Speaker 1: Also media. Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the
Speaker 1: podcast that you're listening to right now. It's about the
Speaker 1: worst people in all of history.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And we've got one of my favorite guests in the
Speaker 1: host of the podcast on our network, said Oligark, which
Speaker 1: just got a new season, Jake Hanrahan, Jake, welcome back.
Speaker 2: How you doing? Thanks having me mate, long time, no
Speaker 2: I speak, man, how have you been?
Speaker 1: Ah, you know, I've been all right tired, like everyone
Speaker 1: I think, especially where I am. What's going on? How
Speaker 1: about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like your country's like actually fascist.
Speaker 1: Now, like yeah, yeah, yeah, we're really speed running things.
Speaker 1: Huh yeah.
Speaker 2: Everyone's saying it for years and I was like, oh no.
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah yeah yeah. It has been fun to
Speaker 1: see all of the like debate go out the window
Speaker 1: and like no, no, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: No, straight on, like it's it's it's actually like very
Speaker 2: scary because it's happening here as well in England, and
Speaker 2: it's like, ah, there's like some consolidation of extreme authoritarianism happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's happening, and it's happening at the kind
Speaker 1: of speed that almost it seems farcical. So that's that's good.
Speaker 1: I feel upbeat. I don't. I don't know, like it's
Speaker 1: it's weird too, because it's one of those like you
Speaker 1: would I'd always kind of expect in the back of
Speaker 1: my head that if things got this bad this quickly,
Speaker 1: there'd be stuff to do other like beyond just like
Speaker 1: work like that that wouldn't be the primary concern. Is
Speaker 1: still like making rent and and and and getting by.
Speaker 1: But everyone I know is walking around being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy how fast things are going. Also, like I
Speaker 1: got to take my kid to a doctor's appointment at three.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, no. I was talking to my friend about
Speaker 2: this too. That was like the kind of rapid descent
Speaker 2: into state control and authoritarianism is actually really boring, Like
Speaker 2: it's just happening and that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, And I'm still going to like birthday
Speaker 1: parties and stuff like okay, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: My friend came back from a holiday and he was like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I got fingerprinted and my mouth swabbed and everything.
Speaker 2: I was like, why, you're a British city and you're
Speaker 2: coming back to England, Like what the fuck now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, talking to you and I'm in the same boat
Speaker 1: planning overseas trips and being like, well, now I have
Speaker 1: a phone I've bought just for flying that has like
Speaker 1: the minimum of everything on it because I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to hand it over to border patrol and I
Speaker 1: don't want anything interesting to be on there, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, this must must be what it's like for
Speaker 2: people in like, you know, countries that have been doing
Speaker 2: this a little bit longer or a little bit more direct,
Speaker 2: you know, and now we're like, oh shit.
Speaker 1: We have to do it too well in this yeh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I read there's a good book about like
Speaker 1: authoritarianism in Russia called Nothing Is True and Everything is Permitted.
Speaker 1: I think it's more or less the title, yeah, which
Speaker 1: is which? Which did help? Actually reading it years ago
Speaker 1: was like, okay, well at least there's a rubric.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love the way he kindind of explains it
Speaker 2: through the reality TV how like almost in the West,
Speaker 2: you show them something fake and everyone goes, oh wow,
Speaker 2: look look at that. But then in the East story
Speaker 2: in Russia, when you show them something fake, the people
Speaker 2: go yeah wow, like they already know who's bullshit. And
Speaker 2: it's like, I think we're coming to that level now
Speaker 2: where we're like, ah, right, we already have to be
Speaker 2: cynical because we kind of realize it's all nonsense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's just impossible to know like what
Speaker 1: is I mean, like just the ability of regular people
Speaker 1: to differentiate between truth and lies and like a video now,
Speaker 1: I mean this goes down to the AI and stuff,
Speaker 1: but like there's so many more tools for just lying
Speaker 1: to everybody. It's great.
Speaker 2: That's very scary.
Speaker 1: Yoh yeah. And I think in some ways about what's
Speaker 1: happening just here and across a lot of other Western
Speaker 1: like you said, it's happening in the UK too, as
Speaker 1: like it part of what's going on, because I think
Speaker 1: it's almost a mistake to purely couch it in terms
Speaker 1: of fascism. Of what's going on is a growth in
Speaker 1: sort of like cultic behavior and clttic abuse techniques becoming
Speaker 1: like normalized across the political spectrum right at the Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. Maggie is like a great example of that.
Speaker 1: And so I I keep turning back to cults periodically,
Speaker 1: and this is not this is not We've just started
Speaker 1: this with kind of a political discussion about everything that's
Speaker 1: going on. This is not a cult that is particularly
Speaker 1: tied into politics in the US or elsewhere. But it's
Speaker 1: a cult I that just got on my radar. They
Speaker 1: just got busted by the FBI. Like the week that
Speaker 1: I wrote this episode, there was this massive multi state
Speaker 1: FBI bust cracking down on like a mansion that had
Speaker 1: been owned by Nelly that was a cult property and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other crazy shit. And Nelly's not involved.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Nelly is uninvolved. This is just a house that Nelly
Speaker 1: owned that later got purchased by a cult. But the
Speaker 1: Nell connection does exist. This this is a cult that
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard about before the FBI rated all their properties,
Speaker 1: but had been there had been some stuff written about them,
Speaker 1: so I had to do some real digging to get
Speaker 1: a story here. But it's a group called the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God. Have you heard of these people?
Speaker 2: Do you know what? I feel like I have? But
Speaker 2: there are so many cults with similar names like that
Speaker 2: that it could.
Speaker 1: Just see such a cult name it very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, the Kingdom of God Church. You're like, no,
Speaker 2: don't go there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had to check to see because there are like
Speaker 1: four different cults I thought this might be and I
Speaker 1: was like Nope, no, No, those are all slightly different names.
Speaker 1: This is a new one. This is a new one,
Speaker 1: and it's you know what, I try to be compassionate
Speaker 1: when I like look at cults and study them and
Speaker 1: talk about them on this show, because I do tend
Speaker 1: to believe that anyone can be taken in by a
Speaker 1: cult at some point in their life. Right, that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that, like everyone is always vulnerable to being I think,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I think most people grow out of
Speaker 1: it and reach a point where that's a thing that
Speaker 1: can't happen to them anymore. But I think most people
Speaker 1: have a point in their life where if the right
Speaker 1: cult were to come along, they'd be vulnerable to it, right.
Speaker 1: I think that's generally accurate, And so I generally try
Speaker 1: to find some understanding with how people get involved in
Speaker 1: something like the Church of Scientology or like sin and on.
Speaker 1: And I don't really understand this cult the Kingdom of
Speaker 1: God all that well, Like I don't understand how someone
Speaker 1: can like talk themselves into letting the things that were
Speaker 1: being done to them be done to them. But I'll
Speaker 1: do my best to explain it here. You know, this
Speaker 1: may just be one that like was never what wasn't
Speaker 1: angled towards people like me, I guess. But yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: get into it. But that's the end of the cold open.
Speaker 1: So we'll come back in a second here and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the Kingdom of God, and we're back. So,
Speaker 1: as I said, not a well known cult. If you
Speaker 1: haven't heard of these guys, you're probably in the norm.
Speaker 1: If you had, you probab found out the way I
Speaker 1: did reading articles published just recently about this massive multi
Speaker 1: state FBI rate of several cult properties. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: the only real interest this group attracted was internal criticism
Speaker 1: in places like Charisma magazine, which is like charismatic Christianity
Speaker 1: is like a type of evangelical Christianity, right, Like these
Speaker 1: are to kind of summarize it, These are the people
Speaker 1: who do like the crazy eaten snake or getting letting
Speaker 1: snakes bite them kind of shit, right, like Pentecostals or
Speaker 1: are charismatics. Charismatics are not all just Pentecostals, but like,
Speaker 1: it's the weird stuff, right.
Speaker 2: I'd be honest, like, if I had to join a call,
Speaker 2: I would rather be doing like snake church stuff than
Speaker 2: like fucking scientology.
Speaker 1: You know absolutely that I agree with the snake church
Speaker 1: stuff sounds like more fun. Initially, kind of the internal
Speaker 1: criticism of this group before they reached legal intention was
Speaker 1: other people who were kind of in lighter versions of
Speaker 1: the cult, who were like, well, these guys are really
Speaker 1: this is just a pure cult, right, And when you're
Speaker 1: getting called out by other members of like that chunk
Speaker 1: of Christianity, you really have to be going a hog
Speaker 1: wild on the stealing people's money stuff, because like this
Speaker 1: is the chunk of the faith where it's normal to
Speaker 1: be like, well, yeah, my pastor needs a private jet.
