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.
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.
. . .
Learning to cross lines was part of life in twi. Not doing so was "resistance to God". I would always rationalize "I'm just a kid, or "young person", what do I know? Do what your told."
Witnessing was always a pain. Get in someone's face and tell them they need what you have (which is what?) You had to jump in despite the fear. You just leap.
Or "bless sharings", take a class, go on an outreach program, then come back and tell everyone how it blessed you, how you saw the hand of God in action, and changed people's lives. Sometimes this would be in front of a limb, people would be staring back at you, eyes twinkling and big smiles. Words would come from nowhere, probably just repeating back what they (the folks in the crowd) told me before. It was like speaking in tongues; "bullcr@p bullcr@p bullcr@p a la shanta". An autopilot behavior. I thought is was stupid, but everyone would smile ear to ear and look like they'd never been happier. Yee ha, I blessed people.
It seems some people continue this into leadership and others just stay on the side and support it, even for decades, living vicariously through them. The boundary leaping was part of the euphoria, a high. You'll overcome fear, the adversary got kicked in the teeth, you're making God happy, or some bullcr@p.
I wonder if guys like lcm, aggressive by nature, had such a momentum built up that, before they realized what they're hands had done, it was too late.
Learning to cross lines was part of life in twi. Not doing so was "resistance to God". I would always rationalize "I'm just a kid, or "young person", what do I know? Do what your told."
Witnessing was always a pain. Get in someone's face and tell them they need what you have (which is what?) You had to jump in despite the fear. You just leap.
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.
We were taught to run retemories through our minds to silence the screaming inside....you can only think one thought at a time don`tchaknow? Whatever it took to please God and defeat satan...no price was too high...didn`t understand?? Tough toe nails, you just needed to obey till you were spurtchul nuff to discern these things...
We were taught to run retemories through our minds to silence the screaming inside....you can only think one thought at a time don`tchaknow? Whatever it took to please God and defeat satan...no price was too high...didn`t understand?? Tough toe nails, you just needed to obey till you were spurtchul nuff to discern these things...
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.
That's an interesting idea to define the moment.
"that voice" could be a number of things though. in twi we were always listening for that "still small voice". Your first thought is usually revelation and such. There's probably a host of explanations for what "that voice" or "voices" is.
"that voice" could be a number of things though. in twi we were always listening for that "still small voice". Your first thought is usually revelation and such. There's probably a host of explanations for what "that voice" or "voices" is.
There's what your parents taught you.
There's social norms.
Biological/Genetic drives.
Proper behavior inside/outside twi.
Probably more. And in many cases they conflict.
I mentioned "using all nine" somewhere else. "Discerning of spirits" was the magical ability to tell what was really good from concealed evil as god does, because we don't always have the answer. This was the bait for the advanced class.
In hindsight lcm never sounded comfortable in his own mind. He may have had multiple "voices" going on, (this is what twi was like for many people, yes?) and chose vpw's as the "light" to clear it all up. Didn't work of course. Maybe his failure was in selecting which "voice". Just thinking.
Yeah, I don't think that lcm = vpw. Even twi disposed of lcm to protect the legend. lcm's power really can from vpw, as far as I can tell. (and I don't intend to dig into vpw's psyche in this thread)
I'm really interested though, in seeing if there is common ground between lcm, and joe believer. That is probably a very uncomfortable thought for many. If they differ, how? I know 99% of folks did not commit the outward acts lcm did, but what would be common on the inside? I'll try to explain better as I find the words.
I don`t think that most people I know/knew were ever once tempted to groom/manipulate/coerce married partners for sexual trysts...most people I knew were never even remotely tempted to destroy lives on a whim...most people I knew were never tempted to have spittle flying in your face temper tantrums....shrug
What is common??? I`d say that ones perversity directly related to how much time one spent in the presence of the founder...
I don`t think that most people I know/knew were ever once tempted to groom/manipulate/coerce married partners for sexual trysts...
me neither, not to my knowledge
most people I knew were never even remotely tempted to destroy lives on a whim...most people I knew were never tempted to have spittle flying in your face temper tantrums....shrug
these people were a dime a dozen, at least that's what I remember
What is common??? I`d say that ones perversity directly related to how much time one spent in the presence of the founder...
