- 13 minutes ago
John and Hannah examine Elim’s history through Ivan Spencer’s story and connect recurring themes: revival-driven identity, the cost of sustaining “moves of God,” and the way spiritual language can reshape expectations and community life.
Hannah shares lived experience with healing culture, word-of-faith messaging, and the social pressure to appear spiritually “enough,” while John maps how revival frameworks, authority structures, and network thinking can echo into modern charismatic movements and apostolic-style ecosystems.
00:00 Introduction
02:18 Revival Culture And Why Elim Matters
06:02 The Cost Of Chasing Revival
10:03 Elim, Network DNA, And Modern Apostolic Culture
12:05 Leadership, Bylaws, And Spiritual Authority
15:24 Mysticism, Hype, And Group Pressure
18:06 Healing Experiences, Euphoria, And Reassessment
21:12 Pressure To Be Spiritual Enough
25:29 Overspiritualizing Conflict And Family Life
30:01 Spiritual Language, Demons, And Disconnection From Reality
34:21 Healing Books, Deliverance Thinking, And Chronic Illness
41:53 Word Of Faith And Positive Confession
45:48 Disability, Shame, And Emotional Healing
50:03 The “Rabbit’s Foot God” And Walking Away
52:20 Advice For People Rebuilding Faith
______________________
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
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Hannah shares lived experience with healing culture, word-of-faith messaging, and the social pressure to appear spiritually “enough,” while John maps how revival frameworks, authority structures, and network thinking can echo into modern charismatic movements and apostolic-style ecosystems.
00:00 Introduction
02:18 Revival Culture And Why Elim Matters
06:02 The Cost Of Chasing Revival
10:03 Elim, Network DNA, And Modern Apostolic Culture
12:05 Leadership, Bylaws, And Spiritual Authority
15:24 Mysticism, Hype, And Group Pressure
18:06 Healing Experiences, Euphoria, And Reassessment
21:12 Pressure To Be Spiritual Enough
25:29 Overspiritualizing Conflict And Family Life
30:01 Spiritual Language, Demons, And Disconnection From Reality
34:21 Healing Books, Deliverance Thinking, And Chronic Illness
41:53 Word Of Faith And Positive Confession
45:48 Disability, Shame, And Emotional Healing
50:03 The “Rabbit’s Foot God” And Walking Away
52:20 Advice For People Rebuilding Faith
______________________
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
00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:40at william-branham.org.
00:42And with me, I have my very special guest, Hannah Joy Davis, former member of ELIM.
00:47Hannah, it's good to be back and to talk about ELIM.
00:51Last time you and I spoke, we had such overwhelmingly positive feedback, and I was asking you if
00:58you'd come back for more.
00:59I'm really wanting to dig into the history of ELIM, and like all of the histories, you
01:05never know what you're going to get until you start digging in and see what is actually
01:09under the hood.
01:10But you have already done some of this digging, so I thought it would be good to connect again
01:15and find out what you've learned and try to better understand this mystery box that's
01:20called ELIM.
01:20It's definitely a mystery box sometimes.
01:25Well, I'm mostly just coming from this book, although I've done some Google research and
01:32stuff.
01:34But I would say I noticed about four kind of red flags, if you will.
01:42I don't know that they're necessarily like always red flags, but they have the potential
01:48of being red flags if they're leaned into too much, and I think sometimes places do that.
01:57And for the listeners that aren't on the video feed, hold that book up again.
02:00What was the title of that book?
02:03It's about Ivan Spencer, so it's called Willow in the Wind.
02:06It's by Marion Maloon, I think is how you say it.
02:11One of the things that really fascinates me about this area of research, and I'll be open
02:17and honest with the audience, I've not dug as deeply as I'm going to with ELIM.
02:22I've got almost a thousand items in my list of two research, and this is just one of them.
02:27But the reason why it is in my list is because of the revival culture.
02:32ELIM was very big into the revival culture, and whenever I look at how that developed over
02:38time, when I go back to the ELIM history, I see the very early stages of it, and not
02:44many people recognize that in today's world, this end-of-days revival, billion-soul harvest,
02:49all of these different themes that exist today, they exist because of groups like ELIM, and it's
02:55just one piece of the puzzle that I'm trying to put together.
02:58So I'm really excited to dig into this.
03:01I would actually say that is one of the red flags, is the focus on revival.
03:07I mean, granted, in the author's note, she does say that she's going to focus more on
03:14Ivan's passion for revival.
03:17Maybe she took a little leeway and focused more on that, but I feel like if there was
03:23a lot of it to focus on, then there was a lot of it to begin with.
03:27Yeah, absolutely.
03:29And the strange union between the revival culture and the financing of the revival culture, for
03:36me, it raises all kinds of questions that will never be answered.
03:39But when I look into groups like this, and I see this type of thing growing and developing,
03:45it, you know, I hate to say it, and I know that there are people who really believe in
03:50the revival culture, but there is a great potential for a culture like this to spin out of control.
03:56You get so caught up into the revival that the revival itself really becomes the gospel.
04:01And if you're not joining into the revival, if you're not participating, you see those people
04:06who do not participate, if you're in this type of mentality, as those who aren't as Christian
04:12as you are.
04:13And so it turns into a very dividing line in the sand, if you will.
04:18That was going to be my exact wording, was not Christian enough.
04:26And sometimes it even goes so far as to think, well, they're not really Christian.
04:32But, yeah, so there's at least twice in Ivan's history where he sees, like, a vision of the
04:43flaming words revival, like, across his vision.
04:48And the first time it was when he felt called to the ministry.
