The Great Sedition Trial of 1944

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianCospalChurch.org.

Together, we're examining the 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. Charles, this has been an absolute whirlwind of a week.

I'm so excited for this episode. It's probably the most excited I've been for any of the episodes. And after the few that we've had in the past, I thought that would never happen. But as you know, I've been working on my next book, which is, you know, my first book, Preacher Behind the White Hood, the critical examination of William Brannum in his message, it does a really good job of answering the how.

How did William Brannum do this? How did he achieve it? How did my grandfather get duped into this thing? And this book answers the how, but it left all the readers, and I was told the several times, and myself, it left this huge hole as to the why.

So I've been following up with a second book, which it kind of goes in parallel with this book, but it talks about the deeper, darker culture that went around the message, and how William Brannum connected to some of these people and answers the why.

And on Monday, I stumbled onto the missing link. And you and I started digging into this guy, and oh my gosh, it answers every question. So we decided collaboratively that we would throw a curve ball to all the listeners and take a step backwards in the timeline, because this really ties everything together.

We had intended to do some of that anyway. We're going to go back and talk about the 1933 prophecies, and there's so many trails that kind of come together to the epicenter of the explosion of when William Brannum transitioned from a revivalist to a cult of personality.

And so instead of going back to a certain period of time, we're going... A-back and we're going to start introducing the Y into our podcast. I'm excited to talk about this character today and it does fit pretty well.

I think with the last three episodes we've done too because it helps to explain how William Branham ultimately reconnected with a whole lot of figures as you come into the early 1950s that he seemed to be not terribly connected to in the 1940s.

I'm looking forward to getting into it and you know I know we had been planning to move on but I do think this will help to show a little more about the relationship between Pentecostalism, William Branham and the emerging Christian identity theology during the 40s and 50s.

So hopefully in this episode we can connect some more dots for our listeners to see a pattern of maybe just realize what's going on around William Branham through his ministry. In the message, you can bury your head in the sand but make no mistake, William Branham was connected to leading white supremacists of his day.

He was and today we want to look at a figure named Gerald Burton, Winrod. Through him I think we can connect a whole lot of dots even beyond what we've explained in the last episodes.

Let me say this, if you haven't listened to the past episodes this might not be the best one to start on. But we're definitely going to build on a lot of stuff that's been said before.

So John maybe before we get into talking about all of Winrod's relationships and his connections to Pentecostalism and William Branham's ideology, maybe you can tell us who Gerald Burton is and what he's famous for.

For the listeners who were in the message, you know we've got a vast audience, some people researching some people who were actually in this cult. I think this will make a lot of sense to the people in the message and for the researchers, it's just fascinating history.

I was at the point in the new book where I've reached the point in writing where I'm up to where William Branham is getting his early start in the ministry and why that church was established in Jeffersonville.

We actually working together with you Charles, we've actually answered the why through a lot of these things. But there's one quote that I had put on the shelf as just this random fact that I didn't know what to do with.

And it ties very closely to a second one. And I was, as I was writing the book, I went back to this quote and he mentions Mussolini. And for the listeners who were in the message, they're familiar with the name Mussolini because not just for his historical nature, William Branham claimed in the 50s that he had a series of prophecies in 1933 in which he prophesied about Mussolini taking a great fall.

if he went down towards Ethiopia, which is really problematic because Ethiopia didn't exist. It was a different country by the same country by a different name. I'll just read the quote. He says, we're living in the end time. How many of you has heard years ago, down here, when they was going to have me arrested for preaching on the mark of the beast?

I said that when Mussolini, when he first came into power some 20 odd years ago, I said, if Mussolini ever goes towards Ethiopia, mark this down, they'll never be pieced until Jesus Christ comes. And this opened up a big can of worms, Charles, because I started researching what was happening. You know, you can't be arrested for preaching something like this. We have, you know, freedom of religion in the United States.

There's freedom of speech. There are so many things that even William Brannum in his connivary and his unethical practice of telling missed truths. This would have never even stuck with his listeners. So it's always bothered me. So I started trying to research, well, you know, was there ever a time in which he actually could have been arrested for this?

Turns out there was, and this Gerald Winrode character was at the epicenter of this very problematic time in American history. I stumbled on to the great sedition trial of 1944. And remember, according to our timeline that we've been establishing, 1944 is immediately before William Brannum explodes into his faith healing revival. As I mentioned in his pamphlet, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. And Winrode was nicknamed the J. Hawk Nazi, the Kansas Hitler, because he was blending this weird version of pro-Nazi anti-Semitism with the British Israelism doctrines. And he became quite famous. And he was very, very well connected, which

we'll get into further in this episode. But he was literally at the epicenter of this trial, because it was the biggest sedition trial in World War II.

Winrode was undermining the morale of the United States troops during the war. And it literally led to the biggest sedition trial of the war. Yeah, you know, it's really interesting looking at him. You know, he is a figure, there's this book we have mentioned through the last three episodes, Religion and the Racist Right by Michael Barcoon. And he is in this book as well, you know, he's figure that that's talked about in here, and he's actually a really well-studied figure, John. Actually, I was kind of surprised as I started it again. There's a number of books on him.

