Oakspear

Wierwille, after spending the first four sessions of PFAL repeating in various iterations that the Bible is without error, then spends a few sessions pointing out contradictions (or "apparent" contradictions if you will) and then shows you how they're not really contradictions...here's what it really says, what it really means, building up his own street cred as someone who can uncover the truth when every denomination in history got it wrong. That was the real purpose of PFAL, beneath the veneer of Biblical research that any Joe Schmoe could do was the idea that it was Wierwille who's conclusions should be trusted without question. If anyone questioned Wierwille's conclusions they were strongly encouraged to "hold it in abeyance", since obviously you were missing something if your conclusions were different than Wierwille's. Which was why things that made no sense, even within the context of "research" that Wierwille pushed, were accepted, at least provisionally. Things like "The Great Principle", or the idea that the original sin of Adam & Eve was masturbation, or the thundering herd of grammatical errors and leaps of illogic that filled so much of his "teaching"

That whole "Great Principle" thing made no sense. God can't communicate except to what he is, i.e. spirit? But somehow that spirit that he "created in you" can communicate to your mind?

On 7/17/2021 at 1:44 AM, WordWolf said:

[lcm had this thing about walking around and having passing thoughts- then making big announcements about his passing thoughts because he was getting super-revelation just like vpw did!  

One thing he said after one such walk was "The Word is over the world!"  (right after twi lost over 80% of its people- NOW it was MOST successful in spreading "The Word" and had spread it furthest!)     

I was still in when this announcement was made. I remember that my first thought was "How does that make ANY sense?". It was so self-evidently wrong, but we were then bombarded with "explanations" of why it was true. At the time my state had less than a handful of anemic twigs in two cities. There was supposedly a twig in Hong, so the Word was over Asia, a handful of twigs in Europe, so the Word was over Europe. How silly

On 7/15/2021 at 3:48 PM, waysider said:

...At the same time, everyone else seemed to be moving ahead full speed...

Probably they were better at unjustified self-confidence...

I was actually kicked out rather than leaving under my own steam. The whole situation that culminated in Martindale getting fired was the turning point for me. I started questioning everything and began participated in WayDale and Grease Spot under the "Twybil" and "Taoiseach" handles. I was mainly sticking around in order to convince my wife to leave with me. Not to make this a long story but I was found out and kicked out. Two months later my wife kicked me out. 

It took a while, but I got my life back. 

 

On 7/13/2021 at 2:19 PM, skyrider said:

 

23 years out of The Way Cult Corporation for me.......but then, I started eyeing the exit door in 1993.  Martindale started, in haste, his purging campaign to "sanctify The Way Household" with repeated purges.  What a religious farce.  I was the Oklahoma Limb Coordinator at the time.....and found myself trying to protect people from twi's heavy-handedness.  What a roller coaster ride of insanity......Insanity on Steroids

Always good to see you Oakspear.  

 

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Feel free to stop by in person next time you're in the neighborhood

And another thing...

The Advanced Class was one of the biggest disappointments in my early Way career.

After seeing how the first three "manifestations" were practiced and critiqued until it was seen that we could do them, the lack of any practical instruction in the other six was a letdown.

Discerning of spirits became an excuse to denounce others

And was there every a definition of the "manifestation of believing" that made even a little sense? 

The no-debt policy was just another control mechanism. Sure, if you went straight from college to Way staff and never worked a non-Way job and thought you had the rest of your life subsidized by the "believers", a life without any debt sounds doable. I agree that a lot of credit card debt is harmful, and it's easy to get in over your head and never get out...with nothing to show for it, but for most people buying a home without a bank loan is impossible. Even paying cash for a decent car is out of the question for many. Of course, Way people with family connections could always get by. A guy in our area owned his home through some financial gymnastics: his mom and dad took out the loan and were the legal owners; he and his parents drew up some arcane legal document where he would gain a percentage of the home equal to the fraction of the purchase price represented by his monthly payment to his folks. They rationalized that it wasn't really debt, since if he didn't make any more payments he would still own the percentage of the house that his previous payments represented. "Leadership" felt this didn't violate the no-debt policy. Yet my 20 year old son was excoriated for being in debt because he had to pay in after doing his taxes rather than receiving a refund. 

