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

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Is Protestantism Heresy? Pt. 3 - The Pope | Collision w/ Jeff Durbin

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All right, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults My name is

00:05

Jeremiah Roberts one of the co -hosts here I'm joined as always by my good trusty friend super sleuth and co -host as well to Andrew the supers of the show broadcasting live from your super super secret headquarters in Harriman, Utah by the

00:23

Costco which recently opened by the Wynn Co and also By other places too.

00:30

What else is what else is your super secret headquarters by it's by a Smith's Oh and a

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Starbucks and what's funny is like a few months from now. Let's buy a Starbucks that just gives it Yeah, my lease is is ending so you may find where I live now

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But you might not know where I live three months from now unless Jerry gives that away, too. Okay Well interesting enough.

00:52

I started giving away your location now. You're trying to find you a place I see we have to talk about that afterwards. I'm just totally kidding.

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All right, so this is part two We are doing we are talking about John Alexander Dowey with John Collins you've been on our initial series with us last year on William Branham It's good to have you back with us and just real quickly tell everyone

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We're discussing the book that you recently wrote tell everyone about the book and they get where they can find it

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The book is militant Christian extremism a critical examination of John Alexander Dowey and You can find it on Amazon you can also find it on my website

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William dash Branham org and Soon I'm hoping to have it out also an audiobook form.

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So you'll find it in audible. Okay Excellent. So I really appreciate the last part how it kind of wrapped up really talking about how you know

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Really bad theology hurts people and truly affects people especially in regards to even medical care and even all these years later

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Out coming out of the cult, you know Just just this reluctance to wait until you get to the point of taking a migrant to where you

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Do you get a migraine before you even take a bottle of aspirin? Yeah, and now that's just that.

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Yeah, go ahead with that. I I just got over kovat I think I told you guys that but yeah, this my wife was so mad at me

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I did not even take the cough medicine and I literally just suffered through it and she's John you're out of this thing

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Why don't you take the cough medicine and it's not that I'm against it or anything like that But I've just it's so embedded in my being.

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I I just I don't think about medicine in the same way. Everybody else does. Mm -hmm Hey everyone, if you are watching us right now on apology of studios

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So we thank you all for watching us and now back to the episode Yeah, definitely and you and just real quickly to not just you but there's other people as well too you're talking about that Really experienced it on different levels for the majority of people that you're seeing

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Who have come out of Branham Colts and and sometimes it's like hey, it's like a meeting You know people have like I came from this cult

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I came from that cult the audio that we played the beginning of our Series is a guy named

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Eddie who is played by Aaron Paul in the Hulu series the path Where he says my name is Eddie and I was in a cult.

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He's in that scene in that show He's in this small like a a focus group and that's where he first opens up about his past But do you see like other people like going through similar stories about even years after?

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About having to kind of unthink and deep program just from the sense of like medical care or other aspects

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And if so, like it what are some like examples off they get guns curious about that before you jump in Yeah, so I'll let you guys know in a little secret

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I honestly I've mentioned this before but I don't think I've ever really went in depth with this.

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Yeah when I escaped my family was at the top of this religious cult and I I Did not claim any

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Authority because of this my grandfather was the pastor at William Branham's Branham tabernacle

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And I was just your average Joe. I'm just an average person, right? I'm not not a preacher

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I'm not any of this, you know, I had no aspiration to be a preacher but when

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I left I knew that because of who I am there would be a lot of people listening and I knew that there would be a lot of people who needed help because When I left this thing

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It's it's extremely difficult to leave a cult You are indoctrinated in my case

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I was indoctrinated from birth a lot of people for decades and what happens is

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Psychologically speaking you form a cult identity, right? It's called identity suppresses your authentic being

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So inside of you you literally have two different personalities and I actually had to go on a rescue mission to help another cult person out of a cult and Had to take a crash course on how this works

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Whenever you engage a person you're trying to help them out of a cult if you appeal to their Things that they like things that the authentic self likes you can watch it surface and you can actually watch the eyes change

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Yeah and if you say something that is That brings their cult defenses up Like if you say if you're talking about somebody who likes baseball and you're talking about baseball you watch them light up But then you say well your cult leader didn't like baseball

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Diddy and you can watch that yeah identity suppress it their eyes shift I mean, it's like a sci -fi movie, right?

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Yeah, so you have two different identities two personalities in your head and when you leave

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One of them just died. Mm -hmm the person who's the cult identity you actually suffer all the stages of grief you not only that it's actually worse than if a family member dies because This is inside of you, so you feel like you had a tumor removed you feel like a family member just left

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Yeah, people there are people who go on medication. There's some people who they just go berserk crazy

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For a period of time while they're trying to They're healing. They're trying to understand what happened to them.

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Well, so I set up myself and another Guy who's working with me in Canada we set up a whole network basically an underground railroad of support for people who are coming out of this thing and We had

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I want to say it was like 10 up to 10 or more support groups individual

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We had to put them in buckets because the people who first come out they go wildly crazy, but they're also

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Very like theologically they're very much the same as what they left. They don't understand concepts and Then after they go through a few stages

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There's some people that just go Freedom and they go wild and they're drinking and they're partying and they're having all the fun that they missed out

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Basically, they're going through adolescence Yeah It might be in their 40s and they're going through adolescence and if you put those people who just escaped with the wild crowd

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Then you've got this immediate conflict because these people are saying those people are going to hell and those people say no

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I've got freedom now. So you had to basically create this cascading system of support networks, and it's very intricate and Quite honestly very grueling.

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I'm at the point where I was involved with all of them at one point I'm actually only involved with one because even myself trying to support them.

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It was taking a toll on my mental health. Hmm Yeah, and that I appreciate you sharing that and I think just one of the aspects too

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Is that for those there people are listening in and they're probably a lot of them are gonna identify With what you were saying, but there's also a lot of people who are still from the out

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I feel like in many ways I'm still on the outside looking in When I hear stories like you or other people that Andrew and I have talked to but I think it's incredibly important Especially to you know,

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Andrew even with you being a new church planner and helping out with that that there's a huge importance especially for the

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Christian Church to truly understand these ex -cultists because a lot of a lot of you get

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Sucked into these cults or in this case, you know growing up in the cult But even people who get brought in or the reason why you'd stay in is because of biblical illiteracy

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So there needs to be a level of compassion understanding that when someone comes out of a cult

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I mean, there's people who go into churches after leaving a cult that literally they're fighting Trying not to have a panic attack

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That's a huge huge aspect. That's I think it's so so important because again We're we're having a little bit fun going into this fasting historical origin series

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But again, there's just such an importance to understand all the different aspects of you know

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How cults think how that works, you know, and even for example, you're talking about the true self between the cult identity

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That's something that's prominent both in the cult that you grew up in Not even really famous cult stories like the

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Waco and the Branch Davidians. So like in the FBI Transcript you listen to any of the audios of the negotiations between David Koresh and the and the

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FBI during the standoff You could actually see David Koresh fluctuate between the cult leader

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David Koresh versus the regular person Vernon Howell Who he was prior to taking on that identity of the

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Branch Davidians of Mount Carmel, so it's very very important So, let me just jump into the aspects of healing.

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I think this is a good way to kind of jump back into it So in chapter 9 you're talking about the Chicago World's Fair so we were talking about faith healing, but I want to get into the nitty -gritty of just the craziness of this chaos that Dowey would it wouldn't in sales.

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So here's here's one example and Andrew any examples that you have to I'll let you jump in as well too, so he ends up deciding to create some chaos and you think about the

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Joker in The Dark Knight was introduced a little chaos, you know, so he ends up taking on Person the

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Reverend stupert Godfrey Mullinger who was a famous priest physician who prayed for the sick, but while but while Prescribing the appropriate medicine to cure illness, which honestly

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I think that's that's the wise thing you should do, right? You need to pray, you know, you want to pray like there's actually my roommate was having issues with Blood clots in his legs and his legs did not look good

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I prayed for him and now but I you know, I've laid hands prayed for him Lord to be your will, you know

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I pray, you know, you're the great physician allow his legs to be healed But I said you need to get to a hospital now like I will drive you

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So that's the proper thing to have but take us into this so that wasn't good enough so the at that concept praying for the sick

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Ascribing the appropriate medical care. He didn't like that, but he decided to create some controversy out of that.

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Tell us bring us into that Well, it's it's all part of the faith healing strategy.

