Leaderboard

Twi's Headquarters: Manufactured Process To someone unfamiliar with twi (or cults), the concentrated glut of activity at a "central complex" is strikingly strange. Hundreds upon hundreds of staffers working at a *headquarters compound* in offices, trailer units, service outbuildings, barns, grounds maintenance and an auditorium in the woods was deemed the "spiritual epicenter of the world" by its founder victor paul wierwille. How did twi evolve into this? wierwille resigned (fired?) from van wert church in august 1957. rented house in van wert and still sent "greetings from International Hdqs" promoted and planned [1959] to move operation to the wierwille family homestead 147 acres and a remodeled farm house in 1961 in rural, western Ohio From 1959-1967 wierwille tweaked, taught and targeted church people into classes In late 1967, the pfal class was filmed [plagiarized from B. G. Leonard's class] Summer camps, classes and programs were the baby steps of this Manufactured Process Wierwille's International Headquarters (cough, cough) was operating on a shoe string and a prayer from 1961-1971. And, it wasn't until wierwille's wholesale power-grab of Heefner's and Doop's movements [Way East / Way West] and demanded that ALL MONIES FLOW TO WIERWILLE'S HDQTS that this inflection point was reached. The dynamic youth ministers, Heefner and Doop, were blindsided by vpw's thugocracy and narcissistic bullying. Suffice it to say that books could, and have, been written to explore and explain the deceptive and destructive ways upon which twi was built and evolved. The peak years of their Manufactured Process were 1981-1985. Shortly after Sound Out '84 in Nashville, TN, my wife and I left hq and went to Canada on a field assignment and it was exhilarating to get away from this glut of in-house subservience. At those peak years, I was the Warehousing Department Coordinator...... and carried the responsibility of overseeing the organization, work flow, safety, and evolving potential of the warehouse facility. This cult warehouse transitioned from a forklift workplace to a fitness-for-living workout facility in the evening to a daycare facility during Sunday teaching services. The reason I equate all of this to "manufactured process" is/was because it NEVER made any sense in my mind that 550 staffers should be centralized at this "headquarters" when our stated objective was to **move the word over the world.** If I remember correctly, there were some 190-210 clergy at hq in every department imaginable.......1) way builders, 2) food services, 3) grounds, 4) finance, 5) divine design, 6) shipping/receiving, 7) way publishing, 8) photography, 9) way productions, 10) bless patrol, etc. One of the clergyman, Ken Str0ther (5th corps) lived alone in the way woods in a make-shift A-Tel. Why? How could this possibly be God's will (cough, cough)? Did wierwille sanction this? Why was this acceptable or allowed? The double standards and favoritism at hq wreaked thru its sanctimonious pontifications. How many churches have armed security guards and trained guard dogs on duty 24/7 for protection? How many church pastors have congregates who are assigned to housecleaning and nanny positions? Does the publication of tapes, magazines and literature emanating from a central hub "move the word" or is this the fabricating illusions of a narcissist? [Note: For years (and maybe still), Twi's magazine featured artwork of composition-people sitting under a tree reading the bible or other settings. Not pictures of real people. Fabricated people of different racial backgrounds. The same generic technique that Scientology uses.] If all of this is "manufactured process".........would it be fair to say that it's also MANUFACTURED SPIRITUALITY? Yep. Cults thrive on isolation, illusion, immersion and indoctrination. People are seduced when the isolation from others builds the illusion of believability and the immersion conceptualizes the activity warranting the indoctrination that welds the process complete. Cult leaders NEED groups in tandem with a manufactured process.

I recently discovered this article that relates to cult brain. It describes a scenario much like Wierwille in the PFLAP class instructs students to reject anything other than what lines up with his fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. Of course, many of us on GSC have discussed "waybrain" over the last nearly two decades. ... religious fundamentalism—which refers to the belief in the absolute authority of a religious text or leaders—is almost never good for an individual. This is primarily because fundamentalism discourages any logical reasoning or scientific evidence that challenges its scripture, making it inherently maladaptive. ----- The single most important thing I may have learned over the last 32 years is that God is bigger than any notion of humankind, written or imagined. How does this relate to Wierwillism? Well, the cranky old potentate(s) [Either Wierwille or Martindale, those were the only two I interacted with] of TWI was never allowed for discussion or disagreement. It was ALWAYS their way or the highway. As I can see now, that puts God into a very small box and twi followers into even smaller boxes. It's increasingly obvious that religious fundamentalism is having a profound negative impact on society. But I won't get into that in detail here.