Once the spell is broken, one you take a deep fresh breath outisde of the Watchtower camp, the amazingly obvious realisation becomes clear...
Of course this is a lie, of course this is ridiculous! You find you have memories of REALLY believing the claims and promises, but it seems like another life, another experience. It seems so incredibly false once you leave and it is very difficult to belive you even once accepted it! Then ther is the crazy promises from men you have never met, and you/we/I expected it all to come true.
1) The Product
Recognising this peculiar spell that was put over us is important. When I see current JW's they are clearly wrapped up in layers of indoctrination, breathing on WATCHTOWER air, their minds have never yet enjoyed unadultarated fresh air, otherwise known as reality. The life they see is observed through a lens, with several filters. They know the filters and lens are there, they know it isn't wise....but it feels safe. We all did it. My friends wife told me recently she did not want to hear/learn/see anything that would question her faith. This is a bizarre concept to me now, but I remember feeling exactly the same.
But what were we protecting? What were we so scared of? What exactly was the reward for being a JW, that was so amazing, we had to protect it at all logical and reasonable costs? ......thats how good a cult can be.....there was nothing even enjoyable about being a JW member,but we wanted to protect it to the point that we would cut off family and friends!
When I think of what I valued as a JW, ethey were norhing to do with actually being a JW..it was the people in it and the unfulfilled promises that had value. This is a big realization, promises have no value until they come true. The watchtower offered NO evidence at all of everlasting life and a paradise, amazingly there were not even any bible verses saying it...but we swallowed it all up because....WE WANTED IT TO BE TRUE. As for people, outside of JW land, people, friends and family are just as awesome and valuable.
I appreciate this manipulation of perspective best describes those who have grown up a JW, but in reality once you are a JW for a couple of years, the WT lifestyle and constant indoctrination, hypnotises the newer members soon enough.
2) The Sales Pitch
That feeling of not quite having access to your full capacity, is a lasting memory of being a JW. The same feeling comes over me when I am being sold something. A sales pitch! Your brain is bamboozled with amazing promises and imagiery, fantastic customer references, the promise feels nice, looks nice, smells nice and you convince yourself there is no logical reason not to own this product! In fact you need it!
Then you leave the shop......BOOM...... you don't need this plastic piece of crap, oh and of course it doesn't bring you happiness...it's just a phone!
Now imagine a sales pitch that never ends.....that lasts decades....
I really don't think the psychology, salesmanship and command over thought is that different in Watchtower, it is just a never ending salespitch. It is tiring, mentally draining and leads to constant pining for the promises given, if only you just keep on working, keep on giving to the society. Once on this treadmill, it is very hard to get off. Once you have given half a decade of your life to it, why quit now...after alll
3) how stupid would it be to quit with NOW after so long and with the reward soooooo close!
Imagine quitting just before it came! This threat is a HUGE element to keeping members in. It is repeated in Watchtower literature constantly! How dumb were those that returned to Jerusalem after tiring of waiting! This questionable event, is burnt in the mind of most JW's...30 years wait then they returned..and died! How stupid! Are you stupid?.....
It reminds me of an acquaintance with an apparent gambling habit. This person has spent hours on fruit machines in our company at uni, ignoring the people he is out socialising with, for the delights of flashing lights and ....HOPE. He poured his money into one machine one night that I was with him. He kept staring at the machine, the idea of winning the money and getting what he deserved was consuming him. He kept saying he couldn't let someone else use the machine and win his money, he had to return to the machine, several times an hour. We left the pub and all said goodbye. This guy was depressed and his mind was fixated on that machine, as we all went our seperate ways, I noticed he went back into the pub. He was physically in need of that win. The human instinct of weighing up the energy we have put into a task and the likelyhood of reward is exploited to the full. It is a calculation most living things make.
Giving much into something with no return is an awful feeling......the cure is to keep chasing, to live in denial, to pretend we have won already...in a way...("well at least it was a good way to live")... or we take the pain and frustratioon the chin and start investing in something that has reward.
The next day my gambling 'pal' said he couldn't stop thinking about someone else coming along and winning his money after all the money and playing he had put into that machine.
4) The Cost
This element of human psychology is used in cults for sure. Cults with an element of time, threat and a promise of survival. It plays on all our human instincts. Survival, family, group protection. It has been shown that gamblers get addicted not to winning, but the biggest high comes from almost winning. The threat of walking away from the million dollar pay off, keeps them going back.
It doesn't take much to see how this fits well to the world of Watchtower. Add this potent pull to the cost of leaving the Watchtower fruit machine, not just the money you have already put into it, i.e. your life so far, but also all of your family and friends.
5) The Reward
This whole system works to put a spell over people. We all went to meetings, three times a week. We talked of the promises, we saw pictures of what we hoped to win painted in thousands of pictures, like a cheap fruit machine displaying images of coins and banknotes, fancy cars etc. But with Watchtower, it got darker, we became immune to seeing pictures of genocide and global destruction and even looked at the pictures longingly, praying for the day they came, so we could have our cabin and acres. The previous owners long dead at god's hand for swearing, drinking and having sex.
There is the day you leave the Watchtower, then there is the day you look back dismayed at what you once agreed to, said yes to, believed in, taught your kids, told your friends... The potent power of that spell becomes clear when you look at old articles, old literature and you are stunned that a younger you accepted it without question. It is confusing, it is frightenng and it is even a little bit funny.
But mostly it is just.....OBVIOUSLY A LIE......
