WordWolf

"It's A Hard Rain Gonna Fall". -Edie Brickell covered it, I think it was originally Bob Dylan's song. Is that it?

pg-233, vpw tells the Board of Trustees about the group, and they offer to bring them onsite for a Summer School. "We said we'd pay, and they'd be on a work scholarship. They all copped out except Steve and Sandi and their son, Stevie. I liked them all. I thought they were wonderful-free and honest. But I saw their congestion, their lack of knowledge, lack of grounding in the Word; and I knew that their communal living could not survive." I especially LOVE LOVE LOVE to compare this next quote with a young person called vpw... "He was like lots of the young people today. He didn't know how to work. But I knew you had to have discipline, self-discipline, to really work that Word and learn. If you can't work in a field or dig a ditch for a day, what kind of discipline would you have working the Word of God?" ======= Uncle Harry W: "Our Dad said 'You haven't even learned to work well on the farm. You'll never make a good preacher.' But VP used to practice by preaching to the trees." Uncle Harry chuckles at the recollection. "He'd go out to the woods for hours. Dad thought he was loafing, but I knew what was going on. He was preaching to the trees." Really, Harry? You admitted you didn't SEE him most of the time. Why wasn't he doing his chores in sight and preaching to the animals on the farm, or, you know, the other kids, people who might actually hear something of use? Maybe Dad was on to something. David was a good shepherd FIRST, then a good man of God.... ============ Judging from what he's saying, the adult vpw said the teen vpw was disqualified for the ministry...

================ Ok, so someone might wonder, aren't we taking this too far? Granted, vpw claimed orgies were FINE with God. And of course, this was after he'd been DRINKING and not careful who he confided in. ("In vino, veritas.") That, in and of itself, does not indicate that vpw would actually PARTAKE of orgies or sex, or that he would actually drug women or anything. It indicates a pattern of thinking that would ALLOW such a thing, however. From there, however, you can follow the trail of broken lives. vpw told a few people in his inner circle that it was fine, and publicly said it was wrong while privately acting as if it was right. One poster discussed how this was "practiced"... "You know what else is sick? Some of the parties these girls, not yet at the drinking age of 21, went to...Well, there was Howard and other old guys and they had booze. The got these kids drinking and then these old guys started kissing on them with an overall orgy flavor to the event. Now suppose one of your kids said, 'Mom and Dad, I went to this lecture of Jesus. It was great! But then I was asked to a party and the old minister and other old male church people gave us drinks and were pulling us on top of them touching us! Mom and Dad, I was so drunk one of the old men placed his hand under my panties!' We would all be outraged and go do some @$$kicking. Yet here some of us sit and discuss if maybe VPW was a little horny or the 70's were a free sex period...I grew up in the 70's and I was not into free sex and the idiot Weirwille tried to get me...." ==== I think we all are familiar enough with the first-hand accounts of women who vpw himself tried to force himself on, claiming it wasn't a sin, claiming God APPROVED it..... I think we all are familiar enough with the first-hand accounts of women who were victims of the people led into this sort of felony by their criminal ringleader. Seeing the early stages of this being set, seeing slips of the tongue, this is disturbing, but, I believe, necessary to see.

Well, not always. A lot of the time, a plain meaning was retained. The times when it was discarded are when vpw wanted it to say something else. As a result, a convoluted explanation developed where what it MEANT wasn't what it SAID, but rather what vpw WANTED it to mean. I imagine there was also some alternate rendering of "fornication" as in "flee fornication" and "to avoid fornication" and so on, which would allow him to not flee or avoid it.

"I know that vpw was kept secluded his final years.....When LCM became president...he and the bot told the older folks and leadership....to stay away from vpw because they (the bot) needed all of his time and energy to teach them how to run the ministry. Apparently vp was unaware of what the bot was doing ....because friends that had been kept at arms length for a few years finally made contact and found out that he was completely bewildered as to why everyone had seemingly abandoned him. As I understand it he was lonely and felt betrayed...swept aside." ========= Of course, being El Jefe Grande, he couldn't be bothered to pick up a phone, or put pen to paper and find a stamp, and contact someone seeming distant.

