Podcast Episode

Endless NAR Tentacles: Unraveling Elitist Cults

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/branham Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts: https://william-branham.org/podcast Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.a...

2025, March 20 00:53:24 1 tag

Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham

Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast

Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962  

John and Steve discuss the intricate historical connections between various theological movements, focusing on the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and its doctrinal roots. They delve into the influence of figures like T. Austin Sparks, Watchman Nee, and Jane Leed, tracing the evolution of key theological concepts such as the Manifested Sons of God, church authority, and elitist spiritual teachings. Their conversation highlights how these ideas were woven through movements like the Latter Rain, Pentecostalism, and the Shepherding Movement, shaping the landscape of modern charismatic theology. They explore how certain teachings, once considered controversial, have become widely accepted within evangelical circles, particularly regarding spiritual authority, submission, and the idea of a spiritually elite group within the broader Christian community.

Throughout the discussion, they analyze the impact of historical figures and theological trends on contemporary movements, identifying patterns of spiritual hierarchy, exclusivity, and authoritarian leadership. They emphasize the dangers of extra-biblical teachings that prioritize submission to human authority over biblical doctrine, drawing parallels to cult-like structures. The conversation also touches on the role of media and literature in propagating these ideas, with figures such as Bill Hamon and William Branham reinforcing these themes. Ultimately, John and Steve advocate for critical examination and historical research to expose the origins and implications of these teachings, encouraging vigilance against manipulation within religious movements. 

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Music Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Brannum.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, Steve Montgomery, the author of the converging apostasy, and a quick outline of 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. It's been a good while since you and I have spoken, and I'm a little excited about today's topic because this,

for me, was one of the most astounding things about the new apostolic reformation today. In fact, I kind of didn't believe that it existed. Much like you've heard the defenders of the NAR, they say there is no such NAR, there's no membership, then we don't call ourselves NAR, or NAR, they say. And I kind of ticked that at face value until I started studying all of the different spider webs of history that it came from and developed, and watching all of the spider webs of connections that it started to attract. And in essence, it turned into this big

conglomeration of apostolic networks, and really the power that it has is through those networks. So today we're talking about the NAR tentacles, and you've found some information that's quite interesting. So I'm excited about getting into it today. Yeah, me too, John. It's been a long time, my wife and I've been doing some housework and have a really, really long honeydew list, which I'll probably get on with it shortly here, but yeah, the NAR, I'm sure you have those too.

The NAR is tentacles. I always talk into somebody who I've mentioned before, and she's very useful in my research about Jane Leade. Her name is Dr. Bridget A. Jacobs. She's several things, she's ex-NAR, but she's also a scholar, a bona fide scholar. She doesn't just have a doctorate from one of the doctorate meals that you don't know some of her or folks get them.

And she's also a big expert on the 17th century Prophet Jane Leade. As a reminder, it was that influenced the perfectionist. Dominionist and eliminationist views of the latter reign of 1948. The later became known as Sonship teachings. And these, of course, ended up influencing the NAR. So I was very interested when Dr. Jacobs recently told me that T. Austin Sparks, T. Stance with Theodore, he lived from 1888 to 1971. She says, quote, he wrote extensively on Sonship and that these works predated the latter reign by about 20 to 25 years. And she says she found evidence of this when doing

research in the Winky Prattney Revival Library at Baylor University in Lindell, Texas. Yeah, it's interesting. I've studied some of the latter reign history and I've started going backwards in time in several areas, but I'm a little bit surprised as I go backwards in time to see just how much of it pre-existed because a lot of historians, if you read what they say about the NAR, they say this was kind of a new thing and it was a result of Pentecostalism. Basically, Pentecostalism 2.0. But you can't really say 2.0 because even Pentecostalism was birthed from

different other movements. And they, if you talk to a Pentecostal historian, they'll say, well, we go all the way back to the day of Pentecost. That's our birth and they consider that to be their origins. However, if you think through the doctrines and you just examine the doctrines that aren't really directly from the Bible, they're introductions that Pentecostalism differs from mainstream Christianity. Those doctrines pre-existed Pentecostalism by not so long, but some of them, like the Manifested Sons of God, obviously came back, being traced all the way back to Jane Leed probably before even Jane Leed. Some of these doctrines have been,

they've been heresies throughout time, but it's only today with all of the heresy hunters we're starting to see some of them just really strongly be condemned. I like that heresy hunters. I haven't heard them before. That's very good. Yeah, good description.

