I was raised a Jehovah's Witness. I'm no longer a Jehovah's Witness. I did tour Bethel in NY. I knew 2 people that served at Bethel. The tunnels were not a secret. I'm no fan of that religion. It has torn my family apart.
My dad is an elder, my 3 brother in law's are elders, my sister and her husband were missionaries in Ecuador. My dad helped build the new location in Warwick NY. They are not trafficking children.
However, they have a 2 witness rule, so if a child were to tell that someone was molesting and/or raped them, the elders would not do anything because there was not another witness. Therefore, the pedophiles get away with it and if they move, the new Kingdom Hall they go to is not alerted.
Basically, a pedophile haven. The headquarters in NY have a governing body of 7 men. They say that they get direct information or light from God and sometimes that light changes, hence the explanation of their many doctrine and date changes.
They do disassociate or disfellowship people, including adolescents. Which means a person has to sit in front of 3 elders and talk about what they did (smoke, fornication, drugs, etc) then they would leave the room to pray on it and come back and decide that person's fate.
If disfellowshiped it is announced at the next Jehovah's Witness meeting and nobody is to speak to that person until the elders feel that they can become "re-instated)
More info on the hidden pedophilia is found here:
https://jwvictims.org/the-australian-royal-commission-and-child-sex-abuse-jehovahs-witnesses/No Satanic abuse, I'm not sure how that would be defined. No murder, but if one does murder someone and goes to prison they can still repent. No physical torture. Maybe some physical abuse, that is a parent thing, and the elders rarely get involved with that.
Lots and lots of mental and emotional abuse.
No blood transfusions, they can talk to people that are not Jehovah's Witnesses but friendships are strongly discouraged.
One can also get disfellowshiped for going to another church. They are not allowed to research any literature except their own literature.
Anyone have any questions I can certainly do my best to answer them.
It's been the end of the world for me since I was 4. I grew up having anxiety and then full blown panic attacks from the constant talk and pictures in the literature (even for children) of Armageddon.
