chockfull

This statement and mindset, and other similar ones I've heard (i.e. - "We're going to run on the rails that brought us here") is interesting. Of course it is never questioned as not being the "wisdom from God", "over 100 years of collective wisdom", garbage that you hear from the BOD and lackeys. Now if you would hear statements like this from top executive officers in the business realm, they would be immediately fired and replaced. Why? Because it indicates both a complete lack of strategic vision as well as a very high level of comfortability and laziness. It indicates they really don't WANT to work. They are NOT INTERESTED in improving, in changing, in adapting needs of their organization to a rapidly changing world. No, rather they are COMFORTABLE just setting up a bunch of little rules and controlling approval levels, SPINNING IN PLACE and doing basically NOTHING while living off the capital earned in a previous era. It is a very pathetic stance, no matter how much they try and dress it up and cover with pompous little looks down the nose as if from someone important. Let's review the progress in different areas: 1) Publications - what new works have been published? None. What were the last? Mrs. VPW's historical account, and new bindings and editions of the Studies in Abundant Living. Many of those chapters were transcribed from one of VP's Sunday Service teachings. No new vision, no new projects, etc. Magazine articles picked over extensively for consistency with foundational teachings. Artciles read "vanilla", with little substance. 2) Teachings - Devolved from a few to many teachers. Devolved from inspired teachings with latitude to script reading. Highly controlled. Content low quality in helpfulness, scholarly content, devoid of any personality. 3) Productions / Music - Talent squelched. Made fun of on "The Soup" comedy TV show. In general the production quality follows the teaching - devolved. 4) Building / Property - selling off property. All in conjunction with dropping numbers. 5) Classes - all classes that have been produced are replacements for existing ones. Nothing new. Replace the faces on the video as they are no longer standing. Make content non-controversial. 6) Programs - numbers decline in Way Disciple, Corps. No new programs to introduce excitement, rally behind. Same old status quo. 7) Home Fellowships - low numbers, high control of people. Nothing new on that front, numbers dropping. Of course antics by Rosie such as putting large portions of states on probation for knowing about Hirschfeld and investments don't really inspire growth action to say the least. Any way you slice it, the organization is dying strategically. The "re-education" SHOULD happen for those that have no strategic vision, those AT HQ. Indoctrination of bringing Corps in to live and work at minimum wage for a few years "to see how they do things" is a waste of life and talent and an exercise in using people's lives to promulgate the BOD's arrogance. Re-education????!!!!! Those people running the organization have NO EDUCATION in the first place to do what they are doing. If they did they perhaps would not be in these conundrums, although that is no guarantee. At least Donald W with a PhD and some experience as a principal could run a shambles of a college program to incite interest. They are as Jesus described "the blind leading the blind".

After all, it is VERY important that all Corps learn once again how to read the label on a can of food.

Just goes to show that human lips aren't meant to hold that kind of suction for extended periods of time. Eventually lips get tired and people drop off. Who's next? Rico? [Rico's off doing lip pushups trying to maintain stamina.]

Oh, I don't know. Harve Platig was a major suck up too, and it didn't work out that way for him... http://www.linkedin.com/in/harveplatig

I would guarantee it.

see my other quote. btw, Pen didn't say she didn't believe this was correct, so technically you're not agreeing with her. Of course you're free to not believe OldSkool and my accounts of verbal confirmation from grandchildren. I'm sure most current active TWI members would not believe that even though it's true. See Ralph Dubofsky's GreaseSpot Radio sharings. This practice was not Donna or Rosalie "procuring" for Craig, but them providing introductions for visiting clergymen to women who were known to want to do this kind of thing. This is a little different from the women who were sleeping with VP and Craig who brought other women around, but it still falls under the overall description of what was going on. Throughout most of the sharings by victims, including in Kristin's book Losing the Way, there were many of the girls sleeping with these men who would do this. It was more than one woman. The one we were speaking of earlier whose husband committed suicide was accused in the Allen lawsuit of being one of them. The point of all of this is that these women currently running TWI knew about and were complicit in this practice, as it was a practice known within the "good ole boys club" leadership and the "yak twigs" attended by the Trustees during the fog years. This is one more reason that the lawsuits settled so quickly - not only to try and salvage reputation, but also to end any investigations of these types of threads. They knew about it and eventually conspired to take advantage of it to achieve the power that they now have. Rosalie is very adept at deflecting these types of questions. She even went on the offensive with a false confrontation to the Corps about them knowing about it but not speaking up, while all along she herself was the one doing what she was confronting everyone of - she was the one who knew of the practice and did nothing about it, not the general Corps populace. I knew absolutely nothing about any of that until later.

