The Emperor’s New Healing: How Charismatic Leaders Fake Miracles

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, minister and friend, Chenle Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chenle de Ross YouTube channel. Chenle, it's good to be back and to talk about all things leg-lengthening and all things Hobart Freeman. We talked briefly about some of the content in this episode and I don't know if I get a chance to play it. I'll have to look at

the copyright and legal issues of it but the things we're about to get into is something that it's nothing new. This is going back way back into the history of Pentecostalism and various healing, faith healing, divine healing circles but the fact that Hobart Freeman and his shorter leg was an example of this and the fact that he became a faith healer, it really is odd if you think about the coincidences of that because this is a stage trick that we're gonna get into and explain but here's a person who actually could benefit from it and never did.

Yeah, the coincidence is just too much here, John, as we're gonna get into. If I could say before we go any further, John, I just want to remind everyone of the meeting greet that we're gonna have the first weekend in August at a place in Warsaw, Indiana. We'll put up on the screen the actual formal invitation to everyone. We just got a lot of, we're getting a lot of traction. I think it's gonna be a big, healthy, happy, positive group of people. People that I know anyway coming from hopefully all around that northern Indiana area but also

Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, maybe Minnesota. I think some people from Texas, the people from Texas are actually people who were a part of churches that I had pastored or taught in in the past so if they can work it into their vacation schedule, I hope they'll come but please make sure that all of your friends are aware of what's going on and we're gonna do this meeting greet. Those of us who are coming from out of town will be arriving on Friday. I'll be staying at this Wyndham hotel in Warsaw Friday night through Sunday.

morning. So I'm obviously will make myself available to whomever is there. But the main event will start at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning. We'll probably have a little time of worship and we'll have some introductions. Hopefully I'll have a long piece of red carpet that you can walk across whenever if I can get you there, if your schedule permits, we'll try to, I don't know, I can go to a good will store somewhere and find a long piece of red carpet and roll that out for you. And you know, we'll have some question and answer and some

meet and greet and share and really looking forward to it, looking forward to seeing everyone there. So put it on your calendar the first weekend, the first Saturday in the month of August, the Wyndham hotel in Warsaw, Indiana.

Well, I don't know if I'm worthy of a red carpet, maybe a black carpet, but it's not something that I'm used to. I'm not certain I'm going to be able to make it or not. I have a family member who is going to be into a very critical surgery. So not certain that we're going to be able to make it. But look forward to hearing the results of it if if I don't get to go. So maybe you can bring back some stories for me.

Well, the invitation will remain open. And maybe we'll just do this is a private joke between us. Maybe we'll just do black carpet with a red button on it, something like that. Anyway, moving right along. Yeah, let's get into this business of leg lengthening. I think there are problems for me, John, on so many levels with Hobart's false healing claims about his polio shortened right leg that he was wanting and claiming and confessing and telling everyone that it had been healed when he prayed for it back in 1966. This leg lengthening is nothing new. I think that maybe for a second or third generation, a member

of a charismatic church, maybe they think it's new here in the mid 2020s. But let me just say that it goes back a long time, probably longer than I know I can only speak about my own experience. But when I came into, I was converted to Christianity and spirit filled in the mid 1970s. And I remember distinctly that leg lengthening was a thing, quote, then quote, back then. I don't have vivid memories of myself being involved, but I would guess that I probably went to an FGBMFI meeting, a full gospel business men's fellowship international meeting or a Catherine Coolman meeting or, you know, just the people that

traveling around Pentecostal charismatic people in the 1970s who were teaching this and talking about it. They would literally seek people in a chair up in front and you know practice the leg lengthening. I wish I had a vivid memory so I could say you know I actually experienced the attempt or the successful attempt if it was successful but I really I don't remember myself ever doing it but my guess is that I probably would have. I do remember however seeing other people called up by a minister and he would want to pray over a short leg

situation and I was even a part of a church that was somewhat of a satellite church from faith assembly. No faith assembly ministers ever traveled down there to teach in this church but the minister this was in Memphis whose name was Ken Hall was definitely heavily influenced by Dr. Freeman and other people but he had really picked up this so-called faith message from Dr. Freeman and you know had started just a small group of people in Memphis it was a very small church but in my teenage years I was a part of that and the one thing and so

what I remember about this minister pastor Ken Hall and he had some Bible training in Southern Baptist seminary and down in I think in New Orleans but he was not very knowledgeable about the Bible and meeting Dr. Freeman I think unfortunately made him less knowledgeable because it allowed him to mix all of his craziness in with maybe some good formal training and teaching he had received earlier and I remember him sitting people down and I remember him even saying he had never met anyone who didn't have a short leg this was this was such a common thing in their services that if you didn't have any

other thing to be prayed for they would say well come up and for your short leg and people would go you know I would look do I have one of those I don't know if I have one of those or not but he literally said I've never met anybody who didn't have a short leg because I think every time he would sit someone down in a chair and they always do this I mean I can see him do it they put both of their hands out just like this and get the heel of each of the

person's legs in their hand and then they get a hold of the ankle like this and they do whatever they do but whenever they do that you know they'll look and go see there that's a that left leg is a quarter inch shorter than the other or the right leg is three eight stuff and it's shorter than the other I can see him and I can see other people holding the palm of their hands out their like that. And of course, you know, I have to confess, what I know today, I did not know back then. We all learn as we grow. And so I'm watching this fascinated. And again, I

can't say I ever saw a leg grow out. And by grow out, I would mean if you're sitting in the legs or this different in the leg just jumps like that or even slowly goes out.

