Our Stories - Morningstar - An Inside View - With Adam Short

Hello and welcome to another episode which you apparently have well I can't claim to have too much of an inside view it's been a long time but happy to talk about my experience and hopefully you know provide some context and shed light on kind of the big scandal that's it a morning star here in past few weeks yeah it's it's kind of crazy I've avoided you know for the most part of avoided anything to do with the deep details of what's going on because you know all of that's gonna come out in the

I guess apparently in the lawsuit but there there's a lot of the framework that exists that enables things like this to happen which is part of the reason I wanted to have you on the show because you know in a normal church there are a lot of safeguards that prevent these kind of things from happening and absolutely you know having grown up in this type of religion and you know even though we weren't charismatic we were the precursor to it whenever something like this would happen I would look at it in the cult mindset and I would think to myself well that could happen any any church and this is just another you know figurehead who has fallen but what actually started attending new churches and watching the structure how the structures were set up and all of the checks and balances that were in place I had to rethink that quite a bit because this yes it can happen in a normal church but there's a lot of things that I can't do in this church

there's there are a lot of things that have to fall into place magically for it to happen and when it does the blast radius is quite limited yeah I think that's a good point we continue to see what I think is a very similar playbook if you look at IOPKC watch the propaganda watch the information control watch the narrative spin watch the PR experts quote unquote come in Morning Star has been a little bit different, I think, and I'm happy to talk through my thoughts on that, but if you zoom out a little bit, you look at the lawsuit, by the way, there were two other lawsuits were filed, so they're now are three lawsuits.

One of them was filed yesterday, September 5th, the other one was filed, September 3rd, so now we have three lawsuits, and if you take the time like I did and some others who were in the advocate space to read through, it's graphic.

It's graphic, I will say it's a trigger warning for people sensitive to these subjects, but so just be aware of that, but the deep allegations, and actually to be frank, this particular perpetrator has been criminally charged, he did not show up in court yesterday, so there's actually a bench warrant for his arrest.

So we're talking information control, we're talking, you mentioned blast rate is, for example, I think that in this case the blast rate is pretty widespread because I hop is so recent that I think so many people are so aware, so much more aware to clergy sexual abuse, as opposed to maybe even a few years ago, when it was not as much on people's radar.

But given what has happened at IHOP, what has happened at Gateway Church, Robert Morris, and then some other scandals that have come out recently, people are aware of it, and the information control, they try to tamp that down, but at this point it's just like dominant, I think, just kind of falling down.

You know, looking at this from the outside in, which is what I'm doing, I see so many similarities into just the setup of how it was able to happen, whenever you have people who claim that they have some spiritual gift and spiritual effect, the rank and file members in this thing, look at these people as though almost like their gods.

I mean, they obviously don't call them gods, but they, they're basically, they've an effect become the mediator between God and man. Yep. And so their guards are all down, they're not suspecting these kind of things to happen.

Oh, absolutely, oh my gosh, that is such a can of worms. I will just say, you know, just a dud till my experience with Morningstar, I have not been there in a long time.

We live in the backyard, I don't want to say literal backyard, but it's the next town over Fort Mill from us. So literally, you know, it's a very short drive to Morningstar. And it's on the here to GSA property, which is the old PTO property that Jim and Tammy Faye Baker made famous back in the 80s.

And there's a whole story behind that. But to your point about these people, these leaders in these churches like Morningstar do set themselves up. Whether it's intentional or not, I'd like to still believe that there's a shred of sincerity that's, it'd be more than sincerity, but like they actually think that they're doing something good for the world, but they do set themselves up in a position of like a priest, like an Old Testament priest, where it is the mediation between the laity, you know, the little peon people, the commoners as it were, between them and God, and I think what happens is, there are a lot

of reasons for this, but I think what ends up happening is you have a culture that continues to boost, boost these people and pedestals to where they're untouchable, and they can do no wrong.

