Worship Music Manipulation: When Emotion Replaces Discernment

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of WilliamBranham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Brantley Smith. Brantley, I'm a little bit excited for this episode. If you can't tell by looking back at my room, I am a musician and any subject about music always fascinates me and makes me want to just get out of guitar and break out into song, but I will keep the piece and I won't do that.

But I recently did a podcast, I don't know if you caught it or not, but we were talking about the power of music as it relates to the new apostolic reformation and the methods of persuasion that can be used in that. And I got to thinking, you and I have had many conversations, you are a musician as well and you were in the music at IHOP KC and I had one person who actually asked this in the comment feed with that podcast. He said, do more of these. I'm curious to hear more about the music. And I got to thinking, who better to talk to than a musician who's at IHOP KC

and talk about the manipulation through worship, which is a fully uncharted territory as it relates to the new apostolic reformation investigation. So with that, let's dive into music. Yeah, no, you definitely have more guitars than I do. I got a couple good ones, but that's it.

So I'm still leaving worship on a regular basis. So I'm still in those circles and it's something I think about a whole lot. What music does to people, how it influences people, which is thoughts that I didn't have. So I've been leading worships until 14 years old. So I'm 34 now, so about 20 years that I've been doing corporate worship stuff. And I've seen all the highs and lows of that in the midst of very narrow type environments and prophetic environments, spontaneous environments in local church as well. And it's really, it's kind of a nerdy hobby of mine to look at the things

that I'm doing even now and seeing how it affects the room. And I think, I don't know how much you've talked about this on the podcast and stuff, but I'm of the belief that manipulation in and of itself might not be bad, depending on what motivations and what the desired outcomes and stuff are. And so as a worship leader and looking at the experiences that people have, And what you want to room to experience sometimes can be a good thing and help people go on a journey of sorts, but Yeah, at the house of prayer is very central to the DNA. I mean, it's harp and bowl and

Yeah, it's it's a big tough big topic. So where are we gonna start? Well, I guess something you said is where we're starting manipulations not always bad That is something that it took me a while to realize after coming out of a destructive cult When you come out of something like this any form of manipulation if you detect it or sense it immediately your guard goes up you become heightened and in awareness your hypercritical I should say and whoever is doing it you're angry at them. I was that way and here's here's the sad part you will be in

You know in a business meeting for me, but for most people you'll be in at your employer and your employer will invite somebody in who's a speaker Motivational speaker stuff like this and you'll detect it and you'll be instantly Angry at the world and for me it was it was actually starting to show in business meetings There was a period of time. I got so angry. I handed most of my business meetings over to one of my contractors And just let them let them take over for me, which is kind of funny But I couldn't help it because you are so

Intune with that manipulation But there are techniques of manipulation that are good. I always recommend people read the book propaganda by Edward Bernays I think it is Sigmund Freud's nephew That book really describes how to achieve mass psychology and it walks you through exactly what leaders in the new apostolic Reformation are doing what Brandon was doing what you you can go back down through time and you can literally go back through all of the Charismatic figures who had a massive stage presence and they're using techniques. Now are they all bad?

Not necessarily But here's where the problem lies with the business meeting example somebody comes in he's doing up he or she's doing a motivational speech and they're using psychological techniques to make you very excited about working and Feel good about yourself or good about the company and you can detect it That's why you get a little bit upset. That's why I got a little bit upset But what they're doing is actually Energizing the employees of a workforce in that case Take it to a church you can do the same thing you can energize people to be on fire for Jesus

That's not necessarily bad. Here's where the problem lies a lot of times these churches will do it Insidiously and inject their extra biblical doctrines into that platform So they realize the power of manipulation. They realize the power it has over the crowd and We have this obscure doctrine that only we have the other churches down the road don't have it. Let's inject that into our singing. And once I learn how it all works, I'm one of these mechanically-minded people. I just want to open the hood and see what the engine's running. I just started going down

through all of the songs that we had that were only special to us in the destructive group. And oh my gosh, man, I'm starting to realize they're using psychological techniques through music to manipulate my head. And the power of it was so strong that during the day, during the week, you're not in service. You know, you go on Sunday and for us, we didn't go back until Wednesday.

For average person, it's not until next Sunday. So from Sunday to Wednesday and from Thursday to next Sunday, those songs were resonating in my head. And I would be working and thinking about them. And what I was doing, I was literally brainwashing myself with the lyrics. But not simply because the lyrics, it was more about the beats and the rhythms and the progressions, the chord progressions, you know what I'm talking about. So I just want to talk about the dynamics of how that works.

Yeah, it's interesting. As you're talking about it, it's misty. This is the one who comes to my misty Edwards. It's kind of inside joke with eye hoppers that you can kind of start a sentence or say a phrase and finish it with a misty lyric. And it's because a lot of it was so formative and impactful. And what's funny is some of it was Mike's language that misty would then sing.

She had this one that's kind of, it's definitely a meme in our circles now. But if you don't quit, you win. And she would sing, sing this thing. If you don't quit, you win. And I can't tell you how many people didn't quit because they wanted to win. That's one of the things that kept us there and kept us in the moment. But there was always, it was a vehicle for the theology and the message.

It was a whole lot easier to sing because eye hoppers very eschatology forward. It was a whole lot easier to sing about the judgments of God than to have to talk about them and have a conversation about them to say that just and true are your judgments of God, which is scripture, but at eye hop it means something totally different. That was a whole lot more palatable for people.

And what was interesting too is it was even a vehicle for the prophetic history and the lore and the storytelling. I don't know, you've probably, have you heard a lot of eye hop music at all?

