chockfull

So one interesting thing to discuss about this - the type of behavior that is disgusting enough to want to micromanage people's lives like that is a psychological disorder. It definitely is in the obsessive / compulsive family of disorders. A disorder is something abnormal in a person's makeup. The question is, why is it rather than someone addressing this and Rosalie getting the help and potentially medication she needs to control this disorder is it TWI's policy to redefine reality around this disorder? That is exactly the same as someone being a complete alchoholic obtaining the position of the President and redefining reality of everyone having to drink to excess. TWI is the one that teaches "the Word is just good common horse sense". Well, those horses need some sense.

You mean you CAN'T put old wine in new wineskins and have it remove all the bad elements of the old wine? Hangs head stalking off.

What a tool. This is representative of the type of ego prevalent in the top leadership in TWI. This is not an anomaly.

So the manner in which the Way treats the vast majority of its leadership training program graduates actually is a pretty good baseline for the health of the organization. It turns on its own. It eats its own young. There simply are very few organizations, Christian, or otherwise that displays this kind of self-destructive behavior. Colleges certainly do not. People are proud to recognize their "alma mater". Not so with TWI. I certainly would be ashamed to mention my "education" at their hands among the vast majority of Christian groups, especially if the name of the organization is known. From a broader perspective, those that TWI "drop-kicked" from the Corps they were doing a favor. No more years of your life will they consume like a locust.

I find that the wayfers are typically representative of your average redneck bigot. Of course it is covered up well, but dig down underneath just a little and it comes out. Normal mainstream members of society just don't think like this.

Ah yes. Updating our Greasespot Cliche Festival!!!!! To bring it up to the more current decade, the most particularly vomit inducing is the sickenly sweet over-use of the word 'wonderful'. Our 'wonderful' Rosalie. Out 'wonderful' Board of Directors have 'made available' an exception to their rule. Gag-me-with-a-6-foot-lollipop-stick-made-of-pollyanna-quotes Benevolent dictators they wish to appear as. They only have the authority to be dictators if you allow them to over your life. PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!

WD certainly can be fresh out of HS. Many of them are children of Staff or WC and go out the next year before entering college. The people out there praying to have a personal relationship with God are certainly not going to do it by meeting WD's. Or by "taking the class". But they will get caught up in the "love bombing" and "hype" surrounding those events.

Apparantly they just do this so that they don't have to pay property taxes on Camp Gunnison. Hmmmm. Now that they do not have the actual program on the campus, I wonder if the state of Colorado was aware of that if they would try to reinstate collecting property taxes on Gunnison. I'm sure in this economy that there are so many state programs suffering that they may really want to collect those taxes. :excl:

Leadership training? LMAO. As with most things TWI related, it's full of ego, elitism, and lack of substance. What do they study? The WAY classes that they've already taken a dozen times. The STS tapes. And they work. Free slave labor. Oh, but they will tell you how you paying to be there doesn't cover the costs. They just conveniently forget, that even at minimum wage, you do more than earn your keep to cover the costs. Do they have educated people teaching it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA Do they have a curriculum? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Do they have courses? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Do they give out transcripts once you complete? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Here's the curriculum of one of the online degree colleges offerings lately for a Bacelor's Degree in Business Administration, which is kind of like your generic business degree: Core Courses (each course 6 quarter credits unless noted) BUS3004 - Developing a Business Perspective BUS3010 - Fundamentals of Management and Leadership BUS3020 - Fundamentals of E-Business BUS3030 - Fundamentals of Marketing and Sales BUS3040 - Fundamentals of Human Resource Management BUS3050 - Fundamentals of Organizational Communication BUS3060 - Fundamentals of Finance and Accounting Required Specialization Courses BUS4801 - Ethics and Enterprise Specialization Courses (each course 6 quarter credits unless otherwise noted) In addition, choose 42 quarter credits of upper-division Business courses. Elective Courses Choose 39 credits of additional undergraduate courses. Capstone Course (taken during learner's final quarter) BUS4993 - Business Capstone Project - 6 quarter credits So here you have relevant coursework taught by qualified professors that follows a well-mapped education plan. This is for an ONLINE UNIVERSITY - you know - where you can TAKE THE COURSES AT HOME!!!! It's the newest version of the correspondance college - you know, like the one VPW got his PhD from. Except these colleges are much larger, have qualified staff, and a lot more going on. The Way Corps training program? They teach you to be compliant to Rosalie. And the chain of command. That's about it. Not much going on there at all.