Speaker 1: Obviously played it in gold. God wants them to have that.
Speaker 1: So the fact that like these guys got attacked by
Speaker 1: that community means they were really out of fucking pocket.
Speaker 1: When the FBI raided Kingdom of God properties, they found
Speaker 1: at least fifty seven people who had been forced to
Speaker 1: work for the cult in conditions that at least approximated
Speaker 1: slave labor.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: These are people who are working and having food and
Speaker 1: shelter withheld if they don't work, and they're certainly not
Speaker 1: being paid, right, So we're on that slave labor spectrum
Speaker 1: right somewhere somewhere in there.
Speaker 2: Very heavy like normally colts start with like a pamphlat you.
Speaker 1: Know, no, they're they're kind of starting with, yeah, with
Speaker 1: you're not going to get paid and will make you
Speaker 1: homeless if you if you don't meet your numbers. And
Speaker 1: what's weird enough is that this is the work they're doing.
Speaker 1: This is a call center cult. Like, that's what they're
Speaker 1: being made to do, is a call center as.
Speaker 2: Slaves in the center. It's so bad, man.
Speaker 1: Fuck, it's only marginally better if you're getting paid, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not even bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, already on the spectrum of yeah, being
Speaker 1: forcibly forced to labor. So some number of female members
Speaker 1: were also sexually trapped for the cult leader, right, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a bummer, but pretty normal for a cult.
Speaker 1: And the cult leader obviously lived in luxury with a
Speaker 1: handful of his lieutenants, and off of the strength of
Speaker 1: tens of millions of dollars in donations brought in by
Speaker 1: the sophisticated network of call centers and this network of
Speaker 1: online stalkers. There's a This is a really savvy cult
Speaker 1: in terms of like how they operate and utilize social
Speaker 1: media to find vulnerable people, which is one one of
Speaker 1: the things I'm more interested in talking about is that
Speaker 1: it's not just we're just throwing out a wide net
Speaker 1: and asking a million people for money and the hopes
Speaker 1: that like a couple hundred send it. They're actually going
Speaker 1: out and stalking people based on their social media to
Speaker 1: try to determine if they're vulnerable or not to be
Speaker 1: reached out to, which is cool just like Facebook. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Facebook is where a lot of this happens. Absolutely, But I.
Speaker 2: Mean that's like even part of their model as well.
Speaker 2: Like they will advertise things to young girls that are
Speaker 2: like perhaps looking at pages about, you know, eating disorders,
Speaker 2: and they'll be like, oh yeah, we'll use that to
Speaker 2: advertise to them. It's like the darkest thing. Have a
Speaker 2: doesn't surprise me A Colt would be doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would love to. And this is the kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It would probably require that like there be
Speaker 1: some sort of Nuremberg like case that you know, opens
Speaker 1: up facebooks books. But I would love to know what
Speaker 1: percentage of their profits is just a mix of like
Speaker 1: inciting little kids to have eating disorders and directing people
Speaker 1: into cults. Like because it's not nothing, it's not zero
Speaker 1: percent of the Facebook income. It's straying people's lives at scale,
Speaker 1: it's got to be like forty percent at least.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's at the point where I get advertisements
Speaker 1: every week for like illegal suppressors for firearms, and like,
Speaker 1: that's not close to the worst thing on Facebook. It's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's wholesome. Honestly, that's just somebody who wants
Speaker 1: a quieter gun to shoot people with. It's it's a doc.
Speaker 2: But I have not Facebook for like over ten years,
Speaker 2: but whenever I see things from it, I'm like, is
Speaker 2: this like a fucking parallel universe kind of social media?
Speaker 2: It's next level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those things I Ethically, I guess
Speaker 1: I should totally cancel it. I still go on about
Speaker 1: once every two because there's like friends that I knew
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, and for work too, so like
Speaker 1: when there's a mass shooting, I need to be able
Speaker 1: to look up someone's family right, like or someone's posts.
Speaker 1: So I find use for it once every like two,
Speaker 1: But every time I'm on there, I'm just constantly like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like, is what percentage of this traffic
Speaker 1: is even real people watching shit? Because this is all
Speaker 1: just insane.
Speaker 2: I love the boomer stuff where like they'll fool for
Speaker 2: like there'll be like a fucking dolphin on roller skates
Speaker 2: and I'm like, wow, look what the dolphins are doing.
Speaker 2: It's like, uh cool, Like shut up, go back to bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like a poorly photoshopped or like a poorly
Speaker 1: AI generated image of like a soldier with like his
Speaker 1: hands bleeding from stigmata, and like most people won't share this.
Speaker 1: Anyone share this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the best.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we're talking about the Kingdom of God, and
Speaker 1: like all cults, this story starts with the cult leader,
Speaker 1: one David E. Taylor, who is as of today, fifty
Speaker 1: three years young. We know tragically little of David's early life.
Speaker 1: There's been no real in depth reporting on this guy
Speaker 1: as an individual. So like ninety percent of what I've
Speaker 1: got to work with here is what he wrote or
Speaker 1: had ghost written on his church website and a two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine self help book that he wrote about
Speaker 1: talking to g Right. That's that those are our sources
Speaker 1: of this guy's early life. So take all of this
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt, right, because this is not Yeah,
Speaker 1: per these sources, I can tell you he was born
Speaker 1: on August third, nineteen seventy two in Memphis, Tennessee. I
Speaker 1: doubt he's lying about that because I really can't think
Speaker 1: of a reason for him to lie about being fifty
Speaker 1: three years old. His parents were in the church business.
Speaker 1: His dad was an evangelical past or. His dad is
Speaker 1: a Baptist pastor, right, So that is evangelical, but it's
Speaker 1: a very different chunk of the faith from like the
Speaker 1: Pentecostalism that he's going to come to as an adult. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: Baptists are not the same kind of evangelicals.
Speaker 2: I think you could be chill and be Abaptists still, right,
Speaker 2: and they're like pretty chill.
Speaker 1: There are some chill Baptists. Yes, I don't know that
Speaker 1: his dad was, but it's very different, right, or somewhat different,
Speaker 1: we should say. And yeah, and is a big thing
Speaker 1: that you can tell from his family in terms of
Speaker 1: the seriousness with which they take their religion is that
Speaker 1: his dad really embraced the commandment that Christians should be
Speaker 1: fruitful and multiplying. Because David was born the seventh and
Speaker 1: at the time he was the youngest child in his family,
Speaker 1: but his parents had two more kids after him, So
Speaker 1: that's you're really putting in putting in the work. When
Speaker 1: you're having nine kids, that's that's not insignificant, he would
Speaker 1: later Yeah, fierrile, and also really relying on those middle
Speaker 1: kids to raise the youngest ones. Now, he would later
Speaker 1: write that his mother told him while she was pregnant
Speaker 1: with him, that she spent hours a day praying at
Speaker 1: her husband's church. And I haven't found much about his
Speaker 1: father other than that he was a pastor for close
Speaker 1: to forty years. The only detail from his life that
Speaker 1: his son seemed interested in repeating is that when his
Speaker 1: dad was twenty three years old, he stopped a gunman
Speaker 1: on a bus. And here's the version of the story
Speaker 1: that David published on one of his church websites about
Speaker 1: his dad. One day, as he was writing the Memphis
Speaker 1: bus transit, the young man pulled out a gun and
Speaker 1: stuck up the bus, robbing the people of their money.
Speaker 1: Minister Taylor boldly came on the bus and began to
Speaker 1: speak the word of God to the robber. He then
Speaker 1: commanded him to give him the gun and put it
Speaker 1: in his hand in Jesus's name. The man's instant le obeyed.
