Weaponizing Fear: How Victor Paul Wierwille Used Fear to Control Followers

Today, in 2026, most of the people running The Way International organization did not personally know the founder: Victor Paul Wierwille (VPW) who died in 1985. 

Current Board members are listed here: The Way International - Biblical Research, Teaching, and Fellowship

I did know VPW. He trained me to be a leader in The Way and assigned me to his biblical research team. (See photo at the end of this post featuring Dr. and Mrs. Wierwille, me, my former husband, and others on stage at the annual festival at Way headquarters, 1983.

From my experience, I can tell you he used fear to draw believers into his high-control organization and keep them there.

VPW’s authoritarian influence is preserved in his tape-recorded teachings, printed books, and videos of films made of him teaching the Bible. Many of those videos are posted on YouTube. If you search online today, you can find these materials. But be aware that VPW plagiarized many other Christian authors, even copying most of a book on the Holy Spirit by J.E. Stiles. Some materials bearing Wierwille’s name as the author are displayed on The Way’s website:

Foundational, Intermediate, and Advanced Classes - The Way International

VP Wierwille trained me

As I said, Wierwille personally trained me in his leadership program called The Way Corps, 1971-1973. At that time, he ran the program at The Way International Headquarters, his family’s farm on the outskirts of The Village of New Knoxville, Ohio. The headquarters still operates there.

After graduating from the Way Corps in 1973, I served as a fellowship leader with my then-husband (ordained by Wierwille) in California and Florida. If you’ve read my memoir, Undertow: My Escape from the Fundamentalism and Cult Control of The Way International, you know I was enmeshed in The Way for 17 years, escaping Way headquarters in 1987.

VPW used two major fears to recruit and keep followers

1.     Fear of the Devil and his devil spirits trying to trick us into disobeying God.

2.     Fear that the Devil would destroy our lives if we left The Way organization. 

VPW told us that because we were committed to his ministry, The Way International—the place that taught “the accuracy of The Word”— that …

1.     the Devil was out to defeat our goals.

2.     the Devil would tempt us to not stand with Wierwille,

3.     the Devil would try to deceive us into disassociating from The Way,

4.     the Devil used outsiders to turn us against Wierwille,

5.     the Devil deployed devil spirits to enter our minds if we doubted VPW’s teachings,

6.     the Devil sent agents to speak against The Way and destroy Wierwille’s ministry.

We were often emotionally on edge

How could we flourish while faithful to the Way when we were always looking over our shoulder for the next attack by the Devil?

1.     Being faithful to The Way meant we had to be on guard against the Devil’s temptations.

2.     Being a defector meant the Devil would destroy us: heap sickness, poverty, and destruction on us and our loved ones. VPW said this would happen because we “walked out from under the umbrella of God’s protection.” He’d use the character, Job, in the Bible as an example.

What some of us failed to "get" until we left the group and gained perspective, was that even while being faithful followers who attended fellowships and gave our time, talents, and money to the organization, we sometimes suffered sickness, poverty, and other maladies, just like anyone who wasn’t involved with The Way. That is the human condition.

How did Way followers interpret bad things happening to them?

1.     If while involved with The Way we suffered any “bad things” the reason was usually chalked up to the bad things being our fault, i.e. we didn’t believe positively enough or pray well enough. Or it was because we were not obedient to The Word, which made us “out of fellowship with God” so He couldn’t answer our prayers.

 2.     Being out of fellowship meant we’d temporarily lost God’s protection and must change our thoughts and behavior to match what Wierwille said the Bible said, or we must obey some kind of instruction from leaders he appointed over us.

Not until I rejected Wierwille’s assertions, did I understand how that fearful ideology had prevented me from living a joyful life.

An irony

And not until I got beyond The Way’s influence, did I realize this irony: VPW taught that God was all powerful, but in daily practice, he often made the Devil seem more powerful than God.

Authoritarians use fear

For people who study authoritarian regimes, it’s obvious that Wierwille was an authoritarian. He used fear, fear, fear especially in his intensive leadership training program, The Way Corps. Fear, humiliation, and reward/punishment were used to keep us in line, squelch our freedom of speech, and control our behavior.

Recommended reading

In his book, Combating Cult Mind Control, Stephen Hassen uses what he calls the B.I.T.E. model to describe the avenues of control cults use to gain keep followers: Behavior, Information, Thoughts, and Emotions.

Thanks for reading,

Charlene Edge

Blogger: User Profile: Charlene Lamy Edge

 


 

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