Twinky

Buried it in the Way Woods, perhaps?

As to churches: if they meet your need at any particular time - why not? I never found anything helpful in established churches, seemed to be too much ritual and not enough outside of that. Since then the vicar in my village church has died. The new vicar is quite clued in and particularly tries to get things going to interest young people, Churches in general seem to have moved on. Some seem quite lively and others still seem dull and boring. Twig fellowships were full of excited, enthusiastic people who liked each other and loved God. That was very attractive. And yes, there were a few healings, not just wilting prayers for healing, at the beginning. Don't see why people can't go to churches to meet specific needs at different times in their lives. Not one of us knows it all, and we can all learn from others and teach others (if only by giving a kind word or a smile!). There is a lot to be said for the social bonds of "going to church" in the community in which you live, but that's only one aspect of the fellowship. The bible tells us that "signs, miracles and wonders" follow believers. If you see this happening in the church of your choice, see what you can learn there. If you don't see it happening, maybe it's time to look elsewhere. Go where your needs are met, whether established church, TWI splinter group or even TWI (shudder). When you aren't learning any more and don't see yourself growing in God's grace, if you need to go elsewhere - go! With God's blessing!

This is a bit of an aside from the main topic, but -- The Way in GB based out of Gartmore, Scotland, collapsed. This is where Geer was based at the time of PoP and where he alleges VPW made all those matters of concern known. Don't know when it collapsed - around 2000? Could be a little before or a little later. Since then it appears from GSC that he returned to the USA and has set up some other fellowship/organization here which people have reported attending. Gartmore was an old school with huge grounds in fabulously beautiful country. It's pretty remote from any sort of civilization but would be worth a packet. (Could be a very exclusive hotel - excellent fishing and other outdoor activities nearby.) Wonder what became of the money it was sold for? Rather suspect it was originally paid for by TWI but they had split years and years before so extremely doubtful that anything would go back there; that would have been done at the time of the split.

TOTW That's me you're talking about! (Not quite 20 years, though). Heck, I was under so much guilt and condemnation, that once I decided the next 40(??) years couldn't be like that I think I would have eaten any humiliation to get back. Googled "TWI" and "GSC" came up. Waybrain said that all the GSC stuff was "a trick of the adversary" - but there was soooo much of it! Looks like things got even worse after I was M&A'd. The articles in the Editorial section really helped and the guilt evaporated shockingly quickly. If I were to get involved in anything today (any new club or organisation of any kind) in a serious way, I'd do a Google search. Hopefully any "newbie" would. They wouldn't be impressed with the TWI site, which is pretty uninformative and very boring. The mantle has moved on. TWI are "old prophets" (or "old wineskins"). Aren't old things that remind us of what held us back disposed of on "Uncle Harry Day"?

There is hardly room for anyone else in the same room as CG, his ego is so big. CG wanted to run TWI instead of LCM. He was a bit more of a controller - before LCM got quite so bad at controlling. The end result probably wouldn't be any different. CG ran Gartmore as The Way in GB (or was it The Way in the UK? - which has also collapsed) and then there was POP and the split between them. Some years later CG's outfit collapsed, leaving only unhappy and bewildered people. Just like TWI. Anyone who goes to a CG fellowship may as well join TWI. No difference, just whose ego and whose belly you prefer to feed. It's "for our learning," folks. :blink:

Can't imagine that being in TWI in the latter days would do anybody with any kind of mental illness any good whatsoever. If known about, folks would always be "casting devil spirits out" probably to no avail and putting the ill person under more and more condemnation. How many people on GSC left TWI with some degree of mental illness - depression, desire to self-harm etc - because of all the rather less than edifying comments that were made about "cop outs"? These folk may not have been diagnosed by their doctors, but they have certainly been mentally damaged. CW, you are not alone here. Do what you need to do, to keep yourself well and healthy and not a danger to yourself or anyone else. Your hospital sounds well capable of helping you. What fun (joke) it must have been trying to explain Waybrain.

