Manufactured Authority: The Illusion of Supernatural Evidence

Hello and welcome to another episode of the William Branagh I'm your host John Collins the author and founder of William Branagh Historical Research and William Despranum.org and with me I have my co-host, researcher and friend John McKinnon, author of Godhead and their own words, voices of oneness preachers of the in-time message.

John is good to be back and to talk once more about the in-time message as it relates to what we see today in modern Carismania. I've been on a journey of research that I had no idea it would take me to where it is now and there are a lot of people who are on that same journey and had no idea that it was going to lead them from the bridge, from Branumism and to the mess that you see today in the church.

But what's interesting is I came to learn that it's building blocks of mass and deception. A building block meaning a person will come and they'll make some fantastic claim that their ministry is the next thing to God and they will say it's vindicated.

I can't tell you how many times I heard that he's a vindicated prophet and whenever I begin examining all of these so-called vindications that are like which one vindicates them they're almost all faults and the biggest one of which we'll talk about today I'll let you introduce and talk about that.

But that's the story that has continued over and over and over. It just continues to build upon fiction and so you'll hear ministers today like Benny Hinn points back to this vindication that we're going to be talking about today and they will say it's vindicated.

He's a vindicated prophet of God and therefore we have our ministry. William Branum, same thing. He experienced the third dimension of God, used them in such ways I have videos of it and I sit and tremble watching that man being used. Details about people. I mean details.

William Branum is as a name. William Branum was preaching my dear when a halo appeared over his head preaching in Louisiana. But it's a building block of fiction and I'll be asking the question many times today what actually was proven what actually was vindicated because as we're going to be examining there's so many problems with the so-called vindications and if you want to understand the ministries of today, sadly you have to go all the way back through all of the...

layers of building blocks of fiction and get right to its core. And it's not that all path lead to Brannum, but it's that there are so many ministries that are built upon Brannum. And he's, Brannum is just one of several people who I hate to say it. I've come to the conclusion he was a charlatan like many of the others building his own fictional ministry and others used him as a stepping stone. So we're going to be talking about the stone that others stepped upon. Thank you for coming back.

Well, John, it's great to be back again and explore these things we've been looking at surrounding Brannum's ministry of the end times and try to understand things that were presented to us as a truth, but we're not always appearing as they were on the surface.

And that's what I'd like to explore a little bit. Things are not always what they seem and not always in truth what they appear to be on the surface. A lot of times we're told, you know, really what to believe because it benefits others rather than being able to examine the actual facts ourselves. And this is going to be a great discussion today.

I'm excited about it because we're going to explore probably one of the most famous incidents in the message. I think I'm going to say some things that's probably not been heard before. Get into some of the particulars about this incident to push back this fog surrounding it so we can see a little clear. I don't want to start the series, you know, with this today, but it developed fairly quickly because there's just so much information out there.

And so I'm going to begin with the famous Halo picture taken over William Brannum's head. And today we're looking at the photographic anomaly around him. There's others, of course, but specifically this 1950 Houston photograph that really became the centerpiece of the claim in quotes, the only supernatural being ever photographed in history. And that was scientifically proven. And we're going to explore that statement a little bit too.

So it's only one that's ever been captured on film according to William Brannum. But on the surface, it really looks like ironclad proof because he's got a light over his head. He's got an expert that examined the photograph. He's got a copyright in Washington DC that he claims. And the repeated assertion that science itself had endorsed it as a pillar of fire and supernatural being. But when you line up the actual documents that's available, the experts language that was in the written document, the copyright record and the later claims, you know, a very different picture emerges here.

Brannum consistently took throughout his ministry, you know, ordinary or limited facts and inflated them combined them with unrelated ideas and presented this together as an undeniable supernatural confirmation of various things in his ministry. The same pattern shows up also in how he handled the scripture. He would take two pieces of unrelated texts or events in scripture and mill them together and make a whole new meaning out of it that really served his And as we go through this series, I'm going to show how it uses the same technique to modify scripture.

It's very subtle, and when you trust someone that's telling you the truth, your discernments dampen to the point that that's what happened when you write them as alive, is followers thought the things were the truth, but it's almost got worse today for the followers that remain if they're not examining the scriptures very closely.

You know, they're less discerning now than they were back then, it seems. It's a huge problem, and I don't have any confidence, it's going to correct itself anytime soon. But something else will have to happen to pull them out and to bring people back to proper discernment.

But the technical term I want to use for this, and it's sort of loosely used, it's a Hagellian dialectic. You start out with a thesis on one side, and then you go with the anti-thesis of that on the other side.

And what you bring them together, you form what is called the synthesis of the event. And that's sort of how I'm going to apply this loosely in what William Brenham did, and we'll walk through how this operated with this photograph and how it mattered so much for the overall credibility of his message.

You know, things do not appear as they seem, so let's dig into this a little more as we go along. William Brenham's ministry is famous for using any photograph that appeared like there was something supernatural going on, and play it up as God having his picture taken with the prophet of the pillar fire appearing in the camera and exaggerating the claims.

