Bethel's Communion Revival: Magic, Manipulation, and the Spirit of Branham

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 my co-host and friend Adam Short, host of grit in the wild podcast. Adam it's good to be back and to talk all things today we're talking about Bethel and interestingly just this week I have pushed out a like a 30-minute documentary clip on Brandham to Bethel trying to summarize all of my thoughts of all of the research that I've done for gosh it's probably been

five years now about from Brandham to the shepherding to the charismatic to the NAR how all that ties together just publish that and apparently it's making waves throughout all of the communities and so today focusing on Bethel I think we'll write those waves. Let's do it let's do it yeah I watched that last night and incredible I think it is the best rendition that I've seen that really takes the thread all the way back from William Brandham and even prior to William Brandham you know all the way to Bethel and really connects the dots for many of us like myself who this is very new to still and it's only been

really in the past what year and a half or so year-ish that I come I came across your research and didn't realize that all of these these historical movements are all connected it's not an accident it's quite quite intentionally and by design and so I found that documentary to be extremely extremely helpful you know highlighting the the key figures going back to the 40s and then all the way to NAR with Bethel so and it's kind of cool too you you had the alliteration going you had the the Brandham to Bethel's kind of have a nice ring to it so yeah

and there's so much more that I could say but I thought you know if I get down on the weeds nobody's going to really follow it and it solved a couple of problems for me right so I've had I've had a few charismatic people who are I gave their story on the podcast and had some Pentecostals I actually have some have another Pentecostal guy that I'm working on trying to get him on here okay I've got friends and all of these movements that I'm exploring their histories and their their very critical information that has been hidden

Most of them are curious to find out, you know, what has been hidden for me. But then you find these groups that if I mention one name that's in one of these connections that as I'm connecting brand, I'm all the way to Bethel.

I can mention a name and you can watch all of their cultural personality just go berserk. Oh no, he's connecting this figure. And it's not necessarily that I'm saying anything bad about the figure, it's just that it is a node in my big schema of connections.

So this was a way that I could publish that and kind of show how all of this came to be. And I think, I think it's eye opening for a lot of people. Oh man, it's so eye opening because many of us, including myself, did not, we're not taught that there was that direct connection there.

We were taught in fragments. And what I mean by that is, for example, I'll tell you a couple examples here. So, and I've mentioned this before, but God's Generals, right, being a, you know, one of the big sort of anchors to the BSSM education curriculum there.

And I think they still read that book in BSSM, I believe, last I heard. And of course, you get the gamut with the God's Generals of all of these quote unquote heroes of the movements that went before us and then led us to where we are now.

So you had that as the anchor and then you also had the William Brandon Blue books and we had to read the first six of those in BSSM. And I actually heard from a more recent BSSM alumni graduate recently that they no longer, according to him, they no longer include those books in the curriculum, which actually surprised me.

I don't know what the reason or decision was there. If they're trying to sort of put William Brandon in more of the backseat, I'm not sure, because even recently you can pull up clips of people like Chris Ballotson and others talking about going after or receiving the mantle of William Brandon.

And so it's still there. I just think that they maybe have sort of couched it or put it sort of in the backseat a little more. So we had those books and then we also had John G. Lake's book or I don't know that he, I can't remember, did he write that book?

You know, I'm talking about the real thick book, John G. Lake, his whole story of healings and, you know, really all of his biography. So those were the three anchors that directly tied BSSM curriculum back to those movements.

So in my mind, it was a fragmented thing. I had no idea though that those predecessors, as it were, were the people that sort of architected these movements that we now live in. So back to your documentary, I just found it to be super, super helpful.

It definitely helped connect more dots for me that I was unaware of like that kid you mentioned in there. I forgot the kid's name now, but there was a kid that you highlighted in the video that was sort of elevated at a young age.

David Walker. David Walker. That was elevated. It's the key word, man. He was using levitation as part of his ploy to attract the Christians. I was going to ask you about that, so, you know, and if you've, and I've mentioned this before, I'm kind of interested in, I've always been interested in magic.

Like, and one of many of my magic is magic that's not like supernatural magic, like more of the David Blaine or Chris Angel or David Copperfield kind of people. So, and there are street magicians who do that kind of stuff.

Like, they actually can, and I saw one on Twitter the other day, this dude was literally like, he was able to remove his legs from his body, and it looks so real. But then they had a camera angle from the back, and they showed the whole, like, get up.

He had to put on his, like, he's strapped into this. There's like a frame, but you can't see it from the front. So is that what this guy did, or is there any evidence about how he was able to sort of lift up off the stage like that?

You know, I get asked that question so many times. I wasn't there, so I didn't get to see it, but like you, I love magic. I love being tricked. As long as I'm not being manipulated while I'm tricked.

