The Republic from Columbus, Indiana • Page 6

A6 The Republic. Columbus. Saturday. May 31. 1986 Tent-show healers lay on technology, not hands Skeptics say faith healer gets electronic, not godly, messages members threw pills on stage at the exhortation of Popoff.

Randi said that he found life-sustaining drugs discarded in trash cans afterwards, including insulin tablets, nitroglycerin and digitalis. scriptions show Elizabeth repeatedly cuing Popoff with names, afflictions, addresses and occasionally making joking comments about versations before the service and from prayer request cards filled out there. "The tent-show healers are gone, but their replacements are among us louder, slicker and richer by far, assisted as they are by technology that their predecessors would not have imagined," said magician-' list was able to recite details about audience members and their afflictions. Popoff, like many faith healers, calls out ihe names and illnesses of people at his crusades, then "lays hands" on them and prays for their healing. The impression given at such services is that the information comes from divine sources; indeed, a magazine distributed by Popoffs organization described an audience member being "called out by the pirit for healing!" BUT A.

VOLUNTEER team of By JOHN DART Los Anojles Times The; woman's voice began the transmission in a sing-song tone: "Hello, Petey. I love you. I'm talking to you. Can you hear me? If you can't, you're in "Petey," the Rev. Peter Popoff of Upland, was on stage at.

San Francisco's Civic Auditorium about to start a faith healing service that would be videotaped for his weekly television program. The voice testing the communications was that of his wife, Elizabeth, out of the audience's view but apparently able to see her husband via TV monitors. Her voice then became businesslike: "I'm looking up names right now," she said, soon after reciting the name of a woman in the audience, one of many who came seeking a miraculous healing. UNKNOWN TO THE Popoffs, in another section of the auditorium complex an electronics surveillance expert was giving the thumbs-up sign to a colleague as he began a series of surreptitious recordings designed to expose how the evange- to whisper the physical problem of one woman because it was personal. "How many believe the Holy Spirit is a gentleman?" he cried out before whispering the woman's problem to her.

She nodded yes. Moments earlier, according to the secretly recorded tapes, Elizabeth Popoff had radioed that the woman had lumps in her breast and suggested that Popoff whisper to the woman, whom' she called "a hot one." After speaking quietly to the woman, Peter Popoff announced: "I'm going to burn that out. Here we go!" THEN HE PRAYED over her, and fell down, as frequently happens at faith healing services. "jfehe got shocked! She got shocked! Hallelujah!" Popoff told self-described skeptics, who recently monitored Popoffs crusades in four Cities, claims that if God sends information to Peter Popoff, he does it at 39.17 megahertz, a frequency in the range often used by police. The team recorded hours of conversations in which Elizabeth Popoff radioed to her husband personal details that she and other aides gathered from the audience In con- those seeking healing.

Randi, known professionally as "The Amazing Randi," made the findings public April 22 on NBC-TV's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." Randi showed a televised excerpt' from one of Popoffs crusades in which the evangelist gave a man and his wife information about themselves and their eye troubles. Then the excerpt was played again, but along with a tape showing that Elizabeth Popoff had moments earlier fed the information to her husband. A STATEMENT ISSUED after the program by the Peter Popoff Evangelistic Association in Upland accused Randi of "using these tactics to get publicity for a book that he is writing to discredit God's work." Randi, 57, of Sunrise, who is well-known for his exposes of so-called psychic phenomena, said that he is negotiating a contract for a book on the faith healer investigations. "It's not a secret. We've never denied using it," Popoff said during an interview in his office.

"My father (George Popoff) was an evangelist, and he looked at prayer request cards. We use a prompter," Popoff said. Popoff maintained that his audiences consist mostly of people with whom he has corresponded and that they do not necessarily think debunkej James Randi, who used as many as 18 volunteers pf crusade to document what he were deceptive practices by several faith healers. THE 39-YEAR-OLD Pdpoff, with his seemingly supernatural memory, particularly caught the attention of Ranch's task force, a project of the Committee' for the Scientific Investigation of Religion, a group associated with the humanist-oriented Free Inquiry magazine. Although a spokesman for Popoff initially contested the committee's allegation that Popoff gets his information in a very secular manner, the evangelist acknowledged in a recent interview that he uses the radio method.

