johniam

I believe in unclean spirits and that people can be possessed by them because the bible says that both Paul and Jesus directly dealt with them. Trusting TWI to teach about them, though, is like trusting the 3 stooges to fix your plumbing. I am possessed according to one region cordo who left in 2000. He told me that if I humbled myself to God that God would show me immediately everything about myself I needed to know and after that maybe I could come back, but until then he wasn't turning me loose on the household, no siree bob. He must've been Moe since he was a region cordo.

Matthew Slick, huh? Wonder if he's related to Grace.

I heard something once about VPW standing in the middle of a cornfield in his underwear and then he gave the signal and girls from both sides ran at him or something. Sounds like some very bored New Knoxville residents and their own fantasies.

IMF: This goes back to Waydale, GSC's forerunner. There was a thread started by Pat R where he said he'd written a book that said that the sperm which conceived Jesus was in outer space before it was in Mary. Paul Allen (Waydale moderator) asked him twice where he got the info. I didn't have internet service for awhile and never got back to the thread, but it struck me as odd. Oakspear: I've talked to people who said witches do too know they're dealing with the devil. Witchcraft is a long existing religion; I'm sure there are as many variations of it as there are of Christianity, but I talked to those people I just mentioned, I read part of a book about it, and I remember TWI people testifying of being involved with it before TWI. They all knew the power didn't come from God and they accessed that power deliberately.

It seems to me that witchcraft is a deliberate decision to fellowship with the devil. TWI didn't teach that. True, their one liners were self serving (you can have whatever you want, etc.), but that's not witchcraft. Remember, IMF, you're dealing with a guy who believes there was jizz in outer space.

Mandii: quote: who knows what god has in store for some...and what his will is for people. Apparently you do.

I have prayed for God to overthrow the words of people who were IMO doing evil to me. Once it was a boss who was religious. He ended up getting fired. How about 2 Tim. 4:14 coupled with 2 Thes. 1:6? 2 Tim - Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works 2 Thes - Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you Granted, different books/different contexts, but not mutually exclusive. That BS about praying for their destruction is just TWI full of hot air. Didn't happen did it? If that plane crash wasn't coincidental then neither was Don Wierwille dying of cancer. Socks, remember that skit on SNL where OJ Simpson was the host and Walter Payton was closing in on his then record so he sticks a pin in a voodoo doll with #34 on it and Payton fumbles. Hmm. IMF, "greasespot by midnight" was a phantom of bad things happening to you if you left TWI says LCM. For a fuller explanation click on the where the name came from on the GSC home page. Oh, I see Ex beat me to it. [This message was edited by johniam on February 24, 2004 at 17:31.]

Funny, I don't recall what I liked when I was a kid, but from the parent side I have to concur with Runaway Bunny, Good night moon, and Love you forever. In Love you forever it cracks me up when the mom drives over to the adult son's house late at night and enters his bed room via ladder and does the routine.

GJ: Lawyers these days will allow you 1 hr free consult. After I read your first post the first thing that came to my mind was statute of limitations. Not too many things last 20 plus yrs. This reminds me of what TWI taught about that scripture where Jesus confronted the Pharissees about their "tradition" of conning people into giving the money they had put aside to take care of their aging folks to the temple as a "gift" so they wouldn't have to take care of their folks. Maybe someday if your mom gets ill and calls on you for help you could say, "sorry, I give my time and money to ______ as a gift, I can't help you." Just a thought.

OK. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment. Catholic church: check! The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. Catholic church doesn't have to do this because they "bring in new members" through reproduction. The group is preoccupied with making money. Again, they don't have to do this because of their size. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. Check! Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). Again, because of their size, only leadership is stuck doing stuff like this. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth). Check! The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity). Check! The group has a polarized us- versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society. Again, because of their size and over all clout, they don't have a problem with this. The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations). Check! The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities). Check (for example, burning people at the stake, indulgences, etc.)! The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them. Check! Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. Again, the 'group' IS their family and friends. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group. Again, the size of the group means only leadership has to do this. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members Not true, as long as 'socialize' doesn't lead to marriage. I'm going to ask one question twice. #1 - If I'm a cult and I never change what I believe, then a) how many members do I need, b) how much net worth do I need, and c) how many years do I have to exist before I'm not a cult anymore? #2 (reverse angle) - If I'm the RC church and I have 700 million members world wide, billions of dollars in net assets, and have existed for 1600 plus years, how many children must my clergy molest before I BECOME a cult? Either way, the answer is blowin' in the wind.

I didn't see the Feb. 9 Sullivan show, but I saw the one the week after. That show was done in Miami I think. Even at age 9 I was already somewhat cynical of anything TV tried to over promote, so when a friend kept saying "the Beatles, the Beatles" I'm thinking, "Now what are they making a big deal about?" but the first time I heard "I wanna hold your hand" I was hooked. I don't think it was healthy for them to be promoting drugs and socialism the way they did, but their music has always hit the spot for me.

Wasway: I read a similar article to that one in a sports mag maybe 5 - 10 yrs ago. No mention of TWI. Hmmmm?

