Posts by Wild

Big, blue-eyed Judge Joseph Frederick Rutherford, 60, lives in a ten-room Spanish mansion, No. 4440 Braeburn Road. San Diego, Calif. Last week he deeded No. 4440 Braeburn Road, an adjacent two-car garage and a pair of automobiles to King David, Gedeon, Barak, Samson. Jephthae, Samuel and sundry other mighties of ancient Palestine. Positive is he that they are shortly to reappear on earth. Said he: "I have purposely landscaped the place with palm and olive trees so these princes of the universe will feel at home when they come to offer man the chance to become perfect."

Judge Rutherford's deed can scarcely be considered eccentric, for his conviction that the sunny boulevards of San Diego are soon to be trod by men with the light of ages in their eyes is presumably shared by the 1,000,000 members of the International Bible Students Association and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, of both of which Judge Rutherford is President. In 34 nations these members have read his declarations as editor of both the Watch Tower and Golden Age magazines.

Judge Rutherford was born on a Missouri farm, practiced law at Boonville, acquired a circuit judgeship, continued practice in St. Louis, Kansas City. He accompanied the late William Jennings Bryan on his first Presidential campaign tour, announcing him as "appointed by God to straighten out the problems of the world." Mr. Bryan's example inspired Judge Rutherford to wear habitually a black bow tie. In 1916 he succeeded the late Charles Taze Russell of Brooklyn, founder-president of the International Bible Students Association.

Members of this organization designate themselves as Bible Students. Their creed holds that Biblical prophecies govern all earthly events. By careful scrutiny of Holy Writ, the Bible Students have discerned that three periods of time, termed "cosmos," prevail in human affairs. Cosmos I began with Adam, ended with the Flood. Cosmos II began with the Flood, ended with the World War. Cosmos III, begun in 1914, will end in 2874, when "The Kingdom of God" will fill the whole world. An erroneous prophecy that the year 1928 would provide a cataclysm— ''Nations will battle; the dead will be dung on the earth"—upset considerably the Bible Students' calculations, but the major tenets of their belief are as yet unshaken.

Newsmen last week asked Judge Rutherford whether he would not be troubled by bogus Davids applying for admission to consecrated No. 4440 Braeburn Road. Said he: "I realized the possibility of some old codger turning up bright and early some morning and declaring he was David. The men whom I have designated to test the identity of these men are officers of my societies. . . . They will be divinely authorized to know impostors from the real Princes."

It would be idle to deny that organized religion is sore beset in the present age. Agnosticism and atheism are on the rise.

Protestantism is struggling for Unity. Catholicism reiterates its commands but has a hard time enforcing them. In Russia is the unprecedented spectacle of the Communistic anti-religious crusade. Thousands of persons, dissatisfied with the faiths of their fathers, seek new spiritual footholds. Thus, as always in such troubled times, there is a flourishing of cults, of religious novelties and new fashions in faith. Flowery, sun-drenched California, where Nature exhibits herself in mystical opulence, where plenty of people have plenty of money, where there are many invalids contemplating eternity, is particularly propitious for this flourishing.

Recent years have witnessed a great burgeoning of California cults. Examples : The Rosicrucian Fellowship. In Oceanside is a fellowship founded by one Max Heindel who wrote a book called Cosmo-Conception while living in a Manhattan boarding house on a diet of milk and shredded wheat. Object of his cult: to distribute literature on Western learning, to practice spiritual healing through agents known as "Elder Brothers" and "Invisible Helpers." There are no public ceremonies; a maxim of the fellowship is in substance: "Know all things but remain unknown." Founder Heindel died in 1916. his work is now continued by his wife and her associates. The Rosicrucian Brotherhood in San Jose, directed by H. Spencer Lewis, Imperator for North America, onetime Jew ish salesman, is joined to an international brotherhood conducted, like Freemasonry, on the lodge system. It extols good citizenship, patriotism, scientific and cultural self-improvement. Its primary significance is not religious. It claims descent from an occult and ancient line supposedly including the Egyptian sages and Sir Fran cis Bacon. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson.* Its ritual is elaborate, archaic, Egyptian in symbolism. Imperator Lewis recently threatened suit against Mrs. Heindel of Oceanside because she employed the term Rosicrucian in connection with her fellowship.

