penworks

In 1984-1986 when I worked in the Research Dept. upstairs in the OSC, the Print Shop was downstairs right below us. In it was a huge printing press made in Germany. The guy who ran it was a 3rd Corps grad, ordained, and a friend of my ex-husband's. As far as I recall, as someone mentions in this thread, the "sensitive materials" like class syllabi etc. were printed there but I also think the Way Mag was, too, and possibly the books, although I don't think the hardcovers were put on the manuscripts at HQ...they may have been contracted out. Maybe someone else here has those details. While I was involved during the 1970s and until 1987 when I left HQ, TWI printed materials and books under the name: The American Christian Press, with the address of HQ in New Knoxville.

My memories and opinions are this: The Donna I knew in the early 1970s was compassionate. Although she, along with the rest of us, let VP's hardness of heart corrupt her view of Jim Doop, for instance. She'd been his secretary out in Calif. when VP "fired" Doop at a meeting. (described in Karl Kahler's book The Cult That Snapped.) After that, VP brought her to HQ to work in the secretarial pool in Trailer 5. At that time, the staff and Corps took that old version of Dale Carnegie's class together. I remember her being very passionate about THE WORD being the truth, in one of her speeches, and that nothing would stop her from sticking with TWI no matter what. I suspected the incident out in Calif. with Doop being painted as a traitor or something added a lot of fuel to her fire and determination to be loyal to VP. Then after staff, she entered the 4th Corps.

It was the first reading at HQ in the USA - only the Corps were there because it was Corps night (with a few exceptions as always). We went in expecting WJC to teach Corps night and got THAT instead. I did not see CG brandish a firearm, although I read an eyewitness account here of a person who was working on Security and she (?) said she saw CG's firearm on the podium (or on a shelf inside it or something). Karl Kahler describes the first reading in his book, The Cult that Snapped. He was in Emporia on the telephone hook-up. For those who missed that Corps night's fireworks, a re-run (taped recording of CG reading his madness) was held the next week at HQ in the WOW auditorium again (or within a few days, I don't remember) to which all of us at HQ were required to go even if we'd heard it the first time. The doors were locked so we could not leave until the tape was over.

Couldn't agree with you more. I was in the auditorium when CG read it at Corps night April 23, 1986. Good grief.

Yes, he went to Mission House because of his father, as Oakspear pointed out. From "The Way International's Historical Side Tour": pg 6. "...Dr. Wierwille's father allowed him to attend college---but only on the condition that he attend the college of his father's choosing: Mission House College in Sheyboygen, Wisconsin. Today this is known as Lakeland College."

My two cents: When I first met LCM in 1970 and was in the 2nd corps with him, he was not a yelling type that I saw. He became that way under the indoctrination of VPW because he wanted so much to be just like VP. I recently heard somone in a movie say something like, You are angry with so-and-so, why? not because they've overtly done something to you but because you feel guilty when you're around them. Why might that be? Made me stop and think....

Wow. I have a few questions about this. First: If I thought God had told me something like this, I'd sure as heck be telling my spouse. Sounds as if he told Dotsie when he told the Corps. Nice move. Second: He did not start the Way Corps until 1969 YEARS after this. A convenient time to "sell" these young people on his authority. Speculation: Most lawyers will tell you that it's usually hard to "prove" a person's motive, although there is such a thing as probable cause to do something...anyhow, I'm no lawyer but I am a grad of The Way Corps from 1973 and that story was one told to me in 1970 at the Greenville, NC fellowship by Ea*l B*rton who was engaged to a woman in the First Corps who had passed along that story. Also, the limb leaders, JALCES and wife, also talked up that "fact" about VP, painting him as the MOG. This claim influenced so many of us 18, 19 year olds I can't begin to list how many... If you had to make yourself unique, different from all the other Jesus ministries around in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps this sort of claim would pay off. Maybe VP thought a tale like this would do the trick. Who could "prove" him wrong? A claim like that is not really falsifiable, although it does sound very delusional. And certainly to anyone who knows anything about church history, comparative religion, and a few things about the history and transmission of the text, it makes his claim quite laughable. And of course now many of us know the extent to which VP plagarized much of what he passed off as The Word, stealing from other men's work, most notably E.W. Bullinger and J.E. Stiles book on the holy spirit. and B.G. Leornard's classes. For you newcomers, those things are written about here at GSC. Easy for me to say all these years later after leaving TWI in 1987. But in 1970, it sure helped to suck me into TWI along with lots of others... Cheers!

