The Cloud, the Sword, and the King

Music Hello, welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of 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 is an unusual episode. We're diving deep into the world of fantasy, which is something I'm sure our listeners who have been curious about the history and the religious history, they're anticipating some great theological or historical episode that is diving deep into the realm of history of William Brannum. And today we're entering into the fantasy, which is probably going to be a bit confusing for people.

It still kind of fits within the realm of history because it is history of the message called, but we're entering into the world of theological fantasy and actual fantasy. Yeah, I'm excited for today's episode too, John. We are going to delve a little deeper into the message mythology surrounding the year 1963.

And this marks our fourth episode exploring the events related to the cloud and the seals. And yeah, while it may certainly seem peculiar to our listeners outside the message, these events in 1963 hold significant importance in shaping the foundation of the message.

It is very fair to say that without these events in 1963, there is no message, the whole thing unravels and collapses. Because without these supposed supernatural events of 1963, the core distinctive doctrines and teachings of the message utterly collapse, certainly in their original form that they were teached in and also most every single form they were teached in, at least up until the early 1990s and in most groups even up to the present day.

And as we've been showing very solid evidence in our past episodes, and we're going to probably use some load language in this episode if you're not in the call. We might not have time to stop and explain every word, but as we, as we've mentioned in our lapse episodes, the Lord never descended from heaven with a shout in 1963. There was no shout.

William Brandham never received a commission from angels to preach the seven seals. There was no midnight cry. There was no separation of wise and foolish virgins. The seals were not opened in 1963. We can prove all of that beyond a shadow of doubt that William Brandham made up the key supernatural experiences on which those beliefs are based.

It was a hoax, and William Brandham was deceiving us. Yes, and you know, this loaded language, for somebody who was never in the message of William Brandham, this means nothing. You hear these phrases, and I'm trying to imagine somebody listening to this podcast, and here you say, with a shout. We've said it, I think the past two episodes now, and it just, it literally means nothing to somebody who wasn't in the message.

But for us, those of us who were programmed with this message thing, all of this loaded language, that single word, that single phrase, with a shout, it means so many things. And for a Christian who can understand what these things mean, it is highly problematic. It is heretical. It is the most offensive thing that you can do to a Christian is load this language, referencing these verses to William Brandham. With a shout, for example, comes from 1 Thessalonians 416.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Take aside the last part of that verse, and the dead in Christ will rise first. But you know, in the message when we were trained to totally ignore that sentence, we were trained to believe that the Lord himself did descend from heaven, and it was the shout, and William Brandham's message was the shout.

And because they loaded the language with the first half of that phrase, and then manipulated our heads to fully ignore in the dead in Christ will rise first, we believe that the message itself was the shout. And it's so problematic, Charles, because it is because of the manifested sons of God theology, in which we believe that God Himself was manifesting Himself in the message, in William Brandham, in the prophet of our last day, that we believe that this was God.

And it is so offensively heretical, because we believe that the message itself, and by extension, William Brandham, who's bringing it, because he said the message and the messenger are the self-same thing. He said, we believe this was God, and in doing so, we served a false God.

And we thought we had a picture of the Lord sending from heaven with a shout. It's unbelievable, John. Believable. It is. And you know, that cloud, that whole event, there are so many rabbit trails that we could go down that Charles, I think we could actually do a full podcast on just the 1963 version of William Brannum. There are so many things. But to recap, and if you're tuning in, and this is your first podcast ever, I recommend go back to the beginning of our cloud series, you know, I think it's two or three episodes in the past, because none of this is going to make sense. But

to recap, William Brannum in 1950, January 1950, he has this photograph taken during a debate, and in which the stage lighting in the Sam Houston Coliseum was captured. And it looks very much like the man has a halo. And we have fully examined the halo long, long ago in the podcast. If you want to understand the Houston lighting, then you know, go back and listen to that episode. But the two photographers who captured this photograph were Theodore Kipperman and James Ayers.

And they captured the photograph. William Brannum said, oh, that looks like a halo. And they there's this whole backstory that surrounds that. And William Brannum goes to publish the thing. And suddenly his book's on hold because this halo photograph is now copyrighted. The two guys were were smart enough to copyright it because they knew this thing was going to be used to bring in lots and lots and lots of money. So they copyrighted the thing. And because they did that, William Brannum had to give this backstory that the government had investigated the supernatural aspects of this. And they sent it to Washington DC to examine it. He didn't tell you that they

were examining it for copyright purposes, right? Well, here's where it gets interesting. 1963, whenever this cloudy event happens, one of the, it was the stepson of James Ayers, who was the nephew of Theodore Kipperman. James Ayers had married Theodore Kipperman's sister.

And so they were all this family unit. Well, the nephew, during a transgender prostitution event, killed a man. And he was on death row. His mother, Sylvia Ayers, was defending him, but with the religious community in Houston, which happened to be this laterane crowd.

James Eyres gets involved in this, right? Well, here's where it gets really, really interesting for me, Charles, because the boy, Leslie Douglas Ashley, he went by the name Douglas. And whenever this photograph was copyrighted back in the 1950s, it was Douglas Studios, the copyrighted this thing, right?

You will find that the only photograph ever copyrighted by Douglas Studios, Theodore Kipperman, James Eyres, happened to be this halo photograph, which was named after the company, was named after the transgender boy who later was defended by William Brannum.

He is saving the people who knew about the halo photograph. They knew the angle that it was taken, they knew the light behind it. They even had the name, it was named after Douglas, right?

This transgender guy. And so William Brannum comes to Houston, and he defends this transgender person from death row, he's about to be electrocuted. While he's doing this, this cloud appears, and here's where we enter into our podcast with the rest of the story, because one lie leads to another lie, another to another, another to another, until you enter into a world of fantasy that is somewhat comparable to Lord of the Rings.

That's a good way to put it, John, because it is very, you know, once you start unraveling this, you do realize it's just one lie covering, another lie covering, another lie, that is a very great way to explain everything that happened in 1963.

