- 2 hours ago
John, Jenny, and Shelby examine one of YWAM's foundational practices: worship and intercessory prayer. The conversation explores how ideas about hearing God's voice, spiritual warfare, demonic attack, intercession, suffering, and divine guidance can combine into what resembles a never-ending spiritual quest. Participants may learn to interpret thoughts, emotions, hardships, coincidences, and even anxiety through an invisible spiritual framework—while receiving validation from others operating within the same system.
Jenny and Shelby discuss their experiences inside YWAM, including 24/7 prayer gatherings, teachings about spiritual warfare, Joy Dawson's principles for intercession, the pressure to "hear God," and the difficulty of distinguishing between personal intuition, anxiety, fear, God, and the devil.
The discussion also examines the psychological consequences of this framework: confabulation, self-surveillance, sleep deprivation, fear, dissociation, burnout, loss of personal agency, and the tendency to interpret suffering as evidence that someone must be accomplishing something important for God.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:17 Theology, Impact, and YWAM’s Focus on Youth
06:00 Spiritual Warfare, Prayer Rallies, and Fire and Fragrance
11:12 Teaching Children to Hear God and Practice Intercession
15:30 Confabulation, Fear, and the Psychology of Spiritual Warfare
20:59 When Hardship Becomes Evidence of Spiritual Attack
26:52 Hearing God’s Voice, Anxiety, and Decision-Making
32:13 Vision, Dissociation, and the Spiritual Quest
35:25 When the Mission Becomes Your Entire Life
41:05 Gamification, Difficulty, and Staying in the Quest
43:18 Intent vs. Impact and Responding to Abuse
47:15 The Experience-Testimony-Anticipation Loop
49:26 Health, Accountability, and the Cost of the System
52:01 Can Christianity Be Gamified?
______________________
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
Jenny and Shelby discuss their experiences inside YWAM, including 24/7 prayer gatherings, teachings about spiritual warfare, Joy Dawson's principles for intercession, the pressure to "hear God," and the difficulty of distinguishing between personal intuition, anxiety, fear, God, and the devil.
The discussion also examines the psychological consequences of this framework: confabulation, self-surveillance, sleep deprivation, fear, dissociation, burnout, loss of personal agency, and the tendency to interpret suffering as evidence that someone must be accomplishing something important for God.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
03:17 Theology, Impact, and YWAM’s Focus on Youth
06:00 Spiritual Warfare, Prayer Rallies, and Fire and Fragrance
11:12 Teaching Children to Hear God and Practice Intercession
15:30 Confabulation, Fear, and the Psychology of Spiritual Warfare
20:59 When Hardship Becomes Evidence of Spiritual Attack
26:52 Hearing God’s Voice, Anxiety, and Decision-Making
32:13 Vision, Dissociation, and the Spiritual Quest
35:25 When the Mission Becomes Your Entire Life
41:05 Gamification, Difficulty, and Staying in the Quest
43:18 Intent vs. Impact and Responding to Abuse
47:15 The Experience-Testimony-Anticipation Loop
49:26 Health, Accountability, and the Cost of the System
52:01 Can Christianity Be Gamified?
______________________
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-hosts, researchers, and friends, Jenny
00:45McGrath and Shelby Hoffer, former members of YWAM.
00:48Shelby, Jenny, it's good to be back and to talk about spiritual warfare.
00:53Both of you are unaware of this because they're recorded, pre-recorded, and they're scheduled
00:58way out, but I have had multiple conversations with multiple people about exactly what we're
01:03going to be talking about here, and with the intention, while talking with them about spiritual
01:08warfare, how it really impacts the ministry from the perspective of the youth.
01:14And I'll be honest, this episode will come out before those, but this is the more important
01:19one because this is actually the focus of the movement.
01:22And just to give you some preview as to what's coming, I did some deep dives into research
01:28into spiritual warfare.
01:30The way it has developed in the deliverance ministries of today eerily matches Hollywood
01:37and books and horror movies and horror films or weird stuff.
01:43I'll just say it like that.
01:44In that, yes, the Bible did have deliverance, it had demons, it had possession, it had all
01:49of these things.
01:50But what they have done is they've added details and gamification to it, and all of that comes
01:56from things that aren't in the Bible.
01:58For example, I had a conversation with Franny recently, she was talking about this lady,
02:03I actually got an audio clip of it.
02:05This lady went to a deliverance seminar and then said, the power of God was so insane,
02:09and I'm paraphrasing, the power of God was so insane, I went back to my Airbnb and a
02:13coven of witches circled around my Airbnb.
02:16And you can't even find coven of witches in the Bible, that's something that comes from
02:21Hollywood.
02:21And it's just, the history is kind of odd.
02:25But here's where it gets problematic for me.
02:29In something that my grandfather told me, and he expressed this when he resigned from
02:34the Branham Tabernacle, he says, I have figured this thing out.
02:37He and the entire staff of the Branham Tabernacle resigned and walked out and said, we want no
02:42part of this.
02:43Grandpa said, I've figured it out what they're doing.
02:46If you can get to the children, you can get to the parents.
02:49And if you can get to the parents, you can get to their pocketbooks.
02:53And that was in his resignation speech.
02:55And honestly, that theme has driven me into the YWAM research because think of it, all of
03:02the gamification that's in this, all of the, you too have the power to be a Harry Potter in
03:08your wizardry world of Christianity.
03:10All of this stuff, I'll just, I'll let you introduce it, Shelby, but this really is important
03:16and significant.
03:17Yeah, thank you so much, Sean.
03:19It really is.
03:20And I think one of the most common challenges that we face or common pushbacks that we get
03:28are trying to address things.
03:31There's the theological side, right?
03:33Where you can get lots of people who will just disagree theologically around, well, that's
03:38fine.
03:38I also agree with the YWAM theology.
