Technical blunders aside, consider the problems encountered with the script, such as when Wierwille meant to say "It sits there like a diamond" but, instead, said, "It sits there like a duck". As class instructors, we were coached to create a diversion in the room at this moment in the film so no one would notice. If you never noticed it, I have to surmise we were successful. In addition, there is the moment in one of the sessions when Wierwille, speaking of The Second Coming, in a decidedly anti-Trinity class, says that "When Christ returns, He'll be coming back as Lord God Almighty". On this point, we were coached to tell the students that Wierwille had at one time been a Trinitarian and that it was simply a slip of the tongue. We learned to cover for the old geezer rather early in our tenures.
Supposedly, we were told......the filming of pfal was God-ordained from the heavens.
Yet, we learn of wierwille's eye-scorching pain from the studio lights during its filming. Since twi did not allow us to ask questions, I thought that the nice folks here at GS could help me with my questions. Thank you in advance.
1) Were there any lighting personnel experts around to give wierwille any technical advice?
2) Was this filming done on the cheap....with rented furniture, wrong lighting, and overburdened scheduling?
3) Wouldn't God tell "the man of God" HOW to best film this long-awaited class WITHOUT MARTYRDOM OF HIS EYE?
4) According to Scripture, Jesus gave HIS LIFE in total payment of mankinds sins....and vp's "martyrdom" was misplaced?
More questions keep popping up.......but those are a start.
Just seems to me that the cold/ice soothing between sessions SHOULD HAVE ALERTED WIERWILLE THAT SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH HOW THEY WERE PROCEEDING FORWARD ON THIS FILMING. Like say.......wrong lights? too intense? too much exposure?
Wasn't there anyone to ask? Bueller, Bueller?
Perhaps, wierwille should have waited until he had a full grasp on the a/v technical matters?
But.....if PRIDE was running the show, then by golly consequences were bound to follow.
IMO....wierwille was NOT listening to the Lord and PROCEEDED FORWARD WITHOUT HIM.
<_< .
1) If there WERE technical experts, vpw would have proceeded as he wished anyway. His methods included
telling an expert to do something and letting them do it as they knew how-so long as they obeyed-
or assuming he himself was an expert and doing something HIS way no matter what.
2) This filming was done cheaper than you think- the furniture for the set was neither bought
nor rented. vpw pretended to want to buy the furniture, installed it for the filming, filmed
as fast as he could in the studio, then returned the furniture and said he wasn't satisfied
and wanted his money back.
This is the same dishonest method recommended by twi when running taped classes. If the location
lacked a decent TV, the locals were told to "buy" a big TV then return it immediately after
the class and get their money back. Jesus would be disgraced to hear of such dishonesty.
3) If vpw had actually listened to God instead of pretending, he would have gotten guidance
and warnings. Instead, vpw did things as he wished. Remember, this is the same man who
called himself "The Teacher" ON FILM over a decade before the filmed pfal class when he
was mainly a lazy homiletician. (He knew how to preach, and that was the limit of his
scholarship.)
4) twi CLAIMS to be about Jesus-sometimes- but it's more about vpw and whoever's in charge
than about the REAL things of God. Sometimes locals out on the field were quite godly,
but the closer to hq, the more stagnation is in evidence.
Don't forget, this is a guy who claimed he could just "reach up in Daddy's cookie jar" and God would tell him someone's spiritual orientation...black hearts and white hearts....just like that....but he couldn't ask why the lights were so irritating?????...not buying it... the guy was a fraud.
"It sits there like a duck", well if it walks and quacks like one, then Wierwille was right. Surprisingly, he spoke truth when he said Jesus Christ is coming back as the Lord God Almighty.
I wasn't commenting on the doctrinal veracity of his comment so much as I was pointing out that it contradicted his basic premise that "Jesus Christ Is Not God", which is a cornerstone of much of what he taught.
