penworks

On an historical note (or hysterical) I recently came across a brochure of documented Way history distributed on The Way Historical Tours in the 1980s to see VPWs former churches, houses, etc. in Van Wert, Payne, and Spencerville near HQ. In the brochure's list of events I found this: "1952: Rev. Lee Vayle visits and teaches on the worship manifestations." When I listened to a couple of Vayle's teachings, I felt as if I were hearing VPW. I don't have any documentation showing if or what material VPW might have used from Vayle, but their voices sure sound similar on tape. Rev. Lee Vayle teaching in the 1960s BTW - I've heard that those Historical Tours are being conducted again by someone who is NOT with associated with headquarters any longer, but who lives in the area. Another sign that many continue to consider VPW "the man of God" despite evidence to the contrary.

Thanks, Thomas. Am working hard on the book-length version of Affinity for Windows (posted on GSC's front page), Affinity barely scratched the surface. Stay well, Charlene Lamy Edge PS - I'll be on exwayvision.com , screen name Penworks.

Karl's book is invaluable to learning about TWI if you've never heard of it and for sorting out your experience if you were in it. I've recommended it for years. I was in TWI during the years he writes about (plus the previous ten). If his story wasn't so full of truth and facts (and a few astute speculations :-) it might be as funny as some think. Kudos for writing it, Karl. Cheers! Charlene Edge a.k.a. Penworks

Hi Peter. We never met but I heard about you in the 1970s when I was in the Second Way Corps. Thanks for coming here to share your thoughts. I, too, will miss GSC! Cheers to you Down Under. It's a lovely country. I've been there twice. Charlene

Thanks. I just found Paw's announcement. Too bad. It's an invaluable source for "the other side of the story."

Ohmygosh. I just read this. I'm so sorry you must close down the shop, Paw, but I surely understand. You've done more than your share to help so many pepoe. Thanks a million for all you've done to let us all share our stories here. Hugs, Charlene

I feel as if I've missed some kind of announcement about "as we move house." Please enlighten me. Thanks, Pen

Wow. Thanks for all this. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Obviously, I didn't make myself very well understood. First, as I said, I doubt VP heard such a revelation from God. If I thought he had, I would never have left TWI. I think I've been misunderstood, though, in making this statement: "Okay, first of all, we need to remember VP thought (or flat out claimed and lied) that God told him he'd teach him the Word like it had not been known from the first century if he'd teach it to others. (see The Way Living in Love for his statements on this). Arguing with such a person is futile. He's already taken a position that's not possible to falsify. " I was thinking of what William James talks about in Varieties of Religious Experience, when he explains that people's subjective experience cannot be proven or disproven. But the value of what they claim can be determined by examining the "fruit" in their life. (James explains this far better than I). To me, the experience in VP's case is that he heard what he thought was God. (or he lied and never heard anything). I personally don't think it was God and as you so very well used scripture stating God cannot lie, it is very obvious we can say the CONTENT of what VP said he heard was false. And I've mentioned on other posts how there wasn't a stable 'first century church" to refer back to much less recapture exactly what was taught then, etc. etc. But by examining what VP taught, we see it could not have been a God of any sort. VP stole what he taught, for the most part. This topic has been discussed so much here at GSC that what I have said here is redundant, I know. So, I realize that my writing just didn't turn out very well today. I apologize and I do admire the research you put into your reply, Wordwolf. Cheers.

I've thought about this subject a whole lot, like many others here at GSC and I appreciate the documentation from Mrs. W's book on these topics. While I don't have the book, I know first-hand the rationale that went on in the Research Dept., even from Walt*r C*ummins, when he answered charges about VP's plagarism. His defense was that VP said he learned from many people, he did cite their names (yes, but only here and there but not as he should have). In Research we would be reminded that VP said he didn't do anything original, he just was able to "put together" knoweldge from many sources, making them "accurate." This is rationalizing at its best. Okay, first of all, we need to remember VP thought (or flat out claimed and lied) that God told him he'd teach him the Word like it had not been known from the first century if he'd teach it to others. (see The Way Living in Love for his statements on this). Arguing with such a person is futile. He's already taken a position that's not possible to falsify. Who knows what VP heard? I doubt he heard that, but it's a claim and not possible to disprove with contrary evidence. But it is possible to show evidence of VP's poor, wrong, or stolen research that makes God look pretty stupid if indeed he was the one responsible for teaching VP. Besides the fact that plagarism, in "normal" venues like universities, etc. will get you expelled, fired, etc. there is another aspect to this that occurred to me lately. It's this: Based on VP's own statement that God was supposedly teaching VP himself, why would VP need to borrow, steal, use or take from other men's works? Did God tell him it was okay to do that? I DON"T THINK SO. My impression of how Walt*r C*ummins and others rationalized VP's wrongdoing is they didn't get specific about it. Once I tried to pin down Walt*r C*ummins about Lamsa. Regarding Eli Eli being wrongly taught by VP, I asked, "What if Doctor was just misled by Lamsa?" I thought if I asked my question this way instead of attacking VP's error straight on, we could talk about it. Wrong. He said, "I believe Dr. Wierwille was more spiritual than any of us." End of conversation.

