The Demon Haunted World Part 10

On the appointed day, the Drama Theatre of the Sydney Opera House was nearly filled. An excited crowd, young and old, milled about expectantly. Entrance was free, which rea.s.sured those who vaguely wondered if it might be some sort of scam. Alvarez seated himself on a low couch. His pulse was monitored. Suddenly it stopped. Seemingly, he was near death. Low, guttural noises emanated from deep within him. The audience gasped in wonder and awe. Suddenly, Alvarez's body took on power. His posture radiated confidence. A broad, humane, spiritual perspective flowed out of Alvarez's mouth. Carlos was here! Interviewed afterwards, many members of the audience described how they had been moved and delighted.

The following Sunday, Australia's most popular TV programme - named Sixty Minutes Sixty Minutes after its American counterpart - revealed that the Carlos affair was a hoax, front to back. The producers thought it would be instructive to explore how easily a faith-healer or guru could be created to bamboozle the public and the media. So naturally, they contacted one of the world's leading experts on deceiving the public (at least among those not holding or advising political office) - the magician James Randi. after its American counterpart - revealed that the Carlos affair was a hoax, front to back. The producers thought it would be instructive to explore how easily a faith-healer or guru could be created to bamboozle the public and the media. So naturally, they contacted one of the world's leading experts on deceiving the public (at least among those not holding or advising political office) - the magician James Randi.

'[T]here being so many disorders which cure themselves and such a disposition in mankind to deceive themselves and one another', wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1784 -

...and living long having given me frequent opportunities of seeing certain remedies cried up as curing everything, and yet soon after totally laid aside as useless, I cannot but fear that the expectation of great advantage from the new method of treating diseases will prove a delusion. That delusion may however in some cases be of use while it lasts.

He was referring to mesmerism. But 'every age has its peculiar folly'. Unlike Franklin, most scientists feel it's not their job to expose pseudoscientific bamboozles, much less, pa.s.sionately held self-deceptions. They tend not to be very good at it either. Scientists are used to struggling with Nature, who may surrender her secrets reluctantly but who fights fair. Often they are unprepared for those unscrupulous pract.i.tioners of the 'paranormal' who play by different rules. Magicians, on the other hand, are in the deception business. They practise one of the many occupations - such as acting, advertising, bureaucratic religion and politics - where what a naive observer might misunderstand as lying is socially condoned as in the service of a higher good. Many magicians pretend they don't cheat, and hint at powers conferred by mystic sources or, lately, by alien largesse. Some use their knowledge to expose charlatans in and out of their ranks. A thief is set to catch a thief.

Few rise to this challenge as energetically as James "The Amazing' Randi, accurately self-described as an angry man. He is angry not so much about the survival into our day of antediluvian mysticism and superst.i.tion, but about how uncritical acceptance of mysticism and superst.i.tion works to defraud, to humiliate, and sometimes even to kill. Like all of us, he is imperfect: sometimes Randi is intolerant and condescending, lacking in empathy for the human frailties that underlie credulity. He is routinely paid for his speeches and performances, but nothing compared to what he could receive if he declared that his tricks.derived from psychic powers or divine or extraterrestrial influences. (Most professional conjurors, worldwide, seem to believe in the reality of psychic phenomena, according to polls of their views.) As a conjuror, he has done much to expose remote viewers, 'telepaths', and faith-healers who have bilked the public. He demonstrated the simple deceptions and misdirections by which some psychic spoonbend-ers had conned prominent theoretical physicists into deducing new physical phenomena. He has received wide recognition among scientists and is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation (so-called 'genius') Prize Fellows.h.i.+p. One critic castigated him for being 'obsessed with reality'. I wish the same could be said of our nation and our species.

Randi has done more than anyone else in recent times to expose pretension and fraud in the lucrative business of faith-healing. He sifts refuse. He reports gossip. He listens in on the stream of 'miraculous' information coming to the itinerant healer - not by spiritual inspiration from G.o.d, but at the radio frequency of 39.17 megahertz, transmitted by his wife backstage.*

[* Whose minions had interviewed the gullible patients only an hour or two earlier. How, except through G.o.d, could the preacher know their symptoms and street addresses? This scam by the Christian fundamentalist faith-healer Peter Popoff, and exposed by Randi, was thinly fictionalized in the 1993 film Leap of Faith.] Leap of Faith.]

