Miracles or Cheap Magic: Examining Words of Knowledge

Hello and welcome to another episode. Of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast, I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org. General, it's good to be back and to talk all things Hobart Freeman and today we're getting a little bit closer to things that are even beyond Hobart Freeman talking about what in the NAR today they call it the word of knowledge and in Brannumism he called it discernment, literally confusing the masses of what actual scriptural discernment actually meant.

But discernment in Brannum's mind was being able to detect the diseases and he would call out the names and addresses and people have sent me these videos of these NAR guys today and they get up and it's it's almost like a gimmick at this point they get up and they say I can guess your address just let me think a bit and then he spits out an address and and they go whoa the spirits in them and all this kind of stuff it's really really weird.

But all of that in Brannumism and Hobart Freemanism was tied to the healing you go to the prayer line and if he could guess your diseases oh my gosh God's talking to him so I'm healed and people would walk away thinking they're healed and as you and I know that wasn't always the case.

That's true John and we're kind of going back to our interview we did two weeks ago because at the very end of that I had you play a clip from the last message that Dr. Freeman did in his exhortations from Exodus and it was entitled The Night of the Lord.

It was the last one he did in that series and people can go online or go back to our interview two weeks ago and find what he actually said but after the message there was this experience of what he often called ministering by the spirit and there is just so much lore and legend that surrounded Dr. Freeman's ministry I think it's surrounded all of these guys ministry.

I have mentioned before you guys have covered in much detail this particular picture in the bottom left corner here. of the halo over William Brannum and the interesting story in my life about this and it's connected to what we're going to talk about today and here is the, I mean, it's an angelic halo over the head of the prophet, but you know, what's so interesting about this, John, is I was a freshman in college. It was my second semester at the University of Mississippi and I had spare time and I spent a lot of time because I was interested because Hobart

had referenced all of these men just tracking down voice of healing, spoken word publications, Miracle Valley, Arizona, Jack Co, John Alexander Dowley, anything I could find and I was shocked that this book was actually written right around that time. This was in 1978 when I was in college and Dr. David Edwin Herell, who was a professor of history at one state over at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, not in Tuscaloosa, had written this and so I thought this got to be a scholarly presentation of the whole healing movement and it's not. I mean, it's just using their own press releases, their own photographs,

their own stuff. It's not any kind of critique of the movement at all, but I remember that was the first time I had seen this picture and you know, I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't have any idea what to do with that, but I had learned of the prophetic nature of William Brownham's ministry through Hobart Freeman. I never would have heard the name William Brownham apart from Hobart Freeman, constantly referencing him. And then when you get this book and you see, oh, this is written by a professor of history at the

University of Alabama. I mean, it just lends believability to it and then you see the halo over his head and there's no deconstruction of that in the book at all. It's just left, you know, like, oh, well, maybe that is true. I can't honestly remember when I was 18 years old what I thought about the halo, but my guess is that I probably believe that it was a halo, but here's the thing. And here is the conflicting problem with all of this lore and legend, even though I probably believed that, well, Hobart said he was God's prophet and I believed

everything Hobart said. So if he said it, then I guess it's true. So I guess that is some kind of divine something over William Brownham's head, even though that's probably what I believe, I didn't believe William Brownham though, because I had heard some of his messages and read some of this stuff and I thought he's teaching some false stuff. So there you have to go through your life.

the early years of the late years of my teenage experience, holding this dichotomy, trying to balance it. Like, I don't think this guy is a true minister, but God's approving him with the halo over his head.

And so I think one of the ways to deconstruct these ministries and movements is to de-mythologize them by explaining here exactly what has happened. So I don't want to leave anyone hanging thinking that I still believe that's a divine halo because we know that it's not.

I'm going to use that word in the future, demitholicize. Essentially that's what I'm doing on all of this, man, but you're right that halo photograph has gone far and wide and one of the things you have to do when attempting to demitholicize is try to understand the minds of the people who were there, who said nothing.

That's really the biggest problem. We have, if you go to my website, I think you can type in, it's called Houston Photograph because that photograph was taken in the Houston Coliseum during a debate.

We have photographs of the beetles with the same halo basketball players, all kinds of people because the building had stage lighting, whether people want to admit it or not. And there is an effect, it's called halation, whenever you were taking black and white photographs, if there was a bright light behind it, as you're taking the photograph, you don't notice the effect that it's making in that camera's lens.

