Is That Group a CULT? - Revival History - Episode 201 Branham Research Podcast - 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   Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962 Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K  Charles and John examine the cult behavior and signs that one may be in a destructive cult. They discuss the various psychological and organizational manipulations used by cults, particularly their own experiences in the William Branham movement. A significant portion of the episode focuses on the cult's tactics such as behavioral control, thought manipulation, and the use of authoritarian leadership. The hosts reflect on their experiences of leaving the cult and how mind control techniques like positive confession and the demonization of critical thinking were employed to keep members compliant. These techniques often left followers isolated, believing there was no valid reason to leave, and convinced that questioning the cult was equivalent to committing an unforgivable sin.  The discussion expands to the influence of the Latter Rain and New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movements, linking their structures to authoritarianism and destructive tendencies. There is a critical examination of the damage these movements have caused through spiritual abuse and how they warp the gospel to serve the leaders' agendas. Throughout the episode, Collins and Paisley share personal anecdotes and broader examples of how good people in these environments are manipulated into performing harmful actions under the guise of divine authority. They stress the importance of recognizing the signs of destructive cults and the difficulty for members to escape due to the deep psychological control exerted over them.  00:00 Introduction   01:06 The Definition of a Cult and Cult Questions   03:58 Destructive Cult Examples and Personal Experiences   05:51 The BITE Model: Signs of Cult Behavior   08:02 Behavioral Control in the William Branham Movement   10:58 US Versus Them Mentality in Cults   13:45 Spiritual Warfare and Its Impact on Churches   17:00 Authoritarian Leadership Models in Destructive Cults   22:04 Paul Cain’s Influence and Authoritarianism in Church Networks   25:35 Signs of a Cult: Lack of Acceptable Reasons to Leave   28:54 Distortion of the Gospel in Cults   34:30 Positive Confession and Thought Control in Cults   37:12 Mind Control Tactics in Destructive Groups   44:10 The Role of Spiritual Abuse in Thought Manipulation   46:53 Prioritization of Cult Members Over Others During Crises   49:59 Thought Control and the Greatest Battle Ever Fought Sermon   56:03 The Message’s Use of Unbelief as a Sin   1:03:30 Critical Thinking and the Bible's Command to Try All Things  ______________________ – Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham – Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ – Visit the website: https://william-branham.org

Transcript

00:00:00You

00:00:31Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branham historical research

00:00:35podcast. I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham

00:00:40Historical Research at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host,

00:00:45researcher, minister, and friend, Charles Paisley, founder of christiangospelchurch.org

00:00:50and author of Come Out of Her My People. And together we're

00:00:55examining the history and the intersections in history between William

00:00:59Branham and other key figures that either influenced or were influenced by

00:01:03the post-World War II healing revivals. Well, Charles, we have sort of a

00:01:08makeshift setup today. The storms that came through, and I guess they really

00:01:15battered Florida all the way up to South Carolina, have hit here and there is no

00:01:19internet, so I have set up and have an unusual setup. You should

00:01:25actually see all the gadgets I've got going to make this happen, but we are

00:01:30attempting to record during the outages from the storm and hopefully everybody

00:01:35that's listening is safe and did not get much damage. But we were talking,

00:01:41actually we've been talking about this a few weeks now, about the signs that

00:01:46you're in a cult. And for anybody who has looked at the comment feeds, you're

00:01:51probably aware I get emails, I've got text messages, I see the comments.

00:01:57Literally every platform I have, people ask the question, why is it a cult? And

00:02:03the interesting part is because I research so many different organizations,

00:02:09I've got multiple cults asking me why is it a cult. And you know, the funny part of

00:02:16it is, by definition all of them are, because cult itself is not really

00:02:22such a bad word. But whenever I put a individual who has led a group of people

00:02:29in a certain direction on my website and just publish the information, the history

00:02:34as it was recorded, people assume that it is a destructive cult because it hits my

00:02:40website. Which is also kind of funny because if you think about it, the

00:02:45group of people realize that they have been led in a certain direction, so

00:02:50that's why the question arises. But the question specifically should be, is it a

00:02:55destructive cult? And so you and I were talking about it and we thought we

00:03:00would just, you know, use our examples of what we came from, which was clearly a

00:03:06destructive cult, and give some examples that we had in our cult. And everybody

00:03:11who's asking these questions can apply it to their specific cult of people.

00:03:16That's a great introduction, John. Yeah, we certainly have experience with

00:03:21cults, don't we, John? Absolutely. You know, if we live to be old people, we will

00:03:27have spent the majority of our life in a cult. So I think that certainly qualifies

00:03:30us to say what makes a cult and what doesn't. Yeah, you know, some

00:03:37people when they use the word cult, yeah, you know, they kind of use it in

00:03:40that benign sort of way, where it just means a unique group of people with

00:03:46some unique beliefs, right? And, you know, it's just in a generic benign sense. And

00:03:49there's a lot of people, especially in academic senses, that use the word cult

00:03:53in that way. It's really not a bad word in that sense. You know, when I

00:03:58use it myself, I generally try to reserve it for what you call destructive cults,

00:04:03harmful cults, because I think in the popular imagination of people in the

00:04:07world we live in today, that tends to be what people think you mean when you use

00:04:11the word cult. You're, you know, you're thinking of people drinking the

00:04:14Kool-Aid, and people burning down Waco, and things like that. You know, people

00:04:19starving to death in the forest, right? Those are the kind of things that people

00:04:23tend to have in mind when you use the word cult. So I generally reserve the

00:04:27word cult for a group that is actually harmful and destructive when I

00:04:32tend to use it myself. So you're right, John. You know, there are certain signs

00:04:37and red flags that can help someone understand they were in a cult and

00:04:44realize that the thing was harmful and destructive. And maybe we talked about a

00:04:49few of those things today. Steve Hasson has created the Byte Model, which I think

00:04:54is a really great tool, John. I think you've interviewed Steve Hasson in the

00:04:57podcast before, haven't you? I believe he's been on your podcast. And the Byte Model

00:05:02is essentially a tool you can use to grade a group of people or, you know, an

00:05:11organization. And you can determine how far they drift towards being destructive

00:05:16versus healthy or benign, right? So, you know, you could look, you could take a

00:05:21generic cult, which is not necessarily a bad term, you can fit it into that model

00:05:26that he gave. And you can figure out, are they on the harmful side? Are they the

00:05:29very, very harmful extreme? Or are they, you know, on the benign or healthy

00:05:33extreme? And so when I think of cults, and what I think we're going to talk about

00:05:37today is groups that would fit more on the extreme side of his model, you know,

00:05:40the harmful side that are causing bad consequences in people's lives, that are

00:05:46contributing in a negative way to the world and society. And I think that's

00:05:51definitely where we, what I tend to think of is that side of his model when I think

00:05:55of cults.

00:05:56Dr. Darrell Bock Right. And I'm sure that most of the people who are listening

00:06:01whenever they hear the word cult, when I use it commonly, because it's really not

00:06:05a negative thing. And in my head, I've studied so many different groups. But

00:06:09most of the listeners, you're right, when the word cult is used, they think the

00:06:13negative terms. They think Jim Jones and Jonestown, or I can't remember the crazy

00:06:19guy who they thought the comet was taking them to heaven. But all of these

00:06:23different groups, that's what comes to mind when you hear the word cult. And I

00:06:26never will forget, I spent several hours in the car with Stephen Hassan, when I

00:06:31had, I was early out of the message, it wasn't that long that I had escaped. And

00:06:36we were talking about his BITE model. And BITE stands for behavioral control,

00:06:42information control, thought control and manipulation, and emotional control. And

00:06:48he was describing this, and he was giving me examples. And, you know, he's

00:06:52talking about Scientology, and he's talking about the Moonies. And the

00:06:56examples that he gave were so extreme, when I tried to apply it to a Pentecostal

00:07:01style cult, like William Branham's, I was thinking, you know, that really, it

00:07:06doesn't seem to fit. I wonder if, if it really is destructive or not. And it took

00:07:12the better part of the few, it was a few hours. Right in the car, it took the

00:07:17better part of a few hours for me to grasp the depth of what that model

00:07:21represented. Because even at its purest form, the message cult of William

00:07:28Branham and its splinter groups, they all meet this model. But they have

00:07:33divisively trained our minds to believe that it doesn't. For example, the

00:07:40behavioral control. There are many things that we did that they were

00:07:44controlling our behavior, but not in the same way that, say, the Moonies or

00:07:50Scientology did. The women, for example, the long hairs, the long dresses. Well,

00:07:57if you're in the cults, you think, well, they're not forcing that on us. We just

00:08:02do that because we love Jesus. And yes, that may be true, but the whole

00:08:08background for it, the holiness background, is a way in which you train

00:08:14people to behave a certain way. And I'm not, that statement doesn't, you know,

00:08:19if you're wearing long dresses, that doesn't mean that that's wrong, per se.

