There is not a day goes by that I am SO THANKFUL to have walked away from the twit-cult.
Twi is deeply, irreversibly poisoned with wierwille clichés, clap-trap, and chicanery.
People are used and exploited......and discarded at the first sign of dissent.
Going on twi-payroll...........is a financial red hole that is hard to climb out.
What does it say about a "ministry" (cough, cough) when clergy/corps do NOT want to be on staff?
Every aspect of the field staff was monitored.........the cult does NOT trust the corps to lead or serve.
**********************
THEN, we moved back to Indiana in 2000........and, a couple years later, saw SPLINTER GROUPS doing the same crap [badgering people to give up their weekend and work cleaning up the CES camp, sign up for momentus, personal prophecies, nose-spiders.......EGADS!!]
Some of our "friends" were in Geer-group, CFF, CES, Finnygan, and then....Panarell0 splinter.
Was at a wedding reception where "friends" associated with four different groups. Crazy.
Most still held wierwille on this pronounced pedestal......embedded with a pfal-allegiance chip.
Thankfully, I was able to convince two people to NOT sign up for momentus. [Congrats!]
No Jason Bournes to be found.......few wanted to talk in-depth to see behind the cult-splinter curtains.
Just seems like this cult stuff is going to be part-n-parcel to the rest of my life. Once you see the telltale signs of cults its inescapable to not recognize it all around........indoctrination, buzzwords, mystique, spirituality-climbing, charismatic leader, deception, etc. etc. etc.
Greasespot Café is a special place........special patrons.
The book is... well, amazing. (this video is less than four minutes)
But what I found particularly salient in the book, from the standpoint of our common cult history, is a section (pg 250 in the hardback edition) called Ignoramus.
"Humans have sought to understand the universe at least since the Cognitive Revolution. Our ancestors put a great deal of time and effort into trying to discover the rules that govern the natural world. But modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways:
a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus -- 'we do not know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge...
The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance."
To me, the significance of that concept cannot be overstated.
What was the critical essence of The Way International, Victor Paul Wierwille and Loy Craig Martindale? Well, beside the fact that the expression "The Way" was ostensibly invoked in the name of the cult because Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life, Jesus wasn't the focal point of the cult, nor was Jesus' Father. The focal point and the fulcrum on which the entire "movement" turned was Wierwille's (outrageous and fictional) claim that God made Wierwille the keeper of God's truth (i.e. the snowstorm claim).
We (those of us who were around when Wierwille and Martindale were in power, at least) also know that there was no humility in veepee's claim to be the (to borrow a phrase from HULU's series "The Path") keeper of the light.
Those who fell into TWI subsequent to Wierwille/Martindale have the tremendous resource of Charlene's memoir, Undertow. Charlene eloquently exposed Wierwille's hubris and how it played out in his "research department."
The Way International is the anti-thesis of how to actually discover truth. And the social structure Wierwille established to glorify himself demonstrates the dysfunction of that hubris.
And Skyrider, I concur emphatically with you regarding those who have set up copycat ministries.
Those who fell into TWI subsequent to Wierwille/Martindale have the tremendous resource of Charlene's memoir, Undertow. Charlene eloquently exposed Wierwille's hubris and how it played out in his "research department."
The Way International is the anti-thesis of how to actually discover truth. And the social structure Wierwille established to glorify himself demonstrates the dysfunction of that hubris.
And Skyrider, I concur emphatically with you regarding those who have set up copycat ministries.
Thanks Rocky......lots of good points.
Everything wierwille did, he copied from someone else........radio broadcast, church advertisements, weekend seminars, class-based themes, camps farthest out, summer camp, multi-level pyramid structure, plagiarized material.....ALL OF IT. Even mrs. wierwille's book pulls back the curtain to show the source of wierwille's steppingstones. Wierwille copied Fuller's weekly radio broadcast, even. Nothing original, nothing groundbreaking.
