Leaving Apostasy: An Interview With Steve Montgomery - Our Stories - Podcast Episode 336 - 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  John and Steve discuss a deeply personal and intense journey through family history, loss, musical achievement, and involvement in a high-control religious group. Steve shares stories of his grandfather’s legacy, tragic family losses, and his musical career performing with notable figures. He then recounts his unexpected entanglement in a non-traditional religious environment, prompted by roommates connected to Word of Faith teachings. This segment transitions into the heart of his experience with psychological influence, isolation, and spiritual manipulation, eventually leading to a forced intervention arranged by his family.  As Steve continues, he reveals the process of recovery and healing after the intervention, which included time at a recovery home and participation in counseling groups. He goes on to assist with other interventions, sharing stories from his involvement with groups of various backgrounds. The narrative explores the moral and legal complexity of such interventions, highlighting moments of danger, emotional trauma, and eventual liberation. Throughout, Steve emphasizes the importance of critical thinking, maintaining relationships, and recognizing the signs of coercive control. The discussion ends with reflections on how isolation and the suspension of rational thought enable group influence, offering cautionary wisdom for others who may find themselves caught in similar situations.  00:00 Introduction 01:02 Family Legacy, Loss, and Musical Success 13:01 Entering the Word of Faith Movement 18:35 Emotional Isolation and Cult Indoctrination 22:13 Intervention and Deprogramming Begins 30:01 Mind Control, Thought Reform, and the Turning Point 38:51 Joining Deprogramming Teams and Global Cases 45:29 Legal Risks and Moral Dilemmas of Cult Extraction 54:09 Advice for Those at Risk of Spiritual Manipulation  ______________________ – 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 – Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg  – Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham – Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr – Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books

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

00:00:44co-host and friend Steve Montgomery author of the converging apostasy and a

00:00:49quick outline of hands-on eschatology a matter of timing and agency. Steve it's

00:00:55good to be back and to talk about the talk about your story this is going to

00:01:02be somewhat different than we usually do I have had for several months now people

00:01:07asking me to know more about Steve his background how did he come to seek out

00:01:12and find the converging apostasy and even Charles I think is one of the

00:01:17people who has asked for you to tell your story so today is going to be a

00:01:21little bit different than usual we're not diving so deeply into the converging

00:01:25apostasy but today we're going to talk through your story and everybody who's

00:01:31listened to the podcast kind of knows who you are so maybe we'll skip the

00:01:36the background and just talk a little bit about what led you to what led you

00:01:41to this life of seeking out the converging apostasy. Yeah well that's a

00:01:45mouthful right there I don't want to be too self-absorbed but I guess that's the

00:01:51nature of this this podcast right tell about myself well I would start with my

00:01:57grandfather because he's very influential in my life but obviously in

00:02:03my dad's life too. My grandfather was a librarian and a genealogist and he

00:02:10actually came to the Fort Worth Texas area in a covered wagon and he's quite a

00:02:17bit older than his wife so I think he was born 1886 and he came from Missouri

00:02:24to Texas so in his in his work as a genealogist what he he sort of did that

00:02:32professionally but also as an interest of his he traced the Montgomery name

00:02:36back to the 1000s and William the Conqueror and so I have two really big

00:02:45tomes I guess you'd say on the Montgomery name the Montgomery doings

00:02:51unfortunately we were we were very rich noblemen and we had castles and serfs

00:02:57and servants and we took advantage of all of them and did battle with

00:03:03neighboring clans. If anybody's seen Braveheart or anything about is it

00:03:13William the Bruce or Bruce the William one of those guys they have what they

00:03:19call a tartan and it's basically like a a clasp that you put on your robe if I've

00:03:27got that straight but ours are said this little clasp and said

00:03:33Guarde Bien and this basically meant watch your back and it showed to the

00:03:41fear of my fifth grade students it showed a severed head being held by one of the

00:03:46Montgomery's meaning hey don't mess with us and actually if anybody in our

00:03:52audience knows anything about Shakespeare one of the Montgomery's was

00:03:59at the Battle of Hastings and and captured some of the the other noblemen

00:04:07so yeah we have it we have become a checkered past and descriptions of some

00:04:12of the people that were Montgomery's they'd say they were cruel and cunning

00:04:18and all this kind of stuff so I I just laid that into my fifth grader so they

00:04:22got a kick out of that some of them looked a little afraid though so I'm the

00:04:28middle son of a Presbyterian preacher and a schoolteacher and people that try

00:04:33to predict how you're gonna come out in life preachers kid PK teachers kid you

00:04:40know that's they get so but if you sometimes my mother's name was get this

00:04:46Elizabeth Montgomery so people that have seen older TV shows might remember that

00:04:51name and my sister's name is Elizabeth Taylor so when the two of them went

00:04:59shopping together you know people people would look at him like are you

00:05:05for real is this a joke no that's just that's the names my father died of a

00:05:13rare disease called poems and it's you can find it on Wikipedia it's p.o.e.n.s.

00:05:21So P standing for pulmonary on down to S standing for skin essentially and what

00:05:29it's a it's incurable and it usually hits in later years of life and so a lot

00:05:35of times doctors will think oh the the guy's kind of slowing down and getting

00:05:40more susceptible to different diseases but the way we caught it my dad seemed

00:05:45to be doing fine he was in good spirits and then we'd see a big old purplish

00:05:50bruise on his hand said dad does that hurt I said no I'd slept this morning

00:05:55and then the next day it moved kind of like a cloud to a new section and so

00:06:00that was one of the first indicators and then he started getting the way it

00:06:04couldn't breathe very well and so we did hospice with with my dad and his dying

00:06:11words were well like this he says he motioned for everybody to come close

00:06:17and he told us to hold hands and we thought maybe he's in pain he needs some

00:06:23more morphine or something but his last words were the Lord bless and keep you

00:06:28and I've shared that story many many times because as you can think that had

00:06:33a had a real impact on me but but I think it's it's a testimony to his life

00:06:40and his service. My brother died of cancer when he was 58 and it started he

00:06:48said oh my back really hurts today and thought maybe he just strained it or