That's the reference, right? This was totally manipulation of crowds, but so Chris Angel, you mentioned, one of my favorites. I used to love that. What was it called? Mine Freak, that show that he had?

Yes, yeah. I saw him in Vegas live, by the way. Oh, wow. I would love to. I've never seen him live. I would love it. I love this kind of thing, and I love trying to figure it out because I know when I'm watching a musician, I know I'm being tricked.

I want to show you how did they do it? Yes. One of the tricks that Chris Angel has, and he's pretty good at it, is levitation. He'll walk down the stairs to a crowd, and then you suddenly float up into the sky.

People are wondering, what in the world is he doing? Now, there's different ways in which they do this, but he, one time in one of his episodes, he was showing exactly how he did it at ground level.

He did it in just the same exact setting that Little David Walker was at, but he's standing in front of a crowd, and there was a chair behind him, just like Little David. There was a chair behind Little David.

What they do is they have a special shoe that's made that is attached to the leg of the pants. Okay. You can slide your shoe out and bend your knee and put it up onto the chair, and it lifts up, and the shoe is still hanging, so it looks like you're levitating, but you're actually just using the muscles of your leg.

Now, again, I wasn't there, I didn't see it, but this is an actual trick that Chris Angel explained how he did it. So as you explain that, it is... it is what I saw on Twitter.

This dude was all dressed up. It was like the 10 man from Wizard of Oz. It was like all silver. And if you've ever been to San Francisco, he's unfortunately the dude that used to do this, I understand past the way, but there's the Bush man in San Francisco, right there on the Embarcadero at the Fisherman's Wharf, walked by him so many times I can't even count when I live in California.

Well, the Bush man would jump out from the, out from the book. He was dressed up like a bush, okay? And here he is on the sidewalk. You know, all these hundreds of people just walking on the sidewalk, they're just looking at the Fisherman's Wharf and wanting to get their San Francisco sourdough bread and this, that and the other.

And here comes the Bush man. He jumps out and you don't see that the Bush is the man. He jumps out and it's so funny you watch people jump literally into the Embarcadero street with this incoming traffic.

So that you got the Bush man and then next to him, it's just so funny just thinking back. You got the Tin Man. And so when I saw this video, it reminded me of the Tin Man that used to hang out in San Francisco.

And he's dressed up like this silver suit and they had the two camera angles, just like you're talking about. And behind him, I don't think they had a chair in his specific suit, but it was the, it was what you described.

There's like a pole and then attached to his pants. But anyway, they explain, they showed all that. So it checks out kind of like what you're describing here. I think they probably evolved in their technology since the 1940s, John.

So now they've got a better suit that you can put on or something. Yeah, I've seen that same trick. And there's like, I think he's holding a cane and then what happens is I have a sleeve, he's got a pole that's attached to the cane.

So it's crazy funny. But if you think about how all of this evolved, so Brannum is attracting the crowds during an era in which the spiritualist movement had swept through the United States. Everybody is fascinated with mediums and spirits and wizards and all of these different things that aren't Christian, right?

They're actually anti-Christian. So Brannum comes along and he does this by learning from his predecessor, Roy Davis. Davis came in same kind of thing. He had some gimmicks that was based off of spiritualism.

Well, this attracted the crowds and they attracted all of these people into a version of Christianity that mixed and blended the spiritualist aspects of talking communication with the dead and divination, all of this stuff, all of the things that are abominations in the Old Testament.

You're reading through the Old Testament. It's condemning everything they're doing. But they bundled it up and branded it with pseudo Christianity. But little David represents the... worst extreme of this because they've actually taken magician stage acts and that they're calling Christianity and he's levitating with the power of God.

When you think about Bethel and they call it Hogwarts which is kind of funny but if you think about what's happening there and then think about this history all of it suddenly makes sense.

Yeah and just to go back for a second to the point you made when you were talking about how you love magicians and I do too I've always been fascinated with magicians even as a kid.

I had a magic trick, whatever you call it, kid, try to impress people. But see that's the thing, that's the difference is when you pay for a ticket to go see a magician whether it's Vegas or whatever David Blaine I got to see him live and charlotte and you pay money knowing that you're going to be entertained, right?

That this is a professional that specializes in illusions or in David Blaine's case it's not just illusions it's also stunts of endurance that he actually trains for this stuff and he's actually doing this stuff like he'll get in like he did a record amount of time in a container of ice, ice water.

He's I think he still has the world record for holding his breath the longest underwater for 17 minutes. That's not actual magic, that's not an illusion. That is really something that's being done by a human.

So one category over here we've got magicians and entertainers that you know you're going in and you're paying money to be entertained, right? And you're suspending your belief when you go in there because hey, I'm getting entertained.

That's one thing, right? But then you put that same type of illusion in the context of a Christian church or Christian worship service or a tent meeting like these do back in the day.

