From Celibacy to Polygamy: The Rotten Fruit of the Message

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of Christian Gospel Church.org and the author of come out of her, my people. Charles it's good to be back and to talk about all things destructive cults in the message. A lot of people don't really know this history because they lump everybody into the same basket and when you see some, I hate to use the word but there's no other word to describe it. When you

see some lunatic that's gone rogue, even within the message sect and many of its primary splenching groups, they disavow those that go to the extreme. And what's odd about this is whenever I first started examining William Branham and his prophecies and then suddenly discovered that he was changing his prophecies over time and that there's actually real question as to whether he even had a prophecy at all. I was looking at the verse, what's it from Matthew 7? I think it is, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing because inwardly they're ravenous wolves. And you know as I'm examining the

prophecies, I'm really dwelling on that. I'm thinking about the false prophet who's humble and sincere from the outside, but inside they just, they're filled with evil. And I never really continued on. But after you really take a step back, you start to continue to read in that passage, it says you will know them by their fruits and it gets to the part where it says a good tree cannot bear good fruit. And you can, therefore you know them by their fruits, essentially, is what it's saying. And I began to think about all of the various

splinter groups from the message. You had the main sect, which we've talked about, and it's just filled with rotten fruit. We've gone through it. And even it, you've probably seen it in the comment feeds, people come on there and they say you can't condemn the whole message by these bad apples that are in here. But yes, you can. That's what that's exactly literally what the Bible says. You know them by the fruit. You know them by the bad apples. But then those bad apples produce worse bad apples and those worse bad apples produce even worse bad

apples. So now that we're getting into the splinter groups, we're going to actually do what the Bible is instructing us to do. We're going to examine the message by its fruit. That's very true, John. You know, we have, if our listeners remember, we have been working for, I don't know, I think this is about episode 30, working our way through the history, post-Branum, and specifically looking at the different sex of the message. I think at this point, we've went through one, two, three, four, five. I think we've went through five of what I consider the major sex of the message, and there's still one more major sect we need to cover, which is

the main sect, John, and maybe we'll get there on the other side of this next few episodes, but between the five and six, I'll say the six to seven major sex of the message. There you will find, I would say in those groups, have 75 to 80% of the total message population is in those seven or so sex of the message, the way that I would categorize it anyway, but you still have this other 25% of the message following that's not really in one of those larger sex, those larger international fellowships, and those are what we want to talk a little bit about next. We're going to talk about

some of those more prominent ones in that other 25%, and you're correct, John. When people up from the outside a lot of times look at the message, they don't realize that there are all of these sex, and while there are seven or eight large major international sex, there are dozens, and dozens, and dozens, maybe hundreds, John, of smaller, tinier, minor regional sex in the message as well, that hates everybody. There might be 50 of them in a church somewhere, and they're the only people that are going to make it. There's quite a few of those, John. It's hard to say how many,

because they're so isolated, they cut themselves off, they wall themselves off, and they have no contact even with the main stream of the message anymore. It's hard to even know what's even going on there. A lot of them are in a place there's just no way to have any real knowledge of them or what's going on, but there's potentially hundreds of those. There's certainly dozens and dozens, but I want to refer everyone back again to just a little diagram chart I have showed a number of times. This is a high-level diagram chart, John, showing the main sect of the message here on the

left and then on towards the right how the different factions of the main sect gradually broke away and produced some of these other sex. This is by no means anywhere near comprehensive, but this is just to give an idea of where some of the sects are coming from, because when you think of the main sect of the message, the main sect of the message is not like the message people think of a denomination in the sense of they're not monolithic. The main sect of the message is not monolithic in its views or its beliefs. The main sect of the message is best viewed as a coalition

of subgroups with differing interpretations of the message and different models and methods for doing their services of things. And they all get along together because they respect Brandon. That's the best way I think to view the main sect. And over time, though, the main sect starts, it pushes out the people who are at least conforming, right?

The anti-church order group was gradually pushed away. The quotes preachers were gradually all pushed out in several different ways. And as you come up to modern times, you know, I'm thinking, you know, the 2000s, the late 90s and 2000s, the main sect of the message becomes increasingly tape-church oriented, right? Because what's happened over time is the churches that have live preaching gradually are becoming less and less a more and more of a minority within the main sect. And the tape churches are gradually rising to become the majority. Because it's generally the preaching churches that are getting pushed out or schisming out because the people

who just listen to the tapes are more apt to stay in the main sect. Well, anyways, as we come along today, we're going to start talking about some of these minor groups, which also in some way split away from the main sect of the message in. So the very first one, John, that I think we want to talk about today is the sect of Estil Beeler. Estil Beeler. So who is Estil Beeler? Let me talk about him just a little bit. Estil Beeler is an old-time message preacher. He is actually Estil Beeler baptized your grandpa, John, when he converted into the message. Estil Beeler baptized

Raymond Jackson, the pastor of our church, who converted into the message. So this gets you an idea of how far back Estil Beeler is. Estil Beeler was in the message before Raymond Jackson, before Willard Collins. He is one of the very earliest message preachers. And he was attending the Branham Tabernacle. He was actually a healing evangelist who traveled the revival circuit during the 40s and 50s, not in William Branham's party, but as like a parallel working evangelist.

