Still Waiting for the Miracle: Why Cult Healing Is Not Instant

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, minister and friend, Chen O'Ross, pastor and the voice of the understanding scripture and truth by Chen O'D Ross, YouTube channel. Chen O'Ross it's good to finally be back and start to catch up on our recordings. The audience doesn't really know that we've missed a beat but my mother-in-law passed recently and it has thrown my schedule into chaos trying to catch back up, took a couple weeks out of out of my schedule there for

dealing with all of that and very difficult because she whenever my family cut me off she became really my mother. So I lost my mother last couple weeks and has been difficult but in the in the midst of the chaos and in the midst of the family or deal something happened that actually ties into this episode which is why I'm bringing that up. As you know I have diabetes and it was adult onset diabetes which is not that uncommon in these divine healing cults. There's a large percentage of Americans who have this but one thing that I noticed as

I'm talking to people who are still indoctrinated in that divine healing mindset whenever you know they ask how you're doing, how's your health, all of this stuff like it's typical among the groups. When I mentioned diabetes it's odd because I forgot this aspect of the divine healing mindset. So in the divine healing mindset you have these alternative things that you can do for your healing. You mentioned Hobart Freeman in the eyesight, eyesight for example. I had family members and friends I think it was friends as well who were doing these exercise techniques where you poke pinholes into a piece of paper and you

hold it up to your eye and it's supposed to improve your eyesight by flexing the muscles around your eyeball. That was years ago I was probably maybe in my 20s when I saw this. I was in the cult mindset and that was ridiculous to me but the thing that jogged my memory as I'm you know in the family activities and I'm seeing all these people that have cut me off for years and years. When I mentioned diabetes one person in particular said, Oh, why read this article in this news journal where diabetes is caused by a parasite

and the world doesn't know it. And I forgot that aspect of it. Whenever you're in the divine healing mindset and you're taught that, you know, all the medical science and medical doctors are of the devil, well, you turn to these conspiracy theory mindset newsletters and there is no way.

I mean, I know the science pretty well about diabetes. I've studied it. It is not a parasite. But but the funny part about that story is where it went is just very much like the divine healers themselves. So this person has the special knowledge that diabetes is a parasite. And then I'm like, Oh, that's interesting because I didn't want to make him or her look like a fool, you know, so I said, Oh, that's interesting. And they came back and they said, Yes, it is interesting.

And that's where the conversation ended. So it leads you down this trail where yes, they figured out that it's a parasite and medical science is wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it. And so it leads you down this weird path. Now, I don't know if you were the same or Hobart Freeman's call was the same, but I can recall many, many things like this. They would try to find ways to skirt around the medical profession. Sometimes it would be herbs or whatnot, but other times just here go, I don't know, raise your raise your right arm five times a day or some weird

thing. And they're trying to bypass you actually going to the doctor. And in cases like mine, it can be very critical if the people believe this thing and avoid their diabetic medicine, you can actually die from this or you can severely injure yourself and lose limbs for this.

So it is, it brought up some memory, some painful memories, but in the end, I'm glad that I actually went to the doctor and my health is just fine right now. There are so many things in your introduction that I could take off on there. I know the more esoteric and secretive and gnostic something is the more I run from it. So as soon as I hear this is a secret that not many people know, I generally think the reason not many people know that is because it's not true.

So that's why it is such a secret. So when I hear something is a profoundly esoteric, but I think you handle it right. And I normally try to say, that's really interesting because you know, the level of our knowledge is so small compared to what's in the universe. So maybe it is a parasite. Maybe I do need to think for 15 seconds about that before I reject it.

But let me backtrack and offer my sympathy to you, John, and to your dear wife, the loss of her mother and your mother-in-law. I'm known about it because you and I talk as friends and personally and I am so sorry to hear that when you already felt like you didn't have a mother and that your mother and law had become your mother and now to lose her, really sorry to hear that.

It's a big loss in your life and obviously a huge loss in your wife's life and I'm sure I'm speaking for everybody who follows you and loves you, listens to these podcasts. We are all humans that do these things.

We're not machines that just crank out a new podcast every week. We actually have a lot of use and feelings and extended family so I'm really sorry to hear that. While that was happening with you, my wife's cousin's husband so it's not really a relative of mine, pretty distant for hers, passed away the same time your mother and law did.

We were gone for a funeral and you were gone for a funeral and so we did have a little break in our recording and a break in the release of these as well. Many of diabetes will get to it before too long and people just hold on.

Here is the full coroner's verdict and autopsy for Hobart Freeman and it's publicly available. It was easy to get through the Casiasco County Coroner's office and his body was racked with diabetes. I mean untreated full-blown racked with diabetes.

I don't want to spoil the surprise and the podcast for the future but the medical report and the full autopsy report where they take out your liver, your kidneys, they weigh each one, they photograph each one, they slice off pieces of it, they analyze it, the spleen, the lungs, the brain, everything.

It was a mess, dying of, I don't have diabetes, you do, you know more, way more about it than I do but I'm sure dying from diabetes, dying from untreated diabetes is just a terrible thing for someone to have to experience.

He didn't treat his, he died as a result, you had yours treated, it's under control and you're able to live a healthy and productive life as a result of that. So hey John, if you don't mind, I'm going to start off reading an email that you and I received, reading these emails which I do occasionally, they're fresh because they just came in from someone and I've always found them a little helpful because it's more than just you and I talking, here's someone who was a part of it and I always find when I read one of these and someone else can identify.

