The Elijah Company: Myths, Movements, and Messianic Claims - The Converging Apostasy

Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brandham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brandham Historical Research at William-brandham.org and with me I have Steve Montgomery, the author of The Converging Apostasy and a quick outline on hands-on eschatology, a matter of timing and agency. And together we're examining the themes of apostasy in the new apostolic reformation and its history. Steve it's good to be back and connect with you and talk about the converging apostasy. What's interesting about this particular episode? It's kind of off the cuff for me as we discussed immediately prior. I hadn't really

not studied this much, but the subject matter ties directly into where Charles and I are heading with the Revival History podcast, which you and I haven't discussed this yet, but after William Brandham died, there was this big mess that was created, which led to, I'm not going to say all of this, but led to a majority of this, and earned Baxter, who was Brandham's partner in the campaign Revival, as he was the Baxter half of the Brandham Baxter campaigns. He, as you know, started the he and others started the Shepherding Movement and a lot of people don't give this enough credit

in the history because the Shepherding Movement, you know, led by earned Baxter, Baxter is teaching manifest sons of God, and he's teaching the Elijah ministry, which is what we're going to focus on today. And I know that it disbanded, and people have sent me all kinds of weird mail saying, you know, people like Derek Prince denounced this thing. And so let's wash Derek Prince's hands even though he's doing the same exact thing. Well, I just got in my possession, which I haven't showed this to you either, but the after the Shepherding Movement kind of disbanded, they started a

new magazine called People of Destiny. And in this magazine, you're going to find the Shepherding Movement kind of continued. They just tamed it down quite a bit, but the same framework was really there. And you had people, the former Shepherding leaders joined with Lauren Cunningham, who's teaching the Seven Mountain Mandate, you know, John Wimbler's in this. And this is the years when the Shepherding Movement connected, there's a period of time in which Wimbler was connected to it.

But if you read what the articles are saying in this magazine, you're going to find a lot of what you and I discuss in the converging apostasy these guys were all joining together making the biggest mess possible and then after this history disappears, they all kind of washed their hands of it.

So yeah, John, the Derek Prince thing, that's very interesting to me because when I was in the the cult like word of faith group that I was in in Boston, Derek Prince was one of the big dudes that we were into.

And so I did hear of his connections with some of the other like Bob Mumford and earned back through those other guys. But afterwards something interesting happened when I was looking into the letter rain, I got a hold of this, I guess you call it an email spring of lessons from James Wat.

And so James Wat was one of the original lettering brethren and I always thought of him as lettering lights like LIT because he was really he was really not one of those very very extremist sort of dudes.

But oddly enough, he does still promote people that are on the extreme and one being Derek Prince. Two being Kelly Varner, and I know we've mentioned him before, but Kelly Varner was very very tight with Bill Britten who was a James lead influence manifest sons of God teacher straight up.

And he was a very tight person with the same fight, the manifest sons of God lettering cult leader. And so Eldon Purvis even gets in there. So James Wat has he's he's kind of tiptoeing around connections with some really bad folks.

And he also says that too is it the Louis Eagle and one of the other one of the other folks that is definitely lined up in the Naur movement prophesied. He could have been bickle out but out don't swear to it. But somebody prophesied to James Wat that the wells of the lettering must be redug meaning this is what he feels that it's justifying going back to the the stuff that he was into.

So yeah, James Wat, how interesting he is. So so when I when I started thinking about this this podcast, I said, well, what is really meant by the Elijah company? And if we're talking specifically in our present day Naur, it has a very specific meaning.

But actually since the beginning of a Christian they're Christianity. There have been metaphors to symbolize a corporate identity of an elite group of in-time church. Here's an example of some of the terms which may be recognizable to your listeners and to our listeners.

The corporate body of Christ, sometimes manifest sons of God focal, they really like the sound of this thing. They'll say, the many-membered corporate body of Christ, which is essentially a deified corporate Christ. The one man, we've heard that, the new breed, the spotless bride, the sonship company, God's army on earth that kind of bleeds on into the Joel 2, the manifest sons of God definitely, the man-child company.

You can see that all the way back with Jane Leed, but definitely we know we're going to brand them and various lettering folks like that one. The Melchizedek Order, another one that we've heard, Christ's second coming in shows and vessels.

That's great from Jane Leed, but definitely get a re-visitation in 1948 and there beyond. The fully redeemed, again, that comes from Jane Leed, but I'm one faster than another you can see that to present.

