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For twenty-five years, Diane Wilson was an active member of the Watchtower Society. In the end, she was only able to finally leave after a great deal of difficulty and heartache. She recently published a book about both her experiences as a devout Jehovah's Witness and her experiences as a member of that organization who came to doubt its claims. She went through a very hard time, but perhaps those experiences will help others going through something similar.
Below is the transcript of an interview she was kind enough to provide for this site...
1. What originally gave you the idea to put down your experiences in a book and share them with others?
When Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. (America's leading expert on the psychology of Jehovah's Witnesses) read an article I wrote in Free Minds Journal in July of 1994, he invited me to write a chapter for a book he was composing about Jehovah's Witnesses. I kept asking for extensions of the deadline, as I was unwittingly using this project as a tool for my own healing from my twenty-five year involvement with Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society. I had immersed myself in studying books about adults abused as children, spiritual abuse, mind control, toxic faith, and cults. As I strove to understand my Watchtower experience, I also entered into therapy with a caring psychologist.
A book I read about recovery from cultlike groups suggested one approach to the healing process would be to figure out: Exactly how did the group lure me in? What made me vulnerable to their recruiting techniques? How did the seduction into the group proceed? What was the "hook" they used that got me involved? How did this religion abuse me? What kept me in the group despite this mistreatment? Why couldn't I leave? What led to my awakening, to reclaiming my ability to listen to my "voice within"?
After much deep thought and mind-searching about my Watchtower experience, coupled with the increased understanding of my own psychology that my therapy had provided, and the information I gleaned from my studies, I was finally able to answer these questions - and these formed the basis for my writing.
Two years after his original request, I sent Dr. Bergman my 200-page "chapter". Upon reading it, he called me and declared, "This is no chapter - this is a book that needs to be published under its own cover." He explained the value my story could have for people having struggles similar to mine, and encouraged me to seek a publisher. After refining my first draft and significantly expanding it, I decided to search for a publisher so that I could share my experiences with others, in the hopes they might be spared some of the suffering that I went through.
2. Looking back upon the Watchtower Society, can you think of anything positive or good to say about it?
Involvement with this organization as an active Witness may provide social support and give order to a person's life if they are experiencing chaos or extreme stress. Those who can buy into the Society's belief system may find a sense of purpose in life, a feeling of security and protection from the outside world. They may enjoy the satisfaction of feeling they know all the answers to the deepest questions about life.
By relying on Watchtower prophecies and interpretations of the Bible, they may experience the peace of mind that comes with knowing exactly what the future will bring, believing that following the path the Watchtower leads them on will result in everlasting life in Paradise. And following this path frees a person from making poor decisions, as decisions covering nearly everything are covered by the Society's extensive rules.
Those who are completely obedient to the Society's rules and requirements experience a large supply of instant friends (and thus are relieved of the work needed to develop relationships). Another positive was that I saw no racial discrimination in the congregation.
3. You critique many of the doctrines and practices of the Watchtower Society, but can you identify any one or two which stand out as being worse or more harmful than the rest?
The Watchtower Society's practice of disfellowshipping - being ousted from the organization by the Elders - is especially damaging. The person does not have to be wicked or evil - any expression of disagreement with the Watchtower Society's doctrines is sufficient grounds for expulsion. Witnesses are required to shun the person who was thrown out, which means a total cutting-off of association with that person.
Witnesses are forbidden to speak to disfellowshipped ones, to write to them, to visit them, to have any communication or even eye contact with them. This harmful practice tears families apart. Because Witnesses are not permitted to have friends on the outside, being disfellowshipped also leaves the person without a social system. Witnesses believe that Jehovah will not hear the prayers of any who are disfellowshipped, and death at Jehovah's hand awaits them at Armageddon.
Be the Society right or be it wrong about any of its doctrines, all Witnesses must accept these doctrines as absolute truth from Jehovah - even if doing so goes against their conscience. Sometimes Witnesses are disfellowshipped because of a doctrinal disagreement with the Society, and the Society later changes its doctrine so that it reflects the viewpoint that the Witnesses had been disfellowshipped over. When this happens, the ousted Witnesses do not receive an apology from the Society for its error, nor do the Elders automatically reinstate them.
Particularly tragic were Witness women who were disfellowshipped because they did not scream when a rapist attacked them. For much of its history the Society has had a doctrine that says if a woman is forcibly raped but doesn't scream,she hasn't been raped at all, but has committed fornication. Women who were terrorized by having a gun to their head or a knife to their throat, and believing the rapist when he threatened, "I'll kill you if you scream!", were made victims all over again by the Society by cutting them off from their friends and psychologically isolating them from God.
