I feel for you, Magnum. When I was young(in the 3rd grade) the school department had me tested and found that I was 'highly gifted' and they wanted to advance me 2 grades. My mother said NO because of her Watchtower influence. Strike one. My grandfather wanted to send me to law school (I wanted to be a doctor but that is a separate story), he was going to pay for it and felt that I should prepare at a young age. My mother said NO because you won't need lawyers in the new system. Strike 2. During my last year of jr. high school I received multiple achievement awards (this was in a town with 2 large junior high schools). I was not allowed to retrieve them (we had moved about 125 miles away that late spring) because you won't need the 'accolades of men' in the new system. Strike 3. At my new high school I discovered that I had more than enough credits to graduate in the 10th grade, except for 10th, 11th and 12th grade English. Would the school please give me these classes during summer school and let me graduate out of the education system early? Mother.........help! Strike 4 quit school to pioneer and then become a Bethelite. My Bethel experience was devastating but contained a 'silver lining'! One warm spring day, I was taking an older gentleman, his middle aged wife and his young teenaged daughter on tour. This was in 1976. He asked if he could give me some advice and I said sure. He told me: 'Son, I was in Bethel in the late 1930's and early 1940's. All we heard over and over was that Armageddon was coming any day. We ate bread, butter and sugar sandwiches and worked all the time. Armageddon still hasn't come. If I were you, I wouldn't put too much stock into what those old men in Brooklyn say. If you listen to them lock, stock and barrel you will never have anything.' That was the best advice I ever got. After I left Bethel, I worked hard and became a full partner in business with a worldly (gasp) person and semi-retired at 47 years old. HOME RUN! The true costs to people like you, your wife and many other witnesses are immeasurable. I am sorry that these 'con' men and religious 'charlatans' have been able to have such a negative and far reaching influence on so many that trusted them because of their own dedication and sincerity.
OUTLAW.........my mother saw demons around every corner! I remember her allowing one of her friends to beat her son with a hairbrush to help get the demons out of him. Another time, she dragged me to her old bible studies house to stay overnight and observe her demon attacks so that she could report these 'attacks' to the elders and thereby they could help her in 'exorcising' the evil spirits.
How so many of us escaped our childhoods to become 'mostly' sane and rational is quite a feat and should be congratulated.