Francaise

« This testimony is the one of an ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses (he is no more member of the organization) because, merely, one day he asked himself on the origin of his religion, the Watch Tower, better known under the name of ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’. A course that amazes… »

Introduction

We are living in a society where the social and moral values are in full mutations, so it is useful, sometime, to make the point in his life and beliefs. My own soul-searching has begun six years ago. My questioning of what I considered as immutable, has permit me to rediscover the basic sense of the values in my life, such as joys, sorrows, friendships, ambiguities, surprises and lies. A popular saying recalls us that "the truth is not always good to say". Another one says, "Everything shining is not gold". I have understood the deep sense of those sayings when I have made a careful examination of the international organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, organization that we know as the "Watchtower Bible end Tract Society of Pennsylvania".

What is the problem ? Since one hundred and twenty years now, this ‘Worshipping Institution’ prophesies the ‘End of the World’ by the destruction of the wicked men, the near arrival of the ‘Paradise on Earth’ and the ‘Felicity’ for all those who subscribe to "His" theology, because of "his" understanding of the Bible. This organization claim to be the "only" "Pure Form of Worship" that God, named Jehovah, agrees. It dares to proclaim that it is the Only organization able to interpret the prophesies of the "Holy Scriptures" by the mean of his "Governing Body", a small group of men very select on which the "Holy Spirit" act in permanency, by transmitting to it the good explanations in due time. The moment was then arrived for me to check those presumptuous claims and to lay bare the truth.

I am today an "inactive" like they say in the jargon of the Society, that is to say an individual Jehovah’s Witnesses that does not practice anymore that religion. The reasons that pushed me to do not live anymore in the wake of the Society are numerous; I will try to resume for you the most important. A combination of circumstances have brought me to think more wisely about the sense and the goal of my life, and by way of consequences, about my situation within my religion. I have realized that my beliefs were very versatile; they depended essentially on the always-changing interpretations of the multinational of Brooklyn. Those last years, many fundamental doctrines have been turned upside down, modified, even suppressed, merely because the course of the years has shown that the "Providential" explanations held until this day were erroneous and untrue. Additionally, while pushing more my investigations, while diving in this not so distant past of the Society, I have discovered what really is this institution and from where it comes from exactly. Unfortunately, we are very far of the "Divine" organization, as it would like to make us believe.

My ambition thru these lines is to relate you the adventure that happens to me and to inform all those who will dare one day to make the same step as I did. It will take you a lot of courage to confront the gold plated theological values of the Society.The questions that I have asked to myself and the answers who have been made to me by some persons responsible, called "Elders", have brought to me the deep conviction that the lie, the hypocrisy and the mental manipulation are the pillars of this international organisation. There would be so many details to report in those lived situations that it is difficult to describe them all in their wholeness. I will restrict myself to relate you my story with frankness and without embellishment. Everything you will read is authentic, not deformed, even not exaggerated. I hope that the description of the other side of the coin will permit the awakening of all those that grant a blind and naïve confidence in respect to the one that presents itself as "the ‘Sole Channel’ between God, Christ and the men".

Presentation

I was born in a modest catholic family. My parents have always been believers but like many people not churchgoers. My father went to Algeria’s war in the sixties. My mother has lost her first baby at the birth; both of them were deeply affected by those painful tests. Very soon, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have contacted them, and after some months of studying they have accepted their theological explanations and they were baptized. Before this date, they were interrogating themselves about their differences of religious opinions. Both of them had their idea on God and on the Bible, and on the way to understand them. But the "Truth", with his implacable biblical logic, has reconciled them on those doctrinal matters. At that time I was only four years old. A phenomenon of competitiveness took place within the family, and in less than five years, all the brothers and the sisters of my father each in their turn were becoming Jehovah’s Witnesses. In this context, every meeting was the occasion to gather all together, the mix of the family spirit and of our new religion seemed to be perfect. My father has rapidly qualified himself as "Elders", as much as nearly all my uncles, my mother and my aunts were often pioneering, because "the harvest was large, and the workers not numerous". We were in 1970, five years before the fatidic date of 1975, year marked by the "Holy Scriptures" of the Watchtower as "The End of the World" and the beginning of the "Millennium of Christ".

I have grown in this ambiance, at the rhythm of numerous meetings, regular and incessant, of the compulsory and saving predication, of the local and national assemblies, and it is like that that I became Witness of Jehovah, when I was eighteen, rock by this soft ritual. Never having had any other way of life to follow than this one, I really did not have other choices or other reference marks. In all my childhood, I had been fully convinced by the discriminatory visions of the "Society". There were on one side, the good ones, "Us", those agreed by God, the one He would save at the battle of Armageddon, and the other one, the wicked, the "Worldly People" condemned by Jehovah. Our "Mission Impossible" was to go out and warn those poor sinners of our territory, to help them to repent themselves and to integrate very rapidly the only real providential religion. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, King David and Salomon were became my intimate friends. Jesus Christ, the apostles Peter, James and John, Paul and Timothy, they had all became models of conduct.

