It's About INVENTORY, Stupid!

In 1940, former zone servant Harvey H. Fink wrote that the WTS was "set up by presumptous men whose interest in spite of their pretenses to the contray, is primarily selling books for revenue.." and that the WTS demanded that books containing outdated doctrine would still "be sold to the people very definitely, because it wanted to get the revenue out of them in spite of the errors it willing admitted they contained."

Strong words, indeed. Is the WTS so currupt and greedy that they would knowlingly make their membership buy and sell books that contained ADMITTED false prophecies and outdated doctrines? Is the WTS so currupt that they would knowingly put the very salvation of interested persons in jeopardy just to get rid of book inventory?

But of COURSE they are!

After the early 1930's hardly any mention of Chuck Russell was made in the society's publications. Many of not most of Russell's most important doctrines had been changed, even demonized. While Russell thought the Great Pyramid was a monument to prophecy from Jehovah, Rutherford taught it was a monument from Satan the Devil himself. I could list literally dozens of Russell's beliefs that had been changed by the time Rutherford died in 1942. By 1938 Rutherford had re-organized his pet cult so thoroughly that it bore virtually NO resemblance to the way it was in Russell's day.

Yet the "Watchtower Cost List", dated February 1, 1944 (two years after Rutherford's death and twenty five years after Russell's death) offered all six volumes of "Studies in the Scriptures" in three editions: Cloth, Keratol and DeLuxe!

In April 1946 the society's "Informant" pamphlet (currently Kingdom Ministry) listed most of Rutherford's books as part of a literature campaign, even though they taught many things that were currently rejected by the society.

Among these things were that the "time of the end" began in 1799, Jesus' second presence began in 1874 and the "other sheep" were destined for heavenly life. Keep in mind that last doctrine was rejected eleven years BEFORE that literature campaign began in 1946.

This campaign to sell outdated literature continued for four years after Rutherford's death.

Ray Franz in his book "In Search of Christian Freedom" stated that often the book that was ordered to be studied in the congregation's book study was one that had a backlog of inventory at the factory. Being primarily a book-selling business, this makes perfect sense to Watchtower leaders.

Have any of you have wondered why the same book is often studied more than once at the mid-week study, several years after it was first studied? It's because the book is over-stocked at the factory, and the WTS knows that over a period of several years many dubs will leave their cult and be replaced by new suckers. New suckers have to buy the book in order to study it, while old suckers just might buy themselves another copy, too! And of course another campaign to "place" that book at the door is also instituted. Inventory problem solved.

I well remember having to study the 678,324 page book "Babylon the Grape Has Fallen" twice within a period of about four or five years. That book was so screwed up, we were only able to cover about 5 pages in a single study. Even then, NONE of us (including the study conductor) understood a damn thing Franz wrote in that piece of crap which masqueraded as "spiritually deep" understandings.

Can a religion be so detached from Christianity that they would place book profits over truth and the spiritual needs of their membership?

If that religion is the Watchtower Book Peddling Corporation, you can bank on it.

Farkel

Ah! The old days.....I'm happy they don't sell books anymore.

It may not have been in the official Cost List, but I distinctly remember a letter posted on the information board in the late 1960's, when I first started attending the KH, that offered a number of publications still in stock that the WTS was trying to liquidate at reduced rates. There was at least one of the Studies volumes listed. by then, that information was really old light, but they were still selling it!

Farkel are you related to Jesus????? Hot damn once again more enlightenment. I'm glad people like you are around to think out side the box for me. I never would have thought about it. I would have just thought Jehovah spoke to them during their meeting and told them we were a bunch of idiots who didnt get it the first time and needed refreshing. Go figure  

: but I distinctly remember a letter posted on the information board in the late 1960's, when I first started attending the KH, that offered a number of publications still in stock that the WTS was trying to liquidate at reduced rates. There was at least one of the Studies volumes listed.

Yes, I remember that also.

Farkel

Of course, the sweetest revenge would be to sell these things on eBay (do a search on ``Watchtower" and just take a look at the price they fetch!)    It would seem a matter of time when it dawns on the JWs that they can cash in by stripping the KH library of these books and putting them up for sale.... and imagine if someone at Bethel were to get that bug!

Room, Are you trying to give people ideas????

That horrid book!  With the little red paperback question book to go along with!

I was just a little kid when we studied that and it was the most excruciating thing I've ever had to sit through in my life.  Types and antitypes and kings of the north and weird date chronology and harlots and statues that had their feet crumble... and Nevercomenever's dreams and all manners of demonized things...

AAUUGGHH you made me remember that!!!!

It's all about the money.  Always has been.  As conservative am radio talk show host Bob Grant would say.... FAKE!   PHONY!  FRAUD!

 

 

: I well remember having to study the 678,324 page book "Babylon the Grape Has Fallen" twice within a period of about four or five years. That book was so screwed up, we were only able to cover about 5 pages in a single study.  Even then, NONE of us (including the study conductor) understood a damn thing Franz wrote in that piece of crap which masqueraded as "spiritually deep" understandings.

 

LOL@ Farkel

I hated that book, the 678,324 pages thing has me still laughing, and I thought War and Peace was long.

 

doh and I always thought it was just me who couldn't understand that 678,324 page book "Babylon the Grape Has Fallen" book

Now I don't feel so bad if Farkel hated it too  

I'd like to add a point. JWs who have already studied the book once at the book study may want to get a new book to underline or highlight the answers again. If they start over fresh, they may actually understand it! What a concept! Didn't work.

they must have had a hell of a lot of Revelation books in stock too... how many times did we have to sit through that? The only good thing about it was if you had hung onto your book and marked it up the first time through it, you were off the hook for preparing the last 3 or 4 times.

 

Odrade writes:

Actually, that sometimes backfires on them.  The elders and book study conductors (and their families) are all more or less expected to set the example for the congregations by acquiring new copies of the books to be re-studied.  I remember the second go-round in the Revelation book, and my  husband and I did not get new copies.  We were the only ones in the study group who noticed the editing jobs that the Society had done in various places, because everyone else had the ones with New Light? in them.  That, along with the need to move inventory, is a huge reason why they want EVERYONE to get fresh copies every time they have a re-hash of old material.

Love, Scully

 

Was that all? --It seemed like more.

Back then, study conductors were permitted to go at their own pace. If the conductor of your group was sharp and wanted to move quickly it wasn't so bad.

---However if you got stuck with a long winded & dull witted geriatric disaster it was dreadful --- Sometimes only 3 pages or so in an entire hour.

Farkel,

What commentary on the book of Revelation is going to clear and understandable?  The book itself is strange and filled with esoteric concepts.  Would you prefer reading the "Left Behind" series?

 

: What commentary on the book of Revelation is going to clear and understandable? 

"The Commentary of Farkel", that's what.  And it's short:

"The guy who wrote that stuff was on some serious drugs."

Farkel

I can remember sitting on a folding metal chair and trying to balance a Bible, the book and the question book on my lap, a skill I never quite mastered. Just trying to do all of that took most of whatever intelligince I had and then we were supposed to understand the stupid book ?   Bug

Farkel

I think they should have a fire sale when they're overstocked...or maybe just a fire!

The letter I received from bethel about several obvious lies taught while they prepared the Knowledge book for distribution was the textbook answer of...The GB provide the Proper Food at the Proper time.

I remember elders remarking about it being seen as proper food when we went over and over and over the Greatest Man book....although it was much easier to follow than all that other garbage.

I can't believe that the book is 678, 324 pages long!  At the rate of 100 pages per day, 7 days a week, it would take about 17 years to read it.  Did I calculate wrong?  I didn't think any book could physically be that big to hold so many pages. 

Farkel: I love your comment and this thread. It is so on the mark and it explains a lot.

When we first started attending in late 1994, they had just finished their last and final study of the Revelation book. (Thank God.) Some said they had been through this book 3 times! I did BUY a copy of it (via donation of course) and attempted to read it, only to find it a muddled and egocentrically-Witnessized symbolic mess. So, I am very glad we were spared from having to suffer through that drivel.

I have to wonder now how much money they are making off of the dreadful two volume ISAIAH series. These are the worst type of sheer repetitive spritual drivel of the most high kind, which could only have been written by Ronald Reagan on the Isle of Patmos after eating some strange mushrooms, or the Governing Body and it's so-called Writing Department, the later of whose tomes are part-drivel, part-symbolic crap, and part-plagerism of age-old Bible commentaries by other real Bible scholars.

My three cents...