Posts by Jerry Bergman

17

Firpo Carr "Family Friend" to the Jacksons (Michael) Surfaces Again

by blondie in

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/story.jsp?story=538689you've got a friend in meit's billed as the most sensational trial since oj simpson's, but even if convicted of child abuse, one man will stand by michael jackson - dr firpo carr.

"michael's a light-skinned black man," says carr, good-naturedly.

"i just want people to be treated equally - black or white.

Jerry Bergman

Bergman, whose website has a somewhat hysterical tone, does make one interesting point in relation to Carr's defence of Jackson: as a Jehovah's Witness, Carr is not supposed to frequent people who, like Jackson, have been disfellowshipped. To quote the exact translation of the relevant verse of 1 Corinthians I found in my hotel Bible, it is his duty, faced with "the wicked man", to "quit mixing with him". Interesting, as I do not have a web site and never have. I wonder what he is referring to here. Does anyone have a clue on this?

2

Firpo Carr is now Michael Jackson's best friend

by Jerry Bergman in

you've got a friend in me it's billed as the most sensational trial since oj simpson's, but even if convicted of child abuse, one man will stand by michael jackson - dr firpo carr.

in la, the jackson family's 'spiritual advisor' explains how the star is the victim of a racist plot by robert chalmers

11 july 2004 .

Jerry Bergman

You've got a friend in me

It's billed as the most sensational trial since OJ Simpson's, but even if convicted of child abuse, one man will stand by Michael Jackson - Dr Firpo Carr. In LA, the Jackson family's 'spiritual advisor' explains how the star is the victim of a racist plot

By Robert Chalmers

11 July 2004

Even before I turned on the television news that morning and heard a private detective alleging that Michael Jackson's genitals have "a kind of tie-dyed appearance", I tell Dr Firpo Carr, I had been starting to wonder just quite how good a job he, Jackson's "spiritual adviser", had been doing. It's a minor detail in the context of a cuttings file that has included, within the same paragraph, terms like "12-year-old boy", "masturbation" and "fellatio"; and yet, taken as a whole, this is surely the kind of vocabulary that Carr, a lexicographer and man of God, is most eager to discourage.

"Well, the first thing I would say," the doctor replies, "is that, if you hear things through the media, be suspect about them."

"Like that magazine story about ritual cleansing in sheep's blood, and the quotations from voodoo death rites Michael Jackson supposedly commissioned in Switzerland in 2000?"

"Yes," says Carr.

"How did it go? 'David Geffen - be gone!' 'Steven Spielberg - be gone!'"

"Yes. Though that is not a pattern of behaviour I recognise," says Carr. "Michael has always had an eye for the unusual. Michael is a joker."

This year promises to be one of the least amusing of the singer's turbulent life. In January he was arraigned on 10 counts, including child molestation, administering an intoxicating agent to a minor, conspiracy to commit child abduction, false imprisonment and extortion. On 30 April he pleaded not guilty to all charges, each of which is punishable by three to eight years in prison. The case has uncomfortable echoes of the Jordie Chandler affair, settled out of court in January 1994. Jackson, who denied allegations that he had sexually molested Chandler when the boy was 13, paid $22m (£12m) to the child and his family. The singer is currently free, on $3m (£1.6m) bail. A trial date has been provisionally set for September.

Santa Barbara prosecutors have imposed a so-called "gagging order" aimed at suppressing details of the latest charges, which concern a boy of Hispanic origin, 12 at the time of the offences which allegedly occurred early last year at Neverland, Jackson's 2,700-acre ranch at Los Olivos, north of Los Angeles. The ruling seems, if anything, to have heightened the interest of the US media, though the Jackson family - notoriously uncoordinated under most circumstances - has closed ranks around its most famous member, seeking to pursue a strategy of dignified silence.

Dr Carr, meanwhile, has become a familiar figure on US news networks. Though he used to be introduced as Jackson's "spiritual adviser", he now prefers to be called a "family friend". A devout but controversial member of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the faith in which Jackson was raised, Carr has travelled to court with the singer's parents Joseph and Katherine, and is especially close to Michael's brother Randy (they shared a flat for a year in the mid-1990s) and eldest sister Rebbie, who first introduced him to the family, 10 years ago.

Diversity has been the keynote of Firpo Carr's career. "I've been called everything from a visionary, to a prophet, to a holy man," says Carr, a former computer engineer with IBM and systems analyst at the LAPD, and the author of books such as Are Gays Really 'Gay'? - a bold thesis whose chapter-headings include: "Benjamite Buggery" and "What Constitutes a Cure?" Earlier this year Firpo turned up in Bahrain wearing a thobe tunic, giving joint lectures on comparative religion with Michael Jackson's brother Jermaine, an orthodox Muslim.

I'd been dealing with Dr Carr via his office in LA - premises, he'd said, which were "not suitable" for a meeting. Instead he agreed to talk in my hotel room in West Hollywood.

I'd expected a soberly dressed zealot carrying a pile of Watchtowers (the Jehovah Witness's proselytising magazine) but Carr arrives in jeans, a loose-fitting Tahitian shirt and a Walkman. Firpo - who is 50, but looks 10 years younger - is bright, engaging, and good-humoured. As you might expect from a collector of historic dictionaries, there's a slight preciousness about his language - he's fond of phrases like "if you will", and prefers "refrain", or "cease" in places where, for most people, a simple "stop" would do.

