- 2 days ago
John examines how William Joseph Seymour, the Azusa Street revival, and early Pentecostal publishing helped create a financial and organizational model that stretched far beyond Los Angeles. Drawing on revival history, denominational papers, and the later healing movement, John traces how mailing lists, newsletters, supernatural claims, and end-times urgency combined to build influence across Pentecostal and charismatic networks.
John follows the line from Seymour to the Apostolic Faith paper, through the Pentecostal Evangel and the Voice of Healing, and into later charismatic structures that tied fear, miracle claims, and donor cultivation together. The result is a historical look at how publications did more than spread belief: they helped normalize increasingly dramatic claims, sustain recurring revenue, and prepare audiences to trust the next wave of revivalist leaders.
00:00 Intro
00:31 Seymour, Azusa Street, and the money question
04:32 The Branham poverty narrative comparison
06:56 Tongues, Parhamites, and early Pentecostal roots
12:19 Charles Fox Parham’s scandal and influence
16:49 Money flowing through Azusa Street
21:08 Mailing lists, publications, and recurring revenue
24:44 Website and book promo
25:41 From Azusa networks to Assemblies of God publishing
28:23 Failed doomsday prophecy and the “gospel” problem
31:32 Fantastic miracle claims in Pentecostal publications
39:21 Branham, Hagopian, and the Healing Revival money stream
42:07 The Voice of Healing publication machine
46:10 Subscribers, conventions, names, addresses, and donations
47:45 Wills, annuities, and legacy giving
50:12 Modern echoes in planned giving appeals
51:37 Fear, supernatural claims, and financial conditioning
54:39 Seymour, good intentions, and a dangerous system
55:16 Closing
______________________
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
John follows the line from Seymour to the Apostolic Faith paper, through the Pentecostal Evangel and the Voice of Healing, and into later charismatic structures that tied fear, miracle claims, and donor cultivation together. The result is a historical look at how publications did more than spread belief: they helped normalize increasingly dramatic claims, sustain recurring revenue, and prepare audiences to trust the next wave of revivalist leaders.
00:00 Intro
00:31 Seymour, Azusa Street, and the money question
04:32 The Branham poverty narrative comparison
06:56 Tongues, Parhamites, and early Pentecostal roots
12:19 Charles Fox Parham’s scandal and influence
16:49 Money flowing through Azusa Street
21:08 Mailing lists, publications, and recurring revenue
24:44 Website and book promo
25:41 From Azusa networks to Assemblies of God publishing
28:23 Failed doomsday prophecy and the “gospel” problem
31:32 Fantastic miracle claims in Pentecostal publications
39:21 Branham, Hagopian, and the Healing Revival money stream
42:07 The Voice of Healing publication machine
46:10 Subscribers, conventions, names, addresses, and donations
47:45 Wills, annuities, and legacy giving
50:12 Modern echoes in planned giving appeals
51:37 Fear, supernatural claims, and financial conditioning
54:39 Seymour, good intentions, and a dangerous system
55:16 Closing
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:31Hello, 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, where history proves that truth, or at least their version of it,
00:46is truly stranger than fiction.
00:48Today I'm looking at a key intersection point in time in revival history that involves William
00:55Joseph Seymour.
00:55And if you don't know who William Joseph Seymour is, you probably haven't studied Pentecostalism
01:01because he is the single most important person in the modern Pentecostal movement.
01:07He was the one who led the Azusa Street revival.
01:10He was trained under Charles Fox Parham, which I'll get into in a bit, but he is one of the
01:17people that is well-respected by many people.
01:21Even critics of the Pentecostal movement, to some extent, will respect William Joseph Seymour
01:26because there's not much really bad that you can say about the guy.
01:30Depending on your doctrinal belief, you may disagree with his doctrine, but as a human
01:34being, he apparently was a pretty good person.
01:38And I'm not here to argue that.
01:41But I do want to look at a key intersection in time that I think really is critical to
01:47the movement.
01:48Because when the Azusa Street revival broke out, there were things happening that just
01:54simply were different than modern historians favorable of the Pentecostal movement will tell
02:00you.
02:01And we covered a lot of that in a previous episode that I did, dealing with the history of the
02:07Azusa Street revival and some of the dark aspects of it.
02:11I think I called it the dark side of the Azusa Street revival.
02:15Well, I want to dive a bit deeper into that as it relates to a key intersection point in
02:22time that explodes into a money-making machine.
02:27And a historian who's looking at money and the current New Apostolic Reformation and all
02:35of the different things that exist today, who most of the lineages of the people who are
02:42leading it can be traced all the way back to Seymour.
02:45They don't usually connect the money aspect to Seymour, because Seymour, by all accounts,
02:50was a dirt poor, very humble guy.
02:54However, I question that just a little bit, which I'll get into that in a bit.
03:01But there are things about the history of the Pentecostal movement that have shifted and
03:06changed over time, and they don't really match reality.
03:10There are some Pentecostal historians who do talk about the critical nature of it, but
03:16they paint it in a very positive light.
03:18I'll get into that as well.
03:20But it appears that William Joseph Seymour did have quite a bit of money, at least for a
03:25period of time.
03:26So I'll get into that history in a bit, but the money aspect really for me is it's key
03:33to understand how all of this developed.
03:35When you look at the mass megachurches, their conventions, all of their book sales, recording
03:42sales, video sales, all of the different ways that you can donate your money and give
03:48your life savings to these different ministries.
03:51When you look at all of that that exists today and understand that it can be traced all the
03:56way back to Azusa Street, you have to wonder, why did they do this?
04:00What importance was money for a group that believed truly that the end of the world was
04:07just around the corner?
04:08And that was the belief set and the mindset of the early Pentecostals that were joining
04:14into the Azusa Street revival.
