The idea that innies don't know that twi is a scam.
B -- I think I understand what you are saying... if someone began their journey with twi in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or even 90s and they are still active members now, they HAD to have been touched by some kind of scandal. They may have been in the thick of it, or they may have only heard a passing rumor. So how the heck can they still stand to be involved when the truth is out there: so visible, so easily gotten???
My answer to that question is simply: "deluded" is "deluded" no matter what decade.
Yes, if someone was in the thick of things, and really saw and heard the truth and made a conscious decision to stay anyway, well, these are broken people! And it is next to impossible to excuse their actions.
But, you have to realize a LOT of folks on the field only know what they were told by their leadership, and if they were good little innies and if their local fellowship was sweet (or at least not horrible) they had no reason to question any deeper or look any further than their own directed bible study notes.
How many of us, as devoted followers to twi, blew off rumor after rumor? We were taught and we believed that such rumors were just the devil trying to kick up a little dust; a little doubt; a little sand in the machinery of our beliefs. We had such hopes and belief and expectations of our leadership and (more to the point) of our ministry that it was almost impossible to think these people would screw up this badly, let alone intentionally conduct themselves in a consistently selfish, pervasively evil way!!!
Maybe you didn't quite buy into the belief-system perpetuated by twi, but anyone who does almost has to run headlong into a brick wall to wake up. Sometimes the wall is built brick-by-brick, day after day, slowly but surely, by the hurtful experiences you go through over the years. This was how about 2/3 of my brick wall was built. Time after time of leadership playing people against each other with everyone getting hurt. Time after time of contradictory instructions. Time after time of no apologies when apologies were due. Time after time of accusations and banishments of people I felt were decent human beings.... But the last 1/3 of my wall was built in an instant. The moment I found WayDale and read credible accounts by people I knew and respected, BOOM, my wall was finished and I ran into it full tilt. I felt like my heart had stopped and all the air had been sucked out of me.
And even then, there was a choice to make... who did I believe? My twi leadership or ex-wayfers? Cop-outs? If my wall hadn't already been 2/3 complete -- if my gut hadn't already been screaming at me for a long, long time that something wasn't right here -- I might have put my head down, and put the thoughts aside, and never visited WayDale ever again. Even if my local leadership had handled my questions better I might have put all my misgivings aside and stayed put. It would have just been easier in so many ways than leaving the group and breaking up my marriage was.
People don't make big changes in their lives, unless they believe there is some profit to it. Even if you are unhappy where you are, if you don't believe there is anything better waiting for you, you will most likely stay put because there is just too much effort, too much upheaval, and too much hurt in changing. That's just the way we are. I don't like this about myself but the truth is, I had to know that going through that turmoil was for a very, very, very good reason or I never would have done it. It's just that simple.
Maybe you didn't quite buy into the belief-system perpetuated by twi, but anyone who does almost has to run headlong into a brick wall to wake up. Sometimes the wall is built brick-by-brick, day after day, slowly but surely, by the hurtful experiences you go through over the years. This was how about 2/3 of my brick wall was built. Time after time of leadership playing people against each other with everyone getting hurt. Time after time of contradictory instructions. Time after time of no apologies when apologies were due. Time after time of accusations and banishments of people I felt were decent human beings.... But the last 1/3 of my wall was built in an instant. The moment I found WayDale and read credible accounts by people I knew and respected, BOOM, my wall was finished and I ran into it full tilt. I felt like my heart had stopped and all the air had been sucked out of me.
Your whole post was avery good explanation of how people in TWI think and feel, but this paragraphrang particularly true to me.
To leave the One True Ministry with the exceedingly rare and precious Doctrine given to us by VPW, the greatest man o gawd since the apostle Paul, and runaway to the devil spirit infested world requires a brick wall experience. It's not pleasant or easy, more an act of desperation.
Lots of people in TWI have two lives, I think--the life they pretend to live in order to look good, and a life they know they actually live, which they try to avoid looking at. Thankfully, the busy busy schedules ans 'renewed mind' practices help keep those thought unexamined. Until there is a real crisis.
I'm willing to accept that there may have been innocence in the 60s, 70s, 80s, maybe 90s.
where is it now? right now? today?
thank you for your post, THW.
I know people who survived the 90's and lcm's fall from grace and who are disillusioned with leaders but who will not leave. some labor under the misapprehension that twi has special revelation, that vpw was an apostle. some believe they have no where else to go. some will not leave their friends. I think some also believe they should stay just because they invested so much and want to keep an eye on their investment.
