Wierwille, Jonestown, & totalitarian "cults"

[jkboehme]

I thought it would be interesting to see various opinions regarding how VPW/LCM/TWI endeavored to 'explain away' the fact that twi could ever be considered to be a "cult."

I mentioned this topic in passing on another thread {VP & me in Wonderland}, but thought it was deserving of its own discussion.

The Jim Jones / People's Temple cult massacre hit the news around Thanksgiving time in 1978. At a Corps Night teaching in late 1978 or early 1979 at Uncle Harry Hall on the Emporia campus, VPW played an audio tape (for the 7th & 9th Corps & guests) by Dr. Peter Beter. Beter was a former U.S. diplomat with connections to Zaire. Beter's ideological proclivities are to the far right extreme. Dr Beter produced a monthly audo tape series, #80 tapes in total.

Tape # 40 relates how, according to Beter, the 900 plus dead bodies in Guyana were not of the mass homicide/suicide of members of The People's Temple at Jonestown, but rather were dead Russian soldiers killed by US military covert operations.

Wierwille's convenient point was, that not only is the People's Temple not a cult, more importantly TWI was not a cult either!! In fact, per vpw, there's no such thing as a cult, no such thing as intense indoctrination, or non-physically coersive persuasion, etc. {such as twi routinely utilized in the process of exploitative manipulation of its members}.

This Corps Night teaching was designed to disparage, denigrate, & 'explain away' any concern about twi being a cult which routinely utilized harmful and abusive practices leading in many cases to permanent physical & psychological injuries, and the potential for plaintiffs to legitimately claim legal damages.

This is the Dr. Beter Audioletter, Box 16428, Ft. Worth, Texas

76133

Hello, my friends, this is Dr. Beter. Today is November 30,

1978, and this is my Audioletter No. 40.

"On November 24, 1978, the day after Thanksgiving, the

Washington Post here in Washington, D.C. published a full-page

memorial to the late Congressman Leo J. Ryan of California. A

sketch of Ryan in tones of gray took up the entire page, and

against that background a brief eulogy was printed in bold type.

It began, "In Memoriam, to our good friend Leo J. Ryan,

Congressman from California. We will miss him. He saw hope that

right would prevail." The timing of this memorial page was

ironic. Congressman Ryan had been killed in Guyana nearly one

week earlier, and his funeral had taken place two days earlier.

But Congressman Ryan had been deliberately sacrificed in order to

launch a covert military operation in Guyana; and as it turned

out, the Washington Post memorial to Ryan was printed immediately

after the successful completion of this military operation. In a

display of courage that is practically unknown today in the

United States Congress, Ryan had gone to Guyana knowing that it

might be dangerous. But what he did not know was that he had

been lured into making a trip whose tragic outcome was planned

well ahead of time. Congressman Ryan and those who died with him

at Port Kaituma Airport were casualties in the secret war that is

leading to NUCLEAR WAR ONE. And so were the hundreds of other

American civilians who died in the so-called 'mass suicide' at

Jonestown, Guyana..."

Topic #1--THE MILITARY PURPOSE OF THE JONESTOWN TRAGEDY

"...but the Jonestown disaster was

actually spawned by a military situation in Guyana which I first

made public over four years ago. And then, as now, the only

response of the Government was cover-up. As my older listeners all know, I am referring to the Russian

nuclear missile base in Guyana. Beginning in June 1974..."

"... For a number of years, Russian military activity in Guyana was

heavily concentrated around the vicinity of the Temehri Airfield.

In fact, when I first reported the Russian missiles in Guyana in

1974, they were emplaced in sites that ringed the Airfield.

Within the past two years, however, the missiles were pulled out

from these locations and moved to a separate missile complex west

of Georgetown. In this new complex, the missiles were deployed

at sites scattered over an area some 30 miles across. In the

approximate center was a Command and Control installation

commanded by Russian personnel. After this missile base

relocation was completed, the missile complex was centered at a

point about 70 miles northwest of Temehri Airfield; and roughly

another 70 miles to the northwest lay the Peoples Temple Commune

at Jonestown, an Israeli-type kibbutz. So the missile base ended

up about midway between the Jonestown commune and Temehri

Airfield. It was no accident, my friends, that the Peoples

Temple kibbutz was located so close to the missile base. But the

origins of the Peoples Temple in the 1950s had nothing to do with

government intrigue. It was not until about 1970 that certain

elements of the United States Intelligence community began to

infiltrate and subvert the Peoples Temple. As I have explained

in the past, it's always been standard practice by the

Rockefeller brothers to support not only the faction in power but

also spies and opponents to that faction. In this way they are

always in a position, at least in theory, to cut down anyone who

tries to break free of their control. In the case of Guyana, the

Rockefellers wanted to have such a tool in Guyana as a check on

Forbes Burnham, the Prime Minister, whom they had put in power

with their money. Certain elements within the United States

Intelligence community under general coordination by the CIA were

given the task of finding ways of accomplishing this.

