WordWolf

You and the courts see things differently than Oldiesman. I know the holders of the various copyrights certainly CAN sue, legally. As to anyone else, I have no idea.

Correct-the LATEST it became a policy was in pfal. Both pfal-vpw's class and wap-lcm's class included/include a book that talks about nothing BUT the tithe and how it's expected. Job 31:35 (KJV) "Oh that one would hear me! behold, my desire is, that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversary had written a book." Taught in twi under vpw AND lcm- and mentioned during the AOS video. (Which we were expected to watch over...and over...and over... so it's easy for me to recall that-including the chapter and verse citation.) ================= I expect some people were harassed BECAUSE of refusing to tithe until they got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and left. Then the official reason they left was that they "copped out". The truth of the matter is slightly more complicated. ================= There's LEGAL sanctions (pay your taxes or you will be fined-pay the fine AND the tax or you will be jailed) and there's violence sanctions (give me all the money in your wallet or I will break the bones in your face) and there's SOCIAL sanctions. vpw himself taught on this, more than once. Here's the Scripture he used that I've heard him use.... "John 9: 1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. 2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. 4I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. 6When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 7And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. 8The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? 9Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. 10Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened? 11He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight. 12Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not. 13They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. 14And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes. 15Then again the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. He said unto them, He put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and do see. 16Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them. 17They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet. 18But the Jews did not believe concerning him, that he had been blind, and received his sight, until they called the parents of him that had received his sight. 19And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see? 20His parents answered them and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: 21But by what means he now seeth, we know not; or who hath opened his eyes, we know not: he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself. 22These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue. 23Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask him. 24Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. 25He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. 26Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? 27He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? 28Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. 29We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is. 30The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. 31Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. 32Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. 33If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. 34They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out." Now, to be kicked out of one church now, he said, is not a big deal- you can go down the block and join another. But in that place and time, to be kicked out of the synagogue was tantamount to being declared no longer a Jew. It meant other Jews could not deal with you as a Jew and so on. That's a SOCIAL SANCTION. You didn't do what they said- so your punishment is social. In this case, you were shunned. twi didn't hold a gun to your head. (Most of you.) However, all of you who were subjected to face-melting sessions by "leadership" for failing to tithe or abundantly share to the degree they considered sufficient, or failing to follow "suggestions" like "help me move" or "come clean my house" or "asking questions" faced SOCIAL SANCTIONS. Was there an overt threat of violence? No. Was there a threat and consequences? YES. You all saw people who left or were kicked out, and were told that this equated a death sentence since leaving twi ("GOD'S PROTECTION") meant harm and death were imminent. If anyone needs me to pull up some examples, I can do so. Was that a LITERAL gun? No. However, twi threatened death would come for the families-including children- who left twi. That's as close as they could legally come TO a gun without making a big bang sound.

lcm's article included the following: Here it is again... lcm made the claim that Abraham being called "the friend of God" is directly connected to Abraham having tithed. That's a logical fallacy, and I'll let another website explain it-since they can do a better job than I can. http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/logic_causation.html "Correlation and Causation: We experience the world in a time-oriented manner through cause and effect. First Lucy ate that white berry, then she became sick. First I hit Bob's foot with a hammer, then his foot swelled with a purple bruise. I conclude that eating the white berry is what actually made Lucy sick later. I conclude that being hit with a hammer is what later caused Bob's foot to swell. It is logical enough on the surface. Often, it seems clear--absolutely clear--that a specific action caused a second event to happen. This is what is known as causation. Many events appear to be the results brought about by identifiable causes, and the human mind is geared to look for these cause/effect relationships. We get into trouble when the mind seeks or creates an artificial cause/effect relationship that doesn't actually exist. After something especially beneficial or harmful occurs, we want to know what caused it. We tend to focus on the first action we noticed before the effect, then assume that it must have been the catalyst triggering the later event. Nine times out of ten, we're right. It was the white berry that made Lucy sick. It was true that hitting a foot with a hammer makes that foot swell and bruise. That makes us lazy intellectually; we forget that, one time out of ten, we pick the wrong cause. In Latin, this type of logical mistake is called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which means "After this, therefore because of this." It's the idea that any event which happened first must be the particular event that caused a good or bad event later, and once we find a possible answer we tend to snatch hold of it and then stop thinking about other possibilities. For example, suppose the fall term of classes ends in December. The manager of a toystore in the local mall hires one new worker. This worker is a college student named Stacy. She wants to do some work before spring term classes start. After Stacy is hired, the store's sales shoot up by 300%. "Wow!" the manager says to herself, "That Stacy is a fantastic sales worker! I haven't hired anyone else but Stacy. Still, since we hired her, our sales have tripled! I'd better give her a raise!" Is the manager's conclusion logical? Is it true that Stacy must be fantastic at her job? Odds are, nine out of ten readers at this point are nodding, thinking to themselves, "Yeah, it makes sense to me. You hire a new girl, and the sales go up. No other girls were hired. It must be the new girl's work." On the other hand, the tenth reader stopped and thought, "Wait a minute.... Didn't you say Stacy was hired in December? That's right around Christmas time. Maybe the reason the sales went up wasn't because of Stacy, but because of the time of year." The manager's conclusion now vanishes in a puff of logic. Which one were you? If you spotted the logical fallacy, puff out your chest and strut around in pride as an intellectual champion. You were clear-headed and avoided the post hoc error. If you didn't spot the problem, and made the same assumptions the manager did, don't feel too ashamed. Often causation is trickier than it looks. The problem is that correlation is different from causation. Correlation is when two or more things or events tend to occur at about the same time and might be associated with each other, but aren't necessarily connected by a cause/effect relationship. For instance, in sick people, a runny nose and a sore throat correlate to each other--they tend to show up in the same patients. That doesn't mean runny noses cause sore throats, or that sore throats cause runny noses, however. Forgetting that leads to sloppy thinking. Proud journalists point out that, in the last hundred years, no peaceful nation with a free press has ever experienced severe famine. They argue that freedom of the press prevents blunders in governmental policy and it allows more efficient advertising and dispersal of commodities like food. But is that true? On the other hand, no country with a tradition of honest, publically monitored elections has ever experienced massive famine in the last hundred years either--at least not in times of peace. Which factor "caused" the surplus agriculture and trade to prevent the fearsome famine? Was it free speech or free elections? Arguably, neither caused it. Perhaps it's all accidental. Free speech or elections might have no effect on agricultural output. Or have we got our cause and effect is backward? Did having sufficient food ensure a stable society so that free speech and democracy could blossom in the first place? Perhaps in famished lands, free speech and free elections fall by the wayside during and after the famine, and thus these hungry countries tend to slide into repressive dictatorships. If that's true, then repressive dictatorships might not actually bring famines upon themselves through clumsy management or a lack of advertising, as earlier suggested. This is not just a moot intellectual point. Public policy often hinges on spending money to bring about a specific effect. For instance, consider New York City in the 1980s. The city at that time was a dangerous place. Crime was at an all-time high then. Murders, prostitution, and drug-dealing had reached epic levels. New York had tried stiffer penalties, longer jail terms, mandatory counseling, methadone treatments, and a variety of other approaches without denting the ugly problem. Mayor Guiliani hired researchers to come in. What was one of the early findings? Analysts spotted a correlation between graffiti in an inner-city neighborhood and the relative crime-rate in that area. The more graffiti, the higher the crime rate. Treating this as a cause/effect relationship, New York's mayor Guiliani decided to alter the funding for the police department, cutting back money for some types of law-enforcement, pouring money into an city-wide anti-graffiti campaign, and arguing that a cleaner city would diminish the visual "mindset" of crime in the area. He enacted a zero-tolerance policy by prosecuting taggers who painted on public property, and he cleaned up Times Square and the trashiest parts of the city. As overall crime rates dropped in the 1990s, the mayor touted his program as a success. Impressed and surprised, other cities tried to duplicate New York's approach. They enacted similar financial policies and created similar laws. They hauled in hoodlums and cleaned up graffiti . . . and they all failed miserably. Crime in these cities either remained the same or in one or two cases, worsened slightly, even though the changes they made were nearly identical to that of New York. What happened? Why couldn't they duplicate New York's success? The problem may be one of false causation. That correlation between the amount of graffiti and the overall crime rate doesn't necessarily mean that graffiti causes crime to happen--no more than the correlation between black eyes and broken noses in people who lose fist fights means that black eyes "cause" broken noses. The crime-rate in an area also correlates to the rate of unemployment, for example, and New York's unemployment was dropping steadily through the 1990s. Perhaps rising employment caused crime to drop at just about the same time the mayor started his anti-graffiti campaign. The rate of drug abuse in a given area also correlates to the number of crimes in that area. The city had started constructing larger drug treatment clinics in the late 1980s after the decade's peak of coccain addiction. Although the construction funding had been spent in the late 1980s without visible effect, many of these clinics actually started operation only two or three years before the fall in crime in the early 1990s. Perhaps after two or three years of treatment, a significant fraction of cured addicts no longer needed to engage in crime sprees to support an expensive and illicit habit. It's not at all clear if there was just one cause--maybe the combination of rising employment, drug clinics, and the mayor's anti-graffiti campaign together had a synergistic effect that was missing in other cities where the anti-graffiti program didn't work. One recent book on applied economic theory, entitled Freakonomics, has gone so far as to suggest plausibly the source of the crime-drop nationwide in the late 1990s and the early 2000s has been an unintentional result or by-product of abortion policies thirty years earlier! To give a more recent example, on June 28, 2003 Reuters News Agency reported on a Hungarian medical study of 221 men who carried cell phones. The study found that men who carry cell phones in the front pocket of their pants rather than in a jacket or briefcase had a 30% lower sperm count than the average male population as previously measured in 1970. Immediately an outcry appeared to start law-suits against cell phone companies for causing sterility in men, and some consumer watchdogs called for warning labels on cell phones. The problem is that the study only found correlations--it did not determine clear causation. As Dr. Hans Evers pointed out, many individuals who carry their cell phones in their pants pocket rather than their jacket pocket do so because they are smokers. They carry their cigarette pack in their jacket pocket instead of a pants pocket--to avoid crushing their cigarettes--and thus must carry the cellphone in their pants instead. It has long been known that smokers have a reduced sperm count. Perhaps smoking caused the lower sperm count rather than position of the cell phone per se. Also, the study did not take into account other factors like stress levels (stress can also cause a drop in sperm count); perhaps the men carried cell phones constantly because of a stressful job in which they needed to stay in contact with a company twenty-four hours a day. Finally, the overall sperm count of men may have dropped locally or globally as a whole since the earlier 1970 findings used as a control--possibly due to the increasing levels of chemical pollution worldwide. (Male alligators in parts of Florida, for example, also have 30% lower sperm counts than they did in the 1970s, but nobody thinks that's a result of their cell phone use!) The point to all this is that, if you are writing an argument, and you claim a cause-effect relationship exists, you should double-check and triple-check that it is causation and not mere correlation. It's hard to nail down causation conclusively, as evidenced by tobacco company lawyers who argued for forty years that smoking merely "correlated" to lung cancer rather than actually caused it. However, the least you can do is pause and ask yourself what other possible causes exist in addition to the one you point to in a paper. If they do exist, you need to think through the evidence and determine why these other causes are less likely than the one you propose. (Copyright Dr. L. Kip Wheeler 1998-2006. Permission is granted for non-profit, educational, and student reproduction. Last updated July 18, 2006.)

