Inside the Inner Circle: How Cult Elitism Really Works

Music 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 was watching television the other day and interestingly I have this fascination with ancient mythologies and they're now putting out all of these anime cartoons and television shows and all kinds of different things. It referenced themes and I was watching one of them of the cult of Dionysus, hoping I'm saying that

correctly, but one of the mystery cults, right, with the ancient rituals and I got to thinking about you specifically. So we share a lot in common, you having come out of the IHOP KC, me out of Branhamism, you were in Branhamism 2.0, I was in Branhamism 1.0, right, and if you really think about its essence, if you understand the ancient mythologies and how they work, it really was nothing more than a mystery cult and it matched all of the patterns of a mystery cult, every single one of them and you can study there a thousand

studies of these, but I got to thinking of something that the reason I was thinking of you specifically. My family was at the top of it as was your family at the top of it and when you're in a mystery cult, it reminds me of, I don't know, a bunch of little kids playing marbles or something and some guy comes up and he's got the big marble, you know, the big fancy one that you can roll and hit the others and nobody else has it and he's like, this is mine, this is mine, my secret marble. Well, that's how we were, man, we were like, you know, we felt

like we were elite people because we had the secret mystery and when you're on the inside thinking of this, you start to look down upon people on the outside, but the funny part of it is having crossed the barrier now from the inside of the cult to the outside of the cult and talking with people, people realize this and nobody wanted it. Yeah, because yeah, well, there's this sort of lawlessness in these communities and so when you have the elite members of the community, those are the ones who get to set some of the laws, but there's a catch 22 with

being among the being the one with the big marble or being the one who was able to like have of the be a part of this sort of elite community, is that you also got way more attention and you were way more in the thick of whatever is going on.

Like we couldn't just pass. IHOP was going to always be a main storyline from my own life. Like there was no, it was never gonna be a situation where it was gonna rest on the side because we were so interdated within that community that that was always going to be everything that my own life was defined by the way that I grew up was defined by my father and not just defined by my father and so far as what he did and how he raised me, but defined by my father and so far as my community

very much defined who I was in relationship to my dad and to this sort of legacy that I was stepping into. So prophecy was a huge thing that as even like a young kid, I remember being encouraged not just by my dad but by the rest of my community to sort of follow in my father's footsteps and tell great, you know, have visions, dreams, do different prophecies and this was, I mean, this is true for any of the young students who grew up in like the equipping center.

This was the name for, I think we've talked about it before, but the children's equipping center was run by a man named Lenny LaGuardia who has had all sorts of crazy stuff written about him recently and about things that he was doing but that's a whole different story.

But the children's equipping center when we're growing up in it, the whole idea was that equipped children to do signs and wonders, to speak in tongues, to prophesy, to heal the sick and everything like that.

But I think that there was this sort of special focus on me and my sisters and other individuals like Samuel Hood or other young children who are growing up in this sort of authority and in the mantle of this sort of elitism, the elite like families of IHOP and I mean, don't get me wrong.

There was a whole lot of like benefits that came with that. Like I was able to have my voice heard in ways that other people were not able to, even now, like even speaking to you, like part of the reason that my voice has been more relevant.

in some of these discussions is because my father was a prominent individual within that community and people who have been involved with IHOP, there's a lot of people who were like, oh, I know Jedadiah Hartley or I know the Hartley name and recognize some of that like,

oh, they were around, they were prominent, they were a part of this group. So like, I don't want to dismiss that. The lead is in came with like a whole lot of weight, but that weight also had everything within that world that developed like, even the beneficial things were corrupt.

Like the sort of the fruit of the tree is always gonna be rotten. If the roots of the tree are rotten, then the fruit of the tree is always gonna be rotten. And any positive thing that comes out of that community is only gonna be good for very specific situations or, you know, basically it just allowed my dad to, to, this elitism sort of allowed my dad to get away with a lot of things that he should have never been able to get away with.

But that wasn't a good thing. That wasn't, you know, have we been in a different position? They probably would have been a whole lot more accountability that I would have seen. So that was a very meander in response to your first thought.

But just, yeah, just reminiscing about it like the elitism that came with that community that was growing up with had a good side and a bad side to it, for sure. Yeah, it's hard not to think back.

I've got all of these crazy stories running through my head and I can never get them to come out before we start a podcast, but after we start talking, I remember I used to go to different churches.

