by leavingwt 17 Replies latest jw friends
Via the Brooklyn Heights Blog, a former Jehovah’s Witness, now a convert to Orthodox Catholicism, recounts his days as a Bethelite in the Witnesses' Brooklyn Heights headquarters, in a series of recent blog posts.
Part I -- The Journey from JWs to the Orthodox Church
Part II -- Life at Bethel, the World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses
Part III -- When Prophecy Fails: The 1975 Fiasco Viewed from Inside Bethel
From Part I. . .
The years before 1975 were exciting times at Bethel. The factory was working night and day to keep up with the orders for JW books. I became a lead person in the book sewing department on the night shift. There were about 2,000 Bethel workers in the factories and residences on Brooklyn Heights just across from lower Manhattan. I made many new friends with young men from all over the country who also had given up everything to work at Watchtower headquarters. We had a four year commitment but many of us wanted to stay even longer. Many of the group of guys who came in with me did not expect to finish our 4 year commitment before Armageddon would strike. I vividly remember when one day a small group of us “newboys” from the bindery were invited up to the room of our floor overseer, John Adams, before lunch. He had a commanding view from his room overlooking Wall Street and the Twin Towers across the East River. We complimented him on his view and he replied, “How many of you think that by the time your 4 years are up, this will still be here?” To be honest, I had some doubts that Armageddon would wipe out Manhattan by then, but I didn’t voice it on that occasion. Nor did anyone else.
From Part II. . .
Sometimes, conversations with other Bethelites would prompt research in the headquarter’s libraries. For example, one morning at breakfast, the elder who had oversight of the table I was assigned to referred to a tragedy where a Bethelite had been killed in a traffic accident back in the 1920s. The elder’s name was Ciro Aulicino (he became infamous later with regards to a controversial involvement with the United Nations). I liked Ciro, enjoyed his sense of humor, and particularly appreciated when he shared historical tidbits from Witness history. This particular day he referred to when the Watchtower leaders “dropped [belief in the supernatural nature of] the Great Pyramid.” Very few of us knew it, but the Witnesses first President, Charles Taze Russell, had seen in the Great Pyramid of Egypt, a doctrinal and chronological blueprint that supposedly reinforced Russell’s unique teachings. Russell’s successor, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, suddenly reversed the teachings on the Great Pyramid in 1928 and began teaching that the Great Pyramid had actually been inspired by the Devil. Ciro explained that this sudden doctrinal reversal had been upsetting for some of the Bethel brothers. One Bethel worker, Ciro said, walked about in a daze after hearing Rutherford denounce the Pyramid teaching and was run over and killed by a car when he unthinkingly walked in front of it on the way to work at the Society’s factory. Later in the Bethel library, I found the older Watchtower books that had endorsed pyramidology. Russell’s first exposition of the spiritual significance of the Great Pyramid was in Volume 3 of Millennial Dawn, pp. 303-374. In it, Russell taught the Great Pyramid supported his predictions for the year 1914. A special edition of Russell’s writings on the Great Pyramid was published as The Divine Plan of the Ages and the Great Pyramid in 1913.
Glad you quoted some of this for us, LeavingWT. I have to be very careful going to outside unknown links here at work - probably others do too.
Thanks for posting the links. Really interesting reading.
thank you....its appreciated....
Great stuff! Thanks!
Three words that send a chill up the spine of a JW:
When Prophecy Fails
Thanks for that, leavingwt - The speculation and excitement was pretty high in the congregations too. I can remember conversations with friends at the time and hearing "It is not as though we are looking years ahead anymore, just months!" or "Supposing the world did go on a year or two after '75, what sort of a world would it be?....unlivable!"
We were so keyed up for it..I refrained from making definite statements. After all the Society had not quite said it, but a lot of fellow brothers and elders did so.
I did say this to my wife though after a visit to the dentist in spring '75..I mumbled through a frozen jaw that "Well, that is the last dentistry I will ever have !"
Some hopes of that
From Part III. . .
It’s comical to the point of absurd now to think of it, but this interval between the time of the creation of Adam and Eve became a big deal for us. It was used by Watchtower leaders as a way to hold onto the 6,000 year chronology and an imminent Armageddon, while allowing some “wiggle room” as the months and years ebbed by after 1975. (Nowadays, there is little mention of the 6,000 year chronology in Watchtower publications, let alone concern about the passage of time between Adam and Eve’s creation. I doubt any JWs really believe Adam was alone in the Garden of Eden for over 35 years before he met Eve!)
I was at Bethel in 1975 and the sarcastic joke going around was Armageddon came, but it was invisible.
Some were quite poignant, saying "don't say they didn't teach it, because they did!"
Most of us just went along with the flow, to busy to really think about it. I only knew of one person who while there, said they blew it and left the truth.
