Posts by Winston Smith :>D

19

District Convention Part 2/6. Friday afternoon

by Winston Smith :>D in

things that the wts could never get away with putting in print but have free reign to say verbally

heres my summary of the dc after recently having the veil lifted from my eyes re the wts

look for the alcohol talk.

Winston Smith :>D

Things that the WTS could never get away with putting in print but have free reign to say verbally

Here’s my summary of the DC after recently having the veil lifted from my eyes RE the WTS

Look for the alcohol talk. It’s a keeper!!!

Part 2/6

Jehovah’s Glory Revealed to Humble Ones

The whole talk can be summed up in two sentences. We have to be meek. Humility takes the sting out of reproof.

A great illustration was given of how a good Father doesn’t try to intimidate his son into obedience, but rather, the father deals lovingly with his son. The hypocrisy of the WTS saying this instead of actually following this advice is just to apparent to me now.

Symposium: The Prophesy of Amos, His Message for Our Day

All three parts were rather boring, especially since I was waiting for some "new light" to be revealed to us. All three talks focused on scriptures in Amos.

A couple of highlights were:

during the talk it was mentioned that at Amos 7:13 it says how BETHEL was the center for false worship of calves. I would like to think that I would have picked up on this great line even before my awakening. I wonder how many others in the audience picked up on this.

The last two lines in the third part of the symposium were the best.

"The society would never encourage Reg Pio’s, Traveling Overseers, or missionaries to quit their full time service and go back to the ‘normal life’."

I wonder if by the WTS mentioning this that some elders are giving just such advice to Reg Pio’s. Hey, many are having a hard time making ends meet, can you blame them?

And the last guilt trip of the talk; "Jehovah has set us free from Babylon the Great. Are we using our freedom to further God’s work? Remember, we are accountable before God."

The WTS then has the gaul to apply the following scripture to the audience:

*** Rbi8 Amos 3:2 ***

2 That is why I shall hold an accounting against YOU for all YOUR errors.

If I was still a faithful R&F JW, this would make me feel so guilty for only turning in my 10+- hours a month. It is never enough for them. NEVER! I can see now how Jesus, in saying that the "truth will set you free", or that "his yoke is kindly and his load is light", has absolutely NOTHING to do with the WTS’ yoke. The WTS are a bunch of slave drivers cracking the whip on us every chance they get. The WTS quite likely has more laws than the Pharisees did.

Avoid the Snare of Alcohol

Oh, this had some quotables! It was nice too because I wasn’t expecting the WTS to give up so many goodies in this talk. I thought it would be rather boring.

"Alcohol abuse can manifest itself without all of the typical signs of drunkenness."

Oooohhhh, what a great line. So just because you are not throwing up, or you don’t register .01 on a breathalyser test, or just because you don’t have a hangover the next day doesn’t mean we can’t DF your weak ass out of the organization for being drunk.

"Our heart can deceive us as our tolerance gets built up in BORDERLINE drinking."

Yes, our heart may be deceived, but the elders will not be so easily fooled I guess.

And here comes the trophy quote boys and girls:

"Where is the line between enough and too much alcohol? Here is a guiding principle. Any drinking of alcohol that impairs your practical thinking is too much."

"This will differ from person to person."

And that says it all. The WTS now has publicly stated a rule that can now be used to DF people. And who decides if a person’s practical thinking has been impaired. Well the final judge isn’t the individual or even Jehovah. It will be three men in a JC. To me this is as being grounds for DF’ing is similar to a case of "whiplash" as being used to sue for money in courts. It’s impossible to prove or disprove, and your are always guilty until proven innocent. It’s impossible to prove someone doesn’t have whiplash. And it’s impossible to prove someone hasn’t lost their practical thinking ability in many cases. It’s really subjective. But now this rule will be used in JC’s to kick the unwanted out of the organization. Great, isn’t it?

You know what, we hear that the WTS has rules on movies, hair dye, denim, TV, etc, because these things were not around in Jesus’ day, so we need guidelines from the WTS. WTF about alcohol? It’s been around forever. Nowhere in the bible were such guidelines regarding alcohol ever given as the WTS sees fit above. What gives the WTS the right to add to the bible? "Drunkards will not inherit the kingdom." Enough said. Stop adding to the Bible!

