Rocky

Yeah, and the radical Islamic jihadi suicide bomber gets 70 virgins after doing the deed. It's all psychological manipulation. TWIts read about "the hope" and knew they had a mechanism to manipulate.

Most definitely.

I agree with the thesis of the OP in this thread. Sleep deprivation is an obvious tool for psychological manipulation. However, I'm not so sure us "old folks" can rightfully blame current inability to sleep more than 5 hours at a stretch on twi. I have similar sleep issues and understand them primarily to be related to aging.

Dude, it WAS and is all an illusion. :)

Perhaps not, but on other threads, I did. And I stand by that claim. WordWolf explains some of why that is actually the case.

That damn salt covenant! ----- edit, looked up salt covenant. Wikipedia includes a book published by American Christian Press (twi) as a source. How right you are, Steve.

Yeah, I get your point. Certainly to be a helping professional would have taken an advanced degree. But the a BS in psych, he would know enough to design cultic group directions and norms and mores. And we know how those all turned out.

Clever. Don't forget that The Forehead's undergraduate degree was in psychology.

Put another way, hindsight is 20/20. If only there could be a way to have that hindsight on the front end, eh? Indeed, I don't see how they could even conceptualize any kind of informed consent. There's no way the cult would agree with what we understand about them after years of involvement and then leaving. Too subjective.

I agree completely. In the 1990s, I was involved with a church fellowship. For a while, it was helpful. I had a close relationship with one of the pastors and shared with him my twi background. He had known other former wayfers in Wyoming. Eventually, I grew out of that situation also. I don't feel the need these days for being involved in a Christian fellowship. I recognize Juedes' bias in that regard and put it in the same perspective that you described. <3

I agree, the traffic noise was incredibly obnoxious. But I am very thankful he recorded the video. I love that he directly addresses waybrain.

Go for it. See what happens.

An . <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mUPubonKLFM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I tried to embed the video... couldn't figure it out. But the link in the first line should work.

Wouldn't matter if there was. First amendment, ya know. It would be an extremely difficult thing to put any kind of parameters or legal limitations other than already existing laws that address issues not necessarily inherent to religious worship, like polygamy or human sacrifice. If some practice comes up that requires society deal with it, that practice would be targeted rather than the religion.

Different usages of the word.

Well, I don't think I ever had to deal with the two by two scenario, but... Yeah, those reproof verses were a big deal from way back. Thirty to forty years of hindsight makes me realize just how faulty even some seemingly practical NT scriptures can be. On its own, and using no other sources of insight for practical wisdom, that practice was inherently emotionally abusive. What was missing included (but was not necessarily limited to) recognition of the inherent worth of the individual being confronted. That makes the waybrain application inherently narcissistic. The whole concept that I have a right to challenge anything that offends me (anything I don't like) is complete crap. Because the founder of the cult was a narcissistic megalomaniac, he demonstrated, and how many thousands of people imitated, that pattern of conduct? Take it back to Matthew 22: 36-39. What about the biblical principle of forebearance? My recollections of V Pee and of The Forehead do not include many specific incidents of forebearance.

Great quote. I -- LOVE -- being a contrarian. And I'm passionate about it. :)

The 9th and 7th corpses were in residence at the time. I don't remember VPee's words about it, but I distinctly remember Loy ranting on about it and recognizing right away that we would be labeled a cult because of Jim Jones. Of course, Loy vehemently denied we had any cultic characteristics...

My hunch is that among his concerns is the growing trend toward Dominionism in US churches. I took a brief look at his website. I don't see him emphasizing anything that would link to a fundamentalist perspective.

And quite narcissistic.

Have you seen this article? What do you think about it? A pastor's emancipation from American Christianity I used to think that it was just me, that it was my problem, my deficiency, my moral defect. It had to be. All those times when I felt like an outsider in this American Jesus thing; the ever-more frequent moments when my throat constricted and my heart raced and my stomach turned. Maybe it came in the middle of a crowded worship service or during a small group conversation. Maybe while watching the news or when scanning a blog post, or while resting in a silent, solitary moment of prayer. Maybe it was all of these times and more, when something rose up from the deepest places within me and shouted, "I can't do this anymore! I can't be part of this!" These moments once overwhelmed me with panic and filled me with guilt, but lately I am stepping mercifully clear of such things. What I've come to realize is that it certainly is me, but not in the way I used to believe. I am not losing my mind. I'm not losing my faith. I'm not failing or falling or backsliding. I have simply outgrown American Christianity. continued at the link above

The link -- in the TWI wiki page -- to the eternally blessed website is incorrect. The actual working link (at this time) is here.

Gotta have some propaganda to keep the serfs in check, even if they do have computers and a little bit of curiosity. ;)