Death, Taxes, and Swimming Pools

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-Branum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org. And 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, today we have one of those episodes that for me is just going to be incredibly fun. You know, I've mentioned on the show several times, I've been to churches from

Arizona to South Carolina and everywhere in between. And the subject we're talking about today, the tent vision and the money are two things that in Jeffersonville everybody knows. But when you get outside of Jeffersonville, I have a strong suspicion that a majority of the leaders in the cult are aware and the leaders of people who were at one point affiliated with the cult are aware.

But by and large, they all deny that this happened and the general public of the cult and its affiliates and its splinter groups, the vast majority of people in the cult and splinter groups have no idea that what we're about to talk about was critical core doctrine at one point and critical events within the cult history and the cult mythology. Yeah, today we're going to talk about some things that began to happen as William Browner's ministry started to go into decline in the 1950s around that tent vision and around the finances. And if you are still in the message,

this is probably not a great episode for you. But if these are questions that certainly start to arise once you get a little distance and you're looking back. And I think we should probably talk about the finances first out of the two. And I'll say most of the information here that we are going to talk about comes from William Brannum himself and members of his inner circle. So I personally take it all with a little bit of a green assault because I know for sure they obviously presented this to us very one sided.

But there's certainly elements in their stories that just a logical analysis proves are not true and things that they said. But there are elements there that are definitely true that are driving the story they're telling in.

And so the sad story of William Brownham's finances really kind of starts in 1955. And the way the story goes, John, how it starts out is there. And I do think there's an element of truth to this, is that his William Brownham broke away from Gordon Lindsay a voice of healing.

He temporarily runs into financial difficulties, difficulties financing his campaigns. And he ran a deficit in 1955 during two of his campaigns that year, or at least that's what he told his audiences, right? And apparently he came up $15,000 short on those two campaigns, which would be about $200,000 in today's money.

And so for a month he had to stop touring and he told everybody he was broken in debt basically. And this is how the story kind of begins. And it's kind of funny when you think about it, Charles, because in today's world, if we were to, you know, have some evangelist that we thought was the central figure and the next thing to God, which we don't today.

But if we did, and they were to start gathering, the very first thing they're going to do is say, hey, let's gather up some money and let's go in an auditorium that is comfortable that can seat the people.

They're not going to say, let's go sweat until we're drenched in stinking inside of a hot tent in the summer afternoon. They're not going to say this. And when you stop and think about it towards the point in which we're talking about, people did not so much gather in tents. Those days had, those days were popular at one point.

But by this time they really had kind of faded out because now air conditioners exist. But the problem is it cost a lot of money for the buildings. Not just the buildings, but there's the whole business aspect to this that you really don't think about when you're indoctrinated in the cult to think of a humble, poor central figure.

But it costs thousands of dollars to just organize the event. You've got the advertising fees to make sure enough people come to fill the event, the venue. You've got the cost of the venue. You've got the cleanup afterwards. There's all kinds of fees and taxes and rent for the building, etc.

It's an expensive thing. And if you're like William Brannum, widely famous up to a point and then suddenly bang, everybody doesn't want you. Well, what do you get? Do you get the big venue that could accommodate everybody that used to come to the event?

answered, you get this little tiny thing hoping that it's small enough, but yet large enough to hold the people. And this is a real dilemma for William Brannum as we enter into this phase of his ministry.

And you really don't think about those things when you're inside the message cult and its affiliates. You never think about the business aspect of what William Brannum did. Yeah. And, you know, and here's the other thing too.

When you're in the message, it's really hard maybe to realize or accept what William Brannum was doing here, but I really believe now that whenever William Brannum talked about his finances like this, which he did a lot, this was a roundabout way for him to make people feel sorry for him and give donations.

Absolutely. That's what this was. You know, why would you talk about being poor and give dollar figures of how much short you are on money unless you're trying to pay a play on people's sympathy to get someone to give you that amount of money, right, like it's what William Brannum is doing is manipulation in order to fund race.

That's what he's doing. And when you step back and you realize that is what's happening here when he's doing these things, I need just put it in today's money. I'm short $200,000. I have to go off the field.

I'll never preach. You'll never see me again. And all of these people who are in his cult of personality, weep and cry, we're never going to see our beloved prophet again, we have to raise $200,000 for him.

That is actually what happened, right, and that's exactly what happened. As soon as this thing was mentioned, that he had the $15,000 deficit in 1955, members of the full gospel businessmen immediately stepped in and covered all of his expenses and he was back the next month touring again.

And so really what began in 1955 is that William Brannum transitioned, and this deficit thing, this was how he transitioned from voice of healing, financing his tours to full gospel businessmen, financing his tours here and out.

And you see that as he took his next trip to Germany in 1955, full gospel businessmen are covering all the expenses now as you come into the summer of 55. And all of the other evangelists are more or less going through the same sort of a difficult situation as they exit voice of healing due to the pressure from the denominations.

They're all trying to survive after being cut off from the funding that flowed through voice of healing and then the sponsorships that had come from the Pentecostal denominations. And at this point in the late 50s, as this is happening, there are still millions of dollars flowing through this movement.

It is still vast sums of money thrown through this movement in today's money, but it's less. If you went back to the early days of the rival, it's tens of millions of dollars and now it's just, would be just millions.

So there's less money and there's more competition for that money and the majority the evangelists from the revival, they were not successful really in maintaining their large ministries through those years, and they mostly stops touring as you come through the mid-50s and into the late-50s. They stopped touring in more or less settle down as pastors.

Gail Jackson is a good example of that. He settled down, started a church in Missouri. O.L. Jaggers is another example. He had had lots of big revivals, but as this period of transition happens, they start settling down, opening their own churches, but a few of these big evangelists, they're able to keep the money flowing and keep on touring.

William Brannum's in that category. Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned the amount in today's money. When people purchase these recordings of William Brannum or any of these guys that are doing this thing, and they're all doing the same thing, Charles. They're all saying, I just need another $100,000, $1,000, like you said, $10,000, whatever it is. We mentally go to sleep. We don't really do the math in our heads of, wait a minute, that's a heck of a lot of money. If you stop and think about it, back then, and you can find it on the internet, there are these inflation

calculators, just type in in the year, whatever it is that we're in. For me, I searched $1,000 in 1955, and it'll do the math for me automatically. $1,000, Charles, in today's money is like $12,000.

He's not asking for small amounts. Like you said, it's in the hundreds of $1,000, sometimes in today's money. Yet the cult by and large and its affiliates will just laugh at these televangelists that say, please, Lord, I need $100,000. But William Brannum's doing the same thing. All of these guys in this movement are doing the same exact thing, and they've been doing it since the 1950s.

Yeah, basically, if you go back to 1955, it gets worse the further back in time. You go, in 1955, multiply it by 12, and that would equal the amount of money today in 2022 inflation.

