The overt, covert, pervert, subvert, invert, and mostly inert operations of TWI

[T-Bone]

The first rule of way corps training is: you do not talk about way corps training

 

The second rule of way corps training is: you better remember the first rule

[T-Bone]

You shouldn’t believe everything you hear…unless you heard it in the Advanced Class…then it’s true.

[T-Bone]

There was an uneasy silence over some of the things wierwille said and did while I was in the way corps…it was like the elephant in the classroom…no one mentioned or wanted to discuss the inappropriateness or depravity of it I guess because it made some of us feel uncomfortable and would show us at odds with the acceptable way corps culture.

[T-Bone]

I remember the time Craig berated one of my corps sisters over her new hairdo. What immediately came to mind was something wierwille use to say: when you point a finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing back at you.

[T-Bone]

In TWI-culture, you should always follow the rules to avoid consequences. A worst-case scenario might be you get possessed and levitate or something. Hopefully your Twig coordinator is good at talking you down. 

[T-Bone]

To make going door to door witnessing more exciting I would imagine myself as Jason Bourne jumping from one house to another. That went along with something I remember wierwille said: we are Bourne again to serve.

 

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by T-Bone
bored again to edit

[T-Bone]

I think the lockbox thing that wierwille promoted was a bad idea…it was like putting yourself in solitary confinement for a crime you did not commit.

[T-Bone]

I was thinking one way “present truth” could always be applicable would be if you had a time machine. Thus, there’s only two small hurdles to get over: 
1.    Build an operable time machine

2.    Find a portable truth that easily fits inside the time-traveler-containment-throne, leaving enough room for the moment-to-moment-voyager to comfortably breeze through any day or time or hour.

[T-Bone]

Even as a young lad Victor was always working on formulas. However, it wasn’t until years later that the greatest cargoes of life came in over quiet seas. As a matter of fact, it was so quiet that Victor could hear the lead engineer on the ship Heed Loch yelling at another ship mechanic “keep it simple, stupid”. Victor then realized he had stumbled across the greatest formula for success.

He hauled off all the complicated formulas to the local dumpster - which sat conveniently in the alley next to the cardboard box he called his lab. By running a few simple ideas from E.W. Kenyon and Napoleon Hill through his own hand-built Plagiarizer-3000, he proudly announced to an unsuspecting fan club “believing equals receiving”.

[Rocky]

Remarkably remarkable remarks... and no doubt, divinely inspired.  

[T-Bone]

Thanks, Rocky! 

Don’t know about being divinely inspired…but I will say this – it’s either a blessing or a curse the way this silly stuff just pops into my head…and I mean it’s lightning fast! I can look at a picture or movie scene – like the film Fight Club – I used in the starter post…immediately off the wall stuff comes to mind – like what if going into the way corps was a weird Twilight Zone-esque coming of age story – a person’s transition from being young and naïve to being an adult and going into a cult’s leadership training program.

It's not that I think my stuff is awfully funny – I just have to make fun of something so awful…maybe like gallows humor…I strive to be sarcastically on point.

no brag – just fact – I have always had a very active imagination…you shove something in front of my eyeballs and it’s like giving a little kid a bunch of crayons and saying you can go ahead and draw all over that wall…and when it’s something supposedly “sacrosanct” about TWI – that’s like giving the kid a bunch of crayons and yet forbidding him to draw on the walls…that’s the flash of rebellious inspiration I get hit with…but then it takes me a long time to refine that for my target – which in this case is about The Way.

Oh, and I don’t mean to bogart this thread      - all Grease Spotters are welcome to participate – that would be even more fun…Bolshevik discovered my nasty habit on another thread -   Being on-call and other misadventures     - and he asked about the rules, boundaries and what not. And I told him “Rules…schmules…there ain’t no rules here…just don’t get political or  QAnon-esque. My formula is I look for unusual pictures then I try to come up with the story behind the picture…Feel free to do what you want…I just start these things to amuse myself and I get tickled when someone else participates”.

I say again – calling all Grease Spotters – get your crayons out – this wall is for you!
 

