George Aar

Gawd, how many installments are there going to be in this serial? Could you just tell us what happened, or does it have to be drawn out for dramatic effect?

Once you've gotten a bit more removed from WayWorld and it's mindset, it's amazing to consider what was really going on. Here's several demented "alpha-males" stalking around, ....ing on everything to mark their territory. And then, there's the obligatory contest of who's got the biggest dick. "Hisssss, Craig's got a little weenie, but look how big MINE is! sssss" It'd be really interesting to see what a behavioral psychologist would make of all of this...

Linda, Save your money. I really don't think the doctors of the future are going to look back on us today as being naive anymore than we look back at Salk, Pasteur, and Jenner as naive. We're practicing medicine, real medicine, today (when it's done right). So there's world's of things we don't yet know, but we build upon that knowledge and get better with each new round of tests, and the resulting failures and successes. And the doctors of tomorrow are going to be standing on the shoulders of those around today. No naivete, just a natural progression of knowledge. The alternative, though, gives no such insights. Advocates of alternative medicine seldom know how their pet treatment even works. They have no history of testing and development, no record of failures and successes. Just a lot of "Boy, ain't this here stuff swell!" kinda endorsements and a lot of wilda$$ed claims. All of that and we learn nothing...

Krysilis, Yeah, they were practicing medicine, folk medicine. Many doctors of mid-19th century had little or no formal education, IIRC. They were just flying by the seat of their pants. Far more akin to what David is proposing with "oxygenated" water than modern AMA-style medicine that we know today...

Linda, Yes, you have to start somewhere. You start with observation, then formulate an hypothesis, then you design proper testing, then you draw your conclusions from your testing, then you publish your findings in a peer-reviewed journal, then your colleagues can run the same testing, then they can see if they get the same results and then the results from several different tests can be analyzed, and after all that, if it still seems as though there is some merit to the concept then clinical trials can be started. Then, after all that, the regimen can then be considered for acceptance as proper medical protocol. But what the alternative folks usually want to do is go right from "Hey, I've got an idea!" to "here, take this, it works great" and "IT'S ALL NATURAL!" Sorry, no sale. And given that the supposed benefits of "oxygenated water" (even "non-clustered" oxygenated water that Penta sells) contradicts the accepted norms for how we understand the body to work, AND, any testing on it has shown NOTHING beneficial, all we have then is ANECDOTAL evidence, which to be blunt, is not evidence at all. Why not have a cocktail of eye of newt, or maybe submit to a little blood-letting to let out those evil humors? Uh, uh, individuals can do what they please, but when HMOs and the like are required to pay for chiropractic care and acupuncture and other flim-flams, and my insurance rates go up, I get more than a little agitated...

And Krys and Lindaz, The fact that doctors of old were wedded to antiquated thinking and had little concept of what they were talking about doesn't color the state of modern science. Those doctors weren't practicing science then anymore than David and other alternative medicine practitioners do now. They were relying on "we did before and it worked so don't tell me what to do!" But also note that medicine did eventually come around to practicing good hygiene, once they understood what the hey was going on (bacterial infections, etc.) and had ample testing and data behind them, they changed! What the "alternative" community wants to do is shortcut the process. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. You have to have the testing and the proofs documented before you advocate a treatment. Yeah, it's takes longer, and it's still subject to human error. But it's all we've got. To adopt new techniques and treatments without going through the hurdles serves no one. Well, except those that are selling the treatments...

The first I heard of anything of that nature was in the fall of '80. The sixth corps had gone back in res. for a year and I started to hear some feedback from some of the sixth corps clergy about what they had learned while back in res. Yikes! TMI! This was all second-hand information, but I was told how they had really worked the subject of "agape" and "phileo" and "eros" and how part of their conclusions included that sex was a real loving thing to do for one another regardless of one's marital status. Hence, fellatio for the MOG was just fine (and to be expected, I guess) and whatever kind of sex act you'd like to persue with whoever was just fine too. All you had to be sure of was that everybody was "fully initiated" or whatever. I remember at the time thinking that "this is pretty whacked" and that there must be some mistake. This couldn't possibly be the real WayWorld spin on sex. So I sorta just put it all out of my mind. Until I heard similar rumblings just a few years later...

