Our Stories: The IHOP Scandal - An Interview With Awen Dunning

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Alwyn Dunning, advocate for former members of IHOP. Alwyn is so good to have you on here. We have chatted for I don't know how many weeks it's probably months now after the scandal broke at IHOP and you and I have been sort of connecting all of the pieces of the puzzle. In our historical podcast Charles and I had discussed the history of how Branhamism became

the you know the Kansas City Fellowship, Kansas City Profits, etc. We didn't really go too deep with that and most of my research personally had stopped around 1970-ish. So Charles had much of that research and I'm just now diving into that. So it was so good to connect with you and to get some of the history from the inside of you know some of what's going on. I had no idea but you've given me so many pieces to the puzzle. I think I'm up to 200 approximately research requests and some of the things that you've sent me of additions that I

have to put on my website which I'm currently going through but anyway welcome and maybe you could tell everyone a little bit about yourself. Well thanks for having me. Yeah so you know it's been a long time since I personally bumped up with IHOP about 23 years actually so very early on we moved on. We've done without offense or bitterness didn't leave because of you know anything that went on but man a lot has happened in 25 years over there so yeah. Yeah it's quite an unusual history. I was I think just last night I had started putting the

final pieces on my article for the angel the alleged quote unquote angel that was supposed to have came down on the scene and created the Kansas City prophets and it was a it was a bit comical for me because I remember years ago my family escaped in January of 2012 from the Brannemism cult and one of the first things that I did was examine the angel because Brannem claimed that there was an angel on the plate form with him everywhere he went and he would talk to this angel, he would even pray to this angel

as if the angel was Jesus. And in some cases he said the angel was Jesus. So I started lining up every single thing that was said about this angel and it's like a ping pong ball bouncing in a room filled with mouse traps because sometimes angels Jesus, sometimes he's got a turbine, sometimes he's got a beard, sometimes clean shaven. All of these different variations of the quote unquote angel, none of which can really go together. And I started examining this angel Emma that they called and you had given me this research and it's just unbelievable to continue

the same story from Brannemism into IHOP through Paul Cain, Brannem's protege and the same story but with a different name. Yeah, I mean, you know, you hear these stories when you're really young and you haven't established critical thinking I guess or maturity enough and so this indoctrination happens and it seems perfectly normal that all of these things are happening. And I think it's done quite sneaky. You know, Paul Cain never said from the stage, I have an angel standing next to me but what happened is a very well-known international speaker who shall not be named. You know, he

will go and tell 100 people don't tell anybody and then everybody knows because of course everybody tells 15 people and then millions of people know that Paul Cain is on a stage and an angel talks to him.

So, you know, Bob Jones was the one that created this Emma persona if you will, this angel and then it became very invoked that if anybody wanted to have a stage or, you know, be the next prophet of the apostle or whatever, they would have good olema show up and she was something.

Yeah, the Emma story is quite unusual but, you know, as you and I have been communicating through emails back and forth, I was a little surprised at how much of Brannemism was carried forward into this movement. Obviously, if you take the two groups of people and compare them from the surface, you're going to say that these are two different groups of people, two different ideologies, etc.

But that's just the physical appearance, right? Because the Brannem cult is stuck in the 1950s. They want the 50s hairstyles, dress code, Pentecostal, holiness, etc. And then IHOP has progressed from that visually when you look at them. But you get down to the underlying framework, you've got the manifested sons of God, you've got Joel's army, you've got all of the things that William Brannem either created or helped create, along with other men, carried forward into this through Paul Cain and others. And like I said, I was just really surprised to see the the the similarities

between all of this. Yeah, I mean, you have to remember that, you know, for the people that spoke into our lives. I mean, we by and large get our doctrines and indoctrination from the guys with microphones, right?

Couple of women. And, you know, we are fed the steady diet of God's generals and all these great men of faith. And so revivalism is a really big thing. And there's this constant grandstanding and staging of these people who have gone before us.

And, you know, the mantle of this person and that person, and so Brandon was this person who, as it was disclosed to us, was this thing to attain to. And thousands and thousands and thousands of healings and, you know, all these types of things.

And he went off a little bit at the end, you know? And so that's what you believe. And, you know, we hold John G. Lake and all of these guys in this high esteem.

And somebody actually sent me your link, because, you know, we're all passing it around right now. Now, I just powered through. I mean, I think I listened to over 110 of those things in a short period of time.

And, you know, I'm just in my house walking around listening. And I'm like, it's like it's the same world superimposed, just modernized. The number of things, encounters, stage personas, doctrines, forerunner, all this different thing.

And I just thought the main leader, you know, in this movement is very, very similar, actually, to William Random. And you can see the key players in all these different movements. And it was almost like free falling for a while.

