Gnosticism, Freemasonry, and Secret Knowledge: The Hidden Architecture Behind the NAR

22 hours ago

John examines why Freemasonry alone cannot explain the theological problems inside modern charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation movements. Tracing the issue back to ancient Gnosticism, he explains how secret knowledge, spiritual elitism, and hidden revelation repeatedly resurface in Christian history.

By comparing early church responses—especially Irenaeus’ work Against Heresies—with post–World War II healing revivals, Branhamism, and modern NAR teachings, this episode shows how Gnostic ideas reshape salvation, authority, and church identity. The discussion exposes why mystery-driven Christianity thrives in times of fear and instability, and why the simple public gospel remains the antidote.

00:00:00 Introduction
05:52:00 Why Freemasonry Is a Thread, Not the Core Problem
12:00:00 Defining Gnosticism as a Family of Movements
18:00:00 Mystery Cults, Pagan Roots, and Hidden Knowledge
25:05:00 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, and Exposing the Architecture
32:36:00 How Gnostic Structures Entered Modern Christianity
40:06:00 Anxiety, Power, and Monetized Revelation After WWII
47:54:00 Converging Apostasy and the NAR Ecosystem
55:30:00 Final Warning: The Church as the Battlefield
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Transcript

00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.

00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research

00:41at william-branham.org, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,

00:47is truly stranger than fiction. Recently, I did a podcast on Freemasonry, and it's kind of funny.

00:55If you know where I was heading with this, and you understand the comments that I made about

01:00Freemasonry, which a couple people who commented did, if you know where I'm headed with this and

01:06then understand the bigger picture, all of this makes much more sense. And so if you're listening

01:12to this podcast, and you've not heard that episode, I recommend you go back and maybe not the whole

01:18thing, because part of it was also addressing a comment that was made in a previous podcast

01:24before that, but at least the last half of it, maybe the last 20 minutes, because I start talking

01:30about Freemasonry as it is being introduced into the latter rain movement through William Branham

01:37and his mentors, and in multiple directions, both from a religious side, from a fraternal order side.

01:46If you understand the concepts of a fraternal order, and understand the destruction that can be caused

01:54by something like Freemasonry, which is, in many ways, it's not as insidious as some people have

02:01claimed, which I'll get into that into a minute. But if you understand the bigger picture, why these

02:06things are so dangerous, it would make you run screaming from several of these New Apostolic

02:12Reformation churches, some Charismatic, some Pentecostal churches. It's actually quite a big

02:18deal. And there were a couple commenters who actually caught where I was heading with this,

02:24and I want to give kudos out to those who did. I actually went back and I commented to their comment

02:31in the Freemasonry episode, and I said, you win the prize. It's because if you understand the bigger

02:37picture, then you really understand why all of this exists today. And so I'm going to be talking

02:46a bit about Freemasonry, but this podcast isn't about that. Again, you can go back and listen to

02:52the previous one. But instead, I'm going to be diving just a bit, not fully, but just a bit into

02:58Gnosticism. And again, kudos to the person or the people, there were a couple of them who caught where

03:06I was going to be heading with this because it is such a big deal. So before I get into it, let's talk

03:13just a bit about why I took the approach that I did. As I mentioned in the podcast that I did on

03:20Freemasonry, I'm against Freemasonry. I said that, I think I counted seven or eight times throughout

03:27the podcast. And it was funny because you could tell who was paying attention and who was there

03:32just literally to disrupt conversation because they said, why is John advertising Freemasonry?

03:38And when I clearly said, I'm not a fan of Freemasonry at all. But here's the problem.

03:44I came out of a destructive cult. And in a destructive cult mindset, everything is

03:50black or white. And for those of you that don't understand why that is and how that is,

03:57I recommend you read Dr. Stephen Hassan's book, Combating Cult Mind Control, because it really

04:02breaks it down for you. But it's black or white. It's either on or off, true or false. It must be

04:08wrong. It must be right. The shades of gray that lie in between are usually discredited or discounted or

04:16simply ignored. And to a person who has escaped that mindset, well, unless you really fully deprogram

04:24and understand that it's not a black or white world we live in, you miss half of the world. And

04:29some of it that you miss is actually quite dangerous. So that's what I want to get into into this podcast.

04:36I want to talk about the dangers of Freemasonry, but not because it's Freemasonry.

04:42So when you're in that mindset and you escape a cult, it's very simplistic to suddenly find an

04:49enemy, target them and say, the world has an enemy and it is Freemasonry. It's a satanic cult.

04:56They use the word Lucifer, which I did explain that if you want to go back and hear the first half

05:02of it. But they use this word Lucifer. So therefore, they must be worshiping Satan and ignore all of

05:10the doc, fully documented recording history as to why that word is used, how, what that word actually

05:16means, how it progressed through time and why it, why it turned into such a thing as it did.

05:23It's very easy to find an enemy because in a black or white mindset, if we left something that's bad

05:30and Christianity is something that's good, there must be an underlying theme that's causing all of it.

05:36It must be black or white. It must be the Freemasons. My opinion, after having studied that

05:43and studying the bigger picture and studying all of these trails of history that we've been going

05:49through, and we've not even skimmed the surface of those trails of history, getting to the,

05:55what Stephen, Stephen Montgomery calls it, the converging apostasy. Getting into that converging

06:02of apostasy is really key to understand because Freemasonry, yes, it's problematic. Yes,

06:09it did influence the church. Yes, it is a trail of apostasy, but it's not the big one. In fact,

06:15I don't know that there is a big one. If you want to look at a big one, just simply open the Bible

06:20and you can see that Satan and his demons are the big one. And more to the point, read through the

06:29New Testament when it talks about how there would be sent a great delusion to the church.

