Cultish: John Alexander Dowie - Descent into Madness, Pt. 1

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Cultish: John Alexander Dowie: A 19th Century Faith Healer's Descent into Madness, Pt. 2

00:00

Alright, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults.

00:06

My name is Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here. I am joined as always by my trusty friend and super sleuth up in Harriman, Utah and your super secret headquarters.

00:19

It looks like from your vantage point You're I see the cultist logo in the background, but it's like your heads right between like that you and the

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L So it's kind of like Cultists, but with your your name in the logo, so I'm still getting

00:31

I'm still getting used to that But it's good to have you back joining me as well as always man. Yeah, dude I'm glad to be back and and I'm excited for this series that we're gonna be doing because we have one of our favorite

00:40

Guests on right? Yes, John Collins. Yeah, John. How are you doing? Great. It's good to be back.

00:46

Yes. Awesome So if any of you are brand new to the podcast last year, we did a series with you talking about William Branham and the message we if you haven't listened to that series definitely check that out

01:00

You'll kind of get an idea of type of the type of research that John does Specifically we're talking about, you know,

01:06

William Branham and all his influences they had with a bunch of different well -known people that if you follow the early 1920s historical figures who are mobsters those sorts of things and quite the fascinating stories to definitely check that out

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So we thank you all for watching us and now back to the episode So John we are talking about a different book

02:02

Today and we're talking about a prominent religious figure by the name of John Alexander Dowie Tell us real quickly actually real quick Just introduce yourself kind of tell them what you're all about and then tell them about you wrote a book

02:15

About John Alexander Dowie and how did you find out about this guy initially before we kind of jump into him his whole story?

02:23

Okay, so for anybody who doesn't know me, I'm John Collins. I'm the author and the founder of William Branham historical research at William dash

02:33

Branham org my family was at the top of the Branham message cult and After I escaped and started researching

02:42

I began Finding an incredible amount of just really creepy weird information about not only

02:51

William Branham, but all of these men connected to him and at this point I've I almost equate it to the

02:59

You know to the Marvel Universe And if you look if you look at it like that Dowie is spider -man's kingpin, right?

03:08

He's he's the big boss but there's so many men and they're all connected and the

03:15

Name is actually Dowie John Alexander Dowie. I learned about Dowie believe it or not in the message cult.

03:23

It was part of the message propaganda William Branham allegedly claimed

03:30

Dowie's mantle and William Branham on one of the sermons he says And I should have thought about I feel stupid

03:37

I should have thought of this when I was a kid He says I was born on one day and Dowie prophesied that I would come

03:45

Dowie died on one one day and then I was born the next so it's like there's this transition of power and you know in in the message called whenever whenever you're trained and indoctrinated to be part of a

04:00

Group where there is a spiritual authority who has these divine insights if you will

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Any person that he mentions is a divinely Inspired person that's connected to him.

04:13

So it was in God's eternal plan that God sent Dowie So that he could bring

04:19

Branham, right? And I became a little surprised the more research because William Branham also toured with a guy named

04:29

FF Bosworth, which we mentioned on the last show, I think Bosworth was a faith healer.

04:35

He was You know, he had huge crowds well, I learned later on during my research that Bosworth was a leader in Dowie's compound and You know growing up in in this arena of Giving undue worship to men.

04:55

We were we heavily favored this thing called God's generals I don't know if you guys have seen this or not.

05:00

Yes. Yeah, so In in the message called there was this God's generals series of you know, it's a docu -series and books, etc

05:09

I think it's Richard Learden is the name of the the author. Well, we respected this book, right?

05:16

This was this was talking about our prophet William Branham and he also talked about Dowie and when you read the book it's as though this famous historian is writing about William Branham and John Alexander Dowie and The way it right the way it reads it's like really, you know phenomenally good people that he's writing about and The more

05:37

I researched the more I realized that this guy is just omitting every single critical detail about every single person that's in this book and so now whenever I talk to people

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I I Basically equate it to Aesop's fables. It's just a book of fairy tales that it does not tell the true history and You know,

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I I'm sure he had a reason for leaving out all the critical details, but I wanted to focus on the critical and see

06:05

Okay, what did this guy leave out and why did he leave it out? So that led me down the path of researching

06:11

John Alexander Dowie Wow, so do you think it would be like safe to say that John Alexander Dowie is

06:19

One of the fathers of the modern like healing Pentecostal movement that no one's actually really ever heard of And have you guys watched the bananas the bonanza shows and seen the traveling snake oil salesman that goes

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Town to town and he's got this magic elixir or whatever Yeah, I mean any for any prominent

06:38

Western always has that character when I was really just you know I was telling you privately prior doing this episode when

06:45

I was reading through the book I was visualizing him as kind of like Snidely Whiplash from Rocky and Bullwinkle for any of us who are older.

06:52

So yeah. Yeah Yeah, so this this character this was a real thing back then this existed people

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You know today if you were to try to do this people today are it's not just educated, but they're more aware

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They're they're more aware that there are people that will take advantage of them So this thing would never have existed today, but you know back in the 17 1800s you had men with ill intent who wanted to take advantage of people who didn't want to work and Realized they could actually make more money taking advantage of people.

07:25

So you had the traveling snake oil salesman you had Not just dowey, but there were you know literally hundreds of men who were going from town to town saying

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I can't heal you're sick and they come into the town and this the whole town becomes just infatuated with this guy who's claiming to be

07:44

God Santa or whatever and Whenever they go in He's you know referencing all of the the healings or whatever that he had in the previous towns and They're all excited about that.

07:56

And then when he leaves they realize wait a minute You know, none of us are getting healed There might be a couple people but you know out of every crowd of a thousand you're gonna find two or three

08:06

They're gonna get better. You know what I mean? Okay, so Dowey Dowey is the one who popularized it because he the guy was brilliant I'm not gonna lie as I'm studying this.

08:19

He was a criminal mastermind and He took this concept of swindling a town to a whole new level

08:30

Yeah, and he also did this at a very young age is talking about even at the age of 21 you know, he was involved but then he

08:38

Just curious like how the timeline works because while he was focused kind of it was really the

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East Coast Area and but then he also spent time in Australia So like but really so with it with Dowie kind of taking us back.

08:52

We're looking timeline As far as American history goes we're looking at the late 1800s so like where does really things begin?

09:01

Where does actually begin with Dowie if we go back to like here's here's the very beginning of the story of where he came to Prominence, do we know where did he start and what do we know it to about his younger background about what?

09:13

Motivated him to kind of go into this whole faith healing aspect of ministry because he knew 21

09:18

He's going he's very active and involved. I think about what I was involved in at 21. So, where does it all start?

09:25

Right. So the early history is what fascinated me because there really wasn't much about it other than what was published by Dowie himself and historians who referenced what

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Dowie published himself and As I found out with Branham and some of the others whenever the cult is controlling the history

09:43

It's not the real history. You have to dig deeper. So it took me I can't tell you how many years of Just reading newspaper articles

09:53

I was talking to a guy recently who was interested in Dowie and he said I looked on newspapers calm and some of these others and How did you even sift through that because whenever I searched there are hundreds of thousands of Articles about Dowie and my response to him was you're not gonna believe it, but I read every single one

10:14

It took years, but he started in Rose to prominence in Australia.

