- 5 months ago
John invites Nancy to share her story about how spiritual confusion, controlling influences, and false teachings shaped her early Christian experience. Nancy recounts how her exposure to charismatic circles, deliverance teachings, and cultic thinking left her emotionally drained and spiritually stifled. She describes the environment as manipulative, performance-driven, and filled with fear, offering humorous yet painful reflections on how joy and authenticity were suppressed. Together, she and John explore how individuals caught in unhealthy groups often carry deep trauma and wrestle with guilt, doubt, and fear long after leaving.
As the conversation unfolds, Nancy reveals her background before conversion, including involvement with alternative belief systems and how she eventually came to faith through the influence of genuinely joyful believers. She discusses the influence of a specific institution and how it contributed to spiritual deterioration. John adds historical context, linking these experiences to broader religious trends like the post-war revival era and the roots of certain fringe movements. The discussion ultimately moves toward healing and encouragement, with both reflecting on the slow, patient work of untangling harmful ideas and relearning faith through honesty, questioning, and quiet persistence.
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Nancy’s early influences and salvation in 1979
02:15 Getting entangled in bad teachings from books, radio, and churches
03:06 The beginning of the podcast and the flood of stories from ex-members
03:36 Cult patterns: narcissistic leaders and manipulation
05:00 Laughter, joy, and constant confession were taboo
05:48 Deliverance ministry confusion and casting demons out of everything
06:54 Charismatic emotionalism and the struggle to hear from God
07:41 Questioning God vs. questioning bad teachings
08:04 The pain and difficulty of leaving high-control groups
09:00 Fear tactics: questioning equals rebellion or blasphemy
10:00 John’s motivation for speaking out and growing audience response
10:56 Nancy’s experience with Elim and early signs of spiritual abuse
11:46 Deliverance teachings blamed everything on demons
13:06 Joy discouraged, emotional exhaustion encouraged
13:48 The con of deliverance: convincing people they need invisible cures
15:00 When leaders go too far: accusations and manipulations
16:00 Nancy’s background in witchcraft and Satanism
17:08 False teachers just as bad as the occult
17:28 Usurping the role of the Holy Spirit
17:47 William Branham’s role in popularizing deliverance ministry
18:42 Burned-over district and New York’s spiritual confusion
19:18 Tracing revival roots back to Finney and early heresies
21:04 Revival burnout and cycling into deeper intensity
22:43 Leaders shift blame onto the people
24:05 Nancy’s personal stories of church abuse and twisting scripture
25:53 Indoctrinated urgency and the false pressure to have answers
27:00 False revivalism and the manipulation of emotions
2
As the conversation unfolds, Nancy reveals her background before conversion, including involvement with alternative belief systems and how she eventually came to faith through the influence of genuinely joyful believers. She discusses the influence of a specific institution and how it contributed to spiritual deterioration. John adds historical context, linking these experiences to broader religious trends like the post-war revival era and the roots of certain fringe movements. The discussion ultimately moves toward healing and encouragement, with both reflecting on the slow, patient work of untangling harmful ideas and relearning faith through honesty, questioning, and quiet persistence.
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Nancy’s early influences and salvation in 1979
02:15 Getting entangled in bad teachings from books, radio, and churches
03:06 The beginning of the podcast and the flood of stories from ex-members
03:36 Cult patterns: narcissistic leaders and manipulation
05:00 Laughter, joy, and constant confession were taboo
05:48 Deliverance ministry confusion and casting demons out of everything
06:54 Charismatic emotionalism and the struggle to hear from God
07:41 Questioning God vs. questioning bad teachings
08:04 The pain and difficulty of leaving high-control groups
09:00 Fear tactics: questioning equals rebellion or blasphemy
10:00 John’s motivation for speaking out and growing audience response
10:56 Nancy’s experience with Elim and early signs of spiritual abuse
11:46 Deliverance teachings blamed everything on demons
13:06 Joy discouraged, emotional exhaustion encouraged
13:48 The con of deliverance: convincing people they need invisible cures
15:00 When leaders go too far: accusations and manipulations
16:00 Nancy’s background in witchcraft and Satanism
17:08 False teachers just as bad as the occult
17:28 Usurping the role of the Holy Spirit
17:47 William Branham’s role in popularizing deliverance ministry
18:42 Burned-over district and New York’s spiritual confusion
19:18 Tracing revival roots back to Finney and early heresies
21:04 Revival burnout and cycling into deeper intensity
22:43 Leaders shift blame onto the people
24:05 Nancy’s personal stories of church abuse and twisting scripture
25:53 Indoctrinated urgency and the false pressure to have answers
27:00 False revivalism and the manipulation of emotions
2
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Nancy West.
00:48Nancy, it's good to connect with you and to have you on the podcast to share your story.
00:53I've enjoyed some of the comments I watch whenever people are in the premieres having the conversation.
01:00It's been fun and exciting to watch everybody chatting, and I invited you to share your story,
01:06and I'm glad you did.
01:07So maybe if you could just take a moment and tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
01:11Well, I'm a little different than some, because I didn't come from a direct church or organization,
01:18group, whatever.
01:19But I realized there were a lot of teachings that had come in, and especially as a very young believer.
01:25I was saved in August of 1979, so I knew I was saved.
01:30But unfortunately, you start trusting people that are older, you believe they're wiser,
01:34and they start bringing in books, teachings they've heard, people that, you know,
01:41we went off and visited different churches, things like that.
01:45Radio stations and bookstores, you find out, were not reliable.
01:49And it came to me the other day that Catherine Kuhlman and Ken Hagen were two I'd heard on the radio,
01:57which was already bad.
02:00So dating a young man that was going to the Elam Bible Institute was bringing in far more of it.
02:07So I kind of got surrounded by a wasp nest, or a bunch of wasps,
02:11and I couldn't quite locate the nest until I started watching this podcast
02:14and getting all these puzzle pieces together with John and with all the guests on here.
