Our Stories: Escape from Golden Dawn - With JoAnn Malena

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Joanne Molina, former member of the Golden Dawn, sect of William Brandham's message cult. Joanne, it's very good to have you on and to talk about Golden Dawn. Interestingly, we're going to have so many people that are curious about this podcast because the news has just literally gone viral. I don't know if you realize and recognize how far and

wide it has spread, but I subscribe to these news alerts and the news obviously is being published there in Arizona with the Arizona Daily Star, but news agencies all across the nation are picking these up and so I'm getting alerts from I think I got five five to ten cities just today of different cities across the nation all the way to the East Coast that are getting these news reports because the as you know the news agencies are exposing not only Golden Dawn but William Brandham's message cult and its entirety and you are in the epicenter of this and I think you might be the first person who has talked

to me after the news expose. So it's very good to have you on here. Thank you for coming. Thank you, John. It's a privilege and honor to be here tonight. Well if you could just start by telling everybody a little bit about yourself and I guess what brought you into the message or were you raised in it and what you know what inspired your family to believe in William Brandham as the prophet and Golden Dawn as the sect. Alright let's start. So like you said my name is Joanne. I am 44 years old. I was born and raised in the message. My

family had come from a big party California. They made the move over here and they were under the ministry of the pastor here locally in Tucson, Arizona where I was born and raised and a lot of my family was involved in this. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins. We came from a big family and the way I was told is that they were informed. Did you know there was a prophet on the land when Brother Brandham was you know doing his ministry. So when my family We only found out that a profit was on the land.

They quickly went under his ministry, and they all made the move to Tucson to get out of California. So I was born and raised here.

Both my parents were part of this, and me and my younger sister were born into it. And from our generation on, we were all born into the cult. So my wife tells me I'm not supposed to ask the age of other women, but you look to be a little bit younger than me by just a little bit, maybe.

And there's a chance that, depending on what time your family moved Arizona, my family also lived in Arizona twice. So I grew up in Arizona churches. We went to two or three of them, and often visited some of the others, some of the Hispanic churches.

And I remember very little about it, other than the music. And there were two songs that still stick in my head. I don't know the entire lyrics, but one of them is, oh, my loving brother, when the world's on fire, and it's talking about basically Doomsday.

It was a Doomsday song. But the other one was, let the Holy Ghost message shine its light on you. And this was so interesting later, because after I left the message, and as you know, we weren't allowed to listen to rock and roll.

One of the things that it took me a long time to be able to do was just listen to normal music. And one day, it might have been a year after leaving the cult.

I got brave and I downloaded a few of the songs, and suddenly I hear that same exact tune, and it was the midnight special song. And so somebody in the message cult had listened to rock and roll, and put message cult lyrics to the rock and roll, and bundled it up and sang it in their church, and nobody knew about it.

But yet, the whole time they're preaching, you can't listen to this rock and roll. I do recall two songs on our church that we sang, and later finding out that they were from the world, and simply put into Christian lyrics, and we sang it up.

I had, we had no idea. Yeah. That does happen. I do have a profound love for music now. Awesome. Thank you. Like you mentioned, I was kept away from music for so long, but I have a deep profound love for music to the point where I make this.

Oh, yeah. A music note and a heart. Yeah, for those. And it's how much I enjoy music. For those listening and not watching, she's showing a music note tattoo, which is, that's awesome. I've thought about doing that myself.

I also, as you, if you can't tell from my background and all of the instruments behind me, I'm really big in the music, and I tell people that growing up, it was kind of like I was in this world.

If you can imagine a painter who's an artist, and he's. old that he's able to use his gift as an artist, but he can only use the color green. That's kind of what it was like with the music.

We could only listen to not even all of gospel music we could listen to. It had to be this little sub-sector of the music and it was, I mean, it was disturbing when you really come down and think about it.

And after I left, people asked me what's my favorite genre of music after leaving. I don't have one. My playlist has everything from classical with Mozart to, I've got Rolling Stones, I love the pain at Black Song and there's just so many good songs that I never heard before and they're all new to me.

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of the, as a woman in the message and the stuff that I was in, we were, our talking was very limited. We were very limited on what we can say, what we can feel, our thoughts, our emotions.

And leaving when I heard music, really heard it for the first time, experienced it. Like you said, all different varieties of music. I found I could identify with so many lyrics, so much music.

