Weaponized Religion: NAR Kingdom Theology Deception - Tricks of the Trade

Music 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 co-host, researcher and friend, John McKinnon, the author of the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician.

And together we're discussing weaponized religion, how Christian identity fused with early Christian fundamentalism and politics to form the foundation for the new apostolic reformation. John, today I'm a little excited to get into this one.

I almost felt like we're getting into an episode that I should be doing with James and the weird doctrines series that we do in the podcast because this is just so out there. But yet this is one of many trails that I've come across where you take something that is just so unusual and you blend it with Christianity even though it has no place in Christianity.

And then that developed into one of the many tiers that the new apostolic reformation was built upon. And I decided against it, but I almost put on my, I think I've got a dumbledore for a Gandalf robe that get wear because it's just so fitting for this episode.

But anyway, we're taking something that is truly not Christian-oriented. And we're telling the history of how it merged with what would eventually become the laterane movement and train hundreds if not thousands of ministers and evangelists to take this non-Christian thing that's actually quite evil and then carry it forward as a, quote, Christian doctrine.

Yeah, John, if I could call this any, call this episode any title, I would say it's a deception, a kingdom, a kingdom theology deception, and we're going to talk about the tricks of the trade.

So I believe this is a very important episode for a few reasons, but most importantly, it kind of exposes, it does expose what they were doing, some of the things they were doing. We don't know everything they were doing because we don't have inside information, but we do have enough testimonies out there in books and articles and magazines of what people observed.

And these were the people that were the most close to ministries such as William Brannum and will probably focus on it. on that, because there is some information out there, and these were very good ministers, very good men, so they have a good trustworthy testimony, I would think.

I believe it will become obvious, you know, after this episode, that what Brannum and others were demonstrating in the meetings was questionable, especially his as to where its source was, and whether or not it was really supernatural, and we're going to use firsthand sources.

His sermons quotes from other sources to show how the ministers who worked alongside him thought that what he was doing was unbiblical. Some thought it was psychic even, and others even thought it might have been occult in practice. We have proof on it in the early tapes that we're allowed to have, and I have a theory on why we have those couple of early recordings way back, I could mention later, but we do have a couple of quotes that he did make, and we were able to keep those, which is good for us when we're doing research. But the earliest years

before he had, when it became the most popular was when he injected those things, and we know for a fact that Baxter, when he joined his ministry that he told him, you know, I told him not to say certain things, especially when we were ministering, said he didn't want him saying certain things on the platform, but it was those few things that he did say that was very questionable. So to come down to where, you know, supernatural tends to attract the crowds, and in the early Pentecostal movement, when that got started, you know, tongues tends to be seen as supernatural, and then

gradually moved into other gifts that they wanted to manifest. And of course, Brannum will see, he very early on was involved in spiritual things, and especially spiritualism. I believe he was really deep into that, but these supernatural things tend to attract crowds when somebody can do something that's out of the ordinary, and that's what brought the crowds in, and then we'll see that his gift was really not unique, because there's other ministers that have duplicated exactly what he was doing, and he just called him carnal comparisons, because he wanted to be the one unique gift

in the whole generation, and that's how people see him, you know, nowadays. But I will say that it's not unique. No, it wasn't. And I came across this by pure accident back in, I want to say, it was like 2012. I come across a blog article written by one of the sons of a prominent figure who was in the Sharon orphanage whenever Laterane broke out, and he was part of the Laterane Revival, which eventually birthed the Laterane movement, and so the subject we're talking about today is spiritualism, and spiritualism, which is purely evil, mixed in with Christianity, pseudo-Christianity,

I should say, and it formed the foundation for the Laterane movement, and And I remember when I first said that, I got all kinds of backlash. No, it didn't. I even had these bladder rain historians contact to me and tell me, no, no, there's no way.

And William Brannum was a good man that went astray. That's the common phrase that you hear. But I came across this testimony by the son of Raymond Hawes and he was talking about how William Brannum would go into the Sharon orphanage and he would make objects fly around the room.

And so I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, what in the world did I just read? And I didn't believe it, honestly, I didn't believe it because I'm thinking, I don't know if you've seen the Disney cartoon movies and, well, some of these had real people but bed knobs and broomsticks.

They would have these things flying around the room. Well, that's what he was doing, man. Back before bed knobs and broomsticks was even produced. And I looked at that and I scratched my head and I thought, no, you know, this guy's just out there.

And lo and behold, I started going through methodically, I went through all of the early recordings of William Brannum. Whenever I came across that one sentence that said, we're getting, it's the very first sentence of the entire collection of sermons, it says we're getting some new gadgets for recording.

And that made me realize, wait a minute, they were old gadgets and what have they cut out? So I started doing a long series of searches with my wife on blank spot on tape, which is what they call it whenever they would take the tape and they would cut it and they would splice it together.

A lot of people, the younger crowd, don't know that that's a thing but back with the old reel to reel tapes, you could cut it. There was actually a device that did it and you put a little piece of tape on it and when it would play, you could clearly hear the spot in the tape where it hit, you know, in the recording where I hit the tape and the audio made this noise.

It was a very distinct noise and I heard that noise on the sermons. I knew that that's what they were doing because I myself have, I used to do recording and I would splice tapes to put the band members together.

So I knew that's what they're doing. I went through the search on blank spot on tape and I started realizing that in the early years, it was, there were so many blank spots on tape that no serious minister who's producing and selling these recordings none of them would continue without buying a new machine.

