WordWolf

I thought it was "the Star". "The Sun" was a bad paper for years. It was "that gentleman.....who took over...as editor of the Star...that family-loving newspaper the Star...that total degraded sh*bag who should be put in prison for his crimes against women."

Rocky, I believe that story has been discredited as a real answer from an exam. In still quote it because I find it fascinating, mind you, I just don't believe it's true. (Check Snopes if you like.) ========================================================== In this one case, I agree with what Johnny Lingo posted. I think he's dead, and we'll find out at the appointed hour if he's in the same crowd as the rest of us. =========================================================== Here's an alternate answer, however..... Ever read Dante's Inferno? It's by Dante Aligheri, and titled "the Inferno", thus, Dante's Inferno. It's a classic of Italian literature. In fact, some people consider it to be THE classic of Italian literature-Dante's mother, in particular, I think, had something to say about that. The Inferno is a journey through hell-Dante's personal vision of what it's like in hell. We travel down through each level. Hell has levels so that sinners who committed worse sins are lower and tortured worse than those who committed lesser sins. We reach the bottom of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Dante's vision of the lowest point of the bottom of the Ninth Circle of hell is described there..... It is Judas Iscariot....surrounded, not by fire, but by ice... unable to move, but forever conscious, and aware of the terrible betrayal that he committed. That is what Dante believed was at the lowest point of hell. But, I say, that UNDERNEATH Judas, is VPW. Forced forever to stare thru the ice at Judas' behind. Well, that's one possibility, anyway. ============================================================ For those of you wondering, I adapted that from something Ben Elton did once. You may know him from "Blackadder."

I recommend everyone turn the computer off for 30 minutes and take a brisk walk around the block. That's just a suggestion, though. Feel free to ignore it.

Well, just off the top of my head, vpw had a tendency to bash conventional Christians if he had enough time in front of the microphone. In know the Rock of Ages '79 set had at least one tape- "the Battlefield-the Mind" where he compared his teaching on free will-favourably of course- to the amount of time they discuss it in "any theological cemetary or seminary I've heard of." Obviously, he seems to have been absent at seminary whenever they discussed Calvinism and free will-this is a regular subject, BTW. Last time I sat thru the "Living Victoriously" tapes, I had the impression that each tape had at least one point where he took a potshot at conventional Christianity. The book has either edited out or softened mant of them. Example: opening tape=opening chapter. "The Roman Catholics would have us believe that the word "protestant" is a negative word, that it means you're protesting against something. That's a lie from the pit of Roman Catholicism..." He then mentioned how the word "Protestant" has as its root "speaking forth", which is confirmed by my dictionary. The book gives the explanation without the derogatory comment. I'm unsure if it was simply thought that the comment was more profitable this way, or if it reveals a bias in the editor, meaning that they didn't really register the insult. Really, though.... Find any tape where either has time to ramble on for a while, then listen. You'll probably find SOMETHING. vpw WAS fond of bashing other Christians. In fact, that thing that Mike lauds to the sky, what Mike calls vpw's "last" or "lost" teaching, basically says 2 things: A) The best thing for Christians out there is pfal-all 3 levels. B) Outside of twi, there's no real accuracy among Christians.

One of our newer arrivals suggested the "help-the pfal class was stolen" thread is a keeper. I'll mention ones I like, but I'm biased, and think that 1/2 the threads I start are keepers. :)-->

If anyone's interested... Greasespot's main page has links to all the documents, including the POP paper. Feel free to reread it for yourself. Basically, it says vpw was dying and worried that twi was going to be less holy after he died. Nothing about vpw's sins- just problems with his hand-picked and personally-trained successors....and we only have cg's word that this is what vpw said. http://www.greasespotcafe.com ============================================== Johnny, Few, if any, here would claim that you and others weren't tremendously blessed. Shaz explains it all a few posts up. You were blessed because of God working in the hearts of the lowly peons out in the field. Meanwhile, root-rot affected the beauracracy, as your 10% went to pay for luxuries at hq (like a plane, comfy offices, an ostentatious auditorium, etc) and NEVER for things out there where the people were actually DOING stuff. Think for a moment. I'll bet you have many good memories. I do. Mine are almost exclusively from out on the field, though, from amongst the lowly peons. Yours might be, also.

