Introduction to the Mormon Prepper Movement

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Bryan Buchanan [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Lead

Bryan Buchanan [00:00:43] thou me on the night is dark enough.

John Dehlin [00:00:49] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host John Dehlin. It is currently September 8, 2015 and we are doing a special episode today in a panel format to discuss the phenomenon within Mormonism that is Julie Rowe. That's J U L I E R O W E. You can follow her@julierow prepare.com and just to give a sort of really brief, uninformed sort of overview, apparently Julie Rowe had a near death experience several years ago as a Mormon. She wrote this book chronicling her near death experience where she claims that God, you know, gave her visions of the future. And this is sort of snowballed into this really significant movement that I would probably say numbers in at least the tens of thousands and my panelists can correct me if that's wrong. But of all these sort of, sort of what are called preppers or preparers, and these are people who are starting to sort of, well, who believe that some sort of major catastrophe is coming in September 2015. They're buying ten thousands or tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff. They're selling their 401ks, they're buying gold, they're doing, you know, buying tents and preparing for some big event that I think is called the Call Out. And it's everywhere. It's in Utah, it's in Nevada, it's in Idaho, and it's really significant. And today we're going to talk about this whole movement. And so first what I want to do is play a little clip, seven minute clip borrowed from a Julie Rowe YouTube clip that I'm going to share on the Mormon Stories page as well. And this will be Julie in her own words sort of giving an introduction to her story and to her experiences and who she is. And after that clip's over the then what we'll do is we'll jump into the panel discussion, I'll introduce the panel and then we'll talk about Julie Rowe. So here is the clip of Julie Rowe telling her own story in her own words.

Julie Rowe's Near Death Experience and Books

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:03:08] Hi, my name is Julie Rowe and I'm the author of two books, A Greater Tomorrow and the Time is Now. These books tell a little bit about my experience, some of my story of what some would call my near death experience that occurred in September of 2004. Essentially what happened to me is I had a virus. There were a lot of things going on with my health at the time that kind of set me over. But the tipping point, or what essentially caused me to go into the hospital and pass to the other side is that I had a virus that attacked my liver, centralized my liver, spread throughout my body, went systemic. So in a weakened state, my body passed to the other side and I had a visit in the spirit world for a couple of days. I don't know how long that is in spirit world time, but according to hospital records, I was, in quotation marks, medical terms, asleep for two days when I found myself in this different realm. I was in the middle of a green field, the most beautiful green field I've ever seen. And was immediately within a few minutes, that's what it seemed like. I don't really know how long it was. It was after I'd had a chance to look around for a little bit, I was greeted by a very dear man, was made known to me. He introduced himself as John and is a distant relative of mine. John and I talked for quite some time. We talked about why I was there, where I was, why I was there, and quite a bit about what I would experience. I initially wanted to stay forever. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen and had ever been and was pain free and felt a love like I have never felt on Earth. It was the most incredible, most enveloping love. Essentially during that time, John and I talked. We talked about our pre Earth life, pre existence, if you will, and some of what that entailed. And I was reminded of things and I was shown some things and had quite a long visit with John about that, as well as the purpose behind why I had passed to the other side and some of what would be going on in the future. We talked about my foreordained mission and my family, my loved ones, my children. I essentially came to an agreement with John. There really aren't words to describe. That's not really the right wording. But that I would be given a tour of the spirit world. That's not the word that was used there. There's a different way that people communicate on the Other side. But.

Video Clip 1 [00:06:25] But

Video Clip 1 [00:06:27] for all earthly purposes, the word tor is what comes to mind. And I was shown quite a few things. A panorama of the Earth's history from the creation and into the future. And I was able to witness many of the historical events that have happened on this planet, including Adam, Enoch, Moses, the life of our Savior, the birth and death of Savior Jesus Christ. So many of the historical figures that we read about, learned about Joan of Arc, Christopher Columbus, the Founding Fathers, the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and we had discussions about all of this. And I was able to meet many of these people and learn of these things and also of the future events that would take place in my lifetime. And the purposes behind what some of my mission is, is to be able to witness and testify of our Savior Jesus Christ and of his plan, of his plan of happiness, his plan of salvation, his plan of redemption, of the atoning sacrifice of our loving Father in heaven and Savior Jesus Christ, and of their purposes for us, which is to help us return to them as our Father in Heaven's children, that he wants nothing more than for us to be able to come home. I was also shown the Book of Life, the Book of Records. I had a life review and I was shown several other things I won't go into. They were more of a personal nature. The majority of what I was taught there was just for me and it was in regards to me and my family. But I was shown other things, I guess to help me fulfill the mission that the Lord's given me and that I agreed to in the pre existence, which is that I would serve as an additional witness of our Father in Heaven and of his plan of salvation and redemption of our Savior Jesus Christ, that He is the Savior of all the world and that he is very, very real and that he loves us, each and every one of his children, equally. So my mission that I've been given is to share my story with my children, with my loved ones, and with my brothers and sisters and more of God's children, as many as God's children as will hear His Word and to witness of their love, of their plan and to testify of the reality of who they are and also to help serve as a voice of warning for us to prepare spiritually and temporally, specifically spiritually prepare for, for what we need to do individually and collectively, to prepare not just now, but for the days that are soon upon us and that will come to pass as we prepare for the return of our Savior.

John Dehlin [00:09:48] And it's crazy and fascinating. And so to join us, I have with me Ryan McKnight. I found Ryan. Hey, Ryan, welcome. Thanks for joining us today. All right, I found Ryan on Reddit, but he is an accountant and an auditor and he has a master's in accounting. And he sort of has, as an area of interest and maybe even expertise, something that he calls affinity fraud. And as we talk to you, Ryan, you can tell us what that means and how that might or might not apply to Julie Rowe and others. But maybe we don't have to dive into that immediately. Let's start with the history. But in addition to Ryan McKnight, I have joined with me today Samantha Snyder. Hey, Samantha, thanks for joining us. Thanks for joining us.

Guest 2 [00:10:38] Pleased to be here.

John Dehlin [00:10:40] Samantha started a blog called was it Millennial Mormons or Mormon Millennials?

Guest 2 [00:10:45] Millennial Mormons.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Millennial Mormons way back in the day. She no longer blogs there. She now has a blog called what,

Guest 2 [00:10:55] Zelf on the show?

John Dehlin [00:10:56] No, the previous one.

Guest 2 [00:10:58] Oh, that one, yeah. Whatsoever is Good.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Whatsoever Is Good was her follow up blog. And now she and another guest, Tanner Gilliland. Right, Tanner.

Guest 3 [00:11:08] Yep, that's it.

John Dehlin [00:11:10] Are co bloggers on a new blog called Zelf on the Shelf that we'll talk about as well. I have interviewed already Samantha and Tanner for a multi hour Mormon Stories interview about Mormon millennials and sort of how many of them are struggling in their Mormonism. But we're going to save that discussion for later. So Samantha and Tanner, both of you, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Guest 3 [00:11:34] Thanks, John.

John Dehlin [00:11:36] All right, and we may have a fourth person join us from Reddit, but right now they're driving home from work. So we're going to start with this group and we're going to have sort of Ryan act as the main authority because I think he's followed Julie Rowe and friends more closely than the rest of us. But I want to invite Samantha and Tanner to sort of add color and commentary as we go. How does that sound?

Guest 3 [00:12:00] Everybody sounds great.

Background on Julie Rowe and Her Claims

John Dehlin [00:12:02] All right, so Ryan, just start with take us way back to Julie Rowe, her beginnings, her book, and give us the timeline. And we're just all dying to hear.

Bryan Buchanan [00:12:16] Well, I just want to say that I do feel a little bit of pressure now that you've claimed, you know, you've called me an authority on Julie Rowe, but I'll try to live up to that title and I'm sure somebody on the Internet will correct that, that knows way more about her than I do. But so Julie Rowe, from what I've studied and read about her, she claims back in 2004 to have had a near death experience. And she first talked about it publicly, from what I can tell, in a book that she wrote called A Greater tomorrow. I'm not 100% sure when that first edition was printed. I'm trying to look that up now, but it's okay.

Guest 3 [00:12:58] It was May 2014.

