Spiritual Grooming- How Control Hides in Faith

Hello and welcome to another episode, have the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at William-Branham.org and with me I have my co-host and friend, Christian R.C., former charismatic and Latin America. Christian is good to be back and I'm so glad that you came back to talk through this. I'm so fascinated with Central and South America. As I mentioned last time with you, I would just love to go into Central America and start digging through all the archives and the historical places, the archaeological

sites, etc. But I'm even more fascinated to pick your brain and try to understand how Charismania morphed and shifted as it traveled into Central America and finally into South America. There's just so much there to talk through and yes, they're both similar but they're also a little bit different. So anyway, I'm glad to have you back and our topic today is pretty important, I feel. We're going to be talking about spiritual grooming. Yes, thank you, John. It's been a wonderful experience and yeah, you can come over here to Costa Rica and we will go together and I'm pretty sure I'm going to find a lot

of great things with you and have a wonderful talk. And yes, we're going to be talking about spiritual grooming and why is that important? And aside from the cases, the latest cases that we've been watching in the United States and even in Costa Rica with sentences by the judicial system and whatnot, I think what it is really important is to establish a couple of things first. The first one being maybe your community is not the problem, but certainly you have friends that could be going through a spiritual grooming situation. So that's really important because it's not something that you openly talk about it

until it happens most of the time. So this is a really important thing that we should be discussing. So if you just like me are a part of a community of the labor, it doesn't matter if you're Christian, if you're Catholic, if you're whatever denomination you are. This is a really important subject that everyone should be aware of. Absolutely.

And people are gonna ask, I'm going to go ahead and get it out in there. What is spiritual grooming? And how do I know if I'm being spiritually groomed? The sad truth is a lot of people are in churches and both in Latin America and United States and abroad, who are being spiritually groomed and they don't even realize it because they associate it with Christianity.

They think this is how Christianity is. I'm supposed to be groomed, right? Not knowing that groomed is a bad thing, not a good thing. But if we define it basically, it's the idea where somebody is using faith or authority, intimidation, fear, things like, they might say, God told me and they use this language basically that prepares a person to accept their control so that they can be exploited for various reasons.

Some good, actually, some bad. But the bad case is sometimes it leads to silencing them or abuse. And spiritual grooming is basically this idea that if you say that I am God's servant, but I am over you as the leader servant, I'm the one who is making you be my servant so that I can be God's servant, you're probably being spiritually groomed.

That's a thing that is widespread in the Christian and Christianity today. So I would define it like that and I'm sure you can expand on this. But the idea is that somebody is manipulating you.

That's really the bottom line. Yeah, there's a couple of things that I would like to explore with you. And I would really like to know your opinion of this as well. Because once you see a pattern appearing once,

like every other church pretty much in Latin America, so you start to see that maybe it's more common

than what you expected. And maybe there's an underlying reason why that is happening. So now you see these through history, you see this through many, many churches, Latin America, North America, Euro pretty much everywhere.

So and I'm pretty sure you've heard this. It's like, I feel something in my spirit that I want to tell you from God. So the phrase is like that. So what effectively happens is that a leader who approaches takes the place of a mediator between God and the person being groomed.

Now, of course, they're not very open about saying that, but at the end of the day, that's exactly what happens. Now, a really good definition of grooming for me would... be like, and I wrote it down, so I'm going to read it because I might forget it.

So the definition, the best definition I could find is a situation in which a person or a group of people holding power within a religious hierarchy manipulates another person for their own benefit or for the benefit of the group.

Now the most common cases, of course, sadly have been either financial benefits or sexual gratification in any way, shape or form now. But there's more to it, especially if we understand that most of, well not most of, but certainly a lot of leaders within religious organization have this narcissistic personality in which sometimes they don't need money or they don't need like any sexual favor or any kind of sexual connotation within the benefit they're getting.

But just the admiration of a person, just a sense of control over that person. So that's also something that's very important because you might say, well I've never been into any kind of sexual problem with my leaders or any financial problem with my leaders.

