Inside the Mythology: John and Jed on IHOPKC, Faith, and Psychological Escape | Jed Hartley

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, Jed Hartley, son of a false prophet and former member of the International House of Prayer. Jed is good to be back and I'm just a bit excited for this episode. I've been having conversations I guess I told you with Brantley and we one of the things I wanted to get into with Brantley because I've just been dying to go there is to learn some of the

crazy stories behind things that he saw in IHOP KC, in the surrounding apostolic networks, etc. And we kind of skimmed the surface. We went a little bit and I shared some of the crazy things that I believed. But we ended up with the crazy things we believed episode really and what happens there is you kind of end up into doctrines and weird stuff and things like I shared with him. I probably never shared this with you but we believe Brantham had a magical sword and that's a crazy thing. If you could see the toys that are

above my monitor when I record I've got my Star Trek figurines, some Star Wars. I also have Lion O King of the Thundercats and his magical sword and below that somebody has actually gifted me a sword. He got it as a little trinket at one of the I guess one of the shops in the mall. When I told the story of William Brantham's magic sword he was just amazed and he actually hand delivered me a little replica of a magic sword. So anyway we believed some crazy things. We did some crazy things and I wanted to go there with you as

well. Just learn a little bit more about what it means to be in this movement and the weird things that you believe, the weird things that you do because if you if you understand that the mindset of people who are in here are different than the mindset of people who are Christians outside of the movement you start to see why it becomes an us versus them mentality because you know in my 37 years of being in the cult I never once went into work and announced to everybody in the building hey I believe that William Brantham had

a magic sword. And you could totally be at a church or I hop or a Bethel type church where you You don't really encounter some of those crazy lore bits,

and especially I think for people who were kind of on the auxiliary, who then hear some of my dad's stories and then my stories of traveling with my dad and things that happen.

There are plenty of experiences that I've had. Well, there's basically two categories of crazy stories in this world. There's either the crazy stories that people were telling that were ridiculously false and obviously false.

And it was crazy that they were telling those types of stories and I have a good one as an example that I'll tell you. But so those are one category and that's maybe sort of like the magic weapon or the magic sword idea is like, we just believe these weird crazy things that are totally unsubstantiated.

The other category of crazy stories are stories about when you live in such an untamed,

unregulated world that draws, frankly, mentally, whether mentally ill or untamed themselves, like individuals who just are unpredictable and chaotic, like my father, there tends to be very bizarre things that happen as well that aren't artificial and sometimes aren't talked about because they can be borderline horrific at times.

And so you don't really know about these wild stories that are going on behind the scenes because they'll be talks about them, but I assure you, when you get a lot of people like Bob Jones and Bob Hartley and Mike Bickle and you start hearing about their day-to-day lives, you realize that these were some unhinged individuals and have some really unhinged practices.

So I have both categories. You tell me which one also I can, you tell me if you wanna hear crazy stories that I was told or crazy stories that I actually experienced. Well, actually, I wanna do both because, so here's the thing, this is a research, a historical research podcast and anything that we tell in this that is hearsay about something that we heard that somebody else believed, it's hearsay.

So for the listeners who are looking for content that they can use in a scholarly article, this is not your episode. Well, I'll just say it like that, but there's so many crazy stories, man.

And the reason why I wanna go there is for this reason, because I'm also diving, I don't know if you've seen it or not, I've started into just skimming the surface of going into the Y-Wam world.

with a new co-host to escape Y-Wam and she's also a licensed counselor and we're wanting to understand the psyche of people that are in the movement and so all things out in the open for those who are listening. I'm going there specifically because I want to hear about the psychological aspects from a person who was in it and now trained in psychology understands the mindset, the problems with that. She and I are a little bit of different belief set but her information is just invaluable but she's getting into the psyche. Well now you and I we have a

similar experience because we believe these mythologies and think about that just from a psychological perspective. You are an average guy. I consider myself intelligent. I'm going into the workplace. I'm doing things and skilled in a labor that's skilled with my mind. I'm working with very very intelligent people and the whole time I'm believing that a guy had a magic sword and could speak squirrels into existence. That's what it does with your psyche, right? It's completely absurd and to the people who were in Y-Wam or IHOPAC or Bethel any of these groups, they look at it and they say well John was just nuts. He

believed all this weird stuff but no take a step back and think about the things that you two believed. This is a movement that creates a mindset where you will believe the absurd because you're told to shut off critical thinking. So I want to I want to explore all of it. Well that sounds fantastic because I do have and I and as far as whether or not yes this might not be for the academics as much. This is maybe just a little bit diving into some lore and crazy experiences. But some of this I experience firsthand and I can at least be a

firsthand account of some of these wild things but okay so the first story that I'm thinking of is this was something that I so there used to be an an event ish called the he-man camping trip that I would do in Kansas City with some IHOP adjacent people where we go and it was young men who are learning how to be more manly and all that sort of stuff. And so I went on this camping trip and one time I believe that this was there there was an instance where Corey Russell he's now a pastor at a IHOP adjacent church in Denver that

