Mike

You didn't get to know Ralph like I did. He was a master explainer of all things PFAL. But then he flipped and became very opposed to PFAL. I quoted him because his testimony stands out. He reluctantly gave witness to the facts as they happened, even though he did not like them. His father also didn't like it so much long ago, but still said he understood the tongues. Raf, your committed path demands that you call bull. But the evidence of testimony stands, and from 2 reluctant witnesses. It was Ralph's reluctant agreement with Chris Geer that made the POP believable. VPW said privately to Ralph the same things that appeared in the POP, as he was traveling to Scotland that last time. Ralph has been an interesting reluctant witness to at least two massive facts in TWI history.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all.

If you re-examine the you will see I meant a character, person, or entity in a sentence, as opposed to a verb or an inanimate object in the sentence. I did NOT mean to say anything about the personal character, morals, and ethics of Jesus. Did you assume I meant to say that Jesus' character was lacking in any way?

Could you please identify the two opposing thought-trains that clash and it results in dissonance? Example: The mirror riddle is so mind boggling because people thinking about it easily drift from one definition of "reversal" to another. It turns out that the two definitions are totally opposed to each other. One definition yields the thought that mirrors really do reverse left and right, while the other definition yields that mirrors do NOT reverse left and right. The resulting conflict is two opposite thoughts in the mind at the same time: mirrors both do and do not reverse left and right. This is a mild cognitive dissonance that the mirror riddle sets up. Another, much stronger example is the battered wife who harbors the two opposing thoughts "My husband loves me" and "My husband hates me." I'm just wondering if your spotting a cognitive dissonance was accurate or not. There are always two opposing thoughts involved in a cognitive dissonance.

No. Not at all. I feel sad for people who were sucked into TV's "Lives of the Rich and Famous" and then turned around and thought that John 10:10 was talking about the same kind of abundant life. For one thing, I work for a lot of rich people,and I know they face mountains of problems I'd never dream of. They have told me of some of their woes, and the worrisome responsibilities they deal with. Second of all, anyone hearing the Gospel of John who has no idea of the level of poverty most of Jesus' audience faced, didn't really hear the Gospel of John yet... not enough anyway. The abundant life that Jesus taught was that people should have their needs met and some left over to help others. To think that VPW was preaching 3 car garage houses for all, and out of the mouth of Jesus, had to be pretty stupid. I remember a SNT tape in the late 70s where VPW says he was sometimes flabbergasted that grads were thinking that the abundant life meant "carloads of money." That SNT tape is where I heard that phrase. The abundant life is living in the black, and not in the red ink. The abundant life includes God's abundant forgiveness and mercy. The abundant life is being able to help others with 7 manifestations. VPW often taught (from Timothy I think) that anyone has more than enough food, clothing, and shelter, and has their health, they ought to be constantly thanking God for such abundance. Most of the human race has suffered starvation resulting in death. We in the USA and free countries live better than most kings who ever lived had it. I always know that when a PFAL grad complains "Hey! Where is my abundant life?" that the class was never absorbed very deep into their minds. There were a lot of people who faked knowing the class to be part of the cool people in the ministry, but when it came to really getting it... they didn't. For those who keep complaining about being promised in PFAL a TV style of abundance, I will know there is a weak understanding of the whole class that I must minister to.

