Smurfageddon and Other JW Superstitions

As you are most likely aware, I was a fourth-generation Jehovah's Witness (JW) child. My parents are JWs, my grandmother on my mother's side is a JW, and a great-grandfather on my father's side was a Bible Student (a JW before they took the name Jehovah's Witnesses). One of the things drummed into my head from about the time I could talk is that JWs are not superstitious. In fact, JWs look upon superstitions with aloofness, even going so far as to eschew the use of the word "luck."

Now, I have no qualms with being non-superstitious. I try to keep myself free of superstitions, although I do wish people luck (not that I believe doing so is helpful--just polite). I also enjoy studying quirky beliefs and their histories. However, the irony is that JWs are very superstitious, and aren't even aware of it.

The superstitions of JWs range from the ultra-paranoid to the downright silly, and are often both at the same time.

JWs have a fear of demons--not figuratively, but literally. As fundamentalists, they believe in a literal devil and literal demons, alongside the obligatory God, Jesus, and angels. The fear of these demons is far-reaching. Growing up, I learned to beware of garage sales and thrift shops where I might accidentally bring home demonized goods. Even a pair of jeans could be considered possessed, and the only way you could get rid of the demons was by destroying the tainted goods by fire.

I remember one instance where a JW woman, Martha, bought a second-hand nightgown for her infant daughter. This nightie laced up at the neck. Well, one night, Martha stopped in to check on her baby, and saw that the laces had become tangled around her daughter's neck and were choking her. After rescuing the little girl, Martha and her husband offered a prayer for guidance to Jehovah God. Then they went and burned the nightgown.

You see, it wasn't possible to them that the strings may have accidentally gotten tangled around the little girl's neck. It didn't occur to them that maybe laces at the throat are a bad idea for infants. No, they had the misfortune of possessing a demon-possessed garment. They claimed the strings had moved on their own around the girl's neck and were strangling her.

As a child, I had a delicious terror of demons. This feeling is akin to sitting around a campfire and listening to ghost stories. I would listen to JWs whisper about their personal experiences with demons.

One man, Clayton, told us about the bad old days before he had learned "the Truth" (JW-speak for JW beliefs). He used to own some occult books, and he had locked them away in a trunk. He moved away from home to do some forestry work for a few years. While away, he met some JWs and was soon baptized and a JW himself. During this time period, he had completely forgotten about his old occult books.

When he eventually returned to the old homestead, something seemed "different" to him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something just seemed "off." He began having gruesome nightmares.

So, he did what any good JW does: he prayed for guidance. Shortly afterwards, he recalled his trunk of occult literature. He took all the books outdoors, dumped them onto the ground, and burned them, thereby exorcising the demons. He slept fine after that....

Ooooh. Spooky.

Another friend of mine, Kristine, had a disfellowshipped (JW-speak for excommunicated) father. She lived with her mother and step-father, but every now and then she would go stay with her Dad. When she returned, she would tell me creepy stories about her father's demonized house. Her descriptions were right out of Poltergeist, or Saturday the 14th.... Things would shake, she would see phantom shadows, and pictures would fly off the walls. Great stuff! And I believed every word of it.

Of course, Kristine and I were being rather daring. We would go out into the forest and pretend to be witches, which is about as taboo a thing as two JW girls could do. We would make witches brew made of all sorts of great stuff: spit, piss, dog shit, tree bark, some of Kristine's mother's make-up which Kristine filched, sour milk, etc. To finish it off, we would fart over the bowl. I don't know how she did it, but Kristine kept the "cauldron" under her bed to brew. Urgh.

I think Kristine's stories of house hauntings were elaborations on our witch phase....

Not all superstitions involved demons, though. Sometimes they were about angels. One JW urban legend was about a JW woman who was going from door to door alone peddling her magazines. Unbeknownst to her, she called on the door of a serial rapist/murderer (depending on which version of the "true" story you hear). The visit went without any trouble, and shortly after she left, the police burst in on the man and took him away.

When asked why he didn't attack the JW woman, he said two large men were standing behind her.

JWs knowingly talk about the angels that saved her from death or worse....

But my favourite JW superstition of all is about Smurfs. What look like innocent little blue bundles of joy to most people are actually the most wicked incarnation of Satan's minions. Well, according to a lot of JWs they are, anyway....

Smurfs are evil. There are Satanic messages in the cartoon show, and Smurf toys come alive! Yes, it's true. While your innocent little child is sleeping, little plastic Smurfs come to life and do all sorts of nasty things. I remember one choice example: a JW family foolishly allowed their kid to talk them into giving him Smurf wallpaper.

They began noticing that their son's room was suspiciously neat and tidy. Since he had been a rather messy child, they became a bit paranoid, and made him keep his bedroom door open at nights.

One night, they happened to look inside his room as he lie sleeping. (Cue Psycho shower scene music here). They saw the Smurfs come off his wallpaper and tidy his room!

Now, when I first heard this story, it made me really want Smurf wallpaper, because I was a messy child and was always being punished for it. When I intimated that I wanted Smurf wallpaper, I received extraordinary withering looks from all the JWs around. Bad, bad, bad....

But the most telling Smurfcapade involved a family attending a Kingdom Hall meeting for the first time. They took their young child and his stuffed Smurf toy. At some point during the meeting, the Smurf doll apparently got up, said, "I've had enough of this shit!", and walked out of the Kingdom Hall.

Lost?

Can you think of anything more terrifying to a Jehovah's Witness than an animated Smurf? Tell me!

Onward to It's Not a Bug--It's a Feature....