Deliverance From Deliverance Ministry

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Brannum Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Brannum Historical Research at William-Branum.org and with me I have my very special guest, Nancy West. Nancy it's good to connect with you and to have you on the podcast to share your story. I've enjoyed some of the comments I watch whenever people are in the premieres having the conversations and it's been fun and exciting to watch everybody chatting and I invited you to share your story and I'm glad you did so maybe if you could

just take a moment and tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Well I'm a little different than some because I didn't come from a direct church or organization group whatever but I realized there were a lot of teachings that come in and especially as a very young believer. I was saved in August of 1979 so I knew I was saved but unfortunately you start trusting people that are older you believe your wiser and they start bringing in books, teachings they've heard, people that you know we went off and visited different churches, things like that, radio stations and bookstores you find out we're not

reliable and it came to me the other day that Kevin Coleman and Ken Hagen were too I heard on the radio which was already bad. So dating a young man that was going to the Elon Bible Institute was bringing in far more of it. So I kind of got surrounded by a bunch of wasps and I couldn't quite locate the nest until I started watching this podcast and getting all these puzzle pieces together with John and with other guests on here you don't know how much you have helped me.

See you're all my shrinks you know you're helping me mentally with this so thank you for this so I thank God for this. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call me a shrink however I work with some good shrinks who are watching the podcast and offering to help so we we do have psychotherapists etc and I do recommend if you have ever been in one of these groups it's probably helpful to go to something like this at least for a period of time but yeah it's it's a crazy journey you listen to other people tell their stories and you know when

I first began this I really didn't have any vision of it turning into what it did and I just had a couple people who Stories were really interesting, and I had them come on and share their stories.

One of them was in a specific cult, and they were wanting to expose their cult, and there were some strategic opportunities for them to share their story. So I let them do it, and once I did, everybody started coming out of the woodwork.

They wanna share their story too, because even though that was a specific cult for the lady that shared her story, it was so relatable to the other cults. They all act and behave the same.

There's always a central figure that is a narcissistic personality, very controlling, very manipulative, and I think people, when they're in the groups, they're aware of this, but it's not until they escape and reflect on it that they realized something was really bad wrong, and it's just like all these other groups that these people that are sharing their stories.

So over time, it just became what it did. It's funny, because when you're saying, when you're in it, now for what you're thinking, was I eating lead pain, it does make you wonder, and that's why putting all these different things together, and it was a few days before recording this, you had a young lady on here, well, I'm not sure, a young lady, but I'll tell you that, her name was Simone, and she was talking about the treatment women, that why would God give me a fully functioning mind if he made us to be solo level?

That was one of them, the other one was like laughter is taboo, and we can get to going in the chat someday, and really having to laugh, but that is the one thing that I heard people that knew me decades ago that came up and said, I never saw you smile before.

It was almost as if you laughed, or you just let your guard down from home, just to enjoy the moment, like I was just watching a caterpillar outside a little while ago, but you're letting your guard down, you always have to be sin-paranoid, and then this endless confession, and the deliverance ministry stuff, that got even weirder, and it's such a convoluted mess that a lot of these teachings brought, that I'm just trying to write it down a journal form for myself, but that is one of the craziest things when you start hearing from other people,

that all we all ended up in these weird doctrines and trying to figure out where it came from, and remember being handed a book called The Manual for Spiritual Warfare, I couldn't tell you the author, but it was casting demons out of everything from rocks to Kansas soup, you know, you name it.

It was all my word, and we got some new youth group leaders. When I got saved, I got to do a shout out, if you're out there, Neil Armand, thank you. I can't hear the book of Galatians to this day without hearing him teaching it.

We got other people to bring in things like John Todd and a lot of Hill Lindsay, and then it started going off with other books and other things and other churches. And I guess that's where I got a touch of the charismatic side of things.

And I'm not, how did you see the skepticismist? Is that what you call that? And what do I do? I think that's what I said, but I'll be honest. I came with that on the fly as I was speaking.

So I have no idea what I said. I was actually going to have an extra syllable and say, skepticismist, because of course, skepticismist. Because there's a lot of that going on. Everything was emotional.

Everything was like the crawling in a hollow log and waiting for the Lord to speak. And then it wasn't happening. And I thought something was wrong with me. And it turns out the Lord was keeping my feet on the ground.