And so when you have a scandal like this at Morningstar, you know, Rick joiners coming out, pretty, pretty public, like he's commenting almost in real time about this candle, and he's saying that they investigated, they did a thorough investigation internally, they reported it to the police, and that, you know, they did all the right things, but everybody's story is not lining up, like there are mismatching effects here, so somebody's not telling the full truth, but there are still people who really back Rick and back all the leaders, and they think that they walk on water, and they think that there's no wrong these guys can do, and nothing

can be further from the truth. And unfortunately, it is oftentimes a secondary abuse that happens with these leaders that causes even more, and I don't want to minimize the initial abuse that happened with these victims, that is atrocious and horrific, but the secondary fallout that happens where people are spiritually abused, gaslit, and led to believe that there's nothing that these leaders can do wrong. That right there, that impact is real, and it takes a toll, it's second huge toll when people who ultimately, in my case, you just choose to walk away from Christianity entirely, and I don't blame them for doing that, honestly, after experiencing such a

toxic environment like this. Yeah, it's so hard. I mean, whenever you have been manipulated to disable critical thought and critical thinking, and even a step beyond that, you're, in many cases, you're taught that critical thinking is, quote, the, quote unquote, the devil speaking to your head. We grew up in scenarios where that if you had a question, it was because the devil was making you question, it was that kind of thing, and that has just progressed into the NAR for some reason. They do not like the critical thinking, and when you cannot apply critical thinking

to your leader, and something like this happens, what response can be trustworthy at all, because when something like this happens at Shockshoe and suddenly you realize that number one, I should have been critical thinking.

I should have been critically examining everything and I wasn't. So whenever you hear a statement, no matter even if it's light out in the open and he's completely being open and honest with all of the details that he has, you still can't trust him because in the past nothing was critically examined.

One of the things, when you start talking about critical thinking, if you look at what's happening literally present tense right now with the Morningstar lawsuits in particular, you look at the facts that are being alleged, right?

Everything that's being alleged in these lawsuits. And then you have people like Rick join her standing up and he's giving his version of the facts, which are different than what is being laid out in these lawsuits and different than what is being reported by victims.

The question becomes, the people at the bottom of the totem pole, what do they choose to believe? Are they going to believe what is in a lawsuit complaint or are they going to believe what Rick join her says?

They're probably going to believe what Rick join her says and here's the filter it goes through, right? When you live in a prophetic culture and prophecy is very, very emphasized in Morningstar just like it is at Bethel and I have KC, that's the trifect of the hypercarysmatic movement right there.

I've been in all of them. I've been in Bethel. I was neck deep in Bethel. I was probably waist deep but I hopped and I was maybe chest deep in Morningstar. And that is the trifect of the hypercarysmatic movement that now I've learned really was a large to a large degree of fruit of the later reign of the William Brandon stuff.

And I'm getting to a point here, back to the people in the church, right? So think about people and we know people still in Morningstar and it's a delicate line you walk because some of them still appear to be supporting the church and believing the narrative that comes out officially through the church is really painful to watch that.

But the filter of this stuff goes through is you've got the lost it over here, right? You've got actually a three lost it's over here, alleging all these facts. And then you have the quote-unquote official church narrative over here on the other side which is, you know, all your leaders basically telling you what to believe, what happened in the past.

And those two don't job and so at the end of the day I think what a lot of people end up believing is, well, I've got to run anything I read from any source besides this environment of church.

I've got to filter it through the prophetic lens and so you end up with a skewed reality literally like and people cannot simply accept facts. And that is- just one of the effects of the further spiritual abuse that happens is people are in gaslit to believe that they can't trust their own five senses.

They can't trust their brain, they can't trust their eyes. You might be seeing this with your eyes, you might be hearing this with your ears, but don't believe it. Believe what I tell you as the church leader, right?

Because I am the authority and they won't come out and actually say it that way, but they sure could in a way to where, at the end of the day, you were left believing that you're the problem, and you have a lack of faith, if you choose not to believe the prophetic message that's being sort of spun from the top of the pulpit.

So anyway, there's a lot to unpack there, but I think that that is another contributing factor back to your original point, John, for why in the hypercharismatic churches like this, the blast radius ends up being so wide, because people are predispositioned in condition to sort of look the other way, and you move yourself up the echelons of leadership, and it's just increasing what sort of look for increasing sort of look the other way.

This isn't really happening. It's like, I need to keep my faith and just deny the realities of what's going on here. The bottom line really is this, this movement before it turned into Charismania, the movement created a culture where the culture itself absorbed anything that should be taken critically, and there were, you know, if you go back through the historical podcast that Charles and I did, there are all kinds of things that were happening, some of which were too graphic for me to really even say in a podcast, YouTube takes my video down, but there were things like,

you know, William Brannum surrounded himself with several homosexual men during an era when it was illegal to practice homosexuality, and some of those men got caught apparently, and the accusations were that Brannum himself was also, but the movement just kind of looked the other way because like you said, it's the prophetic movement.