06:35My opinion is, if you understand the bigger picture, Freemasonry is just one thread that's

06:41coming in, but there's something that is being created by Freemasonry, by Gnosticism, Gnostic ideas,

06:49by many different converging themes of apostasy, that it creates something that looks like Christianity.

06:58It's using the word Jesus. It's using the word Christian. It has worship to Jesus, you know,

07:05and they're using the name Jesus in the worship, but it has themes that came from very destructive

07:12sources. And again, Freemasonry can be one of those sources, but you have to dig just a bit deeper to

07:19understand why Freemasonry exists. And the person who rightfully decided that he knew where I was

07:27heading with it, and rightfully so, the person got it, he or she, I should say. Gnosticism is a bigger

07:35threat, in my opinion, than Freemasonry, because without Gnosticism, likely Freemasonry would not

07:42have existed. And so in this podcast, I want to break that down just a bit, but there's much more

07:49to this story as we go through these histories. And I think as I go through this through time,

07:55I think you'll catch where I'm headed with all of this, but it is not something that is easily

08:01explained in a small 15 minute video. It's not something that in one podcast can be fully

08:07explained. And to the commenter who said something to the effect that there's, there's a whole lot of

08:13words and not a lot of substance. We have to understand there is going to be a lot of different

08:20angles that you have to look at this. And I'm taking it very slowly to drop in just hints of truth that

08:27people can go through. You know, you can do your own research and you can find, am I saying what's,

08:33what am I saying? Is it correct? Is it incorrect? I'll let you make that determination. But before we

08:40get into that, let's talk about Gnosticism just a bit. And I want to be very cautious how I do this,

08:46because I don't want to use the word Gnosticism as a fog word. I don't want to use it as a word that

08:54people are reading into it. This superficial idea. Gnosticism is a real threat and Gnosticism isn't

09:03one single thing. Like, um, I've heard people target Gnosticism much like they target Freemasonry

09:11saying that that is it. That is the evil that is Gnosticism is the enemy. And that's why we have

09:16all of these things that is partially correct. But Gnosticism is a family of movements. It's it's a

09:24converging of apostasy before today's converging of apostasy. And if you understand how all of that

09:32works, which is, you know, I could go into different histories of all of the different flavors of

09:38Gnosticism. And I think you might catch how big of a problem this is. But instead, I prefer to point

09:46people to some of the resources that are out there. For me, I went back to the original resource,

09:52the very, I think he was the first Christian apologist, Irenaeus wrote against heresies.

09:59And what he was doing was writing much like Stephen Montgomery's converging apostasy.

10:04He was writing about how all of these different ancient heresies made their way into Christianity.

10:10And he was tracing their sources, much like I have done,

10:13from the Gnostic groups that existed back to which ancient mythologies of pagan ideas that they

10:21originated from. It's called against heresies. It is a very difficult read. Because as you read

10:29parts of what Irenaeus is writing, you also have to go look in Wikipedia if you if it has it or different

10:36online sources to find what are the ancient mythologies that he's talking about, because

10:42he's referencing them to a in his writings to a people that is aware of their existence. Many of

10:48them are long forgotten. So the book is called the series of books is called against heresies. But

10:54Gnosticism is a family of movements that reframe salvation as liberation, freedom,

11:01escape, elitism, through revealed knowledge. In other words, if you have an if you have this

11:11revealed knowledge that only the Gnostic group has, then suddenly there's an awakening. And that

11:17awakening is it's reserved for the spiritual elite. Often, that idea that that gnosis, that knowledge,

11:26it is often paired with a mythic reach retelling of creation or distrust of things that we see in the

11:34world, and they saw in the world in their time. And that combination of those things, the spiritually

11:43elitism, the hidden secret knowledge that only the special group has, the mythic ideas, all of this

11:53combining to embody what they considered Christian life. So much like we see today with the New

12:00Apostolic Reformation and some of the other groups I've talked about, it was being presented as a

12:06Christian idea. But Irenaeus went through all of the trouble and all of the work to trace all of the

12:14roots of their ideas and their theology back to their pagan mythological sources. And it was quite

12:22destructive because people joined in those groups thinking it was Christian, and they're using the

12:26word Christ, they're using, they're talking about Jesus. But you can see how deceptive that would be.

12:32And it is, it's a very good study, I strongly recommend that you go into it. So with that idea,

12:41the idea that you have a secret knowledge that is a special group. Now with that theme, now think of

12:48Freemasonry. Freemasonry, you have this knowledge that only the people at the top know, you have this

12:54special group, if you join, you can learn the secret knowledge. There's many similarities between

13:01Freemasonry and Gnosticism. Why is this? Because this is an idea that is, it was very popular in the

13:09ancient world. It's very popular in the world today. So let's break it down a bit further. I mentioned

13:16salvation by secret knowledge, you are saved, your, your salvation relies on the fact that you receive

13:24the revelation. That was a key element of Gnosticism. Elite classes of humans, some people can't receive

13:31the truth, because they're not of our kind. I can't tell you how many times that I heard that language

