"I think some of you want to attribute your choices to brainwashing, or mind control, but with the exception of the children, every last one of us determined our level of involvement. Age and lack of maturity may have been a factor, and TWI obviously took advantage of those factors, but the decision was always ours. The children are a different story, but even then they weren't so overtaken that most of them can't imagine life apart from TWI. There is some unlearning involved with an effective parting of the ways, but I don't know anyone who doesn't have to unlearn a few things along the way.
Each one of us has a unique, authentic self, and I believe that is a necessary element of Christianity even as it causes an element of divisiveness in the body. I also believe that the deeper one's involvement in TWI, the more likely the tendency to distance oneself from being authentic and the deeper one has to go to un(re)cover the authentic self. The irony is that either way, you can't fool God."
I tend to agree with the statement above. We did the best we could with what we could understand. But, you should hear my kids version of their time in TWI. They thought it all was so stupid and confining; no real good memories and all are independent thinkers [and questioners] as young adults. They're just glad we left when we did!
And I will say this: If you start down that fear road, Satan is only too happy to send others along to encourage you.
But I'm getting myself back, and I like myself a lot better the way I really am.
I strongly suspect that many individuals who sucked it up, kept their mouths shut and did as they were told suffer untold physical and emotional consequences.
Tzaia if you did not have the same experience as many of us, congratulations, I'm glad for you. My take on your posts is that you really want to understand why so many people had this reaction. I hope so; I would feel badly if you were being critical and negative.
It took a long time in my case to get me not just fearful and passive, but apathetic. It didn't really entrench itself until we went in FWC and I wonder if that isn't a big part of the introduction and orientation to the program; to get the hapless soul so broken down and convinced of his/her inadequacy they can't fight any more.
A 19th FWC said to Mr. Garden in my presence, "The reason this program is so hard is that your first year you don't know anything; then your second year, another first year bunch of people comes along and THEY don't know anything." This of course was in reference to us; we were the newbies and ignorant.
One time in the brushy woodsy area out back of the buildings some land was being cleared and I was sent off with a guy on staff for some purpose, pick up sticks or some such nonsense. I was following him and he kept letting branches go that whipped around and hit me in the face. I mentioned it to him and he said I was following too closely. I answered him that my father grew up in woods and taught me to hold the branch for the person behind me, which was much polite than letting it whip back or telling the follower to back off. That same morning I found what I thought was a fox den; foxes had been eating the chickens. I mentioned it to some staff member, maybe the same guy maybe not.
The next day I got reamed! First of all, HOW DARE YOU tell a staff member who is a WC grad you think you know ANYTHING AT ALL BETTER THAN HE DOES! And SECOND, you were sent out there to do such-and-such, NOT TO LOOK FOR FOX DENS! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!! YOU STUPID, DISRESPECTFUL LITTLE NOBODY!
Or words to that effect.
And THEN I had TO THANK THE SOB FOR REPROVING ME AND INSTRUCTING ME IN THE WAY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, ABUNDANCE AND POWER!!!! And apologize too of course. And promise to listen-remember-obey.
I still have not been able to forgive that tall, skinny arrogant, north end of a south bound donkey. He didn't know beans from barium about being out there. And I didn't go looking for the damn den, I just noticed it. My dad taught to notice my surroundings in the woods - oh but he was, I was informed, an ignorant fool compared to the great MJ, man of God, menber of the staff and graduate of the Way Corps. My dad had died less than a year before; no one could know how those words cut me to the bone.
That's how they break you Tzaia. They catch you off guard and scream their lungs out about something so innocuous you are taken completely by surprise.
And it's straight from the pit of hell.
I haven't done any research into the brainwashing techniques used by the communists during the Korean war but I expect these sorts of incidents are a watered-down version of same.
I think a lot of us stayed because we thought we were contributing to a worthy cause. Tolerating craziness was just part of the sacrifice we thought we needed to make. It was about seeing the organization/cause as being bigger and more important than any one individual.
Then, there was the idea that it was the leader's responsibility to make the right decision but our responsibility was to comply. Many times I heard it said that, even if a leader made a bad choice, God would cover us by virtue of our obedience. The same logic was used to squelch any disagreement with inappropriate spending. And, there was the concept that the "leader" might be acting on revelation so it was imperative to follow orders. I know it all sounds wacky now in retrospect, but maybe that will help explain the reasoning for what we did.
As to meeting in homes:
It's my understanding of history that the first century church met in homes and small gatherings, not because they wanted to, but because they had to in order to avoid persecution from the Romans. Fellow Laborers was supposed to be an active exercise in living a lifestyle that paralleled the first century church. To those of us who partook of that experiment, I think it became increasingly more and more obvious that our lifestyle bore very little resemblance to life in the first century church.