I'm proud to be in that number to quote an old song. So something came up after talking to Dr. Jacobs. And I can tell you can find she's written some really, really good stuff if you look for Dr. Bridget A. Jacobs. She's written a lot of good stuff. Mostly about the 17th century and other prophetesses other than Jane Leed. But after talking to her, I began to say, okay, well, who influenced this tea, Austin Sparks, tea for theater? And like you were just saying, kind of takes you back, okay? He didn't just jump out of an egg fully formed, you know,

there was some kind of backstory. So one of the back stories is that Sparks was real tight with Watchman D, I'm sure you could talk about him for a little bit, and that the two of you stayed together in fellowships when he was visiting England, which is where Sparks was from, and the two of them influenced each other quite a bit. And so that leads to a little bit about me, without going way into it. His background is a definite Kesworth theology, a big dose of Catholic mystics like Mademburon, and the overcomer movement via Jesse Penn Lewis's

teachings. Based on Dr. Jacobs' lead, I emailed AustinSparks.net to learn more about Sparks. The response I got was that quote, some of the truths Sparks taught were not accepted years ago, but they're now fully accepted and widely understood by evangelical Christians. Okay, that sounds like there might be something behind that. So what were some of those truths that were not accepted at first? I always told that T. AustinSparks saw beyond the nomenational lines to what God really intended, and this was not common when he left the baddest union in 1925. When he did leave the baddest union, he became the founder of quote was known as Honor Oak Fellowship in

1926, and there was in London County, England. So Sparks had something that later became popular in the latter reign. They talk about the beginning to get a new vision of the body of Christ.

And that sounds pretty innocuous, but they've met an awful lot of new stuff about that. That's where the corporate man, the alleged company comes from that basic understanding. Sparks said that the church was organic, not organized by men. This was also quote, not common during his lifetime.

At first, he had to work mentally to prepare for a sermon. Sounds like a normal thing to do, but this changed so that quote the spirit simply took control and flowed through him, and that was how he delivered the sermons thereafter. So Sparks quote, questioned many of the things in church unity, and he may have been the first to come up with this term as early as 33. It turns out that Sparks followers compared into Moses and referred to him affectionately as TAS.

So this church unity idea and the TAS does that remind you of anything of WNB? WNB William Brannum. We had this discussion right before we started the program but whenever you are in the cult following a William Brannum which they call the message you always say without fail brother Brannum because he's our precious brother they would say this over and over constantly over and over. When you leave you get really tired of it because it's interesting the people who are in it are conditioned to say it so frequently that when you leave and your cognizant that you're saying it you start to understand that you said it way way way too often.

I experienced this first whenever I went to visit my family maybe six months after leaving my grandmother was in the hospital so I went to the hospital and in the hospital waiting room I was listening talking to my grandfather who knew that I had no longer believed any of it and he was trying to have just a casual normal conversation and not talk about religion which was respectful but he started saying brother Brannum this and brother Brannum that and brother Brannum that over and over and over so whenever you leave the former members are so tired of hearing it they

abbreviated WNB William Mary and Brannum which we ironically found that he was using an alias its William Marvin Brannum but WNB and I carried a step further I used WN Bozo but

you're right the the connections to all these people you mentioned Watchman Knee. Watchman Knee I'm only early in my research to understand him fully. I was tipped off to him in a few different directions but most recently as you know I've been digging into John Wimber and I've sent you a few of those articles where right I'm almost immediately after the shepherding movement is condemned as an authoritarian cult John Wimber is trying to working with several other scoundrels to bring unity back to the charismatic movement including the shepherds who have been condemned well Wimber was working closely with Lonnie Frisbee as you know he's another new character in my

research I was just recently sent information that Lonnie Frisbee highly respected Watchman Knee and he went to bible school with one of the leaders of the shepherding movement was trained by him and was an early adopter of the shepherding movement so before meeting Wimber this brings the shepherding into Wimber's contact this is likely where he get connected to people like Paul Kane etc but there's so many spider webs up connection and you could almost endlessly talk about them.