He's God's prophet, so God placed these men here for some purpose for the prophet is I think the mentality that they took. And then on top of that, a lot of these men will build up a narrative that becomes sort of a mythological adventure for themselves.

Yes, we're going through the lawsuit. Yes, these things are happening. Yes, this person has fallen, but it's the devil attacking us, and that's why he fell we need to pick him back up. And so what you have are, you have men, men who are doing some very bad things, but when they fall, it's like a bungee cord, they just come right back up.

Yeah. Fortunately, it's sad, but Rick, Jr. has now, on Twitter, a lot of us on Twitter every day, you know, fighting for victims and survivors and stuff, many of us are survivors, myself included.

And there's this moniker going around about Restoration Rick, because he's infamous for stepping in and restoring leaders like Todd Bentley, even Paul Kane back in the day, when that eventually became, you know, it kind of came to a head in 2004, but here we have, you talk about the Bungie Corps, we have a similar situation now with Chris Reed, where, and it's hard to say, is Rick going to try to restore Chris Reed, but I mean, you sort of, you see those underpinnings, I think they're now at odds with each other, Rick and Chris, that sounds

like, I don't know, either of them personally, so I can't really comment on what they, what they do or don't do, you know, behind scenes, but the Bungie Corps effect, where it's like somebody in a position of clergy that, you know, a pastor or a quote-unquote prophet or apostle, allegations come forth, they are credible, they are secretly restored behind the scenes, and then they're back in the pulpit.

And what is really infuriating is to find out now, after the fact, that for Chris Reed's case, apparently the quote-unquote Restoration process for him was two months, and they didn't even, it's my understanding, I wasn't a morning star at the time, but they didn't even announce it to the church body.

And if you were a part, if you're sending your kids, if you're attending church, you're paying your tide to a church, you're going to their conferences, you're buying their books, you're buying their music, gobs of money going into this church, and you mean to tell me that you as a leadership are not going to have as much courtesy to come up and say, hey, by the way, the up and coming president has been credibly accused of clergy sexual abuse.

Like that boggles my mind, and I mean, as somebody who's been out of church for 13 years, that just does not, I don't even, I don't even know what to do with that. So it remains to be seen what will happen with Chris, if he'll come back or he won't, I mean, it sounds like he's starting another church, another part of South Carolina.

But it's just, it's just rents and repeat. Like these people just cannot stop creating new organizations, rents and repeat, funnel the money all the way to the top. I sound cynical because I am.

I don't, I don't put too much for damper on it, but it's just, I'm so sorry. or John ever the whole thing. You know, I get accused of being cynical. And I look at some of these things and I like this is a serious subject and I'm not making light of it.

But whenever you take a step back and you just examine the entire thing and its entire history, some of it gets a little bit funny because you see some very odd characters who are making themselves the next thing to God.

And you find people that will follow anything. And that's just, you know, it's a comedy of errors really is what it is. But I get accused of being cynical and it's for me it's just, I have seen the history and the fact that people are not examining the history, the history is repeating itself again and again and again.

Why do people not just take notice of what's happening? And I think there's a level of mind control that goes in with this. When people are manipulated to shut off critical thinking and they are manipulated into thinking it's okay for the leaders to withhold any critical information.

They can be guided to, you know, leaders can guide them to do whatever it is that they want them to do. Oh yeah, 100% absolutely. And I'll just go back in my experience for a minute if I can, you know, Morningstar.

And I shared this on Twitter the other day and it was just a short post but just, you know, as a teen, I went to Morningstar because it's right around the corner. At that time, the campus was in Charlotte, North Carolina just across the state line.

And now they're in Fort Real South Carolina. We're real close to the state line. So it's, the, does all the state line and just make it one state. But anyway, as a teen, I was, what, 16, 17, maybe 17 or 18, I started going to Morningstar on their Friday night services school of the spirit.

And by the way, I encountered the Lord in an encounter by myself in my room one night when I was 16. That's how I met him. Nobody was praying over a microphone. Nobody was praying over me or any of that.

