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In Reply to: Re: Wow! More stuff like this please! posted by an other on August 29, 2002 at 20:52:28:
Berg used fear as his weapon of choice. Sure, sure, he would weep and say he was sorry for this and that or that he really loved his little sheep and it all sounded so good. But when push came to shove, only he was most important and everything else was used to manipulate what he wanted out of people. a lot of people do this in small scales, but he managed to do it on a large scale by using the fear tactics. Everything about Berg was manipulation. From the "Dumps" letter - ie, don't get down in the mouth, quit thinking about yourself, we're all rotten, there's none good but God, etc., etc. First making you think that you couldn't say anything bad or talk about anything negative (how clever) and then making you look inward that if you were't happy and cheerful, you weren't yielded which ironically set a pattern in motion that kept one looking at themselves in a bad light since no one could be happy and cheerful all the time, not in that environment and not in too many other environments - life is just full of troubles. Then at the same time he was dealing with people for little tiny infractions of the law and supposed spiritual ineptitudes. Spiritual weaknesses or for having thoughts of backsliding or thoughts from the devil, thoughts of doubt. I mean, folks, we have all the examples in the letters. All one has to do is read Mene's account and so many others where Berg picked people apart for the minuteness of mistakes or "sins." It was there in the beginning, but we couldn't see it because it was hidden. We didn't have the letters yet, only a few, it was all in the background so it wasn't obvious. We were looking at Jesus, we thought, and everything else would fall into place because we were trusting God, the master of the universe. How could anything go wrong? That was our mentality. I agree with the people who say that some good may have happened in the beginning, but the wrongs and the evils that transpired by the manipulation of Berg and the policies he enacted negate so much of that good. Fortunately, for some who left early or were the kind of hangers on around the outside edges and then left, they were young enough and hadn't had as much of the indoctrination to get over, that getting on with their life was much easier.