I was disillusioned, completely, when lcm sent out the tape that he'd had "consensual sex" with another man's wife. from that moment on, I waited for real change and only found more corruption as I watched people excuse sin after sin. it still took me until 2006 to be able to leave, because of the hold leaders had on my life.
leaving twi, in spite of how I'd come to loathe it, was more terrifying than kicking my ex out after 15 years of marriage and I think it was this website, as well as some innies who talked openly about the corruption and lies of leadership, that made it possible for me to find the strength to leave because left on my own I probably would not have been brave enough.
It has been said that many joined twi when they were young and were duped by the con man vpw. They were victims.
How does this work for lcm? Didn't he get in at a young age? Isn't he ultimately a victim?
Bol-
Maybe this will help.
LCM may have been a victim in the beginning, like every fresh faced person seeking the Lord was snared. But he did not stay a victim, walk away, or try to correct things, he became an aggressor.
You can be struck in the head with a board and the guy can run away from you. You are a victim. If you then pursue the man and hit him back you become an aggressor in the eyes of the law. (In the eyes of your beer buddies “a guy picked on you and they got what they deserved” but) According to the law once you are no longer threatened and you begin to act aggressively you are a perpetrator regardless of the fact that you were responding to being a victim to begin with. Jiggle this a bit and I think it applies.
twi is an organization for selfish people in general. (maybe not so in the past).
In a way, today's followers used lcm for a time, and tossed him aside. They don't really care what he did to others. If there's a line between lcm and the rank and file, it's getting thinner every day.
Plus consider he was put under a form of "supervision" for a while.. I don't think it was because of rosie or donna's soft hearts either.. if he offed himself.. it probably would cost far more in damage control and spin than what it cost to "place" him at the time.. anybody else, they'd toss them to the streets without a second thought..
I think rosie had this little political game of "chess" figured out eight or ten moves ahead..
I'd say they already had the spin written.. how the "unfaithfulness" of gawd's people.. them failing to cross over from Canaan to da "promised land" just hurt da manogawd's little heart.. "allowed" him to succumb to da debil's influences..
and about sixty percent of the people would have bought it, and stayed.. and renewed their efforts (and abs) to amend for their "error"..
you can't tell me.. that the possibility of having to deal with this scenario didn't come up for discussion at one bot (at the time) meeting or another..
consider the character they kept running off of the graveyard on grounds..
he was (or is) THEIR product, is he not?
groomed.. top leader kinda guy..
or rather, perhaps WARPED. Warped.. to the place over forty years later, he still thinks the waywoods are some kind of "holy ground".. or a national "spiritual monument".. something like what Arlington represents..
never got over it.. likely, never will.
It's just an observation.
I don't think he has anywhere else to go.. except for a close lookalike to der way.
Then consider J*hn L*nn. Probably one of the bigger "victims". I think of all of the leadership, outside w*lter.. he had the potential to really DO something in life..
now he cries in the darkness, mourning the days of "der way, it was.."
Then there's another half dozen or so.. old twi "leadership".. put out into the world..
haven't developed themselves along professional lines.. no professional connections..
can't see six inches past living a "life" running meetings, planning "advances".. no real confidence in their GOD GIVEN talents..
the confidence.. I think was beaten out of them. Some it never came back..
I've seen some wander like orphans until an offshoot picked them up..
I think they are victims of the highest degree.
Now geero..
I think he missed his "calling"..
he could have been a mall cop..
same for *mr* l*nder..
hmm. well, maybe watching a corn field for harmless old fanatics trying steal a little dirt from the graveyard.. "dispatching" a few unwanted cats on grounds or something..
but one of the biggest "victims".. somebody who's convinced to leave a promising career in law enforcement.. to watch a corn field "for gawd and da ministry"..
what will one do in twenty years.. when *they* tire of you..
twenty years experience, running off old leadership vagrants, and "dispatching" unwanted cats on grounds.. won't look very good on a resume..
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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
Bolshevik
I'm not sure what you mean.
How are they different?
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Bolshevik
I'm willing to accept that there may have been innocence in the 60s, 70s, 80s, maybe 90s.
where is it now? right now? today?
