T-Bone

Yeah - I guess that’s the problem with "the shield of believing" – ineffective as protection from the overlords.

These posts got me thinking about how when one joins TWI and sticks around for a while – they adopt a unique filter for how to look at things – whether the past, present or future. Something I remember from Everything You’ve Been Taught Is Wrong: Fact, Fiction and Lies in American History by James Loewen on CD – it goes along the lines of history being a fabrication – something that is man-made. My 2-bit opinion agrees with Loewen…besides knowing that history is a study of the past by folks who may not always get all the facts straight, who may have a bias or two, who may filter out things they deem unimportant, I figure it never hurts to check out history from several different sources – from folks who may have a different take on things. That’s the beauty of Grease Spot Café. Sometimes new folks come here and paint Grease Spotters with broad strokes. But even a cursory reading of About the Way and Doctrinal forums reveal there’s quite a difference of opinion in what’s wrong with TWI – told from the unique perspective of each person’s experiences The “official” history of The Way International – is a fabrication alright! A great tactic to hide all the deceptive, manipulative, exploitive, abusive, destructive things that they have done and will continue to do. The Way International - always the consummate chameleon with a carefully planned strategy that adapts to every situation. It may change its color…its outward appearance…but remember it is still a chameleon.

TLC & mudflaps - great stuff !!! what a bunch - they are as TWI-centric as ever !

yup ! and every prison needs a warden and every cult needs a front man...or front woman.

where the he11 did the word "retemory" come from? I vaguely remember something about it being "to retain in memory" - - which seems redundant and awkward to me - - why not just say "memorize" ? oh yeah - we always need more cowbell - - love it unless TWI is paying students to take the class they're charging way too much

Thanks for the heads-up on TWI’s new DTA class, OldSkool…thought I’d comment on one of the “blessings” listed on their website: "We have learned the objectives, motives, and methods of our personal adversary. We now recognize how he functions in the world and against our lives. We have been given practical keys to keeping our minds sharp and our eyes open in order not to be fooled by his attacks. We can now walk out with an enlightened understanding of what it means to be in the spiritual competition. We have assured confidence that we are fully equipped to win.” There’s just a few issues I have – even with just this one testimony from an excited graduate of Defeating the Adversary. 1. How can these qualities or benefits be verified? 2. From my own experience of involvement for 12 years with The Way International – especially in their way corps leadership training program and knowing of the abject hypocrisy and moral depravity of top leadership - I am extremely doubtful that TWI was ever qualified to teach about the motives and methods of a personal adversary or how to be fully equipped to defeat spiritual foes on the attack…unless we’re talking about TWI’s top leadership as being good examples of how “inner demons” (figuratively speaking of course) will get the best of you if you're not honest and repentant. 3. Thinking about when the passing of a patriarch was read – and many months thereafter of everyone trying to sort through all the blame-shifting and smoke-screen tactics used by the Board of Trustees and Chris G as they supposedly addressed any scandals, division, controversy, and the spiritual status of followers – I tend to think TWI’s followers probably had an understanding that was darkened NOT enlightened as to what was really going on…about anything!

Twinky, this thread is not all about you! It’s about Rocky...I mean, his Steve Martin references...no wait.. .(reviews the minutes of the previous meetings)...uhm I think Kathy started the Steve Martin references.... (scratches head, does several rounds of relaxing breaths) ya know what - - this thread IS about Kathy...sorry about the detour - once again welcome to Grease Spot, Kathy !

Skyrider, I love your comments in red - isn’t it fascinating how all “rogue” diehard way-mindset folks are vying for a piece of the cult-pie...and I wonder what drives it...just thinking out loud here - a desire for doctrinal “purity” ...desire for financial gain...a chance for one’s own ego trip... What would all these offshoots look like on a pie chart? Adapting the image below - other than the variations in color (which could represent particular preferences for certain way-doctrine/practice ) I think the most critical thing is the size of the slice - which translates to more money for the leaders of each particular group...sadly - all the slices are still a part of this one vicious circle of cultdom. And perhaps the only revision I would offer for the image I borrowed below - I would say all the slices are new (offshoots) save for the biggest blue slice - representing The Way International.

Ahem ahem ...(regains composure) Oh really? Well, if you don’t mind - please be honest during the identity verification process: Question #1: Do you think Blues music is depressing? Question #2: Do you prefer a tuna fish sandwich, Twinkies and a Tab for your birthday meal?

Pizza in a Cup !!!!! I also love the carnival scene of him as The Guesser and the way he severely limits the choice of prizes. “The Jerk” is one of my wife and I’s all time favorites...when we were in TWI it was one of our go-to references when we wanted to lighten up a situation....that and Steve’s comedy CDs too.

Sure - look over the desert menu - and the pie and coffee is on me...I’m waiting for Grease Spot to hire a Starbucks barista so I can order a caramel macchiato...who needs pie when you can have it mixed in your coffee - for Grease Spotters on the go.

Welcome to Grease Spot , Kathy ! I enjoyed reading your thread on parallels of wierwille and Hubbard. I watched the “going clear” documentary when it first came out on HBO (I think) and later bought the dvd, the book on which it’s based and then a few other books on Scientology. But I still love to hear other folks’ take on that stuff. “Great” cults do think alike...more like group-think, that is. I appreciate your honesty and how you’ve been developing critical thinking skills - those things resonate with me...since I’ve been coming to Grease Spot I’ve felt that much of my belief system is in a state of flux - yeah in many ways I’d probably qualify as a member of “the Church of I don’t know “ myself...on that note, you might want to check out a thread in doctrinal forum titled “Concerning the Bible” - if you feel so inspired by all means please share something of your journey... I find the things that folks say about their journey away from group-think is inspirational...fascinating...enlightening... Enjoy the coffee and threads Love & peace T-Bone

I think it would be easier to get folks to drink the Kool-Aid if you just called it something else - something that appealed to one’s sense of ownership; something like “Yakult”. It’s the idea that the cult doesn’t own you - you own the cult! Yeah - I want to order one of those at a concession stand and hear the server say “here’s Yakult”. yeah tell me that again “it’s your cult” ...I own it! Woo-hoo!

What is the gestation period for cult offspring?

Thanks to all for your input. I also wanted to add something from the book “Lies We Tell Ourselves: The Psychology of Self-Deception” by Cortney Warren, on page 10 of the Kindle edition – she said something that got me thinking about when I first started “witnessing”: "If you learned to value people’s intentions more than their actual behavior, you will likely make excuses for people who treat you poorly but claim to love you. You may find yourself in a pattern of relationships in which you are taken advantage of, maltreated, or underappreciated. Yet, you will lie to yourself about why you neither leave nor require that they change." So here I was a new PFAL grad and a non-practicing Roman Catholic and was probably more thrilled to just read through the entire Bible (sans the Latin and ceremony for sleepy parishioners ) than to review the PFAL material over and over again – some of which reminded me of Catechism study…boring…but funny thing though – with all the fervor of a “simply Jesus” convert (whatever that is ) I seemed to have had a good rapport with a few folks that I was trying to get to come to Twig – I mean we were all over the place with discussing things in the Old and New Testament – and they were amazed with how I could find passages on stuff they were curious about..i mean we use to philosophize about stuff anyway....and granted, they were my Roman Catholic friends…and besides I never heard of any of my friends opening up that big fat Holy Bible on the credenza…in the living room that has the sofa and chairs hermetically sealed - - I mean covered in plastic. I still remember some criticism I received on how my raw untrained sales technique…which was really nothing more than me talking about what they were already interested in…sounds like an easy sale right? But nooooooo…that would not cut the mustard according to TWI leadership that were under-shepherding me…in so many words I learned that I was wasting my time if I didn’t really push my friends to come to Twig and so I guess someone would sign them up for sure… so I figured I wasn’t spiritually mature yet…I hadn’t mastered the PFAL material enough to just wing it when witnessing…I really thought they knew what was best – that they wanted to help people with “The Word” that was in the PFAL class. Although looking back now – I realize their actions revealed the real agenda – just get people in the class…then the class does the rest…if they don’t want to take the class then you’re wasting your time with them...so the sales strategy went as follows: forget the warm market if you can't close the sale quickly then go to cold calls - door to door witnessing...something I've grown to hate with a passion - - < see that's me banging my head against the door! Sadly, this was a lie I would eventually buy into. I would learn to make excuses for having a lack of compassion by telling myself that real love is getting folks into the class…because that’s the only thing that will help people overcome whatever challenges or problems they have – right? Yeeeechhh - I use to really think that way. Come to think of it – I heard echoes of that during the whole time I was in TWI – whether I had some type of a leadership role or was focused on outreach…you know the rap...it was something like “spend 80% of your time with the 20% of the people who want to do The Word”…yeah...something like that…

a follow up to my previous post - after reading over Wikipedia article i gave link to - it appears they attribute Darby as maybe the driving force behind what we know today as Dispensationalism - and notes he made a trip to Ireland and England to spread his ideas... Bullinger is perhaps later in the timeline - and this article explains difference between dispensationalism and Bullinger's hyperdispensationalism see Bullinger

I’ve been trying to find link between Darby and Bullinger as far as who came up with Dispensationalism first - so far all I found was this article Bullinger and Hyperdispensationalist however Wikipedia suggests it goes as far back as some Jewish circles / Dead Sea Scrolls Wikipedia on Dispensationalism