How well does he know the notorious recluse?

Carr describes his contacts with Jackson as limited but intense, and "sufficient to be able to speak authoritatively on his character".

Their conversations began shortly after the star's arrest last year, he says. Then, at one private audience, in February: "Michael suddenly said: 'I love you.' And I said - because I felt I had to - 'I love you too.' And then, with what some people might think was arrogance, but which I interpret as innocence, Michael said: 'I love you more.' I was like - OK, Michael has spoken. When you are with Michael Jackson," Carr adds, "he is so spiritual.

"Michael," he recalls, "pointed at me, almost in anger. Then he said: 'You are the prophet.'"

As with the OJ Simpson trial, whose drama it threatens to eclipse, the Michael Jackson case seems likely to throw up a cast of captivating minor characters. Carr, who already gets hailed by strangers, is well-placed to become Jackson's Kato Kaelin.

Carr admits that certain sections of the US media, notably talk radio, don't take him seriously. It could be to do with his first name (inspired by "The Wild Bull of the Pampas", Argentinian heavyweight Luis Firpo) which is more A Night at the Opera than Twelve Angry Men. There's also a tendency for Jackson's incrementally bizarre behaviour (whether he's dangling his baby over a balcony, leaping on the bonnet of an SUV outside the courthouse, or boasting about taking his new-born daughter home in a towel, with her placenta) to undermine not just his own credibility, but that of his apologists. This is especially true of Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor who - with each successive crisis, and cosmetic operation - become increasingly ardent in their mutual support, and less and less easy to tell apart. One US satirist has a routine in which Firpo Carr explains that Jackson once considered a face transplant, but pulled out after Liza Minnelli, his preferred donor, withheld consent: "Because Liza is still using her face - sort of."

Carr's enemies focus on his doctorate, a qualification in Computing Information Systems from the Californian branch of the Pacific Western University, based in Hawaii, an on-line institution widely critiqued as a "diploma-mill". But when I called the relevant universities to check on his previous degrees (the first, also in computing, from the University of San Francisco, the second a Master's in management from the University of Redlands, California) both confirmed his CV as genuine. So did his former employers, including the LAPD. Carr currently works part-time for a satellite campus of the University of Phoenix, lecturing in Comparative Religion.

What I can't understand, given his loyalty to Michael Jackson, is why Carr has apparently ignored an open letter the singer released in March, which is essentially a desperate plea to Firpo - he is mentioned by name - to shut up.

"Michael sent me a letter to say, hey - for the record - don't represent me," Carr says. "But then he cleared me to speak. And his mom and dad, and the family, are like: 'Oh, please, get out there and speak for us. They are slaughtering him in the press.'"

Firpo perseveres, "out of love. I am outraged at what is happening to Michael, because I believe there is a racist component in all of this."

Carr cites the unease Jackson generated when he started having his security handled by the Nation of Islam. "Nobody complained when Howard Hughes was protected by Mormons," he argues. "Even though the Book of Mormon teaches that a dark-skinned man will have to turn white to enter heaven."

"Michael Jackson should have no worries there, then."

"Michael's a light-skinned black man," says Carr, good-naturedly.

"He's a man who has changed colour," I argue. One of his own doctors has confirmed that he used the bleaching agent, Benoquin.

"Michael has vitiligo. I've seen it. OK, he tried to bleach his skin, to even it out. It's outlandish to me that people suggest Michael Jackson is * trying to be white. In any case," Carr asks, in an amiably ironic tone, "who would want to be white?"

How would it have been, asks Carr - referring to the November 2003 raid on Neverland - "if 70 black officers had invaded Graceland, and taken Elvis to have his genitals photographed? [As Jackson's were, during the Chandler investigation, which resulted in no criminal charges.] The black community is very upset. The feeling is: if you can get to Michael, you can get to any of us. We have to rally around."

Jackson wasn't arrested because he's black, but because he's accused of assaulting young boys; Presley would have been treated no differently.

"I beg to differ, because Elvis slept with an underaged girl," says Carr, arguing that Presley's relationship with his wife Priscilla, which began when she was 14, suggests that he was dating her "in the Biblical sense".

"But had Presley done what Jackson is accused of doing, you wouldn't blame the police for arresting him."

"I just want people to be treated equally - black or white. Michael was manhandled when he was arrested, we are told."

"He claimed that he was handcuffed too tightly, and shut in a room 'decorated with doo-doo'."

"Right," Carr says. "Human faeces. [Country singer] Glen Campbell knees his booking sergeant - knees him - and that's OK. Because Glen Campbell's a good old boy. But what happens if you are Magic Johnson, or Michael Jordan, or Michael Jackson? You're all still niggers."

"Does Jackson himself feel that?"

"I know he does."

"That he is being treated like a nigger?"

"Yes."

"He said that to you?"

"I won't repeat exactly what he said. But he is convinced that, with the people who are out to get him - the authorities - there is a racial element to it. OK, if Michael was guilty, fine. But let's treat suspects equally."

