Mike

Think it thru what that would mean here at GSC, even though them folding is highly unlikely. But I am not dreaming that far or extreme. I see some change and partial concessions as very likely in the coming years. I have already seen MAJOR changes in their willingness to communicate, and to drop the massive suspicions that have crippled them for decades. One thing I don't want to see happen is all of us older grads dying off with no solutions for any of the old problems. That would be THE major shoving of problems under the rug: just waiting for the decline and passing away of all the first-hand witnesses. That process is already underway.

I framed it to stimulate thoughts in the direction of possible change at TWI-4. Wouldn't it be interesting if some of the intractable problems just melted away from the changing of the guard there?

There's a new set of "someones" there now. They are not committed to the same attitudes their predecessors were. I think they want to fix it, especially since most of the garbage happened there long ago. I've got a question for you to ponder: do YOU want to see things fixed there ??? Or would you like it to stay broken there so that you have a mission of complaining against it here? I see a conflict of interest here. It is similar to the conflict of interest that specially trained drug cops face, should they start winning the war on drugs. It means they are out of a job. Similarly, there's the doctor who doesn't have much motivation to see his patient get totally healed, and then become a former customer. Do you want to see TWI want to change? Or do you prefer they stay the target of vitriol here? Are you and the others more into the vitriol than in a someday solution, or partial solutions?

Not really. I know I am trying to help them fix some things. There are many items to deal with here, and I am thinking up and talking up any and all that I can come up with. If just one of these ideas works that would mean great progress. Maybe someone else will be inspired by my failed attempts and find a way to make some of it work.

Twinky in red fonts below My responses in purple fonts Mike said: I am serious about: a future Reparations Department at HQ, Never going to happen. And how would they contact everyone? But if they cared to make reparations to me, for the substantial damage they've caused to my life, they can contact me via this site. -First off: reparations doesn’t mean “money” here. It means “repairs.” In an exceptional case $ may be considered. They wouldn’t have to contact anyone. Just be open to receive e-mails. I am just picturing someone at HQ who receives e-mails from old grads, each with their story of an specific injustice, so that it can be logged in, and processed and sorted and learned from. Some of them might be easily taken care of, and some may be very difficult. Of course the lawyers would object, and understandably so. But the lawyers could be just one influence on whoever calls the legal shots. If the idea is hammered out sufficiently, and shown to be in TWI-4’s best interests, a trial run could be done with samples from here, before publicly announcing it. Twinky, some people may get an e-mail at least expressing agreement and sympathy for substantial damage. Some things might be a little repairable. At least getting to tell your story to them, TWI-4, could be therapeutic. I assure you, they won’t contact you…. Yet. We’re a long way away from that. But we can imagineer things, and some ideas may take off. Maybe if they read it here, they would respond. It would have to be written politely, of course. Agape style. */*/*/*/* a PFAL Grad’s Bill of Rights, Like, not being molested? Like access to the real TWI accounts? Like being treated like the head honchos at TWI, inasmuch as TWI ceases to be respecters of persons? Will the special places to live be occupied by normal people? Will head honchos move into Founders Hall and live four to a room, and have to move to the adjacent room after 4 months? Please don’t hate me for this, but I was aiming at something far different. It almost funny how different we are thinking. By a "Grad’s Bill of Rights" I meant a better and an explicitly spelled out set of terms as to what some of us used to call the “Green Card Guarantee.” The Green Card Guarantee refers to what it said on the Green Card, that after graduating we could take the class free of charge, all the way up to the Return of Christ. Well we proPFAL grads got gypped !! After 1986 ,TWI-2 put up barbed wires around all the classes and we "outies" could not easily attend the classes. And then in 1995, they stopped running the class. Ever since then it’s been a shell game of classes, and who is a grad of what is pretty confused. So the Green Card Guarantee has been stepped on and obliterated. My request to the Reparations Department is that they get the machinery up and running to hammer out some kind of Grad’s Bill of Rights, to repair the broken Green Card Guarantee. */*/*/* Engineering Change Notices, That's, EGREGIOUS COUNTERFEIT NOTICES, isn't it? -No, ECN’s are what should happen in any company with a complex and ever changing product. ECNs are the OPPOSITE of shoving some error under the rug, and fixing it quietly while no one is noticing, but pretending the error never happened. Some might call ECNs the opposite of whitewashing. ECNs put out publicly, in easy to recognized language, what the old policy was before, and what the new policy is now. */*/**/*/* an unvarnished and balanced history of TWI written, Make sure you include the genuine record as told here. -Getting into such a history, all the stories and all the intensity of them, probably wont happen in our lifetime. But before all us first-hand witnesses die off, our stories should be collected. And by “our stories” I mean the positive ones also, and the ones from proPFAL grads also. But there should be a place where people with damage and hurt can write up and deposit their story in an appropriate loving way. */*/*/*/* and I am serious about helping other grads sort out between the good and the bad that we received from TWI. Just send them here. Remind me, Mike: how many people have you actually brought to this site, to help them sort out the good from the bad? -Just the opposite, over the 20 years here about 12 people have contacted me by PM, who were proPFAL and trying to sort things out. Heck, I MYSELF am still sorting a few things out. I think the days when TWI was grinding people up in the Corps, and the Corps were grinding people up on the field are over. At least it’s over for sure in the local area here and what they tell me about other areas, and HQ, and Africa. As TWI is not in fear of attack, like they were in TWI-2 and TWI-3, they are feeling much more friendly than anything I’ve seen in decades. I would regularly call HQ ever since leaving in 1988, just to see if they changed. For decades they did not change, and then 5 years ago on the field here I started seeing changes. Some communication is taking place where there was none for 38 years.

