Jehovah's Witnesses and Brainwashing

I'm writing this blog entry from the unlikeliest of places...my mom's home. Now if you've read any of my previous posts, you know that my parents are JW's. They divorced when I was a teen and my dad was df'd. My dad did get reinstated when I was in my late teens, but both my parents moved on and remarried. Mom is divorced again...I think her ex got df'd too, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Anyway...long story short, hubby and I are getting work done in our house so we needed a place to stay for a week or two. I wanted a hotel but hubby didn't want to spent the extra money, which I hate to say but he's right. So, that meant we would have to stay with family. Both our mother's welcomed us with open arms...so how in the world did we end up at my mom's house??? Crazy right?! Well my mom had the most space with free bedrooms for us to use. So here we are.

Needless to say I was a little stressed out the day before we moved in, worried about what to expect. Honestly I expected constant lecturing, preaching, and jabs about how I need to get  my life together. I'm happy to say that after one week none of that has happened. She's been perfectly warm and welcoming and has pretty much left us alone...not in a bad way but just giving us some space.

But here is my concern: Being here I've actually gotten a chance to see just how much time she spends 'studying' Jdub publications. It is actually disturbing to me. These publications are simply the writings of men in Brooklyn who want to shape and mold the Organization into what they want. In no way do I think these publications are "inspired of God" as JW's often claim. While at mom's house last summer I picked up a WT magazine just to see what they had to say. It was about unemployment or lack of financial resources. Anyway as I'm reading the article, I was stunned at the advice they were giving! It was a load of crap! They were not giving sound financial advice as to how people should deal with an economic downturn, instead they were telling people to basically trust in God and he'll take care of them. I grew up reading this crap and back then I never saw anything wrong with it. After over 16 years of not picking up one of those magazines, I can really see how the Organization brainwashes people into believing it's the "only true" religion.

From what I remember of the Organization they are against higher education. They feel that pursuing higher education could open one's mind to all sorts of unhealthy and dangerous thoughts, like thinking rationally and for one's self. Remember, the Organization feeds off of those who are weak. Those who are experiencing turmoil, grief, poorly educated, and overall all just dealing with hard times. That's when they can capture people by promising them that things will get better. 'Remember paradise'  they love to say. 'This world won't be here much longer'.  That last sentence I heard regularly since I was a small child...and now I'm almost 40 yrs old.

Here's my point, any organization, be it religious or otherwise that is against free thinking or thinking for oneself is suspect. No one should ever seek to stop you from thinking outside the box and thinking about what is best for yourself, for your family. Sometimes what one is looking for doesn't fit within the nice neat boxes organizations like religions present to us. The one think that I've learned over my years of being df'd, is that having the ability to think for myself, freely, has opened up a whole work of opportunities that I would have never had had I stayed in such a stifling organization. And for that I'll never be sorry....