Hidden True Crime - DISTURBING Secret Connection: Lori Vallow, Tim Ballard, Jodi Hildebrandt & Chad Daybell

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Resources/Sources/Links: New York Times Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/us/tim-ballard-sound-of-freedom-sex-trafficking.html Ryan Fisher & Carah Burrell https://www.youtube.com/@CarahBurrell Tim Ballard Lawsuits on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/tim-ballards-all-99128808?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link PLAYLIST: Tim Ballard; O.U.R., Hidden True Crime https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnLc7I2gyWtQ_S6j3LBcldM4vircDLN0S&si=NhfLjKxOuQa7Ou-a PLAYLIST: Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt, Hidden True Crime: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnLc7I2gyWtS4nL0-uvR9OwDVx26lR5in&si=aeyT6oElq8Ho9QKV PLAYLIST: Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow, Beyond The Veil Season: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnLc7I2gyWtSWYHlUVC7HH-HVfXCyCaYa&si=PVUxU0ZHk1mQcKcS Heather Daybell, Sister-in-law to Chad Daybell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoiFMYmrRRg Ryan Fisher | Mormon Stories Podcast https://youtu.be/0l-rqJyyF0g?si=Ea_xoSspnZrOOa2d Visions of Glory Part 1, Mormon Stories/Hidden True Crime Collab https://www.youtube.com/live/9eyqYLlGwBk?si=rhtKwUBPG_csACDV Prepper Mayhem, Mormon Stories/Hidden True Crime Collab https://www.youtube.com/live/a-6kT1w63QA?si=tIUJS6nqLuN04Tjx Community Education Channel | Glenn Beck joins Operation Underground Railroad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8JAe9ASvhk Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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See dealer for financing details. Hello, Hidden Jems. We have a very interesting interview today. Someone I've been looking forward to interviewing for a very long time, requesting an interview for a long time, Ryan Fisher. And I'm about to explain who Ryan Fisher is. Well, he's going to explain who he is. But first I want to share with you why I felt it was a very timely time, timely time. Did I just say that? timely moment to ask Ryan once again to come interview with Hidden True Crime. And it is a article that came out in the New York Times. The article is titled To the World, He is an anti-trafficking hero. Women tell a different story. And for those that are familiar with our work on Tim Ballard, Brian is going to bring additional insights.

for those that are familiar to our work with the Lori Valo and Chad Dayball case, to those that are familiar with our work with the Ruby Frankie, Jody Hildebrand case, in those that are familiar with our deep dive into the book, Visions of Glory, among those in the LDS Prepper world will be familiar with this interview. And for those that are not familiar with these discussions or these cases that we have talked about you are in the right place. I'm going to give a brief background right here. The New York Times article that came out yesterday. And by yesterday, I mean September 9th, 2024. This is September 10th, 2024 that we are doing this recording. Let me read to you

the beginning of this article. To the world, he is an anti-trafficking hero. Women tell a different story. Tim Ballard's work on sex trafficking became the basis of the hit movie Sound of Freedom, but a series of women in lawsuits and interviews have accused him of being a sex predator. We have shared that lawsuit on our Patreon account, patreon.com slash hidden due crime, and have gone over in depth in previous episodes. Please check out our playlist. Tim Ballard has fashioned himself into a made-for-Hollywood hero. For years, he led a nonprofit that proclaimed daring undercover missions to rescue children from the horrors of international trafficking. Politicians embraced his call for more barriers on the southern border to block smuggling. Last year, the hit move

The movie Sound of Freedom showcased his life and work, making more than $250 million and becoming one of the most successful independent films of all time. But while the world knew Tim Ballard as a champion of the vulnerable, many of the women he worked with now tell a much darker story that Mr. Ballard himself was grooming, manipulating, harassing, and sexually assaulted women. In lawsuits beginning last year, the women said that Mr. Ballard prayed on their desire to help trafficking victims, coercing and forcing them into sexual encounters as part of their undercover work in brothels, strip clubs, and massage parlors.

One of the women suing the former CEO of Operation Underground Railroad says the Utah County Sheriff's Office is holding on to key evidence. Celeste Boris was the former assistant to Tim Ballard. She's accusing him of sexually assaulting her while working on what he calls the couple's ruse. In a new filing, her lawyers claim to have a skirt of hers with Ballard's semen on it. Ballard denies anything sexual happened between them. But the new filing claims Utah County detectives matched the DNA on the skirt to Ballard. So I think that's a good enough intro for the past discussions. And now I want to introduce Ryan.

And Ryan, why don't you share who you are and you are, you wear many. hats and we're talking past Ryan, present Ryan, and your current work as well with with Kara. I want to share because I'm not the only podcaster talking about Tim Ballard. So I want you to also share what the work you've been doing and how you know Tim Ballard. Can you introduce yourself? Yeah, I'll introduce Ryan Fisher from 2011 because that's where I enter this whole saga. In 2011, I met Tim Ballard at a research conference. He was an aspiring author.

We became friends, and I was producing a TV show at the time called Defight Explorer that aired in Utah. And I featured Tim in the first season and subsequent seasons on my TV show for his religious historical research. And at the time, I didn't think it was a big deal. But now, fast forward to 2024, everybody is asking, who is Tim Ballard? Was he, is he a hero, an American hero, or a predator and a monster? That's the debate we're having. That's what you're talking about. That's what a lot of people are talking about.

And as it turns out, I had platformed him back in 2012 on my TV show before he was known by anybody. I was the first one to bring him into the public light for his American history, revisionist history work. And so all of a sudden, people are asking me, hey, you knew Tim before he was famous, who is this guy? Is he American hero or a total predator and a fraud? And so I'm back in this conversation because of that. I also became friends with him and his family, and we started a tour business together. that went for about six years called the American Covenant Tour, where we'd take fans of my show,

fans of his research on tours to the American history sides back east and talk about the providential miracles that led to those events from a very Mormon perspective using his research. And so I was involved in that as well as helped transition, helped them transition out of the Department of Homeland Security in 2013, into his own organization called OUR. And I was part of the founding of that early on and became friends with all those people. So that's kind of my background, I think, for these subjects that you've been covering so thoroughly on your podcast.

Yes, yes, thank you. And we're going to delve even deeper. As I said to Ryan on the phone, the rabbit holes that we've been down have collided. And we're going to show everyone that today. You're going to bring great insight. Tell us also right now where we can find your work when it comes to your investigative journalism along with your co-host. Yeah. So I reached out to a podcaster, Kara Burrell, a couple of months ago because I had a story to tell and she provided a space for me to do that. It turns out a lot of people want to know about this saga with Tim Ballard, including the New York Times. And so we started a podcast to discuss this to also provide a space for other people like me who were involved in OER to come forward and share their stories and share what they know about the situation and try and provide some context and clarity to the lawsuits, the pending criminal investigations, and everything around that.

So Kara, graciously, has pivoted her entire channel to covering that. And we're doing a weekly podcast to dive into the news and things like that. And that can be found at Kara Burrell on YouTube. Thank you. And we will have links to all of your work in the description of this video or podcast episode. Thank you, Ryan. And for those that, again, are familiar with my Lori Valo Chad Daybell work, we know that Lori Vallow and Chad Dable

were big fans of a book called Visions of Glory. We know that Jody Hildebrandt behind bars due to what she did, along with influencer Ruby Frankie, we're also fans of this book. And it's a book that has been of great concern to Hidden True Crime for a long time. Again, we'll also have a link to a six-hour podcast episode

that I did on with Mormon stories. when it comes to this book. But the author, or I should say not the author, the person that Visions of Glory is about is Tom Harrison, who's a retired therapist in Salt Lake City, Utah, who claims to have had a near-death experience. And it was, you know, we all knew that Visions of Glory was a big influential when it came again to Chad DeAbel and Lori Vallow.

And then Ryan, and I already knew this, you right? I was like screaming, waving my hands. Like, everyone, like, this is, because I read the book and I'm like, this is their belief system. Like, this is the problem. Like, this is part of the problem, not the problem. But this is concerning. And then I got the lawsuits for Tim Ballard.

And I started reading through those. And I said, just watch, John. This is going to say that somebody was married in a past life. And they're going to say that. just watch. But not only did say that, it did say that. It also kept referring to a Tom Harrison that was a mentor of Tim. So I wanted to do my own research on it and I found a brain specialist, one of the people that helps us heal the brain of the children who have been traumatized. His name is Tom Harrison. And so I think one thing I really want to understand is, is this true?

is this visions of glory, you're part of OUR, operation on a ground railroad. You knew Tim Ballard. So I just want to know, are we on the right track? Or what do you know about this? Can I ask? That's like a loaded question. Like, I'm going to sit back and drink some water and let you just talk because I want to understand. Okay.

Yeah. So in 2012, Tim was starting the, was working on getting OUR started. And it was either in 2012 or 2013, right before it actually launched and they were doing operations in foreign countries where they're going out and saving kids and setting up sting operations. Before any of those operations actually happened, Tim came to me and said, hey, somebody reached out to me, you won't believe who it is. And I'm like, who?

He said, you know, Spencer and visions of glory. I'm like, yeah. I had read that book. I know Tim had read the book is 2012. It was like taken off everywhere in Utah. It was like spreading like wildfire. And I'd love to talk about why. I mean, I think the situation with 2012 was just primed for something like that to happen with the Mayan calendar predictions at the end of the world was going to happen in 2012. And we just, you know, we're coming out of the 2008 financial crisis. And everybody that's in Mormonism has been raised on the. these books in the Book of Mormon about Lehi who was a visionary man and all the prophets of the book Warren that had these visions of the future and some of them even saw the destruction of the Nephite nation. So within Mormonism, everything was primed and it seemed to be like a perfect storm for something like visions of glory to come forward, which was an apocalyptic view of future events from that moment forward and how the destruction of the world would happen. So I got into that.

I was interested. Tim was interested in it. Everybody that was in fringe Mormon beliefs or not so mainstream Mormon beliefs was into it. And sure enough, on this one occasion, Tim told me that Spencer from Visions of Glory reached out to me. And that's Tom Harrison. Yep. That's Tom Harrison before anybody really knew who Tom Harrison was.

and I'm like, really, v. Spencer from Vision and Glorries, he's like, yeah, v. Spencer from Vision's like, what's this about? He's like, you won't believe what's going on. And I just want to clarify to you, Tom reached out to Tim then. Yeah, Tom reached out to Tim, right? And that's so important because that's a pattern that we're going to see for his MO, like how he operates and everything. So Tom reached out to Tim and he told him that, you know, asked him, about what he thought about his book. Tim was enamored with the book. He thought it was real and a prophetic.

