the language to using
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: language of the time anyway for some people is another
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: example of how these tricks are done. Pop Off might
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: pull off their glasses and then hold up some number
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: of fingers for the former visually impaired parishioner to count,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and then loudly proclaim, you can see this person can
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: now see. They do this with people who also were
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: maybe visually impaired in using a cane, and he often
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: said the number for them, so he might say like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: do you see my four fingers? And the person's like,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I do I see four fingers? That was one thing
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: he would do sometimes. What he would also do is
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: like make sure he was wearing to Peter pop Off
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: his white pasty white guy. He'd wear very dark clothes
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: and hold his fingers like against his chest where he
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: basically have really high contrast between his pale white skin
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: of his hand and the dark clothes that he was wearing.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: So that was part of it, although he often said
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the number or didn't give them a chance to respond
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: before claiming they were healed. For a lot of these
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: people who were legally blind, it actually doesn't mean they're
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: unable to perceive anything visually of them, and they would
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: find this out on purpose. A lot of them have
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: partial vision, like they could actually see a bit. They
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: just didn't have very strong vision. They could still see
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: some and they would recruit these people and hold up
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: these brightly colored, contrasted objects. They might use a white
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: handkerchief to say, like what am I holding up? But
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: that's you know, against a dark background? Or what color
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: is this is a common one, and this was evidence
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: of the miraculous return to vision. They never said like
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: what color is this? Now I'm going to heal you,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: now what color is this? It was just you're blind,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: you can't see I heal you. What color is this?
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And the person says the color And that's as much
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: opportunity as they're given to respond, and of course what
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: the audience sees is, oh my god, this person who's
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: clearly blind just saw color for the first time in
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: their lives, right, So that's where the audience walks away
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: from with that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So for people with deafness, again, one trick is
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: to select someone with partial deafness, particularly if it is
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: primarily in one ear, and then they stand on the
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: side with the better hearing and say things quietly but
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: directly into the good ear, so then the quote unquote
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: deaf person was able to hear and respond, and so
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: he might be He might also make sure they would
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: have a clear look at his face and mouth so
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: that they could lean on their ability to lip read,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and he could, like you know, he would like you know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: specifically say things and exaggerate them and be really dramatic
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: and people would pick that up, and so he could
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: use their other abilities to be able to like you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: play around and kind of make it look like he
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: was healing them when the truth was like they already
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: had these skills and it was it was not a
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: far leap, you know.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Another trick they might use for people with who
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: are hard of hearing is they might use or completely deaf.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: They might use bone conduction. It's a wild sensation. You
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: can actually go to an audiologist for a bone conduction
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: test and they'll put this little tool on the bone
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: in your skull. It's like right behind your ear. It'll
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: vibrate slightly and you'll hear this very tonal hum like
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: inside your ear.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll sound like a like in there.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: It's wild and apparently faith healers might do something like
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: place a speaker against that bone and it will help
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: conduct sound a little bit. I was kind of trying
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to do this with my phone, but I couldn't quite
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: get it to work correctly, So I'm not sure exactly
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: how they pulled this off, but that was one of
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the ways they would pull off that trick.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: That makes sense now. A common complaint is the feeling
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: of pain or feeling like the person is in pain.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: So for this you mostly need placebo. The people that
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: bring on stage are people brought into the possibility of
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: a miracle cure right or miraculous cure. The healer expresses
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: sympathy and excitement and promises, and will often ask the
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: person to do something that is a little uncomfortable physically,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: like stand or sit in awkward or uncomfortable position. Then
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: they'll return the person to a more comfortable position and
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the person will report honestly, they no longer feel pain,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: and of course it returns later. But that's not what
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: the audience sees. They just see a glimpse of this
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: kind of miraculous cure, which is just literally making sure
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: somebody is comfortable. Yeah.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically they ask them to like, oh, stretch
