I admire your courage, Aleutian, in knowingly or unknowingly violating 'divine order.' Hope you're doing well.

Posted by: Aleutian
Date: January 10, 2019 12:12PM

I recently recalled a time I was volunteering working on ¨G and M´s¨ luxury home on Oahu in Hawaii. It was a hot summer day, and I didn´t bring any sunscreen.

I had the nerve to ask for some. After all, I was working for free. Instead of them helping me, they called for their ¨handler¨ at the time to help me. He was quite flustered that I didn´t ask him first and chewed me out, telling me to follow ¨divine order¨.

It was a good light-bulb moment for me. After that I said "F%$K this" haha.

Another light-bulb moment occurred when I watched the Netflix documentary "Holy Hell". I would highly suggest it to people in this group that are fascinated by the social intricacies of "cultish groups".

Thank you again to the poster who wrote this line early in the year. It never ceases to lift my mood...and it did the trick again today:
"I threw all LWF literature in the dump years ago."

changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I admire your courage, Aleutian, in knowingly or
> unknowingly violating 'divine order.' Hope you're
> doing well.
>
> Posted by: Aleutian
> Date: January 10, 2019 12:12PM
>
> I recently recalled a time I was volunteering
> working on ¨G and M´s¨ luxury home on Oahu in
> Hawaii. It was a hot summer day, and I didn´t
> bring any sunscreen.
>
> I had the nerve to ask for some. After all, I was
> working for free. Instead of them helping me, they
> called for their ¨handler¨ at the time to help me.
> He was quite flustered that I didn´t ask him first
> and chewed me out, telling me to follow ¨divine
> order¨.
>
> It was a good light-bulb moment for me. After that
> I said "F%$K this" haha.
>
> Another light-bulb moment occurred when I watched
> the Netflix documentary "Holy Hell". I would
> highly suggest it to people in this group that are
> fascinated by the social intricacies of "cultish
> groups".

Knowingly or unknowingly violating "divine order"... Yes, no one knew ALL the rules. That way you could be reprimanded for something you had no idea was going to be a problem. For instance, I once called the grand poobah of something-or-other church. I asked if I could take a meal to a grieving family who had just lost someone precious. The reaction was strange. Note: GP = Grand Poobah

Me: I'm calling because I was told to ask permission to take dinner to the grieving family.

GP: Why would you take them dinner?

Me: Well, that's what church members do for one another. When a family member dies, more family comes to the home. It can be a difficult time to provide food for so many visitors.

GP: I doubt if they want anyone coming over, but if you insist, I'll call anyway.

Me: Please let me know.

(A few minutes later...)

GP: (In a tone of disbelief) They said they would love for you to bring dinner.

Me: OK, thanks for checking. I'll get right on it.

Also Me (to self): What just happened and what planet am I on???

(Just for added "huh?" factor, this was a female grand poobah.)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2020 03:44AM by Reepicheep.

Both ALEUTIAN and REEP reveal the dark underbelly of a culture that preached against position, but was the epitome of it gone mad.

One can tell a lot about a person in how he/she treats the 'little people' (in their eyes only), for in actuality, their contribution is not 'little', but the one HEAVEN smiles upon.

The EQUALITY of HEAVEN has CREATED every ONE the same.  The Walk/TLW was an impediment to HEAVEN on earth.

kBOY wrote:
Both ALEUTIAN and REEP reveal the dark underbelly of a culture that preached against position, but was the epitome of it gone mad.

true

Yes, I will never forget the Factnet forums--the wild west of cult 'discussions.' I think at that time my username was 'Lamp from Ikea.'
This post by GSchaeff from August of 2018:

Posted by: GSchaeff
Date: August 14, 2018 08:37AM

Beginning in the early 2000s, a few members of TLW prided themselves on "covertly" infiltrating the Factnet forums, spreading distrust, and defaming posters with character assassination. Gary Hargrave instructed most of the TLW movement to stay off the forums, but he allegedly also sanctioned a handful to continue spreading confusion online. This would have been around the time that the Hargraves employed a PR agency, Phil Cooke's Influence Lab, to clean up their online image.

Behind the scenes there are numerous accounts of people in power at TLW using threats of violence, lawsuits, and character assassination to silence those who might rock the boat. Time and again, leaders have sought to cover up controversies of all magnitudes. Once, leaders were even instructed to vehemently deny Gary's health had declined and he'd been hospitalized for months after the fact.

