- 1 day ago
John and Bob discuss the strange world of numerology and dream interpretation inside the Latter Rain, Kansas City Fellowship, IHOPKC, and New Apostolic Reformation streams.
Bob shares firsthand memories from the 1980s, including the culture shock of watching dreams, dates, numbers, and symbols become part of everyday spiritual language. John connects those experiences to older religious currents, including British Israelism, Christian Identity, spiritualism, pyramid speculation, zodiac symbolism, Christian fundamentalism, and the Latter Rain belief that God was restoring apostles, prophets, and an end-time army.
The conversation explores how ordinary numbers can become hidden codes, how coincidences can be treated as revelation, how symbolic dream interpretation can separate people from reality, and how Joel’s Army theology created repeated cycles of excitement, disappointment, disillusionment, and spiritual harm.
This episode is not an attack on the biblical idea that God can speak through dreams. Instead, it asks what happens when dreams, symbols, numbers, and prophetic interpretation become a system of authority.
00:00 Introduction
01:44 Bob’s Unresolved Question About Numerology
03:03 Bob Jones Introduces Numerology and Dream Interpretation
05:00 Bob’s Prophetic Dream About Mike Bickle
09:44 Tracing the Historical Roots of Numerology
11:39 British Israelism, Christian Identity, and the Great Pyramid
14:08 Pagan Religions and Sacred Numbers
17:04 Gnosticism and the Corruption of Christianity
18:39 Numbers in Scripture and Kabbalah
20:19 Humanity’s Desire to Predict the Future
22:38 Fundamentalism, Spiritualism, and Archaeology
25:09 Numbers as Ancient Symbols of Importance
29:05 Biblical Numbers Versus Occult Numerology
31:08 Secret Knowledge and Spiritual Elites
33:08 Mysticism and William Branham’s Use of Numbers
34:43 Turning Coincidences Into Revelation
35:47 Dick Iverson and Dream Interpretation
38:25 The Damage of Constant Dream Interpretation
40:17 Symbolism, Escapism, and Avoiding Reality
44:27 Connecting Dream Interpretation to Latter Rain
45:41 Parham, John G. Lake, and Portland
46:59 Dreams, Visions, and the Latter Rain Movement
49:08 Paul Cain’s Search for a New Generation
51:37 Building an End-Time Army
53:55 The Disillusionment of Joel’s Army
55:41 IHOP as a Repetition of Kansas City Fellowship
58:19 Why History Keeps Repeating
59:54 Conclusion
______________________
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://willia
Bob shares firsthand memories from the 1980s, including the culture shock of watching dreams, dates, numbers, and symbols become part of everyday spiritual language. John connects those experiences to older religious currents, including British Israelism, Christian Identity, spiritualism, pyramid speculation, zodiac symbolism, Christian fundamentalism, and the Latter Rain belief that God was restoring apostles, prophets, and an end-time army.
The conversation explores how ordinary numbers can become hidden codes, how coincidences can be treated as revelation, how symbolic dream interpretation can separate people from reality, and how Joel’s Army theology created repeated cycles of excitement, disappointment, disillusionment, and spiritual harm.
This episode is not an attack on the biblical idea that God can speak through dreams. Instead, it asks what happens when dreams, symbols, numbers, and prophetic interpretation become a system of authority.
00:00 Introduction
01:44 Bob’s Unresolved Question About Numerology
03:03 Bob Jones Introduces Numerology and Dream Interpretation
05:00 Bob’s Prophetic Dream About Mike Bickle
09:44 Tracing the Historical Roots of Numerology
11:39 British Israelism, Christian Identity, and the Great Pyramid
14:08 Pagan Religions and Sacred Numbers
17:04 Gnosticism and the Corruption of Christianity
18:39 Numbers in Scripture and Kabbalah
20:19 Humanity’s Desire to Predict the Future
22:38 Fundamentalism, Spiritualism, and Archaeology
25:09 Numbers as Ancient Symbols of Importance
29:05 Biblical Numbers Versus Occult Numerology
31:08 Secret Knowledge and Spiritual Elites
33:08 Mysticism and William Branham’s Use of Numbers
34:43 Turning Coincidences Into Revelation
35:47 Dick Iverson and Dream Interpretation
38:25 The Damage of Constant Dream Interpretation
40:17 Symbolism, Escapism, and Avoiding Reality
44:27 Connecting Dream Interpretation to Latter Rain
45:41 Parham, John G. Lake, and Portland
46:59 Dreams, Visions, and the Latter Rain Movement
49:08 Paul Cain’s Search for a New Generation
51:37 Building an End-Time Army
53:55 The Disillusionment of Joel’s Army
55:41 IHOP as a Repetition of Kansas City Fellowship
58:19 Why History Keeps Repeating
59:54 Conclusion
______________________
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://willia
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:31Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:35I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:40at william-branham.org.
00:00:42And with me, I have my co-host and friend, Bob Scott, former co-founder of the Kansas City
00:00:47Fellowship and the author of three books.
00:00:49The latest is Some Said They Blundered, Breaking My Decades of Silence on Mike Bickle, The Kansas
00:00:54City Prophets, and the International House of Prayer.
00:00:57Bob, it's good to be back and to talk about numbers.
00:01:01I'm a computer programmer, leader, a CIO.
00:01:06I've done various different things, and numbers is a big part of what I do.
00:01:10And interestingly, I'm fascinated with the numerology of the things that I do based off of what
00:01:17I came from, which is something we're going to talk about today.
00:01:20But I did a deep dive into this, and I'll let you introduce what we're going to talk
00:01:25about.
00:01:26But I did a deep dive into numerology and trying to understand what was the fascination with
00:01:31numbers in this weird mess we come out of.
00:01:34And I'll let you introduce it.
00:01:37But it just was so crazy that I had to learn why.
00:01:40I was just asking, why is it this way?
00:01:43Well, for those that are tuning in with us, I've had this, I don't want to say haunting,
00:01:52but unresolved question for 40 years.
00:01:55And it stems back to what happened in our church in the 1980s.
00:02:01By way of review, if you haven't listened to the podcast before, I grew up Roman Catholic.
00:02:09My parents were Roman Catholic, and I lasted until I was about 11 or 12 years old, and then
00:02:15ended up getting really disillusioned, then went into existentialism for a while, but then
00:02:20as a late teen, had an experience that led me to trying to understand a little bit more
00:02:28of Jesus, and I ended up in the evangelical camp.
00:02:35Horoscopes, numerology, all of that kind of mysticism stuff was, from that perspective,
00:02:45wrong.
00:02:46Like, you just didn't do that stuff.
00:02:48So that was sort of my paradigm when we launched Kansas City Fellowship in late 82.
00:02:54I had some experience from the previous years in the charismatic world, and very little
00:03:00about Pentecostalism.
00:03:02So in March of 1983, Bob Jones shows up at our church, right?
00:03:08And he's an odd character to me, but there are things happening that get my attention.
00:03:17But something ends, he ends up bringing something into our congregation that I really struggled
00:03:23with, primarily because I was ignorant.
00:03:26But even more, it was, I think this is wrong, but nobody seems to think it's wrong, and it
00:03:33was this.
00:03:33He brought two things.
00:03:35One, numerology.
00:03:36It was like everything that had numbers attached to it had some sort of hidden meaning, right?