And with that time period, maybe they even know the person because of, you know, things given away in the email and, you know, it jogs their memory and brings all this back fresh in their mind.

I won't give the name of the person. This is someone that you and I have talked with and I really do hope you will end up getting to do an interview with them because I think it'll be very good.

But if you do, it's from this unnamed person where she had emailed you, John, it's said, hey, I am so grateful to have found you, explanation point. I'm working my way through the videos mostly related to Hobark Freeman and Faith Assembly.

My husband and I attended Faith Assembly from 1975 to 1979. I was a 19 year old newlywed when we moved from Ohio to Indiana to join Faith Assembly. So many people did that from all over the United States, from other parts of the world.

I think in some of these other cults like maybe William Brannum's because there are so many parts of it all over the world, you just have to find the one closest to you. If William Brannum were still alive and preaching there in Jeffersonville, you know, he'd have a church of 10,000 people or whatever because everybody would come there.

Well, that's what happened as long as Dr. Freeman was alive and it even continued for a short period of time after his death. Who wants to be a member of a satellite group with some traveling minister when you can go to the Vatican and hear the Pope for yourself?

So if they had the opportunity, they were moving. So she said, we moved my husband and I from Ohio to Indiana to join the church. And later we left primarily because of the changes we saw happening to Dr. Freeman and the other leaders.

We went through all the phases, the glory barn, the tent days and into the new building. Thankfully, she writes, they were somewhat of a rebel because they kept their TV. They just had to probably hide it in the back room, make sure that no people from church when they came over and visited saw that they owned a trashy vision, a TV.

She said, also, I had my babies in the hospital when the Jones town tragedy happened. And people started detailing the characteristics of a cult that I began to understand exactly what had happened to us.

But those years and many of the ones to follow were such a blur. It's been so helpful to listen to you and Cheno fill in so many of the details. So it's important for you to understand how little information.

and any of us had. Most people didn't have a TV. We had no newspapers, no contact with outsiders. Conversations with faith-assembly friends always had to be cautious and positive. You know, you had to talk in the cult language. So you really couldn't find out what was actually happening.

We heard rumblings of people dying but no one was allowed to talk about anything with each other. And anything that did get mentioned was dismissed as lies and slander and rumors and persecution by the media. When you control the input of information, I mean, you just have a perfect scenario for a cult to develop. You only believe what the cult tells you, and if you even heard a whispering of something from outside, it was shot down as well. Those are just the lies of the persecuting media. The Dr. Freeman, when we left, was not the same person as the one at the

glory barn. Those were fun, exciting times, especially Bruce Kinsey, who himself was always a bit of a rebel. But once we entered our exile period, and that's once they got into the new building, Dr. Freeman became increasingly bitter, angry, and outright paranoid. I spent years dismantling and reconstructing my faith and went on to attend seminary to get a master's degree. My relationship today with Christ is strong and it is real because it is informed and chosen. So thank you so much for what you do. That was an email I know you received, John, and I actually did a follow-up call

with this lady. And in the middle of our conversation or somewhere in our conversation, just thing she was saying, I thought, I think I know who this person is. And so, again, today, and I was without giving away any names because hopefully you will have this person on as an interviewee. I mentioned a particular woman's name and she said, that's me. And I said, oh, I know exactly who you are then. And I began telling her stories about herself. And she says, how do you know all this? And I said, I know it because I've got all of these newspaper articles

from 40, 45 years ago. And when I read these, they made a big impact on my life because I was a part of the cult early on too. And there's no way to learn anything about the group. You can't ask the group because they don't even know. And as she said, if there are some rumors going around, people will shoot them down and say, oh, that didn't really happen or that's not really true.

You have to get out side of the cult. You have to get outside of the control of information. You have to get to a free press, to a free society to find out what actually is going on. So I began telling her stories about herself and she said, I have forgotten all about that. I even have a picture of her. So I sent her a picture to prove this is you 45 years ago, right? And she said, yeah, that's me. And it just all came about this information because the local media health authorities, law enforcement, legal

authorities, court authorities were really, really concerned with what was happening at Faith Assembly. This was, I'll just show this. This was a newspaper article done 45 years ago. This was early on. They only had 52 deaths, you know, that they could document then. But the number of those deaths just went sky high. And as you see in that map, it wasn't just there in Indiana. It was in all the surrounding states and then other states all around that area. 52 deaths, the papers later were able to come up with hundreds of deaths. And as I've said, people have continued to die to this

date. There's no way that the death total worldwide from people who followed Hobart Freeman in Faith Assembly is any less than somewhere in the low thousands, not hundreds. It would be in the low thousands of people who have died. And speaking of that, and this newspaper article, in the last week, John, I had talked to another woman who has been following the podcast. I didn't realize it until we were able to talk on the phone. And then she said, as a teenager, my parents brought me into this message, into this movement. First of all, up at Bruce's group in

Lafayette, Indiana, it was called the live house there. Then they kind of jerk whenever Bruce Quitt, remember Bruce Quitt in the fall of 1984, because he thought Hobart, his father-in-law was wrong about everything. So this young lady's father was one of the four men called into the back room at the live house meeting that day in the fall of 1984, where Bruce was announcing, Quitting the ministry, getting out of the ministry and closing up shop. And it was just shocking to those people. And so then they left there and they went to Jeff Barnett's group down

in Indianapolis. And they left there and went down to Tom Hamilton's group, not far from where I'm sitting right now in Shelbyville, Kentucky. And so she said, you know, I think my parents would like to talk to you. Last week, we met for coffee three hours later. We're finally and goodbye. This couple is now in their 80s and they are just delightful, wonderful Christian people.

