any comments?

by Daemia 15 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Solace

  Gheeesh, I feel like I just read a watchtower.
  It sure has the J.W. spin on it.
  This writer must work in the W.T.S publishing department.
  Seriously,
  I do think most J.W.s are good people.
  They are slightly abused and made fun of in this society.
  I believe that witnesses are even more manipulated and emotionally abused by their own organizaton though.
• 

  Daemia

  that's one of the sadest things, heaven.....

  Regards,
  Daemia
• 

  LizardSnot

  It was blah blah blah boring rhetoric!
• 

  dungbeetle

  Jehovah's Witnesses: A growing phenomenon
  Times of Zambia, September 21, 1999

  Lusaka (Times of Zambia, September 21, 1999) - There's a loud knock at the front door in one of Lusaka's residential areas. A man opens the door slowly as he waits for an immaculately dressed man carrying a briefcase and brochures to state his business. The smiling young man introduces himself as one of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

  Before his introduction is over the owner of the house retorts, "I am not interested. I also have my own religion so please leave me alone," as he bangs the door.

  This scene is typical of the reception that normally greets many Jehovah's Witnesses as they preach. They are viewed by many as a controversial, argumentative lot and as such are often given a cold shoulder by society in general.

  Jehovah's Witnesses have endured rebuke in homes, places of work and learning institutions. According to recorded history, they are one single group of people that has experienced persecution because of their religious beliefs.

  Thousands upon thousands have lost their lives on account of being associated with the organisation. Historian Johns Conway of a Canadian university observed that in the Adolf Hitler days, of the millions who died in the Nazi holocaust, some were Jehovah's Witnesses. In some countries, their activities had been banished for several years, their activities declared criminal and illegal by any means. Malawi, Russia, Poland, Nazi Germany were such countries whereas in the US some eight senior members of the organisation had to be rescued from jail by a supreme court order. However, despite all this opposition, invigorated by other more powerful religious organisations, the Jehovah's Witnesses have grown. They have been to about every home and no one can say they have not met one or been approached by a witness.

  Who are these people? What makes them so unique or stand out from other religious organisations? According to one of their publications Jehovah's Witnesses are a world wide association of brothers and sisters united in love and actively bear witness regarding (their) true God, Jehovah, and His purposes regarding mankind. Its history is traced back to Pennsylvania US in the 1870s when Charles Taze Russell gave up business and founded the modern day Jehovah's Witnesses religious organisation that has remarkably grown over the years. They are neither a sect (break away from another established religion or off-set of some other church), nor are they a cult (a religion said to be unorthodox).

  The stand for what is orthodox or doctrinal, according to them, is purely, that which is based on the Bible. At first they were known as Bible students, with the founder Russell elected its first president and succeeded at his death by Joseph Franklin Rutherford, but in 1931 adopted the scriptural name Jehovah's Witnesses, as they are known today. They operate under the legal name of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (WBTS), incorporated as a non-profit making corporation in 1884 with its world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, with branch offices established in many parts of the world.

  Presently, it is estimated that there are six million members of Jehovah's Witnesses in 210 places and islands of the world, with Zambia reported to have over 300, 000. The number is increasing as the dedicated witnesses zealously carry round-the-clock preaching work, their main commission as "servants" of God.

  They do vigorous preaching work through door-to-door visitations on the streets, at places of work, schools and markets using the Bible and Bible-based publications, mainly The Watchtower and Awake magazines including booklets produced by the Society. In recent years, a publication called Knowledge that leads to everlasting life has become the most widely-used material. Many who have read this booklet have come to admit that it is the proper synopsis of the Bible and personality of its author, God our Creator.

  The WBTS operates systematically. It has a governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses (with headquarters in New York) with 10 Christians. At local or branch level, experienced and mature men are designated as elders or overseers. These with assistance of faithful men known as ministerial servants, supervise their various congregations and look after their spiritual needs, on purely voluntary basis.

