JustThinking

Trefor, "Pay, pray and obey" Did this replace Research, Teaching and Fellowship? ;-) Pay for OUR research, Pray we stop teaching before midnight and Obey what we tell you at fellowship. Ta-da! TWI-5! Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Lightside, My question is the same as yours but for all of the people who were so casually tossed aside. Many were harassed then canned by dictators who are no longer there. Have they gone back and figured out if these people actually did anything wrong? I once asked a senior rev this question. The answer I got was "well, if they were still in a position of leadership then they were working in conjunction with HQ." As if HQ has never been fooled before?! Pretty d**m lazy answer, if you ask me! His view was that if the person were truly innocent then they could have gone to the next level of leadership and all would have been well. Yep, the ole Way Tree never fails. Sigh...can they take responsibility for anything?

Abigail, What else do they have? LCM wrote one book and put together a couple of crappy classes. They can't keep showing it because it's too awkward to have their deposed ex-chieftan being shown all the time. When I finally wised up (little over a year ago), the WAP class was dead. Our state could barely fill one class with seven new students every six months. And most of those were kids of old grads.

Would a pyramid be the best metaphor? ALL power was centered in the BOT. It wasn't top down. It was top reaching directly into every situation. By the time TWI-2 was ending, ALL teaching themes and classes schedules were set by HQ. All Foundational classes, for example, ran concurrently across the US. All themes for every week were set by HQ. Even the regularity and types of activities were done in OH. For example: Meet twice per week TC has to teach so many times per month One outreach event per month run by an AC Grad. Weekly theme from HQ tied to STS tapes Specified times per month that a WayMag article would be "taught" How about a hub and spoke model? All power comes from Rome, oops, New Knoxville. Not poking fun at Roman Catholics. Just that I KNOW that TWI would hate to be compared to them. :-)

Per Wyteduv's request: "Can someone post a thread about what we don't miss? I got more don'ts than do's. lol" TC meetings that last past 9 PM on a school night. TC meetings that accomplished nothing Wow, I could go on for days now that I think about it. I miss so much that has to do with people. I DO NOT miss anything that has to do with the way the place was run. Sunday Night Screaching Tapes from LCM LCM, for that matter. Fake words that make you sound weird to the general population.

House, Is that first-hand knowledge on your part? Just making sure.

Hmm... it's not April 1st... I have to see it to believe it. On the other hand, they don't have anything I would read that I can't buy in a christian bookstore.

Oldies, I took the same approach and did have a few takers. One changed her mind and started coming. The other saw that she was wrong but actually told me she "liked being miserable." (No, really) Another had heard the really crazy stuff like we duck taped you to a chair and kept you there like the deprogrammers. Had some coworkers come, etc. No one came away with a bad impression because I think my first twig was pretty cool. Great folks who genuinely loved each other. For myself, most of the stories I had heard seemed just a little too outrageous to be true. Paramilitary camps, devil worship, etc. Maybe they had us confused with Ozzy Osbourne? :-) As I've said before, we lived pretty far from any corpse or leaders so we probably got spared a lot.

As I derailed it... Does anyone know for sure if Mrs. W knew of her husband's (alleged) exploits? Did she ever comment on the topic of adultery? Note: Please don't roast me on the "alleged" bit. All these threads on lawsuits have me paranoid.

Refiner, This is a cafe. No one lives here but Paw and he owns the place. The rest of us are all visitors. Glad you're here. And, of course, it seems we both very glad that Exie is here. One week I want to flirt with her and the next she's my big sister keeping me out of trouble. Now if I could only get her to balance my (hopeless) checkbook... :-)

Exie, I think you are right. Refiner, It took reading it several times but I got Exie's point. Did you mean the women entering the coach? I took it to mean the posters entering this thread. If was wrong, I apologize. In hindsight, I thought your comments were odd and very out of character. For the LOOOONG time we've known each other. :-) Again, I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. JT

Paraphrased from his version of CF&S: - If your teen wants to do something with his/her friend(s), it should be scheduled a week in advance. (Used his daughter as an example)

If you think a 4 year-old sits quietly for two hours without being terrorized... If you've never seen a miraculous healing but have heard more than 100 teachings on the topic... If you grumble every time you see a nativity set... If you have no friends who disagree with you on any topic of substance... ...you might be in a cult.

