- 19 hours ago
John invites Jenny McGrath to explore the hidden emotional and psychological damage caused by high-demand religious groups like Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Jenny McGrath, a former YWAM staff member and researcher, opens up about her experiences as a teenage missionary molded by purity culture, colonial attitudes, and spiritual manipulation. Together, they uncover how exhaustion, self-denial, and trauma are often mistaken for holiness and how these organizations can weaponize faith to control both youth and global missions. The conversation dives deep into dissociation, mind control, white saviorism, and the lifelong process of healing from religious trauma—revealing how sincere devotion can be transformed into exploitation under the guise of serving God.
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Jenny’s Story: From Purity Culture to YWAM
04:58 Physical Collapse and the Praise of Suffering
05:59 Confronting White Privilege in Missions
10:05 The Curse of Ham and Colonial Theology
13:02 Psychological Breakdown and Dissociation
16:00 Trauma, the Body, and Religious Fear
19:06 Children and the Cycle of Missionary Trauma
22:02 Mind Control and Cult Psychology
26:06 Purity Culture as Imperial Training
29:01 Religion, Resources, and Hidden Agendas
33:08 Kingdom Ideology and Justified Invasion
34:11 Fight, Flight, and Freeze in YWAM Life
36:32 Emotional Manipulation Through Worship
40:12 Autoimmune Illness and Blaming the Victim
42:10 Entrapment Through Faith and Livelihood
44:03 Healing, Memory, and Writing as Recovery
45:04 Losing Community After Leaving the Cult
47:11 Advice to an 18-Year-Old Missionary Self
49:03 Where to Find Jenny’s Work
______________________
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
00:00 Introduction
01:31 Jenny’s Story: From Purity Culture to YWAM
04:58 Physical Collapse and the Praise of Suffering
05:59 Confronting White Privilege in Missions
10:05 The Curse of Ham and Colonial Theology
13:02 Psychological Breakdown and Dissociation
16:00 Trauma, the Body, and Religious Fear
19:06 Children and the Cycle of Missionary Trauma
22:02 Mind Control and Cult Psychology
26:06 Purity Culture as Imperial Training
29:01 Religion, Resources, and Hidden Agendas
33:08 Kingdom Ideology and Justified Invasion
34:11 Fight, Flight, and Freeze in YWAM Life
36:32 Emotional Manipulation Through Worship
40:12 Autoimmune Illness and Blaming the Victim
42:10 Entrapment Through Faith and Livelihood
44:03 Healing, Memory, and Writing as Recovery
45:04 Losing Community After Leaving the Cult
47:11 Advice to an 18-Year-Old Missionary Self
49:03 Where to Find Jenny’s Work
______________________
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
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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
00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my very special guest, Jenny McGrath, former
00:46member of YWAM.
00:48Jenny, it's good to finally have you on here.
00:51We've communicated a little bit through email, but I told you I was very excited to have another
00:55person from YWAM.
00:56I've been wanting to get more and get a broader picture into this sealed box that is YWAM,
01:04because I hear so many stories.
01:06A lot of the stories I hear, the people do not want to step forward and talk about it,
01:11which is sad.
01:12So I know that there's more than meets the eye, but brave people like you who can step up and
01:18talk about it, this is fascinating.
01:20The whole thing is interesting to me, and it will help a lot of people.
01:24So thank you so much for joining the podcast, and if you could, just take a moment and tell
01:29a little bit about yourself.
01:31Thank you so much for having me.
01:33I am really excited to be here.
01:36And I feel like I'm entering this conversation both from a very personal experience, and I'm
01:43also entering it from my professional experience.
01:47I grew up in Colorado Springs, and so for those who don't know, that is the epicenter of white
01:54evangelical fundamentalist Christianity.
01:58And I was homeschooled most of my life, and I grew up in the height of purity culture.
02:04I begged my parents to get me a purity ring when I turned 13, and really bought in hook,
02:11line, and sinker to that movement and to that culture.
02:16And when I was 14 years old, I saw the film Invisible Children, which was a documentary-style
02:25film about three young white men from California that went to Uganda and quote-unquote discovered
02:31this war that was going on that didn't need discovering, but that's the way that it was
02:37framed.
02:38And it was this highly, highly emotional and erotically charged film that sort of pulled
02:45on all of the levers that I had been socialized in in purity culture.
02:49And so, I experienced that film as God calling me to be a missionary in Uganda.
02:56And I begged my parents to let me drop out of high school and move to Uganda.
03:01They did not let that happen.
03:04And when I graduated high school, YWAM was sort of a compromise with my parents between
03:10going to university and just moving straight to Uganda.
03:15And so, I did a discipleship training school with YWAM and ended up joining the organization
03:21and doing other schools.