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Thank you. You guys are cult experts at this point you know how cults work and how To some extent how the cult mind works for my cult leader in a cult member standpoint

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Well think of the cult leader We'll take will deviate just a bit from the faith healing and just think of the cult leader himself

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The cult leader is somebody who creates a problem Gets the people to believe the problem

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Then convinces him that he's the answer to that problem Every cult leader known to man throughout time has done this

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William Branham did this now He did this you can go all down the line. They create they create what they call sin

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They they say it's different than the other Christians what they call sin is not including these other sins

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And we know the true sins so you can't do these things I have the answer to know what are the true sins so you don't go to hell, right, right?

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So from a faith healer standpoint Well, if you take that same strategy and apply it to faith healing

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He's telling people number one. You can't go to get your medicine from a doctor because that's sin.

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I Have the answer you can come to me and my answer to your health needs are not sin.

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It's the same strategy What I've learned to do in my research of these con men is to take religion completely out of it

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Yes, they're talking religion. Yes, they they use the word Christianity But you have to look at the underlying strategy of what they're doing and their strategy is that of a con artist not the strategy of a

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Christian man Mmm, so that that's really good Andrew. What are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on this so far?

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Yeah, and it makes sense that it's the strategy of a con artist just because you know the the Christian man controversy for the sake of The kingdom right dr.

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Walter Martin says it all the time is a divine command in terms of what the gospel is And what God's Word says but the controversy of what's going on here is someone that is saying that you can't take any medicine

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He said this is Dowey in terms of this Pittsburgh controversy said healing by God does not require several bottles of mysterious medicines

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I mean, that's absolutely true. God can heal whoever he wants whenever he wants, but at the same time he is also in his sovereign

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Power he's made it so people could actually create things In this world that are medicines that could bless people that can heal things so he went from being someone who could be

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Essentially a preacher that helps bring the gospel for healing right or the right relationship between men and God But now it's that's not the issue

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Medicine's the issue. This is the gospel issue and that is not controversy for the sake of Kingdom the kingdom

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That's controversy for his own his own gain essentially. Yeah, and there's another Psychological aspect to this that I actually really hadn't thought of that until you just said what you did

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One of one of the strategies that works with cult leaders and this is a lot deeper study

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But they're all using psychological con concepts and you know strategies to indoctrinate people

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What they're trying to achieve ultimately is mind control if you can The brainwashing is used very loosely

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I think too loosely at sometimes because that's not really describing what they're doing. They're trying to manipulate your mind they're trying to get you to be at comfort with what they're saying and achieve control of your mind by you willingly giving them control of your mind and One of the strategies of doing this you've seen it in Jim Jones and his and his strategies

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Is to just berate the people you basically Beat them down into submission and you do it in very simple terms.

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You want to achieve the the father scolding the child and you want to get them in that state of mind and You can't do that with complicated terms now

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He could not come up with a complicated strategy explaining why medicine is evil

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Even though God could use it. He has to just simply cut it off at very very simple terms Yeah, when you're being manipulated to think like a six -year -old you're not going to think well

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God could also have Produced the medicine to heal me. God could have also

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Instructed the doctor on how to find what is wrong with me there's so it's so much more complicated than the six -year -old mind could have but psychologically speaking they're believe it they're belittling

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Belittling the people and they're just berating them to so they're in this state of almost a catatonic state

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Mm -hmm Yeah, and so jumping back into the book I mean, this is just whenever I look at a book like yours or kind of going into any aspect of you know

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Either whether it's the 1960s or in this case a late 1800s

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I always get fascinated by just the media of that time like the old advertisements Especially like I just love those how those things get communicated, you know and so in your chapter you give this idea this a transcript from a newspaper and then this is in Chicago so in April 1894

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Chicago's interocean newspaper published a large promotion of Dowie's faith healing with headlines almost a quarter page long in an article spanning half a page

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And it cracks me up too because just the description you have sections that are just totally right You know either in caps a bunch of caps and exclamation points

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So this is the description it says latter -day miracles and caps afflicted divinely healed by Reverend John Alexander Dowie Wrought by faith in caps lame made to walk and the blind restored to sight death made powerless

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Victims are snatched from the brink of the grave Testimonies of those relieved of suffering made whole and saved from dying.

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All right, and so they have examples of people That were healed so people like Mary, I'm sorry

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Mae Lohan claimed to have been healed a paralysis You also had people that were a paralysis sore throat

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Sometimes a cancer blindness tuberculosis. I mean you kind of name it It's kind of like a one -size -fits -all

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But this is my you know testimony of witnesses of people who have healed me and you see that continuing going on.

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So what Like in this I mean were there people who are starting to speak out against them or eventually mean some people might get a placebo

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Effect. Do you start getting defectors or how it is because they're always seem to be controversies surrounding him, you know from the outside But people were kind of emotionally getting caught up maybe having some doubts

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What did that kind of look like in this process? I Actually recently explained this to somebody in one of the support groups

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This is a big thing for a person who's indoctrinated into a faith healing sect If they find one single person healed their whole

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It's like a sleeper cell You know terrorist bomber though They have these normal lives until this one trigger point just sets off all of this programming in their head and whenever a faith healer gets a

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Legitimate testimony of somebody who is healed to a person who's been indoctrinated like that all of that programming sets off in their head

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It's the you're mentioning the the problem of churches needing to understand the cult mind

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And and help people like this This is actually a huge problem in that when people leave groups like this and they try to enter into a normal church

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The they will get to a place where they'll be sitting and hearing a normal really grace -filled good sermon

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I've experienced this and one single statement from one single chapter of one book in the

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Bible Sets off this flood of triggers and I've got this flood of emotion and I actually can't take it

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I actually get up and walk out. Mm -hmm Whenever I do there are churches who don't understand what's going on in the head of the cult mind and there's some that are just authoritative anyway, they're cultish and They'll go after you and try to drag you back in and they'll try to coerce you back in and If you leave if you're gone for a few weeks, well, where'd you go?

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We need to come visit with you and and that's the opposite of what these people need

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I actually had lunch with the local pastor recently and I was explaining this and His response was amazing because I didn't think any church got this and he says well

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Yeah If you're going through that you need to take it you need to take a timeout and just stay a few weeks away from church And heal you heal then you come back to church and yeah, we'll help you through this

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And and if you need help during this time while you're away, you know, he would be willing so Whenever people are indoctrinated in this state and somebody gets healed it sets off the programming and they ignore

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Everything else what I explained to the people in the support groups Think of it in the opposite way

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If I'm telling you that I have God's power to heal you and you find that I have faked one single person

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Can you trust the other nine of the ten that I claim all it takes is one one single fake person one single

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Fraud you have to question the whole thing and I purposefully included every every

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Instance of somebody who did claim to be healed in the newspaper that I found is actually in the book

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Purposefully because I want you to see the balance these people claimed it but here are is this

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Overwhelming number far more than the people that claimed healing who died who were still sick who left

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You know in the same condition they were in right, right I think like one of the things Andrew I'm gonna let you jump in here too.

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Is that it's very easy I think John to look at someone like the followers of these people or people who follow

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Jim Jones or Any of these other cult members who think they're experiencing some sort of healing and to say oh, well

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They are just stupid and I'm not stupid and you almost sort of look at them in a condescending way You know, even like the whole phrase drinking the

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Kool -Aid in many ways It's a pejorative but a lot of times like that even that aspect that phrase even strips the people for example of in the people's temple of their humanity like you and I think a

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Lot of people truly don't understand the power of suggestion and how suggestible we really are

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In fact, there's a I remember there's a book that came out a couple years ago that I read called suggestible you And it was talking about this

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They did a study where they took the small town that or see their small town or neighborhood somewhere in,

22:24

California close to where they had the wind turbines the power generators and They basically convinced a good portion of half the town that these newly built wind turbines actually, we're actually we're a hazard to your health because they're going to Push up a bunch of the different plants that have out that create allergies and the dust and so they're just a bunch of Issues where it actually might be a hazard to your health

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And so then they told the other part of these people in this town of the survey

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We're saying that no, this is actually a really good thing because they're very environmentally friendly. It's going to stop pollution

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So there's actually a lot of health benefits to it So they actually did a case study they follow these people for several weeks after giving them this information the people that they gave the negative connotations to they started manifesting these allergy symptoms and different health like Respiratory health issues due to the fact they were told that these were

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Dangerous or a bad for your health, but the people who said this is good for your health They experienced the majority of them actually showed

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Respiratory Like they did better like they did there's ways in which they medically improve.

