rascal

Dooj, it appears to me that you don`t agree with my view point so you label it as *black and white thinking. Well, I don`t happen to agree with you. I don`t think that diminishes my pov, it`s significance or possible impact.

Well Dooj, based on your assertions in the previous post concerning the naivety of my statement, the reason that folks got involved with twi, why they stayed...why I feel a responsibility for what I unwittingly involved people in and the resulting consequences, I have to say simply that you are mistaken in your perceptions concerning my pov....shrug. I did whole heartedly agree with this statement that you made though. Godly things happen in the most ungodly places. That doesn't legitimize the surroundings or the bad circumstances.

Dooj, I don`t think that you understand my position at all. In acknowledging my culpability in supporting, and promoting people and an organization that was so destructive in no way says that I am accepting blame for what vpw did. What I did though unwitting was a contributing factor in what enabled a destructive organization to wreak havoc in many lives.

Geisha, I hated to take a chance on making you angry. I am awfully glad that you tried to understand what I was struggling to say. It`s just that I have been on the receiving end of somebody getting really angry over what they think I meant and attacking me on what they understood me to say rather than what my actual intentions were...sigh...call it poor communication skills on my part. It is so hard to accurately communicate here. Thanks. Hey, I am sorry for your loss.

Geisha, it seems to me that you have misread brainfixed and jumped down her throat with both feet, getting indignant over what you want to think she meant. My perceptions of what I read were entirely different than yours. My understanding was the Jesus forgive them...was in response to my post concerning the guilt and shame I feel having been a participant, a promoter, a contributer to a group that caused such great harm to so many... You disagree with her point about how difficult it is for folks to hear us talk about our happy smarmy memories in twi when her life was made so terribly difficult by something that we adults believed in and promoted...yeah...ok so can you do it without making it so personal and mean? You have people here that had very negative life impacting consequences as a result of association with twi...Consider that maybe for some, it is hard to read about the warm funzy times knowing that during that time you were frightened, neglected, beaten or raped or forced to abort your inconvenient child, had your marriage destroyed, lost your kiddos..etc... by the very people and events that we are so fond of romanticizing? Keep your happy memories, nobody is trying to deny that good didn`t happen in twi...nobody....the question for some of us is.....at what cost?

Geisha, you seem pretty tough on brainfixed. I understand what she has said and can identify with her post. She in turns seems to have received value and grasped my meanings without perceiving it as a personal attack or affront. We have derived value from each others posts...received a measure of comfort in understanding. Neither (as far as I can tell) are being intentionally offensive, just posting our own personal thoughts feelings impressions of our lives and our perceptions post twi. Is that ok? Do we all have to agree here?

Well said Brainfixed. I however have to agree with shell on one point....In my experience, not everyone was necessarily abusive in twi. Culpable? Yeah...I guess that I begrudge every damned penny that I sent in that paid for the food to feed those fatuous, sanctimonious, asses, to buy their smokes and booze and toys, to pay for their housing, their bedding, their furniture, their clothing, the shampoo and soap to wash their slimy selves off with..to pay the electricity and equipment to produce their lying publications.... I deplore every hour of witnessing that brought new unsuspecting victims within the reach of those sleeze balls....that I provided housing toilet paper televisions, made posters in order to run their classes promoting their ministry.... our devoted selfless efforts simply the cover from which the darkness worked from behind...and the means by which it flourished. Jeemany the irony of thousands of hours spent in prayer to God for these guys for their ministry, knowing now how they were actually raping and pillaging in his name and using bible scriptures meant to guide and deliver to instead ensure obedience and compliance...... As far as I am concerned, it doesn`t matter HOW great my motives were....these guys simply could NOT have functioned without our whole hearted support....without the legitimacy of our lives to hide behind. I am not denying that good times happened, or that there weren`t good people involved that did good things. What I feel is that without the appearance of earnest people in Godly endeavors...the evil would have had nothing to hide behind... people would have recognized twi for what it was much sooner, maybe before becoming ensnared. I think that excathedra said it best when she said something to the effect that ...God may have worked with us while in twi...but that doesn`t mean that he liked it. So...yes I suppose that I do feel a measure of responsibility for the damage wrought. Yes I feel that when I view my twi involvement in hind sight...knowing now what was happening to so many unsuspecting, innocent people...the children who were powerless...sigh....that it is very difficult for me to think of them as *good* times any more.

Yeah Geisha, I feel like we were the unwitting pawns, the camoflage that hid the enemy`s deadly snare....no matter how great our intentions were. If we had not been out witnessing and running classes, promising any answer offering the means to obtain anything desired, to lure in unsuspecting people....sending in the money that paid for the food these people ate, the roofs over their heads, the gas that ran the bus that we bought that bought the drinks and drugs used to ensure sexual cooperation....they never ever could have wrought the havoc in peoples lives. If wierwille or martindale had jumped out and said BOO! I am a lying plagerizing sexual predator that will require 15 percent of your income for the rest of your life, decide where and who you will live with, will require you to abort your untimely children, require your daughters and wives to submit unquestioningly to sexual servitude...I will use you until every last ounce of profit is squeezed from you, and then crush and toss you aside like so much garbage....why then we would have fled. As it was what people saw was OUR integrity, OUR honor, OUR striving to serve God...We are the disguise that the evil hid behind...yeah, I do feel a responsibility to the innocents wounded.