And he's interesting in multiple ways. And you're right, John. He is a British years' relight, but he is preaching the emerging Christian identity theology. And he's doing that during World War II. And in the years leading up to it, and of course, Christian identity is somewhat pro-Nazi, honestly. Back then, it was moderately pro-Nazi, but by the time you get into modern days, they fly the swastika. But back then, it was more moderate, but it was still enough to get him caught up in the dragnet when the government was out hunting up Nazi traders during World War II. And the other people that he got arrested with were all part of the American

Bund, B-U-N-D Bund. And the American Bund was a group in the United States that had been set up by the German government, actually, before World War II. They were ran out of the German embassy in the United States. And they were basically friends of the Nazi Party of Germany. And they commanded control. A lot of them were German immigrants. And they would basically do Hitler's bidding in the United States. And they were all about trying to promote relations between the United States, Germany, pro-Nazi ideology in the United States. Anyways, he was rounded up with all of them.

And one of the things they had done, they had, and all this happened in LA, too, by the way. They're all arrested in LA. It's all happened in LA, the trials in LA. They had held a mock trial of President Roosevelt and condemned him. And then they did a mock execution of Roosevelt.

So this is, that's specifically the activities. So in addition to that ideology, they've also did, they do not like Roosevelt. And they've done these really inflammatory things during the middle of World War II. So yeah, they've been rounded up.

They're in jail. There's actually video footage of these people, you know, getting unloaded off of the truck when they're being taken into the courthouse for their trial. And you know, it's an interesting thing to look at. So they're a very high profile and well-known in the United States, for sure, back when this happened. And what's really interesting, Charles, is that, like you say, British Israelism was somewhat pro-Nazi. But when Rod took this to whole new levels, you know, it was a racist theology, make no mistake. And it was, you know, somewhat rooted in white supremacy. But in general, I don't know that I can say that all people

who were British Israelite doctrine accepting people were racist. But then along comes Winrod, and he takes this to a whole new level. Winrod actually started bringing in End of Days' prophecy, tying it to the Jews, and he had this very, very popular radio program, and I started studying that because that just fascinated me.

How in the world did somebody whose pro-Nazi, who's actually leading to the Great Sedition trial, get to be that famous on the radio, and come to find out their documents explaining this, but he was using overloaded language to, in his radio broadcasts, talk negatively about the Jews, and then over time that shifts to include the blacks.

So he's bringing in white supremacy in the United States through this. But he's using code words in his speeches. For instance, whenever he talks about the communists, he's actually talking about the Jews. And when he talks about the Mongrel race, he's actually talking about the blacks, and there's a few different keywords that are used.

I started going back through the sermons of William Brannum, and oh my gosh, there are so many instances where William Brannum will say that the communists are going to invade the United States, and there will be the end of days.

And then he'll say in other areas of his speeches that it's not communism, it's Rome, and they'll invade the United States. And those two just, you know, they can't go together. But under Winrod's theology, and using this overloaded language, all of this actually fits.

It all works, because Winrod was stating that Mussolini was rising to become the Antichrist and that the communists were going to partner with Rome, and they would invade the United States. And this would bring in the end of days, and usher in the new millennium.

This is exactly what William Brannum taught throughout his entire ministry. Yeah, specifically when you look at that thing that William Brannum said about the three isms, which ended up being one of his seven prophecies, which we'll get to in another episode.

But those three isms, that is from Gerald Winrod, you know, without shadow of doubt, you know, after we've overlooked over looked over what he was preaching in the 20s and 30s. The three isms stuff is William Brannum repeating some things he heard from Gerald Winrod, you know, either directly or indirectly.

And it's really interesting that he, William Brannum mentioned several times on tape that he was nearly arrested, and he even tells the place as he was preaching, I think, as a red wood hall or red hall, something like that, where he was preaching when he was nearly arrested for preaching these things.

And of course, we know that Gerald Winrod and over 30 people, 35 people, I think, ended up arrested. in that dragnet during World War II. So, you know, it's interesting. I just wonder, you know, it leaves you wondering, why did William Brannum think he was going to get arrested? You know, obviously, from his story, it sounds like the police came in and threatened him or something over him preaching things related to Hitler and Mussolini during World War II. So, that's interesting.

And so, that's who Winrod is. So, maybe why don't we kind of work through his connections? And everybody that he was working with, John. And I think this will begin to connect dots for for a lot of people. And like I said, again, he's there's lots of good material, lots of good books, religion and the racist right. That has some stuff on him if you want to start there. But one thing about him, John, is like Charles Parham, he is from Kansas. Yes.

And as you read through his stuff, it seems that he became connected to Pentecostalism from very early on in the movement. And besides that, most of the books I have looked at on him point to him as being most likely a high-ranking clan figure too. And so, through that, we also know he was connected to Roy Davis, right John? Absolutely. And not just Roy Davis' William Upshaw from the 1920s, at least, right. And during those same years in the 1920s, Gerald Winrod was working with Amy Simple McPherson too. He was at her church preaching. We have pictures of him preaching

at her church. And Amy Simple McPherson would publish his material in her church newsletters and and through tracks out from from Angeles Temple. So, you know, he was he was connected to that as well.

And there's just a whole lot of disturbing things that Angeles Temple was connected to back then honestly, John. And we know Amy Simple McPherson was working with KKK in the 1920s as well. I mean, there's there's substantial evidence on that newspaper articles as well. So those are those are the first sample of his connections. There's one point that I want to mention before we get too much further. William Brannum said some very strange things about Franklin Roosevelt. And at one point there's even a quote and I can't remember the exact verbage. But he says that Roosevelt is the

one who's going to start World War II. And this later changes to, you know, obviously Hitler is the cause of World War II and so on and so forth. But there's this big debate. It turned into a conspiracy within the message because people realized Roosevelt did not start World War II. Roosevelt United States joined into the war much later in the in the history and timeline of World War II.

So in the message, there's this conspiracy that Roosevelt was this bad guy who's orchestrating the whole thing because you can't have the profit making a false claim, right? Well, what's interesting is Roosevelt was when Rods Prime enemy number one. He, he, he not only undermined the United States military in their morale during the war and tried to, you know, convert them to pro-Nazi ideologies, he was specifically targeting Roosevelt and he had spread the notion in the United States that Roosevelt was being controlled and manipulated by the communists, which he at that point in time was referring to the Jews. And he was basically saying that there were key figures within Washington

that were controlled and manipulated by the Jews. And so when William Brannum makes this statement, which, again, it's a statement that is said one way and then said the polar opposite way, the two actually go together when you enter Winrod into this picture because he is saying exactly what Winrod was saying during this time period.

Yeah, and there was a man named, actually from Louisville here, his last name was Brandeis, who was a Jew, who was very influential with President Roosevelt. And so a lot of the accusations that Roosevelt was under the influence of Jews had to do with his relationship with Brandeis. And again, that was just crazy conspiracy theory stuff back then, right? I mean, conspiracy theories have been around a long time and here's a man, you know, making a ministry out of conspiracy theories like quite a few other preachers we know in our lives now, John, it's something else. But that's who Winrod was. He was into conspiracies of his day and

inserting that into British Israelism and, you know, bringing what's happening in the news into his current prophecy preaching, right? It's a very common type messaging thing, you know, the basic concept of it. And so, yeah, and so there's more to Winrod's connection.

So we mentioned he's connected to Davis, to Upshot, to Amy Simple McPherson, you know, he was in Pentecostalism from the early days. But Winrod is also the man who converted Wesley Swift to British Israelism. And that's that's in the Michael Barcoons book and all of them as well. He is actually the man who converted Wesley Swift, John. And so Wesley Swift was originally from New Jersey. He heard Winrod preaching decided to move out to LA and started attending the seminary connected to Angela's Temple and became ended up becoming a preacher at Angela's Temple.

And that's how really the whole Christian identity movement kicked off, you know, the ideology pre-existed Swift a little bit with Philip Monson and men like Winrod. But Swift is the man who ends up taking their ideas and turning it into what eventually becomes the Christian identity movement. So again, Winrod's connected to Angela's Temple. He's connected to Roy Davis, he's connected to Upshaw, to Christian Identity, to Wesley Swift, Amy Simple McPherson.

Right. He is connected to all of the stuff that's going on during those years. He is our missing link. In fact, I think it'd probably be good for the researchers who are listening to this podcast to just pause and let's talk puzzle pieces.

We've got all these puzzle pieces out on the board that you and I have been examining during the course of this podcast and when you're building a puzzle, you put all the pieces that you can make fit into the picture and then you got all these weird pieces on the side.

Well, we have just identified, I don't know how many puzzle pieces that we just really couldn't make fit through Winrod because he was the missing link that brought those two together. Let's do this.

I'll talk about what I discovered with my puzzle pieces and then I know you found significantly more than I did. I think you stumbled on to some pretty big stuff as it relates to William Brannem's ministry.

But early in my examining Winrod, I discovered that Winrod was a director for the World's Fundamentalist Association and the World Christian Fundamentalist Association and for people who don't know what this is, there was this rising movement against Christian science had kind of taken root in the United States during this time and the fundamentalist were rising up against the ideologies of Christian science.

There's a period of time in which Christian science started to try to scientifically view the Bible instead of religiously and fundamentalist religion. Look at the passages in the Bible. And when you say Christian science, you don't mean Ellen White's group.

You mean actual science, actual science and yes, exactly. So that really is for me, that's how I stumbled on to this and then you took it to whole new levels. So Winrod was a director in this.

Well Roy E. Davis was also a director in this. I had another puzzle piece for Davis where as he's touring with his underage girl soon to be wife, it mentioned that he was working with the National Fundamentalist Association and he was a director.

He was also connected to several people that were also connected to Winrod, like John Roach Straton. This Davis was very deeply connected to him, Billy Sunday and a few others. So Davis was well connected to Winrod.

We know this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Winrod I found toured with Paul Raider, the one who wrote William Brannum's Only Believe Paul Raider was also on that the board of the Fundamentalist Association too, with Davis and with Winrod. Right. So they're touring together on, you know, the fundamentalist league in there.

There's actually this big collaboration of men who joined together. We've got a photograph, which I'll throw on the screen, where they're at the Cadill Tabernacle. Cadill has numerous connections to William Branham. William Branham was very close friends with E. Howard Cadill and Cadill is, he created the Tabernacle that became clan headquarters in Indiana.

So a lot of connections there. And Paul Raider, like you mentioned, is so, is very important. I mean, he is the man who wrote, only, believe, like you mentioned. And he was a big influence on William Branham. He was president of the Christian Mission Area Alliance back then, which was the group.

FF Bosworth was in at the same time. FF Bosworth, if you look through his magazines, you'll find he was reprinting Winrod's materials in his magazine too in the 1920s, John. So, you know, FF Bosworth is connected to Winrod too. Right. So I'll let you keep going. There's so much here. It's like, where do we, where do we begin? So they're at Cadill Tabernacle. And if you've looked at my research, Cadill is just really significant. E. Howard Cadill, there, there are significant connections there.

Well, also back in this area is Ralph Raider, a very close relative of Paul Raider. And Ralph Raider was also in this Mission Area Alliance with Bosworth and with Winrod. And he's... He's William Branham, launches church when he came to Jeffersonville. Exactly. So there are so many connections literally back to William Branham's early life before he would have even met Davis.

This, this allows us really through, through finding out that they were all on this board together. This lets us connect Roy Davis directly to Paul Raider for the first time. We'd already knew he was working with, you know, the other brother in Jeffersonville. But he wasn't. We didn't have a direct connection to Paul Raider up until this. So yeah, Davis was working directly with Paul Raider, the head of the Christian Mission Area Alliance, and was on that board with him at the World Christian Fundamentals Association with Winrod. So very interesting stuff.

It's, it's crazy interesting when you get into it. And another question for me that I've always tried to answer is how did William Branham get connected to Davis? And this answers that question because you've got E. Howard Cadill who's literally the one who's starting the clan headquarters and being funded, you know, by the clan, et cetera. You've got Winrod who's connected to him.

And you've got this extensive network of religious figures connected to this weird criminal underground in Jeffersonville. So when William Branham gets in trouble, he's whisked out into the religious community. I never knew how that could have happened until we entered Linnrod into this picture. Yeah, it was kind of mysterious and it still is somewhat. You know, if you if you went back and you listened to our episodes on, you know, the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana in that episode where we walked through what happened with William Brannum during, you know, the 1920s, the early 1920s specifically. You know, you're left with

questions about just how William Brannum ended up going from, you know, working with Wathen and working on Wathen's farm to end up with Roy Davis in the Ku Klux Klan. It's a it's a very unusual transition to go from the whiskey to the clan, right? That's a it's almost like a U-turn in a sense. So yeah, it's really this does certainly allow some of those dots to be connected in a plausible way as well. The other big one has and you sparked my memory with the whiskey. Linnrod was campaigning for William D. Upshaw whenever Upshaw ran for

president under the prohibition party. Yeah, and that was in 1932 when upshaw ran for president. Exactly. And Upshaw's campaign was operated from the Kadel Tabernacle. So there's just so many connections back to William Brannum Winnerod according to the sources was on Upshaw's campaign team doing stump speeches for him across the Eastern United States. Yeah, so Winnerod's Winnerod is directly connected to every one of these people and he also, you know, is a bridge to Amy Simple McPherson to Angela's Temple and he really is arguably the conduit for the whole reason that Wesley Swift went to Angela's Temple to

begin with because, you know, he's the one who introduced him out there and Amy Simple McPherson was working with him and had an environment friendly to their views through the 20s, 30s, 40s. And think of that. I mean, from the Angela's Temple, we have this other big explosion. Amy Simple McPherson is the one who funded the Sharon Orphanage, which literally exploded into the latter reign movement of which promoted William Brannum and lifted him into fame and the Revivals. Brannum's healing revival leadership would not have existed without Amy Simple McPherson. Then when William Brannum's ministry was

crumbling in the 50s, you've got Leroy Cop, who was a minister at Angela's Temple and they produced this video, 20th century profit to lift William Brannum back up into fame. None of this would have even existed without Winnerod.

Yeah, you know, it's after there's certain things that start to make sense to in the timeline, looking at this. So, you know, there's things here that just connect together. It really, this just adds another layer of understanding this.

some of this stuff. So what's really interesting here, John, like you mentioned, and I know we mentioned back when we did our initial episodes on ladder rain, the Angeles Temple is the people, the Angeles Temple and the four square churches are the ones who funded the Sharon orphanage and built it up in Saskatchewan, where ladder rain started. And so you'll find that, you know, if you look at the newspaper articles, it's very clear there's a man named Heracolt, who's like the district superintendent from four square. He's the one who did all the fundraising among their churches. And the four square churches is the denomination

that Amy Simple McPherson started with Angeles Temple being their headquarters. So they're the ones who started the Sharon orphanage. And one thing I do just want to make clear to our listeners is how maybe British, Israel and British, Israelism finally died within Pentecostalism, and then its successor ideologies, you know. So throughout the history of British Israelism, John, there's actually a dispute over Germany. And this goes all the way back to John Wilson at the very beginning of the ideology. They were disputing, is Germany part of the 10 lost tribes or not? Like this goes all the way back to the early days of

the movement. And you got two camps in British Israelism all the way back to the start of the movement. One camp, Germany is part of the lost 10 tribes. Another camp, Germany is not part of the lost 10 tribes, right? So you've, you've got these two camps within British Israelism. And the camp that makes Germany part of Israel is the camp that eventually produces the Christian identity theology, John. And as you come to the 1930s, it's the pro-German groups who are primarily developing that Christian identity theology and they are found almost exclusively within Pentecostalism. From the same time, overall British Israelism

is going into decline within Pentecostalism too, right? The assemblies of God had started to reject Pentecostalism in the 1920s. After Paul Raider left the Christian missionary alliance, they started to reject it in the 1930s, same time FF Bosworth left their group.

The UPC churches, the ones who built the UPC churches, they also started to reject in the 1930s. And the Elim churches, they held out just a little longer, but they also rejected in the 1930s. And by the time you get to the 1940s, right, most Pentecostalism has rejected British Israelism. And no doubt this edition trials had a lot to do with that. But British Israelism held on the longest at Angela's Temple and the four-square churches.

That's where it held out the longest at. And it's really not until you reached the 1950s, you know, a few years after Amy Simple McPherson has died, that the Angela's Temple and the four-square churches finally start to reject British Israelism. But that's done after they've started the Sharon orphanage, right? And they're really the only Pentecostal group, the ones associated around Angela's Temple, the four-square churches that are still British Israelite.

when you get to the other side of World War II. And so Sharon Orphanage was British-Israelite. George Houghton was a well-known British-Israelite. And when the latter reign kicks off, there is a strong British-Israelite influence there from the very beginning.

And as British-Israelism dies, John, it produces two successor ideologies. We talked about this over our past few episodes. And those two ideologies, one of them is the very, very deeply racist Christian identity theology.

And the other successor ideology on is actually what latter reign produces, because British-Israelism was one of the key influences into the latter reign movement. You know, that's how we got Serpent Seed in the message.

That's how we got Malachi 4, 5, and 6 interpretation. That's how we got a lot of our end time teaching. This were positive confession come from. It's where a lot of the restoration thoughts come from.

You know, and so, Christian identity theology is splitting from British-Israelism at the same time that the latter reign is splitting out of British-Israelism too. So that's why there's so much overlap in our ideologies in the message and to Christian identity theology.

Right, there's just so many things to talk about here. Let's pause for a minute. Let's go back to the American history side of things. So the premise of the book I'm working on, which is answering the why for William Brannum, it's the theme is weaponized religion.

And that's something that I picked up on very early in studying William Brannum's ministry. This was never a religious cult. From its inception, this was a political cult. I've mentioned this several times. And I discovered early that Roy Davis was weaponizing religion.

And he was using it as a tool, as a weapon, to enact the third wave of the Ku Klux Klan. What I did not realize until Winrod is that that weapon ization of religion, specifically Pentecostalism, came long before Davis used it.

That is evident with the Great Sedition trial. And here's where it gets interesting in history. So 1944, the Great Sedition trial happens. And this is a trial that's been going on for some time.

They have been trying to dig deeper, understand how many people were connected to this, tried to identify their links back to Hitler, because the belief by the United States government was that Hitler had weaponized Pentecostalism and fundamentalist religion against the US, United States armed forces.

That was the premise of this Sedition trial. All of this explodes in 1944. William Brannum mentions that he's almost arrested for this. So not only did it explode with the trial and the information leading up to the trial, everyone who was connected to this began to fear that they're going to...

be arrested too. And we're not talking small time arrests. This is a sedition trial for the war. These men are going to be locked up for a very, very long time. So I have no doubt that William Brannum was just trembling in fear during this.

And it's worth pointing out Roy Davis was already in jail when this happened. He was actually in prison, you know, when, when the sedition trials are arrested and rounded all these people up put him in jail. Right. So all of this exploded. Well, leading up to the trial, there are a few things that if you look at the history, it's just fascinating. It's, it's truly unbelievable. It really is. I had never heard of the Great Sedition trial of 1944. Had these two things not happened, everyone would have heard of the Great Sedition trial of 1944. Because what happened was the key witness, a key witness, I should say,

mysteriously died. And his wife mentioned that there were several enemy forces out to kill him. And he was perfectly fine on, I think it was a Friday. And then suddenly and mysteriously died over the weekend. And his wife truly believed that he was poisoned.

The medical examiner who examined him would not write down the analysis of what happened that led to his death. So there's this weird fact one of the key witnesses for the trial died. Shortly after this, the primary judge who's executing all of this, you know, putting together the information and bringing the case against them. And again, this is a huge national level trial. He dies of a heart attack. And mysteriously, the entire trial is overturned as a mistrial because of those two deaths, which is unbelievable, if you think about it. So everyone at that point who are in these white supremacy races,

Nazi circles are suddenly free and clear. And there is no sedition trial. They can't, it's since it's overturned as a mistrial. It's very difficult to even prosecute them again. And if you look back at the timeline, Charles, that is exactly when the UPCI started holding William Branham up on their totem pole in 1945. It's really interesting to me that

how, you know, this really just confirms a lot of the things that we had kind of mentioned in some previous episodes, you know, where the American bond, we know a lot of their stuff is happening in the LA area. All these people around the And it seems like there's a real concentration of these people in Los Angeles as a result of these trials, as a result of other investigations that happened.

And we know Winrod had converted Swift, Swift moved out to LA. William Brownham ends up going to LA. I mean, 1947, I think, 46 or 47 is the first time William Brownham is going out to LA and is definitely having some level of connection with these people.

And then it just grows stronger as you come through the late 40s and into the early 50s. It's just a stronger, stronger connection. One thing that's really interesting, it just interests me, William Brownham ends up reconnecting to these same circles of people that William Davis was working with, right, in the 30s and the 20s.

And so Roy Davis, he seems to be central to a lot of this as well. And as he goes to jail in 1939, right, when he gets out of jail, he goes back to LA, right, and he reconnects with these same people.