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He's from Scotland Edinburgh, I think it was Scotland But rose to prominence in Australia after he stole the church believe it or not

10:34

He stole a church so he went to Australia at a very young age and he stole a church Not many people in the 1800s get a chance to Travel, you know from one continent to another let alone steal a church.

10:49

So tell us about that so he lands it was in Sydney, Australia and and Yes, he seems to be a very young charismatic figure and how did that happen?

10:59

Yeah, so he was he was raised to be very against alcohol so he rose to prominence at an early age because of his prohibition stance and Somehow got connected into the ministry.

11:14

I never really found what inspired him to Become a minister, but I did see where he had, you know attended some

11:22

Schooling for becoming a minister and I If I if memory serves,

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I don't think he finished that. I think he might have, you know been kicked out or whatever, but There was a family connection to Australia as well.

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I think it was an uncle and he he had a very very strong temper even at an early age and For whatever reason his he did not have a good relationship with his father

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So it may have been a family connection that brought him to Australia. I'm not I'm not certain what exactly brought him there

11:58

But when I found out that he stole the church man, it's like, you know for any minister in America Who's getting her start and claiming to be sent from God and stole the church.

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How does this even work? It reminds me of The Beverly Hills Cop show. Yeah. Hey, man, how did you steal a house?

12:15

You know and this is a minister who stole the church. How did you steal a church, right? So that's absolutely insane tell me what you think about this because I was doing some some research on him and What I found was that he moved at a young age to Australia with his family

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And then by the time it was for his college studies He was sent back to Scotland where he studied the political science and theology

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And I guess he was brilliant this this again could be cult history and he was given like the honorary chaplain title for the school's medical infirmary and that's back when

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For the medical things that were going on there was like a theater and people would gather around to all watch and he got very

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Disturbed because what he said he noticed was that they had no idea what they were doing Because it was more of a macabre science at this time.

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So it kind of like Made him want to just trust God for healing instead of rely on the medical

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Sciences and like you said what I found is that he never he never completed his schooling He actually came back to Australia because I think his family had some needs

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And then from there, like you said he went and he stole he stole a church What what church was that exactly?

13:25

Do you know? Yeah, there was a church I think it was called the

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Sackville Tabernacle if memory serves. I have struggled bringing up names

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So that's why I'm pausing but there was so when he came to When he came back to Australia near Melbourne There was a very poor community and the pastor had you know set up this facility

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It was more it was more of a community even than a church. There were people that were in need desperate people so they set up a community where people could donate and help the poor and needy and That you know, he was a minister

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So he he basically turned it into a church and people it grew quite large because all of the need of the people you know just filled the building until they got a bigger building and What happened is the pastor?

14:19

Got sick. I never did learn what he was sick from but he took a hiatus for a period of time

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To heal I did see where he had doctor's instructions not to be doing any public speaking his wife and his children remained, you know at the church and While he was out

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Dowey basically took control and wouldn't let him back in and He Dowey excommunicated his wife excommunicated his children

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Basically told him you can't come back Because Dowey was disfellowshipping people who disagreed with him and he basically set up this hierarchy of control and He found out that the wife was secretly

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Helping the people who he had booted out of the church And so he found out became irate and said the wife's not coming back either

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And you know the pastor found out about it He came back to take control back of his church and it was quite a fight to take it back.

15:20

Mm -hmm Gotcha. Gotcha. And this is what's interesting too. Is that so he ends up transitioning into a pastoral position, you know given this controversy but You see right away

15:32

That whatever Whatever is younger upbringing was and his kind of rise to fame and maybe he just whatever he was trying to accomplish by means of You know religious preacher, you know

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He's always there's an aspect almost sort of being addicted to chaos where he's always continually manufacturing conflict so one of the earliest sort of initial controversies is that he

15:56

There was art they said there's an archbishop and now October 9th 1876 in Australia who delivered a public address during the opening of the gill of the

16:06

Guild Hall in Sydney entitled the hidden Springs and he basically Took this sermon and kind of made it twist it into something that it was not in order to create division

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And this is what I think there's a good thing to introduce Him as far as it's just as characteristic because you see this at a very young age

16:25

But you see this kind of carry out later on him in his life. Tell everyone about this whole controversy what entailed and What this kind of tells us about the type of person that?

16:36

Alexander Dowie was yeah, so my impression after This extensive research is that probably what you read was correct.

16:48

He was brilliant even at an early age I can see that this was a very smart man all of his claims to Getting awards and all of these great things that seems to come mostly from himself

17:02

I really can't find any good backing to that. Now. He may have gotten some

17:07

I don't know Yeah, but it's like and I I'm not doing this to become political but if you picture

17:14

The things that Trump said that are just so far above and beyond what actual happened actually happened

17:20

This is the type of personality that Dowie has right? He will say things so far You know some there may be some elements of truth, but it's so far above and beyond what actually happened.

17:31

Mm -hmm and So where I do see his rise to fame is in the controversy that you mentioned

17:38

Dowie learned in Australia with this archbishop that he could instantly get a large number of people listening to him if he drove a drove a strong division into something that Incited anger into a crowd that become a pattern through his entire ministry, right?

18:00

So the archbishop basically published this this

18:06

Document it was like a lecture and he published a document of the lecture of the transcript if I remember correctly, but it basically says that And I'm paraphrasing heavily

18:18

But there are these hidden springs that flow up from all of these ancient idols and ancient spirits of evil

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And if you choose the wrong stream, you're going on the pathway to hell or if you choose the right string

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You're going a pathway to heaven so on and so forth But he puts the archbishop put a

18:40

Slap in the face to Protestant Christianity in that article and said basically the

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Catholic is the true stream and The Protestant flowed away from deviated from the

18:52

Catholic stream. Yeah, this anchored a lot of people anyway, right, right Well, the Dowie comes in and just takes advantage of this.

18:59

Mm -hmm. You know, let me ask you this too So when it and this is taking place in Sydney, Australia, so from a theological standpoint, you know

19:06

There's areas in which Catholics and Protestants differ for sure but when you actually

19:12

Combine that for example, you look in Ireland the difference between like an Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant There's a lot more things that are political that it's much more intertwined politically.

19:24

Was that the same with? Australia good. It seems like he's not just trying to make a theological position

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But he's kind of trying to create, you know division pit up one person against another

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What was the is that the same? Was there a similar context of that in Australia between Catholic and Protestant? You know when

19:44

I write the books I try to get an idea of the culture of the not just the culture of the country or the city

19:50

But of the era of the country and it's very difficult to do right from what I could tell from My research into culture, this was just a melting pot

20:00

There were some gold rushes that happened right before Dowey came and so you had all these people who built these makeshift shanties to live in so that they could work the gold mines or whatever and you had just this influx of Everybody with every different idea ideology people from other countries, etc

20:19

So if you look at just the regions that would have been migrating into Australia You have people who the religion is very closely tied to their politics

20:30

Whereas in America, it's getting that way, but it's nowhere near like what it was in other countries of that era

20:37

Okay So that you said this was this with this archbishop this tussle this was in 1876 where's this in relation to that like a pandemic or epidemic that happened in 1876 where thousands of people were dying and supposedly this is where like his healing ministry

20:56

Began when he had a revelation of Acts 1038 like when what's the time frame between? That and what's going on with the archbishop?

