An Open Letter to Jehovahs Witnesses re 1914
An open letter to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Contents
An open letter to Jehovah’s Witnesses. 1
Motivation. 2
Bethel 2
The Letter. 3
The Generation that will not pass away. 4
The Reality of the “Kingdom”. 6
A Faithful and Discrete Slave ?. 6
A People for His name. 7
John and Tony a modern Cain and Abel 8
Outside Observers see the same manipulations. 9
The Bums Rush. 10
The JW Elders don’t really believe the doctrines anyway. 12
How long is a generation ?. 13
A call for Decency, Humanity and Humility to the WTBS. 14
Back Ground on Lloyd Barry. 14
Epilogue. 17
References. 19
Motivation
Listening to Reza Aslan[1] at the Writers Festival in Auckland in May was the catalyst to put down some thoughts from 30 years ago. As a child refugee from moderate Islamic Iran who migrated with his parents to America after the fall of the Shah of Iran, he has attempted to view the religious history of belief from the literary perspective of neutrality.
His concepts of religion as a language used to unite groups of believers is an inspired insight into the way any religion controls “believers” thinking by language to define a common social group. A powerful example is his analysis of Pro and Anti Slavery 1800’s interpretations that used exactly the same verses to justify the opposing interpretations. His description of attempting to reconcile many differing beliefs and interpretations will resonate with any current or ex JW’s at a deeply profound level.
He did overlook the concept of Numeracy however as when coupled with Literacy a powerful cocktail of beliefs can be tailor made for a generations consumption.
Bethel
Bethel[2] is a large rambling collection of several city blocks of buildings, hotels, living quarters and warehouses owned by the WTBS, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, as the Theocratic centre of their religious activity based at Columbia Heights and adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, these days no doubt valued in the billions as an asset base for its occupants. It also used to have a fantastic view across the East river of the World Trade Towers. In fact the residents took pride in the fact the centre of the Worlds commerce and the ”True” religion were both based there. Very few everyday JW’s ever get to visit but by sheer serendipity I was able to meander though its hallowed halls in my youth.
It was a cold wintry day in February 1983 as Mary and I waited. We firstly had difficulty even being allowed in as we had to show somehow we were genuine “Witnesses” and were quizzed on our beliefs concerning blood transfusions, a major easy identifier. We had travelled in the middle of winter from Cleveland by Plane, were full of colds and sniffles and had been kept detained for an hour or so in sub zero temperatures outside the main “entrance” waiting for the scheduled tour of the “head office” so to speak.
To say the tour was lame would be an understatement and after seeing tourist icons such as glass caged reprint of the 1879 first edition Watchtower fondled lovingly by someone I could only describe now as “camp as a row of tents” we were then taken through a maze of echoic empty, cold and deserted corridors to be shown glimpses of meeting rooms, board rooms and the new computer printing centre. I noticed a dejected looking chap with his hands at his cheeks, elbows on this desk sitting at a computer console, an Inter-Data 16 used for publishing the Watchtower and other type setting operations. I took pity on him and broke from the tour out of sheer boredom. I had recognised the computer as I used to service them in NZ for both the Auckland and Hamilton Public Libraries as the first Bar-coded issuance system in the country. I asked about the problem he had and instructed him on the remedy, which worked. He had run diagnostics that corrupted the disk format and subsequently couldn’t get the system to boot up, a painful past lesson for me but a quick exchange of experience to assist him.
The Letter
As a result a letter was waiting for me back at the “Kingdom Hall” in Glendowie upon our return asking Mary and I to come live and work in Bethel. His name was Major Spry, his father, a Canadian, had been in the war and named him Major. I think he is still part of the Bethel scene. You can google him.[3] Murray Thompson, the local senior Elder, took me aside in disbelief at receiving the letter and asked if I would be taking up the offer, which was by all accounts a dramatic and unexpected accolade for their pastoral care of one of their younger adherents. My conversation with him preshadowed the one I was about to have with Mary, who’s heart was set on living and “working” at Bethel doing “gods work”.
This conversation was a tentative one, being informed of the letter of invitation after we had returned from my CT training course in Cleveland Ohio. We met at the 1978 Victorious Faith Convention at Eden Park and I remember Mary’s large sunglasses, blond wavy hair, blue eyes, tall stature, wearing her Red and White Top and Skirt combination, to this day. It had been raining and on the way my old Austin A70 had run through a large puddle in the road and sprayed my sister’s new white dress with water from the open jacking point in the passenger floor that I had forgotten to replace the rubber plug into. My solace was to talk to her at length after being castigated by my sister for “deliberately choosing to drive through this random puddle in the middle of an unexpected downpour”.
