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shortfuse

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Posts posted by shortfuse

  1. On 2/12/2019 at 4:47 PM, skyrider said:

    Thanks DWBH.......appreciate it.

    This cult-splinter insanity strikes me again and again........when corps exit the twi-cult and start their own splinter groups.  They desire to have the SAME RESULTS as the cult they left behind (cough, cough).......perks, privileges, adulation, no accountability, meals and travel reimbursed, leisure and flexibility, and control over others!

    Gawd........it is so damn obvious, NOW.

    With swelling words of vanity, they make merchandise of others.  False teachers hiding their seductive ways (II Peter 2).

    Always a "teaching" ministry........ever-teaching and never coming to a knowledge of the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ.

     

    When I think about my time in the Way Corps, I don't think I ever really fully identified with being a minister.  I mean I was invested, and spent my early adulthood trying to be one, but I was always suppressing a part of myself to do so.  Since I left TWI, I have spent years trying to rediscover who I truly am, and what my own ambitions are.   I have observed that a lot of people never find their way back to themselves.  They want to recapture that thing they had where they were important, and listened to, and looked up to.  They think that's who they are and nothing else feels right.  And you can't easily integrate into any other religious setting.  So you roll your own.

    I feel sympathy for them.

    I notice as a cult survivor, I have a certain proneness to cult-like groups of all stripes.  Art cults, fitness cults, education cults.  I see them everywhere.  I'm trying to understand and heal the part of me that needs them.

    Not posting as a counter point, just some additional thoughts.  

    PEACE.

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  2. 11 minutes ago, WordWolf said:

    There was an episode of "Gilligan's Island" where the Professor did "word association" with Thurston Howell III.  At every word, the first thing that came to Thurston's mind was "money."

    "Hot." "Money." "Cold." "Money."  (Until he finally gave a different answer...) "Child." "Tax deduction."

    lcm had this fixation that became an obsession with homosexuality. Eventually he started seeing it everywhere.  So, "What was the original sin?" "Homosexuality/" "What is the worst sin?" "Homosexuality." "Why did we have problems with this program that's tanking?" "Homosexuality."  "How can we make twi better?" "Remove homosexuality."  "What's twi's biggest problem right now?" "Homosexuality."  "What's the capital of Paraguay?" "Homosexuality." "Who was the 16th US President?" "Homosexuality." "What do you see when you look at art?" "Homosexuality."

    I don't think it was a matter of plagiarism, as much as it was playing a piano that only had one key.

    Yeah, I suppose you are right.  I remember him saying how he put it together because VPW thought it was masturbation.  So that got him to sexuality.  What is sexually immoral?  (Adultery? no, that can't be right.) Homosexuality!

  3. Hey, y'all.  Thinking about something; wondering if anyone has already looked into this.

    Starting from the premise that VPW and LCM were not original thinkers, but rather borrowed from the work of others, I have been thinking about how that factors into The Way's Genesis 3 teaching.  I think this has been swept on the rug in the present teaching, but there has also never been a retraction.  I am speaking of the teaching from The Way of Abundance and Power which interpreted the Genesis 3 story of Eve and the Serpent to have been Eve having had a lesbian experience with the serpent who had taken on the form of a woman.  Craig supported this by pointing to homophones in the text which he said had a strong sexual connotation and were a kind of double entendre.  The "ah-ha" moment was when he revealed a panel from the Sistine Chapel which portrayed the serpent has having the torso of a woman.  

    I have always thought this explanation was pretty wonky and a big leap, BUT... I was just looking at some art work this week which had the them of gay couples in the garden with a serpent, and I remembered the similar renaissance examples.  This got me to thinking that as crazy as that teaching seemed to me, it must have some precedent somewhere, because Craig, like VPW before him, was unoriginal.

    Anyone know where the Craigers got this teaching?

  4. Interesting thread.  I think the CP1 talk also lent itself to some OCD-ishness and overthinking somethings.  We were drilled on attention to detail (not inherently bad) and tried to correct any tiny imperfection in things like mowing the grass and setting the table.  Through this careful scrutiny of the "physicals" we might have perception in the spiritual.

     

    it also reminded me of a funny thought.  We would sometimes chastise each for dumb mistakes saying, "Come on, man, this is like CP ZERO!" 

  5. There's a group of Way Corps trying to actively reform TWI.  They've engaged in some unfruitful letter writing campaigns with the BOD, and have a non-trivial number (by current numbers at least) of likeminded folks gathered.  They seem to sincerely want to reform the way, most of them have been around way too long not to understand the futility of this. But we all need to walk our own path.