Speaker 1: Minister Taylor also commanded him to give the people their
Speaker 1: money back, which he did. Later, after he was arrested,
Speaker 1: Minister Taylor went and visited him in prison. When they
Speaker 1: saw each other, they both wept. He then led the
Speaker 1: young man to the lord, resulting in him surrendering his
Speaker 1: life completely. Racial barriers were also broken at a time
Speaker 1: when racial tensions were high. The newspaper openly declared that
Speaker 1: a black man and a white man cried together, and
Speaker 1: in a shocking twist, this is a true story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this actually happened. There's a newspaper clipping about it, and
Speaker 1: the Yeah, there's a photo from the Memphis Press scimitar
Speaker 1: with a picture of Minister Taylor and the robber and
Speaker 1: he's wearing like one of those striped prison shirts. It
Speaker 1: really looks like a scene from Cool Hand Luke. And
Speaker 1: the actual text of the news article is pretty close
Speaker 1: to what David said. The story, written by Paul Vanderwood,
Speaker 1: starts with the sentence a Negro and a white man
Speaker 1: cried together today, which tells you a lot about where
Speaker 1: race relations were that like, that's your lead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh boy, Yeah, it doesn't look good.
Speaker 1: Things were bad if that's where we're starting, But yeah,
Speaker 1: seems to be true and his dad seems nice because
Speaker 1: his dad like the articles about his dad testifying in
Speaker 1: the robber's behalf to try to get him leniency because
Speaker 1: like he stopped rather than continuing with the robbery. So
Speaker 1: good on him. That seems like a nice story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and David is going to be raised with this tale
Speaker 1: of his father's heroism. But apparently the example wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to stop him from falling into an adolescence of sin
Speaker 1: and debauchery. His early life is summed up on the
Speaker 1: church website this way. Raised in a Christian home in Memphis, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: he fell away as he was seduced into the gang
Speaker 1: life as a teenager. But everything drastically changed one night
Speaker 1: at the age of seventeen when Jesus appeared to him
Speaker 1: face to face in a dream. Now, one thing I
Speaker 1: noticed straight away when I was going into this guy's
Speaker 1: life is that he spends a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about how bad he was as a teenager, well admitting
Speaker 1: that his father was this like great man who made
Speaker 1: him go to church three times a week. And I
Speaker 1: this is kind of normal for guys in this chunk
Speaker 1: of Christianity, especially who take to preaching as a family business.
Speaker 1: Because you you both want to burnish your credentials that like, oh,
Speaker 1: my family's always been preaching. But you also have to
Speaker 1: be able to You have to have a rock bottom narrative.
Speaker 1: You can't just be like and so I was always
Speaker 1: a good godly man.
Speaker 2: Say they never do that. They like, yeah, everything was fine,
Speaker 2: but that was cool. Now I'm doing It's like no,
Speaker 2: like I did Heroin for three year and it's like,
Speaker 2: did you just do that? We'll say you did that
Speaker 2: to have this like cool back story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or is it? Is it like how you know
Speaker 1: some politicians will like join the army or the Marines
Speaker 1: to get like a tour in so that they can
Speaker 1: campaign off of it for the rest of their career.
Speaker 1: Is it like, all right, I got to spend three
Speaker 1: years doing Heroin and skin rows that I can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the little building you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I got hepatitis from a dirty needle
Speaker 1: and that's like my combat action ribbon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like yeah, but I've seen ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyway. In his first book, Face to Face
Speaker 1: Appearances with Jesus, David Taylor claims he was visited by
Speaker 1: Christ and visited he means in person like he means
Speaker 1: that they have like a physical relationship. In December of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, this was around a week before Christmas Eve,
Speaker 1: and David was, by his account, a pretty tough customer.
Speaker 1: He described himself in his book as your typical unsaved teenager,
Speaker 1: smoking dope, marijuana, using bad language and cursing, partying and
Speaker 1: having pre marital sex. I was even involved with gangs
Speaker 1: and hung around cocaine dealing drug lords. Hmmm.
Speaker 2: I love that he went from swearing to drug lords,
Speaker 2: like mate.
Speaker 1: For swearing the drug lords. Yeah, it's the that's the
Speaker 1: real uh gateway drug is cursing. Yeah, he just streak
Speaker 1: to go gain dealing drug lords.
Speaker 2: One that I said ship. The next was Pablo Escobata. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that happens all the time. Fucking idiot. He's always making
Speaker 2: this up, like surely.
Speaker 1: It's it's gotta be lies, right, it's gotta be part
Speaker 1: of that is he goes, I was smoking dope comma marijuana.
Speaker 1: So is he saying that he was smoking dope is
Speaker 1: in like heroin and marijuana, because I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: impressed with the pot. If you were smoking like fucking horse, right,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, the pot doesn't even register if you're
Speaker 1: doing if you're smoking heroin.
Speaker 2: No, it sounds like the kid at school that's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, you know, like when you're like six and
Speaker 2: there's a kid that's like, yeah, I have smoked weed.
Speaker 2: It's like you probably fucking have him. Like he sounds
Speaker 2: like one of them kids, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like being like, yeah, you know, I used
Speaker 1: to shoot up forty eight hundred dollars worth of heroin
Speaker 1: a week. Also one time I took too much Benadryl
Speaker 1: to get high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm not impressed by the other one.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: I Also I might people to buy this guy partied
Speaker 1: as a kid, smoked a little pot. Maybe he did
Speaker 1: a couple of lines of coke again at a party.
Speaker 1: A lot of people do, right, I would go so
Speaker 1: far as to say that, like, the average person has
Speaker 1: probably at least once or twice experimented with a harder
Speaker 1: drug in their life. It's very normal. Maybe not cools
Speaker 1: more than fifty percent, But what a lot of the
Speaker 1: population you know that said there's no evidence whatso that
Speaker 1: he knew cocaine dealing drug lords. Maybe he knew a
Speaker 1: coke dealer. Again, a lot of people know. But a
Speaker 1: coke lord, that's a high level. That's a man who
Speaker 1: has money to buy a hippopotamus.
Speaker 2: Like, what's his remit for? Like just dealer? It's a
Speaker 2: drug lord. You know, maybe it was a Jesus thing.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's two things for having known some drug lords. I
Speaker 1: have like two hard requirements. One you have to have
Speaker 1: been measuring your drug by either the kilo or the ton,
Speaker 1: depending on the drug you're talking about. And number two,
Speaker 1: if you're a coke lord, you have to have been
Speaker 1: able to buy like African wildlife. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 1: that's the level I need if I'm gonna call you
Speaker 1: a coke lord, right.
Speaker 2: I think you like a really horrible killer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of bodies, a lot of stacked bodies. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only real detail he provides us anywhere about his
Speaker 1: supposed life of crime as a child is this paragraph.
Speaker 1: I remember one time before the Lord came to me
Speaker 1: and saved my life. I was caught in the crossfire
Speaker 1: of a shootout. There were bullets flying everywhere, and I
Speaker 1: could have possibly been shot and killed. Thank god, he
Speaker 1: spared my life and protected me. And this is one
Speaker 1: where like he doesn't say this was involved in the
Speaker 1: drug game, and this is America, so yeah, maybe he
Speaker 1: was in the middle of a shootout that happened. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have been in this country, right, that's
Speaker 1: not an uncommon experience. Is just being uncomfortably close. I've
Speaker 1: been around like three different mass shootings in the United States, shooting.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, shit, yeah, yeah, that's not unusual.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know. One of them was two victims,
Speaker 1: the other two were one, so not mass, but like
Speaker 1: three different shootings, right, like, oh, it just happened. It
Speaker 1: just happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like I've been jumped. I thought that was bad,
Speaker 2: like fucking hell. Right, yeah, no, that sounds fad, that
Speaker 2: sounds horrible.
Speaker 1: And I can believe that he was just uncomfortably close
Speaker 1: to a shooting and that maybe that did spur him
Speaker 1: to get more serious about the religion thing. You know.
Speaker 1: That's a that's not a wildly that's not a huge leap, right.
Speaker 1: David then says that Jesus appeared to him for the
Speaker 1: first time during a dream. Right, this is in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, It's like a week or so before Christmas,
Speaker 1: And here's how he describes it. And I'm gonna preface
Speaker 1: this by saying it's a weirdly erotic description of Jesus, Like,
Speaker 1: oh God, Ja, I gotta tell you that right now,
Speaker 1: suddenly he was there, with eyes glowing full of love,
Speaker 1: standing in front of me. Was the man I'd heard
Speaker 1: about as a little boy my entire life. I'd heard
Speaker 1: about this man from my mother and father, and was
Speaker 1: taught that he died on the cross for my sins
Speaker 1: and rose again on the third day from the dead.
Speaker 1: He was not truly real to me, only a religious opinion.
