The thing about the adequate warning (supposedly IMO) is that when such a thing came from a man who, IMO, had huge problems with sociopathic tendencies and narcissism is that I'm not 100% certain where he was coming from.
But worthwhile possibilities include IMO: (and there certainly can be others)
The warning was given by someone who was fooling themselves first and formost...
The warning was given as a ploy, for instance from then on he could play the, "It's your problem, you shoulda fought for it card."
It was given as a blatant manipulation by a complete con artist in order to draw in sincere but carefully held impotent (as far as ministry politics goes) folks. After all, such sincere folks were genuine and had an impact on the populace when they shared their hearts for God's Word and God's people.
It was only given as a selling point in order to hide the blatant sexual and mental abuse that top leadership carried out.
It was given out as bait to draw in folks who wouldn't be likely to back down because they were completely sold out on the "IDEA" of the integrity of God's Word and Wierwille, aka the teacher.
____________________________
At any rate it seems TWI and the things they taught from the bible ended up being diametrically opposed to each other.
That's the one thing I really remember during the PFAL class and from reading the "collaterals" - don't take his word for it. Clearly, clearly it was a warning.
I didn't take his word for anything (but really saw no real straying from his basic premise of scriptural interpretation beyond the tithe and how he thought the law of believing worked), and I think that's what "saved" me from going down the rabbit hole and spared me much of the anguish of finding out he was a fake. I always saw him as a fallen human and was amazed when people acted as though he could do no wrong.
I wondered out loud to my husband one time how people would deal with VPW's inevitable death and what would happen to TWI. Would people finally get that he wasn't all that special?
Then given his cause of death, that his ability to "manifest" his core beliefs didn't happen, (I get the answer to that - to blame the "unbelieving" followers as a means of deflecting the reality) It still didn't sink in until the power struggle between LCM, JAL, and CG for control (in retrospect, I do consider JAL's letters to be an attempt to persuade TWI's members to defect) that VPW might be the root cause of TWI's "issues".
Anyway, no one who read the materials can't say they weren't warned about taking VPW's word for anything. Keith has said he was told personally, and it's in writing in the collaterals. Why did you (who followed him down the rabbit hole into WoWland, Corpse, Lightbearers, and FL) not heed his warning?
First of all......why is it ALWAYS about crediting wierwille? More than the pfal class, more than the collaterals.......don't the scriptures WARN US to not follow man?
Secondly..........some NOT ONLY didn't heed these warnings, but also jumped to the CES "ship" and sailed further on a strayed voyage.
When I took the class they encouraged us to get a concordance and look things up.....so I did. I had a problem with what the class was saying about the word "receive". When I took the concordance and showed them and said, what is being taught is not correct look at the concordance. They said to me, Well, you have not researched the word like VP has. He has gone back to the originals and yada yada yada....What do you say to that? I could say nothing and I concluded that no matter what a resource says, if it didn't agree with what was being taught, it was wrong and the teaching was right. Right then, I decided I didn't know anything about the bible and He knew it all. A mistake I will never make again!
Did you ever hear those ads on the radio where they speed up the end while they read the disclaimer? Wasn't it a lot like that? Don't take my word for it. . . but God told me so?? So, really, you can take my word for it.
To add: What happened to those who did tell him they checked it out and he was wrong. . . how long were they around?
Yes, looking back, I can vividly remember a specific time when "the big dog" himself "warned" me. I was a brand spanking new convert to The Way and let my twig leader talk me out listening to it. "It's just some unrenewed mind, don'tcha know?" "The adversary is playing games with your head."
Did you ever hear those ads on the radio where they speed up the end while they read the disclaimer? Wasn't it a lot like that? Don't take my word for it. . . but God told me so?? So, really, you can take my word for it.
Warning! PFAL is only for those who want a truly screwed up life. Do not take if you are perfectly normal and wish to stay that way. Some users may experience side effects such as numbing of the brain, loss of mental awareness, sudden moving to small hick towns with no money and no job. In rare cases users may experience sever side effects. Seek help immediately if you experience a sudden loss of ethics, become prone toward using other people, or become manipulative. These conditions may last beyond TWI involvement.
Yup, don't take anyone's word for it, but don't forget to use made up definitions, refer to nonexistent "old documents", and base your conclusions on faulty premises while you're "checking it out for yourself". Yeah, let's "go to the Word", but here's what it really means...