And he was in voice healing magazine and stuff. But he lived in Georgetown, Indiana. And he ended up the fellowshiping at the Branham Tabernacle. So Estil Beeler was just a fairly important person. He was really in the early days of the message. He was one of the most senior preachers. He was right there with Orman Neville, with with your grandfather, with Raymond Jackson. He was here before leaveale, before Perry Green, before Ed Biscoll, before pretty well any other message preacher you could think of. He's one of the very first message preachers. And that carried a lot of weight.

So what happened, John, is when William Branham died, Estil Beeler had a dream or a vision. I think it was a vision. And in his vision, he sees the church and he sees the word ikabod, wrote over the door.

And this is how Estobilers' following was labeled. They were the ikabod group. Okay, he saw ikabod over the door. And he interpreted that, he interpreted that vision to mean that the glory of God had departed church buildings.

And it was now a sin to have a service in a church building. Henceforth, there should only be house churches, okay? So he breaks away from Brannum Tabernacle, from our sect of the message, John, everyone still kind of fell asleep back in those days in the later 60s.

He breaks away very early on. I would say by 68, 69, he's broke away with this. And he's convinced a number of people in Indiana, in Ohio, in Kentucky, a little bit in Missouri, that they need to only meet in house churches.

And so he develops the house church circuit, right? Has a little following there. But what he does, John, and this is where he gets really interesting, he develops the belief and he gets this out of William Brannum's surfancy teachings.

He develops the belief that it is a sin to continue to have marital relations. And he insists a blanket doctrine of celibacy across all of his followers, okay? Well, this was about 60, 60 years ago, John.

So as you can imagine, there's not many more of them left. They didn't reproduce like the other sects of the message. So they're pretty well a dead sect of the message today. But they all went, they became celibate.

They didn't convert a lot more people in and they eventually faded away. But that was a big deal actually, him doing that back in the late 60s and early 70s. That was a really pretty big deal.

A significant number of people in this area followed him and went off into his house church, his celibate house church stuff. And probably the worst thing that happened, John, is when you started preaching the celibacy stuff, actually quite a few women and men separated and divorced each other because they accepted his belief that they needed to be celibate.

So they actually broke up quite a few families with that teaching, which caused a pretty big pushback from the brand of tabernacle from our church because they were upset that he was breaking up marriages.

And obviously the people he were converting was the people in our churches. John here, the tabernacle of faith assembly fellowship, that was where he was drawing his convert from. So that's Estabular, ladies and gentlemen.

You know, it's kind of funny because when I first began all of this, I had many people, including one of William Brennan's son, who started proclaiming that the reason that John is coming out and sharing all of the critical flaws with the message and all of the failed prophecies was because I had a vendetta against my grandfather.

And I loved my grandfather, I was a little surprised. is when they said that, because many of the people who said that really didn't even know me, did not know my relationship with my grandfather.

And I didn't realize at that time that it was just a cult strategy to try to persuade people not to listen to the critical flaws that I was exposing. But they came out and they said that I had this vendetta against my grandfather.

But then whenever I got really, really deep into William Brannum's life story and all of the history that he just blatantly lied about, including spiritual history, things that without those spiritual experiences he's describing, there is no message.

When you take them away, there is no message. Once I got to that point, then they said John has a vendetta against William Brannum. He just hates William Brannum and he's working for the Catholic Church.

That's really how it came to be. But you know, in hindsight, William Brannum, I kind of feel sorry for him. I think he had, I know he had mental health issues. He even mentioned it on recording that he suffered severely with mental health issues.

And I have a passion for helping people that are like this. I have a passion and I just, I feel really bad that this exists. This is a problem that I wish that the world could, the medical science could overcome.

However, they did not and William Brannum had mental health issues. And the irony is, I really can't even blame him, but I can blame Estil Beeler. Estil Beeler, like you said, is the one who recruited my grandfather.

And you know, it's funny because they've, by and large, they've mostly disavowed Estil Beeler in his weird ministry because of the weirdness you're describing. It wasn't until probably five years after I left the message that I even knew that he was the one that recruited my grandfather.

My grandfather's own testimony. And you can, there are versions of this online. You can go hear it. He doesn't claim that he's recruited by Estil Beeler. He claims that he just accidentally stumbled onto a meeting in Macon, Georgia.

And how does that happen? How do you accidentally go from Indiana to Macon, Georgia? And I never really stopped and thought about it. Why is he leaving out the most important part of the story?