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excathedra
wtf is innocence or the 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s
people believe what they want
i did as much as it was screwed up
i'm done analayzing it although i might share some of the weird sheeet that happened with that old man who was the man of god in my day and mind
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Bolshevik
The idea that innies don't know that twi is a scam.
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TheHighWay
B -- I think I understand what you are saying... if someone began their journey with twi in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or even 90s and they are still active members now, they HAD to have been touched by some kind of scandal. They may have been in the thick of it, or they may have only heard a passing rumor. So how the heck can they still stand to be involved when the truth is out there: so visible, so easily gotten???
My answer to that question is simply: "deluded" is "deluded" no matter what decade.
Yes, if someone was in the thick of things, and really saw and heard the truth and made a conscious decision to stay anyway, well, these are broken people! And it is next to impossible to excuse their actions.
But, you have to realize a LOT of folks on the field only know what they were told by their leadership, and if they were good little innies and if their local fellowship was sweet (or at least not horrible) they had no reason to question any deeper or look any further than their own directed bible study notes.
How many of us, as devoted followers to twi, blew off rumor after rumor? We were taught and we believed that such rumors were just the devil trying to kick up a little dust; a little doubt; a little sand in the machinery of our beliefs. We had such hopes and belief and expectations of our leadership and (more to the point) of our ministry that it was almost impossible to think these people would screw up this badly, let alone intentionally conduct themselves in a consistently selfish, pervasively evil way!!!
Maybe you didn't quite buy into the belief-system perpetuated by twi, but anyone who does almost has to run headlong into a brick wall to wake up. Sometimes the wall is built brick-by-brick, day after day, slowly but surely, by the hurtful experiences you go through over the years. This was how about 2/3 of my brick wall was built. Time after time of leadership playing people against each other with everyone getting hurt. Time after time of contradictory instructions. Time after time of no apologies when apologies were due. Time after time of accusations and banishments of people I felt were decent human beings.... But the last 1/3 of my wall was built in an instant. The moment I found WayDale and read credible accounts by people I knew and respected, BOOM, my wall was finished and I ran into it full tilt. I felt like my heart had stopped and all the air had been sucked out of me.
And even then, there was a choice to make... who did I believe? My twi leadership or ex-wayfers? Cop-outs? If my wall hadn't already been 2/3 complete -- if my gut hadn't already been screaming at me for a long, long time that something wasn't right here -- I might have put my head down, and put the thoughts aside, and never visited WayDale ever again. Even if my local leadership had handled my questions better I might have put all my misgivings aside and stayed put. It would have just been easier in so many ways than leaving the group and breaking up my marriage was.
People don't make big changes in their lives, unless they believe there is some profit to it. Even if you are unhappy where you are, if you don't believe there is anything better waiting for you, you will most likely stay put because there is just too much effort, too much upheaval, and too much hurt in changing. That's just the way we are. I don't like this about myself but the truth is, I had to know that going through that turmoil was for a very, very, very good reason or I never would have done it. It's just that simple.
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Bramble
Your whole post was avery good explanation of how people in TWI think and feel, but this paragraphrang particularly true to me.
To leave the One True Ministry with the exceedingly rare and precious Doctrine given to us by VPW, the greatest man o gawd since the apostle Paul, and runaway to the devil spirit infested world requires a brick wall experience. It's not pleasant or easy, more an act of desperation.
Lots of people in TWI have two lives, I think--the life they pretend to live in order to look good, and a life they know they actually live, which they try to avoid looking at. Thankfully, the busy busy schedules ans 'renewed mind' practices help keep those thought unexamined. Until there is a real crisis.
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potato
thank you for your post, THW.
I know people who survived the 90's and lcm's fall from grace and who are disillusioned with leaders but who will not leave. some labor under the misapprehension that twi has special revelation, that vpw was an apostle. some believe they have no where else to go. some will not leave their friends. I think some also believe they should stay just because they invested so much and want to keep an eye on their investment.
I was disillusioned, completely, when lcm sent out the tape that he'd had "consensual sex" with another man's wife. from that moment on, I waited for real change and only found more corruption as I watched people excuse sin after sin. it still took me until 2006 to be able to leave, because of the hold leaders had on my life.
leaving twi, in spite of how I'd come to loathe it, was more terrifying than kicking my ex out after 15 years of marriage and I think it was this website, as well as some innies who talked openly about the corruption and lies of leadership, that made it possible for me to find the strength to leave because left on my own I probably would not have been brave enough.