And now..........their "research department" is nonexistent. Now that the machinery of the cult-mystique is in place....."research" is no longer needed. In fact, it only becomes a hindrance in that it opens doors to questions. Twi has always operated behind closed-doors.
The "social structure" in twi is NOTHING but a cult version of a pecking order. The social aspect subsides within the "command and control" atmosphere of twit-cultdom...... otherwise, there is no reason for the "social." It only exists to pay homage to the cult.
We (those of us who were around when Wierwille and Martindale were in power, at least) also know that there was no humility in veepee's claim to be the (to borrow a phrase from HULU's series "The Path") keeper of the light.
Yeah.......wierwille "keeper of the light"
NOW.......with the internet, it is so easy to google anything and check it out.
Wierwille got his "doctor of theology degree" from a BOGUS correspondence degree-mill. Even as early as 1963......the Baptist Program magazine noted the gimmicks and bargain-basement style of these places where non-denominational preachers were ensnared by this status-seeking mode. Wierwille did his meager correspondence work with Pikes Peak Seminary and Burton College in Manitou Springs, CO in 1948.
Everything wierwille did, he copied from someone else........radio broadcast, church advertisements, weekend seminars, class-based themes, camps farthest out, summer camp, multi-level pyramid structure, plagiarized material.....ALL OF IT. ... Wierwille copied Fuller's weekly radio broadcast, even. Nothing original, nothing groundbreaking.
Interesting, I was somewhere recently and heard about some other thing, and I thought: "Ha, TWI did that!" and they did, a few years after the event that I was talking of. Can't remember details now. (Sorry, that sounds vague - I mean, TWI was copying something else that was already out in public, and passing it off as their own.) As said above: "Once you see the telltale signs of cults, it's inescapable to not recognize it all around........"
I'll give VPW this. He was an expert. He was expert at copying what others did, and passing it off as his own. If only he had spent as much time with the Lord as he did in finding and copying other people's ideas ... well, we'd all be in a different place now.
It's often said that prisons are universities for criminals, at least some of them, where people can hone their knowledge of their chosen line of crime, make new connections, etc. I'm thinking that TWI and in particular the WC was a university for fraudsters and plagiarists, for those of that bent who wanted to learn the ropes from experts. (Thankfully, most of us were better-intentioned.)
"On July 5, 1948, our family of five began a trip in our new 1948 Chevrolet, given to us by the Wierwille family, to Manitou Springs, Colorado. Rev. Wierwille had been taking correspondence work with Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College and writing his doctoral dissertation on "Peter the Preacher." By being in attendance at the seminary in Colorado, he was completing his requirements for a Doctor of Theology degree. Students there came from India and China as well as various parts of the United States.
Along with taking course work, Rev. Wierwille also taught two classes: 'Radio Preaching Techniques' and 'Peter the Preacher.' On Wednesday, July 28, 1948, he was awarded the Doctor of Theology degree by Pikes Peak Seminary in a ceremony at the Community Congregational Church in Manitou Springs. Immediately after his graduation, the five of us left for Minnesota for the Camp Farthest Out at Lake Koronis. It was a tremendous and exceptional summer to have our young family experience both occasions."
Insert picture: Dr. Wierwille on the right at Pikes Peak Seminary. Dr. Stuart Hydanus, who later taught at one of our camps, is on the left. And Dr. Ellis Lininger, the president of the seminary and an educator whom Dr. Wierwille highly revered, is second from the left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1948 Commencement Brochure:
Pikes Peak Bible Seminary
and Burton College
SUMMER SESSION JULY, 1948
COMMENCEMENT
WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1948
Community Congregational Church
Manitou Springs, Colorado
The Rev. H. Ellis Lininger, E.D., LL. D.
President
The Rev. Lewis C. Miller, Ps,D., S.T.D.
Dean
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: In 1948, Pikes Peak Seminary and Burton College utilized the nearby Community Congregational Church for graduation ceremony........whereas, by 1963, the graduation ceremonies was held at the First Southern Baptist Church auditorium.
