Shakahola: One Year Later - With Margot Kiser

Hello and welcome to another episode. Of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast, I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and today we have a very special guest, Margot Kaiser, investigative journalist in Kenya.

Margot, it's so good to have you back again, and we are now entering in. It's been one year, the one year anniversary of the Shakahola event. And I thought it would be good to just connect again and talk through and reflect on some of the history that is being made, being written at this time.

And as I understand, they have just started releasing to the families, some of the dead bodies that were buried in the forest. And anyway, I thought it would be good to have you back and welcome back to the show.

Thank you very much, John and Charles. Thank you for having me, and it's great to see you guys face-to-face as it were. Yes, so it's almost the one year anniversary where news began breaking about the exhumation, where the police had gone to Shakahola, and indeed found people crawling around this ranch called Shakahola, emaciated near death and mass graves.

And if it weren't for the coverage of one schoolteacher from Mombasa, whose daughter and family and son-in-law was a GSU officer. So the schoolteacher Francis Juanje was very connected to the security forces in Califi County.

And he actually got people officials to go, he went in there himself and found his family. His two grandsons were already dead, had been suffocated, apparently, by their mother. And the final, I think it was the youngest grandson, no it was the oldest Ephraim.

who survived, and then that led to where we are now, but just imagine, I mean, I was in shock when I heard that 20 bodies had been exhumed, you know, because people had started to death.

And now we're at 429. And counting, apparently the DCI and the pathologist, chief pathologist, reckon there are several hundred more bodies up there, yet to be exhumed. Wow. An Amnesty International repeated that, so just the only, there hasn't been a lot of developments, you can really call it an undevelopment, was that in this whole time that there was supposed to be DNA testing of these bodies to match them to families.

Only 34 had been identified, which is pretty incredible. Another Amnesty, another rights group says only 14. And last week, or actually, I think it was two days ago, Francis Juan J buried his family, and there were only four.

So only four bodies were given back to eight, one family. Is it like a lack of resources from the Kenyan government, you think, that slows that down? I found a nation article that said something about billions of Kenyan shillings being earmarked for a new forensic lab, but that never seemed to happen.

And the government said, or the chief pathologist said that they were missing some of the key ingredients to that process. So why were they missing, I don't know. I can't even imagine being a family and trying to connect with your loved ones who are now deceased and going through that grief and then having to grieve because you can't get the body.

And it's very clear there's more going on here than meets the eye. And as I understand it, we obviously can't talk about it much, but the cults that appear to have some influence appear to be trying to suppress the news from getting out.

So without that being released and without, you know, the trial is still going on. So without that, it's really hard to get new information. But we can sort of piece together a sort of a cult influence hierarchy, as it were, when you understand some of the theologies that is being preached because we have, you know, the whole collection of Paul McKinsey's sermons on YouTube, and they're going through deep studies right now to understand that from a spiritual course rather than a criminal.

I understand from... reading that Paul McKenzie and some of his followers kind of went on a hunger strike when the charges were made, how's that going? Has it preceded? Do they give up? Well, I mean, to me, that seemed like, well, they're not going on a hunger strike now.

I mean, it still baffles me that, you know, it seems he doesn't see the irony and before staging a hunger strike, you know, where he, you know, against his prison conditions when over 400 people died of starvation, but, you know, I guess there's no other way to protest, but that's what he's protesting and he managed to do it.

He succeeded. I don't know how he communicated it, you know, if he's supposed to be at least in jail separated from his followers, you know, how did that message get there in prison? And that was, I think, maybe three weeks ago, but it backfired on him because now the prison officials, they say, okay, I think what happened is that he was being given some special exception to be able to be with his followers in court, because I don't know if you've noticed, but many times they're always talking and conferring and advising.

I've never seen so much chatter in a court. You never see that in the US or anywhere. And I think now that after the strike, that that, you know, against the prison conditions, those privileges have been taken away from him and now, so he had a fit in court after the strike when he couldn't sit with his followers.

He's always shackled to his followers and they're always talking. But now he can't. It is fascinating the level of control that it seems like he must still have over some segment of his followers.

I don't know how it's happening, how, how, you know, when, where he's doing this, you know, certainly in court, they, they talk. In fact, the prison guards, they don't like me talking to Mackenzie, you know, they don't like the Western journalists.

But they're perfectly, perfectly happy to allow all these suspects, murder suspects, sort of talk to each other about everything. So I, I, I have to say the last time I was in court, I, I did notice what I hadn't noticed before and this was in Melindi, that there were, that I had been told that there were quite a few, um, followers standing outside the prison, um, not the prison, the courthouse, kind of like, uh, groupies in a way.