00:03:45And it was, the only thing that I could, at that particular time of my life, identify it
00:03:54with, would have been Kabbalah, which is the Jewish kind of mystics, the mystic side of
00:04:01Judaism, which is tied into a lot of numerologies based on the Hebrew language, right?
00:04:08Then, there's two sides to this.
00:04:10So one part of it is that everything has this hidden meaning based on numbers, like what
00:04:18time did this happen?
00:04:19What time was your dream?
00:04:21What time, right?
00:04:22Everything, you know, a lot of it was around dates, right?
00:04:26Numerology around dates, and then times.
00:04:29And then the other thing, which I'd like you to address if we could, is the whole thing of
00:04:34dream interpretation, that got pretty wild for me because nothing meant what it was, like
00:04:41everything was symbolic.
00:04:43And so suddenly, I find myself in this world where there's a whole bunch of people trying
00:04:49to communicate things, but nothing is what it seems.
00:04:53Now, the reason why I struggle with this, and this is probably the first time I've ever
00:04:58shared this story, so I'm going on a little bit, and then we'll address that.
00:05:01I actually had a very powerful dream.
00:05:06I don't remember my dreams, so when I do, they're pretty powerful, but I don't always
00:05:12know what they mean.
00:05:13So I'm going to share this kind of the first time publicly, but we lived in a community of
00:05:21duplexes in the early 80s.
00:05:24And Mike and Diane were in the same duplex that we did, and so they were L-shaped, right?
00:05:30So the back of the duplex is where we parked our car, so our two back doors were literally
00:05:35right next to each other.
00:05:37So it's probably mid-1980s, and July or August, because it was so hot, we didn't have air conditioning,
00:05:51so the bedroom window is open.
00:05:54I fall asleep.
00:05:55Next thing I know, I'm in this dream where it's myself, Augustine Acola, who was the
00:06:02guy that prophesied to Mike in St. Louis about some things which are still highly debated as
00:06:09to what actually happened.
00:06:10But nonetheless, Mike had invited him back to the church.
00:06:14So it was Augustine, myself, and Mike, and we are standing around a giant slab of stone.
00:06:22I mean, the size of what you would imagine at the bottom of the whaling wall, like those
00:06:2870-ton huge blocks, right?
00:06:31And we're standing there.
00:06:32And Augustine is trying to communicate to Mike that this block, whatever, is the purpose
00:06:39of God, right?
00:06:41And so we're talking about this, and then Mike decides he's going to lift it.
00:06:46And I go, Mike, Mike, Mike, don't.
00:06:48We got a team of guys here.
00:06:50Let me go grab everyone, and we'll help you lift this.
00:06:53And Mike's like, no, no, no.
00:06:55I got it.
00:06:56This is mine, right?
00:06:57It was like he was possessive that this was his purpose, right?
00:07:00And I'm like, no, we got a team of guys, right?
00:07:02So we had this little argument, and Mike is struggling to get this thing up, right?
00:07:09Well, then the dream shifts.
00:07:12Like, there's a time.
00:07:13You know how dreams are.
00:07:14It's like there's this time goes by.
00:07:16And the next thing I know, Diane is calling me on the phone.
00:07:21That's Mike's wife, if you don't know.
00:07:23Is calling me on the phone, crying hysterically, saying, Bob, you've got to get to the office.
00:07:29So I drive over to the office, and she meets me outside at the front door, and she's sobbing.
00:07:37And she goes, no one knows what I'm about to show you.
00:07:41And she takes me back into Mike's office, and there he is underneath this 70-ton stone blue, like blue
00:07:51-faced.
00:07:52Like, it crushed him.
00:07:53And I, and she's like, you've got to help me, you've got to help me, you've got to help me
00:07:58undo all this, right?
00:07:59So you've got to imagine, at this particular time, this is my best friend.
00:08:03This is a guy that I love dearly.
00:08:06This is Diane, who I care about deeply.
00:08:10And it's like, you know what I mean?
00:08:11This is like a massive tragedy, right?
00:08:15Suddenly, I get woken up out of the dream by a car door slamming, and of all the weird things,
00:08:23it's Mike and Augustine who have come back from some meeting, and they're chatting together in the, you know, in
00:08:30that little space behind our duplexes.
00:08:33Like, and I'm sitting up in bed, because it startled me so bad, I couldn't tell which was real.
00:08:41Like, I didn't know if the dream, like, if what I had just experienced was real, or what I was
00:08:47hearing, right?
00:08:48It was the weirdest moment.
00:08:50So the reason I share all that is because it ended up happening.
00:08:55Mike ended up getting crushed by this thing.
00:08:58And so anyways, so that's why I'm very conflicted and why I want to have this conversation with you, because
00:09:06I've had spiritual dreams that over decades turned out to be true.
00:09:12Yet at the same time, I was in the middle of so much craziness and people interpreting things and telling
00:09:19each other stuff that God had showed them about each other, but it was all symbolic.
00:09:24So go at it, brother.
00:09:26I am very curious, how did that, like, where did Bob Jones get all this from?
00:09:32Was this a part of Pentecostalism?
00:09:35Was this a part of Latter Rain?
00:09:36Where did this come from?
00:09:38Because it really was a bit of a culture shock, a spiritual culture shock for me.
00:09:44I don't know if you've seen them, but I do these videos by myself where I connect the dots of
00:09:50many different conversations that either I've had or I've had with other people.
00:09:54And interestingly, this topic and the way that you just presented it is going to be a connect the dots
00:10:00episode for everything that we have done so far.
00:10:03Okay, good.
00:10:04So hang on to the speed of your bridges.
00:10:06I'm glad I'm helpful then.
00:10:08So there are so many very intricate, complex moving parts to this, and it would take a podcast for each
00:10:16one of them.
00:10:17So if somebody's listening and I mention a name, like I'm going to mention first Christian identity and British Israelism,
00:10:23those two things, I want you to go look up what those are.
00:10:27I'm not going to go rehash things that we've talked about.
00:10:30However, I'm going to start by separating two things.
00:10:35So what you talked about was basically spiritualism, numerology, the weird realm, and you talked about the actual spiritual, the
00:10:44things that many Pentecostals hold dear and true to their hearts to believe that God is giving them dreams and
00:10:52interpretations.
00:10:53I'm going to separate those two because – and I'm going to open up just a little bit.
00:10:57I don't do this often.
00:10:59I also have had dreams.
00:11:01Mine weren't like you where they're symbolic.
00:11:03Mine were very detailed.
00:11:05And the details that I saw later were pretty accurate.
00:11:10I don't talk about it at all because I don't want people to look at me and think I'm something.
00:11:14I'm just an average guy.
00:11:15This is something that happened for a specific purpose in a time in my life.
00:11:21It doesn't happen – I can't do it on call.
00:11:24I'm not a showman who can get on stage and do this.
00:11:26It just happens when it happens.
00:11:27It happened for two very, very specific purposes that had it not happened in the course of my life might
00:11:34be different.
00:11:35Interesting.
00:11:36So separate that and let's talk about weirdness.
00:11:39Okay.
00:11:40British Israelism, as it was starting to form into Christian identity –
00:11:45And what term period are we talking here?
00:11:47This is late 1800s to early 1900s.
00:11:53So for those who don't know, British Israelism is the idea that the British Isles and the North American continent
00:12:00are filled with the descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
00:12:04Well, Christian identity is whenever that concept mixed with the very racist, anti-Semitic themes and made this mess.
