- 3 months ago
John and Christian explore how music shaped the rise of Pentecostal and charismatic movements, tracing its influence from early tent revivals to modern worship concerts. They discuss the psychology of rhythm, the role of instruments like the organ in altering group dynamics, and the way leaders used music to heighten emotional responses during meetings. Drawing on personal stories, historical examples, and biblical references such as Paul’s speech in Athens, they highlight how music can connect or divide people, inspire genuine worship, or be weaponized for manipulation. This conversation reveals that while music is often labeled “holy” or “evil,” it is ultimately a powerful tool that reflects the intention behind its use.
00:00 Introduction
01:02 Music as a Vehicle for Doctrine and Control
03:02 John’s Family Story: Branham’s Ban on Stringed Instruments
06:01 Christian’s Background: From Punk to Faith
10:17 Discovering Music for God
12:03 The Psychology of Music in Revival Meetings
15:00 Group Dynamics and Emotional Manipulation
19:14 The Origin of “Only Believe” and the Jazz Connection
23:06 The Myth of “Holy Music” and Charismatic Fireworks
27:35 Is Any Music Truly Evil?
33:03 Bach, Holiness, and the Universality of Sound
37:05 Music as Language, Mathematics, and Weapon
40:03 Indoctrination and Emotional Conditioning in Worship
43:06 Paul and the Unknown God: Finding Common Ground
47:39 Breaking Barriers Through Music
51:02 Leaders Who Discovered the Power of Sound
53:01 The “Midnight Special” Example and Cultural Reuse
54:24 Closing Reflections
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
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00:00 Introduction
01:02 Music as a Vehicle for Doctrine and Control
03:02 John’s Family Story: Branham’s Ban on Stringed Instruments
06:01 Christian’s Background: From Punk to Faith
10:17 Discovering Music for God
12:03 The Psychology of Music in Revival Meetings
15:00 Group Dynamics and Emotional Manipulation
19:14 The Origin of “Only Believe” and the Jazz Connection
23:06 The Myth of “Holy Music” and Charismatic Fireworks
27:35 Is Any Music Truly Evil?
33:03 Bach, Holiness, and the Universality of Sound
37:05 Music as Language, Mathematics, and Weapon
40:03 Indoctrination and Emotional Conditioning in Worship
43:06 Paul and the Unknown God: Finding Common Ground
47:39 Breaking Barriers Through Music
51:02 Leaders Who Discovered the Power of Sound
53:01 The “Midnight Special” Example and Cultural Reuse
54:24 Closing Reflections
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
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 at william-branham.org.
00:43And with me, I have my co-host and friend, Christian Thomason, host of Sanctum Artifact.
00:49Christian, it's good to be back, and I'm very excited for today's episode.
00:53If you can't tell, I'm a musician, and as we've talked, and you can get into, you are as well.
01:00But the topic of music fascinates me, and I don't get to do it frequently enough because not many people are familiar with the concepts of music as it relates to Christianity and Christian history.
01:13But there's a huge untapped wealth of information that anybody who's trying to research NAR or New Apostolic Reformation and understand how it did what it did psychologically, you really have to take it back to the music.
01:30That's the funny part.
01:31If you understand the history and progression of how the music has changed, and music basically, in my opinion, it became a vehicle that helped enable all of this that we see.
01:43Yes, the doctrines were incorrect.
01:45Yes, they have heresies.
01:46Yes, they have all these other things.
01:47But without a vehicle to push it forward, it would have been very difficult, I think, to have what we see today.
01:54So today, you and I can talk through the history of music, but like I say, I'm so excited to get into this, I can hardly wait.
02:02Yeah, me too, because music was a huge part of my life as well, and there's so much space to explore in it, emotionally, intellectually, and from a view of group dynamics.
02:20It's also very interesting if you look at music as a tool for group dynamics.
02:28Absolutely, and a lot of people don't recognize the power of that tool.
02:33One of the things that I used to do, I started out playing guitar and mandolin, and I'm self-taught.
02:42My family was actually against stringed instruments, which is part of the reason why I have all of this.
02:47Because of your religious background.
02:50Because of William Branham's controlling authoritarianism, which is a story we'll get into later.
02:57But he eventually, he actually convinced my grandfather, who had a ministry that included music.
03:04My grandfather was an evangelist.
03:06He and his children would play music and sing songs and have small revivals throughout Kentucky.
03:13Well, Branham apparently wanted to control his life and pretended like he had no connection to music and that anybody who plays a stringed instrument is of the devil.
03:23He convinced my grandfather of this.
03:25So my grandfather got rid of all of his stringed instruments, which essentially crippled his revival-type ministry of the music that he played.
03:34So that history, I grew up like this.
03:36My parents, my mother's side, whole family played music.
03:41So she was unfamiliar with this weirdness.
03:43My father's side, which I just explained, was against it.
03:46Well, the first time my grandfather brought me my first guitar, he was told that I could not have it, take it back.
03:55And he had driven from Georgia.
03:57At that time, we lived in Kansas.
03:58So he'd driven halfway across the United States to give me a guitar.
04:02Wasn't able to give it to me.
04:04Later, for some reason, he was able to give me a mandolin.
