Escaping the NAR: An Interview With Adam Short

Video 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 with me I have my very special guest, Adam Short, former member of the NAR.

Adam, it's so good to have you on here today. We've talked about having you on to talk about all things in a R, and you have some connections to all kinds of various groups that just fascinate me because as I begin to explore all these connections from what we call the NAR today, back through the timeline into what I came out of, I'm learning more and more, and literally I'm seeing each movement seems to be like a replica of the former movement, and they tweak it just a little bit to make it appealing to the itching ears,

and then a new concept is formed and a new network in the NAR emerges. So, glad to have you on so you can talk through your experiences in all of these, and I thought maybe it'd be good if you just told a little bit about yourself and your connection to all of this.

Sure, thanks, John, great to be here, appreciate all you're doing, and came across your podcast, I think just through the IHOP scandal that a lot of us have been following, so that's been hugely informative because I, like, many people was pumped, full of William Brannum, I guess now you can call it indoctrination, right, from many years ago, and so this is still very fresh news for me to learn the nasty history behind William Brannum, so I've learned a lot from your content, and then others that have been on your show, so, just a little bit about me,

so my wife and I formerly, I guess you could say extricated or de-churchified, about 13 years ago, and I could just say for me personally, that was after having spent about, gosh, the bulk of my adult life in churches that are now called NAR, which I honestly have not even heard that term, until recently, which is seemingly a common thing, and I've heard other people say, I don't even know if the NAR or the AR is, I was one of those people, only to find out that 13 years later, after leaving, some of these movies,

that that's all lumped into the NAR movement and I actually had no idea. So I'm learning a lot about what we were a part of but we belong to for many years. Ever since I got saved in a pretty dramatic encounter with the Lord back in 1998, that's when I met the Lord.

And so it's been a long, long journey to say the least. And so this IHOP scandal that hit back in October of 2023 became really personal to me because I did live in Kansas City in the early 2000s and was a part of Metro Christian Fellowship which is the Church of Mike.

Started used to be Kansas City Fellowship, Kansas City Vineyard and then evolved to Metro Christian Fellowship. So there are a lot of common threads between Metro and IHOP because of the Common Foundership and then was informally connected to IHOP and very influenced by them for many years. So there's a lot I can share about just other involvement with a couple other key churches there but yeah that's a little bit about me. Very eager to continue learning but also we my wife and I are also very eager to share more about our stories soon publicly.

Awesome. I'd like to talk to her as well whenever we get a chance but what you said reminded me of myself. So I grew up in the Brandham callton. We were so isolated that we believed it was like all calls. It was the elite. You were the only ones but even further than that we were somewhat suppressed in our knowledge of how it formed to the extent we didn't realize that there were hundreds of ministers in this big revival and we thought that William Brandham was the central figure to reign above all of them not knowing he was just one of you know many but we also were

not told like you say that you didn't recognize the the NAR until after you left. I had no idea what Christian identity was even though this was a Christian identity movement based on British Israelism and other themes I just heard that term in the news and when you hear it in the news it's usually with the extremists that have had some sort of climactic event and so you picture guns and rifles and a standoff and not realizing it no this was actually a doctrine that many of these guys believed and the doctrine was the foundation that bore the fruits that you see in the

news and that concept was very very difficult in the same way that the NAR is a framework that bears some fruits that you see in the pseudo political realm today it's the similarities are are very close to each other but the NAR developed because of latarine and then they all referent to William Brannum as their quote unquote God's Generals.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, and to your point about God's Generals, I mean, that's a pretty charged sort of label or moniker as it were, especially having come from deep involvement in Bethel, because I was actually part time staff at Bethel for a while, went through all three years of BSSM, which is this school's supernatural ministry. And one of them, we actually still have these, and I, you know, have debated whether the throne will weigh the blue, you know, the blue, you probably know these backwards in front, but the blue books about William Brannum, they're like,

I could grab some off the shelf if you'd like. Yeah, so we still have those in our house and, you know, flashing back to Bethel when, and then also God's Generals, but where, I mean, literally this guy walked on water, you know, and you look at the threat, the common thread, we never, I mean, we heard he ended badly, like we were told at Bethel that he ended badly, but then we weren't to throw out all of the good stuff that was sort of prior to that. And, and so you look, you look at that, and then you look

at, let's watch how Bethel is handling the Bickle scandal, let's watch how I hop this handling, the Bickle scandal post Bickle supposedly separating from, you know, from my, let's look at Morningstar, how they've handled it, let's look at Charisma Magazine, and so many other organizations.