Like, don't take all of our heroes, you know? And, but it's very settling at the end, because what I really feel like is you see all this rocked. You see authoritarian control. You see what these offices of prophets and apostles do and the abuse and the lack of critical thinking and you see rotten fruit.

And then you start tracing it up the branch and then you go down to the root and you see that it all makes sense. Like, everything snaps together and you begin to realize that you have been programmed, that you've been indoctrinated.

And you have these abuse scenarios and you'll leave somewhere and you go find yourself in another one. And another one, because you just think, oh, this is a bad person. This is an anointed person or godly person that just was tempted by Satan and they fell or something, not recognizing that it's an ecosystem of abuse and hierarchy and power and control and quite tainted.

Of course, there's really good people in there. There's really good people trying to serve. There's a lot of people doing the best that they can with what they have. But it is system wide that there is rot.

Absolutely, it's, you know, I get accused a lot of being a Pentecostal hater and because my website, if you type in any person. and on my website, you're going to find all the critical information.

And yet there were, like you said, some really good people mixed in with the bad. And what I have tried to do on my website and through my podcast is just basically create a counterbalance to the God's general's nonsense.

If you read through some of those stories, it's like they have purposefully avoided all of the bad things and only published the good. So I thought, well, why not just do the same thing from the opposite side on my website.

But there are some really good people in it. And it reminds me, I don't know if you've played this game, but my family has this game called Django where you've got these box and you pull a block out and you stack it on top.

Well, in my set, we've played it so much there's this one block that is just really, really bad. And if it's at the bottom and everything gets built on top of it, that one block is going to cause the whole thing to crumble.

And so you want to, as you're playing, you want to make sure that that block gets moved higher and higher as you go. Well, it's like these men knew some of these bad guys were involved, but didn't take the bad block out.

They, instead, they just built their stack on top of it. And the problem with this is they built theology and called that theology a movement, quote, inspired by God, but they're building on a very bad thing.

And the moment in which that bad thing gets exposed or, like you said, there's abuse and all kinds of other bad fruit, the moment in which the bad fruit traces back to that, they just leave it there and keep building on top of it.

Yeah. There's this narrative to redeem everything. You know, I mean, there's this, you know, well-known international leader right now that's facing multiple allegations and, you know, you know, very credible accusations. And, you know, there's people that are like, you know, let's keep the prophetic history.

Let's, you know, dig through his teachings and find, you know, the redemptive things. And it's like, you know, why would you go to a dirty sister and, you know, take buckets of water out of that thing and keep drinking it, you know, I mean, it's like, move over to a well, you know, that's clean water.

And so that's some of the things that were very similar to me in terms of, you know, you talk about Brannum, how he created a stage persona. We very much have that in this world, you know, especially with this particular leader, this David persona, this prophetic history of, you know, 12 hours of, you know, mandatory listening for people.

I mean, I've heard it. I could tell you a lot of it in story form, 12 hours of it. And I haven't listened to it for 20-something years. And so it's, you know, audible voice of God and, you know, Archangel encounters, you know, with Angel, Archangel Michael and, you know, going to heaven and all these things.

And it's like, you know, how do you argue with that? Right? You know when the God card is thrown and so it pulls people into this narrative where they're they're living and Giving themselves into the story that is you know so much bigger than themselves and You know like I said earlier. There's a lot that has really gone downhill Since I've been there when I began talking to folks Because I've been so far removed from it for so long I honestly thought at first surely they're exaggerating a little bit You know just your own mind can't comprehend some of the things that they're saying because

You know there were checks and balances in at place when I was at Metro Which was you know the church that was originally founded before IHOP KC happened and It was okay to have different views on eschatology in terms of how you know is the world gonna end There was you know governing board there were there were People that could bring accountability and then when you know Folks leave and start this thing. There's no checks and balances and there's one way that it's gonna be and it's Doomsday prophecy. It's this group of people that have to live this aesthetic lifestyle

they've got to pray enough fast enough perfect enough and It is their job to Release the judgments of God on the earth through prayer and worship that they're gonna break seals and trumpets and you know all the things and It is their job to actually call back the return of the Lord and when he comes back He is not happy. He is going to slice off the heads with swords of heads of state and His you know righteous ones are gonna join with him and exact vengeance and destruction and death on the earth I I can't even imagine being a teenager and sitting under hours and hours and hours of this type of

What I'm gonna call psychological abuse and fear and you know race wars and rapes and you know mothers need to to prepare themselves by picturing their children being martyred in advance and the number of people that have left that place that Experience labor abuse that's working 60 80 hours of you know weak without food living in poverty living, you know 10 people in a home, you know somebody's bedroom as a closet and somebody else is you know bedroom living on you know porches You you look at this mass destruction and you just you know I never had the ability to trace it back

to where it came from And and I have been able to do it in the last six months and it's a lot of work to do that I can say that from experience You know, it's what's really weird is it is branumism 2.0 when you really take it down to its basic elements.

