WordWolf

The articles being here are fine. I know a lot of Geerites hate Raf's articles. TWI II (those raised under LCM) were not too fond of them, either. Didn't hear much about them from CFF or CES people. I assume they were okay with them or did not want to fuss. I know a lot of them in CFF would oppose the viewpoint. Opposing some viewpoints of PFAL was breaking ground and Raf was the first to do it. I followed later with other stuff.

Actually, as Raf has said in the past, it was JBarrax's discussions and analyses of

twi material that preceeded his, and gave him the idea for his own work.

Not that this takes anything away from Raf's own accomplishments.

His articles on believing, tithing, and more freed a lot of people from bondage and fear. I once attended a fellowship that lived off his articles on his site. Whenever I was scheduled to teach, I printed off his articles and taught from them. We had a fellowship that belonged to no ministry made up of former TWI believers. That lasted for a couple of years.

Religious fanaticism did not find a home at his site. Those who truly had their hope in grace and in Christ did. I would have to say that those who worshipped VPW or LCM like an idol (and I got emails from these kinds of people) were somehow drawn to his site but could not accept it. Kind of like an alcoholic having too much to drink and needing water, going to a clear spring to just look at it, then return to the alcohol to drink and get disoriented some more, and get even more thirsty.

I found it amazing that people hated the fact Rafael did not share in the memory of their idols. Some decided to stay in the past and Rafael moved on, as he will now.

For some that visited his site and read the TO WIT articles, a lot of people were freed from unbelief and received a new life in Christ. Others opposed it for the most treacherous of reasons - doctrinal tradition. We can never settle on any kind of doctrine unless we are absolutely sure. Raf's writings made sense in the non-reasoning world of post-TWI. He helped a lot of us to move on.

He is a recipient of the Ex-TWI Purple Heart. He is now awarded the following:

The Ex-TWI Medal of Honor

*watches the catcher for the signals*

*shakes off the first 3*

From the Hip

John Hurt

King Ralph

That sounds about right.

I was 'in' for 18 years, and I attended one ROA. I did know others who attended 2 or 3 ROAs, though I also knew many others who never did go to one. My impression was that few folks ever attended more than maybe 3 ROAs.

:)

On the other hand, in some areas, ROA pretty much cleared out the twi people for a week.

I've had a Branch meeting at an ROA that was about Branch-sized.

And the whole thing of people meeting in "their twigs" meant it was expected that

enough people from home were visiting that they could run a small meeting.

(Although it was also said you could just find one meeting anywhere if yours wasn't

in attendance.)

So, it averages out to roughly 50/50.

Which means we agree it's "about right."

Stripes

Ivan Reitman

Ghostbusters 2

Carl Smuda:

"Yes! the big Big BIG difference between JW's and TWI is SONSHIP RIGHTS. The very heart of the revelation given to Paul the Apostle is only to the 144,000 from the book of Revelations.

Only the 144,000 can eat the bread and drink the wine at their annual communion. Manifestations of the Spirit? Fruit of the Spirit? Walking by the Spirit? Dying-and-Rising with Christ? Body-of-Christ? As far as I could tell, the very best of the very best from the Church Epistles is only describing "the anointed" which to the JW teachings is the 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes listed in Revelations."

Noni:

"Interesting if thats true I never heard of it.I must not have been paying attention.Typical of me though.I heard the 144,000 thing my whole life and never knew that."

Revelation 7:1-8, New American Standard.

" 1After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.

2And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea,

3saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads."

4And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

5from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,

6from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,

7from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,

8from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed."

12 tribes (all named) multiplied by 12000 sealed from each equals 144,000.

It's the ONLY mention of 144,000 in the Bible as a number of any kind.

Not in any way to try to take anything from Sunesis' posts

(which summarize things marvellously, IMHO),

but one last thought occurred to me which I felt

emphasized the guarantee of utter failure for this concept.

You've got kids who want to try to "fix" twi.

So, they're making arrangements, plans and deals

COVERTLY

in the hopes that the WayGB and the bod don't catch them

and come down on them like a falling safe.

They think things could be better.

(Things can ALWAYS be improved.)

