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Seth R.
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Would you want an intervention?

Just wondering how serious folks think TWI is causing harm to their family, and if they could, would they want a professional team intervene to try and get them out?

Looking forward to serious replies.

Thanks,

Seth

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I was the last one in in my family. They tried to pull me out, but it wasn't until they stopped badgering me about it that I left. It drove me crazy to have them tell me how stupid I was to still be in. I was a proud idiot.

In my opinion, the best you can do is live a good life OUTSIDE the cult and let them see it. Show them you have a "more abundant" life than they do in their sad little world. Treat them with kindness and respect. If my folks had done that I would have been out years earlier. But instead I marked and avoided them and didn't talk with them for five years.,

Sometimes that stuff backfires. Bigtime.

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Would you want an intervention?

Just wondering how serious folks think TWI is causing harm to their family, and if they could, would they want a professional team intervene to try and get them out?

Looking forward to serious replies.

Thanks,

Seth

I seriously would not.

Deprogramming and similar kidnapping scenarios involve damaging the person's psyche

and hoping it all works out eventually.

There's easier ways to get someone out than breaking them.

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If you are a Christian, just show them what real Christian love and grace is supposed to look like.

If you are an atheist, let them be.

Removing someone forcefully doesn't really remove them. Just look at all the splinters...

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"Deprogramming and similar kidnapping scenarios involve damaging the person's psyche

and hoping it all works out eventually.

There's easier ways to get someone out than breaking them."

This always was my initial and continuous bitch regarding the 'cult' issue. Other points here and there, but this started it off. :realmad:

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  • 5 weeks later...

i started going to TWI fellowship in 1980. i went out WOW twice. in 1987 most of los angeles split from the way. Dennis D. was my fellowship coordinator and split from the way. i decided to keep going to his independent fellowship. soon after most of the other independent fellowships in the area that were run by the leadership that split from the way became corrupt, not but most. Dennis continued in THE WORD of GOD. i spent 7 years in Dennises independent fellowship and then he moved 60 miles away. around november 1994 i called the way and started going back top fellowship. there was some leadership and fellowship coordinators that never should have been in the way. eventually they were fired or reproved and got on THE WORD. read this > 2 Peter 2:1-3 < NO fellowship or ministry that teaches THE WORD is immune from false teachers, etc. you gotta speak up and most believers including me did not at the time. from 1994-1998 i went to way fellowships again. around 1998 a BC doing what LCM instructed leadership to do kicked a lot of people out. about 3-1/2 years go by and i didnt attend any independent fellowships but i kept my head in the Bible and continued to renew my mind to THE WORD. one night GOD directed my path and i met a believer that was going to way fellowships. around mid 2002 i started going to way fellowships again. a few months later i was going to move and the region coordinator ask if i would like to move into their spare bedroom. i moved in and it was a great experience. a real man of GOD that manifested the love of GOD. there was no yelling or any of that other crap. i was very blessed. i lived there 14 months and went way disciple. i came back to la and have been attending fellowships ever since. this is NOT your grandpas way ministry. i know that there were people that were wronged by false teachers, etc but GOD says there "shall be" those false believers. the love that i seen the past 14 years is awsome. no one in the area i'm in is being harmed by TWI and if someone is they should call the next higher up leadership. i have met a few people that told me some insane lies and thats what the adversary does,oh the TWI is a cult that hurts people. the people that did hurt have been long gone. i have seen natural man married friends have huge fights with their spouses and they forget and move on. but it seems the first time another believer says something not right the other believer wants to leave the ministry. thats what reproof is for and the god of this world wants you to split out. btw i still talk to Dennis D and he is with another ministry that also teaches that acccuracy of GOD WORD. Dennis was ordained last year and i went to his ordination to bear witness at what a great man of GOD he is because i know first hand. immagine that , a way believer going to the ordination of a man thats in a different ministry, well thats the way it is. TWI is NOT your old grandpas ministry. GOD BLESS !

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Would you want an intervention?

Just wondering how serious folks think TWI is causing harm to their family, and if they could, would they want a professional team intervene to try and get them out?

Looking forward to serious replies.