Thanks for that YouTube by Bruce Gore, InfoAbsoprtion – I loved his fascinating little history lesson on how dispensationalism came to be such a dominating theological viewpoint in our culture…from Darby to Brooks to Scofield to Chafer and then with Hal Lindsey’s book “The Late Great Planet Earth” in 1970 which was so popular even folks who never showed much interest in the Bible latched onto the idea…Gore made some comment about Lindsey’s book – something like that’s when dispensationalism got out of the evangelical ghetto and into the bloodstream of Americans across the board. Pretty funny way of putting it – I got a kick out of that. His closing comments – though brief – were very powerful, in my humble opinion. In being a former dispensationalist, he talked about how that frame of thought can become a huge distraction – that there is nothing wrong with speculation but when it becomes an obsession it can overshadow the importance of Christ. With me being a big fan of the Gospels I tend to think he’s right. Skimming through “Introduction to Biblical Interpretation” by Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard while I was listening to Gore (I was looking for the references to dispensationalism I had highlighted from previous readings) I found on page 335 something that may indeed show a dismissive mindset: Dispensationalists have traditionally reserved Jesus’ Kingdom ethic for the millennial age and have not found it directly relevant for Christians now. ‘nuff said.

some of this stuff reminds me of Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter…NIV Kudos to DWBH and to all the other courageous souls who dared to confront those consummate hypocrites! I picked the above 3 quotes because they resonated with me at some deep level – it got me to think back on when we started on the long journey that led us further and further away from TWI – my closest companions on this journey were my wife and a nervous feeling of not knowing where we would end up…and maybe it’s something some other folks can relate to also. In the aftermath of the reading of passing of a patriarch – I was as frustrated as everyone else…looking to top leadership with the hope that they would get their heads out of their a$$ and tell us what to do…what we all should do to straighten everything out…to get us back to the simple task of “moving the word”…But that type of thinking was still addressing the problem in the very limited language of way-speak. And to be honest – in the midst of all that, and being fresh out of corps training and trying to maintain some semblance of enthusiasm for TWI and “The Word” during our field assignment was probably one of the toughest challenges at the time. But whatever hopes I had of the ministry somehow fixing itself – were dwindling…not just from the stonewalling of top leadership but as we became more and more aware of their abject hypocrisy. I think that’s when it hit me – I’ve been had by a bunch of phonies! In my opinion it’s the hypocrisy - more than anything else – that just totally knocks the wind out of your sails. I remember as a kid cruising down the road, perched on the handlebars of my friend's bike, with pigeon toed footing on the front axle – when my right foot pointed inward too much - got caught in the spokes – we flipped and I landed flat on my back – I could not breath and it freaked me out…as Rosanne Rosanna Dana would say “I thought I was gonna die!” Hey any corps out there still standing with TWI, wanna read something interesting? Check out Matthew 23 and compare that with how things are done in TWI…could Jesus Christ’s words be applicable today? What if he was speaking directly to TWI’s leadership today: Woe to you, teachers of the Bible, you hypocrites! You make an outward show of righteous living. But you have neglected the more important matters of the Bible - like justice, mercy, faithfulness, and honesty. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting to set an example of living a morally sound and upright life. You blind guides! You may be very scrupulous in studying every word of the Bible yet you show very little concern for the real intent of the Bible.

Yeah - - that’s some sick evil $hit alright ! ! ! and besides that – think of the ministry-wide support this sexual predator had – though unbeknownst to us peons helping to run CF&S classes, we facilitated wierwille’s subliminal indoctrination toward moral oblivion.

Well…so much for wierwille’s and top leadership’s expertise in discerning of spirits – I mean, if one of those wrong seed ne’re-do-wells can make it all the way to being the trunk coordinator of USA! …man oh man, I’m gonna have to reevaluate all that stuff I learned in the Advanced Class. (actually – I’ve relegated all that stuff to the junk table at the back of my own Advanced Class – which explores the possibility of TWI’s top leadership being operated by all nine daimons all the time. ) But seriously, thanks to WordWolf for starting this thread, to HAPe4me for the link/PDF of the letter - I’ve downloaded it and look forward to reading it in light of the illuminating context provided by DWBH and Penworks.

Oh , you must be talking about that other porn video The Poon Hound of New Knoxville

Yeah thinking some more about Chockfull & Twinky posts - I must say “great” research TWI - “studying” an ancient culture’s economical system as a basis for modern day financial strategy.. I’m not a financial wizard or anything - not crazy about going into debt either - but my wife and I don’t live beyond our means - it’s the way things work in the real world - to buy a home, further your education, start a business - sometimes people need loans. Yeah, this is one bit of TWI’s “research” that I think has a hidden agenda behind it. And I think it’s financial hobbling - it’s my opinion their intent is to keep followers strapped for money to prevent them from straying from their influence. Really it’s a twofold exploitation: 1. send a generous portion of your hard earned money to them AND 2. don’t get tied up in anything that will keep you from putting the ministry first. I once left a job because the boss would not take me off the on-call roster - it was interfering with my responsibilities as a Twig coordinator, don’t cha know! I think if someone can exert a major influence in your decision-making process over money matters - they more or less can determine where you will live, what you will do for work, how far you’ll go career-wise, the quality of your health, how many kids you’ll want to have , where your kids will go to school, etc. Funny...what happened to the “increases prosperity” claim on the back of the green PFAL sign up card? I guess their “research” found some changes were in order.

well thanks Don'tWorryBeHappy...that's going to hound me for the rest of my life

are you kidding?! I love your long answer ! thanks, Chockfull !