02:20You don't know how much you have helped me.
02:22See, you're all my shrinks, you know.
02:24You're helping me mentally with this.
02:27So thank you for this.
02:28I thank God for this.
02:29I don't know if I'd go so far as to call me a shrink.
02:32However, I work with some good shrinks who are watching the podcast,
02:36and offering to help.
02:37So we do have psychotherapists, etc.
02:41And I do recommend if you have ever been in one of these groups,
02:45it's probably helpful to go to something like this, at least for a period of time.
02:49But, yeah, it's a crazy journey.
02:52You listen to other people tell their stories.
02:54And, you know, when I first began this,
02:57I really didn't have any vision of it turning into what it did.
03:01And I just had a couple people whose stories were really interesting,
03:05and I had them come on and share their stories.
03:08One of them was in a specific cult,
03:11and they were wanting to expose their cult.
03:13And there were some strategic opportunities for them to share their story.
03:19So I let them do it.
03:21And once I did, everybody started coming out of the woodwork.
03:24They want to share their story, too.
03:26Because even though that was a specific cult for the lady that shared her story,
03:31it was so relatable to the other cults.
03:34They all act and behave the same.
03:37There's always a central figure that is a narcissistic personality,
03:41very controlling, very manipulative.
03:43And I think people, when they're in the groups, they're aware of this.
03:48But it's not until they escape and reflect on it that they realize something was really bad wrong.
03:54And it's just like all these other groups, these people that are sharing their stories.
03:59So over time, it just became, you know, what it did.
04:02And it's funny, because when you're saying, when you're in it,
04:05and afterwards you're thinking, was I eating lead paint?
04:07You know, it does make you wonder.
04:10And that's why putting all these different things together.
04:13And it was a few days before recording this, you had a young lady on here.
04:19Well, I'm not sure, young lady, but I'll tell you that.
04:22Her name was Simone.
04:23And she was talking about the treatment of women,
04:27that why would God give me a fully functioning mind if he made us to be so low level?
04:31No, that was one of them.
04:33The other one was like, laughter is taboo.
04:35And we can get to going in the chat someday and really having a laugh.
04:39But that is the one thing that I heard people that knew me decades ago
04:44that came up and said, I never saw you smile before.
04:48And it was almost as if you laughed or you just let your guard down for a moment
04:55just to enjoy the moment.
04:56Like I was just watching a caterpillar outside a little while ago.
04:59But you're letting your guard down.
05:01You always have to be sin paranoid.
05:02And then this endless confession and the deliverance ministry stuff,
05:07that got even weirder.
05:09And it's such a convoluted mess that a lot of these teachings brought that,
05:17you know, I'm just trying to write it down in a journal form for myself.
05:21But that is one of the craziest things when you start reading or hearing from other people
05:27that, oh, we all ended up in these weird doctrines and trying to figure out where it came from.
05:36And I remember being handed a book called The Manual for Spiritual Warfare.
05:40I couldn't tell you the author, but it was casting demons out of everything from rocks to cans of soup.
05:45You know, you name it.
05:47It was, oh, my word.
05:49And we got some new youth group leaders.
05:53When I got saved, I got to do a shout out.
05:56If you're out there, Neil Armand, thank you.
05:58I can't hear the book of Galatians to this day without hearing him teaching it.
06:03And we got other people to bring in things like John Todd and a lot of Hale Lindsay.
06:09And then it started going off with other books and other things and other churches.
06:15And I guess that's where I got a touch of the charismatic side of things.
06:21And I'm not, how did you say the skeptizationist?
06:25Is that what you called it?
06:26I'm one of those, too.
06:28I think that's what I said, but I'll be honest.
06:30I came with that on the fly as I was speaking, so I have no idea what I said.
06:35I was actually going to add an extra syllable to say skeptisationalist or skeptisensationalist because there's a lot of that going on.
06:45Everything was emotional.
06:47Everything was like, you know, the crawling in a hollow log and waiting for the Lord to speak.
06:52And then it wasn't happening.
06:54And I thought something was wrong with me.
06:57And it turns out the Lord was keeping my feet on the ground.
07:00And you have to learn to walk by faith.
07:03And it's taken some years to start to look at the actual teachings I got and realize, wow, that was wrong.
07:11And moving forward with the Lord again, because I just would say to the Lord, I remember the Jesus that saved me, but who are you?
07:21And that's where it's taken about the past 20 years to really start moving me through.
07:26It's okay to ask questions.
07:28I'm not arguing against the Word of God.
07:31I'm asking what did I learn and what's wrong.
07:34And like everybody else, it's a journey.
07:37And I wish it didn't take this long, but it does.
07:40It's more difficult than people realize, especially when you're in it and you watch people leave.
07:45Usually they say they left because they couldn't follow the rules or they left because they, in the Branhamism, we would, my grandfather would say, they went out from among us because they were not of us.
07:56In other words, it's us versus them.
07:58And they would always put you in that mindset, but they don't realize when somebody leaves how difficult it is to leave the group.
08:05It's not that people even want to leave, but there are people like myself, when inwardly you know something is wrong, you just have to raise your hand and say, wait, this is wrong.
08:16We can't keep doing this.
08:17And so the people who leave actually have it more difficult than the people who stay.
08:21But yet the people who stay often are brainwashed and don't understand why they're staying.
08:26And I think a lot of it is the same thing that I ran into, that you're being told if you leave the group, it's like any cult, that you're leaving God.
08:34You're rejecting Jesus if you reject us, as if they are the truth bearers.
08:40And that, I think, is what scares people into staying, and also why, even after I left all these churches, I was still afraid to bring up questions because they made you, well, they convinced you that questioning anything that you've learned was a rejection of Jesus himself.
08:59Oh, you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit, that's it, you're on your way to hell.
