Tzaia

It must be a shock coming here after the experience of TWI. One of TWI's most highly held values - like-mindedness - is nearly absent here, along with it's close ally - doing away with negativity. You are free to be yourself here, but you might have to support what you say with logic, and not someone battering you with scripture pulled out of context. I think I was here early on maybe posting under something closer to my real name. I arrived back here in 2007 after a splinter group that I was involved with for years, suffered yet another fracture, and I was asked to vouch for someone's character, which is nothing short of ironic given the circumstances over my departure. I had been completely away from anyone who had been involved with TWI or its offshoots for about 2 years and was hap hap happy to be gone. Five years ago I would have spent most of my time in the doctrinal area. Now I don't care. I stick around for entertainment purposes only.

Yes, with the WRITTEN understanding that it would stay true to my wishes. Yes, I got that in writing even though they were "shocked" that I, a fellow sister in Christ, could not take their handshake as being good enough. Heck, putting it in a contract wasn't sufficient. This is one of the many reasons why I have no use for them.

Are you saying that no one told you about TWI before you took the class? I was told, but I chose to ignore the warnings, given the source, my sister, who had a tendency to speak about things that she had no knowledge about with great authority.

hmmm

Actually, he's gotten worse. His earlier stuff at least scores "good" in a couple of areas.

Since I didn't take any classes beyond PLAF, I don't know the context. What I did come to understand was that lying was acceptable any time the truth was inconvenient.

Very amusing. I started using Stylewriter a year or so ago to tighten up the writing for my college papers. For an example of TWI-style writing, I'm posting some screen shots of JAL's last letter and what Stylewriter had to say about it. Here's a legend: Red sentences are any sentences over 35 words. Dark red words or phrases indicate passive verbs, cliches, overused words, or overwriting. Bold black words are confused words, misused words, confused hyphens

Yeah, but it was around 73 AD after the fall of Jerusalem. Been there a couple of times. It is a marvel of engineering from how to get up there to how they brought water in from the west (as it's right next to the Dead Sea). The Jewish people in Israel believe that the suicide was heroic because the people avoided capture, torture, and rape. It is believed that 1 or 2 people might have been alive.

Here's the case concerning MG and JB: http://tinyurl.com/m8qc8q The case between JAL and the G's appears to be open. https://www.civicnet.net/apps/civil/courts/civil_ia Just put in one of the names...

You are right, Penworks, very concise. On a similar note, I'm reading and researching on this right now where perception (thoughts) cause biological changes at the cell level. Bruce Lipton has some great thoughts on the concept.

I believe that's a sign that you are successfully breaking away. In the cult, you learn to dissect everything from the outside and avoid critical thinking within the cult. That way you keep filling yourself with what reinforces the world view they want you to have. People don't grow and learn when they do that; they just become arrogant. At this time, I think you need to question everything and allow yourself to be open to many ideas. The overthinking will die down in time - or maybe not.

My now husband made it very clear back in 1979 that he could not consider a serious relationship with anyone who had not taken "the class." Since it was so important to him, I let him pay for it. I imagine that we were always considered unevenly yolked because I never went any further than the class and he was a college WoW, TC, and an ACG. Also, once we hooked up, he was not inclined to be as involved, so I was probably a bad influence. We also lived together before we were married - not as roommates. We didn't make a point of keeping it a secret, but we also didn't openly share that information. I can't tell you how many people advised me against marrying him because he had a tendency to become engaged, but not actually get married. His fiancée before me had expressed a desire to go WoW, so he broke off the engagement. I believe his tendency was to move away from someone who was committed to moving up the way ladder for a number of reasons, most of them involving the increased meddling in people's private lives. Even at my low level, I had to tell people that it wasn't their life and that I did not appreciate the interference. I had been married and I knew what I was getting myself into. If he bailed, it would not be the end of the world. I knew that if he did commit, it would be for the duration. TWI was never the foundation for our marriage. We always kept God at the head and we didn't equate TWI with God. I thought at the time that many TWI corp marriages were contrived, but who was I to make that observation?

One of the things that exasperated me when in TWI was the writing style. Everything was written as though it were an epistle. I got to the point where I couldn't ever finish a letter or an article because of the wordiness and expounding on minutiae. Most things took a translator to get to the point. Was this by design?

TWI has a FB presence. It isn't open. Early on someone was ejected from the group who raised questions. CES/STF has an internet presence on those venues because they are free and those sites (used to) cater to the younger crowd. Much of their outreach venues cater to younger people. In the beginning, there was an inherent distrust of the internet, because any kind of open forum, such as GS, always disintegrated into flame wars and the board simply didn't trust the idea of using volunteer moderators or (gasp) actually allowing the free-flow exchange of competing ideas. When I was involved, JB wanted a place that would be used to attract and provide "meeting" space for younger people. He wanted to use my Biblical Unitarian site. I didn't want that domain used for that purpose, but I was amenable to CES putting up unitarian articles, providing the site was not simply a mouthpiece for CES. As is evident, that didn't happen, but that's another story. When I left in 2004, MySpace was in its infancy and there was no Facebook at that time, but the younger people in the home office would be very inclined to gravitate towards those venues providing a place for "like-minded believers," based upon what I know about them. For the older crowd, the internet was an afterthought. They were still very driven by print and mail when I was there, preferring to sell CD's and books rather than make things downloadable (and therefore free). I see they are doing it now, but if I had my way, they would've been doing it back in the '90s.

