16AR21-10

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AR 21:10 - Is the Watchtower Society concealing child abuse?

In this issue:

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES - are they skillfully hiding sexual abuse?

OCCULTISM - ancient "arts" invade the tech world

Apologia Report 21:10 (1,283)

March 9, 2016

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

In this day of growing concerns over religious freedom, who should be given special treatment? Consider the article "Jehovah's Witnesses can hide the truth in court to protect religion" by Trey Bundy: "On a Friday morning in August, one of the Jehovah's Witnesses top leaders sat before an Australian government commission investigating whether the organization hid child sexual abuse from secular authorities.

"That Geoffrey Jackson, one of the seven members of the religion's Governing Body, was being grilled in public captivated a global community of former Witnesses that watched the live stream on their home computers.

"During two weeks of hearings, Jackson and members of the organization's top brass in Australia gave hours of sworn testimony, but at least one big question remained: Were any of them telling the truth?

"Since the 1950s, the Witnesses have preached a doctrine allowing Jehovah's followers to deceive anyone outside of the religion if doing so protects the organization. They call it 'theocratic warfare.'

"The policy has taken on a new significance today as Jehovah's Witnesses are coming under scrutiny across continents for enabling and concealing child sexual abusers. Top leaders are being questioned under oath as judges and investigators try to get to the bottom of a global scandal. ...

"For 25 years, Watchtower policies have directed elders in all U.S. congregations to hide cases of child sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies as well as their own congregations, according to confidential documents from inside the organization. ...

"In another California lawsuit against the Witnesses last year, one of the organization's top leaders, Governing Body member Gerrit Lösch, refused to testify. ...

"Although Lösch claims he has no power over any department of the Watchtower, internal Watchtower documents show that, as a Governing Body member, he oversaw one of two Watchtower departments that deal with allegations of child abuse, at least until 2014. ...

"San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Lewis, who heard the Jose Lopez case, threw the Watchtower's defense out of court for refusing to comply with court orders.

"'Watchtower's actions or omissions were "reprehensible,"' she wrote in her decision.

"She also dismissed Lösch's declaration that he, as a Governing Body member, had no power over the Watchtower.

"'The award of punitive damages against them will hopefully send a message to [the] Watchtower and its managing agents, the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses, that their handling of sex abuse cases within their congregation was absolutely reckless,' she wrote.

"Lewis awarded Lopez $13.5 million.

"Jehovah's Witnesses are also facing pressure outside the U.S.

"The investigation in Australia has been the most sweeping government inquiry into the Watchtower's child abuse policies to date. Prior to the hearings, investigators uncovered 1,006 allegations of child sexual abuse against Jehovah's Witnesses in Australia since 1950. None were reported to the police. ...

"The commission lacks the power to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators but has referred some cases to criminal authorities and plans to issue recommendations to the government.

"During the hearings, Vincent Toole, the head of the Watchtower's legal department in Australia, was asked whether he was aware of the theocratic warfare doctrine.

"'Well, I've heard the expression,' he said, 'but I'm not really sure what it means.'

"He was then asked whether Witnesses were allowed to lie to protect Jehovah's name.

"'We are truthful,' he said. 'To be a Christian, you have to be truthful.'" Reveal, Sep 23 '15. <www.goo.gl/HO1z5i>

For updates see <www.goo.gl/QOCpnz> and <www.goo.gl/CpV9hB>

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OCCULTISM

"Netromancy" by Jenna Wortham -- "When Bri Luna started her website, the Hoodwitch, she intended to carry on the legacy of her grandmother, who was a curandera: a traditional spiritual healer from Mexico. Luna, a beautician in her 20s who lives in Seattle, uses the site to publish tutorials on topics like how to cleanse a new home by burning sage and how the lunar cycles affect your daily life. What started out as a hobby became so popular that Luna turned it into a business....

"Lately, the Internet has become a more enchanted place. Scroll through popular Instagrams, Tumblr accounts and Pinterest boards, and you'll unearth posts of glittering geodes, aura photography, psychedelic patterns and geodesic designs. ...

"What could explain this technologized return to medieval fascinations? K-Hole, the marketing and branding agency responsible for coining the word 'normcore,' thinks it has an answer. A recent report from the firm touches on 'occult technologies' and compares such modern magic practices to a 'cult of positive thinking.'" New York Times Magazine, Sep 20 '16, p22. <www.goo.gl/s6F9OW>

For more on "this technologized return to medieval fascinations," there is "Psychic Capital: Tech and Silicon Valley Turn to Mystics for Advice" by SF Weekly managing editor Jeremy Lybarger, which begins with a profile of Sally Faubion, a 70-year-old psychic in San Francisco whose "roster of 1,700 clients includes employees from Apple and Genentech, all of whom want to know what their futures hold. ...

