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4. Intimidation -- slowly, but surely, your authentic self is being re-formatted to a cult follower Through the years, I have often wondered if twi's information on "the worship manifestations" was utilized as a tool of intimidation. For example, you go to your first twig fellowship.... and within the first 20 minutes, the twig coordinator instructs someone to stand, speak in tongues and interpret. As a newcomer, who never witnessed this before.... you are stunned with silence. What was THAT? After twig, you have questions and the twig coordinator tells you that all true believers can manifest the gift of the holy spirit. Really? So, these believers can do something that bears witness of God's presence that church people can't? Not until they are fully instructed comes the reply. For the next few days (with follow-up phone calls and coercion).... you ponder these questions. So, after much consideration you decide to attend another twig fellowship. Again, same thing. You might find yourself intrigued AND intimidated at the same time. This person, these people, have a "superior knowledge" of something in the Bible that you do not have. It's intimidating to be around them when you feel inferior to them. So, you have a choice to make: Do you plunge forward and take this pfal class OR chalk it up to disinformation bordering on the delusional and walk away. I'm not saying that there is no such thing as speaking in tongues or interpretation of tongues in the Bible..... what I'm saying is that I do not believe twi taught its application correctly of when, where and how it was used in the ecclesia of our time. It's not just rote repetition that is plugged into "a believer's meeting" every time people come together to teach, pray, worship. Nor is it to be used as a vanity show of "look at me." In its simplest terms, I believe that we were taught incorrectly on these worship manifestations. And, how do you explain wierwille's repetitive LO SHANTA MALIKASETO, LO SHANTIE? That's a rhetorical question... no need to drag this thread into that area again. But I do see this as an intimidation factor that was used in twi to coerce movement and taking more classes to climb the ladder towards "full spiritual maturity." Whatever THAT was. LOL .

Well, farm boy – as an old city boy from New York, I actually loved all the farm stuff at Rome City campus. That’s probably one of the few things that made the isolation / intimidation / immersion / indoctrination / idolization ‘life’ somewhat bearable…even simple things like nights when I was on Bless Patrol, and we’d go by the pig barn – I got the biggest kick out of hearing pigs snoring – sounded just like when me and my friends were sleeping off an all-night drinking party… oh yeah – also ‘farm life’ in general was inspirational…I worked in maintenance for one block and really liked John N33se (in charge of maintenance) – I like learning how things work and fixing stuff. Having a backstage pass to the chicken farm – I came up with a comedy skit and discussed it with John N – and he was on board with it. Opening scene – corps night – everyone is filing into the chapel – there’s always two corps stationed at the entrance to visually give everyone the onceover to make sure they’re dressed properly and have their nametags on. Switch to a low handheld camera view “walking” toward the chapel – then is stopped by one of the ‘guards’ – who looks down disapprovingly. Switch to ‘guard’ view – and he’s looking down at a bare breasted chicken and says “hey, where’s your nametag?” He then looks to the side and sees a rooster with a nametag Rev. Cluck Norris …guard says “Bless you Reverend Norris” and lets him in… The idea never got past the developing stage because when I pitched the short video to the assistant way corps coordinator, he didn’t like it. Probably because it was so irreverent to where the Word was being taught or something like that. Oh well, my silly imagination was another thing that made in-residence corps life tolerable. Skyrider thanks for another incredibly comprehensive assessment of the way corps program – truly a gauntlet like you said – what an overwhelming…intimidating…and treacherous experience in order to become a mini-wierwille clone; which is weird because that’s not what I signed up for:

Well... "I'm thinking" is a reasonable way to start that comment. We obviously cannot PERCEIVE everything going on, even in the natural realm. Personally, I don't attribute the current understanding to whether or not humanity is separated from God (or god) or not. How can we understand something we cannot perceive? We can only imagine. As such, we're just guessing. In my current world view there's nothing wrong with imagining or articulating what we might imagine, as long as it at least sort of fits with what we understand of the two greatest commandments.

wierwille's concept of in/out of fellowship are comical. It was as if you could do whatever you wanted as long as your believing wasnt compromised and you were acting out of love. It's almost like you could be in fellowship, and that would equate to standing under a flood light, and then be out of fellowhip, and that would equate to standing out of the floodlight in the dark. What kind of non-sensical garbage is that...because meanwhile the sinful and destructive behavior never stopped with wierwille. It didn't stop with martindale. It didnt stop with rosalile because she covered it all up, spending vast sums of donations on lawyer fees and out of court settlements. Bottom line is when you ask for forgiveness it's accompanied by the fruits meet for repentance, as John The Baptist stated. In other words, the sinful actions stop and there is a corresponding change of heart that led to the action in the first place so the action isn't repeated. Ive never come across any indication of that sort of thing with wierwille...check this.. wierwille taught martindale to be a sexual predator. Theoretically, had wierwille truly repented his repentance would have been followed with him addressing the ministry (or something similar) appropriately so they no longer think his former sinful ways are justifiabally correct. Maybe mike can find proof of wierwille doint this sort of thing in one of his files, but Ive never seen any indication of a change from any of the top honchos...wierwille, martindale, rosalie who was involved never publicly repented...etc.