00:12:11But as it evolved, the mess grew.
00:12:14So when I mention those terms, they don't seem to be relevant.
00:12:18However, in British Israelism, as it was starting to edge closer to Christian identity, the best book for reading about
00:12:27this history is Michael Barkun's Religion and the Racist Right, if you want to go read it.
00:12:31But they started bringing in some very weird people with very weird ideas that were capturing the itching ears.
00:12:38And one of them – well, two of them that were substantial was the first one that the Great Pyramid
00:12:45of Giza was this message written by the ancients through their hands with God working through them to write an
00:12:55ancient predictor of events that led to the end of days.
00:13:01That's the best way to describe it.
00:13:02It was much more than that, but in its simplest forms, it was that.
00:13:06And there were these bozos that would go from church to church to church with models of the Great Pyramid.
00:13:11And as they're preaching, they would pull the model apart.
00:13:14You can read this in the newspapers.
00:13:16They were showing people that if you measure this distance and they're going down to the king's chamber,
00:13:22here's the timeline that associates to our history and so on and so forth.
00:13:27So they were getting numbers of timelines based off of this pyramid, which is really weird.
00:13:35Another concept that went hand-in-hand with that is the zodiac.
00:13:39They would say that the zodiac was basically also the same thing, but written by God in the skies.
00:13:46The pyramid was like a Bible of sorts, a predictor of events for the future.
00:13:52And now the future is here, the end of days is near, we're all going to die, we need to
00:13:58look at what these are.
00:13:59And that sparked all kinds of weirdness because people were trying to see symbolism in the different numerologies.
00:14:08The sad part of that is if you really want to understand what those things are, you have to go
00:14:13back to the pagan religions.
00:14:15And so there were Christians who were reading the ancients, not the ancient Christians, but the ancient pagans,
00:14:22the ancient Zeus, Poseidon, Ra, all of the different gods.
00:14:26And they were trying to say that within this fault was elements of truth, and we're going to bring it
00:14:33into our ministries today,
00:14:35and we're going to start mapping these things out.
00:14:38Now, they didn't form some sort of a consortium to say that this is exactly our strategy,
00:14:45but that's really what they did if you go back and you study through it.
00:14:49So, for example, and I'm going to give this example and I'll hand it back to you.
00:14:52I began to study this because we were fascinated with basic numbers, threes, fives, sevens, twelves.
00:15:01You can go down through these things and you can find not just what I came out of, but almost
00:15:06every Pentecostal sect does this.
00:15:08And I started to combine that with their weird rejection of any sort of holiday or ritual
00:15:18that involved the same thing that was at its core root in history.
00:15:24For example, you take things like Halloween.
00:15:28Halloween was for the ancients as it was developing.
00:15:31It was this change of seasons.
00:15:33We've been through the summer.
00:15:35Now we're going to go through the harvest.
00:15:37We're going to celebrate the harvest.
00:15:38And there's a lot of weirdness that came in with this.
00:15:41But at its core element, it was just a transition of seasons.
00:15:45And so the ancients needed to know, when do I plant my crops?
00:15:50When do they grow?
00:15:51When do I harvest them?
00:15:52When do we have seasons of rest?
00:15:55And they were looking at things like moon cycles.
00:15:57So they would divide the moon cycles.
00:15:59And this was a basic primary number.
00:16:02They would look at the noonday sun.
00:16:04That was the brightest sun.
00:16:05And so you had solstice or something, right?
00:16:08Well, the solstices, obviously, but I'm talking about even from day to day.
00:16:13The Great Pyramid of Giza used to have really shiny –
00:16:17it's claimed that it had really shiny mirror-like tiles over top of it.
00:16:22And when the noonday sun was the hottest, this is when the deity, the sun, was the strongest.
00:16:28And then it would go through the three phases.
00:16:31So threes were worshipped almost across the board.
00:16:35Fives were, sevens were.
00:16:37You've got the moon cycles, the sun cycles, the seasons, the – you know, right down the line.
00:16:44You can go all the way down the line.
00:16:46This was not even so much a way to summon a demon like we would say today.
00:16:52This was literally to survive, you must know these things.
00:16:55And these are the basic numbers.
00:16:57We know we're going to plant our crops.
00:16:58We know that the solstice is going to happen.
00:17:00We know that we're going to harvest our crops.
00:17:02It was that kind of thing.
00:17:04So what happened was these primary numbers became part of worship.
00:17:10And the way that I found this was reading Irenaeus' Against Heresies.
00:17:14He talks about all of the ancient deities, how they were doing this, why they were doing this, pretty much
00:17:20everything that I just said.
00:17:21But he said, what happened was the – in the Gnostic worldview, we're taking some of those elemental spirit worship,
00:17:32et cetera, and they're mixing it in with Christianity.
00:17:35And so Christianity is being tainted by the Gnostics.
00:17:38And Irenaeus is a first century or second century scholar, right?
00:17:42Not just scholar.
00:17:44He was the very first known Christian apologist, the one who defended Christianity.
00:17:49If people kind of understand the context, it's like Christianity was this little Middle Eastern religion kind of isolated to
00:18:00southern Israel, right?
00:18:01Judea.
00:18:01And then a little bit with Galilee.
00:18:04But Jerusalem was the epicenter.
00:18:07And then in 70 AD, when the Romans came in and destroyed Jerusalem, the Jews ended up migrating around the
00:18:14Mediterranean.
00:18:15And the reason why Paul wanted to go to Rome was at the time there were probably 50,000 to
00:18:2060,000 Jewish people in Rome.
00:18:22So suddenly now, Christianity is in the middle of one of the most influential pagan cultures in the world.
00:18:31And so that's where you get into all of these problems later in the New Testament.
00:18:36Do we eat meat, sacrifice to idols, what is all that, right?
00:18:39So these guys are all struggling with this.
00:18:42But it's clear, I mean, especially when you get into the Old Testament, that numbers seem to be important because,
00:18:48you know,
00:18:49when you see the measurements of the temple and stuff like that, right?
00:18:53And I wonder, and I'm like, is that literally, I mean, is those the literal numbers?
00:19:00Like, did they build according to the numbers?
00:19:03Or is that a story later that comes in and they're trying to use numbers to, you know, to give
00:19:09it this sort of spiritual bent?
00:19:12Like, because you see it, right?
00:19:14You see numbers as being a part of it.
00:19:17And then I also am aware that in Kabbalah, they give numbers to letters, right?
00:19:25And so they've taken the whole of the Old Testament and given it numbers.
00:19:30And then they match words that add up to the same numbers, right?
00:19:34And somehow or another, you know, that's supposed to reveal more of God.
00:19:39Now, here's what gets interesting.
00:19:41Even in Judaism, using numbers to predict the future is out of bounds.
00:19:49Like, they, predictiveness, using numbers to predict is considered a no-no.
00:19:58And yet, you have this.
00:20:01Well, the way they differentiate it is the numbers are, it's all about revealing God,
00:20:07getting greater understanding of the universe, right?
00:20:09And revelation, but they're very clear about we do not predict the future.
00:20:14The reason why this is so intriguing to me is because then when I was first exposed to this with
00:20:20Bob Jones,
00:20:21it was all about the future.
00:20:22And it was like this need that I have seen all, you know, in my study of history, you know,
00:20:29from the beginning of time, humans have this need, right?
