From Branham to Dictators: Sex, Lies, and Military Coups

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-Brandom.org and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend Charles Paisley, the founder of ChristianGospelChurch.org and the author of Come Out of Her My People. Charles it's good to be back and to talk about all things mess in the message. We're diving into some you know some people will call them extremists. In the main sect we would say these are just the apostates who they're pretending to believe William Brandham's message. But at least one of

the figures we're going to mention was actually significant in helping spread the message and so it's very difficult to say that he didn't truly believe it but as we'll get into it it wasn't the right person to lead it. I'll just say that although it seems to match a pattern so we'll discuss that pattern and we'll talk about the spread of the message but today we're starting with talking about the spreading of the message in Brazil. Yeah John I'm excited to get back to our series. This is what now we've been 30 or so episodes working our

way through the sex of the message in the post-Brandom years and the last episode in this one has this kind of been a lightning round where we have been going through the you know what I think of as the minor or the regional sex of the message. There are in the message there are about seven or so very large international fellowships churches with a global presence with hundreds and hundreds of churches that are affiliated with them all over the world. Some of them with thousands of churches affiliated with them all over the world and I

haven't dedicated a chapter to each of them in my book and then the current chapter we're going through John I just went through some other notable sex of the message that are around the world and you know especially in North America and I only my book only goes up to 2005 so you know I'm not covering the most recent developments in the message or anything like that but yeah today we are going to look at the message in Brazil and this is another pretty notable sect of the message I believe John and even though some of these sex were

talking about I could would consider the minor because they don't have a a large global network they're still large. The message in Brazil has perhaps 40 to 60,000 members in it John in this section.

the message. This is a very, it's still a large sect of the message. And a lot of the success of this sect of the message goes is they're a, they're in the Western hemisphere, but they don't speak English or Spanish. You know, Brazil is a Portuguese speaking country. So it's kind of unique in the Western hemisphere in that way. And as you had the central institutions, they, in the United States, they primarily did mission work to English speaking and Spanish speaking communities, right?

They didn't have a lot of resources in Portuguese. And so it allowed the Brazilian community to start to kind of carve out their own little bit of a niche as time went by. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. So the, the sect of the message that started in Brazil, as we mentioned before, really was started by a man named Archie Martin. Archie Martin was from Indiana. I believe he lived up near Indianapolis. He joined the message somewhere. I built, I want to say it was 1957, 5657, that he joined the message. And he was doing mission work at that point. He took mission literature back to Brazil during the

later 50s, 5859. And he established somewhere after William Brennan died. He finally established a true message church there in Brazil had maybe 50 to 75 people in the church when, you know,

in, in about 1968, 6970 in there. But what he did in his church, there was another minister that was working with him who was a Brazilian. And in his name was Joaquim Goncalvas Silva. And I am probably butchering his name. I apologize to everyone, but that, Joaquim Goncalvas Silva.

That man partnered more or less as an assistant pastor sort of a deal to Archie Martin in his small church there. And I believe the town was again, Guyano, Brazil is kind of in central, central part of Brazil, north of, north of São Paulo in that area. Anyways, he had a church there. And and this man ended up, he got a radio station, John. He, he started to do a lot of stuff on radio.

And it seems like radio was a way that some of the more prominent message preachers really spread the message in the early years after William Brennan died. You know, we've mentioned before how there was a message radio station in the Midwest. There was a message radio station in Europe.

Well, this man operated a message radio station in, in Brazil. And so after, after Archie Martin died and he died, I want to say about 1973 or four, something like that. This, this fella, Joaquim Silva, more or less took over as leader. And they, he just attracted all kinds of people.

And ended up building out a really massive network of churches around. Brazil. Now, for certainly up until the 1990s, he was continuing to fellowship with the main sect. Archie Martin was actually directly connected with with the E.W. Frank. Archie Martin was directed with Perry Green. And Perry Green actually came. He jointly toured with Archie Martin in Brazil. E.W. Frank did the same. Sydney Jackson came with Archie Martin to Brazil a couple times as well. But Archie Martin would bring in these bigger figures from the main sect of the message. But then as you come up into, come up to

1998, it turns out that Joaquim Silva, who had been molesting young girls and things of that nature, was really bad stuff. And Billy Paul actually came to their largest church in Brazil in 1998. Billy Paul, you know, the brand of family was coming regularly still then too, because they were very much tied up at the main sect as you come through up into the 1990s. Well, in 1998, this is the story. The story is that Billy Paul was given a letter that year when he was at the church. And the letter given to him gave out the details

and the pastor here, you know, the leader of our sect here is covering it all up. Well, Billy Paul, John, never went back to Brazil again after 1998. So, you know, I think there's some truth, you know, to it that Billy Paul learned something was up, because whatever reason he never went back again. But from there, Billy Paul didn't do anything. As far as we know, never called authorities, you know, nothing was ever done about it at all in 1998. But from that point forward, the Brazilian sect sort of more or less starts to go it alone. There's

no more big visitors coming from the main sect anymore. However, Ewald Frank does still continue to visit them off and on for a few more years after that. Well, as you come up into the early 2000s, John, I want to say it was 2020. So, I'm going just a little bit beyond my book.

2020, it actually then starts to leak out to the media in the press. And the media actually puts a whole lot of pressure on that sect, on that leader there in Brazil. And as that unfolds, press and charges against him, COVID happens. And he dies before the trial and everything can take place. And so, I think there was a fair bit of an exit that happened out of his message sect when all of that happened. But anyways, that is kind of the highlights of that sect of the message. And that sect of the message is actually very, very politically well connected in Brazil,

too. I'll say, John, there are pictures of them with Jose Ballzanero, who was the president of Brazil back in those years. And them sharing, you know, Jose Ballzanero, the president of Brazil holding message literature and pictures of William Brannon in his hands with them. But yeah, politically well connected.

