Remember the weekly schedules some of you people had to turn in? I remember my mom telling me that they had to schedule sex with their spouse and then put it on the schedule for approval while they were in residence. Then their coordinator would tell them if they thought they hadn't allotted enough time or if they had allotted too much. Good grief.
And, from what I understand, the department coordinators at HQ would pick up people's mail and deliver it to their employees?? (Of course, all of it was handled by the Procuress, Ramona first)... I always thought that was a bit of an invasion of privacy.
What was her response when you told her your personal business had no business on a ministry calendar?
That was about the end of it. She knew that was true and didn't even argue her point anymore. I made it clear to her and to my dept. coord. (her sister--nepotism runs big at TWI) that anything outside of work related to me was not to say anything except "out" by my name after that. I ended up admitting that I shouldn't have marked on the calendar without permission (because you know you have to confess your broken fellowship to get back in their good graces). So we left it at that and they didn't ask me too many questions after that.
I agree with Excie - Donna had a lot of compassion for people.
Now she sounds like a petty little tyrant with a seared conscience.
Wow, hard to believe she used to be that way. I always got the feeling whenever she just wanted to sit down and talk that she was fishing for some dirt. I definitely wouldn't describe her as compassionate. In fact, when I was talking to my husband about her one time I think the term I used was "stressed out dominatrix."
Well power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I was friends with a couple of her sisters and they told me both her and LCM's parents were opposed to LCM being made president of TWI. They felt they were way too young for that kind of power and money that would be coming their way.
Sounds like the moms and dads were right.
But, I can think of one incident, near the time I fled HQ and staff, where the hardness of heart was starting to become quite evident.
I agree with Excie - Donna had a lot of compassion for people.
Now she sounds like a petty little tyrant with a seared conscience.
If you could get her out of there and away from Rosie for a few years, she'd become a totally different person - probably the one she once was.
My memories and opinions are this:
The Donna I knew in the early 1970s was compassionate. Although she, along with the rest of us, let VP's hardness of heart corrupt her view of Jim Doop, for instance. She'd been his secretary out in Calif. when VP "fired" Doop at a meeting. (described in Karl Kahler's book The Cult That Snapped.) After that, VP brought her to HQ to work in the secretarial pool in Trailer 5. At that time, the staff and Corps took that old version of Dale Carnegie's class together. I remember her being very passionate about THE WORD being the truth, in one of her speeches, and that nothing would stop her from sticking with TWI no matter what. I suspected the incident out in Calif. with Doop being painted as a traitor or something added a lot of fuel to her fire and determination to be loyal to VP.
I will still never understand VP and his hold on people. I guess I was one of the few people in TWI who did not personally like him. Even from the first time I met him in Rye at Tim Bishop's house when he drove in from HQ on his bike. There was just something that almost made me physically sick being around him. I told this feeling to another leader there and was told I had a spiritual problem and to, politely told, get over it. So, it was the Bible I wanted to learn, so I ignored him, even in the corps and avoided him as much as possible which was very easy to do with the hundreds of corps by the time I was there.
I wonder why it was so important for Donna her to "prove" to VP she wasn't a "traitor."
I think people who worshipped him or would die for him, had some serious father/abandonment/need for attention issues.
My only direct contact with DM was at the Word in Business, I think in 1996. It was the Saturday evening "Do." On my way into the dance hall, I had seen LCM heading back into the hotel proper. Since DM was unattended, I thought she might like to dance, and I asked her. She immediately looked around to find another young lady to dance with me, assuring me that there were plenty to choose from! Maybe she thought it wouldn't have been proper for someone in her "station"; but I honestly think she was just trying to bless me.
As a sidenote: in those days, I simply assumed that LCM was headed to the hotel for ministry business. Now I wonder if it was "funny business."
I don't know anything about shouting matches with Donna. I myself would never shout at a match. :biglaugh:
The side topic of Jim and VPW and California, and etc. etc. etc....
As most of you know (or don't) I knew Jim (and Steve Heef-ster) and all the gang back in the late 60's - their group in S.F., House of Acts and the Haight mission, most of the early crowd and after VPW came out and few went to Ohio that summer, etc. etc. etc.