They have run the whole gamut from way back in Bruce Kinsey days way back in the 1970s as a part of that group and they've just worked their way along until finally, you know, they extricated themselves from the entire movement and as this other woman said in the email that I read, they've got a strong faith in the Lord and it's informed and it's chosen and it's based on scripture. The reason I bring them up though is in our conversation, they were just talking about some of the tragedies that happened up in the group outside of Purdue University in West Lafayette,

Indiana and they knew so many of the people there because that was their home church. They didn't even travel down to the new building to listen to Hobart. They really liked Bruce. This was probably the biggest satellite at the time because Bruce Kinsey, Hobart's son-in-law, was probably second in command of that whole ministry, the faith assembly ministry, Hobart at the top and Bruce right underneath him. So they knew a lot of people in our conversation Friday a week ago having coffee together. This older couple mentioned the name Eevee and they were just talking about different

things that had happened and the children that had suffered and the people that had died and they mentioned the name Eevee and I'm sitting across the table from them. I don't have any of my information with me. All I have is my memory of having studied all these things 40 to 45 years ago, and I said, are you talking about Eevee Swanson? And they said, how did you know Eevee Swanson?

And I said the same way I know most of what we're going over in the podcast. I said, I did research on this 40 to 45 years ago and I said, if I remember correctly, Eevee Swanson was a little toddler and infant one year old who accidentally pulled something off the counter above her. I couldn't remember if it was coffee or tea and ended up with second and third degree burns all over her body and died as a result of that. I said, that's the kind, I mean it just gives me chills to think about that to this day. That's the kind of aftermath that came from Hobart Freeman's false views

on faith and healing. So just in this article right here down at the very bottom, you see Eevee Swanson, one year old. So here's what the newspaper said, the Fort Wayne News Sentinel and 1983, I believe this came out one year old. And you know, the reason I want to read this is who speaks for these children? This child never got a choice, never got to live.

You know, it's almost like, you know, the mass burials of people that have died in war, died in something. And you don't even know who these people are that are dead. So I don't know, it just does something for my soul and psyche to rehearse some of the names of these people that died at the hands of Hobart Freeman in this message.

So here's one of them. One year old, Evie Swanson died of blood poisoning and pneumonia. After suffering second and third degree burns over half her body, she was not given any medical treatment. She was the daughter of Larry and Vicki Swanson of Attica, Southwest of Lafayette, Indiana. She was injured on November the 11th, 1981, at the Lotus Garden Restaurant in Greenwood, Indiana.

The baby spilled an 18 ounce pot of hot tea on herself. Mrs. Swanson refused medical aid, although the restaurant owner, Lume Lee, offered to find and pay for it. The child died on November the 13th, 1981, at her grandparents' home near Franklin.

Johnson County officials considered charging Mrs. Swanson with child neglect, but decided against it because state laws then offered religious beliefs as a defense. You know, we covered a long time ago, John, last year, how the Indiana State Legislature was working hard to rewrite the laws so that these parents could no longer use the religious exemption that existed in those laws at that time. And they were successful in rewriting the laws and consequently people began being prosecuted and sent to prison over that.

Here's some other people, Nichols Carey, 16 months old, 16 month old Nichols Carey, his body covered with blisters from chicken pox, died of pneumonia. On June the 17th, 1979, here's four-year-old Natalie Joy Mud died March the 5th, 1980, of cancer. A large tumor had been growing on her face.

The tumor started near her right eye and grew for two months. Eventually, it covered most of her face. I've read other stories about this particular child where when child protective services finally got to the house, at a certain distance off the floor, they saw bloody marks on all the door casings around the house.

And they were able to trace that to the fact that this little four-year-old who was blinded by this tumor growing over her face is trying to navigate her way around the house and who's running into the door casings, leaving bloody marks from this tumor.

I mean, it's something you read out of, I don't know, this is not even Pioneer Day medical treatment. There's no medical treatment at all. Her parents, it names her parents, of Warsaw, Indiana chose to pray for her rather than taking to her to a doctor.

They are members of Faith Assembly, according to Warsaw City Police Detective Paul Schmidt. Natalie Sister, five-year-old Leah, has the same kind of cancer. On November 15th, welfare department officials came to the home and took custody of her.

She's now receiving treatment at a children's hospital in Indianapolis, you know, we're talking about 40 years ago. One final story, Christine Amiller, 12 years old, died of congenital heart disease on Christmas Eve, 1981 at her home in Selina, Ohio.

And that's the reason I'm mentioning this because there was a large satellite group in Selina, Ohio. And guess who this young lady's father was? Let me read the next paragraph. Her father, Mr. Miller, gave up his veterinary practice after her death and now operates a religious bookstore out of the family's house.

The millers were important people in that Selina satellite group and here you've got a guy who has a doctorate in veterinary medicine and his 12-year-old daughter dies and they're just going to stay with the message regardless.

There was a couple that the 80-year-old couple that I talked to last Friday knew very well and I know somewhat. I did the cabinets in their home whenever they built their new home so I do know them.

They lost. I thought it was two or three, the 80-year-old couple said three or four children died in childbirth who were a part of Tom Hamilton's group in Shelbyville, Kentucky. So I'll get into what I want to talk about now, John.

But as I continue to go down this sad, sad path, it's just littered with the bodies of dead people, dead children, people like. I remember another man, author Graham, a 40-year-old man who went to faith assembly who worked in some medical supply company.

