Every person The Way International or it's designated ministers could drive to suicide was one less person who could expose their dirty truth.
It is my own personal opinion, that in that respect, some of the so called "suicides" may have actually been murders.
The person is grief-stricken, confused, and depressed. They are intentionally isolated from their only support network, and intentionally taught that:
"Your life no longer matters to God," and that "...the household would be better off if you didn't take up space on the earth!" and "...You are no longer fit to breathe the same air as the faithful believers!" And the clincher: "...You would be better off if you would drop dead, in order to save your rewards!"
Those specific directives were quoted many, many times by Craig Martindale in Corps nights AND Advanced Class Specials that I attended. I witnessed every word, every viscious, calculated word spit forth from his perverted mouth. I took notes, and have handed them over to the legal team.
I personally believe certain of those suicides may have been murder by design.
This is MY OWN personal opinion, which I have a perfect and legal right to. Yours may vary.
But think about it. It really is the perfect crime. If you have approached a person with sexually servicing you and they deny you, or if they are aware of your secret behaviors, you're in a real fix. You don't want them around because what they may know could be extremely dangerous to your reputation and especially your livelihood. So you use everything and everyone in your power to stop them.
So, there is a self-destruct message included among the indoctrination. Along with completely separating and isolating people from any support network whatsoever other than The Way, you build into the doctrine a person's worthlessness to God if they "cop out." Then at the proper time if need be, the person is mentally, physically, emotionally, financially and or spiritually harassed by whatever means The Way International has at their disposal, to the point of confusion and desperation, and then they are summarily dumped while in a completely vulnerable state.
Whatever is in the power of The Way International, they will and have used, especially at but not limited to HQ: Intimidation techniques (legal and otherwise), the person's so-called Way friends, innie family members, spouse, even goons from the Safety Department to pack your things while you are in the office being confronted, and then they dump you curbside like the ripped bag of maggot-dripping garbage you now believe you are. Then they continue defaming you in every public and private forum available to them, to everyone who ever mattered to you.
In that greatly disturbed and completely vulnerable state, all that person knows and believes and can fall back on is what they have been taught: they are the one who is screwed up, it's their fault, they are a burden to and have brought shame upon themselves, upon the "household," upon the "ministry that taught them the Word," and upon even God Himself. And in order to save what little rewards they may have left, it "would be better for them to die."
So they do it by their own hand. For the good of the "household" and the furtherance of "The Word." They take solace in the fact that their final act in that way is somewhat redeeming, because they are "...removing their sorry carcass from the face of the earth (Craig's words)."
After a quick skim through this thread, I'll leave my input here:
Yes, I gave money to The Way International-- with a certain understanding.
I gave it with the understanding that:
The money I contributed was to go to "move the word." The people living on that money had a fiduciary responsiblity to spend it in the manner it was represented to me that it would be spent. I had a right to expect that the money would be spent frugally, sensibly, and appropriately in "moving the Word of God."
I would have never given one red cent if I had known it went to paying for $1500 suits, Bruno Mali shoes, and paying hotel rooms in which menage trois made a moggy sandwich-- all so I could live on less than half of what my income was with no allowance for savings: giving not only the tithe, but abundant sharing, and paying for all the REQUIRED attendance to functions, classes, events, and purchase of bookstore publications, not to mention all the annual birthday, anniversary, and holiday gifts to every hotshot up and down the Way Tree.
However, having said that I gave the money with the understanding that it would be used to "move the Word," I also gave it with the understanding that:
If I did NOT give, I would NOT prosper.
God would not spit in my direction unless I went above 15%.
To obtain the "blessing" and "protection" of the "household," I would have to live on a "need basis." That meant that everything that did not go to put a tin roof over my head, peanut butter in my baby's mouth, and second hand clothes on our backs, MUST go to The Way International, or disaster would befall us.
It was extortion, plain and simple. Flat out protection money, and it went to things I never agreed to pay for.
TWI and its designated ministers misrepresented to me what the money was to be used for.
To me, that is fraud.
They also used veiled and open threats in order to obtain more money from their followers.
Per My3Cents (from the thread, Chris Geer & the POP meeting...):
QUOTE(shazdancer @ Dec 14 2005, 10:02 AM)
So I guess my question is, What was the BOT doing to CG that pi**ed him off so much that he initiated the POP letter so long after VPW's death?
Maybe I answered my own question. Reading over the "What's Chr** doing now" thread, it seems like there was a lot of wrangling over the making of a new foundational class. Perhaps CG was po'ed that he wasn't allowed to keep the money he was raking in on PFAL.