04:52Uh, so he went to seminary, didn't like it, because it was too, uh, there wasn't enough
05:02Pentecostalism, emotionalism, that type of thing.
05:06It was, it was too Bible-focused, if you will.
05:09Um, and he also got sick.
05:11So he came home and was recovering and then heard about the, uh, Elam Church slash the Rochester
05:22Bible school in Rochester that the Duncan sisters were doing.
05:26And so he ended up going to there and graduated from there, um, and then became a pastor, uh,
05:34first through, uh, a Methodist organization.
05:38He got ordained and then eventually through Assemblies of God.
05:43And then he saw the revival focus again and felt called to start a Bible school in order
05:52to usher in the next revival and bring in, like, youth and get them focused on the same
05:59sort of thing.
06:00Um, and so what I wrote was that, you know, the two problems with a revival focused, um,
06:12is first, it's based on your idea of what revival is.
06:16Um, and so if your idea is you need people and you need numbers and you also need, like,
06:25certain music and certain emotional type feelings and sensations, you're going to kind of do
06:30whatever it takes to keep that up, which also means maintaining a certain image as well as
06:36a certain feeling and sensation.
06:38So it's the certain music, it's the constant or maybe not constant, uh, for Ivan, but a lot
06:45of tent meetings throughout the summer and just trying to get in people.
06:50And so it can lead to cover up culture because you're, you have to keep under wraps, any
06:57problems so that you still look good so that you keep attracting the numbers.
07:02Um, and, and like you mentioned, it also is like a financial thing because they're willing
07:10to do tent meetings at whatever cost and bring in speakers and all that kind of stuff.
07:17But at the same time, sometimes, uh, there were times where the school that Ivan started
07:26was like financially really having a hard time.
07:32And so they were all like living in one big room and the adults and some of the students
07:39would literally fast to try and make ends meet.
07:42And it says that they were all happy to do it, but when you're in that type of culture,
07:48you kind of wonder how much are they like aware of any sort of alternative or even willing
07:55to choose any sort of alternative because you're sacrificing everything for it.
08:01Um, so, and the other problem that I see with the revival culture is that it takes away
08:10from the sovereignty of God, um, because like God just does it whenever and wherever and
08:20however, you know, it's not like in the past, you know, Charles Finney or any of those people
08:28like really planned it and was like, okay, we're going to get a revival here and focus on
08:34bringing the revival here.
08:35And it just kind of happened, um, you know, Asbury a few years ago, it was just kind of
08:42a thing that happened.
08:43It wasn't a planned culture.
08:46And so when, when you focus too much on that, I feel you can, you can take away from God
08:52and
08:53focus on trying to bring that sensation, if you will, to a place and you strip God of his
09:02power. And then at the same time, when, when God does seem to show up at like Asbury or
09:09whatever, you're like, oh my gosh, we got to go there so we can bring it back here.
09:13Oh my gosh, you have hit so many points that I want to hit in many podcasts. I, in fact,
09:18I have friends who went to Asbury and they went all excited. This is it. This is the big
09:23one. And then came home and it was as everything was as before. So it's, you look back at every
09:29single revival that was a big name in the histories of these, not just this movement,
09:34but many other movements in the same network DNA, I guess is how I'll call it. They all
09:40share that same type of thing. There's this big revival and it's the big one. It's the
09:45end of days where we're summoning Jesus. Really. That's what it comes down to. Then they go home
09:50and they kind of forget about it. Nothing really happened, but it gets written in the history books
09:55as though it was this great, tremendous event. And so the reason why this is, the Elam in
10:01particular is so important to me, it has all of the DNA elements to build what we have, what
10:07we see today in the New Apostolic Reformation. You mentioned the school. It was a school teaching
10:12supernatural things. You mentioned the revivals. It's a revival that's really summoning Jesus.
10:17Let's, let's get into this revival hype because Jesus will return if we do this. And that's what
10:23spiritualism does. That's not what Christianity does. You don't summon God, but that's how the
10:29mentality came to be. And so what happened is you've got this network DNA imprint, and it's
10:36just one stream of many that eventually will evolve into the apostolic networks in the NAR.
10:43And like you mentioned in the last podcast we did, you have key NAR figures, some of which
10:49are not, not very good ones. I'll just say it like that, who are touring through and showing,
10:56you know, showing signs of new revivals within Elam. So it's just one node within this New Apostolic
11:02Network framework. And in my opinion, based off of everything that I've learned from you
11:07and everything I've read myself, this is a pretty important node.
11:11I feel like to an extent, Elam was like the, the younger sister, if you will. Um, so like
11:20sometimes you have this family where like the older sister becomes famous for whatever.
11:25And the younger sister is like always a little bit unnoticed and a little bit jealous. So
11:30I feel like Elam has always had this revival focused. And then you hear about things in Bethel
11:36or IHOP Kansas City or Asbury or, um, Lakeland, Florida with Todd Bentley and, you know, those
11:43different things, um, or the Toronto blessing as they call it. And, and yet you don't really
11:49hear about Elam in the news because Elam still just kind of like, it still has a flame, but
11:56it's like a consistent, but dwindling flame. So it doesn't get as noticed, but that doesn't
12:02mean that it doesn't still have the same culture.
12:05Exactly. And the other thing that I was really interested in, you sent me a few weeks back,
12:11some of the bylaws and I'm looking through, trying to make sense of it as it relates to,
12:17you know, it's a little bit different than what I'm used to. I'll just say it like that.
12:21But when I took a step back and started thinking about it, there's so many similarities between
12:26the governing body of what you're showing me and the governing bodies in the new apostolic
12:31reformation. Maybe if you could talk a little bit about the, the governing body and how all
12:35of these bylaws lay out.
