- 5 hours ago
John and Chino discuss connections they see between deliverance teaching, occult concepts, healing revival practices, and fear-based claims about demons. They examine teachings associated with Hobart Freeman and William Branham, including spiritual warfare stories, alleged open doors, spirit guides, fortune-telling, dowsing, supernatural healing claims, and the belief that ordinary behavior or past experiences can expose a person to spirits.
They also compare these ideas with biblical passages and question whether Christians are instructed to search continually for hidden spiritual causes behind illness, emotions, disagreements, or personal struggles. The discussion considers how dramatic stories, unverifiable claims, and fear can persuade people that they need a minister’s specialized knowledge or deliverance in order to become free.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
06:35 Hobart Freeman’s Strange Spiritual Warfare Story
13:28 Spiritualism, Witchcraft, and the Charismatic Movement
18:29 When Christian Practice Resembles the Occult
23:31 Hobart Freeman’s List of “Open Doors”
28:32 Occult Practices Inside the Healing Revival
35:04 The Fear of “Picking Up a Spirit”
40:32 Fear, Deliverance, and the Promise of a Cure
45:28 When Everything Becomes a Demon
54:33 Spirit Guides and Faith Healers
______________________
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
They also compare these ideas with biblical passages and question whether Christians are instructed to search continually for hidden spiritual causes behind illness, emotions, disagreements, or personal struggles. The discussion considers how dramatic stories, unverifiable claims, and fear can persuade people that they need a minister’s specialized knowledge or deliverance in order to become free.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
06:35 Hobart Freeman’s Strange Spiritual Warfare Story
13:28 Spiritualism, Witchcraft, and the Charismatic Movement
18:29 When Christian Practice Resembles the Occult
23:31 Hobart Freeman’s List of “Open Doors”
28:32 Occult Practices Inside the Healing Revival
35:04 The Fear of “Picking Up a Spirit”
40:32 Fear, Deliverance, and the Promise of a Cure
45:28 When Everything Becomes a Demon
54:33 Spirit Guides and Faith Healers
______________________
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, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Cheno Ross,
00:46pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Cheno D. Ross' YouTube channel.
00:52Cheno, this is one of the episodes that everybody asks me for, and I don't know that I've really
00:57done in depth, but talking about deliverance and the occult and all of the different connections
01:04between them, you and I actually haven't talked as deep as I probably will in this podcast,
01:09but I started, when I left this Branhamism thing and started entering into Christian churches,
01:17some of the things that I would say or do, they were just scratching their head thinking,
01:20that was a Christian church you came from, and it confused me, so I wanted to know why,
01:27so I started digging into some of the things that I believed, and then I encountered somebody
01:33who just mentioned it randomly, that there were things that I was practicing that was actually
01:39part of the occult.
01:39So I started digging in, and like everything else, I studied, okay, what does this mean?
01:44What is the occult?
01:46And sure enough, not just the simple things that I was saying that was confusing them,
01:52but right down to its core, there were elements of the occult mixed in with the healing revivals.
01:59Not everybody caught it.
02:00Not everybody knew it.
02:01Because if you're doing this occult practice and you say, in the name of Jesus at the end of
02:07it, everybody thinks, oh my gosh, that's the power of Jesus.
02:11But whenever you're doing things like, now before I'm going to heal you, I'm going to
02:16use those three high words that nobody knows, and then I'm going to heal you in the name
02:21of Jesus.
02:23You start to question, well, first off, what are those three high words?
02:26Why is he using it?
02:28And why does he say, in the name of Jesus, behind it?
02:30So, so much to talk about.
02:33Darrell Bock Well, let's get into it then.
02:35How about that?
02:36Dr.
02:37Freeman was a deliverance minister.
02:39He fancied himself as such.
02:41But where he, I think, thought that his area of expertise was, was in this area of the
02:48occult.
02:50He talked about it all the time.
02:52He had a, early on, he had a little track that he published that we're going to reference
02:57later on, occult oppression and bondage.
02:59After that, he wrote about a 120-page paperback book entitled Angels of Light, where he deals
03:07with it in more detail.
03:09But when I first started listening to Dr.
03:11Freeman in 1976, this was new to me and news to me to hear so much emphasis being put on
03:22the occult.
03:24And that word, the occult, simply means hidden.
03:26It's just a word that means hidden.
03:28When a baby, my, mine and my wife's, our very first baby that was born, which we lost in
03:35childbirth, by the way, had what is called in the medical world an occult cord.
03:41An occult cord.
03:42And it's because the cord is hidden and pinched, and you can't see it.
03:48And so we ought to start, probably, John, you're not going to know this, but the followers
03:53of Hobart Freeman will, his pronunciation of the word.
03:58He, you know, when I first started listening to him, I wasn't even certain what he was talking
04:04about, because when he talked about the O-C-C-U-L-T, it was the occult, the occult, you
04:13know, like
04:14you had a catch or something in your throat, you were just about to cough out.
04:19It was the occult.
04:20If you look up the word, the correct pronunciation is the occult, with the accent on the second
04:27syllable.
04:28So, throughout my early years of being a follower of Dr. Freeman and in the charismatic movement,
04:37I pronounced it occult, because that just sounded like Dr. Freeman's way, and so that was the
04:43cool way to say it.
04:44And I never have been able to determine where he came up with that and why.
04:51I mean, did he genuinely just mispronounce it, or was there some hidden meaning, you know,
04:59hidden meaning behind mispronouncing the word that means hidden, that this was, you know,
05:05a deeper revelation?
05:06If you really understand the occult, then you won't call it the occult, you'll call it the
05:10occult.
05:11And, you know, in just the last week, I saw a post on Facebook by someone that I don't
05:19know, but I know them to be a second-generation faith assembly survivor, because I do know
05:27this woman's mother.
