Much to my surprise, however, the era of big-money televangelists never ended. No matter what happens, they keep begging and people keep giving. If one TV preacher should go down for good, several more are waiting to fill his $5,000 shoes. Nothing seems capable of stopping this gravy train, not exposure of their hypocrisy, sexual scandals, fraudulent miracle claims, enormous incomes, not even decadent lifestyles that would make King Louis XIV blush. It really is an amazing phenomenon. Men with a little charisma and a lot of nerve have created a unique global industry that weaves together television, religion, capitalism, charity, show biz, and astonishing greed. Many of these preachers may seem like harmless buffoons but the good ones are not dumb. They skillfully exploit thousands of years of religious tradition to rake in tens of millions of dollars, much of it from people who probably need to hold onto their money more than most. I have a sad memory of one of the older cleaning ladies who worked in my university dorm telling me that I should give money to Jimmy Swaggart like she does. When I gently suggested to the sweet woman, whom I grew to care about, that a TV star who lives in a mansion and flies around in his own jet probably can do without donations from a custodial worker and a struggling college student, she scoffed and explained that Swaggart only “holds the money for God.”
GOD'S CAN'T-MISS INVESTMENT PLAN
I attended a Benny Hinn “Miracle Crusade” event and paid close attention during donation time. Hinn hammered the live audience of approximately six thousand people on the need to give him money—and lots of it. He warned them that “God knows” precisely how much they can afford to give—a brilliant tactic to put the cheapskates on notice. He also promised the crowd that paying him now would pay off for them later. “The more you sow, the more you will reap,” Hinn said.
This is known as “prosperity theology” or the “prosperity Gospel,” and it really does pay off handsomely, at least for the televangelists if no one else. Hinn said his ministry needed the money in order to do “God's work” all over the world. “When you give, it doesn't go to me,” Hinn said. “All of it goes to my ministry. I do this for free. Check me out. Go ahead, check me out. All the money goes to the work of God, to get the Gospel out.”
Hinn keeps his tax-free personal and ministry finances private so who knows how to sort out his minister's salary, book royalties, and donation money? What is clear based on his visible lifestyle, however, is that the reverend does pretty well for himself.
There is no denying that Hinn is a master on stage. His facial expressions, charming banter, faux humility, and rhythmic speech in dramatic moments play to the crowd perfectly. Multiple television cameras capture every step and every word. He instructs the believers to hold their donations up high while waiting for the ushers to collect them. This is another brilliant move because it publicly exposes anyone who is not prepared to give money and probably pressures them to reconsider. I think I was the only one in the crowd with my arms down.
“If you have problems, if you want to get out of debt, then give tonight. God said: ‘Give and it shall be given unto you.’ God cannot bless you until you put something into His hand. Don't just give,” he added, “sow! Sow, so that you can reap a mighty harvest.”
A small army of donation collectors fanned out into the crowd. No mere collection “plates” for this event, however. The men carried what appeared to be large plastic garbage cans—and the believers filled them up in short time. Some collectors were equipped with credit card scanners. Many people prayed aloud as music played during the procedure. The men loaded the treasure into a caravan of vans and SUVs that promptly sped away to the nearby airport where, I was told by a police officer friend, Hinn had a private jet waiting. The collection procedure was efficient and precise, more like a well-executed military operation than the passing-of-the-plate routine one sees in small churches.
HAVE THEY NO SHAME?
Benny Hinn won't reveal what his ministry takes in from donations, but it is estimated to be as high as $100 million per year. He told ABC News that his personal salary is “over half a million.”4 Details of his salary and personal wealth have never been publicly confirmed by a credible independent source, however. For many churches it is common for “the ministry” to pay for a pastor's house, car, and other living expenses in addition to a salary, so Hinn may be able to simply bank that big income. What is known is that Hinn dresses, drives, and flies like a very wealthy man. In 1997, he was a guest on the Larry King Show and a caller asked him why he takes so much money when Jesus never took any. “Jesus didn't have a TV show to run,” Hinn answered.
In 2011, I saw a small-time preacher on TV who may have stooped lower than any of his colleagues ever have—and that's saying a lot: “You must give to the Lord,” the preacher declared. “Give as much as you can, no matter what your situation is. The worse off you are, the more important it is for you to give. He will reward you. Even if you are homeless, you have to give something.”
Even if you are homeless? How do these preachers who squeeze money out of poor people sleep at night? Yes, I know: in very nice beds with silk sheets that cost more than my car. Most amazing of all is how so many of these moneymakers are caught red-handed in money and sex scandals only to resume their careers as soon as the smoke clears. One could not be busted and hung out to dry much better than Rev. Peter Popoff was, for example. In the 1980s, prominent magician and skeptic James Randi exposed him for using a wireless device to receive personal information about people in the audience staff members had previously interviewed so that he could impress them by claiming God told him about them. Popoff confessed to the scam and soon after filed bankruptcy. So, where is he today? Cowering in shame in some cave somewhere? Working the night shift at a Waffle House on some lonely highway? No, he's back on television, of course. Popoff is “healing” people and begging for money because God always needs a little more cash to get by. His ministry reportedly brings in more than $20 million per year.5 Currently his infomercial-style programs air in early morning slots on BET (Black Entertainment Television).