Exactly. And when people didn't sign up for the class it was because the devil tricked them out of it or we weren't walking according to revelation to get them (politely coerce them) into signing the registration card and handing over their money. Guilt guilt guilt. I sure didn't consider (nor did anyone I knew stop to think): maybe this class is not the cure-all that we believe it is. Surely something must be wrong with people who don't want to take it. After all I took it and I'm none the worse for it, my life is great. Right, until years later when I woke up and realized it wasn't, but then the reason I was lacking in "abundance" wasn't the class's fault it was my own fault for not believing the promises of God taught in the class. Circular reasoning once again. To break out of that thinking isn't that hard, it just takes a little bit of self awareness, of paying attention, of QUESTIONING AUTHORITY. Oh my, questioning the Word is the first step down on the spiritual road away from God, just like Eve in the garden. Her problem was she questioned. Mmm...seems to me VP was a master manipulator of scripture, people, and the blame game.

I think it was at the ROA 1977 that VP accused the Corps of being "off the Word" in some vague way and causing the bad weather we had that year. He said we'd let the adversary get a foothold and spiritually we were responsible for the nasty muddy grounds. This was at the Sidney fairgrounds. Anyone else remember that ROA?

Ain't that the truth.

I admit my point was not made very clearly...VPW said Paul was the man of god for the church administration. Given that, the church epistles, to my mind would be the ones he wrote. But this conversation is now reminding me that VPW meant ANY books written during this church age, I guess (which he defined as after Pentecost). As someone pointed out, this does present a problem, actually many, because some of these books include quotes from the O.T. etc. and of course, Hebrews is totally off topic if you go by VP's theories of who it was written for, which I believe would have been the "believers of Israel" left here after the gathering together. Something like that. My memory of what VP taught about that book is fading. Anyway... The two books attributed to Peter most probably were written by two different people. Some scholars say many NT books are "pseudonymous" and these two books are in that group most probably. Here's some info I've found helpful for those interested: Pseudonymouse books are " forgeries by people who claim to be someone else. Included in this group is almost certainly 2 Peter, probably the pastoral epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, quite likely the deutero-Pauline Epistles of 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians, and possibly 1 Peter and Jude. But why would someone claim to be a famous person from the past? ...it was principally in order to get a hearing for his views." This info is from Lost Christianities by Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 235. Great reading if you want to know more about how the books of the Bible were determined to be in the canon and who wrote them. Cheers!

Correction: I and II Peter.

Interesting...do they happen to know that nobody really knows who even wrote I Peter? Most scholars say II and II Peter were not written by Paul. But that doesn't matter to them because they think God was the author, right?

I speak this from experience of knowing VPW personally in the early 1970s until he died - in my opinion he was a paranoid sociopath, but I'm not a psychiatrist. To address the items above: I was in the 2nd Corps and NEVER was "taught how to die." In the Advanced Class, VP taught that suicide was caused by devil possession. In Feb. 1976 VP held a meeting in Emporia for all Corps when he thought the USA was on the brink of takeover by the Communists or some such conspiracy. At that time he did encourage everyone to, as you say, "go underground" if needed at the drop of a hat. How this would actually play out was up to each of us...we just had to head for the hills, grow our own food, etc. It was frightening to hear VP talk about this. I believe this episode is covered in the book, The Cult That Snapped, by Karl Khaler. Because sociopaths feel the world revolves around them, everything negative in the world was either a direct or indirect attack on TWI because VP said he was the only one teaching the "accuracy of The Word." It was The Word the devil was out to destroy. Make no mistake, this thinking is still rampant among former TWI followers who still cling to VP and his "Word" dogmas.

