TheHighWay

Yeah, well, that was their official line, but I've since learned that whatever their official line was concerning a matter, you can bet money that wasn't the real reason! I had forgotten about the whole communication aspect... I do think that was a primary reason for shutting it down. A lot of us were unhappy in our own little corners of the world, but when we got together and saw how many friends were gone, and how unhappy other people were in their own little corners of the world, it was a lot easier to put two-and-two together and decide to leave twi-land. (edited for clarity)

This is my opinion, too... ROA started as a natural offshoot of the attitude, interests and lifestyle of their membership in the 1970s... now flash forward to the 1990s when many of us had small children in tow, and were still being told to come camp for a week (or two weeks if you were way corps). And you were under a cloud of suspicion if you didn't attend. Add to that they started hyper-regulating everything (what jobs you could work, what twig you had to attend and when, etc. etc.) --- yeah, THAT's a blessing. <_< I think it was always a numbers game and when the numbers turned less favorable they pulled the plug.

Oakspear .... oh, yeah... I remeber those WIBP meetings. It was SO uncomfortable! My3Cents .... hmmm... Weirwille Library did have a funky layout! Even with the setup facing sideways those stupid pillars could block the view! I can see how stringing would make things easier. I have to admit, there was a certain amount of satisfaction in doing dining room setup at hq and looking across the room when all the plants, table numbers, and condiment shakers lined up not only vertically and horizontally, but diagonally as well. It was a pretty sight. But was it worth spending all those man-hours to get that look for every meal, day after day? Probably not. The room that drove me crazy was the dining room at Rome City... the tile pattern was slightly off from the square of the room. So some people would line the tables up to the floor and others to the room and it never looked right, no matter what you did. After a few rounds of this I just thought, "heck with it" and was happy if the tables were clean and and had the right number of chairs around them!

Actually, twi was still supporting him long after he left HQ. Perhaps he is finally on his own now, but I doubt it.

The thing is, there are so many strains of "flu" and they impact people differently, so it's hard to pin it all down into a neat little package. Many of us get sick in the winter but trust me, when you get the FLU, you know it... you are really ill. Swine flu is called that simply because it started as a virus that pigs caught easily. Then it morphed into something that humans could catch, too. Then people started passing it around amongst ourselves. The reason for all the panic is that we have no way to predict the final outcomes on things like Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and even Ebola... these things flare up and die down on their own all the time, and viruses often morph into a new strain, and all we can do is play catch-up to try to contain an outbreak or find a way to treat the symptoms. By telling us there is the potential for an outbreak, they are hoping people will use some common sense and the virus WON'T become an epidemic. The problem with that is it's like the boy crying "wolf" ... look at all the folks still traveling down to Mexico yesterday saying, "Yeah, well, I'm just not all that worried about it."

Congrats, Stayaway!! Always glad to hear when someone has recaptured their life again. Go, you!! Yeah... I don't know if we'll ever see another mass-exodus from twi... it's more like a leaky faucet: a steady drip-drip-dripping of people like Stayaway and friends. If you only look for a moment, it seems like nothing but boy, does it add up over time!

I agree, NewLife... although I never went WOW or lived in a WayHome, I did have situations where I was expected to share an apartment or house with other believers "just because the leadership thought it was a good idea". You really didn't feel like you could say "no"... somehow that was questioning God's open door for your life. HAH. Looking back, there were some advantages but usually there were far more disadvantages. And why is it that sharing my living space with the latest "newbie" was good for my life but NEVER good for the local leaderships' lives? (hmmmm) But you know, we DID think we would get blessed by giving, especially if it was inconvenient. We were pushing ourselves to be better for God (or so we thought) -- we were putting away selfishness and casting off the old man. I remember cheerfully scrubbing toilets or hauling yard trash around other peoples' yards on the weekends. I guess it isn't really the work I regret... it was good, honest work (at least on my part) -- it's the morally bankrupt people I did it for that I am sorry about.