So they have to plan SECRETLY to introduce God's blessings.

Let's say you've got someone who thinks a website and

message-forums could be improved.

He doesn't have the talents to really transform them,

and lacks the knowledge to speak authoritatively.

He rolls up his sleeves and gets to simple posts and

trying to find the information and organize the information

that's already there. Nobody stops him. Eventually,

a few people start to think of him as someone who's making

a positive difference there, and knows stuff.

Which he does know, eventually.

Having compared those 2 side-by-side,

I can see one is a healthy setup,

and one is NOT a healthy setup.

I think comparing the two makes it baldly obvious for just about

everyone else, too.

Ultimately, though, I think Sunesis' answers said it all.

*looks it up*

Sharon was right.

Sharon's turn.

Go, Sharon!

:)

If I'm not being too pretentious about having this right, maybe I'd better shoot one out now,; after tomorrow night I may be offline a couple days. If I was wrong, ignore me.

"See? Now we ain't arrested."

The actor who uttered this line had quite a career as an actor and a singer. Yet despite his prominence, he wasn't the biggest star of this flick.

*looks up movie*

Since LiftedUp's not here, and NOBODY's biting, I figured we could nudge this a little

and add another quote from the movie...

"See? Now we ain't arrested."

"I'm going with you. I can draw pretty fast. We can be famous--like the Dalton Brothers!"

"They're famous--but they're just a little bit dead. They were hung!"

Couldn't just link to Joey Pantoliano, could you.....

*brain melts*

Ok...

Freejack (ha!)

Jerry Hall

Batman(1989)

(Thought I was gonna snap and link back to Emilio, didn't you?)

"Weenie Roast".

GSC term.

An informal get-together for people of the GSC and anyone who feels like

showing up with them, or without them if they were really inclined.

The event includes a cookout, a general get-together and shooting the breeze.

The event is notorious for lacking any required activities, mainstage teachings,

witnessing assignments, or face-melting sessions.

6)

On this site can you point me in the direction of a thread were it explains TWI doctrin.I've read a lot of the threads but I'm still confused as to the peticulars of the doctrins.

6)

You've been reading the threads in "About the Way."

At the top of "About the Way" are 2 "sticky/pinned" threads.

One is called

"Welcome to the Greasespot Cafe (a guide for new arrivals.)"

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=7913

It's designed so that new arrivals can get basic information without asking a stack of questions FIRST.

(AFTER, it's perfectly fine to need lots of answers.)

It gives a tour of all the places you'll want to look over and read.

There's permanent documents, audio files, editorials and so on accessible

from the Main Menu and Documents sections.

It will take MONTHS to really do a complete read-through of all of them.

I recommend even old-timers review them once a year as a refresher.

(I review them 1-2 times a year myself, although I don't reread ALL the

files and newspaper clippings each time.) It makes it easier to remember

what's written where.

As that sticky points out, the GREASESPOT 101 forum

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showforum=12

has some threads that are especially useful for new arrivals.

Of particular utility for them would be the glossary of terms

such as it is:

"Way-speak and Greasespot-speak."

http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=4734

It's unorganized, and there's discussions running thru, and someone

decided to throw in a stack of terms that were never used by either

twi or the GSC (this place),

but at the moment, it's the best one-stop-shop for an introduction

to various concepts, practices, doctrines, names and so on

connected with twi's past and present that exists.

(Eventually, me or someone else will improve on it.)

Feel free to ask more questions-but please at least review that

glossary first. And don't be surprised when people point you to

some of the documents and editorials when you ask more questions.

Your honest questions are always welcome at the Greasespot Cafe.

I have some question for those willing to answer.

1) Did they have baptizems in TWI?

2) How many are there in TWI?

3) When you went door to door did you have to count your hours and turn them in?

4) When you went door to door what was the purpose?

5) Was there a requirement of hours you had to put in the door to door ministry?

6) On this site can you point me in the direction of a thread were it explains TWI doctrin.I've read a lot of the threads but I'm still confused as to the peticulars of the doctrins.I would like to learn as much as possiable so I don't sound stupid to all of you for not knowing. :)

I have more but I don't want to over load anyone.So I'll save them for later.