12:37I honestly don't know. I sent you the article and I'm like, I don't understand it. It doesn't,
12:44it doesn't really make sense to me. I don't know if it's legal speak or what, but, um, I mean,
12:51it's fascinating, but I really don't understand it at all. I only really know what I experienced
13:00growing up there. Um, and I always felt like it wasn't very clear what the, the leadership
13:08was so much as there was one. Um, and it definitely, there were moments where it felt like they played
13:17favoritism and things like that. Cause my dad was the head of technical services. He was just
13:25the IT guy. So sometimes, you know, they could lay him off or have him expected to go without
13:33for, for a bit. Well, meanwhile, they would still, as far as I knew, still paid their teachers and some
13:40of the other situations. And that didn't work out so well because my dad was also a family man and
13:48had
13:49a medically complex child, namely me. So, um, that's why when I was nine, we did move away for
13:56three years. Cause he actually got like a job that was worth his, his wages. Um, but, but yeah,
14:04the ELM draw was still there. So we came back after three years, we kept coming back like every summer
14:09we'd come for the camp meetings and dad would end up helping out. Um, cause he, he loves electronics
14:15and technology. It's his job and his hobby and his passion. Um, and he also really loved serving.
14:24So I don't think he got paid for helping out in those camp meetings. Um, maybe we got a little
14:28reduced rate for, for camping there. But then, you know, after three years, they were like, Hey,
14:36they had a new president and they were like, Hey, can you come back? And dad was like, yeah,
14:39I think so. So the biggest takeaway for me is just really that there, there is a structure and what
14:45they're trying to do is bring structure to a revival. I remember growing up and listening
14:50to these ministers who we also viewed, maybe not in the same exact way as it is in the new
14:57apostolic reformation, but we viewed them as a spiritual super superiority to ourselves.
15:02And they would say things like, Oh, can't you see it people? And they're describing something
15:07that literally nobody in the audience can see, but the audience is trained to believe that they,
15:12because they have the spiritual site that nobody else has, they can see something.
15:17And I read through some of the language in these documents you've sent me. And it's very much the
15:22same way. Even right on their Elam fellowship.org page, it says, as for revival, we've seen it
15:29through the generations. The boomers have experienced what God was doing through the Jesus revolution.
15:34So here they're trying to link themselves to the Jesus revolution. In my own youth and hometown,
15:38we saw the move of God in the Toronto blessing, which you just mentioned, they're trying to link
15:43themselves to this. We've seen tremors coming and going. And it seems like God is preparing for
15:48something big. I read this and I hear that minister saying, Oh, can't you see it people?
15:54And it's the same exact language. And in the end, what happens is you get somebody who
16:01has this level of mysticism about them, where people will believe this stuff. And they'll say,
16:09Well, no, I can't see it. What am I looking for? And they look harder, and they start to strain
16:13their
16:14eyes to see things that aren't there. Well, they get up into the hype of the revival. And I've,
16:19I've actually talked to people who came back from big revivals. And they said, You know, we went,
16:24and we went so excited, thinking that something big was coming, because that's what they all told
16:30us. And we joined into it, like we were part of it, but we never really felt connected. We didn't
16:35feel the same thing other people was feeling, basically, is what they said. And, you know,
16:41in the end, what happens is when you get in that mentality, you get in that hype and that,
16:46that euphoria, you're going to join in and pretend you're seeing the things that the other guy also
16:51isn't seeing. And everybody's pretending. And it becomes this, I don't know if you've played the
16:57game where one person in the room starts laughing, and then another, and then eventually the whole
17:01room is laughing, because somebody's laughing, it must be funny. It's that type of thing. The revival
17:07is that way. And ironically, some of the revivals even have holy laughter experiments.
17:12It's a little bit of the group think type scenario. I think sometimes it can be real. It's not always
17:20like,
17:22fake or trying to do it because everybody else is doing it. It can definitely feel real. I am one
17:30of those people where I kind of think it was because I was raised on the Bible College campus and
17:37around
17:38all that and really immersed in all the camp meetings and all the special meetings and things
17:43like that. But I kind of had a little bit of an addiction for that sort of feeling. So I
17:50tried
17:52to catch the next wave, if you will. And I actually did go to Lakeland, Florida and see Todd Bentley
18:00for
18:01a week. And I would say what I experienced definitely felt real. But here's the key.
18:13Looking back, there's part of me that kind of wonders how much of it was actually God and how much
18:21of it
18:22was like this sort of euphoria feeling that I was anticipating, looking for. And also,
18:31I have dysautonomia, which is like a heart circulation issue. And if I sing and like hold a note for
18:43too
18:43long, I can get dizzy. And outside of a church setting or a Christian setting, if you will,
18:50I will like be like, hey, maybe I should sit down. But in a church setting, I'll be like, oh
18:57my gosh,
18:57it's the Holy Spirit. And so it's one of those things where I've really been reevaluating like
19:02the different diagnoses I have and going, I'm not so sure all of that was necessarily that euphoria
19:10feeling so much as an undiagnosed circulatory issue or other sort of things like that contributing to it.
19:21Because from what I can gather in the Bible, it seems like when you have the Holy Spirit,
19:27you can't really get more of them. Like, is God not good enough? Like, once he's in you, he's not
19:35enough. And so you got to keep getting more and you got to seek out that feeling.
