Undertow - Escaping from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International

[waysider]

Has the key been used before?

[Bolshevik]

3 minutes ago, waysider said:

Has the key been used before?

The Key.  The Key.  Nothing But The Key.

When studying The Key a key may be key if the key was keyed in on before.  This key is known as simple keying. 

[Bolshevik]

And.

Now that you understand key and what it means.  Let's explain who you are.

[penworks]

12 hours ago, chockfull said:

Thx for the interview links C.  They are interesting reads and I appreciate you doing them and sharing them.

I personally strongly connected with the feeling of getting my kids out from the influence of TWI for their lives and am thankful they have grown up outside that influence and are free to seek life liberty and the pursuit of happiness unencumbered by the bondage elements from a cult that I was faced with.

Thanks, Chockful. I'm glad to share that interview here. One of my favorite questions from Prof. Moss and my answer:

MM: In the last chapter, “Turning the Tide,” you write about the denial of feelings that had become so prevalent in The Way’s teachings. Could you please elaborate on that aspect?

CLE: One of Wierwille’s pet phrases was “Feelings come and go, but the Word of God liveth and abideth forever.” What he meant was that we were not to trust our feelings because they change all the time. And because they change, Wierwille told us they were unreliable sources for truth about ourselves. When our feelings contradicted Wierwille, we were trained to reject those feelings. One important example of this from my own life is in Undertow: Even when my gut feelings told me that the man I married had betrayed me and was not good for me, I was supposed to reconcile with him because the Bible said to forgive.

[waysider]

15 minutes ago, penworks said:

When our feelings contradicted Wierwille, we were trained to reject those feelings.

This. When people say "Why didn't you just leave?" or "Why didn't you just do this or that?", this is the part they're not understanding.

[Bolshevik]

2 hours ago, penworks said:

Thanks, Chockful. I'm glad to share that interview here. One of my favorite questions from Prof. Moss and my answer:

MM: In the last chapter, “Turning the Tide,” you write about the denial of feelings that had become so prevalent in The Way’s teachings. Could you please elaborate on that aspect?

CLE: One of Wierwille’s pet phrases was “Feelings come and go, but the Word of God liveth and abideth forever.” What he meant was that we were not to trust our feelings because they change all the time. And because they change, Wierwille told us they were unreliable sources for truth about ourselves. When our feelings contradicted Wierwille, we were trained to reject those feelings. One important example of this from my own life is in Undertow: Even when my gut feelings told me that the man I married had betrayed me and was not good for me, I was supposed to reconcile with him because the Bible said to forgive.

For clarification,

by "feelings" do you mean "emotions" or both?  Feelings are based on emotions, and are basically thoughts about emotions, as I understand.

[Bolshevik]

2 hours ago, waysider said:

This. When people say "Why didn't you just leave?" or "Why didn't you just do this or that?", this is the part they're not understanding.

because "being trained" sounds so passive.  You're saying you're never in control.

[Charity]

11 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

For clarification,

by "feelings" do you mean "emotions" or both?  Feelings are based on emotions, and are basically thoughts about emotions, as I understand.

I had not heard this before and I find it very interesting as someone who's had to deal with strong emotions a lot in my life.  Thinking about it now, emotions seem to well up suddenly and are harder if not impossible to manage.  So where does that leave "feelings" - definitely want to learn more about this"  Thank you for sharing about it! 

[Bolshevik]

1 minute ago, Charity said:

I had not heard this before and I find it very interesting as someone who's had to deal with strong emotions a lot in my life.  Thinking about it now, emotions seem to well up suddenly and are harder if not impossible to manage.  So where does that leave "feelings" - definitely want to learn more about this"  Thank you for sharing about it! 

https://www.amazon.com/Passions-Emotions-Meaning-Life/dp/0872202267

[waysider]

English is a crazy language, isn't it? As listeners, we can usually distinguish  between emotions and feelings based on the context. If I cut my finger, I feel pain, but there isn't necessarily any  emotion involved. (Though emotion might ensue in the form of regret and anger at my own carelessness.)  Or, I could experience emotional sadness even though there is no apparent physical cause. It's nuanced...except when it's not. And, there are times when the two overlap in such a way they can't be separated. I think VPW pretty much slanted this toward interpreting emotions and acting on them in a manner that contrasted Way doctrine. I mean, so what if the WOW field has you in a state of emotional turmoil? "You just gotta STAND, baby!, it's The Word!"