And the most famous one is the 1950 Halo picture, and was actually examined, but Brenham's claims of what the examination said were way out of proportion with what the document actually says. I'll never forget whenever I first discovered James Randy's book, The Faith Healers.

I was actually looking not for Brenham, but I was looking for some of the other examples and I was trying to determine at that point in time. Was Brenham a charlatan? Did he match what the others are doing?

And I got the book, and I read, and I'm reading through these examples. James Randy got famous going to these faith healer revivals and pointing out some of the things that they're doing that he did in his own Magician stage act, and there's different techniques.

There are things that people really don't think about, because when you go to one of these revivals, you're not thinking a stage act or a stage Magician's trick. You're instead thinking about, I'm coming to hear God, and this person is connecting me to God.

That's usually your mind shuts off all critical thinking. Well, James Randy went into it understanding because he could recognize the Magician's tricks that were being used to distract the crowds. And there's different ones. You can read the book. I won't go into great detail, but the biggest one is slight of hand.

They will have something that's just so miraculous or so, I hate to use the word, but so absurd, because there are many absurd claims by these revivalists. But instead of letting you focus on the absurdity, your mind would have immediately rejected that.

They'll take something else and they'll throw it off into another corner. So your mind is actually going to the other thing. Whenever I read that, and I'm going through Randy's examples, suddenly low and behold, Brandon's name, he actually went to one of Brandon's meetings, and I didn't believe it.

I started researching what he said about the meeting, the revival. You don't find it much on recording, and it's one of the early recordings, but I went back through their recordings, and I thought Randy's lying.

So I start going through the newspaper accounts to try to find and piece together the things that Randy was saying, were they true? And sure enough, I find the newspaper articles where there is the boy who goes to see the faith healer.

We know now the faith healer is Brandon, and you can connect those dots through the newspaper and the timeline. Well, he goes to see the faith healer, he goes to be healed, and the boy doesn't get healed.

And it talks about all of the different things that are happening to the boy. I've got some of that research published on the website. Well, Brandon threw it into a distracting area because he said the boy came back, unhealed, and he said, Brandon said, well, you must have smoked in a pack of cigarettes, and therefore you're not healed.

And so people are now thinking, well, the healer failed, but suddenly the distraction comes, oh, cigarettes. Well, that must be it, and it actually worked. And I started looking through some of the claims by Brandon, Bosphorus, some of the others, and that's really what they were doing.

In fact, FF Bosphorus published a book that was like this type of distraction, saying that you could keep your healing if you believed and did not doubt and did not sin. Well, who's without sin? That's really the catch here.

They were throwing something so distracting that people weren't thinking about the fact that they're claiming all of these people healed and they're not. Well, now take it a step further. We have levels of distractions, which we're getting into today.

The photograph itself was a distraction from an event, which I'll talk about later, but then the proof of that claim turned into a vindication of the prophet, and then there were further distractions thrown.

So there are cascading levels of slight of hand that's happening here. And for me, that's a huge problem. Thanks, John. I like how you framed that, and it perfectly segues into what I'm fixing to talk about.

So let's start with what can be established from the record, rather than the later storytelling. So in January 1950 during a meeting in Houston, a photograph was taken that showed a bright light above William Brown's head.

The negative was examined by George J. Lacey. Lacey's core finding was just straightforward. The light struck the lens. There was no double exposure or retouching, and a mechanical camera does not record pure psychology.

That much we do know. But what William Brown did regarding this photo actually exposes the many techniques that he used to persuade people to his way of thinking. And it's used as... extensively when he twisted the meaning of scripture as well.

In both incidents, he does it the same way, and these techniques are effective and can be applied to really any situation. At first, he takes bits and pieces of two unrelated events and combines them into a synthesis which benefits and supports the ministry, being of the supernatural.

With regard to scripture, he does this and is doctrine the same. But let me give you a famous example here and watch how this argument develops. You know, even in a scriptural example, so watch how this argument goes.

First, he establishes a position that everyone in the New Testament was baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And then the argument moves to the opposite side and challenges churches that follow the wording of Matthew 28 and 19, arguing they're using the wrong baptismal formula.

And then finally, the two sides are being brought together in a conclusion that there's only one legitimate way to be baptized. The baptism must be performed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now you see what he did there? He took something and said people were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ in Book of Acts. Well, that's true. But they were baptized differently at different times.

Sometimes it was just called the name of the Lord. Sometimes it was called the name of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the name of Christ. It was never the formula was never exactly Lord Jesus Christ.

And then you have Matthew 28 and 19 where Jesus said be baptized in the name of the Father Son, Holy Spirit. Now, he didn't say Lord Jesus Christ there. But the Hegelian pattern is recognizable here.

You establish one position and introduce the very opposite. And then you arrive at a conclusion that resolves this tension by giving it one exclusive authority. So now there's only one way forever to be baptized and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it resembles a dialectical pattern. So the way he presented being baptized involves creating a false opposition between Matthew 28 and 19 and Acts, 238. And then he resolves that by that conflict by giving Acts, passages, exclusive, interpretive authority.

You start with a thesis statement on one hand and the anti-thesis, which is the opposite. And then the synthesis gets you where you really want to go. In many cases, truth and error are mixed together and it really doesn't get us to the truth.

