My ex wife and I had spent a lot of time with Mark and Karen back in the late 80's. They knew that we were involved with some legal issues trying to get custody of my ex's two children. We lost the custody hearing and my ex and I split up. A few years later after Mark and karen left TWI I ran into Karen at a grocery store. She invited me to a "new" fellowship which I guess was CES. I decided to go and it was different needless to say. I was never accustomed to raising my hands and waving them during a "worship" service. We "Baptists" never did...Well about half way during the service the music stopped abrubtly and the song leader asked me what my problem was??? After that embarassing moment, then came the personal prophecies. Karen took the stage for this one. Her "prophecy" was over me and it was all about how God was going to heal my heart and get my kids back for me... Intersting seeing as i had no kids to get! After this freak show was over I talked with Karen about this and asked her how God was going to me some kids when i did not have any? She was taken aback and replied to me that "she" thought I had two kids and was involved in a custody battle to get them. I reminded her what the real history was and she became indignant and said "well sometimes these are not always right". I basically caught her in what so many fake mediums and other "ministries" do. They rely on information given to them in order to effect a "prophecy". Except that the information is not God given but people given. I have also seen other ministries use this prophecy business as a vehicle to control people. It is very sad what people do in the name of God.
My ex wife and I had spent a lot of time with Mark and Karen back in the late 80's. They knew that we were involved with some legal issues trying to get custody of my ex's two children.
We lost the custody hearing and my ex and I split up. A few years later after Mark and karen left TWI I ran into Karen at a grocery store. She invited me to a "new" fellowship which I guess was CES. I decided to go and it was different needless to say. I was never accustomed to raising my hands and waving them during a "worship" service. We "Baptists" never did...Well about half way during the service the music stopped abrubtly and the song leader asked me what my problem was??? After that embarassing moment, then came the personal prophecies.
Karen took the stage for this one. Her "prophecy" was over me and it was all about how God was going to heal my heart and get my kids back for me... Intersting seeing as i had no kids to get! After this freak show was over I talked with Karen about this and asked her how God was going to me some kids when i did not have any? She was taken aback and replied to me that "she" thought I had two kids and was involved in a custody battle to get them. I reminded her what the real history was and she became indignant and said "well sometimes these are not always right". I basically caught her in what so many fake mediums and other "ministries" do. They rely on information given to them in order to effect a "prophecy". Except that the information is not God given but people given. I have also seen other ministries use this prophecy business as a vehicle to control people. It is very sad what people do in the name of God.
Yes-
We mentioned this technique earlier-
it's called "hot reading."
We demonstrated it, but we didn't give an example specifically from Karen like you did.
"Hot reading is a technique used by psychics, mediums, palm readers, and the like that involves surreptitiously gaining information from clients. For example, a medium who claims to get messages from the dead will chat up the audience members before a performance and gather information from them. Later, when the psychic does a reading and seems to make contact with a young man's mother, even the young man won't remember that he told the psychic before the show that he wanted to connect with his mother."
"At least one faith healer, Peter Popoff, has pretended to get messages from God when he was really getting messages from his wife via an earpiece (Randi 1989: ch. 9; "Secrets of the Psychics"). Mrs. Popoff got her information from cards that the believers fill out when they attend the faith healing exhibition."
"This is used to best effect by faith healers. In a very well known episode, noted sceptic James Randi put a small team together to work out how famous faith healer Peter Popoff did what he did. By chance, one of the team happened to tune into the same frequency that was being used by Popoff’s wife to transmit details of the audiences ailments. You can view the action here on YouTube. What Popoff did was reprehensible, he took people, many of whom were terminally ill, and he convinced them that he had the power of God flowing through him and with this could diagnose and cure their illnesses. Many of these people stopped their regular medications and treatments and subsequently died. When someone asks “What’s the harm in doing these fake sessions?” remind them of Popoff. In the meantime, Popoff and similar fraudsters have moved onto another town or city and never have to be confronted with the harm they have caused.