04:16And for me, I look at William Joseph Seymour, by all accounts, he was a poor person, but
04:23there is some critical history that's been overlooked that makes me question it just a
04:28little bit.
04:28To put some background perspective on this, I grew up in the Branham cult, as everybody
04:33is aware, the message cult following of William Branham.
04:37And we were told the same exact thing.
04:40William Branham and his family had no money.
04:43They were poor people.
04:44How could this poor minister be doing anything that is not of God?
04:50Because he could have had all the money, the lights, cameras, actions, etc.
04:55And as you know, if you studied the research, I came across a letter from his daughter talking
05:00about the millions of dollars that he had.
05:03And while I'm listening to recordings of him, and he's saying things like, I've never taken
05:08an offering one single time in my life.
05:12And he would talk about the big fancy cars that people drove.
05:16And I would look at, you know, the little humble vehicles, the station wagons, usually
05:20the one that they show.
05:22I would look at these things and I would say, you know, they're right.
05:26This is a humble guy.
05:27This is not one of the big revival evangelists that all of the skeptics look at.
05:35And he would say things like, I drive these simple cars while all the others drive Cadillacs.
05:41And I never really stopped to think about the photographs that I personally had of him
05:47in a Cadillac driving it.
05:50So you're given one set of information, and you're told to focus on it, and you're really
05:56distracted from other information.
05:59And would I say that Branham was like a Joel Osteen of his day?
06:03I don't know, maybe not.
06:05But I could tell there was a lot of money, and we were being told one story while behind
06:10the scenes it was entirely different.
06:12And if you go to his house, which you can go to here in Jeffersonville, it's this little
06:16tiny house.
06:17It's not a mansion by no means.
06:19So you look at the house and you say, well, this is a humble guy, right?
06:22But you wouldn't expect the millions of dollars that his daughter said that he had.
06:27So you start to ask, A, where'd the money go?
06:31B, how did he get so much money if he never took an offering?
06:34And C, was he being honest about any of it?
06:38And the sad truth is, I came to find out that even in the newspapers, whenever the newspaper
06:45reporters would attend the meetings, there was a heck of a lot of money flowing through
06:49those revivals, which I'll get into that in just a bit.
06:53But back to William Joseph Seymour, almost all accounts will tell you he was a poor,
06:58humble minister.
06:59He was the one who sparked the, or led the, I should say, led the Azusa Street Revival.
07:05And this is where speaking in tongues, modern speaking in tongues originated from.
07:11Now, if you studied any of the histories that I've done on the podcast, whether it's about
07:17Azusa Street or some of the other holiness revivals, you begin to understand that there's
07:23a few things that just simply aren't true.
07:25Number one, speaking in tongues predated 1906, the Azusa Street Revival.
07:31Number two, William Joseph Seymour was just part of a larger network, and he was a Parhamite.
07:38He was from the Parhamite sect.
07:41And Charles Fox Parham, who had trained William Joseph Seymour, was trying to take over John
07:48Alexander Dowie's empire.
07:51And if you want to know that history, you can go back through, I think it's the, I think
07:56we talked about it in the Revival History series, and we also talked about it in the Weaponized
08:01Religion series.
08:03But there was so much money flowing through this movement that when John Alexander Dowie,
08:09the prototype for the healing revival, whenever he started to lose his mental faculties, Zion
08:16City was just flooded by these people claiming to be the next Elijah, the next prophet.
08:21And it was a lot of money.
08:23In today's money, it was almost half a billion dollars that he had amassed and had an entire
08:30city annexed in Illinois, Zion City, Illinois.
08:33So there's a lot of money flowing through it.
08:36There's a lot of things that we've been told that aren't quite accurate.
08:40And today I want to go through some of the money situation, starting with William Joseph
08:48Seymour, untangle that just a little bit.
08:51And as I said, he's the linchpin.
08:53So I want to talk about how things progressed in such a weird way in the Pentecostal charismatic
08:59movement.
09:00When you look at the movements that exist today, the New Apostolic Reformation, and you trace
09:06its history back, they all trace back through Azusa Street.
09:09Well, when you do that, when you do that lineage and you start to understand things got crazier
09:16and crazier and crazier until today, there are gimmicks like gold dust falling from the
09:22ceiling or people who are going on top of mountains and claiming that they're speaking
09:28to the spirit in the sky or just weird, weird things.
09:31And you wonder how, how did it change from this humble Azusa Street thing into this weirdness
09:38that we see today?
09:40My, my connection to all of this weirdness, as I said, was in the middle.
09:44I was connected to the Branham movement, which would be another linchpin that goes to today.
09:50So I'll be talking through all of this, but let's start with William Joseph Seymour at the
09:55Azusa Street revival.
09:57One of the first things that you need to know about Seymour is that Seymour was a Parhamite.
10:01And what that means essentially is that he was of the sect of Charles Fox Parham, which
10:09was one of the groups trying to take over John Alexander Dowie's empire.
10:14Parham taught that speaking in tongues was a sign of receiving the baptism of the Holy
10:18Spirit.
10:19And his group in Kansas, the Parhamites, believed that they had first witnessed writing in tongues,
10:26which if you're watching the YouTube version of this, I'll throw the writing, writing in
10:31tongues on the screen so you can see it.
10:33But they claimed that this chicken scratch on the piece of paper was Chinese and took it
10:39as their mission to go and witness to the people in China, claiming that because they could
10:46write in tongues, God would give them the gift of speaking in tongues, and the people in China
10:51would hear them in their own language.
10:53So when you consider the early prototypes of speaking in tongues, it actually matched what
10:59the Bible said.
11:00The people would hear the tongues in their own language, and it would further spreading the
11:04gospel, which would make sense.