[T-Bone]

Speaking of wierwille’s schemes to invert Christianity  – a big one that stands out to me is how he stood the simple idea of prayer on its ear… he changed everything about it as far as the uncomplicated version one finds presented throughout the Bible. wierwille introduced a new model for prayer.

Remember in PFAL – I think it was even a listening with a purpose question in the class syllabus. to receive anything from God what must you know? wierwille listed 5 things. The first one was – you must know what’s available…I wonder where he got that idea. It wasn’t from the Bible. As a matter of fact, the Bible indicates that’s   NOT   a prerequisite: 

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us  Ephesians 3:20 KJV 

The Amplified version is even more emphatic about us NOT needing to know what’s available:

Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us,   Ephesians 3:20 Amplified

 

Another one on his list that I find repugnant is you have to have your needs and wants parallel. Who says?!?! It sounds like another salesman’s gimmick.

What if I don’t need or want what wierwille says I need or want?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[T-Bone]

In some sense the overt and covert operations of TWI were entwined. Indoctrination is not an overnight process. Usually, a person does not knowingly join a harmful and controlling cult. The road in may best be described as a subliminal acclimatizing process – where a newcomer finds something - or someone attractive in the group and so they make themselves mentally adjust to the prevailing ideas, attitudes, and behavior to fit in.

To someone who has never had the experience of being indoctrinated into a harmful and controlling cult – the stuff they read about on Grease Spot Café probably sounds preposterous and almost unbelievable. It’s understandable that people who have never been in TWI – never taken any of their classes or participated in their programs find all this stuff so astounding - and that anyone would buy into it.

To understand how TWI-followers get to the point of being unaware of wierwille’s licentious and malicious nature is to understand how a sexual predator can be hidden in plain sight. It is by masking his nature in the guise of a man of God, a teacher of the Bible. It all started with the PFAL class – which had vague and misleading directives like “as long as you follow the two great commandments you can do as you full well please” and the dubious justification of David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba saying “technically all the women of the kingdom belonged to the king”. 

I believe part of wierwille’s tactic was to run certain ideas up the flagpole to see if it was given a positive reaction. Like with PFAL, if you sat through the whole class and didn’t balk at anything – then everything is cool. If you stick around and continue to come to Twig fellowships – that’s even better! Then you’ll probably be encouraged to take the class again – for review – no charge this time, of course. Then on to other classes that continue to reinforce the idea that wierwille is THE authority on Bible stuff – and anything else in life.

Thus, if newcomers respond favorably to the initial “experiment” of malignant ideas, then many other soft-sell tactics come into play which subtly persuades them to buy into more of TWI’s ideology…And realistically there’s no one cut-and-dried method for ensnaring folks in a harmful and controlling cult. There are so many variables to consider like one’s personality, social needs…usually new recruits are young and naïve so critical thinking skills are not really developed…and the road to indoctrination is not shock therapy but rather a gradual immersion…

…it’s like a prolonged seductive intoxicating “romance”…a cult luring neophytes to take bigger and bigger sips of the Kool-Aid…using manipulative tactics like love-bombing, the subtle influence of peer pressure and groupthink......claiming to provide solid answers about life, having a purpose, God, politics, marriage, finances…whatever!

...sadly, those with low self-esteem (like myself) are often drawn to a cult-environment where they seem to be readily accepted – people with low self-esteem are usually easier to break mentally / emotionally. “Fortunately” for them the cult is there as just the perfect supportive environment they’ve been looking for – and along those lines a cult member can learn to feel superior to those not in the cult – an us-versus-them mentality develops and a cult follower starts isolating themselves from family and friends not in the cult – and eventually the new social ties within the cult satisfy a basic desire we all have – to belong…...a TWI-follower's personal boundaries are softened and eventually encroached by certain upper leadership who have a penchant to take advantage of their own position of power and authority.