21:05

I Could I I read that too and that comes from Dowey's historians, you know

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I don't know if you guys realize this but Dowey grew so large that they annexed an entire city

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They call it Zion, Illinois You can actually go to Zion, Illinois and visit the facilities there and they have you know

21:23

The history books, but it's mostly published from what Dowey said and Dowey claimed. I Could not find anything other than what

21:32

Dowey said to confirm that he had a quote -unquote healing ministry until long after This died out in the timeline that I was able to establish by just the history

21:45

I could see the rise to prominence with the

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Archbishop because he incited all of this anger. He sold I can't tell you how many as over a hundred thousand tracks that he sold

21:59

Just because of this, you know this opposition to the archbishop

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Well, what happened is over time that started dying out and he realized that he's starting to lose this big audience that he has this potential for money and So he starts attacking a different person and the other person was a spiritualist so he shifted focus away from archbishop to the spiritualist and Even still

22:26

I did not find any reference at all to healing until that died down and he started to lose the

22:33

Sackville Church So my timeline puts the healing Basically after he's losing most of his crowd

22:40

Wow, see it's so it blows my mind because when we talk about William Branham in the that series that we did it's so Intriguing to me that William Branham would do this the same things

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These are like tactics that they do where we've got this cult history how he a romanticizes the flood

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Right, like but like you when you went and did dug down and did research You can see that the actual the history of what was going on was actually

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Opposite of what's been mainly accepted today in many areas because a lot of that history that I'm getting from is from the the gods general

23:13

Writer that author that you were talking about. So it's it's funny how there's like this weird There's this weird way where people don't want to actually look at deep down into the history of these quote -unquote faith healers

23:28

Instead they kind of want to just sweep some things under the rug. I find that really interesting Well, so we live in a different era

23:35

So it's different for you. You're a super sleuth and you're you know, you're skeptical So if this guy were to come up to you today, you would say no, you're a freak.

23:44

I'm not gonna listen to you You're just trying to steal my money because you're wired to think that way but Put it into a different perspective say that Neil degrasse

23:54

Tyson or some astrophysicist something that you knew nothing about who came in You know claiming to have this knowledge and he's talking about things that you completely do not understand

24:06

But he's doing it in such a way that he's speaking with authority He's a confidence man that the term con men come from people like Dowey He comes in speaking with confidence.

24:18

He gains your confidence and then he you know that's that's when they go after the money obviously, but if if that personality were to come to you and Just completely all you you're you're just all struck by this person and you're not

24:36

Questioning his authority because you don't know how to question his authority. You don't know enough background knowledge to question it well these people who

24:45

You know a lot of people in even today most Christians have never read their Bible which blows my mind

24:52

This is this is your one book. I mean, this is this is the foundation of your faith and you've not read it

24:58

Well take that back to the 1800s when people there are a lot of people that just couldn't read right

25:03

There are people who could read but they read so incredibly slowly. It was painful for them to read the

25:09

Bible So when a minister came in and spoke with authority, it's like the astrophysicist coming and talking to you

25:16

Well, they trust him. This is a man who claims he's read the Bible. They have no reason not to trust him and Combine that with oh and I healed all these people in this other town, right?

25:27

Well, they they're not questioning anything and you know this man he's from God He must be speaking the truth because he said the word

25:34

Jesus Yeah, you mean like imagine like a Neil deGrasse Tyson like character just coming in by visualizing him in like 1800s attire

25:41

Like try my new tonic And it was like, oh my gosh but you know, it's you know, but you look at that climate you look at that environment where even if you look at the 1800s where you know tech usually even communication and technology

25:57

You're looking at I can't think of what was what type of communication the Morse code was that invented by then?

26:04

I mean you had like limited communication. You had a lot of these small towns So in some sense a lot of these

26:10

Western towns were almost sort of like a cult commune Just because it's a very simple life and unless you're you know, wealthy and you can do transportation in many ways you're kind of isolated from the outside world and You know, it's not until a couple days later to even hear a news story and who knows what sort of bias that newspaper has you know, so it could make sense, especially like during that time frame like how

26:37

Susceptible people could be to a prominent figure like like Dowey for sure. Let me ask you this.

26:43

So he's he's at this Congregation really kind of doing this ministry starting this movement in Australia how long

26:53

Eventually, he goes back to the Chicago area But like how long does his ministry go for and this whole movement go for in Australia and then overall like what was his?

27:06

Theology like did he have kind of like a restorationist? Ideology where the truth, you know has been lost

27:13

But now I've kind of had a private revelation and now I've kind of uncovered the truth that that was long lost

27:19

From a time ago. Was there kind of a restorationist ideology or what give give us an idea of some of his beliefs as well, too

27:27

Yeah, so and I don't know that it was the same beliefs throughout the whole thing What I've learned about these type of men is they mold their stage personas to match whatever crowd they're in front of Oh, yeah, so he's he is very anti once the once he gets to America He's very anti medicine because he's taken on the faith the faith healer persona.

27:49

So he comes into America just Doctors are evil. If you go to the doctor, you're sending that that kind of thing his ministry so he rose to prominence in Australia and I talked about him transitioning from the archbishop to the fighting the spiritualist to Starts his faith healing.

28:09

I really did not see it growing in Australia He had already made such a bad name for himself in Australia that I don't think it could have stuck and so he was there for just a few years after that and then he tried to set up in London and Londoners had nothing to do with it

28:28

They there were some newspaper articles that I found about Dowey and some of his shenanigans

28:34

I think maybe they may have known I don't know But what's interesting is that he tries it again in San Francisco Right after the gold rushes there

28:44

So he left one place where you know, there there were gold rushes and goes to another place

28:49

I don't know if there was a money connection with the gold. I really couldn't find it, but he's definitely making money in San Francisco and San Francisco papers,

29:01

I was actually very surprised when he tried to set up his faith healing operations in In London, they just kicked him out.

29:12

We want nothing to do with you the papers in San Francisco We're very they were praising him

29:18

They were like he says he's healed all these people and they printed it as though it was fact so every reader thought what he was selling was true and the from a

29:29

Historians from a historical standpoint if you exclude everything that Dowey says about himself and his theology

29:37

The only thing that I could find historically speaking was his faith healing theology It there isn't really much

29:45

Restorationism in the early part that came much later It really wasn't

29:50

It really wasn't a lot of theology published It was mostly anti doctors and you can kind of glean what his what his ideas are from his sermon titles

30:00

Right, but I don't I don't have the sermon transcripts. Unfortunately, okay I can't I can't trust what he said much later.

30:08

I do have some writings that are you know debate type articles and this does not sound like a

30:15

Religious man at all. Gotcha. Well, I think a lot of people from at least my conjecture They're probably just given the time of biblical literacy

30:23

They probably were just enamored by his charismatic preaching and also maybe the desire to perhaps

30:30

Experience this healing that they could just have another have enough faith So I would just guess based off a previous movement.