05:28And she had a really interesting, and I thought a really good post on, and you know what it
05:33was about?
05:34How damaging Dr. Freeman's teaching on the occult was to her, and it's, you know, been damaging
05:40throughout her entire life.
05:43So, as I said, you know, he wrote this little tract.
05:46He wrote a book on it.
05:47This book, if I remember correctly, someone can correct me out there in YouTube land if
05:54I'm wrong, but when it was first published, I think it was published by Logos International,
06:00which back in the early 70s, I think it was in Plainfield, New Jersey, and Logos International
06:08was a really big, prominent publishing company for charismatic and Pentecostal material.
06:16Kind of like Whitaker House was.
06:21Baker Books did some charismatic stuff, but Whitaker and Logos were big publishers, and
06:26I think they published this early on.
06:28My edition, which is actually later, is an edition that he was publishing himself.
06:34So, why don't we do this, John?
06:36We normally talk for a while, and we run out of time to play the things we really want
06:42to hear.
06:43So, why don't we just begin early on with a really, really weird story Dr. Freeman told.
06:50He told it on a message entitled, Dealing With Your Doubts.
06:56I'm going to kind of set the scene for this before we play it, because it's about three
07:00minutes long.
07:01He's going to tell a story, but I want to set the scene for it, and then I want people
07:05to be able to carefully listen to this story that he tells.
07:08It's not the only message he tells it on.
07:10I can, and I have tracked down other tape titles where this same story is told.
07:17The text that he is going to preach from is James 1, James chapter 1, Dealing With Your
07:24Doubts.
07:25And early in James 1, James is saying in his little epistle, if you need wisdom, then ask
07:31of God, but ask in faith, nothing doubting.
07:34So, you think it's going to be some kind of teaching about how to deal with your doubts.
07:4095% of it is nothing but stories.
07:44The clip we're going to hear is at the 13 minute and three second mark.
07:49So, he is barely into an hour long message, and he's already telling stories.
07:55And that is what Dr. Freeman did.
07:57That is exactly what he did.
07:59And my notes of this message, here's what I have.
08:04I said, he is wilder than a March hare pouring out story after story that we have no way to
08:14authenticate.
08:15A total misuse of passages combined with a total confusion and contradiction on what is
08:23faith, how to get faith, what is doubt, what is unbelief, et cetera, et cetera.
08:30And this is just so characteristic of Dr. Freeman's teaching.
08:34You know, he would have someone, John, come to him and say, you know, Brother Freeman, I
08:38prayed for my healing, but I wasn't healed, wasn't able to receive my healing because I
08:44just don't have any faith.
08:45And he would say, don't say that.
08:47The Bible says in Romans 12, 3, God has given to every man the measure of faith.
08:52So, you have faith.
08:53And then later on, Hobart would talk about, well, the reason that you weren't healed is
08:59because you didn't have any faith.
09:01And then a person would say, well, you know, I don't have enough faith.
09:05That's why I wasn't healed.
09:07And then Hobart would say, well, doesn't the Bible say that the smallest amount of faith
09:12you could have is the mustard seed, and we all have that.
09:15So, if you have that, the impossible could be done.
09:18It was just complete contradiction and confusion all over the place.
09:23But that's what he was saying he was going to talk about, dealing with your doubts.
09:28But I want people to hear this story where it happened shortly after Dr. Freeman had come
09:36back from his trip to Israel in the summer of 1966.
09:40He was a photographer, so he had taken a movie camera with him and had recorded a lot of stuff.
09:46And he tells the story how a man in Illinois, and I would love to know who this is.
09:52If anybody out there has any idea who this individual could have been, please let us
09:57know, had invited Dr. Freeman to come over to his house and show him he wanted to see
10:04these movies of Israel from 1966.
10:07So, this is back when Hobart was, you know, willing to travel to someone's house and engage
10:13personally with another human being.
10:15He didn't do that at the end of his life.
10:17But this was early on, and he's going to tell a story that this man is going to tell
10:23when he is trying to share some charismatic truth with an Episcopalian priest.
10:31So, John, if we could hear from 13 minutes and 3 seconds to 15 minutes and 51 seconds.
10:39So, I remember one time, several years ago, after going to Israel with some others, I
10:45made the movies over there, and he asked me to come up to Illinois and show them to those
10:49who had taken the trip.
10:50And so, as I went up there, we were talking about various things.
10:53And one of the things he mentioned, we got off into talking about this, he said that one
10:59time when he was in Toronto, I believe, ministering, he said that he happened one day,
11:06one afternoon, to be talking to a priest there, an Episcopal priest, and trying to witness
11:11to him about the charismatic move and divine healing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit
11:15and the things that we accept as scriptural.
11:18And he said there was quite a bit of resistance from this man, this minister, this priest in
11:23the Episcopal Church.
11:25And he said as he was trying to convince him, not arguing with him, the other man was arguing,
11:29he was really debating and getting hot under the collar.
11:31He said the Lord opened his spiritual eyes, and he said I saw the Spirit in a vision, what
11:39was actually taking place.
11:41And it wasn't a vision in the sense that it was not real, but God in the Spirit, in the
11:47form of a vision, showed him what was actually taking place as he was trying to present truth
11:51to a skeptic who was resisting it.
11:54And he said I saw the spiritual man, me, the real man, you see, that we've been talking
11:59about on Wednesday night, you know, the living soul.
12:02He said I saw me, the body, I sat there and I could see myself talking in the natural,
12:10but he said my spirit went out of my body.
12:13And he said when my spirit came out of my body, he said demons came out of this priest,
12:18all sorts of demons of lust and unbelief and resistance to the truth and skepticism and homosexuality.
12:26He said everything in the world, and we wrestled there.