I stumbled onto this meeting in Macon, Georgia and, oh, by the way, I was recruited into the message by Estil Beeler. So there are so many issues with these men covering all of these things up.

But Estil Beeler, like you said, was a nut for lack of a better word. And what's also odd about this is, as I began to study the theology itself. And I'm not going to go deep into the theology that's for other people.

But I did study theology after I left. And I also studied both sides. I studied the good theology and I studied... the reputable people who are talking about the bad theology and why it exists. Much of it can be traced all the way back to Gnosticism. And so I wanted to know what this was. I started reading everything I could. In fact, I started reading one of the first things I read where the writings of Irenaeus, who William Brannum said was one of the church age messengers.

I'm reading through all of this and he talks about the Gnostic groups, how they rose, how they adopted many pagan ideas, blended those pagan ideas with Christianity. And then he walks you through the various sects, kind of like we're doing, honestly. But he wanted the groups. He said, and they decided that it was a sin to have sex with one another. And therefore this group died out. And I was thinking about how odd that is. And I never really connected the two.

At that point in time, I did not realize that Estabela was the one who recruited my grandfather. But it is a mess and it is not Christianity. This is not how people behave as Christians. But here we have one of the fruits of the message. You made a really good point there, John, about how people cover up how they came into the message. Lots of people do this. And the reason they do is exactly what you were describing there, John. Every single person who is in the message today is in the message because someone in their background who was a thief, a criminal, a polygamist,

a rapist, a homosexual, you know, is the one who converted them in. There is nobody in the entire world who is in the message today who did not convert because of one of these nuts. That's the truth. If you subtract Ewold Frank, who we did hold episodes on and Sidney Jackson, the polygamist, we've talked about a lot and Perry Green, the criminal we've talked, if you subtract those three things, you don't have a message in Africa, John. It takes those three men to get the millions of people in Africa, right? This message spread because of people like this. And when you hear people

say, oh, these people don't matter, we can move on without them, right? This sounds rude. It's ignorant and it's really very ignorant minded people to even think that way because they only are in the message because of those people. And they're so ignorant of their own history because people lied about who converted and who did this and that, that they don't, they don't even are aware that this is the reason that they're in the message. But yes, John, I mean, your grandfather and the pastor of my church were both baptized and we could even say in some way convert it in by

Angel Bealer. who wasn't absolute nut. Yeah, absolutely. And it goes even further back. And then then I mean, I loved Raymond Jackson, just, you know, in a lot of ways, you loved your grandfather. But I mean, the truth is, Raymond Jackson was a nut too, who did a lot of bad things. And I, and, you know, pardon me for saying anything bad about your grandfather. But your grandfather was a nut who did a whole bunch of bad stuff too, converted a bunch of people to a message. So it just, it passes on and on and on. Um, let's go to the next one. And I

think this one, John, is an excellent, um, contrast to the last one. So Estabiel or his sect came in and they went celibate. Well, the next sect we're going to talk about went polygamist, which, which the message is the spectrum, right? All the way from celibacy to polygamy, you know, from, from no gifts to the spirit to the gifts of seas to, let's go crazy with the gifts. Like it's, every spectrum is in the message, ladies and gentlemen. So let's talk about the, the original polygamist sect of the message. So, and ladies and gentlemen, if you want more about

these, I have more in the, my book on all of these than I'm done to be talking about here along with some different footnotes and stuff that you can reference for sources. And when I talk about JT Parnell and the polygamist, John, the hardest thing for me with these sort of groups are they have left behind so many victims. And, and I look at a lot of the, I look at a lot of the women as victims and the women's children as victims JT Parnell's grand, you know, children. I look at a lot of these people as victims. And so I'm very reluctant to say things that are going to put the victims

in a hard spot, right? Because you know how it is in the message, John. I mean, they will harass the victims. They will, it will not be good. So I mean, I try to approach these things in a way where we're not, I'm telling you the truth, but I'm also trying to not expose so many details that that the victims become targets because they didn't, you know, they didn't ask for that. I mean, these kids didn't ask to be born into polygamist homes, you know, and, and these women that got into these things, a lot of them became tricked and then trapped. So anyways, JT Parnell. So who is JT

Parnell? JT Parnell was the pastor of the Jerusalem Tabernacle in Edmondston, Kentucky. That's about, oh, maybe an hour drive from Jeffersonville. And his church was founded in 1958. It was one of the very first message churches. He was one of the original message churches, John.

JT Parnell visited the Brannum Tabernacle a lot. And just like Estil Beeler, you'll find William Brannum talking about JT Parnell on tape a lot. JT Parnell preached fairly regularly at the Brannum Tabernacle. Very well known here in the Jeffersonville message community. So I've also pointed out before that JT Parnell, one of his wives, plural, helped write the church-age book.