And so did I at the time. Okay. And because I said, yeah, I think there might, you know, I think there might be something to do that. There's some things in there that makes sense to me. And I know Tim, Tim was enamored by it too. And grasped onto that message like a lot of people around us were doing. And when you say that,

Do you mean fringe Mormonism or like a little bit of an extreme Mormonism? Are you part of that back then? Can I ask? I was. Yeah, I totally was. I went down that rabbit hole pretty hard to very detrimental effects to me personally and my family. And we can talk about that too. So what Tom told Tim was this, that these destructions are imminent.

They're about to happen. All the apocalyptic doomsday scenarios where there's, natural disasters, plagues that are going to sweep through society as well as wars and China's going to come over and take over America with Russia and all the things that he outlined in his book, that's imminent. That's happening really, really soon. And because of that, when that happens, it really is a consequence of national sin, of unrighteousness, of wickedness in our nation. And just like it outlines that when Jesus Christ came in the Book of Mormon to the Nephites, he started and announced his arrival to the Nephites by killing off all the wicked people.

It says in the Book of Mormon that he buried some in buried some cities. He drowned others in the depths of the seas. He caused the city of Zarahemelah to take fire. And all of these wicked people in the Book of Mormon were destroyed. He told Tim that the same thing's going to happen in America and that when this happens, all of the kids that are in sex slavery or being exploited and trafficked, their captors are going to be destroyed by God and there are going to be thousands, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of kids that are going to be instantly liberated by these destructions.

Okay. You follow? I'm following and it's fascinating. So in other words, we're talking not now, but future children. But in the near future. But the near future. In like the days of tribulation, is that what we can call this? Yeah.

The last days, the destructions prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ, days of tribulations is foretold in the book of revelations. All of that is right around the corner. And you were on a vow to another voice of warning, correct? I'm just going to clarify it because those that watch our Davey, interviews, understand what that means. And so this is what Chad Daybo and Lori Ballo also believe.

Is that fair to say? Can I ask you? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm here to get so much validation from you because I feel like you're this insider voice that like we can like daughter eyes and cross our teas right now. So forgive my interruptions. Okay.

So I'm following. So what you're saying is this is sort of like what's laid out in visions of glory, a vow. Is that the extremist prepper Mormon world? Yeah, absolutely. A vow. another voice of warning his website that gathers last day's visions and dreams that people have had about these destructions, about these events. And one of the people is Roger Kay Young.

That's, I think he's one of the administrators. And he partners with Christopher Perret on that and one of the founders. When I met Tim at the Book of Mormon conference in 2011, there was four speakers. One of them was Tim, who was introducing his research. but one of the other ones was Roger K. Young. Okay. And this is similar to a preparing a people conference or a Firm Expo, right? Yeah.

Okay. And I did attend three days at a Firm Expo. Okay. Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Yeah. So A Vow is a landing place for people that have visions about the destructions of the last days like Julie Rowe.

Dreams. Julie Rowe was on there. Chad Dable and Julie Rowe met on a vow. They met on a vow. and Chad Daybell wrote visions for a vow. Okay. Yeah, that's the landing place. That's a meeting place.

So was Tim Ballard on a vow then? I'm sure he was. We talked. Yeah, because we were talking about this. Everybody that believed in these visions that predicted the events and how everything was going to go down with these instructions were on a vow. And it's one of those things where people are constantly posting visions. And then on a vow, they would analyze them and compare them.

and compare them with statements from Joseph Smith or prophecies from Joseph Fielding Smith and other Mormon prophets and other dreams and other books. And it was like this gathering place to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to paint this picture on the timeline on how these events are going to go down, who's going to be involved and where the safe places are and what preparations you need to have in order to survive these calamities. Okay, okay. Thank you for that clarification. So back to what you said, do you get what's going on? I get what's going on. So let's go back. So Tom is telling Tim. Yeah, he's telling Tim that these instructions are imminent, that there's going to be hundreds of thousands of kids that are going to be liberated. And that to prepare for that, we need to create a structure, an intake structure, for bringing those kids to safety and providing healing for them. And he gave that mission to Tim to help him do that.

Oh, wow. And what do you mean he gave that mission to him? Like just said, I give this to you or there was a blessing or? He said he needed Tim's help to do that. Wow. So in other words, save children during this, during this sort of book of revelation, last day's time. Yeah.

He said that. And so Tim, who believed, he was a prophet, who believed in his visions. And he believed it. He believed it. Yeah, he absolutely believed it. From that moment on, which was right at the beginning while there, I think this happened right around when we're waiting for 501C3 status to be approved. There was a waiting period for nonprofits.

I think this conversation happened right around. that time either before or just after. So before OUR was even officially formed, operation around. Yeah, during the formation process of that, you know, Tim or Tom reached out and gave Tim this grand vision for OUR. And so from that moment on, Tim was all on board. He said, so what we need to do is we need to create a structure within OUR. for taking in these kids and we need to be prepared for this event. And so from the very beginning, there's this shadow organization within OUR that was preparing

for the apocalyptic calamities of the last days. And that was driving who he brought in to the organization. It also drove his effort to try and find other people that had these spiritual gifts, for lack of a better word, to be able to see through the veil and talk to other people on the other side, as well as spiritual gifts of prophecy and things like that. So from the very beginning, O-U-R was a very, very religious, kind of fanatical religious organization behind the scenes. But in the front, it was an anti-human trafficking nonprofit. Right.

It looks good on the front. There are so many people that have been inspired by the movie Sound of Freedom and they want to help. And we all want to help and save children. John and I make it very clear whenever we cover Tim Ballard that we are for children, first and foremost, and by bringing our concerns about Tim Ballard to the front, as well as you, Ryan, like, our desire is to help and not hurt children. Because I know that's oftentimes a talking point. If we criticize Tim, we must not want to help children.

And that's not the case here. So you're saying that on the front, it's looking very good. that is just this anti-trafficking organization, operation, and ground railroad that will help save children that are in trafficking. It's something I think majority of humanity can get behind. You're seeing behind the scenes, this is a fanatic organization probably run by many people that are in a vow or believing that their actual mission is to save children during the calamities of the last days.

Am I hearing that right? I'm just like trying to like... Yeah, it's a select group of people within, you know, You know, Tim was very selective on who he talked about Tom to with, I mean, with. And so there's people within OUR that had no idea this stuff was going on behind the scenes or that Tom was involved in it. And so he was very selective on who he told about the true purpose of OUR or one of the main driving purposes is to prepare for the calamities of last states. So depending on who you talk to, there will be some people that will say,

what, I never heard anything about that. And then some other people say, oh, yeah, Tom Harrison. Yeah, he was pulling the strings. Because once Tim believed he was a prophet that he was getting direct revelation from God, that would not only prophesy about the future, but also tell them what they need to do right now to prepare for that future, then Tom Harrison, by default, became the real CEO of OUR. because Tim listened to him

and he was able to, through his revelations, tell Tim what to do on a very specific basis throughout that relationship. Wow. So to clarify, who told Tim Ballard he was a prophet? Tom Harrison told Tim Ballard in one of his revelations blessings that he was destined to be

a prophet of the LDS Church and President of the United States. And Tim Ballard believed him. He believed him. Yep. I think he still does. I think that's why you see him be so emboldened and sense that how could anybody criticize me? You know, he's so emboldened and feels like he's untouchable.

I think he still believes that these prophecies are coming to come to pass and that he's simply living a reincarnation version, reincarnated version of Joseph Smith, who was also seeking the presidency, who has foretoed to do amazing things, but for Tim, it's all going to happen sometime. These prophecies are going to come to pass. I think if you understand that, then you understand how arrogant and emboldened he can be in the face of all of this backlash and all of the people that know and work with him, jumping ship and denouncing him, including his own church. Hey, guys, I thought it's time to address this case again, since there's lots of comments going on.

Look, the bottom line is this. This has been a media circus. This has been an attack on my reputation, on my work. It's affecting children. And there's only been two times when things actually went before the court. And both times the judge dismissed. First on my wife, for lack of any supporting evidence, which means the plaintiffs now have to pay the court fees that we've spent defending my wife.

And we just got good news yesterday that another of the plaintiff, cases was dismissed for the same reason. You can say a lot of things, but if you have no evidence to support it, it means absolutely nothing. We expect to see that continuing with a domino effect as each of these plaintiffs fall with lack of evidence. This is a money shakedown.

They're stealing money from operations that will rescue children. They're stealing my livelihood from me. And we need your support. We just got recognized a few days ago in Mexico for all the work we've been. the work we've done there. I'm not capable of tricking the country of Mexico. The governor of Quintana Roe was there. The Attorney General was there and they recognize the amazing work that we've done. So these lies that we don't rescue kids, it's all part of this media circus to try

to shake down foundations and my family for money. Please support us. By supporting us, you're supporting the kids. We have many more to rescue. We're more active than ever. And when you say the own church, the Church of Jesus Christ, Lauderdie Saints, jumping ship on Tim Ballard after endorsing him or supporting him and, you know, publishing his books, a desert book. Wow. I mean, I'm kind of like taking all this in because, I mean, there's just clearly a pattern with all of these cases we've covered. And this is why I'm talking to you, Ryan, like, I can't let this go. Like people, I want to say, people say, move on from daybow. move on for Daibel. So let me be very clear.

First off, Charles Valo still needs justice, so we're not going to completely move on from Lori Vallo yet. Chad Daibel is convicted and he's on death row for murdering three people. But my concern now lies in a belief system that seems to permeate in a book, Visions of Glory, that seems to continue to solve that has some very concerning, and I'm going to ask you about it because you said you believed in it too. And a multitude of crimes that have continued to happen. And so let me, let me share my biggest concern. Chad Daybel, according to my husband, Dr. John, we always debate it. But Chad Dayball believed and probably still believes that he's some sort of prophet or deity

in that empowered and emboldened him. Jody Hildebrand believed the same. If you will stay inside truth, you will not become ill. You just, you just won't. Now, I know some people in the audience are probably like, well, I don't know about that. try me out. My desire is to spread this throughout the whole entire world. And people believed her. And she was good friends with Tom Harrison. We have shared conferences where they speak together. Hello everybody. This is Ken Kroog and Tom Harrison

with the Eternal Core podcast. We're excited today to have Jody Hildebrandt. She's got a massive podcast for all, 500,000 people. So we said, look, we want to be on your show next time. But for now, she's on our show. She's remote, so you're going to see her dialing in through Skype on one of our separate videos here. Welcome, Jody. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Ken. It's exciting to have you here with us, Jody. Thanks for your willingness to come on. And then we have Tim Ballard. Tim, I want to clarify, has not been charged with any crime, although there is an open investigation. You can talk more about that in a little bit and maybe what's also happening you know in another country

I know that you're testifying at a trial that's what I'm saying but then you've got Tim Ballard who you're saying also believes that he's a prophet and still does and does emboldened so where are people getting this belief system I'm still trying to understand and learn I have my suspicions but you're saying when it comes

to Tim Ballard it was Tom Harrison that empowered and emboldened him and I just I just want to emphasize that I know I've said that like three times now like, I'm taking this in. You're seeing it's this Spencer from visions of glory. And I can say that I do know Chad Daybell also met with Tom Harrison. So I'm just, I have some concerns. Yeah.