11:06The problem is missionaries went to China, and nobody could understand a word that they said
11:11whenever they were speaking in this alleged tongue from God.
11:15And so Seymour was trained in that type of ministry.
11:21He really believed that if the people could begin to speak in tongues, that the gospel
11:27could spread across the globe, and they could travel to a country where they don't speak
11:32the language.
11:33They could speak in tongues, and that country would then hear the language.
11:37The original version of Pentecostalism was like this.
11:39Now, as you know, not long after the Azusa Street Revival, this quickly changed.
11:46And I've been trying to determine why.
11:49Part of me wonders if it's not this money thing that I'm about to talk about, or if there's
11:55some other reason.
11:55But they did shift from the original prototype.
11:58Now speaking in tongues means it's a heavenly language that no man can understand, or woman.
12:05And so the original prototype was much different.
12:08Now there are a few other things to consider about the Azusa Street Revival that really historians
12:15I don't think have covered as well as they could have.
12:18One of them is the immorality of Charles Fox Parham, which is talked about to some extent.
12:26Pentecostal historians will mention it.
12:28But they won't tell you that Parham actually admitted to it, or they certainly won't tell
12:33you that there were a number of parents who said that their children were victims.
12:38That's the part I think for me was the biggest shock whenever I dove into Pentecostal history.
12:44I knew that there was some claims and accusations by one single person and that that led to Charles
12:51Fox Parham's arrest, what I did not realize was that it was a widespread thing.
12:56And if you read the newspapers, I've actually got them on the pay research page that I have
13:02up for Charles Fox Parham.
13:04But you can read through it and you can see that it's not one, but it's several parents
13:08who say that this guy's doing things with my child.
13:10And Parham himself admitted to having done it, but he admitted, I did it in my sleep, so
13:17therefore I'm innocent, which is kind of weird, but that's how the history goes.
13:22So that's in the background.
13:24And that's a side story to Azusa Street, because if you think how this worked, you had the Parham
13:31sect that's developing in Zion City.
13:33Charles Fox Parham is trying to take over Zion City and its multi-million dollar empire.
13:39In the Parhamite sect are key figures that would be pillars to the New Apostolic Reformation,
13:46pillars to Pentecostalism, Charismania, etc., such as John G. Lake.
13:51John G. Lake was a Parhamite.
13:53William Joseph Seymour was a Parhamite.
13:56F.F.
13:56Bosworth, who mentored William Branham in the revivals, was a Parhamite.
14:02Gordon Lindsay's parents were Parhamites.
14:04So this was a strong Pentecostal sect with roots that were planted that would develop
14:10into modern Pentecostalism.
14:13Seymour was connected to this.
14:16He was asked to go to Los Angeles to preach, and while he's out there, Charles Fox Parham
14:23is dealing with all of the fallout from his accusations, which he somehow wiggled out of,
14:29and I'll never understand that history.
14:32But he did get out of this.
14:33However, having just escaped it, he could not have a big controversy because immediately
14:40it's going to be broadcast that this thing happened to him.
14:43So what happened when William Joseph Seymour was out in Los Angeles?
14:49The Azusa Street revival broke out, and the media were highly skeptical of it.
14:54And they were skeptical for various reasons, one of which was the interracial nature of
15:01the revival.
15:01But you have to understand the controversy that would have ensued had Parham went to the
15:07revival and suddenly here's this man who has all of these things that we can investigate
15:13and just pour into the newspapers because everybody's going to want to read it.
15:19He would have been the center of attention for all the wrong reasons.
15:22And so he kept his distance, but he did later try to come to the revival.
15:29In fact, you can read through some of those histories, even by some pro-Pentecostal authors.
15:36William Joseph Seymour actually contacted Charles Fox Parham and asked him for advice during the
15:42revival.
15:42Why did he do this?
15:43Because he was a student of Charles Fox Parham.
15:45He was still in that sect of Parhamites.
15:49So he was looking to the central figure of that sect for advice.
15:52And you can read that exchange.
15:54I'm not going to get into what that ensued.
15:59However, as he's there, things got out of hand.
16:03And some of this I take directly from Pentecostal historians who speak very favorably of Pentecostalism.
16:11So it's not like I'm going to the skeptics, newspapers, articles, the skeptic authors.
16:18I'm going directly to pro-Pentecostal sources because the odd thing about all of this, if
16:25you are in the movement and you read a pro-Pentecostal source, for some reason, your brain has been
16:32trained to just shut off all critical thinking about what you read.
16:36I'm not like this.
16:38I read it and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that they just said that.
16:43And one of the things that is said by a pro-Pentecostal historian is talking about the money that flowed
16:51through the revivals with William Joseph Seymour, the man who everyone said was dirt poor, had
16:58no money, lived a very humble lifestyle.
17:01Well, and I just, I can't believe this when I'm reading things like this.
17:06One of the books that I read, which was written by H.
17:10Vincent Sinon, and the book is entitled The Holiness Pentecostal Tradition, Charismatic
17:19Movement.
17:20There is a, there's a section in the book.
17:23It talks about the revival spreads and it goes into talking about how the revival brought
17:28the curious and the serious, so there's this mixture of people, but it says this, a visitor
17:36to Azusa Street during the three and a half years the revival continued would have met scenes
17:41that beggared description.
17:43Men and women would shout, weep, dance, fall into trances, speak and sing in tongues, and
17:49interpret their messages into English.
17:51In true Quaker fashion, anyone who felt moved by the Spirit would preach or sing.
17:56There was no robed choir, no hymnals, no order of services, but there was an abundance of
18:02religious enthusiasm.
18:04In the middle of it all was Elder Seymour, who rarely preached and much of the time kept
18:10his head covered in an empty packing crate behind the pulpit.