My life seemed already all traced. After the end of my studies (a simple diploma of qualified worker would be well enough), I would find a modest work that would permit me to use my time for enriching spiritual activities. I would get married with a "Sister" having lived in the same spiritual conditions as mine. I would perhaps start a family to whom I would transmit the Christians values that the Society offers us so generously. With the time and the will to serve my fellow men of the congregation, I would qualify myself to become at my turn a "Ministerial Servant" and an "Elder". Then the loop was looped, and somewhere my life was already lived.

But very fortunately, the predictions of 1975 have been a stinging defeat for the Watchtower Society. The one that had promise us and relate so many things about this year! To convince you, read the fabulous book "Life Everlasting in the Freedom of the Sons of God", pages 28 thru 35, it cannot be more clearer !(French Version) But here it is that, by whim without doubt, Jehovah had decided otherwise, and without warning his "faithful and discreet slave", without even making him revised its apocalyptical calculations. Perhaps that slave, by vanity, had he forgotten that in Matthew 24: 36, it is written that "nobody knows the day and the hour, nor the angels, nor the Son, but only the Father". Although how it is, the Society has not let her knock down, even if in the two following years this so much feared date, more than a million individual Witnesses have left the "Infallible Organization" of God. That year have been called after while the "Purification Era", where only the real worshippers have stayed faithful, the other were not worthy to bear this prestigious name of "Witness of the only real God". Although how it is, this year have stayed engraved in the collective memory of the Witnesses, and in the memory of the people in the territory.

Finally, irony of life makes that the events are not always decided in advance. When my cousins, my sister and myself arrived at the difficult time of teenage, we were starting to aspire for other directions. We were in the eighties, "Disco’s", "Funky’s", and other "Soft Rock’s" music were pleasing us very much, and the hymns of our meeting seemed to be very insipid and obsolete. Most of us made more studies than what was recommended by the Society that modified, of course, our way of thinking. One of my cousins went at the France’s Bethel and worked there for ten years. On the other hand, others left the congregation, its model of austere Christian life that was not anymore corresponding at their ideals. Obviously, that moved the well-united family that we were since all those years. Those "disfellowshipped" brought "ostracism" and divisions in our spiritual and family relations. Personally, I was staying faithful at the system, because I had not found serious reasons to change.

As my father was an elder, I have had the opportunity to know many people of my age and their parents. Most of them were like me, son or daughter of an elder or of a pioneer. My father gave often lectures in other cities, it was then the occasion to make narrow friendships with these individuals, and among them some became intimate friends. It is in these circumstances that one day I meet the woman that one day was to become my wife. In 1990, after our weeding, we move to a city far from the place of my childhood.

For the first time in my life I felt isolated, far from my usual family environment and of the entire one I knew. This situation has been propitious for a long reflection on my life and on my couple. My wife and myself were regular in our worshipping, taking part to all the activities of our new congregation. But the discussions on what we knew and practiced were amplifying following the huge changes that came to our knowledge from the publications. Overnight, the "1914 Generation" disappeared. The year 1975 was become a "Presumptuous Misunderstanding" of the Witnesses of that time, never the Society had supported such an explanation! All that leaved us puzzled. With working colleagues, I had sometime sounded discussions about my beliefs. Some of them came from different countries, with their customs and religions. Comparing our convictions was very enriching, because they demonstrated that the logic and the calendars do not explain everything at all and certainly not the faith. Each one had its opinions, tried to respect them and to inculcate them to their own families. It has been for me the occasions to call myself into question and to analyze my reference marks.

Of course, there was the Bible, the one I had read and glanced so many times. That sacred book was clear on some questions; it is impossible to contradict its writings. And of course there was all those peaceful congregations, that climate of general confidence, the Society that was so generous and so much protecting within that world divided by wars, murder, immorality and all the misfortune described in the first letter to Timothy 3: 1-5. However, some details called me out, I was telling me that it was too much beautiful to be true. There were all those new doctrinal explanations, while the old one felt into the dungeon. There were now new directions from the Society. We had to obey without thinking at the directives it was giving to us for our good. We had absolutely to invest ourselves more in our cult. We had to mobilize us at a moment’s notice, for distribution of flyers without even knowing the content, but do not worry, God was with us. The Society has rehabilitated our right of vote, I that was thinking that we had already voted for our Lord, Christ. It has established back the right to manifest our political disagreement, but only for His actual financial troubles. In the memory of the Witnesses never the things had ever been like that before !

It is then like that that I have been brought one day to read again some old publications, especially the one from the 60’s and the 70’s. At that time, a galaxy of verses were cited to confirm some theories, that we considered as the "Absolute Truth", starting by ‘1975’ and the famous "1914 Generation". (Pastor Russell, in his era, had even found verses that described the Great Pyramid of Guizah as the "Witness of stone of God", according to Isaiah 19: 19-20, he had Christianized it!)

Following that, in 1928, Judge Rutherford announced to those that supported that explanation on that "Satan’s Witness", that they were not anymore worthy of the Divine favour. We must say that during more than ten years as the president of the Society, that gentleman had approved and propagated that heresy; his first book "Harp of God" was very explicit about that subject. Twenty years later, the same verses are taken back in a different order, some of them are merely abandoned, some other are pulled out the oblivion, and it is surprising to realize that fresh explanations can from now on be consider by those new combinations. I try to talk about that around me, to me "Brothers" in the faith, to understand, to have an explanation. But there, Watch out! Danger! The policemen of the congregation were at the lookout of the spiritual offender! I tried to speak about all this to my parents, them that had done so much to inculcate me the "True Faith", the fruit of so many years of spiritual studies. They were aware of the radical changes of the Society, but they did not know how to interpret them. It is then in the middle of all these doubts and interrogations that one day the revelation made its appearance.

