Jump to content
GreaseSpot Cafe

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/08/2017 in all areas

  1. R n R...Ream' em 'n Rape' em? I mean, come on...the people on that list are suddenly awakened to all the evil of the past 40+ years? Give me a break. Try Repent 'n Restitution, for starters, sweet cheeks.
    3 points
  2. Like I said on the other thread that referred to this letter, the delusion continues. For one thing, the "accuracy of The Word," is a mirage. If you don't believe that, try looking at any number of different versions of the Bible and see the differences. It's pretty obvious to anyone who reads carefully. To me, this letter is evidence that the signers are so enmeshed in the ideology that VPW dreamed up, I doubt they will ever change. But I am proof people can extricate themselves and really change, so I can't predict what will happen with these folks, despite the decades they've invested. I can tell you that in about 1998 or 1999, I contacted Do+tie Mo*nihan, who was at the time the Limb leader of Florida with her husband, Bob. I had found their phone number in the telephone book (ah the pre-internet days, at least for me). I was divorced, attending college, and working full time. I had been out of TWI for more than 10 years. The reason I called was to ask how her experience in graduate school for mental health counseling had helped her help people in TWI. I was considering going into that field. I also wanted to find out how she could justify continuing with TWI knowing of its extreme problems. At the time LCM was still president. She met with me, but she had asked if she could bring another 3rd Corps grad, a TWI-ordained woman with her, someone I had known over the years, too. Understand, I had not seen either of these women since 1987 at HQ just before I escaped. I said sure, bring her. We met in a café in Winter Park, FL. During a friendly, but surreal conversation, at least for me, I asked Do+tie why she had stayed with TWI. She said she wanted stand with her ordained husband. She also said she was a simple believer. Let the research be done by others, she would believe it,. like Uncle Harry used to say. It was then I told her flat out that TWI had never been a research ministry. I had been on the research team, which she knew because she was at HQ when I resigned from the team. I told her that "The Word" was whatever Wierwille said The Word was. Period. She looked shocked. She turned to her friend and they exchanged a glace I knew too well. I'm sharing this because it is not news to at least one of the signers of this document (Do*tie) that The Word was of Wierwille's making, yet she and the others persist in their delusional beliefs about Wierwille and the Bible. Those two things combine to make a strong tonic. In my view, this letter is proof of mind control if there ever was proof. Any ideology that tells you that your feelings do not matter, only The Word matters (which VP said all the time) is abusive. No one deserves to be abused. No one. People who were abused and continue to rationalize it, continue to name it something else, continue to dismiss it, will only continue to perpetuate it. What I recommend is that we keep sharing our stories here. You'd be surprised who might be reading them. There is another way of life, a better way, than offered by The Way International. We need to share our stories with our children and grandchildren. I can't tell you how many second generation Wayfers (or who they are) have contacted me about my story in Undertow, thanking me for shedding light on TWI, telling me it has helped heal them. If TWI was so great, then why do they need healing? Why do we need healing? Isn't it a pity that it's all come to this? That VPW's legacy is pain, confusion, and destruction? My hope is that the generation my daughter is a part of will someday see these GSC posts and learn from them, look through this window into their parents' pasts and understand the seriousness of mind control and its collateral damage. Sadly, they are a part of it in some form or other, some more than others, but many are still in denial just like their parents. Spread the word about helpful resources. I'm hoping to be part of a healing solution, which I think involves serious education. In my view, one of the best books for understanding all this is Bounded Choice by Janja Lalich. To those interested, you can check out Lalich's book and others at your local public library. In 1987, libraries were the immediate source of my healing. Then came people I could trust who did not have any stake in my life other than to encourage things that served my best interest, not their ego. Cheers, Charlene Lamy (former married name: Bishop) Edge former marked and avoided 2nd Corps Grad
    3 points
  3. Hi. I spelled my profile name incorrectly. I guess I will have to live with that. I was Junior Corps F9. I just want to shed some light on this topic from a Junior Corps perspective. We called it “Score Week.” We were precocious teenagers who were almost always unsupervised. I can tell you that as a parent I never would allow my teens to congregate in what amounted to our won private neighborhood in tent city. We would set up our tents in the same area every year and have two weeks of unsupervised sex, booze and rock and roll. We were lucky to mostly not be on any drugs outside of the booze. Score Week and The Rock was not about God or The Bible for us. It was a two week long party. When I look back at it I find it unbelievable that this was allowed to happen, let alone at a Christian event. I never saw any gay sex but I will say that this all started in the early 80’s. by the time LCM figured it out or addressed it, it had been going on for well over a decade. Of course I can now see that it was probably an excuse to cover for the real reason: Shrinking membership and shrinking revenue. A few last thoughts. 1. Corps Week often ended with a pizza and beer party. We Junior corps had no problem getting served from adult “bar tenders” aka The Way Corps. We also had access to wine and liquor at HQ. Adults got us drunk. That’s the truth. 2. My self and other Junior Corps had sexual relationships with Way Corps Adults. Usually adults on the younger side but not always. This extended all the way up to the board of trustees. A female friend of mine was sleeping with one of them and it wasn’t LCM. I had several encounters with a 20 year old Way Corps member when I was 14. 3. Adults were having the same party that we were. I remember walking into my mother’s RV and smelling marijuana and seeing several Way Corps adults, nude and sitting with people who were not their spouses. Looked like a wife swap to me. That behavior is fine with me, consenting adults and all. But a tad hypocritical for a “church”. To say that this became a problem in the mid 90’s is laughable.
