I had no idea until the scandal broke. I came to HQ the very same year and then I found out all the gory details. So it must have been common knowledge amongst HQ and Gunnison, but that is my guess. Anyone confirm?
My section coordinator at the time told me of the wife swapping going on in the family corpse in the mid to late 90s.
I did not know the scope or depth of it until I learned the details here on GSC. I had seen some questionable activities but chalked them up to isolated incidents. There was no internet. We didn't even have easy access to phones in FLO. It's important to note, in my opinion, that even when you did see something that raised a red flag, you were supposed to renew your mind and not think evil of your brothers and sisters. Telling your leader that you thought something fishy was afoot was a bit like announcing you had an unrenewed mind and were spiritually weak. In fellow laborers, any activity of this sort would have gotten you tossed out of the program. (At least for the rank and file) The suspicious activity that I saw did not necessarily involve people at the rank and file level. That makes it even harder to speak up, not knowing if your observations are accurate.
I was on staff at HQ around 1980. I knew nothing of the sex scandal. I knew of VPW's need for Drambuie and I heard whispers from some of the old-timers that VPW had some serious faults in his walk. It wasn't until the adultry corps paper that I heard of the whole scandal.
I was on staff at HQ around 1980. I knew nothing of the sex scandal. I knew of VPW's need for Drambuie and I heard whispers from some of the old-timers that VPW had some serious faults in his walk. It wasn't until the adultry corps paper that I heard of the whole scandal.
When I asked some non-corps rank and file on the field who've been around since the 70s if this surprised them, they responded "Oh those rumors have been around since the 70s".
When I went WayD, you'd knock on someone's door, and they'd mention sex scandals from the 80s.
When I left HQ, for some reason I still had a twi bumper sticker, people would walk up to me and tell me about how they left do to Wierwille's sex scandals.
At HQ, lcm's sex scandals were dismissed cause he learned it from vpw, as if that softened the effect. I also got cornered by some guy who kept quoting Jesus and explaining that adultery is a very gray area.
I was involved with TWI from 1974 to 1989 and was a Corps graduate and College Division Alumni. My experience is very similar to Waysider's. I knew there were some adultrous affairs but I thought they were isolated incidents. I DID NOT think for a minute that VPW was involved in any of them or Craig or any top leadership for that matter.
I was at Emporia in 1976 as College Division. There was alot of extra-marital sexual activity going on. It was pretty widespread and hard to miss. I never could figure out why Wierwille never took a stand against it. It just didn't occur to me that he actually endorsed it. People were getting hurt, marriages were busting up, nothing from V.P. I was not in the Corps and maybe something was said in the "closed corporation" meetings, but I doubt it. If there was, it had little effect. Now, if someone in the Corps promised to quit smoking and they didn't, they were kicked out on their ear. The same attitude and forthrightness did not occur when one was unfaithful to one's spouse.
I also heard some "fishy" stuff here and there about Wierwille's sexual carrying ons, but I never believed them. Frequently I saw him talking with some young lady with his hand on her butt. Now...we WERE taught that was supposed to bless women, and that he was just being kind and loving. I bought into that. Remember, we were also taught that "the first step downward is turning away from the man of God who taught you God's Word". So I quelched my own suspicions. You juat didn't criticize Wierwille and expect to stay around very long in TWI. Not only did you get kicked out, your reputation would get "wasted" in the process. In addition, you would be outside the protection of the Household. Remember what happened to Aaron and Miriam when they rebelled against Moses? You surely didn't want THAT to happen did you?
I could have knosn if I had wanted to, and I should've known.
We knew nothing of any of it until we read it here after we left. We thought there were 'smear' rumors about VPW. We were small ( 800 pop) town twig coords and missed alot of the rumors etc because we didn't get into the big city except for occasional branch meetings. Never heard of the adultery paper.
We were naive and gullible and thought we were moving the Word like it hadn't been known since the first century.
I think they were LOTS of folks who knew, but they were carefully chosen, probably because they were thought to be capable of keeping a lid on it. I'd heard some vague references to stuff going on from some 1st-year Corps folk back in 1980. They didn't know a lot fo specifics, but they had been indoctrinated with the approved rationalizations ("If someone really NEEDED sex, what would be the LOVING thing to do?" and other such tripe).
It sounded peculiar to me at the time, but hey, I was just a lowly Twigite. These guys were in THE CORPS, right next to the MOG, they MUST know better, right?
What a farking waste of life it all was, REALLY...
Well, when Rosalie blamed the way corps household at the advanced class special in 2000, that pretty much is her admission that it was common knowledge amongst some. That's the way I see is anyways.
I was far, far away from everything going on at HQ and among leadership for all of my time in The Way International.