Sometimes it doesn't even take words, it just takes music to express how I feel. I really enjoy music. Yeah, I feel the same. So your family moved from California and you came to, you eventually landed at Golden Taunt Don Tabernacle.

Did your family start there or did they start at a different sect in the, in the message? No, my family started there. It started off at Tabernacle Emanuel's, what it was called when it first started.

And then like I said, so it was our parents who came from the world, correct? So they were saved by grace, they were brought into this message. From that generation, let's say my mother and father, now all of us children were born, now we're born into the message.

So actually what happened is the second church was created basically for us. In my age group, there was about 14, if I remember, of us born that year. And we were basically the first generation untouched by the world because we were born into the message.

The second church we moved into was actually basically built and created for us. We are now, when I left, we were in the third building, which is our children's children, because now they are so much more, if I could say pure, to where they no longer go to public school.

They have no association with the outside world at all. They are completely isolated. And that is the generation that took over. So it came from our parents out in the world to convert it to this message, to us being born this first generation.

And then our children, and from then on, this pure elite line of children that are being raised. But no, like I said, no technology, no knowledge of the outside world. Um, schooling is done from kindergarten to 12th grade.

There year round in the school. There's no concept of life. Unbelievable. I was having a conversation with, uh, I think it was channel Ross recently. And we were talking about legalism, which is the framework that all of this is built upon all of the rules as it's called legalism and I said legalism.

It's a lot like Pinocchio's nose. It's this lie that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and growing. And what it grows into in destructive cult like this is it grows into the isolation, which is really weird if you think about it because they create all the rules.

And then the members, some of the members aren't abiding by the rules. So they try to gate, keep that and they try to enforce the rules. And there comes a point when the only way that they can enforce it is to isolate them from the outside influences.

And they did that to some extent here in Jeffersonville. My wife is has a master's degree in special education and she has taught in public schools. I had no problem with public schools. I grew up, you know, I was in a public school when I grew up.

When we moved back to Jeffersonville, I guess it was the third or fourth time. I can't even, I lost count how many times I moved around. When we moved back to last time, homeschooling was this big thing.

And I really wasn't in favor of it. But when I married my wife, she, she lived here. And so she was part of, part of that mindset. So I let her homeschool my children.

But my, my ground rule was this, they have to be taught how to live and survive in this world. That was my, really, my only rule. You can teach them whatever you want, but it has to be applicable whenever they go to get a job.

They have to be able to use this. So she taught them a really good education. My children are incredibly smart. But there came a point at which the local community of message believers tried to govern the homeschooling.

And so they, they created this like homeschool union and everybody's getting involved. And my wife is a real registered teacher. I mean, she's got a license and everything. She's there and it starts leaning heavily on the religion instead of the education.

So all of these kids are getting there and they're basically having church over and over and over again every day. And, and the weird thing is the church isn't even church about Jesus. They're talking about the prophet and they're singing songs about the prophet.

And there came a point, my wife, you'd have to know her to know how funny this is. She's this timid, happy, genuinely sincere person. And she would, she'll avoid conflict at all cost. She got explosively upset that they were ruining the children's education because that was her passion, right? And that was the point. I went to one final home school, it was a home school graduation ceremony. And they were, it was, know as a Christmas program, went to a home school Christmas program. And I'm expecting, because I was in public school, I'm expecting to go and hear maybe not about Santa Claus because the cult

against that. But at minimum, things about Jesus, maybe some plays about the manger and the, like the Charlie Brown Christmas kind of thing, you know, what we get there and all the kids are gathered around this big fire set and they're opening up this presence. And oh, I got a tape of the prophet. I am so blessed. And they went around the entire program was about William Brannum, not about Jesus. And it's like, what kind of Christmas is this? And that was the moment we pulled our children out. Wow. All I could say is indoctrination. They start the very young,

for sure. You mentioned some of this stuff as in your wife worked that she had an education. You're mentioning the word Christmas and gift. And that's all new to me because in my sect of the message, that is forbidden. Women working is forbidden. Education is not highly looked upon at all. Christmas is never celebrated ever, ever. It's a bad word. Yeah.

In our sect. So just even hearing you say those words and realizing that you were in the message, that even just blows my mind because we were so isolated. That's just, it's just almost crazy.

Like, I didn't know you were in the message and could do that or you certain areas and people pastors allowed this stuff. That's how shocked it's still, it still shocks me to hear.