So it's something else, John. It really is. You know, and some of these evangelists, like oral Roberts, like A. Allen, like T. L. Osborne, they were able, coming through this to create new streams of revenue, gradually, primarily using televangelism to fundraise, because now they've got a much bigger audience. You know, as the, as the attendance at the revival strength, they open up new audiences with televangelism. And most of the evangelists that survive, though, they, they relied on the full gospel businessmen to sort of tie them over in this transition period where they're moving from voice of healing, the denominational

support over into these new independent ministries. And voice of healing did that. Rather, the full gospel businessmen did that help them tie things over as the healing revival ended and the charismatic movement began.

And it tended to be the men who were business savvy who were able to continue growing their ministries through this period. And this is where Derek Prince, Kenneth Hagen, Paul Cain, men like that, they were more or less junior ministers in this movement through the early 50s.

But during this transition, they were able to rise up in the ranks thanks to the full gospel businessmen sponsoring them. And the full gospel businessmen were really important in helping getting a lot of those junior ministers on to television as time went on, which really helped get them a lot of name recognition.

And William Brandham's on the same track as these guys that you come into the late 1950s. And I really suspect John, if time had went on and William Brandham had not died in the car accident, William Brandham probably would have ended up on television in Radio 2.

Because his sermons were starting to be broadcast on Radio in the later years. He was doing that. And they had made multiple films of his services. And it's very clear they were taking steps to launch out in that direction. And of course today, you know, this is all they never talk about this, right?

But he was definitely taking steps to launch in that direction. And I think he definitely would have seized on the opportunity when the full gospel businessmen ended up launching their different television series and programs in the years after he died.

And if he had lived instead of Derek Prince and Kenneth Hagen on these full gospel businessmen programs, it would have been at the very least William Brandham alongside them, right? He would have been included in the full gospel businessmen television lineup that they built just in the years right after he died.

Yeah, it's kind of funny when you think about it because a lot of people who are attracted to this type of religion are very strongly opposed to change. And they usually view change as something that's inspired of Satan. And you'll hear these sermons that this new thing has come out and it's of the devil.

It's, you know, the world today and don't be be not of the world. Well, back when radio first came out, this was, oh my gosh, this is air waves. This is Satan right in your homes. And they're playing this music right in your homes until in Los Angeles, where Hollywood is, you know, exploding.

You've got the Angeles temple that put these massive massive radio towers on top of their church. And once that gets established and people get familiar in a custom and it's no longer a change, then they adopt it.

And they start using it as a platform, just like all of the other entertainers. And they're creating what is the religious entertainment industry in radio. And like you said, fast-forward through time to the 50s, you know, they're a little bit behind the time because again, you've got television is of the devil.

Not only will you brand them several ministers saying this. Well, over time, it's no longer change. now they start to adopt it and they become televangelists. Well, that too has a big expense and it's beyond the realm of comprehension for a lot of these guys. So the full gospel businessmen, Umbrella, basically, I mean, think about it. You've got Dima Shakarian, who is the, what is it? The nephew of the Kardashian Patriarch. So they're right there in the bed with this entertainment industry. You've got these guys organizing this Umbrella that can create the business and the entertainment industry for you. So it becomes this blanket

organization of all of these religious entertainers. And absolutely, like you said, William Brannum was making steps in preparation to become this type of religious entertainer. But since he died, his cult of personality by and large, say that he would have condemned this thing, not knowing that he was joined into the same exact thing.

Now, as William Brannum's fundraising base shrank, he became very dependent on several rich men to finance his ministry and his lifestyle. And they were mostly part of the full gospel businessmen. And they were his main source of revenue that he financed his campaigns with as you begin to move into the late 1950s. After 1955, there's not enough money for him to do big overseas tours anymore. But he did do some tours in Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, you know, and around North America. But there's no more overseas tours and campaigns after 1955. But all that he did do, he generally was all financed by the full gospel businessmen.

And by the time you get to the 1960s, William Brannum has became entirely dependent on an increasingly shrinking number of very wealthy men who are part of his cult of personality. Fred Sothman is one of those men. He was a very wealthy man from the North Battleford area. And Fred Sothman, believe William Brannum, was God incarnate. He was one of these men.

Perry Green, Banks Woods, they were another two men with quite a bit of money who were contributing heavily to support William Brannum. And these men were obsessed with William Brannum, too. Banks Woods bought the house next door to William Brannum so he could live next door to William Brannum. And he's that rich that he can do that. He can just buy the house next door to William Brannum to be near his profit. Perry Green, the same way, when William Brannum moves out to Arizona, Perry Green follows him to Arizona. And so these people are coming around William Brannum.

This is where a lot of the money is coming from. And these really wealthy guys end up becoming close buddies of William Brannum as you come into the later 1950s. And William Brannum allows all of these people into his inner circle. And they are contributing lots and lots of money to keep things moving forward. And by the time to get into the 1960s, all of the people, John, in William Brannum's innermost circle are either very rich or they believe he's got incarnate or both.

And that's it, right? Every single one of the people in his inner circle are either very rich, believe he's got incarnate or both. That describes every single person in his innermost circle, okay? And every person that William Brannum places in a position of leadership or power as you come into the late fifties, they all believe he is God or they are rich and loaded.

Yeah. That was the biggest shock for me, Charles, you know, moving from city to city, state to state, Brannum Church to Brannum Church. When we moved back to Jeffersonville, I had no idea just how widespread this deity cult was, this deity sub cult, it's almost everybody here.

And you know, I've talked to my grandfather who at that time was the pastor at the Brannum Tabernacle. He would in private just harshly condemn these guys. These guys are that's anti-biblical. He would use these phrases that were, you know, hillbilly, Kentucky phrases, but these guys don't know they're rearing from a, from a mule or something, you know, some phrase that he would use, but he would condemn them privately.

But then in public up until towards the end of his life, whenever he's losing his mental faculties, he really never stopped it. He never spoke out against it. And there used to be this guy every year at Easter when the whole cult is coming to Mecca.

He would rent these big billboards that said things like, Brannum was God or Joseph Brannum was God or, you know, he would pick and choose which Brannum was the current God. And people in Jeffersonville just kind of allowed this thing.

And I thought, well, why is this? And I started talking with a few of them. Well, if you got them alone in private, everybody is saying these things. And they know in their mind that it's wrong.

They know that it's wrong to say that this human was God. But they would qualify it with things like, no, he was just a man. He was more than a man. I know what you mean, John.

Like your grandfather's on tape saying just how they would do it. Your grandfather said, William Brannum was God tabernacled in the flesh, right? That's one of the quotes from him on tape. All of these guys publicly and many of them privately did believe William Brannum was God.

And the two men, Fred Soffman and Roy Roberson, they ended up becoming trustees that oversaw the finances for William Brannum. And both of those men believed William Brannum was God. And let me just read a quote from Roy Roberson so you can understand the mind.

set of the people that William Brownham was putting into key positions. And this is an interview from Roy Roberson in Only Believe magazine. And Roy Roberson says in here, he says, once Brother Brownham asked me, Brother Roberson, do you really know who Moses was?

When he put it like that, I had to say, no, I don't know. He said, he was God to those children of Israel. He could speak into existence flees and all kinds of things, like squirrels.