16 hours ago, T-Bone said:

This talk of believing made me think of an old incident....

A typical Way-brained approach. It couldn't just be that it was raining; after all, YOU weren't the one who hit another vehicle, you were the one who was hit. The Way method was always find a way to overthink every aspect of life and make you get down on yourself for not believing. 

 

22 hours ago, Twinky said:

Oh, crikey, I knew a girl years ago, due to sit her end of school exams at age 18 or thereabouts.  Hadn't done much study or preparing for the exam, too busy attending fellowships and helping her father "move the word."  She said she was believing to pass and God would give her the answers, because what she was doing was Godly and more important than studying.

Talk about taking the lord's name in vain...!  I don't know what her results were, have never been in touch with her since.

I recall a woman telling me the same thing. I know what her results were: not good!

1 hour ago, T-Bone said:

Lurking is the next best thing to posting but I always enjoy reading your posts, Oak !

Thanks!

Next month will mark 20 years out of The Way Corporation for me. Time flies when you're not mired in cultish servitude!

I don't spend much time here at the cafe any more, but I DO lurk once in a while

I left twice. In 1982 I got married without the "blessing" of "leadership" with the added bonus of having failed to secure enough Corps sponsorship to get accepted into the 13th Corps. I got into a few arguments with the Limb Leader over various things and stopped going to Way functions. However, in my heart and mind I still believed it all and just chalked up the problems to bad leadership. 

Around 1990 my wife and I started considering going back. We were unaware of the turmoil that had been occurring. My oldest step son was about the right age for PFAL so we signed him up and started, little by little, to get involved again. We were pretty involved, even were Twig Leaders for a few years. 

After Martindale's demotion I started following WayDale and later Grease Spot Cafe and became very skeptical about what was being taught. I was also becoming vocal about expressing my skepticism around leadership. Eventually they figured out who I was on Grease Spot and kicked me out. That was November 2001. 

20 year anniversary coming up!

On 3/20/2021 at 7:08 PM, T-Bone said:

...I don’t think wierwille was competent enough to analyze anyone else’s ideas let alone critique or extrapolate on them...

Amen

If I wasn't supposed actually being at work now, I could point to dozens of examples where Wierwille was using the work done by Bullinger and completely missed the point that Bullinger was making. Same with other authors he plagiarized. An example that comes to mind though is Wierwille's explanation of the word that is translated "interpretation". He clearly lifts his explanation and illustration from Bullinger' How to Enjoy the Bible but completely muffs it. Bullinger, in his example of unleashing dogs upon the game emphasizes the unleashing part (the word is in other places translated "revealing" or "unveiling". Wierwille either misunderstands or purposely misleads by emphasizing that the dogs were attacking the game in a frenzy, shooting way wide of the point that Bullinger was making

Interesting illustration a few posts back about controlling the future by controlling the past & controlling the past  by controlling the present, and how we often bought into the made-up "memories" of Wierwille and his inner circle. Another 1984 line that gets quoted a lot is the one about not believing the evidence of your own eyes.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
 

During the end of my sojourn in TWI I had some question about what they were telling us about Bullinger's 'Witness of the Stars'. I remember Wierwille making the statement "And that's why there are no stars in The North". What? There ARE stars in the north...they're all over the damn place! I didn't give it much thought until many years later Martindale brought it up. He admitted that he too was puzzled by that statement. He then pointed to the map of the constellations in the back of 'Witness of the Stars' and told us that it meant that there was a gap, representing 'the mystery' in between Ursa Major & Ursa Minor that contained no stars. Soon after that I was out camping, and away from the city lights, you could plainly see a truckload of stars in the supposed gap.

When I brought it up to "leadership" they "explained" that back then they didn't know about all the constellations that we know about now since they didn't have telescopes. That statement made so little sense, and was so ridiculous on the face of it, it was one of the steps to me getting out the YTWI door

On 1/29/2021 at 3:09 PM, Rocky said:

May I call you "IR-Reverend?" 

You may...I always enjoy a good pun

On 1/29/2021 at 9:31 AM, Grace Valerie Claire said:

Oak, wow!!  I didn't know that was possible. Good for you!

