Growing Up in "The Message": Cold War Fear, Misogyny, and Recovery | Dr. Amanda Thompson

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-branham.org and with me I have my very special guest, Dr. Amanda Thompson, former member of the message. Amanda it's good to be on here and to talk to you about all things message and all things coping with what we went through. We were talking briefly and just a little bit that you talked before we hit record made me know that this is going to be an explosive podcast. I'm probably going to talk

about pains that I had and suppressed memories that I have but I recently as you know I had a conversation with my cousin Dr. Jesse Collins. We were talking about very very troubling subjects but it's one that needed a dress that I know that your profession you're a lot you're in similar areas of expertise. So it's very good to have you on. Maybe you could just start by telling everybody a little bit about yourself. Yeah so as you said I am Amanda Thompson. I have a PhD in psychology focused on developmental psychopathology and I use my scientific background to help identify kiddos at risk of self harm and

how do we prevent that better. So it's really close to my heart. Awesome. There are a lot of people struggling with the same issues both in the cult and out of the cult. I guess I didn't tell you this when we were talking before but I've had so many phone conversations with people and it was surprising to me because I'm not a counselor or a psychologist but I found that just simply by producing the history and talking about it you have to be that to some extent because people will call you with all kinds of issues and the first person who I talk

I guess the the safe way to say it on YouTube is I talked them down from the ledge. It was just really surprising to me that that was something that I was going to have to deal with and it was one of several to come so this was a very it's a very troubling thing that we came out of and we when you mention I always ask for people who don't know this always ask how do I introduce you what group did you come from and Amanda said the message and I'm like oh no this is gonna be this is gonna be a tough one. We were in such a

level of destruction that many of the other groups just can't comprehend and maybe we can unpack that a little bit too. Yeah I appreciate you recognizing that. And I want to acknowledge how impactful and a positive way what you're doing is not just for this individual that you clearly helped and could have saved a life for, but myself included.

So, you know, keep it up and thank you. But you're all right when you recognize someone else who's been through it, it's impactful in a level that I've yet to find. So I've not been able to really share even with the love of my life, my husband really went on.

And it's like there's no words for it despite literally being a scientist, I cannot explain what happened to me and it drove me to look into what happened to me. And I found you thinking this.

So, camaraderie is a treasure here. Very much. I, one of the people that I talked to, and I don't think he was involved with a cop, but he was experiencing PTSD from the military.

And he was describing some of the things that he went through from day to day. And that's when it really sunk in for me. I was experiencing many of the same things and I was never in any military operations.

We were, we have the same mindset in many ways of people who escape a concentration camp and not many people who are in the cult realize that until they escape and then they're like, oh my gosh, how do I live, how do I survive?

The world around me doesn't feel normal, how do I adapt? And every single aspect of life you have to adjust after leaving, and those of us who do adjust, it's a huge mountain that we conquer.

Yeah, I think it's okay to normalize it. If you struggled, it's okay. If you still struggle, I still struggle that it's also okay. I like that it's okay to use the word cult now.

If I could share, I think the first time someone used the C word and by C word, I don't mean the naughty word and me cult was in a therapist's office. I think I was 23, so I probably spent, I was very young, but maybe five-ish when I start having memories of the message and my parents, my dad, my biological daddy took us to church and I want to acknowledge that he was just when Dr. Navey then to this to a Harvard no ill will, he's probably seeking comfort and meaning in life and just got swept up into this too.

It just unfortunately undermined his ability to be a warm and effective parent. But I stayed into it until I was probably about 14 or 15 and then continued to kind of go in between as I navigated having two families, my mother, who was divorced and remarried and then my father who had grown another beautiful family of unfortunately who was still deeply embedded in it.

But the first time I heard the word cult was in a therapist's office during graduate school and I just kind of shut that down. I was like, cult, it literally took you showing me that brand I was deeply connected to people like Jim Jones or Paul Schaefer and Colonia Dignidad and I'm just like, okay, wait, now I can believe it.

It's like now I have tangible harm to connect it. to it's like it made me able to justify the things that I was having because I do have a loved one who does have PTSD related to war trauma and I'm like well I can't say I have PTSD because I've not been through what he's been through that's not fair so it's okay if you're struggling and you don't have to compare your struggles or trauma to someone else to have these symptoms because that's not how this works and it's okay. After I first left the message

and I was first just trying to figure out what was this interesting what when I left I actually still believe Brandon was a prophet even though my family made a conscious decision we're not going to be part of this anymore we just felt that it was destructive we I couldn't put it into words but I felt that it was destructive and I went to I had an interview with the news media here locally and they interviewed me in black the black silhouette so you could only hear my voice and what's funny is he gave me a fake name he said we're going to give you a different name

so you'll be in silhouette nobody know who you are and he used my dad's name by accident so everybody who heard it and this is a a news report of a person who's left the brand I'm called here's my voice and you think my dad's name you can imagine what this did right but I gave him one stipulation I said I will do this for I'll do this with you if it will help people as long as you don't use the C word the cult word and so he we we had the whole conversation at