Further Noted: After wierwille got his "doctorate degree" in 1948, the wierwille family THEN headed off to take part in Camps Farthest Out in Minnesota.....[wierwille had attended this camp by Glenn Clark in the summer of 1945, also].....which led to wierwille's version TFI, "Total Fitness Institute" in California with John Summerv!lle and later, L.E.A.D. --- Leadership Education Adventure Direction.
My purpose of this thread was to encapsulate the timeline of 1989-1998......ie my field perspective as a limb coordinator of what happened from lcm's loyalty-letter to when we exited the twit-cult and the corps full-time "revelation" came to a screeching halt in 1998. End of timeline.
AND YET, the pompous organization that dictated authoritarian rule in my life.....STILL has left wierwille's "biography" hanging UNFINISHED.
Mrs. W's book covers 1916-1961.........
Every time the wierwille "credentials and doctorate degree" surface........I am amused that the way-to-exploit international hasn't figured out how INEPT they look: the founding president's biography stops in 1961. Where are the last 24 YEARS of his life?Only 4 YEARS after he got off church payroll, what happened? Why the fizzle on the launch pad of results?
Who writes a biography of one's life stopping at age 44?
My purpose of this thread was to encapsulate the timeline of 1989-1998......ie my field perspective as a limb coordinator of what happened from lcm's loyalty-letter to when we exited the twit-cult and the corps full-time "revelation" came to a screeching halt in 1998. End of timeline.
AND YET, the pompous organization that dictated authoritarian rule in my life.....STILL has left wierwille's "biography" hanging UNFINISHED.
Mrs. W's book covers 1916-1961.........
Every time the wierwille "credentials and doctorate degree" surface........I am amused that the way-to-exploit international hasn't figured out how INEPT they look: the founding president's biography stops in 1961. Where are the last 24 YEARS of his life?Only 4 YEARS after he got off church payroll, what happened? Why the fizzle on the launch pad of results?
Who writes a biography of one's life stopping at age 44?
A cult.........to project a mystique and persona.
.
My hunch is that they don't care how inept they look... perhaps because the lion's share of their revenue comes from overseas outreach. How many people outside the US either don't bother to search the interwebs for insight on TWI or don't have online access in the first place?
Two things...I google mapped the community congregational church where the commencement ceremony was held, and lo and behold...it was a couple of doors down from where I lived in Manitou in my early, carefree way daze. Not of importance in the whole scheme of things, but a bit strange to me. I also googled pikes peak seminary and found the name of another graduate...Billy James Hargis. Wikipedia's info on him is another wacko radio preacher from the 50's and 60's, whose underling was none other than David Noebel, the nut-job Wierwille brought in to teach at our advanced class back in the 70's. Messed-up wacked-out all the way around...
Nice to see you Tonto! Didn't know you lived in Manitou. I lived in the Springs and went to Manitou often. Great town! I also visited the ole seminary. It's now a bakery and bed and breakfast. Was T-Bone with back in those daze?
Great to see you too DWBH! When did you live in the Springs? I was in the Springs and Manitou from the fall of '73 to the summer of '75...not long enough, but I drank the koolaide and left to go WOW, where I met T-Bone. Get this...I worked at an 8-track tape factory as well as a used record store/head shop. :-) I think long ago it moved down the block a few doors and became a t-shirt shop. I never could figure out where the seminary was but that's funny it's now a B&B!
CS has certainly grown in population, but by nazi stronghold do you mean because of the conservative bend there? I've heard it's more that way than when I lived there.
Two things...I google mapped the community congregational church where the commencement ceremony was held, and lo and behold...it was a couple of doors down from where I lived in Manitou in my early, carefree way daze. Not of importance in the whole scheme of things, but a bit strange to me. I also googled pikes peak seminary and found the name of another graduate...Billy James Hargis. Wikipedia's info on him is another wacko radio preacher from the 50's and 60's, whose underling was none other than David Noebel, the nut-job Wierwille brought in to teach at our advanced class back in the 70's. Messed-up wacked-out all the way around...