He discovers that those who rise from their wheelchairs and are declared healed had never before been confined to wheelchairs -they were invited by an usher to sit in them. He challenges the faith-healers to provide serious medical evidence for the validity of their claims. He invites local and federal government agencies to enforce the laws against fraud and medical malpractice. He chastises the news media for their studied avoidance of the issue. He exposes the profound contempt of these faith-healers for their patients and paris.h.i.+oners. Many are conscious charlatans, using Christian evangelical or New Age language and symbols to prey on human frailty. Perhaps there are some with motives that are not venal.

Or am I being too harsh? How is the occasional charlatan in faith-healing different from the occasional fraud in science? Is it fair to be suspicious of an entire profession because of a few bad apples? There are at least two important differences, it seems to me. First, no one doubts that science actually works, whatever mistaken and fraudulent claim may from time to time be offered. But whether there are any any 'miraculous' cures from faith-healing, beyond the body's own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the expose of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. The discipline polices itself, meaning that scientists are aware of the potential for charlatanry and mistakes. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers. Indeed, it is striking how reluctant the churches and synagogues are in condemning demonstrable deception in their midst. 'miraculous' cures from faith-healing, beyond the body's own ability to cure itself, is very much at issue. Secondly, the expose of fraud and error in science is made almost exclusively by science. The discipline polices itself, meaning that scientists are aware of the potential for charlatanry and mistakes. But the exposure of fraud and error in faith-healing is almost never done by other faith-healers. Indeed, it is striking how reluctant the churches and synagogues are in condemning demonstrable deception in their midst.

When conventional medicine fails, when we must confront pain and death, of course we are open to other prospects for hope.

And, after all, some illnesses are psychogenic. Many can be at least ameliorated by a positive cast of mind. Placebos are dummy drugs, often sugar pills. Drug companies routinely compare the effectiveness of their drugs against placebos given to patients with the same disease who had no way to tell the difference between the drug and the placebo. Placebos can be astonis.h.i.+ngly effective, especially for colds, anxiety, depression, pain, and symptoms that are plausibly generated by the mind. Conceivably, endorphins -the small brain proteins with morphine-like effects - can be elicited by belief. A placebo works only if the patient believes it's an effective medicine. Within strict limits, hope, it seems, can be transformed into biochemistry.

As a typical example, consider the nausea and vomiting that frequently accompany the chemotherapy given to cancer and AIDS patients. Nausea and vomiting can also be caused psycho-genically, for instance by fear. The drug ondansetron hydrochlo-ride greatly reduces the incidence of these symptoms; but is it actually the drug or the expectation of relief? In a double-blind study 96 per cent of patients rated the drug effective. So did ten per cent of the patients taking an identical-looking placebo.

In an application of the fallacy of observational selection, unanswered prayers may be forgotten or dismissed. There is a real toll, though: some patients who are not cured by faith reproach themselves - perhaps it's their own fault, perhaps they didn't believe hard enough. Scepticism, they are rightly told, is an impediment both to faith and to (placebo) healing.

Nearly half of all Americans believe there is such a thing as psychic or spiritual healing. Miraculous cures have been a.s.sociated with a wide variety of healers, real and imagined, throughout human history. Scrofula, a kind of tuberculosis, was in England called the 'King's evil', and was supposedly curable only by the King's touch. Victims patiently lined up to be touched; the monarch briefly submitted to another burdensome obligation of high office, and, despite no one, it seems, actually being cured, the practice continued for centuries.

