i just finished reading steve hassans combatting cult mind control.
i found it to be an interesting read.
i have been inactive for 2 12 years now, so its impact was not as big on me as it would have been had i read it shortly after i began to have my doubts about the jws.
WingCommander:
Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't heard much about Diane Wilson's book, but I'll definitely check it out. James Penton's book is already on my list. I don't mind reading dry historical books, and I really want to know the true history of the Jehovah's Witnesses, not the cleaned-up propoganda we were taught in the kingdom hall.
Abandoned:
Thanks for pointing out Hassan's follow-up. That's another one I intend to read in the near future.
i just finished reading steve hassans combatting cult mind control.
i found it to be an interesting read.
i have been inactive for 2 12 years now, so its impact was not as big on me as it would have been had i read it shortly after i began to have my doubts about the jws.
I just finished reading Steve Hassan’s Combatting Cult Mind Control. I found it to be an interesting read. I have been inactive for 2 ½ years now, so its impact was not as big on me as it would have been had I read it shortly after I began to have my doubts about the JWs. Besides, I had already read a lot of comments on JWD that made reference to a lot of the important points in the book. Also, from my 20 plus years in the JW religion (from the time I was a toddler to my mid 20s), I had been able to observe and identify (granted, without the expertise of a person with a master’s degree in counseling psychology) many of the mind control and cult practices which Hassan expertly outlines in the book.
As I read the book, I continually nodded my head when I came across a passage the fit into my JW experience. It’s amazing to realize and understand that people go through similar (and often worse) experiences all over the world, in thousands of different cults. I plan on going through the book again. This time, I want to highlight every passage that applies to JWs and make notes on the margins
The section that probably impacted me most was the section on phobia indoctrination. Of course, I understood that JWs tell people that leaving the religion will result in great unhappiness, but I never thought about it as a phobia. There was also a quote in there about a man who joined a cult when he was 18 and left when he was thirty. Hassan says that, physically, the man is 30, but psychologically; he’s still 18 years old. This man missed out on common life experiences and has trouble fitting into society.
In many ways I’m that man. I was raised a JW and got out in my mid 20s. I have no experience with things that people my age take for granted. I’ve never really dated. I don’t know how to approach women. My experience with dating is all within the JW context. I’ve found it very difficult to integrate myself into this facet of normal living in particular. I just have to keep battling to make my integration into the real world as seamless as possible.
I am curious: Does anyone know if Hassan has every written anything directly about Jehovah’s Witnesses? I assume he believes that Jehovah’s Witnesses are a destructive mind control cult because he lists references for former Jehovah’s Witnesses in the appendix, but his book never mentions them directly.
I plan on reading Crisis of Conscience next. From there I plan to read a few more books. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I am completely comfortable reading as much material as I can, and I think it will be of great benefit to me now. Does anyone have any books they would like to recommend?
ok... lets get the ribbing aside.
our mormon "miracles" are more unexplainable than yours.... one of the many tools used by the morg to keep it's members active is the use of faith promoting stories involving apparent miracles... or the unexplainable.
there are unexplainable stories even in my own family.
I had been keeping this story to myself for fear of being “outed,” but I don’t really care anymore. It’s not so much a miracle story as one of those can’t-be-just-a-coincidence types of experiences that solidifies one’s faith in God.
I began to embrace JWism as a teenager. During that time, I was a 100% devout believer. I had taken up a part-time job after school since our family was fairly poor. However, I made sure that the job in no way interfered with meeting attendance. I honestly felt it was a sin to miss meetings because of a job. The circuit overseer visit was coming up, and because several congregations shared the same kingdom hall and the circuit overseer’s personal preferences, the meeting dates were always changed during his visits. Therefore, there were no meetings on the evenings when I was off and I had to work during the evenings in which the meetings had been moved to in order to accommodate his visit. What was I to do?