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I don't know the exact details That's just one small example, and I think that's just an aspect that we need to know

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I mean even like neuroscience and all that still is empathy with what we know But all of us are incredibly suggestible

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Andrew. Do you have any thoughts? Yeah, what do you thought so far? Well, I mean the Bible talks about it right Jeremiah 17 9 the heart is deceitful above all things

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Desperately wicked who could know it desperately sick really? When we go to the point to where our experience is determined truth

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That's when it gets scary and that's how we fall into traps. I mean John was talking about it perfectly He's saying they experience one thing this one healing and all of a sudden it just lights up this programming that overrides everything else

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I mean we see it with the LDS community, right? They say pray about the Book of Mormon, and if you get a burning in the bosom it's then true and then what happens the programming lights up and now they read the

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Bible through the lens of Programming that now supersedes the Bible regardless of Joseph Smith's false prophecies regardless of the things that make the

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Book of Mormon untrue They're now replacing an identity with the identity of the cult leader in a sense and in a way

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And that's because our hearts are desperately are desperately sick They're in need of a of a Savior just like the example you just brought

24:57

Jared these people were manifesting Symptoms of being sick, I mean we have very powerful things inside of us

25:03

And it's this little three -pound brain, you know not saying that all of the times. It's only your brain That's making these psychological symptoms.

25:10

Sometimes it can be spiritual We know in 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 4 that there are different spirits.

25:16

We're told about it, and we need to be worrisome worrisome about that But the only way we can do that is when we're trusting in God's Word which he gives us the ability to read for ourselves

25:25

Which is a beautiful thing to protect us from falling prey to any type of cult leader We cross -check them with what?

25:31

Scripture scripture scripture scripture, and I find that to be very important, but it's a yeah

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I mean Jeremiah 17 9 man. It says it. It says it right there Yeah, I in reading and studying these examples with Dowey There was a there was a solid mixture of really smart people.

25:49

We're talking doctors lawyers who got embedded into this thing and One of the so one of my partners

25:57

I don't know that I've mentioned this on about podcast this may be the first one of my partners is dr.

26:02

Stephen Hassan that part I do talk about awesome his one of his books if To the listeners who haven't read it

26:10

Freedom of mind is incredible at understanding how to do programs Do programs a bad word now how to help somebody learn how to escape a cult?

26:22

Um It talks about the psychological aspects but Hassan is one of the is really the first person who helped me understand that it's not that a

26:34

Certain demographic demographic of people are Susceptible to join a cult.

26:40

Yeah, I'm a I'm an IT consultant and when I left I was mortified that people would think

26:46

I was stupid because I was raised in this cult and Unfortunately, I've actually lost business because of this thing that I do helping people out of a cult because they see it and oh my gosh

26:56

What is this thing? He's in a cult. He must not be smart. Yeah. Well smart people believe it or not are even more susceptible

27:05

Because think of it. So I'm an IT consultant I work with my brain all day every day

27:10

If you were a carpenter and you swing a hammer all day every day your arm gets tired

27:16

Well, my brain gets tired on Sunday. I go to church with my brain tired

27:21

I shut off all critical thought because my brain is tired and I was in a cult

27:27

I was listening and being indoctrinated I was indoctrinated in my opinion levels above what some of the other people were

27:34

Because my brain was literally shut off every Sunday. I was a zombie in church because I'm smart because I'm working with my brain and And This you know, it applies to not only what

27:47

I came out of but in Dowey's era there were still people working with their minds and the doctors lawyers, etc.

27:54

And they were joining this thing the story that I haven't told people is

28:00

Hassan Are you guys Star Trek fans either? I love Star Trek.

28:06

That's me. So so I'm a Trekkie and I am a Trekkie now TV was kind of forbidden in the cult.

28:13

I was in The the Borg is fascinating. Yeah the Borg. So do you know do you know who created the

28:19

Borg? I Don't know. I don't remember who created the Borg. No, so I'm about to surprise you guys

28:26

Okay, one and I'm now permitted to say this I knew this on the last show, but I was not permitted to say it at the time

28:34

The producers of the next generation one of them the wife was in the

28:39

Jehovah's Witness cult and the producer Said can't contacted.

28:46

Dr. Hassan and said I want a villain that Resembles this cult and I want to attack it to the ground.

28:53

Well, they did to my wife's head is Incredible and I this is the worst enemy known to mankind

29:01

So when you see a Borg you're looking at think of the structure of the Jehovah's Witness called the

29:07

Queen the Hive Queen is The central figure you've got the chain of indoctrination flowing down They've got to be plugged into the hive when somebody unplugs from the hive or the cult they become disoriented

29:20

That's what I deal with in my support groups. They they keep wanting to connect back in that's re indoctrination

29:27

Every single aspect of the Borg is every single aspect of Jehovah's Witness cult from being in it to escaping to reintegrating into life

29:38

Wow Andrew is your mind being blown right now, dude And it makes perfect sense and like what is it that like really ruined the

29:45

Borg to I remember in some of the episodes is When they met the one and they got the Borg to think for himself

29:51

And then when he went back into the hive mind it like released this Freedom and it just caused this massive amount of Confusion I remember that that makes perfect sense.

30:01

I mean wow that's that that's huge, dude. I never that that's cool Well, that's Chris crazy to just kind of jumping into minor

30:07

It's been forever since I've watched Star Trek the next generation But I remember there's one particular episode where somebody on the crew.

30:15

Maybe was Wesley He gets turned into a Borg or somebody on the crew goes hard into a card does know

30:21

It's someone else or at least maybe they capture a Borg I can't remember but somehow there's something where they

30:29

Everyone's arguing with Captain Picard that there's might there might be some level of like humanity in this

30:35

Borg that they captured And I just remember I don't know what that episode. Yeah, so I'm very scooted and again.

30:40

I'm just I'm quoting the show I'm not saying it specifically, but you know Patrick Stewart who plays

30:48

John Luke Picard he says when they're trying to say no He's actually he when you have a compassion on and he says he's not a human damage.

30:55

It's a Borg you know and so Aspect it's like no this is not this is the

31:02

Borg and but they're they're arguing for the person the actual personal identity and But Captain Picard's looking at through the cult identity and so it's almost like in that now

31:14

I just that just popped in my head now that you're mentioning that it makes sense even in that scene is talking about the duality

31:21

Do it between the actual personal identity versus the cold identity. That's You really blow our minds

31:27

So I'm a I'm a I'm a diehard Trekkie. So take it forward to the Voyager series

31:33

Yeah, where they where they find seven of nine and the others. Yeah, that was a splinter group of the cult

31:38

They had separated from the hive they formed their own splinter group and they were all working together as one unit separated from the main unit

31:46

Mmm, okay single aspect of every show the Borg is the Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah Alright, so let me ask you let me ask you this.

31:54

So we're talking about them utilizing healing to manipulate cult members, so this section of Dowey's life ministry entails two other separate aspects that we see within cults one

32:08

Manipulating people for money taking a big section of them Know whether it's a mandatory tithe or in some case where you have to surrender all your possessions, you know to the group but then also isolating them either in some sort of compound or Community where it's very difficult to leave.

32:27

And so this is a point where he's trying to establish his Zion temple right, and he basically is looking talking to all his listeners or where he's

32:38

Wanting to get you know to raise money and it's interesting too and I want anyone the audience to listen to this

32:44

Tell me this isn't they get in the late 1800s. Do you see anything familiar with modern -day?

32:51

televangelism Okay, cuz that's what I think of this So this is on one of your pages Or this is a transcript where they're trying to pay for an initial plot of land and it says yes brethren

33:00

I need your help You know what the Bible says about faith that works being dead you think that you have faith in me now

33:07

I want you to prove that faith this morning. I gave all I had to the Lord all except 27 poultry dollars just $27 are left to my credit in the bank.