That's a whole different can of worms and people are not going in expecting to be deceived or manipulated and that is the crux of why this is so evil. One of the reasons, one of the many reasons.

So like bringing this forward to Bethel, you know one of the things I thought that we could talk about was it's not really along the lines of magicians or magic tricks but it does touch on that because of the way they recently did this Bethel community revival on April the 5th at Bethel at the baseball field and I'll give a shout out to Richard Moore who has been covering this at length in depth.

He actually did three different two or three hour videos on this where he actually critique the entire video feed of this event that happened at Bethel and it was led by Lou Engel who if you're familiar with Lou Engel he was sort of the architect behind the...

Justice House of Prayer, very connected to IHOP over the years, and he also did the call, which was a series of events where thousands of thousands of people would pray and fast in stadiums. And so he's done that over the years. He's known for pushing 40-day fasting. He's also very connected to Bethel, very connected to Morningstar. So he and Dean Briggs, and Dean Briggs is a former leader of IHOP KC who actually spoke out about the abuse that Mike Bickle

perpetrated. He spoke out publicly in a church service at FourRunner, Christian Fellowship and Kansas City. So to his credit, Dean Briggs did speak out publicly about Mike Bickle, but he's still very much involved in pushing the NAR teachings and leading these events. So Dean Briggs, Lou Engel, Bill Johnson, and Chris Foulson all came together and they had this Bethel Communion Revival event on April the 5th. And it was at the Bethel Baseball Field and it was actually a six-hour event. And the whole premise was based on this series of prophecies and dreams that Lou Engel and Benny Johnson received. And it had to do with the Sacramento River. And I don't

have all of these specifics of the prophecy in front of me, but the essence of it was this that the Sacramento River would turn red, which would represent the blood of Jesus, and it would flow all the way down California. And this would initiate a revival. And the way that they were going to release this revival is they get everybody together and they have a communion service. And by doing this communion service, we're going to release the healing, we're going to release revival, we're going to release salvation, and all of the supernatural manifestations of the Kingdom of God. And so they did that. They actually had a six-hour event,

and it was a lot of worship. There was a lot of declarations. You can go on Bethel's YouTube channel and watch it. It's six hours. I've seen most of it. I've seen about five out of it so far from Richard Moore. And there's a lot in there. There's a ton of stuff in there that needs to be talked about. And I've got a few things I'd like to highlight, but that's kind of the big picture of what happened. And they believe that through this ritual, through this practice of communion, that they are going to be the brokers of power and release this revival throughout California

than the rest of the nation. So I had never heard of this until you actually brought it up this morning. The first time I had heard, I did some brief. you know, Google searches to see what this was.

And as I was hoping it would be so that we could talk through it, this was more of a, it was more of a spiritual activation than it was a communion. This is more about kind of like a new age thing where they're bringing down the power through communion.

And what's interesting historically about that? I grew up in Branham's church. My grandfather had taken it over. And if you have ever been to, it's not even open anymore. They've moved to another building.

But if you were ever here whenever my grandfather let it, it was like a wax museum, man. Every single thing that Branham did to the letter, my grandfather did to the letter. Every ceremony, every, they had communion.

It was much like Bethel. I would describe it. It was a spiritual activation. It wasn't what communion is intended to be. Right. And I never knew this. After I left the cult and I went to other churches, they had communion and they call it different things.

Some call it just simply the Lord's Supper. And what they have in the normal churches represented more of what the biblical practice was. This was all about remembering what Christ had done and it was all about coming together in fellowship.

And when you come together in fellowship, come in remembrance of me, Jesus Christ. Right. So the first time I experienced that, I was like, well, this is dry. What is this that we're doing?

There is no power. There is no mystical glory coming down from the heavens. And my grandfather would give this little speech that I'm pretty sure he said that it came exactly from what Branham said.

But it was basically that the communion was a showdown. It was a battle of the forces of good and evil right here in the building. Interesting. And if you, he focused heavily on the passage that said, whosoever eats unworthily, he focused on that in such a way that if you were to eat it with any little thought of sin in your life, you were doomed to hell from that moment forward.

He scared the bejesus out of you, especially as a kid. And so it gets real quiet when he's doing it and he's talking real slow to manipulate your head. And you're gonna die forever if you do this unworthily, my friend.

And so the fear of a false god was in your head. Well, then everybody would go through, they'd line up, we interestingly drank out of these little, I think they do this in some of the other churches, but little vials of little tiny glasses filled with wine in a cult that teaches you that to drink wine is sin.

So he's first out. Oh, yeah. Don't eat the wafers and if you're sin but oh by the way we're going to take this little sin and we're going to ignore it while we do that's right. It's okay to do it while you're doing it.

It's crazy man and then so after all this is said and done everybody's gone through their fear for the night. My grandfather would stand the communion wafers and drinks were on this weird shelf like platform that had these poles that he could stand and hold like this and he would lean forward and say now this that remain shall be burned before the dawn of another day.