I got here ahead of him, so I'll see if I can beat him to a complete answer. Here's the short answer: A) he hedged his bets. If someone later said "Hey, I found this thing that supposedly originated with vpw, but someone else taught it first!" "Well, he did say that none of it was original. THAT part's from there, but most of the other stuff doesn't resemble its original sources." He claimed "I learned wherever I could, and then I worked that with the Scriptures. What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept; but what wasn't, I dropped." That was his "out" about sources. He had his excuse if you ever "caught" him at something- so long as you didn't catch him at a LOT of it. (Which the GSC has caught.) The most he claimed was that he learned from other people's work- and then completely reworked it on his own, and when it was error, he dropped the error part. That's not true. He didn't rework the work of others. In many cases, he word-for-word cut-and-pasted their material. And when there was error, he dropped it if he disagreed, and kept it if he agreed. Bullinger thought the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are 2 different things, but they're used interchangeably in Scripture, so according to Scripture, they are the same. According to Bullinger, they are different. When he DID do changes, all bets are off. The changes often reflected less an understanding of the material, and more a desire to make cosmetic changes that made the material LOOK different. That's why his rephrasings of Leonard became more and more elaborate, eventually sacrificing accuracy in the interest of making changes. For example, Leonard's definition 'of word of knowledge' was simple and accurate. Eventually, vpw changed it until it was error- he made it REQUIRE the information be "IMPOSSIBLE" to be obtained by your 5 senses. However, all over the Bible, the revelation WAS something that the 5 senses COULD have told-but didn't. So, his claim that he "worked" the material is inadequate, because he retained any error that looked good, and his changes were primarily COSMETIC and not substantive. B) Now then, he buried that comment in the middle of TW:LiL, which was NOT required reading. Did that complete a consistent picture of a man who learned a lot from others, and simply COMPILED it? Hardly-the rest of the book paints the OPPOSITE picture. "TW:LIL, pg-179. "The Word is buried today. If there's no one around to teach it, God has to teach it Himself. You see, I am a product of my times. God knew me before the foundations of the world, just like He knew you and everyone else. We were all in God's foreknowledge from the beginnings. God knew I would believe His Word. And every day I am more and more deeply convinced of this ministry which teaches people the accuracy and integrity of God's Word." pg-190. "If no one is around to teach you the Word, and you are hungry, then God has to teach you in the framework of your knowledgeable experience. For example, if you're an athlete, He'll do it through athletics. If you're a farmer, He'll teach you through farming." pg-201. "You see, learning is a process. You don't learn overnight. The holy spirit field-that's the field God raised me up for. There's not a question that cannot be answered biblically. And there's no one I can't lead into speaking in tongues if they are Christian and want to do it. No matter how much knowledge you have of God, God seldom allows you to teach more than people are able to receive. Some things God taught me that night in Tulsa, I've never taught- no one would have been able to receive them." What's the COMPLETE picture he's trying to convey here? pg-239. "You teach what they can take. And sometimes you know a whole lot more. Things you could open your heart on, you never do, to those depths of perception. You go so far. You know the abundance available and the Father says, 'That's all folks! End of show.' And it's something you cannot describe to people. Just you and Father know." The COMPLETE picture is that he learned everything from God alone- except for little bits and pieces he got from other Christians, which were usable once he strained all the error out of them. That's completely the OPPOSITE of what happened- like taking 100% of Leonard's class and immediately switching HIS name for Leonard's and taking all the credit for all the work. What did the Orange Book say on the others he learned from? What did the White Book say on the others he learned from? Forgot? Easy to understand-they say NOTHING on them. Here's what they DO say: Orange Book, pg-119-120. ""For years I did nothing but read around the Word of God. I used to read two or three theological works weekly for month after month and year after year. I knew what Professor so-and-so said, what Dr so-and-so and the Right Reverend so-and-so said, but I could not quote you The Word. I had not read it. One day I finally became so disgusted and tired of reading around The Word that I hauled over 3000 volumes of theological works to the city dump. I decided to quit reading around The Word. Consequently, I have spent years studying The Word- its integrity, its meaning, its words." There he says he discarded the works of other Christians entirely, and used ONLY the Bible. What did he say in the White Book? (preface) "The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all that I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for, the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove." Note, again, that's after he got its entire material from Stiles, Bullinger, and Leonard (with a smidgen of Lamsa.) That's also after he initially credited Stiles for the answers- but left out his name- then went back and removed all record of Stiles' name from the White Book. Forgot all this? I posted it maybe 24 hours ago on this SAME thread. Now, I find it a little curious that you've left many paragraphs which form a coherent whole with NO comments-as if they're invisible to you, but perhaps a single sentence -which HAS been explained before- becomes a near-obsessive focus, which must be addressed and explained again as if you've never been in discussions on it before. It's not a surprise, just a little curious. Perhaps HeGotOut will address the aspects I didn't expound on. [Edited to add the letter B).]

Note to self: the twi "never actually address the question" techniques are still alive and well in usage among twi "apologists". First the change of subject (he didn't speak English). Then make an irrelevant comparison. Then continue as if it's the same thing when it isn't, and hope nobody notices. The subject is the dodges and evasions used by twi to avoid explanations and uncomfortable questions- "spin control" as some people here love to say. In Mark 9, a father had a sick child. Did the father care about doctrine and the law? Not at that moment-he wanted his child healed. Sophistry was NOT on the table with him-just heal the kid. So, he went to the disciples. No healing. So, he went to their boss. "If you can do anythng..." Jesus put the responsibility back on the man. Was the man intending to put Jesus on the spot and trap him in talk? You'd have to accept that he was willing to have his child sick just to win an argument. SHAME on you if you think any parent with an ounce of humanity could seriously consider it. He wanted what-to give Jesus a trick question? NO. His child was sick, and he was single-mindedly focused on their healing. Did Jesus respond as if the man was trying to trip him up? No-he seems to think the man wanted his child healed, and the responsibility for the child was the man's, so he put the responsibility back on the man's shoulders. "Lord, I believe-help my unbelief." So, is this where Jesus says "You're playing word-games. I'm leaving until you can give me a straight yes-or-no answer. Next time tell the Pharisees to do their own dirty work" and storms off? NO. Jesus understood this had NOTHING to do with trick questions, ridiculing Jesus, or word-games. The man wanted his child healed. Jesus concerned himself little with the exact wording of his request for help, and prayed for the child's deliverance. Which the child got. I don't know what canyons had to do with the discussion, either, for that matter. Oh, look, a cloud! But what's it doing at ground level?

In your opinion, twi was THE Messenger with THE Truth, then? I'm sure the newbies would like to know for sure.

Thanks kindly, but even the internet has better debators and arguers than me. Can't seem to find offhand the place where someone quoted vpw complainingabout the dedication of the corps, and how some of the current ones were only there to learn the (Dale) Carnegie stuff. I thought it was "vp & me", but it's apparently somewhere in "Passing of the Patriarch." Funny thing to complain about, for the guy who signed off on putting it IN the program in the first place...

Feel free to pm me if you've the time and inclination! I love to hear stories like that! (And if you don't, I can amuse myself speculating on what you said. There are many funny options to choose from.)

I don't want to put in the legwork to get into this right now. Here's my opinion, which is based on what I've read on the COS, which is not inconsiderable. (I'm no expert, but I've read more than a little.) AFAIK, there is no connection, past nor present, between any decision-maker in twi and any decision-maker in COS. AFAIK, there is no connection, past nor present, between the corporate entities of twi and COS. That having been said, whenever you have one man designing an organization to centralize money and power, and putting the label of "religion" on it, you will get similarities. In this case, there's even more extreme versions of the way corps and just about every progam instituted by twi, really. L Ron Hubbard had similar motivations to vpw, but used slightly different methods, and thus had greater success.

