WordWolf

God bless and hello. For the benefit of those reading along, please don't take offense if I add a few spaces and maybe punctuation. I think it will mean more people will read this, and I think more people SHOULD.

HCW, I don't really have issues with most of what you said. It's a familiar saying around here-and you haven't seen it YET but it comes up- that everyone's twi experience was DIFFERENT. It sounds like you have given this some thought, and are currently giving it more thought. It also sounds like you're not lumping everyone into one stereotype or another. That's good because a lot of us did a cold, logical analysis of things and came to some unpleasant conclusions. BTW, some of us have been here for YEARS and HAVE examined issues of why we got in, why we stayed, and so on. Some of us DID leave at the first sign of real trouble. Some of us didn't. I WILL take exception to something you said at the end, though. ===== "You say VP was all of these horribly negative things to you. OK. I accept that. But. What was it about YOU that you apparently didn't know it was wrong to f* a married man? A minister? You must love yourself enough to ask yourself the hard questions." ===== First of all, these issues have been explored a LOT around here. There's been sociological, psychological, theological discussion on this. Some people have suggested that the women were/are liars, or that it was all consentual. Some people denied saying that while saying it. So, please don't think that anybody was waiting around for YOU before discussing this. Second of all, since I'm NOT one of the injured parties, I'll step back for a bit and leave THEM to speak for themselves.

I think announcements of problems are premature, since he SAID he was going to make some changes, and that would temporarily block access for a time. (It's also possible there's a problem, but I won't think there's a real problem, unless the site comes back completely rewritten, or is offline for a month or something.)

If you guys are going to interrupt a thread on an entirely different subject, I reserve the right to preserve some of the highlights from your commercials. Oh, almost forgot.... If you're still referring to the cut-and-paste origins of "vpw's" books as a "spurious charge of plagiarism", save yourself the trouble of looking up your explanations. After months and months, you STILL don't understand what plagiarism and copyright are and how they work. It's is technically accurate to say that you believe God Almighty told vpw to plagiarize the work of BG Leonard, JE Stiles, EW Bullinger and EW Kenyon. You believe his plagiarism was justified. You believe it didn't harm anyone. You believe it was a good thing. However, the fact of the matter is that none of those, EVEN IF ENTIRELY TRUE, change the fact of the plagiarism. If he had been taken to court on charges of copyright infringement, the court would have thrown the book at him. (Figure of speech-they would have found him guilty beyond question and made him pay for breaking the law.)

"Betraying Dr's revelations is betraying God." Hey, Tom, if you're reading this thread, here's another one for your summary....

You know, if anyone ELSE said this, they'd mean the BIBLE. Any new readers of yours would have no idea that you've rejected the Bible and refer to a book "by" vpw, cobbled together by cutting and pasting works from BG Leonard, JE Stiles, and EW Bullinger. By "He can save to the uttermost", you DID mean GOD ALMIGHTY, right? I wanted to make absolutely sure you didn't mean someone else....

I take it this would not be the time to rave about Firefox and its many fun "extension" widgets.... Like "Adblock" and "NukeAnything" and "BugMeNot" and some of the others, right?

I was waiting to see who'd be the first to mention that.....