And you have to learn to walk by faith and it's taken in some years to start to look at the actual teachings I got and realize, wow, that was wrong. And moving forward with the Lord again, because I just would say to Lord, I remember the Jesus that saved me, but who are you?

And that's where it's taken about the past 20 years to really start moving me through. It's okay to ask questions. I'm not arguing against the Word of God. I'm asking, what did I learn and what's wrong?

And like everybody else, it's a journey. And I wish it didn't take this long, but it does. It's more difficult than people realize, especially when you're in it. And you watch people leave. Usually they say they left because they couldn't follow the rules or they left because they, in the Brannemism, my grandfather would say they went out from among us because they were not of us.

In other words, it's us versus them. And they would always put you in that mindset, but they don't realize when somebody leaves how difficult it is to leave the group. It's not that people even want to leave, but there are people like myself, when inwardly you know something is wrong, you just have to raise your hand and say, wait, this is wrong, we can't keep doing this.

And so the people who leave actually have it more difficult than the people who stay, but yet the people who stay often are brainwashed and don't understand why they're staying. And I think a lot of it is the same thing that I ran into that you're being told if you leave the group, it's like any cult that you're leaving God.

You're rejecting Jesus if you reject us, is if they are the truth theirs. And that I think is what scares people into staying. And also why even after I left all these churches, I was still afraid to bring up questions because they made you, well, they convinced you that questioning any of the anything that you've learned was a rejection of Jesus himself.

Oh, you're blaspheming the Holy Spirit, that's it, you're on your way to hell. And the Lord started, Bringing it out of me and it's like You remember when you were kid you'd land a beach ball and push it down on the water and You lost watch it pop up until you got to be like in the jaw one day Yeah, but that's exactly how I started dealing with what I'd been through and the words like well You just get off the beach balls have again cracked in the jaw all the time. You can't keep pushing this down and

It was a terrifying thought to come on here today because I had to come back to So many different things have shoved out of my mind and shoved down But it's it's just the time for the healing to really begin fully and I think

It's nice, you know, just to be able to turn around look at the wolves and slap them in the face for a change

Yeah, there's something that feels good about just doing something right Whenever people have been doing something and they realize that it's wrong They want to correct the wrongs like I said earlier and for me that was really the biggest thing It wasn't that there was any real reason for me to speak out against this I grew up in it I actually enjoyed my time whenever I was in the call I just realized that it was wrong. So I started Literally just published a few things to let people know and one it was like a snowball going down a hill

There was never an end to finding all of the many things that were wrong with it and then once that Snowball started to connect with other ministries and it's it's like a thousand snowballs falling down a thousand hills You start to realize that this was a mess that from its foundation was wrong the fruits of it are all wrong But it has created destructive cults that are destroying lives and so you have somebody has to speak out They really do yeah, and this way, you know, especially like I said when you snapped in the puzzle piece of Elam and

Realizing this young man that I was dating. This was one thing that I really shoved down hard How he began to change once he went there and how Critical kind of sending I could do no right. It didn't matter what I said what I wore it everything and all this Deliverance and I got to thinking about They would pray for you. It wasn't like can I pray for you hold the hands touch the shoulder I don't oh my gosh. I felt like it was playing football with these people and Then they're trying to cast demons out of you because you're just having a rough day and

A lot of that craziness and it got me to thinking no I know you mentioned a wipe also the spinalishes and you've got health issues. I started very young and I found out in my 20s that I had some terms of stenosis when I was 15 and And there's nothing like reducing everything. It's a demon. They all that weird feeling in your life It's a demon crawling on you. No, it's a stenosis and Clean this and cast out that demon slate and I'm thinking, oh my word, you know, it was exhausting and it really puts you in a very

strange state mentally for years where you realize you're nerfed up all the time. And you could drink a bucket of coffee and feel calmer than what these people did to you. And joy in holy spirit, oh no, no, that's gotta go, they don't want that in you because if you actually find joy in the Lord, they get very acceptable to you, which is weird. So they got to get you like barking, mowing, pointing and all the weird stuff. You know, we have to do the Toronto curse and the Pensacola whatever. And they really do end up demonized. And then they try to spread their

poison to a lot of people. And I think that if a lot of people really examine where they got things from, it's going to sort out a lot. They may be like me. It wasn't just from one place.