The sons of God who become the son of God, that's milk-written, but I think I've heard stuff like that from Paul King, and then this is a little bit on the deep end, but those in whom the great clout of witnesses are to incarnate themselves, okay, so you get more of the spirit's aspect than Jane Leed definitely was there and some of her disciples in the lettering kind of took that path.

So in this podcast, I thought I'd compare some of these various versions of the Elijah Company concept and some similar ideas. So the folks that I have in mind, in particular included the Nasdaq Valentinus who have talked about a lot.

The early church father, origin, now a lot of people, you know, they hear church father or maybe that's not really something here all the time, but it doesn't mean he's the father of the church, obviously, but he's considered like Iron Ais, like Ignatius, like Tertelian, one of the leaders of the early church.

Then you have this fellow who he's an Italian, and I'm sure to mispronounce his name, Yorkim De Fiori. He was in the 1100s on to the 1200s, and it's astounding if somebody has never heard him or read about him, amazingly close to the lettering manifesto that he's got teachings.

And even the third Reich. built some of the concepts based on his ideas. So esotericists love him too. Then there's this fellow that was a contemporary of Martin Luther, back in the Reformation. He's named Thomas Munster or Munster.

And yeah, I started thinking about TV shows where I read his name. But he's another one. It was very important because he got the peasants war started in Germany. So that's another interesting historical point. J. Lee, of course, William Brandon, Bill Britten, Rural Cronquist, George Warnark, Paul Kane. And somebody who was a new and to me, she's one of those new breeds like changing of the guard, Jennifer Lake Claire.

So anyway, yeah, I'm not going to talk a length about all these folks, but I just thought I'd say, I never have done it quite this way to line up the folks, folks that we're going to talk about.

And the idea of the corporate Elijah can't be understated. Charles and I, I think we mentioned that in a podcast, either come out last week or maybe it comes up next week. It'll, in either case, it'll come out before this podcast, I believe, but Arn Baxter was really big in promoting the continuation of the Elijah ministry that William Brannum had. And we have studied Paul Kane, who is carrying it forward as the corporate Elijah, but it goes far deeper. We, especially, I keep referring to this magazine because I'm just I'm floored by the things that I'm reading in

here. John Wember is, he's quoted in the, I think it's the new wine magazine. And in this, and he's quoted as saying something to the effect of we're not building a movement, we're building an army. And on its, at its surface, when you hear that, you think, okay, that's, that's not that bad. He's, maybe he's talking about an army of prayer warriors or whatever it is. But John Wember is making statements that are directly linked to the fivefold, the authoritarian version of the fivefold ministry. And when you combine that with we're building an army, and then combine the fact that he's joining forces with C. Peter Wagner. And, you know,

the shepherding guys in this, in this magazine, you've really got all of the, all of the elements that can create quite a big mess. And I looked at that and I first thought, you know, just because he's in the same magazine, and it's the shepherding movement's main publication, maybe they just interviewed him. And maybe it's just a coincidence. But I got to thinking about it. And if some, you know, horrific, atheist magazine were to write some, you know, have some newsletter or magazine that just totally is contrary to...

to what I believe, and asked me to interview, would I even say yes, probably not? So I'm thinking that to some level, he's in cooperation with these guys, but the fact that it's multiple magazines, multiple articles, multiple topics, you can tell very clearly that they're joined forces.

And remember, John Wimber is joining forces with Paul Cain. Paul Cain is literally building the manifest sons of God, Joel's army. And they're saying, they actually turn that into a slogan for this magazine, you can find some advertisements that say, we're not building a movement, we're building an army, quoting John Wimber.

So now you've got Charismania, you've got Shepparding, you've got Latter-Rain. This is like the sum of the converging apostasy at an epicenter point, so it's quite fascinating. Yeah, yeah, I can have to look at that myself.

I've heard of that publication, it never really looked at it much. I know that you and Charles have looked into Paul Cain quite a bit. So I have some notes here, but I'm not gonna really linger upon them, but I did put down something to Steve Schultz and Mary Dorian of the Elijah List Publications 2022.

This is some stuff that really sounded like Jane Leade and her Latter-Rain disciple, Bill Britton. So the reminder listeners, Jane Leade was a prophetess esoterically imbued and she lived in England in the late 1600s, excuse me, 1600s, early 1700s, she did most of her writing, really, really off base as far as Christian teaching goes.