But way and brand didn't seem to care about this as long as it was building up the image of his prophet in front of him being a prophet in front of the people or his authority.

So I'm going to build upon this thought that we just introduced as we get into this and go into the example of how he made the leap from the light appearing in the photo as it being a supernatural being or the angel of the Lord.

You talk now, John. And that's exactly where I was headed with this and you beat me to it. But what happens is that the supernatural experiences become credentials. That's why they have to fight for the...

I took a step back from all of this whenever I left the movement and I was thinking what does it matter if there was a halo? What does it matter? Can I still connect to God without the halo?

That's really the question that I began to ask myself. And I realized that the dangers not really believing that the supernatural things can happen. That's what the movement claims, that supernatural, these things happen, therefore we affirm them and we believe will you brand it to be a prophet.

The danger is not believing that the thing can happen. The danger really comes whenever that event, whatever it is, becomes evidence that the particular person has a special authority over you. Because if you question the leader after that point, questioning the leader becomes the equivalent to questioning God.

For me, that's really problematic because the man is not God. And when you leave, you begin to unravel that and you say, well, they worship Brannum. But Brannum might would say, no, we didn't worship Brannum.

We just believe that God worked through him. But yet if you question Brannum to them, you're questioning God. And therefore there's this circular reasoning that happens. No, he's not God, but you're questioning God.

And once you establish that circular reasoning, you can't break from it. The only way to break from it is to just tear down the whole belief system and that's what I had to do.

By sadly, I had to tear it all down and start rebuilding my entire belief system because it was all centered around the person whose supernatural experiences became the credentials. I totally agree, John. This was all about building up the man to be special.

The so-called revival was all about sick people who were mostly Christians coming up to a man to get something from God rather than salvation. It sounds a lot like Hinduism in some ways because there's a guru, there's a man.

The man of God actually becomes the guru and you must approach him if you want the blessing or the healing gift to be applied to you. Christianity is about a direct approach to Jesus to get to the Father because doesn't the Bible say we have access by one spirit unto the Father?

Not some holy man on earth to get you in that connection with God. You know, we already have it if we're Christians. So we're going to continue on with a few quotes on how you describe the angel and his ministry real quick here.

In 1956 and why people so tossed about in January 1st, he said, talking about the angel and he said, the man which was talking behind me walked around in front of me, dressed in Palestinian clothes and a turban on his head.

He had a white robe, he said, brother, brand him. That's it. He said, I said, I know it and do right. And he said, now the first time I spoke with you and put your hands on the people and told them what was wrong with them.

And the second pull, why when you did, you would know the secrets of the heart and I made you a seer before the people. And so he talks about this, the angel is actually saying, I made you a prophet in front of the people because of this discernment in 1953, a sermon called Prayer Line.

He said about seven years ago, May 7th, 1946, Greensmill, Indiana, there was an angel coming to the room where I was at. A man walking. In 1954, the angel of the covenant. Here's where he first mentions about the light in the picture.

He said, now, at the day of the judgment, when you secrets of the heart shall be disclosed, the Almighty who's present, the angel that you see in that picture isn't standing too feet from where I am now.

So, he talks all about this picture after it happened in 1950, and this is just one example. But he always refers to that light in the picture as the angel. And he even refers to it later on as being Jesus Christ, and even the angel that led the children of Israel out of Egypt.

And deep call to the deep. He says this in 1954, the one that's videoed, actually. He said, do you believe me to be as prophet? The reason I say that, the angel of the Lord told me, get the people to believe you, and if they won't believe you will know the very secrets of the heart.

And this is entering what he says next. He says, and they'll have to believe it then. So, I interject here with this sermon, and maybe the way he was thinking, that if the angel said they'll have to believe it, that wasn't God, because God's not saying you've got to believe it because I do this certain thing.

God is inviting people to believe, but he's not making them believe or saying they have to believe it. God never said he would do anything where you would have no choice but to believe.

He invites you. But he never said he'll do something that would be so irresistible to all humans they would have to believe. Now, I think this was coming from the mind of William Brannum and thinking that if he displayed the discernment, he could capture the world.

There is a quote to that effect where once he said he could have the world at his feet if he used his gift in that way. I think it shows that he thought his gift would be accepted along with his doctrine, even if it went beyond scriptural authority, and he would become the greatest prophet of all time.

So, in 1955, in the healing of Jerious's daughter, February 27, he said, all down through life it kept appearing one day under the appearing of this light, came forth an angel. He told me I was to pray for sick people.

So, that's just a few examples of how he described the angel, described him as a light and a man, and said he was the angel of the Lord, and even said he was Jesus Christ.

So, listen to how this claim or the photograph grew over time. You know, within months, and then even about a hundred times over the next 15 years that he mentioned this, he stated, lacy, George A. Lacy had declared it the only supernatural being ever photographed in all the world's history.