It may be from multiple sources and sorting it through and praying about it and not being afraid to say, this was wrong. I'm sticking with scripture and I'm just going to let the Holy Spirit lead me and not listen to people. And I think that's really my best route other than watching the podcast. This does help quite a bit. You know, you mentioned Elam Institute. It's one of the groups that we've studied in the trail of deliverance ministries and lateral connections.

And this whole deliverance thing, it was such a good scheme for somebody who wanted to be a con man or con woman. Because if you can convince the people that they have something wrong with them, that they can't see, they can't feel that you alone can see it. And they come to you for the cure.

It's like they have a monopoly on it. If you're in sales, they will tell you that the best sales person is somebody who convinces the person that they have what the person needs, only they have what the person needs. And the person doesn't even know that they need it yet. And that's really what they're doing here. This invisible thing called, they're calling it demons, but I've got, I think I've shared it in one of the podcasts. I've got a book on handbook on how to be a deliverance minister. And it has things like if you have hiccups, here's how you cure the demon of

hiccups. And I'm like, come on man. Yeah, water or tea, here's the hiccups, right? But if you can convince the people that they have something that they can't see, it's one step away from brainwashing. But once they go to that level, what else can you do to their minds that they can't see? That's where the problem is. It isn't so much that if somebody wants to be prayed for the hiccups, that's fine. And if somebody thinks that they are the cure of hiccups by praying and casting out demons, whatever, even that's not so bad. But where do you put boundaries

around it? You're convincing them that they have something that they can't see. And we see these figures who are, many of them cult leaders, but some of them just people who are not very good people, they will try to convince people of other things outside of this.

We have this, you have this seductive demon. I was in one church and they looked at the minister, I won't go too far with this for obvious reasons, but the minister looked in the audience and found the prettiest young girl in the audience and said, you have a seductive spirit on you sister.

And I'm sitting there thinking, what you have a problem with looking at the sister, that has this alleged seductive spirit, right? But that's how these mindsets go. If there's no boundaries around it, there's a huge problem.

And I think people just need to take a step back and say, we really don't need this person. They're actually usurping the role of the Holy Spirit. Yes. And I think that other people that get drawn into this, some people, I think just by nature, are more curious about things in this spiritual realm.

And I came out of a very, very dark background. I was involved, I don't even like to talk about just the glance at it, but I came out of a background in witchcraft and even satanism.

And when you come out of that and you're very already familiar with the spirit realm, you know it exists. So these people can really target you. And that is another thing that's people that, you know, whatever.

And I know that they go on about the generational curses and all the tentacles and all that. But I think that they can really target people more easily when you've had some sort of weird background or even just a horrible home life.

And they don't have to convince you of the spirit realm. You just know it. But unfortunately, they aren't any better than what you came out of. Yeah. Oh, my word. And when Jesus frees you from something and then they start trying to drag you back into this weird world of theirs, you're not the bad old.

Because it seems like every demon you're actually coming in contact with is all these false teachers. So cast them out and you'll be fine. You just get lost, throw out the books, turn out the radio.

Yeah. And like I said, that's just it. They're usurping the role of the Holy Spirit. If you read the Bible and you actually understand what it says, if you have an issue, you have the power yourself to go to the healer.

But what they're wanting to do is become a mediator between God and man. They are the person who has the deliverance, the healing or whatever. And whenever I trace all this back to the roots of Branhamism, Branham wasn't the first person to do this.

There were others that did it. But Branham is the one who by becoming the foremost leader of the post-war war to healing revival, he literally popularized it. So he took the... This thing that existed, and if you look at it before Brandemism, anybody who looks back at that history, they can see that it's mostly the con artists who are doing this.

But then once Laterane hits the post-World War II healing revival hits, there are so many, how do you brand them all? You can't brand them all con artists, but there were many among them.

That's the problem. Without the boundaries, how do you put a label on it? And you just have to understand that the framework itself, that enabled this, the framework was wrong. There were some good people in it, there were some bad people in it, and there were some complete scoundrels that were in it.

But that platform enabled all of this. It did. And it was interesting that something that came up, and this was probably a year ago, was finding out my area, well, all of Western New York, really, is called the Burnt Over District.

And finding out about how much I just laughed at that thought. See how high taxes and cruddy winters were bad enough and all the heresy that came out of this space. It's still here.

And it's really frightening to think about how quickly I'll just wrapped up in from the late 1700s and onward, and through the 1800s, and trying to figure out who came out of this area.

