Sirs, Is This the Sign of the End?

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

And together we are pretending that we are comedians and cars talking cults. Charles I've been wanting to do this for a while just get together and I don't know talk about the experiences that we had during all of this research. I'll be honest whenever I first began thinking through the ideas of where we could go with this I really didn't know where it would take us because I had some research but I didn't have all the puzzle pieces and you had some research and you know when we put them together I wasn't sure where we would

end up but I think honestly after what is it now we're up to 100 and what is 160 episodes it's a lot of episodes we are you know we've fully and completely gone through the life and history of William Branham and the latter rain healing revivals and I feel like it's a feel like we've done justice to the research. Yeah John I have been excited to do this too so this is kind of our finale on getting everything wrapped up in our in our main series looking at William Branham. I know you had been interested in doing a series like this not long after we first met each other

of course I was kind of a more hesitant but you know it it has been good it has worked out really well. There I believe we have put together what is probably the most comprehensive analysis of the life and ministry of William Branham that exists and we've we've for the most part been able to put in documentation pictures everything through all of it with the newspaper articles and all the other evidences that I think will really help anybody that wants to examine it and it's all in a very easy to access format for people who don't

like doing their own research. The pictures come to them on the screen so that that's pretty nice. Yeah, I mean, I've been really pleased with how it all came out. We started, I think we started what in.

Well, I know we started recording in July of 2022. And now what it is, it is August of 2023. So just over a year, it'll probably still be at least another month away before this episode comes out.

So it's kind of nice just to be able to drive around here of the sites of Jeffersonville, have a chat, and kind of recap everything. Yeah, it is nice. And for the listeners who are on the audio-only feeds, you'll probably want to go to the YouTube version of this, because we are literally a joked comedians and cars talking colds, which I don't know if you've seen the show with Jerry Seinfeld, comedians and cars, getting coffee, I think it's called.

But we're literally driving around Jeffersonville. Charles and I believe it or not, we don't really get together that much. We meet every few weeks for launch and talk about the episodes and where we're headed.

But we haven't really had a chance to get together. So this gives us a good chance to just drive around. And Charles, I'm curious, whenever we first began this journey, I remember that you were hesitant, very hesitant, and you had just freshly escaped the cold.

And I remember that feeling. I remember how hard it was after you first leave what it's like. And I'm curious for you now that you've been out for, what is it now, one, two years now.

And after processing this research, I'm curious your thoughts on just processing the research itself. Do you feel like that has helped you in your journey and your escape? Yeah, it has been, let me think.

It's hard to set an exact date. I think the last time I was in the church that I left would have been January of 2000 and 2021, I believe. So I would be a little over two years out now, what, two and a half years out, roughly.

Last time I was in there, I actually went to a funeral, and my sector of the message is very infamous for using funerals as vehicles to attack people that are stuck in the seats that are there.

Exactly. I did that to Billy Paul last time. He came to one of our funerals. Well, anyway, I was, of course, I was attacked for showing up to the funeral, and so that was the last time I was there.

It's going to be so very rude, honestly. But yeah, the first year out, John, I just, I really didn't do too much of anything as far as, Saying anything publicly, I left and most everyone who asked me when I left asked me what I was doing. I told them, well, I'm just going to disappear. That was really all I had in mind was just to go away. At that point, I had already digested a large part of the research which is kind of what had led me to the conclusion that I was going to leave to begin with.

But I was still not actually of the mind that it was a cult and that William Brownham was totally a false prophet there right at the first when I left. It took me about. I probably three or four months after I was out that I finally came to that conclusion. The last straw for me was when I really discovered the death to which William Brownham had copied the seven seals.

Like, when I left, I already knew he had copied. I found, I believe, three of them, but I hadn't found the rest. And then after I left, I started digging in and then I soon discovered where he had copied the rest of the seals from. And then from there, the way our part of the message is structured is just, everything just collapses at that point. I mean, if William Brownham didn't get the seals from angels, there is no message. I mean, so it just all fell apart. But I think the going through these episodes, John, yeah, I mean, it has been very nice to just methodically go

through each aspect of all of the documentation. I know every episode, like we haven't just sat down and chatted it out. I have, you know, spend a good 10, 12, 20 hours every week prepping for the episodes. So I would review all the research again, double check all the findings, try to pull everything together and just basically research it all over again right before every episode to make sure, you know, everything I'm saying is accurate and spot on. So it has been very nice to to be able to just process through all that again. And for me personally,

I'm sure that people see a difference in my demeanor from the first episode to now. I've slowly recovered from all of the, it is very painful to leave the message on. Oh my goodness. So sad. It is absolutely devastating to discover that your entire belief system is a hoax.

And you've been deceived your entire life. That is so painful. And you know, I'm still not overall that hurt. I mean, that just hurts so bad. But I'm certainly in a better place having processed a lot of it through this series. It is a difficult journey. And it's funny because when we first met, you were a little bit hesitant to do the podcast. I was also, people don't know this. I was also a little bit hesitant because we had gone through some severely traumatic family health issues.