I grew up, you know, Branemism, he died in 1965 and the cult is stuck in this mindset of the 50s and 60s. So I grew up with the communist scare of the 50s and 60s.

That's how we were trained and indoctrinated. I was told that the Russians would come over and they would rape the women on the shores and they would, basically the Fox book of martyrs was a nice propaganda book that they used to recommend that we read, but they said that will happen again to the Christians and I was raised with stories how they would tie the arms and legs to two elephants and this ripped people apart.

And my own mother told me it was a curse to be beautiful because you'd be one of the first women that would be raped by the Russians. And then, you know, the rapture theology has changed between Branemism and what's coming out of IHOP.

But in Branem's version, then we would come back and we would be the ones to slice off the heads. We were the, Branem would use the word judge, but he would also mingle that phrase with cannon fodder et cetera and talk about how, you know, there would be a race war.

There would be all of these things that you're talking about. There would be a super race that we were part of and we would come back and quote unquote, judge the bad guys of Christianity and non-Christianity.

So I grew up with all of this and the problem for it, like you said, it is abuse. It's psychological abuse. It was, we've linked it to Nixon. It was psychological warfare that Nixon was telling the full gospel businessman to enact in their meetings and to learn that this comes through to IHOP is just unbelievable, to break the ice for all the listeners because everybody knows who we're talking about.

This, we're talking specifically about the allegations against Mike Bickle and I'm no attorney. I have no idea whether he did or did not do the things that was said. I will give my opinion, no legal judgment whatsoever because that's his business, not mine.

But we're discussing our opinion of Mike Bickle and to clear the ear, that is who we're talking about. Might be helpful just to share a little bit of my journey in story with him.

I strangely enough, I don't know if I told you this, but through listening to your whole podcast, I recognized and realized that my mom was raised in a splinter group of the message. And that is a whole story where she flat at 18 years old

and was very much not raised in the church. I have a salvation experience and immediately come to Mike Bickle's church and did a discipleship program left for two years, came back to do an internship.

at a ministry that was under their covering. It was a ministry that was founded out of Metro. And Mike was this larger than life person who lived this radical lifestyle unlike anything I had ever seen.

And all I knew was that I wanted to be that, to think like that, to act like that. There was power to be had because I guess God likes that. And he loves this radical intimacy and the way to get that and to get these deep revelation that no one else could get that meant this very fasted lifestyle of hours of prayer and going without food and getting oil and all of these stories.

And so he began coming into our ministry and showing a lot of attention there. Right after that, I got an invitation from Jane Doe 1 to begin spending time with three of us together.

And we spent hours together. I thought that it was this divine favor on my life at the time of this international leader who knows millions of people that he would focus in on us and spend hours with us, discipling us, answering our questions, mentoring us into the deep things of God, introducing us to bridal mysticism, the mystics.

But what was happening was that I had a front row C to the premeditated, detailed, thought out

grooming of one of my best friends. And allegedly, you can look at all the articles that Julie Royce has put out in others and you can see where that story is. But she ended up in an apartment alone.

I salated her eating control, her time controlled who she could talk to, who she could not. And according to those stories, she was told that his wife was gonna die and God had told him that she would be his future wife.

This is not the only woman who experienced this story. It's just incredible, the things that the Jane Doe's are saying. And I mean, anybody who wants to look it up, you can look up the news.

It's, again, it's not. It's my opinion, it's not we're saying that he actually did these things. But there are enough people that, if you take the biblical mouth of two or three witnesses, what is said by the witnesses is substantial and the things that are being done.

But for me, it's even more problematic when you trace it back through the history because this is nothing new in this movement. You can trace it back and you can see entire groups of young men being groomed for far worse than even what Mike Pickle has been doing.

And it was all swept under the rug, under the brannemism and my grandfather. father probably knew, I can't say for sure that he did, but there were a lot of people in leadership that knew these things were going on and I came to know at least five major instances so far where there were serious crimes being committed and I can identify the names of people who knew it, but they covered it up and then what happened is people like Paul Cane who is until his death, he was still a message, a random message believer.

I have a, there's a video clip, I think I've got it on my website, but you can see him right before his death saying that we need to let the people know who William Brannum truly was and he's saying this to the leader, I think it's a day star, some one of the NAR organizations, but these men were Brannumites through and through and many of them, such as Paul Cane, knew exactly the things that were going on, swept it under the rug and then allowed it to continue and we're seeing today the fruits of what happened by letting it continue.

Absolutely, you or Charles made a statement one time that he said, you know, blackmail is the mutual glue that holds this thing together and I will say absolutely it's true, there's a whole lot more going on than what the public even knows.

I mean, it's a small percentage of the story and it feels like a lot already of what's going on and you know, certainly people didn't know, but certainly people have known. And you know, one leader within this thing called it the golden ticket.

If you knew what was going on, you had the golden ticket because you had job security and favor and everything else and so what they're doing in the name of Jesus sometimes is just it'll keep you up at night.

I have spoken with other members of splinter groups who have escaped who were in high ranking positions and it's not just the the dirt that they have on one another in leadership. One person in particular knew exactly where the file cabinets were that they had actual big files on people who were just lay members of the church, you know, people who were filling the pews and they had information about them and they wanted that information because they've got the quote unquote discernment or the spiritual insight from angels or visions or whatnot and they can say, I know that you did X, Y and Z, well, they've got a file on

it already and they know that these people did X, Y and Z. One person who escaped told me that it was so blatantly obvious because this person had published some thing that was happening in their life on Facebook and the quote unquote prophet came out and said, now God has given me a vision that you have done exactly what you just posted on Facebook and so they're like, I'm out.

This guy's a fruit cake and they left, but they do the same thing among leaders because there's a lot of power in holding one of those files over somebody's head and saying, if you step out of line, and I start losing money because you're stepping out of line, everything I have in this file cabinet is going public.

Yeah, we have a little more digital version of those things going on, but I can assure you those things are going on. What's interesting to me is, when, let's just talk about Paul Payne for a second.

So there's this folklore, right? That was around him. And he's got an angel that talks directly to him. You're trying to conceptualize what that would even be like to have this obeying, giving him secret information from heaven.

And he used to do awful things, like call up people sins and who were having affairs and rebuked people publicly. And then he came into this time of repentance over that and it was only going to be good things.

And so you watch him work this room. And of course, you think it's all real at the time. So he's getting names or middle names or birth dates or addresses. And it's maybe 10 different people who get a word and everybody's on the edge of their seat, hoping it's them.

And it kind of works like two pieces of information, nobody else would know. And then something big about that's going to happen in their life. And it's always these big grandiose things, or revival in Seattle or birthing apostles or something, very narcissistic typically.

And so what happened actually to me when I was 22 was I signed up for this conference that was at Metro, which was Mike's church. And I ended up getting called out of town to go preach.

So when I returned, I am told you got a word from Paul Cain. Now, the interesting part about this story is that I have no proof of this, but I had sat down with Mike Pickle and I had told him a couple of things about my childhood.

And I had told him I had a dream to have a ministry like Jackie Pullinger. And what do you know? This word from Paul Cain is a couple of things for my childhood. You have a dream to have a ministry like Jackie Pullinger.

You will have this. And then the next part is, I'm not giving you a controlling word, but you'll have a heart of singleness. And it's this whole thing of kind of setting the stage for this conversation about being set aside as celibate, which is a very big deal within this movement.

There's this, you know, a set, like this extra call for those who will do extended seasons of consecration or celibacy. And you know, the backstory on that is that there's actually a lot of abuse that happens in those scenarios when you can isolate people into those places, living alone, et cetera.

So what happens? is we end up having all of these conversations around celibacy because of this work that I was given. And I ended up leaving Kansas City going away. Interestingly enough, the celibacy thing didn't take.

17 months later, I returned with a husband. And I end up years go by. And of course, this word never comes to fruition. And I have children. I don't want a ministry like Jackie Pullinger.

I don't want to go take my children and live with triad gang members and in opium dens. But this thing settles over your life with this expectation. And I never once, in a million years, have I ever doubted marrying my husband or the life that we have had together.

I've done everything that I could ever do to follow God. And what it led me into was being a mom and starting and running businesses. But I always had this thing around me that I needed to live this really big life and kind of make up for this thing that I never allowed God to do in my life in years past.

And I struggle with disappointment, disillusionment, and dread over this thing. And what do you know? We end up becoming very dear friends with a person who was Paul Kane's assistant. He's now passed. And we get discussing this around a fire one night.

And he begins to tell me that Paul manufactured a lot of his prophetic words. And I find out over the course of time through different folks that knew Paul very well that he had dozens of phone books in his garage.

And for three or four days before an event, I'd get a list of names of people that were going to be there to pray over them and hear from the Lord. And he would disappear, lock the door with those phone books, et cetera.

And he would also get fed information from folks so that he could go up and do his stage show. And it was, I'm embarrassed to say, about 10 years ago, only, that I found out that this word was manufactured.

