Unmasking the New Apostolic Reformation: Spiritualism vs the Gospel

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Lorelin Tyler Thompson, the host of Lorelin Live. Lorelin, it's good to be back and to talk about all things nor or new apostolic reformation. We've been diving deeply into the history behind what developed into the new apostolic reformation, but I've had just recently I've had a few emails asking what is this thing, what is this nar you talk about in AR. We had some comments in the comment feeds, I'm sure

that you're getting them too. And I thought it might be good just to pause for a second and have a podcast or maybe two talking about what is what is the new apostolic reformation. We have had people, in fact I've had ministers who one of them I talked to on the phone and had no idea that he was in the new apostolic reformation and his church would have been probably from from my opinion it would have been somewhat benign. There wasn't anything any real red flags, but yet he's part of this broader network of the new apostolic

reformation. Well, what is this? I have had recent conversations with various people who were doing similar podcasts like mine and two of them recently just this week we were talking through some of the leaders in the new apostolic reformation will fully declare that they there is no such thing. They deny and reject the idea that there is a new apostolic reformation. Some of them are you know behind closed doors they're admitting it and in public they're denying it. What is it? So I thought maybe we could just take a few minutes and talk about that. Well, I want to really appreciate that John because this is hitting me

you know right to the depths of my soul and ever since I met you I've been a little bit discombobulated because you gave me some information that I didn't understand or have before. So I've been sorting out my history the church I grew up in which I have to say I think that they separated from William Brannum but they did they had indeed had relationship and I think that they went different We still had that thou shalt not touch God's anointed.

We still had a lot of what I would say would be cult-like things in it. And yet I would say that Regile Zell, the leader that went to 1948 revival. I believe that he loved the Lord, even though he was a very stern man.

You couldn't see a nice loving pastor. That was not him. People revered him and feared him. And ultimately he turned that church over to a woman named Marine Galardi, who eventually fell in sexual sin.

And it marked my entire growing up years. Then to find out about NAR, the people that I've been running with for the last several years are NAR. And they're not very happy with me.

They're not happy that I pointed out some of these things. And when I've called into questions some of the teachings of Bethel, one guy won't really talk to me anymore, a good friend, a pastor of a well-known church.

He won't talk to me because I've even brought this up and brought it to light and maybe criticized some things that have happened. So we're all wrestling, like you are leading us into a new era of understanding, John.

And we appreciate you. I don't have your knowledge. So I sometimes find myself going, well, just something's wrong. You know, let's go over it again. So I would love if you would kind of go to the beginnings and why this is a problem.

I mean, I do know at the very core of things might be some real erroneous stuff, like about Joel's army and last day's apostleship and being special and having some rights and privileges that a lead ism perhaps that I see.

I see in the attitudes of some people, but some of the people that I might say now are NAR,

they would say yes, but then they would say, but I don't believe in that other stuff. So there is a little bit of, everyone's a bit confused about it all right now. Absolutely. And there's a lot of confusion.

And I am by no means an expert. I just have wildly, I connected all of this that we're talking about today to my research through I was digging into John Wember. And that's really what opened up all of the doors to this.

There was a book that I read I was recommended by a friend called The New Apostolic Reformation, the history of a modern charismatic movement by John Weaver. And if you want to know what the NAR is and understand kind of how it pieces together, Minus.

of the history that I had that probably weaver and others did not have. You can get a really good picture of what what it means to be NAR. There are like I said many ministers who are in the movement. They have no idea that they're connected to it. And the new apostolic reformation itself really predates what the historians say was the beginnings or origins. And I think this book by Weaver kind of summarizes that a good bit. It was either the late 80s or the early 90s.

I think it was the late 80s that C. Peter Wagner declared and named the new apostolic reformation. And because he gave it the name there are some people who say that he's the father or the founder of the new apostolic reformation. But he was really just describing a movement that already existed. And this movement existed because of an elaborate network of different apostolic groups that were all somewhat different than each other had different doctrines, different beliefs. Some of them even believed different variations in the Godhead. But they're all networked together in this collaborative effort that is loosely connected yet at the same time

vastly different from each other. So he was trying to put into words what this meant. And Wagner and Wimber were part of what was known as the church growth movement. They wanted to grow these mega churches. And they thought that this was a way to convert people to the kingdom of God. And that kingdom of God I think is key. If you can understand the idea of the kingdom that was being pushed and Wagner and Wimber both kind of separated a little bit on their idea of what is kingdom theology. But understand the difference between that and what was what has been

developing for decades through mainstream Christianity. You can kind of see that this was shifting into a direction that was new, exciting, entertaining, wildly good music. It was a form of worship that if you go to a mainstream church after having been in one of these movements it feels cold and stale. And it feels as though you're not in you know you're not in such an emotional state of being a state of mind that you are in the New Apostolic Reformation churches.

Well the reason for this is you're developing you're developing this entertainment hype in your mind that is focused on the entertainment itself. And that state of mind is actually a psychological effect from the churches not so much a gospel effect from the churches. But where it gets critical to understand is the leaders promoted and push it as though this entertainment form of worship is also part of the gospel.

And we can get into it deeper in this podcast, but there are different variations of what this means to different groups in the apostolic networks. I wanna say, Lasel was more focused on the music worship.

