Dr. Stella Immanuel is an American pediatrician in Houston Texas. What she said in a video about curing Covid-19 appears to have excited some Americans because she supported the president’s views on the value of hydroxychloroquine and the lack of value of wearing masks.
She is an identified physician in Texas according to multiple sources (e.g., Equere, 2020). She refers to her clinical work as evidence and challenges traditional science- see the twitter quote.
Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.
She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.
A number of writers in major news outlets have taken on the doctor for her unusual beliefs.
Here's part of David Von Drehle's opinion in the Washington Post
According to the Mayo Clinic, endometriosis is “an often painful disorder in which tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of [the] uterus — the endometrium — grows outside [the] uterus.”
Not so, says Stella Immanuel, a Houston pediatrician and spiritual leader of Fire Power Ministries, a pronouncedly non-orthodox church. Endometriosis and other potentially dangerous gynecological conditions are the residue of sexual intercourse with demons, Immanuel teaches. These demons, known as “spirit husbands” and “spirit wives” (you might prefer their pet names: Incubus and Succubus) once walked the Earth in physical form. After they drowned in Noah’s flood, however, they carried on only in non-corporeal form. They visit humans in sexy dreams, which aren’t dreams after all but spirit spouses making a booty call. The demons are responsible not only for diseases of the female reproductive system but also for male impotence, most financial troubles, marital discord and spiritual malaise.
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Dr. Immanuel presents an interesting integration of a particular and nonmainstream Pentecostal spirituality and science that appears strange to scientifically minded scientists and thinkers in western cultures. Perhaps what is most interesting is the support she has from conservative US Christians who have demonstrated an unwillingness to trust the scientists at the CDC or WHO.
There is a strong anti-intellectualism and antiscience bias among some Christian conservatives including many Pentecostals. It is not true of all as evident by their universities having traditional science departments. But as Dr. Immanuel illustrates, having a professional degree does not mean a person will always employ their science education to an understanding of health conditions.
The story about Dr. Stella Immanuel illustrates why religious beliefs are not just something to be discussed in private because they can affect public policy and decisions about life and death or at least the quality of life and death.
Read more about Pentecostal cultures and mental health in
Counseling and Psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians.
For more about sex and morality in Christian cultures, see A House Divided: Sexuality, Morality, and Christian Cultures on AMAZON and at other bookstores worldwide.
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