It was like this encounter I have of the Lord. And I didn't grow up in an environment where that was even a thing. Like I didn't know about encounters with the Lord. So it was a totally sovereign experience.

Changed my life forever. Nobody can ever take that from me because nobody gave it to me but God. Like a man can't take that from me. But I say that to say this, growing up in the Bible belt, I was not exposed to the charismatic world at all.

In fact, I grew up in a very conservative Christian environment, like Lutheran and we went to Presbyterian for some years. So had no grid for anything supernatural, like speaking in tongues, miracles, healing, anything like that, encounters, dreams, visions.

So here I am at 16 in counter the Lord. Through a series of circumstances and a good friend of mine, we started going to Morningstar Friday nights and sometimes on Sundays. I have to say I encountered God in a big way there at Morningstar and to their credit, you know, received a lot of understanding, whether it's good, better, and different about the prophetic, about healing, about signs and wonders.

It gave me a grid and a framework to understand the experiences I was having at a personal level. And so to have that formative experience in the context of a church like Morningstar, when you're a teenager, you know, your brain is still forming, you have not reached full cognitive development at that age.

And then you fast forward. Like that was the late 90s. Now you fast forward to where we are now in 2024. And you watch this unfold. And it's some of the similar questions that I've asked myself regarding I have. Like, and we've talked about this on the last episode.

What do you keep? What do you throw out? What part of your experience was valid? What part of it was maybe not valid or what part of it was like sort of all in the deep end?

And so there's all like real questions that you have to answer and navigate through. So that's just another layer on top of the actual abuse itself is like, what do you peel back? And I'm of the opinion, like, put it all on the table, like, whether it be your theology, your experiences, put it on the table and let it be on the chopping block.

I'm like, I've been in this journey for 13 years. And I thought that I was fairly far along the process until, you know, these scandals started hitting and realized, oh my gosh, it's like back to square one, you are wrestling with the people that you trusted to guide you spiritually, have now been involved in really dark stuff.

Not just for six months or a year, but, but for decades. And that is incredibly devastating. Yeah, it is devastating. One of the other problem that I see, and this is not a problem just with the NAR or its predecessors, it actually even predates branemism and laterane of good bit.

If you go back in time and you look at how these movements progressed into cults, there were numerous cults that formed because of this movement, they would, the main trunk would just branch off like this sprinkling of cults across the globe.

And in each situation, the ministers sometimes men sometimes women would lead the person to believe that when they receive their salvation in the movement, salvation by God, they received it because of the movement or because of the leader.

And the problem with this is many of these movements are corrupt and many of these movements are false movements. Even though the person is actually, in my opinion, the person is actually connecting with God. Now, there is some valid question, is it the same God? You know, I'm not even going to try to answer that. But in these situations, I had my salvation experience in a cult of William Brannum and I was seeking God. I wasn't seeking William Brannum. I wasn't seeking these other things. Whenever I left, there were many numerous members of the cult who contacted me and

asked if I'd lost my salvation in an attacking way. It wasn't like they were trying to get me to come back. They were trying to cut me off. And they said, well, how could you have salvation and leave the cult? In other words, they had made the salvation and the cult one the same. It has to be gathered. So every year this morning. Yeah, exactly. So you hear this kind of thing happening in Morningstar or even in IHOP. The question, even the members who escaped, they sometimes question their own salvation. Well, was I really saved? I was in this movement by this false prophet.

So it's a problem that exists also for former members because they too have been manipulated to see the movement and the salvation in one entity. But you have to really separate that and peel it back. I'll tell you what I'm really wrestling with right now, just case and point here with Morningstar.

And I haven't really listened to Rick Joyner's teaching in years, like it's been a long time. And so I don't really keep up with his latest and greatest prophecies and this, that and the other. But to tune in to some of the, you know, he's done a few videos from the pulpit here recently, both at the heritage property main campus in Fort Mill. And then also at the Braving Falls, because he's up there too, which is towards the mountains of North Carolina.

I like, I listen to some of the stuff he says, John, and I'll be honest to be fully honest with everybody listening here. Like it's hard for me to listen to him. And like I find myself listening to him because I listen to him as a teenager. And like he was very, I really gave a lot of wake to him and trusted him. And I don't know how to, I don't even know how to verbalize this, but, but like I struggle listening to him and wanting to like pull out any nuggets I can out of what he's saying,

not about the abuse because that's garbage, but I'm saying like anything he throws in that's about God. or prophetic or something like, I'm legitimately still struggling with that. And like, that's just being open about it.