If you were committing the act, many were supporting it, dismissing those "rumors that have been around for years".
The love of the founder would be/have been a similarity.
Yeah, I don't think that lcm = vpw. Even twi disposed of lcm to protect the legend. lcm's power really can from vpw, as far as I can tell. (and I don't intend to dig into vpw's psyche in this thread)
I'm really interested though, in seeing if there is common ground between lcm, and joe believer. That is probably a very uncomfortable thought for many. If they differ, how? I know 99% of folks did not commit the outward acts lcm did, but what would be common on the inside? I'll try to explain better as I find the words.
If wierwille was the equivalent of a "modern-day apostle paul".......then everyone to follow, lcm and joe believer, would be the equivalent of a "timothy."
Thus.......all that Paul conveyed and had written in Timothy I & II, would be common ground that every serious twi-follower would have aspired to.
vpw was not a modern-day Paul equivalent (the Christian version, we'll go with),
but yes, an apprentice-like attitude would be shared, for many at least.
aspiring to the standard of scripture, the "literal according to usage" version of timothy of course. The shared idea that vpw could give us the truest interpretation, other interpretations being skewed by the adversary and trinitarians.
stripped of herr vicster's conferred "honor".. abandoned by the "household" of der vey..
and reliable witnesses related here that he STILL (at least recently.. last couple of years or so) doesn't think he did anything wrong..
after what he did.. I'm suprised KSU hasn't tried to invalidate his bachellor's degree.. I think some schools do that.. pull in the welcome mat, so to speak..
I think lcm is a greasespot. he's a hard-hearted h8er who used people and threw them away. I don't think God would spit in his direction. he's out of zion, man. he's a waste of air.
lcm is (as Dewey Finn would say) a funny little footnote on God's epic @$$.
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Bolshevik
vpw was not a modern-day Paul equivalent (the Christian version, we'll go with), but yes, an apprentice-like attitude would be shared, for many at least. aspiring to the standard of scripture, th
Bolshevik
I'm not sure what you mean. How are they different?
potato
some were abusers well before 18, and some who've left still are abusers, so what? and sure, as far as we went along with the witchhunts and unreasonable expectations, as far as we carried out orders
TheHighWay
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.
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Bolshevik
Learning to cross lines was part of life in twi. Not doing so was "resistance to God". I would always rationalize "I'm just a kid, or "young person", what do I know? Do what your told."
Witnessing was always a pain. Get in someone's face and tell them they need what you have (which is what?) You had to jump in despite the fear. You just leap.
Or "bless sharings", take a class, go on an outreach program, then come back and tell everyone how it blessed you, how you saw the hand of God in action, and changed people's lives. Sometimes this would be in front of a limb, people would be staring back at you, eyes twinkling and big smiles. Words would come from nowhere, probably just repeating back what they (the folks in the crowd) told me before. It was like speaking in tongues; "bullcr@p bullcr@p bullcr@p a la shanta". An autopilot behavior. I thought is was stupid, but everyone would smile ear to ear and look like they'd never been happier. Yee ha, I blessed people.
It seems some people continue this into leadership and others just stay on the side and support it, even for decades, living vicariously through them. The boundary leaping was part of the euphoria, a high. You'll overcome fear, the adversary got kicked in the teeth, you're making God happy, or some bullcr@p.
I wonder if guys like lcm, aggressive by nature, had such a momentum built up that, before they realized what they're hands had done, it was too late.
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chockfull
Umm, victim, no. Scumbag and loser, yes.
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TheHighWay
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.
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rascal
We were taught to run retemories through our minds to silence the screaming inside....you can only think one thought at a time don`tchaknow? Whatever it took to please God and defeat satan...no price was too high...didn`t understand?? Tough toe nails, you just needed to obey till you were spurtchul nuff to discern these things...
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waysider
En Guarde!
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Bolshevik
That's an interesting idea to define the moment.
"that voice" could be a number of things though. in twi we were always listening for that "still small voice". Your first thought is usually revelation and such. There's probably a host of explanations for what "that voice" or "voices" is.