And we were just, you know, we were right in the middle of the worst of it. when we first met and even when we first began the podcast we were I had a lot of people don't know this I had struggled with diabetes up to that point and I had almost reversed it in fact I thought I had reversed it until the family health issues hit and I um you know with all the trauma that hit me I fell off the wagon I guess you would say and it it didn't end well but during the

course of this I too have healed quite a bit just being able to process it you know when you go to a therapist they'll often tell you to write a book because it tell it helps you to process what happened to you and I feel like you and I have we've kind of processed what happened to us and I have been on a very very rigid diet I've been on very rigid exercise program every day and about three four weeks ago I maybe a little bit longer than that I've actually reversed diabetes fully I can eat whatever I want now and so from a personal

standpoint I'm doing quite a bit better from a mental standpoint doing extremely better it is though like you said really hard I remember the trips where I'll try to show some video footage but we're driving into Jeffersonville now I still remember those trips as a kid because there was just something special about coming here I thought because that's the way it was presented to us and Charles I recently gave a friend of mine from out west a tour of the sites in Jeffersonville we can't we made the same exact journey that I'm making now with you and I was telling him that one of the funny things about

this is it used to be whenever you came into Jeffersonville and you took this little curve here for 10th Street there was used to be a sewer right here so the very first thing that you smelled when you came into Jeffersonville was poop and I was telling you know I was joking with him because now that I know so much of it was just so wrong the smell actually matched matched the theology to a large extent in my opinion but you'd make this journey into Jeffersonville and it was like this holy trip into this mecca and I never will forget we would

come down this pathway down 10th Street and seeing you know voice of God recording spoken word tabernacle spring street some of these places which we're driving through right now it just it felt holy but then after you escape and after you get out of that mental hold that they have over you I'll say it in the words of my friend who I gave the tour recently he says is this place this is so underwhelming he's from he was actually from Africa and he said in Africa man they tell you that this is the most holy place and it's wonderful and it looks like

I think he used the word dumpster fire it looked you know it looks not like nothing and that's all the way it has always been I remember you know what I've seen now it is the town has quite a bit run down from what it used to be but even back then it wasn't much to speak about yeah Jeffersonville is not an amazing place by any stretch of the imagination it is kind of a rundown town and it's been that way a long time here we're turning in where a spoken word used to be located at the old quadrangle yeah Jeffersonville is just not much of a place but

yeah people come from all over the world to be here john same as art whether it's a conventions in our sect whether it's the main sect whether it's just to to visit the sites here people come from from everywhere so this here was the quarter masters depot during the american civil war for the army of the west so this is where they marshalled all of the supplies they built this for the civil war to supply the western our western union armies during the war there's lots of history here and there was a bridge across the river here which was really the

only bridge back in those days which is why they built it here and they would they would use this as the depot and of course after the war is over it all ends up eventually being turned into a space that could be leased and so spoken word uh leased space here which is where they printed the original uh into the original translation services on all of William Branham sermons so this is where the original transcripts of William Branham sermons were created yeah i remember walking into this building as a kid and you know it's it's just so especially

after we saw the research from Gerald Walker in the serobranham investigation and just seeing the way in which it appears according to what Walker said and i'm no expert but it appears that there were some tax evasion strategies going on and you know comparing what we know now to what i've thought as a child it's just so vastly different because i saw all of these men as holy and i saw all of them as being you know models for me to model my life after and i'll be honest i really don't want to model my life after any of them

now that i know what's behind this and knowing what they know we would take the tour through that quarter master's depot um spoken word it used to be And then we would come over to my grandfather's church here on Tent Street and our Pins Street.

And, you know, we were told angels lined the walls of this building. And, you know, that the prophecies were under the building and learning the layout of the land during the time in which this church started.

And finding that this building wasn't even here, and they were preaching down the street a bit, it was just really shocking. I knew some of that, but I didn't have the timeline piece together until you and I put our research together and honestly just learning about your research in the mill town and then my research combined with the couple that was doing the research into the bridges, the searching for vindication.

Once we've pieced all of that together into an accurate timeline, there's just no way that this church is what it says that it is. So, if they are angels, I question from what deity those angels are coming from.

John, would you believe I have never stepped foot inside the Grand Tabernacle? Really? I have never stepped foot in that building. Now, of course, I have been around this many, many times. I've seen inside, you know, we've had picture tours, but most people in our church have never stepped inside the Grand Tabernacle.

We, as far as the, you know, other than the older generation, we basically believe that that place got turned into a spookhouse after... After your grandfather took over. We were, we were mostly terrified of somewhat terrified to go in there like a spirit might get you or something and make you worship William Brownham.

So, yeah, we generally did not go in there. But, yeah, but you have this, the way they would describe the things that went on there and days gone by, I mean, it just, you just imagine this holy thing, this amazing thing.

I remember, you know, they would talk about how they were just on the edges of their seats when he would preach the seals and they thought, by the time he got to the end of the week, the rapture might happen, you know, what happens when he gets to the seventh seal and all of these sort of things, they were just mesmerized, amazing stories that these people would tell.

And so, it's really this strong build-up. But then, you know, it's like you mentioned, we find out way to minute. This congregation was recruited by Roy Davis, the second in command of the Ku Klux Klan, as part of it, a nomination started by him and Kayla Bradley, the national chaplain of the clan.

And then William Brownham was his assistant pastor. And then, he gets in trouble for kidnapping and underage girl for sex and he gets arrested off the platform. And then his church burns down and then William Brannem moves the congregation up the street and starts the Brannem tabernacle.

Like how did they fail to tell us those details? How can they leave that out? And it sure paints a whole different background picture of what actually happened to how this movement, how at least the Brannem tabernacle began and where the original congregation of the church came from.

Yeah, I, you know, I'm driving past the library right now. I spent so many weeks, I mean, I know the people in the Indiana room, I know them personally. They're actually friends that we chat from time to time on Facebook with because they've helped me find so much of the research that went into this, but learning that absolutely nothing that they told you was true.

It was a little bit mind-boggling and more to the point learning that, I mean, these are, these are public facilities. I'm going into the library, I'm going into the courthouse. Anybody who lived here could have done the same thing that I did. And anybody who values the religion that they're in should take a journey for truth to see what is that they're in. Is it true?

I'm driving right now down where all the casinos used to be. And if you drive down Jeffersonville, you can see these photographs on the sides of the building of how it used to look, how the casinos used to be.