So, the crucifixion pays for “old man” sins and the daysman makes a plea for “new man” sins? But why do we need a daysman to make a plea deal when, if we act in the love of God, we can do as we fool well please?

Exactly ~~~~~~~~~~~ Mike: "When he was in fellowship he did great things for us. THAT is what I prefer to focus on and magnify." Me: "When was wierwille "in fellowship?" When was wierwille's "new man nature" evident?" Mike: "It's mostly in the written works, but recorded teachings and personal appearances helped also." TRANSLATION: Mike makes these grandiose declarations about wierwille's life and "greatness"..... but then gives evasive replies to back up wierwille's new man nature in Christ. This evasiveness has all the hallmarks of a snake oil representative selling a product from a snake oil company. Always barking bold assertions of wierwille's wares, but only in the shadowy form of generalities. Pfffttt. .

You: "That was a great movie." Me: "What did you like about it?" You: "Oh, you know, stuff".

Another evasive answer, at best.

I agree that the “worship manifestations” were a vehicle to establish control over the follower and as you accurately portrayed the attitude to immediately become “superior” to other “uninstructed” Christians, thus establishing the isolation and attitude early. This also immediately separates out the follower from previous churches and Christian ties by false doctrine. Having experience in running their Intermediate class many times, this is where the ridiculousness increases and is established. Like VPWs fake “lo shanta” repititions now all TWI followers do the exact same thing - with common language as well. Now you have full rooms of silently muttering idiots all conformed to say something grandiose off the top of their heads. I can never forget how the verbosity and formality of the language increases as you go toward those “initiated” meetings of Corps. There you could hear the spiritually heavy brethren bring forth messages that sounded as stupid as the greetings they would send in. ”Worship” is a private matter not for wandering around in sackcloth and ashes and making a spectacle. TWI uses the manifestations as a club and calls all those who don’t buy on to VPWs flim flam artistry in I Corinthians “uninstructed” or “uninitiated” and thus writes off the rest of the body of Christ. While inflating the head up like a weather balloon. What you see in the follower in these classes is a tremendous amount of fear. As a coordinator I was mostly getting people comfortable with the fabrication. Excellor Sessions getting people “fluent” in their lo shantas was part of it. If you can “a shonta” “b shonta” “c shonta” not scared with a fluency then you are good to go with the natural language invention also “I the Lord thy God do love you and have called you with a great calling”. This is all not authentic. It is manufactured horse puckey. I’m not saying I’m God and know all the hearts involved but if you are duplicating a snake oil salesmen’s sounds then you are helping him sell the oil. True worship is in private. True workings of the Holy Spirit are not self seeking and control oriented and ego magnifying.

Exactly. Progress to a fuller comprehension of the topic at hand.

That's the thing about a clone factory..... no originality. Thus, it stands to reason that wierwille was not *original* anything. He replicated (copied) the works of others ad infinitum throughout his whole life thinking that somehow THAT constituted "greatness." And, with this pathological disorder, he set up a training program that mass-assembled copies of himself, the prototype. Further enhancing this delusional approach.... he highlighted a poem and tweaked its title to "What is the Way Corps?" wherein it referenced "the deeply springing powers of a believer unlike the contrasting ivory towers wherein dull denominations rule." That has DELUSION written all over it. Which is all a fascinating study in and of itself. That wierwille could NOT see the disconnect.

I wonder about music produced in a world without free speech. Then I found this inspiring masterpiece. (Time stamp 00:59)

Food for thought...

Heaven must be a whole lot bigger than we can possibly comprehend especially if the universe continues to expand indefinitely as some believe.

Ill respong in more depth later on the rest of your post but with me having a background in the occult I was exposed to all the junk with vibratory healing properties of this element or that...its all BS as far as what they claim. Im not saying there arent good vibrations vs bad vibrations...but that is subjective at best because maybe a bad vibration for the human body is something that is necessary and useful in some contexts. But anywho, just to be clear on this one point that we are on the same page....prob most other points too...I gotta go clean some windows...