From Spoken Word to Silent Victims: The Birth of Voice of God Recordings

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 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 deity cult and the main sect of the message and for those who didn't tune in last time we're talking about the cult of worship of William Branham that basically

took over all of the entities that were primary to the following of William Branham. So whenever you hear these people from the NAR say they came and they visited the grave site or the Branham Tabernacle or the headquarters or the headquarters is called Voice of God Recordings you'll find there are key figures today that go visit these places what they don't tell you is they're going to a place that actually worships a dead human being and I grew up in this so I was there I was aware I knew it was going on I did not worship a dead human being

but I did not realize and recognize until I came back to Jeffersonville that was what was going on and that was what I was supposed to do and oddly you find all of these people even among the people who worshipped William Branham as quote God in the flesh like my grandfather if somebody were to approach them from the outside of this deity cult and asked do you believe that William Branham was God in the flesh I have actually heard my grandfather vehemently deny this he would he would not admit it except for in his resignation speech

that's the only way I got it on recording he finally after all of those decades admitted it from behind the pulpit that he believed what was his words Branham was God tabernacled in human flesh and honestly I could say a lot about the movements and the headquarters in Jeffersonville and what people believe but my grandfather really summed it up well and you go to my website you can type in the resignation into the search bar you'll find it you can listen to his own words but this became a cult that worshiped William Branham and we're going to get into some of the dynamics of the business

structures today I want you to realize that this happened as the charismatic movement was Really starting to blossom, Brannum was the pillar that lifted most of those ministries up. They either were directly descended from it or they were descended from others who had been part of that movement, many of which, like T.L. Osborne, were also part of the movement that believe William Brannum was God in the flesh.

This was openly declared we've mentioned it a few times. So as we get into today's episode and we talk about the business structures, remember that all of these organizations are dedicated to the worship of a dead human being.

That is very well said, John. Very well said. I mean, even the names of the organizations are blasphemy. Truthfully, if you understand what the word in the meat. So today, John, what I especially are hoping we can do is there was a crisis that hit the central institutions of the message in the 1980s.

And I definitely want to get there and just talk about that crisis a little bit, but before we can get there and talk about that, we first have to talk about the history of the central institutions just a little bit, how they got started, how they came together, who led them.

And I think if we do that, stitch all those things together, connect all those dots, it's gonna help people understand the crisis of the 1980s a little bit better, is to just what was such a big deal about it.

Now, as we do that, before we dive in too deep, the first thing I got to point out is the central institutions, except for the William Brown Evangelistic Association, the central institutions were actually created doctrinally in the message through the church order sermons, John.

Three of the four central institutions were organized in these sermons. And I've mentioned before we did, I believe several full episodes on church order. Church order is like the constitution of the message. This isn't, you know, Jesus died and now you're saved and believe on him by faith, that is not what this is.

This is how to organize the business entities. This is how to handle discipline. This is how church services should be carried out. This is much more, you know, metal meat the road for how the cult is organized.

In most branches of the message observe this in some degree or another for how they organize themselves. And what William Brandham did in church order is he set up three institutions, okay? Now, the fourth one he set up in 1965, we talked about that one just a little bit in a minute maybe, but the William Brandham Evangelistic Association was set up after these three.

But these three were set up in the earlier sixties and later fifties and what he did is he, the first, of course, the oldest institution is the Brandham Tabernacle itself. That was the church that your grandfather was pastor over for 50 years, John.

And... It's the oldest, it's the granddaddy of it. And what he does in there is he sets up how the board should be organized, how elections should happen, how discipline can carry out the authority of the deacons, the authority of the trustees, the authority of the whole bit.

And in summary, the way that he built out the system, John, to be a trustee or a deacon at the brand of tabernacle, you had to be appointed by the general overseer and then confirmed by an election of the congregation.

That's essentially how it worked. So the general overseer appointed somebody to basically stand as trustee or deacon like it wasn't an open election, you know, just anybody couldn't run. He appointed you and then the congregation gave you a vote of confirmation, basically.

And the general overseer though was not an elected position. It was he was in it, William Brannum was general overseer and he was there forever until the day he died. And then of course the same, more or less with Joseph, as he found himself to the top level in that institution as well.

So basically the central figure controls who gets what position. And so William Brannum had put the deacon members by large into control of that church before he left, the brand of tabernacle before he left.

As we mentioned before, the only member on the board at brand of tabernacle who wasn't a full-fledged member of the deity cult was Banks Woods. And Banks Woods resigned shortly after William Brannum died because he was upset that Billy Paul had did the hostile takeover.

And when he resigned, that left the tabernacle deacon board, or rather the tabernacle trustee board, fully in the hands of the brand of deity cult. So that's the first institution I want to talk about and just point out to you, those names on it.

Fred Soffman was on the board back then, John. Your grandfather was on the board as a trustee before he became pastor. He became pastor a few years later. And Roy Roberson, those were really the three key guys on the board that had voting majority John.

Was your grandpa? Roy Roberson and Fred Soffman. They were the three trustees that formed the majority of that board and gave the church over to Billy Paul, following the hostile takeover. They refused to confront him.