Nathan Jr, you had written: "What impressed me was the mechanical, corporeal, one-dimensional shallowness of it all. " Ohhh! You simply did not understand why VPW made his SIT sound that way. I wondered about that film class SIT mechanicalness for a few years, and then when I worked at HQ, in one Sunday 10:30am meeting I saw and clearly heard VPW speak in tongues and interpret. It was NOT mechanical, and it was VERY fluent, lots of beautiful language. I don't think there was a single shonta. Now WHY did he do it so mechanically in the class? It was to demonstrate (with emphasis) WHAT we needed to do with OUR mechanics of speech as our part in SIT. In my excellors sessions I would do the same exaggerated amplitudes of facial muscles, and slowness of speech, dragging it out un-naturally. I did it so people could see what is meant by "mechanics of speech." Remember SIT cannot be taught per se.... HOWEVER the fears that prevent or hinder SIT can be the topic of a teaching, in how to recognize such fears and overcome them. The other thing that can be taught in leading people to SIT is what is God's part in the matter and what is our part in the matter. Both parts can be seen in Acts 2:4 "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." They (the 12 apostles) did the operation of the mechanics of speech as to WHEN to speak, and God did the operation of supplying WHAT to speak. So the mechanics of speech is very important to be taught with both words, and with body motion illustrations with exaggerated amplitudes and durations. In other words it is SUPPOSED to be a mechanical and flesh bound triviality when it comes to the part WE have to do in SIT. VPW demonstrated this when he did SIT in the film. I figured this out in the 70s and it helped a lot of people over the hump in several Intermediate Classes. You were expecting VPW's film class SIT to be something mystical sounding or like a radio announcer in style? The fact that you object to the mechanicalness of how he did it shows that you did not deeply comprehend what was going on in that aspect of the PFAL teaching. Don't feel too bad, though, you have a lot of company here in this error. God does the hard part in supplying what is said. We do simple, trivial, mechanical, fleshh actions, and God designed the human body with this S.I.T. stuff in mind,and He wanted to make it as easy as possible, so "no one gets missed."

You didn't cite me here. You took my material nearly word-for-word in places, and idea-for-idea in places. And assuming you and I have discussed this before, you switched positions on this issue of PFAL p.83 and come over to my side, the side I've been posting on here for 20 years, and I was always opposed by everyone on it. I think I owe a thanks to Nathan Jr for first recognizing I was rightly dividing PFAL page 83. I salute your progress, and am not that angry that you didn't cite me. It would have just cluttered up your post.

If I remember correctly you got into TWI after 1986. If it is aimed at post-1986 TWI, then I would agree with your assessment above of HQ, the Corps, and lots of local areas (but not all).

It was Earl Burton who taught that the length of tongues should not be extremely short while the interpretation is extremely long. I never got a sense of matching the number of seconds with a stop watch. You don't need to be a language expert to know the lengths could vary some. When I ran excellors sessions I made it a point that we would not be using a stopwatch.

What can be taught is how to overcome fears about SIT, and also what our part in the matter is, as opposed to God's part in the matter. It is fear and confusion that limit people in SIT. Teaching can handle fear and teaching can handle confusion. The rest is God's part, and nobody gets missed! Why did you think that VPW taught us how to SIT? He didn't. He taught us how to manage our thoughts about it that hinder us in it. Your understanding of what we were taught in SIT is paltry.