I've mentioned on the podcast, I went from churches from Arizona to South Carolina everywhere in between. I lived in many of those places. Some of the churches I would go to, I like to play my guitar and if the church would allow it, I would go up and sometimes I would sing what, what we called a special.

And I guess in the Pentecostal circles, that's how it's called. But I would play these songs and everywhere I would go if I was introduced, they would say, now this is Brother Collins' grandson, John Collins.

I was always introduced, it was always that link because we were special, right? And I got to the point, if I was introducing myself, I got to the point where I would just bypass it, I would say, I'm Brother Collins' grandson and shake their hand and I would never forget, I went to this youth, I don't know what it was, like just gathering in this, they'd rented a gymnasium and I walked up to this girl.

I was like 16 years old, wasn't dating yet, walked up to this girl, she was kind of cute, so introduced myself to her and I said, I'm Brother Collins' grandson and then it hit me, that was the stupidest thing ever.

ever done. And she just looked at me and laughed and said, well, hi, brother Collins grandson, and made me feel even lower, right? But we had this esteem because of our connection to the leadership. And in at least in the brand of circles, the only real claim to fame, it wasn't really because of my grandfather. It was more that my grandfather was close to the central figure. That's really the connection. And it took me years after leaving to even understand that my grandfather really meant nothing. It was just that connection. It was one step closer to the quote unquote profit. What made me come to terms with that, ironically,

is another thing that we kind of have in common. After whenever somebody goes public with all of the critical information, it's like if you're living in the olden days and you have, you know, you injure your leg too bad, well, the only hope you had was just cut your leg off. Well, that's what that's what they do with anybody who's got like critical information. So instead of hi, I'm brother Collins grandson, all of that prestige that comes with that, I could be influential to people who were in the cult with all of this knowledge that I have, you know, they just

completely overturned all of Brandham's ministry. But now because I'm critical, they cut not just me, but they severed it grandpa. Well, will it Collins means nothing? Will Collins was just the pastor of the Brandham tabernacle. So it's kind of reversed, which is weird. And it's all just simply because I started publishing critical information. Yeah. If I was publishing pro information, I would probably have a website and people would say, why don't you put your Willard Collins grandson on the top of your website? Yeah, I think it's interesting because the lead is them, they're able to cut it off real quick of like, who's in the in group and who's in the out group,

who are the elite ones? And so you can't, yeah, I was kind of like writing not on purpose or intentionally. I was writing my father's co-tails on in, especially actually the funny thing is more so in Bethel than in even the iHop. I mean, my dad was a big deal in the international house per circles, but it was more mixed of there would be a lot of people and members who didn't even know who he was. But at Bethel, and it's exactly what you were saying because my dad was closer to Bill Johnson in the 2010s at least. Like my dad became a very prominent prophetic figure

in Bethel's sort of inner community. And he got grafted into that inner circle. And this sort of a leaped group. And he was sitting Bill Johnson, Bill Johnson was way more intentional about trying to elevate my dad and, and he- indicate, signify that he was one of the elites, like he would set seats aside that we would always whenever we drove to Bethel, there was always like a parking spot up front that had his name on it and all of these sort of almost even corporate, like it reminded me of going to like a

law firm or something like that where there's partners and like the partners have big offices and then whenever a partner walks in that's like you can tell that this person is an important person within the firm and everybody kind of shows reverence to that. Bethel I think that did that even more so than I opted or at very least my dad was able to catch and get into that sort of elite group at Bethel more prominently but it is one of those things it's just you can kind of road the coated but as soon as you're out of it and this is exactly what happened

with so I hop as soon as the scandals start coming on with Mike and then scandals start popping up with my own dad it was so fascinating to see how a lot of iHOP people pretended like my dad was never involved with the international on-house prayer I mean Mike himself was even just talking and being like oh I don't I barely even know the guy on on an actual interview so Mike Bickel is being accused of all of these things he's kind of being mums the word on all of this not saying anything to reporters and being very like intentional and strategic about not releasing any

information and then an article comes out about my dad and and affiliation to my and you know Mike's affiliation to my dad and that's the one time Mike makes a statement and he's like I have no affiliation with Bob Hartley he did his own thing and everything like that and it's it's that sort of you're in the elite group but then as soon as you have reason to be pushed out of the elite group then you know they'll do it at a drop of a hat now we'll say Bethel Bethel still kept my dad within the elite group because he is one of the revered group even after all of this I'm

we've talked about this and I'm about how Bethel responded to my father's scandal or didn't more accurately just didn't respond until I put like a bunch of external pressure on them but it is this sort of thing it's like the this in group out group it the boundaries of it are very fluid and You say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, your affiliation with the central figure

could be cut off at any certain point. And so despite the fact that this elitism doesn't actually grant you any real benefits other than just sort of the prestige and reverence within that community, which has its own cause, like I was talking about earlier, there's still this sense of like, well, if you want to hold on to it, you have to conform to everything that everyone's doing.

