JH asks: “A friend of mine has about 30-50 supplements she got at a health store that she is taking along with teas that are from India and I suspect are new age because of the description about “spiritual powers” on the label. I have suggested that she throw them out. Not all of the supplements may be new age, but her dependence on them is not showing trust in God. She has money and can afford to toss them. Do you think she should throw them away or is it permissible to use them up and not repurchase them? My thinking is that if you have holistic products in your home, you also have demons connected to them. Should we renounce our attachments to holistic products by getting rid of them and offering up any monetary loss as reparation? My own motto, is “When in doubt, throw it out!” What’s more important…trusting in supplements or trusting in God? Should anything stand in the way of our relationship with God, particularly supplements?”
Before I get into the very important subject of attachments, which JH so artfully raised in this e-mail, I would definitely ladvise her friend to discard any products she is using that claim to contain “spiritual powers.” Unless those powers are sourced in God – which I can almost guarantee they’re not – they are sourced in the occult (demons). She is playing with fire by imbibing them and could be drawing all kinds of spiritual and even physical maladies upon herself. She needs to get rid of them and repent of their usage in the sacrament of confession.
The reason for this is because by using products that claim to have spiritual powers, she is turning to false gods for help. Every time she does this, she open herself a little more to Satanic influence. Satan knows that if he can desensitize her to these medicines, he will be able to desensitize her to other practices, eventually leading her away from God. He is clever, and will do this in way that she might not even notice until it’s too late.
As for holistic products, you might want to read this blog which explains the complex subject of New Age holistic healthcare and why the Church frowns upon it. /?p=176
There is nothing wrong (evil) in the use of supplements. However, there are many safety problems associated with these products due to having little or no oversight by the FDA. You should definitely read this report which was posted on our blog on August 4, 2010. /?p=170
Attachments to anything – whether it be supplements or people or possessions – are one of the main reasons why people are unable to come close to God. Known as “appetites” in the spiritual life, they are disordered inclinations or affections for creatures or things which are more or less contrary to God’s will.
As Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene teaches in Divine Intimacy, God wants us to love ourselves as well as all created things “in the measure assigned by Him, with a view to His pleasure and not to our own selfish satisfaction.”
If our attachment is of the latter category, then this attachment becomes like mud flung on the clear window of our soul, obscuring the light of God and making it harder and harder for us to hear God and discern His will in our lives.
We have to weigh all of our appetites on this scale – is it pleasing God or ourselves? This includes attachment to comforts, opinions, friends, houses or cars, even supplements! The most trivial attachment is enough to hold us back from a deeper relationship with God – which is more than enough reason to get rid of supplements if one is trusting in them more than in God.
St. John of the Cross once likened this important spiritual truth to that of a bird whose leg was bound by a thin thread. ” . . . (E)ven if it be slender, the bird will be as well held as though it were stout for so long as it breaks it not and flies not away.”
No matter how slight, any attachment is enough to keep us bound to the earth even though our souls were designed to soar to heaven.