You had different groups that are focused on the healing and so many different varieties and flavors. It's like a Heinz 57 foundation of a religion. While that's such an interesting way to put it, for sure.

I grew up in that music. We had a hundred person choir every Sunday night. They marched in from the back. I have to say, I liked it. It was epic. We had a guy named Dan Burr and he would sing if it wasn't for the lighthouse, where would this ship be?

And there wasn't a dry eye in the house, most Sunday nights when he'd sing it. So it had its place. I think what I feel now, John, is that translated later into epic places like Bethel worship and Hosanna stuff.

And then when you hear that some of the key players had been involved in sexual misconduct and that the purity of God's holiness and God's righteousness was not there. And in fact, that happened in Glad tidings too.

The pastor that was a lesbian later revealed was the pastor where these incredible worship times

were being had. And I can only say that I saw kind of like what happens with Sean Foyte, who I had a problem with recently.

I don't think he has good character, not Christlight character. And he gaslit the sinners and recently Charlie Kirk has been murdered by someone from the trans community in that he was dating a trans person.

And I was not happy with Sean Foyte putting out a, you know, an ex post, basically mocking trans people and saying they should all be in men's toll institutions. And nobody will say that we don't think that they struggle with mental health issues, but mockery, that's a different level.

So when Sean Foyte brings worship in such a way that this is like, we give him a pass for bad behavior, for lying at the border, for mistreating people, for spiritual abuse, for being what is...

Many of the people that have hung out with him say he's an absolute liar. Well, then I'm sad because he doesn't have the character to back up this amazing sound that comes out of his mouth.

So, let's put ourselves in God's shoes. It's not possible. Let's be the voice of God, like Joni Lamb. Okay, no. What I'm saying is God looks down from heaven on everything, John. And he sees a man's heart who is kind of lacking in character, but he can sing and he can bring the band together and thousands of people gather.

And he meets many of them there. And the thing about God is he's more into it because he he will bless the wheat even as the tears are growing up in the midst of it.

If I could put it that way, like the like the parable that Jesus spoke, he will bless the wheat. He will grow the wheat even though this leader is false. And he helped us for as long as possible when I was growing up to feel the presence of the Lord because I did.

I felt the Lord or what I thought was the Lord. And today I love worship by myself, but I can't. I recently went to a couple of different bigger churches. And they they're all dark, right?

Everyone's in the dark. And fortunately, no smoke machines or anything. But the worshipers, they're very professional. They're very good. And I find I now don't honor that same sound. And so that is sad to me because I don't trust who's behind it.

So what happened was in this last church that I went to, everyone on stage in Canada, like it's a Canadian church. And someone had invited me and said, oh, there's this really cool church.

Come, well, they all speak Australian. Like Australian accents. I don't think that's a language, but I don't know. They sound Australian. And I'm like, why do they all sound Australian? And I was like, this is a plant.

This is a church plant from Australian group. What like from, you know, Hosanna or, you know, whatever it is that's over there in Australia. And it was. And then I went, it's like professional church.

It's like professional worship. We know, we know this, we know the formula. So let's set up churches everywhere. And we have a good sound and a pastor that has a unique voice because he's speaking like he's Australian.

And we make a professional sound that. That is now different than what I think the real church is and I think now I don't trust it so much and I but I do like music. I think that God loves music, but

Worshiping in spirit and in truth. That's also very important. There's a lot to unpack there So I love music too if you can't tell by my office here. I play music I have played music in churches for big churches small churches in the cult obviously after we left I played some in in the mainstream churches But I get exactly what you're saying because I felt it too and to some extent I still feel it One of the things that happens when you're in this type of movement and you escape as Your psychologically coming to terms with the fact that something was wrong

I can't really put my finger on what it was something was wrong Something was off because we see leadership that is falling left and right. We see that the This elitism that was brewing in this movement was creating people who were elitists and you feel something's wrong But you really can't place your finger on what it is So for me one of the the first thing that I did is I started reading the Bible over and over and over and over again Trying to wash out all of the false theology that I had and when you do this

There is a thing that happens that it's hard to explain unless you actually go through it You start to read and understand that there are different voices in the Bible when you're reading one of the letters from Paul and you're reading a letter You know from another person or a book from another person you get these voices and personalities And you start to see that this is a broader thing. This is a movement that is not just instantaneously Aligned in doctrine which is kind of what they teach in the NAR churches This is a movement that is growing and developing over time into you know from ancient Judaism and to Christianity

And then there's a period of time after this where the church is trying to figure things out Where do we go? How do we live? What do we become? And if you read just the gospels you find that Christianity as it was Created from its inception has been flipped upside down in the new churches that we have today in the New Apostolic Reformation Jesus loved the center. He would sit down with the prostitute You're mentioning sexual sins. Well, he's sitting down with people who are involved in this So it isn't so much that we have to hate the center or even be disgusted at the center

Jesus is sitting with them and he's teaching others to do the same but there's a key difference the hierarchy That existed in the early Christian church even whenever the apostles were on the face of the planet was a simple hierarchy where there's Jesus and then there's everyone else.

It's always been that way if you read through the Bible, there's always God and His people, Jesus and His people. So what happened was and this is one of the key distinct features that Laterane and Brannemism I think helped to develop is this notion of the fivefold ministry.

There is a passage in Ephesians that talks about the different offices, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, etc. But what they did in this movement was they tried to make it where it was a hierarchy. So you had Jesus and then this pyramid of hierarchy that everyone's trying to become the apostle because He's the kingpin.

And that hierarchy was one of the building blocks and there's many building blocks that changed the movement into a form of Christianity that wasn't quite what it was from its inception but worse than that it enabled people to take power and control over other people.

So then if you go through the history that I've presented through the podcast and through my books, take that hierarchy and take these people who are in leadership positions, who have authority and control, now mix in all of the elements of politics.

Throughout American history, there were several key battles and politics that had a religious component to it. But now if you have religious leaders who can control people, then they can push the political agendas in the churches.

And so what happened was politics entered into the church, into all of these different apostolic networks to some shape or form, they have a little bit of politics, some have a lot. Well, if you listen to the politicians, the way that the politicians speak against the people who aren't aligned with them is very derogatory.

So over time what happened is in these churches, you would hear churches who are preaching at the centers instead of preaching for the centers and helping the centers. So it was like the gospel got flipped upside down onto its head and because of that hierarchy and because of the elitism, the other problem that happened, you mentioned the sexual immorality of the leadership, well that's nothing new, sexual immorality has existed since the dawn of time.

But because of the hierarchy that exists, there are leaders who try to help other leaders who are falling to sexual immorality back into their positions of leadership. That's not something that happened in the gospels. Jesus did sit with the prostitute in the centers and tried to help the centers, but he didn't say, hey you who are preaching...

disposed to having a some sort of an issue. We don't want you leading over other people and then that issue, in fact, the church, essentially. So the gospel was flipped upside down, leadership positions were created.

And there's some other key elements that I'll get into, but in summary, the church that exists today in these new apostolic reformations has shifted so far from Christianity that if you're on the outside looking in, it doesn't even resemble Christianity.

Yes, exactly. And I really value what you were just saying, which is that now this group wants to reinstate those who have a predisposition to perhaps being a predator. And as in British Columbia, perhaps being a pedophile, that's how serious this is.

So rather than saying you are forgiven, you're restored to the family of God, you're forgiven, go your way and sin no more. What it appears that the NAR has done is keep on restoring predator types to the point where we can't trust them.

This is happening with Todd Bentley. People continue to want to give him a platform in spite of everything we know, and it's all in the Royz report. He had convictions for arming young boys when he was young.

It's all in the Royz report, it's fact. Then he grows up, we give him grace, he found the Lord, then he's in relationships, then he's having affairs, pictures, some stuff with men and women, and oh my, we have a predator, we have somebody who's not releasing it even after being an incredible minister, apparently.

I can't get anything out of him myself, it's very odd. I, before I ever knew anything about him, when I saw him, I was just, my spirit was sick. So then we have other people that we've seen, the Mike Bickels, the Robert Morris in Dallas and Art Lucie in British Columbia.

These are predators. They have, now with Robert Morris that I know of, he has not had anything come forward that he did anything again. Nonetheless, she was 12. That's beyond the pale. And in British Columbia, the girl was 11,

the first one who now, has a civil suit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against our Lucia. The other girl, I think, was a little bit older. And then we have three other women that we can say allegedly have accusations against him for harming them.

So what is it? Now he's been reinstated by an oversight committee that investigated for $1,000, apparently. There's nothing given out to the public after they say they have 1,000 hours of investigating claims of spiritual abuse, financial abuse, sexual assault.

There's nothing. This oversight committee of four, including one woman, knows that as of recent, this predator has released his bare butt picture. And I think we talked about this before, across North America. He's a pastor who sent his bare butt to a married woman amongst many other pictures, including him being in the shower and a steamy shower.

This was grooming. And this oversight committee here in British Columbia have said, look, Laurelyn, what jurisdiction do you have? How dare you speak to us about this? We're taking care of it. We're going to bring.

We're not done yet investigating him. So we're going to do course what we suggest needs to happen. So what they suggested needs to happen is he's back. He's been reinstated to being a pastoral person.

And on the heels of the Royz report comes out midweek. He's back in by Sunday, basically. I mean, I'm sick. And this is the narbunch. They love William Brannum. They'd probably soak on his grave.

I don't know. Art Rucie was at the grave of Louis Riel, lighting a candle and standing near it.

I know if they haven't done any other grave soaking, but they want to be like William Brannum, who raised the dead. And we've all know what story that was. So this is the bunch that are just so like where is what is the what is the measure by which you're allowed to be a pastor?

Where is the measuring stick where you go? I'm sorry. Some people can't be a surgeon because they don't meet the grade. Some people can't be a pastor because they show their butts and they have five women making allegations behind the scenes that they're a sexual predator.

But no, they're in the pulpit, leaving people unsafe. This is the narb group that I run with. Not any longer, by the way. I do not run with them. I forsake all of it, I repent, I'm not part of it, and I don't want any part of it.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new Apostolic Reformation? You can learn this and more on William 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 McCummery, 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. One of the things that you said that is of great importance if you're looking into this movement, what is the new Apostolic Reformation?

You said basically you won't run with them, you won't be part of this, and you have to understand that that's really the key to understanding all of it. It is everyone a big part of a movement, and that movement isn't so much a move of the Holy Spirit, but they're touting it as though it is a move of the Holy Spirit.

They're placing, like you said, complete scoundrels and positions of leadership in this movement that exists. William Brannum, by all accounts, if you go read any of the histories on the latter reign or the post-World War II healing revival, they all agree that William Brannum spearheaded this movement.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the men and women involved were fully aligned with William Brannum, but what it does mean is that in the broad scope of the movement, the theological points that he was introducing, they were aligned enough to stick with him.

Otherwise, like you just said, they would just walk away, why would I stick with this thing? Yet at the same time, some of the things that he introduced were so anti-biblical and outright heretical, they were aligning themselves with false doctrine, and each of those false doctrines became building blocks for what developed into the New Apostolic Reformation.

One of the things you mentioned is grave soaking. This isn't, there is no Bible precedent for grave soaking. This is spiritualism in its simplest form. Whenever the spirit dies, if you can accept the thing that is coming from the dead spirit, you're looking for that dead spirit of a human, rather than the Holy Spirit to lead you and guide you and lead you into further truth.

This comes from spiritualism. In Branum, we have evidence that... suggests he was attending spiritual camps. He actually mentioned an event that happened in a spiritual camp in Indiana. So he's introducing spiritualist doctrines, but he's also introducing the notion that the church today is cold and formal and needs revitalization. In other words, every other Christian out there is wrong. I'm right. So he got all these men and women, these evangelists, to join into that. And what happened is there's this big cross-pollination of ideas that happened. That's one of the power... I would say probably the most powerful thing

in the New Apostolic Reformation is the cross-pollination of ideas. One apostle, prophet, or leader will say something extra-biblical, sometimes anti-biblical, preach it hard enough in the network that another guy picks it up, another girl picks it up, it starts spreading. And what happens is you can't identify the sources for many of the doctrines. It's cross-pollination. We don't know the sources for it, but some of the things that he's introducing is this idea that all other Christians out there, unless they're in our movement, have grown cold, formal, stale, and what happens is God is going to come and restore the church to its original form because the church today is dead.

So one of the key elements for understanding what is New Apostolic Reformation, there are different themes that have built upon that idea. There's the coming global revival, where everybody's going to come, there'll be this big revival, then we're bringing down heaven, we're bringing Jesus to earth because we've basically summoned him. It goes back to spiritualism.

There's the idea that we need to conquer the kingdom and prepare the kingdom for the coming of the Lord. That's dominionism. There's many ways to different flavors of how this exists. Some of the people who are preaching the same theology will actually deny the seven mountain mandate, but they still teach the foundation for it, which was laid by all of the leaders through this cross-pollination of doctrine. So where this ends up, you have men and women, some of whom are scoundrels who believe that they are empowered by God to speak directly the voice of God through

either prophecy or go back to Kenneth Hagen, the bubbling, rambling, weirdness that he did, and whatever he claimed this rambling was that he said in poetic form, the church has to agree with it. It comes back down to the political alignment. If you are a politician and you're pushing the movement forward, the people who are with you are either with you or there are a against you. That's how politics works. So these guys are pushing a political form of Christianity that doesn't help the center, isn't trying to improve the center, and in fact wants to hate the

center. So as I'm developing what is my worldview after leaving the cult, one of the things that I had to come to terms with was I looked down on people that weren't of my same faith and belief set, but worse than that, people who desperately needed help. I despise them because we were trained and indoctrinated to do this. If you're a center, you're not of us, you're not of God. Rather than reach down a hand and pick them up, we all did this. And you can almost go in any video that I have on YouTube and you can see all the people pouring hate. And what they don't realize is,

if you are on the outside looking in, say you're not a Christian, say you're an atheist, and you want to learn more about Christianity. So you come and you see the way the Christians are acting on these YouTube blog posts, etc. They want no part of it. I don't want this hatred. Why would I want this hatred? If this is a God of hatred, I don't want him. And if you read the Bible, it's not a God of hatred. So what I would say to summarize all of that that I've just said, William Bram and others brought doctrines as primary building blocks of theology that were so

anti-biblical, anti-Christian, and anti-gospel. But yet, weren't openly clear that they were anti-gospel. So other ministers may have unknowingly, you know, worship Jesus, believed in Jesus, believed the Bible, but accepted the doctrine and then it cross-pollinated throughout all this network. Once it was fully established and you had the foundation of hatred, now it turns into what has literally today developed into hate groups. Wow. And that is a terrifying statement.

And that would maybe explain the stronghold, the control, how people are terrified of these leaders, they are terrified of the way that they operate, and they're terrified of their anger. Like,

I don't know if there's any evidence that William Bramham could be angry and controlling, but that kind of leader, even like Mike Bickel, the way that they turn against you, if you try to point out that there's a problem here and that maybe they are in the wrong, that maybe it isn't okay that there's 15 people now accusing you of the anger and then the vitri- all like that came out with Mike Bickel's sister in defending him.

It's all that same spirit of rage. How dare you question us. Um, and this has been what we've seen up close in Canada, British Columbia, the, the, uh, venomous anger in some of these.

