chockfull

Yessss!!!! Keep them coming, we are on a roll. I remember one week in res where I was up a lot with little sleep due to nonsense (I know, I know, like always right?) I prayed for complete peace not sleep as I didn't feel that was realistic. Coincidentally, I didn't run into the CC's wife all day long, nor any single one of a handful of "Reprovadors" (whole other story believe me). God is magnificent. He just doesn't fit into a box.

The Giorgio Jessio label was da bomb indeed. A little extra sugar, to bring the alcohol content up to about 13%. Several different varieties including a dessert wine. Getting permission to drink it - different story. Ain't nothin' like it out there today on the farm.

Hilarious. TWI is so twisted in their doctrine raising families that they need multiple hours of therapy just to understand a common phrase in society.

Cool skyrider. Love it.

Let me see. George Jess mostly shut his mouth, worked hard, prayed, and ran the still. These people are completely incapable of running the program like it was back in the day.

Oh it pretty much was an exercise in who would obey orders without question, and developing that particular characteristic. Half a day in menial labor, scrubbing toilets, peeling potatoes, being a farm or ranch hand. The other half immersed in studying the blue book over and over trying to glean some new inner insight into something VP probably wrote an outline for in an afternoon, was eloquent one night talking about it, and some underling transcribed it so we could study it for hours and hours. I say blue book, but that is pretty representative of everything studied including classes. More of the repetition type of study than true like Bible study and discussion. Also it was to establish a pecking order. This order would remain as a control point well after graduation. Peer pressure, a pecking order, and indoctrination. Constant evaluations, and all speech is monitored by informers seeking to be seen as spiritually mature by informing on some minor infraction of their classmates. A lot of fear - people failing a lot all around you and leaving. So everyone else is much more compliant even down to the minor details. It was basically a Pharisee training camp. Some were conformed more than others. I think God did preserve the hearts of some who had a soul, others it was basically a sellout path. Awesome. Miracles like this protecting the pure in heart from the little knives of the Pharisees are probably among the only signs miracles and wonders seen around TWI.

I used to have friends like that who all needed enemas.

Wierwille's legacy? He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. Coincidentally, that's the same legacy earned by his successors.

you mean I lost all my old fake friends in the ministry? no big loss. they were never really my friends anyway. God has replaced fake friends with real friends. people in the ministry get all scared to leave because they would "lose the household". it's fake. it's faux. few to none of those people would even say hello to you if you decided to go to another church.

just a half blind old lesbian troll that tries to pull people who cross by there under the bridge and gnaw on their bones. thankfully not many people cross by that way anymore, and the troll gets slower and blinder every year. hahahahahahaha...... all the little blind dominos. you may not have the terminology right but you pretty much captured the essence of it. yes that is definitely what's at hq. they spend hours and hours setting up and knocking down the dominos.

I can't fix the generation before me only me?

LOL. Is this a case where with sympathetic friends like that who needs enemies?

Well the generation after me ain't gonna have that problem. All I can do.

this is actually a mind control tactic. make ludicrous small demands, then escalate any confrontation to demand compliance. they give you a choice not between your baseline and where you are now, but just a small incremental change that is easily justified as it's not that big a deal to warrant dying on a battlefield over. over time, the person is conditioned to cave in over small things. they are always afraid to bring anything up, even small things, because confrontation will be escalated. then you wake up 10 years down the road and don't know yourself anymore or what you've become. but some people never wake up. others wake up, know it's wrong, but go back to sleep because it's too hard to row upstream.

do you know him outside of this forum? that's great you are growing, moving forward and enjoying life. congrats on weathering those trials. I think we all draw on our experiences and are more wary of hucksters after twi. well stick around and read more of my posts if you have an inclination. some things I share others I keep private as we are in a public place here not a private conversation. you can't help getting to know people by reading what they write.

Then you can imagine what years in-residence of 4 hrs a day working menial tasks + 4 hours a day studying TWI materials will do to you. And these are the people leading TWI today. You see, it all starts to make a sort of sense after a while.

I was young and naïve too. Actually I think that's part of the cult stuff. They focus energies on people under 25. Kids brains aren't fully developed then. Me too. For some reason this is what it takes - a confluence of events. Cool. I had different "aha" moments that led to my departure. I did notice that once I got out of there I started seeing more of the evil for what it really was.