You just, you wouldn't do it, man. If your machine made that many blank spots in recording, you'd throw it out and you'd say this thing is faulty, I'd get another one. But there's so many and then as I'm going through that, I start noticing, wait a minute, he's doing some really, really weird things on the recordings and one of the very first ones, he's talking about making bracelets move by the power of his mind and he's doing just like you would do if you were a...

kid magician magician and one of these little talent shows he'd say now all the adults I want you to turn your backs to me right now Well, I'm playing this trick on this lady where I'm making a bracelet move and I read that and I'm no man That was on recording. I grew up with these recordings and I you know, I'm a smart man I knew that that's a stage trick. I knew exactly what he's doing But anyway, all of that laying the background to say today we're getting into why it was making pretending to make objects fly around the room

Yeah, that's something I will have very much in detail go through later on this episode And something of my theory about these Reason we had these two early recordings where he did talk about One was taste three high words that he was given and the other one was about the bracelet and And some other things that he talked about even making cross-eyed eyes straight just by looking at somebody Reason we have those is I believe as somebody had an early recording and transcribed it I don't think it was done through voice of God I still have the original books when they were published and they didn't come from voice of God

They came from a second publisher that wanted to get you know the message out and so they transcribed in themselves and published it and I have Have that I don't remember who published it and but I packed those books up a long time ago and put them away But I could dig them back out and look but I think that could be the reason we have them and who knows maybe there's if there's anybody out there that has records and The old red records are real real real real tapes as earlier sermons. Please bring them forward

We love to have them on the record. They may be out there But we sure won't get them from probably voice of God But getting back to our picking up from our last episode of 1929 we know that Davis is working in the revivals will start there and He established his Pentecostal Baptist Church So he he was beginning to use that name and throw that name around and that's really what moved into Jeffersonville with As for Brannum cut his teeth and came out of was that first Pentecostal Baptist Church that they named but he started that in Nashville and

And you know, of course he held debates as we talked about and in January of 1929 He held a debate and a revival in March and that church and he pretty much was thinking he was getting started probably because he was getting crowds, you know gathering and and he was getting his name out there but right after that He was arrested in April for trying to break up a marriage and you know Davis broke up at least more than one marriage not only his own but You know this this person this man accused him and had him arrested for trying to break his him and his wife up

But I do know that The folks that followed him to Chattanooga and The the garrison family that followed him to Chattanooga and to Jeffersonville or Louis Louisville He basically broke up there marriage because her husband, the husband of Ali Lee, Willie May, stayed in Chattanooga, the rest of his life from what I can tell, and he always was in the city register.

But they moved around with him, so it is funny that we'll talk about this girl that he got arrested for Ali Lee, her mother backed him up the whole time, no matter what he was doing there, and taken her daughter, him being so much older.

And then if you look at where they're buried at, they're all three buried together, so I know she stayed with him all the way to the end, because they're all right there together in the cemetery.

So he was doing that, and he made his last ditch effort, I believe, in Tennessee. We talked about Caleb really last time, he had his revival in May, and really joins with him in June and July, so holding revivals.

And Ridley was probably on his last, you know, ministry trip before he retired. He retired pretty soon after that, in the North Carolina, where he was born, and then he died about three years later in 1932, so he was up an age, and he was calling it quits, but he did join Davis because of the clan connections, I'm sure, you know, they basically had a history going back to when the clan was stronger, and they were both involved.

So Davis was in trouble in Tennessee due to that bad reputation, he was sued for liable again, and he was also arrested or accused of taking money under false pretenses, he always took up money to say he was either going to build a church, buy an organ, buy a printing press, and he never would, he just kept the money, and people realized that in his congregation, and took out a warrant for him, and had a complaint against him.

In 1980, he was rejected by the local ministers there, because he would just show up in town and say, I'm here, and talk about how the ministries were all, you know, in union together, and then the ministers would be, say, we don't know this guy, we don't know where he came from, who he is, but they eventually found out his background, and that got him kicked out usually.

He even used the Brethren Church's name, I think he was renting their building, but because it had the former name of Brethren Church, he started using that name at one time, probably to gain influence in the community because they were familiar with that church.

Just like that, and the ministers called him out about it, they said, please don't use our name, because we're not associated with you. And so, after all of that, after all those revivals in July of 1929, you know, the papers just go silent, and lo and behold, where he ends up with is in Louisville, and the fall of 1929, so he makes a move there, and we know John, as you talked about, the clan was pretty strong in Indiana, so that puts him really close to where the stronghold of the clan was, and I know you've talked about DC Stevenson, I don't know exactly the date

that he fell, but Davis was probably looking to get back to where he could work with the clan even more, and build that up, because that's what he was all about, so he rents a room on the second floor of Main Street for his home, and then rents a room for his church.

And of course, the garrison family followed him, only the mother and daughter, of course, they followed him from Chattanooga, and they moved there to Louisville with him eventually. So we'll talk about that shortly, too.

Yeah, Davis was in the faction of the clan. You remember the clan splintered in several different factions. And Davis's faction was aligned with the intents and actually some of the hierarchy of DC Stevens but like we mentioned in the last episode, you've got Caleb Ridley who's planted the Jeffersonville church.

So when Davis comes to Jeffersonville, he's already got a strong a foothold right there in Jeffersonville, and it's just right across the river from Louisville. I drive across the bridge every day, and back then they had a train and a trolley system.

So you just hop on the train and you go to Jeffersonville. So my gut says based on the layout of the land, and what I'm seeing in the newspapers, Davis would have landed in Louisville, Kentucky, but since he was so high ranking in the clan and he's working with Caleb Ridley, then it was very likely he was crossing the river several times to join into the clan meetings that they would have had in Jeffersonville.

So there's a very, very strong possibility based on everything that I've read that Davis and William Brannum may have come into contact with each other long before the 1930s, because everything's right there, all the people, all the clan.

And like you said, Davis had this reputation that's following him and everywhere he goes, man, he gets called out. And some of it's very public in the newspapers, but what you see in the newspapers is generally only a fraction of what's actually happening.

There will be people who are very vocal until they go to the newspapers. So it's also very highly possible that William Brannum knew of a lot of the shenanigans that Davis was doing. And it's also very obvious.

I mean, here's this man who is traveling everywhere with this underage girl. And it's just so odd. When you stop and think about it, it's just so odd. When you think of all of the details and we never really critically thought about what was going on because we didn't have that information, but knowing what we know now and painting the scene in our mind of what facts that we do have, it's something that most Christians would just run screaming.

And in fact, even non-Christians, they would stay, you know, keep me away from this guy, who is this freak? But there was the clan and the clan is what really brought everything together. So it didn't matter what he had done or, you know, who had robbed blind.