I'm speculating here, but I'm thinking that his march on Headquarters was designed to get the BOT to loosen the purse strings, and let more money stay in Gartmore. (And remember how much of the POP was devoted to how hard they were working on the Gartmore property?) So instead of saying, "Give me more money," Chris told them in the POP how they were all off the Word (meaning FINANCIALLY off), and how VPW loved what CG was doing, and would have supported his efforts more, except the mean BOT wouldn't listen to him anymore._______________________________________
That's too rational an analysis. I think Geer and many of those who said those High and Mighty pronouncements really believed them at some level. We were, after all emotionally caught up in this thing and many of us/them had serious emotional problems. Tha't why so many of the "pronouncements' of leadership seemed so contratdictory, or why leaders would allow or even encourage actions that went against their stated desire to "move the word" or even build the empire.
Whenever I've posted on GSC, I've put my email and phone # so that anyone who really cares about me can contact me for more info. It seems to me that the majority of those who post on GSC need to "get a life," that is, get over their TWI bitterness and victimstance and spread the Word.
Happy New Year!
In Christ's love,
John]
What a shocker. Another former Way leader who wants others to "Get a life". What a huge surprise. These guys don't even want to begin with dealing with the problems of TWI many of which they had a hand in yet did nothing about. I've heard plenty of them say things like "I was doing only what I was told" as if that makes all that they did right and acceptable before God. If these people had any concept of accountability they would deal with the heat instead of telling others to "Get a life". They never apologize or
admit fault yet they know that lots of good people were booted for silly reasons.
Seems to me that guys like JAL need to "get a life" and quit trying to preserve a way of life (no pun intended) that failed miserably. Yet he still plods along and continues to emulate TWI. Most people here cut the Way umbilical (unBIBlical) cord long ago and have distinguished themselves as individuals and christians without needing the blessing of TWI or any of the splinters. Seems to me that these former Way leaders won't let go of their past with TWI and when they do they are horrified at the reality of admitting they were leaders in a dirty organization that caused tons of heartache.
We don't need to buy yet another "research" tape or book to please god.
How about cultivating vital relationships with our families and reinvesting in our talents and interests that many laid aside long ago to join TWI. Seems to me God is more pleased by someone developing themselves in this fashion than to have them languish
in some boring home fellowship wherein people stagnate as they develop arrogant attitudes towards others who don't choose to "fellowship" as they do. Some of us would like to actually realize some of our dreams and goals whereas others jsut want to preserve the status-quo and stay attached to a way of life that most definitely did NOT lead to the more adundant life.
Per tomtuttle1 (from the Suicide in the way thread):
It is surprising we didn't have more suicides in TWI than we did. And equally surprising is how quiet all the extra-cirricular activity of these "leaders" was kept. How in hades did they find time to read or teach what was, in many areas, questionably the bible?? Why not just "chuck the whole thing" (reading/teaching bible) and FOCUS on seduction, adultry, rape, sodomy, etc. ?? Maybe they DID. I know on more that one occassion I had to come up with a teaching in 10 minutes.
Someone posted about good ole uncle howard slappin' a french on her and saying, "You've been asking for that all day!!""... What an absolute idiot. Never was too impressed with howie's IQ and sexuality. I'd venture to say he had less sex appeal than a fire hydrant. How gross, what a filthy, presumptuous and egotistical old fart. Not even teek (Tic) would lap at him, even with an after-service burger in his hand. And I would venture a guess that had some "regular" believers known about this stuff, these "leaders" would be in jeopardy of their lives (gee, why did VP have CG, HA and other drivers carry handguns???) ...
Per catcup (from the thread, Has TWI-II really changed):
DJS
Thank you for taking the time to compose a response.
However, all you are saying about how things have changed, are the very same way TWI changed after the Geer splitoff.
Before then, I could go to HQ and get the "stare right through you look." As a matter of fact, At the opening of the WOW Auditorium, Don Wierwille gave me that exact stare through-- like I was a piece of scum on his newly opened building and what the hell was I doing there. You see, after spending a year on staff in 1982-1983, I saw some pretty intense corruption, called a confrontation meeting with two trustee level people and another person and read them the riot act. This was not well received, and I left of my own accord, and prayed for a change.
When the Geer splitoff happened, there was indeed a change. The same, very same changes you speak of. I too spent some time with "top leadership" afterward-- trustee level-- and was assured changes would be made. They fell all over themselves to try to make us feel welcomed and comfortable. Even got a handwritten apology from Don. Craig gushed at the possiblity that my husband would help. Everything seemed hunky dory. My husband and I stayed and helped try to rebuild the ministry, trusting changes would occur.