00:06:53something turned out he had a football-sized tumor on his kidney and so

00:07:00they removed that and said you're cool you're great no more problems and then

00:07:05about seems like about seven months later it had metastasized and gone to

00:07:11his brain to forgot to call the sheaths around the lungs, pleurus or something

00:07:20like this and so that's what he passed away from but he was living in Tennessee

00:07:26and he was really lamenting the fact that they didn't have good Tex-Mex

00:07:32Mexican food up there so he was you know on a lot of morphine in the hospital and

00:07:40so I was with him at his bedside and he shot up bolted up like this and he

00:07:50says I'll have cheese enchiladas so I mean it was painful at the time but it

00:07:56was kind of just a memory of my brother that I hold on to. Then I was playing in

00:08:04a jazz band in the Houston area playing bass and a really exceptional piano

00:08:10player and a great drummer who played with some big-time folks and all that so

00:08:17the piano player who's maybe 20 years older than me he started coughing a lot

00:08:22and said man you better get to the doctor and check that out so he was he

00:08:27was playing at a place where this is before they they said that you couldn't

00:08:33smoke in public places so he'd be at his piano playing and there'd be somebody

00:08:37sitting maybe a yard away blowing cigarette smoke so he actually got lung

00:08:43cancer from secondhand smoke. The drummer in the band had played with lots of

00:08:50famous people and so on and and he was a really tough guy he'd been in the in

00:08:54the Korean War and he he didn't complain about anything and so he started saying

00:09:01man my back is killing me can you guys help me carry my drums to the car. We

00:09:06thought that was a little bit unusual and maybe strained a muscle or who knows

00:09:09and it turned out and I said he smoked like a chimney he's smoking all the time

00:09:14and so he died of lung cancer also. Well I have never been a smoker but maybe

00:09:22from secondhand smoke somewhere around the year 2000 I got colon cancer and so

00:09:29my my dad my brother had these these moments with their last words and my

00:09:35wife will say have you ever run out of words yet and so anyway no not yet I'm

00:09:43still talking. So my wife and I it's been 31 years now we had one son Steven

00:09:52jr. He was really good athletic guy super kind-hearted and very intelligent

00:10:01so he was he was 5 foot 4 and played on the soccer team and it was very quick

00:10:09and if you know the game of soccer you can be a ball hog or you can give assist

00:10:13and set up somebody else so he was great at assist and so I gave him because he's

00:10:19a short fellow I gave him the nickname Big. I said hey big so he's like 20 21

00:10:25years old and he never seemed to embarrass and said come on dad I'm here

00:10:30with my buddies would you quit calling me big but that's what I called him and

00:10:36unfortunately he was killed by a drunk driver when he was 22. Sounds like you

00:10:41went through quite a lot with the you know all of the people who are getting

00:10:46sick with cancers and some of them dying I'm certain that had some impact on on

00:10:50your life. Yes it did but like a lot of things you don't really realize it as

00:10:56you're going through it maybe hangs around inside and then you know later on

00:11:03manifests but living in the Houston area one of my ambitions you know I was

00:11:12I was a PK so I heard my dad preach all the time and I wouldn't say it went in

00:11:16one ear and out the other but it was just okay I've heard this before yeah

00:11:20that sounds good that's good good speaker good sermon writer and actually

00:11:26he was he was better at if I would say this more of a pastoral care just

00:11:33endless hours of helping out those in need 24-7 and he wasn't firing

00:11:40brimstone whatsoever but he's more of a teacher and pastoral help of course we

00:11:45get a lot of floods and issues like that down here and tornadoes in the Houston

00:11:52area and so he was in disaster relief issues which you could say it's boring

00:11:58a lot of paperwork being a Presbyterian there are plenty of jokes about us

00:12:05drowning in paperwork as compared to some other denominations and I

00:12:11appreciated my dad in another way because in his library he had just a bit

00:12:19of everything he had early church fathers he had writings of Luther Calvin

00:12:24of course and just just a big variety of different kinds of things which

00:12:30sometimes I'd ask him about or there would be a scripture and we discuss it

00:12:35and of course as you get older you don't have these on as much for your dad to

00:12:41speak as like oh yeah dad I've heard that you know I began he actually became

00:12:45my best friend for a while there so what I did was I was working as a jazz

00:12:53guitarist and a bassist and started around 17-18 so things progressed pretty

00:13:00quickly and I got to play with what you'd say a name artists and that all

00:13:07depends on who you're talking to they might say huh never heard of that person

00:13:11but I did get to play with Bob Hope, Tony Tenniel, Marvin Hamlisch, Rita Morena and

00:13:19Marilyn May who has a distinction because she she's really great singer

00:13:26great performer but Johnny Carson preferred her to any other singer and

00:13:32she was on his show I think it was 76 times due to his you know liking the way

00:13:39she seemed in her interviews with him and so I played in a band called a lot

00:13:45of small jazz bands but I played in an orchestra was sort of sort of like the

00:13:50America like the Boston Pops they call it the American Pops and then we had

00:13:55another band in Houston called the Houston Pops well the Houston Pops got

00:13:59their funding from Exxon we didn't so when oil gasoline issues struck Texas we

00:14:07kind of petered out but before that happened we got to go play in Mexico

00:14:12City, Tokyo and Puerto Rico and we had plans to go to Sydney Australia but that

00:14:19was that was before we had to bite the bullet financially so having played in a

00:14:27lot of different kinds of settings I became a little dissatisfied with playing

00:14:31other people's music but I still enjoyed it but I did want to change and

00:14:36have my own ideas so I decided to go to Boston which in those days was the

00:14:42guitar players Mecca if you want to put it that way and I went to what they

00:14:47call Witshed which is to work on your ideas on your instrument and it's kind

00:14:55of like taking a sabbatical so that's what I did I saved up money for about

00:15:00three years work three years worth of not having to work and play music in

00:15:07bands but just to work on what I was doing so one of the things I did was I

00:15:12developed a two-hand cording technique which probably won't make sense to

00:15:17people unless say they've actually had an experience with playing guitar and

00:15:23others also I started tuning my guitar in force I've only heard of say two