Meanwhile, another important event occurred. A colleague, with whom I usually talk about spiritual subjects, lend me one day a surprising book. The title of this book was "The Secret Societies and Their Power in the twentieth century". Today, the title is "Yellow Book No. 5" (book relatively hard to get). That book explains with a lot of details the ‘Occult Power" who leads the world, by the mean of the high finance, the Freemasonry, the politic and the cults. This book described the narrow links that links together all those institutions between them with goal to drive the world to a ‘New Age", a ‘New World Order". The worldwide institutions that we know such as U. N., I. W. F., and many others, would just in fact be screens for individuals, named "Illuminati" (Latin word meaning: "The one who knows", "The Enlightened") who pilot them like a submarine. To situate rapidly those people, we must know that the main channel of selection start in the Freemasonry, but uniquely among the members of the thirty-third degree minimum. It is the starting point. Other roads also lead to this hermetical club, like the "Studies Grant of Rhodes", for instance. The Watchtower was cited in the list of the incriminated institutions, because she had had at its head, officially, four individuals of that calibre. Were those claims founded? At the beginning, I taught that the author exaggerated a bit in its indications, taken in the fire of his enthusiasm. But with the time and assiduous researches, I realized that he had just in fact touched lightly the truth. This subject will be more developed in the chapter "My look on Freemasonry".

My doubts to be confirmed

I am a professional computer engineer, system analyst for an engineering company in the field of commercial marketing, and I have because of this the occasion to meet a lot of people by the mean of my numerous travels. As a faithful JW like I was, I was always trying to engage conversations, at choose moments like the mealtime or the coffee break, which had to lead to a situation of "informal witnessing" (I was learning my lessons very well at the meetings). It is in that context, two years ago now, that I have known an individual that is Protestant pastor, let’s say a part time pastor. He makes lectures sometimes at the Temple of his city. We have very quickly sympathized, and the "spiritual" discussions went on very well. After that, I have also met his family, a pleasant and united family. Together, they even took me some publications. Our conversations were becoming numerous and interesting, in short, I was proud of me.

One night, he invited me at his home place like usual, and in the car he asked me to relate him the origin of our work. I made him a mere summary of my knowledge, but I promised him that at our next meeting, to bring him a famous book of 700 pages, which would made him fully satisfied. Some weeks later, I came back to see him with that famous book. This book is "The Jehovah’s Witnesses: Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom". We skimmed through the book together with his family, and all along I was commenting the pages and the engraving meet across. Thus I evocated Pastor Russell, Judge Rutherford, and the other presidents, and the particular touch that each of them had brought at the work of the Watchtower. I have shown them different photos sometime exotic, the numerous buildings called "Bethel", from the beginning of the century through the present time. Everything was going very well, they were captivated by my explanations and they seemed impressed by such an amount of devotion.

But at the page 200 of this book, the enthusiasm disappeared. On this page, we discover an engraving of the front page of an old Watch Tower of 1891, wearing proudly the Templar symbol of the ‘Cross in the Crown". At that moment, he made me a malicious smile, and on an amused tone he asked me to comment on that particular logo. Of course, I was not able to. I told him frankly, in order to do not lose face, that this could to be a sort of protestant cross, because they had always taught me that we were coming from this branch. He kept his little smile and shook one’s head saying "No" unequivocally. He said: "That does not come from us". So maybe this representation is Adventist, because Russell was in touch with some people, such as his friends Jonas Wendell, George Storr, George Stetson and especially Nelson Barbour? It is then that he dared me to interrogate my teachers, to see if an answer would be possible. Our spiritual discussion stopped right there that night, we never has another one since then.

In a case like this one, I taught that it would be enough to merely ask about that to an elder, that the answer would be evident, like it was always the case. I also thought that this book that I believed I knew, must contained in one of its pages, the answer I had not been able to find by myself. That seemed very clear to me. The Society had always an answer for everything; any question was ever stayed unresolved. I went through this book many times, but in vain. I even made a search on the Society’s CD-Rom released in 1997, absolutely nothing. In reality, not very many publications, better to say any of them, talk about that subject, nor do they give an explanation. That "Cross", a little bit particular, appears and then disappear from the WT’s literature without a single explanation given in any manner. The only information that we have, it is the period within that symbol has been used, from 1891 to 1931 (all the same 40 years) on the front page of "The Watch Tower" and on the newspaper "La Tribune du Peuple". Also, at the meeting on the next Sunday, I asked that question to the older elder (86 years old) of my congregation. I related to him my ‘Fact of Predication" and the enthusiasm of those individuals, than, I revealed him the famous question. His smiling face turned in a very serious one in just a second. He told me that he did not know anything about that and that he did not gave a damn about it. He also told me that the most important thing today was that we were practicing a pure worship and that my question concerned a far away past, in which I was better to do not invest myself! Nevertheless, if I wanted to know a little bit more about that subject, I had just to have a look in the book "Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose" published in 1973, the answer was maybe in there! The tone of his voice was growing louder and louder, nearly at the limit of anger. On the moment, I did not understand why he was having such an attitude. Anyway, he left without even telling me goodbye. It was said that I was to learn the answer later.