And just scare the crap out of you man like the wafers themselves have some kind of spiritual power right so this was apparently this was exactly like Brannum did it. So all throughout letter rain anybody who visited his church they're saying this and they're seeing the communion is more than just fellowship like the other churches have the other churches have gotten cold and formal.

We need to bring down the power this is a spiritual battle when we take communion. So to hear you describe that John it's like I'm going back to my days in Bethel right and it wasn't like Bethel had communion a lot.

But it was very much similar to what you described although I don't remember anybody standing up and doing that at the end like how did you put it like this going to be burned.

I don't remember that part that's probably a little extra that y'all had that we didn't have but it's it just goes to show like very very similar repackaging. Rents and repeat you know now in Bethel and I just want to talk about some of the loadedness the loaded language is not just loaded language but it is literally a psychological framework and a psychological frame of mind.

That is a follower of these movements that you get into and I remember I was watching this stuff these videos that Richard more did where he had the video feed on one side and Richard's commentating on the other side and I'm just like I feel like I'm getting triggered just by watching this because it just brings back all of the it brings up all of the the hype that sort of the siking up like you got to get yourself psyched up to make these declarations to bring heaven to earth and there's just so much loaded.

Spiritual like you said activation but spiritual it's like spiritual activity or spiritual I've got to like pull down and make this happen and I want to talk about that for a minute. I think that this is a specific example of the upside down false teaching that we're seeing here it is actually false it's not what the Bible teaches when it comes to the gospel and I think that you've helped me understand that this.

actually traces its way back to the manifest sons of God doctrine because deep down embedded in this belief system is the belief that we are, if not little gods walking around, we're pretty close. And by extension, if you are little gods, little deities walking around, then it stands the reason that you have the ability to unlock heaven and bring that stuff down here on earth. And really, if I could distill that, I think what this is is it's teaching people that they are brokers. They're like brokers of heaven. But the fact of the matter is is this is all about

what Jesus did. The true gospel is all about what Jesus did when he gave his life as a ransom for many. It's not about we go in, we get together, and we we're somehow going to pull this stuff down and release it to the earth. That's not the gospel. That is a performance hamster will religion.

It is not being saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And whether you believe in God or you don't, for those that do like what we're taught in the Bible is the antithesis of this. This practice of I've got to I've got to this it's like the sun the moon starts have to align we all have to get together and we literally have to yell and scream so loud and make these decrees and declarations.

And at what point is it enough at what point have you finally decreed enough and you've taken communion enough to where enough power has been released to affect a change in the world. And so and it goes a step further right it's not just we're going to have this communion revival event where we're now going to go out into reading we're going to go out into California we're going to go out into wherever you are in the world and we're literally going to take over the seven mountains. And you see how one simple belief from the manifest sons of God

doctrine extends and then becomes like an actual practical outworking of how people live their lives in their careers and entertainment in their businesses and just and even like city council and reading where I think they have two I think two or three members of city counts are Bethel members now or they go to Bethel so that's a whole nother sort of rabbit trail but that's kind of like the practical outwork use of how this stuff happens. One of the really interesting things that they have copied from Brannum is very powerful and I don't think people have fully grasped

what this is and why and how whenever I talk about the spiritual warfare and how how much of it is coming from Brannum and how much of it is really wrong. You watch the comment feeds kind of explode because in the Bible, it does talk about spiritual warfare.

But what they have developed, we go back to the Chris Angel type of spiritual warfare, what they've developed is not the same as what it's being described in the Bible. And this has a strategic purpose.

So Brannum invented the idea or copied others, I should say. I don't think he invented this, but he helped support the idea that we were always engaged in spiritual warfare, no matter what we do.

If you go to the post office and somebody takes your parking space as you're trying to pull in, well, that's the devil. He's got your way. I mean, that's a hyper extreme example, but you're really thinking in this way.

You're thinking angels and demons everywhere you go. Right. And the reason why that is strategic is because along with that doctrine comes this notion, this false notion that if you study the other side and learn what is a demon, learn what is, what is new age, what is spiritualism, what are all these things that are evil?

If you study it, you might accidentally catch the demon because oh, by the way, in this laterane slash beyond movement, Jesus is not powerful enough to protect you. That's one of the false notions that got planted in your head.

So people are afraid to study the other side. I, after I left, I became no longer afraid. I've studied things that it's a little shocking to me exist, but one of the things is not shocking this part, but I studied the new age religion some and it's really fun if you look at it because if you talk to a person who is really in this new age movement, they say it's not a religion.

This is just a philosophy in a way of life. We're one with the earth, that kind of thing. Right. But what they're doing isn't Christian. It is, in essence, it is a religion in its essence.

