At that exact moment, the cell phone dies. And Sully gets ready to reenter the windowless room where he’s certain his days as a cult infiltrator are doomed to a premature ending. “I knew I was in serious trouble.”
But what he also knew, perhaps better than anyone there, cult leaders included, was precisely why these most powerful of confidence schemes are as powerful as they are—and he could manipulate belief along with the best of them. (“My fallback is starting my own cult,” he would joke. “He understood these men. He was really forceful, charismatic, a good storyteller,” Jelly-Schapiro recalled. “He understood the power personality.”) And so, when Sully returned to the room, to the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the leader’s chosen sound track, he returned with the beginnings of a plan.
The order of the day was as usual: a healthy dose of negative energy thrown at the outside world (today’s theme: anger at parents), followed by a redemptive message from the leader. At the session, Sullivan went all out. He yelled, he punched, he cried. By the end, his hands were bruised and swollen—he’d eventually need to be hospitalized for injuries—his voice hoarse. And then it came time for the redemption. Atop the stage at the front of the room, the leader took the microphone. No matter how low you were, he told his audience, there was a way out—through him, through this program, through its training. All you needed to do was take his hand, and, together, walk forward into a new life. “It was very moving,” Sullivan remembered. Not to mention the story about the throat cancer survivor who would never sing again—and then, miracle of all miracles, was once more able to sing.
It was then that Sullivan jumped out of his seat. “Yes, yes, I know—I know what you mean—I feel it!” he screamed. “Oh, sir, can I just try to express what’s inside me?” The leader looked down benignly. “Sure, Anal-Cranial Inversion,” he acquiesced. With that, Sullivan grabbed the microphone and, before anyone could stop him, jumped on the stage. With all his might, every life-loving fiber of his body, he began to sing—“belt out,” as he preferred to call it—a song that seemed to encapsulate the moment: “The Impossible Dream.” “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. To dream the impossible dream. To fight the unbeatable foe. To bear with unbearable sorrow—I built it right to the last. They were weeping,” Sullivan remembered. “The head embraced me with tears in his eyes. And we all sang together, louder and louder, all off-key and screaming. And I was redeemed. I was suddenly solid. I graduated. I got to be reborn. I got my new name. It was nice, not to be Anal-Cranial Inversion anymore.” And he didn’t just redeem himself. He surpassed redemption. At the end of the program, the leader and his helpers, the “angels” (the Gestapo, Sullivan silently called them), asked him to join them in a private room. And there they informed him that he had been chosen not only to graduate, but to graduate to the training for trainers. “I was deemed worthy to come and brainwash the next crowd coming through.”
Sullivan was able to take the game of belief to the next level. He knew precisely how the game worked, and he mirrored the leader’s own techniques back at him, amplified several times over. He knew the power of the story, and how to tell it well. How could he not be a true believer when his words were coming right from the depths of his soul?
* * *
David Sullivan was never a true believer. That term he reserved for those he was trying to help. But he was, in Jelly-Schapiro’s words, a true seeker. He was spiritual. He wanted truth. He had lived with the Sioux Indians and studied with their medicine men, practiced Buddhism, roamed the political communes of the sixties. He wanted always to explore the depths and possibilities that spirituality could offer. “He was drawn to it,” Jelly-Schapiro explained. “He wasn’t a cynical secular guy. And he took it personally when people used spirituality for perverse ends. He resented it.” That, in a way, was why he would become enraged at the false promises of the spiritual con. He knew just how powerful a thing belief could be. Something so fundamental to our sense of the world should not be tampered with for personal gain.
Meaninglessness is, well, meaningless. It’s dispiriting, depressing, and discouraging, not to mention profoundly disorienting and disturbing. Nobody wants their reality to resemble Kafka. And in those moments when it does, when we can’t make out what or why or how, we nevertheless try our best, as soon as we recover from shock, to explain it all once more and fit it into any sort of schema. Even Joseph K. can’t stand the apparent meaninglessness of his arrest and trial. He knows he must have done something, and tries his best to impose a semblance of meaning on the things that seem to keep happening through no doing of his own.