Theosophists. On Point Loma is the International Headquarters of the vast Universal Brotherhood and Theosophical Society, founded in Manhattan in 1875 by Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, long led by the late Katherine Tingley. The late Lyman Judson Gage, San Diego banker, Secretary of the Treasury in the McKinley and Roosevelt Cabinets, was an ardent Point Loma Theosophist. The cult attempts to harmonize with all great faiths, but is deeply colored in its observances and specific modes of thought by Eastern philosophers and prophets. In glass-domed buildings on Point Loma children may attend a Theosophical school. Excellent is the musical education obtained therein.

The Order of the Star in the East recently established a 1,000-acre colony, one of four world centres, in Krotona, Ojai Valley. It is the U. S. headquarters of 82-year-old Dr. Annie Besant's Theosophical Society, a schismatic offshoot of the Blavatsky-Tingley cult. Constant is the conflict between the two; each is anxious not to be confused with the other. Dr. Besant's teachings are very closely linked with Eastern thought, occult and mystical. She has proclaimed her famed, sloe-eyed Hindu protege, Krishnamurti, to be the vehicle of the World Teacher (i.e. the divine spirit at times appropriates his physical organism, speaks through him as it spoke through Jesus, Mohammed, etc.). Once an avid tennis-player and tea-drinker at Oxford and on the Riviera, he arrived last week in Krotona to begin new vigils and meditations. The Besant Society believes that children born on the Pacific Coast, Canada and Australia (or other fresh, unexhausted lands) are creatures of a new, sixth race, capable of seeing ethereal spirits, possessed of clairvoyance. All other people living are said to derive from the fifth, or Arian root race. Another Besant belief: California is highly electrical, hence occult manifestations are frequent. Great is the hope of the Society that Krotona will prove a breeding place of strapping, golden children.

The Apostle Faith Movement has a branch in Los Angeles, claims to heal by correspondence, dispenses blessed handkerchiefs.

The Holy City in the Santa Cruz Mountains is for men only. Its inhabitants wear long hair, sell barbecued pork and gasoline to travelers, broadcast from their own radio station, post signs reminding the countryside of the likelihood of Death. Their hillside retreat includes a dance hall from which feminine shouting frequently echoes down the mountains.

The Great Eleven lapsed after the imprisonment of May Otis Blackburn ("Heel of God"). From one Clifford Dabney it is claimed she stole $40,000, having promised to reveal universal secrets. Mr. Dabney declared that she told him he was the Christ but could not prove it.

*Certain 17th Century religious reformers called themselves Rosicrucians: creditable historians, however, have discovered no evidence that they were fraternally organized.

10

Are Witnesses now partially accepting the internet?

by ellderwho in

i started this thread asking the question because since my parents retired to florida (gods waiting room) ive been getting all kinds of internet witness junk from my mom, ie.

email stories, video clips of pat robertsons' comments about using the name jehovah, andy rooney of 60minutes stories.. also the email header is filled with adresses of im sure all witnesses.

i know my mom doesnt have any worldly friends.

Wild_Thing

I have two JW sisters and a JW mom and all them have computers with high speed internet. My mom barely knows how to use it, buy sisters are quite a whiz at it. They use for everything! But as far as for spititual things and connecting with other JWs its still a no no.

I remember when I first got a computer years ago and I hooked it up to dial up ... the only internet we had back then. My sister came over to see the new fangled contraption and we decided to see if there were witness websites online (we heard you could print off the scriptures for the current meetings already prepared by someone (obviously I was still a JW back then). Anyway, we did and search and some 'apostate' sites came up on the search page like Freeminds and the little snipit said something about the JWs being a cult.

My sister threw her hand over eyes and was screaming 'get it off! get it off!' I was the funniest damn thing I had ever seen! I showed her the miracle of the 'Back' button and how we could modify our search by typing "-cult" she was okay, but I still remember her reaction and have wondered if she would do the same thing today.

43

TIME Magazine Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

has anyone ever posted about the tons of time magazine articles about the jws?

time has been around forever and has been a 'witness' (pardon the pun) to much of their history .. clear back to the 1930s.

go to the time website and search for yourself!