Sometimes I recall the awkward social interactions shortly after my wife and I made our exit from TWI official   (we had sent letters to LCM and the Rome City campus coordinator – informing them we resigned from our corps assignment and would no longer associate with TWI. And it’s not like we didn’t give them a chance to explain things – since several months earlier we had written them and asked very specific questions about the issues we were concerned with - but all we got for a response from LCM was "I hope we can win your trust again").  

I was also done with the hemming and hawing over current issues, dubious policies / procedures, the “spiritualizing“ of situations and everyone assuming PFAL was the silver bullet for this complicated catastrophe – that was the usual gist in previous phone conversations and letters to our corps brothers and sisters and sponsors. What’s really painful is remembering the various responses from most of our fellow corps – most were a bit taken aback by our official exit. Some of the backlash rhetoric we heard: “you’ve been tricked by the devil”…”you’re entertaining devil spirits”…”you’re copouts”…”possessed”…”you have chosen oblivion”…

…mind you, this was in phone conversations and letters…

…I imagine if these were face-to-face conversations – they might have looked at us like we were from another planet.

[T-Bone]

Subvert and pervert

I saw this vintage ad recently – and it brought back a sad memory. Living in an apartment back in the early 80s, I remember meeting a neighbor who would put Dr. Pepper in her baby’s bottle. We had moved – and then about a year later my wife ran into her at a supermarket. She mentioned her baby had to have esophagus surgery.

I took PFAL in 1974 - being young and naïve, I figured what’s the harm in taking a class on the Bible – it’s just about the Good Book, right?

[T-Bone]

Inert

 

In the 1980 film   Private Benjamin, Goldie Hawn plays a sheltered young high-society woman who joins the United States Army on a whim and finds herself in a much more problematic situation than she ever expected. One of my favorite scenes is during basic training when Sgt. Ross says to her “Beware - there are mine fields out there. Most of them are inert. However, some of them are ert.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I used to think of PFAL as like a basic training for new recruits – and we were encouraged to sit through the class again and again until a PFAL-mindset was forged through a strict discipline.                             

 

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation

I Peter 2:2

 

Way back in my TWI-daze I remember a young lady who would introduce someone she was “under-shepherding” through the PFAL class as “This is my babe, Fred.” And Fred was this 6-foot 2 guy built like a linebacker with a sheepish grin on his face.

 

Silly – yes – but she reflected an attitude many of us had about the PFAL class – that it was pure spiritual milk…But if you recall in our last exciting episode about the mom who put Dr. Pepper in her baby’s bottle – that just didn’t work out too well for the kid.

 

I saw this vintage ad “We wrapped these twins in Cellophane to prove our product keeps things fresh”. Now that’s a novel idea – if the twins were THINGS recently made, grown, picked, or otherwise obtained. How old would you say these twins look? How long have they been wrapped in Cellophane? Maybe these twins are of an anaerobic design like Data and Lore of Star Trek: The Next Generation   and then they were vacuum sealed for freshness. Yeah…it’s possible.

 

Sometimes I reflect on how stifling PFAL-dogma was. In the class, wierwille set up these ridiculous expectations of the Bible interpreting itself…of a magical power being in certain words and thoughts and much of which had caveats that revolved around wierwille-specified-conditions  (such as your believing, if it’s available, needs and wants parallel, blah-de-blah-blah)  or other “mysterious forces” that you will learn more about later in the Advanced Class.

 

Attempting to live life inside the protective Cellophane of the PFAL-mindset may feel oppressive and suffocating at times – but at least it was predictable - you could always count on PFAL to explain WHY you didn’t succeed. It sounds weird but inside that “protective bubble” (the PFAL-mindset) I did feel safe most of the time – cramped quarters yes – but what a comfortable feeling that imaginary sense of control gave me. What a lethargic way to live. PFAL was inert.

 

[Rocky]

On 8/8/2022 at 5:40 PM, T-Bone said:

Subvert and pervert

I saw this vintage ad recently – and it brought back a sad memory. Living in an apartment back in the early 80s, I remember meeting a neighbor who would put Dr. Pepper in her baby’s bottle. We had moved – and then about a year later my wife ran into her at a supermarket. She mentioned her baby had to have esophagus surgery.