I will never, ever forget the one woman who told me my Limb leader had propositioned her to service the men-of-God (so-called) at a limb meeting in the spring of 1983.
I will never, ever forget walking away from her after my stupid, stupid answer.
I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this until the scandal broke. I remember Rosie the Riveter confronting all the Corps at that AC Special and wondering what the h3ll she was talking about. Looking back over the entire time in the ministry there were a couple of indicators of things that were a little "weird" in some behavior I saw, but in the mindset I was in I just dismissed it. I never personally ran into any of that stuff. I never engaged in it.
Even after the scandal I'm sure I handled it in robot fashion. I know I put it together that the Forehead F'd up, but never put it together that it traced back to the Vicster. I was unaware of the adultery paper or anything surrounding JS until Greasespot. I even stayed away from here for a long time, but first read the PooP paper. Had heard it read before, but never saw it in print to the point of perousal. Even after reading that I just thought CG was kind of a wacked out dude strung a little too tightly.
It's kind of weird reflecting. It's like I just never connected the dots in my brain. Things didn't "click" for a long time. Then eventually they did.
In retrospect, I was very, very, very naieve. And thus used like a pawn in someone else's chess game.
Although I was unaware of any particular adulterous activity, I did find it odd that any attempt to discuss fornication always got side-tracked to "spiritual" fornication. (If "regular" fornication is OK, why is it used figuratively to describe something so wrong?) And, there were always the "no longer under the law" excuses. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
As I have read the topic, I realize that I saw some of this stuff, too... and just chalked it up to people just being "not religious" or to just people being weird when I saw it. I did have one leader (a woman) who told me I should go "get my need met," but when I did (with a believer friend who was a good guy I had known for a long time) she got angry at me and told me that's not where I should have gone. But then she also told me that I shouldn't be messing around with unbeliever men. I was (to say the least) a little confused... and I'm not sure I want to know where she would have suggested I get that need "met."
YUCK.
[Gawd, I hope my mom isn't going to read this thread...]
That a supposed Christian church could come up with the term "get your need met" as a euphemism for condoning casual sex is absolutely sickening. I hope they don't really think that releasing a class that says pre-marital sex is not in accord with the bible makes up for all the wrong done over the years.
That a supposed Christian church could come up with the term "get your need met" as a euphemism for condoning casual sex is absolutely sickening. I hope they don't really think that releasing a class that says pre-marital sex is not in accord with the bible makes up for all the wrong done over the years.
I wonder if "doctrine" such as above was limited to certain local fellowships (twigs? is what you call them?) or was it from the "top-down" organizationally -- i.e., was "get your needs met" taught by VPW and LCM?
I wonder, too, about the sexual practices such as mate-swapping that some of you have described. Not everyone here seems to have been exposed to such behavior. It makes me think that it was highly localized. Of course, I could be wrong.
Oddly enough, there was an incident in FWC 20 that should have alerted me that something even weirder was going on. However, it was not considered "okay."
There were these two young, attractive couples in FWC 19 who appeared to be best friends. They were all attractive, but this one girl was a knockout. Not too long before we left, I was working in some room or other and one couple comes walking through, slowly, not looking at each other, and very somber. I wondered if there had been a death in the family, it was that bad. Later, the other couple comes along, equally somber.
It turned out that there had been something "going on" between the knockout girl and the other husband. Not apparently overtly sexual, but she was depending on him and leaning on him instead of her own husband, according to W C*a*p the FWC coordinator at that time. I did hall patrol when the little ones were napping and had observed one or the other of them rushing down a hallway late for a meeting or work of what-have-you, but thought nothing of it.
Both couples were dismissed; one couple separated for a time and eventually, both couples went back and graduated from the same FWC (I forget which one).
With its rabbit warren of hallways, stairways and unused areas, Rome City was undoubtedly an adulterer's dream.
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OldSkool
I had no idea until the scandal broke. I came to HQ the very same year and then I found out all the gory details. So it must have been common knowledge amongst HQ and Gunnison, but that is my guess. Anyone confirm?
My section coordinator at the time told me of the wife swapping going on in the family corpse in the mid to late 90s.
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JavaJane
I had the same impression that it was "common knowledge" and common practice, OldSkool.
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waysider
I did not know the scope or depth of it until I learned the details here on GSC. I had seen some questionable activities but chalked them up to isolated incidents. There was no internet. We didn't even have easy access to phones in FLO. It's important to note, in my opinion, that even when you did see something that raised a red flag, you were supposed to renew your mind and not think evil of your brothers and sisters. Telling your leader that you thought something fishy was afoot was a bit like announcing you had an unrenewed mind and were spiritually weak. In fellow laborers, any activity of this sort would have gotten you tossed out of the program. (At least for the rank and file) The suspicious activity that I saw did not necessarily involve people at the rank and file level. That makes it even harder to speak up, not knowing if your observations are accurate.