And for people like you and me who are sort of in that elite group or were neither of us are anymore, but when we were a part of that sort of elite group when we were young and we were sort of de facto a part of it because of our blood relatives, even more so for us, like that line

was always something that I was aware of was going to change and shift. And I remember when I went to a secular school, I just went to a college, I went to UMKC. This was when I was like 24.

After I had gone to YWAM and done wrote the book about my dad and done all of these things, I was starting to sort of question not even Christianity, but I was starting to question whether or not this was the version of Christianity that I really believed in and whatnot.

And I remember feeling like this sense of, well, how's this gonna work? How am I gonna be able to maintain relationships with the people within my community? Because I can't have one foot in, one foot out.

I can't come and pretend like I'm a part of it. Now I did for a lot of times and actually, as long as I was keeping the masquerade up, it was actually kind of fine, but that was that sort of pressure and tension of like, well, if I don't follow my dad's footsteps, if I say that I don't believe in prophecy, I mean, I could be a sensationalist and be like, oh, the gifts of spirit ended this, I'm still a Christian, I'm still a devout, believe 90% of the doctrines that are supposed to be important to this world,

but if I rejected some really big premise like this, I would suddenly be ousted from that sort of inner group and in doing so, ousted from the group entirely. And I remember feeling that sort of tension and pressure to conform to this sort of character

that only... only this elite. If you're in this elite group, you have to conform to this certain caricature. And if I didn't, then I'd be out. Well, see, there's where your story and my story differ quite a bit because where you didn't really get any benefits, man, I got one of the greatest benefits of all. I got to get out of jail free card. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

So in the brand of call, if you were an elite person, like my grandfather was, and there were others that I've talked to who have now escaped that are in the same category as me, Brannum would take a step back, picture the marble game, the people come, the kids are playing, the kid comes with the secret marble, right? Well, now he says, okay, you, you, and you, I'm going to let you play with my marble, but you others, you can't play. You have to watch. Brannum did this. He would go to specific individuals who were the elites,

and he would say, all of your children and your grandchildren will be saved. And you have this blanket free ticket to have. I was on, I was under that blessing. So I can do anything I want. I can do this podcast. And I'm still saved. What's interesting is the people who are condemning me, they don't know that I have this free ticket to heaven.

And you're going to hell, John, you're talking against the prophet. But I had this, and it's all part of that elite mentality. You're, you're literally looking to the central figure for your salvation. And because the, it's a pyramid scheme, the central figures at the top will in the middle tier, which is where our families were, you had these elites that were just a little bit above and better than the rest of the group, the rank and followers. And the access to the central figure for the rank and fall members was through the middle tier. So that's why it's built like this, right? Dr. Stephen Hasen's book really

spells that out really well. It's combating cult mind control if you haven't read it. But that pyramid of authoritarian control, it, it's really interesting. And it explains everything that I'm talking about here. When you're in the middle tier and you are the access to the central figure, everybody is going to be nice to you. The moment you come out of this, the moment you have no information, you're suddenly that they have no need for you. It was much like, what's a good example? The prohibition, during prohibition, all of the gangsters were like these special worshiped, venerated figures, right? They're getting

everybody the alcohol that nobody can get. And they're like Tom Cruise of their day, driving fancy cars, dressed in the suits, everybody just loves them. Until suddenly alcohol is no longer illegal, anybody can go buy it. Nobody cares about these guys, right? Because they don't need them anymore. Well, you and I, that's another thing we do share. They don't need us anymore. And so like for me, I don't know how it was for you, but for me, almost everywhere.

one of my friends cut me off. They could just care less if I go off to hell and I handbask it because I'm no longer in that chain of command, that authoritarian command. And when you're saying like the carte blanche thing that was given to your family of like everyone within this, no matter what you do, this is, you are still God's chosen because Brannum, oh, anointed your, I guess grandfather and his descendant.

I was thinking about it because I was like, well, I wonder what the difference is because I don't, I didn't feel that sort of sense of like anything that I do. And I think what you were talking about is my access to the cult and to Mike Pickle and to later Bethel and these elite members of the community was like entirely through my dad and not through sort of like the heartily family legacy.

Like we, I think that we weren't in it enough to actually be independently a part of this sort of elite group as a family. It was very much through my dad who was a prophet.

Well, and to some extent, my mom earlier, but I don't think that that carried as much weight. I mean, it was definitely through my dad's authority. And so the analogy that I was saying or the thing that I was saying earlier about how if I had not, if I had been a Christian and I started pastor, church, her, and I just chose a determination that was different that didn't really embrace prophecy.

Well, the reason why I've picked that as an example is because my dad was a prophetic figure. And so if I did anything that denied or lessened the authority of my father, then I was cutting off my own next because that was the only way through it.

And turned out my father was abusive and was at all sorts of really big issues. And like my relationship with him was, frankly, about abusive relationship in which he would lord things. So for me, he would manipulate me even well into my 20s.

And so my own access and authority to this community was through the very figure who was sort of being abusive to me. And this sort of worked to reaffirm my dad's authority in our family.

And he absolutely used it as best as he could, where I mean, my sister's and I and my mom and everyone like when my parents separated my mom had to leave the community like she was not a part of that world anymore and she at the time hadn't really gone through a deep crisis of faith of like I mean it really was just about like her relationship to my father later I think that she then asked a lot of questions about the version of Christianity that she had sort of come to a brace but I mean she could have stayed well within that community but it became very clear that this sort of like questioning your access into this this upper echelon of the community was going to lead to you being ostracized from the community and on the other end there were very few things that my father could do that could get him kicked out of it.

I mean eventually once it became Mike Bickle and Mike Bickle realized that he was going to get in trouble by association with my dad that's when he cuts it off really quickly but I mean there were so many different things that were happening that my father was doing I mean whether actual the legal activities that we have talked about to and and and really abusive activities but even more just crazy insane and it was just bizarre.

Our behaviors that he would do where I used to joke with him well I didn't joke with him like I would I told him I would always be like man you must have some angel who follows you around all the time because the favor that he had where he could just get away with everything that he ever did whether there's so many times where I was like man you should be in all sorts of trouble whether with the law whether with the community whether with just Mike Bickle himself or Bob Bill Johnson like there was times where my dad was clearly caught lying about his prophecy and it was just these instances where I was like I cannot believe that you can get away with these things and yeah he did and I was like well you you must have some angel looking after you and then later I sort of started realizing oh well this is the function

of the cult and this is this is part of the structure of the cult community is that when you are a part of that upper echelon as long as you don't question the authority of the person above you as long as you don't disrupt the apple cart it doesn't really matter what you're doing it doesn't matter if you're following the the rules you still are grafted within that community and you can kind of do no wrong and you have this sort of eternal favor upon You know, even like I remember, I think I've told you about this before, but during fast,

my dad would, we would have like the solemn assembly fast and it was a very famous thing that I hop would do when the first solemn assembly happened before I was born, but there would be these sort of community-wide fasts and my dad as a sort of leader of the community would talk about how he was fasting too, but I would see him behind the scenes and that man was not fasting.

There was that, like he wasn't, he even would joke about it, he would take sometimes they were doing like liquid fast where like you can't eat anything solid, you can only do liquids and he went to McDonald's and he got a burger and then he put it in a blender so that he could drink the burger which was disgusting and I don't actually think that he drank it.

I think he'd just then got another burger and ate the actual burger, but he had no he had no self-restring so there's no way he was going to actually not eat food for 21 days or whatever it was, but he would go and he would talk like he was doing that and it was very clear that he wasn't doing these things that he was saying that he was doing, but it just didn't matter because it wasn't the point of it, it doesn't matter whether he's telling the truth or he's fulfilling these things, he is helping build out the persona of the

coal, he's helping build out the legacy of the sort of coal community so as long as it is helping Mike Bickle gain aura and authority as long as it's helping Bill Johnson gain aura and authority, then it doesn't really matter whether he's telling the truth and that goes back to well how was this profit figure who was just stealing directories and looking up information on Facebook, how does he become an upper echelon member of this community, it's because no one cares whether or not it's true, they just care whether or not it's going to help progress the

agenda of the coal. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org. On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Steven Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others with links to the paper audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause,

you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Bramham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. You know, I sit there trying to remember during the introduction of this. I was using the example of the kid with the marbles. And I was trying to remember there was a specific movie or television show where it was the same kind of situation. I don't know if it was marbles or not.