The job was tied into a high school program and quitting the job would result in being held back a grade. But if I went to work and missed a circuit overseer visit, I would be sinning against Jehovah God himself. I went to work that day dejected but feeling that somehow Jehovah would make things right. After all, Jesus said that we could move mountains if we had enough faith. Well, as hard as it might be to believe, there was an electrical fire that day that caused all of the power to go off in the building where I worked. We had to close down early, and I was home in time to shower up and arrive at the kingdom hall with plenty of time to spare. After the first semester, I was able to get special permission to leave the program because of religious reasons so this problem didn't happen again during his next visit six months later.
I wasn’t baptized yet, and this was the only palpable experience I ever had that made me feel that Jehovah was actually real. I can’t explain it. I can only conclude that it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that led me further down the path of becoming a baptized Jehovah’s Witness. Plenty of people of different faiths have had similar experiences and they can’t all be motivated by God. I often wonder if other ex-JWs had similar experiences that seemed to validate their faith in God.
i ran across this article of the official jw website today.i vaguely remember reading it when it was first printed inthe wt.
the nuclear physicist (with a doctorate from a unnamed school)telling his story unabashedly defends the witness world view and stand on scientific fact and recorded history.http://www.watchtower.org/e/20040122a/article_01.htmit was articles like these that successfully kept my doubtssubmerged for many years.
here are some of the more interesting quotes:when my wife informed me of this arrangement, i immediately opposed her.
...the Bible does not teach that. Rather, it reveals that the creative "days" encompass thousands of years
WTF? The BIBLE teaches this? Where exactly does the Bible teach this? Isn't this the Watchtower's interpretation of what the Bible says? I've read Genesis many times and never have I read that each day of creation was "thousands of years" long. The Watchtower says that the Bible allows for this interpretation and they use their self-proclaimed powers as "God's channel" to claim it as truth, but this is no where to be found in the Bible.
The sad thing is that this man is probably a good and rational scientist who nevertheless is quite good at playing the mental gymnastics one must play to buy into the Watchtower's bogus take on science and the Bible. His need for a purpose in life and a hope for the afterlife blinds him to the glaring errors in the Watchtower's position. I cringe to think about how many loyal JWs will read this article and use it to reaffirm their belief that the Watchtower's take on the Bible is compatible with legit science.
i ran across this article of the official jw website today.i vaguely remember reading it when it was first printed inthe wt.
the nuclear physicist (with a doctorate from a unnamed school)telling his story unabashedly defends the witness world view and stand on scientific fact and recorded history.http://www.watchtower.org/e/20040122a/article_01.htmit was articles like these that successfully kept my doubtssubmerged for many years.
here are some of the more interesting quotes:when my wife informed me of this arrangement, i immediately opposed her.
Something's up. The Watchtower is not above misrepresenting the facts when it suits their purpose. I haven't read the article, nor do I really want to, but is this guy a legit Ph.D., or is he one of these guys who calls himself a scientist because he has a bachelor's degree with a major in a science field? I guess it's not impossible to believe that a legit Ph.D. would buy into the Watchtower’s nonsensical take on science. I mean, there are a few PhD’s who openly support other fundamentalist creationist positions, but I still suspect things aren't quite as they might seem.
We saw an example of this recently with the mental health clinician who the Watchtower falsely claimed was a doctor and whose words were twisted to seemingly support the Watchtower's position on child molestation. I personally knew someone whose experience was highlighted on an entire page of the Awake magazine. The article created the impression that this person was a fine example, a role model for Christian youth. In fact, this person was a two-face who had a shotgun wedding soon after the article was printed. Most of the assembly experiences that I had first hand knowledge of were exaggerated or completely false.
A huge part of the reason why Witnesses stick around is because they will not permit themselves to check the accuracy of what the Watchtower tells them. If they ever investigated it, they'd learn that most of it exaggerated, taken out of context or completely fabricated.
Edited to add: I just wasted my time reading this article and he does claim to have a doctorate degree. I'd like to see a follow up on this man in 10 years to see if he's still "in the truth."
this is too important to bury within an old thread.
that thread hashed over several items of interest which you may want to read by way of a refresher: .
is gail bethea-jackson truly a doctor as the watchtower site claims?