But if it's a micrometer difference, you know, that can all just be due to posture the way there had been seated, you know, whatever. But in looking back on that, and it didn't take me many years to get past leg lengthening. But I'm just telling everyone, this was a thing, quote, unquote, in the 1970s. If what Ken Hall said and what all the ministers were practicing is true, like everybody has a short leg, then that is telling me that God somehow left out some of the growth hormone and every human being so that one leg is

shorter than the other. I mean, I just want people to ask themselves, does that make any sense? There was a great claim for him to say, I've never met anybody who doesn't have a short leg. And everybody immediately just questions and say, well, I don't want to be the odd person here in this meeting and be the only person with two normal legs. I don't want to be the odd person out. So I want to go up there and have my legs lengthened.

But again, come on, are you saying that God literally left the growth hormone out so that all human beings are born with one short leg? You know, William Brannum said that anybody who is spiritual, especially in the Bible, was deemed neurotic because he himself was labeled neurotic. I guess by multiple doctors, he talked about going through his, he never mentioned exactly what his diagnosis was, but he had some sort of mental health condition that was dehabilitating and it recurred every seven years. And I've talked to a few psychologists. I have an idea of what it is, but I'm not a doctor,

so I can't really label him. But they like to do that. They like to say, well, I have this condition, and oh, don't worry, because I'm a faith healer and I have this condition. Everybody's kind of got this thing that I have that's wrong with me. So the fact that he's, the fact that Hobart is saying it about the feed is just, I watch those videos. I know I mentioned this in the last episode, but I watched those videos of the lengthening of the leg. And I want to say, as I saw it as a grown

man as an adult, after I saw it and thought about what they were doing, I was just wanting to smack myself in the head and say, you dummy. How did you believe this nonsense? Because I know, I'm very much of an architectural mind. I know how things work. And physically speaking, a person with wider hips, this trick works better on because the leg bones are further apart.

But when they're sitting the way they did it on stage, they would put a person where their legs were not, their feet weren't facing the audience, their legs were off and they would put the side of the longer leg first so that they could twist the torso just a little bit because you know you got about four or five inches between the leg bones.

So if you twist the hips just a little bit, you can gain two, three inches, especially if you have wider hips. And so as they start praying for them, they're holding the feet and they're wiggling them.

The reason they wiggle is because the person who's sitting there who doesn't know whether or not they even have a longer leg, they look down and oh my gosh, he's right. How did I never notice that one of my feet doesn't reach the same length as the other leg does.

And so the faith he was wiggling them back and forth, well what he's doing, he's actually moving their torso. So whenever the hips straighten up, the leg that was twisted and further out suddenly is now further in.

And I saw that and I was like, man, I grew up with those stories how William Brannum could continually heal people who had shortened legs. And I remember as a kid hearing that and thinking, wow man, things must have been really bad off and days gone by.

I don't know anybody that's got one leg shorter than another one. It must have been some weird epidemic they had after the war. So I was thinking about that. And then this guy sent me, he wanted me to read this book by a guy named James Randy.

I don't know if you heard of this guy. James Randy was a magician and a hardcore atheist. And we were trained and manipulated that if somebody, especially an atheist, had facts against our religion, those facts can fully be discounted because they're an atheist.

And I was of that mindset. So I was like, yeah, I'm not going to read this. This guy is just trying to give me, it's the Satan trying to influence me. That's what I thought.

But after I woke up to realize the undeniable fact that if you're presented with fact, it doesn't matter who's telling the fact. If they have a fact, if they're atheist, if they're Christian, if they're Catholic, if they're Baptist, I don't care who they are.

If they have a fact, you have to pay attention to it. So I finally read the book. He was a magician. He went around to all these faith healing stage shows and he's saying, now as a magician, this is how I did X, Y and Z as a faith healer.

This is how they're doing the same thing I was doing. And he's walking you through all this stuff. And again, I wanted to smack my head thinking how stupid was I that I was in this.

And I've mentioned this a few times on the podcast that there are so many tricks that when you look at these faith healers, you have to think, they're scam artists. That's all they are scam artists.

But people make the incorrect... leap just because you call out a scam artist doesn't necessarily mean that you don't believe in that God heals and you don't believe in healing. There's two different things. Whether God heals or not is irrelevant to whether James Randy shows that, no, these guys are tricking you, you have to worry about the fraudsters. Yeah, as facts or facts, all truth is God's truth.

Doesn't matter whether it comes from a Christian or an atheist, a fact is a fact. But that's one thing these groups do a good job of training their followers against that if it disagrees with their teaching, then as I quoted what Hobart said last time, they are lying facts, which is a contradiction in terms. It's a fact, but it's a lying fact.