... In rare cases users may experience sever side effects. Seek help immediately if you experience a sudden loss of ethics, become prone toward using other people, or become manipulative. These conditions may last beyond TWI involvement.
I think you mean "severe" side effects, but maybe it was a freudian slip. Anyway many of us here in fact suffered "sever side effects." Depending on how our severance from TWI was effected.
When I took the class they encouraged us to get a concordance and look things up.....so I did. I had a problem with what the class was saying about the word "receive". When I took the concordance and showed them and said, what is being taught is not correct look at the concordance. They said to me, Well, you have not researched the word like VP has. He has gone back to the originals and yada yada yada....What do you say to that? I could say nothing and I concluded that no matter what a resource says, if it didn't agree with what was being taught, it was wrong and the teaching was right. Right then, I decided I didn't know anything about the bible and He knew it all. A mistake I will never make again!
Another way of responding when one suspected VPW of error was, "After you've given 40 years of your life to researching the Word, THEN MAYBE you have have a right to question the Man of God...MAYBE!" Research ministry? Please!
Another way of responding when one suspected VPW of error was, "After you've given 40 years of your life to researching the Word, THEN MAYBE you have have a right to question the Man of God...MAYBE!" Research ministry? Please!
Right- check up behind him.
BUT, if you FIND anything, then you'd better keep your mouth shut,
because they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.
I said something, but didn't take people step-by-step through exactly why it was true.
(I said it too briefly- one verse referred to another, but I didn't take us word-by-word
through both to demonstrate it. I figured people knew how to read, and the Bibles were
open to both on the same page.)
Someone said I couldn't just "say" it. Instead of taking them through it, I then asked
if they'd accept it as true if vpw made the exact same claim and didn't support it.
They said they would, without hesitation.
I applaud their honesty, but not their brains at the time.
That person was the spouse of a country coordinator at the time.
After leaving twi, someone said once that vpw claimed he wasn't ready to BEGIN researching
a verse until he'd read it FORTY TIMES. (Mind you, I consider that a GROSS exaggeration.
Plus, just rereading something over and over in no way guarantees any greater UNDERSTANDING-
certainly not after the first few- if you cared when you read it THE FIRST TIME.)
That person then said he considered himself unqualified to reteach pfal because he hadn't
read the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, FORTY TIMES.
(Suggesting that A) that would be necessary to teach the Bible, and
"Why did you (who followed him down the rabbit hole into WoWland, Corpse, Lightbearers, and FL) not heed his warning? "
"My my my - what people were willing to do to avoid conflict."
Hello Tzaia,
I don't know you from Adam but it sure is easy to picture you asking/saying the above while wagging your finger and tsk, tsk-ing us. Hopefully that's not how you intend to "sound".
How exactly were we supposed to heed that one particular warning and cherry-pick our way through the rest of what fell out of his mouth? Avoiding conflict? Maybe you never witnessed him shred someone to pieces for not doing exactly what he said...I don't know. Glad you were so enlightened that you didn't get used.
I'll admit it...I was young and naive and stupidly followed a con man. Oh, and anytime I tried to point out obvious wrong I was "torn a new one", so I figured there must be something wrong with me and my judgement. That pretty much sealed the deal...since I couldn't trust my own thoughts, I turned my brain off and followed the leader.
After the post-POP fallout when hubs and I left it was as if scales fell from our eyes. I fully expected everyone we knew...especially those in our corps...to see things clearly and leave the way, but it didn't happen. When I first came to the cafe I had the attitude that if little old me was smart enough to leave when I did, what in the heck was wrong with those who stuck around...somehow feeling superior to people who didn't do things the way I did. I finally realized that walking away from twi is like stopping smoking.
Until you're really ready to quit, you might as well just light another Kool shorty watch your money and life go up in smoke.
Tzaia, most of us got into the Cornfield Cult when we were 20 or younger. It was the 70's and we were still filled with the mixture of idealism and arrogance that comes with youth. We wanted to change the world and we were sure we could do it. Add that to a desire to help people/serve God and you got a good snapshot of who many of us were at the time.
I won't ask for any more details than you're willing to give, but does any of the above describe you? Or was it during a different age and era that you took piffle?
Wow, I tempered my first response. . . what gives? For someone who was also mired in CES/BS how do you even know you are not STILL caught up?
