Tzaia

I've been "de-Wayed" long enough to see my part in getting "Wayed."

My 1984 Opinion: my journal entry about that night speaks in such glowing terms – relishing in how vp deemed us spiritually mature enough to handle such things.

Honey, that's not an erection, that's my "spiritual awareness."

And lest we lose perspective, the whole ball of wax evolved from a CULT!

I've only been able to talk openly about what I've been doing for God since July 2001 when I started going to a regular church on a regular basis. Over 20 years of essentially being ashamed of what I had been involved with and not wanting it to be common knowledge, lest I lose credibility.

A good read on this topic is: Vital Lies and Simple Truths - The Psychology of Self-Deception by Daniel Goleman, PhD. He writes: “Lacunas are black holes of the mind, diverting attention from select bits of subjective reality – specifically, certain anxiety-evoking information.” Pg. 107. Our task, it seems to me, is to first be aware these exist and then try and offset them with reality checks. For me, reality checks include listening to other people, reading a lot, and making more time for contemplation and reflection on my life than modern society normally allows. Hey, no one said it's easy.

Cheers,

Your neighborhood book hound, Penworks

I'm really enjoying the book and have also seen how various organizations, including TWI, use censorship to maintain control. TWI's stance on psychology, psychiatry, books to read, and music to listen to kept people from delving too deep into the ramifications of what TWI was doing to the members. Even the (supposed) lack of organizational "membership" was a tact used to make people believe what TWI was doing was outside the box of religious organization structure. Once, as I was being lectured to about our abundant sharing practices, I wondered out loud to the lecturer that it was strange that an organization that has no membership sure had a lot of information about its non-members that is was sharing with other non-members and that I certainly didn't appreciate it.

It seemed the deeper one got into the organizational structure of TWI, the more one was indoctrinated by groupthink and took on the characteristics of the leader.

You've got to wonder how many of the splinter/leaders feel they could've held TWI together if it had been them and not LCM at the helm?

That's what makes them so dangerous. I think they actually believe they are doing God's will.

No doubt about their sincerity. I think most people at the higher leadership levels who have truly stepped back and taken a hard look at what they believe(d) and what their role in TWI was, have seen the damage of belonging to such a structure. So far I've only seen 1 person at the higher levels of leadership who has stepped that far back. Everyone else is trying to recapture the glow of whatever time frame they believed were the "glory" days and rebuild the ministry based on that perception.

Tzaia, I don`t believe that statement is entirely accurate.

The most heartbreaking and cruel treatment I recieved while in, was from an interim family corpes beetch.

I was only app corpes/wow when required to do unthinkable acts to stay withing the hedge of God`s protection.

Whether twi contact caused people to become abusive and cruel, or it simply attracted and fostered people whom were viscious abusers anyway, I don`t know.

What about all of the children that were physically and sexually abused on the field and at rout locals? They weren`t upper ranks.

I just know that cruel treatment and abuse was rampant all through the ranks. I think to dismiss the suffering and horrors endured as just a few instances in the top levels, and therefor unimportant, or irrelevant to our experience...isn`t fair.

I'm not saying it didn't happen all over, I (personally) saw less of it once I got about an hour away. It seemed to be more rampant among those who had gone WOW and kept going back WOW and those who went into the corp. The rank and file of us who had kids and were just living weren't like that.

I guess I got a reputation for not being approachable. I saw it happen with others. It simply didn't happen with me.

I'm with finallyunderstand on this one.

"coulda woulda shoulda pal" is constant irritant and poses a great temptation to agree wholeheartedly with Geo, but I wouldn't trade husband I wouldn't have otherwise or the son born in twi for the world on a silver platter.

I'm 60+ going back to college. I am so glad I don't have Alzheimer's -- I hope. Some may question that last sentence.

Overall I am just so glad I got out. That's for sure. That was a miracle of love and grace :)

that's magnificent :)

Good for you for going back to college. I'm wrapping up 3 of the best years so far this decade having done the same thing (a bit younger, tho).

I met my husband in TWI. I'm extremely grateful for that and the 2 children we had. I'm also grateful that I didn't buy into the whole thing lock, stock, and barrel. I was a misfit among misfits and I didn't care. I don't have any regrets about TWI. It was, for me at the time, the best thing out there. The escalation of the "requirements" under LCM, and the various shrill rants on tape and in written correspondence made it increasingly difficult to justify staying in, so we left. We hooked up with a splinter for a while then left that. We did our own thing in home fellowship, but found it too was lacking in terms of what we could do for the kids, and it was emotionally draining due to the constant rehashing of all the "wrongs" committed by TWI and the splinter, so we joined our kids at the local church.

Once I was able to move beyond the belief that "like-mindedness" and absolute truth was imperative, it was easy to assimilate into larger body and back into society.

Keith, my husband was a college WOW in Bloomington in the mid 70s.

Others: I haven't read the book and probably won't. It seems as if most of the major abuse took place in the upper ranks - not that the lower ranks didn't try. Although it seemed to me that the closer you were to a limb, the more structured things were. When we went from living down the street from limb headquarters to over an hour away, things lightened up considerably.

I talked to our corp grad branch leaders about the sex thing and they said they were unaware of what was going on with leadership. As far as the teaching about sex in the corp was that penetration wasn't allowed, but other means of pleasuring one another were ok. I thought it was a pretty fine line, but since I wasn't so "spiritually developed", I just called it wrong.

Technical question: What's with the host http://www1.itech.net was bought out. So will this page evaporate soon?

Not necessarily. It's a personal webpage put up on someone's account. The ~ydl indicates the user's account name. You could send an email to ydl@itech.net and presumably it would go to the person who put up the website.