vpw was the Pharisee, and lcm was the student that he made "twice the child of hell" that he was. vpw and lcm were not different in SUBSTANCE, only in STYLE. Those who were closer to "backstage" are well familiar with vpw's vices (love of luxury and being feted everywhere he went, his love of alcohol and tobacco, the sex maniac stuff) and his shortcomings (his wrath whenever things weren't JUST the way he wanted, the evils of anyone in power other than him, the evils of all other Christian leaders) than people who only saw the image he projected on tape and during public events.

Jehosaphat was pretty emotional on a few occasions. It would surprise me if he did NOT jump at some point.

That's fricking hysterical. I loved both skits. The Sarah Michelle Geller/Jack Black scene is where we find out that Jack had the one ring attached to himself with a body piercing (a "Prince Albert", to be specific). The acceptance speech with Slinker and Stinker was, if anything, a LOT funnier. :)--> The only thing I liked better was Yoda's acceptance for "Best Fight Sequence" that year. :)--> BTW, Frodo was 33 at the time of the party. Bilbo was 111. The "private dinner" at the end of the party was planned to equal their ages in guests, 12 dozen, or one gross. :)--> I'm glad they kept in Bilbo's second comment, intact. That was the one that confused the guests, where he said he liked half of them half as much as they deserved, and so on. I also like that we saw him telling the kids stories about his journey "there and back again".

Clicking up again for current discussions...

This is a thread with some info on Leonard...

Clicking this back up, since we're discussing it...

Clicking back to the top....

As to plagiarism, I once heard an argument that sounded like this... First of all, vpw never plagiarized. God dictated the passages to him. Second of all, he may have done it, but God told him to lift the lines. Third of all, the men he plagiarized approved of it. Fourth of all, the men should be ashamed of themselves for not approving of it like God did. As to the first and second, I'm not even addressing them. If you believe that, nothing I can say will mean anything to you. As to them approving of it, several were dead when vpw plagiarized them, and several of them didn't hear about it for years. Remember-the distribution of the books was TIGHTLY CONTROLLED by twi- you could NOT buy them in Barnes & Noble nor could you borrow them from your local library. It's been said that BG Leonard added elaborate copyright notes to his books and became a lot more tightlipped after his work was ripped off. He did not, however, seek legal action. I cannot prove the reason, and I was not there, but I suspect it was more a matter of an unwillingness to sue another Christian, even if he WAS doing wrong.

vpw chose out the most "faithful" (blindly obedient) member of his inner circle that he could find. As to the skunk pelt, if I remember correctly, I learned here at the GSC that it was something lcm had made up for himself to symbolize how special and holy he was, thus it was a later addition.

I clicked up an old thread where we discussed it.

Since someone asked about this, I'm clicking this back to the top....

Because he's the serious one. :)--> Plus, he's played by that guy from the Matrix. Zixar, how you managed to make it thru "Bored of the Rings", I'll never know. The only stuff I thought was funny was naming the elf "Legolam" and one of the towers "Minas Troney". Otherwise, it struck me as something you couldn't read sober. "Oh, I didn't like that scene, so I'm leaving it out." (Smack.) I felt the scouring of the Shire showed how much they had changed, and how their lives were up to them now, and how far "Sharkey" had fallen. ("A little trouble in a mean way.") Somebody I know said they could easily have fit in the entire "Scouring of the Shire" sequence if they trimmed down some of the scenes where everybody stared at each other. :)-->

