John Todd, "Former Witch" and "Illuminati Insider"

The only positive thing I can say about the late John Todd is that makes a lot of other "former witches" look good by comparison. At the height of his fame as a "former witch", he was a sexual predator, a military impostor, and a practicing witch who used several aliases.

John Todd emerged on the Christian scene around 1968, at least four years before Mike Warnke (according to the Cornerstone article on Warnke, he accused Warnke of stealing some of his Illuminati material), but never gained the level of mainstream popularity that Warnke did. His tales of Satanic intrigue were just too dark and outlandish for the average Christian. Frankly, you would have to be either blissfully innocent or profoundly stupid to buy any of Todd's b.s.
He was ultimately relegated to the far-right fringe, preaching to militia members and Christian Patriots about the endtimes and the need to establish armed strongholds. One of his last known locations before his arrest was Iowa, where he attached himself to a paranoid young couple named Randy and Vicki Weaver. He convinced the Weavers they needed to get away from populated areas and prepare for the end of the world. We all know how that turned out.

Even though his anti-occult invective wasn't as appealing as Warnke's, Todd still has his fans. Old audio recordings of his diatribes have popped up on YouTube, where he is vaunted as an Illuminati insider, framed by The Powers That Be. Henry Makow still promotes his story.

Who is John Todd?

No one really knows. His background is so occluded that even the year of his birth is in doubt. Possibly he was born in Ohio around 1950. He was taken into foster care as a youth. He suffered epileptic seizures throughout his life.
He was fairly good-looking and extremely tall (about 6'4").
Given his peculiar fascination with daytime television and gay porn movies, I strongly suspect he was a failed actor.

Todd first surfaced on the fundamentalist Christian scene in Arizona in 1968, performing as a Pentacostal preacher. He was about 19 or 20 years old, married to a slightly older woman named Linda. Earlier that year he had been arrested in Columbus, Ohio for malicious destruction of property.
He told Pastor James Outlaw of the Jesus Name Church that he had recently been saved at a Pentacostal church service after practicing witchcraft in the Navy, and wanted to be re-baptized as a Jesus Only believer.
He then vanished for several years, resurfacing in 1973 as a born again warlock. He again said he had been saved at a Pentacostal church service, and identified himself as an independent Baptist, but preached mostly to charismatics. He was now married to a woman named Sharon Garver.
He went on the fundamentalist lecture circuit in Cali, educating churchgoers about the international Satanic conspiracy. His talks were a blend of pop conspiranoia, anti-occult fearmongering, and tell-all braggadocio.

Todd said his real name was Lance Collins, and he had been born into a powerful family of devil-worshiping witches with ties to the Illuminati. His mother was so consumed by guilt and shame because of her deeds that she spent her life in and out of mental health facilities.
His foster mother was the high priestess of all the witches in California, and his sister had been made the high priestess of Ohio at the tender age of 13. The Collinses were direct descendants of Scottish Druids who posed as Puritans and imported witchcraft to America before helping to establish the Illuminati.
Todd was perhaps the first "former Satanist" to come from a Satanic family, but within a few years this would be the norm.
The hereditary Satanism he described bears little resemblance to Doreen Irvine's "black witchcraft", and no resemblance whatsoever to Mike Warnke's "third level" Satanism. Presumably, as an Illuminati member, Todd was privy to knowledge that Warnke never imagined.

He was reared on a diet of "occult" teachings: ufology, spells, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.
Witch parents aren't allowed to love or discipline their children; kids belong to the cult. At age 13 or 14, boys are sent to witch schools called Outer Courts to be trained as Satanic priests. Todd was initiated into the priesthood at 14. His sister became such a powerful high priestess that she could summon demons in the form of UFOs.
At age 18, while serving as a Green Beret, Todd became the high priest of his coven.

The Illuminati Todd describes is a configuration of pure evil represented (in part) by Freemasons, Mormons, international finance, Communists, and - paradoxically - the John Birch Society. He explained that very few Jews belong to the Illuminati, but the Rothschilds are at the top of the pyramid, totally controlling the illustrious Council of 13. All Illuminati members, whatever their supposed religious affiliation, are actually devil worshipers.
He claimed to know a great deal about the inner workings of Freemasonry, yet always called it "Masonary". He also called the Trilateral Commission "the Trilateral Council", and the Council on Foreign Relations "the Council of Foreign Affairs".
Clearly, he was somewhat familiar with John Birch literature. But he never explained why the John Birch Society, as part of the Illuminati conspiracy, would expose all these real Illuminati fronts.