Of course, your grandfather was also out in Arizona at that time too. He wasn't actually a intending member. So basically, it was the takeover from Arizona of the brand of tabernacle. So anyways, that piece is interesting and I'll point out some more things in the next one.

It is interesting. And the fact that grandfather was out of state, it gets a little bit odd. Because in the later years, I know that I've mentioned this on recording and I don't even believe any of the deacons that were in the tabernacle at that time would deny it if you were to ask them.

But your vote was not counted when you voted. at the brand of tabernacle, you had to pay ties. And I can't remember the limit. There was a number of financial number that they had to meet, I think, before they would count it as actually paying ties.

And so even if you were in attendance every single Sunday and there were a large number of people that paid their tith to the organization instead of the brand of tabernacle, those people, their votes were not even counted.

So every election my grandfather would stand up and say, now we've taken the vote and everything remains the same. And that's the reason why, because your vote literally wasn't counted until towards the end, the number of people that were starting to, it was another hostile takeover, basically.

They came up, large number of people against my grandfather came, started paying ties, and they had to count the vote. And once they figured out how votes were counted, so there's some interesting history there too, which we won't go too deep.

But before we get into the rest of this podcast, I want to point something out. We're talking about the main sect of the message. We're talking about mostly here in Jeffersonville, but there's a spider web around the globe that consider themselves to be part of this.

There are also just as many, maybe more, Brannemites who see this whole thing as heresy. They, for example, William Brannem in September of 1958, preached this sermon, why we are not a denomination. And most people outside of the main sect view everything that's happening within all these organizations as spiritual fornication, because that's one of the things that William Brannem said in this sermon, he declared that anybody who created a denomination of faith was committing spiritual fornication and joining into the Catholic Church as the mother of heartlets.

And in the sermon, he talks through the history of how Lutherans, Methodists, bad to all come together as organizations, and I can't remember his exact words, but he said, basically, they die and they can never be spiritually revived.

He focused on God dealing with individuals, not institutions, and he declared that denomination separated you from the body of Christ. So even if you're in a denomination and you're Christian and you're professing to be saved by Jesus's blood, and you've, you basically, if you are a Christian and you're in an organization, he declares you're having accepted the mark of the beast.

I'll just say it like that. But in the sermon, he goes through and he condemns all of these denominations, but he targets specifically organizations. He said, basically, once you form an organization, you spiritually are dead.

And so people outside of this, they look at, well, wait a minute. there is an organization. This whole thing is established as an organization. And it was, there were organizations in existence when Brandon was alive towards the end. But this whole thing established, Brandon condemned the whole thing as being heresy and part of the mark of the beast, the mother of Harlitz. I know what you mean, John. Isn't it so strange? I mean, essentially, the central institutions of the message are the denominational level bodies of the main sect.

I mean, it's really what they are, you know, when you think through them all, you know, how they work. And because they control, I mean, they own, they own property and they own churches all over the world, right? Like a lot of the property and assets of churches in Africa and in Europe and in India and other places. A lot of those assets are owned by incorporated groups that are basically sub entities of the central institutions, right? We talked about that a little more with Boyce of God. But in a lot of places, they own the churches, John. Like I work

with a lot of people that have left the message. There's people who have left a lot of message churches in Africa. And guess what? Boyce of God keeps all of their property when they leave because the central institutions own, own, you know, the assets and properties. And it's not necessarily Boyce of God here in the United States. They've created sub entities in the other countries, right, that are registered within those national countries according to their local regional laws, right? But they have those sub entities basically all over the world. Yeah, I mean, it's absolutely, I mean, like a denomination, you know, and in some ways, even more controlling

than your typical denomination. I mean, when the Methodists say, hey, we're breaking away, they let them go, right? But you try to leave Boyce of God. No, we're keeping your church, ladies and gentlemen. So it's pretty, it's pretty, pretty rough stuff that happens to some of those people when they try to get away, John. It's not easy. Yeah. So, so there is, there's Boyce of God, there's Boyce God and spoken word publications. Those are the next two I want to talk about, John.

And the way, the way again, I'm trying to refer to them certainly is the franchise, which became Boyce of God recordings and the franchise, which became spoken word, okay? And it's important to realize that what Boyce of God and what spoken word are, they were established years before William Brannum died as franchises. And those franchises are talked about right here in the church order books.

In these books, William Brannum explained how the franchises were to be set up, how they were to be organized, who would lead them. And he also explained how the finances work, John. What, what those institutions did, spoken word and voice of God, the franchises that became them, they were to pay a royalty, a royalty on every, on every piece of literature they sold, a royalty on every tape they recorded, got...

paid up the chain, up the pyramid, okay, and ended up obviously with William Branagh. And so he explained in the church order book how the royalty system wants to work on the intellectual property of the message, okay. And the first one I want to talk about is the franchise that became spoken word publications. Now, that franchise, again, was set up in those books when William Branagh preached that late 50s and early 60s. And when it was originally started, the head of that franchise was Banks Wood, the man who resigned in protest that I just recently had mentioned that was on the church board. So he was running it. And he was essentially

taking over from the original people who were publishing William Branagh's literature, which was really the voice of healing folks, right. Gordon Lindsay's people, Jack Morse people, they were the ones who were doing the bulk of publishing and editing of William Branagh's literature and sermons up until Banks Woods took over and he started that franchise.

