Jim Jones: Death Curse on William Branham

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

Together, we're examining the history and the intersections in history between William-Branham and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by the post-World War II healing revivals. Charles, we have such an exciting episode lined up today. This is, for me, this is the explosion of what creates people's temple.

It's a point in history in which all of the different trails of history just diverge. And you can kind of see the evil and men's hearts, if you will, of how this thing splinters from what happens during this series of meetings.

This is really the epicenter or the, you know, no better way to say it. This is the atomic bomb for the laterane movement. And this is where it's going to just like a big sledgehammer to a pane of glass. It's going to shatter into a million different pieces.

Some of those pieces took the right trajectory and they, you know, you can tell what's inside of men's hearts. Some people actually decided to wake up and realize, hey, this thing's not that, not of God.

And there are others who were influencing the movement who just continued to influence in the wrong direction. So for me, I think this is probably going to be my favorite of all of the episodes just simply because it's from here that we can start to see what is inside of the people who are involved with Jim Jones.

Right, John. And for me, this, this episode is also incredibly fascinating because this, this is what sets up not just the creation of people's temple as it existed, but this is, this is the foundations, the birth of the message cult comes in the aftermath of this split.

The birth of the charismatic movement is the aftermath of this split, the word of faith movement comes in the aftermath of this split. What happens here is very, very pivotal to the history of this whole whole movement as will, as we'll, as we'll get into as they go through.

episode and you know we've spent the last four episodes um deep diving the relationship between Jim Jones, William Brownham and the latter rain movement and today we're coming to the conclusion of that analysis and let me help set this episode a little bit up for our listeners as well by saying um what happens here is is pretty complex and we'll try to walk through it here as we go but let me just kind of break down a little bit as we come into it through the mid-1950s Jim Jones has kind of been a rising up through the ranks of the latter rain

movement and as you come into October of 1957 he is selected to again be the host pastor um by the committee organizing the largest latter rain convention of 1957 and so just like 1955 just like 1956 Jim Jones is again going to be taking the platform next to William Brownham to preach at these major latter rain conventions but in the background trouble is brewing in the broader movement and as we went through in our episode on the fracturing of the latter rain William Brownham has been siding with the latter rain centered faction that's around Joseph Metz and Bosé and the independent

assemblies of God and their faction has been going through this period where relationships with assemblies of God has totally broken down and Gordon Lindsay and voice of healing has tried to try to take a middle road keeping peace between assemblies of God but in in terms of the business strategy what's happening is actually backfire and really badly and by 1957 Gordon Lindsay and the voice of healing have lost most of the big name of evangelists they had been working with and as voice of healing goes into decline in 1958 voice healing actually renames itself at that point in time and starts

refocusing on overseas missions and they'll eventually transition to you know Christ for the nation's institute and and while William Brownham's relationship with Gordon Lindsay and voice of healing has been deteriorating since the end of 1953 as you come to 1957 this is really the total breaking point Gordon Lindsay and William Brownham are going to part ways here after 1957 and never really worked together again in any meaningful way and this this also is setting the stage for the start of the charismatic movement and Jim Jones is caught up in all of this as it's happening he came in as the

split with voice of healing began and this final big blow up is going to actually play out at the 1957 convention that was organized by Jim Jones and hosted by people's temple in Indianapolis do you find that unbelievable John that's unbelievable it's truly unbelievable and we have to also consider some surrounding historical background to this we as we've covered in this podcast there are really really thick connections to white supremacy in the heart of this movement. It isn't that all of the people involved with Laterane were white supremacists, but we can strongly tie many of the leaders of the sect to white supremistic

doctrines. And to some extent, connections directly to leaders of white supremacy groups, such as William Brannum connected to Roy Yidavis, who was the second in command of the 1915 Ku Klux Klan. But up until 1956, William Brannum himself had done a very good job of concealing the racial, racially charged doctrines and background to his own ministry. Roy Davis is kind of out of the picture. He had been arrested and removed from William Brannum for a period of time and went to prison, got out of prison, began working with Congressman William D.

Upshot to rebuild the Klan. Well, at the point of time, in which Jim Jones gets involved with William Brannum, Jones would have had no idea that William Brannum was working with white supremacy leaders. And so he, Jones, whenever he advertised William Brannum's big meeting at the Kadel Tapper knackle, he actually advertised it in the Indianapolis recorder.

And this newspaper was a very famous black newspaper published from Indianapolis. I think it's the fourth oldest black newspaper in the nation. And the leaders of the, of the newspaper, the creators of the newspaper were very pro civil rights, obviously. They were, you know, during the 1950s and 60s, they were advertising Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm Max. They were, they were, they went on to receive a lot of awards for their work and civil rights. Jones, who also was very big in Indianapolis in the civil rights movement, decided to publish this news that William Brannum was coming to Indianapolis first in the black

newspaper. And that's, that makes a very big statement. Jones is working with these African Americans in Indianapolis. And he's telling them, look, we're bringing in the big guy from Laterane, William Brannum, the leader of the post-World War II healing revival by this point.

And it's open arms. He, he loves people with black skin. That's the message that Jones is conveying by choosing the Indianapolis recorder. And the big names that were involved in 1956, which I think we've mentioned, but Joseph Mats and Bozé obviously was very closely working with Jones and Brannum. He also had David DePlicis, who was the head of the World Pentecostal Fellowship. And you had Reverend Rasmussen, who was the partner to, to Reverend Joseph Mats and Bozé.

So working very closely with William Brannum, that was the 1956 convention. Well, that convention was so successful in 1957 that it exploded and all of the key figures that were supportive of William Brannum obviously joined in this thing.

You had people like T.L. Osborne, who at William Brannum's funeral said that it was basically God in the flesh. You had Tommy Hicks, you had F.F. Bosworth, you had this whole array of ministers.

