another spot

Dear T-Bone: Enclosed please find my paperwork for Power for Redundant Living. I have taken a similar class and although superfluous it was unneeded. I look forward to duplicating my previous comatose subjection. I am also enclosing the title to my house, and forwarding all worldly possessions as required. The session on deceiving equals believing sounds really characterless. Without question it should be droning and repetitive. I thank you in advance for processing my application. Rest assured your efforts will be replicated and unintentional. From the Dark Side, A. S. P. S. I am short.

Dear Paw: I've spent the past several days listening to the broadcasts. I have two left. I found them to be enlightening and tasteful. Informative without being depressing. And pretty healing. I think it is a great idea to do them and I hope you do more in the future. I am very surprised there aren't more posts about them. Thanks for all you do.

Dear Belle: I enjoyed listening to you. I just wanted to say that I am sorry you feel your husband chose twi over you. In a sense he did, but on the other hand as you know, in twi you are taught the choice isn't twi or a family member. It is a choice of a family member and God. That's really unfair. In any case, I am sure it was very hurtful. I know how you feel about wasted years. I hope it gets made up to you.

I am really surprised these radio shows don't get more comments! Really good stuff presented in a tasteful manner. Oakspear: You're comments re PFAL (how vp introduces doubt, then gets you to trust him, etc) were the best I've heard so far. I'd seen that before, but the implications went over my head. Now I get it. I think too, with three hour sessions and work the next day, there really isn't time to go over it step by step either. Probably wouldn't have mattered. The only part I have a hard time with is I have trouble believing he was that smart or devious. Maybe my mind just doesn't work that way and I can't relate. On the other hand, I have heard there are con artists out there who are pretty good. Here's what I find really odd. How is it so many who start cults, follow the same pattern? By cult I mean a mog, claim to special knowlege, controlling, etc. It's just kinda weird it happens over and over. It isn't as though there is a cult leader school somewhere...Any comments? Your assessment about LCM made perfect sense also. Anyway, good job!!

Yep, Rascal, there were a lot. You listed some good ones I hadn't thought about. I hope you elaborate on the 5 senses one and any others you care to. I am using personal, painful, and even embarrasing examples because I am seeking to avoid a purely intectual discussion or doctrinal debate. From my point of view, TWI HURT and I am just now starting to see it and understand it. Renewed mind. Just change your mind…Don’t feel pain. Don’t grieve and heal naturally. Just you know, change your mind. Flip a switch. There some parts of this I currently agree with (who knows what I will think tomorrow). I do know when I dwell (brood) about negative things it really does put me in a bad mood. But, sometimes brooding is a good thing for reasonable amounts of time. When I have anxiety I am usually better off to think about the positives of God, but only after I have addressed the anxiety. Sometimes fear is a warning to pay attention. In general, I think this caused me to lack normal emotion. This turning off emotion in favor of strict obedience (no matter HOW contrary to your feelings) is much more destructive than it sounds on the surface. So I will take a deep breath (REAL deep) and admit something I did, which I have not done before. Ever. Something I am deeply and profoundly ashamed of. My middle son was 15. First semester as a sophomore. He didn’t want to be in twi anymore. My lc said to find him somewhere else to live. I did it. I sent him to live with his adult older brother. I did this thing and I am a woman who absolutely treasured her children. The justification by leadership was the weakness brings down strength thing. Our home would be over run by devil spirits. A year later when we became M&A, and I found Waydale, I called my son and told him about lcm and the lawsuits. Even tho he didn’t want to be in twi anymore he still had fear and guilt about it. That set him free. We are ok now. My son and I with each other. But I still have guilt, which leads me to… Obey the leadership. This is a fun one. There is nothing like being in the backseat of your own life while someone else drives and insists on driving on the wrong side of the road. Lords over the flock…abuse of power. This one is so well documented I don’t feel like talking about it except to say becoming M&A was without exception the most traumatic, horrific experience of my life. Was I going to die? Were my children or spouse? Obviously God was deeply disappointed with me…I know of at one person who became M&A and was contemplating suicide. I don’t know if she did or not because we were M&A shortly after. Waydale saved my whole family. DWA/spiritual competition. The devil was all powerful and devil spirits behind every door. Major source of abuse. A guy came on to me once and later reported the reverse happened. My tc decided I had a seducing spirit. I had to go to months of counseling going over CF & S….I was scared to death and felt lower than an ant’s butt. This was during my first year in twi. I remember being puzzled when it was all over because my thoughts were no different than they were to start with. I couldn’t identify a single way I was different and I only realized years later the truth of the matter. I have said enough for one day.