33:19

Think of it my friends I am doing the Lord's work but with but $27 I had much more this morning, but the

33:25

Lord called me and I began signing checks You know some of you that are preparing a divine healing home at this specific address

33:33

It was for this home that I signed these checks this home where the suffering are to be cured all for you

33:40

Brethren you and the Lord now I want you to ask to contribute a dollar each that is not less than a dollar

33:47

You can give more if you are able this money will go towards completing the purchase of this beautiful home

33:53

Which will be for all of you. I wish to speak of another thing We need a piece of land in this vicinity to which we will erect a large canvas pavilion for the summer

34:05

It would be much better if we could own this land I will have

34:10

I will now have that hat passed and I want every one of you could to contribute according to his wealth

34:16

Let it be a good liberal collection So you kind of see two things the manipulation of money, but it's also that desire

34:25

To start this area, so maybe you unpack that for us tell us about how

34:31

What he would do in regards to the people who followed him how much they had to contribute as far as financially

34:37

It sounds like a lot of manipulation going on and how did this lead to starting this?

34:42

It sounds like it was the commune outside of Chicago bring us into that Yes, so Dowey had multiple

34:49

Zion's the one that exists today the the compound that became Zion City Illinois is

34:56

I think the third attempt he had He started outside of the World's Fair that grew until they literally outgrew the structures and they bought almost an entire

35:06

I think it was an entire city block right in downtown Chicago, Michigan Avenue. I think it was he bought a massive church and Hotel, etc.

35:16

And they literally owned the whole block until they outgrew it Well, the way he's funding this thing is he is telling people that he will heal them and So I grew up hearing

35:29

William Branham say this over and over again I never took a single offering in my life folks.

35:34

I never took an offering. It sounds just like the guy from Bonanza I never I never collected money from people, but I've got this snake wall if you just ride it'll make you feel good

35:43

I've never taken money before but I just got this. Well Dowey's telling this people the same thing

35:48

I'm not taking any I'm not taking your money folks. Everything I do is free everything folks. Come step right up step right up and Then when they step up he passes the offering for what's it cost money to do what

36:00

I'm doing Branham Branham passed the offering plates at every service and there were one newspaper described it

36:08

There were two husky men who carried out big boxes of money from his revival meetings

36:13

This is a man who says I never took an offering one single time folks Well, he learned that from Bosworth who learned it from Dowey Dowey had the same strategy when you come to the healing homes you basically

36:28

They they actually had They had a corporate structure There was

36:33

I can't remember the guy's name Spiker or something yeah, he he was looking for people who was a good fit for the healing homes and Some of the people who later escaped and talked about the inner workings if you had money you were a good fit

36:50

Or if your family had money you were a good fit So he would bring him in and they would they were paying for their stay

36:58

Allegedly not for the healing for their stay and in today's money. It's thousands of dollars per month it's far more than I would pay for a hotel and That was just the people who were staying in the healing homes once this grew into Masses of people flooding he had what was there's three or four

37:20

Different churches running in Chicago at the same time before they moved to Zion. He also had

37:25

Evansville, Minneapolis Pittsburgh all over the country basically but the big ones were in those locations all of those were also funneling money in and I think one guy

37:39

One of the pastors in I think as Minneapolis is who quit first He said that within just a short period of time

37:46

It was like a million dollars that they had sent dowey, which is a lot of money back then And if you join the compound it was it was a communal calm as a communal

37:58

Gathering so a lot of people were I don't think they were forfeiting all of their money initially

38:04

They were just putting it into the community by giving it to dowey and letting Dowey had to set up his own banking system

38:11

They had the Zion City Bank and they would put the money in there dowey controlled it and it was for the community

38:19

Yeah, that that's what I find interesting to like when he buys this 6 ,600 acres of land 40 miles north of Chicago and it turns into Zion City He he essentially owned it and just leased it to people

38:35

I think the leases were like 200 300 year leases He would give people but it's just interesting how that doesn't bring any red flags to people's minds like like And they had paid for it.

38:46

He was leasing them the land that they helped pay 300 year lease and no one it's like it's like the

38:53

Scientology giving people a billion year contract well, well think about it like biblically like having your own property is is like a

39:01

Beautiful thing that God wants people to have he delegates property to people and he loves the fact that people have property so much

39:08

He says thou shalt not steal. Yeah, right, but this man this con man

39:13

He's using a counterfeit form of a biblical government and he's not even letting anyone have any property whatsoever instead he takes their money like John just said and he's like here now buy it back from me on these leases these 300 year leases that is

39:28

Absolutely asinine and what I found interesting to John tell me if you know more about this But I heard that he was actually in talks with the

39:35

Turkish government to try to buy back Jerusalem and he actually had plans to create a

39:40

Zahn not like a Zion but to rebuild Jerusalem is that that was that true? Yeah, he he wanted so Dowie was a doomsday prophet he had an end of the world prophecy and He believed that he was going he was the last messenger the

39:55

Elijah messenger that was going to basically Introduced Christ as he returned to earth

40:00

Well, he convinced all of his people that they needed to buy Jerusalem because that's where Christ was gonna come back

40:07

So he was gonna buy it and then they're all gonna migrate there eventually and he was just taking their money They never they never even try, you know,

40:14

I I don't even know. Can you buy Jerusalem? I don't know that you can Even back then how do you buy it?

40:20

How do you buy that? You know, yeah, that's it That's interesting but we find the same thing this common thread right like starting with Dowie like we have people like Jim Jones man with Jonestown, it's like a father divine in the peace mission movement the same thing where they just would like go off into these

40:36

Little areas where they would use other people's money to buy land and create a little little commune

40:41

So was what was life like there in Zion City John life was?

40:47

Like any cult when a compound is set up they try to they've got to try to keep you once you're there

40:53

You don't want them to become you don't want them to entertain the notion of leaving so you have to keep them tired and Dowie was literally working them to To the point that the government had to step in and say you can't do this.

41:08

He had Dowie had Purchased rights to make

41:13

Nottingham lace from England hired a bunch of lace makers to come to Zion They set up a lace factory and to make

41:21

Nottingham lace It has to actually be from people from Nottingham or you can't call it Nottingham lace.

41:27

So this was a big deal he he fought for politically and it got held up in Congress, I think and Dowie went and and even had some political pull to overturn that to release the

41:41

Nottingham lace makers Set up the factories and Zion Exploded into they had their own factories schools

41:49

You know shopping every every aspect of life from their

41:55

Economics to their their means for making money producing food, etc. Everything was self -contained but to keep the people there and and You know keep them from their minds escaping

42:09

He would he just simply overworked them until the government came in and said look they these people can work eight hours a day

42:15

And that's it Wow, there's a law that got introduced then to stop work overworking people

42:22

What I find interesting too is typically when these when this starts happening when these cult leaders start Separating themselves fully from outside influence and making their own societies.

42:31

That's when things get extremely wacky with themselves and their own Theology was there anything going on with his theology that was changing something that that he never really taught before that started developing

42:46

In the 1900s like in the early 1900s or anything like that That's about the time that his restoration theology came in whenever he was getting

42:57

He was getting attacked from all sides The Chicago had basically had as much of him as as could be

43:04

Think of this connection So Chicago he died and I think it was two years later that the mob took control of Chicago The absence of Dowey in my opinion and based off of what

43:16

I'm seeing the absence of Dowey and his control Was just like this fertile ground for the mob to come in and take control

43:22

Wow He he Dowey controlled the politics the the he could sway political votes

43:29

He had so many people in either influenced by him or in his cult

43:36

That he could just rail some political opponent and he would sway enough votes to sway it in the direction that he wanted

43:43

So he had control. Well, this doesn't go over well, right? So he's he's being attacked from all sides and He what once he reaches the point where he realizes that Not only has his opposition grown

43:59

Beyond the point of helping him grow. It's now becoming a threat that's whenever he introduces this restoration theology where the earth needs to be wiped out and we need to replenish with my people and Basically, it's it's the foundation for what became the new apostolic

44:17

Reformation Wow, okay, that's yeah, I can see that I can see that that that makes sense um, did he have any forms of teaching to where like I There was certain people like Anglo -saxons were part of the

44:31

Jewish Descent like a lost tribes of Israel or did he teach like anything about polygamy or anything like that or there were

44:38

I don't know about polygamy, but one of the so Christian identity doctrine is

44:44

Not self -contained it's based on British Israelism the notion that the

44:51

The white -skinned English people were the true 12 tribes the lost 12 tribes of Israel That is is one of the elements of Taoiseach teaching

45:01

I don't know that it would be a fundamental element and I don't know that it came in around that time I think he may have had that before no just from you know, but that's it was

45:11

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45:20

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46:01

I got a question to just kind of going into you know the the intricacies of This these communes especially because it's integrated with these isolated compounds plus money plus healing

46:14

It's like all these things brought together So in one part of your book you're talking about the divine healing home number one two, and three

46:21

This is each home was filled with approximately a hundred people or a hundred people exact who pay between eight and twelve dollars

46:28

I mean obviously the whole conversation now put in the political sphere of inflation now It'd be two hundred sixty dollars and three hundred and ninety dollars in today's money

46:37

These people were all sick lame mean to otherwise need of care. How big are these houses?

46:44

I'm thinking of a hundred people. We're talking a lot of we're talking a lot of space Are we thinking like very close quarter barracks or what are we looking at?

46:52

They they were so small that So now we created a big problem because in America we have separation of religion, you know church and state

47:01

So he is operating these things under the guise of religion But he's claiming that they are a replacement for hospitals

47:11

The problem is as you know a hospital for a hundred people is pretty good size

47:16

Well, he's got these little tiny buildings. They're literally bed to bed to bed and They're not feeding them properly.

47:22

They're malnourished. They're not getting good sleep because they're you know, right here out and out in the open

47:31

Whenever his initial three healing homes were basically condemned and he moved to the city block he took over a hotel and They at that point the government had stepped in and said if you're going to operate a facility that is containing sick people

47:46

Here are the dimensions the minimum dimensions that you have to have for a room for the people so at that point,

47:52

I think the government had stepped in and had dictated what they Could and could not do but whenever he moved outside of Chicago, the

48:02

Chicago government really had nothing to do with Zion City or Whatever, you know as it was growing whatever undeveloped land it was

48:10

It would be basically I isolated to what was state law versus what was Chicago law.

48:16

Mm -hmm. Oh man, I mean that's just an example of you always see a

48:22

Package of a bag of goods Whatever you want to call it being solicited, but all of a sudden when you get it and all it's an oh

48:30

No, like what did I sign up for? I mean whether it's this or whether it's Scientology You know you name it and in your book you talk about all the different, you know different deaths and different people that were having health issues and even you had

48:45

Pretty much their version that of the Department of Health getting involved and in any of these instances

48:52

Yeah, I mean he was come whenever that got happen I mean he was completely receptive, you know to receive correction in these areas and make adjustments or but where he was

49:02

I'm assuming he was defensive very much. So right It depended and pinned on the day so when they came in one one of the

49:12

I was reading just last night as refreshing my memory before the show one of the people who escaped the healing homes there was an attorney that started going and contacting people who had left and One of the people who escaped

49:27

I was talking to the attorney as they were forming the lawsuits against Dowey and they said it was horrific experience because they went and Not only were they not getting better But they're looking around in this little tiny building.

49:44

They're not getting enough food They're not getting quality food for especially for what they're paying But they're looking at all of these other sick people who also aren't getting better.

49:52

So mentally They you know, even if it was a mind over matter healing that doesn't work whenever you're looking at people who are just dying next to you and being snuck out in the middle of the night in Dowey's own doctor was the one who was signing the

50:10

The papers to send them to the morgue. So they had like this by night

50:15

They were sneaking people out of the building in hearses who had died who had died

50:21

And so here are people who are in this thing who they're watching this because this is a tiny building

50:26

Everybody knows what's going on. Oh my gosh, and it's just it's a horrific horrific experience

50:33

Yeah and so in this whole process there continues to be more lawsuits filed against him and That began a mass a lot of people started leaving a mass exodus

50:46

Which a lot of times will happen, you know in any aspect where you when you have this example of like lawsuits being filed

50:54

Or if you think you know the Watchtower when they prophesied that the world's gonna end 1975 that came and went the large they lost a large percent or membership

51:04

But that was the catalyst for a lot of people leaving as well, too It was a catalyst for a lot of people leaving but also and part of the question you asked initially

51:15

Whenever the government when it looked like Dowey was going to face criminal charges

51:20

Dowey's argument was no these aren't healing homes These are vacation homes people are coming for vacation and the people who are in these homes and they're looking at all these people dying

51:30

Heck no, this is not a vacation home. I wouldn't what go here, but that was his first response to court

51:39

That argument didn't work because obviously he's been advertising healing and so he did change his story

51:45

But you know, there was a lot of reasons why people left Some of it had to do with Dowey not

51:54

You know not sticking with the things that he had indoctrinated them with so now they've got this

52:01

This thing that they can't explain why is Dowey sailing saying these aren't healing homes. That's what

52:06

I paid for But he's also doing other things that Just aren't becoming of a minister.

52:13

He's his attitude in court his attitude against the newspapers There are some people who got excited and they enjoyed his ranting and they

52:23

Kind of like we see in politics today whenever this big multitude of people form this verbal mob

52:30

Everybody joins in there are people who would join into the mob But there's also this group of people that aren't going to join into the verbal attacks

52:38

And yeah, especially people who are somewhat grounded in Christianity think well, what is this?

52:44

This is not Christianity, right? No, that that's a huge thing. And in fact, just just jumping back to I mean

52:50

Is that's got to be one of the most insanely ridiculous claims that they're coming here to be on vacation I mean anybody

52:57

Regardless of what time period if you're one you have money if you're gonna go on vacation

53:03

Especially during that era like you've got some extra money to spend Why are you going to save?

53:10

Why are you gonna spend this extra money to go on a vacation in a room full of a couple of the hundred people who? Are sick ill and maimed and who are dying and being carried out in the middle of the night?

53:19

Need to say if I get a hotel or hostel when that's happening I might there's gonna be a couple one -star reviews on on Expedia for sure.

53:27

Like come on Yeah, even it's a Stephen King vacation home. Oh, yeah. I mean that that's that's definitely

53:34

Yeah, definitely in that category for sure And so Andrew, do you have a thought real quickly?

53:39

I was gonna say if he had like a modern Airbnb listing ain't nobody going to it

53:45

That's how we know it ain't no vacation home. You see all those little beds everywhere Oh, yeah, and don't worry people are sick and dying right next to you skip

53:52

You are not going to that home, but you said a lot of people were leaving But what what's hard?

53:58

I think people need to understand is that he had a massive Following like when they moved to Zion City and he had his temple there.

54:07

They could seat 8 ,000 people 8 ,000 people the town itself ended up having almost around 20 ,000 people in it like this is not a small movement

54:17

This is why it blew my mind when reading about this and doing the research is how come I had no idea about this Why did

54:23

I not know that this was going on? like Chicago was the second largest city in the world at that point in time like this was like a

54:29

Mecca of like American industrialization going on in Chicago And he's only 40 miles north with 20 ,000 people in a town where he owns everything like you said with the lace workers that come

54:40

In he owned everything there, and I've never heard about this in my life until like three or four weeks ago

54:47

You know it just absolutely blows my mind Well, you've got you've got the religious leaders who exist because of doubt

54:54

I was the prototype for a lot of what we see today. You talked about the televangelists well

55:00

Yes, they sound like this because he was the prototype and he was he's the reason why they exist

55:05

So you've got the Christian leaders who realized that this man wasn't really that good of a man

55:11

And they've whitewashed it or erased it so he becomes less of a powerhouse than what he you know what they initially claimed him to be

55:19

Then you've got in Chicago the Chicago mob came in like I said right after Dowey So you've got all the mob history which is far more fascinating than Dowey So if you are a historian, and you want to study

55:32

Chicago and Chicago history now He's just this side story, but in my opinion He's what he was the catalyst that created the void that the mob came in to fill right yeah

55:43

So there's it's just such a complicated mess of of history That's been erased and history that got demoted to some of the more fascinating How involved was he with like the temperance movement because I know you can look online

55:59

And you can see big signs outside of Zion City like talking about you know. There's no drinking no tobacco

56:04

None of these things are allowed here. You're less than a dog essentially if you do these things Because then you talk about the mob it almost makes me think of William Branham Right father then we've got like the the alcohol running in the back the behind the scene

56:18

Scene things going on to where it's like you push the temperance movement, but really you're also getting funded from smuggling alcohol like what

56:26

What was going on with that I Don't see him really big with the temperance movement.