But Popoff said that his wife supplies him with only about half the names. "The other half I would pray and wait on the Lord," he said. "I'm not denying the divine." SINCE THE DEATH oi Kathryn Kuhlman and the retirement from healing services of Oral Roberts, the best-known faith healers are probably Richard Roberts (son of Oral) and-Efnest Angley of Akron, Ohio. But Popoff is hardly an unknown. He is seen on 51 televisidn outlets, heard on 40 radio stations and has an average gross income of $550,000 a mtfe, according to his business Randi said that a member of his group first suspected that Popoff was wearing a radio receiver at a rally Feb.

2 in Houston. One of the "I've never told people to throw medicine away," Popoff countered. In Houston, he said, "I told people to throw away cigarettes and addictive drugs." Popoff, who was born in Bulgaria, began his ministry after his 1970 graduation from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Over the next few years he started his own radio broadcasts and made Bible-smuggling trips to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, according to the autobiography. On a cassette tape, he describes an angel-escorted trip to the heavens after God purportedly told him, "I'm going to show you things that no mortal man has seen before." POPOFF DOWNPLAYED his supernatural gifts in the recent in-.

terview. To the debunkers' charge that he avoids people with the worst ailments at his crusades, Popoff said, try to be as effective as I can, put my best foot forward. You have to go where you are most effective." He said that Ranch's group is wrong to think that he recites facts about audience members merely to 1 impress them. He tells people their home address, he said, "just to make sure they are the right persons." He estimated that 75 percent to 80 percent of the people at his services, which sometimes draw more than 5,000, have received his contribution-appeal letters, jlf they were "not getting something out of his ministry, Popoff he would not haw seen it grow "about 35 percent eacn year." Popoff said that he promises many loyal followers that, when his crusade comes to cities near them, he will call them forward, a procedure he compared to a TV game show. "IT'S JUST LIKE 'The Price Is Right'; they expect to be called down," he said.

"This is a very effective format for television." City of David dig finds indoor plumbing in Bible-era ruins the audience. To demonstrate that data gleaned from the audience at the one-day services was the source for Popoffs information rather, than a presumably unerring divine source members of Randi 's team requested healings at the services after giving false names and phony sicknesses. One pretender, Don Henvick of San Fpancisco, said that Popoff prayed, for his healing three times: As at bearded man suffering from alcoholism; as a clean-shaven, balding man with arthritis; and, wearing a dress and wig, as' a woman with "uterine cancen. and edema" and confined to a wheelchair. Randi said the ploy showed that if ''God was informing Popoff," he was giving "wrong information." Randi and Free Inquiry's editor, Paul Kurtz, whose quarterly NEW YORK (RNS) Indoor plumbing was apparently a feature of housing in ancient Jerusalem, according to evidence uncovered by a team excavating the City, of David.

Led by Dr. Yigal Shiloh, excavation in the city has uncovered three houses that date back 5,500 years. That is a full 2,500 years before King David conquered the city that would become his capital, and is considered the oldest known biblical settlement in the world. The work has excavated various levels of Jerusalem's history, extending through both the. Old and New Testament periods.

One structure thatdates back to the seventh century B.C., known as Ahiel's House, has small room about ih feet square with a thick plaster floor. A stone installation with a hole that looks like a modern toilet seat was found above a pit eight feet below the floor. Two other similar seats or parts of seats were found elsewhere in the excavation. Shiloh, who has been leading the excavations since 1978, said the work ha also uncovered evidence of people mentioned in the Bible. One discovery that particularly excited him was a bulla, a lump of clay used to" seal a document bound with string, that mentioned Gemaryahu, son of Shaphan.

This scribe was active in the court of King Jehoiakim of Judah, and is mentioned in the 36th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah. The work has found numerous artifacts of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., including collapsed buildings and iron and bronze arrowheads. The evidence reflects Nehemiah's description of the city walls as having been broken down and the gates consumed by fire (Nehemiah that all the information he gives them about themselves is divinely derived. "The Holy Spirit does speak, but I don't think people are naive," he said. Randi said, however, that people who had been "called out" at Popoff services told his team that they believed it was the doing of the Holy Spirit.

RANDI'S GROUP CITES the Anaheim, service March 16 at which Popoff said that he was going magazine is publishing the results of the investigation, contend that one of the most serious consequences of such a ministry is that many people will be misled into thinking they have been healed when they are not, and that, in some cases, they may give up needed medicine. IN THE HOUSTON service, which was televised, audience volunteers, posing as an usher, intentionally stumbled into the faith healer and spotted a tiny object in Popoffs left ear, he said. Employing a scanning receiver and recording equipment, a team member taped transmissions at, rallies in San Francisco, Anaheim, and Detroit. The tapes and tran: This weekly message is sponsored by these local businesses, INTERSTATE BRANDS CORPORATION Sap Foods-Dolly Madison Cakes NELSON BIBLE MART 546 Washington St. "You Are What You Read" COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO.