00:20:34This intrinsic need to try to mitigate disaster or they don't like the unexpected, right?
00:20:42They want foreknowledge.
00:20:44Like, they really want to know what's coming.
00:20:46We do not want to be surprised.
00:20:48So, they fled to either numerology, dreams, astrology, like all of these sort of areas trying to get a hold
00:20:59of what might be coming
00:21:01so that I don't get surprised, right?
00:21:04I mean, I see this even with all of the rapture stuff, the end times, you know.
00:21:11I saw even though I was never involved at IHOP, you know, as it came closer and closer to its
00:21:19end,
00:21:20Mike became obsessed with the knowledge, right, the secret knowledge of when Jesus is coming back
00:21:27and when the future is.
00:21:28And again, you fall back in this trap.
00:21:30It's all about the numbers, right?
00:21:33We have to correct numbers.
00:21:35What's sad to me is that no one's ever right.
00:21:39It's like people keep doing this and yet we've got 200 years of being wrong.
00:21:45Like, no one's got it right, you know.
00:21:48So, I get a little bit frustrated because it's like we keep falling back in this trap, this need to
00:21:55know the future
00:21:56and yet we're not very good at predicting it.
00:21:59And what's even weirder, you know, and I've said this multiple times in our podcast,
00:22:04the people that aren't trying, which is the people in Hollywood and the screenwriters and all that,
00:22:10they're doing a way better job in terms of accuracy of the future than all the people that supposedly have
00:22:17the secret knowledge.
00:22:18And so, it's like kind of a, it's kind of, I mean, I hate, I don't want to, you know,
00:22:24be disrespectful,
00:22:25but it's sort of comical to me, you know what I mean?
00:22:27It's the guys who aren't trying are getting it right.
00:22:30And all the guys that are all making a ministry or, you know, a calling on their life about doing,
00:22:36aren't doing a very good job.
00:22:38Darrell Bock So, let's bring in two other things we've talked
00:22:40about.
00:22:42Christian fundamentalism and the rise of spiritualism in the United States.
00:22:46Darrell Bock Yeah, yeah, New York, we talked about that
00:22:48in upstate New York, right?
00:22:50That whole.
00:22:50Darrell Bock Absolutely.
00:22:51Both of these had a significant impact, but I'm going to start first with Indiana Jones.
00:22:57Darrell Bock Ooh, okay.
00:22:59Darrell Bock So, Christianity and specifically the Bible text that we have today, the English Bible text,
00:23:07is the only source of archaeology where we use the names as though they are unchangeable.
00:23:15Think Indiana Jones.
00:23:17Remember, I think it was the last crusade.
00:23:19They're going through, they're trying to find different, they're trying to find an ancient
00:23:23history and locate that temple that is actually in the city of Petra.
00:23:28And Sean Connery looks and he says, oh, this name, it meant this to this region, to this culture,
00:23:35but it actually meant Alexandretta, I think is what he said, which is, you know, it's a
00:23:42fictional tale of Indiana Jones.
00:23:43However, the concept is true.
00:23:45When you study an ancient culture, the ancient culture has its own language, its own way
00:23:50of speaking.
00:23:51And if you were to discover one of their books, you would try to translate and say, okay, well,
00:23:56this word or phrase is talking about this people or city or kingdom, et cetera.
00:24:02In Christianity, if you're a Christian archaeologist, you don't do this, which is really odd to
00:24:09me.
00:24:09It's backwards.
00:24:11You only look at the Bible names and you don't try to map it out and see who had what
00:24:15and
00:24:16you use it as the ultimate source when you can't really do that in archaeology.
00:24:21That creates problem A, because of fundamentalism, the text has to be exact.
00:24:27Then mix that with spiritualism.
00:24:31Spiritualism is basically it's the idea that you can communicate with the dead, communicate
00:24:36with the spirits.
00:24:37But think when the fortune tellers entered into the scene, now you've got people who are predicting
00:24:42futures.
00:24:43All of this was coming in right at the inception of what would eventually evolve into the latter
00:24:51rain movement.
00:24:52And in fact, William Branham's mentor began his big career right here in Jeffersonville,
00:24:58launched William Branham's fame by claiming to be a converted spiritualist, which was not
00:25:02true.
00:25:03And we have evidence that they went to Camp Chesterfield, the spiritualist camp in Indiana.
00:25:09Take those two concepts and now let's talk through them.
00:25:13In the ancient writings, and I wish I could remember the name of the book that I found
00:25:18this from, but in the ancient writings, it's not just the phrases or names that have to
00:25:25be mapped, but also the way that they communicate.
00:25:28There were certain ancient races that numbers had a significant importance.
00:25:34If you wanted to emphasize something, you would use a number, a specific number.
00:25:38It wasn't that the number was accurate to us, but to them, it was of importance.
00:25:45So you might use 10,000.
00:25:47I don't know what the numbers are, but you might use a significant number.
00:25:51Sometimes those numbers mapped to the elemental, seasoned spirits, etc.
00:25:59For example, one of the questions, and I'm not going to say that I have an answer, one of
00:26:05the questions is the 365 years that's mentioned in the Bible, or the 365 years that Enoch walked
00:26:14on earth before he was translated.
00:26:16Well, that maps out to the 365 year or day, year cycle that we have.
00:26:22Was it really 365 years or was that a number of importance?
00:26:26That's an example question.
00:26:28Well, it's like the number, like, you know, I mean, you're probably aware of this, but
00:26:31it's like seven, right?
00:26:34Oh, that's the number of percent.
00:26:35Oh, that's God's number, right?
00:26:37Oh, five is the number of grace.
00:26:38Like, where did all this come from, right?
00:26:41Yeah, exactly.
00:26:42Because it's like, you know, I've always, you know, I'm like you.
00:26:46It's like, well, why?
00:26:47Like, we just assume, right?
00:26:49And then you go back, though, and you see in the Old Testament that there's a lot of numbers
00:26:53about seven that are tied to God, right?
00:26:56So, even within the Hebrews, you know, the numerology thing seems to be very prevalent.
00:27:02And that's really the theological question, which I'm not going to get into the theological
00:27:06question, but as it relates to the question of usage of numbers, the question becomes,
00:27:12did they use it because it was a number of importance, or did God really use the same
00:27:18numerology system that all the pagans did?
00:27:20That's a strange and unusual question.
00:27:23Right.
00:27:23So, is it like an exclamation point trying to get the reader to pay attention because
00:27:28like, oh, here's that number that, you know, that means something to the reader, right?
00:27:33Because that's the thing that's always hard, you know, at least with me, is I try to go
00:27:39back and go, well, why was this written and who was it written to?
00:27:43Like, who's the audience, right?
00:27:44Because you just don't write, you write to a particular group of people whose perspective
00:27:50you're trying to influence.
00:27:52So, who are those people, right?
00:27:54And what does this mean to them?
00:27:57Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of
00:28:01modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe
00:28:07movements into the new apostolic reformation?
00:28:10You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:28:15william-branham.org.
00:28:17On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
00:28:23Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:28:28audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:28:31You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:28:37movements.
00:28:38If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute
00:28:43button at the top.
00:28:44And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're
00:28:50listening to or watching.
00:28:51On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:28:56Let's break this down a bit further.
00:28:58Whenever the Christian identity and British Israelism was compounded by fundamentalism and
00:29:06spiritualism, to form what we would have as the foundation for our weird religions, the
00:29:12usage of numbers and symbolism was altered.
