Weaponized Religion: Avak Hagopian - the NAR's Narcissist Prototype

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, author of the Persuasive Preacher, the Gifted Profit, 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. Well, John, today we have an unusual, usually weird episode.

We're bringing in to focus one of the side stories of all of this, and it's interestingly, it's a side story that continued to progress long after you know, Laterane developed and then fizzled out. I have actually had multiple former members of the cult that was established by this man that we're going to talk about today, contact me, and according to them, which I, you know, I have no way other than what I see in the news, which seems to affirm it.

According to them, it's very eerily similar to what the allegations are with Mike Bickle and IHOPKC at the moment. There was apparently, according to the people that have contacted me, there was some unusual manipulation and grooming of women, according to what they told me.

I look it up and apparently, apparently there are some, there are some substantiating claims in the news of what was happening. But anyway, this figure that we're talking about today, honestly, as I was researching and I came across this name, I had no idea who it was and find out that Brannum, his early ministry was connected to it. I just got curious and I came to realize that without him, it would have, the message itself may not have looked in the same way that it did. This figure, even though he has just a blip in our history, he appears to have

helped shape it if you know what I mean. Yeah, John. And we haven't spoken prior to this episode here, but it's interesting you mentioned about the allegations against AVAC and I came across some very confirming evidence that I'll share later that talks about the grooming of women.

and so forth in this in this movement. And early on, when I used to hear about Avaq and I knew he was from Iran and was a healer from Iran, I always thought he had to go back to Iran because I knew that was the thing. But actually, Avaq stayed in the United States.

He had to leave the country for a short period of time before he got deported. But he actually ended up creating a religious movement of people that followed him all through his life. But it's interesting to see about the women that he groomed and how the women he eventually had for his own harem stayed with him. But we'll go through that later.

But today, we're exploring some parallels. There's some real intriguing parallels between Bram's ministry and Avaq Hagopian that I'll mention throughout the podcast. But both of them came through the 20th century and they had messages from God. They claimed to speak for God and even claimed prophetic utterances. Hagopian emphasized on divine healing. It actually mirrors Bram's focus. And there were one time meeting. It was for different reasons. And we'll talk about Clim Davies. At the time, Clim Davies was supporting Avaq and he got involved. And we'll see, it was all for the money for Clim. And they saw the potential to make lots of money using Avaq's

ministry. And that's much the same way we see with Gordon Lindsay, voice of healing, got organized around Bram because there was a lot of money to be made. And it's astronomical what you see that when they took up the offerings, we'll go through that later and how much money they got.

But these faith healers, they would present themselves as just unique people claiming divine

visitations from God, from angels, from even from God or Jesus himself. And so there was a lot of relationship between him and Bram on that. And the followers just flocked to it. You know, Avaq had really gathered quite a following. And had he have had any effect on archelian's son that called him over here from Iran and had he actually healed his son or had some effect upon him, I'm sure he would have had a huge following even larger than Bram's at the time if he would have had any success at all. But it was only because he didn't have the success

that he came over here to do that his popularity in the west coast, you know, diminished. And he actually ended up moving over to the east coast where people didn't know him as well. And he could act like he was a great healer. So they both had these personal revelations. And most of the material I got, I actually found a book and I don't know if you found it John, but it was a German that wrote a book about Avaq. His name was Roy Wehrmann Chuk. And you've got it. Yeah. Yeah. And I found the

English version of that. I don't know if his is in German there, but so I could just say that in these ministries, I can save with a fact that not one person was ever healed by these men.

You know, if anybody ever was here, it was of course the power of God himself, his sovereignty, his grace. But these men just wanted one power and control over people, or they desired just to get the lifestyle they wanted to live out and that's how they just wanted that contentment in life, the things they wanted to do. So each had their own goals. But in the end, Avax seemed content with his own smaller following the people, he didn't seem to desire a nationwide following, but Brannum on the other hand, he really wanted the world to follow him, I think, and I believe his message was from God. And most of Brannum in the

end, he ended up being very satisfied with just a small core network of people. And that expense of the rest of the world and Christianity, he said, you know, fully on you, I'm just going to take my core following it really believes I'm the man of the hour. But when you look at the new Testament example with Paul, you know, Paul never never focused on divine healing as a major.

And this movement that we see came out of the 1940s, even earlier with John Dowey, that the main focus was on healing. And most of these healing ministries were more sham than they were real. There might have been some people healed as I mentioned, but Paul never made a big deal out of healing, or he never gave it more emphasis than to say the gift of tongues, word of knowledge or anything else. It was all lumped into the gifts of the spirit. And the major focus was supposed to be Christ and salvation and the gospel. And we'll see that in the scripture

that Paul only focused on that. I would say probably 99.98 percent of the people ever prayed for really got most of them did not get healed. You had that one here or there that got healed.

And you hear them claim, we've got really documented evidence from doctors that we were healed, that the people thousands were healed, but you never see them produce the documents. They just always say that. So a lot of us just speaking things that really weren't true, you know, of how the success of the meetings were. But Paul, when people tried to make him a great power of God after he healed a person, you know, somebody stood up, it says an Acts 1410, he, a man that was crippled, got up and walked. And then when the people saw that, they lifted up their voices and said,

the gods are come down in the likeness of men. And that's exactly what we see in Avoc and William Brannum's ministry. They wanted to say God was in them in the likeness of men. And they made a big deal of it. But let's look how Paul did it. They tried to make Paul and Barnum's these gods.

And then as soon as they heard about it, it says, which when the apostles Barnum and Paul heard of that, they tore their clothes. They ran out in the streets among the people and just cried out, saying, why are you doing these things? Why are you trying to make us big? We're men of light passions like you. And we're asking you to turn to the living God, not to a gift of healing that I've got or that God gave me. It's turned to the living God. And they even state that, you know, in times past,

you know, you walked in your own way. but now he's trying to get you to turn to the gospel. So the whole thing was to turn to the gospel of Christ, repentance and serving Christ and not your own self anymore. So we see a huge difference in the healing revival of the forties and really what Paul, if you were preaching the gospel of Paul, you wouldn't be majoring on healing like these men did. Yeah, I agree. You mentioned the book by Roy Wormcheck and I have a copy of it that it was sent to me by him. Whenever I began researching

the early years of Latter-Rain, he contacted me because he was researching Brannum at the same time. He's, I should have brought it in here to show, but I also have a book from him on William Brannum.