12:28You remember Paul said in Ephesians 6, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
12:33principalities and powers.
12:34God would open your spiritual eyes, you'd see what you're wrestling with in every trial
12:38of your faith.
12:39In fact, day by day, you'll see what you're wrestling with in prayer and as you're trying
12:43to believe for something.
12:44And he said I actually wrestled with them, and what we were debating in the visible or
12:51natural realm by words, he says, was actually taking place in the spiritual realm as a warfare,
12:57a literal warfare.
12:59So say it wasn't just a vision symbolizing something, but he says this is what was happening.
13:03And he said the word of God overcame those demons, and I wrestled them down and defeated
13:07them.
13:08And he says as soon as I defeated the demons in the spirit, he said he changed his whole
13:12attitude.
13:13And became rather docile and meek and listened to what I had to say, but because he wasn't
13:19really interested in what I had to say, he said after he left, he got up and left, said
13:24the demons were waiting at the door, and I saw them go right back in him as soon as he
13:27walked out.
13:28Oh boy, what a story.
13:33You talk about spiritualism and witchcraft and the occult.
13:38Here you have this man telling where he is witnessing to an Episcopalian priest.
13:47So you've got a charismatic man in Illinois trying to share the charismatic experience with
13:53an Episcopalian priest.
13:54And he said as they were beginning to discuss, he saw his own spirit go out of his body up
14:02into the air, and then the spirit of the Episcopalian priest went out of his body up into the air.
14:08And then their spirits battled each other, did warfare with each other.
14:13And of course, Dr. Freeman is going to throw in a Bible verse.
14:17He said, remember Ephesians 6, 12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities
14:23and powers.
14:24That verse is not, I mean, if anything, it's saying we're wrestling against principalities
14:30and powers.
14:31Hobart is not my spirit wrestling against the spirit of an Episcopalian priest.
14:36Well, they did battle and then their spirits came back into their bodies.
14:42Hobart is not telling this story, as you can tell from just having heard that, in an unapproving
14:50fashion, he completely agrees with this, approves of it.
14:56And, you know, he was just as wild as your typical charismatic out there his whole entire
15:02life, thinking that something like that actually happened or was valid or was biblical.
15:10And then, you know, dares to have the presumption to say, remember Ephesians 6, 12, that is a
15:19classic Hobart Freeman, John, where he'll tell some wild story that is not a biblical story
15:24that if it happened, then those people are definitely involved in witchcraft and the occult,
15:31not Christianity.
15:32And then justify it by pulling a verse out of Ephesians 6.
15:37It's so bizarre, man.
15:39I grew up hearing sermons, some from Branham, some from ministers in Branhamism, but we heard
15:45everything from ghosts to goblins to Branham said that there's this demon that looked like
15:50Alley Oop from the funny papers.
15:53And I don't know why they did it.
15:55I really don't.
15:56There was one peculiar story that I heard.
15:59I think this came from Branham, but it kind of grew over time.
16:03This couple was traveling, and they saw this lady in the middle of the road, and swerved,
16:08nearly had a wreck, and went back to help her and found out there was nobody there.
16:14Well, they read in the newspapers later that 50 years ago, some lady had died in that exact
16:19spot, and the ghost was coming back to haunt you.
16:22I mean, we heard Stephen King-style sermons.
16:25We really did.
16:27And looking back, I try to think, what good was that for?
16:31How did that edify my soul to hear that some ghost was haunting people that had died 50 years
16:38ago?
16:39More than, worse than that, as a teenager, I was, you know, I'm not going to say I was
16:47dreadfully frightened of these things, but I was scared.
16:49Whenever you think that really you might be haunted by something, and they can convince
16:54you that you are, you're going to be a little bit edgy at night.
16:58I'll say it like that, and I was.
17:00I'm certain that there were other people that were, but it all came back to the fact, the
17:07doctrines were made to entertain the itching ears.
17:10And if Branham could find some National Geographic magazine, or I've mentioned a few different
17:17publications that he was apparently reading, that were just really out there stories, the
17:22wild and unbelievable conspiracy theory stories.
17:26If he could convince the people of this, then he had an edge on the other ministers because
17:30they didn't have that in their sermons.
17:32So he was trying to create that edge.
17:35The problem is this.
17:36He was the foremost leader of the revivals, so everybody started copying that style.
17:41Well, I need an edge too, so what ghost stories can I tell?
17:45Kenneth Hagin said, well, I went all the way down to hell and back, and you've got all
17:49these people that are just coming up with the absurd things.
17:52Whenever I discovered that Branham's mentor, and likely Branham, were posing – Branham's
18:00mentor was posing as a converted spiritualist going to expose the occult.
18:04He said, I was in the occult, and I'm exposing them.
18:08And then heard the way that Branham talked about it.
18:10He said that they're so very close, they have an almost version of truth, but it's
18:15not centered around Jesus.
18:17We have the same thing, but we're centered around Jesus.
18:21What he was essentially saying is we can take these occult practices, stamp the name
18:25of Jesus on it, and we have something better than the occult have.
18:29Yeah, we can baptize them, Christianize them.
18:32And I think when Dr. Freeman entered the charismatic movement, and he felt his eyes were open to
18:40the fact that there is more reality than just what we can see and touch and taste and feel.
18:46And we know that from the Bible.
18:48There is an invisible world, for sure.
18:51God is invisible.
18:52Angels are invisible.
18:53So heaven is invisible.
18:54I just think he was looking for as many proofs of these things as he could find.
19:02And sometimes the more outlandish they were, as you just said, it sells more newspaper copies.
19:11It's just news like that is just...
19:15But, you know, he was a minister who was going to preach and teach, lecture, and warn people
19:23about and deliver people from the occult and spiritualism and witchcraft.