00:29:15And it was altered more of the occult direction than it was the biblical direction.
00:29:20So let's separate the two.
00:29:23The Bible does use numerologies, as you described.
00:29:26And if you are a theologian, you don't have an issue with this, because in the biblical
00:29:31way, the biblical usage of numbers, the numbers serves the text.
00:29:37It's a number, and therefore, it's a number.
00:29:40That's really all it is.
00:29:42An example of this, there are 12 disciples.
00:29:45Well, if you look at the Zodiac, there are 12 symbols.
00:29:47Does that mean that there's this great mystery of why 12 disciples were chosen?
00:29:52In the occult, you would say, yes, it maps out to the stars.
00:29:57And Christian identity invented this concept that we have celestial bodies that tie back
00:30:02to our earthly bodies.
00:30:04So 12 disciples would be 12.
00:30:06It would match the Zodiac.
00:30:07We have 12 months.
00:30:08Ooh.
00:30:09It's really, really weird.
00:30:11But in Christianity, the numbers mean nothing more than the numbers.
00:30:17There are 12 disciples, and therefore, there were 12 disciples.
00:30:20Right.
00:30:20The numbers are controlled by the context of the passage, nothing outside of it.
00:30:27And all numbers in the Bible point to God's redemptive work, if you study it from a Christian
00:30:33theology perspective.
00:30:35There is no need for a modern prophet to unlock what these numbers mean, because the numbers
00:30:40are simply that.
00:30:41They're just the numbers.
00:30:42And that's one of the reasons why that passage –
00:30:45Getting into it more like trying to look for some hidden meaning is just kind of a foolish
00:30:52endeavor.
00:30:53It just doesn't – it doesn't have any value.
00:30:57There's nothing there.
00:30:57There's nothing there.
00:30:58Yeah.
00:30:58That's why the passage, it says, it's of no private interpretation.
00:31:02Anybody can read it.
00:31:03It's a number.
00:31:04There were 12 men, so there were 12 men, right?
00:31:06But now, mix the spiritualism aspect with the numerologies that came from British Israelism,
00:31:16Christian identity, with fundamentalism, and now you have something that's really weird.
00:31:21And we're going to add another thing that we've talked about.
00:31:24Within all of this weird, complex mess, you also had people coming out of fraternal orders
00:31:31that had hierarchies of levels of knowledge.
00:31:35So, when people look at Freemasons –
00:31:37Yeah.
00:31:38People like that got it.
00:31:39Yeah.
00:31:39Yeah.
00:31:40So, they look at Masons and they think, oh, they're the occult.
00:31:42Which is all about, you know, if you're a Mason, it's math, right?
00:31:45So, there's numbers totally involved in it.
00:31:47It makes sense.
00:31:48Yeah.
00:31:48I get it.
00:31:49I'm tracking with you.
00:31:50So, if you're of that mindset, it makes the Masons and other groups like this even more
00:31:57scary because you have taken it – now it's no longer the numbers just simply mean the
00:32:02numbers.
00:32:03Now the numbers have a meaning that the average person cannot know.
00:32:08And therefore, it's shrouded in mystery.
00:32:10And we need people to interpret those mysteries.
00:32:13So, the numbers basically become hidden codes.
00:32:17And the Bible, when you open it, it no longer reads like you and I read it.
00:32:21It's written as a code book of mystery.
00:32:24Well, it seems to me that what you're describing here is a constant – what's the word?
00:32:29Dynamic I see all the time in institutionalism, which is there's this separation between the
00:32:35laity, you know, the peeps, the normal ones, and then this elite group who always has this
00:32:42either special connection to God or this special insight, right?
00:32:46And it's like the demarcation line, you know what I mean, between the few and the many,
00:32:51right, this little group up here.
00:32:53And it seems like that's a constant theme, you know, all through all these institutions,
00:32:58whether it's politics, religion, civics, right?
00:33:02There's always the few and the many.
00:33:04The few who always have the secret knowledge that they know.
00:33:07Now, mix into this, mysticism, which we've also talked about.
00:33:13Right.
00:33:14Whenever mysticism started to enter in, it's really weird.
00:33:18The foundation of this, Branham was the leader of – the foremost leader of the post-World
00:33:22War II healing revival.
00:33:23So, all of these revivalists are coming in trying to learn more about him.
00:33:27And he's telling them things like this.
00:33:29Every time I'm around a fortune teller or a mystic, they ask me, did you know that you
00:33:35were born under a sign?
00:33:37And they would hear this, and they would think, okay, this is shrouded in mystery.
00:33:41This person holds the keys to unlock that mystery.
00:33:44What does it mean?
00:33:45And then he starts to use all of these numbers as a shroud of weirdness in his ministry.
00:33:52He used 33 constantly, which would appeal to the Masons, which is kind of funny.
00:33:56But what it did is that gave the interpreter of the mystery special authority.
00:34:05And that's part of why he rose to become leader, because people didn't really understand
00:34:10a single thing that man was saying, but he was telling them –
00:34:14He's so brilliant.
00:34:15That's exactly the being there movie with Peter Sellers.
00:34:19He's a complete idiot.
00:34:21He speaks in riddles.
00:34:22Therefore, he has secret knowledge, and the world leaders all end up sitting at his feet,
00:34:28right?
00:34:28Not realizing the guy's a complete idiot.
00:34:31And the idiot, you know, I'm going to leave that.
00:34:34I do have questions about the man, but I'll leave that aside.
00:34:38Right.
00:34:39But it does – I guess I'll go here, because this is actually relevant.
00:34:42But what it did, because it's shrouded in mystery, you've got a special interpreter who starts
00:34:50speaking in symbolism.
00:34:51If you speak in symbolism, it's a really good parlor trick, because if your symbols are
00:34:58vague enough and they have basic numbers, you're going to make it apply to pretty much
00:35:03anything in life.
00:35:04I could say I had a dream and there were five goats, and the five goats did whatever.
00:35:11Well, the next time you see something in a set of five, you're going to think back to
00:35:14what I said about the dream, and you're going to go, oh my gosh, John's goats are right
00:35:18here in this room.
00:35:21That's how weird this gets.
00:35:22But what it did was, it started, because of the symbolism, the numerology, the spiritualism,
00:35:29the fortune-telling, so on and so forth, it began to turn coincidences into revelation.
00:35:36And when a coincidence turned into revelation, now the person who spoke the numbers –
00:35:42That's affirmation.
00:35:43It's affirmation, and the person who spoke the numbers is now a prophet.
00:35:47Right.
00:35:47I got it.
00:35:48Yeah.
00:35:49So, are you familiar – I'm trying to remember, I think it was called Portland Tabernacle or
00:35:54something, Iverson, there was a guy, was it Iverson?
00:35:58You know what I'm talking about?
00:35:59I do.
00:36:00It's vague in my brain, but the reason why I bring it up is because Bob introduced this
00:36:06book from these guys that was like dream interpretation.
00:36:13So, what's the connection with – was it Portland Temple or Portland Tabernacle or something?
00:36:19Were they connected to Ladder Rain?
00:36:21Did they come out of there?
00:36:23Oh, yeah.
00:36:24All of that's connected.
00:36:25Portland –
00:36:26Sorry I'm being vague, but it's just 40 years ago, and I just remember a few names and
00:36:32faces, you know?