He was writing the book on Brannum and we both came to this side story about the same time. And so we're going back and forth with the research and I'm sharing things that I found with him and he with me and he ended up writing this book based off of that. I've often considered of going, going back and writing a book showing the importance of Avocagopian to Latter-Rain and ultimately to the NAR because this Brannum said that angels were messengers and then when he describes his fictional alleged angel, he is describing this character. If you go look at the newspaper,

that's right. He is fully describing this guy. And so Roy and I both, we came to similar conclusions that Brannum knew this guy a lot more intimately and we had not yet seen the photograph of Brannum with him and later after it may have been even after this book, we came across that.

Roy is also the guy who found out that William Brannum was using a false middle name for the revivals. He's the one that sent me the the GI record of Marvin. I never even thought to look at it. You know, I should have looked for it, but that's the first thing he did and he was like, oh my gosh, have you seen this? But anyway, this this is an excellent book. I recommended it's called Avocagopian from fame to failure. And like I said, I know that many people were they will never have heard this name and they will never have connected it with Laterane and all of the various

movements that came after. But Brannum said an angel is a messenger and this guy was an alleged faith healer. You could almost say that Brannum was building him up to be an angel for the church age and we don't have the recordings that have been erased from our history before 1947 and many of them in 1947 and 48 are missing. They're so-called quote unquote missing. I suspect that he's probably in a lot of those recordings that we don't have access to have. So Brannum may have even been touting him as an angel messenger to his prophet and said-

thing, you know, prior to the ladder rain setting up apostles, prophets, et cetera, we don't know what William Brannum did, but we can see from the newspapers and from Brannum's own statements that very, very wealthy people were setting up this faith healing ministry with Brannum and Avok.

And he says the same men who sent Avok to this area sent me. So he's saying literally that if you know the history, the Kardashian family is sponsoring it. You've got the Kardashians, the Shakerians, Dima Shakerian founded the Full Gospel Businessman, which is deeply connected to many different things we'll get into that later.

But anyway, all of this started in 1947 prior to William Brannum's explosion into fame. And this guy was actually, Avok Hagopian was actually more famous for a brief period of time. So it gets really interesting as we get into this.

Yeah, it was interesting that those ministries started about the same time. Brannum got started just right after Avok had got to the country, his national fame started. But that's really what pushed Brannum into fame was Avok's diminishing because Avok failed to heal Vaughan, Archelian.

After he was brought over here, his dad had great faith in Avok because he heard about his stories in Iran, how he had these gifts, so he paid lots of money to get him over there.

And believe it or not, I read where I think it was in Roy's book there. He paid $250,000 already to try to get his son well. If you take that and translate that into today's money, you're probably talking about millions of dollars and no effect on his son there.

So when Avok failed to really produce healing, he actually said, within two weeks, I'll have your son healed. And he never could produce the healing and he gave certain excuses because maybe too many people around him or he couldn't get off and pray.

And so his fame diminished right at the time Brannum's took off and at the time Brannum was demonstrating so-called great powers of God and people just flocked to it because people were flocking to the homes out there in California in Palm Springs where Avok was.

They were already flocking out there and sending thousands of letters a day to seeking the healing. So there was many ailments, I guess, in the United States about that time, with medical science, not having been advanced like it is today, but there's always plenty of sick people and there's always people that if there's a hope of getting well, they certainly want to go to it.

So we saw that. I thought about this podcast. What could you call it? And I guess, you know, the subtitle of this thing might be narcissism because there is a certain amount of narcissism in these leaders and it's defined as a self-centered personality style.

Characterizes having an excessive preoccupation with one's self and one's own needs. the expense of others often, and there's an essay in 1913 called The God Complex, Ernest Jones wrote down what he considered extreme narcissism as a character trait. So, narcissism is a personality disorder, actually. It's actually a disorder like any other psychological disorder people have, and I believe there's a certain amount of that, a certain amount of it and all of this, but there's a certain grade amount in these men. He described people, this guy Ernest Jones, as with the God Complex as being a Louvre self-important,

overconfident, auto-erotic and accessible. So, there you go, self- admiring exhibitionists with fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience. He observed that these people had a high unique for uniqueness. I think that pretty much describes these ministers that we're talking about. They wanted to be unique. They had a high sense of self-importance, like, I'm the prophet of God. They might not overtly state it many times, but many times they did. But they wanted you to know that, hey, I am in the scripture. These scriptures are written about me. And we see Malachi 4 being one of the main ones where it was openly proclaimed,

you know, I'm Malachi 4, and people began to believe that. So, as long as that's what they were after, and they had this God Complex, I think we could call this narcissism in a way.

It was also narcissism as a grandiose sense of self-importance, a constant need for admiration. That's another thing that an excessive desire for attention. So, these men, they grew up with this personality trait, and because of their excessive desire for that attention that they really craved, they sought to get it, and they had these abilities. And we'll see these abilities really as what separates them from the rest as he's been charismatic and being able to sway people. There's a lot there. But these people engage in manipulative and controlling behavior sometimes in their relationships. So, every narcissist, even Roy Rice's in his book,

says to be surrounded and adored by the masses, is a secret wish of many of the natural aspiration of a very narcissist. But only those who have a certain charisma, talent, appearance, or in the worst case, power receive the attention on a permanent basis. So, Avak had a God-like homage.