18:14At times, he would be seen walking through the crowds with five and ten dollar bills sticking
18:20out of his hip pockets that people had crammed there unnoticed by him.
18:24When I read this, the thought instantly went into my head, oh my gosh, that is a lot of
18:31money.
18:32Because if you know how inflation works, and you do the math on the exchange of currency
18:39over time, ten dollars in 1906 is approximately three hundred and seventy five dollars today.
18:48So if you have a bunch of these bills, you've got thousands of dollars in your pockets.
18:52If you do the math on the inflation rate, this was not a small amount of money.
18:59I'm certain that the readers who read it today, if they buy this book, they think, oh, five
19:04dollars, you can't even buy a hamburger for that today.
19:08But do the math on this.
19:09That's a lot of money.
19:11That's more money than I ever carry in my pockets.
19:13And this is the poor, humble William Joseph Seymour who's going through the revivals getting
19:19that much money.
19:21Now, I know that instantly you're starting to think, well, John's going to focus on the
19:26money that Seymour has, paint Seymour as a bad guy.
19:30Not really.
19:31The thing about this movement that's really odd is that you can have very good people who
19:38have good intentions, who truly are seeking to find Jesus and seeking to convert people
19:45to Jesus, but get caught up in the system.
19:48And I want to talk about the system that Seymour was getting caught up into, because that's
19:54really the problem.
19:56Not Seymour.
19:57If you understand how the system works, and you've got suddenly all of these people who
20:02see this miraculous thing happening and think it's of God, which it may or may not be.
20:07I'm not going to make that decision.
20:10They instantly start pouring their money into it.
20:12And that's just how human nature works, which is really, really odd.
20:17And what does Seymour do?
20:19You can't just turn them away and say, hey, I don't want your money.
20:21They would think you're rude.
20:23So he just lets them stick the money in his pocket.
20:26And day by day, you're certain that if you think about how you would dress yourself,
20:33you're not going to dress yourself and put all of this cash back into your pocket the
20:37next day.
20:38You're going to stuff it, stuff it in your pillowcase or whatever.
20:41So he's emptying his pockets day by day and then goes and fills them again.
20:46If you read what this is truly saying.
20:48So there's no way to know how many thousands of dollars that he made if you do the conversion
20:54rate.
20:55That's a lot of money.
20:57But the interesting part for me isn't so much the money that they gave him because that's
21:03just a small sum.
21:05What's more important to me is all of the people in attendance.
21:09These people who were in attendance, the leaders of the revival were smart enough to take down
21:16their names and their addresses.
21:19And that becomes an asset.
21:21So every single person who attended this revival became an asset to the system.
21:26So instead of one person who's stuffing a $10 bill in the pocket and five people who don't
21:32have any money to stick in the pocket, now you can mail these people letters and they
21:38can send you money and they might do it year by year.
21:41If you have a good or a service to give them, they will continue to contribute money.
21:48That's actually what happened.
21:50So William Joseph Seymour had this list and there were people working with him, such as
21:54Claire Lum, a stenographer who was working with Seymour and recorded many of the events.
22:01They combined the events with the names and addresses and started this publication, which
22:07was first published in September of 1906 from the Azusa Street Mission called The Apostolic
22:14Faith.
22:15And this paper had news, testimonies, sermons by William Seymour and other ministers.
22:20It basically became the main publication for the Pentecostal message.
22:25And at its height, I think it had somewhere around 50,000 subscribers.
22:30So we're not talking about any small number of people.
22:33This is a large number of people.
22:35And the value of that, as I said, every single person becomes an asset.
22:41It appears that Claire Lum and a lady working with her, Florence Crawford, they took the list
22:47and Seymour no longer had possession of it.
22:50And they eventually began publishing The Apostolic Faith from Portland, Oregon.
22:55So William Joseph Seymour, who at one point had some money, could have been a lot of money,
23:02who knows, but he had more potential money through this mailing list.
23:07Because as this mailing list began to grow, there was actually more sustainable money and
23:13recurring revenue that would come from the list.
23:15You don't find too many Pentecostal historians who talk about that split, because that would
23:21be devastating to the movement to find that the leader of the revival, the one who had
23:27large sums of money stuffed into his pockets, was part of an original scandal where two ladies
23:34stole this list.
23:35If they stole it, who knows what happened.
23:37But for me, it's interesting, because what came later was the idea that these newsletters
23:45and these mailing lists could attract potential converts and potential subscribers and eventually
23:51build a business empire.
23:53So where Dowie had his original Leaves of Healing publication and his multi-million dollar
24:01empire in Zion City, now you have the potential to create multiple different types of empire.
24:07Just simply by having mailing lists.
24:09And as you bring the mailing list, which Dowie had learned this long ago, you bring the mailing
24:15list, you get the subscribers.
24:17Now you have potential people to come to revivals, because you can advertise your revivals in these
24:23mailing lists and the people will come.
24:25So this is a very, very critical piece of history.
24:29But from a business perspective, if you look at the Pentecostal movement as a business, which
24:36it did have to run and operate like one, this was a fundamental part of the business.
24:42Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern
24:48Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements
24:54into the new apostolic reformation?
25:01On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles
25:09Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital
25:16versions of each book.
25:17You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
25:23movements.
25:24If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the
25:29Contribute button at the top.
25:30And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening
25:36to or watching.
25:37On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
25:42I mentioned earlier that F.F. Bosworth, John G. Lake, and others who are seen in that photograph
25:48with William Joseph Seymour at the Azusa Street Revival were Paramites, but I can't stress enough
25:54how important that actually is.