I believe there were 8,000 laymen and 700 ministers were in attendance at the first one. And they expected to be even bigger in 1957. So while all of this is going on, Jones has no idea that William Brannum is so closely aligned with the white supremacy movement that was opposing civil rights.

But the cracks in the walls of defense around William Brannum's public stage persona in hiding were beginning to crack because Davis was becoming extremely active in white supremacy. We don't know exactly the extent of what information was given to Jones.

We can kind of see hints at it. But this is the same period of time in which, if you look at the different paths of men, Reverend Davis, who was William Brannum's mentor, will soon step out to the forefront as the head of the Atlanta, the main, basically the main Ku Klux Klan.

He's going to become the imperial wizard of this. And you also have William Brannum, who's after Davis goes public, Brannum is going to introduce his non-racist serpent seed doctrine and then slip in the high breeding doctrine which the combination of which turns into basically a rebranding of Wesley Swift's Christian identity doctrine.

So all of this is going on in the background. It appears that Jones did learn something to this effect. We don't know exactly what it was yet, but he did learn that there were some things going on because at the center of focus of this explosion and splintering, you have William Brannum being exposed for his beliefs.

William Brannum says that it's because of serpent seed, but his serpent seed sermon does not actually come out until 1958. At the end of 1956, like you mentioned, Jim Jones had been chosen for a second time to be the host pastor of these Christian fellowship conventions.

And these are basically the biggest conventions of the independent assemblies of God, including all of the international laterane influence churches that are in their orbit. And John, I'm really curious and I've tried to pinpoint just how big this group was at this point.

And the best I can really do is give an estimate, but we do know they were still pulling in the neighborhood of 10,000 people to their main convention as you come into 1957.

And their convention, it is international that got representatives there from Scandinavia, from the United Kingdom and Germany. And we know they're operating a number of missions in South America and Africa. And there's a lot of big names who are still friendly and cooperating with them.

Names will go through in a bit, some you already mentioned. And so when this main branch of the Laterane movement coming into this 1957 convention, it, at the very least, is representing several hundred churches.

And I think it's important to note that by the time you get to 1957, too, the character of these meetings has changed a bit from the earlier days. It used to be true that William Brandon would go into a city.

He'd hold meetings and he would draw the crowd from mostly the local community and all the local Pentecostal denominations would support the revival. But this has been shifting as the Pentecostal denominations are withdrawing or boycotting the meetings.

And more and more people at these conventions are really traveling very far distances to get there. And so when we say there's 5,000, 10,000 people at the meetings, a large percentage of these people are the same people who are moving from meeting to meeting with William Branham and the other evangelists at this point.

So I just want to make sure I draw attention to that fact that William Branham and these other evangelists have developed a really huge entourage by the time you get to 1957. They've got to the point where they're going to convention after convention after convention after convention, after convention, the same people following him there and traveling great distances to be in William Branham services.

And a lot of those same people in his entourage, John, are also starting to move and relocate to Jeffersonville in those same years. I believe this is probably the year's your family move to the Jeffersonville area, right John?

Your grandfather's family. Exactly. And so my family was locals. Your family was out of towners, in that sense, at the Cabernacle. And so all these out of towners are having a really big impact on the Branham Cabernacle here in Jeffersonville.

And as you come into the late 1950s, the Cabernacle was almost entirely overtaken by out of towners that William Branham was drawing into his orbit. And so the same type of people who are moving to Jeffersonville by the hundreds to start going to the Cabernacle, they're also driving hundreds and hundreds of miles and following William Branham to fill seats at a lot of these meetings over and over again.

Yeah, and I think painting that picture is also very important. The one that you described of these hundreds of ministers. If you take each one of the individual stage personalities that we're going to be talking about, each one of...

their respective sects or their, some of them grew into cults and splinter groups and movements, et cetera. Followers of those movements would say, this is just guilt by association. You can't connect Reverend Joseph Mats and Bozay to Jim Jones because Jones is working with Brannum.

I've actually had people tell me this. And on the flip side, I've had Brannumites tell me, you can't guilt by association Brannum because he was working with Jones. Jones is also working with Mats and Bozay.

Well, they were all working together. I mean, picture a traveling circus. If you had this repetitive stage act wherein a juggler is carrying a hand grenade and decides to throw it in an audience in one meeting and then goes and does the same thing in the next meeting and the next meeting and the next meeting, you're not going to blame just the juggler.

And these are all men who are working together, right? They've watched this happen and meeting one, meeting two, meeting three. All of these men are doing the same thing. And William Brannum as the self proclaimed to some extent but named leader of the post-World War II healing revival after all of these events happened, he is the one who is the strongest influence.

So he is the one who has brought the manifest sons of God to the forefront which became Joe's army. He's got all of these different movements that splintered to a large extent were influenced by William Brannum.

He's the central figure of this cult that's forming even though many of them would later denounce him and he gets set off to the side in his own cult of personality splinter group. At this point in time, he is the top of the pyramid.

But the point of which we're going to discuss today, 1957, whenever this thing starts to implode, that's when you start to see multiple pyramids begin to form and each head of each pyramid begins to fight with each other.

They want to seize control because this has became one of the largest financial engines in the nation at the time. Yeah, so I'd like to just offer some details about the different factions coming into and out of this 1957 split.

And, you know, John, I've spent the last two weeks just deep diving all of this stuff because this fascinates me, John, very much because this is what happens here in 1957 is legendary in message history, OK?

And so getting to the bottom of the truth of these things is very fascinating to me. And so, like I said, I've spent weeks just reading and rereading all the evidence. And if our listeners want to do the same thing, you can look at the same sources I looked at, right?

And, of course, I have the internal message stories that were passed down to us by our leaders that I know, including people I interviewed on my way out. This is actually one of the things.

things I asked on as I left before I left with all the people I interviewed, but you can look in Harold a faith, you can look in voice healing, you can look in the healer profit by Doug Lieber, you can look in all things are possible, David Edwin, Harold's book.