It's an interesting sect of the message. It is interesting. And you know, it's honestly the political ties that are more interesting to me than the message ties. When you think of this man who spread the message throughout Brazil, he's spreading things that we know to be false.

But he's embedded himself into the politics and obviously through the, you know, sway of public opinion through these radio broadcasts that he had, his messages were spread, widespread throughout Brazil across the radio. And he attracted tens of thousands of followers.

That's no small number when you consider being able to control and sway political vote. But the timing of it, if you consider, we've discussed Colonia Dignidad, where message cult leader Paul Schaefer was helping the United States government to organize a military coup and install Augusto Pinochet in Chile as a dictator, will we know through Operation Condor's declassified documents that the United States was working to try to basically fight an underground World War III against Russia in South America?

So the timeline of all of this, if I remember correctly, it was 1968, whenever Silva began spreading the message throughout Brazil. Well, according to the timeline, Paul Schaefer had set up his colony, I think it was 1961.

And then as the years progress leading up towards the early 70s, they're starting to make preparations for organizing the military coup. The government of the United States is setting up there, I guess, I don't know what you call it, it's like a central intelligence agency right there in the colony.

Well, that's about the same time that Silva becomes widely popular according to what I'm reading in the timelines. So was the government also involved with Silva? I don't know. But if you look at the timeline, you can tell that there was definitely the ability to sway mass opinion in one direction and another through his ministry.

So it's possible that the two are also connected. But more than that, there was an elaborate set of ministers and churches, et cetera. Paul Schaefer had to have some facility to get the Nazi escapees out of Germany into his colony and then spread them throughout the country.

What better way to do this? I'm not saying that this actually happened. We'll never know. But what better way to do this than if you had a church and you had ministers under the same network?

So there appears to be more than meets the eye when you look at this man. There's a lot going on. And one thing that kind of bears out in Brazil, the same as with Ewald Frank, is that control of the message literature is really important in the churches that sprung up in the mission network.

You know, you think back to like Ewald Frank. When he broke away, he took almost all the foreign language literature with him because his church was the one- on that held all the masters and did all the printing of the foreign language transcript.

Well, the same in Brazil, the Brazilian message community, a walk-em-sale, the RT Martin, they had produced most of the Portuguese language message literature, they had actually undertaken to do a lot of the Portuguese translations and stuff.

And so they were printing and distributing that piece. And so when the, you know, a schism happens, well, the Portuguese people can't back then, they couldn't really go to voice a God necessarily and fill in all the pieces that they would lose, right?

Because voice a God, especially as you go back in the 80s when Ewald Frank, they did not have foreign language translations, right? You couldn't go to voice a God and say, hey, I need the Swahili versions, because they didn't have it.

You had to go Ewald Frank's route, right? Same with the situation in Brazil. They have built up that big, that big amount of message literature in their language and the people don't speak English by and large.

And so gradually, naturally, they're kind of got to follow the people they can understand, right? Because, and you think about that too, the language barrier. The language barrier is also, in some extent, what protected some of these guys as they broke away, because I don't know, I don't know anyone who speaks Portuguese, do you John?

I don't know anybody who speaks Swahili, so there's, in the North American, the main hub, the main heart of the message, there's just literally no way, especially back in those days before you had AI and all that, so there's just no way to interface with those people, really, right?

Because so, anyways, I think that's an interesting thing. And so, what Kim Silva did, a lot of the same sort of a thing that Ewald Frank was accused of, where he would do selective translation into Portuguese and modifying William Brenn of sermons to fit maybe his narrative or his version of the message a little bit.

So, anyways, that's Ewald Kim Silva. And yeah, just another, just a very interesting sector, the message that's down there. And yeah, also with some very unfortunate criminal stuff in the past of their leader, and it's really unfortunate he passed away before they could hold the trial, and all of the witnesses and everything could testify.

From what I understand, John, and from reading the new stories, and also from talking to members of the ex-message community from Brazil, there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 women and young girls, and by young, I mean, teenage girls, who claim to have been, or alleged to have been sexually assaulted by Ewald Kim Silva, and it goes back for decades through his ministry.

And more than one of them was supposedly became pregnant and had abortions forced on them by Ewald Kim Silva, covered up by leadership. And again, And that is supposedly, again, what people from there have told me that that was what's told to Billy Paul in 1998, and rather than try to help them, Billy Paul just never came back.

It's unbelievable, Charles. And, you know, like you said, there's so many similarities. When you look at all of these guys, it seems like every single person that we have examined and leadership of Brandon's message called, once they go out into the extreme versions of their sect, it goes into some kind of sexual sin.

Almost every time, there's also money, there's also power, et cetera, but sects seems to be, I don't know, it's like the thread that binds them all together. And whenever we were in the main sect, we would, I knew some of these guys.

I did not know about Silva, but we would look at these leaders that did this. And we would say, this is not what William Brannum taught. He never taught to have sex with the people in his cult.

And you know, you look at it and we're ignoring the biblical term that is applies to all of this. You'll know the tree by the fruit that it produces. And so while we were told, don't look at the fruits.

Jesus is saying, if you want to see what this is like on the inside of the message, look at the fruit and you'll see it. That's exactly what it says in the Bible, but we were taught and manipulated that, no, you don't look at the fruits to see what kind of tree it is.