No lies. No, this is mostly lies and bull$hit from you, chockful. Early Rye was the Jesus movement that VP usurped. No, VPW augmented the Jesus Movement. It was missing lots of things and that is why Heefner and Doop went to HQ to learn much more than the mostly emotional Jesus Movement could provide. I could see that the Jesus Freaks of that time were on an emotion trip mostly, and that is why the media loved them. That was why I stayed away from them. This idea that VPW used the Jesus Movement is a lie that is being repeated often here for all to blindly absorb. You are trying to brainwash as you have been brainwashed. First the Corps cult got your gord, and now the “Let’s Hate VPW” cult going on here has got your gord. Just like TWI had a mixture of truth and TVTs and of God’s family with cult, GreaseSpot has some good conversation mixed with bull$hit and lies. By design. It was a power play like Haight Asbury in the west where he invited the principles out to the farm in Ohio to obtain their allegiance, then removed them from being the head of the congregations they started. No, this is a lie. If Heefner was the necessary ingredient to what happened at Rye and Long Island, then why did things not wind down fast after they were booted? We did not even notice any change when they left, because we were too busy eating up the class. You got it all wrong! There was a winding down of things, but not in TWI-1 work. It was Heefner and Doop that wound down to nothing after they were booted. Heener did not act like much of a man of God, and accepted the firing, and I never heard word one of him doing any ministry work after he lost his glory position in NY. On the other hand, Doop tried to get a ministry started in Calif called the “Tripped Out Ministry” which went exactly nowhere, and a few years later Doop returned to serve in TWI, where he ran orgies in Maine according to at least two Maine witnesses. Another part of the lies about the early ministry that proliferate here is this idea that Heefner got something going in NY. What I saw happening was there were lots of people suddenly running the class with zero experience, so VPW asked Heefner to leave CA and go to NY to help coordinate the work that was already going on. My twig was run for a short time by a 17 year old from Heefner’s branch in CA. He too and a couple of others came out with Heefner to help run things. That 17 year old filled in for the regular twig leader in my area who went to HQ to take the Advanced Class. There was an extreme shortage of leaders and lots of students and THAT is why Heefner had a lot of work to do. He did NOT start it; he helped with the work that sprung up. You were a stooge that started lying to yourself about all that stuff right around when it got started. No, my approach for the first couple of years was extreme caution, and going VERY SLOW on many new doctrines I was learning. My approach was very much the opposite of Penwork’s testimony of how she was all enthralled AT THE START with goo goo eyes for VPW, and an instant desire to join the Corps, even before she took the class. If you wanted to go Corps sooner than 2 years after taking the class, I would peg you as the impulsive emotional decision kind of person, like Penworks. I had to be SURE for 11 years before I even went out WOW. Seeing how big a failure the Corps was, I’d say you got what you earned. I also feel sad how you not only “snapped” to get into the Corps cult adoring VPW, but also, at the next snap, into the VPW hate club. I can’t trust snappers. I was young and enthusiastic about PFAL once also as it represented a counter culture to a many times dead church environment. But the path it led toward and the fruit of PFAL over the world I eventually had to face the fact that it was dividing really great Christians off from interacting with other great Christians. No, that division happened only for those snapped into the “we are the best, we are the Way Corps” cult. But when we more balanced grads approach people in other churches, there is a small amount we can learn from how they do things, and a HUGE amount of right doctrines we can help the hungry with in those churches. We were given the best doctrines so we can help others with them, and that includes helping others stuck in the traditional errors of regular churches. This situation has lightened up some in the 50 years that have passed since Rye, in that many PFAL grads drifted out of TWI and into the regular churches. Lots of churches now get into SIT where only a few did in the Rye days. Lots of churches now get eternal life and rewards separate and not confused. Once people took PFAL they would never again in their lifetime accept as genuine or collaborate with other Christian denominations and movements. No, that only applies to the elitist snobs that infiltrated and ruined the Corps. I sense from your contributions here that you were not a good leader in the Corps. You are not excited about the good stuff we learned, and you forget the good you got from VPW. We were given the ability to spot the good stuff going on in other churches as well as the bad. Those with a heart to help found ways to communicate with other Christians. After 1986 I sense that there was none of this left in the Corps. It’s different saying you do but proselytizing all Christians to VPs scriptural errors and poor moral example. And deifying Wierwille not Christ. No, you are not qualified to say what is error or not, and if you had your way ALL that VPW taught would be error in your imagined church. If you deified VPW like Penworks says she did, then I understand your consternation. I guess you thought he was being humble at the end of Rock’72 movie, saying he was not a goodie goodie but a downer and outer? I guess you blew off his grave headstone as well. I never deified VPW, but I did see people like you doing it, and I felt they were headed for trouble. No statues of Jesus in the lobby teaching center. Just a studious VP teacher statue called the “Timothy” statue Yes, we can finally agree that things went pretty bad at TWI, especially after 1986. How someone could get into the Word, and take the class after 1986, and trust TWI-2 or TWI-3 is a mystery to me. God can work, even in the midst of hell on earth.