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Jim
I was on staff at HQ around 1980. I knew nothing of the sex scandal. I knew of VPW's need for Drambuie and I heard whispers from some of the old-timers that VPW had some serious faults in his walk. It wasn't until the adultry corps paper that I heard of the whole scandal.
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JavaJane
what is the adultery paper? When did it come out?
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waysider
http://www.greasespotcafe.com/main2/waydale/waydale-lawsuit/john-schoenheits-adultery--fornication.html
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Human without the bean
:huh: I was a follower of twi from 1980-1994. I had no clue about any sex stuff going on!
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Bolshevik
When I asked some non-corps rank and file on the field who've been around since the 70s if this surprised them, they responded "Oh those rumors have been around since the 70s".
When I went WayD, you'd knock on someone's door, and they'd mention sex scandals from the 80s.
When I left HQ, for some reason I still had a twi bumper sticker, people would walk up to me and tell me about how they left do to Wierwille's sex scandals.
At HQ, lcm's sex scandals were dismissed cause he learned it from vpw, as if that softened the effect. I also got cornered by some guy who kept quoting Jesus and explaining that adultery is a very gray area.
And wayfers tend to have selective memories.
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OldSkool
Bolsh, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck---it's probably a duck....
Which I think is what you are saying.
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waysider
We sure were gullible, weren't we?
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Broken Arrow
I was involved with TWI from 1974 to 1989 and was a Corps graduate and College Division Alumni. My experience is very similar to Waysider's. I knew there were some adultrous affairs but I thought they were isolated incidents. I DID NOT think for a minute that VPW was involved in any of them or Craig or any top leadership for that matter.
I was at Emporia in 1976 as College Division. There was alot of extra-marital sexual activity going on. It was pretty widespread and hard to miss. I never could figure out why Wierwille never took a stand against it. It just didn't occur to me that he actually endorsed it. People were getting hurt, marriages were busting up, nothing from V.P. I was not in the Corps and maybe something was said in the "closed corporation" meetings, but I doubt it. If there was, it had little effect. Now, if someone in the Corps promised to quit smoking and they didn't, they were kicked out on their ear. The same attitude and forthrightness did not occur when one was unfaithful to one's spouse.
I also heard some "fishy" stuff here and there about Wierwille's sexual carrying ons, but I never believed them. Frequently I saw him talking with some young lady with his hand on her butt. Now...we WERE taught that was supposed to bless women, and that he was just being kind and loving. I bought into that. Remember, we were also taught that "the first step downward is turning away from the man of God who taught you God's Word". So I quelched my own suspicions. You juat didn't criticize Wierwille and expect to stay around very long in TWI. Not only did you get kicked out, your reputation would get "wasted" in the process. In addition, you would be outside the protection of the Household. Remember what happened to Aaron and Miriam when they rebelled against Moses? You surely didn't want THAT to happen did you?
I could have knosn if I had wanted to, and I should've known.
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OldSkool
Yep.
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Bramble
We knew nothing of any of it until we read it here after we left. We thought there were 'smear' rumors about VPW. We were small ( 800 pop) town twig coords and missed alot of the rumors etc because we didn't get into the big city except for occasional branch meetings. Never heard of the adultery paper.
We were naive and gullible and thought we were moving the Word like it hadn't been known since the first century.
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JavaJane
Thanks for the link, Waysider!
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dmiller
I got "in" in 1975 and never heard anything about this at all, until I heard the "Overview Tapes" by JAL in 1986 or 87.
I got my first computer in 2003 and once I found GSC, it corroborated everything I'd heard on the "Overview Tapes" by JAL.
"In the presence of two or three witnesses . . . . " Didn't take me long to find the "defendant" (the ORG TWI) guilty.
One person's "say so? Hmmm. Two people's "say so"? Maybe.
MULTIPLE testimonies all in sync? Hang em from the highest tree.
What we (read I) thought about the "ministry", was certainly different than what it actually was.
Constant demands for loyalty/ money/ obedience/ yada/ yada/ and for what? Their personal pleasures.
To folks like myself (way away from HQ), we never heard much of anything if it wasn't on a SNS tape.
And you can bet your bottom dollar, that news of this sort wouldn't be on any of them for public perusal.
Despite that fact, even up here in northern Minnesota there were rumblings of the twi "volcano" about to explode.
None of us knew why (as far as the specificity of the particular situation), or what the "ministry" was going though,
but then the Schoenheit paper was made "available"/ the Chicago meeting happened/ and some of us from here
went to Chicago for that meeting, brought back info, and the volcano erupted.