Well, that doesn't match whenever he said that he lived here and there was this little old general store and it was a one horse town the way he described it, right? Well, to learn that this was a massive casino town and even worse than that, it was the gambling fun town for the people across the river to come over here and party. That's really what it was.

And they had all of these quick marriage places, you know, the ministers over here were not reputable by no means so much so that it made Indiana state news how bad this was. Ministers were literally letting people come over, get married so that they could satisfy their minds while they had a weekend of sex and then get divorced and they were called quick marriages.

And you know, all this is going on in the casino town. That's not what we were told, man. That's not the holy Jeffersonville that we were told. But more to the point, I cried during those life stories, Charles. I learning that this boy was visited by angels and God came down into this little log cabin that he grew up in and finding all of this.

I mean, what we're going to pass here in a minute will go past all of the train tracks, but... For me, just learning that they had a trolley that took you into the Louisville Metropolis, and comparing that to the life story, my mind was just blown because nothing that they told us was true.

One really interesting thing about Louisville and Jeffersonville that you don't really think about nowadays is, you know, back then, you, there wasn't a bridge really where you could drive across, and so if you wanted to bring a shipment from one side to the other, you could do it on the train, or you had to send it across by boat, right?

And so if you think about that logistics, Alcupone, up in Chicago, all the Speakeasy Networks needed a liquor, right, in order to keep all of the mobs underground Speakeasy's operating. Well, a lot of that liquor came from Kentucky, because Louisville, in this area, is where all the old bourbon distillers were at back in those days.

And so the, you couldn't of course load it on trains and send it over, right? You had to smuggle it. It had to come across the river generally by boat, and right here you are in Jeffersonville.

This is the spot where you would be slipping across these shipments in order to send them up to Chicago, to Alcupone, to keep all the Speakeasy's operating, you know, all of that network. Jeffersonville was an important link in mob operations back then for getting the liquor, if like a gateway for it coming out of Kentucky, from the distilleries to move it up into, you know, the mob controlled Speakeasy.

So very, very important thing that just doesn't exist anymore. And Louisville, like you, Jeffersonville, like you mentioned, was an easy law town, right? You could, the laws were loose here, the law enforcement was loose here, and people looked the other way on a lot of that stuff.

And it was just a different time and a different way. Now, here we're coming up on the bridge, which William Brannum claimed he saw rise up out of the river. And what's really interesting is, I always thought John, he was like right in here somewhere playing marbles when he saw the bridge come up out of the river.

There is no way, because this is not where Mr. Wathen lived in here. There's no way he was here, and been able to see that bridge rise up out of the water. I don't know if we're going to drive out past Mr. Wathen's house before we're done with, but it don't add up.

Like he said, I was playing marbles in my yard. I look out, so I always thought he was right here. But then when we went and looked at the story of where he actually was, when that happened, he's miles and miles away from here in this spot.

Right. I mentioned I had a friend that I just recently gave a tour. When we came through here, he was a little surprised when he saw this row of bridges, right. There's not just one.

And I was explaining to him the dates in which they were all built. Well, I... He showed him the oldest one, the one where there actually was a tragedy wherein men fell from the bridge.

It wasn't accident. And he said, oh yeah, that's the bridge that they show us whenever we're in Africa. They're showing us this exact bridge. But that bridge was built before William Branham was even born.

And it's not the bridge that is farthest from where he lived, the one that he could, there's no way he could have seen it. It is the one where he claimed to have had the prophecy.

And he gave very clearly, he said, what was it, 22, 23 years from the day. He said, I saw 16 men fall from the bridge, right? Well, I was explaining to him, you can even tell when you're looking at the bridge, the old-style bridges were built in sections.

And they had these upward loops. It's very clear, they're built in sections. They're pillars, and then in between the pillars, there are these loops that the bridge is constructed in. Well, the one that the accident actually happened in, one of those sections fell apart, and then men did die.

But if you look at the newer, the way the newer bridges are constructed, they're not in sections like this. So it's not even, I mean, it is possible, but it's very unlikely that a section could collapse because it's one big rail that goes across.

And that method of building the bridge was so, it was so safe, according to the bridge historian locally, that they continued to use that same strategy after this bridge because very few people got injured, right?

In fact, if you looked at the searching for vindication website, and they've got the Coast Guard logs, there's not a single aspect of William Brannum's prophecy that is true. The problem for me is, I drive past this, I see these bridges every day, and all of this goes through my head every day.

Every person who lives in this town has to have, they see the same bridges I see. They have the same questions I have, the ministers who had access to go into these facilities that I've went into, they've had it, what is it now, 50, 60 years to do this, to verify these prophecies, why have they not done it?

None of it makes any sense to me. Do they even believe the religion that they claim is the truth? If so, why did they not even look to see, is it true? Right John, and there is a little museum right at the foot of the bridge, and it's a museum to the construction of the bridge, and you can go in there, and you can ask the historian, did 16 people...

ever fall off this bridge and die. Did any people fall off this bridge? You can go in there, you can ask the trained historians of the bridge, that question. Any day you want to go by and you'll find out that William Brannum made that story up, right? You can do it that simply. You want to go to the even deeper detail and dig through all the records and the logs like multiples of people have, you'll see the same thing. William Brannum made up the story that the people fell off, maybe he did have a mental delusion vision of people falling off, but it just never happened,

right? And the way he would tell that story was such passion that it was true for his entire life, the way he could deliver it with such a certainty that he was telling something right, that is a little scary, right? Because if he could tell that thing which is demonstrably not true with such passion, I mean how can you, how can you trust anything he says just because he's passionate about it, right? You can't tell the difference between his truth and his lies. He's equally passionate when he's honest or dishonest, it's so problematic. And I know we notice we also pass the falls of

the Ohio up there where supposedly he was out on the river trying to find rescue people during the flood. Again, we don't even know if that's true, probably isn't, but the story that he told his, told about his wife, they're dying in the flood. I mean that's a huge, famous story. She, she got in the flood, they got in a refugee hospital and she contracted tuberculosis and died in the refugee hospital. A very famous story he told so many times. It's also not true, right?

