So, I did a show called Miracle, which it’s
on Netflix at the moment.
And the second half of it was faith healing,
which was a bold move because I knew my audiences
wouldn’t believe in it any more than I do,
which is not at all essential in terms of
anything divine happening.
And we are talking like that kind of evangelical
faith healing people being slain in the spirit
and shaking around on stage and their aches
and pains going and so on.
I had seen a lot of that at work and was fascinated
to see if I could get it to work and what
that would mean within the context of a show
where people are approaching it skeptically
like me.
And it was amazing it was an extraordinary
thing to do and to do every night and it did
work very well.
What I got from that and what it highlighted
was the psychological component of suffering.
And essentially the way that it works, the
way that sort of healing works, aside from
a few very specific tricks that some of those
so-called healers use, and incidentally it’s
not remotely a criticism of religious belief
it’s kind of a scam that hijacks sincere
belief in its own name so this is a criticism
of the scam certainly not religion or anyone’s
belief.
So, aside from a few specific tricks that
are like magic tricks that get pulled off,
what’s essentially happening psychologically,
and this is what I created in the show, was
you get a lot of adrenaline going because
adrenaline is essentially a painkiller and
if you’ve got an ache in your back but you’re
made to feel a bunch of adrenaline you’re
not going to feel that pain any more than
if you’ve stubbed your toe and it hurts
and a tiger walks into the room you’re not
going to be bothered by the toe you’re just
getting out in the room.
So, you create a lot of adrenaline and then
generally the way these things work is you
invite people forward and then there’s a
filtering process so by the time that people
are coming up on stage they’ve been filtered
to the people that are going to suit the show
the best and have the best sort of testimony
of what’s just happened.
And then the other aspect of it is that you’re
interrupting a story, you’re interrupting
the story that someone is living of their
particular ailment.
And this is where it gets really interesting
because you start to see this gray area between
- for example, somebody came up in the first
week and they had been paralyzed down one
side of their body since they were a child
and she was in floods of tears because she
could move her arm.
And if you would have x-rayed her before and
afterwards there’s clearly nothing changes,
but I was sort of reminded that I sort of
had a bursitis in my shoulder I had like a
bad shoulder and for a long time I had been
putting on a jacket with a dead arm and my
shoulder had sort of got better, but I just
really got in the habit of putting on a jacket
like this.
And probably if someone had said your shoulder
is healed and made a big deal of it and given
me a little burst of adrenaline anyway and
he said now put on your jacket normally I’m
sure I would have done that and got oh my
god that’s amazing.
How did you just do that?
Which the reality is I could have done it
like that anyway.
And I think at some level that’s sort of
way of you just get into a habit and you start
to identify with a particular element seems
to create sort of a large section of our experience
of what’s wrong with us and these sort of
psychological processes, this sort of healing
is highlighting that, it’s leaning into
that.
So, it’s very effective and I’ve had people
years after that show saying that it worked
- I thought it would maybe work for the five
minutes they were on stage, but I’ve had
people years afterwards saying I’ve watched
the show on TV and my pain is gone, my golf
injury is gone and we’re dealing with very
small percentages obviously so I’m not claiming
anything beyond that it’s very small percentages,
but the experience of what someone’s narrative
is around their condition, combined with a
bit of showmanship, it was kind of extraordinary
and as a real skeptic myself going into it
it was fascinating.
And then of course you start to see how the
person doing it starts to go mad how you could
see yourself as a God figure if you’re doing
it within that context because people are
treating you as God because they’re seeing
God coming through.
That’s the illusion you’re creating.