That lacy was the head of the FBI, the picture hung in the religious hall of art in Washington, DC, and that the United States government itself had scientifically certified it being supernatural. He often added that every other picture taken that night came...

not blank. And that the negative flew to Washington that same night. It was so important they had to get on a plane and fly to Washington. And the photograph belonged to some photographers association while he himself, what a nothing to do is selling it, you know, even while he sold it at his meetings. But the original 1950 copyright entry is in a catalog of copyright entries is for more modest than what he's saying here. It says, uh, light over William Brownham's head, halo light, just above hit copyright by Theodore Kieperman, Douglas Studios, Houston registration, J.U. 6331, 3rd of March 1950. There's no language of a supernatural

being here. And the later library of Commerce catalog simply preserves that copyright claim. It's not an endorsement of content of the photo or actually what it meant. You know, William Brownham made all that up. The copyright registration only creates a public record of who owns the picture. It doesn't certify there's any phenomena happening or any supernatural being present in the photo. I have talked in multiple various ways about this photograph because this is the central claim that this was a vindicated prophet of God by the entire movement and movements that followed him. You have Benny Hinn who says a halo came down

and hung above his head. The new apostolic reformation looks to this as the event that vindicates the entire movement. Without this halo photograph, none of it exists. And I still ask the question, well, what is actually proven here? Because what has happened is they've used the halo photograph to show that this was a sign that can be interpreted as authority. And in the, the examinations of the photograph, there are just so many huge problems with it. We have problems with the lighting and I've compared it to other lighting and various photographs that look very similar to what he had. Right down to,

we have testimony by the person who's holding the camera. And he says there are issues with the, with the camera. There is a huge substantial amount of questions that can be asked about this. And if there's that many questions, how can you say that this now becomes a sign for you to take authoritarian control? In my opinion, it's, there's nothing there.

And if there was something there, you can't make that leap. So what I have, what I've come to terms with is that there is a pattern that is established, not just with this halo photograph.

Almost every supernatural event was used in the same way. And not just with Brannum, you can follow this pattern from Brannumism to High Hop KC to any group that you see that is built upon Brannumism, they use the same pattern. There are five steps that you go through. Phenomenon, something happened. We don't know what it is yet. We have not really investigated it. It could be natural, but we're going to instead say it was a supernatural event. That's Step one, step two, the interpretation of that event.

The supernatural part, like you said, there's nothing in the documentation by the examiner that this is even a supernatural photograph, but they interpreted it as such. So now you have shifted from the phenomenon that happened to we're going to add our interpretation of what happened and then validation.

The evidence is presented, the very fact that we have that report comes from the fact that Brannum used the report as his validation. Evidence that something happened, but that evidence isn't about the interpretation.

You're jumping from step three validation all the way back to step one, we have an event that is unexplored. Step four, now because we have validated it and we have validated our interpretation, which is disconnected, now we're going to take authority.

And the sign is what vindicates the messenger. That's essentially how we believed it. And once that authority is established, now comes the doctrine. He has the authority, he has the vindication. The vindication is of the interpretation, not the actual phenomenon and its examination, but we're going to claim that we have the authority to now adjust, create an interpret doctrine.

And the interpretation carries this weight that no other person on earth can carry. That's what happens. So I want to say a few more things about how this Hegelian principle worked in this instance.

The thesis, in 1950, the photograph was explained to be a light in the auditorium, which struck the lens by the expert. Lens of the camera, by Jorge Lacey said that. He said the light did strike the lens, which is true.

That's your thesis. In the thesis, Brannum states other things, which are true, like the mechanical lens of the camera, cannot take something that's not there. And he had also been saying he's seen a light in the meetings, which is the angel of the Lord.

So Brannum presents himself as an ordinary minister, whose ministry is accompanied by unusual supernatural signs. Now on the other side of that, he needed this photograph to be the pillar of fire, to be proof of his ministry.

So the antithesis is that God was appearing on stage, coming down, having his picture taken. And William Brannum claimed that it was the same angel that led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the same one that met Moses in the burning bush.

So he goes on the far other side and said, this was very God coming down to stand with me and have his picture taken. Now when he synthesized this too, the photograph and the interpretation become, his interpretation become a tension, because you're wondering, can I really believe this is supernatural?

It's an ordinary appearance of the man on one side and then an extraordinary claim associated with this minister on the other. So to resolve this tension of the ordinary photograph, graph of a man with a flood light above his head taken together is presented as evidence of something supernatural which vindicates his ministry to the point even now people bow down to this picture.

So these two opposites are brought together by interpreting this unusual light or halo as divine confirmation of his prophetic calling and his authority. The photograph becomes more than just a photograph. Time becomes part of the evidence and archives use to validate a supernatural identity and authority attributed to him.

And it was around 1950 in February that he said it was a supernatural being which was Jesus Christ. So here in 1950 God and his people February just a month after this photograph was taken.

He said now it's scientifically proven that God is with us people. His picture is here to prove how many seen this picture. Now it used to be they'd say God can't be proved scientifically.

The old skeptics that said that can't get by with it no more because it scientifically proved that there is a supernatural being and this supernatural being is Jesus Christ the son of God, his spirit.

In July 14th of 1950 at Thy Word, he puts the blame on Lacey as saying it was the only one supernatural being of a photograph. So he himself is not attributed to saying that.