Before going over all the sentences, my impression is that we totally agreed on a point: that holy spirit can be a direct teacher. I then pointed out that this direct teaching is part of a two step process. Then I pointed out two ways TWI thwarted that direct teaching, as directly related points. Can you tell me where we diverged in opinion? Also, the reminding was something Jesus brought up in the two step process. I honestly don't see any goalposts that were moved. I simply added a little. Also, I did my best to not make it a blurb for the collateral's as I promised for my New Years Resolution. I did 20 years of blurbs, and that is enough. What I am NOT doing is abandoning my paradigm (= set of Postulates), and I still use them in my reasoning. That may be why you were expecting a PFAL blurp where non appeared. I am learning to just go to the edge, and no more. I will try my best to pull back on that stuff.

I completely agree. Please, Twinky, pardon my slight reformatting how I quoted you. The pattern I see is, (1) first the apostles had various doctrines taught to them by Jesus via the senses. That prepared their memory and got them properly oriented to (2) later be able to hear God's still small voice, in their curriculum after Pentecost. Similarly, the eunuch in Acts knew that he (1) needed some man to guide him, for the first stage in his development. Paul talks in 1 Cor. 3 about (1) his senses teaching, both in person and in writing, being a foundation for them, from which (2) they could learn to better hear God's direct teaching, and operate the manifestations in love, serving others. */*/*/*/*/* Thinking outside the "box of memes" in TWI life was discouraged by leadership. Likewise, learning to hear directly God teaching us was discouraged by the Way Tree model. What went wrong in TWI was the idea that this direct teaching by the Holy Spirit only really worked within the Way Tree model. God would first reveal things to upper leadership, who would then teach it via senses to the people. The Way Tree of 1972 was only supposed to be temporary, to give the massive numbers of very young leadership (1) a chance get their senses-taught foundation mature and solidify. Then as their maturity happened the local leadership could (2) learn to hear more directly from God and not rely on HQ to direct things from a distance. Ten years later in 1982 there was a transfer of corporate leadership, but never any word of when or how the temporary Way Tree model should be dispensed with. Instead, the Way Tree became a permanent pseudo Biblical structure in the church there. Originally, the Way Tree was supposed to promote learning and growth for young people to receive better teaching directly by God, but it later became a means to thwart such learning and growth. A lot of similar things went on regarding the Reverend titles. Instead of being temporary, they were supposed (so I heard) to only be for the benefit of non-grad family members of grads, for things like at weddings and funerals. Just like the Way Tree, these titles became a false fixture in the structure of believer status in TWI. Both the Way Tree and the Reverend titles prevented people from learning to hear the direct teaching God yearns for us to receive directly from Him, just like He got to do with teaching Jesus. I often think of the phrase "...the Father seeketh..."

These are the kinds of thoughts I went through over and over, shortly after taking the class. I had lots of residual RC doctrine in me from 8 years of parochial school in my childhood. Spiritual safety is worth pursuing.

I agree, that is a good thing to keep in mind. I tried to demonstrate how I feel free to explore beyond PFAL on the NT Canon thread and on the Determinism vs. Free Will thread

I think both you and oldiesman are onto something useful here. One of my aims is to find all the "can't go beyond" statements in the film class transcript, and then find them all in the PFAL book. That kind of study may clear this up to such an extent I can present it to TWI-4 leaders for clarification. My first attempt to find the "can't go beyond" statements in the PDF version of the PFAL book failed to find any, but that might merely mean slightly different wording that escaped my search engine. My unverified hunch is that the "can't go beyond" statements are more aimed at spiritual truths, than at sense knowledge. For sense knowledge our 5+ senses can "teach" us things.