    3 points
  4. Well.......for what its worth, here is how it comes across to me: Many of these folks are near retirement or retired......and it galls them to "jump thru the hoops any longer." To them, wierwille was "the man of God" and their father in The Word.......they are still deceived. They seek their spirituality thru the prism of wierwille's pfal. This group of individuals had finally drawn a line in the sand.......and wanted the BOD to answer their questions. Not just Rosalie, but Jean-Yves being assigned as newly president seemed to irk them. Besides........who wants to witness, undershepherd, go to classes/fellowships to stand approved by a dead organization? Yet......they STILL are indoctrinated into wayspeak and waydoctrine having lived 3-4 decades in a cult. Some will probably go to their graves, like John Lynn........hoping that wierwille would be proud of their "stand." Pathetically sad.........to see the destructive nature of cults.
    3 points
  5. Two things...I google mapped the community congregational church where the commencement ceremony was held, and lo and behold...it was a couple of doors down from where I lived in Manitou in my early, carefree way daze. Not of importance in the whole scheme of things, but a bit strange to me. I also googled pikes peak seminary and found the name of another graduate...Billy James Hargis. Wikipedia's info on him is another wacko radio preacher from the 50's and 60's, whose underling was none other than David Noebel, the nut-job Wierwille brought in to teach at our advanced class back in the 70's. Messed-up wacked-out all the way around...
    2 points
  6. Hot d@mn. Seems to be the cycle of human stupidity coming back around for another pass. What have we got here? The "Unpassing of the Matriarch" ??? Sounds like a flow problem. You know, kind of like the Dead Sea?
    2 points
  7. Room for another splinter group? Of course there is. This is a big country! I hear there's a small group gathering hoping to establish the good old Way days on another farm in Ohio run by R. Zel*v. But it sounds like peanuts compared with this outfit. Or maybe they'll join together. TWI mind control, in my opinion, runs deep amongst them all ... I knew many of them back in the day.
    2 points
  8. Leaves a lot more money for the Rosie Donna gang to split when they close the place down and retire!
    2 points
  9. Too much money and power is at stake for the trustees/directors to step down. Actually, for the Way, the fewer followers there are, the more money can be spent by the Directors ... in a 501(c)3 corporation, as long as there is ANY provable effort that they are following through with their mission (not necessarily large numbers), the Directors will have access to that $58 million plus that was amassed by good-hearted believers giving during the heyday of the Way. I have read all those letters, but there is no way that, short of divine intervention (not likely), that they will be successful. Many of those folks now have alternate sources of income, so they can afford to speak up now. Lots of dirty hands on that list of signers of the letters...people that were involved in tossing out others who spoke up against those very things years ago. TWI can be compared to North Korea in that it is a very closed society. For the USA to ever get rid of Kim Jong Un will require his death, his assassination, or some wild bombing. I am assuming that this group would not resort to the last two to get rid of Rosalie, but I am willing to bet that the only way she will take her hand off the helm of control is at the time of her death. Even then, she has put a "yes ma'am" man into the presidency. Their efforts are indeed like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
    2 points
  10. So........if Randy Ginn/ region guy says "this group has nothing to do with The Way International"........does that mean: Everyone in "that group" is mark/avoid? Twi has circled the wagons and will NOT address any of their concerns? Unless they grovel......none of them are welcome at The Way? That's the blunt nature of being associated with a cult? Other? ~~~~~~~~~~ This group has nothing to do with twi............Slapped down by the cult?
