Peter Popoff and the Oracle of Delphi

One of my favourite books of the bible (yes, I have one) is Ecclesiastes. It’s the book that gave us “To everything there is a season ….” popularized in song by Pete Seeger and the Byrds and a passage I used to read at every funeral I conducted.  Another verse in Ecclesiastes is chapter 1 verse 9. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

Yup. Amen.

One of the stops on a recent tour of central Greece was the ancient city of Delphi. The archeological remains on the slopes of Mount Parnassus include a theatre, stadium and sanctuary of Apollo, the god of prophecy, music and healing. Mostly, I knew it as the home of the famous Oracle of Delphi.

From 1400 BCE, folks from all over the Greek world came to Delphi to seek guidance from the oracle, someone though whom, it was believed, the gods would speak. At Delphi, prophetic messages were delivered by the Pythia, a high priestess of the temple, who would go into a trance and offer words thought to come from Apollo. The messages would be cryptic or ambiguous to be interpreted broadly by the priest (who appointed the Pythia in the first place) to the petitioner.

Our guide mentioned the speculation by historians that the priest had spies to gather information from visitors ahead of time which could then be used to shape the Pythia’s cryptic message and impress the petitioners.

A light came on.

Peter Popoff, of course! He is a televangelist who was exposed back in the 1980s for using a hidden earpiece to receive information about audience members gleaned from his wife. Popoff used the info to appear to have divine inspiration to the crowd. It was a good scam until he was outed.

Popoff declared bankruptcy. But don’t feel sorry for him. Once a con, always a con. Popoff still pops up once and awhile on television hawking his “miracle spring water” with promises of health and wealth.

Religious cons have always been with us. People will find a way appear more powerful than they really are. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.