Support the show:
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Come Out of Her My People Vol II:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNFN2XYR
John and Charles examine the controversial doctrine of Perusia and its role in the fragmentation of a religious movement. They explore how this theological concept, originally meaning “presence” in Greek and referring to the second coming, was reinterpreted by Lee Vayle, a close associate of William Branham. The discussion unpacks how Vayle’s teaching that Jesus Christ returned spiritually in 1963, along with his claim that Christ left the “mercy seat,” sparked internal conflict among followers. This disagreement created deep divisions, painting those who questioned the doctrine as worse than unbelievers. The duo also reflects on how such ideas evolved through time and splintered into new groups.
As the conversation progresses, John and Charles analyze how shifts in leadership, strange beliefs, and personal experiences caused further disillusionment among adherents. They highlight Lee Vayle’s increasing isolation, his unique interpretation of salvation, and the emotional impact of doctrines centered around fear and exclusivity. They also touch on more troubling aspects of Vayle’s later teachings, his growing doubts, and the disintegration of his sect following his death. Through historical context and firsthand reflections, the discussion traces the slow unraveling of one branch of the movement, offering insight into how belief systems evolve—and fracture—over time.
00:00 Introduction
01:08 What Is the Perusia Doctrine?
06:04 Lee Vayle’s Role as Branham’s Interpreter
10:12 Collapse of the 1977 Prophecy and Doctrinal Pivot
21:38 Christ Leaving the Mercy Seat: The Real Controversy
30:03 Global Spread and Internal Schism
36:21 Why Vayle’s Influence Never Grew
42:08 Inappropriate Teachings
54:01 Decline, Infighting, and Vayle’s Retirement
57:42 Doubts, Admissions, and Legacy of Regret
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
https://www.patreon.com/branham
Available on Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts:
https://william-branham.org/podcast
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Come Out of Her My People Vol II:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNFN2XYR
John and Charles examine the controversial doctrine of Perusia and its role in the fragmentation of a religious movement. They explore how this theological concept, originally meaning “presence” in Greek and referring to the second coming, was reinterpreted by Lee Vayle, a close associate of William Branham. The discussion unpacks how Vayle’s teaching that Jesus Christ returned spiritually in 1963, along with his claim that Christ left the “mercy seat,” sparked internal conflict among followers. This disagreement created deep divisions, painting those who questioned the doctrine as worse than unbelievers. The duo also reflects on how such ideas evolved through time and splintered into new groups.
As the conversation progresses, John and Charles analyze how shifts in leadership, strange beliefs, and personal experiences caused further disillusionment among adherents. They highlight Lee Vayle’s increasing isolation, his unique interpretation of salvation, and the emotional impact of doctrines centered around fear and exclusivity. They also touch on more troubling aspects of Vayle’s later teachings, his growing doubts, and the disintegration of his sect following his death. Through historical context and firsthand reflections, the discussion traces the slow unraveling of one branch of the movement, offering insight into how belief systems evolve—and fracture—over time.
00:00 Introduction
01:08 What Is the Perusia Doctrine?
06:04 Lee Vayle’s Role as Branham’s Interpreter
10:12 Collapse of the 1977 Prophecy and Doctrinal Pivot
21:38 Christ Leaving the Mercy Seat: The Real Controversy
30:03 Global Spread and Internal Schism
36:21 Why Vayle’s Influence Never Grew
42:08 Inappropriate Teachings
54:01 Decline, Infighting, and Vayle’s Retirement
57:42 Doubts, Admissions, and Legacy of Regret
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:36I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:40at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host, researcher, minister, and friend,
00:00:46Charles Paisley, the founder of christiangospelchurch.org, and the author of Come Out of Her, My People.
00:00:53Charles, it's good to be back, and I'm a little excited to talk about all things Perusia,
00:00:59which is, you know, it's a word that other Christians use. It's not limited to the message,
00:01:04but just saying that name makes me feel icky, because in the main sect, you had the main sect
00:01:11people, and they were largely, a large number of Josephites. Many of them worshipped the prophet's
00:01:20son, William Branham's son, but then you had this other group of people that did not, and
00:01:25they viewed everybody else from all the other sects as, I don't know how to put it, they were
00:01:29lower in status than us. And the Perusia people, especially because they were out of Leveil's sect,
00:01:36and just saying this gives people the, some sort of inside view into the dynamics of how these cults
00:01:43work. Once a splinter group emerges, they become mortal enemies, and they're lesser to the, you know,
00:01:52if you're in a cult, they're lesser to the other cult members than even if you've never joined the
00:01:56cult. So, just saying the name Perusia and thinking about Leveil, I'm having to deconstruct in my head
00:02:03what that means to, as it relates to the cult, as it relates to the podcast, and there's a complex
00:02:09mess there.
00:02:10You're exactly right, John. You know, in the message, and in almost all the sects of the message,
00:02:17the lowest of the low is not, you know, the pagans and the, you know, the atheists. The lowest of the
00:02:24low is the message apostates. That is as low as you can go. And they have all kinds of ways they back
00:02:30it up. But yeah, the people who leave, people who know the message and either A, quote unquote,
00:02:35pervert it, or B, leave it, they get to go to the worst part of hell, right? And they get to burn the
00:02:43hottest, and they get to get tortured the longest, you know, that is the worst. The worst of the worst
00:02:49is the message apostates. And so, most every sect of the message looks at the other sects as message
00:02:55apostates, as the worst of the worst of the worst, right? And, you know, a lot of the ways, some of the
00:03:02ways you'll hear them say it in the message is, if you knew better, but you didn't do it, you are gonna
00:03:08get it worse than anybody else. Because the person who didn't know better, you know, there's a little
00:03:13mercy for them, right? There's a little something for them. But because you knew better, because you
00:03:18heard the words of the prophet, because you heard this truth, and you didn't do better, yes, you are
00:03:24definitely gonna go to the very worst part of hell and burn for the longest period of time. Like, you are
00:03:28really gonna get it. Yes, and so, the message groups are very hateful, vicious, vindictive
00:03:37towards each other. And you're correct. As we're talking today about the Perugia group,
00:03:41Perugia is a word that's used, you know, out in broader Christianity somewhat. It's actually the
00:03:46Greek word for presence. And it's actually a word in the Bible in Greek speaking about the second
00:03:52coming of Jesus Christ. And so, in that sense, it's just a normal, it's just a normal kind of a
00:03:59theological sort of a term, right? But in the message, when people use the term Perugia, they
00:04:05don't mean the normal Christian theological sort of a term by Perugia. In the message, when people say
00:04:12Perugia, they are thinking primarily about a doctrine that Leveil presented, which he called
00:04:19the Perugia. And because the word Perugia is associated with this doctrine that Leveil promoted,
00:04:25yes, it's kind of a dirty word in the message. And most people have no idea that it is in the Bible
00:04:31in a normal sort of a way. You know, they just know, oh, this is Leveil's doctrine. We hate Leveil,
00:04:36therefore the word Perugia is a bad word. And I think that's a pretty honest way to sum up how
00:04:43most people in the message look at it. And you know, as time passes, John, this is true. As time
00:04:49passes, I bet you, John, today, I bet you the average person in the message does not actually
00:04:55know what Leveil's Perugia teaching even was, right? They probably don't even know. They just
00:05:02know, oh, Perugia, we hate that. But they don't actually know what it is anymore. And that's how it
00:05:06is, I think, with a lot, especially of the more ancient splits in the message back to the early
00:05:12days. Like this split with Leveil happened and began in 1977. We're going to talk about that,
00:05:17you know, quite a bit here today. But that split with Leveil over the Perugia was, goodness, John,
00:05:23that was pushing 50 years ago now, right? Boy, it's hard to imagine that much time has passed.