Speaker 1: He was just someone my parents told me about because
Speaker 1: of their religious beliefs. Then out of nowhere, he was
Speaker 1: standing there in front of me, face to face. And
Speaker 1: that's not the horny part of the story, right that's
Speaker 1: and I bring him the intro the next passage. Here
Speaker 1: he describes Jesus using the word ecstasy more times than
Speaker 1: a drug dealer on telegram. Oh God, it was ecstasy.
Speaker 1: For the first time I was standing in front of Jesus,
Speaker 1: my whole being felt him. You can imagine the ecstasy
Speaker 1: I felt. It was a feeling of intense glory. It's
Speaker 1: like wherever he stands he feels the very atmosphere air
Speaker 1: and molecules all around you, even the atoms inside your
Speaker 1: body and being respond to him. It was total ecstasy, indescribable,
Speaker 1: blistering with a static eruption. My whole being felt like
Speaker 1: it was caught up into Heaven. The very atoms in
Speaker 1: my body made me feel like I was about to
Speaker 1: explode night. That's a guy who wants to fuck Jesus.
Speaker 2: Right, I think that's a guy that did fuck Jesus
Speaker 2: by the sound, but he might have fucked Jesus Jesus Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's weird, I exactly, Yeah, he's uh, he's projecting EPISO slightly.
Speaker 1: That definitely, maybe a little bit. And we'll continue with
Speaker 1: the uncomfortably horny descriptions of Jesus Christ. But first, here's
Speaker 1: some ads and we're back. So Jake, as I promised,
Speaker 1: that uncomfortably horny vibe continue for several pages, during which
Speaker 1: he repeatedly describes Christ in terms that would make an
Speaker 1: airport romance novelist say, okay, it's time to dial things back.
Speaker 1: A little quote. Standing in front of me was an
Speaker 1: awesome man, handsome and perfect in stature. He was just
Speaker 1: a little taller than me, about six feet or more.
Speaker 1: The perfect height of a normal man. As I gazed
Speaker 1: upon him, I saw that the color of his hair
Speaker 1: was sandy brownish and parted at the top, coming over
Speaker 1: the sides of his face and down his shoulders and waves. Right,
Speaker 1: are the normal man, the normal man's Yeah, above six
Speaker 1: feet is a normal man. A little bit of height shaming.
Speaker 2: There, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, man, this is very
Speaker 2: erotic and it's fine.
Speaker 1: It's fine. It's cool if you're into that. Jesus is
Speaker 1: thousands of years old, so it's not problematic, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know it, so Jesus, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like long hair, like robes. Yeah, halo, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: be like you pretty cut, yeah, perfect cheek bones, beautiful
Speaker 2: eye come on, yeah, like yeah, I mean it's fat.
Speaker 2: But let's let's let's know what you're really thinking. Son,
Speaker 2: And I'm laughing as I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna take
Speaker 2: a wild guess that this guy went on to be
Speaker 2: wildly homophobic in his cult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I mean yes, I would say not
Speaker 1: not to the point where like it's the main thing,
Speaker 1: but it's just a normal thing in that chunk of
Speaker 1: the right right, Like this is not Pentecostal Christianity is
Speaker 1: not super great on gay people. You know, these aren't
Speaker 1: the Episcopalians. So given that this guy becomes a money
Speaker 1: grubbing cult leader, I'd expected Jesus to like mark him
Speaker 1: out a special and telling me he had some sort of
Speaker 1: great purpose to fulfill. Right, That's kind of what I
Speaker 1: was expecting to come here, and that does happen. But
Speaker 1: what surprises me is that David Taylor's Jesus opens things up,
Speaker 1: not just by like telling him you're marked for something special.
Speaker 1: I need you to speak the word to the masses.
Speaker 1: But he talks like a cult leader, like a like
Speaker 1: a real world cult leader. And I've run into a
Speaker 1: lot of different Jesus cults, right, Which is not to
Speaker 1: say like this Christianity doesn't ever worse cult than the
Speaker 1: other chunk of our society. People make cults for no
Speaker 1: reason at all, right, People make cults without a god
Speaker 1: being involved with a god. Every religion has its cults.
Speaker 1: I'm not being particularly shitty to anyone faith. What's weird
Speaker 1: is that his Jesus talks exactly like a twenty first
Speaker 1: century cult leader, which I haven't come across in the
Speaker 1: many different accounts like this that I have read because
Speaker 1: the first thing Jesus tells him to do, because he's like,
Speaker 1: I'll do anything, Jesus, tell me what I need to
Speaker 1: do to serve you. And the first thing Jesus says
Speaker 1: is you need to cut off all ties with your
Speaker 1: best friend. Oh you need to immediately like cut the
Speaker 1: closest person to you out of your life. And that's
Speaker 1: just straight cult leadership, right, Well, thanks Jesus, Thanks Jesus. Now,
Speaker 1: the way Jesus in the dream explains this is that
Speaker 1: David's best friend is a really nice guy. He says,
Speaker 1: he's a good guy. He's a really good friend, he
Speaker 1: was a good influence. But he's not Christian, so he's
Speaker 1: not saved, right, And so Jesus tells him, David, forsake
Speaker 1: your best friend, give your life to me and follow me.
Speaker 1: And again, I mean, I hate to I'm not much
Speaker 1: of a Bible knower, but I went to church as
Speaker 1: a kid. I was confirmed Jesus was friends with lots
Speaker 1: of people who were not good followers of their faith, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's just the text of the Bible.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy obviously is just I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: I give them benefit now, but I think it's pretty
Speaker 2: clear this guy just made this up. It sounds like
Speaker 2: you lie.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you just had a problem with his
Speaker 2: best mate, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, Jesus sure did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, bro, Jesus said, you know, like you
Speaker 2: go to get go fuck yourself, like that's how it
Speaker 2: is now.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, we can't be friends anymore because the son
Speaker 1: of God doesn't like you. Yeah, right, well that's gonna
Speaker 1: make me become Christian?
Speaker 2: Oh God, Jesus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is weird to me that he describes Jesus
Speaker 1: as like the leader of a high control group, right,
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, that's a normal thing. Cult leaders tell
Speaker 1: you to cut off your friends in your family, right
Speaker 1: if they don't follow you. So, yeah, David writes in
Speaker 1: his book, you can't truly follow Jesus and maintain worldly
Speaker 1: relationships or friendships you once had. You must be willing
Speaker 1: to give up your even your best friend, if Jesus
Speaker 1: requires you to. So that's why he's putting this in
Speaker 1: the book. As you said, it's fake. He's throwing this
Speaker 1: in there so that to use Jesus to justify the
Speaker 1: different rules he's going to have for everyone in the cult, right,
Speaker 1: So I guess what I'm mostly surprised is that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen another cult leader do this. I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of people put words in Jesus's mouth, but I
Speaker 1: haven't seen them do it this blatantly. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh wow, I guess for me, it's a
Speaker 1: marker of like you can get away with a lot
Speaker 1: more now, huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought you.
Speaker 1: Still had to be a little more cunning about.
Speaker 2: It, right, like look at you know, I mean, no
Speaker 2: offense to moments, but like look at the guy though, Jesus, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, oh I found these golden plates. I mean
Speaker 2: that was pushing it.
Speaker 1: Like this, that was really pushing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that you can tell just nothing as anymore. You
Speaker 2: can just be like, oh yeah, Jesus said I need
Speaker 2: a porstion, and you're my best friends a dick head,
Speaker 2: like it's very yeah, it's just yea unimaginative now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is it. I mean it's because that's the
Speaker 1: thing about like Joseph Smith is at least the elaborateness
Speaker 1: of the golden plate and the weirdness is like, well,
Speaker 1: that's a man who was thinking on his feet. He
Speaker 1: had to come up with some lies real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're created. Yeah, you know, like it's.
Speaker 2: Like borderline sci fi, like, yeah, it's a pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's the you know, there's the they're all
Speaker 1: bad people. Please don't mistake me, Joseph Smith and l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard. But I respect them the craft. I respect
Speaker 1: the craft.