Yeah, right.
After several years of "sweetness and light," darkness again fell on The Way International.
You are singing the same song I and many others have sung before. And the same old thing always happens.
Why?
It's evil from the root.
You still have the very person the judge felt was knowledgable of and participated in setting Fern Allen up for getting raped, heading up your organization. Yes, Rosalie Rivenbark. And you have people like Mxrk Wxllxce as region coordinators, a man who threatened death to me, to my family, and to others in my fellowship. That's just a ferinstance.
The Word says that if a ruler hearkens to lies, all his advisors are evil. Rivenbark is not only one who hearkened to lies, but also originates them. The organization needs to be scrapped from the top down and the bottom up.
You have an organization that you even feel is holding back on admitting its wrongs for fear of legal action.
So they're afraid of..........
JUSTICE?
God requires his men and women to do justice and judgment.
And that poisoned organization quivers in fear at the very thought of having to render true justice to those they have harmed, because it would bankrupt them.
I say let justice and judgment roll down upon The Way International.
Hey, you know the old saying... No justice, no peace. Biblical, too.
You say you are smart enough to know when to leave?
Yeah, so was I, but I still left decades too late, trying to save an organization that simply is not salvageable.
Don't make the same mistake. The only thing worse than spending 20 years in a bad organization is spending 20 years and one more second.
Per satori001(from the Cognitive Dissonance thread):
I think there's a point of no return, after which you are trapped by your commitment to the lie.
Not that you think it's a lie. You don't. Just the opposite. You don't see it clearly, but you really, really believe it's true.
So when that lie (Vic Wierwille's false doctrines, for instance) becomes the exalted TRUTH, anything which contradicts it must be a lie. And if the circumstances of your life contradict exalted TRUTH, then your life is a lie.
What does that mean?
I don't know, but it's depressing.
This post has been edited by satori001: Today, 12:16 AM
You seem to have an interesting thesis, although I'll admit I'm having a hard time wading through your writings. While I'll agree that the default font on this board is a little on the small size, the font you're using is even more difficult for me to read, because the letters are all scrunched together. For whatever it's worth, I'd rather read a small font, with more spacing, than the larger font all crammed together. Might just be me, though.
Anyway, on to your points. I'm a little curious how all these theories have translated into your own pre- and post-Way involvement. I'm paraphrasing here, and I'll admit that I didn't do much more than skim through some of your posts, but it left a few questions. Like, since you see such a strong parallel between totalitarian communist regimes, and the Way Tree, and also talk extensively about "learned helplessness" or "enforced dependency" (if that's what you call it; now I forget the wording), what, oh what, is the solution? I mean, the impression I'm getting is that you got involved in The Way in a random fashion, sort of like getting struck by lightening, caught in a crossfire, run over by a bus, or any other senseless and random act that might befall one of us. If that's the case, then it seems to me that it isn't the "enforced dependency" that is to blame, but the human condition. If being involved in The Way was utterly beyond my control, what IS within my control?
If you're saying that The Way was fraudulent, that it misrepresented itself, that it used coercive techniques (though I'm not convinced it was necessarily universal or deliberate) then I agree with you. Totally.
But if you're saying that I had no choice in the matter, that I didn't contribute to the process, that what I brought to The Way was only my own helplessness, stupidity, and dependency, then I disagree with you.
Lessons sometimes come hard in life. And they cost us. It's unfortunate that sometimes "enlightenment" comes through hardship and loss, through one slow, painful realization after the other, until we finally recognize that we are on the wrong course, that the happiness we seek lies somewhere else, and that it is only through a long journey in the darkness that we are able to find the light.
I guess I'm just not following you, jkboehme, though I'm trying. If all was evil and wrong and orchestrated madness, and we were helpless, utterly, truly hopelessly helpless to resist it, then what hope is there of ever finding a better place?
For example, this is the type of stuff that isn't making sense to me.
You said earlier in the thread:
Then Senator Bob Dole chaired a congressional committee on cultic abuses. Unfortunately the committee was ultimately disbanded, ostensibly due to pressure from cults and other religious groups. If it weren't for this congressional cowardice, many cultic abuses since 1979 could have been obviated. Our laws could have been upgraded to prevent such cultic abuses, bringing honor and law into alignment and harmony, nevertheless...