Because of this I was distracted at the material being offered that day until, “Don’t go to University as you will fall away from the faith”, and yes they even had a stage psychodrama play with parents regretting their decision to allow their offspring to attend University, compete with violins playing in the background. Youths – What is your goal in lfe ?[4]. An accompanying exhortation that 1914 was nearly 70 years in the past and soon we could expect to see the outworking of our “Victorious Faith” was the entire purpose of this Convention, or International Roadshow is perhaps a better description.
I think had microphone duty, raising or lowering to boom for the speakers, and wasn’t paying attention for one of the visiting Governing Body Milton Henschel[5] ?, members addresses and came out late to lower the microphone for his 5’, or less, height, in front of 5,000 people.. An ignominious reputation probably followed. Actually I was in disbelief about the content just delivered and was simply waiting back stage to perform my rostered activity in a state of muted dismay. I think this same chap, a member of the “Governing Body” from Bethel, when asking the crowd to sing the “Song”, we didn’t call them hymns, also gave the instructions that the circumflexes above the notes meant to sing it “sharply”, quite an incorrect understanding and “in tune” with the whole day in retrospect.
Anyway as I explained to Mary in 1983, the JW policy was not to attend University as per the 1978 Convention where we had met, or get educated because the central prophetic belief of “1914 + 70 years”[6] was nearly up, and I had pushed the boundaries by going to Technical College for Engineering training instead, taken flak for that, was in the US courtesy of the new job and observed that the whole of Bethel was basically locked down in the middle of winter with nothing moving, the exact opposite of what should have been happening if the “End was indeed Nigh”. I explained to her that even in 1994 at 80 years later nothing would happen again, Psalms "70 years or special mightiness 80", or as I predicted that even in 2014, some 100 years later, we could have a conversation, or such as this letter, observing the same result.
The Generation that will not pass away
This is the issue of the Watchtower Mary was so adamant that proved to her the generation would not pass away before Armageddon, but annotated with the effects of 30 years more since its publication in May 1984.
I think a Watchtower since has tried through inference, as usual, to say a “generation” is “120 years like Noah's days” taking it, Armageddon, to 2034 has been published. The "within this generation" thing is completely misinterpreted and misapplied. It’s how they stretched 1874 to 1914, what’s an extra 40 years here or there between believers anyway? For those non JW readers, C.T. Russell’s prediction of 1914 as the 2nd Presence of Christ is the central prophetic tenant of the WTBS. Within a “generation” of this date would be the apocalyptic “Armageddon”, and the reason JW’s knock so earnestly on your doors in an earnest effort to “save” you.
Apparently the July 2013 Watchtower[7] is setting the stage for JW’s world wide to accept “new light”[8] on this doctrine and probably in October 2014 the whole organisation will attempt to move away from these date derived beliefs. This implication is that 140 years of Doctrine , history and belief of this religion is about to be simply “replaced”.
Reza Aslam’s view on the use of the word such as “generation” or “save” is a true insight into the politics of religion. C.T. Russell’s second attempt at a date calculation was a master stroke of luck, coinciding with World War 1. He advocated conscientious objection and spent the 2 years in obscurity, depressed and dejected as he was not instantly transported to heaven. Before his death in 1916 he planned to launch a huge publicity campaign in 1918 to prove he was right however and that 1914 was a sign from God, not an unfortunate political outcome of treaty alliances or Arch Duke Ferdinand’s assassination..
Major Spry himself had lamented to me that because of the “no education policy” there were no capable Bethel workers available to him to assist with the computer and its required functionalities. Bethel was in fact a huge “sweat shop” of $20 per week stipend youth workers to Print, Stack, Deliver, Clean or any other manual worker function required to keep the entire well oiled machine that was the WTBS in operation.
The upstate farm in Walkill[9] provided the food and basically formed a subsistence feudal economy for the WTBS. Even worse the recent collide of the no transfusion or transplant belief with the newly available Corneal and Lens transplants that members of the Governing Body were undertaking in order to be able to read their Bibles with greater visual comfort directly flaunted their own refusal of blood. Their excuse that Eye surgery was basically “bloodless”, try running that past any medic, so it didn’t apply to them in this instance, and wrote a Watchtower article stating it was a matter of individual conscience to have the procedure and no one should criticise them for this individual choice. [10]
The Reality of the “Kingdom”
This picture of a “Theocratic” Organisation, denying education, running on discount labour and having no demonstrable success in applying scripture, excusing themselves from their own beliefs, poised to become the “New World Kingdom Government” after “Armageddon”, is a JW preview of what all Christians, JW’s included, pray for in the Lords’ Prayer, “Your Kingdom Come”, was essentially nothing but a “grand hoax” in my words of description to her. I expounded the dichotomy slowly and clearly confirmed that this was why I could not continue on with such a misguided, depressed and schizophrenic organisation and belief system.
