Ron Weinland meets his "camp" mate
...campout!
Ron apparently believes he was on a 3 1/2 year campout!
Even though it is well documented in court proceedings, by the Ron Weinland Blog, this blog and other sites that he is a convicted felon, he apparently believes his followers are dumb enough to he was on a campout.
Excogger says:
February 9, 2018 at 17:21
Ron did NOT go to prison!
In his last published sermon he admits he had been, for a period of three years, on a “campout”.
Yes, Ron was another happy camper on an extended vacation, it would appear.
Give me strength!!!! From False Prophet Ron Weinland
Why is it that COG members will hear these men lie through their teeth daily, in and day out, and yet they sit there week after week believing the vomit that flows out of their mouths. Do COG members still feel the need to be "special" and "called out" from the world and need this continued mental reinforcement? The entire church knows that HWA uttered hundreds of failed prophecies. They know Rod Meredith, Dean Blackwell, Herman Hoeh, Gerald Flurry, Dave Pack, Gerald Waterhouse, Bob Thiel, James Malm and many, many others did it and still do it. And still, they sit.
19 comments:
Oh, groan. When I was goose stepping along, I fell for such crap too, but as time went on, it got more and more apparent what a farce I was involved in. At least, I still had enough brain left for that awareness to creep in, and it did creep rather slowly.
The best answer to this question cannot be understood by referring to your past experience in the WCG. My guess is that most of us who exited Armstrongism do not know why we were there because of the state of our minds at the time. We had our ability to think rationally compromised.
Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist, wrote of mind control "...the process by which individual or collective freedom of choice and action is compromised by agents or agencies that modify or distort perception, motivation, affect, cognition or behavioral outcomes."
I heard Dean Blackwell blatantly misinterpret a scripture having to do with Israel in one of his "race" sermons. In the congregation, you know how it was, pages rustled as people turned to the scripture that he was going to read. He read the scripture and then repeated it to the audience and when he repeated it he changed the meaning 180 degrees. I was stunned. I looked around at the audience and it was clear that nobody was able to respond to this. After services, I thought someone would mention this misappropriation but everyone, in a large congregation, walked around with happy smiling Sabbath faces. It was surreal and a little creepy - like a science fiction movie where people's minds are taken over by aliens.
Being captured by the Armstrongist movement is insidious. You start to accept some focused sales pitches in the form of little booklets advertised in an intriguing way on the radio. Soon you are swallowing large chunks of heresy whole. And whatever psychological baggage you have may be helping the process of your corruption.
Why are the Millerite brothers to the Armstrongists, the Branch Davidians, still waiting for Vernon Howell to be resurrected?
But once you are a fully transformed Armstrongist, critical and independent thinking is gone. And that is why some of the mighty prophesiers retain a following no matter what. Like Big Brother Donald, their base is unmoveable.
A Campout??
Did he "Fry Wieners", "Make Smores", snap towels at the other "campers" in the shower, and tell ghost stories too?
Will prison now be the new YOU Camp for Weinland youth for summer vacation?
Why is it that COG members will hear these men lie through their teeth daily, in and day out, and yet they sit there week after week believing the vomit that flows out of their mouths.
Why do people disregard better sources and keep listening to chronic liars in the media even when they know the media are chronic liars? Why do people go university and study humanities when it has been proven that it is largely PC propaganda and lies? Because they don't know where else to go and because they stupidly suppose they can sift all the lies from the truth.
NEO
I had a similar experience when a minister in a holy day sermon who quoted the scripture "vengeance is mine, I will repay." But his tone of voice said the exact opposite. So in effect he said 'God will never avenge wrong doing.' This is encouraging sweet music to the church bullies. After services, I too had people quote the minister with his 180 degree meaning of this scripture, but I do not believe they were deceived. They just loved the lie.
I have noticed over the years that many ministers use the same manipulative ploys, and even the exact same words against church members. So obviously they discuss and share manipulative ploys among themselves.