00:08:23But it is a way in which they frame an us versus them. In fact, I heard several

00:08:30sermons where the minister would say, see, we go out into the stores and you can

00:08:34tell a Christian from a non-Christian by the way they dress. And it was, I'm pretty

00:08:40sure it was that exact statement that when Hassan was describing that, it

00:08:44finally clicked for me. Because the way that they dress or don't dress is not

00:08:50what makes a Christian. But we were trained to believe this, and that's a

00:08:54form of behavioral control. And there are many Bible verses like, God looks at the,

00:09:00God does not look at the outward appearance, for example. That was a

00:09:04manipulation of behavioral control that was actually anti-biblical. God does not

00:09:09care how you dress. I mean, you've got a picture going into a foreign nation, a

00:09:17developing nation, where the natives dress according to the native custom, and

00:09:21you convert them to Christian. Well, it's going to be years before they actually

00:09:25change their dress code. And the way in which they dress doesn't affect the way

00:09:31that they accepted Christ or not accepted Christ.

00:09:34Yeah, when you look at all of the different, kind of the different things

00:09:39we're going to talk about today, and you kind of think them back to that bite

00:09:42model, not any single one of these things necessarily makes a group a destructive

00:09:47cult. But it's the, you see where the dots start aligning, you know, in that

00:09:53model. And as you get more and more dots aligning on the harmful side of the

00:09:59model, that's when you start to say, okay, yeah, this is a harmful group. So we're

00:10:03going to talk about things that definitely help to align. Let's see that a

00:10:08group aligns on a harmful side of the bite model. And you're right, John, an

00:10:11us-versus-them mentality is one of the big things that is important to just, you

00:10:18know, putting you on the harmful side of, the destructive side of being a cult or

00:10:22a group. And that is something they do in order to, yeah, to build walls, to

00:10:28separate people. And you're right, it's not necessarily that any individual

00:10:34thing that they do is bad in and of itself, but the preponderance of it to

00:10:41create this whole system of us-versus-them, to create a difference

00:10:45between us and, you know, the people living on the other side of the street,

00:10:49is to feed into that sense that we're good guys, they're bad guys, they want to

00:10:57destroy you, they want to harm you, they want to drag you to hell, and you have

00:11:02got to, we have right here what's going to save you from those bad people over

00:11:06there. And it's building that paradigm that is one of the pillars of creating a

00:11:11cult. And, you know, and there is legitimate things in the world where we say,

00:11:15yeah, you know, hey, those people over there are, you know, smoking some bad

00:11:18stuff, stay away from them. You know, there's legitimate reasons to say, hey,

00:11:21those are not good people to be around. But when you take that and you

00:11:25weaponize that just across the board into this total us-versus-them sort of a

00:11:32situation, like we had in the cult, honestly, like we had in the message, you

00:11:36get to the point, John, like we had absolutely no relationships. I had zero

00:11:41relationships with a single person outside of the message. Not one. Not

00:11:46even my family that was not. I had no relationships outside of the movement,

00:11:51right? That's where it goes, and it serves to start to build a wall of

00:11:54isolation, right? You look different, you act different, you behave different, so

00:11:59the people on the outside think you're weird and they probably don't really

00:12:02want to be around you anyway, and then you think they are all possessed by the

00:12:05devil or the serpent seed or whatever else, and then you want to stay away from

00:12:09them. So, yes, that us-versus-them mentality is one of the key pillars to

00:12:14building a destructive cult. Absolutely. And one of the difficult parts for me,

00:12:20I get emails from various people asking, is my group a cult, and they ask me to

00:12:26research. You know, I don't know every single church and every single group, and

00:12:31there are thousands of different groups in the United States, but people say, our

00:12:35pastor is doing this, is it a cult, it matches what you're saying. And the

00:12:39really difficult part is, whenever a person escapes a movement like we had,

00:12:44which was clearly a destructive cult, and then they enter into mainstream

00:12:48Christianity, they find that there are specific attributes of the bite model

00:12:55that we're talking about that have invaded the churches. And so they'll go

00:12:59to a mainstream church thinking it's a safe place to be, and then they see

00:13:04these, and it's complicated, because you can't just openly say, well, every

00:13:10church is a destructive cult, which is not true. It would be an inaccurate

00:13:16statement for me to say that. But the way that the Latter Rain Movement

00:13:21influenced Christianity as a whole, there are specific attributes from Latter

00:13:26Rain that have even made its way into the Baptist Church, or various churches

00:13:30that we've experienced are like this. And one of the things that, the heaviest

00:13:38signs of destruction that have invaded the churches is the notion of the

00:13:42spiritual warfare, where everything in the world is out to get you, and

00:13:47everything is demonic. And I was talking, actually two different people I was

00:13:52talking with about, they were just simply going to, like finding a parking

00:13:58space. The demons are fighting me so that I'm not getting a parking space close

00:14:02to the door, and if you magically get it, then thank God, let's bow and pray

00:14:08that God has given this parking space to us. I've been in the car when somebody

00:14:12has done this, Charles. And that level of angels and demons in the world is

00:14:18not, it's fictional. It's not really real. If you want that level of fiction,

00:14:23go watch Harry Potter or some fantasy movie, because it's not real. But the

00:14:29churches have widely adopted things like this, and I'm not saying that every

00:14:34church has even adopted that, but there are elements that came out of this

00:14:38latter rain mess that did go into mainstream. But like you said, it's not

00:14:44just one or two things that make it a destructive cult. You have to look at

00:14:47all of these things that Stephen Hassan's Byte Model pretty well sums it up

00:14:51for me, but you can go Cult Research Institute or various places, and you can

00:14:56find these lists of attributes that make the decision, that are the major

00:15:02decision factor as to whether it's destructive or not. So that's another

00:15:07reason I wanted to do this, because it's so complicated for people to understand.

00:15:10Yeah, you know, when you look at the spiritual warfare, again, that's

00:15:14another thing that serves to build that us-versus-them mentality. You know,

00:15:17obviously you go to Ephesians chapter 5, I think it's chapter 5. Yeah, I mean

00:15:22there's a whole section in there about spiritual warfare. But what these crazy

00:15:27groups do with it does not the least bit match what the text of the Scripture

00:15:31actually says. You know, the spiritual warfare, when you read everything in

00:15:36context, you're fighting with grace. You know, you're fighting with faith.

00:15:42It's actually all about spreading the gospel, right? And Paul, that

00:15:46spiritual warfare is Paul talking about the effort to spread the salvation

00:15:52gospel message, and then people resisting the salvation, you know, trying to insert

00:15:57other things that make people doubt their salvation, right? And when you

00:16:00actually look at that in context, the spiritual warfare is on the side of the

00:16:04people who are doing the spiritual warfare are actually the people who are

00:16:07resisting and standing up against all these people who say, you need all this

00:16:11other stuff besides Jesus to be saved, right? The people who combat and

00:16:15fight someone who says, you need a last-day revival to make it. See, the

00:16:20person fighting against that is the one doing spiritual warfare, right? It's the

00:16:23people who are challenging the essential elements of the gospel that are actually

00:16:29the forces of evil in that set of scriptures in Ephesians chapter 5, right?

