chockfull

Just going on record saying I completely agree with you because I experienced this. Yes there can be cult-like behavior within mainstream Christianity. But the extremity of manipulation I personally experienced within TWI far outpaces anything I've experienced in a church or mainstream Christianity. To me this evil manipulative behavior and fear you experience in a cult represents the darker parts of human nature. This is why I want to isolate the characteristics and train myself to spot them and defeat them wherever - regardless of if it is in a political community grassroots gathering, a parent teachers conference, a club of hobbyists, my job, a non-profit, or wherever people behaving like this may be found, regardless of the extremity of the behavior. In TWI, the behavior worsened because the evil was allowed to remain unchecked. It grew so entrenched that there was no salvaging the organization. You have to leave to see the change.

I know what you are saying here in your post. Yes you can have cult-like behavior from within mainstream Christianity, as highlighted by The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. I am with you on relationships with non-Christians being a vital part of life, and not to undervalue non-Christians. I loved your line on a humanity that works on basic levels. Also, I still don't feel much kinship with denominations. To me there is a sickening element of "big business Christianity" that I think misses the whole intent. What I am saying is that the generification of the word "cult" is insider behavior. It is Waybrain. Yes it is a label. Yes it is used to get attention and possibly in some cases to stir up negative emotion. And yet when we can isolate behavior like those 10 bullet points that are a heuristic that holds true when evaluating groups across boundaries like denominational affiliation, doctrinal orientation, etc. it is a mistake to discard that tool just because of how the term has been used. There is much validity to that term that should have called our attention to the bullet item behavior on that list. Calling them "characteristics of spiritual abuse" probably is more generic, mainstream, and less offensive. So I'm fine with that too. But make no mistake. Those elements are pretty universal to how groups achieve unquestioning loyalty. And learning to recognize them in various scenarios is a valuable life skill.

One of the tough things about this field is that the word "cult" can be tossed around with little effort. Those who have experienced abuse will likely easily view their abusers as "cult members". In TWI, they dealt with the "cult" accusation by downplaying it - i.e. "the Catholic church is the biggest cult" in answering the accusation of over-reliance on one person, and the logic that "any group can be called a cult". The first thing that started challenging that logic to me was reading "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse". Now here is a book about someone trying to maintain a healthy more mainstream Christian church, and highlighting abusive behavior in the midst of it. No iconic leader, no controversial doctrine, everything else pretty standard local community church stuff. And yet, that book presents clear understanding from scripture what constitutes abusive behavior. The authors were teaching about and confronting abusive "cult-like" behavior in their church. I like that article excie posted. What it highlights is there ARE CHARACTERISTICS OF A CULT that you can recognize and identify. And that the way you do that is by how they behave towards one another, not what they say. This lines up with Jesus teaching on knowing people by their fruits, not their words. So in that article, the girl presents the following characteristics, which are IMO a pretty good list. If the people around you are behaving like this, you might consider the group IS displaying cult-like behavior, and look to protect yourself from the abuse and emotional damage which are ALWAYS part of that. Characteristics from Elizabeth Esther of a cult from http://www.elizabethesther.com/2013/03/is-my-church-a-cult.html:

Actually, pot lucks with close friends now are a staple Christian fellowship component to my life post TWI. I've found that if you keep the potluck idea, and just stop inviting the doucheb@gs, that everything works out a lot better.

you don't really talk about it that much. you mention it when the context brings it up. sometimes people freak and say you're lying. other times it blows their mind and they leave the forum. that truth and story is very, very hard for some people to deal with. experiences like that as a young girl can definitely cause psychological trauma and problems later. I think you are dealing with all of it admirably, including your willingness to tell the truth here and discuss it. As a result, you are probably actually pretty well-adjusted from the trauma - if I had to guess probably more so than many others that experienced similar things. the truth is about 100% opposite - you don't have a problem because you talk about it occasionally. it's actually those who lock it away and refuse to admit it to themselves or anyone else ever that has the problem. those that excuse the behavior - they also have the problem. those that attack you and accuse you of lying - yes they have a problem too. But you have a problem? Not so much. I mean other than the same standard kind of life problems we all deal with. So in other words VP deluded himself into believing in the magic "Christ in you" power of his pee-pee over the clear admonitions in the Bible to keep his sexual passions contained within his own marriage relationship. And that probably was the source of him and all his cronies (including Uncle Scary and Howard) displaying inappropriate sexual behavior like out of control dogs humping people's legs.