Thanks,

Seth

thats illegal and against the federal law and kidnapping. about 30 years ago congress passed a law againt that. i dont know where you got the info that TWI harms people from but its a lie right from lucifer himself. why not attend a way fellowship and see for yourself. thers a lot of ....ed off people that use to attend fellowships that did nothing but cause problems and were told not to come. your avatar is of a military man. what does the military do when a soldier causes trouble ? kicks him out ! what does your boss do if you cause trouble ? your fired ! we dont put with that stuff. if you wanna be a jerk your not welcome. we dont allow the adversary in.

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If I had family still in, I would want them to leave of their own accord. Coercion to leave doesn't address the real problem of distorted thinking and unwillingness to think critically. If they are physically removed (willfully or forcibly) and retain the same mentality, there is limited benefit, at best.

For starters, one of the most harmful doctrines The Way has promoted is the concept of magic thinking, otherwise known as the law of believing. (In the original PFAL class, it was called "magic thinking" or something similar.) Simply stated, it involves convincing oneself that they have the ability to change things in the physical world by simply using thoughts to think them into or out of existence. The Way is certainly not the only place this doctrine is promoted but my personal experience has been with The Way so I'll limit my remarks to that effect. My personal experience includes cases of people dying because they tried to believe their way out of situations that required serious medical intervention. It also includes watching people live with painful, unnecessary guilt, thinking it was their believing that caused bad things to happen or hindered good things from happening.

I don't want to run this discussion off track. If anyone cares to further pursue a discussion of the law of believing, there are many existing threads that can be revisited using the search feature. Or, by starting a new thread on the subject.

In summary:

Would I want them out?......yes

Would I force the issue?....No

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I remember a one liner that was attributed to VPW, but have no idea where it may or may not have originated, but it went something like this...

A man whose mind was changed against his will

is of the same opinion still.

It seems relevant to this thread and I even agree whole heartedly with Garth on this.

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If I had family still in, I would want them to leave of their own accord. Coercion to leave doesn't address the real problem of distorted thinking and unwillingness to think critically. If they are physically removed (willfully or forcibly) and retain the same mentality, there is limited benefit, at best.

For starters, one of the most harmful doctrines The Way has promoted is the concept of magic thinking, otherwise known as the law of believing. (In the original PFAL class, it was called "magic thinking" or something similar.) Simply stated, it involves convincing oneself that they have the ability to change things in the physical world by simply using thoughts to think them into or out of existence. The Way is certainly not the only place this doctrine is promoted but my personal experience has been with The Way so I'll limit my remarks to that effect. My personal experience includes cases of people dying because they tried to believe their way out of situations that required serious medical intervention. It also includes watching people live with painful, unnecessary guilt, thinking it was their believing that caused bad things to happen or hindered good things from happening.

I don't want to run this discussion off track. If anyone cares to further pursue a discussion of the law of believing, there are many existing threads that can be revisited using the search feature. Or, by starting a new thread on the subject.

In summary:

Would I want them out?......yes

Would I force the issue?....No

the way never taught that you should not see a doctor. we dont know who started that crap but it has ben a problem. i was in the region coordinators fellowship and there was a couple that has a 4 or 5 yo daughter that needed an operation. they wanted to believe. i sat at the kitchen table while the region coordinator told them over and over to get her operated on. they refused and stopped coming. i have had way and other believers and unbelievers get on my case for taking asprin , nyquil, and going to the doctor. i will never tell someone not to go top the doctor or take medicine. last night i was talking to a friend thats an unbeliever thats having horrible back pain. i have been telling him for about 2 weeks to go to the doctor, he refuses to. he told me the pain only comes when he starts thinking about it. he thinks its all in his head , i dont know, maybe it is. i have believed for healing and gotten healed. i have taken medicine and believed and gotten healed. whatever you need to do , do it. i dont know where this so called magic thinking came from. this is the 1st time i'v ever heard of it. in the 1970's before i got in the Word my girlfriend took me to a Sylva mind control siminar. the only thing i remember was they said you can use thoughts to heal yourself. if you got blood gushing out , or something you get to the hospital asap ! several years i had severe pain in my left arm. i decided to go to the emergency room. they did an ekg, took xrays , ran test and didnt find snything wrong. by the time they got done the physical was gone and i went home to a painful emergency room bill. about 1-1/2 years ago it happened again and i went to the emergency room again. nothing wrong this time either. the doc said it could be nerves in my neck. i told him i had ben rear ended in a car in the 70's and it suffered a really bad case of whiplash. he said that can come back and cause problems like this many years later. if you need to go to the doctor , go !
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When I was in The Way, it was considered a sign of spiritual weakness to lack the ability to "believe" for whatever you might need, including healing. No one wanted to wear the badge of spiritual weakling. There was a great deal of pressure to resolve any problems you might have by using the law of believing. In the training programs, that pressure was ramped-up considerably.