Okay, so you want federal intervention and regulation to prevent "cultic abuses." Then later, you say:
To me, this indicates the unmistakable criminality of Wierwille, Martindale, & other top TWI leadership. They knew exactly what they were doing. In fact, TWI’s coordinated programs of covert psycho-social exploitative manipulative persuasion were strategically designed to destabilize & unfreeze a person’s true historical identity & replace it with TWI’s bogus ‘renewed mind,’ aka the TWI cultic pseudo-self & pseudo-identity.
So what is "criminal" and requires federal intervention? If I'm understanding you, you say:
2. destablization and "unfreezing" a person's true historical identity
3. cultic pseudo-self and pseudo identity
Let me see if I get this. "Cultic abuse" as defined above should become a matter of concern to the criminal justice system. Therefore, it should be against the law, with criminal penalty, to affect change in the identity of another person.
Tell me you're not serious.
Once government begins to define "true historical identity" as opposed to a "pseudo identity" (punishable by law), what is to prevent government from becoming worse than the cult it is regulating?
I appreciate your interest in the thread as well as your thoughtful considerations.
Now on to your questions in the first post:
“…If that's the case, then it seems to me that it isn't the "enforced dependency" that is to blame, but the human condition. If being involved in The Way was utterly beyond my control, what IS within my control…?"
I think the primary issue at the time of TWI recruitment is the transient vulnerability that many of us were experiencing. This made us more susceptible to TWI’s recruitment tactics [Christian Motivational Techniques; Witnessing & Undersheperding; etc]. So, many of us were in the midst of ‘the human condition’ but simply were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“…If all was evil and wrong and orchestrated madness, and we were helpless, utterly, truly hopelessly helpless to resist it, then what hope is there of ever finding a better place…?”
The hope of finding a better place begins with the information at one’s disposal of what to avoid, viz., high demand totalitarian types of groups/movements such as TWI. If one has already has had a ‘bad experience’ in one of these cults, then, as a Sage once eloquently explained,
“…Lessons sometimes come hard in life. And they cost us. It's unfortunate that sometimes ‘enlightenment’ comes through hardship and loss, through one slow, painful realization after the other, until we finally recognize that we are on the wrong course, that the happiness we seek lies somewhere else, and that it is only through a long journey in the darkness that we are able to find the light…”
Kinda reminds one of Joseph Conrad’s, Out of the Heart of Darkness, does it not?
2. destablization and "unfreezing" a person's true historical identity 3. cultic pseudo-self and pseudo identity…”
What is criminal, you ask? My use of the world ‘criminality’ was in the sense of hyerbole. That is, knowing the phenomenally egregious unethical practices of TWI, their actions/deeds/behaviors/practices seem ‘criminal’ to me. Technically their inappropriate conduct is covered by laws dealing with tort offenses. Hence some of the former as well as the ongoing tort litigations.
Yes, Senator Dole’s committee could have come up with a crisp definition, not of one’s true historical identity or the synthetic cultic pseudo-self, BUT rather an expanded definition to delineate the characteristics of totalitarian covert packaged persuasion (thought reform) as well as some causally related elements of associated harm/damages. This then would have provided a much ‘cleaner’ legal methodology in which to litigate these violations of the newly generated tort law.
I haven't read Joseph Conrad before this, but I think I like him:
"The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims."
"Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion."
"A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires."
"Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life."
Anyway, back to The Way. Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time? Oh, I don't know. I think whenever anyone makes an investment in someone or something else, whether it's financial or emotional or both, and it ends in a missed promotion at work, a love affair gone wrong, a religious conversion that doesn't produce salvation – whenever expectations aren't met – there may be a tendency to indulge in a little nihilism, to go back and re-write the pages of history, and memory, to accommodate the new, more cynical, view. Maybe we're ALL in a perpetual state of "transient vulnerability." It's how we live our lives, negotiate our needs and relationships, find both fulfillment and emptiness. And, because we live in a free state, we (mostly) have the freedom to indulge our whims, to act out our fantasies, to pursue our own vision of paradise. And, because we are free, we accept responsibility for our own loss of direction when we reach a dead end.
Did The Way let us down? Of course it did. It was far, far less than what we wanted it to be. But I don't accept the comparisons to the Jim Jones cult and Nazi concentration camps any more than I believe The Way was the first century church in the twentieth. Did they lie to us? You bet they did. Deliberately? I don't know. I remind myself that it's very possible that they might have believed their own hype. After all, I believed my own hype. Didn't you?
