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Peter Popoff is at it again

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There are few men with the batting record of Peter Popoff. The man seems to have an innate ability to scam people out of their hard-earned money, and does so without breaking a sweat. He’s been largely free to bamboozle people out of their hard earned money using the best shield against rationality, responsibility and accountability: religion.

He began in the 70’s as a faith healer, racking up millions of dollars by making eerily accurate and dramatic “revelations” about his audience’s illnesses, until James Randi exposed him on Johnny Carson in 1986. Turns out Popoff was using a hidden ear-piece and his wife’s rather unprophetic reading of pre-filled prayer cards to make his convincing “miracles” happen. Shortly after, Popoff’s ministry went bankrupt, and he disappeared.

But much like the plague, which lies dormant until our collective immune system is once again primed for infection, Popoff has had a number of resurrections. He first started popping up in Canada in the late 90’s selling holy water he claimed could work miracles (he also said the water came from a magic source near Chernobyl where animals had no diseases).

Apart from selling snake oil, he’s now turned his sights to those in need of debt relief. His latest scam, which he heavily advertises on BET (black entertainment television), is to ask people to make donations, and in exchange promises to ask God to relieve their debt.

When asked to answer critics who say he takes advantage of desperate people, Popoff issued a written response.

“As for religious leaders calling me a fraud, that places me in good company,” Popoff said. “The religious leaders of Christ’s day called him a fake and a demon-possessed fraud. They went so far as to crucify Him. I have no time for my critics, I have a job to do and I’m doing it for God’s glory.”

God’s glory, so far, has netted his ministry roughly 24 million dollars a year, and allowed him to command a salary of more than half a million dollars.

It would be easy to stop this man were it not for the fact he is part of a whole industry of deceit and unaccountability. Prosperity gospels do very much the same thing he does, and the fact all of this is considered a form of religious expression means they aren’t doing anything illegal by lying to people in order to make money. After all, if you prosecuted every single preacher who took money from gullible people in exchange for some improvable supernatural blessing, every single God-pimp would be broke or behind bars.

So long as people continue to believe in absurdities without any critical thought, scumbags like Peter Popoff will enjoy all the luxuries afforded to them by such profound ignorance. You want to make people scam-proof? Start by teaching them enough critical thinking skills to see through the deception of religion. Otherwise, someone like Popoff will always be waiting to pounce on the weak minded and gullible.

Ripping People off in the name of God

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Many readers on this site may be too young to remember televangelist Peter Popoff. The only reason I know of him is due in no small part due to magician and skeptic James Randi. Popoff was a faith healer who achieved fame by making startling predictions about people’s ailments during his church services. He was even able to recite their address, as though God had given him a cosmic phone.

Obviously skeptical of this supposed supernatural ability, Randi decided to investigate. He was able to isolate a radio frequency transmitted by his wife to Popoff via a small earpiece, and Randi recorded it. He then played the tape on an episode of Johnny Carson (who was himself a magician and avid skeptic).Exposed as an obvious fraud, Popoff filed for bankruptcy, and disappeared.

Then, beginning in 2003, he started making a comeback, and opened up a church and employed his usual bag of tricks. A few years ago, Peter got creative; he began offering ‘miracle spring water’ on infomercials for free, claiming that if the participants followed the instructions to the letter, they would be blessed with a miracle. Although the tiny plastic reservoir of water was itself free, the instructions demanded that the water be slept with overnight, drank, and a check for 17 dollars be sent to his church. It also unleashed a flurry of mail, often demanding the recipients pay up to 200 dollars as part of their expected contributions.

To most people, such demands would seem outright ludicrous, but Popoff nevertheless was able to secure 23 million dollars in revenue for 2005 alone, thanks in large part to his clever schemes. Some people, desperate for a miracle, continued to blindly follow Popoff’s instructions; one couple spent over 5000 dollars, and had to stop when they ran out of money to buy food. Why would anyone allow themselves to be manipulated by such obvious schemes? The answer can be found in the way in which the supposed virtue of faith operates: in blindly following the words and advice of people in positions of so-called ‘divine authority’.

The imagery of God as a shepherd is no coincidence; we are deemed, by the 3 great monotheistic religions, to be unable to dictate for ourselves how to live ethical and meaningful lives. As such, we require the tutelage of God’s interpreters, who generally command a far greater understanding of scripture than we do; or so we’re told. If a priest says during mass, wine is literally transubstantiated into Christ’s blood, we are to take him at his word, despite the fact that our natural curiosity and observational powers would seek to refute it. Although the priest may himself be a well meaning human being who attempts to interpret his holy manuscript in the best possible way, the truth is his constituents are quite literally trained to trust whatever he says, and as such are unable to tell the difference between good and fraudulent advice. They must simply take him at his word.

So if a man has similar constituents to our hypothetical priest, and claims a plastic tube of water will cause its imbiber to witness a miracle, how are they to discern his true intentions? Is he merely trying to make money from these poor desperate folks, or is he genuinely offering a sacred libation? Well, therein lies the dilemma; we cannot criticize the victims of this spiritual hoax, because they were systematically trained to be unable to make that distinction. The fact that many of them do is not because of their respective faith’s doctrine; it is in spite of it.

Incidentally, it is this same reason that prevents any major religious organization from speaking out on the issue of fraudulent faith healers; any attempt to discredit them also places them in danger of being discredited. A fresh supply of faithful must always be maintained, even if such inculcation inextricably creates a highly gullible and vulnerable populace.

Popoff’s ministrations continue to defraud many thousands of people out of their hard earned money every year, all of them hoping for a miracle. We cannot blame the victims, and think them foolish for their credulity. We can only continue to harangue those who continually seek to bamboozle and defraud their fellow man, and try to clarify to the faithful why believing what they are told is a villainous trap.