New Beginnings

Music Hello and welcome to the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley. Together we're examining the critical history and the intersections in history between William Brannum and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. We also examine the fruits of these revivals, discussing everything from the latter rain and word of faith and new apostolic reformation movements to some of the more sinister sex that emerged as a result of this dark chapter in history in

American Christianity. Today's episode is very exciting. We're resetting the podcast for the new format, and as many of you know, my research has been primarily focused upon William Brannum in his message cult personality, but that research has raised more questions than it did answers. Charles, who has done extensive research into this movement, brings many of these answers to the table through inside knowledge of one of William Brannum's closest associates. Hang on to your seats because the first episode of season two is going to be a wild ride. Charles, this is the moment that everyone has been waiting for. Are you

excited? Yes, John, I am very excited and I've been looking forward to diving into these topics with you and the amount of information on this stuff is just huge and it's going to be great for us to share the most up-to-date information and to even get into some things that maybe it's not been covered before. So I'm really looking forward to that and providing something to our listeners and easy to access format. Your right buckle up, we're sure going to be deep diving into a lot of topics and we're going to cover a lot of ground

and reveal a lot of things, John. I'm looking forward to it. Absolutely. I'm excited. This is the things that we have been discussing behind the scenes in private that people need to know. It's just astounding and some of the things I have not yet been able to say because they were things that my family mostly knew and talked about behind closed doors, but there are things that I could not just simply verify with documentation or anything that's research related that I could quote into a reference note, but with what you bring to the table.

Now we have the combination of the mouth of two or three witnesses and there are things that I can now say that literally my hands have been tied before this point. So I'm very excited.

Exactly, John. There's lots of stories and lots of things that we know haven't lived here, been in it, went through it. The people that we've known, especially here in the Jefferson ville area, you and I, our families go way back to the early days of this group.

And we know a lot of things and can definitely cooperate a lot of stories. Right. If I compare this to the Old Testament, you're like the scribes that kept track of a lot of the information that people assume that this history has been long forgotten.

But in our conversations, the notes that you're taking is just unbelievable what you have. Yeah, yeah, it's really amazing, John. I don't know. I guess I'm going to a little bit of my background.

So when I came out from the group I was in, which maybe you'll talk a little bit more about, but I spent the first several years after finding some of the things that you would publish to really looking to try and disprove it all.

And so one of the things I had access to was many eyewitnesses of William Brown. In our church, we had people who knew William Brown all the way back to the 1930s, you know, before he was married, really, before he even had children.

And so we had a tremendous depth of witness of William Brown in really back to his formative early years. And I went through and I did talks with different ones, interviews, you could say, informal interviews, and did a whole lot of research into the people who were there and people who knew what was going on and combine that with the things I'd heard throughout the year.

So yeah, I look forward to being able to share some of that. I remember when I was writing the book, Preacher Behind the White Hoods, I desperately wished that I had what you had at that point in time, because I knew after what the things that I found, I knew that they were just so incredibly wrong, that somebody had to know many of these things.

And I understand that, you know, from the perspective of a person who is being conned and believes the con, their perspective is obviously going to be skewed in favor of, you know, William Brannum and his cult of personality.

But at the same time, they hold key critical facts that when you, they're puzzle pieces, when you take these puzzle pieces and marry them with these puzzle pieces, you see the bigger picture. And I really wanted to have some of those interviews.

And now that I've learned that you have them, oh my gosh, people are just going to be so excited. Yeah, you're spot on, John, you're spot on. A lot of the people do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

know the history, do know the truth. Behind the scenes, they'll talk to you about it privately, especially when you're still in the message, you know, because they want to make excuses, they want to try and resolve the, resolve and reconcile what they believe to the facts that they know. And so oftentimes they're willing to talk to you, especially when you were like me, we're in a position of responsibility and authority within the group. So yeah.

Right. Right. So this is going to be a complete reset of the podcast anybody who has looked at the podcast before my website actually started as a kind of like you. I wanted to prove William Brandon was true. I never really intended to do any of this. My website literally started because I had gone through some severe life experiences that were the very troubling. I mean, for me, it was very, it was very difficult times. And I remember being shaken somewhat during those times. And there were a few questions I had, nothing really major. I still believe William Brandon was a prophet. I did have a question about

one of the prophecies that I had at that point just didn't really understand because what he said was one thing and what happened was a completely different thing. So I wanted to ask my grandfather.

