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Depending on the depth of pain and trauma of one's twi-experience.....coming forward, and telling one's story can be extremely challenging. For me, it took years to piece together twi's subtle power of spiritual abuse. The MOG-doctrine ..... wierwille engineered a circle of enablers to promote him as "the man of God." PFAL class .... was hailed as THE class that taught all the keys to biblical research and how to walk with God. WOW commitment ..... removed you from support systems of family, friends, coworkers, further education goals, etc. Way Corps Training .... an indoctrination program that resulted in *a covenant of salt* to wierwille's ministry thru lifetime. Way Corps Commitment .... you can NEVER leave your "salted commitment" or God will remove His protection. Ongoing, Weekly Corps Meetings .... who signed up to attend weekly corps meetings FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? Overlords / Tyrants .... twi's directors will NOT allow corps to retire without slandering their "failure to stop twi-servitude." .

I was in such a deep mental rut when a WOW sat next to me in a cafe, as I sat eating lunch at the counter. He was very friendly, something I needed at that time in my misery. I don’t recall much of our conversation, but he made such an impression that I wanted to come to his home and learn more about God. I was attending college and winter break was just beginning, so I told him I was going home, but to contact me when Spring quarter began. To my surprise, he got ahold of me when he said he would. That in itself made a positive imoression on me. i was raised a Catholic and attended parochial schools, which taught me what a horrible person I was. I hated that feeling and my high school graduation was the last time I attended any Catholic services, other than weedings, etc. However, the effect of what a horrible person I was lingered on with me. Being absolutely comvinced I was going to hell, my mental state was in disarray. This WOW convinced me I would not go to hell becuse of Romans 10:9-10. That set me free in so many ways—A new life was upon me. As a result I went WOW two years in a row, and couldn’t wait for God to work miracle because of me holding forth the word. Excitement turned into ftustration, becsuse instead of seeing any miracles, daily life became quite boring. No miracles, just day to day humdrums; study, work, witness (not much of that though), fellowship. After 20 or so years, I finally I left the Way, but still tried to make sense of religion. The harder I tried to see how religion was of any benefit to me, the more it made no sense. Finally able to cast the idea there is some God who us watching over me and only desires the best, I was able to find peace. Realizing I am no more, or less, than anything else in this world, I can follow the path of a human being, and contribute what I can to this planet and universe.

Although many are reluctant to go into length and depth on their story......older threads contain snippets. Whether in the form of humor, sarcasm or irony (etc.)........they give us a glimpse of what happened. You know you are in a cult if

; many cults stumbled upon its use as well. ----- We've been describing these things by sharing our own stories here on GSC for two decades. Now, a retired psychiatrist has spent time studying the phenomenon and its history. Ultimately, my point is that this book, Dark Persuasion, seems to codify and validate our experiences as such. Notably, the Foundational or Power for Abundant Living class: for example refusing to answer people's questions or even allow the questions to be articulated until the end of session 12... but did anyone remember the questions by then? The WOW Ambassador program, coercing people who had never met to live together for a year and enforcing that commitment with SHAME. Then the ultimate indoctrination program, the Way Corps subjecting people to prolonged sleep deprivation and either being targeted for or witnessing horrific verbal abuse sessions any time a person made even the tiniest mistake or dared to challenge program leaders. These were among... as Skyrider so eloquently spelled out at the top of this thread, the reasons he wrote his story: 1) to send a warning to all those involved in twi and others considering taking classes from this cult, 2) an attempt to differentiate between Scripture-based Christians and twi's lockstep loyalty of servitude, and 3) to expose twi's incremental steps to overthrow one's will and consent. There are no fences with concertina wire to hold them prisoners, but there are very-real doctrines of fear and deception interlocking to prevent escape. Thankfully, tens of thousands HAVE succeeded in their personal journeys of escape from this insanity. Those who remain in it, perhaps cling to the emotional need to belong, wrapping themselves in rationalizations to justify their continued subjection to the cult.

Speaking of Insanity on Steroids, and I hope this isn't too far off of the topic, but I found another book while perusing my local public library's website. I've reserved a copy of the book but thought that an excerpt of this non-fiction title, newly available, might be pertinent to those of us trying to figure out how and why we had become vulnerable to Wierwille's message, his subculture, his (what we now know as) dark persuasion. Some have called it brainwashing. I tried to get that excerpt by way of copy/paste but because I was looking at an Amazon preview, that didn't work. I took pics of the two pages and posted them to Twitter and then tried to insert them using the Other Media button. That also didn't work. But I was able to copy a blurb from the Amazon page where one can buy the book. A harrowing account of brainwashing’s pervasive role in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries This gripping book traces the evolution of brainwashing from its beginnings in torture and religious conversion into the age of neuroscience and social media. When Pavlov introduced scientific approaches, his research was enthusiastically supported by Lenin and Stalin, setting the stage for major breakthroughs in tools for social, political, and religious control. Tracing these developments through many of the past century’s major conflagrations, Dimsdale narrates how when World War II erupted, governments secretly raced to develop drugs for interrogation. Brainwashing returned to the spotlight during the Cold War in the hands of the North Koreans and Chinese. In response, a huge Manhattan Project of the Mind was established to study memory obliteration, indoctrination during sleep, and hallucinogens. Cults used the techniques as well. Nobel laureates, university academics, intelligence operatives, criminals, and clerics all populate this shattering and dark story—one that hasn’t yet ended. ----- and very briefly, the preview states: Brainwashing, coercive persuasion, thought control, dark persuasion--all these terms refer to the fact certain techniques render individuals shockingly vulnerable to indoctrination. [...] But it wasn't just the military and intelligence agencies that employed the technique (continued below)

Part of the cult mentality I recall, is Johnny Townsend's admonition to twi followers about simplicity and keeping one's life and mental activity simple. Perhaps it sticks with me because life really IS full of complexity. With Wierwille's brainwashing directives to not read anything outside of his private interpretation of The Word (how's that for a contradictory bit of insanity?), I didn't record (journal) when I first realized the importance of paradox. But the true joy of my retired life these days (besides doting on grandchildren) is reading and learning more of what I could not have done had I remained in the cult. One of the books I have open in front of me right now is Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart. It's a masterpiece. Here's a poignant excerpt: Can two seemingly contradictory thoughts both be true? Competing emotions and contradictory thoughts are messy and can feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, even irritating. But it's important to remember that this push-pull is a reflection of our complexity, and if we're willing to stay with it and stay curious, complexity is one of our greatest teachers. The problem starts when we don't have the skills or experience to tolerate the uncertainty and ambiguity and we give in to the cravings for neat, mutually exclusive categories. There's nothing more limiting than tapping out of tension and oversimplifying the thoughts and feelings that have the power to help us understand , who we are and what we need. -- Brene Brown, p70, Atlas of the Heart, 2021.