So Bill Britton picked up on her stuff and it ends up sounding kind of like what Cain said about an elite Elijah company that would become, like you said, John, quote, here is an exceedingly great army.

So that's really I propose to what you're talking about. And then Cain starts sounding like, now he's being quoted by Steve Schultz. He starts sounding like the manifest sons of God and Jane Leade have to say again, like Bill Britton, Cain says, believers will call down fire or to the sky to rain or stop raining at the word, control the winds and even park the waters.

So boy, how they're gonna be like superheroes. And then before Cain died, he made this prophecy, it's very vague as usual, fresh breath is coming to the prophetic ministry. So John, in the context of Paul Cain and apostasy, what do you think qualifies as fresh breath?

No idea. Yeah, I get you. I get you now. It could be almost anything. That's the sad part. Well, I had a question in my notes about this. I said, what makes a leader more likely to teach unbiblical ideas like the Elijah Company, which is becoming sort of an divine group like the manifest sons of God?

Well, the use of metaphorical interpretations, like those that describe an elite special group called out from other Christians, is a good starting point for this bad way of teaching. What it does, it opens itself to non-Christian teachings like those found in the esoteric world.

For example, Valentinus and the bridal chamber teachings goes way back to, excuse me, second century. For Valentinus, this was a union with angels to produce an Elijah Company-like, sinless perfection. So again, it's this corporate body of fall, in time, followers.

Then there's a case in point of all this kind of stuff. It's somebody who, I think you said you've read him a bit, is, I mentioned earlier, the church father origin. So he led from 185 to 253 AD.

The part that makes him interesting is that, you know, he's been described as everything from a great man of God to heretic, I can briefly tell you why, without reading all my notes, is that because he was so open to different kinds of ideas, he actually began a school, he founded a school that was attempting to teach Christian teachings through the prism of Platonism.

And so actually went to Rome to meet Platonus, who is the founder of Neoplatonism. And so that's kind of colored what origin had to say. So origin, as far as theologian is very, very well known, it stands out as a Plato-like mystical fellow.

And he, you know, when we look at the way people of misconstrued scripture and bend that twisted, contorted to me, whatever, well, you could say that about the origin. He's very, very much into symbolic allegorical versions of straight plain scripture.

So like Jane Leigh, he taught something which I'll try to pronounce here, maybe for this word, John. I neglected to look it up on Google and see how it's pronounced. Apaka pastisis. Okay, definitely a Greek word.

What does it mean? It means just like what Jane Leigh taught. that all souls, even Satan, will eventually be saved. Now, if you start hanging out on the deep end of the manifest sons of God teachers, you find out this is not that odd of a, well, it is odd, but it's not that uncommon of a teaching.

The part that makes it interesting would Jane Lee and some of her followers in the letter of readmanment is that they're kind of holding on to two ideas at the same time. Yeah, everybody's going to get saved, but some of them are going to perish and die in the process, and then they'll get a second chance, you know, because they're going to go off into the great cloud of witnesses and the great cloud of witnesses will come back to earth and be reunited with those saints that are seeking out perfection. So yeah, it's very odd position, but origin held to that.

And that's been debated sometimes, but it looks like he might have kind of tinkered around with that. Origin also began to talk about things like reincarnation, or at least that's the way it looks like, and so scholars debate that.

He also had an interesting version of the song of songs, and he gave it a mystical interpretation to where the bridegroom represents something like a lover, the logos, and the bride represents the soul of the believer. This was the first for some commentators say version of what became an influential interpretation later on about the song of songs. So the thing that comes to my mind is how does this compare to Mike Bickel's bridal parody? I studied origin quite a bit whenever I left the message because there were key elements of what he believed that really coincided

with what William Brannum taught in Laterane. And you know, the pre-existence of solos, for example, this was heavily, this was Brannumism 101. Brannum taught that I think his most famous sermon on the subject was solos that are in prison now. He talks about how there was this like swarm of solos that were in prison, and some of them could get out, and he ties it to predestination. He says, God predestined you before the world began, and he knew you then, and basically he's teaching what origin taught. And I didn't realize the depth of the gravity of how that would play into the

Christian identity movement as I studied it, but once you began to realize that most of the Christian identity movement believed in the mud peoples, and so you had these peoples that pre-existed this earth, and then it makes this weird leap, because if you think about the people that pre-existed this earth, and some of them are the solos in prison that enter this earth, But again, when now you're entering into the realms of reincarnation, and at first I kind of discounted it.

