Converging Apostasy: Will The NAR Go That Far? - Episode 174 Branham Research - video Dailymotion

William Branham Historical Research

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/branham   Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts: https://william-branham.org/podcast   John and Steve examine the complex historical and theological underpinnings of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and its ties to earlier religious movements, particularly Christian Identity and the Latter Rain. The hosts discuss the emerging doctrinal themes of the NAR, such as dominion theology and end-time prophecies, questioning their alignment with traditional Christian beliefs. They highlight disturbing elements within the NAR, such as the militarization of theology and the conflation of Christian and non-Christian spiritual ideas, warning that these trends may lead to a false kingdom with a false Christ. The conversation reflects on how the NAR borrows from both New Age and Gnostic teachings, with figures like Jane Leade and Alice Bailey being cited for their influence on modern religious movements.  As the hosts explore these connections, they focus on the alarming parallels between the NAR and occult beliefs. They discuss figures like Aleister Crowley and his influence on religious thinking, and how some NAR leaders are adopting practices and ideologies that align with esoteric and Luciferian thought. The episode also reflects on how deceptive teachings can slowly erode the line between good and evil, leading believers into dangerous territory. By tracing the theological roots and contemporary manifestations of these movements, the hosts provide a critical analysis that seeks to expose their underlying dangers, particularly for Christians who may unknowingly be led astray by these teachings.  00:00 Introduction   02:00 Discussing Apostasy and the New Apostolic Reformation   04:45 Connections between Christian Identity and the NAR   07:30 Military Leaders and Theological Influence in Religious Movements   09:45 Theological Comparisons Between NAR and New Age Beliefs   12:00 Year of Jubilee Theology and Its Implications   15:00 The Role of Jane Leade and Esoteric Teachings in Modern Movements   19:30 Influence of Gnostic Beliefs on Latter Rain and NAR   23:00 The Power of Laying on of Hands in Religious Movements   27:30 Exploring the "Converging Apostasy" and Its Doctrinal Themes   31:00 Universal Salvation and the Reconciliation of Lucifer in Jane Leade's Teachings   34:15 Discussion on Sophia and Lucifer in Religious and Esoteric Thought   38:00 The Influence of UFO Theology and Signs and Wonders   41:00 Ongoing Revelation and the Influence of Esotericists on NAR   44:15 Influence of Satanist and Gnostic Teachings on NAR Ideologies   49:00 The Role of Angels and Spirit Beings in NAR Theology   53:00 Reflecting on the Impact of the Message Cult on Modern NAR Teachings   57:00 Book Announcements and Final Thoughts on Apostasy  The Converging Apostasy: https://a.co/d/5zZiRRW  ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.c

Transcript

00:00:00You

00:00:30Welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast. I'm

00:00:37your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research at

00:00:42william-branham.org. And with me I have Steve Montgomery, the author of The Converging Apostasy

00:00:49and A Quick Outline of Hands-On Eschatology, a Matter of Timing and Agency. And together

00:00:55we're discussing the themes of apostasy in the New Apostolic Reformation and its history.

00:01:01Well, Steve, today is an exciting day for me. I finished my editing on my latest book

00:01:08and I received my proof copy of Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.

00:01:16And I've been, as you know, I've been, had all kinds of irons in the fire. So it wasn't

00:01:20until just early this morning I pulled up the notes for this episode and it relates

00:01:26very closely to the content of this book. So it's going to seem like this entire episode

00:01:33is an advertisement for this book. However, it's more actually of an advertisement for

00:01:38your book, which is The Converging Apostasy. So this is where the converging apostasies

00:01:45converge in our books.

00:01:48Yeah, how about that? And congratulations on the book. I know a lot of people will be

00:01:52looking forward to reading that. I will also be looking forward to it. And as always, I

00:01:57think it will spark new discussions, hopefully wake up some folks, open their eyes.

00:02:04It certainly will. As I mentioned right before this episode, it almost reads as though it

00:02:10is a direct response to International House of Prayer. But I started this book long before

00:02:17I even really made all of the connections between IHOP and William Branham, Latter

00:02:23Rain. I was aware of some of it, but nowhere near the depth of information that ties the

00:02:30two together. So as I was proofreading it, my wife and I were starting to see the name

00:02:36pop up everywhere. But definitely Christian identity swayed the movements of everything

00:02:43that has made up the NAR, which you and I have previously discussed. And you gave me

00:02:50the title for this episode right before we started the podcast. And the book, I wish

00:02:55I'd have ended it on that sentence, but will the NAR go this far? It's insane when you

00:03:02think about all of the doctrinal themes that have emerged into the NAR. Because everything

00:03:08that the Bible says that is going to play out in the end of days as it relates to Satan

00:03:15and his demons, we see the NAR is embracing it as though it's a holy thing. So you have

00:03:22to really ask the question, well, which team are they batting for?

00:03:26Yeah, that's right. And I've seen podcasts at other locations where this topic is being

00:03:33brought up quite a bit. And to throw in one of the NAR names, one of the younger generation

00:03:41guys, Lance Walnall, if that's pronouncing him right, seems to really, really be going

00:03:49this way. I saw a podcast recently that I already knew about Michael Flynn having been

00:03:56connections with the NAR. But actually, there's two other generals or retired generals that

00:04:05are directly associated with, I believe, Rick Joyner's spot. I'm not going to say stuff

00:04:12that's incorrect, but I saw something very, very interesting about that. Because when

00:04:18you have the ideas that the NAR has about the end times and the ideas of dominion and

00:04:26eventual purge, you really wouldn't want military leaders to be involved in that kind of stuff.