So I pushed, so I run web servers. I run a technology business. And so I pushed some notes that I could just pull up on my phone, you know, and ask my grandfather, who was, you know, he was the pastor of the Brandham Tabernacle. And this was before office 365 or all these fancy tools you have now. This was old school and I was, you know, we were struggling for money. So I just threw it up on a web server. I could pull it up on my phone. And before I got the chance to ask my grandfather, somehow the Colt headquarters found this website and they thought that I was

going rogue. And before I could even talk to my grandfather, this whole thing spread around the globe that John Collins is going rogue. And, you know, it never, it was never intended to be what it was. But when that happened, I knew that something was just so vastly wrong. The way that the Colt responded was not with answers, but with, let's cover this up. Let's, let's conceal what's happening with John. And I have an uncle, bless his heart, who spread around the whole globe that John Collins was homosexual. And I've never had a leaning in my life. Like, in fact,

I have the opposite struggles. I... I'm a male and I'm very much a male, and people who know me kind of laughed at it, but the people who didn't know me, they believe my uncle, and to this day I still have, I had a pastor in the Congo contact me, and he says, John, I just want to let you know that I've led two of our churches out of the message, and I want to thank you for all the research that you've done, but I just have to say it was a real stumbling block learning that you

were homosexual, and I was like, but I'm not, you know, and they tried to conceal that information, so that website turned into a website called SeakyTheTruth.com, and the blog, I purposefully have left every blog post that has been in existence. You can go on my website, William-Branham.org, and you can see the very beginning, they're almost not even readable, they're like notes, but I left them up there, so everybody can see the history of this, and over time it transitioned to, first I questioned that he was a prophet, but I thought he was a good man, then I questioned he was, you know, the messenger for the age

or whatever, there's a progression that you can see in the blog post of what happened over time, and the transition to suddenly realizing, no, this man was a scam artist, he was a very good scam artist, but he had men who helped him create what's called the long con.

This was a con that lasted several decades, and he was good at it, and there were several men in on it. Once I realized that, I, you know, transitioned to what it is now, William-Branham historical research, but in resetting the podcast, I've taken all of the episodes except for last season, and I've archived them into a podcast file or format called Seek the Truth, and that's out there, you can get to it on the website, and I'm resetting with season two, and now season one basically is just the sum of the critical research, the old review,

if you will, and I think there may be one interview in there, and then we're resetting it because you have many of the answers to season one, so it kind of just simply goes together, and I also have doing work with Naomi Wright in the free and clear podcast that's still up there, and you can get to it at free and clearshow.com or on the website.

That's a great podcast, John, that's helped a lot of people. Thank you. But that's out there, and Charles, why don't you tell us about your website. I plan to, not just in the notes and description on this podcast, but when we do the interviews and the trailers, I'm going to have your website and my websites.

since this is a joint venture between us. Sure, so the church I'm with today, we have a website called ChristianGospelChurch.org and people can go there and find out certainly some more information about some of the things we'll talk about on this podcast and also just the ministry that we operate.

We run a small church here, we're about three miles away from the Brownham Tabernacle and things are going well. We're helping some different people and we're very thankful for the opportunity to do that and to partner with you on this podcast, John.

Awesome, and I'd like to take a brief second to talk about the church itself because I'll be open and honest. This is something that I talk about in my support groups and the other support groups that I work with.

There's a real struggle because when ministers leave the message, they, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them, that's all they have ever known is the message that's all they've ever preached, taught, that's all they live, breathe, at eight and slept, you know, for all these decades.

And they left and then there's this tendency of, in my opinion, it's just simply pride, but I'm sure there's more complicated than that for these men, but they want to hold on to many of the things that they've taught for years because if they don't, then they've taught some things that aren't true for years.

And so what happens is when ministers leave, they basically, it's like going to a message quote church without a prophet, you know what I mean? Yes, yeah. And what you've described as, I think the words that you use were halfway house church, which I love this concept.

If you could, tell us a little bit about the structure. Yeah, so we're church that we're going to focus on the gospel. We really want to be a place that's especially healthy for people who are in the process of leaving the message or looking for a halfway step out.

We are not going to be repeating the mistakes of the past. The Apostle Paul said, if I build again, that which I destroy, I am become a transgressor. And that's certainly a little bit of my motto as I look at the way forward.

We've got some other great ministers that are working with us who have also exited the message. There's actually quite a large network at this point, John, that have left. And the ones that are working with me here in this area are just tremendous.

And I believe it's something that would be a great help to people who are looking for some community or some fellowship or in need as they're exiting the message. Just wanting to get back into healthy Christianity, maybe not even to stay forever, but just as a place to unwind, to feel better before maybe they move along.

their journey with Christ. That's awesome. And one of the things that we've talked about in our discussion, I want to make clear. So when people leave the cult, they have been bruised by the religion.

This was pseudo Christianity. If you could even, I even hesitate to use the term Christianity in pseudo Christianity with this cult. It in no way resembled Christianity in my opinion. But there's a lot of people that have been so bruised that they're just done with it.

They don't want religion. They don't want Christianity. Are people who have been bruised but want to explore the notion that Christianity might be different if they weren't in a cult? Are these people also welcome in your church?

Yeah, of course they are. You know, the way you describe it is, I think, is a good description. The message has so many different flavors and sex, John. You and I know that. We were in different sex, right?

We wouldn't even have spoke to each other. You know, probably if we pass each other on the street in Jeffersonville. But... It's in Baskin Robbins of great churches. Yeah. There's so many flavors. And some of us, some groups were maybe closer to normal Christianity, some were closer to, you know, Jim Jones Crazy Land.

So you've got a rainbow, a range of options in there and some especially in the middle and towards the extreme and John are absolutely right. It hardly resembles Christianity. And people like that, and especially even really any group you leave, it really seems like the way out is it's got to be a traumatic experience for a lot of people, just disappearing out the back door is not an option for most people.

Most people, John, you know, the exit is a whole lot like you describe. It actually, what happened to me is a very similar story. I still believe the message. I still believed William Brannum.

I was conducting interviews like I mentioned to you, doing extensive research. And at a certain point, I guess I crossed a line with somebody and they outed me as not believing the message, which was not even true at the time.

And very quickly, you know, you find, I get calls from foreign countries, Charles, I heard you said this about the prophet and like, what in the world, what in the world, you know, is, and you're very right, John, just the way that they react, boy, it really, that was a huge eye opener to me, just the way that the reaction went once, once some of that stuff came out.

And it ends up very, very traumatic for people who leave because of the serious abuse they often suffer on the way out. And we, and everyone in... leadership positions at the church where I'm at now have experienced these exact same things.

Many of them have been through counseling and so forth for those things and it's something I believe we can help people when they experience with if they come we know where you're coming from, we know what you went through, we can relate and you're going to find a love, compassion, comfort, and confirmation and affirmation. That's awesome. I will never forget when my grandfather learned of this note taping, note taping, taking a website that I created, literally just some random notes. He called me up and he said, John, people have known these things for years. What does it hurt

for you to believe it anyway? I'm going to come down very hard against you and your family and it shocked me. I mean this was my grandfather. This is everybody thinks of him as this humble gentle soul and the man that called me was not a humble gentle soul but I remember that humble gentle soul from before this. It was a complete and instant change and what was very odd about this was my wife and children. At that point my wife had honestly seen some of the questions and I think at that point she was exploring the notion or had also came to some of the same conclusions but

he had no idea. He shunned her and my children, cut them off because I posed to these questions that people would suddenly be asking and literally just to silence the questions he was willing to cut off her soul from Christianity and they, you know how it goes in the cult whenever they cut somebody off, they turn your soul over to Satan for the destruction of your flesh and my wife was like, wait, what? I didn't say anything. Yeah, I know just what you mean. When we were

the saying there that your grandfather said that people have known this for years, what does it hurt you to believe anyway? It actually confesses that they know what we're saying is the truth. And the exact same thing I discovered is that everyone in leadership positions that I spoke to knew what I was talking about, knew, knew these things even before I asked the questions, had the answers and they knew John, they knew absolutely. And what's so ironic is that, you know, those very people who turn around and condemn you are the ones who confirmed you

that you were right, right? And then they're angry at you, right? For believing them. Right. It's, it's amazing, John, isn't it? Right? So, so yes, I, I, I experienced very similar type experiences. I, I received confirmations from, from the, you know, the highest leaders in our, our sect of the message, the validity and the truth of, of certain things. And, but then when, when the day came, it was all me, it was all me, and I found my way out. And it's a set, just like you mentioned, not only did my wife and my children get thrown out for, not, you know,

for nothing. My parents did too. I mean, and, you know, anybody, anybody who would have even, you know, offered to continue to be my friend would have been mercilessly crushed, right? I mean, that's, that's just sadly how it is. And so, we very much understand the pain that people suffer leaving the group. Yeah. There's also this weird complexity, right? Because I've learned over time, William Brannum had different stage personas. And they were vastly different stage personas. To the extent, one version of William Brannum says, anyone who accepts the Trinity, it has accepted the mark of the beast. It, any paraphrases it, you know, over, right, several sentences. But,

he says essentially that if you, he says the Trinity, the persons of the Trinity is a Catholic doctrine that came from Satan, basically. And he says, if anybody who accepts this has accepted the mark of the beast or, you know, is in Satan's kingdom, but there are other versions of his stage persona that say, praise you, Jesus, praise the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, we who have accepted you. And when I found these things, you know, what do you do with that?

It's like if you take, if you take a coin that's got heads and tails and you preach to the ground that, no, this is heads. Any way that I look at this coin, it's heads and you leave it laying on the table. And everybody's, praise God, I see heads too. Well, then you get this other sector, this other division in the cult. Well, they've got the coin flipped the other way. Yeah. No, he said tails. Yeah. And they just go on and on every, I don't know how those people can see heads because when I look at this table and I see this coin, I see tails. And then they start fighting with each

other. I've been in, I've been in cult churches from, I was raised from Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between. And I remember as a kid growing up, I'd hear this particular pastor going these rants that was his big thing and these other pastors who went in rants against what this guy was saying to the extent that in the same city many times there are cult churches that won't have fellowship with each.

other at all. And what's really interesting, what you bring to the table is that right here in Mecca, in William Brannum's home area are two churches, two of which are foundational churches for this cult. Each with hundreds, hundreds of members.

Yeah, the big, big sex of the church, SECTS of the church, right? And they wouldn't fellowship. Like I didn't know any of you people. I did not know you until like two years ago.

Right, right. Same thing, John. I mean, we knew about you. So maybe let me give a little background of where I'm from and the church that I was in. So my family has been in the message since the 50s. My father's family is from Canada. They came into the message actually in the 60s. My mother's family, though, came into the message in the 50s. They attended the Brannum Tabernacle while William Brannum was still living, was acquainted with him, the different people there. They continued going there until after Brother Brannum's death in 1967, at which point my family transitioned over to the church I grew up in and spent

my life in. Faith Assembly Church. Brother Brannum called Faith Assembly, the sister church to the Tabernacle. He said it was the church that was the closest to living out his teachings that he knew of in the whole world. He bleeped praise on Faith Assembly. He came to Faith Assembly and preached multiple times over the years. Faith Assembly was in New Albany for most of the time that he was alive. And it was moved to Clark'sville in later years and then to his present location at the edge of Jeffersonville in 1967. And the pastor, the founder

of the church was Raymond Jackson. The message people know him as Junior Jackson. And he is a very prominent figure in the message as a whole and certainly within our sect he was the leader.

Raymond Jackson preached and spoke at William Brannum's funeral. He was a frequent companion of William Brannum frequently mentioned by Brother Brannum on tape. The two men had a very close relationship and a lot of information was shared there. Faith Assembly is to the best of my knowledge, the second oldest continuously operating message church in the world. And for your listeners and for our listeners sake, I was the assistant pastor of that church. Yes, I guess if you want to put it in that way, I was a prominent minister in that sect of the message. Our church

had a global outreach. At the Hay Day, Faith Assembly had dozens of churches around the world of fellowship, certainly thousands of people. that were subscribers to our publications. I was the editor of that publication, which is one of the premier publications in the message, I think, certainly.

So I was the editor of that, and obviously I was a minister. I mean, what do you see behind me is, a lot of this is a collection of message materials, John. Yeah. And so for the listeners who don't understand the depth of this, the message has all of these different splinter groups that, like any cult, whenever something is so incredibly wrong and different, it splinters into all of these different divisions and factions.

And the main, the central faction of the message, the cult headquarters is in Jeffersonville. The central figure of the main sect is Joseph Brannum, William Brannum's son. And the number two in charge is Billy Paul Brannum, William Brannum's other son.

So Charles, who's in a competing sect, is the Billy Paul Brannum of that sect. Oh, boy, there's an award. There's an award, man. Oh, it's, I need, John. I never will forget whenever I first met Raymond Jackson.

All my life growing up, I was just in awe at this name, Junior Jackson. I heard it all my life. I listened to tapes religiously. I listened to the recordings of William Brannum in my bed at night.

I had a walkman and I would go through school in between classes and at lunch, I was playing William Brannum. When I was old enough to get a car at age 16, that's what I played in my car.

Well, everybody else had all this boom, boom music. I had this screaming voice and they were like, what is that thing that you're listening to? And the name Junior Jackson was just, I mean, it was a key element of the message.

He was a fundamental figure. And we were at the Blueborg cafeteria, William Brannum's favorite restaurant. Yes. And by association, my grandfather's favorite restaurant. And have you ever seen the show Seinfeld? I have, John.

There's this repeating recurring segment in Seinfeld when Newman walks in, Seinfeld looks at him and goes, hello, Newman. And Newman looks at Jerry and he goes, hello, Jerry. And they get the scowl on their faces.

And it's all for laughs, they like each other. But Raymond Jackson walked in and he saw my grandfather at the table and I looked up and I wanted to stand up, hug his neck, I'd never seen this man.

And he goes, hello, Willard. And my grandpa looks at him and goes, hello, Raymond. And then they scalded each other and then Raymond. Junior Jackson walked onto his table and I didn't get to hug him.

I was like, well, do I hate this guy or do I love him? Which one is it? It's so funny, isn't it? Oh, I love the blueboard cafe. We used to go there a lot too. It was such a Place everybody loved to go for dinner after after Sunday service I think brother Brannum was on tape saying that everyone in the congregation loves the blue board Yeah, 80% of my congregation will go there for lunch, and so it was a it was a super popular place to eat In the area, and you know John when we was looking at our church

I actually went into that building they closed down in 2003 was looking at that building For converting into the church Oh, yeah, I know it would have been wouldn't it we ended up taking a place across the street But yeah, it's still there, and so I got to looking into the history of it as I was as I was considering it John And you know one thing that was super interesting so they opened in the 1930s. They was a Surprise prize a white only restaurant. What?

Yes Blueboard was a white only restaurant black. We're not we're not permitted yet, and and and and guess the year that they opened to blacks The same year William Brennan moved to Arizona No, right so I mean just the The irony of it all yeah the irony of it all but yeah, it I Can remember going through the cattle maze to get up there the cafeteria line and we'd always see the the Brannumites We called your sect the Brannumites John do and we would we would get in there and we would never speak to any of them

We would like look at them out of the corner of our eyes from our table And you know, we get back to faith sibling even as a lot of times brother Jackson would mention some of the goings on there and some of his sermons Talk about the tabernacle crowd. Yeah interesting stuff that is into the new listeners who aren't aware of this research Who's you know interested in the new apostolic reformation and all of these things that William Brannum basically was the grandfather to This this was unknown to me until about 2014 or 15 But William Brannum's church the Brannum tabernacle was actually created by

What later became the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? He was the Roy E Davis. He was the official spokesperson for the 1915 Ku Klux Klan he He and William Joseph Simmons who founded the 1915 Ku Klux Klan started other white supremacy groups and We're going to go deeper into that history in this show, but William Brannum as early as 1928 was holding revivals with the Ku Klux Klan Imperial Chaplin the Imperial Clud Charles you have to give me the name my Caleb Ridley Caleb Ridley So there is heavy heavy white supremacy roots in the Brannum tabernacle Roy

Davis's church was started as what was called the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God, and it was a sect, not a church. It was the headquarters church in Jeffersonville. He later moved that sect to another state, but William Brannum basically, when Davis got extra-dited to, I believe, his Arkansas on some grand theft and connection to murder charges.

The church transitioned to William Brannum. And William Brannum became the leader of the church. It initially was called the Billy Brannum Pentecostal Tabernacle. And then later that was renamed in 1945 to Brannum Tabernacle.

But before this transition, he was a Pentecostal minister. After the transition, he used the word Baptist from that sect to claim that he was a Baptist minister. But in all actuality, he was a Pentecostal.

So the white supremacy roots and the connection to, this is very surprising to me, the connection to just the restaurant that we ate in, it's unbelievable, the history. Yeah, you're right, John. There's so much history.

And you said such a mouthful there. I know in future episodes, we're going to deep dive into each of those topics a little bit at a time and unfold some of that. It's amazing when you step back and you just look at the true history of this group, who created it, where it came from, the things it did, the things like your grandfather said that we knew for years, John, what does it hurt you to believe anyway, right?

The things where I came from, they knew it for years, Charles. What does it hurt you to believe it anyway? We're going to dive into that, John. And the challenge is great, the cult has tried very hard to stop everything that I do.

If you've followed my site, you know that I've had YouTube sites taken down, other video host taken down, I've had severe technology attacks on my, not only the work that I do with the message, but the, you know, my business in general.

The funniest thing that I found was when I first started this, people were brute forcing password attacks into my servers with passwords like Malachi 4. As if I'm going to use that password after leaving the cult, you know, what in the world were they thinking?

And not only that, who else but this cult is going to use that as a brute force password attack, there's so much history there, but Charles, one of the things that we're going to face is that, you know, the cult would like for this podcast not to happen.

So we're going to be putting this into... When the podcast goes out, it's going to go in different venues. So if one goes out, one gets taken offline on the website, on the video page, you'll see feed one, feed two, feed three, feed four, and when one goes offline, it will just transfer over to another one.

OK. Yeah, that sounds great. And I think that'll be good for the viewers that way. They can access it anywhere, have multiple channels. Awesome. And Charles, when we were talking, you had a story about when you were looking at my website, somebody contacted you.

I think that's an interesting story. Oh, yeah. So although our sex didn't align at all, very interestingly, John, when you started publishing some of your material, people from Voice of God started reaching out to me over at our sect of the message.

And yeah, there were some interesting exchanges of information there. And yeah, and so I do know, John, and I absolutely believe that efforts would be made to shut you down and different things. I too work in technology, John, as you know.

I have a similar background, and I remember back in those days, looking I could see different things that were going on towards your website for trying to poison your SEO when different things of that nature.

And that was interesting stuff. And I remember when your YouTube channel got taken down, I was still in. I said, well, praise the Lord. John's came around to the truth. You know, that's how I looked at that.

But I realize now, no, they use tactics to get rid of it. Yeah. So we've got so much to cover in this podcast. There's so many exciting different areas of research that we could cover.

So why don't let's take a few minutes and just talk about what we could cover for the upcoming episodes. What are some of the things that you think listeners would enjoy hearing? Sure. So there's lots of topics that we could cover.

And I know I especially want to share a lot of the facts that we know about William Brannum and explain some of the ways that we know those things. Because we know there's certainly some things that are speculation out there.

But then there's a whole lot of things that is really hard facts that we can do to. And if something is a speculation or a question, we're not going to be afraid to ask that question.

Because we want to make sure also that everyone does see the underlying evidence is causing us to ask the questions that we have. But that's one thing. And one thing in the message is that the message tells you you're going to go straight to hell if you ask a question.

But questions are not unbelief and we're not afraid to ask questions and you know the first step to understanding something is to ask a question and You know jesus said if you knock if you seek if you ask that's that's how you get answered, right?

And so that's what we're doing when we ask questions. We're knocking we're seeking we're asking And we're not afraid to ask a question, you know If if we ask a question There should be a good answer to it right and we're not wrong to seek for that So you know, I especially I love a lot of the people in the message john and even some of the people that You know, we'll talk about as our family people. We love people we care about and so My hope for the for a lot of what we talk about is we'll we'll share some things that will be a help to people and

There's been a huge exodus from the message over the past couple years And bring in some awareness to some of these topics I think we'll help both people that are still in And people who who have left and just want to get some more information and so I know one of the topics john that we we definitely want to talk about is william brannum's true life story Absolutely, yes What you know what we were told our whole lives is Is truth mixed with myth And so you know it it'll be interesting to go through and we'll we'll figure out which parts are myth which parts we suspect are myth

And then which parts are actually Documented you know provable things that we know did indeed actually happen So that that's one thing I definitely want to look at john Right there's all kinds of things related in there. Oh, I'll let you say something go ahead. Sorry No, it's all right I was just thinking I was just thinking as you were talking there are there are also things that Specifically for our listeners who were in the message who were basically indoctrinated with things that weren't true there are Key history key historical facts that the rest of the world

For the most part knows not everybody knows it, but a lot of people do But we were taught it so vastly wrong that it's a little bit complex and explaining it So it may it may take a few episodes for a trail of thought In example of this that I was thinking recently with Regarding to this podcast One of the things that we were taught in the message was that william brannum brought these Truths that the world did not know he was the messenger for the age So he brought these things that the world just didn't know and only william brannum knew it

And now they exist because william brannum brought them right one of them was one this pentecostalism And as we dive into the history specifically of indiana church history White supremacy history. There's a fascinating history Indiana. One of the key facts that will bring to the surface over a series of time. I mentioned Roy Davis, William Simmons, and the Pentecostal Baptist Church, cult that William Brannum was a member of, well in Indiana there was a man named Garfield Thomas Haywood, and he literally is the reason why Wellness Pentecostalism exists. He predates William Brannum. He had a very popular tract called

Victim of the Flaming Sword. He was a black man and he was growing up or he was raising to his spiritual authority in Pentecostalism as a black preacher in the heaviest concentration of white supremacists in the nation at the time. His tract, Victim of the Flaming Sword, was very symbolic because the black communities could very much feel like they were driven from the Garden of Eden with the flaming sword from the Book of Genesis. Roy Davis and William Simmons, when the clan dissolved, created a response to this called the Knights of the Flaming Sword. They wanted to

be the ones doing the driving. And Davis sets up camp in Indiana. He starts a Pentecostal sect. He is a Baptist minister. He is truly a Baptist minister, but he creates a Pentecostal sect.

And they want to basically be in opposition to this growing thing that Haywood created. And when William Brannum goes on his famous Mishawaka trip, he's going to a time when all the Pentecostal churches are wanting to merge. And they created a sect that they wanted to merge with this group called the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God sect. And you know, you can look at the history and say it failed. You know, nobody knows this thing existed. But look at the number of people in the world that now think that William Brannum is the one who brought on this Pentecostalism. It actually worked.

It was very effective this long con that they created. Yeah, there's so many things that William Brannum claimed to be the originator of. But upon research, we find it's not so, right John? I just like you mentioned there. And that's one of the great things about some of these books I have here in the library. Right, we know exactly where where the stuff came from. You know, he thinks I know we're going to deep dive into that in some of these episodes. But we know exactly where the supernatural revelations came from.

And so far, I've yet to find one that actually had a supernatural source. And in fact, we found almost every single one of them, you know, in these books. There's so that'll be That'll be an interesting episode.

And that's like you mentioned, John, that is a huge thing when you're inside the message. We believed that angels came to William Brownham and told him these things. We believe that he had these mystical visions and God told all these things to him.

And we don't necessarily even have to judge whether they're right or wrong, right? Whether they're true or false. But we can judge, he did not learn these things the way that he told us that he did.

And that is such a sucker punch. And I know for me, John, especially that, and the truth about the things that happened in 1963 was just probably the most impactful things at all for me personally, of all for me personally when I started to find the truth.

And I definitely want to do an episode on the truth about 1963, what really happened that year? What made that cloud, where William Brownham really was at the time looking to those things? So that'll be very interesting for the listeners as well.

Yeah, there's just so much. And I'm looking fascinated at your library. I think when people understand the true value of what you have behind you, what this represents to the cult, I think people are going to be very surprised.

And you're going to get a lot of questions. Where do I get these books? Yeah, you know, John, I spent years collecting these. So brother Brownham has a library out in Arizona. And some of these stories are amazing.

And maybe I'll share them in more depth, the more episodes. But at one point, there's a book right here on my shelf. I had my fingers right where it's at. It's a blue one, if you see it right there.

A friend of mine at the church, his father passed away. And he gave me a copy of that book. His father had been a pastor. And I'm looking at this book and I'm like, I start reading it.

It's like, hey, this has got some great pictures. I'm going to use these pictures. But then I start reading it. And I go, oh, oh, my goodness. Oh, man. Oh, my goodness, look, I can't believe the things that are wrote in this book.

This William Brownham said all he got all these things from angels. And I'm reading the book, I just, I can't believe it. And suddenly, my mind just starts firing on all cylinders. And the book tied on my, OK, I remember Brother Brownham talked about this guy, talked about this book.

Wait a minute, Raymond Jackson said that Brother Brownham gave him copies of this book. I went back, pulled the tape. I went into the church library. And here's the copies of the book that William Brownham gave to Raymond Jackson, all marked up in the library of the church.

And so I photocopied. I photocopied, you know, these things. And we have the evidence. William Brownham had these books. He propagated the books. They hid from us the truth about where these things came from for decades.

It's such a big thing. Yes. I've had people contact me on the website and very valid. They make a very valid argument. William Brannum, if he was bringing the truth, he would have studied some of these things.

He would have referenced some of this material, and they'll show me, well, here's what he said, what this guy said, but here's what he deviated from what they said. That's a very valid argument, if it's self-contained and singular, but if I am pretending in front of massive crowds, that I'm going from this location where I met these seven angels in this cloud, even though I'm not even there at the time.

I'm not even hunting at the time that this thing is there, but I tell you I'm hunting, and then I go back to Jeffersonville, and I come out to the pulpit and I say, now I didn't know a single thing about this before this morning, but that angel met me in the room.

He says this on tape. Oh yeah. If I were to make this argument and tell you that an angel met me and then you found my book, you might question it. When you find the second book, well, he's just studying these other men.

When, look at, take a look at your library. Whenever you realize that no, this guy did not bring a single new thing. He had all the books, he mixed and he matched to bring what he preached, and you know, John, it's just like you said, what you described, they say that's actually moving the goalpost, right?

As William Brownham's actual statement is, and this is pretty well the direct quote when he preached those men, she says, what the angel brought to me in the room was contrary to everything I ever believed or read from other people, like he even explicitly said, it was different from what he had read.

What do you do with that? And they just quotes from the book. Yeah, and then yeah, verbatim reads out of the book. And sure, you know, the mind tries to reason how to make sense out of that, I sure did.

But at a certain point, you just have to admit the truth to yourself, you know, and they're halfway there. People who are saying that, John, are halfway there. They're admitting what William Brownham said happened, did not happen, right?

And now they've invented this intermediate position to try and justify where they're at. But they just need to get to that step where they realize in theirself, hey, I am admitting William Brownham misled me.

And now I need to lead this out to its logical conclusion. Right. And I want to say in the reset of this podcast, I'm also resetting the tone a bit. Whenever a person leaves something that they realize is so wrong, and your brain is trying to reconcile what just happened to me.

I believe this whole thing, all my life and its fiction, you go through all the stages of grief. You become... angry. You start there was a stage and it's you can read on my blogs when every single aspect of this was funny to me and I couldn't help it. It was funny and the tone is there. It's like I'm people mistook that for thinking I'm mocking it and I wasn't mocking it. I was trying my brain was trying to reconcile what just happened to me. So in this we're resetting it and I don't care if you are escaped from the message. I don't care if you're a researcher looking into the message.

I don't care if you're in the message. We're going to treat it all with the very same respect but we're going to show you this is one example of why we made the choice we did. You don't have to accept that example but we're going to show you another example and another and another and another and when you put them all together this podcast is going to paint a picture for you of the man that we used to think was being truthful. There was a period of time when we thought maybe he just won a stray into the argument that I'm going to be presenting over the course of several

episodes. This wasn't a man going a stray. He had a plan to begin with. He knew what he was doing and the thing the reason for these stage personas was part of this bigger strategy and that's the picture that I want to be painting. Yeah there's so much there John that we can look at and I'm looking forward to get into it. There's definitely a trend you see over time in William Branham's sermons leading up to an ultimate goal and as you progress into the 60s you see that coming into fruition because by the time you get into the 60s William Branham is 90% different

than what he was at the beginning right but that 10% John carried all the way through didn't it? So there was elements that was there from the beginning that he was building on from the beginning that by the end become the main thing right but all along it's growing that growing that piece into the final state that we see which you did in his last years.

Really is amazing stuff. There's a book by I think it's Edward Bernays called Propaganda. I don't know if you've read this but I was describing what I was coming out of on an airplane believe it or not. I sit next to this I don't know who he was I think he was some famous psychologist he was he had just given a big speech at a convention and he started describing a few different things I needed to read and one on his propaganda and so I read this book and it is in no way religious or

even remotely related to the message of you know the cult. So a person who's reading it who is in the message is not going to understand this. I think people who have left will understand this but the strategies that are outlined in this book how to create mass persuasion, how to achieve mass persuasion.

Every single aspect from this book, William Brannum, did. And you tell me that this was an uneducated man, that he claims he had a seventh grade education, which I now strongly disagree with. But this stage persona that he created was that of an uneducated man who wasn't smart enough to do anything like this.

We've identified early writings of William Brannum that are completely different from the stage persona. This man had an education. You're right, John. And you know, Doug Weaver, who wrote a biography of William Brannum in 1987, he discovered the same thing to an extent.

And he identified when William Brannum was speaking before ministerial associations and things of that nature, William Brannum spoke in polished, perfect English, perfect grammar, right? And then compare that over to these others where he's preaching in this folksy slang country.

And it's very clear that William Brannum tailored his mannerisms, his speech patterns to fit a persona that he was presenting to the audience, right? Yes. And it was, which was genuine? I mean, was the educated persona, the genuine one, was the country persona, the genuine?

You know, probably neither, honestly, would be my guess. But you know, he definitely changed personas to where he was and who he was. And you know, that's a lot of that too, is where you mentioned in the past how, you know, he preached things different ways in one church, he's trainitarian and in another church, he's oneness.

You know, in the message, in our part, we call that dual statements. I don't know if you all even acknowledge the existence of that in your sect or not. We call the dual statements and we, and we had our different ways to reconcile all these things with dozens and dozens and dozens of things.

He preached more than one way. And you know, part of it, I started to realize John, part of it was, it was a stage persona. It was what group he was preaching to and the persona he was keeping out for that group, right?

Right. And then a lot of it also comes back to these books. It depended which book he was studying and you know, which one corresponded maybe to which group. All of the dual statements are in those books too, right?

The two vert, whichever version he was presenting, even they weren't unique, you know, even his mistakes. What we thought were his mistakes were not unique, John. It was, he was just which book he had studied, which group he was preaching to on that particular day that he needed to keep up this line of thought or this persona too.

It's amazing, it's amazing. And also wanted to speak just a little bit to, you know, you mentioned the grief of leaving the message. And you know, here we are, John, we've been out for a while.

I myself, I would say at this point, I have been out of the message for a year about now. It's about a year and a half since I left my position in the church, but you know, the grief, oh my goodness, is unbelievable. I know exactly what you mean. It's the worst grief you ever, I've ever experienced in my life. I mean, it's worse than the loss of loved ones.

It's so incredibly difficult to describe just the absolute horrific sorrow and deep-seated grief you feel discovering these things. Like, it's not happy for me to find out all this is true. It wasn't happy for me to find out all this stuff about William Brannum. I mean, it was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. And I can't put into words really the sorrow and grief, you know, that I've experienced as a result of finding some of this stuff out. So again, I totally relate to the people coming out and what they're going through. And that's another thing I hope that,

you know, people experiencing that can come in this area into community with us and that's something we can help them with a place where we do understand that really unique grief and sorrow you experience when you learn the truth about these things. It's tough. You know, people in the support groups that I work with, all of them will describe it as the single most difficult thing that they experience in their life. Whenever you begin to understand what they did to our minds, it's very, not only is it unethical, it should be illegal. I think in some

countries it now is, but in the United States, I don't think it is illegal yet, but basically they create with this fictional persona, they create this cult identity. And in your psychological makeup, you have a cult identity and you have the authentic person that wants to be free and not trapped into this cult. Well, whenever this cult identity dies, whenever you finally realize all of this stuff is fiction. This is an actual, in your mind, this is something that is so deeply embedded, deeply rooted. It's as though a family member just died. You go through those

stages of grief and people fall into depression. Some people have to take medication. We have support networks if people are interested. Charles is setting one up with his church. We also have the free and free and clear podcast. We talk about some of the support issues and Naomi Wright is working with us. So we have a team of people if you need help, don't feel like you're alone. You can contact us on William-Branum.org or your website, Charles.

ChristianGospelChurch.org. ChristianGospelChurch.org. I'll remember that sooner or later. As of as of the recording of this it actually hasn't launched where we're waiting to release at the same time So to wrap this up, I'm gonna let people in on two secrets The first is I just got over COVID and I'm very surprised my voice has lasted through this whole episode But it has made it through and the second secret which is far more fascinating is that people who followed the website are aware that As of about a year ago People started seeing some fascinating new research

Research about Jim Jones and about people's temple and about Colonia digna dad some very very Incredible new and exciting things new and exciting information What people don't realize is that behind the scenes I had just met Charles and Charles brings to the table like I said at the beginning of the show So many facts that I did not have so many pieces of the puzzle that paint this bigger picture and I think the biggest upcoming topic that we're gonna have is Just simply the Jones history people not even in the message are fascinated with the Jones history

Yeah, so so John we both know that Jim Jones was deeply connected to the message in the middle and the late fifties Yeah, and message creatures have covered that up for years and you know, we're not out to you know Say William Brannum is to blame for this or that or the other but definitely we want to let people see that the message leaders Have been misleading them about Jim Jones role in the message and connections in the message You know, it was a leader. Yes, and it's a it's a demonstration of of some dishonesty there and

There's some interesting stuff John we can share on that topic because you know We know people who knew Jim Jones. Yeah, we we knew I have been in churches Jim Jones frequented myself and so Yeah, we're gonna have some interesting things to cover when we when we go through both of that topic It's very exciting stuff. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode which is basically just an overview of the big things to come Charles and I are very excited to bring this to you and we have so much to talk about. I I was sitting there before we started recording Charles. I was trying to think well, how long can we keep this up?

How long with this run? I started going in my head through all the different topics. I actually have the opposite thought in my head Can we get all of this out before we get too old to do it? I know right I sat down one day and just started listening. I listed 50 episodes, you know Just in just in a matter of a few minutes of brainstorming. There's so many things down that that that we had to talk about And I don't know how much more time we have in this episode, but it's been good.

This is exciting stuff. So, hope you enjoy it. If you want to learn more, you can visit my website at William-Brandom.org. Charles' website at... Christian-GospelChurch.org Christian-GospelChurch.org. I'm going to write it in my notes so I don't keep forgetting this.

And you'll see it in the description of the video and you'll see it on the cover page of the video. But we're excited to do this. Join us. We're going to knock your socks off.

And we're going to knock your socks off. And we're going to knock your socks off. And we're going to knock your socks off. And we're going to knock your socks off. And we're going to knock your socks off.

And we're going to knock your socks off! And we're going to knock them off. And we're going to knock your socks off. And we're going to knock your socks off. You