When I was a Jehovah's Witnesses, spirituality was a word much used by the Watchtower Society. They had built an organization based on the invisible return of Christ in 1914. This event led to invisible fulfilment of prophecy upon a spiritual nation, living in an invisible spiritual paradise. The rewards that the members were so proud of could only be seen with invisible eyes of faith. It occurred to me that I was involved in a religion that, despite its appearance of being a spiritual organization, was material in its outlook. Although believing in a spiritual world, members were told they had no soul, just a physical body, and that was all they were ever going to have. They could only look forward to living forever as humans. Out of all the people that had ever lived on earth, only 144,000 were destined for heaven.
There was much speculation about what the new world would be like. This prize had to be earned through physical effort, in the form of a strict regime of canvassing and literature selling. The Society would boast about how many hundreds of millions of magazines and books they had produced. Kingdom Hall meetings did not involve silent meditation or group contemplation. Instead, they were comprised of lectures and question-and-answer programmes. All answers were pre-supplied in printed literature. There was no room for personal insight or intuition. There were no mysteries or unanswered questions. Answers to all questions could be found in indexed Watchtower Society volumes.
As the years passed, answers and rules constantly changed. The Society’s approach was more like that of a simplistic law school than that of a spiritual movement. The main requirement for continued membership was unquestioning obedience to their authority. Acceptance of its explanations and dictates was deemed to be obedience to Jehovah God. Nothing has changed in the years since I left this corrupt organization. In order to keep their status as a charity they stopped charging for literature many years ago. It is my belief, that this will utimately be their undoing.