Leaderboard

Are you kidding? A) People with personal experience of lcm remember him as abrasive, domineering and foul-mouthed. Parents said their kids learned to curse from mandatory exposure to his tirades. Some of them were kicked out by him, and others got fed up and left because of him. B) The chicks in charge of twi (we need a nickname for the 3 chicks running the show now) painted lcm as the big villain when he was in, and made it look like their hands were clean, no matter how complicit they were in everything. He was set up to take the blame for everything THEY did as well as everything HE did. C) Leaders who were around dealing with lcm found him difficult to deal with at best, and abrasive and domineering at worst. None of them had positive memories of him overall. Even when he was "at his best", he insisted on pushing his way into the spotlight and making sure his capricious whims were followed no matter how impractical that was. D) vpw knew to turn on the charm and fake being a nice guy. vpw knew to fake liking the leaders so long as he got his own way with them. vpw was older and had the mystique he constructed, that he was on another level than the leaders that he dealt with (for the most part; a few never quite bought into it- hi, Ralph!) E) People who have fantasies that twi was nearly perfect when they were young and naive credit vpw for the idyllic paradise of their fantasies- and need a villain to explain what went wrong. In their case, they blame lcm for freaking EVERYTHING. F) lcm lacks academic credentials, and the skill to plagiarize the way vpw did. So, he has nothing of his own to bring to the table. He presented his own versions of vpw's stuff, but in his urge to be different, he managed to construct inferior material to graft on, and it showed. So, the old stuff is seen a superior to the lcm stuff. So, in short, at best, lcm is the designated villain, and at worst, the plague that adulterated vpw's stuff and ruined what was good to begin with. So, lcm counts as zero when he doesn't count as a negative number.

I agree wholeheartedly with the essence of your post. However, I believe that you may have softened LCM's persona with your euphemistic description of him as "abrasive, domineering and foul-mouthed." I believe you left out "extremely emotionally and sexually abusive."

Bi tch Perfect 3

Not sure if this will fly, but how about the Shrew Crew?

Chock, here in DC, libraries are still very, very popular, as centers of learning. I used to live in Tompkins County, NY. I think Forbes Magazine(?) claimed a few months ago, that people in Ithaca, were the best read people in the USA. Although I haven't lived in the Ithaca area, for decades, I still read a lot. I can go anywhere, with a book. Books make me think; sometimes they make me weep, or laugh.

I think LCM didn’t have whatever finesse wierwille had to charm and manipulate folks. Lacking finesse he resorted to force - bully tactics.

But then............so did wierwille. He lacked academic credentials AND his "putting it all together" had lots of holes in it. It is a lot easier to fool a 19 year old........than a 36 year old. By then, many of us had serious doubts about wierwille's spiel.....and, even if we stuck around, it had more to do with relationships, indoctrination and habit patterns than *believing* that wierwille was incredibly gifted. Gawd, I had doubts about wierwille's shtick when I was in-residence corps in 1978.

Speaking of Refesteration and Revilery, here's a question fer y'all...lemme see if I can make this make sense...I was thinking about it after reading that one of the principles of the STFI/Truth of Tradition ministry had left and was teaching something radically different than what the group teaches. It made me wonder - would those who leave that group refer back to their roots and the points at which they left the herd by name and by date, for instance using the name of John Schoenheit or John Lynn or whomever....since they're branching off from a group that built their doctrinal platform by the hands of a few people, it would make sense if they did. It might also make sense for them to reach even further back or for that matter, to skip people altogether and just start from "scratch" so to speak, from "The Word" and not what their previous founders and bible-pounders taught. Or from some other point of reference that they consider important. Likewise, today there are groups, ministries, fellowships and otherswho are carrying forth the teachings of Dr. Wiewille, by name, both in part and whole. Refaced PFAL classes, reworked teachings and books, in whatever form, some people openly favor all or some part of "what they were taught" and are willing and ready to keep the candle burning for "What Doctor Taught".... But - I never hear of anyone referencing or building their platform from what Craig Martindale taught - and he redid the Way's "Foundational" series class....yet there seems to be a vast void of anyone who references him directly as "What Rev. Martindale Taught" or as a way of calling the fold together around something he taught in the past....it seems no one sees a point of his involvement as a milestone date or event in a positive way. And I could see why - I personally can't think of anything he did or said that's worth remembering, other than some personal communications I might have had with him, but nothing on a deeper scale. I was only involved for a short few years after he took over but others were on board with him for many years.... So is that correct - did LCM's legacy amount to "0" for EVERYone, whether they continue to maintain some, all or any part of what they were taught by The Way....? Your responses are welcome.