But what has happened is because of the structure that Brandon created, this fictional fantasy magic show structure, they've created this idea that we can take new age ideas like activation. And when we do this communion ceremony, we're activating.

We're bringing down the glory, the spirit, et cetera. We're doing it. It's not that the Holy Spirit has moved and he's come. We're initiating it. That's new age activation. And if somebody were to just open up new age, I think you can even go to the Wikipedia article and just pull up and read through some of the comments.

You'll be shocked at how much of it is like Bethel 101. This is part of my personal deconstruction journey and you forget about a lot of the stuff that you were exposed to until somebody starts talking about it.

And you're like, oh my gosh, yeah, that too. Just to add to the list. I'll give you another example. But first, to your point, absolutely, like, I have been listening a lot lately to some of the, more of the cessationist podcasters, like Justin Peters, Steve Cowsar, I believe they all would identify as cessationists, meaning they don't believe that the gifts of the spirit are for today.

And other people like Richard Moore, I don't know if Richard Moore would say he's a cessationist. He seems to me that he does lean that direction. So I've been learning a lot, I've been getting a lot out of their takes on just looking at the Bible and comparing the stuff that we were indoctrinated in in Bethel years ago.

And it's just starkly different. So here's an example of something I've identified in my own life that I was exposed to, like categorically, I know it's new age. And it was talked about in the Physics of Heaven book who was written by Judy Franklin.

Judy Franklin was one of the authors, and then I forgot the other author, but I think Bill Johnson wrote the forward, if I'm remembering correctly. Check me out on that. But that book came under fire and has been criticized quite a bit because it's very similar to a lot of the new age practices, one of which is trips to heaven.

So this is something that when I was at BSSM, this was a type of practice or an event you could go to, it was like after hours. And I think that she even did it, Judy Franklin did it during some of the sessions at BSSM.

So what they do is they clear all the chairs out of the sanctuary. I don't know if they still do it in the sanctuary, but back then it was in the sanctuary. All the chairs get cleared out and you go in and everybody lays down on the floor, okay?

You got 500 people, 800 people laying on the floor. Judy's up in the front and she leads people into a trip to heaven. And it's almost like a visualization of going to heaven and visualizing pop of God and like you're going in, you're going to see the throne of God and all this stuff.

And you know, I don't know that I experienced that like legitimately when I was laying down on the floor, I don't recall seeing, you know, like the throne of God or having some kind of encounter at that time.

But now looking back and I remember just hanging out with friends like we would try to do this stuff too with a little bit, oh, let's take a trip to heaven. That was just kind of like common, like just what you're doing in free time at Bethel was like, we're going to hang out as friends and you take trips to heaven.

Now we'll look back on that and having been more informed about where that stuff came from, I actually am convinced now it is astro-projected. protection. It's astral projection, which is, I think a new age practice, but probably even worse, I think there might be even some more dark connotations there associated with it. So, I don't want to have anything to do with that anymore. Now, if you do astral projection, go for it. I'm just saying for me, like, I look back on that time and I'm like, okay, this is not, this is not the kind of stuff that the Bible teaches. Like, this

is definitely not biblical. And if you're looking to refine your faith and sort of like chop off stuff that's not biblical, which I'm trying to do and like reconstruct, which is sort of where I'm at my journey. Like, those are the kind of things I want to sort of leave in the dust and not, I don't, I don't subscribe to that anymore.

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. 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.

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On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. What you're describing goes a little bit beyond new age, and then you start to feeling really uncomfortable. And this is the part in which if you're a Christian who believes that there is an evil spirit that is swaying all of this away from Christianity, this is where it really gets problematic. Because what you're describing is basically the experience over the doctrine.

I go and I have an experience, and because of this, I've opened a gateway to the supernatural. That's what happens in the occult, not in Christianity. You don't open gateways in Christianity, but they have so much focused on personal experience and how to John Wimber call it, the feels.

The feels, yeah. You know, the way in which they have taken experience over doctrine to open up a channel to God, you have to wonder in question, well, which God is this? Because that's not how it's being described in the Bible. And then you look at the fruits of that. You've got all of the trances and people barking like dogs and things that you just can't really associate with Christianity.

Interestingly, Wimber, towards the end of his life, I'm told he wiped his hands of this because of those things. So he saw that he had opened this gateway and he saw that whatever happened happened.

And my opinion is, he opened the floodgates because now people were copying this and it turned into this big mess that exists today. But this is very similar, if you study the occult, this is very similar to the way in which they bring on a trance in the occult.

And people get so much focused on the experience that they have this almost out of body, out of mind experience. They're entering into a trance and if you compare what's happening in the occult with what's happening in these movements, and even though they're using the name Jesus, they're experiencing many of the same things.

It's an altered psychological state that they're entering, but again, if you're Christian, you have to wonder, are they not summoning some sort of a demon? That's the scary part too. And this is how Bethel would explain this, right?