03:40That doesn't seem weird to me.
03:42But then there's the other side of the impact and the consequences of the theology or of simply
03:49how practically the foundational values or the beliefs, the core beliefs or things like
03:54that actually get lived out on the ground.
03:56I know we've talked about that in previous episodes.
03:58So, it's something that we certainly are trying to highlight.
04:03I am studying theology right now, and that's something that's been very, very interesting
04:08coming out of 20 years, almost 20 years in YWAM.
04:11But what we really want to be talking about is looking at how this impacts people's lives,
04:17right?
04:17So, there is the theological side, which you can agree, disagree, but it does touch people's
04:23lives.
04:24And so, for myself and Jenny, having worked in the mental health space, and Jenny is currently
04:29working in the mental health space, we see the effects of that.
04:32So, one of the core values, the foundational values, as we've been talking about in YWAM
04:39is to practice worship and intercessory prayer.
04:43Now, I thought it was really interesting, John, that you mentioned this thing about your
04:47grandfather being like, well, if they get to the kids, they get to the parents.
04:49If they get to the parents, they get to the pocketbooks, and obviously, youth with a mission
04:53is youth targeted, right?
04:56And there's a whole foundational value about championing young people and things like that.
05:00And I don't know if you guys know this.
05:03Jenny probably does.
05:04But YWAM also has a whole arm, a whole ministry called King's Kids.
05:08And this is aimed, this is a ministry that's aimed at young, young children.
05:13So, we are talking about when you join YWAM to do your DTS or do your staff, every once
05:19in a while, you can get someone in who's 16 or 17.
05:22Usually, they have to be 18 or more, which is a whole thing on its own.
05:26But there is, in my time, my 18 years in YWAM, there's often been this conversation of
05:33if we can get to the kids, we can get to the parents.
05:36Now, the pocketbook part was not explicitly said so often, but it was, you know, how we can
05:41transform families, how we can transform society.
05:44We get to the children first, and then that opens doors to the parents.
05:48So, I can certainly attest to that being a part of the strategy that I have seen.
05:57I don't know, Jenny, if you've seen that as well in your time?
06:00Absolutely.
06:00Yeah.
06:01And I think the rhetoric and the idea of spiritual warfare is so powerful.
06:09You know, it's not uncommon, at least in my experiences, where there'll be these, like,
06:1424-7 prayer, like, rallies for specific countries or where God's moving or where there's a lot
06:23of spiritual warfare, and you'll sign up for a time at, like, 1 in the morning or 3 in
06:28the morning, and you'll hear people up all night screaming and yelling and rebuking demons.
06:35And it is, just from a therapist and a physiological standpoint, it's really distressing.
06:42You're talking about sleep deprivation.
06:45You're talking about working yourself up into an emotional frenzy.
06:51There was, am I thinking right about, like, fire and fragrance?
06:56Yes, yes.
06:57And so, there's these, like, this brand, within the brand of these, like, they're known as,
07:03like, kind of the radical intercessors and spiritual warfare people, and they will just
07:09be, like, screaming at demons or things like that in the room, and it's a very upsetting
07:15and mobilizing experience, where I think, I don't want to, I don't think you can overstate
07:23the importance of talking about this invisible realm and using that to propel kids and youth
07:30and parents and pocketbooks into movements of dominionism, really.
07:36What's interesting is fire and fragrance actually has just separated from YWAM at, sort of, YWAM
07:44Global's, like, request.
07:46Like, they were like, I, you know, the details have not been made public.
07:49The fact that they no longer are meant to be associated with YWAM is, you know, sort of
07:56out there because they sort of got a bit too cuckoo, from what I understand.
08:01So, if someone else knows about that, you can put it in the comments, but it's the sort
08:07of regular stuff that we would experience in YWAM, fire and fragrance, was that times
08:12a hundred.
08:13And that its followers are so loyal to the cause of fire and fragrance and that, like
08:23you said, that invisible realm and the way in which they engage with it and interact
08:30with it and express themselves with it.
08:32I love even the name.
08:35It sounds like marketing.
08:36And it goes further to the point that I'm researching.
08:39This is part of a broader subset of research that I'm doing, actually.
08:43There were several different youth missions.
08:46And when I say youth missions, I'm not talking about just YWAM.
08:50There were, I mean, you can go from Hitler Youth to Billy Graham's Youth.
08:53You had all of these different youth missions.
08:55And what they were trying to do was establish a platform in which children could be indoctrinated
09:01in the ideologies that you subscribe to.
09:04And there were different divisions of these.
09:06Jim Jones was part of youth missions.
09:08And that's part of how he started to develop his ministry, believe it or not.
09:12So, you have all of these different youth ministries.
09:15But when you hear the marketing terms that are in the modern versions of these, it's a little
09:20bit scary.
09:21Especially, take a step back and think what's happening with Facebook right now.
09:25Facebook has a very unique problem in that they created a system that once you get into
09:32the system, it gets a little bit addictive.
09:35You have the endless scroll.
09:36You have ways that you can light things up.
09:39And it's called, in the tech world, it's called gamification.
09:41You gamify it.
09:43And then people get interested in the game.
09:45And they feel part of it.
09:46It's actually not unethical.
09:49And it's not illegal.
09:50But they're suffering huge consequences because the youth are being impacted negatively.
09:56And it's having severe mental health issue problems with all of this.
10:00So, in the gamified version of Facebook, you have legal ramifications.
10:06Now go to the Christian side of this.
10:09You have really technically the same thing.
10:12I've done this comparison before.
10:13I've probably overused it.
10:14But in the game Dungeons & Dragons, you have this invisible realm that you're fighting these
10:19invisible demons.
10:20And you have this spiritual mapping where you're mapping out all the demons and the territories
10:25and all of the players.
