Those fun guys at the University of Toronto have done it again! They’ve discovered the secret to Executive Ability! After gathering all the data, the jury is in. Executive Ability is developed early in a child’s life. After the age of six or seven, it’s too late to develop it. One has to have the practices of Executive Ability down pat early on, in order to win the favor of, and, direct others. The methodology must be seamlessly integrated into the child’s life to be successful as an adult. Otherwise, expect to be second rate: You’ll never rise to the Executive Levels of say, the President of the United States or be a successful Cult Leader, which is the same in the thinking of some circles. Corporate America falls all over itself to secure these people who have achieved Executive Ability as Children. Corporate HR is interested in seeking you out if you have it.
What those lads at the University of Toronto found is that children who learn to lie successfully and skillfully develop Executive Ability. No one else need to even bother to apply. You just don’t have what it takes to con your way into a comfy position.
It’s bad enough that people with influence are delusional, but it’s really terrible when they look you right in the eye and lie to you without so much any kind of indication of lying.
Lying is not limited to the Armstrongist Churches of God. Neither are takeovers. Excesses and abuses are universal and you can find bad examples nearly anywhere.
The Church of God Seventh Day had a fairly strong presence in the Tacoma area at one time. There were were as many members in CoG7 as there were in the WCG back when. They had developed their own property and built a church building. In due time, though, as things would have it, eminent domain took over and they sold the property and moved. There is an hospital where the old church building used to be. The transaction netted them $300,000.
They rented a nice facility across the bridge and met there. Things were going pretty well, but some of the younger members wanted more, especially for their children — a step up, if you please, from the more traditional services. They hired a Church of God Seventh Day youth minister from Lodi, California — a man who had grown up in the church and who wrote his master’s thesis on Dugger and Dodd. His wife also is related to one of them. His dad is a minister. He has five brothers in the church.
They brought him in and things began to change. He and his wife were attractive and charismatic. They were both musically talented and sang. They formed a praise worship band for church. He was so smooth, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He could charm the socks off a fox.
At this point, I’m reminded of the story of the Arab and the camel. The Arab set up his tent in the desert at evening and went inside to sleep. The camel complained, “I’m cold, could I stick my nose in to get it warm?”. “No,” the Arab said! “But it’s just my nose,” the camel whined. “No,” the Arab said, “you’ll stick in your nose and the next thing you’ll come right in, lift off the tent, walk off and I’ll be left in the cold!”. “No, I won’t,” the camel promised, “please!? Please!!?? PLEASE!!!??? I promise”. The Arab began to lose his resolution. The camel continued to whine and promise. Finally, the Arab said, “OK, but just your nose!”. So the camel stuck in his nose, his body followed, he lifted up the tent and made off with in into the desert, leaving the Arab high, dry and cold.
The man — we’ll call him Chris — got tight with all the younger families. He made himself the chairman of the church board. Chris made himself the head of the Christian Rock Band Group with something like twelve members, including a synth keyboard player whose name would be familiar to all of you in this area. There was a lot of praise worship involving music at over 85 decibels, the threshold of pain. I know because I brought a Radio Shack sound meter with me. Everybody was sort of happy. But there was all that $300,000 in the bank, calling to him, calling to him.
Chris took over the church board and did away with bylaws of the Church of God Seventh day. It didn’t take long that he was changing the name of the church to something like what happened in the Armstrongist realm — something that sounded a lot more evangelical. There was more and more music for services. He was making friends with the Sunday churches and proclaiming that the church was going to become a community based Christian church. He got the board to buy a piece of property in Gig Harbor for much of the money in what became his little “slushy” fund. He proceeded to get the church to pay for his continuing education with Azuza Pacific University. He gave himself a 20% raise out of what money was left of the $300,000. He started paring down the sermons to 20 minutes of cloying religious vagueness. The rest of the time he, his wife and his band played the gospel music, while the rest of the congregation sang along. He also moved to split from the Church of God Seventh Day.
At the same time, he moved to disfellowship a member of the church board and oust him from the church. He made it sound like a disagreement about administration, while the truth was that the board member was protesting the break from CoG7. He reported the board member to CoG7 to get him disfellowshipped and at the same time proceeded to cut off his newish church from CoG7 — starting by not paying the portion of money that was to flow there [and good luck for those contributors: There were never any receipts cut for contributors to report to the IRS]. The ousted board member went to the Regional District to protest and his ministerial credentials were saved — but only just barely — and only because the news of the now Chris church had reached the Regional District administrator.