Like I struggle knowing, well, what is he even of God at all or is he just completely not of God? Is he like, does he wake up in the morning and know that he's going out to take advantage of people and manipulate them or does he believe that he legitimately has a heart for God and is trying to teach people?

Like, I still am struggling with that. Like, this is full disclosure. And this is not my first go around at deconstruction I've been doing it for 13 years. So it just goes to show you that, it shows you how deep this goes in the human psyche.

Like, in your mind, like, my mind's telling me, hey, I know what's the truth here. Peel all that back and set aside the govety-gook that these guys use to try to spiritualize everything. I can reasonably and critically think about it, but like I'm just saying at a profound deep level, I still have that wrestling going on inside.

I don't know if that makes sense, but that's just kind of some of my process. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery, 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-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

You know, whenever I first began the website, I faced an interesting problem from people who were in the cult of William-Brannum. I would find these quote-unquote nuggets, but I was looking for the things that were just complete nonsense, things that were absurd.

And I would play it. And within the nonsense might be something that was healthy or good. You have the good and the bad. And so you have to, as a Christian, you're supposed to rightly discern what is good and what is good not.

But the problem was, because people had been trained to listen to him. without critically thinking, critical examining, it's like they were lulled to sleep whenever I played the voice in the clip and had the example that I wanted to show and often the people would completely miss the point I was trying to try to point out and I was actually getting former and current members praising the things that he said that we're good and totally not seeing at all the horrendous thing and so some of my videos and most of them are taken down now the cult attack my website but for a long time when I would play a clip of the voice, I would have this obnoxious and overly loud music that was playing in the background so that the mind was distracted from being lulled to sleep by the voice by hearing the obnoxious music and it although it was ridiculous I go back out I don't know how people listen to these things it was effective and it really really helped people to just kind of

shake and wake up and I think the problem is whenever you're around these quote-unquote prophetic figures, these so-called prophets and apostles etc. they have trained the members to believe they're on this higher spiritual plane and so you're looking for I think you use the same word that we did in the brand of cult you're looking for these nuggets you're looking for these special things as though God is somehow giving up giving you special insight into the Bible because of their voice that kind of thing yes when you have the Bible you can just open the Bible and read it

100% yeah we don't need the latest and greatest word of the week or whatever it is like I can open the Bible I don't have a Bible in my office in here but yeah just open up the Bible and take a verse and you know decide to meditate on it for a couple of minutes or whatever and that's the simplicity I think that so many people are craving right now like when you've been in circles like Morningstar Iop Casey Bethel the way in brand of movements and stuff like that there's that there's this it's like a secret knowledge even though

they don't call it that you know it's you're considered the special because you you have some kind of revelation and I'll be honest to be like now when and it's not very often that I even see this stuff anymore because I don't watch sermons and messages anymore at all partly but if it ever comes across my social media like a quote from one of these leaders I read it John and I'm like honestly like I'll read it just for face value and I have apps of freaking Luke Lee no idea what it means like I don't know what it means like what are you even talking about like I compare that to

I said, it's like Jesus wept. They'd get any simpler than that. Like Jesus was weeping. I mean, you know, compare the two and it's just two different galaxies. Yeah. I did a study on that for a while.

There was a period of time in which I thought Brannum and some of the men in the, you know, the immediate circle of laddering leaders that were just complete embeciles. And after researching and digging, I realized that these men weren't.

These men were smart and they had a strategy. But they were, they were very brilliant in their way of speaking. There was a guy, I don't know if you've seen the old candid camera shows, but there's this guy that did what they called double talk.

And he would come in and he would go into a restaurant and the restaurant owner would walk up and he would start talking and they were real words, but none of them really went together in the sentence.

And he would look at him, he, he had all of the effects of that economists. What, he would look at him in a serious way saying something that meant absolutely nothing. And the guy was so confused and it was funny stuff if you ever get a chance to see it.

Well, one of the techniques of mind control is you confuse the person and then inject the thing in their head that you want to, want them to believe or establish in their, in their psyche.

And if you look at the speech patterns of these guys, a lot of times the core doctrine, whenever they're talking about it, they're saying complete nonsense. And when I take a step back, I need to do a deep dive on Bob Jones.

I still haven't done it yet. But you look at some of the nonsensical things that is coming out of the mouth of these guys. And you ask yourself, was it a strategy where they're doing this purposefully to wreak havoc in the people's heads?

Or were they literally insane? And if so, how did they get to such a status in this movement when they were insane? Yeah, I know. And I wonder that too about some of the people in positions of political power, too.

It's like, is that the best we've got? I will open that can of words right now. But, um, but yeah, to your point, like, I mean, and I'm a southerer, like y'all can probably tell.

But, like, you listen to Bob Jones. And I mean, Bob Jones was like, he was like one of those quote unquote, I don't wanna call him a god, but I mean, he was basically elevated to that level.

And yeah, you listen to some of his recordings and it's not just gobbledygook, it's like gobbledygook, redneck gobbledygook. And, you don't even know what to do with it, like, anyway, I wouldn't even try to do an impression right now.

But, um, maybe if you do it Bob Jones series, we can do it. We can do it in a personation.

I'm redneck enough that I have to fight to keep it off of my podcast because.

You know, I just take a step back and I look at the way these guys are talking and the things that they're saying and. It's it is utter confusion and I've watched you probably seen the videos Daniel long and some of these other guys that they're doing where they're.

They've got these little clips that they play of NAR guys saying the stupidest stuff, you know, and I look at some of that stuff and I, you know, it's. Number one, it's hard to believe that you're doing it in a church, but number two, the people are accepting it as though, you know, I look at it and it's like a comedy routine, but they're accepting it as spiritual.

And so there is a again, it's a comedy of errors that these guys have created, but the people almost expect the absurd. And one of the other problems that former members have, in fact, I've had this conversation multiple times now when a person leaves this type of religion and they go into a.

Normal healthy church where the people, the minister is speaking actual intelligent sentences. They leave thinking it's so they use the word dry or they use the word non spiritual or when they hear somebody who can actually structure sentences together in a complete thought.

They think that it is not spiritual. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's a thing for sure. And I can say as somebody who grew up in a very conservative Christian church environment, and then you contrast that to like the literal hyper charismatic movement where you got people whirling around, you know, with swords and flags and loose cannons and God knows what else.

It's like they might as well put the slot machine up there on the stage too while they're at it, because like we talked about before, like at the end of the day, you know, let's do the offering declaration.

All this lot, like let me get my, I'm going to get my healing, I will get my million dollars in my bank account and we're getting to my perfect spouse and you know, and so you have this.

Your condition to believe that when I go to church, I'm going to get all these goods, right? I'm going to come on in. I'm going to get these goods. It's got to be this wild fanfare to make sense that people go to press material or Methodist or wherever it is. And they're like, oh, that's so boring. Like I don't want to, you know, stand up and read off a page, but I'll tell you for me, like our son goes to a Christian school and when they do their graduations each year.

It's really refreshing to get somebody who stands up at the end of the or the beginning of the like graduation program or whatever they. say like a 10 second prayer. And they're not asking everybody to come down here and sweat blood and roll around in the dirt and the slobber flying everywhere. They just get up there and they pray for five or 10 seconds. They pray for the students, they pray for the families, and that's it. And it's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. What, what a refreshing feeling. So it's really a full circle like to go

from, you know, go from that conservative to hyper crazy town to back to, even though we're not a church anymore, but like, it's just refreshing to experience that, that other side of it again.

A little bit. Yeah. You know, and after you've been disconnected for a while, you forget some of the really absurd things. I recently went to a dinner that had some cult members in it. And the cult member was asked to pray for the meal. And good Lord, man, I forgot how long those prayers could be. Normal Christians, they're like, bless the food. And, and the prayer is about the food.

Well, they're praying for everything from the kitchen staff to all kinds of weird stuff, man. They're preaching a sermon in their prayer, right? Oh my gosh. And it's not true. But it's not true.

You know, you're talking about the people rolling around or whatever. There's a, I don't know if I could find it for the video or not, but there's a clip where they've taken the Pentecostal dancing in the spirit or whatever and they've put the music to ductiles behind it. And the people are dancing.

