Learning from Lacy, Mazel, and Stacey Campbell’s Prophetic Manifestations

Strange Spiritual Manifestations Are Nothing New

Strange spiritual manifestations or signs and wonders exhibited in bizarre fleshly behaviour (eg vigorous shaking, falling over, jerking, roaring, barking etc) happened in the church long before Toronto and Brownsville, and even long before Azusa Street.

The Camisards aka The French Prophets who existed at the turn of the 18th century (see these articles here and here on them) are a really fascinating religious group.  I believe they were the spiritual ‘mothers’ and ‘fathers’ and imparters of certain spiritual behaviours that have been passed all the way on down the line, in one form or another, to today. The very same behaviour that was found in rural France in the late 1600s, can be found today at Lakeland, Florida, three hundred years later – including the very same focus on youth. However, far more powerful testimonies come out from the Camisard camp - of illiterate people, even babies who could not yet talk, preaching and prophesying in their sleep, and signs and wonders in the sky. Yet the Camisards’ prophecies proved to be dangerously false. It was a powerful delusion indeed.

John Lacy

Some Camisard leaders came over to London in the early 1700s, and greatly influenced men like John Lacy, a sincere and spiritually hungry man for the “new thing God was doing”. In the French prophets, John Lacy thought he had found this new thing. John Lacy was greatly affected by the spirit imparted from the French prophets; he jerked and manifested for months, his spiritual life was renewed, he was ‘hot’ for God and the things of religion, and he produced volumes of prophecy (that with time proved itself false). Lacy claimed to fluently speak in many tongues - that is in previously unlearned languages, not today’s kind of speaking in tongues. He was tested by Oxbridge University Scholars and could hold conversations for fifteen minutes or more with them  in the chosen tongue, and he reportedly passed their tests with flying colours. 

For all his passion, devotion and energy, John Lacy refused to test the spirits, reasoning like many folk do today, that if it was all in the name of Jesus, and made him seemingly more in love with God and devoted more to the things of religion, how could it possibly be deceptive? John Lacy did not understand the subtle and seductive nature of deception though.

In time, John Lacy disgraced himself and the church, by being “led by the spirit” in 1711 to desert his wife and family for a young actress, Elizabeth Grey, who was “led” to prophesy in the nude in a Roman Catholic Chapel in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. It was said she would concieve the second messiah. I have not found any record of Lacy or Grey beyond this elopement, nor discovered what happened when Lacy and Grey’s numerous booklets of prophecies consistently failed to come to pass. The prophets claimed that all the things they spoke of would be manifest over the earth in three years, and on 29th of October 1707, John Lacy said: If within six months to come these things are not confirmed then: ‘I shall before all the world acknowledge my delusion’.   He did not confess anything after six months, but it is perhaps noteworthy that he left his wife and family for Grey just over three years later. In May 1708, there is an extremely embarassing account of a dead leader, Dr Emes, that they failed to rise from the dead after many months of  prophesying about it that Lacy’s faith seemingly did  somehow survive. (Though many supporters did  fall away because of this notorious public event, and there are records of some being broken men because of false prophecies. Also some entered mental asylums because of these impartations – as recorded in documents in the British Library).

I surmise that there is a good likelihood that with all the knocks, that John Lacy fell away completely in time – as did many after the Toronto Blessing for the very same reason: disillusion,  blaming GOD for lying to them or not existing as prophecies did not come to pass, rather than blame the lying spirits manifesting pretending to be God that led them to this disillusion in the first place.   That is why deceptive spirits ”in the name of Jesus” can be so dangerous. Though in the short term they can lead to seemingly passionate intensity and devotion and religious fervour and intimacy with “God”, in the long term they lead not only to error, apostasy and heresy, and sin (usually sexual), but sometimes complete falling away and rejection of the faith.

Passing It On: Contagious, Tangible, Transferable Anointing!

Regardless, before his public disgrace, John Lacy [and others like him] imparted his ‘prophetic spirit’ and manifestations, and influenced other men and women who in turn influenced and imparted ‘the spirit’ to other men and women who influenced and imparted to many others. Certainly, revivalists John and Charles Wesley were aware of this and labelled it and its associated behaviour ‘distracting’ ‘fleshly’ and ’demonic’.

The French Prophet’s impartations crossed over to America with the Shaker sect among others (who eventually decided that their leader, Ann Lee was the female Christ). The French Prophet’s impartations, behaviours and false prophecy was passed onto people in various 18th century milleniast sects and cults, then within the more fringe elements and excesses of America’s First Great Awakening/the New England Revival, and then at the jerks at the later Kentucky Cane Ridge Revival.

