A secular site promoting use of evidence-based prevention methods to reduce cult victimization
Monday, January 19, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Alternative Medicine and Jehovah’s Witnesses
When I was a jw child, as I have written about before, essential
medical care was withheld from me.
At that time (and for the record, this was before the discovery of HIV in the blood
supply), the jws I was associated with were heavily into folk
"remedies". They did not
trust, and avoided, standard medical care. I happened to come across some older
publications
that rather thoroughly document this "race memory", if you will, that
jws have about modern medicine. Back then of course they were no longer
producing those bizarre, paranoia-fueled cartoons, conspiracy theories, and
calling doctors "The Serum Trust" and things like that. But the
paranoia and bizarre beliefs remained as strongly as it had been in earlier
decades.
Many of the jws
were distributors of a line of vitamins and herbs known as Shaklee. They
were really taken in by the sales pitch, believing Shaklee had a remedy
for everything, eliminating the need for Western medicine. They had all the
answers and doctors were blinded by Satan, who was trying to trick jws into
taking blood products.
Blood was the subject of many of their delusions.
It became routine to hear a rumor of animal blood being hidden in a certain
product, jws boycotted it and engaged in letter writing campaigns to the
manufacturers (counting this as evangelizing on their required monthly time
cards). I was not allowed to eat Milky Way candy bars, hot dogs, and lunch
meats at various times because of alleged "hidden blood". (There were
similar issues with witchcraft—there would be a rumor that a company donated to
Satanism or witchcraft, so we’d throw out the products and boycott them too.)
Doctrine prohibited them from having any medical
treatment involving blood, even a drop. If you research this, yes, you will
find some literature quotes contradicting this, along with ones confirming it.
That's one of their tactics--if they don't want you to do something but don't
really want to commit to it in writing, they use veiled and contradictory
statements in print, while verbally prohibiting it from the pulpit. Many times
they would say anyone taking blood was weak of conscience and therefore should
be socially scorned within the group (socialization outside the group was
prohibited too).
That being said, you can begin to imagine what it
was like having a life-threatening genetic disease that can only be treated
with blood, while being a part of this religion. What a paradox for a parent!
The elders helped mine resolve it by teaching us that I'd be resurrected and it
was ok to die for faith. (This “sacrifice” was bragged about in Awake! Magazine,
whose cover featured
dead children.) That paradox was further glossed over by placing a lot of
faith in Shaklee’s unproven
cures to save me.
One thing jws are infamous for is reading enough
medical information to be dangerous, and misapplying it. There have been
several instances when they read
about a treatment for one disease and think it's effective for other diseases.
One of those remedies, for me, was Shaklee
alfalfa tablets. Alfalfa naturally
contains Vitamin K. This company's products were touted as completely safe,
free from side effects, because they were "natural". This
product, though, does have some serious side effects, which I experienced. Alfalfa contains Vitamin E, which makes my
disease worse.
My condition deteriorated and I was on
the brink of death multiple times, which you can read about here
or here.
Pathetically, the jws’ delusions about modern medicine flipped
the truth on its head. Their use of herbs was fine because it was “in the Bible
and Jehovah gave them to us to use”, while modern medicine was considered
witchcraft.
Ironically, the jws only believed in certain alternative
healing and completely scorned others. I was often told the story of Rasputin, who they said used
false religion and demons to cure a blood disorder. They ruminated about
this, and with each iteration, the belief took another turn. Eventually, I was
personally demonic because Rasputin was.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
Wacky beliefs about spirit mediums turning into octopi
Talking with the dead?
Start reading around page 114. Would be hilarious if it wasn't true, and people believed it.
Start reading around page 114. Would be hilarious if it wasn't true, and people believed it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)