You can also use this as a gauge charge to see how destructive whatever splinter group that you're in. If you're in a splinter group of this movement, just simply ask the ministers or the leaders of the movement, was Jim Jones involved with whoever is the leader of your sect, whether it's William Brannum or any of the other various members, ask them, was William Brannum involved?

You'll find, like in the main sect, if you ask, you'll find that ministers in the message of William Brannum, the cult of personality, will by and large deny it and say, no, this is just Charles and John have gone rogue and they won't tell you that there are books out there that link the two together and describe what we're talking about.

So you can use it as a gauge, basically, to determine the level of deception that is in your sect and basically the level of destructiveness of your sect by asking about, was Jim Jones involved with these groups?

Yeah. And this 1957 split is so important, which happens at the meetings hosted by people's temple, okay? Most historians will tell you that the charismatic movement began in 1958, if you read all these sources, I pointed you to, and the launch of the charismatic movement is a second hand ramification of this 1957 split and actually some of the leaders that split off here are going to be the men who pioneer or tell evangelism.

So if you're in charismatic Christianity today, your history traces through this 1957 split, right? This is a critical step on the path that's going to lead to the charismatic movement. And so by the time you get to 1957, the Pentecostal denominations have almost entirely withdrawn their support from these guys, okay?

Gordon Lindsay and the people sticking with him and the voice of healing, they're really the only ones successfully maintaining a relationship with the older denominations at this point. And Gordon Lindsay, the voice of healing, they're carefully, they're very carefully trying to cooperate with William Brannum up till 1957, but really they're shrinking fast, they're declining fast, and really the last big name that voice of healing had on their team in the mid-1950s was AA Allen, right?

So Gordon Lindsay and voice of healing, while they did do a good job of staying in the good graces of assemblies of God, it came with a cost and it cost them the majority of the vangilists who had been working with them as assemblies of God with sanctioned them, sanctioned them, sanctioned them.

So by the time 1957 rolls around, voice of healing is on the verge of imploding, right? Voice of healing no longer represents... the center of the movement that William Brannem is part of. The center of the movement by 1957 has shifted over to this conglomeration of smaller groups and independent ministries.

And in 1957, the most important players here are Joseph Matson-Bose, the independent assemblies of God, and all of these figures who are going full steam ahead with varying degrees of the latter-rain ideas. And this faction does have a whole lot of big names, John.

John, the full gospel businessmen are aligned with this faction at this point, and they're growing in importance. Oral Roberts is aligned with them, and men like Oral Roberts are slowly launching their own independent organizations at this point too.

And then there's a lot of other smaller name evangelists who are still part of this, who become very important, like T.L. Osborne, like Kenneth Haggit, like Tommy Hicks, like Paul Cain, right? And so these are the people who are all at and involved in this 1957 convention, or Roberts was there, A. Allen was there, T.L. Osborne was there, Kenneth Haggit was there, I mean, all of these guys were at this convention participating, and all of these guys are still embedded in this main trunk of the latter-rain movement at this point in time.

Exactly, and it's very difficult to try to think of Jones in this way, because we think of Jones as basically he's the guy from People's Temple. He's wearing those dark sunglasses, and he's a commie, and he's down at Jones down Guyana.

He's in no way shape or form related to any of this. That's the image that has formed in the minds of people over the time. But remember, he is still full gospel. He's advertising his church as full gospel long after even he breaks ways with William Brannum.

It isn't until March of 1959, when Jones is going to hold this big open discussion on the father-divine movement, and he doesn't even join father-divine at that point in time. He's, I think it's October of 1959.

He and People's Temple join in the Billy Graham Crusades. So Jones is apparently trying to take the right path. He doesn't ultimately choose the right path, but he can see that with all of the different conflicts going on in this laterane thing, he can see that this movement is clearly not of God.

And he's trying to determine at this point in time, well, what is? If this is a false religion, what is the true religion? Yeah, so let's talk more about these fireworks that happen at this 1957 convention.

So that's being hosted by Jim Jones and People's Temple. And let me give some more backstory maybe to help. So as assemblies of God was sanctioning these evangelists, left and right through the mid-1950s.

Voice of healing was going along. They were enforcing assemblies of God's sanctions. And some... Some of the evangelists like William Branham, they were able to weather that storm by breaking away from voice of healing and partnering up with Joseph Matson-Bose and the full gospel businessmen.

And the independent assemblies of God became this sort of a haven for the people being exiled and sanctioned by assemblies of God and the major Pentecostal denominations. And you see William Branham did that as he switched from voice of healing over to Harold faith as his main publicity tool at the end of 1954.

So William Branham has made the switch end of 54 and end of 55. So that's what he did. But some of these evangelists, they kind of end up in this no man's land where neither side is really embracing them.

And they're more or less forced to go it alone as a result of what's happening. And AA Allen is one of those figures. And he's the most prominent man, I guess, with this particular problem.

He's in this no man's land. And really it was because AA Allen was an alcoholic and he had been arrested for DUI, I think, in 1952. And by the time you get to 1957, so many bad things has happened to Allen that he's been sanctioned repeatedly and voice of healing has even expelled him.

And so William Branham he steps in and he starts criticizing AA Allen too. And so now Allen's in this position where nobody really wants him that are any of the power brokers in this thing.

He can't go back to the denominations, he can't go forward with William Branham, nobody will take him. And as this ends up setting up the showdown in 1957 at this convention that's hosted by people's temple.

And it's very safe for us to say that Jim Jones takes AA Allen's side in what's going to transpire here and unfold at this convention. Exactly. And it's really interesting to see in the message cult mythology that emerged after this, when William Branham forms what became the message cult after this split.

