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Or perhaps old puke from last night's bad drunk. It's still fun to make fun of memories of them worshiping over the porcelain god and speaking in liquid screams. Shot 'o Drambuie anyone?

What happened to all my prayers? Ya know, before I ever heard of The Way, I had no idea my prayers were second rate. Then I got witnessed to and found out I had it all wrong. See, you can't actually talk to God like you talk to everyone else. You have to have this special language, that they speak in the land of Lo Shanta, or God won't have a clue what you're talking about.And, God can't talk back to you either unless you talk to yourself in this new language lots and lots every day. And you have to make a real effort to expand your vocabulary, too, or God will just keep telling you the same stuff over and over again. Heck, I've even heard people say they prayed to God for answers (without the Lo Shanta stuff) and, presto, someone from TWI appeared to invite them to Twig and sign them up for PLAF. But, how can that be if God can't understand your prayers in the first place? So then my question is this: What happened to all those prayers I said before I heard of TWI?

In my former splinter group (River Road Fellowship as led by V. Barnard) we did the whole, "We are a whole world unto ourselves, isolated in a rural area" thing and it $ucked bigtime. Every perception of truth was tightly controlled by the supposed Apostle. It seemed to me like over time things just got more and more warped. Eventually it was heresy to even question such "apostolic" blunders as him teaching the Lord would return in 1997, 2000, uh er...2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, and even the latest that I've heard on the grapevine 2011. Not to mention the oppressive atmosphere which led to such unfortunate things as teenage girls announcing in fellowship that,"I am married to the Christ in Victor." So while they constantly congradulate themselves among themselves it seems pretty obvious to me that they only grew more dangerous and absurd as time went on. And I really don't think they'd openly come around GSC to state their case either, but they'd say it was because of all they "unbelief" here at GSC I'm sure. But I am certain it is because that even though they imagine themselves to be winners that they would simply be confronted for what they really are. I feel justified in my concerns for Caleb and his fellows.

So without further response from Caleb is this how we are to see this exchange end? One young man takes a small step out of the Mississipi swamp and into a place where all his beliefs he must knew may be challeged. He gives an aggressive post with a direct threat while claiming he will be handling questions and conversations for months to come. And as soon as a teany little bit of heat arrives he steps out, omly to never be heard from again. OMG I would like to believe the young man is o.k., but nobody that knows anything is saying! Is he being shut in with a bunch of faithful for a patented TWI style "healing". Are they mad at us enough to foolishly desire to carry out the feelings of anger in the initial post? Is the young man strong enough to realize that our intentions were for his own good and it may be that his "manoGod" is the real villain? But even though v2p2 may well be carrying out that role I do personally feel compassion for a young man who himself has been indoctrinated into his supposed life's purpose. TOO MANY QUESTIONS, TOO FEW ANSWERS. IMO

Maybe irrelevant.

Its not old news for all of us that gave our time & money for a rot hole place called THE WAY INTERNATIONAL that claimed to be a place of god. It wont be old news until no one is standing for or preaching their crap and that land in ohio is washed away . and only then will it be old news !!

Oh for Pete's sake, Oldies..........quit SPINNING and DANCING around the room. Wierwille BETRAYED his committed followers......most notably, the WOWs and the Corps. As a young and naive WOW, catcup's sister came face-to-face with wierwille's sexual motorcoach lusts and, when she refused, she was kicked off the WOW field. And, its well documented on the forums how wierwille went after the Corps women..!!!!! Can't you see the snare...??? With no accountability for his actions......and being in a well-protected, multi-tiered yes-men hierarchy, wierwille's TRUE COLORS CAME FORTH. What he was.......behind closed doors..... was his TRUE CHARACTER. Those public appearances were just showmanship......no more, no less. Wierwille BETRAYED "his" corps........he sold many of us down the river. He couldn't even keep his commitment to us regarding THE CORPS CHALET. He gave it to his top yes-boy......craig. There is a HUGE chasm between............freely serving God without compulsion as opposed to being manipulated by a con-man who winks with his eyes and speaks with his fingers (Proverbs reference). But hey.........if you, Oldies, want to stay deceived about "the good ole way-daze" have at it. Doesn't look like too many folks here are buying what you are attempting to sell.

God first hi everybody here what a person is saying another board here more he said another post can someone make heads or tails this person love Roy

God first hi waysider that would be the case but he or she already follower me to another board but the Atheism are just laughing at him but did I miss something is there something of value there I like of myself as a Gnostic but I believe it was dead religion so it fare game because may show here someday not he not a bad person highly religions and little puff up he call me a fool more than once and a few other people too I just want to make I read it right love Roy

I pick HAM as the obvious choice as generalisimo of this elite force.

