Just makes me even happier that I left when I did.
In 1997 ( I know I know that's yet ANOTHER thread!) I met some folks that had just left that year. The stories I hears were horrifying! Like women were required to keep their nails manicured ( you know the whole french nail thing - YUK!)
1988 was bad enough. I'm not quite sure how anyone put up wht twi after that...
I wish I had that song, "I'm Free!" by The Who playing in the background!!!
I'll start them in a few days. Maybe after that, posters who did the more casual posts in the other threads can rephrase them or repost them for the appropriate years.
Absolutely WordWolf! This thread was really informative! I was very active at Waydale and involved much with the Allen lawsuit as a witness. I remained active with the early beginnings of the GSC, but took a hiatus from 2001-2007 to attend to the messy things of life.
I returned to the spot in September, 2007. On October 1st I started the IS the Crisis over thread now in the CES/STF subforum. That's when I got to know all the cafe regulars and was often involved in the various threads, mostly in About The Way.
So, all the threads and info contained here in the GSC booths from 2001-2007 are basically new to me. That's why I really appreciate you bumping this one up WW! I think your idea of a year by year or multi-year "diary" is excellent! And, if there was ever a perfect man for the job, it's you for this!
To me, the mission, purpose and reach if the Spot has always been the single best place anywhere to get the REAL scoop about TWIt in all its iterations. As I said somewhere before, with Charlene, Kristen, and Karl's books, and the treasure trove of information here at the Spot, we have an opportunity to once and for all just wipe out TWIt beyond its crumbling New Knoxville walls of lies, obfusfcation, and disinformation. We stand a good chance destroying their MUST precious commodity.......income! That's all they care about and it's all they understand. Peace all.
I'll start them in a few days. Maybe after that, posters who did the more casual posts in the other threads can rephrase them or repost them for the appropriate years.
WordWolf - after thinking about this and some of my threads, I think I will cull some posts as to particular years. However, the thing I think is missing in the analysis of breakdown by years is that some of these threaded stories and their timelines actually take over a decade to go through with all of the tentacles attached.
i don't think those posts or stories would be well served by breaking them down by years and putting them in multiple year bucket threads.
This is all just organizational approach. Do I like your buckets? Yes - very easy for people to find years involved and get to stories. And you are definitely the man with the sk1llz for that approach. But I don't like that I find the potential for losing context within a story split out over multiple thread buckets.
So what do I want to do? I think I will do both - cull some individual posts that fit into year buckets, and link threads that cover multiple buckets of years.
I'm glad somebody is FINALLY interested in hearing about this period.
When I first started posting here, I felt like a lone voice and nobody cared a whit. Just ignored what I said. Like it didn't matter, wasn't really an issue, or their mega-issues were more important.
And now I've forgotten most of the junk that I had to put up with.
Except for this: LCM shouted ALL THE TIME and Corps Nights were a two hour shout-fest. What about? Anything, really; mostly anti-homo stuff, but not exclusively. I don't care to try to remember. And the shoutfest was replete with the kind of words that are usually ** out. Foul language, used many times in each sentence as both (composite) noun and verb.
Oh, and this: I was usually in disgrace, seemingly always in condemnation, and the object of several face-meltings.
YAH BOO SUCKS to the lot of 'em. I learned to say NO!!!! again. Or even, F*** OFF outa my life.
I was going to make just 1989-1990 one thread, since so many people
left in that "year".
In April 1989, after all the leadership/corps were asked to swear
an oath of allegiance to craig, a letter was sent out to EVERYONE.
That letter was identical in every state, except the names were
changed. Basically, it said that
"some leaders in your state are evil and are abusing their offices
as leaders, so we fired them. By name, they are (names)."
The irony on that is that the people abusing their offices as leaders
were the ones doing the firings.
The bland, non-specific nature of the claims, and the flat addition
of all these people-whom, locally, had EARNED respect-
made the letter highly suspicious at best. It looked like a form
letter but was claiming not to be.
(Little did I know it was the same in structure as the letter
that was presented to the bot by cg a few years earlier-
vague accusations lacking specifics.)
With that, believers in a lot of locations now had more confidence
in the people being fired than in the people doing the firing.
Some sent letters asking specifically what their leaders did. twi sent back
form letters saying, in essence, "don't worry about that-just trust us
without question."
So, about 4 out of every 5 believers walked. twi themselves made this
a LOT easier, by dismissing all the leaders at once, thus ensuring anyone
who left had a ready-to-use support structure to utilize.