Mary would not hear a word of this and I think today she is still actively involved travelling with her husband between congregations encouraging belief in the prophecies and dates as they continue to come and go. The Bible she nearly tore apart in two in her cathartic fit is still in a box somewhere, as bent and disheveled as the outcome of the conversation for our relationship.
A Faithful and Discrete Slave ?
The Governing Body of the WTBS, whomever they are, often ask the question, "who really is the faithful and discrete slave?"[11] It’s a rhetorical question with the obvious answer as; they are of course, but never claiming it as such. They pull the same slight of hand with the 1914 date and the length of a generation[12], never making a printed date but encouraging the readers to make the connection, then stating they never actually published an actual date.
The same was true of the 1925 and 1975 dates as 6000 years of mans creation anniversary. C.T Russell had devised a complex formula derived from the Prophecies of Daniel to arrive at the 1914 date as the End of the world back in the early 1870’s, though his first go at it as 1874 came and went rather too quickly for Barbour[13] who left to associate with the then Second Day Adventist movement, wisely detaching itself from any date oriented end of the world calamity. 140 years later the JW’s still have still not yet made this leap of faith.
Not one of the interpreted prophetic dates calculated by any of the members of the WTBS, the Governing Body or “faithful and discrete slave” as they like to view themselves as the only “true” channel to God in this modern age, has ever happened.
All of the published material since the 1860's, though potentially interesting such as the 2nd presence of Christ, not his actual coming, from the original Greek “Parousia”, and the obligatory Harvest, “Armageddon”, of 1914, recalculated when C.T. Russell’s retrospective 1874 was a fizzer, were quite good in a fundamentalist’s analytical belief structure, well sometimes, but it doesn't amount to a cohesive and consistent systematic belief structure, rather a dogmatic and rigid legalistic framework more reminiscent of "Judge" Rutherford's influences after Russell’s death all these years later.
The seminal Cedar Point Ohio convention in 1922[14] reproclaimed the “Millions now living will never die” 1918 byline and unveiled a progressive resurrection of the faithful of history to begin in 1925, so the WTBS went out and bought property, a Mansion that is in California near San Diego called Beth Sarim[15] to house these faithful soon to be resurrected, and cars to transport them, Cadillac’s of course. Members of the WTBS, Rutherford himself, naturally house sat until their imminent arrival. Not only are the Millions living then that they referred to now all dead but by 1948 they had to quietly sell of the shining assets they acquired for their expected, but unrealised, resurrected faithful such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel Moses and so on.
By 1935 more than 200,000 followers were able to be counted and their interpretation of Revelation enumerating just 144,000 as the total number of faithful to survive Armageddon began to be a little glaringly obviously fraught misunderstanding and misinterpretation of scripture. Suddenly John 10:16 was offered as “Other Sheep” to explained a dual class JW citizenship structure, those going straight to heaven in Paul’s “twinkling of and eye” or the 2nd Class, rest of us, who like the Jews must fall asleep in death first and await a resurrection to Paradise after Armageddon. WTBS Governing body were of course, “Remnant”.
A People for His name
However the real insight of the WTBS was in 1931 to resurrect the name, “Jehovah”, and allow it to become the identifying mark of their beliefs. Isaiah 43:10 was the basis for this. Since the Governing Body essentially need to prove they are part of this “remnant” or “faithful and discrete slave class” as first class “princes amongst you” of pre 1931 believers to legitimise their authority things are probably getting rearranged yet again to accommodate later select arrivals no doubt.
Given the privations of the Great Depression and the obviously looming 2nd World War anything offering a future hope in the 30’s seemed to have rock star status amongst would be believers disenfranchised by the lack of answers from mainstream religion and the needles destruction and death of the Great War. This is how my Grandmother Phoebe had been attracted as an “other sheep” by an “anointed remnant”, Sister Kelly, into the newly named Jehovah’s Witness movement in 1938 by a simple door knock. Her dear friend and fellow convert Irene Wills had 2 sons, John and Tony and John for a long time was the head of the JW operation in NZ.
John and Tony a modern Cain and Abel
John Wills brother and great friend of my father, Tony, who was an English Literature Masters graduate wrote a book probably as an extension of his thesis, “A People for his Name”[16] under the pseudonym Timothy White in the 1960’s based on his critical analysis of having been involved in the cult since his formative years.[17] He had been invited to Bethel by no less than a member of the Governing Body of JW’s, and likely a self identified Faithful and Discrete Slave; Lloyd Barry[18] a fellow Kiwi, slang for New Zealander, to write about the early history of the movement and given unrestricted access to the documents and time to question surviving JW Bethelites in residence. Since his brother was on a path to manage the NZ operation of the JW’s he was no doubt seen as a friendly ally in this endeavour and by Tonys’ own account he engaged in the task at hand from this perspective.