They remind me a little of "tribbles".!!!

Very amusing. I started using Stylewriter a year or so ago to tighten up the writing for my college papers. For an example of TWI-style writing, I'm posting some screen shots of JAL's last letter and what Stylewriter had to say about it. Here's a legend: Red sentences are any sentences over 35 words. Dark red words or phrases indicate passive verbs, cliches, overused words, or overwriting. Bold black words are confused words, misused words, confused hyphens

that seemed to be typical of the behavior expected of wives. we were supposed to hold it in until AFTER the meeting. our submission was more important than the truth. the public image of our man was more important than protecting the innocent from false accusations. Jo$ephine, you should be ashamed of yourself. you could leave, you know that, and do something worthwhile with your life. M@rk, someday you'll pay dearly for the lies you tell. lying is bad. didn't you get that memo, the one from God? or were you out to lunch when it was passed around?

how this topic took a turn is nice and i like it very much, with everybody putting their thoughts out here and everybody else expressing their perspective about those thoughts, and i like it very much because it is good coversation to me. i really like how people can disagree without fighting and how even though people might disagree they see where we also agree and then we can see a clear path to communication, which is what conversation is for in the end or otherwise it would just be babbling and nothing would be understood i think. on the subjects of "true self" and "soul" i think that there is no one definition of these things or no one way to look at these things or no one way to find these things because these things are only for the person themselves to define, perceive and find these things as they see and feel right for themselves, so there's no "universal" self or soul to define or discuss. for me what i mean when i talk about these things is that i have learned to look into my own thoughts and feelings and perceptions to see if what i think and feel and want and don't want and all is from my deepest heart of identity or from what others expect from me or trained into me or demanded from me regardless of how i thought i should be. and how do i know if my own thoughts and feelings and perceptions are not just more of the behavior modifications of my lifetime? because i have my own personal experiences of the world now and i can draw from those things regardless of the training of my lifetime, and yes it is hard and it is very time consuming and it is draining alot of the time, but the more i do it the better i get at doing it so it takes less time and effort until i think that someday i will be true to myself as a natural way of being instead of something i have to stop and do. i sure do know that it slows life down quite a bit and at first i was very frustrated with it all because i felt life was going by me without my participation, but now that i am getting used to i have learned that nothing short of a life an death emergency needs an instant or quick action or reaction, so i feel that i am bordering on getting wisdom, which is something i really like alot and i feel like i am living my life for me and not for everybody else, which is a long long way from where i first started this process, and it's a good long long way for me.

ah, them! context is everything. I was just talking about them somewhere else, as a matter of fact. they are asleep. drones. I suppose some of them are so damaged by being raised inside they will never recover. they will abuse because they were taught to be that way. I don't know that I can say they're all abusers, though. you'd know better than I.

I wasn't giving them money when I took the new christian family whatever class.

well hell, they'll never take me back now!

you're still missing the point, OM. it isn't their property unless they have a written contract stating it is. copies were given away, and they are subject to exhaustion of rights the same way an item obtained by purchase would be. the only way to limit that is by contract, and the only way for a contract to be valid is if it is agreed to in writing. otherwise, twi could go back to the people who were given sets of tapes and now claim they were only loaned, or people could take back gifts at will. the law protects against that by requiring contracts as proof, and making seizure of property illegal without a warrant. yes, renting and leasing is allowed, but it requires a contract. you never rent equipment or DVDs without signing a contract, and your library card involves signing a contract. without a contract, you wouldn't be under any legal obligation to return equipment, DVDs or books.

Ebay's got rules about selling other people's (stolen) goods. I guess if I were going to plunk down $5k OBO, I would want to see a bill of sale that proves that person is the owner of said materials. As it is, my husband (boyfriend at the time) paid $100, which was about $75 too much for me to take the class. This appears to be the audio version he's selling. As it is, the guy doesn't appear to be hiding who he is (it took me about 2 minutes to find out) and he is open for questions. The only other thought I had was that he must think TWI people are keen discerners of the truth gullible. Where would he get that idea?

