Disappointment, Part IV: Delusions

In the late 1960s, I often went up to the city on the weekends to stay with my brother at his boarding house. He had grown up during a paranoid era of the cold war and was always seeking an avenging hero which could show that the majority was wrong and, more importantly, empower him with the promise that some day he could be in charge to right the evils of the world. He wasn’t exactly a religious hobbyist, but he was definitely seeking — not a higher power — but someone or something with superior power. As some of you know, he finally found and settled in on Armstrongism and eventually it killed him: In pain, alone, in fear, abandoned, betrayed.

After his death, people from the WCG came by his apartment as my mother was wrapping up his affairs. You might think that they came to express their condolences and relate how Bruce improved their lives. If you thought that, you would be wrong. They came by and wanted his stuff: His precious stones he polished himself, his telescope, his cameras he built himself, his electronic gear. It was like they had some sort of entitlement. Later, two church boys, who had joined the military, had the gall to come by our folk’s home to stay over on the way to the Feast. My folks put them up and fed them because they claimed to know Bruce. My mother showed me the letter from Haffely, the minister, who admitted that Bruce had called him for help when he was having the heart attack, but the minister just advised him to go to the hospital emergency room. My brother’s trusting delusion that the church would take care of him when he was in trouble killed him.

It didn’t end with his death. My mother received a letter from Pasadena after Bruce’s death from the massive cardiac infarction. The good folks at Pasadena were certain that my brother had left them absolutely everything in his will: Tens of thousands of dollars, and they wanted it. They demanded that my folks produce his will they were certain my mother was hiding, because everything of his was theirs now. Of course, they had no rights at all to his small fortune built up from his industriousness, conservatism and use of his technological skills, but they were certain our family was hiding something that would prove that their selfish arrogant avarice was well founded. They took advantage of his generosity in life and were determined to take everything that was left after his death. My mother showed me the letter. It was really pretty nasty and vile. I have concluded that though my brother may have been delusional, but the scoundrels at Pasadena always knew precisely what they were. It occurs that the Churches of God have declared war on my family nearly 50 years ago and I’m just now waking up to the fact that they are still at war with us. Interesting.

There had been incidents long before this. Bruce was kind and generous. As a bachelor, he prepared dinner every Sabbath for different people in the church. He did his best to “serve” at church functions. He gave a lot of extra money to the church as he had occasion. For awhile, my brother was prosperous. He lost his job. He had a large apartment with several bedrooms. A man in the church moved in with his wife and children and mooched off of my brother for several months without providing one thing in return, ever. The man didn’t have a job and Bruce ended up supporting the whole family — a family which was not related to him. He was of the delusion that the church WAS his family.  He couldn’t get rid of them. When things got really bad and he was running out of money, he asked a deacon in the WCG for help. The deacon laughed at him to his face. Remember that this was after my brother had spent a year at Ambassador College. He got into the college by giving and loaning a considerable amount of money to the church. It turns out that Herbert Armstrong was impressed by men of power and / or money. If you had enough money, you could buy yourself into nearly anything in the WCG. I can guarantee that my brother would never have gotten into Ambassador College without his giving them tens of thousands of dollars, back in the early 1960s.

While I was a still a teen and before my brother entered into the RCG / WCG environment, those weekends with my brother were most illuminating. One Sunday, I was going to catch the Grayhound home and my brother’s landlady — a true believer and relgious hobbiest — asked me if I’d be interested in a talk some religious leader was giving in a room at the Davenport Hotel. I said, OK. What can I say, I was 17.

Here was this hefty but short 40 something professor-looking dude with a beard and glasses. As he gave his talk to about 20 or so people, it got stranger and stranger. He told us the world was hollow and people lived inside the mantle of the earth. They had flying saucers which flew out of the North Pole. His “proof” was colorful: “I can prove it,” he said. He protested that people [read that scientists] taught that the earth had a molten core. I remember his colorful demonstration: “Build a fire and put a wooden box over it,” he said; “What happens? The fire burns through the box! This proves the earth does not have a molten core — it is hollow! People live inside!”.

I had a background in science. At the age of 13, I built my own 24 volt regulated DC power supply. With relays I found in the city dump from the AT&T Radar relay TV station, I designed and soldered together a binary counter, replete with a panel of flashing lights. I read the book, Earth, Wind and Fire, to learn about how the earth was formed 4 billion years ago. I performed my own electronic and endless chemical experiments. I used home made hydrogen to fill lighter than air balloons [the part about tying thread to them, spooling the balloon up to the ceiling, lighting the thread and making the balloon go POOF! I will leave out!]. Anyway, here I was — my first real delusional cult leader confronting me.