Oh, for me the abundant forgiveness of sins was a HUGE bonus. Are you telling me that God's abundant forgiveness made no impression on you? But the idea of abundant "carloads of money" was what caught your attention? What a sucker you are, if you thought you'd get rich American style with PFAL. We were happy with an abundance of manifestations there were to learn, and an abundance of genuine tongues fluidity that is not counterfeit-able. But if you were one of the one who was satisfied with faking tongues, then again, the sucker is you holding the bag. When I had a suspicion of my tongues being not genuine I actually DID SOMETHING about it. How a person could fake it for years indicates a deep sense of dishonesty that doesn't go away with leaving TWI and bashing PFAL.

No. They were laughed at.

I was there. You got it very wrong. Heefner was NOT the center attraction. Not at all. Only once per week max did we see him, and only for an hour. And we did not skip a beat when he was booted. The Bible and Jesus Christ were witnessed to. We witnessed to what PFAL did for us, and ran classes like crazy. VPW visited once in a while, and we just got started on SNT tapes, but they were still rare and reel to reel. There are lots of stupid errors that get repeated here and you posters end up swallowing and believing your own lies. You just got the Long Island scene and Rye part 2 all wrong. The Life Magazine article was earlier, and covered the early Rye scene. The only reason Heefner had something hot to teach was because he took PFAL and pitched it well.