I think I've even we've even talked about him in the past because there was some some conversations about him bullying people at the church that he helps lead. Anyway Corey Russell he was he was this sort of youth at the time, he was a youth pastor at the International Hospital. He goes on this sort of camping trip with me and some other individuals, some other young men, and of course when we're around the campfire, you tell spooky campfire stories. Well, Cory Russell, and this is legitimately his testimony. Like, I heard him share this with total sincerity and he absolutely, it wasn't like

we were telling campfire stories that later it was like, oh, well, this was just a joke or something like that. Like, he genuinely was telling this, this is how he got saved. And his testimony was a long testimony, but I'll kind of consolidate it and shorten it a little bit, but he was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and he was in a place where he was very, he was not a Christian, he was living a hedonistic life. And he goes out with a couple of his, I think he called him drug buddies, but he goes out with a couple of his friends and he goes on a camping trip with them out into

the middle of the woods. And on this camping trip, he begins to have what he calls the sort of spiritual experience where he starts feeling a sense of fear and like anxiousness about what is going on with this trip. And apparently he did not know these two other gentlemen very well.

And so he was on this trip with them, but didn't really understand who they were or what they were about. And it starts getting late at night and he starts realizing that I'm totally cutting it short.

He told it in a very dramatic way, but he starts realizing that these two men intend to sacrifice him and tend to do some form of human sacrifice. This is Corey Russell's genuine

testimony of salvation. So he's on this in this camping situation with these two individuals way out in the woods where they are like sharpening knives because they are going to kill him and sacrifice him in some sort of satanic ritual. And he is so frightened, he then calls out to the Lord for help. And the Lord tells him to draw a circle in the dirt around him. And so he does this.

He draws a circle in the dirt around him. And this is It's this first time that he is dealt with prayer and he calls out to the Lord according to this sort of testimony that he told us.

And the two individuals who have their knife sharpened finally come to sort of begin the sacrifice and they are unable to cross the line in the circle, or the line in the dirt that he drew.

And no matter what they try to do, they're circling. He talks about how they're kind of circling around him for the entire night where he's in the middle of this circle, just praying for the first time, praying to a Lord that he has not ever really encountered before.

And there's this sort of supernatural protection that they can't cross the circle. And then finally, the sun rises and they disappear into the woods. He runs all the way back down, gets in his truck and drives off.

And that day dedicates his life to the Lord and is apparently instantly saved of drug addiction,

now called addiction. This is, again, I'm a little bit churning it a little bit because I'm telling it shorter, but that was the testimony that he gave us. And I remember this very distinctly because I was probably like 14 or 15.

And I had heard a lot of wild testimonies before, but John, have you watched SpongeBob Squarepants ever?

That's actually a running conversation at our house because our children remember whenever SpongeBob was evil, I don't know if you knew this. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a period of time where it was evil.

And we were in this weird irony because this is a weird story. We were in this weird irony because I could, my family could watch TV. We knew that William Brandham had a TV.

His, in fact, his children had TVs. They had multiple TVs in their house back in the 50s and 60s. This is unheard of, but he did. But from the pulpit, he would blast television anybody who watches it, you're of the devil.

So the vast majority of people in the cult can't watch TV. Our family can, which is weird. So we watched SpongeBob and then now there's this new level of wrong because SpongeBob was apparently evil.

I'm a cartoon lover. I had no idea. SpongeBob is supposed to be evil. So I'm watching it. And then suddenly he's evil. Well, for a period of time, I actually gave in and said, yes, he's evil, let's not watch it.

And then common sense kicked in and said, no man, it's a SpongeBob Squarepants. Well, I was also not allowed to watch SpongeBob, but we had a TV in the basement that was connected to cable.

And then I would go into the basement and watch SpongeBob as a rebellious, that's what I would do as a rebellious teenager or a young teenager was. watch SpongeBob. And if you remember, if you had ever watched it, there's one episode where Patrick, Squidward and SpongeBob go out and I think that they're camping or something.

And SpongeBob talks about how there are, I think it's a fish bear that will attack and Squidward is like, I don't, that's not a real thing. And it's sure enough later in the episode, they get attacked by a fish bear. But the whole joke of the episode is that SpongeBob knows this very specific lure that if you draw a circle in the sand around you, that the fish bear won't be able to attack you. And I have a very vivid memory of like the cartoon. I haven't watched it since I was like 1314 or whenever it first like came out. I have a very vivid memory

of like the fish bear swimming up to attack SpongeBob and Patrick seen the line in the sand kind of pointing to it and then like giving them a look like, I'm gonna get you as soon as you get out of here, but like respects the line and like swims off and attacks Squidward off screen.