Let's move on to the Satanism. Todd was, of course, a high-ranking Satanist within the Illuminati. He belonged to a Grand Druid Council headed by Raymond Buckland, the man hand-picked by Philippe Rothschild to head the Illuminati and a professor of anthropology at Columbia. Buckland revealed to Todd many things known only to high-level witches; lower-level witches were hand-fed disinformation and nonsense. He also received some witchcraft training from Ruth Carter Stapleton, sister of future president Jimmy Carter.
Buckland, as you may know, was indeed a very prominent witch. But he never taught at Columbia, and wasn't an anthropologist. He was a flight attendant for British Airways.

According to Todd, Satanists don't congregate. This is quite a contrast to Doreen Irvine's gatherings, which attracted up to 1000 black witches, and to Mike Warnke's San Bernadino-area coven of 1500.
In Todd's form of witchcraft, Satanists dealt directly with their high priests. They didn't even know the other members of their covens.

The central scripture of Satanism is the Necronomicon, but copies are rare. The only copies known to Todd were kept in St. Petersburg, Glasgow, and the British Library.
In case you're keeping track, that makes three different sacred texts in just three different "ex Satanist" accounts: The Book of Satan (Doreen Irvine), The Great Mother (Mike Warnke), and a book that doesn't freaking exist (Todd). But hey, at least we've heard of the Necronomicon. Those other two books don't seem to exist even in the realm of fiction.
All three cults were supposedly organized on a national level, and two encompassed the whole planet. So why aren't all these Satanists using the same books?
And just for the record, Lovecraft stories never named St. Petersburg or Glasgow as locations of the Necronomicon. There were copies at the British Museum, Harvard, the Biblioteque Nationale, the University of Buenos Aires, and Miskatonic University.
Todd also referred to the book several times as the "Necromonicon", just as he called Masonry "Masonary".
Sheesh, he couldn't even get his bullshit right.

Satanic scripture. LOL.

Apocalypse Not

In '69, Todd enlisted in the military. Illuminati witches are exempt from military service, but he wanted to set up some covens in other countries and this was a convenient cover. He served in Vietnam as a Green Beret before being transferred to Germany. One night, in Stuttgart, he got crazy drunk and high and (for reasons known only to him) engaged in a firefight with one of his former commanding officers. The man was killed. From military confinement, Todd phoned his foster mother in L.A. and asked her to cast a spell on the members of the jury at his imminent court martial, to make them believe he was innocent. (It would have been simpler to cast a spell on the commanding officer in charge of the court martial, but what do I know? I'm not a Satanic Illuminati witch.)
Instead, someone pulled major strings for Todd. A Senator, a Congressman, and two generals personally escorted him out of his cell. He received an honorable discharge, no questions asked. The Army even destroyed all Todd's military records to help preserve the secrecy of the Illuminati.
In reality, Todd's papers were not destroyed. And they tell a slightly different story: He served as a clerk in the Army from February 1969 to July 1970 without ever setting foot in Vietnam. He was stationed in Germany for less than a month and was discharged under a Section 8. You know, that thing Klinger was always trying to get by running around in drag? I wonder just how unstable a person would have to be to get a Section 8 during 'Nam. I'm guessing "Charlie Sheen".
Anyway, Todd had been making death threats and false suicide reports. A psychiatric evaluation conducted in '69 found he suffered emotional instability, pseudologica phantastica, and possibly brain damage as well. He was also treated for a drug overdose at an Army facility in Maryland in 1969.

Devil Rock

Like evangelist/exorcist Bob Larson, Todd claimed to be a music industry insider. After 'Nam, he was a manager at Zodiac Productions (variously described as "the largest music conglomerate in the world" and "the largest booking agency"), so he knew that every rock musician in America had to become a witch before he could get a recording contract, and that every master recording was taken to a Satanic temple to be possessed by a demon. Each major record label had its own temple.
In one of his anti-rock lectures, he recounts a conversation he had with David Crosby after his conversion:

Todd: "Do they still bring the master [recording] to the Temple...and conjure demons into the master? Is the purpose of rock music still to use witchcraft, cast spells...?"
Crosby: "Of course. You know that, Lance."