Not boring in that it shows the egotistical entitled cult leader logic that crept into his head and replaced the very clear instructions from the Bible on that topic. And not boring because that logic is completely hidden by top leadership. Also not boring because we have another account of a research team member writing a simple Bible word study up on the word adultery, confronting Wierwille's illogic and sinful practices on the topic, and getting fired.

In fact, they would require approval from the Trunk office to remove someone from their "active" membership lists. Oh, but wait, they didn't have members :wacko: :unsure: <_<

You know, there's are whole fields of psychology and psychiatry that have developed advanced learning with helping victims recover. However, when you bring scriptures into it, somehow people are a lot stupider. They think that "counseling" is just reading a person a Bible verse and that will magically change things. It doesn't. It takes more work, including understanding how the human mind and emotions work, and working with a victim over time. And when you have people running their mouth and lecturing victims in the fashion that article comes off, it actually does more damage than help to the victim. It keeps them focused on what is wrong with them, not what is wrong with their abuser. And it keeps them in the same cycle of victimization. It delays their healing and recovery. What you really don't understand is the impact on victims of these statements. The author writes the paragraph I quoted, and IT DOESN'T MATTER what else he says. The negative impact of that paragraph will FAR OUTWEIGH in a victims mind the one sentence written later or in a different article saying "abuse is never acceptable." This is the EXACT SAME THING TWI does. They may SAY "abuse is never acceptable", but their ACTIONS are to shelter the abuser, shift the focus of attention on to the abused, and basically blame the abused.

This is always such an oh so fun topic. Mostly because in an unhealthy setting like a cult, abusers use this concept and verses behind it to bully and intimidate their victims. Bullies use this verse to try and tell the downtrodden they are abusing to "forgive" them. This is an intimidation tactic, and the ultimate goal is to retain control of the victim and keep them enslaved to the bully's will. I mean people say some really obnoxious things surrounding this topic. And it is pretty prevalent. I mean like this little gem here of a word study: http://www.greatbiblestudy.com/bitterness.php Scripture never is intended to be used as an intimidation tactic by bullies. Yes that is an obvious statement. But it seems to need to be continuously stated due to idiots who write word studies up like the above. I mean from my perspective, the author of the above paragraph should be put in a prison cell for 2 months with a 300 lb. roommate named "Bubba". Then after he gets out I "might" be convinced to listen to his pontifications on whether or not it was the rape that caused the trauma or whether it was the author letting it get to him that caused it. Morons.

Something funny along the lines of this topic. Once after a move I was circulating my resume to get work. I ended up doing part time work for a company and got to know the hiring manager. One day we were sitting around discussing things. My resume came up. The hiring manager told me her first impression of me from that resume with all the different states I lived in and jobs I had was that I might be a fugitive wanted by the law, so she paid extra to do an extensive background check on me.

You know this may sound weird, but I always knew when they were passing around my file and discussing my life. I would get this weird feeling like someone was walking over my grave. And it wasn't paranoia, although with all you know about the process that would be completely understandable. This was very specific. Now looking back I see my own delusion and density. I mean if God is communicating to me somehow regarding the people in charge of my life in a fashion that they are walking on my grave, then possibly these people should not be trusted and not have the authority over my life to enact evil. You think? But leaving a cult involves waking up from a slumber.

