Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society [Hardcover]

Diane Wilson (Author), Jerry Bergman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

This tale of mind control, the use of fear to manipulate vulnerable people, and final escape from a suffocating cult environment is a revealing expose of a secretive contemporary sect, as well as a true psychological thriller. Diane Wilson spent twenty-five precious years of her life, first becoming indoctrinated by the dogma of the Watchtower Society, and then struggling to free herself from its pervasive, intimidating clutches. In this probing, brutally honest assessment, Wilson describes how a childhood of psychological abuse and lack of self-confidence rendered her vulnerable to the seductive doctrines of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yet as time went on and the society demanded rigid control over every aspect of her life, even her every thought, Wilson began to rebel. Her gradual awakening, at first unconsciously through physical and psychological ailments, and then consciously as a caring therapist helped her rediscover her true self, is a fascinating story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The public needs to be warned," says ex-Jehovah's Witness Diane Wilson about the religion she once embraced. In Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society, Wilson recounts her quarter-century in the movement, making the usual case that the Society is a cult, that it exercises unhealthy control over the minds and behavior of its members and that it grooms followers to become victims. Certainly, her story is sad, particularly the part about being encouraged to shun her own daughter for several months, but it is hardly a balanced or even very perceptive book. (One of the most interesting elements of the narrative is that Wilson seems to have transferred the near-divine authority that she once vested in her church to her therapist, whose words are sometimes reprinted here in boldface.) Sadly, few objective accounts exist about the Jehovah's Witnesses; little stands in the middle between polemic and apologetic. Readers are left with classic studies such as M. James Penton's Apocalypse Delayed, a rare book that seeks not just to discredit and refute the Watchtower, but to understand it.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...well developed and entirely persuasive..." -- BookLoons.com

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573929425
• ISBN-13: 978-1573929424
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it first, then judge, February 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society (Hardcover)

This book is one persons story, not an objective but a subjective account about life in the Jehovah's Witnesses. Books such as M. James Penton's excellent and highly recommended work Apocalypse Delayed are a scholar's account of the Watchtower based on library research. To fully understand a movement (any movement), reading individual life stories such as Diane Wilson's are critical. Having read many accounts such as Ms. Wilson's, it is obvious to me that her story (and those of many others) should be taken very seriously. Only one who has lived as part of the Watchtower Society as a baptized member can fully understand what is it like to be a committed member (or trapped because a spouse is a member, and one knows that all too often leaving means loss of family as happened to Diane). Ms. Wilson's account will give the reader a feel for what it is like to be a Witness (and Witnesses will find themselves saying over and over "that is just how I felt!" or "that is what happened to me!"). A trend exists in academia that concludes one should not say unkind things about other religions. This rule may be fine in mixed company, but it will not really help us to understand this or any other movement. Also, few people wish to apply this rule to some groups such as the Taliban now, although certainly scholarly studies and individual life storied are both necessary to understand both the Taliban and the Watchtower (both have more in common than it first appears). To be a Witness, one usually must be either in or out, or, as they say, in the truth or of the world (Satan's world, that is). Outsiders seem to have a hard time accepting the reality of what it is like being in the Watchtower Society. Read this book (the whole book, and also check the many references) and find out why. Even a veteran Watchtower watcher can learn much from this well documented story.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reminded Me of Moon's Unification Church, November 27, 2003

By 

Gordon Neufeld (Schenectady, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society (Hardcover)

This is a very thorough, well-thought out account of one women's lengthy sojourn in the Watchtower Society as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Many of the characteristics of that group that Ms. Wilson describes were familiar to me as a former member of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church (the "Moonies"). For example, she mentions the Watchtower Society's claim to be the only true Christians; the Unification Church teaches the same. She mentions the belief that in the near future, the world will be completely transformed when believers alone will be elevated to positions of power; this is something I also encountered in the Moonies. She mentions the tendency of the Jehovah's Witnesses to act in a very friendly manner toward new recruits, but then to become disinterested once an individual is fully committed to the organization. This is something I also experienced in the Moonies. The Watchtower Society fits in every particular the model of a high-demand, psychologically abusive mind control group such as I myself had the misfortune to endure. As well, Ms. Wilson delves into doctrinal issues, demonstrating from old publications that the Watchtower Society has frequently vacillated in its teachings on key doctrines, often with terrible medical repercussions for their believers. This is a well-researched and well-argued account of an excruciating emotional ordeal.

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart and mind, February 25, 2002

By 

CER (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Awakening of a Jehovah's Witness: Escape from the Watchtower Society (Hardcover)

A clear demonstration of the emotions that come into play when discussing religious experience. I liked the mix of factual topics like JW doctrinal changes with the personal conflicts that many probably experience but are told how evil that is to think about and feel when seeing injustice or untruth.

The Watchtower put the organized into "organized religion", this shows how the higher goals of organizations (including other churches as well) supercede the individual need. Don't suspend your higher mental functions when accepting "truth".

This book is much better reading than the confrontational and expose style anti-JW, protestant Christian books. Thinking with mind and heart is much more productive, as is this book.

For those among the Watchtower camp, the material conforms well with many other sources that I've encountered over 30 years about Watchtower practice and teaching. It isn't out to get you, just to make you stop pretending not to notice commonplace occurrences among Jehovah's Witnesses. A good complement to the Ray Franz book "Crisis of Conscience".