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John and Chino discuss the tragic impact of divine healing doctrines in faith-based groups, beginning with personal reflections and experiences. Their conversation highlights how misinformation and conspiracy theories in religious communities can lead to dangerous health decisions. Chino then shares the coroner’s report detailing Hobart Freeman’s death from untreated diabetes, illustrating the severe consequences of rejecting medical care. They read and reflect on an email from a former member of Freeman’s Faith Assembly, revealing how cult-like environments restrict access to information and suppress critical thought, especially around death and illness.
The episode explores the long-term emotional and spiritual aftermath for those who left Faith Assembly, including interviews and personal stories from survivors. They trace the doctrinal lineage from early Pentecostal figures like Dowie and Bosworth through William Branham and onto Hobart Freeman. The discussion reveals how core theological errors—such as misinterpretation of scripture, especially Mark 11:24—were passed down and intensified, culminating in real-world tragedies including preventable deaths. They emphasize the need for scriptural accuracy, critical thinking, and accountability. The conversation closes with a powerful call to evaluate healing claims against biblical patterns and historical evidence.
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Diabetes, Healing Beliefs, and Dangerous Alternatives
05:03 When False Hope Replaces Medicine
07:20 Freeman’s Autopsy and Untreated Illnesses
08:45 A Listener’s Email: Joining and Leaving Faith Assembly
11:03 Controlled Information and Cult Dynamics
13:00 Dr. Freeman’s Shift from Charisma to Fear
14:52 Ongoing Impact and Hundreds of Tragic Outcomes
17:03 A New Contact and Their Long Journey Out
19:05 Remembering Eevee and Others Lost
23:00 The Legal Changes and Religious Defense Loophole
25:00 More Stories of Loss from the Community
27:00 Why Didn’t They Just Leave?
30:03 Promoting Education and Free Information
31:01 Freeman’s Attacks on Institutions
34:05 Shifting Theology After Leadership Loss
36:06 The Baptist Hypocrisy and Mentorship Chain
38:08 Hobart Freeman’s Connection to Branham
40:01 Hobart’s Theology Taken to the Extreme
42:59 How Fast Did Biblical Healings Happen?
44:34 Freeman’s Record vs. the Bible’s Record
46:09 The Central Verse of Hobart Freeman’s Ministry
49:56 Hobart’s Foundational Story of a 40-Day Fast
53:06 Where Freeman Got His Theology
54:13 Branham and the Influence of Bosworth and Dowie
57:01 Dowie’s Scheme and the Origin of Delayed Healing
59:32 The Pattern of Repeating Errors
1:00:10 Chino Reflects on Why Freeman’s Teachings Were Enough
1:01:02 How a Fake Halo Photo Fueled the Movement
1:02:24 Hobart’s Shifting Stance on William Branham
1:04:45 Romans 10:17 and the Faith Tape Doctrine
1:07:00 Manipulated Imagery and the Hollywood Effect
1:07:56 Bag of Tricks: Recognizing the Pattern
1:08:17 Is the Foundation Scriptural?
___________
The episode explores the long-term emotional and spiritual aftermath for those who left Faith Assembly, including interviews and personal stories from survivors. They trace the doctrinal lineage from early Pentecostal figures like Dowie and Bosworth through William Branham and onto Hobart Freeman. The discussion reveals how core theological errors—such as misinterpretation of scripture, especially Mark 11:24—were passed down and intensified, culminating in real-world tragedies including preventable deaths. They emphasize the need for scriptural accuracy, critical thinking, and accountability. The conversation closes with a powerful call to evaluate healing claims against biblical patterns and historical evidence.
00:00 Introduction
01:35 Diabetes, Healing Beliefs, and Dangerous Alternatives
05:03 When False Hope Replaces Medicine
07:20 Freeman’s Autopsy and Untreated Illnesses
08:45 A Listener’s Email: Joining and Leaving Faith Assembly
11:03 Controlled Information and Cult Dynamics
13:00 Dr. Freeman’s Shift from Charisma to Fear
14:52 Ongoing Impact and Hundreds of Tragic Outcomes
17:03 A New Contact and Their Long Journey Out
19:05 Remembering Eevee and Others Lost
23:00 The Legal Changes and Religious Defense Loophole
25:00 More Stories of Loss from the Community
27:00 Why Didn’t They Just Leave?
30:03 Promoting Education and Free Information
31:01 Freeman’s Attacks on Institutions
34:05 Shifting Theology After Leadership Loss
36:06 The Baptist Hypocrisy and Mentorship Chain
38:08 Hobart Freeman’s Connection to Branham
40:01 Hobart’s Theology Taken to the Extreme
42:59 How Fast Did Biblical Healings Happen?
44:34 Freeman’s Record vs. the Bible’s Record
46:09 The Central Verse of Hobart Freeman’s Ministry
49:56 Hobart’s Foundational Story of a 40-Day Fast
53:06 Where Freeman Got His Theology
54:13 Branham and the Influence of Bosworth and Dowie
57:01 Dowie’s Scheme and the Origin of Delayed Healing
59:32 The Pattern of Repeating Errors
1:00:10 Chino Reflects on Why Freeman’s Teachings Were Enough
1:01:02 How a Fake Halo Photo Fueled the Movement
1:02:24 Hobart’s Shifting Stance on William Branham
1:04:45 Romans 10:17 and the Faith Tape Doctrine
1:07:00 Manipulated Imagery and the Hollywood Effect
1:07:56 Bag of Tricks: Recognizing the Pattern
1:08:17 Is the Foundation Scriptural?
___________
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, minister, and friend, Cheno Ross,
00:00:47pastor and the voice of the Understanding Scripture and Truth by Cheno D. Ross YouTube channel.
00:00:53Cheno, it's good to finally be back and start to catch up on our recordings.
00:00:58The audience doesn't really know that we've missed a beat, but my mother-in-law passed
00:01:04recently, and it has thrown my schedule into chaos trying to catch back up.
00:01:09It took a couple weeks out of my schedule there for dealing with all of that, and very difficult
00:01:16because she, whenever my family cut me off, she became really my mother.
00:01:21So, I lost my mother the last couple weeks, and it has been difficult.
00:01:26But in the midst of the chaos and in the midst of the family ordeal, something happened that
00:01:34actually ties into this episode, which is why I'm bringing that up.
00:01:38As you know, I have diabetes, and it was adult-onset diabetes, which is not that uncommon in these
00:01:46divine healing cults.
00:01:47There's a large percentage of Americans who have this.
00:01:50But one thing that I noticed as I'm talking to people who are still indoctrinated in that
00:01:56divine healing mindset, whenever, you know, they ask how you're doing, how's your health,
00:02:01all of this stuff, like it's typical among the groups, when I mention diabetes, it's odd because
00:02:08I forgot this aspect of the divine healing mindset.
00:02:13So, in the divine healing mindset, you have these alternative things that you can do for
00:02:19your healing.
00:02:21You mentioned Hobart Freeman and the EyeSight, for example.
00:02:25I had family members and friends, I think it was friends as well, who were doing these
00:02:32exercise techniques where you poke pinholes into a piece of paper, and you hold it up to
00:02:37your eye, and it's supposed to improve your eyesight by flexing the muscles around your
00:02:41eyeball.
00:02:42That was years ago.
00:02:43I was probably maybe in my 20s when I saw this.
00:02:47I was in the cult mindset, and that was ridiculous to me.
00:02:50But the thing that jogged my memory as I'm, you know, in the family activities and I'm seeing
00:02:57all these people that have cut me off for years and years, when I mentioned diabetes, one
00:03:02person in particular said, oh, well, I read this article in this news journal where diabetes
00:03:09is caused by a parasite and the world doesn't know it.
00:03:13And I forgot that aspect of it.