I met the Senator back in the days at TWI when he was meeting with VPW. He's a nice man. He's sincere. I do not agree with him however, especially with his statement that: " Collectivism and atheism go hand-in-hand." This is false. Whille it was officially true in Communist China under Mao, it is not true for every collectivist society. Take even a cursory look at religions across the world and their cultures and you can see this statement is not true. For instance, in more communal or "collectivist" societies like in Bali, Indonesia (which practices Balinese Hinduism) and other non-Western countries, (the Aboriginal people of Australia) many people have a belief in a supernatural deity or deities they call God(s). They are not atheist. Perhaps they might be atheist to the writer of this article because their religion is not monotheistic - they don't worship the idea of God that Christians, Jews, or Muslims have) but they do believe in the supernatural, the divine power greater than themselves. And one more thing, it seems to me that paranoia about individuals being sucked into a collective is odd coming from Christians. Some early Christians were VERY communal, even though there were many different factions. Just read Acts, most of Paul's epistles and also gospel records of Jesus' words about loving one another. I'm NOT saying we shoud immitate collectivist patterns found in the Bible and try to put them in our government's structure in the USA , I'm just saying that Christians who slam this "collectivist" notion as bad, should take a look at their own religious roots. Cheers!

Some of us in the first few Way Corps groups especially, had a very different experience than what you describe as " No leading. No coercion. No manipulation past planting the original idea." Be cautious about generalizing how VP conducted himself towards others. Many people never knew him or were around him. Many people only went to a twig off somewhere in a small town and might think as you do that there was only a "suggestion." Just read the first few pages of the PFAL book and you can see that what VP called doing the Word was not a suggestion.

In one of my old Way Corps notebooks I wrote an entry dated 12/5/72. It is from my second year in the Way Corps at headquarters. We were sitting in the back of the BRC and VPW had us listen to a tape by Dr. Walter Martin called, The Kingdom of the Cults. Ironic, huh? One of VP's famous cliches was "a strong offense is the best defense" or put another way, "the best defense is a strong offense" - probably his adaptation of a basketball motto to a witnessing motto. He always told us "truth needs no defense." In having us listen to this cult tape, I can only imagine he was redirecting our attention away from his own cultish indoctrination. He tried to run interference about info on cults before we had a chance to realize we were in a cult ourselves! (his technique worked on me for MANY years). Point the finger at others and away from you at all costs! On the tape, Martin said cultists were people of these faiths: Mormonism, Christian Science, Bahiahism, what he called Spiritualists, and Unitarians. Others included the Jehovah Witnesses. One comment he made on the tape: "Cults devour people who don't know what they believe or can't prove it." And another doozie: "Cults are founded on what leaders say scriptures say." Mmm... Kingdom of the Cults

What can they possibly say to discount Kris's book, for instance? (oh, I forgot about the "she's possessed by devil spirits" excuse). I guess that's the same way they brush away my little memoir here about research if they bothered to read it at all. What possible motivation would Kris or any other woman have to write such a story, (taking YEARS of time to do, which writing a book takes), go to the enormous effort of finding a publisher (also not for the faint hearted), getting it published and promoting it all over the place as well as on her blog, etc. if she were lying? It sure can't be for the money. Give me a break. It would be a rare and crazy and stupid person lacking an ounce of sense who would stick her neck out, revealing such a story about herself, if it were not true. Kris wrote it to help people understand how this sort of thing happens, using herself as an example. (ask her on her blog). Kris is not lying about VP's preying on her. I know her story. I fact-checked the book for her. My former father-in-law, Dr. Joseph Bish*p is thanked in the front matter of the book. He counseled her when she first left in 1986 and returned to Rye, NY where he was the pastor of a church. He told us of her devastating situation back then. While I was not one of VP's "girls," I know some who were. This is not a light matter. This is serious business. This is not to be dismissed.

This made me laugh out loud. My daughter and I joke around (she was in TWI with me long ago) and use terms like "renew your mind" etc. Using TWI jargon is an inside joke with us - sometimes. Sometimes I can't stomach the nerve to use it even after all these years since I left (1987). Even when I go to Costco I cringe, when at the door when I'm leaving, a woman who often works there when I shop checks off my reciept and says, "Have a blessed day." I have an aversion to the word, "bless," which is unfortunate because it is such a lovely word. The poor lady is just trying to be nice to me. I hear VP's voice saying "God bless. " Yuk.

