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Yes, that was vpw himself who made that claim. Whenever the number of eyewitnesses approached zero, vpw did fantastic things. What a shame we never had any witnessed to him doing amazing healings and so on.

Thanks, Twinky. This is all so F'd up. A form of gaslighting. "I'm the only one who can protect you, and you sure do need protecting!" Sorry to get textually technical -- I only just now did a quick read of Ezekiel 22, so I may need to go back and read it more carefully, but wasn't the prophet talking about what the LORD had said - the LORD was looking for one man to stand in the gap or else the LORD himself would destroy the land?

What Rocky said. Martindale did a lot of "standing in the gap," cuz we wuz so weak in believing. Had to protect the household from the adversary, doncha know. I hate the expression. When they were trying to get rid of me, or cow me into some sort of doormat state, all the leadership picked on me - for the mistakes my man had made. I always seemed to be in trouble and had the Country Coordinator, and IO, and various others demeaning and belittling me over a period of about 6 months. Honestly, I was so confused, because there was nothing I'd done wrong (except decline the CC's sexual advances). (There, I've said it now. Y'all know.) Anyhow, there was one day when my fiance and I had a row about my incompetence and he started yelling at me that he was the only one "standing in the gap" for me. Him! He was the one that did stupid things and I stopped him making some bad mistakes. And he was the only one standing in the gap between me and "the adversary." Well, if you take "the adversary" to mean the BoT, the International Outreach coordinator at HQ, and my country coordinator - maybe the fiance was right. But dead wrong at the same time. He was too in thrall to them all, and others, to really stand up for me and tell them to pi$$ off. Or to 'fess up to his own mistakes.

"You see, kids, there was a time when the only thing that stood between the World's very existence and its total annihilation was my power of believing and an undying commitment to stand in the gap." "But, Grandpa, I thought you said you were a plumber." "Oh my, where does the time go? Do be a good sport and hand me the TV remote. I don't want to miss Jeopardy!."