13:38in the religion that I came from. And I came from Branhamism, which was the one of the foundational

13:43elements for what became the post World War two healing revival. And many of the groups we see

13:49today were built on top of that idea. That was a very common idea in the revivals. And it's not just

13:56Branham, you can, you can read through many of the other religious leaders that were participating in

14:01those revivals. And they had some Kenneth Hagin called it the rhema, they have the secret revelation,

14:09it is a divine knowledge that only the leadership can give to the people. And by having this knowledge,

14:14you become part of the elite. The, the person who's revealed, the person who is revealing these

14:22mysteries, they're usually functionally the center of attention in the group. It's not just that Christ is

14:31the redeemer. But in Gnosticism, there was the, there was the deity, and there's different names that were

14:38used for that deity among the different groups. But there was the deity, and then there was the messenger

14:44who unlocked the realization of that deity. And I think one of the biggest elements this, this one is

14:52very key to understanding why all of this exists. There was this, this idea that the scripture was

15:00encoded. It wasn't just simply that a person could read the scriptures and read for themselves,

15:06understand the meanings. The real meaning of the scriptures was hidden from the masses because it was,

15:12it was a meaning that only could be learned by the secret group. So in Gnosticism, you had the mystery,

15:19you had the leader. And through that combination of learning the mystery from the leader, then you

15:25could earn your salvation. And there were different ways that you earned it. The material things, the

15:32material world and Gnostic view was downgraded. There were Gnostics who became so ascetic that they even

15:42forbade their members. In the worst cases, some of them forbade their members to have sex with each other

15:49because one of the group's mysteries was that sex was part of the original sin and therefore it's evil.

15:55And if we want to be perfect and escape this world, no more sex. Well, that group didn't last very long.

16:02It died out over time. And there, there's some strange and unusual groups. The authoritarianism

16:11in Gnosticism, it's always esoteric. The authority comes from access through visions, through mysteries,

16:20basically through higher realms. You don't go to the Bible for your revelation. You don't read the

16:26Bible to learn about salvation. It has to come from this supernatural thing, whether it's a vision or

16:35whatever it is. Sometimes the leader would just speak there. Depending on the different groups,

16:39there's different ways that they, they did this, but it was always esoteric. And another key element,

16:45which will sound very familiar to people in today's world, there was, well, you had the real,

16:51there was an, a counterfeit of the real and that counterfeit spirituality that felt higher, felt

16:59repentant, which was probably in most cases, the, the body of Christians that were Christian.

17:06Those were discredited because you had to have the mystery. And if you unlock the mystery,

17:14you were ignoring the counterfeit that existed, the ones that all of the Christians flocked to,

17:20your special group had something better. So I could go on with that against heresies kind of breaks that

17:27down much better than I just did, if you want to read it. But the key to understand is there are

17:33mysteries. There are a special group of people. It's not for the outsiders. And that is basically

17:42in its essence. If you understand what Irenaeus was writing about, it is basically the commonality.

17:49The common theme was between this Gnostic idea that you could merge all of these different pagan beliefs

17:57into Christianity. And there was a link between the, what was called a mystery cult in the ancient

18:05world. There were these mystery cults, the cult of Dionysus, for example, they would have the rituals

18:10that you would perform. And if you perform the rituals, then you could summon the demon or the God, or

18:18another one was Bacchus. They would get into these ecstasy rituals where they were drinking wine,

18:23getting drunk, having all kinds of, doing all kinds of things that were bad. I'll just leave it there.

18:30But through these mysteries, the Gnostic groups were basically participating in the same ideas that

18:37the pagan mystery groups did. And in Gnosticism, it was rebranded as Christianity. So again, Irenaeus

18:45traces it out. He will link you to all of the different pagan mythological groups and how that crept into

18:52Christianity. One part that was really fascinating to me was watching through many of the different

19:00groups had a weird emphasis on numbers, because apparently in the ancient world and the pagan

19:06religions, with good reason, which I guess I'll go into that a bit, though, the sevens, the threes,

19:14the fives, the different numbers that had spiritual significance in Gnosticism,

19:21they were tied directly to the pagan belief systems because of the worship of the sun,

19:26moon and stars. You had the moon cycles, and you had the, you know, the 12s was a big number,

19:33and that was because of the, you know, the constellations. You had all of these numbers

19:39that were related to the tides when they would come in and out. And Irenaeus walks you through that,

19:45he says, and this group followed this pagan religion, which had a emphasis on seven,

19:51whatever that religion was. And so therefore, anytime they saw a seven, they said, Well,

19:56this must be a spiritual thing, God is talking to us. I grew up in the same kind of thing, man.

20:01We saw seven, we saw five. Branham would often say that five means grace, and he would spell it out on his

20:08fingers, G-R-A-C-E. And he it was a big spiritual number. So we were doing this kind of thing. And

20:17the irony in all of this, in the latter rain movement, and the post World War Two healing revivals,

20:24Branham was heavily involved in spreading dispensationalism. But he appointed what he called

20:32messengers to the dispensations of time that was laid out chronologically by Clarence Larkin,

20:40who was very popular in dispensational thought. And he assigned messengers to those time periods. And

20:47Irenaeus was one of his so called messengers. It was very funny when I first came across Irenaeus's

20:54works, and I started reading them, and he's condemning half of the things that I grew up believing.

21:00So Irenaeus was a Christian apologist, and you can learn more about Gnosticism through that.