00:15:31people that I'm aware of that are well-known guitarists who even mentioned

00:15:34doing this because guitars tuned a certain way to facilitate playing

00:15:40certain styles of music and me being a jazz player I really didn't care about

00:15:45playing those other styles so much so tuning in force is I guess you could say

00:15:50more symmetrical more logical I have to leave it at that or else it's gonna get

00:15:54too technical and speaking of too technical I developed my version of what

00:16:01some composers call pan diatonic harmony so pan meaning all diatonic is is the

00:16:10usual do re mi fa so you know the usual scales that you hear a lot of music

00:16:16based on pan diatonic means that you can it's polytonal you can connect different

00:16:25keys together and play playing them simultaneously so you had quite an

00:16:30exciting life there for a while playing with different bands and whatnot what

00:16:35led you from that life into the life of religion well like I said I had a

00:16:40background of having heard my dad preach and you know just being in the house

00:16:45where I could ask him questions about different things that came up but when

00:16:50I became a little bit not so so pleased with just staying in Houston playing the

00:16:56same old gigs same old gigs with the same old bands I decided I'd like to go

00:17:03to Boston it was either North Texas State or Boston in those days for jazz

00:17:10guitar players so my dad had some connections in Boston and there was a

00:17:16pastor friend who said okay you know this is gonna be my first time away from

00:17:21home it seems like I was 19 at the time and it would be helpful if I would be

00:17:28able to go to a Christian house of other fellow musicians so I did that my dad

00:17:36located a house and we're basically all starving artists types and so three of

00:17:43my five fellow starving artists roommates happened to be attending a

00:17:48non-denominational charismatic church that followed the teachings of Word of

00:17:52Faith like Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagan, Hobart Freeman and when there was a TV

00:17:59show on say like the 700 Club or a Jim Bakker show quite often these folks

00:18:06would appear there or they'd have their own TV program so this kind of stuff was

00:18:10going on all the time and it was a bit confusing to me because I'd never had

00:18:15had any contact with that kind of style of worship or content I guess you'd say

00:18:22so I became curious and and like you know like you can figure that there's a

00:18:28big push come on come on with us you know come to our church you'll you'll

00:18:32love it so I became curious and I started attending the church and like I

00:18:40said it was very strange to me at first but I began to get hooked and as a

00:18:46result of this it began to show more and more in my behaviors and and the things

00:18:54I talked about with dad it's like what he said went right over my head what I

00:18:58said would spread over his head because he wasn't really familiar with the Word

00:19:03of Faith stuff so as a result I became more and more isolated from family

00:19:08friends reality and my musical pursuits as a matter of fact I threw away all of

00:19:15my record collection which I was pretty proud of and some of the some of the

00:19:20compositions I've been doing some writing that would use this special

00:19:24technique that I developed and I talked to a couple of high-level I say high

00:19:31level meaning nationally or internationally known jazz guitarists

00:19:36and I'd show up and say hey look at this and they say well that's that's pretty

00:19:40good keep keep going with it you got something there so because of my my

00:19:49obvious differences and some of it were just kind of like the beginning of the

00:19:54thousand miles there where I wasn't all there my parents decided it's time to

00:20:00seek help I can imagine that would be difficult on them because when you're in

00:20:04these type of groups you start learning the group's loaded language and you

00:20:09don't even realize it as soon as you get away from people who are in the group

00:20:13and you start talking to people who have no idea what this loaded language is

00:20:17you're literally talking to different languages to each other and especially

00:20:23for parents who watch a watch a child leave and then come back and they can't

00:20:29talk to them anymore it's very very distressful for the parents this is so

00:20:35true especially I mean just parents that love you of course family members but

00:20:40especially my dad you know being you know nobody has perfect exposition of

00:20:48scriptures but his he had his feet on the ground you could say that he's

00:20:53grounded in scripture it wasn't going in a wild time tangents and when he saw

00:20:59that I was and this this might hit listeners in different ways but the idea

00:21:06that healing is in the atonement that was a big issue with Copeland and

00:21:13Hagen they said that and my dad showed me the scriptures it says no that's not

00:21:18really it if you're looking at the Greek language and how this this idea I

00:21:23got off off track so as a result in my parents concerns they contacted a group

00:21:33that used to be called can meaning cult awareness network I wouldn't go to that

00:21:40on Wikipedia if I was you because it's basically I've been taken over I forgot

00:21:45if it's the Moody's or Scientology has taken over they bought him out and sued

00:21:51sued sued because both of those organizations have very deep pockets and

00:21:55can basically hound you and put you out of business so we are aware that kind of

00:22:01under the radar you could reach and what in those days was called a deep

00:22:06programmer nowadays more more often you might hear exit counselor so they

00:22:14contacted a fella who had been working through cult awareness network and they

00:22:21hired him to infiltrate the group that I was in and then report back his findings

00:22:26so based on his advice a deep programming team was put together and I

00:22:34think this is a very good thing for me because I was beyond the stage of being

00:22:42able to talk to anyway kind of like what you're saying John you got a loaded

00:22:47language and you've redefined the ability to communicate and there's

00:22:53techniques of I think you would call them self hypnosis or mild states of

00:23:02hypnotic suggestion in which your worship the form of worship you're doing

00:23:08makes you sort of like an open book to just receive whatever the leader is

00:23:13going to say but the deprogramming group was very diverse and they were composed

00:23:19of an ex Mooney an ex Scientologist an ex-cut or Church of Universal and

00:23:26triumphant a biblical scholar or expert from Christian Research Institute a

00:23:33couple of security guys and I'll get into that later why you would need them

00:23:38and then they had the head deprogrammer was an ex Children of God member and he

00:23:46had gotten high enough up in that organization that religion that Moses

00:23:53David Berg put him in charge of all of Israel all the converts to it to that

00:23:58group and so as hard as it seems when you think about legal matters a

00:24:05compulsory intervention was planned I have sat on those intervention teams and

00:24:12it is a whole new experience if you've never been to one but you learn so many

00:24:17things that you really did not even know existed I when I went into it I had no

00:24:23idea that mind control was something that was a real actual psychological

