Minimus,
Dare I say again, good thread!
The crazy thing is that they get intelligent able bodied persons to believe that they are furthering kingdom interests for Jehovah God Himself! They tell you that IF you do everything they say, you will recieve "blessings".
I think this is one of the most telling features that identifies the WTS as cultic and sociopathic in personality. It has no interest in individuals but has established the social and religious machinery to grind all personalities, regardless of gifts and talents into one grey color, and we all went through the 'mill'. Jehovah's Army has only one size of uniform.
I recall a very wealthy businessman who started to study the Bible in a congregation close to my own. This man was CEO of noted public domain company and had thousands of persons working for him in his numerous business interests. I liked him a lot because despite, or perhaps due to his success in a tough business world, he was actually a rather shy man, he was also reasonable and very interesting and we quickly learned to drink hard together.
It was not long before this person was handling microphones and 'helping' in the Literature Room, to the ecstacy of the publishers who cooed with delight at this mans 'humility. He was being taught by Jehovah to be humble. Within a few months he was visited by a pair of the dummest elders in Southern England and told that he was not going to be appointed as an MS just yet, because the elders felt that he was too involved in his secular activities.
He visited me soon afterward and was very upset, a broken man. I found it hard to believe that this man bastion of a tough business world, could have his self-esteem so quickly removed from him by a person who worked in a resteraunt kitchen and failed to wash regularly, and a window-cleaner.
From that moment he began to slowly bury the person he was. He began to grin at appropriate congregational moments, was noted on Sunday mornings for his WT perfect answers, and did his share of knocking on doors. Within a few months he was an MS. Despite being an elder at the time, I was always knows as a bit of a non-conformist as a JW and I noticed that he soon began to distance himself from me in favor of the scrim and pole brigade. I said nothing to him, as I had seen this process, from human being to quivering, nervous, theocratic jelly far too often to be offended.
This is the power of cult.
Last I heard, he had sold off his business interests and took his family off to some Third World country to 'serve where the need is greater'. No doubt, Jehovah will in his love, allow him to catch some weird disease and die for the sake of Jesus.
HS