But later on we will see that those are not the only things that are going on with spiritual grooming. Now, where do you think the origin of this is and I'm going to ask you that question because it sounds very familiar to me when in Genesis the serpent presents itself as someone who implicitly knows the will of God and has like a way that Eve does not have.

So that's, that sounds really familiar to me when somebody says, hey, let me give you the interpretation for this. I've thought about that too and the funny part about it is humanity, if you read the Bible and you understand what it is saying in Genesis, humanity changed course.

Now they know that knowledge of good and evil, I've heard sermons where they try to take out that good and evil part of that phrase and they just say it was the tree of knowledge, they had the tree of knowledge, but it isn't just that.

They know good and evil and so they can make choices, choices for good, choices for evil. And so within every person in basic human psychology, you have the ability to manipulate another person if you choose to do the evil thing.

You also have the ability to do the right thing and be transparent, open, you, instead of grooming somebody to do something, you could instead ask them to do something and explain here's why I would like for you to do.

this. But a person who's grooming, they won't do this. The sad part of it is exactly what you just said. Most people, when they hear the word, they think the sexual connotation because in the news media, that's what usually hits the news. When somebody's been groomed for sex, that's big news. But what about somebody who's been groomed to, I don't know, a molyer lawn? You don't hear about that in the news, right? But you can do this to a person. In fact, you can groom somebody to paint your fence. Huckleberry Finn did this.

It's kind of a... Well, I totally agree with you. And I have an example that is very common and nobody seems to get the two concepts together. What happens in a church or in a community where you say, it is our call to serve God. And the way we're going to do it is we're going to set up a group of people who will help with logistics here. So we're going to come to the church for a union, to do logistics for every service. So you're required to be here at least three times a week.

So this is what is expected for you because we all have to serve. The other thing that really surprises people, who are not part of the movement and don't understand how this works, when people hear that there are people inside of a church being spiritually groomed, they immediately think that these people must be unintelligent. And it's kind of the opposite of that, really, because at least in my experience, in my research, what I have found is in talking with the people in support groups, what you have are people who are highly intelligent, who work with their brains all week. And then they go sit in church

and Sunday and the brain is tired because they've been exercising their brain. So they shut off all of their critical thinking. And then suddenly the leader on the stage hijacks their mind. That's one of the things that happens. I'll never forget how shocked I was because I am one of the people that works with my mind. I'd never forget how shocked I was that I believed the craziest things, but it was because I was sitting in church and my brain would be tired. Now if you're a carpenter, you're swinging your hammer, you sit in church and it's entirely different, your arms tired,

not your brain. And so there are people who have varying levels of acceptance of this grooming. I think that's the point I'm trying to make. But there's a clear process. I don't know if you've thought through this or not. I came from a family who had ways to make people want to do things for them. I'm going to say it like that very cautiously. So I know how all of this works. You're picture this. So you go to church. It's your first time there. You're in a crowd and Suddenly you feel noticed and that feeling of feeling notice. Oh, wow, they noticed me and then they affirm you

They suddenly somebody walks up and says, you know, I I'm getting a message from God. I think you might have a calling That's that's the big one man. What so what they're doing is they're separating you from ordinary people in your mind Here are the ordinary people. Oh, I must be more than ordinary these people. They really like me here And so suddenly they begin to attach your being there With destiny and then destiny with obedience. So what that does is If you start to question this not only are you rebelling against God?

You're starting to question your own calling and so It's not something that even you know when people have this they think that it's the calling of the leader that causes this Know that the leader is telling you that you might have a calling Yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy. The I have a term for for that days a lot is love bombing. It's like You feel the acceptance Right in the moment that you go through the door of a church, which is not bad because a community of believers should give you A really good representation of the love of God if that's the fruit of the spirit working within you

That's perfectly acceptable and it's actually expected for any community of the leaders The problem is when that is not true because it's in Exchange for something else So that is really the the problem here now As you very well said there's a difference in pastoral care versus spiritual control and There's a few Things where you would a few situations where you would Like differentiate the art and identify those because the the main one for me is that Pastoral care for stores agency But it gives you certain Tools to get by to go through situations, but spiritual grooming

always creates dependency and There's many many Things that I'm very critical about it because if if you say one thing, but do the other Uh You can be sure that I will point at that so uh At least in the charismatic world there's this thing where uh You think that you don't have to go to a praise to confess your sins But at the end of the day Most of the time you have a leader that knows everything you do and pretty much everything you have thought and all your struggles and all the things that you've messed up then.

So in a way, it's pretty much doing the same. And I'm okay with accountability and we're all in for that. But you have to remember that if you create a dependency bound with anyone that will enforce this idea of I have to confess everything to a person, even if the person has nothing to do with what actually happened, that is a dangerous scenario.

It is. And I'm thinking through my mind of the examples where I've seen people who were spiritually groomed. I didn't know what it was. I was there. I watched it. And hindsight, I look back and I think that was just so wrong.

But that's part of this charismatic movement, part of the Pentecostal movement. There is this thing and I'm trying to think of the actual term for it. I think maybe they call it the special access trap or something like this, but basically, it's the idea where a person is being spiritually groomed and the groomer gives them the special privilege.

And suddenly they feel like they're special, they're special beyond the others being groomed. I don't know if you've seen this or not, but they will say things like you're not the other, not like the others or I see God's special hand on you.

I can, I can see God in your life. After the one who really gets it, I have a good, a good example of that that somebody told me like maybe a week ago, this person was telling me, Hey, something weird happened.

I went to these pastors house because they invited me. The first thing they said was, you know, not everyone comes here like you should be, you should feel privileged of being here and I was like, what?

Why? I mean, that's because implicitly what you're telling is, I am at a higher level than you. And you had access to this place because I led you came and come in so that yeah, I totally agree.

And it ties back to something else that you said, I'm fascinated with psychology. You hit one of my buttons that I, I may hijack this whole podcast. Narcissistic personality disorder fascinates me. Every single cult that you look at, you're going to find at the top somebody who either had it to begin with or developed it because of being in the cult, right?

Well, a narcissist actually fears the people under him more than anything in the world. And so what they do is they try to separate the people. And that way there's this, in the separation, they can't overpower him.

That's part of the mental problems that they face right and conquer, divide and conquer. So they'll say things like, you're not like the others. I would like to tell you this special thing, but don't share it with everyone.

This is for you to understand because you have a special relationship with God and the others I don't think they could see it and what you're doing is you're basically isolating that person and they're doing the same thing with the other people that's the really I mean I'm laughing it's absurd and it said at the same time but that's what they do because they're really scared about it but to the people who are being separated that secrecy that they have that bond it feels like this intimate connection with the leader but what it's actually doing to them it's actually isolating them so that they their mind actually gets further spiritually groomed.

Okay so I've seen this before in many instances where the first thing that happens is that this person being groomed loses contact with their family. So there's this idea of pastoral care that that protects the person versus the spiritual grooming that benefits the leader.

Now and I say this because if you want to protect your your disciples quote unquote one of the first thing that you have to do is go ahead and restore any kind of issues they have with their family because they're their support network this that's the close network that they have and they will be there every every time right of course there's instances where the families you know very dysfunctional and you know things like that but the main thing is that if we're talking about restoring a person and isolating that person of their family that's one of the that's

exactly what you're saying it's I'm getting to benefit as a leader because you're going to be here serving me and doing whatever I need and wherever I want that's not protecting the person and even if there is somebody who it tells you hey you should take distance from people that does not believe exactly what we believe well that's a dangerous thing because you're going to isolate that person from the entire society not everyone believes that that thing that you believe right and that's again the same thing I mean pastoral care should be about you know receiving questions and answering things and even if it's a heart and tough

question or even a personal question but spiritual grooming does the opposite it's just punishments questioning putting out the skies of rebellion over it exactly there were a lot of studies done after World War II when they saw what Germany had done to the people because it took a a grooming to get to that level where you could take another human life.

And they wanted to know how did this happen to a nation of people and one of the sad truths about grooming and this applies to what happened in Germany as well as spiritual grooming.

Whenever you are being groomed and especially the ones who you're the one who God really has a job for you, those kind of people, what happens is they create this bond with the leader and that bond slowly starts to evade and eventually replace their conscience.

So what happens is what you're describing the family unit, there will be cult members who their family unit will just be destroyed because they don't have a conscience to realize that this is wrong, this thing that we're doing.

And that's why people on the outside, they're looking in and they ask, well, how can a cult do this? How can they destroy families? How can they shun people? Your normal person doesn't do this.

The truth is normal people do once they've been groomed to do so and Germany proved this, there were people who went far beyond this. That's really the scary part because once the conscience is replaced, no matter what the leader says, the people will do it, even to the extent if they are asking people to break the law, there are members of the congregation that will break the law for the leaders in these movements.

So if you have a person who's, I'm using this term loosely, but if you have a leader who's mentally stable, very, very loosely, who's grooming people in his church, it's just kind of benign.

But if you get somebody who's just a nut job, who's going to do something that's very drastic, there are people because their conscience is gone, they will do the drastic thing with him. And again, I mean, there's this human component of trust and it has to do with the natural human conduct of leadership.

If you have a leader in front of you, a person who's really, you know, have this attitude of leadership within, you're going to delegate some trust in that person. And it's a natural thing.

I mean, you can see that pretty much everywhere. It's not necessarily related to any religious organization, it's just a human conduct. Now the problem with high control or grooming organizations is that they normalized this kind of vulnerability as a door for discipleship.

And let me give you an example, and there's this denomination specifically. And I can say that very open because that came directly from one... of their videos is that Jehovah's Witnesses, I saw something that was really disturbing, but it was their culture, how they acted, and it was an advice given to them.

So the advice was really simple, is never stop knocking on somebody else's door. Just keep going, and if you ask why it is because somebody, at some point that person will be going through something difficult, maybe somebody passed away, maybe they lose their job, maybe something happened, and at that point they will open up with you and you will have an open door to share the will of God for them.

So that's an issue, because you are taking somebody's vulnerability to, again, benefit yourself or your group, and that's a very normal thing. They do it, and they were very open about that, but that's exactly what happens with pretty much every other denomination or religious organization.

They will wait for the right moment of vulnerability so they can do exactly what they have planned. So yes, it's sad that a culture normalizes this, but it's the reality, and it's a really good example of grooming.

You're a musician, so you'll understand this. Some people don't. People who are in marketing might understand and grasp the concept, but when people are in church, some of them do engage critical thinking, and so whenever they are eventually spiritually groomed, they wonder, how did this happen to me?

I was actually critically examining this pastor and everything that he said. It doesn't just come through the pastor's speech. Sometimes you can even put into the lyrics of the songs, things that will manipulate people.

Whenever I left the movement that we came out of, I started looking back just simply through the music. What were the lyrics? How did that impact me? And I was just abhorred that they were doing this to my mind.

I was chanting phrases long after leaving that were in these songs that I loved that were just so wrong. And some of them sound really spiritual. One of the ones that's most common, I think, among most of the churches that I, even some of the churches after I've left, there's this idea to, you need to die to your old self.

That's one of the spiritual things that they'll do, and it is actually a grooming tool. Because what they're telling you is that your inner makeup, your... being the creature that God created, you can't trust it.

You need to let that one die and we're gonna transplant what we think you should be inside of your head. That's exactly what it's saying. And at the same time to use other things which you and I, and I think everybody's talked about, let's say touch not God's anointed.

So you can't question the leader that's telling you that the person that's inside of you needs to die and the leader who may or may not be manipulating you is going to help you replace this person that you should be with the person who you naturally are.

If you read Dr. Stephen Hassen's combating cult mind control, what this is essentially doing, your authentic self is being replaced by the cult identity and you're suppressing your authentic self and suddenly everybody starts to look at, think in the same way.

We, it's kind of funny and sad at the same time. I was traveling with some people who were in, we were in the Brannemite group, well there's another destructive cult that's here in the area that was a branch off of it, but there are two distinct separate groups and the women could tell by the lacing, the different tool, the different styles of the Pentecostal dress, they could actually see which ones were which and me as a man, I'm looking at this thing, how do you know they're just dresses how do you know this and they say, oh you can tell the colors they choose, the lacing,

the styles, that's the one group, that's just the other group and it's because of this, the old person that they were has died and they start to conform and adapt to become part of the group, their, their old self has died and they're replaced with the group identity.

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

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

You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top and as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.

On behalf of William-Brannem Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support. One of the most interesting and profound changes that happened with fairly new denominations is, for example, I'll talk about myself here.

My first reaction was, okay, now that I'm aware that God wants to have a relationship with me and my, you know, key moment where everyone, you know, comes to God and this very profound moment that every believer experience experiences.

Now what happened to me was, okay, now that I know God exists and he's real and he wants a relationship with me, the best thing that I should do is to study the Bible in a really deep way.

Not just reading it, but just studying the word of God because that's the wheel of God for me, right? So what I did was asked in my local church, hey, what's the process here?

Well, you go to academia, the orbitals, which is like, I don't know how to translate that, it's like a servant's academy or something like that, but anyway. So we go through that just a series of like three months or four months of just teachings and on video and stuff and then you get an exam and boom, you're ready to, you know, go and serve God.

And again, I was thinking, well, this is not enough. So I'm going to get deeper into this. And then I went to like a Bible Institute that was part of the church not necessarily part of the church, but they have like this arrangement weird thing that they were doing together.

So pretty much they were working together to provide biblical teachings for everyone, right? So I ended up with a theology diploma, right? Nothing wrong with that. I was, I thought I was doing the right thing.

The problem is that once you understand what you were being, you know, given their doctrine was pretty much their own. So at the end of the day, if you ask for help to study the Bible, to study any kind of biblical material, they will give you what they believe.

And that's a problem because you said it right, you know, you're trying to find, you know, this way of improving your knowledge of God. The problem is that they will feed it to you and it's exactly what they believe and you don't know it.

You know it years after you've been through many, many situations where you're starting questioning them. One of the things that really gave me freedom after I left, I started exploring and reading and watching things that we weren't allowed to watch that would be strongly frowned upon.

For example, I started watching these debates, you can watch... debate between a Christian and an agnostic or a Christian or an atheist. And I was surprised whenever I started learning things from the other side. And I asked myself, why is this?

I'm learning things that I didn't know. And I go look it up and yes, some of the things I disagree with, but there were other things that I had to take a step back and say, that's information that I would have liked to have. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I would have liked to have had it so that I can make my own decision. Part of the problem with spiritual grooming or any grooming is that you're not fully in control of your own decisions. And so as a result, there is a huge problem that exists from people who

are trying to critically think about everything that we're talking about on this podcast. So go and explain to their elders or their pastor that I have some questions about the way that I'm being treated in this church. Can you ask some questions? And usually what they come back with is we have to understand that's the outside world and they are against discipling for Christ. We're just discipling you. That's all we're doing. That sounds biblical.

That sounds reasonable, but the problem is whenever you filter the information, you are giving them what you want them to see and you're molding and shaping what they believe so that you can basically, as they're taking off the old man and putting on the new, you're going to shape and mold what that new man is. Essentially. Whereas true discipling invites questions. You want people to question, I want to show them the faults so that they can compare the faults and the true and decide, Oh, I see this is true. And now I know why. It respects individuality.

You find many of these groups they really don't like an individual person because that's going to be the guy that goes rogue and makes everybody go with them. So they want everybody to conform to the group. And this is an odd one. Whenever I left the group, I started thinking back through all of my friends and comparing them to some of the friends that I had in the new churches that we went to, the odd part of this is the friends that I had who were in the cult seemed really mature.

And the people who weren't were happy for a boisterous happy-go-lucky. They did not seem as mature. When you're in this type of mentality, they want you to mature levels beyond what other people are because they're controlling your inner self. The inner child in me was totally suppressed for 37 years. Then once I left, the inner child just suddenly went free. And oh my gosh, look at all of the look at all of the world. I can it was almost as though I had the body of a 37-year-old with a mind of a 14-year-old, and I had to try to contain this.

So what they're doing essentially through what they're calling, discipling, is they're actually wanting to mold you in the way that they want to mold you, and the things that are inside of you that really want to develop.

God gave you them to develop. They want to suppress those because you might not develop in the way that they want you to. I have something I wanted to share with you. It's an example that I was discussing with a friend a few days ago.

Let's suppose that we're part of a community. And let's suppose that I'm the leader here and you are a new convert that is just coming, starting to come to meetings or services or whatever.

And all of a sudden, I see you and I tell you, hey, John, I think I have this feeling that you might need some, maybe you're going through a lot of things that are overwhelming you.

You're new to Christ and there's so much things that you should be able to have access to. And so much information that could be a little bit overwhelming to you. Let's talk. Let's discuss if you're having any problems or any issues with anything.

And I want to help you. So immediately, what's going to happen is that if you're in position of vulnerability or in fact, you have so much information that you are not able to process that, you're going to start telling you things and maybe your struggles, maybe the things that are being hard for you at the moment.

So you're going to be starting to share with me information that I can use in my advantage and just information that I can use to make you do things. And it can be disguised as, hey, tell me so I can pray about this and discuss this with you now that I have a little bit more background and a little bit more experience with this.

Now, I'm asking for the information. What if, in the other hand, we're part of a community. I see that you are a person that maybe went through something that I'm going through right now.

And I approach you and tell you, hey, John, I'm going through this and that I think you might be able to help me with this situation and I'm facing because, hey, I'm struggling with this.

So the information is coming from me as a voluntary act and giving you some kind of trust but I'm in control of the situation. So it's a different scenario. That's one of the most common grimmings.

scenarios that there is. Somebody's asking you for information. And I was a youth leader for maybe 10 years, 12 years. Just imagine how much information I have about a lot of people. And of course, I'm not going to use it. And thanks God, it's been so long that I forgot a lot of things. So I don't have that information anymore. But again, I find, you know, I'm maybe going to do my errands and I find somebody and say, Hey, how's everything going?

And I immediately remember all the things that we've talked. And that's something that shouldn't happen. And it is a very dangerous scenario for groomer and a person to be groomed. Yeah, one of the things that I remember is there were people who would give up and give their testimonies. And the testimonies to a person who's spiritually grooming, it's like a gold mine. Man, everything that they share their innermost secrets of their heart, they're pouring their souls out to God and the church. And you've got a person who's sitting there thinking, Okay, I can preach a sermon on that. And that person will be manipulated.

I can go to their weakest point because they're opening their heart to me. And that's really the sad thing. They will mine these testimonies and try to find what is the weak spot within that person while everybody else in the crowd in the congregations, listening to it, thinking, how can I help that person? Because their heart is bleeding. You've got a person who's grooming them thinking, Okay, that's the button that I need to push. And I'm going to keep it in my back pocket because one day I'm going to need to push that button. I have watched

it happen. I've actually had a sermon preached at me. So I know exactly how this happened. Me too. And I remember that it was I was the only person teaching about something very specific. And the pastor general pastor was not agreeing with me on that specific thing.

So I got this like this, this sermon treatment. I for one entire Sunday, the sermon was against what I was teaching. So that's a very common as scenario. So that leads me to how just grooming looks in Costa Rica because I'm pretty sure there's going to be people from Costa Rica or people that have friends in Costa Rica that have seen this before. And you tell me because I think it's a universal thing at this point. It's like everyone's facing the same issues at this point. One of the problems that I see here is that church, family, community, identity, social

networking, everything has to be done within the church because they are my brothers. Like there's like this brother in community, like we are in the same way, thinking in the same mentality and everything, so that makes it really, really hard to get out of this groups because everything you do has to do with the church. So your friends are there, your leaders are there, the social networking that you have for, you know, job or professional life, everything's contained in this little bubble. So immediately, if you want to leave, you feel like you've got to be prepared for leaving everything

you know. Maybe your friends are not going to be your friends anymore. And this safety net that you have as a part of a community is going to be gone. You're going to lose that.

Now, there's many, many, many things that are really toxic about that environment, because it forces you to stay, even if you know that there are really bad things going on, because you fear you're going to lose everything you have. And in some way, it is like that.

That exists here too. And to be really clear, it's actually, it is a religious issue. It is a grooming issue, but it is also just simply a sociological issue. Whenever you have people, they want to connect with people, once those people connect, they really don't want to disconnect. I've been on small teams at work and whenever the job was done, when the task was done, and you had to separate to a new team, everybody said, nobody wants to do this. They've been working together. Well, the human mind works like this. Take it a step further. There are small rural communities where that's all you have. There is nobody

that you can really go outside of. I have been to, I've been, I've lived in towns that only had one church. So you can find, you can find this kind of thing that does exist just simply because of the way that humanity has developed. But now, take it a step further, because what you're describing is a step worse than this. There are people who are a level of spiritual groomed to the point where we talked about the conscience severers. Well, they start to look at the outsiders as though they're different once you reach that point.

Once the outsiders become different, they start using language to each other that I still look at it. And I think it's weird that we called everybody brother, you're my brother. And some of these people that were my brother really didn't want them to be my brother.

Some of them weren't that good people. But that's the word that we had to use. And it was, it was saying in an outright way, this is people who are among us, those who aren't my brothers are the people who aren't of us. And that included other Christians. That's really the sad.

part. Once you reach that mentality, you have created an invisible boundary around your group where you may not have physical walls to keep you in, but that wall that you put in your head, that's going to keep you contained in that group. Yeah, and that's part also of the cover-up culture that there's here in Costa Rica because there's this idea that if something goes wrong and somebody does something really awful, we should keep this to ourselves because it's going to damage the testimony of the church and it's going to be a really good, you know,

issue here because now everyone will judge us because of the issue of one person. Of course, if you don't fix it, you should be accountable for the people within your organization. Otherwise, it would be crazy. I mean, everyone can do whatever they want, but that's also a big, big issue in Costa Rica because they're trying to preserve the reputation if that's a word for it, but at the end what they are effectively doing is developing a cover-up culture where nobody knows what's going on inside and, of course, the financial thing. Let me ask you, if this is happening also in the States, it's like the in famous faith promises. Let me briefly

describe to you what this is because I have something that I want to share with everyone before our time is up. So the faith promises works like this. You're given a paper or an envelope. You write how much your believing God will give you for the next month. And out of that, you will tithe 10%. So nothing has happened. You don't have the money, but you're committing yourself to give this amount of money because you know and you trust that God will give you that amount.

And trust me, by the end of the month, you will have somebody calling to your phone saying, hey, how did the promises go? And I have an old friend that used to work in a radio station, a radio station. And the word for for that was the column's ministry, columnists basically.

So they were doing the same thing. You just call us, tell us how much money are you believing in God for this next month and you'll tithe the 10% of that. So that's crazy.

and whether you believe in tithing or not, that's up to you. But if you're telling me that you're saying, Hey, God, I need you to give me this amount of money to spend on myself. And out of that, I will take 10% and I'll give to church. What ends up happening is that there's a lot of people that will go to church and give them money without receiving any. I knew people who did that. They gave so much to the church that they could not give food for their kids. And what happened is other people had to support the food for their kids. That's really the sad part of this. What you're

describing is a variant on the prosperity gospel seed faith. No, that's also happening here. It goes to rica, by the way. Oh, yeah. Well, there are so many different variations because what they've learned is if they outright copy what others are doing, people will start to question. But let's come up with a new way to give the seed faith. You want to give people to get into the mentality where they're giving more money than they have, thinking that God's going to replace it, and hoping that something does happen so that God does replace the money so that they can give it back

to you. That's the sad circle here. At the end of the day is financial grooming. That's what it is. You can say, but you can use any fancy name that you want is just manipulating the people that are under your authority to give you money. So you can spend it on whatever it is that you want.

And there's no accountability on how the money is used. Now, that leads me to the last thing that I would like to share with you. And I prepared a few questions, just share questions, just to determine, in general, if you're being groomed. Because I think this is a helpful resources resource for anyone, really, not for them, not only for themselves, but just to ask those questions, thinking about another person that you maybe are a little suspicious that is being groomed. So first question is, am I free to ask sincere, honest questions on my community of the levers? Can I go to my pastor and say, hey, who's paying for this?

How did you come up with, I don't know, how much money to, for a new PA system or how is this, how are you building this part of the church or whatever it is?

Okay, second question, do I feel closer to God or more dependent on a leader? It's a really good question. Are my personal vandaries respected in terms of time, for example, how much time I am spending on the church?

is how much time I am spending with my family, for example. Can I say no without punishment or feeling that I should say yes? A very common thing. You have to really pay attention to that.

Is there a financial transparency on the church? Or if I ask my label that's rebellious or I shouldn't have access to that information because we know better and we know what we're doing. Are people allowed to leave peacefully or have you detected if anyone who leaves for whatever reason it is is labeled as rebellious?

That's a very common scenario too. Are private conversations used to control or shame people? Even from the pulpit without saying any names, just preaching something that is so specific that you know it is for you.

Has the group weakened my family or outside support? It is really important to know if you have a close network of people that is willing to help you. If church is taking that out of your life, pay attention to it.

And last question, do I believe I can relate directly to God without this leader or organization? Because truth here is that the only thing that you need is God and His Word. That's it.

Those are good and there are just some inward things that I think every person who's being spiritually groomed they feel. They may not know how to put it into words but the biggest one for me is can you feel special or chosen and trapped at the same time?

Those two things cannot be but yet they are in some of these ministries. And I think you alluded to this a little bit but I was so shocked whenever I left and I began to realize they knew everything about me but I know very little about them.

That's the big surprise. They control the information which goes back to Dr. Stephen Hesson's bite model, the behavioral control, information control, thought manipulation, emotion control. And we've talked about it a little bit but I never really thought about it until after I left.

The people who are outside your outside relationships, outside of the group, those are seen as spiritual threats. Because everything's in this world of angels and demons, spiritual warfare. Whenever you see those things happening to you, you're being spiritually groomed and the sad truth of it is you're giving away your own identity and replacing it with what they want you to have.

And I want you to have as your identity. I totally agree with you and I hope this... as a subject, because I think we're going to be continuing talking about things related to this, but it is really important for everyone to know what it is and how you can detect it. Because that is giving the spiritually groomed people, you know, the victims a chance to get out of that situation. That is a really, really bad thing. And it's more, sadly, more common than what we think. It is. Thank you so much for doing this. I was a little

curious if you would have many of the same things happening in Costa Rica. And the truth of the matter is I've been studying these cults and how they've developed over time. And it's like somebody took a cookie cutter stamp and went stamp this cult and they're just growing and evolving, but it's the same structure, the same makeup and identity. But anyway, thank you so much for doing this. Welcome, John. And I hope this helps everyone who watch it. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at William-Brandom.org.

From more about the dark side of the new Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR. Available in Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.