chockfull

When you are talking about people that use a religion and a group of people to appease their own psychosis, then good enough will never be good enough. Because it's not actually about the quality of service, it's about that complaining and being dissatisfied is what they are after. It gets them wanted and craved attention, enforces rank in the "household", and makes them think they are more spiritual by upholding some kind of legalistic, unrealistic, and wicked standard. It upholds their sick, psychotic view of themselves, which actually is completely contrary to scripture. Usually the complaint is after the fact, as opposed to seeing effort in training before the fact.

When I face people like this now, I generally look at 'unreasonable' types of expectations as the person holding them is the one with the problem.

Ridiculous that anyone should have to guess. The reason given by the directors in recent years is that the information about how they spent money would be used against them by the "cop outs". The law doesn't require it (aside from the small amount of disclosure required in Arizona) so they don't do it.

How unbelievably lame. Joyce Meyer when faced with similar kinds of scrutiny and questions publicized her financial books for any who want to look at them. I think you can download them off a link on her main website.

Notice the basic difference of character there of the leadership of two Christian ministries. Yet TWI still wants to hold some kind of elitist view of themselves as the greatest Christian ministry since the first century.

Ummm, sorry guys. You don't even measure up to your peers. Except in your ability to cover things up and make excuses.

He was a freakin' genius. He got whole groups of people to move rocks without question or complaint, and who (in essence) paid for the "privilege" to do so.

And so later his just penance was to move large numbers of boxes without question or complaint at a minimum-wage salary?

What can Brown do for you?

Along the same lines as *chair stringing 101*.............let's not forget Grass Mowing 101. Remember that corps promotional video (1981.??) where one of the key-noted corps-style confrontations is martindale lecturing on "attention to detail" to some 10th corps guy who missed a narrow strip of grass? Yeah....that's the ticket on this PROMOTIONAL VIDEO TO THE CORPS.......martindale sharing on something he has expertise in.......grass mowing.

We should do a sequel video with a martindale impersonater flipping burgers and damaging one, and a dude with a 10th corps nametag confronting him on it. Or better yet, a manager speaking Espanol and someone interpreting the confrontation.

Hi, chockfull,

Thanks for your thoughts. I thought you might like to know that I stopped marketing on forums some months ago. I took people's input to heart. I posted this notice here only after asking Pawtucket for approval. Why did I make an exception in posting this here? Only because of Pawtucket's involvement. I thought some forum members would find it interesting for that reason.

While many therapists advertise, both in print and in google search, I've taken to heart the input of members of several self-help forums. I didn't foresee the sensitivity of forum members to my posts. For this I apologize.

It's important to me that forum members see this as my mistake. It certainly was not Pawtucket's mistake!

J.

Hi John,

Thanks for your thoughts and explanations. I do think it would be beneficial to many on this thread if you posted a little regarding your approach, or even if you post hyperlinks to your own website where you explain your approach. It's good to get to know a little of your background, experience and work. That type of thing goes a long way to alleviate concerns.

chockfull

Since we're talking about behavior modification, I wanted to add a few things from the perspective of the cognitive behaviorist angle of psychology. The reason I want to do so is that it touches upon "anger" that is currently being discussed, and it also touches on "self". Also, personally I feel that elements of that approach have helped me take control over my response to these types of things and have helped me to define where I want my future to go.

You can view the field of behavior modification as a continuous application of stimulous / response. The easiest example to think of is Pavlov's dog - the famous case. Ring a bell, then set out food for the dog. Over time, just ringing the bell causes the dog to salivate. That is classic stimulous / response.

Humans as thinking entities have the ability to inject conscious thought and decision-making into the stimulous / response cycle. We cannot control the stimulous - the influence of the external world upon ourselves, but we can control our response. One way to look at "self" is that space in between stimulous and response for the thinking individual. The cognitive thought that evaluates the stimulous and rationally decides where to go and what action to take. What is "the real me"? That space where I decide who I want to be, how I want to act, and thus how to respond.

Responses can be classified into three areas: aggressive, assertive, and passive. Many times "anger" can be looked on as simply an aggressive response to stimulous. This may or may not be appropriate or rational. You can look on an individual stimulous from a scale of 1 to 10 in intensity. Then you can look at the response from a scale of 1 to 10. A 10 stimulous and a 1 response is passive. A 1 stimulous and a 10 response is aggressive. More in the middle is the assertive response. A response that is thought through cognitively and appropriate to the stimulous is generally considered a more healthy response.