00:16:35We can talk so many times so much about all of that stuff, John. I mean, it's

00:16:39huge how these movements, truthfully, the movements just take those passages and

00:16:43they flip them upside down, right? And they turn the people who are saying

00:16:48Jesus is enough to save you into the bad guys, right? And they become the bad guys

00:16:52by piling all these other things and causing people to doubt their salvation,

00:16:56causing people to think faith in Jesus isn't enough to save, right? They flip it

00:17:01all up on its head and they hijack those verses and then they say, we're the

00:17:05spiritual warfare people and you are the lowly Christians, right? When the truth is

00:17:09they are in a cult that has twisted the Bible and totally turned everything

00:17:13upside down. But anyways, again, that just serves all into the us versus them

00:17:17mentality and that's a big aspect of the way that

00:17:22you're really what makes these groups, starts to make them harmful is that us

00:17:27versus them mentality. Now the next thing I think we got to mention is they, these

00:17:31groups that become harmful and destructive, they almost always have an

00:17:36authoritarian leadership model. They have generally a singular or maybe a group, a

00:17:43small circle of a leader at the top that has totally unchecked power. There's no

00:17:49check on his power at all when you analyze the system, when you see how, when

00:17:53you really understand how it works. There's nobody in that group that can

00:17:56hold that leader accountable. There's no mechanism in there that can get this

00:18:01person and stop him from preaching and silence his mouth, right? Like you look at

00:18:07Mike Bickle, right? I'll just use, throw one out there. There is nobody with the

00:18:11power, the ability to make him stop, is there? There's nobody, right? There is

00:18:15nothing you can do. And that is how a lot of these groups go. The man at the

00:18:19top has so much authority, there is no check on him, there is no way to shut

00:18:24them down when they do something bad. That is an authoritarian leadership

00:18:29model, right? They have the ability to just keep plowing ahead no matter what

00:18:34and there is nothing that can stop or arrest or slow them down. And in the

00:18:39movements that we come from, John, that model that created these authoritarian

00:18:44leaders with absolutely no real check on their power, that was actually created

00:18:49during the Latter-Day Movement. You're absolutely right. It was created by the

00:18:52healing revivalists of the Deliverance Movement, William Branham, chief among

00:18:56them. And they created that model that eliminated all the checks on their power

00:19:00because when they started to do radical, inappropriate, misadventurous stuff

00:19:07during the healing revivals that killed people like Carol Ruth Strubler, right?

00:19:11That killed people like Donnie Morton, right? That led to these deaths that

00:19:15caused all kinds of financial abuses. I mean, there was a just a lot of

00:19:20really horrific things that happened during the early days of the

00:19:23Deliverance Movement, the healing revivals. The denominational systems had

00:19:28structures in place to try and hold people accountable, right? And William

00:19:32Branham got sanctioned and these other figures got sanctioned. He allows all of

00:19:36these guys, they get sanctions put on them. And guess what? They didn't like it.

00:19:41They did not like being checked. They didn't like it when these churches, you

00:19:45know, followed a biblical model and started to try and put the brakes on

00:19:49what they were doing. So they broke away and they created the non-denominational

00:19:54world that you see today where there is literally no ability to hold a lot of

00:20:00these people accountable. They have eliminated the structures which make it

00:20:04possible to hold them accountable. And they can just run amok and there's

00:20:08absolutely nothing that can be done about them within these movements.

00:20:11There's no ability to police the movements anymore because they

00:20:15eliminated all the structures and implemented this authoritarian model

00:20:19that exists today. Exactly. You know, people have contacted me, like I said,

00:20:24asking, is this group a cult? They will say things like, our pastor is doing this

00:20:28and we recognize that it looks to be more authoritarian than we want to

00:20:35submit ourselves to. And the real problem is, whether it's a destructive

00:20:40cult or not, if your leader is becoming authoritarian, number one, it's not

00:20:45matching the biblical model for a pastor. The pastor is supposed to be a servant

00:20:51leader, you know, somebody who leads by helping you to become a leader. So if

00:20:56these guys are doing this, number one, it's just an unhealthy church. But it edges

00:21:00very closely towards a destructive cult if they're showing authority in areas

00:21:06that aren't any of their business. I have seen ministers who will start

00:21:12condemning different things, forms of entertainment, for example, that the

00:21:16members of the church are doing because they know specifically that they're

00:21:20doing them. They've had conversations with these people and they want to

00:21:23control what they can and cannot do. And in many cases, you know, that can be a

00:21:30good thing if they're doing something that's dangerous or destructive or

00:21:33sinful. But they edge very closely towards, we want to prevent you from

00:21:37having fun. And they'll say fun is, if you're having fun, you're not serving God.

00:21:42I've heard quotes like this, Charles. Literally, they do not want you to have

00:21:47fun in some of these groups. And it's just a mechanism of control. One of the

00:21:52interesting things, you mentioned Mike Bickle, so I've got to mention Paul Cain.

00:21:56So Paul Cain is more widely responsible for what we see today than I think many

00:22:02people realize. I agree. Cain was out of the Lateran movement. He had some, you

00:22:09know, he had some personal issues that should have prevented him from being in

00:22:14leadership positions anyway. But he was adopted by many different figures. I'm

00:22:20not going to list them all. But the problem is, the figures adopted Cain's

00:22:25leadership model. And then whenever his sexual sins were made public, they said,

00:22:32okay, we're going to distance ourself from him because he had this thing in

00:22:36his life. Well, the problem is, they put more emphasis on that than they did all

00:22:41of the other stuff that he brought into the church, the biggest of which, which,

00:22:45in my opinion, is, you know, the sexual things, I realized that there are

00:22:50victims, and there's all of that, and that's bad. But when you really think

00:22:54about the level of destruction that this man caused, his authoritarian

00:22:59structure for the church is actually worse than that. And he was never

00:23:04denounced for his authoritarian control church model. And the interesting thing

00:23:09is, I'm getting people who are giving testimonies out of the UK, and they're

00:23:13asking me, is this an NAR church, the group that they're in? And you find out

00:23:17that no, it's actually not in the New Apostolic Reformation. It is a separate

00:23:23network that is not in the apostolic networks. But they were influenced by

00:23:28Paul Cain's leadership model. And so they're mimicking, and Paul Cain's

00:23:32leadership model was essentially the latter rain leadership model. So they

00:23:37were in effect, you know, brought into this authoritarian structure through

00:23:42Paul Cain, influenced by the leadership model of latter rain. And now they're

00:23:47spinning off destructive cults as a result.

00:23:50Right, and the way latter rain did it, they implemented fivefold ministry, right?

00:23:55If you've heard of fivefold ministry, if you are anywhere in the world today, you

00:23:58hear the phrase fivefold ministry, you're told you're following

00:24:01fivefold ministry, that is the leadership model that was created by latter rain.

00:24:06That is where that was developed, it was pioneered, the terms of what it all means

00:24:11is defined at. You don't find fivefold ministry being carried out before latter

00:24:18rain, you know, in any significant way. They took that, they popularized it, and

00:24:22yeah, and the way that it shakes out is you generally end up with either a

00:24:26apostle or a prophet as the senior figure that nobody can question. And

00:24:33when you get multiple apostles, you end up with a chief apostle, right? You

00:24:36always end up with a singular figure at the top that controls the pyramid that

00:24:41ends up having unquestioned power with no ability to check them. And when you

00:24:45look at Paul Cain, okay, how did Paul Cain get away with raping boys? How did

00:24:50Paul Cain get away with the prostitution? How did Paul Cain get away with the

00:24:55drugs and the alcoholic binge? How did he get away with all of that, right? How did

00:24:59he get away with all that and, hey, he lived out his days in peace in these

00:25:04movements. How did that happen? Because there really wasn't a way to really hold

00:25:10him accountable. And when they rejected him, did they also reject the model

00:25:16that enabled him to do all of that to begin with? They didn't, right? And that's

00:25:21the problem, you know, they say, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater,

00:25:24right? This authoritarian model of leadership is not the baby. This is what

00:25:29enables this abuse and gives you no ability to hold people accountable when

00:25:36they engage in it, right? So, you know, you've got that. The authoritarian

