John Todd (conspiracy theorist)

John Wayne Todd (May 19, 1949 – November 10, 2007), also known as "John Todd Collins", "Lance Collins", "Kris Sarayn Kollyns", and "Christopher Kollyns", was an American speaker and conspiracy theorist.

He claimed to be a former occultist who was born into a 'witchcraft family' before converting to Christianity.

He was a primary source for many Chick Publications works against Dungeons & Dragons, Catholicism, Neopaganism, and Christian rock.

In his public appearances, Todd made a variety of claims about witches, Satanists, and the Illuminati, who he alleged were conspiring against Christians.

These purported conspiracies often included government officials and leaders of Christian organizations.

Investigative reports in magazines and books said there were many inconsistencies in his statements about anti-Christian conspiracies and his own past.

He also claimed that US President Jimmy Carter was the Antichrist and that Ayn Rand's 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged was the Illuminati's blueprint for unleashing a planned Satanic takeover.

Todd's earliest known public speaking engagements began in 1968, when he was preaching and married to a woman named Linda.

He claimed he had been a witch while in the United States Navy, but converted to Christianity while visiting a southern Californian Pentecostal church.

After disappearing from public sight for a few months, Todd returned without his wife, saying that God told them to seek other mates.

In 1969, Todd joined the United States Army and was stationed in Germany for a few months before being discharged for psychiatric reasons and drug abuse.

In 1972 Todd became associated with a Jesus Movement coffeehouse.

In 1973, he appeared on a local Christian television show in Phoenix, Arizona, and was invited by evangelist Doug Clark to appear on his Amazing Prophecies show on the Faith Broadcasting Network.

However, allegations surfaced that he had been making sexual advances toward young women and teenage girls at the coffeehouse, was incorporating witchcraft teachings into his Bible studies, carrying a .38 caliber handgun into church meetings, and using drugs.

In addition, he impregnated his wife's teenage sister.

Todd was dismissed from the coffeehouse ministry, and Clark denounced him on his television show.

In 1974 Todd moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he opened an occult bookstore and began recruiting for a Wiccan coven.

In 1976 Todd became the subject of a criminal investigation over reports that he was involving underage girls in sexual initiation rituals for his coven.

Following an investigation of his activities by neopagan leaders Isaac Bonewits and Gavin Frost, which uncovered drug use and underage sex, Frost's Church and School of Wicca revoked the charter it had granted to Todd's coven.

He was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and given a six-month sentence, but served only two months before being released due to epileptic fits.

Todd resurfaced in the evangelical Christian community in late 1977, this time claiming the existence of a vast Satanic conspiracy led by an order of witches called the Illuminati, supposedly including a number of Christian organizations and well-known Christian figures such as Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Bob Jones, Sr., Oral Roberts, and Pat Robertson.

He claimed to have given, as a member of the Illuminati, $8 million to Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel to launch the Christian rock industry, which Todd said was a Satanic invention to entrap Christian young people in rock music and its "demonic beat".

He claimed that Falwell had been bribed by the Illuminati with a $50 million donation.

A 1979 article from Cornerstone magazine indicates Todd was advocating Oneness Pentecostal (sometimes called "Jesus Only") theology at that time.

Todd significantly curtailed his public speaking after 1979, reportedly moving to rural Montana after issuing warnings that the Satanic takeover had begun.

He urged Christians to stockpile weapons and food in preparation for a Satanic takeover in 1980.

He was later reported to have delivered a speech in Cedar Falls, Iowa in 1983 at the invitation of Randy Weaver.

Todd was arrested in May 1987 for the rape of a University of South Carolina graduate student.

After his arrest, he was additionally charged with sexually molesting two children who attended a karate school where he worked.

In 1988 Todd was convicted in South Carolina on charges of rape and sentenced to 30 years in a prison.

He was convicted of the rape in January 1988 and sentenced to 30 years in state prison.

In June 1988, Todd, through his defense attorney, requested the return of a pair of pink women's panties, 64 photographs, two survival knives, a knife sharpener, a handgun, 99 cassette tapes and three copies of Todd's book How to Build an Ark: A Practical Guide to Survival.

In 2004 he was released from prison and placed in a psychiatric facility, where he died in 2007.

In 2004, Todd was released, but he was put in the care of the Behavioral Disorder Treatment Unit run by the South Carolina Department of Mental Health.

Todd claimed to have served as a Green Beret in the Vietnam War, but his discharge papers list him as a general clerk/typist and do not record him having been in Vietnam.

Army medical reports referred to "emotional instability with pseudologia phantastica" (compulsive lying), difficulty in telling reality from fantasy, homicidal threats he had made on another, false suicide reports, and a severe personality disturbance.

Todd also claimed in his testimony to have murdered an officer in Germany and to have escaped prison with the help of the Illuminati, but his records show no such things occurred.

These records were later recovered by investigative journalists working for Christianity Today, who found that he had never been to Vietnam.

One report concluded that Todd found it difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy.

Todd also claimed that John F. Kennedy was still alive and that he had been Kennedy's "personal warlock".