Excie, Memories! tee hee And regards the "mastering" of the tremendous "truths" of piffle. Gaaaaawwd, are you ever gonna get over the "secret decoder ring" approach to life? Would an all-loving, all-knowing, omnipresent God really want to make life revolve around the anal-retentive disecting of arcane passages of scripture and then the endless surmising and speculating as to their "real" meaning? Even if it was the truth, I ain't going to church with you, pal. No thanks...

"Could someone explain Cgeer's initial appeal" I sure dunno. It's entirely by me. But then Charles Manson had some pretty devoted followers too. I didn't understand that one either...

Krysilis, Add to your list: chiropractic iridology crystal therapy therapeutic touch oh, gawd, the list is endless. Suffice it to say, there's no shortage of bogus nonsense out there. No, I don't buy any of it anymore. If a regimen has a track record of published, properly blinded, reproduceable testing that shows it has merit, yeah, I'll look into that. But there's not enough time in the world to look into all the unsupported outrageous claims made by the "alternative" medicine community. If something is really all that wonderful, what's stopping it's promoters from designing, running, and then publishing some decent tests? (and no, "I took it and now I feel great!" is no substitute for that).

"The first time I heard him work a crowd was ROA '74. I thought he was an insufferable prick." It took me several years to reach that level of in-depth spiritual perception and awareness. I eventually did, though.

And I meant to add, I'd long expected LCM to be VPW's successor. It came as no surprise to me whatsoever. VPW had picked out Craig's wife for him, gave him "front and center" at every big event, and heaped praises on him regularly. To me it was obvious that LoyBoy was being groomed for the part for many years prior...

You've got to give the devil his due. LCM, for all his faults, was great at working a crowd. He could get everybody jazzed up and thinking they were hearing from God Almighty - at least in his earlier years, before he started spitting and swearing so much. Given that he was such a lapdog for VPW, and Wierwille, thinking he had some exclusive connection to Divine wisdom, went for a showman. Someone who was entirely style over substance, but then, wasn't that VPW as well? I don't think there were a lot of hidden mechanisations behind the choice. It was just a stupid decision. Lots of those were made...

Socks, Thinking about VP's version a little bit, if you're "reaching up into Daddy's cookie jar" and He doesn't have any revelation for you, is your mind just going to go blank? Really, I don't know as I've ever been in a state of having NO thoughts whatsoever, well, barring a few incidents of over "medication"...

Oh gawd, I spent so much time chasing my tail with that ridiculous teaching. You ever try to figure out when your first thought is? I mean, when's the starting time? If you've been thinking about a particular issue for awhile, when does your "first thought" get to happen? "Gee, was it that, or did I think of something before that?" And what if God isn't giving any revelation that day. What's your first thought then? And remember, if you get it wrong, the only other possibility is that it's from THE DEVIL! How farking stupid could it get? Evidently, pretty stupid...

I don't think even a dope-slap would help now. Geeze, if they've been around as long as that (8th and 13th corps), what is it they haven't seen? I hate to be the gloomy gus, but with that much mileage on in TWI, if they haven't smelled the coffee yet, I can't imagine what would turn them around now...

It was 1979-80, Alexander City, Alabama. I won't mention the names here - actually I've forgotten the name of the killer - I didn't ever get to know him, but his victim I don't think I can forget. Geeze, it's been 25 years now. The a-hole is probably out of jail. Unfortunately, his victim is still dead...

Not entirely sure, it happened so often, but I think it was 11 times from '74 - '89. Haven't moved once since...