30:37

There's probably just this level of you know dependence upon Dowey that if I just keep on going to him and following him eventually, you know, this will carry over to me

30:48

Whatever other whatever ailment that I have, right? But the restorationist

30:54

Theology is important. I don't want to lose focus of that Yes, because he is seen as one of the key figures in the new apostolic

31:02

Reformation, right? William Branham is also referenced and Branham basically is just a he's a clone a mini me of Dowey basically but What happened is if you look at the transition that I can see from the history of his theology the restoration stuff comes mainly after he is

31:25

Just violently angered with newspapers who are publishing critical information politicians who are publishing

31:35

Laws to try to stop the people who are dying because of Dowey He's got

31:40

I don't know how many hundreds of lawsuits against him in Chicago in the surrounding area He has this driving force against him and he gets so angry

31:50

That's whenever I start to see the restoration stuff come in. He is wanting to basically Wipe all of this out and replace it with People who support him.

32:01

So that's the restoration that he's talking about, right? Okay Yeah, that definitely makes sense tonight and you can give your thoughts too

32:07

But one of the things I thought about John to and you're talking about how, you know, he's talking about He's he's for Medical care, you know,

32:15

I think you said in Australia but you know speaking against it once he came back to the

32:21

United States and you always see that problem with Politicians where you know, it doesn't matter you at least here in America It's like whether it's

32:28

Democrat or Republican both of them pander, you know to whatever their audience is But I think about you know, turning about the clock, you know, even to the pre -trump era

32:38

Al Gore, I think it was I remember when he was telling talking about this emotional story about I think his sister died of Lung cancer and he made this vow to like warn about the dangers of smoking

32:50

And then it was only a couple years later where he was talking to you know These tobacco farmers you saying throughout most of my life.

32:57

I raised tobacco I want you to know that with my own hands all my life I put in the plant beds and transferred and I hoed and I dug and I sprayed it and he's just talking kind of Get he's totally pandering to them.

33:08

Whereas like in a different audience. You do you see it all the time? I mean there's times where you have different politicians They go to somewhere to the southern states and all of a sudden you got

33:17

Hillary speaking to us So she magically gets a southern accent, but it's like that's just that there's nothing new under the

33:23

Sun I'm sure you had people and people like him doing that as well, too Well, if you talk to Al Gore, he invented the

33:30

Internet, of course the John Alexander Dowey he invented faith healing So, hey well

33:35

I guess we got to give some undecorated to Al Gore for making him a cult as a possibility and for zoom because I guess

33:40

No, that wouldn't happen without Al Gore. So Did you want did you ever find? When do you like doing your research back in Australia that he did try to run for any political office or the

33:51

Australian Parliament? Or anything like that because I found information supposedly that he tried to run for office in Australia, but failed and then he wanted to know

34:01

I did I Did I was reading it last night and I wish I'd have committed to memory

34:06

I kind of glazed over it because I didn't that's the one question. I did not think you would ask but oh

34:11

There was some some run for something. I don't remember exactly what yeah

34:17

I find it interesting that a lot of these types of people they have political aspirations like even if we think about Joseph Smith and The LDS like he wanted to run for president

34:27

United States of America. There's always this really weird fringe political aspect To their to their passion as well.

34:34

But what what brought him from San Francisco to Chicago? Was it the Chicago World's Fair? Like what?

34:40

Why do you think he went to Chicago? Yes, so it was Fair, but he set up in Chicago before the

34:48

World's Fair He actually was he kept telling his people the people that he was here temporarily from Australia And it was going back and he never he never really moved back

34:59

But he set up Whenever the World's Fair came to Chicago he set up in his

35:07

It was like a facade he built this church that had this nice front right as you walk to the entrance of the fair you passed him and Behind this thing.

35:18

It was just so decrepit. They I think they ended up having to tear it down and build new so bad But as you're walking into the fair, you've got this sideshow freak who's saying hey come get healed and bring your sick

35:30

Bring your afflicted. I mean, it's just like a circus, right? So he set up there and quite honestly, that was one of the most brilliant things that he did

35:39

But going back to your politician point there. There's another aspect of Dowey that not many people are aware of He actually started a political party and he did want to invade

35:52

Washington He wanted Towards the end the book you you see it. He tries to take over,

35:58

New York He's not taking over New York for religious control. He wants political control and he started a basically a political party to try to I wish

36:11

I could remember the name of his party, but basically to try to Influence politics and what's interesting if you tie that back to our previous conversations

36:21

And I remember you guys were blowing away when you saw that Kardashians were involved in this thing.

36:27

Yeah, right. Yeah. Have you guys seen the Netflix docu -series the family? Yes Yeah, yeah, we acted a episode in it not too far not too long ago

36:36

Okay, so on my website if you type in the family, you'll see there's a picture of it

36:43

Dima shakarian who is Tato's the patriarch Kardashian's nephew who started the full gospel businessmen's association whenever the family set up in Washington shortly after Dima shakarian and The full gospel businessmen's set up there as well

37:02

So they could join into the national prayer breakfast so they could influence politics, right?

37:08

I actually have a photograph of William Branham with Richard Nixon speaking at the national prayer breakfast

37:15

Branham went to these things I'm almost certain that Bosworth was involved in the political aspects of Branham's ministry in some capacity

37:26

I can't think of it offhand, but I do know that Branham was involved multiple times and there's this weird quote where Branham mentions

37:34

Nixon and his Several members of his staff coming to his home here in Jeffersonville after attending that prayer breakfast, and that's what set me off into looking into the family because Apparently the family had it was like any cult they have all these spiderwebs

37:52

William Branham's message cult was a spiderweb off of the family and William Branham's cult grew from Dowey's cult which had this strong political presence.

38:03

Yeah, let me ask you this We're talking about the connection between Dowey and William Branham So the world fit the

38:09

Chicago the World Fair in Chicago That was actually a whole section that we focused on both right in your book and we talked about that in your previous episode

38:17

So I guess my question would be What is the connection? I'm just going to assume what is the connection between Branham and Dowey, but specifically like the

38:26

World Fair Did they kind of what's the connection there? So there were two World's Fairs in Chicago Dowey was at the first one and So the connection historically

38:39

FF Bosworth was Dowey's Music leader. He was a ranking member in the

38:46

Zion compound Gordon Lindsay, who's Branham's first campaign? Well second campaign manager,

38:52

I think His family was also out of Dowey's compound So there was a strong Dowey presence in the leadership and William Branham's campaigns

39:04

Bosworth who had his own faith healing act basically mimicking Dowey for a period of time mentored

39:12

Branham on how to become a faith healer a Bosworth toured with Branham all over all over the world.

39:19

Basically, I've got photographs of them flying different places so the presence that William Branham presented to the public was molded after Dowey through these these leaders

39:33

They would have been aware of Dowey's strategy of using the World's Fair I can't place

39:40

Branham in the World's Fair Preaching but he does mention being in the

39:45

World's Fair with preachers So I strongly suspect that he tried to do something similar

39:51

And I also strongly suspect that it didn't work or I would have found it somewhere Got you.

39:58

Got you. And so, you know back so back in Australia, you know Yeah, I was just looking at was kind of skimming through your book a little bit and you know

40:05

At least some of the sermon transcript. There's one he said it was in 1882 It was also the year which he introduced a new gospel to which he called the gospel of divine healing

40:15

But he was also It also says in the same year in 1882 his ministry first began to turn militant in which he publicly announced the sermons to have such titles as a proclamation of peace and war and so he's kind of intermixing kind of you know, this militancy this

40:32

Christian militant Aspect of his ministry, but also he's focusing in on divine healing of the gospel

40:38

Was there any motivation as well to with him going from?