21:05So why was this a threat to the early church? And why would it be a threat to the church today?

21:12I think that's really the key. If you want to understand the significance of what I'm talking

21:16about in this podcast, we really have to think through that. Because Gnosticism did not just simply

21:23deny Jesus, it retooled Jesus into a dispenser of hidden knowledge. Rather than the incarnate Lord

21:32who saved sinners through the cross, the resurrection, through the gospels, Gnosticism

21:39turned the Jesus story into a mythology. And the mythology had to do with secret knowledge.

21:45And again, if you're in a Gnostic group, those who were in the group knew the secrets. That's why

21:52that's why they were the elite. Those on the outside, the actual Christians did not.

21:57And so while talking to other Christians in the ancient world, you could talk to them,

22:03and you were using the name Jesus. You're saying, yes, we believe Jesus. Yes, he died on the cross.

22:09But what they weren't doing was they weren't really sharing what they considered to be the gospel

22:15truth, which was their secret knowledge, to those who knew the gospel truth. Because to them,

22:21the gospel truth was, the power of that was diminished. You had to have the secret knowledge

22:27and the gospel truth. That's how Gnosticism worked. So basically, it changed what faith meant.

22:35Faith, instead of faith in Jesus Christ, meant insight. You had insight knowledge to

22:42what this mystery was, whatever the different mystery was for each independent Gnostic group.

22:49And the idea of salvation by grace through faith, it was completely non-existent. It changed what

22:57salvation meant. And so instead, what happened was, much like the pagan religions, salvation became

23:05an ascent or an awakening. You went up to a higher plane because you had the secret knowledge.

23:12It also changed what church meant. When Jesus said, you are the church, well, the church does not mean

23:20the same thing if only the initiated circle of people, the elite ones who have the mysteries,

23:27are the church. No longer is the church, I hate to use the word because it is the actual word that

23:34fits, but no longer is the church Catholic or universal. If you understand what the word Catholic

23:40means, it just simply means the universal body of people, the body of the church. No longer was it

23:46that. It was now this little tiny group that had this secret mystery. It was this group of people

23:53that had the gnosis, the knowledge. And so what happened was that, as you can imagine, it created

24:00spiritual elitism. It created paranoia because you had this sort of contempt for the ordinary believers.

24:08We're the special ones. We have the knowledge. These people are lesser than us. They don't have the

24:13knowledge. They're just doing the rituals that Christ laid down and we have something better.

24:22So what happened was it created a separation between, basically severed the body of Christ,

24:29but those who were in it, it was difficult. It would be difficult to say they were actually Christian

24:35because what they believed was not Christianity. They believed in instead Gnosticism. So why and how

24:43did Irenaeus expose it? Irenaeus, whenever he attacked Gnosticism, he did not attack one specific

24:51group. And I think that's really key to understand what I was trying to say in the Freemasonry episode.

24:58In today's world, if Irenaeus were writing his Against Heresies and he saw

25:03all of these new Apostolic Reformation leaders and how they were teaching the ancient

25:08mythologies without knowing it, rebranding Christianity into the mysteries. And he saw the

25:14Freemasons. He saw all of the different fraternal orders, all of these different themes of apostasy

25:20that have entered into the church. He didn't isolate one group. In today's world, he didn't just

25:26isolate Freemasonry and say, Freemasonry is the Luciferian worship. And from that, all threads of

25:33evil have originated. Instead, what he did was he attacked the underlying architecture that all of

25:42the different Gnostic groups were built upon. And he did mention each individual group, probably a

25:50majority of them that existed in his day. But instead, he talked about their similarities and where

25:57those roots came from. And there were four things that he really insisted, if you understand against

26:04heresies. He insisted that Christianity is public, not secret. It's for the entire body of Christians,

26:11and you can read the Bible, you can learn the gospel. By grace, you're saved through faith in Jesus

26:17Christ, not some secret that is for us and not other Christians. And that's what Gnosticism was.

26:26And in Irenaeus days, that's what it is today, even though it's not really called Gnosticism. And some of

26:32the terms that were used by the Gnostics are no longer used. He insisted also that Christianity was

26:39apostolic. It wasn't something that was newly invented. It wasn't something that the apostles of the

26:47Gnostic groups were giving rhema to their groups or spoken word or however your group calls it in

26:54in today's New Apostolic Reformation. He was saying that it's not something that's new.

26:59Christianity is something that we go back to the apostles, we go back to the foundation of

27:04Christianity. If you want to understand Christianity, you go back to the foundation of Christianity,

27:09not the foundations of the mystery cults. And he began to trace all of the histories of the Gnostic

27:17groups, trace them all the way back to their mythological sources. And in doing so, what

27:23he exposed was not an individual group, but an underlying strategy of deception. I think that's

27:30really the key to understand. It was pure deception that had entered into the church, not a Luciferian

27:37cult where they're worshiping Lucifer. It was a spirit of deception that had entered into the church.

27:43He insisted that the Christian religion was incompatible with any anti-creation stories.