And I saw that as I was writing my new book. And I got to the point, there's a point where I'm talking about John Wimber and talking about the birth of the revival. And I think it's Wimber, I think it's Wimber that I quoted, but he said that he was in the revival and he got on the ground.

And there's a guy next to him, Oinking. And so my next book I need to do on the Holy Oinking, because I don't think anybody has really explored that one. Yeah, I hadn't heard of the Oinking, but I've heard of Barkin.

Yeah, you probably heard that. I guess the Toronto blessing up in Toronto, you know, people were notorious for Barking up there. So, you know, there's no, so the moral of the story is if you want to be an animal, right, if you want to bark like a dog or oink like a pig, come on, we'll take all of it. Yeah, but you know, it just goes back to, this is a different religion, it's not Christianity. And yeah, I still struggle, like you mentioned earlier in the podcast, I struggle too with trying to decipher whatever was real, whatever was false, what, you know,

there's this notion that God is speaking to you and they build it up, right? Anything that happens in your life, it's God speaking to you. And there are people that if you ask them a question, question, they won't give you an answer until they say, well, I must go first and let God speak to me.

And that's not something you hear in a normal Christian church. It's a little bit odd. But they put it on to this pedestal where, you know, what is God? What is this God that's speaking?

Does he wink like a pig? Does he bark like a dog? And you have to really separate, well, what of this is just animal instincts in the human that we're connecting with and what of it is actual spirituality?

Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I've never really thought too too much about that part of it. But to your point on, you know, you can't make a decision unless you feel like God speaks to you.

I was trapped in that loop for a long time until, you know, I'd like to think I evolved from that. But it really is, it's like robotic living. It's like you, and you see the heart behind it, right?

Like you see people, you know, people want to legitimately follow God and know what he's, you know, what as hard as for your life and stuff like that. And so I'm not criticizing that, but there is a, there's a component where you almost, and I think it's back to the critical thinking, right?

Where you check your humanity at the door, you check your decision making at the door, you check your critical thinking at the door, you check your emotions at the door, and you basically come in and like open my head up and fill me with whatever you want to fill me with, called church.

And I will be the robot that you form me to be, and I write every check that you ask me to write, you'll get all of my money, you'll get all my allegiance, you'll get all of my support.

And meanwhile, all of that collective social capital is going right to the top of the pyramid. And these guys are rolling in cash, and I don't know how they sleep at night, honestly. I mean, they must have burned their conscience so bad that they don't fill anything anymore.

I don't know. Who knows, only God knows. But yeah, you just end up continuing to exploit all these people until they're basically a phantom of a human walking around that doesn't, they're not even able to connect with their decision making anymore.

And I think that's where that's how cult happened. Really, at the end of the day. It is horrifying and to make it, to take it to even level further, there is this structure in a cult where the central figure, everybody beneath them has shut off their critical thinking.

And the central figure is projecting on the people. And so the people start to act, think, become more and more like the central figure. That's the person that is their mediator between God and man.

And so they take on the identity, the false identity of the central figure and suppress their authentic selves. Well, whenever these central figures are doing the things that we see, you know, you look at all of the lawsuits and not going to go into the details, but the fear is, what happens with this?

Whenever they take on the identities of these leaders, and they're taking the good and the bad in many cases where you can examine and you can see both the good and the bad, well, what about the really, really bad?

Are they taking this on too? For me, it's, I'm fascinated with psychology, so this kind of thing interests me to know in, but the human mind, whenever they take that on, many of the people who do these things were in groups where other people that they looked up to had also done these things.

And so then you begin to wonder, is it a cycle that repeats because they're in a cult and because they are taking on the identity of the central figure? Yes. That is such a huge area to explore.

And you'll see it show up in the leadership. You'll see many versions of the leader, like they even talk the same or similar. They will act the same, they'll preach the same, they'll, you know, there's, there's like these characteristics that it's like you learn that almost through osmosis.

And there's this, there's a system of rewarding people, I think, the more you're like the leader, the more, the more you get promoted further up, further up to eventually, maybe you'll be the second person in charge or a third person in charge and so, but yeah, it's back to like mimic, you know, a mimicry of the person at the top or the group of people at the top.

I've definitely seen that my own journey through these organizations. So you were in Morningstar, you got out and you're deconstructing and still deconstructing and in many ways you're, you're matching myself because I think it's a never ending journey of deconstruction.

