The Faith Healers

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The Faith Healers
Author	James Randi (Foreword by Carl Sagan)
Publisher	Prometheus Books
Publication date	1987, 1989
Media type	Hardcover/Paperback
Pages	328
ISBN	ISBN 0-87975-369-2 and ISBN 0-87975-535-0

The Faith Healers is a 1987 book by magician and skeptic James Randi with a foreword by Carl Sagan, that documents Randi's exploration of the world of faith healing, and his exposing the sleight of hand trickery and deceit by its practitioners.

In eighteen chapters Randi explores the origins of faith healing and psychic surgery, and critically analyzes the claims made by AA Allen, Ernest Angley, WV Grant, Peter Popoff, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, and Father DiOrio for his claims of miracles at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in the town of Lourdes. Randi shows how people are tricked with magician's tricks under the guise of religion.

Randi has claimed that the 1992 Steve Martin film, Leap of Faith had "nineteen items that were taken directly from my book, and several instances of the same dialog being used that was quoted in my book."^[1]

Nutrition Health Review called this book "a strong indictment of charlatans who prey upon the gullible."^[2] The review continued, "Most painful to the author is his realization that many of the exploited sick continue to believe despite evidence that they have been defrauded."^[2]

Explaining how the victims of fraudulent faith healers fool themselves, the reviewer wrote, "Because each disease has a natural variability, it has 'ups and downs,' Randi notes. When the system is attacked, the illness goes through stages of resistance and temporary retraction. It is upon this phenomenon that the charlatans exploit their sometimes spectacular 'results'."^[2]