This whole story isn't as clean a cut as it's retold today. Like the "meeting" where Jim got "fired" - he and VPW's relationship was up and down for months before that. I remember several times talking to Jim where he sounded like he was "out", then "in", then "WTF, WGAS" the next. The event itself was a surprise to most people around the bay area but he'd quit a couple times that month already.
Jim meant well and I loved him dearly. He had a huge impact on my life. But with Jim you had to know going in where he was at, and his limits. I will never regret knowing him and be thankful for the time we had together. He knew as I came to know, the reality of life.
The following week Jim and I talked over the phone as he did with many people many times that week I'm sure - we visited him about a week later, at his home and out at a local club. Jim was reprinting a white syllabus with a title like - something to the effect of "Abundant Living with Power" or something like that. It was pretty much a reworked PFAL syllabus. We talked about what to do next, and he clearly didn't have a clue. He was hurt and angry no big surprise there, we were too. Not at him but at the way the whole thing was being handled - VPW wasn't offering a lot of details and neither was or did Jim - unless you called him or hooked up with him. Same with VPW - I called back to Ohio and was told to talk to Townsend when he came out. So it all went down the tubes very quickly from what it was to what was next.
I never had the pleasure of having my face melted by Donna but have seen her unlash rabid attacks on people for very little offences. She sat in her ivory tower with a nanny and house cleaner, while treating regular moms like crap. You know the moms who had to work a real job then come home and cook and clean for a family. She was so judgmental in that bull.... family class with L.C.M. You know the class after C.F. &S. Her and L.CM. Could not even say adultery was wrong……
I never knew the nice Donna just the Donna that looked down on people and blamed bad things
on people for leaving the way. I am sure someone here can find that rant.
Blaming people for bad things that happen and saying they have a secret sin. Or leaving the Way opens the door for the devil..
This is all pure bs.
I will not and do not blame God for bad things. I will play her logic and ask her (please pass this on to her JOHN L.). What was your secret sin that allowed the DEVIL to attack you and cause the brain tumor? Why were there problems after to cause you to have more operations and then a slow healing process last November? Why could your girlfriend the president of the Way not
Ask God to heal you? Is she not the anointed one who has Gods ear? Is this not Gods ministry?
I knew Donna at Emporia in the late 70's...I found her to be arrogant, condescending, and always ready to belittle someone...never liked her...not even a little.
I knew Donna at Emporia in the late 70's...I found her to be arrogant, condescending, and always ready to belittle someone...never liked her...not even a little.
Was the same when I knew her from 2003 to 2008, except worse.
Everyone in the know was in the hush-hush mode. You see if it was me a long standing believer in the way
I would be raked over the coals for lack of believing. I would be grilled for a secret sin I had. My good
name would be tarnished or perhaps I would be leveled under the influence of the adv..I would be kicked out.
Never blame the miniestry is one of the spoken rules. Any thing that cant be fixed easy or something big like a Brain Tumor makes the way look like any other church with no power.
You see the way has no power. God does but he left New Knoxville for the coast a long long time ago.
She could not be healed. She was left alone with no guilt to heal. The way it should be done..Then there were problams and more sugery. Still hush-hush and she is better now.
Moral of the story if you are little you are fair game. If you sleep with the last threee presidents of the way
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OldSkool
Sounds like another happy day at the commune. Glad you had the guts to stand up to that one.
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waysider
That's all it really was, ya know? It was just a commune, with a religious twist.
(Sorry for dragging this off topic.)
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JavaJane
Everybody got to get up your business, you know??
Remember the weekly schedules some of you people had to turn in? I remember my mom telling me that they had to schedule sex with their spouse and then put it on the schedule for approval while they were in residence. Then their coordinator would tell them if they thought they hadn't allotted enough time or if they had allotted too much. Good grief.
And, from what I understand, the department coordinators at HQ would pick up people's mail and deliver it to their employees?? (Of course, all of it was handled by the Procuress, Ramona first)... I always thought that was a bit of an invasion of privacy.
Sounds like you won that argument, What?
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What About It
Yep. A few things changed in the department after that.
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Nottawayfer
What was her response when you told her your personal business had no business on a ministry calendar?
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Bolshevik
You're awesome, WAI.
