One grew longer than the other one.
And this one is never grown. Look at this.
As we pray, the legs are going to be even tonight.
This is going to be so amazing.
Right leg, I command you: Grow!
Ah, leg lengthening!
Possibly one of the most notorious tricks
in the faith healer’s toolkit.
It's been used by everyone from A. A. Allen in the 1950’s
to W.V. Grant, Todd White...
hundreds of others across the globe,
and hell, it's even been used in
Bethel's own promotional materials.
So is it actually a miracle?
Or as the magician Derren Brown puts it, is it,
“Absolutely the mark of a charlatan?”
Everyone, I'm here today with my friend Eric Murphy,
and we're going to demonstrate some tricks
that faith healers use
in order to convince people
that they have miraculous abilities.
Particularly in this instance,
they'll tell people that,
“Oh, you have lower back problems, leg pain and stuff...”
“Hip pain...”
“It's because one of your legs is shorter...
...or longer than the other.”
“Fortunately, I am able to pray over you...
cause one to grow out
so that now they're even, and all your pain will go away.”
And in the moment,
you're experiencing a placebo effect.
You're experiencing pain relief.
But in order to make it look like
your legs have actually grown,
there are at least four different ways
that they will pull off this trick.
This first method
is very basic, but it's been used for ages.
W. V. Grant used it in the 80’s and 90’s.
It went back even further than him,
and it's been around for ages
as like, a magician's trick.
Essentially, what they do is
if someone comes in with slip-on shoes,
they can lift the shoes up, and as they're lifting them up,
they take this part of the heel,
and they can slide the shoe off and on.
Now, you don't want to slide it completely off
or else it's difficult to get back on, and that gives it away.
So, I'm showing you for the camera,
but all you're going to do
is just pull it a little bit off the foot and then shift it back on.
So, off and on, off and on.
If as I lift them up, I slide it off a little bit.
Now, it looks like this foot right here
is shorter than this one here.
Other one too. Oh, look at that.
W. V. Grant has actually gotten really good
at it over the years because he's done it so many times
that he'll do it one-handed
where he kind of holds it
like this and shifts it with one hand.
Father, in the name of Jesus.
But literally all he's doing is taking this shoe right here
and slowly shifting it back on.
Give him a new spine.
Here it comes.
In Jesus name, it's growin’ out.
Hallelujah!
It’s growing out!
Hallelujah!
Look at this! Look at this!
But you do it slow enough, and it looks like this foot is...
...especially if you add a little movement to this one.
A little jiggle, and it looks like they just grew out.
And now: Amazing!
They're flush with each other.
It's a miracle!
It's a very old classic
faith healer trick.
But there's all sorts of other things.
I can make it sound like...
I know this is going to hurt your hamstrings
doing this for a while.
So I can say to you, “You can feel this pain, can't you?”
“So why don't we do this?”
And I say, “And that pain is gone, isn't it?”
I lower your legs.
You honestly will say “Yes.”
But you’re talking about this hamstring pain
because of this.
It's nothing to do with your spinal pain.
Absolutely!
I’m sitting here in my heart, and I keep hearing,
“Back pain; sort leg.”
Look at her leg. It’s about an inch shorter...
Right there! You see?
So what’ll happen is, I’m gonna pray,
And God’ll grow your leg out and heal your back.
Father, thank you. In Jesus name, left leg grow.
Right now!
You feel that?
Thank you father, in Jesus name!
[laughs]
I love you! Gosh, it makes me want to cry.
‘cause he’s so good!
Come here and give me a hug!
I love you!
The second method,
instead of actually pulling
the shoe off of the heel, all you have to do
is just shift the angle of the person's ankle.
So you're just moving the ankle backwards and forward.
So, take his ankles...
And as I'm lifting them up,
I just kind of bring this one up like that.
It looks like this foot is shorter than this foot.
So, then all you have to do is just slowly
shift them into place.
And it looks like his leg grew out.