    2 points
  11. Thanks for posting this, Rocky. It made me laugh in amazement ... then sigh with disbelief ... the delusions continue ... really, the delusions began with VPW.
    2 points
  12. It may be a bit longer than what some people care to read. I'll hit the high points. "Dr. said." something, something, something. "Snow on the gas pumps" something, something, something. "Dr. also said." something, something, something. God Bless
    2 points
  13. Correction: Rosalie was 76 as of that letter being written in August. Now, she's 77. Well, Jesus was a carpenter too.
    1 point
  14. Phenomenally normal. The only thing missing is listening to some good country music. But everything in moderation, you know, because if you listen to way too much country music then eventually you will have to listen to it backwards so that you can get your car back, your house back, your girl back, and your job back.
    1 point
  15. Oh, yes. I mean there's no telling what spiritual enlightenment I might have experienced on that Q & A session. I mean, look, it's inspiring Rocky to come up with ancient Greek fable paradigms and all.
    1 point
  16. From seven page doc -- "Understand also, that we are not going away. This is our ministry at stake and we will not go quietly into the night. Efforts to “drop from The Way Corps” those who are confronting this leadership dilemma will no longer be acknowledged." They intend to splinter. Like, in your thumb. Where it keep breaking apart under the skin.
    1 point
  17. "We as fellow Way Corps ministers" - not for long.
    1 point
  18. I read some of it, was more interested in who signed it, my goodness some heavy hitters in there, don't know all of them. Here's something funny: It's obvious RFR knew about LCM's activities, her confrontation was a smoke screen to cover her posterior. It's too painful to read the rest, I skimmed and didn't see the value in picking it apart. Many folks here know my position, I have done my comparative religion research and found that what people call the KJV of the bible is like all the other versions rehashed Egyptian mythology. Argue with me all you want I don't care, you can't prove the truthfulness of a textbook by what the book says about itself, you must have outside sources and there are none. There is damning evidence within the KJV text that prove it was a fabrication of the Roman aristocracy. Anyway Same old TWI if RFR was VPW they'd all still be kissing her foot, and no 7-page letter would have been written. Seth
    1 point
  19. It also occurs to me that the quaintness and apparent deficiencies in understanding the dilemmas they (the panelists in the video and perhaps also the rest of the signers of the documents sent to the BOD) face is a very sad manifestation of stifling the inquisitiveness of sixty-somethings for more than three decades. The only thing these people seem to know, and the only language they use, is right out of PFLAP and Wierwille's teachings of the Bible. The best thing that could happen to/for any of them is to come to the realization that humanity/society left them behind. I learned long ago (but still, AFTER I left TWI) that I don't know nearly as much as I need to know. Fast forward to recognition that knowledge among humans is growing at an amazing rate (geometric, perhaps) and that I needed to adopt a lifelong learning mindset. That's why I read. But if all one reads is TWI drivel, how can they expect different results? That's not to say I'm better than them... they're still breathing, so they can decide to break out of the box of their mental and emotional prisons and start learning what else there is to learn. So, for The Way Cult, damage control means to cut the R&R leaders off. But for the R&R leaders, damage control may mean they need to break out of those mental/emotional/social prisons. The fact that they have grown dissatisfied with The Way Cult is a good first step.
    1 point
  20. It's on FB in a closed group event page. I don't know how to share it if it's available at all to do so. If it was on YouTube, I'd share it. Overall, having endured the entire 59 minutes, I'd say the panel is puffed up about their own importance, naive about whether they could make a positive impact on TWI and/or in denial about what seems like the natural result being to start another splinter group. For me, having been out of the cult for 30 years, it all seemed quaint. Nothing in the video changed my view that their endeavor is Sisyphean. The saddest thing about the entire affair is that there may be a thousand or more people cluelessly hoping that this group may actually bring about restoration and revival of TWI. If there is to be a revival of any kind, wouldn't it be God's prerogative rather than that of a bunch of people who committed their adult lives in service to the narcissistic subculture started by a minor megalomaniac? In FB threads on the event page (where the video rests), people are longingly asking for disclosure of the the documents sent to the (as one GSCer said last night) Board of Dummies. Yet, those documents have already been posted here. Now, if I were to respond to those FB threads with that insight, I'd probably be banned from that event group.