Wild_Thing

There they parked their trailers, pitched tents, built their own privies and slept like Spartans on mats of straw.
Nearby filling-station attendants complained that their washrooms were clogged with naked Witnesses taking sponge baths.
More than 2,500 of them, togged out in bathing suits, playsuits, pajamas or long underwear, waded hip deep into Lake Erie to be immersed backwards in its waters. (Baptizers, chilled by the four-hour ceremony, swigged from a bottle of port wine.)

LOL! When I read that, I thought ... in the words of Cartman ... "g**d*** hippies!!"

8

Question: Why did Daniel reject delicacies, but later did not reject ...

by Lady Liberty in

hi everyone.... i was thinking about the whole star in bethlehem issue as many have posted on the subject.

and something struck me as strange.

and i wanted to know if any of you have ever thought about this:.

Wild_Thing

You mean .... the bible contradicts itself?? I'm shocked!

The only thing I can think of is that there were supposed magic practicing priests that were okay with God ... like turning a staff into a snake. Those were the good guys that did that. Right? Sounds like magic to me.

9

"Crazy" JW Bites Off Man's Thumb

by Justitia Themis in

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006580338,00.html.

bible rants of 'mad' cannibal .

by andrew parker.

Wild_Thing

Wow! I would say that this guy has either masterbated or received a blood transfusion ... since both are said to make you go insane!

I suppose he could've been exposed to aluminum at some point in his life, too.

43

TIME Magazine Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

has anyone ever posted about the tons of time magazine articles about the jws?

time has been around forever and has been a 'witness' (pardon the pun) to much of their history .. clear back to the 1930s.

go to the time website and search for yourself!

Wild_Thing

Thanks Lady Lee! Who knew that TIME documented their history so well!

I found another gem where they interviewed Franz and asked him about the failed 1975 date:

Asked about 1975, Franz now says that the 6,000-year chronology is correct, but the seventh day of Creation did not begin until Eve was created. Thus the date for the End has to be extended by the amount of time between the advent of Adam and of Eve—an interval not yet revealed (previous Witness publications had stated that Adam and Eve were created in the same year).

It's amazing how he spun that one. Here is the link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919076,00.html

17

How do you view the Bible?

by Fisherman in

i think that the bible gives hope and comfort.

i also think that the bible is a good book without me saying too much.

but is it a product of god?

Wild_Thing

If you ever read the history of the bible and other ancient writings, you will learn that there use to many different 'holy' books and many different 'gospels' that circulated. It was one body of men who decided to get together and vote on which books were really holy and which ones were not. The ones that they liked and supported their current doctrines were the ones compiled into what we today know as the bible. They rest were forgotten or never heard from again. And the ones that do know of have been written and rewritten and retranslated so many times that we will never know if what we are reading is what was intended by the writer.

So, because of that I don't think the bible has any more godly inspiration than my little pinky. I do think it probably has some good lessons about how to treat others and be a good person ... if you read the right parts. But I don't humans need any book to tell us how to be a good person. I think that message has to come from within.

43

TIME Magazine Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

has anyone ever posted about the tons of time magazine articles about the jws?

time has been around forever and has been a 'witness' (pardon the pun) to much of their history .. clear back to the 1930s.

go to the time website and search for yourself!

Wild_Thing

I'm glad so many found this as interesting as I did! By the way, there are many you can search for at http://www.time.com/time/.

But it has made me wonder how many other interesting (and damning) articles from the media there are in existence from years ago. I use to have access to the university's resources. Hopefully, someone with that kind of access can search old newspapers and magazines and find some more gems. I'm not sure how far back they are electronically archived. It would certainly be interesting to see.

And I think it would be hard for active witnesses today to argue with history presented in that form. I am sure they can come up with some way to say that the media was their enemy or whatever and persecuting the witnesses, but it would be harder. It seems whenever you try to tell today's rank & file about watchtower history, they dismiss it as apostate propaganda.

43

TIME Magazine Articles on Jehovah's Witnesses

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

has anyone ever posted about the tons of time magazine articles about the jws?

time has been around forever and has been a 'witness' (pardon the pun) to much of their history .. clear back to the 1930s.

go to the time website and search for yourself!

Wild_Thing

I'm sorry for posting so many, but this is the best one yet! It's about Raymond Franz and the Watchtower's witch hunt surrounding his exit:

Wild_Thing

Posts by Wild_Thing