Re: Jesus Camps and the Pentecostal Church. Q&A
I have an aunt & uncle in Tennessee who are Pentecostals. At the time, they were going to an 'illegal' Pentecostal church, where they handled snakes & drank strychnine. It was interesting the few times I went along with my cousins to the services, and I mostly went along so I could handle venomous snakes. I was a little disappointed when I found out that the rattlesnakes they kept were pets and not freshly wild-caught snakes. They were milked regularly and fed and handled often, and the reverend had people wash their hands before the services to eliminate any possible dog/cat/game odors that might excite one of the snakes into biting. I mean, it was good that the snakes were well-cared for (and apparently some snake-handling churches pull/break the snakes' teeth and even sew their mouths shut, which is deplorable), but it took some of the 'faith' out of the equation. And people are occasionally bitten and they do die from it.
I never learned the 'trick' to the strychnine-drinking... and I never tried it - most of the kids were kind of insulated from the more dangerous practices of the church. Strychnine poisoning does cause convulsions at a fairly low level of stimulus, so some of the rolling around on the floor and speaking in tongues might be attributable to that, if they were using actual strychnine and not just apple juice.
My older cousins loathed camp - they went every year, and the oldest boy was a counselor because he had more opportunity to 'sneak away and smoke weed' than when he was at home.
I have an aunt & uncle in Tennessee who are Pentecostals. At the time, they were going to an 'illegal' Pentecostal church, where they handled snakes & drank strychnine. It was interesting the few times I went along with my cousins to the services, and I mostly went along so I could handle venomous snakes. I was a little disappointed when I found out that the rattlesnakes they kept were pets and not freshly wild-caught snakes. They were milked regularly and fed and handled often, and the reverend had people wash their hands before the services to eliminate any possible dog/cat/game odors that might excite one of the snakes into biting. I mean, it was good that the snakes were well-cared for (and apparently some snake-handling churches pull/break the snakes' teeth and even sew their mouths shut, which is deplorable), but it took some of the 'faith' out of the equation. And people are occasionally bitten and they do die from it.
I never learned the 'trick' to the strychnine-drinking... and I never tried it - most of the kids were kind of insulated from the more dangerous practices of the church. Strychnine poisoning does cause convulsions at a fairly low level of stimulus, so some of the rolling around on the floor and speaking in tongues might be attributable to that, if they were using actual strychnine and not just apple juice.
My older cousins loathed camp - they went every year, and the oldest boy was a counselor because he had more opportunity to 'sneak away and smoke weed' than when he was at home.
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