Bryan Buchanan [00:13:01] Yeah, that was the date I was just getting here. So yeah, May 2014. Now, I don't know if prior to that how vocal she was about her near death experience, if it was just limited to family members or if it was just not as widespread, but obviously with the publication of her book, it began to get a little bit more traction out there among the many doomsdayer groups. Mainly Mormon, because she's Mormon, but I've seen her mentioned on blogs that are not specifically Mormon as well, that just kind of talk about general doomsday stuff, like Alex Jones stuff and even like Glenn Beck, who has alluded to a lot of the same things Julie does. So anyway, she has this near death experience that if you listen to some of her interviews, she. She can only talk about it in sort of real general terms. She can't really give specifics, even though she was given specifics in her near death experience. God supposedly showed her. I think she had like, if I'm not mistaken, she had like a tour guide, if you will, in this near death experience, somebody who was sort of guiding her through it. And she saw the beginning and the creation of the world and all the major events that we all know mainly from a religious standpoint throughout the quote, unquote, history of the world since Adam. And that also included things like the American Revolution and the Constitution things, events relating the US Constitution and whatnot. And then it brought her to the present day and then it also showed her the future. And of course, that is where she says that she was told not to talk about certain things in detail. She talks in great detail about the stuff that she saw from the past. But she has to be careful because of the sacred nature of some of the future things. So anyway, after her book comes out, she starts to.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] Okay, wait, let me just. Let me just say I would love to corroborate if the book is 2014, because if that book first came out in 2014, that is an amazing following for only a year.

Bryan Buchanan [00:15:11] Let me see if that's a first printing or not. It looks like it is. I'm trying to see if that's a first or second printing.

John Dehlin [00:15:18] And Tanner, Samantha, you guys can look that up.

Guest 3 [00:15:21] Yeah, I'M looking at a post that she wrote on LDS Freedom Forum wherein she said that she had just released the book in May 2014.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] Yeah. So that, I mean, isn't that a crazy. Would you guys say it's tens of thousands of followers at this point.

Guest 2 [00:15:35] She also came out with Another book in 2014 called the Time is Now, which was a follow up to Greater Tomorrow.

Guest 3 [00:15:41] And I think she was, you know, she had a pretty prime audience because she's not the only one doing this kind of thing right now. You know, there's other voices out there with similar things. You've got John Pontius and his Visions of Glory book as well, that are kind of setting this a similar stage.

John Dehlin [00:15:55] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:15:56] There's also a woman by the name of Shel McDermott, and I don't know when she came onto the scene herself, but she's also written a book and she was the moderator. What do you, what do you call it? Administrator, I guess, of the, of the main Facebook page that was that us on Ex Mormon infiltrated, if you will, and were able to get a lot of screen posts. Shel McDermott was the administrator of that and she also wrote a book called the Great Gathering and she has a pretty decent following herself, but she's pretty much in line with Julie Rowe and she talks about herself as if she's a close ally of Julie Rowe.

John Dehlin [00:16:37] Yeah, but, I mean, but it's a crazy. Like, you know, my sister in law who was just visiting us last night, she just said she attended some conference of homeschoolers like in Heber Valley, and it was just like full of people buying tents and buying trailers. And these are like mainstream Mormons from some random connection I have through my sister in law. Like whenever that starts happening and it's all over Ex Mormon Reddit. Like, would you guys say it's tens of thousands of followers at this point?

Bryan Buchanan [00:17:10] I think it's difficult to quantify because it's all spread out, but I would be shocked if it was less than 10,000. I don't know where I could cap it at, but I'd say it would have to be 10,000 plus, just based on my observations.

Guest 3 [00:17:25] And just like everything these days, prepping is a spectrum. Right. Because even the most basic Mormon will have their food supply and things like that. But as far as her actual readership, it'd be hard to, you know, pin down an actual number.

Followers Spending Thousands on Supplies

Bryan Buchanan [00:17:37] Okay, all right, so, and John, real quick, you mentioned the tents. I just want to. Before I forget. And I don't know if this is the event that maybe your contact went to. But on July 25, at an event in Rexburg, Julie Rowe claimed. I can't find the exact paragraph, but anyway, she claimed that, like, $42,000 worth of tents had been purchased by the church. Now, this is from somebody's notes who was there. They published their notes on a blog.

John Dehlin [00:18:08] Okay, well, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Okay, so she publishes a book, and then

Bryan Buchanan [00:18:14] she starts touring, basically the US Mainly the western states. I don't know that she's gone east, west, or not. The farthest east I've seen is Texas and I think Missouri. I don't know if she's gone farther east than that, but at least initially, these firesides is what they were being called, were held at LDS chapels. And as far as proof for that, the only real proof is people's personal blogs who are followers of her who have posted the notes from their meeting. And these are people that are not antagonistic towards her message. And like the one in Seattle, it says that the chapel was overflowing into the church cultural hall, and there was an event scheduled, I believe it was for May or June of this year. And it was scheduled for the. Is there a tabernacle in St. George? I'm speaking a little bit off the cuff here, but I think there's a tabernacle or something like that in St. George, and that's where it was scheduled to be held. And the last minute it was actually moved. Now, they used high demand of attendance as a reason to move it, but there was also that particular event got a lot of publicity that was not so much friendly. And so it's also kind of thought that maybe there was some pressure to take it out of the church. And since then, since that St. George incident in June, I haven't seen any evidence that her meetings are held in chapels. They may or may not be, but I haven't seen anybody mention a chapel. But anyway, so she's been traveling these chapels and. And from what I can tell, she gives these. If you read the notes from these events, she really says nothing. She talks like one of these cold reader psychics. She says a lot of real general statements, a lot of stuff that has happened in the past that she claimed that she knew before. Like she said that when she was 20 years old, she had a dream that Rexburg was going to flourish and that it was going to have a temple and the school was going to grow. And sure enough, here she is back some 20 years later in Rexburg, and there's a temple and BYU Idaho has grown. And that's sort of one of her prophecies that came true. So she tells stories like that. And then she'll say things like

Guest 4 [00:20:41] I

Bryan Buchanan [00:20:41] have never seen anywhere that says she's given any specific dates. Anytime you see a specific date, it's from her followers who have taken her words and tried to fit it within dates. But she says that the earthquakes are imminent, that it's going to start with earthquakes on the Wasatch front and in Missouri, that there's going to be utter destruction in those areas. And I actually think she actually says the precursor to all that is going to be a financial collapse, which a lot of people have placed on September 13th, 14th, 15th of this year, or possibly some people are putting it in September of next year. There are people that are doing that.

Guest 2 [00:21:22] And she does allude to it on her website for this year.

Bryan Buchanan [00:21:25] Yeah, she alludes to it. But she never, as far as I know, she never gives a specific date. She lets everybody else do that dirty work. And so then you're going to have the earthquakes. Sometime in between the financial collapse and the earthquakes is going to be the call out. And from what I gather, she indicates that the callout is actually going to be an official call out from the church. It's not going to be like her doing the call out, that it's actually going to be something from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles or whatever First Presidency. The faithful will follow the call out. They'll go and they'll have to abandon their homes and they'll have to abandon everything, just pick up and leave with this one plus year of supplies that they've been gathering and they will go to these tent cities. And so that's why you have this emphasis on the tents. One day I was searching something online and I actually found couple of websites that had nothing to do with any of this that talked about how these big, huge tents are on crazy back order because they're being bought left and right by Julie Rowe people and other similar groups. So you'll go to these tent cities and you'll live off of, you know, the rations from your supplies. And until the whole world is going to go through all kinds of destruction. And then in the end, of course. What's that? Yeah, no, I think. Yeah, I think it's basically what you've got. And you know, I think you're supposed to share it with the fellow people that aren't as prepared and everything.

John Dehlin [00:23:08] Are these in Missouri? Are they in Utah? Are they in Missouri. Do we know the location?

Bryan Buchanan [00:23:13] They're all over the place. Yeah, they're all over the place. Actually. She talks about what are called, I think she calls them light.

Guest 4 [00:23:20] Cities of light.