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: your legs out in this way, or they might even
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: not ask them to do this them I just hold
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: their legs in a way that's kind of sort of weird.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: They might ask them to move their arms in a
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: way that was a little uncomfortable, and then when they
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: they sort of move into a more relaxed state, they like,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: do feel better, And the person's like, honestly, yeah, I do.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: And it's because you basically went from being more uncomfortable
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: to slightly less uncomfortable, slightly more comfortable. Yeah, And they're like, oh,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I do feel better. And also they like they want
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: to believe in it. You know, they're jazzed up, they're
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: ready to go. They're like, oh, this is this is great.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: I'm so looking forward to feeling better. It's like people
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: who take homeopathic medicine that's like just magic pretend water,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: and it's like I feel better when I take this.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I mean you could you could get
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: that from the tap in your sink because that so
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: much chemical as what you have. So yeah, but anyway,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: that's sort of the The similar thing here is there
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: is the placebo effect a bit, but if it's only
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: gonna last as long as the show basically sure, Now,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: many or even most of these cases, they mislead the
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: audience about the severity of the impairment, as we've described,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: and then ask people to perform actions that they could
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: actually already perform, but they never asked them to perform
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: those actions at a time, as I mentioned. So it
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: looks like a miraculous change, but it's actually not a
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: change at all, because your baseline was we don't know
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: what that person can do, and then the result is, Wow,
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: you told me this person can't do this thing, and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: now they're doing it. That's amazing. We don't actually know
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: that they could already do that thing. That's one of
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: the ways they'll set up these right.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: So a famous miracle heel is where they linked in
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: a leg that is shorter than another. There are a
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: couple of ways to perform this trick, but they're pretty similar. First,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: you'll ask the person to sit or lie down and
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: the extend their legs. The preacher will gently loosen the
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: heel of the shoe so that when the camera zoom in,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: you can see that one leg looks a good inch
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: or two shorter than the other one. Then, as the
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: preacher appeals to God for healing, they gently wiggle the
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: shoe back into place. Another way to do this is
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: if the legs are legitimately noticeably different, and one way
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: they do is is wiggle off the heel of one
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: shoe so that it matches the length of the other shoe.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Then they'll ask the person to stand up and move
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: around and move about and may dance. And of course
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: the person could already move about and dance just fine,
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: but in the height of the excitement, it looks like
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: a miracle. So like, there's a couple of different ways
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: to kind of like just they set it up to
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: make it look a certain way.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: And in case any of you want to watch this,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Darren Brown also has like a whole thing on YouTube,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: where it goes through doing these exact tricks and showing
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: you how they're done. But yeah, like the with the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: one leg shorter than the other, most of the time
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: they're not, And like a chiropractor told them that, because
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: that's what they always say, because they're like, oh, I
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: need to pop your back for the next fifteen years
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: and you can pay me every week and then everybody
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: wins except for you, and your one leg is shorter
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: than the other and you can't actually physically tell that
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: in anyway, but you can rotate your hips in such
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: a way that you could convince that that's a thing. Anyway.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: What they'll do is they'll take your two legs, they'll
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: hold them up, and they'll like have loosened the shoe
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: so you can tell, like it looks like one foot
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: is poking out further than the other because they pulled
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: the shoe off your foot slightly right, and then they
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: just put it back and then they look like they're
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: aligned again. Amazing.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: It's one of those things where it's like this is
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: just magic what I want right, Like when you really
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: get into it, like there's a magic trick that I teach,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I teach my nephew, my niece and nephew, and it
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: is I can float. So what I do, I can
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: levitate off the ground. And so what I do is
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: I turn my back to them so that they can
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: only see my heels, but my feet are at an
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: angle so that I can lift one foot entirely off
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: the ground. But I'm standing on my tiptoe on the
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: other one. But the foot that's lifted off the ground
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: is hiding the tiptoe, and all you see are my
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: heels lift and then I drop like dramatically. I'm like, oh, oh,
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: those is so exhausting. And they're like, why you can fly?