You know, typed up some of the initial manuscripts of that working with Lee Veil. So anyways, Parnell, he had a pretty close relationship with William Brannum. When William Brannum died, he fell in with the pro-church order faction, John.

So he was like continuing to fellowship with your grandfather, the Brannum Tabernacle, the Tucson Tabernacle. He was in that group at first. Even though he was a polygamous. But his polygamy actually started, you know, according to lots of witnesses, I have some quotes in my book.

He started practicing polygamy in 1965. He actually started recruiting the week after William Brannum preached marriage in divorce. He started recruiting other people to come practice polygamy with him. It started why William Brannum was alive.

That's very important to notice and recognize. And it is not, I don't think the least bit controversial to say this man's polygamous. He had a harem. They traveled with him all over the place.

He had a very obvious harem that he took with him from place to place. And it is just a well-known fact that the man was a polygamous. He was publicly ex-communicated from a number of churches.

He was publicly ex-communicated for his polygamy from the Faith Assembly Fellowship. Your grandfather publicly ex-communicated him from the Brannum Tabernacle. And I want to say roughly 1973 is when his ex-communication from Brannum Tabernacle happened.

But he continued to have a good relationship with lots and lots of message preachers and still travel and still visit a lot of the international conventions even after his ex-communication in the early 70s.

So one other important thing about J.T. Parnell, John, is he, I mentioned before, the reason the marriage and divorce tape is in circulation today is actually, in large part due to J.T. Parnell, when the people started to confront him over the polygamy when he was ex-communicated from my sack, when your grandfather ex-communicated him, he went to Perry Green and sought the release of the marriage and divorce tape, which Perry Green had a copy of.

How Perry Green had a copy of it? I'm not exactly sure, but he did. And from Perry Green, the marriage and divorce tape was released so that J.T. Parnell could use that to try and justify the polygamy stuff, right?

And again, you gotta put J.T., you gotta put Perry Green into the mix there, with releasing that out, so Perry Green talks about this on tape, actually, when he was approached to release the tape.

And Perry Green describes it more or less. He didn't really, and he's, so he's man so dirty, he didn't really think that the prophet meant you could have polygamy, but he wanted to release the tape, so people could hear for themselves, make up their own mind kind of a thing.

And he let out the tape. And so anyways, obviously William Brenham did, to the casual ear. Doris polygamy in that sermon and the polygamous used that to great effect. JT Parnell recruited a fairly substantial number of churches and preachers actually into polygamy here in the United States. John there were polygamous churches in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri that I am aware of.

Okay, there are at least 10 states that had churches affiliated with JT Parnell's sect of the message. Now, there's other polygamous groups I'm aware of in the message in North America besides JT Parnell, but I'm aware for sure those those those 10 states have churches that came out of his sect of the message that all practice polygamy. And if I had to guess, there were maybe in those 10 churches, there were maybe 500-ish um, practicing polygamous in those churches that came out of JT Parnell and his practices.

Some of them have been in the news. One notable church is Dan Galamore's church in Martin's ville, Virginia. His church was in the news. He actually married a minor, which is what got him in the news. I think a minor he took a minor is a second or third Wi-Fi believe.

Um, and yeah, it is, uh, it's very unfortunate this sect of the message. And there are still

remnants of this sect of the message around today. And I will go as far as to say to John that I'm aware of practicing polygamous that are still in the Jeffersonville message community to this very day. You know, what's really odd about the ones who were denying that William Branham said these things. People who were in the inner circle of William Branham knew that he struggled with mental health problems, especially people like Gordon Lindsay who watch William Branham suddenly disappear from the scene because he's in the midst of a mental mental health crisis.

And Gordon Lindsay, as you know, started bringing another evangelist to try to keep the voice of healing revival and voice of healing publication running. Well, while Branham's off the scene, he's, nearly incapacitated with mental health. But then in the later years, William Branham spouted off some of the weirdest, strangest things. And he did not just do it on the recordings. He did it also in private. You can hear the private testimonies of people who were saying that they, they spent time with William Branham and he had this very, very special thing that he said.

And when you hear it, you're scratching your head thinking, what on earth was he actually saying there? It sounds so crazy. Like there's, I don't know if you remember, there's this guy that traveled around from church to church talking about William Branham's pyramid vision, how off recording William Branham claimed that all of our houses, whenever we get to heaven, won't be houses like we have Today, they're going to be little rooms in this great giant pyramid.

And at the top of the pyramid is where Jesus Christ lives, but you can't go up to the top very easily. He's up there. We're down here. I don't know if you heard this, but as a kid, you know, part of me wanted to believe it because I'm sitting in a room filled with adults who are listening to this guy, talk this nonsense, and they're all eating it up, believing it.