David "the Marxist Minstrels" Noebel? What an unbelievable coincidence....
This was just one of the brilliant minds our Wicktor admired.
Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread, but it still amazes me how the pieces of the puzzle of insanity we escaped keep turning up.
Thanks tonto........yeah, more pieces to the puzzle.
Another thing that intrigues me is........what was wierwille doing near Gunnison, CO when he stumbled upon "Sleepy Hollow" aka camp gunnison? I remember that wierwille commented on a handshake deal to buy the rustic campground on the gunnison river, but why there? why Colorado?
Could it be that wierwille was taking a nostalgia trip to his ole Pikes Peak Seminary and then, continued west and stumbled upon this remote campgrounds? Perhaps, another one of his "revelations" to have a spot like Glenn Clark's "camps farthest out".......or similar. Wierwille, the forever plagiarist, was always in the market for copying someone else's successes. Heck, he could build Camp Gunnison into the greatest Christian camp in the whole, darn country.........couldn't he? /s
Another thing that intrigues me is........what was wierwille doing near Gunnison, CO when he stumbled upon "Sleepy Hollow" aka camp gunnison? I remember that wierwille commented on a handshake deal to buy the rustic campground on the gunnison river, but why there? why Colorado?
Filming porn movies on his motorcoach on the way back home from the orgies in California with the hippies? And drinking Drambuie?
Wow!!!! I have never, ever read anything like that before!!! I don't think I would ever have forgiven my family if they had done that to me. My family didn't like TWI, but they figured it was my life, and I was free to live it anyway I wanted too. Thanks for sharing this!!
On 5/12/2017 at 1:40 AM, Grace Valerie Claire said:
Wow!!!! I have never, ever read anything like that before!!! I don't think I would ever have forgiven my family if they had done that to me. My family didn't like TWI, but they figured it was my life, and I was free to live it anyway I wanted too. Thanks for sharing this!!
Grace.......well, since you've taken such an interest in my 1981 deprogramming experience, I decided that a response was in order.
Sure, at the time.....I was defiant and determined to break free from these deprogrammers, thugs, and my parents so that I could reunite with my fiancé and twi. It was heart-wrenching to have to choose "one side" and not the other. I couldn't have both.
Forgiveness came relatively easy for me regarding my parents.....
My parents deeply loved me and were trying, as best they could, with this "deprogramming intervention."
They believed, from what they'd heard and read, that once I graduated from the corps, I would be "gone forever."
They were willing to spend another $16,000 or so.......to deprogram my fiancé, too.
In their mind, this was an intervention.......what other avenues were available to helping extricate a loved one from a cult?
The depth of love my parents went thru to do this, especially my Mom, is a testament to parental love and family.
My parents welcomed me with open arms.......WHENEVER my wife and I visited them.
Yesterday.......was Mother's Day. My mother passed away two years ago. I spent the day in solemn thankfulness for the unconditional love she lived. She went "far beyond her comfort zone" to try and help her youngest son out of a cult. Thankfully, I had 10 years with Dad (he died in 2008) and 17 years to reconcile my relationship with Mom. Forgiveness? It was easy.......looking thru the eyes of parental love.
skyrider, thanks for sharing all of this. 1989 was the year TWI sucked me in, although I'd taken PFAL in 1985. I was advanced class grad twice over by mid-90s, and the later 90s were such a nightmare. all the M&A, and I was living in a pretty remote area and was semi-M&A myself for a period of time where I was required to do that horrible schedule, but mine was in 15 minute increments and I had to write a weekly report on how well I stuck to my schedule.
