As an experienced surgeon I immediately recognized what I had previously suspected from viewing the films: These so-called operations were simply feats of legerdemain. I managed to persuade Joe Mercado, one of the best-known psychic surgeons, to operate on me, explaining that I had high blood pressure (true) and that high blood pressure might be caused by kidney disease (also true). He operated on me while I stood by the side of the altar in his church (at six foot one I was too tall to lie down on the altar on which he operated on most of his patients). Looking down on his hands, I could easily see as he began the “operation” that he had palmed the intestines and fat of a small animal. I watched him carefully as he pushed against me and it was apparent, both visually and from the way his hands felt as they pressed on my abdominal musculature, that he had not penetrated my abdominal wall. When he
“removed” the fatty tissue, he held it up for all the spectators to see and said, “Evil tissue.” He immediately tossed it into a can of flaming alcohol kept behind the altar.