    1 point
  21. I can't attest to the group's motivation, but the likely outcome will probably be just that.
    1 point
  22. On the subject of researching to get to the original's as written by the writers of the books of the bible, the panel sincerely indicated that ongoing research is warranted that might challenge "core teachings" of TWI... but they still are quite naive on this issue. One panelist cited Wierwille on JCING as the standard for changing their minds when necessary. But they have no idea, 30+ years out from Penworks' experience, that Wierwille wasn't consistently sincere in that attitude.
    1 point
  23. Anyone here catch the R'n'R FB dog and pony show this morning? I could not find it!
    1 point
  24. They should all stay where they are. Keep out of the way of normal people! I know! Let's capture them all and build a wall, a great wall, all round the NK property!
    1 point
  25. This letter from "Way Corps ministers" is so lame that it borders on pathetic. "The future of our ministry is in peril." ...................really? just now you guys figured this out? "Way Corps ministers" that have been indoctrinated for 40 years have little chance of "revival and restoration"........unless outside sources point the way out of the woods. This whole letter is generic mumbo-jumbo........like a Geer-redux (1986). Numbers and symptoms are pointed out, but the root of these problems escape them. Why are corps dropping away? Why are class numbers so anemic? Why is the whole thing so dead? Greasespot Café has been addressing these issues for 17 years........deception, intimidation, indoctrination, exploitation, pharisaic-rule, no accountability, cult behavior, double-standards, arrogant hypocrisy at top levels, liars, abusers, enablers, etc. And, we didn't just spotlight rivenbark's leadership and micromanagement.......here at GSC, we pulled back the curtains to expose wierwille and his pyramid-scheme, in all its treachery. The systematizing of error has taken root for decades. To simply confront rivenbark's tenure, character, and age is abysmal in its approach. Yeah......unless Bob Moynihan, Gary Frederick, Michael Fort, Paul Brooks and others just want to "move the deck chairs around on the titanic"......they need to get serious and roll up their sleeves. The place is a MESS. They need OUTSIDE CONSULTATION AND SUPPORT to even begin the process. NONE of them, it appears, have the wherewithal to break the institutionalization of twi's cult and get back to solid ground of Christian living and revival. Unless their little Q&A accommodates input from GSC-posters, the blind will continue to fall in the ditch.
    1 point
  26. Too little too late imo! I am supposed to believe that these asswipe third rate Corpse grads, most of whose names I still know, along with a lot of the lies, misdeeds, and actual "working of evil" their resumes contain, have been INNOCENTLY STUCK ON STUPID FOR 40 FREAKING YEARS??? C'mon man! That's simply the same old sob stories and failed excuses they've been living in and with for 3 decades. That does not speak to anything close to being "Way Corpse ministers". Rather it reveals the insanity of their beliefs and "thinking", in that they have repeatedly tried the same bullshit over and over again for 30 years, and expecting different results. Lying, adultery, deceit, serial sexual abuse and "indiscretions", corrupt, self-serving "counseling", stealing, misuse, and non-disclosure of TWIt finances, spurious, false, and anti(against)-Christ doctrine, practice, and thinking, the spiritual abuse of innocent Christians, the covering up of numerous suicides, mental breakdowns and severe mental illnesses left untreated and then given the "devil spirit possession" label, which led to the cruel, heartless, and UN-Christ-like expulsion from the "household of believers", libel, slander, and falsehoods spread viciously through the spitting, vengeful, lying lips of "top leadership" from coast to coast and around the world. Rejoicing in iniquity and the destruction of others just for spite became the "leadership" norm for 30 years. Now, you who committed the same crimes and abuses against Jesus Christ's Church, and carried out and executed evil unbiblical acts and behavior, expect to be followed because you're gonna do it right this time?? I THINK NOT! YOU ALL MUST FIRST REPENT BEFORE JESUS CHRIST, and then seek forgiveness from those you have injured and abused. READ AND CARRY OUT MATTHEW chapter 8! Then I'll think about wasting my precious time once more on your man-made religious bigotry and hatred. WE KNOW YOU BY YOUR FRUIT! It has been grossly rotten for over 40 years now. Guess that old tree must be rotten to its roots, along with those who supposedly "plant and water". The mental terrorism you perpetrated against those who honestly gave everything they had only to be dropped like a bag of dirt at the whims and fancies of corrupt, pathological, tyrants, who enjoyed ruling with fascist fists of iron rather than velvet gloves of Christian love, is not taken lightly by Jesus Christ. The rampant sexual promiscuity and serial adultery and physical abuse also destroyed or humiliated hundreds of young women. The misogyny, racism, Naziism, Aryanism, fascism, emotional and psychological terrorism only worsened during the last 30 years you morons have presumed to be in charge. You have raped and plundered God's most precious "property".....His children. Your time at your delusional "bema" will be short! Rewards? LOL! I think it will be more like, "I never knew you!" So.......repent first, then, come clean with the true facts and misdeeds you have committed against the Church BEFORE THE CHURCH, then apologize, and ask for forgiveness from those you directly and personally injured, and then ask for forgiveness from the Church. THEN AND ONLY THEN will I consider listening to anything you have to say. HYPOCRITES AND WHITED SEPULCHERS. PHARISEES AND SCRIBES. LIARS AND THIEVES. Let's see if once in these last 40 years you can DO the right thing! We'll see!