I said, no, there's no way Brannum believed that, but there's this one quote by Jim Jones when he talks about how Brannum was, how did he say, he said, Brannum was on the greatest gravy train he's ever found.

These guys making all this money. And Jones essentially condemns Brannum and says that he prophesied his death. But he says something to the effect of Brannum told him, you can't preach the Bible, you can't preach reincarnation, et cetera.

I can't remember the exact phrase, you can go to jonestown.stsu.edu and look it up. But when I read that and combined with all of these other things that was taught by origin, was taught by Brannum and literally what was taught by all of these Christian identity guys and learned that all of the key figures that were in Brannum's movements, such as Roy Davis and Gordon Lindsey were also affiliated with Christian identity.

It suddenly made me wake up and realize, well, he probably did believe reincarnation, but if he said it on recording, they have cut it out. Yeah, yeah, the pre-presistance of slows, excuse me, in my converging apostasy, that's one of the categories that gets thrown in quite a bit because George Houghton, the original North Battle Ford Apostle of the Lattering, he taught this Royal Crankist, Crankwist taught this and most definitely Jane Lee did.

Matter of fact, she said something like, you know, she was way into the idea that there was a great goddess, spouse of God in Sophia. She said that Sophia essentially commands the church to begin more acquainted with the fact that they have, you know, this pre-existence in the heavenlies.

Dwight Jane Lee said that, she essentially made like levels of heaven, which you're going straight into the esoteric world with that. And so it sounds like a purgatoryal existence where it doesn't matter how bad the person was, it doesn't matter if they're essentially like a demon or something and even Lucifer himself.

She says all of these will be saved, but some will be saved as by fire, meaning they'll die in the process and then be able to come back. As far as the reincarnation thing goes also John Robert Stevens in his teachings, makes this kind of poking people and trying to turn them up, but he says, he says, so do you think we ought to believe in reincarnation?

Well, I'll tell you what, some of us are going to be coming back and we're going to see some folks that have to return to finish the ministry. So yeah, definitely, you know, and he was...

way into George Warnock and the other lettering folks. And also actually, I think we've heard this one before. I mean, we've talked about this before. John Robert Stevens was intrigued by not only George Warnock, but also by William Brannum and the idea of the heat in the hand, or like you were talking once about hands turning purple, et cetera.

So he kind of liked that idea too. So this other fella who's really, really an amazing guy, who influenced everybody from esoteric folks to lettering folks, Jane Leigh. And also even it's been argued central concepts to the third Reich, even as basic as saying there was a first, a second, and then the third Reich and all the information goes back.

So his name, he's an Italian priest. I think I'll get this wrong. Joachim De Fiori, if you get anywhere close to that as a search will find him. So he lived from 1135 to 1202.

So what did he say? He said that there would be a spiritual, second coming of Christ, aka a corporate collective Messiah.

Okay, yeah, we heard that. We get with resulting quote, the glorious restoration and renewal of the whole church by spiritual men, he will arise in the power of Elijah. So we got Elijah in this corporate collective kind of Messiah thing.

So this collective Messiah made of the elite spiritual men well, do what? They will destroy the wicked. Wow, sounds like the sacred birds. This will cleanse the earth in preparation for quote, then the age to come and the future leadership of quote and Zealot Pope.

Couldn't be more strange than that. If anybody wants to get some of the, there's a couple of scholars that I get this stuff from. I want to get this, you can contact John. I'd be glad to send in names of their works and what they had to say about this.

One of the guys I can tell you is that his name is Elif from F-R-O-O-M. He wrote a thing called Jurkan of Fury long before the latter reign. Interesting title because he says this.

He says that the startling new theory came to jukurum by divine illumination. So like the Jain leave inspired prophets of the latter reign movement, Jurkan saw in new age the age of the spirit when the church would be transformed and his prophets would receive direct revelation over him.

above that the written canon of scripture. He said, no, this is interesting. Here's where you get that kind of free-pronged attack, if you wanna, wanna put it that way. He said that the age of the Father was colonel.

The age of the Son was partly colonel and partly spiritual. But the age, the third age will be pure spirit. Now, that could lead into loads, loads of different conversations, but just to throw it out there, that's quite a mouthful, he says.