And they're doing the same thing, they're like, let's, let's keep the good stuff if there is any good stuff. And I mean, that's, I don't even think if is it appropriate more. I think we've all, anybody with a brain can now, the reason for this is that like, there's nothing good left.

Like, I mean, we have to throw all of this out. We can't even keep, you know, to, to compare to the way of branding. We can't keep just because there were miracle signs of wonders that people point to, and I know you debunked that in your podcast, that does a substantiate or validate that God did any of it, right? And so those are the kinds of things that many of us are wrestling with on Twitter every day. It's like, how, what do we keep, what do we not keep, what do we throw out? And then how do I interpret that? Or, I don't even know if that's where I

were, but how, how, what do I do about my own experience with God? Right? Because I think a lot of people have said, okay, let's just throw the whole thing out. I'm walking away from my faith, completely, I don't even believe that the Bible's true anymore. I do, personally, I'm just saying, there are a lot of people who have kind of that conclusion, which, and I don't fault them for that, right? Like, when you've gone through something to that degree of severity.

Yeah, that probably sounds reasonable to just throw the whole thing out, right? Anyway, it's a thread that you pull and you keep pulling and pretty soon it's like the whole house is crashing down.

Yeah, it's very difficult to go through the deconstruction and I remember going through it, there's a part of your make-up, your internal make-up that wants to cling to something and say, well, something I had was true.

And so you keep holding on to these things and you realize that those things were built upon other things that were false. And so you wipe that layer off and you just keep wiping away layers until it really does feel a lot of people mistake what they've deconstructed as atheism because they have had a false god all of those years.

At the end of it, you have deconstructed a false god so you have no god and some people get stuck right there. They don't reconstruct or they don't, you know, it's a lot of effort to rebuild your entire life that you have just washed away with fiction.

And I remember I came to the point, there were things that William Brandham said that were good, I'm not going to discredit those, but they all had this twist to them. And if you took it for what he said, it was usually a twist towards some agenda.

And so if you kept that in your mind, you're literally upholding the framework that's bad. And I think one of, there was just a handful of things I kept and one of them was he said over and over that he liked to baptize his pancakes and syrup.

I don't fault the man for that, actually. That's the way you eat a pancake, man. Right. What was an example of something you decided to keep, and that's it. So that's your, that's the big punch line right?

That's the big punch line right? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, you know, there were some good religious things too. But the problem is, when you deconstruct from a religious cult, if you hang on to any single thing that was religious, there could be some deception embedded in it.

And I kept, I for years, I tried to hold on to something that I had. And there were things like now after having started reconstruction, I'm nowhere even close to ending it. But having restarted to reconstruct my life, there are things that he said that probably match where I am today.

But if I make the error of choosing what he said, it could also bring some of that false foundation. So there came a point, it was about 2000, maybe 14-ish, maybe 2015. I wiped a slate completely empty, completely blank.

In my, in my heart, I said, okay, I'm going to pretend as of today that I've never heard the name Jesus. I've never heard about Christianity. Tell me more. I started meeting with local pastors and we started talking through, you know, and other Christians too, we started talking, what are the basics, the basic concept of Christianity?

And I'll admit fully that that's difficult because depending on which person you talk to and what is their background, you're gonna get vastly different answers. And so in the end, I kind of ignored all that as well and okay, what does the Bible say?

And I just started there, I read it over and over and probably 10, 15 times lost count, but covered to cover, I just started over. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, it's kind of where you come to.

And I'm so used to, I should say this way, I'm so unused to or not used to going to church now. Like I, the only time, I mean, am I saying this publicly? The only time that I go to church now is to go to our sons, our son goes to a private Christian school and they do end of year programs, like beginning and end of your program, but it's a Presbyterian church.

And you have to know how refreshing it is to actually step in as somebody like me who is a recovering former hypercarsomatic to step into a Presbyterian church is so refreshing. Because you get somebody up there that prays a 15-second prayer.

It's like, oh wow, you're not asking me to work up this manufactured faith of some sort and come in and like with blood sweat and tears and run down to the altar. And oh, by the way, while we're at it, let's heal a few people which I still believe in all that stuff.

I still believe in healing miracles, but like you, you go through so many years of watching this stuff getting hyped up and then used as notches on the belt to sort of say that I've made it as a Christian, like I've seen the death field.

You know, the death here's open, the blind eyes open, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you step into like a regular playing Jane Presbyterian church that's made praise for five seconds, it's just so refreshing.

But I'm like of the opinion, like put everything on the chopping block, nothing is off the table. And I'm with you, like whatever the perspective is, I wanna hear it. I wanna hear somebody's perspective, especially if it's a survivor of abuse, what they have to say, and I'll include myself in that, because I'm a survivor, whatever they are we have to say, it needs to be heard.

However that fits into somebody's theology because it's a real person's experience of how they were damaged. So I assist them like this. Yeah. And that's really why I do the format that I do.

I don't care who you are. I've had people who are atheist on here. I've had all kinds of different faiths and some actually pretty weird beliefs. But I just don't focus on that because I can learn from everyone.

And they all have an experience. And there's a reason why they have turned out the way that they have. And people need to hear that reason. So that's the reason for the format. But I do tell the people who are in the support groups just, you know, same stage you're going through right now.

It's difficult to go to church. There comes a point after you have been under spiritual abuse and religious abuse that you have to take a step away from the abusers. In the same way, if you were, if you were under spousal abuse, well, if you go to a counselor, they're not going to tell you to immediately enter the dating scene because every, if you're a female, every man that you meet is a potential danger to you and you're going to have that in the back of your head until you heal.

There are people who get so triggered by church, but they were whipped in the charismatic world to believe, forsake yourself not together through, to assemble together for the reading of scripture, for example, they beat you in the head with that, but they don't tell you the other half of that 99% of the people who that verse applied to couldn't read.

So if they didn't gather together, they couldn't hear the Bible. And even as that verse was written, the Bible didn't exist. And the Bible form, you know, centuries later. So I tell them to take it slowly, the thing that the, the really destructive thing that these charismatic movements have implanted in our heads is this false sense of urgency.

It has to happen now. You're going to miss it. If it doesn't happen today, it's going to happen tomorrow. That's the first thing you have to recover from when you escape because you have this urgency to get back in the church and you make mistakes and some people get re-victimized because they'll join another call, have to get rid of the urgency.

Oh, 100% it's, and you know, and I've not done the deep dive, I think that you have in this, but you're looking at this nice and narrow theology, the, the dominion is now like it has to happen now, right?

There, you know, by this time tomorrow, everything will change. I mean, after I've heard that line more times, I can count it, Bethel. So it's like, you're standing in your spot, you're hearing this message right now in this building.

And unless you make the decision to respond to this now word, then it's phoma, fear of missing out. You're going to miss it. What are you going to miss? You're going to miss, you're going to get derailed in your destiny, right?

You're going to miss the next latest and greatest of joining. You're going to miss a prophetic word. Oh, and by the way, you're not going to impact the world like you were destined to do.

So it's like this compound. Snowball that frickin' just lambashed you and you get that time and time and time again and I've been out of it for 13 years But as I talk about it, it's just as fresh as it was yesterday like I mean my wife and I've been deconstructing since 20 What 2011 we started deconstructing in 2011 and And so before it became a fad right right now. It's like really popular deconstruct But we've been doing this for a while. It's not you know, we have been out church for a long time And so but it's still like such a multilayered long process

It's intellectual. It's emotional. It's spiritual. It's relational. It's financial It covers the gamut the entire gamut So and so it's not a quick process as you know No, well, I mean picture your average person who grew up in a quote-unquote normal church Whatever that means to the listener who's listening You grew up under certain things that were concepts that you had to learn before you could learn the next concept and each Similar to what the way the way you deconstruct you take off layer by layer by layer Well, these people have had some of them 30 years to build up the layers of true foundation

While we just tore down false foundations. So You can't even really expect to be even close to them for 20 30 years But because there's that sense of urgency people dive into it and they try to reconstruct quickly and in my opinion There's danger in doing that and there's a whole lot of spiritual leaders that see it as this Open field or opportunity to gain new converts to Christianity. I think they need to take a step back and understand what is Deconstruction and reconstruction. Yeah, I love that you know, it seems like they're more own people talking about

Reconstruction and I think blazing Christina for a Who and they become one of the sort of You know influencers in the eye-op scandal. They've really done a great job of speaking out and helping people walk through it But they've talked about reconstructing and I love what they've shared And and that that is going to look different for each person, right?

I mean some people choose to deconstruct and they don't reconstruct and it's like look I'm throwing everything out and I just want to start a new life and Believe something different and you know what? That's the beauty of being a human is you can do that. You can just make that decision I think for me personally It it's not quite as simple because The deconstruction process has been very very layered and long-term but for me With that it's not just deconstruction. It's I'm you know worried working with therapists, working with other people that I trust to help me unpack and

heal from this and like I'm pursuing that and it's, it takes a while. So it's not just a matter of hey, I'm going to throw out what I used to believe. It's like, no, I have trauma.