09:02And the Lord started bringing it out of me, and it's like, you remember when you were a kid and you'd lay on a beach ball and push it down underwater?
09:10And you'd love to watch it pop up until you'd get right in the jaw one day.
09:15Yeah.
09:15But that's exactly how I started dealing with what I'd been through.
09:20And the Lord's like, well, you just get off a beach ball instead of getting cracked in the jaw all the time.
09:24You can't keep pushing this down.
09:25And it was a terrifying thought to come on here today because I had to come back to so many different things I've shoved out of my mind and shoved down.
09:37But it's just the time for the healing to really begin fully.
09:42And I think it's nice, you know, just to be able to turn around, look at the wolves, and slap them in the face for a change.
09:51Yeah, there's something that feels good about just doing something right.
09:55Whenever people have been doing something and they realize that it's wrong, they want to correct the wrongs, like I said earlier.
10:02And for me, that was really the biggest thing.
10:03It wasn't that there was any real reason for me to speak out against this.
10:09I grew up in it.
10:10I actually enjoyed my time whenever I was in the cult.
10:13I just realized that it was wrong.
10:15So I started, literally just published a few things to let people know.
10:20And one, it was like a snowball going down a hill.
10:22There was never an end to finding all of the many things that were wrong with it.
10:27And then once that snowball started to connect with other ministries, and it's like a thousand snowballs falling down a thousand hills, you start to realize that this was a mess that from its foundation was wrong.
10:40The fruits of it are all wrong.
10:42But it has created destructive cults that are destroying lives.
10:46And so somebody has to speak out.
10:49They really do.
10:50Yeah.
10:50And that's why, you know, especially, like I said, when you snapped in the puzzle piece of Elam and realizing this young man that I was dating, this was one thing that I really shoved down hard.
11:01And how he began to change once he went there and how critical, condescending, I could do no right.
11:09It didn't matter what I said, what I wore, everything.
11:13And all this deliverance.
11:14And I got to thinking about how they would pray for you.
11:18It wasn't like, can I pray for you?
11:20Hold the hands, touch the shoulder, bang, break down.
11:23Oh, my gosh.
11:24I felt like I was playing football with these people.
11:28And then they're trying to cast demons out of you because you're just having a rough day.
11:33And a lot of that craziness.
11:36And it got me to thinking, now, I know you mentioned your wife also with spinal issues and you've got health issues.
11:42I started very young.
11:44And I found out in my 20s that I had symptoms of stenosis when I was 15.
11:51And there's nothing like rebuying everything.
11:54It's a demon.
11:55You know, that weird feeling in your life.
11:56It's a demon crawling on you.
11:57No, stenosis.
12:00And claim this and cast out that, demon slayers.
12:04And I'm thinking, oh, my word.
12:06You know, it was exhausting.
12:09And it really puts you in a very strange state mentally for years where you realize you're nerved up all the time.
12:17And you could drink a bucket of coffee and feel calmer than what these people did to you.
12:23And joy in the Holy Spirit?
12:24Oh, no.
12:25No, that's got to go.
12:26They don't want that in you.
12:27Because if you actually find joy in the Lord, they get very upset with you, which is weird.
12:33So, they've got to get you, like, barking, mooing, oinking, and all the weird stuff.
12:39You know, they have to do the Toronto curse and the Pensacola, whatever.
12:43And they really do end up demonized.
12:47And then they try to spread their poison to a lot of people.
12:51And I think that if a lot of people really examine where they got things from, it's going to sort out a lot.
12:57They may be like me.
12:58It wasn't just from one place.
13:00It may be from multiple sources.
13:01And sorting it through and praying about it and not being afraid to say, this was wrong.
13:09I'm sticking with Scripture.
13:10And I'm just going to let the Holy Spirit lead me and not listen to people.
13:14And I think that's really my best route, other than watching the podcast.
13:18This does help quite a bit.
13:20You know, you mentioned Elam Institute.
13:22It's one of the groups that we've studied in the trail of Deliverance Ministries and Lateran Connections.
13:28And this whole Deliverance thing, it was such a good scheme for somebody who wanted to be a con man or con woman.
13:35Because if you can convince the people that they have something wrong with them, that they can't see, they can't feel, that you alone can see it, and they come to you for the cure, it's like they have a monopoly on it.
13:52If you're in sales, they will tell you that the best salesperson is somebody who convinces the person that they have what the person needs, only they have what the person needs.
14:01And the person doesn't even know that they need it yet.
14:04And that's really what they're doing here.
14:06This invisible thing called, they're calling it demons, but I've got, I think I've shared it in one of the podcasts, I've got a book on, handbook on how to be a deliverance minister.
14:18And it has things like, if you have hiccups, here's how you cure the demon of hiccups.
14:22And I'm like, come on, man.
14:24Yeah, water or tea cures the hiccups, right?
14:27But if you can convince the people that they have something that they can't see, it's one step away from brainwashing.
14:35But once they go to that level, what else can you do to their minds that they can't see?
14:42That's where the problem is.
14:43It isn't so much that, you know, if somebody wants to be prayed for the hiccups, that's fine.
14:48And if somebody thinks that they are the curer of hiccups by praying and casting out demons, whatever, even that's not so bad.
14:57But where do you put boundaries around it?
15:00You are convincing them that they have something that they can't see.
15:03And we see these figures who are, many of them cult leaders, but some of them just people who are not very good people.
15:12They will try to convince people of other things outside of this, where you have this seductive demon.
15:20I was in one church, and they looked at the minister.
15:24I won't go too far with this for obvious reasons, but the minister looked in the audience and found the prettiest young girl in the audience and said,
15:32you have a seductive spirit on you, sister.
15:34And I'm sitting there thinking, well, you have a problem with looking at the sister that has this alleged seductive spirit, right?
15:43But that's how these mindsets go.
15:46If there's no boundaries around it, there's a huge problem.
