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Wuttup Beaches?

I believe I've forgiven him for being a jerk and inspiring others to emulate him, but I wouldn't listen to him recite a nursery rhyme, much less teach the Bible.

Donated.

I donated

A and E is re-running Season 2 tonight and at 10pm. Leah interviews former members of Jehovah's Witness and their similarities to Scientology. I wish she and Mike had instead interviewed, Karl, Kristin, and Charlene.

After creating a live radio show in 1942 to broadcast his sermons, an out-of-work preacher from Ohio was quickly throw into the spotlight of an international spiritual movement. Through his hypnotic Power for Abundant Living (PFAL) course, Wierwille bought the Way International to a large farm in Ohio during a time of revolution in the 1960s. “The Teacher” appeared to be devoted to God, but actually wanted sex, money, and control. (Ep 62) A disgruntled pastor of the Evangelical and Reformed Church creates his own religious group in 1942 after claiming he received Biblical secrets dating back from the First Century AD. By 1980, The Way International was one of the largest and wealthiest cults on Earth. Despite it’s tremendous growth, Victor Paul Wierwille’s paranoia and institutionalized methods of control ultimately led to the cult’s demise. Find these a Parcast.com

And that their "leaders" don't know how to make a living otherwise.

Were you on the outside, looking inside? What did you see?

I really only ever hear from anybody when they post here. I don't know if anyone here is in touch with him. If he has a Facebook acct he's updating and someone knows it, maybe they can answer that. But I'm not there and don't know who is.

The lawyers say to add those. My favourite warning was on a packet of peanuts. "Warning: Contains Peanuts." Yeah, I hope so, Sparky.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but..." Means - NO way in heaven or hell am I wrong and even if I were you're not up to the task of correcting me in this or any other world, so just listen please."

I am still here.

Yep. Not to mention as corps our lives were so intertwined with our assignments. Financially, socially, family, et al. When me n my ex left, I had us the hell away from all things twi by insisting that we relocate to a city near hq where my child's healthcare was being handled at the time. The day I emailed john rupps sorry behind our resignation letter we had literally spent months extricating ourselves from twi tentacles. It took several years after leaving to come to grips with reality...the reality that i volunteered myself in the prime of my life and spent many years advancing an abusive cult that works on a pyramid scheme. I knew of the abuses but thought it would never come my way....wrong.....wrong. Anywho, Happy Thanksgiving all!

I imagine you wouldn't care if the Sun circled the Earth or vice versa, as the difference isn't of practical use.

Just saw this thread! I guess i don't meander around in this section often. I pop in and check the about the way. It's late here and I am crashing for the night. Paw thanks for everything. This site has helped me so much! I was smurfette, then pengu in. I never would have made it out without everyone's help here. I will donate something tomorrow since the button is still up....

You mean he's doing teachings and people actually want to listen to him??? Overall, I feel sorry for him more than I hate him, but I never got my face melted by him.

Personally, I'd prefer it-it would be nice- if he's gotten his act together, and now helps people rather than hurting them, all because he understands now what went wrong before. I'm not counting on it. He's probably keeping his head down and avoiding headlines. (He probably has someone in charge of making sure of exactly that.) It would be of a piece with what we last heard about him.

Sky, years ago I joined the Navy to better myself. Many people told that because I was an AC Grad, I should go into the Corps. Your post lists the reasons why I am glad I choose the Navy over the Corps. Thanks!

Don't you just love it when one man decides what God is going to decide regarding another man's salvation? That line of thinking is looney in the tooney LOL.

What little time I spent live with him (and Sean, for that matter) made positive impressions on me. Then again, I can say the same of Geer, and he was nuts when I wasn't in the room with him. I know VF was defending Geer's "God doesn't know everything" doctrine even when he wasn't making sense doing it. (Really, VF? "Maybe God Almighty didn't know what the 'signs' meant in the Heavens when he MADE the 'signs'?" You mean He was following a careful design but He had no idea what He was designing or why?) Add that to the normal consequences of "you can lose your salvation" and it's a recipe for disaster. The questions are "when" and "how big" and "what type of disaster".

Well, it looks like yet another offshoot will be coming soon. I just got wind of it today, no details yet.

I wanted to pull some important points out of this to highlight but it's so packed with good advise, I found that to be an impossible task.

Last night Tonto and I watched several episodes from the first season. I was so captivated by the stories that afterwards i had to analyze why it held my interest the whole time. We had both read several books on Scientology and so were familiar with their tenets, control tactics, and certain followers’ personal stories of abuse and harassment...so much is so similar - just the abuse of power is termed differently - as it’s already been pointed out on Grease Spot ...for example to “declare” someone an enemy of the Church of Scientology is equivalent to TWI’s “mark and avoid”. The appeal of this series is different for everyone...I imagine those who have never been deeply involved in an abusive and exploitative cult are just fascinated and maybe somewhat incredulous that anyone would fall for this stuff (oh the good old daze of the young and naive - )...for me, the series is like preaching to the choir (Sea Org = way corps) ; as each personal story unfolded and they talked about their recovery from a cult - there was something resonating within me...looking passed the doctrine and terminology - maybe it was an empathetic connection I guess - that I find healing, encouragement and strength from folks having a similar experience.

I don't know about anyone here, but splinters or any other organisation - I don't care. Can't cope with these "festivals" and group meets such as that on the page that Raf has included. My church puts on weekends with special speakers, and I always want to run a mile. Part of my legacy of too many boring meetings run by TWI. Sad really. I'm probably missing out.

Watching the Scientology series is enough for me. Some of the parallels are chilling.