00:03:16Whenever you're in the divine healing mindset and you're taught that, you know, all the medical
00:03:21science and medical doctors are of the devil, well, you turn to these conspiracy theory mindset
00:03:28newsletters, and there is no way.
00:03:31I mean, I know the science pretty well about diabetes.
00:03:34I've studied it.
00:03:34It is not a parasite.
00:03:36But the funny part about that story is where it went is just very much like the divine healers
00:03:44themselves.
00:03:45So this person has the special knowledge that diabetes is a parasite, and then I'm like,
00:03:52oh, well, that's interesting because I didn't want to make him or her look like a fool, you
00:03:57know, and so I said, oh, that's interesting.
00:03:59And they came back and they said, yes, it is interesting.
00:04:04And that's where the conversation ended.
00:04:06So it leads you down this trail where, yes, they figured out that it's a parasite and medical
00:04:12science is wrong, but there's nothing you can do about it.
00:04:16And so it leads you down this weird path.
00:04:19Now, I don't know if you were the same or if Hobart Freeman's cult was the same, but I can
00:04:23recall many, many things like this.
00:04:26They would try to find ways to skirt around the medical profession.
00:04:29Sometimes it would be herbs or whatnot, but other times just here, go, I don't know, raise
00:04:35your raise your right arm five times a day or some weird thing.
00:04:38And they're trying to bypass you actually going to the doctor.
00:04:42And in cases like mine, it can be very critical.
00:04:46If the people believe this thing and avoid their diabetic medicine, you can actually die
00:04:51from this or you can severely injure yourself and lose limbs for this.
00:04:56So it brought up some memories, some painful memories.
00:05:00But in the end, I'm glad that I actually went to the doctor and my health is just fine right
00:05:05now.
00:05:05There are so many things in your introduction that I could take off on there.
00:05:10I know the more esoteric and secretive and Gnostic something is, the more I run from it.
00:05:20So as soon as I hear this is a secret that not many people know, I generally think the
00:05:25reason not many people know that is because it's not true.
00:05:28So that's why it's such a secret.
00:05:31So when I hear something is profoundly esoteric, but I think you handle it right.
00:05:37And I normally try to say, that's really interesting because, you know, the level of our knowledge
00:05:42is so small compared to what's in the universe.
00:05:45So maybe it is a parasite.
00:05:46Maybe I do need to think for 15 seconds about that before I reject it.
00:05:52But let me backtrack and offer my sympathy to you, John, and to your dear wife for the
00:06:00loss of her mother and your mother-in-law.
00:06:03I've known about it because you and I talk as friends and personally, and I am so sorry
00:06:11to hear that when you already felt like you didn't have a mother and that your mother-in-law
00:06:18had become your mother and now to lose her, really sorry to hear that.
00:06:24It's a big loss in your life and obviously a huge loss in your wife's life.
00:06:29And I'm sure I'm speaking for everybody who follows you and loves you, listens to these
00:06:35podcasts.
00:06:37You know, we are all humans that do these things.
00:06:39We're not machines that just crank out a new podcast every week.
00:06:45We actually have lives and feelings and extended family.
00:06:49So, you know, I'm really sorry to hear that.
00:06:53And while that was happening with you, my wife's cousin's husband, so it's a, you know,
00:07:00not really a relative of mine, pretty distant for hers, passed away the same time your mother-in-law
00:07:05did.
00:07:06So we were gone for a funeral and you were gone for a funeral.
00:07:10And, um, so we did have a little break in our recording and a break in the release of
00:07:17these as well.
00:07:18And speaking of diabetes, um, we'll get to it before too long and people just hold on.
00:07:24Here is the full coroner's verdict and autopsy for Hobart Freeman.
00:07:30And, um, it's publicly available.
00:07:32It was easy to get through the Kosciuszko County coroner's office and his body was racked with
00:07:40diabetes.
00:07:41I mean, untreated, full blown, racked with diabetes.
00:07:47I don't want to spoil the surprise and the podcast for the future, but, uh, the medical
00:07:53report and the full autopsy report where they take out your liver, your kidneys, they weigh
00:07:59each one, they photograph each one, they slice all pieces of it.
00:08:03They analyze it, the spleen, the lungs, the brain, everything.
00:08:09Uh, it was a mess dying of, I don't have diabetes.
00:08:12You do, you know, more way more about it than I do, but I'm sure dying from diabetes, dying
00:08:18from untreated diabetes.
00:08:21It's just a terrible thing for someone to have to experience.
00:08:25So he didn't treat his, he died as a result.
00:08:30Uh, you have yours treated, it's under control and, um, you're able to live a healthy and productive
00:08:37life as a result of that.
00:08:39So, Hey John, if you don't mind, I'm going to start off reading an email that you and I
00:08:44received reading these emails, which I do occasionally they're fresh because they just came in from
00:08:49someone and I've always found them a little helpful because it's, it's more than just
00:08:56you and I talking here's someone who was a part of it.
00:08:59And I always find when I read one of these and someone else can identify with that time
00:09:05period, maybe they even know the person because of, you know, things given away in the email
00:09:10and, you know, it jogs their memory and brings all this back fresh in their mind.
00:09:16I won't give the name of the person.
00:09:17And this is someone that, uh, you and I have talked with, and I really do hope you will
00:09:23end up getting to do an interview with them because I think it'll be very good.
00:09:28Uh, but if you do, um, it's from this unnamed person where she had emailed you, John, and
00:09:34said, Hey, I am so grateful to have found you explanation point.
00:09:38I'm working my way through the videos, mostly related to Hobart Freeman and Faith Assembly.
00:09:46My husband and I attended Faith Assembly from 1975 to 1979.
00:09:52I was a 19 year old newlywed when we moved from Ohio to Indiana to join Faith Assembly.
00:10:02So many people did that from all over the United States, from other parts of the world.
00:10:10Um, I think in some of these other cults like maybe William Branham's, because there are so
00:10:17many parts of it all over the world, you just have to find the one closest to you.
00:10:23If William Branham were still alive and preaching there in Jeffersonville, um, you know, he'd have
00:10:29a church of 10,000 people or whatever, because everybody would come there.
00:10:34Well, that's what happened as long as Dr. Freeman was alive and it even continued for a short
00:10:39period of time after his death.
00:10:41Who wants to be a member of a satellite group with some traveling minister when you can go
00:10:46to the Vatican and hear the Pope for yourself?
00:10:50So if they had the opportunity, they were moving.
00:10:53Um, so she said, we moved my husband and I from Ohio to Indiana to join the church.
00:11:00And later we left primarily because of the changes we saw happening to Dr. Freeman and
00:11:07the other leaders.
00:11:09We went through all the phases, the glory barn, the tent days, and into the new building.
00:11:16Thankfully, she writes, we were, they were somewhat of a rebel because they kept their TV.
00:11:22They just had to probably hide it in the back room, make sure that no people from church when
00:11:27they came over and visited, saw that they owned a trashy vision, a TV.
00:11:32Uh, she said, also, I had my babies in the hospital when the Jonestown tragedy happened and people
00:11:39started detailing the characteristics of a cult that I began to understand exactly what had
00:11:46happened to us.
00:11:47But those years and many of the ones to follow were such a blur.
00:11:52It's been so helpful to listen to you and Cheno fill in so many of the details, but it's
00:12:00important for you to understand how little information any of us had.
00:12:06Most people didn't have a TV.
00:12:08We had no newspapers, no contact with outsiders.
00:12:14Conversations with faith assembly friends always had to be cautious and positive.
00:12:20You know, you had to talk in the cult language.
00:12:23So you really couldn't find out what was actually happening.
00:12:28We heard rumblings of people dying, but no one was allowed to talk about anything with
00:12:33each other.