And when he said squirrels, then I knew he was our Moses. He was God to this generation. Okay, so that's Roy Roberson, okay? A man who believed William Brownham was God to this generation, okay? All of these guys believed William Brownham was God long before William Brownham died.

And William Brownham is the man who led them to believe he was God. I absolutely believe what Roy Roberson said there. I believe William Brownham said those things. And his sermons are littered with that kind of insinuation that he is God. I totally believe that William Brownham led all of these people to believe he was God, okay? So I think that's absolutely true.

And they, like I said, they believed that he was God before William Brownham gave them their important positions. And to me, the fact that almost every last person William Brownham put into an important position thought that he was God tells me that William Brownham was doing that on purpose, okay? It's no coincidence that the people who believed in the deity of William Brownham were given total control of the levers of power in this cult while William Brownham was still living, right? You know, he didn't have to do that. There were lots of people who did not believe that

William Brownham was God incarnate. And he could have chosen any of them to have these positions, right? And give them control. But he didn't do that. William Brownham willingly and purposefully only chose men who thought he was God to have positions of control in the Brownham Tabernacle and in the core of the cult. And now it wasn't always that way, right? It wasn't that way from the beginning, but it started as a lot of the outer towners began flocking to this area in the in the later 1950s. And anyways, I've introduced these two men, Fred Sothman and Roy

Roberson because they oversaw the finances. And the next thing we're going to talk about is when the internal revenue service came after William Brownham. And of course, these guys were in charge of the finances during that period. Yeah, I've been recently, while we're going through this series on Jones, I've been going through comparing the doctrines trying to refresh my memories. We

go through the histories of the two men and it all really came from the manifested sons of God. theology. All of these men were building out this framework of this new doctrine called Manifest Suns of God. And it's really interesting when you stop and think about the nature of the relationship between these men who are, you know, fully supportive of William Brannum being God in the flesh. They're also connected to the finances. And there's a heck of a lot of money in manipulating people to believe this guy is a deity. So these guys, this is a business opportunity.

What's really sad is when you look at the lives of these men, like the names you mentioned, most people today would say, well, they're not rich. I knew these people. They were poor. Well, absolutely. William Brannum drained them dry. A lot of them, not all. But as William Brannum's getting connected to these people, they're not very poor. They're pretty well off.

William Brannum is the one who started this. I was going through the quotes last night, Charles. And I found this quote from, you know, I'm comparing William Brannum and Jones. And one of the phrases that Jones used that Brannum was also using in the meetings with Jones was the doesn't the Bible say ye are gods. And that was, you know, the platform, the premise or the foundation for manifest sons of God. And William Brannum says that he's comparing the manifested sons of God doctrine and the manifested sons of God in the movement directly to Jesus. And he talks about

Jesus. He says the second Adam proved it. He stopped nature. Peace be still. Curse it be the fig tree. Certainly he was a man. Yet he was God. He was a manifested son of God. That's what we're going to be one of these days. We're coming up to it through justification. The seeds of Abraham coming up. So he's creating this platform where you too can be a God. I can be a God like Oprah, you get a car. I get a car. Everybody gets a car. Everybody gets to be God. And everybody's joining into this thing. Oh, wow, I want to be a God too. And they're shelling out their money.

Well, these guys, this business opportunity they're creating, they start seeing this. And oh, my gosh, there's a heck of a lot of money in this. So they join into it. But what happens behind the scenes when all of these men start pulling away from Brannum, this was a very failed business opportunity for some of them. And it was a very lucrative business opportunity for others.

So in 1956, the IRS came after William Brannum, okay, the internal revenue service. And this whole thing lasted about five years. They spent five years investigating the finances of William Brannum and his ministry. And at the very least, William Brannum and his team had been totally negligent.

Like, that's the least, but more likely, I think, I really think, John, as we'll go through this, I think they were purposefully fraudulent in what they were doing. I think it was a purposeful tax evasion strategy that they were pursuing, okay?

And they're not the only ones who were doing this, okay? It's also worth noting the IRS also went after Earl Roberts and Jack Coe and A. A. Allen and Gordon Lindsay and all of the leading figures of this movement in 1956, simultaneously, okay?

They were all being targeted at the same time, and they were all running into legal problems as you come into 1956. At that point, you know, by that point, there had already been a number of these guys arrested, you know, Jack Coe had been arrested and jailed after he had injured a person in one of his healing revivals that was supposed to have been healed.

A. Allen actually had a similar thing happen. I think A. Allen had been arrested three times, if I recollect correctly, and of course, A. Allen had his DUI as well. In Gordon Lindsay got drawn up into the legal battle, he had to testify in court for different things that were going on at that point as well and his involvement in it.

So most all of these guys are in very hot water with the government as you come into the mid-1950s. William Brannum included. And I think it's very safe to say that in 1956, the federal government began a concerted effort to pressure these guys to change their practices, right?

That's one thing for sure, and maybe even trying to shut them down. Because it's not a coincidence that the IRS targeted all of these guys at the exact same time. It's clearly a, it's clearly a consorted planned effort, right?

And if you want to find details about this, you can read about this in David Edwin Harrell's book, All Things Are Possible, The Healer Profit Doug Leaver. He covers these things are covered in their books, but the federal government went after all of these guys simultaneously starting in 1956, further practices.

Yeah. And it wasn't the first time that the government tried to step in and regulate these faith healers. I mean, people who are in this type of religion and even people who weren't in the message, but just are the Pentecostal people who believe in these faith healing revivals and meetings and think that this, this thing is inspired by God, not recognizing the business behind it.

They are supportive of it, not realizing that it's really no different than if you had some sort of a person pretending to be a doctor and selling some herb. Let's just say marijuana and they're saying, this marijuana can cure you of every illness that you have in your body.

And there are people who will get up and testify, yes, this marijuana made me feel better. Well, the government's eventually going to step in and regulate because people are dying. That's what's... going on in these faith healing revivals.

The government is trying to figure out, well, this is a religious movement. There's separation of church and state. How do we regulate this? And then they discovered that, wait a minute, a lot of these guys are evading taxes.

This is a big deal. And William Brannum himself even mentions the tax lawsuits in his sermons. And when you stop and think about it, you know, if your mind is not asleep while you're listening, and you stop and think about the things he said, wait a minute.

The things he said, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing what he did. He's definitely evading his taxes. Yes. So, John, you know, I have worked with tax preparation in my professional career for over 20 years.

You know my career a little bit, we've had a time to talk, right? I have a very good professional understanding of how taxation works in the United States, okay? I'm not going to go into the weeds here, but basically what William Brannum was doing here with his ministry and the way he was trying to structure things financially was totally illegal.

Okay? There's just no way, right? It's illegal today. It was illegal then, okay? He never had a prayer of beating this IRS audit, never. He got caught, red handed, perpetrating a tax avoidance scheme, hands down period, right?

He had failed to set up a tax exempt foundation to handle his money, yet he was trying to claim he was tax exempt. That does not work. If you're personally benefiting financially in any way, it is not tax exempt, okay?