From Kentucky, I think the impartation was probably passed on down (in one way or the other, sometimes subtley) through the Holiness movement and the Shakers, and was manifested through men like Edward Irving (who promoted tongues, and the false pre trib rapture theory), Frank W Sandford (an earlier advocate of modern spiritual warfare heresies) and John Alexander Dowie. It then appeared at Azusa Street, and even The Welsh Revival (who, however, rejected the behaviour as demonic – see War on the Saints ), burst into pentecostal and charismaticalism, reared its ugly head in William Branham’s Voice of Healing Latter Rain Movement, and then finally came back more overtly within the Kansas City Prophets’ orchestrated Toronto Blessing, Pensacola and now the Lakeland Outpouring. 

The common thread in the movements I mention, apart from false prophecies, seems to be a form of dominionism and a spin on Manifest Sons with the return of Christ within them corporately or within an individual leader,   with spiritual elitism, a claim to spiritual perfectionism, over-controlling leadership and authorotarianism, sins of the flesh (sexual, alcoholism), a disdain for scriptures for the new revelation (manifested over time), all long before William Branham and Latter Rain.

In turn, the French Prophets can perhaps trace their  spiritual heritage of behaviour to the Jansenist Convulsuries, Jane Leade’s Philadelphian Society and/or George Fox’s Quakers, who in turn can trace back again to some other group and so on down the chain, probably all the way back to the convulsing prophet Montanus – labelled as false and demonised by early church fathers.

Stacey Campbell and Lakeland Todd Bentley

I wrote here of Stacey Campbell’s head shaking episode at Lakeland a few days ago. From 1994, the time of the Toronto Blessing onwards, I saw similar strange activity when people ‘prophesied’. The more people manifested, shook, grunted or groaned as they spoke, so the more ‘anointed’ and ‘accurate’ and ‘important’ and ‘worthy’ the ‘prophecy’ and the ‘prophet’ was thought to be, and the more the audience ‘listened’ and took notice – however banal or silly the words.

Shaky Prophecy During The Toronto Blessing

I was on a few residential schools with YWAM in 1994, and day and night we manifested in the ‘Toronto Blessing’. There was one young lady, whom I will call Sally. (Not her real name). When ‘the spirit’ came upon her, she would fall flat out on the carpet on her back. She went almost rigid and very white and pale. (She was quite sickly anyway, and interestingly despite all the times she manifested healing when prayed for she was never actually healed ). With her eyes fixed and wide open, Sally would stare at the ceiling with her finger pointing straight up into the air. She looked like a corpse, and when she spoke she honestly sounded like a witch or some seer or oracle from a dark fantasy tale. (And I liked her and these were my thoughts about her at the time!)

Sally’s hand would periodically shake as she would stutter out some sounds, her finger dictating and waving through the air as a baton. ‘Tttt….ttt…ttt…tt’, ‘bbb….bbb…bbb’  ‘rrr…rrr’…rrr’  and various other usually unintellligible sounds intermingled with a few nonsensical unlinked words in incomplete sentences that made no sense at all. Rather than Sally being rebuked, stopped and shut down, as I know now she should have been, this was decreed by the YWAM leaders to be ‘prophecy’. A group of people seeking a prophetic word would crowd around Sally, hanging onto her every word and writing down everything she stuttered while manifesting. They flocked to her because they and she thought that the content of what she spoke must be ‘anointed’ and ‘really prophetic’ because she manifested so much while she spoke it out. It was not – it was inintelligible drivel, and I say that kindly, as Sally was very dear to me – she gave me some words, one or two sentences, which took her about half an hour to say while stuttering, which I shall not write here as I do not wish to embarass her or identify her.

Though at the time I generally as a whole embraced the Toronto Blessing as I did not test the spirits, I was still disturbed and unsetttled by such things at times, and I could not understand people’s foolishness to flock to this parady. Though I was  fooled for a time by the same parody in different packages – eg people going ‘ooh and ahh’ and grunting and bending from their middle, as if hit in the stomach by a ball, or other strange manifestations that were supposed to ‘witness’ to a prophetic word or teaching – individually or as a crowd. Similarly, if I  was manifesting, the ‘words’ spoken over me by others were considered to be more prophetic while I manifested, especially if my manifestations testified seemingly to the word by becoming stronger. [I read my old YWAM journals recently. I was shocked at how many false words were spoken over me at this time by YWAM and Vineyard people. I never realised much of this stuff til years afterwards - to my own shame and discredit.]