You need to look at the trunk. I know what you mean, John. But what is so unfortunate is it seems to be, and maybe it's just because time has only went on as far as it has, you know, it takes time for things to be discovered.

But the unfortunate thing is that it seems like it is all of the old-time leaders, you know, walking, you know, this gentleman we're talking about, walking Silva is the father of the message in Brazil, John.

You know, there is no message in Brazil without this guy. It's just like there's no message in Brazil without Archie Martin, right? And it's so unfortunate because it seems like it is almost every last one of these early fathers of the message, you know, that came in the immediate aftermath of William Brannum, one after another, they all fall, you know?

And there are so many on that we have not talked about, Floyd Patterson, Earl Martin, you know, Jack Palmer. I could just go down a mountain of names, John, that we could go through and we could tell all kinds of stories, just the same as, you know, just the same, and maybe we will talk about some of those names when we get into the main sect of the message, John.

But this has been the common feature of the senior leadership in the message from the early days. From when William Brannum died, William Brannum didn't convert a bunch of, you know, there was nice people in the rank and file.

They're sure was and there was even a few nice people in, in tears of leadership. But by and large, all of his lieutenants were not good people, John, and did a whole lot of bad stuff in the name of his religion.

You know, and always go back whenever I think of that statement, always go back. I can look at Jim Jones. I remember I got into a heated indirect debate with a message person who's prominent in the message about Jones.

You can't say that Jones was a representation of William Branham's message. Well, technically that's true, but Jones was one of the fruits that we examined. He was a fruit of William Branham's laterane version of his message, right?

And we were told you can't examine those fruits. You can't examine these guys, but it seemed that every single person that William Branham chose to put into positions of authority. I want to say out of all of them, I want to say it was like 70% were just purely evil men.

Yet we were told that William Branham had the power to, as he would meet you, he could look right in your eyes and he could tell you exactly the inner thoughts of your heart, my own grandfather.

He said that I think it was during his resignation speech, but he said it almost every sermon. He knew the thoughts and intents of your heart. They would take all the biblical passages of Jesus who was divine and they would try to apply the same divinity passages to Branham and say that he could do the same thing and you were so scared whenever you got in front of him because he could peer into your very soul.

Well, if that was true, why did he choose all of these scoundrels to be leaders of the message? It's like every single one that he chose if he could peer into their soul and see what they are, he purposefully chose the evil ones.

I would agree, John, if you go back in time and you go back and you made up a list of all of the message preachers in the entire world in the year 1966 and 1967, John.

Okay, and the guys who spread the message to the end of the world, I think I might even go a little higher than 70%. You said 70% John. Sex perverts, thieves, robbers, criminals, some of them murderers.

I mean, you know, financial schemes. I mean, we can just keep going a whole lot of really bad stuff here, but that I think 70 plus percent of them fit that label very, very sadly, John.

And that's why I can say, you know, I still say, there's hardly anyone in the world today that can say I don't have a line that traces through these people because that's not true.

If you're in the message in Africa, your line traces through these people, you don't get in the message without these people. If you're in South America, you don't get in the message without these people.

If you're in Europe, you don't get in the message without these people, okay? There is no overseas person converted that can get in without these people, John. And in North America, it is mighty slim to find a person who could say they got in without these people because these people are the ones who traveled the world and converted, all of them who converted the intermediaries that converted the people today, who produced the tapes, the literature, and all of that that convert, I mean, these people were the key players in all of this.

And I know there's people who say, well, it don't matter. It's just this one off or this here, but it's not. It's so many of them. And what do you do with that? When it's so rife, when it is so rampant.

And, you know, yeah, the message somewhat, here's the truth. Some sex of the message have reformed a little bit, John, right? Like you take, I'll say Chad Lamb. Chad Lamb, he seems like a really nice guy, right?

But where's he from? He's from a line that comes straight through this, right? You can't get a Chad Lamb like a nicer preacher like Chad Lamb in the message without bringing him right through here, right?

And the thing is, you can't separate yourself from this history of where you came from. And it's a sad thing, you know? And of course, almost every person I'm saying, John, is in someone who, when I was in the message, is a message apostate.

You know, Chad Lamb's a message apostate. You know, I go through all of those guys. They're all where message apostates to us, where I come from. But it's just, nobody is really honest about the history of this thing. And nobody is willing to step back and say, yeah, the overwhelming majority of our early leaders were all scoundrels.

And yeah, they did do a whole bunch of bad stuff. And just really follow those things out to the logical conclusion that there's something chronically wrong with the message and its structures. It feels like we're getting into a debate because I'm going to take it one step beyond what you said now instead of the reverse.

You can't have the new apostolic reformation without having the message and these people that we're talking about. You can't have the charismatic movement without it. If you take away Paul Cain, who was William Branagh's protege, who went to Germany, who helped, you know, if I understand the history that went down there, based off of the things that aren't said, but the pieces that we have, there were some, some sort of a homosexual thing happened in Germany.

Branagh wasn't allowed back. Paul Cain, who was openly, he admitted to homosexuality, Paul Schaeffer, who also the same way, William Branagh's campaign manager, Baron Freire T. Von Blumberg, same exact thing. We have documented that the United States government was looking at these guys because why are they claiming to be in this fundamentalist religion, which they know is against homosexuality.

But yet are practicing it in private in their hotel rooms, that kind of thing is what led to Colonia Dignidad, what led to, you know, probably even the spread of Joaquin Silva, his message in Brazil.

You've got all of this mess, but you don't, without Paul Cain, you almost don't have a new apostolic reformation. He was a Brannemite until he died. We have, we have some clips of him talking about spreading Brannemism through key players in the NAR.