Speaker 2: You know, put in some work, you know, like obviously,
Speaker 2: yeah that fucking ended up doing really evil stuff. But
Speaker 2: like at least at the Star it was like golden plates,
Speaker 2: not just like fucking chat gpt t here.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, this is a very chatchy BTS cult and
Speaker 1: I'm sure if it had been made a little bit later,
Speaker 1: he would have made heavier use of chat GPT because
Speaker 1: he does use a ghost writer regularly. And that's that's
Speaker 1: basically an evolution that Yes, So after having this dream
Speaker 1: where Jesus tells him to cut off ties with his
Speaker 1: friend David, Taylor threw himself hardcore into his religion. He
Speaker 1: gives himself up to Christ. He saved all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: A few days after his first vision with Jesus, he
Speaker 1: decides to try and summon the Son of God, this
Speaker 1: time like purposefully and outside of a dream so at
Speaker 1: about eleven and this is also the first one of
Speaker 1: these where I've heard where he is treating the cult
Speaker 1: leader is explicitly treating Jesus like a demon you summon,
Speaker 1: which is also kind of weird. Yeah, so, at about
Speaker 1: eleven PM on Christmas Eve, he begs Jesus to come
Speaker 1: to him in person and prove that he was really
Speaker 1: as alive as he looked in the dream, which feels
Speaker 1: to me like maybe you don't have enough faith, Like
Speaker 1: part of the point is faith, right, and if you're like, now,
Speaker 1: you got to come when I'm awake, otherwise I can't
Speaker 1: believe that you weren't just a dream. That just seems
Speaker 1: kind of sacrilegious to me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you don't start telling the Son of God
Speaker 2: like when and why I had to appear? Right, you
Speaker 2: just got.
Speaker 1: He's literally the son of God.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm not getting any time. Yeah, this guy's
Speaker 2: clearly like a massive narcissist, which I guess you have
Speaker 2: to oh, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And it really comes across from the book
Speaker 1: because he orders Jesus, if you are truly real, manifest
Speaker 1: yourself to me. More. David relates this moment in a
Speaker 1: chapter of his book titled The Supernatural Heaven's Invade My Room,
Speaker 1: which sounds like some drug experience I had right around
Speaker 1: the same age, you know, like I could characterize an
Speaker 1: acid trip or two that way, like sniffing right right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After this God comes to him, you know, he follows
Speaker 1: the summons and he blesses him with the ability to
Speaker 1: speak in tongues, and then his bedroom is transformed into
Speaker 1: some sort of strange ethereal masturbation cave quote. My room
Speaker 1: was engulfed with the atmosphere of heaven in a cloudy mist.
Speaker 1: My room was literally lifted to the atmosphere of heaven.
Speaker 1: My room did not actually have a door, so I
Speaker 1: had to put a bed sheet at the entryway. Often
Speaker 1: before I put the bed sheet up, every single day,
Speaker 1: a glistening angel with a sword would be standing at
Speaker 1: the door of my room. It was like I was
Speaker 1: not even at home. My mother was worried about me
Speaker 1: because I stayed in my room for hours and days
Speaker 1: at a time. I would come out in fellowship with
Speaker 1: the family at times, but I was caught up and
Speaker 1: experiencing heavenly things in my room.
Speaker 2: My room was.
Speaker 1: Literally filled with a celestial air or an electrical atmosphere going, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's gooning. I'm sorry, man, you're gooning with God in
Speaker 1: your bedroom. Yeah, there was a seventeen year old boy.
Speaker 1: You will leave his room for days at a time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So after this so called face to face meeting
Speaker 1: with God, our boys life story is pretty nondescript. For
Speaker 1: the next couple of years. We know he's an active
Speaker 1: pretty much the entirety of the nineties, working as a
Speaker 1: preacher and a religious motivational speaker. He claims the Lord
Speaker 1: led him to the work of Bishop G. E. Patterson,
Speaker 1: who isn't a bishop in like the Catholic sense of
Speaker 1: the word. I would say, not a real I mean
Speaker 1: real or not. There are Pentecostal bishops, but they're not.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of them, and it's just like if
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of churches who say we're part
Speaker 1: of an organization, we're ap pointing bishops. Right, So it
Speaker 1: doesn't have quite as much of like a history as
Speaker 1: the Catholic term of the word. Right, But he's a
Speaker 1: bishop in the Yeah, you don't.
Speaker 2: Really have to work towards it sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but it's certainly not the same degree to
Speaker 1: which because you can just get appointed, right if like
Speaker 1: five guys like you. You know, I think it's a
Speaker 1: little harder to become a Catholic bishop. You have to
Speaker 1: cover up a lot more child sex abuse. Say this
Speaker 1: is a wetter thing or a worse thing, just say it.
Speaker 1: It's different, and yeah. Bishop ge Patterson was an American
Speaker 1: Pentecostal leader who founded the Temple of Deliverance Cathedral of
Speaker 1: Bountiful Blessings, which was one of the largest I think
Speaker 1: it still is. He's not around anymore largest Pentecostal churches
Speaker 1: in the country. Since Taylor's dad was a Baptist preacher,
Speaker 1: Patterson acted as David's entry way into the Pentecostal faith.
Speaker 1: Taylor graduates from a Bible school at age nineteen, and
Speaker 1: he claims that Jesus came to him in another vision
Speaker 1: where Taylor demanded the real thing as in the real
Speaker 1: Bible experience. He has another talk with Jesus where he
Speaker 1: demands he makes demands of Jesus. He's like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to just sit up here and preach the
Speaker 1: Bible and repeat the same old stories everyone else preaches.
Speaker 1: That's not enough.
Speaker 4: For me.
Speaker 1: You have to give me the real Old Testament shit,
Speaker 1: Like I want visions, I want magic powers, I want
Speaker 1: it all, baby, Otherwise I'm not gonna be a member
Speaker 1: of your faith. To kid, he's like putting the screws
Speaker 1: to Jesus here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm team Jesus in this.
Speaker 1: You don't think you're supposed to do this. Again, not
Speaker 1: an expert on Christianity, but I'm pretty sure this is sacrilegious.
Speaker 1: But Jesus appreciates the moxie, I guess. So he's like,
Speaker 1: I'll give you the full Old Testament experience, but you
Speaker 1: got to give up everything you own first. So next,
Speaker 1: per an article published by Taylor's Kingdom of God Global
Speaker 1: Church quote, Shortly thereafter, he was given a series of
Speaker 1: dreams showing the future of the nation. Apostle Taylor was
Speaker 1: desperate to see it change come to America. He saw
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, ten years before it happened in a dream.
Speaker 1: In addition to that, he also saw a coming war
Speaker 1: upon America soil from Russia. In the dream. America did
Speaker 1: not win this war now in modern times. He made
Speaker 1: a big deal after like the Trump got elected, of
Speaker 1: the whole predicted a war on US soil against Russia thing,
Speaker 1: because I think in light of the whole Russia Gates
Speaker 1: stuff that seems compelling to people, right, But reading older
Speaker 1: articles prior to Trump's election, all that stuff about Taylor's prophecies,
Speaker 1: it made his dream of America fighting a war with
Speaker 1: Russia on foreign soil had nothing to do with Russian
Speaker 1: influence campaigns or anything that's happening recently. Right. He foresaw
Speaker 1: nine to eleven and the global War on Terror and
Speaker 1: thought that the Russian government incited them all.
Speaker 2: Huh. I mean, yeah, pretty.
Speaker 1: Creative, creative, not accurate. Yeah, I could say a lot
Speaker 1: about who was involved in nine to eleven. Not Reallyrussia.
Speaker 1: They're not really their back as far as I'm aware.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and anyway, so it's one of those things he's
Speaker 1: pivoted more recently to being like, oh, yeah, all this
Speaker 1: stuff with Russia today, I predicted it, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: years ago he didn't. He's caught the Russias. Yeah. In
Speaker 1: a twenty eighteen article for the Tennessee News Herald, Colin
Speaker 1: Mahoney included posts from an employee of David Taylor's summarizing
Speaker 1: the over one hundred and fifty face to face visitations
Speaker 1: with Jesus and prophetic dreams that he had quote. In
Speaker 1: a series of dreams that he has prophesied for over
Speaker 1: twelve years, God revealed that Russia was going to attack
Speaker 1: America and that this war would begin doing the presidency
Speaker 1: of George W. Bush Junior. In one of these dreams,
Speaker 1: the financial centers of America were attacked, and this dream
Speaker 1: was fulfilled with a September eleventh attack on the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center in New York. Don't be caught unprepared for
Speaker 1: what is about to hit America again. He's just completely wrong,
Speaker 1: like he does before nine to eleven, that the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center will be attacked, which is not that much
Speaker 1: of a prediction because it had been in ninety three,
Speaker 1: and he thinks the Russians are going to do it, right,
Speaker 1: He thought that w was going to go to war
Speaker 1: with Russia, and we kind of do the opposite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we literally actually do the opposite.
