Rocky
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Posts posted by Rocky
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Not that it really matters, but I'm pretty sure Barnard was WC12. He was once used as an example of how someone could start home-based fellowships. In another group setting, I saw him confront leaders about how they conducted themselves publicly around women. I felt very sorry for his wife who was also present.
Right, it doesn't particularly matter to me, but Kark Kahler says he and Barnard were in the same corps.
Karl has spoken on the phone with Minnesota Public Radio and
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...I was in Jackson MS having the time of my life (sarc)
Have you ever read any of John Grisham's novels?
I spent about six months in Mississippi as a (very) young adult, but really didn't get much exposure to MS culture.
I think I'd hate it there.
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Published on the Daily Beast, March 23, 2014
In early March, blogger Samantha Field contacted her alma mater, the notoriously fundamentalist Pensacola Christian College in Florida, before she published an explosive story. Field, who blogs about “overcoming fundamentalist indoctrination,” was going public with allegations from two former students who said they had been raped at Pensacola, and that the school had shamed and expelled them instead of punishing the alleged perpetrators. The stories had come in after Field posted a call on her blog. She contacted four different departments at Pensacola to ask how such cases were handled, and was finally told by the college’s communications officer that the school didn’t respond to “blog-type articles.”
That didn’t last long. Field’s “blog-type article” was quickly shared tens of thousands of times, and Pensacola was forced to respond to the allegations with an official statement.
continued...
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Was I the only one who was deeply disturbed by this heavy-handed corps technique?
No. Geez, Martindale made a habit of berating corps trainees too.
But I was the target of one or more of wierwille's verbal tirades when he didn't get instant satisfaction on an A/V technical set up.
Packing up and leaving then and there, didn't really occur to me yet as a result of the first couple of red flags.
Interim year was another story. For another late night story.
Rejoice. We're free from that .... place (TFP). :)
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UPDATE on this situation including an 11 minute video from a MN news broadcast just a couple of days ago.
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You may not have personally addressed it to him (or me), but it DID sound
like the one-post drive-by posters that still worship vpw's system and
want us to stop pointing out how it was based on lies and flaws. One of
their usual tactics is to say that-if we're still talking about all of it
and pointing out any negatives- that we're consumed by bitterness, spend
all our free time here, and accomplish nothing else in our lives beyond
what's posted here. You may not have intended to sound ANYTHING like
them or mean ANYTHING like that, but it sure sounded that way.
Nope, wasn't my point at all.
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I know this is to skyrider but I felt like answering from my experiences as there are many similarities.
It was indeed to skyrider. Of course, it's wonderful that anyone can share here.
In another sense, I can look back on this semi-judgmental application of "Release From Your Prisons" and make the observation that perhaps Wierwille stole more from you than you realize.
He may have stolen more from me than I realize, but I've moved on and don't have much of a sense anymore about what I lost in the 12 years I was involved with twi. I've had other traumas in my life since, including divorce. I can count it a victory that despite a horrendous two years of litigation (that ended 15 years ago) I'm friends with both my-ex (who never was in twi, but now is a committed mormon) and the judge who finally got to sign the divorce decree.
I enjoy my life now. I feel like I've found my calling and it isn't in being subject to an emotionally abusive cult. I can say, however, that I draw on the experience in twi when I analyze situations, groups and public figures about whom I write. Anyway, enough about me.
Can you sound any more condescending?
Hmmm.... well, I can't say I've felt like I've gotten to know much about you from your posts, so I don't really know what to say to that comment other than I hope you didn't really take anything I wrote as personally addressed to you.
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Perhaps, it might be somewhat insightful to address this:
1) For me, it was not 30 years (in twi)
2) For me, I had major disagreement with Cgeer's paper (1986)
3) And, away from twi (with small children) during turbulence
4) And, kept a healthy skepticism in back pocket (vindication)
5) Helping others was more of my focus than twi-mandates
6) By 1993, more twi-legalism.....yet, I was far away
7) Twi was like a moving train....when was it best to jump off?
8) The scriptures are full of accounts of *discerning the times*
9) With wife, kids and others....when to best disentangle ourselves?
Quite frankly, I'd been pondering much of this in 1993....
and exited a few years later.
But really......my story is not that much different than those who jumped
into an offshoot for 10-15 years after twi. I have several friends who went
into the John Lynn-personal prophesy-momentus fiasco.....having to extricate
themselves from yet ANOTHER cult.
Yeah... I hear that. Last time I saw JAL in person was when my daughter was just a couple of months old... I was highly unimpressed.
I'm doing well. Have found a calling, in a way to positively impact my community. Hopefully I have a few more decades to make a difference. :)
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Lots of stuff.....the more I think about it, the more these memories come flooding back.
That's probably a good idea, if you're using those memories and reflections to work through the personal issues the experience ultimately meant for you.
I've agreed with a lot of your more or less psychoanalytical parsing of the experiences, especially in the 9th corpse.