Another doctrine of the Watchtower Society that is extremely harmful is one that is considered a core tenet of the Jehovah's Witness faith: refusal of blood transfusions. Untold lives of both adults and innocent children have been sacrificed on the "altar of the Watchtower" in obedience to the Society's forbidding Jehovah's Witnesses to accept blood transfusions.
Since the year 1961, Witnesses who accepted blood transfusions were disfellowshipped. On June 14, 2000, the Society's Public Affairs Office released an official Statement to the Media in an effort to make it appear to no longer be an organization dictum. By announcing that the Society will no long disfellowship Witnesses who accept blood, the appearance is given that there is no Watchtower policy banning its members from receiving blood transfusions. This is a gross misrepresentation, since the Society considers any Witness who receives a blood transfusion as having revoked his or her own membership in the organization through the action of taking in blood. The result is the same: Witnesses who accept a blood transfusion will be shunned the same as if they were disfellowshipped.
4. Why do you think the Watchtower Society has been able to survive so long, given the sorts of doctrines and practices you describe?
I believe the Society has survived so long because through its mind-control techniques, it convinces people that it is the sole channel of communication between God and all of mankind, and "God's mouthpiece." As such, the Witnesses comply with the Society's demand that they respond to the directions of the Society the same as they would to the voice of God. The Watchtower Society thus gains complete control over those who believe it is God's organization; those so convinced will stay with the organization no matter what it does. As long as people remain ignorant of the techniques controlling groups use to deceive and manipulate them, organizations such as the Watchtower will continue to exist.
I think another reason the Watchtower Society has been able to survive so long is because much of its history, including its many false prophecies and its doctrinal errors, have been hidden not only from the public but also from the Witnesses themselves. For example, during the 25 years that I was a Witness, I did not know that from 1921 through 1952, the Society had forbidden Witnesses to have vaccinations. The extent that the Society has waffled on so many of its teachings was kept hidden from me.
At the time of the Society's prophecy that 1975 would usher in Armageddon, I was not aware that it had said the same thing about the years 1874 and 1914. With the advent of the Internet, however, all of this information in now readily available. Although the Society has repeatedly issued warnings to the Witnesses against using the Internet, it will be interesting to see what effect the Internet has on the growth of the organization.
5. How does the Watchtower Society handle all of the failed prophecies which the organization has made through history? Why do members accept the Society's explanations?
By their myriad of excuses. In the case of the Society's failed prophecy that the autumn of 1975 would bring Armageddon, for example, it handled its embarrassment by turning against its loyal members who had trusted the Society to dispense Bible truth. The Society declared that the Witnesses' own understanding about the start of Armageddon had been at fault - but it did not acknowledge that the Society had been the source of these wrong premises!
The Society did not accept responsibility for the 1975 date, even though it was the Society's own idea that was then forced on all of Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, they shamed the Witnesses by saying, "Are you serving Jehovah only to a certain date? Or are you committed to serving Him forever? If so, what are you so disappointed about?" Some of the Society's other excuses for their failed prophecies were:
1. The Society's zeal and desire for the new system (the time after Armageddon when God's government will rule the paradise Earth though the visible agency of the Watchtower Society).
2. The Society said it misinterpreted matters because of human fallibility (while at the same time maintaining they are the sole channel of communication between God and humankind which must be explicitly obeyed).
3. Anyone who left the organization as a result of the Society's failed prophecies were viewed as "undesirables" whom Jehovah had "sifted out" of His organization.
4. The Society claimed that its blunders were for the benefit of the Witnesses by declaring that they furnished the Witnesses an opportunity to show loyalty and love for the organization.
Members accept the Society's explanations because, through using mind-control methods, the Society convinces its followers that it speaks for God, and that it alone can correctly interpret the Bible - while also maintaining that it is God's imperfect organization (and thus the excuse for adjustments in doctrines).
6. How does the Watchtower Society handle the regular shifts in doctrines?
1. The Society claims that all doctrinal shifts are a result of "new light" of understanding from Jehovah, and that all changes in doctrine are "spiritual food at the right time." It points to adjustments in viewpoints and doctrines as evidence that God is behind the organization. Thus the vacillating doctrines, instead of becoming reasons for doubt, become proof to the Witnesses that they are in the only true religion. At the Society's large yearly conventions, talks given by the Governing Body containing "new light" generate much excitement.
2. The Society likens its shifts in doctrines to a sailboat tacking in the wind, arriving at the right destination eventually despite traveling a zigzagging course - and that this "tacking" has often served as a test of the Witnesses' loyalty to the "God's organization."
3. The Society even contended that God would allow falsehoods to masquerade as truth for a time because His people couldn't handle knowing the truth all at once!
Why do members go along with changes?
