George Aar

For your futher reading enjoyment: http://skepdic.com/channel.html One point that I thought particularly sanguine: "Her story is appealing to those who are not comfortable in today's world. The past must have been better. It must have been safer then, and people must have been nobler. This message is especially appealing to people who feel like misfits." But then, what the "bleep" do I know?

I was on staff at HQ when the lights finally came on for me, so the "limb" thingy never entered into it. All it took was LoyBoy declaring "You either learn to kiss my a$$ reeeeaaalll good, or get the he11 outta here" (paraphrased). Looking at it in that light, the decision was hardly difficult.

Of course, if one does buy that line, it then opens up a whole 'nother can of worms, that is: where does "free will" enter into anything? If you're called out "before the foundations of the world" (and your a$$hole neighbor isn't), what then do you have to say in the matter? And what could you possibly have done to earn the blessing? And what could your neighbor have possibly done to NOT earn it? It all happened eons before you were even thought of. I can hear the religion/superstition spin machine shifting into gear already...

Well, I've mentioned this before, but maybe if I do it often enough, somebody will see how freaking brilliant I am and what great merit there is in the idea. WayWorld should buy several plots at the local cemetary. Excavate a huge hole. Then take a big front-loader into the Way Woods. Scrape the soil down to a depth of 18" or so anywhere that anybody's ashes were ever scattered. Take that soil to the cemetary and bury it with great ceremony and solemnity. Put up a huge marker there with all the names of anyone who ashes were ever put in the WayWoods. Then go and get the Vickster, Uncle Harry, Ermal, Don, and whoever else's body in planted at Hdqtrs. and reintere them in town as well. Now go get a few protestant preachers, maybe a Catholic priest or two, a Buddhist monk, a Rabbi, and whatever other denomination might make sense and have them come out to WayWorld and do their own particular "cleansing" ceremony to rid the grounds of any ethereal traces of the dearly departed. Now you're ready to sell off whatever portions of the farm you want to somebody who can actually USE it. Maybe to Honda. They could use the auditorium as a showroom for their new models, and have video presentations for all their hot clients. Or maybe to Sony. They could store REAL merchandise in the OSC building and maybe build an assembly facility on ROA grounds. There's probably lots of opportunities if you guys just get rid of the stiffs. Geeze, perk up already and smell the decade. Nobody's going into the cult business anymore, there's too many other possibilities. And just think, McMullan and co. wouldn't have anymore windmills to tilt at. The relatives of all those passed on could have an open, public place to pay their respects without any ....ing matches with the likes of you guys, and you could take the money and relocate the tremendous outreach ministry of THE WAY INTERNATIONAL to someplace of greater need, say, Cabo San Lucas fer instance? Damn, do I have to think of everything for yas?

When I left staff in '89, the entire BOT was out in the street as I was walking away, weeping and wailing, lying prostrate on the pavement grabbing at my ankles screaming "Puhleeeeze don't go! We NEEEEED you! Puhuleeeeze, don't goo ah, ah, ah, awwww! (inconsolable weeping)" Actually, I walked in Howard's office (the morning after LoyBoy's ultimatum) and told him I was going. He smiled, wrote me out a check (severance and vacation pay) and reserved a Ryder truck for me. Buh-bye!

Invisible one, I caught it. I dunno, didn't do a whole lot for me. I still don't think SNL has been funny since Belushi died. They try really hard, they just don't have any talent (kinda like a certain president?)...

"So Kerry had alot of spirits helping him talk. BIG DEAL" Gawd, I love a well-reasoned debate. (BTW, it's l-i-A-r. You're welcome)

Excath, Heiki was from Finland (a sure tip-off is all the freaking "n's" in the last name - a Finlander fer sure). I knew a Norwegian girl who was a W.O.W. in Duluth, who I think taught the class live a few times. Damned if I can remember her name now. Irene something, I think. Dave (Miller) help?

What the Lutheran and Methodist churches were only partially able to do, WayWorld completed - my conversion to agnosticism. I finally arrived at the place in life, thanks to TWI, that I'm quite convinced that religion (or "sprituality" or "Godly living" or whatever you want to call it) is bull$hit. I'm a senses man! Gloooowry!

Sky, Your original question just seemed so similar to someone asking "Why didn't my horoscope come true?" or "How come my Ouija board gave me the wrong answer?" or maybe "Why can't I ever find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? I've looked really hard!" It just seems to me that the answer may be a whole lot more obvious than you're trying to make it. But then, maybe not. I'm not an atheist, after all. That would connote a certainty that I simply don't have. I'm just a garden variety agnostic...

Sky, You're the one who asked the question. You'll pardon me if I find it just a tad disingenuous when the (to me, anyway) MOST obvious answer to your question is never even considered by the true believer. Are you looking for answers or more soothing, religious, spin-doctoring to shore up some weak points in your theology?

"Geo did you lose your ears again?" Nope, just my "God"...

Gee, why doesn't God speak to us? I bet I can think of a reason...

I've mentioned this before, but probably a few of yas weren't around, so I'll reiterate. You know that cute little gazebo out in the middle of ROA grounds? Can you hazard a guess as to how much that cost? How about $12,000 for design expenses alone? Yes, for a building with no plumbing, no wiring, no windows, no doors, no insulation, hell, hardly even any walls! It's basically a spiral staircase with a roof over it. And the actually construction costs when it was finally completed? Over $40,000! And this was at a time (late '70s IIRC) when a fairly nice 3bdrm house could be built for less than that. And the wonderful OSC building was originally roofed (along with parts of the Indiana Campus) in a sprayed-in-place urethane foam insulation which then had a latex coating sprayed over it (the actual "roof" part of the application). Well it worked for a few minutes, maybe, and then promptly started to leak. Years of slap-dash measures to try to keep the rain out finally gave way to the whole mess being scraped off and a proper roof installed in it's place. Yeah, that cost a few dollars. And the stuff being stored in the OSC? Yeah, all that stuff that was needed for the "move of THE WORD"? Mostly leftovers from past construction projects (which should have been returned for credit), tools and equipment that was seldom (or never) used, and - naturally - lots of storage space for VIP staff members. TWI became more and more simply an out-of-control bureaucracy, with a gazillion left hands not knowing what the right one was doing. Yeah, Godly, un huh...