Up to that point, they're heading meant a lot. Even when he died, there wasn't a lot. There was maybe 35-ish of William Branagh's sermons. And they were, for the most part, they were entirely a bridged version of his sermons that had been published by the point in time when he died. The only really notable thing that had been published before he died was, or almost right on the edge of being published, was his church age book, which, truth is, it did come out just shortly after he died, but they were working on it for a few years. Anyways, Banks Woods was

running that organization, and Leavale was more or less chief editor of that organization. And what happens is, they're the people William Branagh appointed into it. When William Branagh died and that hostile take over the Branagh Tabernacle happened, that is when Banks Woods resigned as trustee at Branagh Tabernacle, but he also resigned as head of the franchise that controlled the literature publication at the same time. Okay? Leavale stayed on. But that then created an opening. They needed somebody else to run the literature publication franchise. And that is when Roy Borders enters into that position. So Roy Borders, who is Roy Borders? Roy Borders is a very

old-time ladder rain preacher. He actually toured with George Houghton and other original elders of Sharon Orphanage back in the 40s when when ladder rain had just got started. He was a very well-known ladder rain preacher from the very earliest days of ladder rain. He was the man running spoken word publications for its first decades. And it actually took the name spoken word publications under his leadership in I want to say it was 1969 that it was formally organized into spoken word publications. Now he had been running it since roughly 67, but 69s when they incorporated organized name that spoke in order.

publications, and he ran that institution. It was under his leadership that the whole debacle with Lee Veil happened where they realized, no, we can't edit William Branham sermons because there's too much backlash. He's the man who really ultimately, along with Billy Paul, made the decision to print all of William Branham sermons verbatim. And he's the one who oversaw a lot of the, you know, the original transcription work of Branham sermons. Now when Branham died, William Branham died. There was only about 500 of his sermons actually in circulation and recorded in circulation when he died. There's well over 1,000 now.

But back then, when he died, they had roughly 500 sermons to transcribe and boyboarders is the man who kind of spearheaded that effort. Now a lot of the people working in spoken word and a lot of the work to do the transcription was actually happening out in Arizona back then, John. A whole lot of the message community had moved to Arizona. And the actual original printing work or a lot of the original transcription work, a lot of that was happening in Arizona and it was happening. The people back then were in the Tucson tabernacle, right? So Perry Green was deeply involved in the early

operations with spoken word publications. And that's also when this crisis happens that we're going to talk about in the 80s and a lot of these guys end up coming back to Jeffersonville. A lot of that equipment ends up out there because Perry Green had helped procure a lot of that too. And so that's how he ended up with a lot of the literature publication ability because he had basically the originals of the spoken word stuff out there with him that they didn't bring back here to Jeffersonville. So anyways, that is the history of spoken word up into the 80s. And what leads into the crisis with spoken words

is boyboarders actually died in the 80s, John. I believe he died. I want to look, I think it was 1982 to four. I got the exact dates in my book. And it's easily found online. I'm coming out of where my people volume two. But he died.

I believe it was not between 1982 and 1984. I'll get the next day here. Why you chat next, John? But he died. And that put spoken word publications into a crisis of leadership. Okay. And I'm just going to kind of leave that there. And then I'm going to walk through the next franchise and show you how that crisis happens at the same time. So what do you think? So interesting stuff, isn't it, John? It is. And to an outsider looking in, even if you are in the random cult of personality, but you're looking in on the main

sect in this episode, and you, you're not part of this, it's hard to understand just the complexity of what Charles is describing. Because here, here in Jeffersonville, I think I have mentioned this a few times. If you attended the brand of tabernacle, and you're an outsider, you didn't catch it.

If you were, if you lived here for any period of time, you noticed that there were three different categories of people. You had the people who were strongly followers of prophet June. here, which I won't give the name, but everybody can figure out who I'm talking about.

Yeah, the people who were strongly devoted to my grandfather, and then you had this weird subset of people that were even further into the deity cult, so much so that they were openly declaring it.

And there would be, if any Easter or big event, there was always this big van parked out beside the tabernacle that said, either William Brannum was God or Prophet Jr. was God. My grandfather would have the deacons come out with black trash bags and duct tape and just tape over the side of it so people didn't think we were freaks, but that's what was going on.

So you had that level of complexity. Well, because you had these different sides of people, and they were strong divisions, I'll say it like that. What happened is, oddly, within the main sect, there was a cult that developed within the cult that was surrounding these organizations.

So while William Brannum was the central figure overall, you also had many who viewed it as like this trinity of God. You had William Brannum as the God, you had Prophet Jr. as the God, and you had these organizations as the God.

So you had this trinity of demons, basically, is how I best could describe this. But this is what happened, and this is what formed eventually, what would lead to another hostile takeover in the, what was it, year 2015, I think it was.

All of this comes from what we're talking about here. That's all very true, John. We ought to, before we're done, get all the way. Maybe we could go all the way up to 2015.