And if you don't set up a formal tax exempt organization to handle the money, then it is not tax exempt, and it doesn't matter if you have a religious belief against organizations like William Brannum conveniently had, right?

That don't work. The government don't care. You still owe taxes, right? Yes. So, it just don't work. So, not then, not now, and it's really an open and shut case of tax fraud that William Brannum was engaged in.

And if you want to find that out for yourself, you don't got to take my word for it. All you got to do to go up to the Internal Revenue website, read the history of tax exemption laws, which is right there on their website.

And what William Brannum was doing was totally illegal. You can also go to the Treasury website, read the history of gift tax laws. It's right there in a nice document. The IRS nailed him for illegal tax evasion.

And honestly, William Brannum was lucky he didn't go to jail here. And what we know back about this time, and this was actually fairly common in those days and on back in American history, is when there was something going on that the federal government wanted to control, the federal government was a lot weaker back then than it is today, right?

Back before there was an FBI, back before there was these different abilities to go after people. They tended to use the tax code to go after things they wanted to stop, right? organized things going on that the government wanted to stamp out, but didn't have the authority at the federal level to do it through criminal law, they used the IRS to do it, okay?

So I think it's really safe for us to assume this is some sort of a consorted effort by the federal government to put the kabash on these healing revivals, right? I mean, I really think that's the best way to interpret what's happening here.

Yeah, the tax section of the government back then was very powerful and very praise for their ability to take down the enemies. Al Capone, they never could tie anything to him criminally, but they got him through tax evasion, and that's why he went to prison eventually.

It was the only way that they caught him was through tax evasion. And what's funny is when you look at the similarities between Al Capone's empire, and yes, I know that they killed a lot of people was very bad, but compare the structure, just the business structure to what these guys are doing in these healing revivals, and it's no wonder the government came after them.

If you listen to William Brannum's statements that he made about this case and his interrogation with the auditors and the different things that happened to, okay, if you are a tax expert, you know William Brannum is being totally dishonest through those things, right?

Like the exchanges, the stuff that he said, there is no way that elements of that are true, right? Like he just totally was misleading people on that. So anyways, I'll lay that aside. So in 1956, this big tax saga starts, and in the last five years, it lasted for five years, and it wasn't settled until 1961, and except for A. A. Allen, every one of these leading evangelists ends up being found guilty and forced to pay huge amounts of back taxes and penalties, and in William Brannum's case, he owed about a half a million dollars

in back taxes, half a million dollars in back taxes, and today's money, if you adjusted it for inflation, that's what they nailed him for, okay? That's crazy. And you know, you only pay a fraction of your income in, right?

So if you've got a half a million in back taxes, adjust that out. You know what, today we pay maybe 20% in taxes, right? So divide by 20, multiply by 100, right? You can come up to some approximate figures on the gross, just by those numbers.

And so we have also a pretty good idea of what William Brannum was bringing in, just based on by what he said on tape. And there's quite a number of times he said on tape through the 1950s that his expenses ran at $100 a day. He'd say on tape, quite a number of times, my expenses run $100 a day to run my office back in Jeffersonville.

And you just do the math on that, okay? $100 a day, adjusted for inflation, that would put his annual office expenses in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars a year, okay? His annual office expenses based on his own testimony on tape was half a million dollars roughly a year, okay? And he did that for years. So at the very least, William Brannum had to have millions of dollars of revenue in today's money through this healing revival people just to run his office, okay?

I'm laughing because to the people who know of this office back in Jeffersonville before there was a lot of recordings before there was a spoken word. These guys from the living room, I mean, this is my office. Here's this couple of guys who are donating their time to me. That's my office and it's cost a hundred dollars a day. It's just unfathomable that he is saying these things in public to the people in Jeffersonville who went to these meetings and hurt this. I'm trying to imagine what even went through their heads. They're scratching the head, wait a minute, a hundred

dollars a day for those guys. Are you kidding me? But yet they never said anything. So the vast majority of people never learned. If you carefully examine what William Brannum says on tape about his finances and his sermons, right? You adjust it for today's money, okay? Through William Brannum's own words, we know he was bringing in over a million dollars a year in revenue during his peak years, per year, and was paying no taxes on it, okay? All right. And so and Roy Roberson is representing William Brannum to the IRS to plead his case. He actually talks about that. Roy Roberson talks about

that in this in this magazine interview. You can read Roy Roberson's account, a lot of witness of what happened in there. And compare it also to what William Brannum said. And these investigators were very harsh with William Brannum. They dealt very harshly with him. They let him have it in their personal interactions during their interrogations with him. And again, if you listen just to the details that they give us, because the only details we have is what they what they give us, what they shared on tape, what you can get through like Roy Roberson's testimonies.

It is very clear that very large amounts of money was missing, okay? They had kept no records for where any of the money had went. It was totally unaccounted for. And in today's money, it would be millions of dollars that was unaccounted for, okay? And the IRS had collected evidence.

They had the evidence and proof that William Brannum had collected and received the money. But William Brannum had no receipts and no proof for where the money went. And now, William Brannum, he said, you know, he verbally said he just gave it all away basically. He gave it to people in need. He just gave it all out, right? But then he also said, I have a half million dollars a year in office expenses too. So he obviously couldn't have given it all away if he had a hundred and a half million dollars a year in office. So it's really only his word on it and his

testimonies are contradictory and contrary. So it's really kind of hard just to you're this all out precisely without a little speculation, but one way or another, I think there's a truck record here dishonesty and there is money missing, vast amounts of money missing that's unaccounted for here.

And think of what happened with Al Capone, Charles. Al Capone had this massive financial engine running and the government just brought it to its knees through the IRS. Well, this caused a big shattering of the way business was handled for organized crime throughout the United States. And what they ended up doing was they would create these other little entities, mom and pop, you know, whatever they were from grocery stores to candy stores to carpentry. They create all these little smaller business entities run by people unconnected to them and have the money flow through those instead of directly through

the corporation of the mobster. And the government, the IRS could not track all of this. There is absolutely no way to track it. Well, I think we've talked about it before whenever Gerald Lee Walker began investigating the Brandon Colton, what was it, the 80s. He started noticing, wait a minute, there's a heck of a lot of sub entities. There are all these carpentry places. And I think the biggest shock for me was when he started investigating Perry Green and learned that Perry Green was a felon. And he had all of these different, you know, business enterprises that were loosely connected. And at that time, I don't

even think he even caught some of the bigger ones such as there is a, there is a racketeering case for voice of God recordings where they were funneling money through an Indian nation in Arizona. So you've got all of these different business enterprises that you really can't track them today. And there's really no way to know how much money is actually flowing through the organization. Yeah, we are going to have to do a full episode at some point where we go through William Brown center circle and all of these things. Yeah, like you may, I mean, Perry Green was a convicted felon. He was, he was convicted even for robbing

the federal government. Okay. I mean, the man, I think he might have died under sent, I think he might have still been, you know, under home arrest at the time of his death. Are you like, his, he was in so many lawsuits. I mean, it seemed really like his wealth was very ill gotten if you just look through the, through the criminal court records and the stuff that Sarah Brannum had in her investigation and so forth. You know, it, William Brownum, some of his money was not coming from reputable sources. That, that, because the people who was donating to him was not getting it from reputable sources. Yeah. And

I will qualify this by Charles and I are no legal experts. We do not have any way to say, yes, definitely, these things that Gerald Lee Walker. found are accurate. However, they're coming from government websites.

