In his newest special Derren Brown Miracles for Sale -> Derren Brown Faith Healer, Derren picks an ordinary man from the street and turns him into a Faith Healer.
Faith healings are especially big in the US Bible Belt, where the word of God is seemingly the only valid word. Faith healings are a collection of psychological and magical trickery to temporarily instill pain relieve for witch people of to dig deep into their pockets.
It always struck me as odd that people would actually need to pay to either see a healing or donate in order to be healed. If I had this gift I would do it for free, especially when it's seemingly so simple and quick! I would sacrifice my lunch hour to go out and heal people.
The best message in Derren Brown's show was at the end of Nathan -- which did a bang-up job -- says that: "The Lord doesn't need your money, in order to heal you!"
That does make sense doesn't it? Why would you need to pay the Pastor/Minister or Church in order to receive support from Jesus or God?
In my country The Netherlands, there are hardly any faith healings, we are not religious enough. However there are many 'hypnotherapists' and new-age practitioners who supposedly heal people.
I recently got into a hefty debate with fellow hypnotists who claim to "cure" allergies or even more far fetched PTSD, ADD and Hormonal Depression.
That little word "cure" is what stabs me. If they say, we use suggestion to assist in relieving symptoms I would be fine. But the word "cure" is different.
Claiming to "cure" something as potentially lethal as an allergy is misguiding. Most hypnotherapist who were claiming this, did not even know what caused an allergic reaction. It's the over production of a histamine; a organic nitrogene compound that acts as neuro-transmitter. Too much histamine makes your neuro-receptors over react and causes itching, swelling and other physiological reactions. What many people do not know is that histamine can be countered by adreneline. Benadryl "an antihistamine drug" actually blocks the neuro-transmitters in the brain. So even if you can "evoke" this blocking of neuro-transmitters with suggestion (adrenaline rushes in people being hypnotized is very normal) then still you do not "cure" these people. You give relieve that lasts, God know how long but most definitely not for ever. You will never see people with severe live threatening allergies go to a minister or hypnotist...
I have suffered one severe allergy attack (cause not yet known). It was two years ago in America where I had red spots all over my exposed body parts which was annoying but not live threatening. During my drive from Lancaster PA to New Orleans it hardly bothered me because I was too focussed on the driving. The second time when I came back to Lancaster (must be something local, because in New Orleans I got better back in PA it struck again) I woke up having trouble breathing. There was NOT ONE MOMENT, I as a hypnotist thought: Let's go to hypnotherapist! I called my friends in that town and asked them for the address of their doctor's office.
In the doctor's office they told me that in these cases I should've gone to the ER even. In the doctor's office they did not cure me from my allergy! They never claimed they would or could!
They simply said: "We will inject predisolon, we'll put you on predisolon pills for the remaining 10 days you are here and we give you antihistamine to stop the itching..." => Those words stop the itching and the foresight of that made my itch and breathing already feel better; I know even as a psychological entertainer, that I am prone to conditioned responses, placebo and authority as any other human being.
The predisolon probably saved my life, there's no telling if the physical reaction would've continued to worsen and prevent me from breathing.
If I'd gone to a faith healer, a hypnotherapist, the local P.A. Voodoo Doctor I may have had temporary relieve from a combination of endorphines, adrenaline and the expectation plus suggestions for the experience but I'd probably suffocated because the swelling would most likely have continued.
I know I am not cured from whatever (probably cats) evoked that allergic reaction, the doctors didn't mislead me but they did literally safe me, I paid them for the medication and treatment not for a suggestive lie.
A faith healer, hypnotherapist, or whatever would've gotten paid for a misleading suggestion without actually having done anything to cure the person. Putting people's life potentially at risk. Like in Derren Brown's special where he explains that some Faith Healers (I call them quacks) ask people to throw away their medicine and believe solely in the alternative therapy.
The defensive argument of these quacks is: "Modern medicine doen't know everything!" They never claim and yes they too experiment. However they do it with empirical tests. Or: "We don't know how it works but it does!" -- wel that's easy, how do you prove it actually works? You never hear quacks talk about the times that their client wasn't cured.... Even moderns medicine doesn't have a 100% cure rate.
So please when you are ill or have physical discomforts, seek medical assistance from a real doctor. You do not need to pay God to heal you, God doesn't have any use for money!
I am not religious but if I were I would see it like this: God has created mankind, mankind has used their brain --the gift from God-- to invent medicine, therefore modern medicine is God's gift. If you go and see a Quack than realize that they cannot heal you! At the most they can provide temporary relieve but when modern medicine with it's billions of dollars of research and millions of man years of experience can not cure you, what do you think the odds are that a man holding a bible asking for your money can? Let alone a man in the South American Jungle wearing a strawskirt who thinks that a radio is a little box with an even smaller man inside of it.