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Good morning, GreaseSpotters! This is Charlene chiming in thank Rocky for posting this link to what is in fact my FINAL public talk. For what I say about that: Visit: Charlene's Last Public Cult Talk | Charlene L. Edge (charleneedge.com) I'm here also to thank Pawtucket for risking so much, giving so much, putting up with so much as he's hosted this venue for so many years. Aren't we lucky we can meet here to share our stories, get info, and offer each other support! Cheers to you, brave ones!

Rocky, thanks for posting that ! Listening to Charlene is very comforting...As always in her book, blog, GSC posts and this interview, she comes across as being so relatable - which for me demystifies and destigmatizes how people can fall prey to a harmful cult.

We can call it... wait for it... The ExWay Tree!

In 1675, in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton wrote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”…in 2021 a verbose post tried to reference that by gravitating towards the optics of what the sum of TWI-offshoots might add up to: If they have seen further into the darkness, it is by standing on the shoulders of sycophants who have had their heads up wierwille’s a$$.

As I've said before, it took me over 15 years to come to this site and then join and post, and I only pop in sporadically and then post in spurts. The same goes for the R&R Facebook group: I had asked to join two years ago and had made candid remarks in one of the original posts and left it. The good thing to come of it was that Lewellyn Hallett friended me on FB. Prompted by remarks I read here yesterday, and remembering what a total smarmy gratuitous kiss up Michael Fort is, I decided to take a peek today. Sure enough, a Way-style sanitizing has been done of all the comments there. Comments have been disabled retroactively for two plus years, deleted except for those that reinforce the desired narrative, and as stated here, everyone just echoes the rhetoric of TWI from the past 52 plus years. Skimming through the intact remarks, I thought that it's a shame it's a closed group. A link could be posted at a poison control emergency site when inducing vomiting is appropriate, because reading those remarks would certainly do the trick. The only detraction is that bulimics would find it accessible. How willfully and deliberately F-ing stupid can people be? I left the group today. I don't care that they have 896 members now and maybe someone I really liked and cared about might be among them, I'm not going to go through the members list. "Oh I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused..." Elvis Costello The Angels Want To Wear My Red Shoes

So.......how much divergence of the wierwille-doctrine can you have and still be considered "a wierwille follower?" Muddy the waters all you want..........but if you weren't in "The Way" then you were out of fellowship. As ex-corps, can you throw away all the corps letters and teachings .........and still be deemed in the top tier of spiritual status? If the corps.....er, ex-corps don't uphold the standards that wierwille taught.......then, advanced class grads and ex-corps are on EQUAL footing. Umm...............same goes for ex-reverends. You can't claim reverend status and refute/rebuff the source of that claimed status. How much can you dismiss and water-down.......before you become unrecognizable as a splinter cult of twi? When the heavy-handedness is removed and questions enter the fray........who holds the authority over all the others? As more questions surface about wierwille and/or his teachings.......do they get a fair hearing or harsh confrontation? Sound doctrine should be able to withstand an onslaught of questions.......from every angle. Sound practice should be able to address all the questions regarding wierwille's past plagiarism, predation and pathologies. Now, is the time to separate truth from error.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekL7o8BQkZM

How long before someone posts on GSC......... "I left the Revival and Restoration Group, and here's why......."

On one hand.......splintering does have its "advantages." It awakens some from the cult to break away from the deep-seated bondage and captivity of twi.......and later, they find out that their offshoots encounter the same problems and cultish ways (i.e. geerites, CES, CFF....). One person here at GSC recently posted that s/he had been with twi for 14 years.....and then, with a Geer group for 18 years (before leaving in 2005). So, offshoots can add a mixture of advantages/disadvantages to the mix. Ugh. But on the other hand.......it divides families. For decades, families have been divided by twi's teachings and cult tactics. The "mark and avoid" ploy is the same thing the Scientologists call "disconnect." Shun those family members who are not in agreement or fall in line. In the last two years......that March 2017 letter to twi's BOD (noted above.....and if I'm not mistaken) lists two of Don and Wanda's girls who disagree with twi's doctrine/practices and therefore distanced themselves from the group. Same goes with C!ndy F0rt........so now that Howard and Wanda are married.........they have children (and grandchildren?) who are not welcomed at The Way International. So much for......promotes "harmony in the home."

Yeah, Raf........it is a blanket statement, because (obviously) none of us have looked into every splinter group out there. But.....the way I see it, a splinter group is one that has people who've split from twi and want to continue in "the Word as wierwille taught them", and/or research the rightly-divided word" utilizing pfal material, and/or band together in home fellowships to embrace the nostalgia of the early days of twi. I'm sure that there are other derivatives "of fellowship" out there who may have drifted to more church-oriented doctrines, but have basic relationships and friendship that stem back to twi-days. The swath of splinter groups is wide......I certainly would not dispute that. Why is it that those with titles think that they are EN-titled to lead a splinter group? As I said before.......corps coordinators should have THEIR BUTTS in the seats and let others teach and lead. Their pride and arrogance is what makes it WORSE. .

Absolutely and completely RIGHT ON!!! Thank you Skyrider!