Bryan Buchanan [00:23:21] Cities, I think is the term. Cities of Light. That's right, yeah. Rexburg. It seems that like every city she goes to is a city of light because every note it's like, this is going to be a city of light. So Seattle is going to be a city of light. Rexburg. I think St. George as well. I could be wrong on that. Now, Texas, there's some notes from a Texas meeting and she actually, actually says that she doesn't see any cities of light in Texas.

John Dehlin [00:23:49] Bummer for the Texans.

Bryan Buchanan [00:23:51] Yeah, they will have some outposts, if you will, where people who are traveling to the Cities of Light, they'll be sort of like safe, safe points, safe checkpoints that they can stop and sort of, you know, re energize or re up on whatever as they're making their way to the Cities of Light. But she said that she doesn't see cities of Light in Texas. And you know, so what happens is she says all this off the wall stuff, but really at the end of the day she really says nothing. She just says these really general statements of doom and gloom. And what happens is then her followers go back to their homes with their notes and they go on their Facebook groups and they start comparing notes of not just Julie Rowe, but of

John Dehlin [00:24:41] who?

Bryan Buchanan [00:24:41] One of the prophet. There's several statements from past prophets and I think Ezra, maybe Ezra, Taft, Benson, somebody. They'll take statements from them, they'll take statements from this person, they'll take statements from that person. They'll take the blood moon that's going to happen and they'll take the Jewish holiday that's going to happen and the Jewish something that's going to happen once in 10,000 years. All these crazy things. And then they say all of this points to now and that's why we have to get ready. And they had, just over the summer, just a couple weeks ago, they had like a convention there in a preparedness convention there in Utah somewhere. And I saw some pictures where they're selling hand carts and things like that and people are buying this stuff. There's screenshots that you can see on Reddit if you search for Julie Rowe and the ex Mormon Reddit, there's plenty of users that have posted screenshots from the Facebook groups that we infiltrated. And it shows these hand carts, it shows pictures of their food storage and John Samantha Tanner. This is like, if you haven't seen these yet, this is like not food storage. You've never seen before. There was a lady that had like four or five. I think it was 55 pounds of

Guest 3 [00:25:58] M& Ms. Yeah, I saw that. That she's gonna transport in a handcart. Because we learned from the pioneers that handcarts are the best, most efficient way to travel.

Bryan Buchanan [00:26:07] Yeah, but. And, and you know, it's not M&M's is just, you know, one thing. So it's. But it's crazy. And the worst part about it all, as if spending all your money on this food isn't bad enough, you've got people that appear to be sincere and they're posting that they've already cashed out their 401k or not necessarily cashed out, but taken loans on them, or they're going to sell their house and go into a rental property so that they have all the cash on hand. And then they'll put things like on these Facebook groups, they'll put things like, should I have the cash on hand? Should I convert it into gold? Should I spend it all on supplies? And then, you know, everybody gives their opinions. And every once in a while somebody will. One of these ex Mormons or rational thinkers that has infiltrated the group can't stay quiet anymore. And they'll just put together a very reasonable comment about how they're making a huge mistake and that person will immediately be booted from the group. The most rational responses I've ever seen that have stayed up to people asking about cashing out their 401k and whatnot will be a comment to the effect of, well, none of us here can really tell you what to do. You need to pray about it and follow the Holy Ghost. Those are the most reasonable comments that are allowed. Anything that has any hint of don't cash your 401k out will be booted.

John Dehlin [00:27:42] Wow.

Bryan Buchanan [00:27:43] Yeah. And that's the scariest part about this. I mean, I don't know how many people have cashed out their 401k or taken loans on them, but it's more than a couple. And then you got to think about all the people that aren't posting on social media that are doing it. Because if you've got a number of people posting on social media, I think it stands to reason there's probably even more that keep it to themselves or don't post it on social media. And so that's something that is life changing for these people. The food they can Eat the food, I suppose over time, but cashing out the 401k, it's amazing.

Fear, Martial Law, and Abandoning Social Media

Guest 2 [00:28:20] Savanta, I was just gonna say, I know that some preppers have been just abandoning Facebook and everything like that as their like final preparation phase, because I know a prepper who's done that. And so I know some people are just avoiding the Internet because they feel like it's detrimental to their spirit and all that stuff.

Bryan Buchanan [00:28:38] Well, and an important, an important point to add to that is lot of people, a lot of them are doing it under the guise of Marshall, the martial law that is coming, because that's another component I hadn't mentioned. Martial law at some point is going to be imposed by Obama. And, and when that happens, if you are a prepper, you're basically an enemy of the state. And if you're on Facebook or you're on whatever website then there, then the government's going to use that to track you down and take your stuff away from you. And in fact, the one main group that had been infiltrated, which was called Among, I think it was called like among LDS Friends, I think was the name. And that was the one that Shell McDermott was running or is running. And there was a point where there was sort of a sticky post that said this Facebook group will close on September, whatever it was, 10th or 12th. I don't remember the exact date now. I think before I got kicked out of that group, I think she had posted a follow up to that saying that it wasn't going to shut down, but she was going to hand over the control to somebody else and that she would be going off the grid or something. But yeah, so a lot of people like Samantha said are starting to go off the grid for whatever reason, but a lot of them are proclaiming it's because of this martial law that's coming. And I don't know if you want to get into this down the road, but my. What I think what I see is the common denominator amongst all these people because it depends on what website you go to or what Facebook group you go to. You're going to get a unique brand of Julie Rowe at each one and you're even going to get some people that disagree with her in some areas. But what I have found to be the one common denominator among all these preppers is that whatever is going to happen, it's going to happen before Obama leaves office. And he is sort of the common denominator in all this. And there was some, supposedly I haven't been able to confirm this and I cannot find the quote right now, but one of them claimed, one of the preppers claimed that there was one of the LDS prophets. I want to say Benson, but it might have been another one that said something to the effect of that when the first non European looking person is a president, that that's going to be the beginning of the end.

Guest 3 [00:31:04] George Albert Smith, was it?

Bryan Buchanan [00:31:06] George Albert Smith. There you go. And again, I haven't been able to confirm that he actually said that, but that's a pretty widespread quote among the preppers. No citation, of course. And they're using that as sort of an indicator that Obama, you know, but like I said that he, Obama ends up being the common denominator in all of this. And whether, whether the prepper believes it's gonna happen this September or next spring or next fall, it's gonna happen before he leaves office on January 20, 2017, before he gets whoever the new president is sworn in and probably before the election of that president.

John Dehlin [00:31:44] And he's going to. So Obama's a bad guy to this group.

Bryan Buchanan [00:31:48] Yeah, supposedly he's going to. As part of all of this, he's going to suspend the election or suspend the ascension of the new president. And because of all of this chaos that's going to be going on, he's going to use the financial ruin, the earthquakes, the destruction as an excuse to declare martial law, cancel the election, and he's basically going to be the president. Indefinite. Excuse me, indefinitely.

John Dehlin [00:32:16] Kind of like Putin.

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:20] And I've even heard rumors about like Chinese and Russian troops already on US soil. Is that right?

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:27] Yeah, there's been some posts on that, but everything I've seen usually leads back to one of these spoof news sites that they. Just something they believe. You know, you'll see several times where somebody will post a new site that says something like, you know, Chinese, Chinese are running military drills in, you know, in Montana or something like that. And then you'll go to the, you'll click on the website and it's like one of the. It's like the Onion. No, it's not the Onion.

Guest 3 [00:32:57] Like World Daily News Report or something.

Bryan Buchanan [00:32:59] Yeah, it's like, it's like a site that does a better job than the Onion that people haven't caught on yet that it's fake. So yeah, they, they do believe that, that the Chinese and Russian or Russians are going to invade us. And they do believe that they're already here, you know, that. And that, that all ties into this whole jade helm. I Don't know. John, if you've heard, what is that?

John Dehlin [00:33:19] Yeah. What's Jade Helm?

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:20] Okay, so Jade Helm is this big military exercise, and people like Alex Jones and the conspiracy community that follow him and same type of people that follow Julie Rowe, felt that this might be like a precursor or a dry run of Obama invading the US or implementing martial law or any number of variations of the conspiracy that all revolve around that type of stuff. And so along with that comes this.

John Dehlin [00:33:52] So Shane Helm, like the code name that the military uses to describe.

Bryan Buchanan [00:33:57] It's the name of the exercise. It's a legitimate military exercise.