the end of it I'll never forget this because I was still like come trying to come to terms with it because I I didn't think it was a cult and I asked him what do you believe this is a cult I'll never forget how quick he respond he said absolutely man did you not realize what you came out of and when they broadcast it they did not take my instructions and they used the word cult and all hell broke loose here locally everybody was so upset so here I am in silhouette everybody recognizes my name I'm using my dad's name which looks offensive and you know the whole thing

was just it's a little bit incredible but years later after looking at everything that we believed and not just the way that we believe but the way that it was taught I'm starting to understand that it doesn't matter that even if colonial dignidad or Jim Jones or any of the other destructive groups weren't connected it's absolutely a cult this is a I've actually come to a new term I actually label it as a hate group because if you go sit on Sunday morning you're going to hear hatred against people who aren't in the church and that's by definition that's a hate group

and hatred towards the people sitting in there those little girls and women too but I I appreciate how much you've acknowledged that and your You're so right about it. It's just an incredible it's just like this little storm of chaos that we were kind of pressure cooked in and it really is not it was hard. It definitely impacted my development how I viewed the world and even now I'm so privileged to have access to education and yet even now watching Kamala Harris and the Pope Leo right and I had gone to Rome a very fortunate that like I have a job that helps me travel the world and I had gone to Rome and it was

such a like a spiritual experience for me because I'm like oh they're just men. They're just they're just men too like they're not some evil creature but it still looks like this anxiety of like what if Brandon just misinterpreted things and it was actually this day at time or it was like you know maybe maybe it's not women aren't the a woman's not going to actually be president she's going to almost be president and then soon after we'll have an American Pope and now the world's going to end and I need to feel guilty because of how I voted or because I voted in general

bought for bid women half the right to vote or intellectual autonomy at all period Jesus right um so it just was like this even then you still question it or it's like it you're right like it it it is so deeply ingrained and me as a scientist now I'm able to at least unpack some of that and that's been really helpful and empowering but it's like man I feel weird anybody else out there it feels weird you don't love you're not broken it's okay yeah I fully get it there there were two times when I was in the cult that I had tremendous tremendous

fear um actually one time in the cult and then one time outside of the cult having just left the time when I was in the cult I was on some weird medication I don't remember what it was but it affected my balance and we were staying in a one of the cabins in Gatlinburg and I'd never been in one of these places but you walk out on the deck and it's like a two thousand foot drop you were literally on stilts on that deck and my knees went weak and I just fell to the ground actually

had to crawl back into the cabin because my equilibrium was so far off well the second time this happened to me and I didn't go to the ground but I got off the plane in Los Angeles and as you can imagine having been indoctrinated that Los Angeles is gonna sink it's part of the world destruction I walk out there like I I didn't fall but that same exact feeling happened to me and I'm like oh my gosh and had a great time had a business meeting came back home nothing happened and now I look back at it and even that I don't know if you've studied that prophecy but even that was a hate

speech prophecy he was angry at Los Angeles because they were snubbing him he'd been by so many groups. So he just, I'm just going to just, you know, come out with my hatred against the whole city of Los Angeles. And it was at that moment when I came back that I thought, you know, what about all the Christians that are in Los Angeles? He hates them enough to just let them all die. And the whole thing just, it is a hate group. Pure plain and simple. It's a hate group.

Yeah. And there comes some shame with saying you were in a hate group, but, you know, both you and I were not really able to consent to that. We're kind of born into it. But I know that when I grew up, it was like, Billy Paul will be an old man or die before California is underwater, basically. And I was like, well, I'm little and everybody's old to me. Like anyone is old. So, and now, you know, he's passed away since then. And California might be experiencing global warming, but it's still just there. There's no sharks. There's

no nothing. Like, we're okay. The world did not end yet. But you, yeah. So it was just this constant perpetual fear as my husband began to pick up on a little bit. So, if what I was going through and he, he's a historian, he's a history teacher and much more. He's an awesome human being. He was like, baby, you grew up like a cold war kid. And I, that kind of, right? Like that hit me. I was like, huh. Yeah. You would, you would find that parallel. And given now looking back when these tapes were recorded, and I'm not a great

history, history and major. So I won't, you know, try and say parallel things and get caught off guard with different ears. But I was like, yeah, that actually makes sense now. It's a lot of sense. It's funny. The timing of this, you won't have seen it yet. Because I think they're scheduled out ahead of this. And yours will come after this. But I've been taking a deep dive. I'm trying to figure out the birth of the latarine. How did it happen?

Because none of it makes sense. When you look through any of the history, none of it makes sense. And I've identified several key things. Branum was taking the, so they didn't use the word mantle. But basically he's taking the mantle of Smith Wiggles, Wiggles worth.

And that was broadcast throughout Pentecostalism. Here's Branum. He's a new healer. He's a new Smith Wiggles worth, which would have been a big deal. Well, the other thing that I have, I did identify early on when I was working with Charles that his campaign manager Gordon Lindsay was part of the Christian identity movement. I didn't realize to what extent until recently. But Lindsay was not only a keynote speaker in Christian identity. He actually left his post as a minister to write books on the subject. So it's a lot bigger of a deal.

And I'm starting to get into now the doctrine that he was preaching and teaching whenever he was working with Branum when all of this began. And it ties all directly to politics and the fears of the Cold War. They're literally, he's part of the reason if you really understand what happened. It's part of, part of that platform that put the fear of the Cold War into the United States to become what it did.

Without it, I don't know that it would have. So, so much of that history I'm getting into, I'm just starting into it, so that'll come in a podcast. I think it releases before this one, but you won't have heard it yet. Well, if that's not validating hearing like third-party history people go, your experience sounds like you grew up in the Cold War, despite being a millennial, it's like that, but should validate what we went through constantly listening to these tapes, tapes, right? Like, because that tapes are apparently back in style, according to Gen Z, but you know, don't listen to these tapes, folks. No way no. Listen, pack that because

people who weren't in this, again, whenever I said, whenever you told me you're in the message, I'm like, oh, no. When I grew up, I listened to the recordings everywhere. My father played them, my mother played them. If we're going to the grocery store, you know what was playing in the car?

The screaming Nazi figure from the 1940s and 50s and 60s, who is preaching Cold War rhetoric. That's literally what I grew up with. My son, who he mentally, he checked out at probably age seven, he told us, but he said that he saw, this guy sounded like Hitler, so I just stopped listening, dad. Good Lord, I listened to it. So we did that. Whenever I was in school walking between classes, I had a walkman, which really tells my age, but I was listening to that screaming voice as I was going between classes on breaks, lunch break, I'm sitting isolated, I'm isolating myself in the

lunch room to hear this voice who's screaming at me. And people who weren't we're never part of this, they would never realize that this is like one step away from Korean concentration camp brainwashing.

Only we did it to ourself, which is really interesting. Yeah, I definitely, we would listen to the tapes everywhere we went, like in the truck, you know, or the van, wherever we were driving, as family, very large family, tapes were pretty much present all the time. I even remember there was some church, you know, lots of churches they'll sing and do their own music and record it and then share that without their their assembly. And I think that's a beautiful thing. But there was one that we had in particular where Brandon's voice had kind of been superimposed over the top of it.

And I wanted to say it was about marriage and divorce. Like, either way, and the woman who was singing, she had this beautiful, impactful voice. And I'm just like, well, that I just remember that one being one that my dad would play a lot. And now if I hear his tapes, there's like this prickling of hair that comes up on the back of my neck like, I don't like this. And it's like the warm crackling of a tape and then his voice comes on. And I was so indoctrinated in it. So we went to a Christian

school for a long portion of my younger life. And it was a Baptist Christian school. And it was a great school. It's nothing. It's school. But I did a historical figure report as many elementary school, middle school children did.

brilliant brand. I'm in this little blue paperback book. And I don't know where I got this book clearly from my dad. And I'm like, who, husband, if someone takes like a weirdo historical cult like figure in your classroom, please intervene because no one intervened for me.

Um, and I did. I had like the picture of him with the halo, right, was like glued on my little cardboard cut out. And now I know that's not real. Um, but or the seven angels in the sky with the blue clouds. Was that an Arizona? I don't remember. Like there's some things that was too little to piece together. Or I started to like distance myself. I'm like, I did my report on William Brannum. And I'm like, oh, that's things a little now. Exactly. We did such weird things and believe such weird things. We believe William Brannum had a magic sword over. He created squirrels

by speaking them into existence. Who, who in the right mind believes that? What's funny is right before this podcast, I had an interview with a, another, um, podcast. The lady was asking me and just completely shocked at some of the things that we believed. And I was trying to explain to her that even if you are intelligent, have an intelligent mind, you might be educated, you can still be caught up in this because what happens is whenever you go to go to church on Sunday after having worked with your mind all of the week, you kind of shut your mind off.

And it's by design, I think that you do this. That's why they have these long drawn out tapes. These recording some of them are two and a half hours long. So you go and you sit and no mind can even continue focusing for longer than 20 minutes without a break. But yet you're sitting at a minimum for an hour listening to these recordings. Well, people just mentally check out. And when they do, they're still listening. So some of the, some of the thoughts still come in their head. But it comes in in a way where they have completely shut off all critical thinking. And suddenly they're

being, these ideas are being injected to their heads without they're knowing it. So more intelligent people, more frequently will get trapped in the cults because they have mentally checked out when they sit there in the pew. Yeah, I, um, I know we actually would drive give or take an hour to our church before we move to another church. Um, and now I'm like, I wonder if it was because, you know, they decided to follow a brand. I'm teaching this way and not that way. Or if it was because of the distance, but an hour there, go to the morning Sunday service plus Wednesday,