03:23I did a school of biblical studies in South Africa, and then I did another school of dance
03:31later on in Montana.
03:33But most of the time in YWAM, I was on staff in Colorado Springs, but I was technically a
03:39field worker in Uganda.
03:41So, I spent a lot of my time on my own as a 19, 20, 21-year-old in northern Uganda.
03:49And then various teams would come out or would be sent out to help me establish a ministry
03:56that I was establishing there.
03:57And over the years, my body got sicker and sicker.
04:04I had boils all over my body.
04:07My immune system stopped working.
04:10I would have what I would probably call a psychotic break.
04:15I was just like hysterical.
04:17If the printer wouldn't work, I had no tolerance for anything going wrong.
04:22And I was working every day from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., whether I was in Uganda or I was in Colorado
04:30Springs trying to fundraise.
04:32And what I noticed was the sicker and sicker I got, the more and more I was praised and
04:39the more and more the people that were my leaders were telling me, this is proof that
04:45you are doing what God wants you to do.
04:47And I had pretty much a goal of being martyred by the time I was 23.
04:55I did not see myself living beyond the time that I was 23.
05:00But my body just kept getting sicker and sicker.
05:04And so, I actually ended up, long story short, in graduate school going for a master's degree
05:11in counseling psychology.
05:13And I thought at the time, I'll get this degree in counseling and I'll learn how to
05:19take care of myself so I can go be a missionary longer and my body will stop, quote unquote,
05:24failing me.
05:26And through my graduate program, it was the first time I was confronted with white privilege
05:32and why I was able, as an 18, 19-year-old, to step into an entirely different culture
05:40and context as a professional and establish a ministry.
05:44And I got to the point where I couldn't any longer engage in Uganda in a professional setting
05:51with integrity.
05:53So, I ended up starting a private practice and getting into mental health counseling.
05:58And because of the world that I have been a part of for a long time, most of the clients
06:04that find me are white women who grew up in fundamentalist Christianity.
06:09And so, for the last 10 years, I've continued to see these same themes of martyrdom and being
06:16socialized to abdicate ourselves.
06:20And really, the culture of purity culture infusing itself into our vocations and the roles that
06:27we take.
06:28So, five years ago, I started a research study on what I call the transnationalizing of purity
06:34culture.
06:35And I look at the psycho-affective impacts of purity culture on young white women and how
06:42those impacts led to us being groomed to be martyrs, whether that is in the role of moving
06:50as a missionary to the global south or motherhood or running non-profits or the various
06:57ways in which this world conditioned us to suffer for others.
07:03And so, I look at the personal aspect of that.
07:06But then, in my particular research, I also looked at the soft imperialistic power of people
07:13like myself bringing the ideals of Christian fundamentalism to countries like Uganda and
07:19all over the globe.
07:21Wow, there's so much there.
07:23As you were talking, I was thinking, well, I want to do a podcast on that.
07:26I want to do a podcast on that.
07:27There's probably 20, 30 different ideas that I want to talk about.
07:32But I'll try to narrow it in.
07:35And I want to talk about one thing that you said.
07:37You started talking about how your body started telling you that something's wrong.
07:41Your body started, I think you used the word failing.
07:44Not many people realize how common this is.
07:48And not many people who are going through it actually recognize that it's happening to
07:52them.
07:53I have had, in the support groups that I've worked with, I've had people share with me
07:57their before and after photos.
07:59Here's when I was in a high demand group.
08:01Here's when I've left.
08:02Look at the difference, John.
08:04And you look at it.
08:05And the person who's in the cult looks really sickly.
08:08And the person who's left, it's like suddenly they have found the fountain of youth.
08:12It's, it's, it's a little bit crazy.
08:14And it's because of the toll that the high demand group has taken on their mind and it
08:20manifests itself in the body.
08:22So people don't realize the significance of that, but that is a real thing.
08:26And I have, I have, like I said, I've seen photos before and after it's unbelievable.
08:31The other thing you're talking about the white privilege.
08:34I know that we have a wide swath of our audience that the moment they heard that their brain
08:39started shutting off because of all of the politics.
08:41surrounding it, but this is very real and what they're not telling you whenever these
08:48people who, these big names in the NAR charismatic movement, Pentecostals, when they go to these
08:54other countries and they say, it was glorious.
08:56We had a hundred thousand people.
08:58We had all these big numbers.
08:59These it's, it's when you understand the concept of how the cultures has developed and what they
09:07see when the white person comes over to their country.
09:10It is not what you see whenever you go to a revival here.
09:13It is different.
09:14And there's a reason why.
09:16And again, it's more than this podcast can hold.