IMO all of this is just another form of selling hype. It is the old "appeal to the nobler motives" that Dale Carnegie taught in his "How to Win Friends and Influence People". People want to believe that their life is making a difference. If they do not believe this, and are not sold this at every turn, especially with programs that are mundane and tedious, and with jobs that pay minimum wage, they will not do things. I remember seeing the advertisements for working on Staff that was a special project that Rozilla had done. They were so far a departure from reality that it was laughable. However, you were required to show them. Also, in the good little Corps Nazi regime tactics, not only do you show them, but you have people write down responses to how it changed their viewpoint, and followed up with people to encourage them to submit an application. The whole thing came off like a dumbed-down sugary sweet Pollyanna version of life on Staff that did not fool people who had been around for one minute. Nobody would submit applications. I see this mindset built into all aspects of TWI. This also is how they keep people from reading accounts here. The nature of the communication is more realistic here. It is not the dumbed down positive only sugary stuff. I guess people in TWI don't read their Bible very much. There is such a large portion of scriptures that is totally opposite to that type of mindset. Jesus Christ himself would puke at that advertisement depiction. If you look at the whole "front lines" concept, even from their teaching perspective it makes absolutely no sense. In the DTA class, what are the 4 fronts of the adversary? Yourself, others, environment, and religion. Where exactly on earth can you go that those 4 fronts are not there? Where can you go where they exist to a greater extent than another place? Sure you can argue there are places with worse environmental climates and hot-beds of particular religions. They could and do argue that the "others" front is less in a controlled environment like Staff, and little Wayworld imitation setups. However, in reality it's 100x worse in environments like that - hundreds of brethren waiting to spy out your liberty and report on you. Political posturing over position more cruel and beyond anything you experience in the corporate world. Self-important pompous entitled @$$holes surrounding you on every side. And where can you go that you escape yourself? I guess if you're a drug addict you can go to rehab to help lessen your self-destructive tendencies. But you know, youself you just can't get past. And that is the main problem with TWI leadership. No matter where they go, there they are. They cannot change the fruit they produce. And when the harvest comes, it will be harvested.

Funny - I don't doubt it. The excitement is around the "idea" of Way D and the areas that they are coming to. The actuality of anything in the Way is mind-numbingly and excruciatingly boring and painful.

IMO the Way Disciples has turned into a way for TWI parents to get kids out of the house, and have apprentice Corps babysitters for 6 months. In that, they are functioning similarly to the Mormon missions. Except they are 2 years long. With them it seems the program is just as much about indoctrinating the kids further as it is about winning new people. In fact, with Way D it is exactly that. Even look at the title of the program. The original program was "Word Over the World Ambassadors". The vision was outreach, even reading the title. The Way D program there really isn't a global vision like that. It is making "disciples". Indoctrinated little Way minions. Helps mom and dad kick the kids out to get their own life, helps the feeder program for the Corps. With all that's wrong with it, it's about the only thing in TWI that actually has some semblance of enthusiasm left to it. At least you have a few people in a new city with a vision. There's no vision to much of anything else in the Way. Magazines? STS? Vomit-inducing boredom. Fellowship? Pockets of little fiefdoms and cliques. Research? That implies education. TWI doesn't support education. You can't take out student loans, and staff kids go to Bowling Green on basically welfare money because the parents make minimum wage. No - those kids remind me of Elton John's lyrics - "it seems to me you've lived your life like a candle in the wind".

To me the whole issue surrounding the label "cult" is that it is a term that is calling into question the leadership of a group's genuine authority from God. To this end, the label can be used by mainstream denominations which possibly can have no more genuine authority from God than the group they are labeling. A common distinguishing characteristic people rely on is the amount of authority leaders have. If there are checks and balances in place such as the founding fathers of America set up for political government, then there is a certain amount of restraint built in to the darker side of human character. However, when the power over a group is absolute, then there is no restraint to this darker side. One of the philosophical questions this brings up is "does absolute power corrupt absolutely?". This of course is a rhetorical question without a definitive answer, but if you look at percentages throughout history it does not seem that statistics fall in favor of the virtuous characteristics of mankind proving out when power comes into play.