And not only are these things to create the big show, create the razzle dazzle, and get everybody all excited. For me in that situation, it is my opinion that it was a setup to have conversations around the concept of extended seasons of consecration and coming in and being a worker clone or drone within the House of Prayer.

And I grew up in the cult royalty, I call it. I was in the upper tier of the Pyramid structure of a cult, my grandfather being the pastor of the Brandham Tabernacle. I get to win.

That's a lot of things that people didn't. And at the time, I really didn't think through it. It wasn't until after I left and started deprogramming and realizing that, no, manipulating people's minds is probably a bad thing.

But I grew up in the upper echelons where you could see this happening. You could, you know, one of the tactics they use is they will get somebody's guard down. They'll open up as a very friendly conversation, get them to turn off critical thought, and then you suggestion to suggest that there's some spiritual inside.

And the eyes get big of the people they're talking to and they, you know, they can wreak havoc with their minds and do whatever they want. Paul Cain called me and see, I grew up like this.

And when people tried to do it to me, I would always fight it off. I would either play naive, which I'm actually very good at doing, or I would just turn it back at him.

So whenever they're trying to play this game with me, I just don't play the game, you know, I throw it back in their face. Well, Paul Cain called me and did this. And I really didn't think about it while he was talking to me.

It wasn't until after, you know, we had a few conversations, it wasn't until after that that I realized, wait a minute, he was trying to do this to me. I think he was trying to give me some sort of spiritual inside on what he wanted me to do.

And especially now that you combine this with his instructions to, I think it's Chris Reed that he's saying, we need to go help show who William Brannum truly is, right? It was about that same time frame that Paul Cain was calling me.

And I'm so used to it, I just played naive. And he started talking and doing his thing to get in my head. And he was clearly frustrated at how naive I was. But then I would turn it around with a question.

And my questions, you can't see it, but I've got four, five, sometimes six monitors going at the same time. So I've got information while I'm talking to people and I can look things up.

It's like the bat computer, right? Well, as he's talking to me and I've got all this information up, I can pull up questions that I can ask him, whatever I want. And one of the things I had up was his article where he did the apology over his drunkenness, his sexual immorality, et cetera.

I just ask him about it and threw him totally off balance to the extent he actually denied and rejected all of it. He said, no, that never happened to me. I was never like that.

And I'm looking at his apology, right? So I threw him off balance, but I was able to get some good insights, not all of which I have yet publicly said, but he clearly was a brand of might through and through and he clearly had mastered the techniques that were done by the leaders.

My grandfather included, Grandpa was good at manipulating the heads. I watched him do it, but... so wrong when you think about doing this to a person and you know I'm trying to put myself in your shoes if you were under that and they were trying to if they were trying to groom you you know we don't know what was going on but say that that was the case I can't imagine what it would be like to be in that position. Why there's a lot of words that could be used right now um you know there

there's a swirl in a confusion there's you know it's it's evil it is evil to make up prophetic words it is not the first time I've seen it happen um I was in a ministry you know uh that actually was you know the one that was under metric where prophetic words were made up to control folks and so you know nothing surprises me but it's interesting how long it takes to kind of deprogram to the point where you recognize and realize things for what it is but I can assure you the stories about Paul can are much worse than the public knows there are more survivors than most folks know

it is a very deep and dark hole and those that knew for very long periods of time what was going on and allowed it to happen because there's a lot of mutual gain that happens um when those things go on you know Paul always he would not do his little show you know the prophetic stuff unless he was allowed to preach and you know it was interesting to me because I didn't know him you know early on right I mean I think the first time I ever heard him speak would have been like 94 and uh he rambled and he babbled it was very uh hard to follow you know come to find out he was

very drunk um but it was always you know Joel too um and it was always you know stadiums filled and then you know these stories of working with you know the government or CIA or this or that and so you're you know the whole time you're just trying to put it all together but a lot of these other prophetic grifters um they actually um are a little more sophisticated and put together than that and what's diabolical about it is that they do preach with it so you have these you know very emotional you know worship experiences that kind of prepares the place and all this anticipation

and lore that's going on about you know who it is that's about to whatever so they they give all of these prophetic words and you know like you said the guards just go down but what happens is these same men that's sometimes women that hold these microphones you you're so vulnerable and open and what they do is the heresies start coming and the views and the thoughts because of course this certain man of God has this special link to heaven and in all these encounters you know maybe Elijah himself is visiting him and you know the cloud of witnesses are you know giving him insights

from heaven or something and you're you're taking in hookline and sinker these teachings that are actually not that are false teachings, that really have nothing to do with the cross of Jesus Christ. And it begins leaking.

And so it's a very, you know, it's the show. It gets the money. It gets, you know, the people excited and hitting the feeder bar and showing up. But it also introduces these very dangerous thoughts and beliefs that causes just so much havoc.

