Stage Tricks Of TV Faith Healers Revealed

You've seen them on TV before. TV Faith healers such as Benny Hinn and others perform what appear to look like awesome miracles before an audience of thousands of faithful in auditoriums. But, like any stage magic show, many of these stunts are simply clever illusions or show business type tricks.

Here's how a few of these popular TV faith healer stage tricks are done:

The Healing Of The Lame Illusion: A faith healer walks out into the audience, and asks a person siting next to a pair of crutches to stand and walk and to run around on the stage. The audience is amazed and see it as a great miracle.

How It's Done: The crutches actually belonged to the person sitting next to the person. The person asked to get up and run around on the stage never had any problem walking. But caught up in all of the hysteria and wishing to see a miracle, the crowd becomes excited and never notices this simple slight of hand deception.

Making Those Called On Stage Collapse Under The Power Of The Holy Spirit: A group called onstage collapse into the arms of assistants to the TV faith healer when he suggests the power of the Holy Spirit is at work.

How It's Done: A British former faith healer revealed how TV faith healer performers prefect stage show mass hypnosis techniques that will seeming allow those onstage to collapse under a suggestion cue. Other times, if a person fails to fall, the assistant of a TV faith healer uses a technique known in football as the "low tackle" that causes a person to fall backwards into their arms.

Revelations From God: The TV faith healer appears to be receiving revelations from God and seems to know a great deal about a particular person pulled onstage.

How It's Done: TV faith healers such W.V. Grant made extensive use of crib sheets and notes. And extensive use of hand signals to assistants and code words such as "Amen, Amen, Amen" are signs to assistants as well. CNN once reported how faith healer Peter Popoff uses a tiny transmitter in his ear, not to hear revelations from God, but information from one of his assistants.

Miracle Short Leg Stretching: A faith healer handles a short leg of a person onstage, which miraculously seems to grow longer.

How It's Done: This is an old carnival sideshow trick, where the shoe on one foot is pulled slightly off and forward while the leg is pulled forward to give an illusion that a shorter leg has suddenly grown longer. From a forward camera angle this slight of hand trick looks pretty impressive.

Magician James Randi in 1987 also wrote a critically acclaimed book, THE FAITH HEALERS, examining the stage magic tricks used by popular claimed faith healers such as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and others. This book exposes even more classic stage magic tricks used by claimed faith healers.

But the least favorite situation for any TV faith healer is to be forced into a "cold reading" of the person they are supposedly healing. With little information, the healer is forced to wing it and ask general questions to appear to have revelations from God. Very important to the faith healer is to always look in charge, and to give an illusion of being an agent of God rather than just some stage magic performer.