25:56When you understand the history of Pentecostalism as it relates to these men, then understand the
26:04latter reign as it relates to these men, all the way up to the New Apostolic Reformation,
26:08as you understand the movement as a whole, these key figures were influencing in ways
26:14far beyond what we can even understand.
26:18One of the ways that it was influenced is through these publications that I'm talking
26:22about.
26:22So the Apostolic Faith was the newsletter for the Azusa Street Mission, and as I said, that
26:28was one of the earliest scandals in Pentecostalism.
26:31What happened?
26:32Why did they split?
26:33Why did William Joseph Seymour lose control of this publication?
26:37That's a question that I wish I could get answered, but unless we could go back in time, we'll
26:43never know.
26:46However, some of those same key figures went on to help establish the Assemblies of God.
26:52In fact, if you look at the previous podcast that I did on the history of the Assemblies
26:58of God, you can see that there are signatures for John G. Lake and F.F.
27:03Bosworth.
27:03These were men who were founding members of the Assemblies, and if you're going to found
27:09a new organization and you're going to create the business establishment, which was happening
27:16here, you must have the business publication.
27:19That's just simply the way it works.
27:22If you don't have the publication, how do you grow the crowds?
27:24How do you generate the revenue?
27:27There's just so much that is involved with growing the organization that you simply can't
27:34do it without a publication of some sort.
27:36And so that takes us to the Pentecostal Evangel.
27:41It actually began, I think it was 1913, as the Christian Evangel.
27:46But when the Assemblies of God formed, they took over this, and they merged it with another
27:51magazine called The Word and Witness, and later they renamed it the Pentecostal Evangel.
27:57I think it was 1919 that this happened.
28:01It became the Assemblies of God's main denominational publication.
28:07And one of the problems that you have whenever you're developing this type of faith is there
28:14always has to be something bigger.
28:16And bigger, in this case, doesn't always necessarily mean better.
28:21And let me clarify this just a bit.
28:24Whenever you read the histories about the Azusa Street Revival, the birth of Pentecostalism,
28:29one of the things that they very seldom mention are the prophecies.
28:34Because the prophecies did not quite come true.
28:38The prophecies were painting a doomsday focus.
28:42They would say the cities, the buildings would topple, the railroads would twist, and nobody
28:48could travel by train, and things that were really specific to that time frame.
28:53In today's world, very few people travel by train.
28:56You're either going to go by airplane or drive down the road in your own car.
29:00But that wasn't something that they really could foresee in these visions of the future,
29:06the apocalyptic future.
29:07So Azusa Street Revival was filled with doomsday prophecies that didn't come true.
29:13Why is this?
29:14Because the focus of that era of Pentecostalism was a focus on doomsday.
29:20And to that brand of Pentecostalism, if you heard them say the gospel was preached, often
29:29they were referring to doomsday was preached.
29:32And so that's why I said in the podcast that I did about the Azusa Street Revival, I have
29:39yet to find an actual mention of the actual gospel being preached at the Azusa Street Revival.
29:45What they were calling gospel when they would say the gospel was preached, usually it was
29:50the apocalypse was preached.
29:52And those two aren't the same thing.
29:54If you know the gospel of Jesus Christ, this doomsday focus isn't the right thing.
29:59And sadly, if you study the history of the cults and how they develop, those with doomsday
30:05focus become far more destructive.
30:07So this was the recipe for creating destruction.
30:11This version of the gospel that was apocalyptic and filled with dread was something that was
30:19really unique to that era.
30:21The movement did move past it.
30:23But again, if you hear the word gospel, you hear the focus.
30:26And I'll use this as an example.
30:29One of the problems with preaching this type of gospel, if you're captivating your audience
30:35by fear, or you're captivating them by the miraculous supernatural things, and they continue to see
30:43it, it gets stale.
30:45Over time, they get tired of it.
30:47Yeah, we've seen this.
30:48Yeah, we've heard that we're all going to die and perish if we live here.
30:52Yes, we've heard it.
30:53Let's move on.
30:54So there has to be something scarier, something bigger, something more miraculous.
31:00And that's the way the publications work.
31:02If they're going to continue sending them out and people are going to continue subscribing,
31:07if you just preach the gospel in its simplicity for every version that goes out, the people
31:13just stop purchasing it.
31:15That's the sad truth.
31:16Because why would you need to do this?
31:18You can just go right back to your Bible and you can read the gospel.
31:21So to have a publication, you must have bigger, better, more exciting, more scary.
31:28And that brings us to this crazy issue of the Pentecostal evangel.
31:33There are several issues that have articles that back during the time it was written, maybe
31:39the people believed it.
31:41In today's world, I think people would just be scratching their head thinking, I don't
31:45know about this.
31:47This doesn't sound right.
31:48But this article from February 12th, 1927 is talking about a dead woman in China.
31:57Now, in China, this is far away from the United States.
32:01The readers in the United States could not go verify this.
32:05But according to the account, the woman who had died had stopped breathing.
32:11Her tongue had fallen back in her throat.
32:13And then while she was dead, her dead lips started speaking and spoke in a unknown tongue
32:21because that's part of the Pentecostal revival faith.
32:25And apparently the tongue challenged all of the people and said, to show you that Jesus
32:31is true and your religion is false, I will cause this woman to stand on her feet, sit up
32:37tomorrow and walk the third day.
32:39And immediately, with no assistance from anyone, the woman who was dead just a few minutes before
32:46stood up in the midst.
32:48And here's the interesting part.
32:50Preached the gospel for two and a half hours.
32:53She who had never heard the Bible read and who cannot read a word herself proclaimed terrible
33:01judgments now impeding.
33:03So let's break this down.
33:05A woman who's dead, her mouth starts talking.
33:09That's a little bit fantastic, of course.
