GrouchoMarxJr

Negative growth rate?...sounds like one of those oxymorons that the government likes to use. Maybe it would be sufficient enough to say, that because he couldn't find his a$$ with both hands, the whole thing fell apart.

Happy birthday to my good natured, politically challenged friend...the Grizz! (*) grrrr!

Hope ya had a good birthday...how old are ya now, 65?

Interesting story Galen...especially about how the corps could lie to the rank and file because they were'nt "real believers"...it was all part of that arrogant attitude started by veepee and carried on by king okie.

Wierwille was all about recruitment...his most successful recruitment tools were his pfal class, the wow program and the rock of ages festival held yearly. Each fed off the other and reinforced Veeppe's whole concept of "welcome to wayworld". Interesting to note, that the bufoon, Martindale, dissolved all three of these recruitment tools, shortly after his reign of idiocy began. Lcm was handed a "thriving business" on a silver platter...all he had to do was keep the trains running on time...instead, he decided to disassemble the most successful programs that twi had...a real genius. ;)-->

I recall when there would be scheduled "word study" nights. A group would sit around and do "word studies"...it was the equivilancy of a 7th grade class learning to use an encylepedia for the first time. It was painfully booring in it's simplicity and was about as enlightening as a fart in an elevator. Any conclusions reached either lined up with twi doctrine or were considered wrong. Any dissent was considered to be "spiritually immature".

For years I had an amazing nack of seeing nothing but twi doctrine when I read the bible...when it came to "research", I considered myself a neophyte when compared to the "spiritual heavies" of twi. I just went along...at least for awhile...

When Martindale took over as president, I went through a personal change, in regards to my confidence in twi in general. When Veepee said something, I simply believed it but when lcm would talk...it just didn't "resonate" with me in a very credible way. I suddenly gained a greater confidence in my own ability to understand the bible on my own...and then one day I discovered that I simply disagreed with king okie and gave more credence to my own opinion than to his...that was a liberating experience...especially when I vocalized my dissent and indignantly walked away. That was 17 years ago.

As I think back, I realize that twi had no business referring to themselves as a "research" anything. It was a fraud and a scam. I agree with the assessment that the research books were nothing more than props...it was nothing more than eyewash. Twi's "doctrine" was as entrenched as any denomination's, and when the fearless cult leader spoke...all "research" had better line up with he who speaks excathederal.

Hope R...that was the best explanation I've heard yet concerning twi's household verses family bs.

Good Point Trefor...twi institutionilized mental bondage. What originally attracted me to twi was their "seeming" willingness to continue research and change if they were wrong about something. Supposedly they were open to imput from any and all "saints" concerning the doctrine of the bible...yeah right.

It soon became apparent that the only thing bigger than their egos, was the institution of a rigid religious system that they were building. Whether you considered yourself in the household (aren't I cool)...or just a member of the family (I guess I'm just a putz), you were still part of and assimilated into the institution of mental bondage.

George...when you think about it, was it all that different from people who attended witch covens (twigs) and cast spells, expecting them to happen?

"works for saint and sinner alike..." with that little phrase, the cornfield grifter sent everybody off on a tangent, seeking that elusive power that was within their own minds...of course when it didn't work...it was YOUR fault. What a catch 22, what a fireproof plan! We pay em money for the more abundant life, and when they fail to deliver the goods, they blame us...as they're counting the money in the back room.

Believing equals receiving...IMPOSSIBLE! Not true, not even biblical, pure crap. How could we have been sooooooooo stupid!

During the year before I went into residence, the local leadership rode me mercilessly...they were "preparing me" to become corps. There was one nazi corps guy especially...that really got involved with me. He had the wonderful idea that I should haul my entire 150 album collection, of some of the finest music of the 60's and 70's, and toss them into the bon fire on Uncle Harry day. The limb leader concurred with him, thinking that it would help me in my quest to assimilate the doctrine of voluntary induction and of course, it would set a wonderful example to all the slackjawed waybrains, who would be in attendance.

There were ooohs and aaahs, as I pushed the wheelbarrow full of vinyl towards their firey grave...I gritted my teeth with determination as I flung handful after handful of albums, like square pizzas, seperating from each other and finding a home in the inferno, which would cleanse them forever of the insideous demons that resided within...The limb leader and the corp guy both stood off to the side with knowing smiles...I had completed a rite of passage...I now was welcome into the hallways of the initiated ones...I had cut the ballast loose and was now free to soar with the spiritual wings of a sogwap!

Yeah...I burned em all...scheesh, how stupid could I have been! Got talked into it...I should have thrown the nazi corps guy into the fire instead of my records.

Refiner...wait til you get to the part about "getting your needs and wants parallel". If you can figure out what the hell he's talkin' about, you'll be the first...ROFLMAO.

other titles:

"Christians should be preposterous"

A handbook that is distributed freely to new recruits, explaining to them why it is important to give twi their money.