Wow, I thought this thread was all but dead. Liar, have you noticed I'm not the only one who doesn't agree with you? I don't think Liar is LCM, by the way. LCM is much more articulate even when emotionally incited, plus he wouldn't misspell words or names. Liar, I couldn't make much sense out of your little outburst. The analogy in my previous post was perhaps not a 100% match, but just as Nebuchadnezzar used the "golden image" to vaunt himself and make people afraid, you are trying to vaunt yourself and make us afraid of a "fallen arche" (LCM). Not going to happen. You're "calling me out"??? What is this, a gunfight at the GSC corral? We ARE out. This is IT! What are you going to do? Fly through the internet cables and hit me with a rod? No rods here, or canvas; just words. Yours against mine.

Terry Bradshaw was involved with some Christian organization while he was still playing in the NFL. Then he was on a pre game show lamenting that the organization was corrupt and the preacher was "immoral" and such, so he might feel duty bound to personally investigate TWI if he hears enough about them.

I know them. Last I heard they lived in Kalamazoo, MI.

quote: Wait til the the judgement seat and see how red your butt turns. Doesn't it say something about few or many stripes? And "YOU"LL receive in YOUR body the things done whether good or bad"? And also, "KNOWING THE TERROR OF THE LORD we persuade men"? Well, just my private interpretation maybe. Reminds me of SNS tape #1800 - God's abundance in the future - from June of '95. Not necessarily LCM, Rascal, just a wannabe. Hey Liar! I will "not serve thy gods, nor the golden image which thou hast set up"!

Herbiejuan: Black helicopters at the ROA???? Man, I missed all the good stuff.

Speaking of possessed kids, did anyone see "Village of the Damned"?

Laleo: Well, it seems to me now that 'word over the world' WAS our yellow brick road. Every meeting, every class, every retemory, every corps principle, everything was designed to make us better at moving the word (getting classes together). Perhaps it would be better to say that 'word over the world' was the wizard's castle and moving the word was our yellow brick road. I mean, they had our whole day planned out for us. Wake up, SIT, pray, study the word, work/witness/work, witness, fellowship, once a wow always a wow, committment beyond your lifetime.....the fun never ends. So to answer your question, "getting classes together" was a summarization of doing whatever a "committed believer" did to move the word every day.

Oops, hit the wrong button. The last time I saw it I noticed that in the last battle in the witch's castle it was the scarecrow (no brains???) who figured out that by cutting the rope the chandelier would fall on the witch's soldiers. So they had what they sought already like us in TWI. Quote... While most of us didn't arrive as quickly as did Dorothy in understanding the real (or, rather, imagined) force behind the promise of Oz, I wonder how many spent years in The Way in search of a home, or the courage to face life, or the intelligence to make use of the opportunities that are presented, or the heart to love life in spite of it all, or if any of that was even the main motivation for involvement, but, if so, whether it's since been found. Lot of substance in this comparison, laleo.

Yeah, we watched the WOO every year in January on Sunday night. Never got too into figuring it out. In TWI someone said it was devilish because it promoted good witches. Quote... In fact, by the time the movie is over, the viewer understands that it is the yellow brick road (the journey) that is sacred, not the Wizard, or even the Land of Oz, no matter how dazzling and attractive it appears. Having the goal of going to the Wizard's castle got them to do their best, and, yes, Dorothy was the catalyst. In TWI we shared a language, an understanding, a goal, and getting classes together got us to do our best. We had a sense of purpose we never had in the world even though much of it was also an illusion. Quote... So what we have is a group of people who are already in possession of the things they most desire -- a home, a heart, courage, intelligence -- and set off in search of it, believing a holy man can offer these things as gifts. In the end, as dazzling, and attractive, and promising as Oz is, it is only an illusion.

I always felt the same way about the label "cult". As soon as someone is convinced I'm in a cult, they don't have to listen to anything I say, don't have to be polite to me, etc. Same thing goes on here with labels like "waybrain", "VP worshipper", etc. A label is only as good as its source.

According to the financial figures from '87-'01 they dipped down to just over 30 mill in 90/91 then jumped back up and took another dive after the purges in 94/95 and then climbed back up to well over 40 mill again. What I'm wondering is why didn't the Allen and Parker lawsuits dent them very much? Do they have lawsuit insurance with Lloyd's of London?

I got in TWI in 1976 but was never corps. I saw believers including myself occasionally cop an arrogant attitude when witnessing. I think it was our "superior knowledge" that somehow justified this arrogance. I guess that was just the tip of the iceberg.

A Sunday school class... Teacher: OK, children. Today we're going to talk about heaven. I want to know what you all think. You, over there. What do you think? Child: Well, I think you go to heaven right after you die. Teacher: Very good. Now you, in the front row. Child: Um, I think you go to pergatory first. Then you go to heaven. Teacher: OK, that's nice. And you, the one waving your hand. Child: Well, er, I don't think you have to die to go to heaven. Teacher: That's unusual. Can you explain that? Child: OK, um, the other night I was walking past my parents' bedroom and I heard a noise so I peeked through the door, and my mom was laying on her back with her feet up in the air saying,"Oh GOD, I'm COMING I'M COMING!!!" And she would've gone if my dad hadn't been right on top of her holding her down.