That realization was disheartening, to say the least. There were many mixed signals being given.
My purpose is not to be critical and negative. I really do want to understand.
There are times I hate being a cynic, but it does serve me to a certain extent.
The day someone got in my face like what happened to you was, for me, a revelation.
My response was not totally appropriate, and I am learning how to be properly assertive rather than aggressive in situations where I'm not being heard. My memory of TWI is along the lines that assertiveness was viewed as being aggressive if delivered by a lesser person.
I realize assertiveness is harder when there is more of an emotional investment.
Passivity is a huge problem in religion and is almost considered a fruit of the spirit in Christianity.
The danger I see in these forums is the near universal thought that one shouldn't have been put in the position where one had to stand up for one's rights. Perhaps that is true, but it's not the reality. Not in TWI and not in any other Christian community that I have been involved with - past or present.
I guess my next question is why should they have cared about individual's rights and feelings when they weren't important enough for the individuals to stand for?
Well,my individual rights and feelings were important to me in the beginning.
TWI was and probably still is really good at using Scripture to convince the inexperienced, uninformed, and uneducated (Biblically at least) that they are "off the Word" if they exhibit too much independence. Acts 4:32-37 was a good place to start. Then we can go on to Acts 5; look what happens to those who withhold!
I was socially inept and had no friends, really, and so all this attention and concern for my life was overwhelmingly wonderful. But you know what? The individuals I first "twigged" with weren't deliberate deceivers - they had been mis-taught also. It's kind of like a snowball that rolls down a mountain, gathering more snow until it's an avalanche. And it starts at the top.
I had a lot of confrontations; my roommate and I allowed a third girl to move into our rather nice apartment. She didn't have a job so we encouraged her to get one so she could pay her share of the rent and utilities. She did but still didn't/couldn't/wouldn't pay her share of the rent. Finally I came home one day and she was lolling around the apartment. "I thought you had to work today." I said. "Oh," she replied. I didn't like working there, so I just called in and told them I quit."
I of course, having been raised right, went ballistic. She informed me she had, after all, cleaned the apartment to make up for not being able to pay the rent. She had polished the kitchen floor with furniture polish and I nearly broke my neck, sliding from one end to the other in my stocking feet.
I was still ballistic. I complained to the branch leader, my boss, everyone I could think of, and then my roommate and I just told her, "No pay, No stay!"
Guess who got reproved for being unloving, mean, selfish, worldly minded? Guess who countered with Thessalonians: If a man will not work, neither should he eat."
Guess who still thinks it was wrong?
If she had wanted to work, but could not find a job, that would have been an entirely different matter. But this young lady, who had the habit of wrapping any male around her little finger, didn't WANT to work and seemed to think it was just fine to sponge off my hard working roomie and me.
VPW taught, in PLAF (The Wonder Class), that your breath-life is equal to your soul and that your soul is what makes you "you". In my opinion, that is a gross misrepresentation of whatever it is that represents your individuality and unique nature as a person. For a guy who was supposedly at the peak of his spiritual game, he certainly failed to see the spiritual implications of defining "soul".
So why did so many of you passively accept the craziness? Why did so many of you stay in until you were told to leave?
What stopped you from speaking up when apparently you knew what you were being asked to do was stupid, crazy, or downright wrong?
Fear of confrontation?
Fear of retribution?
Fear of getting kicked out?
Fear of God's punishment?
If you were so fear motivated, why were you so afraid?
I'm not asking rhetorically. I was involved in the same ministry, but I did not have the same experience.
I`d say that we were taught not to trust ourselves. We were taught that any thoughts that were contradictory to twi being the greatest ministry since the first century were from satan trying to trick us...you know try to get us to consider things like eve.
If things were tough or unpleasant, we needed to renew our minds and God would take care of it...he would honor our hearts and believing.
If things didn`t make sense or contradictory, it was because we weren`t spiritul enough to understand, we were seeing through a glass darkly...
If a leader was blatantly unpleasant, it was because we had caused it, or just an isolated instance.
We were taught that our 5 senses weren`t to be trusted.
We were taught that you could only think one thought at a time, if things got chaotic we had retemory scriptures to run through our minds so that we didn`t think any negatives.
It wasn`t fear so much, it was a determination not to follow the steps of eve in the downfall of man...ie listen, consider, add a word etc. We schooled our thought processes to only consider what our leaders taught. Nobody wanted to let God down. Nobody wanted to weaken the body of Christ, to take a chance of unkowingly allowing Satan to work through them to harm another. It was all about being spiritualy and mentaly tough, disregarding our own discomfort and misery for a bigger more important cause...the spiritual battle.