How does all this fit in to behavior modification and TWI? TWI, and probably all such groups that use authority to abuse, conditions a passive response. They expect a passive response. They reward a passive response. A passive response is compliance and conformity. They use a particularly passive definition of obedience (hupotasso definition, anyone?) that talks about cognitive thought but tolerates none of it. They attack both aggressive responses and assertive responses. The thing they can tolerate the least is a thinking individual armed with the scriptures standing up for themselves in an assertive fashion.

The result of this is an individual conditioned to passive responses. And leadership that is trained to produce that in others. Since this is very unhealthy - typically associated with a victim in an abuse situation, long periods of extended passiveness under an abusive stimulous eventually usually results in a person bagging emotions in an unhealthy fashion, and then unloading them in usually an inappropriate response (the aggressive response - a 10 response to a 1 stimulous). Have you ever just "blew up" at a loved one without any rational reason? Or experienced the "kick the dog" syndrome? Many people feel ashamed at that, however very few can trace it back to a pattern of conditioned passive responses. TWI and abusive leadership uses the irrationality of this type of response to further condition passive responses. "Why are you so angry?" "It was just a simple request" "I did nothing to deserve this kind of response".

The healthy way out of this type of cycle is to take charge of conscious rational thought and start to plan out assertive types of responses that are appropriate to the stimulous and reflect the values you wish to preserve. Respond as "the real me". Take back your own life. Take back your own values. Interesting - remember VPW's attempt at ethics? Lifestyle of a Believer? Yes, I'm aware of the irony. One statement in there however is very true - "no man is the means to another man's end". Yet in TWI with spiritually abusive leadership and the cycle of conditioned passive response, functionally exactly the opposite is produced. Every person becomes the means to another's end - endless cycles of using people to preserve little "fiefdoms" of abusive leadership.

So to me, looking at "anger" and "the true self" is most valuable when evaluated within the context of looking at a larger pattern of behavior. Examine a man or woman within their environment to understand.

Houses of The "Holey"

+100 for the Zeppelin reference.

The greatest d@mn way to set chairs is eyeballing it in 99% of situations. God created the eyes as a fine instrument of precision. Where there are optical illusions, or there are too many chairs to eyeball it effectively, taking measurements and stringing can help. 1 degree off in the Big Top tent could cause some havoc if multiplied.

The rest if it is just people's stupidity and penchance for the law.

No I was not afraid of death when leaving TWI. My relationship with God and Jesus Christ existed prior to TWI involvement and will continue afterwards. It was not defined by TWI. In fact, the growing diversity between the truth written in my heart defined by that relationship and the goods peddled by TWI made it evidently and progressively more clear that TWI is not genuine Christianity. So leaving did not bring fear of death, but trusting life and He who created it.

TWI had one thing right - man's greatest enemy is fear. I still remember one of Donnie Fugit's teachings "You know what man's greatest enemy is? Sand..." God rest his soul, he had some passion at least, different from the drivel of teachings today in TWI. Fear is goods sold and promoted by the adversary. Trust and grace are from God. The funny twist is the abuse angle. TWI instills the fear by their practices, then blames the person for being afraid, saying the fear inside of themselves is their fault.

You know who really should be afraid? The leadership of TWI, when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and we are standing right with him shoulder to shoulder with him demanding accountability for their lives and actions as Christians. Then their petty positions and earthly abusive authority will have no bearing and they will remain on their face before him ashamed.

From my perspective, clinical psychology does offer genuine help in recovery from groups like TWI. Whether it is identifying characteristics of groups that commonly cause psychological trauma, identifying external resources for additional help, or mental and emotional viewpoints or exercises that help people move on, all can potentially have a benefit. It may not be necessary that the individual has specific TWI experience. For example, the book "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse" is a book written by a couple of people involved in starting and running a small community church. Yet parallels abound that specifically apply to TWI.

With respect to the profession and offering it here, I would suggest that John is only doing target marketing for his services. He is doing marketing here, and he is selling a service. On a forum that is more or less dedicated to recovery from and discussion of an abusive group I would suggest that it is nothing more or less than target marketing. He is making a step towards people on this forum in this fashion. Yes it is true he doesn't post here regularly, so his commitment level towards understanding TWI specifically and the details of it and recovery is unknown at this time. I'm sure as with any profession, the more detailed his understanding of TWI is the better the help will be.

I don't think target marketing should be understood as anything different than what it is - offering a service to a market segment. In this field, like in accident injury cases (someone mentioned ambulance chaser lawyers) the market segment is hurt or injured people. So only an individual's personal ethics can determine what genuinely is the difference between caring about people in detail in offering a service and being a businessman first who cares less. The end product, or "fruit" becomes evident with time.

