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  • North & South

    GOTTA HAVE FAITH

    Aug 11, 2019 4 minutes

    Derren Brown, master illusionist, hypnotist and atheist, has long been fascinated by faith healing. In 2011, for a TV special Miracles for Sale, he spent months training a former scuba diver called Nathan to emulate the behaviour of Christian faith healers. Nathan, rebranded as Pastor James, demonstrated how easy it was to dupe the faithful, as bogus faith healers have done for generations. (In a current Netflix series called Miracles, Brown himself adopts the persona of a faith healer, temporarily relieving the aches and pains of volunteers in the audience.)

    The trick, the English mentalist and author says, is for the healer

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