04:08So my first real instrument that I had was a mandolin.
04:12And I remember when I first picked it up, I had never even seen a mandolin before.
04:16Yeah.
04:17And I just kept – I was amazed by this thing.
04:20I kept moving my fingers and plucking the instrument.
04:23And about 3 o'clock that night, 4 o'clock that night, I stayed up all night toying with it.
04:29I was teaching myself to play.
04:30And I played I'll Fly Away or some basic song.
04:34And same thing happened later.
04:36I was eventually able to get a guitar.
04:38My grandfather also gave me this.
04:40And same thing.
04:41That night, I was playing it.
04:43I play by ear.
04:44When you hear the podcast and you hear the introduction music, you're listening to these instruments.
04:49Because I compose it, I play it, I record all of the – most of the music that is in the videos that I do.
04:54But where I was headed with this is, because I have done this, there were times whenever we would have – especially before my wife and I got married, we would go to these events where everybody would sit around talking and having a good time.
05:10I'm not a person who really talks a lot, ironically.
05:14I would sit in a corner and just play my guitar.
05:17And you could set the mood of the entire room by doing it.
05:20And I would watch this.
05:22And I would watch the people change.
05:23If it was getting too loud, I could change the tone of the voice of the room.
05:28Or if it got too soft, I could get them excited.
05:31And there's so much power in the music, which you and I can get into.
05:34But as a tool for these ministries that are wanting to build excitement and hype around their ministry, not many people recognize the power of this.
05:46And one of the reasons why I continually go back to focus on Wimber, Wimber is one person who did.
05:51John Wimber understood how you could take music and change people.
05:56So, good or bad, it might have been good what he was thinking.
05:59We'll discuss that.
06:00But the power behind the tool is an untapped area of research for many people who are looking into this movement.
06:07In the beginning, it was the group dynamics for me because I don't come from a religious family, but from a musical family.
06:18My mother could play the piano, the guitar, and the flute.
06:25And we had a lot of music at our home.
06:29So, I grew up with Bach, Mozart, but also Freddie Mercury was a big thing in our house.
06:36And I liked to imitate all the voices.
06:42I loved to sing in the first place.
06:45And that kept me alive over many years because after my family got destroyed through the divorce of my parents, all I had left was my passion for music, my passion for reading and writing.
07:07My mother came from Prussia, so we were educated in reading and writing very early.
07:16So, I could already, like a kid, perfectly read when I got into basic school.
07:24I was never good at school after that because my parents divorced and I was raised by many different foster parents in children's homes until I arrived for a longer time at foster parents when I was around 12 or 13.
07:46But at that time, I was already very independent in my thinking and we never bonded, we never connected in a deeper sense.
07:58And I started to explore a leftist friend circle and we started to do music.
08:11And that's what I did over the next 10 to almost 15 years.
08:15I started to do punk music when we were like 14.
08:20I think we made our first sessions in a little cellar in a so-called Jugendzentrum, like youth center.
08:31And then we started to prep professionals because every one of us had already many years of experience in his instruments.
08:40We had a very, very good bassist.
08:42His father was a musician too, very gifted musician, with a bigger cover band in Germany already, playing like Guns N' Roses, bands like that on bigger stages already.
09:02That worked out quite very well, especially because I started to take drugs and was barely holding up at school and invested all my time, all my passion, all my concentration into music.
09:20And I always, if I later looked back, there is a, you can see a strain, like a red lining through all my music, all my lyrics.
09:34There's always this, there's always this imagination of a Weltenseele, like a world soul.
09:41Everything is connected.
09:44Every human is striving, searching for meaning in life.
09:49And this kind of thinking was a huge inherent part of my music.
09:57I then started to study jazz music just to get more professional.
10:05I was doing really well, surprisingly.
10:08But at the same time, I came to faith.
10:13I met God at a certain point in my life.
10:17And there was a huge cut in my life after that, because for me, it was clear, yeah, that I could not, no longer live with that friends, that circle of friends, the drugs, the lifestyle that was all inherent, an inherent part of being a jazz musician, a rock musician.
10:38And after that, I realized, and I think that is something we can talk about, that, you know, when I realized that I could make music for God, it was almost like that's the very first time in my life that music makes sense.
10:58Before that, music was, for me, the group I was with, those guys were my best friends.
11:07And I always had this dream of me and the guys on the road making music.
11:13I don't need everything else.
11:15Of course, it was just a dream, even more of an illusion, because after I stopped to take drugs, we had no element of connection.
11:27The most important element of connection was no longer there.
11:32So we had no friendship anymore.
11:34One interesting thing to think about.
11:38But the main point I want to make is, after I came to faith, I realized for the first time that the only time music makes sense in a bigger picture is when you make music for God or before God, instead of making music for yourself.
12:00For me, the making sense of music, this is a powerful thing, because music, for me, is many things.
12:08Making sense for God, you can elevate people's faith by the music that you play.
12:15You can set the tone of the building by the music you play.
12:19You can get people into a spirit conducive for hearing by the music you play.
12:25An example of this, in the healing revivals, many of them, if you go listen to the old recordings, you're going to hear very tin-canny audio where the speaker is screaming into the microphone.
