by Joe Nickell
In short, they act just as if they had been “hypnotized.” Although popularly believed to involve a mystical “trance” state, hypnosis is in fact just compliant behavior in response to suggestions (Baker 1990, 286). One professional hypnotist said of Hinn’s performance: “This is something we do every day and Mr. Hinn is a real professional” (Thomas 2001).
Cures?
What about the healings? Do faith-healers like Benny Hinn really help nudge God into working miracle cures? In fact, such claims are invariably based on negative evidence—”we don’t know what caused the illness to abate, so it must have been supernatural”—and thus are examples of the logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance.” In fact, as I explained to a reporter from The Buffalo News following a Benny Hinn service, people’s feelings that they have been healed are due to several factors. In addition to the body’s own natural healing mechanisms, there is the fact that some serious ailments, including certain types of cancer, are unpredictable and may undergo “spontaneous remission”; that is, they may abate for a time or go away entirely. Other factors include such egregious occurrences as misdiagnosis, such as that of a supposedly “inoperable, malignant brain-stem tumor” that was actually an artifact of a faulty CT scan (Randi 1987, 291-92).
And then there are the powerful effects of suggestion. Not only psychosomatic illnesses (of which there is an impressive variety), but also those with distinct physical causes may respond to some degree to “mental medicine.” Pain is especially responsive to suggestion. In the excitement of an evangelical revival, the reduction of pain due to the release of endorphins (pain-killing substances produced by the body) often causes people to believe that, and act as if, they have been miraculously healed (Condren 2001; Nickell 1993; Nolen 1974).
Critical studies are illuminating. Dr. William A. Nolen, in his book Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle (1974), followed up on several reported cases of healing from a Kathryn Kuhlman service but found no miracles—only remissions, psychosomatic diseases, and other natural explanations, including the power of suggestion.
More recently, a study was conducted following a Benny Hinn crusade in Portland, Oregon, where 76 miracles were alleged. For an HBO television special, A Question of Miracles (Thomas 2001), Benny Hinn Ministries was asked to supply the names of as many of these as possible for investigation. After 13 weeks, just 5 names were provided. Each case was followed for one year.
The first was that of a grandmother who stated that she had had “seven broken vertebras,” but that the Lord had healed her at the evening service in Portland. In fact, subsequent x-rays revealed otherwise, although the woman felt that her pain had lessened.
The second case involved a man who had suffered a logging accident 10 years earlier. He demonstrated improved mobility at the crusade, but his condition afterward deteriorated and “movement became so painful he could no longer dress himself.” Nevertheless, he remained convinced that he had been healed, and thus refused the medication and surgery his doctors insisted were necessary.
The next individual was a lady who, for 50 years, had only “thirty percent of her hearing,” as claimed at the Portland crusade. However, her physician stated, “I do not think this was a miracle in any sense.” He reported that the woman had had only a “very mild hearing loss” just two years before, and that she had made “a normal recovery.”
The fourth case was that of a girl who had not been “getting enough oxygen” but who claimed to have been healed at Hinn’s service. In fact, since the crusade she had “continued to suffer breathlessness”— yet her mother was so convinced that a miracle had occurred that she did not continue to have her daughter seek medical care.
Finally, there was what the crusade billed as “a walking dead woman.” She had had cancer throughout both lungs, but her doctors were now “overwhelmed” that she was “still alive and still breathing.” Actually, her oncologist rejected all such claims, declaring that the woman had an “unpredictable form of cancer that was stable at the time of the crusade.” Tragically, her condition subsequently deteriorated and she died just nine months afterward.
What Harm?
As these cases demonstrate, there is a danger that people who believe themselves cured will forsake medical assistance that could bring them relief or even save their lives. Dr. Nolen (1974, 97-99) relates the tragic case of Mrs. Helen Sullivan, who suffered from cancer that had spread to her vertebrae. Kathryn Kuhlman had her get out of her wheelchair, remove her back brace, and run across the stage repeatedly. The crowd applauded what they thought was a miracle, but the antics cost Mrs. Sullivan a collapsed vertebra. Four months after her “cure,” she died.
Nolen (1974, 101) stated that he did not think Miss Kuhlman a deliberate charlatan. She was, he said, ignorant of diseases and the effects of suggestion, but he suspected she had “trained herself to deny, emotionally and intellectually, anything that might threaten the validity of her ministry.” The same may apply to Benny Hinn. One expert in mental states, Michael A. Persinger, a neuroscientist, suggests that people like Hinn have fantasy-prone personalities (Thomas 2001). Indeed, the backgrounds of both Kuhlman and Hinn reveal many traits associated with fantasy-proneness, but it must be noted that being fantasy-prone does not preclude also being deceptive and manipulative.
Hinn notes that only rarely does he lay hands on someone for healing. He made an exception, however, for one child whose case was being filmed for the HBO documentary. The boy was blind and dying from a brain tumor. “The Lord’s going to touch you,” Hinn promised. The child’s parents believed and, although they were not wealthy, pledged $100 per month to the Benny Hinn Ministries. Subsequently, however, the child died.
