How many efforts to sway JWs have actually worked?

sweetface2233

I keep reading these threads about exposing the WTS and sending letters to individual JWs. How many of these efforts have actually worked? I've read books written by XJWs and watched videos produced by them, but only after becoming one. In my opinion, the average JW is going to place any anti-JW propaganda as far from them as possible. I know I did when I was in, and I wasn't even very active. I just made the bare requirement to be considered a member of the congregation. I don't say anything about JWD, "Crisis of Conscience "or "The Watchtower: Exposed" to my JW family and I don't intend on it. They will see the Org for what it is in their own due time, as I did. Believe me, if I thought it was possible to persuade my family out of the Org w/ a letter, I would be writing one every day. Is it worth our time and evergy?

nvrgnbk

They will see the Org for what it is in their own due time, as I did.

Very good point, sweetface.

OnTheWayOut

For the most part, you are correct. Many efforts go on deaf ears.
Still, you never know. Experts have refined the deprogramming to help cult
members get out, and Steve Hassan's last book suggested little mini-interventions
at regular intervals.

My family members stand a better chance of getting out if I do SOMETHING than
if I just wait. So maybe I won't reach them, maybe I will. Maybe they will discover
things for themselves. Maybe the effort I made will have the tiniest part in their
freedom. OR maybe I will say the exact thing one day, because I have said several
things, that finally clicks. My JDub mother finally said the exact thing that clicked
for me. It's just too bad that she said it as an indoctrinated member, and I heard it
as a doubter. Still, she said it.

Uzzah

I know the efforts put into Dateline (USA) and Fifth Estate (Canada) exposing the WTBS pedophile scandal caused many to stop and think. Some eventually even left.

I have heard with personalized letters of people when leaving sent to very close friends and family have had an impact. I haven't heard of any mass impersonalized mailing having success. It doesn't mean it can't or hasn't happened, just simply i haven't heard of it. fjtoth tried it when he left Bethel. He put a note under every single door of the Bethel residence. Between thsoe collected and destroyed and those simply thrown out, it didn't change anyone.

I was already doubting at the time and I didn't read past the first paragraph.

People should do what they feel they should do but don't browbeat others if they don't buy into personal campaigns.

ex-nj-jw

Sweetface,

I agree with you. The only family members I've told about JWD are my siblings that are already out. My JW family that are in - why bother? They seem to be happy being brainwashed and controlled.

I have said things to my friend that's a JW, but he has his head so far in the sand 40+ years of brainwashing that he can't see straight, so I don't bother anymore.

I personally don't have the time or energy to try and get them out!

nj

oompa

Sweetface, I don't think it will help for the masses, but it could get some who would even read it a chance to wake up. I think about PurpleSofas mom, and it seemed it was going to happen.......The whole thing is so frustrating, esp. if you have sounded off for two years, worn everyone around you out with sound aruguments, and nothing happens but you looking like some "apostate leaning" nutburger. I have really really tried....but it really does seem to something within the other individual JW that somehow ignites.....oompa

Gregor

Who knows what might strike a chord in the mind of a JW? In hindsight all of us X's can say it was because of this or that, but in reality it was probably a combination of things, not the least of which was our own personal situation/circumstances.

It's kind of like chicken soup for the flu. It can't hurt.

Gopher

I personally doubt that letters containing long lists of reasons the JW's are wrong will have great effect.

In our internet age, people can easily access information when they are ready. Curious JW's will (despite or because of being warned by JW leadership) come to places like ours to see what's being said.

Like the Buddhist saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive." When a JW is ready, information will arrive on his screen that will peel back the layers of misinformation they've been given.

eclipse

I heard it worked in Australia, one person was able to bring out 200 people, or was it an entire congregation left together?

I don't see the harm in trying. I only see it as a positive thing.

Like what gregor said, It can't hurt, right?

I know why I left....it was because ONE person took the time slowly get me to think for myself,

at first I was very scared and my apostate radar was going beserk, but I trusted this person, so I listened.

I was showed how to read the bible without the watchtower blinders on.

That's all that I would like to pass on to everyone else that may listen to me.

fjtoth

Uzzah mentioned the letter I wrote and placed under nearly every door at Canada Bethel. I also mailed the letter to over a thousand JWs I knew around the world, including at Brooklyn Bethel. If I had it to do over again, I would still have written the letter, but I would not have distributed it. It did me good to compile for my own edification and satisfaction the reasons I was leaving the organization, and the letter has seen some good results from being posted on the internet. But I doubt the typewritten letter was read by more than a mere few, if even that many.

Frank

How many efforts to sway JWs have actually worked?

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