booker-t,
Hello! And welcome!
I just posted a table on MarvinShilmer's thread to scholar about 1914 and thought about appending a note about how the change in who would see Christ's "invisible presence" teaching affected me. But I'll tell it here.
I was introduced to the Witnesses in the summer of 1972 but wasn't close enough to them to understand all the excitement about 1975. I stopped my Bible study by 1974, but clearly remember the pronouncement in a 1978 WT that those old enough to have understood the significance of the events in 1914 would not pass away before the Great Tribulation began.
I took up studying again in Autumn 1984 (fearful for my child's everlasting life). At the time, in fact for years afterwards, I didn't know about Frederick Franz' failed 1975 prophecies. But I did learn, as "new light," that the generation that would not pass away before the Great Tribulation began was now believed to include ALL THOSE ALIVE in 1914. It sounded reasonable to me. It also seemed to me to be an admission of error on the part of the WT Society, making the Society seem humble and reasonable shepherds. (I am gagging at myself as I write this. LOL)
But when another decade passed without incident and then the November 1, 1995 Watchtower tried to blame ME for speculating on dates (by then I knew all about 1975 and the 'mass exodus' of those with little faith, blah-blah-blah) when I never would have DREAMED of making a connection between 1914 and the start of the Great Tribulation, it started me wondering.
HOWEVER, I still so WANTED the Utopia of the New World and my being able to escape Death to be true, that it took me almost another 5 years before I began investigating 1914 and then 607 BCE, finally making my break by DA'ing in 2001.
I think bigboi is right. The New Light Doctrine plus the unending reading (which many Witnesses don't even do -- hearing things for the first time at the meetings), meetings, and service plus the enormous GUILT about never doing enough and FEAR of not living up to what the Society says Jehovah demands of one, causes the average Witness to be lemminglike and just follow wherever the elders/COs/DOs/GB lead. Not pausing to reflect because of fearing the hated "presumptuous" or "not humble" labels which could put them at risk of being ostracized within the congregation (as if being weird in general society wasn't bad enough!).
In my opinion, many converted Witnesses join the organization because it clearly stipulates (in it's wonderfully Pharisaical way) exactly what one must do in order to please Jehovah (pleasing the Society, of course, at the same time). There is no "wrestling" with morality, because a specific morality is imposed. There is no thinking necessary, because the thinking, research and soul-searching interpretation has already been done for one. It's very often a case of "The world sucks. My life sucks. I love God. How do I get God to love me?" and the Society claims to have the answers. And one puts oneself in the hands of its "caring" representatives. And learns not to question.
Those RAISED as Witnesses have seen more of the Society's blemishes and don't wear the same rose-colored glasses. They understand that the Society rules by fear and they are kept in line by FEAR OF EXPULSION from the only community they have been allowed to know (not to mention that their families will cut them dead if they get out of line). Plus, they have been conditioned to view themselves as "good-for-nothing-slaves" and are constantly told that their opinions don't matter (This is especially true for the Sisters). After years of this, one either internalizes the message and quits forming opinions (e.g., THINKING), or one refuses to believe that one lacks personal value or a brain or a right to actually one's Jehovah-given brain. Then, a painful choice of being true to oneself or losing ones friend's and family over personal integrity ensues.
I am sorry your Mother is still in chains, booker-T, but happy that you have been enlightened.
outnfree