See, that's the funny part. There was, and it's this way with any stage act. When you have a stage act, you have a man who is acting on stage. So when William Brannum did his stage act, he talked about all of these things that he abhorred. Christmas being one of them. How awful it was to have Christmas. Well, see, my family grew up with the Brannum family. My dad and my aunts and my father and my uncle were very close friends with Joseph Brannum, Billy Paul Brannum, and the Brannum girls. And so they were in the house all the time together. And William Brannum

celebrated Christmas. William Brannum had a Christmas tree. So my family, we celebrated Christmas because that's the way the quote unquote prophet did. However, from behind the pulpit, my grandfather would... preach heavily against Christmas.

So everybody in this area, when I move back here, I kid you not, the people here, there were a lot of people that didn't celebrate Christmas. And I'm like, what are you guys doing?

What is wrong with you? And when I married my wife, she, her family exchanged gifts for the kids, but they were kind of against Christmas too. And I was like, no, no, no, no.

And so I'm even pulling up, I recall all the recordings, right? So I'm pulling up these recordings of Brannum, where he is opening his Christmas gifts there in the church, right? And he's talking, and saying Merry Christmas, and he even talks about having his Christmas tree for the kids.

And I was like, no, you guys can't do this. But again, it's that legalism. And what happens is the isolationist sects like you were in, they listen to the recordings, and they say that's the spoken word.

That's our new Bible. And he said, don't do it. And they have no idea that he did. Right. So I think the message is really appropriately named. It is a mess of this age.

It's appropriately named. That was my take from it. After 43 years of it being born and raised in it, my take away from all of this is like, it was one big mess. When they say the message, they're really, there's the word right in it.

It's a mess. You have William Brownum saying, don't do this. Heathens only do this. But then you have him literally doing it. I would sneak messages where I would read him, greeting the whole church, welcoming everyone to Christmas, Mother's Day, and realizing how come we don't do it if he does it?

So then I started noticing when I left, different churches taking, everything Brother Brownum said, as much as you can get away with, right, the one necklace from the husband, the trimming of the hair, the celebrating Christmas, you have these messages that pastors in the message that take that, almost everything good that creates a modern day, you know, comfortable message.

And then you have other pastors and other churches that takes all the legal part of it, that but you shouldn't, it came from the heathens, we shouldn't celebrate, Christ wasn't born in December. And then you have these complete opposite opinions of one line that William Brownum said, it turns into a mess.

And I just can't swim through that mess, I guess. Yeah. I sat there for so long and listened to every harsh thing he said, every negative thing he said, I've gone to other churches and sat there and listened to all the good, sweet, nice things he said, there's no middle ground.

It's just one huge mess. Yeah. I do notice the... People, you know, they're happier in the modern take of his message. They're definitely a lot happier than we were, but it's still a mess.

You take one line. He said you can go north or south, east or west with it. That was my whole takeaway from it. You know, I have, I have family members who have mental health issues.

And if you've ever been around somebody who is in an episode, you can really recognize it. And this is, this has been a part of my life for a long time. My, I have family very close to my grandfather who led the tabernacle, who really severely struggled.

They were, they were very, very messed up. I'll just say it like that. And you can, you can recognize the episodes. William Brannem himself said that he had mental health issues. He called himself a neurotic, but he tried to frame it such that all the great men of God were neurotics, you know, because he's got it.

So they have to have it too. Well, what's weird about it is his sermons that have the part when he gets into the rules, if you go back and you study what he's saying, you get all the rules.

If you go back and listen, you hear that almost every time he's talking about all of these weird rules, they're all rants. And they sound like a person who's in a mental health episode, just ranting and ranting and ranting.

Don't do this. And he rants everything from women having washing machines to men wearing blue suede shoes. I mean, it's weird, but the men who are leading this message, they pour through all of these things to find new rules and new ways in which they can make themselves, quote, unquote, more holy.

From my family, we moved around town to town. We, I went to something like 13 different schools growing up. I was crazy. When we would move away from Jeffersonville and move back, there was a period of time that had elapsed and I could visually see the changes in the church towards more legalism.

And especially if you go back and look at the photos, the, the women in the 1960s and in the Brannum Tabernacle, including Brannum's own daughters, they had skirts that were up to the knees.

And you show the city behind there like no way because the women have to have these long dresses, but over time, they get longer and longer and longer. Well, I remember the one of the times I was growing up in the Brannum Tabernacle, the skirts were up to about the calf of the leg, right?

