The Science of Miracles

by Joe Nickell

  THE NITTY GRITTY ON THE DIRT

  Today, pilgrims visiting El Santuariò de Chimayó stoop to enter a small, single-windowed room that is said to be Abeyta's original hermita. The central hole, El Posito (“little well”), measures some 16 to 18 inches wide and less than half as deep. Considering the great amount of earth that must have been scooped from it during its almost two centuries of history, however, this is a small hole indeed! Hence, there grew a pious legend “that the pit was refilled by divine intervention” (Eckholm 2008). (This was similar to the claim that regardless of how many pieces were taken from the True Cross, the alleged holy relic of Jesus’ crucifixion, it never diminished in size [Nickell 2007, 91–92].)

  But even though “legend still maintains that the hole miraculously replenishes itself,” in fact “priests periodically refill the hole with dirt from outside the church” (Kay 1987, 77). Indeed, previously tipped off to this fact by a TV cameraman (Del Monte 2000), we searched for and found the storage area where five-gallon containers of the reddish soil are stored (figure 28.2). In recent years, priests at El Santuario de Chimayó have increasingly taken pains to point out the shed where the trucked-in soil is stored, with one complaining, “I even have to buy clean dirt!” (Eckholm 2008).

  In fact, the holy dirt is nothing very special. An analysis conducted for The Miracle Detectives television series identified the presence of carbonates that might have a beneficial effect on heartburn by neutralizing excess acid. “Beyond that,” stated series costar Indre Vìscontas, the show's skeptic, “there doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary” (“Holy Dirt of Chimayó” 2011).

  I agree. I had collected my own samples for testing in a visit to Chimayó in 2003 with investigator Vaughn Rees. In the guise of a pilgrim needing healing (figure 1), I purchased a small, empty plastic container from the gift shop, labeled “Blessed Dirt.” My examination, in my little lab at CSI headquarters, showed that the “dirt” contains no appreciable humus but is largely sand, consisting of tiny grains of minerals and small bits of rock. (Application of hydrochloric acid yielded a strong effervescence that confirmed the presence of carbonates. The addition of potassium ferrocyanide reagent produced a Prussian-blue reaction that identified a significant amount of iron, consistent with its color of red ocher, an earthy iron oxide. Stereomicroscopic examination showed grains of such common minerals as crystalline quartz and mica as well as small lumps of sandstone and occasional bits of organic material, including tiny fragments of bone and fine root stems.1)

  Chimayó priest Father Jim Suntum concedes that the dirt itself has no miraculous power (“Holy Dirt of Chimayó” 2011). In fact, the local dirt has actually acted in a very antimiraculous way: it has posed a threat to the church's artworks. As conservators found in 2003–2004, they “had to deal with the dirt.” Indeed, “it had drifted down from the ceiling and walls in the almost 200 years the church had existed, covering the paintings on the five altar screens, the crucifix and the carved bultos [sculptures] with a fine dust that needed cleaning. Dirt also had fallen behind the main altar screen to push it out of joint and threaten its very existence.” Still, a writer would claim that the preservation process itself, at least, was “almost a miracle” (Russell 2004, 36, 40).

  THE HEALING “MIRACLES”

  Nevertheless, while Father Suntum concedes it is not the holy dirt that heals but rather one's “relationship with God,” he insists, “Something happens in this place.” However, he admits, “We can't quantify it. We can't document it. We do ask people to tell their story (“Holy Dirt of Chimayó” 2011). In fact, “officially, the Church has never investigated any of the claims” (El Santuariò…1994, 26).

  The complete lack of records regarding alleged miraculous experiences means that claims are entirely dependent on anecdotal evidence, such as the unverifiable stories told by an aging priest at the site. For example, in the mid-1950s, he recalled, a man carried his frail, ill mother into the church. “A few minutes later,” said the priest, “he called me, something has happened. She was kneeling in front of the altar. She was talking and full of health” (Hamm 2006, 42, 45). Yet we do not need to invoke the miraculous to explain what may have been only a simple rejuvenation of the woman's spirits.

