Did You Ever Make the Pilgrimage? (page 3)

shamus100

I know one poster that made a pilgramage to MR, Rusell's grave and has a wonderful picture of said poster smoking a bong in front of it. Priceless.

breakfast of champions

Living within the Bethel "footprint," no pilgrimage was necessary. Bethel was right here. Remarkably, all the nonsense these Bethelites inflicted upon us all makes sense to me now....

As one poster here used to exclaim:

It's a cult!

I was fortunate enough to visit Brooklyn Bethel many times from 1977-1984, and also visited Wallkill and Patterson a few times. My last visits to Wallkill and Patterson were in 1997 and my last visit to Brooklyn Bethel was in 2003. So I never got to see the changes. The new operations in Wallkill, the new printery and the rennovation of the 117 adams street complex in Brooklyn.

I LOVED visiting Bethel. I was amazed and facinated by the huge printing operations. I love seeing books and magazines printed and bound, watchting the huge high speed presses and seeing the books go through the binding processes. I have wanted to make my own books since 8th grade!

My brother and I knew several Bethelites who we visited over the years. We had lunch as guests often and in 1978 even got to stay overnight as weekend guests at the Towers building. I loved the freedom to go to the Bethel libraries-I read and looked through boxes of old tracts and bound volumes of the km!!!! Too bad km bvs were only done for Bethel.

I loved seeing the huge buildings, the watchtowers on the roofs of the 124 col hts and 77 sands bldgs.

I WISH I could take the tours of the 117 Adams st complex and the 25-30 office complex and the Wallkill printery again. But I can't. I have no way to get there and no one to go with.

The printeries were CLEAN. Go to other printing companies and see the dried ink and tar and papers all over the floor. Go to Bethel- see how CLEAN it is!

There was almost always something new to see at Bethel. And I felt a very close tie with the organization because of my frequent visits there back then. Everything was peaceful. I enjoyed visiting Bethel very much and I miss those visits.

ohiocowboy

I went to Bethel for a visit, and I had the priveledge of having lunch with all of the Bethelites. To my dismay though, Liver was the main course. Of all days, I chose a Liver day. Had I only known. Of course I had to eat it all, as I didn't want to waste something that Jehovah had provided and was lovingly cooked by one of Jehovah's chefs. Right then and there I should have realized what my future held as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

factfinder

They were serving liver during one of our visits too! But the brother we were visiting knew we did not care for it so we went out to a resturaunt for lunch!

alg1052

This is interesting. I never visited Bethel for similar reasons as yours. In addition, my mind was made up against going from the time they required visitors to dress in a certain way as if they were setting their feet on holy ground.

Meeting Junkie No More

Quendi:

Here's a good book I've used to sniff out some of the more obscure sacred places to visit:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cdM3qHlNeb4C&sitesec=reviews

Another FANTASTIC spot I can highly recommend is Montserrat Monastery about 1.5 hours northwest of Barcelona in Spain. Haven't been to Stonehenge - that's still on my list!

On the WT Factory front, I could really relate to Painted Toe Nail's description of the tour guide with the personality of a limp dishrag! We must have had the same tour guide - can't really blame the guy though, seeing as to what the tour actually consisted of...

LongHairGal

Quendi:

Yes, I made this "pilgrimage" a few times. Once to the "farm" in Walkill in the early years just before I was baptized and then twice to Brooklyn some years later. I have to admit I was impressed with what I saw as extreme efficiency and cleanness and the peaceful feeling I felt. However, I realize they had put their best foot forward to any visitors and I could not possibly know what politics goes on behind the scenes.

You are totally right that people's attitudes of "reverence" and awe are very much akin to other people's attitudes towards other religious holy places such as Rome (which I also visited), Mecca and Jerusalem. No difference as far as I can see. In fact, if the JW religion were around for a very long time you would see this intensified. Every religion has their supposed "holy" places. As far as I was concerned, Quendi, the JW religion was looking more and more like other religions of Christendom every day.

JWdaughter

I've been to Brooklyn, Salt Lake City AND Makkah! Makkah was a lot more interesting, and definitely had a spiritual component to it. Bethel was kind of-well, it was in Brooklyn. I mean, honestly. It is a publisher of books in Brooklyn NY. I also visited the NY times, worked at a publishers and a newspaper. Seriously, visiting Bethel was visiting a business enterprise, that is all.

leavingwt

The first time I saw Bethel, I was a Bethelite.

I would have never applied, had I visited earlier.

Did You Ever Make the Pilgrimage?

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