Critics like the Rev. Joseph C. Hough, president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, say of the desperately hopeful: “It breaks your heart to know that they are being deceived, because they genuinely are hoping and believing. And they’ll leave there thinking that if they didn’t get a miracle it’s because they didn’t believe.” More pointedly, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner stated, during an interview on A Question of Miracles (Thomas 2001):
I hope there is a special place in Hell for people who try and enrich themselves on the suffering of others. To tantalize the blind, the lame, the dying, the afflicted, the terminally ill, to dangle hope before parents of a severely afflicted child, is an indescribably cruel thing to do, and to do it in the name of God, to do it in the name of religion, I think, is unforgivable.
Amen.
REFERENCES
Baker, Robert A. 1990. They Call It Hypnosis. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Benny Hinn: Pros & cons. 2002. Internet posting. Retrieved 11 January from www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/hinn/general.htm
Condren, Dave. 2001. Evangelist Benny Hinn packs arena. Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.), 29 June.
Frame, Randy. 1991. Best-selling author admits mistakes, vows changes. Christianity Today, 28 October, 44-45.
Hinn, Benny. 1990. Good Morning, Holy Spirit. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson.
———— . 1999. Kathryn Kuhlman: Her Spiritual Legacy and Its Impact on My Life. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson.
Nickell, Joe. 1993. Looking for a Miracle: Weeping Icons, Relics, Stigmata, Visions & Healing Cures. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Nolen, William A. 1974. Healing: A Doctor in Search of a Miracle. New York: Random House.
Randi, James. 1987. The Faith Healers. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
Spraggett, Allen.1971. Kathryn Kuhlman: The Woman Who Believed in Miracles. New York: Signet.
Thomas, Antony. 2001. A Question of Miracles. HBO special, aired on 15 April.
Underdown, James. 2001. Personal communication with author, 23 October.
32
Australia’s Convict Ghosts
It is a spectacular land to which many superlatives apply. Although not, as often claimed, the oldest of the continents (the cores of which are approximately the same age), Australi
a is the world’s smallest continent and—excepting Antarctica—the flattest and driest one. Separated from the other continents for some 40 million years, Australia has produced unique flora and fauna, and its history “began twice”: first, some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago when the nomadic Aborigines reached the shores; and second, on January 18-20, 1788, when 11 British ships arrived laden with convicts (Chambers 1999, 1-10).
1 had a wonderful opportunity to visit Down Under during the Third Skeptics World Convention, held in Sydney on 10-12 November 2000. I determined to extend my sojourn another two weeks, so that I could investigate several myths and mysteries. 1 began with the “haunted” Hyde Park Barracks (Figure 32-1).
FIGURE 32-1. Old Hyde Park Barracks was constructed to house male convicts. (Photograph by Joe Nickell.)
Reputedly “the most haunted building in Central Sydney” (Davis 1998, 2), the Hyde Park Barracks was constructed in 1817 as secure housing for government-assisted male convicts. Opened in mid-1819, its central building held an average of 600 men, who were assigned to various workplaces by day and lodged at night in 12 rooms outfitted with hammocks (Figure 32-2). (In 1848 it was transformed into an immigration depot for single females, and in 1887 it became a government office complex. It is now a museum featuring its original history.)
FIGURE 32-2. Hammocks in the “haunted” barracks in Sydney where it is possible to spend the night, thus recreating the “convict experience.” )Photograph by Joe Nickell.)
Ghosts went unreported at the Barracks until the 1950s, when a clerk claimed to have seen the apparition of a “figure in convict garb hobbling down a corridor” (Davis 1998, 2). Since the building became a museum, it has been the focus of many reports of various phenomena, attested to by security guards and others who spend the night there, including schoolchildren who stay on organized sleepovers to gain the “convict experience.”
Unlike most “haunted” places, where ghostly shenanigans are typically available only as hand-me-down stories, “it is said that” tales, or anecdotes collected for the obligatory Halloween newspaper article or similar entertainment, the Barracks maintains a ghost file, containing accounts of experiences recorded just after they occurred. Curator Michael Bogle graciously made these available for me to study in his office.
Bogle takes a professionally neutral stance on the subject of haunt-ings, but admits that he has himself has had no ghostly experiences. Neither had four other staff members I interviewed there; a fifth described a few incidents that she attributed to a ghost, but none of those occurred at the Barracks.
Despite the neutrality, the museum’s solicitation of overnight visitors’ “thoughts and feelings” about their visit—utilizing a handout with space to record their impressions—no doubt encourages spooky thoughts. The handout says in part: “Should you have an ’eerie’ meeting of some sort, or merely sense an inexplicable presence, the museum would appreciate your description—with as much detail as possible.” It continues: “The accompanying [floor] plans will help you on your journey through the building and enable you, where appropriate, to map any ’out of the ordinary’ occurrences.” The place where the overnight-ers slumber on the third floor is called the “sleep and dream” area (again see Figure 32-1). Obviously, the entire experience is designed to stimulate the imagination, perhaps provoking dreams or even triggering apparitions of figures from the past.