After services, I thought someone would mention this misappropriation but everyone, in a large congregation, walked around with happy smiling Sabbath faces. It was surreal and a little creepy - like a science fiction movie where people's minds are taken over by aliens.
This is one of the reasons why I left LCG. The minister would sometimes berate our congregation for not discussing the sermons during the fellowship time after services. Well, when I then dared to ask well-meaning questions about some of the sermons, and when those questions included references from Scripture and from earlier WCG/LCG literature, I was told that my questions were "causing division." Other members of the congregation saw this and preferred to keep silent, but a few became cheerleaders praising whatever new ideas came out of the mouths of the ministers, even if they contradicted what used to be taught. It was so cultish that I couldn't just keep quiet. I had to leave.
Anon said: "I have noticed over the years that many ministers use the same manipulative ploys, and even the exact same words against church members. So obviously they discuss and share manipulative ploys among themselves."
The abusive types I knew personally did so as a function of their dysfunctional personality combined with scriptures they rather sincerely read for their literal meaning. I never experienced, heard of or thought any of them "obviously" did anything or discuss and share manipulative ploys among themselves. I knew of no deliberate collusion to deceive or use "methods" against the members. They were just quirky authoritarians who got away with their deviant personalities too long and rather than address them, the church moved them around to torment the next church. That's just my experience and observation.
I have noticed on Banned that over time vast conspiracies by ministers tend to grow and I just don't believe that was the case. If they used the same words it was because they had the same play book, The Bible.
I wonder if he attempted to relate to any of his fellow prisoners as human beings, was compassionate to them, and perhaps developed a higher level of humanity as a result of this humbling experience. I also wonder if the prison where he was incarcerated held mostly white collar offenders, or if there were some of the more rough and tumble types. Does anyone know of any sermons which he has given since he was released in which he outlined some of the profound lessons he had learned during those 3-1/2 years?
My WCG experiences have probably left me with a healthy dose of cynicism, but I seriously doubt that Weinland learned a damned thing. He was probably as indignant as a housecat whose nose had been rubbed in poo by its insensitive master.
BB
Does he miss his bunk mate?
NEO
Related to the results of the often quoted Zimbardo, Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments are the Asch conformity experiments.
It is my opinion that ministers were not privy to sinister methodology or practitioners of psychological torture through conscious and deliberate study of the subject. Often they were just "true believers" such as ourselves
I therefore find the results of the Asch experiment more fitting to the your experience and the example you gave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
I have seen it in real life also when smoke was blown into a room. All complicits just continued reading their magazines or listening to music, while the choice object of the experiment became increasingly uncomfortable remaining in the room and looked askingly around why no one would leave the room. REMAINED SEATED during the entire experiment.
I have argued that wcg was just one big social cia experiment to see how groups of people would respond to certain influx or data during the cold war. But I have no evidence for that, except that it SEEMS we have been participating in one of the largests social experiments ever, before they would be unleashed on the masses enjoying the priviliges of "democracy" while their consent has been engineered. (A problem most politicians already recognized in the thirties, with the rising problem of universal suffrage. How do you get the masses to chooses long term freely instead of easy short term gain. Freuds cousin, Bernays was employed to solve some of that problem.
Very topical with a president who has chosen to feed the american people with enormous chunks of "short term gain", while ignoring any future impediments that might occur in the future from choosing such strategy.
nck
nck, I agree with what you said, that it's "Very topical with a president who has chosen to feed the american people with enormous chunks of "short term gain", while ignoring any future impediments that might occur in the future from choosing such strategy.
(i.e., the republican talking point of "more money in your pocket" while ignoring the previous republican talking point of "Beware the growing deficit!")
However, I'm nowhere near convinced (as you seem to be) that the WCG was a 'social experiment' project of the CIA.
I believe that various harmful cults (WCG, SDA, etc etc) arose because of the sick proclivities of the leaders, and were able to grow and gain traction due to their relevant zeitgeist. They've become less relevant as times have continued to change.
