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Apparently, the universe is going to educate them and that they're born with all of the knowledge that they'll ever need. He doesn't believe in doctors or medicine and that, whenever someone gets sick/ injured etc, it's because they did something wrong and it's their fault.
Stuff like this has been around before.
Carlos Castaneda took some badly researched anthropological material on the Huichol Indians, added it to his own rich imagination and wide reading, and created his Don Juan books.
People who never knew Castaneda turned into 'disciples' and to this very day, the books continue to sell like hotcakes and even though the guy is dead, people still believe the stuff.
So this is just a Russian version of what Carlos Castaneda cooked up, decades ago. Many people Want to Believe.
And due to the internet, one can get into this stuff and find a ready made group online who share the same obsession and this can give someone enough instant validation that their own marriage no longer matters.
Anyone interested in any back to the land project needs to first get and read Agnews' book
Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s and Why They Came Back [
www.google.com]
The author participated in the 1970s back to the land movement. She wrote that what defeated many were the following:
Injuries. Persons on farms sustain a higher accident rate than persons at sedentary jobs. One of the most terrible situations was when Agnew's husband and a friend were operating a hand crank press to juice apples.
With no warning, quick as a wink, one of the little kids ran up and stuck his fingers into the press as the crank was being turned.
The adults were focusing on the task at hand and no one saw the little boy coming. It happened in seconds, and the result was a screaming, terrified child, a hurried trip by
car on a country road to a hospital miles away and a huge bill.
By that time they had some insurance.
And..this was the killer. To pay for health insurance, many back to landers found they had to earn cash by working in town jobs and that in turn compromised the original dreams of opting out of the cash economy.
Other terrifying incidents came when a snowfall nearly buried one family alive in their house.
Cars that died or malfunctioned and cash was needed for repairs. Agnew and many others learned that most garage mechanics and doctors and dentists needed cash to keep themselves going. You'd hear the occasional story, circulated as a legend, about someone who paid with a wagon load of corn but that usually did not happen.
And...dental bills. Most of the back to landers assumed theyd be guaranteed healthy teeth by eating natural produce and healthy country living. Didnt happen. And even if ones teeth stay cavity free--a big if--one can still break a tooth if a fruit pit or pebble
lies undetected in ones bowl of food.
Get and read
Back From the Land and especially do so before you buy any land and uproot your kids--and before you take out any loans.
Final note: Agnew reported there was a high rate of relationship and marriage break ups among back to landers.
If your husband wont see reality on this one, you will have to decide whether its better to face this while still in town, rather than face it when you're miles away on a mud road
with a pile of bills and an unkind universe that has sent a tree falling on top of your shed or house--another situation mentioned in
Back From the Land.
Agnew wrote that some key people who were the ideological heroes of the 1970s back to the land movement actually had financial back up that was not in public view. And had lots of eager disciples who were volunteering help to them. One guy had glib answer for everything including the question of health care costs.
Good luck. Read that book before you take out loans or buy anything.
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Amazon.com:
Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s and Why They Came Back ...Amazon.com: Back from the Land: How Young Americans Went to Nature in the 1970s and Why They Came Back (9781566636643): Eleanor Agnew: Books.
[
www.amazon.com]
(you can go to www.bookfinder.com and comparison price copies if you want to purchase one. Otherwise your local library may have it or be able to get it for you by loan.)
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2010 11:37PM by corboy.