johniam

Aw, that's totally bizarre. Jerusalem is surrounded by mountains isn't it? Zion was a fortress with a sheer cliff on one side. Jesus said the sermon on the mount...in a MOUNTAIN!!! And don't forget Zappa's "Billy the Mountain".

Wow. Psychiatrist, huh? That's pretty heavy and gloomy. Don't know if it's true, but I can see the possibility that during the first 2 - 2 1/2 yrs of the fog he was so shell shocked that everybody was flaming him that he condemned himself exceedingly..."I never walked with God, I'm no man of God, it was all a delusion, what a fool I am, oh God what should I do..."...and it took Donna and Rosalie et al much effort to get him to think he really WAS a MOG again. Only the "new and improved" MOG had just got up from the "pet sematary" and acted like it.

Hope: There was a tape from October of '95 where LCM announced that Rosalie would replace Don one year from then. On the same tape he said he recently (then) was walking from the auditorium to the way woods and God told him the word IS over the world and that God would have loved to have given the same revelation 13 yrs earlier but the household wasn't clean enough or something like that. That's the best I can recall.

GeorgioJessio: Speaking of Boy George, in 1985 the Beach Boys were in the STL area. I didn't attend the show, but I heard that BB guitarist Al Jardine made a joke about Boy George during the show figuring their audience would be older people. He got booed so loud and quick that it rattled him and he stumbled over an electrical cable on the stage floor and almost fell down. BM woulda had his work cut out for him at THAT show, huh? I once saw Jethro Tull (1975) and Ian Andersen made fun of Elton John for having big glasses, Mick Jagger for having big lips, and David Bowie for being bisexual. I don't understand why talented performers have to resort to that. Just do your show and leave your issues in the damn dressing room.

EWB: Lot of background info for why I picked where I am. Got kicked out of TWI in '94 for standing up to them about why some members of my family could go to fellowship and others couldn't. The thing that scared me the most about leaving was habit (18 yrs) plus one liners like that your committment should be beyond your lifetime, you're a "dog soldier", you're supposed to be "salted", etc. So for 9 months after leaving I didn't want to go to any church or fellowship. Part of me said "I'm FREE!", but another part said "I wonder how the devil's going to kill me?" So I basically walked through the open doors I was comfortable with. This led to 4 different way spinoffs and a Presbyterian church. I currently attend fellowships associated with John Hendricks. He's got his head screwed on straight. He doesn't see devil spirits everywhere. I like being free. At age 49 I think I can decide for myself what activities to be interested in, what music to listen to, etc. The fellowship I go to does not violate this. Other than that, I didn't spend 18 yrs in TWI because I have a problem with home based fellowships, so that had a role in why I still go to them, but I don't rule out ever going to a church again either.

Paw: I concur with Dot. Recently in STL a serial killer was caught via the internet. It was neat to see how this was done. The perp had sent email messages to someone. So the police gave their info to the FBI, who had the authority to pry into the guy's internet use and they got the evidence they needed and caught the guy. But I was blessed to see that law enforcement can't just help themselves to internet stuff for no reason. So no paranoid fantasies here.

Dot: Mark 9...Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. With tears if memory serves. He was not turned away.

Dot: I really believe it; that wasn't just a putdown. It's not necessarily what was said and specifically done, it was the whole atmosphere. Look at the average GSer. We're all intelligent people. The only way any of us would have put up with ghastly situations like WOW was in is if there was something other than flesh and blood in the mix putting serious pressure on us. TWI is getting more and more conformed to the nasty side of this world every minute. They said themselves that the devil's people accuse God's people of doing what they themselves actually do. So they accuse us of being possessed when they are. Makes sense to me. They pay Cult Awareness Network to spin them better, they pay lawyers who can "clean up all details" as Don Henley put it in 'End of the innocence', they get Terry Bradshaw to plug them on MSNBC, where does it end? I'm actually concerned that some of their 'bedfellows' may be powerful enough to help them hurt some of us. As a religious cult they were bush league, but as a corporate cult they may not be.

OE: I'm with you on that. I kind of gave it up for a season to rid myself of some of its negative influence, but I never hated it. There's probably some bad association with every music group in some way.

Yeah, that one must've been hard to manage ha ha. My WOW family coordinator would play early Beatles albums over and over again, this while the book 'Marxist minstrels' was being promoted. One time I destroyed a foot high stack of secular albums thinking it would make me more spiritual. Don't know if it did or not and don't really regret doing that, y'know (a time to gather stones, a time to cast away rolling stones, ha ha). But after enough time passed I said screw that and started re accumulating. I don't have near the record collection I once had, but I got music. In the spinoff I attend there has been no teaching whatsoever about this. Not from the MOG nor from the leaders. Last year me and another believer went to Ozzfest. Oboy! Granted, there aren't too many in the fellowships who would want to do that, but hey, we're free!

Catcup: Did you ever finish that paper you were going to write about the way caste system?

