Script for Faith/Fake Healers

Hi, everyone. Here is the script for the latest episode. It's a bit longer than the actual video. I cut a few things in editing.

 AUDIO 1
 In Leap of Faith, Jonas Nightengale cons small town farmers and the unemployed into giving them their money by performing phony “miracles.” He's assisted by his crew who gather information on those who attend his revivals so that he already knows what's troubling them. A local sheriff tries and fails to dissuade the townspeople, but Jonas is so convincing in his con that the pleas fall on deaf ears. In the end, something seemingly miraculous happens, which both confuses and enlightens Jonas. Real life faith healers are sometimes full blown con men and sometimes deluded but well-intentioned people of faith. In the film, Nightengale starts at the former and slowly becomes closer to the latter, although the film also seems to suggest that faith healing and miracles might be genuine after all, which muddies Leap of Faith considerably. So, how does faith healing...work? The obvious answer is that it doesn't work, but why do those who are allegedly “healed” such steadfast believers? Scottish writer Charles Mackay, best known for his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, once wrote:
 “The wonderful influence of imagination in the cure of diseases is well known. A motion of the hand, or a glance of the eye, will throw a weak and credulous patient into a fit; and a pill made of bread, if taken with sufficient faith, will operate a cure better than all the drugs in the pharmacopœia.” Faith healing as fraud is simply a con, like in the movie. Faith healing when done sincerely, if misguided, is a cooperative form of magical thinking. Both the healer and patient believe in the healing power of either spirits, their God or other mysterious or occult mechanisms. The healer either consciously if as fraud or unconsciously if sincere manipulates the patient into believing they have been cured through a series of hand movements or rituals. The patient, through this supernatural placebo, validates the healing by giving signs that the healing has worked such as walking without crutches for a short period, which is not unusual, or claiming relief from pain, which is an effect of a placebo. When an alleged cure by faith healing occurs in a religious context it is usually called a miracle.    
  AUDIO 2  
 When Nightengale “heals” people, he is merely giving them confidence in themselves to either push through the pain and move their aching limbs or believe that their more unseen illnesses are about to be wiped clean. Many faith healings are considered “successful” because of the cooperation of healer and patient. They work together, believe in the treatment, and this can relieve stress and even bring about curative effects through the power of suggestion. This can lead the patient to give exaggerated testimony. More importantly, since faith healers are not doctors, there will be no follow-ups, which means there will be no evidence of failures. Among the most common claims of being cured by “faith healers” is that of the sudden and seemingly miraculous disappearance of multiple sclerosis and cancer. There are many testimonials of these particular ailments in faith healing. How does this happen, and how to skeptics refute this? For starters, anecdotal stories are notoriously unreliable. Unscientific, non-medical testimonials from the perspective of laymen largely amount to hearsay. How can we tell if that they were not invented or exaggerated?   
 Even if the allegedly healed people are sincere, how do we know their ailments were not misunderstood or misdiagnosed? Anecdotal evidence is both unhelpful in proving the existence or non-existence of something AND unsatisfactory is convincing skeptics. If your friend told you that their brother once saw a ghost, that alone would not be proof of the afterlife. Comparatively, your cousin claiming their cancer vanished due to a faith healer has some holes in it as well. Many who suffer from  multiple sclerosis, cancer and other ailments that can go into remission become targets of faith healers. This is because symptoms can come and go. Many ailments are characterized by remissions and exacerbations. Medical treatments that can be measured can be linked to improvements, but since faith healing cannot be measured due to its supernatural conceit, it would be impossible to determine that such a “healing” was effective or if they disease was merely following its natural course and happened to be improved on its own at that time. If faith healing has any benefit, it is that of the placebo effect. People of faith who believed in the healing might begin to exert more effort.   
  AUDIO 3
 Muscle strength, for example, is effort-dependent. Dr. Harriet Hall MD once wrote “Many years ago the Journal of the American Medical Association used to have a regular feature where there would be a testimonial on one page describing how a patient was cured of cancer. On the opposite page, they would print the patient’s death certificate showing that he had died of that cancer shortly after providing the testimonial. The explanations for most alleged cancer cures are: 1. The patient never had cancer. (Was a biopsy done?) 2. A cancer was cured or put into remission by proven therapy, but questionable therapy was also used and erroneously credited for the beneficial result. 3. The cancer is progressing but is erroneously represented as slowed or cured. 4. The patient has died as a result of the cancer (or is lost to follow-up) but is represented as cured. 5. The patient had a spontaneous remission (very rare) or slow-growing cancer that is publicized as a cure.” In the film, Nightengale seemingly “cures” the broken legs of a teenage boy.    
  In the narrative of the film, this is a miracle. If this were to happen in real life, it could probably be better explained as the boy's legs healing on their own over time through natural causes or rigorous physical therapy. People with severe injuries can sometimes regain the use of their once damaged bodies with extensive professional care. The farmers, hoping for rain, suddenly get rain. This is also attributed to Nightengale, but rain is a common enough occurrence. The drought ending while Nightengale is in town could be unrelated. People looking to faith healers for the answer can sometimes connect one irrelevant event with another, mixing up causation and correlation as people often do. Nightengale is portrayed as everything from fraudulent to sympathetic depending on the scene, but con men faith healers are more harmful and dangerous than the bumbling, comical Steve Martin character. You might ask, what's the harm if faith healing can at least relieve stress? Imagine someone diagnosed with cancer who seeks faith healing. Cancer treatment ranges from incredible invasive to comparatively moderate.    
  AUDIO 4  
 If a patient is under the impression that a faith healer is on their side, they might be less willing to put themselves through the pain of the more intrusive treatments. Why seek better medical care if you have already been healed by the power of God?  Infamous con man Peter Popoff went even further than healing the body. He claimed to heal debts. He promised to cancel peoples' debts using holy water and blessed oil. People spent money on Popoff's “miracles” instead of using that people to actually pay off the debts. … Even the most devout should not wait for miracles to save them instead of medical science. In the film, the teenage boy with the long-lasting injury says that he will only be healed if God wills it, but that ignores the idea that maybe God put legitimate doctors and medical science on Earth to help heal him instead. It's that old story. A man is trapped during a flood. Someone on a raft drifts by, but the man ignores this person, stating that God will help him. When the man waits and waits, he asks God why he didn't save him, and God responds “I sent you a raft.”