Was Wierwille a MOGFOT or Con Artist?

[Rocky]

The Confidence Game

"Reality is what we take to be true," physicist David Bohm observed in a 1977 lecture. "What we take to be true is what we believe… What we believe determines what we take to be true." That's why nothing is more reality-warping than the shock of having come to believe something untrue — an experience so disorienting yet so universal that it doesn't spare even the most intelligent and self-aware of us, for it springs from the most elemental tendencies of human psychology.

"The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence," Nobel-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman asserted in examining how our minds mislead us, "but of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct."

The machinery of that construction is what New Yorker columnist and science writer extraordinaire Maria Konnikova explores in The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It … Every Time (public library) — a thrilling psychological detective story investigating how con artists, the supreme masterminds of malevolent reality-manipulation, prey on our propensity for believing what we wish were true and how this illuminates the inner workings of trust and deception in our everyday lives.

"Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours," Carl Sagan urged in his excellent Baloney Detection Kit — and yet our tendency is to do just that, becoming increasingly attached to what we've come to believe because the belief has sprung from our own glorious, brilliant, fool-proof minds. Through a tapestry of riveting real-life con artist profiles interwoven with decades of psychology experiments, Konnikova demonstrates that a con artist simply takes advantage of this hubris by finding the beliefs in which we are most confident — those we're least likely to question — and enlisting them in advancing his or her agenda. [more at the link at the top of this post]

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This forum, GSC but especially About The Way, has documented for more than a dozen years the pathology of the TWI subculture (cult), and the founder, his foundational indoctrination seminar (PFAL), his predatory proclivities, and those of his successors and co-conspirators. So, I need not exhaustively list all of the errors and obvious psychological manipulations in Wierwille's "teachings."

We know that rather than making valid arguments for his dogmas and doctrines, the main thrust of the FLAP class (sorry, misspelling intentional that time) was to establish HIMSELF as THE authority on everything related to every aspect of spirituality. And we bought it. I bought it at the ripe young age of 20-years old. (First becoming interested in it at 19).

I had been previously set up with a framework of religious belief -- Roman Catholicism -- from infancy by virtue of geography and sociology. As almost every teenager, at least those raised in Western Civilization, I "knew everything," so to speak. At least enough to not rely on the wisdom of parents who might have helped me see through Wierwille's bullspit. So, I was ripe for the picking when a fellow airman with an air of confidence -- that he knew the truth -- came along.

Anyway, I don't need to rehash forty more years of personal history. The bottom line is that I now recognize the patterns set forth by social scientists and psychologists because of research on human behavior.

I don't need to look into Wierwille's heart. I observed his actions and heard his words. And I've read too many stories from others that corroborate what I've learned since I severed ties with the subculture we affectionately called the "Household of God." Right now, I'm convinced he was a con man extraordinaire. He made himself the living he wanted to make. All the cigarettes, Drambuie and attractive young girls he could handle, and the adulation of thousands of sycophants. Fortunately, it IS available to have a live more abundant than we had under the MOGFART.

[waysider]

Wierwille was once asked what he would do if his deception were to be exposed.

He bluntly answered, "I would lie.".

(That accounting, I believe, can be found in Losing The Way)

Edited January 14, 2016 by waysider

[Bolshevik]

. . .

We know that rather than making valid arguments for his dogmas and doctrines, the main thrust of the FLAP class (sorry, misspelling intentional that time) was to establish HIMSELF as THE authority on everything related to every aspect of spirituality. . . .

Is this right or wrong are we asking?

VPW-doctrine seems to work well for some people and their lives. Absolutely awful for other people. Current leadership seems to be rather open (relatively) about that. (Maybe that a deflection argument on leadership's part, maybe not).

"Nothing is real" - John Lennon

[waysider]

There is some really thought provoking material in the first post's links . I'm slowly working my way through them.

[shortfuse]

Just listened to an interview with Konnikova over the weekend. She talked about people in cults being some of the con victims who suffered the most loss. VPW sure seems to fit her description of a con. That plus your post, I need to go pick up this book now.