I actually have trauma that I'm navigating through painful trauma and relational, relational breakouts that you have and there's just a lot of loss that goes on behind the scenes. I think that's, that's more and more talked about now than it was before, but it's still very much, I think, a nascent concept that, that there's a lot more going on than what makes the eye in the individual person's life. Yeah. It's a lot of work to have to go through that because you have to relearn everything and you start from scratch. At least I started from scratch and you know, there's this, the other problem that I see with the carous

mania is that the God that they have presented, like I said, it's a false God. So you're tearing down this false God, but he's a very domineering narcissistic personality, you know, whip you into shape and whip you into shape right now or you're going to be doomed to hell. He's that kind of God. And so when people reconstruct a lot of times, they struggle to understand what is the God of the Bible. And worse than that, the God that the carous mania has taught you is really powerless because if you were an atheist and you go astray, the salvation

is on your shoulders not on gods. Whereas if you believe the Christian God and he's all powerful all knowing, I'm close friends with several people who have left the cult and they have chosen to be atheist because who am I to say that 20 years from now, 30 years from now, God doesn't lead them back into God. You know what I'm saying? If God is the powerful God that the Bible speaks of, we have to believe that that's going to be the case. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, it's the age old, probably the oldest theological debate in

the book, right, between, you know, is God sovereign or do we have free will? And we're said by an area in the way we look at things in Western culture, you know, it's in their honor off one or zeroes, you know, everything's digital zeroes and ones. And but, but isn't it both? Don't we have a free will and isn't God also like if you believe in God, isn't he also? I don't know. I don't know what your word is, but isn't powerful. Yeah. I mean, I wonder that myself like what are all the things that don't happen every day that could

have happened that were bad. Like think about it. Like, and I don't understand why some people get into a car accident in rush hour and other people don't. Like I'm thankful I didn't get one on the way to my office today, but all that stuff comes in play when you try to figure out what life means because yeah we have a free will we think, but then when you've been pumped with this belief like you said that it all wrestles my shoulders like this is all about that the depth of the well of faith that I have to engage God to pull him

down right so and then we're going to we're going to release and manifest heaven on earth yeah

but when you take that theology when you take that belief system to the ends degree you end up with what's going on at Reading right now Reading California where Bethel is they are literally infiltrating city council and I'm all for you know being a light in the darkness but they've taken to the point where they're in city council they use the convention center for their events in the school their their fingers are literally and everything real estate they just massive you know real estate investments they have a huge influence on the local real estate market so all these things are

outworkings and believing that it's our responsibility to like bring this dominion to earth yeah and you know what it reminds me of John it reminds me of things I've read about the the crusades back in you know back what was that like around a thousand they did or so ish it's very similar yeah I had the conversation the other day with a therapist and we were talking about the version of religion that these guys are touting is completely overturned by the thief on the cross this guy didn't believe Jesus his whole life he wasn't a convert he didn't have that

sense of urgency and Jesus said today you'll be with me in paradise how can you apply that to the theology that comes out of cares mania you simply can't and to your point about the car wreck so there are things I don't share them often because I I strongly keep my personal journey away from the podcast I don't want the public to know I don't want them to follow me or my religion or anything I'm not a pastor anything like this but one of the things that I did overturn which I will say this publicly is that the car wreck thing so some people die in a car wreck and they're

good Christians other people who are atheist drive the same street and they live through it how can you how can you answer this we'll see the cares mania and latirania have taught such a false version of god that it became a rabbit's foot god if you stayed in the staying and you rubbed a little rabbit's foot god he's gonna protect you when you drive down the street or I was with one person and they they were trying to find a parking place and literally zoomed into the parking place and cut some family off that we're getting

ready to turn in there. And then bowed down and said, Oh, Lord, thank you for giving me this parking place so close. My back hurts. And I'm like, come on, you just cut that person off. They they have invented a new God. And it is a rabbit's foot God. And if you rub it, then you get some sort of a miracle.

It's so true. Oh my gosh, it's so true. Your analogy about the rabbit's foot, you know, what my wife and I have talked about is the the lottery God, like the slot machine. Yeah.

I was just actually, it's funny. I was on the phone two nights ago with an old friend of mine who used to be at Bethel. We hadn't talked in years. And we were kind of unpacking and talking through for like two hours about Jeffal stuff. And and that's one of the things you're talking about is like, like, if you really bullet down, like, there's a slot machine, I pull the slot machine for it to, you know, to get healed. I pull the slot machine for financial blessing. Okay. I'm going to pull the slot machine for what else did I miss?

