Newsweek--Spiritual Influence article

by JAVA 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  JAVA

  Some might be following the Andrea Yates trial (the mother who drowned her 5 children). The March 18, 2002 issue of Newsweek, has an article on page 8, entitled "Examining a Spiritual Leader's Influence," that's about the Yates trial. I'll list some quotes from this article:
  

  Was Andrea Yates's "spiritual leader" partly responsible for her delusional thinking?...she told a jail psychiatrist that her bad mothering had made the kids "not righteous," and, as a result, they would "perish in the fires of hell." If she killed them while they were young, God would show mercy on their souls.

  Where did these thoughts stem from? Yates's attorney, George Parnham, as put into evidence a copy of (Michael) Woroniecki's newsletterThe Perilous Times, sent to Yates and her husband, Rusty. In it a poem laments the disobedient kids of the "Modern Mother Worldly" and ends with the question, "What becomes of the children of such a Jezebel?" Houston psychiatrist Lucy Puryear told the jury that literature is "what her delusions are built around."

  For his part, Woroniecki writes that he and his wife were "a very compassionate and caring couple who did all we could to love them...After all we did for this family, it is preposterous for us to be cast into such a terrible image."

  Sounds like Woroniecki took a few lessons from the Watchtower, the spin masters. He writes crap about mothers being like "Jezebel" for working outside the home, for crazy people like Yates to follow. Then he cries about being "cast into such a terrible image." Yeah--right!

  I think it's interesting to note Dr. Puryear's quote about the literature Yates was reading from Woroniecki is "what her delusions are built around." Comments anyone?
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  belbab

  Reminds me of the book Wolves among sheep written by James Kostelniuk, The True Story of Murder in a Jehovah's Witness Community. I have an extra copy, if anyone wants to borrow it and then pass it on to others.

  Thanks JAVA, we need more revealing posts like this.
  
  belbab
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  SixofNine

  The day this tragedy happened, I said to myself that religious beliefs had played a large part in it.

  I was right. Not just the specific, impecable logic that says that these kids are guaranteed a place in the afterlife (they are, according to almost any religious belief), but also in the lifestyle that led to this couple having so many kids, and the wife having to deal with those kids 24/7 with almost no time off.

  Mix religion with bad brain chemistry, and you have a recipe for disaster.
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  DB

  One time at a circuit assembly, a brother, from the platform, applied scriptures in Lamentations, dealing with mothers eating their own children during the Babylonian siege on Jerusalem, to women who send their kids to day-care centers. My wife and I looked at each other in disbelief.

  Also, the mentality that a person may be better off dying now than at Armageddon is common among jws. When a non-witness dies, sometimes some jws will remark: 'well, he/she stands a better chance now, since they could be resurrected, rather than having to face Armageddon'. Such remarks are not only callous, but they betray a type of mindset that, if stretched perhaps, could justify, in the mind of a person who has some mental/emotional problems, acting in such a way as Andrea Yates did. I know of no actual cases where this has occured though. But, could such a mindset lead to such actions? I'm not really sure, but I can see where it may be possible.
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  circe2

  Sad.

  I can see how a religion built upon fear, mixed with bad brain chemistry as Six said, played a role.

  Like JT (somewhat) said in another thread, it's not a stretch to see that Witnesses have the same mentality when they'll let their kids die to avoid a blood transfusion.

  Yates may have considered she was saving her kids from hell. Witnesses think they are saving their kids from dieing at Armageddon or assuring their resurrection.

  Sad

  circe
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  TheStar

  I agree Six and Circe2. Mix a little psychosis (Yates suffered from depression) with religious manipulation and this is what you get... News headlines... Mother kills her 5 children.

  I've run across some JWs in my life that seemed a tad on the psychotic side... the fact that their minds are also being controled and manipulated by the Watchtwower is such a scary thought. I fear for what could happen to these people or what they could possibly do to others.

  Wasn't that Smith gal that put her children in a car and let it sink down to the bottom of a river a JW?
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  JAVA

  DB wrote:
  

  Such remarks are not only callous, but they betray a type of mindset that, if stretched perhaps, could justify, in the mind of a person who has some mental/emotional problems, acting in such a way as Andrea Yates did. I know of no actual cases where this has occurred though.

  Does anyone remember the man in Atlanta, Georgia who studied with the JWs, and killed his spouse and children (1 or 2 children, I forget now)? He ended up killing some folks at a stock-trading firm before taking his own life. I remember reading his suicide note and it talked about Jehovah, and the new system, etc. That is an actual case where someone studied with the Witnesses, things were going bad for them financially, etc., and they "saved" loved ones by killing them so they could have a better life in the new system of things.

  I remember reading follow up interviews from the elders of the Kingdom Hall he attended. Like the preacher Yates listened too, the elders did everything they could to distance themselves from him when the media showed up at their door.