The only moderately successful Zodiac Productions operating in the U.S. during the early '70s was a film company that produced one film (a '74 gay porno called The Portrait of Dorian Gay - NSFW) and several episodes of the '60s variety show The Hollywood Palace. It did not have a music division.
To explain why no one recognized this mammoth media conglom, Todd said Zodiac was forced to change its name because of the negative publicity he brought to it. He did not divulge the new name.

World Domination and Stuff

In '72, the Grand Druid Council received a diplomatic pouch from headquarters in London, containing an eight-year plan for world domination (culminating in December 1980). It involved economic breakdown, a military strike force comprised partly of prisoners, the execution of millions, and a Third World War that would spare only Jerusalem.
Around the same time, a letter from Satanic HQ announced the discovery of a man believed to be Lucifer's son. He would serve as a false messiah to lead the masses astray. Todd later identified this Antichrist as fellow Baptist Jimmy Carter.

It was shortly after this that Todd was supposedly saved at a Pentacostal church service. Sometimes he placed this event in California, sometimes it occurred in Texas.

After his conversion and defection in '73, the Satanists made many attempts on Todd's life. This campaign of terror echoes the assassination attempts described by Mike Warnke and his first wife, and was equally unsuccessful. How is that these international Satanists can pull off world wars, but they can't bump off two regular dudes?
Todd wouldn't have been hard to find. He was working at a Pheonix, Arizona coffeehouse run by Pentecostal Ken Long, a local leader of the Jesus movement.

Todd's extant lectures overflow with such stupefyingly retarded bullshit. Just a few examples:

• Ayn Rand fans are Communists. Atlas Shrugged was commissioned by Philippe Rothschild (Rand's lover) as a blueprint for the destruction of the U.S. and the Communist/Illuminati takeover of the world. Rand inserted racy passages in the book to keep Christians away from it. Todd doesn't explain why Rothschild didn't just write it himself. (One wonders, too, why the Satanists concocted an eight-year plan in the '70s if Rand had already produced a step-by-step instruction manual for global domination back in '57. I guess the Illuminati doesn't mind busywork. Also, Rand's hinky sex life has been exhaustively documented - I mean, seriously, TMI - and it didn't involve any Rothschilds.)
• JFK faked his death. Or not. As "personal warlock" to the Kennedys, Todd met with JFK many times in the early '70s. He never went into detail about this. In his later talks, Todd ignored or forgot this. He said JFK was assassinated in November 1963 because he had been born again and The Powers That Be couldn't tolerate that (a Catholic president was okay because Catholicism and witchcraft are virtually identical, according to Todd).
  
• Epilepsy is a medical condition, but the seizures are caused by demonic possession and/or medication. Todd actually instructed his epileptic listeners not to take their medication.
  
• The supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows was based on the history of the Collins family. Todd was asked to bring a family diary to Hollywood, all expenses paid, one summer. He spent several months as a consultant to the writers while the series was being developed. I've never seen Dark Shadows, but my mother tells me most of the main characters were vampires and werewolves rather than witches, and there wasn't any explicit occult content other than maybe a few black candles. Episode synopses at Wikipedia indicate the plot elements were culled from classic Gothic lit and popular novels.
• Most of the cast of the Star Wars movies were gay men who had slept with the producers, culled from The Young and the Restless. The Y&R cast contained so many witches that Todd referred to it as an "occult soap opera". But none of the primary Star Wars actors were ever in it. Mark Hamill was on General Hospital. Harrison Ford was never on a soap at all. Nor was Alec Guinness. James Earl Jones was on The Guiding Light and As the World Turns. Billy Dee Williams was on The Guiding Light; even though he still does a lot of soap work, he has never been on Y&R (interestingly, though, Ford and Williams appeared in some of the same films and TV shows: The Conversation, The F.B.I., and The Mod Squad). All of these men had considerable acting ability and would certainly not have to sleep with any producers to get work. Aside from Guinness, who was reportedly bi, not one of them appears to be gay. Maybe the Modal Nodes were gay warlocks?
  
• Actress Cindy Williams (Laverne and Shirley) and her boyfriend started a witch cult. I suspect Todd singled out Williams because she and Penny Marshall co-wrote a screenplay about the Salem witch trials, Paper Hands. She was also in The Conversation, the tale of a man who lets paranoia and his imagination get the better of him. Hmm.
• Most Israeli license plates contain the number 666. Todd was taking a big risk with this one. Any listener who had traveled to Israel would know he was full of it.
  