00:12:34And anything that did get mentioned was dismissed as lies and slander and rumors and persecution
00:12:41by the media.
00:12:42When you control the input of information, I mean, you just have a perfect scenario for a cult to
00:12:51develop.
00:12:52You only believe what the cult tells you.
00:12:55And if you even heard a whispering of something from outside, it was shot down as, well, those
00:13:00are just the lies of the persecuting media.
00:13:04The Dr.
00:13:04Freeman, when we left, was not the same person as the one at the Glory Barn.
00:13:09Those were fun, exciting times, especially Bruce Kinsey, who himself was always a bit
00:13:16of a rebel.
00:13:18But once we entered our exile period, and that's once they got into the new building, Dr.
00:13:24Freeman became increasingly bitter, angry, and outright paranoid.
00:13:30I spent years dismantling and reconstructing my faith and went on to attend seminary to get
00:13:37a master's degree.
00:13:38My relationship today with Christ is strong and it is real because it is informed and
00:13:46chosen.
00:13:47So thank you so much for what you do.
00:13:51That was an email I know you received, John, and I actually did a follow-up call with this
00:13:57lady.
00:13:57And in the middle of our conversation or somewhere in our conversation, just things she was saying,
00:14:04I thought, I think I know who this person is.
00:14:08And so, again, today, without giving away any names, because hopefully you will have this
00:14:14person on as an interviewee, I mentioned a particular woman's name and she said, that's
00:14:22me.
00:14:22And I said, oh, I know exactly who you are then.
00:14:25And I began telling her stories about herself.
00:14:29And she says, how do you know all this?
00:14:31And I said, I know it because I've got all of these newspaper articles from 40, 45 years
00:14:37ago.
00:14:37And when I read these, they made a big impact on my life because I was a part of the cult
00:14:45early on, too.
00:14:46And there's no way to learn anything about the group.
00:14:49You can't ask the group because they don't even know.
00:14:53And as she said, if there are some rumors going around, people will shoot them down and
00:14:59say, oh, that didn't really happen or that's not really true.
00:15:01You have to get outside of the cult.
00:15:06You have to get outside of the control of information.
00:15:08You have to get to a free press, to a free society to find out what actually is going
00:15:14on.
00:15:15So I began telling her stories about herself.
00:15:19And she said, I have forgotten all about that.
00:15:23I even have a picture of her.
00:15:24So I sent her a picture to prove this is you 45 years ago, right?
00:15:29And she said, yeah, that's me.
00:15:31And it just all came about, this information, because the local media, health authorities,
00:15:40law enforcement, legal authorities, court authorities were really, really concerned with what was
00:15:46happening at Faith Assembly.
00:15:48This was, I'll just show this.
00:15:50This was a newspaper article done 45 years ago.
00:15:55This was early on.
00:15:56They only had 52 deaths, you know, that they could document then.
00:16:01But the number of those deaths just went sky high.
00:16:06And as you see in that map, it wasn't just there in Indiana.
00:16:10It was in all the surrounding states and in other states all around that area.
00:16:1652 deaths.
00:16:17The papers later were able to come up with hundreds of deaths.
00:16:20And as I've said, people have continued to die to this day.
00:16:24There's no way that the death total worldwide from people who followed Hobart Freeman and Faith
00:16:33Assembly is any less than somewhere in the low thousands, not hundreds.
00:16:38It would be in the low thousands of people who have died.
00:16:43And speaking of that, and this newspaper article, in the last week, John, I had talked to another woman who's had been following the podcast.
00:16:53I didn't realize it until we were able to talk on the phone.
00:16:57And then she said, as a teenager, my parents brought me into this message, into this movement.
00:17:03First of all, up at Bruce's group in Lafayette, Indiana, it was called the Lighthouse there.
00:17:10Then they kind of, whenever Bruce quit, remember Bruce quit in the fall of 1984 because he thought Hobart, his father-in-law was wrong about everything.
00:17:22So this, this young lady's father was one of the four men called into the back room at the Lighthouse meeting that day in the fall of 1984,
00:17:31where Bruce was announcing, I'm quitting the ministry, getting out of the ministry and closing up shop.
00:17:38And it was just shocking to those people.
00:17:42And so then they left there and they went to Jeff Barnett's group down in Indianapolis.
00:17:46And they left there and went down to Tom Hamilton's group, not far from where I'm sitting right now in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
00:17:54And so she said, you know, I think my parents would like to talk to you.
00:17:58Last week, we met for coffee.
00:18:02Three hours later, we're finally saying goodbye.
00:18:04This couple is now in their eighties and they are just delightful, wonderful Christian people.
00:18:12They have run the whole gamut from way back in Bruce Kinsey days, way back in the 1970s as a part of that group.
00:18:22And they've just worked their way along until finally, you know, they extricated themselves from the entire movement.
00:18:29And as this other woman said in the email that I read, they've got a strong faith in the Lord and it's informed and it's chosen and it's based on scripture.
00:18:38The reason I bring them up, though, is in our conversation, they were just talking about some of the tragedies that happened up in the group in outside of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
00:18:52And they knew so many of the people there because that was their home church.
00:18:59They didn't even travel down to the new building to listen to Hobart.
00:19:03They really liked Bruce.
00:19:04This was probably the biggest satellite at the time because Bruce Kinsey, Hobart's son-in-law, was probably second in command of that whole ministry, the faith assembly ministry.
00:19:18Hobart at the top and Bruce right underneath him.
00:19:21So they knew a lot of people in our conversation Friday, a week ago, having coffee together.
00:19:28This older couple mentioned the name Evie and they were just talking about different things that had happened and the children that had suffered and the people that had died.
00:19:40And they mentioned the name Evie.
00:19:43And I'm sitting across the table from them.
00:19:46I don't have any of my information with me.
00:19:48All I have is my memory of having studied all these things 40 to 45 years ago, John.
00:19:54And I said, are you talking about Evie Swanson?
00:19:58And they said, how did you know Evie Swanson?
00:20:01And I said, the same way I know most of what we're going over in the podcast.
00:20:05I said, I did research on this 40 to 45 years ago.
00:20:09And I said, if I remember correctly, Evie Swanson was a little toddler, an infant, one year old, who accidentally pulled something off the counter above her.
00:20:22I couldn't remember if it was coffee or tea and ended up with second and third degree burns all over her body and died as a result of that.
00:20:34I said, that's the kind, I mean, it just gives me chills to think about that to this day.
00:20:42That's the kind of aftermath that came from Hobart Freeman's false views on faith and healing.
00:20:50So just in this article right here down at the very bottom, you see Evie Swanson, one year old.
00:21:00So here's what the newspaper said.
00:21:02The Fort Wayne News Sentinel in 1983, I believe this came out, one year old.
00:21:10And, you know, the reason I want to read this is who speaks for these children?
00:21:13This child never got a choice, never got to live.
00:21:16You know, it's almost like, you know, the mass burials of people that have died in war, died in something.
00:21:24And you don't even know who these people are that are dead.
00:21:28So I don't know.
00:21:29It just does something for my soul and psyche to rehearse some of the names of these people that died at the hands of Hobart Freeman in this message.
00:21:41So here's one of them.
00:21:42One year old Evie Swanson died of blood poisoning and pneumonia after suffering second and third degree burns over half her body.
00:21:54She was not given any medical treatment.
00:21:57She was the daughter of Larry and Vicki Swanson of Attica, southwest of Lafayette, Indiana.
00:22:04She was injured on November the 11th, 1981 at the Lotus Garden Restaurant in Greenwood, Indiana.
00:22:13The baby spilled an 18-ounce pot of hot tea on herself.
00:22:19Mrs. Swanson refused medical aid, although the restaurant owner, Loom Lee, offered to find and pay for it.