A famous Irish faith-healer of the seventeenth century was Valentine Greatraks. He found, somewhat to his surprise, that he had the power to cure disease, including colds, ulcers, 'soreness' and epilepsy. The demand for his services became so great that he had no time for anything else. He was forced was forced to become a healer, he complained. His method was to cast out the demons responsible for disease. All diseases, he a.s.serted, were caused by evil spirits, many of whom he recognized and called by name. A contemporary chronicler, cited by Mackay, noted that to become a healer, he complained. His method was to cast out the demons responsible for disease. All diseases, he a.s.serted, were caused by evil spirits, many of whom he recognized and called by name. A contemporary chronicler, cited by Mackay, noted that

he boasted of being much better acquainted with the intrigues of demons than he was with the affairs of men ... So great was the confidence in him, that the blind fancied they saw the light which they did not see - the deaf imagined that they heard - the lame that they walked straight, and the paralytic that they had recovered the use of their limbs. An idea of health made the sick forget for awhile their maladies; and imagination, which was not less active in those merely drawn by curiosity than in the sick, gave a false view to the one cla.s.s, from the desire of seeing, as it operated a false cure on the other from the strong desire of being healed.

There are countless reports in the world literature of exploration and anthropology not only of sicknesses being cured by faith in the healer, but also of people wasting away and dying when cursed by a sorcerer. A more or less typical example is told by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, who with a few companions and under conditions of terrible privation wandered on land and sea, from Florida to Texas to Mexico in 1528-36. The many different communities of Native Americans he met longed to believe in the supernatural healing powers of the strange light-skinned, black-bearded foreigners and their black-skinned companion from Morocco, Este-banico. Eventually whole villages came out to meet them, depositing all their wealth at the feet of the Spaniards and humbly imploring cures. It began modestly enough:

[T]hey tried to make us into medicine men, without examining us or asking for credentials, for they cure illnesses by blowing on the sick person... and they ordered us to do the same and be of some use... The way in which we cured was by making the sign of the cross over them and blowing on them and reciting a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria... [A]s soon as we made the sign of the cross over them, all those for whom we prayed told the others that they were well and healthy...

Soon they were curing cripples. Cabeza de Vaca reports he raised a man from the dead. After that,

we were very much hampered by the large number of people who were following us ... their eagerness to come and touch us was very great and their importunity so extreme that three hours would pa.s.s without our being able to persuade them to leave us alone.

When a tribe begged the Spaniards not to leave them, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions became angry. Then,

a strange thing happened... [M]any of them fell ill, and eight men died the next day. All over the land, in the places where this became known, they were so afraid of us that it seemed that the very sight of us made them almost die of fear. They implored us not to be angry, nor to wish for any more of them to die; and they were altogether convinced that we killed them simply by wis.h.i.+ng to.

In 1858, an apparition of the Virgin Mary was reported in Lourdes, France; the Mother of G.o.d confirmed the dogma of her immaculate conception which had been proclaimed by Pope Pius IX just four years earlier. Something like a hundred million people have come to Lourdes since then in the hope of being cured, many with illnesses that the medicine of the time was helpless to defeat. The Roman Catholic Church rejected the authenticity of large numbers of claimed miraculous cures, accepting only sixty-five in nearly a century and a half (of tumours, tuberculosis, opthalmitis, impetigo, bronchitis, paralysis and other diseases, but not, say, the regeneration of a limb or a severed spinal cord). Of the sixty-five, women outnumber men ten to one. The odds of a miraculous cure at Lourdes, then, are about one in a million; you are roughly as likely to recover after visiting Lourdes as you are to win the lottery, or to die in the crash of a randomly selected regularly scheduled airplane flight -including the one taking you to Lourdes.

The spontaneous remission rate of all cancers, lumped together, is estimated to be something between one in ten thousand and one in a hundred thousand. If no more than five per cent of those who come to Lourdes were there to treat their cancers, there should have been something between fifty and 500 'miraculous' cures of cancer alone. Since only three of the attested sixty-five cures are of cancer, the rate of spontaneous remission at Lourdes seems to be lower than if the victims had just stayed at home. Of course, if you're one of the sixty-five, it's going to be very hard to convince you that your trip to Lourdes wasn't the cause of the remission of your disease... Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Something similar seems true of individual faith-healers. Something similar seems true of individual faith-healers.

