Submission and Control: From Shepherding to Charismania

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 very special guest, Sam Danner, former member of the Shepparding Movement. Sam, it's good to have you on and to talk about the Shepparding Movement. Charles and I, as we've been going through the revival history, we touched on it a little bit, not as much in depth as I would like to in the future, but the Shepparding Movement was basically the movement that came

after Branhamism and it was a precursor to basically it was the architectural design that the NAR was built upon where you had these very controlling figures and these Sheppards as they called themselves. So I'm very excited to have somebody on who was a part of that movement. I've actually wanted to several times and getting somebody to actually talk about it is more difficult than then it should be. So thank you so much for doing this. Maybe if you could just take a moment and introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Well, in 1973, I was 19 years old. I'm now 72 years old and I came to

know Jesus Christ as my Savior, my Lord and Savior, a Christian coffee house in Heger, San Rome. And it was through this Christian coffee house where I came to learn a principle of what they called the discipleship in those days and they possibly follow me as I follow Christ. And the leader of that particular Christian coffee house went to a Fenty Castle church, which was a vibrant, really active, you know, holding this type of church, fire, baptized, you know, I'm talking about John. And they propagated the same kind of thing. And they were into this movement out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the 17th movement with

it was the Bob Malford Charles Simpson, Don Bassam, and two of those earned backer and miss one. But anyway, I have a written here, but I'm not gonna look at it right now. And the thing of submission, those those those stalls down there in Fort Lauderdale.

It was called Christian growth ministries they really they met well. They met well Then they didn't come out and say Okay, we're just gonna start like caught and we know we're gonna get into it and everybody's just gone They go follow what we say and where's this going?

Star-owned thing They wrote sincere brothers and Christ Well, it means some are still alive today. It's up in the east and

I'd like to talk to them and they but damn They just went to extreme and later on like two of them. I know I've regret it, but they've done There was Derek Prince who was big on the demon thing that caused a lot of the dark prince and no one I'm not sure but they were big on the steaming thing To the point to me of us fighting because I remember one of the years in the church Was looking for demons are where everything had a demon and

There was a young man who came down to the coffee house on a Tuesday night during a Bible site For some reason to start to speak out what comes to nonsense out loud and disturb the meeting So right away Our leader who he was in this discipleship thing this shepherding thing he jumped up and Poused on this guy and rusted him to the ground and start this demon cast out thing Well, I was part of this thing So I had to help hold a guy down because he was harassing and kicking There's just something out of the book of action in my mind. He wasn't probably got to mouth

But it came close to that and try to visualize this in your mind it was really scary looking and The leader is talking to the guy And telling the demon to identify himself this time I did it for you, so come out at all, you know Really from else scary Excuse us, but it's scary how he was fighting Then I know the universe was gone. I don't have a bit of Christian for a month and I'm seeing this guy stuff To me it's real. It's all real I didn't know what to think So everybody around there's a whole bunch of young Christians

His young morning in Christians girls and guys Even little kids people probably, you know, maybe some people gave some of them babies that part of the kids on with father I was saying it was during the time of the Jesus Not like California the big Jesus for you and Chuck Smith and all that

Anyway, but back to the demon thing They're telling the demon kind of, so this went off for at least 20 minutes. So finally, they kind of died down. I can't remember in detail what did happen, but things kind of stopped.

You know, it's interesting because one of my early memories, I don't have a lot of memories from my early childhood through PTSD, I guess I lost a lot of them. But I do remember in my high school years, and we had one student in high school, I was unusual in the Brannum sect, and that I was allowed to attend high school and then later college.

Many people weren't, not everybody was allowed to go, but I went to high school, and I remember this one kid who had mental health issues, and he went into a mental health episode. I clearly remember this.

We were in PE class, and he was walking right through the gym, and his episode hit him, it attacked him, and much like you described, these men had to get on him and kind of hold him down, and this is happening.

And people kept asking, do you know who you are? Do you know who you are? And he would say, I'm the queen of Shiba, I'm the queen of Shiba. And you know, I know I'll get backlash for saying this, but there is a fine line between what is a mental health episode, and what is a demon that needs to be cast out.

And interestingly, if you're in the mindset of the people who are casting out the demons, those are actually one and the same. So it gets to be an interesting conversation, but the years that you're mentioning, that's really why I was so interested to have you on, it's fascinating history, because when the Brannemism, after Brannem died, and as it transitioned into the shepherding movement, the name that you were mentioning was, you mentioned all of them, but one, the name you struggled to recall was Derek Prince.

