Anyway, I just wanted to add my two cents to Mike’s question. I was raised in a Christian Reformed church, went to Christian schools and was taught this stuff was demonic and/or ridiculous, and should have never gotten involved. All I’ve actually seen is a pile of “gold dust” on a shirt that the pastor had saved from someone who was heavily involved in the occult, in the moment he cried out for Jesus to save him, this stuff appeared all over his shirt. Supposedly, when he went to his dresser to get a new shirt, his other clothes were already covered in it.

Of course no one went to get it tested, and to me it honestly looked like a pile of sparkles with some metal filings in it, which it likely was, and no one actually saw it appear on the guy. This person also claimed a ton of healings (cancer x2, shrinking aneurism x2, vomiting up abdominal tumors after prayers – however, no medical evidence ever appeared), claimed being physically transported by the Holy Spirit, and a number of other unverified miracles. Shortly afterwards, the elder’s wife sprinkled the dust all over the prayer room and demanded that God give us more.

Most accounts of gold dust have turned out to be nothing more than glitter, like Jenni said, when tested. There was one account (I believe it was of Ruth Ward Heflin, but don’t quote me) that claimed “her” gold dust was a “sandwich” of gold, titanium, and oil, but was later shown to be false. I’ve also heard a former elder at my old church claim he saw gold dust “fly” out of a speaker who had the laughter at TACF.

People will try to see what they want to – At my former church again, there was a big fuss over the youth group’s hands getting covered in dust during a bible study, but no one mentioned that they sat at the same tables the kids’ club did, where, believe it or not, they did crafts involving glitter… No one could question the glory of God deciding to sit on the table in the form of glitter!

Anyway, going back to this guy who was in the occult – I don’t know a ton about that stuff, but I have heard crazy, first-hand stories of missionaries in countries where witchcraft, witch doctors, demon posession, etc., are common. They are able to manipulate objects, and perform ‘wonders’ by another spirit, and we are told in scripture about lying signs and wonders. I’m 100% sure that most of these faith-healer-gold-dust-etc people are setting up the ‘signs’ themselves, but I wonder in some cases if it’s something beyond people that is causing it to happen, just as psychic mediums can tell people things they shouldn’t be able to know – not by their own power. Because this church guy was literally being groomed to be the leader of a satanist cult in my area, he had survived child sacrifice, it would make sense to me that if our enemy could make gold dust appear, he’d do it just to distract us from God to seek more ‘signs and wonders’ like so many churches are these days. I also accept that I could be totally out there on that thought, but I think it’s possible.

Anyway, I’m not sure if your buddy heard about things happening in his church, or if he personally experienced them with his own eyeballs. In my experience, there was a ton of hype about having signs and wonders following the true believers, not a lot of gold dust, gemstones, “angel” feathers, orbs of light, etc., etc., etc., etc. falling out of people. However, at one point we were seeking signs to the point where ANYTHING could have become a sign if we were creative enough.

The gold dust/gemstone thing is interesting. I think it can be “staged” pretty easily by the pastor of the church… but I also think that church leaders themselves can be duped by over-eager itinerants or people in their congregation looking for attention.

The gold dust thing is pretty easy to fake. There was a woman who was known for this sort of thing in the 90s… she was from somewhere in South America, and as close as I could tell she would have something waxy in her hair that would melt or evaporate in the stage lights and release the “gold dust” — which looked an awful lot like craft store glitter to me.

I’m pretty sure (tho not certain) that this was a case where she duped the man who was my pastor at that time. Pastors are people too… and if you want to believer something strongly enough, you’ll find excuses to believe it. Plus, back in the 90s, if you were a church claiming to be in “revival,” you almost had to have some sort of spectacular psuedo-spiritual “proof.”

To get “gold” on innocent victims in the congregation, all you need is for some glitter to be on the seats. The glitter sticks to the oils on your hands and presto! Gold dust. Touch your face or your hair and the “dust” transfers to your head. And the best thing about that scam is that there’s no need to explain why there’s some “gold dust” on the seats already… one could just claim that it was “leftover” dust from a previous service.

So then you wind up with innocent, impressionable, desperate folks who really want a touch from God… and they think they’ve experienced a genuine miracle. Their excitement and genuine faith are then used to lend credibility to the whole phenomena… and the cycle repeats.

By the way I think your blog is cool and I’m glad you got to see through the super emotionalism.