waysider

"Exclusion" is the key word here. He wanted us to intellectually "exclude" anything other than what he recommended. .

I agree, the sexual escapades were just the tip of the iceberg. His seduction went far beyond the mere physical implications. One needn't look too far to find people still psychologically mesmerized by his seductive skills. edit: When I say "mere physical implications", I don't mean that in any way that might minimize the seriousness of that aspect.

Definition: Grooming - Grooming is the predatory act of maneuvering another individual into a position that makes them more isolated, dependent, likely to trust, and more vulnerable to abusive behavior. Description: Grooming is a insidious predatory tactic, utilized by abusers. Grooming is practiced by Narcissists, Antisocial predators, con-artists and sexual aggressors, who target and manipulate vulnerable people for exploitation. Child grooming is the deliberate act of establishing an emotional bond with a child, to lower the child's resistance. Child grooming can result in the minor falling victim to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, or specifically, to manipulate children into participating in slave labor, prostitution, and/or the production of child pornography. Adult grooming is correspondent to child grooming and applies to any situation where an adult is primed to allow him or herself to be exploited or abused. While it is a common assumption that grooming is only practiced on the very young, identical emotional and psychological processes are commonly used to abuse or exploit adults the elderly, and those with compromised mental facilities. An predator will identify and engage a victim and work to gain the target’s trust, break down defenses, and manipulate the victim until they get whatever it is they are after. Overt attention, verbal seduction (flattery / ego stroking), recruitment, physical isolation, charm, gift-giving, normalizing, gaslighting, secrecy, and threats are all hallmarks of grooming. Abusers who groom their victims often claim to have a special connection with the abused. The so- called connection might be emotional, intellectual, sexual, spiritual, or all of the above. This is often backed up by the predator echoing back part of the target's own background or story, altered to fit the groomer’s back-story, in order to confirm the connection. In order to abuse or exploit another person without fear of discovery, a sexual predator or con artist will frequently condition their intended victim to keep secrets for them. When building this bond of trust, an abuser may share seemingly personal or private information, and then swear the victim to secrecy. The victim is made to believe that they are being trusted with something of value, before being asked to share something of value with his/her abuser. Abusers use shared secrets to bind their victims to them. By degrees, the target is gradually lured in to revealing private information, giving up money, property or sexual favors, or permitting /engaging in inappropriate, unsafe, or illegal behaviors. • The victim is often drawn in to being a "co-conspirator” (also known as forced teaming) with his or her abuser. Eventually, the bond of secrecy is nearly always reinforced with threats, shaming and guilt to keep the victim silent about his or her shared crimes or misdeeds. SOURCE

Typically, when we think of sexual grooming, we think of a situation or relationship that involves an adult and a child. Perhaps this is why people will sometimes be reluctant to acknowledge that what they were seeing in The Way was, in fact, sexual grooming, even though it was an adult/adult version. First, he (VPW) set himself up as being trustworthy and authoritative. Then, he engaged in desensitizing techniques through his stories and physical contact. In addition, he swore his victims to secrecy and implied that dire consequences would ensue (and sometimes did) if they were to ever reveal "their little secret". Losing The Way is a book that offers first hand testimony of one of his victims. We have also heard first hand testimony from posters who were present at "women only" corps night-owls where Wierwille described to those present how he had fondled his own daughter to teach her a fatherly lesson in sexual awareness. We have no way to ascertain with certainty whether or not he ever actual carried out what he claimed to have done. We can be certain, however, that he did make these claims. There are several first hand witnesses who have posted here to that effect. In retrospect, I can tell you, first hand, that during my time in FellowLaborers, I saw similar things take place. We were never supposed to talk about such things among ourselves or even to allow ourselves to think that something might be amiss. To do so would be considered "thinking evil of your brother" and a definite indication of un-renewed mind and spiritual weakness. Besides, there was always the remote possibility that you were simply misinterpreting the circumstances. Looking back, though, that was not the case.

Consider, as well, that he encouraged us to "put away" all extraneous, secular materials. At the very least, he was suggesting we initiate a self imposed form of isolation.

I distinctly remember him saying this or something very similar. ("Put away the newspapers, put away the magazines, put away the periodicals....study PFAL materials.")....... (session 12?) I took the class that was filmed in 1967. Maybe it got changed when the LCM version hit the market.

Accepting a gift, in order to eat, is against the rules. How sick is that? Somebody please remind me why I would ever want to sit around the campfire again and sing Kumbaya with these people.

"Sure, I could have left. I had money in the bank and a car in the parking lot. Within two hours, I could have been gone......forever removed from twi. But I stayed. Was I being foolish or was I listening to God? What lie ahead?" I think this is the part that people don't understand when they say things like "Why didn't you just leave?". You could be making the best decision you ever made or the worst decision you ever made. There was no way to really tell which road to take. And, you had that threat of the uncertainty that lies outside the so-called hedge of protection to be concerned with. Those kind of thoughts are more persuasive than any *gun being held to your head*.