The perfect spouse. Like pull that slot machine. Like and so this ends up becoming this very me centered ecosystem where whatever I won't out of the slot machine, I pull it. So here's the problem though. What if you pull the slot machine and you don't get triple sevens? Yeah. What if you end up with triple six? You know, it's it's this big religion of a casino, right? But there is one difference. You get an apostle there that's going to kick the slot machine and try to make it come out in your favor. Yeah. Or or or maybe they tell

you know, you're reading the numbers wrong. You're actually the numbers actually say triple seven sister visions batters. So but but like it's it's true though. Like that's the that's that's really the practical outworking. And I'm going to count it. And so now I I go back and I think in my brain, the offering deck. I don't know. Have you ever heard of the Bethel offering declaration before? I've not heard. So there's a lot of financial language in there. Okay. So in some of this stuff, every Sunday you're saying, you know, raises and bonuses, estates and inheritances, rebates and returns, checks in the mail, gifts

and surprises, debts paid off, blessings and increase. These are the things that like I even remember today so well because it's in great in my head. I'm an accountant by profession. And here's the here's the thing though. Here's my my objection to the offering declaration. If you want to raise in a bonus, you're probably going to have to add more value to your employer to get a raise in a bonus. It's not this slot machine that I pull or Oh, by the way, a state's inheritance. You know, it has to happen for somebody to, for you to have an estate and inheritance.

Somebody has to die. So the answer we're doing is, during your offering, you're declaring and hoping that people are going to die so you inherit their money. Like, on the battlefield, just get your brain for a second and think about that.

That's the kind of stuff that we're told is the gospel. And I'm not saying God can't bless people and, you know, do financial miracles, of course. But like, when that becomes the norm, you're setting people up for a disaster.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org.

On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen McCummery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.

And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

It's so wrong. And whether it's the rabbit's foot gotter, I'm going to use that for now on the slot machine. In the irony, if you've studied my podcast, the irony is that all of this started in a casino in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Are you serious? Yeah, Branham was, you can go back, I can't remember what episode it was, but this whole thing started because Branham and his family lived on a casino and they owned the grounds at a casino.

And they were producing liquor for Al Capone and the mob. Oh, yes. Okay, I did listen to that piece. Yeah, so the irony, this is more of a slot machine religion than it was, but see the faith healing aspect, that was pure rabbit's foot.

Because if you believe that you went into the saying, you could rub the foot and you know, I knew people who suffered tremendously through their life until they died, believing that and confessing that they had been healed.

So they're rubbing a rabbit's foot that did nothing, but still giving reverence to the rabbit's foot their whole lives. And you know, part of my journey out, which I also talked very little about, but I had a family member who was suffering very, very much with cancer.

And the rabbit's foot god just simply did not work and it's, it's horrific what they put in your head. And to the final. You know, that's a very sad story, but you're right for the financial aspect.

They want you to give them money and pretend that you're going to get some back by pulling the slot machine, but who's the one who rakes in all the money? It's the casinos. Totally.

It's, so it's actuarial science, you know, if you want to go in and research that, that's what it is. There would be no viable business model for a casino or even an insurance company, for example, a life insurance company.

The only reason that makes sense is because the probability of a payout is lower than the probability of a pay-in. And so you're absolutely right. The casinos, most of the time, probably what, nine out of ten times, I don't know what the statistic is.

They're going to end up ahead because they're taking in more money than they are giving out. And you're right. It's like the churches are now structured where all the money flows to the top.

And the honor culture is a manifestation of that, I think. I think that, and how much of that came from Brandham? I mean, what, I mean, was there this honor culture in the Brandham organizations where it's like all the deference, all of the respect, all of the, really, everything just flows up that pyramid to the top?

Was that something that was pushed down from Brandham into laterane and then now into our charismatic movements, or was that something that they added later? Well, it was a collaboration. So I'm working on my manuscript from my next book, which is on the NAR, which does cover Brandham history.

But remember, there were hundreds of these men. And there wasn't just one movement that combined to create the NAR. Some of these were the Christian businessman. So you being accountant, you'll understand, when you turn religion into a business, there's a lot of money that can be made in it.

So you had the Christian businessman that formed. You also had the chapter that I'm working on right now, I'm talking through the, or writing through the Fellowship International. This is one of the most covert and deceptive espionage aspects of the NAR today.

There was a gentleman who ran it, I think, into a 2017ish named Doug Coe. They referred to this as, yeah, so they referred to this as the family, yeah, the quote unquote family. Well, he was referred to as the Godfather because their family literally controlled everything and not just simply in religion, also in politics.