00:25:39leadership model, that's another important thing that puts the, you know, a

00:25:44dot on the harmful side of things, right? And, you know, you can have an

00:25:48authoritarian leadership model that maybe is not harmful, right? I mean, you

00:25:51look at the military, right? They have an authoritarian. There's ways that things

00:25:55can be that that by itself don't necessarily mean it's terrible, right? But

00:25:59as you start to align more and more of these things over on the harmful side of

00:26:04things, it starts to paint a picture that this is a destructive, dangerous

00:26:10group. So the next kind of thing I think that's worth mentioning that is just, I

00:26:16think, another sign that you're over on this harmful side is if the group

00:26:20believes there's no acceptable reason to leave the group, if in effect you're not

00:26:26allowed to leave, that's a really big red flag that, yes, we're over here on this

00:26:32very harmful side of things. I know the flagship Church of the Message sect I

00:26:37come from, John, where I was the associate pastor. I was, again, I think, you know, it's

00:26:43much to my shame, I was the second position from the top in my sect of the

00:26:47Message, John. I was the second most senior figure in the second oldest and

00:26:55one of the largest international sects of the Message, okay? So I know a whole

00:26:59lot what I talk about, okay? I was there, I, you know, seen so much, John. But there

00:27:04was no legitimate reason to leave. If you left, you know, and that don't necessarily

00:27:09mean you've got people locked up in cages in the back room and they can't

00:27:12get out, right? But there is no acceptable reason to leave, right? There's no reason

00:27:19to leave. And if you try to leave, if you actually step out and you leave,

00:27:24they're gonna come after you, they're gonna harass you, they're gonna say

00:27:27terrible things about you, they're gonna attack you, they're gonna do all kinds of

00:27:31terrible things just to, because you left, only because you left. And so when

00:27:36you're in a group and there's no acceptable reason to leave, you know,

00:27:41hey, I got married and my wife lives over there and I'm going to live with her.

00:27:45That's not an acceptable reason to leave. Hey, I got a job offer in another state

00:27:50that's really good and I'm gonna, that's not an acceptable reason to leave. There

00:27:54is no acceptable reason to exit the group or move on, because there's not a

00:27:59belief that there really is another church out there that you can go to and

00:28:02make it, right? They really have in their mind, this is the only place that you can

00:28:07make it from. And so even when you walk away very quietly from these groups, I

00:28:13know, this was my own experience, John, I think this is probably the number one

00:28:17thing that woke me up to start to realize I was in a cult. When you leave

00:28:22very quietly, right? I left quietly. I didn't, I told some people in leadership,

00:28:27right? I didn't tell anybody else. I just left quietly. And they start, they harassed

00:28:34me, they attacked me, they damaged my property, they did all kinds of non-stop

00:28:38for a year of harassment, John. And I was quiet. I didn't make a peep the

00:28:43whole time. And when you experience that sort of treatment on your way out, when

00:28:47you just are leaving quietly, right? That starts to wake, oh my goodness, something

00:28:51is seriously wrong here, right? Because there's no acceptable reason to leave a

00:28:57group like that. And so I think that's part of the reason also that I

00:29:02encourage people to leave as quietly as possible from the message, John, and from

00:29:06these cults. Just, if you can slip quietly out the back door, do it. Run,

00:29:11you know, run for the hill, slip out quietly, you don't need to make a scene.

00:29:14But then when you turn back and if you have left quietly, peacefully, causing no

00:29:19problems, and they come after you, you know, like you're the devil, that is a

00:29:25huge sign, right, that there was something very wrong there. Very wrong there.

00:29:30Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started? Or how the

00:29:34progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign,

00:29:38charismatic and other fringe movements, into the New Apostolic Reformation? You

00:29:44can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,

00:29:49William-Branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled

00:29:54research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and

00:29:59others, with links to the paper, audio, and digital versions of each book. You can

00:30:05also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to

00:30:10those movements. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support

00:30:15the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure

00:30:19to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to

00:30:23or watching. On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you

00:30:28for your support. You know, for me, this one goes far beyond just simply

00:30:33destructive cult or not. Whenever a leader manipulates the people into

00:30:39thinking that when they leave, they're leaving Christianity as a whole, they

00:30:45are manipulating people to believe that the only pathway to God is through that

00:30:50church. And especially for the reasons that you've mentioned, anybody should be

00:30:54able to leave for these reasons. You know, it doesn't even make logical

00:30:58sense. But what it tells me is that these leaders have set themselves up as the

00:31:03mediator between God and man. And whenever they consider the fact that

00:31:08you've left this church to go to a different Christian church, for example,

00:31:12and that when you do this, you're leaving Christianity, it tells me that for them,

00:31:17Christianity means something entirely different. For me, pure, plain, and

00:31:22simple, it means that this group is a group that practices idolatry. They

00:31:26believe that their God is different from the Christian God, and that when you

00:31:30leave, you're leaving the Christian God. And so for me, this one, it goes so far

00:31:35beyond just simply the, you know, whether it's a destructive cult or not, this

00:31:40means that this group is worshiping something else. Right, you know, when you

00:31:44look at the, you know, the most extreme cults, like Jim Jones, right? Yeah,

00:31:50they were literally in the jungle, and you were held at gunpoint if you wanted

00:31:53to leave, right? You couldn't, like, there were physical barriers. And when you get

00:31:57to the really extreme end, you know, that's, there's that, right? And so in the

00:32:03groups we come from, though, it's not generally that extreme. Well, I mean, there

00:32:06are some groups that actually are in walled compounds, John. There are message

00:32:09groups in walled compounds that don't let the people out, right? So, I mean, we

00:32:12can't say the message is not fully like that, because there are message

00:32:16groups where they do physically keep the people trapped. But the average message

00:32:23group is not that way. Most of them, they'll even say, hey, there's the door,

00:32:26you can leave, right? It's not that they physically restrain you, and so it's more

00:32:32in the ideological sense. There is no valid reason to leave this group, and if

00:32:36you do, you're dead to us, you're dead to God, you know? There's, you know, it's,

00:32:41you can't leave. And that, like you mentioned, John, really ties into the next,

00:32:45I think the next important thing, which is maybe a bit more of identifying them

00:32:50as a theological cult. Another sign that you might be in a

00:32:55cult, closely related to what we've been talking about, is that they generally

00:32:59have distorted the true gospel message. They've generally distorted the gospel.

00:33:04They've monkeyed with the formula for salvation that was presented by Jesus

00:33:10Christ and the Apostles. You know, if you look at the Bible, the Bible

00:33:14tells us that faith alone and Christ alone is enough to save a person, right? I

00:33:18mean, it's plain as day in the Bible. Faith in Christ will save you fully to

00:33:24the utmost, right? You don't need to add anything else to it. You know, Jesus said,

00:33:28whosoever believes on me has passed from death into life. I mean, it's

00:33:32straightforward, right? The Apostle Paul said, if you confess with the mouth,

00:33:36believe from the heart, you will be saved. I mean, it don't get any, you know, simpler,

00:33:42right? I mean, it's very direct. If you believe Jesus is your Savior, you are

00:33:47saved. That's the Gospel 101, right? But these groups monkey with that.