And the more research I do on that, it kind of makes sense that there's so much that it's still here. And why churches are very difficult to find that aren't really off the rockers.

I could find a lot of them in town. And Methodist church across the street, one word of faith, the Baptist church next door, went ecumenical. And then we got some, like, I don't know, whatever up the street that's like poor, observant cult kind of a thing, and it's like they're all pretty shot.

And this is where we're finding the truth. And I think a lot of people are feeling so isolated, except getting online, because where do you find anybody that's not in a cult-like group or bleeding horrible doctrine?

And that's where you really have to read the word of God. And you have to stick with that, and don't look for other people to try to lead you. And some people are just better staying out of groups.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that I'm thankful for, the information age that we live in, information is just at a fingers tip. You can, now you have AI, but before AI, you just go to a search engine, and you can learn about anything.

Go to Wikipedia, learn about anything. And whenever you're critically thinking, and you're trying to learn for yourself, and you study one of the histories of these groups, you start to realize that it's not something that you are aware of, first off, most of it's been hidden from you.

But number two, if you knew that history, you'd probably have walked away in the first place, which is why they don't tell you about this history. You mentioned the burnt over district. It's odd to me how many different groups have emerged from this, everything from...

There are ties to Joseph Smith and Mormonism to the burnt over district all the way to spiritualism. You have who was at the fox sisters. I think different flavors of different movements have emerged from this.

And yet if you trace those routes into what they developed into, some of them appear to be good movements and maybe they are, maybe they've reformed, but they're not telling you where they came from. And if you understand where they came from, in many ways you understand why they have the theology in the way that they do because it's framed after what they have built on as far as their historical lineage of theology. That's where the problem for me lies. Once you dig into that historical theology, you realize that some of these things were just insane, but they reformed

and they erased the history of the insanity. But what they kept were the things that are problematic. You have the, also with the burnt over district, the reason why it was called that. I think it was, if I remember right, it was Finney, Charles Finney that labeled it this, but there were so many revivals that were so intense and frequent that people just became burned out. They were just so tired of trying to stay in this hype, right? Well, after it got burnt out, they started seeking other things that wasn't so intense. But those other things developed into the same intensity.

And so you have the revivals that, like in today's world, you're looking for this end of days revival. They're looking for the most intense thing. And some of those, some of those trails lead right back to the burnt over district. And you begin to understand, well, they walked away from this for a reason. Why are we going back to it? Right. Yeah, that's the whole thing that emotions are a wonderful thing. It's, but it's not a diet. And that is exactly what I found with a lot of these groups is that they really rely on that emotionalism. And everything was

filled. And all I could think of is, you know, they say, seeking the Lord, seeking the Lord. And all I can hear is third rock from the sun and cutting message from the bad head.

No, you're not seeking the Lord. And sometimes the Lord isn't telling you bigger things. Sometimes it might be like, you'd probably should get laundry done today and ask me. And it's really in the simple. And they always talk so much about finding this higher level and ascending and walking in victory. And I start to realize, comes really, a verse of the always brought to me was when they were rebuilding the temple after Babylon, who has despised the day of small things.

And there are so much that is day to day and ordinary and so much wonderful in it. But they always made you seem like a schmo. And you just work their level. And this is where you walk away because I just got tired of host trying to be hyped up in their way and yeah, I'm done.

I'm out and I just haven't found God as a God of hype. Well, that's one of the problems because and rightfully named the burnt over district, people tried to stay in that hype and they just got tired of it.

You can only endure that for so long before you get tired of it. What ministers who came from that route did, they realized and recognized that we're going to create another burnt over district.

So we need something new, something more exciting, something bigger, better. And that's what turned into the revivals. They began to try new ways to bring in things that would attract the itching ears, basically.

And you look back at the days when William Brannum toured with this little boy that could levitate on stage while they're holding a revival, little David Walker. I mean, they were going to that level to make it more appealing to the audience because they didn't want to burn them over.

Well, if you look back, that was in the 40s, late 40s that they were doing that. What they did was even became bigger and more intense, but they didn't have a boy levitating on stage, the leadership that's in those movements, progressed to a level where they get to the point they cannot for themselves keep the movement going and keep the hype up.

And so they turn more destructive. So you watch this pattern over and over again. Once the hype is over, it starts to go destructive. Then the problem starts to fall on the people. The leader will blame the common rank and file members.