I did not want to stay there, so, in the following weeks, I undertook to interrogate among the people I knew, the elders susceptible to give me an answer. I asked fifteen of them, among them two were in my own family, my father and an uncle who had been a ‘Special Pioneer" in its young age. A lot of them did not know anything about that; some of them had not even ever remarked it. However, four of them get irritated because of that question or rather toward my insistence, including my uncle. I was detaining a question that has not an answer or rather, who should not have an answer. The only recommendations that were made to me, was to do not ever go to see this family again, I was in a huge spiritual danger, that they were about to trap me, that Satan himself was taking care to seduce me with a temptation at the level of my curiosity!

At the same time, I read again the first book to see if some any details slipped my attention. I decided this time to analyze very calmly each of the paragraphs on the life and the work of Russell and Rutherford, just like I am used to make it within my work. I was telling me that inevitably there was an answer. In reality, that simple question, I had not evaluated it sufficiently; I was starting to understand that.

Like I hate to stay on a failure, I decided to ask the circuit overseers, and in the same stride, to write a letter to the Bethel in France. Up to this day I never received an answer, even after one year and a half expecting it. The circuit overseers are qualified elders, send by the Bethel, for normally, sustain and encourage the faithful members of the congregations. So when they came to my congregation I asked them "The Question". The first one stared at me and then he told me he had to go to see someone. I never saw him again. The second one has been more interesting. He listened to my story that I summarized for the circumstances and I came rapidly to that Question that one who seemed to have no answer. I told him that the elders had not been able to answer me, that the publications do not apparently treat that subject, not even the Society’s CD-Rom, and that I had written to the local Bethel, without success. On a fatherly tone, he told me that it was not important to know everything. The goal of our life as Witnesses was to serve Jehovah, not to beat about the bush on a far away past. We must go preach, because the time is getting shorter, too much short to invest any interest in that trivial question. I insisted anyway on the fact that this symbol belongs to our history, it is not possible to ignore it under the pretext that the times are now counted. Additionally, it is a Pastor that has asked me to explain him the meaning of that logo, an individual that has knowledge of the Bible, that because of this he is not like anybody else. So, he answered me the following: " You know, when those peoples make their seminaries, it is taught to them more than just merely biblical theology. They are taught to recognize the "Satanism’s Symbols!" Note that he did not tell me "the Christianity Symbols"! At that very moment I asked him to be more explicit about the nature of his thought. "Ours" would it be of that nature? Realizing that he told me too much, he avoided my look, greeted a brother that was passing by, engaged conversation with him and abandoned me without telling me another single word. At that moment, I understood that there was something fishy going on, something not very avowable. I had well remarked the discomfort that this question caused, but at that time I was still supporting the Watchtower system at 150%.

From that date forth, I decided to make some research on Internet. But in which direction to seek first? As the Society had always recommended being very careful about the sites created by wicked apostates, I had always carefully avoided them. By the mean time, I went back to my client, for which my Protestant Pastor worked. At the end of the day, he accosted me with discretion and he asked if I had had an answer. I had to admit that no; the question seemed to do not have an answer. For the last time he invited me at his home place that night, and he gave me the answer so hard to admit at the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Among his book from his seminaries, he had one who discussed of "Spiritualism". He opened it, and at a certain page, he showed me the famous symbol. He correspond at the Templar symbol of the "Commander’s Residence", a Freemason’s symbol of the highest importance. But what is his significance? He corresponds at the highest level of the ‘York’s Rite", the tenth degree. His equivalence in the ‘Scottish’s Rite" is the thirty-third degree. The privilege to claim that logo does not acquire easily, just like that, he is acquired by a serious and assiduous initiation at the esotericism, theosophies, to be simpler, at the occultism. The membership to the lodges is compulsory. The corresponding grade at this "Cross in the Crown" indicates that an individual masters the divination art. Another privilege that confers that grade, the possibility to create a Masonic obedience and to modify his starting ritual.

This information overwhelmed me. The Watchtower Society then held its origins in the occultism, and not in the deviation of a classic Protestant church! She was not then coming from the Christianity, but from the "Lodges"! She was then able to be a disguised form of Masonic obedience! I was dismay!

From this day forth, I began a new parallel reading of the two history’s books of the Society with the goal in mind to see if some details may confirm these assertions. Additionally, I resume my research on Internet, but this time with precise reference marks. I wrote down the words "Watchtower", "Freemason", "Jehovah", "Russell", and "York Rite" in all the search engines available. The answers did not keep them waiting. Many testimonies of former Jehovah’s Witnesses, of researchers, of historians, also of Freemasons, confirmed the sayings of my Pastor. It is like that that I learned, for instance, that the Russell’s grave was not the small stone on which it is inscribed "The Laodicean Messenger", but a pyramid! On this one we find the inscription "Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society"! This information has been confirmed to me later by "Russellites" (Mouvement Missionnaire Intérieur Laïc, Association des Étudiants de la Bible and The Pastoral Bible Institute) that I have meet. Their CD-Rom (Bible Student’s Library) confirms totally that point. Ialso learned that the Great Pyramid of Guizah was the converging point of the teaching of Russell, that he had made a Christian symbol of it (like what pharaoh’s Egypt and Christianity can get married with the Bible in the hand). To convince myself, I acquired the books of Russell, not without trouble, like the "The Divine Plan of the Ages" or "Let Your Kingdom Come". What we can read in those books is edifying! Never had they talked to me about all this before.