You know, it matches a pattern. I'm working on the manuscript from my next book, and I'm doing a deep dive through the history that built up to what is now labeled as the New Apostolic Reformation or the NAR.

And some of these figures, they're books you can read, such as God's Generals, that brand these people as heroes, but they're doing exactly, maybe not to the same level, but they're doing many of the same things that Paul McKinsey did with his sect. And these are criminal minds, in some cases. In my opinion, they're in slightly a different category than McKinsey.

And even though McKinsey, what he did was horrendous, the ill intent seems to be prevalent in some of these characters before their ministries even started, which puts them in a different category altogether. But one example, there was a cult leader named Frank Sanford in Maine.

And he, like McKinsey, started preaching that the end of the world was coming, sell all you have and give the proceeds to me. Let's build this empire and let's move into this complex, this community and live together. And it's a long, drawn out story, but long story short, after several civil suits, he decided that he was going to purchase a big yacht and take his entire commune around the world, you know, spreading his gospel. And one of the two boats capsized, everybody got one to this, to the more luxurious lot, yacht. And as they came back, they did not

have enough food, supplies, scurvy hit. There were people who died on board because they were starving to death. And it reminded me a lot of the scenes that I saw when I saw McKinsey first time on the news. McKinsey comes out, you can tell clearly that he's living well, he's eating while other people are starving. Well, that same thing happened in Durham when this boat returned. There were people manning the pumps who were so skinned and bones that the newspaper described them as skeletons with flesh. And so they're, you know, they're shocked that the people even survived. Well, then

out walks Frank Sanford, who has been eating, living well, you know, he's, he's clearly not suffering. And he went to prison. And his commune, I think it was 10 years, he was in prison, eight or 10 years.

Well, the people in his sect also, the entire time he's in prison, stayed devoted to him. And his, his cult of personality, I think, still exists today. So there, there are a lot of similarities in the history of, of this movement. Yeah, you know, it, it's amazing because, you know, men like Frank Sanford are in direct line of history to Paul McKinsey, right? He, his, that influence is There's influence that carry specifically into the movement that Paul Mackenzie derived his ideology from and it's possible to connect all those dots and you know I like focusing

in on details that kind of illustrate the level of control and the level of brainwashing and that speaks so much to the power of this ideology to control the people in it and also speaks to how hard it is to wake up because when you're in this ideology you find ways to justify all of this. This is the work of the devil. This is actually government conspiracy.

This is a plot or there's always some way to justify even the most horrendous abuses in order to keep following this ideology and when it gets really extreme like this even to the point they find ways to excuse mass murder really mass deaths in order to continue to adhere to the ideology and it is it's startling and I think that's a strong wake up call really to a lot of the groups that have softer versions of this laterane ideology because this is where it can go when it becomes extreme. I think yeah you know John you sent me an email the other day when

I was asking about what does it mean to forsage everything. I'm still sort of stuck on this trying to figure it out and I think any wrote me there were three paragraphs you know three types of ways that preachers will talk about that one passage in loot and the second was the fundamentalist and the third was the radical and it's interesting because you know I I spend time with Mackenzie's son talking to him a lot about you know life with dad and while he you know he's 22 he spends the very different they don't even look like you I even said give me your DNA sample

I don't think you're your son of your because he's really tall towering a guy and you know Mackenzie's quite diminutive and anyway so I read that that last paragraph you wrote to me to him and he said and I go do you would you describe your father as radical and and he said no and I read him the three paragraphs and and he said yeah the last one that's all I've ever known in even though here's a guy who is not attached as it claims not to have been attached to chuck a hole at all

and yet This is all he knows, and that's literally all that comes out of his mouth when it's fire and brimstone. When I ask him about that worldview, so he's kind of like in one world, you know, a normal person who lives his own life, and yet the tape is still in his head and is so incongruent.

I don't know if that's attaching it all to, maybe I'm talking about how tenacious, you know, I don't like the word brainwashing, but how tenacious the ideology. And to the audience, we're referring to, there was a phrase that seemed to be the theme in Shaka Hola about forsaking all, and they literally forsake all to the point that they forsake the food, and, you know, they were, they died because of it, but that phrase comes from Luke 1433.

So likewise, whosoever, he be of you that forsake if not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. And whenever the question was asked to me, I responded that there, it's really complex to try to understand when you are in a mind control cult.

But to the outside world who's never seen it, there are three clear examples of different directions that, and this can go a thousand directions, but there, there are three most prominent examples when you think about Christianity.

The first would be a pastor in a healthy church who is teaching all things in balance. And if you are overindulging in alcohol, you should forsake the alcohol. If you are, I'm a musician.