It didn't matter because they were all a big family. And this was a, this was a connection that they had that was ran much deeper than the crimes that he committed. Yeah, I believe you're absolutely right.

I'm sure that, I feel certain that Brandon and Davis were together prior to 1930, 1930 was kind of a climax year, it's kind of an interesting year, a lot of things went on. But Davis, I believe his ultimate goal was to get up there in Jeffersonville because as we know that Jeffersonville was very sympathetic to the clan and whereas Louisville was not Louisville mayor there denied them the use of a hall one time and so they moved it over Jeffersonville and the mayor there was very cordial to the clan.

So yeah, I'm sure they knew each other and Davis was all about establishing strongholds of the clan throughout the country where he went, so I believe his ultimate goal was not to stay in one place too long.

Of course, his reputation prevented that a lot of times and the things that he would do to get trouble with the law. But he moved around the country and everywhere he went, he just wanted to create a stronghold for white supremacy and promoting those things and use ministry as a tool or a vehicle just to get where he wanted to be, he gave him an open door in a lot of places.

So anyway, Willie May, which is the mother of Allie Lee, she's about 17 at the time, they move into Davis's home in Louisville and become borders, I believe there's a census record to show that and I think they changed the name of Allie Lee slightly to kind of hide her identity and we'll see throughout our episodes later that Davis changes her identity to a nickname called Granny and that allows him to not reveal who she is so people can't look up where she came from or who she is and he can just call her his daughter along

the way and make it all right for them to live together. And that's exactly what they did. Now when Davis shows up in Louisville, his first act is to in February 1930, he writes an article in the paper and they publish it.

He proposes getting rid of prohibition and the reason he does propose that is there's drunk people just that occupy his church and he has a hard time preaching service, he has to interrupt service to go get him to sit up straight or whatever or even throw him out.

So he goes on this rant about repealing prohibition and then a few days later, I minister response to that and I won't go into details. I was a very good article in the paper called one preacher own another and in that article, the preacher basically says, prior to prohibition, we had a lot of lawlessness, we had gambling, we had pubs, we had prostitution houses.

We had everything going on that was illegal and ungodly and prohibition has done more to help the community than anything else and although you can't legislate morality, he says well, we got laws on the books that prohibit, you know, say gambling and prostitution.

He said, do you want to take those laws off the book as well? You know, he uses that argument, but he writes a very good article and it's really far above What Davis wrote in his rant, you know, so I won't go through that just for the sake of time I know will probably be wanting to get in these other things But I think you're reader or your our listeners out to look up that article and read it We could even put it on the website. I guess you can post it But it was in the courier journal Louisville February 8th, 1930

so and his final statement to To Davis there he says I wish my brother would think through this problem again and face about You know, we shall never get anywhere morally by going backwards and that especially when such a move is in accord with the Basel elements of our land and he says yours for prohibition and Forever MP Hunt, he's the one that wrote the article so That right after February there Davis's legal troupe will start it started in Louisville Just one month after this article came out and March he was arrested for Inbezzlement of church funds. He took up money and to buy a printing press and to rent a larger hall

He told his Threaten his congregation They gave money and one person complained because he failed to do that And so he got arrested for that then just 20 days later In March 20th, he got arrested on charges of racketeering now here was a thing that he tried to do He came in there trying to say that anyone that was married by justice of the peace Was not valid. It had to be done by a real minister So they he claimed that marriages were not valid in the side of God and then they had to pay him

$5 so he could re-marry him What a scheme was that my You know and we know all marriages are valid if they're done in a legal way and you you know You take the vows so that should have been valid But he found a way to try to make some money and that was $5 per head of those that were done that We know that Jeffersonville I think was a community of easy marriages So probably a lot were done by the justice of the peace back in those days So so the March 1930 later on in September that was your beginning at least in Jeffersonville of revival showmanship

That's where we'll talk about How that all started, but that was in September and Ralph Raider That's kind of a popular name He was from California. He really really was from the area there originally moved out to California and did ministry But came back and started this revival and interestingly enough his dad was the mayor of Jeffersonville And so Raider it was a distant relative of Paul Raider They the papers mentioned that Paul Raider and him were brothers But I think other places I found where he was a distant relative not not actually brothers to Paul and if we know

What we remember about the message, you know Paul Raider was the one that wrote the song only believed he was a composer And Brittle mentions Paul Raider 97 times in his sermons. I look that up. Paul and Billy's Sunday minister together. And interestingly too, you know, Brannum, I believe was a part of this 1930 revival because that was right about the time Hill and Davis were starting to be mentioned in the papers as Davis made a move over to Jeffersonville. But, you know, Brannum never mentions Ralph Raider. He always mentions Paul, I guess because of the song that he composed there. But Paul preached, they both

were preaching pretty close together. You know, Paul was preaching at the Cadel tabernacle in 1930 in October while Ralph was holding a revival in Jeffersonville at the same time. And then Davis found a way after probably he heard the popularity across the river, what was going on. Of course, him and Ralph, you know, get together and Ralph eventually invites Davis Davis into the revival there with him.

Right. And it's very interesting. The timeline and the scene that we're setting up as we get into the spiritualism, because like you said, he is, he's in all kinds of schemes and trials and criminal trials and civil lawsuits and Louisville. He's not a well-respected man. But across the river in Jeffersonville is where he ends up eventually migrating and building a church that would eventually grow into, you know, the headquarters for leading figure in the post-World War II healing revival. But this is not a good man. It's not a good person. Well, back then, you know, when you look at the cities of Louisville,

Kentucky and Jeffersonville, Indiana today, it's entirely different. Louisville is this big, massive, you know, compared to Jeffersonville. It's a big, massive city and you get over to Jeffersonville and it's just this little tiny town. Well, back then, it was much like when you see in the old movies where you had a nice, big city with that's clean and good to live. And then in the outskirts of town, you go and there's all the refuge and they've got all the evil guy, the villain of the show or the movies out there outside of the city where the good people are. Well, that's how Jeffersonville was and it grew up like into

this, this layer, this den of bad people because the people in Louisville, Kentucky, would go across the river to the casinos, the prostitution houses. They even had this scheme called Quick Marriages where, you know, the people who wanted to have sex outside of their marriage, they were so trained that you couldn't do this outside, you couldn't have sex outside of marriage. So they would go over to Jeffersonville, quickly get a marriage so they could have sex and then come back and get a divorce. And this turn to this huge problem, right?