Yeah, lying is the best way to put your best foot forward in a Christian organization.

I thought using the word just all the time was just weird at first. I just thought the prayers sounded robotic that I made a point to just not use the word. Then I just never got called on again to just pray out loud. Is that just full of it or what?

This is something I struggle with because where I come from hearing audible voices in your head signals some sort of mental disorder along the lines of schizophrenia. So I've felt a measure of discomfort when trying to hear god, much less having a conversation. When I am around people who believe they are hearing from god or talking with god, I understood why they are doing it, but I have to question whether it is actually happening, or whether they just want it to be happening. The reason for that is because god is usually backing up what they already know, whether it be an "attaboy" or a strong rebuke. Rarely have I seen god intervene in such a way that someone experiences a strong paradigm shift, which you would think would happen on a regular basis, given that he is god. Even as I see the hand of god around me, I have never felt a personal involvement in my life. As much as I have desired it and tried to have it, I've just never felt an actual interaction. What I have really steered away from since my involvement in TWI is allowing other's god-talking "experience" to influence me. It keeps me free from the "should" and "ought" aspect, because according to the god-listeners, I should be feeling pretty empty but I don't. I ought to be leaning to god for "wise counsel" and "protection" when I haven't experienced either one when I tried, especially when I was hearing something totally different from what others were apparently hearing, and therefore accused of having a devil spirit. Why should I "listen" to god when he's (supposedly) given me enough sense to know if I can handle an additional commitment, or what I like to do, or what I need to be doing? What can he tell me that I am unable to perceive on my own? I am free to make choices and live with them because I know that I am responsible for those choices, and not simply thinking that god knows I can handle it when I'm seriously questioning whether I can.

Tagalong - The main difference between extremist Islamics and TWI is that TWI has never gotten past being a wannabe.

And yet we were supposed to have a "quiver full" of children.

Exie, I think I can relate a bit to what you went through. I was never seduced by someone in TWI, but it did happen. An older authority figure. I believed that I would derive some benefit, so I went along. It made me sick at the time. It turned out really bad and things quickly went south. I nearly lost everything. I laid on the couch for a month in utter despair because of what this man had done to me and how I had let him do it. I was probably in anguish to some degree for another 10 years. Back then, those things that happened to you and I were a fact of life. No, those things should not have happened, but they did. Did I do anything intentionally that brought it on? Not really. I just happened to be a very attractive young woman with a lack of appropriate boundaries and a fair amount of need to be loved. Guys like VPW and the guy who came after me are able to hone in on us like a heat-seeking missile goes after a target. I try not to think back on that time because I can't change what happened. Nonetheless, this has had some fairly significant long-term effects that I am just now beginning to address, and we're talking nearly 30 years. I hope that you will be able to find peace.

I don't think SIT is bogus. Most of what I heard in TWI was bogus - and the argument that we were speaking the language of angels was flat. I was rarely called to SIT. Rarely. I was never called when I felt there was something that God wanted to say through me. After a few years of that I figured that we weren't being led by the spirit as much as we thought.

Oh yeah, and the NASV, the Amplified, the Message - you name it. One of the reasons why the KJV is so much better and so much more accurate is that most, if not all, of VPW's doctrinal arguments fall apart if you look at another version. If you use the study materials, the interlinear, and the concordance that TWI uses, it is possible to come to the same conclusions as TWI. The reason why I say it's possible is that reading the KJV with a 20th century knowledge of words plays into some of TWI's more esoteric concepts. Once I sat down and read the KJV NT with a dictionary that provided the changes in word meaning over the years (which I was roundly criticized for doing) I began to understand the bible in a very different way than was taught by TWI. Unfortunately, most people don't know enough about the history of the KJV to know that it was "translated" from sources that are newer than have been used to create the NIV and some of the other versions out there. The greater "truth" is that our salvation is not based upon having a perfect understanding of God's Word. That is where TWI misses the mark completely.

I think at the time the times were good, either because you were happy, or because you'd better be happy. Now that people have had the time to look back (more or less objectively) the perception of the times have changed. I don't recall people whining about their awful cars, or lack of funds, or terrible living conditions. Things were what they were and besides whining only reminded a person of his/her lack of believing. I think it's difficult to reconcile the terrible cost that many paid. For me it helps to remember that most were trying to do nothing more than to be right with God the best way they knew how. Some people choose to cloud every memory with the idea that someone knew most of them were being deceived all along. I choose not to give anyone that much power over my memories. I think it's important to remember than everyone here is free to think, remember, and believe any way they want, which is a lot better than where we came from.

John - FWIW, I think you have done a fine job.

I'm not sure where the balls come in on that. Leaving because someone made you? How many years did it take some of you to figure out that TWI did you a favor when it told you to leave? The balls part occurred when someone had the good sense to leave, preferably before plunking down money to take a class. But I really have to admire the guy who refused - yes refused to SIT at the 13th session of the PFAL class I went through. Now that took balls.