lindyhopper

Except the USA is not a cult that we could leave at any point and has leaders with clearly defined term limits and checks and balances for abuse of power (even though they have been tested and worn in recent years) and is ultimately subject to the people every election year. The TWI was always more of a dictatorship, like Bush's fantasies. I think most people that are still in (like my family) supported Martindale until the curtain was pulled back. Most of us didn't realize how bad it was at the time even if we were right in the middle of it. They ARE STILL waiting for a better leader. They are in because they don't see any more appealing options and they are comfortable. They think the Way has the best thing going. The Way looks real good right now to those that dealt with some of the sh!t of the Martindale years. Some of them are stuck in it as well, not willing to sacrifice their family or their family's happiness for religion especially now that things are more tame, which is understandable. Still others are in it because years and years of being under the thumb of the Way and its doctrines have left them with little genuine self esteem and confidence to go and live life on their own without 'the ministry' to be there to tell them what to do, how to live, help them, and perhaps save them from the fears of the future. I don't doubt that most people that are still in after all that has happened have thought about leaving more than once and have uniquely personal reasons for staying. Now there is the next generation coming of age like your girlfriend and more likely she really doesn't know from experience how bad it was maybe not even a true conceptual understanding of what went on. It isn't exactly an open conversation on the inside. There is this place, a few other smaller sites, and there is their filtered view. Kind of like watching pundits on the 24 hr news networks, except in this case there is more truth about what has happened and more openness on this site than there is within TWI. Many of us here have "moved on" but still talk about it. TWI seems to have encouraged it's people to move on and not to "dwell on the past" (read discuss it at all) as if the two are mutually exclusive. As pointed out, the events of recent years have been documented here on these threads by the handful of those that have left since 2000. I left early in 2001. For my area 2001 still sucked.

Well, I am very glad to hear you have made it out the other side on the right foot my hopping cousin. Good to see you again.

... and he didn't even understand some of those verses correctly or read some of the context or at least not correctly to others. There is also the quote that LCM used at times in which VPW told him (regarding other people's work) "take what you can and toss the rest" (something to that effect). From that mind set we got things like the "Peleg" teaching and "Eve's Satanic lesbo experience" among others. At least with Peleg we had a source to research ourselves. BTW, ignore the concluding analysis at the end of the Peleg (research paper?) book it is contradictory to official TWI doctrine.

Well, I think it is pretty clear that in this case it is the all mighty dollar. I was puzzled about this for a second. I don't really watch AI, except when I'm waiting for House to come on, but I know enough about it to know what it is all about... who doesn't. I think the producers of the show obviously know there audience. I think it is rather amusing, more so than the song, and ironic that apparently most people who watch American IDOL are Christian. The show in general is a "sign of the times" and if that isn't scary enough on it's own I don't know what it.

P-Mosh (nice to see you) I think that goes beyond the Way-Disciple-Mobile and is more like a Corps-Chalet-Chariot.

We were in F12. I was in 5th and 6th grade at the time but you might know my brother. I remember hearing the "banana in the tail pipe" line a lot, lol. I've heard random things about a number of the people you mentioned over the years but have no idea where they are now. Sorry. Moving so much has made it hard to keep in touch with people over the years. I don't even remember most of the names of the kids in my age group. I think S. Plunkett was one of the only people I kept in touch with into my young adulthood. Thanks to his wife ( ) I have found where they are at now and that he is doing well. I do wonder about a lot of those other kids and their families, though. It seems most of them don't stop in here. Perhaps many of them are in an offshoot, I don't know. Nice to see a F12 kid here again. -Matt

Well it is a rare occasion, but I totally agree with cman. If you care about this girl then show her that and avoid the religious debates. If you want to show her there is something better outside of TWI then show her that something is you or someone like you or a life like yours. Don't just show her how wrong she and twi are.

