Posts by jwleaks

7

Pittsburgh Post: "How the Jehovah’s Witnesses sex abuse crisis in Pennsylvania unfolded"

by Balaamsass2 in

7/6/25 how the jehovah’s witnesses sex abuse crisis in pennsylvania unfolded.

state prosecutors turned up troves of internal files revealing rampant abuse dating back decades.

madaleine rubin.

jwleaks

This investigative grand jury is really starting to gain momentum through success. Hopefully it can be duplicated, at least the investigative part, in other US states.

Investigations like this don’t start overnight. They require a lot of work to get them to happen, including having to over come some significant hurdles - including meeting the legal requirements with regards to the jurisdiction of the PA Attorney General to take over investigations that usually fall within the scope of PA District Attorneys.

A lot of work was done by Barbara Anderson and a small diverse team in getting this investigation launched.

It saddens me that there is a narcissistic-type group of people within the EXJW community that are working year-after-year, both on social media and on YouTube, in trying to discredit Barbara for her tireless work in getting this investigation launched. Shame on them.

24

Anyone explain the generation idea!

by Witness 007 in

i don't understand we went thru a phase where we down played the generation so now it's the generation that knew the 1914 generation???

is that correct?

how does that even work.

jwleaks

aqwsed12345

I enjoyed your analysis. In paragraph 5 you wrote:

“To spin “generation” as a floating window, gluing together anyone whose lives overlap with any surviving member of the 1914 cohort, is pure revisionism—an invention with no precedent in either secular or biblical usage.”

I would be more inclined to replace the word ‘revisionism’ with the word ‘negationism’.

13

Fancy dress up parties were banned by Elders after our 2nd one

by Witness 007 in

so i grew up in a small town with lots of witnesses so being bored we had two fancy dress up parties now some brothers came with swords and fake guns as pirates or cowboys one brother who was a pioneer came dressed as a woman!

the elders smashed us in a talk they gave and these fun parties were cancelled..

jwleaks

A long time ago in a congregation far, far away I helped organise a dress up party with a slight difference, namely, I had laid down our defence against the elders when they harassed us afterwards.

The theme was “Come dressed as something starting with the letter ‘P’.”

Our defence was that we assumed everyone would come dressed as a Pioneer or a Panda or even a Publisher.

What we did not anticipate among the dressed crowd was:

1 x Priest (a brother)

3 x Prostitutes (3 sisters)

1 x Pimp (a brother being the fleshly brother of two of the above sisters)

1 x Protestant preacher (a brother)

2 x Protestors (2 brothers being apostates with placards)

2 x Punk Rockers (2 brothers)

2 x Punk Rocker Groupies (2 sisters being girlfriends of the above brothers)

1 x Police Officer (sister with handcuffs and a short-short uniform skirt)

1 x Pontus Pilate (a brother in a toga)

2 x Pushers (2 brothers as drug pushers)

3 x Prophets (2 brothers and 1 sister)

1 x Prodigal son (a brother recently reinstated)

And sundry others. No Pandas.

Ironically, no one came dressed as a pioneer or a publisher but we did have one Peddler of the Word of God trying to sell an old Watchtower magazine.

Edit to add: We did have one outrageous sister who came dressed in an old 1970’s-style polyester male suit and wide tie. She identified herself as the Presiding Overseer and spent the evening telling everyone off as an ‘elder’ and slapping all the sisters on the backside.

For those interested: Gold Coast, Australia. Early 1990’s.

15

The Shocking Truth Behind the Menlo Park Congregation Takeover

by Newly Enlightened in

the brother & son of 2 of the original elders in the menlo park takeover tells us what really happened.

part 1. https://youtu.be/ypgadyu1nbk?si=g2tcfg21gynq0tfi.

jwleaks

There’s a fairly comprehensive collection of Menlo Park related court documents on JW LEAKS. Those documents that shed light on the inner workings of the Watch Tower Society are marked with an * (asterisk).

https://jwleaks.org/scandals/menlo-park-congregation/

4

Ex-jws request congregation info on file

by blondie in

jw
friends

https://www.oakbaynews.com/news/grand-forks-jehovahs-witnesses-lose-privacy-law-appeal-7897541 .

jwleaks

A short article I published on the case. Includes PDF of court judgement.

https://jwleaks.org/2025/03/24/canada-vabuolas-v-british-columbia-information-and-privacy-commissioner/

18

A message from Barbara Anderson re: the health state of her hero, her husband, Joe Anderson

by jwleaks in

jw
friends

from barbara:.

my dear husband, joe anderson, has had very real problems with his short-term memory for at least a year which really worried me.

as his mental health deteriorated, i decided to have our local longtime physician talk alone with joe during an office visit last september.

jwleaks

From Barbara:

My dear husband, Joe Anderson, has had very real problems with his short-term memory for at least a year which really worried me. As his mental health deteriorated, I decided to have our local longtime physician talk alone with Joe during an office visit last September. The doctor told me afterwards that he believed that Joe had dementia. By November, Joe's long-term memory was fading. As his condition worsened, I was his sole caregiver and life was hectic and complicated and would never be the same again for both of us.