And the WTS didn’t stop there. We were told that we should "avoid open bars because it’s too much of a temptation for some." And we are not to have any alcohol before a theocratic gathering. So if you have a nice pasta meal before a Thursday meeting, pass on the wine, go for the Kool-Aid. I have heard the latter before, but it still makes me mad.

But the winner quote is; "Total abstinence is not too high a price to pay for life in God’s New world if we have a problem."

And who decides that we have a problem with alcohol? Apparently, the WTS does.

It is interesting to note that the above guidelines were never ONCE applied specifically to Alcoholics or those who have an Alcohol Addiction. I’m sure these too are a problem to the WTS. But anyone can have a problem with alcohol if they only have a busy body in the congregation and a trigger-happy elder body.

"Oh, Brother X had three beers at the my nieces’ wedding. And later that night he was dancing out of control. I think he was drunk."

So long Brother X. I hope you have been in service, at the meetings, and commenting regularly. Otherwise your ass is out the door because no one wants to put their neck on the line for a borderline JW.

Sad.

And I have been guilty myself of shunning some friends of mine because they were silently "shunned" by the elders. It was known to shun these even though they were regular at meetings. And they were not DF’d.

"Big Brother is watching you."

The last two talks were uneventful. One was the map release, the other was:

Relying on Jehovah in a Time of Distress

There was one very sad experience in this part.

An older sister was giving an experience of her trials. I believe she was Reg Pio’ing. She has health problems. She has no kids [probably because of the WTS previous "encouragements" to not have kids because the "end was very soon"], She’s had surgery, then she went through depression. Her husband Jack is dead. But she thanks Jehovah in prayer for his beautiful EARTHLY organization.

OMG! Loyal to death. She still thinks that the "end is very soon." And all I could think of was this;

"To bad she won’t see jack..." , pun intended.

End of day. I’m wired to the hilt. I want to share all of my newfound observations, but to who? My loyal wife, who has no idea that I’m "apostate", and I talk while driving out of the DC for the first day. She had a hard time concentrating she said, and she’s usually pretty attentive at DC’s. Maybe’s there’s hope yet...

It was interesting comparing my take on this first day compared to my past attendances at DC’s. Not to pat myself on the back [or to point too much blame at myself, however you want to look at it] but I was usually pretty good about paying attention and taking notes in the past. But man, this year I must have taken more notes than I ever have in the past. And I had almost full attentiveness throughout the 3 days. I just couldn’t believe as I sat there that I have never really picked up on all the BS, the lies, the scare tactics, the morbid way in which the WTS without hesitation looks forward to everyone who isn’t a JW killed at Armageddon, the teaching of hate of other people, and the outlandish comments from speakers while on the platform at DC’s. I guess in the past I have thought that some things were odd, but this time around the veil had been lifted.

You know how we used to say as JW’s that being in field service was good for, if for nothing else, if only to prove to ourselves that have the truth. For me I feel that by going to that DC only solidified the fact that the WTS DOES NOT have the truth. It was sad though to see faces of friends who by this time next year will have turned on me because of the policy of hate by the WTS towards anyone who doesn’t fall in line with their every changing teaching.

I’ll post more on Day two and three later this week. If you made it this far in my novel, thanks for reading and for letting me vent, it feels very therapeutic.

16

District Convention Part 1/6. Friday morning

by Winston Smith :>D in

things that the wts could never get away with putting in print but have free reign to say verbally

heres my summary of the dc after recently having the veil lifted from my eyes re the wts

part 1/6

Winston Smith :>D

Can I have your permission to share your posts with others? Please?

If you think it will help, then please, go right ahead.

Winston

16

District Convention Part 1/6. Friday morning

by Winston Smith :>D in

things that the wts could never get away with putting in print but have free reign to say verbally

heres my summary of the dc after recently having the veil lifted from my eyes re the wts

part 1/6

Winston Smith :>D

Things that the WTS could never get away with putting in print but have free reign to say verbally

Here’s my summary of the DC after recently having the veil lifted from my eyes RE the WTS

Part 1/6

Blessed Are Those Who Give Glory to God

After opening comments the speaker went into:

*** Rbi8 Revelation 7:15 *** 15 That is why they are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them.

to show how the Great Crowd is happy to render sacred service and be busy preaching in 234 lands in line with this scripture. Too bad the scripture mentions that the GC is busy doing this in his temple, and not on the earth. I guess God’s temple is now on earth?

