DiscussMormonism.com

note: all examples given here happen/ed in Heber City Utah (i.e. I'd estimate 80% of the population is 4/5 generation Mormons.)

Over the years I've noticed an interesting phenomena that can be attributed to a fair percentage of chapel Mormons.

I'm not going to do this any justice, because I always quickly wrote this stuff off when I heard about it, so I don't have any actual names of the groups/concepts involved.

The Eye Twinkers (just what I called them) were one of the first ones I remember hearing about (early 80's). As far as I paid any attention, it went something like this (a good friend, from the ward, of my wife was always trying to get her to go with her), they would undress to their G's, lay flat on their backs and some woman waved something over them and the person on the bed twinked their eyes ... or some other craziness like this. Purposes ranged for health/healing to repairing relationships with the dead etc.

Several years later, my best friends sister got paralyzed in a car wreck and ended up with a lot of money in some settlements. Similar mystical/magical schemers like the twinkers cleared her out of her money, with hopes/promises of full recovery from their mystical/magical methods.

Even jumping up to present, my wife has another friend (from the ward) who "channels" or something like this (I totally ignore it so sorry no details), but it has something to do with being able to influence/change the course of actions in self and others.

Now, jumping all over the board, Harry Potter (i.e. good white witches/magic) seems to have a addictive pull to the chapel Mormon crowd. Interesting thing about this is the concept of witchcraft would typically have this crowd running for cover.

Another present day example, another friend of my wife that is always trying to get us to buy water from them. They have some $4000.00 water purification gizmo that cures anything from pimples to brain cancer. I swear their religion in the water filter is greater than their chapel Mormonism (which is really saying something).

This may be a bad comparison, but take an alcoholic .. they tend to have a natural, built in draw/need/ability to accept a "higher power", a need for spirituality.

Maybe there is some natural, built in draw/need/ability/tendency in the character of many chapel Mormons for magical/mystical things. Everything from the mystery/power promises of the temple, to white salamanders, seer stones in a hat etc. have an appeal, not a repulsive effect.

Thoughts? Anyone else heard of these types of things?

Slider:

Thoughts? Anyone else heard of these types of things?

Haven't come across much of this kind of thing in my experience. Sorry. Maybe you've just been lucky.

RockSlider wrote:Thoughts? Anyone else heard of these types of things?

You live in a very interesting ward!

Nothing like that ever happens in my ward. The closest we've ever come to strange/weirdness is the Dare to Be Great thing that went through several decades ago. We are so staid!

too funny, must be a hick-town heber thing .... I've just seen it/heard of it over and over for years, assumed it might be more wide spread.

liz3564 wrote:(Moderator Note)Moved at the request of thread starter.

Thanks liz ... I thought this thread might go somewhere, but it appears to be a local thing

p.s.

I'm starting to get the feel that liz is a sweet heart

RockSlider wrote:

liz3564 wrote:(Moderator Note)Moved at the request of thread starter.

Thanks liz ... I thought this thread might go somewhere, but it appears to be a local thing

p.s.

I'm starting to get the feel that liz is a sweet heart

Awww..you're sweet, too.

I grew up (for the most part) in a town not too terribly far away from Heber, and I never heard of "eye twinking" or anything even remotely like unto it.

Ok, LSD flashbacks was one possibility here, so I just grabbed the phone from my wife talking to a friend involved in this stuff (all involved are TBM chapel Mormons), to check my sanity.

Here are two names she told me to look up "Theta Healing" and "BodyTalk", a quick web search verified the flashbacks appear to still be under control.

http://www.dnathetahealing.com/
http://www.thebodytalkcenter.com/home.html

My wife said my old "eye twinkers" were actually called "Reiki" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki#Whole_body_treatment. My wife informs me a wand was used by the local praticitioners (this was 15 years ago)

Apparently there is a women in the Provo area, a something Tuttle (wife left a message with friend to get name, I'll fix this later) that teaches a lot of people in this area how to do it.

Like mentioned, I've seen this sort of thing for many years here in Heber valley. I'm surprised that no one else has seen this and its a Heber valley phenomena (i.e. once again 4/5 generational Mormons).

So, not even any colloidal silver, water purification or even just Harry Potter nuts in your wards in all these years?

Alcoholics often have the "addictive gene", it runs in my family with drugs. There is already a co-dependancy there. Mystery ticks all the right boxes, it is like a drug.

The church members you are refering to sound a bit dilusional and perhaps odd. I know members who claim to see the dead and have a 6th sense, I also know members who do people's tarot readings for them. This in the gospel is wrong. I own oracle cards and ruins but don't claim to be the perfect Mormon and don't do peoples readings giving off the impression that I am gifted because I am not. I believe that people interpret from cards and ruins etc, what they want to know. I.e. the Barnum/Forer effect. I could quite easily interpret the same exact thing from every card in the deck if I wanted to. It is a means to derive what you really think from yout sub conscience. We often don't want to admit things to ourselves. We deny things, but because of the appeal of mysticism in such things, the idea that these things will tell it how it is and are more causes the - lets say "client" for sake of discussion - client to see what is right and not what they have disguised. Clients will agree to most things a reader will say, they will scan their brains to find something that applies and then say well, there is this. Because of the sense of mystery.

I am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of people laying in their garments twinkling their eyes, it sounds incredibly disrespectful.