But as you were talking, it made me think of something else that is just so funny when you really take a step back and look from the outside in on all of this. How many different episodes of the Little Rascals television show this resembles man. Yeah, yeah. I remember this. And I think this was Little Rascals. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it was spanky if I'm remembering correctly. Came to school with this toad and he was showing it and he had the secret man. He had the secret toads. Everybody's coming up and they're looking at this. And then eventually

they started selling tickets to come see the toad, right? So you've got alfalfa. I think it was who's there getting the tickets. I can't remember how it's all playing out. But you look at this movement. And that's really what it is. You've got the you got the guy with the secret toad and then they start selling tickets to it. And now you can give your tides offering your so your children and get access to this information. But it's and I'm trying to remember another example from the Little Rascals. I'm drawn a blank. But there's also this thing where if you have used the central

figure, have the secret and everybody's trying to get access to the secret, you're going through that middle tier to get to it. Well, that middle tier suddenly feels important because they are relaying the information of the secret. And then what happens as it relates to the secret myth mythologies, the mystery calls, what happens is as they're relaying this, they get their own idea of what that secret means. Oh, this is the spiritual toad or you know, I had a dream about the toad.

We actually there was this guy crazy stories. There was this guy who was convinced because William Brandham told him the convinced that he needed to buy this multi million dollar airplane that when William Brandham rose from the dead, he would be flying around on this airplane and then hold this one last big revival. They would just fly the tent from town to town. And you know, William Brandham's dead in the casket. There's no way he's coming up out. But this guy starts telling relaying the story to all the people, especially in my sector at the call. And they're thinking, oh wow,

this is great. When is this going to happen? I grew up of all the stupid things that I believe. I grew up thinking that this weird thing was going to happen. Well eventually what happened is he started having dreams because he's talking about it so much.

He's starting to have dreams about what all of this means and somehow he gets a piece together that it means that heaven is going to be this great big pyramid and everybody's going to have their little rooms and the you know the mansions that it talks about in the Bible are actually little rooms in the pyramid and Jesus is at the very top and we're going to go live in this pyramid and remember as a kid thinking I don't want to live in a pyramid. I want a big house with a big open field. I want my mansion to look like a mansion not like an Egyptian. What is this weirdness?

But the point I'm trying to make is there are things that enter the mythologies of the cults and people will accept that because this guy was one step close to William Branham. Branham told him to do this thing and he has the special inside knowledge. Will people believe that knowledge and then anything that he says with it they will believe until he gets discredited. So now he has the special claim to fame. His dream enters into a mythology and there's several examples of these kind of dreams. Well what happens is that turns into a new mythology and the original mythology

has changed and shifted and look at the ancient like ancient Egypt. You look at the different versions of what is what they believe their mythologies, their mythology stories. It changes and shifts over time through the centuries and that's the very reason because somebody has this spiritual revelation of what this means. Now let's turn and shift the mythology towards that and in the end if you really take a step back and look at all of this from the beginning to the end the reason why we have a Branhamism 2.0 is because of exactly this. It has shifted and morphed and it actually

changed from Branham's going to raise from the dead and he's going to take us and give us our new bodies to we're going to have this big massive event in Kansas City and this is where the army is going to be formed. I mean you think of how much and drastically that has changed. Well this is the reason why it has changed. And you can see that evolution in the from Branhamism to I hop or even I hop in the 90s to my hop now and this sort of like who gets to add to the myth

and who gets what myth stick and what ones don't because you're I mean you're absolutely right and this is how it would work is people would be able to contribute their own sort of dreams and visions and some of them would stick and some of them wouldn't. Sometimes you would have the Bob Jones-like figures who give crazy dreams where it becomes sort of ordained and grafted into the legacy of the whole community and says, OK, this is part of it.

And sometimes you would just have people who gave the weirdest, weirdest prophecies and everyone just kind of looked the other way and they disappeared and it didn't matter. And it was the sort of what kind of sort of nebulous because in some senses it wasn't just my pickle, but it was this sort of unspoken network of the elite groups at IHOP kind of decided which ones they were going to latch onto or not.