19:29And what is that story that we've just heard?
19:31I'm so thankful that Paul, the apostle, doesn't tell us any stories like that in the epistles.
19:36He doesn't tell us, my spirit went out of my body and did warfare with the spirit of this
19:43person that I was opposed to.
19:45And after they...
19:45I mean, that's like...
19:47That is like we've talked before, John, something you see in Saturday morning cartoons.
19:51This little goblin over here and this little goblin over here.
19:54And they go up in the air and they wrestle and tumble and fight with each other.
19:59And then they come back into the body.
20:01What does that have to do with Christianity?
20:03There's nothing that's Christian about that at all.
20:06There's everything that's spiritualism about that.
20:09It's not related to Christianity at all.
20:11And I think in the end of the story, the point was that the man's spirit came back in him,
20:17the Episcopalian priest.
20:19He did not believe the charismatic truths being shared by this man in Illinois, whom I would
20:26love to know who that was.
20:28And so, you know, demons entered into him.
20:31And we're back to that favorite catchphrase they use.
20:35We talked about last week or the time before about picking up a spirit.
20:39This is the way you pick up a spirit.
20:41And I can remember, I don't think I avoided talking to other people.
20:47I never took things.
20:48I never took them the same way Hobart meant for us to take them and the way other people
20:54did.
20:55Like the story I told earlier of the young woman who had heard so much of what Dr.
21:01Freeman said that was wrong about Masons and Freemasonry, that there was a Masonic Lodge
21:07near their home.
21:08And they just, she just freaked out every time she went by it.
21:12And I told her, I said, you know, there are more weird people in Walmart today than there
21:17are in any Freemasonry home.
21:19So, you know, there are more what I call bridge trolls and aliens just in your normal Walmart
21:26today.
21:27You would have to go out of the world.
21:29And Jesus said, you are not to be of the world, but you are definitely don't leave the
21:34world.
21:35You are in the world.
21:36That's just, this is just the world that we live in.
21:39And so I never took it to those extremes, but that you could pick up a spirit by talking
21:46to an Episcopal priest.
21:47But I guarantee you that was warp and woof of what Hobart taught.
21:51And if he didn't say that in so many words, I mean, that's what he meant.
21:56And people knew.
21:58And, you know, this is the same man who just a few years prior to this had been an academic
22:06seminary professor teaching Hebrew, which is a difficult language to know and especially
22:14to master and to teach.
22:16This is an academic seminary professor.
22:20And looking back, I've often asked myself and wondered what happened.
22:26I mean, he literally fell off the railroad tracks.
22:30He literally fell off the tracks.
22:32And I don't know exactly how or why, but it tells me that there were, you know, just deep
22:40seated problems all along.
22:43So I think what I'd like to do next, John, if I could just have, it's going to take me
22:47a couple of minutes to read a little portion so that people can understand this is what
22:53I mean by what Hobart was talking about or teaching when it came to the occult.
22:58He was real big on the fact that if you have been involved in the occult at all, or in
23:04the
23:04occult, as he would say, if you've been involved in the occult at all, innocently or otherwise,
23:12knowingly or otherwise, if you've been involved, then there was another favorite catchphrase.
23:19You opened the door, opened the door, and you have to go back and close the door.
23:26So he said, here are some vital questions to consider, that if you've ever been involved
23:33in any of these things, then there is a door which has been opened.
23:38And this haunted faith assembly people for years, some of them down to this day.
23:46And I'm not recommending that anybody go or do any of these things.
23:50That's not my point.
23:51But we'll save that for here in a few moments.
23:55Have you ever visited a fortune teller?
23:57Has anyone read your palm or told your fortune by the use of cards or tea leaves, crystal ball,
24:04or Ouija board?
24:06Have you ever consulted the Ouija board out of curiosity or in earnest or played with popular
24:13occult games being sold today?
24:15Now, this will kind of date you with the games, but these were games you could buy at stores
24:21back in the day, ESP, telepathy, Kabbalah, horoscope, clairvoyant, or voodoo.
24:29Divining for water, oil, minerals, underground sewer, and water lines by using a forked stick
24:35is an ancient occult practice known as water witching or dowsing.
24:40Have you or has anyone for you engaged in this?
24:45And he would even want you to go so far as to find out if you bought a piece of
24:49property,
24:51have there ever been people water witching or dowsing on your property?
24:55So I don't know how you're supposed to find that out.
24:58But, you know, if you don't find that out, that's why you have septic problems and water
25:04problems on your property.
25:06Have you ever at any time consulted a medium or anyone with psychic or clairvoyant powers?
25:12Have you attended a seance or spiritualist meeting or attempted to communicate with the
25:17dead?
25:17Have you ever practiced ESP, telepathy, automatic writing, table tipping, levitation of objects,
25:24yoga?
25:25He completely outlawed yoga, by the way.
25:28So, you know, women were not allowed to do that.
25:31Remote influences of the subconscious, mind of others, or self-hypnosis.
25:36Have you ever been hypnotized?
25:38When ill, have you ever sought or did your parents seek for you when you were a child?
25:44Treatment or healing of diseases and burns and sicknesses and wart removals through magic,
25:50charming, spiritualism, Christian science.
25:53Do you read your horoscope column or follow astrology?
25:57Do you read or possess occult literature?
25:59Books on ESP, reincarnation, dreams, fortune telling, astrology, metaphysics, self-realization,
26:08magic, clairvoyance, hypnosis, yoga, handwriting analysis, religious cults or works by authors
26:15such as Edgar Cayce, Gene Dixon, author Ford, or Ruth Montgomery?
26:20Have you ever attended meetings or ascended to the teachings of Rosicrucians, spiritualists,
26:26Mormons, Christian scientists, unity?