And you should have some concerns, some very big concerns. What we're seeing with the Jody Hillabrant, Tim Ballard, Chad and Lori Daybell are the effects of, this belief system that has been percolating in Mormon culture since 2012. And it's finally come to fruition in these people. But I have to tell you, it's all by design. Because what Tom Harrison, in my analysis of all this, what Tom Harrison does is he finds people that are rising stars in this culture that have a charismatic personality, that have a following and that have an audience that trust them with their spiritual perspectives

and trust these public figures with being an advisor or teacher in their lives. And so they have this following. And I really believe that Tom Harrison targets these people as somebody who is revered, this mysterious figure that's revered in all of these circles in Mormon beliefs and cultures, and then reaches out to them and proposes to them that he's received a revelation that they have an important role to play in the second coming of Jesus Christ and feeds that self-enggrandizement to a point that he manipulates them into joining his cause and becoming more of a puppet for his grand vision and what he wants in this kingdom or this that he's building for himself.

I know that's a big, bold statement, but that's what I'm seeing is that he's using people like Chad Daybell, who became a popular speaker in this prepper community who had a following and he was a rising star. He's a rising star. Let's be honest. Buying cannabis shouldn't be complicated, sketchy or low quality. That's why I want to tell you. you about mood.com. That's M-O-O-O-D.com. Mood ships federally legal cannabis straight to your door. No medical card, no hassle. And here's the kicker. The quality is better than anything you'll find at your local dispensary. Yeah, I said it. Whether you're into edibles, concentrates, flour, or just looking to explore, you'll find it all at mood. And it's not just the variety that makes them stand out.

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with survivors of human trafficking and provided therapy services for them. I think, and I can't verify this, but it appears to me that the aftercare specialist on OER payroll was simply a reason why he would be involved on a day-to-day basis with OUR and Tim and things like that, because they needed to make an explanation why this guy was involved into OUR. So he was receiving financial compensation for OUR. He's on the payroll, and he was advising Tim throughout the process. and I've seen documentation that we're hopefully going to be releasing in the next week or two about Tom Harrison's role and what he was doing in OUR all the way up to the present day. So he's been involved for over 10 years and he's in a very prominent advisory role with OUR this moment today. This moment still. Yeah.

Yeah, this moment. Yeah, the last documentation I saw was from a year ago. in September right when the Church Jesus Christ, the Saints denounced him. And they had a crisis management meeting. And in that crisis management meeting, they are trying to figure out how to manage all of this. They are talking to Elder Ballard's office,

to the LBS Church Department, Doug Anderson, with the PR department to everybody they can to figure out what's going on and how to manage this thing. They're drafting press releases and stuff that I've seen. And in that crisis meeting, there's one person that they, from 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock and 10 o'clock that they're consulting with all throughout for each subject that they're going down on how to management. And that crisis person says, call with Tom. Call with Tom. Call with Tom. Call it Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom Harrison. Tom is T-H-O-M. So we always know who Tom is. I just want to say.

It's T-H-O-M. So that's who. When I saw that, I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy is still running this whole organization. And Tim is getting advice and guidance and mentorship on how to handle it from him. And I think it's because he needs to know how this fits into the prophetic roadmap that he has for obtaining presidents of the United States, profit of the church, all the grand vision that Tom has for him. He's like, okay, everything just hit the fan. my world's imploding. How does this fit into the plan, Tom? And I'm sure Tom had a convincing answer for him. You know, so I'm just like, I'm just, whoa. So thank you again for this interview and for your work and for coming forward. So, so Tom is still part of OUR. I'm still

processing that. I had heard that he had done aftercare, although that's, so let's talk about that to because clearly I think the majority and hope that the majority of people watching this interview want to help children. We want to help children and rescue them. And that he was part of this aftercare as a therapist. He's a social worker and therapist. Was aftercare happening? Because that was always something that I'm confused about.

And I've tried to look into it. And I've tried to talk to people and they won't get back to me. I mean, I don't blame them. You know, I'm like, hi, I'm Laura Matthias. Talk to me. They're like, yeah, don't respond to her. But is aftercare helping happening? Are you seeing that this was all set up for the future to help children in the future?

Does that make sense? Yeah, that's a good question. Aftercare was happening. However, I don't know how it could involve Tom Harrison because all the operations that OER was running are in these other countries in Colombia and Nicaragua. Honduras and Haiti. I have not talked to anybody that has confirmed that Tom Harrison was on any of those operations. He was back at HQ in Utah the entire time. And so the victims are down there. They're not flying victims to Utah. They're not putting them in Africa care facilities here. So I don't know what role he could possibly play in the aftercare for victims that they did

take into their care. From what I've understand, most of the aftercare was outsourced to organizations within the country where the operations were happening, which makes a lot of sense. So if I haven't seen any documentation that shows that he was actually performing aftercare in OUR here in Utah, because they didn't help sexual assault victims here in Utah. that they weren't running operations here, really, is primarily almost all of them were in third world countries, Central South America. Okay, so it wouldn't make sense that he's actively doing therapy

for any aftercare. No. And if he's on the payroll, then it's, as you point out, likely as an advisor. And he's still on the payroll, even though Tim is no longer. Okay, now. I don't know about today. But this document that I've seen about the crisis management

that was from last September and Tim had already been kicked out of OUR. He had been ousted. And he started his own organization called the Speer Fun or Liberty and Light Foundation. And so... Is that with Ken Hoag? Yeah, with Ken Krogue.

Ken Krogue, I don't know. I just said, Hogue. Excuse me. Ken Kroke. To any Ken Hogue out there, I'm sorry. Ken Kroke. With Ken Krog. Yep, as CEO. Also with Brad Bauer.

elder ballard's son-in-law and so tom had migrated with him to his new organization and that's that's what i know you know tom harrison was allegedly almost excommunicated for writing the book visions of glory i'm i'm the one that brought that forward because tom himself sent me the letter that is out there now for people to see that he actually mailed it to me. People have tried to say it's not real. I can tell you that he sent it. He addressed it in his handwriting. I have confirmed this.

Tom Harrison sent me this letter from 2014, where he's addressing the leadership in his local congregation, his warden stake, saying that he denounces the book and he regrets writing the book. And clearly we've learned that after he wrote this letter in 2014, he was then made a bishop of a student ward at the University of Utah. And they did not excommunicate him from the LDS church. But I don't know if you have the answer to this, Ryan. I'm just trying to understand it.

Do you know about this moment of time? Do you know why they almost excommunicated him? Do you know why they haven't? Do you know how the LDS church feels about the book Vision of Glory? I'm like putting a lot on you right now. And I don't know if you have the answers. This is just simply a discussion. You and I, I'm just trying to make sense of this all with someone that might know a little bit more.

Yeah, that's a really good question. In 2016, I was given a calling by Elder Ballard to make a TV show about Tim Ballard. And I thought that process was going to involve close interactions with Elder Ballard as we worked on this project. But it didn't go that way and I wasn't able to follow up. But that's one of the questions I wanted to ask Elder Ballard at that time is what they, how do they view Tom Harrison, Visions of Glory, and is that church sanctioned material, you know? And I don't know the question the answer to that, but all I can say is on the outside of that question are these facts that Tom Harrison is very close to many, many apostles, general authorities. He's spoken openly about his association with Neil A. Maxwell. They were in the same war together.

He's a big name dropper. He's a big name dropper. Yeah. I also have been told by a source that is very close to the situation and it's credible, that he is, Tom Harrison is very close to Dallinay Chokes and has his support, who is currently the first or second counselor in the first presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ, Latterge Saints. He's also in line to become prophet, the next prophet and president of the church.

That he has, Dalton H. Oaks. Dallon H. Oaks, yep. Yeah. And so he and there's many other general authorities that are close to the family, close to Tom, and are, you know, batting for him behind the scenes. So I think from what I see, because that letter came out, somebody in church administration forced his hand and saw that the book and the doctrines are not in a line with the mainstream teachings of the church, Jesus Christ, Larry Saints. And they are probably also realized that they're causing a lot of harm in the lives of the people that take those and run with them,

believe them fully as I did. in my case, and to the extremes and it's causing harms. So he was pressured in some way to distance himself from that book and sort of halfway to announce it by saying that John Pontius took some creative license in some of what he did and that it shouldn't be taken absolutely literally. But in all of his public statements, when he's at eternal core and he's doing these, these speeches, he's preaching it as a literal future historical events. Yeah. So. No, keep going. Keep going.

I'm pulling stuff up. So, I mean, you tell me what's going on there. I think he had to do that. He had to issue that letter to appease the faction within higher up LDS leadership that says, you have to stop doing this. It's causing real damage that we're aware of in the lives of the people in our church that we're shepherds over, you need to denounce it. And so if you do that, we'll let you keep your membership,

we'll keep your reputation intact and things like that. That's what it looks like to me. I can't say that I have firsthand knowledge of that because I don't. But that's what it looks like to me as it's an appeasement for those in leadership that don't want him to continue preaching these messages and these doctrines. But they can't fully denounce them because, he has the backing of people like Elder Oaks. Interesting.

And I didn't know about that relationship. I do know that in his communication letter it says he should have taken the advice of his dear friend Neil Maxwell and not publish the book, right? So that was interesting to me. But I didn't know that about his other relationship. So thank you. So we need to also probably address something that not a lot of people know about. This is coming out, you know, more being more talked about it.

stories and other things recently. People say, well, okay, he was, so you've been able to confirm that he's excommunicated from the church or he got an excommunication letter? No, he was, he was not excommunicated that I know of, but there was, I think there was a threat or a disciplinary council because I think that's why he had and did write that letter in 2014 to defend his membership. Okay. And he said, I want you to know that I denounce this. book. I, you know, I should have taken the advice of Neil and Maxwell and not wrote these visions out and kept them to myself. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do now because it belongs to John Pontius and his family. And, you know, I do believe he wrote that. He sent it to me

when I asked him questions about his connection to Chad Devo. Excuse me. And then, but what's odd is I see what you see. I see other statements from people, and I hear other things that behind the scenes, he is saying, no, this is real. No, this is true. And it does remind me of Chad Daybell. Chad Daybell would say my books aren't real. We have him in 2011. Chad Daybel saying that in an interview at a bookstore. No, these are fictional books. But then later he says at a preparing to people conference is actually the day he met Lori Valo. And we have this recording. And his speech, he states, these books are real. My books are real visions. And I just had to tell people they weren't so that they would get published. But no, they are real. account. So, you know, it's familiar. It's weird. It's like you hear him say in one end in this letter, they're not, or it's not to be taken as literal and it's metaphor. That was the word he used metaphor. But I'm also seen on a John Pontius. Info website and from, as you point out, the eternal core conferences that Tom Harrison started to bring God back into therapy, he does seem to state it's real. But, you know, it's confusing. So that's why I'm asking these questions.

Like how is you saying this differently to different people? I am in some Facebook groups where they state they know that the near excommunication letter couldn't be real because they know that this book is scripture and Tom Harrison would never ever denounce it while other people are saying this is metaphor. So it's just very familiar to Chad DeBel. I just think that there are multiple stories out there. So maybe what I want to ask you, Ryan, is it sounds like you've been on both sides of this, right? You've stated you believe this book for a time that in your meeting with Elder Ballard, not to be confused with Tim Ballard. Elder Ballard was a apostle of the LDS Church who is now deceased. But Elder Ballard and Tim Ballard, no relation, were friends for a time.

Elder Ballard denounced him before his death. But you said that you wanted to even ask Elder Ballard about this book that you believed to be true. Would you say you believed it to be scripture? And maybe you can help us through your own experience, understand the whole this book has. Sure. I would say I was afraid that it was true. And when when a book came out, it caused a huge stir. a lot of people were talking about it.

And if you've read it, you know what it talks about, just absolute apocalyptic destructions. There's even a scene in there where Tom, I believe, is, there's a plague that comes through Salt Lake City, and instantly people burst into boils, and the pus from these boils is extremely contagious. And so there's body bags that are, distributed and family members out of an act of love and trying to save their own family would then

while they're getting sick when they know they have this disease would crawl into these body bags and zip themselves up before they died to try and save their family from being exposed to the disease that's killing them. I mean this is like really really heavy dark apocalyptic terrible things. I believe. leave Tom discussed when he had to do this, when he saw his wife die in this way. And so reading these things and having it come at a time where I was thirsting for revelation, and there's all this talk about the mind calendar and the world coming to the end, to the end.

And I was a young dad, and we just went through the financial crisis of 2008. I'm just barely coming out of that, which disrupted everybody's lives. I come into like this role of I've got a family now. I've got kids. I have a wife I need to provide for. And then the entire financial systems around the world collapse. And everybody's like, what the hell is going on? Like, this is scary.

And so wanting to know what's next so we can prepare for it. I felt for me was imperative as a father and provider to try. and be prepared for whatever the next financial crisis, calamity is going to hit, because that just hit, that hit hard. I lost my job. I couldn't find work. A lot of people lost businesses. It was, it was, you know, a very unsettling and unstable time. And so this book comes out and it provides this very detailed roadmap of what's going to happen in a series of events.

and it can be used as seriously a roadmap on where you can go to find refuge, who you can find refuge with, what the church's response is going to be, and what their preparations are for doing this. And ultimately, it foretell the return of Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ and also provides spiritual instruction. for how to connect into angels and God so that you can get your own revelation on what's happening, so you can keep your family safe. So as a dad with four little kids, I saw this as a huge blessing to try and make sense of the world.

I can put it that way. and try and prepare for what for the potent. Even if I wasn't fully on board with this is what's going to happen, but I thought, what if this is going to happen in this way? And I start like, I start ruminating on that question. And the more you think about it,

the more freaked out I got about the potential for this. And because I was feeling so fearful that this could potentially even be true, I needed to do something to reconcile that fear and try and quell that fear and anxiety that was stirring up in me. And so what did that look like? Well, it looked like in 2012 when I saw that Obama started talking about gun violence, I think right after Sandy Hook and calling for gun reform, I thought visions of glory, there's roving bands of marauders that are going around capturing people, taking them into making them sex slaves, taking our girls and our daughters as sex slaves.

And now Obama is trying to take our guns away. So what did I do? I grabbed my little kid, threw him in the car, ran down to Walmart, and bought an AR-15, got like the second to the last one. And then that started this process of, all right, I got an AR-15 and ammunition. That made me feel a little bit safer. It made me feel a little bit more prepared and quelled that anxiety a little bit. little bit more. Then I think about, okay, what else could happen? Well, food short it is. Let's stock up on food. So I start getting food and start making food storage plans. And that quelled that

anxiety and fear that I had that the visions of glory, apocalyptic could just possibly be true. That may feel a little bit better. And then I'm like, well, what else should I do with, what else do I need to do? And so I found my way to a vow and started reading what other people are doing for prepping. And you start this cycle, this chain of events that goes from, you know, so if they were, I'm going to buy an extra thing of rice at the store. Oh, that feels a little bit good. That feels good. And now I have rice in the pantry. And I should probably do this. And then I read about other people that are growing food at home and other people that are stockpiling ammunition and guns. And it ends up, if you keep going down this path long enough, you're going to end up at a

compound in the mountains of Montana by yourself or with other preppers, with stockpiles of ammunition and guns waiting for the events to happen. And that happened to people that I know. I know people. Yeah. It happens to people, but I don't know personally, but you do. I do. I do. I know. I have friends that like full on went into compound mode, go up to the mountains and, and wait out the apocalyptic. I know people are. right now that are buying land in places where they think that the earthquakes won't have as big a destruction effect in other parts of the United States and that are right now going out and buying land and upending their life, just wait to their kids graduated from high school, and then

they're bugging out. They're going to their their prepper compound to wait the destructions of the last days. And these are like, these are people that are nurses and bus strikes. and people that are just, you know, into construction, everyday folks. Regular people. Regular people. I was a journalist for Fox 13 News and CBS News. I feel like I was pretty, I'm a pretty rational person that can sift through information in a logical, rational order. And then I got this book and started sending me down this rabbit hole. And put me in a state of fear that I started acting very irrationally. And that's what people do when they're very fearful.

When they're a state of fear, it shuts off the logical, rational part of your brain. And you go into fight or flight mode where you have to act. You have to do something. You have to act. And that's where I was at that time. Wow. Wow. And I want to explain to our audience.

Prepping is good. As you point out, you're a father. You're a protector of your family. you're going to prep, you're going to prepare for emergencies, you're going to have food storage, you're going to protect them. And so to explain to some people that haven't read the book, Visions of Glory, it's more than that, right? It's more than there's going to be calamities. And it goes into, let me give someone an example of one chapter. Like, it talks about an evil spirit entering the crown of a gentleman's head as he looks at pornography because he is sinning technically at this moment.

and thus he gets inhabited by an evil entity. Is that right? That's one chapter. I'd talk about that specific chapter with Tim on one occasion. And we're talking back, we're like, do you think that's how it happens? And I never heard anything like that.

And so I remember having this conversation with Tim about that because Tim was involved in child, exploitation and he had to look at a lot of child porn for his job at DHS, you know, SIF looking for clues on who these kids were and where they're at. So, yeah, we, he saw that and we talked about it. And I don't know, we didn't come to a conclusion, like, is, but we thought, I remember saying, like, maybe that's how it goes, maybe that is going on.

I don't know. And he was afraid of being. possessed by those kind of evil spirits that when you look, turn porn on, they enter to the crown of your head and they take over your body trying to experience the euphoria. That's what's described in the book. Yeah, that is what's described in the book. Yes. Yeah. And most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information, lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where ORA comes in. Ora actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But ORA goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million

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He was going to the temple like two, three times a week. Wow. Similar to Lori Valo too. Wow. Oh, really? Yeah. To try and combat the, try and keep him having the Holy Ghost so strong that the evil spirits would not be able to enter the crown of his head. Wow.

So that affected him. You know, it's a heartbreaking concern because I don't think even, like, I hate even reminding people. Like, it's just so tragic what happened to JJ and Tiley. In fact, yesterday is the anniversary of the day that Tiley was murdered, a 16-year-old girl, but they were declared zombies inhabited by evil spirits according to their mother and Lori Ballo and Chad Dable. And so to hear that and to know that it's in the book and that. Lori Valla read this book is heartbreaking, but there's one part of the book. I'm actually going to play it right now.

I found it. You probably heard me typing, but I did find this, and I want to share this really quickly. It's, in my opinion, the most concerning part of this book, and I don't know if you read it then or heard it then, you know, but I'm curious. So this is actually Megan Connor, Lori Vallow's cousin, on this. this podcast with me here. There was a law we followed. It was not a rule, but a law. Which, can anybody tell me the difference between a rule and a law?

Me either. No. Okay. Making sure it wasn't me. When an individual or group threatened us, we knew their hearts. If there was any hope, even the slightest hope, that they could be saved, even in the most celestial sense, we did not harm them. when we were confronted by people who were fully ripe in iniquity and who would never repent,

then we were free to deliver them for mortality. Their death would then be a blessing to them because they could no longer add additional iniquity to their divine ledger. To me, that is the most frightening part of the book knowing what we know happened to two children. Little innocent children, seven-year-old J.J. Valo and 16-year-old Tiley Ryan, the children of Lori Valo, and as well as Charles Vallo and Tammy Debel, the spouses of both of those Lori and Chad. Was that something you read in the book? Was this talked about? Was this discussed? This is to me the most awful, awful part of the book, the most chilling part. of this visions of glory book.

Yeah, it's absolutely a justification for murder. Now's the time for a great deal on a new Honda. It's time to take an adventure with rugged capability and commanding style. Check out the Honda Ridgeline, pilot, or CRV. For a limited time, well-qualified buyers can get a 3.9% APR on a 2025 pilot or a 2.9% APR on a 2025 ridgeline or CRV. dealer for financing details. Hello, it is Ryan, and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on Chumbacasino.com. I looked over the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing? They were also playing Chumba Casino. Everybody's loving,

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And that is terrifyingly fright. That's terrifying. I mean, that's terrifying. But it actually goes back to this idea that, that if you look in the Book of Mormon, there's an account where prophet Nephi is trying to obtain these records. And God delivers a person that has the records into his hands. and that person, Laban, had previously sought to kill them.