Yeah, and when you say connections to me, one of the times I ran into him was, I was looking over information from Ray Prinsing. He's another one of the way I weigh in the deep end of the Sunship teachings.

And so he teaches universalism, sort of like Jane Lee did. But he quoted me as saying that he's quoting the Bible, perfect love casts out all fear. And so he says, that means that the God will be with you if you go to hell and he will cast out all fear.

And so it's not going to be that bad of a place, actually, because God's going to be there with you. And he will be loving you. And I guess cleaning you up a bit.

But John, what about the idea of churchyality as a phrase being used in 1933 for Sparks? Yeah, I have a lot of opinions on that. I keep them mostly to myself. But as I'm learning about the Christian religion, see I grew up in a cult and what we were taught, we were taught that it was Christianity.

But after leaving, I realized that most of the doctrines were extra biblical and some of them anti-biblical. So what I had was not Christianity. The irony is after leaving and going and trying different churches, which we've tried a few, some of them, I can say, did similar things in similar areas, but it almost becomes this difference between what the Bible says is Christianity versus church.

And I have a lot of opinions on how this is grown and formed and why I have not yet formulated a response yet. But yeah, it's a clear difference between Christianity and just simply going to church because it's a building and there's lots of people in it.

And in some cases, like the mega churches, it is a business that they're operating. Yeah, that's a fair answer. I understand what you're talking about there. The reason I bring that up is because, you know, George Houghton being one of the original apostles of the latering and just the list goes on and on.

They, and I think Brandon would have done this also, is that they talk about come out from her meaning Babylon, meaning the horror Babylon, because you don't want to be tied into her her sins and they connect this and equate this with the churchy entity or the denominational church system and then cleared, you know, Pentecostals in that list.

So, yeah, I did find... something that I found really interesting about the sparks, there's critiques that were done of his writings, but really not enough. But according to E.J. Poole, Daesh Connard, sparks teachings result in many churches being torn apart. Does that make him bad? No. Does it make further research a good idea? Yes. So his congregation called Honor Oak, there was word that they felt superior to their fellow believers. And like all of those here for Teethon are, well, I'm personally not all, but like many nowadays, yourself, Holly Peavark, hopefully myself. This critic, Mr. Poole Connard said that a considerable

amount of time had been given investigating the teachings and the disruptive nature of Honor Oak. Okay, so they're looking at it, they're trying to be fair. And here's something that Mr. Poole Connard ended up writing about it. He says after his investigation that sparks said he had received a, quote, divine revelation about the nature of the Christian church as the body of Christ. Again, you know, my red flags go up there because it sounds perfect, it's true. But when somebody's talking about a special revelation in regards to this, I start thinking, Bill Breddon, Gordon Brennan, the long list of those who also got special revelation. Ah, and look,

sparks even believe that his revelations were equal with those of the Apostle Paul. Now he's taking a big step into Nunno Land. As a result, he had a tendency to be little, the plain sense of biblical instruction. For example, he said, if we simply take the scriptures as they stand, what will we have? Wow, it's unbelievable. I was talking with Cynthia, who has doing some of the podcasts with me on Carismanian. She was in the John Wimber movement whenever it was early growing. And I think she might have even been with Lonnie Frisbee. But Wimber said something similar. He focused so heavily on what he called the feels. It was more

about the experience than it was about the Bible. And it ended up in some weird places with his doctrine because of that. He did not preface his doctrines with sound Bible theology. I'll just say it like that. But those phrases that you mentioned, this guy using, they come straight from Branemism. And Branem taught the same kind of thing. It is, it's very polarizing. And it is the setup for an authoritative...