27:54And by that, I mean in his book Against Heresies, he starts talking about the different creation

28:01stories that were entered into these Gnostic groups as a quote-unquote divine mystery. And those who

28:08understood that creation story and understood how it was different from the Bible and how all the other

28:14Christians who just knew the Bible's creation story, they didn't have the spiritual insight,

28:19the spiritual knowledge. They weren't the spiritual warriors that we are in our Gnostic group that

28:25understands this new creation story. I'll never forget the shock. Whenever I began to study, Branham had

28:33this, he took Clarence Larkin's Dispensational Truth and he took the timelines that Larkin had

28:41and he appointed different messengers. He would call them church-age messengers in the dispensational

28:47timeline. One of them he chose was Irenaeus. I'll never forget the shock when I read Irenaeus' Against

28:53Heresies and found out that one of the so-called messengers actually condemned much of what Branham taught,

29:02right down to the anti-creationism. Branham taught that much like one of the Gnostic groups,

29:09I can't remember which one, maybe the Sethians I think it was, Branham taught that the original sin

29:17was sex between Eve and the serpent to produce two bloodlines and therefore it became a yin and yang

29:23type religion. It's a good or bad, there's no black or white, and it all had to do with sex. That was much

29:30like, I think it was the Sethians, but you could correct me if you read Against Heresies. There

29:35was a Gnostic group that believed this and Irenaeus condemned it as heresy long and into the ancient

29:42world. He also believed that there was basically, there was one rule of faith and that rule of faith

29:50could be pointed back to the Bible through the apostolic teachings, not endless private

29:56myths. The Gnostic groups each had their own individual mythologies, many of which were based

30:03off of the ancient mythologies. And it was spiritual revelation to each group that their new myth was

30:11part of the faith. And they, they basically tacked it onto what they called Christianity, much like we

30:17see in the new apostolic reformation today. So much like me, if you read Against Heresies and I found out

30:24it was condemning Branhamism, I'll guarantee you that almost every single new apostolic reformation group that

30:31I've encountered actually 100% of them that I've studied. If you read and understand Against Heresies,

30:38it will condemn some of the foundational teachings of each new apostolic reformation group, extend that

30:45backwards in time, the new apostolic reformation was built upon these apostolic networks, the apostolic

30:53networks, much of the much of their network was a direct result of the work that William Branham did with

31:01Gordon Lindsay, the founder of Christ for the nations, and the full gospel businessmen. So from that

31:07network, they are developing into the new apostolic reformation. And at its core, you have all of these

31:15Gnostic ideas that Branham was spreading and injecting into the movement. Like I said, not everybody agreed

31:22with them. The idea that Eve mated with a serpent, it resulted in this big fight among hundreds of the

31:31ministers. You had those who sided with Branham because they were racist. You had those who were

31:36against Branham because they knew what the Bible said. They did not want to entertain this racist

31:42thought. And so they condemned Branham serpent seed doctrine. Irenaeus would have been on the side that

31:48condemned them. Actually, he was on the side that condemned them. So understanding that is key, but

31:53understanding that the reason why Irenaeus attacked Gnosticism in the way that he did, he wanted to

31:59point out that it wasn't an individual group. Satan wasn't coming into the world to attack the world

32:06through some individual group that was attacking the government. Instead, it was coming into the church.

32:12It was coming into Christianity. It was rebranding Christianity from these pagan ideas.

32:20Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of

32:25modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements

32:31into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's

32:37website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

32:45John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,

32:51audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various

32:58people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support

33:04the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe

33:10to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical

33:16Research, we want to thank you for your support. So I've talked a bit about the history of Gnosticism,

33:22and why Irenaeus would want to attack it, and actually how he beat it. He did not attack an individual

33:30group. He didn't start yelling, this group is satanic, this group is Luciferian, they're invading our

33:36churches, they're invading our government systems, they have, there are secret government agents that

33:42are Luciferian because they're in this specific Gnostic group. Instead, he started attacking the

33:48underlying framework, the architecture of what Gnosticism consisted of, and why it was such a converging

33:57apostasy. He beat it by making Christianity, actually, and this is kind of a funny way to

34:05say it and think through it, but he beat it by making Christianity boring in the best way. Public

34:12truth, shared confessions, a real Jesus Christ in the flesh, not a hidden mystery. To the Gnostic groups

34:20who had all of these rituals and all of these secret mysteries, the divine Gnosis, this was the most

34:28boring thing ever. But that's what he did. He attacked it by showing Christianity for what it was,

34:36and showing the Gnostic evil pagan ideas and their roots for what they are. That's how he attacked it.

34:44Again, he did not go to an individual group. So, where does that leave us? How does Gnosticism survive

34:52through time? How do we have what we have today? How does the Freemason groups have similarities

34:59between Gnosticism? How does the NAR, people who are claiming to be Christian, how do they have

35:05all of these Gnostic ideas? We have to understand Gnosticism is less of a club and it's more of a

35:14recurring temptation through time. It's very powerful to tell somebody, I know a secret.

35:21I remember when I was a kid and we're all sitting around and one guy found out, one kid found out how

35:28to do something with, I don't know, a marble or whatever, Legos usually in my case. And he would

35:33turn around and say, I know how to do this. I know the secret. And they wouldn't want to tell

35:38you the secret. Carry it a step further. Every kid who's fascinated with magic and doing magic tricks

35:45to trick their parents, they don't want to tell their parents the secret, how they did it. It's

35:49powerful to have a secret. Well, Gnosticism is much like this. It's not a club with a rituals that is

35:57summoning a demon. It's not so much that as it is a recurring temptation to mix the truth with something

36:07that is false. That is Gnosticism in its essence. Telling people you have a mystery when I have to

36:15believe that many of the people who were Gnostics knew that these mysteries weren't real. They knew

36:21they had robbed them, stolen them from some of the pagan mythologies. So I have to believe that

36:27they knew that this was not a real Christian thing, but they were tricking people. They were

36:32rebranding it as Christianity and tricking people. And that's where it gets to be a bit insidious.