700 weddings and counting, including my wife's weddings in 14 years

On 1/27/2021 at 6:59 PM, Grace Valerie Claire said:

Oak, I used to attend a Methodist Church in Bethesda, and we called the ministers, by their first names. They would call me by my first name, which was fine.  Everyone calls me by my first name, which I really like.  I like the fact that people feel comfortable doing it.  

I got an internet ordination 15 years ago so I could officiate at weddings. I use "Reverend" on my website and business cards, but I like people to call me by my first name. Some people at weddings insist on calling me "pastor" or "reverend" though. 

On 12/8/2020 at 4:04 PM, T-Bone said:

Hi , AC04Ohio that is a very interesting bit of information – and just speculating here but – I wonder if that was part of a feeble attempt to “reinvent”  The Way International. I say “reinvent” meaning to remake or redo their corporate persona with some semblance of legitimacy – since the Power For Abundant Living book (the orange book) epitomizes wierwille’s unabashed plagiarism…

You know – that had to be a decision from the top to get rid of the PFAL book…I’m just curious as to why… It really doesn’t matter how much TWI’s top leadership whitewashes the past – the insidious tactics, policies and procedures that wierwille instituted are still present…you can even change the label on the outside of a portable latrine (or cult) but it still has $hit on the inside.

Throughout the 90's and into 2000 Martindale was replacing much of what had been built under Wierwille and replacing it was his own brain farts. PFAL was replaced with The Way of Abundance & Power (WayAP); various "advanced studies" classes, e.g. Dealing With the Adversary, Witnessing & Undershepherding, Christian Family & Sex and others were replaced with classes taught by Martindale or other loyalists; The WOW program was replaced by Way Disciples; The Rock of Ages was eliminated; Martindale's book 'The Rise & Expansion of the Christian Church in The First Century' was promoted. Minor things like wearing your old green advanced class nametag or WOW pin were banned as "old wineskins". I was kicked out in 2001, so I don't know if this was reversed, but it would make sense that Martindale's contribution would be erased. What would it be replaced with? I thought I've seen references to Wierwille being emphasized again, but I don't know

I wonder if anyone from TWI monitors this site any more. 20 years ago there were a large numbers of "innies" participating in GSC, and they were checking here to see whom to purge. I was shown the door after they figured out from my posts who I was

2 hours ago, Stayed Too Long said:

I wonder how long negative reviews will be tolerated until they are removed?

Not long, I'd guess. I was blocked from their Twitter feed for asking pointed questions

I was raised Catholic, so it was always Father Johnson or Father Bill. I've never been involved in any other churches, so I don't know for sure, although I have heard acquaintances refer to their ministers as Pastor Bob or Mary or what have you. 

I have to share this Sudo story.

Some of you may have participated in the old Southern Comfort Weenie Roasts. There were at least four of them, held down around the Tennessee-Kentucky border. I was at the second and third and roomed with Sudo both times. At Weenie Roast #2 we gathered in a state park. Despite the prohibition on bringing alcohol into the park, we brought alcohol into the park. A LOT of alcohol. We were also all very loud late into the evening. One of our campground neighbors called the law on us. There is some disagreement on whether it was a deputy sheriff or a park ranger, but we were in danger of spending the night in jail if the officer decided to press the matter. One of the Weenie Roasters, who lived locally, threw herself under the bus and took responsibility for bringing in the alcohol so that those of us from out of state could be spared being guests of the county. Meanwhile, brave Sudo was scrambling around hiding the various bottles of the good stuff in sleeping bags and pillow cases (and of course the "pear juice") while the rest of us dutifully poured out our cheap beer in front of the officer. If I remember correctly, he also "saved" some of booze by quickly drinking it. (There was also a pole dance with kazoo accompaniment)

All kidding aside, Sudo was one of the voices of reason and was instrumental in spreading the truth about TWI 

On 4/16/2020 at 8:16 PM, Stayed Too Long said:

My point is, all have been healed by God, but believe God in different ways. 

And many find healing without any involvement from any gods

But like Raf, I have no problem with that, believe as you like, only when you're trying to convince me do I require some kind of evidence