Before humans learned how to make tools, how to farm, how to write, already they were telling one another stories—and not just any stories. Stories with a deeper purpose. The man who caught the beast wasn’t just strong. The signs were on his side. The spirit of the hunt was smiling at him. The rivers were plentiful not because of the weather or some natural cycle. It was because the spirit or ruler or god or king of the river was in a benevolent mood. In society after society, group after group, religious belief, in one form or another, has arisen spontaneously throughout history. Anything that cannot immediately be explained must be explained all the same. It cannot just be. And the explanation often lies in something bigger than oneself—a bigger force, an unexplainable one that can, in turn, explain everything else.
The often expressed view of modern science is that God resides in the cracks. That is, as more and more of the world is explained through understandable phenomena, and ends up being not so divine after all, the cracks in knowledge—the remaining gaps that we have no explanation for—are where the force that needs no explanation resides. Its home may have shrunk, but it will always exist. As long as there is something to explain, and no easy way to explain it, belief will rise up.
It’s little wonder that so many cons flourish in the world of religious experience—and, indeed, that religiosity is one of the few factors that consistently predicts susceptibility to fraud. It’s a thin line between belief in one miracle and belief in another. The Bebe and C. Thomas Pattens of the world have their work cut out for them: religion is the natural breeding ground of the confidence game. The threshold for belief has long been surpassed. Now you need only the right preacher to give it just the right revelatory meaning.
When he died in 1887, Adam Lord Gifford left an unusual bequest. He wanted his legacy to be used to found a series of lectures throughout the universities of Scotland that would “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term—in other words, the knowledge of God.” From the start, the lectures were considered a great honor, so when the news came that he had been selected, William James readily accepted.
In 1901 and 1902, James gave one of the most famous tours in the Gifford Lectures’ history. It was a draining experience. After the first series of talks, he succumbed to a nervous breakdown, postponing the second tour by close to a year, and trying (unsuccessfully) to cancel it altogether. The result, however, became the basis of one of the most important books of his career, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.
In its pages, James didn’t just visit the origins of religion. Into the same family, he placed phenomena that to the religious and scientific men of the day alike were absolutely unthinkable: the psychic, the superstitious, the mystical. To him, it was all of the same vein. James was not an atheist—not by a long shot. He was, like David Sullivan, a seeker and a believer. But he was also a man of science. And to him, the parallel was clear. If you believed, you didn’t just believe in religion. You believed in all mystical phenomena—if the facts were there to support it. You didn’t just believe what was convenient. You believed where you were led by the evidence. If you were someone willing to embrace religion, you should also by right examine the rest of the unexaminable.
People balked. Religion was pure. That was worthy belief. Psychics were garbage. True religion did not admit any of that. Despite James
’s stature, James Ward, the British philosopher and psychologist who had earlier left the ministry for his overly liberal views of religious doctrine (and had given the Gifford Lectures before James), refused to review Varieties flat out. It was, he said, “tainted” with psychical research. He was as open-minded as the next person, but James had crossed a line.
To James, though, there was no line. “Everybody knows,” he wrote to Elizabeth Glendower Evans, one of his former students at Harvard who later assisted him in psychical research, “that the real life of religion springs from what may be called the mystical stratum of human nature.” That mystical stratum underpinned all belief. The question was, which beliefs were considered acceptable, and which dismissed? That was, more often than not, a judgment call—a judgment call that could be legitimate or could well be exploited by the ethically dubious.
Every man, James said in his final lecture, is entitled to—and most certainly has—his own “over-beliefs,” which were “the most interesting and valuable things” about him. The tendency toward over-belief was inevitable, and it was ubiquitous. “That the God with whom, starting from the hither side of our own extra-marginal self, we come at its remoter margin into commerce should be the absolute world-ruler, is of course a very considerable over-belief. Over-belief as it is, though, it is an article of almost every one’s religion,” James wrote. “Most of us pretend in some way to prop it upon our philosophy, but the philosophy itself is really propped upon this faith.”
