Throwing it all away

[Raf]

This worked for me and maybe only because of the uniqueness of my experience, which was not quite the same as the rest of yours.

I'm not saying you guys all had the same experience. Just that you have a lot in common with each other but not with me. Namely, you actually were involved with TWI for quite some time and gave that group a significant part of your life. I was with TWI for under a year and was far more influenced by my experience in an offshoot than I was with the mothership.

So that said, I want to confess that I never really broke free from TWI and its offshoots until a couple of years ago. This was after figuring out what was right with it and what was wrong with it. This was after documenting actual errors in a hilarious but shockingly failed bid to get a devoted sycophant to recognize that there were real flaws in the work. This was after finding the original works of the robbed authors to document the rampant plagiarism that some people refuse to acknowledge to this day.

This was after my last twig, branch, fellowship, home teaching, tape, whatever you want to put as the word there.

This was after the Living Epistles Society, after To Wit, after generating and eliminating my own message board, after coming to terms with being ex-Way and ex-JW and an ex-husband to boot.

After all this, I finally broke free. And here's how.

I threw it all out.

I kept a couple of souvenirs, don't get me wrong, but most of the stuff is gone. If you searched my home today, you would find scant evidence that anyone named Wierwille ever existed, or that I ever once counted myself as an admirer of the books that were published in his name.

I threw it all out.

Every enslaving, insipid, ripped off piece of pseudo-religious propaganda is gone.

I threw it all out.

Because I never want my son to pick up a weathered copy of Christians Should Be Preposterous and ask, "Daddy, what's this?"

I threw it all out.

And when someone wrote something defending it, I didn't care anymore. And when someone wrote something exalting it above anything else that has ever been written, I didn't care anymore.

I threw it all out.

Physically. It's gone. And soon, it was gone mentally as well.

Oh sure, I'll never erase certain things. There was plenty of salvageable material in there that transcended its use and abuse, and I have been able to hang on to those things I want to keep. But I do the same with the things I learned in college. In high school. In church. In court. It's not an unusual process. It doesn't consume me. I don't lose sleep over it.

I threw it all out.

There's a great freedom in that.

Just my two cents. Keep the change.

[Sudo]

Hey Raf!

After all this time I didn't know you were with TWI for less than a year. You were sure knowledgeable about PFAL!! I think time serves us well, too. Wounds all heels. Like you, what TWI says today means nada to me. Uh, that's "nothing" in Spanish I should explain....

sudo

P.S. It gets harder and harder to take the subject seriously anymore

[waysider]

In a strange kind of way, it actually helps me to look at old materials, like the Advanced Class Silly-Bus, and marvel at how ludicrous the whole thing was. I chuckle when I think about how seriously I took the whole, bizarre experience. It's a bit like an old, embarrassing photo from jr. high school that reminds me of how far I've traveled in my journey and how glad I am to be where I am today..

Edited May 19, 2012 by waysider

[Steve Lortz]

I just want to thank you, Raf, for all the effort you put into the Actual Errors thread! It was instrumental for many of us in reaching some kind of agreement on what specifically was wrong with PFAL, and in re-adjusting our thinking accordingly. We recognize how frustrating it was to deal with certain parties participating in that thread, and we admire your persistence.

Time to move on? Yes, indeed! But we can move on more surely thanks to the contributions you have made. Thanks, again!

Love,

Steve

[johniam]

Hi Raf. Ironically, that was the heart behind burn the ballast day. You rid yourself of stuff that had a harmful effect on you. The only difference is that burn the ballast was a public acknowledgement that you did this (like that really made anybody holier), and you did it privately. But it obviously made for a lighter burden for you.

Not long ago I went through 4 tomato boxes of old sns tapes. More than 90% of the contents were put in the trash dumpster. I don't know when I'll move again; I just don't want stuff like that to clutter the process.

[OldSkool]

I tossed everything. I have some around a dozen .pdf files of Wierwille's works that I downloaded for reference when posting here at GSC. Otherwise, there is no evidence around my home I was ever associated with TWI and I certainly do NOT tell anyone I ever was. Frankly, I am embarrassed by them and my time spent with them is a shameful loss.

[krys]

I tossed everything, but I wish I had been more selective. But at least most of the research materials are on line. I have since bought back a book or two that I absolutely believe were God-given since the victoid didn't write them....but I have a pretty good idea who did....and it takes some study of these items on my part....but I now appreciate them.

Raf your contributions have done more to set me free than anything else I can find in the real world. God has helped with most of the work, though.

krys

[chockfull]

I still have Bibles and basic concordances/lexicons on my shelf. I have TWI materials boxed up in the garage, not because I can't bear to get rid of them, but more like for the same reasons I still have college textbooks in the garage. Also, I think I'm not throwing everything out just because "Burn the Chaff" day teachings in TWI I felt were full of cr@p. No, devil spirits are not going to invade my life because I still have a vinyl version of Led Zeppelin "Houses of the Holy" and Fleetwood Mac "Rumours". It's just stuff.

Maybe I'll throw it all out next time I move. Or maybe not.

[excathedra]

i might still have "the magic of thinking BIG" ;)

raf, ex-husband? i'm so sorry or whatever i should be

[OldSkool]

@Chock - ya, the burn the chaff crap was garbage the way it was used in TWI. Part of expunging one's former identity if you ask me. I threw all my TWI gear away out of the freedom to do so, and it felt good.

