It's interesting to consider, they told us in advance what we were getting into with statements like the "greatest leaders are the greatest followers". While it's true that leadership typically function in a chain of command where following the next higher up is needed, however, never never is the greatest leader the greatest follower because all I've seen the greatest followers do is look for direction that's safe and comfortable. True leadership can run against the grain at times not always offer safety and comfort to the egotistical follower.
And….. then the question becomes, “If the greatest leaders are the greatest followers, who did wierwille follow?”
Sure, wierwille listened to radio preachers, broadcast sermons, E. Stanley Jones and others, and plagiarized plenty of work… BUT WHO DID WIERWILLE FOLLOW? No chain-of-command-follow-the-leader was a part of wierwille’s past. He was far too arrogant and narcissistic to be subordinate to another’s daily regiment. This man was one of the most hypocritical Pharisees when it came to these knee-jerk one-liners. Sheeessh!
Those who STILL prescribe to this huckster’s “greatness” have serious critical thinking issues in play.
My meaning was I was a kid and when I questioned matters I was told I'd understand when I became an adult. By being a kid I didn't have the ability to understand.
And….. then the question becomes, “If the greatest leaders are the greatest followers, who did wierwille follow?”
Sure, wierwille listened to radio preachers, broadcast sermons, E. Stanley Jones and others, and plagiarized plenty of work… BUT WHO DID WIERWILLE FOLLOW? No chain-of-command-follow-the-leader was a part of wierwille’s past. He was far too arrogant and narcissistic to be subordinate to another’s daily regiment. This man was one of the most hypocritical Pharisees when it came to these knee-jerk one-liners. Sheeessh!
Those who STILL prescribe to this huckster’s “greatness” have serious critical thinking issues in play.
As a narcissist he only truly followed himself. He believed his own hype that he was called very specifically to teach people the Word like it hasn’t been known since the first century.
I used to believe the second hand hype story, then through examination and critical thinking later discarded it as delusional.
his followers would say God...thats what I used to think. Now im thinking he followed his own lusts and those lusts were his god.
Okay.... if the answer is "follow God"
THEN, why can't I just "follow God?" Why was wierwille gifted to keep it simple? What gave wierwille the right to stand on an elevated pedestal that you nor I were NOT allowed to stand?
If I could just "follow God"...... why did I need to go into the stinking way corps training program?
THEN, why can't I just "follow God?" Why was wierwille gifted to keep it simple? What gave wierwille the right to stand on an elevated pedestal that you nor I were NOT allowed to stand/
If I could just "follow God"...... why did I need to go into the stinking way corps training program?
I feel the simple answer is wierwille tried to take the place of Christ. God directs us to Jesus Christ, so any attempts to climb up some other way make a person a thief and robber according to scripture. wierwille never pointed the way to Jesus Christ because then wierwille couldnt have been some great one standing next to God, instead he would have been a servant of Christ, something he didn't want for himself appearantly. I understand your questions are likely rhetorical, but I figured I would "think aloud" for a second...
It's interesting how that works. Just yesterday, my husband read the following to me from Gabor Mate's book the Myth of Normal (Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture). He said it reminded him of your last president and I said it reminded me of wierwille.
"The negative view of self may not always penetrate conscious awareness and may even masquerade as its opposite: high self-regard. Some people encase themselves in an armored coat of grandiosity and denial of any shortcomings so as not to feel that enervating shame. That self-puffery is as sure a manifestation of self-loathing as is abject self-deprecation, albeit a much more normalized one. It is a marker of our culture's insanity that certain individuals who flee from shame into a shameless narcissism may even achieve great social, economic, and political status and success."
Where he got his negative view of self and when did he started developing it would be interesting to know although I can understand many thinking "who cares." It doesn't change the fact that he was a faker and a bait switcher and a liar who was able to convince people they were living the more than abundant life he promised pfal would give then when in reality they weren't.
By every measure of logic and common sense..... when one breaks down all the components, we see that the corps program was an INDOCTRINATION PROGRAM. Wierwille/twi needed it to jumpstart and sustain his "movement."
Once it got thru the thick head of the narcissist wierwille that he COULD NOT be the sole motivator and outreach arm of twi..... he realized that youth leading youth was the golden ticket. In my opinion, that is why he accepted one and all who had sponsorship money to enter the corps. Wierwille had no investment in whether each corps person graduated or not. Like all things wierwille....he used and abused and discarded at will.
