Rocky

From The Book of Charlie If all the trappings were stripped away, leaving only my true self, who would I be? Am I living fully as that self in every moment? And when it ends, will my story have meaning?” Over the past half century, scientists have studied the relationship between fear and courage, and what they have found tends to confirm the wisdom of the ancient philosophers. Psychologist S. J. Rachman, in his seminal book Fear and Courage, concluded that fear has three components. A feeling of apprehension. A physical response (like a pounding heart, a queasy stomach, a knot of anxiety). And a change in behavior to escape the fear and quiet the response. Courage, Rachman continued, is a deliberate decision to override the change in behavior that is part of fear. The courageous person faces fear, rather than try to escape it. In other words, without fear, there is no courage. One who senses no danger feels no apprehension. One who feels no apprehension has no desire to run away. Lack of fear, in Rachman’s terminology, is not courage. It is simply ignorance of danger. Stoic philosophers have regarded courage as one of the four most important—cardinal—virtues, along with justice, prudence, and self-control. Von Drehle, David. The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man (pp. 134-135). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. I'm fully aware a discussion of fear would fit well in the doctrinal forum. However, I believe fear, just like love, was and probably still is central to the dogma around which Victor Wierwille built his subculture. Which is why I include it here. In PFLAP, Victor taught "fear in the heart of that woman killed her child." I wholeheartedly now believe that to be false doctrine. Without fear -- and facing it head on -- there is no courage, according to SJ Rachman. Intuitively, that makes far more sense to me than anything I ever learned from Victor. Frankly, it was a mindset influenced, if not directly inculcated from Victor Wierwille, that set my emotional and economic growth and progress back probably 30 years or more. That is, even though I began my journey to eradicate my waybrain 30 years ago and less than 20 years after I was tragically mis-programmed with fundamentalist CRAP. I believe now that Victor Wierwille was completely off the mark from the very beginning.

Reiterating the OP for this discussion thread, with minor edits. I chose to not employ the quote function of this text editing software because it cuts all but a few lines of the quoted text, and to me, it's awkward. One of my current books (that I'm reading) brought up the topic of fear. I believe that topic is salient, to discussion of the twi trap, similarly to how Charity's thread on Love draws salient contrast with Victor Wierwille's subculture. By Skyrider Oftentimes, we hear when twi-followers finally decide to exit TWI..... they seek out a splinter group. Seemingly, deep down they must still cling to the twi-mantra that victor wierwille was chosen by God to lead them to the "rightly-divided Word" or some equivalent of the same. Clearly, the "truth of pfal" is sound [they think].... it's just that LCM, Rosalie and Donna screwed it all up. Pick any one of them as the *fall guy*...... but NOT wierwille. So, off they go to a splinter group... lulled into another loop around the block. How long will they stay in this cycle? Depends. Does it touch all the right buttons of nostalgia for those "good ole days?" Do they feel accepted and needed? Are they again (cough, cough) an intricate part of moving God's Word [pfal] to others? For some.... do they keep questioning and looking diligently for answers? Or, do they settle into a "cozy" splinter group that, at first, welcomes them with open arms and doesn't ask for donations [yet]? If they keep asking the hard questions.... this splinter group, too, will not be filling their need. But if they settle in and stop questioning the deeper questions like, "Why did twi collapse so quickly? Why was lcm such an ego-driven maniac.... the one whom wierwille chose to be the 2nd president of twi? Why did wierwille teach that cancer is a devil spirit and later.... die of cancer? Why didn't wierwille get healed if he was "God's chosen" who taught solid principles of health and prosperity? Why did the trustees lie saying 'wierwille died of a broken heart?' Etc. etc. ??" When the door to questioning begins.....THEN can one find answers. GreaseSpot Cafe offers the first, clear vision that twi-followers are caught in a trap. No other group offers this direct approach. Even though back in the 80's, Lynn's group, CES/STFI, offered up its list that diverged from twi.... it only went so far. At no time, did it delve into wierwille's questionable claims and mystique of "the man of God." And, of course.... Geer offered NOTHING but a posthumous accounting of wierwille's "greatness" and took it to levels of franchising classes. A legion of other splinters, too, chose to hang onto wierwille's coattails and ride the rails to the bank. But GSC, the successor of Waydale, offers another way for twi-followers to GET OUT OF THIS TRAP. With healthy discussions and vigorous debate....GSC allows participants to engage in open discussions. No questions are off-limits [except politics]. Neither twi nor its splinter groups allow for open, full-throated discussions in the public arena. Why the censorship? What are they protecting? We saw ALL OF THIS back in 1986 when the trustees prohibited anyone from reading John Schoenheit's research paper on "Adultery." Many corps leaders were fired and/or shunned for even reading it. Why was twi so afraid of uncovering the biblical truths regarding adultery? Any guesses? LOL Fast forward to 2023.... and the censorship regarding questions about wierwille remain. But not here..... not at GSC.