If I were to put my guitars above my family, I should forsake my guitars, which, you know, I don't do that. Or take a few away in the background. Exactly. And I, you know, I'm still looking at the catalogs.

There's this fine line I walk between that, right? But then Christian fundamentalism of the early 1900s spread the notion that every phrase in the Bible should be taken literally. And they, a lot of the people were not Bible scholars who promoted this idea.

In fact, they were, some of them were hard set against Bible scholarship. And they didn't realize that even in the ancient language, some phrases were metaphor or some were symbolic. And you can't really do that in the way that they do.

But there are fundamentalist churches that will say that forsake all means you should forsake all of your, quote unquote, worldly possessions and give them to the poor, saving only what you need to live and obviously to give me your ties as your pastor.

I have a family member, well, my grandfather, who... was in the random sect that that was the case. And the minister clearly got obsessed with teaching this. And my grandfather went to him and said, look, man, if I give everything I have to the poor, then I become the poor.

And so I put an end to that. But the third category, which fits so many of these things, right, once they become radicalized with this notion, it is like a train barreling down the tracks and then suddenly there are no tracks.

You don't know what direction it's going to go. And a radicalized fundamentalist who teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially one that's combining all of this with Doomsday theology, the world's about to end, now add that the conspiracy of these cults.

There's a government conspiracy. They're working with Satan, they're out to get us. Let's isolate ourselves. When you add all of these elements to the mixture, then obviously this is a roadmap for disaster. Let me translate this into the loaded language of the cult, John, for our message listeners.

And like Margot, you're probably not going to understand a single word that comes out of my mouth. But if you're from the cult, right, I'm, this will trigger all the programming. So what, Mackenzie's followers believed and what he was teaching them, and we even go through a listen to the transcripts and piece this together.

Mackenzie taught his followers that the week of Daniel started roughly about a year ago, about a year and four months ago, and they believed they had entered the week of Daniel. And so as they're in the week of Daniel, they believed that the national ID system of Kenya was the unveiling of the Mark of the Beast.

Okay, so as this happens, this forsaking all seems to be, Mackenzie has sermons where he preaches the thunders. He calls it the thunderstorm confirmation, but he preaches the thunders. And it seems that he tells them that this, we all got to go to Shaka Hola, we're going to forsake all, and this is the his revelation of the thunders and met.

So this is all a message for I can work theology. And so this is what they're doing in order to obtain what in the message we call rapturing faith so that they can then escape the doomsday.

This really appears to be exactly what has happened. The week of Daniel started, Mark of the Beast appeared, he had the thunders, they went to the Shaka Hola Force, they starved themselves to death, to obtain rapturing faith.

So in message-loaded language, this is what was happening here, okay? And so, and when I see this, and I see him even using a lot of the exact same message language, right, to me this, it scares the pants off me, right?

Because he used message framework, latarane framework to pull this thing off. And it's the same framework that he has used to control the minds of these people even to this day. And... And, you know, when I look, like, for example, why go through the old documents where the message of these things originally went into Kenya?

Like, we have here, September of 1955, is the earliest that I can find the message going into Kenya. At this point, it's still the latter-rain message. Well, the same magazine has, guess what, Jim Jones on page two, and then on page four, we have an invitation from the, let me just read the invitation, I think, from the information minister in Africa who invites the people over.

And the title of the article is the dark continent of Africa is right for revival. And, you know, pictures of the mow-mow concentration camps where they're being invited in. And it says here, and here, I'll just read a paragraph.

As this is the time to work, this is the day. A few days ago, I talked with a government official, this man was the information officer. His occupation is primarily to get the propaganda of the government across to the African people.

He said, today, Africa is right, you can sell them anything. And here goes an amazing statement. Christians, listen, Africa is right, you can sell them anything. And he's basically trying to mobilize the message movement into Kenya to proselytize the message after that government official, more or less invited them in.

And then here, this is the next month. And so, you got Paul. You have, in that magazine I just showed, we had Jim Jones. Okay. Here, the next month, William Brown goes to Germany, this is where he meets Paul Schaefer, the guy who starts colonial dig to dad, okay.

The next cult. And on page two of this one, we have, again, another Africa quote, and here it is, the governor of Kenya colony Africa has written us a letter, and he is inviting them, the governor of Kenya colony, the British government, is inviting them to come to spread this ideology, and they've opened up the Mal-Mal concentration camps for them to preach this stuff in.

And so, it's fascinating how it got into Kenya. When I interviewed Ruth Kahindi, who founded the first Baptist church with Paul McKenzie, I think it was like very late 90s or around 2000. I actually went back to visit her again, and this time her husband was there, and he remembered William Branham from 1959, and in Mombasa, I guess.

Wow. It was introduced in Mombasa as well. Was he at those meetings in 1959? He said he didn't attend, but he was well aware. Wow. So he picked up the ideology perhaps from that early, from 1959.

These are the 50s. This is, yeah. This is when it really... went in in the late mid to late 50. Yeah, 59. So that was pretty specific. And I was amazed. Yeah. That article you held up Charles, that was September 1955, right? September and then October.

So two months in a row. Yeah, those were the two months that the doors were opened by the canyon government to go into the Mal-Mal concentration camps. So here's where this gets really interesting.

The history of the Latter-Rain movement, which was the framework that evidently inspired Paul McKinsey, whether he got it from William Branham or somebody who knew of William Branham's ministry, it was clearly Latter-Rain theology that he was teaching.

And in 1955, right, in 1955, we have some very strange things happening. When Latter-Rain was birthed, it was birthed from two key catalysts. One was William Branham, who had the Doomsday theology. And the other one was a fasting theology. There was a book that got published called Atomic fasting, Atomic Power with God through fasting and prayer, which was written by Franklin Hall.

And these two catalysts were literally what created Latter-Rain movement and eventually the post-World War II healing revival that went globally. And Charles has the book holding up in the video. So you got those two catalysts, but here's where it gets really interesting. So you're, they went into Kenya, September 1955. Well, around July-ish of 1955 or maybe before this, there was a falling out among Latter-Rain because the fasting doctrine had turned into a craze and Franklin Hall had quite frankly just gone nuts. And so there were some strong divisions in Latter-Rain over this. And William Branham openly condemned it. And this is also about the same

time that Jones became a leader in the message cult. And Jones started sponsoring Branham's ministry. He was actually rising to become a key figure in Latter-Rain. And William Branham starts condemning the power thermometer with fasting and prayers. It's unbelievable when you look at it.

It's very Elron Hubbard. Oh yeah, definitely. So William Branham starts condemning the fasting craze. And he introduces this notion that there is instead a god-given fast. And in July of 1955, which is shortly before this is published, he says that there's nothing in the world telling you to fast. And there's no such thing as these men telling you to fast and you lose weight in all this stuff. Instead, there is a god-given fast. And in the god-given fast, you'll be joyous and happy all the time. You won't be hungry.

And there'll be a clear difference. So in other words, you're fasting to achieve this power rather than fasting because some minister told you and When you look at what happened at shock a whole of this is exactly the framework for what they did Let me ask you a follow-up question on On McKenzie's associate pastor just make sure I understand it right because you have done amazing work Marko I am I am in awe of of your investigative journalism like you are a your top notch Thank you I try You haven't you have interviewed so many of the key figures around McKenzie in this trial and and just just to make sure I understand this right so

a man in his 80s who is Essentially Paul McKenzie's associate pastor in his fellowship he Was aware of William Branham from the 50s and when you interviewed him He demonstrated awareness and knowledge of Branham going all the way back to the 50s Is that is that correct assessment? I have it on video Wow, so so we can put that in the pot along with we know they had a mountain of message literature in the commune You know spoken word books We can put that in the same column as we have McKenzie on tape teaching serpent seed and message themes

um, and so we I think we now have a very solid connect the dots way that we can demonstrate how this ideology reached Paul McKenzie You know directly from even just just through this gentleman perhaps so that's very interesting It's weird still because you know even given all of that he still And his family still denies any knowledge of William Branham That but you know to what you just said about the serpent seed um There is something and maybe this is just splitting hairs, but They're you know, they'll say well actually he never preached the sermon seed he just took

um Well, he did preach the sermon seed he did he was on stage doing it um But that you know, I mean this is this is the defense, you know, they're saying they're really really desperate actually trying to um Come up with ways to distance themselves from anything called the big M murder um You know that he never or radicalization He never actually preached much about the serpent seed, but clearly he he did at least once Yeah, um Oh, they'll say Regarding the pamphlets. Oh, you know people stop by our you know shakahala all the time they stop by our church and

flinging pamphlets and booklets and you know, we we accept them, but it doesn't mean anything You've talked with some of the officials and there was a one newsroom port that said from, I believe it was the chief investigator on the scene.

He said that the people were brainwashed with the books of Brannum. Have you encountered anybody who said anything similar to that? You know, I haven't. But it's not easy to get to these officials.

I mean, there were officials that were also saying, talking about organ trafficking, and we haven't seen any sign of that or any more talk of it. However, there is more, I mean, I can probably find out, I'm sure that is part of the prosecution's arsenal for sure, you know, that this was the sort of, I don't know how deeply they've gone into the roots, you know.