00:36:33Yeah.
00:36:33Well, it's widespread coast to coast, but there were hot spots, and Portland was a hot spot.
00:36:38Remember, Ladder Rain was built on the idea that God was restoring these offices.
00:36:44Now, think about this.
00:36:46Well, think about the fivefold.
00:36:49Right.
00:36:50To these guys, the offices meant less than the number.
00:36:55The number is five.
00:36:56Oh, my gosh.
00:36:57I just found a number five in the text of the Bible.
00:37:00Do you know what this means?
00:37:02This is restoring the church today.
00:37:04So, that church was tied in – were they tied into William Branham, or were they just
00:37:09a peripheral, you know, part of Ladder – the movement Ladder Rain?
00:37:14Did they have a direct connection there?
00:37:17Because the reason I bring it up is, again, I'm mystified because they were – that book,
00:37:23their dream interpretation book, had a huge impact with all these wannabe prophets in
00:37:30our congregation, and Bob was the – you know, as I've always said, he was the spiritual
00:37:36drug pusher, in a sense, and so he was the one that brought this thing, and so that became
00:37:42the manual for everybody that had a dream.
00:37:45They were going through that book that I thought the guy's name was Iverson, or whoever it was,
00:37:51or something.
00:37:51There was two guys that were –
00:37:59Yeah, but they were definitely tied to it.
00:38:01You can go – I remember reading that in the history, and in fact, I probably need to
00:38:05publish that on the website.
00:38:07But these guys were – they were part of the hot spot that was there in Portland.
00:38:13There was a period of time whenever I was digging into Portland for a different reason,
00:38:18and I started noticing just Ladder Rain guy after Ladder Rain guy after Ladder Rain guy.
00:38:22Iverson's was definitely one of them.
00:38:24Yeah, because that book was so – again, these are mysteries to me, because it's like
00:38:29suddenly this is there, and it's like, so why are these guys suddenly the experts on
00:38:35dream interpretation, right?
00:38:37You know, and so that was kind of it.
00:38:40And part of the reason why it was of – here's why it was of concern to me, not that
00:38:44God doesn't
00:38:45speak through dreams, because he obviously does.
00:38:48Because, you know, I am – after having been on this journey for nearly 50 years, I think
00:38:54the vast majority of dreams are just what Freud and Jung said, they're our own souls kind
00:38:59of processing through our day or events in our lives.
00:39:03But I think God also uses those things.
00:39:06I've had, you know, probably five or six of them, but I mean, we're talking over 50 years,
00:39:12right, what really bothered me about what was happening at the church was it was every
00:39:19night people were having these dreams, and every one of them had some sort of great spiritual
00:39:26meaning, right?
00:39:27Nobody wanted to go, wait a minute, this is me dealing with me.
00:39:31It was always, no, this is about someone else or something else.
00:39:35And I, you know, and that book ended up being one of the things that everybody used to try
00:39:42to find their meaning.
00:39:43But it was so weird, because nothing was what it was.
00:39:46Like, every dream wasn't really about the dream.
00:39:49Like, the one that I shared with you, it was about the people in the dream, and the people
00:39:53in the dream ended up being exactly what happened.
00:39:56In fact, what's crazy about that whole dream that I told you about is I went to Mike and told
00:40:01him.
00:40:01You know, like, it wasn't like I, you know, I'm just pulling this out now.
00:40:05I mean, I warned him way back in the middle of the 1980s that if you don't let us help
00:40:12you, right?
00:40:13If we're not a team here, this is going to end up crushing you.
00:40:17And in 1989, about two or three years later, after I had the dream, that ended up becoming
00:40:23the very thing that severed our relationship, because he couldn't grasp the fact that maybe
00:40:28God called a whole bunch of other people too, you know, it wasn't just about him, right?
00:40:34So, but the thing that was really hard, what I found weird was, is that just from a relational
00:40:41point of view, right, you're trying to build a community of people that are loving and caring,
00:40:48right?
00:40:48Except for what starts happening is, is no one is actually dealing in reality.
00:40:53Reality, everything is symbolic.
00:40:55It's all about the numbers, all about the interpretation of dreams.
00:41:00It's so you start realizing, like, I think I'm in a group of a whole bunch of really broken
00:41:06people who don't really want to deal with reality, like this is who I am and this is what I
00:41:11got
00:41:12to do, but we're going to live up here at this sort of ethereal level, right?
00:41:16So, everything went from, you know, practical things of serving one another.
00:41:23Now, again, I want to be careful here, wasn't the whole church, right?
00:41:27It wasn't like the whole church, but there was a whole section of the church that really
00:41:32went down this road that, you know, Bob was sort of the Pied Piper of it, right?
00:41:37And they were all following him.
00:41:39But what I noticed was, is whenever you try to have a conversation with them, you couldn't
00:41:44go, hey, John, how are you doing today?
00:41:46You're like, just wanting to hear a real authentic, just sort of, where's your life at?
00:41:53Everything had to be something else.
00:41:56Like, it was always, well, brother, I had this dream about you.
00:42:00And I was like, wow, this is, you know what I mean?
00:42:04It was like, I felt like I was in a, you know, like Peter Pan in Never Never Land, right?
00:42:10It was just like this make-believe world.
00:42:13And that really bothered me because I'm like, I don't think this is healthy.
00:42:17You know what I mean?
00:42:18It's like, what's underneath here, right?
00:42:20It's like, these people have a need to not want to deal with the concrete facts of life.
00:42:28Like, you know, this is what's really going on here.
00:42:30And they kind of want to live in this space where, you know, that's up here, driven also by this,
00:42:39what I call wannabe syndrome, right?
00:42:41I'm so desperate to be seen as important and relevant.
00:42:45Therefore, I'm going to elevate myself now as somebody who's a seer, right?
00:42:50And I live in this world, and I'm basically a Bob Jones clone, right?
00:42:56I'm going to be like Bob.
00:42:58Be like Bob.
00:42:59No, don't be like Bob.
00:43:03You know, I have a buddy, because there's this movie, What About Bob, right?
00:43:08And so I get hammered all the time about, what about Bob?
00:43:12It concerns me because I still see it, right?
00:43:15There's still this need, but I never knew where it came from.
00:43:19You know, I know the ancient stories, but where in Christendom did this suddenly become acceptable, right?
00:43:27Because, you know, the future stuff is outlawed in Judaism, yet they still go down that road, right?
00:43:35I mean, Jewish people are very prone to seers and seances and prophets.
00:43:40I can tell you firsthand stories from Paul Kane about what was going on in Hollywood and with rich people,
00:43:47especially, who are so scared of losing their wealth, right?
00:43:50They all are desperate to know the future, right?
00:43:53They're so afraid of losing their status and stuff that they just won't pay any sort of money to know
00:44:01what's coming, right?
00:44:03So I see this, and it still happens.
00:44:06I mean, I have, there's cultures in America right now that are still horoscope-driven.
00:44:11Your sign, that's the first thing they ask, well, what's your sign, right?
00:44:15And it's like, okay, this is fascinating to me.
00:44:18Like, where does this, you know, what is this rooted in?
00:44:21Like, what's the why, right?
00:44:23Why is this so important to people?
00:44:25Why do we need to know?
00:44:27Well, I think the biggest way to bind it all together is actually through the dreams.
00:44:32So while you're talking, I looked up, it is Dick Iverson.
