Our Intelligence After POP

[Sweetpea]

I remember vividly the hateful splits the year after POP was revealed. To this day it still confounds me how supposedly intelligent people (and stupid ones also) stopped talking to each other and refused to stay friends because of their very short lived, immediate opinions on the ministry and their positions with or against certain leaders. I still wonder how many of us long to hear from people that we were close to. Within a year or two of POP, I'm sure that 90% of all in TWI left anyway. This has always been the heartbreak for me, never to see or hear from so many of these great people for the rest of our lives.

[likeaneagle]

90 percent sounds high..

Wasnt there like 100,000- in early 80's...my last roa in 95 was still around 10,000 or so.

Edited May 23, 2006 by likeaneagle

[Nottawayfer]

Uhm...Likeaneagle....what is 10% of 100,000? It is 10,000. So if your assumed numbers are correct, most likely 90% of the people left before 1995. It sounds likely to me.

[likeaneagle]

Wayfer your right. I think there were more at ROA and I didnt count who didnt come that were considered active members. thxs. I could be wrong but I thought a majority left around 90- and on.

the stats have been posted here somewhere. Im not sure if they are accurate.

Edited May 23, 2006 by likeaneagle

[likeaneagle]

sweetpea- I have seen a few since I left and also talked to my exfiance who is still in. It was hard to talk in any depth. I miss them. I know what you mean. I did not experience POP, I was out already and away from any involved,I only heard tiny bits here and there. geessh, If I had known what I know today..this gal would of not gone back in 90.

Edited May 24, 2006 by likeaneagle

[WordWolf]

My count was that 80% of those active in twi as of ROA '88 had left as of ROA '89,

and some people (unsure the numbers) left before that

(as a result of PoP) or after that (needed to finish something up

before leaving.)

One statistic I saw was that 18% of attendees remained after about 1991,

so my numbers matched pretty well.

The people who left 85-88, IMHO,

left more due to PoP than other reasons,

and the people who left 88-90, IMHO,

left due to lcm's line in the sand.

However, that might have been "the straw that broke the camel's back"

if they were thinking about PoP already.

Of course, if lcm hadn't been thinking about PoP,

he would never have drawn his line in the sand in the FIRST place

(IMHO.)

[likeaneagle]

THanks WW for filling the gap.

[Raf]

TWI never had 100,000 people. They never even claimed that. They said 100,000 had taken PFAL. You can assume not everyone stayed.

[Oakspear]

...and I think that you can assume that most didn't.

Think back to the PFAL classes that you were involved in over the years and try to remember how many from each class stuck around, and were active. In my experience it wasn't many, and it seemed like it got worse over the years.

My first class had nine new students.

• 1 didn't finish the class
  
• 1 was a lady in her 60's who never attended a twig
  
• A married couple who faded away after a few months
  
• My cousin who was gone before the ROA 5 months later
  

That left four of us. Of that four, one left right before I went WOW 2 years later, one was still in as of 1983, but lost track of him after that, another I believe is still in, and me.

[WordWolf]

Good point.

I wasn't even paying attention to the number, there.

I'm expecting that the "100,000" was a number based on the number of people

SIGNED UP

for pfal,

not the number of people who FINISHED pfal.

When I first took it,

8 were signed up,

7 appeared at Session 1,

3 completed Session 12.

The best rule of thumb I've heard has been that membership in any year

(or whatever you want to call being their thrall)

could be figured by taking the number of attendees at the ROA,

then doubling that number.

That meant attendance at the ROA increased and decreased

proportionally to the regular attendance at fellowships.

Oddly enough, I came to the same conclusion without checking

with anyone. (About proportions, not doubling the number.)

[danteh1]

100,000 may have been the "total" numbers for PFAL who took the class, whether or not they comlpetely went through to the end of the class. A rough "roundhouse" guess would be a possible 30,000 to 40,000 total enrollment at anyone time.

I know that at the ROCK in 1979, TWI supposwidly had a total attendance ofabout 24 to 25 thousand for the whole week. And that didn't mean that all of that figure was there for the whole ROCK, some just for a day or 2, maybe 3 days total out of the 7 days. The numbers they gave were for all of the people who had registered at the registration tent (supposidly).

World wide member figures might have been more, but I imagine that U.S. figures totaled no more than 30 to 40 thousand members. Without actual access to the records at TWI it may never be known as to the actual "maximum" numbers that TWI had as members.

[GrouchoMarxJr]

Wierwille was always reaching to make twi sound bigger and better than it really was...

...The fact is...twi was barely a small blip on the cult radar screen. Most people have never even heard of them...they were/are deluded with their own"self importance"...what a bunch of LOSERS!

[coolchef1248 @adelphia.net]

yes groucho

weren't we!! woops over the limit again!

[CoolWaters]

The way things worked out for me was that the vast majority (I'd say easily 95%) of people I knew in twi were such jerks that the ONLY interaction I had with them was at twig, branch meetings and limb meetings. My opinion of them was that I wouldn't give the time of day if I had just met them on the street, why the he11 would I do anything so stupid as to 'fellowship' with them? I went to twig because I thought that's what gawd wanted me to do. I did NOT think that gawd wanted me to like the people there. In fact, I thought gawd wanted me in twi to straighten it out. (Really...I thought that. Silly me. It was this thinking that overruled my better judgment time and time again...and I did things I am ashamed of doing...all in the name of gawd in hopes of 'saving' people.)

I never went to ROA. I took piffle in '77 when the intermediate was added to the foundational...and never took another class again...not even a repeat of piffle. I was never officially a WOW. I never did any of the 'extracurricular' activities in twi. So I didn't have actual relationships with the vast majority of the people I knew in twi.

Those with whom I did have relationships turned out to be lifelong friends regardless of twi. Except for one couple...and they are jerks to this day.

So the only thing I have ever honestly missed about twi was the high I got from going to twig. Beyond that, twi was pure he11 for me and mine. (BTW...it took me all of these years to realize most of this stuff...and I am just now going cold turkey off of that high from attending religious functions.)

[waterbuffalo]

Gosh, CW, I'm glad all but that one couple are still friends to this day. That's pretty good odds sometimes when you have even ONE loyal friend.

Most of my friends to this day are ex-twi. Don't get me wrong, I've made lots of OTHER friends along the way (sorry, hehe), but still, the ones I really trust and confide in are usually ex-twi. Strange, but true.