But I think, because we won't know until the trial begins. And that, and so they haven't shown their hand at all. However, they are very vocal about the links to the Jesus Christians. And I think that's because of their presence in Kenya, or former presence, and because there was Inbu, you know, and that's that's a big deal when you have Western Influence like that.

What about connections between Brannum and the Jesus Christians? Is there any? Yeah, I wanted to ask about that a little bit too, because as far as direct, not that I know of, but indirect, yes, the Jesus Christians are a split of children of God, and children our God's founder was blessed in his ministry, commissioned by William Brannum.

So there is an indirect link back to William Brannum via David Berg. But I have heard, and maybe you could shed light if this is true or not, I have heard that the Jesus Christians claim to respect William Brannum and have also been sharing his literature with people.

Have you heard that too, or a lot of the way, or have they claimed to that at all? Well, I would think they might, since they're probably a lot more legitimate than the Jesus Christians, I mean, in that regard.

I mean, you know, I don't think voice of God or William Brannum has, you know, the name is not, has not been spoiled in any way, I don't think. It hasn't really come out yet much about William Brannum, it just hasn't, you know, because it's pretty deep, deeply rooted, you know, in the psyche of, let's say, the US.

I mean, it's just pervasive, but I'm not sure, you know, in Kenya, it's not, it's kind of, that's really way back. Yeah. But I think that will be explained that will come out a bit more, I think.

I think if my article had remained online, I think there would have been more interest, but I think it's fascinating why he denies. Maybe that's why he denies having knowledge, because he knew the guy was deeply, Brandon was deeply racist. I don't know.

And he didn't want his constituent errors flocked to no. I don't know. It's all speculation, but... Well, there's a clear separation whenever a splinter group forms. And the way that the latirane movement has evolved over time into all of these other movements today, they grew, they splintered, the splinter's grew, they splintered.

And you have leaders today, like for instance, in America we're having a big scandal right now with Mike Bickle in the International House of Prayer, where there are some allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse, etc. And I even heard that there are claims of human trafficking there too.

I don't know if it's true or not. But you've got all of this going on and you won't find people in that sect who are saying that they are Branamites or they're part of the quote-unquote message.

But there's a clear progression to get there from the message and many of them are teaching message theology. They're part of a broader network called the New Apostolic Reformation and they're all in collaboration. So as these as these theologies evolve, they're kind of working together and against each other at the same time. But you'll find leaders in that movement who will come to Branam's grave and they do what's called grave soaking. They'll literally stand there and get the power from the tombstone, which is in the shape of a pyramid in Branam's case.

It's also weird and odd, but they won't say that their Branamites, however none of their thought theology would exist without Branam and they will give reverence to him. So it could be that there are degrees of separation where some of the rank and fall members aren't aware that that history exists and some of the leaders are fully aware and they teach Branam's doctrines and own some of his material so they can create their own new spiritual revelations, quote-unquote revelations. You know, it's going to exacerbate with the elections coming up, right?

Oh yeah. A proliferate for sure, you know, with all kinds of new groups and but what he's, you know, I noticed it's like it's almost like a cult within a cult and there's like some weird understanding, you know, what you have with Jesus' Christians supporting Mackenzie via that sermon. What is that about? It's like, you know, he basically the government shut him down.

Because of what he was saying about, who do my number? And that's the digital ID system. And he was beginning his journey underground, Mackenzie, and then Jude shows up and does the sermon on stage at the Macombinney Church in Nairobi.

So what is it about these cults that come to the rescue of other cults? And some are speculating now that maybe the Jesus Christians had even a deeper involvement in their support ideologically. I'm told by cult experts that one of the reasons why cults survive and thrive is they do a lot of political lobbying.

You know, it's the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so you'll find two groups that are fully separate from each other, but they'll collaborate on some issue. And some of them are outright lobbying with lobbyists, like, for instance, in Washington, DC here.

But others do sort of a wide sweeping general public lobbying through spiritual, spiritual, you know, lobbying of certain platforms. It looks like that may be what that was, but it's difficult to say without, you know, understanding the full level of connection.

Right. I would say too. There are certain, there's certain political conspiracy theories, maybe not even political, but conspiracy theories, anyway, that are embedded into the root of latering theology. And all of the groups that are descended from this theology all believe in complementary versions of this end of day's conspiracy theory.

And when they see other groups, you know, being persecuted for a shared belief in this common conspiracy theory, they all believe in, they will defend each other, right? Because they believe themselves, oh, this is going to impact us at some point, right?

Like they all, for example, this hump, the national number in Kenya, right? Well, they all believe this. They all believe there's this national number, it's going to be an international number system. And if on Dave, they're going to have to fight it in their country, right?

And so they see it happening in Kenya, and this could be the vanguard of the end of day's conspiracy theory, right? And so there is, there's some desire to head it off or prepare for it, right, wherever it is.