"Christian sex within the family"

A closer look at a woman's role in the context of living in the kings kingdom.

Waywardwayfer...interesting stuff...

Lcm states "God loves all His children, but only His affectionate children are the ones He can protect"

Whew!...chilling, mind numbing...

When I grew up with my siblings, some of us were "affectionate" and some of us were not. My "earthly father" protected us all equally. I seem to recall Veepee ranting out something about "my earthly father did a better job than that..."

This is the "not so subtle" doctrine that deviates from a powerful, loving, and able God, extending His mercy and grace...and replaces Him with a god that is limited in both ability and unconditional care. Martindale's god is not ABLE to protect him. He's willing, mind you, just not ABLE...so where does this "ABLE-NESS" reside? Apparently, the ability to be protected, resides within the human mind!...lcm calls it being "affectionate"...and of course, a closer examination of HOW to be "affectionate" (or how to activate the "ability to be protected") is to give twi your money and allow them to control your life...or as others might say...to be a "functioning member of the household".

It seems that lcm pulled the old bait and switch...He advertises a loving God that is ready to pour His adundance on you, and then delivers a mean spirited, controlling hierarchy of manipulating extortionists, who bend you over.

What I feel deep inside is an unyielding determination to never again allow someone else to tell me what God wants for my life...

...and I've got plenty of beer in the cooler

casually elegant dress code?

Assignments....what a joke...I remember being in a room with veepee and a bunch of prospective limb leaders...veepee had a basket of apples...he picked them up one at a time and threw them really hard at each guy sitting in their chairs...the one guy that caught his apple was made a limb leader...

We used to think that they made these assignments by revelation! If God ever talked to a twi leader it was only to tell him to get the hell out of twi!

Just wanted to backtrack for a moment concerning this "public castigation" that occurred in twi. I witnessed it numerous times but there was one in particular that I feel is worth mentioning:

I was in the 10th corps at Emporia...it was our first year in residence...At about 3am., the entire corps was woken from their sleep and ordered to report to the "top of vierville library"...we all sat there (over 500 of us) for awhile until lcm entered the room. He called out a certain individual's name (10th corps guy) and made him stand...he then announced that this person had actually committed the grievious sin of sneaking into town and eating pizza, when he was supposed to be on campus watching some dumb twi film! Lcm waited until the middle of the night to do this...

Lcm tore into this poor sob. like nothing I'd ever seen before...Vein popping, spittle flying, screaming! He tore this guy into pieces...I couldn't believe it, it was horrifying. He went on for about an hour straight! You'd have thought that the guy was caught having sex with a fellow corps members wife or something! After that occasion, everybody was extremely fearful that they would be next...

Wierwille was an extremely insecure man. He constantly craved the attention that was due a "great man of god"...to the end that he stole, what he considered, the best of what others had written and taught...and then called it his own. Concoct lies about snow on gas pumps and allow far fetched stories of his great spiritual escapades, to circulate far and wide. The spotlight was always to be on him...he was at his best when standing on a stage with all eyes upon him...

His writings?...The very basic underpinnings of his belief system was destructive in nature. Believing equals receiving...my a$$ it does. That one opened the can of worms that led to self condemnation, guilt, feelings of inadequecy, misconceptions concerning God's role in your life, a belief that there was a power in your mind that could effect external forces, a total willingness to be manipulated...just to name a few. He went on from there...Veepee was to Christianity what Jeffery Dahmer was to gourmet dining. His contributions of a literary nature were a cruel joke.

Yeah...I like that..."built in expiration date", ain't that the truth! When one considers that veepee was the mog, and Christ was absent...it only stands to reason that when veepee finally cashed in his chips, the whole reality of wayworld went kittywompis. The head of the body was no longer alive...what a prediciment! "Veepee, my servant is DEAD, go now, etc. etc. etc." Joshua Martindumb snatched up the mantle and led us all to the promised land of sexual perversions...The expiration date was past...the product tainted...Veepee thought he was Paul and lcm was Timothy. Actually Veepee was P.T. Barnum and lcm was Moe Howard.

M&O...That's an excellant point about the privacy thing...For me music was always a personal thing...there was music that I would play when a bunch of folks were around and then there was the music that I played when I was alone...The intrusion by twi into my "music world", was indeed, an intrusion into my privacy. They dug into my root cellar, so to speak. Even after I left twi, I was always "spiritualizing" the music I listened to, out of habit...it took me awhile to recapture my own "center" and go back to the business of being an individual again.