When people brought objections, not that I remember there being like big objections, like from individual people, but it was a part of the teaching that, one of the, how do I say this? Like, Bethel's approach was, so many of these things were hijacked by the dark side, and they were actually God-given types of manifestations of the supernatural.

So the way they put it is the devil hijacked it, right? So for example, giving example, divination, okay? Which divination is in the Bible, and it's practiced by people who were not using the spirit of God, they were using another source.

And it was a way to obtain knowledge that was largely unknown about events or people, and then given to people, kind of like fortune telling. So Bethel's teaching was, divination is an example of how the dark side or the enemy hijacked that, but they're with, you can't have a counterfeit if there's not a genuine, right?

So that was the teaching. So now, many years removed from that, I look back and I say, okay, is that true? Is that, and this is something I'm literally working through right now in my journey.

I'm trying to pick this stuff apart in my head, and I'm curious what people are listening and watching think about this. But you take something like divination, and they would say, Bethel would say, the genuine manifestation of that is the prophetic gift, right?

It's the gift of prophecy, it's the ability to prophesy from the spirit of God, from the election of the Holy Spirit. And I actually, I for one, I believe that prophecy is real, there is a real prophecy that exists.

Now, the vast majority of what we see, I think in the cares matter, hypercarsomatic movement is not biblical prophecy. It is something else, whether it's human contrived or from a dark source or a combination of the two, I don't know.

But anyway, I'm trying to get through this in my head here.

That was how Bethel explained it. So back to like taking trips to heaven, they would say, if you were to tell them these trips to heaven are astral projection, they would say, no, it's not.

This is a genuine manifestation of something that was hijacked by the new age in the occult. So I struggle with that, though, because I think that is based on a pre-supposition that just because something exists, that the alternative has to be genuine.

But is that, what do you think? I mean, is that a pre-supposition? Is that coming to the table with a bias? And so what I've kind of done is I've just taken a step back and I said, okay, is this in the Bible?

Is it practiced in the Bible, specifically in New Testament? Are we taught to do this in the New Testament? And if not, I think it's pretty safe to go ahead and throw it out and like assume that it's probably not good to practice this stuff.

You know what I mean? But I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. Like how, what do you think about that type of approach that Bethel does where they say, because there's a counter for that has to be genuine of that same thing?

Well, what comes to mind for me is a trigger because that was Brannem, Brannemism 101. If there's a genuine, there must be, if there's a counterfeit, there must be a genuine. He said this over and over and over again.

So my thoughts are complex and still forming. I'm still working through my framework, but I think I can sum it up best like this. Along with that doctrine that Brannem said this, he also would always go back to the passage in the Bible that said, greater works show you do.

And I'm certain you've heard Bethel use this because this is going to be copied throughout the NAR, right? Yes. I, after I left the Brannem movement, I read the Bible over and over, kept trying to wash all of this out of my head.

And there came a point in which I realized that, number one, the King James version, the Old Queen's English, isn't really explaining things in a way that I can understand it. It was written for the 1600s.

There are words like kidney that's used to describe something that's not a kidney, but I think of a kidney today. That's funny. You can go look that up. It's kind of a funny study.

Another example is the rib. Steve was taken from Adam's rib. Well, the ancient word, ancient usage of the word, rib could also mean the rib of a hill, the side of a hill. Oh, okay.

It's more... or like it came from the side of, you know. There's a lot of different examples like this that the language just isn't quite right. So I went beyond that and started studying some of the other versions.

And I came to a point in which I realized, wait a minute, the way we're taught to read it is incorrect. We were taught with such literalism that to read a translation that doesn't have the same literal King James words is now offensive to me.

So I went back to studying the interlinear version where I could read and see what is the Greek word used and what does it mean. And I went through some of my trigger passages.

One of these is greater work, so you do. Brandham taught that his miracles were greater than Jesus. He said this outright plainly, I'm bigger than Jesus. I did more miracles than Jesus did in his entire ministry.

That's a phrase of Brandham. Okay. And so he taught people that they could become miniature gods and he went back to this verse. But if you study the Greek words of that verse, it's the meanings of the words are far more complex, but one of the words, and I can't remember which one it is, but it talks about greater in scope.

And it's not necessarily talking about greater miracles shall you do, but you're going to do greater things because I've taught you a better way. In other words, I Jesus have came down and have shown you a better way to live than you had lived in the past.

And because you're going to set the example for future generations, future generations will become far better than we are today. If you read that passage in its essence, but Brandhamism taught that this little gods notion greater work shall you do, and taught that we could become little divine beings.

And that's why these schools like Bethel, that's why it exists. It's training you how to become this divine being. But what's interesting there is while that structure was taught in Brandhamism and in Bethel, what you find is it's flipped upside down from what Jesus had.