Here's another little bit of fact in case those reading might think there is a communication disconnect of some sort between TWI and its trained leaders regarding all this moving people around at largely their own expense and to the detriment of quality of life. One year the leaders were asked for suggestions to improve (yes this was a day when we were all looking around for hell to be freezing over). A couple of people I knew submitted the feedback that although Corps placements were supposed to be for the good of the individual AND the good of the ministry, practically the good of the individual and the family involved were not being considered in placements. What happened? Rosie the Riveter got ....ed that people were turning down assignments. They publicly put out that the US leaders were complaining too much and needed to be more thankful like the internationals who "put up with hardship to even get the Word". Next, the party line on placements was changed. Now it was "whatever is best for the ministry will be the best for the individual". They explained that because all were serving and doing God's will, that WAS the best for them individually. This sounds admirable, but the bottom line is "we don't need to care about you because God will". This logical fallacy falls into the same category as "I don't need to take out my trash, God will do it". It promotes mysticism and dependency. It is also a main reason that TWI's leadership and BOD does not deserve to be trusted with the care of your life or your family. Oh, and here's another secret. If you played politics right, then people would be left in the same area for years, allowing for a more normal integration with a community, and not spending all your life savings on moving expenses that TWI won't pay for, etc. All the placements and moves also are a great way to control people. Demote people, they won't be confident to resist you any more. Move them around and make them spend all their savings, they don't have time to think. They have to scramble to not go in debt - all imposed by this random shuffle of TWI. Basically, the placement shuffle done by TWI is the operating of a cult. It's trading in human flesh, like you are trading a horse or a cow. The term used in the Bible for this is "menstealers". Sometimes translated "kidnappers", this also encompasses the horse trader definition. It is used for punishment and control. It is also used to prop up and magnify the exemplary bootie kissers.

I heard another military gentleman tell a story that he dropped out of the military and stopped pursuing career advancement and promotion because the local region coordinator "didn't think it would be best". So the advantages that could be obtained in life including higher retirement pay for him and his family were basically forfeited because some goober with a pumpkin sized head thought they were entitled to meddle in another person's life. This is like everyone's fault. The military guy for being naieve, the goober for being himself, the military guy's family for not giving him hell for this decision, and TWI for raising up goobers who think like that.

Hilarious!!!

I love how TWI chews people up, spits them out, then labels them as "bitter". That's right on up there with a pedophile abusing children, then bullying, ridiculing, and ostracizing them when the are grown for developing personality disorders to cope with the abuse.

Well, a lot of this site is about lessons learned from having our lives dictated to us by false prophets. This mostly is so we can avoid it in the future, see it coming, recognize it, pick up on the wolf in sheep's clothing stuff, etc. If you don't change yourself, how are you going to avoid what happened to you in the past? I'm not devoting the rest of my life to "cult recovery". I have too much positive going on in my life to give any cult that much of my life and attention ever again. But I will tell the truth. And I post on this forum for community involvement. I mean it's no skin off my nose if people want to choose to read "Lifelines" rather than "Proverbs" to get their inspiration and wisdom.

I wanted to highlight this again, as it REALLY EXPOSES a lot of how TWI leadership operates. I ran into this type of thing and modus operandi COUNTLESS TIMES. This is the way they operate, and it is destructive, manipulative, and dishonest. Think about how this unfolds. OldSkool is be-bopping along doing his job. Unbeknownst to him, he has unwittingly offended Rosalie. How? Usually through some display of individualism. So she sicks an attack dog on him. OS calls him a "proxy" VP. OS is told he is "spiritually out to lunch" because basically he did not read the mind of the leader (head cheese - Rosalie) and do what they wanted without the leader making ANY effort to communicate what they wanted through any means - email, phone call, hallway conversation, note, covering it in a meeting, smoke signal, Bat signal, etc. Now any normal person would look at this expectation of mind-reading like it was from a person with severe mental limitations. However, we have Corps training with CP#1 - Acquire an in-depth spiritual perception and awareness. Predatory TWI leaders use this principle ALL THE TIME to impose their will and ego upon underlings. AND WE ACCEPTED IT AS SANE AND LOGICAL. It is not. There is no promise of mind-reading abilities in the Bible. And no promise God makes in the Bible that you will increase your mind-reading abilities by becoming a bigger bootie smoocher. Yet that is what is being trained here. What is the impact of this? People don't want to be "spiritually out to lunch". But there is no logical connection between their behavior and the attack of the attack dog. So basically it makes them afraid and unsure of themselves. In a managerial position it produces an unsurety that ANYTHING they are doing is spiritually sharp. It makes people second-guess themselves, be afraid, and be more compliant. It trains them to take it from a leader without ever questioning anything. Make no mistake though, if there is ANY resistance, questioning of the logic in the attack - they will come back harder and meaner. Eventually over time the person learns (not directly, but subconsciously) that the display of individualism brings about the attack, so they stop displaying individualism. This is the old classical conditioning of BF Skinner with the dog food dish and the bell. Ring a bell enough times when you're feeding a dog, and eventually the bell makes him salivate. Do you see how manipulative, dishonest, and unhealthy being under authority like this is? Logically, if you want the d@mn branches picked up from the auditorium then send a note, ask someone in passing, telegraph, telephone, television. If you don't ask someone to do something, and it doesn't get done, then whose fault is that? Yours. If you want your group to think on their own to handle it, tell them that. Or confront your whole Cabinet on the types of things they need to watch for and stay on top of. Not singling out one person and using the incident to put your thumb on their head. These types of dishonest and manipulative practices are practices of a cult. They are practices of a person abusing their power or spiritual authority. This is not Rosalie being lazy, or mistaken. This is an atmosphere and habitual practice of continually training lock-step behavior. If someone falls out of lock-step behavior, this is the tactic used to bring them back into line, make them afraid. Then all you really need is making an example of a person or two - with the demotion, firing, the bums rush, shunning, slander, and excommunication. And everyone else falls in line pretty quickly out of fear.