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Bolshevik
There's what your parents taught you.
There's social norms.
Biological/Genetic drives.
Proper behavior inside/outside twi.
Probably more. And in many cases they conflict.
I mentioned "using all nine" somewhere else. "Discerning of spirits" was the magical ability to tell what was really good from concealed evil as god does, because we don't always have the answer. This was the bait for the advanced class.
In hindsight lcm never sounded comfortable in his own mind. He may have had multiple "voices" going on, (this is what twi was like for many people, yes?) and chose vpw's as the "light" to clear it all up. Didn't work of course. Maybe his failure was in selecting which "voice". Just thinking.
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waysider
Very interesting, Mr. B.
Maybe this explains the difference between VPW and LCM.
I believe Wierwille, unlike LCM, knew from the very beginning that he was blowing smoke about this stuff..
That would explain why it didn't seem to present any sort of internal conflict for him.
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Bolshevik
Yeah, I don't think that lcm = vpw. Even twi disposed of lcm to protect the legend. lcm's power really can from vpw, as far as I can tell. (and I don't intend to dig into vpw's psyche in this thread)
I'm really interested though, in seeing if there is common ground between lcm, and joe believer. That is probably a very uncomfortable thought for many. If they differ, how? I know 99% of folks did not commit the outward acts lcm did, but what would be common on the inside? I'll try to explain better as I find the words.
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rascal
I don`t think that most people I know/knew were ever once tempted to groom/manipulate/coerce married partners for sexual trysts...most people I knew were never even remotely tempted to destroy lives on a whim...most people I knew were never tempted to have spittle flying in your face temper tantrums....shrug
What is common??? I`d say that ones perversity directly related to how much time one spent in the presence of the founder...
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Bolshevik
me neither, not to my knowledge
these people were a dime a dozen, at least that's what I remember
If you were committing the act, many were supporting it, dismissing those "rumors that have been around for years".
The love of the founder would be/have been a similarity.
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excathedra
we are all victims, thus a need for a savior, i think
but i know that's not what you all are talking about
just thought i'd throw that in :)
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skyrider
If wierwille was the equivalent of a "modern-day apostle paul".......then everyone to follow, lcm and joe believer, would be the equivalent of a "timothy."
Thus.......all that Paul conveyed and had written in Timothy I & II, would be common ground that every serious twi-follower would have aspired to.
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Bolshevik
vpw was not a modern-day Paul equivalent (the Christian version, we'll go with),
but yes, an apprentice-like attitude would be shared, for many at least.
aspiring to the standard of scripture, the "literal according to usage" version of timothy of course. The shared idea that vpw could give us the truest interpretation, other interpretations being skewed by the adversary and trinitarians.
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Bolshevik
This might be true.
So was lcm ever under cult mind control?
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excathedra
who knows who cares
i know i'm not supposed to say that kind of thing
not trying to diminish you. you might be doing a research paper
and if you're really trying to figure something out, i'm sorry
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Bolshevik
no, ain't doing a research paper
maybe it's a moral dilemma, maybe not, i dunno
maybe "who cares" is the best answer
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Ham
Maybe in the loyster's own mind he's a victim..
stripped of herr vicster's conferred "honor".. abandoned by the "household" of der vey..
and reliable witnesses related here that he STILL (at least recently.. last couple of years or so) doesn't think he did anything wrong..
after what he did.. I'm suprised KSU hasn't tried to invalidate his bachellor's degree.. I think some schools do that.. pull in the welcome mat, so to speak..
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waysider
So how come he didn't become a grease spot by midnight?
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Bolshevik
guess it depends on how you define "greasespot"
Being a "greasespot" is a mindset.
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potato
I think lcm is a greasespot. he's a hard-hearted h8er who used people and threw them away. I don't think God would spit in his direction. he's out of zion, man. he's a waste of air.
lcm is (as Dewey Finn would say) a funny little footnote on God's epic @$$.
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Bolshevik
I just don't see a difference between lcm and today's wayfers. What he deserves, they deserve.
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potato
you're entitled to your opinion.
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