John Dehlin [00:34:01] All right.

Guest 4 [00:34:01] All right. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:34:03] I'm not sure what the Jade Helm refers to. I'm sure it means something.

John Dehlin [00:34:06] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:34:07] I'm sure it's like an acronym just like everything else with the military, but I don't know what it is.

John Dehlin [00:34:10] Okay.

Bryan Buchanan [00:34:11] So. But along with this Jade Helm stuff and Obama eventually declaring martial law, along with that comes this idea that the Chinese and the Russians are secretly involved. Okay. And so that's where you see these posts of, you know, the Chinese are putting their warships in position, or, you know, the Russians are training in the back, you know, the back country of Washington State and the US Government is allowing it. And sometimes you'll even see, like, somebody will post a video on one of these sites where they've been stopped at a train track and the train is hauling hundreds or maybe even thousands of, like, Humvees or little small tanks, and they're in Utah or they're in Texas, and they post them on these things saying, see, I told you so. They're transporting all this stuff to wherever the base is and they're getting ready to attack, to attack us and take over. Like the US Military themselves are going to sort of invade their own country. They use these videos as proof, when in reality, these videos are usually just transport of military surplus material. Okay, Right. So it all ties in. You know, you asked about the Chinese connection and the Russian connection. It all kind of ties into the idea that the New World Order,

Guest 4 [00:35:35] the

Bryan Buchanan [00:35:35] supposed New World Order that Obama's involved in, involves the Chinese and the Russians and the Americans making the American people their servants, for lack of a better term. And that's all part of the end times.

John Dehlin [00:35:50] And this ties back, honestly, all the way back to, like, Cleon Skousen, to books that were written, like the naked Communists that are sort of, you know, John Birch Society, New World Order, Illuminati, you know, Rothschild's sort of conspiracy theories. None dare call it conspiracy Stuff Ezra Tough Benson. Like my whole 80s childhood is like flashing before my eyes as we, as we are talking about this stuff. And honestly I haven't thought about this stuff since like my freshman year at byu. So it's been a long time. Okay, so I'm going to pause really quickly and just say that I'm bringing on to this discussion a fourth participant, if my counting is correct, maybe a fifth if you count me. We're going to call him Jared. He goes by Fallen Angel Mn on the Reddit ex Mormon group. And basically when I went to the ex Mormon Reddit and said, hey, I want to talk about Julie Rowe, a lot of people said, you know, you need to bring on Jared. So Jared, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Affinity Fraud and Financial Harm to Believers

Guest 4 [00:36:57] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:36:58] Have you ever listened to Mormon stories? Do you even know what this is?

Guest 4 [00:37:00] Yeah, I do. I've listened quite a bit. So yeah.

John Dehlin [00:37:03] Okay. All right, so Jared, we've talked about Julie Rowe a bit. We've talked about her book, we've talked about 401ks and gold and food supplies and tents and you know what we haven't talked about? My sister in law told me that some people are preparing these plastic suits for their children so that when the winter comes, their children are still warm. Have you guys heard that one?

Guest 4 [00:37:30] I haven't heard that specifically.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] And then there was another claim about people performing surgeries on meat so that they can be prepared to perform their own surgeries when on the wild. Have you guys heard that one?

Guest 2 [00:37:46] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:37:47] Yes, I've heard that one.

John Dehlin [00:37:48] Okay, all right, so anyway, we've talked about a lot of that. So Jared, one of the biggest questions I have is just in addition to people selling their homes and cashing in on their 401k or taking out loans, making big decisions, you know, I'm really interested in hearing both from you and from Samantha and Tanner other ways that this like really affects people's lives in dangerous or unhealthy ways. And then, and then Ryan, I want to kind of give the microphone over to you a bit because I think you have insight into, into topics that Jared might be able to discuss that would sort of bring a lot of light to this discussion. Does that make sense?

Bryan Buchanan [00:38:34] Okay. Yep, sounds good to me.

John Dehlin [00:38:36] All right, so, so, so Jared, other ideas of how this is like really not just funny, but maybe serious, right?

Guest 3 [00:38:46] Yeah.

Guest 4 [00:38:46] Initially when my wife's family is really into this prepping stuff and I first heard about Julie Rowe maybe two, three years ago when my mother in law introduced my wife to her book and my Wife read it at the time. And I remember when, as she was reading it, she was talking to me about it. And I remember like it really did affect her emotionally. Maybe she didn't buy into it totally, but she was emotionally vested in it. And I remember her being really scared as she read it because her book is just like visions of all the bad things are supposed to happen in the last days of armies invading, nuclear bombs going off, FEMA camps, people being rounded up and put in camps, and microchips installed in people. That's the mark of the beast and all these different things. So that was my first experience with it was with my wife reading the book.

John Dehlin [00:39:40] So it terrifies. It terrifies people, right?

Guest 4 [00:39:43] It instills fear in people and you get this emotional response. And I think people either dismiss it or they embrace the fear. But by embracing the fear, it's almost giving Julie Rowe this sort of authority over them, that she's some type of authority figure and what she shared speaks to them and they have some confirmation of it. Almost like she is a prophet, even though she doesn't make that claim. But since they feel that her visions are true, they trust everything she says and give her all this authority on the subject matter.

John Dehlin [00:40:16] And even though she denies it, like what the heck is a prophet, seer and revelator, other than someone who sees into the future and prophesies about what's going to come and claims to speak with God. Like, what else. What is a prophet if it doesn't.

Guest 4 [00:40:31] Right, exactly. And I've heard her say, because I've listened to her on like interviews, I think it's the Mills Crenshaw show out of Ogden on some radio station and people call in and she just gives very vague answers. And most of the time, well, I can't say for you specifically, I can only say what I've experienced. Even though what she saw and experienced was the whole world. So that really is for everybody. But just going into more of how this continues in my life. So maybe about a year later, like my in laws have always been into prepping and they, they're getting their bug out house all put in order. And I won't say the location, but out in the middle of nowhere and they have their guns and their ammo and all this. So we hear about this all the time. And then it was maybe about a year later we were over there for dinner and my mother in law brought up the subject again and she started talking about tent cities and how she wanted to bring it up so we would be aware of this. And when this call out happens to go to these tent cities, when everything starts going bad, the saints will be safe. She wanted us to know about it so we wouldn't be scared and we'd be aware, at least aware of it. And I think she wanted to share more, but I think she could read everyone's faces and could tell we just weren't buying into it. So I think she didn't share as much. I get some of them were secondhand account. She'll. She'll talk to my wife more and I just hear from her. But one of the.

John Dehlin [00:41:59] She talks to your wife?

Guest 4 [00:42:01] Yeah, not so much recently because my wife kind of had to tell her to stop. But I'll go into that, maybe a little more detail if you'd like, because what happened was shortly after that meeting, they were driving in a car with her and her other sisters who were younger and still live at home, like in younger teen years. And so she was bringing it up again. And my wife just told her at that time that she didn't like hearing about it. She didn't necessarily believe it, but it does affect her emotionally when she's hearing it and it just instills fear in her. And her mom's like, well, this is the first time I've ever hearing this. And it was at this point one of the other younger daughters felt comfortable to speak up and she kind of had a breakdown over it and was saying how she was sick of hearing about it all the time. And it does make her sad and she's scared. And so it was at that time my mother in law had never heard that from him because I guess they just didn't want to speak up about it. So kind of since then, my mother in law just doesn't bring it up around us much. And so I can maybe speak a little more about what I was doing on Reddit if you'd like.

John Dehlin [00:43:11] Sure.

Guest 4 [00:43:13] So my, there's this Facebook group and it was a secret group and we got invited into it so we could. I could see all the posts that were being made. Now this group was ran by a lady named Shelly McDermott we mentioned earlier. Yeah, yeah. And she's written a book also, but she's also very fanatical and follows Julie Rowe. She doesn't claim any visions for herself, but she wrote a book where she gathered like GA talks from general authorities and all these different visions to kind of try and create some type of timeline. So there was about before it got taken down. There's about 4,000 participants on there.

John Dehlin [00:43:57] Whoa.