Lest any recent walkaways (people leaving TWI) be ignorant of this fact: I'd like to point out that this behavior - mildly called character assassination - BEGAN with VPW. Where do you think the current leaders learned it? Rosie, as you call her, got into TWI in the 1970s and witnessed many people get labeled possessed, etc. by VPW when they left TWI. I was there, too, I heard it, too. I was in meetings with her when VP did that sort of thing. We learned from the master. I shudder to remember... Don't think for a minute LCM "nearly wrecked TWI" as someone put it. It was a wreck from day one, in my opinion, when VP started it. Its foundation was and still is SAND. He stole many other men's so-called research and took the credit. Rosie is perpetuating his methods of operation. I'm not saying this to excuse her, I'm saying it to point out how history is repeating itself at TWI. He allowed no differing of opinion when it came to the basis for his so-called "research." You could not question "inerrancy of the scriptures" which he NEVER showed existed, either. If you had questions about that, you had to go somewhere else to get them, even though we were taught we could ask questions and the ministry would "change when they learned something new." Right! Sound familiar? Pen

Can't think of better advice to anyone they are trying to recruit.

Can you refer us to the place and time of any of these meetings? What years?

I remember at one time in 1984-86 it hung behind the door of one of the small rooms along the hall to the Library upstairs. I often worked in that room. I remember many old Corps meetings when it would be clear VP was very proud of his heritage and used it, I think, to insinuate how God's hand was upon his lineage. He would harkened back to his grandfather's homeland in Ladbergen, Germany. The story goes that after hundreds of years in Ladbergen, his ancestors, who were part of the French Protestant group called Huguenots, arrived in Ohio in 1839. Their hardship story of immigration and hard work was cast in tones that made it sound as if God's hand was upon them to eventually bring forth VP as the man of God for this day and time. One quote I happend to have from an unpublished Way tour script is this: "Most people would not have chosen this rural location for the Headquarters of a worldwide ministry; but this is the location that God prepared through His foreknowledge for the Headquarters of The Way International." Propaganda like this was rampant and apparently still is.

Boy, that first paragraph is a great marketing spin: show how the ministry "learned and changed." But how can you show that if you erase the past? Not to mention the fact VPW claimed from the beginning that he was teaching "the accuracy of the Word" which was in fact, his interpretation. Ah well, let's be glad we're out of TWI. Life is precious. Live every minute fully. Cheers!

My opinion: this is a gigantic waste of time. Get out and enjoy life. It is precious. Love the ones you love. Make friends. Breathe deeply. Cheers, Penworks

Very interesting job you had! WOW. And that doesn't stand for Word over the World, either. This "editing" has a long history beginning at least from my view back in 1985 or so when Rosalie was head of Way Pub. I believe part of the task list at that time was to be sure the Studies in Abundant Living series chapters didn't have any teachings that contradicted other ones. In the Research Dept., the task of "editing" from our view would be impossible, since PFAL is already distributed in many forms. Thus, the teaching on Eli Eli, for instance, could never be corrected or if it were, distributing the new information to everyone on earth who ever took the PFAL would be impossible, too. This was also the case for the problems with other stuff in PFAL that W*later C. knew was mixed up or wrong... Aside from all that, in my view, the entire premise VP started from is an unsubstantiated claim: The Bible is inerrant. Cheers!

Hi, this is Penworks checking in. Nice summary, Chockfull. James, if you're interested, you can check out my story (as nicely referred to above) posted here on the front page. Called, Affinity for Windows, it is a nutshell version of my involvement with the so-called Research Team at TWI. Also there is that old New Lawsuit thread that contains some info on the Aramaic work we did and what happened in 1984-86. Cheers!

Me either. The ECU guys looked up to all those VP helpers, though, as if they were the apostles or something. VP was, after all, the MOG. I first heard that title from the ECU believers and from my view at that time - being 18 years old and feeling I'd found the truth - I bought it all... The limb leaders there, JAL and wife, were totally sold out to TWI, too. The atmosphere in the ECU fellowship was thick with equating TWI with the ministry of Paul in Acts, no doubt about that. It's a good example of how hype can escalate emotions and blur clear thinking - I dropped out of ECU to do the work of the "ministry" before I had even taken PFAL! Looking back, it seemed VP pitted the growing outreach pockets like ECU; Rye, NY, Alameda, CA, and Witchita, KS against each other in a competition to see who could spread "the Word" of VP via PFAL the fastest. That's how I remember it anyway...

Correction: TWLIL book, pg. 139, E*rl B*urton tells that in the summer of 1969, "H*ward, G*ne R*ndall, and Ir* He*rne "came to build the Bible Center in Greenville. I hung around them and helped a little. I thought they were the coolest guys I'd ever met."