The law of believing is not really a law. In fact, it's not even Biblical. Sure, you can cherry pick a few verses here and there to make it appear to have scriptural basis but, in reality, it does not. In the 1950's and 1960's there was a movement we now refer to as New Age Thinking. It relies heavily on the works of people like Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking), Robert Schuller (Hour of Power), Oral Roberts (Expect a Miracle) and many, many others. In the least common denominator, it simply promotes the idea that you control what happens to you, both good and bad, by the thoughts you entertain. That's covered in the PFAL class session that deals with the fire engine red curtains (positive believing) and the story of the little boy who died tragically, after being run over by a car (negative believing), because his mother harbored fear for his safety. There is even a contemporary version of it called The Secret (Rhonda Byrne).

Here's a snippet from page 44 of PFAL (orange book):

"What one fears will surely come to pass. It is a law."

Nope, sorry, it's not a law. In addition, people fear all sorts of things that never come to pass. It's nonsense, plain and simple. And, it generates a lot of grief and guilt for those who are unable to make positive believing work for them.

Originally, there were no bound books to accompany the PFAL class. Instead, there were little booklets with individual title subjects. They were later amassed into book form. One of the booklets dealt with what we now call the law of believing. In the booklet, it wasn't called the law of believing, it was called magic thinking or something along those lines. (Someone please correct me on the exact title).

People literally died trying to make this stuff work. It's not a laughing matter nor should its ramifications be taken lightly..

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When I was in The Way, it was considered a sign of spiritual weakness to lack the ability to "believe" for whatever you might need, including healing. No one wanted to wear the badge of spiritual weakling. There was a great deal of pressure to resolve any problems you might have by using the law of believing. In the training programs, that pressure was ramped-up considerably.

The law of believing is not really a law. In fact, it's not even Biblical. Sure, you can cherry pick a few verses here and there to make it appear to have scriptural basis but, in reality, it does not. In the 1950's and 1960's there was a movement we now refer to as New Age Thinking. It relies heavily on the works of people like Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking), Robert Schuller (Hour of Power), Oral Roberts (Expect a Miracle) and many, many others. In the least common denominator, it simply promotes the idea that you control what happens to you, both good and bad, by the thoughts you entertain. That's covered in the PFAL class session that deals with the fire engine red curtains (positive believing) and the story of the little boy who died tragically, after being run over by a car (negative believing), because his mother harbored fear for his safety. There is even a contemporary version of it called The Secret (Rhonda Byrne).

Here's a snippet from page 44 of PFAL (orange book):

"What one fears will surely come to pass. It is a law."

Nope, sorry, it's not a law. In addition, people fear all sorts of things that never come to pass. It's nonsense, plain and simple. And, it generates a lot of grief and guilt for those who are unable to make positive believing work for them.

Originally, there were no bound books to accompany the PFAL class. Instead, there were little booklets with individual title subjects. They were later amassed into book form. One of the booklets dealt with what we now call the law of believing. In the booklet, it wasn't called the law of believing, it was called magic thinking or something along those lines. (Someone please correct me on the exact title).

People literally died trying to make this stuff work. It's not a laughing matter nor should its ramifications be taken lightly..

Indeed, does shiftthis even have a clue as to why, at the various ROA festivals in August, the medical help tent was called THIRD aid, rather than first aid?

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Indeed, does shiftthis even have a clue as to why, at the various ROA festivals in August, the medical help tent was called THIRD aid, rather than first aid?

By an amazing coincidence,

that was the same name used all year on-grounds in the Medical Office.