Although there are a few people here that believe that, you unfairly stereotype the vast majority of us. Most of us know that some people saw deliverance from all sorts of things. Most of us know there were some good teachings. Most of us know that most of the people who were involved were involved for good or best reasons. We WERE some of those people, remember. We haven't experienced total amnesia and just memorized a report handed to us by some "cult expert". We handled the evidence ourselves, we were eyewitnesses to some things. Our positions vary, but they're a bit more complicated than "vpw sucks!" ======== Personally, as for the India trip, I will accept that you saw photographs. I have not seen these photos, nor have I corroborating reports from others who saw them. Therefore, I believe you saw something and were told what that something was. I'm slow to automatically accept that they were -vpw getting a key to a city -a crowd thronging a train specifically because vpw is on the train I've seen many photos on the internet, claimed to be of different things. (The tsunami is the most recent.) The vast majority were NOT of what was claimed of them. Further, I'll address one photo which you did not describe but said you saw, the man with the healed arm. Now, supposing vpw's story is 100% true, AND the photo you saw was of that exact man in that exact encounter, here's what we know about the photograph.... Someone was using an old-style camera, contemporary to the 1950s. They had it ready and was prepared to take, or taking, photos of the crowd from the back of a train about to move. (It takes 2 hands to use such a camera.) They happened to catch the unrehearsed, unprepared, candid shot of this miraculous healing, and managed to catch it in the second or two before the train pulled out, or snapped it of the man waving his arm after a train. This person then probably had to grab the railings with one firm grip, since they were on the back of a moving train and could be thrown with NO hands supporting them. Mind you, if a picture WAS taken from the back of the train, depending on the moment it was taken, it would show vpw praying with a man standing on the ground as the train was beginning to move, or a man waving wildly behind a train. Neither of those exactly guarantees a miraculous healing was in process. Now, if you'd seen a grainy, home-film off the back of the train, for this oh-so-cinematic moment, now, THEN we'd have something. You'd see the withered arm unwither and envigorate, then sprung to full effectiveness in moments. As it was, you saw a photo of something, and were told what that photo of something was. Is it possible that what you were told is not precisely what happened? Might this have been an instance where someone wanted to see somethng, were told what they saw, and trusted that account-yet the account was not correct? A number of people here can detail the miraculous snowstorm vpw claimed blockaded him into a city-complete with angels on the phone with him. vpw's account was the only one of that incident that jibes with his story. All objective accounts show not a single snowflake anywhere near this city. (He stopped telling this story after a while.) Finally, almost nobody here believes that vpw had zero substance to what he taught, Almost nobody here believes that women threw themselves at him, or threw themselves on a bed because vpw said so. To claim that we do, again, unfairly stereotypes us. Feel free to look around thousands of other threads. We've discussed relative merits and liabilities to just about everything connected with twi from before there was a twi. The only thing we seem to agree on is that lcm had fewer redeeming qualities than vpw.

Can't have the facts interfere with our little bubbleworld, can we? "This is the best of all possible worlds." ("Candide", by Voltaire.)

Indeed, WW, very cinematic! It always reminded me of the last scene to that 1940s era movie, "Abe Lincoln in Illinois"-(that I often confuse with "Young Mr. Lincoln", 1939) which I haven't seen in decades. Abe Lincoln (who sports his newly grown, trademark facial hairs) is standing on the caboose, finishing a speech as the train is slowly pulling away from the station...I bet this picture made quite the impression upon "Young Mr. Wierwille". I wonder if there's anything in that movie about Abe receiving a key to the city? As I said, it's been years... Thanks, Dan. Me, I was sure he'd seen that specifically in a movie somewhere, but I'm not a movie maven. I wonder when TCM or AMC is showing that movie next... I'd love to review it and see how many things I recognize from it. Personally, I think the cinema made quite an impression on him. Supposedly, when he was young, he would tear around on a motorcycle, almost as if he was Brando in "the Wild One". (Was it "the Wild One"?)

What's the religious story on the tsunami? Well, if you're an idiot, these are the headlines... A) People who disagree with us were the primary target. They should repent and agree with us. B) People who are in our group were hit because they are not zealous enough and need to be more committed. C) Send me money and buy my book.

Hello. BTW, HCW, Since all the accounts of the famous India trip rely entirely on vpw's accounts, I've gotten skeptical of everything except the rough outline-he went to India and dropped his family for a bit. A lot of the other stuff sounds like a recount of some movies of trips to other countries. "I was given the Key to the city, and carte blanche to teach there whenever I wanted." No witnesses, no letters displayed. The book he wrote on the Mission Field was on display-I've read it, it's a short book-but NEVER anything with an official letterhead, no commendation, no medal, no citation, no nothing. "I was followed by crowds of people who wanted healing." Funny almost none of us ever saw vpw produce a miracle of healing in the USA-virtually all of those were off-camera. Further, he never got a rep for teaching a lot on healing, which usually goes along with a great grasp of the subject-the "healer" teaches his students how to heal. "I was on the back of a train in Jubbulpore. As it was about to pull out, a man who's not a Christian asked me for healing. I prayed, and he got a miracle of healing. I shouted to him about his being healed in the name of Jesus Christ, just as the train was pulling out." Such a cinematic scene. So impractical when dealing with an actual moving train. Also never repeated in twi, even though CHRISTIANS went up to vpw and asked for healing. One guy was told he'd have to take pfal FIRST. (You would think that if he got the deliverance first, he'd be the most dedicated student in the room, wanting to learn how it's done.) Mind you, I can't PROVE vpw bs'ed us on the whole trip, but I think the absence of anything backing up his tales, plus the cinematic quality of them, argues a healthy skepticism. Perhaps it was meant to add a colourful flavour to his life, like that guy in "Big Fish".