HCW, I think your W.O.W. year might be a lot more the norm than you may think. Personally I had a "W.O.W. brother" who had a real penchant for starting fires. I'd come home and find big scorch marks on the countertop and the apartment would smell of smoke. I learned rather early on to keep matches or anything flammable out of his reach. (You can imagine what happened to our damage deposit) Then another one of the "family" decided to move in his girlfriend and her one-year-old. Then another decided it would be a great idea to get a local girl in a "family way". Oh, and then there was the night the cops came to arrest us all for kidnapping and rape. Yeah, it was a laugh riot. And that's not even to mention the other W.O.W. family up the road from us a bit. The Corps "coordinator" thought that the best way to reprove one of his lesser family members was by shooting him in the head. Yeah, killed him graveyard dead. Wasn't that just special? The W.O.W. program was an idiotic device designed to promote TWI and ultimately generate more income and bring more young girls into striking distance of the MOG and his minions. The fact that people were put in untenable, or even downright dangerous situations couldn't have mattered less to them. They were getting theirs, and that's all that counted...

Gosh David, Have you ever even heard the term "anecdotal evidence"? Sorta like the medicine men of the old west, traveling from town to town selling their miraculous patent medicines. They never seemed to have a shortage of heartfelt testimonials as to the effecaciousness of their product...

Even in my most deluded believer daze I could never buy this whole teaching. It just doesn't make any sense, no matter how you try to slice and dice it. In particular I remember a Bible handbook or some such with a passage describing the "shields" of biblical times and how they were made of leather and would be soaked down with water before a battle to quench the burning arrows shot by one's enemies. Made sense to me. Then Martindale got ahold of that passage and made some big production in the bigtop one year at The Rock. He had lights projecting all over the tent supposed representing how a discus could quench all those firey darts. To which I could only think "Huh?" Then if you study all the individual words - from any source you'd care to choose - the imagery is always military. So where the hell did this stupid idea come from anyway? Could it have been any dumber?

OMYGOD! It's even worse than I thought! Not only was the teaching a convoluted, indecipherable, confusing bit of tripe, but VPW plagiarized that as well! Geeze Pete, you'd think if he was going to steal something, he'd steal something worthwhile! After having read "Numbers in Scripture" and other such twaddle, I'm fairly convinced that Bullinger was almost as whacked as Wierwille. "Anal-retentive" doesn't begin to say it. And the quote from "How to Enjoy the Bible" does nothing to change my opinion. Ouch!

Yes, OM, everybody knows what a whackjob organization they are. And, in spite of that, WayWorld still CARRIED those books in their bookstore. Not a footnote someplace like, "Yeah, this book is 'out there', but it does have a couple of interesting facts like -" or an offhand comment to some of the insiders (corps, etc.) that maybe they should take a look at the book if they get a chance so they could garner this or that detail from it and then look into it further. NO! None of that. They openly endorsed the books (along with "The Marxist Minstrels" and a few other dopey things) by offering them for sale in their bookstore. Dance around it however you'd like. WayWorld was heavily leaning towards the white supremacist mindset. Our beloved "Fuhrer" at the top, the "S.S." Corps, and all the wonderful little "Brown Shirt" twigites, the parallels are obvious to anyone who cares to look. There's also the quote I've heard from several independant sources that VPW said, in confidence in the motorcoach - with reference to WWII - that the "wrong" side won the war. Maybe that's apochryphal, I dunno. But it sure seems to agree with his taste in books and general mindset towards politics...

Gawd, I'm in a goofy position on this one. I don't think it was an error per se, just a convoluted way of trying to communicate something. The way the teaching went, IIRC, was that the word "all" could be used in two different ways. In either case it's going to be an inclusive word encompassing everything thing within it's supposed category. Hence it could mean "all" without any exceptions whatsoever, or "all" within a certain category without any distinction in that category. Yes, it's a ridiculous bit of hairsplitting designed to paper over the fact that sometimes words are used with something less than "a mathematical exactness and a scientific precision" in the Holy Writ. But I think it gives us a little insight into the mind of the Vickster. Things didn't work real well in there, from what I can tell...

All of these type of scams are just the internet equivalent of the old, time-tested, "pigeon-drop" con. That scan was demonstrated in the opening scenes of "The Sting", if you remember. Total strangers come across a whole bunch of dough and don't know what to do with it. "Well, if you'll just put some of your money in with it, I'm sure we'll all come out of this smelling like a rose", the stranger assures you. And so it goes. Like has already been stated, if it sounds like it's too good to be true, it almost certainly is...