When the Mexican waiter comes in with coffee, Carr chats in Spanish. Back in his mother tongue, his conversation is punctuated with thoughts about the derivation of modern vocabulary, with reference to Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic. He served an unusual apprenticeship for academic life, growing up in Nickerson Gardens, the largest and most formidable housing project in Watts, South Central LA, on a street now in the heartland of the notorious gang, the Bloods.

Firpo is the second youngest in a family of five boys and four girls.

"I am the only one of my brothers who has not been incarcerated," he says. "I am the only one who hasn't been shot or stabbed."

Howard, his eldest brother, was murdered when Carr was 18.

"My other brothers were pimps and drug pushers," he says. "When I was a boy they would bring their 'ho's' as they called them, into the house. Dad would tell Mom: 'Hey, they're just going through a phase.' I can remember thinking: 'What kind of phase is this?'"

"What other crimes," I ask, "did your brothers commit?"

"Shootings, gambling, armed robbery."

Like Michael Jackson, who was taken by his mother to the Kingdom Hall in Gary, Indiana, when he was five, Firpo was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. (As late as 1984, Jackson, whose Thriller was then the bestselling album ever, was going door to door in LA in a large hat and preposterous beard distributing Watchtower; he officially left the religion in 1987.) Carr was invited to the Jackson family home after Rebbie Jackson read his book: Jehovah's Witnesses: the African-American Enigma, which portrays an organisation where black members represent 30 per cent of foot-soldiers, but almost none are generals. Carr still worships as a Witness, though his faith has not banished temptation: he recently moved in with his fifth wife; they have a one-bedroom flat in the Marina del Rey area of Los Angeles.

I ask him why a man with two respectable degrees should feel the need to get a PhD on-line. Firpo says his doctorate is wrongly maligned, and required new research. I suspect he wanted an instantly recognisable badge of academic distinction, to mark his transition from the very bad place he came out of.

He has one daughter, Daniell, from his second marriage; he tells me how he let her stay at Neverland as a teenager. (All allegations of impropriety by Jackson involve boys.)

What puzzles me, I tell Carr, is how he feels so certain that Jackson is innocent. Over the past 12 years, the distinguished Vanity Fair reporter, Maureen Orth, has become Sherlock Holmes to Jackson's Moriarty. If her exhaustive investigations, collected in her new book The Importance of Being Famous, have demonstrated anything, it is that Jackson has paid off several boys or their families, and that exactly what occurs when his young guests sleep in his heavily alarmed bedroom is never revealed to outsiders.

"Michael is the quintessence of innocence," says Carr. "If Jesus were here today, given how much he loved children, then - if the authorities had wanted to get him on something - probably they would have charged Jesus Christ as well."

"With child molestation?"

"Right."

"You're saying you think Jesus Christ could have found himself facing the charges that Michael Jackson does today?"

"Sure."

"Which implies that good and evil are at play in this case, in your opinion?"

"They are. Michael has done so much good. I have examined the facts. They don't add up. Which means there are sinister forces at work. I am against sinister forces. I will battle evil. I will step up."

"Imagine this isn't about Michael Jackson. Imagine you or I went on ABC and mentioned that we share beds with 12-year-old boys. What conclusion would people draw then?"

"But it is Michael Jackson. And he never said he slept with them. He said he shared his bed. That's like me saying I share my ice-cream. We are not eating from the same spoon at the same time. Why wouldn't he let them share his bed, and he sleep on the floor?"

"But what he said to Martin Bashir, in Living With Michael Jackson was, to be precise, 'I have slept in a bed with many children.'"

"Right. Now here's what he means by that. Just as, on that programme, he was hugging one boy; it is my understanding that you can sit on a bed with a child in your arms, and fall asleep. He is not talking about under the covers, overnight. He means on top of the bed; on the edge of the bed..."

And so we go on, in a reprise of the weird three-legged waltz that has passed for debate over the Jackson affair on US television, and promises to continue when the case gets to court.

Carr suggests there were only two alleged cases of abuse - Chandler, and the current Latino boy - 10 years apart. Actually there have been far more reports of people being paid off, as Randy Taraborrelli has mentioned in his enormous, broadly sympathetic, biography of Jackson. ("Do you know how many children are going to psychiatrists because of Michael?" his sister LaToya asked at a 1993 press conference where she said she had seen cancelled cheques made out to boys. "So many, many children.")

"The NBC show Dateline," I remind Carr, "publicly referred to five alleged cases. And one of Orth's Vanity Fair articles contains the line: 'Michael Jackson has paid out to lawyers, voodoo chiefs, and the families of his "special friends" all over the world.' That's the kind of sentence that would have me sprinting to my attorney's office."

"That may happen, down the line," he replies.

Orth famously described the singer giving children soft-drinks cans filled with white wine ("Jesus Juice") or red wine ("Jesus Blood"), and referred to one 13-year-old who got so drunk he was sick. The child, Carr points out, has subsequently contradicted this claim. ("The boy denied it," Orth told me, "but I had two sources on that. The child said it didn't happen that way. My sources said it did. We stand by it.")

Even if we accept Carr's belief that Jackson has become an innocent target for corrupt and litigious parents, it was hardly prudent, following the Chandler case, to continue inviting boys for sleepovers.

