penworks

So, to the people who defend VP having bodyguards for self protection, like the Pope has (a Corps grad actually told me this recently when she accused me of being "angry" on one of my website posts) I guess I will refer them to this-here-post. Thanks for spelling this out!

Hi BlueCord, I'm just chiming in to welcome you to this most rambunctious- in- the- best- way group of people around. Have no doubt. You are on the right track to disassociate yourself with TWI. Life outside is great, we have civil rights here, we can grow and follow our hearts. You can too. I trust you and your wife can leave without any big uproar. Respect others and they will respect you. That is not to say you agree with them or want to fellowship with them. It means by their behavior you decide it is best for you to go elsewhere. This is all an understatement. What I want to say its, Run, BlueCord, Run! A little about me (some of this may come in handy). I left in 87. It felt like an escape to me because of the terrible paranoia at HQ. I was in the 2nd Corps with LCM, I was married to a clergyman, I was a mother, I had been a researcher on the Aramaic project, and I had been loyal for 17 years. Boom. My personal crisis came while on the research team and then VP died and then Geer swooped in, and then and then and then.... long story short, I lost all but a couple of friends, but the new life I gained was more than worth it. You find that you can not only survive but thrive if you just remember TWI does not define who you are, nor does their propaganda. Cheers to your courage. Thanks for visiting us. I hope you find helpful info and abundant empathy here. Let me know if I can help answer any questions you might have, especially about the research dept. Just curious, do they still have a so-called research department any more? All the best, Charlene Edge

Hi TLC, Sure wish I'd had some other kind of education about the Scriptures like you did before getting involved in TWI. That education might have steered me away from PFAL. I hope my story, Affinity for Windows, that Rocky pointed out, is interesting to you. The team was a mix, our jobs were varied, but in the end, to my knowledge, nothing that contradicted VPW's teachings got published.

Hi GreaseSpotters. Actually, faithful grads and Way leaders encouraged lots of us at the ECU fellowship (in Greenville, NC) during 1970s to buy concordances and lexicons to study THE WORD. We were told to check out what Wierwille taught for ourselves. What a concept. The problem was we couldn't. We were too ignorant and too swept up into adoration of the "MOG" to question or think or understand his fast talking sales pitch. Also, what the leaders left out of the "tools for researching" was any consideration of the Bible as an anthology written by different people. The Bible was THE WORD OF GOD authored by God Himself and it had to fit together without contradictions. End of discussion. The Bible was not recognized for the great literature it is, only for it being "authored by God" and being the manual on how to be a human being, providing the ONLY source of truth in the whole world. With that attitude, I learned nothing outside of the Bible that could have helped me UNDERSTAND the Bible. That's what fundamentalism does. So, I ended up in the so-called research department having to submit to what VPW said the Bible said, all the while gradually discovering he was not always right. Ask me anything you'd like to know about the "research team" at HQ from 1970 to 1987. I'll do my best to answer. So back to the topic of this thread: submission. Yes, many of us submitted to the authority of VPW and other top leaders. Why? Each of us has to sort that out. I do not think we were all brainwashed. I think each of us probably weighted in at different places on scales of suggestibility and vulnerability. I know some people who NEVER thought they were manipulated into submission, that they made their own decisions in TWI. Others were more pliable. There is no one size fits all. You know, I think there is something beautiful about being submissive to the right things. Like to someone else who has mastered a skill I want to learn. Master artists teach apprentices and those apprentices learn because of their humility and submission to the master who's spent his or her life mastering the art. But that is a topic for another day and probably another kind of website! Cheers, Penworks

I could not agree more. As a person who had first-hand experience with VPW, this description fits like "a hand in a glove."

I think this is an important topic. Thanks for bringing it up. Disclosure: I am a grad of the 2nd Corps who knew Wierwille personally. I was a limb leader's wife for a time. I was on the research team, too. From my experience in the cult, and from knowing a variety of people in it over the years, I'd say victim/perpetrator is pretty black and white, but probably those are useful words to apply as we attempt to clarify who bears responsibility for the darkness perpetrated by the system known as TWI. But as Oakspear says, applying the correct label correctly, if we chose to do it, is complicated. People varied in level of responsibility and attitudes and intentions. That said, I feel some measure of guilt about having been someone who sang TWI's praises, keeping myself bundled up in a cloud of denial, thinking I was promoting the greatest ministry on earth. To make amends, I do what I can .... moral outrage is appropriate, not only for outsiders looking in, but as a response from those of us who left.

Since this topic is called, Cults, Cults. Everywhere, I thought I'd include a link to the recent issue of ICSA's journal with the lead article "The Challenge of Defining Cult." International Cultic Studies journal - new issue Cheers.

Right. It's the action that gets evaluated by the law, not the belief behind it, right? If anyone's interested there's a book called, Cults, Culture and the Law: Perspectives on New Religious Movements, edited by Thomas Robbins, WIlliam C. Shepherd, and James McBride. Scholars Press, Chico, CA. It's put out by the American Academy of Religious Studies in Religion. TWI is mentioned in this book on pg. 111 in the chapter titled, "Cults and Conversion: The Case for Informed Consent" by Richard Delgado. Here is a little bit from it: "Values of self-determination already play a significant role in the debate about religious cultism. On a rhetorical level, defenders of these groups [cults] ask why young adults should not be free to join whatever religious organizations they desire. Opponents respond that free choice is exactly what these groups deny. Constitutional analysis of state intervention raises consent issues, as do tort and criminal actions brought by cult members after unsuccessful deprogrammings, and suits by ex-members against cult leaders for unlawful imprisonment, slavery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraud." Delgado goes on to advocate for a consent agreement when a person joins a group, meaning the group gives full disclosure about its intentions, beliefs, etc. and the new recruit agrees to it. I know I laughed out loud when I read this article because it seems to me that groups like "cults" do not reveal their true nature right off the bat. Usually it is camouflaged by statements like, "we do biblical research" while in the back room they have people pretending to do that, or at least doing something they CALL biblical research as defined by the cult. What do you all think? Do you think a group could even be required by law to deliver a consent form for recruits to sign? And what if a recruit signed it? What exactly would that mean for that person's life?

Rocky, I agree that the "do surgery on Waybrain" section was helpful. Specific insider language helped created Wayworld. Identifying how VPW redefined words and concepts to suit his goals was a huge part of my recovery. Examples include "legal." That did not mean what it normally means in society: i.e. abiding by the law of the land. In Wayworld, it meant the law of the Old Testament. So because VPW touted we were "free in Christ," so anyone who abided by the 10 commandments, for instance, was "legal" or "legalistic." Further, they were "living according to the wrong administration." since VPW said we were living in the "grace administration." These divisions are one way that bible teachers use to account for what most readers see as contradictions in the Bible. VPW got that "administration" theory (also called dispensationalism) from a bunch of others like Bullinger and John Nelson Darby , an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher from the 1800s. I digress ... I think John Juedes is amazing in that he's stuck with analyzing The Way for so long and has provided so much helpful info to so many of us. I have thanked him for that. Hope ya'll have, too. What I would caution people about, however, is that he believes people leaving TWI should seek a Christian avenue for fellowship etc. That may be helpful and appropriate for some, but not all. That path is not necessarily the best for every single person who leaves TWI. Just sayin'. Cheers! Penworks

Ditto. As for the title of this thread, I would delete the word "spiritual" as the adjective for bully. Several other abrupt "defectors" include VPW's motorcoach driver, C*uck *cher. He was there one day and gone the next. I think that was in 1977 or so ... he left with the wife of one of the guys in Joyful Noise. Hush hush ...

Ditto. I think the good thing about this site John Juedes' has is that he identifies himself. Also, Karl Kahler's book is full of information well documented. Here's my two cents on this topic: I found references to The Way simply by going to public and college libraries and looking through books about cults or new religions, etc. and checking the Index in each book. It is time consuming, but hey, if you want to dig, you gotta get out a shovel and put some elbow grease into it, as my dad used to say ... One example was in a library in Amsterdam! Here's my blog post about finding Melton's book there: http://charleneedge....-library-treat/ Another one is a book from the AAR Studies in Religion 36 volume. The name is: Cults, Culture, and the Law: Perspectives on New Religious Movements. Published by Scholars Press, Chico, CA. 1985. Edited by Thomas Robbins, William C. Shepherd, and James McBride. The Way Int'l is cited on four different pages. A word of caution about using quotes from this site. Most posters here use a fake name, so to outsiders, sometimes that detracts from the veracity of the stories here. In other words, they could be ghost stories. I don't have that attitude because I was in the group and can pretty much tell if something is bogus (but not all the time, I'm sure), but without an insider's knowledge, outsiders would not be able to sniff things out so well. Maybe ... Good luck, Charlene

Seth, I read your comment under the article on the newspaper's site. I was sorry to read it. You said, "I absolutely hate those people, if they all died today I wouldn't shed a tear." When we say we hate people, it does not help our efforts here at GSC in raising awareness of TWI but I realize you were only speaking for yourself. IMO, hatefulness might be what TWI leaders are/were about. But it is not what I am about. And I don't think most greasespotters are into keeping hate in their hearts for anyone. But maybe I am wrong. I think hate breeds hate. We may not love TWI leaders who abused us and others, but hate is pretty strong stuff ... I shy away from it. But that's just me ...

Ditto, WordWolf.

And what I find amazing is that all what we know about "the guy who was the reason for the whole movement" is based on what a few people say he did or say he said. And they do not all agree all the time. Or am I wrong about this?

Actually, the family/household delineation originated with VP . I was involved 1970-1987 and during that time I heard him make that sort of distinction over and over. Once upon a time there was a brouhaha (not sure if that is the correct spelling) :-) about "household" and "family" within the Satellite Research Group, which included the research team at HQ but others were involved, too. If you check the Way magazines in the early 1980s, you'll find a Believer's Pledge of Allegiance that was a result of it. We are one household under God, etc. etc. Anyhow, it is all rubbish. Another sort of rubbish is that this distinction that Wierwille made is denied by Wierwille loyalists who blame everything wrong with The Way on Martindale who has been discredited over and over anyway. Wrong. VP began the entire Way ball rolling and it rolls on today in the off-shoots and the scattered Wierwille lovers around the world. Just a couple of weeks ago a long lost "pal" from the 1970s who is not part of The Way in New Knoxville, but obviously revealed herself to still be enmeshed in TWI dogmas, said, "But we're still the first century church in the twentieth and there's supposed to be one man of God like Paul was in the first century." She listens to VP on tape over the internet. He is still her man of God. YIKES. The myth of Wierwille just will not go away. Some people will never admit he was what he really was...it is too frightening to admit it. If you do, the walls of your safe and secure belief-life come crashing down and you must start over. That takes work. It's just too hard.

Good point. Self-reflection dropped to zero in many of our cases. When you are in a box, you don't realize it until it begins to split apart and you see specs of light peek through. From all of our posts, it's apparent we are well aware of the cult problem. What are solutions? Again, last night we watched a show on the History Channel titled, America's Book of Secrets. Season 2, Deadly Cults (first aired May 10, 2013). The segment on dangerous cults was pretty good. Deadly cults Rick Ross, a cult examiner who is often an expert witness in courts, made the point, along with others who were interviewed, that our own freedoms in the US - freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, are what pave the way for cults to form legally...and easily. Rick Ross, cult awareness site To most of us, the following is not news: It is easy in our country to form a non-profit and say it is a new religion and boom, a new cult is born. And it enjoys the protections under the constitution that major well-known religions enjoy, including tax exemption status. That's one downside... Note: Remember that Europeans endured the rough seas of the Atlantic to get to this promised land so they could express their beliefs and enjoy religious freedom and boy did they get it, for the most part. Some persecutions persisted for years until those freedoms were enforced. Give a nod here to Thomas Jefferson, etc. Everyone goes through hard times in life, as Rick Ross pointed out on the Deadly Cults episode, and it is during those vulnerable times that a devoted follower of a dangerous cult comes along with ANSWERS. Those of us here at GSC can say AMEN to that! We are all too familiar with the problem of dangerous cults. What are solutions? I wish I had one magic answer, don't you? As far as I can tell, all we can do is try and head off seekers at the pass that leads into cult territory. One way is to tell our stories. GSC has had some good results in opening peoples' eyes to TWI and to cults in general. Let's not fear sharing our cautionary tales whenever and however we can. In my experience, as uncomfortable as that has been sometimes as a guest with groups of students in a classroom, in the end it is worth the embarrassment and sweaty armpits, and sometimes I get choked up. Usually I find people are thankful for the heads-up. Maybe that's the best preventive measure we have available in our country. Tell our stories. Any time that is appropriate. Otherwise, we'd be stuck with someone "at the top of government" I guess, who would have to decide which groups are destructive cults and which ones are not. Case in point, the Branch Davidians, as that History Channel show pointed out, was a "benign commune" until David Koresh showed up. He took over as prophet and we know the rest of that terrible, devastating story. I suppose I am rambling, but I just want to say---don't ever stop talking, Grease spotters. Wish me luck for another presentation at another college soon. I need new deodorant! Enjoy your weekend. Penworks