And so I'm like, I'm looking around the room, thinking, oh, wait, am I really supposed to believe this? This sounds a little crazy. But those are the kind of crazy things that William Brannum said off recording.

We have witnesses that will attest to the weird things that William Brannum said. So these guys knew that William Brannum was a nut job. Many of them who were in the inner circle, they knew it.

But whenever he went off the rails and the recording leaks out, they all deny that he said these things. And some of the things that he said off record and even in the case of marriage and divorce where he's talking about polygamy supporting it on the record, he also had other places where on the record, he rejected polygamy.

So the nut job could not contain himself, and he's putting these things on recording, and the recording leaked out. And like you said, this is how polygamy just became widespread in the message. But the fact that the elders and leaders of the cult knew it and then denied it, it places every one of those ministers and evangelists for the message.

It places their character in question, which again goes back to, like I said, the fruit of the message. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?

You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book.

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The next one I want to talk about is Pala Zero Lowry. Now, we can spend just a little more time talking about this one than the first two. So Pala Zero Lowry, who is he?

Pala Zero Lowry was a man we've mentioned a number of times. He was an Indian from India. He met William-Brannum during his India-Brannum Historical Research, and he was a tour, which was a flop in the 1950s. He ended up following William Brownham back here to Jeffersonville, like so many other people did. He attended in Jeffersonville. He was baptized.

I believe Orman Neville baptized him. He came after Orman Neville had become pastor. Orman Neville baptized him. He followed William Brownham around a bit as part of his entourage. When everyone moved to Arizona from the deity cult and so forth in the early part of 1963, he followed and he also went to Arizona. John, he lived out there in the Tucson. He was actually in the Prescott Commune of the of Leo and Gene Mercer for a while. I consider Paul Zier-Lawry actually to be a breakaway from the deity cult, John. If you think of the main sect,

the main sect has these various factions within it. One of those factions is the tape churches. Then within the tape churches, there's another sub-faction, the deity cult. The deity cult is in there. Well, he was within that deity cult faction. The way I do that is by observing their beliefs, what he teaches. He's actually teaching pretty close to the original deity beliefs, but he's involved them to point to himself after his death, or after the death of William Brownham.

What happens, John? I have a track. This is one of Paul Zier-Lawry's tracks. I have tracks from a lot of these guys, John. Just great stuff. Some of this stuff is very entertaining to read.

Here's one of my favorites. Masters of legalized confusion and their puppets. This is a great read, John. I mean, I just got to see. Masters of the legalized confusion and their puppets. I got to recommend this to anybody who likes to read, you know, message literature. But anyways, Paul Zier-Lawry has this track right here. This is called Son of Man. This is this. I have this. I have a number of newspaper articles about him as well that I could share. Maybe we put a few of them up here on the screen as I talk about him. But so Paul Zier-Lawry, as William Brownham is died, he went back

before he died. He went back to India. Then he just got his mission stuff kind of started in India, right, really the first message mission work in India. Then William Brownham dies and he comes back to the United States. Well, after that, Lawry starts getting crazier and crazier and crazier.

Now, at first he is, he's pretty tight with the main sect of the message, the Dedicolt people, as well. And he's pretty tight with Ewald Frank. There's pictures of him visiting Cretfield-free mission. He actually met Archie Martin, the missionary working in Brazil, and they actually made a tour together at one point as well. And so Paul Zier-Lawry, Archie Martin, Ewald Frank, All these guys are kind of in this mission network that is taking the message overseas.

And as that happens, he establishes a number of churches in India. In this book, actually, John, he claims to have established 25 churches. There's a list of the names of the 25 churches here that he is established.

So in 1969, John, while Lowry was in the United States, touring and basically collecting funds, doing them, like, what they would do is they would, the missionaries would come back and they would travel the circuit and they would get donations to take back to fund their mission operations.

That's what he was doing. So he was coming around the mission circuit in the United States, collecting money, then going back to India to, you know, to help spread the message in India. Well, why he is in Chicago that year, it's 1969, the moon landing happens.

And John, this is, as you and I know, one of the most bizarre of all message stories. So while Paul is your Lowry is watching the moon landing on television, you know, Neil Armstrong gets out of the spaceship, he steps on the moon, he says, this is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

As Paul is your Lowry, watch that on television, he said at that moment, he became the next manifested son of God, Jesus Christ returned in him at that exact same moment that Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon.

And he begins saying this as he continues his travel around the North American message circuit, John. And of course, almost everybody thinks, Paul is your Lowry, you are a nut job. And so he never gets to come back again after that.

He basically everyone thought he was a nut at that point because William Brannum was, you know, it was, was the prophet and he's trying to step into his shoes. But John, he actually successfully convinces a number of families.

I want to say somewhere in the neighborhood is 75 people in the United States and Canada actually believe his claims. And as he's doing this, he's telling them the rapture is going to happen in 1972.