So it's a very tricky sinister show. It is. In the Joel 2, everybody who's familiar with our manifest sons of God research, this is the Joel's army. This is the manifestation of the sons of God.

This was the framework for what William Brannum used to empower leaders to wreak havoc with the minds of others. And Paul Cain was very open about his work with CIA FBI, these government entities.

He was also very open that William Brannum is the one who sent him to Germany. And he was proud of this fact. In fact, he mentioned it on both, on two of the phone calls that I had with him.

He mentioned that he was the proxy that Brannum sent to Germany. And at that time, I was unaware of the whole colonial dignidad research. I don't know if you've studied that yet or not.

But it's unbelievable. And when you consider the exact nature of Paul Cain's crimes and compare that to what was going on with the boys in colonial dignidad, it raises a lot of questions. It really does.

And again, these men, they love blackmail to each other, the leadership. You have to wonder how much Paul Cain confided in the other leaders about what had happened and what was currently happening. That was currently, at that time, currently going on, if I remember the history correct.

Because these men would have known, at least to some limited extent, what Paul Cain was talking about. I had no idea because I'd never heard the name colonial dignidad. But you go back in the era in which he's setting up the Kansas City prophets.

You had big news reports coming out of Chile that had made international news up into Canada sometimes. So there had to be some elements of knowledge being passed around. But we may never know how far that goes and what they all knew.

For sure. I will say that in our movement in terms of what those teachings ended up doing was we certainly had the hierarchy, the offices. You know, as a side note, I believe, you know, like the early church folks, you know, for century church, that there are gifts.

I think that they are to serve one another, were to submit one to another that this top down hierarchy abuse of power thing is a no. I don't know. I mean, I guess we know how we got here.

But I see these teachings, we go back to Alice Bailey, we go back to Jane Lee, very, very dangerous, very evil stuff that was plagiarized and melded into the church. But it's like a virus.

And I see that from Branum down through Cain, down through Bob Jones and others, it's mutated. So you can look at these different camps, and you can see, oh, this is what the mutation ended up looking like here.

This is what the mutation ended up looking like at IHA. But in terms of manifest sense of God, that was never a term that would be used. Jim Jones kind of killed that one a little bit.

You know, we didn't ever want to talk about a little bit of like, you know, it was this thing that happened a really long time ago. And you almost can't place it in history in your mind to realize like this was not that long ago.

But how it mutated in the overall charismatic movement, I would say, is that it was like a generation of Joel's army. It was a generation of Elijah's that we would have the ability to perform signs and wonders and control weather.

And you know, recently one of the leaders at IHAF apparently said, you know, control the moon. And that doesn't surprise me a bit because of the number of things that I have heard over the years.

And so, you know, you've got this group of people. And, you know, there was the sands of time Bob Jones prophecy, right? That, you know, the best DNA was stored up and that, you know, it was born in my generation and that we were going to, you know, see, you know, many things much greater than what, you know, Jesus had ever done.

And it's an interesting thing because there's a lot of pressure on people's lives, a lot of weirdness. But then you mix it with these ideas of a lot of works, a lot of fasting, a lot of prayer.

And so people are hungry, tired, worn out, spending hours in this room, you know, no windows, certain frequencies of music, certain decibels of music, hours and hours and hours and the amount of folks that have come out of that.

And of course you don't realize when you're in it, right? You're kind of trained. Everybody out there is bad and they're after us and they're after a mandate and our call. But when you get out, you look back and you realize that you were undergoing brain damage and heart damage and life damage and that you, you know, this thing took the place of family.

This thing took the place of anything resulting in normal, of course, normal is bad. And isolated you from everything and to the point where nothing is more important than these folks than keeping the fire burning on the altar, which is non-stop prayer and worship.

Oh yeah. And it, even though it's evolved and has a different name. The whole framework of manifest sons of God, like you said, Jim Jones kind of put a scar on that, but they took the same theology, the same framework, they morphed it, it became, I think it was the Southern poverty law is the one that exposed it as Joel's army, and they traced it all the way back through William Brannum, you can find the article online, but at that time it was made popular by another semi-crazy guy.

I put him in the same category as Paul Cain, but the Todd Bentley character, who was working with Mike Bickle at the same time, this was a nationally publicized movement, they wanted to create Joel's army, but it was manifested sons of God, just rebranded, and not even a unique rebranding, because back in the early late 40s, they called it Joel's army at that time as well.

