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Maybe this needs to be moved to doctrinal. At the heart of the way international's deception is the law of believing. John Juedes and other's have done a lot of work on the topic and there certainly are many threads here. I wrote this article and thought I would put it out there for discussion. I'm still Christian so it's written from a Christian perspective. Have at it and I will follow along. https://cloud.disroot.org/s/o2n6WBFDT3BNnSQ

Yup – you're right on that, OldSkool !!!! In my two-bit sociological opinion, the desire to have power and control one's own destiny has been around ever since humans have been on the Earth...I discussed an aspect of this on a thread in doctrinal not too long ago – citing the big philosophical difference between superstition, magical thinking, the law of believing, the occult, etc. and faith in God...the thing that distinguishes the two is by looking at who is thought of as being in control: You are in control in some religions, superstitions, occult practices, proponents of the law of believing etc. even if there is a deity involved – the practitioner of this belief system may offer sacrifices, perform rituals, recite affirmations, cast spells, focus their thoughts, pray, direct certain actions in order to influence the deity, or in some way force the deity to act...if there is no deity / deities involved, the idea is that you have to take advantage of or harness certain existing forces... A slight variation of this is the law of believing presented in PFAL – where wierwille says it's a power that works for saint and sinner alike and he even goes further to say if one had some fear of death or set the time of their death - God would have to change all the laws of the universe not to accommodate you. That sounds more like someone is describing the Force of Star Wars...The idea is that you are in the driver's seat. this thinking gives “the believer” some false sense that they are in control...overall whether a deity / deities are involved or not – in my opinion, the person that subscribes to this belief system is on their own...good luck! God is sovereign In my opinion, faith in God has the focus on God - He is the object of my faith rather than money, a person or situation being something that "I'm believing for"... God is sovereign. I think true faith is a trust in God – that He is sovereign and hears our prayers – and answers them as He sees fit – and maybe not always as we expect. Ephesians 3:20 should relieve us of any concerns that God is limited by our believing – for he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think...Most of the time this world seems like it's out of control and I can't make sense of many things. But I do believe in a higher power who has a plan and a means to execute it (execute the plan that is – not the world ). This leaves God in the driver's seat.

Definitely doctrinal. Will move it later, but keeping it here for the moment for visibility's sake.

Yes, good observation. Looking thru the review mirror, life begins to clear and the fog slowly lifts.

That's because JALvis never thought about what he was doing and why he was doing it. He was just plodding along, trying to redo the same things he did decades ago with young innies, when he was facing mature ex-twiers. Few people were foolish enough to go along just on his say-so, and had many concerns the kids didn't HAVE decades ago. Since it was about what HE wanted, he just blew all that off, and approached us all like a used-car salesman. To this day, he STILL doesn't get it!

I know, right? From start to finish......and 86 year old Howard Allen and wife, Wanda, joining in.

It's rather obvious to us that it's exactly what they did. Otherwise, far too many things make no sense- like why do they employ as staff a bunch of YOUNG CHILDREN? The shirts seem designed for this commercial specifically- with "STAFF" in big letters and the organization name almost missing from the shirt. There was a LOT of fake expressions there- but I found Vern's wooden, hollow delivery worse than any of them. He couldn't have sounded more like he was reading from a script or teleprompter if he had been trying to sound fake.

Yeah that glazed over stepford wives look is common with those at the top. Those on the outside never see the real people behind all the fakery. They actually teach people in their videos to smile as big as they can so people can see the abundant life they are living. Fake and scripted, and notice they are putting young ministry kids up front now. Most all of the kids who get promoted are reverend and mrs so and so's child. Nepotism anyone? But heck, thats about all they really have to draw from anymore. Rosalie finished off Craigs work of running everyone off that potentially had a backbone. Anywho.

Unfortunately, these incidents were the rule, not the exception.

Oh my. Click on image only if you want to hear the sleazy, cult commercial...... Howard and Wanda. Is that Vern and wife? Rupp. Greene. Where's Rosalie? Where's the CEO....Donna Martindale? Why is it that Rosalie and Donna always seem hidden? Away from the spotlight. Hiding in the shadows.

That's a excellent point ! Initially...for me anyway, I think it was the power-grab after “The Passing of a Patriarch” that was an emotional gut punch...a betrayal...my trust...my confidence had been violated...which made me wonder what was my trust in...doubts, questions, bitter memories, repressed feelings and forgotten thoughts came flooding in – my mind was awash in ignored red flags, forgotten issues, pent up anger and frustrations... ...over time, upon deeper reflection and slowly engaging those atrophied critical thinking muscles I began to realize the bigger problem was hidden in plain sight...I was in a cult of personality – that TWI was really all about wierwille... When wierwille passed away, his larger than life charismatic influence that gave TWI its power to control devoted wierwille-followers was also gone.