The speaker then mentioned how giving brings blessings. The logical unspoken conclusion was that we should be preaching, for without us preaching, God will not bless us. And here we see how we have already been given our first guilt trip for not preaching enough, because we now have the "privilege" of hearing the experience of missionaries who have been preaching full time for 35 years. Yes, 10 hour publishers are not blessed by Jehovah I guess.

Creation Declares the Glory of God

Rather uneventful, just a talk about the creation declaring God’s glory. They kept referring to Ps 148: 1- 14 throughout the 3 days. The WTS kept saying how this scripture highlights how creation shows there is a creator. It was never explained then how in this line of thought what verse 11 meant.

Walk in the Way of Integrity

Ahhh, this talk set the tone for the 3 day convention. It covered all the major points, such as; following the WTS without question, avoiding the Internet and apostates, and how God will destroy the world and it’s sinners at Armageddon. It certainly had everything and was an unexpected gem in a morning that I figured to be boring after reviewing the program.

The speaker defined integrity in our instance as unbreakable loyalty to Jehovah and his standards. The underlying idea of course is that God’s standards are found today via the F&DS.

We then examined verse by verse Ps chapter 26. Verses of interest:

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:1 *** 26 Judge me, O Jehovah, for I myself have walked in my own integrity, And in Jehovah I have trusted, that I may not wobble.

vs.1: David had wobbled in the past, but he had a good heart condition and accepted discipline. Of course that means accepting discipline from the WTS, because the speaker then turned our attention to vs. 2:

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:2 *** 2 Examine me, O Jehovah, and put me to the test; Refine my kidneys and my heart.

The speaker said we can refine ourselves like David by praying, studying the bible, and studying the food from the F&DS. Funny, my copy of the bible didn’t mention anything about refining myself via the F&DS. Mine says that God does the refining.

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:4-5 *** 4 I have not sat with men of untruth; And with those who hide what they are I do not come in.

5 I have hated the congregation of evildoers, And with the wicked ones I do not sit.

It was only too obvious where this was going. We are to examine our use of the TV and the Internet. We were warned that apostates are on the Internet and will try to befriend us to break our integrity. Well, it’s only the first morning and the WTS is already laying this idea into us. There really must be a problem with the WTS losing people to the "Truth" found on the Internet. The WTS spent a lot of time all three days vilifying apostates of the WTS to make them appear to the R&F to be absolutely evil.

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:8 *** 8 Jehovah, I have loved the dwelling of your house And the place of the residing of your glory.

Attendance at ALL meetings, conventions, and assemblies is needed to ~~brainwash us~~ build our faith. Some great phrases: "Regular meeting attendance is fundamental". "Continuous meeting attendance will cause us to love Jehovah’s reminders."

I can only say that I used to feel guilty for not being at meetings. This must be what the WTS means by saying "love". Great example of WTS "Newspeak" & "Doublethink".

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:9 *** 9 Do not take away my soul along with sinners, Nor my life along with bloodguilty men,

Ohh, the WTS loved this scripture. This scripture mentions DEATH. Time to crank up the scare tactics. Hey, the WTS doesn’t have Hellfire, but it has something even better to scare the Hell right out of us; Armageddon.

This scripture was applied by the WTS by saying that on the internet are found GROSS WRONGDOERS. The WTS was mainly referring to porn here, but they rolled this quite nicely into our "Two-minutes of Hate", by saying that we must "hate what is bad" and then the talk went into three demonstrations of young ones keeping integrity. The young ones had to show how they hated what is bad, or rather, the people at school & work.

The first young one was in HS. His name was Trevor. Upon first look and listen we readily discern that our protagonist Trevor lacks even the most basic of social skills. He told us of how he was invited to a post prom party after graduation. He said it was easy to refuse because the guy that invited him was a known alcohol abuser and drug user. Somehow I had a feeling that the story may have turned out differently if the guy that invited Trevor was instead the High School’s Britney Spears, navel bearing, boob popping look-a-like that was intent on breaking in a virgin.