    They have been seeking an audience with the leadership to address grievances and in response they are being shunned. Magn3llis, M0ynihans, suspect Horn3ys will be next and anyone else who doesn't fall in.

    It is a familiar story.  They are not going to change.  The sooner people recognize that the sooner they can move forward in life.

    It's hard. I wish them well.

    • Upvote 1
  6. 3 hours ago, shazdancer said:

    I found the parts of me that were vulnerable to falling into abusive relationships, and the parts of me I wanted to keep. Sometimes they are the same thing. But at least now I can forgive myself and move on from abuse, instead of endlessly trying to "believe better."

    That's heavy.  Still working on this.

  7. 5 minutes ago, chockfull said:

    The BOT celebrates with loytoy going on a trip to the Bahamas to celebrate the victory of this lifechanging class.   We get a postcard with a picture.   It got put on the fridge with a magnet next to the cupboard full of hamburger helper.  After we were instructed to cancel our vacations and do "staycations" to save expenses, and replace traveling with vacationing locally.

     

    Totally forgot about that.  I remember the postcard, forgot the Bahamas trip was a victory trip.  I also remember the stay-cation.  I went to the place they make BeerNuts and LaffyTaffy. (Two different places.)

  8. 1 hour ago, chockfull said:

    And to wrap it all up in a tight little bow, the policy is instituted that anyone wanting to be "reinstated" as active Corps they would need to go back in-residence again and do the 4 years all over again.

    Many actually accepted that frame and went and did it.

    What were they supposed to learn the second time through?    IMO compliance and political savvy.

    My folks tried to go back and get reinstated.  Request rejected.  Reason given: "Too old to complete the L.E.A.D. program".

  9. 34 minutes ago, chockfull said:

    Now instead of DFAC, we are going to praise these people and let them know they fulfilled their vision.  "Corps Alumni" is a term that is invented, and from that point carried on ever since.  These people are to be the salt of the earth the household fellowship coordinators the advanced class grads the abundantly sharing populace.   A new layer in the caste system fits the bill.   Not only this, but we have the perfect setup for even more political purges.  You have a Corpse Alumni group with thwarted life goals.   And you have fulltime Corps.  Perfect formula for the one to grow to hate the other.  Over the years this will provide a great harvest of confidential informants, of great use to purge even further.  

    This Corps Alumni business is an abiding pain to me.  I hate it so much.

    There were so many folks, sold out wayfers (my parents among them), who were dropped from the Corps for arbitrary reasons (well, maybe as you guys point out it was monetary), and they were so wounded by this.  They had their whole self worth wrapped up in this identity, and they were understandably crestfallen when it was revoked.  So the Corps Alumni "status" comes along as a consolation prize.  But even with that, they were jerks - "oh, we're not giving this to just anybody" you have to be the best of the best finest example of advanced class grads, not moping around feeling sorry for yourself (because of how we've just robbed you of your most prized characteristic, Way Corps status).  So that was among my first jobs as a new corps grad was to tell some of these former Corps folks, sorry, you're not even Way Corps Alumni.  And that was that.  There was no earning that status back.  My folks are way lifers, Corps grads, dropped from active corps for some arbitrary infraction, marked and avoided twice, begged their way back into the fold and still, STILL to this day are loyal wayfers, doing all the wayfer stuff - hosting fellowships, running the classes, etc.  Are they Way Corps Alumni? nope.  

    I met many people in these post-purge, post-LCM years that stayed loyal.  They do whatever they are permitted to do in service to the way.  But they carry around this profound sense of failure for being dropped from the Corps, or Way Corps Alum, or even as I said those who had that withheld.  Anybody can see it, including those so called leaders in the way.  They are supposed to be kinder and gentler now after LCM.  Yet they won't lift the burdens off these folks.  Apologize for wrongfully terminating them.  Apologize for being so hard on them, and thanking them for sticking around.  Any of those Corps grads still "standing" should rightfully get to be Corps Alumni, but the BOD won't even make that simple concession.  

    Why?  The don't care about people. Period.  And they would never admit to mistakes of any kind, it undermines their authority.  And the whole cult dynamic requires authority.

    • Upvote 1
  10. 16 hours ago, chockfull said:

    All the Corps are going full-time staff.    Now Fred the window cleaner is going to be Fred the full-time minister.   No more class crews - the Corps does everything - cooking, cleaning, teaching, running classes, cleaning overseers houses.   This lasted 3 years - I think '95-'98.

    Eventually after 3 years cowterd as sec/treasurer manages to convince loytoy this wasn't happening.  Presto - revelation changes - now the Corps are to go back to work and find jobs.    