I guess the turning point for my recovery came when I returned to finally finish college...communications major with a keen interest in radio...I ended up working for several radio stations until it culminated when I became program director for an NPR, public radio station. I went through a complete "musical metamorhis" and emerged into a more honest appreciation of secular music, and to a much greater extent than even my pre-twi days...I have many to thank...amoung them are the likes of Thelonias Monk, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Bob Marley and of course...the great one, Ray Charles..."Life after twi is sweet as moms apple pie!"

Twi is both a religious organization and a multi level marketing scheme. These two entities are are not, either one or the other, but consistantly work hand in hand. They compliment each other...check out Benny Hinn's money making scam, or any of the other TV con artists. They all have ways of raking in money based upon the "God will bless you if you give me your money" scheme. This has been going on for centuries.

Whether or not they are sincere about their particular form of mythology , can be determined by their adherence/ or not...to the actual doctrines and dogmas they espouse. I would suggest that the people at the "bottom" are probably the most sincere about their belief system, while the top dogs are least sincere...Afterall, it's the rank and file that finance the lush life styles of the leadership...you know, the "greatest servants"...look for the contridictions and follow the money.

I don't think so, it's happened to me before also...

I remember camp Gunnison when twi first aquired it...I was there in 1976,77,78...

Thanks to all that abs money and the log home builders they lucked out getting into their cult, they developed the property quite nicely.

It really was/is a beautiful location...twi certainly doesn't deserve to own such a place...

I think that they should give it to ex-wayfers in compensation for all the damage they did. Perhaps Paw could coordinate a rotating vacation schedule from the GS...We could have bonfires, drink beer and even play the deebil's music real loud...

A big 10-4 on what George just said...there are plenty of hard luck cases everywhere. The example George used was extreme but it really made the point. The "trauma" of the cornfield cult pales in comparison to the hand that some folks have been dealt. A friend of mine was a POW (not to be confused with a WOW)...in Viet Nam for over a year and a half...after listening to some of his stories, I was too embarrassed to even mention my "horrible" experience at Emporia.

FontanaAna...If I understand your point of view, you are thankful to God that you don't share the opinions that some of us do concerning twi...Well, I thank God that my eyes have been opened to an insideous little cult that has been lying in God's name!

As far as who my posts are for...I just write em'...they are for anybody who chooses to read them...apparently, you do not read posts that disagree with your point of view...that's fine...but just in case you are still reading this...a friendly reminder, The Grease spot Cafe is NOT a Christian website. It's an open discussion forum that welcomes divergent points of view. You are certainly welcome to yours, but if opposing points of view upset you, I would suggest checking out one of the many, many Christian site that are "available".

As far as the CF&S class goes...it was a joke. They billed it as "the greatest teaching on this subject anywhere in the world"...far from it. I learned more from 8th grade biology and what my folks taught me growing up...Wierwille's views on sex were chauvinistic, perverse and cruel. Having wierwille teach about sex is like having a pedophile teaching a boyscout troop.

Oh yes...watch out for the debbils music!

When I entered twi, I was taken "aside" and taught all about how the debbil had taken over the music industry...no more Grateful Dead, or Moody Blues, forget the Beatles, and you damn well better burn those Rolling Stone albums! Sympathy for the devil indeed!

Of course, all this debbil music was to be replaced with the Nazi music of wierwille's wayproductions...the inferior sound systems, the inferior song writing, composing and performing...all tempered by wierwille's "expertise" in understanding the spirituality of it all...and then censoring the little bit of talent and originality that dared rear it's head...how plastic, how phoney.

Yeah, it still pi$$es me off that I let those creeps talk me into their little cornfield reality...

At least the Hari Krishnas are no longer frolicking through the airports banging their tamborines...

Actually, I try to be polite and even kind to all those who venture to my door...I always figure that they were pressured into doing it, in order to please some "leader" or gain favor in their organization...but I never let em in ;)-->

Danny hit the nail right on the head..."works for saint and sinner alike"...Wierwille taught that there is a power within the mind that effects things externally...God was not included in this dynamic. He was relegated to an inactive role on the sidelines, while this great "law of believing" appropriated the desired results as WE activated this internal power source...

There are many folks who realize that the "law of believing" is as phoney as a three dollar bill, but I'm not sure how many realize how insideous and destructive this so called "law" really was. It was the basis for everything else that twi did...it was their "catch 22"...it was the false doctrine that laid the foundation for an idolatrous little cornfield cult to manipulate the lives of thousands...

Hooner...welcome to the Grease spot! Unlike twi, you'll find a diversity of opinions here...and that's healthy.

I have been out now for 17 years (was in for 13)...I understand what you are going through, your "wounds" are still fresh...let me assure you that things will get MUCH better as time goes on.

I must say that my opinion of twi is very close to George Aars. They were a bunch of con artists who took advantage of some very sincere and naive folks...Recognizing then for what they are/were is very therapeutic in recovering from your experience.