40:44

Australia over back over to starting the United States and getting at the Chicago World Fair like controversy where you're trying to Maybe escape from something because you think of so many times where whether it's a snake oil salesman or some sort of co -leader starts

40:58

Controversy they usually end up in a new place because they had to get that heck out of Dodge So to speak so is there was there concert is there any level of controversy?

41:08

That was the catalyst for him getting out of Australia to work his way back over here I believe so in in San Francisco whenever things exploded out west

41:21

It exploded whenever a I can't remember the guy's name some individual challenged

41:27

Dowey and Published a long letter to letter to the editor of the newspaper With a threat to publish

41:36

Dowey's criminal laundry list Mmm, you never got to see what the threat was.

41:41

He does mention, you know, some of the things that happened the stealing of the church Doubt when

41:47

Dowey stole the church. He also stole the church funds So there there was some, you know, there's some real criminal things there, but I don't think he got okay

41:55

You know, I don't think he got caught for that at least but there was a threat to publish that in The California newspapers and that's when he basically decides to try to look for another location in the u .s

42:09

I suspect that when he left Australia to California, whatever that was that was the threat

42:16

I suspect that that same person is the one who is trying to raise that threat in Australia Gotcha, so he initially then went from Australia to San Francisco And started up there, but then he worked his way over from given this controversy

42:30

Then he worked his way over to the to Chicago and that's where he's set up at the Chicago World Fair That's we're looking at like timeline if we look at the

42:37

Indiana Jones, you know red line map. That's what we're looking at Yeah, so the red line map would have not only

42:43

Chicago, but also Minneapolis and Pittsburgh a few other locations that he had he tried to do this in multiple places

42:52

But the World's Fair is literally what made his ministry. Okay. So yeah take us into that So the

42:58

World's Fair is there and again, this is a cliff note. So just tell tell everyone real quickly What is the name of the book in case what people want to kind of get that because you're really giving out just a very cliff notes very aerial view of it

43:13

How you get yours up already militant Christian extremism critical examination of John Alexander Dowie Definitely.

43:22

Well, yeah, there's And the book I don't know if you guys noticed this like I do with my other books the

43:29

The reading is actually very short, but whenever I find a reference Because this is history that has to be rewritten

43:38

I can't just simply put where I got it from or people won't even believe it I actually have to put the actual quote of text into the book

43:47

So you're gonna see the footnotes half of the book is footnote with quotes of text.

43:52

Yeah, so yeah, I mean it's interesting too because I maybe talk about this from a journalistic standpoint that I mean you're pulling up these old documents, but You're dealing with and this is just something in general because some of you some people listening in may have never heard of a

44:07

Dowie Which is it was somewhat is understandable He's probably not he's probably out shying the people like Mary Baker Eddie and Joseph Smith and stuff like that But any sort of cult propaganda is written in such a way to make them the faultless perfect You know spiritual leader for sure.

44:25

So when you're digging through these Documents where you're looking at someone like Dowie It's very much even if the 1800s history is like whitewash history

44:35

It's done in a very prejudiced biased way to show that this is God's prophet Like how do you go through that documentation?

44:44

how do you cross -examine it in such a way to actually determine the truth when essentially a

44:49

Lot of the information even from back then is propaganda to begin with It's very hard Interestingly, I'm working with a

44:58

Pentecostal historian and he is he's very pro Charles Fox Parham Which I am

45:04

NOT pro and he asked me to proofread his latest book that comes out later this year

45:10

I think and Gave him all the dirt that I can find on Parham because he's he wants to publish the true history, right?

45:17

He's it's actually I actually will be recommending this book, even though I disagree with his premise and his conclusion

45:25

I recommend in the book because he is very very factual but He he has explained this to me

45:34

Dowie is fundamental to Pentecostal. It's not just to the New Apostolic Reformation Dowie's fundamental to Pentecostal ism.

45:42

He is a key figure in Pentecostal ism and The problem is see

45:49

Charles Fox Parham who was the Basically the father of Pentecostal ism.

45:54

He's the one who? William Joseph Seymour who was at the Azusa Street Revival was mentored by Parham and Parham is the person who?

46:04

You know, I allegedly had the speaking in tongues first, etc Parham before he set up his compound called

46:12

Bethel He went to Frank Sanford's compound, which was another faith healer in Maine.

46:19

He went to Dowie's compound and basically Learned what they did so he could clone it see at this point in time

46:27

Dowie is Labeled by newspapers and by the general public as the richest man in the

46:35

West He had in today's money. I think it's like half a billion dollars in today's money in the 1900s

46:43

Just from setting up this commune. Hmm, and this was a man who was struggling financially as he's fleeing all of these cities

46:50

You know getting getting ran out of town. Yeah, so he was attracting all kinds of opportunists

46:56

My opinion is that Parham was an opportunist and I I have some facts to back this

47:03

Parham had this he was involved in this Fool's gold scheme.

47:08

He had this elixir that he claimed was made from gold that could turn other stones into gold or some weird thing gold from God and He was trying to It's a long history.

47:22

I won't go into in here but there were many things that I could see he was he was doing things that were unethical and Whenever I'm looking at all of these con men and they're all kind of working together and studying each other

47:35

And when I see one that's doing something that's unethical. I realize that this is probably not a good guy

47:41

So my yeah, my opinion arm is formed like this. Mm -hmm, but when Dowey died the newspaper said they had this flood of Prophets coming to basically

47:53

Chicago is overrun with prophets as I think was the exact verbiage Dowey claimed to be

47:59

Elijah the Prophet as did you know some of the others we've looked at yes And so all of these people were coming to get

48:07

Elijah's mantle or you know Branham Branham mentions this he Branham Says basically he's taken

48:13

Dowey died on one day. I was born next he's referring to accepting Dowey's mantle Mm -hmm, and if you look at the

48:20

New Apostolic Reformation today You have the Todd Bentley's and all these people wanting Branham's mantle.

48:26

They're wanting this Succession of whatever this mantle thing is, right? so It's always very fundamental to Pentecostal ism.

48:35

But what the historian has told me is this Even in Pentecostal ism.

48:41

They know Dowey was very very Crooked and in so many aspects now they give him reverence

48:49

They say that without Dowey these other things wouldn't exist because he's a pillar to Pentecostal ism

48:54

So at the same time they say God was working through Dowey and he was a bad guy. And that's that's basically

49:01

I'm sure he would be upset with the way I paraphrase that but for sure that's basically Essentially the way that it comes out

49:08

God's work and God's dealing through this guy who's also a bad guy Gotcha.

49:13

Gotcha was so with Parham like you mentioned that he was he had his own you mentioned

49:18

Bethel and Parham How do those how do those go together again? So Bethel it's a different Bethel than you're talking about This was the

49:28

I think that was the name and I'm bad with names But I think that was the name of his commune that he set up Kansas I actually grew up not far from his commune.