[waysider]

The important thing here is to throw it away (or keep it) because that's what YOU want to do, not because you feel pressured to do what Harry (he wasn't MY uncle) Wierwille might have wanted.

[Tzaia]

I've kept 1 copy of everything. Threw the rest out. I keep it because it keeps me humble. When I get to thinking I know everything, I just take a look at that stuff and remember where that thinking got me.

[skyrider]

Hi Raf. Ironically, that was the heart behind burn the ballast day. You rid yourself of stuff that had a harmful effect on you. The only difference is that burn the ballast was a public acknowledgement that you did this (like that really made anybody holier), and you did it privately. But it obviously made for a lighter burden for you.

Not long ago I went through 4 tomato boxes of old sns tapes. More than 90% of the contents were put in the trash dumpster. I don't know when I'll move again; I just don't want stuff like that to clutter the process.

Sounds about right......90% in trash dumpster.

As the years went by....it just became "stuff."

No adulation, no respect.......just stuff.

[Tzaia]

Was it actually called "burn the ballast"? That makes no sense. Ballast is necessary. I remember burn the chaff, which is a great thing - until someone defines for you what is worthless to you and then shames you into burning it up. My husband lost most of his extensive (what is now classic) rock collection that way. I simply never participated. My possessions were rather streamlined at that time and I have always had a problem with someone telling me what I can and can't read.

[Rejoice]

Sounds about right......90% in trash dumpster.

As the years went by....it just became "stuff."

No adulation, no respect.......just stuff.

Threw it all out long ago. Stuff needs dusting, and I wasn't spending one more minute dusting! Brings a new perspective to 'ashes to ashes...'

[mstar1]

98% of my stuff is gone. I didn't have an event, it just sort of dissipated over the years during cleanouts and moves. I still find a straggler of some sort here and there once in awhile and it goes or stays depending on my mood.

I do have my wow pin for I dont know what reason...just another strange artifact I guess...Right now it is pinned to a Voodoo doll I got in New Orleans

[Raf]

Clarification on the "ex-husband" comment. My marriage is thriving. We have two beautiful boys and we're dedicated to each other. My wife is my life (and a major reason I no longer have the time to post here as much as I once did).

I was married and divorced before I ever connected with Waydale or Greasespot Cafe.

Thanks to everyone for the kind words, and I'm glad all that stuff helped break people free. But as long as I was writing them, I was still bound, in a lot of ways. Now I admit it and am free from it.

Hey Raf!

After all this time I didn't know you were with TWI for less than a year. You were sure knowledgeable about PFAL!! I think time serves us well, too. Wounds all heels. Like you, what TWI says today means nada to me. Uh, that's "nothing" in Spanish I should explain....

sudo

P.S. It gets harder and harder to take the subject seriously anymore

Isn't it?

I thought I told the story many times: took the class in 88 and was out in 89, but spent the next six years as a devoted member of an offshoot, so it's not like I left entirely. Now, the fact that Wierwille taught something makes me kind of giggle a little, but I put no stock in it.

[Keith]

They sit on my shelves for the most part never used. Though I do use the NT aramic interliner from time to time. I have a lot of Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and interliners that I use a lot it's one among the many. I might use one of the other books from time to time because the teaching is sound "You are Righteous Now" comes to mind, but I haven't looked at it for about four or five years so I can't say for certain. Honestly, I think the last time I opened one of the other books was because I was trying to remember a verse that for some reason I had blanked out and after all those TWI years I still remembered it was quoted in one of the collaterals even if I no longer agreed with the teaching in the collateral.

I don't hid my association from the way. I feel that I should be honest about my background with any church I work with. It's helped them to understand me sometimes when I accidently use way-speak. But it has also helped them help me. I'm also honest about my drug & booze years in the late 60's and early 70's. A long time ago I decided that I would make my life story available to any who wanted to know it. It's kept a few people from making the same mistakes or worse.

[OldSkool]

I don't hid my association from the way. I feel that I should be honest about my background with any church I work with. It's helped them to understand me sometimes when I accidently use way-speak.

I wouldn't lie about my involvement. I don't volunteer it though.

Edited May 21, 2012 by OldSkool

[Keith]

Depends on the situation.

[OldSkool]

^^It's really an individual preference.

[excathedra]

happy to hear that, raf

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

I don't use wierwille's materials but have used the original sources at times, eg. Torrey, Kenyon, Bullinger, Wigglesworth, Lamsa and Errico,Stiles, Leonard, Vale, Mosley(but no longer Pillai)

[Twinky]

And where, Raf, is the button for "I burned the bloody things"?

...tapes. Books (I tore up and burned the "Red Thread" and a load of other books). Notes (and notes and notes...)

In fact, there is still a box of notes that is this winter's firelighting material.

Burned, because I didn't want them in paper recycling or in landfill, in case someone got hold of them, started reading and was gullible enough to want to find out more.

I retain some non-TWI publications.

And I have my journals. But they're "me" and I can look back and laugh (compassionately) at the sad sad person who wrote them.

[waysider]

Warning!!

Do not click the following link if "going off-topic" bothers you.

Throwing It All Away.