Bolshevik

*holds hands out about this big* The one with the medical school.

I took some political science course at a college in Ohio. The topic came up about culture. "The Way" came up. The instructor ended the idea of "culture", quickly, and moved on. Wonder what he really thought.

*cough* Good thing the internet didn't exist.

I don't know that identity ever changed. I do know perceptions of countless relationships of various types drastically changed.

Are we sure it's just incidental? I would imagine as his power and desire for more grew, taking lives would be part of a "logical" progression. Money, adulation and women would not be enough. His followers we know fed on fear, a "good" twig fellowship made your skin tingle, full of talk about anger and violence. The Man himself I would think laid the "blueprints" for that. Indiscriminate use of abortion, driving suicide, talk of disposing of children, talk of war, as examples. The stereotypical cult involves death. Lots of death. The Thief commeth not but for to steal kill and destroy. That leads me to think it's more than incidental.

How should you view followers of twi then? I don't see avoiding rattlesnakes as thinking evil or bigotry, but I also don't look at them in any trustworthy way.

*mentions twi* *makes several points about NOT twi* *mentions twi* *states evidence is irrelevant*

If VPW was a psychopath, it sounds like he sought a way he could choose to end any life, unborn or born, via his teachings.

Sounds like he belonged on television. Maybe he would have done less damage?

From above article: One thing that drove me nuts while I was in TWI . . . people outside the cult/twi . . . never involved but somehow encouraging involvement . . . even when speaking against TWI/cults. (Something I hope to articulate better). Maybe they didn't understand their role? TWI itself can't exist without the society we live in, right? The article goes on to talk about education - but I don't think it's just about avoiding it yourself. Just because someone isn't directly involved in a cult, IMO, doesn't mean they don't affect/influence other people's involvement.

Can actually feel blood pressure rising when reading that.

It annoyed the heck out of me we were even discouraged from trying to repeat VPW et al's research, his conclusions. Simply asking, be it in a little fellowship in the field or the top leaders at HQ . . . "Where did this idea even come from? . . . I don't see it." . . . Not really being critical . . . but it was still squashed under the mantra "The Research has already been done! Quit re-inventing the wheel and go make sure all this grass is the same height!"

False Dichotomy fallacy?

Excellent point Waysider. Fear is associated as a negative. I don't think fear is negative. It can drive people to do positive things. It can drive people to negative things too. Or nothing, be it for better or worse. Fear as I understand is an emotion. Once again part of training by The Way to have people ignore their emotions, and not understand themselves, or be able to empathize with others. By focusing on positive believing and its benefits and rewards, and avoiding negative believing, you're doing yourself a great disservice.

I remember LCM talking(or yelling) about how if one person in the room didn't have enough believing, then his (LCM's) decisions wouldn't work. Believing was so handy that you didn't have to take responsibility for much. You can't control another's believing. But they can negate yours. Unless you believe bigger than them. Unless of course someone else . . . somewhere . . . secretly believing something to thwart you. But you didn't believe enough to know about them?

The mental knots just pile up. Any one of those keys/points are up for on-going eternal debate. Makes it a "Law" impossible to understand. With such confidence folks scolded others to increase their "believing". I agree believing was self-delusion. Think vpw knew that? What purpose was The Law of Believing serving?

A confirmation bias? If I remember we were to act on "believing". If things just happened to work out. Believing was "demonstrated". If it didn't work out, there was a "lack of believing". If I understand correctly, believing can be measured. There should be some way to measure, document, predict within defined uncertainty, and demonstrate its usefulness. There should be more than anecdotal evidence.

I would agree self-delusion was involved. There's also the times when we tell someone else "to believe". I think there's quite a bit if ego involved there. Believing could have been a term used to cover a number of things, is one thing that I wonder.

I should probably have emphasized more the aspect of practice, not doctrinal. What was believing? Was it what we told ourselves it was? I was frequently instructed to believe more. I read, and listened, and discussed believing almost daily in TWI, for decades. At the end, I don't know what it was or what I was supposed to do.

I know the topic of believing has never been discussed here before. I found "believing" to be a word used quite ubiquitously in TWI. I'd try to ask what exactly it was, and be scoffed at. It was handled in *The Class*. But we sure needed more of *It*. I've come to the conclusion that twi's believing is NOT faith, of any form, . . . although faith may be involved? Any ideas on what twi's *believing* really was? Just a secret password maybe?

or Baader-Meihof?

My link Maybe it was mentioned already. I think a lot who thought they were receiving revelation or manifesting spirit merely didn't understand naturally occurring phenomena common to everyone. Intuition is one of those things. I think that's been gone over with SIT. Show an MRI study on SIT to a wayfer and get one interpretation, show it to an outie and get another.