Ever think of making that your signature, BB?

No one questioned that- so continuing to bring it up is at best, a non-issue, and at worst, a smokescreen. It is the claim that this was the SOLE USE that is being directly challenged. Separate issue-but it is often intellectually dishonest to respond to people'squestions not by answering them-but by giving them a question back. Supposedly, we had all the answers-but we're responding with questions? "I have a jack, but I'm not going to help you." Reminds me of Session 1. And what does it mean to "keep the truth of God's word on the offensive"? Was that supposed to be taken to mean be offensive when witnessing? This little snippet-with answering questions with questions-might suggest that if this is ALL the information on the subject- I expect there was a lot more... Or you could have just used the above example... " The term apologetics etymologically derives from the Classical Greek word apologia. In Classical Greek legal system two key technical terms were employed: the prosecution delivered the kategoria, and the defendant replied with an apologia. To deliver an apologia then meant making a formal speech to reply and rebut the charges, as in the case of Socrates' defence. This Classical Greek term appears in the Koine (i.e. common) Greek of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul employs the term apologia in his trial speech to Festus and Agrippa when he says "I make my defence" (Acts 26:2). A cognate term appears in Paul's letter to the Philippians as he is "defending the gospel" (1:7 & 17), and in 1 Peter 3:15 believers must be ready to give an "answer" for their faith. The word also appears in the negative in Rom. 1:20: unbelievers are αναπολόγητος (anapologētos) (without excuse / defence / apology) for rejecting the revelation of God in creation." Paul definitely offered a defense to Agrippa.(Agrippa: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.") I question whether Jesus really tried to defend himself- knowing a successful defense-if it WAS possible-would have really wrecked "The Plan". But, that's a subject for a Doctrinal thread. Speaking of which, sounds like Paul was not on the same page about apologetics as vpw... They "sought to entangle him" verbally. They were trying to get him in trouble, and throwing up a smokescreen. There's a huge difference between that and never engaging in apologetics. In fact, you just made a case against vpw, using Jesus as a compelling example. (Luke 15 & 16.) Smokescreen. We're barely addressing "witnessing", because we all seem to agree that this was ONE-count 'em-ONE-usage of the term, and none of us seems eager to claim that it's entirely inappropriate to be used then and there. (Maybe in a separate discussion...) We're discussing the OTHER usages of the term, as in "If truth needs no defense, it also stands to reason that "Truth Has Nothing to Hide" and "Truth Has No Fear of Questions". While the original statement may be true, it has been used as a means to cover error and indiscretion, and to sidestep or rebuff questions." You may have missed somehow that THIS is where we were going with the discussion.

Are they no longer required to send in notes to hq about how much it blessed them after reporting back to the coordinator? twi is NOT as strict as it used to be...

Ok, here's the list. "A) "Better Spelling Basics B) Building an Understanding of Vehicle Purchasing C) Early History of New Knoxville D) The First Freedom: Religious Liberty in America E) Highlights of African History and Culture F) A history of the Huguenots G) Ideas to Encourage Reading in Young Children H) Maintaining Reliable Transportation I) Making a Home-cleaning Schediule That Works for You J) Powerful Paragraphs K) Sola Scriptura: An Overview of the Protestant Reformation L) Some Practical Aspects of Business Etiquette M)The "Write" Stuff" Now, A) and F) have been covered. That leaves 10 more topics. I'm sure the rest of you will want a piece of this- it's just one more way to show up the twi hierarchy. And it's fun! :)

Which is an unsupported assertion of Mike's. vpw was quite florid in his descriptions of the education he received- his father "paid for the best education money could buy" and he studied with "the top men in their fields", but somehow none of them got across to them what was made CRYSTAL CLEAR by my HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS- that ALL SOURCES MUST BE CITED AND DOCUMENTED. In college it was a lot worse. Supposedly, he made it thru a competent education at the high school, collegiate, Masters level and Doctorate level, and yet that didn't surgically implant a habit or knee-jerk reaction to cite his sources whenever putting pen to paper. vpw knew what a "textbook" was. vpw knew what a "workbook" was. vpw knew the differences between a "textbook", a "workbook" and a "study guide." Anybody who made it thru college should know the difference. vpw had all his books (all without exception) written as textbooks- as in "this is how it is"- with the exceptions of the syllabus for one class or another (which were "study guides") and the Home Studies (which were "workbooks"). Flip open the back of JCING, and read me the contents of the bibliography. :) Yes, even workbooks are supposed to include proper attribution, although it's understandable that ones that accompany properly-attributed texts may not do so-since they're designed as accessories to the textbook that DOES do so. (I'm not kicking that the syllabi and Home Studies do not.) EVERYTHING ELSE SHOULD HAVE PROPER DOCUMENTATION NO MATTER WHO THE AUDIENCE WAS. ALL the classes. Even the CFS. We never found out, for example, what hygiene video or whatever he got the stills of the softcore porn he showed the class, and-for all the mention of the 2-women-plus-dog-video, we never were given the name of the video. (I'm sure because I would never have been able to erase that specific information from my brain no matter how hard I tried.)

Well put. That WAS the point I was getting at.

And if your memory is that was the SOLE context in which that statement was made, your memory is rather selective..

