What is it with Mormons and quack medicine?
 

I have been amazed through the years at how big a sucker many LDS folks are for quack medicine. A few years ago a close relative of mine got onto this kick in the Seattle area. She stopped seeing regular doctors and started seeing some sister in her ward for "alternative medicine". Pretty soon she was telling me how the medical establishment was just a big conspiracy and that if I wanted to be a true follower of J.S. then I would use more "natural" cures. Of course, her "doctor" friend just happened to be a seller of all of the herbs and natural foods that she diagnosed my cousin to be deficient of. Soon, she was spending hundreds of dollars per month on this stuff. She even sold my cousin a special kind of sugar since regular white sugar was the "food of the devil". My otherwise sensible cousin totally lost her mind. Pretty soon she got to where she was seeing a network of LDS homeopaths and started taking her kids there for all of their routine illnesses. One of these nuts (supposedly a stake president) told her that the problem her son was having was due to the fact that he was a rebelious spirit in the pre-existence and that his spirit wasn't sure it wanted to be here on earth. Great thing to tell a 10 year old boy, eh? Finally her husband (God bless him) put his foot down and demanded that she stop. She still does it, but in a more clandestine fashion.

Fast-forward to 2006. My wife is in the R.S. presidency in our ward and the R.S. president is totally into this garbage. She keeps sending sisters in the ward to one of her quack doctors. He puts grease on their hands and hooks them up to a machine that makes a printout of all of the health problems that they are supposedly having. Miraculously, he just so happens to sell an expensive oil that they can put under their tongues once a day to cleanse their bodies of toxins and cure the ills reported on the machine (which are always pretty much the same things: too many toxins, pesticides, etc.). Of course, he gives them spiritual counseling at the same time, a highly effective sales technique. Now the R.S. president wants to have this guy come and talk to all of the sisters in the ward. My wife and the other sisters in the presidency are thinking "over our dead bodies" but this woman is very strong-willed so there is a battle looming on the horizon.

Anyway, it is my impression that LDS folks (esp. women) are complete suckers for this stuff, moreso than the general U.S. population. However, I recognize that my viewpoint may be skewed by my anectdotal experience. What do you folks think?

Bring it up in PEC.

Puts an end to all of it.

I am not a good Mormon though.... I respect authority, but I don't "respect" authority.

I am one of the few that openly disagrees with alot of things said in our PEC.

My bishop calls me President "Checks and Balances".

My wife is not invited to PEC. No way to bring it up that way. Furthermore, when this woman has been challenged in the past, she responds by calling a couple of GA friends she has and then coming back to the bishop and others and claiming "Hey, I spoke with Elder ____ and he is 100% behind me." She has chewed my wife out several times for questioning her. One time she even said "Jesus doesn't talk to you. You are just the secretary." No, I am not making this up. Fortunately, my wife is rock-solid and while it stresses her a bit, she has a good sense of humor about it overall.

have your wife call the bishop and asked to be released. that will start a conversation fo sho.

Until the church puts their logo on the medicine, then I wouldn't care what the GA says.

You should go to the bishop then. If she wants to go to the bishop with the whole "GA" line, then he can talk with the Stake President.

I was serving in the mission field when a GA showed up at church one Sunday and released everyone that was in the PEC meeting. It was like sitting through a weekly Amway convention.

Bishop down to Sunday School President were all released.

Made for a great day at church.

talk about blessings from heaven.

The funny part....

They almost all went inactive right at that moment. Felt that they had been disrespected by the church.

Church must not be true if they couldn't see the value of Amway...

So let's see... the title of this thread is "What is it with Mormons and quack medicine?" and have two examples of anecdotal evidence to back that up.

Nice generalization. What makes you think Mormons are more likely to engage in holistic junk than other groups?

My opinion is that it stems from this scripture:

D&C 89:10
10 And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome aherbs• God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—

It leaves the door wide open for any mystical claims and cures, all of which can be tied into the WoW and JS through this verse.