Sunny1, Internet scams con people into giving up money and personal information. Yes, the victim should have been more paranoid, but does this excuse the con artist? A smooth enough scam can fool almost anyone. Why do I bring this up? It's been brought up here that the Way Corps candidates were required to write papers before they entered the corps, and this included autobiographies. Some of them included information that indicated some of the women had been sexually victimized or exploited in childhood or adolescence. As you may know, people who have been traumatized in that way by certain vile people are more vulnerable to later exploitation by later vile people. Those women whose "confidential" autobiographies included backgrounds of sexual abuse and molestation were- surprise, surprise! Singled out and targeted for "affairs"/molestation/rape/abuse by the "upper echelon". Quite a concidence, wouldn't you say? One might almost think that the papers had been read and targeted for victims....if one were very mistrustful, one might think that the entire purpose of the autobiographies was to get dirt for later exploitation. When some people left twi or were kicked out, info from the "confidential" papers was often cited as "proof" the person was now delving into evil in leaving twi. Hmmm... almost sounds like quite a bit of "premeditation" happened. Strange how vpw had a HOUSE, yet he also had a trailer on grounds where these young women were brought. It takes work to set up a trailer like that. Is it remotely possible that the entire purpose for the trailer (when he had a HOUSE RIGHT THERE) was to arrange in advance a separate, secluded place where young women could be molested without interruption? Seems almost beyond belief, no? What else was it for? (He had a HOUSE RIGHT THERE.) I'm mentioning "premeditation" because it makes a big difference when discussing crimes. "Premeditation" means a crime was planned out before executed. It's the difference between a "crime of passion" and a callous act. It's the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter. Look- if Rafael and I meet in the street, argue, fight, and one of us kills the other, that would be viewed as manslaughter. It happened in the "heat of the moment." If Rafael and I meet in the street, and 5 burly friends of one of us mysteriously appear on cue and knife the other guy, and the survivor's Day Planner list this block of time as "time to murder", then this shows he PLANNED it-thus, premeditation is shown. This makes it a WORSE crime, since it was planned out coldly. ======================== Let's say Rottiegrrl and I met for cocktails New Years Eve. It's possible both of us could "click" and get "intimate" and start a relationship (or get intimate and not start a relationship.) If one of us had regrets the next day, well, we're adults and we should have known better....... but what if one of us had slipped the other "rohypnol" in their drink? If I did that, and she had regrets the next day, not knowing I had drugged her to take advantage of her, would you say she should just "get over it"? If she drugged me, and I ended up cheating on my imaginary wife as a result, would you say I was equally responsible, and should just get on with my life? Some things you "just get over". When someone makes a deliberate plan, and orchestrates it, setting steps into motion to eventually make a victim out of you for their own gain, you don't just chalk it up to experience. You warn others that this person lacks integrity, and warn them to keep a safe distance, lest bad things happen to them. They are NOT to trust them. ========================================================== "All the women in the kingdom belong to the king." That's a direct quote from pfal AND the collaterals. The context: King David's seduction of a married woman in his kingdom, and the subsequent arranged murder of her husband to cover David's tracks. vpw said that "technically" David could have gotten away with this because "all the women in the kingdom belong to the king." NO! This defies the written Laws in effect, the letter AND intent of the Mosaic Law concerning marriage, and was an abuse of the power he wielded as king. Everybody knows that. The concept of the "droit de seigneur" was NEVER in effect in the Bible. Strange it was part of vpw's teaching, though. Why would he maintain that the person in top authority was within his rights to have sex freely with the women under his authority? Might this be a concept that was on his mind? It certainly was not outlined from Scripture..... Might this be a hint, a clue, to deliberate intent? It certainly would help establish a pattern of state-of-mind. It's not without irony that I compare King David's coverup with vpw's coverups in my mind. Some of you may see the same thing I do. (Some of you may not.)

