00:31Hello, 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 co-host, researcher, and friend, Jenny McGrath,
00:46founder of Indwell Movement.
00:48Jenny, it's good to be back, and I'm a little bit excited to talk about this subject that
00:53we're getting into today.
00:54I don't know if you know this or not, but in some of the podcasts, I've mentioned this
01:00before because it hit me one moment.
01:02I was actually watching a movie when this happened, and it was a movie about a guy, he's suffering
01:08PTSD, he'd been in the wars, and suddenly I realized that there were so many similarities
01:13between being in a prison camp in another country, being raised in it, and then suddenly coming
01:19back to the United States and waking up and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't understand this
01:24culture, I don't understand this life, I came from this horrific place that I don't want
01:29to go back to, but I don't really understand the place that I went to, and that was my life
01:33coming out of a cult for the first few years.
01:35I've obviously got over that.
01:37And then when you mentioned the Stanford Prison Experiment, I got to thinking about all of the
01:42similarities between that and the cult in a different way, which it's interesting.
01:47So I thought we'd talk through it, because I don't think people realize how close they
01:51are to being in a prison when they're in one of these movements.
01:55Yeah, I am very excited to wade into this conversation with you.
01:59I think it's so important.
02:01And, you know, I have been a mental health counselor for over a decade now, and while there are as
02:09many ways to think about quote-unquote mental health, however we want to define that, as there
02:16are humans on the planet, we are very hyper-social beings, and we really do respond to and react
02:25to the social setting that we are in.
02:28And so whenever we are placed in these high-control authoritarian systems, whether that be a prison,
02:35whether that be military regimes, whether that be a missions organization, it is going to affect
02:42the way that we see our own body and that we see other bodies.
02:46The point that really struck me is that I suffer with this problem.
02:51My grandfather was a leader in it.
02:53The group would have imploded had it not been for my grandfather.
02:57And my grandfather was the cause of a lot of harm being spread.
03:01And yet, on the one hand, I see him as the cult figure.
03:05But on the other hand, I also see him as my grandfather.
03:08And he was a loving, kind, gentle man.
03:11If you knew him, people who knew him, they just hear some of the things that I say, and
03:15they say, John, he wasn't like that, not understanding that he was a cult leader and he caused destruction.
03:21In the example where you're in a prison camp, POW camp, you are in the enemy's camp, and every
03:28person who is over you, the guards, the leader of the prison, whatever it is, they are over
03:34you and they are, to you, they're evil because they're the enemy, right?
03:38And it really doesn't fit because some of the people who are in a cult, all of the people who
03:42are in a cult are good people.
03:44But some of the people who are in leadership positions, who are affecting harm on other
03:49people, are doing it not really understanding why they're doing it.
03:54And I think that might explain, I'm trying to explain my grandfather, honestly, and some
03:59of the other people that I know, because they're good friends, but they've done a lot of harm.
04:03And the point that you made, whenever I started thinking just back through it, average people
04:09coming into this experiment, good people can do bad things, and it turns into a, I don't
04:15know, it's like role assignment identity, I guess you would call it.
04:20They take on this identity, and they feel empowered by it, and they start abusing it.
04:24And a good person can abuse it, even though deep inside they're good people.
04:30So, there's so much on my mind to talk through, but just reconciling, how did this happen to
04:35me?
04:35How did the family, the good family that I know, how did they get involved with this?
04:40How could they have treated people like this?
04:43And all of those questions are somewhat answered by, whenever you go deep into the study of this
04:48experiment, some of those questions are answered.
04:50We are very, very complicated beings, and we're not, all at the same time.
04:58And psychologically, it is really, really, really terrifying for us to think that the way we think
05:06about the world is, quote-unquote, wrong.
05:09Like, it is less taxing, psychologically, to think that the entire world is wrong than we are wrong.
05:17And so, if we're put in these positions, and we're asked to do things that create what is
05:24called a moral injury, when I do something that goes against my morals, it is much harder
05:32to really let that injury metabolize than to create cognitive dissonance and justify how
05:41the ends justify the means.
05:43And once we start doing that, it is very, very quick that we can justify terrible means
05:51because we think that the ends are going to validate or be worth it.
05:57And it takes so much effort and, I think, communal safety for us to be able to turn inward and
06:05be
06:05really honest about those things that we've done or we've said that have enacted harm.
06:12And I think some of this is that split in these, in this form of Christianity that says this is
06:19the
06:20only right, perfect, pure way, then it splits the world into binary.
06:25And people are.
06:27They're good or they're bad.
06:28Decisions are right or wrong.
06:29And we are actually more like slabs of morals.
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