After hearing much from his patients about alleged faith-healing, a Minnesota physician named William Nolen spent a year and a half trying to track down the most striking cases. Was there clear medical evidence that the disease was really present before the 'cure'? If so, had the disease actually actually disappeared after the cure, or did we just have the healer's or the patient's say-so? He uncovered many cases of fraud, including the first exposure in America of 'psychic surgery'. But he found not one instance of cure of any serious organic (non-psychogenic) disease. There were no cases where gallstones or rheumatoid arthritis, say, were cured, much less cancer or cardiovascular disease. When a child's spleen is ruptured, Nolen noted, perform a simple surgical operation and the child is completely better. But take that child to a faith-healer and she's dead in a day. Dr Nolen's conclusion: disappeared after the cure, or did we just have the healer's or the patient's say-so? He uncovered many cases of fraud, including the first exposure in America of 'psychic surgery'. But he found not one instance of cure of any serious organic (non-psychogenic) disease. There were no cases where gallstones or rheumatoid arthritis, say, were cured, much less cancer or cardiovascular disease. When a child's spleen is ruptured, Nolen noted, perform a simple surgical operation and the child is completely better. But take that child to a faith-healer and she's dead in a day. Dr Nolen's conclusion: When [faith]-healers treat serious organic disease, they are responsible for untold anguish and unhappiness... The healers become killers.

Even a recent book advocating the efficacy of prayer in treating disease (Larry Dossey, Healing Words) Healing Words) is troubled by the fact that some diseases are more easily cured or mitigated than others. If prayer works, why can't G.o.d cure cancer or grow back a severed limb? Why so much avoidable suffering that G.o.d could so readily prevent? Why does G.o.d have to be prayed to at all? Doesn't He already know what cures need to be performed? Dossey also begins with a quote from Stanley Krippner, MD (described as 'one of the most authoritative investigators of the variety of unorthodox healing methods used around the world'): is troubled by the fact that some diseases are more easily cured or mitigated than others. If prayer works, why can't G.o.d cure cancer or grow back a severed limb? Why so much avoidable suffering that G.o.d could so readily prevent? Why does G.o.d have to be prayed to at all? Doesn't He already know what cures need to be performed? Dossey also begins with a quote from Stanley Krippner, MD (described as 'one of the most authoritative investigators of the variety of unorthodox healing methods used around the world'): [T]he research data on distant, prayer-based healing are promising, but too spa.r.s.e to allow any firm conclusion to be drawn.

This after many trillions of prayers over the millennia.

As Cabeza de Vaca's experience suggests, the mind can cause cause certain diseases, even fatal diseases. When blindfolded patients are deceived into believing they're being touched by a leaf such as poison ivy or poison oak, they produce an ugly red contact dermat.i.tis. What faith-healing characteristically may help are mind-mediated or placebo diseases: some back and knee pains, headaches, stuttering, ulcers, stress, hay fever, asthma, hysterical paralysis and blindness, and false pregnancy (with cessation of menstrual periods and abdominal swelling). These are all diseases in which the state of mind may play a key role. In the late medieval cures a.s.sociated with apparitions of the Virgin Mary, most were of sudden, short-lived, whole-body or partial paralyses that are plausibly psychogenic. It was widely held, moreover, that only devout believers could be so cured. It's no surprise that appeals to a state of mind called faith can relieve symptoms caused, at least in part, by another, perhaps not very different state of mind. certain diseases, even fatal diseases. When blindfolded patients are deceived into believing they're being touched by a leaf such as poison ivy or poison oak, they produce an ugly red contact dermat.i.tis. What faith-healing characteristically may help are mind-mediated or placebo diseases: some back and knee pains, headaches, stuttering, ulcers, stress, hay fever, asthma, hysterical paralysis and blindness, and false pregnancy (with cessation of menstrual periods and abdominal swelling). These are all diseases in which the state of mind may play a key role. In the late medieval cures a.s.sociated with apparitions of the Virgin Mary, most were of sudden, short-lived, whole-body or partial paralyses that are plausibly psychogenic. It was widely held, moreover, that only devout believers could be so cured. It's no surprise that appeals to a state of mind called faith can relieve symptoms caused, at least in part, by another, perhaps not very different state of mind.

