Spiritual Covering or Cult Control: Escape From City Reach

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, Priscilla Ciani Morris, former member of City Reach Church. Priscilla it's good to have you and to let you share your story on the podcast. We've talked a little bit offline and you are definitely a sci-fi fan as am I and it makes this connection very real to me. We find things in common but anyway if you could just take a moment and tell everybody a

little bit about yourself and give everybody an introduction to your story. Wow Mr. Collins thank you so much for the amazing introduction and all the work that you put in on your channel and with the research that you do. I really appreciate it and it truly means a lot to be a part of this conversation so my name is Priscilla as Mr. Collins just said. Before I share my story I want to make something very clear right. My aim is not to malign but to eliminate and shed light on unhealthy patterns that distort the gospel so the healing and

repentance can take place and everything I share today comes from my personal experience and my hope is that by being honest about what happened others who who have walked through similar pain will find clarity comfort and the confidence to return to the sufficiency of scripture. So that was my story begins well it isn't an easy story to tell but but it is one that I believe I'm called to share because for years I thought I was a part of revival right we hear that that language a lot in word of faith and in our new

apostolic reformation culture but in reality it was something far more dangerous and like I said my hope is to help others see that difference before they get hurt the way that I got hurt and many others got hurt. So I'm sharing this because when I came out of the hypercharismatic church rooted in more of faith I needed someone to say you're not crazy and you're not rebellious and what happened to you was in fact spiritual abuse and and how God just you know took me out of that. So I kind of wanted to share a little bit of a story before I get into the real story if that's okay. I don't know.

Absolutely. Thank you. So this is kind of going to segue into this. But I once was standing in a produce section of a grocery store and I was debating for 10 minutes over which pair to choose.

And it really wasn't about fruit, right? It was about freedom. And what I was experiencing was a form of decision paralysis, right? So that's common among individuals that I'm sure Mr. Collins that you understand this, right? That's common among folks who leave coercive or high control religious environments. I felt like I was stuck, right? And it was like the same pair. It was like literally the same pair. There was nothing wrong with either of these pairs. I was just really struggling. But for about two years, obedience was demanded from me. And critical thinking was discouraged. And personal discernment was was reframed as rebellion. So when I left city reach,

even something as what was seen as minuscule as choosing which fruit I wanted from the grocery store felt terrifying. It felt very scary. Of course, it wasn't about pairs. It was about learning to think again and to trust God's word rather than someone else's voice.

So I was a part of a ministry culture where in city reach where loyalty and leadership was elevated above faithfulness and grace. And I started going to city reach because there was community. It was a young adult and I needed I needed friendship, right? I needed fellowship with someone that was really important to me. And something that I noticed initially when I went was that we were slowly but surely being trained to say yes without hesitation. So I remember one particular Sunday, there was a service that was being preached on honor or something like that. It was on honor. And at the end of the service, we had like a deliverance session. And then

the pastor said, you know, something along the lines of, of course, I can't remember exactly what was said. But it was something along the lines of if either of us come to you, you must say yes.

Just say yes. Don't question it. Don't even think. Like don't use your critical thinking skills. Just just say yes. Be obedient and say yes to the man and the woman of the house to your to your spiritual mother and your spiritual father, right? This was the language that was used. So it was a lot of honor. It was a lot of alignment. And it mirrored authoritarianism. And it was really scary. And, you know, you know, being a part of their worship team, eventually getting on their worship team.

My life was like consumed by events and rehearsals and mandatory meetings. And it never stopped and every demand was like overspiritualized as well. And I remember whispering to a friend once, does this feel like a cult to you? Like those swords that it's like, does this feel like a cult? And that individual had had said something along the lines of, but I think about that all the time, you know, I think about that all the time. But I don't want to think too hard. Yeah. And I think that that says a lot. That says a lot about the culture. I don't know, have

you ever heard anything like that when you were when you were leaving the message or were you when you were in the message? Was that well, it's a it's something that many people have experienced myself and my family included. I'm actually glad you brought this up because I think you may be the first person who's ever brought this up. The you called it decision paralysis. There's different terms that people use, but those can be tied to trauma. But in the in whenever you look at the structure of a destructive cult, the way that it is set

up, the people are programmed and indoctrinated to externalize their decision making. The cult leader makes the decisions he chooses what's right or wrong. And in this type of environment, you are actually afraid to make a decision because what if you make the wrong one? They instill this fear that if you do make the wrong one, it's a I think that I think the term for this is actually phobia and indoctrination. You're taught that wrong choices bring catastrophe, whether that's demons, plague in you, hell, illness, family, collapse, etc. And so if you make the wrong decision, you have this fear that

something worse than the decision is going to happen. So people end up just not making decisions unless they're really, really headstrong. But more than that, when you're in a high control group by definition, high control, you are learning helplessness. You're surrendering your control to the leadership.