19:39Yeah, there was this song we used to sing, Fill My Cup, Lord. And we viewed the Holy Spirit much
19:44like this. If you had a cup that was partially empty, you just had that much Holy Spirit. You
19:49needed more. You needed to get into the hype. And so it almost became like a, I don't know,
19:55it's like a mandate that you have this euphoria. And if you didn't have it, if you didn't show the
20:00same excitement, then you weren't spiritual. And in some cases, you weren't spiritual enough.
20:06And the hard part about this is really, even that's not so problematic. But whenever you are
20:13in a church that has this hype, has this, we're more spiritual, well, you find ministers who are
20:20just not very, I don't know what the word is. They're not, they're not as respectable as they
20:26should be. I'll say it like that. And they're talking about other churches who don't have the
20:32spirit. They don't have the things that we have. They don't have the same excitement. And what ends
20:37up happening is, and I'm not saying that there are ministers inside of Elam doing this. There may be,
20:42I don't know. But in my group, there were ministers who would condemn the other churches and condemn the
20:47other Christians because they didn't have the same level of fervor that we had. And that's just wrong
20:53because you can't really bundle Christianity into this euphoria, this excitement, this emotion.
20:59Otherwise, it's not Christianity. It's something entirely different. So I guess I'll ask you that
21:04question. When you're inside of the Elam culture, did it feel like you were mandated to be in that type
21:10of emotion? That's kind of a difficult question to answer. I didn't necessarily feel like I was
21:18mandated. But at the same time, I did feel the pressure of not being spiritually enough. I don't
21:27think it was necessarily something that anybody said. I know it was fully possible for people to come
21:34and be students for a couple years and leave and not be as immersed. I think that's the difference
21:40between me and some other people because I definitely grew up in it. And so I was, if you will,
21:49indoctrinated into this sort of thinking from a very young age and looking at people as being not
21:55spiritually enough or not Christian enough. To the point that I would say sometimes, at least in my head,
22:02I don't think I ever said it out loud, but I was mean to people because I would think they
22:06weren't
22:06really a Christian. But as to what you were saying about sometimes, you know, the pastors
22:14saying certain things, we had a special speaker one time at Elam. He was, I think he was like a
22:23healing evangelist. He might have been Benny Hinn for all I know, but he was like one of those people
22:28that was supposedly really well known and Elam was really happy to have him. And I don't know if
22:34it was camp meeting or just a random special meeting, but he was like very self-righteous,
22:42if you will. And he was like, I've never seen anybody not healed that I lay my hands on. And
22:48of
22:48course, I'm this preteen in a wheelchair, like unable to walk and that kind of thing. And so my
22:58mom brings me up and the guy's praying over us and nothing's happening. And so at one point in time,
23:05he's telling mom, like, do you have anything you need to repent of? You know, like, do you not have
23:11enough faith? And then he's, you know, turning to me when he realizes that I'm older than I look.
23:20Like, what about you kind of situation? And so there was always this idea pushed on me through
23:29sometimes the special speakers, like that I wasn't enough, that I didn't have enough faith,
23:34that there was something wrong with me in the fact that I was disabled.
23:38What about the leadership themselves? I mentioned earlier that there was this notion that they
23:45were more spiritual, but I'm wondering within your group, did they have the concept where the
23:50leaders, whether it's a pastor or an elder, that they had anointed voices and that they were seeing
23:56things that the average person wasn't seeing? Is that the same type of mentality that you had?
24:01I don't know that the leaders ever used that language. There was definitely a little bit of an
24:09authoritarian sort of atmosphere. I've been a part of different Elam fellowship affiliated churches.
24:18So they were people that were graduated from the college and then became ordained through Elam
24:26fellowship and had a church and that kind of thing. And I've heard of pastors being like,
24:33hey, we're better than the other churches, but they weren't actually talking about being spiritual.
24:38It was more because we have, um, we have this covering, if you will. And so we're, we're better
24:48because we have, yeah, I mean, they, they use that language covering. We have this accountability.
24:55And so, you know, if something goes wrong, we have this sort of thing established, but I found it very
25:01interesting that very few people in like those particular churches had any idea who all the elders
25:06were and none of them had any idea how you contact Elam fellowship or what you do. If there was
25:15any sort of
25:15situation where you needed to, um, like who do you contact? I'm like, I grew up there before there
25:21were cell phones. So I have the phone number memorized, but. So what were some of the other
25:26red flags that you found when you started digging? How they kind of can over spiritualize things. Um,
25:33at least in the book, it seems. Um, so like there was this one situation where, uh, the college,
25:43so Ivan started the college and then, um, moved around at different times because, uh, the buildings
25:52they had weren't big enough. And so, and at one point in time, the old Elam in Rochester and its
26:01Bible school had closed down and they heard, the Duncan sisters heard about Ivan's need for a bigger
26:09place. And they're like, Hey, let, we'll provide it for you. Come on up here. And it only worked for
26:16a
26:16year. And the book does say that it may have had a little bit to do with Ivan's pride. Um,
26:23but I'm
26:23looking at it going, I don't know from some of the things, it seems like it may have had more
26:28to do
26:29with his pride, but they, they put it into, um, like a little bit of a spiritual, um, attack sort
26:36of
26:36category and kind of whitewashed it. So they just mentioned a little bit that it may have had to
26:43do with some of Ivan's pride. And I'm like, what, where was the, why didn't he communicate with the
26:50sisters when there was an issue with, you know, sharing the leadership, if you will, when they
26:56provided the building and facilities and like, why did he just suddenly go, yeah, let's just leave.