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's just such a little thing. But
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: it's like it just made me laugh because I'm like,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I convinced a five year old to do this, and
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: now this person's convincing an entire parish of these healing methods.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: You know, it's unbelievable.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: They said, Adra cadabra. All right, we're back. So we're
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: just talking about how the faith healing, magic tricks, sleight
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: of hand illusions sort of work. Another one, as we mentioned,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: is that they also will frequently claim to be able
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: to solve your money problems. And they do this by
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: asking for donations somehow that works, and promising that supporting
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: their mission will finance goodwill with God, who really likes
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: money too, apparently, and who will arrange a financial windfall
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: to help those people. So the greater conviction, the more
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: God will help. So just give us everything you can.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: Sure, I know it's gross. So at these faith healing scams,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: they'll send the quote unquote offering bucket around multiple times.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: And you might see this in your normal church it's
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: a donation plate, but they do an offering bucket which
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: is a little bit bigger and around. They send it
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: around multiple times. They'll state that giving as much money
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: as you can is a test of your faith and
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: that by committing fully you will be rewarded. And they
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: sell this dramatically, and they sell dramatically overpriced trinkets and gimmicks.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: This last year, I was at the Vatican and everything
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: was very overpriced. I'm like, you don't need this, what
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: are you doing?
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, buy our fifty dollars T shirt, Like, no, come on, this.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Rosary isn't even real. What are we doing.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: They also, as part of their sort of performance, they're
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: gonna use high intensity emotional language and expression. They use loud,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: energetic deliveries. They'll employ upbeat, hopeful sounding music. They add
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: plants in the audience who help push enthusiastic, ambitious energy
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and reactions. And of course they leave very little rumor
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: opportunity for any kind of questioning or interpretation of what
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: is happening beyond what they want you to see and
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: what they want you to believe. It's really done just
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: like a magic show, except it's done to take your money,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: like to take it without you understanding that that's what's
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: happening to you.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're duping you. I mean, you know, I was
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: thinking about this, Like the one thing, the one feature
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: that I always see you with this is it's very loud,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: it's very chaotic, it's very energetic, and I was thinking
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: about how that triggers like certain parts of your nervous system. Sure,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: when somebody is acting frantically, like you can't help but
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: kind of like be on guard, Like to me, like
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: I'm not relaxed when somebody is yelling and screaming and
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: doing that. I'm like kind of like watching to wait
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: for the next thing to happen. So I can't help.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: But I'm not paying attention to anything else that's happening
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: around me. I'm paying attention to this person because this
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: person is flying off the handle. So I'm like this,
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: like that's you know, I think about that. I'm like,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: from just like a physiological standpoint, I can't help but
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: be on guard when this person is doing this because
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: they are so animated and so over the top. But
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, I'm like looking for an exit.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: They want you to be emotionally charged and like just
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: sort of on edge and like really in the thick
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: of it, like you're a Swifty at your first Taylor
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Swift concert. Like they want that level of like emotional
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: investment going on. That's gonna leave you the most susceptible
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: to the trick and therefore also the most susceptible to
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: giving away your money. But that's part of why they
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: set it up that way. They want it to be
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: a spectacle and to have you be like heightened emotionally
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: and sort of in that around state. And yeah, like
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: that's get involved a lot of hormones and neurotransmitters and
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: like it's a very unique situation to be in relative
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: to what your normal day today is like when they
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: give you hope, they like tell you I'm going to
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: fix things in your life, and you want to believe that.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: When you're someone who's desperate, you're like, finally, this person