I could tell you of all sorts of other bizarre manifestations I saw in those early Toronto years. And the false prophecy that went with it. How ludicrous things were accepted to be true prophetically, just because they were mimed out or whatever by manifestations. How banal ‘word’s were revelled in because they came in unusual form. Examples range from a young man singing out a nursery rhyme in a drunken manner while prostrate in the floor: ‘my bonnie lies over the ocean’   interpreted as being ‘prophetic singing in the spirit’ of missions and evangelism and Christ and the church, and when he sang another nursery rhyme similar deep messages within the banal were looked for. When another girl went over ‘in the spirit’ she subconciously started miming typewriting, so it was decreed she had a ’secretarial anointing’ and so on and so forth. 

Prophetic Manifestations Lead Astray

The lesson is, these sort of manifestations lead astray. They are lying and testify to lying prophecies by lying prophets (however sincere these lying prophets are). I cannot recall one single genuine prophecy that has come forth from anyone that manifested in such a way while prophesying, though can recall dozens of false ones over the years. Someone who manifests should not be listened to more because they manifest while speaking – if anything, it is quite the opposite.

‘Shaky prophecy’ as I now term it, is literally that – shaky.  Just because someone manifests while they are speaking, it by no means indicates they speak by the Spirit of the Lord. In fact, in my experience, it has been the complete opposite. The more someone manifests physically in this bizarre way, and the more focus on these manifestations, the more likely what is being said is NOT from God and is not led or inspired by the Spirit of God. I could point to a stack of false or banal prophecies to prove it.

Montanus, Attempted Exorcism and Demonic Prophecy

Montanus was deemed a false prophet by the early church and they tried to exorcise him and his followers, because among other things, he was enraptured by and focussed on and led astray by the manifestations when he prophesied, and sought these manifestations. It was the manifestation over the word that was deemed more spiritual by him, and he was clearly not in control when prophesying contrary to direct scriptural teachings. Paul clearly said that, ‘The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets’  and  ‘a fruit of the spirit is self control’  and  ’prophecy should be done decently and in order, people speaking one by one and waiting their turn to speak – with public judging and weighing afterwards.’

Stacey Campbell, like Montanus, would have been exorcised by the early church because of how she manifested the other night at Lakeland – and she should be exorcised now. That is very clear, and also as to the reasons why. Clearer still, they would have decreed that she cannot have spoken by the Spirit of God to have manifested in such a way. That is before they even listened to her false words and weighed them up scripturally. She is a false prophetess because of her words and manifestations both.

Abraham Mazel and Deadly Consequences

I have a very important example of somebody else who was similarly deemed to be the oracle of God because they manifested greatly while prophesying. He too should have been exorcised as it was clearly not the Spirit of God he spoke by. He, Abraham Mazel, should be an important person that all in today’s church are told about because of the lessons applied from it – Lakeland type manifestations are deadly!

In the year 1702, an Abraham Mazel and fifty of the French prophets went into a forest to wait upon the Lord for His revelation. The Holy Spirit then allegedly descended on Mazel. The event was accompanied by such spectacular body contortions, that everyone present knew that “something extraordinary was about to be declared” to them by Mazel the prophet.

Mazel then claimed that God “opened his mouth” and commanded the men through him to go home and get weapons. That evening they were to reassemble and then march on Pont-de-Montvert and free their protestant companions held prisoner there by the persecuting Roman Catholic tyrants. The group were commanded by prophetic inspiration to fire on anyone that jeopardised their plans to free the prisoners forcibly. They all paid great attention to the prophecy because of the spiritual manifestations upon Mazel.

Before the men set out that evening, they had a service of worship with a sermon. Then they marched out from the mountains, singing psalms. It is significant that the psalm that one of the prophets specifically remembered having sung was not one of militancy or one promising God’s destruction of the ungodly. It was instead the penitential Psalm 51 ‘Have mercy upon me O God…wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.’  They were sincere God-fearing men.

Their mission was to free the protestant prisoners at Pont de Montvert. After a regroup after an initial failure, it became to free the prisoners, and  set fire to the castle and kill the abbot jailor mistreating their companions. The command by prophetic inspiration pronounced while Mazel was seized once again by violent bodily manifestations  was  for the brethren to set fire to the foot of the stairs so that the castle and those enemies that dwelt in it would perish in the flames.  

However, the abbot jailor jumped from the tower and ran from the flames, but was mercilessly chased after and was then killed on a bridge. His body was found with 52 stab wounds in it. Mazel said God defended the murder as it was the vengence of heaven.  The abbot’s murder was the catalyst for the ill-fated War of the Camisards. How many French lives could have been spared, and how different things could have been, if Mazel and his companions had tested the spirits and not seen the violent ‘agitations’ to mean anything divine.   (Source ‘Origins of the Shakers’  by Clarke Garrett and ‘Huguenot Prophecy and Clandestine Worship in the Eighteenth Century’).