And I remember it was so funny because I was listening to this testimony that that Cory Russell who is a prominent pastor right now. I mean, this is not some cook on the side of, you know, your church where you're like, oh, okay, that guy's weird. I mean, he's a prominent pastor now is telling his testimony and it's the same, it's the same lure as SpongeBob. Like it's the same draw a circle around you and God protects you from this. And I wouldn't be talking about that like it's hard because like I don't want to make fun of Cory. Well, I actually don't have any problem

with that now because he has been an unkind person to under individual, like there's one thing about there's something about in that world, there was just a bunch of people telling really wild random stories and like I don't want to embarrass people from making up crazy stories, but like you can't do that when you're you're a lead pastor and you're talking to young impressionable children, like why make up that story? I mean, obviously it's not, that's not how it works, that's not how any of that works. It is, it was building into this lore that like all drug addicts are demonic

individuals who are going to do like satanic rituals. That was a huge thing in the 90s was the site that like there are Satanists out there who are sacrificing people and everything, like that totally buying into the whole satanic panic thing.

And I don't know, maybe Cory had had like a bad drug experience was tripping on something and really thought something like that was happening.

But like, it just was, it just is a bizarre story that quite clearly if you're a rational person, you're like, no, that's not what happened. That's literally the same lore as what's going on in SpongeBob.

But that is the reality that we sort of live with in this world is people telling these wild crazy stories. And that was, I remember talking with my friend, best friend at the time his name is Sam and we talked about like, oh, I want to grow up and I want to have testimonies like Bob Hartley or Cory Russell or these other individuals who have these powerful, they got saved by the Lord and the Lord saved their life from satanic, merrous, human sacrifice,

individuals or whatever. And it's like, those stories aren't, those testimonies aren't real. So sure, you can have that testimony, you can just make it up. And my dad was the same thing. He would make up crazy stories about what happened during his drug days when he was a 20 year old and only until I got older did I realize, like that's not how any of this works.

And so yeah, so that was that for a while, I believe that, I believed Cory Russell when he told me that, but it was always this sort of, man, that's so weird that it's the exact same thing that happened in SpongeBob.

One of the episodes that I recorded with Jenny who's doing the Y-Wam was about the link between this type of movement and disassociation disorder, which kind of separate, right? And I wanted to go there, but I didn't in that initial podcast because I'm wanting to gradually get into it with Y-Wam.

You and I are a lot further along, so I can go there with you. But here's one of the problems. In the movement that I came out of, it was a divine healing, faith movement, it was the origins to what created yours, obviously.

And here's how it works. Whenever you looking for God to heal you in all things and looking for God to be the ultimate answer for your healing alone, which part of that's fine, but there is this disassociation that happens with it because not everybody gets healed.

And those that do, they want to show that it was God that did it, which is also, fine. Until the disassociation happens, I know people who will go to the doctor and they were like that close to death. And almost every case, I'm not going to give names. But one of my family members, anytime she goes to the dentist, it's like it was the worst case ever. The dentist had never ever seen a tooth in his condition. The jawbone was inflamed. They nearly had to cut her head off. I mean, it gets to that level. Well, she

can't help it. She's actually disassociating from reality is the problem. And on a much lower level than this, the entire movement has done this in various ways. So you kind of separate from reality. When you do, there's this fine line between what is a lie and what do you actually believe? Yeah. The problem is there are people who are in, so in the rank and file members, this happens all the time. And the person that I mentioned would be, I would consider rank and file. There's another tier where people are kind of clued in that,

no, that's not the way it happened. But look how the crowd responds when they say it. And so they're in this weird, fluxing state where they're kind of in and out of reality. And then you've got the people who are in the know, they know exactly what they're saying when it's false. And the weird story, I'll give you. So when I began my IT career, back then, there were all of these email joke lists. And it was very common, even in the corporate environment, you would get a joke email and you would forward it to the whole room. And

you watch half the room start laughing. That's just the way it was. One of these joke emails was it was actually a play. If I remember correctly, it was, it was very similar to something that I had seen in a beetle Bailey comic strip where Sarge asked beetle to go move the truck and there's no, no engine in the truck. I don't, I don't remember what beetle Bailey did.

But the joke email basically was that the, the sergeant asked him to move a bit and he was joking to the private. And there's no engine in the truck. And he's supposed to move it up on this hill where the private goes and does it. And I don't remember the climax of the joke. But essentially, it was, the end result was the truck which had no engine is up on the hill. And punch line, everybody's laughing. I remember sending this to several people. Fast forward about three years.