I think we can understand why he would go to LA when he got out of jail. This is where Amy Simple McPherson is. There's a lot of these people have migrated there in orbit around her church.

And then the same thing from the aspect of, from the aspect of William Brownham, when I think about William Brownham, so in 1932, Roy Davis is still pastor in his church, right? He hasn't went to jail.

William Brownham is his elder assistant pastor in the church. Right. At that time, Roy Davis is working with all of these people still, right? He is connected in 1932 to Winrod. He is connected in 1932 to these figures.

Winrod is helping on the upshot campaign in 1932. Davis is working with upshot in those years. He's connected to Paul Raider in those years, right? It's very hard for me to imagine that William Brownham is his assistant pastor elder at his headquarters church, has no level of awareness of what his pastor is up to.

I cannot imagine that William Brownham has no awareness of the people, the other preachers, his pastor is working with John, but that's, I'm going to say that's impossible. It is impossible that an elder assistant pastor in a church does not know the other preachers that his pastor is working with.

So, when William Brownham in later years pretends that he never knew all these people and it was happenstance that he reconnected to some of these same groups, I don't, it just don't quite fly to me that that makes sense, it's something, somewhere he's, he's maybe through the 40s, they've went underground a little bit, maybe they've quieted down, maybe through his reinventions of himself has distance himself from him, but as you're coming into the 50s for sure, he is recon...

connecting to the same circles of people, right? And Wesley Swift is out of these circles of people as well. You know, there are two other big questions that I had that when Rod answers the why, like you mentioned, Roy Davis.

So let's picture the scenario, Charles. We're in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where this, and I'm painting this false picture. This is not what happened, but William Brannum is in, he's completely thrilled by the notion of God.

Let's pretend William Brannum is that kind of person. And this minister comes and baptizes him and converts him to Pentecostalism, brings him into the church and ordains him as a minister. And again, this fictional William Brannum is thrilled by God. Then while they're holding a revival, the feds come in and they arrest Davis, the guy who has just baptized him off of the platform. And they say, that girl sitting in the audience, who is what is she 16 or she's 16 or 17.

This man has brought her across state lines, poor sex. And he's here before you and he's holding this revival. And this man is a long time criminal. He has cases of fraud, he has cases of racketeering, he has cases of swindling, of theft, of bigomy, of living a dual life with multiple wives and multiple states. I mean, the laundry list is massive. And all of this was aired to the public. So here's here's William Brannum, this fictional character who is entertained by God, who sees this man who completely is the the polar opposite of a Christian minister, the polar opposite.

And yet he stays with him. I have always, and I will, will forever always wonder why that happened because all of, you know, those connections, but now enter Winrod into this picture. His whole premise was that the United States government, which would have included politicians, officials, policemen, federal agents, et cetera, had been invaded by communism. And we can't trust them. So therefore, as Davis is being arrested off the platform, all he had to do was tell William Brannum, these are the communists, these are controlled and manipulated by the Jews, you can't believe anything. They say they're going to say

some very bad things about me. And if you look at Jefferson Bill, that is exactly what happened. There were, he's in a trial for sex with an underage girl. And there was something like 60 women from his congregation who went and defended him for the trial of sex while he's living with the girl. I mean, it's unbelievable. So that's question number one, this answered. Question number two is actually more fascinating, Charles. I have always wondered how on earth William Brannum got connected to D. Kardashian family. As you know, it's mentioned in my book, but the Kardashian family are the ones who sponsored William Brannum and Dima

who would be Kim Kardashian's, what is a great uncle or something like that, is the one who founded the Full Gospel Businessmen's Association who also lifted William Brannum up on a totem pole. Well, if you go back and you study the Kardashian family history, they were sponsoring the a severely despicable character named Clim Davies who was a clansman who was a white supremacist who was a British Israelite who was deeply well connected to the same circles that Winrod was connected to. So when it was in the Anglo-Saxon Federation, which Wesley Swift was part of as well, you know, and Gordon Lindsay was in that group as well. Yeah, so there are

so many connections that so many doors that this one simple figure opens for us and I'll be honest, Charles, I'm looking at this mental room full of all of these doors. We've only opened like five of the hundreds that this now opens for us. Yeah, you know, there's so there's so much here, and you know, I still have lots of questions myself, but I think there's enough here that a person can start to draw a few conclusions, you know. When you look at William Brannum back in the 30s, William Brannum, as you know, as we went through in those episodes, William Brannum

watched Roy Davis be arrested off the platform in front of him and hauled off to jail. And William Brannum knew that Roy Davis ended up convicted and went to prison, okay?

And then after a few years later, Roy Davis is out of prison, William Brannum is bragging Roy Davis up in his sermons. He's talking all good about Roy Davis, about how much he loved Roy Davis, about how great Roy Davis was. He's named dropping him as when he's the imperial wizard of the clan. You know, he's, and when Roy Davis sends upshot to his meetings to be healed, which again, we know is just really is a scan healing, whoop shot could already walk before he got there. You know, William Brannum is enjoying all of these things that Roy Davis is doing for him,

right? Roy Davis basically sent William Brannum a free mirror, right? You know, and so these things are happening, you know, and all of that stuff, too, by the way, is happening in LA, right?