I'm not sure if this is a medically-unsound level of denial, or a deliberate attempt to deceive the newer posters. So, I'll give the benefit of the doubt as to intent. Here's what Oldies creatively refers to as "giving credit where credit was due"... "The Way:Living in Love", page 209, says the following: "Lots of the stuff I teach is not original. Putting it all together so that it fit-that was the original work. I learned wherever I could, and then I worked that with the Scriptures. What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept; but what wasn't, I dropped." That's the entirety of the written credit to the people he got the entirety of "his" books from. Now, that's buried in the middle of that book, which was hardly required reading. What WAS required reading was the Orange Book, the White Book, and so on. The Orange Book has NO bibliography. NONE. And it was a composite from Leonard, Bullinger, Norman Vincent Peale, etc. The dedication is to his daughter. Here's the ENTIRE introduction. ========= ""Introduction: the Abundant Life. Jesus' proclamation as recorded in John 10:10 is the foundational Scripture for this book. ...I am come that they [believers] might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. This verse literally changed my life. My wife and I began in the Christian ministry, plodding ahead with the things of God, but somehow we lacked an abundant life. Then one time I was especially alerted when I read from the Word of God that Jesus said He had come to give us life more abundant. I was startled into awareness. As I looked about me at communities where I had served and among the ministers with whom I had worked, the abundant life was frequently not evident. In contrast to these Christian people, I could see that the secular world of non-Christians were manifesting a more abundant life than were members of the Church. Thus I earnestly began to pursue the question: 'If Jesus Christ came that men and women might have a MORE ABUNDANT LIFE, then why is it that the Christian believers do not manifest even an ABUNDANT LIFE?' I believe most people would be thankful if they ever lived an abundant life; but The Word says Jesus Christ came that we might have life not just abundant, but more abundant. If His Word is not reliable here in John 10:10, how can we trust it anywhere else? But, on the other hand, if Jesus told the truth, if He meant what He said and said what He meant in this declaration, then surely there must be keys, signposts, to guide us to the understanding and the receiving of this life which is more than abundant. This book, POWER FOR ABUNDANT LIVING, is one way of showing interested people the abundany life which Jesus Christ lived and which He came to make available to believers as it is revealed in the Word of God. This is a book containing Biblical keys. The contents herein do not teach the Scriptures from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21; rather, it is designed to set before the reader the basic keys in the Word of God so that Genesis to Revelation will unfold and so that the abundant life which Jesus Christ came to make available will become evident to those who want to appropriate God's abundance to their lives. " ======== That's it. NOTHING on the authors he did a cut-and-paste from. Later in the book, he speaks of other Christians. [pg-119-120.] ===== "For years I did nothing but read around the Word of God. I used to read two or three theological works weekly for month after month and year after year. I knew what Professor so-and-so said, what Dr so-and-so and the Right Reverend so-and-so said, but I could not quote you The Word. I had not read it. One day I finally became so disgusted and tired of reading around The Word that I hauled over 3000 volumes of theological works to the city dump. I decided to quit reading around The Word. Consequently, I have spent years studying The Word- its integrity, its meaning, its words. Why do we study? Because God expects us as workmen to know what His Word says." ======= To most people who can read English, this says he's contrasting the contents of his book with other theological works, which he STOPPED reading and consequently produced THIS book as a result. ========== The White Book is FAR more interesting. The early editions of it were JE Stiles' book. With vpw's name on the cover. COMPLETELY Stiles' book. What does the White Book's preface say? Here's the ENTIRE preface. SEVENTH EDITION. ========== ""When I was serving my first congregation, a Korean missionary asked me, 'Why don't you search for the greatest of all things in life which would teach Christian believers the HOW of a really victorious life?' This challenge was the beginning of a search which led me through many, many hours of examining different English translations, the various critical Greek texts, and Aramaic 'originals', looking for the source of the power which was manifested in the early Church. Finally I realized that the experience referred to as 'receiving the holy spirit' in the Scriptures WAS and IS actually available to every born-again believer today. I believed to receive the gift of holy spirit and I, too, manifested. Ever since receiving into manifestation the holy spirit, I have had the desire to put in written form the longings and fears that were mine regarding the receiving thereof. I believe that sharing my quest with the believers who are today seeking to be endued with power from on high may be instrumental in leading them to the answer of their hearts' desires. I knew from the Bible that what God sent at Pentecost was still available. It had to be, for God does not change. I knew that the receiving of the power from on high on the day of Pentecost had meant increased ability for the apostles and disciples years ago, and that I needed and wanted the same blessing. I knew that if the Church ever needed the holy spirit in manifestation it needed it now. Throughout my academic training in a college, a university, four seminaries, from the commentaries I studied, and from my years of questing and research among the various religious groups claiming adherence to the holy spirit's availability, there appeared many things contradictory to the accuracy of the recorded Word of God. I knew their teachings were sincere, but sincerity is no guarantee for truth. The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all that I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for, the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove. If you are a Christian believer, I sincerely encourage you to study this book. Do not allow your past teachings or feelings to discourage you from going on to receive God's best. If you need power and ability to face up to the snares of this live, you may find your answer while reading this book. It is my prayer that you may be edified, exhorted, and comforted. For those searching the Scriptures, desiring to know the reasons why, how, what or where, I suggest you do a careful study of the introductions as well as the appendices in this volume. For those who simply desire to receive, read chapters 1 though 5 and enjoy God's great presence and power. "II Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." To his helpers and colleagues every writer owes a profound debt. This seventh edition has been read and studies carefully by men and women of Biblical and spiritual ability. To all of these I am most grateful." ========= To the normal reader of English, this ALSO says he ONLY used the Bible-NOT the works of other Christians... and while we're at it, these other Christians are in error. The only people he thanks are his proofreaders- never the people whose material COMPOSED the book. ============= Oldiesman said "That doesn't sound like someone not giving credit or trying to hide where he got his information from." That does to MOST people. In fact, this is a veritable smoking-gun of such.... The White Book's 2nd Edition had an important difference in the Preface. The earlier edition (2nd said this): " "The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all I had been taught and start anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. It took me seven years to find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that I dod not have to omit, deny or change any one passage. He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove, and when you can do that, you can be assured of having truth." That man was JE Stiles, the man who PERSONALLY led him into speaking in tongues, and whose book on the Holy Spirit vpw copied over and omitted his name. But even anonymous, this feeble acknowledgement-lacking his name as if vpw can't remember it- acknowledged it came from someone else. "It took me seven years to find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that I did not have to omit, deny or change any one passage. He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove," Now, here's the SAME paragraph in the 7th Edition. " "The Word of God is truth. I prayed that I might put aside all that I had heard and thought out myself, and I started anew with the Bible as my handbook as well as my textbook. I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for, the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove." Again, 2nd edition: "It took me seven years to find a man of God schooled in the Holy Spirit, a man who knew the Scripture on the Holy Spirit, and could fit it together so that I dod not have to omit, deny or change any one passage. He made the Scripture fit like a hand fits into a glove, " 7th edition: "I did not want to omit, deny, or change any passage for, the Word of God being the will of God, the Scripture must fit like a hand in a glove." Does everyone ELSE see the difference? Honest readers call things like that edit "attempts to hide where he got the information from" and "not giving credit" (to say the least.) Oakspear summed it up as follows: "Think about when Wierwille does mention other people, often he pays them left-handed compliments, like saying BG Leonard was great on experience, and poor on documentation, or how Stiles is never mentioned again after that passage in TW:LIL. Does he ever say "So-and-so taught me such-and-such", no, he throws out names, then about the best he can bring himself to say is that he kept what was accurate and threw out the rest. Specific credit and recognition was not ever given. Forget about footnotes, forget about endnotes, forget about a bibliography, he never, ever, mentions what he learned from whom, all he says is "Lots of the stuff I teach is not original. Putting it all together so that it fit -- that was the original work. I learned wherever I could, and then I worked that with the Scriptures. What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept; but what wasn't, I dropped." - a pretty lukewarm recognition of men that he copied from!" As for credit to BG Leonard, the man from whom 100% of the contents of the first pfal classes was taken without his permission, what does vpw say about him? Again we turn to "The Way:Living in Love". "TW:LIL, pg-207. "He loved me, and I learned some stuff from him. He had tremendous believing. That's why I love the guy." "The summer of 1953, our whole ministry went up-Dotsie and Donnie and some of the others from Van Wert. We took his whole trip- really learned a lot about the other manifestations of the holy spirit. But he worked from personal experiences. I worked what he taught from the accuracy of the Scriptures. When I came home, I made up my mind that I was going to tie the whole thing together from Genesis to Revelation. So I did, and in October, I had the very first 'Power for Abundant Living' class. At that time, the Foundational Class and Advanced Class were together-the whole thing in two weeks. But the syllabus today is basically the same. The basic principles from the Word are the same. The class has filled out. But I knew the greatness of our age-the age of holy spirit and that every truth must fit in the framework of the manifestations. I just had to teach it to somebody." "I taught without a syllabus, but the class was the same. You could throw the syllabus away now and I could still teach it. It's a burning reality in my soul." That's a pretty interesting way to refer to a class that was ENTIRELY Leonard's material. As to specifics on how he got the White Book, here's what he said... "TW:LIL, pg-209. "Somewhere in there I wrote the first holy spirit book. I can't remember exactly what year. I'd been working those 385 scriptures and they began to all fall into place." "We're having the sixth edition printed now of that book: Receiving the Holy Spirit Today. It's a great piece of research." On that same page, he says "Lots of the stuff I teach is not original. Putting it together so that it fit-that was the original work. I learned wherever I could, and then I worked that with the Scriptures. What was right on with the Scriptures, I kept; but what wasn't, I dropped." So, he deliberately and specifically put forth that he wrote the White Book in its entirety, then makes a vague comment that he "put it together so that it fit"-which is a lie, since he just copied over the previous book. Why did he lie about that? I'm sure there are people who would say it was a different reason than "not giving credit or trying to hide where he got his information from." I think it should be obvious that he did NOT "give credit where credit was due". We know some of what he used from Bullinger. However, he NEVER said "Are the Dead Alive Now?" was ripped off of Bullinger's "The Rich Man and Lazarus:an Intermediate State?" and other works of EWB. However, that's where it came from. BTW, the reference to "working those 385 Scriptures" means, in plain English, taking the contents of Bullinger's "The Giver and His Gifts" (now known as "Word Studies on the Holy Spirit") and adding it to Stiles' book to make a bigger White Book. Virtually none of us ever heard him mention that- and I only knew once I got my copy of EWB's book. As to giving credit to Bullinger at all, vpw's exact words were "TW:LIL, pg-210. "She gave me my first copy of Bullinger's 'How to Enjoy the Bible.' She said, when she first heard me teach, that I taught like he wrote, and I'd never met the man or even read his stuff." He flat-out denied any familarity with his writings. For MOST people, it is crystal-clear what vpw was trying to do here-and succeeded with completely until the Information Age arrived.

I'd say not. You knew the artist, you had the album. Geddy Lee has a mild speech impediment? Please post the next song.

"Truth needs no defense." Patently wrong, especially when everyone believes a lie. The saying was vpw's excuse to cover his gross deficiencies. Many times he either didn't understand fully what he was quoting from another writer (like his inconsistent explanations of "allos" and "heteros" and "all without distinction" in one place being "all with a distinction" in another place). Furthermore, a number of times he just pulled explanations out of his donkey. How could he justify that? He could NOT- so he made a virtue of his deficiency. ========= Remember in pfal where vpw "explains" to the class about apologetics? That was where we learned that this is how people learn to "apologize for being a Christian." Now, that was vpw pulling an explanation out of his burro. The actual meaning, which I just grabbed in about 10 seconds by typing "what is apologetics" into a browser, is " The term apologetics comes from the Greek apologia, which means "defense" or "answer." Apologetics is the task of defending a particular idea or belief system and answering its critics. The origin of the concept of apologetics lies in the beginnings of Christianity. Between the second and fourth century, a number of Christian teachers wrote defenses of Christianity against pagan critics." (www.calvarychapel.com) So, the word "apologetics" means a "defense" or "answer", and is not an "apology" at all. This would have been obvious to vpw if he was even 1/2 way competent in Greek studies as he often put forth with all his explanations from the Greek (cribbed mostly from Bullinger). However, as you all should remember, he never studied Greek texts or even Church history (which would have educated him on the development of early apologetics), but he himself said his specialty was "Homiletics", or "Preaching". (The softest option available, really.) BTW, wikipedia has this to say on "apologetics"... "Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. Someone who engages in apologetics is called an apologist or an "apologete". The term comes from the Greek word apologia (απολογία), meaning defense of a position against an attack." " The term apologetics etymologically derives from the Classical Greek word apologia. In Classical Greek legal system two key technical terms were employed: the prosecution delivered the kategoria, and the defendant replied with an apologia. To deliver an apologia then meant making a formal speech to reply and rebut the charges, as in the case of Socrates' defence. This Classical Greek term appears in the Koine (i.e. common) Greek of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul employs the term apologia in his trial speech to Festus and Agrippa when he says "I make my defence" (Acts 26:2). A cognate term appears in Paul's letter to the Philippians as he is "defending the gospel" (1:7 & 17), and in 1 Peter 3:15 believers must be ready to give an "answer" for their faith. The word also appears in the negative in Rom. 1:20: unbelievers are αναπολόγητος (anapologētos) (without excuse / defence / apology) for rejecting the revelation of God in creation." "In the English language, the word apology is derived from the Greek word apologia, but its use has changed; its primary sense now refers to a defensive plea for forgiveness for an action that is open to blame. It is occasionally used to refer to a speech or writing that defends the author's position." ======= vpw was so deficient in apologetics-explaining WHY a belief should be held- that he evaded the entire subject and smeared it with a label. Did he do that deliberately, knowing what the term meant and deliberately lying about it? Or was he so incompetent that he couldn't even open a collegiate dictionary to find its definition, which is something our supposed "Greek scholar" should have been able to rattle off from memory? Take your pick-it was one or the other. (And of course, I'm evil for even mentioning it. I'll put that on my tab.) =========== BTW, vpw plagiarized the style of "never try to explain when you can declare something true by divine fiat" like he plagiarized nearly everything else. He got it from LAMSA. http://www.equip.org/free/DL010.htm "Lamsa considered himself to be the man God set aside and inspired for our times, and his followers still view him as such. One even senses in Lamsa's writings an implicit claim that he stands in the line of apostles with Moses, Jesus, Paul, and Mohammed. Lamsa explains his unique calling through editor Tom Alyea: "God had revealed to Lamsa his purpose and how it was to be done. It was a one-man job. In the Bible testimony is given that God spoke to man; however, it is not recorded where he spoke to a committee...Yes, only one man could translate the Bible from Aramaic. God knew it, and Lamsa knew it, and so it was."49 Lamsa also attempts to establish scholarly credentials as a means of gaining acceptance. He claims to have been born about 1892, and to have acquired an A.B. degree equivalent in 1907 and a Ph.D. equivalent in theology in 1908 from Archbishop of Canterbury's College, Turkey.50 He also claims to have graduated from Episcopal Theology Seminary in Virginia51 and to have studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Dropsie College. Lamsa, however, appears to have exaggerated his academic credentials. First, he claims to have attained a Ph.D. at age 16, only one year after his A.B.52 Second, there are no records of his graduation from a seminary, and his own writings suggest that he was never at any school long enough to attain any valid degree. Lamsa's writing style reflects his exalted view of his own mission and character. He usually writes embellished narratives or discourses, not documenting either blanket assertions or detailed comments. For example, he dismisses his lack of supporting evidence for his theory that the New Testament was originally authored in Aramaic by saying, "What is a fact needs no defense."53 He assumes that his peculiar habits, culture, superstitions, idioms, and musings all match and illuminate Scripture, resulting in often incorrect or simplistic interpretations. By contrast, scholars in the fields of New Testament studies and Aramaic offer detailed evidence, accept criticisms, and yield much more cautious and informed conclusions. ====== Simply put, twi tries to declare everything they say as true beyond question- and then suppresses the questions. This was instilled from the beginning by vpw himself.

Now that I've had my fun lampooning this lampoon-worthy list, I think it's only fair we demonstrate the courage of our convictions, and save the average twi'er $52. Since some of us believe the internet (specific webpages) have all these answers, let's provide the URLs for these topics! Here's the topic list. "Better Spelling Basics Building an Understanding of Vehicle Purchasing Early History of New Knoxville The First Freedom: Religious Liberty in America Highlights of African History and Culture A history of the Huguenots Ideas to Encourage Reading in Young Children Maintaining Reliable Transportation Making a Home-cleaning Schediule That Works for You Powerful Paragraphs Sola Scriptura: An Overview of the Protestant Reformation Some Practical Aspects of Business Etiquette The "Write" Stuff" I'll start off. A History of the Huguenots: http://www.geocities.com/hugenoteblad/hist-hug.htm http://www.huguenotsociety.org.uk/history/ http://huguenot.netnation.com/general/huguenot.htm http://www.huguenotsocietyofamerica.org/ Can the rest of you fill in the others?

Back in the 80s, that would have been one for the record books! Nowadays, though, that might be three bootings, depending on the state.

So how long were you and Craig on grounds that afternoon?

Another quote from "Born Again to Serve", by Mrs W. pg-41. ""Beginning with a radio broadcast on Saturday, October 3, 1942, Rev. Wierwille and his assembled youth group performed their first live radio production. Rev. Wierwille certainly didn't realize at the time that this program would launch a ministry which would change the lives of thousands. His first radio program was designed to teach principles of the abundant life "through musical performancs and scriptural messages." Dr. Wierwille later said, "I felt we had to do something to bless the people, and a radio broadcast might arouse some excitement and serve as outreach." The personal impact of such regular teaching and preaching, Dr. Wierwille explained, "was that it got me back to digging the Word.... That broadcast and the Sunday morning service made me, made me, go to the Word for two or three new teachings a week. It got me into the Word, got me growing in it and kept me fluid. "We were pioneers in using people for our performances," he continued. "All of the other religious programs used adults. But I thought if we started with young people, it would grow into something and the adults might catch on." [Pictured in the first broadcast of Vesper Chimes.......One man, one young female pianist, three young female singers and Mrs. Wierwille.] pg-42-43 ""Rev. Wierwille said the following of his days in Payne: After all this activity and reaching out to learn more, I must know to satisy my inner yearning. And so I stood in my newly rented office and prayed to the Father. "Father, teach me the Word, teach me the Word." He told me as plain as day that if I would study the Word, He would teach me the Word like He had not been able to teach it to anybody since the first century. And, of course, at that time I thought, "Now that's a dandy. Boy, if I learned this Word of God, everybody will listen to me. The whole church will be blessed; my denomination will grow by leaps and bounds because we'll have the Word of God." And I thought that was terrrific. But during the process of that revelation, I said, "Father, how will I know that this is You and that You'll really teach it to me? Because I had worked the Word in commentaries and the rest of it, and I couldn't understand it, couldn't get it to fit. And the sun was shining brightly. It was in the fall of the year. Gorgeous. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. And just on the inside of me it seemed to say, "Well, just say to the Father, "Well, if it'll just snow right now, you'll just know that this is God talking to you.'" Cause you see. I'd never had much experience with God's talking to me. And this business of His saying to me, just as audibly as I am speaking to you, that He'd teach me the Word if I'd teach it, sort of shook me. I'd been expecting to hear from heaven for a long time, but I hadn't heard that way before. Oh, my ears were perhaps clogged up. Since that time I've heard a lot of things from Him. And I said, "Lord, to know that this is true, I'd like to see it snow." And I opened my eyes, and it was pitch-black, almost pitch-black outside, and the snow was falling so thick. I have never seen it fall that thick since that day. And I sat in that little office, and I cried like a baby. Because I guess it was about my time to cry because I'd grown up but I didn't know the Word. And from that day on since He promised He'd teach me the Word, I have tried with all my heart to learn this Word. Rev. Wierwille never told anyone of this experience until much later when he was teaching The Way Corps. It was a most astounding phenomenon which he kept to himself." ***** Skyrider gives a little timeframe, and continues quoting "Born Again to Serve". " In June of 1944, the Wierwille family left the Payne church, with approximately 120 members, and moved to the St. Peter's Evangelical and Reformed Church in Van Wert which had 16 on the active membership list. In Mrs. Wierwille's book, Born Again to Serve, many Christian men are noted to help Rev. Wierwille with his search for answers. Listed below are highlighted excerpts from the book. E. Stanley Jones p. 48 "Rev. Wierwille had made plans to go to the E. Stanley Jones Ashram (as he called his religious retreats) at Salisbury, North Carolina, the latter part of that July 1944. Since there was gas rationing because of World War II, rides had to be shared. So Rev. Wierwille rode with three other people from northwestern Ohio to North Carolina. Later Rev. Wierwille said of E. Stanley Jones, "I considered him a wonderful friend. I learned a great deal from him and I liked him very much. But I began to grow and develop not only to enjoy intellectualism but also the heart and love which I picked up from Rufus Moseley, Starr Daily, and Glenn Clark." Rufus Moseley p. 52 "One of the main speakers of the 1944 Ashram in North Carolina was a spirit-filled man whom I mentioned previously, Rufus Moseley. Brother Rufus, as everyone called him, a retired professor by that time, literally jumped for joy as he taught.... His teachings were so simple yet so dynamic. 'When we are born from above through faith that causes us to receive Him, we are born of His nature, of His love, of His Word, of His seed, and are given power to become like Him.' Also, 'We're made for the highest and nothing short of His best for us, and our best for Him, for all can satisfy us....So centralize on Jesus and his way of life as perfect union, perfect love, and perfect joyous obedience and you get these and you get everything.' He wrote in his book Perfect Everything, 'Many are tempted to believe that everything man needs is within himself, that all he needs to know are the laws of mind....and no need for a personal God or savior....We must be wise enough to be taught and led by the Holy Spirit.'" Perry Hayden p. 55 "In his search for Christians with a dynamic knowledge of God, Rev. Wierwille somehow heard of Perry Hayden, a Quaker miller from Tecumseh, Michigan, who was inspired by a message in his Quaker church and set out to illustrate some of the Bible lessons on "tithing," "rebirth," and "returns on what you sow." As quickly as arrangements could be made, Rev. Wierwille invited Perry to come from Michigan to visit our church and tell us about his [tithing] experiment." Glenn Clark p. 56 "Having attended the Camp Farthest Out in the summer of 1945 at Lake Koronis in Minnesota, Rev. Wierwille invited the camp's founder, Glenn Clark to come to speak and teach us in 1946... "Because of his dream of 'going farther out spiritually.' Glenn developed the concept of the Camps Farthest Out. His first experimental camp was held at Camp Koronis in Minnesota, in 1931... "We thought Glenn Clark's Camps Farthest Out was the best design in camps that we had ever seen. And so we have used many of the C.F.O. principles and activities in The Way Family Camps at Camp Gunnison--The Way Family Ranch in Colorado." E.W. Kenyon p. 76 "E.W. Kenyon (1857-1948) was another man whose dynamic writings had a great impact on Dr. Wierwille's life. Kenyon was a man who had a great thirst for a knowledge of God. And what he learned, he was diligent to pass on to others..........by studying Kenyon's writings, Dr. Wierwille was able to teach more of the accuracy of God's Word." "Kenyon's one fixed goal was: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (II Timothy 2:15). Dr. Wierwille enthusiastically promoted Kenyon's writings: The Blood Covenant, The Two Kinds of Faith, The Two Kinds of Knowledge, Identification, and Jesus the Healer, to mention some of them. These were valuable sources of inspiration for himself personally and in his teaching ministry." ***** Skyrider continues... "According to Mrs. Wierwille's book, there is a long list of men and women who significantly taught and influenced her husband.....one of the most profound being Rev. B.G. Leonard. Rev. B. G. Leonard p. 90 "Ever since the Divine Healing Convention in Tulsa in December 1951, and since Rev. B.G. Leonard prayed with us for Mary's healing over the phone in December 1952, Dr. Wierwille's hunger for more knowledge about God's healing power was piqued. In late winter, February 1953, Dr. Wierwille felt the need to spend time with B.G. Leonard..... "B.G. Leonard called his work in Calgary 'The Christian Training Centre.' Dr. Wierwille described his first impressions there: "I walked in and B.G. was in the middle of announcements. They must have lasted an hour and a half. Then he took his violin and played hymns for a while. When he finally started preaching, he taught his heart out for another hour and a half. Then everyone left and I sat there. He said, 'I thought I told you that you couldn't come.' And I said, 'Yeah, but I didn't hear you.' " In June of 1953, four months after Dr. Wierwille's initial trip, our family traveled with two other carloads of our friends to Calgary to take B.G. Leonard's class which he called "The Gifts of the Spirit." At his Christian Training Centre, a large upstairs room over a pawnshop, our son Don and I were students in this class from June 28 to July 15. Dr. Wierwille was with us, but of course, he was not a new student, though he wanted to sit through the class again because what B.G. Leonard was teaching was so thrilling and powerful about the "gifts" of holy spirit and about spiritual healing." p. 99...."In October 1953, Dr. Wierwille taught the first Power for Abundant Living class, which was held in the basement of St. Peter's Church. The first two classes were called "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today." The name was then changed to the broader title......" ***** Much thanks for Skyrider for posting that in the "Outreach Beyond vp's congregation" thread.