So I only went to 2005 in my book, but there has been a whole lot of really interesting things happen since 2005, so that we could definitely talk about some of that. That could be pretty interesting.

So coming back to the central institutions again, so we've talked about the Brannum Tabernacle. We've talked about spoken word, which is basically that franchise is doing all the literature publications. Now let's talk about the third central institution.

Now the third central institution is the franchise that became Voice of God recordings. Now this is probably, in some ways, the more important of the two, as far as creating literature and recordings. So the franchise that became Voice of God recordings was also organized, John, and the church order books.

This was in here, and Brannum explained how it works, how the royalties would happen, who would be in charge, and how all that would go. So the way that it was set up is, now tape production had been going on for some time before the franchise stuff was set up with church order.

The very oldest, oldest message tapes that we have today, John, were actually created by Estel Beeler. Very interesting. The original, the oldest recording. of the message known are Estrubeelers recordings. Like I mentioned, he was a healing evangelist.

He traveled the circuit a bit himself and he was a regular at the Brannem Tabernacle. The very oldest recordings are from him. Then some of the nearly oldest recordings are from Roy Roberson. Roy Roberson had a little wire recorder at the Brannem Tabernacle and he did some recording as well.

And so the oldest recordings up until Gene and Leo showed up was made by generally Estrubeelers or Roy Roberson. It wasn't a for-profit sort of a thing. It was just a, you know, they were just making recordings to make recordings.

It wasn't until, if you go back in time, the year that William Brannem started selling his recordings like advertising them selling was 1953. And if you will look through the timeline, what happened in 1953?

In 1953, William Brannem lost the sponsorship of Assemblies of God. Okay? He took a big financial hit that year and they started selling tapes as he lost that sponsorship. And so the tapes, in my opinion, was part of his effort to create a new revenue stream at that time when he lost a very important sponsorship.

So when he started making the tapes, he brought on to his team to, they were actually, one of them was not even an adult at the time. If you go back and look, Leo John was a minor when he started working for William Brannem.

I believe the math comes out to him being 15 or 16 years old when he started doing this, okay? He was a minor, John, when all this started. Now Gene Goad was not. Gene Goad was a few years older.

So Gene and Leo came on and they started traveling everywhere with William Brown and they would be responsible for making the recordings. And this started roughly 53 or 54 and certainly was going on by 55.

The exact date it started is a little hard to pin down. There's some varying accounts, but it's somewhere between 53 and 54 is a pretty safe bet that they started being the guys doing all the recordings.

So as it started, they made all the recordings, John, and they would sell the recordings and they'd get to have a little cut of whatever they sold, basically. That's how it worked. But when William Brannem did church order, he formalized it and he explained how it would work.

And we can only assume that it was similar to how it already worked. But in a nutshell, he gave permission for whoever was making the tapes to keep all of the profits except for the royalty that came back to him.

And his royalty was, I believe it was 25 cents a tape, John, was the royalty going back to William Brannem, if memory serves me correctly without looking it up. His royalty was 25 cents a tape.

And then whoever was running the franchise got to keep all the profits. Rest. Well, remember, they were charged at six bucks a tape, right? So that's that's five seventy five for me and twenty five cents for mr Brandon, you know, if if everything was being done according to the book. Now when he established church order, Jean and Leo continued to be the guys making the tape, but what he did is he put Fred Sothman and Fred Sothman son-in-law James McGuire in charge of the franchise. And what it did is it essentially turned Jean and Leo

into the employees of Fred Sothman and James McGuire. So Jean and Leo had they they had the master tape library. They had the duplicating equipment and they were still following William Brandon around by and large, making the recordings. And now Fred Sothman and James McGuire are the guys they reported to to make all the tapes, okay? Now this that's what happens here in church order. Now this was all before they moved to Arizona. In the early part of 1963, all these guys packed up and they moved to Arizona.

Jean and Leo moved out there for it. Sofman, James McGuire moved out there. William Brandon moved out there and they took all the master tape library with them. They took all of the recording and duplicating equipment with them. And as you know, James, John, Leo and Jean, they set up shop in Prescott, Arizona and they built the commune known as the park, which was a torture molestation commune and unspeakable horrors happened in that commune. There's I believe five or six survivors of that park who have told their stories. You can get and you can hear about the horrors that were happened in

that park. We did full episodes on it. There's been interviews with Deborah Tibito Dalton. And I'll also say this, John, some of the survivors of that park came back to my church after all that happened. And Jean God himself, John, came back and was attending my church in the 1990s, okay? The early 1990s. The last time I believe he was in our church was 1991. Jean God. So, yeah, we know a lot of stuff, okay? We're not disconnected from this stuff. We're not people talking about things we don't know. That's what people would like you to believe is that we're

talking about things we don't know. No, we talk of what we know and I have witnessed and seen, okay? And so at any rate, John, in the 1960s and the 1970s, where are all of the tapes coming from?

They're coming by and large from the park. The park is where the tape manufacturing enterprise was at. Fred Soffman, James McGuire, where the heads of the franchise, Jean and Leo were working for them, okay? And they're all in the deedy cult. It's all the deedy cult. James McGuire was in the deedy cult, too. And...