He tend to look like Christ, as we said, that he was, and even Roy Rice in his book, that he's the prefigure of the angel that appeared to Brannum. So, right about the time Brannum was talking about this angel that appeared, whereas we know before that time, he only talked about a vision in 1945 when he got started with this healing ministry. He didn't talk about some angel in human form. And right about the time he met Avak, you know, we see him describing a man that perfectly looks like Avak with the white robe, the olive complexion, the long hair to his

shoulders. And that's what Roy Rice- his book, he's probably very much maybe describing Avoc. And he writes it, the ancient Greek described narcissism as an arrogance, which brings the person to the verge of social failure. And we see that happening when you get so narcissistic that you are hurting men and hurting others in your ministry. And we find that people tend to shy away from that, but there's always a balance that they try to remain powerful. So Freda Lindsay writes in her book here that Brannum loved flattery. She writes in her diary secrets that an early days, Brannum was very much

messed up in his doctrine, you know, haven't had some strange doctrines. Gordon actually helped straighten him out, you know, in the early days. That's the recordings we don't really have available. All those recordings prior to Gordon Lindsay working with Brannum trying to straighten him out, it would be very nice to have all those because then you see what the ministry was really like in the early days before it sounded more Christian because in the early days, you know, Freda Lindsay said it was bordering on the occult. And we saw some of those recordings, we went through last time about the bracelet and the things that he would do about saying I can

just look at a person and cross their eyes. All that kind of things is really doesn't sound like the kind of healing that God gave out to men. And Brannum was such a, I won't say narcissists, but such a feeling of importance of about himself. They were schedule meetings and he said he wouldn't even show up. He said, well, I just didn't know I had to drive that far. So his feeling of importance was such that he wouldn't even bother to show up for the meeting that they spent thousands of dollars to set up for him sometimes. And he even said, I'm going off the field after his physical

breakdown and get a job as my game lawyer and job back in Indiana. And about the magazine, Gordon asked him about what's going to happen to the voice of healing. And he just said, well, that's yours. That was your idea. And that's what she writes in her diary. So it just goes to show that these men have a greater sense of their self. And they seek to gain the following, but they always have that sense of importance about themselves and they crave it. And that's what drives them.

More so sometimes the money or fame or popularity, they're driven by that need to fulfill that need in their life. Right. I would agree. Narcissism, if you study cult and study cult leaders, they all display various levels of narcissistic personality disorder. And you can, you can go on the internet and you can type in what are the signs of narcissism. And you'll see, you know, a list of characteristics of personalities that suddenly, you know, if you're in a destructive group, suddenly you're going to read this and think, no, wait a minute. That's describing this guy

that this guy that we're following. And it's very common if you look across all of them. But, you know, getting to avoc haggle Opian's story coming to America. When you first see it, it's really weird because they're bringing him in from, I think this said his last major revival was Egypt.

If I remember correctly, I'd have to go back and refresh my memory. But immediately prior to him coming to the United States, regardless of what country is in, he had worldwide fame. So this was a man who was globally famous, not just in a specific region.

And these very, very wealthy owners of vineyards out in Palm Springs brought him over to the country. And when he landed, it was, I'm trying to picture somebody as famous as that back then, and I'm struggling to pull up a name because his plane landed and suddenly this throng of people come to greet him.

And everywhere he goes throughout the United States, it's very, it reminds you of how a, you know, stage act would tour through the United States back then. He did not just land and then go directly to where he was called to be.

He would go to different cities and build up this big hype over him. So there was an element of showmanship that came with this. So if you think of the NAR, you think of the way that they do these showmanship ministries, these lights, cameras, glitter, action, Cadillacs, all of this, well, this guy had it and he had it prior to getting to Palm Springs.

He had built up such a recognition in the United States that by the time he landed in Palm Springs, there were people flocking by, I think one of the counts I read was over 10,000 people.

And Palm Springs was inundated with people who, you know, there was not enough housing and in hotels to keep them all. So these wealthy homes and, you know, these very rich people were having to, having to bring some of these people in their homes because they were out there in the elements.

They didn't even have food. They did not have enough food to supply them. So there were, I read one article where it described the mess that was created by all of this and they were having to bring in mobile hot dog stands and give people hot dogs because they were, there just wasn't enough food.

There wasn't enough restaurants to hold them all. It was not designed to handle a 10,000 people throng to come into the area, just simply put. But he brought with him all of this glamour and stage persona that it set the stage for what was to come.

And if you compare what happened with Avoc in that period of time, whenever he's just getting established in Los Angeles to the way that the faith healers, the alleged faith healers in the Laterane Movement present.

themselves, they would land in a city, build up this hype, and then go to the next city and take the hype with them. This guy was literally a prototype for the carnival that was about to ensue.

And the fact that they brought William Brannum who would lead that revival, he spearheaded the laterane revivals, the fact that they brought Brannum into this mix, shows that there was some sort of strategy involved in setting all of this up because the man who led it was also working with the guy who's creating all of this hype. And again, I wish we had those records. I wish we had those audio recordings because if you look back at the dates, there were a lot more recordings than what we have access to in 1947. So if we had it, we could probably see how the laterane

movement came to be shaped by all of this. Yeah, I think you're right. I think Avak was just the beginning of the whole show that was fixing to break out upon the nation. And like I say, had Avak been a little bit successful and had had something had happened in Vaughn Arkelean's life that might have showed a healing that had taken place. I mean, he would have been having worldwide fame as all these other ministers. He'd actually been the spearhead of all the revival instead of Brannum, perhaps. But there were men ready to jump on board with this. As we'll see,

they saw lots of money. And I think Tatos, Kardashian and two others, as soon as he failed to heal Vaughn, they took up Avak's cause and went on and Clem Davies was also involved in the mix.

Clem Davies was known as a, like one of those fascist white supremacists. And he wanted to use Avak more to get his message across. But he also saw the money that was to be made there. But eventually with Clem Davies being involved, taking Avak around the country because Clem Davies would do these tours. And it would be a patriotic tour to take people around the country on a train and promote anti-communism and to try to fight communism at the time. And so that's what Clem Davies was about. And also, Clem Davies had written books about the Aryan race, being the supreme race,

so forth. So he was involved with the clan and KKK as well. And that's what turned Tatos Kardashian off. And they backed away from Avak for a time, or forever, I guess, as while Clem Davies took him around. But while Clem Davies was taking around interesting, Clem Davies got sick. And he had to back away from the tour because he actually got sick. So I guess the healing powers of Avak didn't make him well enough to continue with the tour. But people flocked to that. And they actually paid a lot of money. They had to pay in those days

$665 or so to join that train. But getting back to the narcissism characteristic to another thing that goes along. with that is charisma. And we see all these men from A.A. Island, T.L. Osborne, you know, Bratum.

All those men you could list them, this list there, put them all together, they definitely have charisma. Because you take some of the men that have come on the scene today, that's probably one of the first things that's looked for.