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: is here to help me, like this thing that I
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: desperately need, And all they're asking for is my blind
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: faith in all of my money. Like what a small
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: price to pay. And so that's how they're sort of
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: set up. But I just to be make sure we're
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: really clear, because I think we've been clear, but we're
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: going to be clearer here.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, these scams are scams. Yeah.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: They are one hundred percent, one hundred percent fraudulent scams
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: designed to rob vulnerable populations of what little they have.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: They don't care if they take the last dime of
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: a mother who can't afford to feed her children, or
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: the finances of someone who leaves nothing to their children
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: than the events of their passing, or if they rip
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: off someone with a lot of money who won't miss it,
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: they don't care. The point is they are just here
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: to take your money. It is me or you, is
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: the way that they see it. They are con artists, hucksters, Charlatan's.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: These are scams. One hundred percent of the time. Okay,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: there's one more thing on this topic that we want
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: to talk about, and you're probably wondering what happens to
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: the people who go up on stage are inevitably not
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: healed by faith healers, and what their experience must then
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: be like because they've gone through this ritual everyone else
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: thinks they're healed, and now they're not healed. You'd probably
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: be thinking, well, wouldn't they be exposing the fraud here,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: like the fact that this isn't happening. If if no
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: one had been healed, someone would be calling it out.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: This is where I think this gets particularly gross, that
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: it wasn't already. But this part's pretty hard, I think,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: because the most common tactic that is used for the
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: person who will not be healed is that they are
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: blamed for this as their own failure if they come
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: forward at all, which many of them don't, but they're
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: going to be blamed by the healer and by the crowd.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: They will be accused of harboring doubts of God's power,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: or having secret hidden sins, or lacking sufficient faith right,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and that that's the reason their heal didn't work or
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: didn't last was because it was their fault. They are
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: a bad person, and so God's extremely contingent healing power
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: either doesn't work or is removed.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, extremely contingent. It's such a fair assessment of that.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: At best though, they just feel disappointment, but they are
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: sometimes threatened and ridiculed by believers and feel tremendous guilt
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: and shame, believing that it is their inadequacies or spiritual
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: shortcomings that are to blame causing deep psychological trauma and
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: self life. I mean, you know, you to go up
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: and say, like, oh, God's forgotten me. It's my fault
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: that God has forgotten me or has refused to help
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: mend it left me behind. That is that's got to
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: be so conflicting and so difficult and just so devastating
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: for folks who have such strong faith.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: If your belief was powerful enough in the first place
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: that you thought that this could work, then the fallout
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: of it not working, I feel like, is just overwhelmingly intense, right,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: psychological experience. And another consideration here is that, as we
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: were trying to describe initially, when you get up there,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: the room is like full of energy. There's adrenaline, is pumping.
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: There's you get this sort of temporary psychological high that
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: sort of works like a placebo effect for some people
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: just from the intensity of the ritual, and that might
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: have those people even believe somewhat that they've been healed.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: You would be amazed what you can trick yourself into
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: believing even around this. So I live with an older
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: relative right now who is blind in one eye after
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: developing glaucoma, and she was sort of sharing her experience
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: with me recently about this and said that she reported
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: not even knowing there was a problem with her vision
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: until she went in for a routine checkup had and
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: was told she had lost ninety percent of her vision
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: ninety percent. Why she had somehow talked herself into believing
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: that she could see just fine, or like maybe needed
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: readers or something. So like, yeah, it's wild to imagine.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: So you could trick yourself into believing a lot anyway.
