Comments that made feel pity at last Sundays WT study (page 2)

serendipity

Hi spectre,

On a more and more frequent basis JWs are urged to have faith in the FDS. The pendulum is swinging in the cult direction....

We got a double whammy at our meeting Sunday. The speaker giving the talk said we should do what the faithful slave tells us no matter how strange it might sound at the time. He then went on to emphasize the importance of obedience to the elders since they represent the faithful slave. And several in the audience were nodding their heads in agreement. Or maybe they were nodding off to sleep. Who knows?

mjarka911

Now thats frightening, amused. It makes it sound like kool-aid time is getting close!

bennyk

Sadly, this isn't really anything all that new, and the two Elders are not simply "loose cannons". The Society has been encouraging this sort of nonsense for a long time. Anyone remember the cover article from the 01. March 1979 (english) Watchtower: "Put Faith in a Victorious Organization" ?

On a personal note, in similar vein I recently received correspondence from an Elder "encouraging" me to return to congregation meetings, etc. He requested I ignore the troubled history of the WatchTower Society and 'develop confidence in the Faithful and Discrete Slave'. The irony of this is that -- while yet a Witness -- I had professed to be anointed...

moggy lover

The lamentable fact about mind control - for this is what the WTS is practicing on its membership - is that it does not discriminate between differences of human intellect. No matter how brilliant a mind - and there are many such in the Org - no matter how capable a mind is of soaring above the horizon of human thought, it is still finite, and thus subject to the same subtle pressure points that afflict us all. Others, in whose wake we now tred, have observed this incredible phenomenon, and have commented on it.

The trick is to ensure that the mind, especially that of the elder, is not made aware of this process. In fact the most sucessful technique is to confront the issue yet simultanaeously to deny it!!

In the WT of Feb 15 of 1994, this statement is found:"Were there any attempts made to brainwash you?" Having posed the question, the WT article then inveigles the thought control programme into the waiting mind by answering the question - thus ensuring that the pre-packaged information is correctly interpreted. The WT-conditioned response is: "No! Would doubtless be your response" [I am grateful to the book "Answering Jehovah's Witnesses" pg 163 by David Reed, a former JW Elder, for this WTS quote] So now, the receptive Elder is convinced beyond any measure, that in fact he is NOT being brainwashed, and that his mind is free of outside encumbrances.

Then comes the "Jehovah Syndrome" This is where this tri-syllabic word is invoked, endorsing the illusion of divine sanction, and thus making any defiance a sign of rebellion against God. Of course "God" is an amorphous concept to the Elder, the only tangible grid he is trained to relate to is the existence of those who pose as the True Representatives of "God" - the very ones who are controlling his mind! Thus the circle is complete, and his dependance on the FDS ensured, and as long as the Elder continues to "feed" on this information, provided in a stream of an endless duplication of words, he will remain thus under control

The questions I have often pondered are: How the hell did we ourselves get involved in this criminal endeavour, and more importantly, how the hell did we get out???

Cheers

drew sagan

Thanks for all your comments. I'll provide a little more personal information as to why these comments struck me as much as they did.
Elder 1 has been a good friend of mine for years. He is an older guy that had been pioneering many years before I did. I was allways encouraged by his his example. He allways showed himself to be somebody that simply didn't repeat words on a page but instead followed logical reasonings to come to his own conclusions. I was only baptized one or two years before I met him, so I was not that far along "in the truth" at the time. He eventually located to a differant hall, and I didn't see that much of him anymore.
By circumstance I have come to be around him much more frequently now. It's interesting because during the time he was away is the time when I started to question the Socitey and think about differant possiblities. Being around him now, and speaking with him is a much differant expierance than it was years ago. I know can see how he has basically handed over his thinking ablilty to the WTS because of the security the give. I have raised numerous questions to him (the best I can without sounding "apostate"), he can never go beyond the basic JW reasonings as put forth in the publications. Any qeustion I ask, I simply get the WTS answer. In fact the more I got to understand him this second time around, the more I realized that the WTS is not the truth. The comment on Sunday was one of the most radical I have ever heard him say, but not something that could be unexpected.
How do we come to accept these things so eaisly? I think the answer is simple. It is because we accepeted these things at a time in our lives when we where EASY TO CONVINCE. Some of us it was very young, others much older. At any rate, we have all gained from the expierance. Something helped us see that we needed to stop being eaisly convinced of things and dig deeper. I feel sorry for Elder 1, I know he will never give up the WTS. At the same time, our lives are short and who can be sure of what the future really holds for all of us. Only time will tell.

willyloman

I feel sorry for Elder 1, I know he will never give up the WTS.

Not that long ago, I was Elder 1.

Then I saw the light. Actually, I had been seeing the light for many years. It's like a dripping faucet. Eventually you wake up to reality. At that point, you either decide you have too much invested and you ignore the doubts, or, as in my case, you go with your gut and look for the nearest exit.

The gate is narrow and few are those finding it.

Bumble Bee

The speaker giving the talk said we should do what the faithful slave tells us no matter how strange it might sound at the time. He then went on to emphasize the importance of obedience to the elders since they represent the faithful slave. And several in the audience were nodding their heads in agreement.

It's comments like this that scare me for my family members. I can see my mother sitting there and nodding her head in agreement, and actually follow any "strange" directions. Sad, sad, sad.

BB

JT

I feel sorry for Elder 1, I know he will never give up the WTS.

Not that long ago, I was Elder 1.

Then I saw the light. Actually, I had been seeing the light for many years. It's like a dripping faucet. Eventually you wake up to reality. At that point, you either decide you have too much invested and you ignore the doubts, or, as in my case, you go with your gut and look for the nearest exit.

The gate is narrow and few are those finding it.

################ Bingo me too

amused

The speaker is a young MS. I am sure the elders were impressed.

Comments that made feel pity at last Sundays WT study

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