  The congregations have regular meetings - three times a week apart from the main Sunday meeting at a local Kingdom hall as their meeting structures are called. Once a year, three to four-day conventions, called district conventions, are arranged in each country, where thousands of people from all walks of life, some of them families, gather at one place and enjoy a spiritual banquets for their faith strengthening. Because of the magnitude of their activity - making the kingdom message available to an even greater number of people - the society has had to do its own printing work using volunteer workers, to ensure constant production of Bible literature at the lowest cost, using modern state-of-the-art technology.

  The Society has also had to establish intensive training programmes for those wanting to be full-time ministers. These programmes are done at places called Bethel homes. Zambia's Bethel home and society branch office is located in Makeni in Lusaka.

  Why are Jehovah's Witnesses considered controversial? They do not believe in the Trinity which is defined as the central doctrine of many other religious groupings where it is believed that there are three divine persons - the father, Son and the Holy Spirit - each said to be eternal, mighty, none greater or less than the other, yet being put as one. Arguments have been advanced both for and against, to support reasoning behind, and it has continued to show one major difference with the rest of the religious organisations.

  The witnesses have however, apart from several Bible verses, also relied on some authorities that have been issued at various fora. For instance, the Encyclopedia Brittanica says: "Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Old Testament where it says "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. . . (Deuteronomy 6:4) - see 1976 Micropedia Vol X page 126. The New Catholic Encyclopedia also states: "The formulation 'one God' in three persons was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith.

  Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective" - (1967) Vol.XIV, page 299. The Encyclopaedia Americana, in its 1956 Vol. XXVII production on page 294L, further says, " Fourth century Trinitarian did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God, it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching." Another controversial issue is on blood transfusions. Several times Jehovah's Witnesses have been called murderers, even taken to court for refusing their children to have a blood transfusion when faced with a health crisis, but have been resolute in their stand to "abstain" from blood, for doing otherwise would violate God's law.

  To show how serious their stand is on the matter, adult dedicated witnesses move with cards in their pockets and handbags so that even in case of an emergency there is no blood transfused. "If it means dying because of lack of blood, better that than violate God's laws", they say! However, recent scientific developments have made surgeons adhere to the witnesses' wishes, as it has been proved that "all types of surgery can be performed successfully without blood transfusions".

  This includes, according to one medical journal in New York, brain surgery, amputation of limbs, and total removal of cancerous organs. Jehovah's Witnesses, in line with the Bible principles they believe in, do not participate in what they call worldly issues like gambling, smoking, spiritism, faith-healing, drugs at cetera and are choosy on entertainment - immoral and violent films.

  They are against their Bible-trained consciences, as much as abortions, object or image veneration. As much as possible, Jehovah's Witnesses avoid the snares of materialism, especially to the point where spiritual matters would suffer negation.

  This can be either in secular employment or self-employment. They do not participate in all political activities neither do they take sides with or give support to either of two or more contending parties. They do not interfere with what others do in matters like joining a political party as seen in their neutrality in all wars of the world. They do not, as much as possible, allow themselves to be overwhelmed or weighed down by problems of the world like economic difficulties, increasing crime et cetera.

  They do not actually believe in dealing with problems of the world in a worldly way! Some of their identical marks are zeal and diligence in their ministry, determination to advertise the kingdom of (their) God, discipline and strong faith. They are a peaceful people and endeavour to be humble at all times no matter what opposition or persecution they face. A witness during the Nazi days was humiliated by being made to stand naked in front of 12 men who ended up raping her! That was not the end; she was sentenced to several years imprisonment because of her unwavering beauty! Today, still alive but old and free, she is more vigorous in her preaching work and does not harbour hard feelings for that experience.

  She even managed to convert one of her rapists, he became a witness! Over the years, more and more people have begun to accept Jehovah's Witnesses and respect their choice of worship. There's calm and harmony where initially there was acrimony. Marriages that were on the verge of collapse have stabilised, with some spouses even won over.

  Prejudices are now rare, as more speak well of Jehovah's Witnesses. "Jehovah's Witnesses are more or less to be admired." says Seher Grubler, Enthusiasten (Visionaries, Ponderers, Enthusiasts) of 1982, a German book. Though somewhat critical of the witnesses, the book admits: "In general, they live blameless, middle-class lives. They are diligent and conscientious in their work, are quiet citizens and honest tax payers.