26:28And just goes on and on and on and on.
26:31So, any type of thing that all of us would be familiar with, a Ouija board, a fortune telling,
26:39and of course, anything.
26:41So, that would mean you could not have watched Bewitched on TV or I Dream of Genie or anything
26:48that has to do with any type of occult, black magic, spiritualism, witchcraft, anything related
26:59to that, he would say, and he was huge on this, and this preyed on the minds of the people
27:05and left them always in doubt, wondering, maybe that's why I am experiencing what I'm experiencing
27:14because I, somewhere in my past, have participated in these things.
27:19This was Hobart's big, big deal when it came to his deliverance ministry.
27:25Anything dealing with the occult, he felt he was an authority on it, and if you'd been involved,
27:31you needed to go through deliverance for that.
27:33Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern
27:39Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements
27:44into the New Apostolic Reformation?
27:47You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
27:52william-branham.org.
27:54On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles
28:00Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and
28:06digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various
28:12people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you
28:17can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure
28:23to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
28:28On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
28:32I have come to the conclusion after this series of podcasts with you that Hobart Freeman, while
28:39he was in this movement, he would have flipped over his lid had he known how this movement
28:45started and what was in this movement. So if you study William Branham and study his life
28:51stories, if you believe what he's saying, his life stories include always going to a fortune
28:58teller. He talks about how he just could not go anywhere without meeting these fortune tellers.
29:05And I have yet to actually encounter one, so I don't know what he was doing, how he was doing
29:09it. We do have some evidence that strongly suggests that he was at this camp in Indiana, the spiritualist
29:17camp. He talks about this stage act where a piano levitates and it plays a little jingle. I think we've
29:22talked about this. And that was one of the features at the spiritualist camp. So he was definitely, it
29:28definitely looks like he was there. But man, I knew people. In fact, I have family members who were high
29:35ranking in the cult who were water witches. And we, I never could do it. They showed me how it
29:42worked. And I
29:43remember watching, watching them walk through a property that we were about to buy, trying to find water on it.
29:50And they would tell me things like, you know, whenever you get near that, if you, if you, and
29:55they would call it a diviner, they wouldn't say a water witch. If you're a diviner, when you get near
30:00that, that, that rod will almost bend to go to that water. And I've watched it. I've watched them do
30:06it.
30:06And it's, it's a random thing, man. If you tilt your hand this way, the rod's going to lean this
30:11way.
30:11If you tilt it the other way, and you got to know that that's what's happening here. But anyway, that's
30:17what
30:17they do. They say that it works. And they, they say that there's a science behind it. I've actually
30:22talked to people who were Christian water witches, who said that it had to do with the electromagnet
30:29spectrum of the world. And I've studied this, there's just no way there is no way that that's
30:35true. But this was part of the movement. And we were, we were trained to believe things like
30:42the Zodiac was a Bible written to Christians. The Great Pyramid of Giza was a Bible written
30:48to Christians. Pretty much everything that you, if you go through Alistair Crowley's weird
30:55religious beliefs, you're going to read through it and you're going to see things that, oh,
30:58I did that. We did that. And that's Alistair Crowley, right? The most notorious atheist,
31:05Satanist, whatever. So we had this background that wasn't Christian, but they stamped Christianity
31:13as a brand on top of it. And they branded the thing to appeal to people who were not so
31:21happy
31:21with their denomination of faith. And so what happened is when they came out of their denomination,
31:25oh, this looks appealing. These people can tell me where my water is in the water hole.
31:30It was just attracting a weird crowd of people. And I wondered why this was. Why are those kind
31:38of people attracted to it? And I went all the way back into the earliest sermons. Most of this has
31:43been a race, but you find things like Branham is holding a bracelet up and he's saying, now,
31:49if you have enough faith, you can make this bracelet move. And it's tied to a string. So if you
31:54know the
31:54trick, you move your hand a little bit and the string moves. But he's holding his hand up and people
31:58are just, the crowd is amazed that they can move the bracelet. That's the kind of techniques that
32:05were being used. And really, a lot of it wasn't even spiritualism. It was just bar tricks. But the
32:11bar tricks were effective. And to the audience who is unaware that these are tricks, they start to
32:18think, okay, well, there's some power here. This thing that's happening, I've never seen this before.
32:23I've especially never seen my church do this. This must be God because that bracelet can move.
32:29And I want to make sure people understand, I do not think Christians should go to fortune tellers and
32:38consult mediums. I'm opposed to all of that as well. But where I would differ so strongly with Dr.
32:45Freeman is, there's no need to write books and tracks. This is a relatively simple thing. There
32:53are verses in the Bible that warn us not to go to witches and mediums. And so, you know, you
32:59just
32:59don't do it. Just like there are verses that say, you know, do not engage in fornication or adultery.
33:07So you just, okay, so, you know, there, there's the teaching on that. But to think you're like some
33:13little expert on it. That's what, that's what always got to me and didn't make any sense to me.
33:19He just blew it way out of proportion. And again, I want to be biblically based. So I'm always thinking
33:27what was written by the apostles in the epistles to the early churches. We don't have these long
33:34discourses against the occult and against witchcraft. We have a lot of positive teaching about what
33:40the death and burial and resurrection and ascension of Jesus did for us as believers.
33:47We just don't have this type of teaching. And there are plenty of opportunities. You know, Paul,
33:54when he wrote Ephesians, it was in Ephesus where the temple of the goddess Artemis was, and where you
34:05have all of these people who are becoming convicted, listening to Paul's preaching and his ministry and
34:14seeing the effectiveness of his true deliverance ministry, where he could cast demons out and other
34:21people just tried to use the tricks and the demons said, well, I know Jesus and I know Paul, but
34:27I don't
34:27know who you are. It was in that city where they brought all of their occult books and burned them.
