The recent thread about a missionary's belief that his masturbation and subsequent loss of spirit caused golden investigators to change their minds made me think of how Mormons are like the Sambia people of Papua New Guinea, at least in terms of their belief in Jerungdu.

Unlike the Sambia, however, Mormons do not believe the masculine supernatural force of Jerungdu is transferred by ritualized fellatio, but only that "the spirit" can be lost.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2014 12:31PM by politicaljunkie.

You're right. Both cultures tap into control of people via their genitals. Since the morg doesn't explain any further than 'bad' or 'sin', which is supposed to cause their holy ghost to leave, this leads to superstition about the manifested effects of such sin in their lives.
Straight up superstition.

I totally bought into this as a young 'sinner'. I was convinced everything was different for a while after I had sinned. Most likely I simply didn't know what to do with myself in the absense of tension, lol!
But I was raised by an intensely magical thinking mother, so of course I absorbed some of her ways of living. It is such a relief to live in the real world where bad feelings are only a reflection of one's inner emotional world, and don't actually come from outside my own head.
Doesn't mean I don't make use of feelings/intuition, but it is balanced out by my use of facts and logic. Feeling bad about someone or somewhere? More likely to pay attention to that signal amongst people I don't know. And yet it can often be only a case of nerves, especially because I was trained to fear everything... Thanks mom, ugh...

Interesting. I recently came to realize that my good thoughts or bad thoughts do not lead to good or bad things in my life. It's what you said- magical thinking. I'm dealing with some specific phobias and feel that therapy might be helpful. Could you elaborate on "I was trained to fear everything..."? Thanks!

Well, she was a neurotic, anxiety ridden, Cluster B personality disordered person. So things that were okay one day were not the next when she got a bad feeling about it.
So, to be safe, everything should be feared. The lone and dreary world will drag you down to hell if you fail to be 'in the world but not of the world'.
Church was the only safe place. However I learned different, it is a haven for abusers who speak the party line.

I could use some therapy too! I've got her anxiety due to my childhood. I wish I knew somebody local with experience with former mormons. I think most of them are in Utah.