The Channel

[Refiner]

All of the cults claim some kind of divine mandate. At the least to be in contact with a higher power or to have a guaranteed method to create success and plenty. It is the key by which they enslave the minds of their followers.

A classic example of a man directly claiming to be GOD is the leader of a group called Heavens Gate a group which committed mass suicide in April 1997.

The leader of this group, Mr Applewhite ( more commonly known as "Do") explains his divine authority in a tract entitled :

"Undercover Jesus surfaces before departure".

Therin he says:

.... " This 'return' requires that I prepare to lay down my borrowed human body in order to take up, or re enter, my body belonging to the Kingdom of God, as I did 2000 years ago, as Jesus, when I laid down the human body that was about 33 years old in order to re enter my body belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven.. This time, my Heavenly Father, my older member, came with me. In the early 70s we incarnated into adult human bodies that were in their 40s. 2000 years ago I incarnated into a body that was 29 years old .at the time of baptism by John the Baptist"...

The leader of the Raelians, Rael, while not actually being Jesus, is closely relatedto Jesus.

Rael received a very important revelation 3 years after he was initially taken by aliens to their planetary utopia. However the deeply significant revelation was kept under lock and key until the world was ready to receive it. Eventually though, in 1986, it was revealed to those with 'eyes of understanding' in his book :

Lets Welcome Our Fathers From Space

Page 112 Tells us, (Yahweh is speaking to Rael) :

...."The person who you looked upon as your father was not your father.We selected a woman.this woman was taken aboard one of our ships and inseminated as we had done with the mother of Jesus..Your real father was also the father of Jesus, and that makes you brothers. You are presently looking at your real father..From this moment on you may call me father, because you are my son"..

Deeply moving isn't it, to discover that Rael is actually the son of Yahweh, and the latter day Jesus. Superior even to Jesus, really, because he brings the FINAL message to humanity wheras Christ only laid the path which Rael walks upon.

These are pretty direct claims of divine mandate due to being a divine creature.

But some of the larger and more established 'cults' do not go quite so far.

The Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, while not actually being divine himself, was personally appointed by both Yahweh and Jesus to restore Gospel practises to the earth. The famous "first vision" of Joseph Smith is recorded ad nauseum in numerous Mormon publications.

Here is the account from a book called:

Gospel Principles

The prophet himself speaking :

... " I saw a pillar of light exactly above my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me..When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing unto the other- This is my Beloved Son, hear Him! "..

I wont tax the readers intelligence by recounting what the "Beloved Son" said next.

The Adventist Prophet,

b]Ellen G White[/b]

while not actually having MET God, HAS met Jesus and held conversation with him while on a guided tour of heaven.

This is still, surely, more Divine authority than the rest of us can claim.The Adventist tract :

A Word to the Little Flock

published in May 1847 by her husband, James White, adequately describes her being whisked off, John like, to heaven to meet Christ:

.... "While praying at the family alter the Holy Ghost fell upon me, and I seemed to be rising higher and higher, far above the dark world".

Straight to heaven along with the rest of the 144,000. Well, after what must have been a very tiresome journey of 7 DAYS that is:

. "We all entered the cloud together, and were 7 days ascending to the sea of glass, when Jesus brought along the crowns and with his own right hand placed them upon our heads. He gave us harps of gold and palms of victory"...

A bright and shiny building soon caught her attention:

.... "I asked Jesus to let me see what was within there. In a moment we were winging our way upwards and entering in. Here we saw good old father Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Daniel and many like them"....

So even this is sufficient authority to establish a person as having the right to direct the lives of millions of Church followers.

But then, the most extreme and dangerous cult I ever personally was involved with was led by a triumvirate of three women,

one of whom was merely in contact with a highly advanced alien called Elonias.

Proof positive that you don't have to claim to be GOD to start a cult.

Claiming to merely be in communication with The angel Gabriel will suffice very nicely.

[WordWolf]

Just out of curiousity....

What would you say about someone who knows what Jesus' favourite reference

material is, what he expects to teach out of?

I'm very curious.

[Refiner]

Dont quite follow you WW.

If youre saying the guy claimed to know what Jesus favourite reading material was, well Id say that he was obviously privvy to the divine mind and was especially blessed among men. -->

[Tom Strange]

Don't post it here WW!

I'll point him in the right direction via PT!

[year2027]

God first

Hi All

I know Jesus Christ favourite material but you can not just read it but you can handle it by all the five sences plus wittness it

It called love of God

Now it there another one its wrong because its love no matter where you find it

with love Roy

[Cynic]

Refiner,

WW was obviously referring to this forum's quite shameless Wierwilldolater, who holds there is a doctrinal deficiency about all English Bible versions, in contrast to written PFAL materials which he maintains were inspired and inerrant. He once retorted to a forum opponent that Jesus will begin teaching out of Weirwille's PFAL book when he returns.

You're in the right place, Refiner. You seem to be a wandering connoisseur of miscreance. While you're sampling TWI and ex-TWI strains of it, you might try Christian Educational Services -- whose ex-Wayfer principals are among the more ambitious and aggressive peddlers of pseudo-biblicist Unitarianism and Socinian Christology, and who have added Open Theism to the core of dogmas they have retained from Wierwille.