  Or consider the tale about a girl from Texas whose family “was told she had little time to live” and that even an operation might not save her. Following their visit to Chimayó the child was well and no operation was necessary. “Two days later,” recalls the old priest, “they came back to thank God for the cure” (quoted in Hamm 2006, 45). Now, we cannot prove this story is untrue, but fortunately we do not have to. The tellers of such unverifiable tales have the entire burden of proof.

  However, when such cases can be investigated, they are invariably illuminating. For instance, The Miracle Detectives examined the case of a Colorado woman, Deseree “Dese” Martinez, who claims the dirt of Chimayó helped her cancer go into remission. Diagnosed at the age of fifteen with aggressive bone cancer in numerous sites in her body, she visited Chimayó, where she mixed the holy dirt with spit and applied it to a sore spot on her leg. The pain was gone by the next morning, and scans the following week showed the area healed. Inexplicably, she did not then rub dirt on the other lesion spots, but they soon disappeared, too.

  However, the woman's doctor, Brian Greffe, at the children's hospital in Denver, observed that with such non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in pediatric cases, the hospital's “cure rates are quite high.” He attributed Ms. Martinez's success to the chemo treatments that had worked “within days” of their beginning. Obviously, there is no evidence that the interim application of holy dirt to a single site had any effect, although Dr. Greffe did say Martinez's positive outlook and the support of her family were helpful (“Holy Dirt of Chimayó” 2011).

  As invariably shown by the evidence, so-called miraculous healings are never scientifically verified. Such claims, like those at Lourdes, the most famous “miracle” shrine, are derived from cases that are supposedly “medically inexplicable”; therefore, they are really examples of a logical fallacy called “arguing from ignorance”—that is, drawing a conclusion from a lack of knowledge. Besides, some illnesses are known to exhibit spontaneous remission, and other reputed cures may be attributable to a host of other factors: misdiagnosis, psychosomatic conditions, the body's own healing mechanisms, and the like, including—as in the case of Ms. Martinez—prior medical treatment (Nickell 2008).

  While the church displays crutches and canes—ostensibly cast off after previous cures—they may well have been discarded prematurely. Persons may feel better temporarily after experiencing the hope and excitement of a pilgrimage. Writer Anatole France, on visiting Lourdes and seeing the abandoned canes and crutches there, sagely remarked, “What, what, no wooden legs???” (quoted in Hines 1988, 250).

  CONCLUSIONS

  As the evidence shows, therefore, claims made for holy dirt at Chimayó are unwarranted. Despite borrowed and contrived legends that the site is miraculous, the soil is actually an ordinary variety trucked in from elsewhere and merely blessed. Priests admit that the “something” that happens at the site cannot be quantified or documented—and indeed a major healing claim fell apart on investigation.

  One suspects that the “something” is merely what is termed confirmation bias—the willingness to credit any supposed benefits while ignoring countless failures. One writer offers the apologetic, “It is a mystery why certain people and situations are granted a miracle and others are not” (Hamm 2006). But it is only a “mystery” if one chooses to be blind to the evidence.

  In case you haven't heard, God is still talking to Peter Popoff. But the “word of knowledge” seemingly whispered into the TV evangelist's ear is no longer secretly broadcast by Mrs. Popoff.

  I had wondered what the good reverend was doing since his 1986 exposé, so, when he brought his act to Toronto on Sunday, June 2, 2002 (figure 29.1), I determined to be there. I decided to adopt the character of a working
man who was obviously afflicted with a bad back.

  OUT WITH THE OLD

  Peter Popoff is director of a religious empire in Upland, California, that once raked in an estimated ten to twenty million tax-free dollars annually. A Pentecostal, he claims that as a child he witnessed his father transform water into wine for a wartime communion service in Berlin.

  An “Anointed Minister of God,” the evangelist supposedly exhibits several of the “gifts of the spirit” that are central to Pentecostalism. Christians believe that between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven, he promised his disciples they would be “baptised with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 1:5). This occurred when the apostles gathered for Pentecost and were struck with religious ecstasy (Asimov 1969).

