While having a conversation at a night club with two guys ( I go salsa dancing at least 3 times per week) I was telling of a story of a time I went with a friend to a strip club but we left because our consiences felt guilty ( my friend was still in bethel). So I said "Since I was a member of this religion". At that moment one of they guys immediately asked me "which religion?". I was a Jehovah's Witness- I said.
His eyes got wide open. And he said "no, you weren't, I cant believe you, I was a Jehovah's witness too, I got Dfd 10 years ago".
Since my contact with X-jws is mostly limited to "Apostates" I always remind myself that many XJW are still under the influence of the Kool-Aid.
So, before I continued I asked him what he believed. "Do you think JWs are the true religion?"-I asked.
He said yes, and that he always sees himself as going back and reuniting with his two little children (He converted his exwife while being Dfd and now she is full-on JW and his two kids are on their way)
So I realized that even though he is out, he is still in. I was in that situation for 14 years myself. So I said to him that I was sincere and that I wanted to go back last year but decided to do a lot of biblical research before that. So I did..., "what do you believe now?" he asked.
Well I dont believe the bible is inspired by God, Actually I am a Atheist- I responded.
I decided to let him ask me questions instead of just listing all the things that I found. So he did. During the conversation he would stop me and say that half of his brain kept telling him to stop listening to me. (Since he knows me for some years and I am quite respected in the Salsa dancing world, he continues listening and controlled the desire to leave) He told me that his new girlfriend(another Salsa dancer whom I know) is also an Ex-Jw.
You could tell he got excited to find out about my past. I steared the conversation towards the mind control issue. And exhorted him to do some research on that, instead of the doctrinal issues. As another guy was listening (a calvinist friend of both of us) he kept telling him that this topic was very difficult. "I rather watch porn than going to an apostate website."-he said.
I mentioned a couple of videos (the wave, high school experiment. The Standford prison experiment, etc) I recommend him to watch them. At that moment you could see that something clicked on his head and suddenly all his doubts got validation and that he realized the mind control. It was quite interesting to see that happen, he immediately started saying how irrational were his fears and that he could feel them right now. He was a regular pioneer for 7 years and a ministerial servant before getting Dfd.
I was a good night of Anti-witnessing to make up for all the hours of witnessing I did when I was a pioneer too. The same feeling I had when I showed the "truth" in the past was refreshed to help someone wake up from the "lie".
Ive talked to 5 Dfds, I got 1 scared and 4 awaken.... So it is possible. Anyway I just wanted to share here.
PS:This morning he replied by facebook that he and his Gf had watched the video and that they liked it a lot. lets see what happens next.