Of course, he was forced out of his job by the Ministry of Faith Assembly saying you can't have anything to do with medicine, medical supply companies, nothing like that. Forced him out of that, so now you no longer have a good pain job. He also had diabetes and Their continual harassment of him if you believe God's word His promises for healing then you're healed and you don't need your insulin Arthur Graham stopped taking his insulin in four days later Arthur Graham was dead So this is the after effect of faith assembly. It's all really sad and I'm really glad that she read the email before reading that

Because there's so much to unpack there that I think needs to be said She is correct when she wrote the email that we didn't have access to the information and What I came to realize after I left the Brandon cult is it's much the same way You're in a divine healing cult people are dying like in any human community But they keep that covered up because you're in the cult that teaches you that we have access to this divine healing that the world Doesn't have the quote unquote world is loaded language for anybody who's not in your cult including other Christians

So we have this thing that other Christians do not have we have access to this divine healing that other Christians do not have But then what happens when somebody dies it defies all of this logic and so they can't let it out so they keep it in and To the people listening we have a large number of listeners who were never in this. They're just Studying it for either academic purposes or just to learn more about it The common question that I get through my email from those the people in those crowds is Why don't the people simply leave we have to understand that they don't have this

They don't know this information when people are dying Those who are near to the death they obviously do but in the satellite groups There is no transfer of knowledge generally To some level you have people who maybe visit the funeral and this kind of thing But it's not talked about in the same way because if you do you're defying the cult logic and we had the same exact logic the Name it and claim it positive Confession type of thing so if you're positively confessing that you're healed of this thing that you then died from Well, that positive confession doesn't carry on after death the people don't say well

He believed and he was saved and he was healed of this thing that he died from and so positive confession stops right there But he and when it stops it you can't really continue thinking about it But if you're on the outside looking in you're raising your hand saying wait a minute man This this guy said he was healed and he died of that thing he was healed from so on the outside looking in yes Everybody should leave but on the inside you've really started into your thought blocking process Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression?

of modern Pentecostalism, transition through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation, you can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top,

and as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.

Good job of telling everyone how horrible the media are, and that has to be a part of your doctrine, because if you don't undermine them first or somewhere early in your teaching, then people will pick up the newspaper, turn on the television set to see what's going on.

That's what we mean, John. We're talking about a close society that all the information circles within the cult. You don't get any information from the outside. That's not the way that intelligent people function. You should be allowed to hear both sides of the argument, and then you as a responsible adult, you have the freedom to decide which one you're going to come down on. It is definitely true. There were true things Hobart said about the media. The media tends to have a liberal slant. We all know that. We really don't need to have messages preached on that, that the media are looking for sensational stories. Well, that's the only way

to sell a newspaper, reporting good news that it's sunny today, and he and his wife have been happily married for 40 years won't sell a newspaper. We already understand all of that stuff, but Hobart, he turned his sermons into either anti-denominations, just preaching and railing against. As you said, I think last time the Baptist for some reason are the worst. I don't think they're the worst. I'm quoting Hobart. The Baptist are the worst because they were always first on his list, but he with though in the Catholics and Episcopalians too, railing on denominations, railing against medical

science, pal, you know, they're, they sometimes operate on the wrong limb, or they sow you up. They're still a pair of scissors or gloves or a sponge inside you. Yeah, like that happens once every 100,000 operations, so what, you know, or railing against the media. His sermons became railing against denominations, and doctors and media and you know I just was you know I didn't listen to a lot of those and I'd go six months I think I hadn't heard Hobart in a while I need to get some tapes to listen to them and then I listen to them and I go oh no not

the terrible denomination the media medical science again and literally I'm kidding you not you realize I hadn't missed anything by not listening to Hobart for the last six months I had missed a thing because he hasn't missed a beat he is still going down the same path of railing against these things that he doesn't like so yeah I mean you should be able to listen to the news media yourself obviously they don't always tell the truth but I mean these are these are medical coroner statistics and facts that these people did die here's the date of their death here's the age and here's the calls of death as

you just said what can you do with that you know it's best to shut the cult down where you never have access to that information because what once you have access to it not all you've got to start create a new theology and start explaining the reasons and there were normally two why people died either they lacked faith or they missed a condition you know they would never just own the fact maybe our theology is wrong could it be that maybe our theology of divine healing and faith is somehow wrong you know they're not going to accept

that they're not going to go down that path so either they shut you all from ever knowing that anybody died and if you find out that oh they did die they say well the reason that they died wasn't because there's any chink in our theology is because a person missed a condition or because they didn't have enough faiths and then unfortunately then they have to take another step when Hobart himself died and everybody said oh nobody has much faith as Hobart so when Hobart died now you can't say well he didn't have enough faith or he missed a condition now your theology has to evolve even more and it evolved

down several interesting paths that we will look at when we get to that but one of which was well God had to take him because we were all just looking to him and God wanted to get our eyes off of him so God murdered him for our sake um people should be able to tell when cult leaders are grasping for straws they should be able to tell when they have run up against a brick wall and rather than just back up and say we're wrong they got to find a way around that brick wall so they will invent a new

part of their healing theology. I know I'm distracting from this a bit, but there are so many memories that pop up when you talk. And last time, you're right, I did say the Baptist, and I was thinking about that after we spoke.

People don't realize this. A lot of times when I'm speaking, things that come out are just things that are memories that have not yet processed. And that was one of them, because whenever William Brandham would get in these rants about the different denominations, he would target the Baptist heavily, which was odd, because himself falsely, not true, falsely claimed that he was a Baptist minister when he started this, he was actually Pentecostal.