It's interesting how that works. Just yesterday, my husband read the following to me from Gabor Mate's book the Myth of Normal (Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture). He said it reminded him of your last president and I said it reminded me of wierwille.
"The negative view of self may not always penetrate conscious awareness and may even masquerade as its opposite: high self-regard. Some people encase themselves in an armored coat of grandiosity and denial of any shortcomings so as not to feel that enervating shame. That self-puffery is as sure a manifestation of self-loathing as is abject self-deprecation, albeit a much more normalized one. It is a marker of our culture's insanity that certain individuals who flee from shame into a shameless narcissism may even achieve great social, economic, and political status and success."
Where he got his negative view of self and when did he started developing it would be interesting to know.
Rocky had a thread on Malignant Narcissism and The Bible in The Open Forum. This is the story of Cain and Abel. God confronted Cain and Cain would not hear, he wanted what he wanted. Sam Vaknin has many videos online and a book on the topic, where he argues it begins in infancy due to mistreatment. (Cain was Eve's firstborn, possibly he was spoiled?) There's many other sources.
Rocky had a thread on Malignant Narcissism and The Bible in The Open Forum. This is the story of Cain and Abel. God confronted Cain and Cain would not hear, he wanted what he wanted. Sam Vaknin has many videos online and a book on the topic, where he argues it begins in infancy due to mistreatment. (Cain was Eve's firstborn, possibly he was spoiled?) There's many other sources.
twi's website says the following about their new pfal class, "The class sessions unfold the Word of God as the will of God to answer such crucial questions as:
1. How can I know what God’s will is for my life?" (Wasn't this also on the old green sign up card?) Here are a couple of questions and answers.
1) What is the will of God concerning our love for Him? Mark 12:29-31 is one place that gives an answer:
Mark 12:29-31“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God withall your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
2) What is the will of God concerning our love for Christ Jesus?
1 John 5:1 - Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
If we are to love God according to Mark 12:30 and if we are to pass this love onto His son as in 1 John 5:1, then we are to love Christ with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength (that covers the gamut). This is the will of God. Does the pfal class teach this? Does the ministry of twi consistently teach and practice this? IMHO and .
The Way International has utterly failed to come through on their #1 pfal claim concerning the #1 will of God. Has this affected our lives? Of course it has. Because of this broken promise, followers of twi cannot experience what Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3.
Ephesians 3:16-19 – 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This is a lot bigger than having a head knowledge of what Christ has done for us.
If we are to love God according to Mark 12:30 and if we are to pass this love onto His son as in 1 John 5:1, then we are to love Christ with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength (that covers the gamut). This is the will of God. Does the pfal class teach this? Does the ministry of twi consistently teach and practice this? IMHO and .
Even IF, somewhere in the PFLAP class something might reasonably and rationally be arguably construed to teach these greatest commandments (I don't remember... it HAS been a very long time since I sat through that boring malarkey ), it is abundantly obvious even NOW the practice of the ministry of twi does NOT teach or practice it.
His own pain? Which w/could account for his meanness.
I was the most miserable and meanest when I was drinking because as an alcoholic I couldn't stop. I knew how wrong I was but lacked the fortitude to quit drinking because I liked it too much. My rock bottom caused enough pain to hate the outcome more than I loved the poison. Consider wierwille in the same light....
all our hearts, soul, mind and strength (that covers with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength
6 minutes ago, Rocky said:
Even IF, somewhere in the PFLAP class something might reasonably and rationally be arguably construed to teach these greatest commandments (I don't remember... it HAS been a very long time since I sat through that boring malarkey ), it is abundantly obvious even NOW the practice of the ministry of twi does NOT teach or practice it.
I think you're right - vp probably did teach Mark 12:30 but by not teaching that we were to love Jesus Christ in the same manner, I think they left out an imperative part of God's will when teaching about it in pfal.
with all our heart - 2588 kardía – heart; the center and seat of spiritual life, "the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors"
with all our soul - psuché: breath, the soul(from psyxō, "to breathe, blow" which is the root of the English words "psyche," "psychology") – soul (psyche); a person's distinct identity (unique personhood), i.e. individual personality.
with all our mind -
1271 diánoia (from 1223 /diá, "thoroughly, from side-to-side," which intensifies 3539 /noiéō, "to use the mind," from 3563 /noús, "mind") – properly, movement from one side (of an issue) to the other to reach balanced-conclusions; full-orbed reasoning (= critical thinking), i.e. dialecticalthinking that literally reaches "across to the other side" (of a matter).
with all our strength - 479 ischus: strength, might (from the Gk root is, "force" and 2192/exō, "have") – properly, force to overcoming immediate resistance.