00:22:27The child died on November the 13th, 1981 at her grandparents' home near Franklin.
00:22:36Johnson County officials considered charging Mrs. Swanson with child neglect, but decided against it because state laws then offered religious beliefs as a defense.
00:22:49You know, we covered a long time ago, John, last year, how the Indiana State Legislature was working hard to rewrite the laws so that these parents could no longer use the religious exemption that existed in those laws at that time.
00:23:06And they were successful in rewriting the laws, and consequently, people began being prosecuted and sent to prison over that.
00:23:16Here's some other people.
00:23:19Nichols Carey, 16-month-old.
00:23:2216-month-old Nichols Carey, his body covered with blisters from chickenpox, died of pneumonia on June the 17th, 1979.
00:23:32Here's four-year-old Natalie Joy Mudd, died March the 5th, 1980, of cancer.
00:23:39A large tumor had been growing on her face.
00:23:42The tumor started near her right eye and grew for two months.
00:23:47Eventually, it covered most of her face.
00:23:50I've read other stories about this particular child where when Child Protective Services finally got to the house,
00:23:57at a certain distance off the floor, they saw bloody marks on all the door casings around the house.
00:24:04And they were able to trace that to the fact that this little four-year-old, who was blinded by this tumor growing over her face,
00:24:13is trying to navigate her way around the house and who's running into the door casings, leaving bloody marks from this tumor.
00:24:22I mean, it's something you read out of, I don't know, this is not even Pioneer Day medical treatment.
00:24:29This is just no medical treatment at all.
00:24:33Her parents, it names her parents, of Warsaw, Indiana, chose to pray for her rather than taking her to a doctor.
00:24:42They are members of Faith Assembly, according to Warsaw City Police Detective Paul Schmidt.
00:24:49Natalie's sister, 5-year-old Leah, has the same kind of cancer.
00:24:55On November 15th, Welfare Department officials came to the home and took custody of her.
00:25:01She's now receiving treatment at a children's hospital in Indianapolis.
00:25:06You know, we're talking about 40 years ago.
00:25:08One final story.
00:25:11Christina Miller, 12 years old, died of congenital heart disease on Christmas Eve, 1981, at her home in Salina, Ohio.
00:25:22And that's the reason I'm mentioning this, because there was a large satellite group in Salina, Ohio.
00:25:29And guess who this young lady's father was?
00:25:32Let me read the next paragraph.
00:25:33Her father, Mr. Miller, gave up his veterinary practice after her death and now operates a religious bookstore out of the family's house.
00:25:46The Millers were important people in that Salina satellite group.
00:25:50And here you've got a guy who has a doctorate in veterinary medicine and his 12-year-old daughter dies.
00:25:59And they're just going to stay with the message regardless.
00:26:01There was a couple that the 80-year-old couple that I talked to last Friday knew very well.
00:26:08And I know somewhat.
00:26:09I did the cabinets in their home whenever they built their new home.
00:26:12So I do know them.
00:26:14They lost.
00:26:15I thought it was two or three.
00:26:17The 80-year-old couple said three or four children died in childbirth who were a part of Tom Hamilton's group in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
00:26:27So I'll get into what I want to talk about now, John.
00:26:32But as I continue to go down this sad, sad path, it's just littered with the bodies of dead people, dead children, people like I remember another man, Arthur Graham, a 40-year-old man who went to Faith Assembly, who worked in some medical supply company.
00:26:52Of course, he was forced out of his job by the ministry at Faith Assembly saying you can't have anything to do with medicine, medical supply companies, nothing like that.
00:27:04Forced him out of that.
00:27:05So now you no longer have a good paying job.
00:27:10He also had diabetes.
00:27:11And there are continual harassment of him.
00:27:15If you believe God's word, his promises for healing, then you're healed and you don't need your insulin.
00:27:24Arthur Graham stopped taking his insulin and four days later, Arthur Graham was dead.
00:27:30So this is the after effect of Faith Assembly.
00:27:34It's all really sad, and I'm really glad that you read the email before reading that, because there's so much to unpack there that I think needs to be said.
00:27:44She is correct when she wrote the email that we didn't have access to the information.
00:27:49And what I came to realize after I left the Branham cults is it's much the same way.
00:27:56You're in a divine healing cult.
00:27:57People are dying like in any human community, but they keep that covered up because you're in the cult that teaches you that we have access to this divine healing that the world doesn't have.
00:28:09The quote-unquote world is loaded language for anybody who's not in your cult, including other Christians.
00:28:14So we have this thing that other Christians do not have.
00:28:18We have access to this divine healing that other Christians do not have.
00:28:22But then what happens when somebody dies?
00:28:24It defies all of this logic, and so they can't let it out.
00:28:28So they keep it in.
00:28:30And to the people listening, we have a large number of listeners who were never in this.
00:28:34They're just studying it for either academic purposes or just to learn more about it.
00:28:39The common question that I get through my email from the people in those crowds is, why don't the people simply leave?
00:28:48We have to understand that they don't know this information.
00:28:52When people are dying, those who are near to the death, they obviously do.
00:28:57But in these satellite groups, there is no transfer of knowledge generally.
00:29:01To some level, you have people who maybe visit the funeral and this kind of thing.
00:29:06But it's not talked about in the same way, because if you do, you're defying the cult logic.
00:29:12And we had the same exact logic, the name it and claim it, positive confession type of thing.
00:29:19So if you're positively confessing that you're healed of this thing that you then died from,
00:29:25well, that positive confession doesn't carry on after death.
00:29:28The people don't say, well, he believed and he was saved and he was healed of this thing that he died from.
00:29:35And so positive confession stops right there, buddy.
00:29:37And when it stops, you can't really continue thinking about it.
00:29:42But if you're on the outside looking in, you're raising your hand saying,
00:29:45wait a minute, man, this guy said he was healed and he died of that thing he was healed from.
00:29:50So on the outside looking in, yes, everybody should leave.
00:29:53But on the inside, you've really started into your thought blocking process.
00:29:59Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism
00:30:05transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation?
00:30:12You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website, william-branham.org.
00:30:20On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley,
00:30:26Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.
00:30:34You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those movements.
00:30:40If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top.
00:30:47And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching.
00:30:54On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:30:59Hobart did a really good job of telling everyone how horrible the media are.
00:31:05And that has to be a part of your doctrine, because if you don't undermine them first or somewhere early in your teaching,
00:31:14then people will pick up the newspaper, turn on the television set to see what's going on.
00:31:20So that's what we talk.
00:31:21That's what we mean, John.
00:31:23We're talking about a closed society that all the information circles within the cult.
00:31:28You don't get any information from the outside.
00:31:31And that's not the way that intelligent people function.
00:31:35You know, you should be allowed to hear both sides of the argument.
00:31:38And then you, as a responsible adult, you know, you have the freedom to decide which one you're going to come down on.
00:31:44And it is definitely true.
00:31:46I mean, there were true things Hobart said about the media, that the media tends to have a liberal slant.
00:31:51We all know that.
00:31:52We really don't need to have messages preached on that.
00:31:55That the media are looking for sensational stories.
00:32:01Well, that's the only way to sell a newspaper, you know, reporting good news that it's sunny today.
00:32:07And he and his wife have been happily married for 40 years, won't sell a newspaper.
00:32:11We already understand all of that stuff.
00:32:14But Hobart, he turned his sermons into either anti-denominations, just preaching and railing against.
00:32:22And as you said, I think last time, the Baptists, for some reason, are the worst.
00:32:27I don't think they're the worst.
00:32:28I'm quoting Hobart.
00:32:30The Baptists are the worst because they were always first on his list.
00:32:33But he would throw in the Catholics and Episcopalians, too.
00:32:37Railing on denominations, railing against medical science.