Just there's so many problems with every aspect of his life story that he told about his early life, his early first marriage and so forth here in Jeffersonville and it's just, it is so unbelievable, it's so unbelievable to me that he did that to this day and all of the fallout that has happened from all of these fake stories and then all the crazy nuts on the other side of the world, John, who have never even been here. I think they know more about it than you and me telling us we're crazy. I mean, give me a break. Yeah, it's funny, Charles, because the people here they know,

like they know the buildings we're going in, they know the documents we're getting, they see the bridges that we see, they know these things. So you don't find the people in Jeffersonville attacking our research so much as you do in other countries because they just simply don't know the people here and even to the, you know, in the United States in general, there are many people, Charles, in the United.

States who make this journey to Mecca, but all they do is they go into the cult-approved facilities and they don't look at any of this history to see is it actually real. So the people here in Jeffersonville, they're less likely to challenge us than the people in other countries, it's a bit odd.

But like I said earlier, when we put our research together, it just painted this much bigger history than what I even knew. And the fact that it was so politicized

in the strategy behind it, and learning that some of the men that you had researched, some of the men that I had researched, when we learned that they're actually linked together, I had some of the puzzle pieces, you had some of the puzzle pieces, but when they started to paint the picture, the picture was much bigger than Jeffersonville, and much bigger than, you know, is bigger than the message, what I call the message.

And I think we've explored this a bit, what I call the message isn't what they call the message in the 50s and 60s. So it's just a bit odd to me that through the course of this, we're kind of unraveling the history that has been altered for all of these decades.

And I just, I really want to know who altered it and why. Why did the change? What was the reason why they felt the need to change the history rather than preserve the history?

I mean, any other religion, you take, I hate to say it, but even take the Catholic church. Catholic church don't give me wrong, has done some bad things in their past, but you can usually go and you can find it because they preserve their history.

And there's an intent to learn from the mistakes, right? Well, the message rather than learn from the mistakes, let's just erase all of this history and pretend that it never, ever happened. You're right, John.

And the message you've realized so heavily upon these legends, these supernatural modern events, and all right, and the message is so dependent on those in order to justify its existence because without the legends, without the mythology behind William Brownham, I mean, there's just no justification for the message, right?

Because the Bible, you know, there's just not enough in the Bible to justify the message. You've got to have all of this supernatural mythology that's been invented around it. It's really sad, honestly, how it was done.

And, you know, a lot of it, I think that there was, William Brownham himself was the man who was, guilty of this and then you had a bunch of people there who just could not believe that the man was possibly telling him something that wasn't true and then it just sort of like it becomes conventional wisdom, conventional knowledge and everybody says it happened, therefore it happened but the truth is there's actually no witnesses. Nobody was actually there and at the end of the day when you dig into it you find out it was made up and it is just so shocking how William Brennan was able to

get away with that. Just like get away with saying 16 men fell off that bridge and drown. It never happened. It's just incredible how he got away with these things and nobody thought for a minute to fact check him or the ones that knew it was wrong they just went along with it. They just went along with it and it it's something else. It's like the baptism story John you know we're coming up here in the area where they did the baptism in 1933. The people who were at the baptism all knew he made that story up even though even the few that stayed into the message into the 50s

they knew it but nobody would ever confront it or acknowledge it or say it out loud to his face that he imagined it. So like you look in 20th century prophet or books like that were like Leavale Road or the prophet for our generation which my sect put out are different ones. We would all admit nobody heard the voice except William Brennan at the river but all of these legends and myths built up like I bet you the average person in the message does not realize that William Brennan is the only one who heard a voice at the river that day right nobody nobody else did

but I bet you the average person in the message thinks there was a hundred or a thousand people sitting there that heard the voice that day but there wasn't there wasn't a single person that cooperates in the baptism story that William Brennan told. I think that was one of the biggest things for me was just learning that the perspective I had was so far off and mentally we were manipulated to be this way because if you think about a town that's you know Jeff first of those pretty small it's not a big town by no means and it was even smaller back then and

if you had an actual event where God parted the heavens and a voice spoke from from the heavens and said here's my beloved prophet here ye him well everybody in this town is going to remember this and they're going to tell their children their grandchildren and the way it works in America there will be a statue of William Brennan in this town and there's no statue most people in this town are for completely forgotten his name I was shocked whenever I began my research church and i started you know just talking to some of the locals and trying to

understand what their views were on what happened and they're like who's that i i wouldn't i even talk to the um... local historical society they knew who william branham was obviously because of the historical society but i had no idea many of the boisterous claims that that william branham made and there's no way to you know their false claims so there's no way to corroborate a stories and so i think for me just learning that the people in the town are unaware that in itself is revealing because these are not small claims these are claims that

if god actually parted the heavens and said here's my beloved prophet here you him this is going to make international news and if by some weird chance it doesn't make international news i can assure you that every single person in jeffersonville to this day is going to know the name william branham i think john the truth is that there's really not a lot of people who are from jeffersonville itself who were part of the message from the early days there was a high turnover at the tabernacle and as you come through the healing revival years and you

move to the other side of it you have just a lot of out of towners that come in here from canada from other parts of the united states and as you come to the late fifties i think there you know you have an almost i would say ninety five percent turnover in the membership of the branham tabernacle from from its original days i don't think people may be realize that and so there's a huge just loss of knowledge um... of the past and what happened and then william branham just say whatever in the world he wants and

nobody knows the difference right and even the people who are in the message from this area they're not really from jeffersonville they're from northern clark county they're from ploy county they're from harrison county they're from cropper county they're from jefferson county there's not a there's really not much that came from the jeffersonville area so there's not i think with a lot of people in the media awareness that even william branham would be telling them things that are not true um... so i think that might explain how some of these stories that william branham told just gradually evolved into

accepted facts by everybody because he said them so much everybody said okay nobody objected and it just enters into oral history as though these things actually happen when truth be called they didn't you actually look into it there there was no way It says there was none of it happened. He just made wholesale made stuff up and was telling stuff that was demonstrably false and untrue.