49:40

Okay there in Kansas. Gotcha I again, I would just cure I was just generally curious because we haven't really followed me

49:46

We our podcast kind of blew up and we did the whole series defecting from Bethel forever ago

49:53

But like in that process I know there's at least there's a connection on the level that Chris Vallotton's talked about, you know

50:00

Bill Johnson and Chris Vallotton had talked about obtaining the mantle of William Branham and now you see this connection here and also like they've taught

50:10

I think both of them have mentioned about God's generals I didn't know if there's any connection between you know

50:15

The Bethel that everyone knows about versus like what you mentioned. I didn't know if that's that's something totally different Well, it's totally different and I just I looked it up.

50:25

It is Bethel just outside of Topeka, Kansas Okay, Parham's Parham's compound for sure

50:31

I live so I live in Jeffersonville, Indiana Yeah, yeah, Brandon Branham's pyramid grave that you guys saw the last episodes is here

50:39

Every time I drive by in fact, I just put recently put one on my Facebook page every time

50:45

I drive by it I see these people bowing down praying to this pyramid statue of Branham but there are also people who come and cross the ropes and Hug it or lay on it and try to absorb the spiritual fumes or whatever it is that they're trying to absorb out of this thing because They they want to do that and I want to say is it

51:07

Todd Bentley that's from the Bethel you're talking about Some yeah, I mean there's a video out there of Todd Bentley doing this, right?

51:16

Yeah, I mean there has there's been videos where I think the official, you know Bethel officially has tried to distance himself from anybody going out there

51:23

I guess they're doing the grave soaking where people are trying to get someone's anointing or mantle at At that and while you know, at least

51:32

I would get prominent So any church should probably distance should probably distance themselves and say no that doesn't represent our opinion

51:38

If it does that's a huge problem, but at least you know, there would make sense There might be some connection there for sure

51:45

You know given you know on some level that connection to Branham and wanting to make these different mantles and things like that for sure

51:52

So back at going back to doing the historical example you're looking at The Chicago World Fair that's when he takes off So he escapes, you know the controversy after everyone's publishing stuff about him

52:05

And then he ends up in Chicago and things really get dark start to explode

52:11

What was the real difference or catalyst for him to really kind of go to full? fruition of everything that he did and what he's known for versus places like This Australia where he was or San Francisco, what is it?

52:24

What was about specifically about? The Chicago World Fair. It wasn't something about Dowey where maybe he had kind of really honed in his message

52:32

Maybe he made it like a little better like he maybe got a better speechwriter Or is it maybe was it just a cultural climate of?

52:40

Chick of Chicago and the Chicago World's Fair was a little bit of both or what what made that movement explode specifically at that time

52:48

Yes, so I've And when I'm studying these guys, even though these are religious figures and I'm studying them for religious history purposes

52:56

I don't look at them like religious figures. I look at them like like they are these guys are common

53:02

These are criminals. Well, if I was if I were to be an evil mastermind What would

53:08

I do if I were in his shoes to get bigger? What would I do to make more money, right?

53:14

And So I put myself in Dowey's shoes because this is the exact question that I was looking at myself when

53:21

I was studying The Chicago World's Fair. What about the fair made him this famous and So a piece together all through his life.

53:30

What was the Dowey strategy? His strategy was to make a lot of people angry to make all the newspapers

53:37

Publish even very hateful things against him. He acted like he didn't like this But this was his strategy if he had the papers to get mad at him

53:46

Then that made the readers mad at him that made the readers talk about him and there is no negative publicity

53:53

There's only publicity. Yeah, so he tries to do this in other cities.

53:58

I want to say Was it Minneapolis one of the cities he went went to he tried to incite anger and he couldn't

54:05

Newspapers just didn't engage him. And so he left it was a very small Very small

54:13

Attendance But picture Chicago World's Fair Here's a guy who's claiming to heal all of the sick.

54:20

Here's a guy who's making the Chicago newspapers mad at him and he's right there where Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the nation are coming

54:30

So not only are they reading about Dowey in their newspaper back home because he's he's basically nationwide

54:40

Getting nationwide publicity. Well, they also saw his church right there as they're walking into the building so he his readership his the levels of people who are

54:51

Reading and interested in Dowey just exponentially grow up all over the nation

54:58

That's my opinion, okay Hey, what's up, everyone? We love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis

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You can see all of our great designs. A lot of you have gotten merchandise from us already So again, you go to shop cultist calm and check out all the awesome merch back to the show will be some examples to initially when he is in the

55:49

Chicago World's Fair like when he's doing his Display or doing his healing demonstration.

55:55

What what sort of healings, you know, I'm thinking for example You know, Jim Jones would do these examples where he would have someone supposedly that would be

56:05

They would be releasing some sort of cancerous mass But it was actually like chicken gizzards or they do they would have some sort of gimmick

56:11

You know where somehow somebody would do something where they'd have plants and there was a little bit of that or do they have?

56:17

People kind of going through like a placebo where they think it. Oh, it's him. It's Dow. Oh my gosh

56:23

I'm on stage with him You know, I know people who are knocked over but he went on stage with Benny Hinn and Jet they

56:29

I had a friend told me just because he was on stage with Benny Hinn It was like emotionally overwhelming, you know, he's about to and as soon as he knocks over there

56:36

Just you just sort of assume that somehow my ligaments are coming together or something But what did what did his healings look like from what you've researched?

56:46

Yeah, so my opinion and it has a opinion because I wasn't there. My opinion is whatever worked

56:53

I Look at I look at that way a lot through Branham because Branham was trained by Bosworth who was there and You guys have probably seen it.

57:03

There's this thing that you do and I Think I did it in grade school where somebody's holding a yo -yo on a string and they tell everybody

57:12

Watch if you if you focus in you can make this yo -yo move back and forth What's actually happening is the person who's holding it their arm gets tired

57:19

And over time it just starts to move because their arms getting tired and it's waving a little bit well in the early sermons of William Branham, there's a sermon where he's got he's got a woman with a bracelet on a string and he's doing this thing that I did in grade school and That was part of his gimmick if you have enough faith

57:39

You can make the bracelet move right if you can make the bracelet move you can heal yourself Now that strategy worked and I think it was 1947 that's not gonna work in the 1960s because everybody's playing this game, right?

57:53

You guys are familiar Oral Roberts had a gimmick where he would his hand would vibrate, you know

57:59

And it would um, he would claim this is how he would discern the diseases, right? Well Branham also had this and what's interesting is

58:08

Oral Roberts and Branham worked together So they probably both came up with the idea together Branham had the vibrating hand and I mean, you know how it easy to make your hand vibrate.

58:17

It's pretty easy, right? Yeah, well, I found newspaper articles before the vibrating vibrating hand where he would claim

58:25

He would claim it was hand color He would tell the people that is if his hand changed color

58:31

They were getting healed if they were incredibly sick if they had cancer or whatever and the hand did not change color

58:37

Well, they were past hope they were going to the other side Mm -hmm. And so for people who are getting excited about their healing and he says look my hands changing color

58:47

Well, they're all in this hype. They're gonna say. Oh, wow. I see it change color whether it does or not And to a person who's dying.

58:54

Oh, yeah, I didn't see the hand change color. So I must be dead I'm dying which is really sad if you think about it.

