Transcript of OnionUnlimited podcast episode 069
HELLO AND WELCOME TO EPISODE 69 OF ONIONUNLIMITED—THE PODCAST. I’m your host, Daniel Torridon and today I’m going to be answering the question everyone’s been asking—well, at least everyone I used to know as a Jehovah’s Witness—just who do I think I am? That’s probably what you—my Jehovah’s Witness family and past friends—think when you hear of my “apostasy”. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of you even listen to my podcasts, shaking your heads in disbelief.
Bec Wilks, I bet you drop in sometimes. We used to chat about spiritual things all the time and you would get so excited when you saw what the Bible said as opposed to what the Watchtower said. You were, I think, on the cusp of a spiritual awakening, but you have allowed the cult to suppress your true nature, just like I did. That saddens me.
Steve Wilks, my good buddy and pioneer partner. Another deep thinker, but ever since you attended the School for Kingdom Evangelisers you’ve lost your way. You’ve become an “organisational man”, a puppet for the governing body. Sure, you’ll get ahead in the organisation. You might even be appointed as a circuit overseer someday, but you’ll never find true spirituality until you leave the cult.
Bert and Jenny. You were such good friends when I was a Witness, and I know you question things—especially you, Bert. You know that what you’re being told isn’t true, and you know if you question things you’ll find yourself in trouble so you keep quiet, but I think you need to take a long hard look at where the organisation is headed right now and see whether it’s become a cult.
David, my friend, you’re an intelligent man. You’ve read books like The Gentile Times Reconsidered. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve also read Crisis of Conscience by Raymond Franz. Honestly, why are you still a Witness? Is it so you don’t lose your family? Your friends? Your reputation? I get that, but you must know that you’re subscribing to a false religion—worse a cult.
My own JW children. I beg you to think about the things I’ve taught you over the years. You’ve expressed to me how the governing body makes you feel. Trust your instincts. You’re in a cult, and you’re being indoctrinated to the point that you are cutting off your own father who loves you dearly.
Dad, you know it’s not “the truth” anymore. Maybe it never was. You know I’m not a wicked man. You said yourself I know my Bible in a way that no other person you have ever met in your 83 years ever has done. You used to refer to our Family Worship evenings as “mini Gilead courses” because of the depth of spiritual understanding I imparted. I’ve not changed. I’ve just followed the path “God”—if you will—wants me to follow. I’m still the spiritual man you always knew. You are just trapped in a cult, scared to walk away. Why? Because of your reputation? Because you will be viewed as an “apostate” if you leave?
Sue, my sister, you know it’s not “the truth”. You know it’s become a cruel, rule-based religion that doesn’t represent how Jesus feels anymore. So why are you still in it?
Regardless of who you are, your inner voice will be telling you something is “off”. Nevertheless, because of years of indoctrination, you’ll also be thinking, “Who does he think he is? How dare Daniel say the governing body is wrong? How dare he say Jehovah’s Witnesses as an organisation is not “the truth”? If any of you are listening, you’re probably thinking I’m a wicked, proud apostate who’s lost the plot, and now I must be “mentally diseased”—that’s what your literature calls us “apostates”—out to mislead you, in which case I’m wondering why you’re listening. I guess, labelling me as an “apostate” is one way to justify shunning me. Or, if you’re feeling a little kinder, maybe you reason that I must be mentally ill. That always makes Jehovah’s Witnesses feel better, and you know what?—I don’t care anymore.
First of all, yes, I am an apostate, but your definition of apostasy is completely wrong. You say apostates are Satanic, abusive, mentally diseased, out to mislead people, and out to get folks to follow us. That’s absolutely not the case. That is just your definition of “apostasy”. If you bother to look up the real definition it just means, in this case, “a person who renounces a religious belief”—that’s it. In fact, if you were of a different religion before you became a Jehovah’s Witness, well guess what?—you’re an apostate! So, I don’t get too upset when you call me “apostate” anymore. In fact, I think of it as a badge of honour. The reason I’m an apostate, someone who has renounced the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, is because I am intellectually and spiritually honest. What Jehovah’s Witnesses are teaching is a pack of lies. Sure, there is some truth in there, but there is enough falsehood for me not to want to subscribe to it anymore. I won’t be going back to Jehovah’s Witnesses if that’s what you’re wondering. My purpose now is to do what I’m best at—teach about spiritual things and act as a spiritual guide to anyone that wants to know the real truth.