Randi makes his disgust for these people obvious. “A thing like astrology is just a slow drain on the economy,” he said. “It makes the astrologers quietly and rather unobtrusively rich over a long period of time. The medical quackery and the faith-healing racket that is out there now make a very large amount of money. People who do this, like Benny Hinn, are multimillionaires many, many times over. They just have so much money pouring in every minute of every day that I'm sure they can't even keep track of it.”6
My humble advice to people who think televangelists are God's appointed treasurers is this: please don't give your hard-earned money to anyone who is wearing a pair of shoes that cost more than your entire wardrobe. These preachers speak of sacrifice and digging deep to give money, but where is their financial sacrifice? Why aren't they “giving all they can,” living in tiny houses, and making do with just one car?
If you are deeply religious and have an irresistible urge or sense of obligation to “spread the Gospel to all corners of the Earth,” then why not do it yourself? Cut out these millionaire middlemen and keep your money. Why should your money support their luxurious lifestyles? And ignore their whining about needing help to pay the bills for satellite television ministries. This is the computer age; television is so twentieth century. If you absolutely must, then use the Internet to push your religious beliefs on others all by yourself. Why finance TV preachers? Why rely on them? You can preach too. These days anyone can convert people in faraway places via Facebook, MySpace, e-mail, and chat rooms. You don't need TV preachers.
Here's an even better idea: take whatever money you were going to send to a television preacher so that he can buy his tenth Rolex watch or whatever and send it to UNICEF instead. UNICEF directly saves lives and improves the living conditions of children and mothers in the poorest countries every day. How can it be wrong to give them your few dollars over some guy who slurps caviar in a Gulfstream jet? If the god you worshi
p has a problem with choosing UNICEF over a TV preacher, then maybe it's time to shop around for another god.
GO DEEPER…
Martz, Larry. Ministry of Greed: The Inside Story of the Televangelists and Their Holy Wars. Frederick, MD: Grove PR, 1988.
Randi, James. The Faith Healers. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989.
Wilson, Bill. How to Get Rich as a Televangelist or Faith Healer. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008.
Human history of the past millennium is a halting march away from superstition toward knowledge. We are still far from our goal, but our species is young.
—Hank Davis, Caveman Logic
Science is all well and good, but when you get firsthand information from a ghost, it doesn't get much better than that.
—James Van Praagh, Ghosts among Us
“Ghosts are real. I know it because of something that happened to me,” he said. “I know what I experienced.” My friend of many years was intelligent, sober, and—as far as I could tell—completely sincere. I believe that he really did experience “something” but wasn't sure if it justified jumping to the conclusion that ghosts are real. I pushed for more details, but the apparition apparently was a deceased parent or someone close and he was uncomfortable talking about it further. That's understandable, so I backed off. That conversation always comes to mind when I discuss ghosts. The subject can seem silly with the goofy ghost-hunter television shows and the complete absence of good evidence, but I try to tread lightly and be respectful when dealing with true believers in case they connect ghost belief to people they knew. I had another similar encounter with a woman who believed in ghosts, reincarnation, heaven, and seemingly every other afterlife claim. She explained that she had to believe death was not the end because it was the only way she would ever see her deceased father again. Again, I eased off and did more listening than lecturing. Being respectful of people who have deep feelings tied up with ghost belief does not mean, however, that we should leave this claim unchallenged.
The number of people who believe in ghosts is significant. In the United States, 42 percent of the adult population think that ghosts are real.1 In Great Britain, 40 percent of adults believe that houses can be haunted by ghosts.2 One study found that women (20 percent) are more likely to say they had an experience with a ghost than men (16 percent). And a person with a college degree is significantly less likely to report such an encounter than someone with a high school education or less (13 percent versus 21 percent).3 These statistics could be much higher, of course, if the definition of ghost was not left for survey subjects to determine for themselves. For example, billions of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus believe that something called the soul leaves the body at death. Because definitions are so loose, soul could be thought of as the same thing as a ghost. If so, that would raise the number of ghost believers dramatically. Further confusing the true number of ghosts believers is the reluctance I have observed by some religious people to admit that they believe in ghosts when they do. I have also seen this with astrology. Some religious people feel that ghosts or astrology are “of the devil” and are dangerous forces that one should not associate with. So in confusing “believe in” with “follow” or “participate in,” they claim not to believe when they do. In any case, my travels and experiences with people around the world convinced me that ghost belief is extremely common. I would estimate the ratio of believers to be higher than 90 percent in some societies that I have visited. Globally, I would guess ghost belief to be at least 80 percent. I found belief to be distributed widely within societies as well. In the Caribbean, for example, it is common for highly educated professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants to believe in ghosts, or “duppies” as they are called there. The important question is, why? Why do so many people still believe in ghosts?