09:20That's probably worthy of 10 to even explain this, but don't be turned off by the term white
09:26privilege.
09:26When you hear it, it's not the political nonsense that they're, they're spouting.
09:30This is a real problem too.
09:32And it's one that is used as a tool of manipulation by the cults.
09:36Yeah, I, I share in my book, an example of one of the first cracks for me that existed in
09:46Uganda was, this was actually before I was in graduate school.
09:51I was standing there preaching to an entire congregation and I stopped and I, I don't know
10:00what came over me.
10:01I don't really honestly understand to this point, but I asked, do you all think that I
10:06am smarter than you?
10:08Why else have you all come here to hear what I have to say?
10:13And there was this really old gentleman from the village that stood up and he said, we are
10:21black people and so, we are cursed because of what Ham did to his father, Noah.
10:29And because of that, we need white people to come tell us what God wants.
10:35And I did not know at the time that the story of Ham and Noah was used by early enslavers and
10:45early missionaries to Africa to subjugate people by saying, you're, you are cursed indefinitely.
10:52And so, we are actually bringing the blessing of Christianity to you despite this.
10:59And so, it comes from this long lineage of imperialism and colonialism that I didn't know.
11:05And yet, my body was still replicating by stepping into this same role as someone who was bringing
11:13the truth and what God wanted for a people that are very different than me and live a
11:20very different life than me.
11:22Pete Yeah, it's something that I actually go through that in my book as well.
11:25The Christian identity movement, as it was spreading, they were trying to say that there were two
11:30bloodlines, a good one, a cursed one, and if you're part of the cursed one, you really
11:36need us as your saviors.
11:37That's really essentially what they were saying.
11:39You need us as your saviors.
11:41We're the ones that can help you, but you're still cursed.
11:44And there are – Charles and I have talked through this a little bit whenever we went
11:49through the Revival History series.
11:51But there are churches that are openly preaching behind their pulpits that they are the cursed
11:55ones.
11:56They're made to serve the white people.
11:57And when you're in the United States, you don't understand that that's going on and
12:02how widespread it is.
12:04But these missionaries go over there, they take advantage of those people, and then through
12:10the testimonies of the people they're taking advantage of, now they come back and they
12:14take advantage of the minds of the people in the states.
12:17Beth Absolutely.
12:18Yeah, I think everyone in that cycle is dehumanized because everyone just becomes a means to an end.
12:27Absolutely.
12:28So, you went through terrible things to go on your journey and become the professional
12:34that you are.
12:35What was it like whenever you started to realize that your body was – the troubles that you're
12:43having with your body was actually a consequence of the things happening to your head through
12:48the cult?
12:49It was really challenging, and it took a lot of years for me to unpack that.
12:56I went to a Christian graduate school, and at the time, from where I was in YWAM, it was
13:05considered a pretty progressive school.
13:08And so, even in my graduate program for the first few years, I was continuing to feel like
13:17I had to be a missionary to these sinners in Seattle.
13:21And Seattle was this dangerous, liberal city that was going to lead me astray.
13:28And so, I continued to really – I would literally say my body is a machine, and I would treat
13:36my body like a machine because that was sort of how I had been conditioned.
13:39And so, it took these small and large cracks of learning that my body was actually communicating
13:49something to me.
13:51And I remember when I first read about dissociation, it was like my whole life made sense.
14:00Starting in high school, I would ask my parents, what does it mean when you feel like you're
14:05dreaming?
14:06And they were like, I don't actually know what you're talking about.
14:09And what happens is when our bodies don't feel safe to be present, they won't be.
14:16And so, we will literally feel maybe an out-of-body experience or a dream-like quality.
14:23And what this is often insinuating is that we are in what is called a dorsal vagal complex
14:31or a freeze complex.
14:34So, our nervous system has gone into this energy consumption state to keep us alive.
14:42And our nervous system does not know the difference between I am being chased by a lion and I am
14:49being chased by high-control religious rhetoric.
14:52And so, what it says is, our body says, let's just play dead.
14:57And so, then maybe eventually we can escape this.
15:00But what happens when we are in those energy consumption states is that it is our ability
15:08to produce fresh blood cells decreases.
15:10Our immune system decreases, our digestion decreases, and all of the metabolic processes that our
15:18body needs for long-term survival go quiet because our body is saying, we don't have time.
15:27We don't have the luxury of digesting our sandwich that we just ate.
15:33We are in a state of survival.
15:34And so, once I started to understand, wow, these symptoms I've had for my entire life and
15:41that got exaggerated when I became a missionary actually make a lot of sense.
15:47And so, I started the process of coming back into my body and learning how to feel sensations,
15:56learning how to feel when I was hungry, learning how to listen to when I was tired and not just
16:01keep bypassing.