"You've spoken to Jackson," I say to Carr, "have you never suggested it might be an idea to rethink the way he organises his social life?"

"Anyone who said that to him would be summarily dismissed."

We break for lunch. I ask Firpo, who has remained genial and relaxed throughout, to show me the project where he grew up, in Watts. We drive round the highly intimidating, effectively segregated black neighbourhood and at one point make the mistake of getting out of the car.

"Hey, motherfucker," a youth shouts to Carr, approaching us with a homicidal look. "While your grandfather was rowing that slave ship, his grandfather [pointing at me] was sitting on the deck - drinking whisky, drinking cognac, drinking wine. You have Satan at your shoulder, brother."

"Are you getting paid by the Jacksons?" I ask Carr, as we head off towards Marina del Rey, where Satan can breathe a little more easily.

"No. Not a cent. These are my friends you * are talking about. I go out to bat for them. I never said that Michael has used the best judgment. Or that he is not strange to people. But from what I have seen, he is not a child molester. You don't go to jail for having light skin and long hair."

We stop off at Carr's office. It's a lock-up the size of a small garage that he rents for $50 (£27) a week. He opens the steel door to reveal hundreds of books, mostly Bibles, dictionaries and bound copies of the Watchtower. As I'm treacherously scanning the shelves for Hustler ("Well you won't find that here, Robert") I do notice one secular work: Taraborrelli's Jackson biography, with a promotional sticker which reads: "More Luscious Sleaze! More Great Dirt!" There's a desk with a computer, printer and telephone. Carr sits down to check his e-mails.

The concrete unit has no windows, and the temperature is unbearable. "How do you work in this heat?" I ask, to which he responds, with a typically genteel Firpoism: "I disrobe."

He takes a clay jar off one shelf, opens it and removes his prize possession: a reproduction of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Carr translates a phrase, then begins addressing the question of whether the Greek wording of Isaiah 40:22 implies the Earth was already perceived as a rotating sphere. When we leave, he has to have two goes at closing the door, which is blocked by an old bicycle. This is not a man who is brazenly on the make.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask him. "Do you just like publicity? Do you want to get on every show you can?"

"That's not true. I turned down Inside Edition yesterday."

Firpo is working on a screenplay based on the life of Jerome Fisher, a medic from an all-black unit sent in to remove rotting cadavers at Dachau while, as Fisher claims in Carr's book Germany's Black Holocaust, white personnel were held back. Since he's a would-be film writer, I assume - perhaps ungenerously - that he believes international television exposure can do him no harm. He's certainly driven by a dedication to civil rights, and seems genuinely persuaded that Jackson's arrest is the result of endemic racism in the police and judiciary.

Firpo's world view isn't an easy one to sum up, incorporating as it does a range of vigorous opinions that more orthodox thinkers would struggle to hold simultaneously. For instance he explains that homosexuality is "a spiritual evil" which directly caused the collapse of the Roman Empire, but is comfortable defending the familiar television images of Jackson hugging a 12-year-old boy. He is a tireless scourge of racists, and yet certain passages in Germany's Black Holocaust recall some of the less-convivial views of the Nation of Islam, especially where Jewish history is concerned. At one point, when he's talking about racism on television, I mention the football commentator Ron Atkinson's recent dismissal, and tell Carr how his language contrasted with his magnificently Daltonian instincts as a manager. I'd expected the author of Wicked Words, Poisoned Minds: Racism in the Dictionary to go apoplectic, but he says Big Ron should possibly have been judged on his deeds as much as his words.

Although he insists that he left the police voluntarily, Carr admits that his rapport with the department may not have been improved by his attempt to sue the LAPD for harassment in 2000, after he was asked to produce ID in a mainly white area of the city where he says his sole offence was "driving while black".

When he appeared in court, Carr was flanked by Randy Jackson and Muslim activist Najee Ali, a former convict who runs a charity in South Central. The case was thrown out but an unflattering account of the proceedings was posted on the Web by Carr's main enemy, Jerry Bergman, a former Witness. Bergman, like Carr, is a versatile author: his publications include Understanding Poisons, Are Wisdom Teeth Vestiges of Evolution? and The Do-Do Bird."

"Why is he posting all this stuff about you?"

"Because he is a low life," says Carr, "and he thinks I am the Antichrist."

Bergman, whose website has a somewhat hysterical tone, does make one interesting point in relation to Carr's defence of Jackson: as a Jehovah's Witness, Carr is not supposed to frequent people who, like Jackson, have been disfellowshipped. To quote the exact translation of the relevant verse of 1 Corinthians I found in my hotel Bible, it is his duty, faced with "the wicked man", to "quit mixing with him".

That said, the singer told an interviewer as recently as 2001 that he still considers himself a member of the faith. Is Jackson still a Witness?

"Not officially," says Carr. "Although he subscribes to many of the beliefs."

The Watchtower often refers to 1 Corinthians 6:9, which says that "neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate men, nor abusers of themselves with mankind" will be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven. This has implications for Carr personally if Jackson is - as he has been reported - a man who has been addicted to Demerol (a medication similar to morphine), drunk to excess and been in and out of rehab.

His contact with a man of Jackson's reputation, Firpo says, is "one of the reasons I am considered a rebel".

