I recall when Martindale went from the corps coordinator to the corps director...that was a big change in terms of Martindale having a free hand to institute his changes...that was about 1975 or 76 I think...Up until then, Wierwille had a direct hand on the corps policies...Martinfail slowly instituted his changes...By the time he became president, he had already changed the ministry...the corps nazis that he whipped into shape were out on the field pushing the nazi agenda...when the Okie finally took the mantle, he simply applied his strict legalisms to the entire ministry instead of just the corps...when I walked away in 1987...Martinfail was just beginning all the "control policies"...the real nasty policies came after I left...
LCM was put in charge of the Corps starting with the 5th. My3Cents can speak more about it from experience - but I heard stories that they really didn't like him very much.
I was in the 6th. It was the first Corps to be in Emporia full time, the first Corps to be away from HQ's, and the first Corps to not have VP around.
Craig and S^nny S@nders were the designated Corps Coordinators, but Craig pretty much took charge of things. I remember he turned 27 in November of our first year. TWENTY-SEVEN!!!
There were about 350 of us in the 6th - with no "elder" Corps except for a handful of 5th Corps who were there for their interim year. (hmmmm, Ken S., Mike S., Nik M., Debbi H.... who am I forgetting?) The Koomri@n's were there as well - but I don't remember what their official titles were. All I remember is that Mrs. K played a mean organ! Don & Wanda W. were there too - he was in charge of the "college" division at the time.
That was it.
Most of us worshipped LCM in the beginning. He was the great motivator. I think he more fun and a lot kinder during the first few months we were there. He did funny things - like dressing up in stripped pants and a plaid shirt, putting goggles on and sneaking around behind the chairs at a 5:30 a.m. teaching (usually a tape) with a squirt gun - spritzing anyone who appeared to be nodding off.
But then, I think it was in March, S^nny dared to defy his authority and the whole Corps got dismissed. Seems she had gathered together a small group of Corps who were loyal to her. She didn't like Craig - thought he yelled too much - didn't care for his methods. People who got reamed by him would go to her for comfort - and I think she got sick of it.
Anyway - she left - we all got dismissed - had to write on the back of a 3x5 card whether or not we wanted to come back - if not - we were to pack our bags and leave the next morning. I think about 50 - 60 people left at that point.
After that - LCM was IT! He started getting louder, and tougher, and more "mog-gish". It got worse as the year went on - but it was gradual and by then, we'd all been programmed - we were used to it.
Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? I probably should have left when Sunny did... would have been spared a lot of grief.
I never went to any of Sunny's meetings, and I barely remember the dismissal incident, but it's coming back to me now. I hadn't thought about that in years.
And yeah, it was after she left that LCM really capitalized on his position. Although he could be fun (I remember that early morning squirt gun fight with him dressed up in ridiculous clothing, hiding behind support posts and squirting people nodding off), he began to take the mental "training" too far.
Once at a very early morning (or was it a late night deal?) up on the top floor of the Wierwille library, he was stressing the importance of retemory and the stayed mind. And suddenly he began to verbally berate us as a group, telling us how weak we were, what a poor excuse for human beings we were, all the while we were supposed to be running retemories through our heads. I think he began to enjoy the abuse a little too much. It became part and parcel of his personality.
I also remember one very late night after a long meeting, we were all to meet on the circle drive in front of Kenyon Hall in our sweats. Martindale put us through a bunch of grueling physical exercise and verbal abuse.
It made me feel really creepy when at the end, all the jocks hoisted Craig up on their shoulders and carried him around, literally, as if worshipping him, thankful for the abuse he had just put us all through. It really turned me off. And Craig lapped it right up.
I expected to be trained to be physically and mentally tough. But even then, I thought that the people who hoisted him up had crossed the line into some kind of weird hero worship.
Martindale had his own personality cult within the 6th Corps that first year in 1975. A bunch of little Martindales who acted just like him. I dreaded seeing them go out on the interim year because I felt in my heart they might do a lot of damage, trying to run their branches the way Craig ran the Corps.
But I thought, hey, if they get too far out on that ego trip, somebody will nail them. Well, not when the guy running the outfit was on the biggest one of all.
Yup - she was the "womens" coordinator. That's probably why you didn't get to know her.