16:02I have mentioned this a few times on the podcast, but I'm fascinated by psychology.
16:07And if I had my life to do over, I probably would have become a psychologist.
16:10So, I've studied this in areas that most people will never study.
16:16But one of the things that this association, the disorder itself, is often caused by trauma.
16:23And yet, it's also common among the cults and cult escapees.
16:27They mention symptoms that that's exactly what they're describing.
16:30And they don't even realize that they have gone through severe trauma, severe enough to
16:35cause a disorder.
16:36So, whenever I began to piece all this together, and I, too, was going through trauma, especially
16:42as I was bridging the gap between my family escaping and which one of my friends are going
16:48to leave me, which ones of my family, going through all of that disconnection, it was traumatic,
16:53extremely, excessively traumatic.
16:55After you go through that and you come to the other side, you start to realize that things
17:00about your mind and your body are different.
17:03And one of the fears that hits you is, oh, my gosh, this is Satan.
17:07I've left the cult.
17:09I've left God.
17:11You know, that's the first thing that comes in your head because that's what they have
17:14grilled into your head.
17:16And it took me a while to realize and recognize, no, that's not Satan.
17:20That's actually something they did to me, and I'm feeling it because of the trauma that
17:25they caused me.
17:26Absolutely.
17:27Yeah.
17:28Often in the somatic psychology world, we say trauma isn't always about an event.
17:37It's about not having a safe place to go in the midst of or after an event.
17:42And so, our nervous system can actually tolerate a lot of overwhelm if we have a safe place to
17:51go to discharge and to move through what our nervous system needs to process.
17:58But if we are in these worlds where anything that I'm actually feeling or questioning or
18:04wondering is putting at risk my connection to this entire community, maybe my livelihood
18:12because I have raised support and I don't know how to do another job, and all of these
18:18very real consequences, that in itself becomes a type of chronic trauma in the body.
18:27Part of the reason why I really wanted to get you on here, especially with your expertise,
18:31all of this trauma, I experienced it.
18:34I've worked in the support groups with others who have experienced it, and what we describe
18:39is very much what you would expect if you are talking to a person who went to Vietnam and
18:46came back.
18:47Yes, they didn't have to kill people.
18:49Yes, the trauma is different, but it's still trauma, and it still hurts just as badly.
18:54The part that scares me so much is the fact that there are children involved in this case.
19:00There are children being traumatized.
19:02When an adult is traumatized, the healing path is different.
19:07They had a solid ground to begin with.
19:09They were traumatized.
19:11They have something to go back to.
19:13One of my fears is the children that are in YWAM, if this trauma is widespread, the trauma
19:21is actually molding and shaping their personalities, and that really scares me.
19:26Yeah, I think it's absolutely devastating, and I think for me, I often tell my clients,
19:36I wouldn't do the work that I do if I didn't believe that we have the capacity to change
19:42and heal, and I'm in the camp that likens that type of complex developmental trauma to more
19:53like having diabetes, where it's not actually something you're probably ever going to get over,
20:01but it is something that you will learn how to manage, how to take care of.
20:07You'll learn, okay, this is where I start to get really triggered.
20:11This is where I start to feel really safe.
20:14But I also like to normalize with people.
20:18It makes sense if you're still having trauma responses, and you left this organization or
20:25this ministry 10, 20 years ago, because our nervous system doesn't register time, and we
20:32are context-dependent beings.
20:36So, when we are in a certain context that reminds us of something, sometimes our body
20:41can forget that we're not actually right back in that place again, and I think that that's
20:48part of the insidiousness of YWAM and many of these youth missions organizations is that
20:56our brains were literally still developing when we joined.
21:01Most people join at 17, 18, 19 years old.
21:05I remember I joined when I was 18, but I was applying for my DTS before I had even turned
21:1118.
21:12So, my parents had to co-sign on this form that said, if I die on my outreach, YWAM's not
21:19going to pay for my body to come back.
21:22My parents have to be responsible for that.
21:24And they're like, this is a horrible thing to be signing as a parent.
21:27And I'm just all, well, if it's what God wills, it's what God wills.
21:32I have to go.
21:34He's telling me to do this.
21:36And I was 17 years old.
21:40And so, I think about if a 17-year-old now was telling me that, I would go, hey, let's
21:44go get some coffee.
21:46And let's really talk about this and really see what's going on and maybe how your experiences
21:52have shaped your understanding of God and what you think, quote-unquote, He wants you
21:58to do.
21:59Yeah, it's just so unbelievable when you think of children being exposed like this.
22:05I had to go on a mission to help a cult victim with a cult expert.