1334 Washington COSCO.INC. 2525 State Columbus CUMMINS EMPLOYEES FEDERAL CREDIT UNION Columbus, Indiana IRWIN UNION BANK TRUST CO. Downtown Columbus, Eastbrook Plaza State at Mapleton Columbus Center West Hill. Hope Taylorsville. IN PASQUALE'S PIZZA PASTA Holiday Center 372-2821 Columbus Center (Party Room available) jtf 4jfc 4 PRECISION TRANSMISSION Tom Shorp Employees 1725 25th St.

376-9418 JAY FOOD STORES West Hill. Columbus Center State Edinburgh JOHNNY'S 76 Expert Service for Columbus Motorists Since 1951 3175 Washington 3720 440 Sunday Genesis Monday Jeremiah 18.1-12 Tuesday Jeremiah Wednesday John Thursday John Friday Acts 9.1-25 Saturday 2 Corinthians Scriptures Sewcted bv DELL BROS. CLOTHING 416 Washington 25th St. Shopping Center RAY'S MkRATHONCENTERS Ray Barnrforst and Employees DEVENING BLOCK, INC. 895 Jonesville Rd.

JEWELERS James E. Casey, Sr. Next to Fashion Shop 1760 25th St. 372-5050 SENIOR AMERICAN AGENCY 2125 Home Avenue The American Bitwe Socety DEXTER'S TIRE SERVICE Dexter Carie 37? 0245 DOMINO'S PIZZA Ronald Marion and Employees JOSLIN'S CUSTOM WOOD PRODUCTS tarry Joslin, Propr. 2555 Arnold 379-1392 SERVICEMASTER Professional Cleaning 372-7801 smith's Jewelers Downtown Columbus 372-1849 KETCHUM'S KORNUCOPIA A Family Restaurant Cafeteria Eastbrook" Plaza 376-4108 BILL DUNFEE CHEVROLET Bill Ounfee.l and Employees' THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK? OF COLUMBUS i SOUTH CENTRAL HOME DECORATING CENTER 26'75No.

Nationdl Road KUHLMAN HEATING, AIR CONDITIONING PLUMBING 1250 Jackson 372-7329 LITTLE CHAMP OIL FOOD MARTS and Its Employees GtiveiThe HBasm "Well, that's water over the dam," we often say. dismissing any issue with an old adage and shift of mind. Bui! d2sn't always solve the issue. Water does not disappear. It DOES GO somewhere! It is neither destroyed nor It turns up elsewhere.

Problem issues are seldom solved by letting them go "over the dam. They have a tendency to turn up somewhere else, and often more severe than when first met. I have a feeling that there are few REAL problems in life. What we call problems are only unmet opportunities begging for attention. But if left alone by "putting off facing them." or (what's worse) ignoring them, opportunities ultimately become problems.

Water does go "over the dam," but problems have a way of damming up inside of us, causing havoc with emotional health and wrecking meaningful relationships. Look to God and your religious Institutions for real solutions for your problems. WJiy not begin solving them this week? STEWART McGUIRE TIRE CO. 2149 N. National Rd.

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STANDARD SERVICE R. 46 West 1-65 376-9622 COPV'N '96 Ksl- NmMM' SSrvcs Be. 9005 CXMv 2M06 LUCAS BROS. SANDWICH SHOPS State at Indiana Northside Drugs (inside; Donna 718 Pearl St. JIM GORDON, INC.

OFFICE EQUIPMENT Sales Service 372-7871 VERNCO CORPORATION fe 804 22nd St. THE MARKETPLACE Our Sunday Brunch The After-Glow After Church At The Commons 372-1071 ACME ELECTRIC SUPPLY. INC. Joseph A. Ostronder employees 2737 Central 372-8871 AMERICAN SECURITY CO.

421 Washington Columbus THE ARK BIBLE BOOK GIFTS Richard Carolyn Tempest. 376-9548 AMBULANCE 24-Hour Emergency Service 372-5700 GROPP'S FISH OF STROH 2645 National Rood Columbus 372-2966" hSs APPLIANCE SERVICE Butler i Ann Hayes 3984 N. 150 West 372-2780 VILLAGE MOBILE HOMES SALES, INC. 8100 U.S. 31 North Columbus 526-9767 MART AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLY No.

Ednbgh. Nashv. Versls. BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY REMC 801 Second St. Owned by those we serve" BECKEMEYER INSURANCE AGENCY Roger P.

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