00:32:42How, you know, they sometimes operate on the wrong limb or they sew you up.
00:32:47There's still a pair of scissors or gloves or a sponge inside you.
00:32:51Yeah, like that happens once every 100,000 operations.
00:32:55So what, you know, or railing against the media.
00:33:00His sermons became railing against denominations and doctors and media.
00:33:07And, you know, I just was, you know, I didn't listen to a lot of those.
00:33:11And I'd go six months.
00:33:12I think I hadn't heard Hobart in a while.
00:33:14I need to get some tapes and listen to them.
00:33:16And then I listened to them and I go, oh, no, not the terrible denominations and media and medical science again.
00:33:24And literally, I'm kidding you not.
00:33:27You realize I hadn't missed anything by not listening to Hobart for the last six months.
00:33:32I hadn't missed a thing because he hasn't missed a beat.
00:33:35He is still going down the same path of railing against these things that he doesn't like.
00:33:42So, yeah, I mean, you should be able to listen to the news media yourself.
00:33:48Obviously, they don't always tell the truth.
00:33:50But I mean, these are these are medical core coroner statistics and facts that these people did die.
00:33:59Right. Here's the date of their death.
00:34:01Here's the age and here's the cause of death.
00:34:04As you just said, what can you do with that?
00:34:07You know, it's best to shut the cult down where you never have access to that information,
00:34:12because once you have access to it, now you've got to start create a new theology and start explaining the reasons.
00:34:23And there were normally two why people died.
00:34:26Either they lacked faith or they missed a condition.
00:34:29You know, they would never just own the fact maybe our theology is wrong.
00:34:34Could it be that maybe our theology of divine healing and faith is somehow wrong?
00:34:41You know, they're not going to accept that.
00:34:43They're not going to go down that path.
00:34:44So either they shut you off from ever knowing that anybody died.
00:34:49And if you find out that, oh, they did die, they say, well, the reason that they died wasn't because there's any chink in our theology.
00:34:57It's because a person missed a condition or because they didn't have enough faith.
00:35:02And then, unfortunately, then they have to take another step when Hobart himself died and everybody said, oh, nobody has as much faith as Hobart.
00:35:12So when Hobart died, now you can't say, well, he didn't have enough faith or he missed a condition.
00:35:19Now your theology has to evolve even more.
00:35:23And it evolved down several interesting paths that we will look at when we get to that.
00:35:28But one of which was, well, God had to take him because we were all just looking to him and God wanted to get our eyes off of him.
00:35:38So God murdered him for our sake.
00:35:43People should be able to tell when cult leaders are grasping for straws.
00:35:49They should be able to tell when they have run up against a brick wall.
00:35:54And rather than just back up and say we're wrong, they got to find a way around that brick wall.
00:36:00So they will invent a new part of their healing theology.
00:36:06I know I'm distracting from this a bit, but there are so many memories that pop up when you talk.
00:36:10And last time, you're right, I did say the Baptists, and I was thinking about that after we spoke.
00:36:16People don't realize this.
00:36:17A lot of times when I'm speaking, things that come out are just things that are memories that I have not yet processed.
00:36:23And that was one of them because whenever William Branham would get in these rants about the different denominations, he would target the Baptists heavily, which was odd because he himself falsely, not true, falsely claimed that he was a Baptist minister when he started this.
00:36:40He was actually Pentecostal.
00:36:42But after we spoke, I started processing it, and I thought, wait a minute.
00:36:46That doesn't make sense.
00:36:48Why is he harping on the Baptists?
00:36:49Usually it would be the – I would expect the Catholics.
00:36:51I would expect, you know, different ones.
00:36:54I looked up in the sermons.
00:36:56There's a search online if you go to the cult headquarters website.
00:37:00I just typed in Baptists, and there are 855 results with – or 800, I think it is, with the word Baptists, plural.
00:37:10And if you take Baptists, there are over 3,000, I think it was.
00:37:15Now, some of those are John the Baptist, obviously, but I would say a vast majority of those are the denominations.
00:37:21So he's railing against them.
00:37:24And so I went back through my archives and notes, and Branham was Pentecostal, like I said.
00:37:29His church was started by Roy Davis, who was the clan, second in command of the clan.
00:37:34Well, Davis' ministry started as a legitimate Baptist minister, but he got booted out whenever it was found out that he was – he had multiple churches and multiple states with multiple – not just stage personas, but life personas.
00:37:51And in some of the states, he would have a wife and children in one state that didn't know about the wife and children in the other state.
00:37:58And whenever all this came to surface, and I realized that, wait a minute, this guy's a scoundrel, the Baptists kicked him out, and he was railing against the Baptists.
00:38:08So Branham was raised and mentored, I guess is the way to say it, mentored in a church that was harping against the Baptists.
00:38:16So he then starts harping against the Baptists.
00:38:19And then – so as I'm processing this in my head, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, Hobart Freeman did the same thing.
00:38:25So he's being somewhat mentored by Branham.
00:38:28He's harping against the Baptists.
00:38:29So all of this flows from – literally from the clan down to Hobart Freeman.
00:38:34That's unbelievable, John.
00:38:36And I know when people hear you tell on your side some of these stories of how this person was a scoundrel with multiple wives,
00:38:43I know the people that are still holding on or trying to hold on to Hobart, I'm going to address them now,
00:38:51because they'll hear that, and they love hearing that, because they go, oh, Hobart was nothing like that.
00:38:56We never said that he was.
00:38:58You know, Hobart, when it came to morals as far as cheating on his wife or multiple marriages, no.
00:39:05I've never accused him of that.
00:39:08As far as an outlandish lifestyle like a home in South Beach and Monte Carlo, no.
00:39:14Hobart – no, that was not Hobart at all.
00:39:16But just because you are innocent of those particular charges doesn't make you innocent of all these other things.
00:39:25What Hobart was guilty of that maybe these other guys weren't guilty of were the deaths of all these people.
00:39:34Name another minister.
00:39:35I don't know that there's another minister out there that you could attribute thousands of deaths to because these people precisely and directly followed Hobart Freeman's teaching on faith and healing.
00:39:50Hobart got his teaching from charismatic Pentecostal ministers before him.
00:39:55But the one thing about Hobart's teaching on faith and healing was that, if anything, and I hate to even call it this, but you could call it more consistent in the sense that he just followed it to its logical conclusion.
00:40:10That if healing is in the atonement, and if salvation for sin is in the atonement, and if you claim one, then you should be able to claim the other.
00:40:19And if you claim one, forgiveness for sins, and you don't need any help from a priest or any other man – see, this is the way his logic would work – then when you claim your healing, it should work in the same way.
00:40:31You shouldn't need any kind of help from any man, medicine, doctors, things like that.
00:40:36The other charismatic leaders who taught divine healing, such as William Branham, even though he taught that, and he probably discouraged, taught negatively against doctors and medicine, he didn't forbid the use of them like Hobart did.
00:40:52So Hobart took – I mean, he is a descendant of these other guys, including William Branham.
00:40:58He took that message in favor of divine healing, and then he took it a step further.
00:41:06Well, if it's divine healing, we don't need the instrumentality of man.
00:41:11And then he took it a step further.
00:41:13Not only do we not need them, even to use them, depend on them, go see them, visit them, take medicine from them at all, would be a sin against God.
00:41:25And that was where his logic took him.
00:41:30You have to go back to his whole foundation, the premises upon which his belief were built were not scriptural.
00:41:39We've been looking at some of that in our past parameters of healing.
00:41:45We looked at the type of illnesses in our last go-around.
00:41:49The people that were healed were what?
00:41:51People who desperately needed healing.
00:41:54They had a debilitating condition.
00:41:57Or in a few cases, they were already dead, like Lazarus and Tabitha that Paul raised from – or that Peter raised from the dead.