If we as a community want to preseve this forum as more of a pure "self-help" type, we could request to Paw that it be advertisement free, or construct another forum subsection that is dedicated to that type of thing. Until then I would suggest just viewing this thread as an advertisement thread that may or may not pertain to individuals.

These people. What they say with their mouth and how they live in their life are so vastly different it's nauseating.

When I think of these topics, one of the verses that is the most comforting is Joel 2:25:

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you"

I look forward to with anticipation God restoring to me the years the worms have eaten.

"Hello, my name is chockfull, and my best longsuit in abilities is in smelling bullsh1t. How I plan to implement it is by saving my nose".

I agree with all the previous posters who have said TWI was rotten to begin with.

The only thing not rotten were the hearts of those who genuinely loved God who were duped. At some point I believe every one of them has the opportunity to look at and be disgusted with how they are living as Christians and to stop lying to themselves.

"believers" were taught to use their unbelieving parents to support them through corps training, then to carry mortgages for them because while it's not ok for a "believer" to have debt, it's ok to have someone else take on a debt to benefit you. so now that the parents are passing away from old age, the believers will have to start tapping their only other resource, their children, so they can remain holy and unblemished in doing the lord's work by giving to that stupid organization what they should be saving for their own later days.

This is one of the most classical Pharisee-like functioning of TWI people and especially leadership there is. Leaders who have family members - brothers, sisters, parents - carry mortgages for them so they can basically own a home and bypass the debt policy. At the same time they look down the nose at those who carry mortgages in their own names, and don't allow them to attend stupid boring Advanced Class specials or function in any leadership capacity like a fellowship coordinator on up.

It is completely contrary to scriptures - very clear ones. Look up "surety" in Proverbs. And yet you have people from fellowship coordinators all the way up to Region coordinators that have functioned like this for years.

brainfixed,

Good stuff. I have a couple things to add from talking things over with friends who work in psychology fields regarding behavior modification. A common tactic is to make the changes or concessions to behavior small and many. So the abuser asks for just a small concession to make them happy. "Just do this for me - it's not much to ask". Then when the victim grows comfortable with that, another small request. Over time, these small concessions turn into a huge deviation from what a person would normally out of common sense agree to from a simple moral perspective or a perspective that puts one's self and family at the center of decisions. But the brunt of the requests are never to go from the norm to the outer extremes, it's incremental. "Well, it's just a small change". This is the unhealthy cycle of abuse where the abuser bends the victim more and more to their will and the victim justifies it.

In TWI, this behavior modification centers around the political structure of the organization. Politics and bribery drive TWI. The bribery has financial components, and even more emotional components. This is in direct contrast to a healthy service from love perspective. TWI has moved away from "It Is Written" as a standard for their leadership to "It Is Position". It very much has turned exactly into what VP used to criticize about the Catholic church - their priorities are 1) Pope speaking ex-cathedra 2) Traditions of the church 3) The Bible. And with the priority being such, this basically discounts any God-inspired individual armed with the scriptures from being able to speak up about any practices. As what the Bible says matters less than how it fits in to traditions and traditional decisions, and all of that has to be checked with the one in power speaking ex-cathedra.

It results in things you see today - like teachers at an Advanced Class Special teaching at a dull and dumbed down 3rd grade perspective, the mind-numbing articles in magazines all that are less challenging than an average Sunday school class for middle schoolers in chuch. People never speaking up. Scriptures being ignored and brushed off with phrases like "we're not working that topic now". And this behavior is modeled all the way throughout the organization to various degrees. You may have some variation in the ego and despotism that some local leader functions with, but to maintain their little local fiefdom they conform that way upwards, and eventually downwards too.

It's all just one huge ball of Pharisees and vipers - something to pray to God to be delivered from - like 2 Thess 3:2 speaks of - to be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men.

I still, 14 years later, wonder sometimes if I'm going to he11 or outside of God's favor.

Meanwhile God is up in heaven giving you a standing ovation round of applause for your love for your husband and family and your tireless efforts to fight for them despite all odds. And your sense of community and involvement with other Christians who are the salt of the earth that we can find so easily in all our communities.

How come this stuff always reminds me of the Matrix?

Because it's astonishing how people can see all the tubes and artificial world and still take the blue pill and fall happily back to sleep?

People who should really grow some friggin' balls and take the red pill, but don't out of fear and complacency?

DWBH,

Amen, brother.

