chockfull

Bolsh talks like he thinks and his mind goes to different places than many. I would rather celebrate the difference and have it augment my understanding rather than attack it for being different. Cults want the cookie cutter person. Movements want diversity.

After reading this thread my thoughts are there is a lot of fundamentalism hidden in the thoughts of all those who experienced the PFLAPppy definitions. Im feeling like asking if anyone wants to really intensely debate whether congruent angles in geometry are really congruent or if they just like each other. I also concur that theopneustos is referring to a muse like inspiration rather than another new math from a dead language.

I would propose that fundamentalism is the lie. Humans are not precise machines in many ways. In others we are. Trying to force precision with superstition is the lie. Thus the “canon” of anything inspired is always in question. The Greek language is a little more inclined to geometry and precise math than Hebrew. I tend to view God breathed in that light. It is just meaning “inspired” as opposed to “automated writing”. I do put them all on the same plane. It is just the plane I put them on doesn’t overstep its boundaries with ridiculousness. The “muse” plane or the source of creative inspiration. I feel that spirituality is an individual choice. What you choose to allow to inspire you is entirely your choice. There are many quality human beings on the earth that choose the Quran as their inspiration. The God I worship would reward them according to their virtue as opposed to whether or not they had position in “Gods household”. I feel like in the afterlife there is going to be a lot of servants in the house while there are a lot of sons cleaning stables figuratively. To me any view has to have equity and balance. I view Christianity as a grassroots movement as opposed to an excuse for a building and control of others. ymmv and varying mileage is a good thing.

Thinking back through my own experiences sometimes I experienced shock like in an auto accident or criminal incident. My mind froze up and so things I saw somehow would not register to question later. Bizarre things. A lot of times because I am not a fast processor with emotional intelligence I would just get run over and then like 2 months later I would process it and get upset. Until GSC came along all of this had to be mostly processed alone, or in whispered talks with the spouse, or in guarded tones around other Corps because you never know who is going to write a letter to the board to accuse you of something. All of that happened around us with people trying to lovingly correct upward with scripture and then getting axed. For anyone with org climbing aspirations like so many of these people have, all of that leads to more and more toxicity and dishonesty. They grow to the point they feel that protecting their position in the hierarchy is protecting “the ministry” so any Machiavellian action is easily justified. Of the 3 you named I knew 2 of them and they also displayed snake like Machiavellian behavior towards others and some dishonesty and targeting others to preserve themselves. They were not whistle blowers I know people whose lives were deleteriously impacted from both of them. I would say that all 5 of your reasons or a combination of them probably came into play for many leaders. At least on a subconscious level. I didn’t do the sex scandal bs activity so maybe it was more hidden to me - I only heard rumors. I will say that my own Christian parents are a better example than these clowns in this category. I also would say that the reputation of the BOD for excommunication precedes them and causes people to not mentally process things but just leave them sit there. So evil goes unchecked within the org. It’s only outside sources like here at GSC that you get the unfiltered truth on these matters. The whitewash society isn’t giving you any of it.

The generally accepted elements of emotional intelligence are: 1. Self Awareness 2. Awareness of Others TWI systematized doctrinal error in scriptures to erode away strength in each of those areas crucial for interaction and survival in the real world. Self Awareness - any kind of cogniscence of your own moral barometer is erased by “righteousness” and “believing” Awareness of Others - an isolationist view is taught and lived - a view where not only all other religions are devil possessed (extreme superstition) but so are all the heads of the Christian denominations and the Popes. Some of this is hidden until the Adv Class where people have 3 yrs of immersion into cult doctrine. As a result extreme obedience and conformity is demanded and expected unquestioned. This process like the Stanford prison experiment transforms people into frames of thinking rather quickly and isolated them in to a small society that is very controlling. Time is consumed with multiple meetings and outreach and undershepherding and the follower is swallowed up quickly in the process. Each stage leads to the next higher level commitment. True Christianity is free and grassroots. Some churches seem closer to those roots others drift more towards other interests like prosperity gospel. TWI is 100 percent it’s own isolated cult never interacting with the other 99.9999 % of Christianity. In direct contrast to this Jesus Christ spoke of believing in him that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. Christ bore the heavy burden and yoke of the law and judgement and gave his life so we don’t have to carry it. Don’t take it back on your own back as some kind of martyr and live in chains.

So I just asked ChatGPT if the Way International fits Steven Hassan’s BITE model. I don’t have any more photo capacity to upload the response but it would be a pretty easy exercise for a reader to duplicate. The response involves some caveats like check it out for yourself and YMMV type of statements, but then affirms that TWI controls behavior, information, thought and emotional control. And gives examples. Sorry TWI - even artificial intelligence agrees you function like a cult.

Whenever I hear some kind of vague generic Lifeline type of quote like this I always say ”Generalizations always generalize”. Dats right. Some of my friends clown on each other by calling each other “the weakest link” lol.

As a narcissist he only truly followed himself. He believed his own hype that he was called very specifically to teach people the Word like it hasn’t been known since the first century. I used to believe the second hand hype story, then through examination and critical thinking later discarded it as delusional.