They're not looking for some humble man that they're teaching the word and really expounding the gospel. There won't somebody with great charisma. And charisma is just really not even a talent. Sometimes it says in Roy's book there, it's just an unearned aura involving a phenomena that's just in the person.

So the person's born with it. And you're either born with it or not. And I don't think we should exalt one person over another just because there have a more charisma. Charisma has its place, but it's not to dominate other people with your charisma and especially in these types of ministries.

But instead of overt narcissism, I think in say in Brandon's ministry, they also describe a covert narcissism.

That's coupled with a lack of self-esteem and with high self-claims. I think that pretty well describes, that's from Paul Wink, two faces of narcissism from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1991, overt narcissism expresses itself and is striving for dominance, self-importance.

So I think that doesn't particularly describe a evoc and in Brandon, but I think it more long in the covert side of narcissism. You tend to have a lack of self-esteem, but you have high self-claims in that.

Charisma requires no personal performance or qualifications. So you can be the worst Bible teacher in the world, such as we see, you know, Brandon had a very hard time teaching the Bible correctly, but your charisma actually carries you along.

You don't have to be anything. It gives them social advantages. It gives them, they receive attention and admiration and trust even without even earning it. The way the majority of us have to do, you know, with people.

And they're usually surrounded by a group of loyal admirers who have a core group of people there. And what this author called this was Seed Capital. You know, they already have money in the bank there in their personality.

So all paths are open to them. Whether it be politics, religion, business, or entertainment industry. And I think that's what we see in the NAR is, there's men born with charisma. And the ones that go into the religious path, they get involved in this NAR and they rise up to be the apostles and prophets over others.

But it's that charisma that carries them. They don't have to be accurate in their prophecies or they don't have to be a good Bible teacher. They just have to join the train that that's moving.

And then all paths are open to them. Now those that get into politics, of course, you know, they're also, or business, you know, they just have these advantages that most of us don't have.

A.Vac chose the religious path, as did Bram, religion, he said in this book does not require any special gifts or high level of education or talents. Just a simple spiritual revelation is all you need.

So anybody out there wanting to start a new religious group, get your spiritual revelation if you got some charisma, you can probably form a group or a following. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William 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, Stephen 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.

I want to get back to something you said previously though, you mentioned Clim Davies, which he is going to have to be another side story that we do, because as weird as it sounds like Avok Agopian, that name also helped create what became, without this combination, this group of men that were gathered together, the shakerians, the Kardashians, Brannum, Avok, Clim Davies and some other Pentecostal men, which we'll get into also later, that had a very stage act-centered version of Pentecostalism.

And would later lead the Brannum campaigns, we'll get into that later. Without this group of men, it would not have shaped the NAR, it would not have shaped a lot of rain, and later the NAR.

So Clim Davies was a well-known, widely publicized white supremacist from up in, I think he was Vancouver, and he was deeply embedded into Christian identity. And so when you think of this group of men, you've got Brannum who was mentored by the second command of the clan, who would become a leader in Christian identity, Clim Davies who's in Christian identity, Gordon Lindsay became Brannum's first, not first, but one of his significant stage campaign managers, he was involved in Christian identity.

And then you bring all of the other men that we've been discussing Wesley Swift, Gerald All of this conglomeration of people, Christian identity was front and center and so I've tried to look Last week and part of this week to find links between Abok and Christian identity and there isn't a lot of information existing out there But I suspect that he was part of that movement as well because they were building a Christian identity Stage Act. I mean pure plain and simple. You don't invite people like Clim Davies to the game And William Brannum, you know too

Who's and all these white supremacy guys? You don't invite them to be part of this party if you will if If they're not of the same mindset and so it shows the mindset that was being Established and they were setting up for this Stage Act to go on a road tour and that's where when I mentioned the photograph that we have a Brannum with a Avokagopian That's actually where that photograph came from. It was part of the road show I want to say that one was in it might have been Tampa somewhere in Florida They were holding revivals out there and some magazine which I have not yet found where it was published

But some magazine has a photograph of William Brannum Avokagopian And another gentleman that will will bring into the story later But they set up the stage act and they went across the country with it The interesting part of all of this. I've got newspaper articles in fact as we're talking I'm pulling up on the screen to Refresh my memory, but The newspapers from coast to coast followed the story and they show these photographs of Avok reaching down and praying for the sick Archaealian boy Man, I guess he was at this age and they followed the story of the prayer and the healer

And you can find it all throughout the United States if you just go to newspapers calm type in Avokagopian You're going to find the Widely publicized prayer for the sick that part gets published where it gets interesting is by the time that The story is ending which we'll get into later by the time you want to see the outcome. Well, what happened to this?

this guy The the newspapers just blatantly stop covering it so you don't actually ever see the result all you see is the intent and That's where it gets even more interesting because the results don't match match the intentions at all Yeah, you're so right. I mean, that was a very good explanation there the whole thing But these men That were gifted and had charisma, you know a lot of times they had to have handlers So that's what we see is the as the handlers who are behind the scenes that want to start the stage show that they can use these men for their own purpose

more gain. And I think it was even written in David Harrell's book, All Things Are Possible, that of course, Brandon got in trouble with the IRS, but he claimed only $8,000 on his tax return, and the others were claiming $80,000. Now, I bet I bet that $8,000 was very small compared to what he really got, because the IRS claimed he owed, ran him out a lot more money than just, you know, those few taxes that probably he reported. But if mail were claiming $80,000, you can probably bet that he was making the same money, too,

just not reporting it. And that's why he got in trouble. And actually in Gordon Lindsay's book, she mentions the case of IRS, and mentions that Gordon warned, Brandon says, you need to be reporting this income. And she said it was he warned him way before the IRS got involved. And so when he had his tax case, Brandon came crying back to Gordon, say, what do I do? What do I do? Yeah, that's, that's very true. So, so a fuck, it was about eight years old, and there's a lot of parallels here, as we mentioned earlier, this is a parallel

ministry between him and Brandon, and I don't know if they just come up with these stories to make their fames get started, but, but this is how they get started. Avaq was about eight years old. He was tending sheep. He had his first divine vision, and with it came the gift of healing, he claimed. And it's also claimed that he worked his first miracle at the age of 12. Now this came from the stories told about him and I ran. So by the time it got to United States, you know, oh, you're hearing all these stories about a person.