After his presentation, he singled me out and stood between me and the door: “What did you think of my talk,” he said? I was a naive country farm boy with a penchant for science experimentation. I had found the arc light at school and put it together with the projection microscope for the first time in seven years when my other brothers last did it. My dad taught me welding at the Lincoln County Shop where he was foreman. I fixed the pendulum clock for grandmother. And here I was. And here he was. I thought of the volcanoes which blew up and which, incidentally, proved that the earth had a molten core. But this was an authority figure. What to do? What to do?

“It was interesting,” I said, and left, caught the bus and went home.

How, you might ask, is this relevant to Armstrongism? Well, you should take a look at Ralph Orr’s article over at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20071217130140/http://www.wcg.org/lit/prophecy/anglo/howanglo.htm 

It is a wonderland of British Israelism, related false prophecies and Pyramidology. Herbert Armstrong was a nut case every bit as bad as the hollow earth core dude, but with more people impressed with his credibility. He sounded credible. His overweening positive manic approach evident in his enthusiasm for everything he did, including THE VERY WORK OF GOD, was persuasive. Today, it doesn’t look that credible, the empire has crashed and burned in disgrace and Herbert Armstrong is a mere footnote in a long list of delusional cultists.

Back in the 1950s, a then young man, was interested in the Sabbath. He went searching. He had done his homework and studied the Bible. He went in to a meeting of the Radio Church of God. At the end, someone asked him, “What did you think of Herbert Armstrong?”. His reply, “You should ask me what I think of Jesus Christ!”. Now this guy was tall and heavy and fit. It took two deacons to literally pick him up and drop him off outside the door. He later went on to become a minister of the Seventh Day Church of God. I know his 85 year old widow, Marion, who told me the story.

Anyone with any shred of objectivity should tell any nut case, “Prove it”. I would be inclined to continue, “And just who died and left you God?”.

That anyone would fall for the preposterous psychotic delusions is testimony of where the generations led us all to. In the movie, Generation Zero, there are four basic steps posited which brought the current world economic crisis:

1. The crisis: World War II
2. The High: The easy prosperity of the 1950s
3. The Awakening: The 1960s Hippie Movement
4. The Unravelling: Spoiled entitled people leading to Financial Meltdown

In all of this, objectivity, data, facts, even science are all ignored. People don’t want logic. They don’t want science. They want what feels right and what feels good. Mothers who lived in want pampered their children and gave them everything they wanted and needed, instantly. Disposable diapers are an example of something both immediate and personal. Spoiled children grew up to become selfish entitled adults, leveraged by the explosion of technologies spearheaded by the space race. People awakened to self-awareness to protest perceived injustices. They insisted upon and got the opportunity to express their opinions: To have their say and go their way. During the Clinton Administration, the Clintons capitalized upon this with their Health Care Plan Summit. There was no solution at that time. But the stakeholders came together in Washington D.C. to discuss the issues. Once they were satisfied that they were all given an opportunity to be heard, they all went home, confident that the issue was taken care of without any commitment, involvement or effort from them.

This past couple of years, the chickens came home to roost — or vultures and velocerapters, more like. Psychopaths became bold, arrogant and downright pushy and got their agendas passed, plying the suspicious point of view to pressure the public. After all, it was what the people wanted. And the sociopaths of the business world pressed the advantage to empty the coffers, affecting generations to come. Meltdown has struck and is with us, but most of the Boomers and New Millenniest breed seem to think that meltdown is a good thing, sort of like cheese topping.

Dr. Phil has said, “Emotions got you into this and emotions will get you out of it”. That’s a lie. It can’t possibly be true. No, emotions got us into the problem and determination, discipline, logic and a lot of resources with a great deal of effort is the only way to get out of it — if it is even possible. Unfortunately, the modern generations are just plain lazy. They want the instant fix without the character to build to viable solutions [think The BP Oil Spill]. Like some rebellious teens who declare their independence by rebelling against authority, when they are in trouble, they cry out, “Mom, Dad, save me”.

In the July-August 2010 The Sabbath Sentinel is this interesting entry:

“I’m Spiritual, but not religious!”

In a recent CNN article writer John Blake examines the trend among young people who believe that they don’t need organized religion to have a life of faith.

However, James Martin, a Catholic priest, believes that this trend is essentially egotism. “Religion is hard,” he says. “Sometimes it’s just too much work. People don’t feel like it. I have better things to do with my time. It’s plain old laziness.”

But offer people something fun and easy like websites, blogs and tweets, and they’re all over it. Use those cell phones to send [mostly] and receive text messages. Try to put them to real work, and they’re outta here.

Likewise, if it feels right and sounds right, most people today just stop there and don’t look behind the scenes. They accept what is and get drawn into the most preposterous belief systems. The con man is adept in structuring everything to sound right to selfish egos, for example: You will be Kings and Priests in the Kingdom of God, if you DO THE WORK! Throw in some proof texting and there you go. The earth is hollow and people live inside. We can prove it.

In the same The Sabbath Sentinel is an article by Brian Knowles called Out of the Box — Defeating the “Religious Spirit”. Here is part of what he said:

Throughout history, there have always been obsessively religious fanatics who have wreaked havoc on the civilized parts of society. Instead of advancing mankind, or emancipating it, they have plunged it into dark ages of superstition, torture, unjust imprisonment, the illegal confiscation of property and untimely death….

 Brian goes on to give four keys to avoiding the religious spirit:

1. Is it idolatrous?
2. Does it tend to freedom or bondage?
3. What are the fruits?
4. Beware of isolation

Prove all things. What a concept. Which takes work. Unfortunately, people don’t want the truth, they just want to feel good — with as little effort as possible. People don’t really want science. Don’t confuse them with the facts. And, by the way, if you think that what his religious spirit is restricted to religion, be apprised that he is also talking about such things as secular ones, such as [but not restricted to], ardent environmentalists [AKA eco-terrorists], save-the-whales [yes, I am a bit overweight, but they don’t help me!], animal rights, Islamic terrorists [say, isn’t that religion?], neo-Nazis, left-wing socialists, health food fanatics, fanatical communists and other nut case groups.

 Once the scoundrels get entrenched it is almost impossible to get rid of them or their silly ideas. Think British Israelism. They pave the way to becoming ensconced by wrecking the credibility of legitimate authorities, among them scientists. When you hear someones philosophies and they try to convince you that scientists are wrong, beware. Of course scientists can be wrong. For example, those weather stations which “prove” global warming are in asphalt parking lots and next to the exhaust of air conditioners. The criteria is the same: Lax and lazy scientists are not to be trusted, particularly if your life depends upon it.

Nevertheless, it is possible to debunk most of the urban legends. Which falls faster? A bee-bee or a cannon ball. The scientific method proved they fall at equal rates at 32 feet per second per second by pushing them off the Leaning Tower of Pisa at the same time and their landing at the same time. Which is lighter, oil or water? OK then, why does the oil float on the water, then? These embedded belief systems taken for centuries with no examination is partly the responsibility of the generation of religionists and scientists of their time. I had a discussion with the chief scientist over lunch in the Weyerhaeuser cafeteria. He related to me the history of science from the perspective of the acceptance of new scientific discovery. Every generation rejected the truth until the next generation accepted it. Newton’s Law finally gave way to Einstein’s theories, but not without a lot of disagreement. The establishments wants the status quo and hates change.

Unfortunately, change oft comes with the abandonment of truth. Perhaps it is that Herbert Armstrong took some of the best of the Church of God Seventh Day [or not], but along the way he seriously corrupted and mangled it to become indistinguishable from psychotic delusions. Unfortunately, for the same reasons as given above, far too many people were convinced of his follies.

I should point out that children, as innocent victims of this nonsense, followed the same path as everyone takes when they are bound involuntarily by lies: They rebelled. Unfortunately, sometimes, rebellion does a lot of unintended collateral damage.

My heartburn is not with the ones who spread the delusions so much as those who absorb them and lap them up. What sort of people are they? What do they want? Are they so warped that they grasp at every hope that comes by? Are they so desperate that they grasp at straws? Why do they never seek beyond the veneer to find the real truth? This is all very disturbing that so many people get hooked up with fantasies, delusions, myths actively without delving into facts. Perhaps it is true that some people have a convincing “patter”, but now with all the knowledge out there about EVERYTHING, it is surprising that people will actually spend money and risk themselves and their families on flim-flam.

We should be grateful that Herbert Armstrong came along. He was among the first and largest of the cultists [in more ways than one] to deceive people with his admixture of raw facts and delusional fantasies. At least, when we were finished with him, we have been well positioned to apply the suspicious point of view to the rest of the narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths which come our way — even though it seems small comfort for the ruined lives for which he is responsible: We’ve learned Caveat Emptor the hard way, but we’ve learned it first and more thoroughly than others. It’s a lot harder to deceive us now, particularly with delusions.

Nevertheless, so many people never learn a thing: They may turn against all that Herbert Armstrong taught, but they turn back to delusions. Former cultists have a way of going back into the system of delusions when they put their trust into government figures who tell tall tales or other unbelievable stories. They look for their heroes, their saviours.

I am reminded of one of the worst cultmeisters of the Churches of God. The man was evil and oppressive. He played games. He was even exposed publicly through government records. When people had a chance and finally left him, what did they do? They took all of his nutty ideas and doctrines and created their own church group. It was all the same except for the leader they had ousted. Same doctrines. Same rules of governance. All the same people [who, by the way, don’t seem to have ever read the Book of Hebrews, or figured out that the writing of Islam are equivalent to New Testament Epistles]. It’s difficult to understand the mindset of people who insist on retaining nutty toxic delusions at all costs. One would think that they would want freedom from such things.

But now today, if you stand between me and the door, and ask me what I think, you can be pretty well assured that I will answer, “It was interesting”.

Next time in the Disappointment series: Infestation!