Miracle Magazine in the Sixties: Mass Media Narratives of Healings and Blessings

This article examines typical narratives of healings and blessings that appeared in Miracle Magazine during the 1960s under evangelist editor A. A. Allen to show how mass media preachers exploit folk beliefs. The testimonies in Miracle Magazine included, among other miracles, accounts of exorcizing bosom serpents, miracle fillings, supernatural healings of invalids, divine cures of cancer, and blessings received for pledging money to Allen's ministry. Features in the magazine also dealt with visions, divine voices, prophecies, and the evils of other evangelists and denominations. Studying these printed narratives, as Linda Dégh suggests, "opens an untrodden path" for folk narrative scholars.