Jesus Christ has returned in him. It starts his three and a half year countdown basically. And now the rapture is going to come in 1972. And so come follow me to India because you can only make it in the rapture if you're with me in India.

So anyways, some of these people from North America, a few from Europe also go back with him to India along with his larger Indian following. And wait for the rapture in 1972. Now, Paul is your Lowry sector.

The message has a few unique features. One of them is, I mean, they full on believe the deity cult stuff, John. They baptize and they pray in the name of the Lord of Brannum Christ.

And they do it very openly, you know, a lot of the deity cults. here in North America, it's, it's more secretive, right? It's only, it's only a lot of the people in the deity cult have enough sense to know this is crazy sounding. And William Branum said, you know, not to do this stuff publicly and they keep it quiet and it's private for the most part among the deity cult in North America. But a few radical nuts that have been indoctrinated in the deity cult take it public. And that's what Paul Azir Lowry was doing. He was taking public

the already private beliefs of members of the deity cult. He learned this, he was out in Jean and Leo's commune with them, with Fred Soffman and some other people. That's where he learned this stuff. And so he he's just taken that publicly. And anyway, he's got the deity cult beliefs, they baptize and pray in the name of the Lord Branum Christ. And he does this unusual thing where he blends, he's blending the message with Hindu mysticism, John. And if you remember, William Branum preached about at times, he talked about the seven dimensions and the dimensions

were like higher levels bringing you closer to God. And the way that William Branum actually described those seven levels, seven dimensions is actually the same way that is believed in Hindu mysticism. Like he described the top level as the cosmic light where you're with God, the lower levels is like where the ascended saints are. He described it in the exact same way that a Hindu guru would describe those seven layers, except instead of meeting the Hindu God in the top layer, you're meeting the Christian God. And instead of gurus at the layer below, it's saint. So he just kind of changed up the words to better match Christian thinking.

Well, what's interesting, John, is William Branum actually started preaching that at the same time, Paul Azir Lowry showed up here in the United States. And so it's a little bit of a speculation, but I would say probably Paul Azir Lowry is the one who planted those ideas in William Branum's mind. And he's, you know, that's where they came from. Well, anyways, Paul Azir Lowry, as he's going back and being in India, he takes that seven dimension thing. And that becomes a really big, a really important component of his overall teachings. And he's just increasingly blending William Branum's teachings with Hindu mysticism. And it's all about how to transcend

through the higher level and reach the seventh dimension where you can be in the presence of God. And so that's what he's doing. Obviously, 1972 comes and goes. The rapture don't happen. Then he changes it to the rapture's in 1977, which comes and goes and nothing happens.

And he's in his father. Pulling exploded coming out in 1977, broke up into various other factions. They began to reach out to my sect of the message, to your sect of the message, John.

They began to pull in missionaries from North America and Europe, and that is really how the message launched in India and all the sex got invited into India as his group imploded in the late 70s.

You said something there that I want to go back and emphasize because I don't think many people realize this, especially if you're indoctrinated in the message. When you're indoctrinated in the message, you think that all of these ideas, these doctrines, these prophecies, all of these things that William Brannum was saying from his public stage persona came from William Brannum because he's the divine messenger from God.

That's how you're trained and manipulated in the message. And if you're outside of the message looking in, you think, well, here's this nut job who's claiming to be a prophet, a self-proclaimed prophet, and he's coming up with all this nonsense.

But no, that's not the case, man. William Brannum's ministry was largely influenced by the men and women around him. And you can find clear evidence of this if you just simply read through the voice of healing magazines, read in chronological order, and watch the things being presented by other men, and then watch them enter into William Brannum's ministry.

A clear example of this is the UFO theology. Read voice of healing, and you can even see the covers on the magazines. As soon as there's UFO phenomenon resurging, I can't remember what year it is, it's like the mid-50s.

As that's resurging, and all the ministers are saying, look, in the skies, we see the God. This is not a UFO. This is not an alien spaceship like they claim. These are angels, they're watchers, or whatever they claimed.

And then you watch William Brannum start to repeat what he's saying. And he, that's how ironically he come up with his UFO theology, where a UFO is going to swoop down and take us to the rapture.

That was one of his, that was one of his weird, just crazy doctrinal beliefs. And he's not saying that because, well, he is saying it because he's a little bit mentally unstable, but not simply because he's mentally unstable.

He's working with other mentally unstable men who are influencing him. And now whenever you think about the tree and the fruit that it bears, now disconnect all of the famous people that were connected to Brannum that some of them started cold, some of them did not turn out that bad.

But just think about the nut jobs that were coming out of William Brannum's ministry. Now think about them influencing Brannum as he's influencing these splinter groups. You had this, you had this vicious cycle.

