25 Facts About Peter Popoff

Peter George Popoff was born on July 2,1946 and is a German-born American televangelist, charlatan, debunked clairvoyant, and faith healer.

Peter Popoff was exposed in 1986 by James Randi for using a concealed earpiece to receive radio messages from his wife, who gave him the names, addresses, and ailments of audience members during Popoff-led religious services.

Peter Popoff went bankrupt the next year, but made a comeback in the late 1990s.

Peter Popoff was born in Occupied Berlin on July 2,1946, the son of George and Gerda Peter Popoff.

Peter Popoff's father preached at revival meetings throughout the United States.

Peter Popoff married his wife Elizabeth in August 1971 and the couple settled in Upland, California.

Peter Popoff then began his television ministry that, by the early 1980s, was being broadcast nationally.

Peter Popoff's miraculous "curing" of chronic and incurable medical conditions became a central attraction of his sermons.

Peter Popoff would tell attendees suffering from a variety of illnesses to "break free of the devil" by throwing their prescription pills onto the stage.

In 1985, Peter Popoff began soliciting donations for a program to provide Bibles to citizens of the Soviet Union by attaching them to helium-filled balloons and floating them into the country.

When skeptics asked him to prove that the money he had collected had in fact been spent on Bibles and balloons, Peter Popoff staged a burglary at his own headquarters.

In 1986, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry charged that Peter Popoff was using electronic transmissions to receive his information; Peter Popoff denied it, insisting that the messages were divinely revealed.

Peter Popoff's methods were definitively exposed in 1986 by the magician and skeptic James Randi and his associate Steve Shaw, an illusionist known professionally as Banachek, with technical assistance from the crime scene analyst and electronics expert Alexander Jason.

Peter Popoff received the transmissions via a receiver and earpiece he was wearing and repeated the information to astonished audience members.

Randi planted accomplices in Peter Popoff's audiences, including a man dressed as a woman whom Peter Popoff "cured" of uterine cancer at a meeting in Detroit in 1984.

Peter Popoff added that "almost everybody" knew about the radio communication system.

In 1998, The Washington Post reported that Peter Popoff was making a comeback, seeking to jump-start his ministry by repackaging himself for an African American audience, buying time on the Black Entertainment Television network.

Victims were interviewed, including a married couple who charged that Peter Popoff had taken "thousands of dollars" from them.

In 2009, Peter Popoff began running advertisements in UK periodicals offering a free cross containing "blessed water" and "holy sand".

Peter Popoff was designated by the James Randi Educational Foundation as one of its recipients of the 2011 Pigasus Award for fraudulent practices, along with Mehmet Oz and CVS Pharmacy.

Peter Popoff's operation had functioned as a for-profit company until 2006, when it merged with a small church in Farmers Branch, Texas called Word for the World, which operated out of a storefront.

Peter Popoff was collecting almost US$4 million per year in the late 1980s, according to Randi.

Financial data is not available for Popoff's ministry since 2005 because Peter Popoff Ministries changed from a for-profit business to a religious organization in 2006, making it exempt from tax.

Peter Popoff purchased a home in Bradbury, California, for $4.5 million in 2007.

Peter Popoff was the inspiration for a character in the 2012 thriller film Red Lights, a psychic who uses information fed to him via a hidden earpiece to persuade the audience at his shows that he is receiving personal details psychically.