I can totally agree and relate to your experience as it has happened to me as well. I am still in, and I've had the "privilege" to work in the sound department for many special day, circuit and district conventions. So I know all to well what happens behind the scenes and its not at all what a faithful Jdubby would think it is.
Anyway, I recently had to give my experience about when and how I started pioneering at this past circuit assembly entitled "You are no part of this world" (or something like that) and I can honestly tell you with all my heart that almost 97% of what I said was complete bull. It was not real but merely based on the smallest of facts, twisted and shaped into something else. What they wanted me to say. What they wanted to hear. It still bugs me know, I hate that I agreed to do their dirty work. I hate how controlling and manipulating they are, and how easily I was used.
It all started when I graduated from high school. I wanted to go to college to get a degree on something but was literally bombareded by elders, brothers, sisters, CO's, DO's, and watchtower literature telling me that education was bad and that the end was all too close for me to be wasting it on imperfect human knowledge and that that was all that Satan wanted me to do. So I decided not to go becuase of all the pressure and because at the time, even though I was already snooping around "apostate" websites, I still somewhat believed a little of what was going on in there...(funny, it was actually during that assembly that I discovered JWN!!!) But anyway, I was a little upset about my decision but kept quiet and then the CO came to visit and basically forced me to become a Pioneer. He said that "if I -and I quote- wasn't a pioneer by the time he saw me again, that something was wrong with me and that I would be wasting my life and showing lack of love for Jehovah and his organization". I was very pissed but I did it anyway, mostly for my parents. And so the next time he visited you can guess what the first thing he asked me was...
Skip ahead several months...
I get a phone call from an elder I do not know telling me that he needs a young brother who had started pioneering during or right after high school and that the CO had recommended me to give an experience at the circuit assembly. So I said that I was a pioneer and met the requirements but also asked him what exactly it was that he was looking for, and he said that I was what he was looking for and that he was only going to ask me 2 questions about how i decided to become a pioneer and how it had helped me and proctected me from "worldy influences" and how I showed that I was no part of this world. So I gave him the truth. Told him I had'nt planned on pioneering but how I wanted to go to college instead and how the CO had "pushed" me to just forget everything else and pioneer. And also how It really hadn't protected me from wordly influences since I didn't really have any, and that all I did was just preach everyday, all day sometimes.
He paused, you could hear him thinking, formulating something in his "Holy Spirited" little head. After a long silence and a few muffled coughs he tells me "well, that is good to hear, I believe that you would do great if you gave this experience" Then I puased, I was a little startled. I said "what experience?" and he said, "what you just said" then he added in a strange tone, "don't worry, we'll make it work". And so I said "okay, but what do you mean?" Then he literally started to make something up about how I had troubles and pressure at school from students, teachers, and guidence counselers to go for higher education and how I had rejected it all and decided to dedicate my life to Jehovah by pioneering and that It had been a great help because since I was preaching all the time I had no time for worldy influences and that I was not only showing the world but also showing Satan that I was not part of his world. Ugh, just typing it all again makes me sick.
And so sadly, I gave in to their crap agian, and I literally lied in front of 2,000+ people about how I was something I wasn't and how searching for higher education was wrong and bad... I hated it so much.
What made it worse is that after I gave that "experience" this young brother around his mid 20's, a former bethelite, whom I have never really liked and who has never really liked me, comes up to me and says "So, how does it feel to go up there and encourage all those kids to stop educating themselves?" I was furious, and had to make a fist and bite my tongue to control the raging ball of fire that had formed inside my gut, and just looked at him, stared staight into his eyes, and walked away.
I still feel horrible for what I did, and I can only hope that most of those other young ones in the org. that heard my experience ignore it, block it out of their minds and use their brains to educate themselves.
Oh and it wasn't just me that lied. On rehearsal day, I got to hear everyone's experiences and talks and demos as they were rehearsed infront of the CO and DO and even though they were all greatly exagerated, they still bent them more and more out of shape to form them into something ugly and repugnant.
Knowing what I know now, I will never give another experience at any assembly ever again.