He was involved with this, too. Derek Prince was part of this, but the years that you're mentioning, you're talking about the Christian growth ministries, that was spearheaded by a guy named Elden Purvis, who was a well-renowned leader in Christian identity.

So this is, as this movement is emerging from William Brannem's version of Christian identity into now shepherding, it's interesting to me that a Christian identity leader is spearheading it, but more than that, there was a Brannemite who is incredibly famous in the Word of Faith movement, T.L. Osborne, who was supplying training materials to Elden Purvis in Christian growth, while T.L. Osborne believed that William Brannem was God in the flesh, and he openly declared it at William Brannem's memorial service.

So you had a memorial service in 1966, then not long after that. I want to say it was about the same year all of this began to form. Tael Osborne, who thought Brannum was God in the flesh, is supplying other Christian identity leaders and that explodes into exactly what you're talking about in the years that you're talking about.

Tael Osborne was a big impression. He had this great big, he had a great big slick-looking type newspaper magazine thing I remember. And he had this, this is like a go-to look and deal.

He was like a hip-looking God. So that was attractive to us. I remember, he wasn't well known amongst the circus along with, I mean he was known, but he was like Billy Graham, like it was known because he was a big, he bands us down in his snowman. Was it South America?

I think it was Africa, yeah. Africa, you know, and I was talking to my son last night about how in third world countries, thousands and thousands come to Christ and thousands of miracles seemingly take place in because of the simplicity. I mean, they don't, they don't have all this western thought and stuff that they're trying to think things through. And I mean, they just believe they're poor. They're, you know, they're hungry. They'll take anything, you know what I mean?

There's a couple of interesting things. So Tael Osborne in William Brannum's, I don't know what you call this, it's like a museum, but it was his din. In the din is this very, very, very racist statue of a black slave and it's got the protruded belly button. I mean, this is a horrific thing. That was gifted to Brannum by Tael Osborne.

But you're mentioning the South Africa and how hundreds of thousands people saved, I think you would advertise Bob Scott and I had this conversation. You could go into some of those countries during that era and you could say, come, come bring your family. We're going to heal you. We're going to offer free meals to those that are hungry. That last, that last phrase, free meals to those are hungry. You'd have 100, you'd have 100,000 people there.

And then what that would happen, they would take screen, they would take photo opportunities. They would take all these pictures of the hundreds of thousands of people. What they didn't show you was the meals that came after. Was this wife saying Daisy? I think it was.

I remember that. I remember that, which she, she reminded me of on Katherine Coleman, because she had to pull this long down. Katherine could pull this for the days, the 70s. The savage way took off and there was, um, gosh, severing because so many memories.

Sure, was it was, um, her back had a book. And I remember his face on the front of that book and the name of the book was, I almost died. I thought this is really shocking.

You know, why would he write a book I almost died? It's like, we're all dying. I mean, he died. But, and I look, some of my cardiac, I mean, I had a hard time in 22. And that's what, you know, I just, some of the things they were right, provoke thought me as a why would they write them?

I, I, I, I, didn't. If you're supposed to emulate their behavior, cause they're into the discipleship. If you're supposed to, and some, some of the things they made that they said, I would not want to emulate, that they were followers of me, a bee, followers of Christ.

What would a Paul say, over a day of me, you know? Bee, followers of me, even as I am of Christ. And in some of the things they did, instead, if you're going to disciple somebody, or separate somebody, why would you want to say the things they said?

I mean, to me, they went to, there's so much extreme, as they let them down their own path. And, and for all people, for myself, including suffered mental health issues. I mean, I, I had a terrible time in 1998.

And this is 1973, late 60s, early 70s, on up through the 70s and the days, and all the time with panic disorder. And anxiety, germized anxiety disorder. Now, some of that stuff, I'm sure was a genetic predisposition to that.

But I mean, with all the shuffling issues, you know, the siphoning thing. I remember when I was, I'm with the Zion Bible Institute in East Providence, Rhode Island. It was like an episode longer there.

It morphed into North Point Bible College, up in New England somewhere. Anyway, when I came back from Zion, my pastor went there. And he gave me this thing about following him. I remember he's, he's, he's been influenced.

He didn't fall, he's got, well, he was heavily influenced by them. He was big in the Bill of Gothers. I don't want to go into a tangent, but Gothers was influenced by these guys.