His connections to Mike Bickel, to Bethel Church, all of the different... organizations that he's frequent in Calvary Chapel, without Paul Cain, largely what developed into the New Apostolic Reformation doesn't exist without Chuck Smith, who is also part of the latter reign, without Chuck Smith, large sections of the Jesus movement disappear.

So without these men that we're talking about, without this mess, you don't have the charismatic movement, you don't have the New Apostolic Reformation, look at the trail of what's happening today, and look at the fruits of that. It's the same exact thing from the same exact tree producing the same exact fruit, and what did Jesus say, examine the fruit?

So if you want to know what's in the message cult, just look at the mess in televangelism today in the New Apostolic Reformation, all these movements, look at all the mess that's created, and you can trace it all straight back to Brannum.

There's a lot there, John, and that's actually the tenth chapter of my book is how all of this transitions to Kansas City prophets and into the charismatic movement. And before we're done with this, John, yeah, we'll record some episodes. We've tried before, but we'll do it again. We'll connect all the dots and show how all the dots connect from the message to New Apostolic Reformation. I mean, they're right there, and it's very obvious, yes. I mean, when you just know the backstory of a few of the people. So that's the message in Brazil. Let me talk next, John, a little bit about the message in Africa, and we just talk about

maybe one or two of the sex of the message that are there. Now, like Brazil, John, the message in Africa was in its early days was entirely part of one of the other large international fellowships, right? Because we were all doing mission outreach. My fellowship, the fate assembly fellowship was doing outreach. The main sect was doing outreach. Ewald Frank was doing outreach. Joseph Coleman was doing outreach. All the sex of the message were in Africa doing outreach through their mission networks. And as you come up through the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, definitely into the 90s,

there really wasn't any significant independent message network in Africa. I would say as you come through the 90s, every significant message group in Africa is part of one of the larger fellowships. But as you, as time goes on, that starts to change. And for the sake of numbers, John, I would say that it was roughly the mid-early 1980s when Africa became the majority of the message. 80, you know, I would say by 85, 1985, Africans are the majority of the message community. And from there it explodes. It explodes today where today Africans are probably, Africans are probably 80%

of the message community today, John. I would say that's a fair number. 75 to 80% of the message community. So that transition happened starting in the 80s and then exploding up through the 90s and early 2000s. Well, as different things began to unfold in the other sex of the message.

Some of the African groups began to break away. When Sydney Jackson died, that's one of the first significant things that happened. When Sydney Jackson died, I've mentioned before how Perry Green had robbed Sydney Jackson right before he died.

Well, that created some bad blood. Some of Sydney Jackson's network ended up going with Ewald Frank. Some ended up with the main sec. Some completely broke away and did their own thing. And it's really with the death of Sydney Jackson.

And I want to say 1982 that you really start to get truly independent African sex of the message. But they're pretty small at first. They're not real big, and they're still somewhat affiliating with the larger sex.

The next really big breakaway event that happens, John, is as you come up into the late 90s and early 2000s, as you come into those years, that's when Raymond Jackson and Perry Green and Leavale and Joseph Coleman, all those guys, they're all going into declining health and starting to die.

And as they die, their fellowships are starting to break up. And then some of the African groups and their fellowships break away and become independent at that point as well. That's happened in the late 90s, early 2000s.

So you're getting more and more independent African sex of the message as you come into those years. And then, of course, you have the rise of Joseph and then those other events that also give rise to some different message groups in Africa.

Another really notable thing that happened that caused a pretty big schism in Africa was basically the polygamy scandals around Ewald Frank. And we didn't really talk about this directly when we were with Ewald Frank episodes, but Ewald Frank more or less tolerated polygamy

in his churches in Africa. Oh, I'm going to use the word tolerate, okay? He for sure tolerated it, but it was always rumored and always said that he'd actually endorsed polygamy to the Africans.

And there was a fairly substantial, especially in Central Africa, a fairly substantial network of French-speaking polygamous churches. There was also a network of English-speaking polygamous churches in Zimbabwe, South Africa, that area. So there's two networks of polygamous churches, the French ones and the English ones.

The French ones are aligned with Ewald Frank. The English-speaking ones are aligned with the main sect as you're coming through the 80s. Well, Ewald Frank, the French-speaking polygamous, it finally becomes a crisis in Central Africa as you come into the late 90s.

I want to say he's late 90s and early 2000s. And Ewald Frank goes to Africa, and this is not in English, so he does all this in French, but there's videos. of it, where Ewald Frank in French says, oh, I don't believe in polygamy.

Please, you know, I don't preach polygamy. And when he, when he publicly does that in Central Africa, his polygamy sex, some of them break away. And that's how you get an independent French polygamy sex, as they break away from him when he claims that he no longer doesn't believe in polygamy.

So that happens. And that happened. I want to say it was 2006 or 2007, John. And there, there's a couple, like I said, large polygamy sex. One of them is, I would say the main church is in Kinshanna, which I believe is in the DRC, Kinshanna.

There's another one in Brazaville, Congo, that area, from what I understand. And then they're just kind of spread out from there. We're not going to talk about those ones too deeply, but we will talk about the English speaking one a little bit.

The English speaking polygamy second Africa was led by Robert Martin Gumbura in Zimbabwe. So the French speaking one was led by a man named Marcuna. And then there's other men that came after him, but Marcuna is the one who started the French speaking polygamous sect under Ewald Frank.