And William Brannum helping to get Leslie Douglas, Ashley, the homosexual murder prostitute

off death row, that is one of the very first lies in the structure of lies, right? All the stuff around that. So I mean, it's just, it is incredible. And the fact that William Brannum was in Texas, helping get Leslie Douglas, Ashley off of death row, and was not standing underneath the cloud when it appeared, okay, is mind-blowing?

Yes. Is mind-blowing, okay? And thinking back to the episode where we examined all of those things, you know, we are very justified in suspecting there was definitely something hidden that compelled William Brannum to get involved in that situation with the homosexual prostitute on death row, okay?

And I think the control his family had over the halo photo is certainly one of the top-a-list items that could have done that. Yeah. Now, here's something our listeners may find, So finding out that the cloud was man made and finding out that William Brennan made up the story about being out hunting that day.

That was actually not quite enough to make me abandon my faith in the message, John. I still knew those things and I still believe the message. Yeah, that wasn't enough to make me stop believing the message.

You know, because it's not too hard to find an alternative to replace the cloud with if your brain washed. So within our sect of the message, Raymond Jackson, upon realizing that the cloud was a hoax, he switched over to using William Brennan's story about the king's sword at Sabino Canyon as evidence that he had received the divine commission from the seals.

Which is really weird to me. Looking back how Raymond Jackson just suddenly dropped the cloud about 1992 and switched over to the Sabino Canyon story and never mentioned the cloud ever again. But the timing all adds up.

That is one thing that really gives evidence to the level of brainwashing in the message. The degree that the control of control that the leaders have over people's mind is incredible. And I have watched as leaders can just almost at a drop of a hat wipe away decades of teachings like they never happened.

And a lot of people won't even blink, right? Some preachers can they literally condump in a moment's time decades old, deeply held beliefs. And when people who are deeply indoctrinated, they will accept it without question.

They will just assume, oh, I believed it wrong all these years. But I don't want to admit that. I don't want to be fool. So yeah, I'm going to say I believed it the other way all these years.

You know, that way I'm not... Like that's the... When the preacher pretends like we've always believed it this way, even though we never really always believed it though. The people just go along with it.

And that's shocking. I've watched that happen a lot to times, John. That's how we reinvented our doctrine a lot of times. The preachers did. You know, it's so problematic. I mean, picture this, Charles.

If you were to go to a used car lot and you see this old, old car from the 1950s, the things are rust bucket. It's fallen apart, you know, it barely starts, barely runs.

And the salesman is telling you, this is the latest and greatest thing. This thing from the 50s is better than the cars today. And you find out as he's going through and telling you about the car that he lies about, I don't know, he lies about the transmission.

And you find out that, wait a minute, the transmission has problems. This guy has lied to me. Well, you're not going to buy the car because he just lied to you. And every single thing that he tells you from that point on, you cannot trust.

He's trying to sell you this old rust bucket from the 50s that he's lied to you. To the normal, unmanipulated mind, whenever a person in this cult tries to sell them this religion from the 1950s wherein there's one single lie and the cult leader is lying through his teeth They're not gonna accept it and that's why the cult tries to cover up these things They don't want you to know that it's riddled with lies They don't want you to know that they're selling the rust bucket from the 50s as though it's better than the day, right?

But we were through cognitive dissonance our minds tried to reconcile it and When we found one lie it wasn't enough we had to go explore and say well, yeah, maybe that's false But this other thing was true and in doing so Like the car Charles. Yeah, the transmission doesn't work and we may be left stranded It may not get us to our destination But it has a good alternator, you know what I mean. It's just so problematic It is John and When the cloud falls, all right when you can't use the cloud anymore if you

Internally admit the cloud is a hoax. You have got to read Moves it move the basis of the message over to something else, right? If if if you just take the cloud away and don't replace it the message collapses, so William Brownham's experience with King Sword and Sabino Canyon is the fallback position I have noticed a significant number of people use when they are willing to admit the cloud was a hoax, right?

And as I mentioned that's what Raymond Jackson did He just totally totally stopped talking about the cloud after he found out it was a hoax I actually was able to confirm that he figured out it was a hoax through one of his daughters And also through his personal notes. I have a complete copy of Raymond Jackson's personal study notes going all the way back to the 1970s John I have I left the message with Mountains of evidence for everything and I I spent years studying this stuff It might be good Charles if we take a minute

James and I in the other podcast we have going it will probably release before this one But we're talking about the fantasy of the King Sword and How ironic it is that you've got the fantasy of the message with a King's an actual King sword The sword of the King to King Arthur and the Sorcerer's stone, you know This this thing is fantasy, but to the people who were never involved in the message it might be good if we just stop and pause and Tell them the fable of the King's sword so that they understand what it is

Yes, so so I definitely want to read that quote here to you And in my part of the message John so Just before I read that quote In my part of the message we we believed the in the cloud Then when Raymond Jackson stopped talking about it then we switched over to Sabino Canyon Um, but at any rate the people From my sect, some of them still rely on the cloud, some of them rely on Sabino Canyon, so I'm pretty familiar with both of those, and let me read here a quote from William Brown.

So he says, I went up in the canyon, this is him telling about the King's sword story. I went up in the canyon, I climbed plum up where the eagles was flying around. I was watching some deer standing there.

I knelt down to prey and raised up my hands and a sword struck my hand. I looked around, I thought, what's that? I'm not beside myself. Here is that sword in my hand, bright, shiny, glistening, I said.

Now there's not people in miles of me way up here in this canyon. Where could that come from? I heard a voice said, that's the King's sword. I said, a king knights a man with a sword.

The voice came back, said, not a King's sword, but the King's sword, the word of the Lord, said, fear not, it's only the third pole, it's the vindication of your ministry. So that's the King's sword story, and in my sect, like I said, it's hard to know the percentages of people who believe those things, because the pastor kept changing what we believed about some of this stuff, and it was against the rules to talk about it.