15:49And I think people just need to take a step back and say, we really don't need this person.
15:53They're actually usurping the role of the Holy Spirit.
15:57Yes.
15:57And, you know, I think that other people that get drawn into this, some people, I think, just by nature, are more curious about things in the spiritual realm.
16:05And I came out of a very, very dark background.
16:10I was involved, I don't like to talk about just a glance at it, but I came out of a background in witchcraft and even Satanism.
16:18And when you come out of that and you're very already familiar with the spirit realm, you know it exists.
16:26So these people can really target you.
16:29And that is another thing that people that, you know, whatever.
16:33And I know that they go on about the generational curses and all the tentacles and all that.
16:38But I think that they can really target people more easily when you've had some sort of weird background or even just a horrible home life.
16:48And they don't have to convince you of the spirit realm.
16:53You just know it.
16:54But unfortunately, they aren't any better than what you came out of.
16:59Oh, my word.
17:02And when Jesus frees you from something and then they start trying to drag you back into this weird world of theirs, you're left baffled.
17:13Because it seems like every demon you're actually coming in contact with is all these false teachers.
17:18So cast them out.
17:20You'll be fine.
17:20Just tell them, get lost.
17:22Throw out the books.
17:23Turn off the radio.
17:24Yeah.
17:25And like I said, that's just it.
17:26They're usurping the role of the Holy Spirit.
17:28If you read the Bible and you actually understand what it says, if you have an issue, you have the power yourself to go to the healer.
17:36But what they're wanting to do is become a mediator between God and man.
17:40They are the person who has the deliverance, the healing or whatever.
17:45And whenever I trace all this back to the roots of Branhamism, Branham wasn't the first person to do this.
17:51There were others that did it.
17:52But Branham is the one who, by becoming the foremost leader of the post-World War II healing revival, he literally popularized it.
18:02So he took this thing that existed.
18:05And if you look at it before Branhamism, anybody who looks back at that history, they can see that it's mostly the con artists who are doing this.
18:13But then once Ladder Rain hits, the post-World War II healing revival hits, there are so many.
18:20How do you brand them all?
18:21You can't brand them all con artists, but there were many among them.
18:26That's the problem.
18:27Without the boundaries, how do you put a label on it?
18:30And you just have to understand that the framework itself that enabled this, the framework was wrong.
18:36There were some good people in it.
18:37There were some bad people in it.
18:38And there were some complete scoundrels that were in it.
18:41But that platform enabled all of this.
18:45It did.
18:45And, you know, it's interesting that something that came up, and this was probably a year ago, was finding out my area.
18:52Well, all of western New York, really, is called the Burnt Over District.
18:57And finding out about how much, I just laughed and I thought, gee, I thought high taxes and cruddy winters were bad enough and all the heresy that came out of this state.
19:06So it's still here.
19:08And it's really frightening to think about how quickly all this ramped up and from the late 1700s and onward and through the 1800s and trying to figure out who came out of this area.
19:20And the more research I do on that, it kind of makes sense that there's so much of it that's still here and why churches are very difficult to find that aren't really off the rockers.
19:32I could find a lot of them in town.
19:34And Methodist Church across the street went Word of Faith.
19:38The Baptist Church next door went Ecumenical.
19:41And then we got some, like, I don't know, whatever up the street that's, like, Torah observant cult kind of a thing.
19:49And, you know, it's like they're all pretty shot.
19:52And this is where we're finding the truth.
19:55And I think a lot of people are feeling so isolated except getting online because where do you find anybody that's not in a cult-like group or believing horrible doctrine?
20:06And that's where you really have to read the Word of God.
20:09And you have to stick with that and don't look for other people to try to lead you.
20:16And some people are just better staying out of groups.
20:18Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm thankful for, the information age that we live in, information is just at a finger's tip.
20:26You can, now you have AI, but before AI, you just go to a search engine and you can learn about anything.
20:32Go to Wikipedia, learn about anything.
20:35And whenever you're critically thinking and you're trying to learn for yourself and you study one of the histories of these groups,
20:42you start to realize that it's not something that you are aware of, first off.
20:47Most of it's been hidden from you.
20:49But number two, if you knew that history, you'd probably have walked away in the first place, which is why they don't tell you about this history.
20:56You mentioned the Burnt Over District.
20:58It's odd to me how many different groups have emerged from this.
21:02Everything from – there are ties to Joseph Smith and Mormonism to the Burnt Over District, all the way to spiritualism.
21:10You have, who was it, the Fox Sisters, I think.
21:13Different flavors of different movements have emerged from this.
21:19And yet, if you trace those roots into what they developed into, some of them appear to be good movements.
21:27And maybe they are.
21:28Maybe they have reformed.
21:29But they're not telling you where they came from.
21:31And if you understand where they came from, in many ways you understand why they have the theology in the way that they do because it's framed after what they have built on as far as their historical lineage of theology.
21:45That's where the problem for me lies.
21:48Once you dig into that historical theology, you realize that some of these things were just insane, but they reformed and they erased the history of the insanity.
21:58But what they kept were the things that are problematic.
22:02You have the – also with the Burnt Over District, the reason why it was called that, I think it was – if I remember right, it was Finney, Charles Finney, that labeled it this.
22:12But there were so many revivals that were so intense and frequent that people just became burned out.
22:18They were just so tired of trying to stay in this hype, right?
22:23Well, after it got burnt out, they started seeking other things that wasn't so intense.
22:29But those other things developed into the same intensity.
22:33And so you have the revivals that – like in today's world, you're looking for this end-of-days revival.
22:39They're looking for the most intense thing.
22:42And some of those trails lead right back to the Burnt Over District.
22:47And you begin to understand, well, they walked away from this for a reason.
22:51Why are we going back to it?
22:53Right.
22:53Well, you know, that's the whole thing that emotions are a wonderful thing, but it's not a diet.