I started my brainwashing in 1973 and had the rare previlege at the time of taking the the film version of the class. Living near HQ, (70 miles,) I spent a lot of Sundays there ane developed friendships there.
Keiiids.... I count it a badge of honor to have known The Loy'd Craig when he was still a nice guy!!!
Between talking with people who were there and some history thing they had about filming the class, I'll try to reiterate what I remember.
(...and I remember someone who talked about it once to a group of us once.)
Somewhere a year or three before 1967, someone suggested VeePee film the class. The reasoning offered was it would take the stress off VP as classes were getting more frequent. After a while he decided to do it and they started to save up the money.
When VP decided to go with it they sought to rent out studios, lights, cameras, get film, and whatever other nesessities they needed for the shoot. The studio was either in Dayton or Cincinnati, I don't remember which. The company which provided the lights and cameras helped set them up and gave them advice. Most of the film crew work was done by folks like Ermal, Howard, and the other HQ regulars of the time.
Because of the expenses of the studio and photo equipment, VP wanted to film the class in two weeks. With all the things that need to be done in such a filming set up as this, two weeks are extraordinary in any book. The photo company objected to the two week sched because of the strong possibility of eye damage.
(Also in 1967 I was in the US Air Force practicing the art and science of being a photo technician.)
In '67, color movie film would have had an ASA rating of 10 to 64. For those who don't know ASA film speeds, that means the film was as slow as a turtle and needed incredible amounts of light to properly expose the the film. For those who have seen the film or video versions of the class, that means the man at the desk was under 5 to 7 500 watt klieg lights for several hours a day for two weeks. Of course these lights generated a lot of heat too.
So, to answer your questions;
1) Were there any lighting personnel experts around to give wierwille any technical advice?
Yes, they warned what could happen and were ignored by VP.
2) Was this filming done on the cheap....with rented furniture, wrong lighting, and overburdened scheduling?
The story I heard was the furnishing were from VP's own orific..., er, office. The lighting was the only thing available at the time and was necessary for the film. The photo company recommended at least a three week sched or even longer. On the cheap, the filming crew were then BOT's, future BOTs, and other HQ staff.
3) Wouldn't God tell "the man of God" HOW to best film this long-awaited class WITHOUT MARTYRDOM OF HIS EYE?
It does seem the Bible is full of such incidents, doesn't it.
VP gambled on doing it cheap and it cost him not only his eyes, but eventually his life
another thing that irked me was "reaching into Daddy' cookie jar". Bet his mother and father slapped his hands with the literal thing, and yet VPW wanted us to believe in stealing something from God, with/without his permission on the sly was honorable? WTFH was that all about? Father, I am going to threaten and bully you until you tell me everything about you and I want it now on my timetable, not yours? Wrong Father, more like the pharisees and Saducees that Jesus spoke about. He really was never or rarely humble to take reproof from anyone, including God. But you cross him, you were a dead duck.
another thing that irked me was "reaching into Daddy' cookie jar". Bet his mother and father slapped his hands with the literal thing, and yet VPW wanted us to believe in stealing something from God, with/without his permission on the sly was honorable? WTFH was that all about? Father, I am going to threaten and bully you until you tell me everything about you and I want it now on my timetable, not yours? Wrong Father, more like the pharisees and Saducees that Jesus spoke about. He really was never or rarely humble to take reproof from anyone, including God. But you cross him, you were a dead duck.
His death certificate lists metastatic melanoma of the liver/ocular melanoma as the cause of his death.
I am not a doctor nor have I ever played one on TV.
However I do know that metastastic refers to advanced cancer moving to other organs or lymph glands leading to the final end stages to death. Also, ocular refers to the eye. So when I read the cert, I understood he had eye cancer which led to liver cancer which killed VP. So the real reason he had his eye taken out 2 to 3 years before hand was the ocular cancer was advancing. They were too late and it spread to the liver.
I checked it out before writing this and the net verified what I said.