This is harder to defend against than cold reading as gaining prior knowledge can be done in many ways: they can question you directly, they can ask your friends and family in “normal” conversation or other sessions, they may see inside your home and get an idea of your tastes, likes and dislikes, or if you are famous enough just hit you up on Google. However, you are now aware of more of the tools of the trade and you should be able to notice when these things are being used against you - particularly if their investigations throws up incorrect information."
It was an open challenge for CES/STFI to attempt to support their doctrine from
Scripture in sight of their financial supporters,
once its Scriptural accuracy was directly challenged.
Your answer is the most I expect to get, since they're hoping this will all
blow over, and they're pretending they didn't mean to post messages here.
The major point is still unaddressed-
that even a single error is enough to completely disqualify a prophet-
and CES/STFI would rather disqualify GOD ALMIGHTY than THEMSELVES.
That's why they say God can make mistakes and give incorrect prophecies.
It's an insidious, UNgodly, craven act to commit,
but, frankly, does that qualify as news now?
Gotta love it when the simple....classic answers are still as true today as when they were written. Some of this stuff goes straight back to OT scripture.
Thanks for bringing this to the front Frame57! I might never have read it otherwise.
This one does not involve CES, but i got a chuckle out of it. back in October I received an Anonymous letter that only had an Elisha dot com e mail address on it. The letter basically said that their "prophets" were sent to warn the people of NYC before 911 and also the people of New Orleans before Katrina. Now their prophets were told by God that the city of San Francisco would have a devistating earthquake on 11/11. Well 11/11 came and went with no disaster in sight. I tried to communicate with these numbskulls just to ask them politely to not mail me anymore of their christian version of witchcraft. I wonder how many gullable people avoided Frisco that day?
CES/STFI quietly pulled the plug on "personal prophecy."
Not a word of explanation nor apology for their followers, laity, etc. Silence to us and everyone else on the subject. We know they still have people who read here, and did so all through the history of CES/STFI (and this thread.) No attempts to answer it from them, in any form, to anyone.
for those wondering, here's another link for another thread that discussed personal prophecy, titled Personal Prophecy in the Way and Christian Educational Services.
(CES later became STFI, for those who lost track.)
I have a funny story about personal prophesy. I had a tape from John Lynn where he prophesized over me and one from John Schoenheit with another guy (who did it in Spanish) from a trip to Israel. Well one day for some reason I put them on a lower part of an end table. My husband was vacuuming one day and somehow it sucked up the tapes out of their cases. !!??!! Never did find out what the Spanish part said.
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Frame57
My ex wife and I had spent a lot of time with Mark and Karen back in the late 80's. They knew that we were involved with some legal issues trying to get custody of my ex's two children. We lost the custody hearing and my ex and I split up. A few years later after Mark and karen left TWI I ran into Karen at a grocery store. She invited me to a "new" fellowship which I guess was CES. I decided to go and it was different needless to say. I was never accustomed to raising my hands and waving them during a "worship" service. We "Baptists" never did...Well about half way during the service the music stopped abrubtly and the song leader asked me what my problem was??? After that embarassing moment, then came the personal prophecies. Karen took the stage for this one. Her "prophecy" was over me and it was all about how God was going to heal my heart and get my kids back for me... Intersting seeing as i had no kids to get! After this freak show was over I talked with Karen about this and asked her how God was going to me some kids when i did not have any? She was taken aback and replied to me that "she" thought I had two kids and was involved in a custody battle to get them. I reminded her what the real history was and she became indignant and said "well sometimes these are not always right". I basically caught her in what so many fake mediums and other "ministries" do. They rely on information given to them in order to effect a "prophecy". Except that the information is not God given but people given. I have also seen other ministries use this prophecy business as a vehicle to control people. It is very sad what people do in the name of God.
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WordWolf
Yes-
We mentioned this technique earlier-
it's called "hot reading."