how did they specify it? is there a written contract signed by each person receiving the tapes, or a blanket contract filed somewhere signed by each borrower, as we do when we apply for a library card? what I want to know is if there is a legal contract. if not, then the physical transfer of the tapes from twi to an individual qualifies as "first sale" and twi's downstream rights to control are terminated. plus, anyone purchasing the tapes on good faith is not bound by any contract entered into by someone else with twi, so they are free to dispose of the tapes as they see fit.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because no one has answered your challenge that no testimonies exist. That would be a mistake in logic. What you should consider is that people are getting tired of you and WD promoting your own form of victim mentality and are just not willing to play the games anymore. If you want to consider yourself as "winning" then I guess that's fine - but in reality you are fooling yourself. This thread has been a bit disgusting to read. Two posters trying vehemently to promote their own victimhood (Oh poor me. I saw stuff and did stuff but I can't talk about it because I have no proof,) while they deny others the right to vent. Am I stupid enough to say that every account of rape is true? No. But even if only ONE person told the truth and then hundreds repeated it as if it was their own story - VP was STILL WRONG. Oh, and BTW, there is at least one example of VP's depravity that normally could be cited, but the new rules keep it from being talked about. You want an account? Go listen to the interviews with Kristen Skedgell on the first page. That is first hand. Do you "need" more examples? I'd say that one is more than enough. He was wrong. I don't need more examples of his depravity. If you do, perhaps that says something about you. It's bad enough that one young lady was manipulated by a man old enough to be her grandfather. Wanting or needing more examples is just perverse. I may be wrong - but that is my opinion.

actually, for the record, the claims have been documented. methinks you should go back and read the federal rules of evidence again. at this point, in a court of law, the documented testimony of vpw's victims would have to be proven false, so this entire discussion is based on an ignorant and/or misinformed assumption of what VPW's rights are as a deceased citizen of the US.

II Samuel 11:2 And it came to pass in an eventide, that David arose from his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing (rachats) herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. verse 8 And David said unto Uriah, Go down to thy house and wash (rachats) thy feet. II Samuel 25: 41 And she [Abigail] arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash (rachats) the feet of the servants of my lord. Psalm 26: 6 I will wash (rachats) mine hands in innocency:---------- ************************************************************* David spied on her from the roof!! In addition, this word is not exclusively used in the sense of "taking a bath". That's an extrapolation derived from our current usage of the word "bathe".

we don't know that she was naked. doesn't say she was in a tub. she might have been washing off dust and sweat in a basin once it cooled off. nothing suggests she was acting inappropriately. in fact, I'd venture a guess that she was acting with discretion, having waited for the evening. how was she to know that David stayed home from the war and slept all day, then stumbled upon an opportunity to indulge in some voyeurism?

Okay........you did some twi work days..........so? YOU are the one who pounds the gavel for accuracy. YOU are the one who pounds the desk to cite authority. YOU were spouse corps..........YOUR nametag designated it. YOU were spouse corps. Are you ashamed of that? And.....if you don't like that designation, how about Post-Program Participant. Sorry, WhiteDove.....you can't have it BOTH ways. You can't state inaccuracies.........and be accurate. <_<

As far as the comments about ranting day after day about crimes committed.....well there are some here who have had life long impact from what happened in twi....things that can never be fixed...families estranged, children who struggle, childlesness...issues with trust..... Darned tootin we will still talk about it.

Now why would we want another case when you've already declared that "the context was VPW."?

Their testimony stands!..I agree 100 %.... First hand tetimony is only dismissed when the testamony is proven to be invalid...sorry Whitedove...you lose again. ...but you must be getting used to that by now.

Obviously...your desire to defend VP Wierwille is apparent to all... A plagiarist, a liar, a drunk and an adulterer....this is the path YOU have chosen...it should be obvious to you that you are in an anti twi website...why bother?...

Not at all Dove, It`s just that I don`t use second and third hand opinions of other people to call into question posters veracity or to try to obstruct their testimony as to their personal experiences in twi. Pretty silly to accuse me of not wanting you to post your 2nd and 3rd hand information here at gs, when you have been doing it for years. What you DON`T like is that someone has challenged you on the hypocracy of insisting that there be documentation, and a legal conviction in order for someone to be guilty of a crime, when you yourself have no personal knowledge or experience of what you claim others are lying about. People are assaulted every day, murders go unsolved, that doesn`t mean a crime wasn`t committed. That doesn`t mean it didn`t happen, or the damage inflicted wasn`t real. No, we will never bring these guys to legal justice in THIS world, but one of the things we ARE permitted to do is discuss our experiences, call into question the morals, ethics and beliefs that led these criminals to believe that this was acceptable to do to people. In so doing, maybe begin the healing process and grow beyond the toxic doctrine that empowered them, and kept us enslaved.