Still living near HQ in the '80s, friends on staff said the eye was removed because of constant pain from over exposure to the klieg lamps during the filming of PFAL. He spent at least 40 hours under 3000 watts of intense focused lighting in a two week period. He burned his eye which set up an iritation that set the stage for cancer to start up and take hold.
Anyway with what I do know, that is how I read his death certificate several years ago.
Curious, PFAL his greatest (plagerized)legacy is what killed him as he stroked his ego in the filming of it. :blink:
Great thread guys. One interesting point. What we were taught in TWI is that the adversary counterfeits truth. So for any lurking TWI members on this thread, this means you are going to be questioning what is genuine and what is counterfeit, and initially at least you are going to be looking for the counterfeit here at GS cafe.
Now if this PFAL live filming was the fulfillment of what VPW claimed, that God told him He would teach VP the word as it hasn't been known since the first century, how is it that when you examine the details of it, more and more it looks like an ego trip and fraught with human error?
PFAL was the culmination of VP stealing BG Leonard's ministry and teachings, putting in all his material, and running with it. His ego was so huge and his budget was so low he couldn't afford an extra week filming for his health. He couldn't afford to hire film crew, thus BOD + HQ Staff did it. He scored big with it too - current assets are at around $53M.
A little boy was talking to God.... He said, "God, how long is eternity?" To his surprise, God responded and said, "Son, to me, it's merely a second." So the little boy addressed Him again and asked, "God, how much is a million dollars?" Again, God responded and said, "Son, to me, it's merely a penny."... "God", said the little boy, "Can I have a penny?" "Sure", said God, "hold on a second."
Soooo.....God was going to give Wierwille this great cache of knowledge that hadn't been known for 2,000 years... but He couldn't afford to wait an extra week or foot the bill for a proper filming crew....
I hate to admit , that after sitting through that thing well over 40 times, and 'instructing', two of them, that I never heard 'it sits there like a duck'-nor was I told as class instructor to cover it up. I did cover for the "Jesus Christ is coming back as Lord God Almighty', but in retrospect, that seems like one of the few genuine Christian moments in the whole blamed show.
(Also in 1967 I was in the US Air Force practicing the art and science of being a photo technician.)
In '67, color movie film would have had an ASA rating of 10 to 64. For those who don't know ASA film speeds, that means the film was as slow as a turtle and needed incredible amounts of light to properly expose the the film. For those who have seen the film or video versions of the class, that means the man at the desk was under 5 to 7 500 watt klieg lights for several hours a day for two weeks. Of course these lights generated a lot of heat too.
[VP gambled on doing it cheap and it cost him not only his eyes, but eventually his life
Back in the 1960's, my uncle had a home movie camera and used these BLINDING bar-lights similar to flood lights. Everyone in the home movies looked like we were always laughing, but in truth we were squinting deeply from the pain!!
I just re-read VPW's death certificate. The first condition listed is the primary cause of death. Interestingly, metastatic melanoma means the cancer began in the skin [melanoma], spread to the liver and then to the eye, in that order.
Because he was such an extreme alcoholic, I'm amazed that it didn't start in his liver and spread outwardly.
dabobbada has it right. It was ocular (i.e., of the eye) melanoma that metastasized (spread) to the liver, not the other way around. Not that it matters much, but we might as well be accurate.
If I understand this correctly, the first cause of death listing on a death certificate is not necessarily the primary cause of death, but, rather, the most immediate cause of death. After that, the underlying causes are listed in chronological order. Thus, "metastatic melanoma of the liver/ocular melanoma" means that the immediate cause of death was cancer that had spread to the liver from an underlying cause, which was cancer of the eye. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.
Soooo.....God was going to give Wierwille this great cache of knowledge that hadn't been known for 2,000 years... but He couldn't afford to wait an extra week or foot the bill for a proper filming crew....
waysider.......that's one of the driving points of starting this thread.
Was wierwille's pride that big that he blundered onward?
If the body/eyes are screaming in pain.....why is it ignored?
