YWAM: Childlike Faith or Childlike Control

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, Ginny McGrath, founder of Indwell Movement and somatic experiencing practitioner. Ginny it's good to be back and I'm so glad to have you on board to talk through not only why WAM, youth with a mission but also just the mental health aspects of all of it from I'm sure you've talked to people from other groups as well but I'm so interested to dive

deeper into the I don't know what you call it I guess manipulation of the children that is happening in youth with a mission if there is any so I'm wanting to you know open your head up a little bit and dig in and see what's in there and hopefully you don't feel like a guinea pig but I have as I said when we recorded your story I have like hundreds of ideas of things that I really want to know about not only why WAM but the broader bigger picture so thank you so much for doing this and coming on absolutely thank you so much

for having me I'm excited to be back and these are things that I typically nerd out on by myself so it feels really fun to get to nerd out on them with someone else for me this is a very interesting stuff and the history behind it I think is what drives me to really nerd out I'm a little surprised that this history is as sinister as it is and yet it from the surface when you examine it none of these groups look sinister you would look at this and think they're I hate to use phrase shiny happy people and then you get

underneath and oh my gosh what was this and why are they doing this so yeah let's um so let's talk about manipulation I um I guess because you're more qualified than me you have the schooling I I don't I want it and maybe I'll do that someday maybe let's just talk a little bit about manipulation itself what are the shapes and forms that manipulation come in and especially with regards to a pseudo Christian movement how does it look for pseudo Christians for me it's actually a really um big reason why I call what I do in dwell

because I think that there's no better way to I say better in quotes to manipulate someone that and to get them outside of themselves. And if you have someone distrusting their own reality, their own experiences, then they are that much more easily manipulated.

One of my favorite thinkers is Minas Alami, and she has a book, Sensuous Knowledge. And she writes in there, Tyrants have always understood that the more robotic people are, the more easily manipulated they are.

And so I don't think that our relationship to our own body is separate from the ways in which we move through these religious bodies, these cult bodies, these political bodies in ways that take us outside of ourselves.

And so for as long as I could remember, the verse, the heart is deceitful above all else was quoted to me. And I was conditioned to not trust my own heart, my own desires, my own passions, my own curiosities.

And I think that that happens on mass. That is how manipulation works. It's, if I can't trust what my own body is telling me, what my own questions are telling me, then I will automatically defer authority to whoever is in charge.

And I've seen that time and time again, both in my own story and in the work that I do, where there is this kind of muscle memory of deferral, of what does my pastor want me to do, what does my youth group leader want me to do, what does my mission's leader tell me I should do.

And I remember being in therapy at one point, and my therapist said, what if you are an adult who can live with the consequences of your decision, no matter what they are. And it was the first time anyone had really ever confronted me with the way in which I was used to abdicating my own agency.

And I was asking my therapist to tell me what to do. And she basically was saying, I'm not going to tell you what to do. That's not my job. My job is to support you to find your way to deciding how you're going to move through the world.

And so those are some things that come up for me when I think about manipulation. For me, it's a bit of a touchy subject because my family was at the top of the group.

And I had to go on a crash course. I think I've mentioned this a few times with Dr. Stephen Hassan and learning how manipulation works, mind control works. I thought mind control was science fiction that you'd only see in a doctor who show or similar.

Had no idea it was a real thing. And he began to explain to me and actually show me scientific evidence how mind control works. That part, I, you know, that was a little... area, learning that we were in a mind control cult. But then he got into the basics of just how you can use techniques to hypnotize people or to subtly low level hypnotists, hypnotism, practice this on people and he's getting into characteristics of a personality and personality traits and also just techniques that people use. And as he's going through this list, I'm thinking wait a minute, I do that, I do that too, I do that too. So I ran my own business, I was doing

consulting, executive level consulting. I would go into a business meeting into a room and try to sell my business and I was employing all of these techniques. And if I could get a person alone, especially I was using these techniques, one of the, I won't go too deep because it's embarrassing to me to think that I was like this. But one of the techniques is you get along with the person and you start talking to them and you look past their eyes, you don't look at their eyes, you look past them. And it makes their head slightly confused, they're like, what's he looking at?