Hello, Linda. I haven't seen you or the Mr posting here before, but it doesn't mean I like either of you any less for that. :)--> We all arrived here at different times, and I, personally, would have guessed you'd arrive sooner. If you're late to the movie, you missed a few scenes. Please review the documents and editorials on the GSC main page. http://www.greasespotcafe.com There's been many, many threads where many, many witnesses have come forth-people who were victimized by vpw, people who were used as unwitting pawns to victimize others and realized it years later (but trusted him too much to suspect him THEN), and people who've witnessed either, and put the pieces together since then. This is hardly an issue where one person is making a single claim. This is not a "smear" or "whisper" campaign. These things WOULD have come to light if there had been an internet long ago, instead of people vanishing and there being a "lockbox" policy about coverups, and people who vanish were not subject to their OWN smear campaign by twi. Review some of this stuff, and you'll see what I mean. lcm didn't make this up on his own-he imitated his instructor.

I hear you, What The Hey. So, tell me, then, which is your position.... A) All the women who claim vpw raped or molested them are lying (We've heard this one before) B) vpw raped and molested women for their own good (We've heard this one before) C) vpw unintentionally did evil when he arranged to have young, impressionable women brought to him in private, plyed them with alcohol, and fed them a line about being spiritual enough to disregard his marriage vows. (This would be a new one.) So, which one isn't too "extreme" for you? You know, down in my area, there's this big gaping hole where some buildings used to stand until a few years ago. Some people think it's inconceivable that they could be struck down by hijacked airplanes. However, that's what happened anyway. Extremist or not, it's true.

Sorry, Lorna. This isn't new thought. We've already addressed each of these points already. First of all, Dot's point. Research is good. Claiming other people's work was given you directly by God is bad. Second of all, Steve's point. vpw thought it was perfectly acceptable for himself to lift whole chapters from books by EW Kenyon, EW Bullinger, JE Stiles, etc, but made sure all HIS books had copyrights on them so that no one could do the same with HIS books. Third of all, you have an improper understanding of plagiarism. Plagiarism is a rather specific CRIME. It is not writing something SIMILAR to someone else. It is not studying the work of others and producing a similar work. It is the deliberate act of taking the work of other people and claiming it is your own, and making the deliberate decision to avoid citing your source. It will get you in trouble in high school. It will get you thrown out of college, grad school or divinity school. EVERY student and EVERY graduate knows this. Making the deliberate decision to do so ANYWAY is wrong. It is a lie, and dishonest. It is theft-the theft of another's work. It shows a lack of integrity, and a lack of respect for your audience. It is laziness. It is vanity-pretending you're too important to do your own work. There's hundreds of websites that can give you a more accurate definition of plagiarism. I didn't find a GOOD one, but I did find a number of websites that showed what different universities thought of it. Not knowing if you have access to a pdf reader, I've left off the best one I found, but you can look at this one: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~sources/about/what.html If you have Adobe Acrobat reader, you can view this pdf document: http://www.wesleyan.edu/libr/tut/plagiarism.pdf There's other points-I'm sure others will chime in with them, and with better links. Funny-I was going to leave alone the plagiarism business, but since you brought it up....

Oh, and Mike, In case you missed it, Pawtucket has spoken. "These are discussion threads, not lecture threads." And most of your threads, proposing Doctrine as they do, go in the DOCTRINAL forum.

