Ham

It may be a shot in the dark, but, If I were a younger staffer, or considering going in corps/vey disciple.. a logical conclusion would be: In twenty or thirty years I am going to be one of these people posting here about the BS I had to put up with. Consider the crap they did to ordinary folk like me, not corps, not staff- all I wanted was to go to "twig", learn the bible, have fun. What chance do you think you will have as the years go on? If the organization even lasts that long- you will be viewed not as an asset. Health care costs (or even the possibility of health care costs- we all get old sooner or later) will make you more of a liability than you are worth to them. A lot of folks here waited, hoping things would get better; and they sure did not.

Hopefully it's not just another "leak" for the WAYGB..

They've probably made him a region coordinator. Now wayfers far and wide can be warned of the dangers of mixing bread and vegetables. Funny, among my first thoughts when I met this guy was, "man, how did a guy that has less than an equivalent of 5th grade education make it through the corps?" On top of that, he had a pretty stupid looking smile when he fondly talked about his bread and vegetables..

Kinda reminds me of the little "meeting" before I never went back. "We know something is wrong with you. Your only chance is to spill your guts. Now." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what great evil that I was supposed to be or have done. The guy was just shooting in the dark. I said that basically, "I'll get back to you on it" and left. Last I saw or ever care to see them again. He wasn't real sharp- this was the guy who's claim to fame was eating three times a day without mixing his bread and vegetables. Cripe, if we had any books or stuff from "cop outs" I am sure he would have known. Frustrated, he just started shooting in the dark.

Belle, now if they confronted with 100 decibels (maybe some real good music) and about two gallons of beer, things would have been different!

Galen, that explains a lot. I think thing went sour in a real big way when Ole Craigers finally figured out how to get enough full time corpses to pass around to everybody. His mandates were to be obeyed to the letter, and he figured out a way to get the job done. In my opinion, MOST of the corspes, at least the ones I met, were expertly schooled in advanced meddling. Their kids would "accidently" find something they would consider incriminating in your house. I can document this, but will let the party have their privacy. The fact that the kids had absolutely no business in your private affairs was irrelevant. It's pretty despicable to stoop to using your own children as moles and stooges. Makes me curious about the "believer" that did the painting for you. I can almost hear the justification. "Well, we'll "talk" to him, but we are God's household. Do you think we are supposed to have secrets from each other? What else are you not telling me?" Those are the kind of arguments I have heard. I would not be suprised if that was partly how they treated you. For us, I think the full time corpse thing was one of the factors that really killed anything good that ministry had going for it that was left. We avoided the rotten apples as long as we could too, and could ignore stupid mandates. The full-time meddlers association made that impossible after a while. I won't say all corps were bad. My cousin is a corps grad, and she is pretty terrific. She did have enough sense to know when to leave.

The other common phrase that went with that: "You just need to be spiritual enough to handle it". Really helps after being screamed at an hour and a half for something you did not do..

I think the WOW thing got me going on this one.. you know, scream first, figure it out later. Gotta walk in love! When overseers heard the word "loan" it was probably like red to a bull. Flew in a rage- couldn't convince them of anything after that. Still, no apologies, "they are just doing their job.."

Got to thinking about this one: "this is the age of confrontation". "all that is necessary is a genuine spiritual suspicion". They quoted and revered that junk like God himself came down and wrote it in stone tablets himself. Just wondering, how many of you ever received an apology along with a statement that they (higher ups doing the "godly" confronting) were WRONG? I can't remember even a single incident. Usually an underling would justify it, "they did it because they love". To he** with whatever effect it had on the one wrongly accused. Just take a deep breath and get over it- "renew your mind". I am normally a decent human being.. but I can "get somebody by the throat" if I really have to. I can count the number of times I did so in my life on less than half a hand, and then only when it was really needed. But for Martinpukes underlings, they did not seem to be happy unless they could confront the he** out of somebody before breakfast, right or wrong. I think things got to the place that whosoever could scream the loudest was revered as more spiritual.

I do not claim to be a prophet of doom or anything, but what would it take? One or two more attacks like 9-11? The money would still be worth something, they could use it to wallpaper the old red barn.. I think most of us could fend for ourselves in pretty austere circumstances, not them. They could always go to busy intersections and carry signs, "will brainwash for food".

Yep. But the tactic is based upon an unproven premise, that when they reach the end of the rainbow, the money will still be there, or have value. My bible says something about trusting in uncertain riches..