23:00And that is exactly what I found with a lot of these groups is that they really rely on that emotionalism.
23:07And everything was feel.
23:10And all I could think of is, you know, they say, seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord.
23:14And all I can hear is third rock from the sun, incoming message from the big head.
23:19And I think I'm hardly doing that.
23:22And I'm like, no, you're not seeking the Lord.
23:25And sometimes the Lord isn't telling you bigger things.
23:28Sometimes it might be like, you probably should get laundry done today, Nancy.
23:31And it's really in the simple.
23:33And they always talk so much about finding this higher level and ascending and walking in victory.
23:39And I started to realize God is really, a verse that he always brought to me was when they were rebuilding the temple after Babylon.
23:47Who has despised the day of small things?
23:50And there is so much that is day-to-day and ordinary and so much wonderful in it.
23:56But they always made you seem like a schmo.
23:59And you just weren't their level.
24:03And that's where you walk away.
24:05Because I just got tired of hosts trying to be hyped up in their way.
24:08And, oh, I'm done.
24:10I'm out.
24:10And I just haven't found God as a God of hype.
24:13Well, and that's one of the problems.
24:14Because, and rightfully named the burnt-over district, people tried to stay in that hype.
24:19And they just got tired of it.
24:21You can only endure that for so long before you get tired of it.
24:25What ministers who came from that root did, they realized and recognized that we're going to create another burnt-over district.
24:33So we need something new, something more exciting, something bigger, better.
24:37And that's what turned into the revivals.
24:40They began to try new ways to bring in things that would attract the itching ears, basically.
24:47And you look back at the days when William Branham toured with this little boy that could levitate on stage while they're holding a revival.
24:55Little David Walker.
24:56I mean, they were going to that level to make it more appealing to the audience because they didn't want to burn them over.
25:05Well, if you look back, that was in the 40s, late 40s that they were doing that.
25:10What they did was even became bigger and more intense.
25:13But they didn't have a boy levitating on stage.
25:16The leadership that's in those movements progressed to a level where they get to the point they cannot, for themselves, keep the movement going and keep the hype up.
25:27And so they turn more destructive.
25:29So you watch this pattern over and over again.
25:32Once the hype is over, it starts to go destructive.
25:34Then the problem starts to fall on the people.
25:38The leader will blame the common rank and file members.
25:41It's your fault that it's burnt over.
25:42You need to be more intense.
25:44You need to be more dedicated.
25:46And so that cycle just continues.
25:47Then they get burnt out.
25:49So where this has ended up, it's like we have a thousand burnt over districts, but it's all it's moved into like the spiritual realm.
25:57They're thinking we're burnt out because we're not dedicated to God.
26:02And that's what they're presenting to the people.
26:04I have heard that so many times that you're not really committed.
26:08And that comes right down.
26:10Oh, my word.
26:11You know, it's the type of thing that I couldn't figure out what this super Christian was that they were trying to turn us into.
26:18And behind the scenes, you find out, oh, that pastor's been messing with a secretary for the past three years.
26:25Another one, you know, it always seems to be something with messing with the ladies.
26:30You know, it comes out from behind the scenes and they get nastier.
26:33And there was one church.
26:35I wasn't there full time.
26:37But one day God loved you.
26:40The next day he was all mad at you.
26:41He didn't even know what you'd done.
26:43And he was going mega church.
26:46And they were non-denominational.
26:48And they wanted to build this mega church.
26:50And they called it Golden Heights Christian Center.
26:52And when he was saying, oh, boy, he used to yell at us, we're not getting enough, maybe 150 of us all together.
27:01I'm sorry.
27:02I cannot build a stadium on my income.
27:04I'm 15, okay?
27:06And he was saying, well, the Holy Spirit told us to go and order whatever for the building.
27:12And then when we ordered them, the money wasn't there.
27:14But it was us.
27:15And, dude, we've got to pay our bills, too.
27:18Not that I had them at 15.
27:20But it was always blaming the congregation for their faults and their sins.
27:26And that's where I just ran.
27:28And I just, no, I can't keep doing this.
27:32And, you know, maybe this is just kind of a ramble because I'm trying to put pieces together in my head as to what in the world happened.
27:39But I know the way they twist scripture.
27:42And, boy, they cherry-tick it.
27:43And they beat you to death with it.
27:45And, you know, read the whole thing.
27:47Read the whole passage.
27:48Don't just listen to these little snippets like fortune cookie slits, you know.
27:52This is your scripture reading for the week.
27:56And that's where the healing really comes, that you don't have to be afraid to raise the questions and the hard questions.
28:06And when you're in scripture, the Lord is not angry with you for asking questions.
28:11This is what he wants.
28:13And that's the realization I had to come to.
28:16He's not going to strike me with lightning for raising a question against what I was taught.
28:21And he will lead us.
28:22He wants us to know the truth.
28:23Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
28:27No man comes to the Father but by me.
28:29So if you have a lot of doubts, ask the Lord about it.
28:33Raise those questions because you need to to find the truth.
28:37Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started?
28:41Or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
28:50You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
28:57On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
29:11You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
29:18If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
29:25And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
29:31On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
29:36It's interesting, when you're in one of these movements and you ask questions, you can tell very quickly if the movement is destructive or not, just simply by asking a question.
29:46Whenever we left the cult, and I was still new to this concept, I thought, you know, you're never supposed to ask questions, because if you're questioning the leader, you're questioning the Holy Spirit.
29:58That's the way we were manipulated.
30:00But once I began to realize that that wasn't the truth, I was filled with questions.
30:06And I'm sure I made many people want to stand back and say, get away from me, John.
30:11You're asking too many questions.
30:13But that's what I did.
30:15And we went to several different churches.
30:17And I would often meet with – sometimes I'd take them out to lunch, or we would, you know, go over to the house, etc.