00:04:33So anyway, yeah, and that is funny, talking about how far things would go and what the

00:04:38Bible has to say, what Jesus said, what his apostles had to say. Every morning I'll get

00:04:44up and other things will come up to be done. But one of the first things I do is I get

00:04:50my Bible and I read at least a chapter. And I pretty much go through the New Testament,

00:04:56start over. I'll read other things, but I'll just keep circulating on that. And the reading

00:05:02I had this morning, ironically, was 2 Corinthians 11. And you know how there's things that it

00:05:12wasn't in the original writing, but a lot of translations of the Bible will put a little

00:05:19caption there for you. And this one says, Paul and the false apostles. So I said, yeah,

00:05:26you know, that's pretty apropos. But John, I think I have to preface some of the information

00:05:34I have here today with this comment. I can say this will probably be the most controversial

00:05:40and speculative podcast that I've ever done with you. It will outline the possibility

00:05:48that the NAR is actually leading to a false kingdom with a false Christ. And so I asked

00:05:58a question like, so I say, could this convergence with New Age goals of reviving the pre-Christian

00:06:07mystery of religions and establishing a world religion under a non-Christian leader referred

00:06:13to as the Christ? Of course, we see that in Alice Bailey and other New Age teachings

00:06:17quite a bit. And similar to the NAR and the latter reign, they put a high premium on making

00:06:27it happen through human efforts. Matter of fact, you can see that very clearly in Alice

00:06:32Bailey's writings. It's not like it's going to happen because we pray hard. It's going

00:06:37to be the work of those who are looking to establish the kingdom here on earth.

00:06:43So I guess you'll get a grin out of this one, having been so associated with William

00:06:48Branham. But the question comes up is, how seriously should we take the New Age author

00:06:54Alice Bailey when she says that the spiritual hierarchy and the reappearance of the Christ

00:07:01will be externalized in 2025? Well, I guess that could be a rabbit hole to go down. But

00:07:08anyway, John, what do you think about stuff like that?

00:07:11You know, I don't go much into the conspiracy theories, but you look at, what is it, Project

00:07:172025? There's all kinds of different weird things that are happening in the world. And

00:07:25you know, even though I don't go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, I do entertain

00:07:30history and trying to look at instances where history repeats itself. And you mentioned

00:07:37it's odd that they're having military figures come in and teach the theology. Well, you

00:07:44go back to the birth of Christian identity. They were bringing in military figures, and

00:07:50they were introducing the Christian identity – actually, it was British Israelism in

00:07:57its inception – but introducing it into the religious world through military leaders.

00:08:02And they had key military figures involved. And in fact, C.A.L. Taughton was in the military,

00:08:09and he was one of the authors of the book called Strategos for Military Strategy. So

00:08:17you see the history repeating itself, and you see the types of things that the religious

00:08:23leaders will do. And I also, you know, I've looked at the Project 2025 – I think that's

00:08:30what it's called – but I've looked at some of the research, but not from the viewpoint

00:08:37of a conspiracy theorist. Instead, I look, well, what are their links between the religious

00:08:42leaders and Christian identity? And then once you find those links, suddenly you're like,

00:08:47oh my gosh, this might come to a reality.

00:08:51Yeah, and that's funny you mention folks that had the military background. I thought

00:08:57– you know, you can probably read too much into this – but I thought it was interesting

00:09:01that one of the central prophets of the latter reign, who was deeply influenced by Jane Leed,

00:09:11a 17th century mystic, Bill Britton, was a Second World War paratrooper, and so more

00:09:20power to him for serving his country. But it could have informed some of his ideas about

00:09:26the Judgment Day, and I don't know, it just strikes me as unusual in a way that you'd

00:09:33have those two currents together.

00:09:36So I ask this question, I say, what is the converging apostasy, and how is it predicted

00:09:41in Scripture? Well, we can pretty much say what it isn't, and this will probably sound

00:09:46similar to NARF. It's not a billion-person harvest of souls, rather than what the Bible

00:09:54says, falling away. It's not the lying signs and wonders, which anybody who's looked into

00:10:02Bethel Church and Bill Johnson would get a big dose of that. Like the biblical passage

00:10:09I was reading this morning, the chapter in 2 Corinthians, it's not these false apostles

00:10:16and prophets, which pretty much means all of those who say that they have been restored

00:10:21to the church today, as in C. Peter Wagner, just list any of the NARF prophets, and you've

00:10:27got that. Also, you've got that from the 1948 Lateran movement. It's also not this false

00:10:36kingdom set up and established through human hands, through human agency, who say that

00:10:44they will be ruling for Christ before his personal return. It's also not a control of

00:10:51the means of buying and selling. We hear about that in the book of Revelation. And for Peter

00:10:58Wagner and for Jane Lede, interestingly, Lede and C. Peter Wagner do talk about this year

00:11:04of jubilee in different languages from each other. And then six, it definitely is not

00:11:12a dictator-like false Christ. But, as I've mentioned in my books, and I think probably

00:11:19to you, John, what happens with that is when you align the end-time order of events, such

00:11:27as the saints being glorified, dominion is taken, ruling and reigning with Christ, and

00:11:34the judgment day, carrying out the written judgments of God as Bill Hammond and others

00:11:39say, then what actually happens is that both the New Age side, or whatever it's being called

00:11:47now, just esoteric thinking, and the Lateran, Gnar-ish sort of stuff, they both end up receiving

00:11:56whomever comes first. So, is the Gnar on the same path of apostasy that Jane Lede and others

00:12:05like Alice Badely have set before us?

00:12:09You know, when you mention the year of jubilee, that's loaded language for me out of the Branham

00:12:14and the Lateran cult that he spearheaded. Starting in, I think it was 1954, he started

00:12:20preaching year of jubilee theology. And considering that he had already embraced the Manifested

00:12:27Sons of God theology, now it becomes a militantly forced year of jubilee. And he was preaching

00:12:34that until 1964, I believe. And, in fact, I've got the quote up. In 1964, he's talking

00:12:42about the year of jubilee means that there will be a gathering together of the people.