So, like those who teach the Elijah Company today, Yorkin said, quote, be perfected by the price will be revealed and the saints will be given dominion over the earth. And a new order for a revitalized form of worship in the spirit.

This dominion is reserved, however, for only those who are preparing themselves, and others, the whole church of believers doesn't get it. Only those who have this new revelation and are therefore allowed to participate.

From ends like this, which I thought was astounding. He's got quite a bit of knowledge. He says, that this should sound very familiar to anyone well versed in latering doctrine. Yeah, go figure. And so, is he right?

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started 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.

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I was reading through Joachim Afiori comparing my notes. And it's unbelievable that this is just literally Brannumism 101. Brannum kind of separated the age of the Holy Spirit out into the seven church ages, like a lot of the latter reign you guys did.

But it was still three distinct ages in this manner. And that's why whenever people review Brannum's version of the Godhead, they mistakenly think that it's modalism, because he's saying, we have the age of the Father, then we have the age of the Son, we have the age of the Holy Spirit.

But it's much deeper than that. Brannum really had no position on the Godhead. He would go to one church and pray, and I'm told he even baptized Trinitarian, then he'd go to the next church and say anybody who does this has the mark of the beast, then go do it again to another church.

So he had really no convictions, but one thing that is consistent. That's like somebody I've heard in the pop-up like lately. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I'm sorry for the interruption, John. No, it's fine.

I feel like my life has been interrupted by something that I've been hearing like you. Well, it's so crazy when you think about it, but like I say, it's Brannumism 101. He was fairly consistent on this though.

He did teach those three distinct ages. So you kind of wonder, he had some books in his study, and I know he had some very unusual books. I'll just say it like that. I did not see anything about this, but who knows, maybe he studied it.

Yeah, that's wild. So since I've talked about that, Jane meets so much in previous videos. If somebody wants to look into that, they can find all kinds of good stuff. But one of the ladies that you talk to that makes her writings available is Dan Guerrero.

And so I found this thing that Dan Guerrero was talking about. Kind of like a little newsletter where she gets teachings to those who are interested. And so she's quoting Jane lead from March the 6th, 1676.

And she says that lead wrote about an elite company who would also be so perfected, excuse me, that they would so perfectly embody Christ that they would become the second coming. Yeah, we'll see where that goes.

Agraher also says this. She says that power comes from her, meaning leads Elijah's voice that the way of the Holy Ghost might be made playing straight. Sounds like John the Baptist in a way, doesn't it?

Okay, according to one of the sources that I've been getting a lot of good stuff from and she's written quite well about NAR Laterane engine lead is a scholar who's ex-NAR.

I mentioned her before, Dr. Bridget Jacobs. She says that lead believed that the spirit of Elijah was present and active in her day, but that it would be especially active at the Lord's return in and through his people.

So that's kind of getting into that Elijah company kind of thing. So going to Laterane prophets, Royal Cronquist says that the anointing of Elijah is a promise to the anointing for the in time church.

It is said to transform nations of prepare them for the coming of Christ, but he also says Christ is coming in and through his people. There's where we get that corporate thing. George Royal.

I wonder, believe that God was preparing an Elijah people who would hear the words of God more directly from God. And Cronquist, as you know, was big into teaching the fivefold ministry. So when you think of the army and you think of the structure, the army, the hierarchy, essentially, when you think of what became the NAR, the pyramid structure, these guys are all teaching it.

And I keep going back to this magazine because my mind is just blown. But the fact that they're teaching the fivefold ministry as the latterane taught it, moving into charismatic movements as it was really gaining steam, it just blows your mind because they are all thinking the same thing.

We're building this corporate body, this corporate Elijah. They gave it different names, obviously. They're not using the same names that Christian identity did, but they're saying the same exact things. John, I was going to ask you, if you'd run into this because Ellen Purvis had that connection with New Wine, did you ever see any connections between the magazine you're referring to there, that publication in New Wine and some of the other folks because Purvis is sort of in the middle of a lot of what you're talking about.

Right. So that's where it gets interesting. So Purvis, as you know, was big in the development of the New Wine Shepherding magazine. He was, interestingly, he was sent materials from T.L. Osborne, who was in William Brannum's deity cult, Osborne at William Brannum's memorial service.

He said, we have truly seen God in the flesh with William Brannum. So he was part of the deity cult and he's supplying the Shepherding movement. He's working with Ellen Purvis. He's basically training them.