00:24:29science I thought this was science fiction it's only for the movies and I

00:24:34got there and we had to go through this crash course to learn what is mind

00:24:37control how does it work and I'm watching these real people who you can

00:24:43watch their eyes glaze over when their eyes will actually shift like they do in

00:24:48the horror movies their eyes just shift and get blurry and then you can

00:24:52communicate with the alter ego or communicate with the authentic person

00:24:56and I was watching a skilled person's guild psychologist do this talking to

00:25:03one person and just watch it flip and learning all of that was quite an

00:25:08experience but I wasn't on the side of the person who is in the cult at that

00:25:12time so I'm sure that was quite an experience for you on the other side

00:25:16yes it was and like I said I was I was way beyond the ability to talk rationally

00:25:24or scripturally or anything with my parents or these these new programmers

00:25:31but in the course of took I think two and a half days that's usually common

00:25:37two or three days of the whole process pretty high successful rate or success

00:25:45rate of getting people out of groups so in my case the new programming began

00:25:51like this to get me to a so-called safe house where there would be no

00:25:56interruptions or distractions a good friend of mine who is the church youth

00:26:01group leader at my dad's congregation he called me in Boston and said he had

00:26:07business in Boston and would like to get together for a lunch so I said sure and

00:26:14he came up and he said I'll take you out to eat so he started driving out of town

00:26:21and said first he wanted to meet some friends I did become a little suspicious

00:26:26even though my logical mind was not up to par but I figured out figured out

00:26:34that I would convert all of them anyway so could bring them on you know you got

00:26:38somebody you know I I've got the spiritual power and I'm gonna I'm gonna

00:26:42dominate whatever kind of thing you get set so we entered into this house

00:26:49supposedly he's gonna pick up some friends to go eat with us there I saw

00:26:55my parents my younger sister my best friend and several strangers who of

00:27:00course were part of that team I knew that I was going to have a battle and I

00:27:06was gonna have to battle the spiritual forces that were controlling ie

00:27:10possessing them because of this I closed my eyes completely zoned out

00:27:18like you're saying just another world and began to rebuke them and I did what

00:27:23we called I pled the blood saying the blood of Jesus the blood of Jesus over

00:27:29and over as if it was a magical formula or a mantra I can remember doing that

00:27:36and I remember the thought afterwards after I realized what this was that I

00:27:40was doing ironically it came out of the deep program deep programming session I

00:27:46was in but you're chanting you're mentally chanting and you're trying to

00:27:51isolate yourself in your own head so that they can't get into your head and

00:27:55if you really think about what's happening it's it's disturbing to think

00:28:00that some group can control you in that level but there was a phrase that I use

00:28:05I knew people who use the I claim the blood like you're you're saying over and

00:28:09over they would repeat this I had friends that did but I had a different

00:28:13phrase not gonna go down the path of explaining what that was or why but I

00:28:18had a different phrase that I used and whenever I would get into a situation

00:28:22where I thought the enemy was attacking me usually it was good normal Christian

00:28:28people who had good Christian values and they would try to influence me away from

00:28:34the church or whatever I had this phrase that I went over and over in my head

00:28:38with and if you're a cult member you understand the significance of this and

00:28:42to anybody listening who was never in one whenever you engage a person who is

00:28:48in one of these groups and they start doing this you'll know that they're

00:28:51putting their defenses up their guard is coming up have you ever wondered how the

00:28:56Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostal ism

00:29:01transition through the latter rain charismatic and other fringe movements

00:29:05into the New Apostolic Reformation you can learn this and more on William

00:29:10Branham historical researches website William dash Branham dot org on the

00:29:16books page of the website you can find the compiled research of John Collins

00:29:20Charles Paisley Stephen Montgomery John McKinnon and others with links to the

00:29:25paper audio and digital versions of each book you can also find resources and

00:29:31documentation on various people and topics related to those movements if you

00:29:36want to contribute to the cause you can support the podcast by clicking the

00:29:41contribute button at the top and as always be sure to like and subscribe to

00:29:45the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching on behalf of

00:29:49William Branham historical research we want to thank you for your support I

00:29:53wouldn't say that there were rules but the the folks that were in charge of the

00:29:57programming kind of said okay this is this is what we're asking of you and

00:30:02this is what we're going to attempt to do they said that they were going to do

00:30:07some talking and it would behoove me to listen if possible and they were going

00:30:12to talk about their experiences because as I said there was quite a variety of

00:30:17folks from different backgrounds but when you get to as you say John

00:30:23thought-reform really the details of the cult or the religion that you're in

00:30:31they don't matter that much it's more the process that you go through so loaded

00:30:37language spiritual exercises that help you zone out and there's many more that

00:30:45people can look into about that what else did I experience I just know that

00:30:50nobody beat me on the head or gave me you know mind-altering drugs to help me

00:30:55lead the group I was in I ate well that was one thing I slept well because I

00:31:01generally did not when I was in the group and I learned a lot about

00:31:05thought-reform mostly from the writings of dr. Robert J Lifton his writings

00:31:12initially were to to delineate the issues that people in communist red

00:31:19China went through when they were being brainwashed so he he looked at those

00:31:25those factors and he he and others began to say huh that really fits with some of

00:31:31these these new religious cults are doing and so he became along with some

00:31:36other people who you're aware of John his writings became kind of the gold

00:31:42standard and was they were very influential so we also watched videos of

00:31:48people in thought reforming cults and compared them to the ideas and practices

00:31:53of my group and as I said the emphasis was not so much on what I believed

00:31:59although it's partially that but it was mostly on the process that I went through

00:32:04to come to those beliefs but the turning point which which I'll obviously never

00:32:12forget went like this I didn't gradually get out of the group like some people do

00:32:17and they're kind of wandered around for 10 years trying to figure out what

00:32:20happened there was a definite turning point and it went like this the moment I

00:32:28snapped out of this mind control came in a very unexpected way the team happened

00:32:36to have a national public radio presentation about Jim Jones and not to

00:32:44go down that rabbit hole but if you're watching the news you may not have

00:32:48natural national public radio or TV for much longer or it's gonna be harder to