• The Illuminati gave him $8 million to start the Christian record label Marantha Records, to corrupt Christian youth via Satanic rock music. Marantha would later produce such hardcore Satanic albums as Psalty's Funtastic Praise Party.
  
• The Dunwich Horror, starring Sandra Dee, was the most accurate representation of witchcraft on film. LOL. I've seen this movie, and about the only thing it accurately represents is Grade B cheese.

Move the f*** over, Burzum...

John Todd as a character in the Jack Chick comic Spellbound?

continued from Part I

The Big Time

In August 1973, Todd married Sharon Garver. He was preaching and performing faith healings on the road, having been fired from the Christian coffeehouse for allegedly hitting on teenage girls.
This was the year that Todd first snagged the attention of Christians outside Arizona by giving his dramatic testimony on a Christian TV program. He announced he had been the "personal warlock" of the Kennedy clan, that JFK had faked his death, and that he had just returned from visiting JFK on his yacht. He revealed that many fundamentalist churches had been infiltrated by Satanists. For instance, Jerry Falwell had been "bought" with a check for $50 million. He described watching George McGovern stab a young girl to death in a Satanic ritual sacrifice. He claimed his wife had been seduced into witchcraft as a teen, and he rescued her.

Pastor Doug Clark heard Todd's story and invited him to appear on his Amazing Prophecies TV show. Todd became an overnight sensation among charismatics in southern California. He and Sharon promptly vacated Arizona for Santa Ana, Doug Clark's headquarters. They hosted weekly Bible studies in their home, and Todd appeared at several of Clark's Amazing Prophecy rallies.
Clark and leaders at Melodyland Christian Center soon heard reports that Todd was hitting on teenage girls who attended these Bible study sessions. Todd angrily denied the allegations, and thereafter named Melodyland as part of the Illuminati conspiracy.
Clark decided John Todd wasn't such a credit to his ministry, after all, and denounced him on his TV show.

His ties to Doug Clark severed, Todd moved to his wife's hometown of San Antonio and promptly impregnated her teen sister. In '74, the couple split. Todd north went to Dayton, Ohio, and found a third wife, Sheila Spoonmore. He decided to become a witch for real - whether he had ever been one before is debatable - and with his wife opened an occult bookstore called The Witches Caldron [sic]. The couple gave courses on witchcraft. Once again, there were complaints from teen girls.

Todd Meets the Crusaders

Todd's drivel intrigued Jack Chick, the guy who produces all those wacky rectangular pamphlets you see in Christians' bathrooms. Chick immediately realized that Todd would make a nice shiny new cog for his misinformation machine, and enlisted him to provide "inside information" for several anti-occult tracts.
Todd collaborated with Chick at the very same time that he was running an occult bookstore and persuading teen "witches" to disrobe for "ceremonies".

The first Chick booklet based on Todd's information was The Broken Cross (1974). Todd is described in the intro as an "ex-grand Druid priest".


In the comic, a 14-year-old hippie girl leaves home to escape her Christian parents. Hitchhiking, she is picked up by a young couple in a van. She rejoices in her newfound freedom, not realizing that two Satanists are hiding in the back of the van, ready to drug her unconscious. She is taken to a Satanic ceremony and ritually sacrificed on an altar. We're told that such murders occur eight times per year in every Satanic coven.
Chick's equivalent of comic book superheroes, The Crusaders, show up to investigate. They uncover the cult, which turns out to include nearly every prominent citizen of the town, even the local pastor and an elderly librarian. The Satanists practice cannibalism, kill dogs, and spy on non-Satanists. One of their symbols is the peace symbol - a broken, upside-down cross.
Chick states that Wicca, a form of devil worship involving child sacrifice, began during the Roman Empire. Wicca was later absorbed by the Illuminati, also known as Moriah. This organization bankrolled the production of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar to undermine Christ.

A witch named Jody cheerfully informs the Crusaders that Lucifer is the power behind both white and black witchcraft. "Satan is one neat dude...I really crave the power!" The Crusaders easily convert Jody, and she is abducted by the Satanists for betraying them. Jim saves her seconds before she is sacrificed. Confronted by a Christian, the Satanists begin vomiting uncontrollably.
Like all the Crusader comics, The Broken Cross is an insane mishmash of cut-and-paste moralizing, scripture, and occult misinfo. It also borders on the homoerotic; Jim and Tim are exceptionally buff and like to take off their shirts for no apparent reason. Methinks the man doth protest too much.

