Rocky

You could, apparently, no longer take Victor's word for it what it all, or any of it, meant. That expression take his word for it jumped out and SCREAMED at me when I read your comment. Isn't that why Victor NEEDED young people to join his movement, rather than older, more seasoned researchers with whom he would have been challenged on his numerous claims of what God actually meant? I was 19 when I first learned of Victor's ministry and his take on "truth." I THOUGHT (at the time) what I responded to was an intellectually honest take on God, scripture and such. But really, reflecting back on my developmental place and emotional/social needs at that moment, I responded to something altogether different, a friendship at a US military base overseas where and when I had few people I felt I had much in common with. But I digress, for Victor to effectively communicate with and proselytize more intellectually and emotionally mature people would have required him to be willing to listen and relate to people differently than those who eventually came to follow his ministry. But didn't he try reaching people with that kind of maturity for years with minimal success? Wouldn't his success have required different communication skills? More open minded listening perhaps? More of an open mind to what other people, closer to being peers with him, had to say? People who would listen to him but pose difficult questions. Didn't he actually HAVE people like that come into his orbit... but for reasons unknown he didn't engender the kind of emotional connection he was able to get with the "young people?" Did Victor have a temperament conducive to actual dialogue that could produce an understanding in two or more individuals which could reasonably be expected to include portions of each person's position. Could that be [part of] the reason he built a cult, instead of a community without demands on its followers?

I'll be curious to know how it works out.

Intriguing insight from observing cult behaviors SIMILAR to OUR experience. We bit, hook, line, and sinker. Were we conditioned during childhood for a Christian-flavored cult? It seems that way to me.

Steven Hassan (cult expert and former Moonie himself] tweeted this link and I am very happy to see Hak Ja Han, Sun Myung Moon's wife, who took over the Moon cult after he died in 2012, featured in this article on Korean cults. She paid Trump $2 million for endorsing her cult- a few weeks after the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/grace-road-churchs-dream-life-in-fiji-threatens-to-fall-apart SEOUL—Authorities in Fiji have smashed a South Korean cult that threatened to take over the South Pacific nation’s economy, arresting four of its leaders and sending two of them back to Korea. The crackdown on the Grace Road Church shocked its 400 Korean and foreign adherents, who had moved to Fiji after being warned of an apocalypse about to annihilate South Korea. They submitted to regular thrashings, some of them caught on camera, in what their founder, a middle-aged woman named Shin Ok-su, claimed were needed to knock the devil out of them. Shin was expelled back to Korea, arrested for child abuse, assault and false imprisonment, and sentenced to six years in prison in 2019, but the church survived until Fijian authorities this week rounded up church members in a drive to stamp out the influence of a cult that’s been madly buying up Fijian companies and property. The church, founded in South Korea in 2002, decided in 2014 that Fiji, an archipelago with a population of slightly less than 1 million people, was “the center of the world.” Fijian authorities turned a blind eye as the church took over construction companies, beauty salons, restaurants and much else, establishing a mini-conglomerate called GR Group, modeled after the chaebol or conglomerates that dominate Korea. [...] The leaders of the church allegedly controlled their adherents by confiscating passports, forcing some to live in virtual imprisonment, ordering them to work on church-owned projects and beating them periodically into submission. It was not until a new government took over early this year that authorities recognized the seriousness of the inroads the cult had made into Fijian life and decided to clean house. Fiji’s previous prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, six years ago gave Grace Road an award for business excellence, recognizing it had “invested heavily in Fiji.” Now the seven top leaders of the church are listed as “prohibited immigrants” while authorities search for two of them, including Daniel Kim, son of founder Shin Ok-su. In charge of the church’s sprawling business interests, he remains on the lam while the GR Group, “very enraged by all the lies,” claims to have been “working proudly as owners.” All the stories of “passport confiscation, forced labor, incarceration and violence,” said GR Group, were “unspeakable lies” created by “those who wish to slander us.” [a likely story... one we've heard way too many times before] [...] “The reason for so many new religions among Koreans is that a) there is real freedom of religion in Korea even compared to Christian countries,” said Breen, a long-time businessman in Seoul. “That’s one reason they thrive. People come up with all sorts of interpretations and shifts in theology and practice.” Like Moon’s Unification Church, smaller cult-like groupings feel the urge to expand overseas in the same spirit as Korean big business and K-pop. Blind adherence to the dictates of a single leader is characteristic of Korean life. The Rev. Tim Peters, a Protestant pastor in Seoul with a long background working with North Korean defectors, placed the rise of Grace Road in the context of “the 5,000-year history of Korea.” “A strong leader with a stirring message resonates deeply in the Korean psyche,” Peters told The Daily Beast. Charisma helps. “A congregation’s appetite for an emotionally stirring sermon often eclipses a congregant’s individual spiritual growth,” Peters said. “Joining a new religious movement that has radical doctrines sometimes fulfills a need for young adults to break free from their parents’ or grandparents’ suffocating spiritual traditions.” Chang Sung-eun explained the appeal of Grace Road Church more simply. “Koreans are passionate and energetic,” she said. “They have a strong yearning for salvation. They believe somehow, ‘God will save me.’ That’s the baseline. They tend to fall victim to pastors and ministers who have strong disciplinary policies.” [more]