But a lot of people believed the Spino Canyon stuff, than others believed the cloud stuff too. But basically, we all believe that's when the third pole started, which goes back to the 10th vision, right?

And this is the story that many of us used as the backup solution when we were willing to acknowledge the cloud was a hoax. Yeah, and the whole thing, Charles, this cloud event is just one small piece of this intricate puzzle of details, right?

You had so many things going on in the background. You had Leslie Douglas Ashley, who's literally the reason why William Brannum is not under the cloud, he's in Houston, Texas. You had the rise of the civil rights movement going on in the background.

You had all of the people who were severing ties to William Brannum, and William Brannum's ministry is having to shift again, what is it, third or fourth time, from all of the different people who willingly accepted him.

Now he's finding that his acceptance is dwindling quickly. And the cloud, in my opinion, the sword is closely tied to the people who were rejecting him, because, and we'll get into it deeper, the symbolic meaning of this sword is him trying to say, I've got the true word.

While everybody else who is amanding me has the false word, right? But this whole thing, I'll never forget when I was investigating the cloud. And I came across the book, which I've mentioned, I think, in the...

previous episode, a logical refutation of William Brannum in his message, it showed this map of the distance between where William Brannum claimed to be hunting and where the cloud happened. In the magazines, you've got the trail of the path that the cloud took and it's way far to the north.

It's hundreds of miles. Yeah, hundreds of miles, right? In some of the statements, he talks about how he was near the border of Mexico when this cloud happened and this king sword thing that he talks about, which we'll get into.

It was at a different event, but it further confirms the close down to the border of Mexico where the actual hunting location after the cloud happened because this is, I think it's like 200, maybe 200 miles below the path of the cloud where this alleged event happened.

And you'll find whenever you, if you go out west and you go to the churches in the area that they take you to the quote unquote place where William Brannum was standing when the cloud happened, they've had to rename what is it called rattlesnake mesa.

I think it is. They actually tried to rename the canyon where William Brannum was standing so that it matches his backstory, which is false. It really is incredible, John, you're right. Message believers go in there and they start naming all the landmarks after things in order to try and associate it with William Brannum.

There's a fair bit of that that has went on. And there's a large message presence in Arizona, right? So then they add decayed and just start calling it these things in order to kind of make it all seem like it happened.

But it's not true. I mean, these people just invented these landmark names based on the William Brannum story. So if you go in these places and you see these things, it's not really called that before William Brannum made up his stories, okay?

But anyway, you know, you're right that this is so important because you have to have something. I mean, everybody in the message, in theory, for the most part, will say the message is in the Bible.

And so there's got to be some connecting and some strange way to use the Bible to justify the existence of the message or stuff, right? And William Brannum somehow had to have the authority to do all of this stuff that he did.

And so when the cloud falls, you've got to have something else to say, okay, yeah, William Brannum had the authority to give us the special end time interpretation of the Bible, right? And when the cloud falls, this is a very easy natural fallback position because we can say the God put the Word of God in his hand and he had the power then to interpret scripture or whatever, right?

So that's a fairly simple fall. back position. And for me though, John, even though we would use some of us, the Sabino Canyon story to replace the cloud, it never actually felt like a good enough solution to me personally, even when I was in the message. Like I always, it was never as good as the cloud, because there are some issues with the Sabino cloud or the Sabino Canyon story too.

But the first issue I have with the King Sword experience is that it's not something that can be authenticated in any way, okay? There's no way to find out if it was real. William Brannum was by himself that day, like his wife dropped in the story, the wife, his wife drove him, dropped him off, and he just walked off into the wilderness basically. He's all by himself when all of this happened. So there's no way to really authenticate it.

There's no way to find out if it's real. So William Brannum was by himself when it happened. There's no witnesses. There's no visible signs. All we got to go on is William Brannum's word that this thing even happened. And so if the Sabino Canyon story is true and if that's what you're using as the backup to replace the cloud, it forces you to base your faith in all of these message end time teachings based on this single story that William Brannum told about getting this sword to have the authority to give us a perfect or better interpretation of the

Bible. So it brings this whole thing and it makes it all subject to his words alone in this one story, right? And at this point, I'm sorry, I'm just to the point I can't accept something like that, right? That's a leap I'm not willing to take. Putting all of my trust that the message is valid on the words of a single man with a long track record of dishonesty is not something a Christian with a stratus, you know, spiritual discernment should do, right? This is not something Jesus Christ would expect a Christian to do. It's actually something the Bible tells us not to do,

right? The Bible tells us not to trust people with a track record of dishonesty, you know, the Bible tells us to only believe things like this on the mouth of two or three witnesses, right?

And the Bible commands us to prove all things, right? So by this alone, the the Sabino Canyon King's sword story does not pass, you know, the scriptural Bible test that we would need to apply to be able to use it for for anything, honestly. Yeah. And you know, it's, I mean, this is so inconsequential anyway. There is no Bible relevance to this, I'm standing there saying that this actual King's sword came down. And symbolically, I have the power like they all he meant cartoon, right? That's what it is. And, you know, back to the car. Yeah, this man lied and the transmission

was failing. But now he's telling us that he has these glowing lights under the car. that shine and make it pretty when it's driving. That's really all this thing is. There's no spiritual significance. Other than he's saying, I have the word. You know, the Bible is sharper than a two-edge sword. He's using sword as a reference for symbolic metaphors in the Bible that really actually have no meaning when applied to a man who says that he stands there in a physical sword came down in his hand. There is no scriptural relevance for this. It's the shining lights

under the car. It's just something that people say, oh, yeah, he got an actual king sword. Cool. He must be inspired by God. What's really interesting? So the king sword story happens supposedly in January. The first time I think he mentioned it was in March. He mentioned it when he preached the seventh seal. When we've mentioned before, the seventh seal sermon is heavily edited. They basically lopped the whole end off that sermon and recorded a whole new ending to it. The king sword story is a part that they lopped off. It's odd. There's something odd here