The Broken Cross was followed by Spellbound?, a screed against rock music. According to Todd and Chick, all rock has "ancient Druid origins".
In this comic, Jim the Crusader's VW is nearly forced off the road by a rock musician named Bobby Dallas. Dallas is injured in the resultant crash, and Jim saves his life. Grateful, Dallas later invites Jim to a party full of his creepy friends. We're told that the ankh necklace worn by one partier is a symbol of Satan worship, signifying that the wearer has lost his virginity and participates in orgies (a note at the bottom of the page adds that it won't be necessary to burn the book, as witches only use 3-D charms for casting spells).
A member of the cult from The Broken Cross sees Jim trying to convert Dallas. The cult immediately murders Dallas to prevent him from "blowing their cover".
John Todd himself makes an appearance, meeting with Jim and Tim to educate them about the occult. They're told his family practiced Druidism for seven centuries.
Todd explains that Druids sacrificed men to their god Kernos with "elfin fire", accompanied by the music of flutes, tambourines, and drums made of human skin. Each Halloween, they would go door to door demanding a human sacrifice (usually a young woman). If the sacrifice pleased them, they left a jack-o'-lantern lit by a candle made with human fat to protect the house's residents from demons. Such ritual murders still take place in the U.S. every Halloween, Todd tells us. And the hypnotic beat of Druid drummers is the same beat used in rock music. The melodies are lifted from "Druid manuscripts". For instance, the Beatles used this Pagan rhythm to draw America's youth into Eastern religions, opening the "flood gates to witchcraft."

All of this is pure bunk. There was no "Kernos" in Druidism. Trick-or-treating did not originate with the Druids. Druids didn't have any written literature, so rock music can't be based on ancient Druid manuscripts. They did not make their drums with human flesh. The magical "elfin fire" is make-believe. Eastern religions and Paganism are very different things.
If Todd's teachings about the Druid origin of rock were actually correct, then Celtic music would be more of a threat to society than rock and roll!

Todd then delivers a talk to a church congregation, telling them he once had 65,000 witches under his command. Their goal was to "destroy Bible believing churches and make witchcraft our nation's religion." He warns that Christians cannot wield the full power of Christ if they possess tarot cards, regular playing cards, Dungeons and Dragons, "occult" jewelry, country music, romance novels, or rock music. Such things must be burned. He also warns against Freemasonry, saying no Christian has a right to belong to a secretive organization (this is bizarre, as Christianity itself has been an underground movement in various times and places). Not only is Masonry a part of the Illuminati, but Albert Pike ("the pope of Freemasonry") admitted that Lucifer was his god. This, of course, is part of the ludicrous Taxil hoax that attempted to smear Masons in the late 19th century.
As a producer with Z Productions, Todd learned that all rock songs contain coded incantations. There follows a graphic representation of how demons are summoned into every master recording.
Todd also declares, "Every Bible believing pastor is on a death list by Satan's crowd!"
A deacon's daughter named Penny, hearing Todd, decides to join in the record burning ceremony he has planned for the church. The local media, under the direction of a Satanist named Isaac (presumably Todd's nemesis, Isaac Bonewits, who we'll see in the next section), portrays the bonfire as KKK-like activity.
Unbeknownst to Todd, the Satanists are following him, planning to assassinate him at the first opportunity. They shoot at him as he drives away from the church, but God presses Jim and Tim to follow him and capture the two Satanists. Then a cop - clearly in league with the Satanists - lets them go.

The Broken Cross and Spellbound? portray all Satanists, witches, and Pagans as murderous thugs who must be opposed by Christians. Chick also implied that most policemen, some media outlets, and many church leaders are part of the Satanic plot to destroy Christianity.

Chick continued to believe and defend Todd long after more reasonable Christians had washed their hands of him. He was later bamboozled by another "former Illuminati member" and "ex-witch", Bill Schnoebelen, and by the Satanic ritual abuse allegations of a woman calling herself Rebecca Brown. We'll see both of them later in this series.

First Arrest

In '76, a 16-year-old girl told Dayton police what was going on in Todd's little coven. She said Todd forced her to have oral sex during a nude initiation rite.
Todd asked for help from Gavin Frost, head of the National Church and School of Wicca, and prominent Druid Isaac Bonewits. He said he was being unjustly persecuted by Ohio authorities because he was a witch. After investigating, Frost and Bonewits concluded otherwise; they concurred with the cops that Todd was probably using his "church" as a cover for sexual misconduct.
He ultimately pled guilty to contributing to the unruliness of a minor and served two months of a six-month sentence in county jail before Chick and a lawyer secured an early medical release for him (he was having seizures). He received five years' probation, which he immediately violated by returning to Arizona. The Pentacostal preacher Ken Long once again found a job for him, working as a cook.
Todd admitted to practicing witchcraft in Ohio, but was able to turn it to his advantage by declaring he and his wife had backslid and were now returning to the body of Christ. Satan had lost his minion again. Soon, Todd was back to preaching.

Don't Think, Just Panic

Todd hit his peak of popularity in the late '70s. By 1978 he and Sheila had three children.
They lived in Canoga Park, California and attended an independent Baptist church.
In January 1978 Tom Berry, pastor of the Bible Baptist Church in Elkton, Maryland, arranged for Todd to go on a speaking tour. His tales astonished and unnerved Eastern churchgoers. Tape cassettes of his talk were passed around in evangelical circles, and he even managed to snag mainstream media attention. Donations poured in for a rehab centre for ex-witches that he others planned to establish. Sound familiar? Warnke spoke of opening one just like it, but never got around to doing it. Neither did Todd.
His audiences were quite large. One appearance in Indiana drew 1000 listeners.
During this series of talks, Todd talked a lot about the endtimes and the need for Christians to create armed compounds that could withstand onslaughts from Communists, the military, and other enemies of the faith. He said the U.S. government would soon be compiling lists of church members so that Christians could be rounded up and executed when the shit came down. There would also be a government-instigated "Helter Skelter" of riots and violence. The Illuminati takeover of the U.S. would begin in just one year, so time was of the essence.
He warned Christians not to trust prominent Christians. Melodyland, the PTL, Jerry Falwell, The Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship. They were all part of the Satanic conspiracy.
These revelations were received with a mixture of horror and gratitude. There's no indication that any of the Eastern churches actually took his advice and established fortresses, though.

One has to wonder if Todd harbored dreams of starting his own cult. He had some of the vital ingredients: Plans for an armed compound, a desire to isolate people from their trusted leaders, a knack for scaring the hell out of believers, and a seemingly unslakable lust for pubescent girls.

Back in California in April '78, it all hit the fan. Todd's pastor, Roland Rasmussen, learned from a church member that Todd had been teaching witchcraft in Ohio as recently as '76. Todd was booted from the church.
But Tom Berry and numerous other Eastern pastors still supported him. He began a second speaking tour that summer.
This time, the reaction was not as positive. Clifford Wicks, pastor of Grace Brethren Church in Somerset, Pennsylvania, canceled Todd's four-speech engagement after three speeches because he was disturbed by his parishioners' response to the message. Several of them told Wicks they planned to murder their own children rather than see them taken prisoner by the Illuminati.

Not surprisingly, a few fringe religious groups were receptive to Todd's teachings.
The Family (formerly known as the Children of God), an international church headed by David "Moses" Berg, degenerated into organized sexual abuse of children in the '70s after Berg convinced some followers it was natural and healthy for kids to have sexual relations with their parents and caregivers. Years later his own son, Ricky Rodriguez (known as "Davidito"), would kill one of the nannies who molested him as a child.
Berg found Todd's diatribes fascinating, and The Family International published a transcript of one of his lectures, "The Illuminati and Witchcraft", for distribution to Family members.

Another group that appreciated Todd was a violent white supremacist organization called The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA). They also published "The Illuminati and Witchcraft".
The CSA ran a compound in Missouri that was the very model of what Todd had been advocating. It boasted an armed perimeter, a training area for urban warfare drills, and an array of automatic weaponry (much of it stolen). In 1985, the group's founder and several of its leaders were convicted of illegal firearm possession.
The group kept a list of possible targets for assassination, including elected officials. One member was executed for killing a State Trooper and a pawn shop owner.