But there's something more: the Harvest Moon Festival is an important holiday in traditional Chinese communities in America. In the week preceding the festival, the death rate in the community is found to fall by 35 per cent. In the following week the death rate jumps by 35 per cent. Control groups of non-Chinese show no such effect. You might think that suicides are responsible, but only deaths from natural causes are counted. You might think that stress or overeating might account for it, but this could hardly explain the fall in death rate before the harvest moon. The largest effect is for people with cardiovascular disease, which is known to be influenced by stress. Cancer showed a smaller effect. On more detailed study, it turned out that the fluctuations in death rate occurred exclusively among women 75 years old or older. The Harvest Moon Festival is presided over by the oldest women in the households. They were able to stave off death for a week or two to perform their ceremonial responsibilities. A similar effect is found among Jewish men in the weeks centred on Pa.s.sover - a ceremony in which older men play a leading role - and likewise, worldwide for birthdays, graduation ceremonies and the like.

In a more controversial study, Stanford University psychiatrists divided eighty-six women with metastatic breast cancer into two groups - one in which they were encouraged to examine their fears of dying and to take charge of their lives, and the other given no special psychiatric support. To the surprise of the researchers, not only did the support group experience less pain, but they also lived, on average, eighteen months longer.

The leader of the Stanford study, David Spiegel, speculates that the cause may be cortisol and other 'stress hormones' which impair the body's protective immune system. Severely depressed people, students during exam periods, and the bereaved all have reduced white blood cell counts. Good emotional support may not have much effect on advanced forms of cancer, but it may work to reduce the chances of secondary infections in a person already much weakened by the disease or its treatment.

In his nearly forgotten 1903 book, Christian Science, Christian Science, Mark Twain wrote Mark Twain wrote The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it.

Occasionally, some of the pain and anxiety or other symptoms of more serious diseases can be relieved by faith-healers - however, without arresting the progress of the disease. But this is no small benefit. Faith and prayer may be able to relieve some symptoms of disease and their treatment, ease the suffering of the afflicted and even prolong lives a little. In a.s.sessing the religion called Christian Science, Mark Twain - its severest critic of the time -nevertheless allowed that the bodies and lives it had 'made whole' by the power of suggestion more than compensated for those it had killed by withholding medical treatment in favour of prayer.

After his death, a.s.sorted Americans reported contact with the ghost of President John F. Kennedy. Before home shrines bearing his picture, miraculous cures began to be reported. 'He gave his life for his people,' one adherent of this stillborn religion explained. According to the Encyclopedia of American Religions, Encyclopedia of American Religions, 'To believers, Kennedy is thought of as a G.o.d.' Something similar can be seen in the Elvis Presley phenomenon, and the heartfelt cry: "The King lives.' If such belief systems could arise spontaneously, think how much more could be done by a well-organized, and especially an unscrupulous, campaign. 'To believers, Kennedy is thought of as a G.o.d.' Something similar can be seen in the Elvis Presley phenomenon, and the heartfelt cry: "The King lives.' If such belief systems could arise spontaneously, think how much more could be done by a well-organized, and especially an unscrupulous, campaign.

In response to their inquiry, Randi suggested to Australia's Sixty Minutes Sixty Minutes that they generate a hoax from scratch, using someone with no training in magic or public speaking, and no experience in the pulpit. As he was thinking the scam through, his eye fell upon Jose Luis Alvarez, a young performance sculptor who was Randi's tenant. 'Why not?' answered Alvarez, who when I met him seemed bright, good-humoured and thoughtful. He went through intensive training, including mock TV appearances and press conferences. He didn't have to think up the answers, though, because he had a nearly invisible radio receiver in his ear, through which Randi prompted. Emissaries from that they generate a hoax from scratch, using someone with no training in magic or public speaking, and no experience in the pulpit. As he was thinking the scam through, his eye fell upon Jose Luis Alvarez, a young performance sculptor who was Randi's tenant. 'Why not?' answered Alvarez, who when I met him seemed bright, good-humoured and thoughtful. He went through intensive training, including mock TV appearances and press conferences. He didn't have to think up the answers, though, because he had a nearly invisible radio receiver in his ear, through which Randi prompted. Emissaries from Sixty Minutes Sixty Minutes checked Alvarez's performance. The Carlos personality was Alvarez' invention. checked Alvarez's performance. The Carlos personality was Alvarez' invention.