But in those old black and white cameras, it created an effect that's called halation that looks, they named it aptly because it creates what looks like a halo when you take the photograph. I have, even on the website, I've got a written statement by the man who had the camera who was taking the picture at the time.

He said, at the time, he said, he saw absolutely nothing unusual. And when he was developing, when they, it was a team of people, when they were developing the photographs, the photograph came out like that and he thought maybe his camera might have been faulty because he never saw any light.

And what's interesting is, people don't really stop and critically think about the photograph and especially back then. In today's world, maybe a little bit more, in the versions of the photograph that exist today, it is only jet black with William Brannum and the halo and that's all you see.

But if you look at the actual original photograph, you see men in the background, none of them looking and going, oh my gosh, there is a bright light above his head. They're just sitting there, just casually, right?

But the cult has taken all of the people, they've even colorized it now and made like a color photograph, but it's all comes down to critical thinking, but more than... that every single person who is in that auditorium whenever this happened and saw nothing whenever the claims started to be made by these guys look this guy had they called it the pillar of fire this guy had the pillar of fire above his head as he was arguing and defending the faith well where are all the people that stood up and said no man I was there and this was not there

yeah so we need to deconstruct de-mythologize I would say probably John that I um I didn't know until recently from from your historical research I didn't know recently that there was a logical explanation but it never bothered me over my whole life I just thought we and Brandon the false prophets so I don't know what's going on above his head but I don't care where other people are so moved by that you know I think we should be moved more by the explicit clear teaching of scripture which we all have access to you know we all have access to the

same Bible and that's what we need to judge things by so I didn't know that there was a logical rational explanation until until I met you so I here I've gone through my whole life but it never bothered me I never used it as proof of anything what I used as proof was what came out of William Brown's mouth and I didn't I didn't think it made any sense so anyway going back to Dr. Freeman in this the night of the Lord experience where he ends up teaching the message and then begins to have these um what he would call word of knowledge

I think we need to de-mythologize that and is it possible sometime some of these ministers had a true word and people were healed absolutely I've often argued I think they were healed not because of but in spite of the minister because God is a loving and kind and gracious and merciful God and he's got some of his people there who are clueless as to what's going on in that minister's life or in that ministry but they truly love the Lord and they truly have a physical need and they truly do need healing from him but if the minister is ever the one through whom it comes

watch out because they will bankroll themselves on that and capitalize on that so the first point talking about critical thinking of critical thinking that I think we should apply to something like what's going on in this message of Hobart Freeman is this sheer size of the audience you have two thousand people plus men, women, boys, girls you have a very large audience there and I think if you look back into the older healing crusades of the 1940s and the 1950s and the early 1960s you had thousands if not sometimes times tens of thousands of people there.

And so when we go to the Bible, which is what we should always try to compare, not only our doctrine with, but people's experiences with as well. We have objective truth, then we all have subjective things in our life, you know.

But we should all still be able to go back to the Bible and study it out. So when we go to the Bible and the gospels in the book of Acts, well, we see large crowds, for sure.

We see hundreds, if not thousands of people following Jesus or following the early church. The last few verses of Matthew 4, the geography of those verses is amazing where it describes the fame of Jesus that spread throughout Syria, all around Galilee, Syria's way north east of the Promised Land, all through Galilee, all through the decapolis.

This is the transjordan area, down through Samaria, down through Judea, into Jerusalem. He had hundreds and hundreds of people following him. And what's interesting is they brought to him, they're sick and they're demon possessed.

And do you know what we're told? We're not told what happened in Hobart's meetings or in Brannem's meetings where it said, well, the minister prayed for them. It didn't ever say Jesus prayed for them.

It said Jesus healed them. In Matthew 8 and verse 16, it said, he healed them all. He healed every single one of them. And we see the same thing happening in the case of the early apostles and early church leaders like Philip and Samaria in Acts chapter 8.

People are bringing out the sick and the early church is simply healing them. They're not saying, well, there's someone to my far left, far under that fig tree, 200 yards to my left. There's somebody over there that has a problem.

They just healed everybody. And he didn't say worse than that example. There's somewhere somewhere in the audience that has something possibly wrong, either illness or injury. I'm not for sure which to his left arm, which is what Dr. Freeman was doing.

Now, when we go through the Gospels and Acts, even though they do have large audiences, we see large success. So when Hobart is doing this in front of 2,000 people, I'm sorry, but that does raise a problem in my mind.