He, this thing about submission. There was a diagram I saw somewhere and maybe he got through some of ours. It may have been from you, John. I don't know. There was a diagram of an Umball, somebody holding an Umball, and these arrows coming down from the sky.

And there was holes, a great big passage, the holes in the Umball. And there were leaks. It was like a covering, being covered by, I don't know, was it? I shouldn't have said this, because I don't know how it went.

I have seen the exact diagram. It wasn't for me, but it was basically an Umbraala and it was letting the bad things through. The bad things, too, sure. It's a bad thing for from Satan.

And the covering was from what? Submission to the... That's just the thing. There are so many different ministries that were influenced by this. And it, I've got a lot of pushback when I make those historical connections, because people say, ah, they were never part of this.

Like John Wimbler. You find John... Wimber on the magazine he's touring with these guys he's saying the same things these guys are saying now They are correct in that John Wimber would have never said that he's part of this cult called the shepherding movement But whenever you are parallel to and working with the same groups you're part of the problem because you're not stopping the problem That's right No stop the problem you These guys are so excited And being back in that day I was excited because I did not eat different You recite in grams in grams block because you know, you don't know any different

You know you're much more mature now Back then, you know, it's a proper God. It's a word God. Who am I to argue against the word of God? Who am I to argue against the word man of God?

How do I even question him? I mean, that's not that caught thinking Jim chose David crush Yeah, judging crushing and these guys it's the same thing You know, and when you're younger and she has stuff in time magazine and Newsweek I remember looking all the things. Oh, that's okay. I do that. But I did I did and didn't know it It's like the frog and you know, you know that analogy with the frog in the world You know, when you read a time up it gets it gets bored and No one ever suspects it. So I'm always these checks and bounces. I'll always thinking and when I ran across you

And I don't know how I did but leaving the message Man, it's like I'm telling everybody And I'm not even being a screen mark. I mean, I didn't talk about it. Hey, I'm gonna be on this program and talk about my past about this stuff but Especially the shuffling thing because it's something like I just once I get focused on certain things about what you just wait you talked about It really I get I get off something. Ah, man John. How do you find that you listen? You have a listenage of People that's influenced your life that I'm so impressed with you named a DJ

Down in the Washington DC here. I used to listen to the kind of rock a roll guy May I have an heard that in 15 years? I'm the guy that played Christian Rock. What was his name? I'm trying to remember the name You know, I have come across so many different connections. It's hard to piece it all together and I wasn't a lie I guess I was alive. I wasn't Present of mine during that So I'm learning it from history. So I've got this bucket of I'll bet there's 10,000 names in my bucket that I have to go through and I have to look it up each time

I'll look it up, but I thought how deep on that I thought wait, I'm over it. How many certainly can I just I wish I had the memory if I had the memory of Charles who works with me I could I could just pull it up, but yes And I'll say this the radio DJs part of part of the reason why I have some of those names as I'm interested in the history and all the age, how this all connects together.

Well, you have to understand to think of it from a business standpoint, because really in its essence, that's what this whole movement is. It is a business, it is a huge, huge business, very profitable.

But to have the business, you also have to have the marketing engine, and to have the marketing engine, during that era, you had to have radio. It transitioned into television, obviously, and television became the big thing, but there was a period of time in which if you weren't on the radio, you weren't a minister.

So I started going through the newspapers for the radio advertisements, and I start to see the DJs that are starting to play these guys, and it's kind of crazy when you piece it all together.

Interestingly, I have had DJs of current Christian ministries who have now escaped this thing, contact me, and they'll tell me they're in a workings of how all this happens, you know? They're talking to different parties, and if you promote, if you promote evangelist A, you get so much sum of money, and so many sponsors for that person, and this guy told me, I don't even respect the doctrines coming from that person, but our radio station can't play it, because without him, we don't get the sponsors that come with him.

It's so political, it's so political. I mean, isn't that disgusting? I mean, oh gosh, that makes me so sad. That's depressing.

I don't know, isn't it? God, I see, that's a shocker. I was thinking, oh, yet last night, I was preparing for this. I didn't notice, but I saw Chuck Gerard pass away on just August 11th, a love song.

Chuck Gerard was big into Jesus' movement, and he was influenced by Brandon. I, yeah, I guess you do. And it's you light up or anything when I said Chuck Gerard, but he, he was a big, big deal in 70s, with love song, love song, that Jesus' people banned.