And they'll, they'll collaborate. And then there's also when that happens, an opportunity for them to steal members from each other, you know, hey, we're buddies now. But hey, we've got the truer version of the conspiracy theory end of day's ideology come join us.

And so there's also that aspect of it too, right? When they find somebody who will open a door, it's also a potential recruitment ground for them as they... you know down the road and if that's probably entirely what was going on here is this was somewhere headed towards a recruitment into Jesus Christians or or broadening their base of fellowship right and just didn't work out the way they hoped if that could be because maybe they saw because he had to shut down then they would just take their McKenzie's followers I don't know anything can happen here yeah that's a good point um but they don't have like

cult conventions around the world so it's nothing like that it's all pretty underground right there are conventions actually there are there are there are major yeah they have international conventions we would host them here in Jeffersonville for example yeah and they we would we would bring them in from everywhere we bring them from Africa from Europe from Asia from India South America yeah there is large international conventions where they all join together and yeah that happens I would love to go thanks fascinating they're just not publicly advertised and you know for the most part branamism has slid under the radar for years and purposefully so I'm

sure but whenever they are holding conventions the vast majority of the public has no idea that this is even happening yeah I would say you have to go on the dark web you have to find these things on the dark web well I call the sermons the dark web you just got you got to be really no yeah that's interesting the message community I would say John where I come from and especially back in the older days the convention was what the was the event that your entire year was built around was the conventions and you didn't save up money to go to vacation you saved up money to

go to convention and every and this is how it is and anybody everywhere they'd save their money they would plan their vacations to go to one of these annual conventions where and then all of the internationals would come in and they'd have special speakers and yeah and you know we had to go some of them I know ours would go 10 days and we'd have like three services a day right and so all of the many of the prominent preachers would have opportunities to speak yeah and you'd have the ministers from South Africa and the ministers from Nigeria and the ministers from Norway and the

ministers from Germany and the ministers from the UK and from Canada and Mexico and the Philippines and India and Israel everywhere they would come in and we would have these massive yeah massive conventions and we would do we had three a year in one one major one and I think every every sector the message has something along that line every significant sector every major sector the message John I'm sure you could speak to where you come from better than me John but my sector is definitely that way yeah and the main sector was even stranger because my grandfather

and William Brannum's son and I think one other person spread around the globe that William Brannum was going to rise out of his peer out of his grave on Easter And so for years, on Easter Sunday, everybody would gather, and I clearly remember some of this, because you drive past the church early in the morning, and there was a sunrise service at the grave, you know, with these people expecting him to rise. Well, this over time turned into the Easter meetings they called at a Easter convention. And so everybody in the main sect would flock to

Jeffersonville for this. Was there a point at which, even when you were in the Brannum mode, that you would see other groups acting too much of an erratic way, or, you know, those people are cults like David Burgers. Oh, yeah. And even within the Brannum cult. But we're not.

Well, see, the way this works is it grows and splinters grows and splinters. So you could have two groups. I've seen this in several cities that I've lived in. I grew up in churches from Arizona to South Carolina, everywhere in between. And in most cities that we lived in, there would be two to four different Brannumite churches of which were different splinter groups. And none of them would fellowship with each other. They were completely isolated. And you saw them as the weaker or lesser Christians who didn't have the quote unquote spirit. This ideology is so strange,

isn't it? It's got so many twists and turns to it. Well, if it's that way for you, imagine how it is for me. I mean, I'm still very much in beginning mode. One thing that I get when I ask, you know, Mackenzie's son and maybe even his lawyer,

what possessed, you know, how did he convince all these people to his people to kill their children and then kill themselves? And the answer I always get is spirit, the Holy Spirit. Now that sounds like a really easy thing to say, right? You know, it's a way to distance himself from the crime. But is there any way that might make sense or? We believe that whatever the preacher is saying is the Holy Spirit speaking. So the words coming out of the preacher's mouth is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, so I mean, he can say anything he says

the Holy Spirit in the ideology. Yeah, that's what the preacher preached. It was the Holy Spirit speaking to us, you know, it's an easy get out of jail free card. Exactly. If you trace the spiritual roots of this movement back, you know, through millennia's of time, this all descended from a movement called nastisism and the nastics had their parts of the mystery.

of the ancient religions merged with Christianity and created a mystery version of Christianity, where the elite group, where the only one who has this quote-unquote mystery, it's only given to us and we have the special knowledge, right? Well, these mystery cults developed because they had a version of God that was very demanding, very overbearing, very narcissistic, and they had a lot of fertility cults that birthed all of this type of movement.