James McGuire was specifically one of the men William Brennan was talking about when he preached the Bruce serpent actually him and Fred Soffman were two of the three men that he was talking about specifically in that servant.

James McGuire and Fred Soffman and the third man named Tom Simpson are the ones who went to William Brennan's house after and apologized and didn't, you know, all that stuff hadn't it. Anyway, coming back to the, coming back to the park.

That is where the tapes by and large were being produced in the 60s and the 70s, John, ended up into the early 80s. The park imploded in, I want to say it was roughly 1978.

Some people, people left the park in waves over the abuse. I think the first big leaving was in 75, there was another heat, but Leo held on to some of the people and he kept things going there up until 78 and 79 and 80.

So Leo was still in that condition. They were still doing the tape manufacturing out there, John. He contracted the HIV virus AIDS, John, right in that period of time is what the message legend is and he died in 1987, but he contracted the AIDS right in that window as well.

And so you have this crisis hitting the central institutions. The two, he franchises that produced all the literature and all the recordings. One, the director, Roy Borders died of spoken word. He was, they were out doing their stuff in Arizona then and Leo and the park has went off the rails in a way that is unspeakably horrific, John.

And they have the master tape library in the Commune. So the whole thing, the central institutions are going into a crisis as you come into the early 1980s and something has to be done about it.

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So for the people who are outside looking in, the researchers who are listening to this podcast, I want to unwrap some of that. When we mention these names, Jean and Leo in the park, we actually have covered these in past podcasts if you want to go back, but Jean, God and Leo Mercer were basically William Brannum's scribes. If you consider what a biblical Old Testament prophet was, and how they had scribes to document what was said by the prophet, that's what they were establishing.

The difference is these so-called scribes never really documented prophecies before the event. Most of them were documented after William Brannum made the claim of the event. You can go look through his list of prophecies, and surprisingly there are, I think maybe only three out of, I can't remember how many there are, where the event occurred after it was declared. So these scribes failed in many many ways, but they established a commune, which was a prototype community that William Brannum was declaring as little gossian. And within this community, they were all kinds of abuse site.

I can't even go into details or YouTube would filter and block this video, but you can go into my website, you can type in Gene Goad or Leo Mercer. You can type in, I think it's Keith Loker, where the supreme court started investigating into the abuse in this compound. This was a horrific, horrific thing.

But keep in mind, so William Brannum is preaching. And for the era, if you were a even Pentecostal or mainstream minister within a normal church, you really didn't have all your statements recorded and published verbatim in the same way. You might have books, you might have literature. But these guys were literally recording and in the later years started transcribing these statements and think about the names of the organizations. The recording William Brannum's words, and they call it the spoken word. And later, voice of God recordings was established, like Charles mentioned. They were literally deity cult members who believe William Brannum was God in the flesh, establishing the written

word and the recorded word for today as a new Bible. And these were not good men. Like I said, you can go back and listen to the podcast. These were not good men doing this. But these men are what established the entire tear of organizations that exist today. You're correct, John. I mean, unspeakable horrors were carried out in the park. Terrible, terrible, terrible stuff happened to young children, young three, four, five, six-year-old children even, just horrendous, horrendous stuff, John.

And there are, I mean, to my estimation, perhaps 100 to 125 children victims of all of this. I mean, it's very horrific. Fixed up a number of them have come public and told the stories.

Um, and this, people tried to downplay this, John. They tried to downplay the park. Oh, this was a fringe. Oh, this wasn't really connected to the main sec. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me, right?

There is no message without these people. This is where the message, this is where the tapes come from. These were the men who made the tapes. If you subtract gene and you subtract Leo, there is no tapes.

There is no transcripts. There is no spoken words. You take these men away. You do not have a message. You cannot get more central to the message than these men and some of the things going on in this park, right?

And that's why of all of the areas of abuse and everything, John, I feel like for me, this is why I come back and focus on this one so much because it is so central and it's so dishonest the way that people try to hide everything and cover it up.

And John, how did they get away with it? Because I'll tell you what, a lot of people knew what was going on there. They knew what was going on while it was going on.

And as it all fell apart, because it was so central, because it was so important, it all had to be covered up. It had to be covered up because this was where the franchise that became voice of God recordings, God, its tapes, and produced its tapes, right?

Before voice of God existed, voice of God was organized in reaction to the crisis. I think that is a very fair assessment. That's my opinion, right? Other people might have a different opinion. My opinion is that voice of God was organized in response to this crisis in the 1980s, John.

The park imploded. The master tape library was in the hands of homosexual, child molester, sex perverts, right? And something had to be done because they had got HIV and we're going to die. Something had to be done in order to continue the tape manufacturing moving forward.

And you can look into when voice of God was organized, John. Actually, Joseph Brenham was actually very kind and he shared the letter when it was organized, John, in his Here I Stand that he mailed out, I believe in the 1990s.

There's a Here I Stand letter he sent out. And in that, Joseph Brenham shared the documents where voice of God was created. And in that document, it says that the franchise to produce tapes was being transferred by the William Brown Evangelistic Association, which owns all the intellectual property, the top of the pyramid, it transferred the franchise to voice of God recordings.