BackForty, Here's what you've missed. Please keep in mind that this is coming from one poster, who may or may not be accurately reflecting things. However, it is my studied opinion, and you are free to compare it to the archived threads and the new ones that start. Mike has claimed that he spent many years thinking all kinds of things, then about 5 years ago, he came to the conclusion that vpw's writings- pfal and the collaterals and so on-have replaced the Bible and are now SUPERIOR to it in terms of what we need to read nowadays. (Actually, it was shown he's held this opinion longer.) Mike has called the Bible-the King James Version and so on- "unreliable fragments" and "tattered remnants", and then he called them "approximations", and things like "close", but not completely up to scratch. Mike claims that the proof of vpw's work being God-breathed was the snowstorm that nobody else saw, and the 1952 promise that seriously failed to match reality. In case you've forgotten them, that's the "snow on the gas pumps" vpw said he saw in later years (he claimed it in later years). The promise was that if vpw would teach it to others, God Himself would teach him His Word like it hadn't been known since the First Century. "The Word as it was known in the First Century" is a neat concept, but since the printing press wasn't invented, the Written Word was in short supply. Further, the practices of vpw-run everything in neatly-packaged classes- bore no relation to events in the first century church. Further, the fact that vpw was shown to invent snowstorms on other occasions to make himself sound more special wouldn't be addressed, either. Mike claims that vpw's work is God-breathed because vpw SAID it was God-breathed, which we know because he said it was. When asked for proof to believe this wild story, Mike has said that the only way to prove it is to spend hundreds of hours of time digging thru vpw's old teachings, both on paper and tape, and eventually you'll be convinced of this. (Which is hardly enough to convince us to spend the hundreds of hours.) Mike's claimed that there's some special plateau reached when one does this, a level Mike himself freely admits to not reaching. Mike claimed that vpw's "last, secret lost teaching" was this teaching where vpw said, in short "Outside of The Way International, there is no real truth among Christians. To really serve people, you'll need to master my 3 PFAL classes-Foundational, Intermediate and Advanced." Mike has taken this as his battlecry and has claimed that the "good old days" remembered by some were pretty much the result of vpw being THE man of God, and Mike has taken various approaches to claims that specific people were molested/raped/etc by vpw, including that they lied, or that it was for their own good and we need to lighten up on our definition of "sexual assault." If vpw did something, it was by definition for someone's own good, because otherwise the secret doctrine that true spiritual understanding comes from secrets sprinkled in the twi books would be in jeopardy. Mike's basic approach has been to promise some incredible secret will be revealed. So far, he hasn't produced anything that 95% or more of us have considered even noteworthy, let alone worth the fanfare preceeding it. Mike considers vpw's works to be devoid of any error, excepting possibly inkstains on the manuscripts. Entire lists of errors have been posted, which Mike refuses to acknowledge, saying the actual errors are only in the mind of the reader. Oh, that's right- unless you're an old-timer, you are incapable of reading vpw's books and gaining understanding of them-you're in a lesser classification. So far, true spiritual understanding, for Mike, has come from things hidden cabalistically amongst various teachings. Many of us have disagreed, which, according to Mike, makes us either "crybabies" (vpw raped me) or "unfit researchers" (pfal has errors on page xx). Mike's approach is that he's the only one that has the truth, and the rest of us seem to be retarded children who must be led by the hand and are incapable of understanding, and that honest dissent is ERROR. (My apologies to any retarded children reading this post.) So, Mike often will make a number of claims, and a number of us will dispute them. Occasionally, tempers flare, and Mike and some of his dissenters will get unprofessional in their conduct. When a few posters see so many disagreeing loudly with Mike, they seem to conclude that it is NOT because we all have legitimate disagreements with him, but that Mike is being singled out because he has an unpopular point of view. Thus, he's entitled to get mean-spirited and insult the opposing POV, but his dissenters do not. In case you're wondering, yes, I'm the same poster that was periodically doing digests of Mike's sequipedalian threads, so that other posters could keep up, and know what was going on without having to wade thru them all. Mike's view of same, of course, being that, as an "unfit researcher", that I'm unqualified and unable to fairly represent the contents of his threads. I leave it to the readers as to whether both those threads and this summary represent accurately what's happened to date. Personally, I agree with the many posters who've said Mike needs to respect and actually READ the posts of the people who disagree with him. (We read HIS posts, but he's reluctant to grant us the same courtesy.)

One of the pieces of "It's a Wonderful Life" trivia.... "Bert" and "Ernie" from this movie are who the Sesame Stree muppets are named after. BTW, somewhere, there's a copy of the rules to the "It's a Wonderful Life" drinking game. I was reading them, thinking how incredibly complicated they were. There was stuff like "When George Bailey says 'Bert! Ernie!', everyone begins singing the 'Rubber Duckie' song-the last person to chime in must take a drink." If I remember right, the end of the movie, everyone sings along.... except the most sober person in the room, who must continue to drink all thru the song, because "no one is alone as long as he has friends."