This is exactly the complaint I heard about the research department from 2 members of that department before they were kicked out. This was circa 1977. I can retrieve the exact dates. This is exactly the complaint I slowly developed myself in the following years about the research department, and it was from listening closely to weekly, public SNT tapes in the last years of VPW's life, 1978-85. What I heard in those tapes made me think in those years (78-85) made me think that the Research Department cheated at times or that VPW cheated himself. What blows my mind now looking back on those tapes, maybe 3 of them, was that VPW was trying to tell us that he was “manipulating biblical evidence to bend the way that the Word “interprets itself” to the advantage of his preconceived theology.” Now, those were J.Jeudes words and nomenclature selections that show his bias. I would word it differently now, but not back in the period 78-85 I was hearing these RINGER statements by VPW on the weekly tapes. Back then I would have agreed with Jeudes assessment. Here is what VPW would say, paraphrasing totally. I’d love to retrieve these exact quotes someday, in the SNT transcripts that are slowly accumulating on YouTube lately. Paraphrasing VPW on a SNT tape: “We sent Walter to Germany to find some manuscripts I just know had to exist.” Hmmmm! That sounds like cheating to me. That was obvious to me, back in 78-85, to be cheating on the evidence. That sounds like “bias confirmation”? …is that the term? I’m still getting that memorized. Why have not the sleuths of everything suspicious here at GSC missed this? I’ve been watching for 20 years here to see if anyone caught this. Maybe someone did, and I missed the posts. That would delight me if someone posted on this. I want the exact quote. Maybe Charlene gets into this in her book. I’ve been betting it is likely, and that was my main attraction to resume reading her book. Back to the bending story. Another SNT tape had this kind of quote, severely paraphrased again, because I have no idea which SNS tape it came from. Paraphrasing VPW on a SNT tape: “Someday we’re going to find a manuscript that verifies this.” That is obviously cheating, bending again! This isn’t how scientific research works. This is cherry picking among the manuscripts. This is worse than cherry picking among the manuscripts. It is cherry picking outside the manuscripts that have been found, and is really cherry picking among the imaginary manuscripts. Quite a departure from the scientific way of doing research, but the mathematicians were pretty lucky to do it once almost 200 years ago with the discovery of imaginary numbers. How come not GreaseSpotters spotted that piece of SNT evidence ??? But the real corker I have almost perfectly memorized. Nearly quoting VPW on a SNT tape: “We probably won’t find a manuscript in my lifetime that verifies this, but my spiritual awareness tells me what the original has to say.” */*/*/*/*/*/*/*/* So my paradigm of Biblical research at the TWI was severely shaken by these accumulating pieces of evidence. I couldn’t figure out why he was admitting it !!! I couldn’t figure out why no one else noticed it and objected !!! It was an complete anomaly that took me about 13 years to figure out. When I did finally see why he said it on tape and why the Research Department had that strange kind of mission, I came here and tried to explain it several times. The explanation is tied up in the topic “Our Only Rule for Faith and Practice.” And I can probably retrieve much of this in my archives. I tried every which way to explain this thing about the Research Department cheating and the SNT tapes of VPW admitting it, and how VPW's only rule for faith and practice figured into it. But circa 2008 nobody at GreaseSpot got it, except two: Abigail and Oakspear. There were about 70 people debating with me in those days. I forget who did that count. Abigail and Oakspear were part of that 70. Abigail and Oakspear did NOT agree with my explanation, but they did understand it. Anyway, we’d have to get a whole new thread going on “Only Rule” to get into my explanation. Frankly, I do not have the time for that right now. Nor do I have the time right now to read the rest of the J.Jeudes article above, but I will save it, now that you tell me he gets into specific doctrinal issues later on. That will take time. Maybe until then you can give me a nutshell of the best one here. */*/*/*/*/*/*/ I am right now swamped with 5 threads with un-responded-to posts from this past week, plus reading Charlene’s book, and organizing my paper and digital notes on PFAL-T. I promised my friends in TWI-4 that I’d get them a detailed written review and a set of suggestions. I just got started organizing that topic of the new PFAL-T class, and after I communicate it all to them, I’ll re-write it for folks here. I just posted here in this thread to ask about the old and new TWI officials, partially named above. I got to back out for a pile up of chores at home, and it’s New Years Eve. I imagine everyone's schedule is similarly distracted. Your quote of Jeudes in the thread caught my attention. I wonder how he missed those 3 SNT tapes from 78-85. Had he heard the SNT tapes he could have worded his quote much more confidently than: “Yet the question remains whether he is manipulating biblical evidence to bend…” */*/*/*/*/*/*//* Does anyone remember those paraphrased quotes from SNT tapes I pasted above? VPW may have made statements like that on more than 3 tapes. My memory of this is a bit fuzzy. It may also be the case that some of the paraphrases above were actually from other tapes, like Rock of Ages, and not the set of SNT tapes. But VPW made no secret that he was cherry picking manuscripts in a most curious way. There were other times and places where he tried to tell us things, but they sailed right over our heads. I include myself in this. Most of it all sailed over my head what it happened in 78-85, and it wasn’t until after 1998 that I started systematically backtracking on the tapes and collaterals.