We despised these people, then William Branham also despised. And we were given the false notion that they were, how do they say in the message, false impersonators basically. We called them false prophets, even though a lot of them never claimed to have prophecy.

But AA Allen was the bad guy, right? Well just two years before William Branham starts holding revivals with Jim Jones, I think it's, I think it's even as late as 1954, William Branham says Allen is this great Christian guy.

But after this split, Allen becomes the bad guy. And what I find interesting, Charles, in the statement, if you look on jonestown.sdsu.edu, you'll find where through the mouth of two or three witnesses, Jones can...

him's Brannum and he says that Brannum did not believe a thing in the Bible and even told him and his witnesses this. He mentions Allen coming to him. So you can tell that there's this, there's this rift that's creating and Jones is siding with the Allen side of the argument.

Well, that's when Brannum begins to condemn Allen. Jones abandons this, this false religion and he joins, he, and entire people's temple join in the Billy Graham crusades. Well, William Brannum later starts denouncing Billy Graham and Graham was also one of the heroes of the faith if you look at the early versions of William Brannum stage persona.

So this split heavily impacted Christianity in America, but within the destructive splinter groups that emerged from this, it basically redefined how this array of ministers that you see on the platform during these meetings.

It defined the way in which each one of those men looked at each other, right? You know, at this point in 1957, William Brannum is still the biggest name in this movement. But after him, the next two biggest names are lower Roberts and AA Allen, right?

So they're his main competition and so you've got to kind of look at things from that perspective too and realize there's potentially a very selfish motive driving the way William Brannum attacks those two men.

And in 1956, William Brannum actually starts dumping on both of them. He starts dumping on oral Roberts and oral Roberts kind of actually plays along and he bows to William Brannum a little bit.

You can actually find quotes of oral Roberts from that period saying, William Brannum is set apart. He's just like Moses. He's, you know, and you'll even find oral Roberts defending him, you know, sometimes William Brannum says things that we might not quite like, but you know, he's a prophet that God has called and we really need to respect these, right?

oral Roberts plays along. And so oral Roberts kind of turns away William Brannum's wrath somewhat as William Brannum starts this. Don't stay this way, but that's how it starts. But AA Allen not so much.

And William Brannum actually ratchets it up against AA Allen very severely and let me read you a couple attacks here that William Brannum makes against AA Allen in his sermons. And William Brannum starts very publicly attacking AA Allen.

It starts from January 1957, basically calling him out as a fake who's disobeying the Bible. And let me read you a quote, it's, it's not obvious in most of these quotes that he's attacking Allen.

But if you're in the message and if you were sitting back there then these are attacks on Allen. William Brannum says, what does the word say? There will be a man rise up and he'll have oil in his hands and he'll rub this oil.

No, that ain't scripture. Uh huh. What does it say? high bishops and any authority to be said, they'll be the one who say, oh, no, no, no, they that are the sons of God are led by the spirit of God.

All right. That's from the 1957 sermon God keeps his word. So that's, that is A.A. Allen, William Brannum is talking about. He's the guy with oil coming out of his hands and you go back and you look every time William Brannum is talking about the guy with oil coming out of his hands.

He's throwing A.A. Allen under the bus. That is A.A. Allen, okay? And everyone who knows this back then knows that is who William Brannum is talking about. Let me give you another quote.

William Brannum says, now don't take a substitute when Pentecostal skies are loaded with the real thing. Don't take some little emotions, some little workups, some little oil falling out of your hands or a bloody face.

Don't take these little emotional things when the whole skies of God is full of a real genuine Pentecostal blessing. That's from the 57 sermon, what does it take to make me Christian life? So there's just a couple examples of what William Brannum is saying about A.A. Allen.

And this is certainly not all. And there's actually nearly 40 times that William Brannum calls out A.A. Allen in his sermons in the first half of 1957. He called him out even by name in a march in 1957 sermon.

And the harshest attack of all that William Brannum made was in a sermon entitled The Impersonation of Christianity, the majority of which sermon was about A.A. Allen, okay? And he went after A.A. Allen big time in that sermon and William Brannum pretty well painted A.A. Allen as a fake preacher and a fake Christian.

It was very vicious, John, what's happening here? While you were talking, I looked up the quotes because I'm curious, that's the way my mind works. I want to see exactly what he said and when was the date and which it changed.

The one I was remembering was December of 1954 in a sermon called Expectation. He said, William Brannum said, Brother Roberts, if he's a true man of God, which I believe Brother Roberts is, a real man of God, then Brother Allen, brother, all of these brothers are real Christian brothers.

I believe every one of them. I believe every man that calls on Jesus Christ is my brother. So that's 1954 that's shortly before William Brannum starts making connections with Jones. And then after they have made, after Jones has joined into the laterane split through the independent assemblies of God, William Brannum, again, he bundles himself in with Jones and with A.A. Allen and Roberts.

He says, this is 1955, October 3rd, a sermon called Faith and Action. action. That's after Allen's first DUI. He said, like the other day, there was a great conference went on here. I don't know whether many of you know about it or not, among some church people who had visited the meetings, the healing services, and so forth.

They met at a conference and was going to drop their conclusions they come to. And one of them said, what do you think about Mr. Allen? The biggest erratic I have ever seen, said the group.

What do you think about oral robberts? As psychology, they said, what about William Brannum, said a polished sooth sayer. That was the truth. How can you expect to do much around there? See, Jesus Christ himself couldn't work in an audience like that.

That's 1955, Charles. That's October of 1955. William Brannum is bundling himself together in the same movement as these men that he will condemn after this split. You know, the thing is, if you listen to William Brannum's sermon once he starts making these attacks, which they start soft in 56, the January 57, the clause come out for Allen.

And if you listen to it, it don't, it don't maybe sound so bad. But if you know the context, you realize that William Brannum is sermon after sermon for months on end attacking the same individual over and over again, right?

I just want to point out that is totally unbiblical. I mean, that is so ungodly, John. You know, William Brannum is engaging in a behavior here that is really very wicked and abusive. You know, the Bible don't say if someone is doing something bad, harass them in your sermons for months on end, right?

That is not the biblical pattern for discipline, right? In fact, that's the exact opposite of what the Bible says to do. So William Brannum here, what he is doing is a gross sin towards AA Allen and an abuse of his position as a minister, but you know, this pattern of attacking people from the platform for months on end is a common behavior in the message.

And the message preachers learn this stuff directly from William Brannum. And it's really a very wicked pattern of behavior. William Brannum is exhibiting here through the first half of 1957 as he stirs up this constant barrage of harassment against AA Allen.

And by the time you get to the June convention meetings, William Brannum has been constantly verbally attacking AA Allen for nearly five months. And there's no precedent for that in scripture, not at all for that kind of behavior.

Look at the flip side. Whenever you compare these two men, I know in the message, we thought Jim Jones was the devil. And we thought William Brannum was the next thing to Jesus Christ, if you know, some splinter groups even think he is Jesus Christ.

Well Brannum is doing the exact opposite of what the Bible says to do. He is just, he's anti-biblical in the way that he handles the situation. Jones, on the other hand, is actually doing it in the biblical way.

He... takes the biblical mouth of two or three witnesses. He says, my witnesses were here. William Brannum said, I can't believe a thing in this Bible hardly, but it's a good way to make a living or something to that effect. Jones is taking the biblical route and we have a large number of sermons from Jones. You don't see Jones railing Brannum constantly. In fact, if you search the transcripts, you're not going to find too many things that he even said about William Brannum.

And Brannum is the leader of this movement that Jones has parted ways with. So Jones takes the high ground, believe it or not, and he uses the mouth of two or three witnesses, condemns Brannum, and then he moves on. And he takes, I mean, at this point in time, I have to say Jones is behaving more like a Christian than all of the rest of this movement, which is a pretty shocking thing, because he was a psychopath. It is. Now, now, here's the thing. We're not defending A, Alan. I mean, the man had a DUI. He was a severe alcoholic, right? And I think any reasonable person can conclude

that what A, Alan was doing was was probably a total fraud at this point, honestly, right? A, Alan definitely had problems, right? But these laterane people have totally abandoned the biblical pattern for church discipline. And they've totally abandoned the framework that existed in the denominations for being able to hold a bad minister accountable, right? And in a sense, what's happening here is really just a natural result of the path they're on, right? They no longer have the ability to hold anyone accountable because they've abandoned the biblical structures.

They don't like it when assemblies of God followed the biblical model for disciplining them, right? And so they've painted themselves into a corner where they have no ability to deal with a drunk driver preacher like A, Alan. So by the time you get to 1957, A, Alan is going to have to sit on the platform next to the man who has been verbally attacking him for five months solid, okay?

And Alan just explodes. And Jim Jones takes his side in this thing. And they respond by writing an anonymous open letter that they distribute to many, if not all, of the attendees at this 1957 convention. And the letter just, it rips everyone. It rips Gordon Lindsay. It rips assemblies of God for sanctioning the ministers. It rips Gordon Lindsay for going along with them. It rips Jack co, who's dead, basically insinuates the God killed him for making a deal with Gordon Lindsay.

Just nasty stuff in this letter. But the most vicious parts of this letter was resolved for William Branham, right? Reserved for him. They accused William Branham of being divisive. They accused him of sowing discord and disunity among the ministry. And they say there's something wrong with William Branham's miracles.

And the letter even goes so far as to suggest that William Brannum is going to die because of this behavior. And they basically are pronouncing a curse on William Brannum in this open letter.

This is the part that I find to be the most fascinating. If you think about what is the gospel, what is Christianity, and how it can convert the heart to love and peace and the fellowship and how it can save the lost and lift the sinner up out of the depths of sin.

And go into the jungles where there are witch doctors who will place a curse on you. Well, they're doing what the witch doctors are doing, man. This is in no way, shape, or form, even resembling the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And again, Charles, it blows my mind, but Jones takes the higher ground. He is acting and behaving like a Christian at this point in time. I am not defending Jones by no means. But when you compare this movement as a whole and what happened to it, Jones is the one who comes out looking unscathed while the rest of them just show their back sides.

I mean, William Brannum is showing his backside in this. And he comes out looking very much like he's a bitter, anger, egotistical maniac. And Jones, who later becomes that, kind of looks like a saint.

Yeah. So this riff between A. Allen and William Brannum is legendary in the message. There are stories handed down in our second John about it. And I'd say A. Allen is arguably the most hated and reviled of all the healing revangelists among the message old timers and the stories.

The stories that they would tell me about A. Allen when I would ask about this. I mean, you would think A. Allen was a devil incarnate, John. And it all has to do with what happened here in 1957.

And there is something though here, John, really, really interesting that happens to A. Allen and Jim Jones both in the aftermath of this convention. Both of them become targets of the Ku Klux Klan, right?

Most temple after this was directly attacked by the Klan. They painted swastikas on the temple. They vandalized the facility. And for A. Allen, it was even worse. The Ku Klux Klan exploded dynamite outside of his tent meetings while he was holding revivals.

They blew up a bridge that people needed to cross to get to his revivals, right? You can even read about that. The attacks by the Klan on Jim Jones or rather on A. Allen, you can find them talked about in God's Generals even, right?

I mean, this even made God's Generals this stuff is so famous what happened. And can somebody shout, a man, there's some mentions about the Klan activity in here as well. But these things... happened after this big blow up in 1957 and you know of course we can't definitively say that this is connected in any way right can't say that this is connected in any way but it's really interesting to me that after this 1957 convention Jim Jones and A. Allen both end up targeted and intimidated by the clan especially when we know that William Brannum was maintaining a relationship

with Roy Davis and so you and you also kind of wonder how much did this clan intimidation serve to radicalize Jones and increase his paranoia well you look at the backgrounds of the men again Jones is working to help the poor black people in Indianapolis that he becomes famous for this in fact if you look through any of the histories they'll mention that he is an advocate for civil rights and he's helping the poor African Americans in Indianapolis and the surrounding area Jones is rising through the ranks of civil rights to become the director of the Indianapolis

human rights commission by 1961 he is the main guy in Indianapolis so he's the one fighting for the equality of human and fighting for the rights of the people you've got William Brannum who's minceward by Roy Davis Davis is rising through the ranks to become the chief man in power for the white supremacy groups and he's working with the white citizens councils in Dallas I mean Davis is organizing strategies nationwide with different places who to fight the battle against civil rights so while you can't say that the two are related you know the clan attacking Jones

the clan attacking Allen what you can say is that the explosion of events that happened are all loosely connected in that Jones becomes aware of this racist thing that's going on in the background we have some subtle hints of evidence of this we cannot say exactly what it is Jones found but we see these these hints of evidence leading to this conclusion and we see the rise in white supremacy in not only Roy Davis but William Brannum's own sermons start to mention his position against the civil rights movement and against key civil rights leaders that Jones is obviously

supporting so while you can't say that they're directly connected I will go so far to say that they are indirectly connected yeah you know there's a recording of Jim Jones where he talks about being in the private meeting with a Allen and William Brannum at the Clay Pool Hotel at those 57 meetings John you've mentioned that already and the way the conversation goes on that tape it is pretty clear that Jim Jones was citing with a Allen and A.A. Allen was also actually a fairly vocal in support of civil rights and doing, you know,

interracial things. And I think that that almost certainly played some level of a role in Jim Jones' decision to decide with A.A. Allen in this, you know. Because he saw in A.A. Allen the multi-racial thing that he was looking for more so than in Joseph Metz and Jose and William Brannum, who pretty well had all white churches at this point, right? So that's, I think that definitely played a role into it. And one interesting thing on that recording, John, is that Jim Jones claims that he prophesied William Brannum's death. And it kind of leads me wondering exactly what role Jim

Jones may have played in writing that anonymous letter at that 1957 convention. Because that letter was also insinuating, you know, William Brannum was going to die as a punishment for these bad behaviors that he had started to exhibit. And so this, this explosive rift, though, it ends up splitting Jim Jones and people's temple away from the latter reign movement altogether. And it does the same thing really for A.A. Allen. Allen ends up breaking away from both voice of healing and the main trunk of the latter reign movement and goes off on an independent ministry working

with some of the other voice of healing evangelists. I'll say former voice of healing evangelists. And it's important to know, although they're diverging away and they're no longer really working with the main trunk, we see they take latter reign ideas with them into these new things that they're doing, right? So they diverge from latter reign organizationally, but ideologically, they take a lot of the ideas with them into these new groups that they're creating. A.A. Allen did that, you know, Jim Jones did that. And so A.A. Allen was actually very, very successful as after he broke away from this. And he is, John, one of the very first of these evangelists to go

on television. He's already got a national radio program at this point and he just transitioned that radio program straight into tele-avangilism. And I think it's very arguable that A.A. Allen is the first tele-avangilist and right behind him was oral Roberts, then T.L. Osborne, right?

These are the first generation of tele-avangilists that are breaking away as coming out of this blit and in the years following. And I think it's also worth pointing out that 1957 is the same year that Pat Robertson has became connected to this movement, John.

Yeah. And it's interesting. You mentioned the prophecy of Jones. We've examined, we just got through examining William Brandham's own prophecies. And I have yet to find a single one that he prophesied accurately, William Brandham. There's not one that he prophesied accurately.

John's, if this is true, you know, We don't, we weren't there to hear what he said, but he makes some statement that Brannum's going to die and that his head will be chopped off.

Now, if we take the same criteria that we examine William Brannum sermons, that didn't happen. My, my family was there with William Brannum and his head was not chopped off, but think about the point in time at which Joan says this.

At that time, there was no message sacked that existed today. These men claimed to be part of a message as a whole, but there was no real head of it. There were these splitting of leadership between the different factions, et cetera, and there was no clear head to this movement.

But after Joan's makes this alleged prophecy, there becomes a head of William Brannum's message sacked, and that's William Brannum. He's the head of the sacked. So if you take it by the symbology, you could theoretically go so far as to say that Joan's prophecy was correct while all of William Brannum's prophecies, to my knowledge, every single one of them has either failed or been so incredibly wrong that Brannum himself had to revise them to make them seem more accurate.

They still had problems, but to make them seem more accurate. And that just fascinates me in that Joan's was not the only one who was prophesying about William Brannum s death before the death happened.

There were many people joined in this thing that they all began to say, William Brannum has lost his mind. He's lost his, he's basically went off the rails and is no longer Christian. He is going to die.

And then he died. And let me just note on that whole prophesying people is going to die thing, right? So has there ever been a single person that didn't die? Okay, so we got to lie to you, right?

Maybe Enoch. Okay. So prophesying, that's, you know what I mean? This only works in the framework of these cults that think that the world is about to end. And there's not enough time for these people to die, right?

So, you know, to me, this is absurd. They're all dead. Everyone they prophesied is dead. And all the people who prophesied they were going to die are dead too, right? Yeah. And these people make themselves out like they're something because they prophesied someone who has gone, everybody dies.

I mean, give me a break. Yeah, Charles, I'm, I'm going to pretend to prophesied that you're going to eat dinner tonight. Well, I, I, I, I hope I have dinner tonight. I'm hungry. So, um, that aside, so David Edwin Harrell and Doug Weaver both conducted interviews, John, with the people who had inside knowledge of this 1957 convention debacle.