Men may disagree with this, but women actually got a double whammy because we were to submit in everything. To this day (after 7 yrs) I still find myself acquiescing to something my husband wants me to do just because he wants me to. As of the last 2 mos. I have been very focused on looking at things as an individual person and recognizing when I am doing something because I let myself get pushed into something deep down I felt was not right. No matter how minor. And just mindlessly do it just because I was told to. To recognize I am an adult and don’t need someone to tell me what to do or how to do it. This is harder to do than it sounds. On the other hand, men got much more blame. They were held responsible for everything that went on under their roof, whether it was reasonable or could be helped or not. No boundaries in twi. You couldn’t EVER say no. There was no place where they stopped and you began. They didn’t stop and you never began. This to me is the most important part of recovery. Much more important than the doctrinal issues.

Well DMiller, it's a healthy thing to hear a different point of view without instantly thinking they are wrong. I would still be in twi if I weren't willing to change my mind and hear a different point of view (thank you Waydale!!!!!!!!!!!). Of course different points of view expressed in an obnoxious way take more patience. But back to topic....re-evaluate to a degree. More like chunking it all and starting over. My biggest challenge in Bible study right now is keeping my mouth shut (Greek, Hebrew, yada, yada). Why confuse or mislead them with something that did it to me? That is my course for now. I may put some twi stuff back later. I may not.

Thanks yall. I think Grease Spot is about recovery and helping each other understand what happened. Being in a cult is a complicated thing. And so pervasive. And no I don't blame myself now. I disagree with twi stance on the unborn. If it is alive, ie it is growing, it has a heartbeat, it is just plain nuts to say it isn't alive. This is just common sense and I don't need a Bible verse to prove it. I can think and do a lot of things without a Bible verse to tell me about it. I am not putting down the Bible, at all. "The only rule to faith and practise" (sp?), well that's kinda weird all by itself taken to the extreme.

I am personally most surprised at the cover up. Guess I shouldn't be. I can relate to blocking it out of your mind. I've done a lot of that too. Human life didn't have much value in twi, did it?

I believe a lot of the “doctrines” of twi caused hard heartedness and were in reality abusive. Understatement. At the top of the list, of course, would be the law of believing. For example, I had a friend (early 30’s) with 3 young children. Her husband was killed in a car crash on the way to work. She was devastated because she really loved him. What greatly multiplied her grief was she convinced it happened either because of her believing, her husband’s or a combination. She couldn’t get emotional closure because she didn’t know the answer. She didn’t get much emotional support from the leadership because of the believing aspect of it and because she didn’t just renew her mind and get over it. She had only been a grad for about 6 mos. She was about the saddest woman I’ve ever known. Then there was just the day to day living where the only thing acceptable was the impossible and we just couldn’t ever believe enough to satisfy their demands. A good example for this one was the time we were on our way to AC weekend. Our car broke down on the highway many miles from anywhere. In the middle of the summer. In the middle of a desert. My husband walked about 10 mi and finally got to a phone. The temperature was 115 degrees. He called the LC. We were not offered any help or a ride because you know, the car wouldn’t have broken down if we’d been believing and we would just have to believe to get out of it. My husband then had to walk the 10 mi back with no water to drink while we waited for the tow truck. We got a cold shoulder for the weekend. I am fully aware I am not saying anything new or different. The purpose of this thread is to identify not just wrong doctrine, but get specific about what ones were destructive and why. I would also like to identify the resulting hard heartedness. It wasn’t just the emphasis on knowledge vs love that made twi so abusive. Probably the short answer is: all of them.

Well I reckon I’ll tell my tale. I had a miscarriage. The doctor told me two weeks before it happened that it would and instead of doing a d & c, let it happen naturally. I prayed. I cried. I talked to my tc (wc), but you know, since it wasn’t breathing and really wasn’t a baby I had no right to feel grief and shouldn’t care. I was 3 mos along. I condemned myself for not believing. It was all my fault, as far as I was concerned. On the day it happened I went into labor at the grocery store. I weirded out and drove myself home 30 miles. Then I realized I needed to go to the doctor and drove 45 mi to the clinic. I was in shock or something. Hard to drive when you are in heavy labor. It didn’t cross my mind to call anyone. When I got to the clinic and was brought to the exam room, I was bleeding profusely. I never saw so much blood in my life. Later that night I had to have an emergency d & c to stop the hemorrhaging. And no one from twi cared. Not even my spouse, because you know, it wasn’t a baby and didn’t matter. This was 20 years ago, and every once in awhile I still feel grief, and still wonder if it was a boy or girl.