00:05:28But yeah, it's pushing 50 years ago that the split over the Perugia happened. And there is probably an
00:05:33entire generation of message believers who knows the Perugia is bad, but actually has no idea why
00:05:39it's bad or what it is or why it even caused the schism to begin with. But hey, if you're listening
00:05:44today, you're going to find out why. Exactly. And to the average Christian person who has never
00:05:51heard that word but has read their Bible, this is a word that appears all throughout the Bible. I just
00:05:56did some, you know, some basic research into the word for this podcast. And it occurs like 24 times
00:06:04in the Bible. And the one that most people will be familiar with, it says that this is from, I think
00:06:11it's 2 Thessalonians 2, we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord should not prevent those
00:06:17which are asleep. That's talking about the Perugia. It is a complex meaning. The meaning of Perugia is
00:06:24specifically the second coming of Christ, but it's also everything that comes with that. The judge of
00:06:31the living and the dead, the resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous, and then
00:06:36establishing the kingdom. So if you think of what happened in Latter Rain, going through the charismatic
00:06:42movement into the NAR, there were such heavy emphasis placed on parts of this, specifically the
00:06:51kingdom and how that would evolve, and the resurrection and what that was to entail, and
00:06:58the judgment. They overemphasized each of those in various different ways, some of which was biblical and
00:07:07some of which was not. In the main sect of the message, we believe that William Branham would
00:07:12resurrect first, and that would say it was like the resurrection before the resurrection. Then he
00:07:19would go on this big tour, and he would have this massive tent meeting, and nobody would go into these
00:07:25auditoriums, which are comfortable and have nice seating and air conditioning. Instead, you're going to go
00:07:30sweat in this old tent from the 1950s. That's what we believed. And then he would have a little room in the
00:07:38tent where he himself, William Branham, would give people their new bodies. That was what we believed
00:07:44in the main sect. They call that the return ministry sect, I think, if you're reading Charles' book. But
00:07:50that evolved into something completely different. In the NAR, they would call that heresy. But each one of
00:07:56those specific meanings of this complex word, perusia, evolved in a much different way as it went through
00:08:04time into the NAR. And I think to understand how all of that came to be, this podcast will probably
00:08:10be helpful.
00:08:11When we think about Lee Vale, as we kind of talked through in our last episode, he was
00:08:16the official explainer of the message. And that is a role that William Branham actually personally
00:08:23gave Lee Vale while William Branham was still living. Lee Vale was the official authorized explainer
00:08:30of the message. And he worked alongside William Branham as William Branham developed many of the
00:08:37doctrines of the message. And when I say developed, I mean helped him, steer him to the right books to read.
00:08:44You know, that's what I mean, okay? He steered him to the right books to read. He helped him, you know, figure out
00:08:49how to make things fit together. And then William Branham presented them, you know, as part of his divine
00:08:53revelations that he received from angels and, you know, tricked us and told us that's where they came from.
00:08:59And really, he was reading them out of his library books, books I have on the shelf here behind me.
00:09:03Well, among the many things that William Branham copied out of was a book by Charles Taze Russell
00:09:10called The Finnish Mystery, okay? And Lee Vale was aware of that. And in the section where William
00:09:17Branham copied portions of his teachings on Revelation chapter 10, John, he copied some of those portions
00:09:22out of Charles Taze Russell's book. And the way to read Revelation chapter 10 is very important to the
00:09:28message. It's just a really critical piece of message thinking is what Revelation chapter 10 means.
00:09:35And Lee Vale, as the official explainer of the message, as he's going in and giving what he thinks
00:09:40are these really technical explanations of how to understand different things in the message,
00:09:47as he's explaining the events of Revelation chapter 10 to his audiences, this is when he starts
00:09:53to introduce that word perusia, John. And, you know, obviously, in the message, we would fit
00:10:00William Branham into Revelation chapter 10. Revelation chapter 10, verse 7 was William Branham,
00:10:05okay, in message thinking. And he would fit perusia into that verse as well and on down there.
00:10:12So, what happened is, as the years go on, right, and 1977 comes and goes and nothing happens, right?
00:10:22Obviously, William Branham predicted 1977 would be the end of the world. 1977 ended up not being
00:10:27the end of the world. It's when you come to 1978, John, that Lee Vale really starts to teach
00:10:34this perusia stuff, right? Before 1978, he had taught it here and there, but it hadn't been made
00:10:41into a big to-do, a big to-deal. But in 1978, Lee Vale starts leaning into the perusia, and he's
00:10:47actually doing that in response somewhat. I mean, of course, he don't say this out loud,
00:10:51but obviously, in hindsight, he's doing this in response to the failure of the 1977 doomsday
00:10:56date. And as he does, what he is trying to do is he's trying to explain to the message
00:11:02believers how Christ did indeed already come back and how the rapture is in progress, okay?
00:11:11Because everyone in the message believed that somehow or another Jesus Christ returned
00:11:16in 1963. In the early message community, for the first, from William Branham, from 1963,
00:11:22William Branham's death in 1965, right in that period of time, he preached the seals in
00:11:2763, he died in 65, the end of 65. From that period of time up until the early and mid-1980s,
00:11:33everyone in the message believed that Jesus Christ returned around 1963. Everyone in the
00:11:41message believed that. Now, there's people today who don't believe that anymore. There's
00:11:45some people who, beginning in the later 80s and early 90s, they started to walk that back.
00:11:49But it was a universal belief in the message community that in some form or another, Jesus
00:11:54Christ had returned in 1963, and in the early days. And when Lee Vale introduces this perusia,
00:12:01that's what he's doing. He's not talking about the second coming of Jesus Christ off into the
00:12:04future. He's talking about the coming of Jesus Christ during the days of William Branham. That
00:12:09is what this perusia stuff is about. And here's the thing, when he preached the perusia, John,
00:12:14that piece was not the controversial element. The controversial element at the time was not
00:12:20that Jesus Christ had returned in 1963 in some vague way. The controversial element was,
00:12:26well, I'll explain here in just a minute or two. The controversial element was actually
00:12:31something else contained within his overall perusia teaching. And as I say that, when I say
00:12:39that the entire message community believed that Jesus Christ returned in 1963 in some way or
00:12:44another, every sect of the message in every group has its own unique terminology or way
00:12:50to explain that. Most of them won't say, Jesus Christ came back in 1963. Most of them won't
00:12:56say it like that. They have different euphemistic phrases for it. Like the sect of the message
00:13:00I come from, John, we would say, the Lord descended from heaven with a shout in 1963. Lee Vale
00:13:09would say, the perusia began in 1963, right? Another common phrase you'll hear a lot in
00:13:15the message is people will say, the message is Jesus Christ. And when we receive the message,
00:13:22we receive Jesus Christ. And they say, the message came to us, you know, in the ministry of William
00:13:27Branham. And the message is the return of Jesus Christ. They all have these different euphemistic
00:13:31ways to explain it. But somehow or another, Jesus Christ in some spiritual form returned
00:13:40in the life of William Branham, usually in their beliefs around 1963, and he is still here in
00:13:46some form or another spiritually in the church. That is the generally still the majority belief
00:13:53of most of the message today, although some people have walked it back starting in the late 1980s.
00:13:58And we've talked previously about the significance of this belief that he had returned. T.L. Osborne,
00:14:05who was really big in the Word of Faith and the Prosperity Gospel, who worked closely with Kenneth
00:14:11Hagen at William Branham's memorial service, claimed that William Branham was God in the flesh.
00:14:18He believed that Jesus Christ had came again in the form of William Branham. That was a widespread
00:14:23belief. And the fact that he said it during a full Gospel businessman's convention,
00:14:28and nobody had this big uprising and condemned him for his heresy, it had to have been a general
00:14:35belief among people that were there. Because if I were to get up and say that in some Christian
00:14:42convention today, you'd read about me in a magazine somewhere. You'd find me on the internet,
00:14:47here's this heretic who rose up and said this awful, awful thing during a Christian convention.