12:38But in the background behind them, you will hear this organ music.
12:41And what they do with this organ is, before the minister got into his stance of denouncing Satan, casting out devil spirits, whatever it was, they would get the audience into this atmosphere of submission.
12:58And they did it through the playing of the organ.
13:01The pulsation of the music as it comes out of the organ, if you listen very closely, you can hear kind of a beat within that pulsation.
13:10Yeah, interestingly, the organ even is able to do that, because it has lower frequencies.
13:17Exactly.
13:18And if you study, I've studied all kinds of things, too, ridiculous amounts of research.
13:24But one of the things I studied was the psychology behind this music, because what was happening in these meetings, the pulsation of that organ was almost at the same rhythm of the heart.
13:38If the heart was beating faster, interestingly, because of the music and because of the power of the music, it would bring a calming effect for those that were anxious, because the beating of the heart would slow down to match that organ rhythm, that pulsation.
13:54And then if you listen to the cadence of the speaker, often they start at that same rhythm, whether strategically or not, I don't know, but they start at that same cadence.
14:05And then they'll bring you back into the state of anxiety in these types of meetings.
14:11I've watched and listened to the patterns of how this happens.
14:14And even the speaker's voice, even though it's not music, whenever you relate it to the pulsation of the organ, this becomes a music.
14:23So the speaker speaking in that rhythmic tone that he's doing, that cadence as he's getting faster and faster, when he starts out, it's like he becomes the voice to the music.
14:35So there is a power of, what it brings is almost a power of suggestion.
14:40The people, as your heart slows down to match that rhythm, your critical thinking also goes down.
14:47It's basically your body enters into this place where it feels like it's almost going to sleep.
14:53And then you get the shell shock of the screaming preacher.
14:56So it's like a snapping you awake.
14:58That was very, very powerful in those tent meetings, in those tent revivals.
15:02So they use music as a tool, like I said, or like you said earlier, the music was the tool that would bring people to a place where they would call it almost like we're bringing us, we're bringing the audience to a state of holiness.
15:16And through that holiness, then the spirit can enter the building.
15:20Well, yes, that may be.
15:21I'm not going to argue one way or the other.
15:23But also at the same time, the music is bringing them to a place of calm before the storm, before this preacher starts shouting at them.
15:34It's not an isolated event that's only happening in our Christian world.
15:41It's happening everywhere where music has a place or music is the event.
15:50Music is the means by which we gather.
15:54I loved one part of my work in sports management was to give aerobic classes.
16:00I love aerobic classes.
16:02So that's just a situation where we want to engage with each other through music.
16:10Everyone feels that there's a group dynamic to it.
16:15Everyone feels that there's a connection between the people in this room through the music.
16:20And that's fun.
16:21That's exciting.
16:22We want that.
16:23But I often, or let's take one other example.
16:29I love jazz music still from my very heart because I'm a very melancholic person.
16:35But jazz music, in that sense, has a very certain setting to it.
16:41Jazz bars have a very certain setting to it.
16:44The lights, the colors, the drinks they serve.
16:49It's not like a Caribbean party or carnival party.
16:52It's jazz.
16:53It's a jazz bar.
16:54So it's more moody.
16:56It's more mellow.
16:56It's more melancholic.
16:58So people that want to soothe down, they want to maybe experience a very romantic evening with their partner would look for a jazz bar, would look for jazz music to feel this kind of vibe, to get connected with each other through this kind of vibe.
17:17The almost bewildering thing for me is that in Christianity, in, yeah, let's bash the charismatics again, in charismatic circles, it's almost like these people think for themselves or claim for themselves that these kind of experiences, group dynamics through music,
17:45are special to their congregation, are special to Christianity, are special to Christianity, and that's not true.
17:52Even my environment as a rock and jazz musician was very often more loving, more connected, and even more social than many of the Christian places I experienced throughout my Christian journey over the last 10 years.
18:12There was a connection between those people.
18:16There was love between those people.
18:18Yes, it was not a love with Jesus in the center, but nevertheless, it was a connection.
18:26There were people socializing.
18:28There were people serving each other in their own way.
18:31And it's bewildering to me that certain Christian groups think for themselves that this is something special that only Christianity has, and that's not true.
18:45And that's the point, I think.
18:50They don't realize music as a tool, and because they don't realize that music is a tool, they are more prone to be fooled by the people who use that tool against them.
19:06But they will never think of that as a tool that is used against them, and that's very, very sad.
19:12You know, it's funny.
19:13Some of them actually do know that it's a tool, and they use it to their advantage, but they don't ever preach about why the tool.
19:23And I say this because of the history of the song Only Believe, which was William Branham's theme song in the revivals.
19:29Only believe.
19:31This was a song, the first time I learned it was sang by Elvis Presley, I was completely shocked.
19:37This is the king of rock and roll.
19:38Interesting.
19:39The man who William Branham condemned specifically, Elvis Presley is the devil, right?
19:43He would say things like this.
19:45Well, that song was written by a man named Paul Rader, who was, I think he was one of the directors, if I'm not mistaken, of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
19:56And the CMA would send out missionaries all around the world, and they wanted a way to influence the people of foreign nations.