Our next example was of Ben and the evil Internet. Ben was using the Internet up to four hours a day. Well, while some people think nothing of seeing two movies that may amount to four hours, our young Ben quickly realized that this was time better spent studying the bible. As an avid Internet user, he gave assurance to the uninitiated in the audience that the Internet is filled with people that do not love God and he finally broke free. The best line was next from the speaker, "so Ben, how did you end up developing a HATRED for those that you could be associating with on the INTERNET?" I think that I zoned out after that Q thinking just how crazy it sounded to be asking such an obviously leading question. And to think that I have sat through demonstrations like this in the past and haven’t thought it weird to be having the WTS INSTRUCTING us to HATE everyone not a JW. Real nice.

Our last experience was from Joel, fresh out of HS. Nice looking, tall fellow, obviously has a good grasp of basic social skills, and is therefore a good reason for the WTS to trot him out on stage. He was talking to an elder about a problem that he had. Joel’s problem was that he was invited to a party by a girl at work. He said that she was a real nice girl even by JW’s standards. Well the elder had to fix this thinking right away. The elder stated that even though we have the FREEDOM to choose, the wrong choice can ruin our integrity to Jehovah.

So for those of you uninitiated to the WTS’s Orwellian "Newspeak", this means that we have freedoms as human beings, but we surrender all of our freedom to the WTS because we may make the wrong choice with our freedom. This was wrapped up with the elder turning the audiences’ attention again to

*** Rbi8 Psalm 26:9 *** 9 Do not take away my soul along with sinners, Nor my life along with bloodguilty men,

and then the elder asked young Joel what he thought of this scripture in regards to his situation. The response was appalling, "oh, I don’t want to lose my soul like the rest of the sinners will by Jehovah. I guess I’ll refuse the invite."

And with that we are onto the keynote address:

Glorious Prophetic Vision Spurs us on.

I was expecting some great quotes from this talk. And like clockwork the WTS did not disappoint.

Apparently this talk was written because the WTS must sense that the R&F are losing, not only their urgency, but their hope that the end is soon. So this talk was trying to get people back into thinking that the "end is very soon."

The speaker had this wonderful quote at the beginning, "How happy we are that the John Class has survived and ENDURED down to this time from the prophetic visions that were fulfilled in 1914."

Oh yes, this will be a good talk. The rewriting of history & happenings during 1914. More "Newspeak" by the WTS.

This went into the transfiguration witnessed by some of the Apostles. The WTS mentioned that Peter and John were spurred on because of this vision. Well the John class is spurred on by this same transfiguration account because many of the John class witnessed the fulfillment of this vision at 1914.

"In fact", he said, "the John class in the late 19 th century ACCURATELY knew that Jesus’ presence would be invisible and that the Gentile Times ended in the Autumn of 1914."

I was feeling slightly hysterical by this point.

"Many early Christians adopted pagan holidays. But that John class group has been PROGRESSIVELY cleansed when they were released from Babylon the Great in 1919".

Oh, and the next five minutes were just precious!

The speaker voiced concern how some today are losing their vision. They may be having a hard time using the WTS’ "Doublethink" "GRASPING" things in the Watchtower. He admonished us that we need to focus.

Hey WTS, how about this idea? How about you start focusing on one idea and stick with it. Geez, give me break. Blaming things on us again, just like the 1975 mess. Hey, we didn’t drop the ball on that GENERATION idea, ok?

Oh, but here was the icing on the cake.

The speaker has us read this account in Rev:

*** Rbi8 Revelation 19:11 ***

11 And I saw the heaven opened, and, look! a white horse. And the one seated upon it is called Faithful and True, and he judges and carries on war in righteousness.

And now the three Q’s that made me smile from ear to ear.

The speaker asked a series of three Q’s. For those that have been to DC’s, you know when you are supposed to clap during a talk. The speaker has this dramatic inflection in his voice, he speaks faster, and raises his volume. He then pauses. That is our cue to clap in agreement. The pause usually startles most in the audience out of their slumber and we start clapping because everyone else is.

"Four legs good, two legs bad, four legs good, two legs bad"; the sheep bleated. ~ Animal Farm

So here are his three Q’s and the audiences’ response:

1Q: "Are you focusing on this prophetic vision?"

He gets an immediate resounding clapping from the audience because, of course, we picked up the voice change, the pause in his speech, and everyone else clapping.

2Q: "Do you see it happening soon?"

And here is where I almost pissed my pants. No one claps for about two seconds. And I mean no one. Not one soul. Then there is a hesitant build up into LIGHT clapping.

3Q: "Will you wait on it?"