It was a very popular group. Everybody in this shuffling movement would know who all these people are, because all the hippies, the hippie movement was drawn to the shuffling movement. But what I saw, because all of us, a lot of us, I'm exaggerating, not a lot of us, in the fellowships, these two fellowships that were connected,

they all weren't ex-hippies, but a lot of us were, you know, long hairs and beards and all the deal. And that was a big deal to go to Pentecostal Church. You had long hair, you know, the deal.

So you had that, all the churches that I had seen, people had white walls. For you out there don't know what a white wall is, you know, you had your hair short. Yeah. I mean, real short.

I knew what it meant. It's that white wall that you have right, when you shave the sunburn off. You shaved the hair underneath the sunburn. You have a white wall. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, you know, I know a preacher saying, you have, you know, look, look ugly for Jesus.

Yeah. It was disgusting. They would beat that script about, you know, it's, it's a, it was a, it was a, about looking, having long hair was effeminate. And Corinthians, I must say that right, or Timothy, somewhere, it was effeminate.

It was the same from in that long hair. And then everybody would argue and pick your, pick her about, well, what was long hair? And get lost is also intense about that. So getting back to suffering, I got pulled myself in because of these, these sufferings are, these leaders, the, the sabership movement.

They were, they were always on a pool, you back in line to get you the thing in the way that they thought and remember that they're intentionality. They're intentions were always sincere. There was one thought, I haven't been my toy enough, look at my nose.

That really impressed me. And the leadership encouraged me, encouraged a bunch of us, and I'll say us, the young men in my fellowship, the one I went to, to get involved with, it was a book called Disciple by Juan Carlos Ortiz, as J-U-A-N-1, Juan Carlos Ortiz, and here are a book called Disciple, and it talked about a thing called Mass Potato Love.

And these were, these were like new concepts, Mass Potato Love. See, that sounds really cool, that sounds charismatic, they mean this was exciting, exciting doctrine. So anything exciting in the charismatic movement was just delicious for a new Christian's and a new experience.

I mean, I can see by, I'll say it, I can see by John McArthur, a fundamental Christian, just sort of been out of shape or gone away, you know, since going to be with Jesus, just sort of been out of shape about the panic officers in the carriage match.

I can never see that fully in him, because there is so much extremism, but this is Ortiz guy. Back in those days, anybody that followed Malford and Simpson, the guy's done it at New Wine or Dunedin or Fort Laudio, those men, especially people like Derek Prince, when I came to the demonology thing, they could basically say whatever they wanted to say, and I say this reverently of them, but if they would say, it's okay to eat them, you eat five, you lose a core on Sunday morning at six o'clock, people would do it, I mean, I'm making me

a super here, but you may something stupid, and because they say that, that's a spiritual thing. Well, there's always a core in a certain time, and the holy... goes to come down and just weird stuff.

Just anything, anything eccentric. I'm glad you said it like that. I have tried to explain this to people who, when you're in that mindset, you really can't fathom what I'm trying to say, you can't understand it.

But when we were kids, we used to play with, I used to have cardboard boxes, we'd cut out a sword, we'd hold the sword, we'd have the other kids around us and we'd say, now you're the knight and you're the, whatever it is.

And you say, now you're gonna go conquer the dragon that's behind the tree. And well, there's no dragon behind the tree, but they'd go off and they would pretend they're fighting the dragon. Well, come to the adult world.

This is an adult version of that same game. You can say whatever you want. People are going to go pretend that they see it too. The problem is, you mentioned the anxiety with that pretending as an adult, it comes with the same package of anxiety.

Because now, oh my gosh, there is a dragon behind the tree and I can't see it. I'm scared of this dragon. This dragon could destroy my life. I need the sheltering of God or what there's different phrases that they use, but I need this protection from God for this invisible thing that I can't see.

And it comes with a package of anxiety. As a kid, you don't get this because you know the dragon is probably not real. And then in the adult world, I need that covering. I even suffered my pastor.

Where are you? I mean, I was the same when I was 19 years old. I went to these guys. If I had any kind of questions, I was on the phone and back in those days, it was hard for our phones.

You know, calling them all the time for anything. And they never, they didn't have a phone. He said, if he was, I know word is really good. If he was intimate with his wife, he'd have to break it off and they have that phone because that may be a soul.

That may be a soul that needed to have a question, the answer to it, about anything. And we don't know what some of Asian here is something critical. What's about? Was it okay to eat corn on Sunday morning?

You said you weren't going with this? Yeah. And that is how critical. And that's how weird and out of focus is how the saved worship thing got. Because they're so committed. And how denigrating to the wife who's probably sitting there listening, thinking, well, what do I rate in this?