And then all of a sudden his persona has just blown up, because so many people were saying he works miracles. He heals the sick. And there's a lot of people that stand behind the stories that were told. I claim he worked a miracle at age 12 when a drought struck the country, and he actually prayed for rain and it rained. So he was kind of like an Elijah figure praying for rain. It also says he was illiterate until adulthood and not attended school, very much in parallel with what you know, Bramham had. And another writing it,

it actually said he was very illiterate, you know, so and not really uneducated. But that was one of the things he was very illiterate, you know, I'm such, I don't know anything, but I just know the Bible. Another vision was given to him. He was working as a goldsmith at the time that I ran and it was said the entire Bible was revealed to him. And there's even another vision that he had where two white doves came. And we know Bramham mentions doves and visions a whole lot too. He heard the voice of his deceased mother and the other

voice of the dove came from Jesus Christ himself. And they told him to preach the word and heal those who have faith given the ability. And he was also given the ability to see inside people. So we see this, these gifts about seeing inside people reading their minds and so forth. It really started with avoc because he claimed to have that ability. He said from then on, he was able not only to recognize the seed of godliness.

every human being, but also to see people's physical ailments and illnesses. So this is exactly the type of ministry that Bramham had as well, being able to see inside people's lives, their physical ailments and illnesses, as well as the seed of godliness.

So you know, some people even claim Bramham knew the seed that was in you, whether you were seed of the serpent or whether you were seed of God. That's kind of amazing that God would even give somebody the ability to do that.

I don't believe that he does, but Avoc told his audience that vision after his mother had passed away, but interestingly, it actually contradicted other statements made. So you see, even in Avoc's ministry, he couldn't tell the stories right.

He contradicted other stories which were made while his mother was still alive about that vision. So we see very contradictory statements, even being mentioned in these articles. And another very interesting vision that he had, and I don't know if Bramham ever read about these visions or knew about that through his contact contact with Avoc, but it says, he added visions of Old Testament prophets years later and even had a vision about angels, even a hand with a sword.

So that's very much in line with the sword that came in Sabino Canyon or out there in Arizona. At the age of 16, he claimed to have been visited by a supernatural being endowed with complete knowledge of the Bible at that time and a gift of healing and Roy Rice in his book.

That's very similar to the experience related by Brother Bramham. And more visions followed after that. He was presented as the temple of wisdom whose source of knowledge he could access at any time. So he had infinite wisdom and knowledge he could access from the knowledge that Avoc had the ability to read people's minds.

And there was a story about one, two-year-old son of a woman that fell into a water sister and he had supposedly drowned. And then Avoc looked at him for 20 minutes and he came back to life.

But eventually, Avoc joined this doctor. This doctor claimed that he was healed of heart of hearing by Avoc and his doctor and him joined together. But after he joined this doctor and I ran, I don't know what year it was, but sometime before he came to the U.S., it's very similar to what Brannem was into the Tyron-based Iranian Society of Experimental Spirit Science.

They heard about the high number of healings and so it brought to their attention Avoc. And so eventually they got involved with the spiritualism over there and I ran because of that. So we see spiritualism combined with these so-called visions from God and all kind of intertwined and you would think that Avoc would stay away from that, but they actually got involved in spiritualism over there and I ran and because of these healings, the spiritualism were very much interested in that.

There's a round 1946 at the... entire millionaire, CreeCore Achelian, you know, brought him here. And CreeCore said it was only as a last resort, because like I say, he spent, you know, $250,000 already, you know, own his son's healing. So it was really a last resort thing. And, and, and Avoc said he could do it. If, if the patient only believed in his gift. So another, another way that Avoc presented himself is that if you can believe me, believe in my gift, you'll get healed.

Anyway, Brannum said, you know, the angel told him that if you can believe me, we get to people to believe in what you're saying about, about the visit of the angel, they'll get healed.

So, so very much different than, and probably how the Bible teaches how you should believe healing, you know, and so the newspapers were all abuzz with Avoc's visit. So that's how his fame all started. It just started with that, that visit to CreeCore Achelian and how he got to start. Right. There's so many similarities. I mean, we could probably do a whole episode on just the similarities between the two. But the, the big takeaway is for me is the way that these men were manipulating the crowds. They wanted people to see that there was not just a single presence.

It initially started with Avoc, but then they brought other people into the mix. They brought Brannum and they're trying to show that this was the formation of a movement. This was something that was igniting a, I don't know what the word that they use because we don't have access to the recordings. But in the NAR terms, they would say, this was igniting a revival. And these are the spiritual leaders of the revival. That's how it would be said in today's words. And they established the notion that the people could connect to God through these men as mediators.

And they also set the precedent of setting the agenda of the movement to focus on the experience rather than the outcome. If you look at these newspapers, they don't really care so much that what these men are saying they can claiming that they can do isn't happening.

They want the experience. So people are coming in throngs to see these healers. And there's a point out it gets mundane reading through all of the newspaper articles on Avoc, but if you read through the fine details of the months that were spent out there, quote, unquote, healing this young man, Avoc gets tired of the crowds and they're all coming. You can tell they're probably asking him, why isn't he healed? You said that you're healing him and nothing is happening. It gets to the point where all these people are coming to pray for coming for their

own prayer for their own situations. And Avoc is saying that I only have the, I don't know what the word he used, but it basically I only have the energy to heal for a limited period of time.

And that window of time gets shorter and shorter and shorter as time progresses because he's getting tired of these people. And the more time that he gives himself to the people, the more people that are going to believe his claims that they're going to be healed, and the more people that aren't healed.

So if you expand that window, your chance of success is greatly diminished. So they close the window and they say only a little bit of, you know, a few of the people for a few minutes, basically.

And if you look what happened in the early years of Laterane, Brannum would say the same thing. You probably remember the word Brannum used, but basically the stamina goes out of him. I can only do a few at a time.

And then there comes a point when I think it was about the time that the wireless earpiece was invented. There comes a point where he says, now I'll be able to do this for hours on end.

But prior to that point, he says, I can only do it a little bit and then I get just so weak they have to carry me off the stage. Well, there's a reason for this, right?