actually, you have quite often used logic to try to prove PFAL is god-breathed by referring to the teachings of vpw himself. now, vpw said this: he claimed himself that the keys he's reveal would work with a mathematical exactness and scientific precision, so the rules of math and science must apply. your position "PFAL is god-breathed" is exactly the problem posed by the liar paradox. thank you for explaining that much more clearly and beautifully than I ever could :)

I mind as well just walk up to wayfers and say "flying spaghetti monster, now go away"

The random snow squall argument is a bust. Not a cloud in the sky. Wrong time of year. No supporting records. Plus, according to TW:LIL, it was a "phenomenon" which means it could not have been a naturally occurring event anyway. So a random squall would not qualify as phenomena. And, if it was possible for it to be a naturally occurring random squall, why would he be so amazed at it anyhow? So, the possibility of it being a random squall is a moot point. Not even worth considering. The only thing left is phenomena. But Wierwille himself taught that the fleece deal in the O.T. was a one time event and that you can't order God to give you a sign, order up phenomena. Well, if he was right about that, he disproved his own snowstorm. If he was wrong, and he really saw it, the snowstorm would contradict his teaching on the subject and thus flush his credibility down the crapper. But personally, I like Groucho's take on it the best.

C'mon you guys...the guy was drunk every day by noon...he screwed young girls and copied other people's writings word for word... do you need a roadmap? There was no snowstorm, he lied...plain and simple.

thanks for posting the link. I REALLY enjoyed the smug tone regarding finances. let's see.... I loved the thing about the rich and their foundations, but that we should start giving now because why wait? it seems they completely ignore the value of volunteer work, or donations of used clothing instead of tossing stuff in the trash, or the value of helping someone get back on their feet after a crisis. it's only the money tithe that counts, I guess. this just made me laugh: seriously, Angela! how is it such a good deal to pay rent so your landlord can make repairs? it's not helping you build equity, whereas the costs of maintenance do. and you ARE paying taxes when you rent, you just pay them to your landlord so he/she can pay the bill. no one says I have to own a home, but NO ONE SHOULD TELL ME I CAN'T. Gary's point about getting free stuff is dumb. I got furniture for free, too, that stuff gets passed around as people upgrade, but when my ex ditched our kids, no one in twi would even babysit for me so I could go to classes or work on no-school days because they'd only babysit for my ex when he had the kids, because he went on such a campaign of hateful backbiting against me. sometimes you don't need stuff, you need a helping hand to stay on your feet so you can get back on top of things after a disaster. oh, but even though I had to move and we were homeless for months, I managed to hang onto my car, which is now totally paid for. first time in my life I ever had a car that's run consistently, and when I add it up, financing the car cost me less each year than it ever had when I was buying cars for cash, because what I could buy for the equivalent of a down payment typically lasted a year to 18 months and needed lots of work to keep it going. one of twi's great lies: "We can't always control how much is coming in," Gary said, "but we can always control what is going out." no Gary, you can't always control what's going out.

Wow, Potato, that's a bit of a turn-round. Musta been after they got really scared by LCM's shining example. No, wait, his example was to mate everyone in the household. I have a dim recollection somewhere (CFS??) of VPW saying that some rules applied when we were younger but not necessarily when we were older. You tell a five year old not to do something (for his own good - like not crossing the road alone) but you don't need to tell a 25 year old, who has by now learned how to cross safely. I think the inference (don't think it was explicit) was that sex was out for young kids/ teenagers but for adults it was a normal part of life. Sound familiar, anyone?

I see four ads, three for bagpipes and one from the way expose by jl. there were all kinds of music and theatre things going on at the family tables when I first went to RoA, but lcm destroyed all of that within a few years.

has anyone transcribed the video class?

TWI proably celebrated Christmas during the 60's but by 1975 follwed JW and WCOG(Armstrong) theology with Alexander Hislop and Ralph Woodrow's books on Babylon Mystery Religion/2 Babylons. Add on Lamsa, Pillai, Errico, Bullinger, Ernest Martin, Schoenheit's One God and One Lord. This does not include VPW;s spin zone/paradigm/interpretation of these other author's.

John and Yoko, 1971. "So this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun."

Don't worry...when you wake up, Wierwille will still be dead.

no, it's another example of a cost that should have been counted as a business expense and paid for by twi, along with the cost of stamps and money orders.