34:33Those weren't Christian people doing that. That was just citizens. They are doing that
34:36getting rid of their occult material. If anything, why didn't Paul launch into in his six chapters in
34:43the book of Ephesians, some big teaching on, yeah, remember back in the day, you know, when all of
34:49you used to do this, we got to keep those open doors closed now. So we don't have any of
34:55these
34:55spirits in our life. I just thought it was very bizarre and non-Christian to spend the amount of
35:05time Hobart did on it, as you saw from that track. I mean, those things I just read, John, who
35:11among us
35:13hasn't done some of those things somewhere in their life? You know, who hasn't done a handful or two of
35:20those things? Or maybe you were taken as a child in something. Well, that was part of Dr. Freeman's
35:27teaching, that even as a child, so people had to try to do some research and find out, did any
35:34of
35:34this ever happen to me? It is just a never-ending trail. You'll never get to the end of it.
35:40You will
35:41never in your life, if you think that the only way I'm going to be free as a Christian is,
35:46I've got to go find every open door and now close it. You'll not never find every open door
35:52because there's no such thing as an open door, that you opened the door and you picked up a demon.
35:59Those are their favorite phrases. You might have picked up a spirit. As I've said before, it's like
36:05it's like catching the cold. How do you catch a cold? You catch a cold by being around someone who
36:11has those germs. You get a little too close to them. You breathe in air that came from them that
36:18has the germs. And guess what? You leave there and the next day or two, you found out I caught
36:23a cold.
36:24That's not how you get a demon. You can't just catch one by being around an Episcopal priest or by
36:32having watched some show on television. That is not how people pick up spirits. It's something that's
36:40intentionally done. It's something that's definite that happens in their life. And you may need some
36:48form of deliverance. But for the rest of us who've gone through our life, even prior to my
36:54conversion to Christianity when I was 15, I don't remember ever having a Ouija board, but I did,
37:02I'm sure, something somewhere in my young teenage years, something of an occult nature that I was not
37:09supposed to do. If nothing else, just watch some show on television about ghosts and goblins.
37:14And that is how you can open a door to picking up a spirit. It just seems to me, it
37:22seems so foolish.
37:23And it is shocking to me that someone who was trained as an academic ever fell for stuff like this.
37:31I can understand someone who's a little slight on their educational achievements, but deception is an
37:42equal opportunity deception. It doesn't really matter what kind of education you've had. It's just
37:49if you've had education, you should have been trained that you need to be able to check things off.
37:57You need to be able to go down the list and verify whether this really happened. But that story
38:04with the Episcopal priest, I mean, how many people heard that, John? And that's not the only time
38:10Hobart told that. He told that on more than one, on more than two occasions. And other stories very,
38:16very similar to that, where people just take that as the gospel truth. No one, in other words,
38:22stood up in the middle of the sermon, raised their hand and said, I have an objection. That stuff
38:27never happened. And you and I both know that never happened. That never happened. Prove that it
38:32happened. You're telling me what a man told you. And you're just believing it because you want to
38:38believe it. You know, no one ever had the courage to ever challenge Dr. Freeman on any of that. And
38:44I
38:44would encourage people today, if you're ever in a meeting where things like this are said, maybe it's
38:50not polite to stand up in public, but you could at least go up afterwards and tell the minister,
38:56you know, who do you take me for? A fool? You know, I don't believe a thing in what you
39:01said today.
39:02And we need to sit down and talk about that. And I'm not meaning for anyone to be rude or
39:08impolite to
39:09another human being. But come on, the madness needs to stop. You know, this is the madness needs
39:17to come to an end. And ministers need to be held accountable for what they say. None of what these
39:23guys are teaching in this area is actually in the Bible. It's not actually in the New Testament. And
39:29we need to hold them accountable for that.
39:31My mom had this friend whose husband came in to sell her something one day. He said something to
39:39the effect, do you know that your blood has all kinds of toxins in them? That's why you get sick
39:45all the time. And my mom, my mom wasn't doing well at the time. She said, Oh, that sounds that
39:50sounds probably true. Well, he opens up his bag and he pulls out this bracelet. And he said, this
39:55bracelet is specially designed to cure all of the toxins out of your bloodstream. It's got a
40:01magnet on the top and a magnet on the bottom. And I'm standing here watching the whole thing.
40:06And granted, I might have been in middle school, maybe early high school. I'm thinking, you know,
40:13that's only going to catch the toxins that are attracted to the magnet, right? And I didn't say
40:20it. But anyway, this guy was able to convince my mom that she needed this thing. And we were able
40:26to
40:27convince her later that she didn't need this thing. But I've come to look at this deliverance
40:33nonsense much the same way. They will tell you what it is that you have to get rid of what
40:39it is
40:39that is affecting you that they have power to cure so that you need their cure. If you can convince
40:46the person that they have what you need, you're going to buy what they're selling. That's really the
40:52end of it. And Branham did this. He was twisting and reframing what diseases were. And the largely
40:59uneducated population within this healing revival were accepting his medical science over the actual
41:06medical science. And he would say the most outlandish things like you can, if you're shaving and you
41:12accidentally cut your lip, you can get a life-threatening disease from this, my brother. And that's a
41:17spirit. That's a devil that's going to infect you and kill you from the mouth. He would reframe
41:22cancers. He would say it's a germ of the devil. And, you know, we know that tumors or cancers come
41:28from tumors, not from germs. But he would always go to what he could realize in the most basic common
41:36science is an infection. So he would say things like it's an infection, you get a germ, and not even
41:42study the science whatsoever. But say that germ came from a spirit. And I have every spirit in this
41:49building under my control. Once he says that, well, he's got the magic bracelet, and everybody wants to
41:55rush to the stage and buy it. And that's what they did, sadly. So in the end, for me, it's
42:01this simple.