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: And this was not like this is I'm not talking
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: about her because of faith healing. I'm talking about her
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: because she didn't try that, but talking about her because
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: how powerful of a belief you can have in terms
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: of like what your abilities really are, right and not
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: even noticing how much you've lost.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, the people who are invariably
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: not heal might also stop receiving legitimate medical care, which
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: can rapidly cost severe medical complications, including death. And for
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: people who were seeking financial help, they pour a lot
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: of what little money they have and left into the
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: church and are left financially ruined, destitute, and homeless. So
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: you know, you've got folks who are seeking help, who
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: give every resource they have, who firmly believe in these practices,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: and then they go and it doesn't work for them,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: and it's just a loss across the board for them.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: It's devastating across the board.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And at that point, they're no longer in the spotlight.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: So it's not like the people who are there who
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: didn't go on stage but witnessed all the miracles have
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: any idea at how bad things have gotten. You know,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: they already wanted to believe anyway, So they've convinced themselves
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: while this person's problems really are gone now, and they
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: don't see what happened to that person, right, or if
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: they do, they blame it. They blame that person for
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: it being their fault. Right, That these things happen. So
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I think when I finished my thought because I was
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about the uh, the sort of placebo
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: effect you get from this, So you might walk away
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: from the faith healing entertainment presentation if you will, and
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: maybe have somewhat of an effect. Sometimes there was none whatsoever,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: but that will wear off. If they had it at all,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: it will wear off. But again, their story then isn't
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: known because they, like the people who are financially affected
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: by this or medically or whatever, their story goes away.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: And also for people whose medical complications deteriorate rapidly because
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: they no longer are receiving voluntarily they've removed themselves from
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: receiving medical attention and intervention, then they'll pass so quickly,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: some of some of them, that there's no following up
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: with them. And of course, someone who is advocating for
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: something like faith healing is going to sort of excuse
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: this as God is taking that person up to heaven
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: right right, you know, they were calling them home. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: really what happened and is someone was duped out of
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: taking their medication died as a consequence, And now that blood,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I think is on the people's hands who put them
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: in that situation. Absolutely one, Okay, I think that's the
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: way I have to say about that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: I think something that's really important here because I'm sure
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: that we have Christian listeners, and I think this is
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: really important to point out these folks are not living
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Christian values deep down. Like a good friend of mine
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: is a pastor, and he and this is not at
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: all in his world like this is. I mean, he
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: will even denounce these people because these are people who
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: are greedy and selfish and not living in a like
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: however you want to put it, in a godly way.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: They're not living in the in the likeness of Jesus.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: They are being really terrible people to people who are
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: very vulnerable. And so it's really important to delineate that
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: these are people who are acting in bad faith, using
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: the shape of Christianity to take advantage of people who
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: believe in these things, and to take advantage of them
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: to such a degree that they are literally putting people
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: out on the street and not letting not helping them.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Joe Olstein is a perfect example
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: of somebody who when all the floods and all the
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: hurricanes and all the freezes come through Texas. He does
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: not let people into his congregation. There is no sanctuary
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: where he's he's got to space, but he absolutely does not.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: So this is just another example of that that kind
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: of bullsh I mean, these there are those who will
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: claim that they actually witnessed actual miracles of these events.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: There are people that will do that they were tricked,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: they were duped. These frauds are very good tricksters. They're
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: very charismatic, they're very energetic. But that is all they
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: have and have ever been. They've been fraudsters, they have
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: been scammers. But never once has anyone standing in a
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: tent or standing in a church claiming to heal people
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: by the power of God, ever delivered on that promise.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: If you believe that they have, you have been tricked.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: And that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that they have the ability
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: to do that, and it's unfortunate that you found yourself
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: in that position.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: And I do want to echo your point because you're
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: exactly right that the vast majority of time that you
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: go into a place of warship, they're not pulling this,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: they are not trying to scam people in this way.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Like and actually when I was doing my research for this,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of sources that I found were Christians