And practically every person who has come on the podcast have described what you've described in one way or another. But nobody's really open up to say I had this fear making decisions. I think mentally after you leave, people are through the same indoctrinated fear. They have a little bit of a fear, accepting the fact that they did fear to make decisions. And so there's this long road of recovery. But in the end, it's, I think, if I remember correctly, I think the term is RTS, which is religious trauma syndrome. There's actually a definition for this.

Wow. Yeah. And that's that's that's spot on, right? And I think even what is somewhat, you know, entangled with that is this, this association that for me, at least I could speak on my experience, I was, it was almost like I wasn't here after I, and now I'm going to get into a little bit more of the trauma that happened. Right now I'm kind of just listing the general things that occurred there.

But yeah, so I suppose I'll get into that a little bit later too, but everything that you're saying is their calling is a spot on, right? You know, I even could say that I experienced some of that when I was in actually in the movement, right?

Where I was, it wasn't just after, after the fact, right? I was experiencing that, that decision-making paralysis, as we, as we mentioned, while I was in the movement, right? Should I get permission from the pastors before I do this?

Or, you know, like, maybe, and this is going to segue into the story time, right? I started, I ended up kind of starting a prayer. It wasn't even a prayer, but it was just a few of us friends.

It's like eight of us, and we were praying together every so often. And for some reason, for some reason, I believe that it was, it was God allowing me to cover all my faces so I didn't feel guilty, but that's how I've reasoned with it.

I had notified the secondary pastor, right? We had two churches, right? We had the main church, and then we had a secondary church, which was, like I said, it was, it was the one we have two campuses, right?

And so we built another church of a so thankful at the time to be a part of that building process. And now I kind of look at it and I'm like, oh, no, like, this is not good.

But, you know, we, we ended up, I ended up going to the secondary, to the secondary ministry that they had. And, you know, common themes in the, the, the, the generalized preaching of city reach was like, we would, we would have sermons about preserving the image of the church, like things like that, right?

Like, especially like during women's retreats, sometimes we would, we would, I would notice that there was like this weird theme. And I don't know if this is kind of any commonalities within the message, but like, they, like, really, they cared about how we looked.

So, like, it was like a brand, like city reach, it was, it was a brand. I still think it is to this day. But, you know, you were like, you don't have to look like a bum, right?

So the girls girls, if you want to find, if you want to find a husband, like, you don't need to be wearing sweatpants, right? You don't need to be, don't do that. Like, what, what look presentable, like, it was very strange, right?

I just remember being there, like, what, what is this? This is not like a expository teaching on scripture. But we were called to, like, look anointed and, and sound powerful, right? Whatever that meant.

And, and, and never really let exhausted exhaustion show, right? And so we, we hosted nights, like, that were called hope and healing nights. We had, like, deliverance rooms. I think I mentioned that a little bit earlier, right?

With deliverance rooms, or we would, you know, do second baptisms, like that's a thing and prophetic activations, right? And, and, you know, children and teens, this is where I, kind of feel a lot of, I think, a lot of guilt because we had a lot of teenagers that we were like recruiting into this ministry.

A lot of it, we were focused a lot on young adults because social media, all these things, we were able to get the message out there, right? But we were really focused on bringing the youth into the church.

So, and none of this, we were told to help them speak in tongues and things like that. None of that really resembled what scripture teaches is, you know, we also know the history of tongues and all of these things, Charles Parham and all of these crazy, crazy things that came about from that.

But behind all of it was like, constant talks of vision and we had themes every year. So, like, it was, I think one year was like occupy, right? So, that means that we had to occupy your territory, right?

Be a soldier in the army, bad, right? And then it was multiply, that was the last one that I, from when I was there, that we did, where we were told to not only take your place, right?

But you need to make sure you're multiplying and that aligned with their vision of making more churches, right? So, you know, multiply. And also, give us your money. I mean, financial pledges were expected, right?

Hundreds even, you know, thousands of dollars in addition to tithes and tithes were not, we weren't taught to give willingly, right? You know, we were highly encouraged, you were to sign a pledge. If, if you, you know, if you write this down on a pledge, it's like, you were, you were, you were, you needed to stick your pledge.

It was, it was the environment and the, the milieu of city reach was, you just, you off to stick your pledge. You made a word. You made a word to the man and woman of God in the house and to God, you off to fulfill that pledge, okay?

So, we were told obedience to the vision was proof of faith. And we know that true faithfulness, right? Well, I, I, true faithfulness it is obedience to God, right to Christ, not allegiance to man made vision.

So, that was a big, that was a big deal. And that was one of the red flags for me where I was like, hmm, we're saying a lot about a vision. I'm like, what vision are we talking about guys?

Hmm, I don't know. So, it was a lot of that. There was a lot of that. Yeah, you know, I, I'll never forget. I went to a church after we left the high control group and he was preaching from the first book of Samuel and the pastor showed up in shorts and we were like, what in the world is going on?

Especially coming out of the religion we do, Pentecostal, styled religion and dress codes. Yeah. And here he is in shorts. I'm like, what's going on? What is he wearing shorts? He starts talking about first Samuel, I think it's 16.

It says the Lord sees not as man sees the man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. And the whole sermon, that was actually one of the more memorable sermons because I really stopped and thought about the way.

way that we, much like you, we had an appearance, we had to keep up the appearance, and it turned into this thing where even if you were unhappy, you kind of tried to build yourself up and give the appearance that you were happy. If you were sick, if you were dying, you had to pretend that you weren't, you had to have this, you know, you set up this error around you that everything was perfect. And the problem was, I knew many people and I knew that it wasn't perfect, in many ways it wasn't perfect. But we were trying to give that appearance, and we

had that false sense of urgency, which is probably behind much of what you're describing. It had to be now, we had to have, it wasn't the same type of revival culture that you were describing, but the underlying foundation is the same. You had this, it had to push the kingdom to come, you basically, you had to, and you had to present yourself in a way that your outward appearance was actually the selling point for other people joining the cult, which is really weird, because that's not what the gospel is all about. So it was flipped completely upside down, but a lot of

the things that you mentioned earlier, the psychological effects of being in that spiritual urgency, it is emotional intensity. You are so stressed out in your emotions that you become an emotional wreck, trying to live that, you know, keep up that image and live that high sense of urgency.

And in the end, every single urgent point and time that they give, in our churches they would say the next election is it, this is the big one, or whatever it is, if there's a war breaking out in some country, that war signals that the book of Revelation is happening. So you always had this constant fear of urgency that what if I did something wrong, I might miss it, I might lose my faith, or whatever it is, but that high control tied to that sense of urgency is devastating to the human mind. Absolutely, it absolutely is. And you know, that key phrase you just said is,

you might miss it, right? That phrase, like I don't love the word triggers me, but like it the phrase triggers me, but that phrase does it for me, okay? Like I cannot tell you how many sermons we had where it was, don't miss it, don't miss what the beautiful acts of God and what he's going to do for you, right? Because you could miss it. It was a big, that was a big, big, big conversation that we always would have, oh, I can't even say it was a conversation, we were, it was said to us, right? And so yeah, I totally relate to that. And like you said, what do you,

like, what do you do when you leave? And then that's just not there anymore, but it's still there, but it's not. You realize there's no reason to feel like I'm going to miss something an act of God or whatever that means.

I don't know, I don't even know what that means. It's so, it's so big, like, you know, it's so big. And it's the opposite of the gospel. The gospel is supposed to give you this sense of security that you can trust that everything is being taken care of for you, he died on the cross.

Therefore, your sins are washed away and you have that freedom and security. But what they have done in these high control groups, they wanna take that security away from you so that they can have it, they can control it.

So they can, in return, they can control you. And I think that that sense of, I guess when I started waking up, I started noticing I was like, this is just not normal, right?

This language is not normal and I'm not feeling comfortable with the amount of pressure or control, right? But like that leaving didn't happen overnight, right? Like it was, it was for me kind of a slow unraveling.

I always did that, I kind of ignored those red flags. Like I ignored the sermons where they would say, oh, you're gonna miss it. I would just feel like, huh, that's interesting, you know?

But I mentioned this earlier, but I started a small prayer group with friends, right? And it was just a pray for the church, right? Instead of, it was to pray for the church and pray for the body of Christ.

And I always say this when I share my story. I was a part of, I was perpetuating this prophetic mess, I was perpetuating this stuff. So I don't want to act like I was just a victim in this situation.

I want to be like very, very clear about that. And there was a lot that I had to repent for, right? Because I had perpetuated a lot of these actions. I remember when they had, we would have meetings about people who left and I'd be like, oh, well, they were probably disobedient, right?

They were, I had this group think mindset. Not that that's an excuse, but it definitely is an explanation as to what I was going through and what was going on in my mind at the time.

And I would just automatically side with leadership. So I have like compassion in a level of understanding or empathy, right? For the people who are currently still enmeshed and involved with city rich. I really do, because I get it, I was there and I used to be, people like me, I'd be like, something's not right.

It must be a spirit of Jezebel. I would say all these crazy things, right? And so with that, I was able to have some kind of empathy there. But when I started this group, right?

Instead of encouragement, I was rebuped by secondary pastors initially, just the secondary pastors. And they accused me of, I said mentioned Jezebel, but they accused me of operating under a Jezebel spirit, right? And they said that I'd stepped out of spiritual order, right?

By not getting prior approval from... my spiritual father and my spiritual mother. And I had never heard this language from them before. Like it was kind of, I remember being like, what, what is that, what does that mean?

It was just like, I was just, I could not process it was going on. I really did not understand what was happening. And I was just like, I'm confused. I don't know what any of this means, but I'm so sorry if I've been disobedient.

I was profusely, like I was apologizing. I was, I was like, I'm so sorry. Really did not mean to be so obedient. It's funny to me now, but it's like back that I was, I was really, I was heartbroken, right?