Pandemonium pursued. Older members were told they weren’t welcome and that Chris wanted church members his age and under. A full 75% of contributions came from the board members, and most of those left, so regular income dropped like a rock. Oh, there were still all those appealing programs with all the appealing people — and all those special events like Super Sabbath Weekend and a gigantic Christian Music Rock Concert at the Columbia River Gorge [not connected with the church in Gig Harbor, which at last count dropped to something less than 15 members].
Church support in this newly created church in Gig Harbor fast disappeared. The ousted board member set up services across the bridge with some regular members still loyal to the Church of God Seventh Day. There wasn’t enough money left to even get permits to build a new church facility in Gig Harbor. Chris couldn’t scrape up enough money to pay the property taxes, and, besides, it’s now partly a wetland because building a nearby freeway ended up making it one. Some of the members — some of the older ones in service to the old regime — are now in United and serving there. Chris and his buddy have apparently fallen on hard times and it’s really gotten around to the other Sabbath keeping Churches of God, but there’s still one thing he has: Chris is in charge! And his dad is none too pleased with him, by all accounts.
The remaining church board member in Gig Harbor offered to sell the property at a substantial discount to the Seventh Day Church of God. After discussing it amongst themselves and contracting with a lawyer, the Seventh Day Church of God declined the offer and promptly tied up the property by putting a lien on it. They still own it and they’ll probably get it back in the end. In the meantime, they’re going to change a few rules about the ownership of Church of God Seventh Day properties so this doesn’t happen again.
I’ve talked to someone who knew Chris at Vale Academy. He told me that “It was hard to pin down what it was while I watched Chris play, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it”. No doubt it had everything to do with Executive Ability — that’s something that always sets a person apart from his lesser fellows. His other peers who grew up with him have defended him by saying, “We know who he is!”, ironically and weirdly paralleling the purported words the demons said to Jesus, “We know you”.
This story isn’t ended for sure. None of us may live that long. Nevertheless, in the end, I’m personally persuaded that the Universe does balance things out. It may take awhile, but lying just isn’t the way to get your way in the long term.
Yes, those lads at the University of Toronto really have something: Lying is the successful path to Executive Ability. It should also be noted from those stalwart fellows from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, that deliberately told lies impact the Cebral Cortex by rerouting and destroying brain cells. They have found a way of synthetically virtually suppressing the neurons involved to make better liars of people. Perhaps it will be a cornerstone to finding ways of making adults Executive material, having missed their window of opportunity and all.
My experience: People who are subjected to lies become apathetic, if they can do nothing about it, say, in a work environment. Listen for the words, “Nothing ever changes around here”. That is a lie, of course. Things are changing, just not for the better. But give the oppressed the hint of freedom, THEY WILL REBEL! Count on it. It’s a process — one we can see reproduced with regularity in social circles from governments to religion. It’s unfortunate that there are no studies about what happens to the brain cells of the people that are lied to, although we sort of know already. We’ve seen it in the religious venue we participated in as the CoG Collective: Lie to me and I WILL regret it! The liars are causing billions of brain cells to die, turning into those Unidentified Bright Objects found in brain scans where not much exists but fluids. Consult your neurologist, for all the help that will be — brain cells gone for good, executed by scoundrels with executive ability.
It’s clear that Chris has Executive Ability. How’s that working out for you Chris?
Yet another example of someone accepting no authority but their own with poor behavioral control.
What a disappointment!
It’s high time that folks realized that narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths aren’t folk heros, they don’t offer any freedom, they just offer their own brand of slavery that ends badly for the slaves.
And did I mention that Lodi is idol spelled backwards?
Next time: Delusions
Mr. Becker,
Does this guy have a YouTube video? I would love to see the horse and pony show!
Sadly, there is no dog and pony show; no YouTube; no videos; no recordings.
Unlike Herbert Armstrong, “Chris” doesn’t write ad copy; in fact, he doesn’t write very well at all. A board member who is a teacher had to edit everything he wrote because he can’t write worth a darn.
Which is a good thing.
Imagine how much more effective he’d be in his scoundrelism to establish his own little cult of Chris if he had any writing skills and published books and articles.
It definitely is a good thing he’s a lousy writer. That fact tells me he will never enjoy much success and will end up on the trash heap of history, never making a splash comparable to HWA’s.
Some people are gifted with a natural ability to write and, surprisingly, Herbert was one of them, in spite of his poor level of formal education. He learned to speak and write in a hypnotic way, much like Adolph Hitler. I remember that he could spend weeks of air time on a verse or two of the Bible that he endlessly expounded upon with a rhetoric that didn’t get boring. some people just have that gift.
Herb’s gifts also led to the downfall of his church. he gave us key words such as “Why?” And phrases such as “What does this mean for you?”
