Rumors about Russell (page 2)

SWALKER

I fully agree that we need facts to back up the stories about Russell....rumors are just rumors. I found out though, that even when you put facts before some people, they don't accept it then. I showed all the documentation of the U.N. including my personal letter and the print out of the U.N. material, when it was still available from them, showed this to a college graduate elder and his wife. They didn't believe it. They wanted to see it on the website...showed that to them...didn't believe it then! It was the work of apostates! Unbelievable!

What's amazing to me is that NO ONE wants to accept responsibility for putting the pyramid at Russell's gravesite. I thought it had been established as fact that HE left specific instructions for this to be built. Am I wrong??? I do want to get my facts straight. I did call the Mason Lodge that now overlooks the cemetary...they swear "they know nothing about that weird pyramid thing" and informed me that they don't own that property. They assured me that it was there long before they accuired and built their lodge. Now the Russellites are saying that Rutherford had it erected! Will the real culprit please stand up???

Swalker

SWALKER

Oh, just found this info in another thread and it was by NathanNates:

Cygnus said,

My dad, . . . says the WTS didn't put the pyramid there

Yeah, it was put there by ancient astronauts. Your Dad is mistaken.

We are told in the "Souvenir Report of the Bible Students Convention, Pittsburgh, PA.(1919)," that the pyramid was "accepted by Brother Russell as the most fitting emblem for an enduring monument on the Society’s burial space." It weighs several tons, is nine feet at the base and seven feet high, and rests on a reinforced concrete pad five feet thick.On each face of the pyramid we find the same design: near the apex a laurel wreath encircles a crown which itself encircles a cross. Beneath this is a text box which bears a different message on each of the four sides - "WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY," "DEAD WITH CHRIST," "I. B. S. A.," AND "RISEN WITH CHRIST". "IBSA" stands for International Bible Students Association. Beneath the text box we find the largest feature of each face, "cut in four-inch embossment a Teacher’s Bible, on the pages of which will appear the names of the ones buried there. . . We visited the marble works and there watched the workmen slowly but surely chisel out the monument to be erected as a memorial to the Society. The Watchtower Society burial lots in Rosemont United Cemeteries, five miles due north of Pittsburgh City, contain ample grave space for all the members of the Bethel family, and the pilgrims and their wives — in all more than 275 adult graves. In the exact center of the Bethel lot will be erected diagonally the Pyramid Shape Monument as designed by Brother Bohnet, and accepted by Brother Russell as the most fitting emblem for an enduring monument on the Society’s burial space. The size of this structure is nine feet across the base, and its apex stone is exactly seven feet above the ground surface level. It rests upon a concrete foundation five feet deep and heavily reinforced with barbed wire, the work of Brother Bohnet, who would not entrust this important task to anyone else, so we are assured that the job was well done. The brother gave a full description of the securing of the rock material at the time he piloted the conventionists to the cemetery and urged us to help ourselves to souvenir chips in the shop of the granite worker nearby ..."
- Souvenir Report of the Bible Students Convention, Pittsburgh, PA. 1/2-5/1919, p7.

Russell's Instructions for his funeral

I desire to be buried in the plot of ground owned by our Society, in the Rosemont United Cemetery, and all the details of arrangements respecting the funeral service I leave in the care of my sister, Mrs. M. M. Land, and her daughters, Alice and May, or such of them as may survive me, with the assistance and advice and cooperation of the brethren, as they may request the same. Instead of an ordinary funeral discourse, I request that they arrange to have a number of the brethren, accustomed to public speaking, make a few remarks each, that the service be very simple and inexpensive and that it be conducted in the Bible House Chapel or any other place that may be considered equally appropriate or more so. (from Watchtower Reprints, 12/1/16)

... the United Cemeteries Corporation---of which Russell was a trustee-was later found to be a dummy corporation for Watch Tower assets. . .
. . .Persistent prodding by the Eagle's attorneys revealed the existence of two dummy corporations, the United States Investment Co., Ltd., and the United Cemeteries Corporation. . .
"... I took title to a farm near Pittsburgh some years ago. The money was that of the Watch Tower Society. I deeded it to the United States Society, which, in turn, signed it over to the United Cemetaries Company." [testimony of W. E. Van Amburgh, Secreary-Treasurer of the Watchtower]
- Visions of Glory, chapter 4

That should take care of one fact...