My fathers’ mother Phoebe and Irene his mother were both English migrants and became great friends and so did their respective children. Tonys’ older brother John went on to run the NZ branch of the WTBS for some 40 years and I think Tonys’ subsequent desire of anonymity may be related to this link as I'm not sure the fraternal ties survived the excommunication and family rejection the JW’s mandate for apostate thinkers and these must have made for painful memories all round. John probably won the Loyalty prize to step up to run the organization in NZ by disfellowshiping his brother. It’s a bit like winning a lottery prize of 1 weeks holiday in Wellington with 2nd prize being 2 weeks.
Rejecting family members over religion to me is akin to murderous thinking only one step away from the actual act, it’s a form of violent communication in the extreme. It broke his mothers spirit to see the enmity over this situation play out under JW judicial edicts that are still in effect and divide families to this day. The contemporary religious fervor of Gender Bias in Domestic Violence[19] sees us apply a Drop of the Hat Protection Orders in the same manner to exclude intra personal communications we do not want to hear, divide families and assign blame, as it escalates hostilities even further under this draconian style thinking and likewise it also belongs to the annals of failed policy or belief.
Outside Observers see the same manipulations
Reza Aslan[20] is one of the great independent socio-religio-political thinkers of our time was a recent speaker at the Writers Festival in Auckland this year. His concepts of religion as a language used to unite groups of believers is an inspired insight into the way any religion controls “believers” thinking by language to define a common social group. For JW’s even the term “Truth”, ”Other Sheep”, ”Remnant”, “Generation” all have completely different religiously group orientated meanings to the usual usage of the words. I can only encourage people to do a little research through his publications and have a think about the sensible unbiased observational nature he brings to this discipline of religious description. Just as Luther coined the phrase “the Grace of God” or just “grace” as a way to identify his Protest of the Church which we now call Protestantism, so the use of the word, “Jehovah” has become a clear identifier of the JW’s.
Reza courteously signed his book on Jesus’ life for Brittany my daughter to read. I'm so glad that both Brittany and Alex are independent thinkers on issues of Faith and choose to follow their own intuitions.
For me Armageddon is each individual's crisis of faith when "all things are burnt away and replaced with a new heavens and a new earth" of free thought and individual belief and faith. No need for any organised religion upon attaining this sort of spiritual growth and that's why organised religions all fear it and preach against such an outcome, to trap people’s thoughts in their construct of their reality. You can include Brian Tamaki’s religion in the same light as well.
There is a good argument that our concept of a “Devil” or “Opposer” that has been developed as a counter to “God”, is based on this type of free thought “religious rebellion” and thus the hatred of “apostate thinking” has run through the veins of religions in terms of inquisitions, burnings, expulsions purges, wars, in fact all the ugly things we associate with religion because it is a direct attack on their power source, agglomerating believers.
Hence a colloquial phrase “Baptism by Fire”, for me and not a JW concept, is passing through the exiting process of a religion such as the JW's or any other for that matter.....
The Bums Rush
The last 3 questions they ask before applying the disfellowshiping or excommunicating are;
1 "What about all the Faithfull believers that died believing?";
My answer: The faithful that died believing did so in full expectation of 1914 as the Second Presence of Christ and expected Armageddon to occur “within a generation” of this event, limited to 70 or 80 years at most. Obviously a false prophecy and unfortunately they died in vain of their beliefs as sold to them by the WTBS. This included the unfortunate numerous JW’s that were gassed to death by the Nazis after Rutherford’s unnecessary and naive diatribe Declaration of Facts[21] letter of attack on Hitler. Self inflicted wounds are not proof of belief.
2 "What about the impending prophetic calamities ?";
The same answer as the first and,
3 "What else is there ?",
are all just last gasp attempts at using fear as the motivator to stay trapped.
The famous WTBS Legal counsel, who won numerous “rights cases” for the WTBS, regarding the 1914 Date Theology in Open Court before a Judge as part of presenting his arguments is recorded as stating…. Society lawyer Hayden G. Covington[22] told the court that although the Society had for decades published a "false prophecy ... a false statement" about the date of Christ's Second Coming, members of the religion had been required to accept it and any who had rejected it would have been expelled. He explained: "You must understand we must have unity, we cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way."[23]
Once you have exited the JW belief trap it’s easy to spot the multitudinous similar religious offerings, or even corporate “culture”, read corporate “cult”, work structures, and in reality if you have thought it through the outcome is that there is no Religious answer to cling to in life, its best for each person to construct a framework that best suits their own circumstances and viewpoint. We call this Secularism or Humanism and it’s basically how a larger portion of the real world attempts to govern for the “Greater Good” with all the imperfections we exhibit as a species.