Hello, I agree with Tazia on this subject -- that religions are cults in one way or another if we use the word "cult" as a religious idea, usually based on a "special person" that people follow and gain a sense of community from doing that. We just finished watching the History Channel's take on Constantine's political maneuverings and use of the early Christians to stabilize his empire. The show was pretty good in that it reveals how he forced the church elders to agree on what the heck they really believed and which of the many documents (gospels, letters, etc. ) they circulated should be accepted as authoritative, collected, and made official. We call that the making of the biblical canon. It was man-made. Emphasis on MAN. Of course, the series on the History channel is a simplified and gives its own slightly slanted view of the power of Christianity, but it did offer the unknowing watcher something to think about regarding the sweep of that slice of history. Let's talk about cults in terms of the Crusades Too bad about those Crusades, perpetrating evil in the name of Christ. btw...the Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. And we all know from Monty Python that "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" When I watch that, I laugh out loud every single time. My husband, too. So...a few more thoughts. What did me the most good when I left TWI was reading about the formation of the Bible, Christianity, competing beliefs, etc.. I probably sound like a broken record, but I feel strongly about people finding out what their options are before jumping on any religious bandwagon. Yay for public libraries. The problem is, many people do not end up in a cult because they are 100% driven by reason or choosing an "option." So trying to "reason a person out of joining a cult" is pretty hard. I know one person who was on the TWI research team, J*hn Sch*&heit., had been a philosophy major in college and rejected it in favor of "the accuracy of The Word" as fabricated by Wierwille. So I am thinking that emotion plays a bigger role in cult recruitment than any logical arguments or broader knowledge available from wise folks or from books. Maybe a combo of emotion and reason, like "I want the truth and this guy sounds convincing" happens (that was me). But I think that a need to connect with other likeminded and kind people may be a more a powerful draw than "Truth" offered by cults and religions. Recently I had a conversation with a Christian college student who has atheist friends and agnostic friends (there is a difference!) . He remarked on how they are moral even without religion, but he wasn't sure what their morality or ethics were based on, if not the commands of the Bible. Why does that shock people? The student had no idea what Humanism was, or that philosophy offers us a way to navigate the world and be useful, productive, kind, generous, and good for the sake of being good people, not for the sake of gaining rewards in a supposed afterlife. I tried to explain that for me, living this life on the basis of thinking it is probably the only one I get makes me want to enjoy it and use every minute for the good, if possible. As an agnostic, I am just not smart enough or enlightened enough to have the certainty (like I used to have in TWI and before that Young Life, and before that in the Catholic church) that so many believers have about their beliefs. Certainty about what God says or about your religious beliefs/doctrines, in my view, is our enemy. Certainty (and greed and a host of other stuff) was Constantine's original motivation, as a recent History Channel show pointed out. Constantine was certain God and/or Christ, gave him a sign that he would win the war against his then-enemies. Later, there were Crusades which went on for a few HUNDRED YEARS because they were certain they were right in God's eyes. IMO, certainty is the thief of democracy. It makes people NOT want to negotiate or compromise or get along. It makes some Christians bomb abortion clinics. It makes some people in politics claim that God is on their side. YIKES. Are we back in the Crusades? What happened to our democracy? Where is our common ground? At least can it be the golden rule? Maybe? Please? So, I think certainty can be scary. Last thought...cult prevention, I think, is a better way to go than cult undoing. Once a cult gets going, when people are so convinced they are doing God's will that you can't pry them out (that was me long ago), then the situation gets harder to change. Damage is done. Read the stories here at GSC if you're not convinced. I'm interested in hearing what other ideas people here might have about preventing cult recruitment. Got any? Peace, Penworks