Yeah, for me, I think that's one of the biggest eye-opening things. Learning that people in Jeffersonville weren't part of the body of church members for the most part. Like you said, the majority of people came from out of town, out of country.

Learning that, I mean, if you really take a step back and think about it, if you are in this area and God parted the heavens and said, here's my beloved prophet, here you him, well, you're going to hear you him. You're going to listen to this prophet, right?

But if you were in the city of Jeffersonville and somebody said, hey, come to our church, we, you know, they're a little bit deceptive in the way they invite you. They never really tell you, hey, we're a cult. But they'll say, hey, we're this group of quote unquote Pentecostals and, you know, there's different ways that they word it.

Well, if a person from Jeffersonville comes to this area, goes to the church, and William Brandham were to make one of these just blatantly false claims, they're going to think, okay, that's a little weird.

I don't know why he said that, but that was not true. And they're just going to leave the majority of people are not going to try to say, no, that's false. That guy's a liar. They're just going to walk away, right?

Well, I think that's largely what happened. I think people in Jeffersonville, if by chance they were invited, which, you know, this was a kind of an exclusive sect of elite Christians, they call themselves.

It's highly unlikely the majority of people were invited from Jeffersonville. If they were, I sincerely doubt they would have stayed. They would have just heard this and said, yeah, that guy's not telling the truth, man.

Yeah, I think that explains a lot. And even on tape, William Brandham, as you come into the late 50s, he would, he would kind of take a survey of who was here from the, from the 30s.

And I think he was doing that because he was going to tell a story and he wanted to make sure no one's there going to call him on it. But, but he would take the survey, you know, how many's here from, from those days and never more than two or three people were left, right?

There was a, there was just a massive turnover in the congregation. And you think about how weird that is. It's really, you know, it's only 15 years, 15 years of time. And almost literally every single person left your church and you got a whole new congregation. That's weird. I gotta say that's weird.

But that's what happened in the tabernacle. And I think that actually speaks volumes to how the original crowd reacted to some of the boisterous claims that William Brandham started making as the healing revivals went underway, right?

The people back in Jeffersonville knew he was. it can stuff up, I mean, come on, of course they did. So, and if he wasn't and all of that glorious stuff was true, then why in the world do they all leave the church, right?

There's things like this, the message just does not have an explanation for. The message is primarily made up of people who joined in the 50s after the healing revival started. And most of the people who I knew John personally, who knew William Brannum in the 30s, did not, we're not in the message in the 30s.

You know, I, for example, I knew a man who carpooled with William Brannum to work when he worked for the public service company. They weren't, he wasn't in the message then. They were people outside of the message, and they just didn't, they joined up long after, all of that stuff had happened, and it's just already passed into accepted history.

And so, very, very interesting stuff, how that, how that all happened. And William Brannum, they played it all masterfully. He played it masterfully in order to invent this backstory, which so much of it is just not even true.

It's kind of funny, Charles, we're pulling up to the Baptist church that we went to right after leaving the message. And it's such painful memory is leaving because I know that you've mentioned it.

In fact, I think we're gonna talk about it some more in the future, but there's such bullying. When you leave this cult, and when we left the cult, we went to this little Baptist church here for a couple of years.

There were some of the cult henchmen that would actually show up at this Baptist church and watch us go to the building after we left. And they would do it continuously. I have another family member who also escaped the cult, and it really bothered him, because it's family, because it's intimidating.

That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to intimidate you. And leaving the cult and watching that happen in this area, it's really odd. It's not like if you went to a normal non-cult church and you decided to leave, they would kind of welcome you back with open arms if you wanted to come back and they would wish their blessings only when you left, but it's not that way around here.

So driving around, I'm getting some mixed emotions. Some of it I'm glad I'm left, and other parts is a very painful journey. Another, we're about to come up on William Brownham's house here, and it's painful because I remember as a kid coming and seeing this house and seeing the people that live in it now.

I won't get into many details there, but it has become this weird community of message believers that Charles, we're going to drive past here, but I'll guarantee you within five minutes. so it was driving by everybody who's in the cult in this area they're all gonna know that we're driving by and they're gonna be like what are they doing what are they doing yeah John I mean you're right the cult around here is very bullying and that that tells a lot about you know what they are I mean for example the mission that we've run same thing I mean someone comes out and would

park in front every single service to you know basically take names whoever would come to the mission again intimidation they would scatter nails in the parking lot multiples of times trying to you know cause damage to tires other things they would do to cause property damage I mean the there are people from the cult who are they're not mentally okay they're they're mentally deranged and when the leaders get in the platform and they they did you go look on their websites they will scream and rant and rave and like lunatics and say that you know people like me or you are the devil incarnate and you know that

we're gonna put them all in concentration camps or something I mean that's pretty well direct vote for some of what they said I mean they and then you have these crazy people who act out on that they do they take the things that they will insinuate and they'll actually go put that into action and and the leaders know that they know that they can insinuate things and they know that the crazy nuts in their church will go act on it and they they've weaponized that and this I have to say is a very dangerous cult I mean there are all kinds of