And they're the evidence is there. I mean, just just look at it. See, see what conclusion you draw when you read all the stuff, you know, so anyways, let me read you a quote here that kind of demonstrates the kind of money that was coming to William Brannum and what was said about this. And this is from a servant sermon in 1952. So 1952, William Brannum says this. And okay, in today's money multiply everything here by about 13, I think. I had a million five hundred thousand dollars give to me at one time and refused to put

my name on it and told them to take it back. That's right. I had twenty five thousand dollars give to me in one check at the platform in Texas. We're a man from Texas and Paragreens from Texas. So this could be Paragreens. I'm not sure. Oil owner that come in there said his mother was healed out of a wheelchair. I just flew in there. I said, sir. And I tore the checkup before him. That's right. I'm a poor man. We must have. I'm a poor man. Someone offered me here not long ago and said, Brother Brannum will buy you a nice cattle

actor ride. I said a Cadillac. I said me go down through Arkansas and some of them poor little old Arkansasers down there picking cotton, little old mothers with their hands, stuck up with cocklebirds and things or burrs off of that cotton picking that pulling that saddle half dead with female trouble and things like that. Eating fat baking cornbread breakfast. Come put a dollar in my meeting plate and then me ride in a Cadillac. No, sir. No indeedy. No indeedy.

I will never do that. Okay. So that's the things. That's what William Brannum said, right? You know, and William Brannum is definitely being dishonest here in that quote. And here's the thing. He said, I am a poor man. Yet he's got a office with a half million dollar a year budget back in Jeffersonville and today's money. Okay. Right? Does a poor man have a office with a half million dollar budget? No. Okay. But William Brannum did. Just do that math adjust it. You'll see. But that's not the only thing William Brannum said there that was dishonest. John, you and I both know the answer to this question.

And most all the old timers here do. But what kind of car was parked in William Brannum's garage and where did he get it? It was a Cadillac. And it was given to him, right? Yeah. So let me just read that again here. Ride in a Cadillac.

No, sir, indeedy. No indeedy. I will never do that. So William Brannum is telling his audiences that he's not taken these kind of donations. But he actually is. He actually is. What's really sad, Charles, is that the strategy worked. He would be doing all of the things that he condemned everybody else for doing.

And people would hear that and their minds would go to sleep and not connect. Well, wait a minute. I just saw him come in in a Cadillac. You know, they weren't thinking through this. You and I interviewed a person not long ago and they said they were against William Brannum and they said, but in the early years he was poor as dirt. He was touring and he didn't, he couldn't scrape too painlessly. I can't remember how the guy worded it, but the newspaper articles that we've read, even dating back to 1947 said that there were, it required two Husky men to carry the suitcases

of money from William Brannum's revivals. That's back in the 40s. So this isn't something that just exploded in the 50s and 60s and he suddenly made a lot of money. This was going on for a very, very long time. I think it is possible, William Brannum.

May have been born into poverty, that could be true. It's also possible. I mean, and again, these things are questionable. You can read Legend of the Fall by Peter Doyser and he has some things to consider here, but it's possible he was poor in the 20s. It's possible he was poor in the 30s. William Brannum was not poor after the 40s. William Brannum was very wealthy for certain by the time you come into the mid 1940s and on. And so their William Brannum said in that quote that he refused to take a Cadillac as a gift. Yet he had a Cadillac that was given to him as a gift

in his garage. And I think it's reasonable for a person that's looking at these facts to conclude that death. William Brannum was beyond a shadow of a doubt misleading his audiences about his financial condition. He was absolutely misleading his audiences about it. There's just no way around it. You know, he is demonstrably telling falsehoods about his financial conditions here in these statements. And we've got eyewitness testimonies. You know, Alfred Pol, for example, the missionary secretary of Pentecostal was Sandblies of Canada. We got his written accounts that he was served as a middleman collecting money from these people and passion the checks to William Brannum. And

according to him, William Brannum collected very large donations when they worked together. And never once tore up the check and said, I don't want it, right? He took the checks, right? He cashed them. William Brannum was pocketing that money. And the evidence is if people will look at it, the evidence is that William Brannum was enjoying a lot of benefits of wealth in his life.

Yeah, he wore a cheap suit. That was just costume for goodness sakes. How easy it is it to put on a costume, right? Those big guided hunting trips he took, right? And he took multiple of these guided hunting trips a year. You look how much those things cost. Those most generally will cost a whole year salary for the average person to go on one of those trips. But he was doing those often multiple times a year. And you know, whether he paid him himself and whether they were a gift, William Brannum was enjoying those luxurious kind of things in his life. He had a $3,000 watch,

which is $35,000 watch in today's money, right? John, I don't know a single person with a $35,000 Watch to you. I don't. That's more money than the cars that I owned combined, right, that he owned.

But William Brownem had a $35,000 watch in today's money. He had a Cadillac in his car, the most expensive automobile. When he traveled contrary to what he says, he was staying in the luxurious hotels.

He stayed in the Claypool Hotel at Indianapolis. We know there were people there with him that told us, right? The finest hotels in London, the finest hotels in Paris when he was in Europe.

And he did have a modest home here in Jeffersonville. But that was just one of his houses. William Brownem owned multiple houses, okay? Poor people don't own a single house. William Brownem owned multiple houses, okay?

And his home in Arizona by message standards, John. That house was a mansion. It had an in-ground swimming pool. It had fancy high-end, trim, carve work. It had the latest electronics. It had an intercom system.

William Brownem had a house with an intercom system, okay? It had a recording room. It had a custom wood-carved doors, you know, all to his profit hunting theme, a large-tached garage for his cars.

It had a large library, bigger than this library behind me, right? He had a huge den where all of his hunting stuff was all on display. You can just go on the internet and look that property up to date.

You find it on Zillow. This is a million dollar home in today's money that William Brownem lived in, right? So William Brownem was very financially well to do and there's nothing wrong with being financially well to do.

I got no problem with being prosperous. But that is not at all what William Brownem was leading his audiences to think, right? He was misleading his audiences about his financial status and his income.

And the IRS audit is just one of the ways that we can prove he was misleading his audience about his financial condition. He was not a poor man when he was touring in these healing revivals.

He was pretending to be poor from the mid-1940s on. He had a massive multi-million dollar income in today's money through those years by his own admission. You know, we could almost do a full episode on just the lifestyle that was actually lived as compared to the lifestyle of the stage persona.

But you were talking about the home and the intercoms and the swimming pool. And I remember the first time that we put on the website, a picture of his swimming pool, I didn't think anything of it because my family grew up with the Brandon family.

