JW GROWTH PREDICTIONS...ON THE WAY UP

by Mindchild 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Seeker

  A very interesting study, and I would suggest one with some validity. Thanks for posting this.

  I do disagree with one conclusion you reached:

  The 2002 Service Year for the Witnesses should show an increase larger than the previous year but not by a large amount. 2003 will be an even better year yet with the highest increase they have seen in years, perhaps as much as 5%-6% or more world wide.

  I suspect your dates are off by a few years. I've predicted that 2002 and 2003 will see decreases, and for factors that JanH mentioned among others. The end of the twentieth century got many JWs excited, even if only on a subsconcious level. 9/11 has gotten them excited again. But now that we are firmly in the 21st-century, and now that it appears the post-9/11 world won't be as awful as some feared, the next couple of years will see the exodus of many long-timer JWs who were holding on until the last prophecy of the WTS failed (that the end would come during the 20th-century). As the excitement of Y2K and 9/11 dies out, and things are just as they ever were, and the WTS is still getting things wrong, and people are realizing they might die of old age after all, some will leave.

  After that, say by the mid-point of this decade, your prediction will absolutely come true (unless negative publicity reaches a roaring crescendo) and there will be an upswing again with new converts who know nothing of the old promises.

  I made this prediction four years ago. Unlike You Know's predictions, mine has come true exactly as I foresaw. JW psychology is easy to predict. You are finding a physical correlation to this physchology, something I never thought of, but you can see the macro trends and come up with a similar prediction.
• 

  Tina

  Wow,great thread everyone!!!!
  fascinating! luv to all,T

  Jesse jackson,Jim bakker and Jimmy swaggart have written an impressive new book-it's called"Ministers do More Than Lay People"
• 

  ISP

  Simply put, the eddy currents either inhibit or stimulate different parts of the brain and create a state known as LTP or long-term potentiation.

  Sure that wasn't freddy currents?

  ISP
• 

  Gozz

  Ministers do more than Lay People

  They do! How true! But I guess if Brooklyn was aware, they would be disfellowshipped.
• 

  OUTLAW

  Hey Skipper,I liked your idea about Gillagin`s island better,this one sucks!...OUTLAW
• 

  expatbrit

  Skipper:

  A couple of quick questions:

  1) Is this 11 year cycle also apparent in other evangelical religions e.g. the Mormons?

  2) Does this 11 year cycle show up in other aspects of human society e.g. stock market levels and economic indicators?

  Surely the Jw's would not be the only organisation to show these cyclical signs.

  Expatbrit
• 

  Mindchild

  Seeker said:

  The end of the twentieth century got many JWs excited, even if only on a subsconcious level. 9/11 has gotten them excited again. But now that we are firmly in the 21st-century, and now that it appears the post-9/11 world won't be as awful as some feared, the next couple of years will see the exodus of many long-timer JWs who were holding on until the last prophecy of the WTS failed (that the end would come during the 20th-century). As the excitement of Y2K and 9/11 dies out, and things are just as they ever were, and the WTS is still getting things wrong, and people are realizing they might die of old age after all, some will leave.

  I think there are some JW's who are in the position you suggest and are waiting and hoping that the generation that saw 1914 won't all die off before the end comes. If you use the Societies own reasoning that those seeing this event in 1914 had to be at least a young teenager and the generation being a maximum of 80 years, then the shit should have hit the fan somewhere around 1980. Now, many of these desperate Witnesses are saying anyone born in 1914 qualifies but that only gets you to 1994. Yet, who can figure out the thinking of a desperate dub who clings to anything as hope that the end is here? I think the failed prophecies bother younger victims of this cult more than the old timers. The old timers have also got a huge life investment inside and know that they can't leave without losing it all. So, I think the factor that would change things much more would be a revision of the shunning penalty that would be a kinder...gentler way of shunning, and it would open the floodgates. Also remember that motivation effects people on the edge as well, perhaps they will be motivated to leave the cult.

  Expatbrit...What I remember reading of the Russian study was that the period they tested was 22 years or two 11 year cycles and they found either a 21 or 22 year cycle in Southern Baptists, 7-Day Adventist, and other membership roles (can't remember the rest of them).

  The study of Chronobiology is about cycles in biology. The 10.5 year cycle, a 21 year cycle, and other cycles fill the world of biology. One Japanese Doctor I met personally was studying the cyclic rate of children with ADD and discovered that they match geomagnetic pulsations. There are economic cycles as well and perhaps some aspects of these cycles are influenced by motivational factors. You are looking at more factors here but there is some really interesting mathematical relationships in the economic cylces with power relationships. Perhaps I will post another time about those.

  Skipper
• 

  Seeker

  and the generation being a maximum of 80 years

  Well, that's old light now too, so 1994 no longer carries any significance. That's why I said the last-gasp prophecy left was the end of the twentieth-century. Everything else failed, but they may have hung on in confusion until this, too, failed on January 1 of this year.

  Now, with service years being what they are, the 2000-2001 service year that just ended (and for which we are now getting reports) will still contain the activity of these hangers-on. With the 9/11 excitement, the hangers-on may have scurried back to the Hall again during the early part of the 2001-2002 service year. By August of 2002, when everyone sees that nothing much came of the post-9/11 world after all, those hangers-on will finally throw in the towel. Thus they won't show up in the 2002-2003 report for the first time. That's the report that should mark a bottom of this current cycle, or possibly the 2003-2004 year if the exodus takes a while. After that, it's an upswing again.

  The only question in my mind is how many hangers-on we are talking about. A few? A lot? Time will tell, but by the midpoint of this decade, I expect the numbers to begin rising again.
• 

  expatbrit

  Here's a couple of simple graphs.

  Firstly, increase or decrease in average publishers since 1959:

  Secondly, increase or decrease in average publishers since 1959 and peak publishers since 1939:

  Just looking at these simple graphs doesn't appear to give confirmation of marked "cycles". There are upswings and downswings, but no regular cyclic pattern. The one thing that is apparent is the general declining increases since 1983. Even though there have been upturns, they have been shallow and temporary. I suppose if the society does go into negative figures, an upturn still needn't mean a positive increase. Going from -5% to -3% is still an upswing, after all.

  Expatbrit
• 

  Moxy

  something else i just noticed that is easy to see in expat's graph is that peak-to-peak increases are less reliable than avg-to-avg increase. special month campaigns cause those numbers to fluctuate in ways that wont be meaningful to your analysis. if you can get the avg numbers, use those instead.

  mox