42:02If you can convince your audience that you have a direct access to heal something they don't even know
42:08that they have, and convince them that whatever it is that they don't know that they have yet is
42:14life-threatening and can challenge even their very existence, you're going to scare them. And that's
42:21a couple that with everything that we said about the occult, the ghosts, all of the other weird things,
42:26they get you into this hyper state of fear, where you're scared of every single thing in the meeting.
42:31And you're scared when you go home, you're scared of everything that's under your bed at night.
42:35And I think that's by design, so that you can always go back to them for the answer.
42:41Yeah, he definitely fancied himself, John, as an expert in this area of the occult. And as I said
42:46earlier, I don't think people would have even thought that maybe my problems, most of my problems,
42:52if not all of them, are connected to some innocent occult involvement from my past. He was the one who
43:01had to enlighten them to that, which he did frequently. And then he was the one who could
43:07deliver them from that, which he also wanted to do frequently. Yeah, it was a scam. It really was a
43:16scam. You know, it's to me, it's very, there's very little difference between what Hobart was
43:25advertising. And say, for instance, when you watch TV, you know, I'm, I'm a huge hater of commercials.
43:33So I record everything and I skip commercials. I cannot stand commercials. Because I mean, they're,
43:40they're written to pure idiots. You know, you have this woman who is beautiful, who has this thick,
43:47luscious hair. And she's advertising, you know, what shampoo. And without saying it, just the the,
43:57you know, it's, it's subliminal how it happens. If I will buy that shampoo, I will have hair like
44:05that woman. We all know that's not true. Every single one of us knows. But but we fall for it
44:11every time. Because she's really pretty. And she has really thick, luscious hair. And we don't.
44:16And so the way we get that is, you know, it is a scam. It's like the weight loss commercials
44:23on TV.
44:24The only way to lose weight is by you have to put out more calories than you take in. It
44:31is a
44:32scientific fact. You have to burn more than you take in. You need to change your diet. And you need
44:39to exercise. But but what can you find on TV, you can find fat burning pills, they will
44:47incinerate the fat around your belly. If you take this pill, it's a fat incinerator. And you know,
44:54we look at that and think, wow, that would hurt incineration. That's, that's heat. That's hot.
44:58That would man, that would burn my stomach up. If I really took that pill, it's going to take all
45:03that fat around my midsection. Of course, it's not going to do that commercials are just notorious
45:10for misleading people. And that's what ministers are notorious for, for misleading people for saying,
45:17you know, I have the key here. And the key is we got to deal with your occult past. Let
45:23me go to
45:23just a couple of excerpts to show people some other stuff from Dr. Freeman from angels of light,
45:31because he just wants to explain how pretty much everything can be a demon. You know,
45:37everything can be a spirit. So he starts listing some, he says, there are all kinds of spirits.
45:43There's blind spirits, deaf spirits, epileptic spirits, deceiving spirits. And let me just say,
45:48you know, in the gospels, we do have people who have a blind spirit because when that spirit is cast
45:53out, they can now see. But that does not mean that every case of blindness is caused by a demon.
46:00So blind spirits, deaf spirits, epileptic, deceiving spirits, lying spirits, spirits of pride,
46:06spirits of intellectualism, lust, infirmity, insanity, homosexuality, suicide, fear, apathy,
46:13anger, discord, strife, hate, resentment, depression, stubbornness, misunderstanding, gossip,
46:19obscenity, and many others. In other words, everything is a spirit. In other words, you don't have to
46:26deal with anything as a normal growth process in the life of a human being or in the life of
46:33a
46:33Christian. He mentions things like pride, anger, discourse, strife, hate, resentment, depression,
46:42stubbornness, a spirit of misunderstanding, a spirit of gossip. Nowhere does the apostle Paul ever tell
46:50anyone to cast out a spirit of gossip. He just says, don't gossip. That gossip is wrong. To tell
46:57stories that are not true about people behind their back, when they're not there to give their side of
47:02the story, when they're not there to defend themselves, that is wrong to do, to cast a person
47:07in an untruthful light. Paul just says, don't do it. He never says, that could be a spirit now,
47:14brothers in Corinth, or you Christians in Colossae, that could be a demon, and you need to, and here
47:22is the other phrase, go through deliverance. Pick up a spirit, because you've opened a door,
47:29there are three magic phrases, and now you need to go through deliverance. I don't even find that in
47:36the Bible. I don't find anywhere where Christians are encouraged to go through deliverance. Sometimes
47:44he'd say, take yourself through deliverance, but he would often say, you need to go through
47:49deliverance either at your own hand or at someone else's hand. So flipping a few pages later, I mean,
47:56this book, golly, and you know, he was so proud of this, John, and he was very well known, and
48:03Logos
48:04International published this, if I'm not mistaken, way back in the early 70s as, you know, angels of light.
48:11And by the way, even the name of the book, which is a, which comes from a biblical passage in
48:182nd
48:19Corinthians, Paul uses that angels of light in reference to false ministers who are deceiving
48:28people and who are under Satan's influence. And he said, no wonder, because Satan can transform
48:35himself into an angel of light that he might not have ministers of, that have transformed themselves
48:42into an angel of light. The angel of light is, is the false minister. And I'm thinking, who wrote this
48:49book? You know, some minister wrote this book, and yet, you know, he never saw himself as an angel of
48:57light.
48:57I mean, he would have been shocked that anyone, especially someone like me, who had agreed with
49:06him in my teenage years, would have ever come around to say, Hobart, your book was not so much
49:13about angels of light as it was written by an angel of light, who was deceiving people, who was famous
49:21for pulling text out of their context, was famous for that. And here's another one of those.