Interesting in light of a recent booted poster. https://www.livescience.com/62506-flat-earth-convention.html Despite early claims, from as far back as HG Wells' "world brain" essays in 1936, that a worldwide shared resource of knowledge such as the internet would create peace, harmony and a common interpretation of reality, it appears that quite the opposite has happened. With the increased voice afforded by social media, knowledge has been increasingly decentralized, and competing narratives have emerged.

And as a follow up to WordWolf’s line of thought: you can’t teach an old TWI fool new dogma.

All technology has side-effects, and not all results are bad- and some are the price for the advantages. Yes, I think the printing press was one of the most catalytic pieces of technology ever invented, and the internet is another. Both offer great advantages, and those come with consequences, also. Sure- the printing press allowed knowledge to be passed along in a book with far greater efficiency. That meant that learned people could learn more, and that was expected. What some people never saw coming was the idea that the uneducated would want to read, and not always to become educated. I mean, look at books from the early 20th century. They include references to Latin without translating them and other literate references. That isn't because the authors were trying to be pretentious. They were educated and thought that only those with advanced degrees would read their stuff. Bullinger certainly seemed to think so, to name a reference we'd all recognize. Hislop's book drops references also. Some public domain books from that time are in PDF online- and may be difficult reads UNINTENTIONALLY for those very reasons. I think it's wonderful that information can travel more freely. On the other hands, A) some people want information restricted and their voices to be the only ones heard; and B) when voices are unrestricted, every tinfoil-hat wearer can publish a book. So, those are seen as different problems- which is worse depends where on the spectrum you are. So, yes, a few decades ago, the foolish, naive and unstable could look for answers in a library and read the most ridiculous hogwash and embrace it. Nowadays, the foolish, naive and unstable can go online for the most ridiculous hogwash and embrace it. On the other hand, there's perfectly useful information that's easy to find. A Bible student has lots of resources online. Anyone learning to cook can find a recipe with a few clicks, and learning lots of things can be done with a few more clicks. Want to practice a foreign language? You just need the right website. So, yes, it's a double-edged sword. Any fool can make videos and put forth he's some great one. In the long term, however, remember that this fool's competing not only with legitimate sources of information live and online, but he's also competing with the other fools. Ex-twi fools are bottom-feeders who wouldn't have made it in cons outside of twi. So, they can only really appeal to ex-twi, and that audience is aging out. The twi and ex-twi population is not replacing its numbers with new converts nor kids staying in the groups. For every one who is, there's several people who just plain die of old age. So, they're competing for a continually-shrinking audience. This problem will resolve itself progressively, and in the long run. In modern culture, twi is a quaint footnote. As time progresses, that will apply moreso until it dwindles away. Ex-twi fools are no different in that respect. They won't make groups that will appeal to a big audience nor last. The biggest ones will work locally for years or a decade, then pass their peak and begin fading slowly or quickly. This is a problem that affects a few handfuls of people for now, and will affect almost nobody fairly soon.

I still prefer actual books over electronic books - although I do think the convenience and space-saving factors of e-books are a huge plus...for fiction, general literature, stuff on writing, music, drawing, philosophy, history and such I will get on Kindle (my wife is a big proponent of going to the library-and I’ll probably get into that when I retire) ...but certain books on art, illustrated books on science , history, warfare as well as select commentaries and systematic theologies I prefer them in hardback editions. While I do think the Internet is a rich resource of information like how-to videos - I don’t get into the social media thing - don’t have Facebook, Twitter, etc...I get it what Chockfull was saying - some folks get online and come across like they’ve figured out the true interpretation of the Bible, or the inside scoop on whatever it is they’re talking about. I mostly look up movie reviews, Wikipedia plot spoilers (so I’m ahead of the game when I go to a show - darn my slow processor ) and of course keep up on what’s happening in the news - both kinds - real and fake

Cheer up, chockfull. Students still overwhelmingly prefer physical books to electronic devices when it comes to serious study and recreational reading. One downside of device availability, however, is that it presents sources of distraction that reduce the amount of reading time. Well, ok, that's a bit off-topic but at least it's somewhat tangential, I hope. one quick reference.