I feel deceived and taken for a fool

by dgp 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  dgp

  I was reading a few of the books Yknot provided in another thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/190996/1/Why-did-my-old-friend-do-this-to-our-friendship-Please-help-me-understand). I checked the Theocratic School Book. WOW! I thought I knew a good deal about the Watchtower, and I find I just knew the tip of the iceberg! I felt so deceived and taken for a fool! The people come to our doors and smile, and everything is rehearsed and planned! This is like Hitler's Mein Kampf, only refined and more hypocritical!

  I came to wonder if the witness I met, the one I came to love so much, has ever been sincere with me. Probably she was, but not all the time. Many times her cultic self tested the waters and gathered information she could later use against me. And "against" is a word I now feel I am justified to use. The technique they teach in this book involves a lot of manipulation and acting.

  I also marveled at how it can be that the use of such refined techniques yields so few converts. I guess it is because most of the times it happens because the most refined technique in the world can't get you past the door of a person unwilling to talk to you.

  I felt sad to think that so many people are indoctrinated to use this book and find no fault with it. Or, don't think they are doing wrong by using such techniques on unaware unbelievers.

  If the WTS is sure it is telling the truth, how can it feel at ease at having to use such ways to get converts? Wouldn't the truth just shine on its own?

  At another level, I felt so sorry for the witness I love. I am not sure she is aware of to what extent she has been deprived of normal human interaction. I can understand now why Ray Franz said he felt relieved when he found he didn't have to worry anymore about who was an unbeliever or not. It is about not having to perform and being free to be your own self with anyone.

  I am sorry if I offend anyone here. I can only congratulate the ones who have managed to lift themselves above such things.
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  primitivegenius

  amen
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  cameo-d

  dgp: "I came to wonder if the witness I met, the one I came to love so much, has ever been sincere with me. Probably she was, but not all the time. Many times her cultic self tested the waters and gathered information she could later use against me. And "against" is a word I now feel I am justified to use. The technique they teach in this book involves a lot of manipulation and acting"

  Can you quote from the book the passages that made you feel this way? Do you feel that JWs apply this in their personal relations and not just using it for religious converts?
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  leavingwt

  If the WTS is sure it is telling the truth, how can it feel at ease at having to use such ways to get converts? Wouldn't the truth just shine on its own?

  On the other hand, if they're a destructive, high-control group, deception is necessary to recruit new members.
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  Heaven

  On the other hand, if they're a destructive, high-control group, deception is necessary to recruit new members.

  leavingwt, this is so true.

  It all starts with your first encounter at the door. They do not identify who they are. Deception #1. This should serve as a huge warning to people. When you allow deception in, it really isn't long before everything is deception and nothing is real or true.

  And so it goes... and so it goes. If you have to deceive, then you have to question whether you have 'the truth'.
• 

  JimmyPage

  Primitive Genius was on this board in the past seven hours? It must be April Fool's!
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  dgp

  Cameo-d: The whole book is a handbook on how to keep people in absolute submission. As in "This is how you will study. This is how you will read. This is how you will pronounce. This is how you will deliver your speech. This is how we want you to dress. This is how you will feign interest in an unbeliever. This is how you will analyze the birdfeed to determine what makes them tick and what kind of "questions" you might ask so he is interested in talking and will not feel that you're manipulating him, but, instead, will feel that HE HAS SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!, which opportunity you will use to deliver WHAT WE TELL YOU YOU SHOULD TELL HIM". And then it goes on to say "This is how you will focus your attention on whatever is being said at the Kingdom Hall, even if it's nonsense. This is how you will start a conversation with a fellow serf." Et cetera. Hitler said that it was easier to confuse an audience in the afternoon because the people would be tired and would gobble your babble more easily, since all they would want would be to get the hell out of there, and the way to achieve that would be to say yes to anything you said. But he looks like a baby as compared to the refined mind control I saw in that book! I had some relationship with Iron Curtain countries, as a foreigner, and I can tell you that the Communists wanted your heart and your soul (and your blood, too), but were very unskilled in how to get it if you compare them to the WTS. Their kind of hell was just physical death (quite often) and a feeling that you were not going in the direction of History. They didn't have an angry God that would kill you.

  As to whether the witness in question was sincere, I have to wonder whether it is at all possible to separate what you learn in the Theocratic School Mind Control Drill on how to "interact" with unbelievers and what she spoke to me. I have met some former Communist intelligence officers and I can tell you that they are all mind (and body) controllers, always suspecting you, always noticing what you do, when and why, always keeping what you did in your memory, and masters at evasive speech. Does that ring a bell? Does it sound like an elder?

  To be honest with her, I don't think that the sadness she showed when she said I should go away, and the way she was trembling then, were not fakes. She was in real pain. I can see that, in a way, she went as far as her indoctrination let her. But that doesn't have to mean she was always sincere. I wont' keep it against her, however. Not now that I can perhaps glimpse the kind of indoctrination she went through. It's actually surprising that anyone can function as a human being after that.

  LeawingWT, you're right: they need to use deception to make new converts. The degree of deception is what I wasn't aware of. The sophisticated deception technique made me go "WOW". And the mind control they exert over the poor people who become their agents is terrible.

  I even shed a tear or two at thinking how the witness in question is wasting her life away, and I felt stupid and useless because I can't get her out. I now feel it morally wrong NOT TO TAKE A PERSON OUT IF YOU CAN.
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  Mad Sweeney

  I now feel it morally wrong NOT TO TAKE A PERSON OUT IF YOU CAN.

  I agree. The borg is THAT bad. One exception: the elderly. If someone has wasted their entire life on this nonsense, it might be cruel to make their last years full of regret; they're probably already feeling that anyway.
• 

  yknot

  I am sooooooooo sorry DGP.......

  She cared, she really did..... TMS training is just strongly instilled into most of us and it oozes out of our pores unintentionally.

  The WTS relies heavily on automatic trained responses.

  
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  BluesBrother

  The technique they teach in this book involves a lot of manipulation and acting.

  Yes...Most of us have been there and done it all. I was a School Overseer at one time in a congregation. Believe me, when you are on the inside one looks at it differently. It does not seem wrong to use what are basically sales techniques. We They, are not getting a profit, they believe they do it for the house holder's good. Even though they are not open and honest about all they believe, they dress it up to seem appealing - they still believe that they are "spreading the good news" ....

  The hard part is to get an active dub to see it for what it really is. Good luck ..