36:40People want to have a higher plane of spirituality. Men have always strived to become like gods.

36:49That's why you have all of the books on gods. That's why you have the Marvel, the DC comic books.

36:55They want to become like gods. The children want to become Superman, right? Well, adults want this

37:01too. Adults want to have a mystery. Adults want to be like God. And if you have somebody who's

37:07boasting and telling them, I know a secret, I know how to make you like gods. I know how to make you

37:13a manifested son of God. That's why this gets so insidious. Gnosticism is not a club. And in many

37:22ways, I mentioned several times that I'm against Freemasonry. But in many ways, I see the one of the

37:30reasons why I use the little rascals as my movie example is because I see it as such a less problematic

37:38thing than its underlying reason for existence, which is Gnosticism. If you can teach people that

37:45you have a secret and teach them that you are the secret giver, that empowers you. So think of

37:54in Gnosticism, in Freemasonry, I mean, you've got all of the different degrees and you get all the way

38:00up to the 33rd degree. Well, every person who's at the bottom and they see a smaller number, they want

38:06a higher number. And so they want more, they want to know the mysteries. If I know the mysteries,

38:11I can climb up and become a 33rd degree Mason. Well, that's how Gnosticism is. It's, it's this idea

38:19that you are empowered by your secret, the secret that you know, not empowered by Christ. And in

38:27Freemasonry, again, it's the divine architect, the one who is teaching you how to do the divine

38:33architectural things. You can only learn this if you climb up this ladder. Well, that's exactly

38:39what Gnosticism is, but it wasn't a club. It was being touted as a religion. And that's where for me,

38:47it Freemasonry sits off to the side for me because it doesn't really advertise itself as a religious

38:52thing. Gnosticism did. And yet at the same time, Gnosticism has entered into the church in many ways.

39:01We've, we've talked about that in our converging apostasy series that I do with Steve.

39:06It is actually more insidious. So I, many of the people who Steve have mentioned who are spreading

39:12Gnosticism in latter rain, new apostolic reformation, charismania, those people are actually,

39:20in my opinion, they're worse of a threat than Freemasonry because they're doing it. They're

39:26rebranding it in the name of Christian, much like the Gnostics were doing. And so what you get in many

39:33cases that we've gone through, I think Steve actually mentions it exactly like this. People

39:39believe that they have earned salvation through these divine mysteries without actually having

39:45repentance. And that fully explains why you have, you know, the leadership in the new apostolic

39:52reformation right now is suffering because so many of them are following, falling to all kinds of

39:58different sins, financial sins, sexual sins. Many of them are, some of them are predators. This is a,

40:05this is a very bad thing. Well, think about how they raised to the top of their fraternal order,

40:10Christianity. They rose all the way up to the top. They're teaching people that they have the secret

40:17knowledge that can make their group special. And yet they're gaining spirituality without repentance.

40:24They are learning how to climb up this ladder and there's no tie back to Jesus. They've basically

40:31misrepresented what Christianity is to the people. And worse, so many people have come into these groups

40:39with a misrepresented version of Christianity thinking it is because it's the Gnostic idea. I have the mystery,

40:47we're better than the other Christians who don't have the mystery, and me, your all-powerful leader,

40:52can show you this mystery. So that temptation for mystery, it keeps resurfacing. Also, I think Bob Scott

41:02is the best one who talks through this. When he talks about the different cultural things and historical

41:08things that are happening, the temptation really comes whenever there's strong anxiety or a social collapse.

41:16World War II caused all kinds of ideas to come into Christianity because there was sudden and

41:22instant fear that there would be a World War III. During the World War, there was a fear that there

41:28was going to be a complete destruction of the earth. That was a really heightened fear. They were

41:33actually fearing a social collapse. So through each period of time in history, if you can find a time where

41:40there's a culture who is at fear, high anxiety, strong social collapse, there are leaders who can

41:49monetize this. And if you can tell people that you know the secret to escape this anxiety, to escape this

41:56fear, you can make a lot of money. And Branham was doing exactly this right on the heels of World War II.

42:04There are newspaper advertisements that say he was holding revivals and it would take two or three

42:09hefty men to carry the boxes of money that he had collected from the revivals. That anxiety is very

42:16powerful and it can make people very rich. But then what happens is after this is after this has occurred

42:22and the leaders have said, we know the secret mysteries, we can teach you how to get past this

42:27anxiety. That sparks a movement because the people join into it. Now the group of people who are in

42:35it start to outgrow the initial size of whatever was the revival and they want more. We know the mystery

42:42that you told us yesterday. What's the new mystery? What's the new revelation from God? So Gnosticism

42:51has manifested itself into the Christian movement much the same way. People are coming to hear

42:56what is the mystery. So how did we end up where we are today? How did these themes of Gnosticism enter

43:04into the church? I think the best way to state it is, like Steve Montgomery does, it is a converging

43:11apostasy. One of the reasons why I am so strongly against Freemasonry is because there is no transparency.

