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In Response to Struggling ExJWs

In Response to Struggling ExJWs

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Why call upon the anecdotes of men, living or dead, as appeals to authority on the status of God? Why continue arguing these dogmas?

There are sacred texts all around the world and across time and languages and cultures. To think that you can dictate to others what their relationship is to God is fairly arrogant. One might even call it hubris, the downfall of that most famous angel of light (Lucifer) in the biblical narrative.

Each person interprets their own experience, and one person’s interpretation of the unknown has no more weight than your own. Even if the majority disagree, there is no assurance that anyone is right or wrong. Direct apprehension of the divine is a mystical stance – one that I myself have felt – but each person’s path is their own, and the emotional feelings of dependence or awe or fascination or repulsion or indifference have absolutely nothing to do with truth value. Nor can you argue the extra-human with human logic. The fact is that all these are very mysterious, possibly mythological, possibly compensating for psychological desires.

You can’t, and I believe shouldn’t, push your interpretation on others. It is their own life task to ask their own questions and to find their own center of authenticity. No matter how good-hearted in intent, you can only move others astray from their own path when you argue about it. I prefer to plant a seed of compassion and kindness – the heart of all spiritual truths – and then really try to step aside.

The whole point of recovery is not hatred; it is the freedom to follow your own heart and mind (and your own calling) and not be so screwed up by the agendas of others in doing so.

Engagement Balance Decision

Engagement Balance Decision

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No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld

I’m passionate about certain topics. Some themes in politics and religion and life in general are not matters of disinterested observation but of deep commitment. In the last year, I’ve become very frustrated – angry even – about how malleable people can sometimes be, about how fearful, paranoid and even hateful the manipulated populations can become. Inchoate, thick with sadness, I feel claustrophobic – surrounded by ignorance and misunderstanding, perversions of thought, and the misinformation and disinformation campaigns that seem to function just fine for whoever pours enough money into the effort.

Our culture alienates us and turns us away from one another’s authenticity. It caricatures, scapegoats and demonizes its own. It allows bald-faced lies to parade as truth, and it appeals to the worst aspects of us – in the name of God or good. You can taste it sometimes. It’s acrid.

I’ve heard a lot of anger – often horribly misplaced – and far too much destructive and misinformed prattle. It erupts in unexpected places sometimes, and that’s very depressing. Not all arguments are equal in value. Knowledge is always partial and biased, but there are statements that are closer to the truths we can grasp than others will ever be. To me, it’s more about creating balance in fairness, in justice.

Some of the schemers have overplayed their hand. The values of this country at its best are being reflected back to us in new ways. Perhaps that mirroring can yet defamiliarize us and then catalyze recognition effects in that mythical “average American” that so flattens out our complexities into illusion and prejudice.

“Intellectual freedom is essential to human society. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships.” ~Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Engagement on topics that mean something to me is fruitless when there is no understanding of what counts as an argument. I don’t enjoy trying to create dialogue with unworthy adversaries. In this respect, I have become what many would call an elitist. It means something to me – so contribute something worthwhile! Why else would I care about what you say? Yes, it’s a free country. Think whatever you like in the sacred space of your mind. Say whatever you like, too. However, I’m under no obligation to take what you say seriously or to engage with you in dialogue unless there is some hope of real and serious communication. I’m willing to hear and judge for myself, just as you are. Here and there… discernment still flows. I no longer have the inclination to play in arenas where it is palpably absent.

If the only object of a discussion appears to be a simple lashing out at perceived or imaginary adversaries, especially combined with a lack of information or any reasonable picture of context or reality, it’s not really a conversation – it’s just an emotional beating. I’m no masochist. Anyone can look up the rules of argument, the necessary grounds of dialogue, the guidelines of debate. Why should I engage when the dialogue doesn’t observe the conventions of simple civility?

Sometimes I get the sinking feeling that I’m being played as I get drawn into these discussions that are more about abuse than enlightenment. Such predatory games are extremely infuriating. Claims attempted on me because of some historical association or commonality of interest just aren’t enough to move me anymore.

The other day a former Jehovah’s Witness asked me why I had defriended him on Facebook. He thought it was “very sad” that it appeared to be because of a discussion on his wall. My response:

I’ve found that the ex-JW connection isn’t always enough. There are many people who remain confused, broken, and with deep imprints of thought patterns and habits. Some of these I can embrace, even support and help. Others infuriate me because I can see the blocks and the slave mentality that survives, or I can see an unthinking flipside of meaningless rebellion. I tend to spend my time on the ones that have an ability for self-reflection, transformation, kindness and flexibility. I have little patience anymore for uninformed propaganda parroting, or false piety, or manipulations.

Outside of that consideration, I’ve developed a rule of thumb about FB friends in general. If I see more than a few posts that push my buttons and make me angry, it’s just better for my mental health to defriend. I give it my best shot a couple of times, but it’s not my responsibility to teach or guide or inform and when it becomes more of a negative than a positive experience, I just walk away. It’s too short of a life to embroil myself in impossible dialogues.

I am writing this explanation to you simply because you were kind enough to ask. Best wishes –

It is difficult for me to write such things. I feel that I should somehow be available to everyone and anyone – in concern, in caring. However, I’m also much more keenly aware of the relative merits and effects of my interactions as I’m spread so very thin. I re-read what I wrote. And again.

Why should, why would I engage in and even seek out such discussions? Why do I so often feel compelled to participate? I have a choice. I can choose the occasion, the level, the tenor, the style. Why haven’t I had the discipline and meta-flexibility to do that more often? I think it’s because I’ve not been caring enough for my own needs.

I need nourishment. I need sustenance. Time is running through my hands.

I’m drawn more and more to the projects and pursuits that I have delayed for far too long. How much of what I do is really worth my limited time? Deeper affinities and sympathies are necessary. They have become – Necessary.

If this means that I become less accessible, less visible – what of it? Service is, after all, a valuable gift to oneself as well as to others. The best hope with some is just to plant a seed and trust to the winds anyway. My own best insights have often been a result of such actions by others.

There are so many avenues to explore, so many meandering paths, so many divine moments and details. Should all of this be discarded or postponed – deferred – simply for the sake of a paltry and very secondary urge to persuade others to my own point of view? It has to be an honest exchange. Where there is no scene of the between, why bother?

I’ve drowned myself in this superfluous uselessness for too long. There are too many other things to do, to think, to find.

I have real friends. I have a real home. I have a real job. I have a real book to write. I have real dreamtime to enjoy. I have real communion.

AND – I got my smile… I got life, brother.

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses – Take care, please

Former Jehovah’s Witnesses – Take care, please

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I am becoming a bit concerned about the safety of former Jehovah’s Witnesses.

When I received this latest email, I asked permission to post it.

Reports of various annoyance activities toward vocal former Jehovah’s Witnesses seems to be increasing. I will try to do a post very soon about how things are heating up in the public sphere for JWs.

Already Ex-JWs are demonized – at any sign of escalation, please never hesitate to contact the police.

Barb and I are back in our house though remodeling construction work continues to kick up some dust.

Today 11-11-07 I filed report number 2007-024301 with the Overland Park, Kansas, Department of Public Safety (police), the attending officer being Officer “Carrillo” with badge number 673, after having received a criminal telephone call from a person at 2:52 AM (i.e. in the morning), our phone recording that the call had come from 613 212-1419 in Ontario, Canada. (I’m guessing the number is a deadend or somehow they re-routed it)

The person sought for approximately fifteen minutes to talk me into “returning to Jehovah” and he offered me a $10,000 bribe to do so, the person’s motive for this speculatively being because of my anti-child molestor efforts in backing Silentlambs, my having an online fellowshipping website where 1,207 persons have signed in with two years which is viewed as possible down-the-road competition by the Watchtower Society, and implicitly my “needing to shut up or be shut up.”

A friend had just the day before spoken with me of ritualistic abuses other than those I too have experienced which, if they were to become widely known, would be of tremendous embarrassment to pedophile leaders embedded in the Watchtower Society. The caller did also use obscene language vile enough that, although put into writing by myself as asked for by the police, is really too repulsive for me to repeat to you here.

Officer Carrillo said that there would be other officers assigned to look into the matter. As those of you who have been on the ExJWs&FriendsNet for a long time already know, I have had to file past reports; for example, previously my wife and a neighbor friend were on the phone when two men broke in calling them vile names and the like, whom my wife and the neighbor believe may have been and be part of the general harassment campaign we have been regularly subjected to.

I told the officer that also a while back I did not report it (not wanting to have the police running out to us so often as to annoy them) but there was a young adult Afro-American male dressed in a loud necktie and blue suit shirt whom I spotted from my upstairs den window after he had knocked on our door (this time for a change in broad daylight) then scurried away. I believe that back when a JW I had seen him at one or more Bible conventions in Kansas City.

Such knocking then leaving while we are upstairs and can’t easily get to the front door in time has occurred many times before as well as for example pebbles or rocks being hurled up against our upstairs bedroom and den walls, some kind of electronic device being used to raise our garage door, what the police have described as a “professional” crow-bar effort being perpetrated to try to break inside our front room door (found out it had happened after a night when I had especially complained about the Watchtower Society’s sending pedophiles among those JWs unknowing or unbelieving of the pedophiles among them preaching at doors or the like), assorted monkeying around with and even inside our car.

These things are documented by me for the police and also here to you guys in email so that in the event that serious harm or death ever occurs to myself, my wife or other loved ones, then there is a record.

This email is not a direct accusation against the Watchtower Society for I cannot prove such, but it is a statement of factual observation that the events as stated in the police reports have occurred including that the person today offered a bribe to get me to re-enter the Watchtower Society organization, in other words to shut up and get back on their side.

I told him No then said they need to reform and end their sheltering of pedophiles as I said I supposed he himself probably is (his vile words caused me to believe this too) and although awakened and thus tired I also calmly if exhaustedly “witnessed” to him pertaining to three doctrinal lies the Watchtower misteaches JWs and the Public.

I pointed out that Luke 10:7 don’t be transferring house-to-house but rather Christians can go from a house with interested persons to a house in a different town where similar interest exists; that the Christmas tree began with the Tree of Paradise in church plays about the Garden of Eden in the Middle Ages rather than originating from Druid tree worship; and the Watchtower Society teaches many now living will never die, the many being JWs loyal to the Watchtower Society’s governing body members increasingly and wrongly held to be over even the Annointed, and that this idea of “many now living will never die” flies directly in the face of the apostle Paul’s having said all humans sin and therefore all humans die.

When my wife handed the phone to me early this morning I got to speak with only the one person who to me appeared to be faking an Oriental accent. She said she herself had also been spoken to by a second person.

Anyway, after I pointed out the contradiction between what Pauls said about all having to die as opposed to the Watchtower misteaching that many will never die, he ceased to say anything more (I believe I hit the target with that point), it was clear that although I was speaking into the mouth piece what I said was somehow not going through (it was like speaking into and having your words muffled by a wall), yet I could tell there was some manner of continuing electronic connection (possibly what I believe detectives call a hook-switch by-pass), and I said this into the mouth piece whereupon there were 2-3 small clicking sounds then a sudden abrupt full and fairly loud termination of the electronic connection.

I was in then out of the Watchtower Society twice so am what they see as a “two-timer” and whom they would like to get back and seek to “mold” (brainwash) etc to neutralize me. I am also a very good, powerful writer (so I’ve been told) who is able to hit them in various different languages beyond English alone. My helping Silentlambs including by a reminder in the last email that it’s good for us to remember to donate to it so that it can keep helping the kids is also a pain in the rumps of pedophiles.

As stated previously I believe the perpetrators of such harassment are most probably pedophiles, some of whom are, as seen this time, given to “return to Jehovah” type statements and the like, enhancing the likelihood most are active JWs; although I also hold belief that pedophiles such as among JW do also collaborate across and regardless of religious belief differences, for example, as when my wife has told me that Mormons (possibly themselves pedophiles or acting on the behest of a pedophile Mormon elder) have appeared at our door and simply stood standing and facing it about twenty minutes before suddenly quietly leaving.

That two older elders of Jehovah’s Witnesses sought to set up fellow exJW Danny Haszard in Maine (who has posted signs they saw clearly, and who has delivered hours of videotapes to the police showing previous harassment) as they did therefore does not seem the least implausible to me, and I know of at least one other person in the Net reading this email right this second no doubt (also on the East Coast) who has had similar harassment experiences. If any of you also have such to happen or if you know of another exJW (especially those in and out of the organization twice as I think those including myself get especially worked over) then please let me know.

The Watchtower Society not only has had to pay out to settle with 16 victims of sexual harassment (Silentlambs) earlier this year but at a guess there will be more such lawsuits. In fact I told the harasser this morning after he made his $10,000 bribe that I found it interesting how they lost millions of dollars (one guess is up to $1.5 million for each of the 16 earlier this year) and given how they refuse to reform and keep enabling the harming of children, I have no doubt they will be paying out more.

If any of you know victims please urge them to come forth and sue the perpetrators of such sexual or other crimes (phone harassment etc) against them. Let’s also keep each other informed, speaking up, spotlighting the darkness so that it keeps fleeing into the shadows, and trying to document matters so that if law enforcement may do more in the years ahead, then there will be a strong paper trail lending credibility strong enough to be used as evidence when the creeps are brought to justice.

I showed Officer Carrillo the silentlambs.org website’s photos of JW elders convicted of sex crimes including one just sentenced to several years in Ontario, told him about the 16 settlements etc. He found it interesting and, as said, he says other investigators will pursue this farther – I believe the telephone record of time and location being tangible enough evidence in view of the other things such that it is now seen that the matter is serious for our household even as Danny has concerns about his family in his house in Maine.

The metro areas are where organized crime of diverse types are focused, and this is, I believe, also extremely true for sex crimes perpetrated by pedophiles seeking to hide behind the cloak of religion. Three of the largest U.S. cities are Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. When I think of L.A. I remember what Pat Garza when alive said was done to her there. Chicago reminds me of Laree Slack’s fate. New York also has its skeletons including at Brooklyn where the Watchtower Society is headquartered. Of course Kansas City, St. Louis and other places have them too at least to some extent.

As also said before two of my three dear adult daughters are still in the cult; besides which there are many others in the ranks there who are kind, decent people despite the cult’s misleadership and who do not know what all has been done by Ted Jaracz and others on the Watchtower Society’s Governing Body. In a courtroom they would instantly deny that the Watchtower Society shelters pedophiles etc, that it became an NGO of the UN while having local JW elders keep preaching against the UN; and most are misled into thinking they must die or let their own kids die rather than ever take an emergency transfusion of whole blood to live, not knowing 1 Sa 14:32-34 says Saul’s men ate unbled meat and were forgiven as it was to stay alive. Unfortunately we can be loving and loveable people and yet also wrong and misled by those who are devious.

Well, enough, I’ve written a letter almost enough for a booklet. Thanks for being friends. I told one of you earlier today in an email I would try to not directly ask for donations for Silentlambs (he views it as tacky, counterproductive or whatever) but in that case then he should know that I will give the Silentlambs link more regularly in emails, and so here it is for those who like the reminder of helping the abused kids: http://www.silentlambs.org

Best wishes,

Joe

J. Mason Emerson

The above is posted in its entirety, with permission, from an email dated Sun, November 11, 2007 2:56 pm. Other readers may also print it, but only in its entirety and as is.

I will look at them and repeat here and now in this email to you (please retain a copy) for the record in case the Watchtower Society’s attorneys ever try to claim differently that as said in my email their Watchtower organization per se is not accused of harassment but PEDOPHILES who spoke of wanting me to “return to Jehovah” have done so and the criminal record and convictions among organization’s elders from Bethel headquarters (e.g. Jesus Cano) down speak for themselves loud and clear. Thanks for posting the email and you are encouraged to post this one too.

Which I did.

Hang in there Joe, Barb, Danny – and everyone else, please be a little extra careful.