It's your fault that it's burnt over. You need to be more intense. You need to be more dedicated. And so that cycle just continues, then they get burnt out. So where this is ended up, it's like we have a thousand burnt over districts, but it's all it's moved into like the spiritual realm.

They're thinking we're burnt out because we're not dedicated to God. And that's what they're presenting to the people. I heard that so many times that you're not really committed. And that comes right down all my word.

You know, it's the type of thing that I couldn't figure out what this super Christian was, that they were trying to turn us into. And behind the scenes, you find out, oh, that pastor's been messing with a secretary from the past three years.

And another one that you know, it always seems to be something with messing with the ladies, you know, it comes out for behind the scenes and they get nastier. And there was one church.

I wasn't there full time. But one day God loved you the next day he was all mad at you. You didn't even know what you'd done. And he was going mega church. And they were non-denominational and they wanted to build this mega church and they called it Golden Heights Christian center.

And when he was saying, oh boy, he used to yell at us. We're not getting enough. Oh, maybe her 50 of us all together. I'm sorry. I cannot build a stadium on light. income on 15, okay?

And he was saying, well, the Holy Spirit told us to go in order of whatever for the building. And then when we ordered them the money, it wasn't there, but it was us. And it's, dude, we got a pair of bills too, not that I had them at 15.

But it was always blaming the congregation for their faults and their sins. And that's where I just ran. And I just know, I can't keep doing this. And maybe this is just kind of a ramble, because I'm trying to put pieces together.

And my head is to what the world happened. But I know the way they twist scripture and boy, they cherry picket and they beat you to death with it. And, you know, read the whole thing.

Read the whole passage. Don't just listen to these little snippets like fortune cookies lips. You know, this is your scripture reading for the week. And that's where the healing really comes, that you don't have to be afraid to raise the questions and the hard questions.

When you're in scripture, the Lord is not angry with you for asking questions. This is what He wants. And that's the realization I had to come to. These not gonna strike me with lightning for raising a question, I guess, what I was taught.

And He will lead us. He wants us to know the truth. Jesus said, I am the way the truth in the life. No man comes to Father, but I may. So, if you have a lot of doubts, ask the Lord about it, raise those questions because you need to define the truth.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brandham Historical Research's website William-Brandham.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.

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It's interesting when you're in one of these movements and you ask questions. You can tell very quickly if the movement is destructive or not just simply by asking a question. Whenever we left the cult and I was still new to this concept, I thought, you know, you're never supposed to ask questions because if you're questioning the leader, you're questioning the Holy Spirit.

That's the way we were manipulated. But once I began to realize that that... wasn't the truth. I was filled with questions. And I'm sure I made many people want to stand back and say, get away from me, John. You're asking too many questions. But that's what I did. And we went to several different churches. And I would often meet with sometimes I'd take them out to launch or we would, you know, go over to the house, etc. But I would meet with ministers and I would just simply ask them questions. Some of them were hard questions. And it's not that I really cared

so much about the answer as I did how they reacted to the question. So I would literally ask them a question just to watch how they reacted. And sometimes I would throw off the wall questions out there. One of the groups we attended was real big into Calvinism, which I'm not. And I asked them about the man who Calvin put to death to explain this to me. How does that fit in the theology? Just to see how they answered the question. I had, at that point, I had studied the history immensely. I knew most of the history. And so I knew the pros, the cons, the, you know,

the weird situation that occurred. But the way that they reacted was just, it was, it was a little unbelievable. And you could go to one church in mainstream Christianity, go to one church and ask questions. And they're very open. Many times, if they don't have the answer, they'll just say, well, I, you know, I don't have the answer to that. I've thought about that myself too. And I wondered, but I don't have an answer. And those, those kind of people I can, I can accept. But the ones who try to come up with an answer whenever there is none, or those who just want to shut off the

question, those are the ones that I realized that I'm, I don't think my family is a good fit for this church. Yeah, that's a polite way of saying it. But yeah, it is true when you raise those hard questions. And oh, you can sort them out very quickly. And I could imagine the questions you raised. That's really the best way to be. And you know, it's funny that Jehovah's Witnesses don't even stop by here anymore. Yeah. They have a big ax on the front of my place. But when you raise any kind of questions, they automatically accuse you of being argumentative. And it's like,

no, it's right here in the Bible. But yeah, when people start with that, well, you're in this spirit of rebellion. You're right. I'm rebuilding against you, tough, suck it up, cupcake. I, I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast or not, but we had a couple of Mormons come to our house. And this was while it was in the cult. So this is, this is where it gets really ironic. But whenever two Mormons come and they try to recruit you, they come with a Jedi master in a Padawan learner. And the Padawan learner usually is silent. And they're watching the Jedi

master as he's trying to engage you. Well, even when I was in the Brannum cult, I knew quite a bit about the other. cults. I studied it. And so I knew about Mormonism. I knew about Joseph Smith, all of the things.