Everything was a matter of faith. The extent of the faith was the question. “I state the matter thus bluntly, because the current of thought in academic circles runs against me, and I feel like a man who must set his back against an open door quickly if he does not wish to see it closed and locked,” he continued. “In spite of its being so shocking to the reigning intellectual tastes, I believe that a candid consideration of piecemeal supernaturalism and a complete discussion of all its metaphysical bearings will show it to be the hypothesis by which the largest number of legitimate requirements are met.”
In other words, all of us believe, intrinsically and instinctively. We just differ on where we draw the line between “legitimate” and “illegitimate.” One man’s confidence artist is another man’s spiritual leader.
And that isn’t something to worry about. It is perfectly natural, and it is, indeed, to be desired. “No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance,” James concluded. “The existence of the chance makes the difference, as Edmund Gurney says, between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope.”
Nobody joins a cult, Sullivan repeated often and emphatically. People join something that will give them meaning. “They join a group that’s going to promote peace and freedom throughout the world or that’s going to save animals, or they’re going to help orphans or something. But nobody joins a cult.” Nobody embraces false beliefs: we embrace something we think is as true as it gets. Nobody sets out to be conned: we set out to become, in some way, better than we were before.
Con artists, at their best and worst, give us meaning. We fall for them because it would make our lives better if the reality they proposed were indeed true. They give us a sense of purpose, of value, of direction.
That, in the end, is the true power of belief. It gives us hope. If we are endlessly skeptical, endlessly miserly with our trust, endlessly unwilling to accept the possibilities of the world, we despair. To live a good life we must, almost by definition, be open to belief, of one form or another. And that is why the confidence game is both the oldest there is and the last one that will still be standing when all other professions have faded away.
Ultimately, what a confidence artist sells is hope. Hope that you’ll be happier, healthier, richer, loved, accepted, better looking, younger, smarter, a deeper, more fulfilled human being—hope that the you that will emerge on the other side will be somehow superior to the you that came in.
ENDNOTE
1. The study has been criticized in recent years as not showing what it purports, but Milgram’s original work—and series of studies, not just the one most frequently reported—do show that many (not all) people will indeed follow orders to a surprising degree. The effect has been widely replicated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was born one fall evening as I settled in to watch David Mamet’s House of Games. Mamet’s continuing fascination with cons got me thinking: why hasn’t anyone written anything about why they work the way they do, and why even the smartest of us are endlessly vulnerable to the wiles of the confidence man? This book is the result. So, a thank-you to Mamet for the inspiration—if you ever want to talk cons, let me know.
Too many people to count helped make The Confidence Game a reality. I owe a tremendous debt to all those who so generously gave their time and emotional energy to share their con experiences with me. Not every story, alas, made it into the final book, but each one helped make it what it is. To the sources who chose to remain anonymous: thank you; I won’t out you here, but I’m grateful to all of you. And to those who didn’t: Tyler Alterman, Christie Aschwanden, Peter Blau, Moran Cerf, Michael Egan, Ribina Madan Fillion, Sharon Flescher, Adam Grant, Nancy Hall-Duncan, Kevin Hartnett, Jason Hernandez, Wilf Jaeger, David Kwong, Jim Ledbetter, Robin Lloyd, Sandip Madan, Josh Mann, Ed Mosher, Ivan Oransky, Ken Perenyi, Renee, Michael Shermer, Brenda Simonson-Mohle, Bryan Skarlatos, Jennifer Stalvey, Christine Suppes, Carl Zimmer. A few special thanks: Sarah and Jen Crichton, for sharing so many decades’ worth of material on the Great Impostor and regaling me with childhood tales of his deceptions; Preet Bharara, for taking the time to help me understand the world of fraud; Ann Freedman, for being so open and gracious in letting me into her life; Apollo Robbins, for teaching me about the world of magical deception; Josh Jelly-Schapiro, for sharing memories of his time with David Sullivan; Luke Nikas, for his never-ending willingness to help me navigate the legal minefields of deception. Thanks, as well, to everyone who took the time to send in tips and leads; each one was greatly appreciated.