It was at least implied positions would circulate more. Young folks were coming up with all sorts of damned ideas. People have been expecting rosie to step aside for a long time.

her role as "healer of the ministry" as was prophesied is supposedly done

B,

What they say in a public forum and what they do behind the scenes is vastly different. Those in top positions - ESPECIALLY RFR - are there because they have politically maneuvered themselves there. They will not give up their power. That line sounds like it's some kind of excuse for her to control behind the scenes as the Chairman of the Board while not having to have any day to day responsibility as a president. The control and the power remain.

I have never heard any "prophesy" regarding RFR that contained a reference to her being a "healer of the ministry". I did hear a word of prophecy in the ceremony at her installation about "prophet and pastor", but that was by okie boy whose judgement and connection to God have to be severely questioned due to his other activities at the time. I could certainly see some of the more impassioned butt kissers saying something of that nature. But honestly, that phrase just makes me want to puke. It's such a 100% lie. How many lives have been ruined, destroyed, defamed, and denigrated by that Jezebel? Healer? A fitting result would to be having the dogs eat her just like the person she most resembles in the Bible. God is a just God - these people will be rewarded according to their fruit and works, not by anything we do on this earth.

Sorry - didn't mean to soapbox - I just had to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

I don`t know about *content to stay* Most people that I knew were flat out afraid to leave the hedge of God`s protection that surrounded them as long as they were in twi. To leave meant to open the door to satan, to die.

It reminds me of all those polygamist cults with the women whose personality has been completely washed out. The thousand-mile stare, the concern for the "family" over any personal rights, the groupthink. The fear of the unknown.

Maybe I'm out of circulation lately, but I've not heard that this was the real reason why Harve was replaced. I've always wanted to know, since he seemed to be doing fine....even helped and was very encouraging for a few people I spoke to. How sure are you that this was the reason? Not to doubt, but would like to know.

Are you asking if you called her on the phone and asked that question would she confirm it? hahaha. Was that stated to a group of people like the Corps? No. They handle all of those things with zero explanation and refuse to answer direct questions about it from anyone. The only statement I heard directly repeated was she said that BOD "was not a lifetime position" when explaining that decision. After which she pretty much positioned herself to be "Chairman of the Board" yet not have to do any work personally for basically a lifetime position. Am I sure myself? Yes. Can I prove it? Nope.

It doesn't take much to get demoted and defamed. I guess if the bobblehead doesn't bobble with quite the speed it has in the past, that's enough to do it. Boy, now isn't that a leadership team that you'd be dying to be a part of?

One very funny related thing to transcripts - which I guess they can ignore any request for as they don't have any accrediting organization they are accountable to or play all sorts of stupid games...

To get accredited would mean actually attracting and retaining people of intellectual capacity that have PhD's to teach courses. The funny thing is that the higher educated level people really have a hard time buying any of TWI's definitions of "quality", "research", and are far too intelligent to fall for the amount of control and emotional bribery there is latent within the organization.

It does seem to be quite a waste of time taking all those "classes".

Chockfull... I didn't mean to say we should disregard the homosexual possiblities between Donna and Rosalie (I happen to agree there is a lot of evidence intimating such a relationship) I just meant in addition to that, to my mind, these two are bonded together by even more dark and dirty secrets.

I would love to sit the pair of them down with some veritas serum-laced tea!

Yeah, they know where the bodies are buried, in addition to having buried some themselves.

Leaving all possible homosexual theories aside for the moment, I have to think that Rosalie suddenly offered herself as a knowing shoulder to Donna... a friend who understood things that most of us weren't even aware of... one who could keep the deepest, darkest secrets... after all, both Rosalie and Donna were in the inner circle of the creepy old men, and didn't this friendship bloom in the midst of Craig's wildest dalliances and delusions? -- It's sad and it's sick, but it's kinda understandable.

Well there's a couple of things there that make me wonder. R has always been adamant about not having her picture on the internet - perhaps someone from her past might find her? An old girlfriend? There's quite a few things that support the homo theory. Two ladies 'formerly' lesiban + 1 bed + R's basement? Vacations with Donna sharing the same bed for a week? Other ladies walked in on making out who are doing prominent teachings and have high level jobs. Also, okie boy's going off the deep end on some of the homo stuff that you can read transcripts on, especially the lesbian side. What set him off to that extent? Things don't happen for no reason. Did he discover the relationship yet they had the goods on him with all his extracurricular activity so he was powerless? Also interesting what R removed from the FNC class - the newer one now. Gone are any Eve + serpent lesbian encounters. Gone is the closing of the class with reading of Romans 1 - including the homo part of it. Now granted some of that 'research' was skating on thin ice. But no more than other things that were left in the class. Peleg - one land mass theories, gas hydrates, etc.