I think here in lies the real evil of twi...doubt of ourselves, of our abilities. We learned not to consider the evil, not to stand up for ourselves. We learned to tune out what made us unique, individual to supress our reactions to mistreatment. We even learned to excuse and scripturaly justify the mistreatment.
Reading my own post about the young lady brings to mind a lot of stuff. If you expected someone to work and pay their way instead of sponging off you, you were unloving, materialistic and worldly minded. If you loaned someone money or goods and expected it paid or given back promptly and in good condition, you were worldly and selfish. "Don't you WANT to bless God's people?"
I got ripped off time after time. Finally I just got to the point that if anyone wanted something of mine I knew better than to withhold; after all, didn't Acts 4:32 say they had all things common? Don't you want to get blessed? Don't you want to live like the first century church?
It was a one-way street. The people who were supposedly teaching you to live like the first centur church, to walk like Jesus walked, were more than happy to encourage you to loan, give whatever you had. But somehow or other if YOU had a need, "Well! And where is YOUR believing?"
"So why did so many of you passively accept the craziness? Why did so many of you stay in until you were told to leave?
What stopped you from speaking up when apparently you knew what you were being asked to do was stupid, crazy, or downright wrong?"
is the "soul" who makes you "you" ? is that a wayfer teaching ?
but what if you haven't figured out or developed it properly ? you know ?
or you're in the process and it gets squished.....
this is the answer really because only those of us who were taught as children that we had a right to our own thoughts and feelings would be able to understand that "Ultimately I was the one who would have to deal with the "consequences" of my choices." and for me i was taught that my thoughts and feelings and behaviors were under the control of my parents and it depended on which parent i was with on how i acted and lived. i was also taught that the way everybody acted was my fault either because of my lack of "understanding" or because of my lack of "proper" perception if i wasn't "spiritual enough" or something, so i learned as a child that how people live and act and think is not the person's fault but the fault of those who don't "understand" or aren't "spiritual enough", so i learned that my own behavior and life and choices were somebody else's fault because i was a sogwap and they must have been "out in left field", and i also learned that everybody else's behavior was my fault for those same reasons. so it all came out into me feeling like i didn't have anything to account for as far as what i was doing and choosing, but i was accountable for how everybody else was doing and choosing. it is crazy thinking and i know that now, but i didn't know it until i got extensive therapy and psychiatric help because this crazy thinking was a part of my upbringing and shaped my personality from a very young age, so i didn't know any better and even though better may have been staring me in my face i didn't comprehend that it was better or what to do with it or how to use it to make better choices or have better thinking patterns.
I think here in lies the real evil of twi...doubt of ourselves, of our abilities. We learned not to consider the evil, not to stand up for ourselves. We learned to tune out what made us unique, individual to supress our reactions to mistreatment. We even learned to excuse and scripturaly justify the mistreatment.
Yeah, that pretty much summed up my thoughts.. Took me two agonizing years thinking, how they hell can I be thinking ^%@$. My leadership says that ain't true, so why does my brain not agree.. I just don't see it. I mean, I see it in the scriptures what I think, but they said no, so I must be wrong.. Must be me!! Error.. Error.. Does not compute...
Took someone else in the same place as I (since all unbelievers or exWayfers wouldn't understand!) seeing the same thing as I and actually vocalizing it, before I'd even give that error some extra light, and then... DOH.. I've been had!
well the fooker didn't care about what made you "you"
That he did not. TWI did not appreciate our uniqueness as individuals. VPW certainly didn't want to preserve that. He wanted to remake people to suit his purposes.
It was a one-way street. The people who were supposedly teaching you to live like the first centur church, to walk like Jesus walked, were more than happy to encourage you to loan, give whatever you had. But somehow or other if YOU had a need, "Well! And where is YOUR believing?"
WG
This we saw over and over. It took us many years to realized the respect and care we held for others--why we did so many of the time consuming things we did, thinking in our pure and stupid hearts that we were serving some greater good...only to learn we were not thought of in the same regard at all, that our value was in what we could provide in goods or services.
My hubby was a good mechanic, he spent years repairing cars for free for the believers, many weekends. We had a truck, guess how many believers we moved( and many we had to help pack)? How many children I babysat for free. And how no one helped us move, no one helped us when I had babies--not even a frozen pizza!--I had 8 weeks of bedrest during one pregnancy--One of my non TWI neighbors actually came by to help with the house etc.