To further illustrate the checks and balances point, look at the history of Apple and Steve Jobs. Jobs was an innovator and the founder of Apple. Founded in 1976, Apple went public in 1980. Part of the process to go public includes the formation of a Board of Directors. Next, check out the following paragraph from Wikipedia: "In 1985 a power struggle developed between Jobs and CEO John Sculley, who had been hired two years earlier.[51] The Apple board of directors instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products. Rather than submit to Sculley's direction, Jobs attempted to oust him from his leadership role at Apple. Sculley found out that Jobs had been attempting to organize a putsch and called a board meeting at which Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and removed Jobs from his managerial duties.[49] Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc. the same year.[52]" So Jobs, after founding a company, was fired from it by the BOD. Then he founded NeXT, then Pixar, and then the BOD of Apple hired him back as the CEO in 1997. This is illustrative of a healthy company with a healthy Board of Directors. Anyone can see nowadays Apple's success. You don't have that kind of success without a BOD that has complete autonomy to make decisions that are strategically in the best interests of the company. This would include decisions like "Hey Mr. or Mrs. Chairman and President, since you took over the company has slipped into a 30% decline in revenue and customer base. So you're out, and we're going with a fresh person and idea". That's the pattern of a healthy organization, BOD, and Officers. Now, what about TWI? And what about this parade of VP's? The BOD at TWI has NEVER had ANY autonomy. It has ALWAYS been a dictatorship. It basically is a figurehead group for the dictator to be able to promote their lieutenants up to a high position as a reward for being the perfect lap dog. Which is a carrot for whoever is going to smooch the bootie most effectively in the rest of the underlings. Best bootie smoocher = next VP. The pattern is the bootie smoocher gets promoted to a high position. Then they start to see in their new position of power and everyone smooching their bootie ways to make things better. This is the beginning of their downfall. They weren't put in that position to think, or to make things better. They were put in that position to smooch bootie, and to illustrate how it is done most effectively to the rest of the leadership group. So thus, veering from their unstated job description, they fail and are demoted to be replaced by a hungrier bootie smoocher. This complete arrangement is a FAIL by any sense of the word. Biblical standards of leadership? FAIL. Modern working standards? FAIL. This is the blind leading the blind. All while looking down their nose at you promoting their "over 100 years of spiritual wisdom", and dreaming up ways they will screw you over if you cross them. Rosalie as a CEO rides the short bus to school.

This is all so simple to sort through now, but I couldn't see it for the life of me while I was under that authority. The separation of responsibilities is a very poor attempt at mimicking how real orgs run, including other non-profits. For example, a company's Board of Directors. These positions are NEVER what they are in TWI - they are usually staffed with retired CEO's from OTHER SUCCESSFUL COMPANIES IN THE SAME SPACE, or people who have accomplished something in business OUTSIDE the organization so that they have a basis for being able to bring advice in TO the organization. Seats on a normal board are filled with DIVERSITY. Meaning diversity of experience and opinion. And the chairman of the board, who is the position of power, rarely is the same position as the President. Only in cases where there is a founder of a company do you usually see that for the founder themselves. What this practice does is to keep the strategic direction of a company viable and instills a check and balance into the management of the company such that a crackpot can be contained, and officers can be voted out for a new strategic direction. There is NO SUCH CHECK AND BALANCE in TWI. Rosalie appoints puppets to the officer AND BOD positions, then lives like a dictator afraid of a coup, parading leaders up and down and replacing them. She tolerates NO opinion in addition to NO dissention. Any org where there is dictator power with someone not accountable to anyone else it's evil looking for an outlet. It is NEVER (or almost never) the case where BOTH the Board AND the Corporate office of power resides with the same person. Where you see that it is a power play, pure and simple. This is just another example of Rosalie's smoke and mirrors. She puts forth lies that basically go unquestioned by a majority of people. To replace supposedly the Board plus Officer power VP and Craig had she gives this logical common sense speech about balance of power and how it needs to be distributed. Then watch her actions - SHE HAS THE MIRROR IMAGE EXACT SAME POWER. Except for now needing to teach as much as VP and Craig, she can sit back and micromanage behind the scenes never really do a whole lot of anything herself at all. What does she do? She doesn't carry a teaching schedule. She presides over a myriad of meetings basically. And she micromanages. That's all she has time for - micromanagers are always oh so busy. That organization will NEVER improve until someone grows the intestinal fortitude to oust the witch. And that won't happen until she's much closer to the grave than her cold black heart puts her currently. As Jesus stated, you can't put new wine in old wineskins. Or in a more liberal modern translation, you can't develop a fresh new strategy with an old bag.

Interesting thoughts - with the UN and ICLEI there is the one world language manipulation, but probably not the hands-on micromanagement of peons required to truly rob them of their identities. To me, more than being able to throw around the label "cult" with impunity, the value is to be able to recognize the modus operandi. Then, I can run for the hills when I see it in churches, jobs, hobbies, and my society. And I have the confidence to know that the two-bit Napolean in charge has cowardice in the dark corners of his black heart. :)

I personally think the term "cult" appropriately carries warning signs to avoid the "leaven of the Pharisees" and the "doctrine of the Pharisees". In modern terminology there are many kinds of cults, including the MLM cults all about money, religion, politics, and self-help cults. The whole Momentus movement incorporated in by that one splinter group is a great indicator. Mix up a little TWI cult action with a little self-help cult action and get a whole stirred-up mass of confusion. "Cult" is about abuse. It's about robbing the little people of any dignity, self-respect, and autonomy that they normally would have in a healthy society. It's about replacing a healthy society with a little army of robots, robot-thinking and response, and denial of self all for the goals of the cult. Cult leaders have to be pied pipers able to promise the return of great things in exchange for giving up your freedom and self respect. A cult's ONLY power over you is their authority. And they only have that authority because an individual gives it up. Once you are no longer willing to give up the authority over your life and family to an abusive overseer, they have no power. However, that's when they get ugly - with all their ex-communications in whatever form they want to call them, peer pressure, series of confrontations, etc. In fact, that's a great way to tell a cult - how adept would you say the leader is in the myriad of different ways used to bully and silence the little people? In true Christianity, the lowest of the low have a voice. In a cult, the only voice anyone has is the sound of the leaders' voice in their head.

Because unlike the story of Jezebel, there is no one to throw the witch over the wall. And no one holding the city hostage.

still regretting throwing out a pristine vinyl collection. total TWI BS - take a common-sense practice (don't be a hoarder / spring cleaning) and cement it in history with the name of a founder. I wonder if we counted up the value of stuff burned at these days if there wasn't a better way. nowadays we have ebay and craigslist.

While questioning the source of Craigs homophobic tendencies is hilarious, I don't know how accurate it is. I mean after all, throughout his "men in tights" time in Athletes he was much too preoccupied with banging the seed of the serpent actress to have much time to develop his gay gene.

I think the "occupy" movement was kind of intended to protest this type of thing. It had a lot of grassroots support but never got specific enough to enact change. But its an age-old story of human weakness - the thing of Greek tragedies, where power corrupts and the few in power use the many without power. The only universal thread in that is that God is on the side of the downtrodden, abused, poor, those without power. I think if we investigated the psych field and dug into details of that as well as PTSD that we would definitely see parallels and potential for disorders developing. In fact, the emotional trauma and damage done to former followers of TWI is probably the clearest evidence you will find that TWI operates like a cult and always has.