And because, you know, there's so many divorces being filed that Kentucky didn't know what to do and they ended up putting in some very strange laws to break that in Jeffersonville. We had all of this riffraff across the river, but that's where the clan headquarters is.

And when Davis is appealing to the people saying that he has all these drunkards in his church, and he's not for the enforcement of the prohibition, well, he's appealing to those people in Jefferson Bill because that's where the clan headquarters are. Those are the people that are funding him, basically. And at the same time, DC Stevenson's arrest, I think he was convicted in November of 1925, so it wasn't that long before all of this happened. So he's coming over to the Indiana side at a time when really I'm sure he was intent on taking leadership and control of the Indiana clan,

but he had so many skeletons in his closet. He just didn't work out, basically. But he comes over there, and like you said, William Brannum, even by some of his own timelines, which they don't all match. Some of his own timelines place him in Davis's Revivalist before the move to Jefferson Bill, and we can say for certain, based off of Brannum's testimony, that he was at the Nashville, the meetings at the Nashville Parthenon, so definitely he was with Davis before Davis actually came into Jefferson Bill, Indiana. But he comes here to people who aren't really interested in the Pentecostal faith. That's the point I'm trying to drive at,

but he's creating a Pentecostal church. So all of these clan people that really some of them may have been religious. I can't discount that. But the majority of them were just the riffraff who were part of the clan because as he's holding these Pentecostal services at night, they're signing up new clan people. So he's basically, he's becoming the head of the Indiana clan there in Jeffersonville. Yeah, I'm sure that was probably his motive, no doubt, you know, that's what he's done ever since he got started. But the reason I believe strongly that in this revival service that Brannum had to be involved is because, you know, William Brannum was involved in

spiritualism from an early age. He said he encountered fortune tellers and others that were trying to tell him something supernatural about his birth, which they even got the year wrong, but he eventually adopted that year if they really told him that.

But Davis wasn't spiritual at all, I don't believe. You know, Davis was religious, but he was not spiritual. So Davis knew nothing about that world. And Brannum was the one that introduced him to that world. And if you read about it in the 1950 voice of healing, you know, he said, Brannum would go off into these tangents, and which I don't know anything about, you know, and he dismissed it early on. And that's what we get the quotes from Brannum said. You know, Davis is probably telling him that's of the devil Billy Stanley.

from that, that's out of the devil. We hear that many times and that's what all the ministers, you know, the council they gave him, they're in Jeffersonville, stay away from those things because it's out of the devil. But somehow, and I'll show you a quote from Baxter shortly, how Baxter described it, you know, actually, you know, could have very well been of a different spirit. But Paul Raider here was interesting kind of a little bit, you know, he passed her Moody Bible to church in Chicago about six years in 1915 to 21. He also was a founder of a

Christian and missionary alliance and also founded the gospel tabernacle in Chicago in 1922 and pastored it for 11 years. Interesting travels of Paul, who he was connected with there. Some of the ones we've mentioned, Angela's Temple, he filled in during Amy Simple McPherson's absence in 1926.

And I'm not sure if that's when she was had that alleged abduction and kidnapping, which might have been an affair she was having. In 1928, FF Bosworth starts a series of meetings in his church in Chicago at the gospel tabernacle. So he was connected with FF Bosworth, whom we know is very connected with this movement. Even Gerald Winrod, who we haven't mentioned, a whole lot, but Gerald Winrod's name and white supremacy has come up. In 1929, he becomes the interim pastor of Paul Raider's church in Chicago. In July, while Paul Raider is doing missionary work,

and Paul was a really probably a good person, good minister, you know, regardless. He wrote many helms or songs and he did a lot of mission work. So I guess we can say Paul was a fairly good minister. But getting back to the fall of 1930, we know from what William Brownham has said that in his earliest years, he was really into spiritualism. You know, he had voices that spoke to him from an early age, he would claim. He also visited spiritual camps. You know, he was always wanting to know what this thing is that was with him throughout his life. And he was likely attending

Davis's church in Louisville at the time while Davis was in Louisville because the bridge had been completed in 1929. Brownham had a car. You know, he had that Model T. He probably had another car by this time. So he was driving over to Louisville to Davis's church at the time. But opportunity came in, you know, October 1930. Another one, interestingly, that was in Davis's church was George D'Arc.

And the D'Arcs were pretty much on mediums. They were spiritualistic mediums. And of course, he said they were converted to Christianity. So within Davis's church, within Brownham's own life and his own testimony, he said he was involved in the spiritual things from an early age.

So we know he was very into it and did a lot of thinking along those lines. So the paper says that Ralph Raider came from California, and he did evangelistic work. 1920 in the slums in California and he's credited while he was in Jeffersonville of all places of reducing crime by 50% while he was in Jeffersonville.

The papers applaud him for that and that was about August, right before the revival. Now my comment on that is Ralph Raider may have cut crime by 50% but I wonder if he knew he was working with criminals in these revival meetings because he certainly was working with some pretty hard and criminals by this time.

Brownham doesn't mention Ralph Raider at all in his sermons but the paper in the Indian apolis Star said they were brothers, I think I mentioned that and Davis heard the revival by September after the revival started in early September, he got connected with Ralph Raider because I'm sure the revival was being mentioned in the papers daily and then he began leading singing by October the 6th so the revival had been going on about a month and then Davis joins it and starts leading singing because we know Davis was a great singer from his earliest days and he also had an orchestra.

And Davis took over a few services and spoke on divine healing, you know Davis was becoming Pentecostal, was involved in church of God and all the other Pentecostal ranks by this time. He took a service and spoke on divine healing of all things and at the Raider revival.