00:32:54get it so this this presentation was called the Jim Jones referred to

00:33:00himself as father father Jones so this was called our father who art in hell

00:33:06and obviously Jim Jones might qualifies that but as I presented this this

00:33:13tape and this information I was very stubborn I told them they were crazy my

00:33:19church wasn't a cult and we weren't anything like Jim Jones but in my church

00:33:26we often talked about bodily sensations like tingling on the back of your neck

00:33:30or the top of your head or feeling like oil is being poured over your head and

00:33:36we said this was the anointing and we could tell if a person we could so-called

00:33:41discern if a person was anointed or full of the spirit because we feel these

00:33:46sensations as much as we said faith is not a feeling we very hypocritically

00:33:52applied this test and so as I listened to Jones in his earlier years as a

00:33:59Pentecostal faith healer I was surprised to learn that I felt the spirit and I

00:34:05figured this must have been based on the idea that he started in the right path

00:34:11and they got off track somehow but the moment of truth came when he forcefully

00:34:17threw his Bible onto the ground stood on top of it and said I am God Almighty

00:34:25okay when he said this I felt this supposed anointing very powerfully the

00:34:34implication of this hit me so hard in the soul the mind and the body that I

00:34:40got up and it ran to the bathroom and so I was vomiting my guts out excuse that

00:34:46my buddy came up behind me put his hand on my shoulder and said it's over Steve

00:34:53you're free I had chills going up my spine as you were saying that because

00:34:58the first time that I heard Jones from those early years I had many of the same

00:35:03emotions maybe not the same conclusions that you got to but I had the same

00:35:08emotions you could feel what we called the quote-unquote spirit on Jones and

00:35:14what we heard essentially I've thought long and hard of this and I've analyzed

00:35:19it Jones had the same techniques that Branham had unfortunately you go forward

00:35:26in time you can find people like Hagen is doing the same thing go backward in

00:35:30time all the way back to Dowie they're all doing it they're preying really

00:35:35heavily upon your emotions and they strategically lay out their sermon

00:35:40content in such a way that they're warm and welcoming in the beginning they

00:35:45bring you in they capture your attention they get into the subject matter and

00:35:49then just pound it into you screaming pounding pounding your ears and it's

00:35:56it's more complicated than I want to go into in this episode but I came across a

00:36:01study that was talking about the way these guys are doing it and the rhythm

00:36:05they get into as you get tired and they're going for very long periods of

00:36:11time your heart rate goes down their rhythm comes up and moment in which they

00:36:17match they can wreak havoc upon your mind and I read through that there's no

00:36:23way and I went back and I started analyzing the sermons of Branham and

00:36:28sure enough you find those long long sermons he starts out kind of slow and

00:36:33they get us in this rhythm in this rhythm and he's screaming and screaming

00:36:36at the people and the gist of what the article that I read and I wish I had it

00:36:43I would throw it on the screen if I did but the gist of the article was this

00:36:46they get you into that rhythm where your your mind starts to be numb to sleep

00:36:51they're pounding you with information but more than that they're verbally

00:36:56attacking you and you get into the state of like a beaten stepchild you're

00:37:03they become a father figure to you which is probably why Jones used the phrase

00:37:08father and when you get into that childlike state they can program your

00:37:13head and when I read that I was like this this is some terrible terrible

00:37:17stuff but all of that journey came the first time I heard Jim Jones one of the

00:37:22things that came to mind when you were saying that rhythmic thing kind of

00:37:26similar was I saw during the programming I saw videos of a televangelist he would

00:37:36step away from the podium and hold up the Bible and say the Word of God says

00:37:41and he'd go back to the podium and he'd speak more in first person talking about

00:37:46things that were going on and how he was continuing to see growth in the

00:37:54church and so on then you go away from the podium and he'd hold up the Bible he

00:37:58says but you see the Bible says this and a lot of amens and all of you use then

00:38:04he goes back to the podium and it becomes like Pavlov's dog then he

00:38:10doesn't take the Bible he leaves it at the podium and he says and I tell you

00:38:15and says something like we're raising money and we need more you need to give

00:38:21more and more and more so somewhere in the back of your mind if he sets it up

00:38:26properly you're thinking that's God speaking that's God speaking through him

00:38:31and of course some of them do say God's speaking to me but if they said it

00:38:36right psychologically speaking they really don't have to have any kind of

00:38:44blatant saying that I am God or God is speaking through me. So with the life

00:38:50after my deprogramming I did get back in the music that was that was great I

00:38:56gradually got back in but I learned of something I don't know if people still

00:39:01use this phrase but in those days they called it floating and so floating was a

00:39:06very vulnerable time when you've left a group and the practice of mind

00:39:13control so you leave a group like that and then for a time you're extremely

00:39:19vulnerable to either go back when you have questions or doubts or find

00:39:23something equally as bad and man I've heard that so many times where even from

00:39:30people who've you know made comments at your podcasts that say I used to be into

00:39:38this but I'm feeling like it's okay and they'll start describing another group

00:39:42and I'm going no no please you're getting back into the same old garbage

00:39:47and it's really difficult. The head deprogrammer that got me out with the

00:39:55with the team said he didn't have any assistance but to get out but for nine

00:40:01years he felt like he was gonna have a car wreck or lightning bolt would strike

00:40:07him and he had to and the reason for that is that he had left God's group and

00:40:14he was worse than Judas he was gonna pay the penalty and it's gonna happen any

00:40:20day so keep your eyes open but he had once he found out how corrupt and how

00:40:28how corrupt and hypocritical Moses David Berg was the leader of his group he

00:40:36confronted him and he said look you're telling the people this but why are you

00:40:40why are you saying this and David Berg basically said I am the prophet of God

00:40:46you know he just kind of shoot him off well this fellow mighty programmer his

00:40:53wife he confronted his wife and said or brought this information and she says no

00:41:00you just you're losing your faith you need to hang on and they had a young

00:41:04child at the time the young child died because he didn't get medical attention

00:41:11and David Berg I think this was in Israel somewhere just says we don't have

00:41:17time for this just they just threw him on the side of the road and covered him