Guest 4 [00:43:57] But I don't know how many of them were really actively participating. May have just been family like us and just observed it because it was kind of funny. So I started taking snapshots of it and posting it up on Reddit just because initially I kind of thought it was funny. But I was observing this group and I kept doing more and more posts and what I was seeing from the group was just pure paranoia and hysteria. I mean there's many examples of people who would post dreams they were having that would give them confirmation nightmares of bad men chasing them. And it wasn't just like adult dreams, it was their children's dreams. And I recall someone stating their 4 year old had a dream of a bomb going off. And the ladies said she spoke to her son and she felt like it was a vision and he'd never seen a bomb, doesn't even know what a bomb is. So how could he be having this dream? And one of the more interesting things that I was able to witness was in August around the 14th, it was right before then they were going kind of hysterical that there was going to be an earthquake. And most of their information is like third hand accounts. Like someone said, I heard from my friend Stake President that he had a dream of an earthquake in August. And someone else said, well my granddaughter's roommates with President Uchtdor's granddaughter. And he told her she needs to have all this stuff ready by August 14th. And people were saying they were having dreams of an earthquake. One lady said her daughter had a dream and she said in nine days it begins. And in nine days it was the 14th of August. So they were all, a lot of them were very certain of this earthquake which of course didn't occur. But I could see the emotional toll it was starting to have maybe on their children because there were some people posted, I think there was like a 15 year old girl who posted like how scared she was of all of this. But that's the thing, this all instills fear. But they always try to twist the narrative. Well, we don't need to be afraid because you know we'll be saved. But I see a lot of fear mongering and I see a lot of fear in their comments. So it's, it's, it's very interesting.

When Prophecies Fail to Come True

John Dehlin [00:46:17] So when, when a, when a supposed prophecy or date doesn't come true, how are people sort of explaining it away or justifying it?

Guest 4 [00:46:27] Well, right, so what's interesting, like Julie Throat Row is probably the most authoritative figure that they have other than like, the 12, the brethren. And so they're just. Julie Rose speaks very vaguely. She never gives any exact dates other than I heard she said recently it's probably gonna happen in the next few years. And I know she said in her book it happens right before winter. So I think with everything going down, they just piece it all together because there's so many different things there. I heard you talking about Jade Helm because there's. People are using that as a reference. It's gotta be soon. And then there's people referencing the blood moon cycle, which is this September, as a sign that it's got to be soon, and all sorts of different things. And so it's everyone's best guess on dates. So I think they can easily dismiss it. Okay, maybe we weren't quite right. But they move on to the next one. The next one now is like the economic collapse and the end of September. And I heard another earthquake near the end of September as well. So I think they can dismiss it. And as. Okay, maybe we misinterpreted all these things because. No, there's no. Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [00:47:38] Oh, can I jump in real quick on that and confirm this for me? If you remember, but what you were talking about with that Aug. 14 earthquake. What didn't one of the ladies in one of your screenshots who had claimed to have a child that it may have been the one that said, you know, nine days, it's going to happen, or maybe been one of the other child visions? But didn't one of those mothers say that her daughter had found out on August 14 that she got accepted into some private school and that that must have been what the dream was about?

John Dehlin [00:48:07] Mm.

Guest 3 [00:48:10] It's like the world could end or you're going to college, you know. Right.

Bryan Buchanan [00:48:14] But, Jared, don't you remember that being used as one of the maybe, you know, misinterpretations?

Guest 4 [00:48:20] Yeah, I recall that now. I remember her posting it was either that day or the day after. And she said, well, we got good news. I think they were trying to find, like, a private school for their daughter. We. After months of searching, we found the right school. So something good did happen.

John Dehlin [00:48:38] Mm.

Guest 4 [00:48:39] Yeah. So I do remember that they do stuff.

Bryan Buchanan [00:48:42] Yeah. Though. So they'll reinterpret, you know, they'll reinterpret the vision or the dream that. Oh, it must have meant this other thing that happened on that day. That's another one of the ways they do it.

Guest 4 [00:48:53] Right.

John Dehlin [00:48:55] So sorry to interrupt you there. Oh, no, it's great. So, Ryan, what Were some of the things you, you feel like that we should ask Jared to talk about real quick? Anything come to mind?

Bryan Buchanan [00:49:06] Yeah, well, I mean, he's talked a lot about the, you know, the post which, which was one of the things and, and maybe if he can. I think he's already talked about a couple specific ones I, I'd like to hear him talk about if he wants to. The. That letter that you wrote sort of as a final hurrah when they, after they were kicking everybody out and you wrote, I think you wrote it to the admin or somebody.

Guest 4 [00:49:27] Yeah. So when, how this all went down was I was posting these screenshots to Reddit and I think someone was taking my post and they were posting them to Cougar Stadium, which is some BYU football forum, and someone in the group found them there and started posting to the group and they were really concerned and I think it led someone back to Reddit, one of their admins. But, you know, I had anonymity on Reddit, so they didn't know who I was in my Facebook, but they just started kicking out a bunch of people to try and eliminate the mole. And, and I noticed like, I got kicked out.

Bryan Buchanan [00:50:05] I got kicked out.

Guest 4 [00:50:06] Yeah, so. And I noticed that anytime anyone would kind of say anything, it didn't follow their line of thought, they would just immediately ban him and kick him out. And so eventually they booted a bunch of people and I even posted them talking about it so they knew I was still in. And so they, eventually they just took the whole group down because they didn't, they couldn't figure it out. And so they took the whole group down and I was kind of like, alright, I'm done. But reflecting back on everything and more than just initially, this was funny and kind of entertaining. Oh, they're being crazy. I, I think it got to me, like the emotional toll it was taking on people, people cashing out their 401ks in their stock market. Like, this is really affecting people. And you could tell with some of these people maybe they're not the most mentally stable. It's kind of preying on. And I don't want to go into too much detail, but I had other family members kind of participating that I know. And I know they do have legit mental issues and they were getting caught up in this. So just the fear, maybe the depression anxiety it was creating in their lives when they're already dealing with those issues, it's just magnifying it. And it was taking a real toll on people. So I Figured, why not just send this admin? Because he tried to call me out on Reddit with my name, but he didn't get it right at all. And just the fact that he was doing this witch hunt to find out who I was, I figured I might as well send him one last message. So I sent him a private message through Facebook just kind of stating, you know, you weren't able to find me. But I was kind of glad I said, I'm glad you're taking down your group because really this is affecting people and the hysteria is growing. And if you have to isolate yourselves, I'm kind of happy about that. Because if you do isolate yourselves and you're not as exposed and spreading this paranoia, that kind of makes me happy because then there's not all these vulnerable people being sucked into it. And it was just snowballing and getting out of control. If I can save a few people from going crazy and spending all their money on supplies just because of Julie Rowe and various other people said, I kind of felt good about that in a sense. And they did bring the group back up. But the way they were doing it, going about it, anyone that joined, they were really betting them they were asking very specific questions. You'd only be able to answer if you've read all the books and probably going through your Facebook profile trying to really make sure, you know, no hints of disaffection from the church and all that. So they did get back up, but. And I was kind of watching it a little bit and there's maybe 500 people in there, so. But it kind of made them bury in deeper in the funny thing too. And I don't know exactly what happened was Julie Rowe did join Facebook. She didn't have a Facebook before. And the group started freaking out when this happened. And talk about hero worship, they don't. Okay. They claim she's not their prophet and we, you know, but they were ecstatic when she was on there and people were so excited and they were all becoming her friends. And I kind of posted that to Reddit too. And I think a lot of people on Reddit started becoming her friends when this all went down. Julie Rose. Facebook disappeared too. I don't know if she went secret or private or what.

Bryan Buchanan [00:53:24] No, she. She deleted it. I actually was able to become friends with her there. And I was too. I was gonna say, John, I saw your name on there too. And she was only. I don't even think she was up a week. Right. And she was getting. It happened about the same time that everything blew up with. With you, Jared. And so I think it was like a perfect storm. They took down that one secret group and she deleted her. As far as I can tell, she's. She's deleted her account. Now maybe she's got. Maybe there's some way to make it a secret profile, I don't know. But there's no profile with anything close to her name. And the one that I was friends with is gone.