And in the fertility cults, they believe that the God is the one who is responsible for allowing the crops to grow, for example. And we have a good year of food because God has blessed us, and then we have a bad year. Our crops had whatever problems drought, etc. The gods were angry with us. Well, over time, when you're in this mindset and you have this God that is not a God of love, it's a very demanding God who will make you suffer. Well, what happens is they start trying to find ways to appease the God. And in the ancient world, they would sacrifice their children

because the blood going into the ground would quote-unquote please the God and the God would bless their crops. So the mindset has existed for millennia, but what's interesting is because you follow this progression from the ancient cults into the modern cults, you can trace that lineage back, and they're doing the exact same thing. They're sacrificing children to the God through starvation in this case. Okay, well, what are you saying? It's pretty profound because I've been wondering that all along. This is some, you know, mass child sacrifice event. Or was it just, you know, a logical

thing to do if your followers want to meet Jesus before the end of the world? Well, you know, these children are sort of in the way. In my opinion, it's a combination of a lot of things. That is part of it, but you have to understand that the cults are very complex in their theology because nothing is black or white. Everything is very, very gray. In other words, most of the theology you're not going to find it in the Bible because it's not. Exactly. They want you to, one of the phrases that I grew up with was you have to read between the lines of the Bible. In other words, there's this

extrabiblical mystery that you have to know. So when the mystery comes as very vague and it's from a completely different narcissistic God that isn't written in the text, well, suddenly you realize that this mystery can go any direction and that's what happened here. Depending on who you are in the cult, your perception is going to be different too, right? Well, the leader,

it might just be all the evil plot in his mind, right? But the people, they really, a lot of, they really believe. You know, they really think I'm doing this thing to get the rapturing faith. I'm doing this thing to escape the doomsday.

I'm doing this thing to save my eternal soul, so I don't burn up in hell for, you know, so they they look at it like that. This is what I'm doing. I'm saving myself by starving myself, right? And so from their respect, they really believe that it's a salvation thing, but now is is the leaders and the people who taught them that true believers, right?

That kind of gets to be an open question. They could be true believers. They could be out of their gourd and taught them that stuff, or they really could be some evil plot in their mind. And it's it's so hard to know because you just can't get in their mind, but but the average rank and file person, I to do this, they really believe we are at the doomsday.

This is my only hope of salvation is to take this really radical step. And if I don't, if I do not take this really radical step, sheer, horrorful, horrific destruction, fire and brimstone things await me, right?

And that is what then compels them into this really radical step in it. It cycles. It gets more radical, more radical, more radical until over time, it can get so radical that these sort of things that we see happen in Chakahola come to pass.

And then that now, Mackenzie, site Gaza, you know, I mean, that's a perfect example of apocalypse. About the lips now. Yeah, or almost anyway. No, but I wanted to ask quickly, you know, the Holy Ghost thing or the Holy Spirit.

How does where is that? Where do the thunders fit there? Well, in message theology, in this varies from sect of the message, but William Brannum set up the belief. And this, this also comes out of Nosticism and originates in the teachings of Jane Leed and it transmitted into the latter reign movement through British years, relights and specifically Charles Price into the latter reign movement.

But they had the belief that at the end of days, the seven seals would be opened. And the seventh seal contains the revelation of the seven thunders and they believe that the understanding what these the secret hidden mystery, there's something in there that nobody knows what it is.

It could be anything, right? It could be any command. It could be any mystery. It could be anything. But whenever that mystery is revealed, that will then give you the ability to ascend to heaven in a glorified body and be raptured, transformed into a glorified state in this ideology.

And so when you talk about the thunders in the context of this ideology, it's the thing that empowers you to become glorified, either through rapture or here on earth, whatever it is, and it transforms you into immortality.

So the thunders is the key to reach the final state. And so when the thunders come, whatever that is, and it's generally believed it's some sort of an instruction, that mystery will then carry you over to the final end.

Now, there's the message in the laterary movement fights tooth and nail over what these things are, right? And from one sec to the other, William Branham just kind of left it as a mystery.

He never actually said, this is it. And so it leaves some of these groups in a place where their new cult leader can insert whatever he wants. And this final instruction is the thunder to get you over to the doomsday.

There's a whole sect of the cult built on this cult. We call them the thunders. And they believe William Branham sermon, the stature, the perfect man, for example, was the revelation of the thunders.

So they chase their entire life trying to obtain whatever this thing is, because this is the thing that will then get them through the doomsday. But do you get it from the Holy Spirit?

Or? Well, the Holy Spirit is what told the preacher to tell you what it was. I see. OK. The Holy Spirit unveiled the mystery to the preacher who then gave the mystery to you.

Maybe that was the fasting to death then. Precisely. That's what I think, yeah. It's a clear example of what I said of reading between the lions, because that comes from Revelation 10 and the Bible.