20:04They were targeting, if I remember correctly at that point, they were targeting nations within Africa.
20:09And you talk about jazz music.
20:12The way that they did this was through the Only Believe song, because Rader wanted to take a jazz beat and put Christian lyrics to it.
20:22And he thought that this jazz beat, if he got into the nations of Africa, where they're used to these drums, etc., it would be more appealing to the natives.
20:32You could even say that jazz is a very Afro-heavy music in its bass form.
20:41Yeah, absolutely.
20:42So, he recognized using it as a tool.
20:46And the funny part about this is, it came full circle.
20:50In the religion that I was in, jazz music was outlawed.
20:54It was evil.
20:54You could only listen to 1950s, 60s-style gospel music.
20:59Yeah.
21:00And we could not listen to jazz.
21:02And then I learned that the main theme song was actually a jazz song.
21:05I was like, it's unbelievable.
21:08Yeah.
21:08And this circle continues, because even in, I have friends who are, I don't know if you would call them, you would call them charismatic, definitely.
21:18But I don't know if you would call them New Apostolic Reformation.
21:21But they will often talk about the music, how they will never, ever listen to, and they'll list whatever's the style, whether it's rock and roll or jazz or different genres of music.
21:33And they'll say, I'll never listen to that, because you can even feel, in the music, it makes you want to tap your foot like this, and you can even feel the devils in this music.
21:42Yeah.
21:42What they're describing is the tool that is very valuable in the music.
21:47It makes, your body wants to respond to the music.
21:50And the irony that I found is, if you study the music that they listen to, and study its composition, often you find that the very music that they denounce, and for many of the same reasons, for this beat, they have the same thing.
22:07They just have different lyrics to the same music.
22:09Yeah.
22:10It's the most heavy influence or influential part of their own music.
22:15Like, it's pop music through and through.
22:19And it's not like, even if you take a historic perspective, like, music is, like, in forever, part of every culture, of every gathering, in every culture, when people wanted to get connected to whatever religious symbol or imagination of God, or the world, or the spirit.
22:45Like, the trance that lies within music, the magic, you could say, that lies within music, is as old as the earth itself.
22:56So, there's nothing special in Christian music in that regard.
23:00But, and we talked about language in the past, and there's language again, if you take modern Christian rock concerts, which they claim are revivals, it's just charismatic firework, but like every other rock concert on the earth, it's nothing special or unique to Christianity, not at all.
23:27And the religious part is, they don't reflect on themselves, that what they call revival is nothing more than music, because what's the fruit?
23:37You go to the concert, you enjoy your friends, you enjoy your time, enjoy the music, and then you go back home.
23:42It's not like these people that gathered there in the spirit go to a hospital afterwards, and everyone is getting healed.
23:51But that's what they're claiming is happening right there when, like, 500 Christians are gathering for the big event, let's get on fire, right?
24:02So, yeah, that's problematic.
24:06It is problematic.
24:07And, you know, you said something in there that I want to address.
24:10You go to a rock concert, and you see many of the same elements that you would see if you went to, say, a charismatic convention.
24:18Yeah, yeah.
24:19And many of the people who attend the charismatic convention will often denounce the rock music, sometimes for the beat, but most often from the lyrics.
24:28And there comes a situation where you have to understand, as a musician, music, can you really say that the music itself is evil?
24:41Because here's my theory, and you can talk whether you believe this or not, but as a human being, if you believe that humans are created by God,
24:51and that they have abilities that God has given them, there's an argument that all music comes from God.
24:59Yeah.
24:59Where the danger lies within this is that some musics have – I'm using the word – I almost use the word evil.
25:07I don't want to do this.
25:09Some music have lyrics that when people listen to, sometimes they will go down the wrong pathway.
25:15However, in my opinion, a person who is going down the wrong pathway, they have a tendency to go down the pathway anyway, or they would not be listening to the music.
25:25So there's this weird cycle that happens.
25:28The example – and I've given this before on the podcast – one of the examples that really, really hit me whenever I was – one of the churches that I attended after leaving the cult,
25:38the minister started talking about this song, Highway to Hell.
25:41I had never heard it, but I had heard the evil against it.
25:45I've heard many Christians say, this is an evil song.
25:48I listened to it for the first time.
25:50This was probably in 2000 – gosh, maybe 2014 was the first time I'd ever heard this song, Highway to Hell.
25:59And my first thought when hearing it, for me, it was like watching a movie.
26:03So I watch a movie about a – I like history movies or genres that are doing drama.
26:12So picture a drama movie where somebody is going down the wrong pathway and comes to this horrendous conclusion because the wrong pathway was chosen.
26:23And the message of the movie is basically, don't go down this pathway.
26:27It's the message may be good.
26:29The movie itself is portraying something bad that happens.
26:32Well, I listen to this song, and you have a band of people going down the wrong pathway.
26:37And for me, it's not even a right or wrong, come join me in this pathway.
26:43It's more to the effect of there is a group of people that are just really going down the wrong way.
26:49But the music itself, take the lyrics out, and suddenly you realize that it's amazing what they're doing with the guitars.
26:57And I'm not advocating that everybody go just suddenly love the song Highway to Hell.