I kid you not. It was between one and three years. One of the, one of Brandon Sons who is now dead at the youth camp tells everybody that there was, there was this believer who was in another country and he was in the army and the sergeant asked him to go move the truck on the hill and the truck had no engine in it. And by faith, he faced the thing up onto the hill. And all of the kids went into an uproar and there were even videos of this. I included that video on my original YouTube

site, which the cult attacked and brought down. And it had his voice. You could hear it clearly. And I had a... aside, here's the joke email from several years before, and here's him claiming that this guy did it by faith. I literally had people who were in the call respond to me, well, that may have been a joke email, but God is bigger than that joke email. And this guy really moved this truck with no engine up onto the hill by his face. And the punchline was that he actually drove it up onto the hill. So it was, it was a much bigger God than the missing

engine. And you know, there are people who are listening who say, well, yeah, that's true. It is a bigger God than the missing engine. And my response is that may be, but go replicate that with your belief in the bigger God. I want to watch it. I think that you should definitely talk with this, with this, that may be even that exact story because that same story or very similar story. I remember hearing cycle and, um, why we have circles. There was like some missionary who was driving their plane for their car, and it kept going despite them having like low to empty gas.

And then, uh, they drive like 50 miles or something like that. They make it to their, um, place that they were going to, and they open up the engine, and they're, or they open up the, you know, where the engine, where the engine should be. And there is no engine in there, and they were driving driving on faith and not on, uh, not with an actual working vehicle. And I remember hearing, these are, these are the, now I think back on it. I like totally believe that story.

Like when I was 20, you know, and now I look back and I'm like, no, that's not how it worked. That's not how, but no one's going to say anything. No one's going to jump in. And then if someone says, oh, that's not actually what happened. And it's like, well, it could happen. Well, even if it's not true in this case, I'm sure that God has done that before and God could do that.

You know, it's funny because I'm laughing because that same exact story that you told, yeah, was circulated in the brand. And I think it came from a lateral rain. If I remember correctly, it actually came from brand. I'm doing a lateral rain. But here's, here's the problem. So with this dissociation, dissociation disorder and looking for God and everything, there are people who read the joke emails or who reads digest and they start to apply their own thoughts about, well, what have God and God, God got involved to that story and the people had faith and take it far beyond

what was the reader's digest story. And if I remember correctly, there was a reader's digest story. I'd have to go look this up to confirm. So don't quote me on it. But something to the effect that the family was driving and they were driving on fumes and they needed to get somewhere. And fortunately, they made it, which is an average casual story that I could tell at work and ever, you know, I'd have people work, so yeah, the same thing happened to me. It showed on empty, but we kept going for another 15 miles. Well, if you know how the gauge works in a fuel tank, that's pretty

much how it works. And that's another thing, the disassociation with this. I know from being, I'm auto mechanic, everything from auto mechanic to IT guy. So I know how many, many things work. I used to take radios apart as a kid just to see what was inside and see how tanker with electronics out works. So I know how a lot of things work. And you can counter most of the faith claims like the gas engine, like the gas tank, if you understand how things work. But then on the flip side, when you're in the movement, you're never going to say, well,

yeah, but if it's on empty, you can get another 10 to 15 miles, depending on how high the float is sitting on the gas, right? There can still be gas in the tank, but you never say this kind of thing. So anyway, people kind of disassociate, then they will apply God to the story that they read. And in their brain, because they have disassociated, they start to enter the story, which didn't come from anything factual from themselves. But now it enters into reality, and then it enters into mythology. And that's the point, that's the reason why I wanted

to have this conversation with you. Things like this actually go from joke emails or readers digest articles, or even just simple thoughts that people have in everyday life. Well, they think about it until it enters their disassociation state, and then it will enter fully into the mythology, and they'll tell it. And then it spreads, like you said, to why I'm telling the same story, it'll spread throughout the movement until it is an actual element of mythology that you can't even say is any what any different than the ancient mythologies. It's complete fiction.

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On behalf of William-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. we were talking about this. I had a, I guess, a repressed memory popped back in my head because it was so embarrassing. But when I was in Y-WAM, I had a motorcycle that I was driving. This was when I was living on the big island of Encona, Hawaii. That's where the big Y-WAM base is. And I had a motorcycle that I had just bought and I was with a girl that I was dating, which in Y-WAM, you can sort of do, but you know, it's frowned upon to be too, you can kind of

court, but you know, don't be careful not to kiss or anything beyond that, you know. And that's the sort of like, it was this weird. So there's something felt very like, okay, well, we can, we can date, but we're going to do it in quiet and sort of thing. So I had driven, or we wrote my motorcycle to some beach there. And I had just not thought about making sure that it was full of gas. And we're about to drive back. And I realized that I am absolutely on empty. And I probably have been on empty this entire time driving out there too. And I have her and I, we both lay

hands, oh my god, this is so embarrassing. Now that I'm thinking back on it, but we both lay hands on my motorcycle tank. And we pray for God to like, extend the tank, because there's not, there's not really gas stations on the way back here. We're 30 miles away or whatever, 20 miles away. So we get I think we were about five miles back from campus when, sure enough, it sputters and dies. And I have to like park on the side of the highway there. And I was full of faith. And I believed that God

was going to give me back. But I remember having this internal turmoil that I was like, oh, was I, was I doing something wrong going on this date with this girl? Because like, is this God punishing me for what I was doing? And her and I had to like at one in the morning or something like that had to walk five miles back. And then the next day, I get a, I get somebody to drive me out there. And I didn't realize that motorcycles have reserve tanks that you can just click over.

And when you're about running out on your gas, you can, there's like a reserve tank that you can use. So I didn't even need to. I could have just flipped it to the reserve tank. And I would have know how my motorcycle works because I was a dumb kid. And I remember, but I just remember that really thinking that that's the way that the world worked, that if you were in a situation where you're low on gas, you can, this is a magic trick that you can do. You can divine from the heavens and get it to drive your vehicle. And anyway, me let's say the date didn't go

very well. And I don't think that we had many dates after that because it's probably not something you should do is make your date walk five miles at midnight. And yeah. So anyway, the point of that story other than just remembering how embarrassing that was is is these delusions or delusional stories that people build out either because of dissociation or because they're just storytellers and habitual liars or whatever it is.

If those are the type of stories that are constantly being told, if you're young, if you're naive, if you want to believe these stories, it shapes the way that you view the world. And that has very real consequences because you are operating with a different understanding of how the world works on a fundamental level and are not able to handle real world situations.

This is one of the things that I was thinking about this morning about. I know that I've probably said this in the past, but I think back on the more that I get older and the more that I experience death and experience family crises and just every day, well not every day, but every life sort of big dramatic events of death and family or sicknesses and stuff like that.

I realized how much the world that I grew up in was so ill-equipped to handle reality because we always had one or two feet in supernatural reality in these delusional worlds that when actual reality happens, when someone is actually really deathly sick, when you are in a situation in which it's either life or death or even less dramatically when your gas is running out, when you don't have food to feed your family, when you're poor, when you're dealing with a variety of real world crises, if you don't have an understanding of how the world works,

you're not going to be equipped to handle it. I think back on my dad and I think back on even my mom during Some of these times are just not being able to handle real world situations in a way that was like mature and reasonable because just always operating in this weird bizzaro world in which miracles could happen but aren't happening and miracles did happen in these different stories but aren't happening now and we don't know the formula and we don't know how to replicate the magic that we talk about but yet we firmly believe that that magic exists and just so many

different instances throughout my life in which we especially my dad where we're just totally equipped to handle like when my grandmother passed away I remember my dad was in China on a mission thing and so this was my mom's mom and I wrote my grandma was in very poor health and then got to the point where it was like okay she's she's probably gonna pass away and she was young I think she was in her early 70s so it was it was a little bit of surprise she had had a lot of health challenges but she was fairly you know young it wasn't like we had been seen that was gonna

happen for years and years and so my dad is in China and he's trying to fly back to be back with family and with my mom during this obviously very trying time and I I was 18 at the time or 17 and I remember thinking oh dad will do great with this he'll come back and he'll be great with this not that he was gonna like pray and heal her or something like that but I just remember thinking you know my dad is is inconsistent and we can't really rely on him for a lot of things

but when the shit hits the fan when it's serious situations like he he'll bring himself together and and I remember thinking that that was who he was is that he could he could kind of rally and focus and he thinks about himself a lot but like in this situation he's gonna handle it well anyway he gets he gets back in town and he what I now know is is he had sort of like a narcissist uh he had a breakdown that was typical for people with narcissistic personality disorder when the focus is not on them there are there are things that people can do that just everything

everybody has he has to stop and control everything he gets sick too like he he got really sick during that time and he wasn't sick he would just like upset that my grandmother was taking all of the attention And she passed away.

And I remember at the her funeral, he gets up and he starts speaking at her funeral. And he starts telling everybody that he was there for her last words. My grandmother's last words, he was not there.

He did not hear it. And he starts putting words in her mouth that she did not say. And this, I mean, my parents separated shortly after this. And I was a huge part of it because my dad needed to retell a story in which he was involved or at the center of the story.

And he wasn't. He wasn't at the center of the story. He needed to be there in a way to support my mother and to support the rest of the family. And he just couldn't partially because of narcissistic personality disorder stuff.

And partially because of just this was the sort of delusional world that we lived in. And you could retell stories. And when reality doesn't fit with your particular narrative, you just retell that narrative.

But the problem is, is the narrative that we're telling is not consistent with reality. And that's, you know, I told him this one time, actually very recently, where he would drink. And then he would tell people he was not drinking.

He would, because he had this sort of a substance abuse issue. And he would drive. He would get in his car. And he would be so convinced that he wasn't drunk. Even though I had just watched him put down a third of a bottle of whiskey.

He would get in his car and he would drive around. And I remember having this conversation with him. And I genuinely, truly believe that he would be able to convince himself that, OK, well, maybe I drink earlier, but I'm fine now.

And it's like, that's not how it works. And I had a very candid conversation with him. This was in 2023 before everything went down with Mike Bickle and then with my dad's own scandals.

But during that period of time, I confronted him. And I was like, you don't get to redefine reality. But this is the things that you say, whether you say that you are sober, doesn't change the fact that you consume this amount of alcohol.

There is a hard fact of what you have consumed and how it affects you. And it was one of these just impossible conversations where I'm like, you cannot retell and reshape reality. And that's not how reality works.

Unfortunately, we don't get to do that. And I think that there's people who have lived in these delusional worlds where they do reshape reality. And then they have people believe them. And so. And then they never interact with the consequences, you know, William Brannum or Jack Coe or these other people who gave these wild testimonies of this man was healed and I saw this one.

Well, they never see that person again. So they lay hands on Aunt Bertha. She stands up for a second. She walks out of her wheelchair. Well, they're not there when the next day she relapses and sits back in the chair and it was it was just, you know, she had a burst of adrenaline that caused her to stand up. And so these faith healers say that they got healed and impermanently in their mind and in their story, it is. She did get healed and that redefines their reality and because people listen to them and agree with them, they believe that they can keep saying it.

But the fact of the matter is, is Aunt Bertha is still, is still in her wheelchair like it just doesn't reality does not bend to the whims of these narcissists. So we have alienated almost everyone who's in the word of faith crowd who is listening. For those who remain, I'm going to tell a story that will bring you back in because there are there are also things that are unexplainable and I have weird, I have several weird stories like this. I don't tell many of them because I don't want people to get into this false hype. But first I'll start by alienating you just a bit more

if you're in that crowd. And then I'll reel it back in to stay tuned. But so this movement has taught you one of these ideal ideological issues which, you know, even still today, if you watch the comment feeds or the live feed as this is being put, as this is being published, people are going to just slam me for any sort of question of the power of faith.

Rightfully so because there are several Bible passages about faith. But here's the problem as I see it. You have different categories of people who are Christian. You have those who believe that unreasonable things can happen as a result of your faith, things that are just out of the realms of possibility of this world. If you say and believe them, it can happen. And they will reference things like, well, Moses part of the Red Sea explain how that happened. And that's a legitimate question, right? How did that happen? You have another set of Christians who believe that,

yes, these things did happen as the Bible said, but there was a direct need. In other words, Moses for him to lead God's people out, this had to have happened, God intervened, and this miraculous thing happened. But this is not going to happen every day. So you've got people in two different camps. And then you've got another category of people who believe that if some of the stories that are told in the Bible, such as the Red Sea and there's Jonah, a few others. They believe that some of those stories, maybe not all, but some are allegorical.

And yes, they could have happened, but we believe that it's allegory, and it's supporting the broader narrative that led us into Christianity. So you've got three different types of Christians, and that's just a subset. There are many other types. But here's the interesting part.

In the category of allegory, or the category of believing it was as needed, neither one of those really condemn those who are hardcore fundamentalists. But the hardcore fundamentalists will condemn the other two, which I find unusual and odd. And yet at the same time, if you ask one of the fundamentalists who really takes it literal and believe it is for today, it can happen today, you ask them to, okay, go part the Red Sea. There's not a single one of them who can. But yet they're in that mindset, right? So what they do instead is they

have to disassociate. There is no other alternative but to disassociate and try to believe that, well, yes, we can't part the Red Sea, but look, here's this other thing, which, you know, you might be able to explain it away, but there's some question or doubt surrounding the details. And that's the same as parting the Red Sea. So what they do is they take a reality and they put it into another realm. An example of this is one that I've given that I myself did. And I look back at it and it's just one of those things for the X-Files. But we were driving

my grandfather's car, my grandfather loved music, my maternal grandfather, and his tape deck went out in his car. And it was like one of the few instances I've ever heard silence in his car.

He just loved music. And I just casually reached down, I prayed over the tape deck, and maybe with you, I mentioned this, but I prayed over the thing and then turned it off, turned it on again, and boom, it started playing. It had not played for months. It had, it never stopped until he sold the car. So those who were in the Fundamentalist crowd will say, well, John healed the tape deck.