He said the first time, Mr. Lacey, he said it was the first time in all human history that a supernatural being was ever photographed. So you see how slick this is, he'll attribute statements to others.

So it's not he himself saying something that's untrue. So he can stay out of it but he can attribute it that somebody else said it and then he can say it over and over again as if it were true from then on out and not even mentioned Mr. Lacey's name.

Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started or how the progression of modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic and other fringe movements into the new apostolic reformation? You can learn this and more on William Brannum Historical Research's website, William-Brannum.org.

On the book's page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins, Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon and others, with links to the paper, audio and digital versions of each book.

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So let's break this down for people who have not been involved in Brannum as them like you and I, but who heard about the light because there are numerous people. Channel Ross was never in randomism.

He was in Hobart Preman's sect and Hobart Freeman talked about the halo and he believed that something happened. Let's break it down for people. There is a light. Definitely if you look at the photograph, there's a light.

That's an observation. We see the light. We can look at the photograph. Anybody who's passing it around and they apparently sold these things and people would pick it up in its vindication because I see this light as an observation.

The light of supernatural is the interpretation by the person who is claiming supernatural authority. It comes from nowhere else. It comes directly from the person making the claim. This light is supernatural. He will put the words in somebody else's mouth like you said that claims that it's supernatural.

And people, if they want to argue this, they're not having to argue with the person making the claim to build themselves up. They have to instead argue with the other person who they can't even access.

That's really important here. The light is an angel. That's another interpretation. That's an interpretation being made by the person who's trying to build himself up. The angel is a pillar of fire or the angel is Jesus.

That's another interpretation. So you have cascading levels of interpretation and all of it is built around the observation which is unproven. So people are having to make this leap only because the person making the claim to build themselves up is making this claim.

So you make all of these leaps that you wouldn't naturally make. If you were talking to anybody on the street who came up to you and said, I had a light above my head and it was the pillar of fire and an angel and it was God.

And it vindicated me to take authoritarian control over you. You would simply walk away from this person. You wouldn't want anything more to do with them. But because it's in a religious setting and because people have shut down all critical thinking, they suddenly believe it as though it's truth.

And then now he has credentials. I can pick up the photograph. I can hang it in my church. I can hang it in my wall in my house. People do this. I can carry it around in my pocket.

I remember in the 80s, they used to print these and they would laminate it and you could put it in your wallet. And now I can show other people he's a vindicated prophet of God.

Every single person who does this, whether it's the church or the individual in the wallet, they're all pointing to the interpretation. They're not actually pointing to the event that can be proven or disproven.

That's really the key to understand here. So the synthesis of these two of him claiming it was always supernatural being or a photograph in the world which was proved by science where it cannot be denied, that's what he came out with this out of the two extremes.

He attributes statements from other people, said the only picture of a supernatural supernatural being of a photograph, he spoke that 99 times from 1950. One month after the Houston photo, all the way to 1965.

And in the end, he gets the mileage he needs out of these two extremes, and the people are led to believe it is the angel of the Lord in the meetings, rather than just a stage light above his head.

I want to show a similar picture that was taken probably around 1965. It's a photograph of Paul McCartney with a stage light above his head. You know, why would you want to use this photograph to say it's a supernatural being?

It looks the same, basically, as the light above William Brown's head. No supernatural significance was ever attributed to it, because everyone knows it was just stage lighting that was taken along with the photo.

In fact, if I show you the broader photo here, it shows the light above most of the Beatles heads on stage in the same manner in that slanted angle as it was shown above William Brown's head.

So if we were to believe that William Brown's photo of a light above his head is supernatural, then what are we to do with the other pictures taken of men and women on stage with light above their head?

You know, they were not promoting Christianity here, but they were promoting their rock music. Does this mean that God came down, Jesus Christ came down to these men? You know, not anymore than the famous Halo photograph.

If George Lacey examined the Beatles photograph, he could write the same letter certifying that he wrote for William Brown's photo, because it's the same phenomenon of stage lighting exposing the film. So the photo of William Brown on a stage where a stage light just happens to be taken above his head, even though it's a religious meeting, it's not a rock concert.

It has nothing to do with it being an angel. And it matters because the ministry's authority risks heavily on visible and audible and photographic signs. If the central photographic sign was systematically overstated, then the pattern of combining these unrelated pieces to produce the stronger claim becomes key to understanding how other teachings he were constructed in his ministry.

Things that appear airtight on the surface, scientific proof, government recognition, the only photograph of its kind ever, turn out on examination to be carefully built on synthesizing these two extremes. He goes on further, and as far as 1965 and the Sermon Marriage and Divorce, he's built himself up to be like a Moses figure and even says it in this way.

He said, I was called when I was just a little boy, and in this was a visible, audible sign given me a pillar of fire hanging in a bush at seven years old. And now it's had the picture taken many times, hangs in Washington, D.C. as a copyright in the religious hall of art, and we'll get to that in a minute.

He's the only supernatural being that was ever scientifically proven to be photographed. Same pillar of fire, exactly the same look, and in every way, they're brought Israel out of Egypt. So as he was playing this up, this is round 9.