'a la prochaine': "And I liked especially the tenderness among them. You see, they themselves had previously been on sex and dope, so they didn't find fault with everything all the time. They'd hug and kiss each other and that I liked. They were always affectionate. I saw a lot that I liked there." Egads. You see, <BR>they themselves had previously been on sex and dope, so they didn't<BR>find fault with everything all the time What does this mean exactly? What is VP insinuating here? Was he possibly saying that he believed these young people to be 'liberal' with their ideas of sex and perhaps extra-marital sex was acceptable to them???? ================ Well, rather than my opinion, let's have some quotes from an eyewitness. Jim Doop said the following, which you all may wish to memorize: [About an incident with vpw] "As we relaxed and had a second drink, he asked Judy and me to describe what it was like to attend an orgy. We were taken back by the question and embarassed by it, because even though it was part of our testimony in our deliverance from sin to God's righteousness, no one had ever asked us to describe what it was like to go to an orgy. We found his curiousity shocking. But we gave him a brief description which is really all we could give him since our encounter with an orgy had been so brief. We had attended one orgy sponsored by the San Francisco Sexual Freedom League, but we were so overwhelmed by the spectacle that we had left after twenty minutes. 'You know that's all available," V.P. said. 'God put it in I Corinthians 7:1 which He said "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." If it wasn't available to have sex outside the marriage God would have said "best" instead of "good". I could not believe what I was hearing. I responded with 'I just thank God that He pulled our souls out of that pit of debauchery.' When Judy and I went to bed, I said to her, 'I don't believe what he said tonight, and I'm going to forget it. I must have misunderstood him.' " ============== Let me repeat that, because it sounds VAGUELY IMPORTANT. [About an incident with vpw] "As we relaxed and had a second drink, he asked Judy and me to describe what it was like to attend an orgy. We were taken back by the question and embarassed by it, because even though it was part of our testimony in our deliverance from sin to God's righteousness, no one had ever asked us to describe what it was like to go to an orgy. We found his curiousity shocking. But we gave him a brief description which is really all we could give him since our encounter with an orgy had been so brief. We had attended one orgy sponsored by the San Francisco Sexual Freedom League, but we were so overwhelmed by the spectacle that we had left after twenty minutes. 'You know that's all available," V.P. said. 'God put it in I Corinthians 7:1 which He said "It is good for a man not to touch a woman." If it wasn't available to have sex outside the marriage God would have said "best" instead of "good". I could not believe what I was hearing. I responded with 'I just thank God that He pulled our souls out of that pit of debauchery.' When Judy and I went to bed, I said to her, 'I don't believe what he said tonight, and I'm going to forget it. I must have misunderstood him.' " ============= In plain English, vpw asked for details about an orgy. He then said "that" was "all available"- that is, that God did not disallow it. "All that" was an orgy. vpw said God permitted ORGIES. Not just premarital sex- which IS wrong, and you don't need to read Schoenheit's paper to know this- but ORGIES.

"As you know, Wierwille had recently taken Leonard's class. He returned to O-hiya to teach Leonard's class with Leonard's blessing. The accompanying article was about this Rev. Wierwille teaching CTC's Gifts of the Spirit course to members of his congregation in O-hiya. Turns out wierwille lied to the man, co-opted the man's work as his own. FAMILIAR PATTERN!" Here's what that means in plainer English. vpw takes Leonard's class. vpw REtakes Leonard's class. vpw then goes off for a few months by himself. vpw tells Leonard "I'd like to run your CTC's Gifts of the Spirit course to my local congregation." Leonard concludes that this would bless that single congregation, and approves this, giving his blessing for this one Gifts of the Spirit class. vpw then prepares to run "his" class-using Leonard's material but slapping his name on it, and calling it "Power For Abundant Living" rather than "Gifts of the Spirit". While vpw tells the new students it is HIS class, he tells Leonard he is running LEONARD's class, and even provides Leonard with a copy of the class photos for Leonard's scrapbook. Leonard, trusting other Christians as he does, believes vpw and does not realize vpw is lying through his teeth until later, after vpw has run several of "his" classes. ================ templelady:" Okay,, ***DEEP BREATH HERE*** Are you telling me that VPW ran Leonards class "Receiving the Holy Spirit" under Leonard's Direction FIRST???? And then turned around and re named it PFAL and ran it under his own name????" =========== Not quite. vpw ran Leonard's class, period. He got Leonard's approval to teach LEONARD's class, and told him he would be teaching LEONARD's class on a one-time basis. He then taught LEONARD's class, and told Leonard that was what he was doing.... but he told all the STUDENTS "This is MY class on Power For Abundant Living." He then completed his deception to Leonard by sending Leonard a copy of the class photos, saying "Here's some photos of the students in your class." Meanwhile, the students never HEARD of Leonard NOR his class. They are told this is vpw's class. Leonard then believes there are no further runs of HIS class. Meanwhile, vpw runs more, and never tells Leonard....

