Posted by Liberty [Liberty] on October 25, 1999 at 11:26:36 {DjTI9F5X/YMwiuh6GymAdHqlgCajU.}:
The Watch Tower Society's 1975 prediction was so embarassingly wrong that it was essential for the Society to plant seeds of doubt(about 75's reality) in the rank & file J.W.s so it could maintain at least some semblance of credability after NOTHING happened in that "marked" year. The Society was very successful since many have forgotten it or think they made it up themselves cause they were too impatient. I was there folks, you didn't imagine it or get so excited you had false visions, 75 was real and its source was the Watch Tower Society, not our imaginations. It was not local either because we went to every large assembly in the West and Mid-West including Denver,Huston,Kansas City and the buzz back then was the same for every J.W. you would meet from all over the country(U.S.). I trust my memory but was happy to have it confirmed by real W.T. publications from the period. Don't take my word for it, there is plenty of written evidence from the Society's own publications and lots of tape evidence from talks given at this time(cheap audio tapes were becoming widley available at this time and many brothers taped every talk back then).
New ones are misled about 75's importance and dismiss it when it's brought up as evidenced many times here on H2O. If you are an old timer let me assure you again we did not become "over zealous" and imagine the whole thing. If you are a post 75 convert check for yourself & do not let the Society's poo-pooing of this false prediction under cut its importance(huge growth pre-75,large fall away after 76)and no it was not a test by Jehovah to cull out the spiritually weak who only wanted to get into the "NEW WORLD"(as if most J.W. aren't really interested in the reward anyway). Too bad for the Society that the Oil Crisis didn't wait a few years cause that would have been a good fulfillment and they would have pointed to that and said,"see we told you it was a marked year!" never mind it wasn't the big "A". Just like 1914 where they got lucky with a war they never predicted but it gave 'em something to make people forget they were yet again wrong about the big "A". But nothing at all happened in 75 so nothing to point to at all. Pretty bad when you make so many predictions and can't even hit one world shaking incident by accident in 1975. I hope all you true believers are around in another 40 years or so cause if I'm still around I want to talk to you about how the big "A" still hasn't happened yet.