00:12:47And he tied that to all different Bible passages. So, what the Lateran created, the Gnar, further

00:12:57used to adopt to their end of days revival scenarios. And they were just literally just

00:13:02copying and plagiarizing this thing from its inception. But the interesting part for

00:13:09me is whenever I see how they have taken the worst parts of what Branham taught and then

00:13:16chose the very worst parts as their core theology, now it becomes an even more militarized version

00:13:23within the Gnar than even what William Branham taught. Although Branham was tied to all of

00:13:29these different, you know, very sinister groups that we've mentioned, he never outright

00:13:34said some of the things that they said in the Gnar today.

00:13:37Dr. Darrell Bock Yeah, that's really amazing. And, again,

00:13:41I've been seeing some podcasts being produced by some other folks that really reflect what

00:13:49you're talking about there, John. So, a question comes up to me is, what does pave the way

00:13:56towards a false kingdom with a false Christ? Since we're talking about, or I'm saying convergence

00:14:02between two sides of the coin here. Well, the path starts as far as I can see with sort

00:14:10of like a multifaceted goddess, who I've mentioned is Sophia in the esoteric world. But it ends

00:14:19up with a whitewashed reframing of the devil as the so-called illuminating savior, called

00:14:26Lucifer, the being of light. So, one of the themes that helps to pave this way is the

00:14:34theme of the multifaceted goddess. That's what I call this idea in my books, is that

00:14:42she functions sort of like a midwife to the devil reborn. Another thing is ongoing revelation,

00:14:50because that definitely produces the mindset and the way of gathering new information outside

00:15:00of Christianity. And so, you can see this clearly from Jane Leed, from all the prophets

00:15:06of the latter reign, especially those that are directly influenced by Jane Leed. You

00:15:11see it with the NAR, obviously, and then esoteric folks like Alice Bailey. There's constantly

00:15:17this new thing, and you know all about that John. Where do you get new things? Well, you

00:15:21don't necessarily get them from the Bible. You get them from this other group that's

00:15:25already found those new things. Then, the third thing I think of is these

00:15:30two streams of convergence of apostasy have the same sources, and apparently point to

00:15:37the way of the same restoration of their version of whatever they're going to call the mystery

00:15:42religion, or maybe just trying to make it more baptizing Christian-like, to say the

00:15:47kingdom of God. But the more direct thing about the mystery religions, you definitely

00:15:54see that through the esotericist Helena Blavatsky and one of her disciples previously mentioned

00:16:04Alice Bailey. But John, you're probably aware that the Wesley Swift had a lot to say about

00:16:10Plato and the mystery religions as being ways that the truths about the race were conveyed

00:16:18and protected. For if Lucifer is presented in the guise of this goddess-like Sophia and

00:16:28not as the malignant Satan or devil of Hollywood, then you get this other thing that's kind

00:16:35of promoting, essentially going down devolution, hopefully not upon, but just sliding down

00:16:44the hill into things that are not going to work out well for Christians and for others.

00:16:50But five, oddly enough, something that really allows this stuff to flow is, it sounds like

00:16:58no big deal when you think about it, but as you see the words fleshed out in the teachings

00:17:03in the New Age, teachings from Jane Leed and some of her disciples, that is the reconciliation

00:17:12of all opposites. You say, oh, okay, that could be man and woman, sure. But whoops,

00:17:19that could mean good and evil. And literally in the teachings of a lot of these folks,

00:17:23it means the reconciliation of Christ and Lucifer. Well, if we think about scripture,

00:17:33not a direct quote, but how can there be a connection between good and evil? It just

00:17:40doesn't happen. It makes what could have been good evil and probably more evil because it's

00:17:46posing as something Christian. So I found something interesting about this

00:17:51in a piece done. This is by Bruce McLennan. It's called Dante and the Félix d'Amour.

00:17:59I have no French, so hopefully I said that close. And he says that the eternal womanhood,

00:18:10this spiritual being, a.k.a. Sophia, will reconcile all these opposites. Hmm, interesting.

00:18:17So this reconciliation of all opposites is spoken of directly by Leed by two of her disciples

00:18:25in the Lateran movement, Larry and Betty Podges, and they're at Shofar Ministries. It's also

00:18:35spoken of by Alice Bailey. This is a real zinger. It's also spoken of by Charles Manson.

00:18:42Not that he was a great theologian, but he made comments about joining Christ and the

00:18:48devil and that he exemplified this better than his disciples. But think of this too.

00:18:54So they were apparently on the right path for him.

00:18:58Then a very strange group out of England during the, you know, you could say the hippie years

00:19:04or the late 60s. That was the Processed Church of the Final Judgment. It was led by Robert

00:19:11de Grimstone and his wife, Mary Ann McLean. So they literally talked about the devil and

00:19:19Christ joining together, and this would be the end times, and this would bring about

00:19:25the judgment. And then, of course, you have it straight up from Alistair Crowley's Gnostic

00:19:32Church, the reconciliation of differences. So, you know, folks, when they think, ooh,

00:19:38you know, Alistair Crowley's got horns coming out of his head, and he's got a red cape and

00:19:44a pitchfork, maybe in some things, because he'd like to dress up oddly, if you ever see

00:19:50pictures of him, John. But he's talking about reconciliation. Oh, you know, somebody who's

00:19:58not in the church, even some folks who are in the church, if they didn't hear the name

00:20:04Alistair Crowley, they would say, yeah, Christ is going to reconcile all things. And so it's

00:20:12just the way it's spoken and the ends to which it points to that makes it bad.

00:20:18Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Alistair Crowley again. I get so many questions about all of

00:20:24these different movements, from Branhamism to the NAR and all of the movements in between.