33:12But the fact that it says she preached the gospel for two and a half hours and then says
33:17that the gospel is these terrible judgments now impending.
33:22So number one, now impending back in 1927, these judgments didn't take place.
33:28So if it was prophetic, it was false prophecy.
33:31Number two, the prophecy was not the gospel.
33:35So you can't really say that that was the gospel for two and a half hours.
33:38She preached doomsday for two and a half hours.
33:41That is essentially what was happening here, if it happened at all.
33:45The big question really is, did this happen?
33:48And keep in mind, this is one of several just unbelievable claims.
33:54I think people today, if they are in these movements that are connected to these ministries
34:00from the days gone by, if any of them were to just simply open up and read some of the
34:05things written about the movement during its early years, they would just be scratching
34:10their heads thinking, I don't know if this is something that I really believe or not.
34:15But yet, whenever those things are described by modern preachers, whether it's a minister
34:22or evangelist, or even in some of the books and publications that are out there today,
34:26they kind of just gloss over it.
34:28You don't hear that the dead body has a mouth that's moving and speaking doomsday predictions.
34:35But that was the mindset back then.
34:38The other thing that you'll realize when you go back and you read some of these historical
34:41articles is that all of the different claims of today, modern times, things are getting
34:47so much worse, and we're seeing all of these spiritual warfares break out.
34:52That's not really anything new.
34:54If you go back and read even this very article, there was an example of what they were insinuating
35:01with spiritual warfare in the article itself.
35:04In the article where the dead mouth is talking, there is a Tibetan woman who claims that
35:11she had, under satanic power, identified herself as the prince of the world.
35:17And if you understand the themes of how this document or this article is written, you have
35:22the God who is speaking in unknown tongues, declaring the gospel of doomsday.
35:29So you must have the opposite.
35:31You must have the enemy speaking.
35:32And so a Tibetan woman is speaking under the power of the devil, while the dead mouth is speaking
35:38the power of God in apocalyptic themes.
35:42Interestingly, both are talking about apocalyptic themes because one is talking about war, one
35:47is talking about doomsday.
35:49So are they linked?
35:50I don't know.
35:51But the thing to understand here is that this is really nothing new.
35:56They were claiming the same claims back then as they are today.
35:59And the woman who is pronouncing immediate doomsday, it didn't happen.
36:05So at minimum, it's a false prophecy.
36:08I would go so far as to say just simply based on the way that they said this, it was
36:13a false
36:14gospel.
36:14And that's really problematic.
36:17The other thing to notice is that over time, the claims in these publications get bigger and
36:23bigger and more explosive.
36:25And, you know, some of them I take with a grain of salt.
36:29You can't prove it either way.
36:31But some of them you just scratch your head and you think, I don't know if that's even
36:35possible because of the consequences to what would happen should this miraculous event
36:42take place.
36:43An example of this, I grew up in the Branham religion, as I stated.
36:48One of Branham's claims was that newspapers packed it all over the United States.
36:53He used the word packed, and I'm using his Kentucky English.
36:57He said, a voice from the heavens spoke down, this is my beloved prophet, hear ye him, something
37:04to that effect.
37:05And he claimed that it got picked up by the Associated Press.
37:09If that had happened, picture what would have taken place in this area.
37:14You would have people flooded from all over the globe to see the spot where God had spoken.
37:21But you don't have this.
37:23In fact, you couldn't even find a single local newspaper that even covered the issue, covered
37:29the article.
37:29So if that happened, there would be something following to suggest that it was true.
37:35In this particular issue from August 24th, 1946, as the healing movement is spreading, and
37:44again, this is an Assemblies of God paper, so this is before the Assemblies of God rejected
37:50latter rain.
37:51The faith healing revival was spreading across the globe, and it says that basically a prayer
37:58over a child's garment was to have healed the child and then converted the entire village.
38:05The missionary report says that a father brought a sick child's article of clothing to be prayed
38:10over, took it home, put it on the child, and the child was healed.
38:15If that's true, you know, it could be.
38:18I'm not going to say that it wasn't.
38:19But it goes on to say, because of that, the whole village turned to the Lord.
38:25And I have to question that, because if that had have happened, especially in this region
38:30of China, this would have made not only national news in China, it would have made international
38:35news.
38:36And if you know the history of how communist China developed, this would have been something
38:43that might have even started a miniature war in China.
38:46We didn't hear of any wars in China over a village being converted to Christianity.
38:51So you have to question, was this actually true?
38:53I don't know.
38:55Maybe the child was healed, maybe not.
38:57But there's no way to prove it is the point I'm trying to make.
39:00And that's the nature of these boisterous claims in some of these articles.
39:04You won't find a single boisterous claim where it can actually be proven.
39:10And the more fantastic ones usually happen overseas.
39:14So while entire towns and villages are being converted to the gospel through prayer cloths
39:20in China, back in the United States, there are some other weird things that are happening.
39:25If you listen to the Revival History series of the podcast that I have done, you'll hear
39:31this name Avak Hagopian, who is an Armenian faith healer who swept through the United States,
39:37causing quite a stir.
39:38If you're connected with both the Kardashian family and William Branham and the Shakarian family,
39:45which would eventually be the heads of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship,
39:51strong ties to the charismatic movement, you had all of this kind of coming together in the United States.
39:56And William Branham specifically was starting his third iteration or his third stage persona for a faith healer.
40:06There's a book, I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision, which was apparently sent out to his subscribers
40:14because he published this book whenever he's touring in the Revival.
40:17He can collect the names and addresses, but it was a small, I think it was a very small following.
40:22It talked about how a vision sparked his faith healing ministry way back in the early years.
40:30I think it was 1945.
40:32And he began touring with this new commission by God through vision.