I don't have a completed one yet-not one I'd be satisfied with saying "this is a complete one." However, the one I've gotten so far is, I'd say, maybe 85% complete up to 1985. (If not more.) It developed on the thread "the way:living in wonderland", where we examined vpw's own claims about himself, then we finished by looking at some timelines put out by twi here and there. (Most of the dates were courtesy of the twi book "the Way:Living in Love" or the biography twi put out when vpw died.) The thread itself is worth reading for its own reasons, and you can see the development of the timeline there from a few dates to a more complete form. The thread is http://www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=7363 The "5.6" version of my vpw timeline was dated 2/26/06, and is the most recent version. It's on page 26. I wouldn't crosspost it, but I think it's relevant to Skyrider's original post-asserting vpw carjacked the work of others. For those people-and they WILL come out of the woodwork- who are swift to claim that the timeline lacks any sort of documentation-I direct them to 26 pages of discussion of same on the thread I linked in this very post. You'll see the sources for the statements, as well as the corrections and clarifications as the version #s go up. So, here's that crosspost. "Edition 5.6 of my timeline. I added the Moody reference, and a detail about the vpw/bgl class. ==== This timeline is mostly from publications OF TWI. ========= Let's see. victor paul wierwille was born to a large family of German descent. (Born December 31, 1916.) According to locals, Ernst, his father, was an alcoholic with negligible education, with a bad temper who acted as a bully.This was true in his dealings with locals AND with his own family.Each child had their own chores. Little Victor chose to neglect his chores, and would vanish for hours into the woods nearby. (It has been noted that this running off may have been as much to avoid an abusive father as it was to avoid doing any work. Or it may be unrelated.) He claimed that when he was young, he once told a minister that he wanted to be a man of God like him. Other than this statement, Little Victor showed no actual involvement in the church, no actual effort or work in the things of the church. So, this seems to suggest an interest-not in being a man of God- but in being the man the whole community turned out to see, to have their respect. As a teenager, young Vic continued to lack any qualities of a man of God. In fact, he went out of his way to earn a reputation going in the opposite direction. He was a bully, a showoff and a braggart. (He seems to have been taught this at home.) He did all sorts of things for attention. He was quick to start a fight or mouth off at others. He had a quick wit. One of his common ways of showing off was to tear up and down the streets of New Knoxville on his motorcycle, trying to get attention. His demonstrated talents seemed to be limited to his quick wit and his ability to play a guitar, which he showed competency in. Old Man Wierwille was preparing to pass on thefamily farm to young Vic, as was the family tradition. Young Vic balked at this. He'd had plans to go to college. At first, he considered a few fields-business and so on- but by this time, he had decided upon the seminary. (This was before the time he referred to as "believing the Bible as the Word of God".) Old Man Wierwille was skeptical of this, and said that young Vic, having shown lack of hard work on simple manual labour on the farm, would never make a good preacher. Young Vic convinced him he would do better with books than with sweating out in the field. Young Vic went to school for the ministry. His community thought it was some kind of joke- everyone knew he lacked the proper character. (He never overcame that impression with them.) Victor had the option to study "Bible Languages" or other subjects requiring hard study. He instead chose to study Homiletics, the "softest" option he could have learned. (He never overcame his deficiency in study in Bible languages, church history, etc.-not even to the level of an informed layman as of 2004.) Victor was married July 2, 1937(Mr was 20, Mrs was 21). According to vpw, he and Mrs W married secretly while he was still in college. No reason for this was ever given. Victor suggested he played on his college's basketball team, and that after college he played on the professional team "the Sheboygan Redskins." His claim of each was phrased ambiguously ("I played basketball all through college" "I was involved in the Sheboygan Redskins") and the purpose seems to have been so that he was believed to have said he did both without actually making the claims. Later, he began making claims that he also "invented the hook shot" at this time. He graduated with a BA from Lakeland College in 1937. Donald was born in 1940. Victor graduated Princeton Theological Seminary in 1941, with a Masters in Practical Theology. He did his "trial sermons" in 1941 in Payne, Ohio for the Evangelical and Reformed Church. According to his memorial in 1985, he started his first pastorate July 1941, and was ordained July 29, 1941. (According to his account in TW:LIL, his first pastorate began in 1944 in Van Wert, Ohio, and continued until 1957.) Victor entered his first pastorate and wasted little time becoming a bully and a control freak AGAIN. He himself claimed he started his job by immediately doing whatever the elders told him not to do- even though it hampered his ability to do his job properly. According to him, they confronted him on this, he mouthed off at them, and they just let him go about his business, and the local church prospered as a direct result of him. He was known for building a fairly interesting sermon, and getting people involved, including the youths. (This was STILL before the time when he claimed he believed the Bible was the Word of God.) He said the following year, (1942) he slowly became discouraged and was searching. He was still the man he had been, which is to say he was prideful, arrogant, boastful, liked attention, and viewed the clergy as a PROFESSION and not a holy calling. (He could have been just as "called" as an accountant or actuary, say.) During 1942, he claimed he was ready to give up being a minister. About a year later (Payne, 1942, August), he met Rosal1nd R1nker. She was a former missionary to China and Korea. She's remembered as the anonymous person who asks vpw "Why don't you search for the greatest of all things in life which would teach Christians the HOW of a really victorious life?" This woman fixed a great deal of attention on him, and had a forceful personality. She spent some time with him alone. It was of this time that he later claimed he asked forgiveness of God. He also credits her with DOGGING HIM "on the Bible being the Word of God", and she "got me STARTED on the right track". which, until this time, he hadn't believed, not even in all his years of school. During 1942, he claimed he was ready to give up being a minister in August AND September. One month later (September 1942), an event happened that he later showed a habit of re-writing. As Victor told God he was getting ready to quit (again), He claimed that God spoke to him and said He (God) would teach him (Victor) His Word (God's Word) like it had not been known since the 1st century, if he (Victor) would teach it to others. (This is the famous 1942 promise.) vpw did not discuss this event with anyone until he told the early corps-according to Mrs W. Thus, the earliest possible origin-point of this story is 1969, when the "zero corps" was begun. Victor of course lacked the education in church history to contextualize this claim- since it was inaccurate as stated. This implies that this was a made-up story, or it came from a god lacking knowledge in history. Victor later added a second part to his story- a snowstorm. He said that he required PROOF of God, and asked God to let him see it snow. A moment later, he opened his eyes, and he saw a veritable blizzard out his window. The later addition to this story suggest that he felt it needed more support after using the initial story. Victor showed no marked improvement, neither in character, nor in behaviour, thru the rest of the 1940s (nearly the entire decade after this supposed promise), which strongly supports the rather direct assertion that he lied thru his teeth. vpw referred to this as one of the two most significant days of his life. October 3, 1942, vpw did his first radio broadcast. He continued to do a radio show under one name or another for several years- Vesper Chimes, aka Chimes Hour Youth Caravan. Its name changes to Chimes Hour Youth Caravan in 1947. Rhoda joined its staff in 1947. (Supposedly, the name "the Way" was in the documentation for this group since 1942.) In 1948, vpw was issued a "Doctorate" from Pikes Peak Seminary, an organization lacking accreditation and formal classes (among other things.) At some point, vpw began claiming that he took EVERY class Moody Bible School's Correspondence program issued. According to official records at Moody, vpw never turned in a single class of their correspondence school. This may mean he took classes and never finished ANY (which indicates laziness), or that he was lying about taking any of their classes. At one point, Rufus Moseley attempted to minister Holy Spirit to vpw, but vpw demonstrated an inability to receive it. In 1951, he visited missionaries in Honduras. In 1951, vpw made another claim he was ready to give up on the ministry (even after, supposedly a direct promise of God about really important stuff which promptly failed to materialize.) In November, 1951, vpw attended the Full Gospel Rally, in Tulsa, Oklahoma (a big Evangelical conference.) He made several claims of this conference. People at the conference OTHER than vpw supposedly had no difficulty beginning speaking in tongues. He claimed he faked speaking in tongues in a clever way, and others were unable to tell. He was further disillusioned about working for God. He then claimed a miraculous snowstorm blocked him into the city entirely, and ALL the evidence there NO blizzard whatsoever (and there was a WEALTH of evidence -at the airports, Amtrak and bus depot, the hotel staff, the attendees, etc) was concealed by angels. vpw also, apparently, never approached a window, or they made an illusion at the window. vpw has referred to this as one of the two most significant days of his life. (Many people currently feel that vpw completely made up the story that God spoke to him in 1942, and that his dependence upon this event plus the event at the Full Gospel Rally to establish his authority were both dressed up with made-up snowstorms to make them sound more spectacular. The specifics of both appear to support this position-especially since vpw was fond of increasing the magnitude of his claims in things as time went on.) Supposedly, a woman came up to him and told him that she knew a man who can help him- JE Stiles. He claims God told Stiles to attend the conference with the sole purpose of ministering the Spirit to vpw. vpw met with Stiles, and made a few chauvinistic observations to himself, before going off with Stiles. Stiles worked with him for a few hours nonstop, hammering across to vpw what the Bible says on speaking in tongues, and working over his doubts one by one. Finally, vpw was able to speak in tongues. It was during the 1950s that vpw's behaviour was noted to finally improve, although he still did not stop including inappropriate words or concepts in his sermons. In March, 1953, vpw found out about BG Leonard, and pushed his way into BG Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class, which Leonard told him was closed, but permitted him to enter after vpw arrived. vpw took this class twice, bringing several people with him the second time. (That second time was July 1953.) vpw then went off for a few months by himself, then told Leonard that he'd like to run Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class locally for his congregation on a one-time basis. Seeing the benefit to other Christians, Leonard agrees. vpw then ran the first of "his" Receiving the Holy Spirit Today classes, (October 1953) and took a photograph of that class. He told the students that this is "his" class called RtHST, with NO mention of Leonard's class from which 100% of the content had been directly lifted. The students had no reason to think he's lying. vpw sent the photograph to Leonard and told Leonard that this is a photo of the class that took Leonard's class on a one-time basis that was run locally. Leonard took vpw at his word, and had no idea that vpw continued to run Leonard's class with vpw's name on it, defrauding both Leonard AND the students. That the classes were interchangeable in terms of material was the opinion of vpw himself- anyone who had graduated Leonard's "Gifts of the Spirit" class was considered to be-by vpw- a graduate of "vpw's" RtHST class. To this day, many students STILL think this was was vpw's class, even when evidence is introduced to the contrary. Later, vpw added the contents of JE Stiles' work on "Gifts of the Spirit" and Bullinger's work on the Holy Spirit as well as "How to Enjoy the Bible", and expanded the class into a class that was the sum of the 3 men's work-Stiles, Bullinger and Leonard-rather than just Leonard. He also renamed the class "Power For Abundant Living", rather than "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today". vpw later made a few offhand comments here and there that the material in the class is not original, but its compilation was. (However, as it was constructed, vpw could have been sued by copyright holders for Bullinger, Stiles, and Leonard. Leonard found out but chose not to prosecute.) It is often noted that the supposed 1942 promise claimed vpw would be taught-by God- things unknown since the First Century Christians, if vpw would teach others- yet ALL the material vpw taught was all taken from Leonard/Stiles/Bullinger/Kenyon and a few others, and thus, it was all KNOWN. Therefore, if a god gave vpw revelation in 1942, it was a god that lied, since vpw's source for everything was MAN and NEVER represented information lost since the First Century AD-not even once. In 1953, vpw also took JE Stiles' "Gifts of the Spirit" book, changed a few words, and self-published it as the 1st Edition of "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today." That it was the same year is no coincidence-it was the "original" textbook for the "original" class. ("Original" in the sense that they were the 1.0 version of his class, not that they originated at that time.) Later editions would include incorporation of material from Leonard and Bullinger, and would include more cosmetic changes in the order of the words and the specific words used in an attempt to make it look less like Stiles' book. Among the changes was the deletion of a reference to an anonymous Christian who "put it together" for vpw (that was Stiles), who was missing by the 4th edition book, where vpw put it all together himself. vpw ran "his" PFAL classes continually from 1953 onward, with some success. Dr E.E. Higgins was one of the students in the October 1953 class. She's known as the anonymous person who would call vpw at night and ask what God showed him that day. In 1954, Dr Higgins first introduced vpw to EW Bullinger's books, and gave him his first copies of the Companion Bible, and "How to Enjoy the Bible." The contents of both these books later became integral parts of "vpw's" class. According to his published memorial, Bishop KC Pillai took PFAL in 1954, and began teaching a class on"Orientalisms of the Bible". (Pillai also wrote 3 small books: "Light Through an Eastern Window" and Volumes I and II of "Orientalisms of the Bible.") According to the memorial in 1985, 1955 was the year they officially chartered "the Way". In 1955, JP was born. 2 months later, VPW left JP with family for the next year or so, and took his wife and eldest son on a tour of the mission fields in India, on the Evangelical and Reformed Church's dime.