The Noble Lie

Ex-stage magician James Randi has made a living out of debunking psychics and “healing” evangalists. This is one of his best busts — Peter Popoff, whose wife would read off peoples’ afflictions based on prayer cards that were filled in by the people themselves. The sad thing is, you’d think after this that people wouldn’t believe this guy anymore and would stop giving him his money. Nope. He’s still at it.

I need to find more details about this because it was actually disgusting how callous and uncaring he and his wife were about these people’s actual conditions. She would say things like, “Oh, here’s a hot one, this one has cancer, hee hee hee.”

Hats off to James Randi.

Another good Parenti talk, in this one he gets into the incestuous relationship between church and state. He makes a great point about how the term “materialism” is abused by religious organizations.

The audio is originally from TUC Radio in San Francisco. Please listen to the outro for information on how to support them.

Though Barack Obama and many of his supporters were quick to disown this passionate, fiery-tempered preacher, in many ways this man is more charismatic and more correct than the presidential candidate. I thought his statements were inspiring and was disappointed to see Obama disown them so quickly, especially since they are true.

Here are the books he mentioned; I haven’t read them yet but they’re on my list. I know the gist of the topics both cover.

• Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola: Nature, Accident or Intentional? by Leonard Horowitz
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans by Harriet Washington

I would add one more to this list:

• Acres of Skin: Human Experiments at Holmesburg Prison by Allen Hornblum