I sometimes wonder what the substantive difference is between the "lies" (distortions) told to us by The Way, and the "lies" (distortions) that I too often read in "About The Way." Maybe both are rooted in a desire for advantage, for social acceptance, for status, for recognition, or for something else. The Way was neither truly evil nor truly good, in my opinion. While I'd lean a little more toward the evil than the good, even so, I think a lot of the "abuses" are overstated, if not sensationalized, here at GreaseSpot. I can't help but think that maybe The Way was more a reflection of what resided in all of us. What we brought to it shaped its course, for better or worse, and, in later years, from what I hear, much worse. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that concluding that The Way is a nazi-dominated communist think tank murderously bent on world domination is any more clear-sighted than concluding that it was the truth of God's Word, and no one, not one person, not one soul, living or dead, had access to this unique revelation until there was snow on the gas pumps to announce a revival.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, but he is a novelist who has committed himself to telling the truth about Turkey. A few years ago, I read his book, My Name is Red. Recently, he was arrested for saying publicly that the Turks had killed a million Armenians during WWI, and tens of thousands of Kurds during recent guerilla fighting. The charge against him: "insulting Turkishness." Never mind that he was telling the truth. So, anyway, here we have a person, a novelist, who is taking an actual risk in an effort to open up public debate over government policies. (The charges were dropped, incidentally, credited to Turkey's desire to be accepted into the European Union.) I read stories like that, then I come to GreaseSpot, where people say (almost) anything they want to say, make as many comparisons as they want, invoke Hitler and Stalin and Jim Jones and god knows who else, no matter how ludicrous the comparison, and think they are heroes for "telling the truth" about The Way International, without ever having witnessed a single murder, much less a genocide, or, forget murder, even a mugging, carried out in the name of God by The Way International.
These comparisons just don't resonate much with me. It's not that I don't think you make some valid points about mind-control techniques and the like. You do. And it's an interesting perspective. I just think it's overstated.
I thought it would be interesting to see various opinions regarding how VPW/LCM/TWI endeavored to 'explain away' the fact that twi could ever be considered to be a "cult."
I mentioned this topic in passing on another thread {VP & me in Wonderland}, but thought it was deserving of its own discussion.
The Jim Jones / People's Temple cult massacre hit the news around Thanksgiving time in 1978. At a Corps Night teaching in late 1978 or early 1979 at Uncle Harry Hall on the Emporia campus, VPW played an audio tape (for the 7th & 9th Corps & guests) by Dr.Peter Beter. Beter was a former U.S. diplomat with connections to Zaire. Beter's ideological proclivities are to the far right extreme. Dr Beter produced a monthly audo tape series, #80 tapes in total.
Tape # 40 relates how, according to Beter, the 900 plus dead bodies in Guyana were not of the mass homicide/suicide of members of The People's Temple at Jonestown, but rather were dead Russian soldiers killed by US military covert operations.
Wierwille's convenient point was, that not only is the People's Temple not a cult, more importantly TWI was not a cult either!! In fact, per vpw, there's no such thing as a cult, no such thing as intense indoctrination, or non-physically coersive persuasion, etc. {such as twi routinely utilized in the process of exploitative manipulation of its members}.
This Corps Night teaching was designed to disparage, denigrate, & 'explain away' any concern about twi being a cult which routinely utilized harmful and abusive practices leading in many cases to permanent physical & psychological injuries, and the potential for plaintiffs to legitimately claim legal damages.
This is the Dr. Beter Audioletter, Box 16428, Ft. Worth, Texas
76133
Hello, my friends, this is Dr. Beter. Today is November 30,
1978, and this is my Audioletter No. 40.
"On November 24, 1978, the day after Thanksgiving, the
Washington Post here in Washington, D.C. published a full-page
memorial to the late Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California. A
sketch of Ryan in tones of gray took up the entire page, and
against that background a brief eulogy was printed in bold type.
It began, "In Memoriam, to our good friend Leo J. Ryan,
Congressman from California. We will miss him. He saw hope that
right would prevail." The timing of this memorial page was
ironic. Congressman Ryan had been killed in Guyana nearly one
week earlier, and his funeral had taken place two days earlier.
But Congressman Ryan had been deliberately sacrificed in order to
launch a covert military operation in Guyana; and as it turned
out, the Washington Post memorial to Ryan was printed immediately
after the successful completion of this military operation. In a
display of courage that is practically unknown today in the
United States Congress, Ryan had gone to Guyana knowing that it
might be dangerous. But what he did not know was that he had
been lured into making a trip whose tragic outcome was planned
well ahead of time. Congressman Ryan and those who died with him
at Port Kaituma Airport were casualties in the secret war that is
leading to NUCLEAR WAR ONE. And so were the hundreds of other
American civilians who died in the so-called 'mass suicide' at
Jonestown, Guyana..."
