What are some of your memories pre 1975? (page 3)

Layla33

Oh I was a mere babe, so I don't really remember much, just once standing in a long line in the heat with my Sunday best with my mom.

AK - Jeff

I got out in May of 74. I saw no one making plans for the big one prior to that and I didn't see anyone who really believed it was coming.

Well we all believed here! I was criticised for getting married, considering children. I was talked out of higher education due to the proximity of the Big A. Every Jw I knew was focused on WT studies that might tell us more specifically when it would happen, how to prepare, what we would need to survive. I was convinced that pioneering was a safeguard, and was doing that in the years leading up to '75. I also buried more than one Bible and 'Bible literature' in waterproof containers in the yard of an elderly sister. We just knew we would need them when persecution broke out. Oh yeah, we thought it was coming. Jeff

Gregor

Amazing how many of you misunderstood what the organization really said. All jumpers to conclusions.

I had a sluggish biblestudy who I gave a very grave ultimatim to in the spring of '75. He nodded attentively, and then continued to avoid my hints to close the deal.

Liberty

I have lots of very clear pre-1975 JW memories. I don't want to call anyone a liar but I sure do get sick of hearing from supposed ex-JWs from that era claiming that no JWs they knew believed in all the Armageddon hype. That is just simply untrue. I know that no one could possible know the private thoughts of every person but the belief that Armageddon would be over by the mid 1970's was a cornerstone teaching of the Watch Tower Society from 1968 on until it was time proven false. Saying that JWs back then didn't believe in 1975 is like saying JWs really didn't believe in Christ's enthronement in 1914, no blood, no organ transplants, or that the Watch Tower Society was Jehovah's one true spirit directed organization. In other words, some JWs probably didn't believe some of this stuff but the vast majority certainly did, and any who didn't believe any of these "key" teachings knew to keep their disbelief quiet or they risked being thought of, at the very least, as weak and spiritually sick.

We risk falling prey to the Watch Tower's deceptions about their own failed predictions if we allow pride to condition us into claiming that JWs never really believed this stupid nonsense. I was there and the vast majority of JWs believed it and took foolish actions proving that they believed it. It was a cornerstone belief as sure as the literal Flood, an earthly Paradise, or the Resurrection. This belief in imminent Armageddon was the very essense of being a JW in the late 1960's and early 70's. All who say otherwise are either deluding themselves or are just plain liars.

Homerovah the Almighty

I was in my teens when all of this occurred, I do remember a lot of anxiety and letting my education slip away because it simply wouldn't be needed

I remember people saying were not going to get married because its too close to Armageddon or were not going to have children in this old world

and it would be a lot better to wait for the new system, by 1980 I was done with the JWS completely.

Today if I were to wrap all of those memories together I would say yes we really do live a free and open commercialized society where just about any

idea can be sold and put to market, power was gained and money was indeed made

144001

I recall talks from the platform predicting Armageddon to occur in October of 1975. As a kid, I was terrified by the prospect of Armageddon as depicted in the Watchtower publications, and remember being very stressed in October of that year. Then, when it didn't happen, I watched the exodus of folks who relied upon the prediction and sold their houses, etc., so they could pioneer to the end.

I also remember Ford Pintos, AMC Gremlins and Pacers, and the King (Elvis)!

trevor

The Society did nothing to discourage the excitement that swept through the movement. Far be it for them to tell its members what to think.

The fervour that followed had to be experienced to be believed. At a series of conventions around the world in the summer of 1968 a new book was introduced, “The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life.” It has since sold over one hundred million copies!

I sat transfixed in the London assembly at Twickenham Stadium, as the speaker explained the reason for the book’s release. This small book had been designed so that a weekly study of just one hour covering one chapter a week would complete the book in six months. All other Society books used in Bible studies with interested people were to be put aside.

This was now the book to use. If those we studied with did not show definite signs of getting baptised after six months we were to forget them and move on. Why? Because time was running out - so many people to save and so little time!

trevor

Finally-Free

I had 8 girlfriends in 1975 - Barb, Judy, Lydia, Yvonne, Kim, Lynn, Bettina, and Louise. It was a pretty good year, and I wasn't thinking about "armageddon".

W

Homerovah the Almighty

Yes 1975 helped greatly in the selling and marketing of their their litature.....big time as they say

The unfortunate destructiveness with people's psychology was the ending result, something the WTS will never of course acknowledge.

I know of 3 young teens that committed suicide back in those days all for the useless cause of selling magazines what a waste and what a shame.

Way to go Crooklyn

Witness 007

I bet on Armegedon coming in the 1990's since all the World War 1 Vetrans were dying......till the Convention regarding "the Generation" change.

What are some of your memories pre 1975?

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