  The apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 12:7–11) enumerated nine gifts that are manifestations of the Holy Spirit: (1) the word of wisdom, (2) the word of knowledge, (3) faith, (4) healing, (5) the working of miracles, (6) prophecy, (7) discernment of spirits, (8) speaking in unknown tongues, and (9) the ability to interpret tongues. Pentecostals place a special emphasis on such gifts, while many other fundamentalists believe they were intended only for those early disciples who were specifically anointed by Jesus (Nickell 1993, 101–102).

  Peter Popoff combines his gift of healing with that of the word of knowledge. The latter consists, Pentecostals believe, of one receiving supernatural revelation. According to Christian Online Magazine (Kazenske 2003), this is “the God-given ability to receive from God, by revelation, the facts concerning something that is humanly impossible for us to know anything about”—a sort of holy clairvoyance.

  Popoff's gift was openly demonstrated, taking the form of “calling out” audience members for healing and telling them their diseases, stating their addresses, and providing similar information, including occasionally the names of their doctors—all promptly verified by the astonished individuals concerned. For example, at a service in Anaheim, California, on March 16, 1986, Popoff called out, “Virgil. Is it Jorgenson? Who is Virgil?”—whereupon a man in the audience identified himself as that person. Then Popoff continued, “Are you ready for God to overhaul those knees?” As Jorgenson reacted to Popoff's amazing knowledge about him, the evangelist continued, “Oh, glory to God. I'll tell you, God's going to touch that sister of yours all the way over in Sweden.” Popoff then took the “healed” man's cane. Breaking it over his knee, Popoff stood by as the man walked about unaided, giving praise to both Popoff and God (Steiner 1989).

  Soon, however, Popoff's apparent gift was exposed as blatant trickery. Famed magician and paranormal investigator James Randi—wondering at the alleged healer's wearing of an apparent hearing aid—began to suspect that the device might actually be a tiny radio receiver and that someone was secretly broadcasting the information that was alleged to come from God. In fact, in what would become a classic in the history of paranormal investigation, Randi smuggled in an electronics expert with computerized scanning equipment and so discovered that the words of knowledge came not from heaven but from much closer: from the ministry's TV trailer parked just outside.

  The evangelist's wife, Elizabeth, was obtaining the relevant information from so-called prayer cards that attendees filled out before the service. She then broadcast the information to Popoff's “hearing aid.” The first message at the service was a test: “Hello, Petey. I love you. I'm talking to you. Can you hear me? If you can't you're in trouble.” (Steiner 1986; Steiner 1989; Randi 1987, 141–49). The session with the ailing Mr. Jorgenson—actually investigator Don Henvick!—sounded like this when Mrs. Popoff's secret broadcasts were also heard (Steiner 1989, 126):

  Elizabeth Popoff transmits to Peter Popoff: “Virgil Jorgenson. Virgil.”

  Peter Popoff calls out “Virgil.”

  Elizabeth: “Jorgenson.”

  Peter (inquiringly): “Is it Jorgenson?”

  Elizabeth: “Way back in the back somewhere. Arthritis in knees. He's got a cane.”

  Peter: “Who is Virgil?”

  Elizabeth: “He's got a cane.”

  Peter: “Are you ready for God to overhaul those knees?”

  Elizabeth: “He's got arthritis. He's praying for his sister in Sweden, too.”

  Peter: “Oh, glory to God. I'll tell you, God's going to touch that sister of yours all the way over in Sweden.”

  Subsequently, on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, Randi played a videotape of one of several recorded “calling out” sessions that had been intercepted. Randi presented it in before-and-after fashion so viewers could appreciate the original effect of Popoff's apparent gift of knowledge then see the true situation involving the secret broadcast. Popoff reacted first by denying everything; his ministry later charged that the videotapes had been “doctored” by NBC. Finally, Popoff admitted to use of the “communicator” device (the radio receiver), but he attempted to deny any intention to deceive. In fact, however, Randi had videotaped documentation to the contrary (Randi 1987, 149–50, 291; Garrison 1991).

  The callousness of Popoff and his organization was deep. A former aide told how, when Popoff was sending out “personal” special-appeal letters to top donors, he had the aide sign a majority of them for him. Popoff promised those who sent him letters (with expected donations enclosed) that he would pray over them, but, says the aide, “he never prayed over them.” Instead, “they'd sit there in a big pile for a month, then they'd be shredded” (quoted in Randi 1987, 158).