Um, and they each have, you know, like I said, extensive information. I shouldn't say extensive. They have, David Edwin Harrell has even more, but they have good information in their books about this split.

Doug Weaver actually interviewed Billy Paul Brannum about this, John. I don't know if you know that. And so Doug Weaver has some excerpts of his interview with Billy Paul Brannum about this in his book.

Because this is a really fundamental thing in the history of charismatic Christianity, the thing that happened here, John. And so it is generally agreed that 1957, the split in particular is where the healing revival ended, okay?

And it's generally believed that 1958 is the year that the charismatic movement begins, right? But it's the exact same people, right? But this sets about a change in the organizational structure and the framework of things, okay? And so it's generally agreed that this is the point of transition. Because these evangelists from here on out are really going to start becoming fully independent, totally separated from the Pentecostal denominations, without any sorts of structures or connections back to the older denominations.

They're totally free, doctrinally, and they start reaching out now to broader Christianity, especially through teleavangilism, right? And this breakup that's happening is forcing these guys to go look for new pastors and new people to preach to because they're no longer welcome among the places and people that help launch them, right? And the new cultish group that's developing at the center of this thing don't want them either. So they've got to go out and find new pastors, right? And this is what setting up the start of the charismatic movement. This is what start setting up the infiltration of all of these ideas out into broader Christianity because they're just

shattering and they're all being forced out in different directions. And where I come from this story about the conflict between William, uh, Branham and A. Allen, John, it is it's legendary. I know I've said that, but you can find Raymond Jackson talking about this on tape at different times than just what a scoundrel A. Allen was. But I find it incredibly interesting, John, that everyone leaves out the fact that this big blow up between William, Branham and A. Allen happened at a convention hosted by people's temple and that Jim Jones was sitting right there with them in the mix, participating while the whole thing was going on, right? How do they leave

that out? How do they leave that out? How do they leave that out? What's really interesting Charles is that whenever this site first began and all my research began, I did not know this history.

This had been largely covered up in the sect. In the main sect, we actually didn't talk about this so much. What we did say and what has been shared in rebuttal to what we do, believe it or not, is that 300 ministers challenged William Branham and he rose above them all.

They don't tell us that that happened with Jim Jones or that William Brannum had been working with Jones directly and that Jones was a leader in the message when this happened. But more to the point, they don't tell you that William Brannum actually lost that argument.

They use it. The ministers have actually twisted it to make it sound as though William Brannum won the fight against 300 ministers. He actually lost this fight. But you can look through the comments on YouTube or on my website or social media.

You'll find it over and over and over again, where Colt programmed minds will say, but William Brannum stood up against 300 ministers. He lost this, Charles. Yeah. Yes. And we've still got to do an episode where we deep dive into that event where the 300 ministers confronted him because that's a very interesting thing too.

It also connected to the things falling out here from this convention. In the aftermath of this big blow up at this convention, Jim Jones fully separates from William Brannum and he gradually ends up separating from Latter-Rain all together and starts making inroads with Father Divine.

One very interesting thing, John, that I found is, I just want to share this with you. It's from some of the old material in the 50s. And I think this is probably quite likely the place that Jim Jones might have even found out about Father Divine.

And so first, Jim Jones, he kind of goes on this kind of fact-finding mission. You can find this in the biographies, but he goes on this fact-finding mission to gather information about Jim Jones or rather about Father Divine's piece mission so we can bring back the dirt to the other Latter-Rain preachers.

That's how he sets up him going to visit Father Divine the first time. But really, we know he ended up going to investigate him to pick up pieces to integrate into his own ideology.

But if you look through Voice of Healing, for example, John, you will find that Voice of Healing is publishing books and advertising books attacking Father Divine through this period. So this is April 1957.

There's an article going after Father Divine. And if you turn two pages ahead in this same magazine, hey, there's an advertisement for William Brannum and Jim Jones meeting at People's Temple, right? Okay. So based on the biographies, I'd say Jim Jones was probably involved even in this stuff right there.

We see about the Father Divine piece there. So everything is set up here before this 1957 split even happens for Jim Jones to make a beeline over to go see Father Divine and really continue on with producing what's going to become the unique ideology of People's Temple, which I've said before.

across of William Branham with Father Divine. You cross William Branham and Father Divine, you get Jim Jones. And so I just wanted to share that. I thought that was interesting. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Basically, that's the position Jones is taking. What's interesting, Charles, whenever I started publishing this research and became somewhat public about it, I have a very well respected family member who left William Branham's call to personality.

I won't give his name. But this family member left the message and became Catholic. And years later, he and I are close friends at this point. Years later asked him, you know, what made you decide to become Catholic?

And he said, well, that man who I learned was the devil referring to William Branham. That man who I learned was the devil called the Catholic Church the devil. And once I realized that William Branham was the devil, I decided the devil of the devil is the good guy.

And I'm not advocating for the Catholic Church by no means. But I'm trying to display the fact that Jim Jones here is taking the stance that the enemy of his enemy is his friend when he learns that this movement is not inspired by God.

This is a pivotal moment for people's temple. This is the point at which it goes heading down the wrong path because Jones has just not only come in contact with the false gospel. He has started preaching the false gospel.

And he suddenly wakes up and realizes, this is a false gospel. So he starts in doing this investigation into what is the real gospel? And what can I gather from this? And the problem is he has been so indoctrinated for so many years with the false gospel that he really doesn't know what to do with it from what if you take what happens next because he starts looking at Father Divine which is another destructive cult starts to take ideas from Father Divine.

He carries forward what he truly believes as pseudo gospel, which is William Brannum's manifested sons of God. He carries that forward. So that doctrine becomes a deeply rooted part of Jim Jones's people's temple ministry when it turns destructive.