Then we moved away and we come back and it is almost down to the floor. You can't show your ankles. And I also mentioned this on that legalism episode I recorded recently. There was a lady who got up to sing a special.

My grandfather watched her walk up. Well, when she turned around and walked away, her dress was like this. It was really, really long, but it kind of curved in. And she had a slit that went up just as high as all of the other ladies skirts.

But that little slit wasn't allowed, even though it was the same length, if you think of the slit. So the whole time she's walking away from the platform after singing, my grandfather is just railing her.

Man, she's nailing her to the cross about the slit till she starts crying her way out. And she, instead of going to her seat, she walked out the door. I don't think she returned to church.

I don't remember it if she did, but that's how this legalism grows. It just continues. Oh, it gets worse and worse. I agree with you on that definitely 100%. So a little bit of background in history being that you brought that up is.

So I was born and raised in the message for 42 years. I got married at the age of 21. So I was married for 21 years. I had four children, a very toxic marriage, not healthy at all.

And add that into the isolated community and cult environment we were in, completely isolated. It just led to very terrible situations on top of that. We had not only were we subject to the ministry now, our children, that perfect, perfect generation, that doesn't even touch public school, technology, anything of the outside world.

It has no knowledge of the outside world. Now we have our children being raised, watching our children being taken over, basically, by the so called ministry.

That all led up to me leaving, ultimately making the decision to leave. A lot of things that I should have noticed and should have were red flags to other people. I spoke into a couple of people who saw red flags because they were around other churches, around other people.

They had a little bit of technology. They were googling things, looking things up, researching things. All of that was not prohibited. We were not allowed technology. Wifi, not allowed whatsoever. To the point where people were just snitching each other out.

They were just, that was the main goal. If you were caught looking at your phone too long, you were turned in. If people could take pictures of you on their phone, you were turned in.

If they passed by, you're driving, holding a flat smartphone to your ear, they would turn you in. It was just, everybody was just tattletelling on everybody for the use of technology. So, I never had that ability to type in what did William Brown say here, compare life stories.

I never even knew there was more life story than the one. that we heard there at our church never realized that what we had were libraries of tapes literally most people had built homemade libraries in their homes had some sort of a cassette furniture that held cassette tapes they would order them we had thousands of tapes we had thousands of books we had to buy bookshelves I bought personally I bought four bookshelves personally to contain all the messages that and we had a Bible the King James Version Bible that's all we had I'm talking about to this day that is all that most people there have

there's no looking up there's no researching there's no questioning anything as you probably know you just you don't question first of all and there's no finding out for yourself I never ever dreamed this would open up to what it's opened up now that I have left I never dreamed I didn't know it was possible I didn't know you could compare notes you can see things anyways watching my children being basically handled by the ministry in any way shape or form in any situation whether it be medical their schooling um physical spiritual needs any needs were to be handled by the

ministry it really it really put me through something I had never struggled with mental health before I was sad I was depressed I was not happy but I had a nervous breakdown in the year 2023 the February of 2023 I don't remember a lot of it it's amazing how your mind when you go through a trauma your mind can block something out it's it's was quite an experience for me but one thing that I did notice is because I was studying so much scripture looking through so many brother brand of messages trying to put stuff together in my mind that was not making sense I noticed that

minor was breakdown it actually took me into if I could almost call it a spiritual realm of maybe maybe babbling not making sense in my head trying remembering all these scriptures and quotes that were popping up once I take a step back and look at what I went through and then I hear brother Brown's message other ministers message I definitely see a pattern there I definitely see a pattern there I know people wouldn't want to admit it they don't want to acknowledge it at all I know mental health especially certain churches is just completely frowned upon you don't have

mental issues you're crazy and if you are mentally ill just pray about it it'll all fix itself well my experience and what I was going through um actually broke my mind if I could say So I was actually hospitalized with a nervous breakdown.

I was in a 72 hour hold and taken care of by a psychiatrist. I do remember being tranquilized. I still don't have feeling in my arm where they tranquilize me and the shot hit a muscle so it numbed, it numbed the portion.

I don't really remember when I went through. When I read the paperwork from my release, I'm a little bit shocked. I'm not a little bit, I'm a lot shocked. I just disassociate with myself.

I don't know who that person was. As I started coming out of it, right, just being taken care of, being watched, I forget what they call the person that has to sit with you 24 hours, the person watching me.