This is the, this is one of the things. And I think it's coming from what you're talking about. This elite ism, this, well, we have something special. And some of them go farther than others.

Like I have a good friend, a wonderful pastor and people call him an apostle and he believes that he carries an apostolic anointing. I've never seen him run around saying he gets a special place in heaven.

He's a very loving, kind, generous man to a fault. And he's not saying that. But then we've got others like Dean Briggs is in this group. And Dean Briggs, perhaps people have said that at underneath some of what he truly believes is an elite ism about certain people have certain power, knowledge or gifting that is above others, something like that.

For me, one of the things that changed my perspective. I was reading, whenever I was reading the Bible over and over, I started in King James because that's how we, we were all King James only people.

But once I was able to evolve away from that mindset, I started reading not just a specific version, but different versions. I wanted to know a broad scope of what the Bible meant. And it's very difficult through one translation.

One of the things that tipped me off to this, I was, um, I was in a IT management position. I was working with people in another country and we were having communication barriers because I could use a word or phrase.

And for them to understand it, it took a whole paragraph of words to explain that one word and vice versa. They would say something and they would use one word. Well, I've got to go look up a whole paragraph to understand that word when the King James version or ESV and IV, whatever it is that you read, there isn't a good way in the English language to take each word or phrase and make it fully understood as it meant in the ancient Greek.

It's very difficult to do. So I started reading through the interlinear and different versions. And as I'm going through Colossians, Colossians 2, it really hit me that the foundation of our faith that we had was so backwards from what Christianity It should be, it says, we have the full riches and full assurance of understanding of the knowledge of God's mystery.

And I'm pausing there purposefully because if you are in one of these NAR churches or any of the churches that developed into the NAR, this word mystery has very, very overloaded language. They want to teach you a divine mystery that isn't in the Bible.

You've got to read between the lines of what it is. You need an apostle, you need a prophet. They have to teach you what's in, what is the mystery? What is the mystery? Well, one of the building blocks that evolved into this was dispensationalism.

And by and large, many of the churches today have rejected dispensationalism by words, but not by actions. Dispensationalism is the idea that there were different dispensations of time and God, manifesting Himself in different ways during those time periods.

The most simplistic form and brannemism they taught that the seven churches of Asia Minor mentioned in the book of Revelation were actually seven time periods, seven churches. Later, later Oceia, Leodiceia being the last one.

So anything that mentions Leodiceia is for today. So if you read Colossians 2, I have for you and those at Leodiceia, and then it talks about this mystery. So because of the indoctrinated response to this passage, my thoughts went to, this is written for us today, which is something that they do in these narrow churches.

You read the books, well, this is written to you. This is for us. But that's not actually what this is. This is a book that Paul, or this is a letter that Paul wrote to the church that existed at that time in Leodiceia.

And he says, the mystery, which now I'm going to continue, the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ. So everywhere where you're reading about the mystery, the mystery of God fulfilled, that loaded language was in my head.

I would, I would hear the word mystery and I would focus on, well, what is this? I need an apostle. I need a prophet. I'm going to a new church now that's not in the cult.

Where are their prophets? Where are their apostles? If you understand what Paul is saying here, you really don't need it. And where this hit me right in the butt. If you keep reading, he says that not to let anyone disqualify you by being puffed up by their own sensuous mind and going on in details about visions and angels.

And I'm reading this thinking that that not only describes the church that I left. Now I'm looking at all of these churches that exist today. This is before I knew what NAR was. And I'm seeing in those churches the same exact thing, puffed up without reason, going on in detail.

those about visions and angels and that's really what they're doing and they're claiming that they have this mystery, this divine knowledge. You mentioned Mike Bickel. He's got this mystery, this divine knowledge that we're going to have this end of days revival.

We need to build an army. We're going to be the ones to pave the way for Christ to come. And if we don't do it, he's not going to come. If you follow everything that he set out to its logical conclusion.

So in effect, what Bickel was teaching, what Brannum was teaching, what all of these others were teaching is summoning. You're in spiritualism, you summon a spirit. They're wanting to basically get up enough hype to summon Jesus Christ.

When Paul is saying the mystery has already been revealed, we have Christ. He sent his Holy Spirit. So as I'm reading this and trying to piece all this together, I realized that, again, this is before I knew the gnar existed.

I realized that the churches that developed from Brannumism and from this laddering movement, they had flipped it so upside down that the very people that Paul is saying do not let these people disqualify you are now leaders in this movement.

Absolutely. In lightning, I appreciate that scripture that you were showing. And I do think that we have a problem with people that embrace this sort of thinking because if somebody's prophesied, because there's a lot of prophecies, go on.

So they say, you have an apostolic prophetic gifting. And if you're saying this and you're imparted this by the laying on of hands, then you can get a really swelled head if you're a certain type, especially that I'm special.

And now people have to listen to me. And I've heard for years not to touch God's anointed being put on me. And now I'm the anointed. I've been given this special thing. And man, you better watch it.

This happened recently with, was it Mark Driscoll and the lady that he was with, her name Debbie. Anyway, she's like this person's coming in and saying, it's of a big church and everything. You know, I feel something wrong has happened here.

And she's like, oh, you need to stop now. And then she starts speaking in tongues, speaking in tongues and telling her, touch not God's anointed. You're not allowed to say this. You can't do this.

And using like spiritual, christianese, gobbledygoup to literally silence. And she said that. I think she said, silent. Be silent. Be quiet before the Lord or something like. Crazy nonsense. Who speaks to someone else like that and you know, personally, I'm good with the gifts of the spirit but I don't think you can become a crazy person trying to control others and you know, I think there's mental illness that gets involved in all of it as well. You know, I had somebody writing me last night that I thought was kind of a normal person but they have a crazy take on things that I just went

okay, I just, I'm just going to have to put you in a different category now, you know, but this is happening in the church. Some people, so some people do maybe have an apostolic or fatherly or they're a great minister but then you get a title. Some people go crazy with that title. Other people just have a good heart but all of it maybe has these different factions in the normal movement.

You mentioned the mental illness. Well, there's another component that is really difficult for people who are in the NAR to understand. There is a level of brainwashing that goes in these NAR churches and Charles and I in our historical research podcast that we've gone through the revival history, we both came to the same conclusion after examining it. There is a, I can't remember the guy's name, it may be Lifton, one of the psychological studies of how to program a mind is if you can take them, you can make the mind believe that something isn't there and make

everyone around you claim that it is, you can actually start to shift and change somebody's perspective until they believe the thing that they know is false. I went to a, I went to help on a mission with a person who was indoctrinated in a cult. I had to go through the series of training on mind control and I'm watching videos where they're putting this into practice and it's kind of crazy. They had, they had these projectors and they had four different lines labeled ABC and D. One of them was clearly shorter than the others and they went around the room and each

person would give the wrong answer purposely but with confidence and they had one test subject and he's looking at everybody like you guys are crazy, you can see that C is a shorter stick, right? Well over time is it went around the room and he got it wrong every single time according to what everyone in the room was saying. Over time you could see his eyes kind of glaze over and he started saying the same responses that everybody else did and I looked at it and I thought well he's just, he's just given up and he's just wanting to not buck the system but he doesn't believe it

but know if you if you actually follow this out to its conclusion in the study the mind has actually been programmed. So take that that I just said and now think about positive confession.

Positive confession is making everyone in the group tell you that you're healed. You yourself have the symptoms. You know that you're not healed. The minister is saying, go home, confess it. If you confess it, you will be healed.

Though sometimes lay hands on you, pray for you, whatever it is. And they're convincing you to lie about your current condition. And everyone around you is saying, well, you're healed. I just saw you healed.

There's two factors that come into play. The movement itself developed into this very miraculous thing because of this. People were actually saying, I saw hundreds of people healed in that meeting. But in fact, what they saw was hundreds of people who had positive confession that they were healed of the thing that they still had when they left.

In fact, one newspaper article that I read said, they came in on stretchers and crutches and they left on stretchers and crutches. But yet at that same revival, everybody's proclaiming that we saw massive healings here.

It's this positive confession. Well, it is doing the same effect to the brain that these studies on psychology are doing. It is a mild level of brainwashing to make people believe in something that doesn't exist.

Once you enter the brain into that level of control, now add to this the component of the apostle, the prophet. And this is one of the other key indicators of being gnar. You have to have fresh revelation.

These guys come and they get onto the platform and they say, I just got a word from the Lord. I just got this fresh revelation. That concept, while it sounds good, and while I fully believed it, while I was in branimism, I started to realize after reading just what I read, this mystery has already been fulfilled.

It's not that we need a new mystery. There is no, yes, there may be new fresh revelations, but you're not building a theology or a church on it. In the latter reign movement, the post-World War II healing revival, and many of the movements that came after this, Reima is actually named after this.

Branim called it the spoken word, Hagen called it the reima. We have to have this new fresh revelation because this is the new word for today. So, one of the key indicators of the gnar, if you're in a church where the minister is continually saying, I got this new revelation from God, and let's talk about it, but we're not talking about the Bible.

What is doing is it's a slight of hand. He's slight of hand giving you his new thing, his new word, and at its worst form in branimism, I remember countless sermons where the minister would hold up the actual Bible, the KJV, and say that this is like for us, this is like a scope.

We need to look through it through this fresh revelation. He was using William Branim as an example. Look through it with the fresh revelation to look through the Bible, and then you can hit your target.

In essence, you can't hit your target with just the Bible. So what happens is with this idea of fresh revelation, the Bible is no longer good enough. And if you follow it out to its logical conclusion, eventually, in some of the more destructive groups, like Jim Jones, he taught the spoken word thing.

Eventually, the Bible becomes replaced and it turns into a different form of religion altogether. Yeah, I'm so glad that you're saying all of this, because I remember when this word of faith thing kind of hit, and I think I was like late teens and heading into my early 20s, and everyone started talking about this church that was down the way word faith.

Yeah, this is so exciting. You know, word faith, I believe the word, you got to declare the word and profess it. And, you know, don't confess that you have that thing. I've had so many people say that to me because I was diagnosed with lupus in 2006.

And so I'm actually a walking miracle. I don't take the drugs that they put me on, which was hydroxychloroquine. And that's the big drug that everybody was saying, oh, you know, you can't take it and Trump brought it up

because it does have efficacy against SARS-CoV-2. Those are, you know, that's a fact with Fauci, even had that thing. I know all about it because, you know, I'd be into it, but I actually now no longer take it, but not because of any, you know, I can't say, always a healing moment from the Lord, but when I got COVID, I was in Costa Rica, and you can get Ivermectin over the counter.

And so I took Ivermectin, and I took it for 10 days, and I have never had to go back on hydroxychloroquine again. And my symptoms are just totally down because we do have parasites in our body, you know?

And, but for years, people have said, don't declare that you have COVID. So I talk about this on my show all the time, about just the, you know, the craziness that this little, this little drug of Ivermectin that takes out worms from dogs or like, you know, all kinds of parasites and stuff like that, is the thing that really altered my, you know, the, this lupus.

But if I'll say, I have lupus, oh no, don't say you have lupus, but I'm like, but I actually really do. And I'm not even afraid of that. I would like it to go away, and I'd like it to be subverted.

So what I do is I just pray that the Lord will give me enough strength to run circles around everyone. And I have that. I run circles around lots of people that don't have any disease.

is to confess and I just give all glory and praise to the Lord God for sustaining my body and my soul and giving me strength and giving me the joy of the Lord and help from heaven to, you know, but I'm in the Word every day.

And I loved what you said at the beginning and I didn't get to answer it because I forgot you know, when we talk so much, we forget different little aspects, but you said that when you had to get into this, you just started reading and reading the Word so that you could deprogram yourself from what you were taught, like how amazing is that, like that is so serious that we got to get deprogrammed from our religions by the Bible.

Like this needs to happen and mess, you know, and I think that's beautiful that God showed you actually how to get free and the freedom comes from the truth, the Word, it's accurate. We just need this, you know, we're all kind of getting a little bit tired of everyone's next book and next revelation of, you know, it's this or that or even the angels or courts of heaven, you know, I was running with friends and they were, we had a, you know, ecclesia and so and then we were doing a courts of heaven so they got trained in how to do courts

of heaven. I was baffled. I didn't, I wasn't at the courts. I didn't know this was a thing and how we would write it down and then come together and present it to the Lord as if we're in heaven, bring your petition to the courts of it, like there was a whole rigour all to it.

Well, I thought it was kind of cool and like this was about six years ago, I thought it's cool, okay, bring it to the courts of heaven and we'll pray. This is neat, like you're acting like we're really in a court before the Father. All right, I go there every day just by praying, you know, but okay, we'll do a whole thing and and then later I go, ah, I don't know if this courts of heaven is really like it's it's a new thing, you know, like where does it say in the Bible that y'all get together to do that? So I see what you're saying, you know, John and it's a serious

thing to pay attention to, well, most of all what the Bible says and someone's got some new thing, don't we can't be like sheep because you were talking about indoctrination and then I'll be quiet, but sheep, like we are sheep, we we're all like sheep led astray so many times because we're not critically thinking and I don't think God ever asked us to to stop thinking critically when some new form of doctrine, some new wave of how we do things comes along that we just kind of blindly go, okay, well, I've always known this person and trusted him so I'll just accept whatever

he's saying, you know, we have to kind of go, eh, what does the Bible say and get back? to that. And that's how we're going to walk ourselves out of all this ridiculous stuff that's happened in the last few years.

Yeah, one of the things that I found interesting, Brandon's mentor was what was considered to be a confidence man. What we call today a con man is a confidence man. And what you do, you address an audience, you build a confidence, and you present something that you're the selling or, you know, in his case, he was selling religion, interestingly, and getting a lot of money for the religion.

So if you can gain their confidence, you can hijack their minds and their pocketbooks. But how does that work? You can't allow the critical thinking. So if I were to trade, there are many things that I can say, Brandon, he was just one of many doing, but I can say that this idea of confidence man type religion, there were many doing it, but Brandon was mentored by one of the greatest con men of all time, Roy E. Davis.

So that was the mentorship for what would become the post-war to healing revival, which literally laid the groundwork for all of these apostolic networks. So in essence, all of these apostolic networks were developed through the ideas of a con man, which makes the whole thing fascinating to me.

But you mentioned Lupus, and this could be a podcast for another day. It's something that fascinates me, and I'm really interested in it. There are several studies, and I have read through many of them, linking Lupus and other autoimmune diseases to the psychological trauma that people experience.

And when you're in one of these movements, whether you realize it or not, you are under psychological trauma. If you're under the leadership of anybody who's in the NAR, they are number one giving you spiritual abuse every Sunday, every service that you attend.

But in some cases, they're causing others around you to cause trauma to you. And the reason I bring this up, I have family members who have Lupus, I have family members who have died, thinking through positive confession that they were healed of Lupus, and suffered until they died, believing that they had done something wrong to continue having Lupus for the rest of their life.

So they blamed themselves for their Lupus. When, in fact, it was the religion, in my opinion, that caused it, they still, I don't believe they yet know what causes it, but there are studies that show that a large number of people who have psychological trauma share the same type of disorders that cause the autoimmune diseases.

So again, that could be another podcast for another day, it does fascinate me. I think that that is a very, very good, and I have heard that, and especially any kind of stress, like that could induce...

all kinds of things in our bodies, not just lupus, but I think that's true. Now, I will just say this is worth a try for your folks that are your family members.

We've just heard the president talking about Tylenol and my husband looked up and said, four to 500 people die of Tylenol every year. And with Ivermectin, it's just something that gets rid of parasites.

It's not a big deal. It's a FDA approved for 70 years product that I happen to believe some good doctors were putting out some information about it. Now, two doctors had told me prior to my experience with Ivermectin that if you have lupus, you have parasites in your spleen.

Now, I did not pay attention to them. I just went on and did the interviews and I went, oh, okay. But I just kept taking hydroxychloroquine and ignoring what they'd said. It was said, so two doctors tell me, parasites in your spleen.

And wouldn't you know, I take 10 days of Ivermectin, all the swelling leaves my hands. Everything that I had been having all these symptoms gone. But yes, I've had trauma associated with some of the things that I've been through.

Yes, so looking at a holistic approach to our health, not speaking lies, like do we have to really, I mean, I get at the power of the tongue. So I might say, well, I've been diagnosed with lupus, but I am believing God that I am gonna get through, I'm gonna live a long life, no impact on any of my organs, and that God will give me the energy I need to fulfill his purpose.

That's been my prayer, you know, but I don't like being fake. You know, I am having a bad day sometimes and I'd like to be able to just say it and say, well, if you could pray for me, let's come into agreement for the Lord to help me, you know, but you know, we're two or three agreed.

That's biblical. Let's just find something in the Bible that's right instead of all this gobbily goop they want to feed you, you know, I am, I am healed. You know, you're in a practically, you know, dying in the hospice and Kenneth Copeland would have you believe that you just don't have enough faith.

We went through this, I was a young girl and a very prominent husband and wife, just they were shattered because she got cancer. She was dropped dead gorgeous, blonde lady. And this was a prominent family and the church rose up with faith.

We believed, we believed, we couldn't... Even in vision that this lady was going to die, she was too young and beautiful, a lovely person to die. And nothing saved her. No prayers and no chemo, she died.

And that was shattering to us as a body, that was shattering to that family. But God is sovereign. He knows the beginning from the end. And just as with Charlie Kirk's, what we feel is an untimely death, the Lord had numbered his days from the beginning to the end.

And that's Bible. God knows the breath of it. We have to trust him. And man, I just honor, you know, how the world's kind of being changed a little by, in his passing, some of the things, that he said are more out there.

But he wasn't perfect. He didn't say everything right. I've seen some clips where I think, oh, he wasn't a bit mean, you know. He did say some things I don't agree with. He's not perfect.

He was not Jesus. And he is not God. He was a good man, though. He loved his wife and his kids. And he taught the world to engage in conversation. And sometimes we just can't explain these things where the Lord takes someone, you know, at his and in his time.

Yeah, it is sad. Well, there's a lot more I could go into. I think I'll end with that book. If you read the New Apostolic Reformation, a history of a modern charismatic movement. It's a great book.

Yes, John Weaver, did you say, is that the book? John Weaver, yep, by John Weaver. I wrote that down. In summary, in the book, we'll summarize it much better than me. If you're in a group that teaches you that you have to have an apostle or a prophet to be led by the Holy Spirit, rather than telling you, go be led by the Holy Spirit.

You essentially have a mediator between God and man, which the Bible condemns. And if you are in these movements that tell you that you need a spiritual covering or you have to align with an apostolic network, that's New Apostolic Reformation.

They're almost openly declaring it at that point. And if they're talking about how we need this big coming revival, we need to restore the church. There has to be this theme of restoration along with your Christianity.

Number one, it's anti-biblical. There is nothing that says that God sent his son and then the church would fall away and it would have to be restored. There's no Bible precedent for this at all.

This is New Apostolic Reformation 101. Wow. And if they're saying that we have a new revelation for today, a new word, et cetera, that's what this movement was trained and manipulated to do. And it turns...

into various forms of spiritualism. I'm going to summon the Holy Spirit through grave soaking, or we're going to call down heaven. There's different phrases that they use, which is literally summoning from from spiritualism. So read the book. It'll help you if you're listening and you want to know more. If you're worried that you're, I get people sending me emails. Am I in an NAR church? And they want me to go look up the leader. I actually avoid looking at most of the modern leaders. I just look through the fundamentals. Are they doing these things? It's probably a new

apostolic reformation church run for your lives. So thank you so much for doing this. Wow. John, as always, I just enjoy our conversation so much and I learn a lot and I need to because I'm just in the middle of this. This is very personal for me. And I enjoy speaking with you and I know that you are helping thousands and thousands of people to get an understanding of what's happened here and how we move forward. So we appreciate you, John. So much, so many people say that they just love your shows. They're telling, I saw you on John Collins show. We just love him. We've been

following him. He's taught us so many things. And so that's what you're doing. You probably don't, you know, you don't get to hear all the good stuff behind the scenes, but well done, well done.

Thank you for all that you give us. Well, thank you. It is encouraging to hear that people are being helped. That's that's the number one reason I do what I do. So 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 and Laura Lynn Live. 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.