things we could say but here we come turning up you in lane now this would be the the home of William Brannum and you know in the first angelic commission story he says I saw I looked out the window to see a car turn the corner when he first told that angelic commission story in 47 and it really sounds almost like he was in his home here on Ewing Lane and as you can look the they own the brand of family owns you know half of this street here as you can tell they're all fenced off together and they're very large nice homes they've been you know

extensively expanded and enlarged and yeah William Brannum had a very nice home and this is just one of of a fair number of homes which William Brannum owned it is a bit odd when you compare it to like Joe Osteen the the mansions that some of these people live it's nowhere near that level this is just you know it used to be a modest home but remember these people they know how to dig basement what you see on the surface may not match what's underneath too there's there's quite a bit more to the stories and meets the eye but it's it's just

so different now whenever I drive past this home I remember as a kid crying my eyes out watching the 20th century profit because oh my gosh that's God's prophet, you know, and here's this humble home. People have watched it after leaving the cult and after deprogramming. They see the fake smile on his face and they hear the way that it's all is very rehearsed what he said. It's just not, you know, it's not what we grew up with. It's not what we remember. And the fact that the fact that that is one of the key videos for the worldwide movement, it just blows my mind because there's not

really much substance to it. It's literally an advertisement. Here's a guy that we're advertising. He has a healing ministry come watch him. That's really all it is. But we thought it was so much more. And the house had a special, I mean, this house is nothing.

This house was special to us because this dead guy lived in it. And how's that different Charles from Islam? If they knew exactly where Muhammad's hut or house or whatever he lived in, if they knew where that was, message people would ridicule Muslims for honoring the house of Muhammad. They really would. But not in the message, man, you can do this and you can away with it because that's God's prophet. God spoke from the heavens. This is my beloved prophet. Here's you him. That's spot on John. And the message is a religion of relics. And the pilgrimages here to Jeffersonville are relic tours to the reliquaries of the

message. You know, it's no no no different than the Catholic Church, you know, with all of their pieces of the true cross. You come to Jeffersonville while you can see the piece of the true car. You come to Jeffersonville. You can see the spot where this miracle happened and the spot where that miracle happened and then the other. And then here's the place where the prophet did this. And here's the place where the prophet ate his red hot candies.

You can just you can see it all. And why? Why? I mean, what in the world? I mean, what about Jesus? What about Jesus? You know, and it's like they've entirely displaced. What Christianity should even be focused on? Like the whole focus of the cult has moved away from Jesus Christ and moved into William Brown. Like he has usurped so much of the role of God. He's usurped so much that belongs to the father, you know, he's usurped being the voice of God. He's usurped the role of the Holy Spirit in controlling the lives of people rather than letting them be led by the Holy

Spirit themselves. He's you surped the role of Jesus Christ where many people have taken parts of him to themselves for for their own salvation. And it is it is a royal mess what the message has done with this stuff and it really is a crying shame. I think you hit the nail on the head.

And we're coming up on the cemetery now where the body is buried. And Charles, I'm actually, I'm looking to see, I don't think there are, but usually you drive past here and you find people praying to his dead body.

And I was going to say, if they are right now, I would stop the truck and I'd probably invite a man so they could be on the video with us. There's nobody there now.

I, you know, I drive past here all the time and multiple occasions, I find people praying to the dead guy that's laying under this pyramid. And it's just so wrong, man, they ridicule the Islamic people for how they worship Muhammad and they're doing the same exact thing.

Those that don't pray to the grave, they're still worshiping the prophet. And one way or another, they're still worshiping the prophet. But, you know, Charles kind of bringing this towards the close. But I'm just glad that I'm out of that.

I'm glad that I can drive through this grave and the only thing that I think when I look over there at this pyramid is, that's pretty weird, man. That is a pyramid and there's a dead guy under the pyramid who claimed that God spoke from the heavens and said, this is my beloved prophet here, ye him.

It's such a boisterous claim. If I were to say, if I were to go to one of the new churches that we attend, and I were to say, you know, God spoke from the heavens and said, what I say to you is important.

So you better listen to me, they would laugh at me, man. And I drive through this grave and I just look at this and I think, this is the weirdest thing. And yet I was in it.

I can't believe I was raised in it, but I was in this. I was in this weird thing and I'm driving past and I'm literally looking at a pyramid that make it makes no sense.

It's not even closely related to Christianity. I'm looking at a pyramid that's got William Brannum and the church ages on it and the church age different later to see in Philadelphia and et cetera.

Every person who comes to this grave site, you know, and they're, their family member has passed and they're sad. They have to look at this pyramid and think, what is this weird thing? Because again, most of the people in Jeffersonville have no idea.

You know, John, if we got out and walked over to the grave, we could pull out of the cracks of it, the prayers that people have wrote on paper and rolled up and fitted into the cracks.

Like they people come from all over the world and roll their prayers up into little papers and fitted into the cracks of the grave. Like you would go to the Western wall in Jerusalem.

Like it is, it's very idolatrous, you know, and, you know, it's bad enough that people do that. What's worse is that the leaders of the message do not openly condemn it and put it to a stop, right?