00:14:52Well, T.L. Osborne did this, and it was widely accepted and probably adopted. So the fact that
00:14:59he returned in 1963, as it relates to Revelations 10, which you were talking about, there's a cat,
00:15:06there's a little connection there that many people might miss. Revelation 10 begins by saying,
00:15:13I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And if you go to any single
00:15:20message church, you're going to find either in their literature, sometimes hanging on the wall,
00:15:26I have actually seen it behind the pulpit, that 1963 cloud. And whenever I was in the message,
00:15:34I had one in my wallet, I had one hanging on my wall. Many people, many of my friends had them
00:15:40hanging in their living room. Because we believe that Revelations 10, as you read that and read
00:15:46what it's saying, we associated the cloud with that passage from Revelations 10. If you go back
00:15:55in the podcast that Charles and I have done, the cloud is fully debunked. At the time that people
00:16:00believed this, it was a mystery. But now that the Vandenberg Air Force Base launch dates are no longer
00:16:07classified. You can go back and you can see when it launched. And there's even some literature where
00:16:12people are sending letters that have been declassified. But it's no mystery anymore. But
00:16:17back then it was a mystery. They thought the cloud was this great thing from heaven. And William Branham
00:16:23was the mighty angel that came. So William Branham transcended from human who had an angel on the
00:16:29platform with him in the early years, in one version of his stage persona, to literally becoming that
00:16:35angel that was on the platform with him.
00:16:37William Branham You got it exactly right, John. You know,
00:16:40that's very well put how your sect of the message looked at it. And my sect of the message had a
00:16:44very similar view. And you know, in Revelation chapter 10, how the Lord descends and there's
00:16:51the cloud, right? And a rainbow is over his head. Well, in that same magazine on the flip page
00:16:58of the cloud is the rainbow. And if you like hold that magazine up to the light, there's the rainbow
00:17:03over the cloud. And it's like, and they thought that this was, they thought that picture of the
00:17:08cloud was actually Revelation chapter 10. Yes, that is exactly what many of the sects of the
00:17:13message believe, believe Ailes included. The thunders we talked about believe that as well.
00:17:18My sect had a more nuanced view of it, John. But similarly, we just had a different way of
00:17:25explaining it. We generally just went with the first Thessalonian verses and said that the Lord
00:17:31descended from heaven with a shout in 63. But yeah, every sect of the message has its different
00:17:35unique way of saying that that cloud, something about that cloud was Jesus Christ coming back
00:17:44in some special, vague, supernatural sort of a way. Yes. And that's what they all believed.
00:17:51And when I say that, you know, there is some message apostates out there today, John,
00:17:57who don't believe that anymore. You know that? There are, and I'm sure we're going to get this
00:18:02in our comment feeds. There's going to be some people today, because there are, there are message
00:18:06believers who no longer believe that today. And they tend to be younger ones who were not around
00:18:11back in the old days and didn't know what everybody believed or taught. Or they're from,
00:18:16you know, they're people who've come in really, after the message started to de-emphasize this stuff,
00:18:21which the de-emphasization began in the late 80s and early 90s. But I'm telling you, this was the
00:18:28universal belief of the message in its first two decades. It was the universal belief of the message
00:18:35that the Lord descended from heaven with a shout in 1963, and it had something to do with this cloud,
00:18:40right? And if you're in the message today, and you don't believe that anymore, it's not because you
00:18:46believe the original form of the message, it's because you believe an apostate form of the message
00:18:50that has evolved in the decades after William Branham died, okay? You might not actually
00:18:56believe the message, but I'll go ahead and credit you as a message believer if you don't believe it
00:19:00anymore. But I would suggest you may not believe the message if you don't believe this, because
00:19:05this is a pretty core belief of the entire original early message community.
00:19:11That was one of the things that really hit me, after I left the message, that it was January 1st,
00:19:172012, when we decided to leave. And I left the message, what I thought was the message. And then
00:19:24it wasn't even three years later, I started having some conversations with other people who had left,
00:19:31and they described what it was that they left, and they had left the same church that I did.
00:19:36Well, the version of the message that they left in just three years had shifted so much, I was like,
00:19:41wait a minute, is that the same religion? And then five years go by, I talk to more people,
00:19:45and I'm like scratching my head, is that the same religion? When you're in it, you're being
00:19:50manipulated so slowly, you don't recognize the shifts and changes. But once you leave, that static
00:19:57point stops. And so you remember what it was that you left. Years later, you talk to other people,
00:20:04and you're like, good Lord, man, what happened to those people? For example, there's some photos,
00:20:09and I can throw one up on the screen. But in the 50s and 60s, the women, it was okay for them to cut
00:20:16their bangs in the Pentecostal religion. And even to some extent, some of them were allowed to cut
00:20:23their split ends from the bottom of their hair. That's no more, you're not allowed to do that.
00:20:28You could wear dresses that were above the knees, because it's still a dress, you're wearing a garment
00:20:33that pertains to a woman in the message Pentecostal realm. Well, fast forward to when we left,
00:20:41you could not show the knee, or you were a harlot. They would actually chastise you from the pulpit
00:20:47in your seat if you were a female and you were showing some knee. The pastor, I guess, would get
00:20:53a little excited, and he would preach at you. Well, then by the time it got to right before we left,
00:21:00you could only show right above, like to your calf, maybe, right? Well, in today's world,
00:21:07they chastise women if it doesn't go all the way down, if they're showing their ankles.
00:21:11Like, it gets worse and worse and worse with time. But while you're in it, you don't recognize this.
00:21:16You think it's always been this way. That is the same thing, not just with the dress code,
00:21:20but with all of these weird beliefs that we're talking about. People in the message,
00:21:24the younger generation, has no idea what it is they're supposed to believe, because what they're
00:21:29supposed to believe today isn't what the original message was.
00:21:34That's very true, John, very true. You know, as we come back to talking about Lee Vale and the
00:21:39Perugia, so as we dive into this a little more, the Perugia is essentially the way we're using the
00:21:48term here and the way it's used in the message. The Perugia is the term used for Lee Vale's
00:21:52specific explanation of how Jesus Christ came back spiritually in 1963. So that is specifically
00:22:00what it's about. And the reason I've talked about it a little bit, you know, what the other
00:22:06sects believe, because I just want, it wasn't the belief that Jesus came back in 63 that was
00:22:11controversial at that time, right? That was not the controversy. Nobody, nobody really was upset
00:22:17that he had said that. That was not the controversy. The controversy was more into the weeds of what
00:22:23he did. And what he did, as you go into the weeds of what he was preaching, John, Lee Vale
00:22:31taught, and this is how it would be phrased, that Jesus Christ left the mercy seat in 1963, okay?
00:22:40That is how he would phrase it. And in message thinking, okay, and I don't think that this really
00:22:48is reflective of actual mainstream Christian thinking, but in message thinking, Jesus Christ
00:22:55can only perform intercession for the lost while he is sitting on the mercy seat, okay? So if Jesus
00:23:01Christ leaves the mercy seat, there can be no more intercession for the lost, and henceforth no one
00:23:08else can be saved. That is the typical line of thinking in the message, okay? So we're going to
00:23:14use some more loaded language of the message here as we go through here. I'm just going to try and
00:23:18explain all this a little bit. But, so when Lee Vale says, Jesus Christ left the mercy seat in 1963,
00:23:23most people in the message community back then hear that as him saying, nobody else can be saved.
00:23:30You better not have any kids, because they're going to go to hell. You better not bother making any
00:23:34new converts, because it's too late for them. They can't be saved. That's how most people
00:23:38hear what Lee Vale was saying. They heard him saying, nobody else can be saved. It's all over,
00:23:44ladies and gentlemen. That's how they understood what he was saying about Perugia. That was the
00:23:49majority response to it, and that is where the controversy lied, okay? Now, what Lee Vale did in
00:23:58response to that is, I don't really think that was necessarily what he was getting at, John.