00:44:35Dick Iverson, that is the name.
00:44:37I could not remember the first name.
00:44:38And I believe the book, I've not read it yet, but I believe the book is called The Holy Spirit
00:44:42Today.
00:44:42I was looking through his list of books.
00:44:45But that talks about the prophecy, word of knowledge, tongues, et cetera.
00:44:48But there's actually a book that they put out, which is all about symbols.
00:44:52Like this, if you see this in your dream, it means this.
00:44:55If you see this in your dream, so there's a book that was all, went like wildfire through
00:45:01our congregation that came from them, but it was specifically about dream interpretation.
00:45:07So that's why I was kind of curious.
00:45:09Did that come out of, were they Latter Rain guys and did that, was that something that
00:45:14was very prevalent in Latter Rain?
00:45:16Or did this come from some other segment of the church community that I'm unaware of?
00:45:22They were definitely Latter Rain, but it's actually, it's more connected and interwoven.
00:45:28Picture, so picture you've got a ball of yarn with a single string, but picture the woven
00:45:34end result of a sweater.
00:45:36It's, you know, it may be multiple strings of yarn that come in to make the sweater.
00:45:41So, I'm getting into this, I think it comes out after this episode, but I'm talking, I'm
00:45:46going deeper with Parham, because many people think that Seymour is the guy who really led
00:45:51the whole thing, spearheaded the whole thing.
00:45:53I have evidence where Seymour is calling Parham the father of the movement.
00:45:58He was, his new breed of religion was called the Apostolic Faith.
00:46:02We have the Apostolic Networks and the New Apostolic Reformation.
00:46:05I mean, everything points back to that word apostolic, because that's, that was his religion.
00:46:11Within his sect of Parhamites in Zion City, you had, John G. Lake was a Parhamite.
00:46:17He moved to Portland, Oregon.
00:46:20Oh, so that's where the Portland, oh, got it.
00:46:23I never, I didn't know that.
00:46:25I mean.
00:46:25Gordon Lindsay also was raised in Zion City.
00:46:29Which is Chicago.
00:46:30He, Chicago, he trained under Parham, I think he was baptized by Parham, and he and Lake toured
00:46:37all through the United States for the Assemblies of God.
00:46:40That even makes more sense to me why Portland is such an important piece in this whole charismatic
00:46:46latter rain thing.
00:46:47Ah, well, thank you for connecting those dots.
00:46:50I did not put that together.
00:46:52Makes sense now.
00:46:53So, you've got the Parhamites who are breeding in Portland and spreading that all throughout
00:46:58the city.
00:46:58Right, right.
00:46:59Now, let's bring it to a head.
00:47:01When Pentecostalism was rebirthed, they took the passage of the New, from the New Testament
00:47:06talking about the day of Pentecost, and it took Joel 2.
00:47:10And that was really the foundational text for Azusa Street and everything that came.
00:47:16That died out.
00:47:17But remember one of the phrases from the day of Pentecost, your young men will see visions,
00:47:23your young men will dream dreams, your old men will see visions.
00:47:26Well, what happens when that's not happening?
00:47:30Everybody has dreams, but what if the dreams don't really mean anything?
00:47:34What if they are just processing?
00:47:37When Pentecostalism died out, one of the issues was, well, we didn't fulfill that.
00:47:43We didn't have all of the young men dreaming dreams and the old men prophesying.
00:47:48So, in Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford, they gathered a bunch of students in the orphanage
00:47:54and they tried to create, it's so weird, it's almost like one of the X-Files or some sci-fi
00:48:00movie, but with religion instead of sci-fi brainwashing.
00:48:05They tried to enact a summoning of God by training young men to do this.
00:48:11So, the dreams and interpretations was something they were just feasting on day and night and
00:48:17day and night.
00:48:18And when you do that, you start to see things that aren't really there, especially in the
00:48:22symbolic realm.
00:48:24So, when Ladder Rain broke out as a movement, that was one of its key significant points.
00:48:30We have to focus on the young people.
00:48:32We have to get these people to start dreaming the dreams, right?
00:48:36Oh, right.
00:48:37When it died down and finally fizzled out, Ladder Rain was really, if you look at what
00:48:45happened with Paul Kane, Bob Jones, all of those guys who were starting IHOPKC eventually,
00:48:51it looks like they were trying to do the same thing with the prayer house.
00:48:56They're trying to basically create another Sharon Orphanage, create another attempt at summoning
00:49:01God, and summoning God goes back to the spiritualist side, not to the Christianity side.
00:49:07You don't summon God.
00:49:08Well, I remember, I mean, and I know this firsthand, so I can affirm this for you, but
00:49:14I mean, Paul, in particular, the reason why he was so intrigued with us was that he felt
00:49:22like Ladder Rain failed, right?
00:49:25And so it was like, you know, and to your point, it was about young.
00:49:29He kept looking for young people, right?
00:49:32And it was all about a group of young guys, because when we met him, we were in our 20s,
00:49:36right?
00:49:37And it was like, you young guys, and you're the future, and all of it.
00:49:41Like, I was kind of, I don't want to say it was creepy, but it was a little unnerving,
00:49:46because he was so obsessed with us and our potential, right?
00:49:53And it was like, and then in hindsight now, I realized he was trying to bring a lot of
00:50:00the Ladder Rain stuff into our world, because he wanted to revive that, to your point, right?
00:50:08It was like he was hoping that, now, I'm sure part of it was selfish, meaning that he felt
00:50:14like his legacy failed, right?
00:50:18Because he was a part of all that, and so he was thinking this was, you know, a resurrection
00:50:23in a way, or my second chance at this, or whatever, because he put so much into our needing
00:50:31to, you know, Joel's army, gosh, that was everything, Joel's army, Joel's army, Joel's
00:50:37army, you know, that we were Joel's army, and this thing.
00:50:40So, that's kind of what you're sharing actually helps clarify to me where all that energy was
00:50:45coming from, and why, you know, what his, because again, what was his, how was he looking
00:50:51at us, right?
00:50:52I know how we were looking at him, we were kind of like in awe of some of the dynamics
00:50:57that were going on, but he was looking at us as redux, or redo, or a mulligan.
00:51:04Like, it's like, we, we, we could go, like, he always could go, he always telling me, he
00:51:09goes, you could do what we failed, like, we failed, and you guys could, you know, so in
00:51:14some ways, I'm glad he was dead before Mike ended up crashing and burning, because it would
00:51:19have, that would have killed him, because he had, he put all of his, he put his whole
00:51:24pot on Mike, like, Mike was that guy, right, that was going to bring this second wave of
00:51:31latter rain, so that makes a lot of sense to me, what you're saying, you know, it kind
00:51:36of clarifies a few things.
00:51:38Darrell Bock There's one more piece to this, too, and you
00:51:40mentioned Paul Cain, and it really needs, this really needs to be understood, I don't
00:51:44think many people do, when you look at Paul Cain, and you look at the evil that he had
00:51:49within him, and then you see it's a movement filled with young men and women, but he's
00:51:55focusing, apparently, on the young men, you immediately connect those dots in the way
00:52:00that, well, he had a hidden agenda, and that was the young men, but it really wasn't that.
