Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ
. . . no one would talk about it.
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It seems as if the central conceit, the focus and main selling point, of the whole operation is that God raised up an Ascended Master in these last days. Then when the world collapsed and caught fire, the Ascended Master sent his One True Acolyte to foreign shores to carry The Message. This Acolyte became the new Ascended Master, God's Oracle. Everything the AM said was enlightened. He could tell one brother to buy a used car, because that brother loved shiny new things. He'd then tell another brother to buy a new car, because that second brother was always tinkering on his old jalopies and didn't have time for the Church Life.
So the AM could say anything, and it was enlightening, pruning you and purifying the dross. He could tell you, "Good morning", and it was unlike any Good morning you'd ever heard; it was like God spoke from heaven. Clearly, the fast track to the top was to come under the AM; not like in poor Religion where they just sat and heard sermons about the Great Bye-and-Bye. No; under the AM you got Heaven streamed into you like a radio broadcast, painting your soul, until like the AM you were a transcendent person. The theme of the Message wasn't the Local Ground or God's Economy or the Body or Consummated New Jerusalem; no the focus was whatever the AM wanted to talk about today. Everything he said was carefully edited and packaged with shiny labels and sold by the Ministry Office.
Just carry around the Rainbow Booklet with the AM's words, and you'll attract seekers, they said. Just pray over the outlines, bullet points, and recite the words of his hymns, buy HWMR, wall posters, CDs, coffee mugs and t-shirts with AM sayings, and you'll be sanctified. The rarefied air of heaven will settle around you, and pull you higher and higher.
Now, what happens when this narrative bumps into reality existing on the ground? What happens when the AM suddenly seems like maybe he's actually a schmuck like you and me, only one with a good scam going? How to address this?
Answer: you can't. The whole thing is based on transmission and maintenance of unchallenged assumptions, taken as the building stones of reality itself, and if you begin to question, to think, to probe, and to discuss (!!!!!) the fact, let's say, that the AM's stooges were bilking people and railroading witnesses, then you're out like trout. If those assumptions ever get exposed then whole enterprise is threatened.
The rich man told Jesus that he'd repaid people fourfold, what had been taken wrongly. Jesus answered that today salvation had come to his house (Luke 19:9). Ministry apologists instead told people that WL was heartbroken that "God blew on" his motor home manufacturing enterprise and it failed, but why not just consider their erstwhile investment as a donation? Case closed. Life savings? Gone. Don't wanna talk about it. Let's move on to today's message. Now, were we talking about Life, or Truth? I forget.
Anyone who persists in examining the whys and wherefores, even the simple facts of what occurred, is viewed as enlightenment's opposer and is thrust away. How to reconcile within such a system? It seems that one can only expose the scam for what it is.