His own pain? Which w/could account for his meanness.
Yes his pain, of self-awareness.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, getting something now, whatever the cost, because of the inability to consider future benefits from sacrifice.
It occurs to me, in retrospect, the Promised Relief: Broken Promises directly ties in to the essence of twi as a counterfeit of Christian community. Twi never really was a modern day reenactment of the Book of Acts. It may have been an attempt thereof, but the manufactured mystique of Wierwille as the MOGFODAT [man of god for our day and time] preempted the overall effort (and qualified it as a CULT).
It's NOW clear Wierwille did not eschew money (see I Tim 6:6-10).
His ministry, from the inception of the film class version of PFLAP had the foundation of being a multi-level marketing scheme (Amway concept). It could reach out to many, but in doing so, it gave "The Great Man(TM)" a psychological profile he never overcame, including power over people.
While it's apparent in Acts when certain collegial leaders were imperfect, as written about there in, they could still be reasonably interpreted as not predominantly motivated by the Love of Money(TM).
How did Wierwille, Martindale, and Rivenbark differ from Peter or Paul? Wierwille got his name on buildings both at the Kansas campus and HQ; he got an airplane, a motorcoach (bus), and a motorcycle. All luxury items, at least two of which could be passed off as aiding the outreach of "God's Word." But clearly those items (all three) represented materialization of the TWI gilded era. And the bus was engineered (by way of social mechanisms) to further his USE of young women to feed his lust. For a time, by way of the social mechanism of the lockbox, prying eyes in the cult were kept in the dark about Wierwille's sexual escapades. Said lust was certainly a natural urge, but the power over enabled him to exercise that urge in ways incongruent to acceptable social norms.
Martindale apparently believed Wierwille had authorized him to use young women sexually. Rivenbark, perhaps among other things, was an abusive master of the workforce at HQ.
If prying eyes were to FIND OUT what Wierwille kept in his proverbial lockbox, his ability to control people by way of fear or guilt would be (and did) become at risk. As what exactly DID happen to Wierwille's successor, Loy Martindale. Which tragedy played out in a big way, with the Ohio civil courts forcing twi's hand and Martindale's exile.
Rivenbark, perhaps among other things, was an abusive master of the workforce at HQ.
She most definately was and her and donna were using craig as a proxy and pushing through policy when he was prez, such as the no debt policy. I always keep in mind with rosalie that she hated all the changes since martindale was ousted. That would leave a rather long list of changes she would rather have kept in place.
Pregnancy policy
No debt policy
Staff working on a need basis
Mandatory STS attendance or else
Mandatory noon meal attendance....etc...I think you guys get the point. When she made that statement she left no qualifiers, such as: I cant stand the changes weve had to make since martindale but....X policy caused Y and were better without it...nothing of the sort...just mad she had lost much of her control. People, generally speaking, had no idea how badly she wanted to micromanage. When she was department coordinator of way publications she set a bathroom policy for staff to sign in and out (indicating the time they left and the time they returned) to go use the restroom. She was sick...but they all were....
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skyrider
And….. then the question becomes, “If the greatest leaders are the greatest followers, who did wierwille follow?”
Sure, wierwille listened to radio preachers, broadcast sermons, E. Stanley Jones and others, and plagiarized plenty of work… BUT WHO DID WIERWILLE FOLLOW? No chain-of-command-follow-the-leader was a part of wierwille’s past. He was far too arrogant and narcissistic to be subordinate to another’s daily regiment. This man was one of the most hypocritical Pharisees when it came to these knee-jerk one-liners. Sheeessh!
Those who STILL prescribe to this huckster’s “greatness” have serious critical thinking issues in play.
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T-Bone
that was one of the most tantalizing big lies of upper leadership - hang in there, you'll become cool when you get spiritually mature like me
and Bolshevik, thanks for that great article on future faking!
Edited by T-Bonebecoming cool
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OldSkool
his followers would say God...thats what I used to think. Now im thinking he followed his own lusts and those lusts were his god.