This all brings me to my point. The concept of word studies, where we replaced a Greek word with an English word or tried to understand an ancient custom in the context of modern society, is highly flawed. Anyone who has ever seriously studied a language other than their own will eventually recognize the absurdity.

We thought we were clever. We weren't. We were naive.

[waysider]

39 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

You're saying you're never in control.

I don't think that's what I'm saying. But, ya know, sometimes, even though you might be holding the reins, the horse has a mind of his own.

[Bolshevik]

2 minutes ago, waysider said:

English is a crazy language, isn't it? As listeners, we can usually distinguish  between emotions and feelings based on the context. If I cut my finger, I feel pain, but there isn't necessarily any  emotion involved. (Though emotion might ensue in the form of regret and anger at my own carelessness.)  Or, I could experience emotional sadness even though there is no apparent physical cause. It's nuanced...except when it's not. And, there are times when the two overlap in such a way they can't be separated. I think VPW pretty much slanted this toward interpreting emotions and acting on them in a manner that contrasted Way doctrine. I mean, so what if the WOW field has you in a state of emotional turmoil? "You just gotta STAND, baby!, it's The Word!"

This all brings me to my point. The concept of word studies, where we replaced a Greek word with an English word or tried to understand an ancient custom in the context of modern society, is highly flawed. Anyone who has ever seriously studied a language other than their own will eventually recognize the absurdity.

We thought we were clever. We weren't. We were naive.

(Just speaking from my understanding here).  Emotions themselves are often triggered by thoughts, not the situation in front of us but our thoughts about the situations.  Emotions apparently can also be triggered by the unconscious.  Emotions have an intelligence to them separate from cognitive thinking that inspires action needing to be taken.  Feelings are a layer above emotions, more specific, we have a feeling about an emotion.  Layers of interpretations, you could say.  Moods would come after that.

I understand VPW to have wanted everyone in sink with his mood.  Which makes "Way Doctrine" sound like a silly term altogether -  (which involved word studies).  Because it's just gobbledygook pointing back to one source.  And what VPW was doing acting as a god, lower case "g", knowing good and evil. - To follow VPW was to be inauthentic.

"Gut feeling" I think is better interpreted as emotion, but don't quote me.  

I think what's being said above is someone else is the decision maker inside another head.  And I interpret that as a splitting in a person's reality.

 

 

 

 

[waysider]

3 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

I think what's being said above is someone else is the decision maker inside another head.  And I interpret that as a splitting in a person's reality.

Yes.

[Mike]

3 hours ago, penworks said:

... we were not to trust our feelings because they change all the time. And because they change, Wierwille told us they were unreliable sources for truth about ourselves...

I could be wrong about this, but my impression is that it was ONLY in the area of rightly dividing the Word that our feelings should be ignored, because they too often were heavily based on wrong doctrine.

As far as feelings and knowing OURSELVES, this does not ring accurate to me.

I have not yet searched out all the places in the record where this was taught. I would like to see the context material in the record where he taught this.

My impressions are that in doing a check-up from the neck-up I'd want to consider my feelings to see it if is Christ's feelings behind my feelings that I am feeling.  We should OBVIOUSLY trust revelation from God if He uses feelings in the way He communicates something.

Jesus trusted his feelings that virtue had flowed out of him to heal the woman who touched the hem of his garment.

[waysider]

15 minutes ago, Mike said:

I could be wrong about this, but my impression is that it was ONLY in the area of rightly dividing the Word that our feelings should be ignored, because they too often were heavily based on wrong doctrine.

Your impression is incorrect. End.

15 minutes ago, Mike said:

I have not yet searched out all the places in the record where this was taught. I would like to see the context material in the record where he taught this.

Your search will be in vain. This concept permeated the entire ministry, beyond VPW, himself, and transcended written material. Call them TVT's if it makes you happy. If written materials were all that was necessary, there would have never been a need for twig fellowships and endless reinforcement gatherings. No one I know or you know ever based their "walk" solely on the narrow constraints of the written materials.

Edited July 3, 2023 by waysider

[Bolshevik]

34 minutes ago, waysider said:

Yes.

http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/politics/ideology-politics/difference-between-enlightenment-and-romanticism/#:~:text=The proponents of enlightenment argued,is focused on human emotion.

I see an argument bigger than VPW.  

[Nathan_Jr]

victor paul wierwille, charlatan, said Eve's lesbian escapade with the snake was the original sin. He said he couldn't prove it, because it lacked textual evidence, he just had a feeling it was true.

He didn't sound embarrassed to spew such agonizing stupidity, he sounded gleeful in his kerchief and loudly plaid suit. (An ironic homo-erotic image.)