Ok, I covered 1-3 so far....

4)

The purpose of going door-to-door was to SELL PFAL/WAP CLASSES.

There were pep talks that said things about blessing the people and stuff,

but the intent was to SELL foundational classes,

pfal in the 70s/80s,

wap in the 90s/00s.

Why?

Well, it was faster to sell a class, and the goals were more concrete.

Supposedly, someone might want to stay in the group once they finished it.

(Of course, it failed miserably with wap, since wap only worked with

people who had a background in twi for a year or more, and didn't

question lcm's poor explanations.)

The MAIN reason it was to SELL CLASSES, though,

was because selling classes meant selling seat in the class, which meant

that twi made more money. (ALL TWI CLASSES WERE ORGANIZED AS

PROFIT-MAKING VENTURES. TWI CLASSES WERE NEVER DESIGNED TO

'BREAK-EVEN' OR EVEN CONSIDER THAT AN OPTION.)

So, if the person just paid for the class, then twi made a profit.

If the person stuck around, they'd be leaned on to tithe, and twi makes

10% plus whatever else they could be squeezed for-

lcm said 15% and the goal was 'everything beyond your immediate need',

and there were always MORE classes and MORE books,

and whenever "the bookstore" was run at an event, even items like

concordances were priced retail after twi got a ministry discount,

so twi ALWAYS made every penny they could. Oh, and don't ever think

they PAID the people who ran "the bookstore" at events.

Unless you were at hq at the permanent one, they were unpaid volunteers.

Remember,

your money is always welcome at the way.

Sometimes, you are welcome to accompany it.

(Ask me for more details later.)

5)

Requirement for hours going door-to-door?

The answer to that is pretty much the same as the answer to 3).

Let me know if you need more info after rereading it.

I have some question for those willing to answer.

1) Did they have baptizems in TWI?

2) How many are there in TWI?

3) When you went door to door did you have to count your hours and turn them in?

4) When you went door to door what was the purpose?

5) Was there a requirement of hours you had to put in the door to door ministry?

6)

On this site can you point me in the direction of a thread were it explains TWI doctrin.I've read a lot of the threads but I'm still confused as to the peticulars of the doctrins.I would like to learn as much as possiable so I don't sound stupid to all of you for not knowing. :)

I have more but I don't want to over load anyone.So I'll save them for later.

I don't know how questions about twi don't end up in "about twi", but I'll give this a shot.

1) If you mean "infant water baptisms", no. twi taught/teaches that water is unnecessary,

but a baptism in holy spirit IS necessary, and that requires no ritual.

Occasionally, a parent may do some sort of "dedication" ceremony-declaring they will raise their child

up according to the Lord/twi doctrine, but I haven't heard of that becoming common, standardized,

or a requirement. (Then again, if it HAS, it would not surprise me.)

2)

twi has always been fond of inflating their numbers. They've claimed over 100,000 people have been

members, when perhaps, at most, 100,000 ever took their foundational classes-both verions.

What that means is there were maybe 100,000 people who signed up for pfal and wap.

Please note that many or most who took wap had taken pfal, but wap was mandatory sooner or later.

Not everyone who signed up made it to Session 12, not everyone who made it to Session 1 completed

Session 12. (That's using pfal Sessions, I don't know what the final session# was for wap.)

And not everyone who completed pfal was there past 3 months or past 1 year. Using my own pfal class

as a guesstimate, 250,000 of the people claimed were every actually attendees, and that was across the

entire history of twi, not as attendees the entire time. (Many people who joined in the early 70s were gone

by the mid-70s, and so on.) So, for "membership" at any one time, I'd say between 1/5 and 1/10

of that would be more accurate, meaning between 50,000 and 25,000 at their biggest.

The best guesstimater I've ever heard was that 1/2 the current twi members attended ROA.

(Although occasionally new people attended.) So, take the number of attendees in any year,

double it, and you have the "membership" for that year. Attendance#s at ROA were consistent with

attendance#s overall, proportionally, and I got the statistics to back it up. :)

Someone once said that 24000 attended ROA '84, if only for a day or so, and that they

figured worldwide attendance to be somewhere approaching 40,000 that year-their apex of membership.