Due to the rapid decline of his mental health, on Jan. 22nd, Joe had a CT scan of his brain at the local hospital and was diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia. The scan showed severe brain atrophy and also severe microvascular disease, conditions causing his agitation, confusion, delirium and delusions, etc.

As his condition worsened it was impossible for him to remain at home. On January 23rd, a bed was found for Joe in the senior psych. ward at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, TN for further diagnosis and to determine what kind of medication he should receive. In the hospital, he has a full-time sitter with him to prevent injury from falls. In the near future when his doctors release him, he'll go to a nursing home for as long as he lives which might not be too long in that he's already in the third and final phase or stage of dementia.

At this point Joe doesn't receive visitors or phone calls because he has trouble communicating. I talk to the floor nurse each day since he went into the hospital to find out how he's doing. Some of the medicine given to him now is helping to keep him calm and noncombative.

We have been married for 65 years, very happy years, I might add. He's had a long and interesting life of 90 years. I miss him terribly and have shed many tears over the situation, but I know he's in good hands and soon he will go to his rest as we all have to do.

Barbara

18

Child abuse calculations

by Anony Mous in

there are no real numbers for jws but they are a relatively small group.

compared to the number of catholics at least.. the australian commission gathered more than 5000 cases with over 1000 perpetrators that went completely unreported for the jws.

likewise they did the same for catholics and collected just under 4800 cases with 1880 perpetrators.

jwleaks

“As part of the preparation for the Jehovah’s Witnesses public hearing, the Child Abuse Royal Commission compelled Watchtower Australia under subpoena to produce its child sexual abuse database and all documents relating to allegations of child sexual abuse. Watchtower Australia produced about 5,000 documents, which included case files pertaining to 1,006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse within the religion in Australia. The Child Abuse Royal Commission analysed the files and produced a data base summary of all 1006 cases, of which were mostly uncontested by Watchtower Australia.”

SOURCE: [Say Sorry article] Part 1 - Jehovah’s Witness and the Child Abuse Royal Commission

10

Petra!**RequestCircuit Overseer Training Videos!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

email request from shelly:.

dear petra, are there any circuit overseer training videos that you know of?

and could you send them over to larchwood?.

jwleaks

Thanks Petra. Very painful to watch. Old-school PowerPoint presentations. Definitely Russian made, with perhaps help from the Selters branch in Germany.

5

In the last week of Christmas . . . JW News releases a special video with an AI ‘guest appearance’ by M. Stephen Lett

by jwleaks in

jw
friends

merry xmas everyone.. https://youtu.be/39lpikmd-is.

jwleaks

Merry Xmas everyone.

https://youtu.be/39LpikMD-is

Hollywood actor Luke Evans new memoir (relevant summary): I was bullied for being gay and a Jehovah’s Witness

by jwleaks in

jw
friends

in this exclusive extract from his new memoir, the star recalls his childhood as a ‘tormented tug of war’ between his faith and his sexuality….

[extract].

like me, mam was smartly dressed.

jwleaks

In this exclusive extract from his new memoir, the star recalls his childhood as a ‘tormented tug of war’ between his faith and his sexuality…

[EXTRACT]

Like me, Mam was smartly dressed. As a Jehovah’s Witness you always had to look respectable, because you were representing the religion. We always smelled nice; we smiled a lot and had neat hair. There was a lot of deprivation in the valleys and when people saw us at their front door, looking so clean and fresh and happy, it must have been a powerful draw. Join us, and you could be like this, too!

Mam was armed with a leather briefcase, inside of which were copies of the Jehovah’s Witness magazines, a Bible and a stack of report sheets, which would be filled out with notes such as: Number 48: do not call again or Number 16: come back same time next week. She was a pioneer, which is what the religion calls those who knock doors regularly. Mam used to spend upwards of 60 hours a month doing the rounds of the villages of south Wales in a bid to save souls.

… To this day I’m still not sure when my parents’ birthdays are. One’s in August and the other November, I think. When I left home and celebrated my first birthday – my 18th – I tried to enjoy it, but I felt guilty, and that guilt stayed with me for a long time. The only events we were allowed to celebrate were wedding anniversaries and the memorial of Jesus’ death. This was the most sacred occasion of our year and was marked with an evening service at the Kingdom Hall on the night of the Last Supper.

During the memorial, unleavened bread and wine were passed around the congregation, but the only people allowed to taste them were the anointed. These were Witnesses who believed they are among the anointed, the 144,000 people mentioned in the Bible who have been chosen to go to heaven to rule alongside Jesus when they die. We knew a few of these and they were hugely respected and somewhat revered within the community. I have no idea how they knew they were anointed, but you couldn’t question it: if they told the elders they were one of the anointed, everyone had to believe them.

FULL ARTICLE:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/26/hollywood-actor-luke-evans-i-was-bullied-for-being-gay-before-i-even-understood-what-it-meant