27:02Yeah. So, um, there was also a time where he disciplined, um, Carlton, his son. Um, and that
27:14one was overly spiritualized too, because he threatens Carlton and says either, either I, um,
27:22I'm trying to remember what the exact wording was, uh, thrash you, or, or you come to every
27:31camp meeting session this week. And so he like made it about like, either I beat you or we do
27:39the
27:40Christian appearance sort of thing and you come to the camp meetings. And then it, like a couple
27:45paragraphs later, it says, but, but Ivan covered him in prayer as well. Cause he saw Carlton as being
27:51rebellious and defiant. And I'm looking at it like Carlton was a, was a young teen at that time.
27:59And I'm like, maybe he just didn't like the fact that he was being bullied and he really just needed
28:04to be seen instead of first being adultified, um, you know, in those sort of situations, but then also
28:12having to carry on the fact that, you know, he wasn't spiritual enough as a kid, like that, that causes
28:19problems in itself. And maybe I'm seeing a little too much of myself in the story too, because it
28:25definitely felt like a lot of that in my own childhood where it's like, I had to be an adult.
28:31I had to, but I also had to be so spiritual of an adult. And it's like, there wasn't an
28:37opportunity
28:38to really be a kid, go through regular kid things. Um, so that was one of the other flags was
28:45overly
28:46spiritualizing things that maybe were pride and needed to discussion and to recognize that
28:53maybe not threatening God.
28:58Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of
29:04modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter rain, charismatic and other fringe
29:09movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham
29:15Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find
29:23the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and
29:29others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources
29:36and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to
29:41contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at
29:46the top.
29:47And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
29:52to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you
29:57for your support.
29:58You know, it's odd whenever I hear you talk about that. It reminds me whenever I was growing
30:03up in parts of the South, we moved a lot. And there was this phrase in the South that you
30:10could say anything you wanted against anybody. You could call them a low down, dirty, foul mouth,
30:16ugly looking scoundrel. But if you followed that up with, bless his heart, everything's okay.
30:22In other words, I can call you the next thing to the devil, but I've got a spiritual covering
30:27on you. It's the same thing. Well, bless his heart.
30:30You know, the problem that I have with all of that is the fact that whenever a person tries
30:38to put somebody so much into the spiritual things, things that they can't see, the person
30:44who's being over spiritualized, they begin to start to disassociate because they're not
30:49in the same reality. And there are people, I know people like this, they stay within that
30:56alternate reality so much that they lose focus of the actual reality, the world around them.
31:02And it's very unhealthy. In fact, it causes a lot of mental health issues. So whenever
31:07there's this idea to over spiritualize things and, you know, and I'm not saying don't spiritualize
31:12anything, don't believe in God and spirituality, anything like that, I'm saying simply don't
31:19take focus completely away from the real world to try to enter into a spiritual world that
31:25you can't even see. When you do that, that's unhealthy.
31:28I didn't see it with like pastors or anything like that, but there was a church that I was
31:35a part of for a bit. And one of the leaders of a small group, she got called out for
31:46saying
31:47something that was kind of condescending, demeaning to one of the people within the, you know,
31:58person and calling her names until that person got up, ran out of the room crying. And then,
32:05and then she kind of turned it back to, well, you know, it's because I didn't do my usual
32:14praying on my, my knees for half an hour this morning, or, you know, like that sort of thing.
32:19She overly spiritualized instead of recognizing that maybe she had been hurtful and maybe she
32:25shouldn't have attacked the person for calling her out for being hurtful. And maybe she should
32:31have like let down her pride and apologize and made everything right. No, instead it's,
32:36it's the demons.
32:38Yeah. And those demons, man, if you can get people to believe that you can have them to
32:41be scared of everything. We grew up in a world where we were so scared of catching a demon
32:46that we had lost focus of, you know, the protection scripture, the passages of protection mentioned
32:52in the Bible, we had no idea that the Holy Spirit would protect us. I will never forget the shock
32:57when I started going to a new church and they started preaching the half of the Bible that
33:02our group avoided. And they're talking about protection and how God protects you. And you
33:07don't need a spiritual covering by a human. You don't need all of these things. I'm suddenly
33:11scratching my head thinking, wait a minute, if God protects us, why do we need this other guy
33:16who's claiming that he can spiritually cover us and all of this stuff? What, what purpose is that?
33:21And I would prefer to have the protection of the Holy Spirit, not this human, but that's
33:26the mentality that you get. And I can't stress enough the problems with these people who try
33:32to turn everything into a demon. I have in my book, you can't see the closet or the library
33:38back here, but I've got the book where they're talking about how to do some of the spiritual
33:44exorcisms and they have different names for deliverance ministry, obviously, but there's
33:49things in there, how to cure the demon of hiccups. And I'm just, you know, some of it has just
33:54gone
33:54way too far, man. I can cure the demon of hiccups just simply by breathing properly and drinking
33:59water. I mean, it doesn't make sense, but the problem is you have leadership that they pull people
34:05out of the real world into the so-called spiritual world and they lose focus of the real things that
34:12could actually help them in life.
34:14Oh, I have a book very similar. That, that lady that I mentioned earlier, she and, and one of her
34:23like right-hand people, if you will, really kind of endorsed this, this certain author and a certain
34:30speaker. And so I was curious and got the book, I think it's like called Be in Health or something
34:37like that. And it basically takes every health ailment and makes it related to something. So
34:44like if you're too angry, this causes this sort of thing. So it's all about, it's basically about
34:50deliverance ministry, but you got to, you got to figure out where it's coming from first, you know,
34:56like the, the, the name of that demon or whatever, you know, the anger or the whatever. And it's very
35:05focused on all of that. And he, you know, he, he talks about how he's seen a lot of people
35:11healed
35:11from it and never had any issues. And, and I'm not saying that that's not true or possible.