10:26If you've watched Stranger Things, you've seen this game in action.
10:29Well, it's a gamified system of the invisible realm.
10:33And you get part of it.
10:34It is so addictive to people who got in that system.
10:38I knew friends who did.
10:39I was not allowed to, obviously.
10:41But I knew how it worked because they're all talking about it in school.
10:46Well, then, fast forward to today.
10:48I leave the Branhamism thing.
10:50And I start researching what developed after Branhamism.
10:53And they literally have every aspect of Dungeons & Dragons.
10:57It is a gamified system.
10:58And they all argue that it's biblical, yet there are only key elements that are like
11:05vague building blocks that are biblical and all of the details they have built upon it
11:10in a gamified way.
11:12Yeah, and I think that that's why, you know, when you see something like King's Kids that
11:18is targeting the very young with this sort of formulaic way to hear God's voice or to pray or
11:29to do sort of what's called intercessory prayer, standing in the gap for a person or a nation.
11:37And you see these sort of principles, if you will, or sometimes they're literally called
11:43steps to intercession being taught from such a young age.
11:47Um, it is in this sense of like, okay, let's, we're going to pray and just say whatever comes
11:54into your head, you know, and then we're going to see like, so I think I hear something about
11:59green apples and, you know, I said, I don't know.
12:02I saw the color green and I saw an apple.
12:04And then Jenny's like, oh my gosh, like I was thinking about how I need to be healthier
12:09or, you know, we should be healthy and eating good food.
12:12So that must go together.
12:13And then someone else is like, oh, I got this thing.
12:16And we start to make these connections that don't exist.
12:22And, and it's in that sense, you get that hit of like, I've done it right.
12:27Okay.
12:27I've done it correctly.
12:28I am hearing from God because, you know, all of these pieces fit together.
12:32We can make them fit together.
12:34Um, and you get approval, you know, from the people around you.
12:39So there's just this whole sort of process that happens.
12:42And this is foundational value number four.
12:46So it's very high up.
12:48It was one of the first core sort of important pieces to be a YWAMR, um, and to be part
12:56of
12:56the organization.
12:56And from the very beginning with Joy Dawson and her husband, John Dawson, teaching about
13:02intercessory prayer, uh, this is actually a very, very foundational piece of youth with
13:09a mission.
13:10Um, and again, we've said in previous episodes talking about the, how formulaic things can
13:17become in YWAMR and what that leads to the consequences that can lead to.
13:21Um, and, um, this is Joy Dawson wrote nine steps to intercession, uh, intercessory prayer.
13:30The principles for effective intercession is what it's called.
13:35And, you know, it's sort of praising God for who he is and for the privilege of engaging
13:40in the same wonderful ministry as the Lord Jesus, making sure your heart is clean, having
13:46given the Holy Spirit time to convict, should there be any unconfessed sin, acknowledge you
13:51can't really pray without the direction and energy of the Holy Spirit deal aggressively
13:56with the enemy, come against him in the all powerful name of Jesus Christ with the sword
14:00of the spirit and her quotes, the word of God die to your own imaginations, desires, and
14:06burdens for what you feel you should pray.
14:09Uh, and the verses quoted for that are like, don't lean on your own understanding.
14:13He who trusts in his own mind is a fool.
14:16Uh, and you know, my thoughts are not your thoughts.
14:18And I'd love to hear Jenny's, uh, thoughts about that and the effects of that.
14:23But, um, number six is praising God now in faith for the remarkable prayer meeting you're
14:27going to have.
14:29He's a remarkable God and do, will do something consistent with his character.
14:33And then you wait before God in silent expectancy, listening for his direction.
14:38Uh, you know, obedience and faith, utter what God brings to your mind, believing.
14:43Okay.
14:44So it's just this, make sure you don't move on to the next subject until you've given,
14:48you know, God time to do it.
14:49Uh, and then number nine, if possible, have your Bible with you should go on to give you
14:54direction or confirmation.
14:55Oh, and then she's got 10 on here.
14:57When God ceases to bring things to your mind to pray for, finish by praising and thanking
15:01him for what he's done.
15:03Um, you know, sort of, sort of things.
15:06So, uh, the, the, she lists a warning at the end and the warning says, God knows the
15:13weakness of the human heart towards pride.
15:14And if we speak of what God has revealed and done in intercession, it may lead to committing
15:19this sin.
15:20God shares his secrets with those who are able to keep him.
15:23There may come a time when he definitely prompts us to share, but unless this happens,
15:27we should remain silent.
15:29So many thoughts.
15:31One, as you were talking, um, about sort of the, the grooming process of like, if you
15:38see a flower, if you, you know, this process, I was thinking about a word that came out of
15:44neuroscience that is called confabulation.
15:48And it was based on this study where they actually had patients because of a medical necessity,
15:53they severed their right and left hemispheres of their brain.
15:57So the emotional center of the right brain was not able to communicate to the literal,
16:04logical left brain.
16:05And what they did was they actually put like a, um, like a blinder between their eyes.
16:11And so the part of their eye, the eye that takes in emotional stimuli, they would show
16:18kind of like scary images.
16:20Um, and then they would ask the person what they're feeling and they would say, I'm scared.
16:25And they would go, why are you scared?
16:27And not one time did someone go, I don't know.
16:31100% of the time people made up a reason.
16:34They might say, the researcher is looking at me funny, or they might say, you know, whatever
16:39it was.
16:40And they did this with different emotional experiences and different questions.
16:44And what they realized was we are beings who confabulate.
16:49It is way more distressing for us to not know than to make a story about what is true.
16:57And I'm thinking about all of this grooming and intercession and how it's just bolstering
17:04confabulation and the stories that we're telling.
17:07And that produces a sense of both grandiosity and terror.
17:13And like we've talked about in other episodes, when you're like, I don't know if this is the
17:18devil, if this is me, if this is God, who decides?
