Doing What Jesus Did (if Jesus was a dangerous con-artist…)

At any rate, Reverend Bob Larson certainly has a Messiah Complex. But this “Modern Day Jesus” takes us back into the dark ages. A TV Evangelist after the style of Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff, Larson claims to be more than a faith healer, he also calls himself an exorcist.

With over 1 million hamburgers sold 12,000 exorcisms performed, Larson is the star of Syfy’s The Real Exorcist.

Larson is also the author of some twenty titles including Rock & Roll: The Devil’s Diversion, Satanism: the Seduction of America’s Youth and In The Name Of Satan: How the Forces of Evil Work and What You Can Do To Defeat Them.

Larson tours the country with his “free” seminar; a relentless four-hour brainwashing ritual. Like selling spiritual time-share, he wears down his victims with his high-pressure sell until they donate, buy a book, a DVD, a $495 one-on-one audience, or a course to become an exorcist.

Larson will cast out your demons, if you cast out your cash.

Bryan and Baxter of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society attended Larson’s recent Denver event, and were my eyes and ears for the night. Their reports made Larson’s seminar sound like a Nuremberg Rally of pious propaganda.

Larson began the evening by showing a video of exorcisms. This frightening footage of frenzied, hysterical parishioners, and great wailing and gnashing of teeth served to instill fear into the viewing audience, and psychologically prepare and direct them for their upcoming acting role.

Next, Larson paced the room, barking like a drill sergeant, badgering his audience with confusing questions and berating those who dared to answer. He was psychologically subjugating his audience, and seeking out those most susceptible to his techniques of hypnosis.

All the while he was “putting Satan on notice” and passing around the donation basket, ordering, “Someone here’s gonna write me a cheque for $5000.”

The room was like a scene out of The Crucible.

With all the authority bestowed upon him by his Bible and crucifix, Larson sniffed out the lame sheep in the flock. Flanked by his heavies, he performed two exorcisms to the tune of speaking in tongues, tears, and theatrics.

This reaction is communal reinforcement, a sort of mini-mass hysteria, where the audience are psychologically manipulated to behave a certain way, but also feed off the uninhibited responses of others. It’s letting your hair down for god.

Larson cuts a charismatic and powerful figure. Like Sylvia Browne, often these characters are experienced performance artists with a smooth comeback to every criticism. They toy with the skeptics. A select few are immensely successful business people, and sometimes I have a faint admiration for their success that can be hard to reconcile with my skepticism – until I hear stories like this…

Larson swooped in on an 18-year-old girl. She had been pregnant until she miscarried her baby… the day before. The lifeless fetus was still in her body. Instead of the doctor’s or counselor’s office, the girl had been dragged along to Larson’s seminar by her father,  to ‘explain’ the cause of her miscarriage. Married at 16, perhaps this wasn’t her first miscarriage. She thought she was cursed.

Larson’s obvious diagnosis was that she was possessed by a demon.

“Who are you?” he asked the ‘demon’.

“Jezebel,” she replied, coached by the film shown earlier in which this demon had been named.

“You killed the baby, didn’t you?”

“Yesssss…”

“Say it!”

“I killed the baby!”

“Why?”

“She didn’t want it to live!”

At this she had clearly admitted that she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant in the first place, as few teenagers do, but Larson overlooked her psychological admission for a psychical one.

Larson proceeded to jab her with his crucifix and Bible, invoking Jesus to drive out her demons. Then he really showed his messiah complex…he tried to bring her baby back to life…

He prayed over her, asking the Holy Spirit to “start that heart beating again”. Through the cacophony of crying, chanting and praising god, few heard Larson’s mutter his disclaimer/admission, “Unless it’s god’s will that this not happen”.

How do we undo the damage he has caused to this young girl?

How do we skeptics deal with Larson?

Exposing these evangelists, a la Popoff, doesn’t seem to affect their businesses, and they continue to resurface, and multiply. Larson claims his work is “therapeutic”, but he and his ilk are exploiting people with psychological and physiological problems, and taking their money.  Any “relief” for the subject is short-lived, and misguided.

I’ll be writing more about this event and Larson’s seminar the following day in an upcoming piece in my CSI Naked Skeptic column.