They just don't want to admit to it. And, you know, what a terrible situation, John, and I totally agree with your last statement. I do not deny the power of God or the present day appearance and occurrence of miracles. But what's happened with this, they're short-changing God's people by faking all of this stuff. I mean, when you look at this whole leg lengthening business, it's like a watered-down version of the New Testament accounts where Jesus healed the lame. I don't see any leg lengthening happening in the Bible, but I do see people who were lame from birth being healed. So this, to me, is just like a watered-down, modern knockoff,

you know, a cheap version, which isn't even true of a valid New Testament account. We know in John 5, Jesus met the man at the pool there who was lame couldn't even walk. Jesus healed him. Peter heals the man at the gate beautiful. The Apostle Paul in Acts 14 heals the lame man born lame from his mother's womb and the city of Listera. There are other accounts besides the actual ones that detail a particular person who was lame and who was healed. There are other accounts in the New Testament where it simply says that the people from the countryside

brought all the halt and lame and withered and laid them down at Jesus' feet and he healed every single one of them. Though it was no leg lengthening, it was a real miracle. And something that I thought of the other day that we haven't mentioned earlier, John, when we were talking about those anointed handkerchiefs that everybody wants to pray over and send to relatives and they base it on Acts 19 for getting that Luke said those were special miracles that Paul did that God performed by Paul's hands that he won't necessarily perform by hours. Earlier in Acts, I think it's

in Acts. four or five, people brought sick individuals and laid them on the streets hoping that Peter's shadow would touch them and heal them. That was the power that was on the Apostle Peter in the early chapters and acts.

I don't see anybody trying that one today. I see a lot of the anointed calls and handkerchiefs. Hope they are not used ones. I hope they're clean ones that people are sending out, but I don't see anyone putting people in the shadow of some minister.

Let's see that, you know, let's see that come to pass. But on the leg lengthening, John, one of the earliest interviews you and I did. It's been over a year ago. If you go back and look at him, because I remember, because I know who said it, blessed her heart, when she said it.

It was a pastor's wife of a Freeman satellite church. She jumped right on there and said, oh, my leg was lengthened, you know, I had my leg grown out and I have witnessed others that had happened too.

She was a part of a church down in Alabama that was a hardcore Freeman church. I've even, and I know the people there. I knew the minister. I knew other people that came from that group.

I knew Joe and Tommy Slotter, the two brothers, their mother actually housed this woman before she married her husband. I'm trying to not give away all the names, but I can talk about the slaughters.

I've talked to Joe Slotter in the last, I've communicated with Joe in the last week. And that's been over 50 years ago. It was a church started by Eugene May and then Eugene went somewhere else and turned it over to another person.

But anyway, that pastor's wife, who's still alive today, said she had her leg lengthened back then. And, you know, I don't want to tell anybody that what they experienced, they didn't experience. All I would say is that's probably not the reality.

Even though Kim Hall said everybody has a short leg, I don't think that's true. I think if that's true, you would walk around. Everybody would be wobbling back and forth like this. You wouldn't be able to have a steady gate.

And, you know, nobody does that except a person with a short leg and it's rare whenever that happens. She would, I'm sure this happened to this lady in the 1970s. So, you know, that's what, 50 years ago.

And she probably didn't have a short leg, you know. She probably had her hip suggested by the minister who was praying for her. But it's almost, to me, John is almost taken on because it has gone on for so many years.

It's almost taken on a life of its own. You know, you hear sometimes about urban legends. I think this is something of a charismatic legend. question. I know as a professional fishing guide, there is one particular fishing legend.

Let me share this with you. You may have heard it. You may not have. But every fisherman has heard of it. And people tell it like it's true. And here's how the story goes. Yeah, my friend has a friend who had a friend who was a diver. And he was below one of those dams on one of the big rivers like the Ohio or the Mississippi and the Missouri. And he saw catfish down there as big as a Volkswagen. Well, that has been told thousands of times. And the largest catfish ever called in this country is like 150 pounds. It's not as big as a Volkswagen.

But that story gets told. And it gets told over and over. And you have heard it from many different sources. So it's not like in your mind that this person is trying to deceive me because you say, well, yeah, I remember such and such told me that. And this other person, and I was even traveling in another state. And I've heard that same story. It must be true.

There must be catfish down there as big as a Volkswagen. I've heard this story about legs being lengthened. I've heard that. So it must be true. I think it's one of those charismatic legends that needs to be put to rest. And it's kind of on par with another Christian charismatic legend.

Maybe you've heard, maybe you've not, but I've heard it since I was a teenager. Someone will tell the story that they knew somebody who knew somebody. They were driving along in a car. And all of a sudden, they heard a voice in the backseat of their car. And they turned around and it was an angel. And the angel said, don't you know, Jesus is coming back soon.

And then he vanished. I've heard that story my entire life. But I've never have known a person who actually had that happen to them. It's just a story of a story. I think it's an urban legend. Well, since we're telling fish stories, I've got two to tell you.

