Yes, at first they know they're lying, but then they do it so brazenly that they eventually lie without any realization that they are lying. Think of the prosperity gospel teachers, the Charismatic leaders. From time to time, somebody tries to track Charismatic healings. Some years ago, there was a well-known GP in this country, who made it his business to track the healings of one very renowned healer who was on television quite a bit, healing people. This GP would follow up the families and get the person's consent to consult with their GP, and lo and behold, for one supposed healing after another, he found these people had never had those illnesses. When they had gone to their doctors with apparent symptoms, they had never actually been told, ‘You are suffering from this and from that.’ They did not have the illnesses that they were supposedly to be cured of.
In the United States, some years ago, there was the case of a man who followed around a healer who hired big theatres and healed people from the platform. He would speak to people, and tell them their life history, their problems and everything else, and it seemed to be true. But it was found out that he had his own people milling with the crowd in the entrance foyer, collecting data and information from people, talking to them about their lives. This information was then relayed to him on stage via earbuds in his ear, and the healer on the platform would be receiving this information. ‘The lady in the red dress in the third row from the front: she has got an uncle who suffers from such and such a disease, or a father who suffers from whatever.’ He would repeat all this and amaze the woman down there in the audience, who would think this was divine, would go and get her arthritis healed, which it turned out she had never had. The amount of lying and phony nonsense that is spoken is vast. They get used to doing it, and they even come to believe in it themselves. ‘Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron.’