30:23But I would meet with ministers, and I would just simply ask them questions.
30:27Some of them were hard questions.
30:29And it's not that I really cared so much about the answer, as I did how they reacted to the question.
30:37So I would literally ask them a question just to watch how they reacted.
30:41And sometimes I would throw off-the-wall questions out there.
30:45One of the groups we attended was real big into Calvinism, which I'm not.
30:50And I asked them about the man who Calvin put to death to explain this to me.
30:56How does that fit in the theology?
30:57Just to see how they answered the question.
31:00At that point, I had studied the history immensely.
31:03I knew most of the history.
31:06And so I knew the pros, the cons, the weird situation that occurred.
31:10But the way that they reacted was just – it was a little unbelievable.
31:17And you could go to one church in mainstream Christianity.
31:20You go to one church and ask questions, and they're very open.
31:24Many times, if they don't have the answer, they'll just say, well, you know, I don't have the answer to that.
31:29I've thought about that myself, too.
31:31And I wondered.
31:31But I don't have an answer.
31:33And those kind of people I can accept.
31:36But the ones who try to come up with an answer whenever there is none, or those who just want to shut off the question, those are the ones that I realize that I don't think my family is a good fit for this church.
31:50Oh, yes.
31:51Yeah, that's a polite way of saying it.
31:53But, yeah, it is true when you raise those hard questions.
31:57And, oh, you can sort them out very quickly.
31:59And I can imagine the questions you raise.
32:04But that's really the best way to be.
32:06And, you know, it's funny that Jehovah's Witnesses don't even stop by here anymore.
32:12Yeah.
32:13They have a big X on the front of my place.
32:16But when you raise any kind of questions, they automatically accuse you of being argumentative.
32:22And it's like, no, it's right here in the Bible.
32:24But, yeah, when people start with that, well, you're in the spirit of rebellion.
32:27No, you're right.
32:29And I'm rebelling against you tough.
32:31So I cannot cupcake.
32:33I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast or not, but we had a couple of Mormons come to our house.
32:40And this was while I was in the cult.
32:41So this is where it gets really ironic.
32:44But whenever two Mormons come and they try to recruit you, they come with a Jedi Master and a Padawan learner.
32:51And the Padawan learner usually is silent, and they're watching the Jedi Master as he's trying to engage you.
32:57Well, even when I was in the Branham cult, I knew quite a bit about the other cults.
33:04I studied it.
33:05And so I knew about Mormonism.
33:07I knew about Joseph Smith, all of the things.
33:09And I was asking them questions as they would try to present, you know, try to recruit me.
33:15And I was watching the Jedi Master.
33:18I was watching him smile with his mouth, but he was angry with his eyes.
33:23He did not like the questions.
33:26But then I looked over to the Padawan learner, and he's like, he's just in a state of shock.
33:32I can't believe this.
33:33I didn't know that was a legitimate question about my faith.
33:37And I think by the end of it, I think I deconverted one of the guys.
33:41But the interesting part is I was trying to instead twist it and convert them into Branhamism.
33:46So in essence, I was doing the exact same thing they were doing when they visited my house.
33:52I was trying to recruit them into another cult.
33:55Oh, wow.
33:57It's, you know, I just got to the point sometimes it's like, okay, Lord, you know,
34:01I don't even know how to answer the door at this point.
34:03And you just screw with people on their own beliefs.
34:06And because they don't believe hell is eternal with the Jehovah's Witnesses,
34:10I said, so in other words, I could join you, have no fun in my life, and still go to hell.
34:15Or I could live it up and just burn up.
34:18No consequences.
34:19Cool.
34:19Thanks.
34:20They did not like that answer.
34:22And they were so startled that I actually got a little bit of time to actually discuss Scripture.
34:28But, of course, they walked away.
34:30But at least that was kind of a cold glass of water in the face to get the retention.
34:35And that is funny that you're trying to get them into Branhamism.
34:40Yeah, it's really amazing.
34:43Other people, and I forgot about it, other people that come to the door,
34:47and I'm not really sure who the group was, but they were on about don't have musical instruments in the church.
34:55And I don't know.
34:56I know that I came in contact with people from Assemblies of God.
35:00And I don't know if Faith Assembly is in Assemblies of God.
35:04I've heard of Faith Assembly, and I wasn't sure if they're connected or 100% sure what Assemblies of God are about.
35:11And if that's also where some weird things came in.
35:14So there's some weird connections.
35:16First, you mentioned hell was eternal.
35:18That was also taught in Branhamism.
35:21Although Branham taught both sides of every doctrine, one of the sides that he taught was that hell was not eternal.
35:28And he would split hairs over what the passages mean.
35:32And also, I think I've mentioned this, my grandfather would not have musical instruments in the congregation, in the praise service,
35:43because Branham said only the piano and the organ can be present.
35:49There are no stringed instruments.
35:51There's no percussion, anything like this, because that's, I guess it was devil worship or something like this.
35:57And the interesting part about that is the piano has strings, so they both didn't understand what a stringed instrument was, which was funny.
36:06But they, you know, the real problem is all of these groups, they have, as they've splintered and grown, it's hard to trace their roots.
36:17You mentioned Faith Assembly.
36:19Faith Assembly is the name of the splinter group that Charles Paisley, who does the podcast with me,
36:25his Branhamite sect was called Faith Assembly.
36:29They heavily, heavily influenced Hobart Freeman, who started a cult that was called the Faith Assembly cult.
36:37So Chenna Ross, who does the podcast with me on Tuesdays, he's literally talking about the Faith Assembly sect.
36:43But if you look at each one of those groups, they look slightly different than what I came from,
36:48even though they have the same foundation, same root, same, it's literally the same architecture.
36:54But what happens is one central figure who is enabled by this architecture rises into power over his people
37:02and tries to twist it so that it looks slightly different because he's the one who's bringing the divine truth that the other guy didn't bring.
37:10So each time there's a new iteration, their doctrines shift.
37:14And unless you understand the framework that enabled them, you might think that's totally a different group of people.
37:20However, it is the same, it descended from the same tree.
37:23Okay, that makes sense because sometimes I have trouble really finding out what a lot of these groups are about
37:29because even if you go to websites, they have very limited info.
37:34And when I was just trying to look up Faith Assembly last night, it didn't really explain anything about their beliefs.
37:41It just said that they're, I don't know, whatever, diverse, I have no idea.
37:48But they didn't really have any kind of belief statement on their page.
37:52And that's where I get a little bit thrown.
37:54And I really don't want to, you know, put myself in the position of visiting churches to find out the hard way again.
37:59So, you know, I think I'll stay safely over here and just remain ignorant and say, I'll be over here.
38:06I'm good. Thanks.
38:07So you mentioned your past that was before you became a Christian.
38:12That story sounds interesting to me.
38:14Tell us a little bit more about how you converted.
38:17Oh, wow.
38:19It's really, that would really be quite a ride.
38:23It's very interesting that I went into the occult, believe it or not, it was because of TV shows.
38:33Like, believe it or not, bewitched and seeing that growing up.
38:36And I just was always drawn, like maybe there is something real to this.
38:42And I got drawn in and witchcraft was kind of like, but Mike, give me some heroin.
38:46So you go into Satanism.
38:48And getting dragged to a Catholic church, I couldn't tell the difference between witchcraft and Catholicism.
38:54They were the same to me, pretty much.
38:57And I went into Satanism because I hated the Catholic church so much.
39:02And I thought God was hiding himself from me.
39:04And so I just went the opposite way.
39:07And then I started to realize that this is very interesting how God got me out of it.
39:14I wanted a satanic Bible so bad.
39:16And when I was 12, there was one in Walden Books.
39:20And I know God was sticking his fingers in the pages to have me flipping to certain things.
39:26And Satan out of himself is a liar and is a bigot.
39:29It's like, really?
39:31Duh.
39:32You know, you would have thought of that.
39:34So I just chucked it.
39:36I said, forget it.
39:37I stood in my bedroom one day, told Satan off, told him he's a fraud.
39:40I hated him and all this.
39:41And then I was so lonely because I thought, I don't want Jesus and I don't want Satan.
39:46And I realized, I'm 100% alone.
39:50Well, the following year, the Lord started sending what you would call Jesus.
39:54Excuse me, I've got a gnat in here.
39:57And I had never met an actual Christian.
40:01And, you know, it's really fun to see how God brought things together and different people into my life.
40:07And I was watching these people like, are you a cult?
40:12You know, I really didn't know what they were about.
40:14And I was so busy eyeballing them, I didn't understand the gospel.
40:18And eventually, it was one man that the Lord sent.
40:23And he was known as the blind evangelist.
40:25His name is Terry Sanders.
40:26And the Lord had been leading me through piquing the interest.
40:31And I saw a man, you know, when people talk about signs and wonders, he was a sign and a wonder to me.
40:38No, God didn't give him a sight.
40:40Nope, he didn't put eyes on his head.
40:42But when you talk about rivers of living water coming out of somebody, this guy was drinking from a fire hose of joy.
40:48And that was the tipping point for me, because I thought, if God could take a man like this and do this with him, and I thought, I want to know your Jesus.
40:58This is a seriously abbreviated version, but that's exactly how I came about turning to the Lord.
41:05There was a lot of misery in between and even a lot of suicide attempts.
41:10But the Lord spared me through all of them until the day that he knew I was ready to say yes.
41:16And then you went to, you met somebody from Elam, right?
41:19Well, I was in high school.
41:21I was just starting ninth grade and dating a senior.
41:25And the following year, he went to Elam.
41:27So I had only been saved at that point, just months.
41:31And the following year, when he started attending Elam, that's when things really started to go dark.
41:37And I knew when I got saved in 1979, that was real.
41:43But it was almost like hitting a wall, because I was getting hit with so much false teaching.
41:48And trying to get around the wall or find a door, I didn't know how to go forward.
41:53And finally, when the Lord got me away from that guy in particular, he got real pushy about getting married.
42:00You know, I'm 15, 15 and a half.
42:02This whole thing, it was really craziness.
42:05And we finally broke up in 1982, when I was 16.
42:11I just had enough.
42:13But I realized that what was coming out of Elam, when you mentioned that, that's exactly what he was starting to act like.
42:21So even though I had this weird background, because I had actually come to Jesus,
42:26he carried me through those chaotic times when I was getting a lot of bad teaching and knowing that's not the truth,
42:33or it can't be the truth.
42:35And he's been very merciful and gracious to me through the years to unwind.
42:39Anybody who knits or crochets understands the expression, yarn barf.
42:43You're pulling out the yarn, and often that blob comes out the middle, and you're trying to untangle this.
42:48And that's what my life had turned into.
42:50The outside looked nice, but there was yarn barf in the middle of it.
42:53And the Lord has been untangling a lot of things.
42:57I know that whatever my BC days were, that it was absolutely bad.
43:02I know that Jesus had saved me.
43:05And he is the one that he's bringing me back to, because I know him.
43:10And I can discard the rest, but it does take a lot in here to start to realize how you think and what's affected you.
43:17And trying to put all that to rest does take time.
43:22I can only imagine.
43:23It's a lot to detangle.
43:25And then to find out that there's this big, complicated mess that's underneath all of it, where do you even begin to untangle that?
43:33Right.
43:33So maybe that's all I can say to people, that I'm starting on the journey.
43:38And that's why, if I'm sorry, I sound like I'm rambling and incohesive, I sound like you're in birth myself.
43:43This is the whole point.
43:44It's a fairly new journey that I am not afraid to take anymore.
43:49So if you're just starting, take heart.
43:52You know, I'll be 60 very soon.
43:54And I'm just starting for my teens to get this unraveled.
43:58But don't give up.
44:00Don't give up.
44:01Please.
44:01You know, that's the biggest hindrance, I think, whenever people first begin to leave one of the groups.
44:07The moment that they peel the covers back and they look what's underneath, suddenly they're like, oh, my gosh, how do I even begin to unravel all of this mess?
44:16And I think it dissuades some people.
44:18That's why it's so difficult.
44:20It's convoluted.
44:21But with their indoctrination, usually in these groups, there's also this indoctrinated urgency.
44:28You have to have all the answers now because we came from a spiritual leader who had all the answers.
44:34And so instantly when you leave, there are people – I'll get emails almost weekly from people who say, okay, I've left.
44:41What do I do now?
44:42I need all the answers.
44:43And they come to me like, I'm the answer man.
44:45I'm not the answer man.
44:46And usually my answer is, well, you have a lifetime to figure that out.
44:51And the indoctrinated urgency that they gave you, it's a false urgency.
44:56It's a false sense of urgency.
44:58Not a single person who – even a teenager who's trying to figure out where they're headed in a normal, non-co-life, it takes them years before they develop the worldview.
45:10So when you leave and you've been taught a false worldview, what may take decades before you start to build up your own worldview?
45:18And there's no need for that urgency.
45:20Yeah, that is the one thing the Lord has shown me is how amazingly patient he is.
45:25And it's quite amazing what I have learned about his nature by this pretty much car wreck where I needed the jaws of life to get me out and have this mangled little mess.
45:40And the Lord is very kind and very patient about sorting you out.
45:44And when you come out of a background that's very reactionary that if you get an impulse, you have to react to it.
45:51And being able to step back and say, okay, Lord, what's this about?
45:54What am I looking at here?
45:57And he's fine with that.
45:58You don't have to jump on it and say, yes, is the Holy Spirit moving me?
46:01Because no, no, our emotions can come and go.
46:07And some of us are – you know, you're an artist, you're a musician, and you know how it is.
46:11We just – we're more high-strung.
46:13And the Lord just – sit down for a minute, girl.
46:17Just shh, shh, shh.
46:18It's okay.
46:19It's okay.
46:20And realizing that I can sit back with the Lord and just ask him about things.
46:25And sometimes he'll just take you through a process to give you that answer.
46:29He doesn't just give it to you.
46:30Absolutely.
46:32And along with the trained urgency that you have, there is this weird notion that you have to always be bright.
46:39And I will never forget how difficult that was because I had – as soon as I left, I had to be right.
46:45Or otherwise, I'm leading my family astray.
46:49And as I began to dig and uncover, it's like peeling an onion.
46:53You peel one layer off and then you find, well, underneath that, there's this other layer that's just completely false.
46:58Let's peel it off, too.
47:00Well, you continue to do this forever.
47:02However, there was a point at which I want to say it was probably three or four years after my leaving.
47:07Every single week, my entire worldview was flipping back and forth because I would peel something off and I would find something that totally skewed my way of thinking.
47:18And so I would peel that off and then I would go the reverse direction.
47:20And eventually, I came to the point where I realized that I'm not going to have all the answers.
47:26I'm not going to figure out.
47:27Let's just wipe the entire onion away.
47:30Let's start with a clean slate and let's start building back up.
47:34And I resolved to build it very slowly.
47:37In fact, I'm still today building in May for the rest of my life.
47:40I have no – there's no urgency.
47:42There's no hurry for it.
47:43And my advice to people who leave or people who are thinking about leaving, don't try to figure it all out.
47:49You're not going to.
47:51If you believe that the Holy Spirit was sent to lead you and guide you, let that be the leader, not any person who claims to have all the answers.
48:00Yeah, yeah.
48:00It might be a process.
48:02It might be quicker than you think.
48:03But just don't give up.
48:05That's all I can really say.
48:07Well, if you had any advice to give your former self back whenever you were in the early stages of trying to figure all of this out and you came across Elam and you realized that something's a little off here or one of the other groups that you got involved with, what advice would you give yourself to give yourself an encouragement on where you're headed?
48:29Oh, I don't know about encouragement.
48:30I think it would be a big slap across the head.
48:32I would be, you see that guy over there?
48:38Get away from him.
48:40That is, that's very interesting because what I even have listened, and I think that is one of the problems that, you know, hey, I'm 14.
48:52I know it all.
48:53And then you realize you don't.
48:55But yeah, I'm not really sure what advice.
49:00And that's a very interesting thing that I may not have listened to good reason back then because obviously I didn't.
49:09So you have been deeply involved.
49:12I've watched you in the comment feeds and the videos, and you've been deeply involved in trying to dig into all of what is this mess.
49:19And if you had advice to give people, what advice would you give them?
49:22Oh, gosh.
49:23You know, it's just funny.
49:24It's just something I scratched down there, and after I just wrote it down about, you know, all the things we don't do, and just laughing a little bit about J. Vernon McGee.
49:33Yeah.
49:35You know, about the no movies, no cards, no TV, and questions.
49:39It was like, can Christians dance?
49:41Well, some can and some can't.
49:43And that kind of approach to a lot of life, that there is a wonderful balance, and you don't have to be living in the extremes all the time.
49:59I don't know if that's worth anything, but I've just found that God is very, very wonderfully balanced.
50:06Well, thank you.
50:06That's very good advice, and thank you so much for doing this with me today.
50:09Oh, it's been a great pleasure to be here, and I appreciate you and everybody that you have on here.
50:14You are such a resource for dissent.
50:16Well, it's been a whole lot of fun, so thank you for doing this.
50:20If you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web.
50:24You can find us at william-branum.org.
50:26For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
50:39You can find us at william-branum.org.
51:09You can find us at william-branum.org.
51:39You can find us at william-branum.org.
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