Goodness Bow, Happy birthday! :)

Brainfixed, I am glad that you can find some small measure of comfort in my words all of these years later.... For me personally, it is even worse when I think about the culpability of who I think of as the *good* folks....sigh...the people like us who never saw the dark side...who never deliberatly hurt another.... we lived our lives without malice or cruelty, people who did their very best to live as principled, men and women of honesty, and good character. Wierwille couldn`t have functioned without well intentioned, wholesome appearing christians to hide his true nature behind. While we were happily living our lives of service, caring for one another, studying our scriptures, laboring for the Lord....presenting a front of spiritual wholesomeness and well being....nobody would have been fooled into following this psychopath`s doctrines. Damn it, we thought that what we were doing was for God, to strike a blow against the darkness of evil...we wanted to be a force for good in this world.... That is the true outrage, we did what we did in the name of God with scriptural back up to justify and excuse. They couldn`t have done what they did without our support, with our labors and finances. We were the unwitting decoys, lures designed to lull the potential prey into a sense of complacency and well being... All I can do, is say that I truly am sorry for what was endured by so many innocent, and pray that God will forgive the damage wrought in our ignorance and stupidity.

I can see your point Geisha. I think though that in my case...those good people and fun times were at the cost of losing the real good times with my own family...birthdays, holidays, vacations, time irretrievably lost with now deceased grandparents. Whenever I think about my *good* times...inevitably the unsettling thought creeps in ....wondering how many excathedras or Kristins were being coerced into sex...how many children like brainfixed and bolshevic were being mistreated...how many people like Tom and Roxanne were driven to suicide....folks who`s marriages and families were being ripped apart....all while I sat on my happy little fanny at any given fellowship, blissfully ignorant. Sigh...you talk about not letting that define us now...but gosh...I just don`t see how some things from then that can be undone... friends and family who died from following twi doctrine...people like me who cannot bring life to the child that it was insisted that God required aborted.

Foolish

Damn, thanks for the heads up. Shell I got that tagged picture thing, it said it was from you. Thankfully I haven`t opened it yet. Whew. Got a warning about this in another persons emails, so was going to call first.

Absolutely! I found my *voice* here for the first time in my life. I was allowed to say what I thought, what my impressions were, what I endured. I didn`t have to defer to my husband, my leader, filter everything I felt and thought to make sure that it was spiritually acceptable...etc. Trust me, the first time I posted, I called my husband and cried, sure that I had forever shamed him some how. For the first few months, I required him to read and scrutinize every post to make sure that I wasn`t spiritually off....lol He told me that I was allowed to post...(hee hee) but musn`t let what I read cause me to become *negative* about twi...LMAO!! We have both come a long long way in learning to think for ourselves. Greasespot has been a huge part of that :)

I cannot imagine how helpless and trapped you children must have felt. I know that it sounds unbelievable, but everything we did, was because we were taught that was what was best for you guys. We were taught that little ones must learn to obey first thought, or else they couldn`t hear the voice of God. That when you grew up, you wouldn`t suffer from the baggage that we adults carried, all of the wrong teaching, wrong believing, wrong thinking....you guys were going to be superstars, spiritiual athletes that would far surpass your poor damaged folks. Please don`t be angry, I do remember admiring you children, thinking...my how truly fortunate to be raised in the word by believer parents....Most of us had no idea how awful it was, how wrong to try to make children into obedient little automatons ...when we did feel how desperately wrong things were, we had been so conditioned and taught not to trust our instincts, our feelings, that we submitted... It was horrible to have your mind protesting, screaming out how desperately wrong what was being required of you...doing it because you were told that was what God expected, to do anything less was to lose God`s protection from yourself and family....You can leave a group, you can disobey a leader, quit a job...but how can you live without God? So we brokenly complied, silencing the screams of protest fighting for control by fiercely running retemory scriptures through your mind...you numbly carried out your instructions. No, I wasn`t required to mistreat children, but I had my own situations where I was forced to obey... Brainfixed, I am truly truly sorry for what you and the other way kids endured....I hope that you guys can one day forgive the adults who supported and promoted this group, for while we might not have seen what you endured, or been an active part of the abuse....or stood by, not understanding....TWI couldn`t have survived without our participation. I am sorry. I hope that youcan understand that what we did or didn`t do was out of ignorance and fear, not because we desired to be malicious monsters that destroyed. I have children now, mostly raised outside of twi...I cannot imagine subjecting them to what you poor kiddos endured.