In essence all 3 are answered by a Faith in yourself and faith in others rather than a faith in "God".
Faith in yourself is Faith in God in my book because I believe we all aspire to be better and to comprehend and understand our lives with a purposeful meaning, or at least hope for better for our children. Every book the JW's ever wrote is intended to destroy individual belief and replace it with a belief in the constructed framework of the JW religion and its particular view of a still Vengeful and Petty Judeo-Christian Monotheistic Jealous God. It’s like a spoilt narcissistic child's view of a self reflective Deity in my book.
They try one last trick of depressed transference however;
“You chose to believe so what’s happening now, being kicked out, is actually your own fault, we have nothing to do with it.”.
It’s quite the Pontius Pilate style response and that’s probably where they gleaned it from.
At least in western secular humanist society we have the luxury of “choosing to believe”, it’s not the same in a Sharia Rule nation where you can expect Merciful Allah to grant 2 years to rear your child before you are stoned to death for apostasy, because of your choices.[24]
Raymond Franz[25], the nephew of Governing Body Member Fred Franz also reached similar conclusions to Tony and drew on his works to produce his belated pedestrian and often petty interpersonal account as he had not the same higher education opportunity that Tony was exposed to. Any JW should at least read his work to gain an insight and first hand account of the WTBS to make up their own mind.
The JW Elders don’t really believe the doctrines anyway
I had this very conversation with Murray Thompson, his brother Gary, and Michael Kirkwood also “elders” when I asked them if they believed any of the prophecy predictions, to which they all basically said it, NO, and didn’t matter what they believed as long as they stayed faithful to the latest Watchtowers instructions, however often these changed.
The point about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they are evolving from a fundamentalist religion to a main stream abstracted belief structure where allegory is more important than “Truth” or “Prophecy” or “Generation” or for that matter even “Jehovah”.
It made me mentally ill trying to coalesce, internalise and accept all this activity. There is far more to write about in an open letter such as this, but the point isn’t to attack the beliefs or plead with people to disband it, the point is simply to permit yourself to accept it for what it is, one of a thousand or more religious choices that offer basically the same thing, depression, as an answer to life. “Forgive them for they know not what they do” sort of fits in this context.
However it makes people who go near it suffer mental illness trying to gag down upon its unpalatable rules, regulations and beliefs, because by definition it is a mentally ill dogma. C.T. Russell, Rutherford, Knorr, whom ever, all mentally ill and demonstrably so. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Nahum, Jonah.. mentally ill...depressives one and all.
Even Moses after all the drama of leaving Egypt suffers a mental health period of inaction and indecision for 40 years unable to act and resorting to anger and smashing his tablets to get his way. Classic depressive behaviours and the Bible is littered with them so unfortunately it’s no surprise that the religions arising from and related to it, Judaism, Christianity, Islam are all oriented this way, wait for someone else, God, to take action against all the things that disturb you but you are too depressed to do anything about yourself. No wonder only 3 SS officers could march 2000 people men, women and children at a time into a gas chamber.
The entire Haggadic Midrash[26] period of the Bible, the Maccabean period if you have a Douay version with its extended Cannon, with its prophetic doomsday view is just a circular depressive retake on everyday current events predicting an even larger future depressive outcome, the name we give this…Prophecy.
Previously I wrote about Lord Macaulay’s Essay, “When the New Zealander Comes”[27], written in 1840 as it is essentially his personal take on this depressive formative thinking he was exposed to in his religious training.
Attaining good mental health is a choice. Unfortunately it takes action that depressed people find hard to undertake. There are no guarantees in life after making such decisions either. That’s why life is such a wonderful gift in my book. Life is to be lived, not observed.
How long is a generation ?
A generation by most peoples’ definition is about 25 years, not 70, 80, 100, 120 or even an unspecified length of an epoch such as the modern era as the JW’s would now define it amongst themselves, using language as a means of mind control to identify fellow “believers”. Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials…15 years each perhaps ?
1914 as a hidden Biblical Date only available to be interpreted by a select few in direct communication with God, is nothing but an unsubstantiated myth and any expectations of an impending Armageddon within a generation of this date are fanciful story telling by deluded narcissistic faithless and indiscrete slaves to an outdated 1860’s Bible belt “do it yourself” fundamentalism.
CT Russell himself was buried next to a Pyramid[28], designed by a Bible Student named Bohnet, whose design he accepted before his death and strangely enough built posthumously by Rutherford, Russell’s successor, who rejected Pyramidism as a Satanic cult in direct contradiction of CT Russell’s beliefs. Russell’s years reading the Bible also included measuring the great chambers at Giza and working out 1 inch as 1 year[29] in an effort to corroborate the prophecies he read in his Bible, most likely just in case he was wrong. And just as his 1874 date failed so he changed his measurements[30] in his books. In truth CT Russell probably did not trust his own predictions and was probably as surprised a s anyone could be at the coincident outbreak of The Great War.