And then they worked the crowd up until a little frenzy here to get him in suspense, it was then announced early October that a converted spiritualist would perform during what they called spook night so it was getting close to Halloween and so forth and to go along with that they were going to do what they called spook night and that was in the newspapers well that was on October the 8th and Davis even we don't know as Davis as of yet because they want to keep you in suspense as to who it is but a reward was offered for anyone

who could offer a trick that he could not duplicate so if anyone could come to the stage and say here's a spiritualist trick I can do and if he could not duplicate that then he would offer them $18,000 in today's money. That's a pretty sizable sum. It was $1,000 in the newspapers there but by inflation that's $18,000. That's a pretty sizable sum of money.

So I'm sure Davis had brought him behind him, George DiArc, behind him at this time because Davis knew nothing about all this. How could he get on stage and start performing these things without some help behind the scenes and I'm sure that they were showing him how they might have done these things. So at the 5th week of the revival after the spook night then they quote Davis to say in spiritualism is bunk. He tries to debunk spiritualism. He acclaimed he was a converted spiritualist. He explained the practices of spiritualism during that meeting they had and exposed their tricks under the gospel tent.

Now, a day or so later, they want to do more of this. I think the crowds must have loved it, must have got a big crowd there. So Davis comes out on the papers and says, you know, we're going to do more tricks, but we got to move it to the Knights of Pithius Armory because the chemicals I'm going to be using during these meetings are going to be so powerful it would just destroy the tent.

So that was their method of getting to the Knights of Pithius Armory, probably a much bigger place. And I believe you found a picture of that. I did some research on that and actually found where that was located.

So interestingly about that, as I've said, George D'Arc was the real medium here and Brannem was the master of spiritualist tricks and very familiar with spiritualist and mediums, you know, by this time because he knew those people.

He even says on tape that he visited spiritualist camps and I believe that possibly one of the spiritualist camps, he actually visited was Camp Chesterfield which is one of those popular camps, maybe a couple of hours from his home because even on tape he says, I can take you to a camp within three hours of here or within three hours of where I'm speaking and he was in Jeffersonville at the time and show you these phenomena.

So he actually describes that and we'll get into that here in a minute, but that's how the revival started and they got the spiritualism involved early on to get the crowds hyped up and involved in that and the crowds really loved it.

Right, the Camp Chesterfield connection just boggles your mind because you know, Brannem, when I was growing up in this thing and Brannem was talking about how he saw witch doctors and the witch doctors were playing and I'm laughing at so absurd, they were playing this little tune, shaving a haircut two bits like you hear at the end of the Beverly Hillbillies show, you know, it's like, come on man.

But that was one of the featured acts at the Camp Chesterfield. We actually found, to the Indiana Historical Society, we found some of the stage tricks that they were doing and it was later admitted that everything that they were doing was completely fraud.

It was all for entertainment, but it turned into this great center for the spiritualists. Well, Brannem is basically running with this and he's saying that this is the evil force that's rising and I, the brave prophet and the one who went and I denounced those and I stood against them much like you read biblical figures doing, right?

But no, this was a stage act, this was all fake. They, I think they had a floating piano or something and Brannem even mentions the instruments floating so definitely it was the Camp Chesterfield.

One of the, and this is a side note, you know, it's not really related to this episode but because of the timeline, I have to introduce it. There's so many different spider webs to this.

As we mentioned, D.C. Stevenson had fell so the clan had this, the clan was in disarray in Indiana. Whenever Davis comes into Indiana, He's coming to take control. One of the key figures as it relates to the overall discussion we're having for several podcasts is Gerald L. K. Smith. He is one of the key figures in Christian identity.

And we also, you mentioned Gerald Winrod. Well, Gerald Winrod was also a key figure in Christian identity and he's preaching at the Angulous Temple. He's connected to Davis, he's connected to Bosworth, many others. Well, Gerald L. K. Smith was also connected to various figures in Laterane. He was in Indianapolis until I think it was about the time that Davis moved into Indiana, was about the time that he moved to Shreveport. And he is directly connected to his church in Shreveport and the Shreveport ministerial association to G.C. Loud, which planted the church that essentially became the headquarters for William Brannum's campaigns that was led by Jack

Moore. So that's a connection. I don't want to go too deep into it in this episode. But in the timeline, that's exactly what's going on. Davis moves in and Gerald Smith moves out. Those two later, as we'll get into it, they later become connected because Gerald L. K. Smith becomes the the supreme leader of the California clan at the same time that Davis moves out and they're rebuilding the clan when Davis is in California. So that's a side connection that I want to mention here. But you're right. The spiritualism aspect with the, you know, regardless of what the

clan was doing in that area, Jeffersonville wasn't that religious or Christian of a place. They had all the riffraff. You had the liquor kingpin Otto Wathen where he had the Wathen farms and he had it's like a casino grounds out there that none of it exists today. I wish it did. But that's where all of the Jeffersonville mob stayed. And William Brannum mentions that they live in that area. So Davis is coming into Jeffersonville where there is a mob. There is riffraff everywhere. The people aren't that religious. The Catholics are moving in, which was the number one target for the

Indiana clan during that era. And so the Catholics are there. Davis is moving in. They want to eradicate the Catholics. And Brannum, who has already been with Davis for all of this time, is deeply connected to the Jeffersonville mob through his father and through Otto Wathen. So you're setting up this weird scene that as it plays out, you never really thought of that whenever you listen to all these recordings. You think this is a holy Christian movement. And God has sent this humble prophet. And if you're in the NAR, you say, and that prophet went astray. But think of the picture

that's painted when you look at all of these various non-Christian entities and the men that all of these, all of these guys are working with something that is purely not un-Christian. And that is the scenario that's being painted whenever this revival happens. Those are the kinds of people that get really excited if you give them something like spiritualism. If you, if you can make objects float around the room to a bunch of people who have said in a casino and trick them into believing that it actually is happening, instantly they're converts, man.