And the speaker left ZERO time for clapping, he just rolled into his concluding sentence and off to lunch we go. No I could give the speaker the benefit of the doubt and say that the outline didn’t call for him to wait on that last Q for clapping. Or maybe he was out of time and someone was telling him to get off the stage. Maybe he was just hungry.

My biased opinion and maybe even wishful thinking was that the speaker didn’t want to hear if we wanted to wait for the WTS’ crazy ideas because the audience didn’t respond too well to his second Q.

The WTS will have to get us ~~scared into allegiance~~ focused some other way I guess.

And off to lunch we go...

24

The District Convention, AKA things the WTS could never get away with putti

by Winston Smith :>D in

just got back from the three-day convention.

some have posted notes here already.

this was my first convention as an apostate as i have just awoken to the wts a couple of weeks ago.

Winston Smith :>D

the drama will be covered in part 6/6in my series of attending the convention after having the veil lifted from my eyes. it basically covered how much the world hates JW's and climaxed with the stoning of Stephen. It pretty much sickened me, because then it equated that event in bible history to JW's not taking blood and dying.

Thx for the interest

Winston.

24

The District Convention, AKA things the WTS could never get away with putti

by Winston Smith :>D in

just got back from the three-day convention.

some have posted notes here already.

this was my first convention as an apostate as i have just awoken to the wts a couple of weeks ago.

Winston Smith :>D

hi all,

thx for the interest. I'll go over some of my notes tonight and post a summary of some of the first day's talks to post tomorrow. i remember the first day had some whoppers.

the 2nd & 3rd days were just as spectacular, with the baptism talk [loyalty to the WTS wasn't brought up until the 2nd Q to the candidates, and then the speaker mentioned specfically the loyalty to the "overseers" in the prayer, real nice.] The was of course a part on honoring jehovah with your valuable things on the 2nd or 3rd day also.

i remember a part before that "money talk" which gave an experience of a CO only being able to visit an island once instead of twice a year because the WTS couldn't "afford" the plane ticket. but all 5 publishers on that island appreciated the co so much that these 5 pubs on the island picked up the $1000+ plane ticket for a 2nd visit each year, the same number of visits that all of the remaining cong. get. from a CO

the following part which was the "give us money part" talk an experience of a cong. that had a $900 mortgage payment. the lovingly kept paying the $900 to the WTS even after the mortgage was paid off to further the WTS WWwork. then the speaker said, "isn't it nice to know that the WTS uses the money to expressly further the WWwork?" I couldn't resist leaning in to my wife and saying, "yes, except for poor people on islands who need their 2nd visit from the CO."

I got a look for that.

39

Why cults hide their old publications.

by refiners fire in

here is a classic example of why it is that cultic religions find it necessary to conceal their old publications from the scrutiny of the membership.

this example is from 7th day adventism, but i assure all readers it is a classic and well worth the reading.

still, it is necessary to lay out a little background to the speech i will be quoting from before proceeding.

Winston Smith :>D

I read here that JW's sanitize the bound volumes, can somebody post some examples

Hey free.

i have read that the 1/1/89 W was altered to read from the original mag reading of saying that the "end would come before the end of the 20th century" to the bound volume's sanitized version saying something instead like "the end of the last days." not sure of the exact wording, though i would like to get my hands on a hard copy if possible.

Maybe i'll ask someone at the KH this Thu. w/the intention that I'm comparing the pictures of the original mag vs. the bound volume.

24

The District Convention, AKA things the WTS could never get away with putti

by Winston Smith :>D in

just got back from the three-day convention.

some have posted notes here already.

this was my first convention as an apostate as i have just awoken to the wts a couple of weeks ago.

Winston Smith :>D

Just got back from the three-day convention. Some have posted notes here already. This was my first convention as an “apostate” as I have just awoken to the WTS a couple of weeks ago. No one is aware of my awakening yet, so I was able to move about and talk freely to all of my friends, etc.

I will be posting notes here about my experience later this week after I compile my notes.

