With regards to members put under assembly displine, this is called being “shut up” which means they will be seperated away from the assembly and any other family member not “shut up” whom they will not be allowed normal contact with.Neither can they associate with worldly people during this time in any social kind of way , and demonstrating their repentance might even take months or sometimes even years until they are finally accepted back into fellowship again.This happens if the local heavy leaders and the world leader agree.And some members have tried for years to get back into fellowship this way keeping seperate the whole time faithful in hope of being returned to fellowship ,only to die sad lonely heartbroken people having never gotten to see their loved ones, including a husband or wife or children ever again.

And no members could never ever fellowship with your group, or any other group .They would soon find themselves promptly excommunicated if they did and got caught .

Leaders authority is thought of almost like God .Ministry is thought of rather like books of the bible written by prophets.Sometimes in meeting when the world leader enters the room , its like the Queen or Royality has just entered the building , people are already seated and waiting in great reverence for him to enter and may even remain reverently seated again as he leaves.

More info http://www.caic.org.au/zbrethren.htm

Hope this information is interesting and a little useful to you John .Please excuse me if i have doubled up on any links you already had.I didnt check the links out, to be honest it all makes me feel rather sick just looking at it all .Its all a bit of a nightmare.

With regards to your comment about the video not telling the whole story , i understand what you say .I hope you understand there will be those who will try to deny stuff with regards to the Exclusive Brethren too .They have power and big business and lots of money , and worldly people who like making money through dealing with them , and also a way of treating “outsiders” with a type of “love bombing” and all manner of niceties “specially designed” to try to make themselves look all sweet and rosy and like they would never even harm a lamb .

Paul.

Its my pleasure to comment. I just find it all a little sad to know others suffer these same things also.Yes mostly things are still much like documented in your post, i saw nothing that didnt seem correct.Of course there has been much other crazy stuff such as rules with regards to not swimming at beaches or public pools or rule even against members owning pools.And rules against men wearing shorts.Or rules against joining sports teams or even going fishing or hunting.And real silly stuff like sewer pipes not being allowed to connect with the worldly neighbours sewer pipes like on right of way sections on shared driveways before the sewers meet the road way,at one time you were expected to have your own special sewer pipes.And if you owned a flat with any common shared walls with worldly neighbours, you might need to build another false wall with a gap between. And businesses sending mail to worldly customers with attachments ,should only use paper clips, not staple them onto the page. A staple might be considdered as wrongfully “yoked together” with worldly.

These rules and regulations were endless and full of madness. Some still remain , while others have been relaxed a little ,due to need of business and making money or else due to public pressure from looking rather stupid from having such silly rules.

Regarding what you wrote .Sadly Raven/Taylor/Hales group later also split into many more other small groups as well including the Renton Brethren and Kelly Brethren and Strang Brethren and Booth/Glanton brethren to name a few. From Scandles and power trip schisms and squabbles and what not .The Exclusive brethren stayed the largest group.The biggest split came from James Taylor scandle http://peebs.net/Aberdeen_Incident/aberdeen-incident.php Another opinion of what happened http://rogerstott.co.uk/writingsdocs/writings/TheSchism1959-60.html and another site for even more info with regards to matter of Plymouth Brethren http://www.mybrethren.org/sitefram.htm

With regards to what you wrote about job loss .Not only would some members lose there job,but they might also find the exclusive brethren will sometime try to see that they cant get any another job in the same town either.Read about this one account of one ex member named Murray Turley, a 56-year-old pilot who lost his job due to Exclusive Brethren pressure on a airline company he worked for , its recorded part way down this page which is all about some cases of the nastiness of this group http://www.culthelp.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=230&Itemid=8

You wondered what kinds of companies they owned ,yes construction companies and all sorts, specially including much manufacturing ,but not many businesses that require any university skills.

School library books are all highly censored ,very little sex education is taught in school and evolution is a big no ,pages to do with these type subjects are all covered over or ripped out.The members are not taught in universities ,so they dont have doctors or lawyers or even teachers etc.

Paul,

Thank you, for taking time to read and comment. Are present and former members treated as was mentioned in the post?
If you feel there are more similarities to mention, please let me know.
author@religiouscults.info.com The video you watched did not tell the whole story, but it was a start.

John

I just watched a YouTube video on that “blasting” thing from the group you left ,WoW .Thats some crazy stuff too.