Bramble

During that time I had three preschoolers. My schedules never worked--but I was not corps. Still, this was a cause for concern. So Corps leader wifie talked to me about schedul conflicts and about the Adversary messing with the schedule. She was super proud to tell me her schedule got whammed, too, but she showed that Adversay what for by doing her Aerobics at two am. It happened all the time. What a lesson for me, the little twiggie.

Except she looked like exhausted hell. How could always losing all that sleep be good for anyone? Just one more thing I packed into my gotta get away sack

TWI was enamored with authoritarian leadership (w/Bible verse 'proof') to the point they could not distinguish between bullying and 'leadership.' There were no checks and balances, no concern about the abuse of power, no concern about mental health or the safety of their followers. Hierarchy of needs would just irritate them as being a devilish influence--people should just obey and get blessed.

And we all know how well that worked!

I've been accused of many things in this past decade about the forums as I mentioned earlier. My goal was to make the forums a place to discuss. I've watched people defend twi to high heaven when they have just started to post and over a period of time, they have that "AHA" moment. I've seen very hurt people get answers that get them on the road to healing. Sometimes it is a difficult road, but it's a joy to see them come through on the other side. I have always done my best to let people take that road freely. And I will take issue with anyone trying to hamper that journey.

So much for the 'finger on the pulse of TWI/ExTWI' lawsuit man. I have seen (and experienced) the same as you wrote about above. And what timing, with people once again fleeing TWI and needing someplace to go to sort it all out.

Shouldn't he concentrate on getting an am radio show? Sheesh, he could reach a lot more people than the shoutbox!

Nice breakdown, WordWolf.

I would have spent alot more time with my parents and siblings.

I would not have blown off my teaching career...I'd be in a much better place financially(and health insurance finances) and for retirement if I had stuck with the career...instead of spending years running a twig that had no real effect or benefit on anyone's life and set many up to get crushed by TWI leadershi+...hamster wheel that took no one nowhere but sure kept us busy. Didn't even lead to friendships in the end.

Interesting online book (google) about the historical context of the witch trials.

European Witch Trials

There is a Calendar of Witch Trials with brief descriptions. Things like woman allegedly riding a wolf... woman had a familiar(she owned a pet cat, I'll bet)... woman beheaded for love magic (lotsa love magic issues back in the day.)

Not seeing a lot of accusations of 'woman controlled entire village to her benefit ...coerced people via fear to obey her...forced people to give her their money/sons/husbands/barley/ale'

Karl, is it going to Kindle via Smashwords? Smashwords takes months to get a book to Amazon kindle, it is easier to opt out of Amazon on smashwords and put the book up yourself on Amazon. Amazon kindle self pubbed take a couple days to go live.

Is not prayer an act to use supernatural means to bring about change in reality?

I would think the real place to actually look and find those who desire to control and manipulate other people is in groups with authority structures that involve obedience of the people to the authority figure.

You can call it 'witchcraft' but it might be more appropriate to call it what it is, church hierarchy.

Witchcraft = harming others is what the Christian church historically thought about witches, hence the burning at the stake. Also how witchcraft is perceived in some African communities today. And if you look at the historical witch caused 'disasters'--they weren't controlling, they were causing the deaths of cattle or plagues etc. destruction, not obedient servants.

What is sad is that some people still use that historical definition for modern day witches, pagans and Wiccans, who see witchcraft as using magical means to bring desired change.

The modern pagan/ Wiccan community is pretty hard to tame, I think. Cooperation to attain a common goal, like an event or ritual, is about as close as I've seen to control and it wasn't very controlled. It was agreement.

The common term applied in the Wiccan pagan community to such preparation is 'herding cats.'

The ministry was the word...LCM said so. And he should know cuz he was man of god of the entire world.

Oh duh. I just got the Baba Wawa reference~exwayvision.

Merry Christmas!

I confess-- the pagan parts were always the parts I liked the best. And midnight mass was often beautiful.