Any organization, genuinely concerned with the welfare of its members, would have welcomed and applauded this sort of personal expression. Did I say "genuinely concerned"? Oh...pardon me.

You know those wheat berries and oat groats you're supposed to soak overnight so they wont taste like tiny rubber ball bearings the next morning? Someone I know used to forget to soak them. I can't tell you his name. :o

"That's all just your opinion. "Usurped your freedom of choice"??? Nobody stuck a gun to your head. Or anybody else's." That's not an opinion, john, it's a fact. Participants of these so-called training programs were at the beck and call of leadership. They told you when to sleep, when to get up, when to eat, what to eat, when and if you could leave the compound, who you could date, etc. Where's the freedom of choice? As for the gun to the head phrase, I think we all know there are more ways to control someone than simply holding a gun to their head. "Yeah, I still believe it's the word. If not what IS the word right now? GSC?" After all these years of posting here and seeing how Wierwille blatantly plagiarized the works of others, presented flawed *research* on countless occasions and distorted scripture to suite his own agenda, you still don't understand the answer to this?

When I was in FellowLaborers, we had to pay our own way by working full time secular jobs, in addition to the time we spent attending to F.L. duties. There were stipulations on what sort of jobs we could and could not work at. In addition, we had to sponsor at least one person in The Way Corps. I think I sponsored 2 people for $5 or $10/month each. That was part of the written contract we signed. It was pretty tough meeting all our financial obligations.

This is really a stretch john. "Today, many of us are dependent on things like automobiles, radio, TV, the internet, texting, cell phones, and many other appliances or machines. No such thing in Jesus' culture." They were, of course, dependent on their culture's equivalent of the things you listed. They depended on donkeys, vessels for transporting water, fire keepers, town criers, devices for manufacturing clothing and on and on. "The only thing they were dependent on was studying the OT......." The common man did not *study* the O.T. The common man was, for the most part, illiterate. "All VP/pfal did was replace whatever we were dependent on with studying the word." There are two distinct problems with this. First: He didn't "replace what we were dependent on", he usurped our freedom of choice, what we could eat, when we could sleep, who we could date, who we could marry, when and if we could have children, etc.. Second: You are assuming what we were presented was indeed "The Word". It wasn't "The Word", it was his private interpretation of what he thought the word ought to say. It was the version that best suited his own agenda. I would go as far as to say that comparing our lifestyle in The Way to the lifestyle of people who lived 2,000 years ago is like comparing pomegranates to radial tires.

He was making an appeal to consequences.

This is a guy who preached against "private interpretation" (another scripture used out of context) and then proceeded to build an entire organization on that very practice.

It's nothing more than a blatant attempt at manipulation, albeit with a Biblical veneer.

What I see here is that Wierwille is preconditioning his followers to reject any forthcoming criticism from his previous congregation. He plied this same tactic on us in PLAF (The Wonder Class). He was just an egocentric, manipulative old S.O.B. edit: "---we must continue to "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." He was fond of quoting this scripture out of context in order to make it say something other than what it was really saying.

It was like giving someone money and finding out they flushed it down the crapper. I don't know if The Way still teaches this but, they used to teach that it didn't matter what a recipient did with a gift, the giver was the one who got blessed for their giving. Looking back, I can see it was just a way of rationalizing their misuse of funds. Here's the thing......If The Way really believed what they taught about giving, it shouldn't have mattered so much to them when people gave to non-Way causes. But, we all know it pizzed them off big time if you gave to anything other than "the ministry".

Staying in those non-air conditioned trailers at HQ in the middle of a muggy Ohio August. Now there's a memory I could do without.

There are a lot of ways to define success. One way that works for me is that you set a goal and reach it. Did The Way do this? Nope.

Groups (cults) like The Way rely on the ability to separate participants from non-participants. You can call it dis-fellowshipping, shunning, mark and avoid, tripping out, excommunication, yoked with unbelievers or anything you want. At its core, it's all about the same thing, creating a chasm between "us" and "them". Unless The Way has found some unique method of deviated from this common practice, I find it hard to believe it no longer happens.

What kind of "leader", upon learning of the deadly aspects of LEAD, wouldn't call for an immediate halt to the program? Could it be the same kind of leader who, after hearing a depondant young lady express thoughts of suicide, responded by saying, "Take off your clothes. I'll show you what's good about being alive."?

"See? Obedience is the highest form of learning. " Like when Gary D. died and Wierwille used the incident to teach that disobedience to the MOG could result in death?