From the January 1st, 1994 Watchtower article, "The Watchtower and Awake!-Timely Journals of Truth"
Magazines That Advocate Truth
What about the Awake! magazine? From its beginning, Awake! too has advocated truth. Originally called The Golden Age, this magazine was designed for public distribution. Regarding its objective, the first issue, dated October 1, 1919, stated: "Its purpose is to explain in the light of Divine wisdom the true meaning of the great phenomena of the present day and to prove to thinking minds by evidence incontrovertible and convincing that the time of a greater blessing of mankind is now at hand." Thinking people responded to the message of The Golden Age. For a number of years, its circulation was even greater than that of The Watchtower.
From Ken Raine's "The Golden Age, 1919-1937: Illuminating the Blind World"
The Golden Age after 60 years
After sixty years The Golden Age is a strange and at times fascinating periodical. The Golden Age magazine was a reflection of the Bible Student community of the 1920's and 1930's. It gives a unique perspective and understanding of their worldview and beliefs at the time that their other material doesn't.
The Golden Age was definitely reflective of its editor, C. J. Woodworth, a man who as noted claimed just a few years before publishing it to have been mentally unbalanced, unable too sleep for several nights in a row, and even demon possessed. Reading The Golden Age, one isn't surprised by this claim of its editor. It obviously wasn't produced by a great and sound mind like say, Albert Einstein. Under Woodworth's editorship the magazine was full of material promoting occult ideas, beliefs, and methods as well as a fixation on, and a paranoia of demons.
Much of it is just plain loony as well. As I have remarked elsewhere, reading The Golden Age is to take a trip into "The Twilight Zone. " It is similar reading to current tabloid newspapers in the U.S. such as The National Enquirer with its fantastic stories such as, "I Had a UFO Baby!" It is, at times, completely off the wall. It is for these same reasons at times interesting and unintentionally humorous today which is its saving grace. Reading and researching it, while entertaining, has ultimately driven me nuts at times.
I challenge anybody to read The Golden Age through (all 1,500 pages or so) without coming out of the exercise a little nutty and in need of a vacation (or a "stiff" drink). I am currently a Recovering Golden Age Reader (RGAR). I pass the curse on to you.
The Golden Age, 1919-1937:
From what Ken Raines, who has actually read the Golden Age magazines, how in the world could the writer of the 1994 Watchtower article write such praises for the Golden Age? I wonder if he (and the Watchtower writers are all men by the way) has even read the early issues like Ken has done. Obviously this writer is relying upon the fact that most readers have no access to the Golden Age to read what actually was written.
Notice this, and the WT has done this over and over in their articles, they continually praise their early literature, WITHOUT giving examples of what the early literature contained! (example, The Finished Mystery book) This is empty, self praise!
--VM44