When Alvarez and his 'manager' - likewise recruited for the job with no previous experience - arrived in Sydney, there was James Randi, slouching and inconspicuous, whispering into his transmitter, at the periphery of the action. The substantiating doc.u.mentation had all been faked. The curse, the water-throwing and all the rest were rehea.r.s.ed to attract media attention. They did. Many of the people who showed up at the Opera House had done so because of the television and press attention. One Australian newspaper chain even printed verbatim handouts from the 'Carlos Foundation'.

After Sixty Minutes Sixty Minutes aired, the rest of the Australian media was furious. They had been used, they complained, lied to. 'Just as there are legal guidelines concerning the police use of provocateurs,' thundered Peter Robinson in the aired, the rest of the Australian media was furious. They had been used, they complained, lied to. 'Just as there are legal guidelines concerning the police use of provocateurs,' thundered Peter Robinson in the Australian Financial Review, Australian Financial Review, there must be limits to how far the media can go in setting up a misleading situation ... I, for one, can simply not accept that telling a lie is an acceptable way of reporting the truth... Every poll of public opinion shows that there is a suspicion among the general public that the media do not tell the whole truth, or that they distort things, or that they exaggerate, or that they are biased.

Mr Robinson feared that Carlos might have lent credence to this widespread misperception. Headlines ranged from 'How Carlos Made Fools of Them AH' to 'Hoax Was Just Dumb'. Newspapers that had not trumpeted Carlos patted themselves on the back for their restraint. Negus said of Sixty Minutes, Sixty Minutes, 'Even people of integrity can make mistakes,' and denied being duped. Anyone calling himself a channeller, he said, is 'a fraud by definition'. 'Even people of integrity can make mistakes,' and denied being duped. Anyone calling himself a channeller, he said, is 'a fraud by definition'.

Sixty Minutes and Randi stressed that the Australian media had made no serious effort to check any of 'Carlos's' bona fides. He had never appeared in any of the cities listed. The videotape of Carlos on the stage of a New York theatre had been a favour granted by the magicians Penn and Teller, who were appearing there. They asked the audience just to give a big hand of applause; Alvarez, in smock and medallion, walked on; the audience dutifully applauded, Randi got his videotape, Alvarez waved goodbye, the show went on. And there is no New York City radio station with call letters WOOP. and Randi stressed that the Australian media had made no serious effort to check any of 'Carlos's' bona fides. He had never appeared in any of the cities listed. The videotape of Carlos on the stage of a New York theatre had been a favour granted by the magicians Penn and Teller, who were appearing there. They asked the audience just to give a big hand of applause; Alvarez, in smock and medallion, walked on; the audience dutifully applauded, Randi got his videotape, Alvarez waved goodbye, the show went on. And there is no New York City radio station with call letters WOOP.

Other reasons for suspicion could readily be mined in Carlos's writings. But because the intellectual currency has been so debased, because credulity, New Age and Old, is so rampant, because sceptical thinking is so rarely practised, no parody is too implausible. The Carlos Foundation offered for sale (they were scrupulously careful not actually to sell anything) an 'Atlantis crystal': Five of these unique crystals have so far been found by the ascended master during his travels. Unexplained by science, each crystal harnesses almost pure energy... [and has] enormous healing powers. The forms are actually fossilized spiritual energy and are a great boon to the preparation of the Earth for the New Age ... Of the Five, the ascended master wears one Atlantic crystal at all times close to his body for protection and to enhance all spiritual activities. Two have been acquired by kindly supplicants in the United States of America in exchange for the substantial contribution the ascended master requests.

Or, under the heading THE WATERS OF CARLOS':

The ascended master finds occasionally water of such purity that he undertakes to energize a quant.i.ty of it for others to benefit, an intensive process. To produce what is always too little, the ascended master purifies himself and a quant.i.ty of pure quartz crystal fas.h.i.+oned into flasks. He then places himself and the crystals into a large copper bowl, polished and kept warm. For a twenty-four hour period the ascended master pours energy into the spiritual repository of the water... The water need not be removed from the flask to be utilized spiritually. Simply holding the flask and concentrating on healing a wound or illness will produce astounding results. However, if serious mischance befalls you or a close one, a tiny dab of the energized water will immediately a.s.sist recovery.