A call for Decency, Humanity and Humility to the WTBS.
Given that the 2013 July Watchtower is pointing the way to reinterpreting the 1914 date and generation time span, the decent thing for the Governing Body to do would be to rescind all the millions of Disfellowshipings ever undertaken by the WTBS organisation.
The entire premise for removing people from this belief as per the 3 questions above, which are JW policy by the way, is the affirmation of adherence to the 1914 date or not as the touchstone of “apostasy”. It’s quite possible there are more disfellowshiped JWs than active JWs alive today.
If the touchstone has been removed, so should the consequences of questioning it.
This is the Human and Decent thing to do.
A list of Doctrinal changes appears here[31] and the end section contains the observation…stated by the famous WTBS Legal counsel who won numerous “rights cases” for the WTBC regarding the 1914 Date Theology in Open Court before a Judge as part of presenting his arguments Society lawyer Hayden G. Covington[32] told the court that although the Society had for decades published a "false prophecy ... a false statement" about the date of Christ's Second Coming, members of the religion had been required to accept it and any who had rejected it would have been expelled. He explained: "You must understand we must have unity, we cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way."
And just preceding this… In his study of the Witnesses and their history, Tony Wills has suggested that when third president Nathan H. Knorr altered major doctrines established by his predecessor, J. F. Rutherford, he was returning the Witnesses to many of Russell's teachings. He asked: "How can the Society harmonize this circular development with the claimed progressive development?"[273]
Back Ground on Lloyd Barry
I have to thank Barbara Anderson for looking over the material and checking facts as I live way down in New Zealand and these days have to rely on Internet searches that may or may not be correct.
As it happens by chance, Barbara wrote about Major Spry in the reference I included on him, but after she left Bethel as part of the Writing Department staff, and in Lulu.com a review of Tonys’ Book “A People for his Name”. She asked me to include some background on Lloyd Barry[33] as apparently there isn’t much, so here for what it’s worth are my recollections;
Nora Barry was Lloyds sister, not ex wife, as I initially recalled after thinking back and making the comments about spiritualism I sent you be email, which I believe are quite correct as they made a dramatic impression on me as a 12 year old. Nora Barry, Irene Wills, Phoebe Smith, Sister Kelly, Jessie Thompson, Joyce Keesing, Jean Gray and a whole list of long forgotten names in New Zealand and around the world were the unsung backbone of door to door knocking and the “army of women” that the JW’s depended upon but remain unacknowledged and forgotten.
According to Nora, Lloyds father, the Russellite mentioned in a biography in the references[34], was also an active spiritualist and Nora's recounting of Ouija boards, séances, with men walking unaided upside-down on the ceiling, change falling from their pockets was her vivid childhood recollection. The reason is that he was supposedly scientifically investigating all options of belief open to him to confirm his Russellite commitment.
Also was her recounting of a witness family Lloyd had contact in America in the midwest somewhere. as I recall, who were "demon possessed" in her parlance, and that Lloyd had been discussing this with the involved elder and during the discussion the car they were standing by suddenly moved as if being hit hard and a disembodied voice introducing itself as "Harper" said that all their surrounding area was his. As Lloyd rapidly left the scene he noticed that many of the Businesses in the area were called Harper.....whatever. Lloyds’ subsequent discovery of an “old book” in the families collection was seen as the conduit of the "spirit", something learned from his fathers’ experiments that the spirit needed a channel via an object, and that they could not burn the book in a fire or dispose of it by normal means, it was so resistant. I wonder if this is a resonant recollection from your time with Lloyd ? I view it in the same vein as CT Russells' Pyramidology, simply bazaar and what we call a “bob each way” hedging your bets on what to believe.
The people who seem to see and hear Demons also seem to hear and see God, in between their Lithium tablet taking, so I don’t pay them much attention.
I have a similar opinion of the Governing Body as they have explained in various differing ways over the years that they are influenced by Gods “active force” or “spirit” to interpret prophecy. Russell even thought if he didn’t speak God would make the “very stones cry out”[35]. Instead of Lithium deficient perhaps he was stoned? Please excuse the attempt at humour. It is widely known Russell was infirmed and assumed he partook of large amounts of Laudanum, a freely available Opiate in the late 1800’s, so the humour may not be too far off the mark. Barbara’s upcoming book soon to be released has an alternate observation based on her research.
She also said that Lloyd was the one that discouraged JW people from watching the TV show Bewitched, that was so popular with children in NZ and ran in the after school slot on TV, for the reasons it legitimised spiritualism and he said that strange demonic things happened to people that watched it. All this from the supposed “best the GB had”, in Barbara’s opinion.
As I understand it Lloyd supervised John Wills as he excommunicated his brother Tony and this formed the basis of his once infamous comments "be as a manger fed bull and receive no poison" in reference to not reading any higher education materials or undertaking further higher education. Barbara states she thought his attitude softened, but from my perspective I can't say that I would agree with that on the basis of promulgated JW policy at the time I was active in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I take Barbara’s Point that he may have relented in the 90’s, but the WTBS seem to have returned to this form of intellectual management and reduction of critical analysis by adherents to the WTBS.
Tony was excommunicated for his work, which was a simply history of the behaviours, cover-ups and conflicts within the governing structure. He also looked at the Blood issue interpretation and a whole host of other theological issues. The book is worth a glance over and really begins and documents critical analysis of the Organisation by anyone with some attachment and concern over its direction. The association with Lloyd gave him access to the material and he had no preconception of what he was to uncover, as he told me his jaw dropped as he came across the duplicity, lies and misrepresentations littering the JW organisational development. Some of the material in envelopes Barbara reports discovering may have been collected material that Tony collated for his work.
The anti education line of the JW governing body emanates from this educated young JW being able to dissect, explain and attribute the failings of the organisation to pure base human green, envy and power struggles. This is why I believe they subsequently tried to dissuade young witness from becoming educated so as to avoid a repeat of this embarrassing episode of expose for them. Ray Franz simply followed his footsteps, but only after enduring the internal conflict that we all feel when trying to internalise reality with JW doctrine.
His brother John Wills ran the JW's here in NZ until recently when George Gray took over, who was a contemporary of mine in the Glendowie congregation and a gifted artist until he was told to cease in favour of the JW ministerial work....I still have some of his works.
Epilogue
Writing about JW beliefs, errors, stories, personal conflicts is a soul destroying, pointless and thankless task. It has consumed many good people that genuinely tried to assist the WTBS by pointing out its “errors” or misinterpretations and encouraging people to take action based on their observations, in the naivety the WTBS actually gave some credence to the notion of “seeking after Truth”.
The issue is that everyone is entitled to, and to therefore have, their own reasons for belief. Facts or mistakes, lies, misrepresentations often don’t factor in the reason of acceptance of doctrine, and this is an individual right; to ignore reason in exchange for a belief.
When we watch a movie or read a book we “buy into it for a while”, technically the term is “we suspend disbelief” in order to enjoy the movie or book to become engrossed with it. We do the same with religion, we suspend our disbelief while we buy in.
However just like a book or a movie we can get interrupted, see the flaws or just get to the end of our attention, or the end of the book or movie at which time we reassert our disbelief, and simply make an assessment or judgement about the value we have gained from giving our attention while we suspended our disbelief and basically begin again our search or voyage for truth.
The world has worked this way for thousands of years at the hands of those who control religious belief through language. The availability of neutral unbiased information for when they are ready to go on a voyage of discovery is also a human right because Information is Power and denying access to Information is Control.
Different people have different triggers for embarking on a voyage of discovery, with some it’s the 607 BCE date issue, others 1914, others covered up Child Abuse. For every person basically a different “issue of Truth” or “seeking after Truth” triggers questioning what they believe and hold close to their hearts as a steadfast and unshakeable belief.
As Pliny the Elder said, "that there is only one thing certain, viz. that there is nothing certain;”.
“In wine there is truth”, “in vino veritas”. is also one of his observations on the use of Wine by the Greeks and Persians as a sort of Truth serum during official gatherings[36].
Earnest JW believers are good people, desiring the “Truth”. Such a simple concept in a convoluted world, it must surely exist somewhere if only we look hard enough or find someone, such as Jesus or the WTBS, whom have already discovered its source.
Jesus reportedly said at John 10:38 something like “…Everyone on the side of truth listens to me…”.
Pilate famously is reported to have replied to Jesus “What is Truth ?” and the conversation was left there unanswered…
Pilate as an educated Roman would have understood the “in vino veritas” contextual cultural association with “Truth” and also the random ramblings it can produce, hence the pejorative question about the nature of “Truth”.
Jesus’ first reported miracle was turning Water into…you guessed it, Wine, the ultimate “Truth is in me” party trick demonstration of playing to the cultural expectations of his peers. It also fit with the expectation that wine was freely available to all, symbolised by all attendees at the wedding being provided for.
Drinking wine in memory of him is likewise symbolic of continuing to seek after “Truth”. In the JW world only 144,000 people have ever been able to do this however and this is at odds with the symbolism. The rest just have to choke down whatever they are told to believe, however often it is changed by a “new light” of understanding by a select group of wine drinkers, probably less that 7 at present count.
People ask me what I believe after exiting the JW’s and I am pleased to reply, “I am a Born again Agnostic from escaping an organisation trying to answer an unanswerable question, “What is truth?”. Even Jesus, when put on the spot, couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that. Good enough for me to do the same, I simply don’t know and don’t pretend to know and like Huxley suggests, I will be unable ever to answer.
And my advice? “Maybe a glass of Wine will help”.
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32
Society lawyer Hayden G. Covington[37] told the court that although the Society had for decades published a "false prophecy ... a false statement" about the date of Christ's Second Coming, members of the religion had been required to accept it and any who had rejected it would have been expelled. He explained: "You must understand we must have unity, we cannot have disunity with a lot of people going every way."[38]
References
A must watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5JnngqQYvc
Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3008IjUew
[2] http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20090501/brooklyn-bethel-history/
[4] http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200271769?q=Jehovah&p=par
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Henschel
[6] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php
[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax42j11tOIg
[8] http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/w20130715/
[9] https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150358461662043.351902.252294947042&type=3
[10] "There is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue ... It is a matter for personal decision..." Watchtower 1980 Mar 15 p 31:
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/medical.php
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithful_and_discreet_slave
[12] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/generation.php
[13] http://www.watchtowerlies.com/origins_of_jehovah_s_witnesses.html
[14] http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1925.php
[15] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Sarim
[18] http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/JwLloydBarry134.html
[20] http://writersfestival.co.nz/events/the-politics-of-prophets/
[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Facts
[22] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Covington
[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_doctrine
[24] http://www.businessinsider.my/sudan-is-executing-young-mother-for-apostacy-2014-5/#.U4z-6E2KDIY
[25] http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/franz01.pdf
[26] http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/embrace-Hebrew-roots-chapter-8.htm
[28] http://www.freeminds.org/history/cemetary.htm
[29] http://pastorrussell.blogspot.co.nz/2008/08/great-pyramid-of-giza-product-of-true_30.html
[30] http://neirr.org/pyramidscheme.htm
[31] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_doctrine
[32] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Covington
[33] http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=38129290
[34] http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/JwLloydBarry134.html
[35] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell
[36] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome_and_wine
[37] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayden_Covington
[38] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_doctrine
Links for the 1954 Covington Trial documentation
http://www.lulu.com/shop/court-of-scotland/the-1954-walsh-trial-transcript/ebook/product-834182.html
An Afterwards.....
30/07/2014
To: watchtower.documents.org@gmail.com
Hello Barbara,
When I was writing about Lloyds fathers spiritual duality I had in the back of my mind a sketchy comment by Nora about the source of one of the translators of the NWBT that the wife of the translator told him, I now know as Greber, to do it. I only vaguely remember the comment and have never really thought anymore about it until the other week when I was noting down what I remembered of Nora's "gossip" which is I suppose the best way to describe it.
I went looking as this had never really been an angle i was familiar with and this is what I found,
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/who_is_greber.htm
I came across it from following up on a Youtube video of Bill Cetner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3008IjUew at about 1hr 7 mins along that I saw for the first time last week.
I don't know if you are familiar with this aspect.
For Nora to have mentioned it, it could only have come from Lloyd. I was not surprised but I do remember the discussions between my Grandmother and Nora about the voracity of the NWTS as it was progressively published and I became fascinated with Greek from the Interlinear translation. I studied Latin at secondary school so I can read the Vulgate very badly and have only a smattering of Greek, using it only when on holiday there in reality.
What I can see is this is a fairly recent discovery of the Coptic church using the indefinite article as in common Konie Greek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greekas as we were taught as the reason, but this certainly was not ever in public domain in discussion in the 50's and 60's, 70's and 80's etc when the NWTS was being disputed.
http://www.academia.edu/1282746/Jehovahs_Witnesses_and_John_1_1_New_Evidence_Advances_the_Discussion
and the following drawn from it seems to be a JW apologists site.
http://nwtandcoptic.blogspot.co.nz/
I wondered if you had any association for any reason ?
I'm also fascinated about your thoughts on Russell's pain management regime. Perhaps I will have to wait for your book
.
Tony thought Russell was high, or in some altered state most of the time, especially towards the end of his life over 1914 expectations. My father echoed this observation. Painters like Van Gogh http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071623/
and this article even has the portrait of his physician with the foxglove plant who's extract was used to treat his schizophrenia I suppose is todays diagnosis.
I worked in Medical Physics for 10 years and had chance to question some of the leading experts about various things and the topic of Russell came up with a Prof of medicine one time as he was a Brethren as I recall, and the comment about self confirmation from drug induced "haze" was his description of any modern day prophetic interpretations.
cheers for now....
Christopher Smith