I tried to read the J.Jeudes article but it seemed too familiar and too boring. Anything new in it, that hasn't appeared here dozens of times? He tries to portray himself as an insider, but it is obvious he was not receiving anything but gotcha points when he took the PFAL class. I don't know if he even finished it, but his criticisms had too much of an "outsider" flavor to them. I can pay much better attention to someone who was WITH THE PROGRAM for a little while. He seems like a puffed up know-nothing to me. */*/*/* What interests me here was the conversation above on leaders and/or former leaders in TWI. I could prefer to discuss some of the fine points of that conversation later, though, because it was the people you all mentioned that interested me. I would like to know the full names of the TWI-3 officials you mentioned above, if that is legal here. If they are now in the new TWI-4 I'd like to eventually meet them. Before that, though, I'd want to check out their current positions and see if they changed anything. I am probably close to some of their positions, but I think I am more flexible than them in considering some things. I completely lost track of who was who in TWI-2 shortly after 1988, and TWI-3 had a lot of officials completely new to me. The only high ranking names in TWI-4 I remember from the the olden days are Joe and Linda Coulter, having worked with Linda in the Bookstore, but only very rarely spoke with Joe.

And a new production of same:

I feel for you. It constantly blows my mind how people can be lovey-dovy Christians in the same family of God one decade, and then the next decade forget all about that family bond. It reminds me of Emo Philips' take on how shallow we bond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fAcxcxoZ8

I am agreeing with you. I know they have had lots of tension in TWI-2 and -3, and it is only beginning to go away in TWI-4 now. It takes time to reach everyone I think. So I was saying THEIR TENSION, the TWI folks' tension, can be going down soon.

If they are smart they'd re-direct to want what he taught accurately. But people are starved for a hero. Religious people seek a goodie goodie holy man; same thing. I have seen with my own eyes for 10 years now how desperate people are for a hero. (long story) They are willing to take almost anyone who catches their fancy. I saw VPW worship even in the relatively pure 1970s TWI. I can see respect and thankfulness, but when someone starts thinking someone has a pipeline to God 24/7 for revelation on mundane matters, it's time to call the cult police.

I would admit that is a partial possibility. But Craig was certainly able to hear the adversary's lies on his own, as well. But affixing exact blame is a shell game we are incapable of judging. That is one of the reasons an ECN has no blame it. It just gets it clear and written was was the wrong way and what is the right way. It is solution oriented. Too much focus on blame accuracy misses accurate solution opportunities.

Maybe you will someday soon see some lightening of that tension as TWI-4 gets the word out that what happened long ago should not color today's attitudes.

Yes, but TWI-3 (Rosalie) inherited lots of junk from TWI-2 (LCM).

Shucks! I hope I am not a pre-mature re-contact for you. Are you finished with the separation healing process yet?

I know, and can understand the circling of the wagons after 1986. TWI-2 was hit by one sever crisis after another, some from within and self-inflicted. Both TWI-2 and -3 were in situations way over their heads. Over and over from 1986 on JUST WHEN THEY NEEDED THE POWER THE MOST it was not there and they made stupid decisions. Their ways of handling all the hate directed at them were not efficient, but insularity and suspicion was all they could come up with. I am grateful some finally outgrew the battle scars of over 35 years ago. I could understand why I could not communicate with them, from 1986 all the way up to about 5 years ago, and just a tiny bit at a time, and now much more these past months.

They were taught that for a long time in TWI-3, and he may have not yet gotten the memo to lighten up. Are you still in touch with him at all? I know that "late in getting the memo" on new TWI-4 attitudes is happening in TWI-4 in another country, far from HQ, and they are even farther behind on the new attitudes. My reports are that old wineskin policies of the 1990s are still in place.

I have noticed that after the Pandemic and polarizing politics seem to have snuffed out all discussion opportunities that used to happen at Starbucks and similar coffee shops. When people are there, they are on their phones heavily.

Very interesting. This looks like it could piggyback on two other family disruptions from technology. I've often heard that the automobile, after WW2, did much the same thing as you state. Young couples dared to move farther away from family roots with reliable wheels to re-visit, and that influenced a major change in how families were built. I think the same thing happened 45 years ago to me, moving 3000 miles from family, comforted by fast reliable air travel. Then came 9/11 and those re-visit miles got much farther away.

I can't remember that much detail about him. A lot of the time I was HQ, VPW was out on the field or at another campus. The best I got to view him was at lunch, when he was at HQ. I only had one long talk with him at HQ, but a lot of 5 minute talks at Rock '72. Long time to remember few details.