Well, your priest certainly nailed it there. The "Law" of Believing is many times a denial of reality. It is also a means of control for TWI. Positive believing was believing what they taught. Negative believing included doubt, worry, and fear. Doubting what you were taught was then negative believing or "believing in reverse and brought about negative consequences. This in tandem with the teachings of "the fall of man" in Genesis and the Private Interpretation teaching the TWI follower was implicitly taught to not question, not doubt, and not even consider anything deviating from their doctrine. Dangerous indeed! As for the Law of Believing, when bad things happened to great men of God (including those in the Bible and in TWI) it was usually attributed to the Devil was so out to get them because they were just believing soo much and doing such great work. On the other hand if something happened to just another Joe Shmoe believer like most of us it was obviously because we weren't believing big enough if at all and we needed more instruction and meekness blah blah blah. I know, completely ridiculous. My wife was a good friend around the time of my exodus. She always had more questions and was/is a great thinker. She is also a great listener and our conversations were some of the best things for me at the time. Good luck.

Hi Phil. Oh the joys of the web. Chai? You're my kind of guy. I grew up in the Way. I also have family still involved. So, my perspective on this my be a little more current and true to the experience of an 18 year old. My experiences as a teen in the Way (twi) were somewhat less intense than that of my twenties. I'm 33 now and have been out for about eight years. I've been in contact with a number of twi teens on myspace for a couple of years now and many of the things they say are the same ol' same ol' but on the other hand there is a more accepting nature amoung quite a few of them. I would attribute this to a number of things including a slight change in the PR of twi in recent years (loosening the grip a bit), a cultural change (more "open minded"), access to the internets, lack of deep interaction with the twi and among other things the naivete' of youth. Since the last big implosion of twi, the sex scandals of their last charismatic leader, things have toned down quite a bit in terms of the amount of intrusion into their followers lives. This of course, as it did before, varies with what the temperament and zeal of the local leader is. So, if what some of the things that the above posters have said sound a little outrageous and apparently untrue upon your initial interaction and examination of twi, believe me, they are not. Things, as I said, have toned down a bit but the underlying doctrinal and practical issues have not been addressed and therefore in time their effects will rear their ugly heads again. These sex scandals, the recent ones and the ones of the former and founding leader, are generally quickly swept under the rug and categorically dismissed. They did happen about a decade ago. People in twi that are your age don't really remember much about twi at that time. These scandals have/had a doctrinal basis and were not just the actions of overreaching, sociopathic, megalomaniacs (they were that too), but the actions backed by a twisting of biblical doctrine. When I was 18 I thought I knew more about the Bible (or accurate Bible) than pretty much any preacher, minister, or clergy. I was mistaken to say the least. My view was one born from a narrow scope of Christianity, willful ignorance, and just plain stupidity. So, I thought I was pretty hardcore. Still, unlike some, I was pretty accepting of others and didn't carry the hate in my heart as some of the leaders clearly did. This continued as I got older and went to college and it was perhaps the begining of my challenges with leaders. When I was a teen and in my early twenties there were not a lot of local "Way believers" in my area my age so I did date outside "the ministry." My parents were leaders, but were not hard a$$es like some and they didn't confront me as a teen. I'm sure they assumed as I got older I would find a nice young Wayfer. As I got older though, the pressure whether explicit or implicit was there a lot more and I either did my best to get the young ladies I dated into twi or I kept it secret. Not long before I left, I did date someone long distance in TWI. My local pressures and my apparent and later intended direction of leaving TWI seemed too much for that relationship to withstand in my mind and it didn't last. That is the ultimate outcome of "interfaith" relationships in TWI. They can not last with the wayfer getting taught and directed to get increasingly involved and committed to "the ministry." (I don't know if you have noticed it yet, but that term in twi is not used as a "ministry" of this or that, like a youth ministry or an outreach ministry, but as THE ministry, the one and only true ministry.) As an Advanced Class Grad (the third of the Way of Abundance and Power Class three part series [formerly the Power For Abundant Living PFAL class]) we were instructed to not date below our own spiritual level. In other words, as an Ad. Class Grad I was at a higher spiritual plane that someone who was a Foundational or Intermediate grad. In the Corps (the Way's training program for those that want or think they want to be lifetime leaders) this is no longer a suggestion to be obeyed but an enforced requirement. At 18, and the last couple of high school years, I did not date, because of my internal struggle of dating someone who was not a "believer." When I got to college I quickly but temporarily put that struggle aside. :D So the simple fact that you are in an internet relationship with someone in TWI tells me that your "girlfriend" is not yet that seriously involved in TWI. I doubt the seriousness of the idea of leaders keeping tabs on the relations of all their teenagers. But if they did, I would think that regardless of how they left TWI, whether voluntary or involuntary, whether peacefully or in a raging fury of accusation and screaming, I think that nearly everyone here will agree that leaving TWI was the best thing that ever happened to them. SO, I would not be swayed in your internet love , but do not get involved with TWI and do not go into this thinking you are going to get married. That will almost most definitely not happen. I know between the age of 18 and 25 I thought I was going to marry three different people. Thankfully that didn't happen. I won't tell you who to love, just to be careful. The internet is a great thing, but so is good ol' fashioned dating. If you would like to PM me, feel free. I didn't really scratch the surface of your questions (there is a lot to them). My "story", in part at least, is here. You have to get past all the inside "way-speak" in a lot of it and some of my weird humor but it gives some insight on someone who grew up in TWI, written from the perspective someone who had only been out a year or two. So there is a lot of anger in there. I can say I have moved on quite a bit, but re-reading that still brought tears to my eyes a couple of times. peace