I was released from the hospital, but I did have a diagnosis of PTSD, severe anxiety, severe depression. The psychiatrist sat down with me and said, you had an episode, we call a psychotic episode.

You're coming out of it, you're going to get better. But you need to think about the environment and the situation that you're in. Some nervous breakdowns can be caused by the environment you're in.

There was no way for me to avoid the environment I was in, especially as a woman. There was nothing I can do to help that I could have helped myself. It brought me to this to actually having to be admitted into the mental hospital.

I'm not ashamed of it, to be honest. I look back now, I see a lot of my family members, a lot of people, a lot of ladies are at the church and I know I wonder if that also happened to them if they also went through it and were just made to kept silent.

At that point, when I realized the situation that I was in was affecting my mental health, I made the decision to leave the church. You can ask me to describe depression, you can ask me to describe anxiety, you can ask me, describe what PTSD is.

There's no way to describe it at all. I have no words for it. It's overwhelming. I can verify that it's overwhelming. It hits at the most oblivious times. It comes out of nowhere. It's something deep inside you.

When I'm really working very hard in therapy, I had to have a therapist. I immediately started therapy upon release from the hospital and I'm working really hard with that. It's something terrible that I feel was caused because of the situation I was in.

Yeah, it makes me angry and makes me very angry and very sad. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. There are multiple firsts for you on this podcast. You're the first person who's talked about the mental health, who has gone through it. But in the support

groups and the people that I've worked with and private, I can't, I've actually lost count of the number of people who've gone through similar. A lot of people, whenever they're getting ready to make the change and shift outside of the cult, they have built up this cult identity that literally in their brain has to die. And when that happens, it is a pure mess. And everything that you just described, a person will go through variations or combinations of all of that. Myself included, as I was going through this, I had severe depression. And in fact,

it's kind of funny that you mentioned it because the reporters who were talking to the, for the golden dawn people that were here, the argument that the cult had against all of this factual research that is undeniable proof that I have, their argument is that John was going through, I was having a depression episode before I left. And I said, John had mental health issues.

Well, no, man, everybody, everybody is subject to having this. If you're a human, you have a chance of having it by being simply human. And in the world, it's kind of taboo anyway. Like, you can't just open up and talk about this because not everybody has had proper mental health education to even understand what it is. But in the churches, especially in the Brannum churches, they considered it to be this demon. And I remember, as I was going through it, this was shortly before we left in 2012, I sat down to launch with a minister. And

I knew what depression was because I had taken signs ants classes in school and I knew, I kind of knew what it was. I didn't know everything was happening to me, but I knew that. And I was explaining to him, I was going through this and I just needed somebody to talk to. I didn't have a therapist because therapists were frowned upon in the call. So I'm talking to this minister and he says, John, I know this thing is really hard for you, but don't you dare take the medicine if they offer it to you because I have watched time and again, people in this message who take that

medicine and they leave the message, John, that message, that medicine has a demon on it. And I'm sitting here like I knew how the medicine works, right? I don't, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but I know a minimum how the medicine works. And I'm like, are you nuts, man? I just looked at him and I said, okay, well, that's interesting. I walked off. But it was like you said, you can't describe it. For me, the only way that I've been able to somewhat describe it is whenever the depression hits, it's not sad. Like everybody

thinks sad when you think depressed. It's like for me, all of the emotions, all at once until it's overwhelming. Yeah, it's overwhelming. And the funny part about this is, I think I have mentioned this on the podcast. I left the cult. This was a T totaling no alcohol cult. And approximately, I want to say it was 2013, I think. I had a client that sent me down to Atlanta, Georgia for this big convention for my business. And they had this, it was in this fancy Regency Hyatt. And they brought you alcohol to the table where you

asked whether you asked for it or not, right? So I've got this cup of wine right here. And everybody's drinking and people ask me, why aren't you drinking? And it was the first time in my life I could not say I'm not drinking for religious reasons because I didn't believe that anymore. And I thought, you know, I'll just, maybe I'll just take a sip and see what it tastes like. To that point in my life, the depression felt like needles going in and out of my head at all times. It was a constant headache that never left. And I drank just

a little bit of the top of the cup of wine. And go back to the hotel room at night. And suddenly this pain leaves. And I'm like, that can't be. Is it? No, that can't be, right?

So the whole next day, I'm not listening to a thing that's being said in this convention, I might have well not even gone. Because I'm thinking about whenever it comes to dinner time, I'm going to try a little bit more of that and see if it goes away. And it did.