Yeah, Oldies.. you can drive! Of course "better" is a relative term. Better than what? Oh yeah.. the new classes. Must be "better" than the old wineskins.. somebodies gotta pay for that little investment. "Unlike our old horse poop, we now make sure it is well cooked."

Sounds typical. No apologies or explanations for what happened. Just "come back, the water is a little warmer now.."

It was not a bribe either. "If you do so and so, I will pay for the car." The lady saw what she perceived a change for the positive in her son's life and wanted to contribute something, out of love. I think the leadership wanted to kick him off the field- somebody higher up still had some common sense.

Plus he had all the payments, cash in hand. For the whole year. The leadership was aware of all of these details. Insurance paid for the year. If the mom did indeed fall into hard times, it would not have made a bit of difference. Still, they ranted.. you know, yell first, then try to figure out what's really going on later.

I suppose I should have included that with the post. All car expenses were paid. He was only expected to take over expenses after the WOW year.

Oldies, the guys mom paid for the thing for the whole year. This included the actual car payments, insurance, and a modest supply of gas money. Stupid? I am not quite so sure.

Oh yes, House.. the new classes. They must be so proud of themselves. That's another phrase in itself, "You will be so blessed to take the new class.." "We are kindler and gentler now. You are still expected to sit at rapt attention, for two hours at a time, but we afford you the blessing of sitting, not in the hard as a rock metal chairs of old. They may be slightly padded for your comfort." "And you should be thankful. We are only charging you fifty dollars for 60 years of "research" that any second-rate hack could study and regurgitate from our old worn out library of materials." "blessed to cart the kids off God knows where again, quit your job so you can be able to meet our schedule for the new class, etc.." If they call subjecting the four to five hundred "qualified" folks to this "publication", I think they are seriously in trouble. At least the chief regurgitator may be a little nicer guy.

House, no problemo. Actually, this turned out to be "my kind of thread". I have been thinking about a lot of those little phrases for a while. "Everybody serves something; why not serve the best?" A lot of those stupid phrases were framed in the form of a question- only one answer possible. "Why of course I would want to serve the best." Too bad it turned out to really mean, "everybody serves something: why not serve the BOT?"

I don't know about you Trefor, but they did ask me. And about anybody else I knew that went also. Maybe you were just extra special! One of the WOWs in my "family" acquired a car on credit for the year. His mother had actually made payment for him for the year. I think she forked over the whole amount to him, he just had to mail it in to the bank. They raked him over the coals because he acquired debt in the middle of the WOW year. This was in 1977. Maybe this was an exception back then, I don't know. I imagine that the present leadership may think that "well, that is just old news, how is that relevant?" My answer is: 1. I actually witnessed it. 2. Things are proven to be far worse now.

Reminds me of what one of my old leadership said.. I remember him ranting on and on about how devilish it was for his parents to go to, God forbid, "Marriage encounter". What really made him mad was that it actually worked, they worked out issues and saved the marriage. These were his own parents! My impression was that he was actually angry that it worked out, because he ranted that they really needed "Da Verd" as revealed in PFAL, that the marriage should come second. He even stated that whatever help they received must have been some kind of counterfiet. Wowser. This was back in 1979. My alarms went off, too bad I ignored them..

I remember ole Craigers harping on how devilish the holocaust museum was. Now it kinda makes me wonder if he was weighing how history was going to treat him...

The kind of inheritance they will leave behind.. makes me think of some of the really bad Nazi's that escaped judgement after WWII. Their victims chased them with about the same amount of mercy that the Nazi's showed to them. Makes it kind of hard to live from day to day with peace of mind I would imagine, even if you are sitting in the lap of luxury. But what do the kids, or those that follow next in the organization inherit? Same bad name. Same reputation. Maybe they don't deserve it, maybe they do. But they don't have a choice. And this stuff does not go away. I think Igotout may have already given the best advice, fold the organization, and give the assets to another organization that can really do something good with it.

Fear would explain it.. but most of what has happened is public knowledge. It just seems to me, the logical thing to do (and I know this is asking for the next to impossible) would be to at least try to fix it. The price tag is only going to go up; the longer they wait, the worse it's gonna get. Their "fine reputation as a biblical research organization" has already been tarnished, and beyond repair. All they have left is a boat load of arrogance that their belief is "The Way", and that no one else should have the audacity to have any similarity to their name. "The way" things look, they will end up dying with that belief. I feel sorry for the people they will leave behind. They should inherit something better. I don't know.. I know at least a few of them read this stuff. Maybe it's one more appeal to really do something right.

I had the same experience when I went WOW in 77. "are you in debt?" "no." "OK." That was it. My, things sure changed..