What's behind me? It does something to their head and it's a technique and it's just one of many techniques, he's going through all of these. And it's not like I read some book on how to do this or I even had any evil intent, but I was around other people that were doing this. And so I kind of learned by just by being around people. Years later, as I'm going through all of this history and learning about the history of the religion itself, I come across Roy Davis, which I've mentioned a few times in the podcast, the second in command of the clan. Well, one of his many titles, well,

these are two of his many titles, when he went to prison, he was arrested in the newspaper, said he's a singer and a masher. I didn't know what this was. What is a masher? And it's slaying from the early 1900s about a person who is wooing the women and enticing the women along as an evangelist. So he's a singer and he's also going after the women. And if you understand the negative connotations of the word masher, it is also a kind of a manipulation technique to attract women. He also grifter was used in many other returns, but essentially he was a con man,

con artist and con artists, as you know, will manipulate people and try to get their money. So this whole movement would not exist without this person who was a con artist, who was a grifter, who is a singer and masher, many other things. I could go down the laundry list. And I have to believe that that's the origin of some of this. It was kind of learned by people who were along the trail. All the way down to me, I'm learning that I'm doing some of these techniques. However, I was a little distraught, so I'm talking to it.

Dr. Hassan, and asking him, you know, I'm doing some of these things, is it bad? And he said, I explain, you know, I'm doing some of these for sales. It's not like I'm trying to get their money.

Well, I am because of sales, but I'm not trying to deceptively get their money. And he says, you have to understand, John, there are, I can't remember how I word it, but there are techniques that people use to manipulate people for those kind of things, like sales, and it's not necessarily destructive.

But when you're trying to take advantage of another person, that's whenever it gets really, this is uneth, not only unethical, this should be illegal. But there are different types of manipulation I came to learn.

Some of them good, some of them bad. And how do you weigh all of this in the balance? What are your thoughts? Yeah, many thoughts. One was, you know, I think manipulation is a very primal response to getting what we want.

We learned cause and effect. And we had some friends whose child was six months old. And we would watch her pretend to cry so that my dog would lick her face. And she loved our dog licking her face.

She knew our dog really loves to make people feel better. And I was like, wow, I did not realize that by six months old, we could be manipulative. And when I use it that way, I don't think of the six month old as being super sinister or something. It's just like, if I do this, you will do this.

And I think we do pick up those behaviors and I appreciate your owning that. Like, I think all of us in one way or another learn how to manipulate. And some people just tend to be better at manipulating than others.

And I think where it becomes really dangerous, especially in these religious contexts, is where that manipulation is is married to sort of sanctification. Like, this person is telling me that God told them, for instance, for me, you know, when my body was shutting down and I was about ready to leave the mission field, I didn't know if I could do it anymore.

I had leaders in Wyum say, I had a dream that you were on staff and that you were leading our preschool. And I think that was God telling me to do it. Were they intentionally conscious of how they were manipulating me?

I don't know. I'm not in their brain. But I do know that them wielding the voice of God added so much power to that manipulation. Whereas if it was a friend saying, well, I just really think you should join staff.

I might be like, yeah, cool. Okay, and my body is crumbling underneath me. But I think when we are in the systems of hierarchy, and as you said, like you were a leader, you were higher up.

I'm assuming in this world, then that adds so much to the way in which manipulation works in and through us. Absolutely. I'm also probably not because of who I am, just because it's fascinating.

I love these crime stories and crime shows, movies, documentaries about con men, especially the long con, because this is somebody who has strategically planned to manipulate people, and it's a long game. They're in it for the long game, right? That's why it's called the long con.

I think about the religious leaders much like the long con, because you said, for example, God speaking through them or different ways that they're using God as a manipulation technique. But you have to understand, it's not really the Christian God that they're using for manipulation.

They will alter the personality of God, especially to give the God the attributes of a, you know, somebody, a God that you should really fear who's going to bring his wrath down upon you, the God of wrath basically, not the God of the Bible.

Once they manipulate you and convince you of the different God, then they use that God in their manipulation techniques as though they are empowered by this God of wrath. So step one of the long con is, this is a God that you must fear, you must bow down, he will bring his wrath down and you will die.