Good one! God forbid he would allow anyone to change anything he writes. Yikes! Irony indeed! And brazen emotional projection.

In that letter, Loy invokes the name of Jesus Christ... but his attitude shows something very different. I didn't sense any willingness on his part to serve.

Seems like important justification to me. To all readers on GSC, TELL YOUR STORY.

Often referred to as emotional boundaries... which Victor and Loy rarely, as I understand, understood, respected, or honored.

There are numerous questions I could articulate about Victor Wierwille based entirely on my experience and observations of him directly, and especially with his protégé, Loy C Martindale... while reflecting on THIS ancient wisdom. Btw, there are relevant, related scriptures in Proverbs that suggest this nugget from outside the Bible is at least as wise as those two goons (the first two presidents of the corporation). Further, I would challenge former followers of Victor and/or Loy to honestly decide whether Marcus Aurelius had more godly wisdom (and courage) the either of them.

I seem to recall you not being so concerned with what God requires of people. Am I wrong? If so, what changed?

I very much appreciate emotionally probing and salient questions/declarations like those you include in this comment.

I'm so glad you (WE) have gotten through and healed from that emotional and spiritual abuse.

Resilience

Thanks again, chockful!

BITE model Responding to Authoritarian Cults and Extreme Exploitations: A New Framework to Evaluate Undue Influence Wayback machine internet Thanks, chockful, for this info and insight.

Btw, I think I have some of those corps letters on my google drive if anyone needs access to them.

40-years ago, there wasn't very much societal understanding of emotional intelligence... at least that I knew of. Daniel Goleman's first book, Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Be More Important Than IQ wasn't published until 1995. As far as I can tell, there seems to have been little social awareness of the concept before that. IOW, yeah it WAS a bad look. But who of us realized that reality back in the 1970s? I suppose it would be silly to consider that 1995 publication and the proliferation of the internet to have been a coincidence in the correlation to exposing Victor, Loy, and Victor's legacy private interpretation ministry beginning with Trancenet/Trancechat in (or about) 1998.

Totally!

I think back to the blurb I wrote about Charlene's memoir, “Undertow is a gift to young people and their families who want to understand the inner workings of fundamentalist cults. Charlene Edge’s experience parallels much of my own twelve years as a follower of Victor Paul Wierwille’s ministry. Undertow sheds light on the decisions, questions, and longings that she encountered, and ultimately worked her way through. In the words of Canadian author Matshona Dhliwayo, ‘Books are kinder teachers than experience.’ May Undertow be a kinder teacher to you than Charlene’s seventeen years in The Way International were to her.” —Steve Muratore, publisher of award-winning political blog the Arizona Eagletarian

Indeed, all we EVER have is hindsight to evaluate our choices. No matter how much foresight we might think/believe we have, it's still a risk, calculated or not, to follow someone like Victor. Isn't that the value of history and even more importantly for people who may follow in our footsteps, memoir? IF we write a memoir, it might reach someone to allow them, telepathically (as Stephen King describes it) to live in or imagine themselves in your shoes, in your path. In which case those readers might be able to "look back" to evaluate the risk to them.

