chockfull

That's kind of par for the course though. People act so wonderful towards who they report to, and so abusive towards those under them. This is so common it is to the point where it is no longer just a few bad apples in the organization. This is the prevailing organizational culture.

While I agree that women are not very well treated in TWI, I certainly have had that verse used against me whenever I would question the practices of a leader as opposed to just saying 'yes sir' or 'yes ma'am'. I remember once specifically being asked for feedback on what we could do to change things, and then when I put thought into it and responded I was told I was 'complaining'. Organizations that shut down free speech, or promote environments that shut it down as opposed to expecting absolute compliance and obedience are dysfunctional. Also, when leaders use free speech to identify potential political enemies and eliminate them, that is about as sick as you can get. That person or persons have similar traits to Stalin and Hitler.

Oh yes, that sounds like the insanity line has been crossed. The leaders in TWI will go to very extreme lengths to ensure that their lies and corrupt practices are never discovered.

I agree with you, erkjohn. I think there is far more substantial evidence that activities like being involved with TWI reduce your ability to think on a critical level.

Just a side note from someone who was led into SIT pre-TWI, for ME it didn't change. "Authentic", not "authentic", whatever. God's big enough to sort it out that what we're doing is praying to Him. In the first century, the Pentecost record, it was more of a translation effort. So no, it's not the same there.

I'm sure that with this approach you will reach levels of productivity far greater than the research department at TWI.

hahaha

Or they would teach God can appear in concretion, as angels can. That's 'phenomenon'. This is all the dancing around necessary to establish VPW's "Holy Spirit" field work. They explain it that "it's your spirit so it can communicate with your mind". All that is to establish the boundaries that devil spirits can't talk directly to your mind, but God can through His spirit in you.

Another interesting aspect to this teaching is when you start to look at the new body. For example, Christ after his resurrection appearing to many different people, including the road to Emmaus. Now supposedly the new body is "based upon spirit", whatever that means. And yet JC ate with people, walked and conversed, allowed people to touch them. No, the Great Principle is largely a poor attempt to explain the communication between God and one of His children while trying to sound scientific. God who is spirit teaching your spirit. holy spirit. that teaching your mind. becoming manifest in the senses realm as you act. The reality is that spirit has to be something where Newtonian physics don't apply. That goes right back down to the core of someone's beliefs, and it's why you cannot prove God to anyone outside of believing. No, physics are involved in what you need to do, not God. Spirit is involved in our relationships with God. And who cares how the mechanics of that work - any mental model I have of that is likely to be pretty wrong, and introduce discrepancies like you guys brought up. One kind of cool resource I liked on the evil side is that encyclopedia of ghosts and spirits. Rather than any kind of a teaching on them, it just has different articles on terms and pictures related to it.

There is so much fail and laziness in this it's not funny. 1) It's TWI's class - if they have a prerequisite test, could they like kick in some resources to write it from the farm as opposed to having 30 different copies of it? I mean they actually have an "Adv. Class Department", right? 2) Could they provide guidelines? 3) Could Limb coordinators have common sense? 4) When they have to change directions, could they explain? i.e. - "we're in transition, trying some different things with the tests". But no, the typical behavior is issue an edict, push all the work off yourself onto as low of a totem pole resource that you can find, then cover the rear. Fail.

If you drink enough Drambuie, then the alchohol cloud obscures the brain activity while SIT?

I think Don W's girls live there now. They may have some kind of special arrangement.

"Keeping it positive" is TWI's control mechanism for sweeping all the evil that is in their hearts, systems, and actions under the rug and brainwashing its followers into never seeing it, speaking of it, or considering it. The voices of witnesses against TWI will not remain quiet, and will not "keep positive" the evil that has been performed against them.

There once was a hag from Carolina Who's sexual preference was vag.... She cut off Craig's balls, Now she struts through the halls, With Donna in tow right behind her.

Sunesis - awesome story.

Because to know that a lying spirit will ... GASP ... lie, and that a jealousy spirit is tied to a murder spirit because of .... GASP ... jealous rage is information that the adversary just can't allow out there.