Many thanks to the anonymous attendee!! I'm so sorry you still have to put up with that drivel... reminds me of what my last advanced class special was like 10 years ago... OMG, how can people still put up with this!?!? (sorry, that's a rhetorical question) THW

Interesting... I just watched "Driving Lessons" with Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley of Harry Potter fame). He plays a young man who has been raised in a highly disfunctional family: a Pastor father who hides within his religion because he is unhappy with the rest of his life, and dominant, controlling, manipulative mom who uses her overt Christian "good deeds" to hide her real sins. It takes a complete outsider who virtually hijacks this young man to shake him out of the patterns that had formed his life and thinking to that point, and even then as things are happening all around him he stays true to his training (and in his emotional cave) for a long, long time. And with each tentative step away from it, he runs back again because it is all he has ever known. It is what he was told was "right" and "true" and he wants to believe it, even when the evidence that it is all wrong is right in front of his face. It's a quirky little movie with some highly quirky characters but whew, a lot of it reminded me of "the good old twi days". Clearly the guy who wrote and directed this understands a whole lot about human nature!

Chockfull... I didn't mean to say we should disregard the homosexual possiblities between Donna and Rosalie (I happen to agree there is a lot of evidence intimating such a relationship) I just meant in addition to that, to my mind, these two are bonded together by even more dark and dirty secrets. I would love to sit the pair of them down with some veritas serum-laced tea!

B -- I think I understand what you are saying... if someone began their journey with twi in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or even 90s and they are still active members now, they HAD to have been touched by some kind of scandal. They may have been in the thick of it, or they may have only heard a passing rumor. So how the heck can they still stand to be involved when the truth is out there: so visible, so easily gotten??? My answer to that question is simply: "deluded" is "deluded" no matter what decade. Yes, if someone was in the thick of things, and really saw and heard the truth and made a conscious decision to stay anyway, well, these are broken people! And it is next to impossible to excuse their actions. But, you have to realize a LOT of folks on the field only know what they were told by their leadership, and if they were good little innies and if their local fellowship was sweet (or at least not horrible) they had no reason to question any deeper or look any further than their own directed bible study notes. How many of us, as devoted followers to twi, blew off rumor after rumor? We were taught and we believed that such rumors were just the devil trying to kick up a little dust; a little doubt; a little sand in the machinery of our beliefs. We had such hopes and belief and expectations of our leadership and (more to the point) of our ministry that it was almost impossible to think these people would screw up this badly, let alone intentionally conduct themselves in a consistently selfish, pervasively evil way!!! Maybe you didn't quite buy into the belief-system perpetuated by twi, but anyone who does almost has to run headlong into a brick wall to wake up. Sometimes the wall is built brick-by-brick, day after day, slowly but surely, by the hurtful experiences you go through over the years. This was how about 2/3 of my brick wall was built. Time after time of leadership playing people against each other with everyone getting hurt. Time after time of contradictory instructions. Time after time of no apologies when apologies were due. Time after time of accusations and banishments of people I felt were decent human beings.... But the last 1/3 of my wall was built in an instant. The moment I found WayDale and read credible accounts by people I knew and respected, BOOM, my wall was finished and I ran into it full tilt. I felt like my heart had stopped and all the air had been sucked out of me. And even then, there was a choice to make... who did I believe? My twi leadership or ex-wayfers? Cop-outs? If my wall hadn't already been 2/3 complete -- if my gut hadn't already been screaming at me for a long, long time that something wasn't right here -- I might have put my head down, and put the thoughts aside, and never visited WayDale ever again. Even if my local leadership had handled my questions better I might have put all my misgivings aside and stayed put. It would have just been easier in so many ways than leaving the group and breaking up my marriage was. People don't make big changes in their lives, unless they believe there is some profit to it. Even if you are unhappy where you are, if you don't believe there is anything better waiting for you, you will most likely stay put because there is just too much effort, too much upheaval, and too much hurt in changing. That's just the way we are. I don't like this about myself but the truth is, I had to know that going through that turmoil was for a very, very, very good reason or I never would have done it. It's just that simple.