It did. The pain left. What it did, it cut the anxiety. The depression was linked to the anxiety. And it can go the opposite way, right? If you to much. You can have a lot of anxiety. So I get home and I tell my life, this thing happened to me. You won't believe it. And I said, I'm going to try just like one cup a week. You will not.

She said she was she was still that mindset. But I kind of pushed my way through it. And long story short, I had to I had to be on depression meds for a brief period of time. And I have not had to since I want to say it was March of 2013 was the last time I ever had it. And all I do, if I feel it coming on, I just drink a little sip of wine. I do the same. I was given the choice that I want therapy and did I want pills. Well, I was still going to church at the time of my nervous

breakdown. So the pastor he kindly offered his counseling instead of medical, you know, medical counseling. And definitely don't take the pills, right? Don't take any kind of pills. Well, I went back to my psychiatrist and doctor and told her and she was like, no, you need therapy away from the pastor, away from the church. And you need the medication. She was like explaining to me about mental health, all I know mental health, crazy. That's all that was the furthest my knowledge went. He had mental health issues. You were crazy. And you had a demon. That's how it

was at our church. And it was not acknowledged in any way, shape or form at all. It was just this false demon that gets on you and causes us depression and stuff. And so I did I went into therapy and I started two medications. One for anxiety. I had it very bad. One for depression.

Mostly because I had to leave my children behind, right? Because I'm stepping into this unknown world with no education, no training, no work history, no anything. And I couldn't bring my children with me. And I think that was a big part of it. I took the medication and interested in sit right with me. I lost all connection, all feeling for anything. I didn't feel happy, sad, glad, mad. And I wanted to fill. And so I also stopped my medication, continued with the therapy. And it's been going good. I'm realizing my depression where it comes from, where it

started. I'm focusing on how to deal with it. My anxiety also, how to deal with it, finding ways. And I'm pretty happy that I have come this far in such a short amount of time.

Now I left in March of 2023. So this is very recent for me. Wow. Everything is very new and very recent. But I did have a great support group out here of people that had left Golden Dawn, that I was acquainted with when I was a young girl. Some family members stepped up out here.

also helped me. I think I had a good experience. A very good experience. I was lucky. I had a very good experience. It's just terrible when I think about it. The way a cult makes you feel the security in it. That's what tricked me out big time. See, we would go to church and then they would close and lock the church doors and then they would go outside and close and lock these huge rolling rot iron gates. Amazing how comfortable you feel in your seat thinking now you're safe. You're in these four walls. The doors are locked and not only are the church doors locked, but those gates

are completely surrounding the church slash compound. Instead of that being a red flag, we're so used to it. It's like breathing. That's what feels safe to us. So being out here in the unknown and my first time at a church, I just pull up and walk in and there's no gates and no one's telling me that's where you have to sit and you can't move and don't go to the bathroom and God forbid you sneeze or cough too loud and at that, it was just so mind blowing for me.

I've gone through so many emotions. Yeah. So many emotions since leaving. It's been a roller coaster. It has been a roller coaster, but I mean, are roller coasters scary? Yeah. Can they be terrifying? Yes, can they be dangerous? Yes. But ultimately they're fun. Absolutely. You gotta admit it.

People get on them all nervous and anxious and but they want to get on that ride. They want to scare themselves. So I jumped on that roller coaster and I'm still riding it. What is going to shock people the most and even will shock probably you is. So I left this message and I suffered so much from the anxiety and the depression. Just I was in therapy on a weekly basis, weekly.

I saw my therapist weekly. She tried, she tries and tried and she's done an amazing job, but she didn't come from a cult. You know, she did as much research and she walked me through each step of a cult of legalism, of domination, of male domination, really broke it down to me. But when I left, I realized I knew for a long time things were not right at the church, the ministry between the pastor, assistant pastor, the deacons. It wasn't right. So when I pulled away, I knew that wasn't right. I recognized that. But the respect that I had for William