1555. He says this about Mr. Lacey. He likes to dramatize things a little bit. So he said, Mr. Lacey said, as if he were looking out into the audience, he says, whose name is Reverend Brownham. He said, I said mine. He said, stand up. He said, as long as there's a civilization, your picture will never go out of existence. He said, that's the only time a supernatural beam was ever photographed. He said, the light struck the lens. It's the truth like that.

So he played this up here, dramatized it a little bit and might have even put some words into Mr. Lacey's mouth as being the only time a supernatural beam was ever photographed. Now, maybe true, that's going to be a famous photo. Maybe it's also true, the light struck the lens, but I wonder about this other statement that he attributes to Mr. Lacey. And Brownham's Halo photograph illustrates this pattern because it begins with an ordinary man introduces extraordinary contradiction about it, that the supernatural light was associated with him. And it resolves it by interpreting that light as divine confirmation of his ministry.

The ordinary and the supernatural brought together in a new conclusion that the photograph provides evidence that Brownham possessed a unique divine calling. And that's why he always tried to get across to the people that I was uniquely called, you know, for what I'm doing.

So the important question, however, is whether the synthesis is actually justified by the evidence or whether the interpretation of the photograph does create the conclusion that it's used to prove. The issue is not merely what the photograph shows, but how the interpretation of what it shows is used to establish his prophetic authority. In the end, it was about his authority over the people and his authority to interpret the Bible as he wished. He wanted to publish doctrines and push doctrines onto the people, and the only way to get them to accept it was to demonstrate that

he was being led by supernatural being, and that being none other than Jesus Christ. And why did he want people to accept his doctrine when things were contrary to Scripture? And that's really beyond me. So we think about why could it have been? Could it have been that he believed that accepting him and his doctrine was the only way to salvation? Maybe. Was he just trying to push and implement Roy Davis's vision and doctrine onto the people about his vision of America and the churches they were building? And that includes all the doctrines that came along with it. Was he

trying to make the latter rain doctrine, the dominant theology in the Pentecostal world through this? Or was he just trying to make himself a name and a legacy that we carry on from generation to generation? You know, we will probably never know the answer to those questions, but their interest seemed to think about imponder. And I will tell you right now that is a gift and a curse.

There are so many questions, man. If you take any of these supernatural claims, I don't care which one it is, halo or not, if you take any supernatural claim and then look at what was claimed and read everything that you can, listen to everything that you can, document what you see, document what they say, write it down, put an in order in bullet points, they said this, they claim this, they claim this, take all of those things and then go back to the actual event and examine what evidence does exist.

In almost every case, you're gonna find out that the two just simply do not match which raises questions, but here's the problem. Branham was a building block, like I said. He, you can't say that because of this halo photograph, Bethel exists, you can't say that any of the different groups that respond off of this exist because of the halo photograph, but what it did is actually stronger and more important to your study.

This movement started to characterize themselves by these apostles and prophets who were doing the same thing. They were following that same pattern that I mentioned and here's where it gets a little bit comical.

Branham created the strategy. He did the claim, he introduced the claim, the claim was over in events and people were distracted from it. Well, others started copying this and in the beginning, that's okay.

We're all apostles and prophets in this laterane thing. If you study the early version of Branhamism, that is clearly what he's wanting. He wants everybody to share in this so they can build an organization of a religious movement.

That's what is happening, whether he wants to be organized or not. Later on, he starts to condemn everybody he helped create and that gets a little bit comical. Look at Orobert. Orobert was a big part of the ministry in the beginning.

Later, he starts railing Billy Graham and Orobert's because their ministries are starting to take off and thrive. Well, that's all because he helped establish the pattern that many, many people were using to build themselves up into a big name.

Well, what happens when the big name passes your big name? That's where it gets both comical and sad at the same time. John, that's exactly right. We can ponder over these things for many years as we've done and these things are so true.

They only build up a man. They don't exalt Jesus Christ many times and it's only used to try to support what a man's trying to push upon the people. But now I want to go into this statement.

This is an interesting point here that he made about the picture being in the Hall of Religious Art. I found some interesting things in this as I was kind of doing some research in this.

Where did he get the idea of being a Hall of Religious Art? Nothing like that exists, which is sponsored by the US government in Washington, D.C. But William Random makes it seem like this picture was put on the...

displayed by the government and endorsed by the US government. But that's far from the truth. The picture was placed only in the Library of Congress like every photograph that photographers want to keep the copy right on.

But here's where he says in 1959, in November from the beginning it wasn't so he said it signed by the government. The only supernatural being was ever photographed in all the world history, history of the world.

They got it right here on the picture now hanging in Washington DC in the Hall of Religious Art. However, you know, that was never a Hall of Religious Art associated with the US government.

I know many of us in the message went to Washington DC. I myself did to try to find this Hall of Religious Art because I wanted to see for myself. And when I inquired about it, you know, there was no such thing.

And I'm sure other message believers have done the same thing. But actually, here, there's a connection between what he's saying here and spiritualism. And I want to show this real quick. There's actual spiritualist museums and collections with spirit art, artifacts, portraits, historical exhibits, they exist elsewhere.