It's when William Brannum is in LA at the center of this stuff in the in the late 40s, early 50s. How can you, this is just a very simple thing, how can a person who is a Christian preacher endorse another preacher who he knows has been arrested and went to jail for all of these sex crimes and grand theft and everything. Right, something is very, very wrong there. William Brannum knew who Roy Davis was and he is openly endorsing him into the fifties, right? And not only is he openly endorsing the imperial wizard of the clan in the fifties and into the sixties, he is also

sharing and promoting the same ideology and elements of the same ideology that are evolving into Christian identity theology. The same stuff that these guys were pioneering in the twenties and the thirties and into the forties, William Brannum is taking elements of it that he's learned from them and he's preaching it in his sermons. And as you come into the closer to the sixties, John, as the mellic mess, as the message is developing, he's telling us that some of these doctrines that he learned from these very evil people are divine revelations from God that we need to accept as the last aid mysteries, right? William Brannum did

that and that is so utterly deceptive, so utterly wrong. So it is absolutely outrageous that he did that to us, John. And to me, what matters in all of this and the thing that's interested me the most and everything that I have looked at is where did William Brannum learn these things he told us he got from God? Where did this ideology come from? And if you are in the message today, I don't care what sector you are in. If you believe in serpent seed, you believe in ideology, William Brannum learned from these people. I don't care what you say. I don't

care what any of them say. They don't know what they're talking about. William Brannum learned serpent seed from these people. And when he preached it in his original forms, it was racial. It was very racial. And some places implemented in the same way, some places do it in a more light way. There's so much in the message and that's not the only thing he got from them that he taught. But that's one of the most destructive. Yeah. So Charles, let's take it back to the history, which fascinates me. And I think this one will just blow the minds of the

listeners. So in the 1920s, you've got the Indiana clan, which almost took over the White House. They were rising up against, you know, the Catholic church. They had the clan had put proxies into the Indianapolis government. It was all being orchestrated from the Cato tabernacle where all of this, you know, all of these connections to William Brannum happened. And they almost took over the United States government. The clan tried it again.

in the 20s, they tried to take over the government, and it led to one of the biggest catastrophes of the Democratic National Convention whenever they attempted this. Upshall was, he wasn't officially named, but he was parading himself that he would be the vice president on the ticket.

Well, then later, Upshall himself tries to take over the White House for the clan, and he runs under the prohibitionist ticket, and we've got Winrod who's connected to this. Well, what happened is, whenever the clan started really trying, as they're building up to the third wave of the Ku Klux Klan, and I'm not going to tell everything here, because I want to fully address it in the book that I'm writing, but one of the biggest facts that just blew my mind.

The clan tried this again in the 50s and 60s. They formed what is called the National States Rights Party, and this party was an attempt to basically sway the entire nation back to the fundamentals basically of Winrod.

And that organization, when it was created, was headquartered in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and throughout its inception, and it moved, headquarters moved often so that they couldn't be caught by the feds, et cetera. And each time they moved, the Peele Box remained in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

When 1960, Gerald Winrod's son Gordon was named National Chaplain of the National States Rights Party. And if you examine the history of National States Rights Party, their ideologies was basically the foundation for that ideology was laid by Winrod.

So we've got this full circle back to Winrod, and you mentioned Los Angeles. All of this, the epicenter for that movement happened in California. We've got Davis and Upshall who were going underground, creating this orphanage.

At the same time, the Sharon orphanage is being created. You've got these two orphanages who are, Upshall was the head of the Department of Americanism, which is basically saying, this is an orphanage that is going to begin indoctrinating children.

That's exactly what it was, and a front for the clan. During that same time, you've got Wesley Swift, who's connected to Winrod, who's assisting in creating the rebirth of the almost defunct California clan.

So Los Angeles literally was the epicenter, and Winrod is going to come full circle when he joins the National States Rights Party. That National States Rights Party, which was headquartered in Jeffersonville, John was deeply connected to Wesley Swift.

He was actually the main sponsor who had got the thing going. And one of his key lieutenants, someone named Orrin Petito, was the leader in that National Rights Party. So again, direct connections to the Christian identity movement with that stuff, direct connections back to the LA people, right?

When Rods in it, who had worked with Roy Davis, who had lived in Jeffersonville, William Brown, so there's no doubt someone affiliated with Roy Davis, probably somebody who William Brannum knew, if not, if not them themselves, right?

We're running that thing out of Jeffersonville, right? I mean, who know? It could have been, it could have been, I mean, almost certainly, what some sort of former clan figures or clan figures in Jeffersonville connected to Roy Davis, who William Brannum was connected to Roy Davis, who was behind a lot of that stuff.

So it's difficult. There's a whole, there's still lots of things that you can only just kind of speculate at a little bit. But the things are there, the dots are there, and there's very clear ways in which they connect, but exactly what it means is still vague to me.

You know, that's still, it's still vague to me just what everyone's role in this thing was, right? They were connected, obviously. They were working together, obviously. They shared an ideology, obviously. But just what exactly everyone's role was in this thing?

You know, it's still not, it's not perfectly clear, right? Because you know, we don't, there's not like secret meeting notes that we can look at. And, but clearly they share an ideology and they are each in their own way working towards some kind of a common goal, you know?

Obviously that's what's happening with all of these people. And just how they're doing that, just exactly how it's all being orchestrated. Or if it's just coincidental, they all share the ideology and they're all gladly contributing their peace and happy to work with whatever ally will do whatever, whatever.