It looks like you missed my response to this on March 4, the next day. Here it is again. Sorry for the glitch in my attempt to post this above. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* Posted March 4 (edited) On 3/3/2023 at 12:20 PM, T-Bone said: wierwille taught me how to fake speaking in tongues in PFAL - just like he relates how he did it in “The Way: Living in Love”. */*/* You and I briefly discussed this idea of counterfeit tongues, and I said I had no more to offer, and was too busy to continue it. But then I remembered where a certain old post was located, so I am rekindling this little fire. I am still working on a response to a few of So_crates posts, but I noticed this excerpt from an old post by Ralph D had several ties into this whole thread, as well as our mini discussion on SIT. I slightly re-formatted Ralph’s post, and bold-fonted some selected excerpts, but you can find the entire original post here dated March 4th. These excerpts were originally in a thread titled “How did the ordination of clergy thing work in TWI?” on page 4. Look below for the genuineness of T.I.P. and also for a verification of what I said earlier in this thread about the way the Word moved in the early 1970s on Long Island, just across the bridge from Rye. */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* posted June 7, 2008 by DontWorryBeHappy: … i too experienced similar "niceties" from vic when he thought i had something in my life and background he could use...... my mother took the class, foundational, intermediate, after i left for the in-rez corps training, and was a "vocal" and active believer in the area i left behind for the corps "training". ..........however, my father, a professor of linguistics at ccny, and nyc high school foreign language department chairman and teacher, who was fluent in 13 different languages, was never "converted", despite vic's best efforts. ........my dad attended a sunday night fellowship at the rye presbyterian church once, in the fall of 1971, where steve heefner taught .........as per twi "liturgy", there were "worship manifestations" at the beginning of that service, which included 2 "interpretation of tongues" which my father recognized as "known languages" ..........one, according to him, "portugese with a 'noticeable castillian spanish accent', and, the other a northern syriac dialect he recognized.. ........his comment to me later that night when we got home............"neither of those people accurately translated what they spoke in those languages.........it was more of a 'rough paraphrase' (his words") in the english" ............of course, to me, this was a "miracle", and i recounted this for the believers to share with them how frustrating my father's "unbelief" was to me, despite this "miracle" god had performed for him!! ...........it was an incident which made the rounds among the fellowships back then........a great "witnessing tool" in spite of my father's refusal to "believe"! my parents attended the roa '75, in lima,,,,,,,,,having spent the week previous visiting my wife and i at hq upon our return from our interim year of the corps............during that time, my mom cooked a sauerbraten which she prepared for us, in the kitchen of the wierwille home, and we ate the dinner she cooked, in the dining room of the "president's home" with vic, dotsie, uncle harry and naomi, my parents and my wife and i.........had a great time, 'cuz my mom was a german native, and we spent a couple of hours laughing and joking in german with the wierwille brothers and their wives. ......the next night, vic and dotsie took my parents and my wife and i out for dinner, at the wooden shoe in in minster, in order to "witness" to my father and "get him in the class"! ..........vic brought up the incident from the rye meeting i recounted above, which had occurred 4 years previously, as "proof" to my dad, that christ's resurrection and the "gift of holy spirit" were indeed true. ........and then he said to my dad, "i'm convinced you'd love the intellectual logic and mathematical exactness of what i teach in my class..........why not take it and see for yourself?"..........my father's reply......."until you can put holy spirit under a microscope for me, so that i can analyze it, i prefer to remain the agnostic that i am". ........LOL!...............my mouth must've dropped to the floor as i gasped out that good wooden shoe inn chicken when i heard that resaponse!!! ........i was expecting the worst, but vic just chuckled, and ordered another pitcher of beer for our table, and said, "well sir, that's just something i am not able to do"........... during the rock, just several days later, vic called me backstage, where gary curtis was with him, and asked if i would introduce gary, who was the "head" of the twi translations department, to my father, because vic and gary wanted to ask my dad to translate the pfal book and class into french, which was my father's favorite of the 13 languages he was fluent in. .......so, i took gary over to meet my dad, and they talked for about 25 minutes, with the discussion ending with my father "respectfully declining" to participate until that microscope of his had holy spirit under its lenses! .............i still have that microscope of his!!............point being, that, all those nice, friendly things vic did for me, and my parents, were simply designed to get my dad to do the first french translation of vic's class!! ........pure and simple.............at the time, i was so disappointed that the mog himself could not win my dad for his "ministry", but today, looking back, i just laugh to myself, and whisper a little "way to go pops!" in loving memory and respect for my father's "unbelief"! as i've stated previously on this thread, it was'nt vic who "fooled me" into the new birth.........it was my hippie, musician friends who first "witnessed" to me.......and dragged me to my first fellowships, where i met steve heefner and others in the early days of the way east "revival". ........as socks posted above, "I would like to say ditto to many of the things that have been said of Jim and Steve. I met them both way long ago, in 1968 and am glad I did. There were a few years there when the amazing and the unusual were the pattern of the day. It's because of those things I came to know beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ is living today and that God is my Father."...........amen, bro! ..........the miracles, signs, and wonders which "followed" all those friends of mine, and which were present in palpable abundance during that way east revival, throughout the many fellowhips sprouting up all over ny...........that was what "fooled" me into the outstretched arms of the risen christ! .............vic's conspicuous "absence" from those early fellowhips had a lot more to do with that revival than did his later "conspicuous presence", imho!! .............that "conspicuous presence" is what choked the true life out of that revival, as it did to the one in the way west, and the one in the old "northern ohio branch" mentioned in several posts on this thread!............it was wanting to see that kind of genuine, christian revival repeated again and again around the globe, which hooked me!.......and vic, ever the master manipulator and showman that he was, deftly transferred that desire to see the "resurrection power of christianity" with it's attendant miracles, signs and wonders, to his "ministry", in the stead of the ministry of jesus christ............that's where i got "fooled", and yes, that cult deception was indeed "poignant" for me, and thousands of others who experienced it!.................fool me once, shame on you.......fool me twice, shame on me! Edited June 7, 2008 by Don'tWorryBeHappy */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/*/ I was there too. Things really happened big on Long Island in the 1970’s, before the Corps over-organization (dare I call it Wierwille’s Folly) ruined it. I was forever hooked, just like Ralph, on ever wanting to see that kind of Church on fire happen again. It absolutely can! Edited March 4 by Mike

What exactly do you mean by "these nonsensical ideas" ? Do you mean the immediate context of Jesus being a man, even after the Ascension, according to 1 Timothy? Do you mean the budget thingy? (that is a little non-sensical) Do you mean the collaterals are a God-send to us? */*/* I find some people's words that describe a relationship with Jesus that goes way beyond the church epistles as non-sensical. It all depends what you find "normative." I found that the one-time phrase of the "absent Christ" gave me ZERO impediments to my spiritual growth in the church epistles. It is from the church epistles we learn of Jesus' ministry Part B, seated at the right hand of God. The absent Christ gave me clarity on what Paul was talking about regarding us looking forward to Christ's return and the end of that absence. When I talk of a finite man being my mediator, that is done with the most profound respect and care for accuracy. I am glad he is still a man, one of us. */*/* I was actually viewing my statements as calming the attempted stirring of waters that many posters do here non-stop.