Branham and believing he was a prophet, that filled my mind, my heart, and my soul. I would have never spoke bad about him against him or questions. to him or even looked into him, there was no need for me to. I was taught, raised, and I believed that his word was the say of the Lord. So the guilt that I had knowing that Brother Brandon came, pulled my parents out, allowed me to be born, and then have these even more perfect generation of children, my children, that I would basically turn my back on the token, right? And I would choose and fight like he says in his quotes, fight

my way to help. The guilt was overwhelming. I hid from a lot of people, hid from the surrounding area here, grocery shopped on Sundays and Wednesdays when I knew everyone would be at church so they wouldn't see me because the guilt that I carried was, here was this perfect message with the token, the ticket straight to heaven, and for some reason I couldn't do it. I couldn't be perfect. I couldn't measure up to that perfect standard of a perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect daughter, perfect sister, perfect cousin, perfect church member. I couldn't do it for some reason. I failed. And the guilt that I carried

was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. I never spoke bad about William Brandon. I was very opinionated about the pastor in Golden Dawn, specifically the school there inside Golden Dawn. But Brother Brandon, you couldn't get me to say it was a cult. He was false. Anything negative against him at all because I didn't know better. I never knew. So I was out here and I heard that Billy Paul passed away. I looked it up on Google and it said that he passed away and I couldn't comprehend how he could pass away. And Brother Brandon's prophecy did not come true. California was not sunk and I was massively confused, just very confused

during that time. How could Billy Paul pass away? California never sunk. The sharks never swam. That threw me for a big loop. So one day I was looking at a website and someone left a comment on this website. And the comment on the website said, instead of you people fighting, I'm in a paraphrase, I'll have to go back and find that comment because it changed my life. Something like instead of paraphrasing on, to paraphrase it, excuse me, instead of being on the internet, posting things or looking at things, something like you should research William Brandon himself. That way you can see for yourself he's a false

profit. In fact, here's a link to John Collins podcast or some sort that'll take you right there. And I read that comment, and in my little brain, I thought what I was told growing up, some people say Brother Ram was a false prophet because he was hunting during a period where hunting was prohibited.

Some say he's a false prophet because of the cloud in the sky. They want to say something created it that was not the Lord Jesus Christ. I had heard that from the pulpit, just very, very few things on William Brandon being a false prophet.

Mostly, the people that are saying William Brandon was a false prophet have a spirit from the pits of hell, right? So I was scared already to touch on that subject. Those were the only things I heard.

So out of curiosity, I hit the link that sent me to you. And I thought I was going to be able to debunk it, being that basically, technically, I know the message in and out.

I know most of the quotes. I know the scriptures in the Bible. I really thought I was going to debunk it. I was curious to see who you were, what you had to say, and what did this have to do with William Brandon being a false prophet.

So I hit the link, and I listened to that first podcast you had. I listened to more podcasts where I'm just amazed that you took the time and effort to put everything together for us, so that people like me that don't have, especially when it comes to technology, I don't have any education in that.

I don't even know where to begin how to look things up. You put it all together, simplified it, verified it, backed it up with your proof. When I started watching and hearing your podcast, which led me to his name, Burgess.

Rod Burgess. Rod Burgess led me to him, then led me to the podcast with you in Charles Paisley. It's all laid out in front of me, and it hit me like a flood. There's no way I can deny that.

You cannot deny black and white. You can't. What you have in show is all verified. It's all researched. It's history. I can look it up as easily as you pulled it up. I could go and find it for myself.

It was overwhelming. I was like, oh my goodness, I looked up the word cult. I had never even looked up the word cult because I just, I knew it was a bad church, but the word cult, no, I had, I stayed clear of that.

Looked up the word cult and realized, oh my goodness. I cannot believe people were fooled and indoctrinated and brainwashed to the point where, to the point where... We spent our whole lives our whole lives in this

It the truth doesn't The truth doesn't lie Right the truth shall set you free. We've heard that so why we're in we told go research this for yourself Those of you in the congregation that are questioning have questions have doubts go look into the history of William Brown I'm right started the beginning compare his summons compare what he says We were never told that And if we were told we wouldn't even know how I wouldn't know how to do that

So I just recently accepted the truth for what it is It still makes me nervous because of all the punishment that we've been told our entire lives Speak one word against the Holy Ghost you'll never be forgiven in the world to come That it's the ultimate sin blaspheming I've gone through all those emotions, but Here I am today to say we were in a cult Our parents chose this my parents chose this it was their choice It's amazing to see how from that generation that sold lock stock in barrel for William Brown's ministry How it went down to me and then down to my children

Completely indoctrinating them completely filling their minds their hearts their souls every day Like you said school is not really school. It's just church Monday through Friday church on Wednesday church on Sundays It's it's brainwashing and control like unbelievable Yeah, I know in history in school we studied the holocaust the Jews Hitler Mussolini as a young girl in eighth grade That's as far as my education went was to eighth grade in public school We studied that and I was always like is this really real?