Dot: Let me edit part of your post here a second... And here is an example of a TRUE story: Corps Leader and WOW were WOW together and then remained roommates for two more years. This story is on the third year of being roommates. I will refer to her as a WOW but this is actually two years after she did her WOW commitment. Devil spirit(s) to WOW: "I don’t think you should go out with Mark." WOW "I like him and he has been going to twig for over a year and I am going with him." Spirit: "I think you have a defiant spirit." WOW "Chapter and verse?" Spirit: "I am you leader, I get revelation for your life." WOW "God, would tell me first." Wow walks away and goes into the bathroom to get away from it all. Leader follows her into the bathroom and blocks the doorway. Spirit then says, "I think we need to sing a hymn; devil spirits hate God's music let's sing." WOW "I do not want to sing." Spirit starts to sing WOW tried to leave bathroom WOW "Let me out of here." Spirit "No, you are having devil problems." (how true) Wow was stuck in bathroom for over 30 minutes (may have been an hour I forget now)crying and trying to leave. WOW escapes. Spirit yells, "If you do not listen to me, you will marry him and have retarded children." WOW runs down the street and flags down a passing motorist. Motorist drives WOW to where I work. WOW is sobbing and tells me all sorts of things. She begs me to help her escape the WAY home. Every time she had tried to leave this woman had done these things to her. WOW is a very good and decent person. She manifested the fruits of the spirit. I believe her. I hide the woman out. Wow then tells us how she used to wear make-up and cute little clothes. How the corps leader pushed her into the bathroom and washed the make-up off her face. Called her a whore when she wore cute things and kept her like a scary husband frightens a wife into staying. When WOW went to “above leadership”, that “above leader” called in the "corps leader" (WOW's roommate) who convinced these (5-sense knowledge men) that the WOW had devils. (OK, the above paragraph is straight from PFAL; if a devil spirit says jump, a lesser devil spirit doesn't ask how high, he jumps. So the "corps leader" must have had a bigger spirit than the "above leadership") The leadership then turns on WOW telling her she must listen to “leader” for her own spiritual well being.... She begged me to believe her and I did. There was always something creepy about her “leader” roommate. I call a corps sister of mine (the wife of an area leader) and we stash WOW. Wife does not tell her husband as we know husband has a blank allegiance to his superiors and is severely uncool. My corps sister and I prayed and we knew we could tell nobody what was happening. There! Make sense now?

This is weird. In the 70's I happened to see an application for involvement in the Church of Scientology - 17 pages long! They wanted to know if you ever were part of an organization that wanted to destroy scientology (asked it in 3 different ways), they wanted to know the colors of the tints in your eyes, all this detailed stuff. They've had their share of accusations pointed their way. I was apprentice corps in the early 80's and the corps ap wasn't very long. The most detailed thing they wanted to know was 3 questions about my blood which some GSers say means they didn't want me to fall over dead while jogging. It seems they've gone the way of scientology in part.

Oh, this is classic! TWI teaches from the lecturn (from the upright commode) that any who leave are walking away from God's protection as though their "fate" will come upon them no matter what happens....BUT...let's just help God out here a bit by cursing them ourselves.

I used to occasionally take the ferry (SS City of Midland) between Ludington, MI and Manitowoc, WI and back when my sister lived in Appleton, WI. It took 4 hrs to go 50 miles and included vehicles. Can't remember what it cost with a vehicle, but solo it only cost $8.00 one way in 1975. This fast ferry sounds a little more specialized.

Rascal: Remember Paul did some bad stuff when he thought he was doing God's will. God forgave him. Paul also sometimes longed for the good times. God didn't care if he went to Jerusalem to re live old times. He just didn't want Paul to get hurt. What's done is done. Paul admitted that he did it ignorantly in unbelief. Look at all the evil that has been documented from the catholic church, yet God can work there, can't he?

CW: That avatar is cool: a 3D yin yang! In my dope days I could've stared at that thing for hours. Today, maybe 5 minutes. Does this mean I'm delivered? Naw, devil spirits are down sizing, too. A generation ago they could afford to send a whole fleet; today, maybe a factory rep will show up every month. It's terrible these days.

Perhaps Paw or somebody should do a study and see if wacko posts are up, down, or neutral during a full moon. I must go; the voices are telling me to kill.

Song: He can't just consider that he may be wrong. No, the ONLY way this could possibly fit is if all those who left are possessed and the ONLY reason we are still alive is because the spirit realm is covering its tracks, or whatever. Must be a lot of tracks to cover.

Those verses remind me of the video for "Thriller".

IMF: You accused me awhile back of being defensive about CRF. I think you are much more defensive about Pat et al.

Dink was one of the euphemisms for penis when I was a boy. It seems to combine the words dick and sink...not very powerful. The word became archaic by the time I was 18. She said the guy was 12 or something.

Katmandu I remember, but don't remember grapeape.

We did at our twig, too. Less than a minute after the last amen and out came the monopoly board (easier to roll them with that).

I've been a horror movie fan all my life. They've been making them funny for the last 20 yrs. In the old Frankenstein and Dracula movies the personal presence of the monster was so terrifying that the eventual victims just froze and the monster could just take its time and make the kill. In the 1986 classic "Night of the Creeps" the people who had to deal with the 'creeps' were wise cracking the entire movie. It was a horror/comedy. Now more to the point of the thread. In the old Jesus movies like "King of Kings" or "The greatest story ever told" and such, Jesus looks like he took 20 hits of acid and somehow mesmerized the disciples into following him. The crucifiction scenes show him on the cross with a scuff mark or two on his face and he really isn't convincingly suffering. Since "The last temptation of Christ" wanted to portray a more "realistic" Jesus, at least in the minds of the makers of the film, then what's wrong with Mel Gibson portraying a more realistic crucufiction? Sure, he believes JC is God, and he emphasizes the crucifiction instead of the resurrection, and if JC our Passover has any truth to it, the suffering is probably still tame compared to what really happened, but as a hollywood film it's definitely a break through. Haven't seen it yet, but probably will.