Yes. I’ve had to address what is at the root of my issues rather than a Pollyanna make believe type of approach with “retemories”. Like, for instance, depression. I can run scriptures through the mind thousands of times a day about joy in the Lord and the rewards for the faithful. However, until I removed myself from the heavy handed authoritarian rule of TWI the scriptures were of limited help in that situation. When you have no control over your future and all of it is dictated by angry Pharisees, there really is no time to be down. Giving up just leads to suicide. So fighting back and reclaiming my life from those who had an undue amount of control in it was first necessary so that my subconscious mind feels that there is a future. Then after the root cause is dealt with I can do other things to deal with personal triggers for sad emotions. I will just say that surrendering your freedom of will for a sense of comfort extends the problem rather than solves it. The Pharisees who will dictate your behavior have zero power or help in ANY situation. No miracles. No healing. No solid practical advice. Just keep on complying and God will reward you. NO. Exactly wrong. Stop complying first. Second remove the false authority to harm you. Third implement recovery measures.

When an isolationist group isn’t quite isolationist enough for some then they isolated a few miles down the road in a new city. This is even less healthy. Some of those guys even managed to found multiple spin-off groups all in one lifetime. Before kicking off. That snake oil needs multiple streams of revenue. It’s not gonna sell itself lol

The annual field service report is out for the JWs. 8.5 million “publishers” spent 1.5 billion “service hours” knocking on doors to produce around 1.5m “baptisms”. As they note on the thread that works out to a little over 10,000 “service hours” to produce one “baptism”. They question the baptism numbers saying that they count those who grew up in the religion as about half of the baptisms. All the top leaders in the Governing Body can feel real good about the souls they saved before Armageddon. If you’re going to join a cult, this is pretty much what you can expect with respect to lifestyle. TWI also plans “service hours” for followers but don’t use those terms. They also are focused on increasing numbers and reporting on “each one reach one”. The new PFAL class drives all of this activity. Just wanted those hamsters on the wheels to have a glimpse at what their life will be like before they jump on and start running for their life.

Wierwille and his subsequent BOD leaders have imposed far more traditions implemented with a heavy hand than any Christian denomination I am aware of. Well maybe not the Catholics. That group is like all tradition little substance. Sorry. And by traditions I mean they were actually not just traditions but rules that must be followed unquestioned with the fear of excommunication always hanging over the head. Sorry VP. If denominations created heavy handed traditions to rule believers, VP has created a three headed monster with eyes everywhere to rule over all aspects of life. Worse than a heavy hand.

I agree that the “worship manifestations” were a vehicle to establish control over the follower and as you accurately portrayed the attitude to immediately become “superior” to other “uninstructed” Christians, thus establishing the isolation and attitude early. This also immediately separates out the follower from previous churches and Christian ties by false doctrine. Having experience in running their Intermediate class many times, this is where the ridiculousness increases and is established. Like VPWs fake “lo shanta” repititions now all TWI followers do the exact same thing - with common language as well. Now you have full rooms of silently muttering idiots all conformed to say something grandiose off the top of their heads. I can never forget how the verbosity and formality of the language increases as you go toward those “initiated” meetings of Corps. There you could hear the spiritually heavy brethren bring forth messages that sounded as stupid as the greetings they would send in. ”Worship” is a private matter not for wandering around in sackcloth and ashes and making a spectacle. TWI uses the manifestations as a club and calls all those who don’t buy on to VPWs flim flam artistry in I Corinthians “uninstructed” or “uninitiated” and thus writes off the rest of the body of Christ. While inflating the head up like a weather balloon. What you see in the follower in these classes is a tremendous amount of fear. As a coordinator I was mostly getting people comfortable with the fabrication. Excellor Sessions getting people “fluent” in their lo shantas was part of it. If you can “a shonta” “b shonta” “c shonta” not scared with a fluency then you are good to go with the natural language invention also “I the Lord thy God do love you and have called you with a great calling”. This is all not authentic. It is manufactured horse puckey. I’m not saying I’m God and know all the hearts involved but if you are duplicating a snake oil salesmen’s sounds then you are helping him sell the oil. True worship is in private. True workings of the Holy Spirit are not self seeking and control oriented and ego magnifying.

Yeeeeessss! Nothing beats chicken processing day with fried chicken on the lunch menu.