If we are being generous, I'll say 40,000 at the most, with 30,000 as the biggest possible

US attendance, with the remainder across all other countries.

That changed in the years between 1985-1990.

vpw died in 1985, and he'd appointed lcm as his successor a few years before. lcm was unable to pull off

the mysterious "I have a connection with God that you don't" thing vpw did. Around 1985, some leaders

protested "difficulties" at the leadership level, and cg wrote up "passing of the patriarch."

The next few years are what lcm himself called "the fog years", and ended in 1989, when lcm

"drew a line in the sand" and demanded all twi people declare an oath of loyalty to him, and anyone who

didn't wasn't welcome in twi anymore. That heavy-handed maneuver used to work when vpw used

it on SMALL numbers of people in his "way corps" program, but when lcm tried it on a large scale

at that place and time, it blew up in his face.

A FEW people had split 1985-1987, but 80% of the group left 1989-1990.

(ROA 1990 had fewer than 20% of the attendees ROA 1988 had.)

Since then, the group has been hemmorhaging members. They have nothing with which to

draw new people, and other Christians have more to offer their CURRENT members than they

themselves do. The organization currently has 4 types of members:

A) those in power who must keep the group together or face unemployment

B) those inside so long they're terrified of the outside world and other Christians

C) those kids who've been educated to be terrified of the outside world

D) members who are looking for a good chance to leave.

A number of years back, twi quoted ALL membership as 5000 worldwide.

That included small children.

The group is still in "negative population growth", but they went back to hiding their

numbers. Based off a more recent meeting, and skipping those not old enough to

take their classes, membership is somewhere closer to 1500 adults,

possibly 2000 total members overall, but more likely less at present,

and never likely to INCREASE. Numbers of losses can slow, but they won't REVERSE.

So,

membership peaked in 1984 at approximately 40,000 worldwide.

Membership as of 2006 is probably about 1,500 worldwide.

With numbers being hidden by twi whenever possible.

3)

Door-to-door....

There apparently was a short, aborted program to "sell" pfal door-to-door in the 1970s.

Most people don't remember that, since even those "in" at the time often heard nothing

about it.

In the 1990s, after more than 80% of the members had left, lcm tried lots of things to

increase the amount of money coming in, and to increase numbers.

(He'd chased off most of the people-and most of their tithing, more importantly.)

One of them was requiring door-to-door in some areas.

Further, at some points, all the corps grads in state were called in for a statewide

("limbwide") meeting. When they arrived, they were paired off and told to go

door-to-door.

At some points, wows (one-year committments to go "sell pfal") would go door-to-door.

That was more often than other people doing it.

So, there's different types of people to answer this,

thus, different answers.

I AM aware that the 1990s under lcm was a period of INCREDIBLE legalism and

anal-retentive record-taking and rules-following were richly rewarded and wildly encouraged.

During that time-period, I would be VERY shocked if each person wasn't required to

keep records. I do know someone said they were told to keep track of what blocks

they'd covered before, so they'd skip them next time.

I was asked about a formal discussion on this sort of thing.

vpw and lcm ridiculed other Christians for THEIR ceremonies,

then turned around and made their OWN.

What ceremonies do you remember,

when did they happen,

and what happened at them?

WordWolf --- care to reply? ;)

How did I become in charge of answering all the questions?

:blink:

Raf,

Are you going to keep your articles somewhere? Just interested.

Eagle

Please keep the articles up, whether there, here, or somewhere else

easy to find. They're a valuable resource.

(And TWI really, really wants you to take them down.:) )

GrouchoJr,

8/3/06, 5:24pm,

the "Hippies, conspiracy" thread.

The hippie movement was to Wierwille what children were to PT Barnum...He found his audience.

Since you asked...

That's attributed to Lawrence Tribble,

circa the American Revolution.

From "The Great Awakening", the poem's called "Awaken."

One man awake, awakens another.

The second awakens his next door brother.

The three awake can rouse a town,

By turning the whole place upside down.

The many awake can make such a fuss,

It finally awakens the rest of us.

One man up with dawn in his eyes,

Surely then multiplies.

