THE PUPPET ORDER
By: Gary Busselman
Jehovah's Witnesses (hereafter JW) are following like puppets, a
"disfellowshipping order" disguised and labeled as, Godly love, Godly hate,
shunning, marking, excommunication, and disassociation, against group
dissenters as well as honest questioners.
The only ones that I know of that the Watchtower (hereafter WT) leaders
leave alone are the suffering, invisible, fadeaways. There is also an
assortment known to me as hideaways that manage to escape the group surprise
parties for a time. They just move, forget to check in with the JW
congregation in the new town, and don't answer their doors on Saturday
mornings. They seem mostly still in bondage to the group superstitions and
many have relationship and living problems.
The JWs (so called friends and family) are trying to cause me so much pain
by their treatment of me, in following the "puppet order" that I will return
to the group and submit to the latest crop of elders, driving the latest
four door sedans, wearing the latest trench coats, following the latest
teachings from the latest Governing Body, writing in the latest Watchtower.
They are intentionally fracturing my relationships to cause me pain,
loneliness, guilt, and shame all in the name of God to control the behavior
of their loyal members and a long arm attempt to reach me and either get me
to: (1) self destruct, (2) stay away and be quiet, or (3) return and submit.
The JW leaders are causing fractured relationships, pain and suffering in
every family that they touch and they are doing it with cold calculation and
forethought.
One reason that I and others are a problem to the group leaders is that we
won't do as they wish. They get frustrated with us because they have already
taken about all from us that they can take, thus loosing their power to
control us. About all they have left is their first and last line of
defense, i.e. our Jehovah's Witness relatives. If they are aware of a
relationship with a person who is important to us, and they control that
person, the group leaders can get to us that way. I am aware of several
individuals who would be very public and very vocal about Watchtower
organization abuses except for one or two or ten important relationships
with people under control of the group leadership. Thus the group leaders
are silencing many of their critics while holding those critics emotional
hostages with fear of loosing connections that are important to them.
Since individual Witnesses can't look at our information, answer our
questions, or even defend the beliefs that they required us to accept as
members, all our JW contacts, acquaintances as well as relatives, have for
defense is anger, intimidation, arrogance, and the threat of rejection. No
Jehovah's Witness that I have ever met can calmly discuss Watchtower
organization history or teachings with me without becoming restless,
irritated, frustrated, agitated, defensive, offensive, belligerent,
combative, and irate. Witnesses are trained to attack and emotionally kill
or cripple much like a programmed robot. They will still attack after their
master is dead and they have a new authority. The best defense I ever saw
from a JW was from a twenty year defending walkaway who hated the Witnesses
himself. He simply turned himself on by speaking aloud his own triggers. He
chanted for two hours to me on the phone.
I fear rejection on a deep level as, I believe, do most people. We have a
fundamental need to be accepted by our peers and our relatives. The
Watchtower leaders are aware of this and have used it with brutal success.
They identify our solely acceptable peers to us as exclusively the other
loyal Watchtower group members. They teach us that our blood relatives are
expendable unless they convert to Jehovah's Witnesses. They make us aware of
evil all around us and of demon creatures that are trying to influence our
minds and behaviors. They indoctrinate us to believe that we have a second
chance at life on a much grander scale after our death or until recently,
after surviving Armageddon, and that this life is simply an application for
the next phase, whatever that may be according to current teachings.
The Jehovah's Witness recruiters are trained to indoctrinate new recruits
and at the same time to reinforce the indoctrination of current members and
themselves. They are trained to "reset" themselves with the literature or by
"chanting" after a disconfirmation experience, such as seeing a conflict in
teachings, a reverse floating episode, or more probably experiencing
injustice from their own spiritual brothers and sisters or witnessing unjust
treatment of others by the group members.
In my group experience, denial, rationalization, and justification were
tremendous tools to enable the destructive behaviors to continue. Truth was
fluid as well as relative, and was second to loyalty to the abstract concept
of existence, by means of organization, through sacrifice of self and all
things sacred for the cause.
To feel sadness and mourn for the living dead is our claim to humanity and
things revered. To see an image of a former friend or relative from Towerdom
and feel somber is to be human and human is an apt condition. Victims of the
"disfellowshipping order" and shunning on any level for any excuse, feel
helplessness and distress like any victim of any other crime. To experience
outrage at abuse is to recognize that it is abuse and to begin to heal. The
goal for me is not to change the people, places, and things around me in
order that I may feel comfortable, but to strive for acceptance of my past,
present, and future, as well as acceptance of other people, good and bad,
plus to forgive to the extent that I am free from resentment and anger. I
wish to be okay regardless of what the Jehovah's Witnesses, my sons, my
mother, my father, my brother, my aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and past
acquaintances say or do.
Another concept that was lost to me for a time was the idea that I had
harmed, deceived, and intimidated a lot of people while I was associating
with the group, Jehovah's Witness, as well as when I was a believing
walkaway. To be free from the guilt, fear, and resentment I realized that I
needed to start to make amends for the harm I had done. This I believe will
be a life long process and the rewards are many. Self esteem bounces right
back. Depression vanishes with anxiety, and loneliness is non-existent. I
have lost my deep regrets of the past that used to keep me awake at night as
well as my constant feeling of impending doom. Fear of tomorrow and the
hereafter is gone.
I find life a process that includes: doing things that I enjoy, with people
I like, while not harming anyone intentionally; accepting people, places,
and things as they are; not taking myself so seriously; smiling often as
well as laughing easily and offering my hand without fear of rejection. ***
Gary Busselman garybuss@dakota.net
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