But after we spoke, I started processing it, and I thought, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. Why is he harping on the Baptist? Usually I would expect the Catholics, I would expect different ones.

Interesting. I looked up in the sermons, there's a search online if you go to the Colt headquarters, website, I just typed in Baptists, and there are 855 results with, or 800 I think it is, with the word Baptists plural.

And if you take Baptist, there are over 3,000, I think it was. Now some of those are John the Baptist obviously, but I would say a vast majority of those are the denominations, so he's railing against them.

And so I went back through my archives and notes, and Brandon was Pentecostal, like I said, his church was started by Roy Davis, who was the clan second in command of the clan. Well, Davis's ministry started as a legitimate Baptist minister, but he got booted out whenever it was found out that he had multiple churches and multiple states with multiple, not just stage personas, but life personas.

And in some of the states, he would have a wife and children in one state that didn't know about the wife and children in the other state, and whenever all this came to surface, and I would realize, wait a minute, this guy's a scoundrel, the Baptists kicked him out, and he was railing against the Baptists.

So, Brandon was raised in Mentored, I guess, as the boy who you say it, Mentored in a church that was harping against the Baptist, so he then starts harping against the Baptists. And then, so as I'm processing this in my head, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, Hobart Freeman did the same thing.

So, he's being somewhat mentored by Brandon, he's harping against the Baptist. So, all of this flows literally from the clan down to Hobart Freeman. That's unbelievable, John. And I know when people hear you tell, on your side, some of these stories of how this person was a scoundrel with multiple wives, I know the people that are still holding on or trying to hold on to Hobart, I'm gonna address them now because they'll hear that, and they love hearing that because they, oh, Hobart was nothing like that.

We never said that he was. You know, Hobart, when it came to morals, as far as cheating on his wife, for more than- multiple marriages, no, I've never accused him of that. As far as an outlandish lifestyle, like a home in South Beach and Monte Carlo, no.

Hobart, no, that was not Hobart at all. But just because you are innocent of those particular charges, doesn't make you innocent of all these other things. What Hobart was guilty of that maybe these other guys weren't guilty of were the deaths of all these people.

Name another minister. I don't know that there's another minister out there that you could attribute thousands of deaths to because these people precisely and directly follow Hobart Freeman's teaching on faith and healing. Hobart God is teaching from charismatic Pentecostal ministers before him.

But the one thing about Hobart's teaching on faith and healing was that if anything, and I hate to even call it this, but you could call it more consistent in the sense that he just followed it to its logical conclusion that if healing is in the atonement and if salvation for sin is in the atonement and if you claim one, then you should be able to claim the other.

And if you claim one forgiveness for sins and you don't need any help from a priest or any other man. See, this is the way his logic would work. Then when you claim your healing, it should work in the same way.

You shouldn't need any kind of help from any man, medicine, doctors, things like that. The other charismatic leaders who taught divine healing as such as William Branham, even though he taught that and he probably discouraged, taught negatively against doctors and medicine, he didn't forbid the use of them like Hobart did.

So Hobart took, I mean, he is a descendant of these other guys, including William Branham. He took that message in favor of divine healing and then he took it a step further. Well, if it's divine healing, we don't need the instrumentality of man and then he took it a step further.

Not only do we not need them, even to use them, depend on them, go see them, visit them, take medicine from them, at all would be a sin against God. And that was where his logic took him.

You have to go back to his whole foundation, the premises upon which his belief were built, were not scriptural. We've been looking at some of that in our past parameters of healing. We looked at the type of illnesses in our last go around, the people that were healed were what?

People who desperately needed healing, they had a debilitating condition or in a few cases they were already dead, like Lazarus and Tabitha that Paul raised from. or that Peter raised from the dead, the type of illnesses that we see in faith assembly circles as I jokingly and maulkingly always say, but it's 100% true would be a sore left shoulder or a bruised right hip, you know, come up for healing for that.

So Hobart took this message that was a very popular message that had been taught by Charismatics and Pentecostals for decades prior, but he wanted, prior to him, but he wanted to be known as something different and something special and so he took it to its logical conclusion.

So if I may, John, let's take another look at just another parameter of healing based on Hobart's theology as laid up against what the Bible actually teaches. I'm sure with the time left, we won't get far with it, but we can give people something to begin to think about.

And when I'm talking about parameters of healing, as I said in our earlier discussions of this, we are all Christian people. We all have as our, we're supposed to, as our source book, the Bible.

This is, we don't follow a creed, we don't follow some formula, we don't follow some doctrine, we're not supposed to anyway, we, we say we claim that we're Bible believing Christians and so we're going to believe the Bible, which means we're going to base our doctrine, our practices and our beliefs on the Bible.

So with that being said, we would simply ask ourself the question, the supernatural healings that happen in the Bible, how quickly did they occur? And I would challenge people, look at the people who were blind, who were lame, who were deaf, who were dumb, who were demon possess, who had some form of paralysis, who had a withered hand.

And I would say that all of the cases of supernatural healing that occurred in the Bible, or remember, we base our beliefs on the Bible. That's what we're all claiming. And we're going to check it out and see how solidly it is based on the Bible.

All the cases of supernatural healing in the Bible occurred either immediately, if not instantly. And here is where Hobart was able to deceive his people and just brainwash them completely away from what the Bible taught.