00:33:52They monkey with that. Cults have to undermine and twist those basics of the

00:34:00gospel in order to empower themselves. They have to demote Jesus from being a

00:34:06full Savior to maybe being a half Savior, not even a Savior at all, right? And if

00:34:11you look at all of these groups, 100% of the cults end up doing this. They end up

00:34:16demoting Jesus from being a full Savior. And when you get down to the very root

00:34:20of it, you know, whether you look at Jim Jones, whether you look at Waco, whether

00:34:26you look at The Message, whether you look at any of these other groups, right? In an

00:34:30ideological sense, there is an underlying belief in them that the sacrifice of

00:34:37Jesus Christ and faith in Him as a Savior is not actually enough to

00:34:42save you, right? That lies at the root of, like, the thinking of why there's no

00:34:47valid reason to leave, right? And you don't have to analyze Message beliefs,

00:34:51for example, very long to find out that we had all kinds of things in our

00:34:55formula for salvation besides faith in Jesus, right? To be saved in The Message,

00:35:00you have to be part of the special group, right? That belief in particular

00:35:05underlies why there's no legitimate reason to leave, right? They believe the

00:35:09only way you can get salvation is when you're in their group, because that's

00:35:12the only place to find it, right? They believe somehow they are part of the

00:35:16formula for salvation. You can't go find Jesus outside of them. You can't find

00:35:20salvation apart from them, right, in their mind and in their thinking. And so they

00:35:25tend to put themselves into the role of Savior. Either they're putting their

00:35:29group or their leader or something in their actions or their beliefs into the

00:35:34role of Savior rather than Jesus Himself. And so I think that's another thing to

00:35:40recognize, and I suspect that all of these people from all these groups, if

00:35:45you will step back and you will start to analyze your belief system, you will

00:35:50discover that there are things in your belief system where you thought you

00:35:54needed something you could only get from this group in order to make it, right? And

00:35:59that was part of that group monkeying with the plan of salvation, right? They'll

00:36:04come up, well you need a special last-day revival you're only gonna get here. You

00:36:08need special mysteries that only our elite leaders can teach you, right? You

00:36:13need these special rules that we know, they're not in the Bible, but you got to

00:36:17follow them, right? And so they play that sort of a game, right, where they

00:36:21add all of these things into salvation, they are departing away from faith in

00:36:25Christ is enough to save you, right? And ultimately they're demoting Jesus as the

00:36:31full Savior, and they're inserting themselves and their ideas into the

00:36:36formula for salvation. The message did this, all of these groups do that very

00:36:41thing. And the interesting part for this one, Charles, is that it is so difficult

00:36:47for a person who's under that level of mind control to even grasp that they're

00:36:53under it. You take any of the groups that we've studied, and you know we've got

00:36:58countless people who are giving their testimonies from those groups, whenever

00:37:02they try to leave, it's difficult for them to even take that first step out.

00:37:08They think that this is the only place where I can access God, so I'm not,

00:37:13for example, I'm not going to go try a Methodist or a Baptist or any of these

00:37:16other churches, because this is my access to the end-time revival or whatever is

00:37:21the indoctrination that they have. And at the same time, the leaders aren't putting

00:37:27up any physical barriers, you can leave anytime, but they have manipulated the

00:37:31people to think that they can't leave. And that is, for me, if you take Dr.

00:37:37Hassan's BITE model, it actually meets every one of the criteria. They're

00:37:41controlling your behavior, or you could leave and go to another church for a

00:37:45while, visit, you know, spend a year there, come back, and there would be no reason

00:37:50to stop you from doing this. I can join the same, you know, it's Christianity, I

00:37:55can go be a Christian here, I can be a Christian there. They're controlling your

00:37:59information because they have informed you to think that you have to go to this

00:38:03church. They're controlling your thoughts, because if you leave, you're

00:38:08always thinking, well, wait a minute, what if I'm leaving God whenever I leave this?

00:38:12What if God was in that church instead of this other church? And the biggest one

00:38:18for me is they prey upon your emotions while they're preaching to manipulate

00:38:23you into those thoughts. So they actually meet the entire criteria. If you feel

00:38:28that you can't go to the church down the street and fellowship with them for a

00:38:32while, and then come back and be just as welcome as before you left, you're

00:38:37probably in a destructive cult. I know, and when you think about that in terms

00:38:41of the Bible, you know, Priscilla and Aquila is a great example, right? Like, you

00:38:46read the book of Acts, I mean, they were moving all over the place. What in the

00:38:49world, you know, we would have thrown them out of the message. How dare they move

00:38:53from church to church to church? I mean, what is wrong with them, right? But

00:38:56Priscilla and Aquila, I mean, they went to the church at Rome, and then

00:39:00they went to the church at Ephesus, you know, then they go back to Rome. Oh, the

00:39:03people at Rome didn't, you know, oh, Priscilla and Aquila are full of the

00:39:07devil. How dare they leave us and go to the church in Ephesus? You know, and then

00:39:10vice versa. But that's how it is in the message, right? If you left the church in

00:39:13Rome, and you went over to the church in Ephesus, God have mercy. What is wrong? How

00:39:19dare you? How dare you come out the covering of this leader? How dare you go

00:39:22up there? You need to stay. You need to grow where you were planted. You got to

00:39:26stay. You know, there's all kinds of stuff where they will just demonize people

00:39:32for leaving, right? For leaving. You know, like, when I left the message, I didn't

00:39:37tell anybody. I didn't go around tell people, hey, I'm leaving the message

00:39:40because I don't believe it anymore. Here's the thing, when I left my church, I

00:39:43still believed the message, John. I really did. But they come after you. I mean, the

00:39:49things they will do to you, it is crazy, and it's ultimately because they

00:39:53believe, at the end of the day, in their minds, the gospel message has become so

00:39:59twisted that they have added things to salvation. They've demoted Jesus from

00:40:03Savior, and they think you cannot, there's no legitimate reason to leave. There's no

00:40:07other, there is no church at Ephesus. You're not going to the church at Ephesus.

00:40:10You're just going to hell. You think you're going to Ephesus, but you're going

00:40:13to hell, you know? They don't, they don't think there is a legitimate place that

00:40:17you can go and still be saved, right? It's terrible. And so, another thing

00:40:23that these cults tend to do, right? Another sign you might be in a cult is,

00:40:27these cults tend to make good people do bad things, right? That's another

00:40:32something I noticed a lot when I was in there, because there's a lot of good

00:40:36people in these groups. There really are. There's lots of good people in there

00:40:40that are kind and have good nature. They're sincere. They are genuine

00:40:44believers in what's happening. You know, I think a lot of times, and I notice this

00:40:48sometimes in our comment feeds, there seems to be the impression that when we

00:40:52say certain things that we're taking, we don't believe the people are genuine. But

00:40:57no, you are genuine. You were sincere when you were in these things. I sincerely

00:41:01believe the message. I genuinely believe. I would die for it, and I know and

00:41:06understand that the other people in these other groups, you're the same way.

00:41:10They do genuinely believe in what they're doing, right? They do

00:41:14genuinely, sincerely believe these things that they're in. And what happens,

00:41:21though, is the leaders are able to hijack, really, that genuineness,

00:41:26that sincerity, and they're able to take good and decent people and hijack

00:41:31their lives and get them to do bad things and harmful things, right? And the

00:41:36way that a lot of the leaders do this is by inserting themselves into the role of

00:41:40the Holy Spirit, right? A lot of the leaders, they don't truly honor the

00:41:46concept of people having a personal relationship with God, right? The leader

00:41:52ends up becoming the voice of God speaking to you, right? Or these special

00:41:56people who might have a special advanced gift, they end up becoming the voice of

00:42:00God to you. And if what you feel in your heart, you know, if what you're sensing

00:42:05from the Holy Spirit doesn't match what they say, guess what? You got to obey

00:42:09them. They take priority, right? Because they are taking that role of

00:42:14the Holy Spirit and denying you the ability to have your own sort of a

00:42:17direct relationship with the Lord. And through that, they can get people to do

00:42:21all kinds of things that are bad or wrong. That's how they get

00:42:25people to break up their families, right? They can use that to have people marry.

00:42:29They can use that to have people divorce. They can use that to separate children

00:42:33from parents, parents from children, break up homes, shun each other, right? They will

00:42:38use that power when they put themselves in the role of the Holy Spirit to

00:42:43convince you that there's all these things you got to do and it's God

00:42:46telling you to do it, you know, in a very specific sense. A lot of these groups,

00:42:50some of them will use fake words of prophecy, fake prophetic words, fake words

00:42:54of knowledge, right? And they use those things to manipulate and control people.