    That fulltime stuff was a disaster.  I graduated into the second year of full-time corps.  Somebody figured out they had put everyone on the payroll and not really defined their job.  I think Craig just hoped that with all those Corps free to move the word, it was really going to turn things around and increase numbers.  When I had my first assignment, we had a bit more of a job description - teach.  So we were supposed to teach like 10 or 15 times a month and report back about it to the Limb.  My wife and I both needed to do this, so it meant that we taught all the fellowships in our branch every week.  Nobody else got to teach anymore so we could earn our keep. But that's not much of a growth strategy either, so somewhere in there they came up with Vision and Direction, a description for what the Corps was supposed to accomplish over the course of a year, with a bunch of new reporting requirements. (This could be and probably had already been another thread.)

    When all the Corps went full-time Craig bragged about how Ernst and Young told them it was crazy.  The third and final year of all corps full time we went through extreme expense cutting measures, and everyone took a paycut.  There was a prohibition on having kids. A bunch of extreme financial tightening put on the Corps.  Then yeah, eventually, Revelation came that most of us should go get a secular job again.  I don't know for sure if this is the case, but it seems reasonable to me that the Way Corps were among the most loyal financial contributors before this.  When they went fulltime, they stopped making these contributions and became a big expense.  I wondered for a while if the Craiggers was actually trying to intentionally destroy the way, but I don't think he was.  I think he really thought the whole thing was a good idea, and it was going to work.

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  11. 16 hours ago, chockfull said:

    "Wow, I'm so glad to be really in to the promised land, as opposed to being back in Egypt where we were before under that slavery".  "Yeah, this prevailing Word, it's just so really prevailing, isn't it?"  Conversations also under this "new administration" take on even more of a brainwashed quality if that is possible.  

    The last Corps assignment I had, dude I was replacing gave me the low down on every single person in the branch before I got there.  People he thought were under performing he was like, "Yeah, this guy is really 'Word over the World' if you know what I mean.  Not really Prevailing."

      

  12. 17 hours ago, chockfull said:

    First, the Word was over the World.  Then, apparently, people were having a lot of sex at the Rock.   I mean, open air, week long hippie festival, tents, who would have thought that would go on?

    I mean the Rock was turning into a veritable Sodom and Gomorrah right in front of our very eyes there.

     

    I think I was on my interim year when that went down, I remember those Corps Nights.  I was still very young, and reverent of leaderdang but I recall being in disbelief.  Are they *just not* figuring out what goes on at the ROA and Corps Week?  (Excuse me, Fork of Ages, and Score Week.)   I remember the Craiggers ranting about how he was amazed lightning didn't strike the big top and topple it on all of us.  He also praised the field leaders who shook down the teens after the Rock.  

  13. 1 hour ago, penworks said:

    I suspect she is behind the new marketing effort to make TWI appealing to more people before she "steps down."  There are several newish Way websites listed in the right-hand sidebar of the main website. IMO, they are an attempt at showing different "faces" for the organization. Here's one A more modern looking TWI website.

    This is really interesting.  It's actually smart.  It's an SEO campaign.  I recommended something like this 10 years ago when I was still on Team Wayfer.  It used to be that any keywords you would associate with TWI would return anti-way sites in search engine results. John Juedes stuff, Greasespot articles and forums, other cult related writings would be at the top.  They could have changed that by putting out more content across more platforms.  As you know they were way late to the game of even having a website.  

    Fast forward to present, and somebody has convinced Rosalie to experiment with this stuff.  It's honestly surprising.  But it is as you say marketing.  I don't think they expect to reach anyone through these alternate channels, but maybe they are probing for what appeals most.  Ultimately though, these additional sites, like TWI Twitter and Flickr feeds are all about boosting the rankings in search engines.  Good job, Millennial Wayfer, whoever you are.

  14. This may well have been discussed on these forums (RTFM me if you like).  But I'm curious to know more about the split that apparently occurred when Wierwille adopted the "Way Tree" home fellowship based model for his group.  I seem to remember it being said a big part of the existing ministry (or maybe just the leaders?) left at this point.  How big a hit was that really? Wondering if this began with the influx of Jesus People folks and other hippie Christians.   Was there any such thing as a presence outside of Ohio before this time?  I know PFAL ran various places, but were there Way fellowships anywhere before the hippies?

    Thanks in advance for any deets you can offer.
     

  15. 1 hour ago, Bolshevik said:

    John 10:10 is part of the four gospels and not addressed to the Grace Administration.

    Therefore PFAL is discredited because VPW got "to whom" incorrect.  And getting "to whom" correct is something we learned about in PFAL.  

     

    But it is still "for our learning" - ON SNAP!

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