And if someone said, well, what's the difference between immediately or instantly? Well, I mean, I don't know a definition of the two words, but by instantly, I mean, instantaneously, in a split second, they were healed.

By immediately, I mean, there may have been a very brief process or a very brief period of time. and then the person was healed. What I'm not talking about are days and weeks and months and years waiting for the person to be healed. I challenge people to read their Bible.

Don't go by what I say and definitely don't go by Dr. Freeman's teaching and teach. Read your Bible and look for the time period involved between when they prayed or when they were prayed for and when they were healed. Now, if you want to look at Hobart's ministry, the number of people who were healed instantly, which means in a split second, or the people who were healed immediately, and that means right away. We're not talking about days and weeks and months and years later. In Hobart's ministry, it wouldn't be one in a thousand who were healed instantly or

immediately. In the Bible, it would be 999 out of a thousand would be what you find. So, what are we going to do with that? We simply have a scenario where our experience does not line up with Scripture. Our doctrine does not line up with Scripture. Our experience doesn't line up because our doctrine doesn't line up with Scripture. And we've talked about cognitive dissonist before.

And what people do is rather than change their belief, they will just keep on inventing excuses and reasons while they're still experiencing what they're experiencing. When it would be much easier to admit your own personal reading of Scripture, you can read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the book of Acts that you don't have to go anywhere else. There is the healing ministry of Jesus and the apostles and the early church. And what will you find there? You will find that people were healed either instantly or immediately. But if we go to Hobart Freeman's ministry and message, what we find is his most beloved verse, his most often quoted verse

was Mark 1124. What things, so ever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them. I actually, John, have a little small excerpt so people can hear from the lips of Hobart Freeman himself. Who himself says that this verse is the central verse in his message in ministry. And I want people to hear this. If he says anything to you, he's going to point you to his word like the local pastor here in this city came to me a few years ago and he was having trouble with doubts, having trouble believing and the trouble believing for healing and the baptism

of the Holy Spirit. It wasn't that he didn't want to believe. He says, I'm just having a terrible battle with doubts all the time. As I talked to him, he confided in me that he said to get more of the power of God and to come into a place where he could eliminate this problem from his life, he said, I fasted and prayed for forty days and nights.

It was a long time. I mean, a real fast. Just water, no food, not one of these, the eight fasts and all that, but a real fast. I said you didn't. He said, yes, and I said, well, what came as a result of that, you know, apparently didn't help him because he's coming to me for help to try to get rid of his problems as doubts and all that.

Well, he said on the fortieth day, he said, as I was before the Lord last day I'm a fast. He said, the voice of the Lord came booming out of heaven and just reverberated and filled the whole room where I was sitting.

I said, it did. I said, what did he say? He said, he quoted to me, Mark 11, 22 to 24, he's lucky for faith and here's what God quoted. The passage we use in here week after week, have faith in God for whosoever shall say to this mountain, be thou removed and shall not doubt in his heart and believe those things which he says and God said it much more loud and slowly and I'm saying, believe in his heart, those things which he says shall come to pass.

He'll have whosoever he says, therefore send you what things so ever you desire. When you pray, listen to God talking to him, when you pray, believe you're receiving them, you shall have them. And there he is sitting before me confessing nothing but doubt and unbelief.

I said, you mean he quoted you that passage, the passage that is the central passage in my ministry, the one night claim all the time for this and that and there that I've got new cars on it, I've gone to Israel on it, tremendous things taking place on that.

So the background to this story that I can share so that you're aware of where I'm going and what's going on with this, John is Hobart is he's telling, he's telling the account according to him of a local minister who was just struggling with doubt and unbelief and just trying to figure out, why don't I have faith?

How can I overcome my doubt and my unbelief? So according to Hobart, the man went on a 40 day and night fast and let me just, let me just stop right there. I've heard all of these stories so many times.

There are so many people who fasted 40 days and 40 nights according to Hobart. And you know, when I was 17 and 18 years old, you hear these stories, you don't have the critical thinking ability to go away just a minute.

I mean, you're probably dead at the end of 40 days. You had water, but no food. Hobart just glibly said, yeah, he went on a 40 day fast. Most is fasted 40 days, Jesus fasted 40 days.

These are supernatural. These are epic experiences and these are rare. They're not like charismatic people make them out to be. Oh, yeah, this brother, he went on a 40 day fast, blah, blah, blah, and this sister did that.

This man, so in other words, I don't believe for a second that the man fasted 40 days. Believe what you want about that. At the end of the 40 days, he got his answer from God.

I don't believe this for a second happened. But Hobart tells the story like it's the gospel truth, the end of 40 days, the man told Hobart, the voice of God came booming down out of heaven in the corner of my bedroom.

And Hobart said, well, what did he say? What did he say? And Hobart loved selling this because this is the foundation for his faith teaching ministry. Said, God quoted Mark 1122 to 24 to this man, said, have faith in God.

You can speak to the mountain. And then ends with verse 24, what things are of you desire when you pray, believe that you receive it and you'll have it. And he said, this is a central verse of my ministry.

Well, it was a central verse of his ministry. No surprise, it had to be because nothing ever happened when they prayed and nothing happened like it did in the gospel sent in the book of Acts.

When they prayed for someone to be healed, I'm sorry they weren't healed. But if you've got Mark 1124 misinterpreted doctrine and theology, then you believe that you receive when you pray, whether you actually receive, believing in actually or two different things in Hobart's theology, whether you actually receive is beside the point.