It would be different if it's in a home Bible study with 8 people. And you want to say that there is a person and you can be a little more specific, what gender and what it is they have wrong, you only have a 1 in 8 chance of being right.

When you have 2,500 people, you know, look, you can just throw things out there. And whatever you throw is gonna stick. I guarantee you, whatever you throw out there is going to stick.

Unless you were to be so specific and say, name the gender, the age, it's the left foot, it's the big toe, it was amputated. On such and such day, God's gonna give you a new big toe.

Let it happen, I'm all in favor. And then we'll watch and see if that happens. That would not present a problem in a large group of people because of the specific nature of what you gave.

And if we turn from the gospels over to the book of Acts, and another example that comes to my mind in Acts is, and we know that in the early church, 3000 are converted on the day of Pentecost.

By the time we get to the next couple of chapters, it said there are 5000, and that's just the men, it doesn't count the women and children. Okay, so we've got a really large congregation.

We have a really large group of people. And what the early church was experiencing was a great unity and bond among them. There were different economic and social classes among the early church, and we read in the end of Acts 2, and in the end of Acts chapter 4, that people who were more well to do, who owned houses and lands, they would sell those things.

It was a temporary situation because of the influx of so many people into the Christian church. They would sell those possessions, pool the money, hand it over to the apostles, and they would distribute it as they had need.

It was somewhat of a communal arrangement. It was temporary. I don't find that through the rest of the book of Acts, but you find it there early on because it had a very specific need.

And so with all of these people owning lands and houses and selling and turning the money over the apostles, what Peter could have done, I'm headed into Acts 5 with this story, what Peter could have done with all of these hundreds of people selling lands and houses, getting money and turning over to them when he could have done is said, well, I detect that somewhere here early in the Christian community, there is a practice of deception going on, and we want you to step forward whoever that is.

No, Peter said to Ananias, when he brought the money, laid it down at the apostles' feet, Peter called him out specifically. He knew exactly which person it was. And he even said, when you sold, before you sold it, every...

The thing was, you're after you sold it all the money was yours, you're free to do with it, whatever you want to do, what you're not free to do is pretend like you're surrendering all of your assets that you obtained through the sale when you're only surrendering part.

If you want a surrender part, that's fine, but you can't lie to the Holy Spirit. He actually named the man and named exactly what he did and he said, you're going to die as a result of it. And he did. And a few hours later, his wife comes in and Peter asks, did you sell for such and such? She said, yes, he said, well, the feet of those who carry your husband out are standing at the door and they're going to carry you out too. And guess what? It happened just like that. So even though we have a large group of people, the Apostle Peter doesn't use that

large group in a fraudulent way and throw out just words to this large group and seeing if anybody will bite on it, see if it might apply somewhere. So I think that we as Christian people should be very, very concerned about the validity of our ministry and the validity of our message and the validity of these practices. The defenders of Hobart claim, well, the big audience, big audience allows for more people to be healed. Well, that's exactly what the minister wants you to think.

And of course, a big audience allows for more people to be healed. But if all were actors, more people being healed, just heal everyone then. Why the need to mention a certain thing in a big group? As I said, if you just throw it out there to a big audience, someone is going to have whatever it is you are calling out. But surely we can all see the glaring problem, the glaring potential problem that this presents. And I'm arguing that in the name of purity and the trust worthiness of the gospel and of the Christian faith, we should be willing as a minister, as a

ministry, as a church, as a group of people, we should be willing to do whatever we have to do. I mean, this is calling for transparency and just plain old-fashioned maturity and honesty. We should be willing to do and definitely do put it into practice whatever we can to lessen this problem and to not give any appearance for any kind of evil to happen. So, I gave an example from my own life, which I won't repeat two weeks ago of a specific word for a specific person. I've had that happen on other occasions. I have seen other people. I've seen it,

I've seen the same type of thing in other situations where it's not a large group of people. It is this word for this person or it is A word and there are only three people present.

You have a 33.3% chance of being right. You know, I am way more John in favor of something like that. I'm not in favor of throwing out an ambiguous statement where you've got 2,000 people.

I just think it sets the stage for fraudulent use. I'm not accusing Hobart of being a fraud on every time he did this. But I am saying that it sets the stage for a misrepresentation of transparency and honesty.

And I think also what it's doing is when you've got a group of that many people, you obviously have a lot of sick people and a lot of injured people there. Any group of 2,000, you're gonna have a large number of them.

And these people are literally mesmerized by what they're witnessing up front. Hobart would get through teaching. Sometimes a doctrinal teaching could get through teaching and then all of a sudden have prophecies for people.

But they're this big wholesale things or words, a word of knowledge for people and a big audience there. And you know, you've got my word. You've got people who are probably badly ill and they're mesmerized by this.

And you know, they are hoping that they get a word. It's almost like going to a large bingo party or a lottery draw. And I've heard people say, you know, I was really ill and I was always hoping that brother Freeman would have a word.

That brother Freeman would have a word. It's manipulating the people and I just don't think it's the Christian thing to do. No, it's just plain wrong. And one of the things that you said that I don't want to highlight because not many people today seem to be doing this.

You saw the photo of the halo and by and large in the charismatic movement, even those who claim that William Brannum went astray at the end, they all will go back and you can hear Benny Hens say it, for example, he'll say he had a halo above his head.

They all believe it. But yet at the same time, the majority of the people who are in the movement, if the doctrine was not a Christian doctrine and they can clearly see the difference in the Bible, many of the people will give priority to whatever they think is the supernatural effect over the Bible.

In other words, he gets a free pass because he could tell a name and address and he had a halo. And you can look to the comment feeds on YouTube whenever I post anything to do with this halo.

You find countless people who are saying, but he had a halo. So therefore he was of God. It doesn't matter if he's working with white supremacists and he's pre- anti-Christian doctrine doesn't matter. He had a halo above his head. Many people need to realize that that is not what you use as a scriptural authority to determine whether something is from God or not. Absolutely. A hundred percent. And like I said, John, I've gone through my whole life, not knowing what to do with the halo. I neither believe in or disbelieve. I just didn't know what to do

with it, but I didn't care. Just didn't care. It didn't make any difference to me at all. But it's because I have a little more of a biblical foundation. I really want to make sure, as Isaiah said, in Isaiah 8.20 to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it's because there's no light in them. And I emphasized earlier, thankfully, we don't all have access to halos and words of knowledge, but we all have access to the same Bible, the same Bible that I own you own and they own. And so we do have this objective truth.

And you're so right that even though I have pointed some of these things out, people still want to say, yeah, but he had a word or yeah, but somebody got healed. And you know, I'm all in favor of somebody getting healed. It's not that I don't believe in healing. I've said over and over again, I do believe in divine healing. I do believe in spiritual gifts.

But here's the thing. I believe in them so much that I want to protect them against fraud. You know, it's not that I don't believe in them. I do believe in them. But I think most of what I have seen in my lifetime has been fraud and I don't trust it. And I want there to be true spiritual gifts. But, you know, if we're just going to allow this fraudulent use of spiritual gifts to run rampant, you know, then it becomes too difficult for people to discern, you know, what's right or what's wrong. So that's why I'm laying out this first point. I'm very hesitant of these huge

large gatherings when words begin to happen. And that's normally when they do. As I said earlier, you go ahead and go to your home Bible study with six or eight or 10 people. And let's see you have 13 words of knowledge there, you know, I'm all in favor of that because, you know, you're put to the test right there and we'll find out in a hurry. You know, something else that I remember and a person made a comment recently and it brought it to my attention because I do remember hearing this on many of Hobart's earlier tapes. Hobart felt that he had been given the certain spiritual gifts,

not all of the nine gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, but he thought he had the word of knowledge and he thought he had the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues. And he also thought that he had the gifts of healings that he could, when the Holy Spirit moved, lay hands on people and this is beyond just your normal I'm going to pray for you and if you believe you'll be healed but I'm going to pray for you and you're going to be healed because he had the gifts of healings but here's one thing that always found interesting and I remember again

