Do the R&F really know where the WT came from?

by tornapart 30 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  InterestedOne

  tornapart wrote:

  Sweep it all under the carpet and maybe they won't notice.....and if they do notice they'll never understand because their minds are under complete control....

  Particularly effective mind control phrases in this context are "the light gets brighter" and "where else would we go?"

  Another powerful mind control tactic was articulated to me by my study conductor's wife. She said that once someone gets baptized as a JW, he/she is pledging to be loyal to his/her fellow JW's, has become part of a family, and forms a strong bond like that between a husband and wife. She explained that a loyal spouse will be quick to forgive his/her spouse's shortcomings and isn't interested in digging up dirt from the past.

  tornapart, were you a baptized Witness, and if so, did you feel as if you were being disloyal or a traitor by looking into the origins of the WT? If so, how did you get past this kind of emotional manipulation by the organization?

  Edit: I apologize if that is too heavy/personal of a question. I am just curious how people manage to shed the emotional burden placed on them by the organization's tactics.
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  reslight2

  The Watch Tower Society as created by Russell and his associates had nothing at all to do with the Masons, the occult, or "Enochian Magic".This has all been conjured up in the imagination of men who seek to find what they wish to find.

  http://ctr.reslight.net
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  reslight2

  The Watch Tower Society as Russell originally designed it was not meant to be used as a headquarters for an authoritarian religious organization such as the Jehovah's Witnesses.
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  reslight2

  The evidence is overwhelming that the Great Pyramid was designed by God; Russell's and the Bible Students' study of this from the Biblical standpoint has nothing to do with occultism, spiritism, demonism, etc.

  http://gp.reslight.net

  http://ctr.reslight.net/?cat=14
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  Band on the Run

  People in my KH barely knew Knorr's name. A few knew Freddie Franz. (Brother Franz). They had no clue about the origins. I doubt they knew Rutherford or Russell. Frankly, though, how many Catholics can name popes and antipopes or the various councils. It is hard enough keeping up with ever changing doctrine.
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  outsmartthesystem

  "What this means, of course, is that the WT can get away with anything. When they teach nonsense, they are just imperfect men being led out of darkness by God. When they teach something that actually does make sense, it is evidence that they are being led by God. For a true believer, they are being led by God no matter what they do."

  That's what makes this cult so dangerous. So long as Proverbs 4:18 continues to be interpreted in that way..........they will ALWAYS be right.

  "My mom even went so far as to say that clearly "This Rutherford wasn't working under the direction of Holy Spirit, whoever he was". Okay...let me get this straight...you've been a JW since the friggin' 70's, you have all these old books and EVIDENCE in your personal library, you've watched every single piece of trash video or DVD put out by the Watchtower...and you don't know who the hell RUTHERFORD is????"

  This is exactly how my wife is. It is simply how JWs are trained to think! Remember....critical thinking skills have been eroded if not completely destroyed in most witnesses. A reasonably intelligent person with critical thinking ability will say to himself "if I am going to devote my life to an organization that claims to speak for God....I should probably do some research into the "proof" of their divine selection". A person that is the victim of Watchtower propaganda and indoctrination is first taught to believe that they'll live forever in a mansion on a lake overlooking a mountain and they'll have picnics everyday be a beautiful stream with all their dead loved ones while they pet lions and tigers. Once that takes hold, the mind doesn't want to let go of it and justifies that somehow it is not necessary to investigate the ORIGINS of the religion or ANYTHING in the past.
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  tornapart

  @InterestedOne.. I'm a born-in, been baptised almost 40 years. I've always been interested in history and the JW history was no exception. I love to read and am probably one of the few that read the Proclaimers book from cover to cover and it threw up more questions than answers. So learning all the real history has been an eye opener to me. Having always had a rather independent streak against self imposed authority I had no qualms about finding out about it and I'm glad I did, even though it has been traumatic. Do I feel disloyal.. absolutely not!

  @reslight. I'm sure Russell was a very sincere man in his beliefs. That doesn't make them right. He was clearly a FreeMason, he said so in his own words, the literature was covered with FreeMason symbols, he was buried in a FreeMason cemetry and many of his beliefs were those of FreeMasons. I cannot hold with this. He started the Watchtower Society and even though he was dead against religious organisation, this is what it has ended up as. I can't see it has God's backing.
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  InterestedOne

  tornapart - It sounds like the WT's emotional tactics didn't work with you. I've noticed tones in the literature that remind me of abusive relationships in which an abuser attempts to make someone feel unappreciative, unloving, disloyal, a traitor, etc. for questioning the abuser's integrity. I'm glad to hear this kind of manipulation didn't take hold with you. I brought it up because you mentioned the mind control aspect of the JW experience. One reason why the R&F do not know where the WT came from is that the WT emotionally manipulates them such that they avoid doing a thorough background check.
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  Phizzy

  The average JW is much like a child who has only been given a sketchy, incomplete, twisted and edited version of his family history, but he thinks his parents are the same as everybody elses, he is not aware that his parents feed him crap, restrict his freedom ,keep knowledge from him,etc, the average JW thinks the Org is O.K.

  "Look at what they have done for me!" they say, not aware of the abuse they are suffering.

  It is sad, but like the abused child, who is often loyal to the parents, the JW feels a huge discomfort at even a small doubt, with that degree of mind control, it is nearly impossible to get them to look at things in a way that will help them see TTATT.
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  tornapart

  For many years I did go along with it all because I did actually believe it had God's backing and believed all the things that were wrong would get sorted. Some things did .. and it was an 'I knew it was wrong and I was right' moment. But then some things changed for the worse. It wasn't until I got Ray Franz's books and read them that everything fell into place and my mind became completely liberated. Now I answer to God alone and no one else.