Jesus said, greater show you do. In other words, I'm teaching you a better way, you're going to go out and do them and through the things that you do, the good deeds that you do, you are showing yourself to be more like me.

But in these supernatural schools of ministry, and that was copied largely from Brandham's deliverance seminars that he had with Lindsay, what they taught was a hierarchy. There's not a single rank and file member that can do what the elders can do because the elders have more greater works than the rank and file members.

So there's a hierarchy that they'll never achieve, and in doing so, you've created levels of miniature gods. So you've got the rank and file miniature gods, but at the top, you've got the central figure miniature god.

Oh my God. I'm so glad you brought that up because it was one of my points. I wanted to hit. It's like we compared notes or something, but we didn't. So the whole concept of the hierarchy is very visible. If you go back and you look at the video on Bethel's YouTube channel, it's a six hour video. You don't have to watch the whole thing, just, you know, flip forward and look at the camera view. And they have, they've got a stage, right, you can't have an NAR event without a stage, of course, speakers, got a worship team.

But in front of the stage, if you pay attention, there's a table. They look like a wood table. And it had, I don't know, 10 chairs around it, not common chairs, but the nicer chairs, I think.

And I think the table's probably 12 or 15 feet long. It's a very nice table. But there are specific people who the seats are reserved for. And you'll notice like about three hours in, they finally get to take a communion and they, you know, there's a whole bunch of lead up and build up to it. But Lou is there at the table next to him as Bill and Chris is standing there and, you know, several other people who we know and are friends with and, you know, quite close with right there at the, you know, they're at the table. But what's crazy is before that,

Richard Moore highlights this in detail. They actually did, they called it a reenactment John of Revelation 5. So if you're not familiar with Revelation 5, that is the passage in the Bible where it describes the 24 elders that are gathered around the throne, okay? So, basically what they did is they conflated the 24 elders around the throne of God, worshiping him night and day. And they, they conflated that with this communion revival, communion thing that they're doing around the table. And the elders, the leaders at the event, at Bethel literally reenacted as if they're the elders gathered around the throne, okay?

They called it a reenactment. And by doing that, they're releasing the spiritual, you know, the supernatural, whatever. But the point of this is there is a definite hierarchy that is visible all the way throughout this crowd. The common people are not allowed to approach the stage.

The common people are not allowed to sit at the table. I would love to see what would happen if somebody tried to go sit down and say, well, that would be so funny. Like, if just somebody decided to run up, I mean, I'm sure the security, Bethel has a security team. I'm sure the security people would carry them away. But there is a definite hierarchy.

and here's how it works. The higher up you are in the organization, the closer the proximity you have to the Lord's table.

So your proximity is a direct function of your position in that organization's hierarchy. So that's why the who's who's close to the table, whereas the people that are less important are further away. And what this reminds me of, John, and I'm not knocking the Catholic church at all, because there's a lot of great people in the Catholic church.

But it is reminiscent of the structure of the cathedrals and the temple, not temples. What do they call Catholics? I guess they could have cathedrals. Where if you're a common person, if you're a lay person, there's a certain place that you go.

You can't go past. What is that called, that gate back there, where the pulpit is? It's kind of like a courtroom, right? Like you can't go past that gate. If you're not an attorney or a judge in the courtroom, you got to sit back here with the common people.

So there's a separation between the laity, the stupid people, the peons, and the people that are smarter than you, the people that need to interpret the Bible for you, the people that are there as your intermediary between God and man.

We didn't compare notes, but we seem to be heading the same place. And we're coming full circle back to the beginning. So picture the communion setting that I describe. Everybody's fear of their lives, man.

If they eat that little thing, they may, it's really the showdown between life and death. If you eat that little wafer and you have some secret sin that you haven't confessed and got over, they taught perfectionism.

You had to be perfect. If you weren't perfect and you took that wafer. And what happened was I grew up with teenagers that, man, every teenager who's experienced life has got some sort of thing that they can say, oh, I wish I didn't do that.

That was wrong. So entire groups of kids would never take communion because of this. That's, it's really, really, oh, interesting. Because they were afraid that if they did, they'd be struck dead. They'd be struck dead.

Maybe not in this life, but you know, you're taught that, it's a doomsday call, you're taught that any minute the world's gonna end and you're not gonna live on the other side if you eat this little wafer.

It was the showdown. Now, there were people who didn't catch that they were supposed to believe that, but I knew people who struggled with this. But so you talked about the passage from revelation and so many triggers are going off because brannemism, the theology was the scroll that's mentioned in that passage.

They talked about this, oh my gosh. The scroll was the mystery of God, which was to be revealed in the last days and brannem created this hierarchy in which the leadership, would reveal what's in that scroll.