You know... the way you describe their sudden and obvious bond... I've only seen that first-hand once in my life. A friend of mine suddenly, seemingly inexplicably bonded with someone he never even liked much as a person before. Literally in one night they formed a bond that overrode every other friendship or family tie he had for years to come. Many of us never really understood what the heck happened. But I found out a long time after the fact that he had had a deep, dark, terrible personal secret. He had never shared it with anyone. And somehow at a party, they were thrown together by chance and she "guessed" his situation, as she had a similar secret herself. He then told her everything. And she told him everything. And that was it: bonded for life. Leaving all possible homosexual theories aside for the moment, I have to think that Rosalie suddenly offered herself as a knowing shoulder to Donna... a friend who understood things that most of us weren't even aware of... one who could keep the deepest, darkest secrets... after all, both Rosalie and Donna were in the inner circle of the creepy old men, and didn't this friendship bloom in the midst of Craig's wildest dalliances and delusions? -- It's sad and it's sick, but it's kinda understandable.

Jeff, In my experience, you cannot fix what is broken if you don't at least recognize that it IS broken. So, the fact that you even realize something you've said or done is a remnant of your past (bad) lives is HUGE in my book! Beyond that, I also agree that it is easier to fix if you can understand where the behavior (or thought) came from and why you used it. That's the starting point and if you understand that, you can change things. Do I still have "clingons"? Oh yeah... I hope I have less today than I had last week, but I doubt I will ever stop rooting out the crap that became the very fabric of my daily life for 20 years. THW

Paw, I can't thank you enough for starting this site when you did. The service you have provided has been invaluable to so many of us!! (Has it really been nine years already? Wow. I can't imagine the headaches you have had to put up with over all this time. Thank you, thank you!!!) And, as someone who has recently started digging her way out of her own weight-pit, your story is SO inspiring... congratulations on getting your life back!! THW

...read GSC to find out what "uprisings" must be put down among the followers.... If we are talking about it, innie lurkers are reading about it !! (and THINKING about it)

Thanks, everyone, for the info on the picture! I kinda figured if twi had paid someone to take the shot we would have seen it before now. Anyway, the best I can remember is that Ambassador One was sold off when they decided it was no longer cost-efficient. (Hah... imagine that really being a concern of twi...) like it was a choice between some kind of upgrade or just getting rid of it? And didn't they do some kind of swap deal to get the smaller plane Craig then used? Something about leasing out the extra hanger space in trade for the older plane? --- Sorry, these are just vague recollections... I'm sure someone here is far more familiar with the details than I. THW

Hey all... I was just surfing the net and found this picture of Ambassador One --- http://www.airliners.net/photo/The-Way-Int...-580/1008398/L/ It's certainly one I've never seen before... anyone have an idea of when or where it was taken and by whom?

Can anyone tell me even ONE time this woman ever put together a quality teaching? Can you IMAGINE having to listen to her drone on every week?????

I spent three years in-residence (one at Emporia in the College Division, and two at HQ in the Corps). Each year we were told to "set aside" whatever it was that we were good at: music, art, whatever... to put aside our own egos and focus primarily on the Word. And most of us obeyed, thinking this was our chance to really FOCUS on God. To learn to better rely on HIM and not ourselves. --- No question, twi was very, very good at stripping away what made each of us UNIQUE individuals and converting us into generic, mind-numbed twibots. As for WayProd, I wasn't involved until the 80s and beyond, when the control was already firmly in place. I have no knowledge of what happened in the early days but I can't help but wonder if Ted's experience was different from so many other peoples' because Ted was, well, TED. He was talented and spiritual and Vic knew it. I think he knew he absolutely couldn't get away with ever treating Ted the way he got away with treating other folks. So he didn't do it. Vic was nothing if not a chameleon! And in my experience, bullies usually know who they can and cannot mess with.

I still have mine, but only as a reference to what twi taught. I've only opened it twice in eight years, both times to marvel at how much tiny writing I managed to squeeze into the margins.

That is exactly my point... the conditioning of a victim is to push everything within them that is screaming "this is not right" off to the side and just "OBEY" to survive... Did some of us do some nasty things to our fellow believers (usually at the bequest of our leadership)? Yes, but if that voice was still there screaming at you, and you heard it but pushed it aside, you were still in "victim" mode in my book. It's when someone no longer hears that voice or cannot hear it when others voice it to them... that's when they become an abuser to me.