We knew that they had a swimming pool. But by and large, the vast... God have mercy. Do you think they put on bathing suits, John? God have mercy. Yeah, the vast majority of people have no idea that he had one because he's condemned swimming swimming pools, right?

And pool parties and these things. Well, my family went to his pool parties. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. You know, and these people wore bathing suits. Was it... Swimming. You know, whenever I went to one of the churches in the Midwest, they they were so strongly against swimming, which was for an idea to me, right? The Brannum family wore shorts, William Brannum, his sons, his grandsons, and and continuing on. They, you know, they wore shorts and they swim in this in these things. Well, the church, a person in the church, rented out the YMCA to give everybody an opportunity to actually swim and they segregated the boys

versus the girls. Well, when we go to swim, I've got shorts on under my pants and I thought nothing of it because that's the way the Brannum family lived, right? Well, they told me, no, you have to swim in your blue jeans. And I'm like, what? And here we were every single guy in this thing was swimming in the YMCA swimming pool in their blue jeans. And it's really hard to swim like this. One guy actually, you know, he dove in and he messed his face all up because you can't really maneuver very well in your blue jeans. Well, think of the girls. Some of them had

jeans skirts on. So this was just a big mess, but it was a result of the stage persona being so different from the lifestyle that these people lived. And like you say, these things cost money. I would love to have a swimming pool at my house, but I can't afford to put a swimming pool in the back of my yard. Well, William Brannum did. And while he did, he's saying, I just don't have any money. I've got a hundred dollars a day living or office expenses. Well, dang, man, I run a business.

I wish my expenses were that high. What's really odd, Johnny, you know, you think about an in-ground swimming pool. You know, today, those would cost 35, 40, 50 thousand dollars for an in-ground, a nice in-ground swimming pool like William Brannum's, right? That's a lot of money just for the pool. So I mean, that kind of, I think, demonstrates the amount of money that was there, right? That could be spent just on luxuries. Yeah. And like you, I'm not against the man having money. I would like to have more money than I have. I think everybody would like to have

more money than they have. But the fact that he had the stage persona where he was poor so that people would give him their money. And then those people became poor. And worse than that, Charles, he's preaching this rapture theology that this little tiny group is not going to need their money. So give it to me. And we're all going to go to heaven. You're not going to need your money. Well, all of these people that did this didn't save a retirement. And it's really sad when you look at the people that were with William Brannum during those years. Most of them had

nothing saved up. And now they're scraping pennies together, just trying to survive, trying to keep food on their table day to day while William Brannum is having pool parties. So related to his finances and the decline of his ministry is this very famous vision that William Brannum had the first year his ministry started to go into decline. This is he's still with Jim Jones right when this happens okay. All of this stuff we're had who are talking about started in the middle of his time working with Jim Jones. Now if you are never in the message you have probably never heard of

this vision okay and John you and I were talking about this yesterday and we did have a big laugh because outside of the message people probably just think this is nuts but inside of the message and especially back in the earlier days of the message this 10 vision was a big big deal. It was a critical thing that grabbed the attention of the the old timers in the early days of this cult and the fulfillment of this 10 vision was the great promise the great aspiration that all of his followers were looking forward to in the early days right

this this was this was this was this tent this tent vision represented the hopes and dreams of the entire movement right and I think that is very fair to say and it's such a big deal that it was central to defining the direction the message took in the immediate years after William Brannum died so all of the early sex of the message this is a central huge thing to them and it defined how William Brannum's followers viewed his ministry and his relationship really with the broader ladder rain and healing revival and let me just quickly summarize

this tent vision for we for we dive into it John and the first time he told this publicly I think was January 1956 and they're quite a number of times he said that this vision was a prophetic vision it was thus say at the Lord and it goes kind of like this William Brannum is fishing at a pond and there's other preachers they're fishing too and his angel tells him to cast his line into the water and catch a fish and give him instructions on how to do it pull his line three times and on the third pull he will catch the fish and so he follows

the angels instructions but not perfectly and he ends up with his line all tangled up and he ends up only catching a little tiny little minnow of a fish and instead of you know a big a great big fish and so the angel actually rebukes him there tells him he made a big mistake tells him he did it wrong and and specifically the mistake that William Brannum made in this vision is that he told other people how his gifts work he taught other people how his gifts work okay he showed the other healing evangelist how to do what he was doing that's

the thing that the angel rebukes him for then after the angel rebukes him he sees a great big tent and the angel takes him into the tent and in that tent there's a little room and the greatest miracles of his ministry are going to happen in this little room. You know, people who lost their legs and arms are going to grow back. Amazing miracles are going to happen. And the angel tells him that this thing in this little room, this is going to be the third pull. And that's more or less the end of the vision.

From my side of the message in the, we're in the main sect, but this isn't really considered main sect. This was very, very localized to Jeffersonville. And even within Jeffersonville, had this split, some people believe the tent, some people didn't. My grandfather was on the, we believe the tent side. It was always shocking to me because this is a William Brannum prophecy, one that he mentions on recording many, many, many times. And yet the most of all, perhaps the most, the vast majority of ministers in the court know that this vision failed. And so today, if you ask

him, they deny it. No, this wasn't a thing. But it's on recording, man. How can you say that this was not a thing? And they try to, you know, talk it away. Yes, this vision failed, but we don't believe it because X, Y, and Z. But this was a real thing. And if you think of what's happening, William Brannum is taking a severe financial hit. He can no longer afford to rent these big auditoriums.

And if he doesn't rent them, then there's this big problem. Well, what if the venue isn't big enough for the people, they'll start, they'll stop coming. And then my ministry will phase out. Well, the solution is to go back to the tent revivals and ignore the, the newfangled auditoriums that everybody's using, right? So he tries to implement this. And he actually saved up enough money to buy this tent and then didn't buy it because he realized there's more revenue in asking for the tent.

And so he continues on and on and on. And I think I've even heard from some people that he did buy a tent, but then continue to ask for money for a tent. Well, in the core of the people that believe this vision, Charles, one of the significant parts of it, this was a rapture tent.

This is where you go to receive your heavenly bodies. And if you think of the logistics of this, Charles, if you're in this meeting in this tent and you watch somebody go into the room and they come out and they're 20 years old and they live a period of time before they go to heaven, well, everybody's going to want to do this. I want a new body too, Charles and you and you and you.

And so logistically, this turns into a problem because this would hit the news. The news would go globally and everybody in the entire earth would want to go get a 20 year old body.

But that's what we brand of said, right? And so the way that they talk this away here in Jefferson ville and there's different versions of this is that the government will rise up against the message and they're already watching us, Charles. They're trying to spy on us to determine when this is going to be and they're gonna stop it and it's gonna be very difficult for you to get to this tent.

I was raised under this and I was actually told many, many times, no matter what you do, John, and they'd get very quiet when they said it. No matter what you do, you be there at that tent.

I don't care how hard it is for you to get there. And this was this awe-inspiring thing for me. Oh my gosh, well, when I moved here, there is a very well-respected, well-known leader of the message.

I won't give his name, but he was into this conspiracy theory thing and he was certain that the government was watching his every move at his house. This guy who means nothing to the government.

And I went over to his house one day and he had his computer monitor facing the wall. And I looked at him and I said, and I won't give his name. I said, I'll just use brother.

It's pretty hard to use that computer when the monitor's facing the wall, isn't it? And he says, you know the government can watch you through those things. And this was back during the days of the CRT monitors.

There's no way possible. I'm an IT guy, the components that are in this thing, it is impossible to make a camera out of. And he said, well, the government can watch it. So he had it turned to his wall.

Well, I'm also a bit of a prankster. And so I wrote this little tiny virus and put it in his computer, that at random times throughout the day it would throw the blue screen of death and say FBI code BR549, you're in violation of this law and the segments.

It was about this long of text. And I said, the computer monitor must be in an open and unabscored area of the room at all times to watch what's going on in the room.

I went back two weeks later and he actually had a garbage bag over it and duct tape around and eventually it's kind of sad. I feel bad, but I think eventually he even got rid of the computer.

But that's how these people are trained. They're trained to believe that the government is watching. They're going to stop you from coming to the rapture tent. Because if the world knew that you could get a 20-year-old body and get prepared to go to heaven, well, the whole world's going to come to this thing.

And once I left and I woke up and I deprogramed, this was the stupidest thing that I believed in the entire message, the stupidest thing. And it came from William Brannum and every single church that I went to from coast to coast, a majority of those churches did not believe this and they would vehemently deny that they ever believed it.

Yet it was core doctrine to the cult and the splinter groups and even to some extent extending into the lateral movement. A lot of people were believing this thing. And Charles, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

Now that I'm... I'm awakened enough to understand that they had manipulated my mind. Yeah, it's something else, you know, and the different sex of the message, like you say, they take this vision somewhat differently, right, but it is, but the early sex we are all fairly similar, and you know, we we spiritualized a whole lot of this and of course this happened after William Brannem died. Of course, whole time William Brannem was alive. This was a they all believe this was literal, right, and and I know quite a number of the people at our church, even though they won't say it. Other people have, you know,

told me that quite a number of them were believing in the resurrection of William Brannem at the beginning. So it was some time after William Brannem died that they started to spiritualize this vision when it could no longer, you know, some people got enough sense that this could no longer be fulfilled, fulfilled literally, right, because he's not going to resurrect from the grave and have another tent meeting. I mean, that's just not going to happen. So, but what what what we did, again, was very similar in our sect, we tied it. We believe when William Brannem preached the seven seals, he said, if you can receive it,

this is the third pull. So we believe the third pull was, you know, really part of the seven seals and the revelation touched in that long, complicated stuff more than I think I can even go through here because, you know, it's so convoluted and complicated the stuff that we believe. But the short of it was, we believed similarly, there was going to be this event and we all had to be there. We all had to hear these seven thunders. And this was off in the future and we all had to be able to have access to that in order to then go in the rapture, right? And it's

kind of a riff off of getting the rapturing faith piece. But same thing, we all had to be there. And and people hate to miss church because you never know, this might be the Sunday that we go and hear the seven thunders and get, you know, to go to heaven, right? So people just are, this drives church attendance more than anything else because you don't want to miss it, right, John? I mean, you just don't want to miss it. And you don't know what it could be, it could be tomorrow. It could be next week. And if we miss it, we're going to miss the

rapture, we're going to miss the whatever. And this all gets wrapped up into this third pull stuff. William Brannem basically convinced the cult through this through some of the things he preached in the seals that there's some special thing that you need in order to escape the tribulation and go in the rapture. And you had to be in the right place in the right group with the right people here, the right thing, have the right experience at the right moment in order to make it. And we all believe that we all just have little different

takes on what that looked like. And so anyway, the first time William Brannem ever told this vision was January 1956. And William Brannem almost always said this vision was something literal. And he believed he was literally going to get a big tent and that he was literally going to tour around in it. And it was going to be the final phase of his ministry, the third pull.

And it would be amazing miracles of healing. And this is what everyone believed up until after he died. This was a literal thing that was gonna happen. They changed some of the people changed their mind after he died because obviously it couldn't happen.

But he goes out in 1966. And in 1956, he got $100,000 to buy this tent so he could fulfill the vision. And he told everyone in his sermons over and over in this timeframe that he was getting the tent, that he'd got the $100,000.

And this is the same timeframe. He's asking the mostly brothers to buy the airplane. He asked some other people to buy him buses. And he starts appointing all the people for different jobs in this tent, right?

To everyone around him, this was a literal tent. To him, it was a literal tent. And he led them on for this thing for years and years. But this tent never appeared, John. And the $100,000 he got for the tent seems to also be in the category of money that just disappeared.

And keep in mind again, in today's money that would be over a million dollars disappeared, right? So a million dollars was raised for a tent. The money just disappeared and the tent never materialized.

It's very unusual, isn't it? It really makes me wanna ask for a tent on this podcast. If you would like to buy a tent for Charles and myself, we would love to have a million dollars.

I'm joking, don't send this a million dollars. I still can't fathom that people are doing this. They're covering up the fact that this was not only a failed vision, it was a different version of Christianity, Charles.

Here's a rapture tent. Where in the Bible do you find the notion of a rapture tent? It's just not there. And when you stop and think about all the televangelists that sprung from this movement and the wild things that they say that even people in the message who don't realize that this is an extension of the message, these televangelists, they condemn them and they say, well, that's not biblical.

Show me where it says that you need an airplane and God's gonna give you these blessings if you give me an airplane. Well, Brian, I'm doing the same thing with the tent and also, as we've mentioned, did the same thing with an airplane.

And the airplane was tied to the tent prophecy. The guy actually bought an airplane to haul this tent around. So it's just, it's ridiculous when you think about it. But more to the point, it is a different version of Christianity that was anti-biblical and it created a deep, dark heresy.

Yeah, let me, let me just read a quote here. Maybe I'll read a few of them here about what William Brannum says about this tent. Now, here's, here's something he says, In February 1956, he says, and I took it upon myself while I was waiting for the tent to be made.

And I would do this. And thinking of terms of the tent and all this great expense, and you see in the vision why I left the field, because I went $15,000 in debt in a meeting before, I would beg people for money.

I wouldn't do it. I made a promise to God that I wouldn't do it, and I come off the field, and now turning right back around after owing, being in debt now $15,000 in California, I'm borrowing $100,000 to go with this tent.

This means that I'm, I'm, believe what I'm talking about. Yes, sir, it's from the Lord, it's from the Lord. And the good thing about it, a real good friend, rich man, but a servant of the Lord said, Brother Brannum, I'll let you have it without a penny interest.

Don't have to pay nothing back, but just the real. What you borrow, you don't have no interest payments on it. It's wonderful, see? So William Brannum borrows $100,000, after he borrowed $15,000 from a real rich Christian friend, which was one of the full gospel business men, is who this was.