00:24:03What Lee Vale did is he started to actually move away from the intercessory work of Christ,
00:24:07to a new concept called the bleeding word. Now, in the message, the bleeding word is a concept
00:24:13you'll hear quite a few message preachers preach about. And what they believe is essentially the
00:24:17message, as Jesus Christ came back, the message came back, we now have the bleeding word in the
00:24:23message. And the bleeding word is Jesus Christ. The message is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ come
00:24:28back is the bleeding word, which we have. And so when you believe the message, you believe Jesus
00:24:32Christ, you believe the bleeding word, that then confers upon you salvation. So you no longer need
00:24:39the intercessory work of Jesus Christ to be saved on the cross. Intercession is over. He's left the
00:24:44mercy seat. The sacrifice, the atonement is all done. You don't need that anymore. But what you now
00:24:49need to be saved is the bleeding word. You need the message to be saved. And so what Lee Vale is doing
00:24:55there is he's not, if you actually listen through his sermons, he's not completely cutting off
00:24:59salvation is over and people can't get saved anymore. But he's now saying, in order to be
00:25:04saved, you must receive the message. Otherwise, you are damned and going to hell. There is no salvation
00:25:11outside of the message. And that's what, that, that itself is not too much of a, you know, a lot of
00:25:17people don't believe there's salvation outside of the message, among message believers. But it's
00:25:21specifically him saying that the intercessory work of Christ was over, that Christ had left the
00:25:27mercy seat in that phraseology. That specifically is what set off the controversy. Not that Jesus
00:25:34Christ had come back in some vague spiritual way in 1963.
00:25:38Oh my gosh, man, you've set off so many triggers in my head. I'm listening to you and it's actually
00:25:43painful to hear some of this. So growing up, we went from, I mentioned this several times in the
00:25:50podcast. We went from churches living in Arizona to, you know, South Carolina and everywhere in
00:25:55between. And I would visit some of these churches. After we got married, we'd travel too. And so
00:26:00I've had this wide variety of message churches. I've heard this mercy seat doctrine from churches
00:26:06that were in the main sect. And here's where it gets weird. And the reason I'm bringing this up.
00:26:12So William Branham dies. And you've got all of these people with all these varying ideas trying to
00:26:17make sense of this mess that Branham created. And many of them are strongly tied to the message.
00:26:24The ones that I went to were mostly the main sect churches. But what happened was there's some
00:26:30bleed over. Because some of these churches would invite traveling ministers who would come and they
00:26:37would share pulpits. And so you'd have one guy that's been influenced by Leadvale's doctrine of the
00:26:44mercy seat. And you'd have another guy that was influenced in a different direction. And third,
00:26:48fourth, fifth, sixth guy. They're all traveling in this like circuit, right? And it may be a message
00:26:54church. It may be a Pentecostal church. It may just be a Lateran church. These guys are traveling and
00:26:59they're preaching. And the doctrine spread and they bleed over. So I grew up hearing this mercy seat
00:27:05doctrine. Jesus Christ has left the mercy seat. Is there hope left for you children? And the children
00:27:12would just start bawling and they would come up at the altar after the service, scared half to death
00:27:18that they're going to lose their salvation. Maybe they've never got it in the first place because
00:27:22they didn't come in before Jesus left the mercy seat. I grew up with, I read the Bible, so I didn't
00:27:29believe most of that. But I had friends that every single Sunday for years and years and years,
00:27:36it was just bawling at the altar. And they'd come out and just be complete. They looked like they'd been
00:27:41rung, rung through the mill, man. It was awful, awful. And some of these ministers, because they'd been
00:27:48influenced in many directions, they would try to find ways to circumvent this mercy seat thing. We had
00:27:54this one minister, I'll never forget this, because I thought it was absurd back then. I was like 16 years
00:28:00old, but it was in, I think it was either January or early February, 15 degrees outside. This traveling
00:28:09minister comes to the church that we're in and he says, Jesus Christ has left the mercy seat. Is there
00:28:15hope left? And everybody's going, oh my gosh, we're all doomed, you know, in their head. You can see it
00:28:21on their faces. And he says, now the Bible says, repent and be re-baptized. How many of you in this
00:28:27building have been re-baptized? And I kid you not, it's 15 degrees outside. And they had a horse
00:28:35trough. Everybody goes out to the horse trough in 15 degrees and he's re-baptizing people,
00:28:43whether they needed it or not.
00:28:46Oh my goodness, John. That is, on one hand, that is incredibly hilarious. On the other hand,
00:28:54oh my, oh my goodness. What in the world? Those poor people. Oh my goodness. But yes,
00:29:02ladies and gentlemen, you're describing it very well, John. This mercy seat deal is a very big
00:29:07business in the message. And, and Lee Vale is the originator of this concept that Jesus Christ
00:29:13left the mercy seat. And yes, and, and, and you now need the bleeding word in order to make it. It
00:29:19really is, it really was a big deal in the message. Now my sect of the message, John, totally, they
00:29:24rejected all that Christ left the mercy seat business, right? And some other sects of the message
00:29:29did. But that was the controversy. That was the, the big fight that happened with Lee Vale.
00:29:35And Lee Vale described it like this. He described it like when he started preaching the Perugia that
00:29:39people came after him with torches and pitchforks. That's how he explained it. They turned on him
00:29:44pretty quick. And, and it's true, right? Like I can remember, John, full on sermons, you know,
00:29:51dedicated to tearing Lee Vale to shreds preached by the preachers at our church, right? And that was
00:29:57always what they went after him on, you know, was, was that Perugia and mercy seat stuff. So
00:30:02they did go after Lee Vale in a scorched earth way when he started to preach this. And like I said,
00:30:08he started this 1978 was when he began to really lean in and preach this Perugia. Now, what's
00:30:16important though, I think is it's not really Lee Vale himself who caused the schism over the Perugia,
00:30:22John? I, you, you, you're probably aware of this. The one who really caused the schism over the
00:30:28Perugia was Terry Spruill up in Edmonton. So him and Lee Vale were, were close buddies and, and they
00:30:34were in some ways, I would say Terry Spruill might have been the second most prominent minister
00:30:39in their second of the message after Lee Vale, certainly in the early years that they split away.
00:30:44It's really Terry Spruill who forced the division over, um, the Perugia. Lee Vale was more or less
00:30:50content to kind of just let it go. Right. And if people want to believe it, they believe it.
00:30:55People don't want to believe it. They don't want to believe it. Hey, he can, he can live with it.
00:30:59Right. He's not gonna like make a big deal out of it, but Terry Spruill, not so much. Terry Spruill
00:31:05was determined to fight with everybody about it. Right. And of course he's dragging Lee Vale into it
00:31:11with him. And so Terry Spruill's real aggressiveness over it, John, more than anything else
00:31:16is what caused, um, is what caused all the divisions over, uh, the Perugia stuff. Now,
00:31:24besides that, there are a number of other, um, of notable churches who went along with the Perugia.
00:31:30Um, one very important one was, um, well, I said Terry Spruill. Their church was in Edmonton,
00:31:36um, Edmonton, Canada. Jack Bell's church, uh, was called Grace and Truth Tabernacle. It's in Beaumont,
00:31:42Texas. That was another fairly important one that went along with them. Besides that, Ned Iverson
00:31:47had some churches in, um, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida that had been planted that went
00:31:53along with them. Um, they also had, um, a, another church out in Saskatoon, which I believe was kind
00:31:59of in Terry Spruill's orbit that, that ended up with them. They also had, John, um, there was a number
00:32:06of other churches kind of in the Midwest. There was a church in Cincinnati led by a man named, uh,
00:32:11Brian, I, I probably going to butcher this man's last name, um, Cuckoo Wreck. Um, and he is probably
00:32:18Lee Vale's successor today. I think it would be fair to say Cuckoo Wreck. John, you might know how
00:32:23to say it better. I'll let you correct me when I'm done. Brian Cuckoo Wreck. Brian Cuckoo Wreck.
00:32:27And he's probably Lee Vale's successor today. I think he'd be fairest one to say is the most
00:32:32true, honest successor of, of, of, of Lee Vale. Um, and then there's, there's a church in Columbus.