Speaker 2: I imagine, he said, like a hundred other things though, yeah,
Speaker 2: will completely off as well. There's that thing, right like
Speaker 2: if you far enough shits at the wall, some of
Speaker 2: it's going.
Speaker 1: To stick, Yeah, exactly. And it didn't even stick.
Speaker 2: It was so wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's the same thing as like Alex Jones
Speaker 1: in two thousands saying that there's going to be attack
Speaker 1: on the World Trade Center. Well there just had been so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she had been saying that like for years
Speaker 2: before it. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like if I'm gonna be like Jake, I'm
Speaker 1: getting a vision from God right now, there's going to
Speaker 1: be an attack on a US military base at some
Speaker 1: point in the next five years. Yeah, I'll be right,
Speaker 1: there will be somewhere right.
Speaker 2: It's like maybe, like you know what, I think, there's
Speaker 2: going to be a school shooting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's going to be a school shooting. So we're
Speaker 1: in the United States, you know, like, yeah, these are
Speaker 1: easy predictions to make. The stock market will go up
Speaker 1: or down. Yeah, yeah, of course. So this guy, he's
Speaker 1: got about as much claim to accuracy as Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, Taylor claimed that Jesus visited him
Speaker 1: and handed him the literal keys to the Kingdom of
Speaker 1: God quote from his church website. And now everywhere he
Speaker 1: goes Mighty, regional ministries and deliverance take place to the Kingdom, demonstration,
Speaker 1: drug busts take place, by the kingly decree, human trafficking
Speaker 1: rings have been completely dismantled by the Kingdom and power
Speaker 1: of God. And he's actually correct about this, but not
Speaker 1: in the way that he wanted to be, because as
Speaker 1: of late twenty twenty five, I can say that everywhere
Speaker 1: David Taylor goes there are arrests of human busts of
Speaker 1: human trafficking it rings. It's just that there is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's loads of them. That's why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's loads of them. You are correct, there's a
Speaker 1: definite correlation between where you are and where when trafficking
Speaker 1: rings get busted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the you know, if you're in London,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to see a rat because they're fucking everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, and not all of them at Parliament.
Speaker 2: But the same can be said about sex trafficking rings.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, Look, you know who's whose government isn't involved
Speaker 1: in some sex trafficking. I'm asking that question genuinely.
Speaker 2: I'd like to be generally, not like maybe like fucking
Speaker 2: there's a place off the coast of England called Sealand.
Speaker 1: Where Sealand might be okay, yeah, like it's.
Speaker 2: It's basically like an old oil rig and some people
Speaker 2: like common data and declared like it to be a
Speaker 2: sovereign nation, and it kind of is.
Speaker 1: Sure, maybe Sealand doesn't have ring who knows. I want
Speaker 1: to believe the adorable President of Ireland doesn't have any
Speaker 1: involvement there, But I know politics too well. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's something that's something. Yeah, So the September eleventh attacks
Speaker 1: did help to supercharge his fan base, right, this is
Speaker 1: kind of why he starts to become a popular pastor.
Speaker 1: Is in the wake of that he's really able to
Speaker 1: play his predictions and start drawing people to him. And
Speaker 1: he spends a lot of the early aughts collecting the
Speaker 1: kind of accolades and awards that allowed him to draw
Speaker 1: in more money and followers, often peeling people off of
Speaker 1: more reputable Pentecostal organizations. In two thousand and nine, he
Speaker 1: wrote his face to Facebook, which not only detailed his
Speaker 1: own conversations with Jesus, but was structured as a guide
Speaker 1: for worshippers to have their own in person conversations with Christ.
Speaker 1: And if you want to have an in person conversation
Speaker 1: with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, just purchase the
Speaker 1: products and services that support this podcast. All of them
Speaker 1: will give you a direct line to God. That's a
Speaker 1: promise we can absolutely make.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: And we're back. Did you have a face to face
Speaker 1: meeting with with with the Lord during our ad break?
Speaker 2: Is it really called the face to Facebook?
Speaker 1: It's called face to face my meetings with Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sad. I don't
Speaker 2: think he did ei though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think he did either. Now, it is
Speaker 1: worth noting that kind of during the Obama administration, one
Speaker 1: of the things he does that kind of get burnishes
Speaker 1: his reputation is he receives the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award
Speaker 1: during which is like signed by Barack Obama. The apostle DAVIDY.
Speaker 1: Taylor gets this award and that that's gonna sound more
Speaker 1: impressive than it is. So yeah, you can see that award, Jake. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that looks like a real award.
Speaker 2: You know, about to say that's like canva looking award.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not. It's not a great looking award, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest. And it's not really a real award. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's technically a real award. But it's not like the
Speaker 1: Barack Obama didn't like single this guy out for an award.
Speaker 1: The Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award is something it's a volunteer
Speaker 1: service award. Anyone can apply to if they've done more
Speaker 1: than four thousand hours a volunteer service for an organization
Speaker 1: in their lifetime. So basically JMMI, which is his church,
Speaker 1: Like that's the like his church, the legal name for
Speaker 1: his registered nonprofit church sponsored him for this award that
Speaker 1: anyone who volunteers four thousand hours or more for any
Speaker 1: organization will get.
Speaker 2: Right, Like there's hundreds of these thousands.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure for like people who really volunteer for
Speaker 1: a good cause, this is a nice thing to get.
Speaker 1: But his own organization just said he volunteered four thousand
Speaker 1: hours at the organization that pays him. Like I if
Speaker 1: I just were to frame this podcast as a volunteer effort,
Speaker 1: I could get this award, right. I've spent four thousand
Speaker 1: and hours on this job.
Speaker 2: I love the he speaks face to face with Jesus,
Speaker 2: but he got his congregation to plug him to get
Speaker 2: the Obama Canva Award, like it's talking to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Imba was a little harder to talk to, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very interesting guy.
Speaker 1: He's a busier man than Jesus at this point in time.
Speaker 1: So again, and a big part of his this In
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, this book Face to Face comes out,
Speaker 1: and it's a guide for how you two can talk
Speaker 1: to God one on one and if that doesn't work
Speaker 1: for you, if somehow just reading this book isn't enough
Speaker 1: and you're not seeing God physically in the flesh and
Speaker 1: feeling him, well, he offers a more personal touch, right.
Speaker 1: This is how this is what he's like because because
Speaker 1: his cult, most of the people who are listening to
Speaker 1: his churches, who are watching him, you know, watching like
Speaker 1: the videos of his church services or going in person,
Speaker 1: they're not full on cult members. They're giving him money
Speaker 1: and stuff he needs. Thousands of those people. His actual
Speaker 1: cult members are just a few dozen people. And these
Speaker 1: are the folks who they're like, Hey, this book, I'm
Speaker 1: still not talking to God. I really want to meet
Speaker 1: him in person. And David's like, well, then you got
Speaker 1: to come work for me. You have to give up
Speaker 1: all of your money, sign it all over to me,
Speaker 1: everything that you're worth, cut off your friends and family,
Speaker 1: who don't recognize me as a prophet and join the church, right,
Speaker 1: and he promises I can get you a connection directly
Speaker 1: to Jesus Christ because and this is the official stance
Speaker 1: of his church, David Taylor is the best friend of
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. That's his actual title. Really, yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: best Like that is his title. He is an apostle
Speaker 1: and the best friend.
Speaker 2: Of Jesus Christ, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: Which, like I would have guess Paul, maybe yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like they went through more together.
Speaker 2: But yeah, okay, it's such a funny thing to go for.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of these guys were like I am
Speaker 2: the new Jesus or like, you know, like God, this
Speaker 2: guy is like, now we're just best mates.
Speaker 1: Now we're super tight though. Yeah, like I have not
Speaker 1: God myself, but I am his best friend Jesus Christ exactly. So.
Speaker 1: Through his church organization jmm I, which stands for Joshua
Speaker 1: Media Ministries International, Taylor starts buying up properties during the
Speaker 1: Obama years. In twenty eleven, they purchase a twenty nine
Speaker 1: and twenty square foot industrial building in Taylor, Michigan, and
Speaker 1: they move at least ten people onto the property to start,
Speaker 1: although it's sometimes occupied by more, you know, up to
Speaker 1: a few dozen. And these people are some of there.