Funny how that question didn't hit me until now, and I posted the thing twice already. It only hit me on this re-read now myself. (Seconds before I read Oakspear's post, but hours after he posted it.) If vpw was telling the truth, the Christian Life subscription was wasted, and was poor stewardship. I once had a gift of a subscription to Christianity Today, and I read that thing cover-to-cover, and sometimes quoted things from it. (Rarely, I even made photocopies.) Then again, it's possible they had some sort of free program for preachers, and he just lined up for the free buffet. Even so, it's STILL poor stewardship of the things of God.

Those are informal get-togethers of GSC posters/readers and other interested parties. An attendee could give you more info than that, but that's the essence of it.

Maybe it's some subtle psychological thing. You know- he wants to conceal how important something is to him, so he labels it "trash" and claims he threw it in the trash. So, to himself he denies it had value..... ..unless it's about how he "rescued it from the trash", so he's entitled to call it his. You know, like if someone was discarding a dining-room-chair, and you took it home and cleaned it up, it's yours. So, he picked up Leonard's stuff, and the hippies, and so they're his, now.

The film was made fall of 1967. He was making plans to visit the fellowship in San Jose, when he makes another ashcan discovery... "The day before I left to go out there, I saw an article in Christian Life magazine. The truth is I never read Christian Life. I used to get it, look over the titles and pictures and throw it into the wastebasket. But that particular time, I was led to look through that magazine, and I saw in it an article about a group of young hippie Christians doing missionary work in Haight-Ashbury. I read it, and Father said, 'Put it in your briefcase.'" pg-231, he arrives in San Jose, and tells them he wants to go to Haight-Ashbury. From there he goes to "the Living Room", a Christian house in Haight-Ashbury. There he meets Ted Wise, who invites him to Novato to the House of Acts... pg-231. At the House of Acts with Ted... "I went with him. We got there. The women were in the kitchen: Sandi Heefner, Judy Doop and Ted's wife. It was interesting because they were mixing up stuff-a big green salad in a bowl, bread, doing a whole trip. I don't know how many we had around the table- maybe 16 -and then the men came home, Steve Heefner and Jimmy Doop. They had just spent the day witnessing in Haight-Ashbury. We all had supper together. The women cleaned the table and all the men yakked. And finally we got around to the Word. The discussion centered around the Holy Spirit. " "They'd been reading the book of Acts, and I asked them if they wanted me to teach them the Holy Spirit. They were hungry, but skeptical. It was 2am by the time I finished teaching from the book of Acts. Then they all got into a circle, and I started to lead them into speaking in tongues. None of them had spoken in tongues. The most interesting thing was how they all fought over the Word-Steve and Ted and Jim. They'd argue. I'd let them, then I'd give then the Word. Then they'd argue some more, then I'd go on to another verse." He said he liked how they were candid and upfront- if they didn't like you, they told you, if they did like you, they told you that. However, this is an amazing quote... "And I liked especially the tenderness among them. You see, they themselves had previously been on sex and dope, so they didn't find fault with everything all the time. They'd hug and kiss each other and that I liked. They were always affectionate. I saw a lot that I liked there." ================== ====================

Right. In a traditional Ponzi scheme, the entire thing is a scam. The people on the top get most of the money, and the people below them at each level get money from the level below THEM. That means the only level getting NO money is the bottom level. In twi, there wasn't that distribution. It all went to the top. === Actually, I'm unsure if the Territory Coordinators received a salary. Looking back, it's my impression that the 89 split sent the corps-grad Territory Coordinators looking for cars and jobs. If the coordinators are considered Ponzi levels, then they DID get something back. Everybody Limb level or higher had a house, car and a comfortable salary. ========= Before the 89 split, the people who ran classes received some thanks from the GRADS who retook it, who passed the hat as a gesture of thanks. Of course, locally, we filled the classes with as many people as we could-new students, staff and grads. (No, just the coordinator got a gift.) So passing the hat around among the grads covered more than just a Pez dispenser. I know one class, the coordinator was given a leatherbound Companion Bible. I'm unsure of the others. However, that was the LOCALS paying, and, of course, not a plugged nickel came from the powers-that-be. With the exception of the tapes and books, EVERYTHING came from us locally. ==== AFTER the 89 split, all us locals left, and all the fun left with us.