washingtonweather: "Does any one remember this tape? I still have it, it was so wild. VP blamed the Jim Jones Kool-aid cult-suicide on the CIA predominently because they had planes "ready" in Florida. This was probably my first red-flag...don't ask me why I stayed...maybe because I was only 20 then? and VERY impressionable still!" "He somehow thought that because the planes were gassed and ready to leave FLorida...and coincidently had the 400 hundred body bags neccessary to handle this catastrophe, all this general readiness (by military standards) indicated they had set it up and controlled it...to see if people would really follow to that extent. " igotout: "Washington, I seem to remember that tape too. I was in Emporia at the time. I distinctly remember him saying that one of the "clues" that it was the government was that all the bodies were lined up side by side in a rather orderly fashion. He said that if they had really taken poison they would have convulsed and it would have been a more chaotic scene. He said the reason the government did this was becasue ultimately they were out to destroy TWI by creating the whole cult attention thing by causing Jonestown. He definitely fell for conspiracy theories. But I think he was fed those theories by men such as CG and others who were just as paranoid. And of course LCM believed in all that stuff too. (Oklahoma City bombing was carried out by the government, McVeigh was a pawn in the game) A friend of mine (who was in TWI at the peak of when the theories were being talked about) still believes in all that crap. It is embarrasing to hear him talk about it. I usually just change the subject when he gets started on the Jewish Defamation League or the secret meetings that take place each year with the Bilderbergers and Bill Gates, and or some BS like that. He has a couple of screws loose. Whe Waydale first started making waves my friend thought PA was a pawn of some "bigger players" who were out to destroy LCM and TWI and ultimately God's Word. After all, how could one man do this without funding, etc.?" shazdancer: "Yeah, I absolutely remember that tape, the title even rang a bell. Like igotout, I recall the "proof" about the victims being found in neat rows. If I recall correctly, there was a Military WOW involved in the recovery group that reported what he saw to VPW. (Even then, I wondered if that might have been a breach of security, as an investigation must have still been in progress.) I think that tape was an early "ooh, we are sooo spiritual" moment for me. At the time, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. After I left TWI, I realized that VP could be wrong. These days, I see it as a not-so-subtle message from the Victimizer: You can trust your local cult leader -- it's the government you should watch out for! With deprogramming coming into fashion, his strategy was understandable. When the Waco cult thing happened, I yelled "don't do it!" at the car radio when I heard that the feds had decided to wage an assault on the compound of that Armageddon-fearing group. I knew that those people would take it as the sign that everything their leader had told them was true. I knew it in my bones, because of the pervasive distrust of government I had lived with under TWI." Sunesis: "He probably got that tape, like all his other "secret" info tapes from the Liberty Lobby, of which he was a member. For those of you who don't know, the Liberty Lobby is a front in Washington, D.C. for all the white supremist groups. That's where all his stuff on the illuminati, CFR, etc. came from. They have/had a magazine called the spotlight. For all you 7th corps, remember when we got our copies of the "secret constitution"? I still have mine. In the back is an order form for us to subscribe to the spotlight if we wanted more info. These are the guys who see conspiracy theories in everything the government does. Their political party is called the Populist party. VP would call their hotline to hear the latest. If was after listening to this stuff, that he would call a meeting, like when the commies were about to take over in the '70s and it was only our prayers that stopped it. Anyone remember that meeting at H.Q. - the whole malpack head for the hills thing, that was Liberty Lobby. Since he didn't tell where he was getting his info from, everyone thought he was walking with God and getting "heavy revy." We was scammed!" Johnny Jump Up: "In 1984 I had a guy in my branch who served in the Airforce during the body pick up from Jonestown. He discribed what the poisen did to the bodies and how they were found. He was one of the first on the sceen and He totaly contradicted what V.P. told us. I asked about missle silos and covert ops and black bag stuff. He said no it was exactly as was reported in the press - a cult leader led his people from california to Jonestown and killed them with purple kool-aid. Being that he was a new believer I didn't tell him the source of my information but his info added to my growing list of reasons to leave the way." Microbe: "I remember him telling the Corps about the times he would sit in a chair in his "room" for hours and hours, under such incredible stress that all he could do was hang on until it was clear that Michael had won that particular battle. It required his total concentration and nothing helped. People (his wife etc) had to just leave him alone in the dark for extended periods of time. He described it as something like mental torture. He stood in the GAP! He never mentioned Jesus Christ as far as I remember. At the time it sounded to me (not a doctor - ok) like the man was suffering anxiety attacks. He also said he had trouble sleeping and was seeking medical attention. His MD, a believer, of course dismissed this and calmed his concerns about mental stress. Of course he was sound minded-he just had to save the world!"

I'm not at all sporty. I don't like running. However, I've run <>8 half marathons, most as fundraisers for a local Christian charity. I trained a lot for the first one and that was actually my worst time. Don't run now. Mild arthritis in right knee makes running after 8 miles quite painful. I suppose I could drop to 10k (about 5 miles) runs. But I still don't like running.

It's but what was the psychological hoax?

You can call it a rant or anthing you want. The subject of the thread is comparing god to the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and Santa Clause. I set forth my reason for the thread, and anyone can chose to respond to, or ignore it. But don’t expect me to dance around what I said because some cultural context is thrown out as a way justifing belief in something that doesn’t exist.

Some reading material you might be interested in. If God is Love, Don't be a Jerk by John Pavlovitz John came to a similar conclusion as you, but he apparently hadn't run into any Wayfers. Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Can Make You Whole by Susan Cain Of course, we were conditioned to deny many of our emotions in twi. Susan Cain enlightens her readers and shows that we don't need to do so. Welcome Humanitarian!

I'll tell you watching LCM fly around stage with Murphy in his red tights-- well folks I think that was his superduper outfit! Bet he changed in a phone booth and appeared at evil churches everywhere to save them from the terrible teaching they push on the unsuspecting... Dorothy Thompson: Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.