That's true. The supernatural tends to attract. And that's what William Brannum always called the bait on the hook. And they certainly baited the people quite a bit in those days. But this was probably the early start of really the spiritualism getting into this type of movement.

There's even everybody says, you know, Brannum spearheaded the revival, spearheaded all these practices that were going on. So probably earlier than 1947, but he used many practices to heal people that resemble spiritualism. Even the own tape, the girl, he mentions the girl calls him out on it and says, you know, I don't think that's in the Bible. This resembles spiritualism.

But you would think that a minister who had been a ministry from say about 1930 all the way to 1945 to 1947 when he got started. That's over 15 years of ministry. You would think he would have honed his craft by then as far as what he was speaking and how he was ministering. You would think he would have gotten rid of all the bad stuff by then that he was saying. But even when he got started, Baxter said an interview many years later that when he joined Brannum's ministry team, he had to warn him to not say certain things. And he says, as long as they work together, you know,

Brannum refrained from it. But I believe these are some of these early things that we've been talking about. And I was saying that, you know, we're probably not Christian at all. And Baxter recognized that. He was a minister. He was pastor of a church that he left his church to join the team.

But he realized that. And in an interview that was done many years later, I think it was new wine magazine. He said one of the things that basically, well, that began to disturb me was the matter of faith. And he said, my understanding of the matter of faith when he began to travel with William Brannum was that he had received a special commission from an angel telling him that he was a take his gift of healing to the peoples of the world. And that, if he was in faith, they could believe nothing was stand before the prayer. And he said in the early days of that, there was high

anticipation and excitement for that. You know, I call it crowd frenzy, just like they were doing here in this 1930s revival. And so he said, as he goes further, he says, Brannum told him he had a gift of healing as he later told him.

me, and he said, this was in operation in him as a boy. So it was something that he always had. Now that's quite interesting. Even before Brannem was a Christian, he claimed he had some kind of gift there. And then Baxter says something very interesting here. I want to point out, he said, when he became a Christian minister, then he incorporated it into the Christian thing. I thought it was kind of odd for, you know, Baxter's a little bit revealing if you look at what he's saying there, it's like whatever he had in possession of him,

he brought it into the Christian thing, but it may not have really been Christian. So I think there's evidence there that what he had was not really Christian from the start. He just brought it into the Christian thing as he became a minister. And he says, one of the early things that began to bother him was the whole question of faith that you could get healed if you had faith. And he says, faith became the focal point. And I say parenthesis instead of Jesus Christ, we're going to find that out in the quote, we'll read

here in a minute. And also one of the ministers said, you know, this is not from Jesus, you know, why would what he's doing be greater than Jesus to be able to heal the people? And so he says Baxter also says, the Bible doesn't talk about having faith in your faith. It talks about faith in God. And he says, so I was quite disturbed about it. And he started saying, I got to arm myself biblically about this. And Baxter said in a Brannum's case, faith was becoming a metaphysical thing. It was becoming a form of kuhism. He mentions kuhism. I had to look

that up. Kuhism is just a repetition of suggesting a thought to oneself, such as I'm healed. I'm healed. And we know that that's what Brannum instructed us people to do is say, leave here and say you're healed. Don't worry about what anybody else tells you. You just keep saying, I'm healed. I'm healed. And it'll manifest if you keep repeating that. So he seemed to be teaching. If I keep repeating day by day, I'm getting better and better. He said it was kind of a metaphysical positivism. And he said, this bothered me. And he said, he

saw it as an out to accommodate people who weren't getting healed. Because as we'll see, there's many testimonies on record. And these are are even greater testimonies than the healings that we're occurring. Because we have a hard time finding testimonies of real healings.

But we find a lot of books, articles, and things like that of people that were not healed, and people that got worse and died. There's far more of that than there are good testimonies of healing. The only testimonies of healing we have is just what the ministers are saying, old thousands were healed. That's easy statement to say, but have they ever backed it up?

They have never backed that up to this day that I know of. And true, there might have been a few people that may have received help and healing. But far greater, I think, was the healings that did not occur. He said, there must have been something wrong with their faith.

And so that disturbed me. And if you notice, even even William Brownham and even all some of the others but more so maybe even William Brownham, they blame it on the person for not getting healed and having faith in God or having something wrong in their life. Instead of their commission, instead of blaming the results on the gift of healing that didn't operate correctly, they blame it on the person and the low results and many people getting worse and dying are really probably the true testimony of the ministry, the fruits of the ministry that all that I can read. For Baxter's understanding of faith, that bother him. Baxter said

there were aspects of the supernatural that began to disturb him too. He explained, I don't know how far to go with this. He wasn't speaking on notes or anything. He said, but I began to be disturbed with some of the phenomena that were occurring. Some of them were good. He said he felt. He said, others, I felt, were borderline psychic. So here's another testimony from a minister that eventually left Brownham after about six years of working with him. It really was probably about five because he was off to field for almost a year in 1948. So very short time and he was disturbed from the

start. He just said, he kept going on until he became unbearable. It says, I became quite disturbed about it. I continued with Brownham until I felt that in my conscience, I could not go on.

So that's a very distinct testimony of somebody that was close to Brownham that he said there were buddies. He said they hunted together. They took walks together and Brownham was very intimate and revealing things to him about his life. So he basically knew him as no one else did.

Years later, when a book was published by Frida Lindsay, he said, at the very beginning, Gordon Lindsay, her husband, began to act as a liaison between sponsoring pastors. He said, for it seemed that Brownham had some erratic ideas. He said, in fact, at first, and this was in the early days, some of his opinions, she said, bordered on the occult.

So, you know, you think a man had been in ministry 15 years, he wouldn't have those type of practices to start with. But that just goes to show he brought these spiritualistic practices in the ministry. And of course, he had to learn how to speak. And I think within the first three to six years of him speaking in those early tapes, if I learn how to take that out of his sermon, so the tapes we listen to today don't generally have those type of things in there, but they are sprinkled in there here and there where they don't have the blank spots. So here's his sermon in 1947

in April. I'll mention some of the things and I'll make a comment here or there for that. He was talking about this girl who was trying to get healed and you've already mentioned it about the bracelet. He says, prove to me that you've got faith. So he was telling this girl, prove to me that you've got faith. And I'll tell you this that I'd never seen the Bible where Jesus asked somebody to prove their faith when they were talking to him about healing. It was more about salvation of the soul.

than healing, but he says, Jesus never did that. And then he says, now you look directly at that bracelet, all right. Now he gets the girl to take her attention off of Helm and look at something there at this bracelet they were focusing on.