So he has heard of Demerol.

"Well, that's a painkiller and Michael got addicted to it, like a zillion other people."

"Would it bother you if he drank to excess?"

"Yes. As far as I know he will have a social drink. I've never seen him drunk."

"Face down on the floor of an airliner in Frankfurt," I say, quoting from one article. "That's not very social."

"All I can say is I've never seen him drunk."

The life Michael Jackson enjoys - remote, cocooned and apparently immune from the normal restraints of the world - is of a kind associated with eccentrics from a bygone age of Hollywood, such as Howard Hughes. There are even aspects of Jackson's recent past - his flamboyance, his reckless disregard for public disquiet at his conduct with young boys, and a general perception that, were he to be sent to prison, he would be too fragile to survive - which recall the life of Oscar Wilde. The Irish writer, in his later years, was fond of drawing comparisons between himself and Christ, like Carr does with Jackson. "The only difference between me and Jesus Christ," Wilde remarked, shortly before his conviction on indecency charges in 1895, "is that I never found 12 men who didn't believe in me."

"Not that you would want to carry a comparison between the creators of Bad and De Profundis too far..."

"No," says Carr, who is not a big fan of Wilde. "Michael has not been convicted of anything."

But just say that Jackson is guilty, I ask Carr, as we're driving back towards Hollywood, and he eventually admits it.

"I would be devastated that he could have done such a horrific thing."

"Would you speak to him again?"

He pauses.

"Probably."

"And?"

"I would say: 'You have a very serious sickness. You have to get help. And I hope, as God is my witness, that you reassess who you are.'"

Jackson has a formidable legal team which includes OJ Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran, and the trial process is unlikely to be swift.

"If convicted," says Maureen Orth, "he will appeal and appeal. But they are never going to make an exception for a case that is so high profile. If he's found guilty, I don't see how he's going to avoid going to jail."

How does Carr think Jackson would manage in prison?

"Well, they wouldn't like him because he is a child molester - at least," he adds, "that is how they would see him. They wouldn't like him because he is a freak - again, that's how they would view him. And they wouldn't like him because he's, er..." Carr seems to forget where he was. "Oh, yeah. He's a star."

Forced to exist in a world without children, the singer said at the end of Bashir's grotesque documentary: "I would jump off the balcony immediately. I'm done, I'm done." His current predicament lends a disturbing resonance to that remark, and to another moment in the same broadcast where he insisted he never wants to grow old. Should Jackson be convicted, suicide, Carr admits, "is a worry".

It's early evening by the time Dr Carr drops me back at the Hyatt. Watching his tail lights disappear into the traffic down Sunset Boulevard, I'm struck by the thought that he may be the one man in LA whose faith in Jackson is absolutely unshakeable. I suspect that the singer's conviction on every charge would simply alter Carr's mission from one of protecting his reputation to rehabilitating it, and that Jackson - like Christ - is a figure he will never stop defending. This is a crusade that will never be over, even if the Santa Barbara jury does return a verdict which proves that Michael Jackson, like Oscar Wilde at the Old Bailey, has found his 12th unbeliever. *

51

Jehovah's Witnesses Have a High Mental Illness Level

by Bryan in

now we know what the problem is...

scroll down...

jehovah's witnesses"faith of our fathers: part one, were the early christians jehovah's witnesses?

Jerry Bergman

His degree has nothing to do with psychology, psychiatry, sociology or medicine so he's talking out of his hat.

Mr. Pork

Could you tell me what my degrees are in??? You seem to know so much about me.

He also hasn't done very well in the "expert witness" business.

Explain what you mean. Have you read my article on why I will not testify in court? In short, I am tired of the threats to my person (and this has been well documented) and the ?morals? of Lawyers (or lack there of). I want no part of it. This nation according, to one study, has put one out of seven on death row that are innocent according to DNA testing. Imagine a doctor who accidentally killed one out of seven of all of his patients! He would be in jail, and for good reason.

25

JW Mental Health

by Evesapple in

i found these two references very interesting.....i reflected on the mentality of the witnesses in my old congregations in janesville, wisconsin....i realised they weren't a 'happy' people because they had the "truth", they were in truth happy because of being all medicated (prozac).

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jw/jw73.html

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jw/jw72.html

Jerry Bergman

Of interest:

Jehovah's Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness
by Jerry Bergman

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Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: 3.11 out of 5 stars Based on 9 reviews.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars Must Reading, January 21, 2004

Reviewer: A reader from Ann Arbor

This book was written when Dr. Bergman was an active Jehovah Witness in order to help those Witnesses who became mentally ill or developed emotional problems (no small number). As he mentioned in the book, when he worked at Arlington Psychological Associates and other clinics as a therapist he noted that many people reared as Witnesses had emotional problems. From his clinical experience he spent many years trying to understand why and what could be done to help these people. The result was this book. Nowhere in this book does Dr. Bergman claim that being a certain faith, like Jehovah's Witnesses, causes mental illness, but only that certain beliefs and practices can influence the development of mental problems. If the environment has nothing to do with mental illness or emotional health, why should we bother to rear our children in a certain way? Just ignore them and, if they will go bad, they will regardless of what we do anyway. We all recognize that the environment has a profound effect on the child and try to insure that the child has the best up bringing possible. This book tries to look at the environment of the Witnesses and determine some of the reasons why so many develop emotional problems. Also, the author never even implies that because someone is one of Jehovah's Witnesses that they are mentally ill. It was written to help unhappy Witnesses and is must reading for the troubled Witness.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars Prozac Congregations, December 20, 2003