and I was scared the entire time... of not renewing my mind, of the adversary killing my kids because of my mistakes (that were blown all out of proportion, all the way to HQ and back to closed-door meetings where I was worn down and coerced into consent) and I came to doubt every thought in my head. they took away my autonomy, completely.
it was this group of people here at GSC who helped me finally leave in 2006. I could not have done it without you. I had nothing and no-one, and it took a long time to heal. I've been mostly absent from the café the last few years still dealing with fall-out from the cult years, but also to a large extent rebuilding a better life, one true to myself. I've been compiling things into book form for my kids because I'll eventually pass on, and I feel like my kids deserve some explanation of those years, and it's still really difficult to put it into perspective, so I've been lurking here a bit more lately.
this thread stirred up a lot of memories. I remember when the announcement came down that the L people were going to take over your job. it felt horrible and wrong, and I stopped trusting everyone, so I was alone for all those years. I was conditioned not to trust outsiders, and I knew I couldn't trust insiders.
gods, it was so horrible.
when I left in 2006, I was so scared. I was scared of my children getting killed for my waywardness, and I was scared of getting phone calls and visits because I'd heard so many times that's what you do when you don't see someone at twig... but in the end all I got was an email. I was too poor to tithe much, so I don't think they cared much that I left.
it still took years for me to learn how to make my own decisions again. I'm so happy I'm not in it anymore.
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higherground30
Skyrider Thank you very much for sharing these hardhitting personal life stories. Im ready to give my background in the next couple of days in the new member area Oh and btw Happy new year
skyrider
The Pregnancy Policy What kind of board of directors legislates pregnancy policy to their employees? Forget diving into all the details......what gives them the right to insert when a couple s
potato
skyrider, thanks for sharing all of this. 1989 was the year TWI sucked me in, although I'd taken PFAL in 1985. I was advanced class grad twice over by mid-90s, and the later 90s were such a nightmare.
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Rocky
We are the sum and substance of our experience, eh?
This might seem like something of a tangent on the subject of this thread, but I think it goes directly to the heart of it.
Last night I finished reading (first time through anyway) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
The book is... well, amazing. (this video is less than four minutes)
But what I found particularly salient in the book, from the standpoint of our common cult history, is a section (pg 250 in the hardback edition) called Ignoramus.
"Humans have sought to understand the universe at least since the Cognitive Revolution. Our ancestors put a great deal of time and effort into trying to discover the rules that govern the natural world. But modern science differs from all previous traditions of knowledge in three critical ways:
a. The willingness to admit ignorance. Modern science is based on the Latin injunction ignoramus -- 'we do not know'. It assumes that we don't know everything. Even more critically, it accepts that the things that we think we know could be proven wrong as we gain more knowledge. No concept, idea or theory is sacred and beyond challenge...
The Scientific Revolution has not been a revolution of knowledge. It has been above all a revolution of ignorance."
To me, the significance of that concept cannot be overstated.
What was the critical essence of The Way International, Victor Paul Wierwille and Loy Craig Martindale? Well, beside the fact that the expression "The Way" was ostensibly invoked in the name of the cult because Jesus said he was the way, the truth and the life, Jesus wasn't the focal point of the cult, nor was Jesus' Father. The focal point and the fulcrum on which the entire "movement" turned was Wierwille's (outrageous and fictional) claim that God made Wierwille the keeper of God's truth (i.e. the snowstorm claim).
We (those of us who were around when Wierwille and Martindale were in power, at least) also know that there was no humility in veepee's claim to be the (to borrow a phrase from HULU's series "The Path") keeper of the light.
Those who fell into TWI subsequent to Wierwille/Martindale have the tremendous resource of Charlene's memoir, Undertow. Charlene eloquently exposed Wierwille's hubris and how it played out in his "research department."
The Way International is the anti-thesis of how to actually discover truth. And the social structure Wierwille established to glorify himself demonstrates the dysfunction of that hubris.
And Skyrider, I concur emphatically with you regarding those who have set up copycat ministries.