You just hold on to Mark 1124. When you pray, you believe you receive at that time and then you shall have it. And what people probably don't realize, but we talked about it in our last discussion together, John, is that Hobart, he was a pirate.

He stole this from Kenneth Hagen. And I don't know if Kenneth Hagen stole it from somebody before him or he found it in the Bible himself. Hobart's understanding of Mark chapter 11 verses 22 to 24, especially Mark 1124 came directly from Kenneth Hagen.

When Hobart Freeman in June of 1966 made his pilgrimage to Gordon Lindsay's Deliverance School in Dallas, Texas, the keynote speaker was Kenneth Hagen. And Kenneth Hagen was the, he's even referred to to this day as the granddaddy of the faith movement, the grandfather of the name and enclavement, the grandfather of W.O.L., the word of faith movement.

He was the elder guy from McKinney, Texas, from way back in the thirties. He died and went to hell. He died and... went to heaven. I don't know where all he went. How many times he died? But finally, he stayed alive for a while and he taught Mark 11, 24, his theology of it. Hobart picked up on that big time and then as Hobart said in that quote, this was the central verse of his ministry. And as I've often said since then, it had to be the central verse because when people pray there under his

ministry, they simply did not receive anything. So let me read to you a quote from William Brannum. It's because faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the word, Jesus said in Luke, what so ever things you desire when you pray, believe them when you receive them. That was in 1950, that's an assurment called ministry explained and there's a few things I want to point out.

Number one, it wasn't in Luke. Brannum actually didn't get this from the Bible, though he says that he got it from the Bible, that verse is not in Luke. Brannum, when I'm talking about all these historical connections from Roy Davis or, you know, there's several that I go through in my histories and you're right, people latch onto that and they say, well, my cult leader didn't do that.

But then you find out, but wait, their cult leader did something else that was very similar to these guys. Mike Bickel didn't do some of the things that William Brannum did, but yet he's teaching many of the things that Brannum did. Well, here's where it gets really interesting. So William Brannum was mentored by, as I mentioned, the second and command of the clan.

And he lies about it. One of the things, one of the doctrines he carried forward, we found where he learned in Roy Davis's church, the serpent seed, Christian identity doctrine. And when he first teaches it, he lies about it and says, I rejected it. So Hobart Freeman, if he's receiving these tapes by William Brannum, remember, there's control of information and that was heavily controlled, especially in the 60s and 70s. He may not have actually received a recording that says he's supposed to believe this thing. We don't know if he had access to it or not. Hobart Freeman

didn't teach that. So the people who are critical of us can say, well, he never taught serpent seed. We don't know whether he got it in the first place. William Brannum was also mentored by F. F. Bosworth, Fred, Francis Bosworth.

Bosworth came out of the Dauy cult. Anybody who wants more information about what I'm saying, you can read militant Christian extremism, a critical examination of John Alexander Dauy. This guy was the backbone for everything that you just said. So F. F. Bosworth was really big in the faith healing movement. He was one of the few who attended Azusa Street, so he was respected through all the Pentecostal circles. He's most recognized for his book, Christ the healer.

In either the preface or the end, in that book, he gives high credit to E. W. Kenyon. And so he is basically the father of this weird divine healing movement. He's mentoring not just Brannum, but many of these other guys with the doctrines of Kenyon, the doctors of doctrines of Dauy. Well, if you read this book and you understand what Dauy did in his scheme because this guy was probably a bigger con artist than the Davis character. He comes to the United States and he says, I healed all these people back in Australia. And the news media eats it up.

Here's a faith healer. And by golly, he healed those people. They didn't check it out. So whenever they printed it, this massive influx of people who are sick wanting to be healed comes into San Francisco. And he starts this tour because now he's got all these people that he's healing.

Well, he can't have it seen that he's failing these healings. So he goes to Los Angeles and says, back in San Francisco, I healed that XYZ all these people. And the Los Angeles Times, I think there's Los Angeles first one or the one or the other. They printed it, but with the hints of skepticism. And so all the influx of people, Dauy started carrying the satchel with them that contained all of these testimonies. And he was printing testimonies that weren't real. And we've caught him in some of those newspapers back then, caught him in some of them, but he was saying,

healed so and so, I healed so and so. And you find out, no, he didn't really heal them. Once his cult grew to, I want to say he was 100,000 people, it was a lot of people.

The gimmick with the satchels and testimonies didn't work. So he, I won't say he was teaching positive confession in the way that they taught it, but he was laying down the groundwork for teaching positive confession. And he was saying things like you have to believe it and you'll go home and you'll be healed later. So that I see stewing cities or people come into his divine healing homes. They don't see an instant healing. What they instead get is this promise that you will be healed later. And people were paying massive, massive sums to come live in as

healing homes. And he was slipping him out by the cover of night after they would die. He had an arrangement with the corner. And the corner would show up every night and collect all the dead bodies didn't make the news. Families just, well, they disappeared. Where did they go? And all these bodies were disappearing. But that is, that is Dauy. Dauy was very heavily influencing FF Bosworth. Bosworth influencing Brannum. And then as I just read to you, Brannum is teaching the doctrine that flowed down to Hobart Freeman. All of this, there is a connection, even though we're

mentioning these names and these people, yeah, they're not, they're not similar and similar in all of the various types of sins that they have. But doctrinally, you can trace all of these elements back and like in human being, they may reject doctrine A but accept doctrine B or influence doctrine C.

That's the way this works. Yeah, that's exactly the way it works, Sean. The moral to all of this is you've got to do your research, which you have obviously done and outstanding job of going way back to the early 1900s.