43:21And so you don't know what the mystery is. Unless you climb through all of these levels and become 33rd

43:28degree, you don't know what the mystery is. But here's the funny part. If you understand the

43:33architecture of how all of this works, those who rise up the ladder to become a 33rd degree Mason,

43:40I can assure you that they don't know the full extent of the mystery because there's always another

43:45mystery. If you're in this Gnostic mindset, there's always the next revelation. There's always the next

43:52thing. And just look at the Gnostic groups that Irenaeus exposed. There was not one single group. There were

44:01multiple groups. And you have to believe that through time, as these groups are developing, there had to be

44:09splinters of an original group. In other words, one guy says, I have the mystery. I have found out that,

44:17yes, we're worshiping Jesus, but we need to also worship, I don't know, the Hercules God.

44:23And all of you can become strong. And that's our secret mystery. Well, people learned this mystery

44:30and got bored with it. And what happened, some other guy comes out of this and says,

44:36yes, we've learned how to become strong, but none of us really became like Hercules. I think we also

44:42need to have, and I don't know who he brings in, Diana or some other God or demigod, et cetera.

44:50Then that splinters off into a different mystery cult. So whenever you think of how this is merging

44:57into the church, it's not just one single stream. And there are themes of it that come from many various

45:04different ways, many of which are mystery cults. So one of the streams, yes, it's Freemasonry.

45:11So if you are taking the idea that maybe all of the, all of the history that I explained in the last

45:19episode, maybe it is incorrect. I'm not going to say that I'm 100% right. I just know the studies that

45:25I have looked at. Maybe it is correct. Maybe they're worshiping Lucifer. Well, that's one stream.

45:31That's not the only stream. That's just one stream into the church. And in Freemasonry,

45:38it is, I'm not, I'm not arguing that is a satanic cult, but it is a cult of sorts.

45:44It is a cult structure and they have a secret divine order. So in my opinion, what you can have

45:52with this is you can have somebody who has mistakenly joined this cult and they believe that

45:59this divine architect is making them a better person. Well, say they rise to the ranks of their

46:05church and they become a minister and they're actually teaching Christian doctrine. But while

46:10teaching the Christian doctrine, they're teaching things that they learned in their secret Masonic

46:15order. And so they're introducing mysteries into the church. That is one way in which you could say,

46:22yes, it is Luciferian, but I strongly and sincerely doubt that this is where Satan chose to put his bed

46:33because we see it in other streams. I've mentioned Christian identity. I think I mentioned it in the

46:37last episode. This is where the elite seed instinct comes. So from Freemasonry, maybe you're bringing in the

46:46mystery ideas, Christian identity. Now you have the elitism. We're elite because we identify with

46:53the race that has developed from the lost 10 tribes of Israel. That was one of the themes of apostasy

47:00that entered into the church. Gordon Lindsay, who was the founder of Christ for the Nations,

47:06Branham's campaign manager, he was the keynote speaker in multiple Christian identity groups.

47:13So think of like Irenaeus, you've got all of these different groups, Freemasonry is one group,

47:18you have the divine mystery coming in Christian identity, you have the elite seed. We'll now take

47:25it a step further. William Branham brings in from the clan side, William Branham's mentor, as I mentioned,

47:32was Roy Davis, the second in command of the 1915 clan, who rose up to become the imperial wizard.

47:40Well, now he's bringing in this militant type of religion. And latter rain introduced the Joel's

47:46army notion, the idea that there was this elite army coming. So Freemasonry gives you the,

47:56you know, the divine mysteries, Christian identity brings you the elitism. Well, now we're bringing in

48:02the end time company of the higher class of believers, manifested sons of God. That's something

48:08that came in strongly through Branham, but it was this, it was actually a converging of ideas from

48:15cross pollinated doctrines for multiple people. It eventually developed into the manifested sons of

48:21God. Well, now you've got the Gnostic idea of this higher class of believers compared to the other

48:27Christians, which are the lower class and the Pentecostal charismatic groups. So Pentecostalism

48:34as a whole is not Gnostic, but there is this Gnostic drift that can happen when the experiences

48:43outrun, outweigh the scriptures. And there are Pentecostal groups, charismatic groups that this is

48:49the case. Your experiences outweigh the scriptures. And so therefore revelation becomes the priority,

48:55much like the Gnostic groups. I have this revelation. Let's listen about this revelation.

49:01It's more important than the gospel, than the Bible. So spiritual status is ranked by these

49:08manifestations or these revelations. And what happens is there's this belief within Pentecostal

49:14charismatic groups that if you have that experience, if you have that revelation, if you have that

49:21spoken word, you can become activated. And so activation becomes the new replacement for repentance

49:32and belief in Jesus Christ, you must be activated. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the early

49:38the very first iteration of Pentecostalism, it splintered because you had people who believe that

49:44they had to be activated by speaking in tongues, or they weren't Christian, much like the Gnostic groups,

49:50you had to be activated. And if you were, you were the elite Christians compared to the other

49:55Christians who were not yet activated. So the final thing, after you understand that these different

50:02themes of apostasy have came in, some through Freemasonry, some through Christian identity,

50:08some through the holiness movements, et cetera, it is all converged and has created an ecosystem.

50:14And that ecosystem breeds different various groups with different levels of Gnostic ideas.

50:24Some of them are benign, some of them are actually quite destructive. But there's this ecosystem that

50:30exists where you have different groups, and you can't really pick out an individual group and say that

50:36this group is evil. Well, if you read it against heresies and understand what Irenaeus is saying,

50:43it is that ecosystem that is the problem. You had these groups that were bringing in ideas, some of

50:49them were quite destructive, like the ones who can't have sex and their group died out. That was a very

50:56destructive group. You had others that were somewhat benign and they were just bringing in pagan ideas and

51:02calling it a mystery and creating that spiritual hierarchy where it's an us versus them religion.