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excathedra
she really really CHANGED. i mean it. when i knew her, i had a personal thing and she honored it. it was in the 70's
i think she should have stayed away from that old witch lady
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Sunesis
I agree with Excie - Donna had a lot of compassion for people.
Now she sounds like a petty little tyrant with a seared conscience.
If you could get her out of there and away from Rosie for a few years, she'd become a totally different person - probably the one she once was.
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Ham
sounds almost like a "deprogramming" effort or something..
will she leave? very very likely, not of her own will..
just saying..
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What About It
That was about the end of it. She knew that was true and didn't even argue her point anymore. I made it clear to her and to my dept. coord. (her sister--nepotism runs big at TWI) that anything outside of work related to me was not to say anything except "out" by my name after that. I ended up admitting that I shouldn't have marked on the calendar without permission (because you know you have to confess your broken fellowship to get back in their good graces). So we left it at that and they didn't ask me too many questions after that.
Wow, hard to believe she used to be that way. I always got the feeling whenever she just wanted to sit down and talk that she was fishing for some dirt. I definitely wouldn't describe her as compassionate. In fact, when I was talking to my husband about her one time I think the term I used was "stressed out dominatrix."
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waysider
I'm glad you're no longer under their control. :)
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Sunesis
Well power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I was friends with a couple of her sisters and they told me both her and LCM's parents were opposed to LCM being made president of TWI. They felt they were way too young for that kind of power and money that would be coming their way.
Sounds like the moms and dads were right.
But, I can think of one incident, near the time I fled HQ and staff, where the hardness of heart was starting to become quite evident.
Glad you got out!
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penworks
My memories and opinions are this:
The Donna I knew in the early 1970s was compassionate. Although she, along with the rest of us, let VP's hardness of heart corrupt her view of Jim Doop, for instance. She'd been his secretary out in Calif. when VP "fired" Doop at a meeting. (described in Karl Kahler's book The Cult That Snapped.) After that, VP brought her to HQ to work in the secretarial pool in Trailer 5. At that time, the staff and Corps took that old version of Dale Carnegie's class together. I remember her being very passionate about THE WORD being the truth, in one of her speeches, and that nothing would stop her from sticking with TWI no matter what. I suspected the incident out in Calif. with Doop being painted as a traitor or something added a lot of fuel to her fire and determination to be loyal to VP.
Then after staff, she entered the 4th Corps.
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Sunesis
I will still never understand VP and his hold on people. I guess I was one of the few people in TWI who did not personally like him. Even from the first time I met him in Rye at Tim Bishop's house when he drove in from HQ on his bike. There was just something that almost made me physically sick being around him. I told this feeling to another leader there and was told I had a spiritual problem and to, politely told, get over it. So, it was the Bible I wanted to learn, so I ignored him, even in the corps and avoided him as much as possible which was very easy to do with the hundreds of corps by the time I was there.
I wonder why it was so important for Donna her to "prove" to VP she wasn't a "traitor."
I think people who worshipped him or would die for him, had some serious father/abandonment/need for attention issues.
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GeorgeStGeorge
My only direct contact with DM was at the Word in Business, I think in 1996. It was the Saturday evening "Do." On my way into the dance hall, I had seen LCM heading back into the hotel proper. Since DM was unattended, I thought she might like to dance, and I asked her. She immediately looked around to find another young lady to dance with me, assuring me that there were plenty to choose from! Maybe she thought it wouldn't have been proper for someone in her "station"; but I honestly think she was just trying to bless me.
As a sidenote: in those days, I simply assumed that LCM was headed to the hotel for ministry business. Now I wonder if it was "funny business."
George
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excathedra
i don't know. definitely could be due to her own demons coming back to haunt her
plus what's that saying when you start believing your own publicity ????
i think there were some people who got hoodwinked and some who came in and then decided on a plan
(not excusing the hoodwinked hanger-on'ers)
donna is like an old lady now (like me lol) -- she isn't going anywhere
sunesis my friend you were so wise with your heebie jeebies about the one-eyed bandit
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socks
I don't know anything about shouting matches with Donna. I myself would never shout at a match.
:biglaugh:
The side topic of Jim and VPW and California, and etc. etc. etc....
