Ithinkisee, that's a very comprehensive list of doubts you made, chere. Good job! Wish I could align my doubts like that, too, but here goes:
When I began studying in 1973, I did it because my older sister had told me she'd found it to be the truth. Since I was still gullible to her "superior" wisdom at the time, I took up studying with 'em in a vulnerable moment. Let's see what kind of list I can make for what transpired over the years afterward.
1. During the time I was studying, the subject of the anointed came up and when the sister pointed out (in spite of the scriptures I was sittin' there showin' her in the NWT, which scriptures proved otherwise) that the anointed had already been chosen and the "door" was closed to that, I put my great big doubt about that WTS teaching in a mental cubbyhole for further examination when I was alone, because I KNEW for a fact that no human can decide who can and who can't be anointed for themselves or anyone else. I did this in favor of the "la-la-la-la-la...life's a holiday on Primrose Lane in the new system" analogy of the WTS, guppie that I was back then.
2. Also, before I took up studying with 'em, I had been reading the bible and had begun a search for God's people here on earth, because I just KNEW they had to be somewhere and I hadn't found them in any church I'd attended. Also, from reading the bible on my own for a while, I kept wondering and asking God how I was supposed to follow in Jesus' footsteps and would have dreams that I was supposed to "hit the street" to "preach the good news." So...I thought I'd found 'em with all the love-bombing going on from people at the KH I began attending when I got over my reluctance enough to go. (But what was it with that music??? It sounded like the theme songs from Soap Operas! LOL! ) No one looked at my hemline, everyone was seemingly friendly and open and treated me like I was one of them. I didn't realize back then they were just wanting to "rubberneck" the new (is she REALLY?) stripper cum bible study at the KH. Then much to my surprise and dismay, before I was even baptised, I learned about how gossip thrives in the KH's across the land. I drove by to pick up another bible study on my way to the KH and when she asked me what I thought about the sister I was studying with, I confided exactly what I thought of "Sister Anal-Retentive" with the personality of a pit viper whose only redeeming feature was that her charm exceeded her intelligence by a country mile. The next thing I knew, Sister A-R called me over to her apartment and held her very own JC meeting with just the two of us in attendance! So much for confiding in people. I turned her over to the elders, who said they'd "handle" it and they did, but I sure wasn't happy with the thought that perhaps the ugly side of the WTS was just beginning to raise its triangular shaped head and flick it's forked tongue.
3. The night before my baptism, I had a dream. I dreamed that I went to pick up my new license plate and the one they handed me had "666" on it. Scarey! I told others about my dream, but they just pooh-poohed it as "just a dream." Yeah, right. When shortly after my baptism I actually went to pick up my new license plates and they DID indeed have "666" on 'em, I was freaked! (YES, they really, really did!) Everyone else in Oz told me that didn't matter. So I shrugged it off, again in favor of "la-la-la-la-la, you can live forever and life's a holiday on PRIMrose Lane." I have to admit here that the people in the KH I attended at first pre-1975 were mostly truly nice people that I sometimes think about, even if there was a lot of anal-retentiveness featured among them about dancing and such.
4. I married the first elder that asked me thinking that "this is the truth...life's a holiday on Primrose Lane....it's all good here, idnit?" BIG mistake that one! Within 3 months, I made my temporary exodus and went back to the world to escape HELL! He would actually tell me to "pose" with him as though we were horsing around in a playful moment when someone would knock on our door!!!!
5. After 5 years mostly happy in exile and one divorced elder later, I again reached a vulnerable time in my life and went back to the WTS in my own home town, which was different than the place where I first was introduced to WTS doctrines and practices. Thinking in the WTS had changed, but not for the good, I soon discovered. I heard people ridiculing the anointed (with the exception of the Gov. Haughty, of course) and make snide comments and snicker behind their backs all around me. There were all sorts of tales like the one where, early in the WTS history, a bunch of allegedly (to WTS members) anointed that weren't on the GB got together at one time and held their own meeting and they were all disfellowshipped for doing so. One young MS even made fun of me when he overheard me merely asking an elder a question about the anointed and the scriptures that referred to the anointing. pffftt!