People like Hillary Clinton were involved in the family and they kept secrets. So the congressman that they're grooming could go into these houses and sleep around with other women and they all kept it secret.

Actually, that's how the family became accepted. Exposed so that they could have this this what is it 20 2022 documentary? I think it was 2009 there were several congressmen that got caught going to the houses owned by the family and sleeping around with With strange women and it all got exposed But the godfather cap it up as a secret and once you're part of the family You're part of the family we keep your secrets But the moment you leave you become at risk because just like them off you we you have you once you're a member

You're always a member basically and so that's just one aspect. There were numerous groups that merged to form the NAR some of them like this that had espionage and networks globally into politics religion military everything else So and you know I've heard bits and pieces You know mainly on Twitter, and I think you talked about it too. You're one of your last episodes maybe with all and Related to Palcane and his involvement with the CIA And I forgot the name of the program was a stargate or something like that And I mean there are people who have first-hand knowledge about this on Twitter

I won't name any names But who who have actually spoken of Palcane about this? And I know you spoke of Palcane too But like was that is that a part of This family or is that just kind of extension of it or You know, what was that? I mean how did he get into that How was he invited into that was he part of the family to or was that some separate?

Yes, so this Well first all I answer the first part of the question stargate is one of my favorite movies of all time And it was this excellent TV series if you haven't seen it. That's completely separate from Palcane But um anyway, so This this edge is very close to conspiracy theory Which I avoid and I don't put on my website had it not actually been documented. I would never have put it on my website But there was a organization. It was a black ops government organization and it was It was called MK Ultra. I believe was the official code name

Yeah, so these guys working with the government they were trying to covertly Stop outside of the public vote. They were being commissioned to stop what they believed to be a Uprising of people with black skin So when you consider the ladder rain and all of the Christian identity folk that were in this that was their number one mission to stop the people with black skin So Unfortunately, we don't have a document linking them directly to random what we do have Whenever this was discovered that the government was doing this they burned and destroyed every single document just shredded everything

But they missed an entire room of 10,000 documents. So that's how we know that this existed. And they did things like they commissioned the sanctioning of people to go spread LSD on the streets to black people.

So the black people could get, they believe that they would become so doped up that there wouldn't be the civil war that they felt was imminent. So anyway, there's a movie out there, it's a terrible movie, but it's called Men Who Stare at Goats.

George Clooney's in at Brad Pitt and has all the makings of a good movie, but it will bore the heck out of you. They had covert operatives within this organization who were doing things like staring at goats to see if they could control the goat's mind.

So when you consider everything that they were doing, even if we don't have documentation, you had these faith healers that were claiming that they could see visions and prophesy and control people, which the government noticed, hey, there's this whole group of cares mania that are actually controlling the minds.

Can we weaponize this? So they make some sense, but can you just sort of invite some of those? Exactly. And influencers in like Paul Kane. Yeah. I discovered it by accident because there was a claim that Jim Jones was in this thing, which I've talked to the heads of the Jonestown Institute.

They say it's very unlikely. So I have to go by their assessment, but I can assure you that naming the people that were connected to Brannum, that were also connected to the family, that were connected to Nazi Germany and other things, I can say that this is probably likely that Paul Kane was telling the truth, but I can't prove it.

Yeah. Well, there's some people on Twitter who are talking publicly about it. They were told very explicitly about Paul, of the involvement that he claimed to have in that program with the CIA, but yeah, I mean, it's like, it's wild.

Like that you get to your way out there and even spiraling with this stuff. Like, yeah, that's how pervasive and influential these movements are. Well, and when you consider the family, the Fellowship International, it was an international, like the National Prayer Breakfast we have today, they set this up globally.

And so I just, in fact, I'll try to pull it up for the podcast. I don't know if I can find it again, but I was reading an article where they were branded as one of the elite covert espionage operations that were spying on governments of not just the United States, but other countries.

So when you consider the fact that Paul Keane, William Brannum, I've got a photo of Brannum at this Burberry Breakfast with Nixon. So when you consider all these guys were connected to this thing.

and they're connected to international leaders, you could make the leap to say that the family is what brought Paul Kane into contact with all of this. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's just about like a logical jump to conclude that.

So you have some experience with international house or prayer or I hop and right now it's the number one hottest topic on my website. So be good if you just told a little bit about some of that experience.

Yeah, so kind of like I alluded to in the beginning. So I moved Kansas City in 2004. There's a whole story to how that happened but essentially moved out there to pursue a program that was affiliated with Metro Christian Fellowship indirectly related to church planning and missions.

