"Sitting at His throne," the Geftakys Assembly seminars

April 2002
By a former member of the Geftakys Assembly

Members of the Geftakys Assembly are often chided for not paying attention during seminars, not taking notes or dozing off. And members are expected to do intense preparation for each seminar. This may involve a flurry of activities, anything from "spring cleaning," preparation for meals, setting up beds, to arranging for rides to and from the meetings.

During the seminar members rush back and forth from the meeting place to home, in hopes of having everything ready for the next meeting. This combination of seminar meetings, frenetic preparation and a very schedule, has some interesting parallels to the characteristics of many totalitarian movements within the past century. That is, participants are kept so busy marching from point A to point B and back to point A again, that it leaves very little time for meaningful independent thinking or behavior.

Geftakys Assembly members are constantly indoctrinated with the group's claimed ideals, but simultaneously confronted with their own failure to achieve those goals. The frequent result of this seeming double bind, is that George Geftakys has a conference room full of followers who are mentally and physically exhausted. And thus they are made ready to accept his vision for their lives!

Free thinking children in the Assembly may ask the question, "Why do we have to go to the seminar?" The average member of the Geftakys Assembly will attend three seminars a year. These "seminars" are periods of intense indoctrination regarding the practices and teachings of the Assembly. Each seminar is a three to four day marathon promoted by the leadership as "sitting at His throne."

Seminars are advertised as an "in-depth study of the bible" about various themes and subjects. Teachings can range from outlines of books written by H.A. Ironsides to George Geftakys's own personal interpretation of the bible.

Many people who have listened to George Geftakys teach often ask themselves, "What was he talking about?" George himself openly discusses this fact, "People leave these lectures of mine saying they don't know what I'm talking about, but they also say that what I am saying sounds great!"

At times George can follow a well structured outline that just about anyone can understand. Yet, at other times George doesn't seem to follow any structure. His topics seems to float around in no clearly defined direction. He will talk on subjects that only he seems to understand. Given that George infers he has an intensely deep relationship with God, many of his followers excuse the fact that they cannot understand what he is talking about.

George even has his own vocabulary and draws confusing and complex charts as he preaches. Followers lean forward in their seats trying to catch a glimpse of the "great spiritual truths" George expounds while he interjects, "This is great! "Can't you see it dear ones!" George may even say, "You don't understand these things because you are carnal!"

George does have a very demanding style, which stretches almost any attendee's cognitive skills. He has a habit of quoting anywhere from 300 to 500 verses of scripture in a single lecture. This is compounded by the fact that people attending the seminar are expected to turn to each verse of scripture and take notes as they go.

Apart from the obvious, the seminars serve more than just some academic purpose. Seminars have an intense effect upon the average member's mind. The seminar meeting itself involves listening to George lecture, often for two hours straight. And such meetings may be held as many as three times a day. A seminars itself may last four days. This means that a typical seminar may include as much as fourteen to sixteen hours of lecturing.

Being an educator myself, if I employed George's teaching style within my own classroom, little learning would probably effectively go on. And it is likely that if my supervisor observed me subjecting my students to such a classroom environment, I would lose my job.