40:36And in an article in the Everday magazine published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
40:43it talked about William Branham, the faith healer.
40:46The newspaper reporters were curious how this meeting functioned financially
40:52because they could see this large crowd of people coming and the people were freely giving,
40:57much like they did with William Joseph Seymour.
41:01And so they investigated and they found that it took two hefty men to carry the suitcases of money
41:08from the Revival meetings, which means there was a lot of money flowing through this Revival series
41:13that William Branham was holding.
41:15And from here it gets really interesting.
41:17If you go way back to Azusa Street, back whenever William Joseph Seymour had his newsletter and his publication,
41:25and then suddenly there's this split and somebody else gets it,
41:30well, this weird chain of events happens.
41:32William Branham is suddenly a hot topic in the United States for whatever reason.
41:37We've actually covered that in our Weaponized Religion series, some of the reasons why that might be.
41:43But he was advertised as America's Voice of Healing and a newsletter from the Pentecostal Herald of Truth magazine,
41:53the Pentecostal Church Incorporated newsletter.
41:56He was advertised as America's Voice of Healing in this magazine, and then suddenly he started his own magazine advertising
42:05himself as in a publication that was called The Voice of Healing.
42:10And this was a newsletter created primarily to promote William Branham and his interdenominational faith, is how it was advertised.
42:19And it said that this publication supersedes all previous arrangements, which suggests that there was another arrangement, something happened, and
42:29there was a split.
42:29Well, not long after this, William Branham, who's working with Gordon Lindsay, who, remember I said Gordon Lindsay's family was
42:38in the Paramite sect,
42:40Branham starts working with F.F. Bosworth, also from the Paramite sect, Gordon Lindsay,
42:46and suddenly something happens again, and Gordon Lindsay ends up with the newsletter and the publications.
42:53Gordon Lindsay, who later went on to found Christ for the Nation and influences many, many different leaders of the
43:02New Apostolic Reformation through that organization.
43:05So this chain of events through newsletters, advertisements, business entities, this goes all the way from William Joseph Seymour
43:14into the New Apostolic Reformation through various characters that are affiliated with The Voice of Healing magazine.
43:20So as I mentioned, whenever there are subscribers to a publication such as this, and the publication presents something that
43:31is not the gospel but something else,
43:33something fantastic, supernatural, fear, whatever it is, they have to get bigger and bigger and bigger with the supernatural, fear,
43:43miracles, excitement, lights, cameras, action,
43:46because otherwise people just would stop subscribing.
43:50If they were simply presenting the gospel, the people could just simply go to their Bible and read the gospel.
43:56They have to have something better and more entertaining as time goes on.
44:00So the claims changed over time.
44:04And William Branham's ministry, he was the publisher of The Voice of Healing magazine.
44:10In this iteration, it changed significantly.
44:13In earlier versions of his stage persona, he was commissioned by either a man or by one of them was
44:21simply a vision that he would go heal the sick.
44:24Well, in the latest iterations, and there were multiple after this, the ones that began with The Voice of Healing
44:31campaigns,
44:31he started claiming that an angel from God came down and gave him this gift of healing,
44:37the one that he claimed he had already from other previous iterations of his stage persona.
44:44So they became more and more fantastic.
44:46And here's what's really interesting about this.
44:49If I were to go downtown and just start proclaiming, an angel from God has came down and visited me,
44:56they'd probably lock me up.
44:58In today's world, you can't get away with this.
45:02Even back then, in the 1940s, late 1940s when this happened,
45:07they probably would have just looked at him like he's a little bit crazy.
45:10I don't know if they would have locked him up.
45:12But the Pentecostal people, before charismania even existed,
45:18they had been conditioned to believe this kind of thing.
45:22Because they're reading it in these publications.
45:24They get bigger and bigger.
45:26These claims get bigger and bigger.
45:27So to the people who are subscribing, it was nothing unusual.
45:31Oh, he's visited by an angel from God.
45:34I must believe it because it's written down here.
45:37That's how this worked.
45:39The claims got bigger and bigger and bigger.
45:41By 1951, there were so many different things being promoted in this magazine that you almost had a cafeteria of
45:49miracles and supernatural weirdness.
45:52In fact, Gordon Lindsay himself edited a book that was advertised for sale on the magazine where a lady claimed
45:59to have spent nine days in heaven and hell and returned to tell her story.
46:04In 1952, about the same time that the UFO and flying saucer craze hit the Pentecostal developing charismatic movement,
46:14it was advertised that there were half a million subscribers to the Voice of Healing.
46:19Now, this is just one single publication within the Pentecostal movement, one of the larger ones, yes.
46:26But it was being sold at 15 cents per issue.
46:29So with half a million subscribers, at 15 cents is about $75,000 a year just for the publication,
46:37not even including all of the donations that were given in the conventions.
46:43If you do the math on the inflation, that comes out to almost a million dollars a year.
46:49But the more interesting part about all of this is, again, the address lists.
46:55Because remember, these are the ministers who collected the names and the addresses so that they could subscribe to the
47:01publications.
47:01The very same movement that started claiming that if we can discern your name and your address when you come
47:11through our healing line,
47:12this is the gift of God.
47:14So a movement who is collecting the names and addresses is making money off of the subscriptions
47:19while also making money in the tithe baskets and donation baskets during the healing lines,
47:25having these big conventions where people are buying all of the media, the books, the recordings, all of these things.
47:34And this is a big money engine.
47:36There is no two ways about it.
47:38But if that's not enough money, they could still squeeze some more out of you after you died.
47:44That's how weird this gets.
47:46In 1960, they started selling the idea of wills and annuities through Voice of Healing.
47:54And the way this worked, if you read through the advertisements that they have,
47:58in fact, this one says, Christ remembered you at his death.