Dot, your story is heart-rending. It shows the hypocrisy that they were so into. You should have been believed, not beaten upon. Highway - quote: "our fervent desire to be a beloved child of God and love and serve others. This innocent desire got twisted back upon us and became the bars of our own cage." All of us here have had that "innocent desire" twisted back. It has taken some very many years to overcome it - GSCers write about their anniversaries of escape (1 year, 2 years, 6 years, 20 years). It often seems to take longer to recover than the number of years people have had "in". How much worse if that "innocent desire" has included practically all of your life? Many decades? And not just the love for God, but the love for the man (or what he was when you met and married him), the love for his and your own children, so that you are enmeshed at every thought? In my line of work, I have seen abused women go back (if they ever leave) their mates time after time after time. Their own self-confidence, self-esteem, etc, are eroded so badly that they hardly dare form a thought. But they will take whatever love/respect they can get. (And that's nowadays, in the 40s, 50s, 60s it really wasn't done to leave your husband.) Mrs W never struck me as being a victim, but many who are victims are truly adept at hiding it. And many women who aren't beaten into submission (spiritually at least) but who have adulterous husbands take them back, forgiving them time after time, until it's little more than a routine. Adulterers don't usually start overtly. They have long periods of practise before they are rumbled. Mrs W will have been taught to "forgive" by the very man she has to forgive. Mrs W was treated overtly with respect within TWI and many looked up to her, rightly or wrongly. Maybe that's what held her together. Sometimes, like with Dot and who knows who else, you have to work within and there would be no way to work from outside. Who can know? The woman's dead. Cut her some slack. She can't collude/encourage/hinder any more. Whatever wrongs she did are far outweighed by the wrongs of others. The Searcher of Hearts will reward her (or not) as appropriate. He knows her motives in not confronting then. But as LCM was so fond of saying: "This is the Age of Confrontation" - those who didn't confront him/colluded with him (Donna?) - well now, they're a different kettle of fish.

How interesting! So PFAL colored glasses must be pink or red, because they certainly made the Red Thread disappear!

Ach, no-one'll buy it if they don't like the notes. Who buys used Bibles with personal notes in anyway? Did you put a disclaimer in it, saying "DO NOT contact TWI"? Can understand it was hard for you to do, have the same problem, also your pondering if it was the right thing to do. If you can still hear LCM preaching, though, cast your mind back to "traveling light" and getting rid of those bad old reminders. If anyone does buy it, they won't have the yelling sessions locked into their brains. Maybe they'll just see Bullinger's notes and it'll spark something for them there. If you're still anxious, buy it back (consider it a donation to Goodwill) and toss it in in a furnace.

People have been M&A'd for so much less. So very much less. Yeah, he'd still be Pres (over what??). Just wondering now if (wherever he's living) he's bought himself a house - with a mortgage!

Aw gee, the more I hear the less I like. So glad I'm not there now. (Guess what, I've got a life. And I'm in charge of it.) Still sorry to hear this about HA, though.

I also met HA a lot of times, and he was *always* very kind and considerate. Grandfatherly. Liked him a lot. No "bad vibes" at all. Thought he was very honest, and that he took time and thought for the believers. He really helped me at a time when things were very difficult, and extended facilities and aid to me in a way that simply "wasn't done" but definitely met my need. A good example to follow. Also thought he had been sorely abused - especially by Chris Ge-r. Of course then I hadn't heard all the stuff about VPW. VPW said HA was always with him. Which makes HA a colluder... (and also subsequently with LCM). I don't have too much difficulty in dealing with the allegations against VPW nor the legals against LCM. I do have some difficulty with thinking that HA was a part of the cover-up. :( Anyway, wasn't it "Uncle Harry" who was the greatest Christian layman"? Or what epithet was applied to him?

Y'know they didn't just control "negative" emotions. Early in rez we were preparing for a big w/e. We'd set up tables, clothes, all sorts of things and the lobbies did look nice. A sp.ptnr had sent me some flowers (how kind!!) and would be in. I was excited about everyone coming in (therefore it must have been early in rez) and whatever this big event was, and went skipping joyfully down the corridor - only to be called back by the Corps Coordinator and being reproved and told, "Dignity - have more dignity". Thought then that was a sad response to being excited about the believers coming in - I thought (but pushed the thought away real quick) of David's wife Michal despising him because he was joying in the Lord and dancing in the street. Sad, or what?

Only six years??! And the little lassie's sentence was - a lifetime??

Unreal!

A mean attitude is a mean attitude. If you started out with a bad attitude, probably the "discipline" of WC made it much worse. The mean things that were said to me sometime echo in my mind, wish they didn't, and still make me angry. They weren't true about me, but they betrayed such a poor attitude from the person saying them, from the time we first met - before we both went WC. He was hard then and is concrete now. Too busy thinking about the specks in their victims' eyes and consistently overlooked the beam in their own eyes. How nice and friendly it can be on the outside!