27:01But what I'm saying is within that music, you have to understand that there was an inspiration.
27:07God – all inspiration comes from God.
27:10However, in Charismania, there is a notion that inspiration, not all of it comes from God.
27:17You can be inspired by Satan.
27:19Satan is a creator.
27:20And they create the scenario where Satan is actually equal to God in that worldview.
27:27And it becomes more like a Thor and Loki type religion than it is even Christianity.
27:32For me, I no longer believe in that type of worldview.
27:36So when I see these things and I see people condemning the music, I think back to just many of the songs that I have created.
27:45Some of the songs had no lyrics.
27:47What if somebody took one of the songs and put lyrics to it that they did not agree with?
27:52They would say, well, that's evil music.
27:53But yet at the same time, you don't know how the song was created.
27:57Did the person writing the song put words to it or was there another person who composed the music?
28:03It's so complicated to think through all of the many scenarios.
28:06But in the end, the result is the same.
28:09If you go to a rock concert that's playing Highway to Hell and all of the people are getting in that hype and that emotion and that emotional state, they will say they felt something.
28:19We felt something.
28:20We felt this was great.
28:21This was the greatest concert ever.
28:22If you go to the same thing in a charismatic setting, because the words are different, but many of the music is often the same.
28:31The words are different.
28:33They say, oh, my gosh, we felt the move of God because the words are different.
28:38And I no longer think like this.
28:39You have to think about the whole thing, not just the words.
28:42Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
28:55You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
29:03On 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.
29:17You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
29:23If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
29:30And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
29:37On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
29:42You talk about cult leaders all day.
29:45These cult leaders use the same language as you and I right in this moment.
29:51It's not the language that is bad.
29:53It's the person.
29:54It's their intention.
29:56It's the way they are using the language.
29:59The same goes for music.
30:02But you cannot deny that certain types of music create certain types of feelings or emotions.
30:10I want, I wouldn't, I wouldn't distinct them by good and bad.
30:16That's almost too numb, too dumb.
30:20Music and especially emotions are very complex.
30:24What is melancholy for everyone?
30:27I know people, I love, I still love rock music.
30:31I know people that get depressed or anxious when they hear rock music.
30:35Oh, it's so loud.
30:36It's so aggressive.
30:36I don't feel aggressive when I hear rock music.
30:40It makes me happy, happy, clappy.
30:42So same music, different outcomes.
30:47But I experienced something very interesting back in my days in Western Germany.
30:54I'm from Western Germany originally.
30:56Western Germany has a huge Japanese population.
31:00Yeah, you can route that back to World War II, but these are very sophisticated, very well-educated people, but they don't believe in God.
31:10Most of them are very, I think they wouldn't even describe themselves as atheists.
31:17It would be even more precise to, their premise is that there is no God.
31:28Like, they live, like there is no God.
31:31They just live their lives.
31:32They have a very rational, very functional way of thinking about things.
31:36But if they, if you give them rock music and pop music, they will consume it and the next day they have already forgotten the music.
31:49It's like irrelevant for them.
31:53But the Japanese people have a very special relation to the music from Bach.
32:01There's a huge fan base for Bach or classical music in Japan.
32:08And Bach makes them experience some kind of godliness or holiness.
32:18That's not what I am saying.
32:21That's what they are saying about the music from Bach.
32:25So these people don't have any concept about God or holiness, but they would swear if they listen to Bach, they experience a feeling of holiness, a feeling of godliness, a feeling of being connected to God.
32:42Bach was a Christian musician.
32:44And on every sheet of his writings, there's always in the top right or top left, like praise God, God the Almighty, God to be blessed.
32:58All of his music was written for God or before God.
33:03And that is what his music transcendence in a way that is not rational, that is not emotional.
33:11How do you feel holy?
33:13How do you feel godly?
33:16But these people, these Japanese people experience a kind of God is present in this moment when they listen to this music in a very Christian sense.
33:25And that's a good thing.
33:26But they won't experience the same feeling of holiness, godliness, and God is present when they listen to his hill song.
33:34Hill song is, for them, totally irrelevant, and it's interchangeable between every other song you hear on the radio.
33:42You know, that's interesting because that's a thought that I've not really put to words yet.
33:47People respond to music differently.
33:50And what is healing for one person is devastating for another.
33:55You mentioned the rock music.
33:57I know people that listen to their different forms of rock music, and they listen to the ones that, for me, is just really depressing.
34:06But from the personality of the person who's listening to it, they are a person who is often depressed.
34:14And you can't really attribute the music to their depression.
34:18They had the depression before the music, so there's no correlation.
34:21But because they're in the state, this music speaks to them.
34:27And, in fact, some of the music, if you listen to some of their artists, which I don't listen to it much because I'm not a fan of this music,
34:35but there are some music that fits their tone, and then there's some that's slightly more uplifting than what they have.
34:41So, in effect, they're listening to this very, for me, it's very depressing music, but yet it has this element that lifts their mood.
34:49So, they're actually getting help from this music, and it's not a Christian music.
34:54I'm not saying it's a Christian at all.
34:57However, there are flavors of Christian music that do kind of the same thing.