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skyrider
Thanks Rocky......lots of good points.
Everything wierwille did, he copied from someone else........radio broadcast, church advertisements, weekend seminars, class-based themes, camps farthest out, summer camp, multi-level pyramid structure, plagiarized material.....ALL OF IT. Even mrs. wierwille's book pulls back the curtain to show the source of wierwille's steppingstones. Wierwille copied Fuller's weekly radio broadcast, even. Nothing original, nothing groundbreaking.
And now..........their "research department" is nonexistent. Now that the machinery of the cult-mystique is in place....."research" is no longer needed. In fact, it only becomes a hindrance in that it opens doors to questions. Twi has always operated behind closed-doors.
The "social structure" in twi is NOTHING but a cult version of a pecking order. The social aspect subsides within the "command and control" atmosphere of twit-cultdom...... otherwise, there is no reason for the "social." It only exists to pay homage to the cult.
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skyrider
Yeah.......wierwille "keeper of the light"
NOW.......with the internet, it is so easy to google anything and check it out.
Wierwille got his "doctor of theology degree" from a BOGUS correspondence degree-mill. Even as early as 1963......the Baptist Program magazine noted the gimmicks and bargain-basement style of these places where non-denominational preachers were ensnared by this status-seeking mode. Wierwille did his meager correspondence work with Pikes Peak Seminary and Burton College in Manitou Springs, CO in 1948.
1963 Magazine -- Lists U.S. Diploma Mills
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Twinky
Get a fake degree at Pike's Peak - give a fake degree, from Indiana.
Monkey see, monkey do.
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Twinky
Interesting, I was somewhere recently and heard about some other thing, and I thought: "Ha, TWI did that!" and they did, a few years after the event that I was talking of. Can't remember details now. (Sorry, that sounds vague - I mean, TWI was copying something else that was already out in public, and passing it off as their own.) As said above: "Once you see the telltale signs of cults, it's inescapable to not recognize it all around........"
I'll give VPW this. He was an expert. He was expert at copying what others did, and passing it off as his own. If only he had spent as much time with the Lord as he did in finding and copying other people's ideas ... well, we'd all be in a different place now.
It's often said that prisons are universities for criminals, at least some of them, where people can hone their knowledge of their chosen line of crime, make new connections, etc. I'm thinking that TWI and in particular the WC was a university for fraudsters and plagiarists, for those of that bent who wanted to learn the ropes from experts. (Thankfully, most of us were better-intentioned.)
Fake university, fake degrees. Perfect!
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skyrider
On page 67 of Mrs. Wierwille's book:
"On July 5, 1948, our family of five began a trip in our new 1948 Chevrolet, given to us by the Wierwille family, to Manitou Springs, Colorado. Rev. Wierwille had been taking correspondence work with Pikes Peak Bible Seminary and Burton College and writing his doctoral dissertation on "Peter the Preacher." By being in attendance at the seminary in Colorado, he was completing his requirements for a Doctor of Theology degree. Students there came from India and China as well as various parts of the United States.
Along with taking course work, Rev. Wierwille also taught two classes: 'Radio Preaching Techniques' and 'Peter the Preacher.' On Wednesday, July 28, 1948, he was awarded the Doctor of Theology degree by Pikes Peak Seminary in a ceremony at the Community Congregational Church in Manitou Springs. Immediately after his graduation, the five of us left for Minnesota for the Camp Farthest Out at Lake Koronis. It was a tremendous and exceptional summer to have our young family experience both occasions."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1948 Commencement Brochure:
Pikes Peak Bible Seminary
and Burton College
SUMMER SESSION JULY, 1948
COMMENCEMENT
WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 1948
Community Congregational Church
Manitou Springs, Colorado
The Rev. H. Ellis Lininger, E.D., LL. D.
President
The Rev. Lewis C. Miller, Ps,D., S.T.D.