(1955-1957) (Per TW:LIL) He was irritated that he's reminded he is not officially designated as a spokesman or investigator of theirs. According to his account in TW:LIL, he there met Bishop KC Pillai, whom he later invited to teach. According to the memorial, this tour of the mission fields ran from 1955-1956, and included stops in Great Britain, Europe, India, and "the Bible lands." According to the memorial, 1956 was when he wrote "the Dilemma of Foreign Missions in India."(According to TW:LIL) In 1957, vpw returned to Van Wert. He cut his ties with the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and took "his" PFAL class with him.In 1957, he and Harry bought out their brothers and bought the family farm outright. Rather than take ownership themselves, they declared it the propertyof "the Way", a church organization (thus tax-exempt.)(Per TW:LIL, Harry said this was the time they chose the name "the Way".) Work began on fixing up the farm. In 1959, he ran a Wisconsin Summer Camp. In 1960, he ran an Indiana Summer Camp. In 1961, he moved to the farm (refurbishment being sufficient for the move). Bishop Pillai arrived and taught at the summer school. (Per TW:LIL.) In 1961, he ran a Miamisburg, Ohio Summer Camp. In 1962, he moved the summer school to the farm (refurbishment being sufficient to hold classes there in the new BRC.) In 1962, Lamsa taught at the summer school.(Lamsa is another unconventional teacher who claimed special knowledge of the Bible and special status as a man of God.) In 1963, vpw went to Lima, Ohio and filmed the sessions called "the Teacher". (Despite this, success STILL had not taken off as vpw wished.) According to the memorial, 1967 was when "Are the Dead Alive Now?" (which is adapted from some of Bullinger's books) was published, and PFAL was filmed. This was the edition of PFAL that incorporated Bullinger's books (the contents, but not the books themselves) into the curriculum. In Fall of 1967, vpw first filmed the PFAL class. This was done in a setting with bright studio lights. (Bright studio lights do not cause cancer.) vpw claimed that a doctor told him that filming a second day would mean permanent eye damage, and that he was staring into 8000 watts. He filmed for 3 complete days, getting sore eyes from the bright lights (which do not cause cancer.) The figure of 2000 watts seems to be a more realistic figure for the light level of the filmed class (which is still VERY bright.) According to TW:LIL, In 1967, vpw read about the Christians at the House of Acts. vpw went there, impressed them, and convinced them he has extensive, EXCLUSIVE knowledge they lack. He then turned those he could from unorganized Christians into a recruitment arm for his class and organization. They agreed to handle things on the East and West coasts, and many young Christians were impressed with THEM and join. It's been suggested that one of the reasons he went there was because he'd heard of the "free-love" movement and wanted to connect with Christians who would have sex outside of marriage. Thus claim might sound ridiculous if his accounts of them didn't include little comments about their displays of affection-and especially since he'd asked one of them-back then and there-to give him DETAILS on what an orgy was like. He followed up by claiming that God PERMITTED orgies-but considered monogamy BETTER. It's also believed that San Francisco is where vpw bought the pornographic materials he showed the corps, some Advanced Classes and CFS classes-like the movie of the two women with the dog. (He MENTIONED that video to many Advanced classes and CFS classes where it was not SHOWN.) According to the memorial, his trip to Haight-Ashbury/House of Acts was in 1968. As of 1969, sizeable numbers of young people had flocked to twi from both coasts as a result. Once there was sizeable membership in both coasts, vpw pushed out the Christians from the House of Acts and insisted authority would come FROM hq and tithes would go TO hq. No exceptions. At that point (1969), vpw made his first attempt at a Way Corps, which resulted in the famous "Zero Corps". At some point-presumably early in the way corps history, and possibly as early as 1969, vpw (according to Mrs W's account) first begins to tell his "snow on the pumps" account to people, starting with the way corps. At another point-before the early 1970s-vpw began adding to the "special revelation" that produced the books and classes (which were really compilations of the work of other Christians with their names removed) and began speaking of special revelation about current events. He began to expound on some conspiracy theories to the corps, and about attempts to take over the United States. vpw was getting this material from the John Birch Society and the Liberty Lobby. A few people on-grounds were aware of information coming in from them, but almost nobody knew those were the direct sources of his supposed "revelation". As he had done often before, he just claimed to mysteriously know things and never cited a source-leaving the listeners to guess that there WAS no conventional source, making this ANOTHER thing God just told him. These conspiracy theorist organizations and their personal biases fill in the blanks in some of his odder statements. Their anti-Semitism helps explain his claims that the current Jews were not descended from the historic Jews (which has been disproven genetically since), and his recommendations of books like "the Thirteenth Tribe." Their condemnation of rock and roll and musician/celebrities explain his claims of all musicians being possessed, and his recommendation of "the Marxist Minstrels" to the corps (which claimed rock and roll was a communist plot to take over the United States.) vpw even had David Noebel, who wrote "the Marxist Minstrels" come and lecture the corps. In 1971, vpw began his WOW Ambassador program. This program underwent some changes, but primarily was a one-year committment to get sent out, support yourself, find housing, and run PFAL classes. According to his memorial, 1971 was when the Orange Book, "Power for Abundant Living" was first self-published. It contained mostly material from Leonard's class and from Bullinger's book "How to Enjoy the Bible". A number of pamphlets called "Studies in Abundant Living" accompanied the PFAL class from fairly early on (the filmed class names "Studies in Human Suffering", later renamed "Job:Victim to Victor".) In 1971, the first 3 volumes of "Studies in Abundant Living" are published, compiling the pamphlets into 3 small hardbound books. In 1974, Emporia College in Emporia, Kansas was bought. It was renamed "the Way College of Emporia". Despite an absence of accreditation, licensed professors, and a school "library" composed ENTIRELY of used textbooks donated by way members, it was put forth as if it is a normal, accredited college. In 1975, "Jesus Christ is Not God" was published. This was the last book- not counting Vol 4 of Studies in Abundant Living- that was actually put together by vpw. In 1976, campuses were purchased in Rome City, Indiana ("the College of Biblical Research") and Gunnison, Colorado ("the Way Family Ranch-Camp Gunnison"). In 1977, the PFAL '77 was done live at Ball State University. According to the memorial, in 1977, Howard Allen and Donald Wierwille were installed as Trustees on the Board of Trustees (replacing "Uncle" Harry Wierwille and Ermal Owens.) In 1977, Volume 4 of Studies in Abundant Living was published. In 1978, the land for the LEAD Outdoor Academy was purchased in Tinnie, New Mexico. In 1979, Advanced Class '79 ran (live, I imagine.) In 1980, "Jesus Christ Our Passover" was published. This was the first book written by competent staff and researchers. According to the book itself, it was written "by Victor Paul Wierwille", with no mention of anyone else. It was a higher-caliber book than twi normally self-publishes. In 1982, twi celebrates its "Fortieth Anniversary" since the radio shows that weren't called "the Way". In 1982, vpw installed LCM as the new president of twi and vpw becomes "president emeritus". In 1982, "Jesus Christ Our Promised Seed" was published. It also was written by staff, and said "by Victor Paul Wierwille" on the cover. It relied largely on the calculations of another writer as well. This book also saw the breakthrough of proper crediting, since it actually named the other writer (Martin) and his book. In 1984, a live PFAL class was taught at Camp Gunnison, and a manor house was purchased in Gartmore, Scotland. It was named the Way College of Biblical Research. (aka Gartmore House, or "the big house" to the villagers of Gartmore.) vpw spent his life drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking cigarettes and cigars- tobacco products. Although he usually did it "off-camera", many people knew some of this. Everyone knew he at least smoked, but he seemed to chain-smoke when "no one was watching." Furthermore, he had a "coffee cup" next to him for morning meetings and so on-and often, the contents had nothing to do with coffee. Those who ever commented on it (who were few enough among those who noticed) were treated to his comments about us not being "under condemnation" and thus it wasn't sinful, and therefore had no consequences. However, there WERE consequences.... By 1984, the long-term exposure to alcohol-which damages internal organs, including those that act as the body's filtration system and also damages the brain- and long-term exposure to tobacco-which is a known cancer-causing agent (unlike studio lights)- resulted in some permanent damage to vpw' body. He acquired cancer of the eye and liver, and suffered a stroke. vpw quite vocally-and often- announced that the eye damage was the result of getting cancer from the studio lights used when filming PFAL- thus saying it was the result of virtuous activity, and used to give the students a guilty conscience. Once, when addressing the corps, he was speaking on personal committment to God. He said "I gave my EYE-what are YOU willing to give?" Further, in private, vpw was MOST disturbed that he had ANY physical problems, especially this one. He claimed he'd never been sick or needed an aspirin EVER- not ONE DAY in his life-before this. Not even in PRIVATE did he ever seem to admit he'd exposed his body to carcinogens for DECADES. He had surgery that removed the cancer-stricken eye. The details of the stroke were COMPLETELY hidden-although there were witnesses- and the existence of any cancer produced a problem. According to vpw's DOCTRINE, any Christian should be able to believe sufficiently to burn out a cancer from their body. vpw had slowly manipulated his personal image to the point that he was frequently seen as some sort of super-Christian-which is what he wanted. However, this meant he should have EASILY believed away his cancer. WORSE, he'd taught in the Advanced class that, since a cancer has a life of its own (like algae), it must be the result of devil activity. Since vpw was supposedly a super-Christian, he should have been able to deflect such an assault easily. However, rather than adjust his image, or correct his doctrine-which had already hurt many other Christians-he simply hid the cause of his descent into death. In 1985 the "Word over the World Auditorium" opened at the organizations hq on the farm. vpw died May 20, 1985 at age 68. According to his death certificate, the cause was cancer of the liver and of the eye. According to most people in twi at the time, the cause was UNKNOWN. The most commonly-stated reason was "he got tired of fighting." In the last few months of his life, vpw visited Gartmore and spoke privately with Chr1s Ge*r. He (CG) later claimed that his own paper which he wrote afterwards-"the Passing of the Patriarch"-was based entirely on private conversations with vpw. (Some people believe him, some do not.) That paper-among other things-also claims that vpw would have been able to "believe himself healthy" if he'd wanted to. Volume 5 of Studies in Abundant Living was published posthumously. Its contents were from vpw, it was edited by Chr1$ Ge*r. =========