Or, TEARS OF CARLOS':

The red colour imparted to the holding flasks that the ascended master has fas.h.i.+oned for the tears is proof enough of their power, but their affect [sic] during meditation hasbeen described by those who have experienced it as 'a glorious Oneness'.

Then there is a little book, The Teachings of Carlos, The Teachings of Carlos, which begins: which begins:

I AM CARLOS.

I HAVE COME TO YOU.

FROM MANY PAST.

INCARNATIONS.

I HAVE A GREAT LESSON TO.

TEACH YOU.

LISTEN CAREFULLY.

READ CAREFULLY.

THINK CAREFULLY.

THE TRUTH IS HERE.

The first teaching asks, 'Why are we here...?' The answer: 'Who can say what is the one answer? 'Who can say what is the one answer? There are many answers to any question, and all the answers are right answers. It is so. Do you see?' There are many answers to any question, and all the answers are right answers. It is so. Do you see?'

The book enjoins us not to turn to the next page until we have understood the page we are on. This is one of several factors that makes finis.h.i.+ng it difficult.

'Of doubters,' it reveals later, 'I can say only this: let them take from the matter just what they wish. They end up with nothing - a handful of s.p.a.ce, perhaps. And what does the believer have? EVERYTHING! All questions are answered, since all and any answers are correct answers. And the answers are right! Argue that, doubter.'

Or: 'Don't ask for explanations of everything. Westerners, in particular, are always demanding long-winded descriptions of why this, and why that. Most of what is asked is obvious. Why bother with probing into these matters? ... By belief, all things become true.'

The last page of the book displays a single word in large letters: we are exhorted to 'THINK!'

The full text of The Teachings ofCarlos The Teachings ofCarlos was of course written by Randi. He dashed it off on his laptop computer in a few hours. was of course written by Randi. He dashed it off on his laptop computer in a few hours.

The Australian media felt betrayed by one of their own. The leading television programme in the country had gone out of its way to expose shoddy standards of fact-checking and widespread gullibility in inst.i.tutions devoted to news and public affairs. Some media a.n.a.lysts excused it on the grounds that it obviously wasn't important; if it had been had been important, they would have checked it out. There were few important, they would have checked it out. There were few mea culpas. mea culpas. None who had been taken in were willing to appear on a retrospective of the 'Carlos Affair' scheduled for the following Sunday on None who had been taken in were willing to appear on a retrospective of the 'Carlos Affair' scheduled for the following Sunday on Sixty Minutes. Sixty Minutes.

Of course, there's nothing special about Australia in all of this. Alvarez, Randi, and their co-conspirators could have chosen any nation on Earth and it would have worked. Even those who gave Carlos a national television audience knew enough to ask some sceptical questions - but they couldn't resist inviting him to appear in the first place. The internecine struggle within the media dominated the headlines after Carlos's departure. Puzzled commentaries were written about the expose. What was the point? What was proved?

Alvarez and Randi proved how little it takes to tamper with our beliefs, how readily we are led, how easy it is to fool the public when people are lonely and starved for something to believe in. If Carlos had stayed longer in Australia and concentrated more on healing - by prayer, by believing in him, by wis.h.i.+ng on his bottled tears, by stroking his crystals - there's no doubt that people would have reported being cured of many illnesses, especially psycho-genie ones. Even with nothing more fraudulent than his appearance, sayings and ancillary products, some people would have gotten better because of Carlos.

This, again, is the placebo effect found with almost every faith-healer. We believe we're taking a potent medicine and the pain goes away - for a time at least. And when we believe we've received a potent spiritual cure, the disease sometimes also goes away - for a time at least. Some people spontaneously announce that they've been cured even when they haven't. Detailed follow-ups by Nolen, Randi and many others of those who have been told they were cured and agreed that they were - in, say, televised services by American faith-healers - were unable to find even one person with serious organic disease who was in fact cured. Even significant improvement in their condition is dubious. As the Lourdes experience suggests, you may have to go through ten thousand to a million cases before you find one truly startling recovery.