She was (and probably still is) very nice. One of the most compassionate women I've ever met. Wish she woulda stayed instead of LCM! Imagine how different things would have turned out (**sigh**).
I was told many years later that the reason she got that assignment in Emporia was that VP was trying to match her up with LCM. Talk about oil and water.
Catcup - I remember that "shoulder" incident as well. I'll bet the guys who hoisted him up turned out to be the Craig Clones® - and I bet we (and alfakat and geek) can name most of them.
Brings up again the points about Way Corps training supposedly being modeled after the army.
Yell and bitch and moan..like what they did to HCW's 104 group (Grr) .. you are the worst..but we will show them? Sounds like army based motivational tech's.
VP actually claimed to have used the Marine Corps as an example for the corpse. Kind of weird considering he was never actually in any armed service! I guess he figured he could plagiarize that too. Maybe he watched some John Wayne movies?
The whole idea of mental and physical alertness in the kork was sooooo bad! I remember a friend of mine who was in rez said it was raining one day. R*co M*gnelli was the assistant kork coord. He pulled them all together and said, I bet you all were so bummed about running in the rain today. We are going to do exercise inside today. They did a never-ending series of jumping jacks. He kept going and going and going, and said "I bet you wished were running in the rain."
Now tell me, what the H is THAT supposed to do to train a leader up right to serve God's people?
For some weird reason, Craig and other leadership in the Corps were fierce fans of using reverse psychology on us-- telling us what losers we were in hope of getting us to determine to prove them wrong. I chalked it up to their earlier athletic training, where it is commonly used. But I always believed it to be wrong. At the moment I can't think of a single place in the Bible where it was used, and I NEVER used it on anyone else. I felt it contradicted what I believed our purpose in the body of believers was: to build people up and edify them. There was nothing edifying about being berated.
Hope, I am SURE I could name most, if not all of 'em...
I knew it was some wierd mo-tech but it was strange; running us down to build us up?????
The last half of our first year in-rez(75/76) we stayed in the same twig and T*m J*****son was da man. He had this strange habit of calling myself and L*rry B*oth in for one-on-one reproof sessions where he would rag us and egg us on until we finally got ....ed enough to tell him, loudly and in no uncertain terms, that he was full of it and we were not the bottom-sucking scum he was making us out to be. He would then give us his TJ ChesireCat smile and say something about he was glad to hear that we knew he was wrong and how we should act like we believed that, blah, blah, blah. Real strange...after the first time, Larry and I agreed we would just play along the next time and see how it played. He got real upset because we did not lash back at him and we both told him we were on to his game. He then proceeds to allow as how it was all part of the training and we had passed that test or some other such stuff...at the time, we just wrote it off to midwest, O-hi-uhh quirkiness. Now it seems it was all part of the jerkin people around in the name of God that was SOP at wayworld...
When you teach/raise/train a person to have good self esteem, a positive self-concept - when you try to help someone to have self-confidence, and to be the best that he or she can be - *that* is when that person becomes the kind of person that doesn't put up with BS. That's the kind of person that does not allow him or herself to be abused in any way.
That is what makes for a "mentally tough" person.
Not all of this verbal and physical abuse - that stuff just tears a person down, primes that person to become psychotic or a punching bag.
"Please hit me some more!"
I'm *SO* glad I never went in residence! I was apprentice corpse 2 years in a row, but never got the money in. Thank GOD!
We were very close to going WD right after we were married. I was surprised they would even consider allowing us to go since we hadn't even been married a month. If we had gone, that probably would have been it for our marriage or for my sanity.
I can't even begin to imagine the grueling time wc had in training.
Does it ever strike anyone here as weird that they would deride psychology as being a false and unneeded profession that just "plays with devil spirits" (or however they say it.)
AND then they use those ideas to their own advantage during training. Almost like the idea that the herd cannot know what the rancher knows. Why? Cause they aren't the rancher. Duh!?
Charles Koomrui@n was the first vice president of the college. Until he disapeared that is. Not sure what his wife did except play the magic organ but she was good. Sunny what a cool person she was.