17:21It becomes such a form of self-surveillance and terror.
17:29And I think it's just really, really psychologically distressing and has consequences in the world.
17:39I actually want to read just a short clip from a book called American Evangelicals for Trump that goes through
17:48the history of the NIR and YWAM.
17:51But there's a section on mapping demonic activity.
17:55Like you were talking about in Dungeons and Dragons, John, like that happens.
17:58There is literally like these spiritual warfare, demonology maps that are drawn.
18:04And the author says, if one thinks that these ideas regarding demonology have no impact on daily life, that they
18:12are nothing more than abstract concepts from old biblical stories, think again.
18:18For proponents of spiritual warfare, these evil spirits play a role in the political, social, and cultural life of a
18:26nation.
18:27And so, again, like we're talking on an individual level of what this is doing in the psyche of kids
18:34and youths, but we're also then talking about the implications if we are practicing this on mass scale and trying
18:43to evangelize and convert people into these worlds, the impact that then has, you know.
18:49I remember in YWAM there was a woman telling me that she saw someone grab a Coca-Cola or something
18:56like that and she saw a demon attach itself to the Coca-Cola.
18:59And I was like, well, I've never seen something like that.
19:02But like what in my life, what in my world are demons attaching themselves to and am I ingesting?
19:10And yeah, it creates terror, really.
19:15And I hate to say it, I'm getting excited because terror is part of the game.
19:20If you really think about how Dungeons and Dragons work or any of those games that are like this, there
19:25are several.
19:26Terror is part of the game.
19:27You get involved in the game and then something really scary or something eventful happens.
19:31Well, then it makes you aggressively want to try harder and that's part of gamification.
19:35And think about this.
19:37As you were both talking and I was listening to the way, the emotional response from the youth that happens
19:43whenever you get involved in this, whenever you are telling the youth that if you do these things and you
19:50feel these things, you're going to get special abilities.
19:53Think of how that relates to the gamification.
19:56In spiritual warfare systems, you are basically, you're told that you're being a Christian, but you're more than a Christian.
20:02You are a special, unique soldier because you're going to have these special abilities.
20:06Some of them may be biblical, yes, but what they do is they add all of these details that are
20:12extra biblical.
20:13And again, if you go to those extra biblical details and then map out where those came from, they did
20:20not come from biblical sources.
20:21You're going to find them in movies and games and horror fiction, all kinds of different extra biblical sources.
20:28Some of them even go back to Greek and Roman mythologies, which is crazy interesting.
20:32You have all of the powers in the sky that you can't see, and these people who are demigods or
20:38apostles or prophets are your intercessor between this heavenly realm and your realm.
20:44But you, as the spiritual warrior, you can go on a journey, and it turns into the hero's quest.
20:49So what we're talking about here is a gamification system that is more matching of the ancient mythologies than it
20:56is actually Christianity.
20:57Well, when you think about, I don't know if you've ever read the book, Pilgrim's Progress, and the idea, and
21:05this was very common through, again, my 18 years in YWAM and the many parts of the world that I
21:13lived and worked in with YWAM,
21:16was sort of this idea that if you are, if a lot of bad things are happening to you, like
21:21if you're not getting your money, or you're not getting your visa, or something's happened to your family back home,
21:26or you're sick, or whatever, then, you know, that could be spiritual warfare.
21:32And that can be, like, a lot of the ways that people try to encourage you in that moment is,
21:38oh, well, you must be doing such good work for the Lord that Satan is attacking you so much.
21:44And I remember thinking, like, well, I don't want to then, like, do work for the Lord, quote-unquote, because
21:51then I'm going to get just all of this attack.
21:53And then I felt really guilty about that.
21:56Maybe I'm not being spiritual enough, or I'm not doing enough, quote-unquote, for God.
22:00Like you said, John, as this warrior, you know, out there, and you're, the suffering that you experience, the hardships
22:08that you experience are congratulated.
22:11They are, you know, just said, like, wow, you must be doing such good work if you are experiencing suffering
22:18and hardship, because the enemy wouldn't be attacking you if you weren't doing such good work for Christ.
22:25Now, obviously, not every single person in YWAM would believe that about someone's suffering and hardship, but it was common
22:32enough, and common, I think, common enough from the stage, if you will, from the people up front, the people
22:38with power who had voice into the larger sort of spaces.
22:43That was certainly the vibe that you were given.
22:49If you're suffering a lot, it must be that because you're doing something right, which then makes you want to
22:56keep suffering, and then you keep suffering.
22:59I mean, there's so many reasons, psychological reasons, why people stay in unhealthy and even abusive systems or relationships.
23:06Obviously, we're talking about a system right now, but that is one of the reasons.
23:11Is that sort of gamification, as you said, of, I can get more points if I keep suffering?
23:17It also makes me think, and I'm curious if you would agree with this, Shelby.
23:20Like, I agree with everything you've said, and based on kind of our other conversations, it feels like that's true
23:27to a threshold.
23:29And then those who hold the most power, you don't see them struggling to get their finances or, you know,
23:35and so there's almost this sense of, like, if you're one of the minions, then you are exposed to these
23:42hardships.
23:43But I was thinking about that similarly with the, like, the warning that you named at the end of the
23:51intercession, and I thought that was very rich about, like, pride, because I think that those who are in leadership
23:59in YWAM, in my experience, have, like, the epitome of the humblebrag, and it's like, oh, I don't, you know,
24:07I didn't actually want to be a leader.
24:09I just fought it, and everyone else made me a leader.
24:12And it's, like, it's own language and rhetoric where there's so much grandiosity in that.
24:19And I was actually thinking in, this would have been, like, 2010, 2011-ish, I was actually invited to go
24:29with my YWAM team to North Carolina.
24:32We went to YWAM's North American Leadership Conference.
24:36And I was a field worker and sort of rogue in Uganda most of the time, and so I think
24:42a lot of the things in YWAM, I sort of sidestepped just because I was by myself a lot of
24:47the time.
24:48But we were having breakfast at this conference, and I sat next to this guy and was just talking with
24:54him.
24:54He was asking me what I was doing.
24:56I was telling him about my work in Uganda, and I was like, where are you from?
25:00What do you do?
25:01What base are you coming from?
25:03And I could tell he was perturbed that I was asking, and I couldn't exactly read it.
25:08And I was like, maybe he, whatever, I don't know.
25:11And then afterwards, one of my co-workers from the base I was at was like, wow, Jenny, you're really
25:18hanging with the big leagues.
25:19And I was like, what do you mean?
25:20And she's like, you went and sat next to John Dawson.
25:24And I didn't know it was John Dawson.
25:28And I could tell he was very upset that I didn't know he was John Dawson.
25:33And I didn't know all of the YWAM cred that I was supposed to know.
25:38And that left such a big impression where I was like, oh, wow, like you're supposed to be humble.
25:44But that's also, I don't know, it's very, very complicated how and who actually is supposed to be humble.
25:51Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism
25:58transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
26:04You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
26:12On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery,
26:20John McKinnon, and others,
26:22with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.
26:26You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
26:33If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the Contribute button at the
26:39top.
26:39And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or
26:45watching.
26:46On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
26:50We've talked about this in previous podcasts, but there are severe consequences with a religious movement
26:57that is built upon the framework of hearing God's voice.
27:01I know that there are biblical passages that talk about hearing God's voice, my sheep hear my voice, etc.
27:07But when you flip it on its head, where an authoritarian figure is saying that you too can hear God's
27:13voice
27:13and you can have divine special revelation, this turns into something entirely different and dangerous.
27:19Combine that theme from all those past episodes that we have done with the gamification process
27:24and think about people like me.
27:27I was never, ever good at these role-playing games because I'm too analytical.
27:32I could never really dive into it as deeply as some of my friends.
27:35I never even got excited.
27:37So had I even been able and allowed to play this Dungeon and Dragons game,
27:41I probably wouldn't have liked it because I'm too analytical.
27:44This just doesn't work.
27:45So I'm the loser in these games.
27:47Well, the loser is going to try harder, and they're going to try to see things that aren't there.
27:52And mentally, what happens when you do this in a framework where you're hearing God's voice,
27:57well, suddenly your anxiety becomes God's voice.
28:00Your fears become God's voice.
28:02All of the different things that make you feel uncomfortable becomes God's voice.
28:06I have talked to people who are like this.
28:09I don't know if it was with you or somebody else I mentioned.
28:12This person was telling me that they had went to a job interview,
28:15and I didn't take that job because I just felt God was telling me I shouldn't be there.
28:21Well, they were feeling anxiety of the interview.
28:23That's really what they were feeling, right?
28:25So they apparently lost a job they maybe could have had.
28:28But that's the way it works.
28:30And if you're in a gamified system where you have this anxiety to become the spiritual warrior that they're telling
28:36you you can be,
28:38what about the people who aren't this?
28:40What about the people who feel nothing?
28:42Well, then they start to feel the anxiety, and God starts speaking to them, and it starts to spiral.
28:47And in mental health, if you understand how spiraling out of control, how dangerous this can be,
28:52it makes everything that we've talked about so far become really, really scary.
28:56Yeah, certainly when you're isolated from outside community as well.
29:02So because YWAM takes up so much of your time and energy, relationally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, everything,
29:09you often, especially if you're in it long enough,
29:11you stop having community outside of the YWAM base because you simply don't have time.
29:17You don't have time.
29:18You don't have energy.
29:18So when it comes to needing to make a decision personally or corporately,
29:24and there's prayer that's happening, and you're supposed to be hearing God's voice,
29:30the biggest moment, the meter, the standard is,
29:37do I have peace, quote unquote, peace about this or not?
29:40That's like you said, John, that your anxiety is maybe speaking,
29:44but you're taught not to listen to your instincts.
29:46You're taught not to listen to, you know, to doubt everything.
29:49Is it my anxiety?
29:51Is it my own brokenness?
29:52Is it my sinfulness?
29:54Is it the devil?
29:55So you're really taught that you shouldn't be listening to anything inside,
30:00and that really messes with you when you're supposed to be hearing God's voice
30:04for your own life, from small decisions to really big decisions.
30:09Where should you go next?
30:10Who should you be in a relationship with?
30:12You know, what should you be doing with your life?
30:14And then to even bigger corporate decisions where, you know,
30:17should we sell the base and close it down because we don't have, you know,
30:21enough people to keep it up?
30:23You know, what do we do?
30:24So, and it's really, it becomes this, well, do I have peace about it?
30:30Do I not have peace about it?
30:31Does my leader have peace about it or do they not?
30:34You know, if I have peace about it, but my leader doesn't have peace about it,
30:38I have to go back and pray again and see, is it, it must be my anxiety.
30:43It must be my fear.
30:44It must be my fear of suffering.
30:45I don't want to do that thing.
30:47And so I probably should do that thing.
30:50And this idea of quote unquote, having peace about it is what leads people in all sorts
30:56of crazy directions and all sorts of crazy relationships and things, because that's the
31:00only standard that they're using.
31:02They don't have other people outside of their YWAM community so often to be able to bounce
31:09off, you know, questions.
31:10Hey, I'm really unhappy here.
31:12Because if you say, I'm really unhappy in this community, I'd like to leave, you face
31:18shunning, you face complete rejection and isolation.
31:21You face your reputation, perhaps being maligned.
31:24You face an immense amount of grief and loss in relationship and potentially your own power
31:30as well.
31:31Like you will be potentially taken out of, you know, leadership positions that you have
31:35or whatever.
31:35But if you say, I prayed about it and I have peace, God gave me peace to leave this
31:42place because I'm going to go to another place.
31:45I'm going to go to another YWAM base.
31:47And I really prayed about it.
31:48And I really felt like God was saying, it's just a new season for me.
31:52You know, he has new things for me coming.
31:55I'm going to pioneer something new.
31:57I'm trying to be visionary, which is also one of YWAM's foundational values.
32:01Then that is celebrated.
32:03That is encouraged.
32:05That is supported.
32:05And so, it's, yeah, you have to play those cards in order to be safe.
32:13Yeah, I was thinking about that as you name, be visionary.
32:16And it feels so intertwined with the spiritual warfare piece and with the confabulation piece
32:24of what it takes to have unquestioned vision or to tell people you have unquestioned vision
32:34and the lack of nuance and complexity in humanity to be like, I'm not really sure, but I'm going
32:40to try this.
32:41Like, there is such a sense of urgency that often, you know, I think peace maybe is confused
32:50with dissociation and people not being in their bodies and not actually feeling the terror
32:56that we've been talking about or these other things.
32:58And so, it's like, well, if I'm not feeling anything, then that must be peace.
33:02But the sympathetically charged system, I think, requires most bodies within it to be disembodied
33:13and to be dissociated.
33:15And so, then it feels like it's kind of grasping at straws to figure out what visions you're supposed
33:21to do.
33:22And you kind of become like these floating heads making decisions as part of the system and
33:28not from this sense of agency and responsibility.
33:31A long time ago, when I had first left the Branham Movement, I started studying different
33:37ancient religions and near-ancient religions, and I got enthralled with studying the vision
33:45quests of the ancient religions.
33:47Each one had a similar progression into a quest, and it was all about the quest.
33:53Really, the quest was what drew the person deeper into their belief set.
33:58It wasn't that there was a goal in the end that changed their lives forever.
34:02It was literally about the quest itself, the journey.
34:04It's all about the journey.
34:06And whenever I started investigating the different movements that built upon Branhamism, they each
34:13developed some weird similar thing.
34:16If you do this thing, if you deny yourself these pleasures of life, then you can have this
34:22thing that may either be spiritual warfare or something else.
34:26But it's all about that journey and that submission to the belief set.
34:31Then I encountered Youth With A Mission.
34:33And it's unbelievable because the entire system is the quest.
34:37You are literally going on the mission because you're part of the quest.
34:41So when you think back to the Dungeons & Dragons gamification thing, every good role-playing
34:48game has a quest.
34:49In fact, the modern games that are like this are nothing but quests.
34:53And you can get side quests and main quests and multiple quests.
34:57And I hear people going to my DTS quest and my other DTS quest and multiple quests.
35:03So the whole thing becomes about the mission.
35:05And that's why early on in this, Jenny, I was asking you, well, what is the purpose of it?
35:10What is this thing for?
35:12Why do people do this?
35:14And we've came to the conclusion that there is not a really good answer for that question
35:19other than it's all about the mission.
35:22The mission is self-serving in that you had a mission.
35:25Yeah, it's something I was speaking with a friend about today because of our current
35:30situation and our connection with the farm and YWAM.
35:34And my friend who's not been a part of YWAM or anything, you know, pointed out like the
35:41seems that the people are so reliant on YWAM continuing to exist because in, you know, certain
35:49situations around the world, people perhaps lack any sort of formal education or any sort
35:57of work experience.
35:58Um, they can't afford any more to leave YWAM and so all of their safety and their security
36:05resides in remaining part of the organization and therefore keeping the organization going
36:12and turning over on itself forever because they need that in order to live and in order
36:20to live out their quest because without it, the quest dies and they're lost.
36:27They're anchorless without the quest.
36:30And it's something that I have seen for years with clients, former clients who have, you
36:37know, in the end chose to leave the organization to leave YWAM where they experience that anchorlessness
36:45and that great, um, fear about what am I going to do with my life?
36:52Uh, I have nothing that functions in the real world.
36:57I don't have education.
36:59I don't have work experience.
37:01Um, I don't, you know, have any savings.
37:03I don't have, um, property.
37:06I don't, you know, there's no sort of hope to build what they would establish as a life
37:12outside of YWAM.
37:14They have no connections.
37:15They have no friendships.
37:16They have no community outside of that YWAM community.
37:19And, you know, those people, they had to get to the point where their bodies were giving
37:24out on them, where they were incredibly burnt out, incredibly ill, um, to sort of come to
37:31the point of saying it's, it's, it's worse to stay.
37:36So I'm going, I'm going to leave, but that's the, the standard that they had to get to, to
37:41say, like, it's, I feel so bad.
37:44I'm actually going to have to leave because this feels like the thing that I need to do
37:48versus staying.
37:50Um, and it's just so sad because it takes years to rebuild.
37:56I mean, not only the practical side of it, right?
38:01Like I got to get a job and I got to find a way to earn money and I have
38:06to maybe go
38:06back to school or go to school for the first time as someone in my thirties or forties.
38:12Um, but then there's the psychological aspects as well.
38:16Unpacking, you know, all of the things that we've talked about in all of the episodes, all
38:20of the consequences that, that land from this sort of needing to stay in the quest because
38:30there are all of these, you know, points you can earn and lives you can earn.
38:33And, and like Jenny said, if you can sort of get to the top, if you can get to a
38:37higher
38:37leadership position, then maybe it won't be so hard.
38:40And you can say that you're speaking at all of these schools and all of these bases and
38:44you need money to travel because everybody wants you to talk on their stuff.
38:47And, and so you maybe earn more money because you have more kids and people feel bad for
38:52you and they want to keep your kids from being in poverty.
38:57Um, and so people give to this or you get the people who are genuine believers, right?
39:02Like we really believe in what you're doing.
39:04Um, but until you get to that place, which is for the few, the privileged few, uh, like
39:11Jenny said, sort of the minions, the people who are under that stay in the quest.
39:17They stay in the cycle forever and ever, never achieving anything.
39:23As you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, being a therapist.
39:28And if someone came in and told me that they were in a relationship and this relationship
39:33didn't let them get a job, this relationship was taxing on their body.
39:37This was a relationship that was making them feel like they were never enough and essentially
39:42kind of battering them maybe without the physical violence, but you know, in, in all purposes
39:49of really doing that, I would say, this is a very abusive relationship.
39:56Um, this is a very, um, alarming relationship.
40:00And what do we need to do to help you get the psychological, emotional, financial, social
40:07support so that you can leave this relationship?
40:10And I can't speak to the interiority of the leaders and the founders of how, um, intentional
40:21that is, but the function of it really is, uh, I would liken it to an abusive relationship.
40:28And if anyone has ever been in or known someone who is in an abusive relationship, the psychological
40:35toll alone that that takes and the amount of, um, shame and self-contempt and self-blame
40:44that you have to work through regardless of even just the, um, tangible things of not
40:51having savings, like it's, I, I don't want to understate how difficult of a journey it
40:58is to break free and to get out of those types of abusive systems and relationships.
41:04So I'm about to nerd out on you both.
41:09I'm in it.
41:10I began as a developer and I love video games.
41:14I always have loved video games.
41:16And my favorite is Ms.
41:17Pac-Man, especially the fast one at the arcade.
41:20You know, not many people realize this, but the algorithms of Ms.
41:25Pac-Man are quite intense.
41:26I actually wrote my own Ms.
41:28Pac-Man game early on in my career just to see if I could do it because it is very
41:32complicated.
41:33There are four ghosts and each of the four ghosts have different levels of the game.
41:39There's one of them that's completely dumb and it's going to go different directions.
41:42There's one that will chase you to no end.
41:44But what happens is as you're going through the maze and you make a turn, they will re re
41:49evaluate and reconsider their plan of attack to get you.
41:53And it's really, really complicated stuff.
41:55That algorithm now in today's world, that seems simplistic.
41:59Now you have entire legions of people who are fighting you in these quest games.
42:04I have Xbox and I get involved in some of these quests.
42:08They're quite intense.
42:10Well, what you both have just described is actually one of the most, if not the most significant
42:16part of the gamification.
42:18When you have difficulty in your quest, something is happening to prevent you from succeeding in
42:25your quest and therefore you have to reconsider your plan, like the ghosts reconsidering where
42:30they go.
42:31So if you have spiritual difficulties, if things are going wrong, well, the devil is out to
42:35get me.
42:36What am I doing wrong that the devil is being allowed to do this?
42:40Let's adjust the plan a different way, in a different way, in a different way.
42:43And in the end, you're constantly trying to reevaluate how to make it to the end of your
42:49quest, not realizing that the quest itself is actually the thing that is the problem.
42:54And so when you're deeply involved in that type of mentality, you never look beyond the
43:01quest.
43:02So you can get stuck in this thing and the whole world can be crashing down around you.
43:07You can go to the levels where you're, I know you experienced this, Jenny, where you're
43:11actually self-martyring to survive the quest.
43:15And it's all because of the way it's gamified.
43:18You know, I saw a comment on one of our episodes where someone was saying that like, there's
43:25literally a saying that you can't judge based on its abuses, which thank you for the engagement.
43:31We appreciate it.
43:34And I don't know who said that.
43:36You can quote your source.
43:37That would be great.
43:38But also, that's absolutely bonkers.
43:41And like Jenny said, you know, we can't speak to perhaps what the intention of the founders
43:48are, were, now that Lauren Cunningham has passed, you know, the rest of the founders, many of
43:53the founders are still very much alive and active.
43:57And I just want to reiterate again, intent does not equate impact.
44:04So you can have all of the best intentions and your impact can still be extremely damaging.
44:10And while we are very well aware of both me and Jenny have stated before, you know, the
44:16lovely relationships and great things that have experiences that we've had both of us in
44:21our time in YWAM.
44:22It does not erase the fact that so much abuse is happening.
44:28And if you want to talk about, you know, knowing an organization by its don't know an organization
44:35by its abuses, you have to know an organization by how it responds to the abuse allegations,
44:42to people speaking up, to people asking questions about saying, hey, I think this isn't right.
44:48Hey, I think something is going on.
44:52And YWAM, in all of my experience, and the hundreds of stories, hundreds and hundreds of
44:59stories I have read, people I've talked to from around the world across the decades, this
45:04is not a fluke.
45:05This is a part of the system.
45:08And this is why we talk about this, because the abuses need to be addressed.
45:14It's, it's, it's not a bug.
45:16It's a future.
45:18And until YWAM actually begins to take these things seriously, and until people who want
45:23to come into the comments and say, oh, but I had a great experience, want to take these
45:27things seriously, then it will continue.
45:31And we will continue to be here talking about this.
45:35Yeah, I so agree.
45:36And I think going back to even the, the spiritual warfare and how that can abdicate responsibility
45:44and how, you know, it can be blamed of you're just struggling because of you're not committed,
45:50or maybe you have a spirit of contempt.
45:54Maybe you have a spirit of criticism.
45:57Maybe you have a spirit of cynicism.
45:59And your issues that you're having with the way that you're being harmed are actually your
46:06fault.
46:06And they're actually demonic.
46:07And they have nothing to do with us.
46:10And I was thinking about, you know, if I accidentally spilled a hot cup of coffee on my husband and
46:17it scalded him, and he was like, oh my gosh, you poured hot coffee on me.
46:22My response shouldn't be, well, I didn't intend to do that.
46:26You know, it'd be like, oh my gosh, are you so, I'm so sorry.
46:29Are you okay?
46:30What do you need?
46:31I need, this is how I'm going to be more careful next time to not spill my coffee.
46:36And it shouldn't be as hard as it is to confront the ways in which harm are done, especially
46:43if it isn't intentional, then there should be that much more emphasis on repair and acknowledgement
46:52and responsibility for how the organization moves forward.
46:58We are two people who are in it talking about it, but there are a plethora of people behind
47:05us who have been in our experiences, who we know, who we've talked to.
47:11We're not just a couple of upset apples.
47:15When you think about it, the gamified process has consequences.
47:19I mentioned earlier Facebook, and that's one of the consequences.
47:22But long before this, you would read these news stories of somebody in some internet cafe
47:27who's playing a video game for hours and hours, like 48 hours, until they died.
47:32They literally were deprived of sleep and played so long that they actually died.
47:36And I can't tell you how many people have counted like this in the news.
47:40It's unbelievable how many people actually die.
47:42But what happens is they get sucked into the game and they get into this loop that they can't
47:47break out of.
47:48Well, think about the way that deliverance ministries, spiritual warfare, all of these
47:53things, think of that loop.
47:54It's all built around, first, the experience.
47:57Once you have the experience, there's an interpretation of what that experience was that is not quite
48:05based on fact, but it's based on what the leader wants you to believe is the interpretation
48:10of that experience.
48:12And so whenever the leader interprets it like this, now you have a testimony and you share
48:18the testimony that goes to the social validation.
48:20All of the people agree.
48:21I had a similar testimony because the leader interpreted my experience much the same way.
48:27And then what that builds up to is an anticipation of a new experience.
48:32And now you've entered the loop.
48:33It just continues to cycle and cycle.
48:36And then whenever somebody outside of your game starts to challenge that loop, well, you're
48:42going to fight them off.
48:42No, I'm playing the game.
48:43Get back.
48:44I don't want you to invade my gaming process.
48:47And sadly, it has led to people dying in internet cafes.
48:51I'm a little concerned at what's happening within Youth With A Mission.
48:55I don't know how far that this has taken.
48:57I'm not saying that they're gamifying on purpose or anything like this, but it matches all of the
49:02similarities that I see in some of the other non-Christian things.
49:06And when you take a step back and realize that these are youth and they're being trained
49:12for a mission that really doesn't seem to have much of a purpose.
49:16When you look at it like that, what else is there other than this is a game?
49:21You're in the game.
49:22How do you get out of the game?
49:24I recently read a book called Auto Immunity and the Good Girls.
49:28And it was based on a study of over a thousand women with an autoimmune disease and looking
49:36at the correlations between trying to be good.
49:39Often it was only or oldest daughters.
49:42And I'm thinking about that with YWAM, where people might not be as dramatic as some of the
49:48gaming situations you're describing, John, where people like fall down dead.
49:52But there is, as you named my own experience, like there is a martyrdom and an effort to
49:59be good and to continue winning the game, the mission, achieving.
50:04And I would love for someday there to be a study of the correlations between people who
50:10have been in YWAM and autoimmune disorders and diseases because I myself know money.
50:16I myself struggle with them and I'd be curious to see the health difficulties that people have
50:24to engage because of part of this gamifying system.
50:29And ultimately, when all of your choices are offloaded to a intangible spiritual realm, whether
50:42that is hearing the voice of God or whether that's I'm being attacked by the devil, when
50:49any circumstance that happens in your life, when any sort of thing that happens to you or
50:54around you is sort of offloaded into that intangible realm, where does accountability lie?
51:03And where does responsibility for your choices, for your actions towards yourself or your family
51:13or the people around you, if you're leading others, where does that lie?
51:18And how do you as a person ever hold that?
51:23Unfortunately, I think the answer is you don't.
51:27And YWAM certainly doesn't hold responsibility for the abuses that have occurred.
51:33And it's because it's able to use plausible deniability because of its decentralization,
51:41but it's able to offload those abuses and those choices by others into an intangible realm.
51:50And until they're able to pull that back down into the tangible and someone is able to take
51:55responsibility and take accountability, unfortunately, I think we're going to keep seeing this happen.
52:01Well, there's actually so much more that I could have talked about.
52:04We didn't even make it to the NPCs.
52:06And for those who don't know, that's a non-playable character.
52:09In every spiritual warfare game, you have the NPCs, right?
52:12The demons.
52:13You have all these things that you can't control.
52:16But in the end, for me, it's a problem in that Christianity is not supposed to be gamified.
52:23It's supposed to be simply Christ came, it is finished.
52:26And if you understand the gospel, that's really all it is.
52:29There's no need for gamification.
52:31There was no training manual on how to fight spiritual demons given to the disciples.
52:36Yes, there was deliverance.
52:38I understand that there was a biblical version of deliverance, but they didn't turn it into
52:42this thing where you have details of spiritual mapping and spiritual realms and territorial
52:48demons, all of this weird stuff that they've invented today.
52:50If you go back to the Hollywood version and the fictional book version, you can actually
52:56identify some of the sourcing.
52:58They were robbing from fiction whenever this weird idea was invented.
53:03But in the end, for me, you can't gamify Christianity.
53:08And so the quest itself, the biggest question that I have that I'll end with is this.
53:12If the quest isn't based on Christianity, what is it actually based on?
53:17And I'll leave that for the audience, and thank you so much for doing this.
53:21Thanks for having us.
53:23Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the
53:26web.
53:26You can find us at william-branham.org.
53:29For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized
53:32Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
53:35Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
54:06Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
54:36Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
54:40Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
54:42Weaponized Religion from Christian Eyewords and Journalists in Christian Evidence.
54:42Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
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