And I was asking them questions as they would try to present, you know, a try to recruit me. And I was watching the Jedi Master. I was watching him smile with his mouth, but he was angry with his eyes. He did not like the questions. But then I looked over to the Padawan learner. And he's, he's just in a state of shock. I can't believe this. I didn't know that was a legitimate question about my faith. And I think by the end of it, I think I de-converted one of the guys.

But the interesting part is I was trying to instead twist it and convert them into branemism. So in essence, I was doing the exact same thing they were doing when they visited my house.

I was trying to recruit them into another cult. Oh wow. You know, it's, you know, I just got to the point sometimes. It's like, okay, Lord, you know, I don't even know how to answer the door at this point. And you just screw with people on their own beliefs. And because they don't believe hell is eternal with a joke as witnesses, I said, so in other words, I could join you, have no fun in my life and still go to hell.

Or I could live it up and just burn up. No consequences. Cool. Thanks. They did not like that answer. And they were so startled that I actually got a little bit of time to actually discuss scripture, but they of course, they walked away. But at least that was kind of a cold glass of water in the face to get the retention. And that is funny that you're trying to get them into branemism. It's really amazing. People, and I forgot about it. Other people that come to the door.

And I'm not really sure who the group was, but they were on about don't have musical instruments in the church. And I don't know. I know that it came in contact with people from assemblies of God. And I don't know if faith assembly is an assemblies of God. I've heard of faith assembly.

And I wasn't sure if they're connected or a hundred percent sure what assemblies of God are about. And if that's also where some weird things came in. So there's some weird connections. First you mentioned hell was eternal. That was also taught in branemism. Although branem taught both sides of every doctrine. One of one of the sides that he taught was that hell was not eternal. And he would he would split hairs over what the passages mean.

And also my I think I've mentioned that's my grandfather would not have musical instruments in the congregation in the in the prayer prayer service. Because branem said only the only the piano in the organ can be present. There are no stringed instruments. There's no percussion, anything like this. Because that's I guess it was devil worship or something like this.

And the interesting part about that is the piano has strings. So they both didn't understand what a engagement was, which was funny. But they, you know, the real problem is, all of these groups, they have, as they've splintered and grown, it's hard to trace their roots. You mentioned Faith Assembly. Faith Assembly is the name of the splinter group that Charles Paisley, who does the podcast with me, his Brana Mite sect was called Faith Assembly.

They heavily, heavily influenced Hobart Freeman, who started a cult that was called the Faith Assembly Cult. So, Chino Ross, who does the podcast with me on Tuesdays, he's literally talking about the Faith Assembly sect. But if you look at each one of those groups, they look slightly different than what I came from. Even though they have the same foundation, same roots, same, it's literally the same architecture. But what happens is one central figure who is enabled by this architecture rises into power over his people and tries to twist it so that it looks slightly different because he's the one who's bringing the

divine truth that the other guy didn't bring. So each time there's a new iteration, their doctrine shift, and unless you understand the framework that enabled them, you might think that's totally a different group of people. However, it is the same, it descended from the same tree.

Okay, that makes sense, because sometimes I have the trouble really finding out what a lot of these groups are about, because even if you go to websites, they are very limited info. And when I was just trying to look up Faith Assembly last night, I, it didn't really explain anything about their beliefs. It just said that they're, I don't know, whatever diverse, I have no idea. But they didn't really have any kind of belief statement on the page. And that's where I get a little bit thrown. And I really don't want to, you know, put myself in a position of visiting churches to find out the hard way I can.

I think I'll stay safely over here and just remain ignorant and say, I'll be over here and good. Thanks. So you mentioned your past that was before you became a Christian. That story sounds interesting to me. Tell us a little bit more about how you converted.

