Quote
Onion

Changedagain:

Vicious and driven for the throne. Obsessed with "her children" who she uses to kill innocent people of all ages.

Yep. TLWF leaders to a T.

RIP.

MILIEU CONTROL

The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also - in its penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.

Such milieu control never succeeds in becoming absolute, and its own human apparatus can - when permeated by outside information - become subject to discordant "noise" beyond that of any mechanical apparatus. To totalist administrators, however, such occurrences are no more than evidences of "incorrect" use of the apparatus. For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret: thought reform participants may be in doubt as to who is telling what to whom, but the fact that extensive information about everyone is being conveyed to the authorities is always known. At the center of this self-justification is their assumption of omniscience, their conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Having experienced the impact of what they consider to be an ultimate truth (and having the need to dispel any possible inner doubts of their own), they consider it their duty to create an environment containing no more and no less than this "truth." In order to be the engineers of the human soul, they must first bring it under full observational control.

From: [culteducation.com]

Thought Reform and the Psychology of TotalismThe University of North Carolina Press/Chapel Hill and London By Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.

Sounds an awful lot like "Do not drink from many fountains."

*Believe the Survivors*



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 06:26AM by Reepicheep.

The above post was written in response to something posted elsewhere about people who refuse to read the accounts of victims of abuse in TLWF.

This silencing and ignoring has been a common theme in TLWF/The Walk history. Victim accounts were denied both by JRS in his time as well as by G&M. Even though the victims were known to be telling the truth, they were shamed and isolated. They were ostracized or sent away. People who were concerned were told that the victim was lying and that they should never speak to this person again. Pastors and Apostolic Ministries who were known serial abusers were still promoted and celebrated. Perhaps being a sexual abuser was considered to be a minor character flaw in the quest for "The Kingdom".

Just whose Kingdom was that? Who would want to live in such a kingdom? It sounds dystopian to me.

Reepicheep Wrote:

> This silencing and ignoring has been a common
> theme in TLWF/The Walk history. Victim accounts
> were denied both by JRS in his time as well as by
> G&M. Even though the victims were known to be
> telling the truth, they were shamed and isolated.
> They were ostracized or sent away. People who were
> concerned were told that the victim was lying and
> that they should never speak to this person again.

True

Reep wrote:
Just whose Kingdom was that? Who would want to live in such a kingdom? It sounds dystopian to me.

I agree.
But now as an expression of being fair and balanced, I feel compelled to share this excerpt from a message that Gary brought on Marilyn's birthday. I think it was originally posted by kBoy, along with his incisive, humorous edits. I am just sharing what was actually spoken (quotes), according to kBoy. Of course, it's no surprise I consider it blatant propaganda (revising history), but I could be deluded :)

"Happy Birthday, Marilyn"
November 16, 2016

[www.garyandmarilynhargrave.com]

"Without question, it was a moment of destiny when she arrived on this earth!"

"Marilyn had a powerful calling from God, and she walked it out with tremendous integrity."

"Marilyn lived presenting her spirit before the Lord."

"She continually sought deeper and deeper meetings with God for herself and for everyone around her."

"Every generation in this fellowship has known Marilyn’s intense love for them."

"She created us into a family by requiring that we love . . . , become the Word of God and be the presence of the Lord to each other."

"Today, as her family, we unite our hearts together to honor her in our love for one another."

"The hunger for God expressed by this amazing woman of God is one of her many qualities that we continue to honor about her."

"If you knew Marilyn, you’d know that she would want any celebration of her life to point back to . . ."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 11:59PM by changedagain.

Cloudwatcher Wrote:

> Wasn't it under 200,000 in February 2016? I think
> I recall that I saw that. It had stepped up a bit
> but not like this.

Hi Cloudwatcher. I found the post of what you might be referring to. Please pay notice to my statement re: not caring about stats. That's important :)

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: changedagain
Date: January 02, 2017
Over 269,400 page views to date...(not that I care about stats)

Note: as of today, there has been 1,030,780 page views. Not Game of Thrones territory, of course, but respectable for an ongoing discussion about a little, relatively insignificant cult.

p.s. Once we're done here, I might join a discussion somewhere online about common problems with lawnmowers. I think that is my next step.

I hear Game of Thrones is getting a prequel. I hope so - and several spin offs!