00:42:59And some of the people doing it do genuinely, absolutely genuinely believe

00:43:03that they're hearing voices in their head and they're following something

00:43:07divine and holy, but the truth is they're not. They are full of the devil. They're

00:43:11full of anything, you know, because God don't tell you to make terrible

00:43:16life decisions, right? So if they're telling you to make a terrible life

00:43:19decision, it's not the Spirit of God telling them to do that stuff, right? But

00:43:23they'll do that in order to manipulate people to do things that are not in

00:43:27their best interest, things that are harmful. They can manipulate who you

00:43:30marry, big life decisions, jobs you take, what you do with your finances, you know,

00:43:36from the biggest down to the smallest thing, they will manipulate and

00:43:39control all kinds of aspects of your life and even push you to do things that

00:43:45you can know on the inside when they're telling you, this isn't right, this

00:43:49doesn't feel right, but I got to do it because it's the voice of God in these

00:43:53people telling it to me, right? They completely take over the role of the

00:43:57Holy Spirit a lot of times within these cults. And people in these movements, like

00:44:01I said, they do tend to be genuine hearted. They do genuinely believe that

00:44:06it's God speaking to them through their leaders, right? And that is what really,

00:44:11at the end of the day, is what allows the leaders to control them and end up

00:44:14forcing them to do things that are harmful to themselves and harmful to

00:44:18others. Yeah, this one is really problematic for me because not only does

00:44:23it make it meet the criteria of a destructive cult, it ties in very closely

00:44:28to the notion that it's a non-Christian group. But even worse than that, for me, it

00:44:35brings it to a level where it's just not a good group of people that you should

00:44:40even associate yourselves with. We had, I don't know if you remember this Charles,

00:44:45there was a series of tornadoes that came through here years ago. I was, I had

00:44:51actually just escaped the Branham cult, but at that point in time I still had a

00:44:56few connections. People did not yet call me Judas and all of the stuff that they

00:45:01do now. But the tornado came through. It destroyed several homes. There were

00:45:06people who died. And the Branham cult put on their website, not a single Christian

00:45:13had any significant loss of life or injury. Well, there were several

00:45:21Christians in this area, some who died, some who had injuries from the tornadoes.

00:45:26Houses were collapsing. It was a bad thing. I can't remember the exact

00:45:31verbiage of how they worded it on the website, but it was such that they

00:45:35considered themselves to be the only Christians who were affected by this

00:45:38tornado, which wasn't the case. And then the cult, which had, at that point in

00:45:44time, we just discovered they had over $100 million in excess assets. They, the

00:45:51people who were in the cult who had damage to their houses, they're coming

00:45:56and helping them repair it, which is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. The

00:45:59people had destruction to the house. They needed some help. But what

00:46:05about the neighbor right next to them that also lost their house and their

00:46:09possessions? They were treating, they were basically giving the people who were in

00:46:14the cult priority over all of the other Christians in the area while calling the

00:46:18other ones non-Christian, whether they were or not. And imagine yourself being

00:46:24one of the Christians in the home next to them. You're wanting the help. You're

00:46:28needy. And suddenly this happens. Well, here recently with the storm that's

00:46:33causing us to have this makeshift recording, people sent me images of

00:46:38churches within the NAR doing the same exact thing. The devastation from this

00:46:44storm reached from Florida all the way up. I mean, I don't know how far it went. I

00:46:48watched last night until I saw it was tearing up through South Carolina. It was

00:46:52horrific, the damage that it caused. And one of the NAR churches said, our city

00:46:58was spared, God, because of, I don't think they said specifically because of

00:47:03this church, but they implied that because our church is here, it just went

00:47:07around our city. Well, what about all the other cities all the way up the coast? I

00:47:12mean, this was terrible damage. And these are not, you know, Christianity aside, if

00:47:18somebody is acting like that, I don't even want to associate myself with them.

00:47:23These are not good people. Right. You know, these groups never miss an

00:47:26opportunity to try and say, hey, we're special. And here, look at this proof that

00:47:30we're special. And half the time they're lying. You're telling me there's not a

00:47:34NAR church that was affected by this hurricane? Yeah, right. You're a bunch of

00:47:38liars, right? And the same with the tornadoes. I know for a fact the homes of

00:47:43multiple message believers were harmed and destroyed. There was even people in

00:47:46the homes when the tornado hit it that were in the message when this stuff

00:47:49happened. I mean, you know, they're just liars, John. They're just liars. They're

00:47:54all liars. You know, you can't, and they'll spin all this stuff in

00:47:57order to try and make them feel special and convince the people, look how the

00:48:01hand of God protects us. Next time you see a tornado coming, guess what? Just

00:48:05stand in front of it. You're gonna be fine, right? God's gonna, I mean, it's

00:48:08basically, that's the sort of dumb stuff they set up in people's mind. Ladies

00:48:13and gentlemen, if a tornado comes and you're in the message, you better get in

00:48:15your basement, right? Because you don't got no more special protection than

00:48:18any other, you know, Methodist or Baptist that lives on the same street. Go to the

00:48:22basement, right? You're just, you're silly, right? And that's part of the cult

00:48:26brainwashing, right? And that actually goes to the next item on my list, John.

00:48:31The message has thought control. Cults tend to have some sort of thought

00:48:36control. There's some mechanism that allows them to short-circuit critical

00:48:42thinking in the minds of their followers and basically prevent them

00:48:46from being able to realize they're in a cult. Like everything we've set up to

00:48:50hear, someone in a cult will, no, none of that applies to us, right? Even if it does,

00:48:54no, none of that applies to us. We don't have an authoritarian leader. People can

00:48:58leave, you know? You know, they'll say none of this applies, right? And it's

00:49:02because of this thing right here that they can't see it. There is a mechanism

00:49:06of thought control on their mind that basically prevents them from being able

00:49:11to realize they're in a cult. And it's usually the thought control techniques

00:49:15that actually do the most to trap the people in the cult. And I would say, you

00:49:20know, if you've recently left one of these groups, identifying how they have

00:49:24manipulated your thinking and overcoming that is a really important big first

00:49:28step to actually being able to break free from that group and then being able

00:49:34to go in a healthy direction. You've got to analyze and figure out how did they

00:49:38manage to keep you in that system of thought without critically thinking for

00:49:44so long? Because, you know, if you stop and you step and you look back and

00:49:47you realize, you really look at it, you'll realize, hey, wait, there were red

00:49:52flags for years and years and years of red flags. But something in my mind

00:49:58prevented me from processing all of those red flags and waking up. I can do

00:50:04that, John. I'm sure you can do it, too. You can go back probably on this side

00:50:08and think back 10 and 20 years, 30 years into the past, into the cult, and say, oh,

00:50:13there was something that should have woken me up. There's something that

00:50:16should have been a red flag, but it wasn't. And so you've got to figure out

00:50:20what that thing was that they used to suppress your critical thought. Now, in

00:50:26the message, and in a lot of charismatic Christianity that has also developed

00:50:31some of these beliefs, John, there were two key pillars in our thought control

00:50:36in the message and the way I analyze it. I actually cover these a fair bit in my

00:50:40book. There's one of the key pillars is positive confession. Positive confession.

00:50:46They essentially weaponized positive thinking in order to blind people to

00:50:53danger. And the more radical aspects of the positive confession,

00:50:58they'll teach you even to actually believe lies. And so they turn through

00:51:02positive confession, through these positive thinking teachings, they turn

00:51:07believing lies into something holy. Really, when you get down to the base of

00:51:12it, that is what they're doing. They're teaching you that believing something

00:51:16that is not true is holy. In fact, believing something that is not true is

00:51:20faith itself, you know? That's what they do. And, you know, we talked about positive

00:51:25confession a lot in terms of healing, right? You know, in these groups that

00:51:30practice positive confession with healing, if you're sick, you have to say,

00:51:34I am healed, and you have to claim your healing. And you have to do that

00:51:38regardless of all the symptoms you experience, regardless of how you feel. No

00:51:42matter what's going on, you have to continue to say, I am healed. You have to

00:51:45continue to claim your healing. And you're not allowed to admit or say,

00:51:51I'm still sick. You're not allowed to say, I'm unwell, right? You have to

00:51:55continually, positively confess, I am healed. I am claiming healing. And you do

00:52:01that up to the moment you die, right? That's positive confession in terms of

00:52:05divine healing. But that can be applied to literally anything. And, in fact, in

00:52:12these groups, they do. They weaponize it, and the leaders use that and target