I believe this book is considered to be in the genre of memoir. Memoirs range in their approaches to depicting events that occurred in the writer's life. A good summary of the genre, in my opinion (I'm interested in this genre and have written a short one that's posted here on GSC), is the following: "The point - the glory - of memoir is that it anchors its authority in the actual life; it is a modeling of the process of creative self-inquiry as it is applied to the stuff of live experience. This really happened is the baseline contention of the memoir, and the fascination of the work - apart from the interest we have in what is told - is in tracking the artistic transformation of the actual via the alchemy of the psychological insight, pattern recognition, and lyrical evocation into a contained saga." ~ The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts

I think being arrogant about one's faith is true for most people who think they're right about their religion, that theirs is the only way to God. While in TWI this arrogancy was especially heightened in me, I think, because I was a Corps grad. Although I tried to be kind and understanding, inside I felt I was more spiritual than other people because VPW had indoctrinated us Corps with the idea we were God's "green beret." While trying not to be snooty, I know I looked down my "spiritual" nose at others...which isn't spiritual at all. I'm deeply sorry about that. Pen

This topic of TWI plagarism can be found throughout GSC forum threads. VP made money off books he nearly 100% stole from Bullinger and Stiles and others and claimed he wrote. Visit this one of many articles by John Juedes, a long-time revealer of VPW fraudulent practices, plagarism, etc. Stolen Goods - How VP Wierwille plagarized from others to make Receiving the Holy Spirit Today

Yes, regarding K*aren, J. Cr*uch and Ch1p St@n$bury

Waysider is right about the Studies in Abundant Living volumes originally being little booklets (I took PFAL in Dec. 1970 and got a whole stack of them.) They were stapled booklets. They were often transcriptions of little teachings from Sunday night or parts of topics covered in the PFAL class, since there was no PFAL book yet, not until the first version was published in July 1971. I have a copy from the first batch and the writing, I agree, is terrible. It's mostly a transcription from the PFAL tapes, but it doesn't include the entire PFAL class verbatim. Before and after the Research Team at HQ was formed in the early 1980s, any publication under VPW's direction, such as JCOP, had VP's name on it, no matter how many other people contributed to the books, including Corps people and "faithful researchers" who never were in the Corps program, such as D*nna R*andall, VP's reserarch Secretary and W*later C*mmins (although I think he was in a special First Corps for couples or something in about 1975), and VP's eldest daughter, K&ren. By the time I was at HQ on the Research Team (1984-86), the policy of having VP's name on these publications was standard procedure. Most of these people had college degrees and knew something about how to write. But having VP's name on the book was tradition. He had the ultimate say so about the research and writing. One publication is an exception: The Concordance to the P-e-s-h-i-t-t-a- Version of the Aramaic N.T. (I worked on this) published in August 1985. VPW had no involvement with producing it other than providing financial funds to staff working on it. Credit is given this way: "Edited by the Way International Research Team." This decision was made, to the best of my remembrance, by WJC because VPW had died several months earlier. WJC was following precedent that VPW had begun. Although this publication is a text book of scholarly value, the usual attribution to the people responsible for the work is not given. I think the same is true of the Interlinear which came out a few years later. (P-e-s-h-i-t-t-a- has to be spelled with hyphens on this web site, otherwise a different word displays.) My take on the reason that no one else's name but VPW (and WJC sometimes) are on the books (and I was there) is obvious to most of us here at GSC: VPW did not go by "worldly" academic standards. There were many people over the years who had contributed to the overall Aramaic project, so perhaps the list would have been too long to cite anyhow. One compensation was given, though. An issue of The Way Magazine came out around the time of the Concordance's publication and listed the names of the major contributors.

I tend to agree with this, although I see young people in TWI offshoot groups who are blind to VP's plagarism, abuse, etc. and who continute to propagate the false notion of him as their "father in the Word." Guess what we can hope for is that any new recruits will get the information they need from the internet so they do NOT get involved. One issue I see is that some TWI offshoots do not admit their past connection to TWI and/or the doctrines they teach are based on Wierwille's stuff.

Check your messages.

Welcome to the cafe! Good for you on breaking away from others' control. I'm sorry to learn of your family's suffering in Way world and offshoots, though. Life can be hard, but now that you're re-grouping, at least you can weigh options instead of following orders. Life does get better the longer you are away from the old dogmas. Take a look around here and if there's anything I can help you with, send me a message. Cheers! Penworks

How about this one: "I'll put you on my lift list." I was told this by an uppiddy-up leader's wife at HQ after I resigned from the Research Team and she thought I might be "influenced" by someone who they thought was "influenced by the Adversary."

Fantastic analysis. I remember this sensation when I returned to college in 1986. I was still working at TWI and yet was able to run away to the branch campus of Ohio State in Lime, Ohio, resume my education and start sorting out the TWI trash from the TWI treasures (yes, there were some) in an environment that was safe. I eventually found my own voice. Cheers to you, Brainfixed. Penworks

This post raises a lot of questions. My favorite is: Why do Christians think they need a leader?