00:52:05He came from the same gospel, quote-unquote pseudo-gospel, that I came from, and in that
00:52:13gospel, it contained all of these elements that I'm talking about, and they had been
00:52:18trained that the gospel was such that this is the end of days, we must find these hidden
00:52:23mysteries, we must scramble to find these hidden mysteries, we must have prophets and
00:52:28apostles to give us these mysteries, so that we can take younger people who are moldable,
00:52:35mold them into this end-time army, and then Jesus can return, not Jesus will return, but
00:52:41he can return when we do this.
00:52:43So it wasn't, it was a level beyond even summoning God, we have to prepare the thing
00:52:48that God can come in with, and that's this army.
00:52:51That's what they tried to do in Latter Rain, and like you said, it did fail.
00:52:55But what he's looking at more to the point is the young men.
00:52:59Now the problem that exists, which is compounded to that, when you have this type of quote-unquote
00:53:06gospel, it's not the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's not the gospel that Jesus came to earth,
00:53:13he died, he went to heaven, and he's coming back to meet his people, his bride.
00:53:18It's more that we must make it happen.
00:53:21So there are two separate gospels.
00:53:24In the make it happen, you have this collection of young people that you're trying to mold
00:53:29into this army.
00:53:31When you have people who have psychological problems leading them, now you have this bedrock
00:53:37of people to pray upon, and that's really where the praying on people comes from.
00:53:43It's the system that's causing it, not so much, and you've said this before, the individuals
00:53:48sometimes are good people, but they have a problem, and they're in a system that enables
00:53:52that problem, and that's really the root of this.
00:53:55Well, that's like putting an alcoholic in a bar, you know, to your point.
00:54:01So what's interesting, so I'll share this side of it.
00:54:08One of my struggles with IHOP was is that this whole latter rain, Joel's army thing was
00:54:16so prevalent in the 1980s, and the whole Bob Joes thing that this end time revival was
00:54:25eminent, right?
00:54:26So you had a school called Dominion, you had hundreds of kids in our church who were all
00:54:33being told they were Joel's army, they were going to lead an end time revival, it was
00:54:37all eminent, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
00:54:39I spent most of the 1990s doing the same thing I've been doing for the last two years with
00:54:46the IHOP kids, which is dealing with all the disillusionment.
00:54:50This is the dark side.
00:54:52This is the other side of this roller coaster.
00:54:56And what I mean by that is it's like one of those rides that you go on and it just
00:55:01takes
00:55:01you slowly up, up, up, up, up, up, up, right?
00:55:05And then you get on the other side and you come down really fast.
00:55:09That was the 1990s for all of Joel's army at Kansas City Fellowship.
00:55:15I mean, kids, you know, while they weren't kids at this point, they were in their 20s or
00:55:2030s losing their faith, so angry at Mike, like really angry, right?
00:55:27So it's like here you put all this time and energy into creating Joel's army and what you
00:55:33end up producing is a lot of very disillusioned and angry people.
00:55:38So that was my experience.
00:55:41So when I saw Mike leave Metro to start IHOP, there was this underlying theme.
00:55:51And you know what it was?
00:55:52They failed.
00:55:55You, right?
00:55:56He did that whole thing, right?
00:55:58He never really taught.
00:55:59I mean, there's only a few hints publicly that are on tape, but there's this underlying thing.
00:56:06So now you've got another generation of Joel's army who's going to do what the previous generation
00:56:13failed to do.
00:56:14We're the diehards now, right?
00:56:16We're the ones who are going to take it at the end, right?
00:56:19And so I watched all this.
00:56:20And so here I am, and people are wondering, why are you not involved?
00:56:25You know, why did you stay on the other side of IHOP?
00:56:27Well, one, I have a strange relationship with Mike.
00:56:30And number two, this is deja vu for me.
00:56:33Like, I'm sitting there, you know, trying not to be the old, crusty, you know, old guy,
00:56:42even though I wasn't old, but I would have been, appeared to these kids as that, going,
00:56:48oh my God, I've already seen this movie.
00:56:51I know exactly where this is going to end up.
00:56:54Been there, done that, right?
00:56:55You're in that age group where you're like, oh, here we go again.
00:56:59And you just watch this thing.
00:57:01And so for me, watching IHOP was just me watching a previous movie I'd watched, you know, same thing.
00:57:10It's same.
00:57:11I mean, it was identical.
00:57:13Everything was identical.
00:57:15Same thing, right?
00:57:16Which the IHOP kids, of course, don't have any context for.
00:57:20So, you know, the KCF kids, you know, who are all in their 40s and 50s, right?
00:57:26You know, are watching the IHOP kids going, feeling sorry for them, going, we're so sorry.
00:57:31We know where you're going to end up, right?
00:57:33And it's just painful for them to watch.
00:57:35And now here we are, you know, 2024, 25, now into 26.
00:57:41And then we got the same story.
00:57:42So this is part of why I want to have this conversation because it's like, okay, this stuff all looks
00:57:49so yummy, you know?
00:57:51It's kind of like going to Baskin-Robbins, 33 Flavors, right?
00:57:54It's like, ooh, this is so fun.
00:57:56It's so stimulating.
00:57:58And look at, you know, and so it's just, you know, for somebody who's craving relevance, craving, you know, wanting
00:58:07to know the future,
00:58:08all these kind of weaknesses we have as human beings, this stuff is like kids in a candy store.
00:58:15And it's so, it never ends good.
00:58:19Yeah.
00:58:19My favorite line from Battlestar Galactica, this has all happened before and it will all happen again.
00:58:25Well, and then for people like us that are history buffs, right?
00:58:28It's like, you know, I try to explain this to people.
00:58:31I've got another situation that I'm dealing with where, you know, it's like they feel like, it's like their grievance
00:58:41is based on history for the last 150 years.
00:58:44And I'm like, do you not understand?
00:58:47Like, you're not unique.
00:58:49Like, you think you're the only ones that have ever had this problem.
00:58:53This is not unique.
00:58:54I could just go back, like increase, like step back, quit framing everything in this little segment of time.
00:59:03Go back and look at 6,000 years of human history and you realize everybody's been through this already, right?
00:59:10Been there, done that.
00:59:11And it's like these same things.
00:59:13And it's like, I think it's because human nature is human nature and we have the same fears as our
00:59:20forefathers, right?
00:59:21We want to know the future.
00:59:23We don't want to be surprised.
00:59:25We don't want to, you know, we don't want the un, you know, because we don't like it, you know?
00:59:30So fear, I think fear, this is, I mean, this is me kind of breaking it down to the core
00:59:35level here, but I think fear is one of the things that drives all this, right?
00:59:40I think pride is another thing that kind of drives it, right?
00:59:43I want to be special.
00:59:44I want to be elite, right?
00:59:47I think there's some root human frailties that are what drive all this and why we keep getting sucked into
00:59:53this.
00:59:55Absolutely.
00:59:55Well, hopefully this Connecting the Dots has brought some of this together.
00:59:59There's so many more moving parts, but for sake of time, that's about all I can cover.
01:00:04So thanks for doing this.
01:00:06All right, bud.
01:00:07Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
01:00:11You can find us at william-brannum.org.
01:00:13For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to
01:00:19the NAR.
01:00:19And for more about Mike Bickle and IHOPKC, you can read Some Said They Blundered, Breaking My Decades of Silence
01:00:26on Mike Bickle,
01:00:27the Kansas City Prophets, and the International House of Prayer.
01:01:00We'll see you next time.
01:01:07We'll see you then.
01:01:32We'll see you then.
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