35:18Cause you know, I know of situations like that, but I don't think it's every situation. And that's
35:26the problem is when they make it where it's like every situation. Cause that was one of the things
35:31that I heard was that I have one of my ailments, if you will, is arthritis. And so there's this
35:40idea that arthritis comes from, um, I'm trying to remember what, what it was. They said it was when
35:47I was a kid. Um, it wasn't anger, but it was like one of those, it's a root of something.
35:55And it probably,
35:55you know, if you got it very young, it's from your parents and you know, cause what, what little
36:02like two year old really has that amount that would cause a disease. So it must be from their
36:07parents. Um, and I forget what emotion or what, what they said was the root, but it was one of
36:14those
36:14things where it's like, um, don't you think like if it was that we would have passed it out by
36:21now,
36:21you know, I mean, there was this time in the Bible where, where people were like, Hey, Jesus,
36:27who do you think? Um, what do you think about this guy? And Jesus said, well, it's, it's not,
36:34it's not his, his parents sin or his sin. It's so that I might be glorified. And it's like,
36:40yeah, sometimes, you know, it's, it's not any sort of thing. That's not true across the board. And I see
36:49that way too often. Um, and that was kind of one of my sub notes under the over spiritualizing is
36:55this whole idea of turning every little thing into a full doctrine. You, you see something happen
37:01and suddenly you make a whole book about it. And like, it's flat across the board, always this way
37:09sort of thing. Um, I worked at the Elam library, uh, for a year or two. And while I was
37:17in the
37:17wheelchair and I used to get really ticked off at all the books that would come through,
37:23like getting checked in and out about healing, because I used to read them at first. And then
37:28I was like, Oh my gosh, somebody had an incident and they turned it into a full book and a
37:33doctrine.
37:34And I'm just like, it's not always like that. If it was, I would have read every book and I'm
37:40sure
37:40I would be cured by now.
37:42You know, that's one of the things that really, really bothers me. I have family members who had
37:47chronic diseases and they were in a movement that was telling them you can be healed of these
37:51diseases. Some of them have now died and they went to their deaths thinking that they could be healed
37:57and they couldn't, but worse, they went to their deaths thinking that there was something that they
38:02were doing that was wrong. And that's the reason why they weren't healed. And whenever I left,
38:07you know, as a human, you're going to have human problems. And some of those problems are health
38:11problems. And especially as you get older in life, you're going to have many more. I'm,
38:16I'm a diabetic. Now I had not only the diabetes that developed long after leaving, but at the age
38:23that I left, I was starting to have other illnesses that were happening, things that were happening in
38:28my body. And I can remember somebody who actually went there saying that, you know, you're leaving
38:34this cult and they didn't use the word cult. You're leaving this group and you can be healed
38:39of these things. If you just stay in this, stay with us, stay in this mentality. And they started
38:43naming all of the people that were famously healed by William Branham, some of whom died of their
38:50diseases who weren't healed by William Branham. And I'm, I'm sitting there thinking about this.
38:55And number one, it's upsetting to me because this is not what friends do. But number two, I went back
39:00in my head as, as the person was talking, I went through every single person that I knew
39:05who was in the group who had either a chronic illness, had died of a chronic illness, had
39:11something that they were struggling with and were having to take medication, or worse, had
39:15something that they were struggling with and refused to take medication because of the doctrine.
39:20And I realized that this doctrine, this healing doctrine that they have, it is purely evil from
39:27the depths of hell.
39:28I don't want to like totally know like God's ability to heal because I was in a wheelchair
39:36and I was told I would probably never walk again. And it was one of those things that
39:41God did heal me from the wheelchair and provide for me to attend the college, which at that time
39:47was not handicap accessible, um, and go on the mission field and do missions work for about
39:54seven years. But at the same time, it all, I did, I didn't get like fully healed in the fact
40:04that I
40:04still have a lot of like crippled and bent joints and deformed situations like that. And the pain of
40:13the arthritis did come back, um, you know, after a few years. So it's like, I look at it and
40:21go, well, God
40:22definitely did a miracle. I mean, it was one of those things where I went to my, my pediatric
40:26rheumatologist after that, um, healing from the wheelchair and he was shocked and he wasn't a
40:33Christian. And he kept saying, Hey, you know, to the interns or whatever, every time I'd go visit
40:37him, you got to hear this story. It's a miracle. And so for the doctor to say it's a miracle,
40:42I would say it's definitely a miracle. And so I believe that God can do it. Um, but I don't
40:51think
40:51we should like force it on people and flat across the board. Um, because from my understanding,
41:00even though it appears like in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, that Jesus healed everyone,
41:04we then find out, well, wasn't there a story where Peter went by, um, the gate beautiful and was like,
41:15he saw somebody that was crippled. Like how many times did Jesus go by that guy and never healed
41:20him? But then Peter did. And plus there was that, um, that pool where the people were like supposed to
41:28be the first ones in when the angel stirred the waters and they would be healed. That was the
41:35story. And Jesus healed that one person. How many other hundreds were there that we don't hear about?
41:42So it's kind of like making this doctrine flat across the board, this word of faith, you got to
41:48claim it. You got to, um, believe it. You got to say it. Um, which was by my third red
41:55flag actually is
41:56word of faith. Um, I know quite a few pastors from the ELM movement that preach, teach, kind of push
42:06that whole word of faith sort of idea. Um, I don't know that they naturally say, like, I don't know
42:13their
42:14exact wording, so I don't know if they naturally say, hey, you're wrong if you don't believe, but I know
42:19that
42:19that's, that can kind of come across like that idea. Um, that lady that I mentioned before, anytime I
42:28would, um, she would ask me how I was, if I said I was, I was really sore that day,
42:32she would tell me,
42:34well, you got to speak to your joints. You got to talk to those joints. And she wouldn't let me
42:38ever
42:39speak negative about things. And I'm like, there's a balance between claiming it and recognizing the
42:48truth and the reality that I live in. I think it's okay if I say I'm having a really rough
42:53day.