A few things of interest are:

I have never been more alert nor have I ever taken as many extensive notes in the past as I did over the past three days, and I was a pretty good JW if I can freely say so.
The new book “for the children” has the most abominable picture in the back of the book depicting Armageddon. Someone has a topic running here already. Even a few JW’s were surprised to see it in a kid’s book.
I have quite a few friends that are having all types of problems. Marriage problems being the foremost problem. Divorces, alcoholism, depression, etc. A lot of people are really beat up. It’s really sad.
There are now definite rules of what constitutes being drunk in the eyes of the WTS. The talk strongly suggested abstinence if it meant that alcohol would hinder you from getting into new system. It was suggested to stop having “open bars” at weddings.
Dresses with plunging neck lines [we new that I guess], “sun dresses”, and the “grunge look [didn’t that go out a while ago when Kurt Cobain blow his head off?] are bad. We went out to eat one night and there were a few sisters surprised to see a young sister wearing a modest button-up denim shirt during a demonstration because it was denim. I thought she looked very modest. She also had open-toed sandals on which was a no-no.

One talk had a speaker ask three questions. He first asked the audience if we had faith in the prophecies regarding the end. Then the speaker paused waiting for the sheep to applaud in agreement. The speaker’s pause awaked many from their slumber and the audience immediately clapped as trained. Then he asked if we thought that the end was soon. There was an awkward pause of a couple of seconds before light clapping SLOWLY ensued. He then asked if we will stay faithful to the direction of Jah, Jesus, and the WTS right to the end. But he didn’t wait for the audience to clap this time. He rolled right into his concluding sentence for the talk. He was either out of time or he wasn’t too confident on the response he’d receive based on the response to the previous Q. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Later at lunch I brought up this observation to some friends. The friends are Reg Pio’s and MS’s, and a couple of the wife Reg Pio’s started joking that the elderly seated on the floor level were thinking during these Q’s, “I thought the end is coming soon years ago.” Then one Reg Pio. sister said in an elderly-type voice while raising her first, “Yea, 1975!”. Oh, that made the MS husband a bit uneasy, and there was silence for a few awkward seconds over the group. The subject was quickly changed.

69

The new book for children.

by dmouse in

jw
friends

my wife went to the convention yesterday and brought back the new book for children 'learn from the great teacher'.. it's certainly much better than the old pink book, larger and more colourful, even if the pictures have a 1950's feel to them.

the introduction mentions that there are questions throughout the book that you should ask children to find out what is on their mind... saying ' true, the child may come out with with answers that are not correct.

but the printed material that follows each question is designed to help the child to develop wholesome patterns of thinking'.... 'wholesome patterns of thinking' eh?

Winston Smith :>D

Thx for posting this, it saved me the time of having to do this myself.

Just got back from the 3 day DC. Wow!

Anyways, yes, this picture is amazing. I made the comment to someone that I was surprised that we should be offering this to our Bible Study’s children. The reply was that it was only for JW’s, not people in the world. But it was then pointed out that the very last page say, “If you desire more info or a bible study, contact…”

“Oh, I guess we are supposed to be giving this to Bible Studies and RV’s." They really didn’t know what else to say about that because they thought that the picture was too graphic for children, especially for “worldy” kids.

4

Ex-JW book featured on Amazon.com

by truthseeker1 in

jw
friends

i just went to amazon.com and on the first page, the featured reccomendation was: .

awakening of a jehovah's witness: escape from the watchtower society.

by diane wilson .

Winston Smith :>D

just those who've expressed interest in similar books.

Huh, well that explains why this is my featured product

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6301865685/qid=1056040093/sr=-3/ref=__3/002-0705303-4984047?v=glance&s=books

And I thought that this was finally getting some mainstream acceptance. Oh well...

14

OMG, was I a Free Mason?

by Winston Smith :>D in

lunch break, and i think im going to be sick.

there are old watchtowers at our kh with the cross and crown symbol.

it was always rationalized to me as a symbol from christendom that finally got rooted out.

Winston Smith :>D

RF,

I recommend Volume 3 -"thy Kingdom come" chapter "The Work of Harvest" pages 140 thru 150 and 180 thru 190 to you?

Thx RF, will do. I think that we have one of the SiS at the KH, don’t know which one though. I have read one of his sermons to the FM’s. In it he did say that he wasn’t a FM but that he and them had much in common. it had the similar tone as Paul’s speech was to the folks worshiping the "Unknown god". I forget the specific account.

Anyways, to me if he was or wasn’t isn’t as important as the issue of all of the symbols that were incorporated into the Int. Bib. Students at that time. How would Jesus select them as the F&DS if they were using items from FM, "Christendom, and Egyptology?

Thx for the input all.