    1 point
  27. Boob and Doodie Moneyhands got kicked out??? Bwaaaaahahahaha! Couldn't happen to two nicer serial adulterers, pathological sociopathic liars, and manipulative "Counsellors"! Q&A?? Here's some "A": "unbiblical behavior"?.....you mean like covering up suicides of wierwille concubines? "Counseling" scores of rape and sexual abuse victims on the "biblical accuracy" of the "Lockbox" to cover up for dictor paul, themselves, and every other lowlife Aryan lecher that needed "a favor" from the Nazi hierarchy. Their own serial adultery? Their own financial stream to keep them aloof and "powerful"? They need to simply STFU and buy some funeral plots for themselves and baby Brian, wannabe TWIt prez. Tell em that I'll be happy to answer any and all questions with THE REAL FACTS, at their Q&A, going all the way back to 1972, about these two whited sepulchers. They NEVER will! I know the FACTS about the horny Horneys too, and the lying Magnellis. And I'm only one person who KNOWS the FACTS. Skyrider, Waysuder, Oldskool and many others know plenty too and WE ALL have the documentation to prove it! "Reforming" TWIt is an oxymoron. It needs to be razed and buried in NK, and Gunnison belongs to us! I say fuck em all! Lying, thieving, Nazi impostors and Aryan Theology sycophants. The Lord will say to them, "I never knew you!". That's the "Bema" they're headed for! Rewards??? LMAO!
    1 point
  28. "First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me." ~Pastor Martin Niemöller So, yes, every decade, twi has had the pattern repeat. Some people inside point out some things that are wrong. The response of the establishment in twi is to suppress discussion, kick them out-including leaders- and forbid anyone to discuss it or even THINK about it. It happened in the 1980s, and 4/5 the group left as leaders were kicked out for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance PERSONALLY to lcm in response to rape victims coming forward and rather vague things being discussed. It happened in the 1990s when lcm was making stupid decisions that kept getting reversed and upending the lives of leadership (now you're salaried, now you can't accept a gift of an apple but I can still accept the gift of a new car if I want to, now you're required to return to secular employment...) It happened in the 2000s when people wanted to know why the top leader (lcm) was in court, defending against charges of rape and other felonies, And here it comes again now. Every single time, there have been people who said "We can change twi, we can FIX twi, when WE act we will succeed where all the others have failed..." and were kicked out soon afterwards. "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”- Edmund Burke. "The lessons repeat until they are learned." -variously attributed
    1 point
  29. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to report that I'm still alive and well . . . even after leaving TWI. It's been a while, but I went and got myself into debt (a mortgage) and I've started going to college. To top it all off, I sporadically attend various churches in search of a church home, BUT (this is gonna freak everyone out for sure) I don't tithe. And, you know what? Once I got over the whole idea that I was "no longer under the protection of the household" I've been able to live my life and realize that it's infinitely better without TWI. In fact, as I write this, I know for certain that I've had more than "2 drinks".
    1 point
  30. There's a group of Way Corps trying to actively reform TWI. They've engaged in some unfruitful letter writing campaigns with the BOD, and have a non-trivial number (by current numbers at least) of likeminded folks gathered. They seem to sincerely want to reform the way, most of them have been around way too long not to understand the futility of this. But we all need to walk our own path. They have been seeking an audience with the leadership to address grievances and in response they are being shunned. Magn3llis, M0ynihans, suspect Horn3ys will be next and anyone else who doesn't fall in. It is a familiar story. They are not going to change. The sooner people recognize that the sooner they can move forward in life. It's hard. I wish them well.