Right I mean they could do that you know the leaders could say this is idolatry stop don't do this anymore But but they don't right like there's no there's no attempt within the group to to to do anything and even if most of them tried They would be unsuccessful because the cult has been built in such a way that Nobody can bring anything into correction right William Brown designed this in such a way that Anything goes and there is no mechanisms for discipline or control or hold preachers accountable especially so You know you're all right as we bring this to a closed john. I mean it is just so good just to be out of this thing right just to be free

To be able to follow Jesus. I don't have to be trapped by this false doomsday message right of of William Brownum, you know the bible says that um Being justified by the blood of Jesus. We shall be delivered from Wrath we don't need a doomsday false message to deliver us from the coming wrath We just need Jesus. We just need to be justified by his blood and the message just violates the very core tenets of the gospel And really the only thing you need to tear the god the message apart doctrinally is just the basics of the gospel and

They just generally do not believe in the sufficiency of Christ and that is ultimately Ultimately the great greatest sin of the message is is how they have Just departed from the true gospel in my my honest opinion But it really is a shame that no one is willing to do anything to try and steer the people back to Jesus inside the group They're just going deeper and deeper and deeper into the whole of this man who has Time itself has proved out facts and evidence had proved out. He was just deceiving us He was tricking us wholesale hoaxing us about the stuff that happened in 1963

Jesus never came back the lord never descended from heaven with the shout. There was no midnight cry Seven angels never came to him to commission him to open the seven seals None of this happened and the message is predicated on those hoaxes that William Brownum perpetrated on us So Charles there's one thing I need to thank you for helping me do because It has actually been one of the greatest Things that you don't you're not even aware that you have done it. It's given me a bit of peace that I honestly I did not have until we did this podcast

And I'm going to let out a little secret because not many people are aware I always laugh whenever I see people who are They're talking about the books preacher behind the white hood specifically. Why are you selling this?

You're just doing this for money. They have no idea The amount of time that it puts that I put into all of this they have no idea like if I were to just divide my time out per hour I'd probably be making a few cents per hour there's so much time that went into it but I had tried years ago I wanted to walk away from all of this and this is not what I wanted to do I just wanted to put a beacon out hey this is false we're gonna leave it I was gonna walk away right and I created this little docu-series you can go on to

the YouTube site now and you can see it it's called the message why'd made this docu-series and I'd made it all the way up to the I think it was the Jim Jones episode and the cult started attacking me heavily I fought it off as as long as I could I think I made it maybe a little maybe a couple episodes past that not very very far and they brought everything down and my walking away strategy went down with it because that was my my beacon that was the present that was the presentation of all of the evidence that I collected

for almost a decade so here's a little secret Charles I've told you this privately but I've not told many people I went to a wedding anniversary retreat with my wife and it tore me up when they brought this down it tore me up it really did because not only was it my walking away strategy I had invested thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in making it what it is I mean there's a big expense and a big time expense that goes with all of this I was devastated but more than that how do I walk away now because they brought it down

there was no closure and so the thought hit me at like 2 a.m. while I'm with my wife in a hotel on our wedding anniversary well I've made the docu series and I still have all the files and maybe I can do something with that and and I woke up I'm you know my mind's thinking through all of that what do I do and I want to say it was like 3 a.m. Charles I wrote this program that opened up all of my video files it extracted all of the transcripts from those files it put them

they weren't any sort of order but it put them chronologically by file and put them chronologically by X and Y coordinates so I could see which one went to the farthest left which one to the right and I had it spit out this word document so 3 a.m. on our wedding anniversary my wife woke up she's what in the world are you doing and it spit out a manuscript and that manuscript is the preacher behind the white hood's book believe it or not that book is a computer generated book from start to finish so when all these people attack me

why are you not doing this for free well I did the book was the video and still today if you want to go watch the videos you're watching the book it's literally the same thing and so doing this with you is brought a lot of closure because now I have it's out there I have all the research out there I've got the website if you want to know what is it but what this cult is about if you want to know how deceptive this cult is there is not a single person that can't find it is so easy to find right now it's on the website now granted

they'll probably attack the YouTube site again they always do but at this point we've got a pretty solid strategy behind that if you if it does go down you just go to our website William-Brandom.org and you're going to find everything still there with a strategy that's in place so this series that we've done on William Brandom this is the final episode this is our grand finale this is our if you would you know if you would call it from a television show you'd call it a series finale it is the end of my research and

publication on William Brandom and it is my walking away strategy I do intend to do some things going forward it'll be a lot slower than it has been in the path I've nearly killed myself you know to this point have to slow down I have put many family things on hold there's a heck of a lot of honey do lists things that I need to do around my house that literally it's all been on hold because I've been doing this thing and it's time to move on it's time to now enjoy the post-court life a bit so this is this is my walking away strategy but I do

intend to continue slowly I'm still going to continue the weird doctrines podcast because I really enjoy doing that but I'll be honest in going forward if I had never say the name William Brandom again I'll be a very happy man I know I have to because some of the research ties back to him but my focus going forward is going to change what that looks like I'm not certain he was just William Brandom was just one cog in a much much larger wheel and I still have every single other cog that I could go explore and investigate so maybe I do that

maybe I I do a podcast where we talk about the you know the political underworld that was tied to this thing or the there's so many different I could take, but anyway, I wanted to thank you because this has brought closure to something that has been a huge part of my life for over a decade.

Until you did this with me, I really had no idea how I was going to walk away from all of this. Well, thank you, John. I appreciate that. I'm glad I was able to be some sort of a help in that way.

In a lot of ways, I acknowledge we're certainly in myself standing on the shoulders of a lot of people that have went before us. Peter Doyser, who passed away just this past few months, was one of the real founding guys putting together X-Message Literature, who started figuring this stuff out really not long after William Brannum died.

And it's gradually come together. And it's because of people like you, because of people believe the sign, because of the barones searching for vindication, that people believe the claims that this material started to get on the internet in such a way that people like me found it. And part of it, John, when I was in the message, I let you have it a whole lot.

And so some of what I'm doing with you is eating a whole lot of crow. But I'm not too big a man to eat some crow. But, you know, I think it's important for people to know the facts.

I don't know, honestly, John, that there's anybody that's left the message that is as well positioned as you and I to be able to share these things. You and I are from the first and second oldest message churches.

We have known the people who knew William Brannum all the way back to the beginning and I don't really think there's many other people who've left the message with those credentials to be able to do what we've done.

And I feel good about the way we've done it too. We have presented the facts. We've given a very clear walkthrough of the facts and the evidence for the things we've talked about. Sure, here and there, we've certainly injected some of our opinions.