You know, it's not exactly clear, but definitely they are working together towards some sort of common goal. Yeah, we definitely will never have all the answers as to the fine details of how these intricate pieces worked.

And if you look at what happened in the 50s and 60s, Roy Davis is only one small part. There were many, many different cogs in this massive, very complicated mess that was created in the United States.

But what we can say is we now know the why. We know what they were trying to achieve. And we've got the literature from both Wynne Rod and Swift. This was leading up to what they were basically describing as the coming race wars.

And it was, according to Wynne Rod's early writings, The race wars were being caused by the Jews who were manipulating the government, and they would send the Mongols, which was his word for blacks, to come in, and there would be this massive showdown between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

And if you go back and you study what happened during President Kennedy's era and some of the things that went on, these men were weaponizing religion to fight against the black communities, and they were doing this through when Rod's ideology. They were basically taking his end-of-days scenarios that he painted the picture for in the thirties. They had brought it, you know, took the dust off of them, polished them up, changed them a bit, and they weaponized it against the United States. Yeah, you know, when we do our episode on the 1933 prophecies, we'll we can have some fun

exploring how those beliefs were brought into the message and how some of the sex, like my second looked at those things, John, but yeah, you know, the, you know, the message taught and believed in the imminent destruction of the United States, right? I mean, that was a prophecy, well known prophecy, William Brannum, the, we were expecting the imminent destruction of the United States, and

we, we, we were expecting that somehow we're going to have to survive it, too, because I mean, in my sect of the message, John, I think we chatted earlier, you're sect two. We thought that somehow this stuff was going to happen before the rapture, and somehow we were going to have to survive through this coming American apocalypse, you know, before, before we could go to heaven. So yeah, we, we had, which again, that is a, those are concepts that developed from Christian identity theology actually. That's where that stuff comes from, because it's not in the Bible, and I know people hate

that, but it's not in the Bible, you know, it's from Christian identity theology, right? I mean, look in the Bible, I mean, it's not in, okay, so I usually, I don't say too much theological, or, or biblical related stuff, but I'll say it there, that's not in the Bible. I mean, come on, give me a break. So in my sect of the message, we, you know, we admitted it wouldn't even the Bible. We, we use what we call George Washington's vision as our basis for, because it's not in the Bible, right? So anyway, but this stuff came out of Christian identity theology. My goodness,

John. I'll go so far as to say, Charles, this was anti-biblical, not just was it not in the Bible, this was fully against the Bible. Yeah. It's an end of day's race war is not in the Bible.

So I just want to make sure, John, again, you know, that I give this disclaimer as we close, you know, you know, we're not saying Angela's Temple or the four square churches or any of these people are necessarily like this today, right? I mean, Christian identity, yeah, they're still like this today. Run away. And the message is They're still believing the stuff we're talking about, right?

But in some of the sex, but I don't know so much about all these other places. We're primarily talking about stuff that happened 75, 100 years ago, and most all of these people are dead.

Linnrod's dead, Wesley Swift dead. All these people are dead. So I just want to say, as far as I know, the angiolis temple and the four square churches, they ended up rejecting this stuff more or less in the 1950s and by come into the 60s.

So that's my understanding. But William Brown was right there alongside of it. Amy Sampon McPherson was right there alongside of it, you know, and this stuff happened. And LA and the angiolis temple was an important hub for this stuff in the 20s, in the 30s, in the 40s, and into the early 50s.

Yeah. Well, Charles, this has been a rollercoaster of an episode, and we've only skimmed the surface. We've not even gone deep with this yet. I think we're going to have to follow up with a few episodes to kind of expand on what we've talked about here.

But like you, I'm going to leave a disclaimer too. If you're in the message and you're studying these things and you're listening to our podcast, there were always questions for me, even when I was in the message of how to make things fit.

There were things that William Brenham said that simply did not go with other things, William Brenham said, some of which are very significant. They're very problematic because the things I'm talking about, William Brenham claimed that it was not him saying them.

It was God speaking through him to say them. So then we have God saying one thing and God saying the polar opposite thing. And that becomes very problematic. But now that we enter, when we're into this picture, Charles, we have, there's ample information for people to study when Rod.

We know the code words he was using. When he talks about communism or our communists, he's talking about Jews. When he's talking about Rome, he's talking about the Roman Catholic Church, which is joined together with the Jews who are the serpent's seed to form this union of antichrist.

When he talks about Mongols and Colors, he's talking about the minions for this group that are basically the foot soldiers that are going to come in and are going to basically create the race war.

So you've got the communism who's coming in through the leadership in the United States. You've got the Mongols who are coming in as the foot soldiers and the clan was rising up in opposition.

If you're in the message and you have those same questions, I've talked to many people, even who are still in the message, who understand that this is problematic. Go back and reread everything William Brannum said using those keywords, those code words, that when Rod and Brannum, we're using. When he talks about the heathens, he's mentioning this and he's talking about basically when rods mongrels. So replace heathens with black people, replace mongrel with black people, replace communism with Jews and go back and read these and see what happens. It will absolutely blow your mind. This was insidious, what was happening here. But anyway Charles, we've got to wrap

this up and we're going to expand on this a bit more. And I just have to say this has been one of the most fascinating studies that I've done probably in the decade that I've been researching all of this. This has been the most astounding, fascinating, and horrific things that I've ever began to study. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and ChristianGospelChurch.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Branum in the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods,

a critical examination of William Branum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming.