Rebecca Julia Brown (born Ruth Irene Bailey[1] in Shelbyville, Indiana on May 21, 1948) is a controversial Christian author and former doctor best known for her claims of having helped people escape the occult in Indiana and various locations. Brown later had her medical license revoked for improper diagnosis and over medication of patients. She is known for her series of books and other publications about Satanism. According to Brown, there are Satanic recruitment camps throughout the world which train future Satanists and Witches.
Brown married Daniel Michael Yoder on December 10, 1989 and currently leads a Christian group called Harvest Warriors with her husband.
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In the mid 1980s, Rebecca and her then roommate Elaine went with their claims to Jack Chick, owner of Chick Publications, who published their claims in two cassette tapes Closet Witches 1 and Closet Witches 2 and in two books He Came To Set The Captives Free (1986)[2] and Prepare for War (1987).[3] Rebecca Brown's stories were the basis for the Chick tract The Poor Little Witch, which portrayed witches recruiting school children into Satanism and infiltrating Christian churches in order to buy off ministers with bribes.[4]
Also among the two women's claims were that Yoga is Satanic, Roman Catholicism is Witchcraft, that Satanists work very closely with the Freemasons and the Roman Catholic Church, that Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games are Satanic, and that speaking in tongues and divine healing cannot always be trusted.
Chick and Brown later decided to end their business relationship. Jack Chick still defends Rebecca Brown and believes her books are truthful. Some Christians have claimed to have been helped by these books, although there are also many who doubt the validity of them. Brown's books were reprinted in 1992 by Whitaker House, which continues to print and distribute them to this day.
Her other books are Prepare for War, Standing On The Rock, Becoming A Vessel of Honor, and Unbroken Curses; the latter which argues among other things that American Indian reservations are cursed ground, and that violence in the modern African American community stems from inherited family curses originating with African tribal warfare.[5]
An important associate of Brown's was a reputed ex-Satanist known as Elaine, who is described in Brown's book, He Came to Set the Captives Free, as having left Satanism and converted to Christianity. She claimed to have been a Satanic High Priestess and to have been involved in a marriage ceremony with Satan. Her surname is not mentioned in any of Rebecca Brown's books, but she is the source of many of Rebecca Brown's claims.
Elaine's real identity was revealed as Edna Elaine Moses (née Knost), a mentally unstable woman from New Castle, Indiana, who met Brown during her residency at Ball Memorial Hospital in 1980.[6] Court records show a marriage in 1967, which ended 2½ months later when her husband said she treated him in a "cruel and inhuman manner".[6] After separating from her husband, Elaine lived with her mother and stepfather. Until the late 1970s, she remained in New Castle.[6]
Elaine and Rebecca were roommates at the time her first two books were published, and also lived with Elaine's developmentally challenged daughter, Claudia. Elaine was identified in legal documents when Brown's license was revoked, following an incident in which Elaine arrived at a hospital covered in lesions. Rebecca was "inappropriately treating Edna Elaine Moses' purported leukemia with massive doses of Demerol and Phenobarbitol to the point where the patient would tolerate 600 to 900 cc injections of Demerol, a fatal dose of which is normally in the 150 to 200 cc range, and up to three times the recommended therapeutic dose of Phenobarbitol."[6]
They eventually went their separate ways, and Elaine died Feb. 19, 2005.[7]
Perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding Rebecca Brown's books are her claims about the existence of large, Satanic covens in America performing various evil works, rituals and sacrifices and the teaching in her books that born-again Christians can be inhabited (not possessed) by demons.
In 1984, Brown's medical license was revoked by the issuing state of Indiana. The licensing board ruled that on numerous occasions she had "knowingly and intentionally misdiagnosed her patients", blaming their illnesses on "demons, devils, and evil spirits." A board-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed her as suffering from "acute personality disorders including demonic delusions and/or paranoid schizophrenia" and observed her injecting herself with unknown substances. The board also found that she had over-medicated her patients and administered improper treatments, as well as failed to properly document their treatment.
The 1984 medical board findings from the state of Indiana identified Elaine as Edna Elaine Moses (aka Elaine Moses, aka Elaine Bailey), one of Brown's patients, and charged that Brown had misdiagnosed her with leukaemia and inappropriately treated her with large doses of Demerol and Phenobarbital. Elaine had to be hospitalized for detoxification of the controlled substances Brown had given her.
Brown's husband, Daniel Yoder, was arrested on July 29, 1991 in Phoenix, Arizona, and extradited to Iowa. Yoder was charged with falsifying motor vehicle registrations and driver’s licenses, and falsifying social security records, allegedly using the social security number of a dead man. During the court proceedings the prosecution amended court documents to include the defendant’s true and correct name of William Joseph Stewart. After initially pleading not guilty, Yoder eventually agreed to a plea bargain in which he pled guilty and was fined $1,976.92, plus a surcharge of $593.08 and court costs.
Her books, He Came to Set the Captives Free and Prepare for War were investigated by Personal Freedom Outreach, a counter-cult Christian organization that has outlets in several major cities like St. Louis and Chicago. PFO concluded both Elaine and Dr. Brown's stories were false, based upon the above evidence coupled with many inconsistencies between the books and their teaching tapes and testimonies. Many of these findings were published in the article "Drugs, Demons, and Delusions," originally published in 1989 [1]. Another counter-cult organization, Answers in Action, also published their own findings, including court records online.[8]
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