Asking for clarification: now we are looking to Victor Wierwille's beliefs unrelated to biblical anything as to what's true or even godly? Frankly, at this point, I reject the Wierwille-ist framing of the issue. I believe Victor (who wasn't a winner, IMO) latched onto an entrenched but anachronistic religious concept that served (serves) to foster/highlight the divisive nature of the Wierwille private interpretation cult. IOW, I believe, for the most part, the devil spirit influence/possession framing became (sub-)cultural hegemony which served to enable "leaders" to control everyday believers.

Shhhh... don't tell anyone. j/k Don't want to veer off into the forbidden topic of politics. However, love matters and I believe we are inherently responsible to exercise our citizenship. Hopefully, those sentiments won't offend anyone.

Again, characterizing your imaginations as "Your theory..." is narcissistic nonsense.

Together, these descriptors equate to love. IMO Oh, and critical thinking skills too. Btw, WWJD????????

In the video above, Eagleman goes so far as to say if there is free will at all, it is a bit player in the brain.

The light came on in my mind this evening. Or, I had an epiphany. Or, put another way, the rivers/streams of my understanding flowed together (greek; sunesis) in what became a lovely recognition of the overall meaning of the last 49 years of my life. Boy oh boy do I have a lot to write about. I won't bore anyone here right this moment. Long time readers may recall how I have highlighted the concept of social belonging. For me, twi, 49 years ago seemed like "The WAY," God's way. Midway or so through the 1980s, disillusionment with the organization and with Victor Wierwille and Loy Martindale caused the scales to fall off of my eyes, so to speak. Since then, I've had many heartaches and epiphanies. Tonight's lightbulb moment came when I read in The Atlantic about a societal epidemic of loneliness and then something a medical professional not currently seeking to make his fortune (like Victor W apparently did in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s) put together a document with an overview of that epidemic and included some ideas on how to build community. Ultimately, it fits with this thread about LOVE. So, I have to thank our friend and sister Charity for her longing for understanding. For her willingness to put that longing out into the ether in words, for our GSC community to contribute to our sunesis.

“Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” Once we believe… Von Drehle, David. The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man (p. 106). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.

YES!

We take for granted the idea that power corrupts. Dacher Keltner shows how that happens in the book documenting his research, The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence.

I'm confident there have been MANY MANY people who share that perspective. Can you now appreciate the experience as having empowered you, as a result of having survived, to more deeply grasp the significance of the lovebombing from the perspective of each side? I'm glad you survived. It's now been more than 40 years since I ventured out on the WOW ambassador adventure. And it truly was an adventure. When I ventured out in June 2021 to drive cross-country, eastbound I drove unaccompanied. One of the highlights was passing through several states encountering billions and billions of trees and being thankful for them. On the return trip, my passenger was a long-time 9th corpse brother. He had spent a year in Erie, PA. We took a very brief detour off of the Interstate to see where he did so. Later in the day, we made it to Fremont, OH, where I showed him the two houses my motley crew (I wasn't the honcho, just one of the crew) lived that year. One of the highlights was the Rutherford B Hayes presidential library on his estate named Spiegel Grove But I digress.

Another book I'm reading and which has pertinent content relative to this thread is The Book of Charlie. In Chapter six, Von Drehle recounts various charlatans from the era when Victor Wierwille grew up. Charlie was an adventurous young man who grew up in Kansas City, MO. Excerpted below: A still greater quack—and bigger celebrity—was John Romulus Brinkley, who operated a radio station and clinic in Milford, Kansas. Licensed in “eclectic medicine” (whatever that was), Brinkley took cures wherever he found them: forgotten folklore, herbal brews, borrowings from chiropractors, osteopaths, homeopaths, and more exotic healers. His signature breakthrough was the idea of transplanting goat testes into impotent men. “A man is only as old as his glands,” Brinkley maintained. He built a huge following—among the largest radio audiences in the nation—by interspersing pitches for his “Goat Gland Cure” with fundamentalist sermons, rants against elites, and bedtime stories for kids. Tiny Milford filled with men from across the country willing to pay $750 each for goat testicle implants. The numbers grew as Brinkley “discovered” further applications for his interspecies transplants. Goat gonads supposedly cured diabetes, high blood pressure, epilepsy, deafness, paralysis, female infertility, obesity, and dementia. Von Drehle, David. The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man (p. 91). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. It's like Victor Wierwille found an archetype around which he could build his own money printing cult machine.