If you stay up there, the more people that you tell are healed, well, they go home and they're not healed, those people are going to get very, very angry. And so Avok and these men set the stage for the experience is more important than the outcome.

The healer is more important than the God that heals. And the movement is a move of God where you can gain access to God through these men. And that was the precedent that was set.

And again, look at the NAR today. Look at all of the movements leading up to the NAR. It's always about the mediators between God and man, which is in direct violation. If you read passages like, you know, Paul's letters to Timothy, there is no mediator between God and man.

Well, these guys did not want to set that precedent because there's no money in that. They want to set the precedent, go for the mediator because that mediator can collect your money. That's exactly right. You know, they made a lot of money and continued to this day making tons of money.

We see these ministries that are built all on the prosperity gospel just by $50 million jets, jet planes so they can fly around and enjoy themselves on religion, the money that it makes. But it continues to make to this day millions and millions of dollars.

So, yeah, you were right. These experiences they people had in these meetings. You know, you know, Brandon will say, I get very weak, you know, virtues going out of me. They would only do about, you know, he would only call about 10 or so to the stage.

And I guess even in Roy's book, he said they passed out the prayer cards and Brandon used those as sort of an almost like a fortune telling which was in. And what we know, we call it the word of knowledge and so forth that we believed it was a gift.

But if you only just tell us about. he could probably memorize at a time, if you were using the paracards, if you know for that purpose. So, but the services themselves were very powerful in a sense, the music, you know, swayed people, the experience that you had, prior to the man ever stepping onto the platform, the people were primed and ready.

So the few that he would call to the platform and then supposedly get weak and have to be taken off, he would do a mass prayer for everyone. And so that's how it, that's how it was staged and it was very effective.

Avaak, very similar to what Brannum would always say and what Bosworth and all of them would teach. He said about talking about people's healing, it depended on the patient's degree of faith. And then another statement about Vaughan, he said, I'm sure I can cure him.

So on both sides of his mouth, he's saying, well, it depends on your faith and then he says, I'm sure I can cure you. So they believed that they could do it, but then they, if it failed, well, the person's faith failed, it wasn't me.

Avaak also has known, have been said, how faith in me and you will be healed. And then when the prayer of this lady, that he was praying for after he told that tour, did not bring any change to her, he said, he said after that, I must do it in my own time, in my own way.

So they always have some kind of excuse for the person that's not healed. Some newspapers quoted Avaak as saying, no matter what your nationality or religion, keep faith in me and you will get will.

Now, in Brannum's early days, there's a sermon in 1947 about November called the Angel of God. We took a lot from that. And there's a lot said in that. And that's probably why we don't have a lot of the earlier recordings, because my, who knows what really went on behind us in those meetings, I would love to really know.

So Brannum was talking about the miracle line. If you ever go back to those earliest recordings, he tended to wanted to display the power and such that he would create these miracle lines. People were asking him, put all the cripples up there, and let's see you heal every one.

He said, there'll be a miracle line for nothing but cripples. And then when the cripples weren't getting healed, he claimed that he was only doing it by the permissive will of God, not the divine will of God.

God permitted it for a time, but he had to quit all that because nobody was getting healed. And he even said that he gave another excuse. There were some deaf people that came before him, and he said the vibrations in his hand left, but then he said immediately it came back and the person wasn't healed.

And he said, he, some of his quotes here, I'll mention first that when he got rebuked by the angel, he said, he said, he stood in the hotel room. There was a big rainbow and mist in the room and standing there before those people and told me I was confining too much of this gift of healing to working miracles.

And he said, but then he also said, I've never seen all my life till this afternoon, anything laid before the gift of healing without it being healed. So he was already having issues with success and his ministry right there in 1940s.

about people that weren't getting healed, and so that's how he told this. He even talked about the death people. He said, out of this entire meeting, there's been several death people come by here, and after I called that, even the vibrations wouldn't even leave. He said, that's right. It would leave, and it'd take a hold of them and come back again. He said, it was just a witness. So what he was trying to do is blame the failures of the healings on this miracle line that was created, that he claimed that will God permitted it for a time. But now I'm not doing that anymore.

I'm only going to do it the way the angel tells me to do it, and that's where he started bringing fewer and fewer people before him, because eventually he, as we know, left the field out of collapse from trying to pray for thousands of people, and one by one, and so no man can withstand all that. So he also says, remember, don't come to me and ask me to perform any more miracles anymore. Now God has permitted it to this time. He said, every one of you is a witness, is that right? He wanted to keep everything in the prayer line. He says, everybody thinks everything's

a miracle line, as we told you, or ask you, rather, here's interesting. He's actually praying in this, and we got kind of a blank spot on tape here, but he's actually praying to God at this time, and he prayed to God this way, and we told you, they said, or ask you, rather, if you would bring everyone here and heal them, then I would continue on and have nothing but miracle lines. But if you did not heal the people and miracle line, then it would be a witness that you were not going to heal the people by letting them pass by and believe. He said, now the angel of God told me it would

come to pass. They wouldn't believe unless there was a miracle when he says, your words have been proved true. So that's that's generally how he spun that at the time because of these failures and healing that were occurring. And then later on, just 20 days later, he's got the miracle line again. He says, and especially this afternoon, to you who shall come in this miracle line, don't you dare come unless you promise God with all your heart and mean it that you will serve him the rest of your life. So the people were very primed for these miracle lines because they really

believed in these powers. Same way they believed in avox powers prior to him coming to the United States. It really primes your adrenaline, your emotions, and you're expecting really something to happen through this man of God. And he becomes the great power of God as we mentioned. And that's not what Paul wanted to present before the people is that I'm some great power of God and have this miracle line and it's all about healing. You know, really, it was supposed to be about the salvation of the soul as we mentioned. And he talks about in that same service, you know,

talk about the child come together. He said, he healed the deaf girl and he said, now the child is healed and he's tried to talk to her. He said, he couldn't even yell at her, beat my hands together and she couldn't even hear. And then he cast it forth again. And then in the end, he said, I just left the child alone. He couldn't even touch her to be healed. He says, she couldn't even hear me. Another man he couldn't hear when he beat his hand behind him.