00:20:31Once you tie Branham to people like Alistair Crowley or the NAR to Luciferian people, the

00:20:39instant question that comes in the mind of somebody who escaped this is that there's

00:20:43this secret cult where they're all wearing black robes and they're all practicing Luciferian

00:20:48seances, or I don't know what they do in these things. But there's this notion that there's

00:20:54a conspiracy that these people are Luciferians who are disguised as Christian ministers and

00:21:01they've created this movement. But it really isn't that black and white. You've got people

00:21:08who – the latter rain movement, you didn't have to have good solid theology. All you

00:21:14had to have was somebody who you could impress, a spiritual prophet or apostle, who was impressed

00:21:21with you enough to lay his hands on you and prophesy, and then boom, you've got a ministry.

00:21:25Well, some of these people who made it into the ministry, they came out of things like

00:21:30this. So they had the ideas of very pagan ideas, but suddenly they married their brand

00:21:38new Christian theology with their pagan backgrounds, and then suddenly they're a minister. And

00:21:44in their mind, their only frame of reference really are these ideas that we're talking

00:21:49about. So it starts to enter their ministry. Then you combine that with people like Jane

00:21:55Leed, who clearly had influences from Gnosticism, et cetera. And then those people, when they

00:22:02make that connection and they see this as a godly move, this Jane Leed and all of its

00:22:07splinter groups, suddenly they're tying their ideas that they gathered from Aleister Crowley

00:22:13and whoever else, they're tying that to the Gnostic themes from Jane Leed. And it creates

00:22:19what you've called the converging apostasy. But for these ministers, they see it as this

00:22:25new divine revelation. And for an entire audience that is trained to look for something

00:22:30new, that was one of the constant themes. You're always looking for something new, never

00:22:36just back to the Bible. Well, they could come up with these things that they heard from

00:22:42their past, such as Aleister Crowley, and then give it a Christian spin, and it's brand

00:22:47new. And suddenly everybody likes it. They're suddenly popular because they've quoted Aleister

00:22:52Crowley. And when you take a step back and you just think about that in and of itself,

00:22:58it's just mind-boggling that so many people adopted this and called it Christianity.

00:23:02Yeah, when you're talking about some of those things, I was writing down a couple of items

00:23:08here. One is that John Robert Stevens, who was considered a latter-rain prophet, he broke

00:23:16off and had his own cult, which we've talked about before. The Church of the Living Word

00:23:22and also The Walk, went by that name. But he actually had a very well-stocked esoteric

00:23:31library. And he said, you see, what happens is the devil counterfeits all this good stuff

00:23:37we get from the esoteric world. Well, lo and behold, he was well-versed in Aleister Crowley

00:23:42and Emmanuel Swedenborg was one of the other folks he really was interested in.

00:23:51So, oh, and you mentioned the laying on of hands, and then just presto, a very simple

00:23:59way that you become a prophet and you're part of this great move. I think it's very interesting,

00:24:07not only this easy into being a great prophet because simply somebody laid hands on you,

00:24:13but I think you may have seen this before, John, where it's like Dr. Bill Hammond. I don't really

00:24:24know where they're getting their doctorate studies, but I think I've heard of doctoral

00:24:32mills. Matter of fact, when I was a fifth grade teacher, I had this kind of spoof to make my

00:24:37kids think, wow, is Mr. Montgomery being serious or is this a joke? I had this very original,

00:24:43authentic looking document that said I had a degree in redneck studies. And so, I put that

00:24:50up on the wall. Sometimes parents would go, really? Because down here in Texas, you know,

00:24:57that rang a certain way. But yeah, it's like, let's have a doctorate mill where they can pick

00:25:03up all these great commendations. So, something I've heard others talk about quite a bit,

00:25:09but it kind of fits in what we're talking, is when you talk about some kind of horrible

00:25:18converging apostasy where it leads to a false Christ, well, the question comes up, yeah,

00:25:25but how could the whole world, including Christians, knowingly replace their salvation

00:25:31worship of God and then replace that and go to the devil? The easy answer is this process would

00:25:40come incrementally, step by step. So, here's some of the steps I think I've identified.

00:25:46First, if the devil or Satan can be dressed in the bright, shining, beautiful clothing of Lucifer,

00:25:53then it is a step made towards his rebirth, which I call the devil reborn.

00:25:59And next, if Lucifer becomes the fallen Lucifer-like Sophia, which is very pervasive in

00:26:07the esoteric world due to the influence of teachings of the 2nd century Gnostic

00:26:13Valentinus. That's another one. Next, if Christians would, they would need to be shown

00:26:20the balancing effect of introducing a feminine aspect to the triune godhead, because this is more

00:26:29democratically just and fair. Not that we need that in good scripture interpretation,

00:26:35but this is one angle that I've seen happen. Next, if she is introduced as either a reframed

00:26:44or revitalized Mary of the Catholic Church, or as the neo-Gnostic presentation of Sophia goes,

00:26:52then she can be seen as a logical result of following ongoing revelations. And

00:27:00without giving that whole talk, yeah, it's not, this is not speculation on my part. I already

00:27:06have instances of that documented in my book. So, next, if worship of Satan, which sounds so

00:27:14disgusting and far removed from Christians as it should be, but if worship of him becomes

00:27:22worship of Satan becomes worship of Sophia, then the only thing left is to remove any human

00:27:33impediments of the kingdom, meaning folks that don't go along with that and speak out against

00:27:41that and do their best to remain faithful to what Christ told us to hold on to as the gospel

00:27:49once delivered. Now, what about that removal of folks? Well, for the NAR and for their descendants,

00:27:57this could be done as carrying out the written judgments of God, as Bill Hammond and others in

00:28:02NAR say, and as Bill Britton and those folks said back in the latter length.

00:28:08For Alice Bailey's new, quote, world order, it would simply be the cleansing act of a sacred

00:28:15purge. So, in other words, they have both, both of them have the same kind of deal and the same

00:28:21in-time order of events. So, if both of them have this order of events that is aligned,

00:28:32then a sacred purge will prepare the world for the same false kingdom and a false Christ.

00:28:40Why do I say this? It's because their in-time order of events place both of them at the same

00:28:46point in time doing the same things for the same reasons.