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? Hey, well, how do I rate this? But yeah, didn't the greatest scheme of things? Shocking. That was a good point. I'm glad you said that.

But, you know, I saw so much of that. That thought got rigged when you're in. The Toronto blessing. People barking like dogs, rolling around like, you remember the three students when they were in Crowley Joke?

They were in Crowley. I'm a huge, three-stoogeist fan. Yes, I remember that. You know Crowley Joke. like a top. Well, I've seen that for real. And down to Ashland, Penny, Calls of Campground, and Ashland for Jin. This is back in the 70s and people are long gone. You know, and I thought that was the coolest thing. That was 20 years old then. I'm getting a year. I've grown a year in the Lord. And that's all it goes. I thought that's a power God. She was hiding for a shock when I married got three children, got grandchildren, gosh, going through. How many

wars have we been to? And all the things, all the things going on in the world, and all them, the paradigm shifts that we have to deal with as Christians. And now we got your foes, we got to discover things in Egypt, aren't you?

the Parisians? Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostal ism, 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. The shepherding movement, as I mentioned, it was connected to the Christian identity movement. Very deep in the Christian identity theology was also Egyptology. They believed that the great pyramid of Giza had spiritual significance and was a roadmap to the end of days, basically. And they also were, they were big into

the zodiac, there was this doctrine where you're, how did they call it? They basically your soul would go up to it to meet its celestial body. So your soul was going up to to be married with this other thing. Well, whenever all the US UFO craze hit the Christian identity, people went berserk because they said, these are these celestial bodies coming down to pick us up. And when you think of where that went, you had all the UFO cults and you had the people who were even well and to what was at the 80s or 90s, people, heaven's gate, heaven's

gate call, if you really understand the premise for all of that, that weird theology, it developed into very destructive cults, but that was the core basis for what was being created in the Sheparding movement through Elden Purvis. Some of the other people obviously not, but I know that Baxter was teaching some of the Christian identity themes, Baxter was working with Purvis. All of this was connected in ways that I don't think people really understand. I don't know, man. I think about this all the time, you know, the word we call it, and there's no aliens, there's no, we're not to get that word in.

There's no other way, you know what I'm saying? Is there, I don't know. The Sheparding movement did a lot of damage to a lot of people, and you can go read stories online. There are some guys helping me research. I can't give his name, but he's helping me piece together a lot of the the moment in time in which Brannemism began to shift into John Wimbler's movement, the Jesus movement, all of this. He's given me pieces to that puzzle that quite honestly, it's difficult to find. A lot of these histories have been covered up. One of them, as

the Sheparding movement was transitioning to become more destructive, they were having adults, bankings, they were having, basically they were taking the minds of the adults and bringing them down into a beaten, trodden, down childhood state. So if you picture a a parent who is an abusive parent, well, this is the same thing is happening with the pastor where they quote unquote Shepard to the adults, to the to the extent that the adults are mentally they have the mindset of an of an abuse child. So that's how far extreme it went. How far did the groups that you were in contact with go with

the destructiveness? Did you see anything that was as destructive as I'm describing or was it somewhat mild? It was mild. I'm trying to think that where's the rod? Where's the rod? It's where the rod's full of the child. There was a bit of discussion about that, but I never saw any extremes. There was a lot of discussion about discipline. I, this, this goes back to the bill with God, the thing which has nothing like you said, he was influenced by this movement and sort of the shuffling thing. Gosh, I mean, having this old discussion here and

now makes me decide, I think you're right. I mean, everything. Whenever the Jesus movement began to emerge, did your group and the Sheparding movement join with that or did you stay separate? Now they joined with it and they tried and quote, it took as Jesus people and tried to do the shuffling with all of them, all of them. And I don't remember anybody, but then, yes, there's a story about that.

Good point John. Just like that. I remember the lead shepherd in this group, the lead shepherd had a local, it was called the leadership training seminar. He had this and he only had a select few. I was in this I don't say I was out of priority. I was in that group.

And in the early years of me being in that fellowship, I knew that I managed to be a song hearing on your preaching. Every young Bible student or Bible college ambitions I had. I'm going to be a moody or anything like that, but you know, I had aspirations.

So he went out of these retreats, mapping the mountains. It was really cool. He read out this logic. The Turks were put to the bill. They get these books like George Miller or Bristol.

And all these famous people of faith, reached out, hugged in terror. Quite a few. Yeah, by all these books and we got these bookshirts paid for that, paid for the lodge, paid for a meals overnight, two nights.

And the select few would go and they'll eat shepherd, but he didn't use the words, I'm going to shepherd you. The best way to do them. Follow me is I follow Christ. Make, I mean, he told me this. He wanted me to follow him.

This is in the chronology this earlier. This was in intentions. So there was an outcry in the church in the fellowship. It was a whole bunch of people they had hurt dealings over this. Oh man, didn't pick me. You know, we won't be brought to this.

We won't be the years. That's what they're saying. So, gosh. Anyway, he won't have it. I don't like him. A flash mob, so to speak. He's like, Shubba's front door. I'm embellishing this, all right.

They kind of asked him this a little bit. And anyway, so he won't have a whole mob at these things. And I, I saw always going, I thought, well, you know, this has turned out real serious. So I just, I bailed out and just was not interested.

I had to check my heart. Well, say what were you doing this for? Are you really interested in serving Christ? Are you interested in this fellowship? What are your, what's your intention now? And being a master or being a preacher or serving Lord Jesus Christ? What, where is your heart?

I had to check, I had to check myself. So I just got out of that. And eventually my wife and I had to leave that church because of all the, all the weirdness. I'll tell you what, that, that thing over there in Bethel, we talked about the Toronto busing.

In the parking and all that well that can't work to our church They got this spirit of laughter and I took my mother one night on Sunday night to a service to hear To hear our guest speaker. I'm gonna miss his name well known and these circles and that Bethel group and And also you got this holy ghost ladder and The whole hour's everybody got that laughing Hesterically, I mean they are holding a whole new chapter stories Starting to hyperventilate. I mean it was I was laughing at them laughing. It was funny to see this

That's how some bears I could die a thousand deaths. I looked at my mother And there she is and scared the smaller face. I thought here I am Try I mean it's a panic also church and she knew what she was up against

But to have her see this I mean I was so embarrassed. I was so embarrassed And to see my past jumper Just laughing and laughing I could still see him rocking It's going down. It's really hard to believe because what these guys have done they've taken Things that happen psychologically to people and then they use them against the same people When when somebody's laughing it's hard not to laugh in fact when whenever whenever I'm talking So here's one of my secrets when I record for for those who don't know whenever somebody is talking and they get to be a little nervous

Or upset I start laughing even though it doesn't it doesn't show in the recording Because if I can show my tone it kind of projects it on them and then it lifts the spirit up So as I'm talking to people I had this one lady say wow, it's really easy to talk to you But I was kind of helping her along as she was going and that's that's the That's the component of a human being with a human and the human interaction Well laughter is much the same way if somebody starts laughing you you know, they it catches on and if multiple people do it at the same time

Everybody's laughing and so the guy who came up with the idea that there's this holy laughter and when you get filled with the spirit Everybody laughs. That is a brilliant tactic man because because it's a human element Nobody can control and if you can put a brand on it and then market it and sell it as your version of Christianity It's it's powerful. Well, that's an extra analogy. Did you come up with this psychological insight?

I just I learned by doing and I literally I was watching this one lady I was I was working with this one lady who had a really really really hard story and she was just struggling And I was I was thinking what can I do to help her and there's no way you can help somebody who is struggling with her past Other than to encourage and smile and so I would at the right opportune moments I would kind of smile and, you know, show myself, well, she would, she would watch this and I could watch

her change as I did it. So it's more of just learning by doing and ironically, I'm certain that's how this holy laughter thing came about. Somebody learned by doing, if I start laughing, I wonder what happens to the audience.

And somebody probably did it, they probably watched, well, this guy down on the front. He started laughing too. He had no reason to laugh because I didn't even tell a joke. I just started laughing.

So this kind of thing catches on and wants to does and it turns into a way to monetize it. It becomes a big thing. Well, this Toronto bussy, that was a trick of that to airport, right, Toronto, or if you weren't actually airport.

How do I know that coming about? I mean, you did, you, this away from Bethelgo, there's stir-up, or, I mean, you got to just do that or is that in your book and I could just read it?

Well, there's multiple, so when you think of revival, there's multiple aspects that I think people don't really catch. You can go to the internet and you can type in the Toronto street blessing, Toronto blessing to Toronto revival and you can see the names of the people that started the revival.

But you have to understand the way this works and these apostolic networks, somebody will start a revival and if it makes news in the network, well, then you'll have big names from other connected networks start attending and more and more people start attending.

I'm told that Paul Cain was actually one of the people who was there who became big in the I-Hop circle, obviously. Yeah, so you have multiple people who join into this, but the way it happens is whenever that, when that begins to happen, now you get all of this cross-pollination of ideas.

So what, a lot of the mistakes that people do when they try to connect all of these histories is they'll go to whatever is the revival, they'll look who's the host, who are the main speakers and they limit their research to that.

And if you miss all of the other people, you totally miss the power of multiple ministries coming together and influencing multiple people. That's where I thought out. Then people get credit that don't really deserve it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's not right. Yeah, you, that's where I thought out. See, I don't even, gosh, I don't even have been resourced in this job, because you were so good. I was part of the minister, I was part of the movement, the Brana movement.

So I had that for my lifetime, but I really didn't begin studying all of the other networks of 2012. 2002. Until 2012, that's right. So it's been 22, it's been what, 13 years? Yeah.

When you started the research and stuff, did were you an outcast and you're going to hell and all, you know, I mean, what was, what's the reaction of your peers and stuff? Oh, I'm still an outcast, man.

I'm, I've been, I've been brain to Judas and nobody, nobody gets that term, man, unless you're the bottom of the bottom of the... bottom. But, you know, it's a problem more to the cult mentality than it is the people who are throwing the accusations. They really can't help it. They're part of the movement, they're part of the framework. It's just like the Holy laughter. Once you're trained and manipulated to hate another person if they question, you're going to do it because that's what everybody else is doing. That's how it works. If you could go back and give some advice

yourself whenever you were an early Christian and you were starting to become influenced by the shepherding thing and give yourself some advice to help you through it. What advice would you give yourself? I'm going to be straight up onto you. You were born and brought up with the pinnacle of church and brand of them. Being at my age now, it's 70 to go into the Bible College and study about how I come into the Bible right here next to me. And knowing everything I've been to them, knowing them now, I probably would have went to some conservative Christian church

and trying to use that word to avoid the word fundamentalistress because they go and do extremes. But something that will lead towards God's, I want to avoid you saying the word John McArthur, but something that leads a conservative way because I guess I'm driven to think that because

because of the extremes I've seen. I'm reading that book. I'm still going through it. He mentions all this, a lot of things that you're not talking about. That book he wrote, The Care is Max. And he speaks so much truth. It's hard. It's really hard because my heart's been broken. You know, I pegged this word. I don't have that now. It was years ago. I went through so much pain, so much something. I just see a psychiatrist, psychologist. It was all meds. I know people, I don't know, book author. It goes books right behind me. Confessions about Bible Thumbra.

And he went into Mississippi. He had a nurse break down. And he grew up. He was Jesus person. Not his name is Michael camp. I just said, you can edit it out. Anyway, he's written three books. And he just told you it's he just dropped out.

And we're friends. I mean, I'll write to him. Talk to him. I've done these. I did, I did zoom with him. I took a course he gave. Now I don't agree with him. He said now. But he was, he was a foundation with me and helping me through a lot of things, a lot of deconstruction I had to do. Because I've read somewhere about where it was hard for you to go through deconstruction as you've had to do yourself, personally with brandism. That's the thing I wanted to bring up.

As far as I'll leave this setting, it was a big thing to help me three years ago, it was a three. The first came here from Australia. It was in 2021 or 2022. I discovered a thing on Spotify.

It was a group of podcasts called I Was a Teenage Fundamentals. It was 115 of these things. I've done my two guys in Australia, and there are two Pentecostals involved in a Pentecostal church called Christian, Christian something church in Melbourne, Australia.

And they went to all of the stuff that you and I, they were, it was documental more than just found a person like you probably went brown. It's just documental stuff in extremism. It's spoken word. And some of the things that you get you get you and I have gone through. And of course, you know, they're going out and they're going to other things. They just tell you how to just tell you how and just use all kinds of, they're talks of full, full propanion and discuss and you know, but I can see where they come from. I mean, I don't know if you have their behaviors

and stuff, but who am I to judge? Who am I to judge your heart? God sees what's wrong. And so I mean, I like, I like, I'll talk to these guys. I'll written to them.

And I'll see exactly the hurt. The damage they've been done. The psychological damage is immeasurable. It breaks my heart and makes me so sad. Yeah. I don't know. You know, you must have had bad talk to your wife and think about this.

And talk this through and talk that through and look that script shot. And what does it say in the group? But 10 different versions and it says it's hard when you've been taught something.

