Rocky

Why does ANYONE care what Raf believes? Why does anyone care what johniam believes? Bottom line, Raf came to change his beliefs and shared what that means to him and how he reasoned it out. Nobody else's beliefs are jeopardized by a person doing that, are they?

Did you leave it in the bathroom?

I think Oakspear's comment (#35 on this thread) hit the nail on the head. Christians or any other religion that claims "to know" for certainty anything is only peddling BS.

You made several good and important points. Sobriety intact. That's good to know. Hearing about PD may cause some to grasp that Robin was facing a stressful time in his life and knew his future would be difficult. but suicide is not a rational decision people make (almost always, I figure). For someone so gregarious and seemingly open, so much of him was quiet and withdrawn. He had to have impressive skills at keeping his pain hidden. I'm not so sure that was a good thing. I, too, appreciate the info newlife posted. The news stunned me as it did millions of people all over the world. He touched hundreds of millions of people with the healing balm of laughter. Besides that, he was such a warm and kind man. All humanity lost a part if its heart when Robin died. And it was and is a tremendous loss for American culture. I also feel for his family. For them, this tragic, trying time is no doubt more stressful because of the media attention. But because he touched so many lives, "we" needed to know how this all could have happened.

It is amazing that there exists such clandestine, insidious psychological manipulation that members of the group couldn't detect it or cause the perpetrator to be called to account. There are records suggesting some tried but got pushed out of RRF. They weren't a match for the sociopathic Mr. Barnard.

Barnard will be John Walsh's target on The Hunt on CNN this coming Sunday (Aug 24). Click the link for a 30-second preview on YouTube.

Preach it, Brother Groucho!

Here's a link to a for the episode.And given that there was a VB siting the other day, I'd say it could be very soon that they have him in custody.

And you get to decide what to believe, what to do, where to live, who you're friends will be. Lot's a good things. :eusa_clap:/>

I agree completely.

THE main takeaway from the PLAF class was that the ONLY way to know the will of God was to listen to (glorify, worship, etc.) Wierwille. It took decades to figure that out, because the secret of their (his) success is (was) the secrecy of their (his) tactics.

Yes, it was cancer.

Controlling the flow of information is a long-known, longstanding group (small and large) manipulation strategy. See 935 Lies, a book written by investigative journalist Charles Lewis, recently publiished and available on amazon.com We recognize it looking back on twi, but it was by no means unique to our cult.

Someone who spent a lot of time with Wierwille back in the day recently described to me even worse. W was much more cruel than simply using a spoon on dogs. More like kicking them hard enough to send them flying. I found that incident, as relayed to me, highly plausible based on my observations of Wierwille's cruel narcissism toward his followers.

I was going to start a new thread but when I saw this one, I thought it might fit here. I hope so, anyway. A couple of weeks ago, I was in youtube looking at some video clips. To my surprise, in the recommended clips list on the right side of the window.Probably, I had previously looked for clips from dickedher (wierwille) or twi. Anyway, it was posted by a cult sycophant named Maurice Goulet. I posted a comment and fortunately saved the comment to a separate file because it disappeared from youtube in less than 24 hours. Here's what I wrote: ----- My experience with Wierwille was first hand. He was a mean, nasty, narcissistic SOB. He used and abused anyone he could, especially those of us gullible enough to enlist, as young adults, in the Way Corps (I was in the 9th). He built a subculture based on the works of others (plagiarism). His "Way Tree" had accountability completely backward. Instead of, as was in the Book of Acts, the traveling ministers were accountable to the people who provided their sustinence, whenever Wierwille traveled, his minions were instructed to provide him with every comfort and luxury, but don't dare demand accountability from him. In other words, in his arrogance, he believed he did not have to answer to anyone. As a result, he used many of the young female WOWs and Way Corps for his personal toys in the 1970s and early 1980s. He holds a great deal of responsibility for what LC Martindale did that got him tossed aside by The Way. Wierwille both mentored Martindale and built the closed subculture of reckless abuse of women that Martindale got caught up in and perpetuated after Wierwille's death. Martin Buber wrote (I and Thou) about the difference between people and things. Wierwille preached that people were to love and things were to be used. But he DID exactly the opposite in far too many instances. I don't know that "mainstream media" even knows or cares who Wierwille was anymore, let alone believe anything about him. Having personally worked in corporate media, and now blogging regularly, I know that there is plenty of information online to document what Wierwille actually did. Furthermore, his "foundational class" was FULL of irrational, non-logical and unsound arguments. That class was nothing but indoctrination into a mindset where he set himself up to be the ONLY authority on what was the will of God. His interpretation of Proverbs 29:18 is a poignant case in point. There may be redeeming social value in a close examination of the history of The Way for understanding how people can be indoctrinated and change their behavior without basis in rational sound reasoning. But as far as I'm concerned, that's about it. If you want to know the God of the Bible, you'll probably need to cast off a good bit of what you may have learned as a result of Wierwille's "ministry." ----- I used Goulet's name on purpose. Maybe he'll think more about whether he wants to continue to bow down to dickedher's legacy if he knows that he can't completely disassociate his name from the legitimate criticism. And Skyrider, I agree completely with your point about twi not providing room for people to grow up.

I was looking around in youtube a day or two ago and in the list of recommended videos on the right side of the window showed up one titled something like Wierwille's last public teaching - The Hope. It was, of course, bulls*it and I didn't bother to watch more than the first two and a half minutes or so before I couldn't tolerate it anymore. But the guy who had posted the video is named Maurice Goulet and boy is he a Wierwille sycophant. There are lots of comments on the the video... so, I added one. Fortunately, I saved my comment because he apparently didn't like it and either deleted it himself or got google to do it for him by flagging it. Anyway, the indentured servitude concept got me wound up and here's what I wrote.

As to legal concerns, if it was Jim Doop's manuscript, ownership now rests with his estate or his heirs.

Never underestimate the power of self-delusion. I'm not sure who first said that, but I heard it from an investigative journalist just a few minutes ago.

Religion (including Wierwille's) is and was all about people. God was incidental. We were staging social manipulation... because we were "true believers" in the TWI religion. At least for a while (about 12 years in my case).

It's perhaps no wonder that a couple of years ago, I had to post something to JAL to (symbolically) give him a slap to wake up and realize that we are no longer little kids but grown ups who have had to figure out our way in life.

If nobody grows up and learns to think for themselves, they remain dependent on TWI for their entire lives. Could that have been the idea behind having adult humans repeatedly doing mass indoctrination exercises like Father Abraham, Little Bunny Foo Foo, the Crocodile song, etc.?

Sarah sure dresses funny for an uncle. :biglaugh:/>

Too nebulous. You really didn't give any one anything to go on as to what you intended by using that term. Sodomization You know, other than letting us know where your head is at. :confused:/>

And as we've come to realize, BECAUSE we continued to learn, IN SPITE OF twi, that it's all bull***t.

I partly agree and partly disagree. Clearly TWI is nowhere'sville now. And the pathetically non-eventful ordination of V2P2 does not appear to put anyone or anything on a path similar to the mormons, 7th Day Adventists or JWs. But that doesn't mean somebody charismatically devious can't enter the picture at some point. I'll grant that it's unlikely, but not that it's impossible. Indeed, I think you're on to something with the role-playing game insight.