So the question is, who owned the franchise, John, before it was transferred to voice of God recordings? Hello, those dots and you are going to go straight to the park, ladies and gentlemen, okay?

Follow those dots. You'll go straight to the park. Fred Soffman was the man who owned the franchise and his son-in-law, James McGuire, and operations were being conducted in the park, okay? Voice of God had the franchise transferred to themselves by the WBA after, and if you line up all the dots and connect everything out, all of that happened in direct response and direct timing, in my opinion, to the breakup of the park, the HIV diagnosis of Leo and the death of Roy Borders, the crisis that struck the central institutions in the 1980s.

Now a person could speculate a lot of things about why organize a new legal entity, you know? I don't know to avoid legal responsibility, I don't know, we could guess there's a lot of reasons we could think, but voice of God was created in the aftermath of the collapse of the park to continue on production of tapes, and also to take over the literature publication in some ways because Roy Borders had died.

And when that happened, they moved the operations all back here to Jeffersonville, John. That's when a lot of the people who worked in the tape production and publication stuff, they moved back here. The DD cult, John, a lot of the DD cult returned from Jefferson, returned from Tucson back to Jeffersonville in the 80s as all as that all imploded, right?

And once again, Jeffersonville is the undisputed headquarters of the message from the 80s, right? But when all that imploded a lot of the, you know, stuff moved back here. So I'm just pointing this out and connecting these dots because John, I don't think that our average listener has connected these dots.

And I just want to make sure that people understand this. There's a reason we've honed in on the park and focused on that a lot. And there's also a reason why many leaders within the message never publicly cried out against what was happening in the park.

There were people who knew what was going on. That's the sad part of this. And if you go read the story or listen to our podcast and understand what was happening there, it is, it is one of the most awful, horrific things that you have.

You've never heard of. And it angers me that there were not people rising up and saying, you've got to put a stop to this called government, called the local authorities, make this stop. They're torturing kids.

And none of that happened. They knew that it was in existence. They knew what was happening there. Even long after the park was shut down in the, um, the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, nobody warned the message members that this could be a problem and that there were predators among the leadership.

But they knew, my grandfather knew that there were predators among the leadership. I can remember hearing not to the depth that I know now, but I remember hearing just stories here and there of what was going on.

Jean and Leo. And then from behind the pulpit, my grandfather would also talk as though they were these respected figures because it created the situation of conundrum. They're in leadership, they are solely responsible for every single thing that exists today, not just within the message, but even outside of the message. When you hear people like Perry Stone claiming that William Brannum was this great prophet, he only knows this because of these organizations. And whenever you hear, oh, I don't know, some of Paul Cain's testimonies of William Brannum, Cain was involved with this movement and he is another problem all of his own. He was there. He was there. But his

stories are confirmed and backed by these organizations. So whenever he tells it to people at Bethel Church, they contact these entities that are completely organized deification of Brannum denominations. They contact those people to get the literature that I have had people tell me who came out of Bethel's supernatural school of ministry. They call it Hogwarts, which is kind of funny. But they say within this supernatural school, they hit Brannum's literature, they got it because of these guys. So these are terrible, terrible human beings that were not stopped because they are what created everything that we see in existence. There would not be a message caught

without them, like Charles said. That is all very correct, John. We're very correct. And the history of these things is important to know, right? Now, are we saying that, you know, the leadership of voice of God was involved in doing all that stuff? No, not saying that. But I think it is fair to say that what happened with the organization of voice of God was, in my opinion, a reaction and to deal with the fallout of the collapse of the park and the death of Roy Borders. And you're correct, John. There was an active, consorted effort to cover it all

up, right? An absolute effort to cover the whole thing up. People did know what's going on, John. Let me read you a quote here, John. This is a quote from Perry Green, okay? And maybe before I read this quote, let me explain how serious some of this stuff was. So when Keith Locher, when that trial happened in the 90s, so Leo died of his medical condition in 1987, okay? At that point, Gene Goad came back here to Indiana. And like I said, at that point, he actually attended my church during the early 90s and was often to another church of our sect of the message after

that. Well, when he found out that the Locher trial was going and that people were going to testify about what happened in the park, okay? That all happened the week before their testimonies and stuff was going to happen. That is when...

Gene Goad committed suicide. Okay. Gene Goad committed suicide when he realized the stories were going to come out publicly. That's why he killed himself. And shortly after that, it all comes out and in those court trials, the people actually did name Gene Goad personally and some of the stuff he did in those trial records along with Leo.

And there was just unspeakable horrors that happened in the park, John. Again, our listeners are welcome to go listen, read articles and stuff and hear the things that happened. But he killed himself rather than have to live with the exposure of it. And let me though, read you a quote from Perry Green because there was, I'm telling you absolutely beyond a shadow of it out, a coordinated directed cover up of this whole thing by the senior leaders of the message and let me give you an example of Perry Green doing that.

This is on recording is on recording. I'll read it to you. Perry Green said this is from 2002. He said William Brannum spent two hours telling me about Leo and Gene. He told me how they had come and what they had done.

He told me all of their faults. He told me how they practiced extortion, how they got people to move out to Chicago, how they took money and that and sent him a little bit and kept the rest.

And he had me so angry at those two boys that the next time I saw them, I was going to roll up my sleeves and I was going to put some double anointing of Texas on them both.

We got back to Flagstaff, Arizona and we pulled up to the cowbells restaurant to go eat. And Brannum had done driving since Salt Lake City. You know how it is. We are stretching and getting the kinks out of our back and everything.

Brannum looks at his watch and he says, hey, we got a couple hours. We can go over the mountain here and see Gene and Leo before we go home. Perry Green made a very long pause right here John. Very long pause. I stopped. I said, Brother Brannum. I don't understand. He said, don't understand what?

I said, you spent two hours today telling me what crooks said they were and now you want to go see them.

And this was the only time Brother Brannum ever really rebuked me. He said, Brother Green, I am disappointed in you. You want to know my reaction? What did I do? He said, though I know you don't understand just because their crooks doesn't keep me from loving them.

So I started. Perry Green says, I started doing everything I could to love Leo and Gene. That's a loaded statement. I started doing everything I could to love Leo and Gene. I want you to know.

Don't you talk with a motive or a purpose to destroy them? You talk about them because it's the truth and you be sure you don't have any bitterness in your heart. You make sure your purpose is not to make them look bad. Whatever you do, you love them.

them. That is the way Brother Branum practiced it. Perry Green delivered those remarks and Ed Biskill's church to a crowd of nearly a thousand people. Okay. There was a directed cover-up of this whole thing. People were threatened. Like that. Ed Biskill's church, publicly, to not talk about this thing and to love Gene and Leo, no matter what they did. That is not the only one of these guys on recording doing this sort of stuff.

Gene and Leo, we're all children and bodies in basements and stuff. I mean, the horrors that these men were involved in and you just heard Perry Green. No matter what they do, you love them. That's the way Brother Branum practiced it. John, oh my, my John, the leaders are on recording directing the cover-up too.

Yeah, that's horrific what went on. And for the sake of the podcast platforms that we use, I will probably have to go back and edit some of what Charles had just said. Beep out some words. Beep out some words or something. So if you hear a beep, that's why it is.

But it is terrible what's happening in this movement and the leadership knew it. Most of the men are dead and gone, so we can't really hold them accountable. But the sad truth is that there were others who were not in leadership who also knew what was going on.

They didn't hold the leadership who was covering up accountable. So this turns into this big mess where there's this cascade of errors that basically leaves these men, you know, not held accountable. And the movement is growing and spawning off of that. That cover-up is what created the message that we see today.

You're correct, John. And the fact that there was a cover-up is, I mean, I think well documented just by quotes like that one I read you from Perry Green. And if you listen to the rationale of the people who were directing the cover-up, you heard how Perry Green said, Brother Brannum said to love them. And Brother Brannum said, just because they're crux, don't keep me from loving them, right? William Brannum is the one who gave this example to the leadership of the message. The reason Jean and Leo were allowed to get away with everything that they did is because William Brannum, while he was still living, directed the senior leaders

to allow Jean and Leo to get away with everything they did. Beyond a shout-out, I mean, that's exactly what Perry Green is saying. That's the same thing. Leaveale says. Leaveale says, for example, that William Brannum told it to him. And William Brannum even apparently showed Leaveale the Vision book, John. And leaveale says that he saw in the Vision book, thus say at the Lord, leave Jean and Leo alone. He saw thus say at the Lord, leave Jean and Leo alone in the Vision book. William Brannum was actively courting and instructing all the rest of the inner

circle to let Jean and Leo do whatever in the world they wanted and leave them alone. That's the testimony that comes to us from the other senior leaders and you got to wonder why it's very disturbing isn't it and it's especially disturbing to realize will you brand on was the one directing everybody to leave them alone if if you're a prophet of God John and you know that terrible things are going to happen like that but just let me ask you this would Jesus say leave them alone would God say leave them alone no no God would say call the police for goodness sakes that's what God would

say you know God would not say leave them alone God would say call the police and so again it's just so it's so terrible the stuff that was allowed to go on the other thing that's really difficult to put into words there were men and women who were part of this commune that Jean and Leo were leading who I have family members who were in that park and when they came out they were some really messed up people what had happened to them and the levels of authoritarian control that they were submitting themselves to was horrific and what it does to the mind is is awful you had

people who were in this who came out and went into other churches yet as we've mentioned before some of the mythology that developed in the message in the later years came from people who witnessed things that William Brannum said or did some of those mythologies were flowing out of the park obviously through Jean and Leo they just most of most of their time with William Brannum was you know spread throughout the message and I think it's even made it into some publications but these were messed up people so the mythologies themselves were also tainted and as that spread

through the message not only did you have this horrific group of men who created the organizations that stand today and the the organization simply would not exist without them the things that they were bringing to the table that became part of the movement was also just as bad you're correct John and so I hope that I have painted the picture for listeners of the crisis that hit the central institutions in the 1980s Roy Borders has died which puts spoken word into crisis the park has imploded the master tape library is in the possession of a man dying of HIV AIDS

the central institutions are in crisis besides that in these exact same years John is when Ewald Frank broke away okay these are the same years that Ewald Frank broke away and Ewald Frank had all of the foreign language translations okay so the central institutions are also losing access to all the foreign language literature at the same time so there's just this huge crisis rocking on the central institutions of the message and the way that the central institutions in my opinion the The response seems to be that they created voice of God recordings, and so they organized

voice of God recordings in I believe it was 1984, and now here's a couple interesting things about voice of God, John. If you go back to when voice of God was first organized, one of the trustees of voice of God was a man named Floyd Patterson, Floyd Patterson.

