Towards the middle of my eighteen-month critical investigation of the JWs and the Bible I decided to pay a visit to my sister and brother-in-law at the Patterson Bethel complex in New York. Perhaps it was a last-ditch effort to salvage whatever faith I had in the organization, or maybe it was the realization that I would not be able to see my sister under semi-normal conditions again if I left; I don't know.
Of course, the trip did not save my crumbling faith. If anything, I saw first-hand that Bethel life is nothing special and that the reports on how "wonderful" and "paradise-like" Patterson was were overblown to mythical proportions.
I'll be brief:
People seemed to be in a hurry and not all that friendly. Everyone was cordial and well dressed but seemed to have this up-tightness about them. The buildings and landscaping was nothing to brag about -- I felt like I was in a clean and tidy Comfort Inn.
Meals were particularly strange. To say it was like the military would not be an exaggeration. One had to even wait until the "table head" (army sergeant?) used a clockwise motion with his hand to start passing around the food in their completely functional, metal pots and pans. The meal itself was not much better than what one would find in a hospital cafeteria.
Now to the good part
While my sister and her husband were working I had literally nothing to do. I took a train to New York City one day but that was the only thing I did outside of the complex. So, I hung out at the library. The Patterson Bethel library, that is.
First off, there were hardly any magazines. A couple Newsweeks and some travel magazines. (I think the reason for this is that Bethelites just can't wait to go on vacations and leave their monotonous lives. Or perhaps they look at the pictures and dream.) But the interesting thing were the books.
If any publisher ever gets counseled for having some of "Christendom's literature" they should pay a visit to the Patterson library (which may or may not be the same as the Gilead library). There are literally ROWS UPON ROWS of commentaries and books from all sorts of theologians, ministers and commentators. No joke -- there are HUNDREDS of books by servants of Satan at Bethel.
And did I mention the self-help books? Yes, they're there too. Norman Vincent Peale as a matter of fact (He, also a servant of the Dark Lord). And Darwin's "Origin of Species." I doubt that anyone even cracked open that masterpiece. And there was NO CURRENT books supporting evolutionary thereory there. But there were a number of books by creationists -- complete with notes in the margin and highlighted portions. I wonder if those were some of the books the writer(s) of the Creation book used to pass off as "educated Watchtower scholarship"?
Of course, there was every single piece of literature the Society has put out since Russell closed his haberdashery and ventured into his theological phantasoms. I perused that stuff with GREAT INTEREST. Conclusion: The "apostates" didn't forge the material they quoted on the 'net.
So, with a sick stomach and a deflated view of the Society in mind I left home for Chicago. A year later I would be out of the Dubs forevermore.
Bradley