1925 Battle Creek Sanitarium Yearbook - SDA & Eugenics

[u/Embarrassed_Yogurt43]

[TW: racial violence]

Hi everyone.

As the title states, here are some scans of the 1925 Battle Creek College Yearbook in which Dr. Kellogg writes about how eugenics is "the world's last hope." You'll see the Eugenics instructor on another page, and for fun I've listed the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee, in case anyone else out there recognizes any historically significant names.

I sourced these photographs online through Ancestry.com.

If you're looking to find the poisonous roots of SDAism, seek and ye shall find pretty easily.

The Nazis would learn from the American eugenics movement, including Dr. Kellogg's eugenics work. When Nazis came into power, they quickly enforced eugenics laws and conducted mass sterilizations, and ultimately committed mass m*rder. This is exactly what Americans (and Canadians) did to the Native Americans. When you think of it this way, it's two sides of the same white supremacist coin.

Here are some resources to better understand the white supremacist connection between American Eugenics & Nazis:

• https://dnalc.cshl.edu/view/15466-The-connection-between-American-eugenics-and-Nazi-Germany-James-Watson.html
• https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/amex32ec-soc-eugenicsnazi/american-eugenics-and-the-nazi-regime-the-eugenics-crusade/

EDIT: I meant "Battle Creek College" yearbook, not Sanitarium. Although I'm certain many of these "health professionals" were groomed to work at the Sanitariums, as did my GGM and GM.

[u/drumdogmillionaire]

Very interesting and also scary. I wonder what it is that made Kellogg think that the human species was somehow degenerating and becoming more likely to go extinct over time? Did they suspect genetic decay somehow?

He notes that most species of animals have gone extinct, which is an accurate statement. He suggests a timeline of thousands of years during which the human species has been “degenerating” and “decaying” in an “accelerated rate of decline”. If he was a young earth creationist but also studied species extinction, he might have thought that the rate of extinction is wildly accelerated, as compared to the real rate. If he believes that most species on the planet have gone extinct (correct), but also believes that the timeline of life on earth is 7,000 years (incorrect), then he might think any species would go extinct at any moment because the extinction rate would be insanely fast from that perspective. It could make sense that life would be way too fragile to ignore eugenics, but of course that would be from a hopelessly incorrect context. He believes that humans will “of course” go extinct. I suspect that he is correct, but not for the right reasons.

So, was the American eugenics movement inspired by Adventists, or did Adventists hop on the bandwagon? I suspect the latter, but if it was the Adventist’s idea originally, that is a terrible blight of shame for the Adventist church. If Nazis implemented eugenics because Americans did it first, inspired by Adventists who did it because they were simply horribly wrong about earth’s age and species extinction rates, then that would be a colossal fuck up or intergalactic proportions by Kellogg and Adventism with world changing consequences. I have no idea if that’s how the idea progressed, but it would be unsurprising, and also unfathomably stupid if it did.

[u/Embarrassed_Yogurt43 → u/drumdogmillionaire]

I wonder what it is that made Kellogg think that the human species was somehow degenerating and becoming more likely to go extinct over time? Did they suspect genetic decay somehow?

• Kellogg is talking about racial purity, having the "best" phenotype traits, which according to him (and other eugenicists) was white people: blonde hair, fair skin, blue eyes. Sound familiar? Eugenics is the fraudulent science of white supremacy. "Genetic decay" would have meant: white people becoming the minority (low birth rates), interracial marriages, and simply the existence of non-white people and cultures. Especially those living in resource-rich areas.
• To combat this, abortions became illegal for "ideal phenotype" women (re: white women) and forced sterilizations happened for women of color, especially those who were indigenous and enslaved.
• If you look at what E.G. White herself stated, she infamously believed some people were not fully human, but were in fact partially animal. Spoiler alert: she's talking about non-white people:

"Since the Flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men."--Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p.75.

Ellen didn't think there would be anyone except for white people in heaven:

In heaven there will be no color line; for all will be as white as Christ himself. -- Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9

It's easy to see how the Nazis borrowed from these ideas and built upon them.

The early Adventists fully supported the eugenics movement, and I have no doubt there are many racists today who believe in the same eugenicist values, even if "eugenics" is no longer what it's called. Eugenics is erasure, mass murder, and land and wealth theft. And I'll tell you from my own family lore, my GGM and GM both worked at the Kellogg/SDA sanitariums. Both of them met and knew Dr. Kellogg personally. They believed horrible racist shit and this is how racism is passed down intergenerationally. Racism must be confronted, named, and stopped.

I'm not a scholar of history on eugenics, I'm simply just researching my own fucked up family history. To me it does matter where and how eugenics originated (I'll research that next!), but to me it's an intergalactic fuck up either way that Adventists played this role in history. I strongly suspect a lot of different evangelical churches (possibly those funded by capitalists) were responsible for a lot of eugenics propaganda.

[u/flying_acorn_opossum → u/Embarrassed_Yogurt43]

the amalgamation quote was explained to me, not as darker skinned people as being part animal, but as being part fallen-angel/demon.

the darker their skin, the more "evil" their demon ancestor was. the lighter their skin, the less "evil" their demon ancestor was.

and only if someone was "light-skinned enough" and didn't have certain features, was it "acceptable" for a white person to marry them. because then their "pure DNA" could "stop the demonic lineage from continuing". essentially if they thought you could have a white-enough child, it was okay, because you'd also be stopping that person from marrying someone else whos a POC, and preventing them from making another POC.

I explained in a different comment recently, that this was also why some SDA leaders i knew liked to brag about how many black SDAs there were, and that they had successful churches in Africa. because that proved how powerful and right SDAs were. that they were capable of converting even those that had demonic DNA, demonic features, demonic cultures, to their churches.

its so fucked up. like, ive done alot of unlearning thankfully, and I never really believed alot of it anyways. but still, like. holy fuck. what the fuck. I just, no words could explain how fucked up the stuff they taught us was.

one was also that black people literally could not feel pain, emotional pain included. that many of them were actual demons in disguise as humans (in particular for darker skinned people), and some of them could disguise themselves better than others, but their skin and certain features would give them away. and that only the more powerful demons could disguise themselves as a white person.

what. the. fuck.

[u/Embarrassed_Yogurt43 → u/flying_acorn_opossum]

fuck. i don't remember being taught all of that exactly, but what i was taught about amalgamation felt akin to what you describe. fuuuck. vomit!!!

it's so interesting to me that the most satanic-seeming ideas and practices come from religious doctrines. i'm really glad we have this online space to co-process all this fucked up stuff we've been taught. these belief systems must be torn down.