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: calling these people out and saying, like, this is not
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Christian behavior, what these people are doing, like, don't fall
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: for this. Like that was honestly the majority of what
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I found, Because you're exactly right that, like I think
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: the people who are Christian who follow that faith, like
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: I think they know better a lot of the time.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: But there are also a lot of people who do
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: get duped by this, who want to believe and are desperate,
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: and they're desperate, And that's exactly it is because like
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: the overwhelming majority of people who are leading a congregation
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: of some sort are not pulling this kind of stuff.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: They legitimately believe in what they're there to do, which
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: is to guide people spiritually, and the people who attend
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: that are legitimately there to be guided spiritually. And like
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: the people who are doing faith healing scams, they're fraudsters,
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: they are tricksters, they are ucksters, they're scammers, they are
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: con artists.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Or like speaking tours, like I don't know, just an
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: example like Turning Point USA. Probably not Christian organization.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. These are people who again they exploit
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: fear and hatemers, and they convince you to believe nonsense
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: things so that you will push their agenda and give
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: them money.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, Abraham, I have a question for you.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Why, Oh, just that that's the that's that's the question.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: Just good general question. Why.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Let's start with why did they do this? I think
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: we're more or less addressed in some ways why people
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: buy into it, and we can maybe come back to
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: that in a moment. But why do people do this thing? Well?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Money mostly, they make a huge amount of money from
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: these scams. They will set up entire corporate entities designed
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: to process various forms of donations that they receive. Pop
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Off had this. They will get cars, houses, jewelry, antiques, gold,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: and of course good old cash. Pop Offs operation had
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: a center in California that will receive literal tubloads of
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: gold and precious gems with notes and messages for pop
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Off and they had a workers there who would process
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: these donations. They would take the prayers that they received
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: and throw them in the shredder, and then they would
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: work out how to sell the gold and jewels and
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: deeds and titles that they received or deposit the cash
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and so they just had a process of like how
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: to sort items, and they just took all the prayers
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: and wishes and whatnot and just throw them in the shredder.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: And this is by design, like this was set up
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: as a business where the business was take valuable things
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: from people and hawk it for money, or take the
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: money from people and just deposit it into an account.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And if you're hearing this and going that's scientology,
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: that's also true now allegedly allegedly thanks lawyers. Now, to
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: be fair, a few of these faith healers seem to
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: have genuinely bought into their own bulls. They argue that
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: they know that sometimes the healing doesn't work the way
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: that they wanted to, but they need to preserve the
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: illusion so that they'll have the chance to legitimately someone
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: who needs it when they do get the divine blessing,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: meaning that they believe they have legitimately healed someone using
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: their sermons.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, some of them seem to be this way. And
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: actually I read an account of a journalist who cornered
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: pop Off at some point was interviewing him, and this
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: journalist walked away feeling like this guy really thinks he's
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: doing something, and he would admit, like, yeah, sometimes we
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: have to grease the wheels a little bit. But he's like,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: you know, if I can't perform the actual miracle on
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: this one person, I might be able to on the
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: next one. But if they don't believe me here, they
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: might not believe me there either, And that seemed to
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: be kind of the approach that he took with his journalist.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: At least, so I'll give them the benefit of the
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: doubt that at least some of them buy what they're selling.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: But I think the overwhelming and maybe they're well meaning
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: and whatnot, but the overwhelming majority of this is just
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: scamming people to take their money. Yeah, and I do
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: not think that most of them actually believe that most
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: of the time they're doing any actual, real good, right.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: I think that they will swear up and down that
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: they do, and will say it on their deathbed, and
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: will say it with a gun to their head that
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: they think that's what they're doing. But I don't think
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: that in their heart of hearts, they actually do believe that, right, right,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I suppose as far as having the value of trying
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: to help people and that being a motivator for them,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: I suppose I can have appreciation for that for some
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: small part of the horrible fraud and corruption, if their
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: hearts are maybe sometimes in the right place personally. Yeah,
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: But I also think it's just it's not worth it
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: to allow this kind of behavior to continue at the
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: cost of other people's well being. And like, if you