00:52:15it to anything, not just healing, right? And they'll use that to target your

00:52:22positive thinking in such a way that you are no longer able to recognize there

00:52:27are bad things going on here, right? I know in the places where we come from,

00:52:32they totally, ultimately, the teachings prohibit you from having any sort of a

00:52:37negative thought about anything. If you have a negative thought about your

00:52:41neighbor, or you have a negative thought about the sermon you heard last week, or

00:52:45you have a negative thought about the preacher, anything like that, well, you

00:52:50have unbelief. You're already on the path to the unpardonable sin, my

00:52:55friend, right? You do not have enough faith to make it. You're a problem to the

00:53:02body of Christ because you're sitting in that pew, and you've allowed a negative

00:53:06thought about that last sermon to enter your mind, right? You are now holding the

00:53:10entire body of Christ back from the rapturing faith and the thunders and the

00:53:14unity that we need to see. You're not allowed to have any sort of a negative

00:53:18thought in your mind about anything that's going on in the program around

00:53:22you. You just have to positively think about everything, no matter what, no

00:53:28matter what you see, no matter what happens. Positively think about it,

00:53:32because a negative thought in your mind about it is gonna hold not only you, but

00:53:36everyone around you back, too. This is interesting because the one thing that I

00:53:42notice about this aspect of a destructive cult is that whenever people

00:53:47try to analyze the groups, this is the area that gets widely miscategorized. You

00:53:55have a lot of people who say that, which is partly true, they say that this is

00:54:00spiritual abuse, and they don't really categorize it as thought control and

00:54:04manipulation. It's true because to enforce this type of religion, these

00:54:09leaders will misrepresent what the Bible says to take control of your minds, to

00:54:16put you under thought control. They will abuse scriptures, so therefore

00:54:20technically it is religious abuse, spiritual abuse. But by

00:54:26miscategorizing as this, you don't understand that it has taken people and

00:54:31made them become something that they are not. Inwardly, their inner self, their

00:54:37authentic self, wants to be a good person, wants to be far better than this,

00:54:41but they have been manipulated in their mind to become something that they are

00:54:46not, which is thought control, thought manipulation. And the problem is, when you

00:54:52escape this, if you try to find a good counselor, especially from the people who

00:54:59have escaped who have told me they tried Christian counseling, a Christian

00:55:03counselor's first response is, that was spiritual abuse, which is correct, but

00:55:08not many Christian counselors are trained adequately in what is mind

00:55:14control. Some of them are, and if you find one, that's a good one, but not many of

00:55:19them are. And on the flip side, some of the non-Christian counseling, they have

00:55:23no idea that this even exists, unless they have studied it too. So

00:55:28finding someone who fully understands how mind control works, when you leave

00:55:33one of these groups, is highly critical, because it takes years for somebody to

00:55:38recognize that their thoughts were manipulated. For me, it borders the

00:55:44same way, if you have a mental health disorder, one of the first steps of

00:55:48counseling is to try to get you to understand first that you even have it.

00:55:52And your family members, sometimes it comes down to an intervention, where

00:55:55they're taking you and say, no, you're not behaving like other people

00:55:59would. They try to convince you first to understand that you have something wrong

00:56:05with the way your brain is working. When a member leaves a cult, they have the

00:56:10same exact thing. Their brain isn't functioning like other humans do, because

00:56:14they've been under thought manipulation and control, which, like I said, it is so

00:56:19far beyond what is just simply spiritual abuse. The science fiction kind of

00:56:24thoughts about all this isn't real, right? There's not someone with a, you

00:56:27know, a mind ray controlling your mind, you know, manipulating, you know, that's

00:56:31not real. The way this thing works in reality is they do and say things

00:56:37that cause you to control your own thoughts, that cause you to close off

00:56:42doors of critical thinking yourselves, right? And that positive thinking that

00:56:47comes with positive confession is one of the, I know where we come from, one of the

00:56:51main ways in which they do that and they blind you. You are not allowed to have a

00:56:56negative thought, because that negative thought about anything about this

00:57:01program is going to hold us all back. And it doesn't matter, things like, huge

00:57:07things that ought to just slap you in the face awake can be dismissed like

00:57:11that. I'll give you just a real quick example. The church I come from, the

00:57:15senior pastor found out had a long history of exposing his private parts to

00:57:20children, John, okay? Now if a normal person hears that, that's gonna start

00:57:26firing critical thoughts, right? Oh, well what does that mean? What is the, and

00:57:30they're gonna start connecting dots, right, that's gonna lead them down a path

00:57:33to realize something really bad is happening here, right? But in the group I

00:57:38come from, no, it doesn't, that don't happen, right? Immediately that thinking

00:57:44goes, and no, that can't be real, that can't be true, this has to be a lie about

00:57:48the leader, this is a negative thought, this is a lie, it doesn't matter, you know,

00:57:53the people who say this can't be telling the truth, and I am not even going to

00:57:59entertain that thought in my mind for more than a split second, because it is

00:58:03unbelief, and it's gonna harm the group, right? You don't even allow your mind to

00:58:09let that thought linger for more than the split second that it enters, right?

00:58:13You immediately force it out, and you do not even consider or think about it,

00:58:17right? So obviously if you do, it's gonna leave you down a path of critical

00:58:20thought that's gonna lead you to the realization that there's something

00:58:23seriously wrong with the group that you're in, but this, that, that is how they

00:58:29trap these people in thinking in the groups that I come from, and the way it

00:58:34works is, so that's just one pillar, the positive confession, positive thinking,

00:58:38that is just one pillar of it, and William Branham's quintessential sermon

00:58:43on this topic is his sermon entitled, The Greatest Battle Ever Fought. That is

00:58:48William Branham's quintessential thought control sermon, and in that sermon,

00:58:52William Branham essentially teaches the entire cult to suppress all critical

00:58:57thinking, and to think positively about the leaders, and about the message, and

00:59:02about the things going on, no matter what. No matter what happens, no matter what

00:59:07occurs, no matter what, what happens before your eyes, what enters your ears,

00:59:12no matter what, you think positively about the leaders, you think positively

00:59:16about the message, you think positively about what's going on, and if you don't

00:59:20do those three things, guess what? You have unbelief. And that then comes to the

00:59:26second big pillar of message thought control, John. I think that this is one of

00:59:30the most important things about message thought control. The message believes

00:59:36that unbelief is sin, and in fact, they believe unbelief is the root of all

00:59:41sin, and that unbelief is the unforgivable sin, right? And so when you

00:59:46think about that, if unbelief, which basically unbelief turns out to be

00:59:51critical thought, okay? Unbelief, critical thought about what's happening, is the

00:59:57ultimate unforgivable sin. And if you have thought that unbelief, you have

01:00:02committed the unforgivable sin. And that is why they will not allow that to exist

01:00:08in their mind for more than a split second, because to even dwell on it just

01:00:12for a few seconds and to allow the cog of their mind to turn

01:00:17on it just for a little bit, they in their mind will have, they believe, oh no,

01:00:22I'm committing the unpardonable sin of unbelief. And that is, I think, one of the

01:00:30main keys to shutting off critical thinking in the mind of the cult where

01:00:35we come from.