Sudo, Can we fornicate too? (I hope I still know how)

Maybe I just lack the intelligence to see the "real" story, but it seems to me one can only draw only two possible explanations for all the incidents told here. 1. The people telling the stories are exaggerating, embellishing, or just plain lying. 2. TWI was an amoral, dispicable, self-serving, and utterly uncaring P.O.S. organization. Guess which one I choose?

The last I knew of Melanie, she was in San Diego. But that was a loooong time ago.

Well, this was a long time back, '73 or '74, but we had a guy in our fellowship with some severe developmental disabilities (to put it charitably), physically and mentally. Anyway, rather than letting the state house him and train him, the "believers" were encouraged to pray and "believe" for him and fellowship with him as much as possible. I guess I can understand that, but they had no idea of what they were dealing with. Long story short, he ended up raping a girl in his twig. He ended up going to a state mental facility for criminals and she, well, I never saw her again, and don't know what became of her. Not one word of the whole sordid story was EVER spoken to the local Wayfers. When I found out what had happened I was told to keep that info. in the infamous "lockbox". In retrospect I can see that the way the incident was handled was way beyond stupid and very close to being criminally negligent. But, then, what do I know?

WG, Oh, I DOOO miss the tomatos. Just throw some seeds on the ground and jump back! It was insane how prolific they were in O-hi-o. But in WA. they don't do that well. In western WA, anyway. We just don't get a long enough, hot enough summer. Oh well. I'll take the trade-off. Less than great tomatoes but I don't have to spend another minute in the midwest. Works for me...

Well, to round out the "staff" experience a little, I'll tell you what life was like in "WayBuilders" dept. (post Auditorium construction). There were, geeze, I guess 8 or 10 of us in the department (and about twice that number in the architect office, lol). We would meet every morning for prayer and manifestations (naturally) and then have a little planning session of what we hoped to accomplish that day. Usually there was far more help than there was work to do. And the work we did was usually trivial mantainence kind of stuff. Sticky doors, leaky faucets, cabinet doors that came off their hinges, that kind of crap. Whenever a "real" job came along, everyone was so eager to actually have something to do, we'd stand in line to take turns doing whatever it was. The rest of the time we'd go to Adolph's for coffee (gawd, but that was the WORST coffee on earth) and maybe a doughnut or two. We'd drive around in one of the pick-ups and carry this or that back and forth to the OSC. I'd avoid the lunchroom at all costs. Usually I'd drive into St. Marys for a sandwich or go over to the cabinet shop (they had their own little world over there). So for the most part it was a jerk-off job. Even at the ROA, the hours were long, but the work was light (and boring). There were far too many meetings for my taste - but then, I'm not a meeting type of guy anyway. Just a lot of wasted time. It was also the first real look I had at so many of the TWI celebrities outside of the spotlight. Loy was still kinda shellshocked (this was '87 - '89), Don was always kindly, but terribly thin and sickly looking, and Howard, well, he was just Howard, a pretty non-descript, unimpressive guy. After getting a pretty good taste of TWI life and all the lazy lackies and hangers-on and the incredible WASTE of time and money and material that went on constantly, I finally concluded that the organization was just another corporation. Only difference between TWI and the dogfood plant in St.Marys was that the dogfood plant actually produced something. I'm not saying Linda's exaggerating her experiences at all. I know there were several departments that worked their staff to death, but WayBuilders sure wasn't one of them. Also unlike Linda, I NEVER grew to even like New Knoxville. Anything east of the Rockies is dogpoop, IMHO. Now you know...

Oh, and OM, How about spending an eternity in non-existence? Maybe not much to crow about, but not all THAT bad, really, Is it? Whether it is or not, it very well may be what DOES await us all. Sorry,...

OM and GSG, And just what have all the wonderful "promises" we were told about gotten you? Unuh, believe what you like, but believing it STILL doesn't make it so. I'll take my reality undiluted (deluded?), thanks all the same...

I think that for just about everybody I knew (myself included) that there was a "honeymoon" period of from a few weeks to a few months where everything indeed did seem idylic. Once that period was over, slowy the sense of obligation and duty replaced all the "goodies" of how much God loved you, and the sense of nothing but sunshine on the horizon. In retrospect, if one is willing to finally remove their Way-colored glasses, it's easy to see that the rush of good feelings was simply the result of delusion. Our youth and inexperience, coupled with a strong streak of idealism, made suckers out of us all. The real world is a lot harsher a taskmaster than WayWorld, but it's also far more substantial...

How about "God vs. Mothra", or - the granddaddy of them all- "God vs. Godzilla"? I dunno though, with that invisibility thing going on, it's just not going to film well...

The question kinda makes me wonder, just what does "going back" mean? Would that be going back to having "fellowships" 2 or 3 times a week? And just what was it that those boring little meetings were for anyway? Were they some kind of offering to the Almighty? (Hey, we're giving up our evening AGAIN, so be nice to us for awhile, O.K.?) To further understand tremendous truths from the Bible (cheeyah)? A pathetic plea for attention? What? I guess I don't even understand the point of it all anymore. Amazing that it seemed to make so much sense at the time...