00:28:51Darrell Bock You know, in the Branham cults,

00:28:54it wasn't that uncommon to hear a sermon from a minister where he said,

00:28:59God just sometimes likes a good killing. And whenever we left that, you know, looking back,

00:29:07that's clearly wrong, but looking back, we had so many people that I considered them to be good,

00:29:14humble, solid people who really wanted to follow Jesus Christ, but were just in a wrong movement.

00:29:21They were manipulated and indoctrinated. And they would have never, at least I hope,

00:29:27many of the people that I knew would have never taken that out to its extreme as was being

00:29:33proclaimed by the minister. But what really shocked me is whenever I started looking at the

00:29:38NAR that was influenced by this latter rain movement, the ministers are saying many of the

00:29:43same things. In fact, in the book, I've got a few quotes of them, but they're talking about

00:29:48how Jesus likes bloodshed. I think Mike Bickle is the one that I quoted the most. He's saying

00:29:54some very, very, very awful things, but they don't come out and say Jesus likes a good killing

00:30:03because that's, you know, everybody would stand up and leave his auditorium if he did.

00:30:07But he twisted in such a way where he's saying the same exact thing, but with much tamer words.

00:30:14And the problem for me is the way that these men have manipulated the way that the Bible is read

00:30:23in such that they can take a phrase from this book and a phrase from this book and a passage

00:30:28from this other book, marry them all together and make a new story, which is in effect a new Bible.

00:30:34But many of the times they're taking quotes from the Old Testament. And if you look at

00:30:41all of the wars that are described in the Old Testament, and many of them are picking some of

00:30:47those passages as well, well, they can very easily militarize an entire body of people.

00:30:54And after they have already been manipulated to believe God likes a good killing,

00:30:58well, now if they take those passages from war of the Old Testament and, you know,

00:31:05turn an entire group of people into extremists, there is literally no telling how far they will go

00:31:12in their efforts to conquer the kingdom.

00:31:14Dr. Gregory Poland Yeah, John, that's very pertinent what

00:31:16you're saying. And the two names that came to my mind instantly, one was George Houghton,

00:31:22the so-called father and chief apostle of the latter reign at its inception,

00:31:28and Bill Britton. Both of them said pretty much verbatim what you're just talking about.

00:31:34So, this next thing I have here, I don't think I've talked about it on any of our podcasts, but

00:31:43I just put, it goes this far, question mark, and amazingly, the same Jane Lee that has influenced

00:31:49some in the latter reign, and in ours, sometimes secondarily, but still influencing, she set

00:31:56precedence for what she called the ultimate reconciliation of Lucifer, his fallen angels,

00:32:03and all what she calls apostatized souls. She said that the saints above are waiting for a

00:32:11universal restoration to fallen angels and spirits. That's a direct quote from Jane Lee.

00:32:17She called this also a jubilee. And according to her, this will save all. It will include all who

00:32:26have departed from this body. Now, what I put in my book is I say, she most definitely has this sort

00:32:34of thought, which is universal salvation, including spirits. She has this out of one side of her mouth,

00:32:41and the other side of her mouth, she's talking judgment. And so, yeah, I usually think of that

00:32:48as a sacred purge with a caveat, because it's, well, sure, you know, we're going to carry out

00:32:53the judgment, but everybody's going to eventually be saved, even if we have to get rid of them.

00:32:59Maybe they'll have another chance from, you know, maybe they'll descend from the heavilies

00:33:05and come into some bodies that are waiting to be made perfect. And yes,

00:33:10that sounds quite odd, but you get that kind of stuff too. From Manifest Sons of God,

00:33:15teachers like Raul Cronquist, you hear that, and definitely from Jane Lee. So, she implies that

00:33:22those who are to descend will not be the angels of God. They would be, quote, the children of Sophia.

00:33:29And that they are called, she calls them spirits of light. Well, that sounds pretty close to

00:33:34something we hear in the scripture. And she identifies them as folks in the great cloud

00:33:39of witnesses. John, we've talked about that before, and I know Branham had quite a bit to say

00:33:44about that. So, moving straight into the esoteric world, I'm definitely going to not do a good job

00:33:53at this. It's French. L'Assomption de la Femme. Somebody's probably laughing at this moment.

00:34:03But this was a work of the Satanist Eliphas Levy, who greatly influenced Helena Blavatsky,

00:34:12previously mentioned. In this work, he says that there will be a revamping of Mary as Sophia,

00:34:19and he said that this would bring about the redemption of humankind, and it would also

00:34:25redeem and eventually rehabilitate Lucifer. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal

00:34:33movement started, or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through

00:34:38the latter reign, Charismatic and other fringe movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?

00:34:44You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,

00:34:49William-Branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of

00:34:55John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John MacKinnon, and others,

00:35:01with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can also find

00:35:07resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you

00:35:12want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at

00:35:18the top. And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that

00:35:23you're listening to or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to

00:35:28thank you for your support. You know, that's incredible whenever you think that a religion,

00:35:35that everyone who escapes it wonders if it is Luciferian,

00:35:38is based on a religion that thinks they're going to restore Lucifer.

00:35:43Pete Yeah, no kidding, John. It's just,

00:35:46it's beyond ironic, and it's purely evil, of course. So, Valentinus, his version of Sophia,

00:35:55which actually is the version that got passed on to the esoteric world and to Gingley,

00:36:01his version of her and her prideful fall is very consistent with the biblical notion

00:36:08of the prideful fall of Lucifer and his angels. So, hmm, are we really talking about Sophia,

00:36:14or is this supposed to be Lucifer? Okay, here's another work that gets into that angle. It's

00:36:20called the Cosmic Shekinah, so we can figure it's probably coming from a New Age perspective.

00:36:26But Shekinah is also significant through Wesley Swift and other Latter-day Saint teachers.