  "Their discipline is praise worthy. Their self-sacrificing spirit is one par with any religious group; as regards the ministry they top others", says the book.

  Recently in Spain, the mayor of a seaport city presented a plaque to the local Jehovah's Witnesses in "appreciation for their collaboration and efforts on behalf of the city for the well-being of the citizenry". When all else is considered, the Jehovah's Witnesses are indeed a growing phenomenon world wide. As one Catholic nun in Italy said of them, "wherever they are, the Jehovah's Witnesses reveal signatures of humility, sound-mind, kindness, peace and integrity as regards the word of God".

  Are you still going to slam your door in the face of a Jehovah's Witness?
• 

  dungbeetle

  and here's the disclaimer I mentioned.

  The information on this site was posted to offer the public a resource concerning controversial and/or potentially unsafe groups--some that have been called "cults"--and related subjects.
  The mention and/or inclusion of a group or leader within this website's pages does not define that group as a "cult" and/or an individual mentioned as either destructive and/or harmful. Instead, such inclusion simply reflects some archived articles and/or research made available about a group or person that has generated some interest and/or controversy. All such information should of course be evaluated critically, through a process of individual and independent judgment. Please note that there are links often prominently placed at the top of individual pages to a group's own official website, which may reflect another viewpoint. See what they have to say.

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• 

  dungbeetle

  Found this and though ti was interesting and pertinent to our board:

  Chapter 6: "Black Lightning"
  IN ALL THE WORLD, there is nothing quite so impenetrable as a human mind snapped shut with bliss. No call to reason, no emotional appeal can get through its armor of self-proclaimed joy.

  We talked with dozens of individuals in this state of mind: cult members, group therapy graduates, born-again Christians, some Transcendental Meditators. After a while, it seemed very much like dancing to a broken record. We would ask a question, and the individual would spin round and round in a circle of dogma. If we tried to interrupt, he or she would simply pick right up again or go back to the beginning and start over.

  Soon we began to realize that what we were watching went much deeper. These people were not simply incapable of carrying on a genuine conversation, they were completely mired in their unthinking, unfeeling, uncomprehending states. Whether cloistered in cults or passing blindly through the world, they were impervious to the pain of parents, spouses, friends and lovers. How do you reach such people? Can they be made to think and feel again? Is there any way to reunite them with their former personalities and the world around them?

  A man named Ted Patrick developed the first remedy. A controversial figure dubbed by the cult world Black Lightning, Patrick was the first to point out publicly what the cults were doing to America's youth. He investigated the ploys by which many converts were ensnared and delved into the methods many cults used to manipulate the mind.

  He was also the first to take action. In the early seventies, Patrick began a one-man campaign against the cults. His fight started in Southern California, on the Pacific beaches where, in the beginning, organizations such as the Hare Krishna and the Children of God recruited among the vacationing students and carefree dropouts who covered the sands in summer and roamed the bustling beach communities year round. The Children of God approached Patrick's son there one day and nearly made off with him. Patrick investigated, was horrified at what he found, and immediately set out on a course of direct action. His first-hand experiences with cult techniques and their effects led him to develop an antidote he named "deprogramming," a remarkably simple and-when properly used-nearly foolproof process for helping cult members regain their freedom of thought.

  Before long, Ted Patrick was in action all over the country on behalf of desperate parents. Through the seventies, he made front page headlines in the east for his daring daylight kidnappings of Ivy League cult members. He made network news for his interstate car chases in the Pacific Northwest to elude both cult leaders and state troopers. And eventually he made American legal history. In his ultimate defense of the U.S. Constitution, Patrick challenged the confusion of First Amendment rights surrounding the cult controversy and drew an important distinction between Americans' guaranteed national freedoms of speech and religion and their more fundamental human right to freedom of thought. In precedent-setting cases, U.S. courts confirmed Patrick's argument that, by "artful and deceiving" means, the new cults were in fact robbing people of their natural capacity to think and choose. To that time, it was never considered possible that a human being could be stripped of this basic endowment.