And then you've got, from that side, you've got the people, I don't know if Purvis believed that Brannum was God or not, but it's odd, that connection is odd. But then you had Ern Baxter, who's bringing in the Elijah stuff and he's carrying forward this Elijah Ministries coming, etc.

Well, the Shepherding movement, as you know, got into some really weird things and some of it was very criminal. There were some allegations of sexual misconduct, etc. Well, it started to become a black eye and they began to denounce it.

They somehow shifted away from the New Wine publication and this magazine was basically its replacement. I think it's, I can't pronounce his name properly, but it's Larry Tomzack, I think, is the one who started this magazine.

Yeah. One of the Lauderdale. Yeah. So this is the continuation of New Wine, but it's under a different name. It's just funny. I'm not funny, but if I could go back and be a fly on the wall and here kind of...

conversations from some of the leadership of the Church that I was in in Boston. The Shepherding folks, we would get bits and pieces and there was even a fellow, well Paul Youngy-Cho was one of the guys we were into in Korea and where else.

I think there was an Argentinian guy, oh boy, I'm going to forget his name, it's been so long. He had a shepherd and set up that was people compared to like ominous cells, like you'd have these old groups or like the way international has what they call twigs and they branch into the leadership of their movement.

But yeah, that that really gets me to think I got to do some more digging on some stuff. So thank you John, it's always more stuff to occupy my time. So one of the guys again, like the York and the Fiori, here's a guy that was really interesting and I was talking to John before we got started, it's a think of this fellow, his name is Thomas Munster, over the U there's two dots, so I don't know if that's Munster Munster, he's a German and he lived in the 1500s, well to me if you compared Martin Luther

King Jr, I don't know for some folks, he's got his own little controversies in his history and some of his activities, but if you compare Martin Luther King Jr, basically on his ideas to Malcolm X, you could say that that's like Martin Luther of the Reformation and Thomas Munster.

Thomas Munster was quite a radical fella and he but heads with Luther quite often. So what about him? He sought to establish a theocracy with the use of violence, okay? He was similar to Elijah and he noted this and that Elijah killed the prophets of Dale and in reference to this idea of taking things into your own hands like a vigilante kind of idea, he was a leader of a German peasant uprising of 1525, there was commonly known as German peasants war, but you know that's a big thing in history.

And so he armed, he got an armed militia to support this when I was reading this I was thinking yeah like Christian identity and some of the crosstalk going with them and other aspects of our society today, eventually he was captured, tortured and killed, but before that all happened, he had quite an impact on the Reformation, the radical edge of it.

He believed that the end of the world was near and the true believers must help God to establish the kingdom, okay? In the process they would destroy all that is evil and from this a new age would emerge. At this time, I mean this time in history, some saw the reformer Martin Luther as a reincarnation of Elijah, Humalachi, and your kin had prophesied would come to herald the new age. Like the mystics of the middle, mid-evil period, Munster sought to follow the spirit, not the letter of scripture. So how many people have we heard do that and where it's taken the Lila land? For this reason, he said the true believers were to get

their revelations through dreams and visions. But since Munster had this, they really have a warm spot in his heart for Luther. He said that expecting visions in a tube spirit of apostles and prophets, he said that there was no way that Martin Luther could do this and he said that no wonder that this wouldn't happen because he called him brother-fatted pig and brother-soft life.

I've never heard Luther describe that way, but I thought that was kind of interesting. And yes, I didn't have a great friendship. But some of it to Jane Leading, William Branon, Munster also believed that the spirit of the prophet Elijah was the key that would open the book of Revelation in the seven seals. Excuse me, the sealed seven seals. And so, yeah, I'm thinking of circuses right there, I guess. When I got at this morning to do my usual reading, I've been in the book of Revelation lately. So I got to you chapter five and I was reading and I saw one interesting

thing. No one is worthy to open the seals. Only Jesus Christ. And John even lamented the fact he's saying this is terrible. Who can open? And then of course it's revealed to him, Jesus Christ can do it. Not William Branon, not Jane Leading. So where they get off from that, when they're obviously ignoring a significant idea. So how well would Munster fit in with the current day in Norfolk? He would fit pretty well. I'll never forget, whenever, when I left the Branom movement, one of the key doctrines as you alluded to is that William Branom opened the seven

seals. And he gives this long sermon. He's very deceptive in the way that he twists it and says it. He doesn't say, I, William Branom did this. He essentially says God has opened it for us, but oh, by the way, I was there and I was the one he did it for.