Hey socks. I agree with you w/r to family and social circles. Those are healthy avenues to pursue. With those still in the Way, I view them as similar to myself previously. They don't really know the evil that runs that group. I'm not going to condemn them forever over their lack of knowledge and them being warned off reading things like this site, but I will state clearly my opinion that they are being tricked. If nobody ever took the initiative to do that, I doubt I would have started to think critically about it myself. So while GS is not the center of the universe, it is among the very few - maybe John Juedes site too - that people can come across information that presents facts and truths concerning TWI and how it really functions. In that sense it fills a very important niche - especially because the things it exposes are exactly those that TWI leadership hides and sweeps under the carpet so their current followers will not discover it. They punish people for disclosing they read these forums. If you look at most of these forum posts there are vastly more numbers of people that view these threads than participate in discussion. Actually the "lurker" rate on GS is extremely high. Who are these lurkers? People who want to know the truth but do not want to risk personal consequence from participating here. I would venture to say that a high number of current TWI followers lurk here. They know there is no other place they will find the information that is here, and certainly not from their local leadership. If the horse is truly dead, why are there so many that still watch it diligently? That which is brought to light here echoes much farther in impact to those adversely affected by TWI, which includes all their followers. Those sending in money to support the group are adversely affected whether they are aware of it or not - they are subsidizing the abusers. They provide salaries for them to continue their little political charades. Without that support they would have to go look for a job, with little time to micromanage others. Regarding the JW's there are 2 characteristics I see of that group (and I grew up around them), and TWI that are to me remarkably similar, beyond what I see of other groups: 1) High level of control - I see the same oppressed look on the faces. The RC's don't micromanage people to that extent, require forced service, etc. Free thinkers are attacked vehemently in both orgs. 2) The almost cartoon-like dumbing down of the simplicity of their faith message - the Watchtower society and magazine look like a 3rd grade coloring book. TWI's art, magazines, etc. seem to be dumbing things way down. The feel I get is they want the followers obeying and blessed. While the real manipulation, politics, conniving happens behind the curtain. Of course, YMMV. To me it's more of a "feel" sort of thing than something I can quantify.

I'm reflecting on some of the posts on this thread about the nature of mankind and how "mainstream" is used to label groups, and how all groups function similarly. Sure in some sense this is how the world works. Whenever you have two people banding together there's the start of politics. Get a crowd together around a common nobler motive and there's a religion. And religion and politics are at the root of the worst evil in mankind - killings, abuse, etc. Sure if you look at groups from a high enough level they are all similar. And that also me be the explanation behind many former TWI followers having an aversion to organized religion. But Jesus message was not to band together and form abusive relationships where you allow the baser elements of humanity to function. His message was different. He came to save mankind from that kind of thing. And in that is where the line has to be drawn. Are people being saved from the darker side of humanity that can be seen? Or is that darkness going on in secret while outwardly appearing with a godly veneer? To me that is the dividing line between genuine Christianity and hypocrisy.

Yes, absolutely. It is a diseased organization that instead of being able to genuinely help people pulls them in to a twisted little social circle that is sick. When Proverbs talks of those that wink with their eyes, scrape with their feet, and point with their fingers, it is talking about regimes such as this and the Way Corps. There are little private hidden messages communicated all the time to confront so and so, to take this action, to put together a report on this person. The level of control that is exerted over people is ridiculous. And the Way Corps are the enforcers. Now I basically functioned by teaching scriptures and allowing people to apply it in their lives as they saw fit by free will choice. However, I was an anomaly. Most set up little dictatorships, where they would present a smiling happy front to those above them and abuse those below them. The mind games that are played at the top levels to keep people under their control, threaten them, keep them functioning "likeminded" is astounding when you start to hear stories. When you think about it, what are the Way Corps trained to do? Obey. Follow without questioning. Carry out directives. To teach is all secondary. To "serve" means to carry out the bidding of those winking with the eyes, and communicating behind the scenes. You see that is why they must keep people away from this web site and people like us at all costs. When people start learning the truth about what happens behind the Wizard of Oz's curtains, they lose respect for the organization, and leave. They stop sending money in. So they hide all of that behind the scenes. They cover over their evil acts with silence and will not speak of it. Just like a murderer many times murders to cover up their evil actions to keep the victim from telling their evil acts to authorities or the public, so these monsters use slander, libel, and blackball people, using tactics to get the "household" to shun people. They trade on their little titles, and use movement up and down the ladder to punish people and to reward the most fanatical leaders. Those that are most fanatical will do the most extreme things and are used to do the top leaders' dirty work so they can keep their hands clean and stay out of lawsuits.