    1 point
  31. On page 67 of Mrs. Wierwille's book: "On July 5, 1948, our family of five began a trip in our new 1948 Chevrolet, given to us by the Wierwille family, to Manitou Springs, Colorado. Rev. Wierwille had been taking correspondence work with Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College and writing his doctoral dissertation on "Peter the Preacher." By being in attendance at the seminary in Colorado, he was completing his requirements for a Doctor of Theology degree. Students there came from India and China as well as various parts of the United States. Along with taking course work, Rev. Wierwille also taught two classes: 'Radio Preaching Techniques' and 'Peter the Preacher.' On Wednesday, July 28, 1948, he was awarded the Doctor of Theology degree by Pikes Peak Seminary in a ceremony at the Community Congregational Church in Manitou Springs. Immediately after his graduation, the five of us left for Minnesota for the Camp Farthest Out at Lake Koronis. It was a tremendous and exceptional summer to have our young family experience both occasions." Insert picture: Dr. Wierwille on the right at Pikes Peak Seminary. Dr. Stuart Hydanus, who later taught at one of our camps, is on the left. And Dr. Ellis Lininger, the president of the seminary and an educator whom Dr. Wierwille highly revered, is second from the left. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1948 Commencement Brochure: Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College SUMMER SESSION JULY, 1948 COMMENCEMENT WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1948 Community Congregational Church Manitou Springs, Colorado The Rev. H. Ellis Lininger, E.D., LL. D. President The Rev. Lewis C. Miller, Ps,D., S.T.D. Dean ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Note: In 1948, Pikes Peak Seminary and Burton College utilized the nearby Community Congregational Church for graduation ceremony........whereas, by 1963, the graduation ceremonies was held at the First Southern Baptist Church auditorium. Further Noted: After wierwille got his "doctorate degree" in 1948, the wierwille family THEN headed off to take part in Camps Farthest Out in Minnesota.....[wierwille had attended this camp by Glenn Clark in the summer of 1945, also].....which led to wierwille's version TFI, "Total Fitness Institute" in California with John Summerv!lle and later, L.E.A.D. --- Leadership Education Adventure Direction.
    1 point
  32. Thanks Rocky......lots of good points. Everything wierwille did, he copied from someone else........radio broadcast, church advertisements, weekend seminars, class-based themes, camps farthest out, summer camp, multi-level pyramid structure, plagiarized material.....ALL OF IT. Even mrs. wierwille's book pulls back the curtain to show the source of wierwille's steppingstones. Wierwille copied Fuller's weekly radio broadcast, even. Nothing original, nothing groundbreaking. And now..........their "research department" is nonexistent. Now that the machinery of the cult-mystique is in place....."research" is no longer needed. In fact, it only becomes a hindrance in that it opens doors to questions. Twi has always operated behind closed-doors. The "social structure" in twi is NOTHING but a cult version of a pecking order. The social aspect subsides within the "command and control" atmosphere of twit-cultdom...... otherwise, there is no reason for the "social." It only exists to pay homage to the cult.
    1 point
  33. We are the sum and substance of our experience, eh? This might seem like something of a tangent on the subject of this thread, but I think it goes directly to the heart of it. Last night I finished reading (first time through anyway) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. The book is... well, amazing. (this video is less than four minutes) But what I found particularly salient in the book, from the standpoint of our common cult history, is a section (pg 250 in the hardback edition) called Ignoramus. "Humans have sought to understand the universe at least since the Cognitive Revolution. Our ancestors put a great deal of time and effort into trying to discover the rules that govern the natural world. But modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways: a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus -- 'we do not know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge... The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance." To me, the significance of that concept cannot be overstated. What was the critical essence of The Way International, Victor Paul Wierwille and Loy Craig Martindale? Well, beside the fact that the expression "The Way" was ostensibly invoked in the name of the cult because Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life, Jesus wasn't the focal point of the cult, nor was Jesus' Father. The focal point and the fulcrum on which the entire "movement" turned was Wierwille's (outrageous and fictional) claim that God made Wierwille the keeper of God's truth (i.e. the snowstorm claim). We (those of us who were around when Wierwille and Martindale were in power, at least) also know that there was no humility in veepee's claim to be the (to borrow a phrase from HULU's series "The Path") keeper of the light. Those who fell into TWI subsequent to Wierwille/Martindale have the tremendous resource of Charlene's memoir, Undertow. Charlene eloquently exposed Wierwille's hubris and how it played out in his "research department." The Way International is the anti-thesis of how to actually discover truth. And the social structure Wierwille established to glorify himself demonstrates the dysfunction of that hubris. And Skyrider, I concur emphatically with you regarding those who have set up copycat ministries.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...