6. The gossip, the severe criticism of even their own alleged "brothers and sisters in the truth," the inter- and inner-congregational shunning of even people that were alleged to be weak or inactive or maybe even just POOR went on and on, from congregation to congregation and state to state, no matter where I moved. I've seen poor and decrepit old sisters left on the KH doorstep when FS meeting was over with no transportation for their outing in field service provided, as the various "cliques" scurried to their individual vehicles and squealed tires and threw gravel, hurring to leave before they were caught last and HAD no choice but to let 'em ride with them. Time and time again.
7. Going toe-to-toe, head-to-head with the Gov. Haughty over their erroneous criteria of baptism qualifications. They grew increasingly haughty in their correspondence with me, soon disdaining all the pertinent and very valid scriptures cited by me in my letters to them, in favor of their own "take" on their WTS dogma and going on about their royal "bizness" of preaching the goo-ed mews, so that they really didn't have time to waste on something as puscilanimous as the truth they choose to ignore.
8. The P.O. that delivered the "fatal" (in my eyes) disfellowshipping talk severely denigrating the young pioneer sister's behavior in front of everyone, while the young bro got a "slap on the hand." He's the same one that sent someone to "befriend" me and report back to him. Why did he do it? Because, my youngest son was wanting to get baptised and (head-up-my-butt that I still was), I was trying to help his cause. Also, the elders physically attempted to prevent me from contact with the circuit overseer when he visited, so I couldn't tell him what they'd been up to (the spying and all). (Yall should have seen the letter I wrote about THAT little picadillo!) They chased me around the KH trying to "cut me off at the pass" but I made the "touchdown" anyway. I wrote to the Gov. Haughty about THAT, too, and since they couldn't touch me because I'd gone over their heads, I recv'd from the podium during the next Circus Serpent's visit, a fierce little personal dig about engaging in nepotism for back up my son in his quest for baptism. (WTF!!!?!!! After all, God himself, according to their own teachings, backed up his own son's baptism, didn't he? Was that nepotism, too?)
9. Another anointed sis phoned me one day, out of the blue, so to speak. I didn't know her, but she had been told about me by another local anointed sister and she wanted to meet me and was going to bring some other anointed sisters with her to the visit at my home, since I didn't have transpo at the time. I invited them to "Come on down!" thinking to myself, 'why not? I'm up for a little WTS butt-kickin'." We met. There were 5 of them that filed into my living room that day, all strangers to me. We spoke of our anointing experiences cautiously, but of nothing very intimately, nor against the WTS teachings and practices until I offered to share with them the copy of the letter I'd written to the Gov. Haughty, approx. 3 yrs earlier. ( It was a letter I'd written to the GB in regard to the BOE that was attempting to DF me because I'd committed the godawful sin of actually sharing with a few others some of the dream/visions I'd been experiencing before I left Texas for California. The BOE was not allowed to run itnerference and DF me, but I was told in so many words to "shut my mouf," at the time. I kept a copy of the letter I wrote.) In offering to let the other sisters read my letter, I used the words, "meet you face-to-face" from the 3 Johns that come before Revelation. One sister gasped and exclaimed, "That's it! I know I can really trust you and talk to you now! Those were the words that I prayed to Jehovah that you would use so that I would know that we can speak freely!" Yeah. We all had our heads up our butts back then. I don't know about the others that were there at the time, but since my exodus from the WTS, I remove mine occasionally now for a breath of fresh air. Eventually, during our visits before I made my big exit, we all agreed that the WTS heirarchy are LOSERS in so many words. You can read all about this visit and subsequent visits with those anointed sisters and all the surrounding adventures along with the rest of my eventual exodus from the WTS, if you click on the following hyperlink:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/32/77580/1256751/post.ashx#1256751
But just remember two things before you read it.....1. Books contain knowledge and are made of paper engraved with words(images) and paper is a product of trees, ergo, books are also "fruit" of trees. 2. I now know for certain that just because one finds a lot of manure spread around under a tree, it doesn't mean that one has been given a pony (horse) to ride.
EDITED TO ADD: oooops! I just realized that this thread was intended for those raised in the truth, not interlopers, like myself. mea culpa
Frannie Banannie, Queen of Franistan
