Leaderboard

Jean-Yves DeLisle..........This is my second and final open letter to you. Having known you since those days in Quebec City in 1984 and performed your and Michele's wedding in Toronto in 1988, I take an obligatory responsibility to warn you of your treachery and path of destruction. The Lord has showered you with His mercy; and yet, do you reciprocate this mercy and loving kindness to others? The Lord has taken your burdens of sin and guilt and washed them away by the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ......and yet, do you help others to undo the heavy, sin-laden burdens that they themselves carry month after month, year after year? Are you unaware that to whom much is GIVEN, much is REQUIRED? The Way International has become a conduit and harlot; defiled by her licentious ways of whoredom. One president after another, each has multiplied these transgressions by forsaking the Lord and polluting the land with sanctimonious abominations that serve allegiance to man. The systematizing of error has been decades in the making.....of which, you Jean-Yves sat at headquarters for 28 years mentored by false teachers. Woe unto those of you who administer evil.....deceived and deceiving others. From what I heard and understood, the Revival and Restoration Q&A meeting last month by dozens of corps leadership was snuffed out. Even though they'd sent a private correspondence letter to the Board of Directors in August 2016 requesting that their grievances be heard [Acts 15]......it was NOT allowed. The Directors heavy-handedly slapped them down to "put them in their place" and marshalled a m/a campaign to destroy their efforts and reputations. This "mark/avoid" policy that twi utilizes is a skewing of the scriptures. Jean-Yves, that is evil.....and you should know that. It is darkness and domination over others. It runs at cross-purposes with everything that is upright and godly. Clearly, The Way International is a cult that serves man's allegiance. And, for those who sincerely believe that this organization is the Lord's remnant, then how great will be their fall when the truth dawns on them. Woe to those "pastors" who scatter the sheep of the Lord's pasture. The day is coming when the lord Jesus will say, "I never knew you." Now is the time to repent.....REPENT and turn from your evil ways. Break the teeth of the wierwille-allegiance.....and turn to the Lord and His righteousness. Do not follow one more step on this path that Rosalie Fox Rivenbark Shumate walked for 16 years of her presidency-tenure.....of which, were 16 years in vain. False prophets and teachers have ravaged the flock of God thru the years. The corps indoctrination program built and established limbs of adulterers. Wierwille, in his sin and drunkenness, failed to clean house.....for indeed, he himself was not clean. This wickedness and uncleanness has vexed The Way International for decades. Those who were clean and undefiled exited long ago. Therefore, Jean-Yves.........the task before you is a great undertaking. You cannot do it without the Lord. And, you cannot begin to do it.......until YOU humble yourself before the Lord and pray for His merciful hand to help and sustain you. Otherwise, you too will find all your work is in vain. The $68 MILLION is vanity of vanities.......as these assets/investment accrue without ministering to those in need. Have not you read about gathering into barns and yet, NOT taking care of the needs at hand? For a supposedly "non-profit ministry" this is an evil vanity and a distrust of that the Lord will meet your need. How long will you tarry into the wilderness of a conceited soul? You pride yourselves with this accumulation, yet pat yourselves on the back for being "spiritual?" That is cognitive dissonance staring back at you. So, Jean-Yves........which path will you choose? Forget about the numbers, sign-ups and programs for a second.......will you serve the Lord or man? And again, I leave you with the same verse as in my first open letter to you..........Open Letter to Jean-Yves DeLisle Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, .