I remember this same kind of conversation coming up when Mrs. Wierwille was going through the last days of her life... why do most of us give her a pass but don't give lcm one? The general answer was that most of us felt Mrs. W stayed a victim her whole life and still tried to do some good, while lcm became an abuser. Why the difference? We all know that manipulation and abuse follow cycles... if you indoctrinated at an early enough or vulnerable enough stage in your life, and you don't see the need to get help, you probably will perpetuate the cycle. So, clearly at some point victims stop being victims and start being abusers. And I think most of us can look at the early part of the process and identify the person as a victim, and look at the late part of the process and identify the person as an abuser. It's the middle section that is cloudy. At what point, in a step-by-step process, has a person crossed that line? And what defines "the line"? To me, the line that is crossed is when a person has decided for themselves that doing this behavior is okay -- good; beneficial, even. Because I did a lot of things in the name of twi that I wasn't happy to be doing at the time. I did them. (Me, Myself, I ... yes) But I did them out of fear and self-doubt. I didn't trust my own gut that was telling me "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO". And I did them out the the hope and belief that my leadership knew more than I did. But at some point, as I saw the negative results that twi was wreaking, and started listening to my own gut, I started drawing a line in my own mind of things I simply refused to do. I created mental and emotional limits, however slight they may have been at the beginning. And over time, my limits gained ground while twi's power over me lost ground. But the person who transforms from victim to abuser never sets those limits. They get to the point that they genuinely believe in what they are doing. It has become their OWN doctrine, not someone else's. Obviously, that doesn't happen overnight. And while it is happening I still call that person a victim. But at some point, something in their head clicks and they no longer take action because they are manipulated, they take action because they are convinced. So, when did that happen to Craig? Well, I think like a lot of us he became convinced of the goodness of twi right at the beginning. That opened the door for all the rest. But I don't think it was until he got engaged to Donna and was pegged at twi's next leader that he was really groomed to become an abuser. Craig and Donna themselves told my corps group the story of her reaction when Craig asked her out and the Doc Vic came and talked to Craig afterwards, and then went and talked to Donna, too... to make her understand Craig was destined for top leadership and what that entailed. (They didn't elaborate on what he actually said but knowing now that she was part of the 'club' I can only imagine!) And in later teachings Craig mentioned that he was too uptight as a young man and how vpw had told him he'd better loosen up or he would never be able to run the ministry properly. (at the time, this was said in the context of being a counselor and minister to God's people so none of us took it amiss, but in hindsight... ) I guess to me Craig became an abuser the first time he intimidated a woman into sleeping with him, not out of fear of vp, not out of fear of God even, but out of a belief that it was his right, his need, and God's will for his life and the life of the woman. When was that? Who knows. But I certainly think he did cross that line. So to me, he cannot be called a victim.

While I don't know much about the beginnings of the WOW program, I had the privilege of meeting Donnie a few times and attending some twigs and classes that he taught live. The man was so genuine in his beliefs and enthusiasm... THAT is what made you want to believe whatever he said. I agree VPW would want to find a way to "bottle" that success (as he had with Doop's and Heefner's). And I agree you cannot bottle "heart". Your people either have it or they don't. The more corporate and institutionalized TWI got, the less heart it had. What year did Way Corps start? What year did WOW start?

I don't want to sound negative but I think you are pushing the timetable for "free-roaming yard" cat status too hard. If they were truly interested in going out, they would be racing you to the door and trying to dart out between your feet, not hiding, hissing, scrunching, or trying to bolt. I think you are taking the right steps to get what you want in the end, but I wouldn't dream of letting either of them loose for a long, long time. A cat likes to be master of its territory and unknown space is a little scarey for any cat, but these guys have already had much of their innate curiosity over-ridden by "whatever" happened to them in the past, so they are extra, extra fearful of the unknown. If I were you I would just plan on taking them out on leash and staking it to the ground (out of reach of either the pond or the fence) and sit out there with a good book for an hour or so. If they see you at ease, eventually they will be at ease, too. But I suspect it will take a good long time!

If you listen closely to the Frisbee DVD, one of these guys (Doop, Heefner) -- I forget which, sorry -- is mentioned. Just once, but it is there. Pretty much what that church did to Frisbee is what old Vic did to Doop and Heefner: invite them to become involved with his church, wait for all their followers and all their enthusiam to build a loyal following for twi, then once the whole thing was rolling, just boot Doop and Heefner out the back door for "spiritual" reasons.