Posted by:
shapeshifter
(
)
Date: August 28, 2017 09:39PM
Sorry to hear that, but i know it's pretty typical in the cult to believe anytime something bad is happening (esp. that people are having a hard time stopping or controlling, like inexplicable illness), that it's Satan trying to interfere.
I grew up thinking things like that too. Believing that if I was being tempted to stray off the straight and narrow it was Satan's doing. I believed I was special in the sense the likely most Mormons grow up believing, as in one of the chosen. I'd been told like others that having been born into the church (my parents were converts) that I made the right choices in the pre-existence. I was told I was good enough to be able to chose to be born into a Mormon family.
It's easy as a child to believe in black and white and of course you get plenty of that kind of thinking in the cult.
My mom was especially superstitious about Satan's powers. She was so worried about her boys when they were on missions in foreign lands, convinced that they were special targets for Satan. She was a nervous wreck the whole time they were away, not sure if she'd ever see them again.
She told me once about her mother (my mom converted when she was a teenager when her parents converted, but my dad did it on his own, also as a teen).. had Satan actually visit her room one night. He came to her and said he was after her 2nd oldest boy and was going to take him from her (or something like that, lead him astray, etc,) and she commanded him to 'Depart in the name of Jesus Christ' and he did. That story always terrified me. I never got confirmation from my grandmother that it was true. In fact now I wonder if my mom made it up or exaggerated it (likely it was a dream, not a real apparition of Satan). Esp. given that my grandma left TSCC a long time ago and said she'd only joined in the fist place because she thought it would stop her then husband (my grandpa) from cheating on her. When it didn't, she left him and the 'church.' So it seems unlikely she would have said that, but maybe at some point she believed or at least believed in God, the devil, and visions.
Well of course then years later my uncle did end up with a drug and drinking problem and eventually died fairly young and that became proof that what my grandma supposedly saw was true and that Satan had in fact won. (My uncle had also left the cult, so that was further proof to the ones who stayed in it).
But what your brother experienced and my family is called 'confirmation bias' .. something we all have. If we believe something we look for signs of proof to back up that belief. So therefore anything bad that happened to your brother (once he'd been told by an 'authority' at a young age that it was Satan after him) he believed (along with your mother) that it really was Satan's doing. Likewise once my grandma had that dream or what have you and told my mother about Satan being after my uncle, well when he fell on rough times of course that confirmed the bias. I don't know if my uncle was told about this. He may have been and that could have in fact influenced him very negatively and contributed to his demise. Which is just self fulfilled prophesy, which is another damaging thing that happens psychologically when you are told things like that, esp. while young.
It really is damaging. I hope your brother is well over it. Poor guy.
I also had a friend about to serve a mission. We were seeing her off at the airport and in the bathroom she broke down. She was sobbing, she was really unsure, she felt she couldn't do it. Well her mom was there to reassure her by telling her it was Satan's doing and that he did this to ALL missionaries when they were about to embark on 'God's work'..
Silly satan! When will he stop doing that! : ) It couldn't possibly be that the missionaries are actually just freaked out for good reason, like they realize they are about to throw away 2 years of their lives and don't really believe in the gospel they are about to have to preach!
What a load of crap!