56:31

I do see the Branham movement obviously got pretty big with that so I grew up You're mentioning the

56:38

Bible talking about you know different ways in which you can use things to heal your body one of the one of the verses that I go to frequently with people in support groups is

56:48

Paul said take a little wine for your stomach all is saying to use medicine He's saying the alcohol properties in the wine kill the bacteria and your body gets better in the message cult and all of its splinter groups and basically everything that was produced by the these anti alcohol religious groups a lot of them

57:10

Don't permit wine like we in the message cult. You're not allowed to drink wine. It's included in the the the teetotalism doctrines that are there

57:21

I I suffered especially after leaving the cold I suffered depression and Ironically, I tried just a little bit of wine after leaving and I realized that this whole thing was you know

57:34

This whole doctrine is wrong. I hated the stuff But I noticed it even just like this much of a little glass it

57:43

Lowered my anxiety and in turn my depression lowered I went off of medication in like three months just by having one glass of wine a day a week

57:51

Wow It was amazing, right? Yeah, it's a gift from God in in the

57:56

Branham cult. There's a we talked about William Upshaw who was the leader of the the temperance movement, right?

58:03

He's the guy He's the reason why the prohibition movement exists prohibition existed literally because of him

58:10

He I don't think we talked about this on the show but after he was out of Congress and there's a period of time which

58:19

He wasn't that famous and everybody kind of forgotten him he started selling this alcoholic potion

58:26

He started promoting this alcoholic potion. That was called a revitalizer basically, it was your snake oil, but it was alcoholic and you take a little bit it and it makes you feel good and So these men who are in this kind of thing

58:43

I don't think that they even believe it But Dowey if you were to go into Zion and become part of his commune, no alcoholism allowed in this commune

58:55

Worse than that. So he was a businessman. He was a strategist They set up train routes in design for the lace factories and then to like New York and some other cities

59:09

Initially he also laid the rules that if your train is going to come into my city there cannot be any alcohol on it and there cannot be any pork on it and This was a huge problem.

59:21

If you think of train routes, right? They're they're they're not going to have a separate route just for certain

59:27

Certain boxcars so they ended up fighting him and he allowed it But they're not the people who were in Zion weren't allowed to touch particular boxcars

59:37

You said something that that peaks my curiosity so no unclean meats Essentially, right, right.

59:44

He was anti pork he was um, so if you think about the way that these groups exist and you think about the

59:54

Structure of their doctrine they exist because they create sins that no other that all the other

01:00:01

Christians Don't know I know these secret sins and if you tell if you come join my group

01:00:07

I'm gonna tell you what they are so you can go to heaven while everybody else goes to hell. That's how these groups operate Well a lot of them especially, you know the

01:00:16

Christian cults they will take a lot of the passages from the Old Testament law and They'll say that they still apply today and I'll say yes

01:00:25

We're under the new covenant of grace The New Testament says that but we also have X Y &

01:00:30

Z from the Old Testament and they don't know that so they're going to Hell in the message cult we grew up with that mentality there were a lot of things from the

01:00:39

Old Testament that we were taught that we had to obey these Old Testament Old Covenant laws that aren't even in effect under the new covenant of grace and Carry it forward.

01:00:51

It also applies to the money. Think of the tithing laws So I will never forget when

01:00:58

I escaped the message cult We had the 10 % tithe thing like a lot of these churches have and I started studying just the tithing system

01:01:06

How did it work? I was in this thing. I paid tithe. How does it work? well, you give the priest, you know a percentage of a percentage of your excess and The priest stores it up.

01:01:19

It might be livestock. It might be grain There wasn't really the concept of cash money back then they have gold and silver, right?

01:01:28

but it was more like it was more like a banking system for droughts or for Days, they had the

01:01:37

Sabbath day when nobody can work. It was You had the storage facility that had the grain the you know, the livestock, etc

01:01:45

And on the seventh day you could get some of this out. They also had parties They stored up the wine for the parties and there was actually a party tithe, right?

01:01:55

Yep So the people were getting back part of the tithing system in these cults

01:02:01

They had they set up the tithing system and they they're very hard about 10 % 10 %

01:02:07

But they only tell you the parts of the law where the priests get the money They don't tell you the part where the people get it back

01:02:13

And they don't they especially don't tell you the year of Jubilee the 49th year When the priest gives back everything except for what is required for him to live the rest of his days

01:02:23

It all goes back to the people. They won't tell you that in these cults so in my opinion, he is

01:02:30

I Honestly, I sincerely doubt that he did not eat pork if you look at you know him coming from Australia and from England I just sincerely doubt this but there's no way to prove it but I can see that if I base it off of what

01:02:44

I see by the Examples that were produced by Dowey's cult they are groups who are taking

01:02:50

Old Covenant law out of context and Using them as a manipulation tool.

01:02:56

That's all it is is a manipulation tool It's a form of mind control man. I mean even the LDS organization has it too at the

01:03:03

Word of Wisdom There's always like you said this new revelation there's these new sins that you're not privy to that you need to follow in order to have some type of Justification in order to be declared righteous other than the blood of Jesus Christ You need to follow

01:03:17

X Y and Z to present those things before the father Oh, man, it's yeah, it's pure pure pure wickedness.

01:03:24

What do you want to say Jerry? Yeah Speaking of LDS jumping back in here. This is something

01:03:30

John when I was at the coffee shop reading Your book my mouth like dropped to the floor, you know

01:03:37

I think I'm like the scene for like the mass with a yeah mouth drops down. You're like what? Is that you talk about during this time frame the late, you know, the 1800s to the early 1900s?

01:03:49

There's just as prominent a number of cults when there it's the Millerites Seventh -day

01:03:54

Adventists Mormonism Jehovah's Witnesses everyone's sort of intersecting And and so sometimes like in the multiverse of cults in the 1800s and early 1900s

01:04:03

They kind of crossed paths with each other. So in chapter 17 this says that Newspapers because they're looking at the criticisms of what was going on in Zion and now he was trying to you know

01:04:18

Get more involved politically and they're in an almost very militant way Which is kind of the reason behind the title of your book

01:04:25

But it says newspapers compared Dowie to Brigham Young fully controlling thousands of men women and children while managing to create a financial engine capable of producing millions of dollars that My jaw hit the floor.

01:04:42

Can you just unpack that? I mean obviously you did research and found things to just make that small little statement there

01:04:49

Like what do you know? Are you aware of any of the comparisons that at that time they were making to?

01:04:54

Brigham Young's at that time if I'm not mistaken, I mean he would have been well established

01:05:01

You in Utah at that time And and everything like that, but what war just give us some examples of that if you could

01:05:09

Yeah, so in my head, I don't have the exact year So, um, I I may have my timeline slightly off but I believe that was the point at time in which he was claiming to be

01:05:20

Elijah and he was claiming to be the Elijah the Restorer which was basically the theology for the restoration movement and He was the messenger of the

01:05:32

Covenant Mm -hmm, and I my jaw dropped when I was reading a newspaper article about the lace factories

01:05:40

He had manipulated This guy. I think it was his brother -in -law or somebody related to him.

01:05:46

I can't remember exactly who but he had he had basically got this guy to fund creating the lace production factory and Then after the guy came in and he joined the cult and got under the mind control now he somehow convinced him to sign it all over to him and So there and there was this mysterious

01:06:13

Throat that was slit mysterious death whenever right before this turned into a trial

01:06:20

So it's there's some really deep dark questions there that I uncovered in the newspaper articles but right after This guy reported some ladies some lady was found her body was floating out of the

01:06:34

Zion cult Her throat was slit and this guy goes to court to sue Dowey over I think is $100 ,000 for this place factory my jaw dropped because the guy actually won against Dowey even though he himself had signed the paper and The argument and I was

01:06:53

I was just so shocked the argument stood up in court even back then They used the term undue influence

01:07:00

He was he was unduly influenced. In other words, he's under mind control So at that point not only is it public opinion that he is brainwashing and mind controlling the people

01:07:12

It is now a legal opinion that Dowey is mine manipulating and controlling the minds of the people

01:07:19

Not only that he's got Messengers who are going even into Canada who are proclaiming that Dowey is the restorer he's the one who's bringing back the

01:07:30

Christ and if you know how somebody who's that insane to believe that how that works a

01:07:37

Subset of those start believing that Dowey is the return of Christ and then all of that mess goes out so his influence is

01:07:45

Just as vast and wide -reaching as as LDS was at that time But he also has the control and he probably at that point had weight far more money than they had

01:07:57

I mean he was he was labeled the richest man in the West. Yeah, and even like in one of the earlier chapters there's a point where he has a year -end drive where he reaches out to all his members and Says we need to raise a million dollars by I believe is

01:08:11

Christmas which at that time Would have been one million dollars which you know in our day would have been thirty three million dollars

01:08:18

So, I mean this guy was always trying to use every little crevice an inch to try and bring in You know really as much money as he had and maybe just very curious because I mean

01:08:30

I feel like this There's so many little sub subjects that could be a podcast within a podcast

01:08:35

I feel like we're gonna almost going like Inception level with us So real quickly,

01:08:40

I mean as this is escalating, you know, he's claiming to be, you know, Elijah, which is a common thing

01:08:46

I mean William Bradham either I'm sure in many ways got his ideas like very similar You know claiming to be the the spirit of Elijah based in Malachi for sure, but When he got started getting involved that his mill is the political aspects of Chicago and mean like how did how did that kind of work out as well too because he's got

01:09:08

Zion He's got this compound. He's got all these people going on. There's leadership There's different lawsuits going on against him, but he was also at the same time.