of course. And then stay there all day and then stay for the evening service and then drive that hour back. And it was just, it was a lot as a little girl. Um, and then I would get in trouble the next Monday for falling asleep in class. And I just, it was a mess. But some of the things that you're saying are kind of resonating with me, with me, like speaking things into existence or, um, and I'm not trying to, you know, poke, poke people because that's hurtful and this is just my lived experience. But I definitely,

know that individuals would, you know, have visions or dreams that they would use to manipulate me and to control me and I was in a family that was divorced and that was definitely used against me and that is very harmful. And I think that that was just another tool in the toolbox that I think a lot of powerful men and probably women too would use. Like, I can speak this into the existence or I can, I have this dream and I see us walking down this narrow path together and you have to follow me or you will not be, you will

not be saved. You will not have salvation. You will be in Armageddon and terror and all of the things and the amount of control they have over you is just so powerful, particularly if you're a young person or if this is all you know or if all of your, regardless of age, if this is your family and your loved ones and your financial support or how what have you, it's a lot. And I know I might be deviating a little bit, but just some of the control for girls and women in particular, which I really appreciate how much you've

talked about, I had lived, but for me the bodily autonomy, the intellectual autonomy and the spiritual autonomy, just in one sum, my parents would say, if you call your hair in the church, God will not hear your prayers. And I just cannot think of a better metaphor of taking all spiritual intellectual and bodily autonomy from a child all in one field swoop. Like, that's a lot. You took, you took a child's God, her physical autonomy and her spiritual autonomy and her ability to question it because you don't question it. No, no, no. And you feel guilty if you do. So it was a lot. So it is a lot. I don't, you may not

know this either. I think the first real one comes out next week. So, and it'll come out before this one is released. It's hard to juggle all these schedules. I've got so many of these things going, but I have a lady who was involved with youth with a mission who went to Africa and came back. She basically got her masters in psychology or counseling. I can't remember which, but anyway, she, she has this program where she's helping people, especially females, who are in this type of thing and they start to feel uncomfortable in their own bodies. And so she goes through somatic

experience, um, training, et cetera to try to help people to establish themselves and see themselves in a comfortable way. I'm not female, so I can't relate to a lot of that, but I can say that many of the things that that women have trouble with, there is a counterpart in the male mind.

So whenever a female is being just fully denigrated and preached at so harshly from the pulpit, it's usually the men who are at fault for letting their wives do that, which creates this scenario where

if you, there's no way to look at this in a healthy way as a, as a Man, number one, you shouldn't have that control over your wife in the first place, but you're being taught that it's your fault for letting her.

So you've got this weird, you're focusing on the guilt more than you are, the problem that the woman is basically an object to you. And so over time, what happens is you start to think of women as an object.

And this creates an array of other problems for men, which I won't, to keep it g-rated. I won't get into it in this podcast, but it really messes with the minds of the men.

And I can't even imagine because I know for the women it's got to be worse. Yeah, I appreciate your acknowledging that. But I also appreciate you putting me in the shoes of the men.

And I know there's probably a lot of women out there going, just to hear me out, ladies, just to go with me because I definitely know that women and men would talk badly about other fathers who let their girls cut their hair or wear certain things.

And as one of many girls in my home, I definitely know that my parents probably were subject to this ridicule because I definitely was sneaking pants in my backpack and changing whenever I got to a public school that allowed us to do that.

Or whenever I was at my mother's house, I was definitely listening to rock and roll. Thank you dear goodness for letting her. She showed me the foreigner. Thank goodness. Now I have the beautiful history of music that I love.

But I know that they were also, it was like this hierarchy of like, oh, your girls are in line. You know, those girls, they tow the line. They're very devoted, whereas others are not.

And I definitely, you know, it is my lived experience. It's not my story to tell others, but I definitely know of other young girls who fell in love with others of other races. And that was absolutely, absolutely forbidden.

And how much those fathers were just put their feet to the fire so to speak. It was like, how dare your daughter? You know, it's like the little mermaid goodness be like, she wants to go off the, off onto the land and do something different.

And I know that they were put into bad positions too. And it's just this vicious cycle of everybody, judges everybody and everybody hates everybody. And yeah, we pretend to love each other unconditionally. That's false.

I remember the first church that we attended after leaving the Brandham call, we were there probably three or four weeks and then suddenly this couple comes in, this new couple. One of them is black and one of them is white and in the marriage.

And I'll never forget having to come to terms with the fact that I was a racist. I had friends who were black, I would never ever would have pictured myself as a racist. I had friends who were black, really good friends.

As I was in high school, I saw everybody as people, I didn't see them as color. And suddenly this couple shows up mentally because of all that indoctrination and programming. My first thought is all of the...

arch-offensive insults that I was programmed with to say to the people, some of which I may or may not have said in my past. And I remember the families who, I clearly remember a family who is an interracial marriage in the Colton, the condemnation for not just the mother, but for the child, because the child, according to the doctrine for several generations, their generations can't be saved.

