Quote
Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: kbyrne ()
Date: January 29, 2019 09:25AM
Reading some of the lastest posts, strangely, it reminds me of magic tricks.
Coming into the walk in '73, a huge thing was to try to position yourself to
get a "word," "personal ministry," from JRS. Personally, I could never
get enough. And like a magic trick, I would wonder, how did JRS know that
about me?
The thing about magic tricks are, once you learn how it is done, it's easy
to blame yourself, "How did I not see that? It's so obvious now that it was
a trick." Once you know how it's done, It certainly loses its allure and its power over you.
There are those people that never want to see how a magic trick is done,
because they don't want to lose the magic.
I can say that even though I left the walk 30 plus years ago, I didn't want
to let go of the magic. I did not want to believe that I was deceived. I
didn't come into the walk saying "Please deceive me." No, unfortunately
there were leaders, JRS and others, that knew how to perform the magic
tricks, and did, with full knowledge of what they were doing.
Your post is very insightful, kbyrne. No one was looking to be deceived or remain deceived upon entering The Walk/TLWF. No one purposely tries to find a cult and join up.
Every one of us had different experiences, but I'd be willing to bet that none of us realized that we were in a cult while we were in it. We thought we were in a church, a movement, a "Move of God". Even after leaving, it's easy to blame yourself for just not being dedicated enough to stick with it. You have to study and do the hard work in order to realize that you were conned. Magic tricks is a good description.
Blaming victims is not ok. It retraumatizes them. But studying cult leaders and their tricks will certainly bring a level of protection from being tricked again.