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Bolshevik
I think vpw's deeper motivation was pain.
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chockfull
As a narcissist he only truly followed himself. He believed his own hype that he was called very specifically to teach people the Word like it hasn’t been known since the first century.
I used to believe the second hand hype story, then through examination and critical thinking later discarded it as delusional.
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skyrider
Okay.... if the answer is "follow God"
THEN, why can't I just "follow God?" Why was wierwille gifted to keep it simple? What gave wierwille the right to stand on an elevated pedestal that you nor I were NOT allowed to stand?
If I could just "follow God"...... why did I need to go into the stinking way corps training program?
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OldSkool
I feel the simple answer is wierwille tried to take the place of Christ. God directs us to Jesus Christ, so any attempts to climb up some other way make a person a thief and robber according to scripture. wierwille never pointed the way to Jesus Christ because then wierwille couldnt have been some great one standing next to God, instead he would have been a servant of Christ, something he didn't want for himself appearantly. I understand your questions are likely rhetorical, but I figured I would "think aloud" for a second...
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Charity
It's interesting how that works. Just yesterday, my husband read the following to me from Gabor Mate's book the Myth of Normal (Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture). He said it reminded him of your last president and I said it reminded me of wierwille.
"The negative view of self may not always penetrate conscious awareness and may even masquerade as its opposite: high self-regard. Some people encase themselves in an armored coat of grandiosity and denial of any shortcomings so as not to feel that enervating shame. That self-puffery is as sure a manifestation of self-loathing as is abject self-deprecation, albeit a much more normalized one. It is a marker of our culture's insanity that certain individuals who flee from shame into a shameless narcissism may even achieve great social, economic, and political status and success."
Where he got his negative view of self and when did he started developing it would be interesting to know although I can understand many thinking "who cares." It doesn't change the fact that he was a faker and a bait switcher and a liar who was able to convince people they were living the more than abundant life he promised pfal would give then when in reality they weren't.
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skyrider
By every measure of logic and common sense..... when one breaks down all the components, we see that the corps program was an INDOCTRINATION PROGRAM. Wierwille/twi needed it to jumpstart and sustain his "movement."
Once it got thru the thick head of the narcissist wierwille that he COULD NOT be the sole motivator and outreach arm of twi..... he realized that youth leading youth was the golden ticket. In my opinion, that is why he accepted one and all who had sponsorship money to enter the corps. Wierwille had no investment in whether each corps person graduated or not. Like all things wierwille....he used and abused and discarded at will.
.
Edited by skyridertypo
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Bolshevik
Rocky had a thread on Malignant Narcissism and The Bible in The Open Forum. This is the story of Cain and Abel. God confronted Cain and Cain would not hear, he wanted what he wanted. Sam Vaknin has many videos online and a book on the topic, where he argues it begins in infancy due to mistreatment. (Cain was Eve's firstborn, possibly he was spoiled?) There's many other sources.
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Charity
Thanks Colshevik - I'll check it out.
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Charity
twi's website says the following about their new pfal class, "The class sessions unfold the Word of God as the will of God to answer such crucial questions as:
1. How can I know what God’s will is for my life?" (Wasn't this also on the old green sign up card?) Here are a couple of questions and answers.
1) What is the will of God concerning our love for Him? Mark 12:29-31 is one place that gives an answer:
Mark 12:29-31 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
2) What is the will of God concerning our love for Christ Jesus?
1 John 5:1 - Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
If we are to love God according to Mark 12:30 and if we are to pass this love onto His son as in 1 John 5:1, then we are to love Christ with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength (that covers the gamut). This is the will of God. Does the pfal class teach this? Does the ministry of twi consistently teach and practice this? IMHO
and 
.
The Way International has utterly failed to come through on their #1 pfal claim concerning the #1 will of God. Has this affected our lives?
Of course it has. Because of this broken promise, followers of twi cannot experience what Paul prays for us in Ephesians 3.
Ephesians 3:16-19 – 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
This is a lot bigger than having a head knowledge of what Christ has done for us.
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Rocky
Even IF, somewhere in the PFLAP class something might reasonably and rationally be arguably construed to teach these greatest commandments (I don't remember... it HAS been a very long time since I sat through that boring malarkey
), it is abundantly obvious even NOW the practice of the ministry of twi does NOT teach or practice it.
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Rocky
His own pain? Which w/could account for his meanness.