*looks it up* I've heard OF this song, but I haven't HEARD this song.

============== "That film plus research in the holy spirit field are the greatest blessing to anybody who wants to know the Word of God and the power in His Word. They just lay it out to you. The work's been done-the research and putting it into a shape that communicates it-we've just got to reach the people with it now. That film really made possible the tremendous growth of the ministry. With it we could start many classes separately. I could go out, and the film could go out. I didn't have to be there, and that's when the blossoming really began." The film was made fall of 1967. ===============

Me, I think that having other priorities in your life is a healthy thing. Having more important stuff to do-is GREAT. Being able to survive without us-is GREAT. But I look forward to reading your future posts.

Sorry I didnt find this in time to include this on the same page, but TheEvan posted this once. (1/17/05, 12:04pm) "...surely you are familiar with the photos of Wierwille's first two 'PFAL' classes? Well, most everybody was, as they were published often enough. Did you ever see the rest of them? Like the ones picturing the water baptisms? I did. But I didn't see them in Da Way. I saw them in some old newsletters displayed at BG Leonard's 90th birthday party, which we hosted for him. I was just casually leafing through some old ones and you can imagine the jolt I got when my eyes landed on a familiar picture. It was the old "1st Piffle Class" photo I'd seen so many times. As you know, Wierwille had recently taken Leonard's class. He returned to O-hiya to teach Leonard's class with Leonard's blessing. The accompanying article was about this Rev. Wierwille teaching CTC's Gifts of the Spirit course to members of his congregation in O-hiya. Turns out wierwille lied to the man, co-opted the man's work as his own. FAMILIAR PATTERN! All of which disqualifies him in any way from having been in public ministry of any kind. Period. However you burnish it and photograph it with a warm hazy glow, the conclusion is clear in the harsh light of day."

Kindly keep prostelyting posts, or any discussions, off this thread. It is only for quotes from elsewhere in the board, and that's IT.

"That film plus research in the holy spirit field are the greatest blessing to anybody who wants to know the Word of God and the power in His Word. They just lay it out to you. The work's been done-the research and putting it into a shape that communicates it-we've just got to reach the people with it now. That film really made possible the tremendous growth of the ministry. With it we could start many classes separately. I could go out, and the film could go out. I didn't have to be there, and that's when the blossoming really began." ==================== "That film plus research in the holy spirit field are the greatest blessing to anybody who wants to know the Word of God and the power in His Word. They just lay it out to you." Well, I'd agree at least in part. They contain a lot of useful information. Not necessarily "the greatest blessing" or greatest in the world like he usually claimed of just about EVERYTHING he was connected to. "The work's been done-the research and putting it into a shape that communicates it-" True-and for that I thank BG Leonard, who's main DELAY was the caution which was the natural reaction to having his carefully-constructed class ripped-off by a fellow-Christian who LIED to him. If not for that, my opinion is that Leonard would have made his classes available on tape decades ago. "we've just got to reach the people with it now." vpw had succeeded in finding something valuable, and now he was going to use his talents to market and distribute it, granting himself an increasing finance-base of 10% of the income of increasing numbers of people. Actually, I'd say the growth of the ministry was due to 3 factors: A) the class itself-which was Leonard's B) the taping of the class-which was just filming Leonard's work C) the Christians on the field-without which fewer people would have taken that class. They were the "advertising" and Leonard provided the substance. vpw himself was purely in Marketing there...

Mike: "I detect a sense of desparation in many jeering posters. It's obvious WW is desparate to nullify and obfuscate my points with pointy headedness. Why do I rate such attention and time? I must be hitting home some points that the goons who hound me are too nervous to allow unopposed." ==== Mike always "detects desperation" when he's peeled like grape. It's almost like a blinking neon sign that he can only respond by throwing insults or retreating. The double-appearance of the word "desperation/desparate" establishes this. :D The invocation of "high-faluting" words is an attempt to cover his deficiencies with enough syllables. "See, I know long words. I must be smart. Since I'm smart, I must be right." Finally, the quick succession of insults- goons, hound, nervous- exist to salve his own shaken self-esteem, bruised from being shellacked like a wooden chair. ==== In other words, WordWolf says "I do believe I've hit a nerve. Since I'm on a roll, I'll whack it again."