In the course of evaluating various options, it was concluded

that the Peoples Temple would prove ideal..."

"...The planners of Operation Guyana were given a difficult

problem to solve. The objective was to wipe out the Russian

missile base in Guyana thereby removing the threat it posed to

the Panama Canal and southern American cities; but this was to be

a pre-war operation carried out covertly and with complete

surprise. It had to be covert, because neither the United States

nor Russia could afford to have it known that the base ever

existed..."

"...It was a very big order, but the

Jonestown kibbutz proved to be the answer. All that was

necessary was to arrange for many hundreds of American citizens

to die suddenly in Guyana and under conditions guaranteeing

instant massive publicity..."

"...When it was decided to use mass deaths at Jonestown as a cover

for the missile-base attack, Jonestown was functioning only as an

outpost of the Peoples Temple..."

"...There were not enough people

there to provide a sufficiently major incident to serve the

intended purpose, and so through both direct and indirect means

Jim Jones was persuaded to go to the Guyana kibbutz himself,

taking as many of his flock as would follow him. That turned out

to be about 25 to 30%, and by following him they automatically

identified themselves as the group most highly dependent upon

Jones personally. They were also most susceptible to the

combined influences of exhaustion, intimidation, and isolation

from outside help--in other words, right for brainwashing. And

ever since the days of the Korean war, it's been known

conclusively that brainwashing techniques can force many people

to do all kinds of things. Even hardened American GI's in Korea

fell victim to brainwashing in surprising numbers because they

did not understand what they were up against. But of course the

Jonestown victims were anything but hardened soldiers.

[dmiller]

Wierwille's convenient point was, that not only is the People's Temple not a cult, more importantly TWI was not a cult either!! In fact, per vpw, there's no such thing as a cult, no such thing as intense indoctrination, or non-physically coersive persuasion, etc. {such as twi routinely utilized in the process of exploitative manipulation of its members}.

Docvic did say something about all this at AC 79, but durned if I remember what he said now.

I do seem to remember that it was touted as one more reason to believe in him as the MOG. But that's just my *imo* about it all now, these many years later.

[washingtonweather]

vpw said its was a CIA conspiracy (we were bigt on conspiracy theory then) and that they knew ahead of time and it was a setup....it is on that tape

"the current Psychological HoaX"

[BikerBabe]

My ex boyfriend was in the military group that did the clean up of Jonestown. To this day he can't think back to that time without the ensuing nightmares coming again. I point blank asked him one day who all died there, due to the crap VP wanted us to believe and the ex said they were all members of Jim Jones cult. Normal people who got brainwashed in the cult, that then ended up taking their own lives when ordered to do so by their insane leader.

[jkboehme]

WW

Is the tape, "The Current Psychological Hoax," a tape produced or made available by twi?

BB,

Yes, this was a horrible trajedy, and totally preventable, just as other similar trajedies were avoidable: David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, Marshall Applewhite & Heaven's Gate, as well as numerous others.

In the midst of the Jonestown mass homocides, the late Congressman from California, Leo Ryan, went to Guyana to investigate, but was murdered as well.

Then Senator Bob Dole chaired a congressional committee on cultic abuses. Unfortunately the committee was ultimately disbanded, ostensibly due to pressure from cults and other religious groups. If it weren't for this congressional cowardice, many cultic abuses since 1979 could have been obviated. Our laws could have been upgraded to prevent such cultic abuses, bringing honor and law into alignment and harmony, nevertheless...

"La loi admet souvent ce que l'honneur interdit / The law often allows what honor forbids." Saurin, Spartacus

[oldiesman]

Yes, this was a horrible trajedy, and totally preventable, just as other similar trajedies were avoidable: David Koresh and the Branch Davidians ...

It was coverups like the Branch Davidian murders (they were murdered by FBI agents in response to the BATF agents getting killed as the Davidians were defending themselves) that leads me to believe that it's entirely possible that the Jim Jones affair was covered up as well.

For those who haven't viewed it yet, the film "Waco The Rules of Engagement" might interest you.

