The year the end finally came: the YEAR OF THE BIG LIE

by Terry 65 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  Mary

  Excellent post Terry! I was quite young but I clearly remember the build up to '75. The main reason I found it so exciting is because my sister died in 1970 and the elders told my parents that at the most, they'd have to wait about 5 years to see her again, since she died so close to Armageddon......Here we are 38 years later and they're still waiting.

  And for any lurkers who have been told that the Organization never specifically said The End was coming in 75, you can listen to proof that they most certainly DID say it was coming then:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIEZx74P5ck&feature=related
• 

  Reefton Jack

  A particular lot of hype about 1975 was printed in the Awake during 1968.
  - from memory, it may have been the October 8 issue that year
  (all my WT publications are long gone, courtesy of a box of matches and some kerosene!).
  In this article, the WTS actually went as far as to caution us about "hiding behind" those scriptures
  - such as Matthew 24:44 - that state no one knows "the day or the hour."
  
  In the years since, there are those who have come forward and stated that they never at any time believed 1975 to be a significant date.
  However, I do not recall ever hearing anybody say that in the years leading up to 1975!
  To do so would have got one branded as "immature" - a JW swearword in those times.
  
  
  
  
• 

  james_woods

  Jack has just made an excellent point.

  Unbelief in (or skepticism of) the 1975 end was strongly suppressed by the diehards.

  I was a liberal on that subject (never believed it, in fact) - and others who had doubts like me pretty much held a quiet discussion outside the normal lines of communication. Like I posted, though, the doubters included many servants and circuit overseers. (or did they call them circuit servants back then?)

  Anyway - Jack's point is true. If you spoke up with a question on this date in a meeting, you would surely be whacked for it soon enough.

  What makes this especially important is that later the Watcthower tried the phony process of saying that "only a few (some) of the JWs deceived themselves into believing this, going beyond what was written...". Ok, if that is true - then where were all those all-wise leaders in the congregations when they were needed to put some cold water on that running ahead belief?

  They were instead pouring gasoline on the flames of the 1975, that is what they were doing.
• 

  Mum

  Thanks for the memory, Terry. My memory is vivid about the 1967-1975 era. People were postponing medical and dental procedures. One of the brothers in about 1969 reminded us that there were no more than "90 months" left in the "old system." Everyone got excited about counting in terms of months. People were selling homes to live off the proceeds and pioneer. It was collective madness (read the theatre-of-the-absurd play Rhinocerosby Eugene Ionesco for a work on collective madness/anti-Naziism).

  Although no one talked about the aftermath openly or honestly, I know that I had a nervous breakdown of sorts. I fell into a deep depression. I was not allowed to seek phychological or psychiatric help. So then my husband began to make false promises to me in order to get me to come out of the depression. His lies added to the borg's lies pushed me over the edge. I had to get away to get some perspective, to try to attain some level of sanity. How my poor daughter suffered as a result of having two such dysfunctional parents in a dysfunctional organization. It took a few years after leaving for me to realize that I had not been a part of anything "special" or any group of men that had some special pipeline to God. The trauma was almost more than I could bear. My daughter spent most of her childhood with her JW father, in part because I believed I was wrong and wanted what was right for her. What a fool I was!

  Fortunately, most of my family never were JW's, and most of them behave as if the whole JW thing never happened. I was young enough to start my life over, and I now have a life that is joyful most of the time. There are still issues, but both my daughter and I are educated and able to work through our problems, accept what is, leaving the past behind. My JW ex hasn't even called his daughter for several years. She is tired of trying to maintain a relationship with him when he puts an organization above his own flesh and blood.

  We should compile a book of individual stories of the aftermath of the 1975 debacle. I'm semi-retired, so if you want to write your story and send it to me, I will begin compiling them.

  Regards,

  SandraC
• 

  snowbird

  In the grips of the 1975 fever, a lot of young JW's came down South to serve where the need was greater.

  After the setback, they all went back North and East to get on with their lives as best they could, I suppose.

  One who came and left was Simon Priester, Jr. He was killed by a hit-and-run last year.

  Gopher picked up on the story. Here's a link: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/14/143583/1.ashx.

  Although I believed JW's were on to something, in keeping with Acts 1:7, I never believed 1975 was to be the end of anything.

  Sylvia
• 

  Terry

  My own personal opinion is this.

  People can only believe an impossibility if they really strongly desire it to be true.

  It is an emotional belief rather than an intellectual and rational one.

  JW's were (and still are) emotionally starved people.

  They aren't really permitted to cut loose. As a consequence they are deprived of essential feeling, passion and fervor in daily life.