about this whole thing. There is one thing you can do, right? This is a thought experiment. Anybody can do. This is called reasoning. In the message, this is a sin, but I am asking you to commit a message sin here. I'm asking you to reason. Reasoning is a sin in the message, right? I mean, was it a sin where you come from to reason, John? It's a sin to reason where I come from. They will spiritually castrate you if you reason. Reasoning is a deep sin in the message. This is just a very simple thought experiment you could do, right? You just ask yourself

the question, how do I know or prove that William Brannum had the authority to preach the seals and bring us all this new divine revelation from God? How do I know that? What is the test I can apply to that, right? How do I know he had that authority? How do I know he had the authority to preach them in night cry? How do I know the message was the shout? How do I know these things are true, right? If you're honest with yourself, after you subtract the cloud, the only way you know those things are true is because William Brannum said so, right? Yeah. The cloud was the only

thing we really had as kind of an independent direct witness from God for these really dramatic things that William Brannum told us was happening in 1963 because we, you know, we could literally see, so we thought, Jesus descending from heaven fulfilling the scripture, right? Right there, over where William Brannum was standing, lo and behold, it was a rocket, right? That made that cloud, but that's what we thought. But when you take that away, there's nothing left but circular reasoning, right? William Brannum had the authority to open the seals because he said he had the authority to open it.

seals. William Bramham had the midnight cry because he told us he had the midnight cry. The message is the shout because William Bramham said the message is the shout. The message is right because the message says the message is right, right? You know, without the cloud, there's nothing left but circular reasoning to justify the existence of the message, right? There is no, there is not a, there is not another external witness to justify it, right? And for me, and I think anyone with common sense, that's a huge problem. That is a huge problem, right? Now you're in circular reasoning echo chamber,

which is not good, right? And what some people in the message will I believe it by faith? Well, I mean, some people, you know, believe there's Martians on Mars by faith. That's no good, right?

You know, with the gospel, you know, with the gospel, you can use the exact same logic like the Apostle Paul used, right? And you can actually base the entire existence of, you know, historic Christianity on the evidence of the resurrection, right? That's what most people do outside of what we're in. Of course, we never did that in the message, right?

As well as they didn't want us to know, we have, you know, Christianity is based on evidence, right? But you can fully justify mainstream historic Christianity, you know, based entirely on the evidence of the resurrection. And if you have never looked at the evidence of the resurrection, that's an interesting thing to look at. But there's very, there's very solid historical proof that Jesus existed, right? And, and around those things. So, but there's nothing comparable for the message, right? There's no cooperating witnesses to prove William Brannum was who he claimed to be, right? There's no legitimate supporting evidence for these events

in 1963. In fact, the evidence that's out there actually pretty conclusively proves William Brannum just made this whole thing up, right? But the Bible, the Bible commands us to prove all things, right? It commands us to only believe things on the mouth of two or three witnesses, right?

So, what you and I are doing, John, in expecting there to be proof and looking for witnesses to prove this stuff, we are actually obeying the Bible, right? We're actually obeying the Bible when we expect there to be proof. We're obeying the Bible when we refuse to believe something just on the mouth of one person, right? And so people who who look for proof and expect there to be witnesses, those are the people who would actually be practicing true Bible-based Christianity.

They are not doubting Thomases, right? They are the people who are obeying the Bible, right? So, the problem is not people who expect there to be evidence, right? The problem is that only believe isms not Bible-based, John, right? It's contrary to the teachings of the Bible, William Brannum is not exempt and the message is not exempt to the same Bible tests that would be applied to anything and everything else, right? And saying William Brannum is a man or progressive revelation or the fan and his in his hand, those kind of things, right? Those are not valid excuses for

the failures of William Brannum. because these all still fails those tests. And the people who go on this only believe stuff, just on the word of William Brannum alone, right? They're actually the ones who aren't following Bible-based Christianity, because the Bible just doesn't, simply doesn't authenticate William Brannum.

And you know, once you get the blinders of only believe is and remove from you, the Bible actually gives us plenty of tests which could be applied to William Brannum and he fails them all, right?

But when your brain washed by the message, you just can't see it. Yeah, you know, by that same logic, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real. You know, it's only believe is, I only believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real.

By that same logic, every single cult that has existed which does the exact same thing, the cult leader is lying to the people, every single one of them is real if you use that same logic.

But you know, you went, you said a couple of things that I wanna go back and emphasize a bit further. The first is, it's a reflection on me. I laugh a lot in these podcasts.

You know it, everybody's watching it, you know it. It was not always that way. I cried real tears. I was a grown man bawling like a baby when I learned these things were real.

And you mentioned you lost everyone, everything. I lost everyone, everything. My life changed in ways that this, I can assure you this is not the path that I would have chosen for my life.

And a lot of the life choices and decisions that I've made after leaving have strongly been influenced by this because my mental state was not in a state where I could handle some of my ambitions.

I've actually had to halt a lot of my ambitions because of this. It is a very, very, very hard thing. And the only way that you can get through it is by trying to find some threat of hope in your escape or find the things that are funny and focus on those.

Whenever my mind feels the pain coming in, usually when I'm laughing on the show, it's because it hurts so bad. And I'm talking real, real pain. It hurts and I laugh. And that's how I divert.

I focus in on the things that are funny because then I'm not crying on the podcast and everybody stop watching it. You know what I mean? A lot of the stuff is, what do you do?

You either got to laugh or cry, right? I mean, it's like a knife in the art. Yeah, one of the stuff. One of the two, right? The other thing I want to focus in is something that I laugh at because I'm so angry about it.

You mentioned that in the seventh seal, they cut it. I never will forget the first time that I heard the editor on the record. You have to understand, years ago, the message looked entirely different than after all of the exposure hit mainstream.