I’m sick and tired of being made to feel like I’m some deviant from “the truth”, or worse, some nut job. I’m neither. There are absolutely good reasons why I have turned my back on Jehovah’s Witnesses and today I’m going to speak plainly in such a way that anyone listening will have no doubt about my reasons for not returning to the organisation. I’m going to tell you exactly who I think I am and I’m going to start by asking you the following:
- Who did Jesus think he was?
- Who did Buddha think he was?
Now you’re probably already thinking “Whoah! Am I actually comparing myself to Buddha and Jesus—two of the greatest spiritual masters that have ever walked the earth?” Jehovah’s Witnesses probably won’t care if I say I’ve attained Buddhahood—after all, he was a false religious leader and I’m an apostate, right? But comparing myself to Jesus? Seriously? Who do I think I am? Out of respect for Jesus’ obvious connection with the Divine I will admit I’m just an old bloke recording podcasts out of Rotherham in his pyjamas, but you know what?—Yes! Absolutely! I am a spiritual teacher, a spiritual guide, as much as Jesus was. I’m not just an old codger speaking off the top of his head about these things. I do have a genuine connection to the Divine, and I do have a spiritual message for my listeners.
The thing is when I was a Jehovah’s Witness I had a message that I felt obligated to tell, but I found I constantly had to work within a box, even after I was anointed in 2004. I knew I had something to say that was from “God”—for want of a better word—but I couldn’t say it, at least not openly, because I was in a cult and that’s how cults work. You are conditioned mentally to only listen to your leaders, and when I tried to speak up in 2004 I got swiftly disfellowshipped for apostasy in order to silence me, and you know what?—that’s absolutely no reflection on me. That is a reflection of how closed-minded and up their own arses, the leadership of Jehovah’s Witnesses have become.
The governing body is petrified of anyone like me speaking a truth that is different to theirs, and God-forbid people actually believing it. When I spoke, I was always expected to fall back on what a Watchtower magazine said, or at the very least what a scripture in the Bible said, because Jehovah’s Witnesses are indoctrinated from the get-go that the only people who speak for God are their governing body—supposedly appointed by Jesus in 1919 to provide “spiritual food at the proper time”. They, and they alone, are the ones God uses to speak his message. They are the very Word of God to all intents and purposes.
It’s gotten so ridiculous now that you can question God. You know, “What does Jehovah think he’s doing?” and get little more than a slapped wrist, but if you so much as hint that you disagree with the governing body, you’re branded as an apostate and put out on you arse. Sorry folks, but that’s nothing less than idolatry, worshipping men, and it’s getting silly because they even use their own Watchtower magazine as their authority now. “The Watchtower says…” as if that is synonymous with “the Bible says…”
When Jesus taught he spoke, it says, “as a person having authority, and not as their scribes.” What that meant back then was Jewish Rabbis (which Jesus was) always quoted some other, older, wiser, more respected Rabbi to give some weight to their message. Jesus never did that. He spoke his truth from his Father—I would say from Source, or from his Higher Self—and that amazed people, because when they heard him they recognised what he was saying was truth, but at the same time there was this disconnect. Who is this guy? Should he be saying these things? He’s just a carpenter. Just like I’m just some guy in his pyjamas doing a podcast, right?
The thing is if what you’re speaking is truth it has a wonderful way of resonating with people. Take Buddha for example. He was so convinced that what he was speaking was truth that he said: “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
He also said: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
And that’s the beauty of truth, real truth. You can speak it and leave it out there. You don’t have to insist that people believe it on pains of being disfellowshipped like the governing body do. They don’t speak with authority because they don’t have any, other than what Jehovah’s Witnesses give them, and they are desperate for people to believe what they teach without question—absolutely desperate—so desperate that they come out with statements like this from The Watchtower November 15th, 2013 p. 20: “… the life-saving direction that we receive from Jehovah’s organization may not appear practical from a human standpoint… All of us must be ready to obey any instructions we may receive, whether these appear sound from a strategic or human standpoint or not.”
So, I am here right now, telling you—and I’m just going to say it as it is, and I honestly hope you will listen—the governing body is not from God. They simply aren’t. The way they conduct themself, revelling in near-godlike status is absolutely not how a spiritually enlightened person carries on. The governing body say they are anointed. They’re not. They say they’re born again of the spirit. They’re not. They don’t have a clue what that means. They are very clearly fleshly, physical, men working from their base animal instincts. They swan around their flashy TV broadcasting studio, all brightness and light, speaking blah blah blah what they think makes them sound “spiritual”, but it doesn’t. To anyone with even an inkling of spirituality, it is obvious they are not spiritual men, and if you are honest with yourself, even as a Jehovah’s Witness, you will know this in the back of your mind when you watch JW Broadcasting. Something seems “off”. The question is just what are you going to do about it?
Understand this much—my beef is not with Jehovah’s Witnesses as individuals. I don’t hate Jehovah’s Witnesses. Quite the opposite. I feel for you because I honestly do believe you are being led astray. In some ways, I wish I could still be with you so I had more of an opportunity to help you see the lies that you’re being fed, but I can’t. I have no place in your organisation any longer—not if I’m interested in the truth. I need to be outside of it now in a position to say what I have to say, and even to help ones as they leave Jehovah’s Witnesses.
For a long time, my dilemma was that the governing body was not teaching the truth, and you can only say “Wait on Jehovah” for so long before you are compromising your own integrity and spiritual authenticity. I reached the point that I simply could not subscribe to a system where blatant lies were being expressed as “the truth” any longer. I couldn’t sit back and say nothing. If I was still a Witness I would have to speak up and say the governing body are not speaking the truth, and you know where that would land me? Out on my backside again as an apostate! So, yep, I’m done playing the games.
So the question remains, Who do I think I am? First of all, I Am. Listen to my earlier podcasts if you’re not sure what that means. I Am. As Jesus said, “I speak [not] of my own originality.” The stuff I put out on my podcasts isn’t just me making up content for social media. What I Am [is] speaking is channelled from a Higher Source—”God”, my Higher Self, Source, whatever you want to call it—and here’s the thing, unlike the governing body who know they have no authority, I have no problem stating for the record that what I speak is inspired. Yep, you heard me right. My teachings are inspired. I Am, indeed a “prophet” with a message from the Divine. You’ll not hear the governing body say that, and it’s not because they’re humble and I’m not, it’s because they know what they’re putting out is a load of twaddle. Saying they’re not inspired is just a cop-out for when it all goes tits up, which it does, regularly, and they don’t need to say they’re inspired because they’ve got the masses viewing every flippin’ nonsencical word that comes out of their mouths as the very Word of God. It really is like that, and it is ridiculous.
On the other hand, what I speak is inspired. There you go. I said it. Yes, I do think I Am—a spiritual teacher, a spiritual guide. That is my purpose and I intend to live up to it. I am “born again”, anointed, spiritually awakened—whatever you want to call it—and what I speak is not just a load of guff. It’s real. Does that mean I’m infallible? No. I make mistakes just like everybody else, sometimes with the way I express things. Vocabulary, I find, is often quite limiting when it comes to expressing these deep spiritual thoughts. Sometimes the truths—and they are truths—that come out of my mouth are, what can I say?—a bit rough around the edges. Sometimes it takes discussion with other spiritually enlightened ones, a meeting of minds if you will, for me to formulate my thoughts in a more eloquent way, and after doing that I will often retune things as I go along and that’s fine, and you know what?—God is fallible. There you go. So it’s no surprise that I Am. We are all God—the I Am—and sometimes the I Am takes a while to get the thoughts into words that make sense to others.
The thing is, I’m in tune with my spirituality and I have a message of truth to convey to others. It’s a simple message. The message is that you don’t need to follow the likes of Stephen Lett, Anthony Morris III, and the rest of their gang—you are God, an instance of Source Mind, and the answers are within you. You see, a true spiritual guide is not so much about teaching as guiding those who are seeking to find the truth for themselves.
Honestly, it breaks my heart to see the governing body monopolising on the “We are Christ’s brothers”, “We are the voice of God” speil to make you, individual Witnesses, feel like little sheepies that need to follow them. It’s nothing short of an insult. It’s a form of spiritual age regression where they treat you like children. Worse, actually, like idiots. So I beg you. Stop! Please! Wake up and realise that you are all there is—the I Am, the Divine. You are everything and more than the governing body claims to be because they are just versions of us that are messing it up big time. They are, quite frankly, an embarrassment.
I don’t see the Watch Tower organisation falling over any time soon, but they are haemorrhaging members just now. People are voting with their feet and it’s great to see. The governing body is their own worst enemy. They bang on about apostates, but seriously, we don’t need to do much these days. They’re hammering the nails in their own coffins.
I’m not saying any of this for you to follow me. That’s not my purpose. I’ve got a message, sure, but I just want you to take it on board and figure out what you believe. The answers, like I say, are within you. You don’t need to remain subservient any longer to those moronic leaders operating out of a luxury complex in the USA. Start listening to yourself. Trust what your instincts are telling you every time you watch these God-awful men on JW Broadcasting. They are fakes, frauds, liars, and the longer they are allowed to keep pushing their lies the more people are getting hurt. Seriously, lives are being ruined by these men.
Ok, I’m disfellowshipped, I broke your rules. You kicked me out. Shun me if you must, but come on—shunning child abuse victims who disassociate from the organisation because they just can’t stomach what happened to them? Seriously? And disassociating someone who dares to allow their child to have a blood transfusion and then are not sorry enough when they survive. Really? Watch Tower you have sunk to an all-time low!
In conclusion, I have two scriptures I want to share with you. These are two Bible verses which I think describe the governing body perfectly. The first one is from 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4, and I shall read from the New World Translation.
“However, brothers, concerning the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ [and as a Witness, you will believe that is now, right?] and our being gathered together to him [something you’re expecting to happen any day soon], we ask you not to be quickly shaken from your reason nor to be alarmed either by an inspired statement or by a spoken message or by a letter appearing to be from us, to the effect that the day of Jehovah is here. [Notice, the apostle was there warning people to be careful of ones saying the end is here, Armageddon is just around the corner, and so on.] Let no one lead you astray in any way, because it will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed, the son of destruction. He stands in opposition and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God, publicly showing himself to be a god.”
There you go. Where is the apostasy? Where is the “man of lawlessness”? Not out here. Not in Rotherham, not among the likes of me. No, the real apostasy is “in the temple of God”. So, if there are any true anointed within Jehovah’s Witnesses, look within that group to find your “man of lawlessness”. My money is on the most prominent of those, the governing body. When I was a Jehovah’s Witness I actually foresaw the current situation way back in 2004. I could see the governing body were getting too big for their own boots. As time has gone on, they have become the “evil slave” that beats their brothers. Disfellowshipping, shunning, their total control over the thoughts and emotions of the flock. It really is quite despicable.
And the other scripture—2 Corinthians 11:13-15: “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself keeps disguising himself as an angel of light. It is therefore nothing extraordinary if his ministers also keep disguising themselves as ministers of righteousness.”
Remember that the next time you see the governing body floating around their flashy TV studio. Interestingly, back in 1981, Awake! March 22, criticising TV evangelists observed: “The preacher… roams over the multilevel stage of his television ‘cathedral,’ bathed in… lights… polished to a mirror finish, with every step outlined in flashing lights, and numerous backdrops constantly changing…” Oh, the irony!
So, there you go. I’m not putting up with it anymore. I’m telling it as it is. Call me an apostate if you want. I don’t care. I know I’m not. I know who the true apostates are, the ones that have taken a brotherhood of generally decent folk that just want to please God, and turned it into a cult. I’m glad I’m out. I’m never going back, and I will teach spiritual truths as they come to me without hesitation moving forward. This is my purpose. I Am a spiritual teacher, a spiritual guide, with a Divine message. That’s it folks. I said it.
I shall leave you with a poem I wrote that sums up just how I feel. It’s called, I Am Not of This Crowd.
I am not of this Crowd —
The void, the blank, the disavowed,
Identical of face
And marching on apace.
“Not too fast! Not so slow!”
Oh, how deathly, row by row
They wander blindly on
And go where they are told to go —
“Be gone! Be gone!”
Without a question — not one dares,
Or Death be done — and so they stare
Only forward, never back,
With fixed expressions, haunted, black.
So fake, unreal, so long unsung.
A shroud to mute their demon tongue.
Their grey, forgotten, sunken eyes
Are windows to the Truth — their Lies!
Boarded up, contained within,
Then cruelly drenched in see-through skin
And told to sleep —
“Sleep on! Sleep on!”
None will die uniquely.
Each will drown the same,
And row by row they’ll leave this Earth
As surely as they came.
“So sad! So sad!”
These threatened clones
Of blood and flesh and fragile bones,
These empty, frightened, programmed drones.
Controlled abstractly from afar —
Vaguely noticed, cogs they are.
Yet I will stand my ground
And not “Flow on, Flow on!”
While those around me drown —
“So long! So long!”
I will not play the Game —
I will not be the Same!
I am not of this Crowd —
The void, the blank, the disavowed,
Identical of face
And marching on apace.
Now queue the comments from the brainwashed indoctrinated masses that think they are “God’s people”. Thanks for joining me again. Drop by again soon.