Dennis
I am disappointed that you think those who complain of minister abuse are conspiracy nuts. Cult experts such as the late Margaret Singer point out that when there is a body of complaints against a group, investigation typically proves them correct. Church culture is one of robbing members of their lives. The uniformity, and mountain of complains proves that it not just some 'quirky authoritarians' that's the problem. The ploys used to mentally grind members down involve the abuse of scriptures and non scriptures. The commonality of ploys does mean conspiracy. For instance, they use Pavlovian verbal conditioning to try to induce automatic obedience from members. Some of the exact same words that they use are non biblical, so yes, they discuss this among themselves.
I remind you that as a minister you were largely left alone by the other ministers, and you appear partial to them.
There are people who experience the negative consequences of former membership
on a daily basis. And that's decades after leaving the church.
If you disagree and think the problem is only one of a few quirky authoritarians, I question whether you belong on this blog.
Maybe I missed something that Dennis wrote, but I did not see anything describing those who complain of minister abuse as being, "conspiracy nuts"
I've never spoken to Dennis personally, but I do know that members of my family traveled outside our area on Sabbaths to hear him speak because he didn't spew the kind of crap that our local ministers did.
10.28 AM
I suggest you re read Dennis's last paragraph, the 'over time vast conspiracies by ministers tend to grow and I don't believe that..'
The 'he didn't really mean that' is why fruitcakes like Dave Pack still have followers despite his common and Dominion nonsense. Dave has the odd good sermon on YouTube as well.
8:21
I think I must agree with you fully.
Regarding my point on democracy. There is some excellent information (3 part BBC documentary) available on I believe you tube also. It is called "The engineering of consent." And speaks about the challenges the sudden rise of "mass democracy posed" to long term thinkers.
nck
Wouldn’t it just be a gas if we could reduce Armstrongism to having been a CIA experiment gone terribly wrong?
BB
3:24PM,
I re-read Dennis's last paragraph.
Although I still don't see him describing those who object to ministerial abuse as "conspiracy nuts", I am aware of many instances and efforts of Dennis's that are very critical of such abuse. (Open letters, etc.)
I hear him saying that he does believe that many abusive ministers are sincere(in their own sick way) in their efforts to do what they think furthers what their perceived god plans and wants.
BTW, I'm also a fan of people like Margaret Singer and Richard Ofshe- among others- who have elucidated the various techniques used in cult recruitment and retention.
I think that even though some 'ministers' use such techniques, it does not necessarily mean they are insincere in what they do-
For instance, did HWA really believe the crap he taught? Does Ron Weinland really believe the crap he teaches?
As a mere 'armchair psychologist' and commenter here, I don't know their minds, and can only guess. (My guess is that Herbert mostly believed what he taught, and that Ron is more of an outright intentional fraud riding on the coat-tails of Armstrong's legacy and exploiting disaffected and confused WCG members for monetary gain.)
I suppose there are a wide variety of opinions about which ministers believe what they teach.
You mentioned Pack, and said,
"The 'he didn't really mean that' is why fruitcakes like Dave Pack still have followers..."
Iirc, Dennis has many times refuted what Pack teaches, and has also (on multiple occasions) challenged 'Delusional Dave' to a debate.
If you are contending that Dave Pack still has followers because of what Dennis and people of similar opinions wrote, then I'll have to disagree with you.
-Norm
Norm
You sound like Dennis's sidekick. I'm surprised that some are harping on the the 'conspiracy nut' label, though I believe that is what Dennis meant. If only 'some ministers' used abusive techniques, this blog would not exist. As far as l'm concerned, both you and Dennis are denying and/or trivilizing the existence of evil and abusive ministers. Are thugs sincere? The question is ridiculous. Is a thief sincere? Is a rapist sincere?
That crown stealer Dennis doesn't want people to believe that evil exists, or barely exists, is hardly surprising.
What's the difference between the prisoners at Gitmo and WCG members? One group got waterboarded and the other got waterhoused What's worse?
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