And so through that process, because of the affiliation with IHOP, because IHOP was kind of post Metro and Mike was a pastor of Metro, he left Metro. I think in 2000, if I remember correctly, means because he started IHOP in 1999.

So I got to Kansas City in 2004. It was very much involved in the prayer room. I was not officially in their program dream thing but I went to the prayer room, new people there.

And there were definitely overlaps of community that was a part of IHOP and then also the organization. I was a part of. So from that standpoint, exposure to IHOP became pretty forefront, you know, the prayer movement, the 24-7 prayer, their worship.

That became very formative to me and my world, the Lord, and very influential. And so I was only in Kansas City for two years but like I said, new a lot of the people at IHOP in Metro.

And so, and then after that, after spending some time on the mission field, came back and actually moved to Bethel to Reading in 2007. So I was at Bethel from 2007 to 2011. And so it was like the IHOP slash Metro layer and then built on top of that, the Bethel.

So all that stuff was like pumped into me. I was net deep in it, very influential. And at the time, you know, I thought this was like the pinnacle of Christianity, right? Like you're in the, it's some of you people said that.

You're in the elite, special forces of Christianity where we see, you know, dreams, visions, miracles, healings, dead being raised. And but it wasn't until we left Bethel. We actually left Bethel in 2011 and I made a career change into the world of finance and accounting.

And through a whole series of circumstances after Bethel, you know, kind of started having... eye-opening experience realizing that a lot of the stuff that we have been exposed to was probably not healthy and you know I have my whole story of going through some spiritual abuse a couple different times that also created more distance for me and I just I didn't want to have a thing to do with church at that point and so yeah we just we stopped going to church we started by peeling back the onion the layers of things that were that were that we felt were

harmful and were hurtful and damaging and so that kind of started in 2011 and then up until last year when the eye-op thing hit I mean I have not been in the circles of church or really kept up with anything church-wise in a long time so when the when the eye-op stuff hit and bickle back in October of 23 a lot of people who I had not talked to 20 years started surfacing on Twitter and I'm like talking to people that I knew that were involved in the that were aware and very connected to the bickle scandal because they knew the victims they

knew the jane day one they knew some of the other folks and I actually knew a couple of people first hand as well and so it became very personal to me at that point I decided I have to speak out I've never spoken out before about anything that I've experienced in these movements and so that was really a big turning point for me to watch the victims and the survivors come forward mainly women in their bravery and courage and share their stories publicly it's like it's snowballed there were so many other people like myself who decided to come out and begin to share their experience

begin to collectively try to hold eye-op and make bickle accountable trying to get Bethel to speak up to which this day they haven't done and so it's still very much an ongoing process there's a lot left to unpack but I think there's a grounds well of people who who they're they're just saying enough's enough we're not going to pretend that this is not happening anymore and I would like to think that enough voice is speaking out and enough people that stop feeding the cash flow machine will make a difference so I my wife and I were like we plan to start a podcast and talk about this stuff

not just this but a bunch of other life stuff business things like that but it's it's very convoluted John I've got a lot of stuff floating around in the head so

if it seems disjointed it probably is I can only imagine you've been through a lot there's a lot of things that would add to the spaghetti mass of trails of theology from all the various sources, so I can't even imagine trying to reconcile some of that. And people ask me, you know, what's going to happen because after the fall from Grace of Mike Bickle, he was an apostle, and all these other apostles have lifted him up for decades now. How does all of that work?

I just refer them back, look at the laterane movement. These guys, same exact thing has happened for centuries or decades, you know, going through this. And what happens is when one falls, they come back later and they lift him up as God's general. So Mike Bickle will be God's general for our children one day. I'm sorry. I don't know. I'm only speculating, but seriously, I can look back at some very, very bad people. I mean, Dauy was the con artist that really was the prototype for all of this stuff. And he has been immortalized as God's general, even though

you could literally say that more deaths occurred from his quote-unquote faith healing than small wars. I mean, it was a frequent occurrence to watch the hers come in and take, you know, take a body out of the quote-unquote healing homes. So that's the part that you don't see in God's generals about Dauy. No, they, they at least left. He, he started his ministry by stealing a church and they don't, you know, they leave those kind of things out because if you only tell the good stuff, you can make him look like a saint. Well, that's the case with everybody. That's