If it's not, it should be!

I would think that kids raised in the Way would be very judgemental and rigid with unbelievers. I can't imagine that they could show enough warmth and friendship to 'move the Word' like it happened in the distant past.

These kids have been raised with endless confrontations and expectations of instant obedience,

plus the knowledge and attitude that they are better than everyone else because of the Rightly Divided Word.

I would think that would translate to their social skills. They might be able to act sweet for a while, but I expect it wouldn't be long before the demands and commands would start..

I know that in our fellowship in the nineties, new people would come once or so, but no one stuck around for long.

We have noticed, whenever we've interacted with them, that most seem emotionally

dysfunctional, haven't we?

And even the slightest disagreements have resulted in condescension and the expectation

that the dissenter will toe the line.

And the entire "we can transform the wreckage that have stymied thousands of GSC'ers"

smacks of a knowledge and attitude that they are better than everyone else

more than a realistic appraisal of their assets.

I'm picturing a bird and a plate-glass window.

Plus, if they weren't on a "better than everyone else" kick, trying to bail water out of the

Titanic would seem a bit more futile.

I even remember him shaking his head (LCM) as if he was in "deep research" trying to find one verse , just one that said sex "before marriage" is sin.

He kept looking around saying "I just don't see it ".

lcm never found the verses saying that fornication and adultery are wrong

for the same reason a thief can't find a policeman.

Around 1971,

one of the participants gave this description.

(TW:LiL, pg-43-44)

"The Corps program is the best. To live here and have the Doctor

work with us is extraordinary. He allows us to see the ministry through

his eyes. He shares everything with us. And sometimes it's a bummer.

But he lays it out.

The idea of the Corps is to transmit the commitment and dedication of the

ministry to us so that we can teach others where he can't be himself.

It works by osmosis here.

I can't quite express it in words, but I can

feel it and see it and know it. It's learning to be keen and sensitive to

the spirit of God anywhere and anytime. We are really privileged to be

able to do this here.

I'm not saying this is the only place it can be done. It's possible to

reach that point of knowledge and zeal anywhere if people work the Word

and renew their minds. But this, the Corps program, is the fastest way.

What we learn here in two years would take ten to fifteen years in the

outside world to learn."

Far from an objective position, but it's exactly the impression vpw wanted

broadcast at the time the book was written, so that's approximately the

documentation of an advertisement made in that year.

So, that's what he was SAYING it was at the time.

I almost linked back to Superman 3....

Now, how's THIS for a link?

Pootie-tang

Chris Rock

Dogma

He also downgraded "sin" into "broken fellowship".

As Raf has pointed out, "broken fellowship" is ONE CONSEQUENCE of sin,

not the same as sin.

Taken as an aggregate, the sum total of what he said on sin was FAR more in terms of encouraging

permissiveness than mourning and refraining from sin.

Not that beating people with a terror and complex over sin is a goal either,

but most Christians have a much healthier position than the 2 extremes.

We don't have to choose between "the leader can rape the women because he doesn't

condemn himself in that which he alloweth"

and

"you can never, ever make the slightest mistake or you'll be a greasespot by midnight".

We've been delivered from BOTH of those.

If you count a few people who don't post daily, he IS idolized, no qualifiers.

Let's try to keep names off the threads of people who haven't consented

to tell their stories here, though, 'kay?

========

Based on this recollection, that possible story sounds a lot more probable....

Dot:

"When I laid out some word to VPW on adultery his response was "What so ever things are pure...think on those things" He said it was MY THINKING evil is what made it evil.

He also told a small group at Emporia one night to teach their children about their bodies, "you can brush their nipple with your hand and show them how it hardens. You can show them not to be ashamed of their body reactions" Then he shared about the African Tribe where the Father broke the hymen of the daughters to get them experienced in sex to prepare them for marriage --he thought it to be beautiful.

VPW had already let me see his dark side. Sitting there I thought OH MY GOD, this is subtle but he is teaching this group that it is beautiful to teach your daughters how to have sex, it is just not accepted in our culture! He was standing behind his sex problems and setting us up to have sex with our godly "family" as well as the earthly one."