35:02You have different genres within Christianity and different genres within Christian music.
35:08You can listen to a bluegrass song, for example, or the banjo's going, the mandolin, all of these things.
35:14And people will start tapping their foot, and you go to the Pentecostal circles, they're dancing in the spirit.
35:22And I know I have a friend who's a runner.
35:24Do you know what this phrase is, a runner?
35:27Yeah, yeah.
35:27Yeah.
35:28So, in Pentecostal circles, some guy will get up and just run around the building, circles and circles and circles.
35:33Well, he's a runner, and not all of it is inspired by music, but music can inspire this type of effect.
35:39So, within the Pentecostal circles, you'll find that there's a different flavor of music than they have even in the charismatic circles, because people respond to the music differently.
35:50And even different groups of people respond to the music differently.
35:53So, as a tool, if you're wanting to get runners, there's literally a playlist that you can go through, and you can get people to get their feet tapping and get into the spirit.
36:03And if you play something that's really, really slow, and for me, I use the word agonizing, because I'm not a fan of the slow music, but really slow version of Amazing Grace, for example.
36:17You're not going to find too many people get up and tap their feet in a slow version of Amazing Grace.
36:22So, this is a tool to get you into what, in a Pentecostal circle, they would say, it's getting them into the spirit.
36:29But it's deeper than that, if you understand music, and you're a musician, it's not getting them in the spirit so much as people will respond to the music you play, and the lyrics, the chord progressions, the beat, the tempo, all of these things are combinations and variations to how you make people respond.
36:48Yeah, I think the root, again, we talked about it, is identification and justification.
36:55You want to identify free music with a certain lifestyle or a certain group of people, and you want to justify yourself through music.
37:05And there's even some kind of morality about music, the right kind of music.
37:11This music is not aggressive, so it's holy.
37:13This music is not too happy, so it's holy.
37:16This music is not too electronic, I don't like it, so it's not holy.
37:21So, it's already, yeah, very, it's just the way you consume things in your personal life, but there's no objective standard by which you can measure if that music is, in certain type of ways, holy or not.
37:41Of course, if there's someone singing aggressively about Satan and stuff, yeah, of course, that's not holy, in a sense that this person is abusing the element, the language of music for bad things.
37:55If you can make the same example for mathematics, if we say we have free languages through which God interacts with his creation, then it's language, then it's mathematics, then it's music.
38:15And to understand creation through mathematics is a wonderful thing, but mathematics will make you able to create an atomic bomb.
38:30So, it's the same language that brings you cars, that brings you hot water, yeah, that creates atomic bombs.
38:43So, it's not the language, it's the person who uses it for certain things or goals, yeah, or means.
38:51Yeah, and there's a relationship to that.
38:54That's probably a bigger podcast than today, but one of the many studies that I did after leaving the cult was just simply the universe.
39:00Everything moving in so perfect harmony.
39:03And if you think about the dynamics of music and the tones and the beats that happen, many of those beats, if you match the tones of the movements of the planets, etc., you can feel differently than when you don't match it.
39:19So, you can make somebody anxious, you can make somebody calm, it's literally a tool, it can be a tool or a weapon, I'll say it like that.
39:27But you said one thing in there that I want to highlight.
39:30There is this programmed, indoctrinated notion within Pentecostalism and some charismatic circles.
39:37The idea that God told you that you didn't like something.
39:45They will often say, the Spirit spoke to me and this is just not for me because God doesn't want me to do it.
39:52There's the programmed idea that if you are uncomfortable with something or you simply are not used to it, you therefore must dislike it.
40:02And usually people attribute that to God speaking.
40:07And what they're really feeling is an inward anxiety because they don't know, they don't know if they should like it or not.
40:14And because the indoctrination does not allow them to go to the places that they're not certain whether they like or not,
40:23they'll hear a new music, even a gospel music style.
40:26You can play modern music, modern contemporary music in a Pentecostal church and get kicked out for it.
40:35That's how weird this is.
40:37But yet you can play Pentecostal music in a modern charismatic church and they'll say,
40:43you know, that music was okay, but I just didn't feel the Spirit in that music.
40:48And what they're saying is they didn't feel the rhythm, they didn't feel the tool being used.
40:52So there's a doctrinal component to the music that makes it all more complicated because which musics am I allowed to listen to and enjoy?
41:02Which music does the Spirit of God tell me is evil?
41:06And it all goes down sometimes to even just the beat of the music.
41:09If the beat makes their heart uncomfortable, and it all goes back to these rhythms and cycles,
41:16they feel the anxiety, which is the tool of the music.
41:18They feel that pressure, that stress that's building up in the music.
41:22And they'll say, well, that's an evil spirit coming at me.
41:26And it's nothing at all like this.
41:28It's just literally the music and the harmonies and the beat and the tones.
41:31There's a saying in Germany, was der Bauer nicht kennt, das frisst er nicht.
41:37Like what the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't like.
41:40Yes.
41:41So let's be more conscious about it.
41:45Of course, music has also a physiological component to it,
41:50like how we feel and perceive and receive music in a very physiological sense, like bodily.
41:57And if our reaction as Christians, and we pretend to be, normally we pretend to be educated and sophisticated.