And if you look this up, it's a technique in hypnosis called hypnotic induction. So what the person's doing when they get you to look at the watches dangling or something else, they're getting you to concentrate on that object to get that in your mind.

And that's to guide individuals into a state where their subconscious mind becomes receptive to suggestions and open to transformative change. I fixation is a powerful technique used by hypnotist to induce a state of trance.

The hypnotist can induce deep concentration and relaxation in the subject by directing their attention to a single point like an object or a flickering light. This focused attention helps to bypass the critical conscious mind and access the subconscious where suggestibility is heightened.

So we see these fixation techniques here being used on people. It's actually to bypass the critical thinking. Now this girl did come back to her critical thought, but that's what happens in these meetings and things.

Our under of state of hypnosis and the whole service is designed to get you into that state. So you were very highly suggestible. Ivan Redwood rock musicians do the same thing. In fact, as a quote on record back in the early days when I was studying rock music and the back when they had ministers would have sermons about rock music.

And they said they would get the people to a heightened state of suggestibility and they could preach into their subconscious whatever they wanted to say to them. And there was a musician that actually said that that's what their services was designed to do in their music.

So he said, you take that bracelet there, you make it swing around there back and forth. And he says, if you do that, I'll believe you have faith. And then she says, well, why ask me something like that?

He says, I want to see if you had faith. And so basically he was getting her into a state to see if she was very suggestible. You know, hypnosis, and I've been to a few stage acts to watch this, they actually screen people out as to who's the most suggestible.

That's the ones they can get to walk around and act like a chicken or act like some other crazy thing they get them to do. They could put these suggestible thoughts in their subconscious mind.

So that's why he was testing her out to see if she had faith. But that was really to see if she had a suggestibility. And he says, all things are possible if you believe.

And he said, Jesus said that. So these ministers, they misinterpret scripture and they twist the meaning of scripture. But they do bring scripture in to try to give them some credibility on what they're saying here.

their methods. He said, now that's just pure faith, friends. He said magicians use it many times to play pranks and so forth to burst glasses and things. It will, if you believe. So that was a quote from William Brownham there on that same sermon just lying later. But here he is saying, it will happen if you believe. And this shows he has a strong affinity to using this kind of power and he believes in it because he doesn't say all this a bunch of a bunk or whatever. He said, it will happen if you believe it. So he was using human faith to do these things.

And that confirms what Baxter was worried about, focusing only on the powers of faith to make things happen that then rely on the sovereignty of God such as for your healing. You know, if you rely only on your faith, you know, you're really not relying upon God.

And then she would say, and nobody could do that. He said, oh, yes, anyone can, that believes can do it. And this, this confirms that he has seen it done. He says, he accuses her of that of some unbelief. He says, you said you believed all things. I want you to prove it. And again, Jesus never approached anyone this way. I don't find an example in scripture where Jesus approached anyone. It says, okay, prove to me your faith before you can get healed. And I think this is outside of scriptures, particularly. And then she says, I can do that. He said, I can do that.

If you want to watch me, she says, yeah, I desire you to watch that. And then he says this. He says, then of course, putting my mind on it. He said, and that's using his mental powers, putting his mind, having heard to watch that and not me. So kidding, I heard to focus on that bracelet. And he says, as many times in this meeting, here's an interesting statement. He goes and slips up and says this. He says, I'll take any cross-eyed child you've got in this meeting.

You bring it up here. He says, without even praying for it, just let me look straight in the eyes. And I'll make, he says, I'll make. He says, is this, is this, he has the ability to make it happen through his own power, his mental powers. He says, it, I'll make its eyes come straight.

And then he says, this is another thing. He says, but when I turn my head, and then it goes into a end of record. So either they lost a recording or blank spot or whatever. So why does he turn his head?

The recording ends, but he, you know, we'll find out that he basically doesn't want you to read his lips. And I think he could have been saying he turns his head and then it ends, but he might have brought out the fact that he has these three high words that he was using. And he said they're not even in the Bible. We caught him, say it on that and another tape. He said it was given to him by the angel. And Alfred Paul actually confirms this in his article that he writes later on in 1990

and in his book he writes that the recording is likely stopped just so that it wouldn't expose his heresy that he's about to say. So, and then it goes on. He says, he fastens his eyes on the bracelet.

He says, which You can yourself if you won't bow down in your heart. So again, he says the power resides in yourself. And then he said it started moving. And then the girl kind of wakes up and says, well, that's spiritualism.

And I believe the girl had a little more discernment than we give her credit for than the con artist that was trying to use spiritualism or use some techniques here to try to generate faith.

So he expected that comment because he says right after that, I thought you might say something like that because that's what it appears to be. So he got that comment many times, many ministers, I mean, there's even quotes on record where they were coming to and saying, what you're doing is wrong, what you're doing is spiritualism.

It's not from the Christian world. But this is how, this is one example of how he brought what he had been taught about spiritualism over into the Christian thing. I think this is a clear example.

And it's one of the earliest recordings. He said, now he injects God back into the equation. He says, it's strange how people profess they know God and know little about him, isn't that right?

So now he brings God into the equation and other times what he's doing, he'll actually see, if you question this or if you criticize this, you're in danger of being cursed by God. He gets into a debate.

He usually gets into a debate mode after he has to prove what he's doing as of God. He says, you know, we speak where the Bible speaks and silent where the Bible silent. And he says, I've questioned that church many times over their slogan about that particular item, which was Church of Christ.

He didn't mean to call names, but he did. So he kind of gets into a debate mode to further the audience off balance a little bit. The girl eventually says, there's nothing like that in the Bible and he says, well, I thought that's what you would say.

