The French Attitude

Faith-healers in France are known as “guérisseurs” (which translates as “healers” without any reference to the element of faith), and in 1965 stiff laws were passed to impose penalties on such practitioners. They were almost impossible to enforce, because many physicians felt—along with many laymen—that the healers performed a useful function. Perhaps one Paris doctor put it best when he told the press:[The guérisseurs] keep a lot of hypochondriacs and hysterical cases out of my surgical practice and then let me get on with my proper work, dealing with people who are really sick.

France has long been known for the profusion of quack medicines and procedures it has produced, and acceptance of faith-healers does not seem out of character in that country. Germany and Switzerland are not far behind France in their naiveté.

An Interested Anthropologist Looks at Faith-Healing

Anthropologist Dr. Philip Singer, who looked into W. V. Grant’s healing claims in detail, found not one case that provided evidence that Grant was healing anyone. I have used some of Singer’s findings in preparing the material on Grant for this book. Says he:As a concerned American citizen and as a medical anthropologist, I view what is going on at the faith-healing rallies as examples of traditional superstitious healing. I would like, as an anthropologist, to see the “natives” move toward a more rational health-seeking behavior. However, given the strength of religious beliefs in our culture this is not a likely prospect ... The paradox that emerges in the popularity of faith-healing today is that never before in America has there been greater demystification and deprofessionalization of medical knowledge and medical personnel and never before has there been greater popular access to all kinds of medical knowledge; yet, at the same time, because of the chronic, degenerative, terminal nature of some diseases today, there is a greater reliance on, and acceptance of, all forms of quackery and conjuring. The healer’s self-proclaimed “gift of grace” is thought by believers to be the most esoteric, mystical “knowledge,” and apparently no amount of rationalism can counter it.

Singer also quotes colleague Alfred Louis Kroeber:To the degree that a culture disengages itself from reliance on magic and superstition, it has advanced. To the degree that it admits magic in its operations, it is primitive.

Evangelists as Friends

An emphasis on a proffered friendship is typical of all the media preachers. It is their equivalent of the physician’s “bedside manner,” and they flourish or fail according to the quality of their smiles and kind words. The modern electronic church has succeeded largely because there are millions of lonely people “out there” who are seeking a friend. They are told by the preachers that they will be prayed for and accepted as friends and confidants. Computerized letters are sent to these people that are personalized and appear to be written and directed solely to them. Of course—they are told—all of this takes money, and in order to keep their new-found friends and to assure that those welcome letters will continue to arrive, they must contribute money to pay those costs. Their newly purchased friends also quickly achieve the status of soap-opera actors and are sought out in the same way that groupies pursue rock stars. To approach, witness, perhaps even touch these people seems to be part of their admirers’ goals in life. Perhaps the devotees are not totally swindled when they give their money to the stars of the electronic church. The $5 or $10 they periodically surrender might be buying them just what they want and think they need: contact with a glamorous entity who has supernatural connections and the confidence that comes with that contact. It is very likely that the televangelist is aware of that need and carefully sets out to meet it.