Most notably in the Hett Art Gallery and Museum at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana. Dedicated in 1954, which holds one of the largest collections of precipitated spirit paintings and related materials. But what is accurate here when he talks about Washington DC, there's a national spiritualist association.

It was incorporated in Washington DC on November 3rd, 1893. And the original certificate of incorporation stated that the principal office will be located in the city of Washington DC. So that's a connection there.

He's mentioning Washington DC, spiritualist organizations. Now they didn't have a Hall of Religious Art at that organization in Washington DC, but we know spiritualist camps did have their art galleries. Now, I'm going to get to something else here in a minute.

But here he says it again in 1953 in expectations. He said, a lady here has got a book, bring me that yellow book where he's a sister there, wished out would have brought some of those pictures.

How many of you ever never did see it, let me see your hand, never seen a picture of the angel. Here it is. This is by the American Photographer Association, hangs in the religious hall of art in New York City.

The only supernatural being ever taken in all the world's history. You can see the pillar of fire. Now, what's interesting here in 1953, he states, it was hanging in New York. New York City or New York in the Hall of Religious Art.

If you look at all the quotes prior to that, and even after that, he talks about it being in Washington DC, and even one remote quote being in Germany. We won't get into that, but it's interesting that he mentions New York at this time.

As I bounce up in here. interesting as I look for this Hall of Religious Art in New York. The main New York spiritualist museum, which features spirit religious media mystic art, is in Lilliedel, museum in Lilliedel, assembly, New York.

Lilliedel is in Chautauqua County, Western New York, about an hour south of Buffalo. It's the world's largest, oldest continuously operating spiritualist community, and it was founded in 1879. Surges is the major center for the religion of spiritualism, also the home to the headquarters of the Natural National Spiritualist Association of Churches.

And the museum there that they've got is located corner of Library Street, East Street. It's a historic 1891 room schoolhouse, is across from the healing temple. This focuses to preserve the history of spiritualism in Lilliedel through artifacts, memorabilia, photos, and especially spirit art.

So the key highlights related to art and religious spiritualist material were precipitated spirit paintings. These are the standout religious art pieces. There are portraits that mediums, especially the banged sisters and the Campbell brothers claim were created by spirits without human hands.

Spirits hang on the walls and are among the museum's prized holdings. Spirit slates, they were chalk writings, supposed to be produced by spirits. Fox family artifacts, fox sisters, wrappings, extensive collections of spiritualist newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, historical photos of pioneer mediums, landmarks, and spiritualist figures.

You know, could there be a connection as to why he used New York in one quote in Washington, BC, and another? Because spiritualist art collections do exist. As I mentioned, there's the head art gallery museum in Cheshire Field, Indiana, which we've mentioned before.

We believe William Brighton was connected to because it was only an hour from his home. And so there was that to look at. Now what I found most interesting here, and I won't go through the Library of Congress reading, but the Library of Congress was just registering the photograph for a copyright.

And that's yet another slide of hand technique that I want to go into just a bit. So had William Brannum told all of the people, they took a picture of me, and the picture had a light above my head, and they sent it to Washington, DC to be copyrighted.

That's the whole story, and that's the whole truth. That's if you go back and you actually read the events that are happening, you can line all of this up with recorded history, even voice of healing, publish the statement that this photograph was being sent for copyright, and therefore they had to delay a book.

So we can find that example, that's the whole story. That's that, what he told the people was. They came, the government came and sent it to Washington, D.C. And then he stopped there, he didn't tell the rest of the story.

So now there's a question that forms in the mind, and that question is the slide of hand. Why did they send it to Washington? Oh my gosh, they sent it to Washington. What is going on here?

Because he didn't tell the whole story, that's what happened. And that's really key to understand. He didn't technically lie. He just didn't tell the whole truth. That's how all of this begins. Well, then the question forms, and people start to grow that question into their own types of answers.

And then he feeds on those answers. So whatever they're thinking, he can have conversations with people. Well, he starts to introduce those themes into his sermons. And suddenly, this is a story that grows like a snowball.

It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And by the end, you're inventing religious halls of art. I mean, that's literally how this happens. So in the very beginning, had he just been truthful?

None of this would have even existed. In fact, because that photograph is so significant to, quote unquote, vindicating his ministry, you might not even hear the name William Brannum ever. And any sermon by Benny Han or anybody who is building their ministry upon this, he would just be this no-name Pentecostal minister who was associated with the clan figures.

But instead, because that slide of hand technique was happening, not just in this event, but many, many other events, the people started to think he was more than a man. I want to show one more example really quick here.

There was another photograph of what's called the pillar of fire appearing on his shoulder. But as I showed this, this happened at Souls Harbor at W.V. Grant's Church before he went into preach.

But this light wasn't really played up like a supernatural being on a photograph as the other was. This didn't appear on his head, but it was a light showing on his shoulder. But what's interesting about this light, it appears to start near the top of the left shoulder extends downward along the lapel.

It does not surround the head or body symmetrically. If we're an independent, luminous object hovering beside the man, you might expect illumination on nearby surfaces, light falling across his face from that direction, or a glow extending beyond the outline of just the shoulder.

The right area also appears to follow the contour of the jacket. So you wonder why the spirit there would have followed the exact contour of the jacket outline as we showed here. So the significance here, David Harrel called that 1950 photo the most famous of the healing revival.

To mention, the reason it would have been recorded in the Library of Congress was that just a copyright registration only in the photograph. The reason this photograph might have hung in one of those spirit camps, if it even did, who knows, he might have just been acquainted with the spirit art galleries in those camps.

But it might have hung in there because they would, of course, believe it was a supernatural being. But just having a copyright in Washington, D.C., it only establishes ownership of the image. It protects it from unauthorized reproduction.

You just can't print it as much as you want and sell it. It creates a data government record of the claim work and it allows you to obtain a remedy if somebody infringed your copyright and established who the copyright owner is of the photograph when it was first published.

George L.J. Lacey examined it in Library of Congress' copyright registration or something presented together as though they constitute government verification of a supernatural nature to this photograph, but they do not. So I want to mention something I found very interesting regarding this Lillie Dale spiritual camp.

When William Bram was younger, way back in the day in the probably the early 40s, maybe the 1930s, after he married Mita, of course, he would travel to the Adirondack Mountains of New York to go hunting.

And what I found, the location of this Lillie Dale museum that has the little art gallery there in New York, was his traveling route would have been no more than a few miles from that spiritual camp.

So the times he said he loved to be up there like placid and on his way up, it's very possible knowing that he mentioned he was in spiritual camps that he dropped by. And that could have been why it slipped out of his mouth the way it did when he said it was hanging in the art museum in New York or New York City, because he had been right by spiritual camp in New York.

Now I'm not, I'm saying that's a stretch, but it's interesting. And I just wanted to bring that point up. I know to the people who are developed followers of William Bram, the moment they hear this, they just reject the whole thing because no, William Bram would not be associated with going to these spiritual camps.

However, he himself did admit it on recording and he talks about going and hearing and seeing these strange and unusual things, one of which he says that a piano levitated and it played the jingle, shave and a haircut, two bits, which if you know the Beverly Hill believes it's the tant tant tant tant at the end, apparently a piano was rising and making that noise.

Well he talks about it as though it's a true thing and it's a true spirit of evil coming to get him. Well we find out later that camp Chesterfield, which you mentioned, that was one of the main attractions.

And it was fake, it was later proven to be fake, but they had the stage act where this piano was hoisted up by chains or ropes or whatever. And the audience couldn't see what was happening to make it levitate, but it would go up into the air and then play the jingle and people would just be wowed in the crowd.

Camp Chesterfield not far from here. And Brannum's ministry began because Roy Davis, his mentor, was claiming that he was a converted spiritualist, and he knew the ins and outs of the spiritual realm. So that's really how this cascade of events happens. And in those events, Brannum does not tell the whole truth. He tells a partial truth, but he links it to something else.

And that's really, I think, the point that you're making here. He doesn't give us the whole truth in almost every case. So we have to go the further step and link and try to find out. Here's a here's a fact that he mentions, what is the actual truth behind that fact? So John, what is the significance to his ministry here? As we wind up, David Harrow called it probably the most famous photograph of the revival. This photograph is not just a souvenir, but it function as proof of the angel with the prophet. And meeting after

meeting, you know, Brannum could point to it and say, science has itself admitted, there's a supernatural being in the ministry. And the being is the same one that has followed me since childhood. And that claim closed the gap between a private visionary experience and public verification. Now they were one. Once accepted, it made skepticism look like your willful unbelief against the very proof of scientific evidence. And also created a ready made answer to critics, which is used to lead people to that same conclusion.

And I spoke of a light that appeared in my life. We now have a photo with a light with me in the meeting. We know the mechanical eye of the camera cannot be deceived. Therefore the light is real and struck the lens. Therefore the angel was there. Therefore my message is vindicated. And yet the gap between Lacey's measured statement and the absolute claim between copyright registration signed by the government, between a spiritualist hall of and a religious hall of art is a blending of some truth with some falsehoods. The same method appears when two unrelated scriptures are joined together to produce a doctrine that neither text would

state on their own. And we'll get into some of those later on. The result is a coherent sounding system that's difficult to challenge, you know, from being inside the framework, because every piece has been made to support every other piece. But in the end, when you can step back and examine the evidence, you know, things do not appear as they are presented. The photograph looks like iron clad supernatural evidence until we compare the facts with as later retellings. But this same careful comparison is needed whenever a teaching rest on a fusion of separate text put together and the events

into a new hole. So I'll look forward to exploring even more examples next time with you, John, as we talk about how you use this technique. Sounds good. Well, if you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web. You can find us at www.William-branam.org.

For more information about the message teaching of the Godhead, you can read Godhead in their own words, voices of oneness preachers of the Entime Message, and for more about the dark side of the New Apostolic Reformation, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

For more information about the message teaching of Godhead, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR, available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

For more information about the message teaching of Godhead, you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.