00:32:38There's a few other churches around in the area, but Lee Vale was never, his followers
00:32:42were never one of the major sects of the message in, in the sense of tens of thousands
00:32:46of followers. But I would say they're the smallest of the major sects. Um, and a lot of it had
00:32:52to do with just the, the prominence of Lee Vale himself. When, when, when they first broke
00:32:56away in the seventies, John, I, I'm estimating there was about 1200 of them, um, when they first
00:33:01started to break away in the seventies. But there, there's certainly more than that today. Uh,
00:33:06they do have associated churches. I know in Bolivia, in Columbia, in the Dominican Republic.
00:33:11Um, and they also were doing a fair bit of outreach into the DRC, um, in some of the later
00:33:16years of his life. I, I think there's certainly a few thousand of his followers out there, but
00:33:21I suspect there, there's somewhat, there's may, I would suggest probably there's not more
00:33:25than 5,000, I would say in the world. There's a church of theirs in Toronto too. Um, they did
00:33:30have a church in, in the United Kingdom for a while. And I believe that pastor actually
00:33:34moved, uh, over to the church in Toronto, but they don't have much of a following left
00:33:39in Europe right now, but they did back in the early days. And so it, they're kind of
00:33:44fading, to be honest with you. They're kind of fading, um, the overall state of that group.
00:33:49Maybe we'll talk a little bit more about what they look like today, but those were, those
00:33:53were kind of the main centers. And again, I would go back to the most important ones back
00:33:55then was Terry Spruill, Jack Bell, and later Brian Kukurek, John. He, but I'll let you say
00:34:02his name the right way. I don't know.
00:34:04Brian Kukurek. I have some friends who are, were in that sect and they, um, I've been made
00:34:10aware that Brian Kukurek has been made aware of the issues of the message and totally rejected
00:34:16all knowledge and disavowed the whole thing because he could not reconcile the truth as he
00:34:23heard it with what he was indoctrinated to believe. And it's really sad, you know, I'm
00:34:29laughing at the name because the pronunciation is a little funny, but the fact that some of
00:34:34these guys were indoctrinated and they themselves are victims is, it's a really complex thing
00:34:40to try to understand because you have normal people with normal ambitions, many of them Christian
00:34:47ambitions to rise up and to lead people into God's kingdom. But they're indoctrinated with
00:34:52this mess that gets in their head and they, it starts to change them. They start to evolve
00:34:57into something else. And then when people who are under them escape, they're, they're the,
00:35:04you know, the devil is villain out to get them because they're in this cult position, this cult
00:35:09leader, but they themselves, some of them had transcended from being just a normal person
00:35:16into a cult leader. Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the
00:35:22progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other
00:35:28fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Branham
00:35:34Historical Research's website, william-branham.org. On the books page of the website, you can find the
00:35:41compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others with
00:35:48links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book. You can also find resources and
00:35:54documentation on various people and topics related to those movements. If you want to contribute to the
00:36:01cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute button at the top. And as always, be sure
00:36:07to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're listening to or watching. On behalf of
00:36:13William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:36:17So as, as Lee Vale and his sect of the message begins the process of breaking away from the main sect, John,
00:36:24like I said, they, they had about 1200 people all together in, you know, maybe, maybe 20 to 25
00:36:31churches there in the early days. And for a while, you know, they've experienced some growth, but
00:36:37overall, they never really became an explosively large sect of the message like, like some of the
00:36:44others. But Lee Vale, John, I think, and part of the explanation for this is, I think is Lee Vale
00:36:52himself. So Lee Vale was, we'll have to, I'll get, we'll get a clip here to play before this
00:36:58is over for, for everyone to listen to so they can hear how Lee Vale preached. So when we talked
00:37:03about Joseph Coleman and the Thunders, I said how Joseph Coleman was probably after William Branham
00:37:08was the best message preacher of the generation to follow. He could just grab the audiences and hold
00:37:14him. Well, Lee Vale's kind of at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. The poor man, he had a terrible
00:37:22sinus condition, John. And, and his sinuses ran so much, literally every second or third sentence when he
00:37:29preached, he had to cough, he had to clear his throat, he had to sneeze, he, and so he could never, that really
00:37:36hindered his ability to connect with his audiences, okay? Because he couldn't just do this impassioned
00:37:42sort of, uh, preaching style that the more popular message ministers could. He always, he was, I, and
00:37:49every, every second or third sentence, I kid you not, he had to stop and blow his nose.
00:37:54Fifth chapter. All right. We'll start at verse 16 reading. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after
00:38:01the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him so
00:38:11no more. We don't know him so anymore. That's in the Greek. It's, you'll notice in the writing
00:38:17there. You've got a margin of a Scorpio Bible. We don't know him so anymore. Therefore, if any man
00:38:26be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new.
00:38:31And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us
00:38:36the word of ministry reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world
00:38:40unto himself, not imputing their trespass unto him, and hath committed unto us the word
00:38:44of reconciliation. Now, put that all together. The body was raised up and put behind the throne
00:38:52in the mercy seat. But in 1963, in March, he left the mercy seat, went to the Father's throne,
00:39:03took the book of redemption out of the Father's hand, ripped off the seals, put the book back in
00:39:09the Father's hands. The Father vacated the throne, and that one climbed upon the throne.
00:39:16Now, that's what the Bible teaches according to Brother Branham. And that's thus said the
00:39:20Lord, because he vindicated prophet. All right. And then after that, he saw another angel coming
00:39:25down, not the earthly angel that had been given the message here, but another mighty angel from
00:39:30heaven, with a rainbow over him, and said he's put on land and seen swore by him to live forever
00:39:34and ever. Time should be no more, see? But before he broke forth on those seven seals to reveal
00:39:39them, first he showed, miraculously, he showed it in the heavens. Now, number one we're looking
00:39:46at, seven mysteries of the entire Bible.
00:39:50And so, that really hindered his ability to make that charismatic leader's emotional connection
00:39:58with his audiences, okay? And here's the thing. William Branham healed Joseph Coleman and those
00:40:06other guys of their sinus condition. Why didn't he heal poor Lee Vale of his sinus condition,
00:40:10John? I mean, poor Lee Vale got the short end of the stick. William Branham didn't heal
00:40:14him, and then he was stuck with that terrible sinus condition his whole life, which kind
00:40:19of was, you know, a real hindrance to his ministry in building his own massive global cult following.
00:40:26He had to just settle for a smaller, you know, North American-sized cult following, because
00:40:31William Branham had failed to heal his terrible sinus condition.
00:40:36You know, this is the one thing that I will sympathize with Lee Vale for. I share the same
00:40:42exact condition. I have severe allergies. That's why, if you notice, I just cleared my throat
00:40:48as I'm doing this. I can't make it that long without clearing my throat. Fortunately, with
00:40:53the podcast, I've got a mute button so nobody hears it, and I can edit out some of them.
00:40:57So, I share the same problem. I have the same sympathy. But, you're right, I get called out
00:41:06for my hacking and coughing and clearing my throat in my comment feeds. I don't know, you've
00:41:11probably seen it, right? Some of the people who are doing this are cult members, and they,
00:41:17some of them were even from Lee Vale's sect. So, they're literally making fun of me for
00:41:24me doing exactly what he did and not stopping to think, yeah, it's ironic, not stopping to
00:41:30think of the fact that William Branham did not heal Lee Vale of this thing.
00:41:34Lee Vale pretty famously, you know, as the years went on, John, Lee Vale started to tell
00:41:44people a lot of his concerns about the message. And I'll give a list of those later on. But
00:41:50among the things Lee Vale would say is, Lee Vale would say, I never witnessed a single miracle.
00:41:56Lee Vale said that, John. Lee Vale, this close associate with William Branham, would tell people
00:42:01that he never witnessed a single miracle in all the years that he was with William Branham.