I did an internet search on “making sport” and “sporting” and could find no definition with a sexual connotation. The closet I could get is an obsolete usage meaning flirtation. ” • (obsolete, uncountable) An amorous dalliance (flirtation). • Charlie and Lisa enjoyed a bit of sport after their hike. This is from Wiktionary. It seems obvious there is no justification for a sexual meaning in either English or Hebrew….Thanks for bringing this up WordWolf. This is probably just the tip of the iceburg. Why does it matter? Because we got told things that were private interpretation and led to believe it came straight from the mouth of God. The phrase "handling the Word of God deceitfully" comes to mind. If I am am repeating something, well I didn't want to read the entire thread....

ChasU...I hope you find it. I don't really care what their doctrines are, including the trinity. I just ignore what I don't agree with (currently). This frees me up to accept them as is and look at their hearts. For me, the most important thing was to get competely away from fundamentalism (performance based). In general, I don't care about doctrine anymore. I don't trust my waybrain on those issues at this time, and I figure God can and will clue me in when and if He wants, if it really matters. Watered Garden...yep, that's what I found. And yep, it is really amazing. One of Twi's lies is that "liked-minded" is a requirement for fellowship. In the first place, it is an impossibility to be completely like-minded with anyone, even in a group think cult. There are still personality differences. Thanks, Rascal. It sure is difficult to put things into words sometimes and really nail what I am trying to say.

A grease spot, of course!

At least not for me… I’ve been going to church lately. I live in a small town and the Presbyterian Church has about 35 people. The people there are nice and loving from the heart. They are peaceable and peaceful. They treat me like a puppy and mother me about the littlest things. And they are always GLAD to see me. Really glad. I got invited to play chimes by the choir director. I went to practice last night. I made some mistakes, but after a few songs, the director laughed and clapped and thought it was the greatest thing I came and did as well as I did. There is no ego. Not even with the elders who I know pretty well now. No one (not even the minister) lords anything over anyone else. They don’t act like they know everything. They don’t act judgmental. It isn’t performance based at all. They get it that all come short of perfection, and therefore one person isn’t better than another, regardless of their "position." I wish I were more articulate so I could really describe the difference from twi. And for all the time I have spent on waydale and grease spot, nothing brought it home to me what a dark awful place twi really was/is until I came to this church and saw the stark contrast. And pretty perverse church was put down as being run by seed boys. As far as I am concerned that is a case of calling light darkness. I am sure some churches aren't so great, but this one is. Twi was like a diet of moldy bread and sewer water, and it seemed right and great at the time, but at the time that was all I knew. Whatever good there was, whatever was taught that was actually correct, was poisoned by the heart of the place. Well, I am home now.

what about the ugly....

Click on image to see full size....I always did think lcm looked like a pig...

"I was beginning to wonder where he had gotten off to as well. It's not nice to open a can of worms and run away." I'm starting to think Johniam, Jeaniam and Lone Wolf are all one and the same. Note the similarity in writing style, arguments, and time of day when they post. John posts on another thread using twi's 100,000 members as proof vpw was genuine, then magically a new thread by Lone Wolf starts using the same argument. He or she frequently "forgets" to switch identies from Jean to John and back. I've seen this before on finance forums (stocks) where a poster creates other identies to post things to back himself up. There's no knowing if these people (or one person) are even out of TWI.... So what's your agenda, "John"? What exactly are you trying to accomplish? You stated elsewhere you think you are about to get booted off the forum. Why do you think that? And especially, WHY do you continue to post content you yourself think might get you booted off????

Even vp said “experience is no guarantee for truth”….kinda ironic. Re: the 100 yrs statement, I hope no one took that to mean I was minimizing or invalidating real hurt. Just hit me in a profound way at the time, can’t really explain why.

Rascal, the way to copy and paste is left click at the start of the text and hold it down. Move your mouse downward until all the text is highlighted that you want. Let go of your mouse. Then hold down the ctrl key and type “c”. Now go to the place you want to paste it to and left click your mouse. Hold down ctrl and type “v”. The text will appear. As far as the original intent of the thread, I think probably some people “need” twi doctrine to be good because they can’t deal with the years of investment for nothing. Or worse than nothing. Others probably believe the doctrine was good because they had good experiences. Hmmmm, well, I don’t believe good experiences prove doctrine. Ahem, that’s what kept me there 20 some years. I do believe God is big enough to accomplish things in peoples’ lives in spite of faulty doctrine, and if good happens it is a result of God and not doctrine. And if the doctrine is correct, well fine. Regardless God supplies the good. Somewhere Paul said he didn't care how Christ was preached as long as he was. Don't have time to look it up right now. It is important for some to figure out who VPW really was as a necessary step in healing. That’s why it matters even if he has been dead 20 years. I liked what my husband said about it, “no matter who vpw was, 100 years from now no one will care or know his name. But every one will know who Jesus Christ is.” Since we are adults, it is OK with me what anyone thinks, because that's their choice. We can all think what we want. Ain't it great? Finally, it is great to be out of twi and be able to think for myself and openly debate things. And I even don't care if anyone agrees with me or not...Now that's recovery!