Dean
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: In 1948, Pikes Peak Seminary and Burton College utilized the nearby Community Congregational Church for graduation ceremony........whereas, by 1963, the graduation ceremonies was held at the First Southern Baptist Church auditorium.
Further Noted: After wierwille got his "doctorate degree" in 1948, the wierwille family THEN headed off to take part in Camps Farthest Out in Minnesota.....[wierwille had attended this camp by Glenn Clark in the summer of 1945, also].....which led to wierwille's version TFI, "Total Fitness Institute" in California with John Summerv!lle and later, L.E.A.D. --- Leadership Education Adventure Direction.
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waysider
They must have offered a course in speed reading.
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skyrider
My purpose of this thread was to encapsulate the timeline of 1989-1998......ie my field perspective as a limb coordinator of what happened from lcm's loyalty-letter to when we exited the twit-cult and the corps full-time "revelation" came to a screeching halt in 1998. End of timeline.
AND YET, the pompous organization that dictated authoritarian rule in my life.....STILL has left wierwille's "biography" hanging UNFINISHED.
Mrs. W's book covers 1916-1961.........
Every time the wierwille "credentials and doctorate degree" surface........I am amused that the way-to-exploit international hasn't figured out how INEPT they look: the founding president's biography stops in 1961. Where are the last 24 YEARS of his life? Only 4 YEARS after he got off church payroll, what happened? Why the fizzle on the launch pad of results?
Who writes a biography of one's life stopping at age 44?
A cult.........to project a mystique and persona.
.
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Rocky
My hunch is that they don't care how inept they look... perhaps because the lion's share of their revenue comes from overseas outreach. How many people outside the US either don't bother to search the interwebs for insight on TWI or don't have online access in the first place?
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DontWorryBeHappy
And you are one of them, Skyrider! Thanks for ALL you have shared, and, hopefully will continue to share! Love ya man!
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tonto
Two things...I google mapped the community congregational church where the commencement ceremony was held, and lo and behold...it was a couple of doors down from where I lived in Manitou in my early, carefree way daze. Not of importance in the whole scheme of things, but a bit strange to me. I also googled pikes peak seminary and found the name of another graduate...Billy James Hargis. Wikipedia's info on him is another wacko radio preacher from the 50's and 60's, whose underling was none other than David Noebel, the nut-job Wierwille brought in to teach at our advanced class back in the 70's. Messed-up wacked-out all the way around...
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DontWorryBeHappy
Nice to see you Tonto! Didn't know you lived in Manitou. I lived in the Springs and went to Manitou often. Great town! I also visited the ole seminary. It's now a bakery and bed and breakfast. Was T-Bone with back in those daze?
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tonto
Great to see you too DWBH! When did you live in the Springs? I was in the Springs and Manitou from the fall of '73 to the summer of '75...not long enough, but I drank the koolaide and left to go WOW, where I met T-Bone. Get this...I worked at an 8-track tape factory as well as a used record store/head shop. :-) I think long ago it moved down the block a few doors and became a t-shirt shop. I never could figure out where the seminary was but that's funny it's now a B&B!
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DontWorryBeHappy
I was in the Springs from 12/13 through 6/15. Manitou was a relief from the nazi stronghold of CS! LOL!
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tonto
CS has certainly grown in population, but by nazi stronghold do you mean because of the conservative bend there? I've heard it's more that way than when I lived there.
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WordWolf
David "the Marxist Minstrels" Noebel? What an unbelievable coincidence....
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tonto
WW, I just happened on this guy and I'll try to post a link, but no promises that my linkage-ability will work.
http://thislandpress.com/2012/11/02/the-strange-love-of-dr-billy-james-hargis/
Noebel is mentioned late in this article, but is also mentioned in Wiki...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_James_Hargis
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tonto
well, I just Wiki'd Noebel ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Noebel
This was just one of the brilliant minds our Wicktor admired.
Sorry, didn't mean to derail the thread, but it still amazes me how the pieces of the puzzle of insanity we escaped keep turning up.