(This is just an aside. I really liked that link to the Torah discussion that somebody included. Jewish/Rabbinical thinking about a topic. Research, in fact. Obvioulsy with so much being now available on the internet, such "tools" are easier to access. No doubt there is a hard copy available of similar material. Never heard mention of it from The Teacher or The Fairhaired Boy. :blink: Funny that.)

Sunny I did learn all the stuff you describe about Worry from TWI (except the 100 years bit, which I learned from my mom). But as Oldiesman says and I think you too - TWI coupled it with Fear and got us focussed on a double dose of negativity. TWI also discouraged us from looking at things realistically so that we could do positive things where possible to alleviate what might make us worry. They brushed over "What you can know by your five senses, God expects you to know" (hey that's a different thread) and in later years it seems everything came by revelation...

Jeepers, but this is a strange thread. Without having read it all in depth can I just add (a derail really) - was the real Challenging Counterfeit VPW? ( :unsure: ducking for cover). Discuss (WordWolf?? )

Pen, paper, knife and ... something else, with you at all times. Oh yes, nametag. Did you floss your teeth? Did you do your deep breathing exercises? Oh and (from PFAL) - "What you can know by your five senses, God expects you to know" ... but we still know better

Good thread, this. Quiet Thinker: Too right about the "research" - if individuals' work showed something a little different, they didn't have the spiritual understanding. If you asked a question you weren't "meek" enough. Actually most of us probably really were meek enough to the Word, just not meek enough to TWI dogma. ILB: Great post. "Disabling thinking" - maybe we should all wear "Disabled" badges instead of name tags? :blink: My brain has done more thinking and pondering real spiritual issues in the last few months than for years in TWI.

Does the sense of loss go away? My father died over 30 years ago - and I still miss him. The grief is not so sharp. The sense of loss diminishes. Don't know if it vanishes. Still would rather he was here to talk to.-+ I grieved greatly and for far far too long when I first left TWI. Now after only a few months hanging around in GSC the grief and misery have all but gone. Already it seems like a different life. But there are serious deficits as a result. Need to claim the reward of Job, here: get back more than you lost. Someone on another thread said, eat the fish and spit out the bones. If there is "fish" that you can eat from your time in TWI, enjoy! For example, some of the people I knew at TWI post here and friendships have been renewed. Making new friends also. Some of what TWI taught was right - but some was wrong. Still spitting out bones on that. Any choice anyone makes has an "opportunity cost" - if you do this, you can't do that - not without perhaps a lot of backtracking. If you marry A, you can't marry also B. If you train as a doctor, it's a major upheaval to re-train as a ... fashion designer. If you buy a new pair of shoes, maybe you can't also buy a coffee at GSC. Is the sense of loss your opportunity cost? Replace what can be replaced. Some is much harder. Highway Like your posts. Yes, we were complicit - CONplicit perhaps - as in CONNED. Belle Me too. How do you replace some losses? God through his son JC is the healer of broken hearts (karaoke, anyone?)

Good one! Hope, Congratulations on the great escape. Have a drink (or 3) to celebrate.

Well, I have to say I quite enjoyed RoA - once I got past my first one, which was also my first time at HQ and I was apprentice Corps. Couldn't understand why I couldn't go to some of the meetings (working, kitchen duties, washing up, etc, all regular appr Corps duties!!) My second one, I was in IO and appeared to be "overlooked" and not dismissed so that I could get ready for Corps meetings. Taking the view that I'd be in trouble if I missed going and in trouble if I stayed (with nothing to do) in my "job". I went to the meeting. I really quite enjoyed the set-up for RoA whilst in res. It was quite good fun though very hard work. Later as with many grad Corps, I ended up doing toilet cleaning. Which could be quite good fun and an opportunity to laze around and (did I say laze?) meet up with field folks. What REALLY got to me was the set-up for other events. I think for an Advanced class (perhaps LCM teaching it live, really can't remember) we were on duty from about 6 am and one night we didn't finish until 1.30 am - bed for a few hours and then ready to start again at 6 am. (The joys of being on Beverage Crew.) Part of our task was to take drinks to other crews like AV, who were working so hard (and we weren't?) late at night getting ready for the next day (not knocking you, AV, glad to bless your lives with a cuppa Java). It made it hard to do things like laundry so that you could appear in clean clothing when facing the public. I do remember crying from sheer exhaustion and I was thought pretty weird by the CC. He must have said something though, because one of my Corps sisters not on such an intensive duty offered to do some laundry for me. Most events, Easter, Pentecost, etc, were like that. Too intense. Lovely to meet people and energising, but getting ready to bless them - - By contrast RoA was quite relaxing.