You might also sample Anthony Buzzard--a never-TWI figure to whom ex-Wayfers having an anti-Trinitarian itch to be scratched seemingly have gravitated. Buzzard advances the presumptive interpretive authority of a speculatively construed ancient Jewish mind through which to filter interpretations of various biblical passages to oppose the doctrine of the Trinity and promote denial of the eternal existence and deity that Scripture unequivocally declares of Christ.

The forum's never-too-friendly resident Trinitarian and Calvinist cudgel,

Cynic

[mj412]

What truly frightens me about Heavens gate is they are the cult which claims to have successfully cloned humans and have one born and several on the way to be born this year .

Asked for proof they never supply pictures or birth certificates .

I still wonder tho and somehow do not doubt it possible.

that frightens me.

[Refiner]

Perhaps its time to clarify.

I utterly reject any notion of a conscious God, a person, a thinking supreme being.

Why?

On the basis of having seen and experienced so much unspeakable cruelty and psychic damage being worked in his name.

If it was me, I would have to put an end to it.

That is my final position on such matters.

[Refiner]

TomS and WW:

."Don't post it here WW!

I'll point him in the right direction via PT!"...

You are concealing information from me. :(-->Information that Im most interested in reading. :D-->

Cough it up.

Email me, if you're paranoid at all.

jimpimpepper@hotmail.com

[Cynic]

Refiner wrote,

"I utterly reject any notion of a conscious God, a person, a thinking supreme being."

*****

Refiner,

Are you an atheist?

An agnostic?

A devotee or quasi-devotee of some impersonal force or abstraction you and others deem to be ultimate?

[Refiner]

PFAL....PFAL....

(looks up PFAL on Way International "Loaded language List")

PFAL!!... "Power for Abundant Living". Got it!!

It sure is hard on this site.... I never seen so much abbreviation and 'insider speak' in my life.

Cynic. I dont think upon matters of what I believe anymore. I spent twenty five years dwelling upon such questions and came up with zip.

So I figure the answers are either so deep as to be unfathomable, or the complete obvious and apoparent is true, and there is no conscious being directing things.

[George Aar]

Refiner,

Re:"It sure is hard on this site.... I never seen so much abbreviation and 'insider speak' in my life."

You shoulda seen it in real life in WayWorld!

Gawd, an outsider often didn't have a clue as to what was being said.

A few brief definitions:

"Believing" - v., hoping, wishing

"available" - adjective, possible, in stock, ready

"lifeline" - noun, deadline (sounds sooo negative, doesn't it?)

"retemory" - noun, a memorized verse of scripture (retain-in-your-memory, tres chic, no?)

"TWI" - noun, The Way International (headquarters - New Knoxville, OH.)

"W.O.W." - noun, the stated goal of TWI, Word Over the World, also an evangelism program whereby one could commit to a one year sentence of promoting TWI and it's theology class.

"PFAL" - noun, a series of classes offered by TWI,(foundational - the intro to WayWorld where the graduation is punctuating by being "led" into speaking in tongues, the intermediate class where the students supposedly learn to "operate" the "manifestations of interpretation of tongues and prophesy, and the advanced class where one learns how to operated "all nine all the time" i.e. the nine "manifestations" of the spirit listed in ICor. 12.

"The Way Corps" (or just "the Corps")- noun, a training program for the really committed ones (those without a real, functioning life) whereby you voluntarily give up your existence for 3 years to live at a WayWorld "root" locale and take classes, eat gerbil food, and work your a$$ off, so you can be trained to be a "twig" leader.

"twig" - noun, a group of Wayfers who meet at somebody's home several times a week to play church (TWI-style)

"branch, area, limb, trunk, root" the proceedingly larger areas of TWI governance (root locales being the hdqrtrs or other campus where the high mucky-mucks reign)

"bless" - verb, noun, adjective, parenthetical phrase, you name it, we used this word for EVERYTHING. Greeting, statement of your current mental condition, what the weather's like, the economic situation, or the mechanical condition of your automobile, "you're the blessed best", it's blessed, what a blessing, I'm blessed, it's blessed, bless!" We beat this word to death.

There's MUCH more to Wayspeak, believe me, but this will get you started. You'll be talking like a Wayfer before you know it...

[Refiner]

Resident curmudgeon:

Well bless me! Thanks for that bit of advice.

I'll be sure to drop the "bless" word aplenty so that I adjust to fitting into an ex TWI mindset all the quicker.

I want to fit in.

Bless you brother.

[George Aar]

Bless you too, man!

You're THE BEST, BRO! (You'll haveta learn to drop the "ther", it's just not familiar enough, O.K.?)

Akkk! Even in jest, this type of speak gives me the creeps. Gawd, did I really actually talk like that once? Unbelievable!

Oh, and sorry about the duplication. It looks as though the "Wayspeak" topic has gotten much more thorough coverage already in the "About the Way" forum.

[WordWolf]

Feel free to add those first 5 to the other thread, George....