There were 2 brothers in the area who were of the "annointed." They were both practicers of controversial holistic medicine (snake oil salesmen I now believe). I am not opposed to alternative medical practices, but they guys were really wacky and did "energy" work along with prescribing a lot of worthless products they sold. I had a couple of treatments through these guys. The last time I went to them they were working together--one was training the other and they did some "energy" work on me." The one brother dug his thumbs and elbows into me with what felt like all his strength claiming he was breaking up cystals trapped in my organs. It was so painful I was in tears and the other brother was holding me down to keep me from flying off the table. I felt sick after the treatment and went home bruised. To further note this older annointed bro who inflicted the pain upon me was later DFd. There were many other vitamin trends and scams that came and went over the years.
I also remember tupperware parties, Mary Kaye Parties, crystal parties, Home interior parties. The brothers were at one time involved in selling telephone service and some quit their jobs to devote full time to it and I recall even being accosted at an assembly by an overly zealous telephone service saleaman bro. There were a couple of other multilevel companies like Amway. I went to a talk given by one bro and his wife and they were bragging about how they could full time pioneer now that they were selling such and such products and they were doing so well had just bought a motor home! The brother told us a story about the time he got badly burned from the barbeque and put this salve on his blistering hand and it was a miracle within minutes it was totally healed! Well, that sounded a bit fishy to me at the time, but did we dare not believe this full time pioneer bro's story?
The thing that verged a bit on the mystic was Kinesiology. I was also treated by a well known pioneer sister whose husband was an elder and she was also a kinesiologist. I remember she held a cup in her hand and when the cup felt heavy or light to her when she asked me questions and from that she could determine everything about me. At the end of the diagnosis she gave me a complete run down on my personality and problems and everything in my life that I could do to improve. (There was a heafty fee for her service too) She later broke up with her elder husband who was having an affair on her with another sister. There was another sister who practiced this "science" too and she was really wacky--she didn't even need to ask questions, she just touched your foot and sat there and could tell everything about you from that. She claimed that she could even tell if she sat in the place where you had just sat or slept in the bed you had just slept what your problems were, because your "energy imprint" would still be there. She rather creeped me out.
So those were some of the strange trends I recall. Weird habits--too many to recall.