I mean, Mike Bickle had the authority to ordain any prophecy or any sort of message if he wanted to. But that's how you also have these behind the scenes prophecies that Mike Bickle was doing about his wife dying in an earthquake and that he was using to groom young women and to relationships within that he was grooming these young women for.

It's because there's this sort of weird nebulous boundaryless way for those who are within the elite community to sort of say whatever they want and build out whatever narrative they want. And then the cult kind of progresses by morphing around these different things.

Like we've talked many times about how you're like stringed instruments were not a part of they were forbidden by the cult and tell it sort of, it's not still within the message or do people stringed instruments still banned?

In the sec that my grandfather managed until his death it was. And I think as the brand of tabernacle split and so I think one group doesn't and one group does, it's kind of weird.

And that sort of kind of goes throughout the world when you think of it. Yeah, OK. And that makes sense because it's those weird ones that people sort of gain a conviction for in the moment does it last 10 years?

It's the last 20 years. But there's two things that I was thinking of when you were talking to of there was a program that I hop ran called Master's Commission. That's, I don't know if you've heard about this, John, but Master's Commission was a program for young adults in their late teens early 20s to come and sort of intern at the International House Prayer.

And this is where you got a lot of the early musicians and harp and bowl prayer intercessors. You had a lot of the young fuel behind the fire of the International House Prayer. It was before it was like an internship, but it was this sort of weird program, or maybe they did call it an internship then, but you had these, what we called MCs, and they would come in and they had very strict rules on what they could do and what they could not do.

And if they showed up late or if they, there was all of these different ways that they could get consequences, they could have what it was called, they called it Monday Club. And on, it was different chores that they were given.

If you didn't show up on time, if you were late or if you, I don't know, I think that there probably were probably very, some horror stories about who was getting punished for what reason.

Like one of the rules was that women could wear shirts that had letters on their chest because they didn't want people that was seen as impure because you're drawing attention to your chest. If you have letters on your shirt, because that's across the chest and you're having men's eyes be brought to your chest.

And there's different rules, especially for women that they could kind of get in trouble for and not all of them were clear and not all of them made sense and they sort of were at the whims of these elite individuals.

But what would happen is that these Monday clubs, they had to go work for people and one person that they had to work for had done was my dad. So this was a big part of my, I remember my childhood in the 90s and early arts, there would be tons of individuals who would come into our house and they would reorganize our house.

They would do cleaning. They would, my dad had an office in the basement where he had all of these tapes that were from different meetings with Bob Jones and all of these different tape cassettes of every sermon, Mike Bickle ever recorded.

And he would have these MCs go through and organize and they would go through and they would write down everything about each one of these tapes and all the details of it and they would have to listen through this, which is, I mean, a real system of indoctrination is forcing students to listen back through old sermons and whatnot.

But also my dad had a cleaning company and he would use their labor for the cleaning company. I think it was, I think it was only, oh no, I was going to say it was only young men.

But actually, I think there were young women too who would come and they would have to work cleaning movie theaters. Of course, this was unpaid. labor that they were doing. So as far as like reaping the benefits of the leadism, I don't know about me as much, but my dad was getting all sorts of benefits because he was literally getting these unpaid labor interns come and helping organize our house, helping him do whatever he wanted because he was part of that group. And this was a good way to discipline individuals and they got disciplined a ton. I mean, there was

every single Monday, there was one or two people who were coming and helping my dad with some task, whatever task he wanted them to do. And he was often harassing many of the individuals, if not sexually, but physically like he would he would wrestle them down sort of intimidate him. He thought it was fun. But of course, I heard many horror stories people being super intimidated and victims of sort of my dad's aggression because they were just kids and they had already been punished for something that oftentimes was outside of their control or was not, you know, anything that they ever should have been punished for.

But yeah, this was the sort of system that I hop was running. It's common too. I've seen in many of the different branches of the cult movement, there are many people who offer free services.

And, you know, it's not like it's required, but there's this feeling whenever you're working with this tier system of authoritarian control. And your access to the central figure is through the people who are close to them. Well, your access to information is through them too. So you want to be around them more. And I think that's really the bottom line. It's not that it was required in the brand of cult, but when I left, I was like, man, there was a whole bunch of free stuff that I got that I no longer get. Everything from

car maintenance to who knows what all else. What's funny is we after we left, I had a guy that was working on my hot water heater and I just literally called some guy to the phone book. I didn't know this guy from Adam.