What was you it you said on another thread. . . "I can't live in smugness like I did when I was involved with CES"
If it helps you to understand better. . . I was uneducated and coming off a two year party high. . . I actually DID question the things said about abortion, nearly had my head bit off and bible verses thrown at me. . . I didn't know the bible . . . I was intimidated. . . and 19.
Tzaia, most of us got into the Cornfield Cult when we were 20 or younger. It was the 70's and we were still filled with the mixture of idealism and arrogance that comes with youth. We wanted to change the world and we were sure we could do it. Add that to a desire to help people/serve God and you got a good snapshot of who many of us were at the time.
I won't ask for any more details than you're willing to give, but does any of the above describe you? Or was it during a different age and era that you took piffle?
I was 24 and it was the '70s. Perhaps I had been burned enough previously that I was more careful. I went through about a 2 month period when I was on fire, but then I started seeing things that just didn't sit right.
I was mostly an outsider in TWI. It just didn't feel right.
It's hard to believe anyone wasn't warned during their time with twi.
How many times did kids watch the adults be confronted by "outsiders", or joke about being in a cult during fellowships? Or teach you how to talk sly around family?
Confront those same people years later, (or the next day for that matter), and they'll insist "Nobody ever told me it was a cult, nobody warned me, how was I supposed to know?".
Wow, I tempered my first response. . . what gives? For someone who was also mired in CES/BS how do you even know you are not STILL caught up?
What was you it you said on another thread. . . "I can't live in smugness like I did when I was involved with CES"
If it helps you to understand better. . . I was uneducated and coming off a two year party high. . . I actually DID question the things said about abortion, nearly had my head bit off and bible verses thrown at me. . . I didn't know the bible . . . I was intimidated. . . and 19.
I thought I had found help. . .
geisha779.......yes, the original post on this thread has a SMUGNESS to it.
For anyone who follows GS regularly.....this poster has stated this "what the he11 were you WOW's and Corps amd FellowLaborers thinking" question MANY TIMES in various forms. Hence, my post above addresses two points.
YET........this poster went and spend years in CES, where elitism reigns supreme.
The entire way ministry was based on Wierwille's claim that God spoke audibly to him..."I will teach you the word as it has not been known since the first century if you will teach it to others"...the snow on the gas pumps story...When Vic made this claim in piffle, it was the lightning bolt that exploded in people's minds...it was the HOOK.
This drunken schmuck was God's chosen one! If you questioned him, you were gone. 13 years after I first took piffle...I was confronted by twi leadership and asked if I disagreed with "dr" wierwille (this was 2 years after he croaked)...I said yes and was considered to be a spiritual leper.
Looking back, I can honestly say that questioning wierwille was the same as being "out of fellowship"...warned?...what? are you kidding me?
The entire way ministry was based on Wierwille's claim that God spoke audibly to him..."I will teach you the word as it has not been known since the first century if you will teach it to others"...the snow on the gas pumps story...When Vic made this claim in piffle, it was the lightning bolt that exploded in people's minds...it was the HOOK.
This drunken schmuck was God's chosen one! If you questioned him, you were gone. 13 years after I first took piffle...I was confronted by twi leadership and asked if I disagreed with "dr" wierwille (this was 2 years after he croaked)...I said yes and was considered to be a spiritual leper.
Looking back, I can honestly say that questioning wierwille was the same as being "out of fellowship"...warned?...what? are you kidding me?
Exactly. And who here wasn't tricked? We got caught up in a nasty religious system and people got hurt. I have no problem admitting I was fooled. What am I suppose to do now. . . keep calling myself an idiot. . . I was an advanced class grad and WOW, but didn't go into the Corps. . . am I a little less silly than someone who did? We were ALL fooled.
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JeffSjo
Good points Tzaia,
The thing about the adequate warning (supposedly IMO) is that when such a thing came from a man who, IMO, had huge problems with sociopathic tendencies and narcissism is that I'm not 100% certain where he was coming from.
But worthwhile possibilities include IMO: (and there certainly can be others)
The warning was given by someone who was fooling themselves first and formost...
The warning was given as a ploy, for instance from then on he could play the, "It's your problem, you shoulda fought for it card."
It was given as a blatant manipulation by a complete con artist in order to draw in sincere but carefully held impotent (as far as ministry politics goes) folks. After all, such sincere folks were genuine and had an impact on the populace when they shared their hearts for God's Word and God's people.
It was only given as a selling point in order to hide the blatant sexual and mental abuse that top leadership carried out.