[jkboehme]

OM,

If this is the documentary either on the Hx channel or A&E, then I have seen it, perhaps several times.

I still don't know if Davidians were victims of an ATF/FBI mistake or if they were murdered.

The main reason I tend to doubt the homocide scenario is that version was propounded by lcmartinpoop, once again as a mechanism to explain away cultic conduct. So my redux is that lcm was spinning to conveniently subserve the covert real point of his argument, which is that the Branch Davidians (as in the case with Jonestown) are not an abusive cult, and even more importantly, neither is twi. But, we all ginosko much better, do we not, OM?

Nevertheless, Tim McVeigh would have agreed with you.

[oldiesman]

The main reason I tend to doubt the homocide scenario is that version was propounded by lcmartinpoop ...

Jkboehme, just because Craig was wrong about many things, doesn't mean he was wrong about *everything*.

I attempt to live by the statement, "eat the fish, and spit out the bones".

Anyway, most of us were out of twi for years by the time this happened, so who cares what Craig said about it?

You may want to view the DVD "Waco the Rules of Engagement". Don't know if it was the same documentary you saw on television, but it leaves little doubt about what really happened. Those people and children were deliberately murdered. No mistakes. It wasn't an accident...

[Thomas Loy Bumgarner]

OM, I agree and it was David Koresh who committed it.

[Oakspear]

I point blank asked him one day who all died there, due to the crap VP wanted us to believe and the ex said they were all members of Jim Jones cult. Normal people who got brainwashed in the cult, that then ended up taking their own lives when ordered to do so by their insane leader.

Since they were already dead, how did he determine this?

[washingtonweather]

jkb...it was a Sunday Night Teaching Service tape ....numbered around 900+ I threw it away a couple years ago...sorry.

But it was the SNS teaching that all that spew was made known to the "common" beleiver/follower.

[WhiteDove]

The Current Psychological Hoax- SNS- #942 12/03/78 is the tape numbr.

jkboehme your MP3 is ready.

Edited November 13, 2005 by WhiteDove

[oldiesman]

OM, I agree and it was David Koresh who committed it.

There was no evidence whatever that he did.

On the other hand, there was plenty of evidence (as exposed by The Rules of Engagement) that it was the FBI team that did it.

Did it with CS gas. Did you watch the DVD?

It's all on tape.

[jkboehme]

Redux of Snapping, TWI, & Jonestown

All that follows is my opinions on these matters.

It’s quite obvious that TWI/Wierwille/Martindale did everything in their power to ‘explain away’ the fact that TWI was & is a harmful organization, regardless of the nomenclature utilized to describe TWI: high-demand religious group, alternative religious movement {ARM}, new religious movement {NRM}, totalitarian authoritarian sect, or just plain old cult.

To me, this indicates the unmistakable criminality of Wierwille, Martindale, & other top TWI leadership. They knew exactly what they were doing. In fact, TWI’s coordinated programs of covert psycho-social exploitative manipulative persuasion were strategically designed to destabilize & unfreeze a person’s true historical identity & replace it with TWI’s bogus ‘renewed mind,’ aka the TWI cultic pseudo-self & pseudo-identity. This destabilization process was neither haphazard nor accidental, but was purposefully strategically designed to do exactly what it did to most of us, whether by abrupt personality change or a more gradual mental invasion. Read the Jonestown similarities in Seductive Poison, by Deborah Layton.

And, interestingly enough, the manner in which TWI approached this process, is essentially outlined in TWI’s original Dealing with the Adversary class and Martindale’s 1992 release of Defeating the Adversary class.

The secret of TWI’s success in their covert packaged persuasion of us was & is the deceitful secrecy of their interventions.

The value {to Wierwille, Martindale, top leadership} & delusion of TWI’s counterfeit ministry is increased by the nearness of the likeness to a genuine ministry.

TWI is always adapting, in a chameleon-like fashion, to changing legal, political, social, & circumstantial concerns.

TWI is parasitic of the genuine love & pure-heartedness of the people it deceives into joining its ranks.

Ever wonder why VPW would often open the Advanced Class teaching of the ‘revelation manifestations,’ especially ‘word of knowledge’ & ‘word of wisdom,’ with the account in Numbers of the ‘copped out’ Prophet, Baalam? Ever wonder why VPW opened PFAL with “…the thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…?” I think these would be examples of Freudian slips, in the sense of VPW’s guilty conscience breaking through the bogus teaching to proclaim, “I, V. P. Wierwille, am not only a copped out prophetic apostle in our day, time, & hour, but furthermore I am a pseudo-spiritual thief, with the aim of selfishly pleasing myself, even if it means that I steal from you, that I might even have to kill you, or that I may in fact permanently destroy your ability to know, trust, & love ‘God.’” :blink:

[oldiesman]

And so VP's true aim and intent were to permanently destroy folks' ability to know, trust and love God?