And then when he showed up in my house, oh, you're your brother Collins grandson. And man, I wanted to do it. I just felt guilty. I want to say, yes, I am brother. How are you? Because I would get a free labor. And the funny part is he, I think he actually offered it. And I refused to let him do it for free. I wanted to pay, you know, because I wanted to be on the up and up. But that's how it is when you're like this. And it isn't that I'm anything special, but I'm that in that chain that chain that is linking to the central figure.

The irony is our central figure was dead. So they couldn't really access him, but they could access just the glimmer of hope that they might hear something about the central figure that they couldn't hear from elsewhere. And because of my to my grandfather, that's really all that it was.

but you're being taught, you're in a system that is teaching you literally that you are the purified elite and people want to know how to be more purified. And so they'll try to get access to information like this. And in the end, what it is, it's a cared on the string religion. They're telling you that you're part of the purified elite, be like me, we're going to conquer mountains, we're going to become more like Jesus. Well, then people go out and live their daily lives and they realize they're waiting a minute. I'm just an average person. I know I'm supposed to feel

elite, but I don't feel elite. I want to know more what does it mean to feel elite? So they want to get around people who are closer to the central figure to get access to information so that they can feel more special. Because in the end, after you go to church on Sunday, whenever you go back to the workplace, you don't really feel that special. You just feel like I'm an average worker in an average world. In fact, I have a chain of command of bosses that are much higher than me in most cases. So I can't I can't feel special in this world. This world is not my home. I want to be

part of that other world. And so you start to even distance yourself from reality in that way. So over time, what happens is you try to abandon the reality that exists in your life to get into the reality that you're hoping exists, but you can't really you can't really break past that barrier because you're not close to the central figure. Well, and that's the whole stick of the the entire cult is getting close to supernatural. I mean, Joel's army, like having signs and wonders.

I mean, this is the whole thing about being able to prophesy and to be able to do miracles and to be able to heal people. That's the carrot on the stick of the entire community. But I think that this sort of the way that elitism works within the community is structured in a similar way of like you want to feel special. It's just that's what the entire as how people like Mike Bickle and Bill Johnson are able to gain so much control and brand up because there's this a lure of being magical and being ordained by having being revered and being a part of this

sort of close to if I could only touch the hem of his garment sort of thing that if I could be within this like special elite group that suddenly this has spiritual and natural significance and the truth was is that there was if you get within that elite community there are benefits to it.

And there wasn't the prophecy. There wasn't the, you know, if you get close to Brannum, you suddenly aren't healed of your cancer. That is the the lure. That's what people want to believe. That's, you know, if you get close to my dad, you're not suddenly going to get prophecies about the rest of your life. But I saw many people who thought, well, if I just go to this Bob Hartley meeting, or if I just get closer to his son, like I knew I now look back on it, but there were and have much more clarity. But I had so many

20, 30 something men tried to take me on as like they would mentor me or they would get closer to me. And now I look back and see that they were just trying to get close to my dad through me, not necessarily in a super sinister way, but they probably were like, well, I want to be close to Bob Hartley. And so I can be French ed and I can come sort of through this process. And I remember several individuals asking me to ask my dad to pray for them or to prophesy over them. And I mean, it wasn't,

it wasn't, it wasn't not true. There was some truth to the fact that like, they would maybe get more Bob Hartley prophecies. But I know that that does mean that they were accurate or anything like that. But it's this, this allure of like the closer I can get to this elite group, the more I will become elite myself, the more I will become special, the more I will become this supernatural person. And it's really funny that you like you use the phrase a normal guy. Like people realize that they are just a normal person after this or they

or they have to go back to their job and realize that they don't have this sort of spiritual authority or they don't what is granted by the the elite within this cult community is not recognized by the rest of society.

And there's this discrepancy between real life and sort of cult life. And at that point, people can either shift in two different ways either they can go back to the cult community where they think that they can get more of this like and rejects the world like you quit their job and go full headfirst into the cult community so that they can get a taste of this supernatural bit or they realize that it is all a gimmick and it's not real and they recognize the sort of depressive depressing reality that there isn't this or date. There isn't an angel that is

following around my dad that is going to also follow me around like that that isn't the nature of the world that I live in that and I say this other side because this is very much the journey that I've gone on through my life like much of my 20s and early 30s was this sense of being like coming to terms with being a person being a normal person not being some profit figure not being some Joel's army generation child who is going to come and change the world by prophecies dreams and visions I mean a lot of my life has been this sense of like