  In many courtrooms, however, Ted Patrick lost his case for freedom of thought, gathering a stack of convictions for kidnapping and unlawful detention. In unsuccessful attempts to free cult members from their invisible prisons, Patrick was repeatedly thrown into real ones, in New York, California and Colorado. In July 1976, during a time when Americans were celebrating their two hundredth year of freedom, Patrick was sentenced to serve a year in prison for a cult kidnapping he did not in fact perform.

  Patrick confirmed our own perspective when he described the method of control used by many cults, beginning with the moment the recruiter hooks his listener.

  "They have the ability to come up to you and talk about anything they feel you're interested in, anything," he said. "Their technique is to get your attention, then your trust. The minute they get your trust, just like that they can put you in the cult."

  It was in 1971 that Patrick infiltrated the Children of God, the cult that had tried to recruit his son, Michael, one Fourth of July on Mission Beach in San Diego. His initial concern over the cults was personal but it also had a public side. Worried parents had already appealed to him for help in his official capacity as head of community relations for California's San Diego and Imperial counties. Patrick had moved to the area years earlier and became active in local politics working against discrimination in employment. During the Watts riots is Los Angeles in 1965, he helped calm racial unrest in San Diego. His public service caught the attention of then California's Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, who appointed Patrick, an active Democrat, to the community relations post.

  "Thinking to a cult member is like being stabbed in the heart with a dagger," said Patrick. "It's very painful because they've been told that the mind is Satan and thinking is the machinery of the Devil."

  Having gained personal insight into the manner in which that machinery may be brought to a halt, Patrick developed his controversial deprogramming procedure, the essence of which, he explained, was simply to get the individual thinking again.

  "When you deprogram people," he emphasized, "you force them to think. The only thing I do is shoot them challenging questions. I hit them with things that they haven't been programmed to respond to. I know what the cults do and how they do it, so I shoot them the right questions; and they get frustrated when they can't answer. They think they have the answer, they've been given answers to everything. But I keep them off balance and this forces them to begin questioning, to open their minds. When the mind gets to a certain point, they can see through all the lies that they've been programmed to believe. They realize that they've been duped and they come out of it. Their minds start working again."

  That, according to Patrick, was all there was to deprogramming. Yet since Patrick began deprogramming cult members, both the man and his procedure had taken on monstrous proportions in the public eye. Patrick's legendary kidnappings, a tactic he employed only as a last resort, often brought him into physical confrontation with cult members who had been warned that Black Lightning was an agent of Satan who would subject them to unimaginable tortures to get them to renounce their beliefs. Cult members who managed to escape their parents and Patrick before being deprogrammed frequently ran to the media with horror stories about the procedure. One young woman charged on national television that Patrick had ripped her clothes off and chased her nude body across the neighbors' lawns. Other active cult members claimed to have been brutally beaten by Patrick, yet no parent, ex-cult member or other reliable witness we talked to ever substantiated any of those charges. In truth, Patrick told us, and others later confirmed, many of the distortions that had been disseminated about deprogramming were part of a coordinated campaign by several cults to discredit his methods. In the end, he said, the propaganda only worked to his advantage.

  "The cults tell them that I rape the women and beat them. They say I lock them in closets and stuff bones done their throats." Patrick laughed. "What they don't know is that they're making my job easier. They come in here frightened to death of me, and then because of all the stuff they've been told, I can just sit there and look at them and I'll deprogram them just like that. They'll be thinking, What the hell is he going to do now? They're waiting for me to slap them or beat them and already their minds are working."

  In the beginning, Patrick admitted, he developed his method by trial and error, attempting to reason with cult members and learning each cult's rituals and beliefs until he cracked the code. Refining his procedure with each case, he came to understand exactly what was needed to pierce the cult's mental shield. Like a diamond cutter, he probed with his questions the rough surface of speech and behavior until he found the key point of contention at the center of each cult member's encapsulated beliefs. Once he found that point, Patrick hit it head on, until the entire programmed state of mind gave way, revealing the cult member's original identity and true personality that had become trapped inside.

  We asked him to describe a typical deprogramming from the beginning and, then, how he knew when a person had been deprogrammed, that is when he could say for sure that he had done his job.