To paraphrase a bit here.....if the eyes say to the brain, "Hey, why the heck are you scorching my retinas?"
and no heed is taken, then the brain has been hijacked by a prideful spirit. <_<
Now if this PFAL live filming was the fulfillment of what VPW claimed, ........how is it that when you examine the details of it, more and more it looks like an ego trip and fraught with human error?
PFAL was the culmination of VP stealing BG Leonard's ministry and teachings, putting in all his material, and running with it. His ego was so huge and his budget was so low he couldn't afford an extra week filming for his health. He couldn't afford to hire film crew, thus BOD + HQ Staff did it. He scored big with it too - current assets are at around $53M.
PFAL filming......blunders.
"Zero Corps"......blunders.
So, the plaf filming and corps program were instigated in blundering fashion.
Could someone please explain to me how wierwille walked with Gawd.....blah, blah, blah?
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waysider
It was a scam...plain and simple...including the schtick about how "I gave my eye for you kids!"....Boo hoo.
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waysider
Technical blunders aside, consider the problems encountered with the script, such as when Wierwille meant to say "It sits there like a diamond" but, instead, said, "It sits there like a duck". As class instructors, we were coached to create a diversion in the room at this moment in the film so no one would notice. If you never noticed it, I have to surmise we were successful. In addition, there is the moment in one of the sessions when Wierwille, speaking of The Second Coming, in a decidedly anti-Trinity class, says that "When Christ returns, He'll be coming back as Lord God Almighty". On this point, we were coached to tell the students that Wierwille had at one time been a Trinitarian and that it was simply a slip of the tongue. We learned to cover for the old geezer rather early in our tenures.
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WordWolf
1) If there WERE technical experts, vpw would have proceeded as he wished anyway. His methods included
telling an expert to do something and letting them do it as they knew how-so long as they obeyed-
or assuming he himself was an expert and doing something HIS way no matter what.
2) This filming was done cheaper than you think- the furniture for the set was neither bought
nor rented. vpw pretended to want to buy the furniture, installed it for the filming, filmed
as fast as he could in the studio, then returned the furniture and said he wasn't satisfied
and wanted his money back.
This is the same dishonest method recommended by twi when running taped classes. If the location
lacked a decent TV, the locals were told to "buy" a big TV then return it immediately after
the class and get their money back. Jesus would be disgraced to hear of such dishonesty.
3) If vpw had actually listened to God instead of pretending, he would have gotten guidance
and warnings. Instead, vpw did things as he wished. Remember, this is the same man who
called himself "The Teacher" ON FILM over a decade before the filmed pfal class when he
was mainly a lazy homiletician. (He knew how to preach, and that was the limit of his
scholarship.)
4) twi CLAIMS to be about Jesus-sometimes- but it's more about vpw and whoever's in charge
than about the REAL things of God. Sometimes locals out on the field were quite godly,
but the closer to hq, the more stagnation is in evidence.
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waysider
Don't forget, this is a guy who claimed he could just "reach up in Daddy's cookie jar" and God would tell him someone's spiritual orientation...black hearts and white hearts....just like that....but he couldn't ask why the lights were so irritating?????...not buying it... the guy was a fraud.
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skyrider
Yeah......he went from "The Teacher" to "The man of God (of the universe)"
to "Our father in the Word."
Is there a higher title that twi, and splinter groups, have bestowed upon him in death?
If wierwille's classes, quotes and one-liners are the CONSTANT SOURCE of reference, solace and strength.....
then, in essence, isn't wierwille "Their mediator" of sorts? Sounds like straight-up idolatry to me.
Wierwille made blunders in pfal-filming and his handlers cover for him. When others made mistakes, confrontation
moved in front-and-center to point out the error for all to see. The double standard hypocrisy was astounding!!
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
"It sits there like a duck", well if it walks and quacks like one, then Wierwille was right. Surprisingly, he spoke truth when he said Jesus Christ is coming back as the Lord God Almighty.