So he's literally saying that he did it and then dodging around the wording of it. So we believed it and the problem is he gives the sermon to explain what he saw written underneath the seal.

And it, I don't know if you've seen the candid camera show, the old candid camera show. Yes. There's this guy that did what was called double speak and he would say a whole sentence and by the end of what, by the end of the sentence, you're more confused than when he start before he started talking.

So William Brannum Sermon, when he explains what was behind the seal, you're more confused than before he started talking like the double speak. And he's literally doing double speak. And I never caught this man.

We would, I can remember witnessing to people and I'd say he opened the seven seals and they say, well, was it, uh, I don't know, you know? And so you go back and try to look and find, you can't find it.

And what, what emerged after this is, and Charles and I are going through this, some of this history, but you had men, mostly men, there may be a few women, but mostly men who came forward and said, we understand what William Brannum said.

And therefore, we're going to start this new sect and follow us and some of them they, they say the seven thunders uttered the voices and we know what those are. William Brannum explained it to us.

It turns into this weird chaotic mess and the NAR has kind of just white washed all of that. They say, Brannum went astray in the later years and so we can't, we can't listen to any of this.

But what's odd about it is they use the framework of what he taught that led to that as the foundation for what became the, basically, the charismatic movement and the NAR. I know that there's some differences in doctrine, but the framework that Brannum laid is what they use as their stepping stone.

Yeah, the root is corrupt and the tree that's spreading from it is corrupt. Yeah, as you're speaking about that, I actually was thinking about the flow, you know, like, do we have a, like a rational idea here?

Or we're just kind of rambling here, here, here, here is a method of speech. And this is actually, if you've ever looked at, I don't know if you've ever looked at a fellow, I don't know if there's a couple of Ericsson's related to psychiatry and hypnotherapy.

I believe his name was Eric Ericsson, or maybe I'm confusing him with a different fellow, but his method for helping people who had deep-seated, you know, phobias and so on, anxieties, as he would kind of speak in circles around them, to where they just kind of finally, you know, just go numb, you know, not be able to really...

think. And so it was targeted confusion like Monty Python used to say, you know, like how to confuse a cat, you know. Well, you speak in circles around it. I actually used to do this occasionally, hopefully in good humor with my fifth grade students. If somebody might get up and and want to be a little bit of a trouble maker, you know, having some conflict with something they said or I was teaching. And so what I would do was I talk around them in circles until they didn't really know if I was scolding them or not. And then they'd look confused and sit

out and be quiet. And we'd proceed on with the lesson. So it, some of this leads me to, okay, hip hypnotic thought, hypnotic suggestion it has been suggested is actually part of the teaching method of a lot of the folks we talk about. And so I mean on this channel and others. So the big question is were they trained at this? Did somebody else speak to them like this in a absorbent and spewed it back out to others? Or is this totally random accidental? There's been a lot of different talks. But near on linguistic programming is one of the things that comes up of this.

Are you familiar with that, John? I am. I had never heard the term until I saw that what was, I think it was the University of St. Petersburg. They had a team of experts who analyzed random sermon and determined that in certain ones, not all of them, but in certain ones, he was making use of neurolinguistic programming. How about that? Yeah. Actually, when I left, when I left the group that I was in, I got some good counseling from people that knew about this sort of manipulation of language. And a couple of them had actually studied with

the fellows that introduced this concept. And unfortunately, the way it came out and this is kind of a cautionary tale, one of the main guys that introduced this idea decided to go for profit manipulation, you know, getting fame and women and song and dance or whatever he wanted.

The other were used to legitimately attempt to help folks. And so they got into this idea they called reframing. So one fellow in this institution said, he was Jesus Christ. Okay, so he wanted around and he tried to preach to people and tell them very things. But he wasn't, he wasn't an angry, difficult to deal with person. He just obviously did the And so this Ericsson fellow talked with him and he, now, for better words, I don't think this is something great to do, but he let him believe the part about Jesus Christ, but he started clipping around the edges of that perception to where he was less of a problem to himself and others.

There's better examples, but I just happen to remember that one. So I guess, I guess the final thing that comes to me, this new name that I hadn't run into until recently just by chance.