00:42:05The type of illnesses that we see in faith assembly circles, as I jokingly and mockingly always say, but it's 100% true, would be a sore left shoulder or a bruised right hip.
00:42:23You know, come up for healing for that.
00:42:24So Hobart took this message that was a very popular message that had been taught by Charismatics and Pentecostals for decades prior, but he wanted – prior to him – but he wanted to be known as something different and something special.
00:42:41And so he took it to its logical conclusion.
00:42:45So if I may, John, let's take another look at just another parameter of healing based on Hobart's theology as laid up against what the Bible actually teaches.
00:43:00And I'm sure with the time left, we won't get far with it, but we can give people something to begin to think about.
00:43:06And when I'm talking about parameters of healing, as I said in our earlier discussions of this, we are all Christian people.
00:43:17We all have as our – we're supposed to – as our source book, the Bible.
00:43:23This is – we don't follow a creed.
00:43:25We don't follow some formula.
00:43:27We don't follow some doctrine.
00:43:29We're not supposed to anyway.
00:43:30We say, we claim that we're Bible-believing Christians, and so we're going to believe the Bible, which means we're going to base our doctrine, our practices, and our beliefs on the Bible.
00:43:45So with that being said, we would simply ask ourselves the question, the supernatural healings that happen in the Bible, how quickly did they occur?
00:43:56And I would challenge people, look at the people who were blind, who were lame, who were deaf, who were dumb, who were demon-possessed, who had some form of paralysis, who had a withered hand.
00:44:10And I would say that all of the cases of supernatural healing that occurred in the Bible – remember, we base our beliefs on the Bible.
00:44:18That's what we're all claiming.
00:44:20And we're going to check it out and see how solidly it is based on the Bible.
00:44:24All the cases of supernatural healing in the Bible occurred either immediately, if not instantly.
00:44:33And here is where Hobart was able to deceive his people and just brainwash them completely away from what the Bible taught.
00:44:43And if someone said, well, what's the difference between immediately or instantly?
00:44:46Well, I mean, I don't know a definition of the two words, but by instantly, I mean instantaneously, in a split second, they were healed.
00:44:56By immediately, I mean there may have been a very brief process or a very brief period of time, and then the person was healed.
00:45:05What I'm not talking about are days and weeks and months and years waiting for the person to be healed.
00:45:14I challenge people to read their Bible.
00:45:18Don't go by what I say, and definitely don't go by Dr. Freeman's teaching and tapes.
00:45:24Read your Bible and look for the time period involved between when they prayed or when they were prayed for and when they were healed.
00:45:35Now, if you want to look at Hobart's ministry, the number of people who were healed instantly, which means in a split second, or the people who were healed immediately, and that means right away.
00:45:51We're not talking about days and weeks and months and years later.
00:45:55In Hobart's ministry, it wouldn't be one in a thousand who were healed instantly or immediately.
00:46:02In the Bible, it would be 999 out of a thousand would be what you find.
00:46:10So what are we going to do with that?
00:46:12We simply have a scenario where our experience does not line up with Scripture.
00:46:19Our doctrine does not line up for Scripture.
00:46:22Our experience doesn't line up because our doctrine doesn't line up with Scripture.
00:46:26And we've talked about cognitive dissonance before.
00:46:30And what people do is, rather than change their belief, they will just keep on inventing excuses and reasons while they're still experiencing what they're experiencing.
00:46:43When it would be much easier to admit your own personal reading of Scripture, you can read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Book of Acts.
00:46:52You don't have to go anywhere else.
00:46:54There is the healing ministry of Jesus and the apostles in the early church.
00:46:59And what will you find there?
00:47:01You will find that people were healed either instantly or immediately.
00:47:08But if we go to Hobart Freeman's ministry and message, what we find is his most beloved verse, his most often quoted verse was Mark 11, 24.
00:47:21What things, soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.
00:47:30I actually, John, have a little small excerpt so people can hear from the lips of Hobart Freeman himself, who himself says that this verse is the central verse in his message and ministry.
00:47:46And I want people to hear this.
00:47:48If he says anything to you, he's going to point you to his word.
00:47:51Like the local pastor here in this city came to me a few years ago and he was having trouble with doubts, having trouble believing and trouble believing for healing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
00:48:02It wasn't that he didn't want to believe it.
00:48:04He says, I'm just having a terrible battle with doubts all the time.
00:48:07And as I talked to him, he confided in me that he said to get more of the power of God and to come into a place, you know, where he could eliminate this problem from his life.
00:48:16He said, I fasted and prayed for 40 days and nights.
00:48:21And that's a long time.
00:48:22I mean, a real fast.
00:48:24Just water, no food.
00:48:26Not one of these V8 fasts and all that, but a real fast.
00:48:29I said, you didn't.
00:48:31He said, yes.
00:48:32And I said, well, what came as a result of that?
00:48:35You know, apparently it didn't help him because he's coming to me for help to try to get rid of his problems, his doubts and all that.
00:48:41Well, he said, on the 40th day, he said, as I was before the Lord, the last day of my fast, he said, the voice of the Lord came booming out of heaven and just reverberated and filled the whole room where I was sitting.
00:48:55I said, it did?
00:48:56I said, what did he say?
00:48:56He said, he quoted to me Mark 11, 22 to 24.
00:49:03He's looking for faith.
00:49:05And here's what God quoted him.
00:49:06The passage we use in here week after week.
00:49:09Have faith in God for whosoever shall say to this mountain, be thou removed and shall not doubt in his heart, but believe those things which he says.
00:49:16And God said it much more loudly and slowly than I'm saying.
00:49:19Believes in his heart.
00:49:20Those things which he says shall come to pass.
00:49:23He'll have whatsoever he says.
00:49:24Therefore, I say unto you that what things so ever you desire.
00:49:28When you pray, listen to God talking to him.
00:49:30When you pray, believe you receive them.
00:49:32You shall have them.
00:49:33And there he is sitting before me, confessing nothing but doubt and unbelief.
00:49:37I said, you mean he quoted you?
00:49:39That passage, the passage that is the central passage in my ministry, the one I claim all the time for this and that and the other.
00:49:46I've got new cars on it.
00:49:47I've gone to Israel on it.
00:49:48Tremendous things taking place on that.
00:49:50So the background to this story that I can share so that you're aware of where I'm going and what's going on with this, John, is Hobart is he's telling he's telling the account, according to him, of a local minister who was just struggling with doubt and unbelief.
00:50:07And just trying to figure out, why don't I have faith?
00:50:10How can I overcome my doubt and my unbelief?
00:50:13So according to Hobart, the man went on a 40 day and night fast.
00:50:18And let me just let me just stop right there.
00:50:21I've heard all of these stories so many times.
00:50:24There are so many people who fasted 40 days and 40 nights, according to Hobart.
00:50:29And, you know, when I was 17 and 18 years old, you hear these stories.
00:50:33You don't have the critical thinking ability to go away just a minute.
00:50:39I mean, you're probably dead at the end of 40 days.
00:50:44You had water, but no food.
00:50:46Hobart just glibly said, yep, he went on a 40 day fast.
00:50:50Moses fasted 40 days.
00:50:52Jesus fasted 40 days.
00:50:54These are supernatural.
00:50:55These are epic experiences.
00:50:57And these are rare.
00:50:59They're not like charismatic people make them out to be that.
00:51:04Oh, yeah, this brother, he went on a 40 day fast, blah, blah, blah.
00:51:07And this sister did that.
00:51:09This man.
00:51:10So in other words, I don't believe for a second that the man fasted 40 days.
00:51:14Believe what you want about that.
00:51:17At the end of the 40 days, he got his answer from God.
00:51:23I don't believe this for a second happened.
00:51:25But Hobart tells the story like it's the gospel truth.