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waysider
Thomas
I wasn't commenting on the doctrinal veracity of his comment so much as I was pointing out that it contradicted his basic premise that "Jesus Christ Is Not God", which is a cornerstone of much of what he taught.
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dabobbada
I started my brainwashing in 1973 and had the rare previlege at the time of taking the the film version of the class. Living near HQ, (70 miles,) I spent a lot of Sundays there ane developed friendships there.
Keiiids.... I count it a badge of honor to have known The Loy'd Craig when he was still a nice guy!!!
Between talking with people who were there and some history thing they had about filming the class, I'll try to reiterate what I remember.
(...and I remember someone who talked about it once to a group of us once.)
Somewhere a year or three before 1967, someone suggested VeePee film the class. The reasoning offered was it would take the stress off VP as classes were getting more frequent. After a while he decided to do it and they started to save up the money.
When VP decided to go with it they sought to rent out studios, lights, cameras, get film, and whatever other nesessities they needed for the shoot. The studio was either in Dayton or Cincinnati, I don't remember which. The company which provided the lights and cameras helped set them up and gave them advice. Most of the film crew work was done by folks like Ermal, Howard, and the other HQ regulars of the time.
Because of the expenses of the studio and photo equipment, VP wanted to film the class in two weeks. With all the things that need to be done in such a filming set up as this, two weeks are extraordinary in any book. The photo company objected to the two week sched because of the strong possibility of eye damage.
(Also in 1967 I was in the US Air Force practicing the art and science of being a photo technician.)
In '67, color movie film would have had an ASA rating of 10 to 64. For those who don't know ASA film speeds, that means the film was as slow as a turtle and needed incredible amounts of light to properly expose the the film. For those who have seen the film or video versions of the class, that means the man at the desk was under 5 to 7 500 watt klieg lights for several hours a day for two weeks. Of course these lights generated a lot of heat too.
So, to answer your questions;
1) Were there any lighting personnel experts around to give wierwille any technical advice?
Yes, they warned what could happen and were ignored by VP.
2) Was this filming done on the cheap....with rented furniture, wrong lighting, and overburdened scheduling?
The story I heard was the furnishing were from VP's own orific..., er, office. The lighting was the only thing available at the time and was necessary for the film. The photo company recommended at least a three week sched or even longer. On the cheap, the filming crew were then BOT's, future BOTs, and other HQ staff.
3) Wouldn't God tell "the man of God" HOW to best film this long-awaited class WITHOUT MARTYRDOM OF HIS EYE?
It does seem the Bible is full of such incidents, doesn't it.
VP gambled on doing it cheap and it cost him not only his eyes, but eventually his life
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
another thing that irked me was "reaching into Daddy' cookie jar". Bet his mother and father slapped his hands with the literal thing, and yet VPW wanted us to believe in stealing something from God, with/without his permission on the sly was honorable? WTFH was that all about? Father, I am going to threaten and bully you until you tell me everything about you and I want it now on my timetable, not yours? Wrong Father, more like the pharisees and Saducees that Jesus spoke about.
He really was never or rarely humble to take reproof from anyone, including God. But you cross him, you were a dead duck.
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Steve Lortz
And there you would sit... like a dead duck!
Love,
Steve
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excathedra
hi. his burnt eyeball caused his death?
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waysider
His death certificate lists metastatic melanoma of the liver/ocular melanoma as the cause of his death.
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dabobbada
I am not a doctor nor have I ever played one on TV.
However I do know that metastastic refers to advanced cancer moving to other organs or lymph glands leading to the final end stages to death. Also, ocular refers to the eye. So when I read the cert, I understood he had eye cancer which led to liver cancer which killed VP. So the real reason he had his eye taken out 2 to 3 years before hand was the ocular cancer was advancing. They were too late and it spread to the liver.
I checked it out before writing this and the net verified what I said.