There's more than one Floyd Patterson in the message, but I believe this is the Floyd Patterson of Flagstaff, Arizona, John, based on everything I can see with the addresses and everything.

Where did the bulk of Leo's commune go to when the commune imploded? They went to Floyd Patterson's church in Flagstaff. That's where they moved, John. And he becomes one of the trustee of voice of God recordings.

Now, I'm telling you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Floyd Patterson absolutely knew what had happened in the park because of the majority of the escapees came there. And now he is a trustee, suddenly, on the board of voice of God recording.

So, okay, yeah, just think about that a little bit. And as that happens, John, things start changing. There's rumors about how voice of God got a hold of the master tape library. There's like multiple stories and I don't know which one is true.

There's a legend that Billy Paul organized a raid on the park and they came in and they seized the master tape library from Leo. There's also a legend that some of the people who left the park took the master tape library with them to Floyd Patterson's church. I don't know if that's true.

And there's also a legend, probably the most interesting of them of all, is that Leo took all the tapes out in the Arizona desert and buried them.

Which could be, you know, what happened to the master tape library is a little bit of a message legend and a mystery. But somehow or another voice of God managed, seems like they got a hold of a lot of them. But, you know, here's the thing. If you guys remember back in those days, how voice of God used to put out these feelers, does anybody have a copy of a tape we're missing in our library? Right? They were doing things like that.

You know, that would maybe indicate to us that they didn't get the whole master tape library from Leo, but maybe somehow some of it, you know, didn't make it to them. But, nevertheless, something another happened and somehow voice of God, God controlled the masters and got control to start, you know, doing the duplicating. And Fred Soffman almost certainly played a role in all that as well. Fred Soffman basically came over from the old franchise and he was a key figure in voice of God in those early days as they stood up their, their, the tape duplicating efforts. And John,

And this is another pretty interesting thing. I have always been told. I was there when Voice of God dedicated their buildings and stuff back in the 90s and different things. We live here in Jeffersonville.

Our sect of the message always love to go over and spy on the stuff going on. Whatever they could. We make good sermon pottery, you know what I mean? For the preachers. So they're over there spying on everything.

And basically, John, the story that we were always told. And as far as I know, I think this is true. The man who named Voice of God recordings. The man who named Voice of God recordings was Fred Soffman.

Fred Soffman. Fred Soffman, the man who said, William Brantum told me, I am Elijah. I am Moses and I am the Messiah. And don't tell anybody else. That is what Fred Soffman believed about William Brant.

Fred Soffman believed that William Brantum was God. And when Fred Soffman would have chosen the name Voice of God recordings, the God in Voice of God recordings was William Brantum. You know Charles, I've been trying to think of a good way to end this podcast all throughout the things that we've said.

But there's really no better way than simply the names themselves. You have William Brantum who's speaking. And his words are being recorded by men and women who believe that he is God in the flesh.

This is another Jesus Christ come down in the flesh through the manifested sons of God doctrine that we've been discussing. This is God. And these people named the institutions in the same way. This is the spoken word of God.

So in other words, you have your Bible that we call the word. Well, here is the spoken word that goes with the written word, which they openly declare. And then they name the institutions the Voice of God.

And they start publishing the voice of, you know, they believe William Brantum is God. This goes all around the globe. So again, whenever you're reading about these men and women in the charismatic movement or the New Apostolic Reformation that believe this is one of God's generals, they believe that because they're getting this information from these organizations.

This denomination called the message or called Voice of God, however you want to call it. This denomination of faith is producing literature advertising it as the voice, the direct voice of God coming through a human being.

And so this is God. They believe this is God. There's no, there's no more than I can say that really sums it up other than the names themselves. It's all such a very sad story, John.

It really is a sad story. But I do think we have helped our listeners today to just connect dots, you know, and also share some of our opinions about how to interpret the way that those dots connect.

And so I hope it's helpful to our listeners to put pieces together, you know, through this whole period of time. Billy Paul was the man running the central institutions. He was, you might see some other names.

out there, but Billy Paul was the man running the Central Institutions through this period of time. So I think that's an important note. So come back next time, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to continue the story.

We really only kind of got talking about the Central Institutions up into the 1980s here today. But we have more to say that happened in the 80s. The 80s was a very explosive decade for the main sect of the message, wasn't it, John?

There's a lot more before we get out of the 80s, I think that we got to talk about it. So maybe we'll do that in our next episode. So much more to say, but we'll stop there.

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.William-brandom.org and www.ChristianGospelChurch.org. For more about the history of William Brandom and the healing revivals, you can read come out of her, my people.

For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Click the available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.