Underground

In January 1979, Todd announced he was through with preaching. His message just wasn't sinking in with American Christians, he said, and it was time for him to retreat to an undisclosed location where the Satanists couldn't find him.
This move was probably calculated to avoid the kerfuffle that would have erupted around him when his predicted Illuminati takeover didn't actually happen.
From their new home in Montana, the Todds cranked out alarmist newsletters about the endtimes preparations Christians must make; buy gold, stockpile food and ammo, go into hiding. Todd now claimed he was collecting donations for an armed survivalist compound. He said he would accept guns, cattle, dehydrated food, and anything else people could spare. This compound, just like the witch rehab centre, never materialized.
The couple subsequently lived in Seattle.

In early '79, a few Christian publications, including Christianity Today, printed damning stories about Todd.
Ironically, the single critical book published about Todd, The Todd Phenomenon (1979) by Darryl E. Hicks and David A. Lewis, contained an intro by Mike Warnke (pot, meet kettle...).
These exposés demolished whatever vestige of credibility Todd still had among mainstream Christians, and he never again made a decent living from preaching. His following dwindled to small groups Christian Patriots, survivalists, and Millenarianists.

But he certainly didn't stop banging the anti-occult In 1980, he authored a comic book titled The Illuminati and Witchcraft. Jacob Sailor, the artist, also illustrated some of the Mo Letters for The Children of God.



The Road to Ruby Ridge

Todd's next known location was Cedar Falls, Iowa. In 1983 he was invited to speak at a Holiday Inn there by a young couple who regularly listened to his audiotapes.
Since marrying in 1974, Randy and Vicki Weaver had become increasingly religious. By 1983 they were approaching religious mania. Both believed the world would end soon. First there would be a period of violent persecution, initiated by a Satanic government coalition of Jews and non-Christians. Sometimes they referred to the enemy as ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government).
Todd's background may have impressed Randy Weaver; he, too, had been a Greet Beret.
The Weavers used cash only, because Todd said credit cards carried the Mark of the Beast. They stopped watching TV because Todd said all evangelists other than himself couldn't be trusted. They believed the government wanted to round up and exterminate Christians because that's what Todd said (strangely, though, Vicki remained a fan of Ayn Rand)
Vicki also received instructions from God while soaking in the tub every night, and she and Randy both had "visions" of a hilltop fortress.

As recounted in Jess Walter's 1996 about the Weavers, Every Knee Shall Bow, neighbors were unsettled, but probably not surprised, to see John Todd pacing the living room of the Weavers' comfortable ranch-style house in Cedar Falls, ranting about government conspiracies whilst gripping a handgun.

Not long after this, in the summer of '84, the Weavers sold their home and headed west with a cache of supplies, firearms, and ammo. They didn't have a destination in mind. God would lead them wherever they needed to be to wait out the Tribulation.

On September 6, they found a thickly wooded plot of land atop Ruby Ridge in the panhandle of northern Idaho.

Second Arrest

Sometime in the mid-'80s, Todd moved to Columbia, South Carolina. He worked construction, did carpentry, and taught karate to youngsters.

In May 1987, Todd was charged with raping a grad student at the University of South Carolina. I will not give the woman's name here, to protect her privacy.
Later, molestation charges related to two of his karate students were added. He served the next 16 years of his life in prison.
In an audio recording made in 1991, Todd explained how he was framed by Strom Thurmond, who wanted to get his hands on his address books and his Christian material. Specifically, Thurmond and cohorts wanted to find the locations of safe houses used by a Christian underground that hid Christians accused of abusing their children. Also, Thurmond was furious that Todd had outed him as a Mason.
He hints that he was lured to South Carolina by Christians just so he could be framed. His lawyers were in on the plot, so Todd urged listeners to donate money to his defence fund.
After his conviction, an FBI agent and the head of Reagan's Secret Service bodyguards visited him in prison and pressured him to give up the names of Christians in hiding (in exchange for what, I wonder? He had already been sentenced, so there wasn't much the feds could offer him). Todd refused.

Todd warns all Christians that they, too, can be framed for crimes they didn't commit. After all, They own the media and law enforcement. What's more, U.S. concentration camps are standing at the ready to hold huge numbers of Christians.
Remember, this recording was made in '91. In the 20 years since then, do you know a single Christian who has been interned in a U.S. concentration camp?

Now Todd says he was part of the CIA's Pheonix Program during Vietnam, and his military records were sealed for that reason. As we saw in Part I, these records were freely available, and they clearly show that Todd did not serve in Vietnam.