Power For Abundant Posting

Exway cafe

greasedale

I have had to re admit several folk--facebook is glitchy sometimes. I keep getting frozen in the chat box--so annoying to type and nothing happens.

Everyone is welcome--it is a social atmosphere, like OPEN or a backyard BBQ. Most of us have been anonymous on here for years so it is fun to see a broader, fuller view of the regulars. Pretty neat people.

I suppose if someone comes on to troll we'll figure out how to deal.

Anyone can start their own group on Facebook, it is really easy...so if anyone wants to set up a debate group or what ever they sure can.

I think moderating a huge site like Greasespot cafe with all the hot button issues people coming from a cult might have is difficult. I moderated an active yahoo loop of middle aged romance writers and thought that would make me go crazy. I thought the mods here did a good job and were even handed.

The truly awful posters--the ones on my list haven't been around for years, but i do believe they had mental health issues/personality disorders that made them act out. Scary folk.

Remember our 'admirer', geisha?

Cindy, there is something weird or wrong here. I checked the block lists in the GSC on facebook and no one has blocked you or anyone else. To my knowledge, there are only two of us at GSC who have access to block people . . . me and Bramble. I haven't talked to Bramble yet, her husband is in the hospital, but I cannot imagine she would have blocked you.

There are two ways into the group. Someone who is already in the group and on your friends list can bring you in or you can request to join. If you ask to join, I will approve the request.

I do not know what happened. I do know facebook can be glitchy and sometimes I will get notifications that 3 or 4 people have asked to join and when I go to hit the "button" that allows access it will only give me 1 name.

Whatever the case may be, if you want back in I will approve the request.

Steve and Cindy, I don't know what happened--I haven't blocked anyone from the group. I sure feel bad you got blocked but think it must have been a glitch. I haven't been too attentive today since my husband is in the hospital, though I looked a few time--all seemed normal. Abigail or I would be happy to click you back in.

I'll join you at the next iteration of the website and messageboard and so on.

As much as I like my privacy, I was able to sign up for FB using a lot of anonymous information and

setting almost the entire account to "only I get to see this."

Frankly, people can learn more about me reading my posts here than even if they hacked into my

FB account. The most they'd get there is a correct email address, where I'm from,

and the year I was born.

Besides, how my profile is here is pretty much how I picture myself part of the time,

so that's hardly "anonymous" as I see it. Even I can't see FB getting much use of my information.

As to books I like and movies I like, well, if they can make something useful of that, they're

welcome to it.

If you get facebook sent to your cell phone, make sure you go into your setting under contact and erase the number--you'll still get the msgs, but your # won't be out there.

Remeber the agnostics table in the back corner? Lotsa hard thinking got thunk there. That was HUGE for me.

Thank you for all you have done for the ex-TWI folk. I think GSC has made a huge positive impact in many lives as we tried to make sense of it all.

All Truth...all around us I suppose, but we may only recognize bits and pieces... and when we compare notes with others we don't have the same bits.

Sounds like this should go in the Doctrinal Forum.

I think if ex leaders really wanted to live right they would be living some type of atonement for the cruelty they did to the believers. I know atonement is not a TWI doctrine, but think there are many people who understand the concept, perhaps from childhood learning before their TWI years.

Sadly, I think TWI attracted a certain type of leader who does not have the self honesty or empathy. Some chunk of soul was missing.

There seems to be a resurgence of people claiming to be "white witches" and interest in "spells" and "magic". Not sure whether this is the desire to be "different" or a genuine seeking after the spiritual side of life.

Wicca is a recognized religion in the US and has been around for some decades now. Don't really know if there has been a 'resurgence.' What an individuals motives maybe for their involvement in Wicca/ witchcraft, pagan faiths can vary greatly. Most of those I know personally are middle aged, from a Christian faith originally, and thoughtful.

At my former job I worked o a team of 24 people,4 of them were Wiccan /pagan... don't know if this is typical at all.

religioustolerance.org is a goof site for accurate info on other faiths/beliefs etc