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: want to do this as a magic show, and everyone's
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: really clear that you're just doing tricks, and that you
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: tell them I'm doing this as a trick, this is
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: not going to heal you, please go see your actual doctor,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: then I would honestly probably be a lot more okay
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: with it. I think I'd be like, all right, you know,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: as long as everyone knows what they're in for here,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: then this is not as problematic for me. But part
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: of the issue here is it gives people false hope.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: There is a people who believe that they can throw
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: their medicine away, that they don't have to talk to
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: their doctor, that they don't have to use their medicine,
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: that they don't have to use their devices, their assistive
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: devices anymore, and that leads to a decreased quality of
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: life for those people. Is just yeah, And as I said,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: there are people here who are like already basically impoverished,
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: who are giving what little money they do have to
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: these people the promise that they'll get more money and
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: they won't, right, these people are now destitute because of this,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: and like these people don't care. And they're buying jets,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: yeah they yeah, they're buying jets. They're buying theme parks.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: They like have multiple, multiple like garages full of fancy cars.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: They are living on gigantic properties of what we're talking
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: like you know, fifty acres or one hundred acres or
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: three hundred acres or something where you know, it's all
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: gated in and they've got their private airport, and like
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: it is. It is bonkers how much money they're messing
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: with in these in these situations, and they just you know,
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: they treat it like a business because that's what it is.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: It is just designed to rake in cash and some capacity.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: And I worry. I worry about the victimization here a lot.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: And I think, as we said, we sort of talk
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: about the fact that like these are people who are desperate,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: and desperate people will believe things if you tell them
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: that you can help them, like they want they really
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: want to hear like my problem can be fixed. Yeah,
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I guess, I guess that's what I'm saying about that.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: I think we've probably talked to that to that point enough.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think it's as as Peter said, we continue
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: to feed a fed horse.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Great. Anything else from you on this to sort of
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: just add to the understanding of what's going on here.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: No, I think it just sucks. Yeah, Yeah, like I
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: think it just I think it sucks. I think it's
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: it's got it does sucks. I think it's so unfortunate
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: that people, I mean, people are always going to find
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: a way, but I think it's unfortunate people found a
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: way to bastardize faith because I think the faith can
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: be really powerful for people, and I think that this
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: is one of those things that just takes it and
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: poisons it. And I mean as per person who is
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: who is not very spiritual or has no faith, like
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: I do think that there is something really powerful for
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: some folks, and I think that to take that and
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: to weaponize it is just it's cruel. Yeah, And whatever
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: whatever like good intentions people start with, it doesn't matter.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: I think it washes away at this point in time
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: when you get to this point So if you are
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: listening and you are a faith healer, stop, yeah, cut
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: it out. Yeah, if you know somebody who's a faith healer,
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: send this to them and tell them to stop because
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: it's mean. It's not nice.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, you legitimately want to help people, there are
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: ways to do that. Go volunteer at a nursing home,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: Go learn asl go learn like, go help work with
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: people who have vision impairments, go like, do legitimate help.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: This nonsense that you're doing in a tent is not helping. No, Like,
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: if you want to help people, go help people. But this, Yeah,
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: I agree, and I also agree it's just cruel. It
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: is it is heartless cruelty that is set sacrificing other
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: humans for un wellbeing and I'm just not cool with
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: that at all.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: All right, Well, I think that we've skipped an ad
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: which also feels like sacrificing people for own wellbeing. But
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: fortunately you can just skip through it, So do that.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: All right, we're back. Let's go ahead and wrap this
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: thing up. At the end of our discussions. We are
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: going to recommend some things. It's a fun thing that
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: we do. And if you are returning person. You already
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: know that, but if you're here for the first time,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: then just know that we're not quite done. We still
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: have some fun I didn't mean that's ry. We have
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: some interesting parts to get to. But first I'll go
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: ahead and do the credits. As I mentioned at the beginning,
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: you can support us in various ways. You can leave
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: us a rating and a review that helps the algorithm
• 54:43
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• 54:46
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• 54:49
  Speaker 2: like and subscribe to make sure that we always get
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: our episodes in your feed. We put out episodes every Wednesday,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: our full lengths, and then we put out minis, which
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: means it's a short form episode. We release these on Mondays.