00:42:06That's something he, now, that's shocking, isn't it? I mean, if, if somebody like Lee Vale,
00:42:12that close to William, says, my entire, I never saw a single miracle. And, and when he said
00:42:18that, he said, but there was one. There was one time I did see a miracle. The miracle that
00:42:22I saw was that William Branham, one time while he was preaching, he got the microphone cord wrapped
00:42:29around his leg, and God miraculously removed the microphone cord from his leg. And that
00:42:35was the one miracle that Lee Vale saw in all the years that he followed William Branham.
00:42:41Wow. I've heard some wild stories, but I don't know that I've heard that one before.
00:42:47So there's that. Okay. So Lee Vale, Lee Vale just, he, he, he had some, you know, it's unfortunate.
00:42:55It's really unfortunate in some ways, because there were like all good, all the people in
00:43:00the old message community, there were good qualities about some of these people. Like
00:43:03Lee Vale did have some good qualities. Raymond Jackson had some good qualities. Joseph Coleman
00:43:07had some good qualities, but it's not like every single one of these guys is like the absolute,
00:43:13you know, it's, it's all bad all the time. But Lee Vale was in some ways, he had his, he
00:43:20had his weird things going on too. And so let's, let's kind of talk about one of those weird
00:43:24things. There is one thing in particular that Lee Vale is infamous for across the entire
00:43:31message community. Okay. Lee Vale was what we would refer to as an X-rated preacher or
00:43:39a pornographic preacher. Okay. Lee Vale had a lot of really strange sexual teachings.
00:43:46Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you have children listening, this is probably the time to turn
00:43:50this one off. But Lee Vale had a lot of really bizarre sexual teachings. And in his sermons,
00:43:57John, he would give extended graphic descriptions of all manner of deviant acts of perversion
00:44:08and other things. Okay. I mean, there was nothing was off the table. Okay. And maybe I can share
00:44:14a few quotes here on the screen, none of which I will actually read out loud to you, but Lee
00:44:19Vale, which in his sermons would, would just talk about a lot of really, really inappropriate
00:44:26stuff, especially when you consider that children were sitting in his congregation. He would give
00:44:31detailed, detailed descriptions of inappropriate sexual acts. Okay. I mean, in his sermons with
00:44:40children sitting there. And this was a common feature. This wasn't a once in a while thing.
00:44:45If you go back, and I did this, John. So I have, I have like a little over a thousand of
00:44:51Lee Vale's tapes, sermons. I have over a thousand of his sermons in my possession. And I have transcripts
00:44:57of over a thousand of them in my possession. And if I go back and I just do a search, Lee Vale
00:45:02talked about homosexuals and homosexual acts in 25% of his sermons. And he talked about just
00:45:10in general, he talked about sexual acts and sex in over 60% of his sermons. The majority
00:45:19of his sermons contain commentary on sexual relations, John. Okay. Of one form or another.
00:45:26And the descriptions in some of these is so, so amazingly terrible that, I mean, it, it
00:45:33just, it shocks a person to, to hear it. And Lee Vale was fully aware that he had this
00:45:40perception and was fully aware that he was doing it. And it really just blows your mind
00:45:47when you understand the sheer breadth and scope to which Lee Vale was making these graphic sexual
00:45:54descriptions in his sermons. You know, that's another thing that I've noticed.
00:45:57And some of the people in the support groups have noticed too, when you're in the group
00:46:01think and you're being manipulated and indoctrinated and it's happening so gradually, it can go in,
00:46:08you know, like a train with no tracks, it's going to head in a direction you don't expect.
00:46:13Some cases it went this direction. There were ministers that said horrific things. I've heard
00:46:18some, I've sat through some sermons like this. And if you weren't a member of that church
00:46:23for the entire shift, like some of the churches I visited, I only visited a couple of times
00:46:28and I would hear some awful, awful things being said, but I remember looking at the faces of the
00:46:35people in the crowd in the congregation and it was no big deal. This guy's saying this terrible,
00:46:42terrible thing that no minister should ever say in front of the presence of kids. And nobody seems
00:46:47to care because they've been manipulated in that group think and they don't see it as a problem.
00:46:54It's just become common to them. And that dynamic is really difficult for somebody who's never been
00:47:01in any of this and goes to a normal church. From the outside looking in, it's really difficult for
00:47:06them to understand how and why. I'm going to read just a few of the gentler ones here just so our
00:47:12audiences can get an idea of Lee Vale's views on this. So here is one from a 1996 question and
00:47:19answers on pastors by Lee Vale. Lee Vale says, my God, why don't you read a few books and grow up?
00:47:26Don't you be afraid of your pornographic books? You'll understand what the Bible speaks of when
00:47:30you understand pornography. I'm not lying to you. I'm not lying to you at all. So Lee Vale
00:47:37actually commanded his audiences to indulge in pornography. Okay. This is what I'm, it's,
00:47:45something is really wrong here. I mean, when you, when you see these sort of things, let me,
00:47:50let me give you another one. This is from a 19, this is from a 1968 sermon, John, called Resurrection.
00:47:571968. Okay. We're way, I mean, think how far back this is. It's called Resurrection Calvary.
00:48:03People come back from Africa and say, well, the missionary says they are over there in Africa
00:48:08and they don't get blank when they see a naked woman's body. My Bible says to the young man
00:48:15concerning her blank, blank, blank, be thou ravaged by her continually. That's what God's word says.
00:48:24Therefore, if a man is not a blank, blank by a naked woman, there's something wrong with him.
00:48:31He is perverted. And he goes on through this to actually go out and say, there is nothing wrong
00:48:36with pornography. Quote, pornography is fine. This is the sort of stuff he is saying in his
00:48:44sermons, John. That's in 1968. William Branham's dead. Two and a half years, he's saying that.
00:48:50Wow. And keep in mind, this is William Branham's publicist. In 1968, this is during the heart of
00:48:58whenever the word of faith, the prosperity gospel movements are being birthed. And they were,
00:49:04you know, they've kind of developed away from Branhamism now. But at that point in time,
00:49:09they were strongly connected to Branhamism. So here's one of the main figures. Probably,
00:49:14I would say he was the most important main figure of the message that was still alive after William
00:49:19Branham died. This is the most important person saying this at that time.
00:49:23Here's something our IHOP people might recognize. You know, I've heard the IHOP people talk about how
00:49:29they really love the Song of Solomon and how they made analogies out of that to the Bride
00:49:33of Christ. Well, that's actually in some degree somewhat common in the message too. They would
00:49:38take that and they would, in the message, I've heard quite a few message preachers also kind of
00:49:45analogize that to the Bride of Christ. Which again, I'm not, you know, that's an unusual thing.
00:49:51Well, here's an example of Lee Vale doing that. And I suspect that this is probably more perverted
00:49:57than anyone ever did at IHOP. But here we go. Lee Vale says in 1999, the certain sermon is
00:50:01Pertinency of the Seed. He says, in fact, the Song of Solomon has been called the pornographic book
00:50:07of the Bible. And when people want to talk about pornography and say it's perfectly legitimate,
00:50:13of course, they refer to that book and they say the Bible is full of pornography.
00:50:16There it is right there. Pornography is fine. It's okay. It's no problem.
00:50:21I got no words, Charles.
00:50:23It is unbelievable. And ladies and gentlemen, I am reading you the very tame stuff, okay?
00:50:30It is the stuff that he said. I mean, I would be afraid of what would happen to me if I say
00:50:38some of these things out loud. I mean, it's absolutely unbelievable. But like I said, he
00:50:42talked this way, John, in 60, over 60% of his sermons. And he was aware, he was fully aware
00:50:50of what he was doing. And he was aware he got a lot of criticism from people over this.
00:50:54Other preachers in the message began to refer to him as the X-rated preacher or the pornographic
00:50:59preacher, John. And he actually made hay out of this. He made hay out of it. And he would
00:51:06actually play into that in his sermons. Let me read you. This here is from 1991. This is
00:51:13called The Smell of Heaven and the Stench of Hell. That's a great sermon title.