Oh, wow. It's really bad. They would really be quite a ride. It's very interesting that I went into the occult. It, believe it or not, it was because of TV shows. Like, believe it or not, would be witched and seeing that growing up. And I just was always drawn. Like, maybe there is something real to this. And I got drawn in and which craft is kind of like in me some heroin. So you go into Satanism. And getting dragged to half a church, I couldn't tell the difference between witchcraft and Catholicism. They're the same to me.

Pretty much. And I went into Satanism because I hated half a church so much. And I thought God was hiding himself. for me. And so I just went the opposite way. And then I started to realize that this is very interesting how God got me out of it. I wanted to see Tannic Bible so bad. And when I was 12, there was one in Walden Books. And I know God was sticking his fingers in the pages to having flipping to certain things. And Satan ordered himself as a liar and there's a big end. It's like, really? You would have thought of that. So I just chucked

it. I said, forget it. I stood in my bedroom one day, told Satan, I told him he's a fraud. I hated him and all this. And then I was so lonely because I thought I don't want Jesus and I don't want Satan. And I realized I'm 100% alone. Well, the following year the Lord started sending what you would call Jesus. Excuse me. I'm in that in here. And I had never met an actual Christian. And you know, it's really fun to see how God brought things together and different people into my life. And I was watching these people like, you look

cold. You know, I really didn't know what to work about. And I was so busy eye-balling him. I didn't understand the gospel. And eventually it was one man that the Lord sent. And he was known as the blind evangelist. His name is Terry Sanders. And the Lord had been leading me through peaking the interest. And I saw a man, you know, when people talk about signs and wonders, he was a sign and a wonder to me. No, God didn't give him a site. Nope.

He did put eyes in his head. But when you talk about rivers of living water coming out of somebody, this guy was drinking from a fire hose of joy. And that was the tipping point for me, because I thought, if God could take a man like this and do this with him.

And I thought, I want to know your Jesus. This is a seriously abbreviated version. But that's exactly how I came about turning to the Lord. There was a lot of misery in between. And even a lot of suicide attempts for the Lord's spirit. We throw them until the day that he knew I was ready to say yes. And then you went to you met somebody from Elam, right? Well, I was in high school. I was just starting ninth grade and dating a senior in the following year, he went to Elam. So I had only been saved at that point

just months. And the following year when he started attending Elam, that's when things really started to go dark. And I knew when I got saved in 1979, that was real. But it was almost like kidding a wall because I was getting hit with so much false teaching.

And trying to get around the wall or find a door, I didn't know how to go forward. And finally, when the Lord got me away from that guy in particular, he got real pushy about getting married, you know, on 15, 15 and a half of this whole thing. It's It was really craziness and we finally broke up in 1982 when I was 16, I just had enough.

But I realized that what was coming out of Elon, when you mentioned that, that's exactly what he was starting to act like. So even though I had this weird background because I had actually come to Jesus, he carried me through those chaotic times when I was getting a lot of bad teaching and knowing that's not the truth or it can't be the truth.

And he's been very merciful and gracious to me through the years to unwind. Anybody who knits or crochets understands the expression, Yarn Barth, you're pulling out the yarn and it all comes out of the middle and you're trying to untangle this.

And that's what my life had turned into. The outside looked nice, but it was Yarn Barth from the middle of it. And the Lord has been untangling a lot of things. I know that whatever my BC days were, that it was absolutely bad.

I know that Jesus did save to me and he is the one that he's bringing back to because I know him and I can discard the rest, but it does take a lot in here to start to realize how you think and what's affected you and trying to put all that to rest does take time.

I can only imagine it's a lot to detangle. And then to find out that there's this big, complicated mess that's underneath all of it, where do you even begin to untangle that? Right, so maybe that's all I can say to people that I'm starting on the journey and that's why if I'm sorry, I sound like I'm rambling in a cohesive, I sound like Yarn Barth myself.

This is the whole point. It's a fairly new journey that I am not afraid to take anymore. So if you're just starting take heart, you know, I'll be 60 very soon and I've just started for my teens to get this unraveled, but don't give up, don't give up, please.

You know, that's the biggest hindrance, I think, whenever people first begin to leave one of the groups, the moment that they peel the covers back and they look what's underneath, they suddenly they're like, oh my gosh, how do I even begin to unravel all of this mess?

And I think it dissuade some people. That's why it's so, it's so difficult, it's convoluted. But with their indoctrination, usually in these groups, there's also this indoctrinated urgency. You have to have all the answers now because we came from a spiritual leader who had all the answers.