And fear me too, because I'm working with this God, right? So it's a long con. I started to realize that as I'm reading the Bible after leaving this cult, and I read the Bible over and over just to wash all of this out of my head, I began to realize that it wasn't the Christian God that was like this, it was all the pagan gods, which led me down the pathway of studying all of the ancient mythologies.

And the thing that really came to make me understand that not only is it wrong, it's dangerous, is that you would see these ancient religious cults that would start out as either a mystery cult or any of the big pantheons of deities, and it would start out as somewhat simple and benign, but it would grow over time into your sacrificing your children to these gods.

And for a person to come to that level where they would take the life of their own child, the manipulation techniques have to be really, really strong. So as I'm looking at today's world, the New Apostolic Reformation, I'm seeing many of the same techniques that they did in the ancient world that resulted in the death of children.

And then I come across Y-Wam, and here's all these children, I'm thinking, no, this can't be, is this the same strategy? is this the same technique? What would you say about the God of the, that's being taught in Y-Wam, is it something that is similar to the God of the Bible, or is it something that's different?

There's so many complex places my mind goes with that, because I think even for me, the God of the Bible is not separate from this history of who decided which books were in the canon which books were left out, and these really early forms of marrying empire to religion and seeing the power that could happen.

And so when I think about the Christian God, I think I don't know even what that means, not because I don't know what that means, but because I think there's so many nuances and ways in which there's many people who have claimed the Christian God, and I find myself weary of stepping into owning that, especially when I look at Revelation, and I think, well, that God is a very vengeful, violent God, and Bart Irman has an incredible book called Revelation where he talks about why that book God in there and actually how it was a commentary on class based on

it being in the New Testament. So there's so many things that I think about with that, but I think that why I was a lot more subtle than that

for me personally, a lot of the time, where the God that was preached was one of love, and I don't know if that was the same for everyone, but I think that it was something that was unique to, what was manipulating for me is that, you know, if you tell me that someone is proud of me, that is like giving me cocaine.

I'm just like, yes, I did it, that's amazing. And so for me, it was constantly this pursuit of this image of this paternal, fatherly God, just waiting for me to do things that would make him proud of me, and that was what felt so manipulative was that, and it was sort of this both and because there was that, and there was the sense of, and I better listen to everything he says, otherwise I'm gonna end up in hell for all of eternity, and it was really terrifying, and so it was this kind of whiplash relationship,

where it was, I think there was a sense of beauty and goodness in this image of what this God was, and there was a backside to that, that was extremely precarious and vengeful, and I think that was part of what felt so scary about it, is that that's not often the side that was talked about, and yet that was the side I often ended up rooming in.

on. And it often breaks my heart when I read, you know, I have dozens and dozens and dozens of journals from when I was a missionary. And they almost all start with, I'm so sorry. I haven't been spending enough time in prayer. I'm so sorry. I failed my fast for three days and I ate a candy bar because I was so hungry. I'm so sorry. I didn't witness to those kids on the street because I was in a hurry. And just every single time it was, it was how I was failing and how I wasn't meeting those

standards. So the standards had to keep getting higher and higher. And I think I mentioned this last time, whereas I, I pretty much had a goal of being martyred by the time I was 23 because that was the one thing that God wanted was martyrs. And so when you say they sacrifice their children in these old religions, I'm like, yeah, that was me sort of sacrificing myself or thinking I was sacrificing myself. And being in a world where no adult was like, maybe that's not a good idea. And maybe God doesn't want that from you. It was, well, if God's telling you to do that, who are we to stand in

the way of that? There's so much to unpack there. So I, as I said, I began studying all of these ancient deities and ancient cults and et cetera. Once I got into fastward to after Christ came into the world of gnosticism, this is where all of the ancient cults come in, right? You mentioned Bart Irman. My favorite textbook is the text of the New Testament. I don't know if you've read this or not. Bart Irman and Bruce Metzger. So Bart, at this time he was probably the leading most recognized agnostic in the world. And Bruce Metzger, who was a recognized Christian scholar,

they both decided to come together and write this book because Bart has extensive knowledge on the New Testament and not just that, but the cultures and the religious groups surrounding the New Testament. And I read this, it's mind-blowing, the information that I just didn't know. I had no idea that this existed. And I was actually hoping that you would respond in the way that you did because I want to go deeper with it. Whenever Christianity was starting to form and take place, Bart calls it proto-orthodoxy, but basically it's the idea that there was being this religion

established and there wasn't a orthodox at that time. It wasn't until the, to the winners get the spoils, right? The ones who conquered became the ones who decided who is orthodox. And there were various different groups that were attempting to make their version of Christianity orthodox.

All of that you can find in this, in this, the text of the New Testament, it's a great textbook. And again, it's written by a Christian scholar working with Bart Irman. But the point I was trying to drive a hat.

Even within y-wam, the thing that I've come to understand is no group is really black or white. There's a lot of grays everywhere in between. And even with y-wam, you'll find people that when it meets their need, they will use the God of vengeance. And you use the book of Revelation as an example. I won't go too far with this because it might blow the minds and heads of a few people, but the book of Revelation barely made it into the Bible. Whenever they were deciding the Bible canon and one of the reasons that it did make it, if I understand the

history correctly, is because there weren't many other books that were like this. This was kind of unique. And now with the scrolls that they found in 1945, they realized it actually was quite common, this type of book. And it also matched many of the nostics and ancient mystics. So it gets a little bit weird. I'm not saying the book of Revelation shouldn't be there, but that's just the history as it is told. But many people were misusing and abusing that history. One of the people who stood up against this was Martin Luther, who was the founder of the

Protestant Reformation. He says, and I'm paraphrasing greatly, there's so many people who are in the Catholic Church who are preaching hell, hell fires, and using. He's basically saying they're using fear to enforce their doctrines and Protestant Reformation happens. Well, what does the church do in large? They go back to it. There's many different groups using fear. And with Y-Wam, you have all of these different people, some of whom are trained in theology I'm assuming, many who are not. And I'm understanding that some of the groups have people who are not even trained in theology, teaching others theology, and

potentially using the versions of God that are just to scare people into believing or to doing their agenda. And what you end up with is exactly what you said, people who want to martyr themselves. And they think that this is a good thing. I'm worth nothing I should be martyred. So I was kind of hoping you went there, but the history behind the and the manipulations behind why people go there is something I want to explore. Absolutely. Yes. I also realized I think I misspoke. The book is called Armageddon, not Revelation. It's about Revelation.

But yeah, fascinating. I interestingly knew what you meant. Yeah, and I think one of the tactics was what I what I talk about in my book is a manipulation of empathy where I actually consider myself a very, very empathetic person.

And I think a lot of people that end up in missions are. But what happens is that there is a sort of anchor that is pulled from, let's not have empathy for what people are able to eat, how they're able to live, who they're able to love, how they're able to exist on this planet.

Let's have empathy for their souls that are going to burn in hell for all of eternity. And so I was conditioned to bypass my own empathy for people here now in the flesh in front of me and my own body, because none of that mattered, right?

That paled in comparison to the glory that awaited or the damnation that awaited. And so that was what was so terrifying was this feeling that I was responsible for whether or not my brother was going to go to hell or whether or not my best friend was going to go to hell.

And I think that as I shared last time, that is an outworking of the inner workings of purity culture that socialized particularly young white women to be responsible for other people. It was our job to keep our brothers pure and prevent our brothers from assembling and all of these ways that led to an overflow of, therefore it is my responsibility whether this person becomes a Christian or not.

And a phrase I grew up with a lot was always maintain the witness. So in my slightest mistake or thing that I interpreted as sin, it felt so grave because it was not only myself, but it was the witness that I was having to souls around me that I was failing at, which then led to even upping the ante the next time to try to win more souls or save more lives.

And the feeling that the more dramatic my martyring would be, the more people that would come to the Lord through that. You know, it's interesting. We had a different phrase and as you were talking, I was trying to remember what it is, but it meant basically the same thing.

This always maintain the witness or what did we say? We would, there is another phrase, I'm drawing a blank, but in the revivalist culture and the charismatic culture, this is basically the idea that you need to keep an emotional atmosphere around you.

You basically, you are creators of the atmosphere around you and you need to maintain this because of the atmosphere you're creating. It's actually one step away from being sawer on if you understand how this works, Lord of the Rings.

You are basically in control and you have the superpower. One of the problems that occurs as a child, I believed I had the superpower. We were trained and manipulated in the same way and I would try.

to create the atmospheres around me, and what's interesting, I think I mentioned it on your podcast there last time. There were, there are things that you can do to create an atmosphere. For example, the first time my wife made a meal and I said my mother didn't cook it like this, well that created a very negative atmosphere. I was a creator, right? But when you go beyond that, trying to believe that you can call down heaven or demons either one, and you're telling this to children who don't really understand that the adults in the room are actually talking about

kind of what I did. You can control the situation by the way that you talk and you can control the engagement of conversation by the way you talk. But the children are being taught that they have a superpower and they try to do it, which really awkward to try to explain in today's world, many of those children became adults. And as adults, they were trained that way, they were manipulated that way. And now we have people who are actually going on marches up mountains to conquer unseen demons at the top of the mountain. And I look at all of this and I think it's just

complete chaos. To get to that level where you are climbing a mountain trying to shout at a demon that doesn't exist so that you can conquer it, it tells me that the person has gone beyond manipulation into almost psychosis. What would you say about the connection between psychosis and manipulation? I'm thinking of my dear friend and colleague Danielle who will have to have on for one of these conversations who is working on a book around psychosis and reality. And by its sort of definition, psychosis is a break from reality. And so if you have spent your life in an

incubator of a false reality or a really unsteady reality, it becomes really hard to be in reality. And our brains are wild. They can do really wild things. And if I don't know if everyone heard this example of a mother whose child is trapped under a car will lift the car, it's because her brain is not saying you can't do that. And it's often our physical ability that actually prevents us from doing insane things. It's our mind saying, no, that's not a good use of our energy. But if that gets hijacked or that gets twisted, then we do end up doing things with

our body that are not sustainable for the long run. And I would say for years, I was in a pretty manic state where I was barely eating. I was barely sleeping. I was not giving my body.

body, what my body needed, because I wasn't listening to all of those cues that a body might have of this would be a good time to sleep, this would be a good time to get a snack.

And so I think there's incredible power in that. And I think a lot of people are really familiar with the phrase cognitive dissonance, but I don't think a lot of people know where it comes from.

And you might know this better than I do even from your own research. So correct me if I'm wrong, but the understanding is that there was a cult to believe aliens were going to come back and take them away.

And there was a group of students that was studying this cult. And the day came and went and the aliens did not come. So the students hypothesized, okay, this cult is probably going to dissipate because what they believed and didn't happen.

And what they noticed was that the cult actually became way more evangelical about their cult. Because what happens is that when our reality is shaky, the only thing we can do is try to convince more people to believe in our reality.

Because if you believe what I believe, what I believe isn't crazy, right? And if five of you believe what I believe, then it certainly isn't bizarre. And so there becomes this insatiable need to evangelize not just for evangelical sake, but because it is actually protecting my psyche from feeling the disturbed things that it feels because my world is uncertain.

Yeah, if I remember correctly, it was the cult of Dorothy Martin, the UFO cult. And what's interesting about that is it was in the 1950s and not long before this, there was this wide movement in Christian identity trying to tie the UFO sightings to the end of days.

So you had all of this outcry, even from Pentecostals, from what would eventually become the charismatic movement, that these UFOs are divine UFOs. And suddenly after all of that manipulation happens to the masses, we have these UFO cults.

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

On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

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In the Pentecostal world, Brannum was saying that the rapture would be like this, the UFO would sweep down one day and take us away. That was a common belief. And Brannum, like many other cults, had different doomsday dates that he would give.

And some of them, you could tell he was just throwing a date out. It wasn't even that he cared or was serious. But people, because they were looking for the first date that he gave, any mention of another date their minds were trying to focus on it, since the first one had failed, well, what about this one?

What about the next one? And it's, I look at it and I think, once you've disconnected from this, it goes beyond cognitive dissonance to where you're almost, I hate to use the word zombie, but it's like these zombies who just aren't really able to think.