00:41:22with rocks and mighty programmer said you think a man of God would do that

00:41:28treat our child that way and his wife again she wouldn't buckle so he had to

00:41:34make the big decision I'm leaving I got to get out of this it's not right on so

00:41:39many levels so he left and like I said nine years later he finally began to get

00:41:46things together so floating yeah that's that's an interesting one I did

00:41:51experience that say for about a year or two after I left the group I was in the

00:41:57people that my parents hired to help get me out also suggested a place called

00:42:04unbound and that was in Iowa and essentially it was a halfway house run

00:42:10by ex-cult members and some of them seemed like you know I was born in 1960

00:42:17so some of them look like intelligent well-educated old hippies that's what

00:42:25they look like to me that was the first time I experienced a spaghetti the way

00:42:30they served it I said ooh spaghetti this is great I haven't been eaten so well in

00:42:34that cult and so spaghetti with peanut butter green peas M&Ms just all

00:42:41kind of thrown together I said okay it's figured I'll leave it but that was a

00:42:46very good experience and again you're meeting people from different kinds of

00:42:49groups comparing notes and saying ah I get it now and so I also got to

00:42:55participate in support groups and sometimes I'd go to talk to a church

00:43:01youth group and share the experiences that I had and the progresses that I'd

00:43:07made afterwards and then finally research began and I was still living at

00:43:14home with my folks and this was before cell phones so they realized that doing

00:43:22research and talking on the phone with people was kind of therapeutic and so I

00:43:28think I'd get up to like three or four hundred dollars a month for the phone

00:43:32bill in those days and but I began to gather stuff and for sure the leader of

00:43:42I'm trying to avoid his name the leader of the deprogramming team having been an

00:43:48ex-member of the children of God with Moses David Burke he had a lot of

00:43:54information about the latter rain manifest sons of God teachers like Bill

00:43:59Britton and he also did a fair amount of Wesley Swift and he runs up by me said

00:44:05nothing does this sound like the latter rain to you I say it sounds like the

00:44:09latter rain plus the wackiest stuff I've ever heard like the flying saucers

00:44:14and all that other biz Swift gets into but yeah that was very therapeutic is

00:44:19getting into research it's kind of funny because it went full circle the Wesley

00:44:25Swift flying saucer stuff you can actually find that in Jim Jones's

00:44:29transcripts and you know it's it's all from the same root Branham obviously was

00:44:35heavy influence on Jones and Branham was in Christian identity you know all of

00:44:39that story so but one thing you said is for certain you called it floating I use

00:44:45the term re-victimization whenever people leave the cult they are very

00:44:50susceptible to re-victimization by a different group or by the same group and

00:44:54I have had people I've had people enter the support groups and they you know go

00:45:01through all the joys and emotions and sadness of leaving it's a flood of

00:45:05emotions and then suddenly go right back in what they came out of and send me all

00:45:11of this hate mail and I had this one guy that he started bombarding me with hate

00:45:16mail when he went back in and then five things five years later he escaped again

00:45:23and then apologized for all of that so it's it's a real problem I want to

00:45:28people go through it I understand what they're going through and I wish I could

00:45:32help them but there's really once they go down that pathway it's really hard to

00:45:37help them out a second time they really have to come to that conclusion by

00:45:41themselves yeah and I guess one of the real crowning I would say moments but a

00:45:49period of time for me after doing that research was I got invited on by the

00:45:55same head to programmer to participate and so I was you know he would run the

00:46:01thing but I was one of those ones that would participate and and talk about my

00:46:07experiences and show them as best I could how that was the same as their

00:46:10group and so we we deprogrammed folks from the the way international which was

00:46:17run by Victor Paul were well we did we did some folks from send fives to move

00:46:24and there's one young lady from that group who was really our only

00:46:29unsuccessful deprogramming she had been in his in San Francisco for like 10 or

00:46:3512 years and she was her I think her brain was just gone to mush she would

00:46:40just kind of stare like so maybe she had some emotional or psychological problems

00:46:45that we were unaware of but we really couldn't make much progress with her we

00:46:50had to just say okay and then we did this is in England we went to England

00:46:56for an offshoot of Moses David Berg's the children of God that was called the

00:47:02star family and it's been a long time but it seems like that was the prophet

00:47:09in charge of that group was his ex-wife something like that which he

00:47:15disowned when he found out he could have multiple wives and whatever relations he

00:47:19wanted and then one of the more unusual groups that we did it was like a reverse

00:47:28version of white supremacy it was called the black Hebrew Israelites and so that

00:47:35one was very alarming at first because the guy that that I've mentioned that

00:47:42was the head deprogrammer he came and he was on the phone and said and said look

00:47:48Steve I've got another deprogramming I really got to get to you and so he kind

00:47:55of went plop here's the information good luck and so I had a very small team and

00:48:01I would put it this way is I had a very sincere helpful but not really great

00:48:09speaker person as an assistant and another person who was very very shy and

00:48:16just unable to say much so I basically had to do the whole thing I mean they

00:48:21helped but I had to do a lot of the the groundwork and all that but something

00:48:26came with deprogramming which doesn't happen as much nowadays thank goodness

00:48:32but I would say I'd be glad that I was deprogrammed and I wouldn't want it to

00:48:38be left to my decision I guess I don't know I could still be I could be headed

00:48:44towards the NAR you know going from Word of Faith into the NAR I could that

00:48:49could have been me but there were potential criminal charges that could

00:48:55have been brought against me and my team I was in. One of course had to do with

00:49:00the violation of First Amendment right of freedom of religion because you're

00:49:05taking somebody who apparently of their free will is in say like going with

00:49:12Branham or Sam 5 or whoever and that's because psychologists and and the legal

00:49:19system are not really up to snuff when it comes to understanding the the

00:49:24processes that these people go through to get into that cult or that religion.