Anthropologists suggest the possibility that the dreams of prehistoric and ancient peoples may have been the catalyst for ghost belief as well as more complex notions of an afterlife, gods, and religion. We could never know this for sure, but it is easy to imagine how big an impression a vivid dream about a dead friend or family member might make on a prehistoric person who did not know that dreams are a natural brain process. What if you were part of a small hunting and gathering clan twenty thousand years ago? Your lover dies but a week later “visits” you in a dream in which you make love to each other. Imagine the powerful impact such an experience likely would have on you. You easily might conclude that she is still alive, in some form, somewhere. Ghost belief might have begun in just that way. It would then be reinforced culturally by teaching it as fact to children, generation after generation.
Perhaps the most common flaw with claims about seeing, hearing, or sensing ghosts is that an encounter with something that can't be identified means it is just that—unidentified. This is the same mistake that mars so many UFO claims. It is not sensible to see something weird in the sky and conclude that it must be an alien spaceship just because you are not able to identify it. It's no different with ghost encounters. If you see, hear, or sense something strange in your bedroom or in a foggy graveyard at midnight, it's not justifiable to jump to the extraordinary conclusion that it must be a supernatural being. Maybe it's something unusual but still natural. Maybe there is an elusive but simple explanation, like a raccoon passing by in the weeds or reflected light off of a bottle. Now, if you see Blackbeard the pirate or Lizzie Borden hovering before you clearly and in great detail, that's different. However, there are possible natural explanations for these encounters too.
VISIONS OF THINGS NOT REAL
I occasionally do things that seem normal to me but not to others. I get away with it because I have an understanding wife and my kids don't know any better. A few years ago, for example, I went on a vision quest. It seemed like a fun thing to do after I had read something about this traditional practice common to many tribal cultures. I decided to skip the customary starvation, dehydration, and hallucinogenic drug consumption that are central to many vision quests. Apart from those details, however, it would be authentic. I selected a small uninhabited island in the Caribbean to live on for four days by myself. It was a wonderful experience, a beautiful break from the noise and clutter of civilization. There was nothing strange about it—at least until my spirit guide visited me one night.
I awoke confused. I felt alert and jittery but didn't understand why. Suddenly something tugged at my foot, maybe bit or clawed it. I looked down and aimed my flashlight. Staring into my beady little eyes were the large bulging eyes of a rat. It was massive, very well fed. But on what? I wondered. Coconuts? Human toes? I retracted my feet immediately and checked for wounds. I was fine. But the rat lingered. I shined the light on it and time slowed. It wasn't aggressive or afraid. Neither was I. Maybe it was my imagination, but the little beast had charisma. I liked it. This was no confrontation between a master of the Earth and a lowly human on a vision quest. It was just two mammals sharing a special moment. Eventually it exited out the hole it made and walked away. I went back to sleep—with my shoes on.
In the morning it occurred to me this rat encounter was the big moment, the peak experience of my vision quest. The primary purpose of a vision quest, according to some cultures, is to facilitate a visit from your “spirit guide,” usually in the form of an animal who would pass on some wisdom or give direction and suggest a purpose for your life. I have no doubt that if I had been half-starved or on some potent drugs the rat would have had even more meaning to me. It probably would have talked to me and told me to write my mother more often or something like that. At the very least, if I had been a devout believer in ghosts and spirits, it probably would have felt “obvious” to me that it was much more than a mere rat. That experience stands out to me as precisely the sort of weird event that someone could easily have misinterpreted and injected with unwarranted supernatural meaning.
When thinking about claims of ghost encounters it makes sense to consider the massive distortions of reality tha
t a healthy human mind is capable of producing. Most of what we see and remember are not perfect current images of reality or perfect replays of what actually happened. Our minds construct what we see and remember. We “see” only a relatively small percentage of what our eyes look at. The rest is made up or assumed by the mind. Our memories are edited and summarized—without our conscious consent. All this is not as crazy as it may seem because it allows us to function more efficiently in the world. Imagine if we had to constantly concentrate on each and every detail to determine if the ground is solid in front of us while we are walking on a sidewalk, or carefully look to see if a pride of lions is at a bus stop as we walk by, for example. Our brains make many assumptions so we can get things done. Sometimes this can get us in trouble—if it turns out there is a big hole up ahead or lions really are waiting to attack us—but usually we're OK. “If you tried to analyze every little thing that's happening to you, you wouldn't make it across the room when you get out of bed in the morning,” says psychologist and former magician Richard Wiseman. “Optical illusions reflect our sophistication, not our idiocy. Without them we wouldn't be where we are today because we wouldn't have made so many correct assumptions. You're an effective information processor for making those assumptions.”4
We also have to remember that hallucinations are not limited to seeing things that are not there. They also include hearing nonexistent sounds and even “feeling” physical contact with something that isn't really there to touch you. We can also easily misinterpret real input, say a gust of wind and a weird shadow for a ghost. I recently walked up an escalator that was out of service and stationary. After a few steps my mind-body coordination faltered and I had to grab the hand rail for stability. My mind assumed that the steps were moving as usual and kept instructing my legs and feet to react as if they were. It vanished when I became aware of it but then returned when I let down my guard again, just seconds later.
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