42:54Yeah, I came to learn that positive confession is what you're talking about. I came to learn that the
42:59positive confession, it was just the adult religious form of lying. And you really, you're, you're telling
43:07people that you're healed when you're not healed. And you're clearly not healed in some cases.
43:11I had to do the same thing. And we, you know, we had that same mentality. And I, you know,
43:18there's a
43:19phrase majoring on a minor that is used often when talking about this, you can find examples of healing
43:26in the Bible, you can't say that it is unscriptural for God to heal. And you can say that clearly,
43:32if you
43:32read the Bible, God has healed, it's in the Bible. But what they've done is they're majoring on a minor,
43:37they're taking that example and saying, we can all do it, you can do it, everybody can do it, just
43:43positively confess and lie about the things that you have going on in your body. There's nothing in
43:48the Bible that supports this. In fact, the Bible is pretty clear what happens when people lie. But
43:54the problem is they've majored on a minor. And they've taken that notion that we as spiritual
44:01leaders can heal the average person, come to the revival, get into the revival hype, and they
44:07combine the two together, the healing and the revival trying to, I hate to say it, but they're
44:13trying to resurrect the post World War Two healing revivals. They saw the excitement, the fervor and
44:18gobs of money that was coming in from this, let's do this again. Why would you not? So I get
44:24why
44:24they're doing it. But in the end, whenever you major on a minor like this, think of the person who
44:30has
44:31something that will likely never be cured, think how that makes them feel. I reached a point where
44:37I just couldn't put up with this, I could not do it. In fact, one of the major milestones right
44:42before
44:43my leaving was something that was so catastrophic. I still I get emotional, and I can't really talk
44:49about it publicly. But there was there was somebody who needed healed. And it was so catastrophic what
44:54happened to them, that I realized that the movement had failed this person. The movement could never
45:01have ever cured this person. Now, can God have done it? Yes, absolutely. But God doesn't always do
45:08this. And I had to come to terms with the fact that there are instances where for whatever reason,
45:14people just don't get healed. And there was nothing within the cult theology that would allow this.
45:21And so what happened was, because of that, you had people who they had to positively confess,
45:28knowing that they may never be cured. And in the end, it was just so sad to watch, especially the
45:33chronic cases, as they would get worse and worse onto their death. I was watching the positive
45:39confession, and you could see on their face, they were just so sad that they were having to say this,
45:45knowing how bad that their body was in pain. Definitely one of the harder things that I've had to
45:51walk through. But at the same time, one of the most healing things has actually been recognizing that
45:59being disabled, using that word to describe myself, just because I can't put in as much to society,
46:10it's not like a crime, if you will. I used to be so ashamed and afraid to use that and
46:21to talk about
46:22myself like that. And there used to be this person on, I think it was Instagram, or I don't remember
46:32what, but she had a daughter that was born with a disability. And watching those videos, like normally,
46:42I would say, don't show your kids on, you know, that kind of stuff. But watching her love on this
46:49child,
46:50and focus on this child, healed something within me, because I realized, that is how I should have
46:58been treated, that is how I should have been seen. Like, I shouldn't have felt like I needed to go
47:05to every healing evangelist meeting. Like, after that incident, with that one guy, you know, saying
47:12that, you know, we didn't have enough faith, or there was sin, or something that we needed to confess,
47:16I made a point, like, anytime there was a camp meeting, or whatever, and they had a healing evangelist,
47:22my friends would be like, hey, are you going tonight's the healing evangelist? I'd be like,
47:26oh, that's right, I forgot. No, I'm not. Like, I outright avoided it. Because my thought was,
47:34I believed that God was going to heal me. But I wasn't going to force it or seek it out
47:41anymore.
47:42I didn't need to deal with that sort of emotional abuse, if not also spiritual, psychological,
47:49everything else. I was dealing with a lot of hurt and anger that was misdirected at God,
47:57because He wasn't doing it. And it was like, I couldn't conjure it up. And I was pretty sure
48:03that I was okay with Him. But at the same time, my faith and my sin and whatever was being
48:09called
48:09into question. And so, when God did heal me, He healed me at a regular youth group Sunday evening
48:18event. It wasn't a special meeting. There wasn't any special speakers. It was just another teen
48:26who, at one point in time, like, leaned over to me, because she didn't want to, like, call me out
48:30from the crowd. It was like, hey, do you mind if we pray for you? Because I just feel like
48:34maybe we
48:34should. And then after she asked me, she went to the youth pastor and mentioned to him. And he asked
48:40me privately before saying anything publicly. And like, hey, do you all mind, like, just laying hands
48:47on Hannah and seeing what happens? And I think that is so important to recognize that when God is going
48:53to do it, just like with revival, it's not going to be conjured up. It's not going to be.
49:02And when we're trying to conjure it up, it really does have an effect on your mental health. And I
49:08would say your spiritual health. And just, I can totally understand why some people would walk
49:13away from God altogether. Because there were definitely times where I was angry at Him. I,
49:22you know, knew some swear words, and I used them on Him. And I would shake my fist at heaven
49:27and tell
49:27Him I hated Him. I went for about, like, a couple months doing that at one point in time. And,
49:35I mean,
49:36thankfully, God knew that I was just angry and I needed to vent and He didn't hold it against me.