Here is the prequel to Reepicheep's post about the cult controlling what we speak and hear:

I believe most of us who consider ourselves survivors of harm from TLWF, have spent quite a bit of time studying facts and history, checking the accuracy of what we remember, seeking confirmation from people we trust and from educated sources publicly available -- either before we spoke about our experiences or soon after and before we went much further in our expression and exposure of truth.

Does anyone know if the diehard TLWF members have done the same? Just last week I heard someone who is apparently a diehard but who I had heard was not, say that he and his wife read a little on FB at the beginning but stopped right away and hasn't read "any of it" since because it is too hard to tell what is true and what isn't. WHAT!??? Where is the exercise of discernment? Where is the understanding of confirmation as taught from TLWF pulpits?

Why is there such fear of information? If people want to oppose us, if people want to stand with those we've named no matter what they have done, why is it necessary to ignore the stories of what they have done? Where is the faith in that position? God is not small.

Onion Wrote:

> Does anyone know if the diehard TLWF members have
> done the same? Just last week I heard someone who
> is apparently a diehard but who I had heard was
> not, say that he and his wife read a little on FB
> at the beginning but stopped right away and hasn't
> read "any of it" since because it is too hard to
> tell what is true and what isn't.

Consider what the average regular poster on this forum has likely experienced--decades of indoctrination, sometimes attending a half-dozen or more church services and miscellaneous meetings a week, and literally being bombarded by the "living word" (in one form or another) most of your waking existence. These messages were presented as God speaking to us, and to question the content of these messages or the 'vessel' delivering them was an invitation to be severely dealt with. We experienced this "discipline" ourselves, and witnessed other being put through it. The conditioning (fear) not to question leadership runs deep. I imagine that those still remaining loyal to ex-TLWF leaders can't or won't fathom that these leaders are not what they've presented themselves to be all these years. It's too radical a paradigm shift. It's probably easier to attack survivors who have presented their accounts of what happened to them, call them liars, then having to confront the possibility they have been duped for most of their lives (along with loved ones). I've mentioned before that I was fortunate to have a small family that had grown weary together of church leadership--knowing something was terribly amiss. I'm thankful that Hargrave was especially harsh to my wife and I during our last couple years in TLWF, since it's what propelled to get the hell out. Our kids were more than willing to leave too, which hasn't been the case for many families.
That said, to your credit Onion, you've dealt with many of the diehards more directly than I have in recent years. You have every right to be frustrated. Aside from writing in this forum, I've stayed mostly insulated from the attacks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2019 07:59AM by changedagain.

changedagain Wrote:

> I'm thankful that Hargrave was especially harsh to
> my wife and I during our last couple years in
> TLWF, since it's what propelled to get the hell
> out. Our kids were more than willing to leave too,
> which hasn't been the case for many families.

p.s. when we left, I never listed the real reason for the departure--an overbearing authority structure, personified in G & M. I gave some other reason (I think) in our departure letter. That speaks to the repression we were under. These online forums have been a godsend, at least in my experience.

Changedagain said: That said, to your credit Onion, you've dealt with many of the diehards more directly than I have in recent years. You have every right to be frustrated. Aside from writing in this forum, I've stayed mostly insulated from the attacks.

----------------

Thanks, Changedagain. I guess I don't realize when I sound frustrated. It is interesting to think about how to feel about diehards.

I don't blame most of the diehards because I was a diehard for so, so long. I know the torture to my soul it took for me to face the truths and reality that led me to believe in the need to depart TLWF as well as to expose what I know to be the truth. It almost killed me (literally, not just being dramatic).

If people are having a hard time knowing how to think, I hope they feel love and grace from those of us who have made our decision. I want us to be a safe place to fall for people who are afraid of being alone. It is terribly hard accepting that you have (or may have) given decades of the best years your life has to offer to something that turned out to be different than you believed.

What/who frustrates me are the people (many times couples) who may have some leadership history and the need to accept their roles in the history of TLWF (which is scary to face) but who refuse to read the stories of the survivors and who then make their decision based on partial truths and story excerpts -- or worse -- third-hand comments about what someone else has concluded. And who then take an adversarial role against the people who are speaking out.

I get angry when someone I love has been mistreated in some way in social media or in other correspondence/communication and I just can't tolerate additional abuse after everything that has been reported by so many people. I believe many former leaders are biding their time, waiting to come back in to take back their position. It may have a new name, it may work a little different. But until those leaders come clean about what they have taken from the people through fraud and intimidation, any idea that they would get another chance to "do it again" is beyond what is tolerable. IMO.

Well said.