My husband's health was always an issue of "believing"( a diabetic who did not received a miraculous healing as he outght.)
We thought we were part of a family or community, but the reality was not even close. Our good actions did not make it so--we poured our lives into a toxic sewer.
I suspect we were missed after we left--not us, our 'souls' or anything like that, but the hours of work we put in around the branch, how very handy we were, just a phone call away. That's probably why we were slapped with M&A so quickly. How dare we take such rescources away from the Prevailing household.
As I was writing this, I realized I might be derailing another thread, so I started another....
...I think some of you want to attribute your choices to brainwashing, or mind control, but with the exception of the children, every last one of us determined our level of involvement. Age and lack of maturity may have been a factor, and TWI obviously took advantage of those factors, but the decision was always ours. The children are a different story, but even then they weren't so overtaken that most of them can't imagine life apart from TWI. There is some unlearning involved with an effective parting of the ways, but I don't know anyone who doesn't have to unlearn a few things along the way.
Each one of us has a unique, authentic self, and I believe that is a necessary element of Christianity even as it causes an element of divisiveness in the body. I also believe that the deeper one's involvement in TWI, the more likely the tendency to distance oneself from being authentic and the deeper one has to go to un(re)cover the authentic self. The irony is that either way, you can't fool God.
(modified to correct grammar)
Good stuff…in light of what you said I wanted to kick in my 2 cents.
Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "brainwashing" as: 1. a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas; 2. persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship.
Thinking about TWI's manipulative, intimidating, deceptive, often overbearing slick pep talks and polished sales pitches – I'd say yes, bottom line we determined our own level of involvement and I'd put it in the same category as dealing with a crooked used car salesman. And considering that many of us were young, impressionable, rebellious, often disenchanted with religious or philosophical upbringing, and undeveloped critical thinking skills – the authentic self didn't have a fighting chance to "survive."
I thought Watered Garden & Bramble made some good points how artificial people became through continued involvement.
What happened to the authentic self?…Perhaps it was a selective form of suspended animation: certain aspects of our mind were overwhelmed by TWI's tactics and thus temporarily suspended – i.e. critical & creative thinking skills, personal preferences, deep desires, etc….yeah it was my decision to enter the suspended animation chamber – because I wanted all the neat benefits they promised in the sales brochure.
There are 2 verses in the Bible that come to mind - Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it (paraphrased)
. . .
I listened to a twi mom talk about this verse awhile back. Her daughter had left twi. The mom was claiming this verse as a promise of god and therefore her child will come back to twi. At the time, it made me red in the face and I may have had to leave the room. What's more stubborn than a twi mom? Her daughter eventually went back to twi.
Someone mentioned this verse recently. They used it by saying kids are each born a certain way; they are each different individuals. Parents are to train them according to their individual personalities. I think more was said but it was so strikingly different than twi. I had to laugh.
I listened to a twi mom talk about this verse awhile back. Her daughter had left twi. The mom was claiming this verse as a promise of god and therefore her child will come back to twi. At the time, it made me red in the face and I may have had to leave the room. What's more stubborn than a twi mom? Her daughter eventually went back to twi.
Someone mentioned this verse recently. They used it by saying kids are each born a certain way; they are each different individuals. Parents are to train them according to their individual personalities. I think more was said but it was so strikingly different than twi. I had to laugh.
it would be nice to think that god's intent in that scripture was that parents should recognize their children's unique abilities and raise them with experience and confidence in them, so that they can rely unerringly on their abilities all their lives... instead of thinking god meant train 'em by rote and they'll grow up to robots just like their parents.
Each one of us has a unique, authentic self, and I believe that is a necessary element of Christianity even as it causes an element of divisiveness in the body. I also believe that the deeper one's involvement in TWI, the more likely the tendency to distance oneself from being authentic and the deeper one has to go to un(re)cover the authentic self. The irony is that either way, you can't fool God.
(modified to correct grammar)
would you say this "authentic-self" is strictly a religious concept?
we all conform our minds to something (culture, workplace, family, friends etc.). Isn't "self" comprised of our genetics and experiences? If twi was our experience, wouldn't it be part of our "authentic-self"?
TWI didn't care about individuality, except in the context of one of their bland teachings on the one body--the gist of which usually went 'So if you are the toilet cleaner of TWI, embrace it!'
Is authenic self a religious term? I haven't read those books, I guess. For ex twi, I would think authentic self is the individual's personality, talents, choices etc when not forcing themselves into a TWI acceptable mode.
How many people can relate to the phraze 'put on their twig face'? That facade of perfection, I'm doing everything right face.