It's the seven thunders. And so they're saying, read between the lions. And we, whatever it is that's our agenda that we push. And in this case, it was a hunger strike for God. That is written in between the lions.

Yeah. They can fill in the blank with anything they want there. That's what makes that so scary when they get radicalized. And especially when they hold those views of the thunders, the preacher can literally insert anything he wants.

And if he has convinced you, you've reached the doomsday. If you believe you've reached the doomsday, the preacher can tell you anything, and you will do anything. Because that is the only way to escape.

They did, and group after group have did this. There's actually all kinds of sex of the message did this. But this is the only one that says, go up to the forest and fast, right?

Until you get it. It's usually, it's not that radical. Yes, it's not that radical. And so then when it don't work out, well, OK, we were wrong. Let's reset and do another cycle, right?

And that's what would typically happen. When the doomsday don't come, oh, we were wrong. We got to recalculate. Let's reset our numbers. Let's figure it out again. And the cycle starts again. But when you do something really radical like this, the cycle can't happen again because you killed all your people, right?

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me that why anybody would do that. I mean, because your congregation is dead. And he must have known, you know, is that the police would come and get him.

How did he not think that through? I have to think either he will either he mentally cracked or more likely this is not half this is not the first time this has happened they've cycled through this repeatedly and they radicalize with each one and in each time the pattern is through these groups every time the cycle happens the next one's more radical and more radical and more radical and more red and becomes increasingly destructive with each cycle yeah and I suspect that's what's happened yeah because they invest so much they think well why quit now let's just you know try harder

next time where do you see this going you know I mean do you think that he may be acquitted because you know the lack of evidence they can't really pin murder there's no physical direct evidence to nail McKenzie maybe manslaughter I don't know but and then how would that work you know how do you manage these so-called doomed state cults you know I mean it seems pretty obvious they're dangerous like you say the laws in the United States are obviously different from Kenya but in the example I gave earlier Frank Sanford they could not try him under

criminal law for what happened in the United States but because they were on a boat they were able to try him for nautical law he as a captain did not fulfill his duties as a captain and that as I understand it that's how he got caught but there were others who had far worse and far more deadly examples John Alexander Dowey who's a he was a contemporary who also is in this lineage of succession to Laterane in fact he's probably the one that Laterane was molded after there were hundreds of people who died after moving into his faith healing homes they would

sell all their possessions and give Dowey all the proceeds and that they would move in these shacks that were in shambles that were quote unquote hospitals where they would be healed by faith and people were dying and at night they would take them out you know from the undertaker they would drive the wagon and take them out of these buildings with so many people were dying but he was not a doctor he was practicing not quite a hospital it was a religious thing it wasn't a medical thing so they had a huge trouble trying to convict him and he went through I don't know

how many is like 200 different trials they're trying to find something to nail him with and in the end I don't think they ever really nailed him for anything yeah I sure hope that they can do something because clearly this man is so dangerous and he has so much control over his followers that they will die for him I mean they will die on command for him Which is incredibly dangerous and if he gets out Something like this will probably happen again. I mean if it won't happen again while he's in jail telling them just, you know, do hunger strike and

You know, I would hope in America if nothing else. I mean it's illegal to bury Gray, you know There's some technicality they could be able to put you away for something You know illegal burials or refailing to report to the health department something And yeah, and and the worst thing though is if he still lives in jail like think of Charles Manson He control his followers from jail, right?

And he is still a cult leader controlling people from jail So unless they get him in a place where they totally cut off his ability to communicate with the outside world he will control his cult and And God only knows what he could get them to do, right?

In scenarios, depending on how crazy they are, you know, how under this control they are I have I know for a fact that he's definitely not isolated Uh, and she won't let out these these definitely not

So he may even make some new Um, get some new recruits Um, I think they could be prison guards themselves I Really appreciate you sharing all of your information with us Margo and and being uh Having access to someone who has interviewed so many people around McKenzie has just been a Wonderful troll of information and the insight you have provided is fantastic So thank you so much for being willing to share with us Of course, and thank you guys so much For helping me along the way. This is a world. I really didn't know and I don't know that I would have done

Without your help. So thank you for your Your insights as well Thank you very much for joining us and it is a complicated world to understand for sure Um, I think like Charles and I unless you lived it It's it's really it'll take years to wrap your mind around even the basics the fundamentals and it's so much more Complex than even the fundamentals, but thank you for joining us Yeah, it was like Chinese, but now it's becoming more a little bit more comprehensible I I prefer to use the language Klingon, but you know Anyway, if you enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on the web

You can find us at William dashbranum.org and Christian gospel church.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

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