00:36:33They say that they use Gnostic text to show that this Lucifer-like wife of God

00:36:42becomes the Shekinah as well as the Gnostic Sophia. So, I have these, you know, another word

00:36:49kind of with a lot of implications in the Bible is word legion. So, you have these legions,

00:36:56personalities, or different masks to, I'm this, no, I'm actually this, no, I'm actually this.

00:37:02So, I ask the question, so what to all this? Well, if the Shekinah is the great cloud of witnesses

00:37:11and a collective Sophia, which will be manifested as the sons of God,

00:37:18and if bodily union with them causes, quote, perfection, and if lead Sophia and her so-called

00:37:26spirits of light are a collective Lucifer with his fallen angels, then the union of humanity

00:37:34with Sophia and her children is the thing that brings about perfection. I've also seen

00:37:42in some recent podcasts, and actually, John, a fellow who was looking at one of our podcasts,

00:37:49and you pointed me to him through his phone number, he also is talking around this idea.

00:37:58So, it's not like, John, you and I are dreaming this up. It's surfacing in several spots

00:38:04and has a historical record. There it is. So, who talks like this? Alice Bailey again,

00:38:14Jane Leed, her latter re-disciple, Royal Cronquist, says it very explicitly,

00:38:21and it's more toned down, but it's still implied in other prophets that have been misled by

00:38:29Miss Leed. Wow, did I say that? They all share this spirit infusion as the means of perfection,

00:38:37and it goes straight back to Valentinus.

00:38:39Exactly. The New Age themes in this movement are mind-boggling. Whenever I left, there were

00:38:46so many things. You talk about the Shekinah glory. I almost can't remember a sermon that

00:38:52did not mention this, and they were talking about your body's made � William Branham

00:38:59called it meters � your body's made of light meters, but he was essentially saying that

00:39:03we're bodies of light. We have a Shekinah glory that flows through us. We have a celestial body

00:39:08that we will one day re-inherit. He's literally saying everything that you would hear if you were

00:39:14to open up a book by one of the New Age authors, but what he did was he pepper-sprinkled all of

00:39:21these different quotes from different passages of prophecies in the Bible that were very vague

00:39:30and symbolic, and he would marry one of his quotes about the Shekinah glory or any other New Age

00:39:36theme, he would marry it with some prophet in the Old Testament. So now whenever I hear those

00:39:41phrases, I immediately, through word association, I associate those to the Bible passages, and

00:39:48they're in no way, shape, or form the same, but I have been programmed this way, and even still

00:39:54today I have to work to unravel that mental programming. But then take this a step further.

00:40:00Many of the people, the leaders who are in the NAR, grew up in these types of circles, so they

00:40:06like me heard many of those phrases, and they too associate Bible text with New Age theology,

00:40:13and so they're bringing this new and wonderful thing that is the New Age, and they themselves,

00:40:19because they were indoctrinated very much like I was, they themselves don't even realize that

00:40:24they're doing this. Pete Yeah, well said, John.

00:40:27Something that I've been thinking also, it's really a question,

00:40:34is just how could these sorts of things come really more into the NAR when folks that have

00:40:43read things from the NAR would say, no, they don't really say that. Well, I'm talking about how things

00:40:48may progress, and that's the speculative part of this. So what would allow these things to progress

00:40:54other than the things I laid out? Ongoing revelation may someday allow the NAR to reach

00:41:01back to its Jane Glead-influenced predecessors in the latter reign,

00:41:06and even further back to the esotericism-influenced Lead. So what are some of the revelations that

00:41:13would be available to them if they went back and reached into the garbage pail of dogma?

00:41:21Well, one is just like the esoteric world's Lucifer, Lead Sophia is, according to her,

00:41:31the androgynous queen of all worlds who is, quote, not limited to male or female,

00:41:38but may assume either according to her good pleasure. Now, if you're thinking about deception,

00:41:44this is not something you hear all the time in Christian circles, obviously,

00:41:49but the idea of Lucifer being the being of a thousand masks, even gender, like, you know,

00:41:57it could be this, it could be that, it could be whatever it takes to deceive people.

00:42:02So that's why I kind of harp on Jane Glead and Valentinus's version of Sophia and the way it

00:42:09seems to be cropping into some of Lead's teachings. Lead also destroys the traditional

00:42:16Christian differentiation between good and evil and God and the devil. How does she do this?

00:42:23She asks, quote, how comes evil and sin to be awakened since from God all created beings

00:42:31have proceeded? Ah, I see where she's headed with this one. The answer that she gives is that,

00:42:38quote, the great and mighty God has both of light and darkness in himself,

00:42:45both good and evil, death and life, all bounded together in unity and harmony.

00:42:53Yeah, I don't think so. But that's where a lot of this stuff goes. And actually,

00:42:58I'm trying to remember it. There's a quote from just a regular, if you call him that,

00:43:05philosopher Hegel, which talks about this too. You know, he's got thesis, thesis,

00:43:11antithesis, all that kind of stuff, how ideas progress. And so he says something to the same

00:43:17effect that you can transform good into evil. And he literally calls it the devil through this sort

00:43:28of morphing and changing. So how is the devil reborn, showing up in laddering prophets that

00:43:36were influenced by Lee? Oddly enough, folks like Bill Britton and others, I mentioned him a lot

00:43:43because I think he's influential. They would say that Lucifer was the shining one and only a useful

00:43:50tool in God's hands to perfect the saints. So, whoa, you know, that's like chiseling away at the

00:43:58sharp points on Lucifer and making him smooth, shiny, appealing in some ways, a servant of God,

00:44:06even is where they put it. But amazingly, the totally influenced by Jane Lee laddering prophet

00:44:13J. Preston Eby says this, he says, Lucifer means the light bringer. And he says that Jesus

00:44:22called himself Lucifer. Now, again, don't think so. Can it get worse? I don't know. It depends

00:44:29on what we're talking about. If we go back to the esoteric world, there's a teaching that I found

00:44:35online. It's called the rise of the, but I have to preface this with, excuse me to our listeners,

00:44:44not really ready for prime time. It says the rise of the horror goddess Sophia and Babylon.

00:44:52And in this text, the Lucifer like Sophia, quote, loved her creation so much, that's in caps,

00:45:01that she plunged to earth to bring about a unity between her children on earth and those in the

00:45:07angelic realm. To bring about this unity, Lee said that spirits of light, again, must be incarnated

00:45:16in what she calls bodily vehicles of chosen vessels. She sounds similar to Rick Joyner,

00:45:23when she says that this would bring about, this would allow heaven to be brought down to earth.

00:45:32Pete And there we have the

00:45:34fullness of the latter rain theology. The moment in which the light comes, I look back,

00:45:41you know, I'm fascinated with things, science fiction, and the fact that we believe that the

00:45:46UFOs were angels of light that were coming down to herald the second coming of Christ was just,

00:45:53it's unbelievable that I fell for it. But, you know, that thought, I continue that thought into

00:46:00what I see in the NAR, because in the latter rain and all of the healing revivals prior to it,

00:46:07while the Bible says that an evil and adulterous age looks after signs and wonders,

00:46:13these ministers literally advertise in the newspapers signs, wonders, miracles,

00:46:18and they were attracting the masses to come see it. And so they were looking for something

00:46:24that was new, that was more exciting than the Bible, and that was what was attracting the

00:46:30people. And then whenever they ran out of, you know, fascinating miracles or people who could

00:46:38fall for such a trick that they were doing, they had to come up with new tricks, because

00:46:43the old tricks weren't working, so they invent new ones. Now you bring in all of the new age

00:46:49stuff that can bring it into the movement, because many of the people are uneducated,

00:46:53they're unaware that this is new age. Well, the question that has become forming in my mind

00:47:00recently is, what do they do when they run out of the new age stuff as new and exciting? Where

00:47:05will they go next? Because they have to attract the itching ears, and they've almost, I mean,

00:47:12from start to finish, they've almost covered the entire new age theology in the NAR. What do you

00:47:17pull up next? Yeah, no kidding. Good question. Again, I'm scrambling as you talk in the same

00:47:25old stuff. I thought of a song that I heard when I was a teenager by The Who, the rock band The Who,

00:47:33and it says, it talks about the new boss, same as the old boss. I don't know if, I can't remember

00:47:39the title of that one, but it was used on one of the CSI shows, that theme song. And also something

00:47:48that, John, you'd probably, okay, this is something that makes people discount as, you know, these guys

00:47:56are so wacky, so ridiculous. How could anybody take this seriously? Well, when I think thematically

00:48:04about what you're saying, the good UFOs, and Franklin Hall, and Brandon talking about,

00:48:11oh, there's good UFOs, and there's bad ones too, but let's go for the good ones.

00:48:16I think thematically, and I kind of bring that all together, because there's a great merger

00:48:23in the deep end of the pool, you could say, where it really doesn't matter what you call them,

00:48:29you can say UFOs, angels, spirits of light, whatever. And so I just kind of lumped that

00:48:38together and called it The Great Return, because it goes by many different names.

00:48:43But the idea is essentially the same, higher beings, what a new age, you know,

00:48:48you get the spirit guides, they would fit in this category too.

00:48:52I heard this, where there was some kind of connection between Christian identity,

00:48:58influenced by Swift. And they pretty much said, oh, yeah, they were trying to distinguish themselves

00:49:07from the neo-Nazism of the Nazi Party. And they talked about, okay, you know, let's make this a

00:49:17little bit more appealing. And they said something more like the Great White Brotherhood

00:49:25returning, or Enoch will return. Enoch, yeah, he's in the Bible, so he's going to return and

00:49:33kind of bring the kingdom in. Christ will be there too, but you know, Enoch's very important.

00:49:38So you get all that kind of nonsense. But again, it's sort of wrapped up into

00:49:42a category, which I think of as Angel's question mark. And, you know, go figure,

00:49:48there's like a gazillion different ways that they would express that.

00:49:53And if you're thinking biblically, then again, one of your guests, one of our viewers said

00:49:59something about this. If you're thinking biblically, probably not really UFOs,

00:50:06probably not the Great White Brotherhood, there probably is something else the Bible would refer

00:50:11to if there were any beings that were trying to bring about these ideas. So let that sit in your

00:50:18hat or whatever. So the next question I have here is a couple of questions. What do Satanists

00:50:25actually say about Sophia as the devil reborn, as I put it? How is it similar to any of the

00:50:32ideas and goals of the NAR? Okay. Well, there's a not very pleasant website, but I kind of went

00:50:40there and tried to find out what they had to say. So this is the Satanic Church of Zazel,

00:50:47excuse me, Azazel, there we go, Azazel. They literally say, they're not talking about the

00:50:54devil, they're not talking about all that kind of stuff. Well, they do, but they add in,

00:50:58as one of the other names, they say, Sophia is known in Gnostic text as the serpent of the

00:51:05Garden of Eden, who brought spiritual wisdom to humanity. Okay, so again, this is not the

00:51:12Hollywood version of, you know, you got pentagrams everywhere and people are drinking blood and have

00:51:18long black capes and so on. No, this is a straight up Satanic Church, and they're talking about

00:51:25Sophia, who some people think of as in union with Mother Earth and Gaia and all this kind of stuff,

00:51:32the goddess teachings. Okay, here's another thing that fits this question of mine.

00:51:39Similar to the NARs, Rick Joyner, the Satanist and Theosophist Helena Blavatsky,

00:51:48I can't get that one off my tongue, she said that we must restore paradise to the Earth.

00:51:56So, we must bring heaven down. Rick Joyner makes this very clear. And if you're talking about this

00:52:02great return, what are you really bringing down? If you go back to Jane Leed, what are you bringing

00:52:09down? She literally talks like NAR folks too. She says that the elite, which she gives different

00:52:19names, you know, basically elite Christians, have the power to speed up or slow down the return of

00:52:26the literal Christ, which comes obviously in her mindset after this false Christ and false kingdom.