Did Victor ever have, after "developing the PFLAP class series," any such Mars Hill experiences? Did he ever publicly encounter philosophers (thinkers) and hold forth his version of the Gospel to them? How did or would have such an event have looked/sounded in the moment? Did or would Victor have angrily ranted at them like he did on numerous occasions with "his corps" trainees? I can envision him meeting with local chambers of commerce informally at Adolph's to hold forth... but in such a setting would he have held their attention? Or perhaps in town council meetings or a chamber of commerce to proudly announce plans for the Rock of Ages, thereby soliciting logistical support for supplying food for tens of thousands of people for a week or two, and other infrastructure needs, like water and sewer. In my mind, that presents a totally different interaction dynamic where Victor could elicit cooperation because of the financial/economic benefit the broader community would gain.

Here's a simple thought experiment for readers on this thread, Victor fancied himself as MOGFODAT, man of god for our day and time. Since the archetype seemingly was Paul the Apostle, how do each of us imagine Paul conducted himself in discussion sessions on Mars Hill? The biblical significance of Mars Hill is that it is the location of one of Paul’s most important gospel presentations at the time of his visit to Athens during his second missionary journey (Acts 17:16–34). It was where he addressed the religious idolatry of the Greeks who even had an altar to the “Unknown God.” It was this altar and their religious idolatry that Paul used as a starting point in proclaiming to them the one true God and how they could be reconciled to Him. Paul’s sermon is a classic example of a gospel presentation that begins where the listeners are and then presents the gospel message in a logical and biblical fashion. In many ways it is a classic example of apologetics in action. Paul started his message by addressing the false beliefs of those gathered there that day and then used those beliefs as a way of presenting the gospel message to them. We know that when Paul arrived in Athens he found a city “given over to idols” (Acts 17:16). In his usual manner, Paul began presenting the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles. He started by “reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers” (Acts 17:17) and then also proclaimed the gospel “in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there” (Acts 17:17). While at the marketplace he encountered some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers (Acts 17:18) who, having heard Paul proclaim the resurrected Jesus Christ, wanted to learn about “this new doctrine” he was teaching, so they “brought him to the Areopagus” to hear more from him (Acts 17:19–20). We know from history that the Epicurean philosophers generally believed that God existed but that He was not interested or involved with humanity and that the main purpose of life was pleasure. On the other hand, the Stoic philosophers had the worldview that “God was the world’s soul” and that the goal of life was “to rise above all things” so that one showed no emotional response to either pain or pleasure. These groups and others with their dramatically opposing worldviews loved to discuss and debate philosophy and religion. Intrigued by what they considered Paul’s “babblings” about the resurrection of Christ, they brought him to the Areopagus where the Athenians and foreigners “spent their time in nothing else but to tell or hear some new thing” (Acts 17:21). As mentioned earlier, Paul’s presentation of the gospel is a great example for us, both as a pattern for how Paul identified with his audience and as an example of apologetics in action. His connection with his audience is seen in how he begins addressing those gathered at the Areopagus. He begins with the observation that they were “very religious,” based on the fact that they had many altars and “objects of worship” (Acts 17:23) including an altar to “the Unknown God.” Paul uses that altar to introduce them to the one true God and the only way of salvation, Jesus Christ. His apologetic method and his knowledge that they did not even know what God is really like leads him to go back to Genesis and to the beginning of creation. Having a completely wrong view of God, those gathered that day needed to hear what God really was like before they would understand the message of the gospel. Paul begins explaining to them the sovereign God who created all things and gives life and breath to all things. He continues to explain that it was God who created from one individual all men and nations and even appointed the time and boundaries of their dwelling (Acts 17:26). His message continues as he explains the closeness of God and their need to repent of their rebellion against Him. Paul completes his message by introducing them to the One before whom they would all stand one day and be judged—Jesus Christ, whom God had raised from the dead. Of course, many in the audience scoffed at the idea that Christ was crucified and rose from the dead on the third day because the idea of the resurrection to the Greeks was foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:23). Yet a few believed what Paul said and joined him. What happened on Mars Hill is important because of the many lessons that can be learned, not only from how Paul presented the gospel and presented a biblical worldview, but also in the varied responses he received.

I observed no such Q/A sessions either. Indeed, it certainly is somehow related to the brainwashing to which we willingly but not knowingly subjected ourselves and each other. Thanks for your insight.