A Skeptics Group Has Been Documenting Televangelist Peter Popoff’s Letters for the Past Year

If you loved John Oliver‘s brilliant segment on the con game of televangelists, you’ll appreciate this story.

The UK-based Good Thinking Society (founded by Simon Singh) has been investigating the ministry of Peter Popoff for the past year.

At a live event, for example, group member Michael Marshall saw that a “woman [Popoff] ‘healed’ had a convulsive fit when he touched her on the head.”

Marshall then added:

“But she seemed to be part of his team, she was handing out pens and a questionnaire at the start, which leads us to believe that it is possible she was a plant.“

Sounds about right.

What about all the snail mail solicitations?

They’ve been keeping track of everything he sends them — including the “gifts” in the letters and the amounts he wants from followers. You can see the full list, along with PDFs of every letter, right here. Keep in mind that, unlike Last Week Tonight, this group never sent any money to Popoff. But the letters came anyway.

It’s incredible how much money they must be spending in order to fleece their followers out of a little more. They’re like Donald Trump — no amount of money is enough and they always have to have more. Even if it means exploiting the fears of the masses and saying you’re enlisting their help for a higher purpose.

(Image via Good Thinking Society)