I really think this has the potential to be HUGE! I wish there were some way to get this information out to the general public. This is another example of how the Watchtower has no credibility when it comes to sexual molestation. Not only did they misrepresent her credentials, they took her statements completely out of context. Please, everyone, tell all of your friends about this. This shouldn't be swept under the rug. People with access to JW e-mail lists should forward this on to all of their contacts. Is there anyone who can get in touch with Randy Watters? Maybe he can post a link on his website. Silent lambs needs to get a hold of this as well.
any of you ex-dubs who are wondering why you left should read the study lesson today on oral sex.
let's also consider that the borg considers it essential that the brothers bring their young childer to all the meetings and make sure that they pay attention to the material.
the material this week included a very detailed description of oral sex!
A lot of witnesses have their heads so far up their rear ends that they begin to think that these subjects are appropriate in any and all occasions. An elder at my old hall sure felt that way. I was out in the door to door work with him once and the guy who answered the door mentioned that he had just gotten out of the hospital and that he had a kidney stone ailment. The elder then talked about his own battles with kidney stones and described in graphic detail what the stones did to his penis. I was extremely uncomfortable, but he didn't realize that this kind of conversation was inappropriate. On another occasion I took him along to one of my bible studies. The study was a guy in hid mid to late 20s. It was perhaps our third or fourth study. The student had a friend over and the P.O. guilted his friend into joining us for the study. It was clear to me that he was not comfortable with that at all, but he joined us anyway. We were studying the "What Does God Require" brochure and halfway through it, out of no where, the same elder abruptly began talking about masturbation and asking both of them uncomfortable questions about it. They were noticeably bothered by the discussion. That was the last time I ever studied with him. He never opened the door after that.
the generation seeing the sign .
' previously, this journal has explained that in the first century, "this generation" mentioned at matthew 24:34 meant "the contemporaneous generation of unbelieving jews.
not the whole magazine, but this is the new light article.. .
Gary -
Religious witnesses and social witnesses. That's a good way to break down JW membership nowadays. The number of religious witnesses is dwindling, however. Growing up in the 80s there were more than a few elders who could quote the Bible and the society's publications to no end. They spent countless hours studying WT chronology and prophetic interpretation. Most of these guys came in during the late 70s and were convinced that the world was about to end. They didn't think there was any way mankind would survive the Cold War. They were masters of communicating the society's take on types/antitypes and prophetic explanations.
By the time I embraced JWism during the mid 90s, those guys had started to cool off. Eighty years since 1914 had come and gone in 1994. The teeth were taken out of the generation teaching in 1995. By that point or shortly thereafter, those guys had run out of steam and were no longer elders or were in the process of stepping down or being removed. All of those elders eventually settled in quite nicely to the role of social witnesses. They stopped quoting the society non stop in their conversations. They became much less regular at meetings and field service, but they were still there. They were never able to bring themselves to accept the fact that they had been duped. The new batch of elders that replaced them were much less intelligent. Those guys were simply company men willing to do whatever the society said. The congregation gained much more of a social club feeling. My guess is that doctrine will be emphasized less and less in the future to the point that the society will offer little more explanation for what they teach than to say "because we say so." The social witnesses don't need a Biblical explanation anyhow.
the generation seeing the sign .
' previously, this journal has explained that in the first century, "this generation" mentioned at matthew 24:34 meant "the contemporaneous generation of unbelieving jews.
not the whole magazine, but this is the new light article.. .
I just read the study article and I feel sick to my stomach. The WTBTS is again making it up as they go along. As much as I want to think this article will help people wake up and realize they're wasting their time serving a book publishing company whose promises are complete illusions, I don't think that's going to happen. I was a naive teenager when the last new light came out on this topic back in 1995. I ate it up. I was ecstatic. I couldn't shut up about how wonderful it was to be getting the great flashes of new light. Nobody I know left over the change. In fact, the congregation I was attending at the time has experienced a lot of growth since and has recently split.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
http://www.vaniercollege.qc.ca/auxiliary/psychology/frank/thirdwave.html.
this is a fairly long read.
please read it.
Jeff,
Leolaia posted some interesting newspaper scans on my old thread that also confirms it was a real event.