figure because like Brandon would say he had this vision of the intimes and he saw all these people walking before God in the judgment day and they're all scared and he looked around and who are all these people and somebody walked up and said these are your people and he said really how will they be judged they'll be judged by the words that you said and he said what about those people over there well those people will be judged by the words Paul said so if you dissect what he's saying he is literally saying that each person is an authoritarian figure and even if their words

are in conflict with other ancient biblical figures or the Bible it doesn't matter it's more about the spoken word sadly this was during the height of his fame in the latirane movement so you can tell that many many many people were adopting this as their sound what they called sound theology but it's it's awful theology it is terrible yeah John and the thing that Dr.

Jay could really got me intrigued about is everything you say is true but she says as he found this 20 to 25 years prior yeah to you know and so that's that's a missing link I want to find out exactly what is meant by that like okay we know that Jane leads prophecies the the 60 propositions was found in the personal effects of was that part of Charles price Charles price right so that would that would put it predating again another person who was predating so who knows maybe the lead was influencing the sky sparks it's possible I guess so but yeah the random thing

this should sound probably a lot like this separatist sort of stuff he says if people don't separate from the church order which they will have formerly been a part of they will come under the displeasure and judgment of God that's mr. sparks beacon he says that his disciples hold a heavenly position while rank and file believers holy quote earthly one he devotes three chapters in his pamphlet called stewardship of the mystery to the importance of laying on a pants which you know it's a big issue used in sort of a different kind of way in the latter ring and with some cult members too I mean other cult leaders besides

brand them so with sparks he said that for the laying of his hands as for for new members this would one pledge to give up their personality sounds like a cult to me to accept the fact that they're pended upon their fellow members, sounds like a cult in which you don't relate to any other information other than what's inside the group you're in, and three, the clear acceptance of the law of the body, which is submission.

And that's the key right there. That is the key word. They want you to submit to their authority. Every doctrine that is extra biblical and anti-biblical in these movements, and you can examine them forwards in time, as time progresses, you can go back in time through all the different spider webs of these networks.

They create doctrines that are extra and anti-biblical that the combination of which puts them into a reign of power that they should not have, and they are given respect that they should never be given.

Sadly, people keep continuing this process of lifting people like this into power and submitting to them, and I feel strongly that these people should be exposed and condemned, and we have to stop this practice at some point in history.

Yeah, sure enough. There's something I think I actually quoted in my book, The Converging Apostasy, probably because I'm a musician and I'm old enough to have grown up when the Beatles were making a big splash.

But it directly relates to submission. This is a song by John Lennon, where he says, living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see, okay? Sounds almost prophetic in a way, of course.

John had his own issues and problems, we could say, but God can make the stones cry out if the other people don't do it. So yeah, talking about critics of Mr. Sparks, here's a paper that says that I found it says, an appreciation of T. Austin Sparks.

This is written by Harry Foster in 1971. So it gives more recent examples of his influence. Like you're saying, brother, brother, brand, I'm okay. This guy says, brother Sparks prepared Christians for a quote, now check this out.

This really does sound like what later happened and the whole sonship thing, all the quotes that he says, quote, true sonship according to the pattern of the perfect son, that's what Sparks is preparing us for.

And for this reason, at times, yeah, an attitude of superiority towards other Christians has come into his eagerness to follow his divine revelations. Mr. Sparks stressed the importance of quote, executive prayer and prayer warfare in order to break through.

and get in touch with the throne. And of course, this is to be done in a way which I've heard nor people talk about like a lower form of prayer. That's just like passive prayer.

It really doesn't do any good. You gotta be a prayer warrior. So again, this is an us then thing. There's the elite. There's the lower branch of Christians. And so I thought this was a little bit humorous.

This fellow, Mr. Foster says, brother, because again, brother sparks could give long messages and often he did so. The long messages, man, that brings back memories. I'll never forget sitting through two and a half hour sermons and this was a normal thing.

It was kind of ridiculous what we endured. And then after leaving, I remember one of the churches we went to shortly after leaving the guy spoke for like 15 minutes and that was the sermon.