the case with Mike Bickle. If you take all of the, any of the negatives out, he's going to look like a saint. So he will probably be immortalized. And I just, I just take a step back from it. And I, I did a podcast recently and we're talking about the verse in the Bible about the super apostles and how wrong it was to focus on a man. And that's another thing that I have taken. I guess I will, I probably won't go too far with this because it does delve into theology. But the way in which we were taught, even the figures in the Bible were incorrect because we saw them

all as God's generals. We saw them as people who were greater in status than other humans. That whole framework is incorrect. But I have to be careful who I say that to because there are so many people that were influenced by this that they want to look at all these humans as though they were generals. And in the end, who's in control, the general or God, and you have to just take a step back and realize that that whole framework is incorrect. Oh, you hit such a, that's such a million dollar point because, you know, in the cares, as you know, in the cares of my name,

and probably other movements too, but we have idolized. And I think so one of the things that I'm realizing, my wife and I have talked about. about so many times is, why did we find ourselves three different times in a cultish or cult-like organization?

Yes, there's a common thread of a narcissistic leader with grandiose and pompous visions and crazy

ideas about what they wanna do. But you also have a lot of people who decide to come follow that person who probably had a weakness of some sort and maybe weakness isn't the right word, but a need to be associated with a real influential person.

You know, and so that's been like a reflection point for myself is now knowing what I know. I don't think I would find myself in a cult again because that thing that I needed to be associated with a real famous idolized leader, that like that, I feel like that thing died, you know?

But we're so apt and so quick to put a person on a pedestal whether you call them a general, or whether you call them a, you know, a figure in the Bible, whoever there were a prophet, a apostle, fill in the blank, we want somebody like that as humans.

We want somebody like that in our life that we can idolize. And so I think that the charismatic movement and some of these splinter movements capitalized on that and that's probably one of the factors that contributed to their growth and their influence.

So it's like getting back to what you said, getting back to the Bible, the strickelway, all this stuff that we've been fed. Let's get back to the simplicity, like the guy on the call, the thief, you know?

I mean, the dude killed somebody, or robbed somebody or did something really bad and there he is in the last second in his life and he's like, hey, I think I believe this guy to my left.

I think he's the real deal, you know? But he got done anything, he didn't feed the poor. He didn't go pray for healing for anybody. He didn't give all of his money to help people.

It was literally his last minute and he had to change your heart and he was just as eligible as anybody else. Yeah, so that throws a wrench into all of our, all the stuff we've been told that like this is, you know, it's dependent upon what we do to prove that we're worthy of some kind of blessing, so.

Yeah, I did a series of podcasts with my cousin who is a psychotherapist in Florida and we were talking about revictimization and I call it rewiring. I'm sure he has a much more technical term for the psychology, but after you leave a cult, you have to literally reprogram your brain because they have programmed your brain in a very bad way.

And it is dramatic, and there are people that, like yourself, you leave one cult, you go to the next, you go to the next, and I have learned as I re-evaluate my life, and I reconstruct, there are some memories that are excessively painful, and there are some that I give undue fondness towards, and especially the people.

A lot of my listeners don't get that, but I grew up with some of these cult leaders that I escaped, and they were, you know, I knew them as good people, I realized that there were bad attributes, but I knew them as really genuinely good people.

Even William Brannum's son, I felt myself to be really close to him, but there was a part of all of this that was evil, and as I re-wire my brain, I'll take a painful memory, and I'll instead try to find some attribute of that painful memory, and think about something that is really enjoyable, and re-wire it.

Take the bad thought, now I can replace it with a good thought, and that's how I've coped with the leaders that I have so many mixed emotions, and when you leave, you want to go find something just like it.

I have learned I'm a big Bugs Bunny fan, and I've learned to just plug in a face from Looney Tunes to each one of these guys, so I can tell you which leader is Daffy Duck.

For ever in my mind, this guy is, to me, he is Daffy Duck, and that's... Do you have one for the Coyote? I do, you know, every single one, and I don't know if you know, I know the saying it out, I've watched so many of these, but there was the Hillbilly Elvis bird, and all of these guys.

I literally have, you know, all of these guys, if you look at them like Looney Tunes, and in the end, that's really what it is. This is a Looney Tune religion, or a slot machine religion, right?

I'm definitely going to use that, but thank you so much for doing this and telling your story, and like I said, when your wife is ready, I'd like to have her on, and when you start your podcast, I'd like to help you launch it.

Thank you so much, John, it's been a pleasure, appreciate you having me on, and learn a lot, just continue to appreciate your research, and what you're doing in your book. And I know a lot of the other folks you've had on your show, that's been super helpful for a lot of us, just to kind of help unpack eye-op things.

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

Thank you so much.