"EDITOR'S STATEMENT ON SPECTACULAR SEX STORIES We hesitate to publish stories people (especially women) send us in which they claim that Way leaders were involved in sexual promiscuity, which sometimes included rape, inducement, abuse of power and drugs. We also hesitate to publish anonymous stories or articles, and stories of other spectacular claims such as stockpiling weapons.. There are several reasons we shy away from publishing these stories. First, we don't want to publish any false stories. We don't publish any known lies or falsehoods, even if we think it may help attain a healthy result (like people leaving TWI). Over the years, we believe we've built a reputation of integrity, documenting our information and being careful not to exaggerate. We don't want to damage our integrity by publishing things that seem spectacularly false. From the practical standpoint, we don't need to make up serious errors in TWI-- there are so many true errors that we don't need to! We would like to collaborate all facts in stories people tell, although that isn't possible, especially since sexual sin is most often a private affair, known only to the perpetrator and the victim. However, we have chosen to publish a few of the stories we've received, for the following reasons. First, we have heard so many such stories from so many people spread across the country, that it becomes apparent that it isn't just a crazy person here and there who is making them up. The stories are similar in many ways, which implies a "typical" approach among Way leaders. They also report similar "reasoning" leaders used to defend their sinful actions. The most comprehensive example of this is the appendix of John Schoenheit's paper on adultery which offers a long list of "Biblical reasons" leaders used to defend sexual promiscuity. Second, we have had a lot of private correspondence with those who wrote the letters we published, and with scores more who do not wish to publish their stories. We don't find that there are scores of women who are dying to get vengeance by printing false stories of being used sexually by leadership. Instead, scores of ex-Wayers come to us with their stories who don't want to face the inner embarrassment of publically describing what happened to them. Most readers would be overwhelmed if they were able to read all the correspondence we've received over the last 20 years from ex-Wayers about sexual indiscretions in TWI (especially among the Corps). It's a traumatic thing for women to write about the tragic things which have happened to them, because it invokes shame and guilt-- both guilt of submitting to leaders and the invalid guilt many people have when they'd been overwhelmed and abused by others. Third, secrecy protects the perpetrators who used and abused others (especially male leaders who abused females). They want us all to be silent, because they don't want their evil deeds and crimes to become known. So we have a responsibility to speak out in order to heal the victims and help protect those who may become victims in the future. Fourth, there are indications that certain past and present leaders in TWI are not people of substantial integrity. There is evidence of authoritarianism, greed, plagiarism, defensiveness, manipulation, and abuse of Scripture for selfish purposes. Sexual indiscretions would not be surprising in people who have this type of character. Over the years, thousands of followers have left TWI mainly because sexual sin was practiced and defended by Way leadership on many levels. We invite other readers to submit their stories, or to confirm the stories we have published, in order to make clear that sexual error has been, and still is, a serious problem in TWI. John P. Juedes, 1999 www.empirenet.com/~messiah7 "

Well, dang it, Twinky, nothing occurs to me to say on this topic.

Similarly, there was prayer. 1. We pretty much ignored “The Lord’s Prayer” because it wasn’t written TO us and wasn’t “accurate” to this administration. Christ tells us how to pray and we ignore it??? Yet, it’s a pretty great prayer if you study it and gives God much more respect than I typically heard or said myself in TWI. 2. “The Word of God is the Will of God”: I remember VP denigrating denominations because of being wishy-washy about God’s will in their prayer life. That supposes we had a better handle on the will of God than others, therefore can pray better. I doubt it. It also supposes it is important to define the will of God in prayer. I doubt that too. 3. Another performance thing that made me nervous sometimes. Pretty funny VP said not to put God in a box. We did. Everything was in a box, by virtue of following his instruction. Choked the life out of everything.

I have spent the last few days reading the threads about TWI origins “Way Living in Wonderland” and others. WOW!!! One comment: Up until the 60’s when the Women’s Lib movement started, woman were instructed in magazines and Home Ec class to be subservient, greet their husband’s at the door in a nice dress, jewelry, even heels. Keep the kids quiet, never question them about anything (even if they were late, or didn’t come home that night). He was the ruler of the house, period. That explains some things about both VP and Mrs.