Leaderboard

Time to reap what he sowed. Prayers / thoughts / good wishes (depending on your PoV) to his victims (all of them) - it may be a very difficult time for them over the next few months while the trial is being arranged.

Wise choice imo BlueCord. Reached with good communication with the most important person in your life, your wife. Honest, mutual respect with the trust only live can bring, you two can't go wrong. Keep on ROCKIN' in the free world!

That's tremendous. Thanks. For years I dreamed of going to law school... got as far as registering for the LSAT in 2013/2014 with a view to starting in fall 2014. Then I realized I don't need the stress of paying for student loans in my sixties. Perhaps that title was given to you BECAUSE of your legal background. Glad you had the integrity to give it to them straight. :)

Hi BlueCord, I'm just chiming in to welcome you to this most rambunctious- in- the- best- way group of people around. Have no doubt. You are on the right track to disassociate yourself with TWI. Life outside is great, we have civil rights here, we can grow and follow our hearts. You can too. I trust you and your wife can leave without any big uproar. Respect others and they will respect you. That is not to say you agree with them or want to fellowship with them. It means by their behavior you decide it is best for you to go elsewhere. This is all an understatement. What I want to say its, Run, BlueCord, Run! A little about me (some of this may come in handy). I left in 87. It felt like an escape to me because of the terrible paranoia at HQ. I was in the 2nd Corps with LCM, I was married to a clergyman, I was a mother, I had been a researcher on the Aramaic project, and I had been loyal for 17 years. Boom. My personal crisis came while on the research team and then VP died and then Geer swooped in, and then and then and then.... long story short, I lost all but a couple of friends, but the new life I gained was more than worth it. You find that you can not only survive but thrive if you just remember TWI does not define who you are, nor does their propaganda. Cheers to your courage. Thanks for visiting us. I hope you find helpful info and abundant empathy here. Let me know if I can help answer any questions you might have, especially about the research dept. Just curious, do they still have a so-called research department any more? All the best, Charlene Edge

Hi Blue Cord, I've marked in bold red your comments I'd like to say something about: Your wife is right in thinking that way….i think most folks when they first leave TWI are bitter and angry – and usually have more than that going on at the time. I think you'll find many folks at Grease Spot have mellowed out with the passage of time and in working things out – that's some of the mental baggage I talked about in my previous post. Btw – there's nothing wrong with being angry – sometimes it does take a "righteous" anger to spur someone on to speak up and right a wrong (think about Mark 3:5, Jesus' anger over the hardness of hearts and Matthew 21 where Jesus drove out those buying and selling, overturned tables, etc. to cleanse the Temple – I don't think his demeanor was happy and laid back). Anyway – like I said in my other post - open and honest communication between you and your wife is essential; matter of fact, my wife Tonto was into Grease Spot and its other "incarnations" long before I joined – and she got me interested in Grease Spot finally with things she would share because I plum run out of ideas on how to figure out the crazy-town-mess known as TWI....besides…. I think TWI was a man's world in many ways - I think a lot of guys/husbands felt superior to women, would snub them rather than consider their viewpoint on something. So when your wife says something like "be careful. You don't know those people" that's good advice. You "know" us only thru cyberspace. However, i want to offer another bit of advice to run in tandem while you're working things out - modifying what she said and pointing it back at TWI. Be careful – you really don't know the extent of the damage TWI has caused…I don't think anyone ever will.

This is so accurate. I was talking to a guy last night who was dropped from the corp and/or in residence training and I was explaining to him how I'm reading Karl's book. One of the things that I mentioned was that I hadn't even been born by the time VPW died. I didn't get into the Way until a decade after Martindale. So, all I've heard about VPW is what TWI wants you to hear. I start reading Karl's book and the parts about VPW have me absolutely horrified. Then I start thinking kind of like TWI has brainwashed us to think. "I wasn't there. I didn't see it. Maybe it's all made up." But when I was talking to this guy last night he and I came to the same conclusion. "Where there's smoke, there's fire." And there's a whole hell of a lot of smoke if even half of what Karl wrote is true. So, I believe this guy was the scum of the Earth. It's just left me kind of in shock, though. I'm certain I'll fit in just fine. I already like talking with y'all. I like that you already understand the lingo, you've been there, worked through the same stuff I'm working through and you're telling me it's normal. It's like "there's a light at the end of the tunnel" kind of scenario, and it's refreshing.

BlueCord: we all have different journeys. Most people on this board are still Christian or spiritual in one way or another. I myself am not. Nobody is going to brainwash you into anything here because we can't even agree with each other long enough to decide what to brainwash you into. You'd end up being an atheist-trinitarian-fundamentalist-evangelical-wiccan-dispensationalist-covenant-theologian who believes the Bible contains no contradictions or errors except for the errors and contradictions it contains. You may end up thinking Wierwille was anything from the second coming of the apostle Paul to a traveling salesman who always believes in the band, kid. To a rapist. You will be respected, but as you work out to sort truth from error, angry hyperbole from history, reality form/with spirituality, be assured that some of us will agree with you, some will not, and in the end we will always be happy to see you. Even when we're not. Happy posting.

Not speaking for Karl, but being familiar with Karl's decades long career as a journalist, he didn't write anything to hurt anyone. Journalists write to tell the truth. Journalists, and I have a little bit of experience with this (though not nearly as much as Karl), write because they can't NOT write to tell the story of the truth. The characters in the story are characters in a story. They are not targets. The target is the ears and eyes and understanding of the readers. Take care of your relationship with your wife. From what you've shared, she's apparently not as convinced as you are. Changing hearts and minds in a situation like you're in is not easy and takes time, patience and love.