Item #: SCP-1832

Object Class: Euclid

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1832 is to be held in a standard human containment cell at Site 83 and provided with three meals a day. Any request for written materials may be granted only by personnel of level 4 security clearance. No personnel are to attempt communication with SCP-1832, and all attempts by SCP-1832 to initiate conversation are to be ignored. Personnel are forbidden to utilize the effects of SCP-1832 without express written approval of at least three on-site level-4 personnel.

Description: SCP-1832 is a 58 year-old Caucasian male formerly known as Johnathan Barker. SCP-1832 is capable of healing wounds and illnesses by pressing on the afflicted individual's forehead. SCP-1832 is unable to apply this method of healing to itself. The potency of SCP-1832's effect diminishes following each use, proportional to the severity of the pathology treated. The infliction of emotional distress upon another human being causes SCP-1832 to regain potency, proportional to the amount of emotional suffering caused.

Prior to containment, SCP-1832 posed as a wandering Pentecostal faith healer in the rural Southern United States. When approached by a family with a seriously ill or injured child1, SCP-1832 would pretend to enter a trance state and partially heal the child. SCP-1832 would then inform the family of the afflicted individual that "only [the family's] faith [could] save them." In the majority of cases, the child would relapse and expire, with SCP-1832 blaming the family for their lack of faith.

Transcript 1832-o-662-en-I

Date: June 17th, 1947

Foreword: Following the recovery of ████ ██████ of Wadeslow, AL from advanced-stage Huntington's Disease, Foundation personnel investigated rumors of a faith healer who had saved the child's life. After several days of tracking, SCP-1832 was captured in a Pentecostal church in Pollensbee, AL. At the time, SCP-1832 was excoriating the congregation on its lack of faith and its role in the death of James Hawthow, a local youth.

SCP-1832: I tried, dear friends! I tried! On my hands and knees, I prayed for the forgiveness of the Lord! [sound of weeping in the background] I prayed for James' life! I was as a newborn, begging for Jesus' love! Through that child the Lord's love was manifest! [sobbing in background]

SCP-1832: Sister Martha! What happened when I prayed to the Lord for James' life? When I asked the Lord to move through me?

Martha Hawthow: [weeping, indistinct speaking]

SCP-1832: Can't hear you, Sister Martha! Speak up! The congregation wants to know!

William Murphy: Now, listen here! Don't g-

SCP-1832: Shut! Up! Old man! Shut up! I don't recall seeing you at the prayer circle! While I was praying with every ounce of strength in my body, you were off drinking, off with your adulterous ways! I see it in your eyes! You have turned your back on the Lord God, and now you would speak down to me? To tell me what to do? [silence] Now, Sister Martha, What happened when I asked the Lord to heal James?

M. Hawthow: J-Jimmy got better.

SCP-1832: Jimmy. Got. Better. Jimmy got better. And it wasn't no medicine that did it, now was it? Wasn't no big city doctor? No, friends. It was me! I begged the Lord for mercy, for this poor, innocent boy's soul! I said to Him, I asked "Lord, why have You stricken this child of Yours with such a terrible tragedy?" And in my heart, I heard His answer! He said unto me "This town, these people, they have turned their backs on me; the boy must be an example to them, of the wages of sin!" I said to Him in my soul, "Lord, I come here with an earnest heart, and I pray for you to release this boy from his suffering! The town is dead, filled with men with lust in their hearts, with rot in their souls! Women who lust after gold and worldly things! They will never love you, the way this child does!" And the Lord, the Lord God Almighty said unto me "For your faith, I shall heal this boy part-way. But let them come, and let them pray for this child. If their hearts are pure and their faith true, My light shall move through him and he shall be free!" And do you know what happened next, Brother Timothy?

Timothy Wallace: The boy took a turn.

SCP-1832: Exactly, Brother Timothy! I could only give the boy the love that the Lord had allowed me! And then… and then, friends, it was up to you… You had to save little James, through your prayers. And it was your sin and your doubt that killed James! [sobbing in background] You are false believers! Your hatred and your secrets and your lusts killed that poor boy! You have failed your son, and you have failed God! His death is every bit your fault!

Excerpt of Interview with SCP-1832, following capture:

Researcher Beasley: When did you first find you could heal individuals?

SCP-1832: I must have been fifteen at the time… It was right after Jesse died…

Beasley: Jesse?

SCP-1832: My younger brother. Nine months old. Just stopped breathing one night in his crib…

Beasley: Ah… It seems you have a fairly extensive record of these mock-healings… I mean, all around the southern United States…

SCP-1832: What can I say? I'm a man who likes to travel.

Beasley: So, uh, if you can heal, why not do it?

SCP-1832: Do what?

Beasley: Why not heal the children?

SCP-1832: First few times, I did. I really tried. But each time, it got harder and harder. Soon, there wasn't almost nothing I could fix. Then, there was this one old lady, looking after her grandchildren. Both had, well, I don't even know what they had- I ain't a doctor- but they had it bad. Anyway, I told the lady I'd try, but I was weak, and she had to try with me. And, because I'd been bled dry, the kids… they died. And I was holding the woman and she was sobbing into my shoulder, and I felt a way I hadn't felt since Jesse's funeral… I felt… I dunno what the word is… not good, maybe… I dunno… Powerful. And I knew I had it in me again.

Beasley: Had what in you?

SCP-1832: The Lord's strength. Next time, I knew what I had to do. It was a little child, one of God's own lambs. Only did it halfway, so that she would die soon enough. I told them I had taken the infant as far as I could, that it was up to them now. And when that child departed, and I looked into the eyes of the mother and father, and I saw their pain, and I saw their helplessness. Then I heard a voice, telling the father he was an adulterer, that the death was his fault, that he had killed his only daughter. I didn't even realize it was my own. And I saw in his eyes… I saw him break. I felt a current flow through me, fill me full of juice. And I knew it.

Beasley: Knew what?

SCP-1832: That I had the power. To heal or to not, to judge the wicked, to deny a man love and mercy when he needs it most. What it's like to be God.

Footnotes

1. Individuals suffering degenerative illnesses were most frequently selected by SCP-1832, being present in 85% of documented cases