I’m so grateful to have an amazing editorial team behind me. Thank you, as always, to my wonderful agent, Seth Fishman, an ever supportive friend who always senses the right moment to motivate a hungry writer with DKAs. Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts, Andy Kifer, and the rest of the team at the Gernert Company: you guys are incredible. Wendy Wolf, my patient and tireless editor, whose always insightful suggestions shaped the book into what it is. Georgia Bodnar, Kate Griggs, Nicholas LoVecchio, Daniel Lagin, Jason Ramirez, Kristin Matzen, and the countless others at Viking who have worked to make this a reality. The lovely Jenny Lord, my editor at Canongate, whose suggestions were always spot-on. The entire Canongate team, for believing in this project from its inception, and especially Jamie Byng, Jenny Todd, and Anna Frame. And none of this would even be possible without the many wonderful editors who have helped me grow along the way, especially Eleanor Barkhorn, Trish Hall, Jim Ledbetter, and Aaron Retica.
As I scrambled to finish the manuscript by some semblance of a deadline, I was very fortunate to have tremendous support from everyone at The New Yorker, who helped navigate deadlines and offered endless invaluable editing and writing advice. A huge thank-you to Nick Thompson and John Bennet for the countless hours you’ve spent making me a better writer. Thank you to Josh Rothman, to the indispensable fact checkers and copy editors who have worked to make my pieces what they are, and, of course, to David Remnick, for believing in my future as a writer.
I’ve been lucky to have a number of incredible mentors, but I want to thank especially Katherine Vaz, who believed in me from the moment I stepped into her writing class as a confused eighteen-year-old; Steven Pinker, who has taught me so much of what I know and has been a constant source of inspiration; and Walter Mischel, for hours of wisdom, beautiful art, and always thought-provoking conversation.
And a final, most heartfelt thank-you to the people who’ve had to put up
with me the longest, and somehow still decided to stick around. The friends who listened to me moan over countless meals and bottles of wine—and despite my often less-than-stellar company still offered in-person deliveries of tea when I shut myself in for weeks at a time. I am very lucky to have you all in my life. My amazing family, who have always supported everything I do. And, of course, my husband, Geoff, without whose love and support none of this would be possible. I love you.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
The introductory chapter, as well as all future references to the story of Ferdinand Waldo Demara, “The Great Impostor,” relies on four major sources: Robert Crichton’s The Great Impostor and The Rascal and the Road, personal interviews with the Crichton family, and several boxes full of carefully organized letters, clippings, and notes courteously provided by the Crichton family. These include correspondence from Demara, correspondence with victims of his frauds, and hundreds of original historical records, spanning the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, many of which never made it into Crichton’s books.
The cited fraud and con statistics come from several surveys administered by the AARP and the FTC from 2011 to 2014. Information on historical cons is provided by an 1898 article in the New York Times, “An Old Swindle Revived,” as well as the excellent The Big Con, David Maurer’s account of the language and customs of con men. Maurer’s book will be revisited throughout the narrative.
CHAPTER 1: THE GRIFTER AND THE MARK
Apart from Demara’s story, Chapter 1, as well as all subsequent chapters, includes numerous original psychological studies, most easily located by author and subject. All specific references, here and in future chapters, are available at www.mariakonnikova.com/books. The plight of the Slate author is taken from his first-person account. The accounts and statistics relating to psychopaths come from Robert Hare’s research, as well as his popular books Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us and Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. James Fallon’s account comes from his book The Psychopath Inside and a 2014 article in The Atlantic, “Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath.” Survey data comes from the AARP, FTC, and the Investor Protection Trust.
The Confidence Game Page 35