I know this is to skyrider but I felt like answering from my experiences as there are many similarities. I didn't understand the half of how evil it was until much later. Many things I'm still putting together now. Because people don't tell you their true intentions. But sure, like most, I'm certain that there was a time when I knew enough about the evil to leave but didn't leave. Due to my own personal commitment, due to trying to do the best for what I thought was the "household", and maybe a dozen other reasons. Actually the biggest reason is that when you are under their authority, you are at least a part under their influence. In another sense, I can look back on this semi-judgmental application of "Release From Your Prisons" and make the observation that perhaps Wierwille stole more from you than you realize. I have bitterness towards TWI for the years they stole from me. This is tempered by my claiming the promise in Joel 2:25 of the Lord restoring to me the years that the locust has eaten. But I can't claim that promise if I'm not realistic about the years. And I don't buy TWI's interpretation of the "root of bitterness" verse that they use to intimidate people they sin against and lord over and beat down. The bitterness in my life over my path and the years makes the promise of God in the verse all the sweeter. even in foods bitter and sweet can combine to produce a dish with complex flavors that is better than either flavor alone. But only in life and spiritual things do we try and pretend that life is only sweet and that any negative experience you need to suppress and push down. To me that is a tried and true recipe for giving yourself an ulcer and a nervous breakdown. And there is no way that is a prescription originated by God. God's voice is strength and encouragement to help you through the trials of life, not guidance to ignore them. Not really. I just post on some message boards to talk with some kindred souls and others with different viewpoints. I think this whole "calling" thing was part of the manipulation used to gain control over my life. I think that is part of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5:32-37 when he instructs people not to make oaths like they did in the Old Testament but to just mean what they say when they say it. Of course that makes some of the Corps verses about vowing vows and paying them a little how shall we say "wrongly divided" ??? No. I just intend on sitting in my basement for the next 30 years and writing a corollary to the book of Lamentations. Can you sound any more condescending? Doin the best I can with what I've got. Actually I think that's my new 2014 slogan.

You know I think all of us had some element of this going on. Thinking back for me there were certain incidents which didn't tie together until later in my mind. Like foreshadowing in a plot. I've struggled this like I'm sure many have - my personal morality in the midst of a cult. For me the reason I didn't act sooner was I didn't know enough yet. I didn't know enough yet because people hid their evil deeds, thoughts, and designs from me for the most part. And it took a while to see through people's deception. And even when I did there's a consideration for the rest of the people involved. In other words, the wolf was wearing sheep's clothing. So he looked like a sheep, talked like a sheep, acted like a sheep, except for that on certain mornings one of the other sheep is missing and the wolf had a larger grin on his face. Nobody expects the leader to prey upon the flock.

You want to know what really reflects the inner heart mindset of those men regarding seduction? The motorcycle shed on Wierwille property, where VP would hang out with "the guys" - there's a small comic on the wall. (may still be there if the fox hasn't whitewashed it). A picture of two insects copulating, and a caption under it that read "flea fornication". Just one small relic, an indicator of an attitude. That attitude was mocking scripture and living fulfilling their own selfish needs in a category. Saying they served God, but in reality serving their own belly.

Now if I had that ice cream experience, it would have been a blast for me too !!!! :biglaugh:

That's because you are still active in a group whose foundations are TWI. And those in charge of that group, along with you, have canonized VPW's teachings as your "father in the Word". And you write here. So apparently your only two choices are regurgitated TWI doctrine, or participating in a forum. Quite frankly, neither one of them are "the Word".

when I sponsored people I just sent them a check and didn't think about it. some made it some didn't. some wrote faithfully, some did newsletters, some didn't. I never attached any strings to it regardless of what they did or what they were told they were supposed to do. I felt sad when people didn't make it but I didn't judge them or blame them. but it wasn't real compassion either. it was just a little bit of sad, then put it out of your mind because you've got a mission. when I was being sponsored almost everybody I asked was already sponsoring someone else and said no. I only had a few in the ministry. Where I went in from everybody had someone else, I had nothing. There were a bunch of apprentice Corps too, and none of them ever went in, only me. But nobody ever offered to change sponsorship either. They were snooty and judgmental. Long time family friends from childhood and relatives were the bulk of my sponsors. I wrote some months but others didn't get to it. I did a newsletter for like 6 months my last year in res. I was just ok at it but I did pray for people and care about them and stay in touch for years later. I lost most of mine between first and second years in res so didn't know how I was going to make it back at all either. But it worked out. all that makes me reflect on corps training too. I think the menial labor stuff like around the farms, new situations in work areas, and the times we had free Bible study were the best. I could see God working and growth there. Of course the tradeoff was the other side of it like all the yelling and cursing and indoctrination, seeing those advance whose VP idolatry was the most over the top. But hey be respectful cause that guy prostrating himself and licking VP's boots is going to be your next Limb coordinator. And you can read a parable about how he's going to abuse you.

"they hold the truth but the truth does not hold them". Is this VP prophetically foretelling the impact of his own life?

I was thinking about this a little more. Honestly I never really bought it when leaders would spread the slander stories. They never rang true. But it was like "what can you do about it?" You can't question the leader or get in their face or they will turn on you. Then you're the next slander story victim. You can be nice to the victim, but they are excommunicated and shunned and one person being nice doesn't make up for it or help that much. I always felt a little lost in those scenarios and a little uncomfortable, but it never triggered any action. So much later is when we detect this stuff. Like the mob, TWI always had a built-in system and culture for dealing with political enemies. That's one of the main reasons its still a cult.