They're trying to think, they're trying to understand. But yet they're not able to think. And I have people contacting me asking about this and other situations in the group. And they say, how can people, one of the phrases that they use wrongly is how can people be this stupid?

Well, one of the things that I have come to understand is it's often the smarter people, the ones who are more intelligent, who are subject to the manipulation, especially in a religious context, because they come to church.

Their brains are tired from working, you know, long hours with their minds all week. So they come to church and kind of shut their mind off, thinking, well, I can trust this guy. So I can ship my brain off while many of the ones who aren't as intelligent, their brains aren't as tired.

So you have intelligent people who are more susceptible to manipulation. And I came to understand that you can't categorize people based off of their intelligence. But more than that, as the people are being manipulated and the, the zombie word, I'm sure you're come up with a different word for this, is that takes effect?

Whatever that is, they will blindly go without questioning the leader. Even further, but Jim Jones is the perfect example. They will go all the way to their deaths in Jonestown, Massacre, this happened. So for me, as I look at this and I look at the, you know, what's happening with these youth, with the mission, these groups overseas with no real psychological boundaries, with, in many cases, no theological boundaries, I have to wonder, has it already became that way before they go there or is, is this something that happens over time while they're away from their parents?

I really appreciate that question. And one thing I want to share before I talk about. that when you were talking about folks just going in and turning their brains off after a long week of work, part of that is actually the manipulation.

So our default mode network is the critical part of our brain that thinks about the future, that ruminates about the past, that really thinks more critically about a lot of things. And what is true is a lot of the ways in which worship music is played, inhibits our default mode network.

And so even before the pastor, the preacher, the prophet gets up and starts speaking, I think that manipulation is already at play, where our brains are really, really susceptible to the context that we're in.

And so the rolling of worship music is by design, part of that way that gets us outside of ourselves. And again, there can be really beautiful parts of that, a feeling connected to other people.

Humans have sang and danced with one another since humans existed pretty much, because it allows us to feel a sense of connection and life and vitality and like anything in the wrong hands that can be manipulated and wielded for our own detriment.

So I think that's an important thing to just think of when we think of these, the way in which spiritual manipulation works. And to talk about, you know, did this zombie-like quality exist before they got to Y-Warm?

Was it already there? I specialize in working with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. And what I often say is perpetrators know how to read children that don't have a safe place to go.

And I actually don't think it is much different than cults and high control religions and high control missions organizations, where I think that those who are in power know how to read people that don't have a stable home life people who don't have a place that they can go to talk about, hey, this thing happened in service and I didn't really like how it felt, can you help me process it?

And so I think what is there ahead of times is a lack of safety in community and in family, maybe because that community and family itself exists in high control religion, in fundamentalist evangelicalism, in these worlds already, where it's...

So it's based on performance. And if you are in a community based on performance, you're not gonna feel a lot of safety to question, to wonder, to bring instance that felt off to you.

And so I think that a lot of times the people who end up in these movements are those who are really, really vulnerable. And then what happens is you feel like you have found community perhaps for the first time ever.

And there really is this intermittent positive reinforcement where you're on the ground crying during worship and you have five people laying hands on you and speaking really specific things that they know about you.

And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm seeing, I'm safe, I'm held. And so it just continues to double down on, I don't want to lose this. I can't lose this because I have needed something of this my entire life.

You know, both times that I've talked to you now, as you speak, there's a hundred podcasts that come to my head that I want to go through. There's so much to talk about. And I'm actually struggling to contain it.

Which one do I talk about next on this podcast? But my mind was distracted once you started talking about the music because this is something that fascinates me. As a musician, this fascinates me.

I did another podcast, which I think comes up before this one where we talk about just simply music in the charismatic movement. But we only skim the surface. There is so much more to this.

I don't think we really got deep on the manipulation. Also the history of it, not many people realize that this was not always the way churches worked. And the caveat to this that I'll put is the same excitement that you feel if you're in a charismatic service, all of this chanting and the repetitions, all of the different beats and all of it.

If you go to a rock and roll concert and you're next to a guy, there's somebody, in fact, this happened to me. I went to a concert and there's this guy next to me.

He and I were both singing because we recognized the song. So we had this instant bond. We're singing the same song. We both loved it. And as we're walking out of there, the guy stood up, he's a, the guy was just, I'll just say he was not my type of person.

And yet we connected from the music. And it wasn't until long after this, I began to think that same connection happens. You can go to church. You can connect with people through the music.

And the music itself is a tool for helping people to open up, to bond, to connect. Now take that same concept. So I'm with a person who I probably would never have spent two minutes with in my life ever, anywhere else.

Well, if you go to a church, what if the preacher is preaching something that you would never listen to anywhere else? But he's singing the songs. So you're connecting before the service even happens.

And I want to say it was Martin Luther whenever this kind of began, the congregational singing. Before this, it was like chance. And there was music. I think there were congregational songs, but the audience didn't participate, they just kind of listened.

And so there wasn't that bond that was forming. And after the Protestant Reformation, this began to happen. It really was not widespread until, I think it was Moody and Sanky and Wesley. They started congregational hymns.

And I went through some of the newspaper articles just looking for music. I wanted to know how this works. I'm trying to dissect it, right? And I found these people who were saying, what on earth are these people doing?

We go to our churches, and they're talking about liturgical churches where people go, they listen to hear the singing. And we're seeing this complex, wonderful music that it just excites the ears because it's so fantastic.

And then we went to this Moody revival, and he's singing at an elementary grade level with only slight variations in the tune. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, that's like every song that I've ever sang growing up, right?

And, but yet at the same time, it brought everybody back to that mindset of a child, which, from Moody's standpoint, from any of the Pentecostal cares, Matic, they would say this is a good thing.

Bring the mind to the state of a child, then they're more open to the Holy Spirit. But on the flip side of that, what they're essentially saying is, if you can open their minds, they're more subject to undue influence.

And that really scares me. Totally. Yeah, as you're talking, I'm like, has anyone ever been to a service where you first walk in, there's no music, and they go, okay, we're going to take the offering now.

You almost made me spray my tea. I imagine the donations would be quite different if that was what it is. Yeah, I don't think that would go over very well, but anyway, so I studied this.

I studied the music. I studied the influence of the music, right down to the pulse, I think I may have mentioned this with you last time, the pulsing of the organ, the way there are ways in which you can manipulate people that they would never even consider.

Like when I'm in a service, I would not have considered the pulsing of an organ, something that could be used to open my head and be more susceptible to undue influence, but it is, truly, it's matching your heartbeat and these things happen.

And again, much like me, I'm certain that nobody sits down and think, how do I manipulate people? They're instead thinking, we have seen the examples from this. We have watched people open up when we do this.

We like these songs without the complex themes and melodies because it, brings people together, brings them to a childlike faith. Which as I'm talking to you and I'm thinking about why, when I keep thinking about those phrases that we had, childlike faith, it is a good thing.

If you read the Bible and you understand what it's saying, the positive way that it can be used is a good thing, but also it has a very negative connotation. If a person is coming down to a childlike level in their head and you're allowing a person who has ill intent to take over it, it's a recipe for disaster, it really is.

Now, I will preface this. I don't think that everybody in Y-Wam has ill intent or anything like this, but now we're raising children who become adults, and that's where this gets a little bit scary because some of the children who were manipulated now are becoming adults.

The children have learned the techniques. They don't yet have the boundaries that other people have because they're being trained away from institution, schooling, many of them may not have higher level education. I think some, I think a vast majority of them don't.

So they're not aware that they are using manipulation techniques, nor are they aware that they can be used for evil. So whenever children become adults in this, now enter the personality aspect. I'm an adult.

I know how to manipulate people. I don't know that I'm doing it, but I can do it. And say I have a bad personality. I'm quick to anger. I am a person who likes to control people.

I like to manipulate people. If you're that type of personality, I'm not saying I am. Now you don't have the boundaries of who gets to charge in the leadership. Usually it's people who have been with the group the longest.

Now they rise up through the ranks. I'm a little bit concerned because there aren't checks and balances in place. Did you see any checks and balances to prevent something like this from happening? No, not at all.

In fact, not just in YLAM, but a very famous missionary phrase is God doesn't call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And I think that is very, very, very dangerous. I think Jeff Charlotte does a good job talking about that in the family.

It can convince someone that they are chosen by the God of the universe. That is real power. And I think power is a really, really dangerous drug for our brain, especially a developing brain, especially a brain that has narcissistic tendencies.

When you start to give... that brain, a lot of power, that brain will manipulate itself into justifying all types of things that that brain maybe would have never justified. And, you know, I think about the Stanford prison experiment for folks who don't know was a really problematic experiment that happened at Stanford where they recreated a prison and they assigned who was going to be the guardians of the jail and who was going to be the prisoners. And within 72 hours there were horrific forms of abuse and mistreatment of power. And the idea is, are we good people in bad contexts or, you know, what happens?

And I never underestimate, or I probably still do underestimate, even if I don't, I try not to how powerful power is. And I have seen folks climb their way up in Y-Wam that over the years, I'm just like, this actually feels more dangerous than it used to. This feels even more dangerous than it used to. And because there isn't a type of accountability, or if there is, it stays quote-unquote in house. And so you have instances of abuse where authorities are never involved, legal pursuit is never involved because we are going to take on the mantle of accountability, which really

usually just means sending that person to another Y-Wam base and having abuse occur over there. Or, you know, there's, there isn't the type of protection that there should be, because I think that there isn't, I like that word, like the boundaries in place. It's psychological boundaries and relational boundaries. You know, people are your leader, but you also live on the same compound with them. And there's just all types of porousness that breed lack of consent. And for me, that's what I think about when I think of manipulation is, is this person able to consent?

Angela Chen has this beautiful quote that says, if someone cannot say no, any yes that's given is meaningless. And so someone can't say no, perhaps, because you have hijacked their brain through music and manipulative language, someone cannot say no, because you have taken away their ability to pursue education and financial means. Someone cannot say no, because they grew up in this world and their entire safety network is in this world. And so when I think about manipulation, I think about, is this person able to give a wholehearted, enthusiastic yes?

or no to whatever they think that they are consenting to or not. And that leads me to my last big concern, probably my biggest concern of all. You mentioned consent. We'll think about informed consent.

The parents aren't there. The children away from their parents. The children, many of them, can't really do informed consent because they're children. They're not informed. There's no way that they can even know what consent looks like.

It's more submission than consent. And it feels like this for you. When you were there in Y-Wam, did you feel like you had the power to consent, or did you feel more like it was a role of submission and nothing else?

To me, I think this is why understanding what I call the pure-to-purpose pipeline from purity culture to missions is so important, is that one of the most devastating things about purity culture and abstinence only education is that you don't learn about consent.

I think I was probably 22 when I had learned what consent was for the first time after I had left Y-Wam and this world. And so I had learned part of being a martyr was sacrificing my desire, my will, my agency.

And what I think is important in this nuance is that I do think as a white woman, me being obedient, still gave me a sense of power and privilege where I was then stepping into cultures where I had a lot more power and privilege that we're not able to consent.

And we're not able to say, no, we don't want a missionary coming. No, we don't want to hear another lesson from a white lady about Jesus. But I was bringing financial means and material means and things that were necessary because of hundreds of years of imperialism and slavery and colonialism that there was these power differentials.

And so I think what's so important to hold is both how I was harmed and how in a system like that, you will also inevitably cause harm. And I think for some folks, that actually is the harder thing to press into is how do I stay accountable to my own implication in stepping into non-consensual relationships, dynamics with people because I had never learned that myself.

And so I was carrying on the type of the system that I was in. And so I think that, yeah, that system of submission and obedience and lack of consent is really at the crux of what is so problematic about this.

Absolutely. It's scary stuff and even this last statement. that you made, I'm thinking through all of the things that we should talk about in the future, the effects that it has, the effect of manipulation on a person, all of the different varieties of trauma responses and the even personality disorders can develop from these types of things.

So much to think about. Thank you so much for doing this. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me and for having these conversations with me. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at www.WilliamDespranum.org and www.InwellMovement.com. 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.