I dropped in on Rock of Ages '89. My intentions were to see things
for myself, and handle things for myself. If things went well, apologies
would be issued and I'd be RIGHT THERE when they were. If things went
badly, I would use this one last chance to buy out the bookstore.
I had also attended ROA '88. Now, I had heard ROA's had been decreasing
in quality steadily starting 1985. I had heard 87 was hardly worthy to be
compared to 86. I attended ROA 88, and had a good time. I had nothing to
compare it to, but it seemed to be worth attending. Events did not seem
forced, and there were many joyful people showing spontaneous joy.
ROA '89 was far short of that. ROA '89 was like someone trying to put on
an ROA after a description of ROA '88. Everything seemed forced and
mechanical. There were errors (obvious errors) in the keynote teachings,
and EVERYTHING-I mean EVERYTHING-invoked either the current bot
or the wierwille family. And the constant "stand for the leader" thing got
SO blatant, overused and cliche, that at one point, Howard Allen himself
signalled people not to stand for him. (It seemed like he thought he'd
gotten ENOUGH forced adulation for one day or something.) In fact,
that struck me as the LEAST-rehearsed, most spontaneous gesture all
week. One consistent hallmark was that the keynote teaching was
ALWAYS preceeded by a song where we were asked to stand for the song,
and the keynote speaker came out during the song's closing while
we were still singing. The net result was them basically "tricking" people
into standing for the speaker. That struck me as plastic and rehearsed.
ROA 89, actually, is worth several more posts.
The amount of monitoring of conversations and groupthink was amazing.
I met a complete stranger who was a new student on the last night,
and explained a few things to him-not hitting him with everything.
One of the first things I said was that conversations were being listened
in on. We spoke and walked a bit, then one comment I made was rebutted
by a monitoring resident corps person-who had no idea he just proved all
my EARLIER points by showing he was listening in.
1988-1990 I was in Naples, Italy because Uncle Sam sent me there. I am glad I was out of the country, when a lot of the s--t went down with TWI. ROA 1987 was in my opinion, a horrible Rock. It seemed that it was quiet, and small, and people walked around in a daze. Plus the teachings, and music weren't all that great. That was my last Rock-ever.
I'm glad somebody is FINALLY interested in hearing about this period.
When I first started posting here, I felt like a lone voice and nobody cared a whit. Just ignored what I said. Like it didn't matter, wasn't really an issue, or their mega-issues were more important.
And now I've forgotten most of the junk that I had to put up with.
Except for this: LCM shouted ALL THE TIME and Corps Nights were a two hour shout-fest. What about? Anything, really; mostly anti-homo stuff, but not exclusively. I don't care to try to remember. And the shoutfest was replete with the kind of words that are usually ** out. Foul language, used many times in each sentence as both (composite) noun and verb.
Oh, and this: I was usually in disgrace, seemingly always in condemnation, and the object of several face-meltings.
YAH BOO SUCKS to the lot of 'em. I learned to say NO!!!! again. Or even, F*** OFF outa my life.
Why??!! I will never understand this type of behavior!! Hell, it sounds worse than Boot Camp, and Boot Camp was horrible!! I think I would have left.
Ah, GVC, our esteemed leader was "spiritually angry" and we too had to learn what to be spiritually angry about.
What he was really angry about was nothing particularly spiritual - it was his wife and Rosalie gettin' it together in more ways than one. Hence, no doubt, his homo rants.
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doojable
Just makes me even happier that I left when I did.
In 1997 ( I know I know that's yet ANOTHER thread!) I met some folks that had just left that year. The stories I hears were horrifying! Like women were required to keep their nails manicured ( you know the whole french nail thing - YUK!)
1988 was bad enough. I'm not quite sure how anyone put up wht twi after that...
I wish I had that song, "I'm Free!" by The Who playing in the background!!!
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markomalley
I always thought the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" was particularly appropriate for GSC. ("Meet the new boss...same as the old boss...")
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doojable
"I'm free
I-I'm free
and freedom tastes like reality..."
I think both are appropriate!
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WordWolf
This was the last of the Eyewitnesses threads. So, similar threads for years 1993 and following would be appropriate- would they be appreciated?
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chockfull
yes as it covers crucial periods of major transition like lawsuits, pres transition, etc.
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WordWolf
I'll start them in a few days. Maybe after that, posters who did the more casual posts in the other threads can rephrase them or repost them for the appropriate years.
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DontWorryBeHappy
Absolutely WordWolf! This thread was really informative! I was very active at Waydale and involved much with the Allen lawsuit as a witness. I remained active with the early beginnings of the GSC, but took a hiatus from 2001-2007 to attend to the messy things of life.