Everybody shook his hand and walked out and I was like, wait a minute. When's it gonna preach? But you know, I got gip, man, I got dressed up in my Sunday best for this.

It was only 15 minutes. But you know, in hindsight, looking back through all of that and listening to what you're describing, really it shows that they're trying to create a culture and the culture is one that is a culture of isolationism.

What you're describing, even some of the worded words that you're using came directly out of brannemism and this obviously was before. So I really can't say that this guy was directly influencing brannem or even, I don't even know if it was indirect but what's interesting is they use the same words and phrases because those words and phrases create a culture of isolationism and once they can get people, like brannem would say, come out of her and my people talking about the mainstream churches and you'd say they're apostate, they're, you know the history, it's Latter-Rain 101, they wanted,

they called them the cold formal churches and essentially what they're saying is we want you to isolate yourselves from the rest of the Christian world, come into our world and we will then get your money.

Yeah, and so again, I keep looking at like I've heard you say this before kind of dicing things out according to a timeline. We know that there was Jingly back in the 17th century.

We know that she had a lot of esoteric influences that helped her to come up with her doctrines or eschatology, her view in time things. Then we've got brannem saying a lot of these sort of things prior to 1948 to a certain extent.

I'd really like to pinpoint exactly where that happened and exactly because Dr. Jacobs said she found this kind of talk of censorship from Spark. in the 20s and early 30s. So where did he get that from? You know, I mean, it's just a question that sometimes we can't entirely answer accurately, but I should try to whittle away at it.

But here comes a good question. It was a big question to me. Is the NAR aware of sparks and its teachings? Because the southern fellow, like in 1971, Mr. Foster, he was totally aware of it. So in a writing called prophetic ministry, a classic study on the nature of a prophet, we do get an answer to the NAR's feelings about this. Why?

Because the NAR prophet, Bill Hammond, who seems to be all over the place, says that sparks quote pioneered the need for prophets and prophetic ministry. He was quote a voice that interprets the mind of God in people.

So like Jean Leade, like George Werner, like Bill Britton, like the prophets of the NAR, and the entire esoteric world, sparks said, it is the nature of revelation to keep things alive and fresh and filled with divine energy.

Now, when I say esoteric world, I'm thinking primarily Alice Bady and her so-called New Age teachings, because she's had the same concept about revelation and it being progressive and alive and fresh that Bill Britton, that Jane Leade, all these other folks did.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, William-Branham.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

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On behalf of William-Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. Let's talk a little bit about influence. We have all of these different weird connections. In some cases, the things that he's saying that is directly related to, the things that William-Branham is saying, can't say that they were directly impactful.

However, what I'm finding in my research is that some of the figures that have similar doctrines always seem to publish those extrobiblical, anti-biblical doctrines. And that's how they're trying to create a following. If they can get the media out there and somebody can stumble onto their heresies, the unsuspecting and itching ears will accept whatever they read in some cases here throughout your recordings and they'll come into whatever is the call.

And then what happens over time because this has happened, these things kind of exist and they get spread around loosely and they come into contact with other people. So you asked the question, did the NAR come in contact with this information?

I don't know, but I'm curious how much and how widespread is his publications, where do you know? Well, the bit about the NAR would be that Bill Hammond

writes the forward to a book called The Prophetic Ministry and he quotes Sparks and he says that Sparks is one of these prophets that interprets the mind of God. So we do know of these from Bill Hammond.

And of course, he's influential. I don't know, he's so-called retired now, but his influence has been far and wide in the NAR. Another place that we would find this sort of influence is online, like you said, they'd like to post their stuff, which makes it helpful for us to do research because they've got such big egos and they're looking for a new conference that of course they put it all up on the internet.

So at the Golden Candlestick, these articles are mostly dealing with T. Austin Sparks sermons that have been transcribed. It turns out that two of his daughters, I'm not really sure if they're still alive, but they asked the editors at the Candlestick to handle their dad's manuscripts carefully, especially the older ones, the ones before 1945.

Okay, again, that's sort of getting us on that timeline where these things come because according to them, they may be controversial. Okay, so maybe they're savvy enough to realize dad was a prophet, but whoo, better watch out for that comment, didn't they?

So why? Okay, maybe it's because, and this will perk years up, I'm sure, maybe the controversy comes because Sparks said, the lamb and the broad cannot be split in two. Then he says, they are a great inclusive corporate unveiling of him in terms of the...

Holy City, the bride, the tabernacle of God, that full orbed revelation, Christ in corporate expression and perfection. Remember, he's talking about the body of Christ there. Sounds a little bit more eloquent than Bill Britton, but it sounds kind of the same.

This next one sounds very much like Bill Britton and Jane Leade and Brandon. Mark said, the manifestation of the glory of the sons of God is the final full unveiling of the triumph of God in his saints.

Always when I hear stuff like that, I always like to go back to the scripture where Jesus is paid the price and he says, it is finished. Because a lot of these guys are saying, no, no, no, the great in time work of the Holy Spirit through the sons of God will be when it is finished, okay, debatable.

A fourth point is, and I wish I would have had this when we did our video about the Elijah Company, Spark said, the one new man, and this is, the audience can't see, but he had his in all caps, the one new man, would be a corporate man which will eventually destroy Satan.

Of course, the implications are those who are in league with Satan also, the assistant, the sacred purge will take care of that. But what registers with his daughters is also known as if the dad was unfairly criticized for speaking about quote, the overcomers as quote, a special class of Christians, a people within a people.

So April of 1948, Spark's made a visit to the United States and to Canada. I don't know what happened out of that, but I mean, it's worth investigating as far as unconcerned. And a people within a people, that's another thing that is symbolic of these cults.

They all want to create, it's like a carrot on a string. They say, come out of her, you people, and come join our sect. Once you get in the sect, and there is no bliss like they've advertised in their propaganda.

People might just leave. So they try to give them something that's just a little bit further than just simply leaving the church. It's like a carrot on a stick, right? You'll never reach the carrot.

But we want you to be the elect seed. We want you to be the special ones, the special elites. And ironically, it turns, it's to a cult's destruction as well, because there are people who feel that they have achieved this within these groups over time.

And they start to condemn others within the group. And so it turns into... who just, you know, people lashing out at other people within the group until nobody's happy. Yeah, and as you're saying that I was kind of thinking, I don't know if you really complete the lines up with that, but the cult leader, John Robert Stevens, definitely influenced by William Brandon, by George Warnex, the Feast of Tiger and Eccles, a lot of ladder-rained stuff you're interested in, but as he drew his people apart as a cult,

other people, and they were still in the move or in the message, had some negative things to say about him. So John, you know that when I say the converging apostasy, I'm talking about loosely the left and the right or biblically based teachings so-called or esoteric teachings so-called, in the way they merger, reflect different points of cross-contamination and cross-politization.

So I have a kind of an ear for, because I've read a lot of the esoteric teachings, Blavitsky and Bayley and Ruth Montgomery and some others. So I want to hear stuff, it kind of perks up my ears.

I say, yeah, that sounds pretty familiar. So Sparks had some mysterious ideas that sound like they came from the esoteric world and those influenced by Jane Deleed and her God's two army teachings. This is a little booklet by Bill Britton that I was reading as cult, his unlimited glory.

And so he actually talks about the two armies in there and guess where he got it straight up from Jane Deleed. So when even experts that know about Jane Deleed and have doctrines, you know, besides their name, they say, oh no, you know, mostly just the 60 propositions influenced the letter rain prophets.

Well, I kind of point to God's two army teachings because Bill Britton was one of those prophets in the letter rain and he did claim to have read Jane Deleed. So anyway, saying all that, the two armies teachings goes prior to Jane Deleed into the esoteric world where he had the notion of the spiritual realm made of angels, the spiritual hierarchy, there's not, Nostics would call this the Paloma of Heavenly Beings.

There's this idea that in the consummation of all things, everything is restored. The upper realm will come into complete union with those chosen vessels. on earth, be elite, and that they will rule and reign, and carry out the sacred purge.