John I listened to Hobart rigorously when I was a teenager I followed everything that he said he said he had the gifts of healing but he said it was only in his right hand it's in his right hand he didn't have the healing in his left hand he had the gifts of healing in his right hand and of course there's no verse that you could prove that by or disprove that by but I remember now as a teenager thinking wow I mean you're mesmerized by these guys wow and he has it and he has it in his right and he knows that he only has it in his right hand

but it's not in his left hand let me just get off the subject for just a moment because I've watched some videos of I don't know if you know who David Hogan is but oh my has he been on the internet the last however long and he will hold up his hand and show it to you like this and say that this right here is raised 50 people from the dead he'll show you and you know everybody stare and like do you have some kind of different hand than I have and he said it's all in the hand in

the hand I think the guys a complete false prophet anybody in the Bible anybody who actually raised the dead they don't go around showing everybody their hand and boasting about it they don't build a ministry or a following based on that which is what these guys do which is the number one reason I would just discount them all but going back to Hobart he said you know I have the gifts of healing and it's in my right hand but then here's the next thing he always said and this is what I my humble opinion I believe was used to mesmerize the people give them glazed over

eyes draw them into him and keep them under him and he said now there's a specific reason for that both the Lord will let me tell anybody anytime someone says they know his secret but they can't tell you why don't you even tell us that you know the secret you're the reason that you're doing that is to get a hold on us and draw us into yourself he said God has given me the gifts of healing it's in my right hand and there's a reason for that but I simply can't tell anybody and so everyone is

you know looking at their neighbor beside them well what do you think why do you think that's true oh we wish you you know it just creates this buzz John and this and this anticipation and it almost I'm not accusing Hobart of this but it reminds me of what magicians do they have secrets and I'm not saying Hobart had secrets to the trade. I'm just saying magicians have secrets to the trade and we know they have secrets to the trade and they know that we know that they have secrets but they won't tell us what those secrets are and that's what keeps people going back to magic shows.

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. I don't think we have ever talked about this before you and I but there is a history of the vibrating right hand. And if people actually knew the history, they would be like, oh my gosh, I have been doomed how on earth did I fall for this stuff? So in the early years,

it started out and it wasn't a hand vibration. When William Brannum was preaching before the crowds and again, keep in mind, William Brannum had multiple different varying stage personas. So each stage persona was different. The gifts were different the way the gift manifests. It was different all this. In the early versions, he would detect people what they had wrong with them or if they had something wrong, because his hand would change color. And he would walk up for the person to walk up, he would kind of wave his hand over him. And if the hand changed color, he had detected a

disease. Now, if his hand turned purple, it was a disease that was so bad that God could not heal it. And this is a parlor trick. If you take a rock and you put it under your underarm and you squeeze your arm real tight against your side, it cuts off the circulation and it makes your hand change color. So that's a trick and William Brannum was doing it. He was raking in boxes and boxes of money at these revivals. The newspaper reporter said it took two hefty men to carry his suitcases of money from the place. Over time, people kind of, I guess they must have caught

on to the gimmick. And so it changed to a vibrating hand, which is really easy to do if you kind of stretch your muscles, right? And Brannum would claim that it was his left hand that did it.

And the reason he chose the left hand is because another thing we have probably talked much about. The Kardashian family was funding Brannum and many of these guys helping create stage acts. The Daima Shakerian was behind it. He was part of the Kardashian family.

I think it was Tom Kardashian. I think it's the one you'd have to go back in the research. But anyway, these guys gave William Brannum and today's money would be a $10,000 watch.

And he would tell people that now I get the vibrations in the hand. And the reason I have this $10,000 watch on my hand is because the vibrations are so strong it breaks ordinary wristwatches.

So here he is with a luxury watch and his explanations because my hand vibrates and he would cause his left hand to vibrate. Now oral Roberts knew that he couldn't have the same gift so he chose the right hand.

So both of these guys as they're going out and they're working together they're both in the same movement. One went with the left hand, one went with the right hand. So I find it really interesting that Hobart chose the oral Roberts version over the Brannum version. I do not doubt at all John that I think William Brannum was the main person that Hobart drew all of his stuff from. And since Brannum was that one, Hobart would have to have a different hand than Brannum.

I kind of vaguely remember hearing some stuff about Brannum years ago, but I did not know those details. So I just find that odd. Again, I don't see anything in scripture talking about a left or a right hand, gifts of healing, only in this hand, not in that hand. And if we're going to champion the Bible, which I know Faith Assembly was pretty well known for doing, you know, we just want to champion the Bible, whatever's in the Bible, if we're going to champion the Bible and what it teaches, we don't have any cases of that with the early Christian ministers. So then moving beyond the

big audience, let's come to a second problem that I have with the night of the Lord and the words that Hobart gave, and that this is just true most of the time. And that was the vague nature of the words of knowledge.