22:12And that's where I got my crash course on cult psychology, how it works.
22:16Had to go through a week-long training session of this is how cults work.
22:19This is how mind control works, and I'm a sci-fi fan, and I thought that all of this
22:26mind control is science fiction until I went through this crash course and started to realize
22:31and recognize, wait a minute, I was myself under mind control, had no idea that I was.
22:38And since then, having studied the psychology of what happens after you've been in mind control
22:44and come out, it has an effect on you, and it has a long-term effect.
22:48Like you said, it is very much like diabetes.
22:52There are things that I may never get over.
22:54I just have to learn to cope with them, how to deal with them.
22:57I actually did a podcast series with my cousin who is a psychotherapist in Florida, and we
23:04talked about ways, tools to help through that.
23:07But you have to learn to cope with it.
23:10It's bad, and especially to think that there are children involved.
23:15Then I did a study on the history behind these children movements, and it becomes even scarier.
23:22So in the study that I did, in this week-long study, they were talking about how Hitler was
23:29able to manipulate and program the minds of the Germans to the extent that they could take
23:35the life of another human and think that they were glorified in doing this, that they were
23:41justified in doing this.
23:43And it was a type of mind control he was using on an entire nation.
23:48After he did this in the United States, the government wanted to weaponize this.
23:53How did he weaponize it?
23:55We need something to fight that type of mind control.
23:58So there were these studies, and you can read about that history if you want online.
24:02But bottom line is, one of the programs that Hitler established was the youth programs.
24:09Because if you can manipulate the minds of the youth as they are most moldable, you can
24:16literally take their minds and mold it like clay into the way that you want.
24:21So when you combine mind control with very horrific ideologies, this is a mess.
24:27This is a recipe for ruining the lives of the children.
24:32Now, fast forward into the United States, after they're watching this happen, there was
24:37this weird movement by the Christians.
24:40And you had multiple children programs.
24:43You had Billy Graham had a program for the youth.
24:45You had, in fact, Jim Jones came in through one of these programs, right?
24:49And they were trying to combat the Nazi ideology with Christian ideology.
24:55The problem is, many of the people who were involved with this, their version of Christianity
25:00was either slightly off or way far off the mark.
25:05Some of them were white supremacists.
25:08So you had all of this weird mess in the United States developing.
25:11And I still am trying to put YWAM into a category.
25:16It's definitely not the Nazis.
25:17It's definitely not Billy Graham's thing.
25:20But in the end, for me, they're really no different.
25:24You have children who are being susceptible to mind control under a high demand group.
25:32That is the bottom line for me.
25:34Now, whether it's destructive doctrine, I don't know.
25:37The doctrine itself even doesn't matter.
25:39The fact that you're doing this to kids, for me, this is very dangerous.
25:43Yeah.
25:44And I think it is, for lack of a better word, really brilliant.
25:51Because, again, I didn't know, as an 18, 19-year-old, the history of imperialism and colonialism.
26:01I didn't know the connection between the organization, the family, and leaders in Uganda.
26:10And I didn't know the connection with instilling anti-gay rhetoric in the guise of purity culture.
26:19And so, what I specifically look at is how even purity culture is a world of mind control.
26:27And so, if folks don't know what that is, essentially, it was a response to a lot of different things, but primarily sex education and children learning about consent in schools.
26:42And so, in the early 1990s, you had this huge movement where around 200,000 abstinence-only pledges were staked on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
26:58And Professor Sarah Mosliner calls this the great white hope, that these were primarily young, white children who were learning abstinence-only education.
27:11And what that actually meant was racial segregation.
27:17It meant heteronormative relationships.
27:21It was James Dobson's focus on the family.
27:23It was a very, very specific vision of what the family that was being protected was.
27:31And so, for folks who, like myself, were inundated with these messages, you know, in youth group, my youth pastor would have a handful of M&Ms, and he would say,
27:43this is you, and if you hold a guy's hand, you give him a few M&Ms, and if you kiss a guy, you give him a few more M&Ms.
27:50And by the time you meet your husband, if you've been with multiple people, you have no value to give your husband.
27:57And so, I look at how those messages actually groomed us to become missionaries.
28:04Because if my body is nothing more than a vessel for my future husband or God, it is going to make me that much more inclined to follow those really dogmatic, tyrannical ideas about who God is and what he does.
28:23And by the time I was 21 years old, because I was establishing a new ministry in northern Uganda, I just so happened to be there when they had discovered that there was oil in Uganda.
28:39And I was in hotel boardrooms in Colorado Springs being introduced to oil tycoons to talk about how I could figure out how to let them come to Uganda to dig oil wells for Jesus.
28:56And so, there is no stop.
29:01I think even in that, you're like, where does YWAM fit?