01:00:36Darrell Bock It's funny too, Charles, because whenever

01:00:38I left, that was so indoctrinated in my head, unbelief is sin. That was one of

01:00:44the things that lasted for years after leaving. I really was, I fully believed

01:00:50it. I fully believed that anybody who taught anything otherwise was actually

01:00:55teaching anti-biblical scripture. And it took years for me to understand that

01:01:00that's actually flipped upside down. It's not that unbelief is sin. Look at the

01:01:05believers in Berea. They did not believe, and yet they became Christian, which

01:01:10means if you study that scripture out to its logical conclusion, this was a group

01:01:15of people who were critically thinking, and they decided we're going to critically

01:01:19examine this, and then they moved forward. But in that model, that biblical model,

01:01:26in the message cult and many of its splinter groups, when a group tries to do

01:01:30this, they're chastised to begin with. You did not believe, therefore go out from

01:01:36among us. And what's interesting, I don't know if you caught it, but I did publish

01:01:41recently some research on the Azusa Street Revival, and the way that the people

01:01:48who were critically examining the Azusa Street Revival, when they came in and

01:01:53they just wanted to see what was happening and see was this truly a move by

01:01:57God, those people were chastised by William Joseph Seymour. I want to say the

01:02:03newspaper, if I remember the date correctly, it was within two weeks of the

01:02:07revival's beginning. They were kicking out anybody who was critical about the

01:02:11movement. Rather than trying to convert them, persuade them that this is the

01:02:16quote-unquote end-time revival that they thought it was to be, they were chastising

01:02:22the people who were questioning. You're right, John, and the way that the message

01:02:27combines, you know, the positive confession, positive thinking, with the

01:02:32belief that unbelief is the ultimate unforgivable sin, is so powerful in

01:02:38trapping people's minds and implementing thought control. That is thought control,

01:02:44right? When I talk about thought control in the message, that is exactly what I'm

01:02:48talking about. I'm talking about the positive thinking no matter what, and the

01:02:53idea that unbelief is a sin, and therefore I'm not going to think

01:02:57critically about what's happening because it would be a sin to think about.

01:02:59That is thought control, ladies and gentlemen. That is the very definition of

01:03:03thought control. And, you know, when you step back and you look at and

01:03:07you realize what these things are, these structures are, that trap people, it's

01:03:12something else, John. It really is crazy and sad, and it don't matter which group

01:03:16you're in, if you examine it, you're gonna find some structure of thought

01:03:20control along these lines that closed the doors that prevented your mind from

01:03:26critically thinking about what was happening, right? And, you know, where we

01:03:29come from, John, unbelief, well, you're exactly right. Unbelief is not the root

01:03:35of all sins. William Branham was lying. He was lying to us when he told us all that.

01:03:39That's not true. That is not what the Bible teaches is the root of all sin,

01:03:43right? And that is not what the overwhelming majority of Christians

01:03:47believe the root of all sin is. We won't go into all that, but unbelief is not the

01:03:51root of all sin. That is a false heresy to say something like that, I

01:03:55believe. And furthermore, unbelief is not a sin at all, right? Yeah, I mean, critical

01:04:05thinking is not a sin. I mean, we are commanded by scriptures to try the

01:04:09spirits. We're commanded by scriptures to prove all things, right? We're

01:04:13commanded by the Bible to think critically about the things that are

01:04:17presented to us and understand, does this actually make sense? Are they actually

01:04:21telling me the truth? We are commanded by the Bible to critically examine the

01:04:26things that are presented to us. And when you take unbelief as a sin and you use

01:04:31that to short-circuit critical thought, reasoning, rational thought, you know,

01:04:36trying all things, proving all things, when you use unbelief as a sin to

01:04:40short-circuit that, you're actually, these people are actually the sinners, right?

01:04:43You're sinning against me by preventing me from actually obeying the Bible that

01:04:49says, try all things, prove all things, you know, these things. And so, again, it's

01:04:54just totally outside the biblical model, what they do, and the purpose of it. What

01:04:58legitimate purpose could be served by turning critical thought into a sin?

01:05:05What legitimate purpose could be served by telling people that questioning or

01:05:12unbelief in what your leaders are saying and doing is the ultimate sin? What

01:05:16could that possibly serve, except to empower them, to protect them, right, and

01:05:21to give them an out for whatever they do, and to trap you in an ability?

01:05:27It basically turns you into a sinner for analyzing what is going on around you

01:05:34and coming to the conclusion something is wrong here, you know, and so I think

01:05:39that is just a terrible thing, and I absolutely believe that thought

01:05:45control is what traps probably the overwhelming majority of people in the

01:05:49message from engaging critical thought and waking up and escaping. One thing to

01:05:55add to that, the way that people think is different among the different

01:06:02personality types. You have people that are highly analytical, you have people

01:06:07who are highly not anti-analytical, and the people who are like myself, I have an

01:06:13analytical mind. The way that I prove all things, which like you said is scriptural,

01:06:19I will take an idea and then I will look towards, assume that it is false, and then

01:06:27try to prove it true. That's the way my analytical mind works. So if somebody

01:06:32says that their car is faster than mine, for example, I will say, okay, I don't

01:06:37believe that. Let's prove it's true, and let's go out and race. That's what I did

01:06:42as a 16-year-old. I don't do that anymore, but almost every single thing that I try

01:06:48to prove, I take, I assume the false, and then I prove it true, and that way you

01:06:53know beyond a shadow of a doubt it's true because I have taken that pathway.

01:06:57There is no other explanation. It must be true. There are people who think the

01:07:01opposite of this. They will assume it's true and try to prove it false, and when

01:07:05they can't, then they assume it is true. So you've got two different, widely

01:07:10polar opposite ways of thinking. These cults manipulate the people who have

01:07:16highly analytical minds even more because for you to take that pathway, it

01:07:21is the most sinful thing in the cult, and when they realize that your mind works

01:07:26like this, they do not want you in the cult because you're one of the

01:07:31people who's going to suddenly expose the whole thing because you're actually

01:07:34going through the analytical process. I would agree, and you know, I think when

01:07:39you really look at the biblical model, you look at the scriptures about this,

01:07:42the Bible actually commands us to approach these sort of things without

01:07:50giving them the benefit of the doubt. Now the Bible does not permit you to give

01:07:55the benefit of the doubt, I don't believe, right? They do not have the

01:07:59benefit of the doubt when they come out with these things. William Branham says,

01:08:02I got the king's sword and I've got the revelation of the seals. The Bible

01:08:05doesn't permit us to give him the benefit of the doubt that that's true.

01:08:08You can't do that. That is actually against the plain reading of the Bible

01:08:13to do that. There has to be something that establishes their authority to do

01:08:18these things that they do. They do not get the benefit of the doubt. There has

01:08:21to be an accompanying evidence to prove they have the authority to do the things

01:08:28that they do, right? And so when they say unbelief is a sin and they just cut you

01:08:32off, no, you have to accept what I say no matter what. They are not following

01:08:37biblical model of leadership. They are really down a path that the

01:08:42Bible condemns and commands you to go against. And so critical thinking about

01:08:47things that are happening around you, right, is true biblical Christianity,

01:08:52right? And that's another thing that these cults have to short-circuit as

01:08:56they implement thought control techniques. So you're right, John, you

01:09:00know, we've said a lot. I think we're hour in, so hey, I think we've given some

01:09:04pretty good tips to somebody who's in a cult. Look for thought control

01:09:09techniques. Look for an authoritarian leadership model. Have they monkeyed with

01:09:14the plan of salvation? Have they monkeyed with the formula for salvation,

01:09:17especially inserting themselves into the role of Savior? Have they taken to

01:09:21themselves the role of the Holy Spirit and now they're placing them in a

01:09:24position where they're manipulating and controlling your life? You know, have they

01:09:28put in a huge us-versus-them mentality that drives a lot of stuff, right? These

01:09:33are things that, as a package, put you over on the harmful, destructive side of

01:09:40the bite model of cults. Absolutely. And just think of this, Charles. When the

01:09:48leaders of these groups pick the people who are critical thinkers and demonize

01:09:54them, what other purpose could they have for doing this unless they themselves

01:09:59realize that they're manipulating the heads of the people? Otherwise, you would

01:10:04love to have critical thinkers to prove you right. Any normal preacher would love

01:10:09to have somebody who is verifying their claims and saying, yes, this guy is

01:10:14absolutely right. These cult leaders will single out the people who critically

01:10:18think and chastise them. For me, the bottom line is when they're doing that,

01:10:24it is a destructive cult. Get out. There's no other explanation.

01:10:28Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us

01:10:31out on the web. You can find us at william-branham.org and christiangospelchurch.org.

01:10:38For more about the history of William Branham and the healing revivals, read

01:10:41Come Out of Her My People, available on Amazon and Kindle. For more about the

01:10:45dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponize

01:10:49Religion, From Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and soon

01:10:55Audible.

Is That Group a CULT? - Revival History - Episode 201 Branham Research Podcast

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