I took PFAL in 1974 - being young and naïve, I figured what’s the harm in taking a class on the Bible – it’s just about the Good Book, right?

I remember being able to buy 7up (I loved it) from a vending machine for a nickel (or maybe a dime), when I was a kid. But I'm confident my parents never put any of it (or anything with caffeine) in my baby bottles.  However, years later, decades really, the realization of tooth damage from Diet Mt Dew, and progressively becoming sensitive to consuming anything with sugar in it opened my eyes just like when I left twi I could see much more clearly and learn so much more.

[Rocky]

20 minutes ago, T-Bone said:

Beware - there are mine fields out there. Most of them are inert. However, some of them are ert.

• verb transitive To incite; urge on; encourage.
• verb transitive To irritate; grill; provoke.
• verb intransitive To be eager, prone; hurry.
• verb transitive To make as if to strike; argue (with); strive after; try to obtain.
• verb intransitive To strive onward and upward.
  
  I've never heard (or read of) anyone using the word ert before!
  
  Almost surprising because some people may have considered me an erter at times in my life. 

[waysider]

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

I've never heard (or read of) anyone using the word ert before!

Ert is da turd planet from da Sun.

[Rocky]

21 minutes ago, waysider said:

Ert is da turd planet from da Sun.

Duh! Of course. How silly of me. 

[T-Bone]

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

• verb transitive To incite; urge on; encourage.
• verb transitive To irritate; grill; provoke.
• verb intransitive To be eager, prone; hurry.
• verb transitive To make as if to strike; argue (with); strive after; try to obtain.
• verb intransitive To strive onward and upward.
  
  I've never heard (or read of) anyone using the word ert before!
  
  Almost surprising because some people may have considered me an erter at times in my life. 

 

32 minutes ago, waysider said:

Ert is da turd planet from da Sun.

Rocky, yeah before I posted it -  I looked up “ert” online   ( acronym finder dot com )  and all I found was it could be an acronym for Estrogen Replacement Therapy or Enzyme Replacement Therapy          or      Emergency Response Team (FEMA)… so in the  Private Benjamin  film  I think the sarge came up with his own version of what’s the opposite of “inert”...as Steve Martin used to say in his stand-up (fyi Steve Martin is probably the most quoted person in our house) Some people have a way with words - and some people not have a way....anywho...I’m impressed with the transitivity in your post…somehow in the grand scheme of things it’s probably all related anyway.

 

Waysider, obviously there’s some folks who consider this world a turd planet cuz they treat it like crap.

 

[Twinky]

PFAL/TWI is very far from being "inert."  It 'erts people all the time, in so many ways.

And like cellophane, or any other form of plastic round the face, we know how suffocatingly dangerous it can be.  And by and large it's unrecyclable.  Just like most of PFAL is unrecyclable into either its constituent parts or into use elsewhere - in life or church settings.  It's just landfill waste.

[chockfull]

Wow.  Are those twins wrapped in cellophane the 472nd Way Corps?

[hiway29]

Just for the record...the 7Up ad is not real. There are photoshop artists that can recreate, change, produce things that look authentic...like an old 7 UP ad. More now than ever, don't believe everything you see.  

[Nathan_Jr]

4 hours ago, hiway29 said:

Just for the record...the 7Up ad is not real. There are photoshop artists that can recreate, change, produce things that look authentic...like an old 7 UP ad. More now than ever, don't believe everything you see.  

It’s so important to be able to perceive this. This  awareness leads to knowledge and understanding on a cosmic scale.

Just for the record...What the preacher teaches is not real. There are preacher-teachers that can recreate, change, produce things that look authentic...like a wolf clothed as a sheep. More now than ever, don't believe everything you see, read or hear.

[annio]

On 7/30/2022 at 12:31 PM, T-Bone said:

In some sense the overt and covert operations of TWI were entwined. Indoctrination is not an overnight process. Usually, a person does not knowingly join a harmful and controlling cult. The road in may best be described as a subliminal acclimatizing process – where a newcomer finds something - or someone attractive in the group and so they make themselves mentally adjust to the prevailing ideas, attitudes, and behavior to fit in.

