Melanie Recoy was taken into the witness protection program at the age of two weeks after giving key testimony in the RICO trial of a prominent organized crime leader. Adopted by a mid-western couple unaware of her background, she has evaded those seeking to collect on the million dollar contract on her life. She blogs as Addie Pray at According To Addie.

Suckers. They are all over. Folks that will fall for anything. You know why they will fall for anything? Because they want to. They are looking for answers. If they think someone has the answers, they'll give themselves up like the homecoming queen on prom night.

All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear. It's simple. They will believe anything. It just is a matter of figuring out what it is that they want. Rain, an end to the heartbreak of psoriasis, a cure for the common cold, a new lover, to know your future, immortality, or a domestic paradise here on Earth, whatever. If the folks want it there's always going to be someone who promises to deliver.

But how do they keep this up? Nobody can deliver these things without a doubt. Won't the folks demand results at some point? Nope, they won't. It's easy to keep up this suspension of disbelief. You just have to convince the rubes that they are not quite there yet. This involves never admitting that you are wrong and limiting your marks exposure to reality.

Take for example the 1800's preacher William Miller. He convinced his flock that the world be ending on April 3rd, 1843. He also convinced his followers that they would have first pick on the good seats in heaven if they were wearing an accession robe, which he conveniently sold. When in April the world went on, he simply moved the date up to July 7th. When again in July nothing happened, he moved the date to March of the next year. Even more people showed up. a thunderstorm broke out at the hour of Miller's prophecy, dousing and ruining everybody's accession robes, but not ending the world. They bought more robes for the rain date of October 22. One man bought robes for his cows saying that, "it was a long trip and the kids would need milk". When the final promised event didn't happen, most of the flock simply ditched Miller and became what we now know as the Seventh Day Adventist. History has not told us what became of the cows.

Really. Look it up.

How could these people be so stupid? Easy, they wanted to go to heaven. Everybody wants to go to heaven. They never gave up on getting into heaven; they just gave up on a group invite on a specific date. Pastor Miller's essential message stayed with them. He was completely successful, except for in the matter of having a concession for his accession robes.

There are lots of folks that will tell you how to get to heaven. That’s an easy thing to do. It's not like we have any confirmed reports of the accuracy of their schemes. The one thing that almost every official tour guide to the pearly gates agrees on is that getting past the velvet rope in the realm of immortality relies heavily on how you conduct yourself here on Earth. Many of these programs for entrance to the afterlife are heavily weighed to recruitment. There is a bonus system for every soul that you can recruit. It pretty much works like a pyramid scheme.

What in hopping Hades does this have to do with adoption? A whole lot actually. It seems that with some the road to eternal salvation runs through adoption. Take my friend Heidi Saxton. She's bought into the biggest scheme of them all, and like all new rubes, she thinks she has got in on the ground floor. It not like she hasn't come up through the ranks, Her own website lists the paths she has tried before, Lutheran, Baptist, Presbyterian, non-denominational, Assemblies of God, and Episcopalian. Now she's in with the old boy network, the source of all salvation that make the pretenders she has devoted herself to in the past pale. Like a new Amway associate she thinks that hard enough riches will come her way. Being a resourceful woman she's working with what she's got. She's got adoption.

She's not going to let things like logic or even the positions of some in her new adopted source of salvation stand in her way of getting into heaven and making a little money along the way. Like the snake oil salesman with his wagon, she's got the internet. It's a perfect place to sell her brand of salvation. It's brilliant. She has several blogs, a magazine, books, and even this very special opportunity for you...

Want to send Mom something more than a card this Mother's Day? Give her "Tea with Mary" instead -- because you truly do care enough to send the "very blessed"! (Sorry, Hallmark.)

Seriously, she's selling a teacup, a picture of the Virgin Mary, and an autographed copy of her book. Classy

I just can't believe anyone would take this woman seriously. We look at Pastor Miller and shake our heads, then give this woman who writes books with covers that resemble the back of devoted gangbangers serious consideration? Why? Because if we realize it or not, we see something dangerous there. Something that needs to be stopped. We see the kind of thinking that can lead beyond tea cups and accession robes. We see a woman displaying an obsession that she will from her own track record eventually abandon. This will harm her children and the children of those that are drawn to her saintly guile.

She cannot be argued with; she will simply ignore or twist what does not serve her. By giving her any attention at all we are drawn into her scheme. Every single one of us to have taken her on has been duped. We have served the thing which we try to fight. This is because we aren't fighting a true thing. She no more really believes what she spews than she believed in her dunk in the Baptist pond. Truth can slay lies, but truth cannot slay the pretender.

Heidi is a pretender. She is a vampire of the truth. Facts or feelings cannot hurt her because that isn't what we are really fighting. Almost every religious tradition, most Pagan traditions, and myth of all kinds put great importance on the true name of a thing. Knowing that name, and thus what they really are, holds great power. God’s names are not to be spoken, or even written, in many religions. Calling someone by their real name will instantly defeat an opponent in myth. Maybe we should call Heidi Saxton by her true name.

Adoptees will recognize the power of this without explanation. Knowing a name is a glimpse into truth. We recognize what we really are when we hear our birth names for the first time. Others will speak of times of self clarity. That moment when you see yourself for what you really are. I'm sure Heidi thinks she has experienced this many times. Those of us who really have know this is a once in a lifetime moment.

She lies to herself, then she lies to us. She twists are words because she does not know what truth is. She exists in a realm of deception.

Heidi Saxton is a liar.

Image Credit: Flickr