Can anyone become a faith healer?

That is the question that Derren Brown sets to find out in his hour long special “Miracles For Sale”. Derren Brown is well known for his sly mix of magic and social experiments (You can view of his other works here). Possibly too known to not get noticed and exposed. For this reason he has opted to turn a willing participant into becoming a faith healer rather than himself. With a combination of techniques Derren has learned over the years, such as slight of hand and human conditioning, Miracles For Sale is an attempt to expose the truth about faith healing.

Miracles For Sale, Faith Healing For Profit

…exposing the charlatans in Miracles For Sale was and remains to be necessary.

The reason Derren Brown has chosen this experiment is explained from the offset. To many believers it is an acceptable route to health and happiness. Derren admits that it is possible that some healers actually believe in what they are doing but to him it is a highly dangerous scam.

“I don’t believe that faith healers are somehow channeling the holy spirit. I think that they are using the same tricks that hypnotists, magicians, phony psychics use to manipulate their audience. Despite what they claim no healer has ever been able to produce a single piece of evidence for a single miraculous healing having actually occurred. Despite this they still fill huge venues, not just in America but in the UK and all over the world. The top ones are multimillionaires. What upsets me most is when they blame their victims for not having enough faith when they find that nothing has changed.” Explained Derren Brown on the topic of faith healing. Or, as he puts it, Miracles For Sale.

Is the topic of Miracles For Sale moral?

That is a question that both Derren Brown and the at first willing participant ask themselves often. At one point the whole experiment was close to being called off. An unfortunate side-effect of making television, Derren had to spring up events and challenges on the just-made faith healer. They both had to continuously reaffirm that they were doing the right thing. It is no doubt that the subject Miracles For Sale makes for great TV. However, it is hard to deny obvious stress in the making of the documentary. It’s possible the process of was questionable but exposing the charlatans (faith healers) in Miracles For Sale was and remains to be necessary.

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