00:51:29The end of 40 days.
00:51:31The man told Hobart the voice of God came booming down out of heaven in the corner of my bedroom.
00:51:39And Hobart said, well, you know, what did he say?
00:51:42What did he say?
00:51:44And Hobart loves telling this because this is the foundation for his faith teaching ministry.
00:51:53Said God quoted Mark 11, 22 to 24 to this man.
00:51:59Said have faith in God.
00:52:01You can speak to the mountain.
00:52:02And then ends with verse 24.
00:52:05What things whoever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive it and you'll have it.
00:52:10And he said, this is a central verse of my ministry.
00:52:13Well, it was a central verse of his ministry.
00:52:17No surprise.
00:52:18It had to be because nothing ever happened when they prayed.
00:52:23And nothing happened like it did in the gospels and in the book of Acts.
00:52:26When they prayed for someone to be healed, I'm sorry they weren't healed.
00:52:32But if you've got Mark 11, 24 misinterpreted doctrine and theology, then you believe that you receive when you pray.
00:52:44Whether you actually receive, you know, believing and actually are two different things in Hobart theology.
00:52:50Whether you actually receive is beside the point.
00:52:53You just hold on to Mark 11, 24 when you pray, you believe, you receive at that time and then you shall have it.
00:53:02And what people probably don't realize, but we talked about it in our last discussion together, John, is that Hobart, he was a pirate.
00:53:12He stole this from Kenneth Hagin.
00:53:14And I don't know if Kenneth Hagin stole it from somebody before him or he found it in the Bible himself.
00:53:18Hobart's understanding of Mark chapter 11, verses 22 to 24, especially Mark 11, 24, came directly from Kenneth Hagin.
00:53:30When Hobart Freeman, in June of 1966, made his pilgrimage to Gordon Lindsay's Deliverance School in Dallas, Texas, the keynote speaker was Kenneth Hagin.
00:53:41And Kenneth Hagin was the, he's even referred to to this day as the granddaddy of the faith movement, the grandfather of the name and enclaimant, the grandfather of W.O.F., the word of faith movement.
00:53:57He was the elder guy from McKinney, Texas, from way back in the 30s.
00:54:02He died and went to hell.
00:54:03He died and went to heaven.
00:54:04I don't know where all he went, how many times he died, but finally he stayed alive for a while and he taught Mark 11, 24, his theology of it.
00:54:14Hobart picked up on that big time.
00:54:17And then, as Hobart said in that quote, this was the central verse of his ministry.
00:54:23And as I've often said since then, it had to be the central verse because when people prayed there under his ministry, they simply did not receive anything.
00:54:32So let me read to you a quote from William Branham.
00:54:38It's because faith cometh by hearing, hearing of the word, Jesus said in Luke, whatsoever things you desire when you pray, believe them when you receive them.
00:54:48That was in 1950.
00:54:50That's in a sermon called Ministry Explained, and there's a few things I want to point out.
00:54:54Number one, it wasn't in Luke.
00:54:57Branham actually didn't get this from the Bible, though he says that he got it from the Bible.
00:55:01That verse is not in Luke.
00:55:04Branham, when I'm talking about all these historical connections from Roy Davis or, you know, there's several that I go through in my histories.
00:55:12And you're right, people latch onto that and they say, well, my cult leader didn't do that.
00:55:17But then you find out, but wait, their cult leader did something else that was very similar to these guys.
00:55:22Mike Bickle didn't do some of the things that William Branham did.
00:55:26But yet he's teaching many of the things that Branham did.
00:55:29Well, here's where it gets really interesting.
00:55:31So William Branham was mentored by, as I mentioned, the second in command of the clan.
00:55:37And he lies about it.
00:55:39One of the things, one of the doctrines he carried forward, we found where he learned in Roy Davis' church, the serpent seed Christian identity doctrine.
00:55:48And when he first teaches it, he lies about it and says, I rejected it.
00:55:53So Hobart Freeman, if he's receiving these tapes by William Branham, remember, there's control of information.
00:56:00And that was heavily controlled, especially in the 60s and 70s.
00:56:04He may not have actually received a recording that says he's supposed to believe this thing.
00:56:08We don't know if he had access to it or not.
00:56:11Hobart Freeman didn't teach that.
00:56:13So the people who are critical of us can say, well, he never taught serpent seed.
00:56:17We don't know whether he got it in the first place.
00:56:20William Branham was also mentored by F.F. Bosworth, Fred Francis Bosworth.
00:56:27Bosworth came out of the Dowie cult.
00:56:30Anybody who wants more information about what I'm saying, you can read Militant Christian Extremism, a critical examination of John Alexander Dowie.
00:56:38This guy was the backbone for everything that you just said.
00:56:41So F.F. Bosworth was really big in the faith healing movement.
00:56:46He was one of the few who attended Azusa Street, so he was respected through all the Pentecostal circles.
00:56:54He's most recognized for his book, Christ the Healer.
00:56:57In either the preface or the end, in that book, he gives high credit to E.W. Kenyon.
00:57:05And so he is basically the father of this weird divine healing movement.
00:57:11He's mentoring not just Branham, but many of these other guys with the doctrines of Kenyon, the doctrines of Dowie.
00:57:18Well, if you read this book and you understand what Dowie did and his scheme, because this guy was probably a bigger con artist than the Davis character.
00:57:29He comes to the United States and he says, I healed all these people back in Australia.
00:57:34And the news media eats it up.
00:57:36Here's a faith healer.
00:57:37And by golly, he healed those people.
00:57:39They didn't check it out.
00:57:42So whenever they printed it, this massive influx of people who are sick wanting to be healed comes into San Francisco.
00:57:48And he starts this tour because now he's got all these people that he's healing.
00:57:54Well, he can't have it seen that he's failing these healings.
00:57:58So he goes to Los Angeles and says, back in San Francisco, I healed X, Y, and Z, all these people.
00:58:04And the Los Angeles Times, I think it was Los Angeles first, one or the other, they printed it, but with a hint of skepticism.
00:58:13And so all this influx of people, Dowie started carrying this satchel with him that contained all of these testimonies.
00:58:21And he was printing testimonies that weren't real.
00:58:24And we've caught them in some of those newspapers back then, caught them in some of them.
00:58:28But he would say, I healed so-and-so, I healed so-and-so.
00:58:31And you find out, no, he didn't really heal them.
00:58:34And once his cult grew to, I want to say it was 100,000 people, it was a lot of people, the gimmick with the satchels and testimonies didn't work.
00:58:44So he, I won't say he was teaching positive confession in the way that they taught it, but he was laying down the groundwork for teaching positive confession.
00:58:54And he was saying things like, you have to believe it and you'll go home and you'll be healed later.
00:58:59So that as he's touring cities or people come into his divine healing homes, they don't see an instant healing.
00:59:06What they instead get is this promise that you will be healed later.
00:59:10And people were paying massive, massive sums to come live in his healing homes.
00:59:15And he was slipping them out by the cover of night after they would die.
00:59:19He had an arrangement with the coroner.
00:59:20And the coroner would show up every night and collect all the dead bodies, didn't make the news.
00:59:26Families just, well, they disappeared.
00:59:28Where did they go?
00:59:29And all these bodies were disappearing.
00:59:32But that is, that is Dowie.
00:59:34Dowie was very heavily influencing F.F. Bosworth.
00:59:39Bosworth influencing Branham.
00:59:41And then, as I just read to you, Branham is teaching the doctrine that flowed down to Hobart Freeman.
00:59:47All of this, there is a connection.
00:59:50Even though we're mentioning these names and these people, yeah, they're not similar in all of the various types of sins that they have.
00:59:59But doctrinally, you can trace all of these elements back.
01:00:03And like any human being, they may reject Doctrine A but accept Doctrine B or influence Doctrine C.