01:09:17

He was trying to get involved politically to try and least have control over Aspects of different politicians in Chicago.

01:09:26

Like how did that work together as far as you know from a political standpoint? From a political standpoint it these political leaders were likely just converts to the cult

01:09:37

Right, but if you think of look at the mob So what Dowey did was essentially what the mob came in and filled the void of so you have to you have to kind of Compare them the mob had people in key positions

01:09:51

To keep them to keep the business running to keep what's going on behind the scenes Dowey is

01:09:58

You know, I could not find anything that was specifically labeled illegal from Dowey But the person whose throat was slit

01:10:07

Clued me into you know, there's probably some more things going on behind the scenes And if you read between the lines there definitely is but if you put key people into politics

01:10:18

It keeps the business running But even more to the point once he starts the restoration movement

01:10:26

He is Starting the premise of theology that our government is evil.

01:10:33

We need to We need to restore to the original condition of the church

01:10:39

Which means wipe all of this out and replace it with my own and he starts his own political party

01:10:46

So by having key people in Chicago and some of these various cities

01:10:51

Then also it establishes a baseline for him to start his own political party, which he did

01:10:59

Yeah, and that's huge in fact when we're talking about his Political associations like later on it says that newspapers have pointed out

01:11:08

The similarity I know this the title that they gave Dowey ites and the

01:11:14

Mormons that followed again followed Brigham Young you had Zion guards that stood at arms You know decked out in gold lace wearing the

01:11:20

Zion insignia with a cross in Crescent then days later, you know Dowey signed naturalization papers to become an

01:11:27

American citizen and you kind of have that too where you know Brigham Young had his own standing army and you had

01:11:33

John D Lee who basically was like Brigham Young's avenging angels and that and so you see, you know similarities there, but In many ways, you know when you when you end up kind of where's this all go?

01:11:45

And again, you have to refresh my memory because it's been a couple weeks since I've read the book, but really where this goes

01:11:51

It ends very tragically And it's connected to both his personal health if I recall but also his daughter

01:12:02

Right, but I think it was this it was what happened with his daughter first Which ended up then affecting his health so in many ways what you end up seeing and I'll let you elaborate is

01:12:13

That Everything that he preached his entire life about doing being able to save people.

01:12:21

He couldn't save himself Yeah, but yeah bring us into that because I mean there's so much more

01:12:27

We're going for a while here that we could literally unpack it, you know a couple more podcasts But yeah, bring us into like where where's this all go to what's the catalyst towards that tried towards the the tragic ending here?

01:12:41

Yeah, so there's so much that happened at the end literally it could have been split out into two or three books

01:12:47

But yeah I I purposefully ended it there and ended it quickly because what happened after Dowey died is

01:12:54

Almost just as fascinating as this book which opens the door for part two if yeah

01:13:01

But yeah towards the end of his life there There was a lot of tragic things that happened and a lot of big things that happened in my opinion the climax of this cult was whenever he basically tried to invade

01:13:15

New York City and So if you look at the end of his life the things that were his downfall

01:13:22

I could list the invasion of New York City New York City, which failed miserably his daughter had a very tragic death and Dowey himself suffered a series of what appears to be strokes and he

01:13:37

There there was a large period of time where he started recording his sermons

01:13:42

And it's it brought me back to days of my being in the Branham message cult they played tapes of Dowey while he wasn't present just like I listen to tapes of Branham while he's dead and You know

01:13:56

Branham obviously recorded these sermons pattern after Dowey. He's one of the few faith healers who did this so His daughter was probably

01:14:08

For his health sake it was probably the most severe impact and also a big reason why a lot of people left.

01:14:15

Yeah when his daughter she was doing her hair or something and it caught fire and it burned her so severely that the newspaper said parts of her flesh were just dripping from her body as she ran for help and Dowey who's his whole ministry in the

01:14:34

United States has Told people that doctors are evil. Don't go to the hospitals.

01:14:40

They're dens of demons and all of these things at first he Tries to obey his stage persona and he keeps his daughter away

01:14:51

But then he realizes that she is going to die if I don't get help

01:14:56

So he calls a physician on scene but by the time he calls them it's too late

01:15:01

She's she only lasted just a few more hours So you've got all of these people who are watching this thing.

01:15:08

They've literally Invested their whole lives into believing that it was wrong to call a physician that Dowey had the healing answers that we had the healing power and His prayer of faith did not save his own daughter

01:15:24

What happened and why did he call a physician he said not to do this, right? They were also

01:15:31

Combined with that you had a lot of the was it smallpox?

01:15:37

There's a lot of just in the United States There was a big spreading of diseases that if you were in the

01:15:43

United States You were likely going to be impacted by this. Well there there were no exception and They were like like the cult today that I escaped a lot of them are anti -vax

01:15:55

They will not take the kovat vaccine because yeah, you know It's you don't have enough faith you if you had enough faith, you don't need the kovat vaccine.

01:16:04

Mm -hmm. Well Like the cult that I escaped now when they're watching

01:16:10

Unfortunately, some people were dying because they didn't get the vaccine Well, Dowey's sect was watching the daughter die they were watching people die of these diseases that could have been prevented or at least you know, made not as bad as it was and All of this was just I think it was a big taxing on Dowey's mind

01:16:33

I think it I don't know if it caused this the stroke, but it probably severely contributed to the stroke

01:16:39

Mm -hmm. What's interesting to John is that? When you're talking about him, you seem like he was struggling back and forth whether or not you could

01:16:51

You know whether or not he actually should get medical care It seemed do you think you're talking earlier about the fluctuation between the cult identity and the actual, you know person

01:17:02

You know as much as this guy was this crazy, you know faith healer conning all these people

01:17:08

He still was a real person, you know who probably had care and affection for his daughter

01:17:13

So even though he was his cult leader, I don't want to fully strip him of his humanity Do you think there might have been kind of this?

01:17:21

Duality or fluctuation between these two like identities like no He needed like I need to get a doctor for her because in the faith healing isn't working

01:17:29

She's suffering kind of like this going back and forth That's an extensively like where I felt like I went when I kind of was reading this now hearing you talk about it

01:17:38

From my opinion, which you know without having Dowey to examine there's no way to know but these these fake personas that these people create

01:17:51

Initially in my opinion, they don't believe it William Branham is is the example that I use because it's the cult

01:17:58

I escaped but also he was literally a Dowey was his prototype in the beginning

01:18:06

I do not believe that Branham believed any of the stuff because he would go to one town and he would say one thing and He'd go to the very next town sometimes and say the exact opposite he would go to one city and say anybody who

01:18:20

Believes in the Trinity has taken the doctrine of demons and the Trinity was a

01:18:27

Catholic idolatry Made from Satan himself and then another town he would say we have accepted you

01:18:34

Holy Spirit the third person of the Trinity come into our hearts tonight a Person who does that especially a minister?

01:18:42

They do not believe what they are saying. Not at all but there is the psychological effect if you put on a stage persona for as long as these men do this and Your mind starts to decay

01:19:00

There is a possibility that you start to believe some of the fiction that you initially did not believe so the hard part for me is knowing well did this happen to Dowey or was

01:19:15

Was his pride what got in the way? I actually I actually spent a lot of time thinking about exactly what you just described and it's funny that you brought it up because I spent weeks

01:19:26

I I actually paused at that part in the chapter because Where do

01:19:32

I go with this right? Did this man believe it? Did he not and I just left it I decided not to go anywhere with it but in my opinion,

01:19:40

I don't believe that he Had gone that far.