Your ABS dollars at work

You need to read what's written on the page. I wasn't referring to my situation specifically. I was referring to the cost of food, gas, and wages in general, and how the cost of weekly mailing ABS could affect the average person working for minimum wage. You were saying it was no big deal and I was quantifying the accumulated costs. If you want to spend money on coffee and you figured out a way to keep the costs down that worked with HQ, more power to you. Other's didn't feel they had choices. I don't believe in the tithe now and I didn't then, either. I believe charity begins at home, particularly when I saw OPM being squandered on Harley tours.

Twi is SMALL POTATOES........because everything they do is SELF-SERVING, SELF-GRATIFYING and SELF-PRESERVATION. Twi does nothing for society. They bury all their "talents" in a hole and claim that they are "believing" God. Twi is a fear-based corporation.....captivated by fear of losing it all.

A lot of people started out with that same notion - we are really reading the Bible. Wow! This group has come up with some great stuff and presented it in a way that I've never gotten in a church environment. I really felt I was in more of a give and take environment. That was my hook. I personally never got the whole "Father in the Word" thing; too much like the pope. But I really liked the idea of studying the Bible in depth and discussing what I read. Ironically, the more I studied, the more I realized how many people were restricting their "study" to what happened to be taught in the tapes and discussion was limited to agreement with the teaching or how to practically apply whatever was taught. There was no evaluation of the accuracy, or determining whether some "private interpretation" on the part of the teacher had been used. I remember saying to my husband that I thought we were in a research and teaching ministry, but the lack of independent research and independent thought was unsettling. I thought I was joining a group of believers who were seeking to be smart about the Bible and therefore smart about life, but they really weren't using their heads in many areas of their lives. Ironically, many of those people were being rewarded by leadership and being made leaders, or made to feel important in other ways. Those of us who wished to remain independent were subtly (or not so subtly) told to toe the line, especially once LCM was at the helm. Once LCM took over, the whole leadership vetting process was a study in what not to do. Unfortunately, every splinter group out there has chosen to emulate LCM's openly yes-man mentality.

Published in 1996, Mrs. Wierwille's book was strategically sanitized for twi's cult-consumption...........and even then, several "gems of understanding" slipped thru the filtering to disclose major flaws in documenting mr. wierwille as the man of God with new light.

Oakspear, in my opinion how much a follower invested is a huge factor – as well as what was their bottom line, what items were negotiable, etc.! Excellent points!!!...interesting…I started looking at this in terms of a business deal…Some people when they get burned on a bad investment will garner what lessons can be learned from the experience, and move on. Bet they won’t make a mistake like that again.

There are so many variables: when you got in, when you got out, who the leaders were, whether you were a leader or a well-respected long-term believer, were classes being run, how much money you were contributing. They all have a bearing on whether your memories were good, bad or indifferent. Another factor is how much you had invested in believing it all was right; what kind of things you would consider insignificant and were willing to put up with. I agree, in general, with the premise of this thread, that the longer you were in, the greater the indoctrination and the greater the attempts at control. However, the same actions could be perceived in vastly different ways, depending on one's mindset. For example, in the mid-nineties, local leadership made it their business to criticize several aspects of my personal life, and put a lot of pressure on me to change. At the time I accepted this interference, believing at the time that a leader had the right and responsibility to correct "error" in this manner. In hindsight, I now believe that the leader's actions were wrong and that I was wrong to allow it. For most of us who have left TWI there is a line that gets crossed. For some the line was crossed during PFAL and we never really got involved. For others it was the so-called loyalty oath letter, for still others it was actions of local leaders or a realization that there were doctrinal contradictions. But the line usually just didn't pop up from nowhere one day. There was a continuum: at one end was "this is great" and at the other end was "I'm outta here".

Kit......yeah, some took pfal but were more focused on their goals and stayed grounded. Others, like me...... followed "the leader" into the indoctrination process of "committed service for God." In hindsight.........I see the many RED FLAGS. Heck, there were several flying back in "the good ole days"..... the hype, the celebrity-mog status, the undocumented snow-on-gas-pumps, the inresidence isolation, the money-spending constraints while inresidence, the stifling of showing emotion, etc. Back in the 70s......witnessing to bring others to a twi-fellowship was tough. Imagine TODAY.......the internet, the ex-way community, lawsuits, re-written twi history, the ousted martindale, pathetic involvement, an aging following, top-heavy staff personnel, etc. etc. The short stay might be NO STAY at all.