"Search for 'numerology' on iTunes and you'll turn up nearly 300 apps; search for 'astrology' and it's more than 1,200. ...

"To quote an old Ukrainian proverb: 'The devil always takes back his gifts'.... That proverb could be San Francisco's slogan [since] many tech workers ... turn to psychics for a glimpse of the future. [And where] psychics, in turn, are rebranding themselves as spiritual therapists, executive coaches, and corporate counselors. The trend is common enough to be spoofed on HBO's Silicon Valley....

"The San Francisco Yellow Pages list 128 psychics and mediums in the city; there are 141 listings for astrologers (with some overlap between the categories). In the Bay Area at large, psychics are keen to cash in on tech's spiritual awakening.

"Nicki Bonfilio is one of those psychics. 'I have many clients from Salesforce, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Zynga, Microsoft, and Cisco,' she says. We're sitting in her office ...

"At 45, Bonfilio has the demeanor of someone recently deprogrammed from a cult. ... 'I'm a seer, and I'm also clairaudient, which means I can hear things on a different level,' she says. In other words, she can read your mind.

"Bonfilio sees about 25 clients a week and has a calendar that's booked two months in advance. 'The tech boom seems to have helped my business,' she says. 'It created more people who are here looking for answers in a different way.'

"Among those people are young startup CEOs seeking advice about which apps to launch first, or which to shop around to venture capitalists. Bonfilio claims to see product names switch on 'like klieg lights' and says she knows if they'll be successful. 'It's almost like I'm on a different neurological level,' she says.

"Bonfilio's clients ask questions clients from any industry might ask, only tinged with the exoticism of seed rounds and IPOs: 'What does my trajectory look like over the next six to 12 to 18 months?' 'Should I try to laterally move into another department where I'm not product manager but might be more on the platform side of Salesforce?'"

Another local psychic, former actress and disc jockey Joyce Van Horn, "grew up in the Bay Area - in a haunted house, no less - and started giving professional readings in 1984. She charged $10 a session back then; today, her rate is $150 per hour. She says that's a bargain for someone trained in evolutionary astrology. (Sally Faubion, by contrast, charges $180 per hour for a private numerology session.)

"'Most of us are born having forgotten the information from our past lifetimes,' Van Horn says, 'but there is information encoded in us that remembers the essence of who we were and what we were about.' She helps people recover that information.

"The majority of Van Horn's clients are from the tech industry. ... 'A lot of what I see in my tech clients is a longing to belong,' Van Horn says.... People are hungry but not everybody knows what they're hungry for."

The narrative grows even more bizarre. For example, there is "Reverend Joey Talley, a Wiccan witch in Marin County with more than four decades of experience and three master's degrees. ...

"Her speciality [sic]? 'I really like dealing with demons,' she says." In her case: "If it's surprising that companies should entrust critical office maintenance to a witch, it's nearly breathtaking that they also retain her for legal counsel. ...

"Occasionally, though, her aphorisms achieve the craftsmanship of folk sayings: 'Witchcraft is the art of changing consciousness at will'; 'People can't walk around with their minds open any more than they can walk around with no clothes on'; 'Auras are information.' In those moments, it's almost possible to imagine her clients getting their money's worth. ...

"Talley has become something of a den mother to Bay Area women interested in Wicca. In the backyard of her Fairfax duplex, hemmed by a rustic board fence and lush greenery, she emcees monthly moon rituals during which she and a handful of female clients chant into a cauldron, fall in and out of trances, and eat a vegetarian potluck. Men aren't welcome. 'I used to invite men but they were just there to get laid,' Talley tells me. 'They had no interest in goddess worship, and that's very annoying when you're trying to reach the divinity.'"

Of San Francisco, Lybarger notes, "The city is rife with fortunetellers.... A lot of them, Sally Faubion says of these psychics, 'take advantage of old people and people who don't know any better.' ...

"'The psychic community is close knit, often including members of large families that trace their roots to Roma families, also known as Gypsies,' ... 'They compare notes.... There are rules. For example, a 'three-block rule' establishes turf boundaries ... Disputes are taken up by a tribunal known as a kris.'"

Lybarger's conclusion finds that "tech companies, with their foosball tables and climbing walls, enable a prolonged adolescence that, in turn, pushes employees to seek spiritual fulfillment in drugs ... or Burning Man ... or SoulCycle ... or psychics." SF Weekly, Jul 15 '15. <www.goo.gl/vEoOVt>

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