This is what I have as well as far as documentation. Verbal confirmation from VP's grandchildren that is what they were taught growing up.

Wow. So in other words this describes actions that are similar to the operation of the famous madam Heidi Fliess. More about Heidi on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Fliess. This type of action was VERY common during the top leadership during VPW's day, and of course under Craig's rule too. This is the type of activity that Rosalie and Donna were complicit in as told by those that were there. They would "procure" willing partners in adultery for visiting clergymen in their formative years. It was very well known to the Wierwille children all growing up that men would cheat on their wives. This was a doctrine taught and practiced in TWI's top leadership, and the "procuresses" would support it. As some supporting material to this, listen to Ralph Dubovsky's GS Radio sharing. As an interesting side note, I saw Heidi Fliess on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". From the wikipedia article, "Fleiss eventually moved to Pahrump, Nevada, where she came to live in solitude in Death Valley while caring for 25 parrots. Dr. Drew Pinsky, who treated Fleiss for substance abuse, performed brain scans on her that showed significant frontal lobe dysfunction, which Pinsky surmised was behind her inability to empathize with people, and her affinity for doing so with birds. She had developed a particular closeness to a macaw called Dalton who died tragically." I wonder, if you performed a brain scan on Rosalie if you would find similar significant frontal lobe dysfunction also responsible for her inability to empathize with people. Hmmm. Things we will never know.

So in Craig's mind, a church is a "spiritual whorehouse", and his motorcoach is a "spiritual salvation center" ????!!???? Oh the irony. Oh the insanity. If you met someone on the street with those views, would you recommend they be committed to an insane asylum? And IMO Craig was 100% wrong there. If he would have left the poor woman alone none of that would have happened. If she would have said "sorry" for carrying on with Craig and left with her husband I bet the husband would still be alive today. Reportedly his last words were "How can I compete with that?" But no, she went on to marry another man and remain active Corps. They were bribed with a full-time assignment as hush compensation for remaining silent about all that under Ms. Rosalie Coverup's oversight. Just think, TWI bots. This could be YOUR leadership. Isn't that special?

Now this is a term that I never actually heard before in any use of the English language before reading it in the legal terminology of the lawsuit documents. It was used to describe a woman involved in the conspiracy, and possibly even extended to Rosie. What exactly is this type of creature? Discuss.

OldSkool has the truth on this one. It's amazing isn't it? I mean if a church was a "spiritual whorehouse", then what exact term would you think King Okus Thunderous Dimwittus should select for describing his motorcoach where he was committing adultery with whasserface while her husband was off committing suicide due to the depression of his wife's acts?

Someone should have attached electricity to the gonads of VP to prevent him from abusing young girls? Hey, I'm trying.

Of course he was. That's because that little ole blue-haired witch has been in a legal deposition once, and so now is too chicken $h1t to do any of her own dirty work. She has other stupid tools do it for her. I can see why. I can see the deposition from another lawsuit now - "So, you being critical of this other couple's marriage, let's talk about yours." "What happened to your marriage, anyway?" "How many kids did you have together?" "Are you still in contact with them?" "Did you really mark and avoid your own children?" "How about relationships after your marriage - have you ever had any?" "How about your relationship with Donna M? How would you characterize that? Is that a relationship?" Yeah, she better run and hide all that. Because a day is coming when the sins in her private life and the corruption and evil that's in her heart will not be spoken in private behind closed doors but shouted from the rooftops. It's one thing for sin of that nature and skeletons to be in people's closets. But not when they sit and judge others supposedly according to the law, but themselves are not subject to the law. God will expose that for what it is. And the people that traded their life for her favor will be ashamed.

You know I can relate a lot to this. I felt like the whole "service to God" and life's purpose there was what I was doing. And maybe I was to some extent - I have to believe God honors the heart. But maybe the higher ups in TWI slipped up some. I saw too many things that didn't add up - the true fruit of their lives shone through despite their attempts to conceal it. The frogs in the pot boil and don't jump out because the temperature increase is gradual. The choice of compromise is not between zero and the last request to compromise - that's too large of a gap. It's done by increments - this compromise is only a little more than the last one. Then you find yourself in a whole other place and destination than you thought. I certainly have seen since leaving many genuine Christians who have no need to conceal what they are doing, thinking or feeling. You have to ask yourself - if people are hiding something, if my leadership masks their activities, why? People don't hide what they are proud of, they hide what they are ashamed of. Those meetings that take place behind closed doors - they hide the most shameful acts. People ducking out to whisper in private over their cell phone conversations? The conversation that's just a whisper of a sentence or two? Pure unadulterated evil. Speaking with the hands, talking with the fingers - you know, the verses VPW and Craig said were seed men? To mask how they operated?

There is quite a voluminous gap between using the result of a scientist's experiment and accepting a moral cripple as your "father in the Word". What it really means is you need to work a little harder on selecting appropriate analogies, and possibly on moral distinction. I see that you like many are struggling with coming to grips with "baby and the bathwater" types of issues. I personally don't have a problem with sorting out my past such that I can recognize God's hand has been on my life to save it for Him. Perhaps in your case God was aware that some form of a Christian group that functioned as a very tight-knit family was necessary for you. Perhaps He knew the churches in your area wouldn't appeal to you. I don't know, but I don't have a problem acknowledging that God's plan for my life has a little more perspective than even my own, and to accept that He could allow me into an organization like that and preserve my heart, life and conscience. I had good times in TWI too. I had times I could function as what I felt was a genuine minister of Jesus Christ. I made choices while in that were not in accordance with the Pharisees, but with my own conscience. I also had times where I caved in to the organization peer pressure and negatively impacted other Christian's lives by wrong decision, wrong example, wrong doctrine. For that I am truly sorry, and ask God's forgiveness (and people's too but they are meaner). I think trying to imagine one's life down a different path than the one God has led you down is an exercise in futility. I could have been dead. I could have been born heir to a sultan. I wasn't either, just have to make the best of where I am now. Actually its the Pharisees that strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You never got to experience a lot of that in the organization, but it's true. The world does have designer causes (and yes, that I probably accurately learned from twi). But it's funny how much good those designer causes can do and make you feel. It feels pretty darn good to go down and serve food at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving to people that might not have a solid meal otherwise. Maybe some designer causes have misplaced ideals. However, many of them don't and TWI labeled them all misplaced so they could lord over me and have all my undivided attention, service and money. Today I'd give $100 to the United Way, but wouldn't give a drop of water to a TWI leader dying of thirst. And I think that's a perspective God understands, supports, and endorses.

I actually have seen this many times with how these Pharisees operate. They go in with an agenda like you said to divide and conquer. They try and stir up any doubt or disagreement in a married couple. Of course, with ANY healthy married couple there isn't just ONE PERSPECTIVE, there's two, and they may see things a little bit differently but agree on a direction and on the relationship. The Pharisees of TWI will jump on that, and especially be cruel to the women who are supposed to be the no opinion submissive little doormats, all in the interest of sowing division, dischord, and discontent. If they have any margin of success they will immediately declare victory loudly and proudly and thus declare the married couple as having marriage problems. In all of the leadership positions, there is pressure to act like a Pharisee and to go in and be a hatchet man in this fashion towards people who have fallen out of favor. This is not an isolated type of thing, but is widespread across the board. Those that go along with being hatchet men in accordance with the leaders' suggestions get promoted and advanced. Those that refuse do not, and are marked. I know of at least one married couple that they attacked in this fashion that led to their divorce. Many years later they actually got back together and did another ceremony for re-instating their marriage vows. What kind of sick b@st@rds do this kind of thing? What kind of honest genuine Christian minister would sow division, dischord, and discontent in a married couple under their authority? Is this Jesus Christ's example?

That just goes to show the insanity with which they operate. They are just so BLIND they cannot distinguish the difference between a commitment to God and a relationship with other people. There is NO acceptable human relationship that is 100% one-sided like that - for example: You owe me everything, I owe you nothing. I mean, try dating with those tenets and see how far it gets you. Or a job, or a friendship, or belonging to a neighborhood, or civic group, or ANYTHING. Only in TWI can you have a guy that steals 90% of the teaching material, packages it into classes and books mostly edited by other people, and somehow that guy is transformed into God. "The ministry" is de-personified such that it is such the holy ideal, endeavor. People lie, cheat, steal, blackball others, blackmail others, slander and libel all in the name of "the ministry" and that it "be not blamed". They JUST CAN'T PUT IT TOGETHER. "The ministry" is nothing more than them and their behavior. If their behavior is corrupt, abusive, immoral, then HOW CAN THE MINISTRY NOT BE BLAMED?????? If they turn a blind eye to it in the name of preserving their little position, IT IS NOT ONLY BLAMED, BUT ALREADY JUDGED BY GOD. I swear people must be stupider than stupid to continually buy into that cr@p0la. This is why TWI bots mostly suck at other relationships in their lives too. They know NOTHING about boundaries.

hahahaha. Oh, my. God bless the Internet :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuIJvJfxwtI

Driscoll looks like a fat Justin Chambers (of Grey's Anatomy fame) with a Sam Kinneson scream voice. I'm sure he's very threatening to those under his authority though :)

Yeah - very sick. Seems many of these megalomaniac cult leaders have some very twisted sexual views - voyeuristic/secret flasher, serial rapist & use sex for power(vpw).

Yeah, well I got a couple pictures of LCM. first - him in his smoking jacket that he wore after completing videoing the FNC, with an embroidered message on the chest pocket that says "I wanna be like Hef". And another picture of him in a UPS uniform slinging boxes in the back room. No revelation involved. Just comedic mental images.

Reading through this I can certainly see the similarities. geisha mentioned people flock to his church which got me thinking about the wolf/sheep imagery Jesus used. There are two elements here - a predator and prey. You need someone with the ego and motives to want to start a church / religious organization to run their own outfit, make a bunch of money, have a lot of power - basically to construct a little idolatrous image to themself here on earth. The other element is the sheep mentality. People are so willing to give up freedom and control of their lives to someone else for the promise of safety, discipline (in a good way - like the appeal of the Corps / WOW programs), a sense of belonging. There are two problems here - megalomaniacs acting like predators. And naieve Christians acting like prey. If predators would try that behavior in an environment without people acting like prey they would face lawsuits, physical and verbal confrontation, and worse. One thing I will say I am stronger in after my TWI experience is that I have stopped acting like prey.

I have heard more and more cases about TWI leadership missing very simple and basic medical causes for things, and instead going off on their own ego-based rantings,tirades, and Pharisee-like dumb@$$ advice (like "just keep serving"). They are the living embodiment of "knowledge puffs up but charity edifies". They walk around so puffed up with the idea of their own importance, and yet they are so blind. Contrast this with how Jesus acted on earth. He had compassion and healed people. Can't you just picture him in a situation like this? Noticing a guy nodding off, and after his teaching taking the time to walk up to him, touch him, and heal him of his blood sugar issue? I can. And Jesus example compared to these Pharisees in TWI are diametrically opposed.

What I've started to realize is that TWI as an organization was NEVER set up to do anything close to this. I remember reading the book The Perfect Storm. In there is a description of the Navy as a system "set up by geniuses to be run by idiots". It described how the Navy was designed to run by following orders and not thinking. When and where you found yourself thinking you became at odds with the system. Those who persisted thinking for themselves would find themselves disciplined and cast out. Now yes, this is just one aspect of the Navy and just one author's opinion. But TWI is exactly like that in that really the whole organization is designed to run around one man (or woman). Everything adapts within the organization to run that way, and the systems in place are designed to make things flow that way. Leaders (staff and field) adapt themselves to conformity and give over their freedom of will and moral conscience. Countless times I've witnessed absolute amoral behavior (at times even illegal) that is just not even seen by other leaders. They turn a blind eye to it. They say one thing with their mouth and another with their actions.

Wierwille on his tirades. I remember something about how Mrs. W. used to go into his office, but wave a white flag coming in when she knew he was on a rampage. What a mean man.