So he talked about those failures there, and he had to change his methods. And otherwise, he might have been with the same reputation AVOC had where his popularity really dropped off. They were gonna have to change something in a hurry, so they changed the way they were doing the meetings.

And like I say, we don't have those early recordings. We just have these few, and we're very fortunate to have these ones in 1947, even, but there was plenty more recordings prior to that as we know, but it's just amazing what we could find on those tapes.

If we only was able to go back and hear them. But during that time in the 1930s and 40s, there was other people that rose up. There was a man that caught himself the reincarnation of the prophet Isaiah.

There was, and his, he was quickly forgotten that after a while, and there was other men that rose up and instead, so people were very primed in those days for these great men to rise up.

It was just a special time in American history, I guess, and it was just a prime time for these ministries, but men that wanted to make the money, they saw the opportunities there, so I'll talk more about that in a minute.

There was definitely money to be made. That's pure plain and simple. In fact, if you go look at some of the quotes that William Brannum mentions, he mentions being with Avoc, and he mentions being with the people who sponsored him, which is obviously the Kardashians, the Shakerians, and Brannum formed a long-term relationship with the full gospel businessman, which was ran by Dima Shakerian.

And it gets funny because he mentions that they tell him, we gave Avoc a Cadillac. We'd like to give you one, too. We want to give you some money, like we're giving Avoc some money.

And Brannum says, no, no, no, I can't picture myself doing this. And then we've got photographs where he accepted the Cadillac from these people. So there was definitely money flowing through it and how they used it, it remains to be seen, that you can see some expensive watches and some other things into Brannum's ministry after this point.

But you're right, there was a point in time in which Avoc's ministry diminished. And that's where this gets really interesting because as Brannum goes out there to work to heal this sick boy, the boy never gets healed.

You can go back and you can read the newspapers. It's difficult to find because his failure in healing is not publicized. But the prayer for his healing is coast to coast. And so this entire throng is here.

The boy's being prayed for nobody cares that there is no healing that comes from this. And that's what set the stage for this whole thing. And then whatever happens, we don't, again, we don't have those recordings, we don't have the record.

Something happens where the focus shifts from Avocagopian to William Brannum. And after that shift is made, you can watch the newspapers, all of these, all of this throng, just basically, starts following Branum away from Avoc, and they follow Branum well up into, you can find similar articles in Canada. When Branum goes up into Canada and sweeps across from the east to the west in Canada and sparks what would become the latarine revivals, you can see articles in the newspapers where those cities are inundated from people from the United States and they can't support them. There's not housing, there's not hotels enough

to handle them all, so they're going into houses of people who are in like-minded faith up in Canada, and the throng has left Avoc, and so I found one article, I'll try to find it for the video version of this podcast, but I found one article where it's just really kind of sad when you think about it. Avoc goes, he leaves the archelians and he goes up north to hold a revival up there. After having toured through the United States carrying a throng with him, and then he gets off the plane, and I want to say the article if I'm

remembering correctly, I want to say there's only like three people to greet him. All of the rest of them had gone with William Branum, and we know based off of what we're seeing here that if the shakerians were sponsoring him and the connections with full gospel businessmen continued for the entire rest of William Branum's life, it's likely they were involved to some extent. We don't know what extent, but it went across Canada and then back into the United States in a very carnival-like fashion, if you read the newspapers, signs, wonders, miracles, just like they advertised today. But the throng of people had left Avoc,

and again, you cannot have a lettering in the form that had existed without Avoc, because he's the one that collected the initial group of people. Then they went to Branum, left Avoc behind, and then that spread throughout the globe. All of those people spreading this movement as though this is a movement by God, but they had lost the focus of did it actually work, and did the guy actually get healed that sparked the whole thing, and he did not.

Yeah, all that you said was correct there. I want to mention this real quick, Tom Kardashian, William Perumian. They realized how much money could be made. So all that you're saying there's just absolutely right. It's all about the money there. Avoc was reported to be under their wing at that time, and the paper reported it like this. He says, a public relations officer issues a bulletin that the first days take, he said, big pardon, love offering amounted to $2922.

That was in the Los Angeles Times in 1947, September. So $2922.47 is $41,214 in today's money. So that's quite a sum of money. $41,000 a day taken in. Clem Davies came on the scene about that time because of course he saw the money to be made and believe it or not Clem Davies had already sponsored a Hindu guru. So Clem Davies wasn't about Christianity. It was about whoever he could build up before the people that will make him a lot of money.

Christianity tended to be the majority religion in the United States. So Clem Davies saw that as a way known as gravy train and which he actually had a train that went around the United States carrying people to promote this.

But Clem Davies became his new sponsor and companion in the USA. And they started holding these mass healing events. Tom Kardashian was actually a Vox interpreter. So Tom Kardashian had his two other folks there with him.

And they were all making this money. Clem Davies was asking for V6 extensions for Avoc and actually got it. And the Clem Davies the immigration and actualization service noted in a memo that Avoc was in contact with Clem Davies who had closed ties to various fascist groups and was together with Avoc suspected of collecting funds illegally.

So that was something else reported. And and in these healing revivals. A lot of newspapers would question about healing. I think we even had one in Brownham's ministry where the newspapers were investigating they want to know are people really getting healed. And they ask Bosworth to stand up and ask the people to come forward anybody that got healed. And they did and it was said in the newspapers not one person even step forward that was healed in the meeting.

And then so they brought up this excuse well well people when they get healed they just go home. They don't stay for the meetings. So that was one way here in the Canadian press.

There was a tinkum that wrote this article. I guess said there was no medical evidence that any of the 3500 people that Avoc had treated had benefited from his prayers and laying on of hands.

So they they announced we healed all these thousands of people but there was no medical evidence that anybody got healed. And the train finally pulled into Los Angeles in November of 1947. And his tour came to an end that's when Tom Kardashian quit following him because Tom Kardashian wanted to build a temple for Avoc.

And you know I guess to have him place to camp out and do his services right there in Los Angeles. But Tom Kardashian them back to way. And the real reason it says that he distanced himself from Avoc after the tour was he was assisted by Clim Davies. And he thought they were frauds. So that's why he basically backed away.

So so Avoc became very unpopular in the West because of his failure to heal and he moved. He eventually moved to East to Miami. And that's where that's where a lot of the interesting things started.