59:00

So if I put myself into the perspective of Understanding the gimmicks that Dowie used through this process because Branham was trained by Bosworth who was in Dowey's compound

59:14

Basically for whatever era whatever gimmick could work at the time is what he did.

59:20

Mm -hmm Okay, it was popular and it was popular. He had three really he had three shops in Chicago I think they're called like the divine healing

59:28

Association Which were essentially lodges where people could go to get healing what they would do is they would essentially tithe to him

59:35

They couldn't have any medical intervention and people would just be there to pray for these people.

59:40

There's three different ones. It's absolutely Today's money. It's thousands of dollars per month per person to come lay in the bed and What people don't realize this this is basically

59:54

Dowey's claim to fame these healing homes If you go to the Zion and you read all of the propaganda

59:59

Zion City today and read all the propaganda Or you read God's generals. They're talking about all these healing homes these people who got healed

01:00:07

They're not telling you that the newspaper reporters watch this thing heavily because this was a very

01:00:13

Newsworthy person there were hearses sneaking people out at night. I mean people were dying just night after night and People who were in the in the healing homes who were getting frustrated because they weren't being healed.

01:00:27

We're reporting the newspapers Well, the reason why you don't see such so and so with a crotch or so and so who's bedridden or whatever

01:00:35

There's an exchange of people after they don't get healed to go back home and then there's new faces in the in this place

01:00:41

So it's not that people are getting healed, but they're paying thousands of dollars to sit in this these healing homes

01:00:48

Yep, let me put some legs to with some articles that I found Written so we have the Chicago Daily Tribune there was a section that was called dies and Dowey's den and this happened over a series of years and Tuesday July 2nd 1895 the

01:01:04

Hearst a body was removed at night. It was found later that it was mrs. Magdalene bunks of Berlin, Canada She died of heart disease

01:01:12

You can look yeah, like you said you can go look up these newspaper articles. There's multiple. There's one April 27th 1894 where a young boy eight years old had an incurable tumor and Mr.

01:01:23

Doctor said he was gonna die regardless But his family who his dad was actually a reverend brought him over to one of these healing homes actually,

01:01:31

I believe it was the the the actual home of John Alexander Dowey and the boy ended up dying there

01:01:40

And it's it's sad. These things happened all the time. Yeah, I Have a large sample of those on my website

01:01:46

If you go to the the Dowey page on my website at the bottom there are tabs And you can click on newspapers and you could read through them

01:01:53

What's really sad about those that you mentioned embedded in those you'll find That there are some cases of people who would have actually lived

01:02:02

Had they actually went to a doctor and there were some people who almost died because they didn't

01:02:08

Example is there was a kid who fractured his shoulder So literally the guy and the kid broke his shoulder and his parents because they're in this cult

01:02:17

They're basically their their mind is being controlled to the brainwashed and they're brainwashed into thinking that if you take somebody to a doctor

01:02:25

You've you're siding with Satan that was that was Dowey's doctrine so instead they take the kid to the healing home with a fractured shoulder and All of these healing home people are just praying for the kid and not setting the bone

01:02:39

Yeah, so the thing is never healing and he almost the kid almost died Now there were other people who had curable diseases who did die in Dowey's compound because they didn't go to the doctor.

01:02:50

Mm -hmm Interestingly when Dowey got sick or when his daughter or people who were very close to Dowey got sick the doctors did come

01:03:01

Yeah, that I mean it's just a prominent example like bad theology hurts people that are bad theology kills people

01:03:08

Yeah, so when he's I mean reminds me to like when we had our episode forever go on Christian science you know, he had talked about, you know in a very emotional way and understandably where our guest

01:03:20

Tanner Johns wrote just Was just very emotional because he talked about how many people he was around That died like he lost way more people than should have been lost

01:03:32

You know death is inevitable But just because of the fact that they were not allowed to get medical care and you talk about these different aspects of cults

01:03:41

You know, you talk about you know A charismatic figure or creating a compound where you isolate them from the outside world, but a big

01:03:49

Aspect of so many people we've talked about is this aspect of you need to have faith

01:03:55

God will heal you but they have this real like Antagonistic idea towards getting regular medical care, but that seems to be just a common characteristic

01:04:07

But you know obviously see that would do it I'm just curious to me from someone who kind of grew up in the message movement and now

01:04:13

Researching this person you think about in Christian science? There's a couple of people that we've talked about to like why is that like why is there such an emphasis?

01:04:23

For these cult leaders to say no don't get medical care. Like why do you think that is?

01:04:29

you know right before this call I was trying to think how best I could explain that because It's it's when you when you're brought up like I was brought up from birth believing this nonsense, right?

01:04:41

Right, whenever you're indoctrinated for that long your perspective your entire perspective is different I could explain to you what

01:04:47

I feel what my emotions are why I make the choices that I do and you'd never Understand it because you didn't live this for the last, you know, 35 years but So Pentecostal ism had many different flavors when people think of Pentecostals they think of the speaking in tongues and you know

01:05:06

There's there's a large portion of Pentecostal ism that believe that speaking in tongues is evidence of the

01:05:12

Holy Spirit, right? Dowie who is also a fundamental element of Pentecostal ism, even though he's before Azusa Street He's a fundamental element of Pentecostal ism and there were

01:05:24

Pentecostal branches that sprung from dowies influence that Did not believe it was speaking in tongues.

01:05:32

They believed that it was healing If God heals you you have evidence that these signs are following you'll notice

01:05:39

I don't know if you picked it up, but there's a section of the book where I'm talking about dowies saying with signs following And if you if you look at Pentecostal churches, you'll find this is a minister advertised with signs following If you go to the snake handling churches in history and look at their advertisements they're handling snakes with signs following So I was raised from birth to believe that healing was a fundamental part of this.

01:06:06

It wasn't that I could heal It wasn't that My family didn't you know, avoid medicine

01:06:13

We took medicine because the government actually came in and said you can't be telling

01:06:19

Parishioners not to take medicine you're killing them. So we're gonna put you in jail if you do this So Pentecostals as a whole stopped doing this thing and otherwise it would continue my family took medicine

01:06:30

But while we're being told that doctors are good, you can go to the doctor

01:06:35

You can get medicine at the same time. We're told that we're told God can heal you you don't need a doctor and if you have enough faith your body will heal if you accept your healing and And Then take it a step further

01:06:50

So if you're indoctrinated with this conflict, yes, I could take medicine, but if I have enough faith

01:06:57

Wait a minute if I'm not getting healed and if I go to the doctors that mean

01:07:02

I don't have enough faith So then you try to deny yourself the medicine right and even still today.

01:07:08

I'm long past this cult I no longer believe I no longer believe any of this stuff Even still today

01:07:15

I struggle going to a doctor. Hmm. I if I get a headache I'm not gonna take aspirin.

01:07:21

Most people would just go grab a bottle of aspirin right or Tylenol I won't do it until I it will develop into a migraine before I do not because I disbelieve this but Because it is so deeply rooted into my inner being not to take medicine that I just simply don't take it

01:07:40

Yeah, and this this theology it on the flip side of this so people who don't get healed

01:07:48

I've got I have people in my family who have chronic disease and This incurable chronic disease like lupus and you know things that there is no cure

01:07:58

You're going to suffer and basically until you die When you're indoctrinated with this belief that if you have enough faith

01:08:07

God can heal you Then you start thinking the opposite way if you have a chronic disease not only

01:08:15

I don't have enough faith but By extension if I don't have enough faith. I'm also probably doing something wrong.