We demonstrated it, but we didn't give an example specifically from Karen like you did.
http://skepdic.com/hotreading.html
"Hot reading is a technique used by psychics, mediums, palm readers, and the like that involves surreptitiously gaining information from clients. For example, a medium who claims to get messages from the dead will chat up the audience members before a performance and gather information from them. Later, when the psychic does a reading and seems to make contact with a young man's mother, even the young man won't remember that he told the psychic before the show that he wanted to connect with his mother."
"At least one faith healer, Peter Popoff, has pretended to get messages from God when he was really getting messages from his wife via an earpiece (Randi 1989: ch. 9; "Secrets of the Psychics"). Mrs. Popoff got her information from cards that the believers fill out when they attend the faith healing exhibition."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading
http://skepticwiki.org/index.php/Hot_Reading
http://www.lostaddress.org/2009/01/13/what-is-hot-reading/
"This is used to best effect by faith healers. In a very well known episode, noted sceptic James Randi put a small team together to work out how famous faith healer Peter Popoff did what he did. By chance, one of the team happened to tune into the same frequency that was being used by Popoff’s wife to transmit details of the audiences ailments. You can view the action here on YouTube. What Popoff did was reprehensible, he took people, many of whom were terminally ill, and he convinced them that he had the power of God flowing through him and with this could diagnose and cure their illnesses. Many of these people stopped their regular medications and treatments and subsequently died. When someone asks “What’s the harm in doing these fake sessions?” remind them of Popoff. In the meantime, Popoff and similar fraudsters have moved onto another town or city and never have to be confronted with the harm they have caused.
This is harder to defend against than cold reading as gaining prior knowledge can be done in many ways: they can question you directly, they can ask your friends and family in “normal” conversation or other sessions, they may see inside your home and get an idea of your tastes, likes and dislikes, or if you are famous enough just hit you up on Google. However, you are now aware of more of the tools of the trade and you should be able to notice when these things are being used against you - particularly if their investigations throws up incorrect information."
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Frame57
Agreed on all of that 110% Wordwolf
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JeffSjo
Gotta love it when the simple....classic answers are still as true today as when they were written. Some of this stuff goes straight back to OT scripture.
Thanks for bringing this to the front Frame57! I might never have read it otherwise.
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Ham
that's the whole point, isn't it?
a product to sell, a crowd to scam..
considering some STILL support the organization.. makes me think their threshold for detecting a scam is pretty high..
probably learned behavior.
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Frame57
This one does not involve CES, but i got a chuckle out of it. back in October I received an Anonymous letter that only had an Elisha dot com e mail address on it. The letter basically said that their "prophets" were sent to warn the people of NYC before 911 and also the people of New Orleans before Katrina. Now their prophets were told by God that the city of San Francisco would have a devistating earthquake on 11/11. Well 11/11 came and went with no disaster in sight. I tried to communicate with these numbskulls just to ask them politely to not mail me anymore of their christian version of witchcraft. I wonder how many gullable people avoided Frisco that day?
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WordWolf
So,
CES/STFI quietly pulled the plug on "personal prophecy."
Not a word of explanation nor apology for their followers, laity, etc. Silence to us and everyone else on the subject. We know they still have people who read here, and did so all through the history of CES/STFI (and this thread.) No attempts to answer it from them, in any form, to anyone.
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WordWolf
for those wondering, here's another link for another thread that discussed personal prophecy, titled Personal Prophecy in the Way and Christian Educational Services.
(CES later became STFI, for those who lost track.)
https://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/6207-personal-prophecy-in-the-way-and-christian-educational-services-ces/
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outandabout
I have a funny story about personal prophesy. I had a tape from John Lynn where he prophesized over me and one from John Schoenheit with another guy (who did it in Spanish) from a trip to Israel. Well one day for some reason I put them on a lower part of an end table. My husband was vacuuming one day and somehow it sucked up the tapes out of their cases. !!??!! Never did find out what the Spanish part said.
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waysider
It might have said "Drop the chalupa!" but I fear we may never know.
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