Well, because that person was attacking Nephi and his brothers, God said that Nephi is justified in murdering him. He was drunk, passed out on the street, completely helpless, and God instructs Nephi to behead him. And that that is just defiable. Now, I've heard Tim talk about the account of Laban, which the religious justification for Mormon extremists, what they take from that is that if somebody is not innocent,

then it's justifiable to murder them for the greater good. Wow. Right? For the greater good. That's what DeFi murdered Levin, even though, which doesn't make any sense to me because he could have taken his clothes, gone and got the plates, got out of town. but for whatever reason, the principle that Mormon extremists take away from that story is that if it's for the greater good, it's justifiable to murder that person.

And so what Tom is talking about in Visions of Glory actually traces his roots back to the foundational texts of the Mormon Church on a principle base from what I've seen, which is a problem. which is a big problem. Now, the other component that I want to wrap into this is this concept called the second anointing, which is a special secret temple ceremony that's given from apostles to friends of theirs by invitation only. It's in the temple, and it's where an apostle comes and washes the feet of the person and gives them, pronounces of a blessing upon them in which they are guaranteed celestial exaltation in the highest degree of glory in heaven.

And part of that blessing, they are told that they cannot fall from that grace. They're guaranteed the spot in heaven. As long as they don't sin against the Holy Ghost or deny the Holy Ghost, I'm not sure what that actually means or shed innocent blood. the key word to that is innocent, implying that if the person is not innocent, then it's justifiable to shed their blood. And this goes back to this doctrine of blood atonement that Brigham Young taught, where he actually said on one occasion that if he caught one of his wives in bed with another man, he would be justified in throwing a jet.

javelin through their heart, and that he would actually be doing them a favor by shedding their blood as an atonement for their sins. Have you heard about that? The javelin story, I don't know. The second anointing yes, the emphasis on the innocent blood, I do have a question for you. Is this disgust in like extremist? fringe LDS circles? Is this part of a discussion? Yeah, it's not overtly discussed, but it's a principle that's that's envisions of glory that's found in that can be scripturally justified by how you interpret the Nephi-Labin situation. I've heard Tim talk about it as justification

for doing harm because when he's going into these brothels and things he's doing in working with sex workers, he sees that anything he does as justification justified for the greater good. And the greater good is saving kids. So if he sexually assaults his coworkers along the way, don't pay attention to that. That's not important because it's for the greater good. It's always this deflection, which I see. And to get back to the second anointing, I have on good authority that Tim received the second anointing from Elder Ballard. It makes sense if Elder Ballard is very fond about giving out the

second anointing to people. Tim told me on one occasion that he had received a special blessing from Elder Ballard that he went to Elder Ballard with concerns about what he was doing at DHS. This was before OUR started and that he was, you know, I, I understood it as he was having to look at child porn and be involved with sex workers and things like that, feeling unworthy, feeling like he was doing something wrong. He went to Elder Ballard with these concerns. He said, Elder Ballard gave him a blessing that absolved him of guilt around any of that. And I totally saw this physical change in his demeanor and countenance after that, that he was completely absolved from guilt in the work that he. did. And he didn't say specifically that he got the second anointing, but the purpose of the second

19 is to guarantee somebody's salvation as long, and they can't fall from that grace, no matter what kind of sexual deviancy or sexual assaults or anything that they do in this life. And so it absolves them of responsibility. Now, bringing this... So it means he can pretty much do whatever he wants to do. It's a get out jail free card, yeah. And that completely emboldened him. and I also think it in his mind led him to believe that no matter what kind of harm he caused along the way in this, he was not held accountable by the church or by God for that because it was in the effort of saving kids. And that's what Elder Ballard told him, is that as long as it was in the effort of saving kids, he would not be held accountable by God or the church for sins or misdeeds.

or crimes, possibly, as long as it was in the pursuit of those efforts. Now, if that's not enough, this also ties back to Tom Harrison in the fact that there's, Tom Harrison was very close to many apostles, and still is, to many apostles of the church. And some of we've identified, someone we don't know about, it would be surprising to me if he hadn't gotten the second 19 also, which would complicate if there's people in the church that wanted to excommunicate them. That would complicate that effort. The layers of this onion just keep getting deep crazier and crazier.

And I don't know, it's so hard to wrap your head around this whole situation. People that aren't involved in this religious sphere, this religious culture, like the New York Times, they look at the sexual assaults and be like, okay, that's wrong. This guy is a bad guy. But you got to, that is just like the fruits of this chain of religious beliefs and fundamental extremism that goes all the way down the ladder to what I believe, the source, which is Tom Harrison. Yes.

Yeah, thank you. And that's what I want to talk to you about. I mean, this is what I've been just trying to process for honestly years now. And I do want to state, you know, this is from Fox 13. Prior to the civil suits being filed against Tim Ballard, the LDS Church released a statement citing betrayal and condemning Ballard. And we're talking about Tim Ballard now. I know there are two Ballard to get so confusing. So prior to the civil suits being filed, civil suits being filed, the LDS Church released a statement citing betrayal and condemning Tim Ballard for morally unacceptable behavior.

The statement accuses Tim Ballard of improperly using the name of President M. Russell Ballard for personal advantage. And Tim Ballard was then excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But you are also stating that you were in these meetings, some of these meetings with President Ballard or not President Elder Ballard and Tim Ballard. Again, no relation. And they did have this friendship. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Tim, Elder Ballard got involved with Tim in 2012. I know exactly, I know the person that gave the book to Elder Ballard, a woman that was lived on the same street as Elder Ballard introduced Elder Ballard to Tim's book, the American Covenant. He became a man. Tim Ballard's book. Yeah, he came in, became enamored with that book, loved the message of it, wanted to get behind the message of that. But he is also aware of a situation in Haiti in which a kid, that was a two or three-year-old kid of the bishop in this ward in Haiti, got kidnapped from nursery and disappeared. The people wanted to use this situation that kidnapped him to try and extract a ransom from the bishop, Giesmo, for taking his kid,

thinking that because he's a bishop, he must be a wealthy individual. He's a leadership position. He wasn't able to pay the ransom. The kid disappeared. It's super tragic story. Elder Ballard was aware of this situation, knew that Tim Ballard worked in human trafficking. And so he reached out to Tim for two reasons. One, he loved his book and his work and his American Covenant message.

And he tried to, he wanted to get Tim's help to find this kid. in Haiti. So Elder Ballard got involved before OUR started with those two pursuits in mind. So to do that, Elder Ballard helped Tim launch OUR. He did a number of things. He helped connect Tim with Steve Young's backers, financial backers, and some of the, I believe, the officers in that nonprofit to come over and help start the OUR nonprofit. He also, released tithing records to Tim and OUR of wealthy members of the church. That did happen then.

That is accurate. That's been reported upon to help launch OER. Oh yeah, that was part of the lawsuit, wasn't it? Was that part of the lawsuit, the tithing record? I don't think it was. It may have been, but it's been in other reporting. I'll find it. Yeah, it has been.

I know I've shared. Sorry, the interruption. Okay, keep going on. No problem. And so Elder Ballard helped launch OUR directly to help get Tim off the ground. He also was part of helping Tim get involved with Glenn Beck. But the biggest thing that he did was just simply endorsed him on a personal level as somebody that was credible and reputable and encourage people to help support him in his cause. that we may stand against people, that we may take this basic step.

And Glenn Beck, I don't believe, would have gotten involved with OUR had it not been for the endorsement of Elder Ballard. Glenn Beck provided the first million for OUR. He also brought Tim on to his show to host it and collaborated on some projects like that to help give Tim an income. And so, yeah, Elder Ballard was involved. from the very beginning. And then going forward was a mentor and executive producer of Tim's career throughout all the way up until about a year ago, year and a half ago, as a very close mentor. And Tim would meet with him twice a month, usually, tell him what's going on, get his advice. And he was a spiritual advisor as well as a business advisor. Now, what I saw and what I was

witness to very early on was the church through Elder Ballard was interested in using Tim as a rising star and his message of the American Covenant to be a missionary tool for the church and try and help them assimilate into evangelical America and be accepted as Christians. And they're going to do that by publishing a non-LDS version of the American Covenant and try and make Tim a rising star, a celebrity, a household name in evangelical American America. And part of the one of the plans early on to do that that was discussed but not implemented was to scrub the internet of all Tim's Mormon connections. And so that his Mormon connections would not hinder his rise in evangelical Christianity or the wider the nation

as a wider. These discussions were going on and Tim talked to these about talked about these discussions with me because if they implemented this plan where they would scrub the internet, paid Google to wipe all traces of Tim's Mormon background from the public sphere, I was going to be asked to take down my TV show, which featured Tim and was a very Mormon TV show, Nephite Explorer. And so that was going to affect me. Yeah, I know. You can't get around it.

There's not much else that's Nephite out there besides Mormonism. So I was going to be asked to take down my TV show. It was a huge relief to me that they decided it was too. costly and probably wouldn't work to go with this plan. And so I was not affected by that. But that set the stage for what the vision for Tim was to be, which was to become a household name in evangelical Christianity, an American hero that would reflect well on the Mormon church as an ambassador for the Church of Jesus Christ, Lattery Saints. And that was kind of the vision. So when Sound of Freedom movie came out, I was like, dang, they got it done. They figured it out.

They got him into hero status in evangelical America through this movie. And that was kind of the goal that I saw 10 years earlier is to make something like that that would put Tim in that position to be an ambassador for the church. And Catherine Ballard, just three weeks ago went on... Tim's wife. Tim's wife went on a podcast that confirmed this whole story that I've been saying in which she said that. that Elder Ballard expressed to them that the sizzle reel, the video, the highlight reel of him in action being a superhero, saving kids in third world countries. The whole point of the sizzle reel was so that Tim could become a prominent figure in American society, a celebrity, so that he could talk about the covenant and bring people back to this religious message. And that is accurate that whiteboard, that Tim Ballard wrote on for that infamous whiteboard meeting that he said,

he wanted this to be the sizzle has made rounds, I've seen it. We know that Glenn Beck was at the meeting and you know, I want to circle back to Glenn Beck really quickly because he's also, Glenn Beck has also mentioned in the New York Times article as we know Glenn Beck is a popular political radio commentator. I am curious, I would love to talk to Glenn Beck.

Glenn Beck has recently, not recently, Glenn Beck has since denounced Tim Ballard. He did donate, as you mentioned, But I also have to say it's interesting that Glenn Beck did read the book, Visions of Glory. There is a photo of the book, Visions of Glory, on Glenn Beck's desk, and the Blaze Marketplace sold the book. Really? I didn't know that. Yes.