Personal Stories from Inside the Movement

John Dehlin [00:54:01] Okay. All right. Okay. Let me just have.

Bryan Buchanan [00:54:06] Let me.

John Dehlin [00:54:06] Let me jump to Tanner and Samantha really quick. Tanner and Samantha, you both have kind of. You're kind of prominent on. On Reddit and on the Mormon Internet. And Tanner, let's start with you. What, What's. What's been your interest in this? And is there any. Anything important or interesting that hasn't been discussed so far that sort of explains why you think this is an important story to follow?

Guest 3 [00:54:30] I started getting into this while I was still trying to retain some belief in Mormonism. And I was on LDS Freedom Forum, and she's getting discussed a lot there. She was on LDS Freedom Forum for a while until she decided that it was too dark and decided to leave. But she would show up to promote her book and things like that in various speaking appointments. And I. I only discovered her to begin with because I myself had a dream wherein I was experiencing this earthquake. And I'm thinking, well, that's kind of weird. So I mentioned it on the forum when I was still participating, and. And all these people like, oh, I've had the same dream and you need to read Julie Rowe and da da da, da da. And so I was like, oh, this is kind of weird. And, you know, as a poor college student, I'm like, I need it really? Does it preys on that. That fear of, well, shoot, I don't want to. I don't want to be starving to death or freezing to death, you know, when the crap hits the fan. So you go out and buy some granola bars and stuff, hoping that'll be a good enough example of faith, I suppose. And I don't know, that was my initial interest in it. And then, you know, since leaving that all behind and things has just kind of now been more of an entertainment thing. I have a lot of friends who are very interested who are in that same boat of, you know, cashing in 401ks, investing all their. Their savings and things into various prepping things, selling their homes and moving off the grid, things like that. So that's been my experience. Samantha, you can talk about your interest.

John Dehlin [00:56:12] Yeah, Samantha.

Guest 2 [00:56:14] Okay, well, you know, I've mostly just been a curious observer on Reddit and things, but my main, I guess, experience has been that there was a guy I used to date years and years ago, six years ago when I was like 18, and he was like six years older than me, so he's quite a bit older than me. And he, we, we obviously aren't in communication anymore, but he, we have a mutual friend and so he spent three hours writing an email to this mutual friend of ours. And so my mutual friend showed me that email and we read it and he was just going into, you know, all this Julie Rose stuff and all this stuff, him and his wife and her parents really into it, all the stuff they're doing to prepare. And I thought it was just absolutely crazy because, I mean, you know, I'd like once dated this person, so it was at some point so semi sane. And he said he was turning six months worth of his salary. I think he makes quite a high salary into gold come September because the economic crisis. Oh, and he would, he would add a lot of like, appendages like, yeah, and if nothing happens, I won't feel stupid because, like, I had faith and I was prepared. So either way, I won't feel stupid. Like, there's a lot of like, clarifying, like, well, either way it'll be, you know, I won't feel like I've done the wrong thing. But yes, we talked about that and how they, I mean, they have tons of food storage and all that stuff. And it was just crazy because he would list these quotes from General Conference that to me were just everyday platitudes. And he would somehow be like, extracting these deep meanings and prophecies out of them. And I just thought there's no way that was meant to be like that cryptic of a message. Like, that was just like a regular General Conference saying. And the whole thing was just so filled with fear in the name of not fearing. That was the most bizarre to me was that he was saying to my friend, like, listen, I've spent three hours writing you this email, and even though I'm really busy because I really want you to be able to prepare and not be afraid. And he talked so much about not needing to fear, but the whole tone of the entire email was just like, these people are really afraid.

Guest 3 [00:58:24] As far as, as far as interest in the story itself, I think this will be an interesting, interesting thing to see play out, especially as far as, in relation to the church. You know, the church doesn't like prophetic competitors. So, you know, you get folks like Denver Snuffer and others who get excommunicated for this type of thing. Luckily, you know, Julie has deferred to the Brethren and she's kind of, they're saying all these things secretly but, you know, continue to worship them and it'll be interesting to see how long they tolerate, tolerate that before they realize it's not working out for them.

John Dehlin [00:59:01] Yeah, I was just going to say that one of the September Six was Avraham Gileadi, who kind of went crazy with Isaiah prophecies back in the late 80s, early 90s, Davidic Servant and stuff, and he got excommunicated and had to get rebaptized. How in the world did he get us communicated? But Julie Rose survives, right?

Guest 2 [00:59:21] Well, she's. Oh, sorry.

John Dehlin [00:59:24] Any theories? Go ahead.

Bryan Buchanan [00:59:25] Well, she, you know, I'll jump in on that and this is just my own opinion of it, but we've talked a lot about how she talks in generality. She never, she never really says anything. Her minions say it. I mean, her followers will put together the specific dates and, and, and what to buy and all this stuff. But she talks, number one, she talks in generalities. And number two, preaches against the establishment of the church. And like somebody else already said on this call, she has openly deferred, told people defer to, you know, the Brethren. And it's my understanding that she says the actual call out is going to come from the Brethren. And, and so she's, she, her followers are not like Denver snuffer people or any of these other breakoff groups that are in disagreement with the main church. Her followers are everyday chapel Mormons that are going to church on Sunday just like everybody else is paying their tithing. And they just happen to also believe that Julie Rowe is on to something. So I don't, I don't think she's taking people out of the church, at least not yet.

Guest 3 [01:00:39] You know, one of my, the things I've actually wondered if, you know, because I don't believe that the Brethren are prophets here and revelators. And I'm wondering if they are kind of, you know, looking to her as kind of like, well, maybe we could take some cues from her. You know, just let her do the prophecy work and we'll follow her.

Bryan Buchanan [01:00:56] Now they're probably having a good laugh about how amateur she is.

Guest 4 [01:01:00] Can I add something to that, too, please? So really, it's following the line of the church. It's the church of the last days. It's part of the doctrine that this is the church that's going to be in the last days. And just growing up, before hearing about Julie Roe, there was all these rumors of patriarchal blessings of the last days that people would live to see it. So she's not teaching really anything against what the church already teaches and is all about, really. So it's like, what do they do? They excommunicate her for teaching what we taught and using what general authorities have said in the past. I mean, get you X. Yeah, right. And, you know, it's true. A lot of the followers are the really fundamentalists. They're the ones sticking to every word. That said, and I'm very interested to see how it plays out. I don't know if it'll be a big deal or not when things don't happen this September, because I've seen people say spring 2016 and that I've heard people say to me directly that I've talked to this, well, if it doesn't happen this year, it'll happen maybe the next or even in 20 years. I think it will continue to go on because this isn't the first time this sort of thing's happened.

Bryan Buchanan [01:02:16] They'll figure out a way to move the goalpost. Time will tell on that one. But one of the things, Jared, that I mentioned, I think, before you came on the call, is that the common denominator between all these people is that whatever it is, it's likely gonna happen before Obama leaves office. So I'm really curious. I'm not so much curious to see what happens after this September, whatever date or next September, but I'm actually most curious to see what happens when a new president is put into place, and especially if it ends up being a Republican who is, you know, supposedly the good guys. I'm interested to see how they end up moving the goalpost there. My guess is it'll be something along the lines of, you know, their prayers. God has heard their prayers and he's decided to wait before he commit, you know, goes on with the slaughtering.

Guest 3 [01:03:02] Except it'll be a lot more condescending than that. It'll be like he's having mercy on all the sinners who haven't woken up yet.

Guest 4 [01:03:08] Right.

Bryan Buchanan [01:03:10] They're getting one more chance.

Guest 4 [01:03:12] I've heard people say, you know, if it gets postponed, that's because God's hearing our prayers and he wants more people to be ready to soften their hearts. And I've heard the thing about Obama as well. I think it was something Shelly McDermott wrote in one of her timelines that I read that basically saying that he was the Antichrist and it should all go down when the President leaves office, which I believe would be next November. So I think after this fall, nothing happens. They're going to move on to the next fall. I think it's going to go on for a few years and maybe some people will finally wake up. Hey, things aren't happening at all and maybe they'll kind of come to their senses, I don't know.

Bryan Buchanan [01:03:52] Well, a new, a new Julie Roll will come and take her place, right?