I don't know that there's really a place where that ends, but for the people who are in Morningstar, if you could give them some advice because there are people still trapped in this. What advice would I give them?

Wonder if maybe this is a tip. What would happen if you paused all of the propaganda? Like are you willing to go there? Are you willing to let yourself tune out, not listen to any sermons for a while, not listen to any music and just let yourself think for a second, let's be able to hear yourself, to hear your thoughts, and pay attention to what do you actually think?

What do you actually feel about this? Is this, is there something off? Is there something you're not comfortable with? And I think at the end of the day being able to be honest with yourself about...

what your experience is. And that is honestly, I think, the starting point of really coming to terms with what you've been through as a person, whether spiritually, relationally, financially, whatever area it is. So I don't know if that's even a good tip or not, but that's what came to mind.

Yeah, it's a good tip. And it made me think back to COVID-19 was devastating on the globe. I mean, there are many people who died. I have several friends, close family who died. But it was also devastating to the cults, which is interesting. And not because of the deaths, although that had a little bit of an impact. But once they issue the order that you couldn't gather together, the group think doesn't work if you're not in a group. So when the people are separated, they're not, I don't know if you're Star Trek fan, the Star Trek Borg.

I'm not, but under you are. Yeah. So there's this villain in the Star Trek, which was actually created for, to resemble a cult. But when they disconnect from the hive, they keep trying to reconnect, trying to reconnect. Well, this happened during COVID-19. These people were told that they couldn't gather together. And they're trying to reconnect. Some of them would meet in their homes in small groups because they couldn't assemble on the church. Well, it's not the same group. So the group think dynamic was different. And it resulted in a large mass exodus from not just

the, the brand called, but from many cults, global. And there were a lot of people that were de-churching too. So the de-churching, the de-churchification that was happening, you saw these leaders rising up and they were denouncing all of the people who were bringing the quote unquote, critical thinking. But in effect, people had just separated and they realized that I don't need this in my life. I don't need this cult in my life. I can, I can be my own person. I don't have to have a cult. And so, yeah. So your advice is technically it's on par with that because if they were to

just take a step back and just disconnect for a little bit, then if they have no desire to go back, there's that fear, well, oh my gosh, well, am I lost? Am I apostate? But if you can get past that fear and just, you know, try to realize that you really don't, if you have to connect with them to connect with God, you have established a mediator between God and man. And it's not a good one.

We see what's happening and it is not a good one. Right. That's such an interesting case study that you mentioned about COVID-19, but it makes sense. Like, you know, you're not nearly as, not only connected, but, you're not, I'm getting as much propaganda.

I mean, it's like a propaganda machine. So everybody knows that the most effective way to be propagandized is in person with loud speakers, influential smooth talking snake hole salesman, i.e. charismatic preachers. Yeah.

And really loud and awesome music. I mean, all three of these places I've been in have awesome music to this day. It's amazing. It's like, and I still listen to some of it sometimes.

Yeah. Full disclosure. But yeah, to your point, like, you disconnect, you take a pause, and also now you're surrounded by three people in your living room trying to do church through a live feed, you know, live stream or whatever it is.

It's totally different than being in an auditorium or a arena with 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 people. It's just a totally different experience. So anyway, I think that's a really good case study.

And I'm glad to hear that people extricated during COVID. Yeah, and it's another discussion for another day, but if you read the early Christian history and even read what's in the Bible, it talks about assembling in houses like they did.

So then the question bags, well, and I'm not going to ask that question. I'm not just leaving alone. But anyway, thank you for doing this. I've, you know, all this was happening, and I did not want to really address the allegations or anything like that, because I'm not a person who likes to sling mud.

But I did run to get somebody who had been in there so we could talk about the structure of the place and apply that to the history that I have. So thank you for doing this.

Oh my gosh, absolutely. This is probably the highlight of my week, John, to talk to you today. So I'm serious. It's so fun. I love your podcast. I'm like, probably your biggest subscriber. Every, I'll just say this before we're done.

Every lunch, I walk around my downtown town here, outside my office, and I listen to your podcast usually. So thumbs up, man. Appreciate what you're doing. Super big band over here. And I was honored to be on your show again.

And we thought Bob Jones was crazy. No. 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 more information about the dark side of the NAR, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Soon, Audible.

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