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GrouchoMarxJr
I recall when Martindale went from the corps coordinator to the corps director...that was a big change in terms of Martindale having a free hand to institute his changes...that was about 1975 or 76 I think...Up until then, Wierwille had a direct hand on the corps policies...Martinfail slowly instituted his changes...By the time he became president, he had already changed the ministry...the corps nazis that he whipped into shape were out on the field pushing the nazi agenda...when the Okie finally took the mantle, he simply applied his strict legalisms to the entire ministry instead of just the corps...when I walked away in 1987...Martinfail was just beginning all the "control policies"...the real nasty policies came after I left...
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Hope R.
LCM was put in charge of the Corps starting with the 5th. My3Cents can speak more about it from experience - but I heard stories that they really didn't like him very much.
I was in the 6th. It was the first Corps to be in Emporia full time, the first Corps to be away from HQ's, and the first Corps to not have VP around.
Craig and S^nny S@nders were the designated Corps Coordinators, but Craig pretty much took charge of things. I remember he turned 27 in November of our first year. TWENTY-SEVEN!!!
There were about 350 of us in the 6th - with no "elder" Corps except for a handful of 5th Corps who were there for their interim year. (hmmmm, Ken S., Mike S., Nik M., Debbi H.... who am I forgetting?) The Koomri@n's were there as well - but I don't remember what their official titles were. All I remember is that Mrs. K played a mean organ! Don & Wanda W. were there too - he was in charge of the "college" division at the time.
That was it.
Most of us worshipped LCM in the beginning. He was the great motivator. I think he more fun and a lot kinder during the first few months we were there. He did funny things - like dressing up in stripped pants and a plaid shirt, putting goggles on and sneaking around behind the chairs at a 5:30 a.m. teaching (usually a tape) with a squirt gun - spritzing anyone who appeared to be nodding off.
But then, I think it was in March, S^nny dared to defy his authority and the whole Corps got dismissed. Seems she had gathered together a small group of Corps who were loyal to her. She didn't like Craig - thought he yelled too much - didn't care for his methods. People who got reamed by him would go to her for comfort - and I think she got sick of it.
Anyway - she left - we all got dismissed - had to write on the back of a 3x5 card whether or not we wanted to come back - if not - we were to pack our bags and leave the next morning. I think about 50 - 60 people left at that point.
After that - LCM was IT! He started getting louder, and tougher, and more "mog-gish". It got worse as the year went on - but it was gradual and by then, we'd all been programmed - we were used to it.
Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? I probably should have left when Sunny did... would have been spared a lot of grief.
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oldiesman
Sunny Sanders was a corps coordinator?
I was there for 6 months, and never had so much as a 5-minute conversation with her.
Wish I had though...she looked like a nice person.
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Catcup
I never went to any of Sunny's meetings, and I barely remember the dismissal incident, but it's coming back to me now. I hadn't thought about that in years.
And yeah, it was after she left that LCM really capitalized on his position. Although he could be fun (I remember that early morning squirt gun fight with him dressed up in ridiculous clothing, hiding behind support posts and squirting people nodding off), he began to take the mental "training" too far.
Once at a very early morning (or was it a late night deal?) up on the top floor of the Wierwille library, he was stressing the importance of retemory and the stayed mind. And suddenly he began to verbally berate us as a group, telling us how weak we were, what a poor excuse for human beings we were, all the while we were supposed to be running retemories through our heads. I think he began to enjoy the abuse a little too much. It became part and parcel of his personality.
I also remember one very late night after a long meeting, we were all to meet on the circle drive in front of Kenyon Hall in our sweats. Martindale put us through a bunch of grueling physical exercise and verbal abuse.
It made me feel really creepy when at the end, all the jocks hoisted Craig up on their shoulders and carried him around, literally, as if worshipping him, thankful for the abuse he had just put us all through. It really turned me off. And Craig lapped it right up.
I expected to be trained to be physically and mentally tough. But even then, I thought that the people who hoisted him up had crossed the line into some kind of weird hero worship.
Martindale had his own personality cult within the 6th Corps that first year in 1975. A bunch of little Martindales who acted just like him. I dreaded seeing them go out on the interim year because I felt in my heart they might do a lot of damage, trying to run their branches the way Craig ran the Corps.
But I thought, hey, if they get too far out on that ego trip, somebody will nail them. Well, not when the guy running the outfit was on the biggest one of all.
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Hope R.
Oldies -
Yup - she was the "womens" coordinator. That's probably why you didn't get to know her.