You're thinking of "Blast From the Past", I think. Myself, I keep humming one of the songs from "Les Miserables", since I noticed that there's a number of people who signed the Guestbook, but the messageboard's hardly become a thriving community. I've seen boards with a dozen people with more activity than this. Of course, that's their business entirely.

"possess". No matter if you owned something, and exercised authority over it, you couldn't say you "possessed" it because "only the devil possesses." "create" "Only God can create."

Many, many congratulations, dude! (He said, far too late...)

Why'd they buy an overpriced, overpowered machine? Same reason they always spent poorly: incompetence. Someone convinced them they needed something this powerful, and nobody there had the brains to know better. Or, of they did, the powers-that-be aquelched dissent. So, now they use a mighty cray computer and a t-1 to play "Solitaire" all day. :D-->

Is he into "midget wrestling"?

Sadly, Herve Villechez passed away several years ago.

I've considered the possibility. However, nobody else came up with stories like that. Even the inner circle didnt hear him saying that works "if you're spiritual enough". Could vpw have practiced homosexual rape, molested young boys, or taken intravenous illicit drugs? Those are all possible. However, it's all speculation. Personally, I think lcm's overcompensation and virulent hatred of homosexuality stemmed partly from his primary mindset- that of the high school/college jock- and partly from dealings in his own life, with relatives and incidents involving his mrs.

First, they have to FIND my e-mail address. :D--> I average about one piece of spam every 2 months, not counting stuff from legitimate mailing lists I'm on. Actually, that's one piece every 2 months at most. I never post my e-mail address publicly. The only one I ever posted anywhere it can be found is reserved JUST for public stuff. Plus, I check Snopes every few days for the latest scams. Usually my news beats the e-mails in reaching me. :D-->

It was TACKY. It was in poor taste. If it wasn't a costume party, it would have been a lot worse. It was stupid of him to wear it, knowing it would be all over the news. So, let's save time and exile him on a deserted island. (sarcasm)

Oh, I can imagine such a conversation.... "Where is your believing?" "That the ministry be not blamed..." "Bend over and take it.." No, wait, they'd just THINK that last one, not say it.

Seriously? A) Towards the end, he wandered around campus, addled, and confused as to how the women in his life had set him up as the sole perpetrator of all the sins of the inner circle. B) He was successfully labelled as the Single Villain. Therefore, he can't build a base with ex-twi or CURRENT twi. Supposedly, one man claimed if he had even 7 totally loyal men, he could start a religion. lcm is short 7 men for even that much. C) lcm lacks the skills to build himself up as a religious leader to more than a boy scout troop. lcm was coccooned into twi at an early age, and only retains the skills he learned thru college (mostly athletics) and the skills he learned since then (mostly, how to bark orders and micromanage.) Like a career politician, he's out of touch with how real people live, how real Christians think, and what they care about. He'd be a missionary to a foreign country, whose customs are nearly incomprehensible. (Unless he's learned humility since then-if he has, he may understand, but understands he will only harm himself or others if he takes the big chair.) D) lcm doesn't have anything to offer people. His understanding of Scripture is sub-standard among average Christians, and his manner is abrasive. He can't get converts from people who just want him to shut up.

I think POP was accurate in one specific. It claims vpw said at one point that lcm and cg were the only men he thought could run things. Since vpw's main criteria, as has been pointed out before, was blind loyalty to himself, he named those 2 men as the most singlemindedly loyal men, loyal to him beyond all other things. I once told Mike (and I still believe this is true) that I say he is made of a finer clay than vpw and lcm. I specified: I believe that if Mike was placed in that inner circle with lcm, and vpw gave his spiel about adultery being perfectly fine, that lcm would-and did- sin because vpw recommended it, and that Mike would NOT sin DESPITE vpw recommending it. Mike is painfully loyal to vpw, but not to the point that Mike will intentionally sin for him, IMHO. Therefore, although I think there have been many people loyal to vpw, very few (lcm and cg, but not Mike) were or are willing to disregard their own consciences for his sake. This was anything BUT a healthy relationship. vpw made lcm twofold the child of hell that he himself was.