  "The first time I lay eyes on a person," he said, staring at us intently, "I can tell if his mind is working or not. Then, as I begin to question him, I can determine exactly how he has been programmed. From then on, it's all a matter of language. It's talking and knowing what to talk about. I start moving his mind, slowly, pushing it with questions, and I watch every move that mind makes. I know everything it is going to do, and when I hit on that one certain point that strikes home, I push it. I stay with that question whether it's about God, the Devil or that person's having rejected his parents. I keep pushing and pushing. I don't let him get around it with the lies he's been told. Then there'll be a minute, a second, when the mind snaps, when the person realizes he's been lied to by the cult and he just snaps out of it. It's like turning on the light in a dark room. They're in an almost unconscious state of mind, and then I switch the mind from unconsciousness to consciousness and it snaps, just like that."

  It was Patrick's term this time we hadn't said the wordfor what happens in deprogramming. And in almost every case, according to Patrick, it came about just that suddenly. When deprogramming has been accomplished, the cult member's appearance undergoes a sharp, drastic change. He comes out of his trancelike state and his ability to think for himself is restored.

  "It's like seeing a person change from a werewolf into a man," said Patrick. "It's a beautiful thing. The whole personality changes, the eyes, the voice. Where they had hate and a blank expression, you can see feeling again."

  Snapping, a word Ted Patrick used often, is a phenomenon that appears to have extreme moments at both ends. A moment of sudden, intense change may occur when a person enters a cult, during lectures, rituals and physical ordeals. Another change may take place with equal, or even greater, abruptness when the subject is deprogrammed and made to think again. Once this breakthrough is achieved, however, the person is not just "snapped out" and home free. Deprogramming always requires a period of rehabilitation to counteract an interim condition Patrick called "floating Patrick told us, he recommended that his subjects return him to everyday life and normal social relationships as quickly as possible. In that environment, the individual, must then actively work to rebuild the fundamental capacities of thought and feeling that have been systematically destroyed.

  "Deprogramming is like taking a car out of the garage that hasn't been driven for a year," he said. "The battery has gone down, and in order to start it up you've got to put jumper cables on it. It will go dead again. So you keep the motor running until it builds up its own power. This is what rehabilitation is. Once we get the mind working, we keep it working long enough so that the person gets in the habit of thinking and making decisions again."

  Deprogramming added a whole new dimension to the already complex mystery of snapping. In one sense, deprogramming confirms that some drastic change takes place in the workings of the mind in the course of a cult member's experience, for only through deprogramming does it become apparent to everyone, including the cult member, that his actions, expressions and even his physical appearance have not been under his own control. In another sense, deprogramming is itself a form of sudden personality change. Because it appears to be a genuinely broadening, expanding personal change, it would seem to bear closer resemblance to a true moment of enlightenment, to the natural process of personal growth and newfound awareness and understanding, than to the narrowing changes brought about by cult rituals and artificially induced group ordeals.

  What is it like to experience the sudden snap of a deprogramming? As a result of Ted Patrick's efforts, and others, there are now thousands of answers to the question. Patrick claims to have personally deprogrammed more than two thousand cult members; thousands more have been deprogrammed by other deprogrammers and professional "exit counselors" who have since entered this fledgling field. In our first round of cross-country travels, we spoke with dozens of ex-cult members, many of whom had been deprogrammed by Patrick. As far as we could see, his clients showed no scars, either physical of mental, from their deprogramming experience. Most seemed to be healthy, happy, fully rehabilitated and completely free of the effects of cult life.

  In contrast to the many tales of cult conversion that we heard, which after a while began to sound virtually identical, each story of a Patrick deprogramming was its own spellbinding adventure, rich with intrigue and planned in minute detail. The first step in the process was almost always to remove the member from the cult, which might be accomplished by abduction, legal custodianship or, as Patrick seemed to prefer, simply a clever subterfuge.

  One puzzle of snapping that the deprogramming process illuminates is the enormous amount of mental activity that takes place in the unthinking, unfeeling state many cult members are drawn into. Ironically, most people we spoke with fought desperately to preserve their blissed-out states, although they often were saturated with fear, guilt, hatred and exhaustion. In the beginning this seemed to present a disturbing contradiction: How could an individual whose mind has apparently been shut off, who has been robbed of his freedom of thought, display such cunning and initiative? What the deprogramming process demonstrated is that cult members do not simply snap from a normal conscious state into one of complete unconsciousness (and vice versa during deprogramming). Rather, most pass from one frame of waking awareness into a second, entirely separate, frame of awareness in which they may be equally active and perceptive.

