GrouchoMarxJr

There were a multitude of "wrong doctrines" in twi that screwed people up. I would tend to agree with Pirate..."believing equals receiving" was the underlying doctrine that applied to everything else they taught...and it was absolutely false and hurt more people than can be imagined. With that said, I think that in the cases where the doctrine was NOT wrong...it was ineffectual nevertheless...Why? Because their hearts were wrong. Oftentimes, they used the "right doctrine" for the wrong reasons...a good example of that would be their teachings on getting "rewards"...Twi turned this into a selfish competition...who would get the most?...people were motivated by what THEY would get...their hearts were wrong about most everything.

I have to agree with George...Vic chose the Okie because of his charisma...LCM could hold the crowds better than any of the other stooges. He built the thing on showmanship and he figured that he should keep it that way. Walter had the leadership abilities of Mr Rogers, Geer had the personality of a nazi prison guard, Ralph was too blue collar and unpretenious and JAL was just a "lite" version of LCM. Vic wanted somebody that could fill the big top. All style, no substance. ...And I also fully expected Martindale to be chosen. I would have been stunned had it been anyone else. No doubt, Craig lobbied heavily for the job...but I think Vic had planned, since about 1978, to give him the job...Vic loved his brash mouth.

Geer and Martindale were two different animals...All Martindale wanted to do was get laid and bully people. Geer was calculating...he was ruthless (more than lcm) and he was smarter than lcm. Veepee knew this but Loy was charismatic and could "hold the crowds"...Geer couldn't. I think that's why Martinfail got the top job...Vic thought people would be more likely to follow him than Geer. Did Wierwille see the clash coming? Probably not...but I think maybe he realized that they did not work well together and seperated them in order to allow each of their respective "talents" to operate independant of each other in a practical way...they certainly didn't compliment each other. I think Geer is a psychopath. he's a dangerous man capable of hurting a lot of people. Thankfully, he has the personality of a nazi prison guard and most steer clear of him...maybe that why he licences other people to run his classes...

Mike...When God snuck the blue book into your library, was there any snow on it?

I was driving through Oklahoma in 1979 and saw three disc like objects hovering in the sky all side by side, each with three lights on them...they just sat there. They were so low that at first I thought they were suspended from the ground...as I drove closer, I could see nothing underneath them supporting them...I pulled off to the side of the road when I got upon them and sat there and stared at them...they sat motionless and I could hear no engine sounds or any signs of HOW they were staying in the air...I watched them for about 5 minutes and suddenly one of them (the one on the far right) started spinning end over end, like a coin being flipped...It then shot up and covered the entire skyline in about 3 seconds and was gone from sight. The other two remained where they were...I sat there for another 3 or 4 minutes and then drove off...No, I was not taking drugs and yes, there was a witness with me who saw the same things.

How about the single diget decade?

5000 posts...If you had a penny for every time you posted, you could get good and drunk. ;)-->

Oh Gawd...just thinking about this stuff has me in stitches. :D--> :D--> :D--> It makes about as much sense as drawing your decisions out of a hat. Why didn't we come up with a "revelation dart board"...put on a blind fold and throw the dart at a map...oh yeah, they DID do that!...that's how we got our wow assignments. :D-->

Until the day of his "coronation", king okie used to run around kissing Vics foot all day long...as soon as he becomes president, he starts treating Vic like the idiot uncle that we hide in the basement... Maybe lcm's "great loyalty" to wierwille was a con job...just so he would be picked as the next prez. Wierwille was so insecure and full of himself at the same time...he was living for the adoration of his followers and martinfart "adored him" bestest of all....until he got the job!...All of a sudden, he's ignoring Vic totally and walking around laughing like the Joker on Batman... Whatcha all think? Was Loy too stupid to con the grifter?...or was the grifter so blinded with his own image, that he was easy pickings for ol' fartindale?

In 13 years, I moved eight times. New York New Hampshire Florida Illinois Colorado Kansas North Carolina New York (again) Texas... I now live in a state that twi never sent me to...Ohio! :D-->

...When you cut off a chicken's head, he will continue to run around for awhile until the life bleeds out of him...and oftentimes the dead body will twitch and spasm as it lays on the ground...Maybe that helps explain why twi is still having such a thing as an "In resident training program"...

