JavaJane

It's a million times worse in Rosalie TWI...

The teachings are dumbed down beyond belief. Staffers aren't even trusted to be adult enough to do the simplest tasks without minute supervision. And any deep personal research is considered (as I heard one recently graduated WC say) "vain, egotistical, intellectualism."

And it is BORING beyond belief. It was the boringness that actually allowed me enough thinking to make me wake up and smell the $#!+ hole TWI had become. So in a way I guess the end result was good for me.

I never liked the music in TWI. Some of the songs in the songbook were OK - but they weren't written by twi, they were the old hymns.

The choir sounded OK, but they looked horrible in their dated outfits. And the music choices were boring.

Way Prod always looked fake with their constant smiles in and the songs sounded like they were trying really hard to sound like pop or rock, but came up short. The country songs were ok, but I have never been a fan of country.

I got in just after the great MOG VP died.

And WHY did the songbooks never have the music included, just the words?

Just thinking back and wondering...

So we were all relegated back to delivering the same kind of milk-toast vanilla elevator music garbage that you hear from the STS. Rozie's motto "if it has personality, kill it". Probably comes from so many years of repressing her own internal tendencies and whitewashing what appears to the outside.

This may sound silly, but you know how you can feel when someone walks up on you in a hallway? Like how you can feel someone watching you before you see them? I once had Rosie walk up on me unawares in the OSC and I felt nothing. Like even when I saw her it didn't feel like anyone was there. At the time I thought it was because she was so peaceful and spiritually above me. Now I think it was more along the lines of hiding herself.

Sounds like a typical way marriage..

Took the words right out of my mouth.

This is the very essence of what GreaseSpot exposes.

Nicely done!

Why thank you, sir!

I've read both of these books and can recommend them! Something else that helps me to practice more self awareness is meditation or mindfulness, slowing down and reflecting more...

Interesting how we were taught in twi that meditation as "the world" taught it would open our minds to spirit possession. In actuality it helps us know ourselves and teaches us self control. The Way taught we were to control our thinking - but what they meant was that our thoughts were to be controlled by what they taught. Any real self reflection and examination would only lead to questioning and independent thought... which would cause people to realize the bondage they were under in twi.

Twi possessed people's minds.

One of the hardest things to face when thinking about leaving is realizing that you have been duped, that you are living in a delusion. In short, that you have been had.

I wonder how many people still in are only in because they can't overcome the ego involved in wanting to be right?

I can see it now... it was actually in Spanish.

"Muchos burritos para mi pantalones!"

A couple times I remember, vp's tangent brag about how people who had become christian at a Graham Crusade, sometimes would write back saying "What do I do now." and the Graham staff sometimes would send them back the twi address.

What???? Wow.

Really?

Just when I thought his lies couldn't shock me anymore, something else pops up.

Seriously?

The GOP might want that disclaimer... all of the twi people I still talk to via Facebook are Repiblicans.

wierwille had a little weenie

oops, excuse my bedside manners

I love you, ex.

I tried to read this - couldn't make it through the second page. So sad. Especially since I am a mom now. I am so so thankful we got out before she was born. I can't even imagine...

Reynolds was a trustee when Craig was president. Why did he never operate the manifestations to avoid the Allen lawsuit and save the many victims from Martindale's sexual predations?

Now, now... that was a ONE TIME CONSENSUAL affair.

Everyone knows that.

(And that is what they mean by an in depth spiritual awareness.)

And... it was an attack on The Word by the adversary. Don't you know that?

"Neither God nor the adversary works in mysterious ways."

Really?

So you know as much as God?

And a convenient way to make yourself feel safe - after all, YOU would have known. The shooter couldn't have gotten you. You are special.

No sympathy for the lives cut unnecessarily short. No sympathy for the families.

After all, those people are less than God's REAL believers in The Way.

And if a "believer" had been one of the victims, they would have been deserving of being shot, because God would have told them, right?

F**king a$$#oles. They are less than human.

EGO. EGO. EGO.

Blech.

The real reason they haven't taken the money and run? Why? They get free labor... someone to clean and do odd jobs, cook for them. Someone to kick when they have a bad day. People to order around just for the hell of it. And they are basically worshipped and adored by some of these cult members.

And their slaves give them money for the privilege of oing so.

Money can't buy that (at least in this country.)

I'm right there with you, OS. Still haven't bought a home. By the time we got out completely the recession was starting. Maybe in the next five years if my business keeps heading in the right direction.

Did Rupp fall from favor? That didn't take long.

I like you, ex. You're spunky.

It is a yearly event sponsored by the city that the local branch has exploited as a witnessing event in the past.

I saw an announcement today on my Facebook feed for a free concert at a local park tonight. And I thought, "that sounds like fun!". And then I realized that this was an event that my husband and I had been witnessing at when we came back to visit his patents right after we got married.

Talk about ruining what could have been a really enjoyable event. Not only did we take time away from visiting my new family to be a sales force for twi, but we also couldn't sit down and even enjoy each other's company and the music as a newly married couple. AND we were ruining other people's enjoyment of the concert by trying to find an "open door" to "speak The Word ™"

It makes me not ever want to attend something like that again for fear of being cornered by a fakely enthusiastic Wayfer.

So many good times ruined trying to sell the Way.

Isn't it great we have a place where people get us? Thank God for the GSC.

Thanks, guys!

I was involved in twi from about the age of 12. I was in for 23 years before I left. That is more than half my life when I look back and do the math.

It's a lot of lost time. I never got a degree. I have never owned a house. I have maybe seven years of credit history.

I'm doing OK. I started my own business last year doing what I love and I am showing a profit for this year as of last week.

But I have regrets about that time I wasted. I could have been much further in my career if I wasn't involved in twi. I gave up doing what I am doing now because the hours for a caterer/chef don't work well with class schedules and ministry events and fellowship times. I never went to culinary school like I wanted.

But I am doing my best to make up for lost time now.

How do you deal with the regrets without getting bitter?

Edited for auto correct auto misspellings

Here and there VP had some good thoughts. He was right that churches in places like India should become self-governing and self-propogating. He said the Bible was God's accurate Word.

But VP had a knack for taking the germ of something good and twisting and perverting it into something destructive and self-serving. When Midas touched things, he turned them into gold. When VP touched things, he turned them into arsenic.

I think that good he had a knack of twisting and perverting is what made it so dangerous. There was truth and good in it. But as a whole it was an evil sordid mess that ensnared good people.