No - - - I didn't have a clue before then. I wish I'd had one sooner, but am thankful I finally got it.
The term "Better late than never", took on a new meaning for me.
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George Aar
I think they were LOTS of folks who knew, but they were carefully chosen, probably because they were thought to be capable of keeping a lid on it. I'd heard some vague references to stuff going on from some 1st-year Corps folk back in 1980. They didn't know a lot fo specifics, but they had been indoctrinated with the approved rationalizations ("If someone really NEEDED sex, what would be the LOVING thing to do?" and other such tripe).
It sounded peculiar to me at the time, but hey, I was just a lowly Twigite. These guys were in THE CORPS, right next to the MOG, they MUST know better, right?
What a farking waste of life it all was, REALLY...
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OldSkool
Well, when Rosalie blamed the way corps household at the advanced class special in 2000, that pretty much is her admission that it was common knowledge amongst some. That's the way I see is anyways.
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JeffSjo
I was far, far away from everything going on at HQ and among leadership for all of my time in The Way International.
I will never, ever forget the one woman who told me my Limb leader had propositioned her to service the men-of-God (so-called) at a limb meeting in the spring of 1983.
I will never, ever forget walking away from her after my stupid, stupid answer.
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chockfull
I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this until the scandal broke. I remember Rosie the Riveter confronting all the Corps at that AC Special and wondering what the h3ll she was talking about. Looking back over the entire time in the ministry there were a couple of indicators of things that were a little "weird" in some behavior I saw, but in the mindset I was in I just dismissed it. I never personally ran into any of that stuff. I never engaged in it.
Even after the scandal I'm sure I handled it in robot fashion. I know I put it together that the Forehead F'd up, but never put it together that it traced back to the Vicster. I was unaware of the adultery paper or anything surrounding JS until Greasespot. I even stayed away from here for a long time, but first read the PooP paper. Had heard it read before, but never saw it in print to the point of perousal. Even after reading that I just thought CG was kind of a wacked out dude strung a little too tightly.
It's kind of weird reflecting. It's like I just never connected the dots in my brain. Things didn't "click" for a long time. Then eventually they did.
In retrospect, I was very, very, very naieve. And thus used like a pawn in someone else's chess game.
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GeorgeStGeorge
Although I was unaware of any particular adulterous activity, I did find it odd that any attempt to discuss fornication always got side-tracked to "spiritual" fornication. (If "regular" fornication is OK, why is it used figuratively to describe something so wrong?) And, there were always the "no longer under the law" excuses. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
<_<
George
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JavaJane
As I have read the topic, I realize that I saw some of this stuff, too... and just chalked it up to people just being "not religious" or to just people being weird when I saw it. I did have one leader (a woman) who told me I should go "get my need met," but when I did (with a believer friend who was a good guy I had known for a long time) she got angry at me and told me that's not where I should have gone. But then she also told me that I shouldn't be messing around with unbeliever men. I was (to say the least) a little confused... and I'm not sure I want to know where she would have suggested I get that need "met."
YUCK.
[Gawd, I hope my mom isn't going to read this thread...]
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OldSkool
That a supposed Christian church could come up with the term "get your need met" as a euphemism for condoning casual sex is absolutely sickening. I hope they don't really think that releasing a class that says pre-marital sex is not in accord with the bible makes up for all the wrong done over the years.
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soul searcher
I wonder if "doctrine" such as above was limited to certain local fellowships (twigs? is what you call them?) or was it from the "top-down" organizationally -- i.e., was "get your needs met" taught by VPW and LCM?
I wonder, too, about the sexual practices such as mate-swapping that some of you have described. Not everyone here seems to have been exposed to such behavior. It makes me think that it was highly localized. Of course, I could be wrong.
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Watered Garden
Oddly enough, there was an incident in FWC 20 that should have alerted me that something even weirder was going on. However, it was not considered "okay."
There were these two young, attractive couples in FWC 19 who appeared to be best friends. They were all attractive, but this one girl was a knockout. Not too long before we left, I was working in some room or other and one couple comes walking through, slowly, not looking at each other, and very somber. I wondered if there had been a death in the family, it was that bad. Later, the other couple comes along, equally somber.
It turned out that there had been something "going on" between the knockout girl and the other husband. Not apparently overtly sexual, but she was depending on him and leaning on him instead of her own husband, according to W C*a*p the FWC coordinator at that time. I did hall patrol when the little ones were napping and had observed one or the other of them rushing down a hallway late for a meeting or work of what-have-you, but thought nothing of it.
Both couples were dismissed; one couple separated for a time and eventually, both couples went back and graduated from the same FWC (I forget which one).
With its rabbit warren of hallways, stairways and unused areas, Rome City was undoubtedly an adulterer's dream.
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