Word: popoff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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None of Randi's exploits better illustrates his ingenuity than his 1986 exposure of Peter Popoff, the TV evangelist who claimed to be guided by God's voice. Popoff would race around an auditorium, striding up to dozens of people he had never met, greeting them by name, reciting their addresses, diagnosing their illnesses and then pretending to heal them with a laying on of hands. With the help of several volunteers, a video camera and a radio frequency scanner, Randi discovered that Popoff's wife Elizabeth toured the audience before the service began and engaged in seemingly casual chitchat...
...Popoff says that God speaks directly to him because he's an anointed minister," said Randi afterward. "Three things amaze me about that. First of all, it turns out that God's frequency -- I didn't know that he used radio -- is 39.170 MHz, and that God is a woman, and sounds exactly like Popoff's wife Elizabeth." Last year, shortly after Randi published his book The Faith Healers, which included a chapter on the Popoff investigation, donations to Popoff's TV ministry dropped so sharply that he declared bankruptcy...
...disagree with Randi on specific points," says Carl Sagan, "but we ignore him at our peril." "He's a national treasure," says Author Isaac Asimov. Randi's targets are less enthusiastic. A Popoff staff member calls him "the devil" and an atheist. He has been the object of hate-mail campaigns by some of his foes. All to no avail. Says Randi: "No blackmail, no threats, can cause me to back away from my chosen work...