I think the first one on that tape was he simply had a man with a left arm that had a problem. Well, you know, if you've got 2,000 people, you probably have 1,000 males in there. So you got 1,000 opportunities for somebody to have a left arm problem. I think the next one was the right arm, but then Hobart said, no, the Lord has it shown man or woman. So that just covers everybody in the whole group.

So you got now 2,000 people, but you have this vague word. We read the Bible, John, and we look at predictive things that are said. Most of the time, they are very specific when the Southern Kingdom of Judah was going to fall, the prophets predicted it, when they were going to be in captivity for 70 years.

62 or 83 with 70 years Jeremiah said you're going to be there 70 years the birthplace of Christ That was predicted. It's going to be in Bethlehem and they lived in Galilee so that was very unusual They're going to have to travel from Galilee with a nine month pregnant Mary all the way down here to Bethlehem And that's where Messiah was born when the Jews were released from captivity the very name of the king of Persia who would release them whose name was Cyrus was predicted by Isaiah 200 years before the man was even born

It was a very specific prediction and this is the case that we see normally in the Bible It was not I have somebody with some kind of condition. I know this wasn't a healing story but in the gospels When Peter was questioned one time by people around don't you and your group don't you pay tribute He said yeah, we pay tribute and then when he got back to Jesus it was like well do we really pay tribute And Jesus said we do and he explained He explained the whole tribute question. This is in Matthew's gospel one of the chapters of Matthew

But I think we all remember where they got their tribute money. Here's what Jesus said They were in cappernum when this happened on the northern shore of the sea of Galilee Peter was an expert fisherman That's what he did for a living on the sea of Galilee So Jesus said go to the sea of Galilee throw a hook in The first fish that you catch Getting to your hand make sure you landing Open his mouth Reach in his mouth Take the coin out and go pay our tribute and that's exactly what Peter did Do we ever see guys doing stuff like this come on

Come on now. No, we see Hobart saying well, it's a right arm. I don't know whether it's male or female could be injury or it could be illness I mean it could be anything. I mean surely could be anything happen Nobody is saying Go catch a fish the very first one you pull out open his mouth. There's going to be a coin in his mouth That's a word of knowledge. That's prediction. That's that's a Miracle that's super natural. That is authentic. That's what we need and if we don't have this you say Well, I just don't have the ability to do that. Well, that's my whole point

If you don't have the ability to do it then stop all this nonsense in yeah, and You know, let's be real to what the Bible has and let's be real to our audience that has come all this way to listen to us Speak yeah, I get accused each time I tell this that I'm about to You and you watch the comments that have probably happened in this podcast too They say but touch not guards are nointed and if you If you, you know, a Finn, the Holy Spirit, he's going to cut you all this kind of weird stuff, right?

But as you and I have talked often, I'm a big fan of cartoons, of science fiction, of all things fantasy. I'm also a big fan. We haven't talked about this. I'm a big fan of magicians.

I love to watch a good magician. And I know it's fake. When I go into it, I know that they're tricking me. And my curious mind wants to figure out, okay, how do they do that? That's how my, that's how my mind works.

My favorite is Chris Angel, because I literally cannot figure out how that man does what he does. It is just so fantastic. The irony is, my favorite act of his is a levitation act.

I have figured out, in some cases, I can see how he does it, and he does it with an assist, a metal assist device that goes on the back of his calf. And I can, like, when he's on a flight of stairs, that part's easy. You want to fly to stairs?

I can see that happening. But he's got other gimmicks where it's like in a chair. And they're just, they're things. If you go look him up, you just can't figure out how he's doing.

The irony is, in William Brenham's early stage act, as he's got this vibrating hand gimmick, or actually, it may have been the color changing hand gimmick in those years, there's a levitating boy on the stage with him.

A little David Walker would get up, and he would levitate in their photographs of this, and the Christians ate it up because, wow, that's God's magician. But they didn't say magician. They thought this was the power of God.

So he's doing a stage act. One of the things that these guys do, these magicians, is cold reading. You start talking real, real vague, and you watch the expressions of the faces in the audience.

And then you can watch somebody's face change, and then you can get a little bit more specific. You go from vague to slightly more specific. And then you can see if their eyes brighten up more, or if they start to close down, you can tell what direction you're going.

And these cold readers can literally have a conversation, and they'll think that that person was, he was in my mind. He knew my thoughts. Well, that's what these guys were doing back then. And there was a magician that was calling them all out named James Randy.