And so I'm sitting here with all of this in the back of my head, watching the interracial couple and their interracial kids coming into the church. And suddenly I realized, I don't know what to do, I repent, I feel like I should shout it from the house tops, I was wrong, I was wrong, but that's all of that guilt we carry.

And that's just one small aspect of guilt. And you consider all of the many things that we were trained to hate. And just the warped mentality that takes for a person to do this, you have to actually betray your inward human nature to hate people.

So we were trained to do this, and everything from Catholics to interracial couples, everywhere in between. I look back at it and I think this is just so wrong. And that's why these days I have no trouble coming to terms with this was a call.

I believe it, that could be wrong, but if I'm remembering quickly, I think it's my angel, she has, it's a much longer quote, it's when you know better, you do better, and I think that's how I distinguish those who are out to do good in the world and those who don't, because there's some who've been confronted with this is wrong, and this is evil, I'm going to go ahead and say the eward, and they still persist on trying to portray, brand, I'm going to have a positive light where they can.

And that to me is just no longer acceptable in my world, I still love you and acknowledge that it's probably difficult for them to come to terms with that, especially if they've been grown up in it, but it's not cool.

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On behalf of William-Branum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. I have deep sympathy for people who are in it. I also... Because of what I do, I have to separate myself from it.

Because if you stay buried in that mindset of your past, you can never have a future. So you're one of the few ones. And in fact, that's another reason why I said, oh no.

I have mentally distanced myself from Brannum other than the historical Brannum. Like the cult Brannum, for me, I'm past that. He's now an ancient memory. But now I want to know the history and I'm studying the history.

And I can talk to history all day. Having to bring myself back into the mindset of the cult to have a conversation, it's a little bit hard. But for that very reason, because you are, you're manipulated in such a way where you, like I said, you betray your human instincts and human nature, humans want to be kind to other humans.

But you're trained that you can't and you're trained that you shouldn't. And all of that indoctrination just comes out like a trigger. Well, people who are in it, there are people who are in it who work real jobs with other people, not cult jobs.

I'm using the word real, not a cult job where it's all cult members. I was one of those people. I worked in the office, like many others. There is a point in time in everyone's life.

Mine included where you have to come to terms with something that you believe is so wrong, but yet you have to justify it. And, you know, for one or two things, you can justify it.

I did, you can justify it and move on, like the racism thing. The way I justified it was, I love all races, God loves all races, but God wants the races pure, which was quite supremacy 101, but that's how we were taught.

But combine that with all of the many other things that were wrong. There comes a point when it's so overwhelming that you have to make a conscious decision, I choose to remain in the wrong and I'm going to no matter what.

And those are the people. It's not that I've lost sympathy for them, but I have a hard time understanding them. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You've touched on two things I think I really think would be important to talk about.

And it's that guilt that you feel that perpetually just is so heavy and then also kind of that moment that you know in your gut. Like this is not right. And I know for me, I was probably 14 or 15, but for me, I wasn't able to quite understand the morality of what was going on, but I was so mentally unwell that I knew something was wrong.

And I have to appreciate that even though I had a parent who was heavily ingrained in the message that they asked was I depressed, but in the message, you have to speak healing into existence.

You can't own the fact that you're not well because that means like your relationship with God is not where it should be. And so of course, I said no, but my family situation in dynamic was such that I knew in just a minute.

A couple months, I would be back in my mother's home for more months and I was able to transition there, but the caveat was that I was always gonna go back for six months at a time.

And I was just so depressed and beginning to have behaviors that were definitely life-threatening. And so, and thoughts. And it was such that when it was time for me to go back, I will never forget my stepdad or my dad that stepped up saying, nope, she's not going back unless you take us to court, we're not making her.

And I think that that was the moment that I'm like, if I go back, I will be so unwell. I may not continue. And so that is just so impactful for people to recognize how hard it is to live in these environments.

But the guilt for me is that I lost access to my family because any time I would come back to visit these other family members would try and shame me for wearing pants, cutting my hair.

Because girls wear dresses, boys wear pants. And these were words coming out of the mouths of very young children. They were taught to say these things to me. And it hurt me so bad that I could not keep coming back.

And that guilt is something that I have to work on myself that I needed to get out for me to have a life, to become doctor, Thompson. I would never have done that. We both know that that's just not something that we do.

That was hard for me. And I think that was my moment. So 14-year-old me was very much a 14-year-old teenager. She was not worried about morality and equality of other members, but I was just that unwell.

I was like, nope, I will not make it in this environment much longer I got to get out. It's tough. Let's unpack that a bit. Oh, boy. The depression, I told you I was going to take myself into a place where I'm uncomfortable.

And I'm doing that as we go on, it gets worse and worse. There was a point in time when I came to terms with the fact that there are huge questions. I still had not discounted random as a profit.

But I'm looking back at those times and I was this happy, go lucky, free spirit in the call. Had no reason to question and have it. My family was at the top. I was in cult royalty.

And then suddenly I had to come to terms with something's not right. And I remember the feeling when depression started to come in. And fast forward to the time that I'm leaving, I went through several really traumatic experiences that drove me into the darkest of places.