29:06I think it actually really depends on how deep you get.
29:09There could be someone that goes and does a five-month DTS.
29:12They have a great experience.
29:13It's almost like the summer camp thing, and then they go on and do their life.
29:17But the closer and closer you get to the belly of the beast, I think the more and more you see how they're using youth as tools of imperialism across the globe.
29:32Have 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?
29:45You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
29:52On 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.
30:07You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
30:13If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top.
30:20And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
30:26On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
30:31There is so much in what you just said, and so many things, some of which I'm scared to talk about and probably won't.
30:38But I think the thing I will talk about is this.
30:42Whenever the Pentecostal religion started spreading into Africa, there's a lot of very nasty history as to why it went there.
30:51And if you study the history of John G. Lake and the things that he was doing, it's unbelievable.
30:56The guy, he's a con man working with other con men.
31:00Well, they go into Africa, and one of the things they discovered was the diamond mines.
31:04And like you said, once you get into the belly of the beast, you start to see that there's a lot more going on here than just religion.
31:11And William Branham, as he's going there, he even talks about it on sermons.
31:17He says, there's so many diamonds that you walk down the street, and you can just reach down and pick up a diamond.
31:22And, you know, he's telling this to people, very poor people in the United States, who would love to be able to walk down the street and grab hands full of diamond
31:32because they could buy the food that they need to survive the rest of the week.
31:35But these ministers were going there, and what they set up was a little bit odd because it is spreading Christianity,
31:45at least their version of Christianity.
31:47They are sending missionaries.
31:49And not all of the missionaries may have agendas.
31:52They may not even be bad people.
31:54But what they're also setting up is a conduit.
31:56And when you understand how the conduit works and understand both sides of that conduit,
32:02you have on the one side, we'll fund your ministry, but we want this other thing.
32:07Can you – when you go there, can you give us this other thing?
32:10And then vice versa.
32:11It is a conduit.
32:13And there are a lot of people who see the religion for just a religion.
32:17And when they study a cult, they study a cult just simply for its doctrine.
32:21And so they see all of these groups as desperate, completely separate groups.
32:26But when you understand that all of this is kind of working together, it's just one cog in this big machine.
32:33When you understand that the machine exists not so much for Christianity but for an engine that helps drive Christianity,
32:42that's when this turns into a thousand conspiracy theories, which is fascinating to think through.
32:48But some of those conspiracy theories can be tied to factual information.
32:51So, again, that leads me to all of these questions that I have about YWAM, many of which I can't even say on the podcast,
33:00but I can see the potential for it to be such a conduit.
33:04Absolutely.
33:05And I think that when you are indoctrinated into an ideology that you are part of a kingdom of God
33:19that is beyond, above kingdoms of this earth,
33:25and even more so that certain kingdoms of this earth, if they aren't Christian, are evil,
33:32then you can justify going into countries illegally.
33:38You can justify a million different things because you are doing it for eternity,
33:44and that is more important than these religious organizations or, like, these states.
33:52You just, you override them.
33:53Like I said, it's fascinating to me.
33:57But the devastating toll that it takes on the people, it is more problematic than the conduit itself.
34:05And, again, we're talking about children.
34:08Whenever you were starting to understand that this was a high-demand group,
34:13it had taken the toll on your body, now you're starting to understand the psychology.
34:17What signs did you think back through?
34:20What moments could you go back and identify where other children were suffering
34:26now that you knew what was happening to your head?
34:30I thought about how it thrives on people being in a state of fight, flight, or freeze.
34:39Everyone was constantly busy and working because Jesus was going to come back any time,
34:49and so, we needed to save as many souls as we could.
34:53The Great Commission couldn't wait.
34:56And so, everyone was always in a frenzy or a crash, a frenzy or a crash.
35:02And, I don't know, I mean, I think maybe the only people I knew that seemed well-rested,
35:11if I can say this, were those that were leaders of bases.
35:16And there seemed to be a difference in the people who held the most power
35:20and the people who were what I might call the foot soldiers
35:24and the people that were doing the work on the ground.
35:27And that it was, yeah, it's a system of people being unwell.
35:34And there is a certain type of way in which the services that are held often on bases
35:47lead people into what Emile Durkheim would call collective effervescence.
35:52It's everyone together singing and moving and dancing, and you start to feel euphoric,
35:58you start to feel really good, because we've actually evolved to sing and dance
36:03and move together with other bodies, and that's a beautiful part of how our brain works.
36:08But then, in those really vulnerable and receptive moments,
36:13immediately comes these really heightened scare tactics about what's going on in other countries,
36:21about the devil getting a foothold, about all of these things.
