When the Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry book came out the WTS had a convoluted way of releasing it.
Everyone was told to be at a certain Service Meeting, that something important was going to be announced. JW speculators were busy during that time. The consensus was that the End or Armageddon would be announced. That survival depended on being at the KH that night.
Was everyone surprised when a book was released. Historically, the WTS had only released books at district conventions, so no one had guessed that.
I could tell that people were disappointed that it was not the announcement of the end or at least the end of the preaching work as the WTS had said would happen in the past and that JWs would only preach a message of judgment.
So I'm sure this is more of the same.
The mother and her siblings were JWs in the 50's when the announcement was made that the princes on the earth would be the elders/overseers, not Abraham, David, etc., as Rutherford had prophesied.
Look how Fred Franz manipulated the audience.
***
jv chap. 17 p. 263 Conventions Proof of Our Brotherhood ***On the next-to-last day of that convention, F. W. Franz, then vice president of the Watch Tower Society, addressed the audience on "New Systems of Things." For many years Jehovah’s Witnesses had believed that even before Armageddon some of Jehovah’s pre-Christian servants would be raised from the dead to be princes of the new world, in fulfillment of Psalm 45:16. You can imagine, then, the effect on the vast audience when the speaker asked: "Would this international assembly be happy to know that here, tonight, in our midst, there are a number of prospective princes of the new earth?" There was tremendous and sustained applause along with shouts of joy. Then the speaker showed that the Biblical use of the term translated "prince" along with the record of faithfulness of many of the "other sheep" in modern times allowed for the belief that some now living might well be selected by Jesus Christ for princely service. He also pointed out, however, that there would be no bestowing of titles on those entrusted with such service. Concluding his discourse, he urged: "Onward, then, steadily, all of us together, as a New World society!"
