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Hello. If you want to socialize, we have game threads still going in the Games forum, and you are still welcome to join. "From 2002-2008 I was an advocate here that we return to PFAL to see how much we missed the first time(s), and to see how much we forgot or drifted from. I am convinced that 99% of all the woes reported here are due to us all NOT GETTING IT RIGHT the first times." You also outright contradicted the Orange Book in a few major issues- like vpw claiming we could get to the originals and how we could do that, and you saying we could NOT, and vpw saying something like 90% of Scripture means just what it says, and you saying the meanings are hidden, and vpw saying the class (book, once edited) was a class of KEYS and was to UNDERSTAND Genesis to Revelation but not to replace them, and you said it DID replace Genesis to Revelation. You said a lot of things, and usually switched to vague, uninformative wordings in order to obscure either a lack of substance or outright contradicting pfal while explaining pfal. Most of us here were around to see all of that, but a few new people may have missed it. For those people, I'd like to add that I in no way exaggerated what he said nor misrepresented it. Most people who have passed through these metaphorical doors are convinced that the problems were due to vpw violating the Bible and fair moral and legal codes while claiming he was our spiritual leader, and teaching his disciples to be two-fold the child of hell that he was- although, frankly, few matched in in that respect. Most actually cared about people, and only a tiny handful were that sociopathic or that fanatical to match him. You reluctantly agreed he wasn't perfect, but credited that to him being "OVERgifted" probably due to him being "born with an overabundance of brains and brawn" and "where he walked, the earth shook." (Seriously, those were his words, not mine.) You said the keys to getting it right were the hidden keys to pfal you knew and none of us did, and that the failure to get it right wasn't due primarily to pfal being a flawed product. "In those years I was only able to get a very small few of the GreaseSpotters to view things this way. The few of us came back to PFAL, this first wave of us, found it to be better than when we originally enjoyed it. " There were fewer people in your new group than in the "Heavens Gate" comet watchers, or so many other groups convinced they were there primarily due to some secret they know. The US is loaded with people who think they know "the secret" to what's really going on. Thousands of people believe that. The great obscurity of your product, and the requirement that one have fond, nostalgic twi memories seriously limits the target audience of the public. " I predicted back here at GreaseSpot then that I was only dealing with the "First Wave" of those returning to PFAL. " Nostalgia arrives in waves with decades. That's true regardless of content. And calling a handful of people a "first wave" shows a disregard for the term "wave." [To be followed with claims he did not, then later claims he was metaphorical in some way and that I failed to understand him, then later claims it was deliberate so someone could "spring his trap." Some of these posts follow VERY predictable patterns- like Mike returning after being refuted completely and claiming that his last visit showed him coming up with answers to everything and coming off unscathed.] "About 2 or 3 years ago I started seeing lots of Facebook Groups being started by lots of pro-PFAL people, and many comments by other pro-PFAL people. " Defining "pro-pfal" can change who is meant by a lot. By some definitions, that would include ME. Also, "many" is a remarkably vague term. "The number of Facebook Groups" is a lot like when twi defined a 5-person graduating class ENTIRELY by which percentage was going on to do what- 20% to do this, 20% to do that, which was 1 person each time. Facebook groups can be of a single person and a tiny, occasional audience. They also OVERLAP a lot- so 10 Facebook groups on this probably include 80% overlap- or more- of their audiences. "Every now and then a nay-sayer chimes in, but it's obvious how ineffective they are." Isn't it amazing how ineffective a naysayer can be, when they show up at a venue with a purpose to which they are diametrically opposed? ""After 35+ years now, lots of people are done comparing the flurry of clone classes that cropped up after 1986, and have found they fall way short of the original." That's not what they themselves are saying- that's your opinion of what they are doing. Their own answers would be quite different, and NOT rely on vpw, pfal, or anything involving a farm outside New Knoxville, in most cases. BTW, out of the supposed 100,000 people who took pfal, there are perhaps a few HUNDRED, at most, who are doing the splinter thing, with another few hundred if you include twi and SOWERS and so on, the groups with the authoritarian leaders and so on. In nearly every case, the audiences are all aging out- and in the other, the soil doesn't have depth. "

Wierwille will be forgotten. PFAL will be forgotten. GSC's Great Mike Debates? No one will care. Actual Errors? Forgotten. Victor Paul Wierwille's delusions of grandeur became TWI's delusions of significance in the history of Christianity. It's a pissant cult that barely touched 100,000 people in a world of 4 Billion. The world population has increased, but the cult's influence has not kept pace. A few years after the life of Christ, the world was turned upside down. The same time since snow fell on the gas pumps, and The Way remains a footnote not even deserving of its own chapter in the book of forgotten cults.