And he wrote a big, big exposé, I think it was called the Faith Healers, and he goes through one by one. He was a magician, and he did all of the tricks they were doing.

And he said, now I went to this guy, and this is his trick. I did this back in, I can't remember what years he was active as a magician, but he would explain how he did what he did and how it matched what they did.

William Brandham is one of the people that he figured out was a fraud. And it's the whole, the whole thing is just a funny mess. But if people were to be made more aware of how they can be tricked, it would be different whenever some guy comes up and does this, and they're giving you this vague, vague nonsense.

Well, that would say... Well, I just saw that in a magician show last weekend and the whole thing, they wouldn't get away with it, right? But you'll notice the other thing that these guys do that were very active in the faith healing, they wanted to project the idea that anything like this was a demonic spirit.

So I didn't, while I was in the cult, I didn't go see magicians because you might catch an evil spirit there, John. What they're saying is you might figure out what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.

I don't know what Hobart was going through personally when he's standing up there on the podium. You know, and I'm going to say maybe occasionally there was a valid word, I always want to throw that possibility out there, but I would assume that he just felt certain things, you know, he didn't really know anything or see anything.

I don't think that the majority of that was from God for the very reasons that I just explained. I think it just creates a terrible situation in the Christian church. And if we're going to be true ministers and if you truly want to experience a true gift of the Holy Spirit, I think you just got to protect yourself from vagueness and from giant audiences.

You know, I don't put any stock in that, I'm sorry. And if someone said, well, I got healed in that praise God that you got healed, but that's not going to change my view that I don't put any stock in large audiences and vague words.

And I think that should be obvious to any rational, intelligent, reasonable adult that, hey, Lord, if you're going to do things, you're going to have to do it so that we know it's you, it's not that I'm doubting you, Lord, but I'm definitely doubting the man up front, the man on the podium.

And yes, John, when you say people will immediately fear that you or I will go immediately to hell for touching God's anointed, you know, it's I'm not questioning God or the Holy Spirit at all, but I'm definitely questioning men.

And I think that's what we're supposed to do. Can God and will God and has God healed the sick? Absolutely. And will he continue? I believe that 100%. I'm not doubting God, but I'm definitely doubting people.

But again, the defenders of Dr. Freeman, they don't mind the vagueness. They justify it by saying that gives more people the opportunity to be healed. But I mean, it's just to me seems like if you're going to be a defender of one of these guys, you're going to defend them to the end regardless of the facts, regardless of the statistics, regardless of the proof of the halo or no halo over William Brownham's head.

If you want to believe it, you're just going to believe it, you know, a man you talked against his will as of the same opinion still, you're not going to... to get him not to believe that.

So I think my comments and your comments are directed to people who are willing to be reasonable and rational, I'm not asking for anybody to throw out the gifts of the Holy Spirit or healing or the supernatural, never asked for anybody to throw that out.

I've said, as I said earlier, I believe in those things so much that I want to guard against people faking it and manipulating other people. So then the final point, John, or what about results?

What about results? At the end of that message the night of the Lord, Hobart does go back and tack on testimonies of people after he gave those words who came up and said that they were healed or at a future meeting said that they were healed.

Again, I'm not gonna say that no one was healed, but I will say this and this is what most everyone has said that they did not see miracles at faith assembly. They did not see very many real healings of real issues.

Hobart's method was a calculated method to protect himself and his method was, and if you listen to the end of that message when he actually has with the third or fourth word, he gets four words there for those people to come up and he says, now, do you believe Jesus will heal?

Say that you believe, do you believe? Do you have faith? He puts all of the burden, all of the responsibility on the person. And again, that's not in line with everything we find in the scriptures.

That is simply not in line. Jesus didn't ask every single person, do you believe? He would heal people in mass. These ministers put that burden on the person so that if a healing does not occur, they've got a backdoor escape.

Well, they didn't have any faith or their faith wasn't big enough or their faith wasn't strong enough or they believed, but then they downed or they had faith, but then they wavered or they were hiding some unbelief or some sin or something in their life.

And again, I'm looking for real results. You said you've got a word. This person says that fits me. Then why is it you would have a word it fits this person and they're not going to get healed.

What's the whole purpose in God giving you the word of knowledge in the first place? If it's not efficacious and call something to actually transpire in the person's life. Some cases in the New Testament, when Jesus had a man who had a withered arm, he said, stretch forth your arm or your hand.

