I'm not sure if this belongs on this forum but here's to hoping.
Hi everyone, I've been a member of this site for a while now and I rarely post...In fact, this is my first real post. That aside, I want to talk about an experience I just had quiet recently that was exceedingly upsetting to me. I know <<sarcasm>> great start for a first post <</sarcasm>>. Let me set the scenario first. My family has been rather spiritual and religious. We believe in lots of things and respect other people’s beliefs. I differ with my family on the religious side. While still having an open mind and an open spirit, I cannot abide by frauds no matter which organization they belong to. That was exactly what I was confronted with tonight. Due to recent events that I cannot disclose, my mother believes that I am under metaphysical/spiritual attack (voodoo, bad influences, curses, etc.) So she begged me to see her friend who is a “faith healer” <<insert snort of derision here>> and get myself “healed”. Again, I must say that I believe that there is a possibility of such good people to exist and I keep an expansive open mind about these things. I just don’t like frauds. While she was performing her “diagnosis” ritual, which included a feather being inserted between two of my toes and her pressing on a toe joint, I noticed some discrepancies. She inflicted pain on me and called out to whatever spirit she believed to be harming me by pressing hard on the joint itself. That woman believed that she could make me utter a name by doing this. Of course, I had to be a perfect gentleman and resist the great urge to slap her silly. After hurting me she goes off to a corner and murmurs what I can only assume are prayers. When the whole thing was concluded she said that I experienced pain because of the evil that was hurting me which she just cast out. She then demonstrated that it won’t hurt anymore by doing the same thing on my other foot but this time she didn’t press as hard as she did on the other foot. She then gave me one of her concoctions of some ash mixed with water. Not wanting to hurt my mother’s feelings right there in front of her friend, I just drank the suspicious concoction. That was the end of that for the night.
This experience left me feeling rather angry and hurt. I feel angry because this woman is preying on the hopes and beliefs of other people and all in the name of God. I feel hurt because while I trust my mother very much, she just betrayed that trust by exposing me to a fraud and all for her own piece of mind. The lesson from all this is that there are people out there who would take advantage of the weaknesses of others. They take faith, vulnerabilities, and wishful thinking and make themselves feel important. BEWARE! Beware of these people I say! One thing that I left out is that I’m not out to my mother. While she’s okay with other people being gay, she will not have one of her children as a homosexual. Eventually I might tell her and if she’s this bad now, it may get worse later. I think she’d definitely join one of those evil churches who think they can cure homosexuality if I told her. I do love my mother and it saddens me that she consorts with frauds and is being spiritually deceived. Thank you for listening to my rant.