It was given out as bait to draw in folks who wouldn't be likely to back down because they were completely sold out on the "IDEA" of the integrity of God's Word and Wierwille, aka the teacher.
____________________________
At any rate it seems TWI and the things they taught from the bible ended up being diametrically opposed to each other.
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skyrider
First of all......why is it ALWAYS about crediting wierwille? More than the pfal class, more than the collaterals.......don't the scriptures WARN US to not follow man?
Secondly..........some NOT ONLY didn't heed these warnings, but also jumped to the CES "ship" and sailed further on a strayed voyage.
<_<
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newlife
Correct, we were warned....
When I took the class they encouraged us to get a concordance and look things up.....so I did. I had a problem with what the class was saying about the word "receive". When I took the concordance and showed them and said, what is being taught is not correct look at the concordance. They said to me, Well, you have not researched the word like VP has. He has gone back to the originals and yada yada yada....What do you say to that? I could say nothing and I concluded that no matter what a resource says, if it didn't agree with what was being taught, it was wrong and the teaching was right. Right then, I decided I didn't know anything about the bible and He knew it all. A mistake I will never make again!
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geisha779
Did you ever hear those ads on the radio where they speed up the end while they read the disclaimer? Wasn't it a lot like that? Don't take my word for it. . . but God told me so?? So, really, you can take my word for it.
To add: What happened to those who did tell him they checked it out and he was wrong. . . how long were they around?
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waysider
Yes, looking back, I can vividly remember a specific time when "the big dog" himself "warned" me. I was a brand spanking new convert to The Way and let my twig leader talk me out listening to it. "It's just some unrenewed mind, don'tcha know?" "The adversary is playing games with your head."
(It's complicated.)
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RumRunner
Warning! PFAL is only for those who want a truly screwed up life. Do not take if you are perfectly normal and wish to stay that way. Some users may experience side effects such as numbing of the brain, loss of mental awareness, sudden moving to small hick towns with no money and no job. In rare cases users may experience sever side effects. Seek help immediately if you experience a sudden loss of ethics, become prone toward using other people, or become manipulative. These conditions may last beyond TWI involvement.
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Oakspear
Yup, don't take anyone's word for it, but don't forget to use made up definitions, refer to nonexistent "old documents", and base your conclusions on faulty premises while you're "checking it out for yourself". Yeah, let's "go to the Word", but here's what it really means...
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Twinky
I think you mean "severe" side effects, but maybe it was a freudian slip.
Anyway many of us here in fact suffered "sever side effects." Depending on how our severance from TWI was effected.
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waysider
Wierwille was obviating any future objections.
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Broken Arrow
Another way of responding when one suspected VPW of error was, "After you've given 40 years of your life to researching the Word, THEN MAYBE you have have a right to question the Man of God...MAYBE!" Research ministry? Please!
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WordWolf
Right- check up behind him.
BUT, if you FIND anything, then you'd better keep your mouth shut,
because they'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.
I said something, but didn't take people step-by-step through exactly why it was true.
(I said it too briefly- one verse referred to another, but I didn't take us word-by-word
through both to demonstrate it. I figured people knew how to read, and the Bibles were
open to both on the same page.)
Someone said I couldn't just "say" it. Instead of taking them through it, I then asked
if they'd accept it as true if vpw made the exact same claim and didn't support it.
They said they would, without hesitation.
I applaud their honesty, but not their brains at the time.
That person was the spouse of a country coordinator at the time.
After leaving twi, someone said once that vpw claimed he wasn't ready to BEGIN researching
a verse until he'd read it FORTY TIMES. (Mind you, I consider that a GROSS exaggeration.
Plus, just rereading something over and over in no way guarantees any greater UNDERSTANDING-
certainly not after the first few- if you cared when you read it THE FIRST TIME.)
That person then said he considered himself unqualified to reteach pfal because he hadn't
read the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, FORTY TIMES.
(Suggesting that A) that would be necessary to teach the Bible, and
B) that vpw had actually done that
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Tzaia
My my my - what people were willing to do to avoid conflict.
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tonto
"Why did you (who followed him down the rabbit hole into WoWland, Corpse, Lightbearers, and FL) not heed his warning? "
"My my my - what people were willing to do to avoid conflict."
Hello Tzaia,
I don't know you from Adam but it sure is easy to picture you asking/saying the above while wagging your finger and tsk, tsk-ing us. Hopefully that's not how you intend to "sound".