having to redefine my own identity and redefine what makes me proud of my own self like I'm a teacher now and I just finished my first year or first semester teaching full time at a school and finding satisfaction just doing a job well is something that I have to retrain myself to do because I grew up where the mundane the everyday victories of life didn't matter who cares if you're a good teacher who cares if you do this things like we're talking about the end of times we're talking about Jesus splitting this guy and writing on a white horse so to bring back and install a

thousand year kingdom and so that we might have pyramids or houses that we will live in where we will sit right next to the right hand of God right behind Mike Bickel and Bob Hartley and whatnot so my entire worldview was sort of I mean it's sort of similar to being a recovering drug addict where you have to like it rewires your brain if you are addicted to heroin or something like that like it destroys the pleasure centers of your brain so that it's harder to enjoy the rest of life because you have only access this sort of bliss and pleasure through drug stimulated

experiences and I think that that's very similar to the way that the cult works is that this is the all this was sort of the only access to through this elite group and through this crazy mythology was how I accessed a lot of the like joys and bliss that I experienced as a child truly believing that people were getting healed truly believing that dreams were being given to me and that God was going to come back and it was just a matter of time before the end of the world happened which I was definitely excited for because I thought that I was going to be something special and significant in this

cosmic end of the world reality, and then to shift and be like, I'm just a teacher. I'm just a good teacher and my students will be happy having me and I'm going to improve these children's lives by helping them get better at math.

That's it. And that's fine. And I think that the more that I'm growing up and maturing it in my own identity is becoming actually realizing that there is something very beautiful to that and finding this sort of like beauty in what I used to consider the mundane and just everyday life and learning how to be a good person and to have an impact on the world, not through these cosmic prophecies, but rather through my everyday interaction with people around me by being a good brother, by being a good partner, by being a good teacher or whatever it is.

This is the way that I impact the world. This is the legacy that I'm leaving on this planet and occasionally talking to my friend John on podcasts as well. This is all part of my identity and I think that this is something that I have had to do and not just me and not just individuals who grew up within the sort of elite section of these cult communities, but really everyone because our pleasure centers and our dreams and our aspirations were all warped around a fundamental lie and to reset and re-center ourselves takes I mean decades of work and that's why I think that a lot of people who realize in their later years

that it was all a farce. I mean it's a little too late. When you're in your 50s and you've already spent decades of your life dedicated to it, you're not going to spend a decade rewiring your brain because it's too late and that's why I think a lot of the young adults who are seeing it earlier that's where you see some of the people and some of the reaction to it.

Specifically at IHOP there's a lot of young individuals, not just me, but you know people in their 30s and 20s who were in their teens and they still have a lot of life to live and have some reworking and rewiring of their brain that they're in the midst of doing already and there's this sort of like embrace of like oh it was a cult. I think that people who are in their 20s, 30s are more likely to recognize that IHOP was a cult than people who were inundated it for so long because it just takes so much effort and

time and rewiring to be able to step out of that world. It does. I'm probably going to unpack this more with Jenny when we're talking about use with a mission. But when you're in that high demand type environment, there's this inward shame for feeling like you're not keeping up. And if your body reaches its limit, you start to feel this guilt because my body is being pushed to the limits.

Well, eventually burnout gets masked as as you're lacking devotion in the group. And there's this you build you start to form this chronic insecurity that you you're not good enough to make it. And again, that puts you and I in this weird category because the rank and file members who are feeling that burnout, they can't make it.

Well, they're coming to the middle tier saying, well, what can what can we do? What secrets do you have? How did you do it? How did you get to be that close to the leader? And for me, like, I was just born into this man, I've got no claim to fame. But that's that's really what it is. People feel this and they feel like inadequate. And then after you leave, it gets exponentially worse because now you've got the the fears of gloom and doom that they have indoctrinated you with on top of chronic insecurity on top of the burnout that you had.

And your life people when they leave, sometimes their life just turns into this real mess. And then the cult members are scolding them see they left and their life turn into a mess. And they don't realize that they're the one that actually cause the mess.

They're just people who are escaping. So lots on pack there, I'm probably going to go deeper with that in one of the other podcasts. But thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that isn't yeah, I love to because I think why we I'm suffers from all of these same things too. So I think that's a I will be tuning into that episode as well.

Awesome. 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. For more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR available on Amazon, Kindle, and Automal.