Not surprisingly, then, several people did report having eerie feelings, in which suggestibility no doubt played a role. For instance, one pre-Halloween (11 October) account from 1991 stated that a security guard “hoped” a certain fellow guard “could make a connection with the ghost,” which “everyone in Security knew of” and which was typically experienced as “a chilling sensation” on the third floor.
Other respondents described apparent “waking dreams,” the sometimes apparitional experiences that occur in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep and that may also involve sleep paralysis, an inability to move because the body is still in the sleep mode (Nickell 1995; 2000). For example, one respondent reported seeing “a man standing beside my hammock looking at me” and wearing period clothes. Her account reveals she had “tried to imagine what it must have been like for the convicts who stayed there,” thus helping set the stage for such an experience. Another woman, upon going to sleep, felt “a massive pressure upon my body and a stark feeling that something was trying to take over”—an experience entirely consistent with sleep paralysis.
On occasion, the written narratives contain suggestions of possible pranking, as with the one of 47 schoolchildren who felt a “long hand” reach in under her sleeping bag to touch her on the hip (or was that instead merely the effect of a runaway imagination, or even another waking dream?). Once, a child’s footsteps, heard by two guards, were first attributed to one of the children having gotten up; as that reportedly turned out not to have been the case, the incident was explained as a sound that “must have been made by the wind.” One experiencer heard a tapping sound that staff subsequently ascribed to a mechanized display.
Such incidents seem typical of those reported at the Hyde Park Barracks, as well as at many other allegedly haunted sites. For instance, “some say” that the Old Melbourne Gaol is “the repository of many troubled spirits, the ghosts of criminals who suffered and died there” (Davis 1998, 174). Certainly it is a stark showing of nineteenth-century penal life, with exhibits of grim implements of restraint and punishment and various mementi mori. Examples include the death mask, pistol, and homemade armor of the notorious “bushranger” (highwayman) Ned Kelley (the armor was effective until Kelly was shot in the knee). It also includes the scaffold on which Kelly was subsequently hanged, following his ironic final words, “Such is life.” In short, the gaol is one of those places that, if not actually haunted, certainly ought to be. An advertising brochure promises: “Experience the haunting and eerie atmosphere of the gaol, and by listening carefully, you can almost hear the clank of the prisoners’ chains.”
However, hard evidence of ghostly phenomena at the site is scant, notwithstanding a questionable “ghost” photo halfheartedly brought out by a gift-shop employee when the topic of hauntings was broached. She conceded that some people did get “feelings” at the site, but noted that she had worked there for 10 years without any paranormal experiences of her own. She jokingly pointed out that she only worked one day a week and that perhaps “the ghosts take Tuesdays off.”
REFERENCES
Chambers, John H. 1999. A Traveler’s History of Australia. Gloucestershire, U.K.: Windrush Press.
Davis, Richard. 1998. The Ghost Guide to Australia. Sydney: Bantam Books.
Nickell, Joe. 1995. Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings.Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books.
———— . 2000. Haunted inns: Tales of spectral guests. Skeptical Inquirer 24, no. 5 (September/October): 17-21.
33
Psychic Pets and Pet Psychics
Many believe that the bond between man and animals, known from great antiquity, includes extrasensory perception (ESP). They cite anecdotal evidence, controversial research data, and the claims of alleged psychics. During more than three decades of investigating the paranormal, 1 have often encountered and reviewed such evidence. I have written about “talking” animals, appeared with a “pet psychic” on The Jerry Springer Show, analyzed alleged paranormal communications between people and animals (both living and dead), and even visited a spiritualists’ pet cemetery. Here is a look at some of what I have found.
“Talking” Animals
Alleged animal prodigies—various “educated,” “talking,” and “psychic” creatures—have long been exhibited. In seventeenth-century France, for instance, a famous “talking” horse named Morocco seemed to possess such remarkable powers, including the ability to do mathematical calculations, that he was charged with “consorting with the Devil.” However, he saved his own and his master’s life when he knelt, seemingly repentant, before chur
ch authorities.
In the latter eighteenth century, a “Learned Pig” and a “Wonderful Intelligent Goose” appeared in London. The porker spelled names, solved arithmetic problems, and even read thoughts by selecting, from flashcards, words thought of by audience members (JaY 1986, 7-27). The goose, advertised as “The greatest Curiosity ever witnessed,” performed such feats as divining a selected playing card, discovering secretly selected numbers, and telling time “to a Minute” by a spectator’s own watch (Christopher 1962, 35).
Other prodigies were Munito the celebrated dog, Toby “the Sapient Pig” (who could “Discover a Person’s Thoughts”), and a “scientific” Spanish pony who shared billing with “Two Curious Birds.” The latter were “much superior in knowledge to the Learned Pig” and “the first of the kind ever seen in the World.” Such animals typically performed their feats by stamping a hoof or paw a certain number of times or by spelling out answers using alphabet and number cards (Christopher 1962, 8-37; Jay 1986, 7-27).