And so you mentioned this earlier, this is where I wanted to kind of circle back, but you know, you said that there's that, that pressure that if you step out, right, you'll, you'll, you'll invite more, more attacks from the enemy or whatever that made me look like, right?

And they warned me of that, right? They said, you know, continuing to do this would invite demonic attacks. Like you're not under your spiritual covering. And I said, I said, what? I don't understand what that means.

Like I thought God was my, I thought Jesus was my spiritual. I don't know what this means, right? And so soon after they would tell me I could, I could get up and I could leave the meeting that they were having.

They said a whole bunch of other stuff in the meeting, but you know, we get the gist, right? They, they, they rebuked me. And so said I can get up and leave and go sit in the congregation and the wife of the secondary pastor would tell him that the husband that they couldn't just dismiss me like that, that they had to reassure me that I was loved, right?

So after they had just like spent the whole meeting yelling at me, he was just like, you can, you can get out, go, like leave. And I was just like, okay. So I turned around trying to hold back tears and you know, his wife stopped him and said, you know, we love you and she stopped me.

And she was like, we love you, we just want you to know. Like we love you, go downstairs, go sit down, wait for this call, wait for services start basically.

And about five minutes later, they preach a sermon on disobedience and how we ought not start groups without their permission and they're yelling and they're shouting. That was another thing. Like a lot of the sermons were just very aggressive.

So like, at the time I thought it was like me but like all chuckle and the congregation be like, oh, like, you know, pastor just threw his wallet or whatever, haha, so funny. It was like weirdly aggressive and like hyper-emotional, you know?

But this sermon specifically that was kind of like filled but it was filled with shouting and indirect rebukes towards me, right? Everyone knew in the group knew that it was about me. So they were like, okay, they were yelling and I'm crying, they're like in the seat.

And it's a very, like this church was very small. The second dairy church was pretty small as compared to the main campus. And I'm just crying in my seat and like everybody's like, what's going on?

I'm just like, you know, um, but when I, those, those pastors basically told me that I had to meet with the head pastor, right? Because I had been so disobedient, I need to go and I'm.

and in the midst of this, Mr. Collins, I'm getting phone calls from people telling me that I'm a Jezebel and then I need to repent and turn away and honor my spiritual mom and dad.

I was like, I was like, y'all are crazy. I need to disconnect. I don't know what's going on. I was very angry at the time, so I was like, I remember being like, yeah, I'll do whatever I want.

Just be absolutely insane. Which was not maybe the proper response, but it was just a very weird time. I was very scary. And so I had, mind you, I was very close with the main, the head pastor, right?

I was very close with the head pastor and his family. I was very close to this family. It was like, I was literally had, this church was like family to me. So I was there a lot.

And I remember my mom and my sister, who I ended up introducing to the church and they were members of the church, right? They were like, why are you there so much? Why are you always with these people?

Like you need to not, this is not maybe not healthy. You're always there at the church doing something, maybe sit back a little bit, right? But in hearing that, it just needs me to go back and more.

What do they call the venous fly traps? Is that what they're called? I don't think the little worm traps that you put your finger in, you get stuck the more that you try to get out.

That's how it was. And the more I would hear people tell me, you know, something's not right. Someone's not right, Priscilla, right? Maybe we shouldn't be spending so much devoting so much time to these people in this place.

Maybe we, maybe something's not right, right? And I'm not, I'm not hearing really, I'm not hearing a lot of biblical sound doctrine coming from this place. Something's off. I didn't want to listen, right?

I didn't, it was, I wanted to continue and then go my own way. And sometimes you have to, that's a learning process, right? I think especially for people like me, every story is different, right?

Like there are people who've grown up in movements like this. And that, their story is completely different from mine. I like, I chose to go to this place. And to me, there's a level of accountability that has to go into that for me personally.

Where I'm like, there's something in there that I wanted, right? There was something, whether that was like the lights that they always had up on the stage, right? The, whatever it was, right? The entertainment of it all, something in me wanted that.

All right, so let's break this down a bit. I have, and I apologize. I left several times. Anytime somebody mentions Jezebel Spirit, I'm laughing. I just like, I go berserk because no, man, if you understand the actual story of Jezebel, you can't even say that this is a comparison.

Were you creating a situation where you were leading an entire people into idolatry and human sacrifice? You can't really say that you were. And that, that would be a true Jezebel Spirit. But anyway, let's break this down.

I don't know that I've really gone deep with this. I've talked about it some, but spiritual covering is just another name for authoritarian cultism. That pure plain and simple, that is what this is.

Spiritual covering is another name for authoritarian cultism. And interestingly, just earlier today, I had a conversation with a person, similar experience, they wanted to go start learning, Bible, teaching, learning for themselves, becoming more involved and bad things happen because they're in a situation of authoritarian cultism.

Last week, I probably had three or four who contacted me, same exact scenario. And it all comes down to this simple fact. When you're in a cult, in a pseudo-Christian cult that is trying to teach their doctrines as Christianity, many of their doctrines can't be found within the Bible.

You have to go either outside of the Bible or you have to combine verses and make this weird witch's brew of doctrine that ends up to what they are teaching. The problem is, if you hand somebody a Bible and say, here, read this Bible and get all of this witch's brew doctrine that we have, they're not going to get it.

In fact, in many cases, they get the polar opposite. And we'll take spiritual covering, for example. First Timothy 2.5 says that Christ alone is the mediator. There is no other mediator between God and man.

You do not have the spiritual covering. First John 2, I think it is, goes just a little bit further than that and says that if he abides in you and him and you, you have no need that anyone should teach you by his anointing.

I'm paraphrasing, but basically, by his anointing teaching you everything and everything that is being taught to you is true because he is the one teaching you, he being the spirit of God. So, whenever you have doctrines like spiritual covering that say, you have to have this mediator between God and man, you're completely going outside of the scripture and actually you are against the scripture.

You're against the scripture. It's absolutely. That's for me. Absolutely. It is another gospel and Paul says, not that there is another gospel, but that is another faith entirely. Absolutely. But it goes even beyond that.

So, we've examined this somewhat from the biblical level, from the church level. Just take normal humanity. If you are a good leader, you are a leader who teaches other people to become leaders, not followers.

A true leader creates an atmosphere where people become leaders. If you're in a high control group, it is flipped on its head. You create an atmosphere where if you are a leader, you are training people to become followers instead of leaders.

They all have to bubble up to the central figure. And this atmosphere of this quote unquote spiritual covering is the perfect atmosphere for this. You can't become a leader, you must submit to your spiritual covering.

It actually defies human nature, what they're doing. And what the irony of all of that is, whenever a person is in this group, they start feeling this gut feeling that something is wrong here, and usually it's not even the biblical wrong that they're feeling.

It's just, this is so wrong as human nature, we don't do this to other humans. Why are you doing this to me? And it all comes down to this false doctrine of these spiritual coverings, which is essentially like I said, it's authoritarian cultism.

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Oh my, wow. I needed that. I needed that. I'm taking notes. I'm writing this down because, wow, yeah. And that is exactly what it was because it was almost... You don't, at the time, like I said, when I heard it, I was like, I've never heard them say something quite like this.

And this was like the underbelly of everything, right? Like I was able to see everything almost exposed because I was so close to the leadership at this time, right? But it was almost just like, it was just day and night, right?

And not that the warnings weren't there before. Not that they weren't using this language before necessarily. But the way that they were using it to... I don't know, because, you know, Mr. Collins, how, how cool they'll use covert language, right?

They'll use covert language. I don't know what the exact phrase is for that, right? But they'll use language to cover up what's actually being done, right? Loaded language. Loaded language. They'll use loaded language.

And so when we're having the general services, right, on a Sunday, I'm not really... I'm not thinking that what they're saying is what they're saying. You know what I mean? For the most part, right?

But then once you kind of see it rear-tugly head, right? And it's directed towards you. It's different because you're like, oh, this is what... You mean, and this is the kind of control that you guys desire, actually, right?

This is what you, this is what you want, right? And so kind of a little bit, so go back to the story, right? I would meet later on with the, with the lead pastor, right?

And basically, you know, I would get on the call with him. And the whole time though, I bumped into him several times before this, I had stopped going to church for like a month, because, and then I had to do a worship set, like, like one, the next month.

So I had to go. Um, and that was, I told myself, that's the last time I'm going to go. Um, and when I was there, everyone was being so rude towards me. It was insane.

It was just everyone was, they were just being very, um, off-putting, right? And like, where, where have you been? And I was like, well, you know, I needed to take a little break after I had a little mental breakdown, you know?

Um, but I need a break from you guys after you had your little shouting match at me. Um, and so I took a month. I just took a month where I was trying to figure everything I started actually going to a different church.

And I'm thankful that I, that I found that ministry. They teach the word of God, which is great. Um, but at the time I was going there a little bit, I was asking for wisdom from, from the pastor there and, and the elder board there, which we didn't have an elder board at city reach.

We had a lot of young adults actually in, uh, a lot of young, uh, young adults in the, the leadership, uh, positions when the leadership board, I'm sorry. So, uh, that was, that was kind of like our elder board in a way.

Um, kind of like an oxymoron, but yeah, but yeah. So I, I basically talked with the, with the lead pastor and asked for scripture, right? Because every time I bumped into him as well, like, there was, he, he would act like everything was fine.

So I said, oh, maybe this was just an issue with secondary pastors, but they told me no, he told us to shut your group down because this is a, this is demonic. It's a, it's a demonic attack, um, all these things.

Um, and so yeah, uh, I, I called him and he, he basically, uh, something along the lines of, like I said, this is from my experience and, and, and so he had said something along the lines of, you know, you're out of order, right?

Church is meant to hurt you and these are the right people for the call. So we're not doubting that you need to give them grace. And I said, okay, can you give me a scripture as to where I was out of order?

I'm just really trying to understand that. And he said, uh, no, you're out of order. He had just you, you weren't in alignment with the vision. And usually in Priscilla, when I asked people, you know, if they're not falling my vision, uh, if I'm their pastor, usually if they're not following the vision that I have for them, then, then I guess I'm not, I guess I'm not your pastor, right?

And I said, yeah, I guess you weren't. I said, I guess tomorrow, my pastor and, and then he said, well, um, yeah, Priscilla, I don't, and I said, well, I said, let me just interrupt you.

I said, I'm not going to be attending services here anymore. I think I think you guys are really. interest and he had said something along the lines of, you know, uh, well, can we see you out, right?

And I had talked to someone beforehand and they said, do not allow that to happen because usually with these kinds of groups, they was actually a ministry on YouTube. I had been in communication with they said, usually with these groups, what they do is they'll try to have a ceremony to kind of like see you out and then like to control the narrative, right?

Because they were going to have a service where they were going to announce that I was leaving. It was like going to be a whole thing, right? And I just said, I'm not, I'm not going to allow that.

I said, I'd rather not. He said, well, can we, can we, I've been meeting with you and the secondary pastors and myself and my wife. And I said, not going to allow that either.

Like I said, you guys are very dangerous. I'm not going to allow you to retraumatize me again. And that was that, which was very weird. Because like I said, these people were like family to me.

They were, I was, I was really, you know, I was really involved with them. You know, and I think something that just stuck with me was the church is meant to hurt you, right?

You know, that was the crazy part. I had also had conversations with people, close friends at the time where, so my, my father had cancer, but while I was in this movement, he was diagnosed with cancer.

And I remember having a conversation with a friend and this person had said, you know, if you had, you know, bruved the sin in your life, maybe your dad wouldn't be sick. And I said, that is not what the Bible entails at all whatsoever.

That's not biblically accurate. I told this person that they were like, well, I just disagree. I disagree with you because, you know, we, we have the power to heal. And so it's something that you're doing, it's something that you're, you're blocking something, right?

You know, we, we know that biblically pain is meant to sanctify not, not to, not to control. And so, like I said, I told him I, I wouldn't allow him as, as my pastor, as my pastor to, to retraumatize me, and that they were spiritually dangerous, right, back to that story.

But, you know, after leaving, I, I started hearing from others and people who had quietly, like, slipped away or wanted to from the church, and their stories were like hauntingly similar. And some apologized to me, the one individual who had, one of the individuals who had called me a Jezebel, reached out and asked me for forgiveness.

They said, I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have done that. And, you know, I was like, it's okay, that, you know, we, being a part of these movements, we become another person sometimes, or I'd like to say we reach, we reach the worst of us, you know?

And others shared that they had, you know, been told the same things that I had been told, right, that they, that if they left, that they would be losing God's protection, and that questioning leadership, you know, equated to rebellion.

And I realized then that my story was... it wasn't unique, right? It was just, it was a part of a pattern. Like it wasn't and that was oddly comforting. I was just like, oh, I'm not really special here. Like, you know, it's just, it's a pattern, right? It's a pattern. And so that cut, like I said, it gave me some empathy, though, towards folks. It definitely is a pattern. Whenever I was going through the stages that you're going through now, whenever you're leaving, you're trying to make sense of what is this mess that I just left. The biggest help for me was reading Colossians too. I was very shocked that I had not

really caught that before, but it says don't let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. They go into great detail of what they have seen and they're puffed up with idle notions from their unspeared at hand. They've lost connection with the head.

And what you've described describes the entire movement of this new Apostolic Reformation and large sections of Ceres Mania. There's a proverb that says something to the effect that many are the plans in a person's heart, but the Lord's purpose is the one that prevails.

Whenever these pastors try to step up into positions of authority and by design, that is what these cults are really designed to do that. They're designed to allow one person to become the head over other people and they'll point to several verses of the Bible and try to, like I said, a witch's brew. They'll try to blend it together where this is what they're supposed to be, but first Peter just rejects the whole idea. It says, first Peter 5, 2 to 3 says, be shepherds of God's flock that are under your care, not lording over those that are entrusted to you, but instead be

examples to the flock. So if the pastor were truly heating what Peter says in this passage, they would be very glad that you were starting to step up and help other people. You're following their example, but a destructive cult, the central figures do not want you to follow their example.

They want you to follow them, not their example. That is the true nature of the problem. Yeah, Colossians too was the verse that actually helped me come out of the deception, which is crazy. I remember reading that. I actually have that somewhere in my notes here. I remember reading that verse and saying, oh my goodness, I was like floored because I said this not only is this them, but this is me. My vein puffed up prophecies and I actually, from time to time, speak to Miss Dawnhill. I loved Dawnhill, but she coined herself as the false prophet,

and I was one of those. I was a false prophet in this movement. I was giving

quote-unquote prophecies, false prophecies from my vein imagination. This is why I say There is a level of accountability that I have to take in this as well, right? And I think sometimes that can be kind of hard and tricky.

Like I said, everyone's story is different. My story just looks like this. I have to take accountability for a lot of this. I was deceived and it wasn't I can't I'm not blaming God for that deception, right?

It was that was that was me. I did that. It was God's grace that he got me out, right? Wow. That's so that yeah, the Colossians versus so good. Also, second Thessalonians was a great verse for me as well.

Talking about false teachers and things of that nature and the false signs. Because city reaches a motto. It was it was miracles signs and wonders. That was a big thing. And you know, we could have miracles signs and wonders and they can be very false.

Some of them can even be true, but they could lead you away from God, right? And so these were things that were very concerning from the get go that I shouldn't have pushed aside, right?

They were important to look at and to test. And so around the same time that I was transitioning out, Mr. Collins, I started to begin. I was so I was a substance abuse counselor during this time.

Like I was working as a substance abuse counselor. It was an amazing opportunity and amazing job. And I got to work with with close friend and her amazing family. It was just beautiful. And at the time, like I'm, you know, trying to do my research for work.

And then I start also, you know, I'm going through this hardship. And we all go to the same, like the same church, my friends. And I'm at the time. And you know, I'm researching and studying like cults and high control groups and trying to.

And I ended up fighting your channel and like long for truth. All these other channels, right? But in some of my research, I'd, I'd really liked, I actually was looking some of his work up before this.

But, you know, I don't know if you, you, you've definitely have heard of them. But I came across the Cole Education Institute, which, yeah, Rick Allen Ross, while like the, or institutes early work, particularly with its deprogramming, you know, has has been debated, right?

And quite controversial. And I don't agree with a lot of the stuff that they, that they have done, especially in their past. I've always been fascinated by the research and their archives, right? So one of the documentaries on their YouTube channel, especially stood out to me.

And it was, it was something called like the, the deep programming of, of Aaron, right? And it originally aired in the 80s on CBS is 48 hours. And it followed a story of a, of a young boy who was 14 years old, who's like family tried to rescue him from the potter's house church.

And that's the same church network that was once led by former pastor T.D. Jakes. At the time, it wasn't led by T.D. Jakes. I think it was led by another gentleman before this.

I don't remember his name, but that church is not passed you by Sarah Jake Roberts and her husband. But watching that documentary hit so close to home, and I found myself identifying deeply with the family's heartbreak and the young man's confusion and the desperate attempts to reason with everything that was going on in the emotional group of the group, the sense of loyalty that felt holy, that was actually just bondage.

And so I tried to reach out to the family because in hopes of hearing more of their story and possibly inviting the share more of their story on my channel. But after that, I later contacted Rick himself and asked him how one determines the difference between a religion and cold.

And basically, the conversation went along the lines of a religion worships God over any human leader. And you can correct me on this if I'm wrong as well. And a cult worships its leader as a God.

And so I kind of asked, what if a group uses God as a facade? What if they preach his name? And yet they require absolute allegiance to that leader, whose word carries more weight than scripture, the vision of the church.

And something along the lines of the conversation ended up going into the area of my situation specifically. I was like, I can't really give you an answer specifically on your situation, right? But if that is something that happens in a church, then it would meet the definition of a cult, right?

And that conversation kind of gave me language for what I'd been too afraid to name. And even if it was just like, okay, not a cult, but it's cult-like, right? It wasn't just a toxic church, right?

It was idolatry that was disguised as faith. And that was, like I said, it was just flooring. But yeah, like I said, eventually I found a church that was biblical and exegetical. And that truly taught scripture faithfully without manipulation or anything.

What was funny is that when I first went to the church, I was like, I probably looked like a bet out of hell. Like I probably looked crazy because the pastor was just like, hey, how are you?

We've noticed that you've been coming here frequently. Is everything okay? How can we help you? And I had scribbled questions and notes I had written down, do you believe in the five-fold ministry? I was going to ask some of these questions.

Do you believe in apostles? Oh, that was another thing. So at the end of my stay at city reach, they started requiring us, or I don't want to say requiring us, but highly encouraging us to call the pastor a apostle.

So this is where we get into the NAR, a little bit more, right? It was, we were starting to have to call him a apostle. And I was just like, absolutely not. I don't know what's going on here.

No. And like I said, a lot of revival language, a lot of we will bring, on earth like we need to fulfill our place in government, to have a mountain mandate, all these things. So that is where we get the NAR mix into it. Well, I've worked with a few different cult leaders, some of them famous and there's one of them in particular that the way and that they're helping to lead people out now as opposed to many of the the more darker ways that you're describing of the past, they'll sit the person down and they'll show them examples

of other cults and how the cults behave. And at first when somebody sees it, they say, I'm not like that. My doctrine's different than that doctrine. But after you start to see this pattern emerging after watching a few of these, you're like, wait a minute, we did this. We had different doctrines, but the framework was exactly the same. And I need to clarify, there's a difference between a cult and a destructive cult. A cult following can be anything. You have the cult following of Justin Bieber. You can have the cult following the different fan groups today as a cult following.

That's not necessarily destructive, but one who is robbing you of your freedom is destructive. And there's many criteria that you can go through Dr. Stephen Hassan's bite model, which is describing behavior control, information control, thought control, emotional control, Robert Lyfton's criteria for thought reform talks about same kind of things, right? You're talking about control of information, control of the environment and communication, which interestingly isn't exactly what you just described. So by many definitions, what you described would be a destructive cult. There's a lot more to consider, obviously, so it's hard for me to say. But in the end,

where you end up with is this. The cults that are controlling, they change the way people behave. And my advice to you, because you've mentioned this a few times now, about things that you have to accept and own, that is true, that statement is true. But make sure that the ownership is more weighted on their side. For example, you're a sci-fi fan, I'm a sci-fi fan. There are all of these shows where some some unit of a platoon or something gets trapped and say Chinese communism and they go through this brainwashing and become these elite soldiers and they go do devastating

things. Who's to blame? They killed people, yes, but who is the one that brainwash them? So there is an onus of there's an ownership of the blame for what has happened that you do accept. But the majority of it goes to the person or group that is programming you. And in these high control groups, they're definitely programming you. They definitely are. And that's the scary part.

And like the conversations that I would have with people after they left, right? I remember, okay, so I had called someone or I bumped into someone at the store and it was a family member of this person and they were like, you need to contact, you know, X, right?

Because if you contact this individual, um, you'll hear more of their story and, and, uh, it's a lot like yours. And so I called them and they were just like, Hey, they were, they seemed a little bit off, right?

Like they just didn't, right? They didn't want to communicate and I didn't want to press too much. But I started out apologizing to them. I said, Hey, I'm really sorry if I didn't reach out earlier, right?

I didn't know that you had left, um, you know, I didn't know yet left. I thought you were still in. At the time, I wasn't trying to contact anyone there because I was scared that I was going to influence them.

And it was like very weird. Like the psychological damage that had occurred afterwards, but I had contacted this person and, um, basically they, they, they said, you know, thank you. I was, I was really hurt, honestly, that no one has reached out to me.

And, um, this person was very close to a lot of the people in the industry like I was, um, and, and they had said, uh, you know, I, I don't read my Bible anymore.

I don't, I don't want anything to do with any of this, which is a, like, that, that is a reasonable response. It makes sense, right? Makes sense after you've been through such trauma, right?

That is where the, where the Bible was used to, to hurt you. And this is because it wasn't, it wasn't properly used, right? That's why, right? It was used to, to, to, you know, try to manipulate you.

And so I just remember them saying that, and that to me, that is destructive. Like you are messing with the person's relationship with God and their faith. Like it, and that it was just, it was just really, really crazy.

But they had the similar situation that, that happened to me, not exactly. Um, but, but yeah, they, they were, they were treated pretty, pretty poorly. And, um, it was just really, it was crazy.

And that happened to a few people I talked to who had left. Um, they, they struggled with, with reading their scripture, you know, so what you're describing is weaponization of the Bible. And it's really sad because a lot of people go through that after the Bible has been used as a weapon against them when they leave.

They don't want that weapon. They don't want that weapon in their hand. And people are really struggling. It's not even necessarily that they're not Christian. It's just that that trauma that they experience is very real.

The, the wounds are very open and they're bleeding. So they, they have to take a step back. And many, I had to take a step back. There are many people to do this. But if you could go back in time to when all of this was beginning to happen and give some advice to yourself and some encouragement, what advice would you give yourself?

That is a great question. Um, first of all, I think I'd say, do you really believe that you could decree and declare things into existence? I was like, um, then maybe make a cloud over your head right now.

Like I would say something crazy like that. I would probably, that's the first thing I would say. And then I would, I would say, um, I'd give myself some wisdom. And I'd say if you, stay here long enough. You might not just be a victim, but you might perpetuate some very hurtful things towards other people. That's what I would say. That's honestly all that I would say to myself.

I would say so, so you need to, you need to make the right decision. Follow God. Don't follow, don't follow anyone else. Well, that's good advice. And interestingly, I came from a world where the religion taught us we could speak things into existence. And interestingly, after leaving, there is one thing I can speak into existence. And this happened the first time that my wife cooked something. And I said, that's not like my mom used to make. I can speak an angry person into existence. And that's about all you can speak. Yeah. That's about right. Yeah. But anyway,

thank you so much for doing this. I really enjoyed hearing your story. Thank you, Mr. Collins. I really appreciate it. And just thank you also, like I said in the beginning, thank you for setting up the opportunity and the platform for not just me, but other people like me to be able to do this and share. And you've inspired me even to help others and make a spiritual support group so that I could help others transition out of this. Because it could be really hard doing it and feeling like you're doing it alone. Awesome. Well, if you want to learn more, I'll put the

link in the description, but you can go to Priscilla's YouTube channel. And if you want to share your story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org.

For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.