waysider

They send roots down to the water table. If they can't find it, they'll settle for a sewer system.

You must have water nearby. They have an affinity for groundwater.

"Nut" is much too kind a word.

Do "Christian" puppeteers qualify for this thread? HERE

He's on facebook. Have you tried contacting him there?

They turn down free beer?? Well, look who's calling the kettle black.

One particular year, at the conclusion of the Rock of Ages (I think it was 1973.), Wierwille had a huge healing service, which he directed from the main stage. Over the microphone, he announced that anyone needing healing should come to the front of the stage. Then he told all Advanced Class grads to come to the front, also, and pair up with a person needing ministering. I found myself feeling like something was very wrong. Why hadn't God told me Himself to go to the front of the stage? I lingered in the back and felt extremely uncomfortable because those around me knew I was an AC grad. Wierwille, himself, did nothing special other than yammer endlessly through the microphone. My spectator positioning allowed me to view the whole event as if I were looking at it from an outside vantage point. Whispers began to circulate through the crowd about this healing and that. I, on the other hand, saw nothing taking place aside from the usual ministering situation we had all become accustomed to. There were no *blind gaining sight*, no *lame being made to walk*. Immediately following, a "love offering" was taken up. Money was flowing into the horns of plenty like water from a winter thaw. What a surprise, huh? When it was over, the guilt began to set in, though. What if God had told me and I wasn't "listening"? What if someone's life had depended on my compliance? It was a gnawing feeling that stuck with me for a long, long time...years. Looking back, I now find myself feeling like the whole thing was a big theatrical event, staged to bolster the proverbial bottom line. And, oh yeah, I no longer feel any guilt associated with the event.

Within the context of the Advanced Class, it was taught that believers could NOT be possessed... and... that they COULD be possessed. Both positions are found in the AC syllabus. I have cited this contradiction in the past. Like so many other things, I think VPW simply did a cut and paste without understanding what he was copying. For that reason, I wouldn't give much credence to whatever you may have heard in TWI.

The grandson, V2P2, has cloned The Way and given it a new name. Special calling??...Meh.

ALSO

There are other posters here who are in similar situations. Perhaps you could initiate another thread with a rephrased title.

It's what I like to call "trophy mentality". We had a local/regional musician in the Cleveland area who was active in the Jesus movement. (He is now internationally known. But that's not the point.) We courted him, so to speak, in efforts to get him to take the PFAL class so we could use him as an example. It's really an old door-to-door sales technique.... "Well, Mrs. Jones, your neighbor down the street, Mrs. Smith, bought these recently and just loves them."

They became complicit the first time they became aware of it and chose to cover it up rather than address it properly. edit: I'm not a lawyer so that's just my opinion.

Just off the top of my head, there was Ken B., who was run over by a semi, en route to LEAD and Rachel W., who took her own life after she was severely injured in *the LEAD accident* and subsequently treated like a pariah. Another poster on GSC was brutally raped by a trucker. I won't name her because she no longer posts here. I don't have any links to refer to at the moment.

It's cause for reflection.

To be clear, VPW, himself, did not commit the murders but they were committed within a program (WOW) he sanctioned. When there were deaths in the LEAD program, it should have been halted immediately. Instead, the deaths were covered up and the program continued on.

It's a generational "thing". You young whippersnappers wouldn't understand. Now, please excuse me, I'm late for a meeting of the philatelist club.

For what it's worth A some point, all female Corps applicants were required to submit results of STD testing. I don't recall the year this began.

Would you deliver in the hills?

Maybe we didn't die as a result of our partaking the forbidden fruit He may have not had a hand in taking any one's life. Unfortunately, this is not completely accurate. People DID die because of their involvement with The Way and callous negligence of VPW. There were deaths caused by blatant safety violations (LEAD in particular), suicides precipitated by misconduct of leadership, murders on the WOW field and deaths that were the result of The Way's misguided "law of believing". Many of those deaths are chronicled on the pages of GSC.

He got much of his conspiracy babble from a group called Liberty Lobby and their newsletter, The Spotlight. Liberty Lobby was/is a white supremacist, anti-Semitic organization whose specialty is hate-inducing, Holocaust denial propaganda. He (VPW) then spouted the talking points as if he was receiving them by revelation from God. Remember the bicentennial takeover, etc?.....That's where it came from. This has been documented on the pages of GSC.

HERE is one.

That's why I think the "I'm still here." quote is so funny. Wierwille stepped up to the microphone on the main stage at Rock Of Ages and announced, "I'm still here." Uh Huh....and so was the frickin' rain.

Tip #47: Never hide in the hallway without a sandwich.

In essence, what I mean is that I don't engage in lengthy dialogue.