But for the most part, we've just stuck with the matter of facts. And people are free to look at the facts. You know, you might have a different opinion. You might have a different conclusion than we do.

And that's fine, right? But, you know, you can look at the facts. They're all laid out here for you. And I think not only does this maybe help bring closure for people like you and me, but I think anybody leaving the message, there's enough here for them to be able to put together the pieces and realize how all this came about, what some of the objectives of it were, and just really what happened to them in this call.

And I hope that's a help over time to lots and lots of people. I'm really glad that we'll have the opportunity to keep these published for years to come. And yeah, I'm sure the call will attack it, John.

but you and I are both a career-long technology experts. They won't be able to keep it down for a long.

Yeah, so like I said, Charles, thank you for doing this. This is brought closure and if I never have to mention the name brand I'm again, which I'll probably have to, but I'll be a happy man, the least amount of times that I have to mention that man's name.

This is bringing some closure to all of this and it's time to move on. Usually at the end of the episodes, I give a little thing where if you need help, reach out to us and I want to change that up a bit.

I want to give it now versus the very end because I want to say if you've enjoyed this series that we've done, the overwhelming amount of work that went into it that Charles and I have put into this podcast, send us a thank you note and let us know that you appreciate it.

You can contact us at William-Brandom.org and Christian-GospelChurch.org. And we'd love to hear from you. We want to know that you did enjoy this in the history. The overwhelming amount of work, people have no idea.

There are some episodes. I think the most that I remember, Charles, I think one episode in particular, I think it was 46 hours of editing. I mean, yes, the Gordon Lindsay of Gordon. Well, actually, I actually hadn't considered that was more than 46.

The one I was thinking of was different. But the amount of time that goes into finding all the resources and putting them in and the transitions and the editing, we, I'm very particular about the audio and there's just a lot of work that goes into it.

But we wanted to make sure that it was a presentation that everybody for decades to come can find, learn about the history, understand what this is, why are these people act like this. And I think we've done it justice, I hope so.

And Charles and I are planning on doing a little bit of a Q&A. I'm not certain exactly yet how we're going to do that. We may do another, an additional podcast with that.

We may just do some little single question clips. We're talking through how best to do that. But if you have questions, you can send them in. We can't get to all of them. We've already looked through some of them earlier today.

And there's just too many to go through. But if you have one that is burning and we feel it's important, we're going to include it. And I'm going to be taking a few weeks break.

I will probably, like I said, continue doing the Weird Doctrine's podcast because I really enjoy doing that. It's just fascinating some of the things that minister say. And we'll be doing something in the future.

I'm not sure exactly what it's going to look like. But it's something about the history, something. You know, William Brannum was just one cog in this much larger wheel. I say I've mentioned that a few.

times, there are so many other cogs that we could examine and explore. So what it looks like going forward, I'm not certain, but I will say that as far as William Brannum is concerned, that chapter of my life is now coming to a close and Charles, I'm very happy that's coming to a close. Yeah, John, I know you've put in so much work doing all the editing. I really appreciate that and also thank you for the opportunity. You know, it takes a lot to open your arms to people who hated you a few weeks prior. Oh boy, but there's a great thriving community

here outside of the message. If you decide to leave, you're going to find friends and it's not so scary out here on the outside. And you know, I say in my series, John, that I do on my website, I tell people, you know, if you have to live in Babylon, just be a Daniel, be an Esther, you know, be an Ezekiel, you know, you don't necessarily have to exit the community that you're part of. But if you got a living Babylon, don't be a Babylonian. That's really all it is.

You know, a lot of people think we're trying to make everybody leave or this or that or the other not love Jesus, serve Jesus, you know, and you're going to be okay wherever you're at. And just because you're in Babylon, don't mean you're a Babylonian. So anyways, that's, I think that's all for me, John. Well, the only thing that I can add to this that for me, it's significant and I'll try very hard not to tear up. I've mentioned a few times, but I have my cousin to thank largely for what you see here. My cousin, Marcus, who, you know, as I was going through the hardest part of

leaving the cult, he called me every single day to make sure that it did not commit suicide. And he, I asked him one time, why don't you believe William Brannum? Because he didn't. He left the message before I did. And he said, John, I believe the cowboy religion. I've mentioned this a few times. He said, love God, love your neighbors that aren't trying to kill you and be kind to animals. And that was his, that was his religion and his philosophy. And that's, you know, the farther away from the cult, no matter what church you go to, I think that's a pretty good

philosophy because Jesus said the greatest two commandments is love God, love your neighbor as yourself. And you know, that's, that's all he was doing. I'm, I'm deeply saddened with his, with the loss of my cousin. He died, you know, during, it was during COVID, it was, I think it was a year and a half ago. But anyway, everything that you see here, my website, the work that I do, every single thing literally exists because my cousin, Marcus, kept me going, helped literally save my life and nothing that you, not a single thing that you see on my website would exist

without him helping me so I have that, I have him to thank so I wanted to make sure that I pay respect to my cousin who helped me with this but anyway like I said if you've enjoyed what we've done, if you've enjoyed the series please let us know, contact us at www.Williamdashbrandom.org and christiangospelchurch.org stay tuned on the podcast and on the website you'll you'll hear some things it's going to slow way down but you're going to hear some continued work and then here in a few weeks I'm not certain when after after I plan it out there will be something new

and it will be beyond what William Brandham created or it will be something that contributed to the creation of William Brandham but it's going to be like I said it's something completely different so stay tuned for that I will be back. Well ladies and gentlemen I have one question I'll ask it to you John sir is this the sign of the end? Yes my friend this is the sign of the end this is this is the clothes of the series so I um like I say I will be back stay tuned there will be

you you