I've heard some, not a lot. I'll be honest, I'm still triggered greatly by listening to Christian music and it's something that I'm working through. My wife, it's interesting. My wife for two different personalities. She is just excited to hear it like nonstop 24.

You get in the car, she's playing it and my head's going, no, no, stop this and she's become aware of this and now she'll put on something that's calm for both of us. But I have listened to it, I don't like it.

I don't like to listen to it and heck, no, you're not going to manipulate my head. There was one song that Misty would do and she would always, I feel like I've talked about this somewhere and I can't remember if it was you or not, but about waiting for the rain, I can't remember exactly what the song was called, but the verse went something like that.

I've heard the story told of the prophet who prophesied of the rain that would come in the middle of the drought that would tell of the rains to come. That was the first verse.

It's crazy that I can still remember it like that and it sounds very riddled and mysterious metaphoric in what she was talking about was one of Bob Jones's words. In the early days of Metro before IHOP KC, I may butcher the details, but there was this prophetic word about a drought that would happen and that there would be rain and it would symbolize the coming revival, which to IHOP meant the great end time revival.

And so at times it was at staff meetings, at anniversaries and things, Misty would break out this song and it would just be her and Piano a lot of times, everyone to watch she play with full band and the course was, we're still waiting for the rain.

We're still waiting for the rain. And then she would always go off into some kind of spontaneous thing of how we still believe the promises and she would start, you know, it was all spontaneous kind of stuff.

She would sing the phrases that we still believe that there's going to be 500 to 5,000 over night. We still believe that no disease known to man will stand. We still believe, you know, and she would, she would rattle off these prophetic promises, quote unquote, from the prophetic history.

And it was, it was almost like a plum line to the messaging to the, the framework that we were all kind of buying into, which I think at this point we've seen that there's tons of holes in it and, you know, it's a lot of it was fabricated and this and that.

But it's, it's really interesting to see how much that music does shape a culture. Have you talked about Bob Sorgie at all in any of your podcasts or are you familiar with him at all?

No, I haven't. The name sounds familiar. I think I've came across him in my research, but I've not talked about him. Yeah. It depends on where you're coming into the IHOP circles at, Bob's a prolific author.

I think most of his books were published through Destiny, I think, which, you know, just a charismatic publisher. I think they published some of Mike's books as well. I actually found Bob before I found the house of prayer and read some of his books, but Bob's Sorgi was a worship leader and had some kind of vocal operation and lost his voice.

And barely can speak above whisper now. And so he wrote his, I think his most famous book is called Secret to the Secret Place or something. It's a book on prayer, but didn't realize that he was a big part of that community there.

His wife was on the board of directors, Marcy Sorgi. And she was kind of one of, from what I hear, what the claims are, is that she was kind of one of Mike's enforcers in the back room and put a female face to it.

And I guess it's supposed to make him more palatable and stuff. But Bob himself wasn't super involved in the leadership stuff and the day-to-day stuff. But Marcy was very integral and he had children that were involved doing music and stuff.

And some of them are on the backside of things, probably in a healthier spot now. I don't know if all of them are, but I would hope that they are. But Bob wrote this book that was given to me, whenever I first went to IHOP, I joined the music academy, which was their place where they're supposed to be training, prophetic singers and musicians and worship leaders.

And almost like the way that it was pitched to us was almost like a farm system for the prayer movement. Like this is where the talent will be developed and you all will be the next mysties and Matt Gilman's and Kori Asbury's and all these different people.

And one of the first books that was handed to me was Bob Sorgie's, it was a little pamphlet book and it was called Following the River, it was what it was. It was a book that he had wrote on worship leading.

And I held onto it for a long time, but I think I eventually tossed it. But he also had some bigger books called Exploring Worship and they were guides on worship leading, almost like Mike's Heart and Bowl manuals.

I don't know if you've seen those or kind of, almost like a size of paper kind of book that's kind of bound together like a normal printer paper kind of size. But what Bob did was kind of paint this spiritual picture of worship leading of like the ebbs and flows of a journey, which if you're ever been in a charismatic worship service, they kind of, and even evangelical nowadays are taken because evangelicals take the majority of their cues.

I feel like from the charismatic worship movement and don't even realize it, your evangelical churches are playing the hill song and the Bethel and all these things and they have no idea how insane their theology can actually beat.

But usually you whenever you step into a charismatic worship service, one of the first things you're either going to have at like an eye hop, you're either going to have something that's like super slow and focusing that gets everybody calm and down into a focused moment, a tender moment where we're singing something like come Lord Jesus, come Holy Spirit, something of that nature.

And then right after that, usually you're doing something that's that's four on the floor or your 120 BPM, you're pounding, you know, and gets the heart rate up, gets going. So sometimes you wouldn't have that first little calming one, you might just go straight into it up.

song. And that's kind of a similar thing to what I would do on a Sunday morning now. But there's this this ebb and flow. And if you keep doing that 120 bpm for, you know, a two-hour prayer meeting or an hour long worship service at iHop that's how long corporate worship lasted, you're gonna you're gonna get people like very fatigue very quickly. So you had this kind of journey that people would go on. And what Bob was attempting to do I think was spiritualize that journey a little bit like give spiritual language to it rather than approaching it honestly like

we are with being like it's a little manipulative and it's taking people on a journey and it's it you know it is what it is. And so after you do an upbeat song maybe you would do something that's a little bit more reflective and give people a breather. And I remember during the student awakening we were having these extended meetings all the time and extended worship nights at the fcf building and it was it was funny it was almost like clockwork that you would have maybe a little in the night and you could just tell there wasn't a whole lot going on there wasn't

a whole lot testimonies to be shared. And there was a couple of songs that were just high energy that they would just switch to play out depending on who was leading worship. Justin Rizzo it was his his brother would sing this thing about my dad he's not angry he's not disappointed in me and the whole place would go nuts almost it would remind you a very akin to like something like Toronto with like holy laughter and joy and all this kind of thing and people were just like my dad's not angry with courier as Berry it might have been something like Shaqina glory come

people you know with being we want the fullness of the spirit it was like a big thing with bringing people but there were certain songs that they could they could play that would just make the room go nuts. It's almost like having like sweet Caroline come on at a baseball game or something it just everybody knew what to do they knew how to play the part and we're going to hit the like every time like we know we know what we're doing it so it's interesting to see that you know people try to give language to it like Bob Sorghy and that these things can be that's the thing

that people don't realize I don't think is that these things can be learned it's not it's not a

whole other conversation for another day but you you have the phrase anointed thrown out all the time like this is anointed this is that this is this and I can't tell you how many times people call something anointed that's just really good tactics is what it is it's good planning it's good like knowing how to do to have a moment and I tell people that all the time whenever it comes to like leading worship on a Sunday morning the most impactful times for people are not the times that I expect usually but there's a system that I kind of follow with things that that you know gets

predictable outcomes I guess predictable results and I'll have a day when my voice is gone and I feel like I'm having the worst Sunday in my life and somebody comes up to me and tears at the end they're like thank you so much this was the best time However, Lord spoke to me and then the day that I think that I killed it, you know, everybody's like nobody says anything.

So it's, yeah, it's such a big topic, such a big topic. It is. And, you know, to a non-musician, I don't know that they'll even understand anything we're talking about. But if you're a musician, you understand that there are mechanics of the music that excite people.

And if you're an entry-level musician, you probably don't know these things. But once you understand how music works and you get into the architecture of music, there are things like, so you mentioned sweet-care line, bomb, bomb, bomb.

Why does this work? It's because the bomb, bomb, bomb is a response to the previous phrase. You sing the phrase, then the response. And in music, this is one of the most powerful techniques, phrase response, phrase response.

The other thing you mentioned was the fast beat. So fast beat, whenever you're listening to music, especially if you've got the bass and the drums, which most NAR people do, we weren't allowed interestingly in the cults that I grew up.

But with the bass and the drums, that pulsation it flows through your body. So if you are not, I hate to use the word if you're easily subjected, because that's not the case. If you are, what's the word? If the music is resonating with you, your heart starts to match the beat.

Literally resonating with you. Your heart starts to match that beat. So you can make people anxious through the music. And with that, with that anxiety, if you use the right word, you can program that anxiety.

You can program the response to anxiousness to the lyrics. And so there's this mechanical strategy that not many people really think about. If you want, if you are an inclusive cult and you want to talk about the bad guys who are the church down the street, will you talk about the bad guys in the anxiety part of the music when the beat gets really heavy?

And at the same time, you can slow the beat down and you can bring people down to a calm. Well, that's when you give the piece of the central figure and what is his doctrine.

And when you pick up on this, it's kind of funny because I recognize that while I was in the group, even though I didn't see the destructive power of it, but I recognized it and I started to try to match this.

Because that's how it works. That's the mechanics of the architecture of the music. Well, I was doing the same thing without knowing it. So there are people who unknowingly will manipulate heads just because they recognize the patterns.

And it's like, I don't know, it's like a Sudoku puzzle. Once you figure out the patterns, it's exciting to do those patterns, right? So I did this. There are other things, just the chord progressions themselves.

So that's leading into a different chord and that leading to the other chord, it gives you this sense of transition that's powerful. And one of the most powerful transitions, everybody's heard it. same progression, but go to a minor instead, boom, boom, boom. When you get that minor chord, now you're getting people to, oh my gosh, let's pay attention. Let's think through this.

That was a big, hot trip. It's powerful, man. People don't realize, and that's why you have so many minor chords in Christian music, sadly. It's a little, it's a little odd. I remember after I left the cult, I went to, I, it was a different church. I won't mention the name of the denomination, but they were playing popular Christian radio music, which I don't listen to. I've actually never listened to it. We weren't allowed to. I love this. Yeah, so we're listening to things that it's constant progressions, man. It's like I, as a musician, and I'm playing, and I'm like,

this is a little bit monotonous. This is exciting one or two times, but to continue doing this over and over and over again, what are you doing, man? And I started to pick up on the fact that, oh, I see what they're doing. They're using the power of that progression for that word or that phrase. And then I'm like, no, man, this, this is wrong. Yeah, it's, it's talking about the minor, like, it was, it was always the joke. So at, I hop, we used what's called the Nashville number system, like all the musicians used it. And it, it's just a way of being able to quickly like communicate

where, where it goes spontaneously with music. And it assigns a number to like a chord or a note in this scale. So like, basic music, CD, E, F, G, A, B, C would be like a C scale. So C would be one, D would be two, E would be three, that kind of thing. And so like in the key of C, a minor, which is your six is, is where we would always end up going during intercession sets and stuff.

And it was always a little thumbs up symbol. That's how we communicated a six to people. So because you got five fingers would be six and seven. And so you would always see, as soon as we were going to do intercession or something intense or there was going to be an alter call or like there was something to that nature, you'd always see somebody on the stage worship leader, somebody throw a little thumbs up behind there. And it was so predictable. And all of a sudden here would come that, you know, the big reverb guitar and which is a whole other thing to me. We'll talk about

here a second. But he got that intensity and that that fervor kind of feeling with the minor keys. And it was very awkward whenever you had a happy major sounding intercession set. It was kind of off-putting. And there was some people who would do it. But it was almost an unwritten rule that you had to go to the minor whenever we were going to praise serious because minor is serious. But it made me think of some of those songs that you were talking about that are kind of

the way that the beats and the key kind of shapes the environment sets the tone. Misty had this one that was based off of a dream that she had. And it was, I think it was called People Get Ready.

I think it's what it was called, not the Toilet Paris or whoever it was that I did it before, but it was this very like, people get ready. Jesus is coming. He's coming. It would be like a symbol wash. You like to do, do, do, do, do, do. But she had this thing in this dream where she sees Jesus as the lion of the tribe of Judah and she hears this rhythm as what it is. And so this whole kind of verse section of this song is, I can't hear the rhythm of the lion of the tribe

of Judah. And behind it, she's got the drums are going like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's that angle where you're talking about the anxiety inducing like the pensive kind of like what's going to happen, what's going to happen. And then all of a sudden she gets people get ready.

And I mean, I misty had this like if you've never listened to Misty before, I encourage you to let go just just experience it one time to go look up one of her maybe like the relentless record or something that she had. Because what she was doing was really, I don't want to short change it because it was actually it was brilliant to be honest. And she has, she has this quality very similar to like a, I don't know exactly how to describe it. I don't know if that gothic is the right word, but like this, Evan Essence kind of, if you're familiar with the band Evan Essence

is kind of like eerie high kind of thing that she would do. But she had that song. She had another one that she she called it as in the days of Noah. And she would talk about how it's never rain before. But it was again, it was that shrilly. It's never rain before. Kind of thing. And it would be like real big. And like there was like little melodic parts that she was she was she was just she was very gifted at what she did. But it made me the bum bum bum bum bum. She

had this little part like that was it was just the earworm is what it was. People walking around with their fingers in their ear singing, bum bum bum bum, I don't want to hear the sound. And like which we we mean the whole lot whenever the mic bickle stuff happened where people are walking around with their fingers in their ears. But but it was such a such a unique unique expression of music at the house of prayer. I guess that you don't see anywhere else. But yeah, I don't know if you have any thoughts about that before I jump to some else. But well instantly you said

bum bum bum bum and then the phrase. Well, that's even more powerful than the one that I talked about where there's a a follow up and a you know a response to the music. Well, the were in the response is the lyrics. So people they skipped that beat and then they're anticipating the response and then the response is like triple powerful. It's it's really crazy when you think about it.

The only thing that really came to mind while you're talking. So I play electric guitar as well. And in in the church, the cult that I grew up You really, it was taboo to play any sort of electric instrument.

That was instantly devil music, man, because of all the things that I do. I went to some churches that had it, and they might as well have been playing in acoustic because you weren't allowed to even put a fax on it, man.

It was like, this is the most plain home drum music. Anyway, after this, I started listening to new worship music and the new churches. There's another thing they do powerful that goes along with what you were saying.

You're talking about the drum beat and the progression. Well, a lot of people don't realize this, but there, who's the good example? Bon Jovi is probably the best example of doing this. You put a lot of distortion on the guitar and you do the angry strings, which are ones on the top.

And you go, when you're doing this, it has the same effect on the heart as the beat does with the drums. And you get that anxiety built up. And the power of that is you can actually have a slower song.

But in between the beats, you're doing this. Well, in that slow song, now you've got the power of that heart rhythm. And that's, I mean, Bon Jovi is excessively popular for this. So you can see how much it works.

Do that to a Christian music and then add your destructive lyrics into it. And it's a combination for disaster, man. Nobody can build a song like a charismatic church. Nobody. If you ever play with a drummer who has never played and charismatic church stuff, they will think that you're insane with the amount of building and layers to dynamics.

As you're talking about that, I was saying about a song that we played this past Sunday. There's this song called All Hell King Jesus. And it's kind of, if people go to church, they probably heard it before.

It's pretty chill, pretty chill, I would say. But there's this part after the first chorus where the instrumental kind of picks up. But it's not like big dynamic. What ends up happening is the drummer comes in on the ride symbol going,

and everybody else kind of builds it just a little bit. And it gives it enough to like start going somewhere. And so like there's all these different layers. And that was always a thing that like I hop was just brilliant at.

And you started seeing, I really think, I wish we could track it down. But I really think that that aspect was something that I hop influenced in the Christian music industry at large that we started seeing it more Bethel.

Because people like even for those circles will make fun of us because of how long we would build stuff. But now you go back and look and everybody's got five bridges to a song.

When everybody's got these big builds and big massive moments. But it's the same thing. It's you're getting an emotional response out of people. Like as you build, build, build, build, build. And then you have the payoff moment.

And it's just ecstasy is like what happens in those moments. I'm curious to hear what because I had teased a second ago talking about. reverbs and delays in how to use. So a lot of Christian music now is kind of like the synth pads underneath the soft synth pads. You got big reverbs and delays on the electric guitar to the point that you can take a unskilled guitarist and teach them a couple of notes and they can hit those three notes over the course of the song and it's big enough because of the reverbs and delays

that it builds space, you know. But I'm curious to hear what you think about that as a technique and what I think that I might do. 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, Stephen McCummery, 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-Brannum Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. I'm laughing because in the first church that we went to after leaving the call, I brought my music, I started playing different instruments and I'm playing it pretty much everything that you see here, not the cello because

I didn't have it then, but everything I had here, I would bring two or three to every service and just kind of juggle which ones I'm playing. With me was a guy who was really, really, really good on the rhythm guitar, probably one of the best rhythm guitars I've played with. And it was just me and him for a while in the guitars and then there was a drummer, there was a pianist and an an organ player. So that was the band basically and we were really, really good. Well, this new guy shows up one Sunday and he is an electric guitarist and they said, John, we want this guy to play

with you. And he played with us, I don't know, it's probably three or four Sundays and I'm just like, you know, I don't know that this is really adding much to it, but the people enjoy it. And in one of the conversations I had with the real guitarist later, he said, John, have you watched that guy play? And I said, no, but I've heard it and it's a little bit monotonous and he says, watch him next Sunday. So I'll go back next Sunday and we're playing in B flat. And this guy, no, this guy is holding the key of D and going,

oh, song man. And here's the funny part. We would change to a minor, we would change to a major, we'd change to a flat. It's still deep. And I'm like, how does it not, how do people not know that this is not even in the key we're playing in?

Well, they had so much dang reverb, you couldn't tell, yeah, it's so much reverb. And so as far as manipulation, I guess that's manipulation in the opposite direction, because the real musicians are like, no, this is painful.

And that's how I was. This is painful. What is happening here? But, you know, back to another point that you made, I wanted to talk about, you mentioned an earworm. And that's a funny phrase for me, because I grew up playing in Georgia, and that's a common phrase, an earworm.

So those who don't know what this is, it's something that it gets in your ear and gets in your head. Is that a blue grassy phrase? I don't know. It could be a blue grassy phrase.

Once it gets in your head, you can't get it out. The music is so appealing, in the phrase is so appealing. Well, the power of the earworm in Christian music is unbelievable. You can take phrases like, and I'm just going to make something up off the fly, but you can say something like, I know I feel it, I won't let go, I'm stepping on faith because you told me so, that's a highly repeatable, rhymeable, if you add all of the dynamics that I'm mentioning, that's pretty good, right?

And I'm pretty good off the fly sometimes. But if you think about what that's saying, I know I feel it, I won't let it go. It's emphasizing the feeling over the doctrine. If you really break this down, this is a really bad phrase, I just invented, so I should go to hell for this phrase.

I'm stepping in faith because you told me so, well, this emphasizes the feeling over the doctrine, the inside voice, whatever it is, your conscience, your imagination, whatever it is, that is what told you, you can't prove that God told you this, well, to the audience who's listening, they want to repeat this, once it's an earworm in their ear, and they start seeing God talking to them in ways that God is not talking to them.

They might meet a, I don't know, somebody on the street in the grocery store who says something like, you probably shouldn't yell at your kids and God spoke to me and told me, I need to be nicer to my kid.

I mean, stupid stuff like that, people are doing, and it's because of the earworm and the music, and they don't even realize it. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times, good and bad in my life that I've had something to happen, and worship songs come back into my head, just because some of those things are so catchy, and what's interesting too, is you have to think about the environment that the music's happening in as well, is a very important part of it, that whenever people, for whatever the reasons, think it outside the cult world for a second, whatever

reason a person shows up to a church on a Sunday morning, that influences how receptive they are to things. And so if they're showing up to your church on a Sunday because they believe that it's a safe sanctuary of place to where they can, you know, find solace and peace, then they're going to be much more receptive to whatever you're saying because they're going to go in with that mindset. You know, in charismatic circles, I hope this gets a rouse out of you.

Surely this is something that y'all had to, that one of the big things is the preacher would come up and go, are you expecting tonight? Are you expectant? What's what's your expectation? And that's another tool that's used that, that there's this, if everybody in the room is convinced that God is going to come down and meet them, after we do our 20 minute build and we get to that big payoff moment, they're expecting something and something is going to happen. And that's the moment that I have to look at, like things that Mike Bickle said about like hamburger helper

and be like, yeah, like some of that is fake. It's because people want to feel that. And that's not even necessarily bad either, that people want to have a good feeling in a moment. And I think about that now and post cult life of how much coping I did in worship services because it allowed room for those big emotions. Whether that was my anxiety, whether that was my anger, whatever it might be, if I was down and depressed, man, you give me four on the floor and a happy song. And now I'm feeling depressed, man, and that will turn around my week. Whenever I was growing up,

it's a little harder now, because I know the tricks. But yeah, it's so influential. I can't remember how I journeyed to this spot, but there we are. But I was going to say about reverbs and delays. I think it's so soothing, I think is what it is. It creates so much space and you feel enveloped in like, yeah, it just feels good is what it is. And like there's nothing like a preacher doing an alter call and having a little atmosphere behind them. It just sets the mood.

And like you said, it's not that destructive to say that you're anticipating or expecting. In fact, I always, whenever I do listen to Christian music that is comfortable to me and doesn't trigger me, it's usually the old, old music from the old song books, because in general, these people were under inspiration. They were writing songs, not as a technique. That's really where I have a problem. If you write a song as a technique or a manipulation tool, I'm just, you're evil. I'm just going to say it like that. You're evil. But I listen to those music, those songs from those

old song books, and they don't trigger me so badly. And I'm familiar with them. But combine that, what you just said, the expectation. You can add that into the music. We're expecting the words going to fall today, you know, whatever is the phrase and build it up in that sweet Caroline, boom, boom, boom, with that at anticipation, well, you build the anticipation, then the expectation of the Lord, then the speaker comes, and the speaker has the reima, or the spoken word, or whatever he claims or she claims that they have from God. Well, you have just programmed the people that

you're expecting the thing to come. Now, the speaker comes out and he has introduced the thing to come is not him. It's a divine being speaking through his or her mouth. Well, that progression, that's an architectural disaster. You have really programmed the people to open up in ways that they should never open up their minds. And once they do, you hijack their minds. And that's what I see happening, and not only the music, but in music is just one aspect of manipulation, but in the music they're doing it in other techniques, verbal, even I've seen, like some of the, I was in one church, and even the posters on the wall,

as you're walking in the foyer to get into the building, even that was a manipulation technique. And is it bad, not all, but some of it, especially when the leader has the spoken word, the reima, this nonsense, that's evil, man. I've had many times after leading worship that I hear preacher say something, because if you talk to like, like a preacher, like behind closed doors and stuff, they'll tell you that kind of the worship leaders responsibility, maybe not all of them, but a lot of them will, that the worship leaders responsibility is to prepare people's hearts for the word kind of thing, like that's, and that's how they see it.

And unfortunately, it's kind of right, like you're saying, like it does, it puts people, and I think it's why a lot of times we don't inset before somebody preaches a sermon with a dance party, like that's usually not how you do it. You might end the service with a dance party, but you're not going to do that right before the preacher comes up. And so it's going to be more reflective and calm and focused. And that puts people in a place to be more open. And I've heard preacher say things in moments that I look around the room and everybody's nodding in agreement.

And I'm like, do you guys hear what he's saying? Like are you thinking logically right now? Like he just said that he knows that this is certain, for sure, the 100% the answer. This is wildly widely theologically debated. And he's certain on this and like, are you guys listening?

But I see that happen all the time in local church context and even in Kansas City. I mean, Mike, like you go back and listen to the things that Mike said, like there was Freudian slips all the time.

And things that he would say that like now in hindsight, you're like, my gosh, he was telling us exactly what's happening. And we just couldn't see it.

But yeah, and there's the music that the lyrics, it's conditioning as you're talking. This is a little bit of a bunny trail again, but there was another course at Misty would sing. And I remember popping my head all the time it was you owe me nothing I deserve hell you owe me nothing But you've given me mercy and and that does something like

You know people can have there and I know the YouTube comments section loves me because I say a lot of heretical things

I love you guys too. It's it's no heart feelings, but Whenever you have somebody seeing over and over that they deserve hell that you owe me nothing I deserve hell like it does something to your psyche and and I think With where I'm at on my journey. I think those doctrines like original sin and total depravity and stuff It has the tendency to do the same things that these mind control type things do It convinces you that you're a little peon you're a little worm a little your Excrement is what you are and whenever you start to believe that you you start to treat yourself that way and

Whenever you treat yourself poorly like Jesus himself says Love your neighbors. You love yourself like as you as you love yourself If you can't love yourself, then I don't know what are you gonna love somebody?

And I think that that's like one of our sorry. This is my sermon at I have one every week It just comes at some moment But that's whenever we look at like empathy like toxic empathy is like the big thing right now that people want to talk about But like if you can't show compassion towards yourself and be loving towards yourself because you think that you deserve hell and You don't get anything you're a piece of junk is what you are whenever you think that about yourself It's really easy to think that about other people

So whenever you see bad things happening to other people you're like yeah, but they deserve that That's what they deserve in That's whenever we lose our humanity in those moments I think but that's what this music does and whenever you get convinced of those things that you do deserve hell It makes you dependent on these messengers of God is what it is like I deserve hell that they have what I need I have to stay here and those were the fear tactics that were used by by Mike and others in backhanded ways of He would always give the speech and I've said this a million times like a broken record

He would talk about you know some people do this prayer movement stuff for a little bit and then they burn out and they move on and Some people last a decade and they burn out and they move on and he's like but God's looking for the one to will do it for Decade to believe the promises and he would say you know You can go and and being a local church and this and that but we want the people who believe the promises like it was this This elite thing and you felt like if you walked away from it that like

Sometimes I think the the the equivalency is like you almost thought like what I'd die if I walked away and and that's kind of like the internal stuff that would happen And I got way serious way way too quick, but but that's that's the power of the music. It really is. Yeah, and I'm gonna join you in the comment You can slaughter me too in the common foods if you want, but I fully agree with you.

I've mentioned this to some extent, and people try to nail me down, are you Calvinist or are you not? And I'm just gonna give you out, and I have private conversations with you. Yeah, you're not gonna figure me out, man.

But here's the thing, I've mentioned this before, as it relates to the total depravity doctrine, there are people who say that's scriptural, that's absolutely scriptural, and they'll rattle off all of the scriptures that I already know.

I already know this, it's in my head, but I know the other scriptures that take it out of the ballpark of what you're trying to say. That's really the difference. If you're in one mindset, it's like you're in this box, and you can't see outside of the box.

So not to get onto a preacher's high platform, because I'm definitely not a preacher. You go talk to your pastor about this stuff, but most of the passages that are being used for this, remember there is a timeline in the gospels.

Jesus comes to earth, all of the children of Israel had been under this, it was bigger than a contract, but it was this contractual agreement was part of the old covenant. And the contractual agreement said, if you do these things, I give these blessings, if you don't, you'll get these curses.

Well, they went down the wrong path, and they got the curses, right? So Jesus is, when he's saying things that really support what they're trying to say with total depravity, he's speaking to a people that were in total depravity.

It's not saying that you, I've been in a church that they actually targeted the four-year-old and said they're totally deprived, they're evil, it's just awful doctrine. And I've mentioned before, if you keep pounding on people like this, and you keep talking about how bad they are, everything that Brantley just said, that's gonna happen, you're gonna hate yourself, you're gonna hate the people around you, anybody who's not in your church, you absolutely hate those.

I mean, there's no limit to how bad this is, and you don't even train a dog like this. If you're constantly telling the dog, bad boy, bad boy, well, the dog is gonna be a bad boy.

I mean, that's how dogs work, that's how humans work. You can't raise humans like this. To some extent, I understand the doctrine as it relates to adults. If you're an adult and you're trying to understand the scripture, at least do it correctly and apply the passages correctly, those that were applied to Israel and those that are applied to the Gentiles, but if you go beyond that, just think through the fact that as an adult, you can decipher between those two because it takes a broad understanding of the Bible to do that, but to a teenager,

to somebody who's just barely learning about the world around them, how are they going to do this and the way that an adult can? They're going to be depressed. And I know this because I fell into that category.

I've been there, man, I know how this works. And that's another part of the reason I'm triggered by the music. You... find that language in the music, but in such a beat and a court progression that gets stuck in your head all day, and it is gloom and doom, and oh, I hate the world, I hate myself.

It's one step away from, there's this category, this genre of rock, this like suicide rock. It's for those that are just so depressed, they can barely survive. That's what it is to me. It's like you're listening to suicide music when you do this, man.

Don't do this. Instead of talking about depravity, talk about ways that you can be excited about Christianity, excited about the world, and you'll be less triggering to those people who are actually suffering. Yeah, it gets so nihilistic so quickly, like with IHOP, it was the eschatology, like if it was, there was a little bit of split between people.

But the present day, there was so much talked about like eternal mindset and stuff, but the present day and the present moment didn't matter a whole lot, because we had eternity. And then outside of that, like a lot of them believe that God was going to destroy the world we're sitting on right now, and then he was going to create a new world.

And so that there was no, there was no need for stewardship, like let's talk about Genesis 1 of tending and taking care of the earth and keeping the garden and all that kind of thing.

It wasn't until I stepped out of NAR circles that I started here in Christians talk about ecology and like the ecosystems and taking care of the planet as Christian work. Like that was just like something that was so, and it's because like you live in this way that you think everything's going to be destroyed and everything's going to end.

And then there's no point in the hearing now, except like the short-term gains. And I had to get to the point in my life where I had to put all of that stuff on the shelf because it drove me for so long.

The Eternal Mindset. Misty had an album called Eternity. So it was eternity, eternal song. It's like, I mean, this kind of stuff. I mean, it goes deep in the music's right there with it.

And that's the thing that it reinforces it. But I had to get to a point where I put that stuff on a shelf because I realized I wasn't living life is what was happening.

I was so worried about the future. I was so worried about my past mistakes

that I couldn't live in the moment. I couldn't be present for my family. I couldn't be present for friends. I couldn't be supportive of anybody. I was barely making it myself. And so I had to come to this conclusion that I was like, you know, heaven and hell can be what it is.

Like I know that I am trying to love best I can. I'm trying to follow Jesus best I can. And if he sends me to hell for that, he sends me to hell for that.

Like that's that. that's what's gonna happen. I'm not gonna spend time worrying about it because fear doesn't do anything. If you live in a cult for any amount of time, you realize fear is such a powerful tool.

And so I had to set that fear aside. And even with heaven, I'm like, man, like if I want to live life now, and I want to make the world around me as good as I can here and now.

Like, and eternity, eternity be damned. Like that's kind of where I've had to live my life. But doing that has helped me reprogram my brain, rewire my brain into a healthier spot to where now I can have conversations about this stuff.

We can talk about hell and the gravity and all these things. And my nervous system doesn't freak out. I had a huge freak out. Man, this was probably 10 years ago, something like that in a conversation about hell with someone.

But growing up in NAR and Pentecostal holiness environments and stuff like hell was held over your head all the time. And I eventually had to get to a spot where, you know, it is what it is, whatever it is, it is.

And there's nothing I can do to change that. But it didn't do me any good to be living fear of that. But yeah, absolutely. And what you're talking about basically is you're coming to a realization that there has to be balance.

Martin Luther, I've mentioned this before, but and I still need to go find his exact verbiage. But he says something to the effect of, they preach hell in these churches that we laughed and he's talking about the Catholic church.

And he's essentially describing, they're using it as a weapon. And he says, I don't have a single member in my congregation that wants to go there. So why would I want to preach on something for a people who aren't wanting to hear more about it?

Let's instead preach about heaven. Let's talk about heavenly things. And I look at that and I think it's so odd that the Protestant church has actually gone in reverse. There's so many ways that they resemble what Martin Luther was crying out against.

And that's just, we can probably do another podcast on just simply that. But the music itself, I feel, so we have probably scared people listening to music at this point. I feel that we should probably balance that scale because what some Doc Watson, that's what he did.

I need the whole bluegrass in there. But yeah, you know, Steve Martin, he says there's not a way that you can play a song with a banjo and make it sound angry. He's talking about the techniques, man.

You can really change people's perspective with music and how it's played. And even the instrument should play. But so let's do this. Let's talk about a bit about the healthy things that music has in it.

So you and I, we struggle more than the average person because we're musicians and because we were in a destructive call, we actually have it worse. And I don't know if people realize that, but we do.

And it's especially worse because I think you and I both are also empaths. So where everybody else is down here on the scale of this was torture, we're so far beyond that. I get everything that you're saying.

And, you know, to the point, if you're a bringing music in a healthy way, even if you're using techniques of manipulation in the music, and manipulation is probably the wrong word in this case, music can be used to comfort.

Yeah. You can go to church, you can be comforted, you can feel blessed, you can feel secure, you can bring in, you can use the same techniques, and you can have the entire people in this blessing and security atmosphere before the sermon comes.

That's a way that you could do the same exact things for good, not for bad. You could do it for inspiration, you could inspire people to do good to other people, and they could leave the church, and they could go help the community, they could help the people in the other churches.

They could even help the people who won't go to church. That's an inspiration, that's something that you could do. Then the sermon could actually augment this. As Christians, this is the way that we should live our lives.

That's a way that you could use the same exact techniques for good, and there's so many other ways that you could do the expressing devotion. You could get people more dedicated to God. There's so many things that you could do that is healthy using the same exact techniques, but injecting your nonsenseical doctrine and all of the different things that you're doing to take the leadership and put them way up here above the people, it's just wrong.

So this is where a lot of my thought process goes now whenever planning worship sets. And a lot of it's very temporal in the sense that whatever's happening in the community at the moment, a lot of times we'll influence the types of stuff that we sing, whether that's a national current event or the church that I'm currently at right now, there's a strong military presence, and it's not a fun time to be in the military with all the jerking around that's happening right now.

And the government shut down that happened. Like that was a very interesting thing in that church because all of them were government. If they weren't military, they're civilian contractors and such. And so like, I think it was good to sing a song by probably knows is goodness of God.

All my life, you've been faithful, all my life, you've been so, so good. Like to remind ourselves that God takes care of us and that he does, he keeps us in his hand, he doesn't let us go and cares for us as his children.

And to sing something like that is positive, I think, because it does, it gives people hope, it gives people security. On the flip side of that, I made me think is planning stuff, like there's times whenever I've been in worship services where I may not agree with the message at all, but I'm there as a paid person to get back up and do some music after the preacher preaches a sermon.

And even if I think what he said was destructive and harmful and everything else, do take solace because sometimes there's songs that I can sing. Afterwards, leave more of an impression than the sermon did. And we can sing things that are a little bit better.

I'll leave it at that. We'll say that leave it that leave people with a good taste in their mouth. To know that I think I'm trying to think like the end goal varies week to week and experience to experience what you want people to feel. But whenever I end a service, I always end it with a benediction still to this day and pick that up in my Methodist circles that ran in where I just do the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you. Be gracious to you and give you peace and go and peace, be at peace and we'll see you next Sunday. That's all I end almost every

every Sunday. And I look around the room whenever I do that. And as I say, I usually open my eyes when I'm like, go and peace, be at peace. And I look around the room and I see peace on people's face. And that's what people need right now. There's so much turmoil in the world. Like for people to feel settled and you look around and these aren't charismatic people that I'm doing stuff with now.

These are these are Baptist folks. And I look around the room and all of them have their eyes closed and you know, slight grins on their face kind of thing like they just feel at peace in the moment.

And those that's the good for me. I still can't personally like you. I still can't listen to Christian music a whole lot without just being angry if I'm honest like that's where it sends me into place anger. But but these just like any art it's a tool given to us by God to help us

experience God to help us experience beauty to help us fill emotions and process emotions and to cope. And I think for for a lot of musicians at least for us privately like like music is a huge coping tool to be able to bang on the guitar for a little bit scream at the top of my lungs and sing. It helps us process and it helps us make sense of things. And I think that we get to bring other people into that. And that's the gift of music is whether they can play it or sing it

or whatever we can bring them into that moment. And hopefully something good happened. Absolutely. You know, I struggle with the music. I've mentioned that actually at a few times. But there are things that a lot of people don't recognize because of the music style.

One of the things that I like doing is I love to listen to Jack Johnson. And believe it or not his curious George album is my favorite because it is near to impossible to get angry while you're listening to a Jack Johnson song. And at the same time he energizes you. He inspires you.

You can actually hear more of God in a Jack Johnson song than you can't have the songs I grew up singing in the church. And to the people who I know that there's a subset of our listeners who are going to comment on what I just said. And so but he doesn't sing about Jesus.

You can't say this. He's not singing about God. The problem that I have is, the music is just one aspect that has done this, but through the music, the sermons, the literature, the posters on the wall, all of the manipulation techniques.

They have so disconnected the people from the real God that they will say things like this. And I'll never forget the moment, as I was preparing my mind to leave from the brand of cult, I kept getting these songs, I'm a songwriter too, kept eating these songs over and over and one of them, many of the phrases were like, many of the songs were to the same theme, but one of the phrases was, God didn't come to save the save, he came to save the lost.

And I was actually thinking about the body of people, how charged they were against outsiders, how charged they were against other Christians. And at that point in time, I didn't recognize it, it was a manipulation causing it.

I just thought the people had gone nuts, but now that I'm looking into the music, the music is doing it, it's supercharging you against people who aren't of the same mindset, to the extent that if somebody comes into the church who doesn't believe like you, you're immediately offended, get out of here, you're not part of us, get out of here.

And that's not what church is, church is not to forsake those who don't believe like you, it's actually to inspire them to come and learn more about the God and the doctrines that you believe, and if you truly believe those doctrines and believe that that's the right way and God's working on them, if you believe that, and you believe what God is all powerful, God will change their heart.

It's not your job to scorn them into change, but I look back at the music and even the music is scornful. So that's why I have a huge problem listening to it, and that's why I like Jack Johnson.

So go get the curious George album and you'll love me for it. Amen. Thank you for doing this man. Absolutely, give me some. If you enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.

You can find us at William-Brandom.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.