The first one is, you know, I'm a musician. I love music. I love all kinds of music. My playlist has everything from Frank Sinatra to, you know, hard rock. It's all, it's crazy that the amount of music I listen to. But it's doing some research on actual rows of guns and roses.

Because I came across an interview with him. I think it was in Rolling Stone magazine. And he was talking about the church he grew up in. And how that church, how his, he didn't, he didn't explicitly say it. But in other words, how his bad experience in church led to him being this megastar, you know, this megastar in music. Well, he'd- Describe to this church and it sounded very much like my church that I grew up in so I go back and I start looking at it and Did some research. I was able to find which church he grew up in find out they were

Independent much like the churches we were in and then I came across This guy named Ronald coin have you heard of this this guy Ronald coin? No, no So here this is a funny story and it's it may be slightly bigger of a fish tail than the one you just told So they had these these guys that ran James Randy would call these are faith healing magicians that were out there One of them had this gimmick for this younger child and I want to say it was Raymond Hoekstra who was setting up the stage act Raymond Hoekstra who also toured with random but this boy

I think he was seven years old or something like this was swinging barbed wire and Somehow made it come and knock an eyeball out or a pocket where the eyeball withered and died and So after surgery he was given a plastic eye So rather than like any other normal church pray and pray that God helped the child who now has the plastic eye as a normal Church would do they made a stage act out of him wherein He could put a patch over his good eye and See through his plastic eye and people would come up during these I mean picture this

This is like a normal church service that this guy would do this They would have a line where people walk up and hold up an object and he could see it through his plastic eyeball And this was this was supposed to be in the name of God. Well That was a ladder rain stage act which means that actual rose was in a ladder rain church Which means he's like what he's two two steps away from Brannemism. So The the you know the similarities are a little bit odd But that's what happened the well they wanted to do these

abnormal unusual things and people would just fall for it like crazy and

You know I want to say it was like a year after this I had people who had escaped Brannemism and one of Brannem's sons. He's dead now But he's well-respected even outside of the message community he was touring and Having these conversations with young folks and somebody sent me a video of it and He told this story he said that there's this guy in this army and The guy was asked to go work on the truck and Move the truck over to another Another hill or somewhere to work on it and the guy got down there and they had played a joke on him

There's no engine in the truck and he kneeled down and prayed for it and by God that truck started right up with no engine in it and drove to the other hill And all the kids, praise God, praise God, oh, I can't believe God can do this.

Well, I looked at it and I thought, you know, when I started my IT career, there used to be these email jokes that went around. And that was, it was the climax of the joke that went around the internet.

So they had literally taken an internet joke and turned it into a supernatural story. And people just turned off all critical thinking. And we're, you know, especially for children, they're gullible. But the fact that people in the name of Christianity would do something that they know is a lie.

They know it's untrue. And then pray upon the people who are more gullible than themselves. It's really sad to think that they could do this. 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.

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When I keep stressing in all this, John is, as we said earlier, we both believe in the miraculous and the supernatural. I'm strongly and firmly believe in it for today. But this type of, of Charismania, cheapens.

What it does is it cheapens the reality of the true biblical miracles that happen in biblical days and that even happen today. It just cheapens all that. All of this emphasis on dreams and visions like you can go and take a class for $499 and learn how to dream and interpret dreams.

You know, none of that is biblical. That is horrible stuff to do. But the Bible is very clear that God has spoken not just to prophets and apostles, but to ordinary people through a dream or through a vision.

But it's an occasional thing that might happen a few times in your life. And maybe it doesn't happen at all in your life, but maybe it happens in the life of someone you know well.

And it's happened once or twice, but it is not, it is not an everyday experience. It is not something you can go to school and learn how to have a vision. I mean, that's just the contradiction of the whole purpose of God supernaturally doing it.

And the same is true with these healings. I know there have been healing classes where you can go sign up, pay your $499.99 and learn how to heal the sick. There's no such thing as that.

God can heal the sick, does heal the sick, often uses a person through whom he works to heal the sick. But there are no classes involved, that's not the biblical way to go about it at all.

And I think it cheapens the whole experience. So I know that people, when they first hear something like what you and I are saying, when you first read Randy's book, you're a little bit afraid to believe maybe they actually have the facts and maybe these facts are going to shoot down my miracle.

And they may well do that. But as I tell everybody, anything that's the truth will withstand anything. True doctrine, true miracles, true healing, you have nothing to be afraid of. It will stand up under the closest scrutiny, but that's the problem.

These people who have these healings, they don't want to have any verification of it. Hobart, he would talk about John G. Lake, that he had 100,000 authenticated healings. But if you ever asked so much as asked for medical, at the hospital, doctors, proof, prior and post him praying for someone, oh, that's a sign of unbelief.

You know, that's a sign of unbelief. You just have to trust God. No, I totally disagree with that. I think, again, that cheapens the true experience. And it also just leaves this door open to emotionalism, personal, subjective experiences and feelings.

And that's what people have. And maybe even some demonic stuff that might be happening. But I know a lot of it. It's just emotional stuff, people. You know, they're in a, I can only imagine John being in a big healing crusade, which I was never, I wasn't alive in the days of A.A. Allen and Jack Coe and William Branham and Oral Roberts.

But to be in a, you know, an old-fashioned tent revival with 15,000 people there on chairs and a sawdust floor and the organ playing and the minister up there sweating and hollering and running around on the platform and slapping his hands on people and saying they're healed.

I'm sorry, but you can work up a frenzy in people where maybe you went in there with a little bit of a headache and you come out with so much adrenaline in your headaches gone.

So you say, well, I was healed by the power of God. But again, please, please. these people, let's don't cheapen the things of God. Most headaches are just normal experiences caused by a variety of factors that you can take care of yourself. It is so ironic that we are talking about leg lengthening and of all people, Hobard had a critically short leg. So if that was a valid experience that people could be, have, uh, themselves seated in a chair and praying for their leg to grow out, he would be a prime candidate.

As we've said, all these other people that have one leg a quarter inch shorter because they're sitting awkward in the chair, you didn't have a short leg. So stop all that nonsense. Just stop that. Give that up and say, no, I was tricked and fooled. Hobard Freeman definitely had a short leg. That was verifiable. He knew it. Everybody else knew it. The doctors knew I'm sure it was in, you know, childhood X-rays or whatever. He contracted polio in 1922 when he was two years old. He had a short leg. So here, here is the perfect example, the perfect

test case for God to lengthen a leg and do it with Dr. Freeman. But did it happen? No. You know, so not only is this leg lengthening not biblical in the second place when you look at Dr. Freeman's experience himself, even though he taught it, even though he said that God is lengthening legs.

He says it on all of the early tapes. It's, it's like I said earlier, get in on the act. This is the thing, quote unquote, happening in the 1970s. God is lengthening legs. Even though he said that, even though he was wanting and hoping and praying for a leg to be lengthened, he had a special shoe made for himself. He had one, he had to have one his whole life with a lift in it so that even though he still walked, if you look, if you watched him walk to the podium, he had a very, very

slight limp because I don't think even a shoe with a lift in it is going to be like when God creates you and you had two legs that are the same length, it was still discernible to the discriminating eye to see the lamp. Even though he had this belief about healing of short legs and taught others about it and taught others how to act their faith in cases where they were believing God, I just had a huge problem from early on with the fact that he didn't do what he taught others to do and it was very disappointing for me, it was one of those

Early things in my 20s because I'd heard his tapes I knew that he had a short leg and I knew that he was carrying around in the trunk of his Cadillac You played some of these clips last time a pair of normal shoes and so my little Um untrained ignorant but curious, you know 22-year-old mine would say Hmm now wait a minute. I thought you preached against people using crutches, canes, wheelchairs, glasses, medicine Something doesn't seem kosher about this If a person can't see well enough to get their driver's license And they prayed it's a god heal my eyes

While they're waiting quote-unquote for god to heal their eyes You have outlawed glasses for them because that would be leaning to the arm of the flesh If if someone has prayed for healing of some disease you've outlawed medicine for them You know go ahead and take it while you're waiting for god to heal. Well, that'd be trusting in man and god You can't have it both ways you got to have one or the other And then I just could not wrap my head around what I thought Was an inconsistency, but then of course you just shake your head and tell you well there must be something

I'm not seeing or you know come on cheno Don't be so critical But yet I was a little critical. I will go but wait a minute Even though I don't want to be critical. It still doesn't make sense Why can these children not wear glasses to school? I mean John these poor kids The parents took their glasses away from them and said you got to act your fate They can't even see the blackboard in school You know, they have to go up to the very front row or maybe sit on the corner of the teacher's desk to see the darn blackboard

And hope art has no empathy for that at all The psychological turmoil kids are going through Who all they want to do when you're a child is not be different I mean that's your number one goal is to blend in and don't be different You know, I want to be liked by everyone. I don't want to be you know a two-headed person here So here I am a person that can't see and everybody said why don't you just go get glasses like John and Mary have Well, I don't need glasses. God has healed me. Oh really? Well, if God's healed you why is your eyeballs glued to the chalkboard?

Why don't you sit on the back row? Well That's a little complicated, but I'm waiting for the manifestation of my healing You know, you're you're putting children through this mental Gym set and yet you as the pastor yourself Should be wearing that pair of shoes that you're carrying around in the trunk of your Cadillac and Limping pretty badly to get to the pulpit But instead of doing that You have special shoes made and um because your leg really is short with a lift in it And I think in all of these teachings, Sean, that these guys have given you and I talked

before we got on the air and I know you've done a lot more historical study in all of this and I ever have. I've just been more interested in the biblical side of all this.

But even in AA Allen's days, this is back in Miracle Valley, Arizona. I used to read some of Allen's stuff back in the 70s when I was in college and I think it wasn't a son-in-law or someone took over the ministry, maybe Stewart or something with his name.

But anyway, you said that that would just leg lengthening goes way back to AA Allen days. But I think what people need to understand, you have explained it and I've never watched any of these videos of how they twist people.

I'm assuming what you're saying is probably the way it happens because I don't believe a miracle is happening. If a miracle is happening, if you have a short leg, this isn't healing. You don't have a disease or illness or this isn't healing, this is a creation, a creation.

You have to have new bone, new blood vessels, new flesh. God can't just stretch it and just lengthen it. I mean, where is the bone and muscle and tissue and ligaments and where is all that coming from?

We're actually asking for a creative miracle and is God able to do that? Well, yes, the sunrise is God is able to do anything. But is that likely to happen? I would say no, that's probably not likely.

No, it's not. You know, from an outsider looking in on all of this, even from whether you're atheist or Christian, you're outside looking in on the charismatic movement and you start to realize that the whole thing is just wrong.

The way that they have set it up, the way that they make these stage personas, these people, whether they're cult leaders or not, they want to make them a stage act and follow them around.

If you're a Christian on the outside looking in, what you're seeing is a person who's using the same passages of Scripture that applied to Jesus from the New Testament. Whenever Jesus went from town to town and the throngs followed him and everybody witnessed the great healing, they like to reference that with their own meetings.

So what they're essentially doing is they're saying, I'm another Jesus. I'm another guy who's just like Jesus. That's what they're saying. I've mentioned it, I think, on one of the podcasts I did with you, I know I did with Charles, but there was another atheist named Darren Brown who made this video.

You can go look it up on, I think it's on YouTube called Miracles for Sale. And if you were in any of the faith healing charismatic circles, I highly recommend you watch this atheist who's making a documentary about exactly what we're talking about.

He sets out to not really to expose, but really to... show how it worked psychologically within these faith healing meetings. And so he advertises himself in this big city, I can't remember where, as a faith healer coming into town.

And he gets up and he preaches one hard core charismatic sermon. And throughout the documentary, he's talking about his process, what he's doing, how he's advertising. And he's really doing, if you know the inner workings of this, he's doing exactly what these faith healers are doing.

So he sets up the ambiance, he sets up the music, the lighting, everything plays a part in psychologically manipulating the crowd. Then he gets the crowd to come and he's already manipulated them to some extent.

So they're coming expecting something great, they're expecting Jesus on the platform. People left that meeting and it was multi nights, multiple nights per week, I think. People left the meeting and they were talking to reporters saying, I got healed in this meeting.

This great man of God healed me. And you know, God has given us the power within our own bodies to heal. If you cut your hand with a knife, you don't expect that you're going to die, that it's going to wither away.

You expect that the skin's probably going to go back together unless you cut it too far. And if you cut it too far, I've actually learned from a guy who is, I don't know if he's military or training or what, but you can also squeeze it together and put a little super glue on it.

And it will grow back together, it's held together. Your body is capable of healing to a limited extent. Same thing with headaches or many of the things you're describing except for polio legs. You can, your body can heal itself with these faith healers they like to pray upon the people who have the healable diseases to build the excitement.

And once they build the excitement, everybody's no matter what they've got, they start to feel better, whether they do or not, psychologically they think they do. And they walk out and they tell the reporters, hey, I'm healed this guy, this man of God who they don't know as an atheist has healed me.

Then on the last night, he says, now look, I have to confess something to you. I'm not a man of God, I'm an atheist. And he explained his whole thing, everything that he did.

So he was being honest at the end, even though, you know, there was a lot of people who were very sad, this was the case, some still said they got healed from the atheist.

And in their statements, I caught something that I had not caught before we've talked about it though. They were looking to the man on the stage for the healing. And even though he was an atheist, they claimed that he healed them.

They're not looking to God when they go to these meetings. Even though they'll say, yes, God healed me through brother so and so. If you take away the brother so and so, you don't have a crowd of people looking for healing.

And they can do the same exact thing right there alone in their home. And as we said, John, Hobart is a case example. He really did have a short leg. So the people from Faith Assembly, from Hobart's ministry, you know, wake up and look at the facts.

He died 18 years after claiming his healing for a short leg with what? A short leg. There's where we need to see a leg lengthened. We don't need to see it with people who don't have a short leg.

We need to see it with someone who did have a short leg. And of all of these stories, I don't know of anybody else. All of this leg lengthening stuff. Here is a minister teaching it who truly had a short leg.

You know, this would have been the prime example for God to show that he lengthens legs. But it didn't happen with Hobart. And it was very disappointing for me as a young person to hear him say that I'm carrying around my new pair of shoes in the trunk of my Cadillac.

And he didn't even hide the fact that he was carrying the new pair of shoes around. And so that presented another problem for me. And this is why I had problems early on with Faith Assembly and why all the ministers at Faith Assembly are hating me because they said channel questions too many things.

But they took my questioning as though I'm questioning God. I don't question God at all, zero. Everything in the Bible, every jot in title is the Word of God. I believe all of it.

I just don't believe these ministers. I just don't have a lot of faith in them. And as I said before, I trust the people in the church oftentimes more than I trust the minister.