As most of you know (or don't) I knew Jim (and Steve Heef-ster) and all the gang back in the late 60's - their group in S.F., House of Acts and the Haight mission, most of the early crowd and after VPW came out and few went to Ohio that summer, etc. etc. etc.
This whole story isn't as clean a cut as it's retold today. Like the "meeting" where Jim got "fired" - he and VPW's relationship was up and down for months before that. I remember several times talking to Jim where he sounded like he was "out", then "in", then "WTF, WGAS" the next. The event itself was a surprise to most people around the bay area but he'd quit a couple times that month already.
Jim meant well and I loved him dearly. He had a huge impact on my life. But with Jim you had to know going in where he was at, and his limits. I will never regret knowing him and be thankful for the time we had together. He knew as I came to know, the reality of life.
The following week Jim and I talked over the phone as he did with many people many times that week I'm sure - we visited him about a week later, at his home and out at a local club. Jim was reprinting a white syllabus with a title like - something to the effect of "Abundant Living with Power" or something like that. It was pretty much a reworked PFAL syllabus. We talked about what to do next, and he clearly didn't have a clue. He was hurt and angry no big surprise there, we were too. Not at him but at the way the whole thing was being handled - VPW wasn't offering a lot of details and neither was or did Jim - unless you called him or hooked up with him. Same with VPW - I called back to Ohio and was told to talk to Townsend when he came out. So it all went down the tubes very quickly from what it was to what was next.
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copenhagen
I never had the pleasure of having my face melted by Donna but have seen her unlash rabid attacks on people for very little offences. She sat in her ivory tower with a nanny and house cleaner, while treating regular moms like crap. You know the moms who had to work a real job then come home and cook and clean for a family. She was so judgmental in that bull.... family class with L.C.M. You know the class after C.F. &S. Her and L.CM. Could not even say adultery was wrong……
She also sat at the big top at the R.OA. And was so sweet and seemed like she had it all together in her teaching on parenting. She is such a fraud. She could not even get it down with the Way international raising her kids. It is well documented here at the café that one is a little wild and one has nothing to do with the way.
I never knew the nice Donna just the Donna that looked down on people and blamed bad things
on people for leaving the way. I am sure someone here can find that rant.
Blaming people for bad things that happen and saying they have a secret sin. Or leaving the Way opens the door for the devil..
This is all pure bs.
I will not and do not blame God for bad things. I will play her logic and ask her (please pass this on to her JOHN L.). What was your secret sin that allowed the DEVIL to attack you and cause the brain tumor? Why were there problems after to cause you to have more operations and then a slow healing process last November? Why could your girlfriend the president of the Way not
Ask God to heal you? Is she not the anointed one who has Gods ear? Is this not Gods ministry?
Copenhagen
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Twinky
Donna has/had a brain tumor?? :blink: Maybe (in fact) that's what's caused something of a change in her behavior?
Donna's sins aren't secret, they're plain for all to see. Well, some of 'em.
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GrouchoMarxJr
I knew Donna at Emporia in the late 70's...I found her to be arrogant, condescending, and always ready to belittle someone...never liked her...not even a little.
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OldSkool
Was the same when I knew her from 2003 to 2008, except worse.
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waysider
Back to the brain tumor thing.
Must have been kept really hush-hush if even the Cafe patrons were unaware.
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GrouchoMarxJr
brain tumor?...you mean Donna had/has devil spirits in her head? ...at least according to twi teachings she does...gosh, what a shocker.
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copenhagen
Waysider
Everyone in the know was in the hush-hush mode. You see if it was me a long standing believer in the way
I would be raked over the coals for lack of believing. I would be grilled for a secret sin I had. My good
name would be tarnished or perhaps I would be leveled under the influence of the adv..I would be kicked out.
Never blame the miniestry is one of the spoken rules. Any thing that cant be fixed easy or something big like a Brain Tumor makes the way look like any other church with no power.
You see the way has no power. God does but he left New Knoxville for the coast a long long time ago.
She could not be healed. She was left alone with no guilt to heal. The way it should be done..Then there were problams and more sugery. Still hush-hush and she is better now.
Moral of the story if you are little you are fair game. If you sleep with the last threee presidents of the way
they leave you alone..
copenhagen
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