  Like some donor-fleecing religious (or secular not-for-profit) organizations, Popoff made special appeals for projects that sometimes did not really even exist. Donors would send in money but, according to a former Peter Popoff Evangelical Association controller, “the money would just go into the daily deposit.” Also, Elizabeth Popoff (who, unbeknownst to the faithful, was not even a Pentecostalist but a Roman Catholic) “laughed and joked at the ‘boobs’ and ‘big butts’ of terminally ill women who were there, giving their money and their confidence to the Popoffs” (Randi 1987, 152, 158, 298).

  Nevertheless, Randi's effective exposé of Popoff, carried by the national media, dealt the evangelist a body blow. In just four months he became unable to draw the large crowds he was accustomed to. Worse, public outrage and diminishing donations eventually forced him off television entirely (Alexander 1987). He even changed the organization's name from The Peter Popoff Evangelical Association to People United for Christ, and he relocated it to a shopping-center storefront (Randi 1987, 156).

  RESURRECTING THE WORD OF KNOWLEDGE

  Despite all this, Popoff managed to rebound, eventually returning to the airways—and his old ways—albeit without his “hearing aid” (Stein 1993). Now he depends on other means to seemingly receive words of knowledge.

  One method is the old generalization technique that is a mainstay of fortunetellers and Spiritualists. Consider this letter of July 26, 2001, written by Popoff—or one of the professional letter writers he is known to have employed (Randi 1987, 140). In any case, Popoff sent it to me, personally (and no doubt to thousands upon thousands of others):

  Dear Joe,

  In prayer for you this morning…God showed me that I must come to Toronto, Ontario. We are in the 7th month of the year and still you are feeling crushed by an onslaught of excessive worry in and around your home. During this time of prayer…I felt an unusual “BONDING” between us. I feel now as if I am speaking to you face to face.

  There is something I just can't quite put my finger on…it has been troubling you, and it seems it keeps interfering with your day to day life.

  GOD DID SHOW ME…that you need Him to move in the lives of your loved ones. I SEE through the eyes of the spirit…you also need a touch in your life, your finances are not the way you want them…. If it seems I'm reading you like a book…I sense it's happening because of this “BONDING” between us in the spirit.

  Now, if this isn't holy clairvoyance—a true word of knowledge—I don't know what is.

  A second technique for appearing to receive
a word of knowledge, before an audience of believers, is a version of the “shotgun” technique. As typically practiced by evangelists like Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn, this involves mentioning that certain healings are taking place, without specifying just who is being favored (Randi 1987, 228–29; Nickell 2002). Popoff also uses it as a means of “calling out” someone for a healing. For example, on one television “Miracle Crusade,” Popoff (2002c) seemed to hear a word of knowledge that someone was afflicted with a ringing in the ears; a woman with that condition then identified herself and came forward.

  Popoff does not limit the shotgun technique to illnesses. He applies it to other problems people might experience. On television, he can even direct the method to the home audience. “I feel there's a mother out there,” he says, without fear of contradiction, “whose son is in jail….” (Popoff 2003). In this way many may be led to believe Popoff is speaking individually to them.

  In his live crusades, Popoff uses the shotgun technique extensively. At the service I attended—after Popoff (2002a) had written me, saying, “Joe, you are going to see some awesome things happen in your life”—many vied to be the person to fit a certain illness that Popoff mentioned. A woman in front of me seemed to have several conditions—or perhaps was anxious to be videotaped by the ministry's TV crew and so achieve her moment of fame.

  PETER POPOFF PACKS A PUNCH OF “PENTECOSTAL POWER”

  One woman, who was called to come forward to receive Popoff's “laying on of hands,” started to come without her cane (indicating clearly that she could walk without it). Popoff had her fetch it and made a big production of tossing it away (up onto the stage). She and others were treated to Popoff's touch—actually more of a push—and reacted accordingly. A few merely staggered or trembled, while others promptly fell into the arms of one of Popoff's catchers who had moved into position behind them. They collapsed in a variety of styles: some slumping, others reeling, still others stiffening and falling straight back. Once down, many seemed knocked out, while others writhed as if possessed.