THE LINGERING SHADOW OF '75

by Terry 66 Replies latest jw experiences

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  JeffT

  I converted and baptized in 1973. 1975 was all anybody talked about. After the failure quite a number seized on the idea about the gap between Adam's creation and Eve's.

  After that, "we are not serving for a date" became a common expression. This was usually delivered with an attitude of "we're better Witnesses than the weak ones who are leaving." Later, everybody treated the whole thing like it never happened.

  For a good academic treatise on how this kind of denial works, read "When Prophecy Fails" by Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter. They followed a UFO cult through a failed prophecy expecting to find that people left when it failed. Instead they doubled down on thinking that it was soon, and they'd passed some kind of test. It's an interesting read.
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  Sour Grapes

  The excuse immediately after October 1975 was when was Eve created? If Eve was created 6 months after Adam's creation that would put us into 1976. Perhaps Eve was created a year after Adam? The Eve BS died out in about 8 months.
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  Finkelstein

  Well said Terry , of all the people who were psychologically and perhaps physically damaged in prison by being apathetically exploited by the WTS. in its corrupt literature proliferation, you would be poignant candidate.
  
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  Hadriel

  I was just a kid when this all went down but old enough to remember it all rather clearly. At the time it didn't hit me why so many had left. Of course now it is pretty clear.

  Anytime something looks disparaging toward the org a new spin is made. This was no different as described. The friends were called overzealous, presumptuous and so on.

  Over the years I can't help but wonder if some of us might still be in had the GB owned up to its mistakes more. Saying they got it wrong would have actually strengthened the faith of many.

  Instead they're hell bent on protecting their authority that's the only game here.

  I kick myself every day now for once supporting all the harmful nonsense.
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  Mad Irishman

  This wasn't my experience at all in 1975. Maybe it was the congregation you were in or who your elders were. I've heard different stories from different people about what they experienced during this time and they are all different, but all I remember is my own personal experience.

  The elders and CO in the congregation I grew up in made it quite clear that nobody knew when the end was coming. We were told we had no idea if 1975 meant anything or not. There certainly was a vocal minority who insisted something was going to happen, but those in charge in our halls, and those giving the talks, most of them at least, warned everyone not to speculate. We had so many "its wrong to speculate brothers" talks that I actually remember that more than the whispers about something might happen. Now I certainly remember some people, a minority doing crazy stuff like selling their house or selling their business. But I remember those people were thought of as kooks and it was wrong to be doing what they were doing. And lets face it. There were a lot of not-so-distantly-past hippies who took a lot of drugs right before they became JW's at that time.

  I believe through the years what happened in 1975 has become greatly exaggerated. Why? I don't know. I know more people who left the witnesses after the explanation of the overlapping generation concept than 1975 coming and going. As a matter of fact I never knew anyone, and I was part of a big region and big group of congregations, who left the witnesses after 1975.

  Everyone's experience is different. Sometimes I think we take our experience as what everyone experienced, because we assume everyone lived the exact same turmoil, emotions, or events. But life and history isn't like that. The truth is what the collective experienced. Not what the individual has.

  Just my opinion.
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  Hadriel

  @MadIrishman it was that way largely in our hall as well. That said many friends absolutely left over this issue. Zero doubt.

  Secondly where did this concept sprout from? Did the brothers go rogue and stir this up on their own or was the concept presented by the society as only a few years left and in the autumn of 75 it could all end?

  Bottom line this originated with the organization..nowhere else. Although it was absolutely said many times over as it got closer that it may or may not happen that was categorically not the feeling in the latter 60's. On the contrary it was highly likely.

  If it was so unsure then why did the organization say anything at all? I don't see how we can in anyway pin this on the brothers. The only nutjobs here or overzealous ones were clearly in Brooklyn.
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  Socrateswannabe

  Mad Irishman, you were lucky to be surrounded by reasonable people (at least by JW standards). Yes, my experience was different, but it is also my recollection that the frenzy was being fueled by articles in Watchtowers, KMs, and through talks by GB members, COs, and DOs. We were getting peppered from all sides with this stuff.
  
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  Finkelstein

  Its easy to reminisce on to what happened in your own congregation, I myself witnessed two teens who committed suicide around that time on one end of the scale, many who were not so embraced that 1975 was going to be the year, .
  

  Teens were dropping out of school, as I did myself, people were holding off getting married or having children saying they are going to wait until after Armageddon. Fear and anxiety was obvious and prevalent .

  Franz and Knorr did a outlandish mind fucking number onto people who were associated with the JW organization and further to the general population to be sure.
  

  We all believed that the WTS leaders (GB) were the direct tangible voice of god and we should in are own survival instinct listen and pay attention to these leading men.

  Unfortunately they were just conniving crooks who exploited their believed cultivated position as god's own channel as a means to intentionally exploit peoples ignorance and insecurities.
  
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  Skedaddle

  So I left in around '98 and I remember then they were saying ''we're just before the finishing line on a running track, we can almost touch the ribbon...'' and soon after mum was saying ''we've got our hand outstretched and we can nearly touch the ribbon'' so what kind of sayings were coming from the platform after that to present day? Because all my mum says is, ''it's any day now'' but it's been years since. How did the race track analogy die?
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  Finkelstein

  Reflectively the point to all of this is that Franz and Knorr knew what they were doing was going to heighten public interest to the WTS's publications and instill a pressing urgency for the WTS/JWS own avowed followers to go out and preach with the WTS's literature in hand.

  The JWS membership grew dramatically as a documented result and the JW's had the most increase of attainable members than in anytime in its history, the highest percentage increase that still holds to this day.

  I was one of the many who dropped out back in the early 1980's out of disgust by this contrived deliberate fraud.

  In other words the Bullshit got to me.