I returned to the spot in September, 2007. On October 1st I started the IS the Crisis over thread now in the CES/STF subforum. That's when I got to know all the cafe regulars and was often involved in the various threads, mostly in About The Way.
So, all the threads and info contained here in the GSC booths from 2001-2007 are basically new to me. That's why I really appreciate you bumping this one up WW! I think your idea of a year by year or multi-year "diary" is excellent! And, if there was ever a perfect man for the job, it's you for this!
To me, the mission, purpose and reach if the Spot has always been the single best place anywhere to get the REAL scoop about TWIt in all its iterations. As I said somewhere before, with Charlene, Kristen, and Karl's books, and the treasure trove of information here at the Spot, we have an opportunity to once and for all just wipe out TWIt beyond its crumbling New Knoxville walls of lies, obfusfcation, and disinformation. We stand a good chance destroying their MUST precious commodity.......income! That's all they care about and it's all they understand. Peace all.
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chockfull
WordWolf - after thinking about this and some of my threads, I think I will cull some posts as to particular years. However, the thing I think is missing in the analysis of breakdown by years is that some of these threaded stories and their timelines actually take over a decade to go through with all of the tentacles attached.
i don't think those posts or stories would be well served by breaking them down by years and putting them in multiple year bucket threads.
This is all just organizational approach. Do I like your buckets? Yes - very easy for people to find years involved and get to stories. And you are definitely the man with the sk1llz for that approach. But I don't like that I find the potential for losing context within a story split out over multiple thread buckets.
So what do I want to do? I think I will do both - cull some individual posts that fit into year buckets, and link threads that cover multiple buckets of years.
Thoughts?
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chockfull
moved to 1986 - 1988 thread
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chockfull
Overlapping timeline - 89 - 99
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Twinky
I'm glad somebody is FINALLY interested in hearing about this period.
When I first started posting here, I felt like a lone voice and nobody cared a whit. Just ignored what I said. Like it didn't matter, wasn't really an issue, or their mega-issues were more important.
And now I've forgotten most of the junk that I had to put up with.
Except for this: LCM shouted ALL THE TIME and Corps Nights were a two hour shout-fest. What about? Anything, really; mostly anti-homo stuff, but not exclusively. I don't care to try to remember. And the shoutfest was replete with the kind of words that are usually ** out. Foul language, used many times in each sentence as both (composite) noun and verb.
Oh, and this: I was usually in disgrace, seemingly always in condemnation, and the object of several face-meltings.
YAH BOO SUCKS to the lot of 'em. I learned to say NO!!!! again. Or even, F*** OFF outa my life.
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CLOSE CALL
and the object of several face-meltings
Being an outsider at the Rock of 89 and having not much to do but wander around I
ran into a couple of these Face Meltings by accident. What the Hell is with these folks I
was thinking at the time. One in the Way Woods and one on top of the little bridge over that creek.
( If that was called the River Jordan, was that the Bridge of Sighs? ) There was so much discontent there and
you couldn't even get the folks that you were the closest to, too tell you what was happening.
All I could get was that some fella stole a bunch of Way Material and took it to Scotland and it would
not Edify to talk about it. Well since a Wow and a Corpse guy recommended me for Staff and I was
at the time interested ( thus the name Close Call ) I thought that I should know what was wrong here.
Nope. I was not spiritually mature enough I guess. A lot of arrogance and snobbishness I witnessed.
I was even introduced to Mrs. Weirwille the first night there and she did not act very friendly either.
We were coming in from the parking area on the 1st evening and she was sitting on a Golf cart staring down at the big top.
Personally I think she was depressed and crying and was trying to maintain herself.
Back to work more another time.
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Grace Valerie Claire
1988-1990 I was in Naples, Italy because Uncle Sam sent me there. I am glad I was out of the country, when a lot of the s--t went down with TWI. ROA 1987 was in my opinion, a horrible Rock. It seemed that it was quiet, and small, and people walked around in a daze. Plus the teachings, and music weren't all that great. That was my last Rock-ever.
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Grace Valerie Claire
For me yes!
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Grace Valerie Claire
Why??!! I will never understand this type of behavior!! Hell, it sounds worse than Boot Camp, and Boot Camp was horrible!! I think I would have left.
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Twinky
Ah, GVC, our esteemed leader was "spiritually angry" and we too had to learn what to be spiritually angry about.
What he was really angry about was nothing particularly spiritual - it was his wife and Rosalie gettin' it together in more ways than one. Hence, no doubt, his homo rants.
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