Okay, that's a lot of information, but again, you can find out in the converging apostasy. So here we are with this God's two armies teachings. So check out what Mr. Sparks said, because it kind of perks me up and I said, what are you talking about?

He said that the cherubim are known to us in the scriptures as the living ones. We govern the whole matter of reign in life. With the consummation, the merge of the Lamb, we will see every connection between the two.

And when man possesses life according to God's mind, death will be utterly destroyed by this life in Christ and in his members. It is the mighty life of the living ones. It is reign, it is dominion.

So a lot of those little key phrases, getting tossed about, I don't know, I could be on a wildgeese chase there, but it doesn't sound like your average evangelical preacher. Put it that way.

Some what I'm gathering from the information you're presenting. This was yet another group that was forming, trying to suck people out of mainstream religion and create a sub cult and then once they formed this, they became an elitist group.

I'm curious. So have you found or identified any connections not to the NAR, but some of the movements before them? So, you mentioned, Bill Britton, can you also connect this to Pentecostal movement leaders or can you connect it to charismatic movement leaders?

I was looking, I need to get a hold of Dr. Jacobs about this. She, okay, who we should talk about. She was talking about a lot of the pietists and who was at the brethren and the Keswick folks.

It's been sort of a forewarners, like methodisms, I guess, about perfection. Some of those guys kind of were precursors to this sort of stuff. But as far as pinpointing, to me, it's like an open book.

I'm waiting to find out there's probably another missing link that will connect this up. Whether or not Jane Leeds stuff that was found with Charles Price, whether or not that was directly connected to the Sky Sparks, I don't know, but it would be just another way, like you said, the tapestry that we've been together, the tentacles, it's reaching out.

I don't know. What I've learned is that, again, Even if there is no direct connection, you find that somebody has been influenced and then that, as they hold these conventions and ministers gather and talk, they share ideas.

So some of this could just happen naturally, but yeah, I was just curious. I didn't know if that existed or not, but it's some of the things that you said. Yeah, some of the things you've said have brought back so many memories because this is saying exactly the themes that we had in Latter-Ain.

And I'm now that you've brought this to my attention, I'm going to certainly be digging deeper and hopefully put out some more research in it. Let me know what you find because, yeah, the Sparks guy, I'm not real up on Watchman-E either.

So I know they influenced each other. They had a great respect for each other. Don't know if this came to Watchman-E or not. He had the little flock in China. It's like a house church kind of raved in it and he ran into some controversy about that.

But to me, it's an open door of further research just the way I would look at it. But yeah, connecting this to what I got of the cult that I was in, it was mostly Robert J. Lefton.

I know for you, it was a lot of Dr. Hassan, or Hassan, I always get the wrong. But people that had that construct of saying, okay, look, you could take away the specifics of any of these groups and just go for general modes of operation and you'd have a destructive cult.

Well, looks like Mr. Sparks had some things in position like you said, the drawing away from other people, feeling superior to the others, giving divine revelations. And a lot of those, that goes back to just about anybody if you say, folks don't have this heightened, they're tuned into the idea that we will usher in the kingdom.

I mean, what cult has not done that? I was reading about, there was a group called the cult themselves, maybe you heard this one, the bridal community. And I believe they were in, somewhere in the Baltic states, and this would have been in the late 1800s.

And because I was so busy with this thing, I didn't really take a lot of notes on it, but they had something they called the long track. It almost sounded like when the Mormons kept going further and further west, they did the same.

And their leader claimed Christ will return in 18, whatever, whoops, that didn't happen. Let's try 19 or five. You know, one of those kind of guys, but he had a lot of other ideas.

I'm kind of just shooting from the hip here, but he's another guy that definitely predates us

that had what we would call essentially cult-like group. But it has everything from, you know, like auras. It has the manifestation of the sense of God and it goes on and on and on and on.

The other thing that fascinates me is the spiritualist nature of this. We've talked a little bit about how Christian identity was bringing in some very, very weird themes from, everything from UFOs to celestial beings and bodies.

