Hopefully, if you are still in the Jehovah's Witness (JW) organization and are reading this, it means that you are allowing a bit of clear thought to seep through the iron barriers and opaque stone walls that were placed inside your mind by the JW leadership. Especially for people like me who were born and raised in the religious movement until I could finally break down that indoctrination, meaning, false stories repeated over and over until you think they are real.
The indoctrination of JWs happen over many years of being force fed their literature, listening to countless public talks, attending endless conventions, then giving public talks, raising your hand at meetings at the Kingdom Hall to repeat a paragraph that was just read during the Watchtower study on a Sunday. Then, preaching from door-to-door to repeat what you have learned which is designed to strengthen that barrier inside your mind and shield you from your true self and from reality.
With each dead and dying generation that have witnessed the lies of the JW corporation, the leadership have started another massive fear campaign hoping to dupe another generation of people into believing their fairy tales that a God named Jehovah is set to destroy everyone on this planet except JWs and their Bible studies. This fear tactic is designed to make you send all of your savings to the JW headquarters in New York so the leadership will remain fat and rich for another generation to come while you plan the funerals for your aged and dying family who will witness only the continued failed prophecies of a dead and dying religious movement.
With each dead and dying generation that have witnessed the lies of the JW corporation, the leadership have started another massive fear campaign hoping to dupe another generation of people into believing their fairy tales that a God named Jehovah is set to destroy everyone on this planet except JWs and their Bible studies. This fear tactic is designed to make you send all of your savings to the JW headquarters in New York so the leadership will remain fat and rich for another generation to come while you plan the funerals for your aged and dying family who will witness only the continued failed prophecies of a dead and dying religious movement.
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| In a JW video from their website, Governing Body member Samuel Herd had the nerve to wear a Rolex watch. The Watchtower corporation remain fat and wealthy off their global fear mongering campaigns so the JW membership will send all their cash, savings, and stocks and bonds to them via donations and wills. [The screenshot is from the Kim and Mikey channel on YouTube, in a video called "JW's=Scams, Money & Kool-Aid.] |
Don't be afraid to take an objective look at the JW literature, at their carefully worded material, at their video dramas, when it is a recycling and updating of the same rhetoric since the founding of the organization over a hundred years ago. It is a carefully constructed machine designed to frighten ignorant people and prey upon people who were either born-ins that had no choice but to be force fed the teachings, or those forced in by marriage or if their parents joined when they were already teenagers. It can appeal to adults who join the movement who feel stuck in their current horrible life conditions and want freedom from reality thinking some super powerful force from heaven will free them from their burdens. Nope, you've got to free yourself. You've got to start learning and giving some effort to change a situation, not just give up. Yes, that's easier said than done. However, the JW religion offers a fantasy that is filled with lies and misdirection while you turn one way, they are snatching your wallet. That is all that the JW movement was about from the start, a new money making religion and the leadership came up with its own laws and policies, claiming they were from God. Buck up dear reader, you have been lied to by a corporation masquerading as a religion.
An example of JW indoctrination is let's say you were born in Italy, no doubt you were "forced" to learn the Italian language. It was needed for you to communicate with your family, to go to school and learn and to function and prosper in the land of your birth. But Italian was not the ONLY language you had to learn. Many schools teach both their native language and perhaps English, French or Spanish. Of course, we learn our native language but as we grow up, we can introduce new languages into our everyday lives if you choose to do so whether required for your job or just for personal knowledge. However, this is not the case with the JW organization. You are mandated to set aside your teachings from your native country and learn their new language and stop doing everything you have learned from birth and throw it away. You will be required to adopt their new language and only read their literature and only associate with fellow indoctrinated members of the organization. Why? Since that is the only way the movement has survived all these many long years, aside from the fact they mandate you stop storing up treasures here on earth by sending them to the Watchtower corporation, keeping their bank accounts full and healthy while you struggle to make ends meet.