Refiner quote: "Hmm. Well there are some interesting posts in this thread. Most noteable is the fact that two women have posted here that VPW put the hard word on them, and when it was apparent they were not interested, another woman entered the coach and gave them an excuse to leave. It makes one think that they entered by prearranged signal" Some people jump to conclusions. Some people take a massive leap with both eyes closed. It does make one think that, you. No one else has voiced that view. Victims of serial predators often have similar stories because they are attacked by the SAME person. And we're talking about the head of a large organization. Is it possible that during the day time at the organizations headquarters, it just might be possible that people would need his attention? Could go a long way to explaining why he might be "surprised" by someone. Odd that, of all things posted in this thread, you find that point most notable.

Raf, You're right but I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.

"The best thing for everyone is for me to step down as President of the Way International." Or something along those lines.

RoR quote: "Why did I stay? Because I thought I was right." Amen. I thought the same way. When I saw more and more things that were wrong, it was tempting to just rationalize: "It was just one person" "That was bad but it's been fixed..." "It's still better that what else is out there" "...but I love so many people here." The last one was hardest. I really did love some of the folks there and still miss them. Kind-hearted men and women that get taken advantage of by TWI. I know they're big boys and girls. No lectures on personal responsibility please.

Lifted Up quote: "First of all, how we got from Patton into this...oh well." LOL! I was thinking the same thing. I started this thread and feel it's actually applicable. To me, it's just another example of one person trying to "command" his troops to follow his thinking. Ok, so maybe it wasn't exactly what I had in mind but... :-)

A la, You know, I wish I was funny enough to make stuff up like that. I'd be a millionaire.

Out There, Like everything in TWI, you might want to read the fine print. What I saw: Many corps dropped for very little reason to keep their numbers down. No pets, cable or anything else deemed "unnecessary." Very minimal allowances for everything including food. I got to see my LC's family eat almost nothing for dinner one night. It was sad. After a year...boom! You're out the door. Go find a job now. Try doing that if you are over 40 with nothing but a bogus diploma.

There was a guy running a twig in a prison back in early 90s in our limb. He got booted though and I think that was the end of it. The state started becoming really small at the end of the 80s so there was no one else left in the area.

meganpenworthy, I think '95 was the last one. CRS (Can't remember s**t) is kicking in though. It was terrible. It was also the end of the WOW program. In fact, it was just creepy. The whole thing was run as a week-long class. Can't remember the topic. Probably something with "prevailing" or "holiness" in it. My most strong memory was sitting behind W***e C***p and seeing his face when LCM cancelled the WOW program. Craiggers said at least 10% of the outgoing WOWs were homos and that the program was "infested." The silence was deafening before the corps brigade next to the stage jumped up in unison to start clapping. Then the audience slowly stood up and joined in. Poor W***e's expression was one of "I guess I have to stand up now." NO enthusiasm at all. I kind of wondered how a bright guy like C***p felt trying to teach a twit like LCM and act as if HE was the genius.

ManOf.. Thank you, thank you, thank you! If I'm laughing this hard than I must have been in a cult! :-) THAT is a true translation according to abusage.

ManOf.. Thank you, thank you, thank you! If I'm laughing this hard than I must have been in a cult! :-) THAT is a true translation according to abusage.

Even in company evaluations, you normally start the review period with goals that can be MEASURED. After the period, you should go over the goals and see if they've been met. Rating the operation of the manifestations?! Great example of people with no education or experience in the real world playing "professional." DM spent how much time working in reality before going in the corpse?