So the tree that's bearing fruit, it's like it's grafting itself with the bad fruit, so that the main trunk gets worse and worse over to him. I agree. And one of the notable features of many sects of the message is that the greatest thing a message preacher can do is to have a revelation. I have a revelation. I now can tell you something from the Bible that nobody ever knew before. It was a hidden mystery. It's been revealed to me as a revelation. And now I can share it to you. And in order to, you know, for someone to

be able to do that, to have a unique teaching that they can say was a unique revelation to them that they then shared and was accepted, it is a great source of pride to the average message preacher to be able to do that. I mean, you're probably aware of some of these things, John. Like for a preacher in the message to be able to get a group of people to accept some unique new thing that God revealed to him is the height of a accomplishment for the message preacher. Okay. And so there is this natural inclination of message preachers to try and find some unique niche idea

concept and the little holiday revelation and get people to accept that niche new thing. Okay. And so that is going on constantly in the message. And if you can convince other people to believe it, right? There's like this risk zone, right? There's a danger zone. The preacher has got his new idea and it's make or break. It's really his big break if he can get people to accept it.

But it's also the incredible dangerous risk because if they reject it, then it's going to cause a schism and everything's going to go sideways. And so it's this dangerous zone when these new revelations come. And a lot of the way that the preachers will do it, John, is before they will preach their new revelation, they will talk to some other preachers and kind of spitball it behind the scenes. And what do you think about this? And more or less feel out the other preachers, am I going to get whacked in the head if I preach this? You know, that's what's going on.

Am I going to get thrown out of here if I preach this? And so this is happening with William Branham all the way. This has been going on all along. Yeah. Paul is here. Lowry wants to preach the seven dimension nonsense. He's, he's whispering and William Branham's here. What do you think about my seven dimension nonsense? William Branham? Oh, I like that. I like it so much.

I'm going to preach it next Sunday. That is the sort of stuff that happens in the message. Okay. And then Paul is here. Lowry can go preach it, but this is very common place in the message.

Yeah, that's the problem exactly. And you know, if you're a Christian, I know we have people listening who aren't, but if you are a Christian and you think about the false God that this is presenting. And especially if you consider the deity cult and how the deity cult is coming into play here. You have men who are worshipping Branham. Branham knows it. He admits it on recording that he knows it. He somewhat publicly condemns it. But then as we've mentioned, the people, the very people who are believing him to be God, he's appointing to power and leadership positions in the, in the cult.

So as they start to come into the picture and the cycle begins where the splinter groups are influencing the main sect, they're influencing Branham directly. So the God complex, I guess you would call it, goes to William Branham's head over time and this turns into this big theological mess. I agree. Let me move on to our next group to talk about.

So this group is called often referred to as the third testament group and their leader is a man named Donald Parnell. No relation to JT Parnell as best I know. This is another Parnell family. So this, this group would also be considered a breakaway of the deity cult, John. Donald Parnell was a man when you listen to him talk, spent a fair amount of time with Fred Sothman and with Alfred Erickson, who are two very notable men from the Branham deity cult, the main deity cult that controlled the central institutions of the message. And a lot of the ideas he shares and preaches are straight up the deity beliefs of the main

branch of the deity cult. However, what he did is he, he, he, he, he kind of adjusted them a little bit, John. And here's how he adjusted them. In the main sect of the message, the deity cult that is embedded in the main sect, believes that after William Branham, the next manifested son of God is Joseph, his son, right? Like that's how it is looked at in the main sect. Joseph is now the their objective worship. Well, Donald Parnell said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's me. It's me, Donald Parnell. And so, and so naturally,

he schismed with the deity cult, okay? And so anyways, he's teaching basically the same beliefs of the deity cult, except he's redirected it to now. He is, he is the successor of William Branham. And he actually plainly teaches, he's the third incarnation of Jesus Christ. And he claims that Jesus came back into him in 2005, actually, is the date on which he claims to have become this incarnation. My, my book on message history, I only go up to 2005. So I felt like I had to kind of add him in here. But for, for most of his message career, he was just, I would

consider him just a rank and file, deity cult member, John, until he got the idea that he himself had become, he had become a manifestess son of God. And his group is called the third testament because they believe you have the Old Testament, right?

You had the New Testament, and William Brannum sermons now form the third Testament. So the first covenant is expired, the Jesus Christ, and the Apostle covenant is expired, and now they're living under the covenant, which William Brannum taught as the second coming.

And now here's Donald Pranel as the third coming. So it's a very bizarre sect of the message, John. They believe that the rapture occurred roughly in 1963, and that they've been in the millennial age since 1963, and that because we're now in the millennial age, anybody can ascend to become a manifested son of God and become a theophany, is how they would term it. I'll be honest, I've only listened to about a dozen of Daniel Pranel sermons, John.

They're crazy. They're wacko. But he basically says that everybody can become a theophany. Let me read you a quote from Donald Pranel. He says, you need to listen to your theophany. Walk in your theophany. Guide yourself in your theophany. Imagine yourself in your theophany.