Those who are in the, you know, as God needed crowd would say, well, that's possible. Maybe, maybe God did it, but also maybe something else happened. Maybe it bumped in the road or whatever.

And they put a little bit of logic to it. And the allegorical crowd would say, I don't know, man, I just don't believe this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the two, the allegorical crowd and the, you know, God does it as a need crowd. They wouldn't condemn the Fundamentalist, but the Fundamentalist would condemn the other two. Yeah. Which again, I find really odd. So all of this to say, when you are in that crowd that is being taught, and we used to have this phrase in almost every sermon, God said, speak into the mountain, be removed to those who were in the

the allegorical crowd or those who are actually studying the phrasology of the New Testament would say, yes, he did say that, but there's a little bit, it doesn't mean exactly what you're saying that it means.

And to the fundamentalist crowd, they would just point fingers and say, no, we believe it. And yet not a single one of them can move a mountain. Yeah, yeah. So we end up with this real problem, right?

This plagued me whenever I left the movement because you're forced to either disassociate and enter into fantasy and invent things that are happening that replace the moving mountain scenario before you have to accept the fact that there's not a single person on Earth today that can actually move a mountain.

I probably land in that allegorical category. In my convictions, I know there's a lot of people who probably believe differently. But yeah, I think if that was a good breakdown of how do different people interpret what was going on there?

But I think that belief is really tricky because belief and faith can do some marvelous things and is not in of itself very dangerous even in situations in which it might not even be true.

The person who believes that God is there helping them get their car from A to B or something like that or find their keys. As much as I am believe it was allegorical and there aren't miracles that happen like that today.

If I am desperate to find even the keys, even just out of like, I don't even mean to do this but I will still do this thing where I pray to God to help me find my keys.

And then I'm like, I don't actually believe that that's a real thing anymore but it's just so ingrained in like that's how I deal with stress and is that helps call me, you know?

And I have seen that people with remarkable faith have been in my life able to handle real-world situations

with a lot of like presence and capacity because if they kind of pair their faith with wisdom and have this sort of like God works everything out. In the end, I don't know how there's this humility of like, I don't know how this is gonna happen.

I will pray but like know that maybe this person won't get healed. Maybe this person, we will break down and I have contingency plans in case that is the case. I think that there are, I don't want to like express that I believe that there are dangers and just having this sense of faith that God is...

involved in all of these sort of mundane or everyday sort of miraculous situations.

I think the problem I have is you've got to ask who's caching the check when you make big statements about faith and about the nature of the world. Who are you talking to? So if you're a person who really believes that you were going to be sacrificed and by your satanic friends and you drew a line in the sand, if there's suspicion in your head maybe that was a drug trip gone wrong and maybe that didn't actually happen.

Think about the consequences of the people that you're talking to. Like think about how that is going to affect a young impressionable person and their view of the world. Think about I think this is this is true of the way that people would there was this sort of like well if I just tell these crazy horror stories around drugs, then young kids won't do drugs and it's like well children grow up and they if the world does not align with the world that you told them then they're going to have to suddenly experience and this is what happens with like drugs and alcohol is you don't give a realistic picture

of the consequences of drugs. Someone smokes weed and it's like okay well no one tried to sacrifice me on a mountain so maybe I'm actually okay or what not and it's like okay we'll talk about long-term effects of drug abuse and long-terms of effects of addiction and different things because these are the consequences that people are going to have to children as they grow up are going to have to deal with and so I'm all for having faith and people believing in things that I don't personally believe in. I'm not saying that everyone has to hold the same beliefs that I do

but be aware of how those beliefs affect the people around you and don't just say things without thinking about the consequences of those different things so it's one thing to be like maybe we should pray for this car to get from A to B but having a sense of okay well if that doesn't happen if still you know still teach your kid that there is a gas gauge and that you have 15 miles and this is and always be prepared with a gas can in your car you know like teach them to be also responsible and also have faith because the fact of the matter

is and this is I've dealt with this it's so uncomfortable because whenever you I have this conversation with someone who believes radically and in miracles happening every single day, there will be the very, I think, reasonable question of like, okay, we'll like do it now.

Show me, I have a deck of cards. You say you're prophetic. Tell me what the second card is. Do your magic trick or chiefs are playing today. Are they gonna win or are they gonna lose?

I promise I won't bet on it. You know, or tell me something very specific about,

I just have a had a conversation with my girlfriend. What did we talk about during this?

And if you ever have that conversation with, I remember having it with someone at YM, I'm not gonna say their name, but someone who was a revivalist. Actually, I don't know why I'm not saying their name.

Andy Bird was at in Hawaii. And I remember having a conversation with him while I was still a Christian or a sort of charismatic Christian believing that these things happened, but he was talking about healing.

And they had just done the, I think we've talked about it before, but they'd done the feet thing. No, we talked about this, right? Where you have two people, you have somebody who lay down and you're like, oh, your feet are not aligned.

Your legs are not aligned. And so let me pray for you and then about it being about a boom, suddenly they're aligned. And it's totally like a psychological trick. And I knew that it was, that was a trick.

I knew that that was not real. And I sort of was confronting him about this because he was doing it and he was working with Todd White and I was like, we shouldn't do that.

And I was like with healing, I was like, okay, oh, I had a friend who wore glasses. And I was like, heal them of their eyesight right now. And he was like, it doesn't work like that.

And I remember being like, well, why not? And if it doesn't, what are we doing here? You know, and it was this sort of, well, we can't, one of the other students, we had a very quick conversation with him and then one of the other students who gave the passage of, do not test the Lord, your God.

And I was like, I'm not testing God, I'm testing you. Like, this isn't about God. And if we can't replicate it, then it, I don't know if it's real. And why is this, why am I the person who is the doubting Thomas the doubting Thomas by asking us, hey, let's have this more concrete because the more that you're in this world, the more that you see people praying for things and having this faith and expecting miracles to happen.

And then it, not happening and being left having to hold the bag. And that's what I mean by like, think about who caches the check. Like if it doesn't happen, if the miracle doesn't happen, who's gonna have to deal with the consequences?

Who's gonna have to make it right? Who's gonna have to deal with the medical issues that we pray for and then didn't get healed? Is there a person can just have to deal with it in silence because they don't wanna tell everybody that they got hurt, can they not now go to their church and say, hey, I am having to go through cancer radiation, love food, they're not gonna say that because a bunch of people pray for them and they said that they were healed of cancer and it didn't actually happen.

That's the sort of consequences of people will be left holding the bag and you have to think about who's doing that. So here's the problem, which is a much bigger podcast than this one, well, maybe we can talk about it sometime in the future.

When you're in the crowd that is believing like this, trying to believe in things that are the impossible. And they'll use the prayer, you know, with God, all things are possible. They, I know all of the Bible verses inside and out, better than they do.

I've studied it better than they do. But they use those phrases. The problem is, as I mentioned, the three categories of Christians, the reason why the other two categories don't really get offended and can just simply say, well, that's fine if you believe this.

I don't believe it. It's because through reasonable expectations, they can see that, well, this person, yes, they believe this, but I'm kind of solid in what I believe because of the ways that I can prove what I believe.

However, in the category of trying to prove the impossible, you can never, ever prove the impossible. And so, by default, what people do, without even thinking about it, the easiest way to maintain that level, you have to maintain this faith in something that can't be proven.

The easiest way to maintain it is just shut everybody off. Yeah. And what happens is, over time, this develops into a huge problem, especially when it becomes political, because now you're just shutting off all other voices.

Anybody who doesn't believe like you shut them off, worse, you can, you know, you can take actions against them, et cetera. But to the defense, I said I would reel it back in, to the defense of the people who believe like this.

As I said, I did too. And you mentioned the keys, which is prime example and actually a good one for me to end on. So, same thing. Every time I lose my keys, I pray and God helps me find them.

Now, does God help me find them in two minutes, like I would like when I'm in a hurry? No. It may take a while, to the other two categories of people who aren't in the faith at category.

It would say, yeah, but it would take me just as long without my keys. Right, right, right. Just go find my keys. And yeah, it's going to... and take me 10, 15, 20 minutes, sometimes an hour.

But when you're in that mindset, you do it, right? But here's the thing. So, psychology fascinates me. And there is a benefit to the people who believe like this because if you can lower your crisis mode and then raise your trust mode, and this is trust in God, you're actually calming your brain.

And many people would find it actually faster because they've went through this calming exercise. And it is a psychological technique, right? It's something that even the other two crowds can do and benefit from, which is ironic.

But it is a technique that helps. And in the end, you'll never answer the question to God, really help them find it, do they not? But to the crowd who believes this, it satisfies that need of showing that, yes, I can move mountains.

See, I just found my keys. Yeah, and to reel it back on the outside, but you still never moved a mountain as the problem. So, so many more stories I could get into, but this has been crazy fun.

All right, yeah, for sure. And I have so many more crazy stories. I talked about the ones. I said that I was gonna talk about ones that I actually saw. And so maybe that'll be next time because, yeah, there's a lot of crazy things that happen.

Because when you have people who have these delusional or out there beliefs in themselves or in other things, they will do some wild stuff. And I mean, sometimes it's funny, which is, I grew up having a lot of bizarre stories about my dad that were pretty funny because he would just do random things.

So maybe we'll just leave that as teaser for next episode to talk about, you know, all the funny things that I saw. And occasionally horrific, thanks. Sounds good. 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 William-Branum.org. From more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.