00:51:16And in the sermon, he says, there I go with my X-rated pornographic sermons again. But
00:51:22I'll hammer them down your nose until you begin to see the truth, because I am not a nice preacher.
00:51:28Oh my gosh, man. Can you imagine some outsider who's actually a Christian who goes to a normal
00:51:35Christian church, and they're driving through town, vacation or something, and said, let's
00:51:38try this church on the corner out today. And they go and hear something like that.
00:51:42What would they do? It is shocking, John. I mean, it is. It is absolutely shocking. And
00:51:50and so, you know, here's the thing. Where did Lee Vale get all of these strange sexual teachings
00:52:00from? All right. There's a good question, isn't it? Where do you think he said he got them
00:52:04from? I'll give you one guess. Where do you think Lee Vale said he got?
00:52:07I'm going to guess, based off of some of the other things that I've heard from other
00:52:13people. I'm going to guess William Branham.
00:52:16You are exactly right, John. Lee Vale claimed that he got his sexual teachings from William
00:52:23Branham. And we actually do have William Branham on tape saying he had pornographic materials
00:52:28that he was going to hand out to the other ministers with him in 1965. Right. So, I mean,
00:52:34that's actually on record that William Branham was handing out these pamphlets of pornographic
00:52:40information to the ministers around him. And yes, Lee Vale was preaching the pornographic
00:52:47stuff and saying that he got it from William Branham.
00:52:50Yeah, I guess William Branham because I have heard things that just kind of shock you. William
00:52:57Branham was not the clean, pure person that everybody makes him out to be based off of
00:53:04his stage persona and his recordings. He had an on-stage presence and he had an off-stage
00:53:10presence. Some of the people who I'm very close with now who were close with others that
00:53:17were with William Branham. So, this is layers of disconnection from me. So, I can't, like,
00:53:24I can't historically write this. I can't document it because it's not, it's through the mouth
00:53:28of a witness, through the mouth of another witness. But William Branham apparently told
00:53:34people that it was okay if you, how did he phrase it? The guy told me that men are like
00:53:41raging bulls and bulls like to have relations with the cows and it's okay as long as the cows
00:53:49aren't in the message. Like, you can go outside to the other cows. It's really, really weird
00:53:55and awkward the way that it was presented to me. But if you think of William Branham's
00:53:59hillbilly language, the way that they described it, I can literally hear that voice from the
00:54:06tape saying this kind of thing. And if you understand the implications of it, it's pretty bad.
00:54:11And, you know, you've got Lee Vale as one example of saying Branham is talking about this. I've got
00:54:17the other people. I can't really prove that he said it to them. But when you consider Lee Vale
00:54:23as one who is in William Branham's inner circle, it kind of fits. It makes sense to me.
00:54:30You know, Lee Vale is not the only message preacher with strange sexual teachings who claim to have got
00:54:36them directly from William Branham, right? I mean, for example, that's what Leo Mercer was doing out
00:54:41at the park, right? He claimed that he got all those practices from William Branham is really
00:54:46what he claimed. And it's the same with Lee Vale. Now, here's the thing. We know we have
00:54:51William Branham on tape saying that he had pornographic books in his possession and that
00:54:56he was going to share them with other people in his audience, John, and the other ministers. And
00:55:01hey, here's the thing. I went to church with the ministers who were in the room when he gave
00:55:05them the material. I can, the same thing. He did give them these pornographic materials,
00:55:11John. He absolutely did in the meeting and afterwards. And I've heard multiple eyewitness
00:55:16testimonies of things that were said and done in those meetings when he handed that stuff
00:55:20out to them, okay? And when Lee Vale says he got this stuff from William Branham, I have
00:55:24absolutely no reason to doubt that he's telling the truth, you know, about where he learned
00:55:30this stuff. The same with Leo Mercer. You know, Leo Mercer says, oh, William Branham is the
00:55:34one who taught me about Eliezer's oath to Abraham and all. I believe that Leo Mercer is telling
00:55:40the truth. So, I fully believe that William Branham did indeed give these guys these strange,
00:55:47strange, perverted sexual teachings that they spread around, which I'm not going to read
00:55:52any of them out loud. I think we might have put a few of them up on the screen here, some
00:55:56of the examples of some more extreme ones than what we've read out loud. But as the years went
00:56:02on, John, Lee Vale's sect got more and more extreme, you know? And I think, you know, when
00:56:10you consider the strange sexual teachings, Lee Vale was a pretty aggressive man, and so
00:56:17were a lot of the other ministers in his sect. Things got pretty bizarre and ever-increasingly
00:56:24tight-leashed on the people over the years. You know, after Lee Vale, in the last years of
00:56:28Lee Vale's life, he developed cancer, and he eventually passed away. But in the last
00:56:3510 or so years of Lee Vale's life, he retired from preaching, and he stopped preaching. So
00:56:40we're talking about, you know, late 90s, early 2000s. And when that happened, all of the other
00:56:45preachers in Lee Vale's sects all started to fight with each other over who's in charge
00:56:50now, who's his successor, okay? And Terry Spruill, and Brian Kukorek, and, you know, and the different
00:57:00ones all have their, you know, all have a fight. And anyways, they all split up pretty badly.
00:57:04They're not so much in fellowship so much with each other anymore, because a lot of them ended
00:57:09up basically tearing their sect apart, fighting over who was Lee Vale's true successor in the
00:57:17last years of his life. Probably Brian Kukorek is probably the most honestly, probably the
00:57:26most likely successor of Lee Vale. But, and then maybe, you know, Terry Spruill's church
00:57:34is probably another, you know, decent one to qualify as a successor to Lee Vale. But another
00:57:39thing, interesting thing about it all, John, you know, we do know that Lee Vale continued
00:57:43a lot of the most extreme teachings of the message. I mean, besides the strange sexual
00:57:47stuff, Lee Vale also continued teaching the fully racial version of Serpent Seed, that
00:57:52we know. We know there was a lot of bizarre things happening behind the scenes. There's
00:57:59things, I mean, I'm tempted to just kind of completely out it here, but I won't. But
00:58:04there was a lot of very, very unusual things happening behind the scenes with Lee Vale and his
00:58:10sect of the message over the years.
00:58:15And for me, the fact that there was such division among the sect leaders, and then expand that
00:58:21to the main sect. You had the main sect of Branhamism, which splintered and they fought
00:58:26with each other. And then the splinters splintered again, they fought with each other. And then
00:58:30internally, as these groups were fighting, you can just see that, you know, the Bible says
00:58:36by the fruits, you're going to know them. You can just see that this is not a cohesive
00:58:40unit. This is not a cohesive faith. And so, if William Branham was this alleged Malachi 4
00:58:46that's bringing the hearts of the children to the fathers and the hearts of the fathers
00:58:49to the children, it did quite the opposite.