To someone who has never had the experience of being indoctrinated into a harmful and controlling cult – the stuff they read about on Grease Spot Café probably sounds preposterous and almost unbelievable. It’s understandable that people who have never been in TWI – never taken any of their classes or participated in their programs find all this stuff so astounding - and that anyone would buy into it.

To understand how TWI-followers get to the point of being unaware of wierwille’s licentious and malicious nature is to understand how a sexual predator can be hidden in plain sight. It is by masking his nature in the guise of a man of God, a teacher of the Bible. It all started with the PFAL class – which had vague and misleading directives like “as long as you follow the two great commandments you can do as you full well please” and the dubious justification of David’s adulterous affair with Bathsheba saying “technically all the women of the kingdom belonged to the king”. 

I believe part of wierwille’s tactic was to run certain ideas up the flagpole to see if it was given a positive reaction. Like with PFAL, if you sat through the whole class and didn’t balk at anything – then everything is cool. If you stick around and continue to come to Twig fellowships – that’s even better! Then you’ll probably be encouraged to take the class again – for review – no charge this time, of course. Then on to other classes that continue to reinforce the idea that wierwille is THE authority on Bible stuff – and anything else in life.

Thus, if newcomers respond favorably to the initial “experiment” of malignant ideas, then many other soft-sell tactics come into play which subtly persuades them to buy into more of TWI’s ideology…And realistically there’s no one cut-and-dried method for ensnaring folks in a harmful and controlling cult. There are so many variables to consider like one’s personality, social needs…usually new recruits are young and naïve so critical thinking skills are not really developed…and the road to indoctrination is not shock therapy but rather a gradual immersion…

…it’s like a prolonged seductive intoxicating “romance”…a cult luring neophytes to take bigger and bigger sips of the Kool-Aid…using manipulative tactics like love-bombing, the subtle influence of peer pressure and groupthink......claiming to provide solid answers about life, having a purpose, God, politics, marriage, finances…whatever!

...sadly, those with low self-esteem (like myself) are often drawn to a cult-environment where they seem to be readily accepted – people with low self-esteem are usually easier to break mentally / emotionally. “Fortunately” for them the cult is there as just the perfect supportive environment they’ve been looking for – and along those lines a cult member can learn to feel superior to those not in the cult – an us-versus-them mentality develops and a cult follower starts isolating themselves from family and friends not in the cult – and eventually the new social ties within the cult satisfy a basic desire we all have – to belong…...a TWI-follower's personal boundaries are softened and eventually encroached by certain upper leadership who have a penchant to take advantage of their own position of power and authority.

Sometimes I recall the awkward social interactions shortly after my wife and I made our exit from TWI official   (we had sent letters to LCM and the Rome City campus coordinator – informing them we resigned from our corps assignment and would no longer associate with TWI. And it’s not like we didn’t give them a chance to explain things – since several months earlier we had written them and asked very specific questions about the issues we were concerned with - but all we got for a response from LCM was "I hope we can win your trust again").  

I was also done with the hemming and hawing over current issues, dubious policies / procedures, the “spiritualizing“ of situations and everyone assuming PFAL was the silver bullet for this complicated catastrophe – that was the usual gist in previous phone conversations and letters to our corps brothers and sisters and sponsors. What’s really painful is remembering the various responses from most of our fellow corps – most were a bit taken aback by our official exit. Some of the backlash rhetoric we heard: “you’ve been tricked by the devil”…”you’re entertaining devil spirits”…”you’re copouts”…”possessed”…”you have chosen oblivion”…

…mind you, this was in phone conversations and letters…

…I imagine if these were face-to-face conversations – they might have looked at us like we were from another planet.

Thank you T-bone. Apparently I still need to hear these excellent insights to keep gaining sight, detaching, and healing; not easy. Humor does help, as in gallows humor and your great pix and captions earlier!!! You have a gift!!  And so good about cult members susceptibilities, the trust-gaining processes, and vpw's strategies.  Again thank you!