I’m sure you can come up with many others. Oh yes, “This may affect YOUR eternal salvation!”
Most of us were already individualist in nature, and he hit the individualists. Once those types began to believe, the collectivists would follow, as they did.
He was trained to write ads, and those ads had to move individuals, not groups.
We certainly were individualists. So was Herbert Armstrong. This was driven home to me when I studied graphoanalysis for a short time.
I had long noticed that some people, like me and HWA, always underlined their signatures. It’s compulsive with us.
In graphoanalysis, this is recpognized as the signal for the character trait of individualistic self reliance. We tend to stand on our own two feet and avoid reliance on others. Entrepreneurs and the self-employed will often sign their names in such a manner. Notice how many signers of the Declaration of Independence exhibited such signatures.
Herb had the knack of tricking us with that trait into thinking we were relying on ourselves, when we were actually being enslaved.
I read a bit about that, and I read that people who were honest never let their signatures trail below the line on their signature. My signature touches the line exactly at the bottom of each letter.
John Hancock automatically comes to mind. He was quite wealthy, and a known smuggler. While I never used much flair in my signature, I was always careful to write it out clearly, instead of just a scrawl like you see a lot of people doing. I want people to know exactly who they’re dealing with.
I doubt that Herbert Armstrong or any other sociopath sets out to enslave people. It seems more that such people are focused on getting what they want and slavery is a byproduct of collateral damage. If you think about it, having slaves to do your bidding and get you what you want is great, but if you really take responsibility to MANAGE your slaves, it is too much trouble and takes too much time to do it. As a result, it seems that abuse in the form of neglect is the order of the day. Of course, neglect lives in concert with assault, particularly when the narcissist, psychopath or sociopath doesn’t get what they want.
In dealing with a 20 something sociopath last year, which is where I learned the hard way the distinction from psychopaths, there is one phrase that stuck with me: “What’s in it for me?”. I am very certain that this perspective is embedded in every narcissist, psychopath and sociopath. Those of us who have learned “servant leadership” by being slaves to provide everything these overconfident selfish monsters want certainly should have at least a certain resonance with that kind of lifestyle question. In order to survive any lenghth of time with these scoundrels, we have to adapt to them, to provide their every want and need by self sacrifice to an unprecedented degree. We’ve been Stockholmed.
To the question of “What’s in it for me?” we should ask our own question, “Why should we care?”.
“What’s in it for me?” is a valid question, providing I’m the one asking the question. That is why HWA ultimately created the downfall of the church, because peope began learning, here and there to ask “Why?” and “How DOES it affct my salvation?”
And for those like myself, who actualy went to headquarters in Pasadena and worked for the college the question became “Why do I have to take crap off of you?”
Once you begin questioning things, and learning how to question things, as an individual, you gradually begin to liberate yourself whether you really want to or not.
Personally, after my visit to Pasadena, I knew something stank. I knew I had my faults, but I also knew there was something that really needed to be challenged.
I only had to hear the first message from Ernest Martin to realize “That’s it!”. Everything fell right into place, and I was done with HWA.
But I was also done with every other bullshit law provided by human authority. My challenge was “prove it!, as many other ex-members now proudly affirm. I’m regularly accused of being a sociopath and anti-social. I simply say “Prove it!”
But that, too, was HWA’s big selling point. “Seven Proofs God Exists!”, “The Proof of the Bible!”, and even “The Plain Truth”. Proof, proof, truth. “The world’s religins are wrong!” They are the “synagogue of Satan!”.
But in that respect, various other cult-like religions are doing the same thing, like the JWs, Mormons,SDAs, and now the WCG splinters.
Marshall McLuhan pointed out long ago that the medium is the message. It doesn’t HAVE a message. It IS the message. When you have increasing numbers of “God’s church” proclaiming “truth! Truth! TRUTH!”, you start realizing they can’t all be true, and then you realize none of them are.
Next thing you realize is that the “emperor”(church and state) has no clothes!
Of course, then you go from arguing over what garbage you’re going to believe to what garbage you’re NOT going to believe!
BTW, I soud also say this is all partt of evolution, Mother Nature’s way of not putting all her eggs in one basket. Whatever scenario pops up, one of trhe groups may have the angle for perpetuation of the species.
That’s why the numbers tend toward infinity. The more options, the better the chance of adaptation and survival.
That’ why we have Matthew 24:23 and Matthew 10:34-38. If you realize you’re bound to none of them, your freedom to select among options is greatly enhanced, and your perpetuation of offspring is also enhanced.
Genes merely select reproductive strategies. the environment provides the diversity.