Well, Robert Martin Gumbura was converted in under Sidney Jackson, who was also a polygamous. And Robert Martin Gumbura, John, I think is a very interesting one worth following. He and another set of people were, I believe his name was Chastandee Godwin, I believe was his name.

Is Godwin Chastandee actually? Him and Godwin Chastandee were converted by Sidney Jackson. They were educated in this, I say, educated, indoctrinated in this little seminary that Sidney Jackson ran. They fellowshiped with the main sect.

They were like main sect mission preachers in Zimbabwe up to through the 70s. But then in the early 80s, Sidney Jackson died, that stuff all happened. And Robert Martin Gumbura breaks away from the main sect at that point.

And yeah, interesting stuff, isn't it? 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 Random Historical Research's website, William-Branum.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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So this is one of the stories of the message cult that is more interesting and probably deserves 10, 15 podcasts. There's really no way that I can sum up everything, all the complexities of this big mess in just a few minutes.

But this is one that I feel has got far less attention than it should have. Because you have Inzin Bobway, you have the same exact scenario that's playing out in South America. Very, very similar cult strategies with political motivations.

And in this case, very much like Colonia Dignidad was military connections between them all. But Inzin Bobway, you had a very discontent government and rule over people. Because you had for almost a decade, you had Robert Magabe, and I'm probably pronouncing that incorrectly.

But his regime, it was a military dictator style regime. Through his reign, the country was going into decline. Economic decline, there are food shortages, there are all kinds of bad things happening because of him.

Well, one of his former army captains, his name was Albert Matapo, was the military brain behind an organized coup to overthrow him. And his ambition was to enforce a stronger military dictatorship. Robert Gumbura, as you mentioned, he had all of the sexual crimes, et cetera.

He goes to prison for it. But from prison, he somehow orchestrates international connections between all of this coup. You had Albert Matapo is wanting to bring in personnel, bring in military-grade weapons, arms, and overthrow the government.

From his prison cell, Robert Gumbura was orchestrating communications between all of the different parties. He is sending communications directly to Albert Matapo from prison. He is sending communications directly to former vice president Joyce Majuru, I believe is how it's pronounced.

And Majuru is going to be the one who's set into control in the government. At the same time, all of this is going on. The message cult, many members of the message cult, infiltrated the banking system.

So they actually had control of the banks and the banking decisions. They could approve and reject loans. And so as the military is trying to get money for arms and build up that side of the organization, Gumbura is using his forces in the banking system to open up the funding for it.

And so he's communicating through these letters that are snuck in and out of prison, directly to the vice president, directly to the captain of the army. And fortunately, there was some sort of a spy that was planted in the prison that was...

kind of watching all of this happen. So they had intelligence that all of this was going on. They had intelligence of the coup. In the climax of it, they tried to stage this huge prison revolt, which was going to be a distraction for the coup that was going to be enacted.

The intelligence was aware that this was happening, but the plan was that Robert Gumburo was to escape prison in that and then he would be set up as a high ranking official in the government that was coming.

So the message cult would have actually taken over the government in Zimbabwe. There's so much crazy stuff in the message, John, and it seems especially in some of these really troubled countries, almost failed state sort of countries where this stuff thrives, right?

I mean, we see it in Chile, for example, which is not failed country, but Chile with Cloney, Dignidad, this sort of stuff. There is stuff like this happening in the DRC. There's stuff like this happening in Zimbabwe.

There are a number of places around the world where we see this really strange stuff. And what is it? What is it? Is it clandestine government stuff going on? It's not entirely clear, but it seems that way.

It sure seems like in some cases that some foreign governments are involved in some of this stuff and working with them or facilitating it. It is certainly an unusual thing. So Robert Martin Gumbura, yeah, he was a leader of a large sect of the message, a large independent breakaway sect of the message in Zimbabwe.

And you're correct, yeah, he got arrested. He had a commune in Harare, the capital is in Bobway. He ended up getting arrested for terrible things and went to prison. You're right. And then towards the end of his life, he leads a prison riot, which doesn't work out for him very well.

And he ended up dying of COVID during COVID in prison. But yeah, I mean, you were starting to see that there are these breakaway sects of the message in Africa. And there's quite a lot of them there today.

You know, what I've thought about doing, John, if I wrote another book, I thought about I would make my next book, The Message in Africa. That certainly needs a lot more attention. You're right that that is a poorly covered section of the message.

And because honestly, since the mid-1980s, the majority of the message community is in Africa. But I'll tell you, the majority of my books is about the North American, you know, the North American and rest of the global community, you know.

They really could use a lot of focus to kind of explain how the message evolved there, the groups and how things happened. As like I said, in a nutshell, the way I understand it, the way I look at it, is they were all mostly part of the larger sects of the message through the 70s, through the 80s, but you start to see the breakaways happen as the city Jackson dies, as Ewald Frank has his, you know, polygamy issues, as the senior leaders of the other- large sex. That's when they start really breaking away, you know, in doing their own independent

things. And some of them in Africa, John, had a direct line to Fred Soffman. Oh my goodness. And some of them are like direct plants out of the deity cult too. Okay. Like I mean, they're straight up, they are deity cult. They're African deity cult too, you know, where they worship. They worship William Brown. It was God incarnate and do all the baptized praying his name stuff too. Like every sect of the message seeded themselves in Africa.

And then as the old central leaders died, they further schism, you know, just like just like happened in North America. Yeah, there's just a whole lot more of them in Africa. You know, what's really interesting is that like we have in the United States with the conspiracy over JFK, you had the same thing happening in South American colonial digna-dad.