Once you are on that path of indoctrination into the JW organization, you are mandated by its leadership to shun all other teachings, beliefs, and stop any further growth and knowledge of the world you live in or in the country of your birth. You are mandated to stop any family traditions, stop or never incorporate any celebrations of the land where you were born like Christmas celebrations. Every teaching of your birthplace and family are mandated to be pushed aside, forget it, never practice it and adopt the teachings of the JW organization, its culture, its practices, its beliefs, and its own unique language.
Please be aware it is a warped view of the world the JWs present. The JWs have come up with a hodgepodge of belief systems dating back a 100 years and changed a few things to make them appear to have special knowledge from God. As I have stated before, if everyone had the truth, we would all follow it or our sanity would be called into question. One simple example is the universal truth that gravity exists. If I decided to start a religion saying there is no gravity, well, one misstep on a staircase will leave you tumbling to the ground and perhaps suffering severe physical damage, even death. So there is that "truth" that the entire world follows or they will suffer injury or death. It's a reality, it's a truth.
There are other truths in this earth, I feel the wind on my face so I know that is a reality, it exists. However, the JWs take that farther and believe only they have the universal truth of why us humans and animals exist in the first place. Okay, you may have a firm belief in the God of the Bible, yet that is knowledge freely given to anyone who chooses to believe it. God never required anyone to sit inside a Kingdom Hall for hours on end and listen to a group of men dictating every aspect of your life. The Bible teachings are designed to test who you really are, the kind of person you are on the inside by reading its parables and stories of men and women of an age gone by.
The JWs are not the "guardians of doctrine" as was stated by the JW Governing Body member Geoffrey Jackson during the Australian Royal Commission hearings [a quick Google search will lead you to those hearings and to the Commission's website]. The JWs have no special knowledge or insight from God or anyone else. They are just a group of men leading their man-made organization and they published their own Bibles through the years based on Bible translations already in print, they just plagiarized existing material and changed a few scriptures, moved commas around and so forth, to make it their own translations. They inserted the name Jehovah from the King James version of the Bible and believe it shows they are the true religion. A quick Internet search of the origin of the name Jehovah and if it's truly the name of God the Most High, can be found on the Internet and one of the sites can be found here:
If you are struggling to move on, whether you are doubting the JW corporation or wherever you are in your struggle, sometimes simple and fun diversions can help break down the barriers inside our minds. For example, I found a YouTube channel that is fun yet very revealing. It is based on psychology studies of the human mind where certain things represent facets of our minds, such as, how we dealt with trauma in our past. A good diversion from the sometimes heavy task of waking up from being an indoctrinated JW and not seeing the forest for the trees, is to access this YouTube video called "The Forest Path" from a channel called "Mind Oddities":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0awjZwedOJw
I will share a few things I learned about myself from watching that video. My results from that brief test were extremely accurate of my upbringing as a born-in JW being sequestered to a life with my JW father who held many positions as an Elder in the various congregations we were assigned to, and my JW mother who brought him into the organization. I don't think it will spoil the test for you, I will provide no clues as to how the test progresses, only my results from the test:
- I did not feel safe when I was a child
- I was heavily influenced by the adults in my life
- I viewed the adults who had authority over me as "shady"
- I was placed in stressful situations growing up
- I had no additional opportunities presented to me
- I was met with confusion over the choices I was forced to make
- I had no room to grow emotionally
- I felt isolated
All of the test results above accurately describes the life of a child growing up inside the JW organization as I know my story and journey are not unique. Perhaps you have had similar life experiences inside the organization. Don't feel embarrassed about it, it wasn't your fault.
Your life is a rich tapestry of your past and the present, including all of the people who came in and out of your life. Don't waste the present on remaining paralyzed inside the fake, false JW religion. Start writing things down about your feelings, thoughts, and fears. Keep a journal and keep it in a safe place, perhaps carry it around with you and jot down impressions and ideas that come to you during the day. When you start waking up from the JW culture, it can be scary, but take your time and you will find your path out of your current predicament and you will start to add positive experiences to that rich tapestry that is your life.
The Fates weave a rich tapestry, of which each of us is an important thread. The woven threads intertwine and some are snipped off when the Fates so desire to keep a balance in this great universe in which we live.
#ex-jw #jehovahswitnesses
#freedomfromwatchtower
#watchtowercorporation #australianroyalcommission
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