42:07But if our reaction as Christian to foreign things or strange things is to demonize them,
42:17that's basic instinct, low level human thinking or human logic, like tribalism.
42:25Okay, so yeah, everything I don't know is like from the demon.
42:30And even from a historic perspective, like people in the past that were not from Jewish tribes,
42:36how did they explain thunder and lightning?
42:39Oh, it must be from a demon, right?
42:42So what these people are doing is kind of the same.
42:46They don't understand a certain element about a music they don't know.
42:50So it's not from God, it's not from the Spirit, this exalted language they are using to describe basic things of life.
42:59You know, one of the funny things that I go to in the Bible, when I hear something that's like this,
43:05the cults have trained people, and it goes beyond the cults, even in some Pentecostal charismatic circles.
43:13If you don't like something or you question whether you might not like something, it must be evil.
43:19And there's no middle ground.
43:21You use the word demonize.
43:23Sometimes it's not even to the level of demonization.
43:26It's just they'll shut it off mentally.
43:28They'll completely shut it off.
43:30The Lord is speaking to me.
43:31I'm uncomfortable with this music.
43:33I therefore must not like it.
43:35Yeah, yeah.
43:35But if you look at the way – I'm going to use this example for all of the people who hated me for saying the thing about highway to hell,
43:43because I know there are people out there that did.
43:46Look at the Apostle Paul when he's in – I think it's Athens.
43:50He goes up and there's the altar to the God with no name.
43:54Paul didn't say,
43:55Yeah.
43:56No, that's evil.
43:58No, I feel uncomfortable.
43:59No, the Spirit is telling me don't talk about the God with no name.
44:02No, these people are worshiping a false god.
44:04He says,
44:05Yes, I too serve the God with no name.
44:08He finds a middle ground and he finds ways to engage with the people.
44:14And yet, in these circles, even right down to the music,
44:19they have been trained and manipulated that you cannot find that common ground.
44:24Because when you're uncomfortable, it must be the Spirit telling you and giving you this feeling of uncomfortableness.
44:32Had Paul had that same indoctrinated program, think of how different that verse would read.
44:39I love how you connect this to his speech at the Areopark.
44:43I love it.
44:44It's one of my favorite pieces of the entire Bible.
44:49Because if you ever want to take a master class in how to reach people and how to bring across the gospel,
44:58then please read the Acts 14, is it right?
45:01So, what is he doing?
45:03There's this strange God and he connects it to the creator of the earth.
45:08All people are from one blood, right?
45:15So, what he is doing is a master class of preaching there.
45:21So, yeah, exactly like you said, if he was like most of the Christians,
45:25Ah, that's bad for me.
45:26I don't like it.
45:27The pagans, the bad deities there, this would never happen.
45:33There's so much that you can learn by just reading the Bible.
45:37That's one of the things that I have found.
45:38Not only does it remove this idea that when I feel uncomfortable that it must be a demon
45:45or it must be God telling me don't move forward.
45:48What it does, it's freeing.
45:50It enables you to move forward, but in ways that connect with other people.
45:54And when you find that common ground, you find that people aren't as bad as you were trained to believe in many of these movements.
46:01And people are actually, you know, from the heart, the first time I went to a rock concert,
46:06and I won't tell you the band because I will get hate mail,
46:10but it's kind of funny because I wanted to go outside of my element,
46:15and I was purposefully making myself go outside of my element and doing things that I was uncomfortable with
46:21so that I could learn from that experience.
46:24And in many ways, I relate it back to if you were a normal non-cult person and you were a teenager,
46:33you're going to go try to experience things because that's how you learn.
46:36I never got to do this.
46:38So I would do things like this.
46:40And I went to this rock concert anyway.
46:42And I'm out of my element.
46:44I'm listening to something that I thought that I would not like at all.
46:48And I suddenly realized that the people that are there beside me in this concert are really, really good people.
46:56And I would have never dreamed or connected this while I was in the movement just simply because of the band that they listened to.
47:05And when you take it to that level, and I go back to this Paul with the unknown God,
47:09for me, it was like the people next to me were worshiping the unknown God.
47:16And because they had that altar in their mind, I completely shut them off as they are the forbidden.
47:24They're a boundary I can't cross.
47:26I can't reach.
47:27I can't penetrate.
47:28I can't engage them.
47:29And that's how this indoctrination works.
47:31I can't engage with the people who I am uncomfortable around.
47:36And music, however, and part of the reason I wanted to do this podcast, music, if you get past that barrier, music can bring everybody together,
47:45which makes it an even more powerful tool than the way that the charismatics use that tool.
47:51Yeah, yeah, yeah.
47:52Because music is a connection for everyone.
47:55Everyone can connect through music, mostly.
47:58And like you said, you have to make a connection to the people, which basically means you have to meet them where they are, not where you are.
48:09And Paul is doing this as well.
48:12In Jerusalem, they would start the gospel with, from the beginning, you are the sons of Abraham.
48:19And then they would tell the story of Israel, and so on, and so on, and so on.
48:24But at the Ario Park, he's talking to Hellenistic, no, not even Hellenistic people, but to, what's the right word for it?
48:35Pagans, to total pagans.
48:37So, of course, he doesn't start with the history of Israel.
48:41There's no connection for them between themselves and Israel.
48:44So he starts with, ah, I see you are seeking for God.
48:48I saw the elements in your cities.
48:50Wonderful.
48:50Let's talk about it.
48:51And they don't even, he doesn't even make it about religion, talking about people and what they love and like and what their consumes are.
49:01But he's, he's not talking religion.
49:04He's talking the gospel straight.
49:06But in a way, those people can understand.
49:09It ties very closely to another passage.
49:12Paul is, I think it's a letter from Paul.
49:14And he's saying, basically, don't let any man limit your freedoms by telling you that you can't eat food that's sacrificed to idols and all of these things.
49:23In these circles, they've basically trained you not to partake.
49:27So me going to the concert, that's me engaging in something that is offensive to many of these people that are trained like this.
49:36Paul is basically saying the opposite thing.
49:38He's saying, you can engage, you're free to do this, but he always qualifies it.
49:43If you read through his letters, you're free to do the thing.
49:46But basically, in essence, if you summarize it, you're free to do it, be a Christian while you do it.
49:52Don't get consumed by it.
49:53Don't get consumed by it.
49:55Right.
49:55And I look at that, you know, I have no inclination to go eat food sacrificed to idols, because that is an ancient world, and it doesn't really apply so much today.
50:07How often do you come across food that is being sacrificed to idols?
50:10But if you apply that, it's very applicable to exactly what we're talking about here.
50:17There are things that you can do that Paul would say comparably to what he's saying with the food sacrificed to idols.
50:26You can partake in this music.
50:27Be a Christian while you do it.
50:29You can go to this movie.
50:30You can do these things.
50:32Be a Christian while you do it.
50:33Don't let it consume you.
50:34You're basically free in Christ is the essence of what he's saying.
50:38And sometimes I feel like because the music has been weaponized against the people in these movements, the weapon itself, the leaders realize how powerful it is.
50:52They also realize the power of music if they're not in the charismatic circles.
50:58So part of me wonders, whenever all of this was being orchestrated, if some of the leaders didn't say, hey, look what we can do with this music in this group.
51:08I learned it because I went to this concert of who knows what, and I felt that same excitement.
51:15We can have that same excitement in this church, but we must teach them never go find the source of that excitement outside of this church.
51:23I strongly feel that along the way, some of these guys had to have done this.
51:29I think so, too.
51:30If I remember correctly, that's exactly how the PSA principles influenced many of the charismatic circles.
51:41But they would never talk about their sources, like positive thinking is not a Christian concept.
51:58But these guys, these charismatic cult leaders, read about it, implemented it into Christianity, but they would never discuss their sources out of jealousy or fear.
52:14I think, first, even more, the fear to be not seen as the genius, as the creator, as the inspired person that brings this message from God.
52:27Because as soon as you see from the perspective of the congregation, if they can learn about it in the word, like in the next library around the corner, then it's nothing special anymore.
52:42Absolutely.
52:43And part of the reason for me thinking that way, this is a funny story, but in my past, whenever I was involved with all these ministries,
52:51I went to a Spanish-speaking community and went to their church, and they sang the song that it stuck with me for probably 20 years.
53:02I was a small child when I heard it, but the song had such a rhythm and such a beat, and it went something like this,
53:08Let the Holy Ghost message shine his light on you.
53:12And this song, if you listen to the entire song, it's a very, very powerful song.
53:19Whenever I left the cult and I listened to Credence Clearwater Revival for the first time.
53:24Yeah, yeah, CCR.
53:25CCR.
53:25It's the Midnight Special.
53:26So I'm listening to a song that is literally the music for Midnight Special, and they changed the words, put it into these Spanish-speaking communities.
53:35And the Spanish-speaking communities, they ate it up.
53:37This is our favorite song.
53:38I remember a guy saying, this is our favorite song.
53:41Oh, boy, our favorite song.
53:43And that's the power of the music.
53:45They did not realize that many of those same people condemn anybody who's listening to rock and roll.
53:50They would condemn CCR.
53:52But they're singing the same music, getting the same excitement, they would call it the spirits moving.
54:00It's the same thing.
54:01And had they gone to a CCR concert and felt the excitement in the CCR concert, they would experience the same thing.
54:09Yeah.
54:10We have covers from Michael Jackson here in Germany.
54:14But people don't listen to Michael Jackson anymore, so no one knows.
54:17Oh.
54:17And it's basically a Michael Jackson song.
54:20Yeah.
54:21So much good music.
54:23Well, I could talk about this forever.
54:25I think maybe we'll cut it off here, because there's a lot of people who maybe aren't as excited about music as we are.
54:31But thank you so much for doing this.
54:33For me, this has been incredible fun.
54:36Yes.
54:36I could talk four hours about it as well.
54:39Maybe we do a follow-up or something, yeah.
54:42Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
54:46You can find us at william-branham.org and Sanctum Artifact YouTube channel.
54:50For 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.
55:20For more information, you can find us at william-branham.org and Sanctum Artifact YouTube channel.
55:50For more information, you can find us at william-branham.org and Sanctum Artifact YouTube channel.
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