PTSD, bro. You've made very deep conflicting life choices in these two paths. Those roots go down deep into your emotional psyche. You'll probably experience that form of a nightmare for a while, waking or asleep, and it may recur occasionally even after you've worked through it from time to time. It's all in your emotions, bro, and those will heal. As far as the path you are entering, there are many ways to serve God, and I'm sure He likes a talented picker as much as the rest of us. Look at David in the Bible. That doesn't mean you have to play "Christian Contemporary" music either. Although actually there's some modern Christian bands I really like. Functioning in an area developing your God-given talents IS serving God. Regardless of whether you play in a club, or on a church stage. I mean He was the one that gave you genetic talent, and allowed for the environment to develop it from a youth. So furthering that work is ABSOLUTELY NOT against anything to do with the will of God. Anyway, that's the way I see it. Oh, and by the way, just one question. Is Joe Satriani seed? Just kidding.

Wow, getting a raise, then having rent raised higher - that's quite a trick there. It reminds me of the Egyptian overlords who when the slaves complained made them find their own straw to make bricks.

You see, things like this kind of clear up the question of whether or not the less-seen and less-known members of the BOD are complicit in the overall escapades that go on. Here, we have the Sec./Treasurer, mild-mannered, calm, not so in-your-face kind of guy. Of course he's just one more lapdog to the HOGDAFAT, but this type of thing is intriguing. Yes, these people too have made moral decisions to sell out to the organization against Christian character and morals. In other words what the calm French-Canadian was saying here was that if you spoke publicly about these things, you would have to find your own airfare back to N.Z. Would this be accurately described as a ........ .......................................... Bribe? No, TWI BOD would never attempt to bribe anyone for their silence. And just to be clear polynesian, I absolutely do not fault you for going along with this. After all, they placed you in a position where you had no resources, no family to help, no finances. What would a reasonable person do? Exactly what you did, and probably feel guilty about it. The guilt should be theirs, but their conscience is seared with a hot iron. What should a reasonable Christian organization do in a situation like this? Yes, pay the way back regardless. Apologize to you for your expectations of being trained in a Christian leadership training program were not met due to their fault. Especially in a case where you are required to have sound Christian morals yourself, but the leaders of the program proved not to have them. What does TWI and the BOD do consistently? Pay off people for their silence. Deny any wrongdoing. Sweep anything negative under the carpet. What's so funny about this is that they sit in their high positions of lofty power and act all high and mighty. Yet their morals are worse than a normal secular corporation. One example - Toyota recently found that their gas pedal was long enough that in certain cases the floor mat would stick on it. It caused a couple of accidents. What did they do? Publicly apologize. High level officials put out ads with a public apology. They recalled all of the cars, and fixed them at their own expense, and ensured all their customers were recompensed appropriately. Yes - TWI. Worse morals than the world.

Steve, Thx for the background and details, and soul searcher, thx for the Companion Bible link.

Now this brings up memories. LeBron was after the Forehead's time. However, Michael Jordan was not. And guess what? Yes, POSSESSED. At least according to Forehead logic. Michael did a post-finals interview where he made the comment something like "I said a little prayer to myself". Forehead understood that to mean he was praying to himself as a deity. Hence possession.

Steve, I think this viewpoint is pretty much TWI oriented, and was prevalent throughout Corps teachings and University of Life. From the way I understood it, however, it was taught that each epistle contains doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction on it's own. However some have a primary focus due to need of being reproof or correction such as you listed above. Now I'm not sure I buy into that whole teaching at all. To me it makes no sense that the sections on love, gifts, and the one body appear first in a reproof epistle? The lame logic for that presented was that if you really were living the book of Romans, you'd be doing those things automatically. Yeah, BS. People do automatically what they are taught and trained to do. And arguably those doctrinal sections comprise the greater portions of Corinthians. I think the underlying premise was off. The letters weren't organized into a canonization until much later. I say take them with a grain of salt on their own to a specific church, and if it all adds up to a complete picture, more power to you.

Interesting. In many ways that marks a characteristic of a good researcher. An analytic mind, a scientific process, and a trust in those things. It leads one towards discovering what scripture actually says about something regardless of popular opinion or pre-conceived notion. But sure - of course from a moral fabric and common sense, the conclusion is a no-brainer.

So by natural extension of logic, the Word isn't growing in TWI because of the BOD's 'standoffish culture'. In other words, they never travel outside their little snake pits to 'bless' anyone, teach, visit, pray, etc. They hardly ever appear even at big events. When they do appear, they do stupid 'teachings' like Rosie lecturing people on how to write letters to the BOD properly one year, etc.

I'm always tempted to answer that question with one of their cliches, like "as he is". How am I doing? "As he is, because as he is so we are in this world". Just to see the stupid look on their face and the 'dohhhhhh' response. However, that's just too d@mn Stepford for me to actually carry out.