WOW! Really? How do they know these great things?

This photo was dubbed "Kitchen Table"

With this type of in depth spiritual perception and awareness

I better go sign up right away!

I didn't realize it was "their" kitchen table. Sorta reminds me of the documentary "The Fuhrer Gives a City to the Jews". Is this picture of the table the equivalent of the Way Corp experience (since I have no idea)?

Why drive a truck?When he can start a cult,get others to tithe to him,and live off of his name recognition.

All this is allegedly,what he plans,seems thier is some angry young men out there with some name recognition.

You want to run a bible school.Go get a degree in it,Oh I forgot ,he was called.

The name is not all that recognizable. I think it's more along the lines of delusions of recognition.

Preventive Believing? How in the heck do you know if you have prevented some catastrophe?

Only 5 more days (Sept. 7th, 2008) until wierwille jr kicks off his new way corps program..."sowers"...

Are you sure it's not spelled "sorers"

I've made a point on my website to present what other views I know of, along with the logic of why I think they're wrong.

Which is entirely reasonable. In my opinion, there's 2 types of research that is predominant - one to prove I'm right, and one to prove you're wrong. Each one begins with a premise. The problem comes about when, during research, we are confronted with the inaccuracy of the premise. Do we reexamine the original premise, or do we jump through hoops to defend the premise?

I don't have a problem with admitting I'm wrong or changing my mind based on facts that are presented to me. I struggle with "because I said so." As much as I can, I try to remove bias from my research.

From the movie "Downfall"

The film begins with a clip from a video interview with the real-life Traudl Junge (Hitler's personal secretary), who wonders why she decided to work for Adolf Hitler and states her anger at her younger self for not realizing what kind of a monster she was dealing with.

Young = inexperienced

Older = deluded or delusions of grandeur

Now = Learn from it.

Let me share this quick story. For one semester I studied under a world renowned chef. You all know him. He is mean, nasty and evil. He liked the ladies and I think a few of the boys. He tormented us every day because he knew he could. He was so full of himself, as most renowned chefs are. Yet, he is the master at what he does. I learned so much from him. I have applied his teachings and techniques. I teach them to my students. They are awed that I learned under him. So what do I do? Throw the baby out with the bath water?

Although VP never told me he could heal me from sexual abuse by having sex with me my mog "husband" told me that. Lie. What was he thinking with?

Thankfully, the Lord Christ Jesus was never lied to or abused. If He had been, how would He ever gotten over it!?!???

It looks like to me that the people who are more affected had more invested. I stayed nominally involved in TWI for years before the actual break. I figured there were things I could learn, but it was necessary to personally detach from the hurtful stuff, much as you had to do with the bad boy chef. Personally I enjoy gifted people who can be difficult, because there is much to learn from them once you get past the ego.

The funny thing is that once I got past VPW's highly inflated sense of self, there wasn't much I could glean from him in terms of having a relationship with Jesus - at least your chef taught you something.

You'd think so, wouldn't you..

then you walk through life.. and something like this knocks on your door..

look kinda familiar?

:)

This caught my eye: "Signs, miracles and wonders do not necessarily follow those who hold degrees from major universities."

Shortly after this: "Victor Wierwille is a graduate of the University of West Florida, BS magna cum laude"

Would he have a different perspective if he were summa cum laude?

I hadn't heard that one, but now that explains why people didn't help out when I was laid up with them. I used to get them so bad I would end up at the immediate care center because I would puke so much I dehydrated.

Books, records, a whole lot of stuff got coerced into that pile

The only thing I burned were extra copies of TWI stuff. I kept a copy of everything. I remember JAL telling me he sold all of his stuff, to which I replied "HOW COULD YOU expose other people to that garbage?" I did overwrite SN tapes with other stuff and used a hair dryer to warm up the labels so I could peel them off.

But VP taught in the foundational class how things were for His Way Ministry. I forget the lead up words, but then he says ... "if it's wrong, I'll tell you" So in his mind, he was the ultimate decider of truth. All the rest of the teaching was just so we'd be able to make the sales pitch to new recruits.

It's been a looong time since I took the class, and I only sat through it twice, but my memory is that somehow he had risen above using the scriptures to support his own beliefs and that his beliefs arose by an "honest" approach to the scripture (no ax to grind, etc.)

The first time I started seeing that he wasn't really doing that was when I read the "Order My Steps in Thy Word" book.

A good read on this topic is: Vital Lies and Simple Truths - The Psychology of Self-Deception by Daniel Goleman, PhD.

Wow, a real page-turner, if you're into things like that.

Back to the original question about they way's research department. I never worked there, but I was friends with people who did (back in the 1980-86 time frame). One person told me point blank that when VPW knew what the scripture "had to say" it was their job to find texts to substantiate it. And he didn't find anything wrong with that - of course neither did I.

So you are saying VPW was guilty of the very thing he condemned other organizations of doing (proof-texting) and not letting the word stand on its own merit (taking things out of context)?

Probably not using the word "available".

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If only (fill in the blank).

Can't do a thing about the past. The future is up for grabs. It's only too late once you're taking a dirt nap.

I have been reading Bart Ehrman's works for a couple of years, and have been listening to his lectures. I have to say that I find little to disagree with him about, which has messed with my faith considerably. My faith was based largely on logic and facts that I found in TWI. Now that I've stepped outside the premises, I struggle with the lack of either in the face of historical evidence when combined with the largely dishonest approach to scripture that TWI embraced.

Now I understand why ignorance is bliss and why Christians are told to avoid certain things.