waysider

Tilting at windmills This idiomatic phrase originated in the novel Don Quixote, and is often used today in reference to persistent engagement in a futile activity. At one point in the novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that he imagines to be giants. Quixote sees the windmill blades as the giant's arms, for instance. Here is the relevant portion of the novel: Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless." "What giants?" asked Sancho Panza. "Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length." "Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone." source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills

I have been reading some articles about Stockholm Syndrome. Here is one of them. Perhaps there is some insight here regarding why no one needed to hold a gun to our heads and why it is so difficult for some people to allow themselves to admit they've been duped. The following are excerpts from a somewhat lengthy but very enlightening article. ******************************************************************************** ***** On August 23rd, 1973 two machine-gun carrying criminals entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. Blasting their guns, one prison escapee named Jan-Erik Olsson announced to the terrified bank employees “The party has just begun!” The two bank robbers held four hostages, three women and one man, for the next 131 hours. The hostages were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault until finally rescued on August 28th. After their rescue, the hostages exhibited a shocking attitude considering they were threatened, abused, and feared for their lives for over five days. In their media interviews, it was clear that they supported their captors and actually feared law enforcement personnel who came to their rescue. The hostages had begun to feel the captors were actually protecting them from the police. One woman later became engaged to one of the criminals and another developed a legal defense fund to aid in their criminal defense fees. Clearly, the hostages had “bonded” emotionally with their captors. While the psychological condition in hostage situations became known as “Stockholm Syndrome” due to the publicity, the emotional “bonding” with captors was a familiar story in psychology. It had been recognized many years before and was found in studies of other hostage, prisoner, or abusive situations such as: * Abused Children * Battered/Abused Women * Prisoners of War * Cult Members * Incest Victims * Criminal Hostage Situations * Concentration Camp Prisoners * Controlling/Intimidating Relationships ******************************************************************************** Cognitive Dissonance Leon Festinger first coined the term “Cognitive Dissonance”. He had observed a cult (1956) in which members gave up their homes, incomes, and jobs to work for the cult. This cult believed in messages from outer space that predicted the day the world would end by a flood. As cult members and firm believers, they believed they would be saved by flying saucers at the appointed time. As they gathered and waited to be taken by flying saucers at the specified time, the end-of-the-world came and went. No flood and no flying saucer! Rather than believing they were foolish after all that personal and emotional investment — they decided their beliefs had actually saved the world from the flood and they became firmer in their beliefs after the failure of the prophecy. The moral: the more you invest (income, job, home, time, effort, etc.) the stronger your need to justify your position. If we invest $5.00 in a raffle ticket, we justify losing with “I’ll get them next time”. If you invest everything you have, it requires an almost unreasoning belief and unusual attitude to support and justify that investment. Source: http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/stockholm/ ********************************** Food for thought

If I Had A Hi Fi

Looking at it as a business venture, the WOW program was a wholesale failure While it's true that many WOW's experienced great personal growth and may have put many people through 'the class", the program, as a whole, failed to achieve it's main objective, which was to bring people into the fold where they would commit to financially supporting the organization on a long term basis. (ABS and endless classes) The class was like a carrot on a stick, like the CD clubs that offer you 10 CDs for a penny each to get you to commit to a lengthy and costly membership.. That's why the cost of it was all over the charts, $45 this time, $85 the next time, $65, $200, back to $100, etc. Sure, there was profit in the class itself, but it was short term profit. Wierwille was looking at the big picture, a cadre of followers who would continue to give and give and give some more. PFAL was the vehicle to facilitate that. WOW's were the sales force. It wasn't the WOW's themselves who failed, it was the program. Many people took the class and then disappeared. It must have frustrated upper management greatly. The means longer justified the ends. To those of you who gave of yourselves on the "WOW Field", I salute you. You should be proud of the effort and dedication you invested in a cause you held dear.

Aretha Franklin

I'm afraid Maynard G. Krebs took that secret to the grave with him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_G._Krebs Maynard G. Krebs (the G. stood for Walter) was the "beatnik" sidekick of the title character in the U.S. television sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1963). The Krebs character, portrayed by actor Bob Denver, began as a stereotypical beatnik, with a goatee, "hip" (slang) usage, and a generally unkempt, bohemian appearance, studiously avoiding anything resembling work, which he seemed to regard as the ultimate four-letter word. Whenever the word was mentioned, even in a line like "That would work," he would jump with fear, yelping, "Work?!" He served as a foil to the well-groomed, well-dressed, straitlaced Dobie, and the contrast between the two friends provided much of the humor of the series. Gradually, he became less of the stereotypical beatnik and more a free soul who did his own thing - including collecting tinfoil or petrified frogs, seeing the old Endicott Building get torn down and seeing the movie The Monster that Devoured Cleveland. In one episode, he invited Dobie to accompany him to a double-feature in which the film was shown with its sequel, Son of the Monster that Devoured Cleveland. Maynard might be described as the prototype of the late-1960s hippie. Many of the later episodes centered around Maynard, with Dobie more of an observer, but always as narrator. The series lasted four years (1959-1963), but its popularity extended into the 1980s as stations like Nick at Nite rebroadcast it for new generations. The Caper At The Bijou http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KauVRmbULhg...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=719WDvxoTlE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E1yRu_Logs...feature=related h

Instructor= Glorified "go-fer" and chair stringer.

Exactly! It's not REALLY about the purity of PFAL at all. PFAL is just just a song and dance routine in the big show. A subplot in a convoluted play, designed to divert attention away from the main theme. A vehicle to deliver the real message of wierwille's supposed "mystic" status. A magician's device to divert attention away from the mechanics of the illusion. Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!

It no longer belongs to the wierwille family. It belongs to the corporation.

Personally, I think it was wierwille's back-handed way of calling his critics fools.

Is The Way Ministry the same organization as The Way International or The Way or even, simply, The Ministry? Did you cross all your "t"s and dot all your "i"s? Did you spell all your words correctly and use proper syntax? Did you use any metaphors instead of "straight talk? Is there a difference between the collated and uncollated studies in abundant living? Did The Ministry begin on a Tuesday or a Thursday? Are there 73, not 74 or 72, witnesses who will submit notarized testimony? Were the gas pumps regular or high test? Was the wind blowing from the east or from the west? What was the wind chill? Did they measure wind chill in 1942? None of it is really about PFAL or a snowstorm or a quest for The Truth or a concern for "accuracy and integrity". No, it's about creating a smokescreen of dedication to some noble cause that never really existed. Maybe there's a vicarious undercurrent It's about exalting a demon to hero status. It's about excusing his misdeeds and calloused abuses. It's about desperately groping for any lifeline that might be used to pull a monster from a cesspool of depravity. It's like placing a band aid on a festering, rotting wound and hoping no one will notice the awful stench. Snowstorm? No snowstorm? It doesn't really matter. It can't change the debacle that's been buried in its drifts for all these years. The snow is melting.

The Monster That Devoured Cleveland It's playing down at The Bijou.

Probably because they are playing the part of the women in the "Soup" video. http://www.clusterflock.org/2009/01/the-re...is-the-key.html

Probably has something to do with all the commercial interruptions.

Mike I used to feel sorry for you in a strange kind of way. A seemingly misguided soul pitching a product that is desperately flawed. Still, it's your choice to believe what you want and I can respect that. Or so I thought. But then I had a revelation of my own ( the dictionary-definition kind, not the snowstorm variety.) It was while I observed how you posted on the CF&S thread. I saw how you came out of the comfort zone of PFAL and spun your twisted logic to try to defend a class that couldn't possibly have been God-Breathed and really had nothing to do with your pro-PFAL arguments. It hasn't really been about PFAL at all, has it? That's just a smokescreen to mask what really amounts to a massive effort to exonerate Wierwille. Were you part of his "inner circle"? Or, did you, perhaps, unsuccessfully aspire to be part of his "inner circle"? How long have you known about his misdeeds? Twenty years, thirty years? Before there was a Waydale or GSC? Do you think if you can exonerate him you can experience that exoneration vicariously? He's not worth defending. His ministry and snowstorm were a hoax

Being a former FLO, I can relate to more of that than I really want to.

I find myself wondering how "making it your own" fit with "likemindedness".

Of course, there was George Carlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Carlin And don't forget the impact that Lenny Bruce had. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/F...ruce/bruce.html Incidentally, neither claimed to represent God or offer marriage and sex advise for Christians.

To all I extend my sincere apology for injecting undue controversy to this forum. The link I posted did not belong on this thread. I regret my lapse in judgment. waysider

Only if she throws in a free copy of The Secret. <_<

Eroticism aside, what benefit was supposed to be derived by showing several differently shaped breasts and penises and making smarmy comments about them? Sure, I know that body parts are shown in sex ed. but I really doubt the instructors make comments like "aren't they gorgeous?" and "now that's a dandy!" (Paraphrased comments), especially to kids as young as 11 and 13 years old. This class had no business being presented as Biblical research and teaching.

Wierwille came of age in rural America during The Great Depression. I personally think a lot of his attitudes and practices regarding women and marriage were gleaned from his personal experiences during his formative years, not from any study of the scriptures or some supposed Divine connection. And, since he was the lead dog in the TWI pack, the other simply fell in step. Just my opinion.

Content: Nudity, foreplay, afterglow, genitalia (both male and female) He even had photos of different shaped penises. And lots of aside comments like "aren't her breasts just beeeeautiful?" and "isn't that gorgeous?" Those probably aren't exact quotes. Pretty darn close, though. I'm sure there are others here who remember the asides as well. R or X Rating: By today's standards, they would probably be R though I think in the early 1970s they would have been considered X (was there a rating system in place back then?). Certainly not appropriate for students as young as 13 years old. Yes, there were many students that young. One poster even stated he was 11 when he took the class. Wierwille rationalized this by saying---and I think this is a quote----"What better place to learn this stuff than in the family?" How someone could defend this drivel by implying it's part of some great knowledge that hadn't been known since the first century is beyond my comprehension. Unless, perhaps, they too had been part of wierwille's secret little club and feel a need to exonerate him in order to vicariously exonerate themselves.

Would you be more likely to believe it if you heard first hand testimony from his victims? There is plenty of that here. I highly recommend the GSC radio episodes listed on the home page. You might also want to look at "Actual Errors In PFAL". Personally, I don't believe God ever revealed ANYTHING to him., especially in light of what we now know about how his hallmark works were plagiarized, in many cases, word for word. He didn't even bother to change the names of the fictitious characters (Maggie Muggins, Snowball Pete, etc.) that he uses in PFAL, a class that he stole from BG Leonard, and others. His "revelations" regarding conspiracy theories in the mid 70s came from propaganda he accessed directly from white supremacy groups and Liberty Lobby. The man was a fraud. It's a startling realization to be faced with after putting so much value in what he supposedly represented. I, for one, definitely would not compare his life to Stephen, Paul or Jesus Christ.