Brainfixed, I am glad that you are starting to understand. I have tried to explain before why we (the adults) felt trapped, why we allowed others to seize control of our lives, why we submitted and aquiessed to horrible abuse... Many of us were from broken homes, raising ourselves with little guidance or direction. I was only 17, a kid searching for love, some way to have meaning in my life. The way comes along promising everything in life and Godliness, how to become more than a conquerer, how to be pleasing to God, a warrior in the spiritual battle...unconditional love, a new father/family that would never abandon you. It was irresistable. These people molded our perceptions during our late teen early adult years. We were distanced from family and friends, outside media, outside interests...twi became our whole world and existence.

Many of us left wishing that things would change, hoping that maybe one day things would be different so that we could return. Many of us tried to stay involved on our own terms, but in time found that this was not possible. I know that personally, during the last 20 years...that I have dreamed (sleeping dreams) regularly of returning to twi. The whole dream I am filled with a hope that things are different, or that I was wrong...etc that it is now safe for me. What I am saying is, that while one separates themselves from twi, no matter how traumatic the association has been....it really isn`t all that unusual to desire to return. Most of us don`t, a few of us do only to leave again at a future date. I don`t know how much you believe in prayer, but I am a firm believer that God knows what our triggers are, what it is that will open our eyes, what that line is that we won`t cross...I think that the only thing we can do for one another in these situations is to pray, to be kind and understanding, supportive, to be everything that twi folks have been conditioned to believe that anyone outside of twi isn`t. For my husband, the severing point came with one line in a letter written by lcm, for me, it was hearing excathedras story (5 years after I had already left) ... when my daughter was entangled with an abusive man...a particular mind picture... uniquely personal things that suddenly wakes us up to where we can see clearly. I am very glad that this girl has you for support. You may never know what a difference that you have made in her life. WHat seeds that you plant that will germinate at a future date.

I will miss your contributions, I will miss praying with you about your grandson. I hope that I can be as good and courageous for mine if needed one day. I am sorry that you are leaving.

George, I hope that I can discuss this with you without it appearing that I am being deliberatly argumentative or lacking in respect for you in any way. I just think that maybe there is a chance that God works within the pettioner in spite of their beliefs and what he learned in the way. I think also that though you describe your suicidal friend as *not being screwed by the prayers*...I`d say that prayer as they understood it according to twi teachings, while not actually *screwing* him per say.....seem to have been at best, innefective. Likewise the leaders that drove your friend to suicide were practicing beliefs aquired by studying and teaching a form of doctrine (though it be termed *the word*) that permitted them to feel like it was ok to behave in a heartless visciously conscienless way...feeling completely justified in driving a person to seek death....and your friend is not the only one. LCM himself was directly responsible for doing the same to another poor fellow...It happened to me and a few others around here too.... I don`t think by the evidence exhibitted by the practitioners, that the scriptures as interpretted by vpw and twi were neccesarily spiritually healthy. Jesus talks about not getting good fruit from a bad tree. I think that there is a very good chance that maybe the man who prayed for your friend might simply be a man in whom God works, even in spite of his quirky beliefs. I think that with the little *good* came a lot of really really bad stuff.....stuff that contaminates and negates the good...leaven leavening the whole loaf friend.

That is an amazing statement. I have been pretty mad for a long time.... struggling to figure out how a supposedly loving God could lead me into such an evil situation. ...whew Wow...all I can say is thanks. This makes so much sense to me.

I think that you changed what Ham said George, that isn`t fair. Being an ahole doesn`t necessarily equate with losing an innocent. That seems minimalising to the enormous damage that this man did. I feel like the many people who died as a direct result of following twi root teachings on healing and believing etc. should quite definitely be a consideration when we want to give credit to twi or vpw or whether what was taught in twi was spiritually sound. Could it be that your aquaintances were healed by God because he was asked, not because of any special mumbo jumbo hocus pocus practiced by the one petitioning?

Ben, Rosalie, according to court documents knew what was going on with lcm. The people who worked with her have written extensively about what a heartless controlling witch she is. I have never read or heard of a single decent or kind thing she has ever done for anybody. Not really the sort of person that you would think of as a christian.

Thank you for your well wishes my friends :) I realized also that this year, on my birthday...it is my 30th anniversary of graduation from pfal, graduation from high school and I turned 18. That week where my life`s path took a sudden and strange twist....also dealing with the death of one of the wows....What a strange journey it has been, and how quickly it has flown by. I wonder if I will be around another 30 years to look back and speculate on the changes from today here out. If the next thirty are anywhere near as tumultuous, exciting and changing I`d better hold on tight because it is going to be one heck of a ride :)

You musn`t be hurt because folks don`t respond to overtures of friendship. It just isn`t safe. Please understand that it isn`t anything against you personally. It is just good common sense to keep our annonymity.