But 30 years is a long time to stick it out if you actually understood so early in your time in twi that Wierwille and the organization he built was so evil.
In one sense, we can look back with bitterness at the way Wierwille stole our youth from us. But if that's only as far as you get in re-evaluating
the memories, you might be keeping yourself locked up in that same box longer than necessary.
Do you believe yourself to have found a particular calling to minister to others with similar experiences in spiritually abusive organizations?
Or do you have other interests and passions for serving or contributing to society in other ways?
We're approaching 60 (if you're the same age as I am). You could possibly have another 30 or more years to do something for others.
I hope you can make the best of it.
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Wonder if anyone would ever buy it?
That's not necessarily why writers write.
Would it be a worldwide best selller? Probably not. Is there a niche market of people who need to know your story?
I'd bet the answer to that is yes.
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Why did you stay in so long? I'll grant that I did not recognize Wierwille's less than godly dark side when I was in the corpse. I've tried to figure out why I didn't see it and all I can come up with is that I was young and naive. It also occurs to me that having spent a few years in military service, I had been conditioned to follow orders. Yet, I knew I didn't like following orders enough to make the military a career. But eventually, not long after turning 30, the light came on.
A confluence to events led me to realize twi wasn't what I originally understood it to be.
Among those things, while I was (finally) going to college in my late 20s, I was still interested in the Bible. I figured out that Wierwille had the whole concept of accountability bass-ackwards. He was the one, like Paul, who was supposed to be accountable to those who supported him. Instead, his "Way Tree" was all about adulation for the MOG. When I realized that, I was out of there.
Why did you stay when you had misgivings about him?
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"You can't go beyond what you're taught."-----VPW (PFAL)
Ridiculous!
Great ideas don't come all wrapped in pretty paper with a colorful ribbon on top. They evolve. Some evolve quickly and some evolve slowly. Liken the process to a myriad of small streams, merging into a river. That's how it happens.
If we relied solely on what we were taught, mankind would still be limited to a vocabulary of "Ugh!".
I think, in his subtle way, Wierwille was setting us up for a lifestyle of dependency.
Don't be afraid to go exploring. Some of the little streams may have already gone dry but others might lead you to raging rivers.
ithink in his NOT so subtle way, he was setting people up for dependency.
The converse is that one can not go beyond what he learns. Learning is up to the learner to seek out opportunity. That's what you can't go beyond. Find the resource that will teach you the next thing you wish to learn. Be it a book, an experience/advencture or another teacher.VPwas all abvout we could not go beyond he would teach up. that's bogus.
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What wayside said, except I can't hear the song.
The main idea of the song is "it's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack." :)/>
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I, too, have sat with a few individuals and had THAT conversation and months later go back to twi. What happened? Oh, most likely a number of things really. For one thing, the person had been conditioned to the twi-commune style of living and found it strange and uncomfortable to make his own way. The twig gave him a sense of belonging and psychological comfort. Besides, wierwille's sins and shortcomings were none of his concern.....nor did he care to *connect the dots* of how this deception played out.
Like water finding its own level, people seem to find their level of comfort and conformity.
In the past 25 years, some of our twi 'friends' left and found a good church.
Some 'friends' left and found a spouse, career, hobbies, and family.
Some 'friends' went to a splinter group.......and many, later, exited it as well.
Some simply left.......and we never heard from them again.
From my experience, I have observed that the strong, independent types.....those who were aggressively minded to pursue goals, education, advancement, careers, etc.....were the ones who split from twi early and did NOT go back. Whereas, the dependent and low esteem types, they were the ones who had little life outside twi and therefore were willing to attend everything. And often, these 'dependent' ones had a set of issues that, in their mind, prevented them from advancing in society.
Yep.
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I think there's a distinction between INTENT and "the banality of evil", as the video spoke of.
With "the banality of evil", they spoke of how many people can move along like drones and
act in accord with others, in an "I was only following orders" fashion.
IIRC, it was Edmund Burke that said that the only thing evil needs is for good men to
do nothing.
There's also the INTENT differences, which he closed with- where people CHOOSE to get involved
and act, or choose NOT to get involved with something and harm. Simply put, the intent of evil
is about who matters- with evil, self and the people around self matter, BUT NO ONE ELSE.
Evil people have no problem prospering AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHERS-others do not count.
Evil people are not required to SEE themselves as evil, either- often there are rationalizations
and excuses for the self. Hitler called himself the savior of the German people and, apparently,
bought into his own hype about being a great benefactor of them. The fact that he was getting
them money by seizing the assets of Jews and other whom he wanted killed off was worthy of a
footnote at best-as he saw it. vpw saw nothing wrong with his deliberate decisions to set up
a twi structure that made it EFFICIENT for him to exploit young people, including molesting
and raping women, whenever he wanted. In his final days, after years of doing that while
advocating morals in public and discarding them in private, he apparently had no comprehension
that he'd done wrong in the process.