Speaker 1: There's somewhere I think sixty ish is the average number
Speaker 1: of full time cult members that he has. I think
Speaker 1: it's sometimes more like in the hundred or hundreds. Even
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to tell because I don't think
Speaker 1: we have a great accounting. Some of the sources are
Speaker 1: like there were six people in one of these buildings,
Speaker 1: and they own buildings in multiple states. Eventually they start
Speaker 1: with this property in Taylor, Michigan, but they're gonna wind
Speaker 1: up buying properties like all over the United States by
Speaker 1: the time they get raided. In addition to the property
Speaker 1: in Taylor, they have a property in Chesterfield, Missouri. They
Speaker 1: have one in Eureka, Missouri, Wildwood, Tampa, Florida, Ocala, Florida,
Speaker 1: and Houston, Texas. So and these are a mix of
Speaker 1: Some of these are just actual church buildings. Some of
Speaker 1: these are mansions, like again Nellie's old place in Saint
Speaker 1: Louis or near Saint Louis is like one of the
Speaker 1: places they're occupying. Some of them are like warehouse spaces.
Speaker 1: So it's a variety of different kinds of properties, but
Speaker 1: they are in like five or six states, right, so
Speaker 1: they're operating all over the place, and they're setting up
Speaker 1: not just like they don't just own these buildings. They
Speaker 1: have billboards on the way into and out of town
Speaker 1: that are like plugging both their churches and the services
Speaker 1: they're doing. He brings in other people as pastors under
Speaker 1: him because he can't preach it more than one church
Speaker 1: at a time, right, so that this does expand to
Speaker 1: be a sizable organization. And the people who are full
Speaker 1: time cold members have to give up their bank accounts,
Speaker 1: they have to sign over their retirement accounts and inheritances
Speaker 1: in order to serve the apostle in his world historic mission,
Speaker 1: which is God wants him to prepare seven billion souls
Speaker 1: for a great heavenly harvest. You know, like that's the
Speaker 1: that's what his ministry is going to do.
Speaker 2: That sounds like things are getting a little bit darker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little darker. It's a big job you're
Speaker 1: taking on. And yeah, now, if you're trying to save
Speaker 1: seven billion souls, you can't do that by having people
Speaker 1: come into a physical church, right. You can't even really
Speaker 1: do that just by having a TV channel seven billion
Speaker 1: is a lot of people. There's only one way to
Speaker 1: reach that many people by using the most efficient form
Speaker 1: about reaching existence, a call center.
Speaker 2: I knew that was coming. Yeah, yeah, Zooming God.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, Zooming God. The cult starts operating in the
Speaker 1: early adds a twenty four to seven prayer line, and
Speaker 1: they have online ads. They have billboards all over in
Speaker 1: states like like Missouri, right where they direct worshippers to
Speaker 1: call in if they needed a miracle. And so this
Speaker 1: is framed as like are you desperate? Are you maybe suicidal?
Speaker 1: Are you in like serious need of like some sort
Speaker 1: of help, you know, call this number and we can
Speaker 1: help you, right like like and it again, it's kind
Speaker 1: of almost framed as like a suicide hotline or are
Speaker 1: you are you about to get evicted? Is is your
Speaker 1: life in shambles? Basically like we can this cult can
Speaker 1: help you, right, the Kingdom of God can can fix
Speaker 1: whatever the hell is wrong with you, just give us
Speaker 1: a call. So they are deliberately going after the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable people, right like, that's obviously what's going on here.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the whole purpose of the prayer line isn't
Speaker 1: to actually help anyone. It's not even to really pray
Speaker 1: for anyone. The entire reason for this is to get
Speaker 1: people talking to his church's unpaid workers, who were, like
Speaker 1: they were each supposed to talk to hundreds of people
Speaker 1: a day and bring in tens of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: in donations. Right, this is just a donation thing, because
Speaker 1: it becomes clear once you're talking to the prayer line
Speaker 1: that if you really want your prayers to work, if
Speaker 1: you want God to listen to you, you got to
Speaker 1: pay up, you know, otherwise, how dos you know you're serious?
Speaker 1: Per an article in Saint Louis Magazine, According to the
Speaker 1: indictment against Taylor and brand and Brandon's like his top
Speaker 1: number one, Lady Taylor instructed followers working the call centers
Speaker 1: to lie and say that collected money was to be
Speaker 1: used to build wells and impoverished parts of the world
Speaker 1: and fight human trafficking. So you have to put in
Speaker 1: some money to prove to God that you're serious. But
Speaker 1: we're only going to use it to help people, you know,
Speaker 1: to further our great work. And from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: a lot of the appeal here is the promise that
Speaker 1: David is going to intervene directly with Jesus and use
Speaker 1: his friendship to save the lives of your dying loved ones. Right,
Speaker 1: if you have a serious problem, largely family members who
Speaker 1: are sick, David can intervene on your behalf for enough money.
Speaker 1: And this is a claim that they made specifically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, this is where for me, it's just becomes
Speaker 2: so evil, Like it's just so nasty to do that
Speaker 2: to people.
Speaker 1: You know, it's disgusting, right, because people. I've had a
Speaker 1: loved one who had thankfully it wound up being benign,
Speaker 1: but had a brain tumor and we didn't know if
Speaker 1: it was cancerous or not for a while. We just
Speaker 1: knew it was affecting her memory. It was just really
Speaker 1: fucking her life up. And obviously we went to doctors,
Speaker 1: we like did the and that's how we found out,
Speaker 1: and we got it medicated and whatnot. But we were
Speaker 1: also trying all sorts of nonsense treatments, right, stuff that
Speaker 1: I would not have thought because you just you just
Speaker 1: desperate and terrified. Yeah, you know you read on the
Speaker 1: maybe this fucking helps. Okay, you know it's not smart.
Speaker 1: It's just when you're someone you love is sick and
Speaker 1: you have no idea what's wrong. It's very easy, Like
Speaker 1: I do have empathy people being conned here, it's.
Speaker 2: So easy to be like, oh, that's fucking stupid. If
Speaker 2: you've ever been in like that dark fucking trench of
Speaker 2: just kind of mis damn and fear. Absolutely, it is
Speaker 2: exactly that. Yeah, and you it's incredible how quickly you
Speaker 2: will go right. Yesterday that was the craziest thing ever.
Speaker 2: Now today, I'll try it. Whatever it is, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's really sad anything, Yeah, exactly, Like who knows,
Speaker 2: you know, it's very sad to pray on people like that.
Speaker 2: It's it's just vile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the evilest thing I think that you can
Speaker 1: pretty much do outside of like murdered directly murdering people
Speaker 1: or whatever. I guess it's it's on the I don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't need to quantify it, but yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty hideous. So he is making these claims very directly.
Speaker 1: And my favorite specific example of this is a claim
Speaker 1: repeated in numerous cult propaganda videos and articles. Here's one
Speaker 1: example published on his church's website. A pastor received a
Speaker 1: text message that his cousin had dropped down dead while
Speaker 1: taking a shower. He sent a text to David E.
Speaker 1: Taylor explaining the situation. Right after he released that command
Speaker 1: to get up. He being David Taylor, the young man's
Speaker 1: heart started beating again. And so this is the claim
Speaker 1: he's making that this pastor calls and said, my cousin
Speaker 1: just dropped dead from a heart attack. And Taylor yells,
Speaker 1: get up into the phone, and his cousin's heart starts
Speaker 1: beating again. And there's give his proof. Like in articles
Speaker 1: and stuff like this, there's pictures generally shared. I'll show
Speaker 1: you one example here. You can see there's a photo
Speaker 1: of the kid in the hospital giving a thumbs up,
Speaker 1: and then like a picture of him healthy outside of it.
Speaker 1: Before and after. It says young man raised from the
Speaker 1: dead by the Lord working through David Taylor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, the thumbs up. Fucking killing the thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Let you know that he's okay because David Taylor braid
Speaker 1: for him. Obviously, I'm convinced this seems like truth to me.
Speaker 2: Came back from the dead, and he's like, yop, thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Thumbs up, I'm good. I do want to play you
Speaker 1: one of the YouTube propaganda videos that cult put out,
Speaker 1: which focused on a different claim of power over life
Speaker 1: and death and actually gives you. You get to see
Speaker 1: some of David Taylor uh and his wife preaching in
Speaker 1: this and as a bonus, Jake, keep an eye out.