And that's just backwards, John, because if you're a minister, the qualifications of character and honesty and sincerity and a lack of guile and transparency are high, high, high. And we should expect that. We should want that.

And then when we should go to a church, we should kind of be able to go comfortably. Knowing this is a minister. And so the qualifications for a minister Paul gives are really high.

So I can kind of go in here and I'm comfortable because I know he's met those qualifications. Unfortunately, our experience has told us, you better go in with some suspicion and reservation. And it's too bad that we have to do that.

But the reason that we have to do that is our past experience has told us, if you don't, someone knowingly or I'll give people the benefit of the doubt, unknowingly, will deceive you. I'm not saying that Hobart Freeman purposely said anybody down when he used to pray for legs and manipulated legs, I don't know whether he did or not.

I do know the facts, the facts are he had a short leg, the facts are it never grew out, the facts are he died with a short leg. These are the facts. You can be mad at me all you want, but these are still the facts, and you can be mad at me and I will still love you because I know how difficult it is because you say, but wait a minute, you know, I know healings in the Bible. I know that, too.

We're not talking about what's in the Bible. We're talking about what was on the end of Hobart's foot, and it was a shoe, a special orthopedic one, with a lift in it. Why John wasn't there a mutiny on the bounty? I was never able to figure that out. How all those people knew Hobart had a short lay and knew that he wasn't acting his faith. I mean, and he came down strong on them.

You better act your faith. And yet they knew, hey, he's carrying around in his trunk, a new pair of shoes. You know, it reminds me. I'm sure most people, most of your viewers will know the story of Hans Christian Anderson, the Emperor's new clothes.

This is a, this is a fascinating, I don't know, 200-year-old tale that has had so many applications, and it has application 100% here with Dr. Freeman. So for the people that don't know Hans Christian Anderson, the Emperor's new clothes, it went like this. There was an emperor and in his kingdom came two con artists. These were con artists, and they convinced the Emperor that they were going to make him some new royal garments, robes, clothes. But they were such special clothes that they were invisible to anybody except to the initiated. And so if you couldn't see them,

you're just stupid. There's something wrong with you if you can't see it. I mean, there is something totally wrong with you. So the two con artists set up their loom, and they've got their weaving and stitching and sewing together this intricate garment. And the emperor and his court are all watching, and they don't see anything. But they know I can't say something, because if I say something, that means I'm stupid. So as the con artists are sewing the clothes together, the emperor is going, oh, that's beautiful. That's magnificent. That's wonderful. Well, once they get the robes made for the king, now it's time for him to put them on. And he still doesn't see

anything, but he can admit it, because he would be a buffoon. And so they say, stretch out your arms, and they put the clothes on him. And then he goes out and he walks down the street in his royal procession. And everybody out there knows I can't say that I don't see anything, because if I admit that, then I'd be stupid. And so they all apply the king for his beautiful new clothes, except for one child. This is emperor's name.

Hey, kid, he's not wearing anything. What is wrong with him? And that's where we come into the picture sometimes, Sean. We're the only ones willing to say, there's nothing there. Everybody who has said, oh, there's something there.

And I know I have to agree with all my fellow church members. There's something there because if I don't, they'll say you're not spiritual. You're stupid. You're just a buffoon. But if you would just face reality like the child did, the child said the emperor is naked.

He's not wearing any clothes. And that's what it takes. It just takes someone who doesn't have anything to lose. Everyone else was afraid of losing prestige in the village. So they just, it's herd mentality.

You just agree with everyone else. And it took this child to say, no, no, no, no. I don't think he has anything on. Because it was con artistry from the beginning. You've heard that story, I'm sure.

I have, I like in these guys more, though, to the wolf in Red Riding Hood stories. But it's just so wrong what they're doing. And part of me feel sorry for people like Hobart.

They're looking for something initially. Hobart had to have been seeking something, some sort of a healing for his leg. So I don't blame him for getting into it. But there had to have come a point in which he realized that it's probably not going to happen.

I'm probably going to have to wear this shoe for the rest of my life. But I am going to come down hard on every single person who's in my congregation and makes their lives miserable because my life is also miserable.

Yeah, I see a lot of that. When I look at Hobart from 1974 to 1984, wow, there's a huge difference. And I've said this before, but early in the 70s, Hobart was joyful, excited, free, and his walk with the Lord.

He was just eagerly anticipating everything. But things didn't happen. He was not healed of that. Shortly, he was not healed of his heart condition. His hair continued to thin, like mine has done. His youth was not renewed like the Eagles as he had prayed for and hoped for and expected.

Here's where the rubber meets the road. Most of us, when things like that happen, we are honest. And I would say just fair enough to say, maybe I need to reevaluate my beliefs. That's all you have to do is maybe I need to reevaluate my beliefs.

But Hobart had already taken such a strong stand. And he had just ruled out doctors. He said, if you pray 10 times for the same thing, you prayed nine times in unbelief. You, Mark 11, 24, you pray.

for a one time it settled and then you wait for the answer. He had taken such an extremely hard stand on that, that for him to go back on that, I mean that's the end of his faith ministry.