01:19:46

I think he I think his pride literally stopped it. I think he was literally I'm going to lose Everything if the people see me get a doctor

01:19:55

I'm gonna lose this entire Empire that I have built and Then he forfeited at the last minute.

01:20:02

I believe if if he had fallen into that stage persona I think he would have stuck with it and believed it and tried to faith save her

01:20:10

But he didn't he waited until he finally realized it's gone too far I'm going to lose her

01:20:16

Which makes me think that he probably his pride got in the way and he thought he would lose his Empire.

01:20:22

Mm -hmm Wow You know, what are your thoughts on that as we were kind of? Getting in the final final stage of this talk here the the sad irony of this

01:20:34

Life that was that was taken as the fact that he tasted Something that he had been doing to many other families for years, right?

01:20:42

It happened to him There's the recollection of a story of one lady who died from blood poisoning and It could have been prevented and the husband actually

01:20:56

He said that he wouldn't have called the medical He wouldn't have called the hospital or had her picked up either even if she wanted to because she would must have been out of Her mind at that point, but um

01:21:05

What was said after is one of the ladies who worked at the healing house mrs Bratz she said that the reason the reason why this woman died was because Right before She was about to die

01:21:17

The husband actually had a change of mind and ended up calling someone over to come look at her by the time they came

01:21:24

She died and she said that person died because of that that husband's lack of faith Right.

01:21:30

And so what we're seeing happening is, you know, Jesus says it he They will be judged by their fruits right fruits look tasty

01:21:40

Fruits taste good, right? But at the same time over time those fruits that are not fruits of God can damage

01:21:47

Somebody and they do often damage people right like James says it how can a a spring of living water right produce?

01:21:54

Bitter water or salt water, you know Jesus Christ is the living water and what comes from a

01:21:59

Christian the gospel itself is the living water which comes from Christ But these false prophets and these teachers they spring forth bitter water and people drink it for a time

01:22:08

And maybe it's good at first but over time it'll hurt them and what happened was is he literally succumbed to his own fruits?

01:22:15

And that's that's the sad reality of it. It didn't have to happen that way like repentance is a real thing

01:22:22

It could have all ended but like you said John his pride got in the way his daughter died because of this

01:22:28

This is real life Situations these are things that happen and then what happens he succumbs to stress and gets strokes

01:22:37

His mind is failing him like This is life.

01:22:42

This is life. This is why we need Jesus because we can't even fathom Reality in these circumstances because right in a minute in like literally 30 seconds all of a sudden he is faced

01:22:53

With the very same dilemma that everyone that he has ever pushed in the wrong direction has faced in their life

01:23:00

He never he never had to deal with it But then right there within 30 seconds her hair lights on fire this act of God Boom, he comes face to face with his own theology.

01:23:10

And what does he do? He succumbs? Yeah, and even For anyone who reads the book.

01:23:16

I'll just give away. I found the very end like just fascinating I mean, it's almost kind of like the way you ended at John this book is

01:23:24

It just ends like wow, it just kind of hits you about Some people they just hold cling on to like the bitter bitter end it's kind of like the people

01:23:35

I forget the type of monkey in Africa where they They have like the basket and they put the certain fruit in the basket and they catch them because they stick their hand in But they're not willing to let go of the fruit.

01:23:47

I'm trying to think of that but there's this level of stubbornness and It's almost like you see

01:23:53

Alexander Dowie at his deathbed and he's basically saying the Millennium has set in I'll be back in a thousand years

01:24:01

Like who says that on their deathbed? Like how? Insane, do you have to be but at the very end?

01:24:07

It's like he's talking about he's he'll he's forgiving everyone and what you're seeing is just I think that's very reflective of probably his entire

01:24:15

Life of how he manipulated people where oh, he's forgiving them So it's everyone's fault except his own

01:24:24

Everyone's wronged against me and that's that's a characteristic you see in people who are manipulators and the people who are narcissists

01:24:30

It's always like hey, why I forgive you like what I just want, you know, they'll come up to you and they say oh

01:24:36

I just won't listen to that. I forgive you. I'm like for what are you talking about? Oh when he did this this and this so they actually use forgiveness as a way to manipulate and hold that against you and Like you see him talking about whoever this one person.

01:24:48

He said there's a woman You know, she's been against me for for eight years, but I forgive her too like manipulating people in this way on your deathbed just shows you just the tragedy of where This ends up and it just reminds me of that scripture in Psalms Versus as the sorrows of those who go after other gods will multiply, you know after false gods and you see at the end of his

01:25:17

What did he entail it's just this collateral damage of who knows how many souls and who knows how many people were manipulated and hurt and Destroyed by this horrific ideology.

01:25:31

I mean when I when you see this, it's a fascinating conversation But again, it brings to the forefront bad theology hurts people in theology matters

01:25:41

And so and there's nothing new under the Sun, you know, you look at you know Today's jet like today.

01:25:48

I'm thinking when you're talking about some of his You know gathering, you know gathering funds and stuff like that I thought at the very beginning of the

01:25:55

American Gospel film where it shows a clip of Kenneth Copeland where he's yelling money You know, there's you know, so you see that like happen all the time like every aspect from cults to people, you know on TBN who are manipulating the sick and the old

01:26:11

To you know every single aspect of this there's nothing new under the Sun and so it's it's important to Know your

01:26:19

Bible read your Bible understand like what does God say about you? Knowing that you have a standard by which to test people by if you have a pastor don't take his word for it test everything by Scripture and that's why having a

01:26:33

Christian worldview being grounded in the faith is so So important so John I appreciate you coming on here

01:26:41

Do you have any last thoughts on this a whole discussion if you could maybe sum up anything? What would be your last thoughts here?

01:26:48

Well, I'm sitting here Amazed. I'm really glad that you talked about the ending

01:26:54

You're actually the first feedback on the ending and I ended it specifically like that Hoping that people would get exactly what you just said

01:27:03

Because what happens next is also just as fascinating like I said earlier there's so much that happens after Dowey dies and Writers take a tendency at least from what

01:27:14

I've read to go into that and you lose the fact that Dowey Has just lost his empire his entire world crumbled and he had a taste of his own medicine

01:27:24

So I tried to end it like that and hopefully leave room for the next book But my you know, my experience my life experience coming out of this thing is that it is so vastly wrong the way that these men manipulate people for money and They give no thought whatsoever to the people who are being impacted by this to Dowey's daughter you know, he lost his daughter over this but Look at the hundreds of people who are in a similar religion in this era

01:27:58

I mean back then yes, there were people that could they weren't as they were easily duped because they weren't as educated they weren't as Educated not the word.

01:28:08

They weren't as aware that there were corrupt people out there We have it today, but we also have this large number of people in cults today.

01:28:17

Yeah, we're being manipulated and There are also people dying the

01:28:23

I mentioned earlier as either this podcast or the previous about having some people over from my support group and they were talking about people who were in this kind of thing and there were a large number of them who committed suicide and That's that's just horrific.

01:28:40

I cannot believe that people Would a minister who is supposed to be the shepherd who's leading the sheep?

01:28:48

Who's saying things that are watching his sheep die and he has to know right? He has to know that people are dying from this

01:28:55

But doesn't care at all because the money's still coming in Wow Well, thank you,

01:29:03

John This has been such a great summary and I feel like there's so much that we impact here and there's so much more that we

01:29:08

Could go into but we do have to wrap up here just real quickly one last time Where can people find you at and tell them one last time about your book?

01:29:16

my website is William dash Branham org and If you like this podcast we're going to be launching a new podcast in July where we talk about a lot of the history that Some of the history we're talking about now, but as it relates to modern history, so we'll be going over that The book is militant

01:29:36

Christian extremism a critical examine critical examination of John Alexander Dowie You can find it on Amazon.

01:29:44

You can also find it on my website in the book section You'll find a link to the Amazon and we hope soon to have it on audiobooks.

01:29:53

It'll be on audible. Awesome. Awesome. Sounds good well, thank you guys all for listening and going extra innings with us and As always a program like this cannot continue without your support

01:30:02

So if you want to support cultish and allow content like this to come out on a regular basis go to the cultish show .com

01:30:08

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