After we left and started to get reaquainted with family I was astonished by how much expertise some had in things like gardening, painting(art, not rooms) music, photography etc, things that took both time and money to learn to do well. Time and money being two things that were Hubby and i had little of while in TWI. Over the years they pursued interests. Hubby and I have both done this since leaving TWI and have found much contenetment in 'hobbies.'
would you say this "authentic-self" is strictly a religious concept?
Not at all.
In fact, it was quite "the thing" in the late '60s, to discover "the real you". Sometimes that involved religion and spiritual concepts---- and sometimes it didn't.
Drugs, such as LSD, were promoted, not only as a way to get high, but as a way to discover your "inner self".
we all conform our minds to something (culture, workplace, family, friends etc.). Isn't "self" comprised of our genetics and experiences? If twi was our experience, wouldn't it be part of our "authentic-self"?
Yes and no.
The concept of the "real you" is that it exists in spite of whatever conditioning you succumb to.
The idea was to discover your authentic self and be true to it rather than obey conditioning.
TWI taught that the real you was a spiritual creation that was equal to the "Christ in you".
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Tzaia
I didn't (and still don't) think that any organization is perfect. TWI had this thing for doublespeak. It talked about legalism and not being that way, but it was very legalistic. It talked about ho
Tzaia
Yes, we all had to make choices. My husband was sending a $75 check every week to HQ in 1980, and I was having to scrape to put shoes and clothes on the kids, food on the table, and I didn't have a ca
Tzaia
I think one has to avoid confusing the comfort of familiarity with being real (authentic).
Rejoice
I tend to agree with the statement above. We did the best we could with what we could understand. But, you should hear my kids version of their time in TWI. They thought it all was so stupid and confining; no real good memories and all are independent thinkers [and questioners] as young adults. They're just glad we left when we did!
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Tzaia
A humorous look at assertiveness:
http://tinyurl.com/cll3jj
It's about 26 minutes and geared toward business, but it is useful.
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Tzaia
So why did so many of you passively accept the craziness? Why did so many of you stay in until you were told to leave?
What stopped you from speaking up when apparently you knew what you were being asked to do was stupid, crazy, or downright wrong?
Fear of confrontation?
Fear of retribution?
Fear of getting kicked out?
Fear of God's punishment?
If you were so fear motivated, why were you so afraid?
I'm not asking rhetorically. I was involved in the same ministry, but I did not have the same experience.
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Watered Garden
All of the above, plus
Fear of losing my family, marriage, etc.
And I will say this: If you start down that fear road, Satan is only too happy to send others along to encourage you.
But I'm getting myself back, and I like myself a lot better the way I really am.
I strongly suspect that many individuals who sucked it up, kept their mouths shut and did as they were told suffer untold physical and emotional consequences.
Tzaia if you did not have the same experience as many of us, congratulations, I'm glad for you. My take on your posts is that you really want to understand why so many people had this reaction. I hope so; I would feel badly if you were being critical and negative.
It took a long time in my case to get me not just fearful and passive, but apathetic. It didn't really entrench itself until we went in FWC and I wonder if that isn't a big part of the introduction and orientation to the program; to get the hapless soul so broken down and convinced of his/her inadequacy they can't fight any more.
A 19th FWC said to Mr. Garden in my presence, "The reason this program is so hard is that your first year you don't know anything; then your second year, another first year bunch of people comes along and THEY don't know anything." This of course was in reference to us; we were the newbies and ignorant.
One time in the brushy woodsy area out back of the buildings some land was being cleared and I was sent off with a guy on staff for some purpose, pick up sticks or some such nonsense. I was following him and he kept letting branches go that whipped around and hit me in the face. I mentioned it to him and he said I was following too closely. I answered him that my father grew up in woods and taught me to hold the branch for the person behind me, which was much polite than letting it whip back or telling the follower to back off. That same morning I found what I thought was a fox den; foxes had been eating the chickens. I mentioned it to some staff member, maybe the same guy maybe not.
The next day I got reamed! First of all, HOW DARE YOU tell a staff member who is a WC grad you think you know ANYTHING AT ALL BETTER THAN HE DOES! And SECOND, you were sent out there to do such-and-such, NOT TO LOOK FOR FOX DENS! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!!! YOU STUPID, DISRESPECTFUL LITTLE NOBODY!
Or words to that effect.
And THEN I had TO THANK THE SOB FOR REPROVING ME AND INSTRUCTING ME IN THE WAY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, ABUNDANCE AND POWER!!!! And apologize too of course. And promise to listen-remember-obey.
I still have not been able to forgive that tall, skinny arrogant, north end of a south bound donkey. He didn't know beans from barium about being out there. And I didn't go looking for the damn den, I just noticed it. My dad taught to notice my surroundings in the woods - oh but he was, I was informed, an ignorant fool compared to the great MJ, man of God, menber of the staff and graduate of the Way Corps. My dad had died less than a year before; no one could know how those words cut me to the bone.
That's how they break you Tzaia. They catch you off guard and scream their lungs out about something so innocuous you are taken completely by surprise.
And it's straight from the pit of hell.
I haven't done any research into the brainwashing techniques used by the communists during the Korean war but I expect these sorts of incidents are a watered-down version of same.
WG
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waysider
I think a lot of us stayed because we thought we were contributing to a worthy cause. Tolerating craziness was just part of the sacrifice we thought we needed to make. It was about seeing the organization/cause as being bigger and more important than any one individual.
Then, there was the idea that it was the leader's responsibility to make the right decision but our responsibility was to comply. Many times I heard it said that, even if a leader made a bad choice, God would cover us by virtue of our obedience. The same logic was used to squelch any disagreement with inappropriate spending. And, there was the concept that the "leader" might be acting on revelation so it was imperative to follow orders. I know it all sounds wacky now in retrospect, but maybe that will help explain the reasoning for what we did.
As to meeting in homes:
It's my understanding of history that the first century church met in homes and small gatherings, not because they wanted to, but because they had to in order to avoid persecution from the Romans. Fellow Laborers was supposed to be an active exercise in living a lifestyle that paralleled the first century church. To those of us who partook of that experiment, I think it became increasingly more and more obvious that our lifestyle bore very little resemblance to life in the first century church.
That realization was disheartening, to say the least. There were many mixed signals being given.
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Tzaia
My purpose is not to be critical and negative. I really do want to understand.
There are times I hate being a cynic, but it does serve me to a certain extent.
The day someone got in my face like what happened to you was, for me, a revelation.
My response was not totally appropriate, and I am learning how to be properly assertive rather than aggressive in situations where I'm not being heard. My memory of TWI is along the lines that assertiveness was viewed as being aggressive if delivered by a lesser person.
I realize assertiveness is harder when there is more of an emotional investment.
Passivity is a huge problem in religion and is almost considered a fruit of the spirit in Christianity.
The danger I see in these forums is the near universal thought that one shouldn't have been put in the position where one had to stand up for one's rights. Perhaps that is true, but it's not the reality. Not in TWI and not in any other Christian community that I have been involved with - past or present.
I guess my next question is why should they have cared about individual's rights and feelings when they weren't important enough for the individuals to stand for?
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Watered Garden
Well,my individual rights and feelings were important to me in the beginning.
TWI was and probably still is really good at using Scripture to convince the inexperienced, uninformed, and uneducated (Biblically at least) that they are "off the Word" if they exhibit too much independence. Acts 4:32-37 was a good place to start. Then we can go on to Acts 5; look what happens to those who withhold!
I was socially inept and had no friends, really, and so all this attention and concern for my life was overwhelmingly wonderful. But you know what? The individuals I first "twigged" with weren't deliberate deceivers - they had been mis-taught also. It's kind of like a snowball that rolls down a mountain, gathering more snow until it's an avalanche. And it starts at the top.
I had a lot of confrontations; my roommate and I allowed a third girl to move into our rather nice apartment. She didn't have a job so we encouraged her to get one so she could pay her share of the rent and utilities. She did but still didn't/couldn't/wouldn't pay her share of the rent. Finally I came home one day and she was lolling around the apartment. "I thought you had to work today." I said. "Oh," she replied. I didn't like working there, so I just called in and told them I quit."
I of course, having been raised right, went ballistic. She informed me she had, after all, cleaned the apartment to make up for not being able to pay the rent. She had polished the kitchen floor with furniture polish and I nearly broke my neck, sliding from one end to the other in my stocking feet.
I was still ballistic. I complained to the branch leader, my boss, everyone I could think of, and then my roommate and I just told her, "No pay, No stay!"
Guess who got reproved for being unloving, mean, selfish, worldly minded? Guess who countered with Thessalonians: If a man will not work, neither should he eat."
Guess who still thinks it was wrong?
If she had wanted to work, but could not find a job, that would have been an entirely different matter. But this young lady, who had the habit of wrapping any male around her little finger, didn't WANT to work and seemed to think it was just fine to sponge off my hard working roomie and me.
I'll write later about how I got broken.
WG
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excathedra
is the "soul" who makes you "you" ? is that a wayfer teaching ?
but what if you haven't figured out or developed it properly ? you know ?
or you're in the process and it gets squished.....
