The recent escapades of Zhang Ying (張穎), the Chinese "magic doctor" caused me to consider the relationship between faith healing, fraud and the criminal law. Zhang had been demonstrating her supernatural healing powers around Taipei and her ability to "snatch medicine pills out of thin air." She kind of met her Waterloo however when displaying her powers on a TV show. A well known local magician challenged her abilities. Upon this challenge Zhang was unable to pull anything out of thin air, commenting: "I could not concentrate my power in the presence of someone who doubted my abilities."
I have no doubt that is true. This incident and others like it raise the somewhat thorny issue of when should the criminal justice system take over and start prosecuting people like Zhang. It is not a straightforward issue. One man's fraud is another man's faith. On a personal level I have mixed feelings. On the one hand if people are that dumb, perhaps they deserve to be parted from their money. Admittedly that is a kind of social Darwinism. I have always felt that there is a certain minimum IQ level that the public needs to meet. If they fall below that level and give people like Zhang lots of their money, then they are on their own. It is not the state's duty to guard against the public's free exercise of its stupidity. On the other hand, however, I grant no quarter to people who steal money from the sick and the old. People who prey on the fear that comes with such diseases as cancer or AIDS ought to be prosecuted and prosecuted hard. Members of the public who are genuinely sick, especially with diseases that legitimate doctors would consider untreatable, need to be protected from people like Zhang who would in essence steal their money and then leave them to die.
But the issue is perhaps not so black and white. Cases like Zhang and others of the same ilk bring together a nexus of factors. including: basic human stupidity or gullibility, human greed, religious faith and cultural views of what is "true" and what is a "lie." The following comments are not directed at the Zhang situation in particular. She seems to be nothing more than a "traveling snake oil salesman."
Like snake oil salesmen in America's "old west," she will be run out of town by the sheriff in short order. But she is simply a crude form of the phenomenon of what I will call in a generic sense "faith healing." From a criminal justice standpoint the line between fraud and faith has always been difficult to discern. That line is to a certain extent culturally bound. Let me give an example; feng shui
Faith healing and its frequent companion "qi gong"
Brian Kennedy is an attorney who writes and teaches on criminal justice and human rights issues.
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