I think that if we REALLY just focused on being good decent people and REALLY treated people with love and respect and REALLY gave up on all this BS about who is REALLY right about the Bible or your preferred book of faith by burying our nose in it, that everyone would REALLY be much better off. Collectively we would all be in a state that would WAY outweigh anything the WAY or any other group could claim to offer. Period.

So, Oak, you have finally caught up with the present truth and you're driving a Way Disciple-mobile? Red? I'm glad you got your needs and wants parallel.

Todd, You know I like you a lot so don't take offense to this. These stages, who discovered or classified them? Regardless of who it was it was obviously someone who claims to be at the upper tier stage, if not the highest. Much like the lower stages I can't see this person classifying anything beyond them. Right? To me all this classification and analyzation of stages etc. is a product of much objective rationalization. The problem with that is that you can not objectively look at this stage theory without first having a very mythic mind set, IMO. This is a beautiful paradox, only governed by the experience of the individual claiming to be "post-rational." You're right... sounds very "pre-rational" to me. This seems more like an outlook change really. One of acceptance of people's experiences and seeing something in all of them together vs. the rational that tries many times to discredit and/ or analyze those experiences or perspectives into a concrete reality. The problem then is back with this "stages" classification system where the ones that "truly know" are always at the top, enlightened, classifying the rest of us beneath them. Sounds very "rational" to me. I don't know, just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Sorry. peace

This is a FAScinating discussion. I started reading it and I had to put down my People magazine and turn off the E! channel and stop eating my turkey leg, so I could respond! Are we really discussing Nick and Jessica in the doctrinal forum? As in that was the perfect marriage that Nick threw away? Are we really having a hard time seeing the reasons that they separated? Are we really having a hard time finding flaws in Jessica Simpson? Is she really the perfect woman? Barbie face, beautiful voice, "boomin' system in the front... and in the back" (beastie boys), oh and a virgin bride. Yippee! This thread is totally bizarre! Sky have you been drinking while while watching MTV? Here's a thread topic, "What's wrong with us?"

:beer:

I remember when our family was trying to get into the corps we heard the food stories...."they won't let you put milk on your cereal." :blink: How would us kids survive? Perhaps the family corps had it a little better, because not only did I get my milk and cereal, but I have fairly good memories of corps food. Mmmm.... shepherd's pie. There are the exceptions of course. Fifteen bean soup would be at the top I think. Chip R was that your idea? What were you thinking? Fruit soup was another one. They were so bad that when we played basketball and someone shot an air-ball instead of yelling "BRICK" we would yell "FRUIT SOUP"!

That is the truth of the matter, Ex. I am 33 and not including things like moving from one room on the Indiana Campus to another and one dorm to another in college, I have moved from one house to another 21 times. I have lived in 9 different cities, 13 if you include outlying suburban cities, and 6 states and now 2 countries (typing from Grenada). The next four/+ years will bring more moving. My wife lived in the same house almost her who life. It wasn't until grad school that she moved out of her home state. Home is definitely where the love is. In our modern world of communication our personal ability to connect around the world and acquire information has become a ever expanding sphere but at the same time it has made the world much "smaller." I do at times wish my family could live closer to eachother... my wife's as well. This seems unlikely at this point. But, I can talk to my family over the internet via video phone. So, even though I am further away from my family as I have have ever been and I am neighbors with Chavez , I can actually see my family more often than I have in the past decade. That is pretty cool. Things will only get more interesting for my kids as they grow up. Love is the key where ever you are. If you don't have that.... well, you'd better get your a$$ home. :)