The only claim to fame I can have is my little bit that I've done on Hobart Freeman. None of the rest of that really interested me. I always suspected that there was a connection, but it didn't matter to me one way or the other.

I just felt that Hobart's own teaching was in error based on scripture and didn't work based on the facts of how many people died and that was good enough for me. I just told you before that when I was in college and I bought David Edwin Harrell's all things or possible book, you know it has on the front cover a picture of William Brown with the halo over his head and I'm a student at the University of Mississippi.

Dr. Harrell at one state over, he's a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and he is kind of writing, it was not a critique at all of the healing revivals.

It was a history of it based on the press releases from all of the ministries of the healing so it was pretty much in favor of it all. But when I saw that halo over Brandon's head, I didn't know what to do with that, you know I had no idea. I didn't know how to explain that until I saw your expose of that, that there were plenty of people in that room that had halos over their heads because it was a lighting. I didn't know that, but my point and I've shared this with you before is I didn't even

need to know that. I didn't care. I didn't care if it was a halo over his head. I had rejected William Brown. But some of us are able to reject things when maybe others aren't, but if you can give them other photographs of people in the same meeting with similar halos over their head, what are you going to do with that? You know for me to reject it, I just rejected because I think he's a quack. Other people say, yeah, but you know he's brother Brandon. I need some more proof and I'm okay with that. I'm all for you needing more proof and you have given them more proof. And the same

is true with Dr. Freeman. I would not have known years ago that he had connections through person A to B to C to D. I didn't know and I didn't care that much, but one thing I was 100% certain was his connection to William Brown. Because I had watched him on his early tapes mentioned Brandon so favorably. And then I had watched him subtly try to distance himself by this statement.

Well now, Brandon, I'm just in the end of his live got off. That was always a phrase he used. It's a phrase everybody uses. That way you can't find fault with them for having spoken highly previously in their life of this man's ministry because he'll say, well, he didn't used to believe those things. He just believed that at the end of his life. I never believed that. I thought, I doubt William Brannum got off. I bet William Brannum was off his entire life. That was my assumption. You had the proof.

I had the assumption and your proof has validated my assumption that Brannum didn't. He wasn't this profit by profit. I mean Jeremiah Elijah Ezekiel, a prophet who was sent from God. Wasn't that Gordon Lindsay's book? William Brannum, a man sent from God. I read all that back in the 70s. I remember all of this stuff from when I was a teenager. But William Brannum wasn't this profit sent from God. Those men didn't get off. Here Isaiah, the first half of his ministry is a profit. The second half of his ministry is a Babylonian heretic or an Assyrian apostate or something.

No, these are true men of God who remain men of God. I never believed it for a second that Brannum started writing God off. But Hobart made sure that everyone thought or understood that's how he approached William Brannum. But even by the mid 70s, Hobart Freeman was saying, I don't care.

This was this quote. You've heard me say this before. I don't care what anybody says about William Brannum. I believe he was God's prophet. And I always felt the reason Hobart had to say that is because so much of his ministry, his terminology, his interpretation came from William Brannum.

So if you reject William Brannum outright wholesale, you've rejected the foundation for so much of your ministry. Hobart tried to hide it by saying he got off. But he let the cat out of the bag by refusing to categorically reject William Brannum as a deceiver and a false prophet. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it because he knew to do that. I'm undermining my own ministry. And we've probably run our time, John. But one other thing came to my mind when you first read that quote a few minutes ago, you read a quote from William Brannum where he's quoting. He said something from Luke.

But then he mentions a verse in Romans 10, 17, faith comeeth by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Another cherry picked misinterpreted foundational verse for dog. for Freeman's ministry. The way he interpreted that was the only way you can get faith is by listening to the Word of God. He also said you can get it by listening to my tapes as long as my tapes are in line with the Word of God. And so then he would tell stories of a person, this woman, she's dying of cancer. Do you think she went home and listened

to my faith tape once? No, twice. No. 10 times 20, 30, 40, 50? No. She listened to the faith tapes 100 times. War the tapes out. War the cancer out. That's always what he says.

She wore the tape out. War the cancer out. If you want to get faith, you have to listen to the Bible. You have to hear my tapes over and over and over again. I challenge anybody to go read the context in which the Apostle Paul is using that. And he's quoting a verse how beautiful on the mountain of the feet of them that bring the gospel of peace. Go read the context of that. And that is not the proper interpretation of Romans 10, 17. You're talking about you saw the halo and you couldn't disprove it. After I did realize that, wait

a minute, I knew this. I already knew this. I have seen photographs where they've taken a picture and the lights hit in the lens. And you have bright lighting. You can create all kinds of different effects. It's a technique that they use in Hollywood, for example.

Well, when I first started this podcast, I actually kept my camera much lower so that it would go up and it had a halo effect in this room because I got some pretty strong lights above my head. And I started to do that, but then I realized, you know, nobody's even going to get what I'm doing. So I dropped it. But it is a technique. And that's just one of many techniques. So, you know, when we're tracing Hobart Freeman to Branum to Lindsay to Dowie, any of these guys, all you have to do is understand their bag of

tricks. And what you do, you start to recognize this tricks are being used and reused and reused by other people as this thing grows. But none of them are willing to go back and say, wait a minute. Is the foundation of this correct? Is the foundation of this biblical? And there in lies the problem. So, yeah, I'll wrap it up too. Thanks for doing this. You're welcome.

Thanks for having me, John. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. From more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.