Speaker 1: David Taylor is wearing what I can only describe as
Speaker 1: the most incredible outfit I have ever seen in my life. Okay,
Speaker 1: it is this is this is special. Sure experience the
Speaker 1: dead being race critical condition. Tonight after a shooting outside
Speaker 1: of Georgia restaurant. Tell me you heard about this year
Speaker 1: of NFL Super Bowl, a young man was shot.
Speaker 2: Point blink rooting for the forty nine. It was national news.
Speaker 4: This is the young man.
Speaker 5: Four people had already died around him.
Speaker 3: The doctor said, Chris is not gonna make it.
Speaker 1: The young man win it to Acoma and died for
Speaker 1: twenty minutes.
Speaker 3: And they said, never in the history of the hospital
Speaker 3: had they lost four patients with a fifth expected. A
Speaker 3: text apostle Taylor. He said, Chris is not gonna die,
Speaker 3: He's gonna lead it.
Speaker 1: This was a resurrection.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was shot twice.
Speaker 4: That's here.
Speaker 1: It is a year later, and I'm standing before.
Speaker 2: Your dad can't be raised.
Speaker 5: My cousin had just dropped down dead while taking a shower,
Speaker 5: and I'd seen the Lord and yours DAVIDY Taylor to
Speaker 5: raise the dead. I sent him a text and he
Speaker 5: sent me a text and said the Lord told them
Speaker 5: only twowards to set, and that was get up, And
Speaker 5: shortly after Posse released the command, my cousin was raised
Speaker 5: from the dead.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, for those of you watching the video, we'll
Speaker 1: cut in here, like right now while I'm talking, we'll
Speaker 1: have our editor throwing a screen grab of David and
Speaker 1: that incredible outfit. But Jake, how would you describe him?
Speaker 2: Look, you know, you know you in the Beasts, Like
Speaker 2: there's a there's a bit, Yeah, there's a bit where
Speaker 2: he gets really dressed up to like take Bell to
Speaker 2: like well not take her out, but they do something
Speaker 2: fancy dinner, and it's basically that. It's literally that outfit.
Speaker 1: Man telling you, yeah, yeah, it's literally it's it's something
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson would have worn.
Speaker 2: It's fucking mate. It something like Prince would have worn
Speaker 2: if you had a kid with Michael Jackson. Like it's
Speaker 2: like next level.
Speaker 1: I do want that jacket, right, Like I.
Speaker 2: Do want to wear And just people looking at you,
Speaker 2: like what Jesus is my best mate. Fuck off, can
Speaker 2: wear what I want.
Speaker 1: Incredible stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the the production of that is kind of wild though,
Speaker 2: Like I'll be honest, it's pretty clever, like it's kind
Speaker 2: of it's well, yeah, it's well made, and it's presented
Speaker 2: as a news report kind of. I've actually not seen
Speaker 2: a cult do that, I don't think, maybe not so
Speaker 2: not that level. Like that's pretty dark but unique in
Speaker 2: that sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty novel, right, and it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: cross you said, Yeah, there's it's across between like a
Speaker 1: network news broadcast and like a movie trailer. Is interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now I should say before we close out here, the
Speaker 1: actual story of what happened to that young man who
Speaker 1: dropped dead and supposedly got brought back to life because
Speaker 1: Taylor commanded him to over the phone. There was a
Speaker 1: real young guy who had a heart attack and I
Speaker 1: think was legally dead for a period of time. It
Speaker 1: was not his claim. The claim made by the church
Speaker 1: in all of David Taylor's websites is that like a
Speaker 1: pastor called him and told him about this this member
Speaker 1: of his church who had dropped dead. The young man
Speaker 1: was actually the cousin of a JMMI employee, by which
Speaker 1: I mean an unpaid worker named Joseph Busch. So one
Speaker 1: of what actually happened here is that this dude who's
Speaker 1: a member of the Colt's cousin has a heart attack
Speaker 1: and is dead for a while and then gets brought
Speaker 1: back and is okay and recovers because that happens to
Speaker 1: people some times. And Joseph tells Taylor, and Taylor's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I saved him, right, and then he starts massaging the
Speaker 1: story from there.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, his kid was in hospital with his
Speaker 2: thumb up, but it was not the reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, had nothing to do with David E. Taylor. And
Speaker 1: he was not called by another pastor. He did nothing
Speaker 1: over the phone, like because that's just not possibly found
Speaker 1: out about it because one of his cult members was
Speaker 1: the guy's cousin. It's not a fucking other church or whatever.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that he either told this guy,
Speaker 1: you know, basically lie so that we can use this
Speaker 1: to recruit, or this guy is just enough of a
Speaker 1: cult member that he was like, yeah, that was me
Speaker 1: who saved him, and the guy was like, oh my god, Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you. You know, something like that happened one of
Speaker 1: the two, but it's not the story that's being told here.
Speaker 1: And this is all like silly and fucked up, but
Speaker 1: it does get to like the central darkness at the
Speaker 1: core of what is otherwise a pretty standard Pentecostal cult movement.
Speaker 1: The whole appeal of David E. Taylor to the dedicated
Speaker 1: cult members who staffed his call center and of the
Speaker 1: thousands of more casual members who came to see him
Speaker 1: speak at three day miracle raising events, or those who
Speaker 1: called into his prayer line, the appeal was that this
Speaker 1: guy could save your loved ones from death. And for
Speaker 1: most people, the extra bit of hope they got sending
Speaker 1: in a donation or getting a prayer to tailor's ears
Speaker 1: was enough, right, And I'm going to guess that in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, it's somebody sick and you're worried
Speaker 1: about them, so you call and you send some money,
Speaker 1: and then they get better because generally people do, and
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, probably helped, right. But for the folks
Speaker 1: who actually made up the man power of his cult,
Speaker 1: the people who he is actually trafficking, right, the folks
Speaker 1: who are effectively enslaved working for him, the situation is
Speaker 1: a lot more serious. Right, These are not just people
Speaker 1: calling in when they're worried and sending in a few bucks.
Speaker 1: And David isn't just promising that he can save the
Speaker 1: people they care about from dying. He's also threatening them, right,
Speaker 1: He's telling them that, you know, I can save your
Speaker 1: loved ones, or I can make God take them away. Right,
Speaker 1: I can have God curse you or the people you
Speaker 1: care about and destroy them, or you if you're not
Speaker 1: bringing in enough money in donations. That's that's where this
Speaker 1: kind of morph's in fairly quick order over the course
Speaker 1: of like the Late Oughts, Right, that's where David E.
Speaker 1: Taylor's ministry goes.
Speaker 2: I saw and I saw this happen before in a cult,
Speaker 2: and I found someone really interested in explaining. Maybe not always,
Speaker 2: but they were saying, like the reason that happens is
Speaker 2: because they get really angry that they're not Like they
Speaker 2: get rich and then they want more and they get
Speaker 2: angry that they're not getting it. And it's like they
Speaker 2: process the anger through being like, yeah, I'll smite your
Speaker 2: whole family or whatever. Like it's it's like directly linked
Speaker 2: to their own little feelings, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, I agree entirely. And you know, Jake, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's the episode. That's part one. You get anything you
Speaker 1: want to plug here at the end.
Speaker 2: Uh, well, Jesus is actually my best friend. So the
Speaker 2: we go and also listen to sad Oligarch. We just
Speaker 2: got season two out. It's some of the most well,
Speaker 2: it's some of the most work I've ever done on
Speaker 2: something in such a difficult way, like since we did
Speaker 2: season one. I'm not saying it's because of us, but
Speaker 2: since we did season one, it's extremely hard to get
Speaker 2: any info on anything right now. So I'm really proud
Speaker 2: of the work we've done, me and Sergey and Victim Mihiel,
Speaker 2: and we've just absolutely smashed it. Man, really really enjoying it.
Speaker 2: I think people like it. So yeah, Man, sad Oligarch
Speaker 2: season two, it's out now.
Speaker 1: Sad Oligarchs Season two is out now. Is Jake responsible
Speaker 1: for the deaths of any of these oligarchs? You know,
Speaker 1: we can't say no. We can't say no.
Speaker 2: I promise no, Jake.
Speaker 1: Jake says no. All right, that's it. Everybody come back
Speaker 1: in part two and we'll hear more cult shit.
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production a cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4: For more from Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot
Speaker 4: com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 4: or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is
Speaker 4: now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 4: Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind
Speaker 4: the Bastards