You really couldn't have a faith ministry after that. It would be the end of it and he obviously wasn't going to do that and wasn't willing to do that. When I first started in the ministry, I was a freemanite, I had the same beliefs that Hobart did.

I was really young so I didn't have health issues like he had. I've said before, the faith and healing movement worked wonderfully for people in their 20s and 30s because you don't have health issues and when you get older, you have health issues that are just normal things and then you realize, well maybe my theology is not right.

Now look, there are still some people, not very many, thankfully, but some people who have continued to die down to this day. There's just something, there's a disconnect in their mind to hold on to some what you think is a promise of God, which really isn't or it would have happened.

God is faithful. If God has said something that he's going to do, he's going to do it. If you have to be worried about 5,000 conditions that you've got to meet and order for him to do it, there's something sketchy in your theology.

Sounds more like the Pharisees and it does Christianity because if God's made a promise to you that he's going to heal you, you can be certain that's going to happen and even if you get in the way a little bit, God is so big and God is so loving and so kind, he'll still heal you.

With Hobart's theology, 99% of the burden was put on the person. You have to say the right thing and confess the right thing and endure and hold on and not make a negative confession and not think negatively and then rid your house of any vestigial remains of medicine or medical science or have you ever been involved with a Ouija board or gone to a seance or watched, you know, Rosemary's baby movie or whatever, you could have all of these open doors and it's all of these secret open doors which have allowed evil spirits to come back in your life and that's what your healing is not manifested.

And we'll talk hopefully in future podcasts about Dr. Freeman's views on demons and deliverance but that was just, you know, a hodgepodge of math, just a cesspool of disgusting stuff that put so much fear in the people's lives and again, it's nothing like that.

I don't find anything in the Bible where we've got some promises in Acts or the Gospels for healing and yet then we have 44 warnings afterwards. Now you need to check your medicine cabinet and check your confession and check a cold involvement and check seance is in witchcraft and Satanism and UFOs and, you know, Harry Potter Whatever else you've been involved with, that may cause this healing not to come to you.

That is so. That is nothing but garbage. That's only polite word I can think for that. That is just pure religious garbage that Hobart or any minister would teach. As I said, if God's made a promise to heal you, God is definitely going to heal you.

But He didn't Hobart, and I don't know why people didn't open their eyes to see it all John. And then to end with today to compound the issue, He kept leading the people on.

You also played in the end of our last interview together. Some clips from messages where Hobart was just flaunting the special place that he had. And the special place that his healing would have for like the entire church.

So you're a special person, and your little short leg is some big deal. Other people were dying of treatable illnesses. You can live with a short leg. That's not going to kill you. And he obviously did live with it for a while.

But then he began telling these stories, well, such and such had a vision. And they confirmed my healing. And then he went on on other message to say there have been as many as 20 visions seen by at least 20 different people.

My eventual leg lengthening healing has been seen by 20 different people in vision confirming that it's going to happen. And that the day that that happens, he said, I don't know what this means, but there's what one sister showed me shared with me the whole body would somehow enter into it and receive their healing on one of his quotations.

He said, and you might get your new set of tea. So he's saying someone who has no teeth, just going to have teeth created the same day that his leg is lengthened. And do you know what you hear on those tapes?

You hear amen, praise the Lord, lots of clapping. So I know what happened. What happened? People say, well, how did what happened was Hobart had gone several years and not had his leg lengthened.

And there's some sister in the body who got emotional. I'm sorry, but who got emotional one day and thought they had a vision because you didn't have a vision because it didn't happen. And you don't want to be a false prophet.

So just say, no, I got emotional one day and had a vision. And this will help my pastor out. This will put me in good graces with him. If after the service, I go up and say, brother Freeman, I had this vision of your healing.

And I saw that when you were healed, the whole body of Christ enters and then Hobart tells that year to go. And then six months later, another person has a, oh, brother, I had a vision that confirming that sister's vision.

That's how all of these things happen. And there were no true visions because there was no true healing. And I just feel sorry for all these people who've been let along for all these years.

But better late than never, better wise and foolish. So let's believe what God's word says, what it clearly says. And let's just be very, very careful when a minister tells us a story. Yeah, I feel sorry for the people too.

Anybody who has been in this sort of thing, it's, you know, even though they should have been critically thinking, they should have been able to filter this out. The problem is, like you said, they're part of the herd.

And once you're in the herd, it doesn't matter if the emperor has clothes or not. The herd all somewhat agrees. And it's a very complicated problem that it becomes. And I was part of that problem, so I understand it.

Not many people looking on the outside were in it. So it's very difficult when you see somebody say, well, that's unscriptural. These people shouldn't be like that. The herd, as the herd moves, the herd can move in the wrong direction.

And they're not enough people who stop it. They're not enough barriers. So unfortunately with Hobart, it moved way off into the wrong direction. But anyway, I'm glad that people are starting to wake up.

Hopefully this helps and more people can not be part of that same type of herd. So thank you for doing this. Thank you, John. Well, 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-Branham.org. From more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation, you can re-weaponize religion from Christian identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye!