A MUST READ; For Those Of Us Who Worship The T B Joshuas, Adeboyes, Oyakhilomes, Oyedepos, Have You Read Up The Popular American Prophet Peter Popoff
My only hope is if you can take time and read this piece, you will come to understand the fact that most of these guys I mentioned above in the headline are nothing but the likes of Peter Popoff.
I have always thought Nigerians are very intelligent people, but the issue of religion seems to be exposing our ignorant, gullibility and unwariness.
Please Read;
Peter Popoff (born July 2, 1946) is a German American televangelist, self-proclaimed prophet and faith healer. He conducts revival meetings and once hosted a national television program. He initially rose to prominence in the 1980s. In 1986, skeptics exposed his method of receiving supposedly divine revelations from his wife via an in-ear radio receiver.
Popoff declared bankruptcy in 1987 after his tactics were exposed, but he has since made a comeback using similar techniques. According to Fred M. Frohock, "the case of Peter Popoff is one of many egregious instances of fake healing" "Most of these guys are fooled by their own theology", said Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation, which has investigated Popoff and other televangelists since 1987. "He’s fundamentally evil, because he knows he’s a con man.
Investigation by James Randi;
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| Exposed Conman Prophet Peter Popoff |
At the height of his popularity in the 1980s, Popoff would accurately announce home addresses and specific illnesses of audience members during his "healing sermons", a feat that he implied was due to divine revelation and "God-given ability".
In 1986 the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry charged that Popoff was using electronic transmissions to receive his information; Popoff denied it, insisting that the messages were divinely revealed. Skeptic groups distributed pamphlets explaining how Popoff's feats could be accomplished without any sort of divine intervention. Popoff branded his critics "tools of the devil".
Popoff's methods were definitively exposed in 1986 by the magician and skeptic James Randi and his associate Steve Shaw, an illusionist known professionally as Banachek, with technical assistance from the crime scene analyst and electronics expert Alexander Jason. With computerized scanning equipment, Jason was able to demonstrate that Popoff's wife, Elizabeth, was using a wireless radio transmitter to broadcast information that she and her aides had culled from prayer request cards filled out by audience members.
Popoff received the transmissions via an in-ear receiver and repeated the information to astonished audience members. Jason produced video segments interspersing the intercepted radio transmissions with Popoff's "miraculous" pronouncements.
Randi also planted accomplices in Popoff's audiences, including a man dressed as a woman whom Popoff "cured" of uterine cancer. Randi and Shaw recorded Elizabeth Popoff using a racial slur to describe an African-American audience member, and warning her husband to "...keep your hands off [her] tits ... I'm watching you." At another healing session, Elizabeth and her aides were shown laughing uncontrollably at the physical appearance of a man suffering from a terminal stage of testicular cancer.
In May 1986, Randi presented one of Jason's videos on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Popoff initially denied Randi's accusations and accused NBC of "...[hiring] an actress to impersonate Mrs. Popoff on a doctored videotape". Eventually Popoff admitted the existence of the radio device, but claimed that Elizabeth only "occasionally" gave him "the name of a person who needs special prayers".
He added that "almost everybody" knew about the wireless communication system. His ministry's viewer ratings and donations declined significantly after the Carson airing, and in September 1987 he declared bankruptcy, listing more than 790 unpaid creditors. Popoff’s attorney, William Simon, “attributed the collapse of his ministry to financial mismanagement more than to disclosures about Popoff.” Jason's video footage was also aired on the NOVA episode "Secrets of the Psychics" in 1991. The episode was released on video as part of a lesson in critical thinking. Read Full Gist @ Wikipedia.org
Popoff's methods were definitively exposed in 1986 by the magician and skeptic James Randi and his associate Steve Shaw, an illusionist known professionally as Banachek, with technical assistance from the crime scene analyst and electronics expert Alexander Jason. With computerized scanning equipment, Jason was able to demonstrate that Popoff's wife, Elizabeth, was using a wireless radio transmitter to broadcast information that she and her aides had culled from prayer request cards filled out by audience members.
Popoff received the transmissions via an in-ear receiver and repeated the information to astonished audience members. Jason produced video segments interspersing the intercepted radio transmissions with Popoff's "miraculous" pronouncements.
Randi also planted accomplices in Popoff's audiences, including a man dressed as a woman whom Popoff "cured" of uterine cancer. Randi and Shaw recorded Elizabeth Popoff using a racial slur to describe an African-American audience member, and warning her husband to "...keep your hands off [her] tits ... I'm watching you." At another healing session, Elizabeth and her aides were shown laughing uncontrollably at the physical appearance of a man suffering from a terminal stage of testicular cancer.
In May 1986, Randi presented one of Jason's videos on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Popoff initially denied Randi's accusations and accused NBC of "...[hiring] an actress to impersonate Mrs. Popoff on a doctored videotape". Eventually Popoff admitted the existence of the radio device, but claimed that Elizabeth only "occasionally" gave him "the name of a person who needs special prayers".
He added that "almost everybody" knew about the wireless communication system. His ministry's viewer ratings and donations declined significantly after the Carson airing, and in September 1987 he declared bankruptcy, listing more than 790 unpaid creditors. Popoff’s attorney, William Simon, “attributed the collapse of his ministry to financial mismanagement more than to disclosures about Popoff.” Jason's video footage was also aired on the NOVA episode "Secrets of the Psychics" in 1991. The episode was released on video as part of a lesson in critical thinking. Read Full Gist @ Wikipedia.org
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