Bogey76

I don't know if it is an urban legend or not, but if it is it wasn't Vic's invention. I have heard a couple of people over the years who have had no connection whatsoever with TWI who had heard about these alleged Navelites.

All this talk about America Awakes and the gov’t takeover conspiracy dredged up a 1976 memory: There was a guy named Hayes Gahagan who was a state senator in Maine who was doing this class on the government, the name of which I can’t recall at all. Well for whatever reason a bunch of us in CT decided to drive all the way out to HQ to attend this class. I don’t recall a lot of details about what was covered, I seem to remember that it was pretty much a standard Libertarian view how our government and the constitution were supposed to work. The one thing I do remember clearly was that it was the one and only time during my TWI tangent that I had ever been to HQ when there wasn’t a ROA going on. When the class had ended they put a barbeque grill out in front of the BRC and grilled up burgers for us who have traveled in. I think it was old Vic himself who was flipping them up. I wish I could remember more details about it than I do, but it was 30 years ago now and a lot of time wasted I wish I would have back now! Slight derail here: I had Googled Hayes Gahagan to make sure I was remembering his name correctly. I had recalled that he tried to make a run for US Senator as an independent in 1978….. and apparently some folks in the state of Maine remember his campaign too: http://www.portlandphoenix.com/features/po...ts/04242150.asp Too funny!

Actually the Wendys "worm burger" thing was a common urban legend back in the late 70s/early 80s. I was at AC79 but don't particularly recall Vic saying anything like that - but then or course I have purged a lot of my memories from those days

I have to agree with Ex10. Any sort of nostalgia that I might have for the "good old days" of TWI has little to do with any doctrines or teaching - and certainly not any warm fuzzies about leadership; but more about individuals and friends I made over those years. Yet even that is tempered by the fact that for a lot of those so-called "friends" I pretty much ceased to exist once I left TWI

Except Oldies you are really engaging in circular reasoning here. Weirwille taught God's Word, God's Word is true, therefore Weirwille wasn't a con. There are those of us who don't believe what VPW taught was necessarily God's Word. But be that as it may, even if one was to accept for the sake of argument that some/most/all of what he taught was God's Word; my original question was not concerning really what he taught, or focusing on any specific chapter or verse. It was more to the point of did he actually BELIEVE himself the things that he taught? And how does that square with his subsequent actions?

Not the John Cusack movie... Among all the countless epithets used on these boards to describe Vic (Loy too, but mainly VP) I have seen a lot lately that are referring to him as a “grifter”, “con man”, scam artist” etc. By definition a con artist is someone trying to push something that he knows it patently false. And it is something that I have often wondered about in the years since I left TWI...Did VP really believe his own spiel? Did he truly believe that God was giving him the word as it hasn’t been known since the first century (or however that phrase went)? Or was it in fact a calculated plot on his part for the money, power, sex, adulation? Perhaps one grew out of the other (“I’m the MOG, I can do whatever I want”)? It sounds to me like LCM truly believed in his own “MOGness”, but I was around for very little of his regime. Vic, I’m not sure about. I was only ever a leaf miner bug on the great Way Tree, but I’d be curious to hear what those who were ever Corps or staff say on the subject. Geez...I’m being far too analytical for so early in the morning!

Ummmmmmmmmm.....Then how did you start this one?

You know, until you mentioned it, I had completely forgotten that was what VPW said Paul's thorn in the flesh actually was (it's been a lot more years than I care to remember!) I wasn't saying that his explanation of it being people was necessarily wrong. I suppose he made a good enough arguement for it being people vs. being a illness of some kind. I was simply commenting on his criticism of what supposedly someone else was to have said Paul's thorn was, considering what we have learned of VP's own behavior since then.

There was one point in "piffle" where VPW was talking about Paul's thorn in the flesh and the different interpretations of what it was supposed to be. He indicated that some scholar(s) somewhere had postulated that Paul's thorn in the flesh was, as he put it "a weakness for women". Then he really got worked up over the idea that someone would think the Apostle Paul was a "sex puh-VERT". He went on to speculate that most theologians were just projecting their own foibles on Paul. Now, I am no biblical scholar (I certainly wasn't one back then!) but everything that I have ever seen or read (outside of TWI) has speculated that Paul's thorn in the flesh was sickness of some kind. Has anyone ever seen anything where anyone has even remotely suggested that it might have been something sexual in nature? Do you think that maybe VP was doing a little self-projecting of his own? After all, if this was in fact Paul's thorn and he still supposedly got all this great revelation, it would perhaps serve to justify VP's own despicable conduct in his own eyes?

I've actually been around the cafe for quite some time but I am mainly a lurker. Don't recall seeing that in "Saving Private Ryan" but I guess so huh? But does anyone know if there truly was a connection with VPW's family or is the name similarity just a coincidence? I always thought he was German. Thanks

With all the recent coverage of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, for some reason it reminded me of VPW claiming that there was some town called Wierville that was supposedly right where the troops landed in Normandy and there was supposed to be some family connection. I looked on line for a map of Normandy but did not see any town with such a name. Does anyone know if this was true, or yet another thing that he concocted - either that or my mind is palying tricks on me and I'm imagining I heard this? But I seem to recall hearing this story on at least a couple of different occasions. Thanks,