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RumRunner
There's a soul in my bucket my bucket my bucket
There's a soul in my bucket dear Liza a soul
Well fix it dear Henry dear Henry dear Henry
Well fix it dear Henry - go fix up that soul...
Oops - wrong song
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waysider
VPW taught, in PLAF (The Wonder Class), that your breath-life is equal to your soul and that your soul is what makes you "you". In my opinion, that is a gross misrepresentation of whatever it is that represents your individuality and unique nature as a person. For a guy who was supposedly at the peak of his spiritual game, he certainly failed to see the spiritual implications of defining "soul".
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excathedra
well the fooker didn't care about what made you "you"
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rascal
I`d say that we were taught not to trust ourselves. We were taught that any thoughts that were contradictory to twi being the greatest ministry since the first century were from satan trying to trick us...you know try to get us to consider things like eve.
If things were tough or unpleasant, we needed to renew our minds and God would take care of it...he would honor our hearts and believing.
If things didn`t make sense or contradictory, it was because we weren`t spiritul enough to understand, we were seeing through a glass darkly...
If a leader was blatantly unpleasant, it was because we had caused it, or just an isolated instance.
We were taught that our 5 senses weren`t to be trusted.
We were taught that you could only think one thought at a time, if things got chaotic we had retemory scriptures to run through our minds so that we didn`t think any negatives.
It wasn`t fear so much, it was a determination not to follow the steps of eve in the downfall of man...ie listen, consider, add a word etc. We schooled our thought processes to only consider what our leaders taught. Nobody wanted to let God down. Nobody wanted to weaken the body of Christ, to take a chance of unkowingly allowing Satan to work through them to harm another. It was all about being spiritualy and mentaly tough, disregarding our own discomfort and misery for a bigger more important cause...the spiritual battle.
I think here in lies the real evil of twi...doubt of ourselves, of our abilities. We learned not to consider the evil, not to stand up for ourselves. We learned to tune out what made us unique, individual to supress our reactions to mistreatment. We even learned to excuse and scripturaly justify the mistreatment.
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Watered Garden
Rascal, Waysider, good stuff there.
Reading my own post about the young lady brings to mind a lot of stuff. If you expected someone to work and pay their way instead of sponging off you, you were unloving, materialistic and worldly minded. If you loaned someone money or goods and expected it paid or given back promptly and in good condition, you were worldly and selfish. "Don't you WANT to bless God's people?"
I got ripped off time after time. Finally I just got to the point that if anyone wanted something of mine I knew better than to withhold; after all, didn't Acts 4:32 say they had all things common? Don't you want to get blessed? Don't you want to live like the first century church?
It was a one-way street. The people who were supposedly teaching you to live like the first centur church, to walk like Jesus walked, were more than happy to encourage you to loan, give whatever you had. But somehow or other if YOU had a need, "Well! And where is YOUR believing?"
WG
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brainfixed
"So why did so many of you passively accept the craziness? Why did so many of you stay in until you were told to leave?
What stopped you from speaking up when apparently you knew what you were being asked to do was stupid, crazy, or downright wrong?"
this is the answer really because only those of us who were taught as children that we had a right to our own thoughts and feelings would be able to understand that "Ultimately I was the one who would have to deal with the "consequences" of my choices." and for me i was taught that my thoughts and feelings and behaviors were under the control of my parents and it depended on which parent i was with on how i acted and lived. i was also taught that the way everybody acted was my fault either because of my lack of "understanding" or because of my lack of "proper" perception if i wasn't "spiritual enough" or something, so i learned as a child that how people live and act and think is not the person's fault but the fault of those who don't "understand" or aren't "spiritual enough", so i learned that my own behavior and life and choices were somebody else's fault because i was a sogwap and they must have been "out in left field", and i also learned that everybody else's behavior was my fault for those same reasons. so it all came out into me feeling like i didn't have anything to account for as far as what i was doing and choosing, but i was accountable for how everybody else was doing and choosing. it is crazy thinking and i know that now, but i didn't know it until i got extensive therapy and psychiatric help because this crazy thinking was a part of my upbringing and shaped my personality from a very young age, so i didn't know any better and even though better may have been staring me in my face i didn't comprehend that it was better or what to do with it or how to use it to make better choices or have better thinking patterns.
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TrustAndObey
Yeah, that pretty much summed up my thoughts.. Took me two agonizing years thinking, how they hell can I be thinking ^%@$. My leadership says that ain't true, so why does my brain not agree.. I just don't see it. I mean, I see it in the scriptures what I think, but they said no, so I must be wrong.. Must be me!! Error.. Error.. Does not compute...