That's really fascinating. Yes. I wonder what kind of influence that had on him. Dang. Right. Right. So, you know, I don't know if there's any way, but I'm going to put a word out, Glenn Beck, if you're listening, would love to. talk to you about the book,

Visions of Glory. But yes, that's sorry to bring that tangent, but he was at that meeting. And so going back to the sizzle, yes, I saw that whiteboard. Saw that whiteboard. That way you are was to be the sizzle. So, yeah, wow.

Wow. How do you get out of all? How do you sort of see this for what it is? I mean, so let me clarify. You just gave your full story, which is hours long on Mormon's stories. It's very interesting. And I will have a link to your story in the description of this video and episode as well, as well as your podcast with Carat Burrell. So of course, that was like

a very loaded question. But in a brief sense, how did you start saying, wait a minute, what's going on here? What's your process of stepping back and saying, I don't know about Tim Ballard anymore or this book, Visions of Glory? Yeah. I started. to see some very concerning results in my own personal family and myself from taking this vision as a glory message to heart. I became a hardcore prepper. I got into this mental headspace where I was constantly thinking about what's happening and when everything is going to go down and worrying about it. It was like a 24-7 worry. It caused a lot of anxiety in me. And it affected my relationship with my family, my kids, and my finances.

I mean, you're basically trying to provide for your regular life, but then also build a completely separate life, all the preparational financial needs of a second life where society collapses and provide the needs for your family for years to come and have that in reserve and store. So it's a huge financial burden for anybody that's trying to do this. it also affected how I viewed other people in a really negative way. And what I mean by that is the message of Tim's book, The American Covenant,

is the same message that's in vision of glory. And if you boil it all down to, it's you need to be righteous or God will come down and destroy you. That's a message that's in the Book of Mormon. That's the message that's in visions of glory, that the righteous are preserved. If you're found on God's favor, then you'll be preserved. So that message, Tim took to heart. He wrote that into his American covenant books, which is identified the civil war as judgment from God for the unrighteousness of a nation, that the nation was enslaving black people and persecuting my religious groups like the Mormons.

and because the nation did that, God came down and boom, civil war, we're going to destroy your country. And it was only thanks to Abraham Lincoln who read the book Mormon and understood this message and got people to turn back to God. Then God took away the civil war and found resolution. That message that God is a God of vengeance, and if you don't do what he says, he's going to destroy you, is a very terrifying, frightening message. And we have to put this into context. Tim put this message in all of his books, the Lincoln hypothesis, the Washington hypothesis, the Pilgrim hypothesis. This message is in all of his books.

This message parrots the same theological justification for fearing God that was in visions of glory. And that, those books of Tim, made him Deserate Books number one author. So I see his books as an extension of some of the theological principles in images of glory. And so that's how I view it. Anyways, I took that message to heart. I promoted it on my TV show. I believed in it that, yeah, turning to God or bad things are going to happen.

That's terrifying. But I saw the results of that in my own life, which was living in fear, a lot of anxiety, preparing for a day when everything would collapse. And it robbed me of happiness in the moment. of that day because I was fearing for the future. That's one thing. The other thing that it did to me is because God's wrath and the sword justice is hanging over us as a nation for unrighteousness, it caused me and many others to look around us and say, all right, what is in our society

and our culture and our nation that's unrighteous? And people would look at quite often the biggest light in reality. rod for that was gay homosexual and transgender people. Gay marriage, you know, was hotly debated throughout these years. It still is. And that is kind of like low hanging fruit for Christian extremists that say, all right, that definition of sexuality is something that is unrighteous. Those people are trying to change our laws to support their lifestyle and then export their version of that or imprinted in our school systems and indoctrinating our kids to accept what they perceived as immoral, unrighteous behavior that will bring upon us the wrath of God.

Are you following the connection that I'm making there? Yeah, and it's creating, yeah, and it's deciding your morals should be everyone's morals. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But it's worse because then I began to view people that were, for example, advancing and and advocating for gay marriage as somebody that was going to bring down the wrath of God upon me and my family and destroy our nation. Oh, wow.

That's extreme, right. That's very extreme. One small thing to just destroying our nation. Yeah. And so it put me in a place of fear that these people are going to harm my family, these religious ideas that don't agree with my conservative ideas, they are going to harm my family. and it stirred up hatred towards those people and a resolution that we need to stop them.

And that's not a good place to be, you know. It's really not a good place to be is to look at other people, judge them by your standards, whatever they are, and then look down upon them and let that cycle escalate into the point of hatred and despise people that don't believe what you do. So it's a place that I saw was a dark place in my life, that that's where this road was going. And this took personally a turn when my sister-in-law, my sister's wife, who was very close with us,

she lived two doors down from us, helped us raise our kids, devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Larias Saints, turns out one day unexpected to us, she attempted suicide. And the reason she did that was because she was a closeted gay lesbian and was trying to live within the expectations of her religion, which didn't allow for that in any way, shape, or form. And she couldn't reconcile her religious beliefs with who she was. as a person and decided to take the off ramp and try and take her life.

And so that hit us really hard, obviously. And it started this process of me thinking about homosexuality and so my conservative extreme beliefs in a different way. And I saw that by putting these ideas that people that are gay are bad people that are going and break down the wrath of God upon our nation. That has really harmful effects. And it turns out that kind of rhetoric led my sister-in-law, who I love and revere, who's an amazing person to seek to take her own life.

I'm so sorry. Yeah. And so I started this process of analyzing, is this American covenant message actually a good message to have at your heart? And are the results of a good, for society and deconstructing that ultimately led me to believe that no, it's very harmful. It's very harmful. It divides families. It pits Americans against their fellow countrymen.

It makes people choose to not even try and engage in dialogue to solve our problems because everything's going to collapse in the destruction of the last day anyways. What's the point? and to become more belligerent and resolved and dig their heels in into these extremist ideas. And it's a really detrimental effect for me personally within my family. And I think that's true for the society as a whole. Thank you for sharing a bit of your deconstruction. And I'm so sorry. And I hope things are better now.

Yeah, they are. Yeah, she's doing great. We're doing great. And yeah, we can talk about this stuff openly. now thankfully. Thankfully, yeah. Going back, circling back to visions of glory, you know, your friends with Tim Ballard,

you're part of what you are, you're in a meeting with Elder Ballard, you had questions about visions of glory. Did you ever, were you ever able to hear what top leadership think about this book, making the rounds? Because they stay very mute on it. And it continues to be a popular book sold in Utah.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a hugely popular book. Still gaining in influence, not the opposite. Right. And let me clear by it's not sold by the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latterty Saints, but it is sold by those who are LDS booksellers and is pitched as an LDS book in its fall. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions, pulling details about you from public. records and the internet, and then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers.

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ORA gives you all of it, together, at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. In the circle, so that's, you know, I just want to make that distinction, but the leadership of the LDS Church, They know what's out there because we know what Tom Harrison wrote to his LDS leaders, but do you know how they feel about this book? I don't. I don't know how they feel personally. I was never privy to any conversations about that, but their silence speaks volumes, in my opinion.

They have not come out and denounced it. They have not come out and denounce the teachings of it or Tom Harrison. And so by not denouncing it or not commenting at all, they're allowing a space for this thing to thrive. And they're allowing a space for members of their church to take it to heart and make it part of their belief system. And I don't know why they haven't denounced it. I think it has a lot to do with Tom Harrison having very influential friends, very influential supporters, very high up in the church. I can't say that that's the reason because I have not involved in those conversations, but the silence says everything, the silence, not denouncing it, not coming out and speaking.

And it's in the same way that the silence towards the women who are the victims of Tim Ballard, who have been sexually assault and raped by Tim Ballard, their silence is incredibly damaging for this whole situation. Because, yeah, they've come out and say, Tim Ballard has done morally unexhaired, acceptable things, this ambiguous statement. And he's used Elder Ballard's name in incorrectly. But they haven't done anything beyond that. And they've been totally silent for the last year on this whole case. Meanwhile, there's women in this, in these places in Utah that are fearful for their life because

Tim has a huge following still, much like Tom Harrison still has a huge, huge following. One of them, like expressed to me that she's afraid to pump gas. She's afraid to get out of her and pump gas because she lives in the same stake as Tim and Everybody around him is still enamored by Tim. He has a cult following that supports him and so the church remaining silent and not asking people who know about the situations with the victims not to come forward is having real real effect in the lives of these women, real effect on these cases, because I know personally at least half a dozen people that were inside OUR that know what happened, know the crimes that Tim committed, and they're afraid to come forward because they don't want to speak out against

the church. So being on radio silence and not commenting on that case with Tim Ballard and his alleged crimes is having a real effect in people's lives and people have been damaged and it's causing real harm. I see the same thing happening with a Tom Harrison situation by the church not denouncing him, not talking about it. They are allowing those doctrines to have real effect in people's lives and real harm take place in the lives of people that take that message to heart and I'm very in an unfortunate extreme cases like Chad and Lori and Tim allowing those people to commit crimes based on this religious doctrine which could have been stopped it could have been squashed like so long ago I know there's always going to be a faction of the religious

extremists and fundamentalists that are going to always always they're like no the church could come out and like completely denounce it there will still be a following but that following would be like absolutely decimated by those that are still active believing members of the Mormon church. And it could, it wouldn't be rising in popularity. It would probably be diminishing into very subsets of the culture. And I, and so the silence actually has a real effect in people's lives. And that's the tragedy of all this. It could be so easily stopped.

I completely agree. And I'm going to step out on my, journalism role and share my two cents that Ryan, I agree with you. I think the church needs to now at this point come out and denounce the visions of glory book if they are against it. If they believe that this is not an accurate portrayal of their doctrine and I, as someone, you know, I've been in PR myself. I understand sometimes there are times to not say anything and there are times to speak. And this book has now on Utah's top seller list.

It is actually the top sold fiction book, although many of the people buying it, don't believe it as fiction, but it is the top fiction book sold in Utah. It's a book again that was once sold on Glenn Beck's Blaze Marketplace. it is a book that many believe is truth. And I know that from what I have seen, being a researcher, watching, we now have two children who are dead. And we can't say now that this is the only crime because we also have two children, Ruby Frankie's children who I believe were on their way to death and who were severely abused. And now we have Tim Ballard's victims.

And I want to point out, thank you for bringing it back to the victims. Brian, I want to say one thing I really valued about the New York Times article was their focus on the victims. And I recommend everybody reading the lawsuits, if you want the full lawsuits and you want to pick them apart, and read them yourself pages and pages. You can find them on patreon.com slash hidden true crime. I also will have a link to the New York Times article. And then I will also have a link to Kerr Borell and your, Ryan, your podcast as well so that people can understand what these victims of Tim Ballard have been through.