Wrap yourself around your theophany. And a lot of his teachings are focused on people elevating themselves to manifest its son of God level, which in his terminology is often the term theophany. Yeah, he's so as far as people in his group, I mean, there's a few churches and several hundred people that follow his teachings. They're primarily in North America.

I believe he has followers in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan. So another notable regional sect of the message. One of the other weird things that he taught was that we're now living in the millennial age because I think I gave this story and one of the episodes that we did early on. But after I'd left the message, I was in the post office and I kept running into people who were in the message and they I hate to say it, but they acted very, very childish. They would look at me and scorn and walk away or I have these mental images of them sticking their tongue out.

At me as they're leaving me, but they basically just gave me the stink eye and then left. But then this one guy in the post office, he watched me walk in and he turned around and he shook my hand and he smiled and he said, you're John Collins, aren't you? And I knew him. I knew he was in the message and I expected he was going to give me some wild insult like the rest of the church. But he looks at me and he said, you're John Collins said, yeah, he said, I know what you're doing is, you know,

against William Branum and I just wanted to say, you know, I'm not going to condemn you for that. And I was a little surprised and he says, it really doesn't matter what you do. And I said, really? And he said, we're living in the millennial age. Jesus Christ has come and gone. I was in the meetings at Shreveport and I watched Jesus Christ come down on the platform in the name of William Brannum, as William Brannum.

And I looked at him and I scratched my head, and he said, it doesn't matter what you do. You can condemn William Brannum if you want. You can go sleep with all kinds of prostitutes and other women if you want, because it doesn't matter.

We're living in the, this guy literally said this. This is a man who's claiming to be, well, he uses the word, Christian. I wouldn't use, I wouldn't use the same word. But he's telling me that I can go live the life of sin like some guy off the street.

And it doesn't matter because we're living in the millennial age. And that's the fruit of this message. Whenever they're saying that they're Christian or they're using the words Jesus, some of the bad apples, and from the main drunk of the tree, some of the bad apples don't even have a concept of what Christianity is.

I agree, John. I mean, well, the time you get into these groups that really deeply believe that the second coming already happened, like most of the message believes some sort of a second coming of Christ spiritually happened in the ministry of William Brannum.

But the ones who like, there's like a line. I don't know how to describe this for outsiders, okay? There's a group who, they believe, yeah, it's spiritually happened and somehow it's all still in progress and Jesus is still gonna come back bodily and then there's gonna be a heavenly age.

There's that group, but then there's others who, they don't believe that anymore. Yeah, Jesus came and this is it. This is it, like these in gentlemen. Let's, you know, and those are the craziest ones.

That's really, I mean, they're living in the millennial age and now they need to get their rapturous, glorified bodies and they do crazy bizarre things to go get that. Yeah, that is, it's hard to even relate that to authentic Christianity because of the things that have, that have happened and some of them are so crazy and they're so prone to extremism, John.

I mean, just absolute extremism. You listen to some of these people, some of these people we've mentioned, you can go on YouTube and you can look for sermons and you can listen in for yourself, you know, and hear the stuff that they're saying.

And some of it is, it's incredibly bizarre. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, that one passage of scripture talking about beware of false prophets and going on to say you will know them by their fruits.

This is the fruit of the message. You have people that believe everything from abstaining from sex and do not produce children to have as many wives as you want and oh, by the way, you can sleep around with whoever you want.

That's the extremes of this message. And those, you know, I don't care who you are. If you're in the message and you say, well, this is just a bad apple, don't listen to those.

Those people don't represent the true message. You have to understand that many of those people who have these weird wacky ideas were actually influencing Brannum. and their influences made it into the message. So the tree was returning rotten from the inside as it was growing.

That's how bad this is. You know, we didn't make it through all these smaller sex of the message. So we're gonna have to come back next time and knock out some more. We've got at least one more substantial smaller sex of the message I wanna talk about, maybe two.

Well, actually three, they got it. I'm looking here, John. I got five more in here, right? There's more in here than I thought. So I think we've got enough to fill another episode pretty easily.

I don't know how you stop it at five, man. There's no telling how many hundreds, if not thousands of these things that there are. I was working with a couple people in another country and they were just literally two men had started a message sec that was a splinter group off of one of the branches that we've mentioned and they started gathering a following and they turned into this weird destructive cult and like all of these other bad apples that we're talking about, the main sect and even some of the sects of the message that are closer to the main disavow them

and said these guys are just nut jobs. They're a product of the main tree of the message. So we have plenty more to go to. I'll just say it like that. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.Williamdashbrandom.org and christiangospelchurch.org. For more about the history of William Brannum and the healing revivals, you can read come out of her, my people. And for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, both available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

You can find us at www.Williamdashbrandom.org You