Took someone else in the same place as I (since all unbelievers or exWayfers wouldn't understand!) seeing the same thing as I and actually vocalizing it, before I'd even give that error some extra light, and then... DOH.. I've been had!
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Tzaia
That he did not. TWI did not appreciate our uniqueness as individuals. VPW certainly didn't want to preserve that. He wanted to remake people to suit his purposes.
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Bramble
This we saw over and over. It took us many years to realized the respect and care we held for others--why we did so many of the time consuming things we did, thinking in our pure and stupid hearts that we were serving some greater good...only to learn we were not thought of in the same regard at all, that our value was in what we could provide in goods or services.
My hubby was a good mechanic, he spent years repairing cars for free for the believers, many weekends. We had a truck, guess how many believers we moved( and many we had to help pack)? How many children I babysat for free. And how no one helped us move, no one helped us when I had babies--not even a frozen pizza!--I had 8 weeks of bedrest during one pregnancy--One of my non TWI neighbors actually came by to help with the house etc.
My husband's health was always an issue of "believing"( a diabetic who did not received a miraculous healing as he outght.)
We thought we were part of a family or community, but the reality was not even close. Our good actions did not make it so--we poured our lives into a toxic sewer.
I suspect we were missed after we left--not us, our 'souls' or anything like that, but the hours of work we put in around the branch, how very handy we were, just a phone call away. That's probably why we were slapped with M&A so quickly. How dare we take such rescources away from the Prevailing household.
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T-Bone
Good stuff…in light of what you said I wanted to kick in my 2 cents.
Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "brainwashing" as: 1. a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas; 2. persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship.
Thinking about TWI's manipulative, intimidating, deceptive, often overbearing slick pep talks and polished sales pitches – I'd say yes, bottom line we determined our own level of involvement and I'd put it in the same category as dealing with a crooked used car salesman. And considering that many of us were young, impressionable, rebellious, often disenchanted with religious or philosophical upbringing, and undeveloped critical thinking skills – the authentic self didn't have a fighting chance to "survive."
I thought Watered Garden & Bramble made some good points how artificial people became through continued involvement.
What happened to the authentic self?…Perhaps it was a selective form of suspended animation: certain aspects of our mind were overwhelmed by TWI's tactics and thus temporarily suspended – i.e. critical & creative thinking skills, personal preferences, deep desires, etc….yeah it was my decision to enter the suspended animation chamber – because I wanted all the neat benefits they promised in the sales brochure.
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Tzaia
Which ties in with my theory of rational choice thread.
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Bolshevik
I listened to a twi mom talk about this verse awhile back. Her daughter had left twi. The mom was claiming this verse as a promise of god and therefore her child will come back to twi. At the time, it made me red in the face and I may have had to leave the room. What's more stubborn than a twi mom? Her daughter eventually went back to twi.
Someone mentioned this verse recently. They used it by saying kids are each born a certain way; they are each different individuals. Parents are to train them according to their individual personalities. I think more was said but it was so strikingly different than twi. I had to laugh.
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potato
it would be nice to think that god's intent in that scripture was that parents should recognize their children's unique abilities and raise them with experience and confidence in them, so that they can rely unerringly on their abilities all their lives... instead of thinking god meant train 'em by rote and they'll grow up to robots just like their parents.
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Bolshevik
would you say this "authentic-self" is strictly a religious concept?
we all conform our minds to something (culture, workplace, family, friends etc.). Isn't "self" comprised of our genetics and experiences? If twi was our experience, wouldn't it be part of our "authentic-self"?
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Bramble
TWI didn't care about individuality, except in the context of one of their bland teachings on the one body--the gist of which usually went 'So if you are the toilet cleaner of TWI, embrace it!'
Is authenic self a religious term? I haven't read those books, I guess. For ex twi, I would think authentic self is the individual's personality, talents, choices etc when not forcing themselves into a TWI acceptable mode.
How many people can relate to the phraze 'put on their twig face'? That facade of perfection, I'm doing everything right face.
After we left and started to get reaquainted with family I was astonished by how much expertise some had in things like gardening, painting(art, not rooms) music, photography etc, things that took both time and money to learn to do well. Time and money being two things that were Hubby and i had little of while in TWI. Over the years they pursued interests. Hubby and I have both done this since leaving TWI and have found much contenetment in 'hobbies.'
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waysider
TWI taught that the real you was a spiritual creation that was equal to the "Christ in you".
Were were nutso hippie kids---what did we know?
:lol:
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