01:00:09That's the way this works.
01:00:11Yeah, that's exactly the way it works, Sean.
01:00:13And the moral to all of this is you've got to do your research, which you have obviously done an outstanding job of going way back to the early 1900s.
01:00:23The only claim to fame I can have is my little bit that I've done on Hobart Freeman.
01:00:29None of the rest of that really interested me.
01:00:31I always suspected that there was a connection, but it didn't matter to me one way or the other.
01:00:38I just felt that Hobart's own teaching was in error based on scripture and didn't work based on the facts of how many people died.
01:00:47And that was good enough for me.
01:00:48I've told you before that when I was in college and I bought David Edwin Harrell's All Things Are Possible book,
01:00:55you know, it has on the front cover a picture of William Branham with the halo over his head.
01:01:00And I'm a student at the University of Mississippi.
01:01:02Dr. Harrell at one state over, he's a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
01:01:09And he is kind of writing, it was not a critique at all of the healing revivals.
01:01:15It was, it was a history of it based on the press releases from all of the ministries of the healing revival.
01:01:23So it was pretty much in favor of it all.
01:01:26Um, but when I saw that halo over Branham's head, I didn't know what to do with that.
01:01:31You know, I had no idea.
01:01:33I didn't know how to explain that until I saw your expose of that, that there were plenty of people in that room that had halos over their heads because it was the lighting.
01:01:45I didn't know that, but my point, and I've shared this with you before, is I didn't even need to know that.
01:01:52I didn't care.
01:01:53I didn't care if it was a halo over his head.
01:01:55I had rejected William Branham.
01:01:57Um, but some of us are able to reject things when maybe others aren't.
01:02:02But if you can give them other photographs of people in the same meeting with similar halos over their head, what are you going to do with that?
01:02:11You know, for me to reject it, I just reject it because I think he's a quack.
01:02:16Other people say, yeah, but you know, he's brother Branham.
01:02:19I need some more proof and I'm okay with that.
01:02:22I'm all for you needing more proof and you have given them more proof.
01:02:26And the same is true with Dr. Freeman.
01:02:29I would not have known years ago that he had connections through person A to B to C to D.
01:02:37I didn't know and I didn't care that much.
01:02:40But one thing I was 100% certain of was his connection to William Branham because I had watched him on his early tapes mention Branham so favorably.
01:02:54And then I had watched him subtly try to distance himself by this statement.
01:03:01Well, now Branham just in the end of his life got off.
01:03:04That was always the phrase he used.
01:03:07It's a phrase everybody uses.
01:03:09That way you can't find fault with them for having spoken highly previously in their life of this man's ministry because he'll say, well, he didn't used to believe those things.
01:03:22He just believed that at the end of his life.
01:03:25I never believed that.
01:03:26I thought I doubt William Branham got off.
01:03:29I bet William Branham was off his entire life.
01:03:33That was my assumption.
01:03:36You had the proof.
01:03:37I had the assumption.
01:03:39And your proof has validated my assumption that Branham didn't.
01:03:44He wasn't this prophet.
01:03:47By prophet, I mean, Jeremiah, Elijah, Ezekiel, a prophet who was sent from God.
01:03:55Wasn't that Gordon Lindsay's book, William Branham, a man sent from God?
01:04:00And I read all that, you know, back in the 70s.
01:04:03I remember all of this stuff from when I was a teenager.
01:04:06But William Branham wasn't this prophet sent from God.
01:04:11Those men didn't get off, quote, unquote.
01:04:15You know, here, Isaiah, the first half of his ministry is a prophet.
01:04:19The second half of his ministry is a Babylonian heretic or an Assyrian apostate or something.
01:04:24No, these are true men of God who remain men of God.
01:04:28I never believed it for a second that Branham started right and got off.
01:04:34But Hobart made sure that everyone thought or understood that's how he approached William Branham.
01:04:41But even by the mid 70s, Hobart Freeman was saying, I don't care.
01:04:47This was this quote.
01:04:48You've heard me say this before.
01:04:49I don't care what anybody says about William Branham.
01:04:52I believe he was God's prophet.
01:04:55And I always felt the reason Hobart had to say that is because so much of his ministry,
01:05:03his terminology, his interpretation came from William Branham.
01:05:08So if you reject William Branham outright wholesale, you've rejected the foundation for so much of your
01:05:16ministry.
01:05:17Hobart tried to hide it by saying he got off.
01:05:20But he let the cat out of the bag by refusing to categorically reject William Branham as a deceiver
01:05:30and a false prophet.
01:05:31He couldn't do it.
01:05:32He couldn't do it because he knew to do that.
01:05:35I'm undermining my own ministry.
01:05:37And we probably run our time, John.
01:05:40But one other thing came to my mind when you first read that quote a few minutes ago,
01:05:45you read a quote from William Branham where he's quoting, he said something from Luke,
01:05:50but then he mentions a verse in Romans 10, 17, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word
01:05:56of God.
01:05:57Another cherry picked, misinterpreted foundational verse for Dr. Freeman's ministry.
01:06:05The way he interpreted that was the only way you can get faith is by listening to the word
01:06:12of God.
01:06:12He also said, you can get it by listening to my tapes as long as my tapes are in line with
01:06:17the word of God.
01:06:18And so then he would tell stories of a person.
01:06:21This woman, she's dying of cancer.
01:06:24Do you think she went home and listened to my faith tape once?
01:06:27No.
01:06:28Twice?
01:06:28No.
01:06:2810 times?
01:06:2920?
01:06:3030?
01:06:3040?
01:06:3150?
01:06:32No.
01:06:33She listened to the faith tapes 100 times.
01:06:37Wore the tapes out.
01:06:38Wore the cancer out.
01:06:40That's always what he said.
01:06:41She wore the tape out, wore the cancer out.
01:06:44If you want to get faith, you have to listen to the Bible.
01:06:48You have to hear my tapes over and over and over again.
01:06:52I challenge anybody to go read the context in which the apostle Paul is using that.
01:06:59And he's quoting a verse, how beautiful are the on the mountains are the feet of them that
01:07:03bring the gospel of peace.
01:07:05Go read the context of that.
01:07:07And that is not the proper interpretation of Romans 10, 17.
01:07:11You're talking about you saw the halo and you couldn't disprove it.
01:07:16After I did realize that, wait a minute, I knew this.
01:07:20I already knew this.
01:07:21I have seen photographs where they've taken a picture and the light's hitting the lens.
01:07:25And, you know, you have bright lighting.
01:07:27You can create all kinds of different effects.
01:07:29It's a technique that they use in Hollywood, for example.
01:07:32Well, when I first started this podcast, I actually kept my camera much lower so that
01:07:37it would go up and it had a halo effect in this room because I've got some pretty strong
01:07:42lights above my head.
01:07:43And I started to do that.
01:07:45But then I realized, you know, nobody's even going to get what I'm doing.
01:07:48So I did drop it, but it is a technique and that's just one of many techniques.
01:07:55So, you know, when we're tracing Hobart Freeman to Branham to Lindsay to Dowie, any of these
01:08:01guys, all you have to do is understand their bag of tricks.
01:08:04And once you do, you start to recognize those tricks are being used and reused and reused by
01:08:10other people as this thing grows.
01:08:12But none of them are willing to go back and say, wait a minute, is the foundation of this
01:08:18correct?
01:08:18Is the foundation of this biblical?
01:08:20And therein lies the problem.
01:08:22So I'll wrap it up, too.
01:08:24Thanks for doing this.
01:08:26You're welcome.
01:08:26Thanks for having me, John.
01:08:28Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on
01:08:31the web.
01:08:31You can find us at william-branham.org.
01:08:34For more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion
01:08:38from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:08:44Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.