I also acquired some reference’s books on Freemasonry, explaining its origins, history, rituals, political, social and religious role, its goals, and its quarrels with the Catholic Church, its cathedrals builders in Europe, the Templars and the Cathars. I also learned, that by this very specific channel, the existence of a parallel Masonry, special, commonly called "Rosicrucian". Height of the irony, while I was talking of my discoveries with some of my colleagues, they informed me that they knew individuals that were members of these associations. Some of my clients also knew the subject; some of them were in the fringe. With them, I learned some interesting details on the Masonic order, the rituals, on the behaviour of the masons inside the lodges, on the way that the "Session" unfold, on their "Secrets", that are not really secret. They advised me some books relatively easy to reach, but rarely in the shop windows, like for instance, the books "La Spiritualité de la Franc-Maçonnerie" and "La Spiritualité de la Rose-Croix". Those books are aimed to well-informed persons, even for "Initiated", individuals able to reason in function of the values characteristic to the Order or to the Grade. All those researches took me some time over many months, but all those discussions and that information brought me at last the answers that were missing to me, the Society lied.

More than that, by the analysing of the historical books of the Society, especially the Russell and Rutherford’s eras, I noticed how much some dark points on which it was not dwelling a lot. For instance, on the page 23 of the book "Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Divine Purpose" second column, we learn that Pastor Russell, between 1879 and 1880, has founded near thirty congregations, called at that time "Ecclesia". As early as 1880, he took dispositions to visit them regularly, and to give an intensive program of studies that lasted at least six hours every day. Additionally, we must notice that that the distances between those congregations were fairly great for that time. Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Delaware, Ohio and Michigan. It should be difficult to make all those travels, knowing that the automobile was extremely rare. So, let’s think a little bit! The work of Russell begins officially at the spring of 1879, following his separation with Nelson Barbour. The first issue of "The Watch Tower" comes out of his small printing house in July 1879. Before that moment, Russell was only the co-redactor of the "Herald of the Morning". He had not very much disciples related to his ideas, not enough to be able to start in some months thirty congregations, even with only ten persons each! So how can we understand that claim of the Society? Well, everything becomes clear if we add the missing pieces of the puzzle. Mister N. Barbour was Adventist, we know that, but he was also a "Rosicrucian’s Knight" (sic). This information has been confirmed to me by concerned peoples. In the Masonry, the words "Lodge" or "Temple" can also be translated by "Ecclesia", especially in the "York Rite". It is for that reason anyway that after Russell’s death, the "Ecclesia" have been renamed "Kingdom’s Hall", in order to take out the allusion. In reality, in this era, the young Russell was growing in the Masonry. His biblical works, he entrusts them to his brothers of the lodge, the first "Elects", the first "Anointed Members", but because of his grade, he kept the necessary authority to maintain them in the direction he wished.

Another example. Always in the same book, on page 47, we learn that the Society wished to grow larger. In 1908, Russell desires to buy a local in New York. It is anyway J. F. Rutherford that will make the financial steps. So, the Society acquires a local called "Bethel of Plymouth". After some renovations and the inauguration, Russell claim in "The Watch Tower" of this year that this building will bear the name of "Bethel". We must notice, here, that Russell buys a building that already bears the name of "Bethel"; in fact, he is just keeping the name. Consequently, this name existed already before that the Society retakes it. So, who uses that same term apart of the Watchtower? Yes, you guessed it, the "Freemasons". This term is used to design a lodge that is in charge of many others, in other word a "Mother Lodge". So, the Society did not invent anything. In reality, it is just fulfilling its role, being in charge of other lodges to deepen his theosophical studies, under the cover up of a printing house.

I made known my discoveries to my parents, my father being an elder; I thought he knew about that. I was wrong. I also spoke about that to the elders to whom I had asked the same disturbing question. Some of them entered in an astonishing fury. They told me that to believe in such twaddle was not worthy of a Witness. The world had had reason of my curiosity and I was loosing the only true faith, the one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I tried to make them understand that it was serious to hide the truth, to water it down, mainly for an organization that says to be "Separated of the world", that pretends to be "The Truth", practicing the "Pure Worshipping", condemning the lie and the deceit. And here the Society was simply falsifying its origins! And here the Society was coming from the lodges, the Theosophies and the Spiritualism! One of the interrogated elder will tell me later, in a particular meeting called "Judicial Committee" that that kind of information must not be known by the poor and fragile brothers and sisters of the congregations. That would shook them and that would make them run away from the only organization able to bring them in the "New World". Additionally, if I tried to propagate those discoveries, that "Pot aux Roses", by any kind of means, I would be drive away for apostasy! I answered him that one cannot be disfellowshipped if he says the truth. He hurled back that the Society had put at the disposition of the elders a book (the KS), that regulates the life of the congregations, and that if a person saying to be a brother creates divisions, no matter what is the motive or the reason, he must be disfellowshipped.