So think about what you just said. You've got this hierarchy, right? So picture this communion room. We're sitting here thinking that we're so unworthy that we may even die if we eat that little wafer.

Up on the platform, Brannum is sitting in this cushy chair that looks like a king would sit in. And you're sitting in, they didn't even have cushions in the pews. That's how bad this was.

They added cushions later, but back when Brannum was alive, this was the lowest form of servitude that you're sitting in the servant's quarters, basically. And then what happened is throughout the ministry, as Brannum has revealing himself as the deity, he suddenly starts to mention that the mysteries on that scroll had been revealed to him.

And so the passage where it says, who's worthy to open this scroll, he is now made worthy. Well, this disseminated through the movement, right? So Brannum died and the movement kept going. So now the leadership believes that they can bring on this end times revival, this end of day's revival.

They're the ones who are worthy and they're trying to keep the people in control so that their subjects can go into heaven under their authority. That was one of the doctrines that Brannum taught.

Everything that you've just described literally is a new take on Brannumism. They spent a good chunk of time about the scroll, okay? And I'm curious, I'm curious. There's a section in that video if you care to go look, Lou is holding up the piece of bread.

He's like, he's holding it up to heaven. The camera angles shooting kind of up and up at him and you see the sky. And you know, all these decrees, declarations, I'm gonna eat the body of Christ and take it in.

I'm gonna eat the scroll. He says, I'm gonna eat the scroll. So there's like this direct comparison between, I'm taking communion with the bread right here. The bread he said, the bread of heaven, which to be fair is a quote from Jesus.

He said, he's the bread of heaven. But then mixing it with this, I'm gonna eat the scroll like what you're talking about. That is crazy to me that that, like you just described where that originated.

And I'm curious, did they talk about eating the scroll or was it, was that language used at all that you remember? Well, there's a passage that comes straight out of the book of Revelation.

There's a passage that talks about John being asked to eat the scroll. And I think, what is it? Ezekiel, there's another Old Testament book. Ezekiel, yeah. Yeah, it talks about the same kind of thing.

It's not us, the people eating it. We're not the ones eating it as I recall, right? Except John was in Revelation, but... So in Brannemism, we didn't have symbolism of eating the scroll. But if you think in the grand scheme of things...

things, what has happened. In Brannemism, if we were to have a ceremony like this, it's only the bride, the elect, the elite that would be partaking of this, and then all other Christians would not.

And so, the symbolism matches what we had, the ceremony doesn't. I find it fascinating that this is a theme and a direct teaching and practice that was in Brannemism that appears to now be practice now at Bethel.

Yeah, I think you'd be surprised how much has actually developed and changed. I can see little hints and traces of it, but unless somebody understands the full scope of what it was in Brannemism, they don't make the connection.

And I was talking to a friend, I actually have a friend here who has gotten a little bit involved with Bethel through watching them. I was trying to explain some of the connections, and unless you really look at the theology behind it and understand, first off, you have to understand what the Bible says about what they're teaching, and then you have to understand exactly what they're teaching so that you can know the difference between the two.

And in that difference, you usually find traces of Brannemism. So it's such a weird, complicated mess, but in the end, I'll go back with the question when I'm talking to either this friend or anybody else, why would you want something that you have to dissect and see what is the difference between what you're teaching in the Bible?

It's not just a Christian church, should not the Bible be your answer instead of Brannemism or wherever this came. 100% and that's kind of where I've concluded is, let's just put it all on the chopping block and let it all be examined.

And I don't even have to parse every little thing in my head. I just want to go back to the one source of truth, which is the Bible, and throw everything else out. Because frankly, all of these ritualistic practices and these spiritual activations and this that and the other, let's be honest, it is exhausting.

It's an exhausting hapscher wheel to be in. And the great thing about the real gospel is it's a gospel of grace and it's a gift. It's not something that I do that we do as people to earn.

We don't have to earn it. That's why it's good news. So that's been really refreshing for me to kind of, oh yeah, that's what this is actually about. It's not about, you know, coming up with some esoteric, latest and greatest revelation to impress people and get people all riled up and like, oh my gosh, we're going to bring the kingdom.

Like that's not what Jesus taught us. And you know, it's insidious the way in which they do it. They don't really come out and say things. So unless you're really listening with a critical ear, you miss it.

I wish that Bill Johnson and some of you. others would just come out and say, hey, today we're going to have a say-ons and we're going to summon Jesus. I think people might wake up and say, wait a minute, this is wrong, what you're doing. But he doesn't say it like this. But if you look at the grave soaking and all of this weird stuff, he's literally doing that, but he's putting other terms, and he's not the only one is the scary part. So we could go down a thousand rabbit holes.

I think we'll save him for next time, but thank you for doing this. Yeah, absolutely. 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-Brandom.org and the grit in the wild podcast. For more about the dark side of the new apostolic Reformation, read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

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