I love the post-but must make a correction or two. In the interest of completeness, here's how I described this in the 5.6 version of my vpw timeline... "In March, 1953, vpw found out about BG Leonard, and pushed his way into BG Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class, which Leonard told him was closed, but permitted him to enter after vpw arrived. vpw took this class twice, bringing several people with him the second time. (That second time was July 1953.) vpw then went off for a few months by himself, then told Leonard that he'd like to run Leonard's CTC Gifts of the Spirit class locally for his congregation on a one-time basis. Seeing the benefit to other Christians, Leonard agrees. vpw then ran the first of "his" Receiving the Holy Spirit Today classes, (October 1953) and took a photograph of that class. He told the students that this is "his" class called RtHST, with NO mention of Leonard's class from which 100% of the content had been directly lifted. The students had no reason to think he's lying. vpw sent the photograph to Leonard and told Leonard that this is a photo of the class that took Leonard's class on a one-time basis that was run locally. Leonard took vpw at his word, and had no idea that vpw continued to run Leonard's class with vpw's name on it, defrauding both Leonard AND the students. That the classes were interchangeable in terms of material was the opinion of vpw himself- anyone who had graduated Leonard's "Gifts of the Spirit" class was considered to be-by vpw- a graduate of "vpw's" RtHST class. To this day, many students STILL think this was was vpw's class, even when evidence is introduced to the contrary. Later, vpw added the contents of JE Stiles' work on "Gifts of the Spirit" and Bullinger's work on the Holy Spirit as well as "How to Enjoy the Bible", and expanded the class into a class that was the sum of the 3 men's work-Stiles, Bullinger and Leonard-rather than just Leonard. He also renamed the class "Power For Abundant Living", rather than "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today". vpw later made a few offhand comments here and there that the material in the class is not original, but its compilation was. (However, as it was constructed, vpw could have been sued by copyright holders for Bullinger, Stiles, and Leonard. Leonard found out but chose not to prosecute.) It is often noted that the supposed 1942 promise claimed vpw would be taught-by God- things unknown since the First Century Christians, if vpw would teach others- yet ALL the material vpw taught was all taken from Leonard/Stiles/Bullinger/Kenyon and a few others, and thus, it was all KNOWN. Therefore, if a god gave vpw revelation in 1942, it was a god that lied, since vpw's source for everything was MAN and NEVER represented information lost since the First Century AD-not even once. In 1953, vpw also took JE Stiles' "Gifts of the Spirit" book, changed a few words, and self-published it as the 1st Edition of "Receiving the Holy Spirit Today." That it was the same year is no coincidence-it was the "original" textbook for the "original" class. ("Original" in the sense that they were the 1.0 version of his class, not that they originated at that time.) Later editions would include incorporation of material from Leonard and Bullinger, and would include more cosmetic changes in the order of the words and the specific words used in an attempt to make it look less like Stiles' book. Among the changes was the deletion of a reference to an anonymous Christian who "put it together" for vpw (that was Stiles), who was missing by the 4th edition book, where vpw put it all together himself. vpw ran "his" PFAL classes continually from 1953 onward, with some success. Dr E.E. Higgins was one of the students in the October 1953 class. She's known as the anonymous person who would call vpw at night and ask what God showed him that day. In 1954, Dr Higgins first introduced vpw to EW Bullinger's books, and gave him his first copies of the Companion Bible, and "How to Enjoy the Bible." The contents of both these books later became integral parts of "vpw's" class. And yes, I believe "carjacking" is an apt analogy for what he did to Leonard and Stiles (and later, Bullinger and Kenyon.)