She was (and probably still is) very nice. One of the most compassionate women I've ever met. Wish she woulda stayed instead of LCM! Imagine how different things would have turned out (**sigh**).
I was told many years later that the reason she got that assignment in Emporia was that VP was trying to match her up with LCM. Talk about oil and water.
Catcup - I remember that "shoulder" incident as well. I'll bet the guys who hoisted him up turned out to be the Craig Clones® - and I bet we (and alfakat and geek) can name most of them.
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learning
Brings up again the points about Way Corps training supposedly being modeled after the army.
Yell and bitch and moan..like what they did to HCW's 104 group (Grr) .. you are the worst..but we will show them? Sounds like army based motivational tech's.
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JustThinking
learning,
VP actually claimed to have used the Marine Corps as an example for the corpse. Kind of weird considering he was never actually in any armed service! I guess he figured he could plagiarize that too. Maybe he watched some John Wayne movies?
JT
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Nottawayfer
The whole idea of mental and physical alertness in the kork was sooooo bad! I remember a friend of mine who was in rez said it was raining one day. R*co M*gnelli was the assistant kork coord. He pulled them all together and said, I bet you all were so bummed about running in the rain today. We are going to do exercise inside today. They did a never-ending series of jumping jacks. He kept going and going and going, and said "I bet you wished were running in the rain."
Now tell me, what the H is THAT supposed to do to train a leader up right to serve God's people?
NOT A DAMN THING!!! A$$HOLES!!
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Catcup
For some weird reason, Craig and other leadership in the Corps were fierce fans of using reverse psychology on us-- telling us what losers we were in hope of getting us to determine to prove them wrong. I chalked it up to their earlier athletic training, where it is commonly used. But I always believed it to be wrong. At the moment I can't think of a single place in the Bible where it was used, and I NEVER used it on anyone else. I felt it contradicted what I believed our purpose in the body of believers was: to build people up and edify them. There was nothing edifying about being berated.
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alfakat
Interesting recollections of the 6ckkpthh kork...
Hope, I am SURE I could name most, if not all of 'em...
I knew it was some wierd mo-tech but it was strange; running us down to build us up?????
The last half of our first year in-rez(75/76) we stayed in the same twig and T*m J*****son was da man. He had this strange habit of calling myself and L*rry B*oth in for one-on-one reproof sessions where he would rag us and egg us on until we finally got ....ed enough to tell him, loudly and in no uncertain terms, that he was full of it and we were not the bottom-sucking scum he was making us out to be. He would then give us his TJ ChesireCat smile and say something about he was glad to hear that we knew he was wrong and how we should act like we believed that, blah, blah, blah. Real strange...after the first time, Larry and I agreed we would just play along the next time and see how it played. He got real upset because we did not lash back at him and we both told him we were on to his game. He then proceeds to allow as how it was all part of the training and we had passed that test or some other such stuff...at the time, we just wrote it off to midwest, O-hi-uhh quirkiness. Now it seems it was all part of the jerkin people around in the name of God that was SOP at wayworld...
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Steve!
When you teach/raise/train a person to have good self esteem, a positive self-concept - when you try to help someone to have self-confidence, and to be the best that he or she can be - *that* is when that person becomes the kind of person that doesn't put up with BS. That's the kind of person that does not allow him or herself to be abused in any way.
That is what makes for a "mentally tough" person.
Not all of this verbal and physical abuse - that stuff just tears a person down, primes that person to become psychotic or a punching bag.
"Please hit me some more!"
I'm *SO* glad I never went in residence! I was apprentice corpse 2 years in a row, but never got the money in. Thank GOD!
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Belle
We were very close to going WD right after we were married. I was surprised they would even consider allowing us to go since we hadn't even been married a month. If we had gone, that probably would have been it for our marriage or for my sanity.
I can't even begin to imagine the grueling time wc had in training.
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learning
Does it ever strike anyone here as weird that they would deride psychology as being a false and unneeded profession that just "plays with devil spirits" (or however they say it.)
AND then they use those ideas to their own advantage during training. Almost like the idea that the herd cannot know what the rancher knows. Why? Cause they aren't the rancher. Duh!?
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WhiteDove
Hope
Charles Koomrui@n was the first vice president of the college. Until he disapeared that is. Not sure what his wife did except play the magic organ but she was good. Sunny what a cool person she was.
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