00:49:29Another obvious one that I could have had potential charges against me was

00:49:35kidnapping and I'll give you a very a very bizarre but I mean I would do it

00:49:45again was one of the guys in the deprogramming team he was kind of like a

00:49:52MacGyver type guy and so we followed this young lady in the way

00:49:59international and knew her path to and from work and so this is gonna sound

00:50:06really spooky and freaky to some of the listeners but he got this kid out and

00:50:12she thanked us for doing this I'll say that up front so he followed her and he

00:50:17know about cars which I don't but something in in the car that had to do

00:50:22with the admission whatever it was he attached some kind of remote control and

00:50:27so we're going going up highway 45 which is a main interstate that goes

00:50:32through Houston from from Galveston up to Houston and on to Dallas so we got to

00:50:39what looked like a safe spot and he flipped the switch and lo and behold

00:50:44her car stops and we got one of the less assuming and easygoing ladies who was

00:50:55ex-children of God she got out of the van we were in and says oh I'm so sorry

00:51:00looks like you've had car trouble my brother knows about cars and here it

00:51:05comes we had to grab her and put her in the van. We didn't do anything violent

00:51:13like you know hurt her choke her put ropes around her anything like that

00:51:18masking tape no drugs involved but we quickly as possibly got her to the so

00:51:25called safe house and safe meaning like with a child there's nothing that the

00:51:32cult member can get a hold of to hurt themselves because that has happened

00:51:35many times the Moonies can give you great examples they're not great but

00:51:40they're giving examples of that and nothing to hurt the team members that

00:51:45also has happened and no way for the person to leave the safe house and bring

00:51:51the police down on you okay and yeah actually the my head the programmer guy

00:51:59had I think he had to pay a $10,000 fine he didn't do any time but some people

00:52:07faked like they got out of the cult and then rushed for the door and overcame

00:52:11the security which I told you I might mention that overcame the security and

00:52:16just bolted out and and made their way to a telephone and and you know said

00:52:23these guys are kidnapping me and holding me against my will okay so you got

00:52:27holding against the will kidnapping aiding and abetting all this kind of

00:52:31stuff and of course it gets worse when you cross the state line which the folks

00:52:37in my deprogramming had done we went from Boston I mean Massachusetts where

00:52:43do we go I don't really remember but we had already crossed the state line where

00:52:48it was happening and then unauthorized use of a vehicle so in this way of a

00:52:57way international deprogramming the guy in charge says okay we need somebody to

00:53:06get her car and go park it at the main airport in the Houston area and I said

00:53:13well I can do that and I said but yeah you know I don't really want to have

00:53:17fingerprints all over the steering wheel and so one of the young ladies fished in

00:53:22her purse and said oh here and I tell you it looked just identical to Michael

00:53:27Jackson's diamond studded glove I'm thinking ah and at her there's something

00:53:35with her I'd driven standard before but the clutch was messed up so and so when

00:53:43I got into the to the airport there was an officer right ahead of me and here I

00:53:49am with this you know this glove that looks really suspicious and my car's

00:53:54going and I'm thinking okay time is about to begin for me the only thing I

00:54:02can tell you other than the one deprogramming that just it just didn't

00:54:08happen every one of the people that we did a deprogramming for none of them

00:54:14went past three days and all of them all of them said with tears generally thank

00:54:21you I don't know what I was doing what can I do in the future to prevent this

00:54:26you know they were just really really realizing what they how they've been

00:54:31deceived so badly but probably the last thing John that I can think of that

00:54:37really really struck me was okay so you had this group called the black Hebrew

00:54:43Israelites and there's different versions of a different splinter groups

00:54:48but there's a really really violent version and you could probably compare

00:54:53them to some of the some of the you know violent homegrown whatever you want

00:55:02to call them white supremacist groups in America and except the only thing is

00:55:10they have more of a Malcolm X viewpoint where the white men are devils and we

00:55:16are the true Israelites. Okay so after they had deprogrammer left and I was

00:55:23wanting to be very careful I said why I really gotta go Steve he handed me a

00:55:29newspaper open it up and it said two dead in decapitations related to

00:55:39attempting to get folks out of the black Hebrew Israelites and I said oh okay

00:55:46this is this is a little bit unusual so the young lady that we were getting out

00:55:53of this group happened to be a white young lady and I'll tell you where that

00:55:58kicks in what was she doing in the black Hebrews but she said she said you'll be

00:56:04sorry this is at first before we got much headway she goes you're gonna be

00:56:08sorry brother Isaiah is gonna come here and what happens to you you know she's

00:56:14like really laid it on thick and we'd already read the article of what can

00:56:18happen to you and so why was a white young lady seemed you know educated a

00:56:27nice kid it turns out she was in her last last year at the University of

00:56:34Texas and was going to graduate in accounting and was such a good student

00:56:42she was set up to probably make 40,000 a year and those that's pretty good

00:56:47nowadays but in those days that was really good for a young person so it

00:56:54turns out that brother Isaiah the main prophet of her version of this sect he

00:57:01had been prophesizing sign that this young lady is sent here by God and we

00:57:09know that we will have all this you know all the riches and blessings poured

00:57:14upon us through her and she's going yeah amen amen I'm willing to hand over that

00:57:20money so yeah they had they had certain certain plans for this young lady well

00:57:27it kind of got down to a spot where like I said I was the only one that was

00:57:33very verbal I had all the materials but after two days of attempting to get her

00:57:40out and reasoning with her he got to kind of kind of an impasse and nothing

00:57:48seemed to work and I said something that I think I probably regret and not say

00:57:54often to anybody but I basically said if you had any you would sit here and

00:58:01listen to us and think about what you're doing because this is this is it you

00:58:07know this this is either your life on the right track or possibly going down

00:58:11down the wrong track and suddenly maybe because of my harsh statement her eyes

00:58:18look like so and she looked around and she just started weeping and saying ah

00:58:25you're right all they wanted to do was serve God and this Isaiah this brother

00:58:30Isaiah is obviously a charlatan and a violent one at that and so to this day I

00:58:39mean I haven't really kept close track with her but at least three to four

00:58:45years maybe five years after she left that group she was living in a fairly

00:58:50affluent part of Houston had a husband two kids and it's not in the black

00:58:58Hebrew Israelites. You know I read some of those stories in the cult I thought

00:59:05they were horror stories but of people being kidnapped and then taken out of