Still living near HQ in the '80s, friends on staff said the eye was removed because of constant pain from over exposure to the klieg lamps during the filming of PFAL. He spent at least 40 hours under 3000 watts of intense focused lighting in a two week period. He burned his eye which set up an iritation that set the stage for cancer to start up and take hold.
Anyway with what I do know, that is how I read his death certificate several years ago.
Curious, PFAL his greatest (plagerized)legacy is what killed him as he stroked his ego in the filming of it. :blink:
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chockfull
Great thread guys. One interesting point. What we were taught in TWI is that the adversary counterfeits truth. So for any lurking TWI members on this thread, this means you are going to be questioning what is genuine and what is counterfeit, and initially at least you are going to be looking for the counterfeit here at GS cafe.
Now if this PFAL live filming was the fulfillment of what VPW claimed, that God told him He would teach VP the word as it hasn't been known since the first century, how is it that when you examine the details of it, more and more it looks like an ego trip and fraught with human error?
PFAL was the culmination of VP stealing BG Leonard's ministry and teachings, putting in all his material, and running with it. His ego was so huge and his budget was so low he couldn't afford an extra week filming for his health. He couldn't afford to hire film crew, thus BOD + HQ Staff did it. He scored big with it too - current assets are at around $53M.
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waysider
A little boy was talking to God.... He said, "God, how long is eternity?" To his surprise, God responded and said, "Son, to me, it's merely a second." So the little boy addressed Him again and asked, "God, how much is a million dollars?" Again, God responded and said, "Son, to me, it's merely a penny."... "God", said the little boy, "Can I have a penny?" "Sure", said God, "hold on a second."
Soooo.....God was going to give Wierwille this great cache of knowledge that hadn't been known for 2,000 years... but He couldn't afford to wait an extra week or foot the bill for a proper filming crew....
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hiway29
I hate to admit , that after sitting through that thing well over 40 times, and 'instructing', two of them, that I never heard 'it sits there like a duck'-nor was I told as class instructor to cover it up. I did cover for the "Jesus Christ is coming back as Lord God Almighty', but in retrospect, that seems like one of the few genuine Christian moments in the whole blamed show.
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Rejoice
Back in the 1960's, my uncle had a home movie camera and used these BLINDING bar-lights similar to flood lights. Everyone in the home movies looked like we were always laughing, but in truth we were squinting deeply from the pain!!
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OldSkool
How many people were pushed to follow Wierwille's reckless behavior and "push through" problems that eventually caused them harm?
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Rejoice
I just re-read VPW's death certificate. The first condition listed is the primary cause of death. Interestingly, metastatic melanoma means the cancer began in the skin [melanoma], spread to the liver and then to the eye, in that order.
Because he was such an extreme alcoholic, I'm amazed that it didn't start in his liver and spread outwardly.
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Linda Z
dabobbada has it right. It was ocular (i.e., of the eye) melanoma that metastasized (spread) to the liver, not the other way around. Not that it matters much, but we might as well be accurate.
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waysider
If I understand this correctly, the first cause of death listing on a death certificate is not necessarily the primary cause of death, but, rather, the most immediate cause of death. After that, the underlying causes are listed in chronological order. Thus, "metastatic melanoma of the liver/ocular melanoma" means that the immediate cause of death was cancer that had spread to the liver from an underlying cause, which was cancer of the eye. I could be wrong but that's how I remember it.
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skyrider
waysider.......that's one of the driving points of starting this thread.
Was wierwille's pride that big that he blundered onward?
If the body/eyes are screaming in pain.....why is it ignored?
To paraphrase a bit here.....if the eyes say to the brain, "Hey, why the heck are you scorching my retinas?"
and no heed is taken, then the brain has been hijacked by a prideful spirit. <_<
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excathedra
well, whatever came first, i do not believe he was a martyr
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skyrider
PFAL filming......blunders.
"Zero Corps"......blunders.
So, the plaf filming and corps program were instigated in blundering fashion.
Could someone please explain to me how wierwille walked with Gawd.....blah, blah, blah?
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