WordWolf

*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) 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.

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 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?

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

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.

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!

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.

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."

[WordWolf responds in brackets and boldface, and trims down the original post.]

Adds spacing and punctuation to the post... Your choice what to go into and not, but if you can tell us some of it while leaving names and obvious identifiers out, it might be very useful to someone or other here. So, if you can be persuaded to share a bit more? (If not, hey, thanks for what you've shared so far.)

Tommy Flanagan, aka the Pathological Liar, aka the Liar. His most famous claim was his marriage to Morgan Fairchild.

You presented the "orthodox vpw" position on adultery and whether or not it's ok for us to commit it. That position follows up by dismissing all clear OT passages and all Gospel passages as "different administration." (And there's people here who would STILL say that-whether or not they would elect to POST it.) Therefore, the "obvious" response from the "orthodox vpw" position would have been dismissing the Proverbs acct, and then the Gospel acct, as invalid due to administration change. Rather than wait for someone to make what's the "standard" response before replying to it, I saved time and replied before the fact. (That makes it a general refutation of the "orthodox vpw" position.) Technically speaking, you personally had not posted that yet. When I was saying "you", I didn't mean "Tom", I meant "anyone holding this position"- a more general "you". I should have made that clearer-but most attempts would still have looked like I meant "Tom" no matter what I said. Please keep in mind- if you're going to use the same answers vpw gave, you're likely to get the same answers vpw would get if he were alive and posting them here. Healthy communication is a 2-way street-which means both of us need to be alert.

When you mentioned what was done to women, you made it clear you weren't condoning it. When you presented vpw's "argument", you made NO such distinction. Therefore, if you were not endorsing it, you gave the impression you were-so don't blame me for responding accordingly. If you want a more casual discussion as to whether a particular passage may or may not mean what vpw claimed it meant, we have those on separate threads in Doctrinal. And we phrase them more clearly. I myself had 2 different threads a few months back, examining 2 different bizarre claims of vpw, and I labelled them clearly-I wanted to know if there was Biblical justification for either. On each, we had an interesting discussion. Nobody thought I was holding forth either one.

Correct! For those who don't know the movie in their sleep... that was when they went to rescue Morpheus. They were wearing long jackets and carrying bags over their shoulders. Weighed down with machineguns and machinepistols and stuff. So when he reached the security checkpoint, Neo opened his jacket and showed a BUNCH of guns as he drew. Go, Ca D!

New movie. "Could you please remove any metallic items you may be carrying, keys, loose change... ..Holy sh*!"