Paul Cain was instrumental in taking the key elements of Laterane, the ones that were the most destructive, and then carrying it forward, rebranding it, repackaging it, giving it to new leadership. For me, the most fascinating thing of all of this, you mentioned dynasticism, the spiritualism, the mysticism, all of these key elements you see, what's fascinating to me is that these men are claiming to be Christian, but they're picking and choosing these ideas that are clearly not, because they find them more appealing to the itching years, and they'll mix it in with their sermons, where, you know, in today's world, we have so much information,

this is the information age, we could pick good guys with good sound theology and bring that forward. Why did they pick all of these, all of the bad guys, you know, the people who are opposing Christianity, why did they choose those?

You know, I've done a lot of study into cult mind control, high control environments, and, you know, there's a lot of science behind this thing actually, and what it does to the brain, and, you know, dopamine, and different chemicals released in your body, and to the point where it can become an addiction, these emotions, feelings, experiences, and so, you know, when people leave these types of groups, they typically crash.

I mean, first of all, most of these guys within I have just need a very long nap for a very long time, so sunshine, some foods rest, you know, but it's because you're, you're withdrawing almost from this drug, and I think that there's a lot to be said in that, you know, chasing down, when you, when you start tasting gnosticism, you, you get a hunger for those types of things, and you want to go deeper and deeper and deeper into secret knowledge, and there's more to be had.

And there's just nothing practical that matters, you know, caring for the physical body, work, leaving a legacy, I mean, why leave a legacy of Jesus is coming back, you know, any minute, you know, kind of thing too.

And so it's this whole lifestyle. it gets wrapped up into it and you can justify it, you can rationalize it, and you don't even realize till you're out of it that you lived in this swirl of arrested development. A lot of people that have however long you've been in, that's probably the age you kind of stopped growing at if you will, and there's just a lot of work to be done. What has even sound? What's up? What's down? I mean, you almost have to kind of a friend of mine has this, you know, this visual of like, you know,

everything you own is out on the lawn in a giant yard sale, you know, and you've got to kind of, oh no, we're keeping that, you know, I guess we're keeping that, and you know, for us, personally, we had to go back to like Jesus, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, was God always has been God died on the crossroads again. I mean, I was like, that's all I know for sure. And because we had gone from place to place to place, and again, they have their little, you know, mutations, if you will, of what these things look like. But they're so darn similar

that you began to question everything. You began to question Jesus. And what I really found at the end of the day is that is not Jesus that you have heard about. There are certainly, you know, godly, wonderful human beings that love Jesus within innocence, within all of these, these worlds for sure. But the, the nastisism, the odd and strange things that are taught, the meanness of God. No, that's not Jesus. No, they give it the name Jesus, but whatever it is that they're selling. In Brannum's case, he said the angel was Jesus. So you've got the Jesus

angel. And that's what they promoted. But whatever they're selling is not the Jesus of the Bible. I can assure you that. And, you know, you're talking about the process after you leave a cult.

That is really difficult going through that. What do you, what do you keep? What do you leave? And I had this conversation recently with somebody. For those of us that were raised in it, there was a period of time in which your childhood is bliss and you're raised and you're happy and the cult is a happy thing and you have friends, family, you love everything that you're, you love your life. And then there's this point of time in which you become fully indoctrinated and fully under the mind control. And as I was just last week at this conversation, you,

you almost stop mental development at that point because your indoctrination has taken over your mind, your body. And whenever you leave, it's as though your, you know, for some people, they became that indoctrinated around age 16. Will they act like a 16-year-old, all of a sudden when they leave? Because that's what they've gone back to. The whole rest of that was cult identity. And when you remove it, you're left with a 16-year-old and an adult body. And Now you have the challenge of, well now I have to learn everything that everybody else has learned from age 16 to some people are one guy that I was helping out. I think he was in his late 70s.

So imagine that from 16 to age 70, that's it's a lifetime, right? And then the most difficult thing especially for those that stay Christian is you learn, it wasn't just that they taught you the wrong Jesus but they taught you a different Bible, they taught you a different religion and you have to deconstruct all of that when you're done with the deconstruction process, now you have to reconstruct and what do you reconstruct because every single thing that you knew could be false and you have to weed out well what did they teach me that was wrong or what do I understand through the

cult lens instead of what it actually says, it is such a challenge. Well it is the hardest work you will ever do. I think there's times that people will feel like they're crazy, you know? I know I have at times. I think it's almost like, you know, if you think about it again as a virus, it's in every cell of your body, every cell you are infected and you don't even realize that when you read the Bible that you're seeing it through this fundamental charismatic lens and the stripping away of that of what does this really mean? What does this really say?

What does this really mean about life? And then, you know, you're dealing with all the things of like during all that time I wasn't building a resume. I have no marketable skills if you will and starting an entire life from scratch with complex trauma is something that's really daunting.

