Inappropriate - Sick - WT & Awake articles over the years.

by Essan 34 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Essan
    Essan

    I remember as a kid reading an article - not sure if Watchtower or Awake - which terrified the life out of me! I remember thinking at the time "Ok, this may be true, but I'm just a kid, I shouldn't be reading this!"

    Some of the details remain imprinted on my mind decades later. It described JW's in Africa, in Witch-doctor infested territory, and JW's supposed battles with 'demons'. On, as I recall, described them dealing with a 'possessed' girl, they said when they saw her, her face contorted and kind of transfigured into the face of a lion. The JW's went into another room to talk with the father, and they heard a scream from the room where the girl was, alone. They burst in and found her head twisted right round the wrong way, her neck broken, I presume, killed by the demons.

    I read this as a child an had nightmares for months. Now, time may have distorted this memory of this a little, but I remember it was deeply gruesome and inappropriate for children. Does anyone else recall this article?

    I recall another which graphically (I won't even repeat it here) described the injuries to a little girl who was raped by a boy not much older than her. In fact, I remember all sorts of hideous and traumatic things being written about in the Literature.

    Now, it's bad enough the JW children are told they can be 'no part of the world' and can't do many of the things normal children do, that we were discouraged from a full education and career, and that we constantly feared death at Armageddon if we weren't "good enough", that we were made to fear the world and the coming persecution in "The Tribulation", and that we believed were going to see the slaughter of millions - but should we also have been terrorized by sick and graphic themes totally inappropriate for children in magazines and other literature that we were REQUIRED to read?

    Do you recall any such articles which badly affected you?

  • AudeSapere
    AudeSapere

    There were 2 yearbooks that were just soo inappropriate for children. One focused alot on Malawi. My mom read it to us each morning at breakfast before we left for school. There was the follow-up admonition that we should be thankful that we live in America where, at the moment, the worst thing we had to endure was scorn from our classmates for not celebrating holidays and not saluting the flag. At least we weren't being raped and beaten in public by strangers (beatings from dad didn't count as persecution).

    The other year book was all about the holocaust.

    I also have some visuals that I got from those early morning reading sessions. Too graphic to mention the details of the various torture methods.

    -Aude.

  • Scully
    Scully

    I can remember the Yearbook - mid 70s - that covered Experiences™ of JWs during the Nazi occupation and of JWs doing forced labour in concentration camps. We practiced "skits" on the platform on how we'd have to do the Preaching Work™ under ban, how we'd hide Literature™, how we'd have to use code words, and move meetings so there would be no identifiable location. How we'd have to destroy congregation address / phone number lists so the Government couldn't find us.

    I was maybe 10 - 12 years old. Way to bring on the paranoia, Watchtower.

  • Violia
    Violia

    I can remember going out in service and the young sisters talking about rape ( in regard to all the stories of of jw women being raped) while being a virgin. They felt that if you were married it would not matter if you were raped. Only they mattered.

  • EmergedAsMe
    EmergedAsMe

    Yes...

    When I was a kid I was terrified of being treated how the nazis treated the jews. I remember a story about a congregation that hid in the roof and everyone had to be silent as they were raided by someone (I can't remember, probably nazis). I remember my mother asking me if I could be silent enough, and how any noise and they could all die. Imagine a child having to feel like they could realistically be in a situation where their life depended on whether they made a single sound or not!! (Well... I am sure many of you do not need to imagine feeling that way). The stories that were more graphic like public beatings and rape really bothered me – because I felt so bad for those people.

    It is horrible growing up feeling like you have a real potential to be tortured, humiliated and raped. And all in the name of something I wasn't sure of. How unfair it sometimes seemed to have been born a JW!

  • agonus
    agonus

    Yeah, I always remember the stories of how Jehovah "blinded" the Nazis when they were looking for the hidden typewriter or the secret stash of Watchtower literature... of course, He never actually did that for his followers who died in the concentration camps... the paper is spared but the people are not... nice... real nice...

  • agonus
    agonus

    BTW Essan, I remember this article. 'The ousted demons had their revenge. They wrung her neck, killing her like a chicken!" And the stories about the demons sexually molesting people. Yeah, that's just what a sensitive child with OCD needs to hear.

    Seriously, what GOOD can stories like this POSSIBLY do for kids?!

  • agonus
    agonus

    But God forbid my little girl eat a birthday cupcake...

    Fuckers...

  • designs
    designs

    There were a lot of articles and talks over the years that deserved an R rating. Topics minors shouldn't be exposed to or at least we as parents should decide when they are old enough to handle 'adult' topics. But there you are stuck at a Meeting or Assembly and they start going into graphic detail about prison life or rape or sexually positions and your 5 year old is sitting with you looking stunned and scared.

    My mother got active again as a Witness when I was going into the 7th grade. For the next six years the sensational things being discussed by these new peers and friends were the bizarre happenings going on in Jamaica and Africa and the odd beliefs that items purchased at garage sales were demon possessed. I think by the time I graduated from High School I had some really weird heebeegeebee ideas of how things worked in the world.

  • carvin
    carvin

    All the articals and even more graphic talks about sex are not what I would call appropriate for children. I have heard some talks that were boarderline pornographic. These articals and talks not only mess up kids they at times mess up adults. I remember an artical about sex within marrage from around 1985, and in a few talks around the same time and later. Three things were said have that always stuck with me as being assanine. 1.) If a homosexual person does it then you can't do it in the marrage bed. 2.) If you can pay a prostitute for it, you can't do it. 3.) The time a married couple spent having sex could be better used knocking on doors. Of course these are paraphrases but you get the idea.

    I know this messes up adults as well as kids as my wife "studied" this artical before we got married, ans as a result we have never had oral sex, because of "what the WT said" She had a child before we met and told me she loves oral sex but from the day we read the artical it was out of bounds.

    Let's not forget the Awake with all the faces of young children sacrficed on the no blood alter. That was/is the most sickening IMO. They were just chilrden....................................I'm sorry I have to go cry now.. F@&% the WT

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