Reviewer: A reader from United States

All JW's should do a survey in their congregations and see how many of the friends are on medication for any type of mental/emotional difficulties including depression, anxiety, panic attacks, social anxiety, schizophrenia, manic depression etc. Then, open your eyes to the reasons that so many are afflicted - these reasons are spelled out in Jerry Bergman's book. Although he is somewhat repetitive in his findings and thoughts, (he learned that in his years as a JW - "Repetition for Emphasis")... he clearly has an accurate understanding of the problems people face as JW's. With suicide in my JW family, due to "failed missions", ie: not being able to convert the world, or even 1 person in one's lifetime, and living under the mind and thought control for over 40 years with emphasis on the death and destruction of all who don't agree with your thoughts - finding this book has been a monumental aid in helping my family understand just what is going on within this organization. If JW's are not currently "mentally ill" - they are well on the way. The religion also can cause one to mimic symptoms of mental illness and somatic illnesses. This book is another of the "read it if you dare to be enlightened" books out there.
A sister suffering from severe depression and anxiety admitted herself to the mental ward - we visited her and she encouraged us to "run" from a certain congregation - her next words were that we should come to her NEW congregation where "EVERYONE is on meds,EVEN the elders!" At this point in time she hadn't realized the connection between BEING in the mental ward, and WHAT PUT HER THERE! May she find Jerry Bergman's book and RUN with it right out of the organization as we did!

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars MOST SCHOLARLY BOOK AVAILABLE ON JW PSYCHOLOGY, August 5, 2003

Reviewer: A reader

Dr. Jerry Bergman currently holds seven college/university degrees, including two Ph.D.s, in Human Biology and in Evaluation & Research. He is now working on a third Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. Bergman has earned two Masters degrees, in Psychology and in Sociology. His undergraduate degrees are in Psychology. Dr. Bergman is now a Professor of Science at Northwest College in Ohio. He has authored or co-authored over forty books and textbooks, monographs and book chapters, has published over 400 articles in professional journals and other publications. He has served as a consultant for over 20 science textbooks. His work has been published in six languages. Dr. Bergman has presented over 100 scientific papers at professional and other meetings in the United States, Canada and Europe. He has been a featured speaker on many college campuses throughout the United States and Europe, and his research has made the front page in newspapers throughout the country. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programs. He has been featured by the Paul Harvey Show several times, and has been discussed by David Brinkley and other nationally known commentators on national television. His other work experience includes over 10 years experience at various Mental Health/Psychology clinics as a licensed professional clinical counselor and three years full time corrections research for a large county circuit court in Michigan and inside the walls of Jackson Prison, the largest walled prison in the world. He has also served as a consultant for CBS News, ABC News, Reader's Digest, Amnesty International, several government agencies and for two Nobel Prize winners. In the past decade he has consulted or has testified as an expert witness or consultant in almost 100 court cases. A Fellow of the American Scientific Association, member of The National Association for the Advancement of Science, member of MENSA, and many other professional associations, he is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the Midwest and in Who's Who in Science and Religion. In my opinion, this book is one of the MOST INFORMATIVE BOOKS AVAILABLE ABOUT JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AND THE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY. Unfortunately, some Jehovah's Witnesses and even some former Jehovah's Witnesses have joined hands to slander and defame Dr. Bergman and his work due to his Christian (particularly Creationist) beliefs.The following is excerpted from this book's "Preface", which itself was authored by Dr. Carl Thornton, Ph.D. (Doctor of Psychology), who, like the book's author, was also reared in the Jehovah's Witnesses faith: "I have observed among J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s a relentless striving to reach an impossible, "perfect" standard of performance. This often leads to a sense of lowered self-worth ... . It also can lead to psychosomatic illness, a breakdown of the body's resistance to illness, and even premature death. The sense of guilt, ..., the threat of eminent doom ..., result in continual pushing of oneself beyond normal limits. These factors all combine to produce illnesses such as ulcers, migraine headaches, heart attacks, and various and sundry other health problems. ... "Another problem that I believe may be very significant among J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s is that of chronic depression and suicide. ... J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s have a strong inclination, too, towards self-doubt and self-blame, the basic ingredients for depression. When one takes a rather fragile ego structure and adds the devastating effects of J[ehovah's] W[itness] disfellowshipping, which includes a total shunning by all friends and relatives, the results are often more than most people can withstand. I suspect that the incidence of suicide is very high among J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s. Hopefully, Dr. Bergman's book will create an awareness of this significant social problem. ... "He (Bergman) stresses more the environmental impact of the J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s culture in precipitating mental problems. ... "Dr. Bergman and I share the hope that his extensive research, analysis, and recommendations can serve several useful purposes. It can provide the helping profession with an improved understanding of their J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s and ex- (former) J[ehovah's] W[itnesse]s clients, and therefore allow them to develop a better treatment program. ... ."Some of the 16 Chapters include: "The Rate of Mental Illness Among Jehovah's Witnesses" "Factors Influencing the High Mental Illness Rate" "The Disfellowshipping Problem and the Elders" "Elders as Therapists" "Life As a Witness" "The Problem of Suicide" "The Witness Family" "Witnesses and Crime" "Do Watchtower Beliefs Attract People with Psychological Problems?"

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1 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1 out of 5 stars This is a great piece religious and psychological nonsense, August 31, 2002

Reviewer: Michelle Sutherland from Clintondale, New York United States

I love to read, and I am very open minded about very many subjects including the one of religion. I ran across this book at my library and it seemed insteresting. Thats where the interesting part ends. This person is obviously carrying on some vendetta against this religious organization. It is truly sad that anyone is responsibly allowing this author to print this sloppy redundant psychological piece of work if you can call it that. The only redeeming quality to this book is that it allowed me a chance to catch up with my sleep.

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9 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars Vital information!, February 16, 2002

Reviewer: Diane Wilson from USA

Jehovah's Witnesses have been thoroughly indoctrinated to believe they are the happiest people on Earth. Thus, when confronted with research that points to mental health problems among them, the Witnesses typically refuse to acknowledge the validity of this information. They are in denial. To be otherwise would cause their world to crumble.

I was a one of Jehovah's Witnesses for 25 years. In my new book, "Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape From the Watchtower Society", I expose the havoc the Watchtower Society's teachings cause in Witnesses lives. I have personally known Witnesses who, out of fear of dying at God's hands, drove themselves mercilessly into a mental breakdown trying to obey the dictates of the Watchtower Society. I once knew a Witness woman who denied herself time for personal grooming because of guilt about taking time away from serving Jehovah to care for such matters. In their fervor, many Witnesses become mentally unbalanced.

In "Jehovah's Witnesses and the Problem of Mental Illness", Jerry Bergman does an excellent job of presenting how specific Watchtower teachings contribute to mental problems in Jehovah's Witnesses, and how the Witnesses' belief system can cause mental problems for them while living in a society that operates under different premises. Dr. Bergman is to be commended for speaking out in this important arena that few have the courage to take on.

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7 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1 out of 5 stars How dare he!!, September 28, 2000

Reviewer: A reader from United States

I ran across this book by pure coincidence. What kind of audacity this author must have to assume that just because someone is a Jehovah's Witness that he or she is mentally ill!! Mental illness strikes people of all races, cultural, economical, AND RELIGIOUS backgrounds. As a Jehovah's Witness myself, I can attest to the fact that I AM NOT, REPEAT, AM NOT mentally ill. I am mentally sound and feel confident that I have made the right decision in choosing to become a Witness. The author of this atrocious publication should tuck his tail between his legs and head back to the writing table.

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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars This is something people need to know!, September 7, 2000

Reviewer: A reader from USA

Studies have been done to prove that the mental stress put on Jehovah's Winesses cause illnesses such as anxiety and depression, just to name a few. Why could it be so hard to believe? They teach you to be paranoid about everyone around you. They tell you not to trust anyone because they might lead you astray from the society when in fact they are afraid that people will learn the truth about everything that they've tried so hard to hide and keep secret. They use guilt and fear to control people. This book tells the truth and should be read with an open mind and some common sense before assuming what you have never been a part of, never experienced, and never researched above and beyond the bounderies of what you've been taught.

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7 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1 out of 5 stars Wow, how sad!, August 8, 2000

Reviewer: A reader from Brooklyn, NY

Very sad that the author thinks that because someone is one of Jehovah's Witnesses that they are mentally ill. When someone has that much love for God and Jesus and neighbor they are not mentally ill. They are strong in faith.

Mentally ill is putting yourself as a religious leader, misleading the flock,having sex with all the women of the congregation, barricading yourselves against the FBI and killing everyone inside. That is mental illness.

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6 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1 out of 5 stars Total misguidence!, May 22, 2000

Reviewer: A reader from new York

I read your book and I cannot help but disagree entirely of how being of a certain faith, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, can cause any mental illness. I was laughing in disbelief. I think you should wright about possitive things and not twist things around so as to make something you personally detest, bad.

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JW Mental Health

by Evesapple in

i found these two references very interesting.....i reflected on the mentality of the witnesses in my old congregations in janesville, wisconsin....i realised they weren't a 'happy' people because they had the "truth", they were in truth happy because of being all medicated (prozac).

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jw/jw73.html

http://www.rickross.com/reference/jw/jw72.html

Jerry Bergman

For about the 100th time, Bergman is not very credible.

Pure name calling lacking evidence?

His degree has nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry

An absolute lie. I have 3 degrees in this area (and a total of 9 degrees) and many years experience working for various psychological clinics.

and he's been thrown out of the expert witness business .

Also not true. I am frequently called by attorneys to testify. I will no longer testify, though, because I am tired of death threats and related problems. If anyone wants to testify in court, good luck.

You can take a hike 4JWY. I don't need your permission to comment, Bergman is an obsessed little jerk .

Why such hatred? You have never even met me!