00:52:35So, that kind of gives me pause to think. So, anyway, in Jane Leed's teachings, there are many

00:52:41references made to an opening of a portal-like womb of Sophia. That's interesting because that

00:52:49seems to sound very much like, again, Aleister Crowley's ideas about creating a channel for the

00:52:56descent of angelic beings. And he calls them all kinds of different stuff, mostly holy guardian

00:53:06angels is one of his phrases for it. And so, again, going back to speculation, a question

00:53:13might be this. Is the NAR on the same road to perdition as these more openly satanic streams

00:53:21of New Age teachings? Darrell Bock

00:53:22You know, out of everything that you've said in this episode, I think the most powerful,

00:53:27for me, is the satanic website. Whenever I first left the Message cult of William Branham

00:53:35and start to understand what is real Christianity, there came the question between the two,

00:53:42you know, where did it come from? Where did the Message come from? Where did all of this weird

00:53:47mystery religion come from? And I started going down paths that led me, as I've mentioned before

00:53:53this, into Gnosticism and trying to understand that. Once you start to study Gnosticism,

00:53:58you understand Sophia, all of this stuff, right? Well, as I followed the trail down to its

00:54:03conclusion, I'd forgotten about it, but I actually came across that same exact website,

00:54:09and the thought suddenly hit me. The original sin in the Garden of Eden, even though

00:54:15Branham and all the Christian identity people tried to twist it into something racist,

00:54:21and it was not, the original sin was simply that they were seeking knowledge, and Satan could come,

00:54:27and it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So the original version of Sophia was coming

00:54:34from the bad side of the story in the Garden of Eden. And that was the first website that I, or

00:54:41the first reference at all, that I found a direct link between Sophia and the Garden of Eden.

00:54:48And that began to raise the question for me, well, if the original sin was the entire premise

00:54:54of the religion that I escaped, then does that mean that that was a religion of Satan? And I just

00:55:00asked the question. I'm not going to try to answer it, but you can clearly tell this was not a

00:55:05movement of God. I'll just say it like that. Pete Yeah, John, that's one of my main themes

00:55:11that I use in my writings. I just call it deification based on the big lie, and of course,

00:55:16the big lie would fit what you're saying in the Garden. And you know, the thing about that

00:55:25Satanic group that I'm talking about, the Church of Azazel, I believe that I saw a very cheesy

00:55:35B movie, and it was taking up the name of Azazel. And it seems to me that also in

00:55:47Kabbalah or some mystical Jewish writings, he's considered one of the more powerful demons or

00:55:56something like that. So yeah, you know, you have the very clear comments in Scripture about

00:56:05being transformed into an angel of light to deceive Christians. It's just astounding, though,

00:56:14that people don't really see what it talks about. It's a very hard Scripture to hear,

00:56:23as Jesus said, you know, it's just too hard for you to hear. And as the apostle said,

00:56:28well, where else can we go? You have the words of life. But the idea, I forgot exactly where

00:56:35this is, John, but it says because of their hardened hearts, and they're seeking after

00:56:42miracles, as you said, God would send them a strong delusion that they might believe the lie.

00:56:50And of course, it's not like God is just being really mean unfairly. But I think that passage

00:56:58is being aimed at, if you will, folks who have already had, quote, the itching ears,

00:57:05and they really don't want to hear the gospel, which, you know, we say is once delivered,

00:57:10and in Scripture it says that. And if anybody brings you another gospel, Paul says

00:57:15some pretty hard words about that. So, yeah, there we go, John. Really appreciate all your good work,

00:57:25and I'm looking forward to the book. Sounds like a good one.

00:57:29Pete Well, thank you, Steve. This thought,

00:57:33the itching ears, and God will send them a strong delusion, that single passage really bothered me

00:57:41whenever I left the cult of William Branham because we were taught a very narcissistic

00:57:45version of God, a version of God that, you know, they always talk about the father-child relationship

00:57:53whenever you're talking about religion and God. But this was a father you wouldn't want in the

00:57:59message, very demanding, very much like the ancient Greece and Roman gods. They were

00:58:06narcissistic gods. And that passage plagued me. How could God send them a strong delusion if He

00:58:12so loved the world? But then after I had escaped and after I had taken some time to deprogram,

00:58:18I realized that I was so indoctrinated and so caught up in the itching ears religion that

00:58:28unless something pushed me down to see the depths of how bad it could be, I myself couldn't

00:58:35have just snapped out of it. And many of the people who have escaped and go through the

00:58:38support groups are the same way. They literally had to go to hell and back before they could escape.

00:58:44And so this passage can be read both ways. It can actually be a blessing to be sent a

00:58:50strong delusion so that you can see how bad that delusion could be and finally break free from it.

00:58:56So I'm no theologian, but that's the way I interpret that passage.

00:59:02I like it, John. I think you're hitting it on the head there.

00:59:06Thank you. Well, as I mentioned earlier, the new book is out. I think this podcast might come out

00:59:11before it is published. I've set it for September 1st. So I think this podcast might come out

00:59:17immediately before that. But September 1st, it will be available and there's all kinds of

00:59:23references with direct quotes. So anything that Steve and I have said as it relates to Christian

00:59:29identity, you'll find in this book. But anything with regard to the themes and the theology,

00:59:35get Steve's book, The Converging Apostasy, because it's much thicker than my book,

00:59:41but it's got a lot, a wealth of information. So if you've enjoyed our show and you want more

00:59:47information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org.

00:59:52For more information about the dark side of the NAR, you can read the book Weaponize Religion,

00:59:58From Christian Identity to the NAR. And for more information about the converging apostasy,

01:00:03read the book, The Converging Apostasy.

Converging Apostasy: Will The NAR Go That Far? - Episode 174 Branham Research

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