And because it's often so doggone obvious he projects.

I appreciate your acknowledgment of said copious evidence. I reply by asking (rhetorically) why you think the question you asked me is salient. I have been under the impression it's humans (generally men) who have "produced" manuscripts, not God. We're not in a realm wherein God produces manuscripts, right? I have also been under the impression the "holy men of God" were INSPIRED by God. Might "God-breathed" have been a figure of speech or an Orientalism? IDK. But I do believe the cultures (the time frame was over the course of a couple of millennia, right?) How quickly did cultures change back then? Probably not as quickly as they do now, but I suspect over one or two thousand years, there could have been significant culture shifts. As a journalist, mediocre as I may have been, and only employed as such for three years or so, and as a citizen-funded one for another year or two, I encountered a LOT of errors in the written words of humans (women and men). Almost always, said errors/typos, even with the most rigorous and current technology available was unintentional. We don't really have to look any further than the contributions by our peers here on GSC (including me) to recognize the pervasiveness of typographical errors. Mostly unintentional. Sometimes intentional. Here's a classic and poignant example: any time the word public is used journalism or any other publishing medium, it is ALWAYS prone to be written as "pubic." ALMOST always when it actually happens, it's unintentional. OFTEN when it's written without the L, it becomes humorous. Even Victor Wierwille understood the concept of how easy it is for unintentional errors to creep into manuscripts during manual copying. Consider also cultural anthropology. Specifically regarding how widespread education may or may not have been at times in question. Guttenberg didn't invent the printing press (for Western Civilization) until sometime in the 15th century of the Christian era. The Guttenberg Bible was apparently published in 1454 CE. Imagine how tedious copy editing and proofreading must (or might) have been at ANY point. Is it any wonder the BEST possible effort or product only could logically, rationally, reasonably be characterized as religious tradition? Victor Wierwille emphatically criticized religious tradition during his ministry. Reflecting back to that time, I surmise he did so to discredit anyone else's religious tradition and characterize HIS private interpretation as The Word of God, which just so happened, in his view, to be the one true take on what may actually be the Will of God. I don't identify as atheist, though I suppose I could. But I do challenge, based on my life experience and education, former (academic) and informal, the notion of Victor Wierwille's private interpretation (or anyone else's) of any version of the Bible to be the accurate Word or Will of God. Notably, however, I respect your (oldskool) long held belief in God's word. And every other person here on GSC who holds to that belief and understanding of life. We don't change our values or beliefs quickly, for the most part. So I am definitely not trying to argue that anyone here "is wrong" about God. I hold that there's just too much we don't and cannot yet know to make any such distinction. I love you all... even pesky old Mike even though it's possible to see through him to a degree because of his candor about his beliefs.

I embrace the explanation (and distinction) you wrote about earlier this morning. I had not articulated the distinction prior to reading it, but intuitively recognized it was a salient distinction.

I hope this doesn't offend anyone. However, it does illustrate the cultural hegemony of the situation.

hmmm... intriguing distinction. keep vs obey.

Even though it equates to bibliolatry. I would hope the people Mike recognizes as scatterers do some serious introspection about the matter. The fact of the matter is there are no original manuscripts in existence. There is material evidence humans have corrupted what we've believed to be the Word of God. Sure, it's available to figure out what likely is the essence of God's original word. But it doesn't come easily and certainly doesn't come from charlatans who arrogantly claim "God told me he'd teach me the word like it hadn't been known since the 1st century of the Christian era. I take you all back to Proverbs 2:1-5. I do not claim to have The Word. I'm not asking anyone to follow me or support "my ministry." 2 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, 2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding— 3 indeed, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, 4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

Is that a question?

Is THIS love? Have you ever experienced ANYONE in twi taking this same attitude?