And so going back to what I'm saying, it is time, in my opinion. And so putting on my opinion hat that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does need to say something about this book. And I just want to, again, one more time, share my biggest concern about this book. Again, this is a reading, A Visions of Glory by Megan Connor, who is the cousin of Lori Vallow. There was a law we followed. It was not a rule, but a law. Which, can anybody tell me the difference between a rule and a law?

No. Okay. just making sure it wasn't me. When an individual or group threatened us, we knew their hearts. If there was any hope, even the slightest hope, that they could be saved, even in the most telestial sense, we did not harm them. When we were confronted by people who were fully ripe in iniquity and who would never repent, then we were free to deliver them for mortality.

their death would then be a blessing to them because they could no longer add additional iniquity to their divine ledger. You know, Ryan, do you feel like if someone like Elder Ballard had said to Tim Ballard pay no attention to the book Visions of Glory or if someone had said that to you, that it affected you and or Tim Ballard?

Yeah, without question. if as a believing member of the church, I would have shunned the book. It would have been case closed if the church told me to avoid that, because they've said countless times counseled their members to avoid non-approved, priesthood sources. And I believe Tim also wouldn't have as well. And that message is, of God's going to destroy you if you don't do what's right. wouldn't have made it into his books that have been read by hundreds of thousands of people.

And he probably would have ended up in a very different place than where he is right now. I believe that. And so, yeah, they have a role to play. And I believe that there are good people in the administration of the church that are trying to do the right thing. I have hope and faith that they can see this if they're aware of it. and hopefully we'll make the right decisions to not only help victims currently, but prevent future victims from being victimized

in the way that Chad's wife was and Lori's kids and Tim Ballard's and Ruby Frankie's kids and Tim Ballard's co-workers. I mean, these are all people that I believe were victimized because of the religious police instilled in them. by this book. And they're just the start of a wave that I fear is just going to continue to grow as long as this book is out there and in circulation.

And that's a terrifying prospect. It is. Yeah. I have it on Good Source that with somebody close to the situation that I can share with you off camera that has confronted Tom Harrison about the, situation where Lori killed her kids and asked him if he bears any responsibility for that situation. And his response was, I am not responsible for what people do with this information. I've been able to confirm that Chad Daybell met with Tom Harrison at his office in Salt Lake

multiple times, at least twice and possibly more. No accountability, no responsibility. So his hands are clean. His hands are clean. And so by all accounts, he's still finding people to spread his message. And both through the book, but also behind the scenes and people like Tim Ballard. And so this got to stop. This is a danger, absolute danger to society, both on an existential level and on a practical level on a day-to-day basis like it was in my life. and people that I know that took this message to heart.

I also want to point out, let's, so, you know, if that is how Tom Harrison fills, I want to further this conversation. Okay, so let's say you put something out there and, right, you can't control whether a terrorist or not gathers, gets a hold of this information and does something with it. Okay, fair enough. But let's take it one step further.

And if you are searching out, out rising stars and you are contacting them and you are letting these rising stars know that the book is true and that they have been called of God. Does he still believe that he is not responsible? Because he is directly letting these rising stars know that they have some power. And I'll leave that as a question. I don't know. But it certainly seems compelling that perhaps there is some responsibility if he is allowing people like Tim Ballard and perhaps Chad Daybell believe they have been called to a position of leadership with some very frightening information, including the reading we just heard from Meek and Connor.

So one of the things that has come out in the documentation from these lawsuits are readings from Janet Russon provided to Tim. She's the psychic that was provided, according to Catherine Ballard, was provided to them by Elder Ballard. Catherine Ballard said in a press release that wasn't published that I have, and I could share with you that Elder Ballard, at the instruction of Elder Ballard, Janet Rosson, involved. She is a psychic. Yeah. Visions of Glory isn't like a horrible book. No. That was giving readings to Tim from the other side. She'd talk to Neway Maxwell.

She would talk to dead prophets, possibly Nephi or ancestors of Tim Ballard, and give instructions from the spirit world to Tim on how to run OUR. And these are very specific detailed instructions that me and Karen are going to share with all of you on our podcast, but they talk about who should be in what leadership positions, who should report to who. I mean, like HR type of management instructions from the other site.

And one of the people that Janet Russian, one of the people that Janet Russon connects with or channels through these psychic readings is Tom Harrison. She says in these psychic readings, Well, now the mic goes to Tom Harrison. And Tom gives Tim instructions through this psychic reading of Janet Russon on questions Tim has. Either though he's not a dead person from the spirit world, somehow Tim believes that Janet can channel Tom remotely, wherever he's at and get instructions remotely. Wow.

That's really putting Tom Harrison on sort of a deity pedestal or prophetic pedestal as well. Well, more than just a pedestal, he is up there. According to this one, according to this one reading that we've got access to, and Blaze TV actually also published a reading from Janet Russon about this, to their credit, to Glenn Beck's credit, identifying this spiritual world of psychics behind the scene. According to this, Tom Harrison is up there in Tim's source, primary source of information, along with God, Angels, and Tom Harrison. That's expressed in these readings as primary sources of inspiration.

So Tom Harrison and Tim's mind is right up there with God as primary source for inspiration. Yes, yes. Thank you for sharing that. That is true. That is in the lawsuit. Yeah. One more thing that just came to mind also about this is, if you understand, this whole world with avow visions of glory.

It's all based on near-death experiences. And people have these near-death experiences. They're detached with their body. They have visions and their consciousness goes off into other places. And they learn things. Come back and tell everybody about what they learned. Sometimes it's apocryphus of the future. Sometimes it's spiritual teachings.

Tim has not had a near-death experience. which is kind of the vehicle for getting this kind of revelation. And there's this cult built around people who have had near-death experiences like Julie Roe. And there's a whole cult following of people that follow people who have near-death experiences. That's what a vow is really all about in a lot of these books by John Pontius and Julie Row and several others. Anyways, Tim wanted to be part of this cult.

He wanted to have this kind of revelation, but did not have the near-death experience that he could talk about in this way. So he found an alternative way of having this experiences, and that is by the use of ketamine, the drug ketamine. Okay. And that's pretty well documented by his executive assistant that he would go on these ketamine trips. she would sit down and write out what he was saying, and he believed he was channeling, he could channel anybody he wanted through these ketamine drug-induced psychological or psychedelic experience,

mimicking or trying to have the same experience that all these near-death experience people and superstars in this world have had. And then he'd take that transcript and use that as a roadmap for what he would do. And it'd go so far as to try and channel specific people in history, like Abraham Lincoln, and try and get access to them through ketamine. Okay. In addition to that, he would use psychics like Janet Russon and another one that I had access to or that was brought on one of our American Covenant tours,

who he brought on the tour because he is... He told me that he wanted this psychic to come on the tour because she could see through the veil. And I'm like, all right, but yeah, I'm not paying for somebody who claims psychic abilities come on the tour. You wanted me to pay for that out of the tour expenses. I kind of resisted him on that idea. He's like, but just think, we're going to be at John Adams' house. What if John Adams is there? She can tell us what John Adams wants to tell us.

She can be the medium for getting that kind of intel and access. And I was like, Tim, come on. All right. And he put enough pressure on me. I'm like, okay, she can come on the tour. So that was her role on one of our American Covenant tours. During that tour, a lot of Tim's family was on that tour. And we had, I came out of our hotel room once, wondering where everybody was.

And I found everybody in Tim's hotel room, at least like 15 different people from his family. And this psychic was giving everybody readings on who their, guardian angel was, which is directly the same thing that Tom Harrison talks about in his book, which is that the guardian angel is usually somebody in your relatives, is in your ancestral line, grandfather, great uncle or something. And this woman was going around the room, telling everybody in Tim's family who their guardian angel was, describing them, and then giving them a message from that guardian angel to that person individually, specifically. So I don't know if this psychic had was like had Tom Harrison as a mentor but I talked to with her. I got to know

her and she became involved in Tim's family through these psychic readings. And so that's that's where this thing was going. You know that that is fascinating. I have to say it's reminiscent of Chad Daybell deciding who was who in a past life, but also he would also talk about his near-death experiences and saying that his grandfather was near when something happened in flashes of light. So again, I'm seeing similarities. And my point in bringing this up is not to, you know, to just continue to beat on, you know, same old. It's that this is the belief system that is out there. It's out there.

And let me tell you about an experience I had on that tour with this psychic that Tim brought on. that I'm still today trying to make sense of, but I think it might shed some light on why people believe so ardently in these messages and in this psychedelics, psychic vision, visionary world. So on the tour, we had been talking about connections between the Book of Mormon, Abraham Lincoln, and Civil War for days and days. Tim was given presentations. I was sharing some research that I had.

And we were talking about this. And one of the interesting points that came out in this conversation was that there was this crucial battle. I believe it was involving the stripling warriors in the Book of Warren that it says was on the seventh day, fourth day of the seventh month of the year, identifying what in our calendar would be July 4th. July 4th was an important day, obviously in our history. But I think also in the battle of Little Roundtop in the Civil War is a turning point. We were making this comparisons between the Civil War events and the Book of Mormon events and seeing that maybe these dates lined up and we're like, what if they were? What if the Book of War was a prophetic text for the Civil War event?

A lot of buzz. We're all really excited about this possibility. We take the bus to Little Round Top at Gettysburg. I'm thinking, like, I need to figure this out. And at the time, I had been experimenting with dowsing rods. which are these metal rods that you can ask questions to and get an answer yes or no whether they cross by just holding these metal rods. And this comes from all over Calgary in church history was a dowser.

And so people that I was around in this world of seeking all sorts of spiritual fanaticism, introduced me to this. And so I'm like, I'm going to take these dowsing rods and go out to the bus. asked if a Nephite battle had happened here. And I'd been talking about this with the psychic, this woman that Tim brought on the tour. So we got off the bus. We came down and I asked the dowsing rods if a Nephite battle had happened. And they appeared to start to cross, which caused my heart to like leap and jump.

And I had this emotional reaction. And because that happened, it kind of set off this, what I call a, feedback loop of emotions where, you know, feedback loop is where you speak a little bit into microphone, comes out a speaker next to the microphone, and that sound goes back in the microphone and is amplified. It's a feedback loop. And so this little experience, I think, caused this emotional feedback loop inside me where I had this very emotional reaction that was overwhelming, almost like my emotions got tasered, and I like got weak in the knees. And I interpreted that at the time as the Holy Ghost or as the God's love, like being poured down on

confirmation that the question that I was seeking an answer to that I already thought was real was true. So I had this emotional reaction to this question that I asked through these dowsing rods. and this person was also there asking the question to me. She was getting emotional, and I think we fed off of each other. Like, this is really real. Like, this is happening. God is talking to us right now because we're having this overwhelming emotional experience, right? Right.

