Just how do the 144,000 co-rule the earthly organization with Christ? I started thinking about this subject again after seeing the post on the Watchtower as a false prophet. Do any of you remember how this was explained in the old days (I've been out so long I don't know if this is now "old light")? As I recall, the Society said that the living members of the 144,000 had the mysterious ability to pick up on what Jesus and God were thinking and then they somehow transferred this information to Watchtower Headquarters for dispersal to the rank & file JWs. The explaination was always very foggy and after reading Crises of Conscience I can see why.
Even Ray Franz was shocked to discover that the 144,000 really had no method in place to communicate with Headquarters and were never sought out for advice or consent on anything. Only his uncle, Fred Franz, really acted as the medium by which God "communicated". In essence, the explanation promoted by the Watchtower Society was yet another in a long line of lies. Not only were their interpretations and prophecies all false but even the method they claimed by which they came to them were just flat out untrue.
The old wine slurping-bread crunching bunch had nothing to do with how the Watchtower was run, unless they happened to be the President or his right hand man. One of the excuses the Society always used as to why they were not a cult was the claim that JWs did not follow a single powerful charismatic leader. This too is a lie as the policies and prophesies of the Watchtower Society have always come from one or two powerful men at the top who were the defacto dictators of the cult.
When confronted by his nephew in this regard Fred Franz admitted as much by saying he was a special designated teacher above all other JWs. Completely unknown to us R&F JWs back then was the fact that all of our strong held beliefs were the products of Fred Franz's and Judge Rutherford's fevered imaginations. Our whole lives revolved around what a few men made up from their own understanding while we were led to believe that the whole body of the living 144,000 "princes" were being guided by God. The Society's real leaders knew that their explaination was 100% false and yet chose to decieve us all in order to keep us from questioning their secret power and status. I remember thinking back then about just how the little old ladies in our congregation from the 144,000 could be directing the whole operation. Such questions were set aside as another in the growing catagory of the mysterious "deep things of God". It was deep all right!