And so instantly when you leave, there are people, I'll get emails almost weekly from people who say, okay, I've left. What do I do now? I need all the answers. And they come to me like, I'm the answer man, I'm not the answer man.

My answer is, well, you have a lifetime to figure that out. And the indoctrinated urgency that they gave you, it's a false urgency, it's a false sense of urgency. Not a single person who even a teenager who's trying to figure out...

up where they're headed in a normal non-cold life. It takes them years before they develop the worldview. So when you leave and you've been taught a false worldview, what may take decades before you start to build up your own worldview, and there's no need for that urgency.

Yeah, that is the one thing the Lord has shown me is how amazingly patient he is. And it's quite amazing what I have learned about his nature by this pretty much car wreck where I needed to, you know, to cause a life to get me out and have this mangal brule mass.

And the Lord is very kind, very patient about sorting you out. And when you come out of the background, there's very reactionary that if you get an impulse you have to react to it.

And being able to step back and say, okay, Lord, what's this about, what am I looking at here? And he's fine with that. You don't have to jump on it. So yes, he's moving me because no, no, our emotions can come and go.

In some of us are, you know, you're an artist, you're a musician. And you know how it is. We just were more high strumped. And the Lord just, it's sit down for a minute, girl.

Just it's okay. It's okay. And realizing that I can sit back with the Lord and just ask him about things. And sometimes he'll just take it through process to give you that answer. He doesn't just give it to you.

Absolutely. And along with the trained urgency that you have, there is this weird notion that you have to always be bright. And I will never forget how difficult that was because I had, as soon as I left, I had to be right.

Or otherwise, I'm leading my family astray. And as I began to dig and uncover, it's like peeling an onion. You peel one layer off and then you find, underneath that there's this other layer that's just completely false.

So let's peel it off too. Well, you continue to do this forever. There was a point at which I want to say it was probably three or four years after my leaving. Every single week my entire world view is flipping back and forth because I would peel something off and I would find something that totally skewed my way of thinking.

And so I would peel that off and then I would go the reverse direction. And eventually I came to the point where I realized that I'm not going to have all the answers. I'm not going to figure out, let's just wipe the entire onion away.

Let's start with a clean slate and let's start building back up. And I resolve to build it very slowly. In fact, I'm still today building and may for the rest of my life, I have no, there's no urgency.

There's no hurry for it. And my advice to people who leave or people who are thinking about leaving, don't try to figure it all out. You're not going to. If you believe that the Holy Spirit was sent to lead you and guide you, let, let that be the leader, not any person who claims to have all the answers.

Yeah. Yeah. It might be a process. It might be quicker than you think. just don't give up. That's all I can really say. If you had any advice to give your former self back whenever you were in the early stages of trying to figure all of this out and you came across Elom and you realize that something's a little off here or one of the other groups that you got involved with, what advice would you give yourself to give yourself an encouragement on where you're headed?

Oh, I don't know if I'd encourage you. I think it'd be a big slap across the head. What? Oh, to be, you see that guy over there? Can you get away from him? Uh, that is...

Uh, that's very interesting because what I even have listened and I think that is one of the problems that, you know, hey, I'm 14, I know it all. And then you realize you don't.

But yeah, um, I'm not really sure what advice, and that's a very interesting thing that I may not have listened to good reason back then because obviously I didn't. So you have been deeply involved.

I've watched you in the comic feeds and the videos and you've been deeply involved in trying to dig into all of what is this mass? And if you had advice to give people, what advice would you give them?

Oh gosh, you know, it's just funny. It's just something I scratched down there and outright, I just wrote it down about, you know, all the things we don't do and just laughing a little bit about J. Vernon McGee.

Yeah. I know it's about, you know, about the Hill movies, no cards, no TV and questions. It was like, can Christians dance? Well, some can and some can. Okay. And that kind of approach to a lot of life, that there's a wonderful balance and you don't have to be living in the extremes all the time.

I don't know if that's worth anything but I've just found that God is very, very wonderfully balanced. Well, thank you. That's very good advice and thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Oh, it's been a great pleasure to be here and I appreciate you and everybody that you have on here. You were such a resource for descent. Thank you. Well, it's been been a whole lot of fun.

So thank you for doing this. If you've enjoyed our show and you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branum.org. For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

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