For fun, a friend and I considered the AD&D (1st/2nd edition) Alignment Graph recently.
That's the thing with 2 axes- one for Good, Evil and Neutrality towards both,
and Law (Order, Structure), Chaos (Independence, Impulse) and Neutrality towards both,
with 9 possible results for the personality of a character or even a living person.
(People don't have a writer to answer to, so they don't always seem easy to classify,
especially when we don't have access to all of their lives.)
http://www.easydamus.../alignment.html
http://www.easydamus...gnmentreal.html
http://www.easydamus...gnmenttest.html
We examined the characters of the television show "the Big Bang Theory." Surprisingly,
we agreed instantly that one main character was "Lawful Evil"-Sheldon Cooper.
Sheldon IMAGINES himself as "Good", and when he plays games where he can choose alignments,
seems to choose Good aligned characters like all his friends.
However, no matter what he tells himself and them, Sheldon is Evil by Alignment standards.
Sheldon doesn't think anyone else matters other than him-until their existence impinges
on his own. When a FRIEND gets good news or congratulations, he is ambivalent and never
responds with congratulations- unless he's TOLD he's supposed to congratulate others.
Despite having a HIGH genius IQ, he legitimately doesn't understand the simplest things
about other people-because he doesn't CARE to. This is the same man who studied Finnish
to kill time while waiting for a computer operating system, but has never put in an afternoon
to understand people at all. Sheldon wouldn't even HAVE friends except that Leonard considers
him one (and signed a friendship CONTRACT to that effect), and introduced Sheldon to Penny, Raj and
Howard, who in turn introduced Sheldon to Bernadette and Amy. The only character Sheldon's ever
made friends with by himself was Wil- after considering him an enemy for years, until Wil
gave him a rare gift. He only ever tried to make a new friend (Barry Kripke) because he wanted
favors from him. Sheldon always has to have things HIS WAY and will overlook others completely,
In fact, when a friend is troubled and needs a sympathetic ear, Sheldon will FORGET THEY ARE IN
THE ROOM WITH HIM. His own status as a boyfriend is in spite of his lack of doing any of the
traditional boyfriend things- and his girlfriend clearly WANTS him to do some and has to verbally
remind him of anything-despite even having a GF/BF CONTRACT specifying his duties. He has no
trouble whatsoever remembering when they suit him, but he has to be goaded into doing anything
SHE wants to do.
So, there's what I might consider "oblivious evil" -drones propping up systematic evil because
they can't be bothered to know what's going on around them, and there's "evil intent"-
someone making deliberate decisions to marginalize others and elevate themselves at the expense
of others. Evil is about the exercise of power, and the attitude towards others,
as I see it.
I'm unfamiliar with AD&D, but relate completely to your analysis and comparison to Big Bang Theory.
And I agree that evil is about the exercise of power, but would add that it generally involves deception.
Exercise of power, or authority, in and of itself, is not necessarily evil.
I think you've got the right idea regarding reflecting back on our experience in TWI.
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Peer pressure and conformity were a huge part of the various "training" programs.
They certainly were. And wasn't a demand for loyalty made part of LCMs reign of terror during the "fog years?"
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Hey Tom,
Since I don't see you on facebook, I'll have to wish you a happy birthday here.
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To this day....I still believe most in twi have fallen prey to a cult of personality, the wierwille mystique. How many still hear THE VOICE OF WIERWILLE proclaiming to speak the word. Some of us, having sat in pfal classes 25-40 times.....etches the indoctrination deeply into the brain cells, doesn't it? Classes, teachings, tapes......we sat in that indoctrinational-meditation pose for years on end.
Thus, some find profit in dismantling wierwille doctrine.
Some see a need to stay away from the KJV altogether.
Some jumped ship and found a 'lifesaver' splinter group
Some tend to want to keep their distance from anything twi-ish.
And....pursue career, goals, hobbies, interests.
We probably all fell prey to Wierwille's personality. But I no longer hear his voice in my head and haven't for at least two decades.
Your reflections about "Thus, some find profit..." etc. seem to be TWI-centric.
Some just move on with their lives as they see fit. That's what self-determination is about anyway, isn't it?
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Here's a TED talk that you may or may not find interesting. I see some parallels with TWI.
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Wierwille's cult was extremely short on empathy... which is kind of understandable for an organization built by a sociopath.
Understandable now that we're on the outside looking in. But that doesn't mean I think it was ever acceptable.
It seems to go to the heart of why we have needed to reclaim our identity in the first place.
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It could still reignite, of course....
No, Raf. It can't..
Perhaps as a reflection on religions, cults, or other organizations IN GENERAL, your statement may have merit.
But there's no way TWI ever reignites as a movement that stirs the excitement of young people... or even old ones.
Victor Barnard
in About The Way
Posted
Karl nailed it in quotes in this story.