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Firpo Carr defending Michael Jackson

by DocBob in

jw
friends

yesterday i saw catherine crier doing a phone interview with dr. firpo carr on court tv.

carr is defending micheal jackson.

here are some links about this you may want to look at: .

Jerry Bergman

No wonder Michael is in so much trouble! The following web site is my response to Carr's hateful attacks against me because I left the Witnesses. It is my judgment that Carr is a mentally unbalanced man. http://www.freeminds.org/african/bergman.htm

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Firpo Carr is Michael Jackson's Spiritual Advisor.

by Jerry Bergman in

jw
friends

no wonder michael is in so much trouble!

please pass the following web site information around.

it is my response to carr's hateful attacks against me because i left the witnesses.

Jerry Bergman

No wonder Michael is in so much trouble! Please pass the following web site information around. It is my response to Carr's hateful attacks against me because I left the Witnesses. It is my judgment that Carr is a mentally unbalanced man. http://www.freeminds.org/african/bergman.htm

Firpo Carr, spiritual adviser to Michael Jackson's family

Jackson adviser: 'Great emotional toll' on family

(CNN) -- A Michael Jackson TV special aired Friday night on CBS, featuring the singer's hits, dance moves and friends, but no mention of the child molestation charges against him. The show was postponed in November but aired after Jackson discussed the charges on the CBS show "60 Minutes."

CNN anchor Andrea Koppel spoke Saturday with Firpo Carr, a Jackson family spiritual adviser, about the Jacksons' point of view.

KOPPEL: I wanted to ask you and I'm sure a lot of people are wondering just how Michael is doing and how his family are doing.

CARR: Well, Michael is cautiously optimistic. He knows he's innocent of the charges filed against him. The family is understandably concerned. Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother, her children, grandchildren, other relatives are under the emotional crush of all of this.

It's kind of sad, most people don't know that, when his young nieces and nephews go to school and what have you, they get teased, "Your uncle's a molester," that sort of thing. These are things off camera or out of the news, but it's a great emotional toll on the family.

KOPPEL: You've been a friend of theirs for about the last 10 or 11 years, how is it that you and other friends are supporting them now?

CARR: Well, I'd like to direct them to the Scriptures. Michael's mother is one of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and so is his older sister and her husband and family. They all have a Witness background so they're familiar with the Bible but I like to refer them to Scriptures and to let them know that this, too, shall pass.

So that's the best advice I can give them. And they're holding up understandably well given the circumstances. I hate to say that Mrs. Jackson is not doing real well. She kind of hides her stress but it becomes manifest in various ways to the point where sometimes she needs to visit the doctor.

We're confident all of this will pass, as I mentioned, and giving them spiritual encouragement is what so far I think is keeping their heads above water.

KOPPEL: I'm sure that can be of comfort to an adult, but what about the children and especially Michael's three children?

CARR: Well, pretty much, it's my understanding, they're trying to shield this from the children, Michael's children, so that they don't really know what's going on. They don't know what's happening with daddy. They see daddy happy all the time.

He's so concerned with the children, not only his own, but all children. He wants to shield them from this negativity, that could eventually be damaging to them in later years. They love their father. They hate to be without him ... they are so fond of him and he's fond of them and, as I've mentioned, all children.

It's not just of any particular race. His approach is multicultural and his fan base is multicultural and they're all rooting for him. As far as his children are concerned they're doing reasonably well.

KOPPEL: I know you and others have taken issue with the way sometimes the media and pundits who appear in the media have portrayed Michael's relationship with children and, in particular, with his comments that he sleeps with children. Why don't you clarify things for us.

CARR: I sure will. Thank you for the opportunity to do so, Andrea.

I would like to say, first of all, Michael Jackson has never stated that he slept with any child. What he said is that he would share his bed with them. That is to say the way I would share a comb with my friend. We're not using it at the same time, but I am sharing it with them, it is my comb.

Michael has stated repeatedly that he has slept on the floor. Even with his interview with "60 minutes," he compared child molesters to a serial-killing murderous person known as Jack the Ripper. So what he did was reaffirm his hatred and disdain for child molesters, which he is not.

In fact, he is so innocent of that, he is so far removed from that, that he said, although I haven't done so I wouldn't mind sleeping with a child because I'm not that way. I'm not a pedophile. When he said sleeping, I like to emphasize that's what he meant, sleeping, not having sex with, which is disdainful and disturbing and horrible to him and horrifying to him.

What he said was, I wouldn't mind sleeping, and that's something that has happened [in] the black community for quite some time, when you have large families and what have you or if they're visiting somewhere, it's not unusual. In the past, especially down South, when there was segregation and you couldn't stay in the white hotels you had to stay with friends and family and it wasn't unusual to have an adult sleeping with the child. Just that -- sleeping.

26

Predictions And Wishes For The Watchtower Society In 2004

by minimus in

jw
friends

do you have any??

?

Jerry Bergman

CORE-----I am the head writer in the Writing Department. If you don't believe me check with BIG TEX. Just to prove it, watch for the March 1, 2004 QFR entitled, "Why Do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe That Accepting Blood Transfusions Is Up To A Christian's Conscience"? I look forward very much to this article! If not in March, I am sure it will be sometime in the future. Also, the correct word is not entitled but titled! A big difference.

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