00:59:08the cult and I really had mixed emotions because I think mentally I knew I was in

00:59:13one but I couldn't come to terms with it and I would read that and I would I

00:59:18would just say that's wrong you shouldn't do that to people and

00:59:22interestingly I had a situation I guess I was out of the cult maybe maybe three

00:59:29years four years interestingly I had a situation wherein a group of people I

00:59:33was with was going to go and kidnap somebody out of the message cult and

00:59:38they I was actually if I remember correctly I was in their vehicle when

00:59:43they informed me that they were gonna do this and I said no I'm out I'm done

00:59:47I'm not gonna do this but it's really if you read and I've even have some of the

00:59:53stories on the websites of successes where the programmers are doing this it

00:59:58really gets into this really gray area because on the one hand the people are

01:00:03already kidnapped they're being held hostage mentally and yet at the same

01:00:08time you can't break the laws to get them out of that and you have to get

01:00:12them out of the environment so that they're not continually programmed so

01:00:16it's a it's a no-win situation but quite an exciting story that you've that you've

01:00:21had what is your advice for people after going through all of this what would you

01:00:25advise people that might be in a cult or might accidentally get into one well

01:00:33that's that's not an easy question to answer fully and accurately but the

01:00:40first thing that comes to mind is that pretty much all of these groups in one

01:00:46way or another wants you to shut off the rational mind and just sort of go with

01:00:52the flow receive the words of the Prophet they're not to be gathered

01:00:58intellectually or rationally because if you're in a New Age type group or Eastern

01:01:05meditation group they'll do something you know through chanting or whatever

01:01:11that gets you out of the rational mind makes you more vulnerable and then the

01:01:18pseudo-christian groups that I can think of have had their own spin on how to how

01:01:24to get you out of the rational mind I can see very clearly in my mind at the

01:01:31church I was going to the two folks there's a man and a young man and a

01:01:36young woman who led the praise and worship services and everybody said oh

01:01:43so-and-so she's such a blessing she's so spiritual and you know she sang well and

01:01:50played guitar reasonably well and all that so I was accompanying her somewhere

01:01:56I think we're just going to go pick up some doughnuts for a meeting and I

01:02:03noticed even with my state of mind that anything I said she processed it this

01:02:11way she would she didn't have an evil mean looking face there's kind of a

01:02:17blank stare as if she was waiting for the spirit to tell her something or

01:02:22holding back before she could speak and it was it's kind of unnerving even in

01:02:29the group and so I would say that shutting the mind off is is such a

01:02:37crucial issue because and we would say oh yeah the devil is the mind is the

01:02:44play play pen of the devil however worded it and well you might say yeah

01:02:50but to a certain extent but if you if you take away any of the the safeguards

01:02:58you have that would help you prevent yourself from getting into a group like

01:03:03this that would be one another one depending on the group you're in is

01:03:09becoming isolated from your family from information I know that that's really

01:03:17really big on the cults that you know ship off people to communes of course

01:03:22they get total control of everything they see eat drink and learn about and

01:03:28so we would do that without going into a commune but we'd have tapes like like

01:03:35what you said John where we play these tapes all the time you know and so that

01:03:42was part of it and it's hard to come armed with this sort of stuff but in

01:03:50hindsight if I would have known better I had read something by Gord Lindsey

01:03:57talking about William Branham I said whoa this guy was something and you know

01:04:02part of my mind might say for real yeah that halo above him maybe not but oh

01:04:08he's a man of God okay and then we we had one of my roommates was real into

01:04:15Derrick Prince and I couldn't quite put my finger on him I thought he sounded

01:04:19kind of boring honestly but but yeah he was into that okay so there you go

01:04:26shepherding discipleship stuff so we had a hodgepodge of different kind of

01:04:30influences come around oh and I'd read one of Bill Hammond's earlier books and

01:04:39of course him being one of the main prophets in the NAR so if I had known

01:04:44ahead of time if I had been forewarned about some of the stuff so in a way John

01:04:51yeah that comes kind of full circle is hopefully people that are a little bit

01:04:55on the fence can hear things like your podcast and others who are doing similar

01:05:03kind of work and I can just tell you this is that like I said just about a

01:05:10hundred percent of the people that I was involved in a deep programming thanked

01:05:14me and the rest of the team and they'd start adding on and yeah and then they

01:05:20did this and this and this I can't believe I was such a sucker and they

01:05:24start to really start to even deprogram themselves but when I was learning about

01:05:29that and I was attending cultural awareness network meetings in the early

01:05:37and mid 80s I met quite a few the big well-known deprogrammers and I can tell

01:05:46you I probably shouldn't give names but one of them was X the walk from John

01:05:51Robert Stevens called and he was a solid Christian and did this and risk

01:05:59his life constantly and his freedom is going to jail and very intelligent and I

01:06:07mean he was somebody to look up to he was a good guy and he was involved in

01:06:12this I would say the same thing about the guy that deprogrammed me and he was

01:06:20oh yeah and part of his team was this lady from from Clare Prophets the cut

01:06:29and another another good solid Christian so deprogramming doesn't have to be done

01:06:37by a Christian but in my mind it's it's better and yeah we we heard the horror

01:06:43stories about like Ted Patrick you know he got some really really bad press for

01:06:51the kinds of stuff we were doing but all the people I was involved with were

01:06:57headed folks in the right direction and if I if I knew where they were today I

01:07:02would love to contact them but it's kind of better to you know close that chapter

01:07:07close the door and and hope and pray that they're doing all right. Well it's

01:07:13very good advice. Thank you so much for sharing your story. No problem John. Well

01:07:18if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information you can check us out on

01:07:21the web. You can find us at William-Branham.org. For more about the dark

01:07:26side of the New Apostolic Reformation you can read Weaponized Religion from

01:07:30Christian Identity to the NAR and for more about the converging apostasy you

01:07:35can read the book The Converging Apostasy and also a quick outline of

01:07:41hands-on eschatology, A Matter of Timing and Agency, both available on Amazon.

Leaving Apostasy: An Interview With Steve Montgomery - Our Stories - Podcast Episode 336

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