Over time the phone hookups became more and more of an emphasized thing. It was mandated certain numbers of common hookups to the Sunday service, and then weekly Corps hookups - all mandated attendance. You were even required to dress up in a suit around your kitchen table to listen to some of these. And they were INCREDIBLY BORING - filling in space with not scriptural teachings but reading can labels, practical advice and other nonsense where the most important factor was not the content but the butt in the chair for control. I have never experienced the same kind of snooze fest dead teaching environment as a STS hookup in any other Christian organization. A bunch of people sitting around a living room shushing one another while a frantic person ensures the audio is perfectly transmitted and recognized. We even had homemade custom amplifiers circulated among leaders to better broadcast audio telephone signal. Then turn down the volume to do manifestations (if the coordinator is not in debt) where there are 2 people who participate and everyone acts like it is such a precise thing. How to maximize revenue in while minimizing revenue spent to obtain it. Basically the only $$ spent locally was a region coordinator salary. With nothing locally to attract people - I mean even the shoddiest church has a physical presence - attracting new members means accosting people in public. This is stressful and has extremely low success rates. Older TWI wineskins resulted in leaders defecting and taking whole areas with them leaving moving into a full time paid position mostly spent teaching on a YouTube channel. More modern TWI wineskins had much tighter control and were more paranoid. People were being ousted all over due to politics and disgruntled followers. This is the climate where everyone mentioning debt or presenting a view any different than the party line is excommunicated. The restaurant industry is moving away from franchised low quality offerings and going more towards farm to table and locally sourced high quality ingredients. I think Christianity is successful with largely the same model. Reject the McD low quality format and go with the Christian group growing their own food locally and giving to and providing to the local community.

RnR is basically a twig teaching calendar to share the wealth among ex Corpse who didn’t get attention while in TWI. Now they can do the equivalent of teach a STS and maybe host a class like Rico’s once or something. And hold home fellowships just like they always did. It’s basically not any different material wise. Except dumber. I listened to a few teachings. It’s not better than TWI. Quillen has that other Way Corpse program doubling down on those principles. V2P2 is a mini moglet so they feel successful. Yuck. There are many many others. Paul describes them accurately as shipwrecks of the family faith.

All right Neo. Point taken. To the blissfully unaware in a splinter it is utopia. I am sure there are an infinite number of “there can be only one” avenues to pursue. One can start a business and be fully responsible for one’s own future. As “the One”. Nowadays you just need a YouTube channel and a Patreon account to be “the one”. But there are only a certain amount of people in a certain age group that ever are “the one” in cults which usually amounts to timing and compliance. Compliance over time is the governing principle.

Many who left the cult went on to start other variations on the VPW idolatry by setting up splinter organizations that still magnify PFAL and Wierwille. These groups are no less culty than the original, even if they are pushing for some kind of TWI reform which will never happen because the leaders love their power and status more than truth. What they need to do is come to grips with the isolationist separatist doctrine that they cling to that causes them to be blind to other Christians in a genuine fellowship sense. They need to get some kind of spray to get rid of the “household of God” cult separatist focus. The whole package like the Great Principle and all the lies in the “collaterals” most specifically are the most damaging. It is kind of like they accuse Joel Olsteen as “Christianity lite”. Well Joel is a spiritual heavy compared to the horse puckey swallowed down like a pill by all the VPW worshippers in splinters. Get rid of the huckster in your life and develop a true Christian relationship with Jesus Christ.

Yeah. What’s up apostates? Lol. Piecing together and coming to grips with my past is part of my own personal spiritual journey with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To do so has required the hard work of breaking down the doctrinal and practical error in following scripture. I actually feel a lot more comfortable in my Christian faith than I ever did while in TWI. While some may temporarily benefit from their classes with an increased focus on scripture and study, the deceit in the package and how it is laid out form a very compelling trap that few escape from unscathed. Small inconsistencies in scripture and in commentary by Christian preachers is magnified to create a wormhole in the body of Christ that suck the naieve in and consume decades of their lives in a time warp. Steer clear of the snake oil salesmen who have dedicated their lives to this fundamentalist separatist cult and choose interaction with more profitable members of the body of Christ. Peace out in the name of our Lord.

Here’s another mashup version Aaand one more Can’t leave out Ye! I mean it’s like re-search

The renewed mind is still the key. Widely imitated, never duplicated.

So VP didn’t write the scripture he just copy pasta the other secret sources who wrote about the scripture?

Yes this is his creative name for what is otherwise known in the Christian world as “commentaries”. ”Commentaries” are among all the other writings about the Bible in VPs collection that he took to the trash from his statement to “focus on the Word exclusively”. Apparently the 3 “commentaries” or writings about “the Word” he retained were the works of Kenyon, Bullinger, Stiles, and Leonard. Those he copied pretty literally and exactly. This is a flim flam snake oil magic trick to mask VPs ego in the “commentary”. See? It’s not VP interpreting the verse but only how the verse tells you to interpret itself. Removing the “teacher” and magically looking like you found his translation right there by obvious choice.

Wierwille was unique amongst his peers - like for instance Branham followers all state it openly and there is some form of Christian interaction involved. Even if one I don’t support or agree with. There are maybe 3 or 4 different Branham influenced denominations for example. Wierwille I think due to failed early ecumenical attempts to start a new church and sustain it started going more and more off the deep end of isolationist conspiracy theory. At the extreme end of that people are wearing tin hats to protect from their brain waves being intercepted. So his hiding of major sources Kenyon, Stiles, and Leonard behind his core class really shows through down through the next generations. Now you have a complete isolation from the body of Christ and from my experience even isolation from common sense things in life like housing cars business investments and education. That is a dangerous combination.

This Mayo Clinic article is even better on resilience - key things to work on to increase it https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/resilience-training/in-depth/resilience/art-20046311