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: By the way, hey, this week actually is going to
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: be entirely about like scams and scam prevention type stuff.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I just realized kind of a themed week on accidents,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: uh huh. And also, by the way, the time this
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: about a month ago. From the time this comes out
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: almost a month ago, we just passed nine years as
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: a podcast, so that's kind of cool.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: That's wild.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we forgot to say anything about it at the
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: During the episodes for which that would have been relevant,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: but yeah, we just kind of just get into a
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: groove and do the thing. Anyway, I was talking about
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: ways to supportus, so you can also join us on Patreon.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: If you do that, you get ad for your episodes,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: bonus content, early episodes, that sort of thing, and I
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: will read the names of the people who help us
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: by being patron supporters. So a giant thank you and
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: shout out to the wonderful people over on Patreon. Mike
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: m Megan, Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Kiara and Charlie. Thank you all so much.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: You're beautiful. You're beautiful and you're amazing and we love you.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: Also, huge shout out to my team, without whom I
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: cannot make this podcast writing and fact checking. From Shane
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: to myself. Thank you for recording with me today.
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Shane, Hey anytime, thanks for having me. I feel healed,
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: okay good.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: Our social coordinator is Emma Wilson and our executive audio
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: for producer extraordinaiy was. The most best is Justin.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: He is the most best. You're right.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: If you would like to tell us your thoughts on this,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: you can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: or reach us on the social media platforms. We do
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: look forward to hearing from you. And if you don't
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: like this, then if you have constructive criticism, I'm open
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: to hearing that. But if you just want to tell
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: us how much you hate us, I'm not going to
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: bother with it, so don't waste your time. I'm open
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: to constructive criticism anyway. We actually like to end these
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: discussions with some recommendations. It's just something unrelated to what
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: we've been talking about, and that is the case now,
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: so let's recommend some things.
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: Yay recommendations.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I'm recommending a TV show. It's been out for a
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: little while, maybe even came out last year. I'm not sure,
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: but this is Fallout season two on Amazon Prime. So
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: this is based off of the video games of the
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: same name called Fallout. There was a first season. It
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: was very enjoyable. It's a crazy world basically. It's like
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: a post apocalyptics sort of adventure through the wasteland type show.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Season two is out and I just finished watching it,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: so I had a lot of fun with it. It's
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: a very enjoyable show. I recommend checking it out if
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: you're into post apocalyptic wasteland adventures.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, cast is great, and I hear it's really good.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: I never played the game, so say, or any of
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: the games, but I but I hear they're great.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I also I'm not familiar with the games,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: but the TV show has been quite enjoyable. So if
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I think most people who are into that sort of
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: genre will enjoy it, beautiful.
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: I love it all right. I'm going to recommend a
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: piece of visual media as well, and that is a
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: movie called Projects. Heale, Mary, I just finished a book
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: and I went and saw a movie and I loved it,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: and I want to go watch it again and I
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: want to read the book again. And it's it was incredible.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I mean the movie, you know, just like any book
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: and movie, like you get a kind of a pick
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: sure in an image of what the things in the
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: story look like, what the characters look like. Yeah, and
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: you know, I gotta say, I think they did a
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: pretty good job of the movie. Yeah, it's pretty it's
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: a pretty good match. And just some of it, it's
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: just the way it's shot is just visually stuck. There
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: are just some shots in it that you're just like
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: they're just showing off. Yeah, but I just thought it
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: was just such a brilliant adaptation of the book, and
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: I thought they did it really well. And I think
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: that if you don't want to read the book, which
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: I think you should, the movie does it justice.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very good. Yes, second all that, And as most
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: of our regular listeners know, we are basically a Project
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Hill Mary Companion podcast. Now, yes we are, because we're
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: such massive fans of this property. Uh huh So anyway,
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: great recommendation, fully second thought. All right, I think that's
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: what you have to say about that, so we can
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: go ahead and wrap up this episode. Is there anything
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: you would like to add or that I forgot before
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: we say our goodbyes?
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Not the moment.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, thank y'all for listening. This is Abraham and it's
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: a Shane. We're out.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: See ya. You've been listening to Why We Do What
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: We Do. You can learn more about this and other
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: episodes by going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening,
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: and we hope you have an awesome day.