Thanks guys. This is very helpful. I probably missed this info somewhere, but about how many might be on staff these days at HQ? Cheers, Penworks

Skyrider, just curious about the number, 35,000, who left ... I would like to use that figure. Can you give me a source?

Good morning. Last night I wrote my response to the report on this event. This morning it was sent to my website subscribers at 9:00 am. You can read it at: The Way celebrates 73 anniversary of ... ? Cheers, Pen

My oh my. 73 years. How time flies when you're having ..... fun? Fundamentalism? http://sidneydailynews.com/news/religion/8561/the-way-international-celebrates-73rd-anniversary

Love that quote! Read some of his work in college. Euripides, that is... BUT, the "answer nothing" part...depends...

Hi, it's Charlene here, just to say that this account nails the phenomenon. Thank you, DWBH. Just one little change.. The Second Corps men were ordained after one year on the field post graduation. So graduation was '73, ordination was '74. Well, all I can say is: this is a broken record of VPW self-serving rhetoric.

Fascinating background about JAL. I appreciate your telling us your part in the spin-off situations and how that all played out. In 1987 when I left TWI, JAL came to Orlando to run a meeting and asked to stay with us overnight. We were not interested in his new ministry gig but said sure, hospitality being something we still liked to offer. JAL and I had a conversation. He hoped to win me over to his new gig. I challenged him. "If I'm going to go around saying 'thus saith the Lord' about anything, I want to be sure about what I'm saying, and at this point, I'm not sure about anything." My sense was, and still is, that any accuracy of the Bible was a pipe dream. The cannon of Scripture varies, so right there we have a slippery slope. Later, the more I read and thought and pondered and wondered and re-read, I figured the path I was most at peace about taking was aiming me towards agnosticism. Now, I'm getting off topic... Back to JAL When I was recruited at ECU, he and P#t were the state leaders of N.C. There was no Way Tree yet. That invention came later. The guys who lived in the Way Home with JAL and P#t were students at ECU in training to enter the Way Corps. Many of them are mentioned here at GSC (E8rl B*rton, G#erald W#enn, D*ke Clar$, etc.) They had a schedule that included communal study, witnessing, and running the coffeehouse on Saturday night. Some of this is reported in book, The Way: Living in Love, by El#na White&ide. ...Just as an aside, El#na did not ask any of us who ended up in that book whether she could use our real names. For some people, she used both their first and last names. For me, only my first, Charlene...this gets interesting because of all the different paths taken by people in the book after they left TWI.... Anyhow, JAL at ECU (oh, don't we love the acronyms) was on a roll. He is still on it. When I watched a few minutes of his recent YouTube gig, I had flashbacks. He has not changed his kindergarten-like-explaining tone of voice or mannerisms. I, too, am sorry he is suffering with an illness these days. He meant well during those years that I first knew him, but there must have been something he felt he had to prove by sticking with the fundie thing so long. Cheers, Pen

Just curious about Ermal's part in VPW's agenda. He never said much. The first time I met VPW, Ermal and Harry W. were with him. They are in the motorcycle shed on the cold November day I arrived from ECU for a women's advance, 1971. That scene is part of an early chapter in my book. Yikes. Where is the publisher I need for my book? Hellllooo. Don't worry Greasespotters, I will find one. And I do not plan on begging. Anyone with a sound mind and paying attention to the news every day realizes a topic like, Seventeen Years in a Fundamentalist Cult, just might, well...might be a hot topic OR something to help people get to sleep. Depends on your point of view. Cheers, Pen