In a proceeding presently underway in Fort Collins,
Colorado, Leah and Doug Dyer are being tried on charges of child abuse because
of the harm done to their daughter by their neglect of her medical needs (www.colorodoan.com/story/news/2016/10/31/dyers-child-abuse-trial-negligent-ill-equipped/93064676).
The child, who has a seizure disorder, was found at the age of 7, weighing 37
pounds and unable to walk. With proper care, she has gained weight and can walk
but still does not talk normally.
The Dyers are said to have thought that their daughter’s
illness might have some spiritual component and had looked into this
possibility. They sprinkled salt around her bed and through the house in an
attempt at spiritual protection.
The belief in
the protective spiritual properties of salt was not unique to the Dyers. For
example, one Internet site states that “if you are dealing with any kind of
negative energy, black magic, ghosts, demons or other entities, salt can serve
as a mighty spiritual weapon… Worried about entities invading your sleep? Place
a little salt at each corner of the bed…Try sprinkling a circle of salt around
the bed” (www.psychicsuniverse.com/articles/spirituality/spiritual-power-salt).
Another Internet source advises the use of salt to provide protection against
demons: “There are very few demonic elements that will venture to cross a line
of protection once it has been established. What is it that gives salt these
special qualities [?] First is the perfect cubic crystal shape. Second is that
in solution salt will always dissociate into a perfect electrolyte. Blessing
can be said over salt that turns it into a perfect weapon against evil. It has
been demonstrated that proper constructed prayer generate an electric charge equivalent
to 50,000 watts of radiant energy. And is capable of radiating that energy at a
constant rate for 24 hours” (www.spiritofprophecy.mxf.yuku.com/topic/4121225/The-Covenant-of-Salt#.WBzx8PorLIU).
These views are especially interesting in their mixture of material and
non-material events, somewhat traditional to sacraments of Christianity (though
in the modern world these saceamental events are usually considered to be in a metaphorical
relationship), and in their neoplatonic appeal to the “perfect shape” as having
a spiritual power.
Although few people in the United States consider seizure
disorders to have spiritual causes, the Dyers were again not alone in the world
in having this belief. Ann Fadiman’s book The
spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and
the collision of two cultures, told the story of a Hmong family, immigrants
from Laos, whose beliefs of this nature complicated the treatment of their
child’s epilepsy. The Hmong family fortunately found people who could explain
the two cultures to each other, but the Dyers, who were described as not social
people, had no translator who could work with their belief systems and those of
medical providers.
What do these points have to do with the trial? It
appears that the defense attorney (doing her best by her clients, as indeed she
should) has argued that the jury must give consideration to the Dyers” “spirituality”
and its importance in the case. In doing so, I would suggest that she is
confusing a world-view shared by an entire culture that considers a spirit
world to exist hand-in-hand with the material one, with the ad hoc superstitions of a socially
isolated couple. The use of the word “spirit” does not necessarily imply a life
guided by spiritual considerations.
In the United States, laws and principles protect
religious practices of the kinds that would have been recognizable to the
framers of the Constitution. Beliefs and communications of beliefs are all
protected, but all practices are not—as we see in the prosecution of polygamous
Mormons and the disapproval of female circumcision (but not male, as far as
most people are concerned). Animal sacrifices as part of Santeria are not considered acceptable or even seen as part of a
religion. What are the differences
between protected and unprotected practices? When is a religious practice seen
as a superstition? Just as the Hmong shared and protected a belief system,
protected religious practices in the United States are those that are broadly
shared and recognized even by those who do not share them. Superstitions are
shared by few and unrecognized by many; they may even involve actions forbidden
by law.
But since the 1970s, a new term has developed in an
effort to bring hitherto unprotected practices under the aegis of religious
freedom. This term is “spirituality”, and although it can be used as a protective
description of superstition, it can be most properly applied to beliefs that are deeply embedded in a culture
so that neither can exist without the other. Alternatively, it can be used to
refer to some set of non-material values that are considered independent of any
organized belief system. (A Muslim student of mine once described herself as “spiritual”
as she explained why she never went to the mosque, and plenty of nominal
Christians take the same position.) Although it’s not completely clear what “spirituality”
is—simple superstition, a fully-elaborated belief and value system, or
something else—it is clear that people are arguing that it should be protected
under the umbrella of religious freedom. With respect to the Dyers, this has
meant that the defense claims that their use of “spirit” terms and “spiritual warfare” methods, and their related reluctance
to give their child effective medical care, are somehow deserving of protection
as religious practices.
I would not argue that severe punishment of the Dyers
would be to anyone’s benefit, but I am quite sure that a bad precedent would be
set if the jury were to accept these people’s actions as deserving of
protection under the First Amendment.
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