Fritz Springmeier and the 13 Bloodlines

Christian preacher and Illuminati "expert" Fritz Springmeier, who was released from prison just last month (he served 7 years of a 9-year sentence for armed bank robbery), is Todd's #2 fan (Jack Chick being #1). In his book Bloodlines of the Illuminati, he identified the Collins clan as one of the "13 bloodlines of the Illuminati" and included a jailhouse letter written by Todd.

Fritz Springmeier giving a Prophecy Club lecture before his arrest for bank robbery

The Collins family history, as chronicled by Springmeier, is replete with Satanic atrocities. The Collinses possess more occult power than any other Illuminati's family, including the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Springmeier cites the testimony of an unnamed ex-Illuminati member (like Todd, a Christian convert) who claimed a Collins woman was the "Grande Mother" of the Illuminati's Grand Council of 13 back in the '50s. This council possessed invaluable arcane knowledge, like the location of the Ark of the Covenant, and practiced a bizarre form of ritual sacrifice in which a child was killed for each new Illuminati initiate.
As these meetings supposedly occurred twice a year, with up to seven initiates per meeting, it's remarkable that no one noticed the rashes of missing children.

Ironically, the details of this unsourced tale directly contradict John Todd's testimony. For instance, this person stated that the Antichrist had not yet been born in 1955, while Todd said Jimmy Carter was the Antichrist. He also tells us the Todd family split off from the Collins clan before the Civil War, while Todd himself claimed he was born as Lance Collins.
Springmeier names one of the Grande Mother's sons as Tom Collins, who later converted to Christianity and went on speaking tours to educate coreligionists about the Illuminati. He was shot to death in a grocery store parking lot as a warning to other whistleblowers. Once again, we must ask why the Illuminati was unable to assassinate John Todd, if another defector from the very same family was so easily eliminated.
I can find no trace of this Tom, but the Wikipedia entry for Tom Collins the drink is quite interesting. In 1874, "Tom Collins" was a running gag among pranksters. They convinced people that a mysterious man named Tom Collins was badmouthing them, and reported sightings of the gossipy stranger to credulous newspaper reporters.
At any rate, we have no reason to believe that Tom Collins and John were from the same family. Springmeier's M.O. is to tick off lists of prominent people with the same last name, without bothering to ascertain if they are actually related to one another. Then he links them to the Illuminati by the most tenuous connections. For example, reporter Robert Collins is implicated simply because the Illuminati "control the press". Springmeier provides no evidence that the Illuminati does, in fact, control the press. Likewise, he ties serial killer Ted Bundy to the Bundy/McBundy families and tells us his sadistic sociopathic condition is quite typical of Illuminati members, even though Bundy's name came from a working class stepfather.

Most bizarrely, Springmeier states that the Salem witch trials were "instigated by the Collins family to destroy Christians". His evidence? Some Collinses became Putnams during the Civil War era. Somehow, this means that the Putnams of Massachusetts (central to the Salem witch hunt) were already related to the Collins clan nearly two centuries earlier. Huh?

Like Jack Chick and John Todd, Springmeier classed essentially all occultists and Freemasons as profoundly secretive, extremely dangerous people. They all worship the Devil, they all abduct and ritually sacrifice children, and they all commit every manner of crime against decent, God-fearing Americans such as Todd (the rapist) and Springmeier (the bank robber).

In an early edition of his book, Springmeier stated that Todd was released from prison in 1994. An Illuminati-owned helicopter picked him up at the prison, and he was never seen again - presumably murdered by Them. Springmeier later removed this erroneous information, but continued to assert that Todd was framed.
The belief that Todd was framed on the rape charges persists today among his fans. "James in Japan", who maintains an extensive website about Todd and other Christian conspiranoids, actually believes that Todd was murdered by the Illuminati and replaced by a prisoner who looked and behaved just like him.

Release and Death

Todd was actually released from prison in 2004. He was then committed to the Behavioral Disorder Unit run by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.
Under the name "Kris Kollyns", he filed a lawsuit against numerous employees of this department, alleging he was being held in violation of his Constitutional rights. Before the lawsuit was resolved, he died in the BDU on November 10, 2007.
Sadly, his messed-up legacy of pathological falsehood lives on in audio recordings, Chick pamphlets, and the minds of many Christian conspiracy theorists.