And all of that goes, you can tie in one way, shape, or form to some of Jane Leeds teaching in prior. In fact, you can tie it just straight back to narcissism. But I'm curious how much you mentioned he had gone into some of the spiritualist aspects.

How far did he go with that? Does it include some of the other things that we've talked about in this podcast? Yeah, as a matter of fact, there's something again. I'm not sure how deeply went into it with the podcast with you, but it's in the converging apostasy is that, Jane Leed very, very definitely was a spiritist.

She talked about, okay, here's one of the missing links. People to talk about, we will be the overcomers. We will be a manifesto that does the slence of God. And this is definitely not a lead disposition.

We will rule it and reign. And maybe that will allow Christ to return to the kingdom that we set up. Okay, that's one aspect that you get from Jane Leed. But she very specifically talks about how do you become a manifesto of God?

Because some people talked about it as like tearing in the spirit, kind of like in the earlier Pentecostal revival here in the United States. You Terry, you speak in tongues, you got it. And you know, exhibiting miracles and casting out demons being a part of it laying on the pants.

But Jane Leed was one of those earlier people that very specifically said, she called them spirits of light. Well, I'm looking revival and think about that a bit. But she says they will quote descend into chosen vehicles of expression.

She's talking like they say, whoa, sounds like say on some material or like not a blavatsky material. It is because it comes from the same source, which is the esoteric world. I know that's that term around, but specifically, that world begins with Valentinus and my.

And he talked about reaching perfection and sinlessness here on earth by receiving your bridegroom spirit, your personal bridegroom spirit. Well, who picks it up later, as folks like Jane Leed? Jane Leed passed it on very specifically and exactly to one of her lettering folks and that was Royal Chronchrist, and he says the same thing.

He says they capitalize well, tabernacle within us, and he gives more specific stuff about that spirit, this idea. And that's when the perfection, the third experience of God, like he got born again, filled with the spirit, the third one, is the tabernacle of God in you.

And so, yeah, that's less of vague kind of what's that mean, tabernacle. Well, it's laid out from Jane Leed, two laterated folks, Jay Preston, E.B., another laterator that reference Jane Leed said very similar things, and Bill Bruttenhead and this other thing, the God's two armies.

So yeah, it's definitely there, and from the esoteric road, meaning for me, from Alice Bailey, from Bill Brutten, and from Chronchrist, Chronchrist, all of those talk about, they talk about these guests, and Chronchrist says, no, don't go looking in your Bible because it's not mentioned in the Bible, but they're, quote, unknown to us as of yet.

And he says, do not trouble your spirit, we're trying to understand this. They will come, and they will prepare the way, excuse me. And so he's talking about pretty much about the arrival on the scene of spiritual entities.

Okay, if you look at Wesley Swift, yeah, he kind of transforms that into, you know, basically, UFO brethren, if you go into the UH movement, it's a, the, scented masters, the spiritual hierarchy, but it's all talking about these, these other beings who will come and assist, and for the most part, you'll hear in one way or another, talk of them being channeled or worked in cooperation with those here on earth.

It's really fascinating stuff. I'm, like I said, I'm now itching to research and find more because this just sounds so similar to what I grew up with, and I have a feeling, the people who are listening who are affected by the New Apostolic Reformation, I have a feeling they're going to think the same.

Thank you so much for bringing this up. You're very welcome and I'm so sorry to do this to John but it sounds like you're wrapping up back to the NAR. Look at my book, you'll find it, this will be hard to dig up because I think it's been erased but in charisma magazine, Bill Hammond talked about, he's like evoking angels.

He says, bring them down, now, now accept them, receive them and he's talking to your group of people and so I make the one in my book which is, does this sound any different from Valentines, from Jane Leade, from, you know, Alice Vedic, it's the same stuff.

Yeah it is. So the moral of the story and the focus of this podcast is, gets the use book. There's so much more information, so much more that you can find out. 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 New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, and for more about the converging apostasy, you can read the converging apostasy, and also a quick outline on hands-on eschatology, a matter of timing and agency, both available on Amazon.