01:08:22

What am I doing wrong? There must be sin in my life. How am I sinning? I have people their suffering is exponentially worse because They actually

01:08:33

Their whole life as long as I've known them They think that they've done something wrong.

01:08:39

They think that they've sinned and so psychologically they have this it's a mental disease

01:08:45

They have this mental disease that exists because of the theology that's on top of the false doctrine

01:08:51

Hmm. Yeah, that's huge. In fact, one of the aspects of the gospel divine healing and this is the quote that you pull

01:08:57

Well, and then we're gonna we're gonna get more We're gonna go more into this in a part two because I mean just obviously he had his healing communes

01:09:05

But there's so much more that you'll see and there's the controversy that surrounded it and really While this is, you know, one of those fun sort of historical origin stories indeed dies into the 1800s

01:09:15

There's a serious aspect in regards to the fact. There's nothing new under the Sun that You know bad theology hurts people whether it's with you know, the rigid dress restrictions of what you can and can't wear

01:09:27

Sometimes food restrictions, which you can and can't eat in this case, you know whether or not you can get

01:09:34

Medical care. I mean even even groups that allow some medical care For example, the

01:09:40

Watchtower Bible and Track Society their policy where you cannot give get blood transfusions and you know there

01:09:47

I remember we had someone that Andrew you and I were talking with and there he had a close he was on a

01:09:54

TV and If I recall and is either his niece or something like that, this is nice.

01:10:00

Yeah get had a artery Yeah I mean she ended up all again so close to severing an artery and Basically, there was some sort of law in place where they basically said, you know

01:10:10

You have to be able to give this person blood like legally that so they couldn't really go against it

01:10:17

But if it wasn't for that law this person probably would have died and there's plenty of people who have actually you know Who have died young children and people from all broad variety have died just because of the specific policy

01:10:28

That Jehovah's Witnesses have and so that's prominent today And so that's that you're seeing this here as well, too

01:10:36

And this is why you know theology matters and why we need to have a holistic approach I mean, I find it fascinating that you know

01:10:44

The existence of a counterfeit as we wrap up here and you can give me your thoughts, you know The existence of a counterfeit always predicates the authenticity of an original

01:10:52

So you look at who are the people that started hospitals? Christians like who wrote two books of the

01:11:00

Bible the book the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts was written by a medical doctor

01:11:07

At that time who is working? We know what whatever the medicine was available at that time when the

01:11:13

New Testament was written So you need to realize that you know medical care and those sorts of things that's a gift that God has given in fact

01:11:22

We just had a sermon John the guy who? Created whatever the it was that makes people go to sleep when they're getting a surgery.

01:11:31

What's that called anesthesia? Anesthesia that was made by someone who was a Christian because he wanted to find a way

01:11:38

To he's like what if there's a way we could allow people to have surgery but not go through all this pain And what actually inspired him to do this is that he was reading in the book of Genesis when

01:11:50

God Made Adam go into a deep sleep when God took us ribbed from him So like it was actually the

01:11:55

Bible the Bible that inspired, you know this aspect So, you know if you're if any of you have ever had surgery and you've been able to be put under before they put you

01:12:05

Before they start opening you up. Thank Christian that came from the biblical worldview

01:12:11

So that's just something we want to really emphasize that as much as this is Interesting in regards to Dowey This is so huge in regards to this aspect of cult

01:12:24

Abuse of not allowing to get medical care, which they should as image bearers of God We need him.

01:12:30

This is something that is there to bless people I'm I'm laughing and I'm like Bob.

01:12:36

No, you said so many things that are just bring a flood of emotions to me The anesthesia

01:12:41

I told you I do I don't do much medicine I actually put myself through torture when

01:12:47

I had my wisdom teeth cut out Yeah I had to have part of my jawbone cut out and I chose not to have the anesthesia and I never will forget the doctor

01:12:55

Saying, you know, sir, we can't deaden your jawbone. This is going to hurt you really bad And I said,

01:13:00

I know and and I didn't take the anesthesia That's that's the level of weirdness that's in my head

01:13:08

But you talked about blood transfusions So you you guys probably don't realize this because you grew up in somewhat normal lives and I grew up in this cult thing

01:13:19

Well, William Branham had things that were levels worse than what

01:13:24

Dowey presented doctrinally speaking One of the things which we covered in the last series was the serpent seed which you are familiar with But think of the implications of that as it relates to what

01:13:37

Dowey has created theologically Also since the last shows that we had

01:13:43

I've discovered where Branham's doctrine of serpent seed came from we've identified the source as Wesley Swift and This guy you need to look up Wesley Swift if you've not researched this guy

01:13:56

It's because of Swift that the Aryan nation exists the skinheads the neo -nazis all of this thing

01:14:03

He was working with The Calvary temple

01:14:09

It's one of the churches that William Branham frequented and he was affiliated with with several people that were in William Branham's inner circle

01:14:16

So this I started looking at the doctrines and the source matches But think of the serpent seed which is

01:14:23

Christian identity. You've got two bloodlines Yeah, good bloodline bad bloodline When you're in white supremacy, it's referring to whatever color is not you

01:14:35

Basically when you're in a cult that is built upon top of white supremacy

01:14:41

The bad blood is whoever's not a cult member the elite God's chosen have the good blood

01:14:48

Everybody else has the bad blood. I Actually was speaking with two cult escapees from the

01:14:55

Branham cult in my house Sunday I think it was Sunday before last and they were telling me that there was a person in the cult who needed a blood

01:15:05

Transfusion and was refusing it because they couldn't get a cult member to donate the blood

01:15:12

They would not take the serpent seed blood Whoa, it is so many levels above what

01:15:20

I mean It's so it's so complicated what's in my head because of all of these false doctrines people just take it for granted

01:15:28

But you would never even think well, well, is there good blood and bad bad blood, right? Yeah, this is an actual problem that the

01:15:36

Cults that are built upon top of this thing. It's an actual problem that they have Hmm Wow.

01:15:41

Well, there's a lot more we can go but let's let's do this. We were right. We're gonna jump into Where this cult goes from here, we're gonna talk about a lot more practical implications like that We mentioned just now so John appreciate hanging out with us

01:15:55

And if you guys enjoyed this the first part of this series on John Alexander Dowey Definitely.

01:16:02

Let us know what you thought. Hope you enjoyed the first part of this series Just real quick one last time if people want to have links when we drop this podcast

01:16:10

But if people want to get your book Tell them just a little bit about it where they can find it My book is on Amazon.

01:16:18

You can find it just searching an Amazon Militant Christian extremism a critical examination of John Alexander Dowey You can also find it on my website

01:16:28

William dash Branham org and if you're excited to hear what you hear right here today

01:16:34

We're launching a new podcast Believe is next month in July that we're going a deep dive into all of this history

01:16:42

I have another historian who's coming on board with me to talk through all of this history as it progressed and basically the

01:16:50

Foundation to the New Apostolic Reformation We're going to be studying all of that and you can find that also at William dash

01:16:57

Branham org All right So thank you guys for listening and we'll talk to you next week in part two