John Dehlin [01:03:56] I mean, to some extent this isn't just decades or centuries old, this is like millennia old, right? I mean, yeah.

Guest 4 [01:04:03] Which isn't Julie Rowe working on another book. I think I've heard that.

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:08] I'm not familiar with that, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Guest 4 [01:04:11] Maybe not.

John Dehlin [01:04:11] I, I still, I'm surprised the brother and haven't struck her down yet, honestly.

Potential Consequences for Julie Rowe

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:15] Well, John, one of the things we haven't talked about that actually could, maybe, maybe if anything's going to get her in trouble is what she's been doing here recently with this partner of hers. His name is Spencer something and maybe, maybe somebody here knows his last name. He's, he's, he portrays himself as a public figure, so I think we can say his name. But he's a returned missionary young guy who claims to have some sort of supernatural healing powers, if you will. I don't know exactly how he phrases it, but he claims to be able to heal you over the phone and you know, all this kind of stuff.

Guest 3 [01:04:50] An energy healer, right?

Bryan Buchanan [01:04:51] Energy healer, yeah, there you go. And so her and Julie Rowe recently teamed up and they have a website that talks about what they do, but they, I think it's 20 or $25 non refundable, which they make sure that they say multiple times on the website that it's non refundable and for the price you get up to get on this conference call, which you can do either on your phone or the computer, and you're going to get a session with Julie Rowe and this guy Spencer. Well, the most recent one that happened last, I think it was last week. At least, at least two Reddit users. And Jared, I don't think you were one of them, right?

Guest 4 [01:05:29] No, I wasn't.

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:30] Okay. There were at least two Reddit users that actually paid the money and recorded the calls. Now they haven't released it because I

John Dehlin [01:05:36] want to hear it.

Bryan Buchanan [01:05:37] Well, I do too. And one of them, both of them said that because they're not sure what the legal ramifications would be. But one of them said that he would be open to sharing it privately. And I sent him a private message saying, hey, I want to hear this thing. But he never got back to me. But one of them did post a synopsis, if you will, a review of the whole call. And apparently not surprisingly, they got word. Julie Rowe and company got word that there was going to be some quote unquote infiltrators on the call. And so she didn't come out and I guess say it, but she hinted to the fact that there was dark energy on the call and that there was people who wished ill on her. And I'm paraphrasing here, and that her portion of the phone call was ultimately cut short because of this. And she ended up saying something to the effect of, I'm not gonna really talk anymore and I'm gonna hand it over to Spencer. And then I guess according to this Redditor, Spencer just went on to this whole big psychic cold reading routine that he does. But Julie Rowe, I think it was expected that Julie Rowe was going to have a larger part in the call. And it appears that her part was cut short, at least in part due to the fact that she knew that there were people on there recording it. So the cat kind of got out of the bag because somebody, one of the two people that recorded it, posted on Reddit like a day before saying that he was going to do it. And then he deleted the post. But, but obviously the cat was out of the bag. And then he got an email either the day before or earlier the day of, he got an email from Julie Rowe that was sent to everybody on the call, sort of as a. Here's how to prepare for the phone call. Have your mind open, have your heart open, all this, you know, whatever fluff that she was saying and you know, bring a good spirit. And he shared that email on, on Reddit. So I think those series of posts alerted her event. Somehow the word got back to her. So, but yeah, so they had, they claimed to have the audio. But anyway, back to my original point is if she's going to get in trouble for anything, it's going to be this. Because now, as opposed to her talking in generalities and selling some books, now she's actually making money on some specific claims. So, you know, maybe, maybe somebody will come out and maybe be reprimanded on the stake level or something and be asked to stop. Who knows? I mean, on the website that they have they say that while you don't have to be lds, that it's. That the experience is going to have an lds. What are the, I don't know the term that they use, but an LDS viewpoint. Yeah. So I mean, it's obvious that she's catering. I mean, this is what we talked about, John, before we got on live on this call about the affinity fraud.

John Dehlin [01:08:35] Talk about that for a sec.

Bryan Buchanan [01:08:37] Okay, well, I guess for those that maybe don't aren't familiar with the term, affinity fraud is any kind of a fraud where it's facilitated through a commonality between the fraudster and the victim. And it doesn't have to be Mormonism. There can be affinity fraud. There's a lot of affinity fraud in the African American community, in the Jewish community, and in many different cultures and communities as well as the Mormon community. And as we all know, having been Mormon, when you meet another Mormon that you've never met in your life and have no connection to the fact that they're Mormon, there's an automatic trust. And even for myself, I've been out of the church for two years now and am 100% a non believer. I still, sometimes that happens to me. Even though I'm aware of all the affinity fraud that goes on, I sometimes have to remind myself that I can't just trust this person just because they're a Mormon. But anyway, affinity fraud is rampant in Utah and other Mormon communities. The FBI puts Utah in the top one or two, last time I checked, per capita, of financial fraud, which is all affinity fraud based. And there's lots of variations of affinity fraud, some that are actually criminal, you know, like the, the financial stuff. You have what I would call legal affinity fraud, which is like multi level marketing. I mean that's a whole other story. But you know, I have, just because of the work that I do in my professional life, I happen to know quite a bit about the field. But so this, what she's doing is just another form of affinity fraud. And it probably doesn't rise to the criminal level, unfortunately, because really she's basically doing what any psychic does. You know, she's not making any specific promises. She's got disclaimers up the wazoo that nobody reads, you know, at the bottom of the page. And it's, it's really just for entertainment purposes only. In fact, I think that's part of their disclaimer.

Guest 4 [01:10:40] Can I say something interesting?

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:42] Yeah, go ahead.

Guest 4 [01:10:43] I'm almost quite sure her husband's a lawyer, really looking her up on Facebook and trying to find out anything about her.

Bryan Buchanan [01:10:51] So that's probably where that she, that's probably where her speaking in generalities comes from and all the disclaimers that they make. You know, he's probably keeping a watchful eye on that. But yeah, so this is, you know, it's a form when you come in and you say, you know, this is an LDS perspective and we're only teaching what the past prophets have taught. We're not telling you to do anything that the brethren haven't told you to do. Things like that. That is a way to build up trust with your victim who's going to pay 20 or $25 for this phone

John Dehlin [01:11:29] call or your book or buy your

Bryan Buchanan [01:11:31] book or the book or take a loan out on the 401k. Now Julie Rowe doesn't necessarily benefit from that, but she benefits secondarily because she just gains another follower, right, who may buy her book again and you know, pay the 20, 25 bucks. So unfortunately, I don't think what she does rises to a criminal level. At least not anything that would be able to be proven. But, but it definitely is affinity fraud.

John Dehlin [01:11:56] Yeah.

Guest 3 [01:11:56] And she does, she does plug the energy work stuff. In her book she says that in her near death experience she was shown this practitioner of the emotion code or body code, whichever one it is. And you know, and so it's kind of like using this spiritual, spiritual manipulation to get people to then, you know, pay for this product or service.

Bryan Buchanan [01:12:20] For the life of me, I can't understand how these people fall for that. The prepper stuff I can somewhat understand because, you know, the LDS church has preached doom and gloom at some level.

John Dehlin [01:12:30] We're the Latter Day Saints. Tomorrow's the Latter Day.

Bryan Buchanan [01:12:34] Yeah, I mean, you can draw a line from the teachings of the church to the prepper movement, but I don't see the line that gets drawn from the LDS teachings to the energy healing. To me, when I was a believer, I rejected all of that stuff outright and I 100% had a testimony in the gospel. But to me it was so obvious that these things like energy healing and whatnot are not supported by scripture. So I am surprised that so many of these faithful members do fall for the energy healing part of it.

