Psychiatrist: So what position do you hold Tony?
Tight Pants Tony: Strictly only the missionary position, any other position is the work of Satan........ Oh! You mean what do I do? Sorry, I thought you meant... never mind, it’s the way yous guys speak, it cracks me up! Heh heh. Well, me and my guvnin’ body are the only goldarn religion God is using in these very last days to organise the investments , er... I mean, to organise the preaching which Jesus said gotta be done. And we’re the guys organisin’ it. Yup.
Psy: How many are you in your governing body?
TPT: Seven... the heavenly seven! We’re going to heaven when we die...
Psy: And you believe that out of all the seven billion people on Earth, God speaks only to you and that he has exclusively entrusted just you seven individuals with the organising of all of his work down here?
TPT: Hole in one! But seriously, we are good... just look at our website!
Psy: In our line of work when someone claims to be exclusively spoken to by God we take it seriously and we call what you describe as being “delusional behaviour”.
TPT: Yes, it does sound rather good.
Psy: And what is your role in the governing body?
TPT: My role? yeah well...... I’m kinda a front man, I tell it like it is and they love me for it. I show them dudes out there on our website what a true member of the guvnin’ body really looks like, you know, slick, handsome, smart tailoring and baggy trousers. Ol’ rubber lips letts, he does the speakin’ to the camera...does it kinda slow like, ‘cos many of our dear brothers out there lookin’ in don’t get much other kinda education ‘cept what we give ‘em.
Psy: There has been a lot of bad publicity on television, in the press and on the internet about child abuse and harmful shunning by your members. How do you respond to these criticisms?
TPT: I never did shun nobody ‘cos at HQ we make sure anyone what doesn’t toe the line gets chucked out an’ we never see ’em again. Look, let’s get real on this, any great organisation like ours is going to have a few bad apples, can you believe it, even in the guvnin’ body! We chuck’em out! got rid of ‘em! Just like Joshua done in Canaan, got rid of them pesky critters what didn’t believe right .
Psy: We understand from our clinical experience that many of your members seem to be suffering from what we call ‘cognitive dissonance’. It’s an experience rather like arriving at the traffic lights where they are showing both red and green at the same time. For example, your members believe in an organisation which claims to be in the very last days yet simultaneously is making vast investments in property and building grand new headquarters... Another source of anxiety is the fact that your organisation said that the end would come within the lifetime of the generation which saw 1914...and that has long died out? Can you reconcile these contradictions?
TPT: I think I know where you’re a comin from... and I can smell persecution when I want to... and don’t tell me! the next thing you are going to say is “critical thinkin.” Well I’ve got something to tell you on that subject, I wrote it down ‘cos it’s reeeeeal good.
(rummages in wallet to find quotation)
Here it is! I wanna read you my statement, ’cos I wrote it myself li’l while back, I put all the dots in it,
“It’s kind of amazing that once you learn critical thinking. Once you remove yourself from it and then take another look from a different perspective. How manipulative it is. How the ‘double think’ is right there in your face.”
Now don’t that trumps it all? Critical thinking is double think in your face, kinda amazing hey?
Psy: Nurse! Bring the restraining jacket and the sedative injection immediately please! ......... No, no, not for the patient! It’s for me, so I can’t strangle him...