She says, sure, that's in the Bible. And she said, well, you should have me where that's in the Bible. So they will find scriptures that try to prove their point. I mean, we know the prosperity gospel will say that Jesus said, you say and don't doubt in your heart.

You know, these things will come to pass. So many times they'll go back to some of those scriptures and try to prove what they're doing rather than taking the scriptures and rightly dividing them.

They will take those type of scriptures and use them for their positive confession gospel to try to bring things to pass by just them speaking it. So he uses this idea of faith to be the vehicle, which is the power that you possess to do things.

You know, that's what eventually this, the manifest sons of God doctrine will bring in that you will be given this power of faith just to be able to speak whatever you want to and it will come to pass.

You know, that's certainly been talked about many times. So she said to him right after this, did God move that bracelet or did the devil move that? He said neither. Now, so it goes back to saying he's not doing this under the power of God, he's doing it.

He said neither one moved it. I moved it. and so he's claiming that he moved the bracelet under his own power and so that that goes clearly show that it's a human power here he's dealing with and he must have had some spiritual power because people became under the influence of that in the meetings he said it's my faith that moved it so he uses the idea of having faith rather than his own faith which is his own faith was backster you know alleged that bothered him so I can keep going on and on but he missed he goes

into saying that the angel told him he gave him this gift and he says I could get the people to believe me and he re-emphasizes that believe me so his ministry was about believing in him you know more about believing in God and God's testimonies more about believing in his own testimony about the angel and of course his son Joseph today confirms that because they only use a tape ministry you know they they only play tapes they don't they don't play a minister speaking to him other than just to give some opening comments and then they bring you know brother Brannum on in a tape recorded sermon back in

these days he says if I can get you to believe me with all your heart and he said that's what moves God then you're healed that's kind of interesting this that I've never seen that in scripture where it was only Jesus says that you believe in me God will be moved not that you take a man standing there and say if you believe in me that's what moves God but that's what he mentioned on tape there he says I believe what I'm doing is what you need to believe and so so why does he say believing in him with all his heart is the key that moves God

and I think that's a big red flag so eventually he goes on in this sermon here I mentioned that the girl you know got up out of bed she was standing on the porch and wave goodbye to him and you know who he says this is he says this is Edith Wright and Edith Wright as we know is the girl that was paralyzed I believe from her birth she was always in a paralyzed state and later tapes of course he mentions had he write and her speaking the word and and and and getting some miracle that took place about her son's salvation but here is

talking about this is Edith Wright and I wonder if it's just a false testimony or some type of thing he's saying to the audience but how could she have ever gotten out of bed when she was paralyzed she never she never was healed but here he was talking about a testimony you know it's just like I said at the beginning of the show it's it's so weird it's like it's a weird doctrine and you know the hypnosis I did deep studies on that after there was a long road trip I took with Dr. Stephen Hassan and he was telling me the techniques of hypnosis

that were used in cults and I never really thought about it I never really thought about William Branham doing it and I never really thought about leaders in the movement doing it but simple things like he was telling me that one of the techniques that they all use is that whenever they want to implant something in your head that they want your mind to align with theirs, they'll talk to you and they'll stare past your eyes where there is no real focus.

And so you're staring in their eyes and they're looking beyond your head. Well, it throws your mind off of kilter and it puts you in a state where you can be easily manipulated. And I got to thank everybody I know in leadership has done that. In fact, I do that. I don't anymore.

Now that I realize how wrong that is. But I was trained to do this without explicit audible training. I just I learned by practice. If you wanted to convince somebody that was a technique that you use and there were several of these techniques that were hypnotic. And when you think about the way that they've done this, I mean, earn backster. This this is the guy who is starting the shepherding movement. And we all know if you follow the trails to the NAR, he's a key milestone because after Brannum died, then there's the shepherding and you had the Fort Lauderdale 5 and then

that all of that splintered and all of these paths that lead into the NAR. Well, they've rewritten spiritual history because all of these men knew that William Brannum was doing this. Earned backster being one of the key and he's openly stating it in the shepherding movement. So they all knew at one point that William Brannum is introducing the occult. He's introducing hypnosis. He's introducing claims that he can heal without the power of God, just he himself. But one of the key doctrines that was rewritten that continued into the NAR, which is unbelievable. You can actually

see this in the comments in our videos. They they not only were they rewriting history, they were rewriting rewriting the interpretation of key scriptures in the Bible. One of them is whenever Jesus says that faith has made you whole. Well, Brannum taught faith and faith and that's exactly what Baxter is saying there. And that passage, if you actually read it in context and the context of other scriptures, it's faith in God, it's faith in Jesus. You have to have that higher power for your faith. It's not faith in faith or it's not faith in a human, not faith in a divine healer.

Earned backster recognized that and he openly stated it. But what William Brannum is doing with these hypnotic techniques is he's bringing the individual's faith into a hypnotic faith so that they completely shut down critical thought. And if you look at any of the NAR churches today, that's that is the technique they're bringing you into the state where you have disengaged critical thought, you have faith in faith, and then they manipulate what they want that faith to be in. And it's so destructive when you think about it. But There's so much more.

I think we're only halfway through all of this. So, John, let's pick up next week and let's continue on with this unusual revival that even though nobody has heard of this, this is relatively, you know, Charles and I mentioned it briefly, but this is relatively untapped history.

But if you really think about what's happening here, this is literally laying the framework for what would become the NAR. Because Brannum brings this all throughout the Latter-in Revivals, and he's teaching this openly in these Revivals to the extent that leaders in the Sharon Orphanage are saying that he's doing this in the Sharon Orphanage.

So right there in the epicenter where Latter-in was birth and all of these thousands of ministers and evangelists have came from this movement, they're all breeding spiritualism in that movement. That's how bad this is, so we'll pick it up next week.

If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-brannum.org. For more information about Roy Davis and William Brannum, read the persuasive preacher, the gifted prophet, and the noble politician.

For more information about the dark side of Latter-in, read Weaponized Religion from Latter-in to Colonia Dignidad, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.