There were churches that would play the first part of that recording and stop before the editor. I remember hearing them. I can't tell you what churches they are. I was younger. But I remember hearing it go to a point and then it just stopped abruptly.

I was like, okay, whatever. And then the first time that I heard it was actually in the Brandham Tabernacle. My grandfather played the tape in its entirety. And the person whose voice is speaking as the editor said in the tape room.

I knew him personally. Actually, he lives right around the corner from my house. And the first time I heard it, I was floored. It said, the audio, and I'm paraphrasing, the audio that you just heard is, it was incomplete. William Brandham, and it names a couple of other guys, go into a hotel room and recorded an alternate ending.

They actually said this on the recording man. And the first time I heard it, I was like, what? Logically, it doesn't make sense, right? This is the message to prepare the earth for the coming of Jesus Christ.

And this message is the shout that went forth. So it's God's voice. God's not going to restrict what he said to a certain crowd. And that plagued my mind long after even leaving the cult.

I was like, why am earth did they do this? And you mentioned they cut out the sword, but it's, that's part of it, but it's deeper than that. You have to understand, by 1963, one of the complex trails of history that is all interconnected with this.

Many people were leaving William Brandham over doctrine, but there were also people who were starting to say, this man is creating an authoritative cult. He is creating a group of people, he's gone in the air of Dauy, I think is the way that they would say it.

But Dauy started claiming to be Elijah and said, I didn't say I was Elijah, you said I was Elijah, just like William Brandham. Dauy was putting himself into a place of authority where it was turning extremely destructive by the end of his life.

And they were starting to notice William Brandham was doing the same thing. And Dauy was lying through his teeth, left and right. It's all captured in history. Well, William Brandham is lying through his teeth, left and right.

Well, the men who were at this event, you know, that full gospel businessman was deeply involved with the Leslie Douglas Ashley's, you know, protests against his execution. They all knew where William Brandham was during this event, right?

Well, when William Brandham preached that sermon back in Jeffersonville, Jefferson wheels. fully unaware that that he's trying to save the transgender guy who just murdered somebody during a prostitution event. So he stands there and he says, and I had the sword of the king. I have the power. He is essentially putting himself into a level of authority that's far beyond what he had ever done on recording in the past and he could not let the people who are against him know that he did this. So he cut that tape and you know it wasn't just his believers that were buying these

recordings. Also his enemies were buying these recordings because they were trying to find ammunition to prove to other people that there is danger in this water, do not drink, do not swim. This guy is creating an authoritative cult. So he goes in a hotel room, he records an alternate ending and then this goes out because this particular set of sermons, everybody who was either friend or foe, they wanted to hear what he said because the people in the message wanted the message the word, right?

The people who were against him wanted to say, okay, where's where's he going off the deep end on the seven seals? Well, he went far beyond the deep end and they had to cut it out, right?

The sermons after this are kind of inconsequential. Most people would just ignore it, but the seven seals themselves, he had to cut it out because he did not want his opposition to know that he is rising in an authoritative position that is a cult leader. I think that is a very good analysis, Sean, because I do know, like I remember being told like Kenneth Hagen's reaction to the seals or T.L. Osborne's reaction to the seals and different people when they got those tapes because they were getting all these, I mean these people were all following William Brown and back then and

that's a whole other episode we go on to, those guys' reactions to the seals, but yeah, you're exactly right, those guys, some of them were on the fence with some of this stuff and William Brown, I think that is actually a really good point that he had the other people around him who we would all think were apostates now, but people he was wanting to be his buddies back then. He had their opinion in mind with some of this stuff knowing that they would get it absolutely. I think you're spot on there, John. Something else looking back at that stuff and

of course the people who were there when he preached that, it was actually, I want to say, John, the late 70s, early 80s that they, like I know Raymond Jackson was involved in a lot of this stuff, making a stink over all the tapes being edited and basically forced Voice of God and some of these other groups to put out the original stuff right because they were all in conspiracy land that you know, though, you're high the words of William Brannum and this and that, and so that actually forced the hand of you know, the people in control, the recordings to kind of publicly admit some of this stuff.

But you know, if they hadn't done that, I mean, people just wouldn't even know, right? Because you know, there's millions of people in the message today. There's only 500, 600 people there when William Brannum preached the seals, right? So unless, you know, except, you know, this the kernel of witnesses, John, who mostly people you and I know have known personally, people just wouldn't even know that these things exist, right? So most people in the message never met William Brannum and most people in the message don't even have a witness of William Brannum in their church. Most of them don't even have a witness of a witness of William Brannum

in their church. Most people have absolutely no idea of the reality of what all they have is stories that they have second and third hand generation and then what they've got on the tape. So if there's a whole lot of hubris, I'll say this, there's a whole lot of hubris in people who think that they know more about what happened, John, than people like you and me who lived here in Jeffersonville our whole lives and have known everybody and everything. Like there's a lot of hubris in some people who think that they, you know, that we're just making all this stuff. It's

a little unusual. Yeah, and I know your sect was a bit different because you emphasized it, but you know, in the churches that I attended from Arizona to South Carolina, everywhere in between, the vast majority of people had no idea that William Brannum claimed that he went out to a mountain, and stood there, and suddenly this magical sword materialized in his hand. In fact, I've spoken to former members and we, I've kind of pulled them trying to figure out how many people believe the fantasy sword or not. And most of them are like, there's no way. He never said

that. You know, and I go back and show them, oh my gosh. I did not know that this is, you know, it's like a King Arthur Fable, right? This whole thing, it's such fantasy that ministers in the cult that existed before all of the exposure came. They danced around it because they knew this is fiction. They knew it. They did not want to say it. They knew something's wrong. You know, cognitive dissonance, they may have believed it and they may have, you know, just put it on the shelf as we use the loaded language. But in their minds, they did not believe it or they would have

preached it every single, you know, week, year, month. I don't know. They would have preached it because this, according to Brannum, was so spiritually significant that it was the evidence that he was bringing the, the shout from heaven, right? He's got the actual sword. You don't find this talked about, at least I didn't, in the churches that I grew up in.

up in. Now things have shifted quite a bit since we have been exposing things. I want to say that it's still probably not mentioned because this is the work of fiction, but there are some splinter groups such as yours where they know the cloud was false. So they've got to fall back on something.

Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, because after Raymond Jackson figured this stuff out, we switched, we are very heavily familiar with Sabino Canyon story where I come from. We call the King's Sword story, the Sabino Canyon story, but it's it's the same story.

And yeah, we, we, it was emphasized very, very heavily. That's what Raymond Jackson regrounded his all on after, after he discovered it was a hoax with the cloud. He never told us the whole cloud was a hoax, but he knew. But then, as I've mentioned before, when our new pastor took over, he moved us back to the cloud. And of course, anybody who would say out loud that he changed anything or wasn't saying it the same as Raymond Jackson was very aggressively purged out. You know, and, you know, the way these churches work too, I'll just say they put people in positions of power who are the employers over a lot of

the people. And they, they can, they can take your jobs away. They can, a lot of times, they can have control over your housing. They can take your housing away. They will, if, if your wife or husband is more loyal, they will force a divorce, right? You'll lose your family that way. You'll be shunned. I mean, this is what happens. And so a lot of people are forced to just shut up and go along or lose everything, right? And, and, and, and it's amazing. You will go years and years and years and never even allow yourself to verbalize what's

in your mind because you will literally be destroyed. I mean, and, and they will even go to the point that people will be drove to suicide by this stuff. I mean, I've, I have seen this happen, John, like I mentioned, I saw that happen to, you know, there was well over 100 people who were purged out in varying ways, you know, in the through this kind of stuff. I mean, it's shocking, shocking stuff. But going back to Sabino Canyon, there is another in piece of internal evidence in the Sabino Canyon story that could indicate that the King Sword story is fake, right? There's

only, this is the only lead I ever had because I did look into this, um, fairly extensively as well because I, you know, I, that was a fairly important thing in my part of the message. But William Brannum took a number of people into Sabino Canyon and he showed them the place where the King Sword experience happened, okay? And he gave fairly good directions to the location in his recorded sermons. So it's not too hard to figure out the approximate place where the King Sword story happened. Now, I have actually been to Arizona several times visiting message churches

that were in my sack, but I've never been to Sabino Canyon myself, but according to people who have been there, the exact site, or roughly the right site where William Brownham would have been, they identified a problem with his story. Okay, William Brownham says, when he held the king's order in his hand, that it glistened in the sun. Okay, but William Brownham also gave the location, and that location is on the east side of Sabino Canyon, and the sun does not shine in Sabino Canyon on the east side there until midday. Okay, and so William Brownham was very clear, though, that thing all happened in the morning.

So, you know, if all of that is correct, right, there's ifs there, that would be a pretty solid clue based on internal evidence in the story that something's wrong with the king's sword story, and Perry Green actually knew about this problem, John, and you can actually find information about this problem in the Sabino Canyon tour brochure that was made by the Tucson Tabernacle.

And Perry Green spent a whole lot of time and effort trying to find anywhere on the east side a Sabino Canyon that got sunlight in the morning. And after a whole lot of searching, he finally found one small tiny little place where the sun would shine, start shining a little bit after 10 a.m.

You know, in January, so just it's one like this little carve out of a spot. So, you know, I'm just not sure what to make of all that myself. Maybe someone in Arizona could drive out to the spot one morning and see how the sun shines through and send us pictures, but I do want to make sure that people are aware. There are some sources that claim that the sun does not shine on the east side of Sabino Canyon in the morning in the location that William Brownham said he was at when this thing happened, okay? And in any event, any event, I'm sure someone who's willing to

base all of their faith on the words of a single man with a long track record of dishonesty. I'm sure people like that hearing that the sun don't shine on the east side of Sabino Canyon is not going to bother you. Yeah, it's pretty hard for the light to listen on the magical sword whenever the sun is not even able to hit it, but even more to the point, it's pretty difficult to have a magical sword. I mean, there's just there's no two ways about it. The, you know, you mentioned the level of authoritative control and how you're not allowed to question these things.

Every school child that I have met, if you were to tell them that William Brownham had a magical sword as a, you know, maybe third grader or before they say, wow, magical sword. I'm in a religion where our leader had a magical sword. They would eat it up because this is fantasy.

It's fiction. It sounds great. After third grade, you kind of start to think about things. I don't care who you are. You get curious. You understand. and how the world works. And if that same person were not raised in a cult, if they say they went to, I don't know, Baptist Methodist or whatever church they were in.

And the minister said, those people over there who go to that church that has a sword above the door, in Jeffersonville, the ones with the sword above the door, they believe that their prophet leader, their cult leader told them that he stood out in the middle of a canyon and a magical sword appeared in his hand.

Well, that same child is gonna think of those people a little bit off, there's something not quite right. But you're trained and manipulated to suppress critical thought. So for all of the listeners who were never involved in this thing, we're sitting there thinking, wow, Charles and John, they must be just a little bit crazy because they believe some pretty weird nonsense, right?

Well, we were manipulated to that extent that we weren't allowed to critically think about it. I also need to qualify that just a bit because again, I went to churches everywhere. There are varying levels of authoritative control.

There are actually churches that exist within the message where the minister does a good though flawed attempt at trying to reconcile some of the problems. And they allow some critical thought, they just put boundaries on the critical thought.

You're allowed to critically think, wait a minute, that's a magical sword, man. To, well, we know that it's established because of these other things and then they don't tell you that the other things were also false.

So they put boundaries on it. So there are varying levels of authoritative control. I've been to churches where, you know, it really didn't look much different than a Pentecostal church and they, some of them, even very seldomly mentioned William Brannum's name.

