My older sister was always a proud person with some ego problems. She struggled having friends in high school and was sort of elitist towards everyone else in our area. She moved to Europe to go to college and joined math sciences, however, she fell in love with a hippie guy and switched majors to Environmentalist Sciences. Ever since, she's been hardcore hippie, but not in a very healthy way, more of her ego thing of being "superior" than other people.
After college, she travelled the world with her partner, worked in a lot of places, and just generally did her thing. I didn't see her much over the years because I was myself enrolled in college and working at the same time. Later on, she broke up with this guy and I learned that her 7 year long relationship was very abusive; physically, psychologically and sexually. She fell into a huge depression, and flat out denied the abuse or either justified it. I tried to convince her to go to therapy, but I never could.
She moved back to our home town, the one she despised, because she wouldn't have to pay rent and she could make a lot of money, which she did. In all these years, she never went to therapy and instead started doing every single type of alternative therapies you can think of.
(I myself am a little distrustful of the medical system, and I have some respect for alternative medicine. I keep an open mind while my feet are still on the ground.)
However, two years ago she was diagnosed with a chronical disease. She decided to quit her job, and go into retirement in a Chinese temple instead, and we didn't hear from her for the next months.
Fast forward, I just moved back to our hometown, so she did six months before me. I learnt that now she lives off from her savings, doesn't work, and mostly dedicates herself to this meditation thing she learnt in China. She claims she is cured and that these chinese practice cured her disease.
Initially I thought maybe she had a bad diagnosis to begin with, and that her symptoms were cured with just having time to collect herself and some time in nature, regardless I was happy and trusting of her. I was happy to know she was doing good.
However, I learnt she is not only teaching this Chinese method, but also that she joined a "group" of "miracle makers", that she's been spending all her savings to attend to their events, and that this "group" claims that they can cure cancer through the power of prayer.
This was a HUGE gap from what I knew. I contacted my other sister had told her about it. She did her own research and learnt that this group is indeed a cult. I decided to attend to one of her classes and I was disgusted and worried.
My sister claimed to her students that they could be cured from anything, even cancer, through the power of prayer (what does this have to do with Buddhism in the first place?). One of her students it's clearly injured in her leg and attends to all the classes hoping to get better. My sister charges a lot from these classes. I also learnt that her chronic disease is back, and that she claims it's because she's not praying enoug
She won't listen to anyone, she mostly doesn't go out of her house, I'm worried and I feel powerless. Her abusive relationship changed her and she never got the treatment she needed, and I feel like now she's completely out of touch, while simultaneously making profit out of this insanity.
I don't know long I can play this role of being supportive of what she does. I don't want her to drift further away from me but I don't feel like I can help her.
TL;DR My sister is in a miracle making cult through the power of prayer, while being diagnosed with a chronic disease.
Submitted November 12, 2019 at 01:15PM by dariusphoenix https://ift.tt/32DW24j
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