Swalker

Lady Lee

Confession

This link Charles Russell, Alleged Child Abuser shows that Rose Ball the object of these accusations about child abuse was not a child at all while she lived with the Russells. Both her parents were alive and she was not adopted by the Russells at any time.

It's a facsinating and wonderful trail that definitely exposes this rumor is pure bunk.

SWALKER

Maybe we should start an ongoing thread "Facts About Russell". Here are 4 questions that LL threw out there and we know 2 answers for sure:

Yesterday I passed on the info about Russell's possible poisoning. He had never heard this before. I sent him the 1 page letter and he is going to check on it. Over the last year he has begun to hear rumors that Russell was possible murdered but not that it was poison.
I also passed on the info regarding Russell and the allegations of sexual abuse of a child. He had heard the rumors but thanked me for the proof needed to end that rumor.
This morning I asked about possible drug use and his thoughts on this were the same as mine. He was using medications for he believes a condition called Cystitus. Drug use was not what we consider drug use today.
Russsell as a Mason. My source says his FATHER was a Mason but Russell was not. I have asked for any information he has regarding Russell's father being a Mason - waiting for a response. Oh and interestingly my source says that the pyramid for Russell was erected by - none other than Rutherford!!! Well we know Russell didn't put it up. Anyone want to try finding out a bit more about Rutherford's background???

2. No Russell was not a child abuser.

4. Yes Russell did have pyramid made.

1 and 3 are still up in the air.

Swalker

greendawn

If I recall well that pederasty charge is not well founded.

The WTS in its eagerness to dispel rumours that its founding father was an adulterous jelly fish having an affair with Rose Ball they wrote that she was only 10 years old girl at the time, and Russell was just kissing her good night like any guardian would before bed time.

This backfired as people now began saying that Russell had a sexual relationship with a ten year old. In fact she was a woman at the time and Russell was having an affair with her according to his then wife who was filing for divorce. The court disallowed the adultery story on purely technical reasons but granted a divorce on the grounds that he was too nasty a character for a woman to live with.

garybuss

Why look for items about Russell when Rutherford ADMITS he was an attorney?

Lady Lee

SWALKER got the PM and Thanks for the info

I'm not all that keen on the idea of Russell being a drug addict. My source did say:

I hope you or someone can move forward on this and find the truth of the matter. Only by examining the body could proof be found, I think. They dug up Jesse James you know. But I believe the results were not positive. I only heard this about possible murder of CTR in the last year or so. I remember that CTR was ill before he reached LA and had to sit while making his discourse there. If it was a case of poison, then it must have happened on the way out West. However, according to the story in the Towers, CTR knew what was bothering him and asked for the specific medicines to treat the ailment. Cystitus, I believe it was.

Towers refers to

Towers is a reference to the Watch Tower Reprints from 1879 to 1917

When I asked for more info he responded:

I'm pretty sure that CTR did use drugs as medicine. In those days you could buy drugs at the local pharmacy, over the counter. Coca Cola even had cocaine in it. But he was not what we hear about today as a drug user.

Leolaia

Lady Lee...That's the point I made about the drug question. Patent medicines were widely used by the populace and no one really knew what was in them (before the Pure Food and Drug Act). Russell could have easily used any number of these, just as anyone else at the time would have, or he could have also used specific drugs alone prescribed by his doctor. But this would be little different than the situation with anyone else taking medicine at the time. And there is no evidence at all that Russell did take certain medicines or drugs. So I don't see how this discussion can take us anywhere (aside from pure speculation).

Lady Lee

Agreed Leolaia.

willyloman

Pyramids figured large in Russell's eschatology and the info (above) taken from the report of the 1919 convention appears to support that the pyramid at the gravesite was a symbol, not of Masonic membership, but what was then the WTS' obsession with pyramid structures as divine measuring sticks. Perhaps it was as simple as that.

Rumors about Russell

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