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OldSkool
I was the most miserable and meanest when I was drinking because as an alcoholic I couldn't stop. I knew how wrong I was but lacked the fortitude to quit drinking because I liked it too much. My rock bottom caused enough pain to hate the outcome more than I loved the poison. Consider wierwille in the same light....
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Charity
all our hearts, soul, mind and strength (that covers with all our hearts, soul, mind and strength
I think you're right - vp probably did teach Mark 12:30 but by not teaching that we were to love Jesus Christ in the same manner, I think they left out an imperative part of God's will when teaching about it in pfal.
with all our heart - 2588 kardía – heart; the center and seat of spiritual life, "the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors"
with all our soul - psuché: breath, the soul (from psyxō, "to breathe, blow" which is the root of the English words "psyche," "psychology") – soul (psyche); a person's distinct identity (unique personhood), i.e. individual personality.
with all our mind -
1271 diánoia (from 1223 /diá, "thoroughly, from side-to-side," which intensifies 3539 /noiéō, "to use the mind," from 3563 /noús, "mind") – properly, movement from one side (of an issue) to the other to reach balanced-conclusions; full-orbed reasoning (= critical thinking), i.e. dialectical thinking that literally reaches "across to the other side" (of a matter).with all our strength - 479 ischus: strength, might (from the Gk root is, "force" and 2192/ex ō, "have") – properly, force to overcoming immediate resistance.
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Bolshevik
Yes his pain, of self-awareness.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, getting something now, whatever the cost, because of the inability to consider future benefits from sacrifice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment
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Rocky
It occurs to me, in retrospect, the Promised Relief: Broken Promises directly ties in to the essence of twi as a counterfeit of Christian community. Twi never really was a modern day reenactment of the Book of Acts. It may have been an attempt thereof, but the manufactured mystique of Wierwille as the MOGFODAT [man of god for our day and time] preempted the overall effort (and qualified it as a CULT).
It's NOW clear Wierwille did not eschew money (see I Tim 6:6-10).
His ministry, from the inception of the film class version of PFLAP had the foundation of being a multi-level marketing scheme (Amway concept). It could reach out to many, but in doing so, it gave "The Great Man(TM)" a psychological profile he never overcame, including power over people.
While it's apparent in Acts when certain collegial leaders were imperfect, as written about there in, they could still be reasonably interpreted as not predominantly motivated by the Love of Money(TM).
How did Wierwille, Martindale, and Rivenbark differ from Peter or Paul? Wierwille got his name on buildings both at the Kansas campus and HQ; he got an airplane, a motorcoach (bus), and a motorcycle. All luxury items, at least two of which could be passed off as aiding the outreach of "God's Word." But clearly those items (all three) represented materialization of the TWI gilded era. And the bus was engineered (by way of social mechanisms) to further his USE of young women to feed his lust. For a time, by way of the social mechanism of the lockbox, prying eyes in the cult were kept in the dark about Wierwille's sexual escapades. Said lust was certainly a natural urge, but the power over enabled him to exercise that urge in ways incongruent to acceptable social norms.
Martindale apparently believed Wierwille had authorized him to use young women sexually. Rivenbark, perhaps among other things, was an abusive master of the workforce at HQ.
If prying eyes were to FIND OUT what Wierwille kept in his proverbial lockbox, his ability to control people by way of fear or guilt would be (and did) become at risk. As what exactly DID happen to Wierwille's successor, Loy Martindale. Which tragedy played out in a big way, with the Ohio civil courts forcing twi's hand and Martindale's exile.
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OldSkool
She most definately was and her and donna were using craig as a proxy and pushing through policy when he was prez, such as the no debt policy. I always keep in mind with rosalie that she hated all the changes since martindale was ousted. That would leave a rather long list of changes she would rather have kept in place.
Pregnancy policy
No debt policy
Staff working on a need basis
Mandatory STS attendance or else
Mandatory noon meal attendance....etc...I think you guys get the point. When she made that statement she left no qualifiers, such as: I cant stand the changes weve had to make since martindale but....X policy caused Y and were better without it...nothing of the sort...just mad she had lost much of her control. People, generally speaking, had no idea how badly she wanted to micromanage. When she was department coordinator of way publications she set a bathroom policy for staff to sign in and out (indicating the time they left and the time they returned) to go use the restroom. She was sick...but they all were....
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