36:25And so, you're constantly in these whirlwinds of hormones and neuroreceptors
36:33that just don't ever let you stop.
36:36Part of the reason why I'm fascinated with psychology is because
36:39whenever I started to escape the cult,
36:42and I started to recognize that what they were doing to my head was wrong,
36:46I wanted to know not just that it was wrong,
36:50I wanted to know how they did it.
36:53And I went back, and you would laugh at me if you saw how many of these sermons that I analyzed.
36:59I actually listened to more sermons after I left than when I was in it,
37:02because I'm going through and I'm systematically studying the emotions, the structures, the strategies.
37:09And I started to, after you do this, you start to notice these patterns that emerge.
37:15And the pattern that was most common was people would be welcomed with this opening,
37:21heartwarming, very connectable story, which brings their guard down.
37:26And they say things that are very relatable.
37:29Do you remember Brother Jed whenever you did X, Y, and Z?
37:32And Brother Jed, oh, yes, I remember that.
37:35It's that connection, right?
37:36If you feel a connection, and what it's doing, it's bringing the critical thinking down.
37:41Everybody's welcome.
37:42They're warm.
37:44Opening songs, et cetera, starts out with a sermon.
37:47Let's read a verse.
37:48And they build up to this really climactic, emotional, break-you-down-and-scare-you hype.
37:57And what they have done is they have literally hijacked your head at that point.
38:01And if you go even deeper with this and study the tent revivals that were happening, right
38:07down to the organs, the strategy for the music made you turn off critical thinking.
38:13And even the pulsing of that organ, I read a few studies on this, and I wish I could find
38:20them again, but there's this thing that happens whenever the pulsing of the organ happens at
38:26a certain frequency, and then the minister speaks with that same kind of pulsation, and
38:32it matches your heartbeat.
38:33When it matches your heartbeat, this opens up the doors to literally to take over the
38:40emotions of your head.
38:43It's a hypnotic effect that is happening.
38:45And they build up to that, after the hypnotic effect, they build up to the thing that they
38:50want to inject in their head, and they start to put it in there.
38:53And once I learned the strategy of all of this, I'll be honest, I was going to churches
38:58that weren't cult churches, and some of it is just normal human speech technique.
39:04Over time, humans have developed this pattern.
39:06But the difference was, when I was in a non-destructive cult, the things that they were injecting
39:12weren't ever agendas.
39:14It was usually from the Bible passages.
39:17Instead of the agendas, the emotions, the fears, the doomsday, the Lord is coming soon, so be
39:24ready or else, that kind of thing.
39:26So I started to notice that there are ways that you can excite people and motivate people,
39:32which are good, but there are ways that you can manipulate their heads, which is using some
39:38very, very scary techniques that are bad.
39:41And then, this is before I even knew YWAM or any of the history of the children's movements.
39:47I was thinking how wrong that was.
39:50Me as an adult, I can't believe I let this happen to me.
39:53I had to get my kids out of this.
39:55I cannot let my kids be part of this.
39:57And then I discovered these movements like YWAM where children are widely subjected to this
40:05and they have no defense.
40:07They've never encountered this.
40:09They don't know that they're being manipulated.
40:12And that just, again, I can't say it enough.
40:14It really scares me.
40:15Yeah, absolutely.
40:18I think it's, we can't overestimate the impact that that has on the bodies that have gone
40:28through that.
40:30And I have seen many people experience autoimmune diseases and really serious health complications
40:39because of extended years in these worlds.
40:44Absolutely.
40:44I know several people who have autoimmune diseases.
40:48In fact, I have direct family members who do.
40:51And it's really sad, especially in the cults that we escaped, which were divine healing type
40:56cults.
40:57You are trained to believe that if you have one of these diseases, it's either because
41:02A, you don't have enough faith or B, because you have done something wrong.
41:08What have you done wrong?
41:09Get it out of your life.
41:10Rid the sin of your life.
41:11And so the thing that you have, which was literally caused, can be caused by the cult, I guess in
41:17some cases they weren't, but could be caused by the cult.
41:21The thing that you have is now even more debilitating because your problems that you have with trying
41:29to find what did I do wrong, what caused this, what did I do to cause this.
41:35And it's taking a problem and making it even more aggravated.
41:38Yeah.
41:38And I think there's, it exposes just how much even, I think, ableism can show up in these
41:50movements where if bodies are being bodies, it is often interpreted as a curse or a sin
41:58or something and not just a normal part of existing in a body that may have various elements to it.