49:28Anyway, he wants to talk here for a little bit about people who show a flight of ideas type of
49:36mentality. And he said, this individual goes off on one tangent or another, often without completing
49:43a fault. And there is general incoherence of faults and ideas. Generally, they are irresponsible,
49:49unpredictable, unpredictable, and undependable. Unreasonable attitudes or demands or characteristics
49:55of demonic activity in such persons. We all know a lot of people who have flight of ideas. It's
50:02probably because they're just a little more creative than someone boring like myself, and their mind kind
50:08of jumps around. Mind kind of locks into a task or a text, and I don't leave it till I
50:15finish it.
50:16Other people who are more musically and artistically inclined, their mind kind of jumps around a
50:25little. So he says, this is demonic activity. If you have flight of ideas, I think we've all had a
50:30flight of ideas. I think we've all started a sentence, and man, I can't remember what I was getting
50:37ready to say, and we never could end the sentence. Literally, Hobart had people looking for demons
50:46behind every single thing in their life. So they could not live just a normal, healthy, relaxed,
50:54and balanced Christian life, which is like this. The Christian life isn't linear. It has some ups,
50:59and it definitely has some downs. But because it has some downs, doesn't mean you have a demon now.
51:05He talks about other abnormalities that are in neurotic type people. These are people in
51:16constant need of guidance and reassurance by others. They have feelings of inadequacy and immaturity or
51:25fear of failure. They experience extreme hypersensitivity and irritability and impatience. The
51:33individual is often ill-humored, argumentative, defiant, negative, always on the defensive,
51:40highly critical of others in an effort to justify himself or herself. Sounds a little bit like
51:48Dr. Freeman there. He was very, he was always on the defensive, and he could not have a normal
51:54conversation. You know, to this day, John, the people that we know out there who are still
52:02Freemanites to, you know, a greater or lesser degree, they can't have a normal conversation
52:09with me. You know, they just wouldn't. I would have a normal conversation with anybody,
52:14friend or foe. It doesn't matter to me. And I could have a civil, intelligent, and we can still
52:20shake hands and hug at the end of the conversation, even if we don't agree. I mean,
52:26Hobart Freeman had the mentality and the teaching in the church where you had to agree with him on
52:34everything. Name two people in the universe that agree on everything. I can't even think of two
52:42people. Even my wife and I don't agree on them. You and I, I'm sure, John, don't agree on everything.
52:48I don't even know where we don't agree. Maybe we agree more than we disagree. Maybe we disagree more
52:54than we agree. I don't even know, but I don't even care. You know, I don't measure my relationships
53:01based on how much this person sees everything exactly the way I do. How boring of a life and
53:08relationship would that be? We probably disagree on many things. And so does we with the rest of
53:15the human race, all 8 billion people out there. It's not that big of a deal. And yet for those
53:22people,
53:22it is a huge deal. You have contradicted brother Freeman. You know, I was blackballed John back
53:31then. I was blackballed by Hobart. I was blackballed by everybody else. And I was put on a black list
53:37and it wasn't because I was an evil, bad person. I was a, I was a Christian man, a Christian
53:45minister
53:45who had my own flaws and faults and inconsistencies and probably tons of wrong doctrine. But I was
53:54still then and now always willing to dialogue, to discuss, to debate, even to disagree. But at least
54:05let's engage. We'll know each other better. We'll know our own position better. And we'll definitely
54:11know our opponent's position better by the time we get done. But, you know, no, none of that was
54:17allowed because if you talk to anyone that had disagreed with Dr. Freeman, that person has got
54:23a spirit. You talk to them, you're going to pick up a demon. I hate to tell you this, but
54:28I disagree
54:29with you that we have disagreements. You know, one of the things that we haven't mentioned that's
54:35probably the biggest one is the, once I started studying the occult and how it worked and how it
54:41operated and all of the weird, weird, weird stuff that's in it, the one that really stood out to me
54:47was the spirit guides. Because if you look at the faith healers during this era, the era that created
54:53Hobart Freeman, they all have some sort of a spirit guide or they're connected to somebody else who
54:59does. That's how weird this gets. Branham would often say that he had an angel on the platform and he
55:04couldn't do a single thing without that angel being there. To a Christian, that sounds good
55:09because he used the word angel, but he's actually talking about a spirit guide, somebody who is a
55:14spirit who's with him. And the spirit guide empowered him to take all the spirits in the building under
55:22his control, which meant this was a spirit guide that's doing transference of power. So this is
55:30really, really scary stuff. If it's real, I'm of the opinion, and we may actually differ on this.
55:36As I'm reading through some of the occult stuff, it was out there a lot further than some of my
55:43science fiction sci-fi stuff that I watch. I'm looking at this thinking, there's no way anybody
55:47in their right mind believes this. But then I started reading, I picked up a handbook of
55:52How to Train a Deliverance Minister by Randy Clark. And I looked at it much the same way.
55:59There's no way somebody in their right mind believes this. And I found somebody who did. So
56:04I'm certain that there were people out there who did. Maybe something we've said today can help them
56:10not to believe some of this stuff. Thank you so much for doing it.
56:14Yeah, thanks for having me, John.
56:15Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
56:19You can find us at william-brannum.org. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic
56:24reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on
56:29Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
57:02I'm in on Apple Podcasts
57:05from the NAR. Available on Snapchat.
57:05I've joined the meetings between канал and the NAR. Available on Snapchat.
57:06With a few days later on, you can click on the bell and accept�jing disclosed
57:09And the 모� format twice a month, you can check us out on the web.
57:09The LAR 500 sub-time you can check us out on the web.
57:10The New operating quelle is also 방 and not dotting your website.
57:15Use your name from theEd��G Nousbourgers
57:17and the Count On Kakas.
Comments