waysider

And this one made me think about how "stuff" doesn't mean squat if there's no one to share it with.... (Janis Ian penned this one, too.)

I don't know if this one really changed anything, except maybe my perception of how quickly time slips by us. Ditto for this one.

It takes a conscious effort to suppress one's emotions on a continuous basis. That's why the struggle for likemindedness is endless and largely futile.

That's what bullying does to you. They were masters of the art.

Absolutely. We were specifically taught, in classes such as The Renewed Mind and Dealing With The Adversary, to ignore our emotions and, instead, replace them with canned verbiage and phrases. That was a large part of the concept behind retemory cards......Feeling depressed? No problem. Simply ignore the very real chemical imbalances in your brain and recite card #47 a few times....If that doesn't work, it must be your own fault for not believing, not speaking in tongues enough, not abundantly sharing enough, not studying the word enough, etc.

"By denying that they feel fear, are they in the process blocking out, or desensitizing feeling of other emotions as well?" In my opinion the answer is "yes". When a close friend of mine died, I was castigated for wanting to mourn. Instead, I was *advised* to immediately (within a week) take the Dealing With The Adversary class so I could move on to more important (ministry) business. Emotions serve a very real and functional place in one's life. By denying that function, The Way was usurping our individual personalities, programming us to a life of conformity.

Before the collaterals were bound into book form, they consisted of several individual paper booklets. The one that is now called "The Law of Believing" was, at that time, called "The Magic of Believing". The whole positive/magic thinking craze had been sweeping the nation for several years. I think, perhaps, Wierwille had hopes of hitching his wagon to the positive thinking trend but found the market to be too saturated. Still, I think Jiminy Cricket said it best when he sang, " , makes no difference who you are, your dreams come true." (Works for saint and sinner alike)

VPW was a serial rapist. Why his life should be compared to the Duke incident is a mystery to me.

It's disconcerting to know it happens in other groups but comforting, in some twisted way, to know we weren't alone. Does my observation make any sense?

I think I'll stick with Bill Cosby's version......

I tend to shy away from artistic comparisons that are competitive in nature, unless they're based on specific technical criteria. In other words...it's all about what "floats your boat".

ebay Be sure to include THIS disclaimer.

ebay

Just imagine what it might have been like if there had been an internet 40 years ago. VP probably would have died in a jail cell.

“If you have 100 stories that are really similar, the likelihood that they're all made up is really low.” ....AMEN

Roy Please get in touch with your doctors and be honest with them about what's going on. They are trained to help you but you need to do what they tell you for your treatments to be successful. We all care about you, Roy.

Didn't *the green card* say PFAL "promotes harmony in the home."? "He was a mean man.".........Mrs. W.

But, wait! There's more!........lot's more.

PFAL was like one of those AMAZING! new products you see on TV that you never knew you needed until they told you so.

....So the outsider looks at this thread and wonders, "Why on earth did you ignore all these red flags?". Part of the answer lies in the PFAL class, itself, where we were taught, in session #5, not to give thoughtful consideration to anything that contradicts what we had been taught. Instead, we were supposed to just "STAND!" and never budge. This was reinforced in classes like Dealing With The Adversary and Renewed Mind, where we were taught specific techniques for resisting critical analysis. In addition, there was extreme peer pressure to think, speak and act like everyone else in the group. As we progressed further into the depths of involvement, a new element was added. Dire consequences would supposedly befall us or our loved ones if ever we should leave. It didn't take so very long to learn the best course of action was, seemingly, to ignore all warnings.

In a perfect world, the answer would be quite simple. We don't live in a perfect world. Capish?

Before I took the class, they told me I had to have a KJV, so I went to the second hand store and bought this big old clunky book table kind of thing. It was really sort of beautiful in its own way. ................It went over like a fart in Sunday School. It looked just like this.... http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mA3JlpgWbl6f21AKph3lCYA.jpg

I knew very little about the Bible other than the basic Sunday school sort of things. What state where you in when you got witnessed to? I was in FellowLaborers of Ohio in the mid 1970's.