Great thread and great posts by all ! I wanted to respond to some things at the beginning of this thread. After looking up the definition on self-identity (see my links below) I think wierwille’s homogenization machine of indoctrination (classes, programs, teachings, events, etc.) was the business end of the identity-altering process. Like a drunken wannabe artist, wierweille’s technique was to slop googobs of drab colors over a unique and original work of art (each person)…I bet he was so proud of what he “made” out of those who followed him….”our father in the word” yeeeecchh !....in the art world I think that would be called vandalism. The posts I’ve quoted resonated with me because I was young and impressionable when I got into the way international; and like many young folks I wanted to fit in. It didn’t really matter what unique qualities or potential you may have had – as far as TWI was concerned it’s all malleable and all gets slammed around anyway…put through the wringer… so the remix is something more suitable…or rather useful to a new social context – life in a cult. I have always been an inquisitive and creative person…for this thread - to sum up what 12 years of involvement with the way international did - it was to help me slip into “something” more restraining – like maybe a mental/emotional straightjacket. I’ll keep it brief here – but I’ve mentioned on other threads how within the first year of my involvement local leadership put the kibosh on my almost incessant reading and asking questions of stuff in the Old Testament and the Gospels – instead I was encouraged to keep reviewing PFAL stuff. And as far as any creative outlets I had (drawing, painting, writing poetry and songs) that also suffered a slow and boring death by the stifling “ambiance” of way-culture. By the time I made it into the corps I gave up on trying to do anything creative and resigned myself to becoming a good salesman and marketing manager for whatever the way international had to offer. but I think the human spirit is resilient – and once freed from a cult’s control – we can bounce back…and I’m not saying we revert back to what we were before we got involved with a cult. Life and growth doesn’t work that way. Hopefully we’re wiser and the injuries are slowly healing and the scar tissue makes us a little tougher too. == == == == Definition of Self-identity : the quality that makes a person or thing different from others webster on self identity == == == the recognition of one's potential and qualities as an individual, especially in relation to social context. oxford on self identity

Chock, honey you are so right; TWI did prey on young people who lacked critical thinking skills. My thinking skills, and my lack of self-esteem, made me an easy mark for VPW, and company. In college, I started to develop my critical thinking-skills, and realised a lot of what TWI taught was garbage, and started to live my life for myself; that did not go over well with the local leadership. Now I understand why TWI didn't want people to go on for higher education; they wanted people to think in terms of what was best for The Ministry, not was best for the individual.

Reflecting back myself, I find that many like myself got involved in the Way when we were either teenagers or no older than say 23 years old. How many teenagers in this day and time, or young adults to the age of 23 do you know that have what you would describe as well-developed critical thinking skills? I know I certainly would not describe myself that way looking back at that time. Maybe Jesus did, but i'm not like him in so many ways. This is not even talking about those indoctrinated second gen Way people who went to childrens fellowship. They all probably had to unlearn some thinking skills first before delving into developing critical thinking after leaving or more likely they just finally realized your average person in the world is going to treat you better than your average interaction with a Way "believer". Then the Way teaching pattern started out on the small stuff - 4 Crucified, how many died with Jesus / angels can dance on the head of a pin, etc. etc. then from there VP's homiletics led to how can you trust them on the eternal life stuff? Very slick. In this I see the basis for the small-step compromises I accepted over years. I would actually say that the Way preys on the lack of well-developed critical thinking skills.

And,.........some "inadvertent cooperation" from his entourage......i.e. enablers. Bodyguards, valets, yes-men, swooning fawning admirers.........adding to the top marquee in town. Everyone, one and all.....come early, get your front row seats and expect to be excited......"Gawd's word is going to be delivered on a silver platter." This is the spiritual epicenter and no one gets missed. The hype and hoopla was at every class, every event. Promotion, promotion, promotion.........everyone was selling the soap. ALL of wierwille's long-standing enablers had their fiefdoms.......Harry was the successful business icon, Ermal was the quiet construction manager who listened to "pappy," George jess was the tree planter and sower of the seed, Howard was the "greatest layman in the church," Don was the educator, Emogene had her fiefdom in The Way's Bookstore, Wanda helped Mrs. W. with Guest Housing and Interior Decorating......and Mrs. W. was the epitome of "The Way's virtuous woman." Add the bus drivers/valets, security team personnel, corps coordinators, research team, roa administrators, musicians, architects, etc.......and The Entourage was a captivating package !! YET...........in all my years, I never saw any of the top-tier enablers step out and do any of the "Big Six" manifestations. Not one.