And I would not be alive today if not for a cousin who kept calling me every day to talk me through it. That's how bad it got. But on the other side, looking back, I remember when the depression came and it was crippling.

There was a period of time that I ran my own business and there were maybe three, four hours a day that I was able to work. It was that bad for me. a brief period of time, but then after I started to heal, came out on the other side. I'm out of the cult. I'm starting to recognize that from even age 14, I was showing symptoms of depression and just didn't recognize it. And what's interesting about that is when I was in high school, we had to take for some psychology test. We had to take this test that described how we viewed the world and

what state of mind we were in, etc. And I was like, this happy spirit that I was answering no to every question of stresses, to the extent that the teacher called me after the class and said, John, there's nobody that has zero stresses, especially in high school. There's no way that this is truthful. And I'm like, but it is. I'm happy. And it was because I was convincing myself I was. I was in a cult. I was stressed out to the max. But with the anxiety comes the depression. They usually go hand in hand. So now fast forward to I'm out of the cult. I'm helping

people who are escaping. And I'm starting to see similarities between it. Even right down to the photographs, people would send me a photograph of them in the cult. And then after I've worked with them for a year or two, they send me another photograph. The two are different people.

One of them looks, the one in the cult looks older, unhappy, unhealthy. Sometimes the jaws are even sunk in. If they're overweight, you can see the sunk in eyes. It's just really, really bad.

And I'll ask them about it. And they say, yeah, I'm just so happier now. And I don't think they recognize even that they were in depression. So this is a widespread problem. And having to come to terms with it for me just simply meant, this is something I've got to conquer if I'm going to move on and have a life. And I look at every single person who has escaped and they all have to conquer that same mountain. Was it the same for you? Yeah, it definitely was. And so if it's okay, I'd like to touch on two things. One about from a scientist seminar about what might be going on there. And then

one thing that happened to me that was super impactful and ladies feel free to take this. And gentlemen, everyone just take it and run with it of how it's really been impactful for my recovery.

But that zero, zero, zero, no stress, no stress, I think is born out of this emotional invalidation in the cult. And so we just suppress our emotions. And if you don't learn to regulate and cope with negative emotions, it's undermining your ability to navigate difficult stressors in the world. And you just ignore them. And but your biology is still like, ah, there's something going on here and your biology adapts over time in a way that's protective to keep you alive. That's what it's doing. However, if you take yourself out of that environment, it might not be adaptive. And so it's

Her body's way of protecting itself. And you're not meant to be in this pressure cooker of anxiety and terror and always saying, no, it doesn't exist. You need to regulate it. And that's, it comes out physically.

So these things you're describing make sense. I like the always remind people, your brain might be the most important organ in your body. You gotta take care of it, feed it, nurture it, love it.

Guilty sometimes I'm having to get myself kicker, kick in the rear end. For me, I was an undergrad and I was in a studio art class. So for a long time, I thought I was a mean artist and then I realized I made my money and it's really stressful.

And I was introduced to Judy Chicago and she has a piece, I think it's called like dinner plates or something, but she makes a plate for all of these women in history and one of which is Jezebel.

And that was super impactful to me because she had always, I was called a Jezebel, a whore, all the names that little girls do not deserve to be called, basically. And I hope that the W word was okay for that YouTube.

I'm pretty happy like it is. For my first much worse things on YouTube. But it taught me something when I saw this gold, beautiful ornate plate that she deserved to see at the table because we only hear one side of that story.

And now I recognize that she was murdered according to the story I was told and how I was told because she said no to someone else's belief system being enforced on her and the way Brandon describes that the dogs would eat her hands even though they don't eat human flesh or something to that degree.

I was constantly told this story but seeing a woman go, she deserves to see the table because she had the courage to stand up and say no. And that became my mantra of like, all of these women who have just been verbally destroyed throughout history, what if we looked at it from their perspective or the woman at the well?

We might not like what she did or they might not, people might not, but she was an impoverished woman growing up in a patriarchal society, what she's supposed to do. Well, we got to respect her bodily autonomy.

And it's just like reframing the things that were taught to me has been really powerful. And that might not gel with everyone and that's okay. We got to take your own cup of tea, whatever suits your soul and helps you heal, just challenging those negative thoughts has been super powerful to me.

Or like saying I'm a scientist and we were very anti-scientist, I remember refusing a vaccine in the middle of school thinking I was going to get the mark of the beast and my poor mama had to take me and get my hepatitis vaccines repeated because I in the middle of the series was like, no, no, no, I'll get the mark of the beast.

I'm like, mom, how did you not intervene? But let's remember, probably because I wouldn't talk about it. I didn't know it. I didn't have the language, I was too little. So yeah, it's real.

but we went through and that's how it happens and that's how I got over the mountain. And I'm still climbing every day if I'm being quite honest. There's so much to unpack there. So the study of the other side of the story, I did this whenever I was coming out of the cult, I wanted to know all things.

And the Jezebel story, because I was trained in my head to think of other women as Jezebel. And it was used as an insult. And suddenly it struck me after I'm leaving. That's just a name.

It's why am I using it as an insult as a name. So I go back and I study the history, the, you know, read the Bible text. What is it saying? But also read the other cultures.

And when she was painting her face, it's made out like the pain of the face is this horrific thing, which if you read the book of Esther, it's kind of funny because Esther does the same thing and she's blessed for it.

But the story of Jezebel, what she was doing, she was preserving, she was preparing herself, knowing she was probably going to die. But she wanted to die with at least as much dignity as she could summon.

And that's what she was doing as any other respectable leader in the ancient world would have done. So the painting of the face is actually separate from the story. It's just more about the culture.

What she did beyond painting her face, what she led all of Israel into idolatry and think of the human sacrifice that is in the ancient world. It's so far worse than just a little bit of makeup on the face.

If you read the actual story, it's such a bigger story than what they were making out to be, right? But we use it as an insult. The other thing to unpack is the insults.

You mentioned, I'm worried if YouTube's going to censor if I use the W word. This is a real struggle. I struggle whenever I'm publishing information about Brannem or any of these guys, YouTube actually blocks half the stuff that they say because it is so offensive and intentionally offensive.

It's not like they're accidentally being offensive. They're targeting different groups of people and it's hate speech. It's pure plain and simple hate speech. It is. And definitely if I'm like saying things incorrect that I've had to unlearn on my journey, please take it out, edit it, cut it, or like political caption.

They're like, you know, I mean, it is smart in some ways, but maybe this thing is not correct in my version. But the lipstick also, like I learned about the history of lipstick and men were lipstick.

Like this is not limited to a single gender. And you're right, they just got thick-stated on makeup. And it's like, okay, you realize that like, makeup was a symbol of power, a profession and men were a way of makeup and that sometimes women were makeup and it's like, okay, wow.

It was just such a harmful thing that was, it was, to control women, but the other words aside from Jezebel, they just became tied to it. We're just, and it's still perpetuates outside of the message.

So I've only had one man in my life that loves me dearly, come to me and say, I'm so sorry that you were treated this way, that people weaponized Christianity, you know, not man in my life, doesn't even really know what happened in that church.

But immediately afterwards, he starts talking about the woman at the well. And I'm like, so you're not buying, I'm not buying what you're selling. You're already undermining women here. Like immediately you're gonna say, I'm so sorry that they treated women so horribly, and you're gonna tell me a story that's meant to control women.

And you might be saying it with more empathy and love, and I love you, and this man loves me. But it's like, no, you already lost me, I'm already tuned out. It's like, I have to do this to protect myself.

And so if someone else is on their journey, and they have to shut down, you know, until they're ready and healed enough, that's okay. At least I think it is. Like you can't, yeah, you can't open up for other people until your wounds are healed.

Yeah. Well, and that's the underlying problem, right? The things that we were taught, yes, we were in a destructive cult, yes, it felt one step away from a Korean concentration camp with mind control.

But the underlying things that we were taught, if you study the structure of the teachings, so the lipstick change, exactly like you're saying. I never wanted to wear a lipstick, so I don't fall into that same category, but men did wear lipstick in history.

The problem is it was actually an aversion to change. Whenever anything had changed, they were against it. They were against change, and doctrinally speaking, they were just target to change and throw insults at anybody who was changing with the change.

But from the mindset of a child, when you're growing up and you're being taught that any change is Satan, well now what happens whenever you yourself start to change as you evolve and grow into an adult, there are things in your body that's changing.

It's that change, evil. There are changes in the world around you, just a decade in advance, you're gonna see a significant changes in everything from technology to people to culture, are all of this evil.

Well, the interesting part is to somebody who's not been in the brand of cult, we believe that it was. Every single aspect of what I said, we believed was evil, and that's the deep level of programming and just how wrong it is.

So people as they enter into adulthood, now anything that's politically changing, it's evil. I'm against it, I'm against every single aspect of it, and we had scriptures that were weaponized like the woman at the well.

I know that there will be people, you can probably read it in the comment feeds, people will say you can't do that. No, it's okay. because it's actually a legitimate point. We are so programmed to be offensive to other people that we don't even recognize it when we use the Bible as a slapping stick.

And I've had it used against me more times than you can imagine. And they'll, they think that they're doing like one person will put bless your heart. I know that you're, and start off like I'm going to love you, and then throw the insult scripture at you.

And I know because I use the same scriptures to weaponize against other people, I know the insults. I know exactly what's the intent of that comment, but that's the mindset and that's how we were trained.

And it all comes back to the thing I said earlier, you can't be trained like this and love other people. It's just, it's incompatible. The love of other people is incompatible. I can't remember which one of your podcasts it was I listened to not too long ago, but I love that you talked about learning to train your dog.

And in psychology, we talk about how you will get much further with positive reinforcement than with punishment. And this is true for humans. I was laugh, and I'm like reinforcing good behavior with my husband and with my colleagues.