Oakspear: "The point is to demonstrate the unreliability of VP's statements to anyone who might be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. How many out there still believe things simply because Wierwille said it? For example: Even if one claims to have "worked the Word" on one's own, if the definitions of Greek & Hebrew words are Wierwille's, then the conclusions are going to be skewed It's not that anyone really cares about light bulbs, but the holes in his story casts doubt on his truthfullness, and therefore his trustworthiness." ========== ======= The Undisputed GSC Master of PFAL: " 'Ah, the birth pangs of PFAL...'I bore you son, and don't you forget it. I was in labor for TWELVE STINKING DAYS!!!!!" Geeze." ========== ====== templelady: "Now here is the thing: Setting aside the fact that I seriously doubt VPW would have risked lifelong blindness to film 'piffle' I have had a mild case of snow blindness. Once your eyes become sensitized the first time, they react 10 times faster on subsequent exposures. They have a built in-defense mechanism. So if you stood staring into lights so bright that your eyes swelled shut on day one... On day two, when those same lights hit your eyes again, your eyes would immediately start to swell shut. You might have 30-45 minutes, if that long. You can soothe your eyes with ice but they will continue to react to those lights which your brain now understands to be dangerous. It takes several weeks before your eyes stop watering and reacting even with a mild case of snow blindness so I can'and swelling t imagine how long it would take for them to return to normal after two complete days of 8,000 watt lighting." ===========

My long-term goal is for membership to decline to the degree that total overall membership will be insufficient to displace water in a hot tub. :D

Hm. There's some good possibilities here, and some bad possibilities. I'll skip the hockey flick and the buddy-cop flick, and go the Best of Times Robin Williams Mrs Doubtfire

I think he likes to GUESS, LU, so please post one.

Yes. And if you're disinterested in the lightbulb illumination level, there's plenty of other threads to interest you. I'm disinterested in convincing you this thread is interesting and useful to lots of people. If it's not so to you, find a thread that thrills you. =============== George, that's true, and it's good to bring the physics of this into the discussion. The reason I don't think it is a factor, though, is not because I doubt your calculations. I think they're correct. The pics in the book don't show a huge studio. The entire area-including the camera plus wherever the lights are SUPPOSED to be-is a small stage. vpw is at one side, the camera on the other. There's not a lot of room to PUT lights in, which is why I wondered if they fit in a tight vertical column. If there was a bulky, heavy bank of lights, they would "have to be stupider than stupid" (as vpw said) to keep dragging it in and out of the room continuously. The physics of the pictures make it possible but inlikely that the lights might be in a NARROW vertical column. More likely, they moved the lights in and out periodically, and positioned them CENTRALLY. vpw claimed he looked "into" the lights. We know he looked into the camera. Therefore, the camera (to his right in the pics) could not have been ACROSS from the lights (to his left in the pics.) The camera was edged to the middle of the room, and moved forward and back as stage directions required. Whenever a chart needed to go up, the cameraman moved forward to isolate vpw onscreen, and allow room for the chart-flipper to pass BEHIND him and not cross the line of shot. Therefore, the lights were across the middle of the room, to a greater or lesser degree. Further, vpw said he looked "into" the lights, and that would have been impossible at wattages far in excess of what YOU used. We saw the videos, and the room didnt look brightly lit in them. They were lit, but not washed-out. If THAT much light was used in THAT small a room, there would have been a wash-out effect. So, were there bright lights? I think we all say "yes". How bright were they? Well, 2000 watts would have been bright enough, 4000 watts (double that) would be the high range for what they might have used. This business of 8000 watts looks like he plain exaggerated. (What else is new?) Furthermore, 8000 watts probably WOULD have prevented him from filming the SECOND day, let alone a third. Finally, someone LOWERED the lights and it was still bright. They weren't lowered MUCH in terms of overall brightness-we didn't go from day to night across a session or anything. So, I think he exaggerated, but the lights WERE bright.

Personally, I didn't think an apology was called for. (If Raf were FOLLOWED AROUND THE BOARD and attacked, THAT would call for an apology.) There was a misunderstanding, which led to an incorrect post, which led to a discussion. I'm glad everyone is agreeing to play nice. :)