And we interviewed the professor at the university. He was telling us, John, this is your JFK that's happening here, colonial digna-dad. So your message cult is involved here. And he was surprised whenever there were connections not only between William Branum, Roy Davis, and the Kennedy assassination, but also the file that they had on Kennedy down in colonial digna-dad.

That was interesting. Well, you have the same kind of conspiracy happening in Zimbabwe. There's this massive coup, and you have the equivalent of the CIA in Zimbabwe that's explaining to the court system that this was what was happening. This was like the Central Communications Hub. That's how they were getting messages to one another is through Robert Gumbura in prison. Yet he did not get convicted of any sort of crime for doing this. And he's essentially trying to overthrow the government. So there's a lot of conspiracy as to what happened and why he wasn't convicted for passing those letters. But the thing that they

did get him, like you said, there were some sexual crimes. I'll just say it like that so that YouTube doesn't block us. But at its root, I want to go deeper on that. So his crimes link back to many doctrines that we hear both in the NAR today and in many various message circles. Some of our listeners have probably heard it, not all of them, but there's this term that seemed to be floating around. I can't tell if it originated with Brannem's message or before, but it certainly had its way as one of the fruits that we've examined of the message.

There's this term of spiritual husbandry, which is nonsense, utterly nonsense. This isn't a biblical doctrine. This is for a predator to take over his prey. That's what this doctrine is all about. But the term spiritual husbandry, you become the spiritual husband of the women of your church. And that's how it works in these authoritarian groups. Well, then when you take somebody who has a nature that is beyond that of wanting to just go in the spirit, but now let's go into the flesh. He goes into the flesh. And I'll say it like that, so that YouTube doesn't block us. This is what happened. Robert Gumbura became the so-called

spiritual husband of all these women of the church and started acting upon all of the blessings of marriage that a husband should have with his wife in the church, where he went wrong as he started filming it. And so because he started filming it, this is how it got, this is actually what got him convicted. He did not get convicted for his role in the coup after he's in prison, and he's involved in passing these letters and actively involved in the coup. He does not get convicted of that, but his crimes remained centered around the fact that he was the spiritual

husband of the women of the church, and he was acting upon his gifts of what he could do as a spiritual husband to those women. That is correctly. They basically got him on what would essentially be creating pornography, you know, is what they got him on out of all the stuff that he'd done, you know. And when he got arrested and all that, the news media got to go into his commune, and he had these massive beautiful murals of William Brannum on the wall. It's pretty creepy stuff, I gotta say, Robert Martin-Gumbera. You know, we live from Arizona to South Carolina

everywhere and between growing up. We went to all these various message churches. We'd come back to Indiana, ironically, would move and then move away, but it wasn't until I became an adult when we moved back. I was, I think it was like 20 or so when we moved back to Indiana the last time.

And I was a little bit shocked at what the church was actually like once I got here for a while. And the irony of that is everybody who wants to move back to Mecca for the message called to move back to Jeffersonville, when you're away from it, you don't notice it. It's just, it somehow goes completely unnoticed. But when you move back, you start to realize that they're actually openly worshipping William Brannum in this place, openly. And there are people who are praising his name, praying in his name, baptizing in his name. This deity cult somehow slips under the radar

of all of the message people. But you mentioned Fred Sothman. My family knew Fred Sothman, and I have friends that are related to Fred Sothman or indirectly related to Fred Sothman. This man was crazy. We have, you know, we have published videos in the past of him saying that William Brannum was greater than Jesus. He was God in the flesh, all of these things very similar to what my grandfather said. My grandfather said in his resignation that William Brannum was God, Tabernacled, and human flesh. That is what's produced in Jeffersonville. And I think we mentioned

this either last podcast or the one before. When all of these NAR guys come to Jeffersonville to either grave soak or to visit the church, he goes, through the tours of history of William Brannum and the healing revivals, what they failed to mention when they go back to their churches is those people, they're weird, man. They're praying in Brannum's name instead of Jesus' name.

That's the kind of thing that's happening. And like you said, Fred Sothman was integral in all of this. Brannum appointed him. Brannum knew that Fred Sothman was worshiping him. And Brannum, you know, he makes the statement on recording, they're worshiping in my name and that's wrong. But then he goes and he appoints all of the guys who are in the deed, he called, who are worshiping him to be in leadership. That's what leadership led the message and produced the fruits that we're talking about.

I look forward to recording the episodes on the main sect because we are going to, we can take our time and deep dive all of that, all of that, John. You know, we can go through that history and the roles that all these people play Floyd Patterson and Leo Mercer and Gene Goad and Fred Sothman and just go on down the list with all the stuff that happened. Mr.

Brewer and all the rest of them and just walk through all of that because there is stuff there that I think people, it's very obvious once you see the dots, but I just think there's some stuff there that people in their minds, they don't connect, which we will, we will connect for them.

Coming back here, looking at these kind of smaller and more minor sects of the message, we've got two more I want to talk about, John, before we wrap up. And like I said, there's more in this chapter in my book on all this than we're going to talk about here, but the first one I want to mention, John, is a man named David Terrell. David Terrell, and he led the David Terrell Evangelistic Association. Now, this guy and the next one we're going to mention two, these are both people in the message would not consider them the message,

right? Like in the message, nobody would consider David Terrell to have been the message. No one would have considered Neil Frisbee to be in the message, but they were in their own minds, William Brannum's successors, and they both got it in rather weird ways. Well, David Terrell, first one we're talking about, he was at, and I believe this was the only time in his life, he was ever at a Brannum meeting. He was at William Brannum's Shreveport meetings in 1965, November 1965, which was the last significant meetings that William Brannum held before he died.