I have no idea the number of bodies behind the bus in this situation and I daily interface with a lot of these folks and have seen a ton of their stories. And of course, you know, it's very much this thing of when people leave, there's a shunning or just, you know, we're too busy. This is our world. We don't have any greater time for you. But they are viewed as, you know, offensive, Jezebel, Woke, you know, all of these different things, regardless of what their beliefs are or where they have landed. There are plenty of people who have fully deconstructed

the faith. And this may sound strange to you. I 100% understand it when people, the only thing they ever knew was that, you know what? I don't want it either. They are the most resilient, kind, giving people who have worked so hard in every area of their life to put their lives back together. I see them acting sometimes more Christian than Christians, you know, raising funds for survivors and fighting for survivors and giving their voice to something. They've been crying out in the streets for a really long time and no one was listening. And so I've seen them put down their offenses towards,

you know, former leaders. They're still working through that because no one's hands are clean that we're leading in any capacity there to some extent or another, right? And work alongside of folks that maybe even hurt them for a common cause knowing that at the end of the day, more people are going to be helped, saved, restored. So it's a really interesting situation, I guess, a culture of deconstructed folks, people that still hold on to their faith, sometimes very, you know, folks that are very fresh out of this world that haven't even begun deprogramming to see everybody coming together in this

one voice and try to figure it out is unbelievable. And of course, many of the people that left this world years ago, they've been taking refugees, you know, that have crawled out on their knees. This isn't their first rodeo helping people out. So I mean, they're helping people with resumes and finding jobs.

And it is the most beautiful community of people that is, you know, very human at the same time. Yeah, there's a lot of good in people and people helping people who are who have escaped. And it's an overwhelming task. So there needs to be a lot of people helping people. And it's a never ending job if you're involved in it. So well, this has been so much fun. If you had one thing that you could say to somebody who has been manipulated and indoctrinated to believe in a fictional stage persona, you know, similar to what I came out of with branimism, it's

the same. It's the same exact framework, same exact religion. What would you say to people who have been under that type of spell? Give it time. Don't join something else right away. Get a, you know, spiritual trauma therapist as soon as you possibly can find some books, read, you know, overcoming cult mind control is a really good one by Dr. Steve Hassan. I think one of the most helpful things for me was listening to your podcast actually because my brain was able to do the work specifically about Mike Bickel by unraveling the purse, the stage persona of who William Brannum was. I could see so many

similarities. Of course, it was a more sophisticated modern version of that. But the moment that the mask came off in terms of recognizing this man that even years after I left, I respected cared for. I thought he was good. I thought he was confused, very dedicated. But I still have this level of respect for him because of his.

an erosity, his very simple living on the outside, which is not at all true behind the scenes financially, right? According to what folks are saying, but he lives in a duplex, he drives an old car, he wears Costco shirts and old loafers, and he's extremely, I mean, he bought me a car once.

And you live emotionally indebted towards the graciousness of this human being that lives this certain way. And suddenly, you have to come to terms with the reality that maybe everything was actually a front.

Maybe, just maybe, this person isn't as good as you were led to believe. And when that comes down and you are able to look around and recognize that every conversation, in my opinion, that I ever had with him, was a grooming, leading presentation of what he wanted me to think about him, what he wanted me to think about other people, how he wanted me to react, how he was setting me up for the future if I ever heard about a scandal that I would have a story ready inside already, that when he made different lose with Jane Doe,

I would be prepared that they're totally acceptable. And not a problem, when that comes down,

honestly, I think it's when the healing begins, it really is. Absolutely. And it all comes down to this. If you can engage critical thought, you can avoid this type of thing happening to you.

And in the mainstream churches that are healthy churches, you can find these websites that talk about the marks of a healthy church, how you can determine it's a healthy church. Well, even in a healthy church, turn on critical thought, because you don't know it may be healthy at the time you, and your family decide to start going there, but people are people, and they have people problems.

And you may get into a situation where it transitions to an unhealthy church. And as long as you're engaging critical thought, you can avoid all of the problems that go with this. But this has been so much fun.

I'm so glad to have you on here and to talk about all of these things. Like I said, it's, you've given me so much information that I'm still processing that I think it will turn into either videos or pages on the website for weeks to come.

And thank you so much for doing this. Absolutely. I really appreciate you having me. John, thank you so much for all the work that you have done in Charles and others. And I just want you to know how much healing it's bringing to a community of people.

We're passing this stuff around, and the light bulbs are turning on. So I know it's a sacrifice of what you guys have done. I really want to say thank you. Well, thank you. I'm glad it is helping people.

If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on The web you can find us at William-Branham.org. For an overview of the historical research of William-Branham in the Healing Revivals, read preacher behind the white hoods, a critical examination of William-Branham and his message, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.