Come Out of Her My People

A History of The Message of William

Branham
Volume I
The Days of The Voice: 1930-1965
 1st Edition
Copyright © Charles Paisley 2024
All rights reserved.
Jeffersonville, Indiana, United States
ISBN 9798879728880

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appreciation for their contributions to the educational discourse.
I offer a special thanks to my family
who helped with proofreading this
manuscript.
This book is dedicated to The
Message community – who are and
always will be – my most beloved
friends.
John 15:13
 Preface
Chapter 1 – In The Beginning (1900-1932)
Chapter 2 - Debut of Elijah (1933-1946)
Chapter 3 - Elijah’s Mantle (1700-1945) 50
Chapter 4 – Overview of William Branham’s Practices (1947-
1955) 65
Chapter 5 – The Healing Revival (1947-1953) 87
Chapter 6 - The Latter Rain Movement (1948-1952)
Chapter 7 - The Cracks Emerge (1953-1954) 153
Chapter 8 - The Message Takes Shape (1955-1956)
Chapter 9 - Decline of the Revivals & Rise of The Message (1957-
1960) 214
Chapter 10 - The Early Message Community (1955-1965)
Chapter 11 - Cousins of The Message
Chapter 12 – The Mysteries Revealed (1960-1962)
Chapter 13 – The Revelation of the Seven Seals (1963)
Chapter 14 - Elijah of This Day Is The Lord Jesus Christ (1963-1965)
Chapter 15 - The Death of William Branham (1965-1966)
Epilogue
Further Reading
Appendix A – Sample Quotes of William Branham
Appendix B – The Origin of Branham’s Revelations
Appendix C - Notable Newspaper Clippings & Documents
Preface
Writing a book is an easy thing to do. Writing a good book is a
challenge. In my life I have read thousands of books and published dozens.
I have read a lot of books that were merely okay. But the really good books
stick with you. Reading books was one of the few escapes I had as a child. I
could go beyond the bounds of my home and go far out into the realms of
dreams. I could visit the amazing fantasy worlds created by Roald Dahl. I
could travel back to the 1800s with Charles Dickens. I could go into the
future with Jules Verne. I could sail the ocean with Ishmael searching for
the great white whale. The ocean stories were always among my favorites. I
spent a lot of time daydreaming about escaping to some far-off island like
in Swiss Family Robinson or Robinson Crusoe. One of my favorite books
was about a boy who bought a sailboat, and he put it afloat in the river near
his home. He sailed down river until he arrived at sea and lived his life on
his boat, sailing from town to town. He caught fish to eat. He had a life of
carefree adventure. I live near the Ohio River. I knew it flowed all the way
to the sea. Sometimes I would daydream about getting my very own boat
and sailing far away on adventures to places where there was no one to
answer to except yourself.
The world I lived in would never permit something like that. There
were far too many big and important things going on in the world for there
to be time for adventure. The climax of history was about to occur. The
world was about to come to an abrupt end, and our very souls were at stake.
Not only was there no time for adventure, it was also unsafe – maybe even
sinful – to spend too much time dreaming of it.
When I turned fourteen, I gave up fiction. Fiction books had no
practical value. In fact, reading fiction had been labeled an unproductive sin
by some of the people I knew. I certainly didn’t want to risk committing a
sin with the end of days so close. It might make the difference between
heaven and hell. And besides, I had already read all the great classics
anyway. I would not be missing much. So instead of floating off into
dreams of sailing off to sea, I started to read history. I traded in the realms
of fantasy and was instead carried off into the past where I could learn
about all the threads of history that wove together to create the present.
 I devoured history. My first books came as a gift: Every volume of
Will Durant’s epic Story of Civilization – about 15,000 pages long. Thus
began my collection of history books. If you visited me today, and came
into my library, you would find hundreds of volumes on all kinds of topics.
By the time I was 20, I could recite from memory the general history of
most every nation and people you had ever heard of and many you hadn’t.
If you wanted to hear the history of the world, I was your man.
I considered myself an amateur historian. The study of the past had
value, and the members of my community found it to be an acceptable
hobby or pursuit. All these years later, I have come to specialize in a few
areas of history. One of those areas is what you will find filling the pages of
this book.
In case you may wonder, I was born into a fairly isolated doomsday
cult. My grandparents and great-grandparents encountered a man named
William Branham in the 1950s and 1960s and became followers of his
teachings. The movement and its teachings are called The Message. My
parents were born while William Branham was living, and they grew up in
The Message. They met each other and married, and I came along the next
year. I grew up in The Message too. I met my wife, who was also a life-long
follower of The Message. We married and had children; my wife and I were
raising our family’s fifth generation of cult followers.
All our friends, all our family, and every person we had ever been
close to were members of the doomsday cult. For 75 years, the cult believed
the imminent apocalyptic end of the world was never more than a few
months away. Of course, the end never came, but that never hindered
anyone’s beliefs that it was imminent. Then, in the year 2019, I began to
come across information that began my slow and painful journey of escape
from the cult. That information is what you will find in this book. This book
is a history of the cult following of William Branham: The Message.
The Message is a global cult with millions of followers. I have visited
Message churches around North America, Europe, and Africa. I have also
met and worked with members of The Message community in Central
America, South America, India, the Middle East, southeast Asia, Australia
and New Zealand. I live near Jeffersonville, Indiana – the city where The
Message was born and from which it was spread to the world. I was once
the associate pastor of the second oldest Message church. My church was
the original sister church to the Branham Tabernacle itself, whose members
included William Branham’s oldest friends and companions. Members of
our church knew William Branham from the 1930s. Our church was joined
by many of the early Branham Tabernacle congregants following
Branham’s death in 1965.
As you read this book, I want you to know that many things in this
book have been found through collaborative research efforts with other
members who have escaped the cult and its various sects, especially John
Collins, who is the grandson of the former pastor of the Branham
Tabernacle. I must acknowledge all the figures in the ex-message
community who came before me and started piecing all this information
together. Peter Duyzer began the work in the 1970s, John Kenneh in the
1980s, James Manuel, Rod Bergen, the Baronne family, along with John
Collins in the 2010s. They have endured decades of ridicule and persecution
by The Message community who have very actively done all within their
power to silence them. Without their courage and perseverance, a lot of the
information in this book would still be hidden from the public eye.
Everyone connected to The Message owes them a debt of gratitude for their
concern for the rest of us, and their willingness to make great personal
sacrifices to share the truth with us.
I have authored this book in an effort to fill what I see as holes in the
available information relating to William Branham and The Message. One
of those holes is a comprehensive understanding of where the beliefs of The
Message came from. The Message did not appear in a vacuum. The
ideology of The Message is merely a continuation and evolution of
preexisting ideologies. What were they? Where did they come from? Are
the sources reputable? One does not want to throw out the baby with the
bath water, so reviewing and understanding the history of our beliefs is
important before one can make an informed decision about such things. I
hope to share what I have learned in this area within this volume.
Another gap I hope to fill is related to information about the formation
of the early Message community. There is a lot of biographical information
about William Branham available, but there is little which explains the
origins and development of The Message community. I hope to begin
building that in this book which will serve as a launch pad into a second
volume of Message history I intend to write examining the first decades
after Branham’s death.
I have personally interviewed every living witness of William
Branham with whom I have ever been acquainted who were still living in
the-2010s. I also have what is perhaps the most extensive Message tape
collection in the world. I own a nearly complete library of the recordings
and transcripts of six of the ten leading early sects of the Message. In
addition, I have over the years built an extensive collection of revival
memorabilia and records of William Branham’s life and ministry. Besides
all this, I have an intimate personal knowledge of the history of The
Message as a direct eyewitness to the majority of its history from the
strategic vantage point of Jeffersonville, the very heart of the movement.
John Collins has amassed a massive collection of thousands of
newspaper clippings related to the subjects of this book which are an
excellent resource and published on the William Branham Historical
Research website.[1] Large repositories of primary sources are also available
in the archives of Oral Roberts University Library in Tulsa and Fuller
Theological Seminary Library in Los Angeles. I have spent considerable
time reviewing both repositories and using their material to fill in gaps in
my own collection. This depth of knowledge helped me craft what you will
find in this book.
My own interest in the history of the movement is in its peoples and
its doctrines. While William Branham is central to the movement, there is a
larger story and a bigger picture to be seen. Where did The Message
ideology come from? Who were the figures who influenced William
Branham? How did the early community of The Message come together
and what did it look like? If we look behind the curtain of supposed
miracles and angelic visitations, what will we see?
My hope is that you find this book informative and that it may serve
as a resource to people escaping The Message, as a tool to help make sense
of what they were part of. I also hope this book may serve as a record of
witness to those outside of The Message of our true history as a people and
a community. The first half of this book is primarily the background
information, stories, and legends that form a critical piece of Message
beliefs. The second half of the book will deal more with the formation of
The Message community and its ideology.
 If you have ever been a member of The Message, you are likely to
turn each page of this book with increasing horror. I sympathize with you if
that is your reaction. Horror is a light word for describing my own reaction
to this book. The word horror well fits the feeling one experiences when
discovering undeniable evidence that destroys your world view and your
identity and will almost certainly result in the loss of all your friends,
family, loved ones, personal status, and reputation and standing within your
community. That is the cost to a Message follower to acknowledge the truth
of the contents of this book.
Despite the horror, I assure you, the contents of this book are true. If
you are from The Message, and you are unprepared to find the truth, now is
the time to close the book.
Note To Readers
Some aspects of this story are such a tangled web that I struggled with
the best way to organize the information. I have attempted to follow a
chronological flow, with pauses to explain theology and background
information where appropriate. This book has three converging narratives
which are not always easy to weave together: Roy Davis and the Ku Klux
Klan, the Healing Revivals, and the Latter Rain movement. The events in
these three areas are happening in parallel but are not always obviously
connected. I have labeled each chapter with years to help aid readers in
understanding how to fit each chapter within the timeline.
I have resisted the temptation to write biographical chapters on every
major figure mentioned in this book as I fear it would break up overall flow,
and I have instead settled on writing condensed bios conveying the essential
elements in summary form. You will find a further reading section at the
end of this book with resource suggestions if you desire to make a deeper
study of those figures.
This book grew out of an 80-episode series I recorded with John
Collins and was published on the Leaving The Message video podcast in
2022 and 2023. That series is about one hundred hours long and includes
John and I discussing most of the topics in this book. The manuscript of this
book evolved out of the show prep notes I created for the series. John
Collins and I are from the two oldest Message churches. His grandfather
was assistant-pastor at the Branham Tabernacle at the time of Branham’s
1965 death and later served as pastor until 2013. Like myself, this gave
John a front seat view of the happenings and history of The Message from
right here at the center of the movement in Jeffersonville. The podcast
series was well produced and is a terrific resource to anyone wanting to
investigate William Branham and the history of The Message. You can find
links to the series at [Link] and [Link].
Another thing to note is the terms that are used to refer to the various
Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal movements of the 1940s through the
1960s. The Healing Revivals are often referred to as the Deliverance
Movement. In this book I will primarily use the term Healing Revivals. The
primary emphasis of the Healing Revivals was on signs, wonders, and
miracles in the church – especially around divine healing. The term Latter
Rain movement is used in this book to refer to the people who created and
adapted the distinct teachings known as manifested sons of God and five-
fold ministry. The term Charismatic movement is used here to refer to
people, in both Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal groups who adopted
traditional Pentecostal worship styles and views through the influence of
the Healing Revivals and Latter Rain movement. The term Pentecostalism
is used primarily to refer to the pre-1950 Pentecostal groups descended
from the influence of the Azusa Street revivals. There is a significant
overlap between all four of these movements with mutual influence upon
each other. Assigning a figure to one movement or another requires an
examination of their network of relationships and their specific ideology.
Many figures discussed in this history could be viewed as members of
multiple of these movements.
One final note: I have struggled with the best way to footnote this
book. It would be quite easy to write it in such a way that the footnotes are
longer than the actual content of the body. I have attempted to footnote the
areas I think may be controversial, but less so the areas I believe to be more
common knowledge. I understand this is a subjective matter. I have also
endeavored to include quotations from the sources in many places as, in my
own research, I have found many of the original documents are rare and not
easy to obtain. Many of the original primary sources have been published
on the William Branham Historical Research website to make them more
easily accessible. However, if you are a former Message Believer like me –
you will think they are all fake until you go obtain originals for yourself.
So, let’s begin. I am going to share with you the heritage of the
community which I was born and raised in, in my own words, with my own
historical analysis.
 Chapter 1
In The Beginning
1900-1932
Do not be afraid of them, for there is
nothing concealed that will not be
disclosed or hidden that will not be
made known. What I tell you in the
dark, speak in the daylight; what is
whispered in your ear, proclaim from
the roofs.
– Jesus Christ
Before William Branham (1900-1930)
At the dawn of the twentieth century, the world was a very different
place than it is today. The automobile was a new invention and most long-
distance travel still occurred by rail. Most homes did not have electric
lights. Highspeed telecommunications was, as-yet, undreamt of. It was even
before the days of radio stations. Most communities had a local newspaper.
It was only through the newspaper that people were able to stay abreast of
the developments in the world around them. Newspapers were generally
between ten and twenty pages long with stories on world news, local
events, gossip sections and other sorts of community information. The
papers often carried transcripts of political speeches by national leaders and
announcements of all sorts from members of the community.
Information availability was quite different than in today's world
where we can quickly use Google or AI to find vast volumes of information
on any topic, from any city, in any part of the world at any time of the day.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, those sorts of limitations were
soon to end. Before long, the modern era would open the door to mankind’s
access to information like never before. As a result, the early years of the
twentieth century marked the end of the golden age of the traveling con
artist. Grifters of the day used the lack of access to information to their
advantage. They moved from town to town, committing fraud after fraud.
After perpetrating their scams, they moved to the next town before they
could be caught. Each town was an isolated information Island where the
traveling con artist could repeat the same frauds, over and over, refining
their tricks and schemes with each iteration. Hundreds – probably thousands
– of such men traveled the United States selling snake oil, defrauding
widows, and robbing the innocent.
One such man was Roy Elonzo Davis. From the late 1800s, he had
made his living as a traveling conman across the southern United States,
passing between Georgia and Texas. Bank fraud, petty theft, stolen
inheritances, fraudulent life insurance claims, fundraising schemes, miracle
cures, and fake charities were just a few of his scams. The law caught up
with him here and there, and by 1915 he had served a couple of years in
jail, but each time after being released, he moved on and resumed his con
game.
 Some of his escapades were very elaborate. In the early 1900s, he
found remarkable success posing as a preacher to earn the trust of the
community he was about to defraud. With the help of his brothers, he
entered a town to hold revivals, collect donations, and finally to cash
fraudulent donation checks at the local bank. Just before the local
community could figure out what was happening, he skipped town, leaving
them all high and dry with his pockets full of money.

After serving another stint

[2]
in a Texas jail in 1917, Davis found his way into a group that would come
to define the rest of his life, and the ramifications of that association were
going to one day have a major impact on William Branham and The
Message. Released from jail in Texas, Davis returned to Georgia where he
found his way into the good graces of the Colonel William Simmons, the
founder of the modern Ku Klux Klan. Davis managed to endear himself to
Simmons who made him second in command of the Ku Klux Klan in the
1910s and 1920s. Davis was a coauthor of the constitution and rituals of the
secret organization.[3]
 Davis became one of Simmon’s top recruiters and quickly added Klan
recruitment as a new layer to his traveling preacher con game. The lucrative
collection of Klan membership dues that came with it enriched Davis. It
was at this juncture that Davis began to settle down and develop small
groups of friendly cohorts in communities across the south. Most of those
groups took the form of a church. For a number of years, Davis posed as a
Missionary Baptist and his cohorts identified as nominal Baptists. But that
began to shift in the early 1920s after a major schism rocked the Ku Klux
Klan.
The details are fuzzy, but it appears that Davis was on the losing side
of the leadership struggle in the Klan that erupted between William
Simmons and Hiram Evans, the second Imperial Wizard of the Klan. Evans
successfully overthrew Simmons and took control of the organization
beginning in November 1922. When he did, Evans banished Simmons’
loyalists from leadership positions. The following year Roy Davis was
suddenly attacked from many different angles.
First, a board of Baptist leaders from whom Davis claimed ordination
openly denounced him and denied that he had ever been ordained as a
minister.[4] Then Davis was accused of corruption by a Georgia board of
agriculture where he served as a member. The board expelled Davis.[5][6]
Davis was then fired from a position he held at a farmers insurance
company.[7] To add insult to injury, Davis and his brothers were violently
attacked near their home in Texas and savagely beaten. It seems safe to
believe all these things befell Davis as a result of Simmons’ loss of control
of the Klan.[8]
If there is one thing we could say to Davis’s credit, it is that he was a
very resilient man. After he recovered, Davis and Simmons regrouped and
launched an effort to form a new white supremacist organization. Simmons,
Davis, and a number of other former ranking members of the Klan ousted
by Evans setup shop in Chattanooga. They began recruiting members for
their new organization called the Knights of the Flaming Sword. [9] Their
efforts were extraordinarily successful as they raised over $150,000 and
won over 60,000 new recruits in their first few months of operating,
primarily stealing members from the Hiram Evan’s Ku Klux Klan.[10]
Among the former senior leadership of Klan to join their new club
was Caleb Ridley, a Baptist minister who had been the national chaplain of
the Klan. Like Simmons and Davis, Ridley had found himself among the
ousted members after Hiram Evans’ Klan takeover. Known as the Imperial
Kludd, Ridley had officiated over many of the Klan's religious ceremonies
at its largest events in the 1910s and early 1920s. Upon forming the Knights
of the Flaming Sword, Ridley and Davis made a quick friendship and began
working closely together. They held joint revivals across the southern states,
focusing primarily on the region between Tennessee and Oklahoma.[11]
Interestingly, Ridley helped organize the Jeffersonville chapter of the KKK
in 1921. It is unclear from the newspaper articles if Davis was present with
him to launch the chapter.[12]
Like Davis, Ridley was ousted from the Baptist community, perhaps
as retribution for being on the wrong side of the split in the Klan. The pair
of men soon decided to build a new religious denomination to call home – a
denomination where they could be in control, and to serve as a front for
their white supremacist agenda.[13] They named their new denomination the
Pentecostal Baptist Church of God. After being ejected by the Baptists,
Davis made inroads among the Pentecostal and the Church of God
community who had many similar fundamentalist views. There he was
welcomed and held revivals in many of their churches. The name of the
new church organization represented a fusion of the different religious
groups Davis had been frequenting. Davis gave the Pentecostal Baptist
Church of God an inter-denominational appearance from which he could
recruit members from all three groups.
Davis was successful in building relationships with Paul Rader,
President of the Christian Missionary Alliance,[14] and Gerald Winrod,
leader of the Christian Defenders. Both were notable fundamentalist leaders
of the era; Winrod was the more radical of the two and became a Nazi in the
early 1930s. The Christian Defenders enjoyed broad support from the early
fundamentalist community and was rooted in concepts that came from
William Jennings Bryan – the most influential figure in the Democratic
Party and three-time presidential candidate. Bryan interacted directly with
the group, and over the years Davis played up his relationship to Byran. In
the 1920s, Davis served with Rader and Winrod on the board of the
Fundamentalists of the World. Davis even served briefly as director of the
group.[15] Following the 1925 death of Bryan,[16] the group of men put their
support behind Congressman William Upshaw, whom they supported and
campaigned on behalf of during his run for President of the United States in
1932.[17] These connections gave Davis an air of legitimacy and made
recruitment possible among both Pentecostals and Fundamentalists.
Initially the headquarters of the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God
was established in Nashville where Davis served as superintendent of the
denomination and head pastor of the local church. Davis’s brothers played
key roles helping him to establish and operate the church. Unfortunately for
Davis, his methods prevented him from staying long in the same
community.[18] By 1928, Nashville was turning against Davis. After being
arrested in 1929 for making threats of violence, Davis fled town after
skipping bail.[19] He moved north to Louisville where his brothers followed
to assist him in opening a new headquarters for his denomination.[20] Once
again, Davis ran afoul of the law in his new Kentucky home. In 1930, Davis
was arrested for soliciting donations for a fake charity.[21] Once again, he
skipped bail, and this time traveled across the river to Jeffersonville Indiana
where he once again established a new headquarters for his denomination.
[22]
By 1930, Davis had successfully established affiliated churches in at
least twelve states across the south. His church in Jeffersonville was the
first north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Davis’s timing could not have been better. Indiana had only recently
been home to the most powerful Klan organization in the United States. In
fact, Indiana had the highest percentage of Klan membership of any state.
At its peak, about one third of all the white men in Indiana were members
of the Indiana Klan, which boasted over one million members. But in the
months before Davis’s arrival, the Indiana Klan had almost totally collapsed
following a leadership scandal, and many citizens were looking for a new
group to call home. While the Indiana Klan never regained its strength and
power, it would prove to be a fertile recruiting ground for Roy Davis as
Jeffersonville became his gateway to the North.
Jerusalem of Laodicea (1909-1928)
Most people have never heard of Jeffersonville, Indiana. It is a small
city on the Ohio River that was designed by President Thomas Jefferson,
and to which he gave his own name. It is an important regional community
in southern Indiana, but one that is little known to the outside. But if you
are a follower of The Message, you know the name Jeffersonville very well.
Jeffersonville is a name that is often spoken in hushed tones. It is revered
with a sense of holiness and veneration with which ordinary Christians may
think of Jerusalem or as Roman Catholics may think of Rome. In The
Message community I come from, Jeffersonville was fondly known as “The
Jerusalem of Laodicea”.[23] It was home of the prophet, William Branham. It
was the birthplace of The Message, and it was the central point from which
The Message was spread to the ends of the world.
Now if you were a normal human being, and someone told you about
“Jerusalem of Laodicea”, you may think that is about the strangest thing
you had ever heard. But if you were born and raised in the isolated
doomsday cult I was part of, you would think nothing of it, and you would
be very familiar with the story of how Jeffersonville was chosen by God to
be the birthplace of The Message.
William Branham was supposedly born near Burkesville Kentucky,
sometime around 1909.[24] Branham gave different birth dates depending on
which version of his life story he was sharing, and he also gave inconsistent
birth dates on every government document he ever signed; dates given by
Branham include March 8, 1907, [25] April 8, 1907, April 8, 1908, and most
commonly April 6, 1909.[26] In many Message churches, we tended to
emphasize his birth in relation to the Azusa Street revival that birthed
Pentecostalism in 1906 – as if his birth were a divine act of God related to
the birth of Pentecostalism. Branham made that connection himself. There
was powerful symbolism in the fact that William Branham was sent into the
world at the same time the “power of the Holy Spirit” was restored to the
early Pentecostal community.
William Branham’s mythical back story is intimately connected to the
lens through which followers of The Message interpret the events of the
twentieth century. William Branham claimed that the year 1906 was the
year in which the final age of church history began, which opened with the
Azusa Street revivals. It was an age to which he had been sent as God’s one
and only special end time messenger and prophet. By divine providence, his
family moved to Jeffersonville when he was about four years old because
God had ordained for Jeffersonville to be the Jerusalem to the final age, and
we called that age Laodicea.
Unfortunately for The Message followers, these myths surrounding
William Branham’s move to Jeffersonville were invented somewhere in the
late 1940s. The true story is much less glamorous.
William Branham’s father, Charles Branham, was a convicted felon
who was working with the mob. In Jeffersonville, the family moved onto
the estate of Otto Wathen, one of the main liquor suppliers to Al Capone’s
criminal empire that operated out of Chicago. Charles was part of Wathen’s
smuggling ring that both produced whiskey and transported it to speakeasys
in Capone’s criminal network.[27]
Wathen was the owner of a large bourbon distillery before prohibition
banned the sale of liquor in the United States. As a major player in the
spirits industry, Wathen was able to secure a permit from the federal
government to continue to produce alcohol for medicinal purposes. This
provided him with cover to maintain limited operations in his distilleries.
Wathen sold some of his product line to the Chicago mob who operated a
prohibition-era speak easy network. Charles Branham was employed by
Wathen to work in this enterprise.
William and his father Charles had a difficult relationship. Charles
was frequently drunk and abusive, and William indicated his father was
unfaithful to his mother with prostitutes who were working on the Wathen
estate. Wathen’s estate at the time was something of a pleasure palace,
replete with a racetrack, a speak easy, prostitutes, and various gambling
opportunities that played host to guests from around the region. The
property was situated on the Ohio River and had its own landing docks
which could be used to ferry passengers and cargo across the river.
Newspaper investigators suspected they were using the port to ferry illegal
bourbon from Wathen’s Louisville Distilleries across the river for transport
to Capone in Chicago.
The full extent of Charles’s responsibilities in Wathen’s operations are
unclear, but according to newspaper reports and William Branham’s own
testimony, he was a driver of transport vehicles and also played a role in the
production of whiskey. William admitted that as a youth he worked
alongside his father in his illegal activities.[28] Charles spent time in and out
of jail on different criminal charges related to his mob activities. While his
father was in jail, William and the rest of the family fell on hard times and
William spent parts of his childhood in extreme poverty.[29]
After reinventing his back story in the 1940s, Branham claimed a
voice spoke to him from a tree while he was a young boy. The voice
supposedly instructed him to “never drink or smoke or defile your body in
any way.” Branham claimed these instructions led him to never participate
in any of the illicit activities his family was deeply involved in. Whether he
did or not is an open question. One notable thing, however, is the voice
which spoke to him from the tree directly contradicted the words of Jesus
Christ.[30]
The mob and their liquor producing allies had a powerful enemy in
Indiana during the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan partnered with the Anti-Saloon
League to serve as armed enforcers of prohibition across the state. In many
cases, the members of the Klan and the Anti-Saloon League were the same
people. The Indiana Klan could be depended upon to deal with any illicit
liquor operations that came to their attention. Wathen‘s liquor activities
were discovered, and authorities launched a criminal investigation in 1920.
Law enforcement named both Wathen and Michael "The Pike" Heitler as
key figures in the case; Mike the Pike was a mobster working with the
Chicago outfit at the time.[31]
In 1924, the Klan, apparently unhappy with the progress of law
enforcement, began an effort of their own to shut down Wathen’s illegal
whiskey operations. In April and March, the Klan violently attacked
Wathen’s operations and published a report to brag about their success in
The Fiery Cross, the Indianapolis based newspaper of the Klan.[32] The same
month, Jeffersonville local news reported that Charles Branham and three
of his sons had all been severely injured. Charles Branham was arrested the
same week and jailed for his illegal activities. The situation was even more
dire for his children. William Branham was shot in both legs and his two
younger brothers severely injured with broken legs and arms. The local
newspaper said their injuries happened in a hunting accident. While we are
justified in suspecting the family had been attacked and beaten by the Klan
while they were working on Wathen’s estate, the Branham family
maintained the hunting accident story for their entire lives.[33]
Whatever the case, it was at this juncture that William Branham seems
to have been taken under the wings of the Ku Klux Klan. His father was in
jail and William Branham lay in the hospital severely wounded in both legs
– it would prove to be an injury that affected the rest of his life. The
situation was dire because his family had no funds to pay for his continued
medical care. It was that moment at which the Ku Klux Klan stepped in.
William Branham fondly recalled the story in later years.

The Ku Klux Klan, paid the hospital bill for me, Masons.[34] I can
never forget them. See? No matter what they do, or what, I still…
there is something, and that stays with me, see, what they did for me.
And they paid the bill to Doctor Reeder.
63-1110M - Souls That Are In Prison Now

William’s condition gradually improved. He required two operations

and spent seven months recovering in the hospital according to his own
account of the tragedy. The life changing event permanently endeared the
Klan to him. The Klan may have appeared to the young Branham as though
they were heroes who had come to rescue him from the life of poverty he
had been forced to endure because of his abusive and criminal father.
In the two years after his relationship with the Klan began, a scandal
slowly unfolded in the Indiana Klan. In 1925, Indiana Klan leader D. C.
Stephenson, raped and chewed on an Indianapolis woman. Barely alive,
Stephenson had her taken home and put into her bed with severe bite
wounds that would shortly take her life. Newspaper reports stated that it
appeared as if she had been “chewed on by a cannibal”.[35] This event
eventually led to the national decline of the Ku Klux Klan. Stephenson tried
to use his power to make the charges go away, but 1927 would see the
entire situation explode. After the Klan-elected Governor of Indiana refused
Stephenson’s demand for a pardon, Stepheson made good on his threats to
release the names on the Klan membership rolls to the press.[36] The reports
proved devastating to the Klan both in Indiana and nationally as newspapers
began printing lists of names of prominent Klan members outed by
Stephensen in 1927 and exposed their extensive program of political
bribery and blackmail.
Many Klansmen in Indiana went into hiding or fled the state as
authorities began to target and press charges against prominent Klan figures
who had been outed. Coincidently, William Branham happened to leave
Indiana at the same time. At the time, Branham told people he went to
Kansas.[37] In later years he claimed he went to Arizona to work on a ranch.
[38]
There is no supporting evidence for either story, and perhaps both stories
are true.

It has been suggested by Peter Duyzer

and others that Branham may have been attending a school or seminary at
the time; they cite a series of yearbook style photos of Branham from those
years which appear to show him dressed in a school uniform as the basis for
their suspicion. There was a school two blocks away from the location he
claimed to have been living at during those years.[39] An educated William
Branham would be incongruent with the carefully curated ”Kentucky
hillbilly” image that he presented in later years.
 Stories told by Branham in later years
also seem to place him alongside Roy Davis on the revival circuit in 1928
and 1929, which if true, presents a continuity issue with the official version
of his life story in which he did not debut as a minister until 1933.[40]

Exactly what William Branham was

doing from 1925 to 1929 remains mysterious, and it is likely the truth is
somewhat different from the official version of the story. We can also
wonder if the timing of his exit from Indiana was related to the outing of
Klan members? With the depth of ongoing investigations by the ex-message
community, I suspect that researchers will eventually be able to provide
solid evidence to either firmly prove or disprove William Branham’s
personal accounts of these years. As yet, no researcher has yet been able to
uncover clear evidence to shed light on the question. Branham’s time away
from Indiana lasted at least two years but may have been closer to four. We
can be certain he was back in Indiana by the middle of 1929 at the latest.
Although Branham seems to have left behind his family and their
career working with the mob, the rest of his family clearly had not. William
Branham’s younger brother Edward was charged with murder following a
1929 car hijacking incident.[41] After being released on bond, Edward
suddenly and unusually died of an illness before the trial could take place.
[42]
The strange series of events with Edward leaves one suspecting there
could be more to that story.

William Branham indicated in his

sermons that his father was involved in some limited and petty crime, and
he did tell of his brother’s 1929 death – but he never told his audiences that
his father was involved in organized crime, or that his brother had been
charged with murder, or that he grew up on the grounds of a miniature Las
Vegas. None of those very essential details ever made it into his often told
life story. We can easily understand why he chose to omit that information.
We can be sure that William Branham returned to Jeffersonville for
Edward’s funeral in June 1929 through newspaper articles.[43] In later years,
when Branham began mythologizing his life story, Edward‘s funeral was
described as the catalyst that led to William Branham’s conversion to
Christianity. Branham claimed that he had a mystical experience shortly
after the funeral was over. While praying in his back yard, a mysterious
light appeared and led him to a nearby church.[44] That church happened to
be the headquarters of the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God, which at that
time was still located in Louisville, and pastored by the illustrious Rev. Roy
E. Davis.
It is noteworthy that Branham gave multiple conflicting explanations
of his Pentecostal conversion experience.[45] There is really no way to know
which, if any of them, are true.
William Branham Joins a White Supremacy Cult
(1929-1932)
It is odd to consider that God would lead the young William Branham
into the most depraved and corrupt church within hundreds of miles of his
home.[46] But that indeed appears to be the case. At the time, Davis was in
the midst of yet another fake charity scheme, defrauding the good people of
Louisville.[47]

William Branham’s stories about

joining Roy Davis’s church are dubious and contradictory. In some stories
told by William Branham, he indicated he already knew Roy Davis and had
worked with him before his 1929 conversion story. It is difficult to parse
fact from fiction. There are clues that William Branham may have been
acquainted with Roy Davis as early as 1926, that Davis may have even been
an old family friend of his parents. Davis or Caleb Ridley may have even
been connected to his departure from Indiana in 1927.[48] What is certain is
that Branham’s membership in Davis’s church can be documented in third
party sources starting in 1929. Roy Davis ran a regular newspaper article
about the happenings at the church. William Branham found a position in
Roy Davis’s movement. Newspaper articles referred to William Branham as
an elder, minister, and worship leader at the denominational headquarters of
the Pentecostal Baptist Church of God. In The Message we would describe
Branham’s position as an assistant pastor.
In 1930, when Davis moved to Jeffersonville, William Branham
tagged along, continuing to serve in a position of growing importance. One
could speculate that Davis’s decision to relocate to Jeffersonville may have
been related to his relationship with William Branham.
After moving to Jeffersonville,
Roy Davis was soon up to his old tricks. By October 1930, the scandals
surrounding Roy Davis reached a new extreme. During the middle of a
church service, police arrived to arrest Roy Davis off the platform and take
him to jail. This time, his arrest was for a violation of a federal law called
the Mann Act. Davis had been transporting underage girls across state lines
for sex, and he himself had been engaged in sex with minors. He was taken
by federal agents to Louisville to be tried in federal court.[49]
Newspapers articles from the same time reported William Branham as
ministering elder in the church. Branham would have been sitting on the
platform with Davis at the time of his arrest. Even Branham’s own official
biographies place him as a minister in Davis’s church in the time period of
the arrest. Once again Davis found a way to avoid immediate consequences
through legal maneuvering and was released from jail and returned to
Jeffersonville. Authorities in Louisville began efforts to have Davis arrested
yet again and extradited to Kentucky to face various charges, but Davis
successfully evaded extradition until September 1931, when he finally had
to abandon Jeffersonville as yet one more town where he had outstayed his
welcome.[50]
When I first saw the evidence indicating William Branham personally
witnessed Roy Davis being arrested off the platform mid-service, it
removed all doubt that Branham could have been unaware of what he was
connected to. It is exceedingly difficult to fathom a scenario that can excuse
William Branham for his continued relationship with Roy Davis from that
point forward. It is impossible that he could have been unaware of Davis’s
arrest. One could perhaps excuse Branham for naivety or ignorance before
this, but from the moment of Davis’s 1931 arrest, that is no longer a valid
excuse for Branham. And this is just one of multiple arrests Branham must
certainly have been aware of.
A wanted man, Davis was forced to keep a low profile and was
frequently out of town to visit other churches in his denomination. Although
Davis was mostly out of town after 1931, the headquarters of his
denomination remained in Jeffersonville until 1934. William Branham and
George De’Ark continued to operate the church in Davis’s absence.
Notably, William Branham credited George De’Ark with introducing him to
Christian Identity Theology.[51] The first evidence of Branham traveling as
an evangelist began with his practice of traveling to other churches
surrounding Jeffersonville which had been started by Roy Davis as satellite
churches, most notably the Baptist Church of Milltown Indiana.
Davis snuck back into Jeffersonville a number of times between 1932
through 1934 to preach and check in on his flock, but he spent most of his
time traveling among the other churches he had established, holding
revivals, and conducting covert Klan recruitment.
In June 1933, Davis began advertising an upcoming tent revival
meeting to be sponsored by his church, and to be held at 8th and Pratt Street
in Jeffersonville. If you are familiar with Jeffersonville, you will recognize
that address as the parking lot of Branham Tabernacle. After a series of
newspaper articles creating a buildup in advertising and promising a
powerful evangelist would preach to the community, William Branham was
announced as evangelist who would lead the revival.[52]
 Chapter 2
Debut of Elijah
1933-1946
I say unto you that Elijah has already
come, and they knew him not.
– Jesus Christ
The Voice at the River (1933-1934)
It was very hot in July of 1933 as the sun beat down on Roy Davis’s
revival tent. In the shade of the tent stood a man who was to become one of
the most famous American preachers of the mid-20th century. The story of
William Branham’s 1933 tent revivals and subsequent baptismal service is
one of the most important legends to followers of The Message.
William Branham gradually evolved the way he told his life story over
time. Lining up the different versions chronologically and following how
they evolve over time is a revealing exercise. When you take time to study
William Branham’s ministry, you will find that his life stories were like a
fishing story. Every time he told the story, the fish got a little bigger. Across
the decades, a minnow gradually turned into a whale.
The whale version of the 1933 tent meetings goes something like this:
As William Branham stepped onto the stage in his tent, thousands of people
came to witness his debut. Dozens of people repented of their sins, and soon
all the people followed the young evangelist down to the banks of the Ohio
River at the foot of Spring Street where they were to be baptized. Wading
out into the water, William Branham began to baptize the new converts. As
the seventeenth convert stepped into the water to be baptized,[53] suddenly
the heavens opened, and a bright light descended down over William
Branham’s head. A voice then boomed from the heavens saying, “As John
the Baptist was sent to forerun my first coming, so you have been sent with
a message that will forerun my second coming.” The crowd of thousands
stood in awe on the banks of the river as they bore witness to the
tremendous event. Children screamed. Women fainted. News reporters
picked up the story which appeared in newspapers all over the United States
and Canada. The headlines stated: “Mystic Light Appears Over Evangelist
At Baptism”.[54] Thus was launched the ministry of William Branham.
The truth is not nearly so fantastic. The minnow version of this story
goes something more like this: before leaving town, Roy Davis had
defrauded a Jeffersonville widow into signing over her entire estate to him
in her will. Upon her death, he had returned to the city quietly to collect on
her “donation”. The widow’s children had discovered Roy Davis’s plot and
brought Davis up on charges in Jeffersonville. [55] The pressure was such
that Davis was going to have to move the headquarters of his denomination
yet again.[56]
The July tent meetings provided the perfect opportunity for Davis to
transition leadership of his local congregation to a new pastor. Enter
William Branham. Graham Snelling and George De’Ark from the local
Pentecostal Baptist Church of God helped Branham run the revival
meetings. Davis himself financed the revival and handled the
advertisements in the local newspapers.[57] According to Snelling, less than
100 people attended.[58] A newspaper report from the first week of July
reported the Branham’s revival had eleven converts; there were not even
seventeen to be baptized.[59] This one article is the only newspaper mention
of the revival anywhere.

None of the
eyewitnesses known to The Message community reported hearing a voice
speak from heaven. This fact was openly admitted by a number of early
Message leaders.[60] A search of all the regional newspapers William
Branham claimed to have reported on the event reveal no article matching
Branham’s description.[61] William Branham actually made up nearly the
entire story.[62]
What the 1933 tent revival represents is the start of a transition where
Roy Davis’s First Pentecostal Baptist Church of God sponsored the launch
of what would become the Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle. George
De’Ark and Graham Snelling – who also had been Roy Davis’s local elders
– went on to serve as the first and third assistant pastors at the soon to be
established Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle.
After the July tent meetings were over, the three men resumed having
regular services at the First Pentecostal Baptist Church of God until April
1934. That month, Roy Davis’s church mysteriously burnt down.[63] Left
without a church building, the congregation returned to the revival tent.
Branham, along with Davis’s other elders and some members of Davis’s
family established the Billie Branham Pentecostal Tabernacle. For the first
year, they held service in the tent at the corner of Pratt and Eighth street.[64]
During 1935, they constructed a block building on the adjacent lot at the
present site where the Branham Tabernacle sits today.[65]
William Branham’s story about the start of his church was condensed
at best, grossly deceptive at worst.[66] Branham failed to tell his audiences
that Davis left town after multiple arrests and sex with an underage girl. He
likewise hid the fact that his congregation had deep connection to a
particular secret society, and that his pastor was leading figure in the
national white supremacy community.
Early Days of the Branham Tabernacle
Graham Snelling and George De’Ark are two interesting characters.
George De’Ark worked closely with Roy Davis for a number of years and
had a reputation for preaching an early version of Christian Identity
Theology – a belief that the non-white races were human-animal hybrids
created by the sexual sins of Adam and Eve and their offspring. Message
old timers reported that De’Ark was a very important figure in the early
days of the Tabernacle as either co-pastor or assistant pastor to William
Branham. De’Ark accompanied Branham on his early revivals in Milltown
and the communities around Jeffersonville. De’Ark died in the 1937 Ohio
River flood, leaving Branham as the clear leader of the Tabernacle.
Graham Snelling has a reputation for being levelheaded. He became
assistant pastor of Branham Tabernacle about 1948. He and Branham had a
falling out in 1952 when he found out Branham had started to exaggerate
the 1933 baptismal story. Snelling confronted Branham for making up
details of the story he was telling to his revival audience. Shortly after,
Branham had a vision that Snelling was having an extra-marital affair.
Snelling was expelled from his position. The pattern of accusing his
detractors of sexual sins became a ministry-long pattern employed by
Branham. Snelling’s eventual 1951 exit could be described as a minor
church split. Several people left with him, including Curtis Hooper. Hooper
was song leader of the Branham Tabernacle before he exited with Snelling
to join his new church.[67]
Things were moving along well as Snelling, De’Ark, and Branham
fully took over the local chapter of Roy Davis’s followers. Branham
traveled the local revival circuit regularly to the other churches in Roy
Davis’s orbit, but also to the growing oneness Pentecostal movement in
Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio. Rev. Frank Curts from Cincinnati visited
Branham’s congregation to preach in August 1934.[68] Curts was a
prominent Oneness Pentecostal minister in the region.[69] One month later,
Branham traveled to Mishawaka where he attended the General Assembly
of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Jesus Christ (PAJC) hosted at G. B.
Rowe’s church. The PAJC was one the main Oneness Pentecostal
denominations at the time and would eventually merge to become the
United Pentecostal Church in 1945. Branham claimed to receive a last-
minute invitation to preach at the convention, though there is no evidence to
substantiate his claim.[70] Notably, Indiana was the home of G. T. Haywood
and Indianapolis was the early headquarters of Oneness Pentecostalism.
William Branham’s connections to Curts, Rowe, and other leading
figures in the Oneness Pentecostal movement in the Midwest opened an
opportunity for him to visit the regional Oneness churches. Newspaper
archives contain stories of Branham’s revivals from this early period of his
ministry, and perhaps the most surprising thing to a follower of The
Message is the fact that William Branham was a Pentecostal at all. It was
about 1945 when William Branham rewrote his back story to develop a
dramatic tale of his conversion to Pentecostalism. In his official biography,
Branham claimed to have avoided Pentecostals until the year 1945. But all
evidence indicates William Branham was a Pentecostal from the earliest
days he worked with Roy Davis.
Eyewitness testimony also puts William Branham in attendance at
William Sowders’ School of the Prophets at times during the mid-1930s.[71]
Sowders had the largest Pentecostal group in the region at the time, and it
would have been an excellent opportunity for an up and coming Pentecostal
minister to network and recruit.
Bernice Hicks was in attendance at the Branham Tabernacle from the
early years and served as a Sunday School teacher. It is likely she followed
Branham from the Pentecostal Baptist Church, though it is unclear. In the
Branham Tabernacle, the Sunday School teacher is a minister who preaches
an hour-long lesson before the main service begins.[72] She regularly
preached at the Tabernacle until about 1946 when Brother McCullough
became assistant pastor.[73]
It is unclear who, if anyone, served as Branham’s assistant pastor
between 1938 and 1945. It is possible that Hicks was second most senior
minister at the church following the death of George De’Ark, and until
McCullough was appointed. According to Message legend, Hicks was
expelled from the church mid-service about 1947.[74] William Branham
eluded to the existence of serious issues in the congregation in 1945, which
may be a reference to a dispute with Hicks.[75] In her own telling of the
story, Hicks claimed to be a more popular teacher among the congregation
than Branham, and was ejected after he became famous and was able to
settle the score with her. Hicks went on to found her own international cult
which is also headquartered in Jeffersonville: Christ Gospel International.
The Pentecostal Tragedy (1936-1937)
About 1929, Branham met his future wife Hope Brumbach. According
to newspaper articles, Hope was another leader and minister at Roy Davis’s
church.[76] Curiously, in later years William Branham claimed his single
disagreement with Roy Davis and objection to the ordination of female
preachers – yet William Branham married one of the female ministers in
Davis’s church.[77]
The story of Branham’s marriage to Hope and her subsequent death in
1937 served as a major component of Branham’s life story he shared during
the years after he gained fame. A review of the available evidence shows
Branham was misleading his audiences about major parts of his life story,
including the elements surrounding his first marriage, starting with his
proposal story.
Hope’s father Charles was a member of the Jeffersonville chapter of
the KKK before their collapse in 1927. Charles Brumbach also had a long
history of criminal involvement recorded in the local newspaper and spent
time in and out of jail. Hope's father and mother divorced in 1928; Hope’s
mother Hazel petition for divorce on claims of cruelty and abuse.[78] Charles
Brumbach remarried and moved to Fort Wayne the same year according to
the local paper. His move to Fort Wayne is confirmed by the 1930 census.
In Branham’s highly embellished version of his 1934 proposal story,
he was let into the house by Hope’s mother who led him into a back room
to meet her father with whom he had a heart to heart talk. Her father was
overjoyed and granted him permission to marry Hope.[79] Yet records prove
Hopes parents were divorced and living in different cities since 1930.
In his life story, Branham also stressed the fact that he and his wife
were not Pentecostals. In fact, Branham claimed Hope’s death occurred
because he disobeyed God by refusing to hold revivals for the Pentecostals.
At the time William and Hope met, they were both long connected to
Pentecostalism. The First Pentecostal Baptist Church advertisements in the
local newspaper regularly included both of their names. The advertisements
also reported the sermons and practices in the church which included
speaking in tongues, Holy Ghost services, singing and shouting, and divine
healing. [80] William Branham reported that Davis had baptized him using
the oneness baptismal formula – all clear evidence that the First Pentecostal
Baptist Church of God was following common Pentecostal practices – all in
the early 1930s. In fact, when Branham took over Roy Davis’s congregation
in 1934, he named his new church the Billie Branham Pentecostal
Tabernacle, and officially registered the church by that name with the city
of Jeffersonville.[81]
In later years, there appears to be several things Branham was
attempting to hide from audiences concerning the earliest days of his
pastorship, including the inglorious way in which he became a pastor and
the fact that he and his family were all Pentecostals at the time.
What necessitated William Branham to rewrite his back story? It takes
little imagination to understand why Branham felt the need to downplay or
hide Roy Davis and his criminal convictions from his audiences. But why
he felt the need to deny his involvement with Pentecostalism is a bit more
complex and requires us to speculate a bit.
The most likely explanation is the tragic death of Hope and their
newborn daughter, Sharon Rose. In January 1936 Hope was diagnosed with
Tuberculosis.[82] In those years, before the introduction of antibiotics, the
mortality rate was about 50% for people diagnosed with the dreaded
disease. Hope was young and healthy, but only two months after she was
diagnosed with tuberculosis, Sharon Rose was conceived. The pregnancy
would have greatly decreased her odds of survival.[83]
The Branham Tabernacle hosted a healing revival in September 1936
and published reports in the local newspaper of eighteen healings that
occurred at the hands of William Branham.[84] Was Hope among those
pronounced healed? Hope would have been nine months into her
tuberculosis diagnosis at the time of the healing revival. Just shy of eleven
months after Hope’s diagnosis with tuberculosis, Sharon Rose was born into
the world on October 28. Tragically, she was born with her mother’s
disease.
To his audiences, William Branham never told the truth about Hope’s
tuberculosis diagnosis in January 1936. While he did allude to the fact that
she was ill before the flood came, he always misled his listeners about the
facts of the case. In his earliest life story accounts, he claimed Hope was
diagnosed with pneumonia in December 1936.[85] He consistently and
falsely claimed she was diagnosed with tuberculosis only after the 1937
flood occurred.[86]
 Interestingly, in later years Branham claimed that he prophesied the
coming of the 1937 flood just a few weeks before it occurred. He claimed to
have been ridiculed by people of the city who dismissed his claims. [87]
Despite the life-threatening illness of his wife and daughter and
having supposedly just prophesied a coming flood, Branham seems to have
failed to take any precaution, and remained in Jeffersonville until the flood
walls of the city were breached by the great flood of 1937.[88] It seems
unusual that he didn’t take his own prophecy of the flood seriously enough
to move his family out of harm’s way. The flood completely submerged
Jeffersonville and destroyed the homes and businesses of thousands of
people. While we can understand that scoffers may have ignored his
prophecy – what is Branham’s excuse for ignoring his own prophecy? I
believe the facts would indicate that perhaps Branham never really made a
prophecy about the flood. At the very least, he appears hypocritical for
condemning other people who failed to take heed to his prophecy, when he
failed to do so himself.
William Branham’s stories about the events surrounding the 1937
flood are wildly contradictory. It is nearly impossible to know which, if any,
version is accurate. In his most common telling, while he was out rescuing
other people trapped by the flood waters, his wife and children were taken
by others to a refugee facility.[89] In some versions, he personally took his
family to the hospital. In some versions they were taken after the flood wall
broke, in others just before it broke. Whatever the case, it does indeed
appear that Branham allowed himself to be separated from his family
during the events surrounding the flood. He spent several days frantically
searching for them. It is difficult to understand Branham’s voluntary
abandonment of his family during the midst of such a crisis. Something
about the story just does not seem to ring true.
After he finished rescuing other people, Branham claimed to try to
locate his family but they could not be found. After searching frantically for
several days, he was told to check Charlestown, Indiana – a town
immediately north of Jeffersonville.[90] He claimed that the flood waters
ended up trapping him on a hill for six days that prevented him from
reaching Charlestown.[91] After escaping and finally reaching Charlestown,
he discovered his wife in a deathly ill condition.[92] Finally, in the refugee
hospital, the doctor informed him that she had contracted tuberculosis and
would soon die.[93]
We can be sure that key elements of the story from the Charlestown
refugee facility are false. Hope’s death records report her initial diagnoses
with tuberculosis in January 1936. The tale of the doctor’s dramatic reveal
of Hope’s diagnosis with tuberculosis to Branham is an invented story.
William Branham went on to give an elaborate heartbreaking story of
his final conversation with his wife as she died in dramatic fashion.[94]
Having been at the bedside of many deaths, it is safe to say Branham’s story
about the passing of his wife is simply not possible. Someone in the final
stages of tuberculosis simply cannot behave the way Branham indicated his
wife did.
Why did William Branham so seriously distort the story of his wife
and daughter’s death? Why did he falsely say his wife was diagnosed with
tuberculosis in February of 1937, when in fact she was diagnosed in
January 1936? One possible explanation is that he believed his wife’s
earlier case of tuberculosis had been healed. Then he could have viewed the
news from the doctor during the flood as a reoccurrence of the disease – or
perhaps a belief that his wife had lost her healing. Covering up the failed
healing of his wife seems to be the most logical reason Branham would
have rewrote the history of his early ministry to hide his true connections to
Pentecostalism. He had to pretend he did not believe in divine healing at the
time, in order to excuse her death.
Whatever the case, Branham left out key details which would allow
his listeners to understand the important context of the story surrounding
the death of his first wife. He was fully misleading his audiences so they
would incorrectly conclude that the tuberculosis case began in the refugee
hospital in 1937.
Branham also left audiences with the false impression that his wife
and daughter died during the flood, when in fact Hope and Sharon Rose
lived for months after the flood had subsided. Hope’s condition worsened,
and both Hope and Sharon Rose died in the Clark Memorial Hospital in
July 1937. Throughout his life, William Branham repeated the false story
that his wife and daughter contracted tuberculosis during the flood.[95]
Worst of all, William Branham consistently blamed the reason for the
death of Hope and Sharon Rose on a divine judgement from God, a
judgement carried out on them because they had failed to embrace
Pentecostalism. Through the years, he consistently claimed that the first
time he met any Pentecostals was in 1934 – at Rowe’s church in
Mishawaka. Rowe had supposedly invited him to hold revivals for them,
but because his mother-in-law was opposed to him participating with “holy
rollers”, he declined their offer. As a result, God punished Branham and his
family with a long string of terrible judgements. Multiple members of his
extended family were killed, and it culminated in the flood leading to the
death of his own wife and daughter.[96]
 After the death of his wife and
daughter, their obituary in the Jeffersonville Evening News reported that he
and his wife were both Pentecostals, that Branham was a Pentecostal pastor,
and their funeral was held at the Pentecostal Tabernacle of Jeffersonville.[97]
The story is tragic. I personally knew the family who cared for
Branham’s surviving son, Billy Paul, during that time. They told me
Branham was severely depressed. Branham even claimed to have made
several suicide attempts after Hope’s death. In the most serious attempt he
climbed a power line and grabbed ahold of live wires. He claimed to wake
up some time later on the ground, uninjured.[98] Are any of those stories
true? It is really hard to say. Once you begin to detect someone with a
pattern of dishonesty, it’s hard to trust anything they say. I think we can
safely assume that Branham did indeed suffer emotionally after their deaths,
but its hard to say if the suicide stories are true or not.

It is important to note that there is no evidence that William Branham

began changing this story until about 1945 when he first began to affiliate
with ministers from the United Pentecostal Church. That event appears to
be the catalyst for the first rewrite of the story about the death of his wife
and daughter.
The story Branham told his audiences about the death of his wife and
daughter played an integral role in the emotional connection he forged with
them. Branham often brought his audiences to tears as he related his life
story. This same emotional bond exists with many of his Message followers
to this day, so much so that upon seeing Hope Branham’s obituary has
caused many to exit The Message community because it is an deep betrayal
to find Branham misled his audiences and followers about the cause of his
wife’s death.
Shortly after Hope’s death, the Broy family promised to help Branham
raise Billy Paul. Meda Broy (1919-1984) was eighteen years old at the time,
ten years younger than William Branham. Meda and her mother became
Billy Paul’s regular caretaker while Branham worked. Branham married
Meda in 1941, and the couple had three children; Rebekah (1946-2014),
Sarah (b. 1950), and Joseph (b. 1955).
Branham’s Big Break (1940-1945)
Hope was not long departed before Branham resumed faith healing.
He traveled the revival circuit, made regular hunting trips, and went as far
as Montana on some trips.[99] It was during a revival meeting much closer to
home that a string of events began which would lead Branham to national
fame. In 1941, Branham held revivals at the Milltown Baptist Church. The
church was planted by Roy Davis, and Branham claimed to be pastor of the
Milltown church until the mid-1950s. It seems as though Branham did not
merely inherit the congregation of the Branham Tabernacle after Davis went
to prison, but that he actually continued to hold sway over other regional
churches planted by Davis.[100]
While holding revivals in Milltown in 1941, Branham claimed to pray
for and heal Georgia Carter from tuberculosis.[101] Branham claimed to have
been directed to Milltown by a vision of a lamb caught in a thicket. He
claimed that prior to the vision he had not heard of Milltown and was
forced to ask others about how to find the community.[102]
Elements of Branham’s Milltown healing story are easily proven false.
Newspaper articles report Branham holding revivals in Milltown years
before 1941.[103] Eyewitness testimony also place him in Milltown before
the Georgia Carter healing.[104] Hattie Wright Mosier indicated that Branham
was already acquainted with Georgia Carter’s family and her situation
before the vision.[105] These facts make the entire story suspect. We can be
certain that the Milltown vision was a hoax; the story proves Branham was
sharing stories of fake supernatural visions from early on in his ministry.[106]
As for the healing of Carter herself, there were only four witnesses to
the event, including her. Carter claimed to have been suffering from
tuberculosis for over eight years and spent those years laying on her back –
which was the common medical treatment for tuberculosis in those years.
Laying on the back caused the infection to settle in the back of the lungs
and lowers its chance of spreading to other organs. Having spent years on
her back, one wonders if Carter had already been cured by medical
treatment prior to her encounter with Branham.
According to one witness, members of the Milltown community who
were familiar with the situation rejected the validity of the miracle at the
time.[107] Branham also explained that no one from the Milltown community
accepted the validity of the miracle.[108] Nevertheless, Branham received
credit from some of his friends, and began reporting the healing of Georgia
Carter to his audiences when he preached. Buoyed by what seemed like a
verifiable testimony of healing, Branham began to use the story as evidence
of his gift of healing. Over the course of a couple years, reports of the
healing of Carter spread to various Oneness Pentecostal churches in the
region around Jeffersonville. This seems to confirm Branham’s preexisting
links to other oneness Pentecostal churches. This story would eventually
reach the ears of Rev. Robert Daugherty of St. Louis.[109]
Daughtery was a notable minister in the Oneness Pentecostal
movement at the time, and his position in St. Louis was strategic. St. Louis,
in 1945, became home to the headquarters of the newly established United
Pentecostal Church. The church was formed through a union of other
Oneness Pentecostal groups during the summer of 1945 at a major
convention held in St. Louis.
Daughtery had a young daughter named Betty who had been
diagnosed with St. Vitus Dance.[110] The condition is not life threatening,
and those afflicted generally recover naturally after a few months.
Daughtery claimed that, upon hearing the story of Carter’s healing, he
telegrammed Branham and invited him to St. Louis to pray for his daughter
in March 1945. Branham dutifully traveled to pray for Betty, and Rev.
Daughtery reported that his daughter was miraculously healed. He was so
impressed, the story goes, that he invited Branham back to St. Louis to hold
revival meetings in the month of June 1945 – about one month before the
Pentecostal convention in the same city to form the UPC. The events of the
1945 St. Louis revival meetings are recorded in the tract “I Was Not
Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision” – the oldest surviving tract of the
Branham campaigns published in early 1946.[111]
 Branham’s healing
revival was well attended, and the reports of his healing prowess were
carried by delegates to the UPC convention the following month. The lucky
break – or the clever strategy – would prove highly effective in raising
Branham’s profile and launching him into national fame. The UPC had
about 520 churches in 1945 and would become one of Branham’s most
reliable supporters for the rest of his life.
Branham was an instant hit among the UPC crowd, having caught the
attention of some of its most important ministers in 1945. Ray Hoekstra and
W. E. Kidson organized a revival tour for Branham in 1946, primarily
through UPC churches in the south and Midwest.
Contrary to how William Branham presented himself to his audiences,
he was far from being the naïve young preacher at the start of the healing
revivals. In fact, he had been preaching for at least fifteen years, had toured
a regional revival circuit, practiced faith healing, and been exposed to
Pentecostalism the entire time. He had become quite savvy and adept
through those years. The events in 1945 and 1946 allowed him to finally
achieve a level of success he had been aiming for all along. One way to
view his persona as a humble, uneducated hillbilly, was that it lowered the
expectations of his audiences and created a lot of room for him to be able to
feign ignorance or naivety. Further, it hid the reality that he had a long track
record in ministry working alongside Roy Davis. Branham played all of this
up to his advantage.
Hoekstra was pastor of Calvary Temple in Indianapolis – one of the
largest UPC churches in the United States. W. E. Kidson was General
Secretary of the Pentecostal Church, Inc., one of the two large Oneness
denominations that had merged to create the United Pentecostal Church in
1945. Kidson was also the editor The Apostolic Herald of Truth which was
one of the leading publications of Oneness Pentecostalism. Kidson and
Hoekstra’s support gave Branham publicity to the wider Oneness movement
and caused the UPC churches across the United States to open their
platforms to Branham as he launched his first big revival tours.

Branham shared the revival stage during

the first tour with twelve-year-old Little David Walker. Walker had been
working under Hoekstra’s tutelage for over a year at the time and was in his
second year of touring the UPC when Branham joined him. The twelve-
year-old claimed to have visited heaven and been commissioned as a boy
preacher; but his greatest appeal to the audiences was his ability to float off
the stage during his sermons in what appears to have been a levitation act.
 Branham and Walker worked together
for most of 1946; they had occasional joint revivals in 1947 and 1948. Their
first engagement was to preach at the national UPC convention held in St.
Louis in 1946, and from there they traveled across the Midwest speaking at
various UPC churches, before turning toward the southern states. Reports
from the meetings became more fabulous with each stop, with reports of
healings and resurrections along the way. Newspaper reporters attempted to
verify the claims flowing from the meetings but were never successful in
their attempts.
Branham’s 1946 revival tour climaxed with a reported 25,000
attendees at meetings in Jonesboro Arkansas in August. It was at this
meeting that Branham’s team began their practice of inflating the number of
attendees. They generally achieved their attendance numbers by counting
all the attendees at each service, and then adding the numbers together.
1,000 people attending five meetings was reported as 5,000 attendees. 5,000
at ten meetings became 50,000. It was not apparent to people who heard
their reports, but the campaign was double and triple counting attendees.
The largest auditoriums in the United States during that era had max seating
capacity generally between 2,500 and 5,000. A small few could seat 10,000.
It was only through counting all the attendees at 10-14 services spread
across a single week could their team arrive at such substantial number.[112]
There are no known preserved copies of Branham’s sermons or
services from the first two years of his fame. The only records of the events
of 1945 and 1946 are newspaper reports, testimony recorded years later, and
two single tracts from 1946 which have been preserved.
Angelic Commission (1946)
In early 1946, while working with Hoekstra and Kidson, Branham
published the oldest known tract of his ministry: I Was Not Disobedient to
the Heavenly Vision. The tract laid out in detail how Branham was called by
God to begin his healing ministry. Like all of his famous life stories, it
started out as a minnow that eventually grew into a whale. In the tract,
Branham explained a vision he received in early 1945 while standing in
front of his home in Jeffersonville. In the vision he was caught up to a
mountain and saw a door and road before him. He was instructed to go on a
tour to auditoriums and tents to share his message of divine healing. Shortly
after the vision ended, he was called to St. Louis by Rev. Daughtery to pray
for his daughter, thus launching his popularity.[113]
The story of his commission began to grow and evolve as William
Branham reinvented himself over the years. Understanding the distinct
phases of Branham’s commission story is an important framework for
interpreting the events of his entire ministry. Before we begin examining
the events of his ministry, let me first share with you the phases of his
commission story.
The first reinvention occurred in the summer of 1947. Branham
replaced Kidson and Hoekstra after meetings in Shreveport.[114] There he
met Jack Moore, who took over as his campaign manager. Following
meetings in Los Angeles about a month later, Gordon Lindsay was invited
to manage Branham’s publicity and organize a tour for him among churches
friendly to Foursquare and Assemblies of God in the Pacific Northwest. It is
from this time that the very first recordings of Branham’s revivals have
been preserved.[115] That year, just after the change in his campaign team,
Branham rewrote his commission story and began to introduce the elements
that would be remembered for generations by his followers as the Angelic
Commission story.[116]
Second Version (1947-1948)
Although Lindsay indicated in a newspaper interview in 1947 that he
was aware of Branham’s original 1945 commission story,[117] Lindsay
assisted Branham in publishing a revised commission story which
transitioned his commission from a vision to an angelic visitation. In his
first rebranding, William Branham began to present himself as a Moses
figure. In the second version of the commission story, an angel said that he
came from the presence of God to inform Branham that God had given him
a sign, like God had given Moses.[118] The angel then informed Branham
that he was to take his special gifts to the world. After being visited by the
angel, Rev. Daughtery called Branham to come to St. Louis to pray for his
daughter, launching his career in national fame. [119]
In this second version of the angelic commission, Branham never
clearly stated the location at which it occurred, referring only to it
happening “in the room.” This version of the story strongly implied he was
referring to his Jeffersonville home, the same location as the 1945 version
of his commission story.[120]
Third Version (1948-1952)
Branham maintained the second version of the angelic commission for
several months in 1947, but in 1948 and 1949 the story began to shift again
into the version that is most well-known within Pentecostalism. The third
version of the story was published by Lindsay in Branham’s 1950 official
biography and was subsequently picked up by most of Branham’s later
biographers. The third version of the story was more dramatic and the
location of the commission was changed.[121] In the third version, Branham
was very distressed and troubled, and he told his wife he was going out into
the forest where he intended to stay until he died or received an answer
from God about why he was so peculiar. He traveled deep into the Clark
County State Forest to a little cabin known only to him, where he stayed the
night. Very early in the morning, before sunrise, an angel came to him, to
inform him that he had received a sign like Moses. In the third version,
William Branham was given two signs, whereas he had only been given one
in the second version.
The story ends as the angel told Branham about his calling and
instructed him to go on tour and share his gifts with the world. Returning
back home, Branham received a call from Rev. Daughtery to come pray for
his daughter in St. Louis, thus beginning his great rise to fame.[122]
In the third version, William Branham claimed that he was a state
game warden working in the Clark State Forest for the first time.[123] These
new additions to his back story would be long remembered. Unfortunately,
it appears to be totally fabricated. Several researchers, including myself,
have diligently searched Indiana state records to confirm his employment as
a state game warden. During the 1940s, the position was one filled by
appointment of the governor of Indiana, as it had been since the 1850s. The
state records detail all the wardens who had been appointed since that time,
yet there is no record of William Branham ever serving as a state game
warden. The state of Indiana has meticulously maintained records back to
the founding of the state, over two centuries ago. It is inconceivable that no
trace of the appointment of William Branham as a game warden was
preserved. This seems to prove that William Branham’s revisions of his
commission story were straying further into the realm of fantasy.
Fourth Version (1952-1960)
The third version of Branham’s commission story remained in place
until about 1952 when Branham began to increasingly insinuate that he was
the Elijah prophesied by Malachi. In July 1952, Branham began to shift
away from his Moses identity to his new Elijah identity. He began to lean
into his new identity after preaching meetings in Zion at the church of John
Alexander Dowie. One month later, Branham rewrote the 1933 baptismal
story and added a voice speaking at the river which declared him to be an
Elijah figure.[124] It is curious that the voice at the river which compared him
with John the Baptist was absent for the first twenty years William
Branham told the story. It is not in any recordings on tape, not in the
versions printed in Voice of Healing, and not in his official 1951 biography,
A Man Sent From God.
At the same time he revised the baptismal story to add the voice at the
river, Branham also made his fourth revision to the angelic commission
story. Branham changed the location of the commission for a third time; in
this version he went deep into the forest where he found a secret cave.[125] In
this version he compared the symbolism to Elijah going into a cave to hide
and hear from God.[126] Branham said that while he sat in the cave, suddenly
a light appeared, an angel came to him, telling him that God had given him
special signs, and commissioning him to go share his gifts with the world.
Upon leaving the cave and returning home, Rev. Daughtery called Branham
to invite him to St. Louis to pray for his sick daughter, thus launching his
career and fame.[127]
 The problems with the angelic commission story make it difficult to
believe. Key details changed with each version of the story, including the
location, the number of signs. The stories included provably false elements
– like Branham’s false claim to be a game warden. It would be unwise for
anyone to give any credence to Branham’s obviously false angelic
commission story. If he would fabricate part of the story – he could just as
easily fabricate the whole story. How did William Branham get away with
this? Most of Branham’s following joined him after 1952, when he had
settled on the final version. Most were simply unaware that he made
multiple major revisions to the story.
The fourth version of the story is one most accepted among followers
of the message. A summary of the different versions reveals Branham
transitioning from a Moses figure to an Elijah figure. He maintained the
Elijah persona until about 1960 when he began to transition into his final
personal. He began presenting himself as a Messiah figure. The transition
from Moses to Elijah to Messiah form different epochs of William
Branham’s ministry, each with a new evolution of his back story and
heavenly commission.
It is noteworthy that members of the Branham Deity Cult report that
Branham privately claimed that he was Moses, Elijah, and the Messiah in
one person.[128]
 Chapter 3
Elijah’s Mantle
1700-1945
The name is not a title; it is a reality.
I firmly believe in common with tens
of thousands of my followers that I
have been sent by God in the Spirit
and Power of Elijah
– John Alexander Dowie
 Most of William Branham’s followers who went on to produce the early
sects of the Message joined during the years of his Elijah persona. As a result,
William Branham’s Elijah claims are one of the most enduring elements of his
legacy. To his core following, his status as the Elijah who had come to forerun the
second coming of Christ is a bedrock belief and foundational to their end of days
ideology.[129] To those on the outside, it is among the most bizarre elements to
define Branham’s ministry.
One thing few people seem to be aware of, whether inside or outside of The
Message, is the fact that Branham came from a long succession of British Israelite
preachers who had all claimed to be Elijah. It certainly was a surprise to me when
I discovered that fact! Like so much of William Branham’s back story, there are
many obscure facts which bring an entirely different perspective when they are
brought to light. Before I continue examining Branham’ story, I need to share the
back story of British Israelism and how William Branham came into contact with
it. This will help you understand that William Branham was just continuing a
well-established pattern that preexisted him.
British Israelism and Pyramidology
There is a pseudo-scientific, pseudo-areological, and pseudo-religious
movement that developed during the late 1700s in the United Kingdom. The
movement is known to history as British Israelism or Anglo Israelism. Adherents
of the ideology came to believe the English-speaking people of the British Isles
were in fact the ten lost tribes of Israel. King James (of King James Bible fame)
was himself was one of the early promoters of the idea, believing that he was
himself a descendant of King David.[130] The British Israelites based their beliefs
on the writings and research of a number of quacks and conmen. The basic
concept was turned into a movement by John Wilson in the early 1800s. Wilson
was a self-proclaimed linguist who supposedly discovered that the English
language evolved from ancient Hebrew – an idea completely discredited by all
reputable linguists.[131]
Wilson found a willing ally in Charles Piazzi Smyth – an archaeologist and
astronomer of the Royal Society. Smyth had spent time in Egypt studying the
pyramids and was somewhat of a respected authority in British society at the time.
Smyth and Wilson toured together throughout the United Kingdom to hold
conference where they shared their “discoveries.” The ideas they promoted could
be described as deeply interwoven religious and political conspiracy theories.
Smyth was the father of Pyramidology and originated the belief that the great
pyramid had been constructed by Enoch before the flood. Smyth claimed that it
contained secret and sacred geometry which, in combination with a knowledge of
astronomy, could predict the end of days.[132] The great pyramid and the zodiac
were believed by Smyth to be a sort of primitive bible from the antediluvian era.
Smyth and Wilson successfully fused British Israelism and Pyramidology into a
single complimentary ideology by the mid-1800s.
Jane Lead and Southcottian Mysticism
The British Israel ideology didn’t stop growing with the fusion of
Pyramidology. It was something like a dirty snowball that grew as it rolled
downhill, except instead of growing through snow, it grew through the
accumulation of other absurd ideas and outright heretical abominations. British
Israelism appealed to some of the most problematic “Christian” movements of the
era. Mormonism was born in the early years of British Israelism and Joseph Smith
incorporated a number of British Israel concepts into his newly formed religion.
[133]
Joanna Southcott was another prominent religious figure to incorporate British
Israel ideas.
Southcott was so infamous in her day that Charles Dickens included a
description of her in the opening of his book A Tale of Two Cities. Southcott was a
self-proclaimed prophetess who was continuing the teachings of her predecessor
Jane Lead. Lead had been another self-proclaimed prophetess who had led a
seventeenth century revival of Gnosticism. Lead founded a group known as the
Philadelphian Society who recorded and published her beliefs quite widely. Lead’s
teachings were summarized and published in 1701 as the Sixty Propositions. Her
teachings were coincidently referred to at the time as the “Message”.[134] A student
of William Branham’s Message or the Latter Rain movement will immediately
recognize Lead’s teachings as very similar to the pillars of Message and Latter
Rain end times beliefs.
One important component of Lead’s teachings was the belief that the cannon
of scripture was still open and that hidden mysteries were yet to be revealed. She
posited that scripture contained hidden revelations critical to the future salvation
of the church which were as yet unknown. She linked the future revealing of
these hidden mysteries to the seven thunders and the seven seals of Revelation.
All evidence indicates that Jane Lead is the author and origin of this concept; it is
not found in any prior stream of Christian thought, nor is it supported by the plain
reading of the text of the Book of Revelation.
Southcott incorporated and adapted Lead’s teaching. Contained in the
teachings was the idea that the revelation of the seven seals would enable mankind
to unite with their heavenly bridegroom and become empowered as Christ on
earth. Lead said that this final generation would be worthy of this honor because
they would achieve a state of absolute holiness “without spot wrinkle or blemish”.
Thus empowered, they alone could ascend to heaven and would return to take
control of the world and usher in a millennial age of peace on earth.[135]
Joanna Southcott merged British Israelism and Jane Lead’s teachings into a
single ideology. There was a considerable overlap between Southcott’s followers
and those of Richard Brothers – the first of the British Israelite prophets.[136]
Believing her followers to be the true Israel, she prophesied that a messiah figure
would soon arrive and usher in the end of days as foretold by Lead. Southcott
developed a disease which caused her stomach to swell; she and her followers
initially believed she was pregnant with the messiah figure. She finally
succumbed to the illness and died in 1814. Despite her disastrous end, her
followers lived on and produced several sects who carried forward elements of her
teachings, the most famous of the groups may be the House of David.[137]
The interactions between Southcott’s followers and the wider British
Israelite community enabled an ongoing cross pollination between the ideologies
throughout the 1800s.[138] Elements of Jane Lead and Joanna Southcott’s mystic
teachings found acceptance among other British Israelites and produced several
groups that merged the two ideologies in varying degrees. These events produced
yet another fusion between British Israelism and extreme heresy.[139]
New Thought & Christian Science
In the mid-1800s, many leading figures in British Israelism imported yet
another complimentary set of beliefs. In the 1840s, Phineas Quimby, a New
Englander, began developing ideas that would form the basis of New Thought and
Christian Science. Quimby worked with Mary Baker Eddy and influenced many
of her ideas when she went on to found Christian Science in the 1860s.
Quimby’s New Thought and Eddy’s Christian Science both posited that an
unseen spiritual world was the ultimate reality, and that the natural world
perceived by the five senses was entirely a product of the unseen realm. As a
result, they believed that everything in the natural world could be altered by the
realities of the unseen realm. They believed that men and women could unlock the
ability to influence and change things in the natural world by harnessing the
power they had access to within the spiritual realm.[140]
Chief among their ideas was that good thoughts produced good things and
bad thoughts produced bad things. This idea was applied across the board, but
especially to matters of health. If you believed you were sick, then you would
indeed become sick. But if you believed you were healthy, then you would
become healthy. If you believed you would be successful, then success would
follow. This was because the natural world was entirely a product of the unseen
spiritual realm. By thinking or believing positively or negatively, one could
positively or negatively impact the natural world, so they believed.
This ideology was adopted by several prominent British Israelite preachers
starting in the 1870s when a few of them worked alongside E. W. Kenyon.
Kenyon had picked up the ideology while working alongside the early adherents
of New Thought and Christian Science in New England during the 1860s. The
ideas were further “Christianized” through the development of the doctrine of the
dual atonement, through which they came to believe that Christ’s atoning sacrifice
was equally efficacious for both salvation and bodily healing. Therefore, they
reasoned, the same faith by which one could be saved from sin was equally
adequate for healing all bodily ailments.[141]
E. W. Kenyon developed a personal relationship with Albert Simpson, John
Alexander Dowie, Frank Sanford, F. F. Bosworth, and other prominent British
Israelite preachers of the later 1800s, and ministered alongside them at various
events. Kenyon even traveled to minister at Dowie’s Zion Tabernacle of the
Christian Catholic Church on at least one occasion.[142]
It is important to note that Christians historically have always believed in
miracles – long before positive confession style beliefs were developed in the
1800s. What occurred in those years was a fusion between the historic belief in
the miraculous power of God with “positive confession.” So, what we are tracing
here is not a belief in the miraculous itself – but rather the belief in positive
confession as the means to access the miraculous.
Often, adherents of positive confession and New Thought inspired ideas will
use a straw man argument to suggest those who disagree with them are opposed to
belief in the supernatural or miracles altogether. This, however, is not the case.
Opposition to positive confession style beliefs are not inherently a denial of the
supernatural, rather it is first and foremost a disagreement over the means of
accessing the miraculous and the role of God’s sovereignty in the miraculous.
Positive confession and New Thought type ideas are simply not part of the historic
teachings of the church. The God of the bible is a God of miracles, but he is not a
God of positive confession. There is an entirely different historic Christian
framework for understanding the supernatural that predates these new ideas of the
1800s.
John Alexander Dowie
The most prominent British Israelite healers and leaders of the late 1800s to
advance the British Israel ideology was John Alexander Dowie. Dowie was from
Scotland, where he attended seminary in the 1860s. It is there that he was likely
first influenced by British Israelism. During that time in Scotland there was a
group known as the Catholic Apostolic Church, founded by Edward Irving in
1832. The group had adopted British Israelism and coined the term “five-fold
ministry”. They believed they had to reestablish a biblical form of church
governance which consisted of a council of twelve apostles. The group later faded
into obscurity, but Dowie clearly appears to have borrowed ideas from their
group, including their name and some of their terminology as he started his own
movement.
Leaving Scotland, Dowie migrated to Australia and then to San Francisco
where he began building his very own “Christian Catholic Apostolic Church.”
Dowie’s brand of British Israelism was already deeply influenced by Southcottian
mysticism when, in the 1880s, he developed a relationship with E. W. Kenyon
who lived in nearby Chicago. The two men ended their relationship on bad terms,
yet their shared teachings on positive confession are apparent.
Like the British Israelite prophets and prophetesses who preceded him,
Dowie grew obsessed with the end of days. He began to intertwine the fulfillment
of bible prophecies pertaining to Israel with himself and his followers. He began
to develop the idea that they would need to reestablish Zion, in order for the end
of days to finally arrive. He solicited donations from his followers to purchase
enough land to build a city just north of Chicago. He called the new settlement
Zion, and he appealed to his 40,000 followers from all over the world to migrate
and take up residence in the city. As evidence of his authority to make such an
appeal, Dowie began to tell his followers that he was “Elijah the restorer”, as
foretold by the prophet Malachi. He claimed that he had come to call the children
of Israel back to the Lord at the end of days. Over 10,000 of his followers were
convinced they were the ten lost tribes of Israel, and further convinced Dowie was
indeed Elijah. They heeded his call and duly moved to Zion. As many as 22,000
may have resided in Zion at the peak of his schemes.[143]
Unfortunately for them, Dowie was a crook. To acquire land to build their
home, Dowie required his followers to lease their land for a term of 1100 years.
[144]
He had convinced them that the millennial kingdom was about to ensue, so
they could safely fulfill the terms of the lease.
Dowie ruled the city like a dictator and used his power as a landlord to
control all who lived there. He enforced his rule ruthlessly. Residents were
required to buy and sell only in the stores he controlled, giving him a monopoly
on goods. He required them to deposit all their money in a bank he operated –
which was actually a Ponzi scheme.[145] Dowie’s schemes collapsed in 1905 after
he suffered a stroke which rendered him unable to keep up the charade. Many
thousands of followers were left penniless.[146] Nevertheless, Dowie successfully
spread British Israel ideas far and wide as he collected followers from all over the
English-speaking world.
Two Seed-line Theology
As British Israelism spread to the United States in the years after the
American Civil War, British Israelism was especially appealing to people who
were looking for reasons to justify their racial superiority. The idea that they were
descended from an ancient and righteous holy people seemed to confirm their
special position as a master race. In that environment, British Israelism began to
develop a racial interpretation.[147]
From the earliest days of British Israelism, there was a belief in “two seed-
lines”. One righteous genealogy, and one wicked and corrupt genealogy. As the
belief developed and became more racial, emphasis on maintaining the purity of
the “blood” of the righteous seed line became a topic of interest among some
British Israelites, and the belief was expressed by opposition to interracial
marriage and support of racial segregation.[148]
In the 1890s, British Israel preachers began creating a backstory for the two
seed lines. In an 1894 book, for example, Russel Kelso Carter wrote that the good
seed descended from Adam, but the wicked seed was descended from Satan (the
serpent) who had sexual relations with Eve in the garden of Eden. He
reinterpreted the story of original sin and reoriented it around a sexual tryst
between Eve and the Serpent that produced Cain. Cain was a hybrid offspring who
was literally a child of the devil. In his writings, Carter linked Cain to the non-
white races.[149]
Carter was a moderately prominent minister in his era. He wrote the well-
known hymn “Standing on the Promises of God”. Carter was also a chronically ill
man and spent many years of his life working alongside the prominent faith
healers of his day hoping for a cure which never came. Carter most notably
worked alongside Albert Simpson in the Christian and Missionary Alliance.[150]
Carter also visited Zion where he developed a relationship with John Alexander
Dowie.[151] This allows us to place a known preacher of serpent seed in Zion. It is
quite possibly through Zion that Charles Parham became acquainted with Carter’s
Two-Seed-line teachings, elements of which Parham adopted and taught himself.
[152]

Whatever the case, there is widespread evidence that the two-seed-line

teachings within British Israelism had already taken a markedly racial turn by the
1890s, and had transformed into a doctrine that any one of William Branham’s
followers would immediately recognize as “Serpent Seed”.
The Birth of Pentecostalism
Among the men operating in Zion in the final years of John Alexander
Dowie’s life was F. F. Bosworth, Charles Parham, and John Lake. All three of
them were avid British Israelites and fully steeped in the teachings of Dowie.
They incorporated many of the worst elements of British Israelism into their own
ideology. Parham took up Dowie’s mantle following his stroke. Parham then
began to present himself as a new Elijah to the people of Zion.[153] Parham focused
special attention on teaching his new ideas about speaking in tongues. At first it
appeared as if Parham might succeed in his bid to take over Zion.
As increasingly large numbers of people began speaking in tongues, Parham
dispatched missionaries of his teachings to distant cities and foreign nations. In
1906, Parham sent his student William Seymour to Los Angeles to evangelize on
behalf of the ideology. Seymor launched what became the 1906 Azusa Street
revival that is often credited as giving birth to Pentecostalism.
Both impressed and concerned about reports coming out of Azusa Street,
Parham traveled to Los Angeles to participate in and observe the revivals
firsthand. A disagreement between Parham and Seymour ensued. As Parham made
his way back to Zion things began to rapidly fall apart for him.
In 1907, Parham was arrested and accused of sodomizing several young
[154]
boys. While Parham was in jail awaiting trial, several Parhamites in Zion led
by John Lake violently killed a woman while attempting to perform an exorcism
of her rheumatism. She was only the first in a string of “healing” deaths that
ensued. Frank Crowe, Bertha Young, and possibly up to twelve other individuals
were killed.
When the police moved in and arrested several of the Parhamites for murder
in 1908, John Lake fled the country and traveled to South Africa to serve as a
missionary for several years. The back-to-back scandals proved a setback from
which Parham would never recover. Parham’s bid to take leadership of Zion and
the emerging Pentecostal movement was effectively extinguished by the fallout
from the scandal.
Parham’s reputation was so tarnished that many Pentecostals seriously downplay
his centrality to the emergence of Pentecostalism. They generally favor crediting
his protégé William Seymour as the key founder of Pentecostalism. There is some
truth to this. Broader Pentecostalism gradually rejected most of the ideas and
concepts that had entered early Pentecostalism from British Israelism. Assemblies
of God, for example, formally rejected the British Israel lost tribes ideas and
positive confession in the early 1920s. Mainstream Pentecostals also reject serpent
seed and many of the end of days concepts from Southcottian mysticism.
However, the British Israelites within early Pentecostalism kept their waning
ideology alive within some of the smaller Pentecostal denominations – most
notably Foursquare and the Elim Missionary Fellowship.
With Zion in deep division and early Pentecostalism left with no unifying
leadership, Parham’s followers were driven out of Zion. Parham finally beat his
charges and was released from jail.[155] Using his Elijah claims to bolster his
credentials with the British Israel community
[156]
in Zion, Parham led a faction of people to exit Zion and join him. Among those
to follow Parham out of Zion was the family of Gordon Lindsay and Fred. F.
Bosworth. Bosworth attended Azusa Street and ended up joining the Assemblies
of God as one of its first directors.

By 1913, John Lake returned from

South Africa and began preaching in Oregon and Washington. The Lindsay family
followed Lake and joined his church. Following Parham’s death in 1929, Lake
took up the mantle and began claiming to have received an Elijah anointing.[157]
During those years, Lake ordained Gordon Lindsay and gave him his start in
ministry, even purchasing him a revival tent.[158] Lake also spent some time in jail
for a series of financial crimes during the later part of his life, before finally
moving to Texas where he died in 1935.[159]
Following Lake’s departure to Texas, Lindsay joined Amie Semple
McPherson’s Foursquare Church. Foursquare was a new Pentecostal
denomination founded in 1924 and headquartered at the Angelus Temple, just a
few blocks away from the site of the Azusa Street revivals in Los Angeles.
Lindsay became a church planter for Foursquare, working primarily in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, British Columbia, Alberta, and
Saskatchewan. Lindsay helped plant a number of new Foursquare churches in the
region, and may have been connected to Foursquare’s sponsorship of the Sharon
Orphanage, which began to be formed in North Battleford in 1943.[160]
During the 1930s and 1940s Lindsay remained deeply connected to the
British Israel movement. The Pentecostal British Israelites enjoyed support from
Foursquare. Angelus Temple and Foursquare became home to many of the United
States’s most prominent Pentecostal British Israelites at the time. Among them
was Wesley Swift,[161] who would become father of the Christian Identity
movement.[162] Lindsay organized several of the national British Israelite
conferences between 1935 and 1945, published several books on the topic, and
was also billed as a speaker at several conferences.[163]
The Passing of the Mantle (1946-1949)
In 1946, William Branham visited Los Angeles for the first time where he
came into contact with Foursquare. Branham made another national tour in 1947
with Little David Walker that landed him in Los Angeles a second time. By the
time of his second visit, Branham had come into contact with Tatos Kardashian
and Demos Shakarian – the patriarchs of the Kardashian family. They happened to
be avid Pentecostals who had personally attended the Azusa Street revivals and
were connected to Foursquare. By the end of 1947, William Branham received a
new campaign team and was enjoying generous financial support from
benefactors in Foursquare. He left Los Angeles for the Pacific Northwest in the
Autum of 1947 where Gordon Lindsay began organizing his campaigns. Lindsay
scheduled a tour through his Foursquare district for Branham to visit many of the
major Pentecostal churches of the region.

In January 1948, Branham was joined

on tour by Fred F. Bosworth. The tours continued until 1949 when Lindsay and
Bosworth took Branham to Zion for meetings scheduled and held at Dowie’s Zion
Tabernacle. In a second visit to Zion in 1952, Branham made his claim on
Dowie’s Elijah mantle clear. In his sermons at Zion, William Branham declared
(falsely) that he was born one day after the death of Dowie.[164] He went on to say
that his visit to Zion was the fulfillment of a prophecy made by Dowie in which
he supposedly said that the true Elijah would arrive in Zion exactly the same that
Branham entered the city.[165] In the sermons, Branham unequivocally claimed the
mantle of Elijah and thus began introducing his new Elijah persona.
Looking back at the trail of British Israel influence on the men around
William Branham, one can clearly trace the Elijah mantle in a line of direct
succession from Dowie, to Parham, to Lake, and then Branham. Additionally,
Lindsay and Bosworth left behind a wealth of writings which can be examined to
confirm they were indeed promoting elements of the same ideology in the years
leading up to William Branham’s national fame, and the genesis of their own
relationships with him.
For example, both Gordon Lindsay and Fred F. Bosworth authored British
Israelite articles in Destiny, a magazine published by the Anglo-Saxon Federation
of America. Copies of their articles are available at the Flower Pentecostal
Heritage Center operated by Assemblies of God in Springfield, Missouri.[166] Open
endorsement of positive confession and pyramidology can be found in their
writings. They raised no objection when Branham taught serpent seed in the
revivals. There are recordings of Branham teaching serpent seed with Lindsay and
Bosworth present as early as 1950. Neither did they object to Branham’s Elijah
claims which he began making as early as 1949 also in recorded meetings where
they were present. Bosworth and Lindsay organized Branham’s visit to Zion! It is
also clearly documented that both men embraced the British Israel Elijah beliefs
as well.[167]
Bosworth and Lindsay, both served as critical links in connecting the chain
of British Israel ideology to Branham. They may have been the very ones to give
the ideas to William Branham; Branham himself often eluded to learning many
things from Bosworth.[168] They certainly transmitted elements of Dowie, Parham,
and Lake’s ideology to Branham: British Israelism, Pyramidology, Southcottian
Mysticism, Positive Confession, Serpent Seed, and the very concept of a coming
Elijah. We have very strong evidence that both Bosworth, Lindsay and a faction of
Foursquare were believers in these concepts themselves. Lastly, Branham’s choice
to unveil his Elijah claims at the Zion Tabernacle clearly demonstrates a
purposeful attempt to emulate Dowie and to present himself as a figure operating
within the same ideological framework.
Branham indicated on more than one occasion that he was familiar with the
succession of Elijahs that preceded him.[169] Furthermore, while we have very little
preserved information on the full extent of Roy Davis’s teachings, what we do
have indicates a strong possibility that, from at least the 1920s, he was likely a
British Israelite himself; he was affiliated with Pentecostals linked to Zion. This
provides an additional angle from which these concepts could have been
transmitted to Branham from the earliest days of his involvement with Davis.[170]
Words are inadequate to express the personal horror I experienced upon
discovering this dark and hidden history. The founder of Pentecostalism was
arrested for sodomizing children. John Lake was a thief and a killer. John
Alexander Dowie was one of the worst cult leaders of all time. Perhaps even
worse, Gordon Lindsay and F. F. Bosworth both went along for the entire ride.
They were all British Israelites – and somehow that fact is left out of almost every
biography ever wrote on these men. I understand that broader Pentecostalism may
find ways to marginalize these figures. But it is not possible to marginalize these
men’s importance to The Message. One can only conclude that critical
components of the belief system of The Message are a continuation of the deeply
flawed British Israelite branch of early Pentecostalism. This is the true heritage of
The Message.
 Chapter 4
Overview of William Branham’s
Practices
1947-1955

You never find the apostles

announcing beforehand that they are
going to hold a Healing Service in a
few days’ time. Why not? Because
they never knew when it was going
to happen. They did not decide, and
it was not within their control.
– Martin Lloyd-Jones
 Before making a detailed review of Branham’s travels and his
successes, I want to first share an overview of the general format of his
performances and some of the healing cases which are omitted in all of
Branham’s official biographies.
Branham and his party typically stayed in one locality for five to ten
days before moving on. During that time, they held between two and three
meetings per day at their venue. At most revivals, their venue was a large
Pentecostal church or a rented local auditorium. Tent meetings were
uncommon for Branham, though he did occasionally hold open air meetings
at fairgrounds. During the years when his revivals experienced broad support
from the Pentecostal denominations, the revivals were well advertised and
most of the local Pentecostal churches dismissed their services so their
members could attend the revivals. Besides the Pentecostals, a smaller
number of curious seekers from other denominations would also attend.
Based on my own knowledge of the Message community, it seems that
after Pentecostals, Methodists were the second largest group to take an
interest in the revivals. The unchurched were likely the third largest group to
attend. A much smaller number of Baptists attended; most attendees of a
Reformed background tended to be critics on fact finding missions rather
than seekers. A very small number of Catholics, Adventists, and Jehovah’s
Witnesses also attended. I am unaware of people being converted into the
early Message community from any other background.
In the first part of his meetings, one of Branham's companion
evangelists would preach a sermon to warm up the crowds. Ern Baxter or F.
F. Bosworth usually filled this role, but other ministers like Paul Cain,
Tommy L. Osborn, or Tommy Hicks filled the role in later years. Baxter
generally focused on bible teaching. Bosworth would counsel the attendees
on the need for faith and provide guidance how to strengthen their faith so
that their chances of healing could be improved before their encounter with
Branham. This was the typical practice of the morning and afternoon
service. Branham was typically absent for the earlier services.
Branham typically remained aloof and secluded the majority of the
time during the revival tours, sticking close to his handlers and inner circle.
He tended to be dropped off to the evening service after it had already
begun. He was likewise swept away by his handlers at the end of his
performances, often seeming to pass out and having to be carried to his
waiting car. Some complained of the little time this afforded for the local
ministers to interact with him. One can speculate that this approach served to
help Branham maintain his mystique and avoid unwanted interrogations or
interactions.[171]
The evening service was the main event. Following a build-up from his
companion evangelists and moderator, Branham would take the podium and
deliver a short sermon. He usually related stories about his personal life
experiences. He had a library of about three different sermons he would
rotate; by the time the healing revivals reached their peak in 1954, that
library had expanded to about twelve.
After finishing his sermon, Branham would pray for people from the
crowd. Those to be prayed for had generally all been selected and identified
before the prayer line was formed. Attendees who sought healing were
generally required to obtain numbered prayer cards from Branham's
campaign team in advance of the meeting. On the prayer cards the attendees
printed their name, address, and condition. Branham's team would select a
range of submissions to be prayed for personally by Branham and organized
them into a prayer line. This process was almost always managed by a figure
in Branham’s inner circle; generally, his brother Howard in the early years,
but the job transitioned to his son Billy Paul in later years. After completing
his sermon, he would proceed with the prayer line where he called forward
attendees by their prayer card number and would proceed to pray for them
one at a time. Branham would often tell people in his prayer line what they
suffered from, their name, and their address.[172]
In his prayer, Branham would pronounce some or all healed, and at
times told them his pronouncement was “Thus saith the Lord.” Branham
generally prayed for a few people each night on stage. Afterward he would
also call out a few members still in the audience, who had not been accepted
into the prayer line, stating their illness and also pronouncing them healed.
In the early days he tended to pray for many people at each meeting, but
after 1949 he generally prayed for about fifteen people per meeting.[173] The
small number led to some objections by hosts and attendees.[174]
Branham told his audiences that he was able to determine their illness,
details of their lives, and pronounce them healed as a result of an angel who
was guiding him and would often relate the slowly evolving story of his
commission and the two signs he had supposedly been given by God. He
described the first sign as vibrations he felt in his hand when he touched a
sick person's hand, which communicated to him the nature of the illness, but
did not guarantee healing. The first “sign” was employed by Branham from
at least 1946. His second “sign” was an ability to discern the hearts and
minds of people. The second “sign” did not appear in his campaigns until
1948.[175]
William Branham’s performance was impressive and frequently left his
audiences stunned and amazed. This caused many attendees to view
Branham as a seer like the Old Testament prophets. Branham amazed even
fellow evangelists, which served to further push him into a legendary status
in the movement. Branham's audiences were often awestruck by the events
during his meetings. At the peak of his popularity in the 1950s, Branham
was widely adored and "the neo-Pentecostal world believed Branham to be a
prophet to their generation.”[176]
Unfortunately, all was not as it seemed. Branham was dogged with
criticism and allegations of fraud from the earliest days of the healing
revival. Branham's methods made verification of healing difficult at the time
of his revival. Like the preceding British Israelite healers, Branham taught
positive confession.[177] He required people seeking healing to claim to be
healed to demonstrate their faith, even if they were still experiencing
symptoms. He warned them that if they were to stop confessing their
healing, it would demonstrate a lack of faith, and thus prevent them from
being permanently healed.[178] He frequently told the people he pronounced
as healed to expect their symptoms to remain for several days after their
healing.[179] This led people to profess to be healed at the meetings, while still
suffering from the condition.[180]
Positive confession is a wonderfully cruel trick. It forces sick people to
lie and say they are healed, and it convinces them that if they tell the truth
about their present condition, it will prevent them from ever getting better. It
turns lying into a good thing and telling the truth into a bad thing. It sounds
like the kind of trick only the devil could have invented. And to the
unsuspecting audience who watches such a show, they can easily be
convinced that they have witnessed a genuine healing. They leave the
meetings never to see the person again. Little do they know the person who
was “healed” went home and never actually got better.
 When one reads any healing testimony from the healing revivals,
without supporting evidence, there is simply no way to determine if the
testimony is that of a genuine healing, or simply an act of positive
confession. Time and again, investigations have revealed case after case
where the testimony was nothing more than positive confession. Very sadly,
Branham taught his audiences to bear false witness and convinced them
doing so was an act of faith. This makes it difficult to trust even the accounts
of healing from the mouths of those who claim to be healed. Where they
actually healed, or were they merely practicing positive confession? There is
simply no way to be certain.
How can one validate a claim of healing where the patient has been
tricked into being part of the con game? It is difficult to unravel the truth.
Only independent follow-up after Branham's three day waiting period had
passed could ascertain the true result of the pronouncement of healing. For
that level of review, we must turn to the sources of investigation we have
from the period.
Track Record of the Healing Revival
If you read the pages of Voice of Healing, or listened to the recordings
of William Branham, you would be led to believe there were thousands of
healings and that the cases were well documented and well attested. You
would be led to believe that at a typical revival most people were
successfully healed. In truth however, there are precious few cases of healing
in William Branham’s ministry that come with evidence to prove there was a
genuine healing.[181] To make things worse, there is an almost total denial of
the far more numerous cases of failed healing.
Like almost all Christians, I do believe God is a healer. One cannot
read the bible without discovering the miraculous cures that occurred at the
prayers of the apostles, prophets, and Jesus Christ himself. Almost all
Christians believe in miracles of healing. The fact that some of the attendees
of the healing revivals experienced a recovery from illness is not in question.
The question is whether we have an accurate understanding of what
happened in William Branham’s ministry? Did he truly have the gift of
healing which he claimed to have; a gift so powerful that “nothing would
stand in the way of the prayers, not even cancer, if only he could get the
people to believe.”[182] Branham’s claim is very simple: faith combined with
his gift should always equal healing. If this is not true, both Branham and his
“angel” were dishonest.
It is important therefore to carefully examine Branham’s healing
ministry to verify his claims, not for the purpose of challenging the concept
of divine healing, but for the purpose of validating Branham. Are we looking
at his track record in a balanced way? Are we considering all the facts? Are
we ignoring the experience of the majority and focusing attention only on a
small minority of the cases? To ensure we have a balanced understanding,
we must also consider the trend of negative cases, and we must begin from
the early days of the healing revival. The negative cases deserve as much
attention as the positive cases, and Branham and his team did us all a great
disservice by failing to honestly share the full picture of his success rates.
Let’s walk through some of the healing revival cases from the earliest
days for which healings were examined and up until the peak in 1955. I will
share with you a sampling of cases that will demonstrate a disturbing trend
that exists in every year and every major revival campaign.
 The first revivals meeting to gain media attention was in 1947. At his
June revivals in Vandalia, Illinois, the local news reported that Beck Walker,
a man who was deaf and mute from birth, was pronounced healed but failed
to recover. Branham claimed Walker failed to recover his hearing because he
had disobeyed Branham's instruction to stop smoking cigarettes. Branham
was lambasted by critics who asked, “How is it possible the deaf man could
have heard his command to stop smoking?”[183]
In the autumn of 1947, at meetings in Winnipeg, Branham claimed to
have raised a young man from the dead at a Jeffersonville funeral parlor.
Branham's sensational claim was picked up and carried by newspapers in the
United States and Canada. This led investigative reporters to contact every
funeral parlor in Jeffersonville to try and confirm the story and locate the
individual who had been resurrected for an interview. Reporters
subsequently found no evidence of a resurrection; no funeral parlor in the
city corroborated the story and it seems obvious that William Branham
fabricated the resurrection story.[184]
At the same time, a Winnipeg newspaper publicized Branham's cases
of failed healing at his meetings at an Apostolic Church in the city. In
response, the churches which hosted Branham's campaign conducted
independent follow-up interviews with people Branham pronounced healed
to gather testimonies which they could use to counter the negative press. To
their surprise, not even the ministers friendly to William Branham could
identify a solitary case of actual healing; every person they interviewed had
failed to recover.[185]
Other troubling evidence exists from the early days of the healing
revival. At 1947 meetings in Vancouver, newspaper reporters confronted
William Branham after discovering that he had prayed for the same cripple
girl in multiple cities – and that she rose and walked each time. The
investigative reporter suspected Branham had staged the miracles. Their
attempts to interview Branham failed and he refused to be interviewed.[186]
Accusations of fraudulent healing claims were not limited to
newspaper. Branham was also accused of fraud by fellow ministers and the
churches who hosted his meetings. In 1947, Rev. Alfred Pohl, the
Missionary-Secretary of Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, served as
Branham's guide and host at meetings across western Canada. Pohl stated
that many people Branham pronounced as healed later died and produced
witnesses to validate his allegations. Pohl stated that the numerous deaths
"severely tested the faith" of many ministers who had trusted in Branham.
Pohl also claimed Branham was frequently given and accepted large
financial gifts from individuals who he pronounced as healed, including
those who subsequently died.[187]
In 1948, W. J. Taylor, a district superintendent with the Pentecostal
Assemblies of Canada hosted Branham during his second series of revival
meetings across western Canada. Similar reports surfaced again, and Taylor
raised concerns asking his denomination to make a thorough investigation.
Taylor presented evidence that the number of people healed were vastly
overstated by Branham and his team, and that multiple people pronounced
healed by Branham had subsequently died. While he stated his personal
admiration for Branham, the troubling number of deaths led him to suggest
"there is a possibility that this whole thing is wrong".[188]
These are just a few pieces of evidence from the two years of
Branham’s popularity that something was deeply wrong. On the mouth of
two or three witnesses, let the truth be established – and we have far more
than three witnesses with compelling evidence that Branham’s healing
practices were not the stunning success Branham claimed them to be.
At meetings in Regina in 1947, Branham pronounced the wife of a
prominent minister healed of cancer. The minister and his wife were
overjoyed, and the minister excitedly shared the details of the healing with
his radio audience in Ontario later that week. To his surprise, his wife died
only days later of her same illness. The confusion created by the situation led
ministers to claim Branham had deceived them.[189] All of these cases, and
more, developed within the first two years of the healing revivals, and the
controversy surrounding Branham only deepened with time.[190]
Tragic Children
If you are endowed with commons sense, the preceding paragraphs
will have been adequate to demonstrate the seriousness of the issue. But in
case this book should ever fall into the hands of a member of The Message
community, who are dearly beloved by me, let me add a few cases to your
shelf in hopes that it might further collapse the mythology surrounding
Branham’s “gift of healing”.
By watching revival film meetings, you may assume almost everyone
was healed, but results are different when you investigate the cases.
Branham’s practice of announcing the name and address of people being
prayed over makes it remarkably easy to look the individuals up with
modern technology. When I first became aware of some of the stories I have
shared so far, I decided to attempt to find some good, documented healings
which I could use to prove Branham was indeed a gifted healer. I started by
going through some of the most famous healing services and looking up the
people he pronounced healed of cancer. To my sad dismay, every single case
I investigated turned up an obituary in the papers detailing the story of their
life and death.
One such case was Carol Strubler, who at age nine in 1954 was prayed
for by Branham at a recorded revival in Washington, D.C. The sermon is one
of Branham’s most famous in The Message because we have a full video
recording of the service. Entitled "The Deep Calleth Unto The Deep",
Branham held a prayer line at the end of the video in which an obviously
emaciated little Carol, struggling and weak, was led by her mother’s hand
before William Branham. Branham entered into one of his typical trances
where God revealed to him the secrets of their hearts. Branham prayed for
the young girl, ending his prayer with a commendation for her “tremendous
faith.” He followed with a command for her to “go and be well.” The crowd
jubilantly rejoiced. I remember watching the video as a child, and how
happy I felt for the young girl, and amazed by the power of God. I have
watched many Message believers weep and cry as they witnessed the
kindness of God towards the young girl as they watched the film.
I thought, surely such a wonderfully healed girl grew up to become a
lifelong Message follower. I expected that I could probably find her
testimony recorded somewhere. To my horror, instead of finding her healing
testimony, I found her
obituary. It reported, "Rev. William Branham of Jeffersonville, Ind., prayed
for her and assured the heartbroken mother her daughter would live. A week
later the mother told this newspaper she was confident the evangelist's words
were true and had cancelled a scheduled visit to St. Christopher's Hospital in
Philadelphia." However, Strubler died "of acute leukemia, just three weeks
after [Branham] told her mother she was healed of the fatal sickness." [191]
The poor young girl! Her case is a particularly challenging one to
reconcile for the Message believer. William Branham’s angel said that
nothing, not even cancer, could stand before his prayer if the people
believed.[192] William Branham invoked his gift when he prayed for her.[193]
The little girl said she believed. When William Branham finished his prayer,
he announced she had “tremendous faith”. So why did she die? One is forced
to conclude that William Branham did not actually have the gift he claimed
to have.
The cases of the many children William Branham prayed for and then
died are among the most tragic. William Branham’s normal explanations for
failed healing don’t really work in the case of children, especially ones who
had been sick their entire life. Their illness was clearly not related to some
sin in their life. How can we accuse four and five-year-old children of a lack
of faith? The dead children condemn William Branham for the deceiver he
was.
Another case that is very well known to Message believers is the case
of four-year-old Donny Morton, who was diagnosed with a rare brain
condition. At recorded meetings in California during April 1951, Branham
pronounced Morton healed as “Thus saith the Lord”, but the child
subsequently died in October. Reader’s Digest published an article
chronicling the miracle of his life, and his tragic death.[194] For years, even
knowing the young boy had died, Branham openly lied to his audiences
saying the young boy had been healed and that he had recovered and walked
immediately after the healing.[195] The story was a total fabrication. The
young boy never recovered, he never walked. He went home and he died.
William Branham’s “Thus saith the Lord” proved to have just been a “thus
saith a false prophet”. Donny’s sister was interviewed in later years to
confirm the fraud. She told Rod Bergen,
Donny Morton was my brother and was 2 years older than me.
What William Branham said about my brother - that he was
healed, that he wore the shoes that my dad bought him, or that
he came running to my dad after he was prayed for - none of it
was true.
I don't think my parents ever knew what William Branham said
about my brother Donald because they would have been very
upset and made sure the truth was known. I didn't find the
story on the internet until after they passed away in 1984.[196]

Another tragic case was that of Jean Dyer, a lady who was a
Jeffersonville local. She was diagnosed with cancer in 1962. Branham
prayed for her and pronounced her healed at meetings a few months later,
saying “Thus saith the Lord … You’re going to
 live.”[197] Unfortunately,
Branham was once again deceiving innocent people. Dyer died a brief time
later of her cancer.[198]
One of the cases I
find most troubling of all is the case of Betty Daughtery. Betty was the child
of Rev. Robert Daughtery – the minister who helped launch Branham’s
popularity in 1945. Betty was a girl who was sick for her entire life.
Branham supposedly healed her of Saint Vitus Dance in 1945, a non-life-
threatening condition that usually goes away without intervention. Betty was
diabetic though, and her conditions worsened with time. As she grew older,
she began to go blind. As Betty passed through the prayer line, Branham
confronted her and accused her of failing God, suggesting to the young girl
that her illness was a punishment from God.[199] Betty went home, and died a
short time later – the very girl whose “healing” had launched William
Branham into fame.[200]
How could William Branham suggest the young girl was a failure to
God? How could he do that on a platform in front of hundreds of people?
How humiliated was the poor girl? In interviews with Betty’s family, I
confirmed the young girl had lived the life of a devout conservative
Pentecostal Christian. What right did William Branham have to accuse the
poor girl who was near death, who had been struggling with illness her entire
life? What kind of a wicked monster could do such a thing? The family also
explained that William Branham made another private prayer, off tape, for
Betty a few months later where he pronounced her healed before members of
the family. The family went on to explain that they parted company with
William Branham after Betty died.
Tragedy upon tragedy unfolded with cases such as these.
International Fraud
Similar allegations came from Branham's European campaigns. Rev.
Walter Hollenweger served as a translator on Branham's European tours and
worked closely with him, witnessing his practices and results. Hollenweger
reported that "very few were actually healed" in the campaigns, and the
overwhelming majority pronounced healed by Branham failed to recover.
Hollenweger said that Branham was "naïve" and "dishonest" and misled his
audiences when he reported the number of people healed. Hollenweger was
disappointed that Branham refused to acknowledge the numerous failed
pronouncements of healings.[201]
Leonhard Steiner was the leader of the Pentecostal Swiss Mission, the
largest group of Pentecostal churches in Switzerland. Steiner hosted
Branham’s meetings in Switzerland. In 1955, Steiner reported that multiple
people were left tormented and plagued with guilt and condemnation over
their “lack of faith” when their healing failed to materialize after Branham
left town. Steiner said the “convincing power of God” was totally “absent”
from Branham’s meetings in Switzerland.[202] Branham had similar results in
Norway where allegations led authorities to limit Branham's ability to hold
meetings. The Directorate of Health forbade Branham from laying hands on
the sick and sent police to his meetings to enforce the order.[203]
Serious allegations also were made following Branham's meetings in
South Africa during 1951 and complaints were lodged with government
authorities.[204] A minister attending meetings in Durban with his
congregation reported that over twenty people suffering from tuberculosis
were pronounced healed by Branham, but all failed to recover. In another
case, a woman suffering a heart condition was pronounced healed by
Branham but died less than a week later.[205]
 To make matters
worse, the Branham campaign published a book entitled "A Prophet Visit
South Africa" to publicize the success of the tour. The book related the
details of dozens of healings. Investigators in South Africa followed up on
the reported healings and found that 46 of the people Branham said had been
healed had failed to recover. After reviewing the results of the investigation,
one minister concluded "that the cures claimed are so largely exaggerated as
to be almost fraudulent in their claim.”[206]
Worse still, back in
America, F.F. Bosworth published articles claiming Dr. Michael Pfaff had
been healed of leukemia and that his healing had been verified by the
medical authorities.[207] Investigators back in South Africa investigated the
case and found it to be an incredibly dishonest claim. Dr. Pfaff was already
dead when Bosworth published the article.
Pfaff’s obituary was published in a medical journal.[208] Wymon Miller
also interviewed the hospital staff only to find that Bosworth’s claim that
they had declared his blood cancer free to be a totally false story.[209] What a
disaster!? Bosworth is proven
to be untrustworthy at best, crooked at worst. Branham clearly made a false
pronouncement of healing. His team printed falsehoods that they never
retracted. How can you call this anything but pure deception? Examples such
as this prove to us that the “medical evidence” and “doctors’ testimonies”
Branham and his team referenced were nothing more than a hoax in at least
some cases; this makes it very unwise for us to assume such evidence exists
without seeing it with our own eyes.
When Branham attempted to visit South Africa again in 1965, the
South African government placed restrictions on his visa preventing him
from holding any healing revivals while he was in the country.
Understandably so.[210]
The scope of documentation overturning Branham’s healing claims is
breathtaking, overwhelming, and comprehensive. It is hard to understand
how he developed such a mystique with so many well documented cases of
failed healing surrounded his ministry. It is further challenging to understand
how The Message community can be so oblivious to this, especially the old
timers who were there when all these things happened. My assessment is
that Branham was able to avoid the obvious implication of these widespread
healing failures in part because a form of groupthink and other unhealthy
tendencies which already pre-existed within the broader Pentecostal
movement prior to Branham’s entrance.
When I first discovered the information shared in this chapter, I slowly
began to accept that I could not trust any Message leaders who had been
around in the old days. They were either gullible in the worst possible way,
or they were part of the con game. Sadly, the cases of failed healing in
Branham’s ministry shared in this chapter are a small fraction of the total
number that are known.
Ern Baxter summed the issues up very succinctly. Baxter was with
Branham on most of his campaigns between November 1947 and 1954
including his tours to India and Europe. Baxter reflected on the exaggerated
reports of miracles in the healing revival in a 1978 interview. He explained
that the allegations eroded the trust of the crowds who attended the healing
services.
I remember in the beginning of the healing movement, simply
to report a healing would produce great jubilation and praise
from congregations. However, the cynicism became so deep
that the people's confidence was diminished. Even to this day,
people are affected. People began to circulate healing
testimonies which, when they were checked out by reputable
journalists and reporters, even those who were friendly to the
movement, were found to be false. The percentage of healings
that stood up after investigation was embarrassingly low.[211]
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing
William Branham generally attributed the failure of his
pronouncements of healing to the recipient’s lack of faith. Often, he was
very direct in accusing his victims of a lack of faith.[212] To followers of The
Message, it is out of the question that, perhaps, William Branham did not
have the gift that he claimed. Could it be that whatever limited healings
which may have been occurring in Branham’s meetings were of the same
variety found in the meeting of Oral Roberts and A. A. Allen and other
healing evangelists, and they were not really a sign of anything at all? Could
they have merely been healings of the James 5:14-16 variety which had
nothing to do with any supernatural gift possessed by Branham?[213]
The practice of accusing attendees of a lack of faith could accurately be
described as blaming the victim in many cases. Did Michael Pfaff lack faith?
If so, why did he stop his medical treatment? Did Ruth Strubler and her
daughter lack faith? If so, why did Branham say she had “tremendous faith”
and why did they stop their medical treatment? To accuse such people of a
lack of faith is a wicked sin. The appropriate reaction from us should be one
of utter revulsion at the mere suggestion. These people ended their life
sustaining medical treatment. They believed. Then they died. William
Branham bears responsibility for their shortened life spans.
Branham, however, regularly employed this terrible accusation: they
had no faith. This accusation further reinforced the average attendee’s desire
to practice positive confession and claim healing regardless of the reality of
their situation. It also served to isolate and silence those who did not
experience healing.
According to Alfred Pohl, Walter Hollenweger, Leonhard Steiner, and
others, Branham's practice of accusing the recipient of his healing
pronouncements for having a lack of faith was severely damaging in
multiple churches and left many people who failed to receive healing in
despair.
Their expectations had been raised so high, only to be dashed
after all the excitement was over. Some seemed to experience a
momentary relief from pain, but all too many would discover
no lasting benefit. And by that time the healer would be too far
away to be questioned or to explain. The sick person would
 then simply be forced to accuse himself of lack of faith, or in
some cases, throw his faith overboard.[214]
— Alfred Pohl
Like most people who come from a background that was influenced by
this ideology, I find it painful and confusing to reflect on William Branham’s
behavior. Without careful consideration, one may overlook the terrible
ramifications of blaming the victim. The additional unnecessary suffering
Branham caused by blaming his victims is horrific. He preyed on the weak
and sick to gain popularity. He refused accountability for the failed
pronouncements of healing. Instead of helping those in need in these cases,
he caused them further harm for the sake of protecting his own reputation by
accusing them of lacking faith. He seemed to not care about all the people
whose faith was severely harmed by his practice. He seemed to have no
grasp or care for the additional pain and suffering he caused people by his
false pronouncements of healing. Perhaps worst of all, he seemed to be
untroubled by the fact he was presenting God as an untrustworthy, dishonest,
and unreliable figure. None of these things were adequate to induce him to
reform.
If William Branham truly had a gift of healing, he is certainly guilty of
abusing it. A gift of healing that harms people and weakens their faith is
nothing to be proud of. It should be condemned. The Bible says that God
gave the gifts of the spirit to the church for its edification. Any Christian,
cessationist or charismatic, would agree that the exercise of a gift that harms
rather than edifies is an abuse of the gift. There is no excuse for William
Branham’s corrupt healing practices. Branham’s practices are not a model to
be emulated, rather they are a model to be condemned and avoided.
The Case of The Message Apologist
Having once been a Message apologist, I am familiar with the
responses of a typical Message apologist to these failed healings. I would
like to present them to you for consideration.
The most common defense to the cases of failed healing is the one
Branham himself offered, which is to insist those who failed to be healed
lacked adequate faith. One’s acceptance of that argument assumes that
Branham had the gift of healing he claimed, and that healing is guaranteed at
all times for anyone with faith. If one is of that belief, then any debate will
generally revolve around the theology of the subject. I sidestep that debate
by examining the cases of minor children. Do you believe that this “lack of
faith” argument is valid in the case of children? I do not. Furthermore, what
should we make of the cases where, in a demonstration of their faith, they
ended their medical treatment and proudly proclaimed and rejoiced in their
healing – only to die days later. What greater demonstration of faith in their
healing could they have made then to end their medical treatment? One must
be willing to believe that abandoning their medical care was a meaningless
gesture, that their protestation of faith was a lie - both with no evidence to
validate such an accusation except the death of the individual. I see no basis
on which to say such an individual lacked faith. I further believe that to
accuse such a person of lacking faith, to actually be a gross sin.
A second common defense of the Message apologist is to say these
cases died because they failed to follow the instructions Branham gave them
as conditions for their healing. However, in cases like those on recording, we
have a full view of the entire event and find that this is not the situation in
the cases noted previously. People did meet all conditions, but still died.
A third common defense is to acknowledge that people died, but to
insist those who died were never pronounced healed. The Message apologist
will say that Branham wished them to be healed but did not actually
pronounce them as such. However, among the cases presented, we can see
that there were clear pronouncements of healing where the person died
shortly afterwards, invalidating this argument.
A related defense is that Branham, being a human, would pronounce
people healed at times as a result of his own personal desire rather than
through divine inspiration. They will then acknowledge that some of those
cases indeed died. Yet, they say, whenever he pronounced them healed with
the words “Thus Saith the Lord”, the case was always healed without fail.
However, among the cases related so far, we have Branham stating on record
“Thus Saith the Lord, you will live.” Yet, such clear pronouncements of
healing still resulted in deaths, invalidating that argument as well.
Another defense is to admit that people did die, but to claim their death
was long after their pronouncement of healing and caused by some issue
other than what they were healed from. However, an examination of the
given cases reveals that to be incorrect, and that people did in fact die of the
same condition they were “healed” of within days of being pronounced
healed.
Yet another defense, is that there is no proof of these failed healings.
The Message apologist suggests the failed healing stories have no evidence.
However, this is patently false. Both obituaries and official medical death
records of the individuals reveal that they did in fact die of the illness
Branham “Thus Saith the Lord” pronounced them healed of in a recorded
prayer line. The case of Jean Dyer in the preceding chapter being one clear
example.
Failing to prove that Branham’s gift of healing operated exactly as
explained in his commission story, The Message apologist may insist that
even though some died, it is irrelevant, because some were healed.
Therefore, because some were healed, Branham had a genuine gift of
healing. This however is an admission that Branham misled us about his gift
and is a further acknowledgement that the “angel” lied to him concerning the
nature of his gift. Branham insisted that his gift was such that anyone who
believed could be healed of anything, including cancer. If this is not the case,
then Branham was deceiving us about his angelic commission story. Once
The Message apologist has indirectly acknowledged that Branham misled
his audiences about his commission, there is no point of further debate.
Either everyone with faith ministered to by the gift was healed, or
Branham was misleading us about his angelic commission. There is no other
alternative. That is the ultimate purpose in examining the results of his
healing ministry. For him to be vindicated, everything must align perfectly to
the words of the angel and gift he claimed to have. Otherwise, he is not
vindicated.
 Being vindicated means your words are proven true. These cases prove
Branham was not actually vindicated. In fact, his performance did the
opposite, it exposed him as a deceiver.
Message apologists often end up making a straw man argument
pointing out that these issues are only raised by someone who must be a
cessations, and therefore should be ignored. The challenge though is not to
the theology of divine healing. The challenge here is to the claims made by
Branham about a commission and gift he supposedly received from God.
None of the arguments of The Message apologist are a valid defense of
William Branham and the failed healings which occurred in his ministry. The
evidence clearly indicates to us that Branham was misleading us about the
gifts he supposedly had.
Spiritualist Influences
Branham faced regular accusations starting in the early days that his
practices were influenced by spiritualism and the occult.[215] To those in The
Message, we would never take such accusations seriously, primarily because
we are totally unfamiliar with what spiritualist practices are, so we have no
basis on which to even make a comparison.
The spiritualist accusations persisted throughout William Branham’s
entire career. His practice of “contacting spirits” and waiting for the entrance
of his “angel” bears a striking resemblance to the practices of occult
spiritualists of the period who channeled spirits.[216] Branham explained that
he had secret words which God had given to him alone.[217] He said that he
would repeat those words until it brought him into contact with a person’s
spirit.[218]
Spiritualists of the occult very similarly hold sessions where they
“contact the spirits” and, once contacted, the spirits give special messages to
the audience through a channeling medium. This is markedly similar to
Branham’s performance style. Branham however, claimed it was a divine
gift from God which allowed him to contact the spirits.[219] Branham
attempted to ”Christianize” the practice by telling his audiences that Jesus
contacted the spirits when he discerned sickness and illness.[220] In one
example, he explained how the woman at the well had ”spirits” and that
when Christ met her, he discerned her condition by contacting her spirit.[221]
In his sermons, Branham explained his familiarity with spiritualism,
and on various occasions described his attendance at spiritualist camps
where he witnessed their performances.[222] The spiritualist performances
described by Branham match those performed by Madam Mimi at Indiana’s
Camp Chesterfield during Branham’s youth.[223] Camp Chesterfield was one
of the most significant spiritualist centers in the United States in that era.
Whether or not he was practicing spiritualism, Branham certainly
blurred the lines by using methods and terminology common to the occult,
which had no basis in historic Christianity. He was clearly relying on
intermediary spirits to aid him with his “miracles” in a way not seen in the
New Testament church and uncommon in scripture. It is an open question
whether these “spirits” were holy angels, a figment of his imagination, or
just part of an act. Whatever was actually happening, hundreds of instances
exist on recording where Branham “contacted” the spirits as he encountered
people in his prayer lines.[224]
 Chapter 5
The Healing Revival
1947-1953
In their greed they will exploit you
with false words.
– Saint Peter
Branham’s Campaign Team Comes Together (1947-1948)
As previously explored in chapter 2, Branham’s initial surge of popularity
began among the United Pentecostal Church starting in 1945. Raymond Hoekstra
and W. E. Kidson took Branham on a national tour of UPC churches in 1946 and
1947. The majority of the stops in 1946 were UPC churches in the Midwest and
southern United States. In the summer of 1947, Branham began holding revivals
with the Foursquare denomination of recently deceased Amie Semple McPherson.
[225]
Gordon Lindsay was at the time a prominent Foursquare minister and was also
ordained by the Assemblies of God, first in southern California. Lindsay took over
as Branham’s campaign manager in the autumn of 1947. Lindsay organized a
revival tour for Branham that was sponsored and hosted by Foursquare,
Assemblies of God, and a number of UPC and independent apostolic churches in
the Pacific Northwest and western Canada.

Attendance was between

5,000 and 7,000 at some of the events. The Branham campaign followed their
pattern of adding attendance at multiple meetings in the same city together and
reported as many as 70,000 attendees in some cities. It was in those meetings in
the Pacific Northwest where William Branham was joined by Ern Baxter, and
where he also sparked the Latter Rain Movement, which we will talk about at
length in the next chapter.

As 1948 began, the Branham

team traveled to Florida to hold meetings in a warmer climate during the winter
months. There Branham was joined by two other men being sponsored by the
Kardashian family: Fred F. Bosworth and Avak Hagopian. Hagopian was an
Armenian faith healer from Iran. The Kardashian family had sponsored his visit to
the United States in hope that he may heal a sick member of their family.
Hagopian and Branham shared the stage together for the first six months of 1948,
until Hagopian decided to launch a solo tour before eventually being deported to
Iran.
Fred Francis Bosworth
Bosworth’s time working with Branham lasted much longer. The pair would
tour together for most of the rest of Bosworth’s life; he died in 1958. Bosworth
was a well-known figure among the early Pentecostals, going back to his days
working with John Alexander Dowie and later Charles Parham. Bosworth visited
Azusa Street with John Lake, and later served as one of the first directors of the
Assemblies of God denomination. He was a Pentecostal legend in his own right
by the time he partnered with Branham. There were few other living Pentecostals
of Bosworth’s stature, and his support of Branham conferred some of that
legendary status to Branham. Bosworth was among the last living founding
fathers of Pentecostalism.
After Gordon Lindsay, Bosworth was the most important figure to
Branham’s success in the early years of the healing revival. Bosworth had made
national healing revival tours in the 1920s to crowds as large as 20,000 attendees.
Bosworth was an old hand to the healing business, and as such was able to pass
along techniques and advice to Branham from a long line of faith healers.
Bosworth had learned his techniques and methods directly from John Alexander
Dowie and E. W. Kenyon. Bosworth frequently referenced both men directly in
his sermons and writings as authorities on divine healing. Bosworth’s role allowed
him to transmit and revitalize a fading ideology to a new generation.
Bosworth was a unique character in that he did not believe in tongues as the
evidence of the Holy Spirit, like most Pentecostals do. His time in Assemblies of
God predated their formulation of the belief in tongues as the evidence of the
Holy Spirit. AoG’s adoption of that belief is what led to his exit from the
denomination. This makes Bosworth a very important figure to The Message
community. He is the figure through which The Message claims to be descended
from Azusa Street, yet rejects the belief that tongues is the initial evidence of the
Holy Spirit. The Message does indeed believe itself to be the true branch of
Pentecostalism that grew from Azusa Street.
After leaving Assemblies of God, Bosworth joined the Christian Missionary
Alliance, a pre-Pentecostal group created by the Higher Life movement. Paul
Rader succeeded Albert Simpson as president of the CMA; Bosworth worked with
both men.[226] Bosworth remained in their group until the CMA formally rejected
British Israelism. All evidence indicates Bosworth was forced to resign because he
refused to renounce his British Israel beliefs during the 1930s. Following his
resignation, Bosworth went into semi-retirement until his 1948 reappearance as a
member of Branham’s campaign team. During the intervening years, Bosworth
published several articles in Destiny, a magazine of the Anglos Saxon Federation
of America where he continued to promote his British Israel ideas. One could
speculate that the British Israel branch of Pentecostalism may have died quietly,
had Bosworth remained in retirement.
Being deeply steeped in the beliefs of British Israelism, Bosworth was a
critical link in passing elements of the ideology to Branham. Elements of
Bosworth’s belief system were published in his 1924 book Christ the Healer,
which was bundled with a number of other Bosworth writings and republished in
1948 to be sold in the healing campaigns. The contents of the book, which contain
a full chapter wrote by E. W. Kenyon, were the primary topics Bosworth
ministered on during the revivals.
Bosworth was the main source of theological coherence for the Branham
campaign. Branham referred to him as Daddy Bosworth, and perhaps viewed him
as the father figure he wished Charles Branham had been.[227] Bosworth is beloved
by The Message community, more so than any other figure from early
Pentecostalism. Bosworth can be accurately viewed as the grandfather of The
Message. Branham credited Bosworth as the source of the core tenants of his early
theology; the claim is somewhat dubious though, as we know Branham was taught
similar concepts by Roy Davis who also practiced faith healing in the Pentecostal
style and had operated in the same circles as Bosworth.[228]
Branham was far from the only figure to pick up Bosworth’s teachings in the
healing revivals. Bosworth and the Branham campaigns are directly credited by
the founding fathers of the Word of Faith and prosperity gospel as their
inspiration.[229] Bosworth had a well-developed explanation for why healings fail,
how to organize prayer lines, optimizing the healing performance for maximum
effect, and how to inspire audiences. Bosworth learned all these things primarily
from his time with Dowie.
Gordon Lindsay
Gordon Lindsay was the most essential figure who opened the doors which
brought Branham to the peak of his fame. Lindsay had been born in Zion, where
his parents were members of John Alexander Dowie’s cult commune. Like
Bosworth, his family suffered financially following the collapse of Dowie’s
financial schemes. The family was also deeply steeped in British Israelism and
eventually followed Charles Parham out of Zion following his Elijah claims.
Lindsay claimed to experience a conversion experience under Parham’s ministry.
Lindsay’s family eventually found their way into John Lake’s Oregon church;
Lake ordained Lindsay as a minister. They were both part of the Assemblies of
God at the time. Like many Pentecostal British Israelites of the era, Lindsay
eventually found his way to Foursquare.
Lindsay’s wife, Freda, had been a member of Angelus Temple before they
married, and they met in the Foursquare denomination. Lindsay became a church
planter for Foursquare in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps most interestingly of all,
Lindsay was an organizer and speaker at a number of British Israel conferences in
the later 1930s and early 1940s and he published a number of books on the topic.
British Israelism appears to have been Lindsay’s primary interest immediately
preceding his work with William Branham. These facts all lend themselves as
evidence that Lindsay, like Bosworth, was still deeply attached to the British
Israel teachings at the time of his introduction to Branham.[230]
Lindsay’s experience and skills organizing conferences and publishing,
coupled with his ordination and contacts within multiple Pentecostal
denominations proved invaluable to the Branham campaigns. Lindsay’s role was
both that of a campaign manager, organizer, and personal publicist for Branham.
When he first began working with Branham, Lindsay believed Branham’s
earlier practices bordered on the occult.[231] As a result, he played an important role
in helping Branham reshape his public image. There are precious few records of
Branham’s ministry before his time working with Lindsay, but those few records
that exist wildly contradict the Branham persona Lindsay published. This strongly
indicates Lindsay helped Branham with some of the earliest revision of his back
story. A 1947 newspaper interview indicates Lindsay was familiar with Branham’s
original backstory of his 1945 commission in a vision,[232] yet helped him
published a revised version of his commission starting in 1948.[233]
One must be very cautious with Lindsay’s material as he has proven himself
willing to bend the truth and hide critical information. Lindsay omitted the crimes
and jail time in John Lake’s biography, the horrors that occurred John Alexander
Dowie’s commune, and he showed an equally troubling willingness to lie in order
to promote Branham. Linday’s promotions and his biographical sketches of these
figures were fraudulent and misleading.
Like Bosworth, Lindsay was a conduit through which the unique ideas of
Pentecostal British Israelism could flow to Branham. But unlike Bosworth,
Lindsay’s relationship with Branham was not without problems. Lindsay was
highly organized and disciplined, while Branham seemed to chafe under the
regimen. It is unclear which of the two men was actually in charge of the affairs of
the revivals, and Message legend tells us that the ambiguity was not appreciated
by Branham who expected Lindsay to follow his lead. Lindsay’s willingness to
work with other “competing” evangelists was a point of contention between
Branham and himself. The two men had repeated break ups over the years. We
will examine them at length in other chapters.
Lindsay, for his part, criticized Branham and described his behavior in the
campaigns as almost “childlike.” Lindsay cited Branham’s lack of interest in the
business affairs of the campaign as a frustration that contributed to their various
separations. Lindsay could be described as practical, while Branham often seemed
to be living in a fantasy.[234]
Lindsay and his wife Freda had a unique perspective on Branham. They
noted that, contrary to the public image he portrayed, Branham thrived on flattery
and was attracting a cult following from early on.[235] Their accounts of Branham
which they published long after his death paint a picture which lends itself to
seeing Branham’s narcissistic tendencies. Branham had a very humble public
persona which he carefully cultivated for the masses, but according to the
Lindsays he also had a private persona which thrived on the adoration of his
followers. They cited instances where Branham took advantage of people around
him in a way that was more reflective of someone with a huge ego.[236] These
reports suggest that behind the scenes Branham was not truly the humble man he
presented himself as to many people.
It is challenging to excuse Lindsay’s behavior. The writings of both he and
his wife serve to condemn him. He knew from the beginning Branham was a
deeply troubled figure. Years after Branham’s death he made some of the issues
public. Yet Lindsay played along with Branham throughout his life and played a
critical role in enabling him. Make no mistake, without Gordon Lindsay, there
would be no Message cult. Something was more important to Lindsay than
confronting Branham and derailing the cult he was creating. Whatever that was, it
certainly was not the good of the body of Christ. The facts paint Lindsay as a deep
hypocrite and Message preachers made a lot of hay out of Lindsay’s obvious
hypocrisy.[237]
I find Lindsay to be an enigma. He may have thought Branham’s behavior
was acceptable at the time. His experience with Parham, Lake, and Dowie may
have led him to believe bending the truth and flirting with illegality were nothing
to be concerned with. Lindsay’s moral compass and ethical views were impaired
while he was working with Branham. I believe Lindsay may have gradually
awakened from that mindset while working with Branham, and that he only
arrived at his conclusions about Branham in retrospect.
I have access to some of Lindsay’s recorded sermons from the period when
he was working with Branham. Lindsay’s speaking style was loud, boisterous,
even screaming. He spoke fast and harsh, which to my ears sounds like the style
of a typical Message preacher: a raving lunatic shouting about irrelevant things as
though it were a matter of life and death. I must confess, upon hearing his
recorded sermons from the period, my opinion of Lindsay diminished greatly. The
same tone does not so readily come across in his writings, which are often much
more measured. However, his alien and UFO obsessions and regular doomsday
predictions all lend themselves as evidence to the fact that Lindsay was, at that
time, a nut. Though a nut of a different variety than Branham.
Lindsay is viewed by The Message community as a sinister villain figure
who betrayed the prophet for personal gain. But it would take well over a decade
before Branham began painting Lindsay as such to The Message community, and
in the meantime, the two worked very closely together.
Ern Baxter
Ern Baxter was the pastor of a medium sized Pentecostal church in
Vancouver. The exact events surrounding his introduction to William Branham are
a bit obscure. Baxter was invited by Lindsay to work as a supporting evangelist at
the third campaign stop organized by Lindsay in 1947. Baxter’s performance was
appreciated, and he was asked to join the campaign on a permanent basis. In a
1978 interview, Baxter explained his primary role was to serve as an apologist for
Branham’s ministry.[238] His emphasis was on bible teaching, and in that respect
filled the role Little David Walker had occupied while Branham was working with
Hoekstra in the UPC churches.
Baxter was a native of Saskatchewan and had multiple connections to
Sharon Orphanage. His Vancouver church was an early adopter of the Latter Rain
beliefs and Baxter attended Sharon Orphanage multiple times during the height of
the Latter Rain revival. After separating from Branham in 1954, Baxter became a
leader of the Shepherding movement, one of the main branches of the Latter Rain
movement. Ern Baxter is reviled by The Message community as an apostate who
was expelled from The Message because of his secret sins. These things will be
explored at length in chapter 7. But between 1947 and 1954, Baxter was in
indispensable part of Branham’s campaign team.
Birth of the Voice of Healing (1948)
With his newly assembled team, 1948 appeared as if it would be a banner
year for Branham. The team attracted large crowds and many miraculous claims
were made and they enjoyed many successes. Branham’s fame was steadily
growing. However, a growing concern was brewing. Controversy followed the
team from city to city. Reports of failed healing in Canada, as explained in chapter
4, began to cause Branham grief. Leaders in Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada
called for investigations due to the people who died after Branham pronounced
them healed in 1947.[239] The actual results of these investigations were never
released to the public, but ministers who were privy to the investigation claimed
that rather than exonerate Branham, the results reinforced the accusations against
him.[240]
Alfred Pohl claimed the results of the investigations were hidden from the
public by denominational leaders to protect their own reputations after having
brought Branham into their churches.[241] It was not expedient for them to publicly
raise the alarm, as it would also put their own reputations at risk. Pohl was
missionary secretary of Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada at the time. He served
as Branham’s personal host and guide across the churches in Western Canada. He
had direct knowledge of both the campaigns and the subsequent investigations and
shared his knowledge in later years.
While the Pentecostal leaders may have engaged in a public cover up,
William Branham was privately confronted over his failures.[242] William Branham
admitted to such in his recorded sermons during 1948. While the denominational
leaders seemed content to deal with the matter privately, Branham's critics in the
press were eager to seize on the issue and publicized the failed pronouncements of
healing. Newspaper reports across the United States and Canada carried stories of
Branham’s failures. In my review of the press accounts, I found approximately 80
cases of failed healings in 1947 and 1948 alone. Branham was getting bad press,
from coast to coast.
Coinciding with the bad press and the investigations by the Pentecostal
leaders, Gordon Lindsay and William Branham launched the Voice of Healing
magazine. The early editions demonstrated that the magazine’s purpose was to
serve as a publicity tool to counter the negative press. Healing testimonies and
miraculous claims could be publicized directly by their team without the filter of
the press or the Pentecostal denominations. Within their own magazine, they could
establish their own narrative. That is exactly what they did.
The first edition of Voice of Healing was published in April 1948. The
inaugural issue began a three-part series authored by F. F. Bosworth entitled “Why
All Are Not Healed.” Bosworth attempted to explain why people who had been
pronounced healed were responsible for their own failure to be healed. Bosworth
claimed any failure to receive healing was due to one of only three possible
causes: “ignorance”, “community unbelief”, and worst of all, “the worn-out
statement that the age of miracles is past.”[243]
The earliest editions of the magazine listed William Branham as publisher
and Gordon Lindsay as editor, indicating Branham was the principal party in
charge of the magazine. As late as January 1955, Braham was perceived by the
public as the owner of Voice of Healing and the magazine was viewed as the
primary organ of his ministry.[244]
The first edition of the magazine also featured the earliest version of William
Branham’s life story ever published. This version strongly played into Branham’s
Moses persona; the first edition of Voice of Healing was published a year before
Branham visited Zion where he would first unveil his Elijah persona in 1949.
There were no Elijah references in the earlier versions of his life story.
Prior to working with Lindsay, Branham published revival reports under a
regular column in Kidson’s Apostolic Herald of Truth magazine under the column
title “Voice of Healing”. Kidson and Branham were using the “Voice of Healing”
column title during 1946 and 1947. Branham was listed as editor in the bi-line of
the column.[245] Branham reused the name of the column for his new publication
with Lindsay, although he invented a new fictional back story for how he came up
with the “Voice of Healing” name.[246]
The Voice of Healing magazine was an immediate success. Lindsay reported
28,000 subscribers the first year.[247] Circulation grew to 40,000 in 1949, 75,000 in
1950, 95,000 in 1951, and 115,000 in 1952.[248] 1952 was likely the peak year. It
was the final year in which circulation numbers were shared. Adjusted for
inflation, the annual subscriptions revenue alone would have topped $1.5 million
annually at the peak of the revival. The magazine was a lucrative fundraising tool.
Through the magazine donations were solicited and mail order revival
memorabilia was sold; subscribers were even encouraged to remember the Voice
of Healing in their estate planning, and to consider leaving a gift as part of their
final will. It is unknown how much revenue was generated through the Voice of
Healing, but it would have certainly been greater than ten million dollars, adjusted
for inflation.
Birth of the Voice of Healing Fellowship (1948)
William Branham struggled with recurring bouts of mental illness for most
of his life. The events of early 1948 triggered a mental collapse. Branham
famously claimed to have a relapse every seven years of his life since he was a
young boy.[249]
The first time Branham reported being accused of mental illness was at
about age seven by his own mother. Branham told his mother about a vision he
had. In the vision, he saw a bridge rise out of the river and sixteen men fell off the
bridge and drown in the river below. Above the bridge he saw a sign with the
number twenty-two, which he interpreted to mean the event would happen
twenty-two years after the vision. After telling his mother the vision, she sent for a
doctor to check him for a possible “nervous spasm,” the common term for a
mental illness at that time.[250] Branham’s vision was indeed false; there was no
incident where 16 men fell from the Jeffersonville bridge and drown in William
Branham’s lifetime.[251] Researchers have diligently investigated and proven
comprehensively that the event never happened.[252] We can safely conclude that
Branham’s vision, if he actually had it, truly was some sort of a mental delusion.
[253]

Branham also reported being accused of suffering from mental delusions in

1933 by attendees at his famous baptismal service. After hearing Branham claim
that a light descended from heaven, he was told by attendees of the baptism that
he had dreamt up the entire event. They told him that his baptismal story was a
“mental delusion.”[254]
In 1937, Branham had another serious bout of mental health issues following
the death of his wife and daughter. Numerous eyewitnesses confirmed his severely
troubled condition. Branham reported in his sermons that he made multiple
suicide attempts around 1937 and 1938.[255]
Before 1948, Branham had already exhibited many symptoms of mental
illness. By his own admission, people in his community were openly saying he
was suffering from mental delusions. Perhaps the investigations into the string of
failed healings in 1947 created pressure that caused a temporary shattering of the
fantasy world he lived in, or perhaps it was just the horror of having his scam
exposed. Whatever the case, Branham suffered a debilitating mental breakdown in
1948.
The 1948 situation was so severe Branham had to seek medical treatment.
Gordon Lindsay tried to cover for Branham by explaining to the public that “From
June until the following year, Brother Branham went through a Gethsemane that
few ministers have experienced.” Lindsay explained that Branham “had reached
out into spiritual realms that had profoundly disturbed the kingdom of hell. His
battle with the enemy, together with his great exertions which went beyond his
physical strength, caused him to have a nervous breakdown. Physicians advised
him that he would have to leave the field indefinitely.”[256]
Branham’s mental breakdown left Gordon Lindsay in sole control of the
Voice of Healing publication and Branham was delisted as publisher. In
Branham’s absence, Lindsay was left with a huge problem; Branham’s revivals
had been the only subject of the magazine. How could it continue without new
revivals to publicize? Lindsay had sold yearlong subscriptions to the magazine, so
closing the magazine would require refunds of the subscriptions. To make matters
worse, Lindsay and Ern Baxter had both resigned their prior jobs just a few
months earlier to enable them to work full time on Branham’s team. His exit left
them in a precarious situation. Branham’s behavior in this situation demonstrates
his capacity to use and discard others without considering how his actions
seriously impacted their lives.

Linday remedied the

problem by creating the Voice of Healing Fellowship. Lindsay began recruiting
evangelists by offering the magazine and its large and established subscriber base
as a vehicle to publicize their ministries. In that way, Lindsay kept the magazine
and the revival going with new talent. His first targets were Oral Roberts and
William Freeman. Roberts was at that time a relatively unknown evangelist from
Oklahoma. Roberts met Branham in 1947 where, according to both Branham and
Roberts, Roberts asked Branham how he could have a ministry like Branham’s.
Branham obliged and shared the secrets of his success with Roberts and blessed
him in a prayer. Roberts shortly thereafter began holding revivals of his own and,
just like Branham, developed a “sign in his hand” and reported many healings.[257]
Roberts and other evangelists helped fill the pages of Voice of Healing during
Branham’s six-month illness and Lindsay helped organize tours for them, just as
he had for Branham.
Message legend paints Gordon Lindsay as the villain who induced
Branham’s nervous breakdown and claims Lindsay hijacked control of the
revivals from Branham.[258] The basis of those legends are stories Branham
supposedly told his inner circle.[259] Message legend also tell us Branham was very
displeased with this turn of events. He expected Gordon Lindsay to place things
on hold and follow his lead; Branham was upset to find himself “replaced”. The
Message legend goes on to say that Branham and Linday had a falling out over the
issue, and Branham intended to abandon Lindsay and continue the revival without
him.[260] In later years, Branham claimed his angel told him that his great mistake
had been explaining to the other ministers – like Oral Roberts – how his “gifts”
worked, because this allowed them to copy his performances.[261]
Defending his decisions, Lindsay claimed that Branham left him holding the
bag with no indication that he intended to return when they parted ways in 1948.
[262]
Without a job, and subscriptions already sold, he claimed he was compelled to
carry on without Branham. Whatever the case, Branham resumed working with
Lindsay in late 1949, though in a much more limited way than they had in 1947
and 1948; they would not resume the same level of cooperation until 1950.
Branham reported that his nervous condition gave him a severely upset
stomach which made it difficult for him to eat. In Branham’s own explanation of
his illness, he reported visiting the Mayo Clinic for treatment.[263] He told his
audiences that while he was at the Mayo clinic, he saw a vision of a squirrel.[264]
He described the squirrel as being dark colored and having “black beady eyes”
with “currents” radiating out from it. Upon seeing the squirrel, he opened his
mouth in exclamation, and the squirrel jumped down his throat and began
tormenting him.[265] The following day, he reported being diagnosed with an
incurable nervous condition by a doctor at the clinic.[266]
Whatever the case, Branham was unable to hold revivals for six months.
Branham’s 1948 hospitalization was not to be his last mental break, but it is
among his most well documented. Lindsay called it a “nervous breakdown”,
Branham reported that his physician called it “something in the soul that man
cannot control,” and Branham most often described it as a “nervous condition”.
One must wonder: was William Branham mentally unstable? Could this explain
some of his behavior and visions? I have to conclude that all the evidence
available to us indicates that, at the very least, William Branham experienced
bouts of severe mental illness that worsened with time.
 Whatever the case, Branham’s six-month absence from the revival circuit
proved to be an event critical to the development of the healing revivals as it
permitted Lindsay to create the Voice of Healing Fellowship which became the
organizational framework of the entire early deliverance movement. The Voice of
Healing Fellowship presented all of its evangelists as a united front, gave them
publicity, coordinated their revival schedules, channeled financial support from
the Pentecostal denominations to the revivals, and provided some guidelines that
governed conduct and doctrine for the revivalist. Branham was always the most
senior minister within the fellowship and set the tone for the group and all that
would follow.
Branham’s Second Sign (1949)
From the early days of the revival, Branham told his audiences that he had a
“gift” or “sign” in his hand. He described the sign as vibrations he felt and spots
that would appear on his hand when he touched a sick person. The vibrations and
spots communicated to him the nature of the illness but did not guarantee healing.
He compared this to Moses whose hand could turn leprous. The first time
Branham explained how he receive this “sign” was in the Angelic commission
story published in the April 1948 edition of Voice of Healing. This was the only
“sign” given to him by the angel in the original version of the story.
Oral Roberts and other healing revivalists who encountered William
Branham in 1946 and 1947 began performing the same “sign” after their meetings
with Branham. Branham’s hand “gift” has largely faded from memory, but in the
early days of the revival it was used by all the healing revivalists to amaze their
audiences.
A number of people working with William Branham witnessed Branham
operating this “sign” in his hand, and claimed to have seen the appearance of the
spots.[267] Others claim to have been unable to see anything occurring with his
hand, despite Branham’s insistence.[268] Branham claimed to his audiences that if
he wore a wrist watch, the gift in his hand would permanently destroy his watch.
[269]
Branham explained that the angel also gave him three secret “high words” to
speak which would cast out evil spirits.[270] He explained the “high words” were a
secret which no one knew but him. Eyewitnesses who observed his use of the
“high words” accused him of occultism.[271]
Message followers are generally aware Branham was accused of occultism
or being a spiritualist, but few understand what Branham did which led to those
charges. It was not the fact that he was performing miracles which led to the
charges of occultism, instead it was the manner in which he performed the
miracles that led to the allegations. Using “high words” and spots and vibrations
in the hand are not part of New Testament Christianity.
Only twelve recordings of Branham’s services in the 1940s have been shared
with the public by The Message institutions. One reason the recordings may have
been withheld is to hide Branham’s earlier questionable practices. Evidence of
these unusual practices are present in the few recordings that are available from
the 1940s.[272] It appears that Branham abandoned some of the most questionable
practices before 1950. This was likely due to Gordon Lindsay’s influence. Lindsay
thought Branham’s early practices had an appearance of occultism and were
hindering his appeal to their target audience.[273] Lindsay claimed to have steered
Branham away from those practices after they started working together.
 The year 1949 was a year of recovery for William Branham. He resumed
holding revivals in January, but the rift with Gordon Lindsay was slow to heal.
After returning, Branham began to tell his audiences about a second “sign” that
had been given to him by the angel. The second sign’s appearance coincided with
a retirement of his use of the “high words”, and a decreased emphasis on the gift
in his hand. This new “sign” was an ability to “reveal the secrets of the heart.” [274]
This sign typically manifested as Branham telling people their name, address,
illness, or other details about their life. To the casual observer, it appeared as if
Branham could read the minds and thoughts of people who were attending his
revivals. Branham was the first of the revivalists to debut this new gift. As the
revival progressed, his contemporaries began to mirror the practice, just like they
had copied his earlier hand gift. Frequent uses of this “sign” or “gift” appear in
Branham’s recordings, and it is well documented.

Because it seemed like he could peer

into the hearts of minds of people, participants in the healing revival viewed
Branham as a seer like the Old Testament prophets. Branham even amazed his
fellow evangelists with the feats he performed. His second “sign” pushed him to
legendary status. Branham's audiences were often awestruck by the events during
his meetings. David Harrell explained that "the neo-Pentecostal world believed
Branham to be a prophet to their generation.” To the average Pentecostal, that
meant a New Testament prophet of the caliber of Agabus or Silas. For Branham’s
slowly emerging Message community, it would mean something much more
dramatic: it was the sign of an end of days prophet to announce the second coming
of Christ. For a time, Branham’s popularity allowed him to transcend the divisions
that began to appear in the movement in the early 1950s and avoid repercussions
from the Pentecostal denominations’ growing concern with the revivals.[275]

While Branham’s performances may

seem like an amazing feat on the surface, the fact that men like Jim Jones were
also capable of the same thing seems to indicate it is not necessarily divine. It
would have been quite simple for Branham to utilize informants or prayer card
data to produce fraudulent discernments. There is no conclusive evidence yet
produced to prove this was the case, but circumstantial evidence abounds. The fact
that his brother Howard, and later his son Billy Paul, were the ones responsible for
managing the prayer cards, seems to indicate Branham wanted to keep that
process in the hands of people close to him who he could trust.
Branham made mistaken discernments a considerable number of times,
including on recording. Those failures seem to indicate there was something less
than credible happening with his second “sign”.[276] I am aware of multiple people
in the Jeffersonville Message community who received a discernment from
Branham, including some which are on recording, that are certainly mistaken.
Additionally, there are times on recording when Branham was merely pretending
to discern; we have conclusive evidence he was already aware of who he was
talking to and their condition beforehand.[277] You will find one such example in
chapter 10 involving Joseph Coleman. Branham’s gift was far from perfectly
accurate, despite what he claimed.
Branham organized his prayer lines according to prayer card numbers, which
would make a fraudulent procedure possible.[278]He only prayed for five to ten
people per service, making the number small enough that he could commit the
details to memory. In video recordings of his prayer lines, Branham’s assistants
can be seen approaching and passing him papers and whispering to him just
before the prayer lines begin. Were they passing him the prayer card information?
Eyewitnesses have also reported things they believed to be obvious indications
that discernments were fraudulent.[279]
Coordination of the Healing Revival (1949-1950)

By 1949, the Voice of Healing

Fellowship had developed into the framework through which the healing revivals
were organized, and the various evangelists coordinated with each other to
establish teams and schedules. Fred F. Bosworth, Tommy L. Osborn, Keneth
Hagin, A. A. Allen, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, Raymond T. Richie, Velmer Garnder,
Tommy Hicks, Ern Baxter, Franklin Hall, O. L. Jagers, Gayle Jackson, John
Osteen, Paul Cain, David du Plessis, and more joined the fellowship.
Approximately one hundred different evangelists were part of the fellowship
during the 1950s at one time or another. The figures traveled far and wide
nationally and internationally sharing the “gospel of divine healing”. By 1953, the
group was large enough and so financially endowed that it could simultaneously
hold revivals in thirty different nations in all parts of the world.
One of the notable accomplishments of the Voice of Healing Fellowship was
the formulation of a policy on doctrine. The policy amounted to a statement of
faith that limited the scope of topics on which the revivalists would speak. The
policy served to focus and influence the teachings of the healing revivalists and
the beliefs they spread through their revivals. The policy on doctrine was strongly
influenced by Branham and the topics he preached in his own campaigns.
Miracles, sign-gifts, spiritual warfare, and faith healing took center stage. During
the early years of the healing revivals, Branham stuck to the fellowship’s policy
on doctrine. Branham kept his Latter Rain views somewhat private until his
second breakup with Gordon Lindsay at the end of 1953.
Many people tend to either overstate or understate William Branham’s
influence on his contemporary peers. It would be inaccurate to describe Branham
or Lindsay as directors of the revival, but it would be fair to describe them as
playing a key role as coordinating the efforts between all the parties involved.
Even more than a coordinator, Branham was regarded as the first among equals
and the leading figure in the Voice of Healing Fellowship. The other revivalists
took their queue from Branham during the early years. Branham was regarded as
the key figure who defined the pace and style of the revivals, and he still is
regarded as such by credible historians of the period. Because of his success, his
model was purposefully emulated by all his fellow evangelists. Not everyone was
equally influenced, but even Oral Roberts, who was closest to Branham’s equal,
honored Branham with a special status.[280] At the peak of his popularity, all the
Voice of Healing evangelists embraced Branham and bragged about whatever
relationship they had with him.
Although some distanced themselves from Branham after he died, none of
them ever fully denounced him. His companion evangelists derived so much of
their style and practices from Branham’s influence, they could not denounce him
without exposing themselves as hypocrites. Most who distanced themselves in
later years did so by saying that Branham went off the deep end towards the end
of his life. But as we have already shown – Branham was a fraud who was
engaged in very deceptive and questionable practices from the very beginning.[281]
 Voice of Healing created a
training course for other ministers that was essentially a miniature seminary. It
was advertised as a “Deliverance Convention Training School.” The miniature
seminary traveled with the campaign and offered courses on the sidelines of major
revival stops. Ministers paid a tuition fee and were provided with textbooks and
material for a week-long course on how to become a deliverance minister. The
teachers of the classes included Branham, W. V. Grant, David Nunn, and Gordon
Lindsay.[282] This allowed the deliverance movement to train and produce a large
network of preachers and ministers on the side lines of the healing revivals. They
were being taught positive confession and word of faith style beliefs. The healing
revivals of the deliverance movement influenced an entire generation of
Pentecostals and popularized positive confession, among other doctrines.
Although Assemblies of God and other mainstream Pentecostal denominations
formally rejected positive confession,[283] the deliverance movement allowed the
teaching to proliferate mid-century Pentecostalism.
During the peak years of the healing revival, William Branham became the
most influential preacher in the Pentecostal world, and all the major evangelists
within Pentecostalism were part of the Voice of Healing Fellowship. The influence
exerted by Branham led to the adoption of his sign-gift practices and the related
doctrines shared by Branham and Bosworth in the revivals. Many Pentecostals
viewed Branham’s ministry as evidence that the power of the Holy Spirit was at
work within Pentecostalism. His performances validated their beliefs in the
restoration of gifts of the Spirit. While the earlier Pentecostals did believe in the
miraculous and gifts of the Spirit – positive confession was not a widely known or
accepted belief before the healing revivals.
Branham’s broad appeal gave him and his campaigns an opportunity to
influence every corner of Pentecostalism. As an example of Branham’s popularity,
consider this: William Branham was the keynote speaker at the 50th anniversary
celebration of Azusa Street revival held at the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles.
Angelus Temple was the largest Pentecostal Church in the world and the closest to
the site of the birth of Pentecostalism. After his keynote address, every other big-
name Pentecostal preacher of the 1950s followed his lead at the celebration
meetings. Everyone who was anyone in Pentecostalism was at those 50th
anniversary meetings – and Branham held center stage.
The most popular men in the Voice of Healing Fellowship, like William
Branham, Asa A. Allen, Oral Roberts, and Jack Coe became so big and popular,
that they gradually outgrew their need for Voice of Healing. They developed a
capacity to raise sufficient funds independently through radio or their own
magazines. This allowed them to eventually slip away from their dependance on
the Pentecostal denominations and to establish their own independent ministries.
This process would take several years but was well under way by 1950. This led
to an important shift within Pentecostalism. The men who followed in the shoes of
John Alexander Dowie and Amie Semple McPherson began the era of the mega
preachers and the mega churches. As the 1950s progressed, some of the healing
revivalists used their massive followings to settle down and found mega churches
based around their personal popularity. Their churches grew to be independent
from any preexisting church body or governing denomination.
The healing revivals of the deliverance movement had a much smaller
emphasis on doctrine than the Latter Rain revival which was occurring in parallel.
The Latter Rain movement also began in 1948, and we will explore that in depth
in the next chapter. The main thrust of the healing revivals was deliverance from
afflictions, divine healing, faith for miracles, signs and wonders, the gifts of the
spirit, and eventually the prosperity gospel. The average evangelist in the Voice of
Healing Fellowship was interested in maintaining popular appeal. Because
popular appeal was important to the deliverance evangelists, they tended to
become less cultic than their counterparts in the Latter Rain movement. The
deliverance evangelists generally didn’t develop the same rigid authoritarian
structures of leadership or the behavioral controls that were developing within the
Latter Rain movement.
As time progressed, the Latter Rain crowd gradually developed a low view
of the big-name deliverance evangelists. Many Latter Rain participants came to
accuse them of having no standards, few principles, and alleged they were
primarily interested in attendance numbers and revenue. The healing revivalists
were indeed driven by what appears to be desire for fame, popularity, or wealth.
As a result, they were more flexible with their audiences and less dogmatic and
rigid in their beliefs. This gradually divided the more accommodating deliverance
evangelists from the more rigid Latter Rain influenced ministers. While there was
a major overlap between the two movements, the healing revivals tended towards
creating somewhat more casual and open groups, while the Latter Rain tended
towards creating closed rigid groups. The degree to which Latter Rain influence
was accepted played an important role in determining where the healing
revivalists landed when the rivals ended.
The Prosperity Gospel (1950)
While the average healing revivalists generally ended up less cultic than the
average Latter Rain minister, the healing revivals did give birth to the prosperity
gospel. F.F. Bosworth, William Branham, and Gordon Lindsay were all teaching
and promoting positive confession throughout the healing revivals. They were in
direct line of succession of the ideology going back to John Alexander Dowie,
John Lake, and E. W. Kenyon. During the healing revivals, positive confession
began an evolution into the prosperity gospel and what would later become known
as the Word of Faith theology.
To the best of my understanding, Asa A. Allen was the first to preach a fully
developed prosperity gospel, and he began to do so in about 1950 by adapting
positive confession. Positive confession, as taught by Bosworth and Branham, was
primarily aimed at naming and claiming healing. Allen began to focus on the idea
that positive confession should work for anything. If you need money, positive
confession could provide money. If you need a new car, positive confession could
provide you a new car. If you need a vacation, or a raise, or a promotion at work,
or a new house – whatever it was, Allen began to teach that you could use positive
confession for all of it. Oral Roberts liked the idea, and he picked up a flavor of
the prosperity gospel himself and incorporated it into what he described as “seed
faith.” John Osteen, Jack Coe, Tommy Osborn, and other evangelists also picked
up the idea and began to share it. These same figures popularized the prosperity
gospel to even greater heights when they became the first televangelists.
Branham tended to support the idea that genuine Christians should live an
ascetic lifestyle. The expansion of positive confession from health to wealth was
not welcomed by Branham.[284] It served as the start of a disagreement between
him and some of the other revivalists, most notably Oral Roberts and Asa A.
Allen. The disagreement would boil over in 1957.
The Debate with Reverand Best (1950)
In January 1950 Branham and his team held one of the Healing Revival’s
most significant revival series. As the tour arrived in Houston, Texas, the crowds
were too large for the venue. They were forced to move the meetings to the Sam
Houston Coliseum which had a larger seating capacity. As they arrived in town,
stories of failed healing and the deaths left in the wake of Branham’s ministry
preceded them. Knowledge of the failed healings in Branham’s campaigns had
become well known to churches outside the Pentecostal movement who were
finding some of their members susceptive to the allure of Branham’s promises of
healing.

An association of churches of the Reformed faith in Texas circulated warnings to

their members urging them to avoid attending Branham’s meetings. F. F.
Bosworth discovered the warnings and lambasted the ministers who issued them.
Bosworth challenged the ministers to a debate.[285] Bosworth had a long history of
debating other ministers on the merits of positive confession and dual atonement
and had been doing so since the 1920s.[286] The Houston Baptist Pastors
Conference selected Rev. Wilburn E. Best to accept the challenge. The debate
made the front page of the Houston Press magazine which carried a four-page
article on the debate.[287] For followers of The Message, you may be surprised to
learn that the topic of the debate was not divine healing. The debate centered
primarily on the doctrines of dual atonement and positive confession. Bosworth
argued in favor of both, while Best argued against.
 Most Message believers have long since lost knowledge of the doctrines of
dual atonement and positive confession by name, though they are still actively
believed and promoted throughout The Message. Knowledge of the distinction
between a belief in divine healing and a belief in positive confession and dual
atonement was lost long ago by Message believers. Branham totally conflated the
three things together, and as a result most Message believers are unaware that
there is even a distinction to be made.
The Bosworth versus Best debate is a case study in the misleading style of
demagoguery that most proponents of positive confessions use to defend their
beliefs. The bible commands, “thou shalt not bear false witness”, yet misleading
people about the position of men like Rev. Best is how opponents construct their
strawman arguments. Part of the argument against positive confession is that it is a
sin. Positive confession may be categorized as the sinful act of lying. Claiming to
be healed, while still experiencing symptoms, is indeed a lie. Confessing healing
in that circumstance is not an act of faith, it is an act of dishonesty. Defenders of
the practice totally side-step this issue by insisting that anyone who rejects
positive confession rejects the power of God, rejects a belief in miracles, rejects
belief in divine healing, or similar accusations. They build a strawman argument
on the supposed fact that the denial of positive confession or dual atonement is a
rejection of the miraculous power of God.[288]
As many proponents of positive confession and dual atonement do,
Bosworth resorted to straw man arguments with Rev. Best rather than addressing
the main points of criticism. Bosworth conflated belief in divine healing and
positive confession. He misled his audience and obscured the distinction.
If you only ever heard William Branham’s recounting of the story, you may
be surprised to learn that Reverand Best believed in divine healing. In fact, he
delivered a number of sermons on the topic which are still in print.[289] Like most
followers of the Reformed faith, Reverand Best supported the belief in divine
healing, but was opposed to the use of positive confession and with good cause. If
healing and salvation are equally available from God by faith alone, it leads to the
ultimate implication that those who are not healed are quite likely also not saved.
If one lacks faith to be healed, then one must also lack the faith to be saved –
because both are a matter of the same faith. This implication causes severe
spiritual damage to the victims who fail to experience healing. It is quite common
for people in this ideology to doubt their own salvation after failing to receive
healing. On this basis many members of the Reformed faith object to positive
confession. Those of the Reformed faith take a higher view of the sovereignty of
God and believe that faith is not the only requirement for God to use his
miraculous power. The Reformed faith believes the will of God to be a greater
requirement in miracles, and that the will of God is not subject to the whims of
man; God being sovereign, will choose of his own accord when and how he will
dispense miracles.
Even though one may disagree with the Reformed faith, misrepresenting
their position on the subject is the sin of bearing false witness. Shifting the focus
away from their objections to positive confession and their greater emphasis on
the will of God, and then falsely suggesting they are opposed to divine healing
does exactly that.
As I explored in chapter 4, there were numerous deaths that had already
occurred through the practice of positive confession in Branham’s meetings. Some
of those deaths may have been prevented had the patients not ceased their medical
treatment. To pretend like Branham’s positive confession beliefs did not have
negative real world consequences is very dishonest. People died prematurely
because of Branham’s practices. That is certain and well documented. Best and
the ministers’ conference which supported him were entirely justified in their
concerns.
Bosworth had the upper hand in the debate as the primarily Pentecostal
audience was friendly to the ideas of positive confession and were not interested
in a debate about theology. After some back and forth, the debate began to
degenerate into a heated argument and violence began to break out as Bosworth
encouraged the crowd to show Best “what they thought” of his arguments. A
group of men then rushed the podium striking a member of Best’s party in the
face. Best and the ministers who accompanied him quickly exited the building,
ending the debate. It seems clear from the press accounts that Bosworth goaded
the crowd into violently attacking Best and his party.

The press accounts

also noted that none of the twenty-two people who had attended the meeting for
healing were prayed over or healed.[290] Although he did not have time to pray for
the sick, Branham did have time to pose for a photograph. The photograph which
was taken of Branham following the debate became the most legendary photo of
the entire Healing Revival period and is viewed as an iconic relic by followers of
the message. The photo, when developed shows what appears to be a halo over the
head of William Branham.[291]
For the rest of his life, Branham told his audiences that photo captured the
“pillar of fire” which followed him since the day he was born.[292] He claimed the
photo was a divine vindication of his ministry and his gift of healing. The photo
was investigated by a document verification agency which confirmed the halo was
produced by a genuine light in the field of the photo. Supposedly, the photo was
taken by a photographer present on behalf of the Rev. Best, and Best was the
figure who insisted the photo should be investigated to see if it had been tampered
with. That is how it ended up investigated by George Lacy at the American
Association of Questioned Documents. I highly doubt the authenticity of this story
told by Branham. I instead believe the accounts shared by the actual photographer
to be more believable.[293] The entire event, including the photo, was a publicity
stunt.
Branham embellished the story of Lacy’s examination, claiming that the FBI
had reviewed the photo and confirmed it was “the only supernatural being ever
photographed” and that the picture was hung in the “Hall of Religious Art” in the
Library of Congress.[294] This story is one more minnow that grew into a whale.
There is no such thing as the “Hall of Religious Art” and George Lacy who
performed the review was a private investigator and was never an employee of the
FBI.[295] Branham claimed that members of the Houston audience witnessed the
pillar of fire hang over his head while he spoke, yet there is not a single account of
it by anyone in attendance nor from the news reporters who observed the debate.
Furthermore, there is no evidence whatsoever that the light was supernatural, nor
did Lacy say so in his report.[296]
The Douglas Studios photographer licensed the photo to Branham for an
unknown sum of money. Some researchers have suggested that the photographer
may have doctored the photo or taken the picture to include the overhead lighting
simply to make money off Branham. Most researchers, but not all, believe the
halo to simply be the overhead lighting of the auditorium which can be seen in
similar shapes and angles in other photos from the auditorium in the same years
above the heads of basketball players and musicians. For the sake of copyright,
neither of those photos are being shared here, but when one sees Branham’s halo
above the head of Ed Sullivan, it certainly removes the mystique.
 Whatever the halo is, it is most certainly not a supernatural pillar of fire. It
appears no different than a million other photos of naturally occurring lights.
Nevertheless, the halo photo became one of an increasing number of totally
fraudulent and hoax miracles used by Branham as evidence of his supposed divine
gift and calling.
Branham’s First European Tour (1950)
Shortly after the Houston revivals William Branham left North America for
the first time. His first overseas tour was to Europe where he spent roughly ten
weeks primarily in Scandinavia. The Independent Assemblies of God had strong
connections to the region. Joseph Mattson-Boze, General Superintendent of the
IAoG and pastor of their flagship church in Chicago, was a native of Sweden and
instrumental in arranging the tour for Branham by connecting him with friendly
churches in the region who opened their doors to him with Boze’s endorsement.
Branham had connected with Boze during 1948 at revivals in western Canada.
The 1950 tour was financially sponsored by the Voice of Healing, which was
at the time receiving its income primarily through fundraising among the
mainstream Pentecostal denominations, especially Assemblies of God. Gordon
Lindsay and Jack Moore, the primary editors of Voice of Healing, accompanied
Branham on the tour and published many articles to document the European
revivals. It would be the first deliverance campaign ever held outside of North
America and began a rush by Branham’s contemporaries to take the revival
overseas.
Before they reached Scandinavia, the group first made stops in London and
Paris. Branham claimed several high-profile events occurred during the stop in
London. He claimed to visit Buckingham Palace and pray for King George V after
he supposedly received a telegram from the King’s private secretary inviting him
to the palace just for that purpose. He claimed the King suffered from multiple
sclerosis and was healed following his prayers.[297] No copy of the telegram has
ever been shown to the public. A review of the guest books at Buckingham Palace
revealed no signatures by William Branham or his party. Inquiries to the royal
historians had been met with a denial that the event ever occurred. Voice of
Healing published pictures of Branham in front of Buckingham Palace, but never
made any claims that Branham had met with or prayed for the King at the time. It
seems strange that they would have failed to make any mention of it at the time of
the visit. Notably, King George did not actually suffer from multiple sclerosis,
which is an obvious physical condition that affects the spine and could be
diagnosed merely from photos of a person. What King George was suffering from
was cancer, and he died about one year after William
Branham claimed to heal him. Throughout his life, William Branham cited the
“healing” of King George as one of the famous miracles of his career.
Most people following the news were aware enough to realize King George
died and was not healed, and viewed Branham’s insistence on the King’s healing
as something quite bizarre. The Message community, however, is simply unaware
that the King died.
There was a second notable event to supposedly occur in London. William
Branham claimed that he was met at the London airport by the granddaughter of
Florence Nightengale. He had pictures of the woman which have been widely
shared in Message circles. The photos are of a terribly emaciated woman who is
nothing but skin and bones. Branham claimed to pray for her and heal her, and he
frequently related the story and shared the picture as proof of the healing gift he
supposedly possessed.[298] Voice of Healing carried reports of the miracle in their
magazine. The story must be at least partially untrue, as Florence Nightengale
never married, had no children, and no grandchildren. It didn’t take long for
Branham to be confronted over the obviously false claims. Voice of Healing
followed up by publishing the supposed testimony of a minister from Wales who
claimed to personally know the woman in the photographs. He identified her as
Florence Nightengale Shirlaw, no relation to Florence Nightengale. Whatever the
case, no researcher has ever been able to produce independent third-party
verification of the “healing”, and Branham was certainly misleading his audiences
with elements of the story.
Branham held no revival in the United Kingdom and moved onto his next
stop in Paris. It is apparent that the time spent in London and Paris was primarily
for sightseeing tours. The campaign team published many different pictures of
themselves standing in front of the well-known landmarks of the cities. The most
disturbing of their stops was their visit to the Pigalle in Paris. The famous red-
light district was home to men who performed striptease on the street while
dressed in drag. Branham shared his account of watching their transsexual
striptease show several times on tape.[299]
Leaving Paris, the team began their Scandinavian tour starting in Finland
and held a series of meetings at Pentecostal churches friendly with Boze and the
Independent Assemblies of God. The Message has a sizeable following in
Scandinavia, with roughly fifty congregations spread across the region today.
These groups are descended from Branham’s 1950 tour, though not directly.
Branham attracted one especially important follower to the embryonic Message
community during these meetings. Levi Larson was a Norwegian who followed
Branham back to Jeffersonville to attend the Branham Tabernacle. Branham
collected a small number of such figures as he traveled overseas. They relocated
to Jeffersonville and joined the cult of personality. It would be these figures who,
upon Branham’s death, would return to their countries of origin and plant the
churches which grew into The Message community as we know it today. In 1950,
Branham was certainly not attempting to establish any sort of a new movement or
group. He was operating strictly within the denominational framework of his
hosts.
The most notable event to occur in Finland during the tour is the famous
story of the “resurrection” of nine-year-old Kari Holma. The story, like that of
King George and Florence Nightengale became one of Branham’s favorite miracle
stories. Like all the rest, it gradually evolved from a minnow to a whale. By the
last years of his life, the version of the story being told by Branham no longer had
a single element of truth. The “resurrection” had multiple eyewitnesses whose
personal accounts are recorded and available to review. May Isaacson, the party’s
translator shared her eyewitness account in Voice of Healing. Vilho Soininen, a
host pastor also shared his eyewitness account which was published in both Voice
of Healing and William Branham’s first biography, the 1951 book A Man Sent
From God. Jack Moore and Gordon Lindsay also published their accounts in
Voice of Healing and Branham’s biography. Last of all, Branham wrote a personal
account in the 1950 special edition of Voice of Healing. In May 1950, all five
accounts tell the same story.
While traveling by car to meetings in Finland, the party was witness to a car
accident that occurred right in front of them. Two young boys were struck by a car
and knocked to the ground. The Branham party, who were travelling in two
separate cars, stopped to offer assistance. The older boy was picked up by the lead
car, and the younger boy, Kari Holma, was picked up and taken into the backseat
of the second car in which William Branham and May Isaacson were seated.
Moore, Lindsay, and Soininen were in the front seat. As they traveled to the
hospital William Branham took the young boy’s pulse and pronounced him as
dead. William Branham then knelt on the floor of the car and prayed for the boy.
Five to six minutes later, they arrived at the hospital and the boy opened his eyes.
As they carried the boy into the hospital, he began to cry. They left the boy with
the medical staff and went on their way.[300] All of the eyewitnesses told this same
version of the story in 1950.
It is notable that Branham was the one who pronounced the boy as dead.
Could he have been misleading them? In any event, when one compares this well
documented version to what William Branham told his audiences when he
returned to the United States, you will discover just how untrustworthy William
Branham’s stories are. I will include his full dramatic telling of the story so you
can get a full sense of the degree to which he embellished his stories. The
obviously false sections of the story are bolded.

I was coming down from Kuopio, that’s up in the land of the

midnight sun, we were having a meeting. Those little boys up there, no
more than kids, right after the war, and their—they never shaved. Some of
them little boys weren’t over fifteen years old, great big old long coats,
and boots, the women all downtown, young women all gathered together
and old men. The Russians had killed them all out in the war.
Out pitching hay, in the field. Not with shorts on, great big thick
skirts, big boots, some of the finest people you’ve ever meet, them Finns,
real loyal. And as I was standing up there, Brother Lindsay, all those,
about thirty ministers was there, I said, “Something’s fixing to happen. I
can just feel it.” Said, “What is it, Brother Branham?” I said, “I don’t
know; they begin to take pictures then.” He said, “Is it the Angel of
the Lord here, can we get the picture?” I said, “I don’t know. But
something’s fixing to happen, bear me record.”
 Down the hill we come; we noticed something. Now, gasoline sells
for about two dollars a gallon. At the meetings, where there’d be forty,
fifty thousand people, there would probably be three or four cars. They all
took caribou on sleds, walked, any way they could get there. But there laid
about a 1925, ’30 model Ford, or maybe a little later model than that,
American made Ford wrecked, about five hundred people standing
around, and two little boys had been coming from school holding each
other’s hand. And this car, about sixty miles per hour, whirled around the
bend, and the little boys didn’t know which way to go. One started one
way, and one the other, the driver trying to dodge them, hit one little
fellow under the chin with his bumper or his fender and threw him about
thirty yards and smashed him against a tree. The other little boy rolled
right over him like that, and the wheels kicked his little body about twenty
feet across the road in a grass flat. The car run over the hill and wrecked.
Brother Lindsay and them got out; they looked at it. They come back
weeping. Sister Isaacson got out, my interpreter. She come back
weeping, said, “Brother Branham, you ought to go look at it.”
I said, “Oh, no, I can’t.” I said, “You remember my wife died
when I was just a young preacher about twenty-four years old. I
buried her and my baby. We only had one little fellow left, and that
was Billy. I walked around with his little bottle in my pocket at night.
We didn’t have enough money to get fire to keep his bottle warm, so I
put it under my head. That’s the reason he’s with me today. I—I’ve
been papa and mama, both, to him. That’s what I promised her, when
she was dying. And I kept his little body warm, and his little bottle by
my own body.” And then he was about ten years old, and I said, “I got
my own little boy over in America. I—I just can’t go look at him. I
ain’t seen Billy now for about three months; I just can’t look at him.”
And something said, “Go look.”
I walked over, and had his little coat laying over his face, and
they pulled it down. Oh, my, I turned around and started walking
away. I don’t know whether you’re going to believe this or not. That’s
between you and God. Something put Their hand on my shoulder; I
thought it was Brother Moore. I said, “What, why, there’s nobody
around me, and the hand was still on my shoulder.” I thought, “What
is this?” And Someone’s hand laying on my shoulder, and I turned to
the child. I happened to notice that little foot, legs all broke up, his
little foot running through his big old, ribbed black stockings. That
looked familiar. I said to the chief man, which was the mayor of the
city, “Could…” They was waiting for the father and mother to come
up. I thought, “Oh, my, what will that little papa and mama think
when they come and see this baby laying here mashed up.” The other
little boy, he was alive, so they rushed him to the hospital in a car. So
this little boy had been dead about thirty minutes. They was waiting to
get his father and mother before the undertaker moved him. I said,
“Can I look at that boy again?” They raised up his little coat, and I
looked, them little brown eyes turned back, that kind of dark brown
hair, little pantywaist, his feet through his socks. I looked around,
there come a hill, coming down from Kuopio Mountain, evergreens,
lapped rock, I looked back, and I thought, “That’s him.” Oh, brother,
I may never meet you people no more till glory, but I wished I had the
strength, this afternoon, to explain to you what a feeling that is. All
devils out of hell couldn’t stop it. It’s not, if you believe, or this, or
that, or the other, it’s already done. God said so. I looked and I said,
“That’s him.” I said, “Brother Moore, Brother Lindsay, come
quickly.” I said, “Get the flyleaf from your Bible…?…” “What’s the
matter, Brother Branham?” I said, “Read the flyleaf.” “THUS SAITH
THE LORD, it shall come to pass, that a little boy, between eight and
ten years old, his description, be laying on a place where rocks are
wrapped together with cedars and evergreens.” “What,” said, “what’s
that, Brother Branham?” I said, “Look at the child. Look at there at
the rocks.” He said, “Is that him?” I said, “That’s him.”
Oh, my. Oh, God, get the church in that state. Let me stay in that
place. I said, “You speak right quick, Sister Isaac, interpret for me.” I
said, “If the Lord God in a land of America, two years ago, here it is
wrote on these brothers’ Bible leaf, see if that little boy isn’t on his feet
alive in five minutes, I’ll leave Finland with a sign on my back, ‘False
Prophet.’” Oh, it’s such a wonderful thing when you know what God’s
going to do. I had them to gather; I knelt down and said, “Lord
God…” If you would like to get the details of this from the mayor, I’ll
give you his address. I said, “Lord God, in the homeland You did
speak of this vision. And I know in Your great predestinated will, it’s
already finished. So death give back this boy’s life.” And God Who’s
my solemn Judge, before this Bible this afternoon, the little fellow
jumped to his feet just as normal as he was, hour before he got hit.”
58-0330A - A Missionary Talk William Branham
 As you can well tell, William Branham’s version of the story is so false that
it can be accurately described as a total lie. To make matters worse, William
Branham included a fake “thus saith the Lord” in the story. People from Finland
who were familiar with the true story confronted Branham for the way he
deceived his American audiences.[301] It is challenging to understand how Branham
kept getting away with these things.
Branham’s penchant for making up stories didn’t stop in Finland. He
claimed that during his time in Sweden, he was invited to the palace to pray for
King Gustav V.[302] No mention of the meeting with Gustav was made in any of the
publications at the time of the tour, no photos were ever released, and no evidence
exists in any known source for the meeting. Worse, Gustav died two months after
being “prayed” for, which seems to render the whole account rather damning for
Branham.
Branham’s campaigns began attracting negative press attention before he got
out of Finland, and the tension worsened in Sweden. As in the United States and
Canada, many people pronounced healed were dying and serious concerns were
being reported to the government. By the time he arrived in Norway, the
complaints had become so serious that the Norwegian Ministry of Health issued
orders forbidding Branham from performing faith healing.[303] Some ministers
signed a protest, but the Norwegian government did not lift the order.
From the viewpoint of any outsider, Branham’s first European tour was a
public relations disaster and every miracle story which Branham brought home
with him from the tour is demonstrably fraudulent. While Branham took the bad
press in stride, the mainstream Pentecostal denominations leadership seem to have
taken notice with increasing wariness of the harm caused by Branham and his
fellow revivalists to the reputation of the Pentecostal movement. Returning to
North America, Branham spent the rest of 1950 visiting the main hubs of the
revival in the United States and Canada and growing closer to the Latter Rain
movement that had suddenly grown to encompass hundreds of churches.
Return of Roy Davis (1950-1951)
William Branham reconnected with his old pastor Roy Davis after he
returned to the United States after his European tour. Davis was released from
prison in Huntsville, Texas in November 1942 after serving a sentence related to
the theft of an automobile.[304] He somehow managed to secure a pardon from the
governor for early release. One might suspect Klan influence played a role. Less
than a year later, Davis surfaced in Los Angeles where he partnered with his old
friend William Upshaw in another fake charity scheme. This time, Davis proposed
to open an orphanage and began collecting donations to fund its creation. As was
typical of his pattern, the money disappeared, and Davis ended up arrested and put
on trial.[305]
Los Angeles was a hub of the most vocal white supremacists in the United
States at the time, many of whom were affiliated with the Foursquare Church.[306]
Foursquare’s denominational headquarters was the Angelus Temple, and was at
the time home of Wesley Swift, founder of the Christian Identity Movement. The
Christian Identity movement is a religion of white supremacy that evolved from
the same British Israel roots as the Latter Rain movement. Angelus Temple also
played host to the Nazi Gerald Winrod, commonly known as the Kansas Hitler.
Upshaw and Winrod were both old friends of Davis, and likely helped him get
back on his feet after his release from prison.
Davis was in L.A. at the same time the KKK was experiencing a resurgence
in the region. Was that a coincidence? Gerald L. K. Smith was the leader of the
KKK in California and Wesley Swift was Klegal (spokesman) of the California
Klan at the time. These figures were already labeled radicals in their day. Winrod
was greeted with large anti-Nazi protest when he visited Angelus Temple in 1938.
Foursquare vigorously defended Winrod who had published his writings and
promoted his ministry in their denominational literature for years.[307]
These radical white supremacists linked to Foursquare remained vocal into
World War II, going so far as to publicly support Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Roosevelt was enemy number one, and in 1942 the group staged a mock public
hanging of Roosevelt in Los Angeles. Winrod and others were issuing prophesies
against the United States during the war period. In 1944, the government cracked
down and Winrod and twenty-nine other figures were arrested and charged with
sedition.[308]
The sedition trial seems to mark the start of a slow process which led the
white supremacists to gradually disconnect from Foursquare. In about 1948, Swift
began the process of organizing his own denomination that would eventually
evolve into what is today the Aryan Nations. The Aryan Nations is a church which
flies the swastika and trains its members to prepare for an end of days race war
they believe to be communist inspired. Serpent Seed, the imminent doomsday, and
British Israelism form the core of the Christian Identity belief system. Some of the
Christian Identity figures found their way into the Latter Rain movement and the
healing revivals of the deliverance movement.
At the same time, a group of ministers began Calvary Temple on Lake Street
in Los Angeles. Calvary Temple was a Foursquare Church led by Leroy Kopp,
who was chairman of the Foursquare Evangelistic Association. In was in Leroy
Kopp’s church where Roy Davis finally turned up. Kopp’s Calvary Temple was
also a regular stop for David Moses Berg, Paul Cain, and Chuck Smith (of
Calvary Chapel fame). Kopp eventually turned the church over to O. L. Jaggers in
about 1955 following a church split. O. L. Jaggers operated it as World Church for
several decades.
It is difficult to determine the state of Branham and Davis’s relationship
between 1935 and 1949. It is likely they had little or no contact for the years that
Davis was in prison. It is possible they reconnected in Los Angeles as early as
1947, as both men were visiting L.A. Foursquare churches in those years. What is
certain is that they reconnected by 1950, and Davis was still a terrible crooked
white supremacist sex pervert. In fact, by 1950 the underage girl he had been
arrested for transporting for the purposes of sex in 1931 was old enough to get
married; she and Davis were wed in Mexico. Her name was Allie Lee Garrison
and she became his third bigamist wife. It seems impossible that Branham could
have missed the fact that Davis married the same girl he had been arrested for
molesting back in Jeffersonville.
In October 1950, Gordon Lindsay ran a full-page story in Voice of Healing in
which Davis’s photo was published alongside a letter penned by Davis. The article
advertised Davis as a minister with “a large gospel tent and a pretty well-
organized evangelistic party.” Davis claimed to be working with the Assemblies of
God – though evidence seems to indicate he was working more closely with
Foursquare at the time. The article played up his relationship with Branham.[309]
The article clearly indicated that the two men had reestablished their relationship.
[310]
Shortly thereafter Branham began making regular references to Davis in his
recorded sermons, and the two men began attending revival meetings together.[311]
It is noteworthy that Branham never mentioned Roy Davis on tape prior to
the 1950 article published by Voice of Healing. It is possible Branham had hoped
to be rid of Davis, but Davis had returned to rain on his parade. There is some
indication of a dispute that occurred between the two men in the 1950s and that
Branham became upset when Roy Davis told Branham that he was merely “a
puppet.”[312] Whose puppet is left to the imagination. Regardless, Davis was
successful in convincing or compelling Branham to work with him again.
In February 1951, Davis assisted Branham in what is perhaps the most cited
miracle of Branham’s ministry – the healing of former Congressman William
Upshaw. Braham was holding meetings that month at Leroy Kopp’s Calvary
Temple. Roy Davis pushed Upshaw into the revival meetings in a wheelchair.[313]
Upshaw had been living in L. A. since at least 1943. Upshaw and Davis had been
working together since the 1920s. Near the end of the service Branham claimed to
have a vision and then pronounced Upshaw healed. Upshaw stood to his feet and
was supposedly miraculously cured. Branham celebrated the healing and told his
audiences that Upshaw had been wheelchair bound for sixty-six years.
The miracle, as described by Branham, was certainly a fraud. Upshaw had
suffered an accident that left him wheelchair bound in his adolescence, but had
regained the ability to walk with the aid of a cane or crutch by age 25. He was
witnessed running by other members of Congress without any aid at all.[314] In a
newspaper interview after the “healing”, Upshaw admitted that he could already
walk short distances before attending the revival.[315] At the very least, Branham’s
claim that he was wheelchair bound for sixty-six year was totally false. When one
discovers Upshaw could already stand and walk on his own, it makes the

“miracle” seem far less

miraculous.
Upshaw used the miracle publicity to launch a fund-raising drive for a new
foundation he created.[316] Upshaw died a few months later of a stroke, and all
evidence indicates whatever healing he may have experienced at Branham’s
revival was very short lived. One cannot dismiss the possibility that Davis and
Upshaw worked with Branham to stage the “miracle.”
The meeting at Calvary Temple was not the last time Davis and Branham
worked together. Their relationship would endure to the end of Branham’s life.
Branham indicated in his sermons that Davis invited him to preach at churches
alongside him somewhere between 1948 and 1953, and Branham accepted.[317] He
told his audiences that it “did him good” to receive the invitation from Davis, and
that he was pleased to have their relationship restored.
It is difficult to find a way to excuse Branham’s behavior in this situation.
Davis was known by Branham to be an ex-convict, child rapist, thief, and
religious conman. Was Davis forcing his way in and blackmailing Branham in
some way? Was Branham a willing accomplice to Davis? These are questions
without answers. Branham’s relationship with Davis becomes even more troubling
after Davis became national leader of KKK in 1959. I will explore more of
Branham’s relationship with Davis in chapters 9 and 14.
Branham’s South African Tour (1951)
An outsiders review of William Branham’s ministry may lead them to
conclude that 1951 was his peak year. While the Healing Revival still had a lot of
steam left in it, the growing number of competing evangelists joining the field
would gradually diminish Branham’s share of the revival pie after 1951. 1951
proved to be the year of Branham’s single largest meeting and what is perhaps his
most famous revival tour.
Pentecostals had a presence in South Africa dating back the early 1900s
when John Lake worked there as a missionary out of Zion. The South African
Pentecostals were open to the Dowie style revival techniques employed by
Braham in the healing revival. Voice of Healing secured a three-month revival tour
of South Africa which would see Branham and his team visit stops across the
union which at that time included the countries of South Africa, Namibia, and
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The tour was the best organized of Branham’s career.
Branham was accompanied by Ern Baxter, F. F. Bosworth, his son Billy Paul
and Julius Stadsklev on behalf of the Voice of Healing to document the tour.
Stadsklev wrote a book documenting the tour entitled A Prophet Visits South
Africa. A committee of regional Pentecostal leaders secured the venues for the
meetings and organized the schedule. The tour was sponsored primarily by the
Assemblies of God in the United States and the Apostolic Faith Mission in South
Africa. The AFM was founded by John Lake.[318] The AFM widely advertised the
revivals which was the key to attracting the large audiences Branham received.
The Branham party departed New York on October 1 and arrived in
Johannesburg the following day. Revival events were held in eleven different
cities. The Johannesburg revivals were held at the Central Tabernacle and the
Marantha Park Tabernacle, the two largest Pentecostal churches of the city. South
Africa was a racially divided country, and Branham primarily ministered to only
white audiences. A review of Stadsklev’s book indicates that Branham attended
white-only services for most of the tour and held “native” services about one day
each week. The “native” services were by far the largest, with attendances
generally over 10,000. The white-only services are harder to evaluate from the
records but appear to generally be less than 1,000 in attendance.
Klerksdorp, Kimberly, and Bloemfontein were visited in October. November
revivals were held in Zastron, Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and East
London. By December the team arrived in Durban where Branham held the
largest revival of his career.
There are disputes over the number in attendance at Durban’s Greyville
Racecourse meetings. Stadsklev reported 20,000 in attendance, and he reprinted a
testimony of “O. C.” who claimed that Durban police estimated a crowd of
55,000 to 60,000. Another report by A. H. Cooper estimated attendance of 25,000.
[319]
Bosworth and Branham both reported 200,000 attendees.[320] The 200,000
number seems to be the more widely reported number by Branham’s later
biographers but appears to be wildly inflated – nearly quadruple the estimates of
the police at the event. Two ministers from South Africa who attended the
meetings disputed the 200,000 claim, stating that the maximum capacity of the
race track was 25,000.[321] Photos of the event show massive crowds, but they
would appear to be far less than 200,000 to my own eyes. In any event, whether it
was 25,000 or 200,000, it was the largest attendance of a single event in
Branham’s career, and Branham often fondly recalled the meetings and boasted
about the attendance numbers.
Throughout his career, Branham frequently related stories that grew into
legends about the events in South Africa. However, as noted in chapter 4,
Branham was confronted with claims of fraud by South African ministers before
the tour was over. Dozens of cases of healing were investigated by several South
African ministers who could not identify a single case of genuine healing. The
investigators discovered that some of the reports of healing carried in the local
press were also false. Perhaps most startling is that miracles reported to American
audiences upon their return to the United States were also proven to be total
frauds.[322]
I have copies the healing claims published by the Branham campaign upon
their return and copies of the obituaries of the same people who were supposedly
healed.[323] They were not healed – they died. These same cases were reported by
the South African ministers who conducted the investigations in 1951. It is
patently obvious that Bosworth and Branham were deceiving their audiences with
the cases they cited. While we have multiple well documented cases of failed
healing, there are no well documented cases of actual healing. Bosworth and
Branham both published false accounts of the healings during the African
revivals, which make it very challenging to trust any account published by their
campaign team. They were without a doubt misleading the public about the
healing miracles that occurred in Africa.
Like Norway, Branham ended up banned by the government from holding
further revivals in South Africa, with multiple sources indicated that the Apostolic
Faith Mission was responsible for requesting the ban. That strongly indicates they
were displeased with Branham’s performance.[324]
Following the Durban meetings, Branham remained in South Africa to go on
a lavish safari where he hunted large game in Mozambique. Branham returned
home to the United States in time for Christmas.
During his time in South Africa, Branham picked up a notable member of
The Message community: Sidney Jackson. Jackson was a polygamist. He traveled
back to Jeffersonville and spent considerable time with Branham over the years.
After Branham’s death he was instrumental in establishing the early Message
communities in South Africa and indirectly in Australia.
The Glory Years Continue (1952-1953)
The years 1952 and 1953 were years of glory for Branham. By then his
legend had been created and the stories which served as his “vindication” were
firmly established. Unfortunately, as has been documented so far, the stories are
all either a total hoax or so embellished as to be irrelevant. From hoax
resurrections, to inflated reports of healing, to exaggerated attendance records, to
scam stories of his visits with Kings and monarchs – it was an ever-expanding
legend built on lies. What little might be salvaged is not enough to vindicate a
garbage man, let alone the “Messenger to Laodicea” or the “Prophet for our day.”
Yet Branham had already reached the status that would define his legacy in the
Pentecostal world. He was believed to be the greatest miracle worker the
Pentecostal world had ever seen. By the mid-1950s, Branham would use that
reputation to elevate and endorse the teachings of the Latter Rain movement. But
as yet, Branham had not ran afoul of the broader Pentecostal movement and was
still enjoying the sponsorship of the biggest players in Pentecostalism.
The initial problems in the broader deliverance movement did not arise from
Branham’s missteps. Branham was “too big to fail.” Much of Pentecostalism had
hitched their wagon to his campaigns. But the lesser evangelists of the movement
did not enjoy such liberty, and they tended to push the envelope farther than
Branham. It would be their antics that led to a backlash from the Pentecostal
denominations.
Jack Coe, Asa A. Allen, and Orval L. Jaggers pushed things to a breaking
point on multiple fronts. Allen was an acholic and the healing revival sponsors
had taken notice of his behavior. Jack Coe was overly aggressive in his practices
and was clearly committing financial abuses. Following a hostile confrontation
with authorities in Dallas, Coe crossed a line the Pentecostal denominations were
unwilling to breach. Assemblies of God was forced to respond. Jaggers problems
were the total unbelievability of his claims and the sensationalized extremes to
which he went. He began preaching about space aliens and staged miracles which
were so obviously fake no amount of explanation could recover his reputation.[325]
Oral Roberts even got in on the action, as he and Coe and Allen all competed to
have the “largest tent in America”. The three men fought over the title, which
changed hands repeatedly through the early and mid-1950s.
Branham stayed above the fray in 1951 and 1952. While Allen and Roberts
were pioneering what would become the prosperity gospel, Branham stuck with
dual atonement. While the prosperity gospel of health and wealth was a natural
evolution of positive confession and dual atonement, Branham rejected in. While
fully embracing the “health” side of the prosperity gospel, he condemned the
“wealth” side of the equation. As Allen and Roberts began to launch radio
ministries and test the waters of televangelism, Branham instead remained focused
on traveling the revival circuit.
 Chapter 6
The Latter Rain Movement
1947-1952
God sends the rain on the just and
the unjust.
– Jesus Christ
The Birth of the Latter Rain (1947-1948)
During late 1947, Branham’s revivals in western Canada were
attended by George Hawtin, Herrick Holt, and a number of other figures
from the Sharon Orphanage in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Herrick
Holt was district superintendent of the Foursquare denomination for
Western Canada. Holt started Sharon Orphanage in 1945 as an independent
work to provide a home to World War II orphans and a seminary to the
surrounding Pentecostal community. George Hawtin was formerly director
of a nearby seminary of Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. Hawtin joined
Holt in 1946. The following year Holt recruited the initial students and
faculty for the Sharon School from his prior seminary.
Hawtin harbored a bitterness towards Pentecostal Assemblies of
Canada who had dismissed him in favor a more educated seminary director.
There is some indication that they dismissed him due to ideas he harbored
that were deemed unacceptable by Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.
Hawtin developed a deep distrust of denominational structures as a result of
his treatment.
1946 and 1947 were years of both institution building and literal
construction. The teachers and students worked to construct dorms and
classrooms at Sharon Orphanage. The facility was an orphanage in name
only at first. The initial resources were dedicated to establishing the
seminary. The school itself only began to operate in September 1947.[326]
When the members of Sharon Orphanage attended Branham’s
meetings they were awed and amazed by the spectacle. They were unaware
that the healings they were witnessing were by and large only acts of
positive confession. They believed they were witnessing authentic miracles.
Returning to Sharon Orphanage, they were inspired to pray and fast until
God would grant them similar abilities to perform miracles.
Franklin Hall is generally recognized as the second most important
figure, after William Branham, to spark the Latter Rain movement. Leaders
of the Latter Rain revival credit Hall’s writings as the source from which
they discovered how to obtain the “faith” they needed to launch their
revival and receive their “gifts”. Hall’s book “Atomic Power” gave them
instructions on fasting and other techniques which would supposedly help
them become more receptive to the power of the supernatural.[327]
 After about three months of fasting, a revival broke out at Sharon
Orphanage in February 1948. Their revival grew to overlap with the broader
healing revival, and created a distinct set of doctrines that spread the world
over and impacted hundreds of millions of Christians for decades to follow.
The revival was at first referred to as the New Order of the Latter Rain, but
soon became more simply known as The Latter Rain Revival, and their
teachings became known as The Latter Rain Message.[328] Pentecostalism
already claimed to be a fulfillment of the Latter Rain prophecy of Joel when
it began in 1906. That belief forms a key pillar in most Pentecostal
theological systems. The “New Order” of the Latter Rain recognized that
they were reappropriating a prophecy that was already central to
Pentecostalism itself, hence the term “New Order”. As their beliefs
developed, they came to view themselves as a second tier of restorationism
to finish a process they believed started with early Pentecostalism. They
identified the ultimate goals as a restoration of the church to a state like the
Book of Acts.
This context and usage of the term “Latter Rain” is important to note
when examining Pentecostal teachings, as the use of the term itself does not
necessarily denote adherence to the “New Order” Latter Rain doctrines. It
often requires an examination of the underlying concepts to reveal which
“Latter Rain” is being referred to. For the purposes of this book, the term
Latter Rain is being used strictly to refer to the Latter Rain movement
which began in the 1940s.
The Latter Rain movement went through many splits and divisions as
the years passed. One of those splits would result in the creation of The
Message, the group which I was born and raised in. In fact, the term The
Message evolved as a shorthand way of saying The Latter Rain Message. I
have been in community with people who were part of the Latter Rain
revival from its earliest days.
Before I share the history of the Latter Rain movement, let me first
talk about the ideological makeup of the group at North Battleford and
explain the distinctive doctrines that developed in Sharon Orphanage in the
early days of the revival.
British Israelism
By the 1940s, Foursquare was the last of the significant Pentecostal
denominations to entertain British Israelism. The denomination had about
400 churches at the time. Amie Semple McPherson seems to have embraced
the ideology. British Israel ideas were taught at Angelus Temple and shared
through Foursquare’s network and in their literature. In fact, and quite
shockingly, there were Nazis and Klan figures attending and preaching at
Foursquare churches, including the Angelus Temple, as briefly explained in
chapter 5. It is difficult to know how much McPherson and the senior
leadership of Foursquare were aware of or supported their activity. Angelus
Temple had 12,000 members in those years. It is possible that some of their
activity was flying under the radar of Foursquare senior leadership. In the
1950s, Foursquare began to transition away from British Israelism, but the
shift was gradual.
The early leaders of Sharon Orphanage were deeply influenced by the
British Israelite branch of Pentecostalism. The precise origin of their
introduction to that influence is unclear, but it is very safe for us believe that
one source of influence was their connection to Foursquare; Herrick Holt,
the first President of Sharon Orphanage, was District Superintendent of
Foursquare for Western Canada during the same years he launched Sharon
Orphanage.
George Hawtin was leader of the Global Missions and school at
Sharon. Hawtin’s two brothers were on staff as faculty. His brothers were
also from Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada before taking leadership roles
at Sharon Orphanage. Based on their writings, it appears they were also
British Israelites prior to joining Sharon Orphanage. Hawtin wrote a series
of publications entitled Treasures of Truth in which he detailed many of his
beliefs. British Israelism was among them.[329]
A review of the teachings which came out of Sharon Orphanage
reveals a deep British Israel influence. That influence spread throughout the
broader Latter Rain movement. The British Israel influence is one of the
best kept secrets about the ideological origins of the Latter Rain theology.
One way this secret was maintained was due to the fact that most of the
Latter Rain movement (but not all), dropped the idea that they were the ten
lost tribes of Israel, just like the broader Pentecostal movement did. But the
Latter Rain movement did so decades later than mainstream Pentecostalism.
While broader Pentecostalism rejected the core concepts of British
Israelism during the 1920s, those ideas remained in Foursquare through the
1940s, and found their way into the Latter Rain movement into the 1950s. It
would not be until the mid-1950s that the “lost tribes” idea fell out of favor
among Latter Rain adherents.
Because they dropped the “lost tribes” concept, it becomes a bit more
difficult to detect what is among the most important of their theological
influences. The Latter Rain movement was born in the dying days of the
British Israelite branch of Pentecostal theology. Along with Christian
Identity Theology, the Latter Rain Theology is one of the two main
successor ideologies of Pentecostal British Israelism.
George Hawtin was the first leader of the Sharon Orphanage, and was
the senior figure when revival broke out in 1948. While the majority of the
other Sharon Orphanage elders eventually rejected the core British Israel
idea, Hawtin remained a vocal supporter of British Israelism for the
remainder of his life. He taught and wrote extensively on the “lost tribes”
subject and spread the idea to many different Latter Rain churches he
visited, including Message churches. He clearly and repeatedly identified
the British people as the ten lost tribes of Israel.[330]
It is important to recognize the presence of this “lost tribes” belief in
the early Latter Rain movement, because it is the smoking gun which
allows us to identify the origin of a large portion of their belief set. The
“lost tribes” concept is hardly the only belief that was packaged within
British Israelism. Most of the major theological themes of the Latter Rain
movement are simply a new spin, or an evolution of the same ideas and
concepts outlined in chapter 4 of this book. While the British Israel branch
of Pentecostalism is not the only ideological input into the Latter Rain
movement, I would argue that is certainly the most important to the
producing the movement’s key distinctives.
Many of the distinctive Latter Rain ideas are part of the wider British
Israel theology already adhered to by George Hawtin and other early
leaders in the Latter Rain movement before it began. While Hawtin failed to
convince the broader movement to keep the lost tribes’ concept, many of
the other elements that had fused and integrated into British Israel ideology
over the prior century did find broad acceptance among the leaders of Latter
Rain.
It would be incorrect to only credit George Hawtin for introducing all
these concepts to the Latter Rain movement. These ideas would have been
known to the segment of the Pentecostal movement that gave a special
place of respect to John Alexander Dowie, Charles Parham, Frank Sanford,
Charles Price, F. F. Bosworth, and other prominent British Israelite
preachers from the first generation of Pentecostalism. Foursquare and the
much smaller Elim Missionary Fellowship were two notable groups who
still respected British Israel thought during the late 1940s. Hawtin and other
leaders in Latter Rain merely gave fresh life to older ideas. They dusted off
the British Israel reference materials in the library, so to speak, and
championed ideas which the broader Pentecostal movement seemed content
to let die. The promotion of the fading British Israel ideas struck a chord
with a segment of people and helped pass an updated version of the
ideology to a new generation.
Serpent Seed
Just as the basic “lost tribes” concept was present in the ideology of
the Latter Rain movement, so too were serpent seed ideas. Serpent seed is
another ideological remnant of British Israelism that can be found in some
branches of the Latter Rain movement. Serpent Seed provides a back story
for the wicked seed in the world. Like the “lost tribe concept”, Serpent Seed
was increasingly relegated to the fringe of the overall movement, but
Message followers are not the only Latter Rain group to inherit serpent seed
teachings in this manner.
William Branham was exposed to serpent seed from the earliest days
of his ministry.[331] Branham was slipping the idea into his sermons
throughout the healing revivals, [332] and privately teaching the full version
of serpent seed years before his first detailed public sermon on the topic.[333]
It is possible that Hawtin learned the ideology from Branham directly, and
imported it. What is more likely, it that he drew the teaching directly from
the British Israel literature he clearly had access to and often referenced in
his publications. While Branham claimed to have received the revelation of
the Serpent Seed through a supernatural experience,[334] Hawtin and most
other Latter Rain preachers who taught the doctrine tended to cite the
earlier British Israel writers as authorities and sources.[335]
Hawtin publicly apologized for promoting serpent seed in 1989 after
receiving public backlash for publishing Serpent Seed literature. His book
“The Living Creature: Origin of the Negro” caused a public outcry after it
was discovered by news reporters.[336] Of course, by then, knowledge of the
teaching had the opportunity to spread to most corners of the Latter Rain
movement. Some Latter Rain groups accepted the teaching, while others
rejected it.
Latter Rain groups like The Message promote a version of Serpent
Seed where the racial connotations are somewhat less obvious. The Latter
Rain version of Serpent Seed is not nearly as virulent as the Christian
Identity version of Serpent Seed, but it still leads to widespread
enforcement of racial segregation and discrimination within the Latter Rain
groups, like The Message.
While not always explicit, the racial elements of the teaching are still
there just below the surface of most who teach serpent seed. For example,
when teaching Serpent Seed publicly, Branham repeated the same serpent
genealogy as Hawtin and his British Israelite predecessors, but Branham
carefully avoided saying the words “black” or “jew”. While the words
“black” and “jew” are omitted one cannot help but notice that in the 1958
Serpent Seed genealogy shared by Branham, every figure Branham
identified as a serpent seed was either African or Jewish.
Many followers of the Message are oblivious to the racial
connotations of the doctrine, while most leaders from the original sects of
The Message are fully aware. The secret “revelation” of the Serpent Seed’s
racial character is privately passed down among those in direct line of
leadership succession from William Branham. The hidden secret is revealed
only to those with the spiritual fortitude to be able to accept such “truth”.[337]
Obsessions with Israel
Another very clear way in which the British Israel ideas influenced the
Latter Rain movement was through their obsession with the nation and land
of Israel. Use of the stories of ancient Israel is common within Christianity,
as the history of God’s relationship with the Jewish people is central to the
Old Testament. An interest in the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and the land of
Israel have always had a place in the church’s views of the end of days, but
there is a unique flavor to the views which developed within British
Israelism.
While normal Christian ministers would use the history of ancient
Israel in the Old Testament to illustrate moral lessons, the Latter Rain
movement used that same history to make an ever-evolving forecast of
specific events that would occur in the immediate future of the church. The
history of Israel and God’s relationship with Israel became a template from
which Latter Rain leaders extrapolated detailed predictions of the future.
Their predictions always ended with an impending doomsday scenario that
would engulf the entire world.
Israel became a nation in 1948 – the same year the Latter Rain revival
began. This was too much of a coincidence for the leaders of Latter Rain
who quickly developed the idea that the happenings in the land of Israel
foreshadowed spiritual events which would happen in the church, and visa-
versa.[338] This led Latter Rain movement leaders to draw from the well of
British Israel eschatology, which already had a long established set of
beliefs relating to the restoration of national Israel.
The Latter Rain movement’s penchant for adapting historic British
Israel eschatology produced an increasingly popular way for interpreting
contemporary events.[339] A conflict in the middle east quickly becomes a
sign that the end of days is at hand. The discovery of a red heifer signals the
imminent erecting of the temple in Jerusalem. A papal overture to the Israel
is proof the final tribulation is about to unfold. Revival leaders would
forecast that such events in the land of Israel correspond to a great revival
which is always just about to break out in the church. These concepts are
the product of the Latter Rain movement’s adaptions of historic British
Israel eschatology. Some writers have described these unique beliefs as the
“pentecostalization of Christian Zionism.”[340]
Ern Baxter’s Vancouver church was an early adopter of the Latter
Rain movement’s teachings. George Warnock, a close friend and former
secretary of Ern Baxter, captured these ideas in his 1951 book, The Feast of
Tabernacles. Like their British Israelite forefathers, they took the symbols
contained the Old Testament and used them to make prediction about the
future of the church. The use of the Old Testament patterns to develop new
ideas and forecast the future became a hallmark of the Latter Rain
movement. It was the British Israel belief that prophecies to national Israel
had application to the church which allowed them to make such leaps in
interpretation. This produced the concept that the modern church, the
United States, the United Kingdom, and other Anglo nations were destined
to repeat patterns found in the history of ancient Israel. The concept proved
extremely popular.
Leaders of the Latter Rain movement were able to use the latent
British Israel concepts to continue to take prophecies originally directed to
ancient Israel, and then to redirect those prophecies to themselves. One was
the Malachi 4 prophesy of the coming Elijah. While most Christians view
John the Baptist as the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy, the Latter Rain
theology continues to expect a future fulfillment of that prophecy within the
church, just like their British Israel forefathers. Over time, the interpretation
evolved from the expected coming of a singular Elijah, to the expectation
that the Elijah anointing would fall upon an entire generation of people.
The intense focus on Israel, and a strange obsession with the Elijah of
Malachi 4 continues to permeate many corners of the Christian world
influenced by the Latter Rain movement to this day. In scripture, Elijah was
empowered by God to perform great miracles that smote entire nations of
people. After the Mount Carmel showdown, Elijah took all of his enemies
who were present to a nearby valley where he had them all executed. It is
that raw display of power that seems to appeal to many figures obsessed
with the return of Elijah; many of them expect to perform a similar display
of power and purge of the wicked when the manifestation of the Elijah
comes; this closely links to their manifested sons of God theology.[341]
Pyramidology
Pyramidology also found an eager audience among the Latter Rain
crowd. Like Serpent Seed and the “lost tribes” idea, pyramidology was
gradually sidelines to the fringe of the movement. Yet it was a prominent
element in the early days of the Latter Rain.
Like their British Israel predecessors, many Latter Rain leaders
viewed Enoch as the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. They
incorporated the pyramid mythology that already existed within British
Israelism. Leaders in the movement, like William Branham, claimed the
pyramid was a bible. The believed that hidden secrets were embedded by
Enoch in the geometry of the pyramid. Since Enoch had “walked with God,
and was not found,” they believed he learned the secret of ascending to
heaven, or being raptured. This led some to obsess over unraveling the
secrets he supposedly left in the pyramid. They believed understanding the
mysteries was critically important to the church who could use the
information to be further enlightened about the imminent doomsday and
their own Enoch-style escape from it.[342]
William Branham,[343] George Hawtin,[344] George Warnock,[345] T L
Osborn, Gordon Lindsay, Joseph Mattson-Boze, and many other prominent
Latter Rain figures repeated these concepts in the 1950s and 1960s. Among
some groups like The Message, obsession over the “missing” cap stone of
the pyramid became closely linked to prophecies of the second coming.
Imagery and symbolism of the pyramid and its capstone became critical
elements of their theology.
Of course, the ideas of Pyramidology are all based on pseudo-
archaeology. The Great Pyramid was built by Pharoah Kufu, not Enoch.
Every reputable archaeological survey and historian who has examined the
“mystery” of the “missing” capstone have concluded that it was stolen by
looters during Egypt’s middle kingdom period. All the religious concepts
based on Pyramidology are purely fiction, and the people who believe and
promote them are quacks.
Manifested Sons of God
The doctrine for which the Latter Rain movement is most well-known
is often referred to as Manifested Sons of God. Manifested Sons and its
supporting doctrines exploded into popularity. While serpent seed, the “lost
tribes” concept, and pyramidology were not uniformly accepted by the
broader Latter Rain movement, some variant of Manifested Sons was
accepted in every branch of the Latter Rain movement. The doctrine of
Manifested Sons and its variants are known by several different names
including, “perfecting of the saints”, dominionism, little gods or little
Christs, Joel’s army, and a number of other labels. The label itself can be a
hang up for the different groups who believe this ideology, as they will deny
believing this ideology unless you use the specific terminology which they
employ. Therefore, it is important to actually examine the concepts and
ideas within the belief, rather than the labels given to the doctrines. It is
further important to trace their connections to see if they link back to
figures of the Latter Rain movement. These will aid in establishing a Latter
Rain Manifested Sons link to them and their teachings.[346]
The teaching – regardless of the label – is an evolution of an old
heresy incorporated into British Israelism from the teachings of Jane Lead
and Joanna Southcott. Those teachings were first explored in chapter 3. The
belief is that at the end of days, an elite group of Christians will attain a
state of perfect holiness, become enlightened to final mysteries, and then in
a last days revival become the manifested sons of God who alone will be
eligible for the rapture and to rule and reign on earth as the manifestation of
Christ. The “manifested sons” ideas easily meshed with the full
sanctification and sinless perfection concepts which some Pentecostals
inherited from the Higher Life movement.[347] It also meshed well with their
restorationist views – as the climax they expected when the restoration was
completed.
The fact that the manifested sons concept originated in Jane Lead’s
earlier teachings can be found by a simple review of the early Latter Rain
writings. George Warnock and George Hawtin both wrote favorably of Jane
Lead in their literature and reprinted excerpts of her teachings for
consumption by the Latter Rain movement. While Hawtin, Warnock and a
few others openly embraced Jane Lead, other Latter Rain leaders were more
covert about it; Franklin Hall, for example, plagiarized Lead and reprinted
segments of her writings without acknowledging their origins.[348] It is also
possible that they were simply unaware that Lead was the source. Charles
Price – from whom they likely obtained her writing – did not acknowledge
Lead as the source.
As with the other elements of British Israel influence into the Latter
Rain movement, precisely how the figures in the Latter Rain were
introduced to the writings of Jane Lead is unclear. There are multiple
possibilities. Bosworth and Lindsay were both life-long British Israelites at
the time the Latter Rain leaders were attending the Branham campaign
meetings; it is possible Latter Rain leaders obtained the knowledge directly
from the Branham campaigns. Ern Baxter’s close link to Sharon Orphanage
elders is a tantalizing clue that may indicate this to be true, but it is not the
only possibility. The most likely source is the one identified by Bill Britton.
Britton was another one of the earliest latter Rain leaders who worked
closely with Warnock and Hawtin. He credited Charles Price as the source
of Latter Rain’s access to Jane Lead’s Sixty Propositions.[349]
Charles Price may have been a British Israelite. While I have found no
indication in his writings that he accepted the “lost tribes” concept, other
elements were clearly present in his writings. He was certainly fond of Jane
Lead’s teachings. In 1939, Price published an article in the Pentecostal
Evangel entitled “The Coming revival.”[350] The article was believed by both
the Latter Rain and The Message to be a prophecy concerning the coming
of William Branham and the Latter Rain Revival.[351] Price’s article was, in
fact, a restatement of portions of Jane Lead’s Sixty Propositions. Price did
not disclose the source of the “prophecy” in the article, and many
incorrectly ascribed it to him.
Price died in 1947 and found among his papers was a full copy of Jane
Lead’s Sixty Propositions. The full text of the Sixty Propositions was shared
in Pentecostal circles at that time, and the prophecy was incorrectly
attributed to Price.[352] Before his death, Price worked closely with Amie
Semple McPherson, the Foursquare denomination, and had been influential
among the Elim churches who were early and enthusiastic supporters of the
Latter Rain movement. It seems most likely that Lead’s teachings were
transmitted to the early Latter Rain leaders via Charles Price – either
directly or indirectly.
It is also possible, but less likely, that Lead’s writings were introduced
directly via the Southcottian mystics who were still a significant faction of
the non-Pentecostal British Israel movement in the United States during the
1950s. There is a fourth possibility that the Latter Rain leaders found their
way to Jane Lead’s teachings via Jehovah’s Witness founder Charles Taze
Russel. Russel also incorporated some of Jane Lead’s teachings into his
writings. It also is possible they found their way to Lead by multiple routes
and viewed the convergence on Lead as a confirmation of her authenticity.
Whatever the case, it is safe to say the initial Manifested Sons ideas evolved
directly out of concepts imported into the Latter Rain movement from Jane
Lead’s Sixty Propositions: Charles Price being the most likely middleman.
Was William Branham aware of Charles Price’s “Coming Revival”
prophecy? Yes, he referenced his familiarity with it directly[353] on multiple
occasions.[354] Price’s prophecy – which was Lead’s Sixty Propositions – is a
nearly perfect blueprint for The Message. Not only does Lead’s prophecy
provide the framework for manifested sons of God, it also predicts the
future revelation of the seven seals will unveil a secret mystery to provide
rapturing faith to escape the doomsday. Branham led his followers to
believe he was a fulfillment of Price’s prophecy.[355]
Lead’s 1701 book entitled The Revelation of Revelations: The Seven
Seals, The Seven Thunders, and the New-Jerusalem State described how
this manifestation would occur. It would require “a virgin church, which
hath known nothing of man”, and that “this church so brought forth and
signed with the mark of the divine name, shall be adorned with
MIRACULOUS GIFTS AND POWERS.” The Sixty Propositions states that
this was a perquisite to the second coming saying, “Until there be such a
church made ready upon the earth ... and so anointed, that is without all spot
or wrinkle, and that is adorned as a bride to meet her bridegroom, CHRIST
will not personally descend…” The subsequent statement provides the
concept for Manifest Sons: “For CHRIST before his own distinct and
personal appearance, will first appear and represent himself in some
CHOSEN VESSEL or vessels anointed to be leaders unto the rest, and to
bring them into the promised land.”[356] (Note word are capitalized as they
were in Lead’s original writings.)[357]
Lead claimed that these anointed ones would be “manifested in the
last age of the world,” and ended with a warning that only these figures
could participate in the rapture and rule and reign with Christ,. “None but
those … can thus ascend, and none, but those that have so ascended, and
received of his glory, can descend again to communicate the same, being
thereby his representatives upon the new earth”.
As you can see, the core concepts of manifested sons already pre-
existed the Latter Rain movement in an obscure and heretical branch of
“Christianity”. The concept was transmitted to the Latter Rain movement as
part of a larger package of British Israelite teachings. What is unclear is
whether the Latter Rain leaders were aware of the gnostic origin of Lead’s
teachings or whether they purposefully hid that knowledge.[358]
What is equally important is that some early adherents of Latter Rain
believed William Branham to be one of the anointed figures the prophecy
referred to. They viewed Branham as a prototype of sorts, and they set
about to emulate the “miracles” and practices they had witnessed in his
revival meetings. The most radical of these figures eventually left Canada
and ended up as members of the Branham Deity Cult who worshipped
Branham as God incarnate, which I will describe at length in chapter 12.
Despite their assertions of having a restored gift of discernment, the
leaders of the Latter Rain dove headfirst into utter heresy and ignored the
obvious red flags. As the serpent tempted Eve, suggesting she could be as
God, the Latter Rain movement succumbed to the idea that they too could
be as God, exercising unlimited divine power in a manner equal to Jesus
Christ. The architects of the early Latter Rain movement, inspired by Lead’s
ideas, adapted these concepts into the teachings now known as Manifested
Sons of God.
The earliest recorded formulation of “manifested sons” theology can
be found in George Warnock’s 1951 Feast of Tabernacles book.[359] In the
book, Warnock documented a belief that had already developed within the
Latter Rain movement; he was not the sole party responsible for the
formulation. In the book he credits prophesies[360] that were given at the
outset of the Latter Rain revival in 1948 as breathing life in the of
Manifested Sons of God concept, and he went on to make quotes and
paraphrases of the writings of Jane Lead and Charles Russell.[361]
Warnock used the Jewish feast of tabernacles found in the book of
Leviticus as a template to predict an imminent event in which Christ would
return in a spiritual form and “tabernacle” himself in the flesh of members
of the church. This event was supposed to result in these figures becoming
manifestation of Christ. These manifested sons, or little Christs, would be
empowered with gifts of the Holy Spirit such that they could perform
miracles comparable to those Christ performed in the Gospels. Controlling
the weather, pronouncing curses, raising the dead, healing the sick, and
having absolute power over all the forces of evil would all be within the
abilities of these manifested sons.
Over time, this power of the manifested sons came to be described as
the power of the spoken word, or the word of faith, or the rhema or the
logos. This power was supposed to operate on the same basis as positive
confession – a pure and total faith that the words spoken would come to
pass. It was explained to be the same power by which God spoke creation
into existence. The manifested sons would wield this power of the spoken
word to accomplish the will of God on earth. They could speak life, death,
healing, cursing, prosperity, peace, or anything other thing that God willed
to be created or done. These concepts were directly influenced by the
teachings and practices of William Branham, as well as the historic
influences of positive confession that came with British Israelites.
One of the early divisions among Latter Rain adherents was just how
to fit Manifested Sons within their overall dispensationalist system. The
main branch of the movement (as represented by the Independent
Assemblies of God) viewed the manifestation as something that would
immediately precede the rapture of the church. They expected one final
great revival in which the manifestation would occur, followed by the
rapture. A lesser faction, which included Sharon Orphanage, dropped their
belief in the pre-tribulation rapture altogether. They instead believed the
manifested sons would establish the millennial kingdom, and then Christ
would return.
Both groups believed in a purge of the wicked that would occur at the
time of the manifestation. The belief is normalized by adherents but may
sound quite shocking to outsiders. The manifest sons would essentially be
God’s Gestapo. It would be their responsibility to oversee the global
extermination or subjugation of everyone who rejected the “truth.” The
means to accomplish this would be using the power of the spoken word to
bring about their judgement. Once the wicked were decisively eliminated,
heaven on earth would ensue with the manifested sons ruling over a global
theocracy as Christ on earth, in them. This aspect of Manifested Sons is
often referred to as dominionism. If you are unfamiliar with this ideology, I
am sure this sounds quite horrific and apocalyptic. But if you grew up in the
doomsday cult, I was a member of, this is just part of the course. The
groups which dropped belief in the rapture are the most radical of all – they
expect to perform this this purge before the bodily return of Christ.
Besides using the Jewish feast of tabernacles as the basic framework
to justify the belief in the manifestation of the sons of God, Warnock gave a
lengthy list of proof texts from the New Testament. From the “perfecting of
the saints” to “groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God” to
“greater works than these shall ye do”, Warnock chained together many
proof texts that were slowing being assembled to build a robust biblical
rationale for the belief system. What is important to notice is that these
beliefs were not arrived at by the plain reading of scripture, but through
finding creative ways to justify belief of the Sixty Propositions in scripture.
 Warnock was the first to record the manifested sons ideas. Warnock’s
writings reflect the growing consensus among leaders in early days of the
Latter Rain movement. Little documentation exists from the first two years
of the Latter Rain movement when the various components of the ideology
came together. Things were moving so quickly, and everything was being
shared orally. Until Warnock’s book, no one had bothered to record much of
anything. Before Warnock’s book, we have only a few dozen documents
and recordings produced by the movement from 1948 through 1950. Most
of what we know from those first years has been handed down to us orally
by the men who were there when it all happened.
It should be noted that Serpent Seed, the “lost tribes”, and obsession
with Israel all factored into manifested sons of God. The manifested sons
were the good seed of the house of Israel. The serpent seed was the wicked
seed that would have to be purged or subjugated. Events occurring in the
land of Israel were the barometer used to detect how imminent all these
things were. The Latter Rain movement coined the phrase “Israel is God’s
timepiece.”
Restorationism, Five-Fold Ministry, and Perfecting of the Saints
The early writings from the Latter Rain movement laid out the grand
vision for the manifestation of the sons of God and created the perception of
scriptural legitimacy for the teachings. The leaders were slower to settle on
the methods for achieving this manifestation. It would not be until the mid
and late 1950s when the Latter Rain movement had fleshed out the details.
Disputes over the details led to schisms, and various teachings
developed and evolved differently in the diverging branches of the
movement. In general, believers in the movement accepted the idea that the
manifestation of the sons would occur when members of the church reached
a required state of perfection. Exactly what that state of perfection entailed
was a detail that varied. In The Message, William Branham described it in
his sermon Stature of a Perfect Man. Other Latter Rain branches took a
similar approach, each with their own unique formula for just what it
looked like.
Perfection was required in three areas. First was personal perfection
which was defined similar to the sinless perfection ideas of the Higher Life
movement. The desire for personal perfection resulted in an ever-increasing
list of rules to be obeyed. Whenever leaders observed that the manifestation
had not begun as expected, it was chalked up to the fact that they were not
perfect enough yet. This led them to naturally seek out new rules to add to
the list in pursuit of the perfection they so desperately were looking for.
Second was corporate perfection. Perfection of the corporate church
was of equal importance to personal perfection to achieve the manifested
sons. Corporate perfection was often described as “unity”. It was a state
where all members of the church functioned as the complete and perfectly
unified body of Christ. The exact details of what characterized this unity
varied by branch of the movement. It generally included a total and
unwavering commitment to the ideology of the movement and absolute
submission to the leadership of the church. Like individual perfection, the
requirements of corporate unity were frequently revised and expanded in
pursuit of the perfect unity required for the manifestation. In some groups
this took the form of attending more and more church services, spending
more time in bible studies, listening to recordings of bible teachings,
lengthy prayers, long sessions of speaking in tongues, extended fasting, or
the implementation of an increasingly communal lifestyle, among other
things. The belief often led to witch hunts.[362] Problems encountered by the
group were often chalked up to someone secretly harboring “division” in
their hearts and failing to uphold perfect unity. Discovering such individuals
and eliminating the “division” became a natural obsession in many groups.
The third area of required perfection was the “perfect” understanding
of scripture and doctrine. Over time, this led to ever more complex
explanations of prophecy, symbolism, and concepts developed by the
leaders. It also led to hyper vigilance in detecting “false” teachings. Every
doctrine and concept was resultingly elevated to that of an essential non-
negotiable doctrine; freedom of conviction and diversity of thought was
lost. Each group developed a unique emphasis on varying “revelations”
critical to the perfect understanding of the “truth.” Most branches of the
Latter Rain took an absolutist approach and insisted they alone had the only
“truth.” Going back to the Sixty Propositions, some groups also developed
an obsession with the “revelation” of the seven seals which they viewed as
being the key to unlocking the ultimate hidden truth.[363]
This pursuit of perfection put the leaders of the movement into an
incredibly powerful position. George Hawtin was promoting “five-fold
ministry” ideas from the very outset of the movement. Conveniently,
Ephesians 4 (in the King James version) stated that the God had given the
ministry for the “perfecting of the saints”. Latter Rain leaders used this
scripture to create an elevated ministerial class. They believed that only
through leadership of this class could perfection be obtained. The need for
this “five-fold” ministry became a critical component to achieving the
manifested sons and all corners of the movement were soon attempting to
implement a “five-fold” ministry model.[364]
Warnock explained it as follows in his 1951 book.
Prayer and repentance in themselves are not the means by
which the saints are to be perfected. Neither is the rapture of
the Church the plan of God for the perfecting of the saints,
and their deliverance from sin and carnality. God has another
plan – a far more glorious plan, and yet a very simple plan;
and here it is: "And he gave some, apostles; and some,
prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and
teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all
come in (unto) the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ"[365]

Believing they were restoring the biblical form of church leadership

which was critical to the fulfillment of the manifested sons, the Latter Rain
movement appointed apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists and teachers to
lead the churches. They typically did this through the laying on of hands
and the utterance of a prophecy to provide direction to the ordained
minister.
This so-called “five-fold ministry” was believed to be the required
leadership structure to achieve perfection. Members of the movement came
to believe their only hope of perfection laid in the teachings of their
ministry. The ministers effectively placed themselves into a godlike role
over their followers. Many would go so far as to say rejecting them was the
equivalent to rejecting God. As time progressed, the members of the
movement began to increasingly obey their leaders in a very mindless
fashion and horrors began to ensue.
In Hawtin’s arrangement, each office of ministry had unique features.
The apostle was the most senior of the five, and held ultimate authority. A
commonly used phrase coined by Hawtin said that “the apostle’s job was to
hold the plumb line on the scripture.” This phrase spread everywhere with
the ideology. Use of the word “plum line” in relation to the apostles is a
dead giveaway that a group is using the Latter Rain invented definition of
“five-fold ministry”. Another prominent illustration first made by Hawtin
was his comparison of the five-fold ministry to the five fingers on a hand,
where the apostle was like a thumb. It was a unique role, superior to the
others in function, and without which the rest could not function properly.
[366]
While the thumb could be successful working with any single finger –
none of the other fingers could be successful without the thumb. The effect
of the concepts put the apostles into total control and gave them final say on
matter of scriptural interpretation. Whoever found themselves in the top
spots of power, tended towards creating system that had little accountability
and allowed them to have nearly absolute unchecked control over every
aspect of their organization and following.
Despite their claims, the Latter Rain movement failed to find the road
to utopia. Instead, they had found a toxic cocktail that contained all the
critical elements to produce an endless supply of cults. None of them ever
became perfect. The manifestation of the sons of God never occurred.
Seventy-five years have now passed. Their leaders are all dead, and almost
all of the first generation of adherents. This is conclusive evidence they
were seriously mistaken in their belief in the imminent end of days during
their lifetime. What they left behind are numerous people influenced by the
Latter Rain movement who ended up abused, raped, molested, tortured,
financially destitute, mental basket cases, and most sadly in the worst cases,
killed by the dark horrors found in some corners of the Latter Rain
movement. Some branches of the Latter Rain rapidly degenerated into some
of the worst doomsday cults ever known.
Latter Rain Branches Out (1948-1949)
As with most revivals of this type which are known in the modern era,
the Latter Rain revival started among young people who were attending the
Sharon Orphanage Seminary School which was part of Sharon’s Global
Missions department. The entire organization was in its infancy, barely a
year old, and the students and faculty had spent most of the prior year
constructing their dorms and assembly halls.
There were five elders at Sharon Orphanage when the revival began.
George Hawtin became first president of Global Missions in 1947. Herrick
Holt and George Hawtin were the two most senior leaders at the time of the
revival. George’s brother Ern Hawtin, George Warnock, and James Watt
were other notable figures on staff in 1947 who were also serving as elders.
They were present to witness the revivals. No contemporary reports of the
revival were created. It was not until about a year later that attendees began
to record anything about it. Ern Hawtin wrote the earliest recorded account
of how the revival started in a Sharon Orphanage newsletter in 1949.[367]
After months of fasting and prayer desiring a manifestation in their midst
similar to what they had witnessed in Branham’s revivals, they finally
received what they were looking for on February 12, 1948. While there
were a few reports of healing in the early part of the revival, the primary
manifestation of the revival seems to be prophecies. Most of the prophecies
were personal in nature, directed from one individual to another. They
generally gave directions to the recipient about their ministry and
supernatural gifts which God was conferring to them. Some of the
prophecies instructed individuals to marry.[368] Few details of these 1948
prophecies have been documented which make them difficult to evaluate.
Some details have been passed down as legend. If the legends are true, one
can only conclude the prophecies have gone unfulfilled, and now the people
intended to fulfill them are all dead.
When the Latter Rain revival broke out at North Battleford’s Sharon
Orphanage, it remained largely contained to North Battleford for the first
several months, but it didn’t take long for curious seekers to come
investigate. The first big break out for Latter Rain occurred when A. W.
Rasmussen invited George Hawtin to speak at the Independent Assemblies
of God annual convention in Edmonton, Alberta in October 1948. Ern
Baxter and Joseph Mattson-Boze were both in attendance. Branham was
hospitalized for his mental breakdown at the time, leaving Baxter with a
free schedule.
Harold Allcock, pastor of a large Apostolic Church jointly sponsored
the meeting with Rasmussen, giving Latter Rain a door to both the oneness
and trinitarian sides of Pentecostalism. It is at this convention that the
"heavenly choir" was first experienced. Ern Baxter said of the convention,
"I never saw such a concentration of the power of God." Through Baxter,
we can be sure Branham was aware of the Latter Rain revival from at least
1948.
Boze immediately returned to his church after the services and began
to publicize and praise the revival in Herald of Faith. His Chicago church,
named the Philadelphia Church, was the flagship church of the Independent
Assemblies of God and very quickly became the most important hub of the
Latter Rain movement.
The second big break out of Latter Rain happened when Ern and
George Hawtin were invited to hold meetings at Glad Tidings Temple in
Vancouver in November 1948. Myrtle Beall, pastor of Bethesda Missionary
Temple in Detroit joined the meetings. Beall was so inspired she returned to
hold similar revivals at her own church in December 1948 which was
attended by Carlton Spencer, the founder of the Elim Bible Institute and
prominent figure in the Elim Missionary Fellowship. Elim was a smaller
Pentecostal denomination with associated churches in the United States,
Canada, and the United Kingdom. The Elim Churches embraced the
revival. Bill Britton was also in attendance at Beall’s revivals, which served
as his introduction to Latter Rain.
By this time, word of the movement’s activities had returned to
Assemblies of God leaders in Missouri and Stanly Frodsham went to
investigate. Frodsham was editor the Pentecostal Evangel, the official
magazine of Assemblies of God and one of the founding fathers of the
denomination. Frodsham had published Charles Price’s “prophecy” of a
revival in 1939. His attendance and reports of Latter Rain practices he
returned with put Latter Rain on the radar of Assemblies of God leaders.
In February of 1949, Wings of Healing Temple pastor Thomas Wyatt
in Portland Oregon, invited George Hawtin to a revival. Over ninety
ministers from all over North America who were curious to learn more
about Latter Rain were in attendance and listened as Hawtin shared the
details and experiences. Alton Lee, pastor of Immanuel Gospel Temple in
Los Angeles was taken by the presentation and carried the ideas back to his
church, which soon became one of the notable hubs of the Latter Rain. Lee
was a prominent Foursquare minister and was instrumental in propagating
the Latter Rain ideas among the Los Angeles Foursquare community and
throughout Foursquare’s network of churches.
By the spring of 1949, the Latter Rain movement had spread to at least
one hundred different churches and was enjoying rapidly growing support.
George Hawtin was invited to speak at some of the key hubs of
Pentecostalism. In early 1949, Roy Borders came on board and traveled
with Hawtin and began promoting the Latter Rain; Borders and Hawtin held
joint revivals in St. Louis in September 1949.[369]
William Branham’s Role in Latter Rain
William Branham’s leadership role in the Healing Revivals is well
known and generally acknowledged by everyone involved. William
Branham’s role in the Latter Rain movement, however, is often downplayed
or outright denied by some of the groups which are descended from the
movement. Those who deny his close links to the Latter Rain movement
generally neglect to explain his relationship with the Independent
Assemblies of God.
The Independent Assemblies of God’s flagship church was the
Philadelphia Church in Chicago. The IAoG was an affiliation of several
hundred independent churches who functioned as a loose decentralized
fellowship. It had no general council, no denominational level bodies, nor
many of the other trappings of a typical denomination. The IoAG did have a
newsletter magazine which circulated among its hundreds of affiliated
churches, called the Herald of Faith which was published from the
Philadelphia Church, located in Chicago.
The IoAG became the main center of the Latter Rain movement early
on, and Sharon Orphanage was rapidly eclipsed as primary hub of the
movement. A. W. Rasmussen, who had formerly been pastor of the
Philadelphia Church and Superintendent of the IoAG, embraced the Latter
Rain movement in late 1948. His large church in Edmonston was the
gateway for Latter Rain ideas to enter the IoAG. Joseph Mattson-Boze,
pastor of the Philadelphia Church and Superintendent of the denomination
at the time of revival’s outbreak enthusiastically embraced the Latter Rain
movement.
Sharon Orphanage, under Hawtin’s leadership and at the urging of A.
W. Rasmussen, formally joined the IoAG denomination.[370] Sharon
remained in the denomination until about 1955 when a doctrinal schism at
North Battleford led the other elders to expel George Hawtin.[371] George
Hawtin remained in fellowship with both the IoAG and the other churches
that later evolved into the early Message community for the rest of his life.
Within this larger branch of the Latter Rain movement, the usage of
the phrase “Latter Rain” transitioned over time. By the 1960s it came to
refer to the smaller segment of the movement that remained in fellowship
with Sharon Orphanage. This was convenient as the term “Latter Rain”
developed many negative connotations. It was necessary for the main
branch to distinguish itself from the increasingly extreme Sharon crowd.
Naturally, the Sharon Orphanage faction considered themselves the “true
Latter Rain movement” and were pleased to have the term ceded to them.
Within the main branch of the movement, the term “The Message” evolved
as a shorthand way to refer to their beliefs by the mid-1950s.
The distinctives of Sharon Orphanage’s unique adaptation of Latter
Rain and manifested sons of God beliefs are well known to early leaders in
The Message. Message leaders use these distinctions to distance themselves
from criticism of the ideology, often in a manner that is quite misleading
with their audiences. William Branham and The Message remained firmly
in the mainstream of the Latter Rain movement who continued to believe in
the manifestation of the sons of God as an immediate prelude to the rapture,
while Sharon orphanage took a markedly more dominionist[372]
amillennial[373] point of view.[374] Sharon Orphanage rejected William
Branham in their post-Hawtin era.[375] Branham spoke negatively at times of
the post-Hawtin era of Sharon Orphanage and noted that he developed
differences with them.[376] It is important to recognize that Sharon
Orphanage went through two distinct periods of ideological development
between 1948 and 1960. It did not fully embrace the dominionist
amillennial views until the early 1950s. A faction of the original Sharon
Orphanage elders opposed the dominionst amillennial position. It was their
exit that ceded Sharon Orphanage to the opposition. George Hawtin was
overthrown in about 1955 by the Warnock-Holt faction. Hawtin remained in
the IoAG camp following the split, whereas Sharon Orphanage and its
friends broke away into their own branch at that point.[377] George Hawtin
continued to visit and preached at Messge churches in both Indiana and
Arizona as late as 1990.
As I will explore in chapter 12, the sects of The Message – except the
Deity Cult – applied manifested sons to a pre-tribulation rapture framework.
Sharon Orphanage views Latter Rain and manifested sons of God in a
dominionist amillennial context. But make no mistakes – these two variants
derive from the same source. It is an obfuscation of the truth when the
adherents of the two different versions deny any relationship with the other.
This difference is merely one of a number of disputes which divided the
early Latter Rain movement.
 Many of the churches who exited the mainstream Pentecostal
denominations because of the influence of the Latter Rain movement found
a new home, at least temporarily, in the IoAG. Until 1957, the IoAG
represented the main body of the Latter Rain movement and contained the
majority of Latter Rain influenced congregations of the period. In 1950,
Herald of Faith merged with the Latter Rain Messenger which had been an
early organ of the Latter Rain movement. The IoAG provided the
organizational framework for the early Latter Rain movement.
Rasmussen and Boze were two of William Branham’s most important
supporters. They financed many of his revivals in the 1950s, including his
overseas revival tours of Europe. William Branham was by far the most
prominent minister among the IoAG during the 1950s. The nature of his
influence was informal. He was the keynote speaker at every major IoAG
convention from 1950 until his death in 1965. He was a frequent guest
speaker at IoAG churches, especially the Philadelphia Church, churches in
western Canada, the American Midwest and south, and several on the west
coast. Over time, as Branham was sanctioned by the various denominations,
William Branham would find IoAG churches to be the most loyal to him
and his teachings outside of his own following. In fact, a large faction of the
people who would form the early Message community came directly from
IoAG churches. Some of the trustees of the Branham Tabernacle, the
William Branham Evangelistic Association, Spoken Word, and pastors of a
number of the first Message churches were all from the IAoG.[378]
William Branham’s sermons, predictions, and prophecies were
featured prominently in almost every edition of Herald of Faith. Herald of
Faith replaced Voice of Healing to serve as Branham’s primary publicity
tool following a temporary falling out between Branham and Gordon
Lindsay in 1953.[379] After 1957, Branham’s close associates, including Fred
Sothman, Leo Mercer, and Roy Borders also had their sermons and writings
published in Herald of Faith – all of which were aimed and promoting
William Branham as a special end-time messenger to the broader Latter
Rain Movement.
If one only looks narrowly at Sharon Orphanage when reviewing the
Latter Rain movement, it can be easy to overlook the influence of William
Branham on the development of the overall movement. Most historians
accurately credit Branham as providing the spark for the Latter Rain
movement. However, Branham did not merely provide the spark for the
movement. Through the IoAG he was also one of the major influences on
its development.
While recognizing Branham for the important figure he was in the
movement, it is also important to recognize the limits of his influence and
acknowledge that other figures in the movement counter-influenced him.
The key distinctive doctrines of the Latter Rain movement all existed in a
primitive form within the British Israel influenced branch of Pentecostalism
before Branham ever rose to prominence. He did not originate any of the
teachings, but he did popularize some of them and play a role in influencing
their development.
 Chapter 7
The Cracks Emerge
1953-1954
He who speaks of himself seeks his
own glory.
– Jesus Christ
Assemblies of God Expels the Latter Rain Movement
(1949-1952)
One of the most repeated legends in The Message is the belief that
William Branham was sent as a prophet to declare “Come out of her my
people, that ye be not partakers of her sins” (Revelation 18:4) to bride of
Christ who were “trapped in the confusion” of denominational churches.
This belief is a key pillar that reinforces the walls around The Message
communities. The truth is more complicated. Branham was late to the game,
and the Latter Rain movement had already started the denominational exit
years before Branham began to call for it.
The teaching was not new to William Branham. In fact, it was not
even new to the Latter Rain movement. The Seventh Day Adventist
movement, which was a non-Pentecostal movement, developed the idea
during the 1800s. The Jehovah Witnesses diverged from the Adventists in
the 1870s and also incorporated some of the same ideas. The Adventist
movement and the Jehovah Witnesses who came after, developed the idea
that all other Christians were apostate and that the command to “come out
of her my people” was directed at true Christians to exit all Catholic and
Protestant denominations and reestablish the true form the Christian faith.
The Adventist writings of Uriah Smith and the Jehovah Witness
writings of Charles Russell both elaborated on the belief. They stated that
the Catholic Church is the Great Whore of Revelation 17. That was a
common protestant belief at the time. However, more uniquely, they
claimed that the Protestant denominations were the Great Whore’s harlot
daughters, and anyone who was a part of either had effectively taken the
mark of the beast or was worshipping its image. They believed that at the at
the final end of days, both Catholics and Protestants would reunite to bring
persecution against the true church.[380] The concept had evolved out of the
teachings of William Miller from whom both the Adventists and the
Jehovah Witnesses movements have their roots.[381] Uriah Smith’s teachings
were well known to the leaders of the Latter Rain movement and William
Branham. Branham incorporated many concepts directly from Smith’s
writings, including his anti-denominational teachings.[382]
 Using the same language and scriptures as the Adventists, with
slightly adapted arguments, the leaders of the Latter Rain movement began
to label all denominations “Babylon” and insisted that members of their
movement must separate from the any “denominational system”. Exactly
what constituted a denominational system was rather vague. In general, the
belief manifested itself as a refusal to accept any sort of a statement or
confession of faith and to establish the total operational independence of
each local church body. The belief did not, at first, prohibit the membership
in a larger formal fellowship of churches. Most of the early Latter Rain
influenced churches were part of the Elim Missionary Fellowship, the
Independent Assemblies of God, or the Full Gospel Fellowship
International.
There was no immediate effort by the Latter Rain influenced churches
to exit the denominational structure at the initial onset of the movement. In
fact, they had been so successful with that they gained nearly denomination
wide acceptance from Independent Assemblies of God and the Elim. The
onset of the anti-denominational “revelations” began in the Latter Rain
movement as a reaction to sanctions being issued against Latter Rain by
Assemblies of God and Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. They became
increasingly strident with time as most of the other established Pentecostal
denominations followed suit. The older denominations slowly moved to put
the brakes on the Latter Rain movement starting with Assemblies of God in
September 1949.
George Hawtin was already bitter towards Pentecostal Assemblies of
Canada over what he believed to be their high-handedness and overly
controlling denominational bodies. He saw the reaction of the mainstream
Pentecostal denominations to the Latter Rain movement as more of the
same. It further reinforced his belief that the older Pentecostal
denominations were fallen and corrupt. He was among the very first to
being openly preaching the anti-denominational rhetoric in 1949 and 1950.
A number of the practices of the Latter Rain movement began to
concern leaders of the Assemblies of God. They issued a carefully worded
resolution at their 1949 general conference clarifying their position on
various teachings emerging from the Latter Rain movement. While the
resolution applauded some elements of the revival, it condemned other
elements. Among their concerns was implementation of the five-fold
ministry model of church governance and the ordaining of ministers simply
through the laying on of hands and personal prophecies. They opposed the
creation of offices of apostle and the ordination of any ministerial
candidates who had not been checked against even basic criteria of the
qualification for ministry. Additionally, they opposed the Latter Rain
practice of giving prophecies of personal direction to individuals.[383] Very
wisely, their leaders recognized and attempted to curtail the very elements
which would lead to the creation of the authoritarian structures and much of
the abuse within the Latter Rain movement. However, the leaders of the
Latter Rain viewed the sanctions as an effort to halt their attempt to restore
what they believed to be the original form of church governance.
As I explored in chapter 6, The Latter Rain movement viewed their
“five-fold ministry” ideas within the framework of their understanding of
restorationism – a desire to restore the church to its original form in the
book of Acts. And within the framework of restorationism, the Latter Rain
leaders believed they were restoring a model form of church leadership. In
most of their groups, they tended towards creating autonomous churches,
led by singular authoritarian leaders with a capacity for near total control of
their followers. The most successful leaders declared themselves apostles
and secured control over a network of churches. In some groups, the leaders
were benevolent, but in other groups the leaders were malevolent; most
groups gradually drifted into varying degrees of radical extremes.
In the view of the Latter Rain movement, the five-fold ministry was
one of the important means by which they would achieve manifested sons
of God. Any attempt to prevent them from commissioning apostles and
prophets attacked the very heart of their emerging ideology.
The relationship between the Latter Rain Movement and the
mainstream Pentecostal denominations began to further deteriorate
following the AoG resolution. After the 1949 resolution, efforts were made
to sanction and dismiss ministers from their denomination who were
tolerant and supportive of the Latter Rain practices. Stanley Frodsham was
an important leader at AoG headquarters and editor of the Pentecostal
Evangel – the same man who had brought the AoG leadership their only
known first-hand account of the revival. Frodsham was among those forced
to resign, because he had returned with a resounding endorsement of the
Latter Rain. His expulsion along with the rebuke of ministers in dozens of
AoG churches who had already embraced the Latter Rain immediately
created a small but influential group of disenfranchised former AoG leaders
who openly criticized General Conference for their actions.
Sharon Orphanage and other leading congregations of the movement
reacted in furor as Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada joined AoG in the
crackdown in 1950. Instructions were circulated among the Latter Rain
movement for how congregants could remove a church from AoG or PAoC
and retain control of property and assets in what was essentially a hostile
takeover. The struggle was particularly fierce between the Latter Rain and
the PAoC . The fight left a rift between IoAG and PAoC that would take
two generations to heal.[384] Myrtle Beall’s Bethesda Missionary Temple was
among the largest AoG churches to exit the denomination, but it was hardly
the only one.
A number of AoG and PAoC churches broke away from the
denomination as the Latter Rain proponents secured control of property and
assets. Most of them made a new home with the Independent Assemblies of
God, at least temporarily.
Internally, the AoG was more divided over Latter Rain than their
resolution might have indicated. Roy Wead, the district Superintendent of
AoG in the state of Indiana was total opposition to the sanctions. He vocally
defended the Latter Rain movement to the Conference for multiple years.
He refused to enact sanctions in the state of Indiana, as did a number of
other district superintendents. These decisions had history altering
consequences as the Latter Rain movement ordained ministers like Jim
Jones. Jones launched his ministry in Assemblies of God churches in
Indiana during the period of Wead’s resistance. Wead was also a major
supporter of William Branham and regular attendee at his major events in
Indiana.[385]
The Latter Rain movement proved to be a platform that attracted and
welcomed the very worst caliber of ministers. Jim Jones was far from the
only dangerous cult leader to find a home in the movement during its early
days – and to also receive support and blessings of William Branham. Jones
ultimately led 909 people to their death, largely using the Latter Rain
doctrines to radicalize them. David “Moses Berg” was another figure to be
blessed by Branham. Berg, after being ejected from the Christian
Missionary Alliance for sexual misconduct in 1950, found his way to a
Branham meeting in Arizona where Branham helped him get reestablished
among his Latter Rain friends in Foursquare.
Men like Jim Jones and David Berg are conclusive evidence that the
concerns about the dangers posed by the Latter Rain movement’s practices
were legitimate. Their method of ordination was deeply flawed and easily
abused. I will explore the fruits of these and other similar figures in chapter
11.
Assemblies of God Withdraws From the Healing
Revivals (1953)
Despite the growing efforts to expel Latter Rain influences, elements
of the ideology proved appealing to many Pentecostals. The Latter Rain
would not be easily dealt with and would require a more concerted
crackdown to eliminate than the efforts of 1949 and 1950. The conflict with
the denominations escalated in 1953 when the Assemblies of God became
the first denomination to withdraw from participation in the Healing
Revivals. The same year AoG began a more assertive campaign to expel
and defrock anyone who continued to support either Latter Rain or Healing
Revival practices that had been condemned by their General Assembly.
Jack Coe, one of the leading deliverance evangelists of the Healing
revival was expelled and defrocked. A. A. Allen was sanctioned.[386] Even
districts led by rebellious superintendents, like Indiana’s Roy Wead’s found
themselves overruled by figures from denominational headquarters.
Numerous churches had their pastors removed and replaced with one who
could be trusted to abide by the General Assemblies’ decisions.
AoG continued this practice into the 1960s, removing pastors who
strayed into Latter Rain practices and replaced them with pastors from
denominational headquarters to bring the church back in line with AoG
orthodoxy. This occurred in 1966, for example, at Bethel Assembly of God
Full Gospel (today known as Bethel Church or Redding Church) when
Victor Trimmer was installed following revivals in which Bethel hosted
Latter Rain ministers.[387]
AoG’s withdrawal from the revivals began a slow-moving domino
effect of other Pentecostal denominations also cutting off financial support
for the Healing Revival and actively working to purge Latter Rain
supporters from their churches. Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada was next
to follow suit. Foursquare remained a fairly reliable sponsor, but even their
denominational level financial support for Branham’s campaigns ended in
1960. The United Pentecostal Church had directly financed Branham’s early
revivals in 1945, 1946 and 1947; their financial support began to wane and
ended by 1958, although they continued to host some of his revivals up
until his death in 1965. The Independent Assemblies of God were left as
Branham’s most reliable denominational sponsor. They continued to
provide him with strong support until the end of his life.
The other leading deliverance evangelists of the era experienced
similar levels of support from the denominations. It was the denominations
who bore the main financial burden of the healing revivals. Historians
debate the reasons that led the denominations to end their financial
sponsorship of the healing revivals. Most sources seem to pin the initial
cause for the withdrawal on the financial stress the revival was placing on
the denominational churches. It was a costly affair. The denominational
churches had been the primary financial sponsors of the healing revival
from early on. It was they who financed the rental of the large auditoriums
and the expenses of the evangelists and their campaign teams. Only the
evangelists who could muster their own resources and revenue would be
able to keep up their revival schedules with the loss of sponsorship.
Up until 1953, Branham had managed to avoid being caught up
directly in the growing divisions. He attempted very carefully to use inter-
denominational messaging and avoid publishing anything that would cause
doctrinal controversy among his primarily Pentecostal audiences. He had a
selection of about five sermons which he repeated at each revival. He
adjusted the title, and the details would vary a bit here and there, but in
essence his sermons generally focused on sharing personal experiences,
belief in miracles, and the importance of faith. That accurately described
every known recorded sermon of William Branham before 1953. The body
of beliefs that would form The Message did not exist before 1954, at least
not in the form of recorded sermons of William Branham. The beliefs that
would evolve into the Message did exist, however, within the Latter Rain
movement.
Before 1953, the primary issues faced by Branham were the serious
allegations of fraud that were being made by a number of investigations
into his healing practices. Although the allegations cast a shadow over his
ministry, Branham had been quite successful in countering the allegations in
the Voice of Healing with Gordon Lindsay’s help. It would ultimately be
Branham’s Latter Rain connections that led to his increasing separation
from the denominations. The Latter Rain schism finally began to impact
Branham in early 1953, but only indirectly at first. The withdrawal of
Assemblies of God’s financial support in 1953 hit Branham’s campaign in
the pocketbook. Although figures like Jack Coe and Asa Allen held more of
the blame for disrupting the relationship, Assemblies of God cut off
financial support to all of Voice of Healing Fellowship evangelists, which
included Branham.
The loss of their largest sponsor caused the evangelists to fall back on
their own fundraising efforts to make up the difference to continue to
finance their revivals. The evangelists developed varying methods to raise
revenue. Part of the Branham campaign’s strategy to was to begin selling
recordings of his sermons. But who would want to purchase multiple copies
of the same five sermons? Branham needed a regular supply of recordings
on new topics for his customers. Branham began selling a much wider array
of tapes in 1953. I genuinely believe finances motivated the decision to sell
recordings, and to increase the available selection.
In 1953, recordings were sold for $6 each. At $6 each, ($50 each in
2024 dollars) Branham and his team were able to bring in much needed
revenue. The side effect of this, however, was that it would become much
harder for him to hide his Latter Rain leanings with thousands of tapes were
circulating. Some of which were recordings of sermons he preached to
Latter Rain audiences.[388] Branham weathered the storm in 1953, but things
were about to become more challenging.
Gordan Lindsay and Donald Gee attempted to work out the situation
and find a way for the Voice of Healing Fellowship evangelists to the return
to the good graces of AoG. Unfortunately for Lindsay, the majority of the
evangelists working with Voice of Healing, including William Branham,
were dead set against bending to accommodate AoG. For a time, Gordon
Lindsay cut off publicity to the evangelists being sanctioned, thinking that
his enforcement of the AoG sanctions might restore Voice of Healing’s
reputation, and more importantly restore the lost financial support. The
offending evangelists were gradually cut from the Voice of Healing lineup
during 1953. At the same time, David Duplesis and Donald Gee joining the
staff of Voice of Healing on a “special” basis. It is reasonable for us to
believe this was part of an attempt by Lindsay to submit to Assemblies of
God. The same year, Voice of Healing raised subscription rates. The
magazine was likely losing subscribers beginning in 1952.
Voice of Healing issued a carefully worded explanation for why
evangelists were being dropped from their fellowship. The list of reasons
included “not meeting standards.” The editors did not provide a list of
names who were dropped. However, a comparison of prior editions shows
that O. L. Jagger and Jack Coe were among the first to be disfellowshipped.
[389]
By mid-1953, A. A. Allen and William Branham were the only
remaining A-list evangelists still being supported by the Voice of Healing;
T. L. Osborn being in a distant third place at the time.
By 1953, the independent Pentecostal churches who were friendly to
Latter Rain had begun to develop their own institutions which could
provide some financing and serve as a quasi-denomination for networking
their fellowship. Full Gospel Fellowship International was formed with the
support of Voice of Healing and many deliverance evangelists and Latter
Rain influenced ministers opened Full Gospel churches all over the United
States. These churches served as a new home for many disaffected
Pentecostals who were friendly to the deliverance evangelists and Latter
Rain ideas. The Full Gospel Fellowship had even fewer of the features of a
typical denomination than Independent Assemblies of God; they permitted
total autonomy of the local churches and there were no hierarchical
structures at all. At the same time, the Full Gospel Businessmen also arose
as a powerhouse for financing the efforts of the Full Gospel ministers and
the healing revivalist. Though they did not command the resources of the
Assemblies of God, they proved quite capable of financing a limited
number of global campaign revivals. The group of wealthy Pentecostals
used their money to great effect and after 1953 became Branham’s most
important financiers.
As the healing evangelists, like Jack Coe, Oral Roberts, O. L. Jaggers,
and A. A. Allen were increasingly forced to find their own new sources of
revenue through their own independent fundraising methods, some
succeeded, and others failed. The bigger names were successful in
establishing their own brand. Roberts rebranded his Healing Waters
newsletter to America’s Healing Magazine in 1953,[390] Coe launched
Herald of Healing, and Jaggers launched The Miracle Worker. Although no
data is available, one can only assume the sudden expansion of healing
magazines and competition for donations further harmed Voice of Healing.
Allen and Roberts also took to radio; Allen had an early lead with a
large national radio network that hosted his “Revival Hour” program each
week. He used the program to great effect to advertise and solicit donations.
Roberts was right on his heels and eventually overtook Allen. Both men
were well positioned to add a video camera to their radiocast and take their
programs to television as the first televangelists. Branham failed to compete
with Allen and Roberts on radio; A small number of radio stations broadcast
recordings of Branham’s sermons, but he never attempted to incorporate
live radio or establish a large broadcast network. This gave Roberts and
Allen an edge that would gradually erode Branham’s position as the most
popular of the evangelists and would hinder his efforts make it to television.
Most of the prominent television programs from the early 1950s, religious
or otherwise, evolved out of preexisting radio telecasts. Branham, however,
attempted to go straight to film and was unsuccessful.
Branham Chooses the Latter Rain (1954)
Donald Gee had been mediating between Voice of Healing and
Assemblies of God in an attempt to mend their relationship though 1953.[391]
It is likely that mediation effort that led Gordon Lindsay to enforce the
Assemblies of God sanctions on the deliverance evangelists. It seems
Lindsay may have expected the sanctions would force the evangelists to
reform and lead to a restoration AoG’s financial support. Lindsay was likely
surprised to find himself on the losing side of the battle as several of the
evangelists pulled out of Voice of Healing entirely and never looked back.
Branham’s continued affiliation with the Latter Rain churches led to
trouble at the end of 1953. An ultimatum was delivered to Branham in
December demanding that he stop associating with the Latter Rain groups.
Unless he distanced himself from Latter Rain movement, Branham would
be prohibited from speaking at Voice of Healing conventions. Branham
refused to bow and called their bluff. Arriving in Chicago in January 1954,
he first met with Boze and preached at the Philadelphia Church before
going across town to attend a Voice of Healing sponsored convention where
he was scheduled to speak. Upon entering the convention, Branham was
taken into a private room and confronted by several ministers over his
behavior.[392] Embarrassingly, Branham was sat down by the convention and
refused permission to speak as scheduled.[393]
Joseph Mattson-Boze and the Independent Assemblies of God reacted
with furor and immediately rose to the defense of Branham in the page of
The Herald of Faith. They issued their own ultimatum to the Voice of
Healing. Though left unnamed, the target of their response was clearly
Gordon Lindsay. The back and forth went on for several months as the two
magazines published open letters replying to each other. The immediate
effect was that Branham was totally cut off from Voice of Healing and the
publicity and the financial support which flowed through it. Joseph
Mattson-Boze was eagerly waiting in the wings and stepped in the fill the
gap. Boze and Latter Rain had won a great prize: Branham was now firmly
within their camp. Overnight, Herald of Faith became Branham’s main
publicity organ, Boze and the Independent Assemblies of God embraced
Branham whole-heartedly, and the newly formed Full Gospel Businessmen
were standing by to provide financial backing.
 Branham was not the only healing evangelist booted from Voice of
Healing. In fact, Voice of Healing lost all of its top performing evangelists
except A. A. Allen by the end of 1953. If Lindsay’s had thought he would
be able to bring the evangelists back in line, his plan backfired badly.
Instead, he lost all of the top talent in the Voice of Healing Fellowship and
threw the entire organization into a crisis. By mid-1954 he was able to patch
up his relationship with Branham, but things were never the same. Branham
had firmly chosen the Latter Rain crowd, and it was Lindsay who had
forced his hand.
The Branham Films (1954)
Branham experienced another relatively successful year in 1954,
despite the rough start. The Independent Assemblies were eager to prove
their value to Branham and booked what, in some ways, is the most fondly
remembered year of the healing revivals by Message followers. That year
marked Branham’s third overseas tour, which included a return to Europe
followed by a revival series in India. Ern Baxter and F. F. Bosworth chose
Branham’s side in the Voice of Healing schism and continued to travel with
him as supporting evangelists. The Full Gospel Businessmen and the
Independent Assemblies of God stepped up to finance the campaigns in the
absence of Assemblies of God’s sponsorship through the Voice of Healing.
The first half of the year was spent traveling around the United States.
Most of his big revivals in 1954 were sponsored by the IoAG and were
increasingly attracting Latter Rain friendly crowds; March and July
included revivals at Boze’s Philadelphia Church. June had meetings in
Washington D. C. August had major meetings in New York City the first
half of the month, and Los Angeles the second half. Foursquare cooperated
in support of the L. A. meetings, and the rest were primarily sponsored by
the IoAG and the newly established Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship.
Branham’s 1954 revivals are among the most well known healing
revivals in The Message community. When the average person in the
Message envisions Branham days of broad appeal, they generally conjure
up images of 1954. This is because 1954 is when the when the IoAG and
the Full Gospel Business Men financed the creation of two publicity films
which are legendary and beloved by The Message community.
The first of the two films is entitled The Chicago Campaign. It
features an interview with William Branham at his Jeffersonville home
conducted by Leroy Kopp, from Foursquare and L. A.’s Calvary Temple.
Foursquare had a film crew and many Hollywood figures in their
denomination. Foursquare provided the talent to produce the films and
Kopp oversaw the effort. After the interview, the film cuts to scenes of
Branham’s campaigns in Chicago during the summer of 1954. It featured a
healing line that showed Branham’s faith healing methods in action.
A second film, perhaps even more beloved than the first, was
produced later that summer by the same team with the sponsorship of the
Full Gospel Business Men. The film, entitled The Deep Calleth the Deep,
features the recording of a full service from Branham’s revival series in
Washington D. C. The film included both a sermon and a prayer line. The
film supposedly depicts Branham’s gift of healing in action. It is truly the
best-preserved evidence of Branham’s healing practices. It was at this
meeting that Branham convinced Ruth Strubler her daughter Carol had been
healed of leukemia, leading her stop her medical treatment. Carol died three
weeks after the film was recorded. Branham was roundly blamed by the
press and Carol’s mother. This may be why the film was buried and never
released to the public while Branham was living.
Although we have no preserved evidence of the reaction of Branham
and his supporters to the very negative publicity surrounding the death of
Carol Strubbler, it seems safe to believe it had some level of negative
impact to the Branham campaigns at the time. It is quite likely the reason
that no further films were created.
These two films became a staple to The Message community and are
the only two films of William Branham’s services that have ever been
released to the public.[394] Following Branham’s death in 1965, Pearry Green
acquired the videos from the Full Gospel Businessmen and published them
to The Message community for the first time.
In 1954, A.A. Allen and Oral Roberts were also beginning to produce
films of their revivals. They were in the early phases of launching what
would become televangelism. Branham’s films can be viewed as an attempt
to compete with his main evangelist rivals and to see if he could similarly
break into television.
Attendance at the meetings in 1954 was down compared to the prior
years, but Branham was still drawing crowds upwards of 5,000 at most of
his bookings. During 1954 Branham received far more publicly from
Herald of Faith than Voice of Healing. The sponsorship from the IoAG and
the Full Gospel Businessman proved to be the most reliable source of
revenue to keep the tours going. It appeared at first as if Branham had
chosen a winning team and found a viable way to continue his ministry.
Overseas Again (1954)
Beginning in late 1953, Branham began telling his audiences about a
planned trip to India following an invitation he supposedly received from an
Indian archbishop.[395] Branham continued to spin the story, stating that
Baron Von Blomberg had arranged a dinner between him and Indian Prime
Minister Nehru.[396] This, of course, is untrue. An analysis of the schedule of
Nehru would not put him within 1000 miles of Branham, and there is no
evidence whatsoever Branham ever met with Nehru while he was in India
or before.
As 1954 progressed, Branham talked up the proposed Indian revival
campaign. He told his audience he had been assured by the “Archbishop”
that a crowd of 500,000 would attend his meetings.[397] Branham was
probably seeking to drum up financial support and donations by using his
planned trip to India as a fundraising tool. Branham’s early plans for the trip
reveal he had a far more ambitious tour in mind than the one that happened.
He expected to spend a large part of the year overseas making stops across
Europe, Africa, and India.[398] He also indicated that his sponsors forced him
to cut back his plans which we can safely assume was due to their financial
limitations to fund his trip. Branham had intended to leave for India in
February but had to delay until September.[399]
Branham’s method of obtaining financial support was manipulative
and covert. He would rarely directly ask for donations. He tended to solicit
donations by speaking about a lack of sponsors and money, and then used
something akin to a guilt trip to convince his audiences to donate. We see
this throughout 1954 concerning his India trip as Branham regularly
bemoaned the lack of sponsorship for his overseas tour.[400]
Branham upped the ante in May when he began prophesying “Mark
my word; write it in the pages of your Bible, for it's THUS SAITH THE
LORD {…} when we land in India, you're going to hear of tens of
thousands of times thousands being saved.”[401] The prophetic promise to
save tens of thousands of lost souls did the trick. The IoAG stepped in and
ultimately picked up the tab for what the Full Gospel Businessmen were
unable to cover.[402]
Baron Frary Von Blomberg
Baron Frary Von Blomberg accompanied Branham on the trip as the
representative of the Full Gospel Businessman. Von Blomberg is an unusual
character. A native of New England, he endeared himself to a widowed
German aristocrat who adopted him as her son so he could inherit her title.
Still in his 30s, he next married a much older seventy-year-old Boston
socialite and heiress and gained access to a sizeable fortune.[403] Von
Blomberg became a trustee of Bob Jones University which gave him some
standing in the fundamentalist religious community.
Before World War II, Von Blomberg spent considerable time in
Germany. Through his adopted mother, he was first cousin of Warner Von
Blomberg – the minister of War in the Nazi German government. This
afforded Von Blomberg a high level of access to the German government,
and permitted him to have personal meetings with Hitler; the pair toured the
Dachau concentration camp together shortly before World War II began.[404]
While there is no clear evidence that Von Blomberg was himself a Nazi, his
activity during the period raises many questions.
Following World War II, Frary Von Blomberg setup an international
aid society whose chief aim was to help German refugees escape Germany
and settle elsewhere in the world. Circumstantial evidence suggests he was
operating one of the rat lines by which Nazi war criminals were able to
escape accountability for their atrocities. Von Blomberg certainly had a
number of ex-Nazis friends in post-war Germany.
Most unusual of all, Von Blomberg was also a fairly open
homosexual.[405] Trying to reconcile how this man became such an
important partner to Branham during these years is challenging. At first
glance, they appear to be two figures who should be hostile to one another.
The relationship seems unusual to be sure. Von Blomberg met Branham on
his 1950 tour of Scandinavia.[406] He became an important figure in the early
Full Gospel Businessmen circles, and played a crucial role advancing
Branham’s overseas work in 1954 and 1955.
Second European Tour
Von Blomberg served as the campaign manager for Branham’s 1954
overseas tour. Branham was also joined on the tour by Ern Baxter to fill his
typical teaching role. Bosworth was experiencing health issues and didn’t
make the trip, and Lindsay was still busy attempting to negotiate Voice of
Healing back into the good graces of Assemblies of God. This left Branham
alone on the trip with Von Blomberg and Baxter.
Branham’s 1954 overseas tour is the least documented of all of his
overseas tours. At the time, not a single article was published concerning
the results of the tour in either Herald of Faith or Voice of Healing. A few
months later an underwhelming six line article was wrote by an Assemblies
of God missionary working in India who had attended the meetings.[407] It is
the only independent eyewitness account known to have been published.
About five photographs of Branham in India are known to exist along with
a supposed copy of an invitation to a meeting while in Bombay. Otherwise,
there is actually no other evidence to prove this tour even took place.
Therefore, this section will be relying primarily on Message Legend and
William Branham’s own dubious account of events.
The team left the United States for Portugal in September. Arriving in
Lisbon where they held a series of meetings. All indications are that the
crowds were small. Branham claimed to have dinner with the “governor of
parliament” while in Lisbon.[408] There is no documentation of this stop
known to exist.
Next, the Branham team traveled to Rome. No revivals were held in
Italy, but the team did some sightseeing. Branham frequently related stories
to his audiences in the later years of the things he witnessed in Rome.
Branham was deeply anti-Catholic making a visit to the Vatican an unusual
stop for him. Branham used his time in Rome to establish credentials he
would later use to bear personal witness to the fact that the pope was indeed
the anti-Christ. Branham claimed to have been offered an audience with the
pope, but declined because he would have been required to kiss the papal
ring.[409] He did however tour the sites of the Vatican. He reported
personally beholding 666 in the form of “VICARIVS FILII DEI” inscribed
on the papal tiara, the papal mitre and over the papal throne.[410] Of course,
no such thing exists. The medieval papal throne, tiara, and mitre are all on
display, none of which appear as Branham described.[411]
Branham claimed that Von Blomberg arranged a dinner in Rome in
which a number of dignitaries attended, including “a couple queens of the
Orient.”[412] Their names were never given making any sort of verification
impossible.
 Branham’s supposed meeting with King Farouk of Egypt is more
interesting. Branham told conflicting version of the story. In one version, he
met Farouk at a dinner in Rome,[413] and in another version he met him at
dinner in Cairo.[414] The Cairo meeting is the version of the story chosen for
publication in Branham’s most famous Message biography.[415]
We can be certain that Farouk was certainly not in Egypt in 1954; he
had been deposed as king in 1952 and exiled from the country. Farouk
moved to Rome to live with his mistress in the summer of 1953 after his
wife divorced him for committing adultery. This would make a meeting in
Rome technically possible,[416] although Farouk was no King at the time,
and Branham was certainly misleading his audience on that point.
Regardless, no evidence for the meeting exists. We can be totally certain the
version of the story which took place in Cairo is a total fabrication, and the
version in Rome is likewise a serious embellishment as Farouk was no
King. In either case Branham misled his audiences.
Leaving Rome, Branham and the party next traveled to Cairo. No
revival meetings were held in Cairo and the trip was solely for sight-seeing.
Branham claimed to visit the pyramids in person, which he referenced
regularly in later years when we shared his beliefs in pyramidology. Upon
listening to Branham’s accounts, it is obvious that he did not pay attention
to what he saw in Egypt. Among the strange stories Branham brought home
was a claim to have personally witnessed the “perfect” geometry of the
pyramid which enabled the building to never cast a shadow.[417] Those
statements indicate that perhaps he never actually visited the pyramids,
otherwise he would have seen their shadows. Like his time in Rome, there
is no known evidence proving he visited Cairo. All we have are his stories.
Branham claimed that after Cairo, he intended to visit Israel and that
he had the tickets purchased for the visit.[418] He went on to explain that his
ministry was so powerful, that he could have converted the Jewish people,
but that God instructed him to cancel his trip to Israel because God did want
the Jewish people to be saved yet.[419] Proselytizing is illegal in Israel, and
so it is impossible that Branham would had been granted a visa to Israel
which would have permitted him any ability to hold revival meetings.
Egypt was also in a state of war with Israel, it was not possible to travel
directly between the two nations at the time. Branham likely made up the
story of his planned visit to Israel.
 Leaving Cairo, Branham described his next series of stops as follows,
So then went on to Cairo, Egypt, and Athens, Greece, on
down into—to different parts of the country, and then wound
up in Bombay. And I tell you, I don’t believe that I could come
out of what I seen in Bombay, in ten years, of what it was. I…
It’s the most pathetic sights that I ever seen in my life, from
around the world. This is practically all but the extreme East.
I practically visited all the countries of Europe and Asia, and
—and through that part of the country, even to the borderlines
of Russia.[420]

These claims by Branham are extremely challenging to believe.

Simply from a review the timeline of the tour, there is no possibility
whatsoever that the trip had adequate time for him to visit “practically all
the countries of Europe and Asia.”
Describing his plane ride home, he said
My next stop, from where I was at, was Hong Kong, China.
We was just around on the other side, way closer to come to
the United States, coming this a way. We just had to stop at
Hong Kong, Tokyo, Formosa, and Guam, Wake, Philippines,
then here [Chicago].[421]

Once again, this story is outside of the realm of possibility. Branham’s

entire overseas tour in 1954 lasted just under four weeks. This route would
have him traveling in multiple circles. There is simply inadequate time for
him to have traveled this itinerary; some of the cities he claimed to visit did
not even have commercial airports in 1954. How Branham got away with
telling such obviously false stories is difficult to understand. Branham’s
biographers have struggled with reconciling the itinerary of this journey in
the absence of any actual documentation from the time of the tour. Owen
Jorgenson settled on dropping eight of Branham’s supposed stops in his
popular Message biography of Branham. I suspect his deductions are the
most likely scenario: He concluded that Branham traveled from Lisbon to
Rome, to Cairo, Athens, Riyadh, and then Bombay. Jorgenson ignored the
rest of the itinerary.
 My assessment is that Branham likely did visit Lisbon and Rome, and
probably had a layover in Cairo on his way to India. The rest of the story is
almost certainly fabricated. The lack of photos is one strong clue.
Another clue is Branham’s account of what happened in Saudi Arabia.
Branham claimed he somehow visited the grave of the Muslim leader
Muhammad.[422] Muhamad’s grave in Medina is closed to non-Muslims; in
1954 Branham would have faced execution if he was discovered visiting the
Islamic holy site. It is difficult to imagine that he was unwilling to kiss the
ring of the pope, yet he was willing to don a turban and pretend to be a
Muslim to enter Medina. It is safe to conclude Branham likely fabricated
this element of the trip as well.
India Tour
Branham departed from New York on about September 5 and was
back preaching in Chicago by October 3. The exact timing of his arrival and
the duration of his stay in India is unclear. It seems likely he could have
been in India for as much as two weeks. In one report, however, Branham
indicated he was only in India for five days.[423] The short six-line article in
Herald of Faith also seems to indicate only five days were spent in India.
[424]

From all indications, the Indian campaign was nearly a total flop. The
absence of articles and photographs from the revivals pay witness to the

lack of anything notable to publish. The five-

or-so pictures of the tour which do exist indicate that Branham and Baxter
held meetings in a small episcopal church in Bombay. They were required
to dress as Anglican priests. Branham appears deeply unhappy in every
photo.

To make matters worse, rumors of a

scandal abound from their time in India. Branham told figures in his inner
circle that Baxter became drunk on the flight and that he was caught in the
act of adultery by some of the Indian figures who were assisting in the
revivals.[425] The rumor was repeatedly widely in The Message. Branham
and Von Blomberg were only other two figures on the trip – so identifying
the source of the rumor is not challenging.[426]
Branham’s meetings with Prime Minister Nehru never materialized.
[427]
He did attract the attention of Paulaseer Lawrie. Lawrie immediately
fell into Branham’s cult of personality and returned to the United States to
spend time in Jeffersonville and follow Branham to various revivals.[428]
Lawrie was enchanted with the manifested sons of God teachings and
returned to India where he blended the concepts with Hindi mysticism.
When Branham died in 1965, Lawrie believed himself to be his successor
and announced he had become the next manifested son of God in 1969. He
produced one of the most radical sects of The Message which baptize and
pray in the name of the Lord Branham Christ. Lawrie and his cult are the
chief legacy of Branham’s 1954 visit to India. It would not be until the
1970s that other sects of The Message arose in India.
Despite the obvious failure of the revival to reach the ambitious goals
Branham had prophesied it would fulfill, Branham nevertheless returned
home with many fabulous stories of his time in India. One of the stories is
that he visited the graves of Buddha and Confucius. [429] However, Buddha
was cremated and his ashes scattered; he has no grave to be visited.
Likewise, the burial location of Confucius is in northern China 3,000 miles
from Branham’s nearest stop.
The most fabulous story of all is about a showdown that supposedly
happened in Bombay. Branham told a minnow version of the story the week
after his return to the United States. In the minnow version of the story, at
his most important meetings, he was entertained by a small crowd of
representative of various religions of India. He explained that he was forced
to hold only indoor meetings due to monsoon weather.[430] Branham opened
his meeting by reading the story of Elijah’s Mount Carmel showdown. Then
he challenged the attending religious leader. He said whoever had a true
God, let him demonstrate his power by opening the eyes of a blind man
who was in attendance. Naturally, Branham prayed for the man, and he
regained his sight. Branham never explained what effect the “miracle” had
on the audience in the minnow version of the story. He ended the story
simply as a triumph of God over heathenism.[431]
By 1957, the story had evolved into a whale. In the whale version of
the story, at an open-air meeting, Branham took a Koran in one hand and a
bible in the other and confronted a crowd of 250,000 Muslims in a Mount
Carmel style showdown by issuing a direct challenge to the prophet
Mohammed. He won the contest by restoring sight to a blind man before
the crowd. Several thousand Muslims responded by converting to
Christianity.[432] As most people with common knowledge in modern era
know, people who make such challenges in India are typically lynched
almost immediately by an angry religious mob. The situation was no better
in 1954. Branham ended his 1957 whale story by telling his audiences he
was indeed attacked by a violent mob who stripped him and beat him, and
that he was forced to leave the country after being rescued from the mob by
local authorities.[433]
The truth is difficult to discern. The story of a western minister being
attacked by a Muslim mob would likely have made the news. Researchers
have not yet found any evidence for the events described by Branham in
Indian records. There are no known witnesses who corroborate the story.
Branham produced no documentation at the time. We have only two people
on the trip with Branham to serve as witnesses. One was Ern Baxter – with
whom Branham was about to have a falling out for alleged sexual
misconduct on the India trip. The second was Frary Von Blomberg who was
a very strange homosexual man. I suggest using extreme caution with
whatever conclusion you arrive at regarding the India tour. One thing we
can be sure of, it was indeed a flop.
Branham was faced with immediate accusations of having a failed
prophecy upon his return to the United States. Branham’s India prophecy is
one of the most well documented and obviously failed prophecies of his
entire ministry. He had told his audiences, in the name of the Lord, that he
would have 300,000 in attendance at his meetings and have tens of
thousands of converts. Branham was unable to hide the failure from his
audiences and admitted to the failure publicly.[434] He claimed that the
prophecy failed because God had instructed him to visit South Africa before
visiting India.[435] Of course, he had visited South Africa before visiting
India, which makes his excuse somewhat challenging to make sense of.
Branham continued to expect the fulfillment of his India vision as a future
event throughout his life. Branham’s repeated explanations in his sermons
to defend the failure of his prophecy demonstrates Branham’s own
awareness and insecurity that arose from the failed prophecy. It is one of the
few instances where he acknowledged his own prophetic failures.
Branham – Baxter Schism (1955)
Branham and Baxter’s relationship did not survive very long after the
India tour. By early 1955, Baxter stopped showing up for revivals. Nothing
was ever said publicly by Branham about what caused the split. Privately,
rumors swirled that Branham dropped Baxter over his antics on the India
tour. Whether the split was truly related to the India tour is debatable. It is
possible that the story told to The Message Community was an attempt by
Branham to smear Baxter for abandoning him. During the same period,
Baxter and Branham found themselves on opposing sides of a wider split
occurring within the Latter Rain movement.
Baxter claimed he broke away from Branham because he began
saying “seriously wrong things”.[436] Yet Branham had been saying things
that were seriously wrong from the earliest days – like using secret “high
words” to cast out demons with Baxter standing next to him. Seriously
wrong things were nothing new. Why had the “seriously wrong” things
been ok in 1947 but not in 1954? This also calls Baxter’s explanation for
the separation into question.
Jim Watt exited the Sharon Orphanage about the same time due to
doctrinal disputes with other elders. Jim Watt was one of the original elders
of Sharon Orphanage. Watts disagreed over how to best fit manifested sons
of God into eschatology. He also disagreed with the doctrine of universal
reconciliation, and the lost tribes concept from British Israelism. Baxter
traveled to Sharon Orphanage where he encouraged Watt to separate from
Sharon Orphanage. Baxter, Watt, and their cohorts broke away to launch
their own new Latter Rain faction. Baxter at first returned to his church in
Vancouver. He would later spend time in the United Kingdom and later as
pastor of a church in Mobile, Alabama. Watt at first took pastorship of a
church in Minnesota before eventually becoming pastor of the Broadway
Tabernacle in Seattle where, along with Derek Prince, the three men
pioneered what would become the Shepherding Movement. I will explore
this at length in another chapter. The Shepherding Movement became one
of the most important branches of the Latter Rain movement.
Baxter’s separation from Branham created an opening on Branham’s
campaign team that needed filled. Beginning with Baxter’s exit. New
figures began to become more prominent in the campaigns to fill the
supporting evangelist role. Paul Cain was one of the most common
ministers to fill that role.[437] Tommy Hicks also became a regular
companion to Branham at his larger events.[438] Other notable figures to fill
that role in Branham’s meetings over the years included Kenneth Hagin[439]
and Tommy Osborn[440] – both of whom later became key figures to the
creation of the Word of Faith movement. Derek Prince also filled the role
for Branham a few times at revivals in the later years.[441] Hagin issued a
long prophecy of blessing upon William Branham and The Message at joint
meetings in 1964.[442] Prince likewise made positive remarks, as he
introduced Branham to the crowds.[443]
Branham’s broken relationship with Gordon Lindsay, Ern Baxter,
and the deteriorating health of F. F. Bosworth created another opportunity
for new faces to join Branham’s team. By 1955, Branham needed to largely
rebuild his campaign team. This created an opening for Branham’s slowly
growing cult following to fill positions on his staff and in his campaigns.
 Chapter 8
The Message Takes Shape
1955 -1956
If you wish to be a success in the
world, promise everything, deliver
nothing.
– Napoleon Bonaparte
 It is challenging to determine exactly when The Message was born because
even defining what The Message is can be somewhat ambiguous. I believe the
most commonly held opinion within The Message community would be that The
Message is “every revelation from God spoken by William Branham.” People
may differ as to what to include on that list of “revelations”, but I believe that
would be a generally acceptable definition.
For the purposes of this book, however, this has not been my definition of
“The Message”. Let me define my application of term to help you understand my
usage. I think of The Message as a community of people with a body of beliefs
that minimally contain the idea that Branham was the Elijah of Malachi 4. I define
a Message Church as one with a pastor who has minimally accepted Branham’s
Elijah claims.
There are many churches which are friendly towards Branham and elements
of his teachings yet reject his Elijah claims. Most of the churches he
fellowshipped with in his lifetime were of this variety. They could be called Latter
Rain churches or Charismatic Churches or Pentecostal churches – but they are not
Message churches.
The process of establishing true Message churches began in 1954 as William
Branham threw in his lot with the Latter Rain. Before 1954, Branham certainly
inserted the Elijah concept covertly into his sermons, but there was no community
embracing that idea. The Message, as we think of it today, did not exist before
1954. What came before 1954 could be categorized as part of the Latter Rain
movement, part of broader Pentecostalism, or the initial stages of the charismatic
movement. The Message was not a distinct entity yet.
The Message began to come together as Branham started to lean heavily into
his Elijah persona following his second separation from Voice of Healing at the
end of 1953. After his falling out with Lindsay, Branham chose what may have
appeared to him as the only viable option at the time: The Latter Rain crowd. Too
proud to bow to Lindsay or the sanctions of the Pentecostal denominations, clearly
seeking to have a devoted base of followers, and looking for an environment that
came with no strings attached – Branham chose the Latter Rain.
While there was no point at which Branham was not connected to the Latter
Rain movement, his desire to operate on both sides of their schism with
Pentecostalism had a moderating effect that faded as he became increasingly
separated from Lindsay and the other more moderate voices. If 1954 marks the
birth of The Message, 1955 marks the year the institutions of The Message came
into existence. Some of the figures who became the movers and shakers of The
Message after Branham’s death were already in Branham’s cult of personality
before 1955, and the shakeup of his campaign team through 1954 elevated them
into positions of authority. This began the process that would lead to the creation
of the key institutions of The Message. Over the course of a few years, beginning
in 1954, Branham filled all the positions around him with members of his cult
following.
1955 was also the year that the slow march into doomsday madness began. It
was the year of Branham’s final overseas tour, and the year in which Branham
began working with the two most evil cult leaders of twentieth century: Jim Jones
of Peoples Temple and Paul Schäfer of Colonia Dignidad.
William Branham Becomes a Doomsday Prophet (1955)
By mid-1954, Branham had come to permanent dependence on the Full
Gospel Businessmen. It may not have been clear to him yet, but time would prove
that to be the case. The relationship was one of mutual benefit. The Full Gospel
Business Men valued Branham for his celebrity. His endorsement and
participation was important to the reputation of their young group and gave them
an air of legitimacy. Branham in turn reaped the benefits of their financial support.
Based on Branham’s own statements, their support amounted to hundreds of
thousands of dollars – millions adjusted for inflation in 2024. Branham’s
connection with the Full Gospel Business Men also provided a forum where
Branham was able to meet some of the prominent political leaders of the day who
courted the group for political donations and votes.
Fundamentalist Christian leaders in the United States have always had an
unhealthy tendency towards predicting doomsday. There has been innumerable
failed end of days predictions. Up until 1955, Branham’s sermons had not
typically focused on the end of days. His sermons had been more upbeat and
positive in outlook, promising healing and deliverance in the here and now
without much thought for the future. This began to change at the end of 1954, and
most markedly after Branham met Richard Nixon at a Full Gospel Businessman’s
convention. In August 1954, just before his trip to India, the Full Gospel
Businessmen arranged a breakfast conference in which their guest speaker was
Vice President Richard Nixon. Branham was in attendance along with other
leading deliverance evangelists and sat immediately in front of the podium with
an unobstructed view of Nixon.
In the speech, Nixon warned the attendees about the threats posed by
“godless” communists to the United States, especially because of their access to
nuclear weapons.[444] He called on the conference to launch a campaign to fight for
the hearts and souls of people around the world in a battle against communist
ideology.[445]
 The
effect of Nixon’s request was immediate. The next edition of Voice of Healing
included an image of a nuclear bomb’s mushroom cloud on the cover and began a
multi-edition series of articles on the dangers of communism. Branham, having
left for India, produced no immediate reaction to the meeting. But upon his return,
he immediately began proclaiming the dangers of the coming nuclear doomsday.
[446]

Although Branham was known to reference the end of days in passing, his
focus on the topic became increasingly pronounced in the last months of 1954. In
December he informed his audiences that “There is nothing left but
judgement.”[447] His 1954 statement that “nothing is left but judgement” gradually
evolved in 1955 and 1956 into a final call for the repentance of the United States.
In Message legend, these years mark the time at which the doom of America was
sealed.
Branham reflected on this period saying,
 I predicted that back in ’56 when it would start ending. Billy
Graham come back, and Tommy Osborn, and them, I said, “This is
it, America will receive it or reject it this year.” And they rejected
it, we’re nothing waiting but Judgment. Now, you mark that down
and see if Brother Branham is right or not. That’s THUS SAITH
THE LORD. We’re headed for it, we’re going to pay for what we
done, we got too much glamour in the church, and Hollywood and
everything, God is sick and tired of it. The last one [his last vision
about the destruction of America] will come in after while, and
that’ll be it.[448]

As Branham slowly unveiled his great doomsday prophecy over the course
of the next decade, he did so one piece at a time. Branham told his Latter Rain
audiences in Chicago that their city would be destroyed by an atomic bomb. He
repeated the same to audiences in Pheonix, [449] Indianapolis, Louisville[450],
Charlotte[451] – and at meetings hosted by Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.[452] In
Los Angeles he prophesied the coming destruction of the entire west coast.[453]
Before he was done, Branham made his infamous prediction that it would all
happen by 1977.[454]
Like so many things, Branham’s doomsday prophecies started out as
minnows that grew into whales. What started out as what-if stories evolved into
predictions, and the predictions gradually turned into prophecies. Before 1955,
Branham had only “what-if” stories about the doomsday. From 1955, the same
stories turned into predictions. By the 1960s, Branham rewrote his history and
claimed his predictions had been prophesies all along.
The pattern is best viewed as a process of slow radicalization that was
occurring across the broader Latter Rain movement. The movement was
becoming increasingly insular and progressively indoctrinated. As structures of
authoritarian control became more developed, and as the us versus them mentality
took root, their doomsday beliefs developed alongside on a similar trajectory and
became increasingly radical. These beliefs would lead many Latter Rain groups to
migrate to the remote regions of the world over the subsequent decade to escape
the impending doomsday they believed to be imminent. The Canadian wilderness,
New Zealand, and South America were popular destinations.
One thing which outsiders would find disturbing is that members of The
Message and the broader Latter Rain both crave and seek the end of days. They
wait with joy for the coming apocalypse. For many, it was to be their ultimate
vindication and triumph over their ever-increasing enemies. Branham was of that
viewpoint.[455] Followers of this doomsday theology are not interested in taking
steps to avoid the coming destruction. All are resigned to inevitability of global
destruction. Some of them have what could be described as a fatalistic death wish.
Many are also interested in taking active steps to induce their doomsday scenario
and see themselves playing a significant role in the end of days – at least on a
spiritual level. For many that means supporting certain political ideas, establishing
stockpiles of supplies and weapons for the coming apocalypse, and cheering on
events that cause national or global instability. Nothing would ever be done to try
and hinder the approaching apocalypse. While one can understand the desire for
the return of Christ, most Christians would agree that purposefully participating or
advancing a program of destruction is totally unacceptable. People of that mindset
are more aligned with the forces of evil than the forces of good.[456]
Seven Visions of 1933
Branham introduced in 1955 what would become his most famous
prophecies: The Seven Visions of 1933. Before sharing these, it must first be
pointed out that there are not seven, nor is there any evidence that they occurred in
1933. The common description of the visions is a misnomer.
The “seven” visions began as a minnow that turned into a whale. Branham
seems to have evolved the story out of an actual event where he was making
vague predictions about Mussolini and the mark of beast during the 1930s.
Mussolini was then dictator of Italy and living in Rome. Predictions about
Mussolini and the end of days were common among fundamentalist doomsday
preachers of the era.[457] Branham reported that he made similar predictions about
Mussolini in the 1930s. The concept was certainly not unique to Branham. Other
ministers associated with Roy Davis, like Gerald Winrod, were making the same
claims in the same years. It is likely Branham was merely repeating themes he
picked up from Davis and his circle of friendly ministers.
In was not until 1955, as Branham began to lean into his doomsday
teachings that the minnow grew into a whale. In 1955, for the first time, Branham
began to claim that his predictions about Mussolini were part of a larger set of
seven visions which he had in 1933.[458] I have included a chart on page 211 to
demonstrate how the list of visions evolved over time as Branham described them
to his audiences. Although he began claiming there were seven in 1955, it would
not be until November 1960 that he shared a full list of all seven with his
audiences. Each time he spoke about the seven visions, he gave a different list of
what they were. When one counts the varying visions he shared across all versions
of the story, there are in total sixteen visions. The widely varying versions and the
fact these visions only appeared in the mid-1950s lend themselves as indicators
that Branham totally fabricated the story.
Another indication is that Branham invented these visions in the 1950s can
be detected when he recounted the story of the vision in 1957. In that telling, he
asked the audience of his Jeffersonville church if anyone remembered when he
first shared them in the 1930s. Failing to receive any acknowledgement from the
audience, he then explained to them that he had buried a copy of the visions in the
cornerstone of his church when it was built in 1933.[459] The cornerstone of the
tabernacle was excavated twice to look for the document. The first excavation
occurred following Branham’s burial in 1966, and a second time following
building repairs in the 1970s. According to eyewitnesses of both events, when the
cornerstone was opened, it was found to be empty.[460] Not only were there no
prophecies, none of the objects Branham told his audiences had been buried in the
cornerstone over the years were found either. This is one important clue that his
story was minimally embellished, if not an outright fabrication.
Another thing to consider is my own witness to you. I live in the
Jeffersonville area. I was the associate pastor of the second oldest Message church
in the world, and we had more witnesses of Branham in the 1930s and 1940s than
any other single Message church. Not a single person I interviewed recalled
hearing of these visions before the 1950s. Additionally, my comprehensive search
of every recorded testimony of the deceased people in our fellowship revealed no
evidence indicating these prophecies existed before the 1950s. How can that be?
In November 1960, Branham took the platform holding a yellowed piece of
paper in his hand. He told his audience it was the paper on which he had written
the prophetic visions as he had them in 1933.[461] Using the list given by Branham
the first time he provided all seven visions in November 1960; the prophetic
visions are as follows.

1) President Roosevelt would cause World War II.[462]

2) Mussolini would invade Ethiopia and win; it would be his last invasion.[463]
3) Women will use their right to vote to elect the “wrong person”.[464]
4) The Americans would take a “great beating” in a battle at the Maginot Line.[465]
5) A cruel woman, being either a female president or the Catholic Church, will
rule the United States.[466]
6) Self-driving egg-shaped cars would be driven by the public.[467]
7) The United States of America would be destroyed; he predicted it would occur
by 1977.[468]
 One does not need to be very discerning to immediately recognize these
prophecies were terribly flawed. President Roosevelt did not cause World War II.
Ethiopia was not Mussolini’s last invasion. The Americans never fought a battle at
the Maginot Line. The year 1977 has come and gone, and America survived.
Vision number three concerning “women electing the wrong president” and
vision number five of a female president or a Catholic ruling the United States are
illegitimate prophecies. They are in the same category as prophesying the Sun will
rise tomorrow. They are inevitable eventualities. Depending on who you ask – the
wrong president always gets elected. It is equally inevitable that a catholic or a
woman would eventually serve as president. The majority of the US population is
either catholic or female – and that was the case when Branham first shared his
vision.
Notably, when Branham shared the full list of prophecies in 1960, he
explained that five of them were already fulfilled.[469] In 1961, Branham explained
that the “cruel woman” and the destruction of America were the two visions which
remained unfulfilled. He hinted Kennedy may have been the fulfillment of the
cruel woman vision.[470]
Lee Vayle attempted to harmonize the varying versions of Branham’s “seven
visions” in his 1964 book The Exposition of the Seven Church Ages. His
harmonized version is the most widely accepted version of the prophecies. Vayle’s
version eliminated the obviously incorrect elements but does not match any
version ever told by Branham on recording.
Any reasonable analysis of Branham’s most famous prophecies conducted
even at that time would seem to conclusively prove he was a false prophet.
Nevertheless, this forthcoming destruction of America in a nuclear apocalypse
became a regular feature of his sermons beginning in 1955.
Branham’s doomsday beliefs were quite vague at the time of their origin. It
would not be until the 1960s that the formula of eschatology held by The Message
was adopted. Prior to 1960, the doomsday views could be summarized as a belief
that a global conflict between the forces of communism and the west would result
in a nuclear war that would engulf the world. The Roman Catholic Pope and the
nation of Israel had some vague role to perform in that scenario. The church
would be raptured and escape the doomsday before it came. Those left behind
would suffer torturous deaths.
With the introduction of his doomsday beliefs beginning in 1955, Branham
presented his followers with a life and death choice. Gradually he would convince
them that he alone held the key to escape the coming apocalypse.
1953 1955 1956 1957 1958 1960-11 1960-12 1961-1 1961-3 1961-8 1963 1964
 1 Mussolini x X x x Mussolini Mussolini x Mussolini Mussolini X Mussolini
goes to goes to goes to goes to goes to goes to
Ethiopia Ethiopia Ethiopia Ethiopia Ethiopia Ethiopia

2 Three Three isms X x x Three isms x x Three isms x X Three isms

isms

3 Egg Egg shaped Egg Egg Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped Egg shaped
shaped cars shaped shaped cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars
cars cars cars

4 x Female Female x Female Female Female x Female Female Female Female

ruler ruler ruler ruler ruler ruler ruler ruler ruler

5 x Destruction X x Destruction Destruction Destruction Destruction Destruction Destruction Destruction Destruction

of America of America of America of America of America of America of America of America of America

6 x x X x X Women Women Women Women Women Women x

elect elect elect elect elect elect
wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
president president president president president president

7 x x X x X Maginot Maginot Maginot Maginot Maginot Maginot Siegfried

Line Line Line Line Line Line Line

8 x x X x X Roosevelt Roosevelt Roosevelt Roosevelt Roosevelt X Hitler

starts starts starts starts starts starts
WWII WWII WWII WWII WWII WWII

9 X X X X X X X X X X Pollution x
in the
valleys

10 x x X x X x x x x x X Women
wear fig
leaves

I apologize for the small font size. This is the best I could fit in the book.

The Sinking of California

Another one of Branham’s signature doomsday prophecies was the
destruction of Los Angeles and the entire west coast of the United States.[471] In his
most dramatic tale, he explained that…
Fifteen-hundred-mile chunk of it, three- or four-hundred-miles
wide, will sink, hundred…or maybe forty miles down into that
great fault out yonder, one of these days, and waves will shoot