More here…
James, with that second video I was about to come unglued up to the end because I thought that sociopath was being confused with psychopath. Actually, it is 100% on the mark: The video states it a bit differently — I use “Selective Conscience” and the video uses “… know right from wrong, but choose the wrong”, then goes on to show that knowing right from wrong limits their activities when they believe they have a chance that they will be caught.
It really caught my attention when I got the part about pity. Every sociopath I have ever encountered played the pity card — the “feel sorry for me, get out of jail free” card. They play the pity party up to the hilt. We should all remember how Herbert Armstrong was so persecuted. Didn’t you feel sorry for him for being attacked so mercilessly without cause? Didn’t it just stir your sense of justice! Sociopaths can be such bad actors.
And of course, when sociopaths and psychopaths — who know exactly what they are — get caught, they just say, “Prove it!”.
Mr Becker, the law is based on the presumption of innocence. How do you think I was able to defend myself in a Special Court Martial for desertion and get an apology and a meritorious from the marines?
How did you do on the first video test?
Now I guessed a red shovel. Yourself?
I went with red chisel.
Now why the color red? What was it that caused us to pick red?
I worked for over 30 years as a carpenter, an for about 15 of those years, I used a hammer with a blue fiber glass handle. When I read the question, obviously the first tool that crossed my mind was a blue hammer. But the next instant I simply chose a rusty box wrench because the hammer was an obvious choice.
That hammer was almost a friend.
That first test says I’m a sociopath or a psychopath. Cool!
In the marines, we had a practice for eliminating such people:
Shoot everyone, and let God figure it out.
Here is a women in Oregon that I suggest is indeed a sociopath as she passes several lie detector tests.
http://tinyurl.com/2gayvlj
Now I also believe that she was involved in the murder of this kid. That makes her a psychopath in my humble opinion.
I will let Mr. Becker make the distinction here for us all.
I simply could not make any kind of determination about the case in Oregon — there isn’t really enough information.
And I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the jury.
On the other hand, I did interview a lot of people concerning “Chris”, I’ve met him, talked with him, had information from behind the scenes.
My goal is for those who may personally encounter narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths to have information to keep them out of trouble — that is a tough thing to do for the following reasons:
1) Such people have a superior ability to evaluate people to find their weaknesses, strengths and biases;
2) They evaluate early on who might be a threat to them and also identify the “mark”;
3) When the execution phase begins, the first thing they do is attempt to ruin the credibility of those who would expose them, and, usually, they are successful;
4) They are extremely convincing, even though, often, what they say makes no sense at all — psychopaths have poor connections between the hemispheres across the Corpus Collosum which permits them to make self contradictory statements, such as those made by Dr. Joe Tkach Junior (or they bait people with their “I did such and such to break the law and got away with it, therefore I am innocent” routines;
5) While they quote authorities to back them up and claim authority, they lie and deceive, twisting facts in fanciful and innovative ways;
6) They get people on their side to accept the nuttiness;
7) And when all else fails, they make threats — often thinly disguised death threats — in public view where everyone will shrug them off (while the threat is real: They mean business).
Such has been my personal experience. One of things I know is that narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths are VERY angry when someone exposes them. Those who take the risk are seriously castigated at minimum. They count on the fact that most people are sissies and unwilling to take the risk of standing up for the truth, like frightened sheep.
I hope, though, that by disseminating the information, people will begin to wake up that they are being conned and made slaves to people who are useless and worthless: They never keep their word; they are unreliable and they only take without really giving anything. They are a complete waste of time.
Back about 1970, people in The Asheville-Charlotte-Greenville are of North and South Carolina were recommended a book called “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz.
I personally found the book very interesting because it was about using feedback to modify how we think about reality. It is siad that a number of people began to apply it, and suddenly began questioning HWAs doctrines. There was a minister in the Williamsport, Tennessee area, seems his name was Robert Lay, who started telling the members to wake up to what was happening to them. It was reported that he had been reading Psycho-Cybernetics, and the book was condemned as demon possessed.
I, of course, still have my copy, and I enjoy reading it.
I remember that book and several others being condemned. Anything that led people to think for themselves was a danger to the organization and was vehemently opposed. I remember GTA once saying that what we needed was a good old nazi style book burning.
Correction: that was Kingsport Tenn, not Williamsport. I was thinking of the Little league World Series in Pa.
What I’ve found in my own experiences is that the most successful executives have learned to fake sincerity, very effectively. Some have the uncanny ability to tell you to go to hell in such a way that you are actually looking forward to the trip.
As far as church growth goes, it can be due to aberrant behavior, but it can also somewhat more rarely be due to the presence of the Holy Spirit. WCG did not understand or trust the HS, which is why there was so much draconian legalism.
BB
I recall that one place I was going to work for selling insurance, told me they had a open door policy. Well as it turns out, that open door policy is really the door out of a job.
I got a ass chewing from this asshole, but before I left I fucked him out of hundreds of dollars in plane tickets in which he would never collect on.
I never took the trip to school, kept the plane tickets and never showed up for orientation. I had just learned the first step in dealing with the corporate world.
An asshole gave you an ass chewing? Boy, that image makes my skin crawl.
“As far as church growth goes, it can be due to aberrant behavior, but it can also somewhat more rarely be due to the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
The elusive, ethereal “Holy Spirit” again. What is it? To me it’s a catch all, meaningless term. I still think the trinity is an especially stupid doctrine of a very stupid religion. It goes all the way back to the stupid religions of Egypt and was slipped into Christianity surreptitiously.
Since I don’t believe the god of the bible is real, I don’t believe the Holy Spirit actually exists either. If the term “holy mindset” had been chosen, it might make a little more sense, but only a little.
Yup, and if the “Holy Spirit” is a holy mindset, we go right back to the idea that the natural mind is enmity against God, which will produce as many versions of holy spirit as holy churches.
Of course, you can’t define it, so it can be anything that anyone wishes to call it, and if you blaspheme against it, holy shit!
Paul did define it quite neatly, so that it is no more dependent on human definitions than the “true church” is, but that puts the christians out of business, so they have to simply overlook it.
As an old friend of mine said, “If you can define it, that ain’t it”.
Right, Ralph. I still think HWA, in spite of his ridiculous approach was closest to right on this subject, if one is to take the bible in any serious light, which I don’t. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to honestly state you don’t believe something, but all fear based religions resort to that kind of intimidation.
Yes, Al, but “close” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Being close, however, allowed us all to become free of a collectivist mindset, whether we believe in God or not. A very good evolutionary, adaptive survival strategy.
Bob said: “WCG did not understand or trust the HS”
They never believed in anything they taught Bob. You can take that to the bank! It was always about money and power.
I just had the pleasure of arguing a parallel concept of law with Kevin Gutzman and other legal sages on his “Facebook” page. I was qute agreeable and accepted their interpretation, and then showed them why the founders said otherwise.
Mr. Gutzman blocked any further comment without proving me wrong, and one of his contributors stated that it was pointless to aruge with ‘laity” since I had many misconceptions, which, rather than simply point them out, he stated his argument “ex Cathedra(from the chair)”.
Ex cathdra? How about Matthew 23:2: “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat(ex cathedra). All things whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do, but do not after their works, for they say and do not”.
The Pharisees called themselves rabbis, masters. But you see Jesus arguing that even by “ex cathedra”, they were neither rabbis, masters, nor fathers.
But woe unto you scrines and Pharisees(ex cathedra) hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye that are entering to go in”.
Separation of church and state, it would seem.
More directly, jesus challenged the ex cathedra argument in Luke 11:52:
“Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in, ye hindered.”
Certainly if the “Holy Spirit” was a matter of law(ex cathedra), that law was to be practiced equally by all in any matter regarding individual rights, as jesus pointed out in both Matthew 5:25 and 18:15-18.
“Where ever two or more are gathered”, whatever was bound would be bound in heaven, and whatever loosed would be loosed in heaven. By OT law, only two witnesses required.
To borrow Al’s term of “holy mindset”, it would merely mean the right of two people to settle matters among themselves in non-vengeful ways(Matt 5:38-42, Romans 12:19), with vengeance reserved only as a last resort.
Thgis kind of independence would get most any person killed quickly by both civil and Jewish laws, since it gave no place for collective authority “ex cathedra”.
I almost forgot another point of “ex cathedra”: Matt 23:15.
Ralph,
Your a hopeless shit raiser. They may just find what you present to be “delusional” but more on that in the next article. 🙂
Of course they’ll find it delusional. Look at the “privilege and immunities” clause of the 14th amendment. No state shall make or enforce any law which abridges privileges or immunities of citizens of the US.
The Supremes skipped over that one in “Slaughterhouse Cases” to say that due process is the true “incorporator” of citizens rights.
So, the federal government has this money printing press called the Federal Reserve Board that can loan it money, and we must repay the mony in taxes. No Constitutional authority whatever, and the states are forbidden from calling anything other than gold or silver coin the legal currency. Federal sovereignty! The Constitution lives and breathes like a king, and has no need to recognize even itself and its own limitations!
“Constitution? I AM the Constitution! I live and breathe and decide for myself right from wrong!”
“Shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, ‘he had no understanding?'”(Isaiah 29:16).