It's actually pretty revealing to look at similarities between the Watchtower Society and TWI's leadership. They both rule with a totalitarian hand, and try to present a dumbed-down positive Pollyanna type image to the public.

When you take into account the differences in culture between what we experience now and Paul's day and time, Paul saying "follow me" as a pattern is much different than the micromanagement approaches of the little Napoleans in this day and time such as VPW, LCM, and the current yahoos. Paul basically saw some of these churches twice. Letters were passed between them. He lived with them for a short period of time teaching and setting up leadership and was gone. So really, if you want to get technical about it, all the micromanagement, extreme loyalty oaths, tests, little mind games, etc. that are played by the modern day cult leader politicians are not following in Paul's image. Instead they usurp his authority and say you should follow them similarly.

That's hilarious. For a group that pretends to live a high level of "God's Word", the amount of superstition they carry surrounding ex-followers who most of the time are that way because the "believers" and "leadership" abused the crap out of them is laughable. It is nothing more than another form of mind control or brainwashing. Introduce fear into people's lives that somehow if they hear the tales of how the leaders of TWI screws people over that they will become possessed or something. Sure hearing the truth will change people. That's TWI's leadership's greatest fear. That's why they cover over their actions, hide them, lie about them, make sure they are never discussed. But a good friend of mine made the statement "People don't hide behavior that's appropriate. They hide behavior that's inappropriate". I 100% agree with him.

My feelings regarding the terms blame and forgiveness are that for most they presume to place altogether too much power in my hands. I am not responsible for either the sins or the absolution of other human beings. Pretending to have this responsibility gives me no miraculous sense of freedom. My freedom lies in Christ, and it doesn't hinge upon actions of either blaming or forgiving abusers.

Come now, Ham. Set theory is your friend.

I'm re-reading through this thread and realize I responded really strongly to one of LindaZ's posts. I wanted to say no offence and I just seem to view forgiveness as in stronger shades than many do. Many people say "I forgive but I don't forget". That's cool for them, even if I don't see it the same. I did want to say that LindaZ's experience she references above with RFR is a very important one to me in establishing RFR's character development over time. That pattern was that she would not face anyone directly down, but would back off but put the person on her little black list. Then later on she would come back around and axe the person or use her authority to assassinate their character, fire them, or bring action very detrimental towards them. RFR is not a person that lives with forgiveness in her heart or actions. So do you think God will forgive her? Or have her judged according to how she's judged others? For my life I agree with Linda. I won't say I forgive RFR directly, but I will say I've given my account over to God to collect so I can move on and not allow her too much importance of focus in my life.

It's a metaphor. What's a metaphor? Grazing cows.

Their Constitutional rights end where mine begin. And all of the lawsuits they've experienced have proven that. They are a bunch of hard-headed, hard-hearted morons who would never in a million years change because what they are doing is wrong according to scriptures or pure Christian decency - no, they need lawsuits to put boundaries around their abuse of people. You have to pay them minimum wage, limits to hours, limits to an employer's access to employees personal lives. No sexual harassment. Why would a Christian brother who is an employer need to be taken to court to ensure these rights are provided to their employees? Because they are fricken morons on a political power trip. They less resemble Christians than their worldly counterparts do in how they treat employees. Well let them take their 10 people who are still stupid enough to follow them and continue to build up their stupid titles being "the right holy cheesiest of the cheesy cheese". They have the Constitutional right to be locked up with their behavior. Biblical Research, Teaching and Fellowship. Lie, Lie, and more of a Lie. There is no research done, the teaching is not teaching but 5x8 card reading, and there's better fellowship among virtually any group in the world you can take part in, even a prison gang. "Just take the class, and your life will be better". Just run the other direction as fast as you can. You'd be safer with Amway, or some other multi-level marketing rip-off scheme. Forgive them? No, forgive those that are caught up unwittingly in their schemes. They are Pharisees of Pharisees.

Keith, we may be arguing semantics of definitions at this point as opposed to disagreeing on the substance of what we're discussing. The important tenets to me are - moving on and not retaining bitterness, warning others of evil, and justice for idiots. And freedom of speech because dammit we live in America.