So he is taking all of the enemies of his former friends and he's trying to piece together, well, what is the gospel? And it doesn't appear that Jones really came in contact with the real gospel of Jesus Christ.

He just found all of these other things that reminded him of what he liked about the false gospel. As you mentioned, definitely not advocating, joining another cult, leaving the message. You know, it's, when you leave the message, you leave a destructive cult in general.

It's good to just take some time and let things settle in your mind before you go on and take another step into something because as you see with Jim Jones, he left one called...

and went to another, right? And that is what is a very easy thing to do when you leave a group. So it's best you just take your time, think it through, go slow, and just read the Bible and let God speak to you in that way.

And so one last point I think I would like to mention, John, before we wrap up this episode is just to point out how what's happening here does not match up with the history that the message preachers have told us and taught us, okay?

Because here in 1957, in 1957 all of these guys have already left the old denominations. A. Allen wasn't part of the denominations anymore or Roberts wasn't part of the denominations. None of these guys are part of the denominations.

They are all on the outs, John. Every one of them are all, these are all on the outs together, okay? And William Brannum by 1957 has not even preached a come out of her, my people sermon to the denominations, okay?

So by 1957, none of these guys, William Brannum is working with or operating within the denominational systems. None of them, none of them. This is, they're already have exited the denominational supported systems at this point.

And you know, if you spent your whole life in the message like I did, you probably just have no idea this context because the mythology of message history doesn't tell us about this. These people have already separated from the denominations before William Brannum ever preached, come out of her, my people telling people to come out of the denomination.

You can find him preaching, come out of the Catholic church before this. But you can't find him saying, come out of the Protestant denomination. This did not happen. You know, the people who left the denominations at this stage in 1957 left because this whole movement was leaving and because the denominations were really pushing them out against their will.

And this anti-denominationalism was a widespread belief in the latter reign. And there were quite a few people in this movement preaching against being in a denomination well before William Brannum did. John A. A. Allen was preaching against denominations before William Brannum, okay?

And it's not really until you get to the 1960s that well after this separation has occurred that William Brannum really starts laying in hard that people need to exit the Pentecostal denominations, right? It's in the 60s where this mythological back story was invented that he was a prophet that came to lead the people out of the denominations.

And if you're in the message, you'll probably be surprised to learn what I'm saying. I know it surprised me. You know, if you didn't live through this period, you wouldn't even know necessarily, right?

Cause they just, they don't tell us the truth about it. But the message never actually separated from the denominations. That never happened. That's just message, mythology. The truth is the message is a splinter group off of the latter rain, which had already separated from the denominations before William Brannum ever started preaching against the denominations and coming out of them.

So the message, as the way we think about it, it really came together after 1957. And what existed before 1957 and what William Brannum was doing before 1957, I think most message believers would look at that old days as something that would be totally unacceptable today.

Again, I just think this is an incredibly important point if you're in the message. These latter rain groups were already separated from the denominations before William Brannum ever asked anyone to leave the Pentecostal denominations, okay?

When William Brannum started preaching, come out of her, my people in the 60s, the overwhelming majority of the people he was preaching to were already out of the denominations. That's the truth. It is, it reminds me Charles of a bully on the playground and all the kids on the playground have this bag of marbles and the bully's coming in trying to steal a marble from here and there.

We've got William Brannum who's coming in, he's rising, you know, as the leader of this post-World War II healing revival and he's trying to steal people from the different groups and then they all start fighting.

Well, what looks like happens here, Jones just smacks the bag of marbles out of his hands and William Brannum starts trying to scrape in what little bit of marble as he can and he forms his own cult with it and it's by no means anywhere close to his big of a bag of marbles, of people in the movement that he had before and that's really what created the cult.

He now has this little isolated group, all of the other kids in the playground won't play with him anymore and so he just starts bitterly attacking those, knock the marbles out of his hand.

He's basically, he becomes a cult leader of a destructive, isolated group of the latter reign, sect of the latter reign because he has literally lost the fight against all of these other men and all of these other men are starting to go their own way because they're starting to see that he is not this humble, gentle, meek character that his stage persona has presented.

He is a bitter, mean, angry, angry man filled with hate. That's the type of personality that if you look at the sermons after this point in time, you start to see that emerge even in his speeches.

William Brannum is not a humble character after this point. He becomes a egotistical maniac, much like Jim Jones became, but Brannum died in 1965, so there was no real climactic event for his cult.

So I think I'll wrap up by saying, you know, like you, whenever I left this group. I had to completely flush it out of my head, everything that I was taught. I realized that the foundation of it was incorrect.

And when you leave a cult, you can't, you're very susceptible to joining another cult because you have no real foundation. I read the Bible, I want to say 15 times. I've actually lost count as between 10 and 15 times, covered to cover, just to try to wash out everything that was in my head.

And even then, I still today, when I'm reading the Bible, I'll come across some passage and I'll realize that I was manipulated to believe the exact opposite of what that passage says when read in context with the paragraphs before and after.

That's how bad this is. So you can't move forward until you have completely wiped all of this out of your mind. So when you leave, my advice is always this, move slowly. I am in, you know, one of the things that the cult teaches anybody who's in a destructive cult is it's black or white.

You have to, you're the right or you're wrong. And when you leave the cult, you have that mentality. So you think, I must know everything or otherwise I'm in a false religion. I must know everything correctly.

And the minister must have everything correctly. What I found over time is that things that the minister says that you disagree with, you may have some false foundation as to the reason why you disagree.

So I've come to the conclusion, Charles, that for me personally, I'm in no hurry. I'm learning everything new and I am content to learn everything new for the rest of my life. I strongly feel that if God is the God of all, then he is the God that can bring me into all truth in his way, not me trying to force my way into it.

So anyway, if you've enjoyed the show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Branum and 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.