What Unusual Watchtower Suggestions Do You Recall?

by laverite 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  laverite

  Hello everyone,

  Today, I was on Yahoo and clicked on link for "unusual ways" to stay cool this summer. Among the suggestions are putting your sheets in the freezer for one to two hours before bedtime and using an organic cotton pillow (is an organic cotton pillow cooler than 100% cotton regular pillow?): http://shine.yahoo.com/event/green/five-unusual-ways-to-stay-cool-1885878/

  This article gave me a little bit of a giggle and reminded me of some of the funny and outright nutty suggestions that have come from the Watchtower and from the elders/public talks on things people should do to, oh, I don't know...save money for example (among many, many other things).

  I remember in the mid-1980s, there was a period of time one elder in my congregation was on a huge money saving kick. Many in the congregation were quite poor and were having trouble paying for their literature AND eating.

  This one elder in particular had a thing about shampoo and saving money by diluting shampoo and shampooing infrequently. According to this elder, one was to shampoo one to two times a week at most. He expected everyone in the congregation to follow this suggestion. He would often go off on this topic during talks. Of course he had several teenage children (ranging from 13-19 years old), and they all had acne and very oily hair. His poor kids. The whole family's hair always looked awful. He even went far enough to make suggestions on what to do if you run out of your shampoo allotment. He had this crazy formula of water, baking soda, vinegar and a tiny bit of Tide soap. Needless to say any hair products other than diluted shampoo/special homemade formula was virtually outlawed in this particular congo.

  I was so zealous that for a year or so my hair looked truly pitiful (along with most others in the congo). We did have one sister in the congo whose hair always looked great, and everyone seemed to be very suspicious of her. Looking back, I have to wonder what the householders thought.

  Does anyone else have similar experiences? Any memories of nutty suggestions from the Watchtower or elders that people were expected to follow?

  Oh the memories I have growing up as a born-in Dub! Oh the PTSD that accompanies these memories! Having this discussion board really helps put things into perspective.

  ~La Vérité
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  whatistruth

  Witness to grieving persons who are visiting their recently dead loved ones grave site and offer literature and preach to them. Ridiculous!
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  Scarred for life

  I get PTSD just from reading your post!
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  laverite

  Scarred for Life - I think many of us have a bit of PTSD from some posts we read! Whatistruth's post is an example of that. What a hideous thing to do to people -- going to graves to witness to relatives. Talk about victimizing.
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  Scarred for life

  I agree. But I was thinking more of the teenage children of this man you were talking to. Can you imagine how they were treated at school with their dirty, greasy hair? Horrors! I'm quite sure they do not have normal lives even today!!!!!
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  MMXIV

  A Bethel elder's wife told us not to wash towels more than once a fortnight to save on washing powder "if you wash yourself properly then the towel doesn't get dirty".

  MMXIV
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  laverite

  @MMXIV, ok that's truly hideous. I use a fresh towel every day. I can't help it. I'm a clean freak and like fresh towels. I can't imagine using the same towel for two weeks. But then I have a couple loads of laundry every day.
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  Think About It

  Laverite.........that was funny.........a bad hair cult within the JW cult.

  Think About It
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  laverite

  Think About It - yes, that's what it was. And where else can we share these kinds of stories. No one else would "get it."
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  exwhyzee

  During a discussion about the tribulation and spiritual warfare, one sister in our hall raised her hand and suggested something that she had been doing for quite a while. She was burying literature in plastic detergent bottles in her back yard so that when the Trubulation hit and the literature was banned, she would be able to dig up the bottles and read old issues of the WT and Awake. I always wondered if they are still there and if anyone ever found them after she passed away.

  A lot of people in our hall were poor janitors and I remember hearing the sisters say they were mixing powdered milk with regualr milk to make it last longer and adding oatmeal to hamburger meat so that it would go further. Another sister always wanted everyone to give her the aluminum trays from their TV dinners so she could make her own out of leftovers. This same sister had a whole case of Miss Clairol hair dye stored in the crawl space in her house. To her it would be utter trubulation to go around with grey roots. I always wondered how she figured during a "great tribulation" that she would have access to her supply if she were hauled away to a prison camp like many said was going to happen in the Tribulation.