Guest 3 [01:13:08] You know, I'm almost not surprised though, because, you know, when you have a lack of healings and prophecies, that's why Mormons are so drawn to all this stuff to get begin with, is that when you have a lack of something, you just want any sort of evidence that there's Something going on. You know, I actually went to an energy healing thing, you know, not seriously. I had a friend who participated who was a big Julie Rowe follower who says, hey, you gotta let me come try this out. She was getting her license or whatever it is and the whole time I was going on, I'm just thinking I can't believe this. It's just absolutely ridiculous. But when you're hungry for something, you

Guest 4 [01:13:42] gotta find in the group. I was a part of watching it, there was lots of people talking about essential oils, energy healing, foot zoning, what oils do I need to take for? People were talking about oils and plagues, what oils for what plagues and all sorts of weird things. So you got all the mix of your Utah kind of multi level marketing stuff like essential oils that a lot of people buy into. And, and I think what it says though is the people. Because me, when I was a believer, I don't think I would have bought into this. But I guess I was more of a rational thinking. I was always walking this line in my mind of faith and rationality and trying to keep a balance where these people fully embrace emotion because they're told the spirit gives you a confirmation through emotion and they full on embrace it and throw out rationality. So these things play on their fears and I think that's such a powerful emotion that that's why they catch on to and it seems like every little thing they read into something emotional and I can speak to like the people I know personally who are caught up and into and they're those types of people. Everything means something. Every dream means something. And it's like if I took meaning to every dream I had, there would be all sorts of weird stuff going on.

John Dehlin [01:15:05] Yeah. Yeah. There's a blog on Julie row prepare.com There's a blog post 9-7-2015 that says all just a coincidence, right? And she tells a story about how she was with some friends in Kansas City and she bought a trailer, that they purchased the trailer on September 28, 2004. Then she talks about how they live 10 minutes from where they used to live and that it was 10 minutes away from the hospital where she was admitted in September 2004. And that she went to the hospital on September 28, 2004. And that, that, that she shares an experience in her books about something that happened in the hospital on September 28, 29th, 2004. And then she ends by saying so just a coincidence, right? The very first time I was shown the trailer we would one day own was on September 28, 2004, the exact same day these people bought it from the previous owner. And then she says on September 20, 2015, it will be exactly 11 years since that transpired. Amazing. Truly amazing how the Lord orchestrates his plan. Surreal. Also a bit sobering in some ways, quite exciting. So what else has happened historically on these dates? September 27, 2020 9th, and September 14th 15, 22nd and 23rd. What are we looking at this year? A change is coming. We are getting very close.

Final Thoughts and Predictions for the Future

Guest 4 [01:16:35] Right.

Bryan Buchanan [01:16:35] And John, make sure that you don't criticize her because then you're just a meanie.

John Dehlin [01:16:40] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:16:40] You know, you can't. You can't call these people out or call into question what they say because then you're just, you know, you're just part of the problem.

John Dehlin [01:16:46] Yeah. Okay, so I. I'm loving this conversation. Unfortunately, my wife is calling me to dinner, so I'm. I'm gonna need us to wrap this up. You know, one of the things that we talked about in the pre show was just to what extent she may be struggling with some type of mental illness. But what I wanna do is just do a round robin and have people share some closing thoughts. They can be, you know, predictions on what's gonna happen. They can be additional concerns. They can be just sort of something interesting or just sort of a summary. Of what. Of what? Of how they view all this and what its implications are. And I think what I'll do is I'll start with Tanner and then do Samantha, Jared, and I'll end with Ryan. So apologize. We have to kind of draw this to a close. But Tanner, what are some of your closing thoughts?

Guest 3 [01:17:40] Okay, I'm going to give you my prediction for how this is going to play out, and I'm going to do it in the style of Julie Rowe. Within the next general time period, we are going to see some dynamic shifts in their community, in the X Mormon community. And there's some things that are going to happen that are going to make us really think about some things. And by the time that's done, we will know where Julie Rose stands both with the church and with the rest of the world. So, you know, mark my words, that's how it's going to be.

John Dehlin [01:18:15] Okay, Got it. All right. Samantha.

Guest 2 [01:18:19] Yeah. Want to bear second witness to what Tanner said. I'm sitting right next to him, so I could definitely feel the spirit as he was saying that. But really what I would say is I just really, really hope that, you know, as much as I don't think the brethren are Prophet seers and revelators. I hope that they will summon enough compassion for these people who are withdrawing the 401ks and living their lives in constant fear to be able to say, like, you know, this. This is bogus, you know, because if. Whether. I don't know whether they realize they're not prophets or what, but, I mean, obviously they must know they're not having these prophecies. So, yeah, I just. I hope they step in and I. I'll be interested to see how that affects the Julie Rowe community and whether it will kind of test whether people's allegiance is more to the church or to Julie Rowe. I don't know if anything will happen there, but we'll see.

John Dehlin [01:19:08] All right. Okay. So, Jared, what are your final thoughts?

Guest 4 [01:19:14] Yeah, I'd like to kind of second what Samantha just said, because I think the church does need to take some kind of action, because it truly is what I got out of all this, with my experience and watching everything. My takeaway was it is truly affecting people's lives, like, financially, emotionally. It's taking a toll on people. And at the very least, the church needs to release some type of statement that's direct. Maybe not directly at Julie Rowe, but anyone following these types of things, you don't need to worry. And maybe at the best excommunicator, I don't know how much that would silence everyone, but I think the church does need to take some type of action. It's kind of more out of hand. And with today, with technology and the Internet, this was one small Facebook group. There's like several. And then there's people sending stuff in email and all sorts of stuff. And I don't know if you talked about before, but Julie Rowe actually does go around and give talks. Yeah, we talked about speaking engagements. So it. I think it's a time to put a nail in it and put an end to it. And that's my hope that the church would do that. And I think for the sake of these people as human beings, with me having some empathy of what they're going

John Dehlin [01:20:33] through, it's a bizarre day when the ex Mormon Reddit is calling for the excommunication of. Okay, so, Ryan, why don't you conclude and give us your final thoughts?

Guest 3 [01:20:46] All right.

John Dehlin [01:20:46] Yeah.

Bryan Buchanan [01:20:46] And I like what all three of them said, and I think they were all spot on. I think Tanner wins the round.

Guest 3 [01:20:53] But

Bryan Buchanan [01:20:56] I'll just add this. It is a lot of fun to follow these things and to read them and to read the stuff that Jared or myself or whoever posts on Reddit. There's definitely some entertainment value there. But what can't go lost on us is like what Jared was talking about, that there are real victims and it's not just this 401k stuff. But think about the kids too. These kids who are, as we know, impressionable minds, are growing up in these houses where this fear of not having fear, like Samantha said, is being drilled into them probably a majority of the day. I know a lot of these people homeschool their kids and you know, I hope also that the church comes out and at least says something about it. And I think that however we can bring light to this, whether it be through something like this Mormon Stories podcast or through what Jared is doing on Reddit or any way that we can bring light to it through mockery or through serious discussion. The more, the better, the more we expose it, the less impact it's going to have. And the other thing just finally to remember too is it's not when we, when Julie Rowe is finally silenced, however that ends up happening, because it will happen at some point, there will just be someone to come in and take her place. So I don't think there is going to be necessarily a magic wand trick that can happen where it's going to just completely wipe out the whole idea of the doomsday being right around the corner. But all you can do is deal with what we have at hand, which right now is within the church perspective, is Julie Rowe and and company and then you deal with the next wave of it as it comes. But yeah, so I appreciate the invite, John and everything Jared put in his perspective is great on it and Samantha and Tanner too. So I really enjoyed this experience, be able to talk about it a little bit and I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [01:22:56] Well, thanks Ryan and thanks Jared for coming on. Thanks Samantha and Tanner and Zeus. Bless the ex Mormon Reddit. Right?

Bryan Buchanan [01:23:07] Praise be the flying spaghetti monster.

John Dehlin [01:23:09] Right, okay, so listeners, thank you for your support. Please join us@mormonstories.org if you have questions or comments. If you have your own stories about Julie Rowe or all the split off groups, please share them there. If you want to tell us really positive or good things and how we've got it all wrong, we'd love to see those comments as well. And we wish all the preppers and Julie Rowe and Glenn Beck and Cleon Skousen all the best and we really look forward to how this shakes out in the coming months and years. So thanks everyone for joining us.

Guest 2 [01:23:45] Thank you.

Guest 4 [01:23:47] Thanks for having me on.

John Dehlin [01:23:48] All right. Guys. Take care.

Guest 2 [01:23:50] Bye.

John Dehlin [01:23:58] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights. When with the wounded heart, anger or

Guest 4 [01:24:28] mouth

Bryan Buchanan [01:24:32] I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.