If you actually needed medical assistance, you phoned and requested

a "third aid." And one of their high muck-a-mucks was the one that

I heard explaining that to someone, so it's not like that was

just some expression he used. He phrased it as a very specific

instruction, something to be repeated verbatim if needed.

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If you or a family member became seriously ill, obviously it was due to a lack of adequate abundant sharing or lack of believing. There was no way one could simply be sick and not be disgraced in the process.

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If you or a family member became seriously ill, obviously it was due to a lack of adequate abundant sharing or lack of believing. There was no way one could simply be sick and not be disgraced in the process.

Some were even publicly ridiculed in death because their lack of believing supposedly caused them to die.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I can only speak of my own experiences.

In the early 1970's I remember hearing a girl with a rip-roaring, coughing, hacking, feverish lousy stinking cold. Another believer said to her "Well! Where's YOUR believing."

In Jacksonville, FL, some red-headed guy, a WC grad, had an adorable little girl about three years old, who also had a horrible, coughing, hacking, bronchial cough. He was sitting on the floor next to me at a Branch Meeting, and I heard him threaten to take the obviously ill child out of the room and whip her butt if she didn't believe God to stop coughing. I would have been taking her to a pediatrician or even the nearest ER. I thought she might have pneumonia, but then I'm not a WC grad, so I just don't have that in-depth spiritual perception and awareness. Just common sense and a little bit of knowledge, which hasn't destroyed me in case anyone asks.

In 1993 we were in the Family Way Corps. We received $30/month each and $20/month for our son. Medical assistance was rendered when necessary in the form of a bottle of goo called Bentonite, which one purchased from the bookstore. This supposedly pulled all the poisons out of one's liver, and healed everything from an ingrown toenail to Stage V cancer.

In late October/early November of that year, I came down with a god-awful flu/cold, who knows what. I was horribly sick and was given the aforementioned Bentonite, to no avail. I stayed sick as hell for about three weeks.

(Let me interject a little something here. I have an auto-immune disease. For those who don't know, a mystery infection, manifested by symptoms or even asymptomatic, is the starter of an AI disease. The immune system fights off the infection, but then turns on the body itself, finding some type of cell that resembles the initial cause of the infection. In my case, apparently my immune system thought the islet cells in my pancreas were bad guys and slowly killed them. Islet cells make insulin. I wasn't making any after a few months.)

So, to make a short story long, in August, 1994, when we crept back to the ROA, I was sick as hell. I'd lost 30 pounds in six weeks. I had no energy and I could not eat, only drink a gallon or two of water a day. I couldn't see; my vision was a blur.

Eventually my husband hauled me off to third aid and they looked at me and recommended the emergency room. There, I was quickly diagnosed with type 1, insulin dependent diabetes. Blood glucose 702, not compatible with life.

I got things more or less under control, gained back weight, and went from there. I thought maybe I could use my experience to help others, but was quickly told by the powers that be that I should be ashamed, and never never must speak of my condition.

A few years later, we left TWI and moved back to Ohio. We continued to receive the Sunday tapes until we got one upon which Martindale, in his portentous, "straight from the mouth of God" way, stated (and I remember this word for word) "If you have a chronic disease in your life, it is because YOU have chronic SIN in your life!"

Imagine my horror! I searched the Scriptures and did not find this quotation. I'm certainly not without sin; I can find quite a few things to repent of on a daily basis. But the idea that Almighty God is up there with lightning bolts, waiting to smite someone with sickness and disease?

Nope, don't think so.

I realize this is somewhat off topic, but it had been mentioned.

I will say this: If I had family or loved ones stil involved, I would love them into leaving.

Edited by Watered Garden
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WG, that's disgusting. Chronic sin in your life? Heck, aren't we all sinners - chronic sinners? (Even if we're born again! we still sin!!).

Jesus, I recall, yelled at a man who had had a chronic illness such that he couldn't walk. And was too lazy to get into a magic pool. Yeah right.

Hey, wait, didn't he do something similar when the man's mates tore open the roof? (Can you imagine doing that in the WoW Auditorium. Hahahahahahaha!)

And his disciples - just as bad, didn't give out silver or gold, just a b-llocking to a man who hadn't ever walked. Yeah, right.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am sure that in every respect your life is incomparably more healthy now, WG :knuddel:/>

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