We're not going to have time to go through it on this podcast. I know that he distanced himself physically from from the West Coast because of his failure to completely cure Vaughn and he started his ministry there.

And and and and an interesting reflection that was noted in the book here by Roy, I guess he said, Avok had already reached a point where his critical self-reflection was no longer possible. He believed in his divine election separation from the masses.

The admiration he received from his followers only confirmed his belief in himself. Doubt and criticism of his abilities were questioned his dignity, something he equated with disbelief. Anyone who did not believe in him was not a true Christian.

Because this interlogic of his, if one can speak of logic, which explains his behavior from then on out. So that's very much like what we see in the message. If you disbelieve, you're questioning the abilities of Brannum, say, your scene is not even being a true Christian, and that's how you get kicked out of the movement, basically.

So it was time when he got to Miami that, as when Clem Davies was with him, and then he was visited by William Brannum in Jeffersonville, and William Brannum used him meeting with Avok for his own publicity, put it in the voice of healing magazine.

And that's generally how it was used. Clem Davies used it for his furtherance of his boasting and getting more money. But that was about the time William Brannum had some meetings with little David Walker, which you all have mentioned before, and the spectacular show they were showing there about him levitating off the ground and all those things.

William Brannum actually viewed Avok as an inspiration for some time. And it also said, as we mentioned before, he took him as the visual model of the angel that met with him. So Avok trying to get the event extensions of his visa and eventually had to leave the country living in Cuba for some time.

And all these, this time as we're against interesting with Avok, like I said, there were women that came into his life, and he eventually broke up a marriage and costing this one man millions of dollars to finally get his marriage dissolved.

But actually these women were set up close to Avok, and it actually became his mistresses, and he actually called them temple brides. So eventually he got off into immorality, it's not spoken off very much, and nothing's ever said about it, but it was kept under the cover.

So we see that being a part of a lot of these ministries, it eventually creeps in, and these men, they don't ever get married, but they do have a harem. Now Avok eventually being in Cuba for that time wanted to come back to the United States because that's where he wanted his home to be.

So eventually he married the 16-year-old girl, one of the women in the US that was supporting his ministry married her daughter, and that marriage was believed just to be for the sake of him getting to the US to become a citizen, because once you get married you can become a citizen.

So he married the 16-year-old girl and became a US citizen, then eventually that marriage was annulled for obvious reasons, and he stayed in the US from then on. out and had his ministry, but he did have his harem. He did. It is mentioned in that book. We won't go into it, but boy, I invite the listeners to get that book and read it. But Evac actually gets ordained as a Pentecostal Holiness minister in 1949. They felt his ministry was legitimate.

They ordained him as a Pentecostal Holiness church, but eventually they let him go too when they learned about his immorality. Evac's self-promotion and appearance were strongly reminiscent of the manifest sons of God, doctrine of the Latter-day's movement. We see a lot of that tied together with what the, when the manifest sons of God, doctrine began around the late 1940s. It was most in our many in group that there were surrounding Evac at the time in Miami. Evac was breaking up these marriages. This one big story that became in the newspapers a lot. It was Frederica,

Phillips, and Chachal. The divorce decree was Chachal versus Chachal. But Frederica, she ended up taking a lot and her and Evac did stay together. But the value that she got was $2.2 million in addition to four hotel properties, very large sum of money. We see how Evac's strategy to keep himself very well off. Eventually, when Frederica died, she left him quite a sum of money. He was awarded $3,000 USD annually. That's a salary of $42,000 today's money. Pretty good sum of money back in those days. He also got another $2,000 to cover college expenses for a children he might have

one day. That's pretty prophetic as well because he eventually had some children out of wedlock that actually took on his name. Evac, he eventually stayed in the United States all these years and eventually died here. But he used that healing revival momentum to carry him on through and kind of became a little cult leader of his own, moved up into New York. They bought this castle light place and his hallway, his bedroom down the hall, they said it was very close to the women.

I guess that would go in and out of his room at times. It was kind of an under the cover thing that that would happen. That's how Evac ended up. He ended up with a small group of following.

They didn't really become nationwide and it kind of fizzled out, but there may still be a following there today that still follows the teachings of Evac. What was created was a complete mass. I think you're playing an example. I don't know any other way to explain it. And I know people are listening to this and I can, yeah, but how does this tie to Laterane? How does it? I mentioned Pentecostalism. Who was the man that I'm talking about Pentecostalism? Were you mentioned little David Walker and you can study Laterane and look anybody who's Familiar with letter rain knows little David Walker. It's it's a story of the the floating levitating boy, right the two of William Brannum

Well, he was literally owned by Chaplin Raymond Hoekstra who was one of Brannum's early campaign manager ministers You can go look up the lawsuits that were involved in the the parents losing the son and then the fight to get him back and Anyway, he created the stage act of I think he called him the Adam you had the healer and the Adam William Brannum and little David Walker Well in that photograph of Avoc sitting there with William Brannum Standing off to the right and in the corner of this is Chaplin Raymond Hoekstra So whenever the Kardashians the shakerians all of these wealthy people were bringing in all of the Christian identity folk

They also brought in the Pentecostal stage act manager Raymond Hoekstra Chaplin Ray and as we'll get into later in our episodes He plays a significant role in multiple phases at William Brannum's ministry from the era and the you know in the early 1947's all the way to the Cloud story that we'll get into the the crazy the crazy thing where all of the message people see this cloud And they think they're seven angels Raymond Hoekstra played a role in that as well So Raymond Hoekstra was involved in this from start to finish and so The combination of all of this it seals the deal for me. This was

deeply connected to Laterane even though Laterane not yet fully existed this thing that they created that these men gathered all of the Christian identity leaders together to create a movement it worked they did create a movement and That you know they didn't claim ownership of the movement But it sparked and in the Canada and came back in the United States and then they capitalized off of it heavily financially capitalized off of it so we'll get into that in future episodes, but Anyway, it's a crazy side story and I think we're gonna have a few crazy side stories as we go

So 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 Roy Davis and William Branum, you can read the persuasive preacher the gifted profit and the noble politician For more information about the dark side of the NAR and Christian identity You can read from weaponized religion from Christian identity to the NAR Available on Amazon Kindle and soon are more