First thought...scheesh! What a hokey doctrine that was. It was a recipe for disaster...every waytree climbing wannabe was walking around pretending to be receiving specific information from the Almighty...Did you ever see one of em sit down on the ground and start drawing in the dirt with a stick (like Jesus did)?...I did! One of my most vivid "revelation" stories was when I was driving to the advanced class and I hit a deer and totalled my car!...I got to a phone and called Emporia to tell them what happened, and then hitch hiked the rest of the way. During one of the sessions, Wierwille made me stand up in front of 500 people and then used me as an example of somebody who WASN'T LISTENING!!! Needless to say, it was a real buzz killer...on top of that, he claimed that "God had told him" about some putz that had hit a deer because he wasn't listening...never mind that I had called it in and the secretary had relayed the info about my accident to him...he claimed he found out by REVELATION! I knew he was lying because the secretary had already informed me earlier in the day that she had told him...but of course, I sat there and drank the koolaid with all the other glassy eyed cultists...putting my trust in the grifter.

I recall Martindale blathering on about how if a person needed to be treated tenderly and needed to be healed...they should get the hell out of the corps and go to twig somewhere! He often spoke of non-corps in a very disparaging way. Called them "part time believers", "spiritual hitch hikers" "cop outs", "too weak to really stand", etc, etc...It was clear that if you weren't corps, that Martindale looked at you as something less than what you were "supposed" to be. This attitude spread throughout all those who sat at the feet of loy and received spittle on their faces. This is the major reason why the corps became so cold hearted and nazi-like. They not only felt superior, but they felt that you were worthy of being trated like the "non-corps" that you were. Wierwille institutionalized the "haves" and the "have nots", with all his nametags and titles...a pecking order that you didn't want to be at the bottom of. It was insideous and it was evil.

...And after Rochelle died, do you think any of them felt badly for booting her out?...In any way felt responsible?...HELL NO! These so-called Christian leaders were about as uncaring and coldhearted as you can imagine...

I think of poor Mike sitting there hour after hour..."working" Wierwille's stupid class... --> It's like administering CPR to someone who's been dead for 2 days. His intentions are good, but a waste of time nevertheless. Mike...why doncha just join a splinter group? You'd have plenty of miserable comforters to "work the werd" with.

TS...You got me on that one... :D-->

Twi's failure to to acknowledge mistakes in their "research" only illustrates how the emphasis was always on THEM and not in discovering truth. By institutionalizing their "research" into a "set" denomiational position, they created their man made idol and placed it on God's throne. By refusing to acknowledge mistakes, they turned their backs on true meekness and instead, become gods unto themselves.

I think there is a huge difference between a group of 12 or 25 in residence for training...and 500. The first 4 corps were small intimate groups that had a totally different experience than later corps did...and of course the corps that followed the "fog years" were yet another animal. There was tremendous peer pressure to "establish yourself" as a leader by becoming an a$$hole. Many took to it like a duck to water, others, couldn't bring themselves to treating others that way...the end result was that the a$$holes were rewarded with promotions, while the "nice guys" were shown the door...or at least relegated to a lower position on the feeding tree...Overall, those corps who actually conducted themselves as Christians, eventually walked away...

I agree with the Hammer...Vic was always trying to promote his antisemitic views through any source that seemed to back him up...maybe he was trying to justify the "heritage" of his own people and their treatment of the Jews. If the truth be known, Vic was a borderline nazi.

Winston Smith lives indeed...Let us not forget the myth of the snow on the gas pumps, the snowstorm in Tulsa, or the hookshot for that matter...Vic the grifter always had his spin going...working the crowd. If the true history of twi was made "available", I would imagine we would see several thousand more leave.

After decades of living in wayworld, these people are like an old rock band from the sixties that just keep singing the same songs over and over...their wayspeak is so practiced and normal that they probably spent a better part of an hour developing their yearly "theme". They certainly must fall back on "research that has already been proven", because they sure the hell aren't coming up with anything new on their own!...In fact, the current leaders don't have enough credibility of their own to even pretend to be discovering new earth shattering truths....they are caretakers of a defunct cult. They are the residual shadows of a bygone day...they are the ghosts of dead snakeoil salesmen, they market misery and rejoice in manipulation. They see life through the prism of myhological thought and blackmail the innocent with threats of misery both in this life and their necrodestination. They are the lice of this planet.

quote "...we work the research that has already been proven in our ministry publications..." Is that in contrast to the research that has not been proven in their "ministry" publications?

Our branch leader took us all to see "One flew over the cuckoos nest"...At the time, I failed to see the irony.

Mr Hammeroni...good point..."present" truth (as liverlips martindale used it) implies a past and future truth also... ...and of course that means...with a future truth coming...more books and classes to come too! Gotta keep up with the "changing" truth of twi. ;)-->

Yes yes...Rome City campus...spent about 4 months there back in 1980...I found this hidden place in the attic and I used to sneak up there and take naps. :D-->