[jkboehme]

VPW's primary aim was to selfishly please himself, even if that meant stealing, killing, & destroying.

If someone managed, some way, some how, in the midst of this junk, to get spiritually blessed, as long as VPW got his selfish needs met first and foremost, then he could tolerate it. Typically, those that were benefited in twi were benefited in spite of Wierwille, not because of him. The rank and file, pure-hearted twi members were the ones who exhibited the genuine love of God. B)

[Belle]

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Napoleon Bonaparte

vee pee found a way he could make money and live high on the hog without having to do a lick of work. Then he took that absolute power and absued it in every way he could. There was never, ever, ever any altruistic motive behind anything he did - there was behind those who fell for his scam, but vee pee never had any true love, concern or compassion for anyone but himself.

[jkboehme]

Belle,

I totally concur with your take on the corn wizard, vpw!!!

[oldiesman]

... There was never, ever, ever any altruistic motive behind anything he did - ... but vee pee never had any true love, concern or compassion for anyone but himself.

Belle, how can you be so sure?

[Belle]

OM, I refuse to enter into a battle with you. It's just too dang frustrating. You already know how I feel and I already know how you feel and we're just never going to agree on this.

[templelady]

I think it would be safe to say that all leaders of Dangerous Cults whether political or religious, such as Koresh, Jones, Manson, Idi Amin, Bin Ladin, and a host of others, are sociopaths. The picture is always about them, their wants, their feelings, their ideas. They generally lack ability to truly see things from others points of view or, if perchance they do manage to do so, what they view is held up to the standard of "how does this affect me".

It's a question of degrees of sociopathy. There are 17 signs of a sociopath, the more you have the more dangerous--not all sociopaths have all and not all in the same combination.

I don't think VPW was the equal to a Jones or a Koresh.

Sociopaths do, however, prey on the weak, the confused, the hurting. These people are most prone to idolize anyone who can 'lead" them. Sociopath's lack the willingness to discourage such "hero worship" since it is the gas for their engines, so to speak. I seriously doubt VPW would have ever required mass suicide of his followers since it was the adulation he craved as opposed to the power of life and death.

[jkboehme]

I don't know if vpw possessed the degree of depravation of jones or koresh, but it wouldn't surprise me. I think it was probably a matter of the circumstances around vpw didn't irrationally compel him to totally succumb to his intrinsic paranoia.

However, martinpuke is another study. I think he most definitely would have progressed to the jones & koresh level had he remained in power. :unsure:

Edited November 16, 2005 by jkboehme

[oldiesman]

I think it would be safe to say that all leaders of Dangerous Cults whether political or religious, such as Koresh ...

Mo, there wasn't any evidence that Koresh was "dangerous" or a leader of a "Dangerous Cult".

Did you happen to view the film "Waco, The Rules of Engagement"?

These folks were murdered by the FBI.

The government had plenty of time to pick Koresh up weeks before the murders, if he was so "dangerous".

[templelady]

Yes I have seen it several times--and my reaction is that I am not sure--Don''t think we ever will be but I see plenty of blame to go around.

As for the Feebies well they are in a business where sociopaths do quite well. It takes sociopathy to shoot a dog, a young boy, and a woman holding an infant then refuse to let her dead body be removed thus insuring that her remaining children are forced to remain in the house with their dead mother.

Keep in mind that the "enemy" in this confrontations only crime was failure to appear for court!! And that Court appearance was for charges he had already been acquitted of.

But back to my point just because the military, Law Enforcement and counterintelligence are ideal breeding grounds for sociopaths does not make those these organizations oppose any less sociopathic. Birds of a feather.....

[oldiesman]

Yes I have seen it several times--and my reaction is that I am not sure--Don''t think we ever will be but I see plenty of blame to go around. ..

When one looks at all the facts, I don't see how anyone can seriously blame Koresh for what happened. He gets it though. Classic case of one entity doing evil deeds, yet blames someone else. This whole thing could have been avoided had forces and entities in our own government not been "agenda driven".

A little more respect for our constitutional liberties would have been nice, as well...

But I agree with you that our government contains sociopaths..obviously.

I went to view the film again last night and record it on a DVD, but my VCR broke down on me....now I have an excuse to buy a new one. :P