Packed in mothballs

May 12, 2009 5:42 AM

A child dies and fails to be resurrected by prayer; a mother is arrested. Life and death inside the One Mind church.
posted by mippy (23 comments total)

"Answering to a leader called Queen Antoinette, they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say "Amen" at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring. "
posted by mippy at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2009

Is it called One Mind because there are only enough brain cells across its membership to complete one functioning brain?
posted by MuffinMan at 5:44 AM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

Meh. Just another best of the web, child abuse post on MeFi.
posted by Xurando at 5:48 AM on May 12, 2009

Sorry, I'm not up to date with current trends on child abuse. Dead child in suitcase? So last season, dahling.
posted by mippy at 5:49 AM on May 12, 2009

A very sad story, but it's not a rare one in America.
posted by parmanparman at 5:50 AM on May 12, 2009

"She wasn't delusional, because she was following a religion," Silverman [the mother's attorney] said.

If the law doesn't work out, this guy's got a fine future as a straight man.
posted by FelliniBlank at 5:50 AM on May 12, 2009 [6 favorites]

Why not get outraged about really fucked up Religion and child abuse?
posted by adamvasco at 6:01 AM on May 12, 2009

This happens quite often, sadly. Or perhaps not often, but not un-often.

Hobart Freeman was a charismatic preacher who founded the Faith Assembly or, as it was better known, the Glory Barn, a cult group in Northern Indiana in the 1970s.

"Diabetics were not taking their insulin and pregnant women were receiving no pre-natal or post-natal care. ... They are laying dead babies and live babies next to each other on the altars and praying over them to get the live babies to bring life back to the dead ones. There was one woman in our county praying over a baby for four days before the funeral home got hold of it."
posted by billysumday at 6:09 AM on May 12, 2009

Sorry, but I'm worn out on outrage filter posts.

Terrible, awful things happen in the world, no question and there's nothing wrong with linking to such things. But a single link to news article is, IMO, poor form. It leaves the audience with no outlet other than communal horror or scorn, a real life version of a Two Minute Hate, blown over the site like a bad case of diarrhea, ricocheting down the thread from comment to comment in a slow drip horror of the worst human behaviors on the internet.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:13 AM on May 12, 2009 [7 favorites]

"She wasn't delusional, because she was following a religion," Silverman [the mother's attorney] said.

I thought that quote and the results of the psych exam, combined with the mother's insistence that the charges be dropped if her son is resurrected, were the interesting story here. I would have loved to see this article together with a closer examination of the lines between delusions and religious faith, which could have sparked a really interesting discussion (though perhaps heated).

Personally, I think the beliefs of this cult go so far beyond mainstream religion (which I find a little delusional, but not so much to call it that to its face) that while the members might not be legally delusional, I think a psychiatric examination outside of the background of a criminal prosecution would certainly find it, well, "delusional" to expect a 16-month old child to say "Amen" at mealtimes. I don't know how to define the distinction between belief in transubstantiation and a delusional cult, but maybe I'll start crafting a post, lol.

The result - a dead baby - is terribly awful, but without more to understand and discuss, I agree with everyone else - outragefilter ftl.
posted by bunnycup at 6:15 AM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

Why not get outraged about really fucked up Religion and child abuse?

Some of us can be outraged by both at the same time. I think we've covered the Lord's Resistance Army here before, if I'm not mistaken. It's hard to maintain a constant-level rage 24/7, but I try my best.

*waves bloody stump*
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:15 AM on May 12, 2009 [3 favorites]

Sources and Ramkissoon's mother said Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.

That's nothing if not fair.
posted by Bromius at 6:16 AM on May 12, 2009 [2 favorites]

A very sad story, but it's not a rare one in America.

Uhhhhhh...I REALLY think it is, actually.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:16 AM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

"Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern. "

Classic.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 6:18 AM on May 12, 2009 [3 favorites]

Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern.

Is 'that' the line between brainwashing and some religious beliefs, the line between brainwashing and an inability to think critically, or the line between an inability to think critically and some religious beliefs?

Members of the group believe that marijuana "frees your soul," he said.

It also helps quite a bit with the whole critical thinking vs. brainwashing problem.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 6:19 AM on May 12, 2009

This is a crap post.
posted by Dumsnill at 6:20 AM on May 12, 2009

Sources and Ramkissoon's mother said Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.

That's nothing if not fair.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:22 AM on May 12, 2009

Whoops, sorry, premature posting.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:23 AM on May 12, 2009

Look, whether you like it or not, Kittens for Breakfast, there are many groups - legitimate religions and not - who are held criminally responsible for the death of children and adults each year. In 1999, in Oregon, a religious group has been implicated in dozens of such deaths.

Yet, these groups are often given a degree of protection because they are a religious structure in the eyes of the state. I don't know if Queen Antoinette's group was such a non-profit, but it takes very little in the eyes of the government to be religion and once you are able to do that then sadly anything goes.
posted by parmanparman at 6:24 AM on May 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

how is this not a single link news filter post?
posted by hippybear at 6:32 AM on May 12, 2009

I don't know if Queen Antoinette's group was such a non-profit, but it takes very little in the eyes of the government to be religion and once you are able to do that then sadly anything goes.

There isn't much point to arguing in a deleted thread, but I think you know that's a pretty simplistic take on the matter, and furthermore that instances of people wandering the countryside with a dead baby awaiting resurrection in a suitcase are kind of uncommon.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:40 AM on May 12, 2009

Écrasez l'Infâme.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:40 AM on May 12, 2009

It also helps quite a bit with the whole critical thinking vs. brainwashing problem.

Oh, please. Tell it to Nancy Reagan and the Reefer Madness Revue. Weed doesn't have any special brainwashing powers - but the delusions of religion combined with a desire to escape from reality sure as fuck do.

Religion. It's a hell of a drug.
posted by loquacious at 6:44 AM on May 12, 2009