And especially when it's the person told you to finally avoid it, or say, you know, in your mind, you're thinking that I don't know how you break yourself of that. It's, I mean, how do you do it? And you're doing it now. You're still doing it. It's not like you've got to live it. I'm right. I don't know. I'm being bad and awesome. Tell me I'm wrong or say same shop.

Yeah. It's a lot to process. I don't care who you are or how limited. I talked to one guy who was, he had only been in the movements for, I want to say it was something like five years.

But it destroyed him mentally in the same way it destroyed somebody who I had also spoken with just a weak prior who had been at for 60 years. It really depends on how much you allow your mind to be compromised by these guys. And there's no limit to how much they will hijack your mind if you let them. So five years? Five years. That's it. Yeah. Five years compared to one down of 60 years. Yeah. But he, you know, the problem is the indoctrination, if you allow them to hijack your mind, they'll wreak havoc in your mind. The inner

First thing part, it isn't so much the minister who is operating under the tactics of mind control that affect you. It's what's going on already in your head. If you already are struggling with various issues, then you combine that with this indoctrination.

It's like a cycle that it spins out of control. It's the cycle that keeps growing faster and faster and a lot of people have anxiety attacks because that anxiety is forming in the head.

So the time doesn't really matter, but then trying to escape it. The most difficult thing is you have to process it, and most people are afraid to process it because it is extremely painful.

If you don't process, then you build all of these memories in your head around this elephant that's in the room in your head, and it takes time to decompress that. The longer you go without addressing it, the more difficult it is to bring that out.

So it's very good that people are talking, and now many more people are speaking out against it. Are there any sites that you send people to on the Internet, these deconstruction? I mean, I've gone to these places on Facebook, and people go, I'm learning why, and well, I mean, what else they're going to do?

There are places to go to, and they're talking about, and I can relate, and you can relate to everything you're saying. But we're having this end-up talk, you know, I don't know what I'm trying to ask, so I guess what I'm trying to ask is, have you experienced places that you can search out that have been therapy to people?

Yeah, every person is different. So I process much differently than the next guy. The way that I process is I want the information. I want to know, how did they do it to my head?

I wanted to know why they do it to my head. What drove them to do it in my head? What was the environment that they were in that caused them to do? I go to levels and extremes that most people don't.

For me, that's therapeutic, because I can understand why it happened, what happened exactly, and then you have to study a bit of psychology to understand what actually happened in your head. So for me, it's therapeutic for me to go and just read and research, and there isn't a single site for this.

It's literally, if you consider the internet, it is the internet. It's all of it. It's every book. It's as many things as I can get my hands on. Yeah, as many things as I can get my hand on.

Now there are other people who don't process in the same way, and quite frankly, I have an analytical mind, so people who don't have an analytical mind can't do this. They actually have to have a physical person, so they have to go through a therapist session, it takes a few times a therapy, but they can also conquer it.

But the therapy is basically, the therapist is working in the same way. It's helping them to process in their mind, what happened to their mind. So I'm processing in my mind. what has happened to their mind they are as well.

So I always recommend if you're not an analytical mind or you don't have access to information, go get help. It's the same thing as going to a doctor. If you injure yourself, if you cut your arm or whatever, you go to the doctor to get help.

When you're hit, it's the same way. You go to the doctor for your head. So very good to get help if you need it. But anyway, thank you so much for doing this. This has been incredibly fun.

I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it all. One last thing, was there any other people besides Bram from the Bram, thinking maybe I know a associate of his or a assistant pastor that influenced you differently in the way he did?

You have to understand the way that the indoctrination works, even though everybody has a direct implant of the cult leader or the central figures personality and doctrinal beliefs. Because no central figure can be always consistent on their beliefs, one person will be indoctrinated with exactly what the central figure said, but it won't match the other person who is indoctrinated.

So this gets really interested when you think of a pyramid tier of a cult. You have the central figure at the top and we have all of these enforcers, I call them, this middle tier.

And here's me, the rank and file member. Well, the enforcers, they're enforcing in the way that their mind is programmed, not in the way that the cult leader wants them to project. So what they project is always different.

I was influenced by people, a wide variety of people. Some of them actually was very solid influence. Some of the things that was trained in my head are very good things, but there was always that bad seed that was in it.

And if you understood how deadly that bad seed was, you'd reject the whole thing. It wasn't until I discovered that this is a cult. This is very destructive that I began to start processing that, but yes, simple answer is I was affected by a lot of people and I think most people in a cult are.

Excellent. But thank you so much for doing this. You're a quite welcome brother. 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.

For 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.