From that moment on, I thought I had a special connection with God, and I could ask God through these rods questions, and I would get the spiritual, emotional reaction from that. And so that became part of my belief system. I have since deconstructed that and figure out that it's not the voice of God that was speaking to me. But those kind of experiences are very, very prevalent in these circles of people seeking new death experiences and having these conversations and doing these prayer circles. They start to have an emotional reaction that I think becomes a feedback loop. that is a runaway freight train,

and they interpret that as God's voice confirming to them what they want to know to be true. Does that make sense? It makes absolute sense, and that last metaphor you used as a runaway freight train was also very powerful because Chad Daybell had a dream about a runaway train, known as the train dream, where he essentially, in this dream, decides he has,

this power as well. So it was just interesting you use that analogy, but it does make sense. And I appreciate you sharing this personal experience and how you've processed it and how people can start to believe that they have been given this close relationship or power, you know.

Yeah. And if you are convinced in your mind that God is speaking to you in this way, through your emotions, then you can really, take that as absolute truth in your life and all other logic and skepticism and doubts about things become completely crushable because you've had a personal religious experience that confirms you that you're on the right path you're doing what god wants you to do and and you can

tune out any naysayers that say hey maybe you're not heading down a very healthy path And so people ask, like, why is Lori Valo still to this day in down this rabbit hole? She's probably had lots of these experiences like I had and that have cemented this narrative in her mind that she is connected to God, connected to angels. And how do you, how do you like convince somebody that that wasn't the case? That's, they've reinforced this confirmation bias in their head for years and years and years and years. had all these experiences along the way to convince him that that's the case, that it's really hard to like unravel all of that afterwards. And Tim is a great example of that.

He's had multiple spiritual experiences where he thought he had inspiration and was being spoken to by Abraham Lincoln. He had these ketamine trips where he thought he was channeling dead prophets and dead general authorities. And then he has the endorsement of a church leader like Elder Ballard. and is getting all these millions of dollars to support his fun, and he's just taking off, that goes to your head, and that constructs a narrative in his mind that God is behind them,

that God is advancing his cause, that he has the force of God behind him. And so I think he really is in a place to this day, believing that all these charges will be dropped, all these allegations of crimes are going to go away. He's still going to fulfill the great, grand vision that Tom Harrison and has for him and his life. I don't think there's anything that can shake him from that.

Even like years of being in prison, I think he'll still hold on to the belief that those things will come to pass. Interesting. Thank you for sharing that. That was really important. I appreciate you sharing that. I also want to point out that we've mentioned several people who have talked about Tom Harrison. I want to bring up one other person and that is Heather Deba.

Take a listen to this. Preparing a people event and the first one held in red. That wasn't even preparing a people. That was before preparing. Oh, this is before preparing people. This is when it's just him and Julie Row, conquering world. Okay. So they come. It's at capacity.

And all of this stuff is from what I hear from chat. It's like proving to him that he's on the right track. So we even said to him, sorry, I'm jumping because as I talk, I'm like, oh my gosh. And then there was things I've tried to just block, I think. But we had said to him, it's going to be really hard for your kids to get jobs in Rexburg because of the college, all the college students get the jobs. High school students, it's really hard to find a job. Well, and even for Tammy, you know, it might be hard to get a job.

Well, they all immediately get jobs. And that was proof. That's proof. You know, proof. They're on the right track. You know, and my attitude of times

good for you. I'm glad it worked out for you. And you've got, and you're doing well here. His kids did have done really well in Rexberg. And I'm happy for that. Tammy loved being a librarian at the elementary school. People loved her.

I was happy for her in that. So anyway, as things are progressing at this massive meeting, Julie Roe gets up and tells her story. And then from what I heard, because it wasn't there that Chad got up, and he's expressing some of his experience. This is kind of when I think his near-death experience stuff starts. I'm going to talk about these near-death experiences,

because to me it's a crock of shit. It is. I think what he did is he saw the notoriety, the success that Julie Roe was getting off of hers, So he went back, hey, what could I turn into a near-death experience? His children may think I am the worst person ever because I'm saying this, but Matt's had conversations with others in the family. This is kind of the consensus.

So when he talks about this one where he jumps, does this cliff jumping, you know, and all of a sudden his spirit can't, even he explained this to us at one point. His spirit came out through the top of his head and his, knees kind of got caught at the top of his head. So a spirit didn't come completely out of his body, but kind of halfway. It's so literal.

And he, anyway, so he, that first one he tells us about and Matt and I, after, I was like, Matt, he had an adrenaline rush. And he's making it into this thing. And so there's that one. And then the one where he's in San Diego and he, And Matt wasn't there. Matt was on his mission at that point. And I said to him, I'm concerned. I said, I don't like this. You said this to chat. I said this whole predicting of events. I said, we have a prophet who doesn't say this stuff. Why are you, why are you to correct on this?

And he brought up, oh, shoot, the name of the book, Visions of Glory. I had a a sibling call me that I had read that book and said, you need to read that book. So I did read that book. And I, again, I thought, so I just kind of threw it to the side. I thought it was really weird. And you were a believing member then. And you're a very, very devout belief. Devour. And you were like, WTF. Yes. Exactly. So he brings up that book. He brings up the author because wasn't that? It was like a like a author. Someone wrote it. John or so John Pontius. Pontius wrote it, but he wrote Tom Harrison's story. Tom Harrison's name in the book is Spencer. So it was about Spencer. I've communicated with Tom Harrison. He's a therapist in Salt Lake City. And he is Spencer. He sent me a letter. He wrote that he's a therapist in Salt Lake City. He is Spencer. He sent me a letter. He wrote that he, He says it's supposed to just be metaphor and that John Pontius got a lot of it wrong.

But I also know Tom Harrison to be a man who believes in near-death experiences and believes in his experience. So there you go. Were there earthquakes in the book? I admittedly could not read the whole thing. And I don't remember because it was so. It just was nonsense to me. So I don't remember it was. Chad, however, told us in that conversation.

He brought up that book. And his story was that he and Julie Rowe had been called in by some apostle. Here you go. Leader of significance. You wouldn't tell us who. That that person said, you need to get your book out there. visions of glory, that this was all legitimate. And that that, whoever that leader was, was telling his own family members to hightel it out of Salt Lake.

Do you believe that story? I don't. If it happened, again, I'm not a believing member anymore. And we'll get into that. But I, at the time, I thought nonsense. He's making that up. No leader is going to say that because I believed in these leaders. I don't know who that would have been.

I don't know who. But he was just trying to legitimize what he was selling to us. So I just think that's really important. There's this story of Chad Daybell trying to legitimize his story. And he uses, again, the book of Visions of Glory and implies that he was called in to some meeting with a leader. I'm not going to claim it's an apostle. I don't know. A leader.

Maybe it was Tom Harris. in who knows, maybe it was a state president. We'll never know. But I don't think it was a state president. My point is, we just don't know. And what are your thoughts on that? And that this book sort of again confirmed what Chad was doing. Yeah. That fits a pattern. Is it familiar? Yeah. I have heard through the Great Vine, lots of different general authorities of leaders of the church that are behind the scenes, support. this book. I have witnessed Elder Ballard behind the scenes supporting Tim, not wanting to be out in the public, publicly supporting Tim, but behind the scenes doing everything he can to support Tim as a silent partner, as identified on that whiteboard meeting. I was in these meetings in which the church had a vision for Tim in his career and were supporting him. I was actually asked by Elder Ballard personally to create a national TV show for Tim, but they didn't want the finger,

of the church on it at all. And so I needed to do it without the resources of the church. And that was a missionary tool that Elder Ballard saw would be great for the church. So there is this behind the scenes pattern of behavior where they support things that they want out there, but don't want to have their fingerprints on. And seeing all that with the American Covenant and Tim's. evangelical message of Mormonism, I can't help but think that the same thing appears to be happening with visions of gory, that they don't want their fingerprints on it, but that there are

leaders of the church that are still behind the scenes supporting and putting that message out there. And it's, it's, I can't confirm that that's happening for sure, but that's what it looks like to me in this situation. Thank you for sharing. Is there anything else you want to share before you? Yeah, there's something that came to mind. What was it? We've talked a lot about this question, does the church have a responsibility for the aftermath and the harm that Visions of Glory has caused? And the way I see it is every single member of the church is raised and taught to believe in prophets.

that prophets are our access to God, access to divine revelation, and the leaders of the church are claimed themselves to be those prophets. So it's watchmen on the tower for us as the shepherds for our flock. If they are the watchmen on the tower that they claim to be, then I would expect the watchman on that tower to warn us of harmful things. especially false prophets. And if Tom Harrison is a false prophet, then I would expect to hear from the church that he is a false prophet.

But by being on radio silence about this whole issue, it's leading a lot of members to believe that he's a true prophet. And if they are the watchmen on the towers that they claim to be, then absolutely step up. I think there's a responsibility there to help people identify whether whether Tom Harrison is a true prophet or a false prophet. And it's as simple as that. And I think there's good people in the church

that I hope would understand this issue enough to at least issue a statement and take a stance one way or another. I mean, everybody looks to the brethren as our spiritual guides. This is somebody that has a book and a theology built around it and a cult following that is so pervasive in Mormon culture. that it's either it needs to be addressed to. I mean, it needs to be dealt with in a way that, and everybody wants to know, is he a true profit or false profit?

I think Salt Lake, the leaderships in the Salt Lake office building, can answer that question for people that listen to them and their opinion as mouthpieces for God. And that would go a long way in especially causing the victims to find justice, that have been harmed by Tom Harrison doctrines and hopefully prevent the carnage that is right around the corner, I fear, if these messages are not dealt with. Thank you. I appreciate, Ryan, so much coming on. This won't be the last time we have you.

And again, Carabrell, thank you for your work. Thank you for bringing it back to the victims, too. It is the victims that matter. It is why we do this. Tim Ballard you know according to the lawsuits has victimized many

so we thank you for coming on we thank you for explaining this for validating some of our work again everyone we recommend you tune in to Ryan's podcast with Carabaral for more information we'll have a link to that

we'll have a link to all of your information that we've talked about in the description of this video and this podcast episode Thank you. We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Now's the time for a great deal on a new Honda. It's time to take an adventure with rugged capability and commanding style. Check out the Honda Ridgeline, pilot or CRV.

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