There's no gossiping and giggling going on over here, WG. I am not saying or implying that you said it was an STD. You DID say it was "herpes encephalitis". I have just pointed out that there are only a couple of ways of getting that. I don't know which one it was, but I know that you don't get encephalitis from a herpes virus by getting a mosquito or tick bite. That is a different type of viral encephalitis. You seemed very certain that it was herpes encephalitis, but that it was not an STD even though there was no such diagnosis at the time. So I'm confused by what you said, your certainty that it wasn't an STD, and your fierce defense of that opinion. No one is trying to start a rumor, just getting a clearer picture. If it was an STD then it was, if it wasn't then it wasn't, but as far as I can tell, none of us can say either way for certain since there was not a diagnosis for it as an STD at the time, not even an eye witness. That doesn't mean it wasn't one or that is was one, just that it was one of the two types. Now if you want to now say that it may not have been any type of herpes at all and that it was just some sort of encephalitis then we are looking at a larger pool of possibilities. Do I really care one way or the other? No. I was interested in whether it was a true story or not, and I guess it was, but since there is all this uproar about it definitely not being an STD when there is no way for you to know that, I got a little more interested. My wife is in the medical field and did disease investigations for quite a while and still talks about it all the time, so much so that I could probably get a job somewhere doing it. So, it is something of interest to me. I know when it comes to these investigations it is never good to just assume. As you get more facts the reasonable possibilities for transmission of the infection become smaller and smaller. Assuming it was arboviral just because he was outside in a field, in a certain area of the country, at a certain time of year, near somewhere, where someone knew someone else who had something similar 20 years earlier isn't really exactly a solid route to go either especially when it can be ruled out by it being from a herpes virus. That's all I'm saying.

from Merck again w/ my note: Encephalitis is caused by a lot of things including diseases transmitted from mosquitoes and ticks. Not knowing anything, there would be a long list of possible causes. But it seems WG has first hand knowledge. As you see above, epidemics, like the St. Louis Encephalites that cycled through every ten years or Western Equine Encephalitis which cycled round about every 20 years (both of which would have been in the the Penn. area at that time but no longer happen much), can be caused by an arbovirus, while sporatic events are caused by things like HSV. I also see that varicella-zoster (another herpes virus) can also cause it, I assume later in life, but that clearly comes with the herpes type rash on your trunk and he would have first had those visible symptoms way before the encephalitis. The only way they would have known it was herpes encephalitis vs. an arboviral encephalitis would be through a test. If anyone likes to geek out on this stuff like I do here is a page on encephalitis. Given the amount of on the mouth kissing HA did I can see this happening at some point. I would also say the arboviral possibility was a good one too if it were not for WG's posts. I don't have any reason to doubt her... other than the fact that she is just another random, unknown (to me), online, former wayfer, lol! Call me crazy, but I believe her.

Come on Rhino, don't be so hard on the guardian angel, maybe it (are they gender neutral) was on a coffee break. You know, no matter how you look at it, God gets the glory if you really want Him too. Thank Him for creating the material and the brains of smart people to invent things like defibrillators and heart monitors and hospitals and the like. If nothing else this is a great made-for-TV moment. You've seen it a hundred times. The desperate and overly emotional and connected Dr. just won't let this patient go. He's had a crummy day and this is NOT going to happen! "ONE MORE TIME, DAMN IT!" *Shock* - gasp - "He's alive!!!! They don't usually leave the "praise Jesus" moment in afterward because it is liberal Hollywood. I think we just need to remember the truth of the Princess Bride to get a better idea of all this. This falls into the category of "mostly dead." Your body can do amazing things when you are just "mostly dead," but once you get to "completely dead" well then all hope is lost. Were this guys first words after death, "to blathe"?

That's funny, I don't remember that tape. Must be because I was in the 4th -6th grader crew. We might of been busy dealing with puberty. Well, everyone else was. Welcome, waykid. Interesting how so many of the handful of young former waykids are from around our corps. I was F12. Must be a coming of age thing. Midlife crisis, maybe, lol. AJern, needs to get some of those tapes and mix up something for us!