  We talked with an ex-member of the Church of Scientology, one the oldest and cagiest of America's cults, who took steps to preserve his cult frame of mind during his deprogramming, until Patrick's adept conversational skills caught his attention and he snapped out.

  "I tried to pretend that I was listening," this former Scientologist told us, "but I also tried to stay spaced out and not really pay attention. Occasionally, something would go pop and I would suddenly be listening to him. From his continuously talking like that, he just snapped me out of the spaced-out state I was in. All of a sudden I felt a little flushed. I could feel the blood rushing through my face."

  Through two decades of legal battles and repeated periods of imprisonment and probation, few people spoke up in defense of Ted Patrick or the pioneering work he was doing, ultimately, at his own great personal and financial expense. No mainstream mental health organization or established social institution has yet taken a stand on behalf of his concept of freedom of thought. Part of the problem, especially in those years, was attributed to Patrick's manner of action. In his single-minded focus on rescuing cult members, he minced no words and wasted little time on social niceties. As a result, he often irked and alienated those parents, clinicians and law enforcement officials who might otherwise be his natural allies.

  Yet, regardless of his style, the grave questions Patrick first flamboyantly brought to public attention are not the ones we can choose to like or dislike nor will they simply go away if we ignore them. Is an individual free to give up his freedom of thought? May a religion, popular therapy, political movement or any other enterprise systematically attack human thought and feeling in the name of God, the pursuit of happiness, personal growth or spiritual fulfillment? These are questions that Americans, perhaps more than others, are not prepared to deal with, because they challenge long-standing constitutional principles and cultural assumptions about the nature of the mind, personality and human freedom itself.

  In the months after out trip to the Orange county Jail we spoke with many people about Ted Patrick: parents, ex-cult members, attorneys, mental health professionals and others who, at the time, were only dimly aware of the building controversy over some alleged forms of religion in America. Some denounced him as a villain and a fascist, others hailed him as a folk hero and dark prophet of what lay ahead for America. Yet Patrick himself showed little concern for titles or media images.

  Through the eighties, Black Lightning remained a lightning rod, a target for aggressive counterattacks and disinformation campaigns waged against deprogramming by major cults and more mainstream fundamentalist Christian sects. By the mid-nineties, he was widely presumed to be out of commission, but Patrick was still active, working mostly on voluntary deprogrammings and rehabilitation counseling. In the interim, swayed by a changing religious, political and social climate, courts across the country grew cold to deprogramming. Another pioneering deprogrammer, New York cult counselor and private detective Galen Kelly, was prosecuted on criminal charges in two separate cases but was convicted and spent more than a year in prison on the second before an appeals court overturned his conviction.

  Those cases and others brought a global chill. In the new climate, judges were deaf to the pleas of the parents and families of cult members, and the precarious deprogramming profession was largely eclipsed by the efforts of the new generation of cult "exit counselors." Exit counselors we talked with, many of them one-time sect members themselves who had gone on to acquire clinical training and credentials, were testing a wide range of eclectic approaches, some more successful, some less so. Many were generalists, counseling cultists and families across America and, increasingly, in other countries. Some specialized in counseling ex-Moonies, members of Eastern cults, of controlling charismatic groups and extreme fundamentalist sects.

  Most confirmed a pattern we, too, had noted: the new methods of voluntary deprogramming and exit counseling, while far less controversial and much safer from a legal standpoint, prompted fewer cult members to experience a sudden "snapping out" of their controlled states of mind. Instead, most experienced a slower process of emergence, or as Rick Ross, an exit counselor from Arizona, called it, a gradual "unfolding" from the cults' ingrained altered states. Afterwards, many required additional counseling, specialized rehabilitation and, for some, ongoing psychotherapy to recover their personalities and regain full control over their impaired powers of mind.

  But, two decades later, public understanding and professional support were still in short supply.