Jennifer Leclerc, she's a present day nor a affiliated person. I think she's a Brit, but I haven't really read that much of her stuff. She claims to be a prophet and an apostle, so humbly in print on her online website there.

She has an article called Changing of the Guard. We'll never hear this from other Norfolk's. And she speaks of the new breed in the Elijah company. Okay, so she's collected that kind of stuff.

Evidently, she's a bit morbid because she says that she has attended the funerals of all of the Kansas City folks, the Kansas City prophets. So she was there for Bob Jones, John Paul Jackson and Paul Keynes funerals.

I don't know if there's something to boast about, or she's kind of making a little wink and a nod to that grave soaking issue that's come up occasionally. So she appears to have placed, I thought this was interesting about where you start with a bad root in the tree and the bad fruit come from the tree.

So she seems to place a real importance on how the dates of their deaths align with certain events. And then he has an ex Braminite can really relate to that. So she kind of sounds like she's sliding into this Christian numerology kind of thing.

So how does this narrow step into non-Christian practice support her claims to be an apostle and a prophet? That's a pretty easy answer, but what do you think, John? First off, have you heard of this person?

No, I've not studied this person yet, but what you're saying, it fits together like a glove. I mean, these ideas are just, it's unbelievable that people believe this, but what's even more unbelievable is that they have spun off movements from it.

And the movements have splintered into various bad fruit. You know, you can examine, you know, the tree by the fruit of bears. These are not good movements. Yeah, and the only other thing I remember about earlier website was that you get the usual.

I don't know what you call them, like a criminal lineup in a sense, you know, you get Bill Hammond supporter, city Jacobs. join her, Rick join her, Becca, all these folks. She's like, you know, like a lot of folks in ours. She loves to name drop, but she's been in connection with them, either supporting their books, showing up with them at seminars and teaching things. So yeah, they kind of gave it the stamp of disapproval and they heard who she hangs out with. I mean, if it was my son and he says, hey, dad, I really like two packs of curves music. And can I invite this guy over that sells dope

and we'll hang out at the house? I might have a nice talk with my son, right? I mean, it's like the company you keep. We can find biblical, you know, chapter and verse about the company you keep.

Does anything come straight to mind? I'm thinking something from Proverbs probably could be applied. Yeah, I mean, you've probably seen it in the comment feeds. I get all these people that say, that's guilt by association. You can't do this. But if that's all they associate with, you have to use it as part of the historical background of these people. Like you're saying, there are some people you just don't associate with. And I, I'm just flabbergasted. I still, like I say, I'm shocked now reading this to find all these key figures together. These men were working on a strategy.

And what they, what they have done is they've turned all of this converging apostasy into this new thing that they're calling Christianity. And they've picked and chosen all of the bad elements of these former movements brought it together. And this literally, this birthed the NAR.

Yeah, John. Well, I'm glad to talk to you about this again. And I see, I see various people come online that they want to discuss this sort of stuff. And it's like they sometimes can go guilt by association. And I think there's, you know, the reference in the Bible about, let, let everything be established by two or three witnesses. Well, one witness could be, what a scripture says. Say, uh, another witness could be who you're hanging out with.

And the third to me is, what are you saying? Is what are you saying identical to this other person person you're hanging out with? Uh, because if it is, then no, that's not guilt by association.

That's establishing the facts to maybe two or three different, uh, means. That's a good measure to evaluate all of this by. It isn't just that they're connected. It's that there is a framework that they all seem to have used. And more than that, there are ideologies that they all agreed with. That's literally what brought these men together and women. They, they believed in this shared unity of this converging apostasy. And then the and the creative.

and they made all of basically what became the NAR but what's weird is along that trail, if you study the history, you'll find these offshoots that just go off into complete destruction before even making it to the NAR. So the bad fruit existed before these men created this mess that we have today and they didn't examine the fruit before they continued. So that really, for me, that's the big deal and you know, whether you get called out and falsely accused of guilt by association, what it tells me when a person tells me this, it tells me

that they are a person who is afraid to examine the fruit. And so instead what they do is they try to say, no, don't listen to this guy, he's guilt by association, but let's ignore all of the fruit. So for me, that's what it is. But anyway, thank you for doing this. This has been great fun. Yeah, I enjoyed it too.

Awesome. Well, 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 about the dark side of the NAR, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. For more about the converging apostasy, read the book The Converging Apostasy. And you can also read a quick outline on hands-on eschatology, a matter of timing and agency.