48:02Will you remember his work at your death?
48:05In other words, give us your money after you die.
48:08They were trying to sell the notion that when you die, the work needs to continue
48:14and the subscription money that you're giving us, it's going to cease when you die.
48:19And we don't want this to happen.
48:20Could you please continue to send us your money after you die?
48:27That is literally what they're asking here.
48:30And so the people who have, A, been conditioned that the miracles, the signs, the wonders,
48:37the fear is going to get greater and greater and greater over time.
48:40While at the same time, the cost of subscription gets greater and greater and greater over time,
48:48there comes a point whenever there's no more money coming into the religious institution
48:54that you're funding through the subscription money.
48:57So we're going to go after the money after you die.
49:01And so this is one of the things that you don't really hear them talk about when they talk about
49:07God's generals and the chain of events that led to the New Apostolic Reformation,
49:14that they're going to suck your bank accounts dry after you die.
49:18But to be fair, they still kind of did this when you were living.
49:22Now, to be fair, this kind of thing isn't that uncommon across nonprofit organizations.
49:28Where it gets a little bit different in this case is that with the annuities, with the wills,
49:35with the asking for money after you die, they also are combined with the supernatural,
49:40the fears, all of the things that go with the idea that your money is not going to be necessary
49:47for your family in the future because there is no future.
49:51That's really what this boils down to.
49:54They're preaching an end-of-days, doomsday scenario.
49:58You're not going to need your money.
50:00Give it to us instead because we need it during the doomsday that's coming.
50:05And fast forward to the New Apostolic Reformation, it gets a little bit sketchy.
50:11And I'm not going to go too far with this because there may be some legal issues with it.
50:16I will just say that Morningstar Ministries has a page entitled Legacy Planning and Planned Giving.
50:23And it will offer help with wills and trusts and power of attorney, living wills, living trusts.
50:29And I'm not going to say anything negative about Morningstar Ministries.
50:33I'll let you read the page yourself.
50:35But I can say that there is a similar apparatus that appears to exist going forward.
50:43I'll keep it clean and say it like this.
50:46IHOPKC has a page and you can go look at it.
50:48It says, impact our future through legacy planning.
50:52With legacy planning, you can provide long-lasting support for our mission while enjoying financial
50:57benefits for yourself.
50:58So, again, I'm not going to talk about those pages, legal issues.
51:03You can go read them yourselves and determine are they doing the similar thing or not.
51:08I don't know.
51:08But what I can say is the premise to me is that you are pushing these supernatural ideas, supernatural
51:20end-of-day scenarios, and you're connecting people to their finances that can come back
51:27into your financial bucket.
51:29That much I think I can legally say without any issues because that's really what they're
51:35advertising here.
51:37The problem for me, aside from the Morningstar IHOPKC issue, the problem for me as it existed
51:45in the days gone by in history is the fact that it was built on this doomsday theme and
51:51they were presenting outlandish claims.
51:54And the weird thing about all of this is, if you really take a step back, is that in 1948,
52:01when Branham started claiming that an angel from God came down and all of the variations
52:08of that story, because he's not quite consistent in it, the fact that people were manipulated
52:14enough to believe it is shocking, but more shocking is that if you know the history of IHOPKC and
52:22some of the people affiliated with them, they're claiming that the same angel that came down
52:28during latter rain, that would be William Branham's angel, has come back again today and her name
52:33is Emma.
52:34And they're saying the same kind of things and people are still believing it.
52:38So it shows that there not only is a financial benefit to having one of these devices that are
52:48almost, I'll go ahead and say it, one of these propaganda devices.
52:51That's really what these publications are.
52:54The propaganda device can convince people to believe the most outlandish things.
53:00And once they're convinced, when they come to your convention, you can say them on the
53:05pulpit, but from behind the pulpit, and everybody's going to believe it.
53:09So not only are these magazines and publications bringing in money through the subscriptions, they
53:17are convincing people that the things you say are true.
53:20So everybody who is a subscriber and everybody who has a subscription and has given the publication
53:27to another family who might enjoy it, they too can come to believe some of the things that
53:33are in the magazine.
53:35When they go to the convention, their mind has already been persuaded to believe some of
53:41the things that is said.
53:42And that's why if you're not in this movement and you're watching this podcast, you're wondering
53:47how can people believe some of the weirdest things in the charismatic movement?
53:52You have to understand that the publications are like a primer for this thing.
53:57The more that they can get people to subscribe and believe and read and understand what it
54:03is that they want to say from the convention side, if they've already come to believe it
54:08at home in the magazine, then suddenly you have an open door into their pocketbook, for
54:16lack of a better way to say it.
54:18And sadly, that is the case with many ministers.
54:21Now, I'm going to qualify that statement a bit because there are some really good people
54:25who I think genuinely are wanting to do good and are just caught up into a system that is
54:34taking advantage of people.
54:36I'll say it like that.
54:37It's hard to weed out which ones are doing it for good and which ones are not because
54:42they're in the same system.
54:44And for that, I'll circle all the way back to William Joseph Seymour.
54:48I have yet to read anything about him that puts his person into a bad place, but he was
54:55caught up into a system that unfortunately was one where people were shoving large amounts
55:01of money in his pocket.
55:02He was collecting an address book and the first major Pentecostal split happened and you can
55:09see that it kind of went in multiple directions.
55:12some maybe for good, some not quite so good.
55:16So I'll say it like that and I'll leave it at that.
55:19So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the
55:22web.
55:23You can find us at william-branham.org.
55:25For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
55:29from Christian Identity to the NAR.
55:32Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
55:52For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can find us at william-branham.
56:39For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can find us at william-branham.
56:40You
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