I may be wrong, but I think this post was directed for people more like me... so I'll reply. Tell that to a smoker. Changing this story in the Bible into a "Mark was a quitter, too" teaching seems a bit negative or extreme. I read it as they had a disagreement and split ways, then they apparently made up. Good on em'. I guess it reaches some people. I see doing what I did as quitting something that was not the best for me... like smoking or drugs or a bad job. Then I started something new. Everytime you change direction doesn't need to be viewed as quitting one way and going another. It is just a change. "Change is good" is the motto of my coin collecting club. (I was going to say my transgendered support group, but I thought coin collecting was more exceptable 'round here. Before you start praying for me, I'm not apart of either group.) If I'm a quitter, then I am the exception to the Athletic club motto, cause I am a winner too. I gained alot from the change I made in my life. I have grown a lot as a person. I have done a lot. I am happy. I am satisfied. I am living a life that is more than abundant, without having a lot of money! Go figure. I can even say I am a loving caring individual. "Quitters never win, winners never quit" is a great motto at the gym to loose that big butt, but can be just another devise of control in other situations. What I want to know is, when Paul says "bring Mark, he is useful to me in the ministry" ... does Mark come? Cause that could really make or break this teaching.

I was watching beach soccer the other day and after each goal several of these guys on the Italian team were a step away from making out with each other. A cultural thing, I guess. I usually shake hands or hug for a friend or family. Perhaps our inhibition in this category is based on our knowledge of oral disease transmission. I know that is a consideration for me.

:) yes, saw that and edited for your viewing pleasure.

After discussing with the wife a bit... From the Merck Website....a very commonly used (in Med profession) and reliable source (the Merck Manual online). So, you said it was Herpes Symplex. Sounds like you weren't sure if it was HS1 or HS2, but that it was not an STD but that it was not at the time able to be diagnosed as such. Sound right? So it sounds like it could have been HS2, but it wasn't diagnosable at the time. Seems to me that it was one of the two and that he would have gotten one of those in one of two ways. HS1 is the one we typically associate with the oral sores. That one is gotten through saliva, usually kissing. Howard was renowned for his kissing of random women. This could have easily been the point of transmission. Unfortunately, it is a life-long disease, so any of you ladies kissing/ being kissed by the big HA could have gotten HS1 from him in the years to follow, if that in fact was the type of HS he had. HS2 is sexually transmitted and orally transmitted, but as it says in the Merck Manual more likely among immunocompromised patients (in our day this is common with HIV patients.) to cause encephalitis. Whether Howard was sick with something else first we don't know, but it says "more common" not impossible. So it could have been HS2....we don't know. Does anyone remember seeing HA with the typical mouth sores over the years? That could clue us in. There were no medicated creams back then, as far as I know, so it would have been an oral sore(s) for a full week or two. But again, the mouth sores can be HS1 or 2. So what we know is he was actually sick with a herpes virus that caused encephalitis that and that it was either HS1 or HS2, which given his reported behavior it could have been transmitted through his kissing of many women (hippies during the sexual revolution mind you) or sexual relations. It could go either way. Whether or not the "natural remedies" or prayer actually cured him of a virus that lacking those two things will either kill you or you will get better is, IMO, unlikely but unknowable. Is this another made up story...apparently not. Is it an indictment on HA or VPW's character? That is not completely clear. As it stands right now, I would say no, just that HA kissed a lot of random women on the mouth, before and after this incident. Take a look at the Merck Manual. It was one of those two types of herpes virus. The other types cause other things. My favorite part of the story is the hitchhiking angel. It seems like in all the stories I have ever heard of concerning hitchhikers (save LEAD stories) the hitcher is either an angel or a psycho. edit: side note...herpes varicella is chicken pox and is what the vaccine is for. To my knowledge it never causes encephalitis. But if you don't get it when you are young (the disease) it can kill when you get it as an adult, usually by circulatory problems like heart issues. I believe that is the main reason for vaccinating kids today.

Cool page, Jonny. I love the pictures on the headers of each page. HAP- One square foot? I guess you could build yourself a little soapbox there.