1. Influenced by the Society's clever use of mind control methods, members believe that the Watchtower Society is God's organization, and that He speaks through it, such that any changes in doctrine are viewed as coming from God.
2. They believe the changes are God's Will, following the reasoning of the Society: "We will realize that Jehovah knows what is going on in his organization, and if he is willing to permit it, who are we to insist it should be different?"
3. They are convinced that the Society's zigzagging sailboat of truth does not represent errors, but rather that every twist and turn of doctrine was truth at the time it was declared to be so.
4. Witnesses also go along with doctrinal changes out of fear, as any Witness disagreeing with them is quickly silenced by being thrown out of the organization. This is devastating, because it means losing all of one's friends and also family, if they are Jehovah's Witnesses.
5. The Society's indoctrination instills a phobia of ever leaving the organization, constantly emphasizing that "There is nowhere else to go," and that only chaos and destruction await on the outside. The Witnesses are also programmed to self-destruct if they are out of the organization, by hearing testimonies at assemblies from Witnesses who left the organization or were thrown out and who attested that they had become drug addicts, prostitutes, thieves, and the like while outside of the organization - and that they were only able to clean up their lives when they came back to it. Fearing that these things will happen to them keeps many Witnesses inside the organization, accepting all the changes and keeping their doubts to themselves.
7. How do you and your husband manage to make your marriage work, even though he is still a Jehovah's Witness?
Participation in all aspects of Organizational activities is considered to be an integral part of any Witness marriage, as being one of Jehovah's Witnesses is not just a belief system, but a lifestyle. Through the years, my growing disenchantment with the Society caused increasing strain on my marriage.
As time went along, and I started expressing doubts that the organization is of God and wanted to discuss these with my husband, he refused to talk about them and angrily defended the organization - no matter how many people the Society had hurt. As I began to become more of my own person, and less accepting of the submissive, oppressed role that Jehovah's Witness women must accede to, tension in our relationship escalated.
My book's Epilogue states, "Choosing two very different paths regarding this religion has recently led to our traveling separate paths in life as well," which was a delicate way of saying that my Jehovah's Witness husband of 30 years filed for divorce as my book went to press.
8. How has your book been received by the general public, by ex-Witnesses and by current Witnesses (if they read it at all)?
Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape From the Watchtower Society has been very well received by the general public, as is evidenced by a complete sell-out of its first printing only 6 months after its release, and is now in its second printing. It has been extremely well received by the many ex-Witnesses I have encountered at my booksignings, online message boards, and speeches.
I have no way of knowing how the Witnesses are receiving it, as I have been shunned by all Jehovah's Witnesses since I disassociated myself in 1993. All books critical of the organization are forbidden to the Witnesses - reading my book would be punishable by disfellowshipping; however, now that it is readily available through invisible means via the Internet, I suspect many will read it.
9. What sort of advice do you offer to people who encounter Jehovah's Witnesses at their front door?
I advise that it is extremely dangerous to carry on conversations with Jehovah's Witnesses when they call at the door. Most people are no match for the Witnesses, who are extremely well-trained in "Scriptural gymnastics," i.e., the ability to jump from one Bible verse to another and then another, linking them together to form the unique doctrines of the Watchtower Society.
To people who don't know the Bible well, this can be quite impressive. Persons who are at a vulnerable point in their lives can be easily hooked in only a very few visits. And once hooked, it is extremely difficult to leave - even for those who desperately want to do so.
10. How would you handle such a situation?
When a Witness called at my door, I interrupted his sermon by telling him that I had been a Witness for 25 years, and that I have written a book about my experiences. I said, "Please come in; I'd like to show it to you." This resulted in his turning pale and breaking eye contact by looking away from me. With trembling hands held up in front of his face, he slowly backed away from the door, at which point he literally ran away. Jehovah's Witnesses have not called at my door since.
11. What sort of lesson about the Watchtower Society in particular or religion in general would you like readers to take away after reading your book?
1. Read books about mind control, cults, and spiritual abuse, so red flags will pop up in one's mind if a group starts demonstrating any manipulative techniques.
2. Before joining any group, talk to some members who were formerly involved with it.
3. When a religion claims to be "The Truth" - run!
4. Check out the history of the group by using the Internet.
5. Do not be seduced by the friendliness of the group, or by pictures of paradise they show you from their books.
6. How extremely difficult leaving a legalistic, controlling religion like Jehovah's Witnesses can be - even when a person desperately wants to leave.
Wilson's book goes into much greater detail on the issues these questions raise, and it also documents fully all allegations and statements regarding Watchtower teachings. I hope that everyone interested in issues of religion and psychology will take the time to read it. Thank you, Diane, for sharing your time with us...
Learn more about Diane's book!