It's a miracle!
There's actually a Christian movie
called American Gospel that I thought
did a really good breakdown of how Todd White does this.
Now we're going to see Todd White's clip
sped up quite a bit and looped back and forth.
Now, this is where we can see what's really going on here.
The leg in our right
is supposed to be the short leg, and this is the leg
which should be miraculously growing, but it's not.
Look at the leg on our left.
That's where all the action is.
That's what's actually being manipulated.
You can see that Todd
is actually pivoting or shifting the foot of the so-called
long leg so that the heels match.
He's doing this very slowly over time,
but it's painfully obvious when you speed up the clip.
Oh, God.
For your glory tonight!
Oooooh, Jesus!!!
Lord, in the name of Jesus.
Oh, my God!
It’s still a little short, but...
Do you see what’s taking place.
It’s growing longer folks.
For this third one,
It's probably less used than a lot of the others,
but it can be used in combination with them
in order to make it
look exaggerated and to accentuate the growth.
But basically, instead of lifting his legs straight up,
you lift them up to the side a little bit.
So, I'm exaggerating here in order for you to see more of it.
But if I do it way to the side, it looks like
this one is longer and this one’s shorter.
And as you want to make it straight again,
you move the feet back into place.
So, off to the side,
back to the middle.
Do you see what's taking place?
If you do it just a little bit,
then it's like, okay,
It doesn't really seem like I'm
moving him too far to the left or to the right.
But it's adding a full inch right there.
You can see Todd White doing that here.
Sometimes, Todd is a little more subtle than others.
And then, if you use that
in combination with the angle trick...
Oh, look!
Look how much it's growing.
Look how much it's growing!
Grant would bring the afflicted to the stage,
seat them,
then miraculously grow the leg 2-3 inches instantly.
Thank you!
So, for this last trick, you really need
to have a willing participant who is in on the con.
He is gonna be shifting his hips in order
to make it look like they're growing and shrinking.
But if you in the audience don't know that he's in on it,
and you genuinely think that I am a faith healer
It’s amazing what people will fall for.
As he puts his legs up on
some type of a platform or chair or something
He shifts his hips
to make it look like one leg is longer than the other.
So he's shifted his hips.
This leg appears to be quite a bit longer than that one.
And as I pray over him as a faith healer...
You know...
“Jesus! In the name of Jesus,
I command this leg to grow, to grow, to grow!
Straighten! Straighten! Straighten! Straighten in Jesus name!
Same length! Bam!
He's shifted his hips.
Amazing. It's a miracle.
Now, if you do it slowly, and...
you know...
you’re just kind of shifting your hips slowly
It's very hard to notice,
especially if you're in the audience
and there's all this hollering and cheering and stuff
[loud chanting, prayer, & shouting]
You've got camera closeups on the legs
that are just showing this angle right here.
Everyone watch the monitors.
Then you're probably not going to realize exactly what's going on.
But all that's going on is...
as I'm praying...
he's slowly shifting his hips back and forth.
Back and forth.
But slightly less exaggerated than that.
Hey, everybody, it's almost two in the morning,
so I'm just shooting this last bit on my phone.
But after I filmed this whole video,
I realized that there's
actually technically a fifth method
of pulling off this trick and possibly a sixth,
if not more,
which really just goes to show that just because you think
that you might know how something is done,
there's usually other creative ways to pull off the same trick.
But that said, I hope that this video’s
given you a lot to think about.
I hope that it's shined a light
on some of the tricks that the faith healers use
and just how widespread
a lot of the stuff is within this movement.
And on that note, I'm off to bed,
but if you want to support my work, videos like this
do take a lot of time to research and put together.
So it does help a lot if
you are able to join me on patreon.com/holykoolaid.
- you can make a per-video pledge -
or a one-time donation on PayPal.
Thank you, as always.
I will see you guys in the next video.
So make sure that you hit that subscribe button below
and dare to be curious,
But don't drink the Kool-Aid!