They actually preached the Pentecostal style religion. To the other extreme, I've actually been to churches that imploded where the minister would not allow their people to purchase a car unless he approved it. People were married because he approved their marriage.

People were not married because he disapproved their marriage. That's the levels, the varying levels of authoritative control. So, you know, for me, when I think back about this magical sword,

I have to laugh because I believed it, man, I believe this hook, line, and sinker. And I consider myself to be a spart person. I, you know, if one of the neighboring churches were to come tell me that, I don't know, they had a magical Thor hammer.

I'm gonna say, well, that's a Thor hammer, man. You gotta be crazy. But then I believed in this magical sword, right? So, I just, I can't reconcile how stupid I was, but all I can say is I believed it because I was manipulated from birth to believe that the man stood there with a magical sword. Let me tell you a story. This just comes to my mind here and you talk about the control and everything, but this is kind of funny. I just thought about this. So we had related to this stuff. So very much related to this

stuff. So we had one preacher who preached that the the seven angels that came to William Brown and were the seven church aged messengers in Angelic Horn, basically. And he preached this, and then our pastor had a different take on it. And so of course, this naturally, you know, we need to kill each other, right? That's how the message responds to this stuff, okay?

Quite literally. And so this ensues a massive, a massive fight. I mean, massive fight that, you know, heavily damaged my sect of the message when this happened. And so as that goes on, the present pastor of that church who was assistant pastor at the time goes around with a microphone to every single adult in the church, like in a church service, do you agree 100% with everything our pastor teaches? In anyone who would not testify to the affirmative was viciously purged out of the church, John. This is how it works is where I come from, okay?

Was viciously purged out of the church. Now, here's what's really, really ironic about this, okay? So then the pastor Raymond Jackson dies and this new man becomes pastor and he proceeds to change. He proceeds to change some of the very things he was asking people about. So he didn't even believe 100%. He would have been purged out if he had been on the other side of the microphone that day.

Right. Like this is the kind of stuff though. But then when he changes it again, like you, and then like it's the same thing, do you agree 100%? Like you can't, it's, you're not allowed to talk up, you're not allowed to even say anything. I mean, if you even voice the slightest question, they will mercilessly harass you publicly from, you'll be publicly shamed, publicly humiliated, drummed out of the church. If it's in their power to take your job, they'll take your job.

If it's in their power to take your home, they take your home. If they can force a divorce on you, they will force a divorce on you. This is standard practice in the sect of the message that I come from, John. And I know not every sect is extreme as the sect I come from, but this is, this is where I come from. And when you live in that, yeah, you're going to shut up and not think about some things for the sake of your children and for the sake of your wife and for the sake of everything,

right? Because there's more to think about than just necessarily right or wrong, survival is really at hand with those things. I could tell stories John I could tell stories you know to put it in perspective my grandfather everyone who knew my grandfather knew him as this very humble loving they've called them sweet and they're called precious what my wife and I were just talking about this the other day when you refer to somebody when you're in the cult one of the it's loaded language sort of because William Brandon used this word he's you know with homosexuals and he's using this word

which is anyway they use the word precious he's a precious brother and this is not something that you use in the the real world I would you know if I were to go to work and say that yeah I like like this guy sitting next to me he's a precious guy they would they would just laugh at me what are you saying man well you know my grandfather was regarded in this way he had some very extreme doctrines he believed in that William Brandon was gonna rise up out of the grave and there would be this great tent minister he believed some weird

things but the vast majority of the world would never consider my grandfather to be an authoritarian style preacher as is the case with many many ministers in the message they would not look to him that way but what I've learned you know amplifying the example that you gave there is a public version of the person and then there's this private version of the person and the two sometimes are in direct conflict with each other whenever we left the message and I think I've mentioned this before I just had a few questions I actually still believe

the message when I post my grandfather had a few questions I knew that some things were false and I just I wanted to find out okay well what's the story behind this so I call my grandfather and he said John people have known this known these things for years he said John people have known these things for years what does it hurt for you to believe it anyway now that same man in just the Sunday before he he had this phrase that he used almost every sermon this is more accurate than today's newspaper he would say that over and over and over so in public he's saying there's no problems at all it's

more accurate than today's newspaper in private he's saying yeah I knew this everybody knew this but then he then very next Sunday he not only cut me off for asking the question he also cut off my wife and children and turned their souls over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh that's that's the level of authoritarian control my grandfather was he had no idea whether my my wife even questioned this these things or not he had no idea if I even talked to her but because he was trying to sever the questions from getting to the people he cut off my wife

and my children and wanted them to die. Wanting them to die, that's very sad, but that is exactly what they want. That is exactly what a lot of these people want. They want you to die when you leave, right?

And if they can do anything to facilitate that, they are very happy to do so, you know? Short of pulling a trigger themselves to kill you. Yeah. So the Sabino Canyon story, that's the fallback position quite a few people use, that I have known when they're finally admit the cloud story was a hoax, at least internally, right?

Even if they don't externally say the cloud was a hoax, right? Internally, they have realized the cloud is a hoax, so mentally they're moving over to the Sabino Canyon story as their fallback position.

That is exactly what I did for a period of time, John. I've also heard people who kind of acknowledged the cloud was a hoax also fallback to the baptism story in 1933 to reground things on as a fallback position.

But, you know, I already knew all that was full of holes when I figured the cloud stuff out because, you know, I went to church with the old timers and knew the people of the baptism.

I mean, we knew it wasn't. I already knew that was full of holes based on what our preachers told us over the platform. So, and if you want to hear that stuff, you can go back to episode eight where we talk about the evidence of the problems with the baptism story in 1933.

Then some other people I have known go back to the Angelic Commission story where William Brannum was given his two signs, which was also a hoax. You can check that out in episode 12.

You want to see what was wrong with his Angelic Commission story. So, you know, honestly, after the cloud falls, there is no other solid foundation to rebuild the core teachings, the core authority for William Brannum to do all the stuff he did on.