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skyrider
Thanks tonto........yeah, more pieces to the puzzle.
Another thing that intrigues me is........what was wierwille doing near Gunnison, CO when he stumbled upon "Sleepy Hollow" aka camp gunnison? I remember that wierwille commented on a handshake deal to buy the rustic campground on the gunnison river, but why there? why Colorado?
Could it be that wierwille was taking a nostalgia trip to his ole Pikes Peak Seminary and then, continued west and stumbled upon this remote campgrounds? Perhaps, another one of his "revelations" to have a spot like Glenn Clark's "camps farthest out".......or similar. Wierwille, the forever plagiarist, was always in the market for copying someone else's successes. Heck, he could build Camp Gunnison into the greatest Christian camp in the whole, darn country.........couldn't he? /s
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chockfull
Filming porn movies on his motorcoach on the way back home from the orgies in California with the hippies? And drinking Drambuie?
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Rocky
Salacious conjecture, but he didn't have a motorcoach when he met with the hippies in California.
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Grace Valerie Claire
Wow!!!! I have never, ever read anything like that before!!! I don't think I would ever have forgiven my family if they had done that to me. My family didn't like TWI, but they figured it was my life, and I was free to live it anyway I wanted too. Thanks for sharing this!!
Edited by Grace Valerie ClaireLink to comment
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skyrider
Grace.......well, since you've taken such an interest in my 1981 deprogramming experience, I decided that a response was in order.
Sure, at the time.....I was defiant and determined to break free from these deprogrammers, thugs, and my parents so that I could reunite with my fiancé and twi. It was heart-wrenching to have to choose "one side" and not the other. I couldn't have both.
Forgiveness came relatively easy for me regarding my parents.....
Yesterday.......was Mother's Day. My mother passed away two years ago. I spent the day in solemn thankfulness for the unconditional love she lived. She went "far beyond her comfort zone" to try and help her youngest son out of a cult. Thankfully, I had 10 years with Dad (he died in 2008) and 17 years to reconcile my relationship with Mom. Forgiveness? It was easy.......looking thru the eyes of parental love.
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potato
skyrider, thanks for sharing all of this. 1989 was the year TWI sucked me in, although I'd taken PFAL in 1985. I was advanced class grad twice over by mid-90s, and the later 90s were such a nightmare. all the M&A, and I was living in a pretty remote area and was semi-M&A myself for a period of time where I was required to do that horrible schedule, but mine was in 15 minute increments and I had to write a weekly report on how well I stuck to my schedule.
and I was scared the entire time... of not renewing my mind, of the adversary killing my kids because of my mistakes (that were blown all out of proportion, all the way to HQ and back to closed-door meetings where I was worn down and coerced into consent) and I came to doubt every thought in my head. they took away my autonomy, completely.
it was this group of people here at GSC who helped me finally leave in 2006. I could not have done it without you. I had nothing and no-one, and it took a long time to heal. I've been mostly absent from the café the last few years still dealing with fall-out from the cult years, but also to a large extent rebuilding a better life, one true to myself. I've been compiling things into book form for my kids because I'll eventually pass on, and I feel like my kids deserve some explanation of those years, and it's still really difficult to put it into perspective, so I've been lurking here a bit more lately.
this thread stirred up a lot of memories. I remember when the announcement came down that the L people were going to take over your job. it felt horrible and wrong, and I stopped trusting everyone, so I was alone for all those years. I was conditioned not to trust outsiders, and I knew I couldn't trust insiders.
gods, it was so horrible.
when I left in 2006, I was so scared. I was scared of my children getting killed for my waywardness, and I was scared of getting phone calls and visits because I'd heard so many times that's what you do when you don't see someone at twig... but in the end all I got was an email. I was too poor to tithe much, so I don't think they cared much that I left.
it still took years for me to learn how to make my own decisions again. I'm so happy I'm not in it anymore.
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