Vance to talk at tour hosted by ‘prophet’ who thinks Harris practices witchcraft

JD Vance will speak at an event on Saturday hosted by the self-styled prophet and political extremist Lance Wallnau, who has claimed Kamala Harris practices witchcraft and has written that the US is headed toward bloody internal conflict.

The campaign announced earlier this week that the Republican vice-presidential candidate will participate in a "town hall" as part of the Courage tour, a traveling pro-Trump tent revival, during a stop in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

Wallnau, who hosts the tour and broadcasts its speakers on his online show - drawing hundreds in-person and sometimes tens of thousands virtually - is a proponent of the "seven mountains" mandate, which commands Christians to seek leadership in seven key areas of society - the church, the education system, the family, the media, the arts, business and government.

He is also a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a movement that features modern-day apostles and has taken hold in particular in non-denominational charismatic churches that embrace faith healing and believe that the Holy Spirit can speak directly through believers in the form of speaking in tongues and prophesy. These religious spaces often also practice "deliverance ministry" and "spiritual warfare" to cleanse people of demonic entities.

Karrie Gaspard-Hogewood, a scholar whose research focuses on such groups, noted that NAR-aligned practitioners engage in a unique form of "spiritual warfare" - fighting malign forces in not only individuals who are believed to be inhabited by a malign entity, but also entire geographic areas.

"Spiritual warfare is the belief that a demon has taken up residence and is controlling anything from a large geographic space to a culture, to the White House or the supreme court," said Gaspard-Hogewood.

Extremism researchers worry that spiritual warfare, which is by definition waged in the supernatural realm, could become dangerous if interpreted excessively literally. On January 6, spiritual warriors affiliated with the Jericho March rallied at the Capitol to protest against the election results, engaging in a form of spiritual warfare on the National Mall. Wallnau, who himself prophesied that Trump would win the 2016 election and rejected the outcome when he didn't win again in 2020, doubled down on his position at a stop of the Courage tour in Wisconsin.