  Everything you've been postponing that is meaningful in your life is right in front of you within easy grasp!

  So, JW's went totally berserk FEELING the passion, excitement and adding the element of mass hysteria to their cold, drab, lackluster lives.

  But note: Intellectually and rationally....NOBODY could believe it would really happen!

  This is pure cognitive dissonance: holding opposite beliefs in your mind simultaneously.

  It is like children playing an exciting game they both know to be make-believe. When it's over--it's over. But--while the game is being played out the exhilaration is too good to spoil!

  That, to my way of thinking, is the reason so many people simply shut down and didn't budge from ground zero when 1975 came and passed with a deafening silence.

  RATIONALLY everybody knew it would never happen. It is too goofy. It is (as Alan F is fond of saying) cartoon logic.

  The 6000 years of Human Existence was played up to be something vital, significant, imperative, life or death by the Watchtower Society and they can never deny that. What is totally refuting to their present stance is that the significance cannot NOW be stated in any fashion which doesn't explode in their faces.

  Why was it played up and played out by the Society if it really amounted to less than nothing. Never to be mentioned as even a noteworthy significant event in the Society's past!

  WE CANNOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH BRUSHING THIS OFF LIKE SO MUCH LINT.

  Why did the Watchtower promote a non-event? Why?
• 

  james_woods

  Terry, are you saying that most JWs had a sort of schitzoid dual believe in 1975? In orther words, the rational mind tells them that this is sheer and utter nonsense, but the irrational "believers" mind tells you that this is God's given word - and overrides rationality?

  I think this was pretty much what happened. They left it up to Freddy Franz to do the math, and just suppressed simple logic. If they had doubts, they kept pretty quiet about it due to the group-think mentality - as Jack pointed out above.

  Another illustration would be the number of them who nominally claim to believe in manifest "demon" activity - and yet I have seldom known any witness elder (except for the very most dilusional) who did not pass off reported events as BS, hysteria, or mental disorder. Strangely, I have only known of about three elders who claimed to have presided over an actual demonic case - burned books, prayed strongly over it, etc... Of those three, one was demostrably mentally diseased and was removed. Another threatened to burn down the Kingdom Hall when he was removed for outrageous behavior (bad temper, foul language) toward congregation members. The other I have since lost track of.

  Similarly, I think that 1975 was like a mob riot; started by Freddy, and then it spread like wildfire because only the radicals were willing to speak out. And yet I still think almost all the witnesses had private doubts about it.

  Maybe that is why they were so willing to let the society off the hook- they had not rationally believed it in the first place.
• 

  Terry

  Terry, are you saying that most JWs had a sort of schitzoid dual believe in 1975? In orther words, the rational mind tells them that this is sheer and utter nonsense, but the irrational "believers" mind tells you that this is God's given word - and overrides rationality?

  Charles Manson and Fred Franz had something in common in this context.

  Both believed the end of the world was coming. Franz believed it would be Jehovah's doing. Manson believed it would be a race war between blacks and whites.

  Both men indoctrinated their listeners with chapter and verse telling what was going down "shortly". Both men offered a refuge for those who desired to escape the calamity just up ahead.

  What dovetails the two of them (Manson and Franz) is that each of them stepped over the line by deciding to MAKE the predicted events come true by giving it a little help.

  Franz began writing nonsense "proving" six thousand years of human existence was coming in 75 and linking it to the start of the thousand year reign of Christ. This meant Armageddon had to immediately precede. By getting everybody worked up, Franz hoped to bring down the wrath of the various churches and national authorities on the JW's heads precipitating Jehovah's intervention.

  Manson staged high profile ritual slayings and left broad clues that it was a racially motivated spree. This would bring the whites and blacks into direct confrontation and start the race war he hoped to survive at the Sphan ranch (with his little flock). They would survive and rule over the blacks with a Manson led civilization. Manson at the top of the food chain.

  Both psychotic fantasies. Both clearly aware events would not happen if left alone. Both willing to bring the end of the world to justify their own preachments and messianic fantasies.

  Something to think about.
• 

  Mickey mouse

  Wow, thanks for that video Mary. I have no recollection of that time (too young) and I have a hard job reconciling what I've been told by witnesses who were around then with that video. Makes me wonder what mindset my parents were in before '75 and whether they were bitterly disappointed.

  Mickey.
• 

  sir82

  By getting everybody worked up, Franz hoped to bring down the wrath of the various churches and national authorities on the JW's heads precipitating Jehovah's intervention.

  Plausible, but seems to be wildly speculative.

  Or did you talk to someone who knew F. Franz personally and can verify this?

  Without firsthand knowledge, ascribing motivations to people seems rather iffy.