Hello everyone. I have never posted my personal story about my years as a JW, and my departure from the organization. I thought that my personal story might be of interest. It is my hope that some of my experiences and observations might be of help to some of you who have recently left the organization.
In a nutshell: I was born and raised as a Witness, served as a Regular Pioneer, Ministerial Servant, and served at Brooklyn Bethel. After 30 years as a JW, I left the organization in early 2006 - for reasons that I will explain later. My post is quite long so, I have decided to divide it into several parts.
I was born into a JW family in 1974 and was raised in Southern California. I didn’t really have any remarkably negative or positive experiences growing up in the organization. There were the typical experiences of embarrassment and isolation that many of us have gone through when it came to not celebrating holiday festivities in school. There were also the feelings of sadness and frustration that came with not being able to participate in extra-curricular activities, or have friendships with "worldly" kids. Despite these issues, my childhood really wasn’t bad. I truly believed that any short-term deprivations I endured would be insignificant in comparison to the rewards that I would enjoy in the future paradise earth.
Both of my parents worked incredibly hard to raise us five kids. They regularly made personal sacrifices to make sure us kid’s needs were met first. My father never really sought to reach out for responsibilities in the congregation and never engaged in any kind of Biblical or spiritual instruction with us kids. So, all of the responsibilities of studying with us, getting us into service, and helping us with talk assignments fell upon the shoulders of my mother.
In the 1970’s and 80’s, my family attended our district conventions at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. I can remember that back then, "apostates" seemed to be much more active in picketing the L.A. conventions. The exits at the Dodger stadium parking lot after the convention looked almost like political protests - a lot of old vans and stationwagons propping up hand-painted signs with disheveled, bearded men yelling slogans through megaphones. As a little kid, I used to be afraid of them. I was told by JW adults that they were all demonized, and the fact that they all seemed to look like Grateful Dead groupies only fed into that belief.
Anyway, our family and another family usually rode to the conventions together, since our family owned a large truck with camper. As we would be driving out past the apostates at the exits, everyone would get really tense, and the adults would announce to all of the kids: "Don’t look at them or their signs!" I look back on this now and chuckle. We acted like a covered wagon load of white settlers riding through treacherous Indian territory; terrified that arrows might pierce through the canvas and strike one of us at any moment. Those were the days - getting our fill of Fred Franz’s spiritual manna at the ballpark, and then getting a whiff of the evil slave’s spiritual wormwood on our way out.
We attended our circuit assemblies in Norco, California. For those of you not familiar with Southern California; Norco at one time was a very rural area with a lot of horse and cattle properties surrounding the assembly hall. This resulted in the area having a huge fly problem. There were so many flies, that large industrial-sized fans had to be mounted above all doorways at the assembly hall to keep them out. This created some interesting mishaps with people’s hair as they walked in and out of the hall. I can remember that back in the early 80’s, many sisters had large Dolly Parton-style hairdos. Many of their husbands had very thick, Don Rickles-style comb-overs. Watching couples such as these get their hair pummeled by the fans, and then scramble to put their hair back into place was a source of frequent entertainment. Sometimes, their purple song books and green Bibles would tumble onto the floor in the commotion.
Another peculiar source of entertainment was to get a couple of friends together at the intermission and go look at the baptismal pool. I have yet to figure out why looking at a pool in the corner of an auditorium as it fills up with water is so fascinating. We would actually make a field trip out of the affair. What’s with that? It must be a JW thing. I remember feeling intimidated by the large attendant that would stand in front of the thick rope surrounding the pool. The baptismal pool attendants always seemed to be guarding it; as if the IRA might be planning to bomb the pool. We had the impression that getting to close to the baptismal pool was like getting too close to the ark of the covenant.
As a kid, it seemed to me like all of the attendants at assemblies looked identical. To me, they all looked like Max Headroom. They always seemed to come out of nowhere, too. I swore that there had to be some kind of hidden doors in the walls, floors, and ceilings that these guys popped out of the moment anyone used more than one paper towel.
In the early 1980’s, Samuel Herd (now a member of the Governing Body) was our district overseer. I remember his assembly talks quite well because my older brother did a really good impersonation of his voice. In fact, several people in our congregation would routinely ask my brother to do his impersonation. Upon hearing it, they would crack up laughing. Little did these people know that they were making fun of a future Governing Body member - one of the "holy ones". It’s amazing that Jehovah didn’t send a couple of she-bears to come rip us apart - the same way that He punished the children who made fun of Elisha. I guess that making fun of Sam Herd’s twangy voice was not as dishonorable as making fun of Elisha’s bald head.
The early 1980’s seemed to be an era of enormous paranoia about demons among Jehovah’s Witnesses. There were several events and controversies that heightened the JW siege mentality toward demons. Perhaps the large purge at Bethel in 1980 (attributed to a covert apostate coup by the Watchtower leadership) helped spark this siege mentality. None the less, a particular irrational, obsessive focus on demons seemed to be a characteristic of JWs in the early 80’s. That is the impression I got, at least. Most of these events helped to solidify my paranoid phobia of demons.
An event that I remember distinctly around the late 70’s to early 80’s was the controversy that was created when it was discovered that rock groups were imbedding Satanic messages onto their records. I’m sure many of you remember the most well known case: the song "Stairway To Heaven" by Led Zeppelin; that when played backwards, played Satanic lyrics. This especially created a stir among Jehovah’s Witnesses. I remember all of this quite well because by the time I was four years old, I already had a fear of demons.
I remember that many Witnesses were taking some of their rock albums and playing them backwards on their turn-tables to see if there were any objectionable lyrics. In my area, among the people our family knew, this turned into a near mass hysteria. I remember that friends were not only scrutinizing albums from groups like Van Halen and Deep Purple; they were taking records by people like Kenny Rogers, Marvin Gaye, and Dianna Ross - playing them backwards looking for demonic messages. I scratch my head, wondering what on earth someone like Kenny Rogers would have covertly slipped into a record. That he has a gambling problem? That he has hemorrhoids? That he eats too much ham?
Anyway, shortly after this snafu, many of you may remember that Bethel had produced a list of music artists and albums that were unacceptable for Bethel family members. Not surprisingly, the list was quite lengthy. Also of no surprise, was that many enterprising circuit overseers and elders got a hold of this list and began making photo-copies for distribution to friends and family members. To my knowledge, this list was not intended to be distributed outside of the Bethel family, and the practice of photo-copying it was never endorsed by the Society. But, none the less, the Holy Crusade continued. If only Elisha could be brought back from the dead. Boy George needed to be purged from Jehovah’s temple!
This is one of those times where one gets a very clear and interesting picture into not only the individual, but the collective psyche of Jehovah’s Witnesses. For JWs, Biblical counsel just wasn’t enough in making a personal decision regarding music. All of the repetitive counsel in assembly talks wasn’t enough. All of the counsel in the organizational Talmud (a.k.a. Watchtower magazine) just wasn’t enough to make a decision. No, a supplemental Talmud in the form of a Xerox copy; listing specific artists and albums was needed. In the minds of many Witnesses, such a clear-cut checklist was required in order to maintain a clean standing before God, and to keep the demons out of your dining room. More records into the trash.
Around the same time, the mass hysteria surrounding The Smurfs began to emerge in the organization, with all of the accompanying rumors and urban legends. (Remember the one about the Smurf doll running out of the Kingdom Hall?) I was one of those kids who had a lot of Smurf memorabilia - lunch box, wrist watch, action figures, and stickers. The thought that my Smurf stuff could be bringing demons into our household really scared me. What if my Smurf stickers turned me into a sort of child spirit medium? Moses had people like me executed after all. I was more than willing to throw all if it away - and so I did.
I sometimes wonder if there were perplexed garbage men around the country back in the 1980’s who wondered why there was this strange trend - stacks of good motown records, Smurf dolls, and Raymond Franz books - heaped into the refuse along with people’s banana peels, pizza crust, and used diapers. And why were these garbage cans always in front of the houses that didn’t have Christmas lights? I bet that this mystery provided fodder for them to keep their minds occupied during their shift.
Events such as these are powerfully influential to the average JW child. They certainly helped to shape my young mind and instill the notion that we as Jehovah’s Witnesses were under siege. We were an elite group in whom the demons wanted us as prey. The only refuge was to be sought within the Watchtower organization.
As I reflect back upon all of these childhood memories in the organization, I am reminded of Steven Hassan’s observations in his book: Combatting Cult Mind Control. He writes:
"In many ways, cult-induced phobias are so cleverly created and implanted that people don’t even know they exist . . . . . . cult phobias take away people’s choices. Members truly believe they will be destroyed if they leave the safety of the group." - pg. 46
"Even the most complex cult doctrines ultimately reduce reality into two basic poles: black versus white; good versus evil; spiritual world versus physical world; us versus them." - pg. 79
"In every destructive cult I have encountered, fear is a major motivating factor. Each group has its devil lurking around the corner waiting for members to tempt and seduce . . . . . . The more vivid and tangible a devil the group can conjure up, the more intense is the cohesiveness it fosters." - pg. 82
In my referencing Steven Hassan’s book, I am not saying that I believe Jehovah’s Witnesses are a destructive cult. But, that in itself is a whole other subject for another thread. I do however, know that there are many striking similarities between the Watchtower organization and many of the groups that Hassan has studied.
As I came into schooling age, and my reading comprehension began to grow, it was now time for me to be studied with in Watchtower publications. Having already been inculcated in the pattern of meeting attendance, the concept that there are "enemies of Jehovah that hate us" (apostates), and the powerful phobia of demons; I was now mentally and emotionally ripe to begin taking in the knowledge that I truly believed that Jehovah wanted me to learn.
In my next thread (part 2), I will discuss my observations about the conditioning that came from publications such as My Book of Bible Stories and You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth.
To be continued . . . .