Victor was recorded on film saying this for the CF&S class. Anyone can view this record for themselves on archive.org.

 

[Mike]

13 minutes ago, waysider said:

Your impression is incorrect. End.

Your search will be in vain. This concept permeated the entire ministry, beyond VPW, himself, and transcended written material. Call them TVT's if it makes you happy. If written materials were all that was necessary, there would have never been a need for twig fellowships and endless reinforcement gatherings. No one I know or you know ever based their "walk" solely on the narrow constraints of the written materials.

Well, if it was part of the TVTs, we could still learn from it's origins that are in the record.  Even early SNS tapes could help.

I do remember thinking too many ministry people had the "can't trust feelings" popping up in their speech a little too much for my liking back then.   At the time I understood it to be the strict cultural German attitudes that surrounded New Knoxville.

I remember quite well having to stifle feelings of fear about not believing Jesus is God.  I knew where these false feelings came from, and I didn't let them influence my searching the Word on who Jesus really is.  I stifled my feelings in this one area of determining right doctrine. 

But feelings in general seemed fine to me as part of life.

[Bolshevik]

1 minute ago, Nathan_Jr said:

victor paul wierwille, charlatan, said Eve's lesbian escapade with the snake was the original sin. He said he couldn't prove it, because it lacked textual evidence, he just had a feeling it was true.

He didn't sound embarrassed to spew such agonizing stupidity, he sounded gleeful in his kerchief and loudly plaid suit. (An ironic homo-erotic image.)

Victor was recorded on film saying this for the CF&S class. Anyone can view this record for themselves on archive.org.

 

The ordeal with the snake and the fruit could be viewed as an appeal to the "gnostic/hermetics" thinking.  One becomes a god through the acquisition of knowledge.  What the serpent said.  Thus the dualism.

 

[Mike]

5 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

victor paul wierwille, charlatan, said Eve's lesbian escapade with the snake was the original sin. He said he couldn't prove it, because it lacked textual evidence, he just had a feeling it was true.

He didn't sound embarrassed to spew such agonizing stupidity, he sounded gleeful in his kerchief and loudly plaid suit. (An ironic homo-erotic image.)

Victor was recorded on film saying this for the CF&S class. Anyone can view this record for themselves on archive.org.

 

I think you are merging two different teachings from two different teachers here.

 

[Nathan_Jr]

4 minutes ago, Bolshevik said:

The ordeal with the snake and the fruit could be viewed as an appeal to the "gnostic/hermetics" thinking.  One becomes a god through the acquisition of knowledge.  What the serpent said.  Thus the dualism.

 

Sure, But lesbian sex? Bestiality is as far as I feel like reading it into the text.

[waysider]

4 minutes ago, Mike said:

Well, if it was part of the TVTs, we could still learn from it's origins that are in the record.

Plenty of stuff never made it into the official record. Did people always question the originating source?

 

5 minutes ago, Mike said:

But feelings in general seemed fine to me as part of life.

Did you base this on information in the written materials or was this just your personal feeling on the matter?

[Bolshevik]

4 hours ago, penworks said:

Thanks, Chockful. I'm glad to share that interview here. One of my favorite questions from Prof. Moss and my answer:

MM: In the last chapter, “Turning the Tide,” you write about the denial of feelings that had become so prevalent in The Way’s teachings. Could you please elaborate on that aspect?

CLE: One of Wierwille’s pet phrases was “Feelings come and go, but the Word of God liveth and abideth forever.” What he meant was that we were not to trust our feelings because they change all the time. And because they change, Wierwille told us they were unreliable sources for truth about ourselves. When our feelings contradicted Wierwille, we were trained to reject those feelings. One important example of this from my own life is in Undertow: Even when my gut feelings told me that the man I married had betrayed me and was not good for me, I was supposed to reconcile with him because the Bible said to forgive.

 

The forced inauthenticity is an attempt become a god.  Is one way to put it.  This world is not real, so denying it becomes plausible.  Re-interpreting the cognitive dissonance to dismiss it as "growing pains" in a process.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Bolshevik
Language is not real

[Nathan_Jr]

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

I think you are merging two different teachings from two different teachers here.

 

You think wrongly. I'm not making it up. Watch it for yourself. "It's true, even if you don't beleeeve it." victor said that, too. it's in the record.

[Bolshevik]

4 minutes ago, Nathan_Jr said:

Sure, But lesbian sex? Bestiality is as far as I feel like reading it into the text.

Yes, but which flag should one fly?  Yours?  Or all of them?