49:44But, yeah, there was definitely that whole overly spiritualizing and making everything God or demons
49:51and faith and sin. Or, like, God's not a genie in a bottle that you, you know, rub clockwise three
50:00times to get Him to pop out.
50:03I've often thought that what we had wasn't really God. What we had was the rabbit's foot God. You
50:09could rub it and you could get a healing. You could rub it, you could get a little money.
50:13That's really all it was. It was something that, it was like a lucky charm that you kept in your
50:17pocket
50:17who wouldn't protect you from the demons that are in the world. You needed the spiritual coverings.
50:22So, in the end, I came to terms with the fact that when people are walking away from this God,
50:28this rabbit's foot God, they're not really walking away from the God of the Bible. They're walking
50:32away from the false God that they've been taught. And there's very good reasons for it. I have friends
50:37who have, one of my best friends lost their mother to this religion because the mother refused to take
50:44medicine because God would heal her. And God had already healed her. And this friend watched his
50:50mother die. And to me, this is so sad. She had something that actually would have been preventable
50:56with medicine. And nothing in the group said that you weren't to take your medicine, but they got
51:02people so hyped up in this revival culture that she was believing that if she had enough faith and if
51:10she could positively confess it, she would conquer this herself without the medication.
51:15And then she died. And the person that I'm referring to did walk away from the rabbit's foot God.
51:21I don't blame them. I cannot say enough that if you believe the rabbit's foot God,
51:28run screaming. There's not even – I use the phrase deconstructing whenever somebody's walking away
51:34from this faith. You're not even deconstructing Christianity at that point. You're deconstructing
51:39a rabbit's foot. And that's really all it is. It's not – for me, it's not as problematic as
51:47somebody who has been trained in the proper Christian religion, who understands the gospel,
51:53who knows the Bible inside and out, and makes a conscious effort to walk away from that. That's a
51:59different story than somebody who's been taught a rabbit's foot God. So for me, I look at it and I
52:04– all
52:05of this and I say, I just – I'm so sad that people get affected by this. And I, you
52:12know, I get emotional
52:13when I talk about it. I really do. If you could give some advice to somebody who is going through
52:18what I'm describing, what advice would you give them?
52:20Do what you need to do to meet your health. And on the one hand, yeah, like it was definitely
52:31God
52:32that healed me from the wheelchair. But on the other hand, when I was three, and again, when I was
52:40four,
52:41I went through like near-death experiences, if not possibly dead, because I stopped breathing in one of
52:49them. And if we hadn't had the doctors, and we hadn't had the medicine, and we hadn't done that
52:59stuff, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be alive. Like I have a scar on my neck from a tracheotomy. That's
53:07what helped me be able to breathe was a machine for a while. And I was put on a lot
53:17of medicine,
53:18which is why I'm small. My growth was stunted. It was basically the equivalent of like anti-cancer
53:24drugs, pretty high dosage, just to squelch the arthritis and to keep it from trying to kill me
53:31again. And I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the doctors and the medical procedures and the
53:42medicine. So, I think there needs to be like a balance. And I don't really know how to say to
53:54find how to find the balance. Get to know God for yourself. Read the scripture for yourself.
54:0220 years ago, when I went to Bible college, we had to learn how to use the Strong's Concordance and
54:07Commentaries and things like that. Nowadays, you can just type in the verse reference and the word
54:12Commentary and you get like, I think maybe Bible Hub or something like that. It'll give you like five
54:17commentaries on it. Do that. Use Google. Use the internet. Research it. Really get to know God.
54:27I think the key here is it's okay to know God like on a theological, logical way. It doesn't have
54:36to
54:36all be spiritual and hype and emotional. Because I found that was one of the things that seemed to
54:43be really true growing up was we really looked at statistics and science and logic as like bad.
54:53Like your mind is evil and don't go there. Don't question anything. I love that you use the word
54:59deconstruction because I prefer using it. But one of the first things I noticed was when I started
55:06using the word deconstruction, I had people that, they didn't say it publicly. They more like DM'd me
55:14privately and they were being like, oh, it sounds like, you know, like Satan in the Garden of Eden.
55:22Did God really say that? And I'm looking at it going, what is wrong with asking questions?
55:29Like, it doesn't mean you're of Satan or demon just because you're asking questions. And I think
55:34that would be the key is it's okay to ask questions and it's okay to find the real God, not
55:41the rabbit's
55:42foot God, not the genie God, but the real God. And I prefer the word deconstruction because disentangling
55:48and some of that stuff kind of gives you this idea of like unentangling, like a light string for
55:55Christmas. You know, all the lights are supposed to be there and the whole string's supposed to be
56:00there. You're deconstruction because you're actually removing bad construction and bad things
56:07that don't need to be in there. And so, yeah, you need to be willing to actually like tear down
56:13some
56:13walls and bring in a carpenter, if you will, and have them tell you whether it's a load bearing wall
56:22or not and what you can do to tear it down and what you need to do if you got
56:27a mold infestation or, you know,
56:29that kind of thing. Like, it's okay to ask questions and to really dig in. And it's okay, too, if
56:37you got to go all
56:38the way back to the foundation. It doesn't mean that that you have failed God or God has failed you,
56:45if you will,
56:46just because you got to go way back to the basics. Don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be
56:53afraid
56:53to explore and think.
56:56Well, that's very good advice. Thank you so much for doing this.
56:58You're welcome.
56:59Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us
57:03out on the web.
57:04You can find us at william-branham.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation,
57:09you can read Weaponites Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
58:08Weaponites Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
58:21Weaponites Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. CREDITS
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