51:08They were just one element of the Gnostic system. So what Branham and Lindsay and what the Full Gospel

51:17Businessman, all of these different groups that were collaborating to create this network, what they

51:23were creating was basically an ecosystem, much like Irenaeus was condemning in against heresies, where

51:30each individual group contributed to the network. And so as a group develops, it has these new ideas,

51:37these new rhema, these new spoken words, these new fresh manna, fresh revelation, there's different ways

51:43that they explain it. A person comes into that group, they learn it, and then they get bored with

51:49that secret. So then they move on and they create their splinter group. And then that one develops

51:54into another group into the network, much like the Gnostics who developed into other groups of

52:00their networks. It grows, it splinters, it divides, it grows, it splinters, and it divides.

52:05The reason for this is because the gospel itself to these people are boring. It's the itching ears

52:13passage of Scripture. They have itching ears, and they want more. They want the mystery. Well,

52:19the mystery is never satisfying. And that was really the problem with Gnosticism. Once you climbed

52:25up the ladder and you learned the secret mystery. Well, that's it. Really? That's a mystery? Oh,

52:30I found out. Let's go create another group. That one is boring. Well, that's how it worked in Gnosticism.

52:37Much like Freemasonry, you climb up the ladder, and what does it gain you? You know,

52:41there are people who, I've read some of the books where people have came out of Freemasonry and said,

52:46this is a cult. It's destructive. I rose up, I became, I think one of them I read was a 33rd degree,

52:53and here's what they believe. And I don't like it. I don't like it at all. So I've read some of those

52:59books. Well, what they've done is they've climbed the ladder and they realize that that mystery is not

53:04satisfying. And in Freemasonry, it's very easy to come out because you can see, well,

53:10they don't even call themselves Christian. They worship the divine architect.

53:14But think of the same thing that happens in a NAR group. You climb up through the ladder of

53:21IHOPKC. You learn how you can create Joel's army. You learn how you can learn the mysteries of the

53:28Harpenbowl or whatever is the doctrine. You learn how through these mysteries, you can become

53:35a spiritual warrior and how your status and rank as a spiritual warrior is up here while the church

53:42down the street that believes just the boring gospel is down at the bottom. You have essentially

53:48created the essence of Gnosticism, but it's more difficult to come out because it is Gnosticism that

53:57is branded as Christianity. Whereas Freemasonry, it is not branded as Christian. It's not even

54:03branded as religious. It is just a system that has a mystery. In the New Apostolic Reformation,

54:10you actually have this ecosystem that's calling itself Christian that is presenting the Gnostic ideas.

54:18So that is why it is so dangerous in my opinion. So hopefully I've done this justice. There's so many

54:25more things that you could go into. Honestly, it becomes a history class. It becomes like a modern

54:31version of what Irenaeus was doing to try to even untangle all of this mess. But the point I wanted to

54:37make in this particular episode is that while it sounds good to make Freemasonry, the scapegoat,

54:45the red herring that is out there that, you know, yes, you could call it Luciferian worship. But

54:53is that the real problem? For me, I don't believe so. It sounds good because it's a good way to ignore

55:01the bigger problem that exists. And people who are everywhere from, you know, there are Catholic

55:08groups that denounce Freemasonry, there are Christian groups, there are New Apostolic Reformation

55:14groups, there's many different groups that do. Because if you can distract the people from the

55:20bigger problem, and give them an enemy, the people will take that enemy. And I think, honestly, as I

55:27began studying it, that's really where I ended up. Yes, there are bad things. Yes, I'm against Freemasonry.

55:34But the bigger problem has actually become the church itself. There are so many threads of

55:39Gnosticism that have entered into the church. And it's entered in disguised as a Christian faith,

55:44as a Christian religion. Worse, if you have escaped one of these groups, and somebody has trained your

55:53eye and trained your attention to this conspiracy theory type mindset, where you're looking to see

56:01Luciferian things in a specific group. Well, it's very, very unhealthy. From a, from a mental standpoint,

56:08your mental health will suffer if you take that too far. So I'm strongly against that idea. I don't,

56:15I don't believe if you've been affected by a cult, I don't believe you should get into that

56:18conspiracy theory mindset. Instead, get a good therapist, because they will tell you exactly

56:24what I just told you. Don't do that. That's unhealthy. And instead, look at the bigger picture,

56:30because if you understand the architecture of what has been injected into modern Christian religion,

56:38you'll see that it's actually quite a bigger enemy that you're facing. And how do you beat it?

56:44Much like Irenaeus did. What did Irenaeus do? He pointed people to the boring, simple gospel.

56:52And he said, this is the way of salvation, not these mystery cults, because those are evil.

56:58So if there's any, anything that I could do to sum up this episode, I would just say,

57:03read Irenaeus' book, take his philosophy. Don't go out there looking for conspiracy theories. Instead,

57:10just look at the simple thing that's right in front of your face. So if you've enjoyed the show

57:15and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org.

57:21For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion,

57:25From Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

57:42It's also an honorable treasure system to track up the foods that I put down here.

57:48Can I wish you?

57:50Take your already?

57:56You can see.

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