How exactly were we supposed to heed that one particular warning and cherry-pick our way through the rest of what fell out of his mouth? Avoiding conflict? Maybe you never witnessed him shred someone to pieces for not doing exactly what he said...I don't know. Glad you were so enlightened that you didn't get used.
I'll admit it...I was young and naive and stupidly followed a con man. Oh, and anytime I tried to point out obvious wrong I was "torn a new one", so I figured there must be something wrong with me and my judgement. That pretty much sealed the deal...since I couldn't trust my own thoughts, I turned my brain off and followed the leader.
After the post-POP fallout when hubs and I left it was as if scales fell from our eyes. I fully expected everyone we knew...especially those in our corps...to see things clearly and leave the way, but it didn't happen. When I first came to the cafe I had the attitude that if little old me was smart enough to leave when I did, what in the heck was wrong with those who stuck around...somehow feeling superior to people who didn't do things the way I did. I finally realized that walking away from twi is like stopping smoking.
Until you're really ready to quit, you might as well just light another Kool shorty watch your money and life go up in smoke.
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doojable
Tzaia, most of us got into the Cornfield Cult when we were 20 or younger. It was the 70's and we were still filled with the mixture of idealism and arrogance that comes with youth. We wanted to change the world and we were sure we could do it. Add that to a desire to help people/serve God and you got a good snapshot of who many of us were at the time.
I won't ask for any more details than you're willing to give, but does any of the above describe you? Or was it during a different age and era that you took piffle?
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geisha779
Tzaia,
Wow, I tempered my first response. . . what gives? For someone who was also mired in CES/BS how do you even know you are not STILL caught up?
What was you it you said on another thread. . . "I can't live in smugness like I did when I was involved with CES"
If it helps you to understand better. . . I was uneducated and coming off a two year party high. . . I actually DID question the things said about abortion, nearly had my head bit off and bible verses thrown at me. . . I didn't know the bible . . . I was intimidated. . . and 19.
I thought I had found help. . .
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Tzaia
I was 24 and it was the '70s. Perhaps I had been burned enough previously that I was more careful. I went through about a 2 month period when I was on fire, but then I started seeing things that just didn't sit right.
I was mostly an outsider in TWI. It just didn't feel right.
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geisha779
Well, I went to a meeting with JAL at someone's house after we left TWI. . . . that didn't feel right. I left.
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Bolshevik
It's hard to believe anyone wasn't warned during their time with twi.
How many times did kids watch the adults be confronted by "outsiders", or joke about being in a cult during fellowships? Or teach you how to talk sly around family?
Confront those same people years later, (or the next day for that matter), and they'll insist "Nobody ever told me it was a cult, nobody warned me, how was I supposed to know?".
Okay, what else don't you remember?
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skyrider
geisha779.......yes, the original post on this thread has a SMUGNESS to it.
For anyone who follows GS regularly.....this poster has stated this "what the he11 were you WOW's and Corps amd FellowLaborers thinking" question MANY TIMES in various forms. Hence, my post above addresses two points.
YET........this poster went and spend years in CES, where elitism reigns supreme.
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RumRunner
Actually a lot of us were warned - just that we weren't willing to listen to warnings from our parents - as Doojable said - idealism and arrogance.
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GrouchoMarxJr
We were warned?...
The entire way ministry was based on Wierwille's claim that God spoke audibly to him..."I will teach you the word as it has not been known since the first century if you will teach it to others"...the snow on the gas pumps story...When Vic made this claim in piffle, it was the lightning bolt that exploded in people's minds...it was the HOOK.
This drunken schmuck was God's chosen one! If you questioned him, you were gone. 13 years after I first took piffle...I was confronted by twi leadership and asked if I disagreed with "dr" wierwille (this was 2 years after he croaked)...I said yes and was considered to be a spiritual leper.
Looking back, I can honestly say that questioning wierwille was the same as being "out of fellowship"...warned?...what? are you kidding me?
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geisha779
Exactly. And who here wasn't tricked? We got caught up in a nasty religious system and people got hurt. I have no problem admitting I was fooled. What am I suppose to do now. . . keep calling myself an idiot. . . I was an advanced class grad and WOW, but didn't go into the Corps. . . am I a little less silly than someone who did? We were ALL fooled.
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Bolshevik
We wereare ALL fooled.
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frank123lol
The Who "Wont get fooled again",and another one to those still "in"
The Who "Meet the new boss same as the old boss".
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