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Dot Matrix
Bol-
Maybe this will help.
LCM may have been a victim in the beginning, like every fresh faced person seeking the Lord was snared. But he did not stay a victim, walk away, or try to correct things, he became an aggressor.
You can be struck in the head with a board and the guy can run away from you. You are a victim. If you then pursue the man and hit him back you become an aggressor in the eyes of the law. (In the eyes of your beer buddies “a guy picked on you and they got what they deserved” but) According to the law once you are no longer threatened and you begin to act aggressively you are a perpetrator regardless of the fact that you were responding to being a victim to begin with. Jiggle this a bit and I think it applies.
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dmiller
My 2 cents. If you make it to the "top of the food chain", and remain there successfully -- *victim* becomes an oxymoron. :wacko:
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excathedra
oh, okay, i see
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WordWolf
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Bolshevik
twi is an organization for selfish people in general. (maybe not so in the past).
In a way, today's followers used lcm for a time, and tossed him aside. They don't really care what he did to others. If there's a line between lcm and the rank and file, it's getting thinner every day.
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Ham
Plus consider he was put under a form of "supervision" for a while.. I don't think it was because of rosie or donna's soft hearts either.. if he offed himself.. it probably would cost far more in damage control and spin than what it cost to "place" him at the time.. anybody else, they'd toss them to the streets without a second thought..
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Bolshevik
"offed himself" - you mean step down voluntarily?
You mean rosie wanted it to look like "da ministry" was properly taking care of business?
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potato
"offed himself" - I believe that is a reference to suicide.
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Ham
that's the reference.
I'm sure they wanted the buffoon alive.. not for intrinsically affectionate reasons..
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Ham
I think rosie had this little political game of "chess" figured out eight or ten moves ahead..
I'd say they already had the spin written.. how the "unfaithfulness" of gawd's people.. them failing to cross over from Canaan to da "promised land" just hurt da manogawd's little heart.. "allowed" him to succumb to da debil's influences..
and about sixty percent of the people would have bought it, and stayed.. and renewed their efforts (and abs) to amend for their "error"..
you can't tell me.. that the possibility of having to deal with this scenario didn't come up for discussion at one bot (at the time) meeting or another..
right *mr* L*nder?
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Bolshevik
I would think they would make it "okay" for everyone someday.
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Ham
There were other "victims" as well..
consider the character they kept running off of the graveyard on grounds..
he was (or is) THEIR product, is he not?
groomed.. top leader kinda guy..
or rather, perhaps WARPED. Warped.. to the place over forty years later, he still thinks the waywoods are some kind of "holy ground".. or a national "spiritual monument".. something like what Arlington represents..
never got over it.. likely, never will.
It's just an observation.
I don't think he has anywhere else to go.. except for a close lookalike to der way.
My opinion.. it's pathetic.
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Ham
Then consider J*hn L*nn. Probably one of the bigger "victims". I think of all of the leadership, outside w*lter.. he had the potential to really DO something in life..
now he cries in the darkness, mourning the days of "der way, it was.."
That's really, really, pathetic.. I pity him.
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Ham
Then there's another half dozen or so.. old twi "leadership".. put out into the world..
haven't developed themselves along professional lines.. no professional connections..
can't see six inches past living a "life" running meetings, planning "advances".. no real confidence in their GOD GIVEN talents..
the confidence.. I think was beaten out of them. Some it never came back..
I've seen some wander like orphans until an offshoot picked them up..
I think they are victims of the highest degree.
Now geero..
I think he missed his "calling"..
he could have been a mall cop..
same for *mr* l*nder..
hmm. well, maybe watching a corn field for harmless old fanatics trying steal a little dirt from the graveyard.. "dispatching" a few unwanted cats on grounds or something..
*it's a living*..
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Ham
seriously..
but one of the biggest "victims".. somebody who's convinced to leave a promising career in law enforcement.. to watch a corn field "for gawd and da ministry"..
what will one do in twenty years.. when *they* tire of you..
twenty years experience, running off old leadership vagrants, and "dispatching" unwanted cats on grounds.. won't look very good on a resume..
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Bolshevik
dude's got other employment far as I know. and three kids to demand a retirement from.
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Ham
I was thinking of his "replacement" though. Sick and pitiful, professionally speaking..
So where DOES one get a job watching cornfields and "taking care of" unwanted cats?
who knows.. maybe it's a hobby..
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