And if our listeners remember at those meetings, William Brannum infamously shared his sermon on the wings of a Snow White dove in which he explained how he had become possessed by demon squirrel that came into his body and was torturing him, and then how God delivered him from the demon squirrel that had been tormenting. Anyway, so he may have been cracking up mentally when he preached that sermon. Well, at that service, John, David Terrell claims.

that William Brannum commissioned him as his successor, okay? And, you know, what's interesting about that, John, is, I mean, we know lots of people who are at those meetings personally. David Parallel was not the only person who claims William Brannum commissioned him as a successor in that meeting.

So maybe William Brannum was handing out successor commissions, I don't know. My guess is William Brannum was probably, you know, doing the, I'm gonna be gone one day and you're the generation that has to carry it on, sort of a bit, right?

And they all interpreted as being appointed as his successor, but at any rate, David Parallel walks away from that believing he has been appointed as William Brannum's successor and then William Brannum dies roughly a month later and he is like just enthralled.

Oh my goodness, William Brannum is dead and now I'm his successor. He told me right before he died. And so he was never, ever embedded in the message community in any real way, right?

Like I said, he met William Brannum once and it was a very minor thing, but he more or less believed and taught that he was continuing William Brannum's message. He adopted believe the belief that William Brannum was Elijah, taught almost all the same lighter-ranked themes and he had a church in Texas in Banks, Texas.

He had all of his people gather there, more or less congregate in Banks, Texas. He told them to do that in 1974. He believed in William Brannum's 1977 Doomsday prediction so he was gathering all of his followers for the end of the world.

1977 came and went, the end of the world didn't happen, but he's now got together his followers. And he ended up establishing a fairly sizable network of churches around North America who observed his teachings that he preached to as he claimed to have William Brannum's mantle in some ways.

He passed away, he's passed away here a few years ago, but his followers are still around and he spread his version of the message quite all over the place, really, to a lot of people.

And so we'll run into people here there have different ones reach out who tell us about David Terrell and their interactions with him. And again, it's just kind of an interesting thing. He didn't pay taxes, he got into tax suits with the government, there is some indications here that he was engaged in criminal activity.

But like I said, he was never really in contact with the branches of the message that had a true line of dissent out of William Brannum's inner circle. He's one of these guys who kind of showed up on the fringe at the very last minute and thought he was William Brannum's successor.

I've had several people contact me from the David Terrell group. And you know, I'd never heard of him while it was in the message. It wasn't until afterwards I'd begin researching, but it was odd the similarities in how they viewed him as we would view William Brannum.

He was, like you said, he was the successor. He was the God among the people, although. They would say, we don't worship the man. We worship the God in the man. Much like they do in the message. But, you know, when you examine the fruits of these extremists that want to become miniature gods to their people, you can't say that that didn't come from William Branham.

Because Branham would often use quotes that are describing Jesus from the Bible, and he would inject himself in those quotes. He may not outright say, I am Jesus, but he would say, and do you remember the time I was doing such and such and such and such?

And the Bible says, and then he would read you a verse about Jesus. And so in your mind, you are mentally linking the two things together. On the one hand is Jesus, and on the other hand, is what William Branham did, said, or lied about, one of the three. Well, that is what was carried forward by these extremists. They took that same strategy. They started doing the same thing, but here's where it gets really odd for me, Charles. The ones that do that, they do that because they recognize the pattern of what William Branham did. They saw how William Branham was manipulating

crowds to worship them. They saw the massive amounts of money that flowed through these meetings whenever he would do this. And here's where I think I feel sorry for many leaders in the message.

I feel sorry for pastors. I feel sorry for evangelists. I know a guy who literally lost his ability to walk by spreading the message all throughout Mexico and South America. He ended up injuring himself. I feel sorry for this man. This man had no clue that he was spreading alive.

But these men who go to the authoritarian leadership of a deity to their people, the only way in which they can do that is if they recognize William Branham's strategy of using deity claims on himself indirectly to sway the masses and manipulate the masses, they recognize that pattern and they do it. So they have to do it knowingly. That's the difference between them and the casual minister who is just duped in this message. Interesting stuff. It's unfortunate too, a lot of it.

As we kind of come here to the last guy I want to talk about in the last sort of a sect of the message, David Terrell, like I said, these are, it's a very, it's almost fringed to consider them message. People in the message wouldn't, but I did include them in the book because David Terrell and this next man we're going to talk about Neil Frisbee, they are part of a group of preachers who did more or less think they inherited William Branham's mantle.

But they don't descend from the William Branham's inner circle or the true core of the of the original message community. Their guys kind of off to the side who were aware of William Branham through the healing revival years and different things. And for whatever reason, William Branham died. Maybe they're an opportune I don't know.

And they say, hey, that guy over there that we met one time died, hey, guess what? We got his mantle. And they tried to repeat it. Well, Neil Frisbee is another one of these kind of guys.

And what's important is these guys, Neil Frisbee more so, and then some others we're going to talk about, you know, when we talk about the Paul Kane and the new Apostolic Reformation guys, they got the idea that they were William Brannum's successor in some way or another.

And they play an important role in taking William Brannum's teachings into the emerging charismatic movement. Neil Frisbee is one of the probably the most successful people at doing this. And so let's talk about Neil Frisbee a little bit.

Who was Neil Frisbee? Neil Frisbee was a healing evangelist who worked in the healing revivals. You'll find a little bit of his advertisements and voice healing magazine. He was like the bottom tier, John.

He was like with Harry Hample and Estil Bealer, right? They were like, way down at the bottom of the healing evangelists going out during the healing years. And but through that, he had, Neil Frisbee had at one point or another came in contact with William Brannum.