Many thanks for taking the time to respond like this and include the valuable info on developmental stages. Bingo. That tender age window is what made many of us so vulnerable to VPW and his indoctrination. I think those of us in The Corps were probably changed more and in worse ways than anyone associated with TWI. Ever. Last thought for now: I have heard that counselors these days evidently shy away from using the term "arrested development" to describe what you described above so well, but I think that term is very useful. Grow up and think for yourself, was my mantra after leaving TWI. It pushed me to examine, think, and think about what I was thinking. That's one reason I like it here. People try to think about what they are thinking and decide whether it's good or not, bigoted or not, loving or not, true or not. Cheers and thanks for all the insights. You guys are wonderful, Penworks

DWBH......yeah, disentangling oneself from a cult is very difficult, indeed! Here at The Café....we've been endeavoring to disentangle ourselves, thread after thread. Just a sampling of threads [below] capsulate how vpw/twi fostered aspects of this emerging identity crisis. Dependency: Twi's Sinister Plan Manipulation of One's Consent An Illusion of Leadership Hold the Microphone....Hold the Power Re-Education Camp at HQ

Charlene..... Wonderful piece, as usual, from your blog. In response to your invitation for input, I submit the following for your consideration along with that of The Greasespot community. As you, I too am interested in opinions, comments, snide remarks about what I post. Thank you all for the same. Identity theft in terms of "how did vic affect my identity formation"? Very interesting question. It requires intense self-reflection and introspection, neither highly objective when dealing with such fundamentally crucial issues of being human. The process of identity formation is a lifelong process. It has been studied, analyzed, digitalized, and described often, by various scientific, sociologic, and psychiatric disciplines. One well-known Behavioral Psycholgist has described a lifelong process of Human Developmental Stages by identifying 8 different stages spanning a typical human lifespan of 76-80 years in the populations of "developed" nations. The critical stage we're specifically addressing here is called "Identity Formation", and the thesis identifies the typical age range or time period of this stage as taking place during the ages of 20-32. If one looks back at the common experience many of those of us involved deeply with vic's way, it is not surprising that many of us devoted those years of critical identity formation to activities like fellowship, WOW, and most deadly, the way corpse "training". Here in the Uniied States, the average person between the ages of 20-32 is doing what? Attending and graduating from college or trade school, leaving home and striking out on their own, developing a sexual , social, and intellectual identity, experience profound relationships with males and females inside and outside the nuclear family. Decisions like career/profession, marriage or not, children or not, more education or different education or not, travel.......all those things, kind of bubble, bubble, toil and trouble around for 10-12 years and badda-bing, there we are approaching middle age before we even know it.......LOL! Now, throw all that onto the "WOW field" or into "The Way Corps", under the totaltalitarian control of a paranoid narcissistic sociopath, serial sexual abuser and rapist, alcoholic Nazi, and ask yourself, "might that have had any influence on any of those identity formation activities and choices we made during that critical stage of human development? What was the answer? Obvious I suppose. It was for me. That is why the process of actually disentangling oneself from a cult, (talk about quantum entanglement!), can be very difficult, because it is an identity crisis. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I "supposed" to DO? The cult and it's totalitarian leader answered every one of those questions over and over and over again for us. Vic reproduced his perverted, pathological brand of christianity in as many as he could hoodwink and manipulate it into. He was skilled at selecting the hundreds of victims of his serial rapist lifestyle. His "teachings" were all designed to reproduce the pathological Aryan behavior and thinking that governed vic and therefore governed the way. That is what governed the indoctrination and success of the "training". It is also what governed and influenced the "volunteers" and the life-choices they made during that stage of identity formation. The developmental stage immediately prior to identity formation is Adolescence. Age ranged described as typically age 12-20. The "art" of vic's sociopathic skills, and really those of all totalist systems, is to maintain the follower in the psychoemotional stage of adolescence in order to gain complete control over the entire stage of identity formation. A kind if "forced" or "imposed" adolescence so to speak. Look at the amount of influence such totalist control can bring to bear upon a human being stuck in adolescence for 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years?!! One soon discovers that one's entire identity has been formed by group think and acceptance of the perverted, pathological lifestyle of a drunken Nazi. Now THAT can be disturbing! But, more disturbing is the difficulty many cult refugees face in summoning up the personal and/moral courage required for identity re-formation. It can be a daunting task, and many often find themselves unable to honestly deal with it. It can and often does become dysfunctional. So, that's my input Charlene and fellow Greasespotters. Whaddya think?