My life has fallen over that day, because since that memorable meeting with the body of elders, those that I considered as brothers and friends have begun to stare at me with suspicion, like a potential danger, a parasitic individual that is preferable to avoid. Following that particular behaviour of the congregation, my wife and me have decided to stop to frequent the meetings.

Awakening of my friends

At the time when I started my researches on Masonry and on the Society, my parents called me one night to ask me additional information. My discoveries and my first conclusions had called them out. An elder to whom I had asked questions some months before, called me too to ask for some explanations, his name is Pierre. It is like that that our small group started. Each one tried to make its own researches, telling me regularly about their respective discoveries. During my surfing sessions on the Web to collect as much information as possible on the FM, they were going through the publications they had, particularly the oldest one.

One night when my parents were at my home place, we have made a discovery that has definitely turned upside down our convictions. I did connect on two astonishing sites. The first one is not in service for now, but he brought further evidences on the Masonic origins of the Society. The second one is: watchtower.observer.org. By his intermediary, we have learnt that the Society used subliminal imaging in some illustrations in its publications. At the beginning, we have believed it was a hoax, but after verification, it was true! Some Watchtower had ambiguous pictures; hideous masked faces polluted some fundamental books. The height of the disappointment was that the Society denied totally those accusations; it asserted that it was only defamation, and all this through two articles published in the Watchtower (85/6/15 and 87/3/1). Up to that moment, we taught that the past of the Society, even if unclear, was not as dramatic as that. After all, it was perhaps an obliged passage to finally result to the purity of our cult. We were wrong.

After a careful examination of the accused pictures, we fell like a light scent of spiritualism (many Internet sites have such pictures, they’re among them Michel’s site: www.microtec.net/mleblank. If it would be Mickey Mouse’s head, we would have think that some mischievous cartoonist of the Bethel had made a grandiose bet, and he would have won it. It is nothing like that. Why the publications do have in superimposition pictures of goats, gargoyles, and demons? Were we the only one to see them? We decided to get to the bottom of it. From that moment, we have started to present special publication to everyone we knew. It was difficult and risky! Who could think that such things would be possible within the "Spiritual Food"? Was it a simple theoretical point of view? I have presented the more obvious to some work colleagues. Their answers were unanimous. I have presented them to my Masonic acquaintances, same answer. One of them even remarked them immediately on the original!

It is because of those dubious representations that, Pierre, some months later, has found him sitting on the dock and he then loosed his elder’s privileges. The reason put forward: "Eyestrain"! He was starting to see things where there was nothing, he was becoming visionary! Face to face with an elder (without doubt short-sighted) and an itinerant overseer (blind maybe) that interrupted especially his week of activity to meet him, there has been decided that a long spiritual rest would be necessary. He has been named "Grand Apostate" and he loosed his functions after three months of deliberation by the Governing Body in Brooklyn. Normally, two weeks are well enough to chase out an apostate, but a Great Apostate, moreover a visionary, it is very rare, you cannot disfellowship that kind of individual just like that, and assuredly not for the reasons evocated! More than that, there is not yet correspondence in the famous book for that kind of situation (it seems that he would be rewrite for the circumstance). In reality, the real dilemma stays in the ambiguity of this scenario. Can they throw out someone because he says the truth or because he has accurate eyesight! No. The Society prefers to use a more clever method to settle that kind of disagreement. First, it does not answer to any accusation. No matter what is said or thought, that will always be pure speculation! Second, it plays the game of deterioration. Because of the time passing by, the minds calm down or the people leave by themselves. Third, it waits for the making of a mistake, like the propagation of that it considers as "Apostate" ideas. In that case, it applies the verses of Roman 16: 17-18, "False Testimony", and that’s it. The honour is safe, the slanderer is pushed aside and the business goes on.

It must be known that the disfellowshipping of a JW is the ‘Absolute Weapon" of the Society. When someone join the movement, he arrived to separate himself mentally of the world where he lived, because this place of perdition from where he just came out and the individuals living in it, are a powerful break for his "Spiritual Progresses". Then, with the help of God, and especially the faithful and discreet slave, he arrives to isolate himself from everything of what was his reference marks, his colleagues, his friends, his neighbours, his family, even in certain unusual and rare cases from his wife (or husband) and children. From now on, his new family is the congregation, this isolating place of living, and this state in the state. He lives in a "Spiritual Paradise". The Society denies those facts, but unfortunately for that one, the testimonies on the subject are becoming numerous and overwhelming (and the KS is on the Net, if you want to check). In short, once the disciple is well conditioned, reprogrammed, robotized, manipulated by the process of the "American Obedience", so he is very alone on earth, and then they make him understand that at the smaller false step, the smaller rebellion, he will be rejected in the world of Satan, this moribund world, condemned by God since the beginning of the creation, this terrestrial hell (the catholic wait, at least, that the unfortunate one be dead before sending him in hell). The Society shows him to accept this way to see things, it is "Normal". The other faithful receives then the order to do not speak to him anymore, not even hello, because that everyday small word is already an association with the Devil (the Bible is clear in this question, read 1 Co. 5:11 and 2 Th. 3: 6)! In this case, the pity, the good manners, the theory of the Good Samaritan does not apply anymore. Jesus, please, come back, yours disciples have become crazy. When all is said and done, the poor disfellowship individual does not know where to go and especially what to do, except maybe hanging himself in his attic (perhaps God, in his mildness, will he have a taught for this man the day of the Last Judgement). Often, this overwhelming loneliness makes him come back, repentantly, in the "Sheepfold", the congregation, only peace and happiness haven on this planet. But, starting there, everything is not yet settling. He will be entering in a period of acceptance test. Even when he will be present at the Kingdom Hall, people will continue to do not greet him, nor to go to talk with him, he will stay in his corner, nicely, under the intent look of the elders, awaiting the green light. The recommendations are strict, inflexible. If you brave this interdict, you are disfellowship at your turn, it is merciless, and it is "Normal". Once the sincere penitence correctly weighed by the "Guardians of Happiness" of the congregation, the individual is reintegrated as JW member. But, you must know that his actions will never be forgotten, that is to say for the Society that keeps scrupulously in its files the curriculum of each of its disciples (does God have a right of inspection on the files of the Watchtower?).

In the last moment of my frequentation of the congregation, my researches started to disturb seriously the elders. For instance, the Watch Tower I brought to the meetings were not the current one, but the some of the beginning of the century, notably from the years 1911 and 1912, and in French (thanks to the M. M. I. L. organization). Additionally, I had pinched some rare copies of "La Harpe de Dieu" ("Harp of God") or "Consolation pour les Juifs" ("Consolation for the Jewish") (pure marvel of Zionism and Pyramidology). After a certain time, they proposed me a rendez-vous, commonly known as "Judicial Committee", to know the exact goal of my investigations and principally, what would be my intentions of propagation of my results. Being prepared since a long time ago for this confrontation, it has not taken me a lot of time to confuse them in their threats and their biblical claims.

This confrontation lasted more than four hours. At the very beginning of the conversation, they told that if I wished to retire me of the organization, they would not obstruct in any way to do it, but my wife, their "Sister", would be able to stay. I therefore had to remember of the condition in which I would be in regard of the other member of the congregation. Additionally, they remind me that in his great kindness, God, and by way of consequences the Society, had expected a possibility for a return in the sheepfold. With clemency, the elders would always be there to welcome me and to comfort me. I thanked them for this generous proposition, but I specified them that my intention was to retire myself for the moment. I merely wished to obtain an explanation, an honest answer to my questions, after all, very simples. I disclosed them a part of my researches, through different official Masonic reproductions of the "Cross in the Crown", enlargement at the size A4 of those famous subliminal pictures aside with the original publications. In front of this disclosure, they told me that I was sinking into the apostasy, that everything that I was putting ahead as arguments were just calumnies, and that I was in very great danger. In front of their Watchtower reproduced identically by the M. M. I. L., they spoke about falsifications. I showed them the reproductions of those brochures in their own internal books, they denied totally and jointly the resemblance, pleading that the one found in the Society’s literature were too small to permit to confirm the comparison. I had never seen such insincerity working, because in front of their sayings that they tried to confirm with the Bible, the dark red colour of their ears and their shifty looks were not lying. I must specify that we were in the Kingdom Hall, normally a place devoted to the worship to God, where the lie is perjury. They had a lot of trouble to stay calm, arguing without stopping, continually, the same words, apostasy and disfellowshipping. I did place under their eyes a copy of a lecture of Pastor Russell (The Temple of God – California, 1913), showing clearly his affiliation to the Freemasonry and the role of his biblical obedience, the Watchtower. But like this lecture was written in English, they did not want to read it (one of them though reads this language fluently, he makes the same work as mine). They asked me who had provided me this copy. The M. M. I. L. ! Anything which do not come from the Society is automatically filed "Apostasy", even a copy of the Watch Tower of the beginning of the century, where appears the postal address of the Watchtower. As much as we are concern, we want to believe only the Society and nobody else. Of course, that same Society does not publish those documents today, it is too much afraid of the harmful repercussions that it could engender. Like that, it is easy! And more than that, the Society has recently made a sort of spring-cleaning. A circular has asked that all the old publications be returned to them for, supposedly, to restore its own library. In reality, by that mean, they have made disappear a maximum of evidence on its history, obviously Masonic history.

Very fortunately, spiritual descendants of Pastor Russell still exist, them who are not ashamed to assert their origins and the nature of their works. For instance, we read in the WT of January 1911, page 8:

"The goal of this very magazine is to work at the perfection of the Saints, the Elected, and when these living stones, elected and precious, will have been cut, shaped and finished, the Great Architect will bring them all together in his "Spiritual Temple".

This is the main leitmotiv of Freemasonry, the work of the symbolic stone. Well obviously, only an "Initiated" at this language is able to recognize the deep and esoterically sense of this claim. I have shown them this sentence in a masonry book, they argued that this book does not come from the Society, and even more the logos shown there are not in our publications, then all these are nothing more than satanic lies. After four hours of tumultuous discussion, they made me the following claim we have seen before: "If those revelations are known by the fragile brothers and sisters in the congregations, that could produce their faith to fall, and made them leave the only organization able to bring them alive in the ‘New World". At that moment, they intimate me the order to do not reveal even one word of everything we had just debate, under the threat to be disfellowshipped, even without asked me my opinion. In front of this open threat, I have explain them that the duty of all good Christian is to warn his fellow man, especially his brothers in the faith, of the danger related to the lie and to hypocrisy, and that in this case the Society lies shamefully on itself. Its two book of history are, in reality, only a sanitized and oriented version, a sweeten vision of the reality. It is always looking at all price to make us believe that, already at its beginning, it resembled at the actual organization, with uniquely Christmas and the anniversaries added. But it is no true. The chapter I have developed on Masonry will show you.

It is in front of my determination that they cited me the letter to the Romans 16: 17-18, where it is written among other things, that: "All the one giving rise to division must be turned down of the flock." They remind me that for a Jehovah’s Witness, the Truth comes only from the Society, and from nowhere else. And even if that Society has made some small mistakes on certain details during this century, for the essential, it is in the "Truth". It has now purified itself from its past, and it was not my ridiculous researches that would be able to make it tottered. The Society is all-powerful! Jehovah is with them! God speaks to us through it. The prophecies are there, their realizations are unchanging! Fighting against it, it is fighting versus God himself, and against his Holy Spirit. To answer to that solemn declaration, that resembled more to a learned by heart "same old story" instead at a sincere conviction, I gave me the permission to recall them the words in Deuteronomy 18: 22, where we can read:

"If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.""

Our conversation has finished on these paroles. Since that day, my wife and me have stopped frequenting this organization, for which we have been so much devoted during all those years. The one that has been for us a model of life and conduct for numerous years, is in reality only a "Masonic Cult" disguised in a religion, adapted for the circumstance. Christ had warned his disciples about these tyrannical wolves, which, under the appearance of sheep, are always looking to mislead as much people as they can. Today we have the evidence of the truthfulness of these paroles that we had read so often, without never be aware that the sheepfold was just in reality an open sky jail. Since that day, we are learning again how to live and to rebuild our lives on real and sounded values, the one that we had rejected or even never known, like the respect of the people and their convictions, the tolerance, the mere pleasure to find ourselves gathered with "Real" friends, not the one of the congregation who today turn their back at us without even trying to understand why, the one that obey orders like brainless soldiers, even if we are not officially disfellowshipped.

Conclusion

Being given that we are not able to warn directly all those persons of the danger in which they live, for which they invest themselves so much, it is now my duty to use the few possibilities that are offered to me to relate my adventure and to denounce this gigantic deceitful business. Some have kindly permit me to use their Web sites to publish my story, my documents and the results of my researches. I want to thank them warmly.

I would like to demystify some points. The great majority of the Jehovah’s Witnesses of the entire world are just in fact the innocent victims of their naivety. They have an absolute confidence towards an institution that deceives them, that robotizes them to make soldiers out of these individuals. Some among them work from ten to twelve hours a day in a Bethel for a miserable salary, with the intimate conviction to do it for a praiseworthy and fair cause. The process of brainwashing is extremely powerful through the incessant and monotonous meetings (three times a week minimum), where the permanent repetition of sentences transformed in rituals, the same promises, the same advices and the recurring fear to displease this avenger God. Those people do not think anymore, they swallow everything that is given to them; they do not have a critical mind anymore. The spiritual food is available for free, but that food acts on them like a drug with devastating effects, liquefying their mental faculties. Their consciousness has been entirely reprogrammed. Like all the other cults of his kind, the Watchtower uses the misfortune of our time to back his interpretation, to hold his disciples in an absolute submission, making them hope. We must know that in general, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are happy in their worshipping, like every other disciple. It is promised to them the earth and the moon with the Bible in the hand. They learn to read this sacred book, yes, but not according to their ideas, uniquely according to the "Providential" method elaborated by the Society, thanks to their so much abundant and rich literature, but so much versatile, so much subjective and subliminal. The divine revelation can only come from the "Governing Body" in Brooklyn; it is their immutable motto. In that context, and as long as they do not realize nothing, the life is without worrying, a "Spiritual Paradise" to use their term. They are tossed here and there according to the interpretations of the very moment, but they cannot realize it. Yet, when the "pot aux roses" is discovered, they are lost, very much at loss. For them the life seems all of a sudden so much vain, so much futile, without goal, without taste. That takes a lot of strength of character and courage to regain a zest for living that has been trashed from dawn until sunset, to love it and live it fully.

In retrospective, I am asking me how the God of the universe, this God so much great, this God that is described to be so powerful, can tolerate such a situation. He has been at the origin of so many wars, in the middle of ephemeral peace talks. He is worshipped by some, blasphemed by other. He is capitalized on by the cults, perverted by their deceitful and unwholesome teachings. This question is still again very fresh to my mind, and it is with it that we will tackle the next document, the mystical domain of the secret Societies and their influence on our everyday life.

The author of this testimony wrote confidently a fatidic letter that led to his disfellowshipping from the Jehovah’s Witnesses: follow this link to be able to read it…

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