And they were acquainted. They knew each other. They had been, no doubt they had been at some of the big conventions together, you know, the healing conventions together when they had the big get-togethers.

And somewhere along the line, he actually moved out to Arizona. And he got the idea that he was William Brannum's successor after he died. And he out in Arizona and Phoenix, Arizona, he built a large pyramid shape church, John.

And he had been a sea list evangelist, a minor evangelist with like the Harry Hamples and the Estil Bealers through the healing revivals. And so he had developed some following. But he settled down there in Phoenix.

He built the large pyramid shape church. He called it the Capstone Cathedral. And the whole architecture was even inspired by William Brannum's Capstone teachings. And he became a fairly prominent tele-avangilist with the nationwide tele-avangilism program.

And in that program, which he broadcasted from his church, he shared, John, most of the core teachings of the message and the broader later reign movement, later reign, manifested sons of God, the Elijah, the Elijah stuff, all the pyramidology, a lot of the Doomsday stuff, John.

And he's spreading that to just far and wide. And he influences a lot of people of what's becoming the early charismatic movement with those ideas. And he's doing this in the same years as the Jesus people movement is coming up.

He's influencing a lot of the early Jesus movement people as well. I mean, you should remember Chuck Smith is from that area too. He was acquainted with Chuck Smith, although I don't say in Chuck Smith endorsed any of Neal Frisbee's craziness, any more than any endorse Laundy Frisbee's craziness.

But we'll talk about that more in some later episodes. But basically, these are some guys that are prototypes of what's going to eventually turn into the NAR, John, they've got some basic elements of what's happening.

In the main sect of the message, John, and the sect I come from, the sects of the message that have true lines of descent from William Branham, they're looking at the Neal Frisbees and the David tarols of the world as impostors.

How dare these people, who have no line of descent from the prophet? How dare they set themselves up as his successors, you know, and look at their churches, their women have bobbed hair, my goodness, and how dare they steal our blessed revelation and then let their women bob their hair, right?

Like, that is how the main sects of the message are looking at these guys, but the truth is, even though that division is starting to grow, the truth is they're still cross over happening.

Paul Cain, for example, is running that divide. We're going to talk about other people who are running that divide when we do some episodes on that stuff. And while they, yeah, while they're rejecting some of the stricter legalistic holiness rules of the message, John, they are embracing the revelations of the message.

They're embracing all of the signs, wonders, miracles, aspects that came out of the Laterane movement as well. And laying the groundwork of what's gradually indeed going to lead up into the new apostolic reformation alongside other people that are coming out of the Laterane movement doing the same thing.

What's really funny, Charles, is that in the message cult, we would disavow these guys, even though they're displaying the fruits that came from the message, we disavowed them. Well, on the other end of the spectrum, you have the NAR people who would disavow and say, no, we're nothing like Neal Frisbee.

We've moved on past this or however they would want to word it. But then what happens is over time, they start to display many of the same fruits. So you can tell the tree by the fruit that it bears, that statement I think rings true with all of these guys.

But you really can't look at history and understand it correctly. If you don't examine both ends of the spectrum, yes, there were some people, even in the message, there are some churches I went to that other than mentioning Branum 50,000 times of sermon, they also did teach the Bible and some of the churches that I went to.

But then on the other end of the spectrum, you had some that had spiritual husbandry and they were acting upon it. Both sides came from the same tree. Just like I've got a tree with a bad side that doesn't hit the sunlight very well, well both sides of that tree are the same tree.

I can't say that the good side was not the same as the bad side. It is the same tree. What's really sad is in the churches that I would consider to be somewhat tame in the message.

People who are in those churches get a hold of the same recordings, get a hold of the same doctrines that many of which are extra biblical and then they go build other churches. In other words, they plant other trees and then those trees start to bear the same fruit that we're talking about.

all the way up to the New Apostolic Reformation. As many trees as you want to examine in this forest, they all have the same fruit in its end. So I don't think I could hit that any harder than I have, know the tree by the fruit.

That's what Jesus said to do. That's what I do. I think that's what you do. So thank you for doing this. I've enjoyed it, John. So this is our second lightning round. Just going through some random sex of the message that were prominent from 1966 up to 2005 that had an important impact.

The message's massive fractures started to happen in the later years of that range. The 90s and 2000s is when the message really fractured way, way, way more than it ever had before. Like if you look at the history of the message, it's been a history of schism.

But the rate of schism accelerates over time, right? You know, the first big schism is 68, 69. Then you get another schism in 72 and another one in 74 and another one in 79, right?

But by the time you get up to 1990, it is nonstop schism. I mean, it is schism. Every year you have schism after schism after schism. It's nonstop schisms. And so the rate of breakup of the message just becomes exponential.

And a lot of it in those later years are triggered by the scandals and decline of the central figures in the message. You know, as Billy Paul rolls out and Joseph rolls in, as Raymond Jackson dies, as Perry Greene dies, as all these, this is what facilitates a lot of the breakup of the networks, because a lot of it was held together by personal loyalty to the leaders and the relationships that they had maintained.

And as they are gone, the networks break up, new sex of the message appear in addition to the other ones through history that have happened over doctrinal schism. Yep, John, I think we're gonna have to talk about this, but I think our next episodes, we're gonna start talking about the main sect of the message, John.

And we can do a lot of episodes on the history of the main sect of the message in these years. So I look forward to diving into that with you. And there's so much to say.

Well, if you've enjoyed a show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-brandom.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. For more about the history of William Branham and the healing revivals, 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.