He didn't say go take it by faith and you may have to wait a month or four years for it to be manifest and he said stretch forth your hand and it was healed.

Peter in Acts chapter 9, the end of Acts chapter 9, was visiting some of the believers, came across one believer who was sick and bad, and Peter said, Jesus Christ, make it the whole of rise and make thy bed.

There was no take it by faith, walk away from the meeting, and we'll see how long you have to endure until it is manifested. I think Hobart's methods, as well as the results, just don't match the Bible.

They just don't match which in the scriptures. And the more I have learned about William Branham, the more I am convinced that he copied most of this from William Branham, the whole healing line, the word of knowledge, these kinds of things, the gifts of healing in one hand, not the other, he referenced Branham so often, even though he did try to distance himself later on from some of Branham's teachings, I think he drank deeply at the well of William Branham, and a lot of these things he just picked up and ran with.

And I don't think it is wrong for believers to look for verifiability, to look for results. If you've got all these words of knowledge, I would like to see the actual results. And I'm not looking for a person with a bruised elbow, okay, and two weeks later, that elbow is feeling fine, and I just wanna give God glory for healing my elbow.

I'm glad your elbow is feeling fine. That is not what we're talking about. That's not under consideration here. The body can heal itself. If you give yourself enough time, you can get over something.

I'm not looking for that, and I believe those things happen. I am looking for what we're looking for. A real gift of the Spirit, a real miracle, or a real divine healing. And why should they find fault with us for wanting it to be verified?

As soon as you look for proof, all brother, you're doubting the Holy Spirit. No, I'm not doubting the Holy Spirit. I'm doubting you. I do have doubt, but you've falsely identified who I'm doubting.

I'm not doubting God at all. God is able, willing, capable, and often, he will do these things for his people. I am doubting you when I'm looking for verification. Let me see the surgeon's report.

Let me see what the oncologist has written up. What does the kidney doctor say? They've got kidney failure. You've laid hands on them and prayed for them. I want to see him heal. I don't want to see him die.

I don't want to see them have to go through kidney transplant. I'm with you. I want to see him heal. I want to see the miracle as much as the next person does. But let's go ahead and find out, did a miracle take place.

And that was not Hobart's method, John. His method was, now do you believe? All right, you I'm gonna lay hands on you. You receive it by faith the Lord has healed you And I think John some of the times when I heard testimonies from people their testimony was the type of testimony that you Expected it faith assembly. They actually weren't healed yet. They actually weren't feeling better yet But they had been taught Mark 1124 when you pray not when you receive it when you pray Believe that you have received and you'll get it when you pray so they would come up literally and say I just want to praise the Lord

That he healed me when brother Freeman laid hands on me and everybody, you know 2000 people are clapping and I want to clap But I want to know what do you mean when you say the Lord heal me when brother Freeman laid hands?

Do you mean I took it by faith but I'm no better? Is that what you mean or do you mean you know? I had a ruptured appendix and it's no longer ruptured that's that would be a healing that would be a miracle But we need to have that verified and one of the things that was just taboo In faith assembly and in most faith healing groups is any kind of medical verification We want to make sure that it's valid by questioning the person and then we are happy to thank God with them and if people have a problem with that I simply

Would ask them to return to the New Testament Because of the availability of fakes and frauds Nothing was done in a corner in the New Testament. Nothing was done in a corner at all But Luke tells us in Acts chapter one I think it's around verse three that Jesus showed himself alive to his disciples by many infallible proofs The man that was healed at the gate beautiful Everybody knew him everybody the skeptics the believers the unbelievers the religious leaders the doubters everybody knew him Verification was very important to the early Christian Church Lest you get this reputation of just being a band of fakes and

Fraud and manipulators that was simply not going to be allowed Thankfully in the early church and I think that we should guard against that in the church today Absolutely should guard it in the churches today. They have literally they've turned this into a stage act that is very similar to What the magicians have and ironically they're making more money than the magicians in some cases some of these guys It's unbelievable the amount of money that they make at it not saying that hope our Freeman had that much money But you can see the potential is there if you can trick the people into thinking that you have a gift

Which you don't you can make money just like the magicians do And like you, I'm not discounting the whole thing. I get accused often of don't throw the baby out with a bath water.

I'm saying just first test the bath water because I think it may not be what you think it is. So anyway, this has been incredibly fun. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Branum.org. From more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automal.