How could people do this to other people? How could one race feel their superior? How could one man control have this much control? So I always question the holocaust like did it even really happen because how is that possible it didn't happen, you know back in the

800 BC or something it was modern day But now that I'm out of this cult and I look I can understand now It's very if I can almost like in it without offending anybody like in it that we thought we were superior We thought we were the only church Then to come and find out their churches all over the world with each church thinking that they were the one We were literally told we were the only word church and I believed it I've been told my therapist work the only word church where the only ones that strict in that ex communicate,

I had no clue. No clue now that I'm out here and met a bunch of people, they all walked the same road. It's creepy is what it is. Now I can understand how the holocaust happened.

How this man made this race feel superior to where it led to the murder of all these Jews, innocent Jews. The whole time I was in there walking with my nose up in the air, thinking, you know, everyone else was cannon fodder and don't touch them and don't be around them because they're all just bound for hell.

But we were the ones going up to heaven. It's on the same lines of what happened with Hitler and the Jews, to be honest. There's so many comparisons because like the people who were in the prison of war camps during the war, they come back and they tell about their experience.

But the people who have never experienced it, they can never fathom how bad it actually was. And whenever you think back of what you were in, what I was in, we can't explain it to somebody who's never been in it.

Like even the therapist, we can't explain, we can't put into words how bad it was. And yet at the same time, it's weird because we had convinced ourselves and been trained and manipulated to believe that this bad thing, that is horrifically bad thing, was good and blessed and were happy and free and all of this stuff, right?

It's just, it's unbelievable. But you have, through the course of this, you have brought back so many memories of my first year to two years of leaving. It's a lot of emotions that I didn't expect I was going to get in talking to you.

It's kind of odd because I went through so many of the same things. A lot of people don't know this. My website, originally with SeakyTheTruth.com and the intent was not to prove that William Brannum was a false prophet.

It was to prove that he was a real prophet because I had a few questions I discovered. Some things had gone wrong. I could recognize that at least one prophecy had failed. It was clear and I didn't discover this because of all of these search engines and the technology.

I like you had all of the thousands of tapes. And so I literally, I listened to these tapes over and over and over again. And so I was trying to prove it correct and what happened was I ended up one way or another.

I discovered that this was, there were some questions that could not be answered. I approached my grandfather and the whole cult just pounced on me and said, John Collins has gone rogue. So it was at that point, I recognized.

eyes that something's not right, but I still could not use the word cult. And even on the first news interview that I had, which was, I think it's 2013, my only one stipulation was that I will do this, but you cannot use the word cult in the entire interview.

But anyway, thank you for doing this so much. And especially thank you for talking through the mental health issues, because you're not alone. So many people who have gone through this, in fact, Dr. Stephen Hassan mentions, I think he even gave a TED talk on this.

There are people who are actually falsely diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, but instead they have been in a cult and the cult has severely messed up their psyche, their head. And so they get put on these medications for bipolar, and it isn't working, the doctors don't know why, well, they need to go a little bit deeper because the cult has such a huge impact.

And it's a science that needs to be studied and people who have been in this and people who are escaping, they really need to be aware that this is a possibility. You probably are going to need some kind of therapy.

You might need some kind of medicine, and it isn't something to be afraid of. It's something that can really, really help you. So thank you for coming on today. You're welcome, Don. It was a privilege to be on here.

I decided to do this big step because of you that made it possible. You put your name and face out there, and God only knows what you're going through. God only knows what I'm going to go through also for taking that leap and calling out William Brown's ministry for what it is, which is a cult.

The destruction that it did to us, our minds, our hearts, our spirits and our souls, it's the damage is great. I want to let people out there know that you are not alone. The feelings that you're going to go through, the depression, the anxiety, the PTSD that we got from this cult, from living, being raised in it, you're not alone at all.

You have so much support out here. There are doctors, there are therapists, might therapists who never experience the cult background. She was willing to put herself through it to work with me. Being people, don't be afraid of the medications.

It got me through a really, really rough time. The feelings that it's normal for us to go through, the guilt, the disappointment, the losing so much, so we lost so much in such a short period of time.

The decision being made, not going to church, right there, that cuts everything off. We can put you in a very lonely spot, but there's a lot of support, we're definitely here for you. Awesome.

Well, if you've been... Enjoy our show, and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Soon, Audible.