In the early 1970s I put much effort into my own study of who Jesus is, and who the Bible says he is, and what Jesus said himself OF HIMSELF. At times this study could be called feverish or emotionally driven. My Catholic background and family were a strong trinity tug in my pre-Bible mind, so I was literally afraid of getting it wrong, who Jesus was. This was all a few years before JCNG came out in 1976. Because I had made this topic “my own” at such an early date, when the 1986 meltdown of TWI happened, I watched grad after grad succumb to trinity pressures that I had wrestled with years before. Most grads barely read that book with retention, and hardly anyone did their own systematic scouring of their KJV on the topic like I had. One of the things I noticed about this, is that grads who had NOT made the idea that Jesus was not God very deeply seated in their minds, still often held on to a god-like image of him that tradition teaches. Grads who could only mouth the phrases of JCNG, often still had Jesus being God in the deep internal images of their minds. I was deeply impressed by 1 Tim 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” I see one infinite character and one finite character in that verse.

This is well stated, Charity, and it is a point I made a bunch of times in the NT Canon thread. An interesting fine detail in this is how the adversary attempts to destroy God's written Word, and has some partial successes. But in the long run, God wins. Sometimes that long run is real long, and sometimes not. All this is illustrated in Jeremiah 36, where the time between the devil destroying the written Word and God restoring it was a mere few days. It can be longer. Romans 10:9,10 was buried in the "debris of the temple" until Martin Luther discovered it around 15 hundred years later.

You are right. But Eve had a perfectly renewed mind at one time, and she had access the Author of her command to not eat. We don't have the originals, especially when we look at English versions. With the English the strict rules, that DID apply to the originals in the original languages, don't apply as strictly to man-made translations and versions. Think about the rule to not change a word: In a translation nearly EVERY word is changed from one language to another. That is just one example of how "no, add, no subtract, no change" don't apply as strictly to English versions as they did to Eve. Remember also that even the critical Greek texts are modern (16th century and newer) scholarly attempts to re-construct the originals... which may have not been Greek... LOTS of words got added, subtracted, changed.... The question should be "Are changes rightly dividing the Word?"

Thank you, much, for both of those points. I'll go back to " trying to convince anyone of the veracity of Wierwille's writings" on some other thread, but that is not my aim here at all.

I wish everyone here could just discuss the topics and not feel a need to constantly attack and degrade me. I should not be the topic. When people have a hard time attacking my messages, then they turn to attack me, or belittle my thinking as imprisoned in VPW's ways.

Thank you. I really have nothing denigrating in the idea I am batting about. I'm really not committed to it, but I do have a lot of curious scriptures that seem be asking to be paid attention to. I think Paul's grace being sufficient for him and something flowing out of Jesus, who had infinite spirit, just screams the question to me "Why has God given us such details to include in our perspective of things?"

This was part of what I was talking about earlier. For you to think that I have a "man-made 'budgeting' lens" in my line of sight means you have not read this thread carefully with understanding. Then for you to think I have a less valid relationship with Jesus than yours is so very much TWI Corps Pharasee that you ought to be given honorary Corps membership. You have become what you focus your hate on...

Actually, my focus is on why God was telling US about what Jesus felt by including it in the scriptures? Why should we care what Jesus felt for that moment? What POSSIBLE doctrine can be gained from this portion of text? I think it's a peek for us to see a tiny glimpse on the machinery at work behind the scenes, just like peeks in the past, like Daniel 9, and Paul's request for thorn relief, etc.