And all the while, he's fundraising off of this tent vision. And, and, and where's, see, he's doing this on faith, right? He's not going to beg for money, but where's the money going to come from?

Obviously, people are going to donate him money to cover this loan, right? He's, so he's taking the loan on faith that all the people are going to donate to him to cover the loan, right?

I mean, that's clearly what he is saying here. And so that, and that's what happened. That is what happened. He fund raised off this tent vision. People donated to him to help buy this tent.

I know plenty of people, John, who gave him money for this tent, okay? I do too. He fund raised off this tent, okay? But the tent never appeared. He raised boatloads of money off this tent, but there was never a tent.

It might have been his best business strategy, Charles. The tent that never calms. Keep donating for the tent. One day, we're going to have a tent. Put the tent never calms.

Let me read here another quote about this tent, because he says, he's telling the people he bought this tent, okay? And it's on its way. Here, 1956, he says also, this is, I think, from January, he says, we're getting a tent, a nice big tent that will seat about 12,000 people or better.

Next month, he says, now we got the tent in making, and then it'll then I'll be able to carry a prayer line right on through. And you remember it? I've spoke it before it come to pass.

The exceeding abundant is fixing to take place. That was February. He said that. Here's another quote. This is March, okay? And in these kind of healing services, I'm having now until I get into that tent.

I'm just like a child with Christmas anticipation. I can hardly wait to get in there. Wait a minute. He condemned Christmas, Charles. Well, he can't have both. I know. And he keeps this up until August of that year, right?

He just keeps, we've got the tent, we bought the tent. the tents on its way, I'm excited to get into the tent and in August he tells everyone the tent is ready and they're going to set it up for its first meeting. So in August he says, this is August's first sermon, he says, and by a vision he told me about a tent.

The brother more in them is going to California now to set it in order for the first time use. So John, it's amazing, okay? He collected the $100,000 million over a million in today's money. He has ordered the tent. He bought the tent. He even talks about places that he bought the vans and all the equipment to move it. He says, I've sent Jack more to go get the tent to set it up for its first big use. And then poof, there is no tent. And it's really confusing here, John, because it's a very clear William Brannum is saying he spent

$100,000 to buy a tent that the order was placed, that the tent was made, that all the equipment was bought, that Jack more was going to set it up for its first use. And you're just left in wondering what in the world has happened here? Where did this $100,000 go and where did this tent go? What happened to it? A hundred thousand dollars. Think of that in today's money. It's just unbelievable. And this is the first clear evidence that I saw when I began my research of brainwashing. Because these people, Charles, I'm sure your family was

the same as mine. They went from service to service, revival to revival. And then they would purchase the recordings of the revival. My grandfather on both sides, both of my grandfather's had these real to real recordings. One of my grandfather's took the actual recording device and recorded some of these things. So they had these things, right? And these people knew that he was begging money for a tent. They knew that he said that he purchased the tent. And then they knew that he again started begging money for a tent.

And these people were contributing money to this thing. The only way that you can continue doing this is if you are fully brainwashed and not even thinking about what you're doing and you just grab your wallet and hand the guy money for this tent that he says he's already bought. It wouldn't surprise me that he had enough money to buy 10 tents by the time this thing was over, right? And every contrary, it's just so strange to me, John, that after him saying all this stuff about raising the money and buying the tent and sending Jack

Moore to go set it up to use it for the first time, that no tent ever appears. It just leaves you wondering where is this tent? And if there is no tent, then where did all of this money go? Where did all the money go? Was the whole thing just a made up story? And if it was a made up story, then what happened to the money? This is Jim Baker territory, John.

This is where we're at. We are in Jim Baker territory here with this tent vision. stuff, right? And people, when you're in the message again, you don't ever even consider this, right? Your thought about the tent vision is, oh, we're going to, either in your set, go get our glorified body. And our set, oh, we've got the third pull in the seals.

There's no thought at all about, wait a minute, he raised over a million dollars on this tent, told us he bought it and the money in the tent never appeared. You know, what happened here, right?

I go much darker and deeper and more sinister than Jim Baker. Think of what's going on the background, Charles. He mentioned Jack Moore, Jack Moore's in Shreveport. Roy Davis is building his third wave of the Ku Klux Klan. And Shreveport, where they're going to hold the massive, massive explosion of the original nights of the Ku Klux Klan in Shreveport. So behind the scenes, you've got this need for money. And then you've got William Brannum, who's the face of this thing, asking for money for something that he claims he's already bought. It's not very difficult to make the leap to connect these two things

together, especially when William Brannum's continuing to promote Davis after Davis becomes the imperial wizard. So these things, for me, at all, they're not directly connected, but they're happening at the same exact time. And it's very easy to connect those dots.

Yeah. And I can tell you the explanation I got from people in the know around here when I asked about this, because I asked about this. This is one of the things I asked. There are people in our church who are, you know, around brother Brannum through all of this period, right? And some of the same people who donated money into this thing, right? And I was told that William Brannum just kept all this money in the bank, and he never felt led by the tent, which means he was lying when he said, you know, that he got the tent. But that's

more or less the explanation I got. Well, William Brannum kept the money in the bank and he just never felt led by the tent. And I just stayed in the bank and stayed in the bank and stayed in the bank. Now, again, that's just what they said, but that does kind of seem also to match what Sarah Brannum and her lawyers say. If you look through the documentation that they put together when they threaten to sue all the message leaders. And, you know, and if that's true, it appears that all this money ended up going into the William Brannum

Evangelistic Association. And in today's money, where today's money, we're talking millions of dollars is where this ended up at. And, John, I think it's worth noting, as we maybe bring this episode to a close, that there are a lot of rumors and allegations about chicaneery that happened around the time William Brannum died. And Banks Woods, he, this is a famous message story where I come from. Banks Woods had told everyone that William Brannum said, if I die, don't let Billy Paul get a hold of the money. And it will ruin him. It will ruin him.

That was a famous story bank's woods told everybody. And where I come from, John, and also Sarah Brannum in her lawsuit documentations, they allege that Billy Paul forged a signature alongside Fred Softman and Roy Roberson to get control of William Brannum's assets without him knowing in the last days of his life.

And of course, I'm no expert. I don't know if that's true, but you can look at the documentation that Sarah put together for yourself and make your own assessment about how convinced you are by the evidence.

I'm no expert on signatures. So I'm not going to say that the signature was forged or not, that's neither here nor there. But I do know Billy Paul, I know him personally. And he is a really nice guy.

And I would think that as nice of a guy as he is, I would think that he would probably want to share the interest collected for this tent with all of these families that are suffering because they gave all their money to William Brannum to buy the tent.

I'm certain Billy Paul is such a nice guy that he would give them the interest back to their families so that they can have their retirement that savings that they gave to William Brannum.

That would be nice, John. That would be very nice. Well, let's hope he does, Charles. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Brannum.org and ChristianGospelChurch.org.

For an overview of the historical research of William Brannum in the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum in his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Join us again next week. We've got a great episode coming.