Topic #1--THE MILITARY PURPOSE OF THE JONESTOWN TRAGEDY
"...but the Jonestown disaster was
actually spawned by a military situation in Guyana which I first
made public over four years ago. And then, as now, the only
response of the Government was cover-up. As my older listeners all know, I am referring to the Russian
nuclear missile base in Guyana. Beginning in June 1974..."
"... For a number of years, Russian military activity in Guyana was
heavily concentrated around the vicinity of the Temehri Airfield.
In fact, when I first reported the Russian missiles in Guyana in
1974, they were emplaced in sites that ringed the Airfield.
Within the past two years, however, the missiles were pulled out
from these locations and moved to a separate missile complex west
of Georgetown. In this new complex, the missiles were deployed
at sites scattered over an area some 30 miles across. In the
approximate center was a Command and Control installation
commanded by Russian personnel. After this missile base
relocation was completed, the missile complex was centered at a
point about 70 miles northwest of Temehri Airfield; and roughly
another 70 miles to the northwest lay the Peoples Temple Commune
at Jonestown, an Israeli-type kibbutz. So the missile base ended
up about midway between the Jonestown commune and Temehri
Airfield. It was no accident, my friends, that the Peoples
Temple kibbutz was located so close to the missile base. But the
origins of the Peoples Temple in the 1950s had nothing to do with
government intrigue. It was not until about 1970 that certain
elements of the United States Intelligence community began to
infiltrate and subvert the Peoples Temple. As I have explained
in the past, it's always been standard practice by the
Rockefeller brothers to support not only the faction in power but
also spies and opponents to that faction. In this way they are
always in a position, at least in theory, to cut down anyone who
tries to break free of their control. In the case of Guyana, the
Rockefellers wanted to have such a tool in Guyana as a check on
Forbes Burnham, the Prime Minister, whom they had put in power
with their money. Certain elements within the United States
Intelligence community under general coordination by the CIA were
given the task of finding ways of accomplishing this.
In the course of evaluating various options, it was concluded
that the Peoples Temple would prove ideal..."
"...The planners of Operation Guyana were given a difficult
problem to solve. The objective was to wipe out the Russian
missile base in Guyana thereby removing the threat it posed to
the Panama Canal and southern American cities; but this was to be
a pre-war operation carried out covertly and with complete
surprise. It had to be covert, because neither the United States
nor Russia could afford to have it known that the base ever
existed..."
"...It was a very big order, but the
Jonestown kibbutz proved to be the answer. All that was
necessary was to arrange for many hundreds of American citizens
to die suddenly in Guyana and under conditions guaranteeing
instant massive publicity..."
"...When it was decided to use mass deaths at Jonestown as a cover
for the missile-base attack, Jonestown was functioning only as an
outpost of the Peoples Temple..."
"...There were not enough people
there to provide a sufficiently major incident to serve the
intended purpose, and so through both direct and indirect means
Jim Jones was persuaded to go to the Guyana kibbutz himself,
taking as many of his flock as would follow him. That turned out
to be about 25 to 30%, and by following him they automatically
identified themselves as the group most highly dependent upon
Jones personally. They were also most susceptible to the
combined influences of exhaustion, intimidation, and isolation
from outside help--in other words, right for brainwashing. And
ever since the days of the Korean war, it's been known
conclusively that brainwashing techniques can force many people
to do all kinds of things. Even hardened American GI's in Korea
fell victim to brainwashing in surprising numbers because they
did not understand what they were up against. But of course the
Jonestown victims were anything but hardened soldiers.
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rascal
You try to make a point oldies...that it was no big deal because these young teenaged girls *consented* ....... you know, there were many of us gals who did indeed *consented* to having sex in our ear
jkboehme
Returning to Doug Hyde’s observations, he stated that the Christian church had much to learn from the ideological totalist’s [communist’s] techniques, methods, and attitudes. Apparently VPW, as the to
jkboehme
Per catcup (from the Suicide in the way thread):
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jkboehme
Per catcup (from the Peeler lawsuit thread):
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Per My3Cents (from the thread, Chris Geer & the POP meeting...):
QUOTE(shazdancer @ Dec 14 2005, 10:02 AM)
So I guess my question is, What was the BOT doing to CG that pi**ed him off so much that he initiated the POP letter so long after VPW's death?
Maybe I answered my own question. Reading over the "What's Chr** doing now" thread, it seems like there was a lot of wrangling over the making of a new foundational class. Perhaps CG was po'ed that he wasn't allowed to keep the money he was raking in on PFAL.
I'm speculating here, but I'm thinking that his march on Headquarters was designed to get the BOT to loosen the purse strings, and let more money stay in Gartmore. (And remember how much of the POP was devoted to how hard they were working on the Gartmore property?) So instead of saying, "Give me more money," Chris told them in the POP how they were all off the Word (meaning FINANCIALLY off), and how VPW loved what CG was doing, and would have supported his efforts more, except the mean BOT wouldn't listen to him anymore._______________________________________
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jkboehme
Per diazbro (form the Splinter groups thread):
[Excerpted from JAL's letter:
Whenever I've posted on GSC, I've put my email and phone # so that anyone who really cares about me can contact me for more info. It seems to me that the majority of those who post on GSC need to "get a life," that is, get over their TWI bitterness and victimstance and spread the Word.
Happy New Year!
In Christ's love,
John]
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jkboehme
Per tomtuttle1 (from the Suicide in the way thread):
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jkboehme
Per catcup (from the thread, Has TWI-II really changed):
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jkboehme
Per satori001(from the Cognitive Dissonance thread):
This post has been edited by satori001: Today, 12:16 AM
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laleo
jkboehme,
You seem to have an interesting thesis, although I'll admit I'm having a hard time wading through your writings. While I'll agree that the default font on this board is a little on the small size, the font you're using is even more difficult for me to read, because the letters are all scrunched together. For whatever it's worth, I'd rather read a small font, with more spacing, than the larger font all crammed together. Might just be me, though.
Anyway, on to your points. I'm a little curious how all these theories have translated into your own pre- and post-Way involvement. I'm paraphrasing here, and I'll admit that I didn't do much more than skim through some of your posts, but it left a few questions. Like, since you see such a strong parallel between totalitarian communist regimes, and the Way Tree, and also talk extensively about "learned helplessness" or "enforced dependency" (if that's what you call it; now I forget the wording), what, oh what, is the solution? I mean, the impression I'm getting is that you got involved in The Way in a random fashion, sort of like getting struck by lightening, caught in a crossfire, run over by a bus, or any other senseless and random act that might befall one of us. If that's the case, then it seems to me that it isn't the "enforced dependency" that is to blame, but the human condition. If being involved in The Way was utterly beyond my control, what IS within my control?
If you're saying that The Way was fraudulent, that it misrepresented itself, that it used coercive techniques (though I'm not convinced it was necessarily universal or deliberate) then I agree with you. Totally.
But if you're saying that I had no choice in the matter, that I didn't contribute to the process, that what I brought to The Way was only my own helplessness, stupidity, and dependency, then I disagree with you.
Lessons sometimes come hard in life. And they cost us. It's unfortunate that sometimes "enlightenment" comes through hardship and loss, through one slow, painful realization after the other, until we finally recognize that we are on the wrong course, that the happiness we seek lies somewhere else, and that it is only through a long journey in the darkness that we are able to find the light.
I guess I'm just not following you, jkboehme, though I'm trying. If all was evil and wrong and orchestrated madness, and we were helpless, utterly, truly hopelessly helpless to resist it, then what hope is there of ever finding a better place?
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laleo
For example, this is the type of stuff that isn't making sense to me.
You said earlier in the thread:
Okay, so you want federal intervention and regulation to prevent "cultic abuses." Then later, you say:So what is "criminal" and requires federal intervention? If I'm understanding you, you say:
1. covert psychosocial exploitative manipulative persuasion
2. destablization and "unfreezing" a person's true historical identity
3. cultic pseudo-self and pseudo identity
Let me see if I get this. "Cultic abuse" as defined above should become a matter of concern to the criminal justice system. Therefore, it should be against the law, with criminal penalty, to affect change in the identity of another person.
Tell me you're not serious.
Once government begins to define "true historical identity" as opposed to a "pseudo identity" (punishable by law), what is to prevent government from becoming worse than the cult it is regulating?
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jkboehme
Hi laleo,
I appreciate your interest in the thread as well as your thoughtful considerations.
Now on to your questions in the first post:
I think the primary issue at the time of TWI recruitment is the transient vulnerability that many of us were experiencing. This made us more susceptible to TWI’s recruitment tactics [Christian Motivational Techniques; Witnessing & Undersheperding; etc]. So, many of us were in the midst of ‘the human condition’ but simply were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The hope of finding a better place begins with the information at one’s disposal of what to avoid, viz., high demand totalitarian types of groups/movements such as TWI. If one has already has had a ‘bad experience’ in one of these cults, then, as a Sage once eloquently explained,
Kinda reminds one of Joseph Conrad’s, Out of the Heart of Darkness, does it not?
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jkboehme
Hello, laleo:
Here are some attempted answers to address your additional concerns. Once again I certainly appreciate your close reading of my thread.
What is criminal, you ask? My use of the world ‘criminality’ was in the sense of hyerbole. That is, knowing the phenomenally egregious unethical practices of TWI, their actions/deeds/behaviors/practices seem ‘criminal’ to me. Technically their inappropriate conduct is covered by laws dealing with tort offenses. Hence some of the former as well as the ongoing tort litigations.
Yes, Senator Dole’s committee could have come up with a crisp definition, not of one’s true historical identity or the synthetic cultic pseudo-self, BUT rather an expanded definition to delineate the characteristics of totalitarian covert packaged persuasion (thought reform) as well as some causally related elements of associated harm/damages. This then would have provided a much ‘cleaner’ legal methodology in which to litigate these violations of the newly generated tort law.
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laleo
I haven't read Joseph Conrad before this, but I think I like him:
"The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims."
"Who knows what true loneliness is - not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion."
"A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires."
"Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life."
Anyway, back to The Way. Was I in the wrong place at the wrong time? Oh, I don't know. I think whenever anyone makes an investment in someone or something else, whether it's financial or emotional or both, and it ends in a missed promotion at work, a love affair gone wrong, a religious conversion that doesn't produce salvation – whenever expectations aren't met – there may be a tendency to indulge in a little nihilism, to go back and re-write the pages of history, and memory, to accommodate the new, more cynical, view. Maybe we're ALL in a perpetual state of "transient vulnerability." It's how we live our lives, negotiate our needs and relationships, find both fulfillment and emptiness. And, because we live in a free state, we (mostly) have the freedom to indulge our whims, to act out our fantasies, to pursue our own vision of paradise. And, because we are free, we accept responsibility for our own loss of direction when we reach a dead end.
Did The Way let us down? Of course it did. It was far, far less than what we wanted it to be. But I don't accept the comparisons to the Jim Jones cult and Nazi concentration camps any more than I believe The Way was the first century church in the twentieth. Did they lie to us? You bet they did. Deliberately? I don't know. I remind myself that it's very possible that they might have believed their own hype. After all, I believed my own hype. Didn't you?
I sometimes wonder what the substantive difference is between the "lies" (distortions) told to us by The Way, and the "lies" (distortions) that I too often read in "About The Way." Maybe both are rooted in a desire for advantage, for social acceptance, for status, for recognition, or for something else. The Way was neither truly evil nor truly good, in my opinion. While I'd lean a little more toward the evil than the good, even so, I think a lot of the "abuses" are overstated, if not sensationalized, here at GreaseSpot. I can't help but think that maybe The Way was more a reflection of what resided in all of us. What we brought to it shaped its course, for better or worse, and, in later years, from what I hear, much worse. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that concluding that The Way is a nazi-dominated communist think tank murderously bent on world domination is any more clear-sighted than concluding that it was the truth of God's Word, and no one, not one person, not one soul, living or dead, had access to this unique revelation until there was snow on the gas pumps to announce a revival.
I don't know if you're familiar with the Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, but he is a novelist who has committed himself to telling the truth about Turkey. A few years ago, I read his book, My Name is Red. Recently, he was arrested for saying publicly that the Turks had killed a million Armenians during WWI, and tens of thousands of Kurds during recent guerilla fighting. The charge against him: "insulting Turkishness." Never mind that he was telling the truth. So, anyway, here we have a person, a novelist, who is taking an actual risk in an effort to open up public debate over government policies. (The charges were dropped, incidentally, credited to Turkey's desire to be accepted into the European Union.) I read stories like that, then I come to GreaseSpot, where people say (almost) anything they want to say, make as many comparisons as they want, invoke Hitler and Stalin and Jim Jones and god knows who else, no matter how ludicrous the comparison, and think they are heroes for "telling the truth" about The Way International, without ever having witnessed a single murder, much less a genocide, or, forget murder, even a mugging, carried out in the name of God by The Way International.
These comparisons just don't resonate much with me. It's not that I don't think you make some valid points about mind-control techniques and the like. You do. And it's an interesting perspective. I just think it's overstated.
That's my take.
Thanks for your posts.
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cheranne
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cheranne
Bring this up after reading "cults rewire the brain post"
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