00:58:53I think the last thing I want to point out about Lee Vale before, you know, we wrap this
00:58:57episode up is, you know, in the later years of his life, Lee Vale said a lot of things
00:59:03that, you know, I think if you're listening with a not a brainwashed message ear, you would
00:59:11hear that he was expressing very serious doubts about the message. I think that he began to
00:59:16have very serious doubts about the message in the later years of his life. And I'll just
00:59:20read you a few examples of that here in his quotes. But, you know, if you think about it,
00:59:25if you believe Jesus Christ came back in 1963 to get people ready for the rapture, right, and
00:59:31you're looking around you, and time's going on, and they're all dying, and now, hey, you're
00:59:35a 90-year-old guy, you're about to die too, right? If you have any sense in your head, which
00:59:42sadly a lot of these people, they don't. I hate to say that, but they don't. If you
00:59:46have any sense in your head, you look around and you start to go, wait a minute, you know,
00:59:49instead of rapturing, we're all dying here. We're all dying of old age. And that happened
00:59:55with Lee Vale, I believe. Towards the end of his life, he started to actually have some
01:00:00serious doubts about the message that came through loud and clear in his sermons. And
01:00:05as that happened, John, he also aired out some of the dirty secrets and dirty laundry of the
01:00:13message. And him saying these things out loud is part of him expressing his deep concern that
01:00:20the message, something was seriously wrong with the message. And I just want to point
01:00:24those things out to the listeners. That way they're aware, you know, of Lee Vale saying
01:00:29these things. And one of them, John, we've talked about this one before, in a sermon called
01:00:33Reminiscing, Lee Vale admitted that he had caught William Branham telling the deity cult that he
01:00:40was Jesus Christ. He was there, he overheard William Branham flat out claiming to be Jesus Christ
01:00:46of the deity cult. I'll read you a quote. He says,
01:00:48It was in 1958, I ran across the deity cult spirit, which was a Canadian spirit from the
01:00:53people in Saskatchewan. I'm blaming the Canadians now because that's the truth. I think we were
01:00:58there about eight days. Suddenly, I heard Brother Branham telling everyone in the crowd that he
01:01:04was the Lord Jesus Christ. Lee Vale overheard William Branham telling the deity cult that he was
01:01:14Jesus Christ. That is one of the things that he publicly told, you know, in the years that I
01:01:20believe his doubt started to set in. Let me give you another one, John. When it came out that the
01:01:29cloud story was a hoax. Remember, you know, we all know the cloud was a hoax. Well, that discovery that
01:01:34it was a hoax actually started to become public knowledge. It started in the late 70s, but it really
01:01:41became, most of the leaders became aware of it in the late 80s. And as that happens, and Lee Vale is
01:01:48confronted with it, Rebecca Branham publishes her articles outing, you know, that the cloud story
01:01:53was a hoax. Lee Vale actually comes out and he admits that he agrees that William Branham misled
01:02:00everybody about the cloud story. He said, and this is from a sermon called Last Day Thoughts in 2009,
01:02:05he said, Brother Branham was in Houston at that time appearing before a judge pleading for the life
01:02:12of a young man. And he goes on to explain that he was not under the cloud, right? And, you know,
01:02:18that's got to be, think again, along the list of things, that's got to be a body blow, you know,
01:02:23to anybody's belief about the message, just like it is for ours. So, Lee Vale, he knows, he's admitting
01:02:31William Branham told people he was Jesus Christ, he's admitting that, yes, he knows William Branham
01:02:36was not really under the cloud in Arizona. Then in another sermon, John, this is a sermon called
01:02:41Token. Let me read this to you, just kind of see how sad this is. Lee Vale says, what if the message
01:02:48is wrong? We are ordained to it. We're not fatal. We're simply shoulder shruggers. We're cognizant of
01:02:57the word of truth. And he goes on, more or less, to take this fatalistic predestination view that if
01:03:03the message is wrong, then they are predestined to damnation, John. That is, it's very, very sad.
01:03:11And he says here, towards the end of that, another part of the quote, he says, I breathe the message
01:03:16of the hour. He says, I'm sold on it, but I don't know that I'm right in what I teach. But I teach it
01:03:23exactly as William Branham taught it. I believe I do. I'm convinced I do, as much as I can be convinced.
01:03:30But this is where I stand, sink or swim. Right? And when you hear him talk like that, right, doesn't that
01:03:36just drip of doubt? That drips of doubt, these sort of statements. And you'll find lots of statements that
01:03:42he made like that in the closing years of his life. And it is very apparent, you know, if you're not in the cult
01:03:48and you're listening with an honest ear, that Lee Vale, in the last years of his life, began to have
01:03:54very serious doubts about the message. And not only did he express the doubts, just like I read there,
01:04:00he's at the same time telling you, yes, there's something wrong with the cloud. Yes, William Branham
01:04:05was sleeping, staying, having overnights with homosexuals. Yes, William Branham was telling people
01:04:12he was Jesus Christ. He's not only expressing his doubts, he's telling his listeners the very serious
01:04:18problems that he was aware of at the same time. And maybe in his own way, John, maybe in his own
01:04:25way in the closing years of his life, he was trying to warn people maybe, you know, and if he was, I can
01:04:30actually respect that. You know, that's one of the saddest aspects of this. I have this conversation
01:04:35often with Bob Scott, but I have difficulty because I feel sorry for many of the people who ended up in
01:04:42leadership roles. They themselves were programmed in the same way that I was. And many of them,
01:04:50you know, some of these guys started out as good people, not all of them did, but some of them did.
01:04:54And where they ended up their brain, literally, like what you just read with Lee Vale, his brain is
01:05:00literally trying to reconcile with the fact that he has been living a lie his entire life. And he was
01:05:06helped spreading and propagating that lie. And there comes a point in everybody's life, whenever they start
01:05:12to reflect on their life. And I imagine that there's a lot of very, very sad cult leaders as they
01:05:18progress in age, but such a mess that was created. And again, this is William Branham's publicist. This is
01:05:26the guy that after William Branham died, when you see all of these NAR videos and documentaries, and when
01:05:33they read literature, they mention them by name. This is the guy that most of them would have went to if they did not
01:05:40go to the main organization itself. You went to one of two places. And I would say that, you know,
01:05:46after William Branham died, I would say that he was the more important figure than even William
01:05:50Branham's son, because this is his publicist. There's so much more we could say about
01:05:54Lee Vale and his sect of the message. There is quite a bit. There's actually more in my book,
01:05:58Come Out Over My People, Volume 2, you know, than we're covering with each of these sects as we go
01:06:02through them. But I think we've covered the highlights. Like, that's just kind of been my objective here
01:06:06with you, is just cover the highlights. You know, there's so much more we could say, though.
01:06:12But at the end of the day, I think Lee Vale's story is a pretty sad one, because, you know,
01:06:16when I, like I said, I listen to the sermons of the last years of his life, I hear a lot of doubt
01:06:20and a lot of regrets in his sermons. And in one way, I think it can be a cautionary tale. You know,
01:06:26I'll be honest, I hear the same thing in Raymond Jackson's sermons at the end of his life. You know,
01:06:30as these people reach their 80s and 90s, and the rapture hasn't come, and all of these things
01:06:37they've predicted and said have not come, a reality starts to sink in on them that something
01:06:44is wrong, right? And what's very sad is the younger generation of preachers, and some of them,
01:06:51they weren't listening. They were not listening, right? And I think, though, if we would be honest
01:06:57and just listen to the truth of what some of these people told us in the closing years of life,
01:07:01Perry Green even did this, John. Even Perry Green, at the end of his life,
01:07:04started to tell the things that he knew that was wrong. If people would listen
01:07:08and actually hear what they say, they could wake up, because, you know,
01:07:13in some ways, we're not saying anything much more than some of these guys.
01:07:17I mean, Lee Vale said the cloud was a hoax. Lee Vale said that.
01:07:20Lee Vale said that William Branham told the deity people he was Jesus Christ.
01:07:26You know? Lee Vale said that he knew William Branham was staying the night with homosexuals,
01:07:30right? Like, all of these things, we're not, in a lot of ways, the most controversial things
01:07:34we're saying are nothing that the senior leaders of the message did not say themselves in the years
01:07:40leading up to their deaths. And I think people do well to actually take heed, because in some ways,
01:07:47in their own ways, I think some of them were indeed trying to warn us, and some of us just were
01:07:51unable to hear it. I agree. You know, I try to believe that there is some good inside of some
01:07:57of these people, and inside, deep inside, it's bubbling up. You can see that he wanted to tell
01:08:03people, hey, this is a mess. I was wrong. I don't think he ever did, but hopefully there are others
01:08:09that will. So, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the
01:08:14web. You can find us at william-branham.org and christiangospelchurch.org. For more about the
01:08:20history of William Branham and the healing revivals, you can read Come Out of Her, My People. And for
01:08:25more about the dark side of the NAR, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the
01:08:31NAR. Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:08:44Michelle, please.