It is important to ask yourself, if TLW's first instinct is to cover up small issues like Gary Hargrave's health, what else will they seek to cover up? Also, what is so threatening lately that they feel the need to target the forums? One wouldn't think they'd employ a goon to harass and threaten posters if there was no truth to some of the recent allegations on here.

It is no longer surprising to accept the fact of the deep-seated corruption of both The Walk of JRS and the reign of G & M in the TLW era.

What is surprising is that there are still those out there who refuse to accept that fact.

Post by 'PowerTrip' on Christmas day, 2019:

Posted by: PowerTrip ()
Date: December 25, 2019 03:03AM

Dear All,

First of all I want to wish everybody happy holidays. I wanted to say a big thanks to everybody on this group. We might have meet before or not but there is definitely one thing we can all connect, survivors from the hands of predators that believe they are above the law and speaking on God’s name.

I am Brazilian and my first contact with TLW was in 19080. My sister was looking for something more than our baptism church and started going there. During my first service I met Silas Esteves. He was 10 years older than me. Johns Stevens was still alive and the powerful message touched my heart. I was so happy thinking that I have found my home.

Silas went to the US for a period and when he came back he was considered by all the person closest to John, Rick Holbrook, Marilyn, Scott MacDonald and others that are mentioned here.

When he came back, he had a fiancée but we started a relationship. I was 17 years old and had zero sexual experience. We dated, we even got engaged and I was working to support him financially. Years later he had a vision and I was not good enough to be his wife, because he was already moving on to the next girl. I tried to killed myself during that period because I was not enough.

I kept my head determined to move forward and in 1989 I went to Shiloh for a period and later lived for 6 months with Ricky and Shannon at the famous Blix Street. I noticed Ricky escaping with Maria during the odd hours of the day, I saw the way he acted among young girls. I was older and completely in love with Silas Esteves, even though he was engaged to someone else. He kept me on the side and I was okay with that. I thought I was not enough and that because of his importance and connection with God and the leaders of TLW he needed more than one person to satisfy him.

Silas Esteves deserves to go to jail. He was an abuser before but after finding others that acted like him there was no stop. I remember one day when I was seriously worried about Rick and Maria relationship and Silas was touching me and saying that the relationship he had with Maria was normal, like a father, unique like the relationship he had with me.

Because of Silas Esteves I left my family, I could not had relationships with other people and started having panic attacks. When I told him I was not coming to the church anymore he was mad. probably because I know so many of the secrets and during one service he announced that I was not going to be a part of the church anymore but that he was certain I gave my best years to serve him. This phrase haunted me. I thought I was going to die, that I would be hit by a car because I left. I was terrified!

I read a lot of the posts and comments and because I was part of this so called “inner circle” as a consequence of my relationship with Silas I feel ashamed for not saying anything in the past. He basically isolated me and controlled every single aspect of my life.

The breaking point was when he decided I should get married to one elder, so I could move closer to his, and his wife Selma, at the time.

I knew about boys being sexuality assaulted by elders, girls being groomed and at that time i was powerless.

I am in Los Angeles visiting friends this holiday, my first trip after almost 20 years and memories came flooding in my head and one Google search about The Valley church opened up all the gates to this post.

This cult has to end and the people in charge cannot be allowed to live their rich life with the money they literally stolen from so many people. They should pay for making such a group of wonderful people, that truly believed were serving God, in misery.

Sorry for saying this today but I literally feel free to express my feelings and knowing you guys understand me.

Thank you for creating a place we’re whe can share experiences and get healed together.

Wow! I am not sure if this is a coincidence or not but thanks @changedagain for reposting. I am having a bit of a hard time over the last days. Flashbacks flooding my mind because I started watching Jeffrey Epstein documentary on Netflix. The "massages" were a trigger. I am sure men in power have shared these methods throughout generations. We all joined TLW thinking we were going to be saved and not expecting the levels of physical, financial, phycological, emotional, and personal abuse that would affect our lives. But, we are survivors, right? And we will keep speaking our truth. *hugs*

P O W E R t r i p

It was brave of you to post back in December 2019, revealing a very sensitive time in your life, and another unfortunate chapter in TLW which most of us in the states probably knew little about.  There seems to be no end to the darkness.

Thanks again, for touching base.  The best we can do is to offer a receptive ear to the hurts done by others and hopefully be able to 'untrigger' areas in one another, once again restoring the WHOLENESS which is our SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE.