[John]

Originally Posted by Ohio

John, if I could ask in all sincerity, was there overriding "control" before the events described in chapter one of ToG? It seemed to me, after reading the book over 5 years ago, that Jane and her husband were completely blindsided by what happened that day. They had no prior "warning" to prepare them for the "discipline" which occurred.

In other words, taking BP's recent (2-3 years ago) inflammatory statements about Jane in the training, it seemed like he acted that Memorial Day weekend in 1977 as a WL "copycat," assuming, without prior investigation, that local events in Houston were conspiratorially linked to Anaheim. In your opinion, were these events in question the beginnings of "abuse/control," or just a continuation?

Ohio,

In my opinion, the events of 1977 were just a continuation of abuse and control. I do appreciate your open-ended question and a request for my opinion. (You do realize that, as Jane’s husband, I may not be the most objective person about certain events related to her, right?) And, since I’m in a writing mood …


Now the serpent was more subtle …

First, I’d like to begin with Genesis 3 , where Satan, the great manipulator, deceived Adam and Eve. From there, skip millennia to the genesis of the Local Church in China and its resurrection in Taiwan. There, Witness Lee was a heavy-handed controller (see Morris Fred’s master’s thesis). Some of the leaders in Taiwan warned the original elders in Los Angeles (John Ingalls, Bill Mallon, and James Barber) about Mr. Lee, but they ignored the warning (see the letter from these elders, also in Fred). Lee eventually manipulated the situation to his benefit.


Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Meanwhile, a young Benson Phillips felt he was destined to do big things for Jesus (per his testimony). He linked up with a psychology major, Ray Graver, and also with Witness Lee, who impressed them with “The Vision”; and the rest, as we say, is history. These people had certain character traits that allowed them to be used by the deceiver. Mr. Lee provided Benson and Ray the system within which to work and fathered them in his control techniques (if they needed his help).

Over time, other brothers were drawn in and fathered in the same control style of Mr. Lee. People came in over time and were enamored with various aspects of the system. The cup was gilded on the outside. Each of us had a honeymoon time with the Local Church, happily receiving the indoctrination and not realizing where it would eventually lead us.

As has been shown, the Deputy Authority teaching was sown into Texas in the very beginning in Waco, pre-Houston. Through this, as well as other teachings and methods, persons could be controlled and manipulated, some more, some less. I know I was excited as a new one to be going hither and thither and doing what-what (a Leeism, I believe) for God. To speak in worldly terms, I have come to understand the leadership dynamic in the Local Church by comparing it with that of big business and politics; however, under the auspices of religion, the dynamic is much worse. Religious leaders can more easily and thoroughly exploit the sheep who genuinely desire to please God.


Religious control from 30,000 feet

The control mechanisms were utilized as needed to keep people in line with the program. The more you wanted to participate in the inner circle with its secrets, the more of your soul you had to sell. I found an apt description in The Two Babylons, a book that described being admitted to the mysteries among the ancient pagan priests. (My description may be offensive to some, but I’m just telling you things that have helped me to understand what happened to me and my family. (In other words, I didn’t begin at Genesis 3 for nothing.)

Because of this, some could be on the periphery of the system and not realize the evil that was going on. That is why we often get at each other on the forums, I believe. Some were almost all the way into the inner circle, and others were way on the outside. If you provided “revenue” for the system (money, status, power, image, whatever), you could be a part and not really realize what you were a part of. The system could even tolerate an amount of criticism, depending on who you were and what you had to offer on the positive side of the ledger (a risk-reward analysis).

All of that to say that control and manipulation were going on from the beginning. I thought this little tour of the world would help you better understand my opinion about control in Texas. The Houston elders didn’t emerge from the indigenous ones who had been meeting there before our migration. Lip-service was paid to these original folks; but, when Benson and Ray and about 70 others arrived from three different localities and set up shop, it soon became obvious who was in charge. In fact, a small meeting was arranged to authenticate elders (although it wasn’t advertised that way), and Benson and Ray were two who volunteered for the job! Just a little manipulative, I’d say.

Now that we’re back in Texas, let me cite three more occurrences that should give you a better idea of the kind of leaders we had there, and more reasons why I am of the opinion that control, manipulation, and intimidation were occurring before 1977. You can decide for yourself how high this rates on your control meter; but, for me, especially in a Christian setting (not to mention God’s so-called “Best”), it pretty much pegs mine.


Driven to despair (case #1)

The first case occurred in the late 60s and early 70s, but we didn’t learn of it until 1992. In 1992, Jane received a letter from a sister who had been abused by the Texas leadership. This sister wrote to Jane after receiving a copy of a letter we mailed to those who had started with us in Houston. Jane’s letter was sent because of Benson’s refusal to meet with us to try to rescue the marriage of an elder who had served with him. In the letter, we had described the abuse that had been exercised over the elder’s wife in 1977. The sister who wrote Jane explained that she had also been labeled as rebellious and negative. Her depression was so great from the experience that she had attempted suicide, was in a coma for four days, and barely survived. (If I’m still in a posting groove, I may put out some excerpts from her letter so you can hear it from her, since it is so powerful and sad.)


Physical violence (brief-case #2)

The second case I will mention occurred pre-1977 in Houston. While trying to get a young brother to accept the “fellowship,” Ray actually threw his book bag and hit him with it! This happened in the meeting hall after a meeting, although it was in a private room; so, no one else saw it other than a third brother who witnessed the event. This witness brother was, at some point, being groomed to be an elder. When he was given elder status and admitted into the inner sanctum, he was so shocked and appalled by the way that the elders, in their meetings, discussed the saints, he retired from the eldership but remained in “God’s Best.” He was then transferred to the mother church in Anaheim and told that he was going there for further training. Of course, it was obvious that they couldn’t afford to have someone hanging around who had quit the eldership because it went against his conscience.


Moving the chess pieces and assessing their value (case #3)

Were Benson and Ray the only ones? A brother recently told us about his experience in Houston with all the elders. In 1972, during the time of the migration to Denver, this brother and his wife worked out a plan to move in with another church couple for a few months so that they could save money for migrating to Denver. When the elders got wind of it, Benson called the brother in. All four elders sat across the table from him. Benson did the speaking. As the brother put it, they “reamed him out” for moving in with the couple without fellowshipping with the elders first and getting their permission to do so. They also told him that Denver was not in the cards for him but that he should plan to go to Philadelphia, which he did. At this time, he began to back away from the elders in heart. He saw a side that he hadn’t known was there. A couple of years later, after the Philly experiment failed, he said that the members in Philly were given a choice of either moving to Boston or to Florida. A Boston elder actively recruited him, so he decided to move his family there. Two years later, after getting his law degree, he moved back to Houston.

As an interesting sidebar, in Houston, while serving with a brother to process contributions, he learned that saints were measured and categorized by how much money they gave. He said that before this time, he had given to the church by check; but, upon discovering they were keeping tabs, he had switched to giving cash. He knew this would look to them like he had stopped giving, and he wondered if this would change the way they treated him. He said that it did; since, for one thing, they no longer asked him to share messages.

So, was there overriding control in Texas before 1977? From my perspective, there definitely was.


The Thread of Gold and the run-up to John and Jane’s isolation

In your questions to me, you also started with Mr. Phillips’ statements about Jane and stated that it seemed that he acted like a copycat. First, I would never start with anything that Benson said. Remember, think politics. To be clear, Benson’s public statement at the 2005 winter training about what they did to Jane in Texas in 1977, and why they did it, was not truthful. This is explained in posts about that event which can be found on the Bereans forum. For one thing, Benson said he saw what Mr. Lee did with the sisters in Anaheim and then had to do the same thing in Texas. The truth was that Witness and Benson acted simultaneously on Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend. Also, Mr. Lee did not call out the Anaheim sisters as “the three holy sisters” as Benson claimed. Jane talked to Sandee for the first time in 2006, and Sandee said that Benson’s account about this was not true. We asked another one of the three sisters what her recollection was of the event, and she corroborated Sandee’s account.

I recommend that you re-revisit The Thread of Gold for the answer to your question about what led up to the 1977 “fellowship” room experience by reading pages 151–189. We spent thousands of hours on the book, and in it you can find the signs that were manifesting themselves before the Memorial Day weekend. There is a wealth of information in The Thread of Gold about Mr. Lee, the elders in Texas and Oklahoma (although the pseudonyms can be frustrating), and what it was like for us and others. I can recommend the book more freely now that it is available as a free download from our website (www.TheThreadOfGold.com). I, myself, refer to it periodically for research (and I not only edited it, I also lived it). Even when talking about the creeping level of control that seemed to sneak up on us in the Local Church, Jane and I sometimes refer to it as the frog-in-the-pot syndrome—“A Frog in the Pot” being one of the chapter titles. One day, we had a good laugh when each of us said something like, “Hey, I just re-read a portion of The Thread of Gold and really got some help from it!”