And there's no more direct witness. I mean, it just, there's nothing solid to rebuild all of this on once the cloud falls. It's all, you know, shaky ground. And so, every last thing you could reasonably use is full of holes.

Yeah, for me, Charles, the thing of it is that if this were a real religion, if this were not a fantasy world where you have people with magical swords, they would fall back on the Bible.

They claimed that this message, this movement, this cult is found in the Bible, it's based on the Bible, it's one group of ministers, they called it solar scriptura, which means by the scripture alone, right?

But the problem is it's not. You don't find scripture saying and just before the last days, I will send a guy and he will have a magical sword. And this magical sword will signify that he is giving his message, he's giving the shout.

And more specifically, if they were to have grounded it in the Bible as they claim. they would have, you know, at least read the last phrase from that passage in Thessalonians, the dead and Christ will rise first. You don't find too many dead and Christ rising before he has a magical sword. I think any reasonable human being, there I go with that word reason again. Oh my God. I think any reasonable human being, using common sense, reading that passage of scripture, would say this never happened. I think someone would have noticed the Lord descending from heaven

with a shout, with a voice of Archangel, someone would have noticed the dead and Christ rising, someone would have noticed this stuff and as you read it, there's no really way to break it up the way the message broke it up. It's the Lord descends with a shout, you can't have the shout and then you can't reorder it. It's a clear order of events. Lord descends, there is a shout, the dead and Christ arise. You can't have a shout without the Lord descending, right? And this is, maybe we'll talk about this in our next episode, the message generally believes that in some form,

Jesus Christ came back in 1963, right, because of this. And you cannot have the message, be the message without Jesus Christ coming back in some form in 1963. And if this cloud stuff is a hoax, if this is not the face of Jesus descending from heaven, then what is your basis for saying Jesus came back in 1963 in any shape or form, right? The message falls apart, right? And you are in outright, you know, mental fantasy land, you know, trying to say there's a shout without a Lord descending from heaven. I mean, you're, William Brannum didn't even do that, right? So,

you don't even believe the message anymore if you don't believe the Lord came back in 1963 in some way. So anyway, maybe we can chat about that some more in our next episode, John.

Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway from this episode, John, is that without the events of 1963, there's nothing really solid left to justify the continued existence of the message. If you take the cloud away and you take away everything built on top of that, what's left for most people will just be the nela oneness, Pentecostalism, we're speaking in tongues is optional, right?

That is what you get when you take away all the stuff built on this cloud. The message is just vanilla oneness, Pentecostalism, we're speaking in tongues is optional. You know, there are very few opportunities that I get to talk about the things that I like most, the things that I would rather be doing that all of this. I mentioned it in the podcast with James, but I've got all these figurines of Star Trek and Star Wars and I've If you look right about here, I've got the Millennium Falcon. I'm a big science fiction fan. I'm a big fantasy fan

I love the Lord of the Rings. It was one of my favorite books growing up was the Hobbit and I love fantasy I've read I don't know how many different versions and flavors of the King Arthur story. I love it but I Separated in my mind that was the fantasy and then there was William Brannum and Distang that I was supposed to believe wasn't fantasy, but in the back of my head I had to have known that this isn't right and this is not right And what's interesting? I was one of the fortunate ones because a

Lot of people in my version of the message the version that existed before all of the You know the new rebranding took place around 2012 2013 We weren't allowed to watch television for the most part. I was one of the special ones because I've not mentioned this much But my grandfather had a monitor my grandfather the pastor the Brannum Tabernacle who is telling people not to watch these things?

You're not gonna tell me you had a TV are you? You had a monitor You had all these Disney cartoons and you know things were not as they seemed and And I had other family that had television. They actually had cable some of them some of them had antennas and What's funny is I was a and still am I love cartoons?

I'm I'm okay with admitting this in the podcast I love cartoons and I would I would actually rather watch a cartoon and a show with real people in it and what's funny is Those in the message who there were actually churches that they didn't care if you had a television in those churches They welcomed children to watch television, you know watch cartoons, especially the Saturday morning cartoons were great the afternoon But what's funny is there was one cartoon you weren't allowed to watch Charles?

You could not not just in the message but a large fundamentalist Christianity you could not watch the he-man cartoon So I actually never saw that cartoon until I was an adult and I'm an adult watching all these cartoons, which is kind of funny But that cartoon the guy stands up and says I have the power he holds up his magical sword just like William Brandham claimed and What's ironic Charles now as an adult now weighing in the balance of things?

You've got William Brandham with this fantasy religion, which you know people can believe this flying spaghetti monitor if they want to they can believe William Brandham had a magical sword if they want to but The message itself is so condemning of other people it's so Heretical if you're a Christian and you know the Bible it's so you know it's fiddled with white supremacy with lies the seat with just things that are immoral and unethical. It's all through the message.

And yet this he-man cartoon that we weren't allowed to watch has this moral to every story that is actually a good learning lesson for children. And at the end, they talk about the good moral lesson and did you, child, understand that it's good to be good to other people.

It actually had a message. And so for me, when I take a step back and I try to weigh in the scales of the balance of truth, the he-man cartoon, who the guy had a magical sword, and the William Brannum message, the guy had a magical sword, which had a better moral to the story. And I'm going to say that, you know, it's not Christianity by no means, but the he-man cartoon actually had a better message than William Brannum.

It's something else, John. I've ever watched he-man, so I have no way to, you know, filter to that. I'm the same way, John. I mean, I was not allowed to watch anything like that.

Goodness. You enjoyed a good childhood, I think, in some ways, never. It wasn't often. Yeah, it's crazy interesting. And, you know, like I say, if you want fantasy, read a good book. There are so many good books out there. If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org and ChristianGospelChurch.org. For an overview of the historical research of William Brannum and the healing revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William Brannum and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Join us

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