42:08And I think also there's the physical part of it and there is, you know, we live in a world of
42:16capitalism and when you convince young people like me that I should become a missionary and not go to
42:25university, many people, by the time they're 40 years old, they have been professional Christians
42:32their whole lives and they think, I don't have a 401k, I don't have skills that compute to a market
42:40economy, so I better just stay in here. And I can really empathize with that, that there are very
42:48real reasons why people become trapped when they have been conditioned into these places and we don't
42:58live in a system that has many nets for people to transition out of spaces like that.
43:04I'll never forget whenever I left the cult and I started to, through the process of
43:11deprogramming and trying to understand what happened to me and why. I was sitting in the
43:15theater and we were watching, I can't even remember what movie it was, but it was a movie that had a
43:21moment in time in the movie whenever there was a person who was experiencing the after effects
43:28of having severe trauma. And I started bawling like a baby. I was thinking of what they did to me,
43:35how they did it, why they did it, and I hated the fact that this happened to me. And I started to
43:43feel very negatively about all of my time in the cult. However, it took me years to kind of get over
43:50that. Like you said earlier, you have to learn tools to try to overcome, you have to learn tools to
43:57cope with the things that are traumatizing you. It took me years to kind of get over that, but I
44:02began to understand I have a lot of fond memories that I will never be able to replace. They're really
44:09good fond memories, but they're also mixed with really traumatic memories. And the odd part about
44:16all of that is if you had asked me before I left the cult, did I have any traumatic memories? I would
44:22have said no. And I came to terms with the fact that yes, I had them. Yes, they were suppressed,
44:28but I also had good ones. How do you deal with that?
44:32I think honestly, it's partly why I pivoted to my research and my writing is that I'm a really firm
44:41believer that for a writer, nothing is wasted. And because I know there are many, many, many,
44:48many stories like mine, I think that there is power in being able to transmute my experience into
44:57sharing with others. They are not alone. And I think also part of the complexity of YWAM is that I
45:06might liken it to an abusive relationship where there is absolutely intermittent positive reinforcement.
45:16And some of the best moments of my life were on the mission field and on missions bases and
45:26the things we did as 18 year olds all living together, we had a ton of fun until we didn't. And so, I don't
45:37think that it is all one thing. And I think that's also part of the tragic complexity to it is that
45:46for most people like myself, once you leave, you lose all of those people that you dearly love and
45:54that you've had incredible intimate moments with and that you've had so much fun with. And in their
46:01eyes, you are a pariah that is going to lead them down a slippery slope to hell. And so, I think that's
46:09also part of the entrapment of these worlds is that it's not all bad or horrible. It's actually
46:15really beautiful. And in some ways, they actually know how to do community really well. But it is a
46:23very pseudo community that as soon as you start asking questions, as soon as you start challenging,
46:28you realize very quickly how volatile it is. And so, I hold it with a lot of tenderness and similar to
46:39how I've held leaving other abusive relationships. That actually, the biggest ache is because of the
46:46beautiful moments and the lack of connection I have with those people to be able to go,
46:52remember when we did this, remember when we did that. It feels like a big loss because there's
46:59not really anyone to share it with that gets it and that was there. I can talk to my husband or my
47:05friends about it, but it's different than when you were, it's sort of like being in the trenches with
47:12people. If you could go back in time, whenever you were 18 years old, you're headstrong, you're into
47:17this YWAM and you're going on the missions and your parents are scared because, oh my gosh, what
47:23happens if she dies when she's there and we have to go get her. And you could give some advice and
47:28encouragement to yourself. What advice would that be? I think for me, I was so, so, so hungry for
47:38being seen and feeling cherished and feeling like God was proud of me. And I think I would want that 18
47:52year old to know she doesn't have to work so hard and that she's actually sovereign and glorious just as
48:02being a human being. And it's okay if she's messy and her body doesn't belong to her future husband
48:13or God. Her body is hers and it's her birthright to live into her body how she wants to. And it's okay
48:22to make mistakes and learn and have successes and learn. And I would just want to teach her how to
48:32breathe and how to literally come back to her body and to be with her in those moments that felt
48:42really dissociated and really absent from her body. Well, that was very good. And thank you so much for
48:47doing this. This has been incredible fun for me. I really like to talk through these things. Thank you
48:52so much. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your work and it's been fun
48:58for me to talk to you as well today. Awesome. And tell people where they can go to get your book.
49:04Yeah. So it is in publication right now or it's on the way to publication. So it's not quite out yet.
49:11I do have an article version of my book, which is the Pure to Purpose Pipeline. And you can find all of that
49:21either on my website at indwellmovement.com or on Instagram at indwell underscore movement.
49:29And I will keep you updated if you follow along with my newsletter about when the book will be coming
49:34out. Well, thank you again so much for doing this. Thank you. If you've enjoyed our show and you want
49:40more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org. For more
49:46about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
49:50from Christian Identity to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
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