And people will pick up on it. They're like, huh, see what you're doing there? And I'm like, yeah, good. But you win people with love. Or my mom, it's just my mom or grandma.

She's like, you catch more flies at the time than vinegar. So if you keep love and kindness at the center, you're going to get much further and do much less harm, or arguably, hopefully none.

I mean, we're all human, but it's a lot easier to overcome the harm you do if it was meant with love and genuine love. So I think that's kind of why I do what I do is to try and help people.

And I think that's why you're here too. Absolutely, and it's true. In business, whenever you engage a client, if you start throwing these weaponized scriptures or even the weaponized thoughts against them, they're going to instantly tell, I don't like this person.

I'm not going to do anything with them. What's interesting is from day to day because of the way we've been programmed, I can have a casual conversation with somebody, and they can rub me the wrong way, and I really fight not to do it.

Like in the back of my mind, or all of the things that I could say to push their buttons, and I have to fight not to do it because that's how I was wired.

As children, we are trained to push the buttons of other people and insult them. And I'm so, I look at my kids today and I'm so glad that they weren't in this. I'm going today to a concert for my son, he's in choir in high school.

And I'm looking at him somewhat jealous because he's living the life that I wish that I could have lived. Carefree, he actually is carefree. Whenever I claimed that I was, I wasn't. He actually is carefree.

And he's living a good life without all of this indoctrinated nonsense in a good church where people are training other people to love as Jesus instructed in the Gospels. And we're living a Christian life.

but he will never know this level of destruction that we have because I was able to get my family out. I love that you have such a beautiful growing family. And I like that you're acknowledging that sometimes it's a little bit bitter that we look back and are like what life would have been and how we are now because of what we lost or what we went through.

I know like colleagues of mine, they're like, you need to be more assertive, you need to be more bold or stop saying you're sorry. If you only knew how far the gap I jumped was, you'd be like, wow, I'm like the fact that I even feel entitled to be outside of your office.

Yeah, I know I'm sitting in the floor, which I probably shouldn't do. I get that, but it's like the fact that I'm in this building, you have no idea that that means so much from where I came or just the fact that I said I'm sorry, I get it, but I was trained that way.

Or it's a little bittersweet for me, but I feel like there's definitely been a large portion of my life where I've had to just kind of react so strongly to the stuff that I was taught as in like, because I was taught this in the message, I must do like a complete 180 and that's affected negatively life decisions I might would have made, and particularly for like women being saved by childbirth.

And so that I was like, and that's not cool, like that's not fair, but it is what it is and just having to acknowledge that and work through that. Cause I know if I'm thinking I cannot be the only one, there's gotta be some other person out there who was like, yeah, I did that too.

And so it's just kind of finding a balance for me now, I think is where I'm at in my life, but I'm really glad that you are raising a family that didn't have to go through that, but I am really sorry you went through this too.

Yeah. Well, if you had any advice to give people who are making their journey out and they're taking their first steps out of the message, what advice would you give them? Two things, one would be therapy.

You just in mental health care, you deserve access to it. You are not broken, you do not do or deserve to feel unwell and if you feel like you're struggling, I believe everybody could benefit from therapy.

Some of us just benefit more than others or I would not have a PhD in psychology of that practice what I preach. I still regularly go to therapy, sometimes I need more visits than others.

The other thing would be open-minded, learn about other cultures. If you have access, the public library is free. I know that sounds like such a random thing to say, but learning about history, learning about other cultures, learning about you and your work has also been really super-empowerful.

And then just take care of yourself, but learning about other things, my education and therapy has been the biggest healing tools in my recovery, which is obviously- It's still ongoing, but yeah, you deserve access to love care and education.

So don't be ashamed to ask for it and demand it. Well, that's very good advice. And one of the things that you keep saying that should resonate is we have struggles that we may have the rest of our lives.

And I have them too. I am working through those, but the difference is, on the other side, if you can conquer those things, if you can get into therapy, it gets the help that you need.

You can have the things that you struggle with, and you can have the normal life at the same time. So there's a little bit of freedom in knowing that you too can live normal after this.

Yes, that is very true. And if it's helpful, while I do know as a scientist that we are underrepresented in research, we're not not represented. And there is a little bit of qualitative research, which is where scientists just listen to, they do interviews and listen to these stories and the things that you and I don't are talking about that we struggle with and persistently struggle with are also found in research to be true.

So it is true that these individuals struggle persistently to adjust and persistently have a lot of mental health problems. But that doesn't mean you have to continue to struggle without help. Don't struggle without help.

There's help out there. And there's people like me out there trying to use what we learned in the cult to say nope. We're gonna use science to combat that and make it easier for everyone out there.

Cult or no cult. So, and John, people like John. Well, this has been incredibly fun. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, it's a pleasure and keep up what you're doing. It's been really helpful for me and others.

Awesome. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information or to share your story, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.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 Audible. You can find us at www.William-Branum.org.

You can find us at www.William-Branum.org.