- 5 days ago
John Collins and John McKinnon discuss the origins and unraveling of one of the most significant stories in Branhamism: the 1963 mystery cloud. They explore how the image of a circular cloud featured in Life magazine became a central symbol for followers who viewed it as divine validation of Branham’s teachings. Drawing from eyewitness testimony, military records, and Branham’s own evolving accounts, they unpack the inconsistencies and mythology built around this event.
The discussion moves through the buildup of the cloud’s legend, the role of photo manipulation and misinformation, and the logical contradictions in Branham’s sermons. As John recounts his personal journey from believer to skeptic, he reveals how the doctrine surrounding the cloud was used to shape a theology of exclusivity and end-time revelation. Together, they highlight the importance of critical thinking and the consequences of accepting unverifiable claims as divine truth.
Cloud Research:
https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/1963_mystery_cloud
00:00 Introduction
01:01 How the Cloud Became a Central Myth
04:45 Personal Journey from Belief to Truth
08:00 Cloud Imagery in Churches and Message Culture
11:06 The Timeline Problem and Branham’s Claims
13:01 Why the Cloud Mattered Doctrinally
16:00 Misrepresentation and Suppression of Facts
20:17 Military Tests and the Scientific Explanation
25:30 Contradictions in Eyewitness Testimonies
29:09 Creating New Myths to Support the Original
35:00 Theological Implications and Plagiarism
41:12 Was It a Lie? A Biblical Look at Truth
48:00 Final Analysis and Call to Re-examine Beliefs
53:23 Long-Term Effects and Generational Indoctrination
1:01:02 Closing Thoughts and Future Topics
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
The discussion moves through the buildup of the cloud’s legend, the role of photo manipulation and misinformation, and the logical contradictions in Branham’s sermons. As John recounts his personal journey from believer to skeptic, he reveals how the doctrine surrounding the cloud was used to shape a theology of exclusivity and end-time revelation. Together, they highlight the importance of critical thinking and the consequences of accepting unverifiable claims as divine truth.
Cloud Research:
https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/1963_mystery_cloud
00:00 Introduction
01:01 How the Cloud Became a Central Myth
04:45 Personal Journey from Belief to Truth
08:00 Cloud Imagery in Churches and Message Culture
11:06 The Timeline Problem and Branham’s Claims
13:01 Why the Cloud Mattered Doctrinally
16:00 Misrepresentation and Suppression of Facts
20:17 Military Tests and the Scientific Explanation
25:30 Contradictions in Eyewitness Testimonies
29:09 Creating New Myths to Support the Original
35:00 Theological Implications and Plagiarism
41:12 Was It a Lie? A Biblical Look at Truth
48:00 Final Analysis and Call to Re-examine Beliefs
53:23 Long-Term Effects and Generational Indoctrination
1:01:02 Closing Thoughts and Future Topics
______________________
Weaponized Religion: From Christian Identity to the NAR:
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735160962
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCGGZX3K
______________________
– Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/branham
– Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSpezVG15TVG-lOYMRXuyQ
– Visit the website: https://william-branham.org
– Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBranhamOrg
– Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@william.m.branham
– Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wmbhr
– Buy the books: https://william-branham.org/site/books
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:30Hello, and welcome to another episode of the William Branham Historical Research Podcast.
00:00:37I'm your host, John Collins, the author and founder of William Branham Historical Research
00:00:41at william-branham.org, and with me I have my co-host and friend, John McKinnon.
00:00:47And together, we're talking about the mythologies, the strange mythologies that built this entire
00:00:53revival movement and this mess that we see today.
00:00:56John, it's good to be back and to talk about all things mythologies and all things mess
00:01:02and dumpster fires that we see today.
00:01:05There are so many things going wrong with the, you know, I hate to even brand it as Christianity,
00:01:11but in Christianity, pseudo-politics Christianity that we see today, it's such a mess.
00:01:17And I think people don't realize where most of this stemmed from because they look at
00:01:22the movements today and they see it's not really based on Christianity.
00:01:26They're building these mythologies of individuals and they're worshiping those mythologies and
00:01:32they became, you know, they have became super apostles or super prophets or whatever.
00:01:38And all of that traces its roots back to what we're about to talk about today, believe it
00:01:43or not.
00:01:43In the latter rain movement, they were doing similar things, not to the same level as today,
00:01:49but it was built off of mythologies.
00:01:52And one of the biggest mythologies was this 1963 mystery cloud.
00:01:58Now, if you're in the charismatic movement or the new apostolic reformation today, you've
00:02:03really never heard of this.
00:02:04This thing was so, it has been so long forgotten that I think people don't realize or recognize
00:02:10how big of a deal this actually was, but in the height of what would eventually become,
00:02:17eventually transition into the charismatic movement, William Branham claimed that seven
00:02:22angels came down from the heavens and basically opened up the seven seals of the book of revelation
00:02:30to him, gave him the mysteries behind the seals.
00:02:34And when he would tell his crowd, no man is worthy to open the seals from the book of revelation,
00:02:40he would say that he did it, insinuating that he was more than a man.
00:02:45And this kind of stuck because you had people such as T.L.
00:02:49Osborne.
00:02:50He was a member of William Branham's deity cult who was very fundamental in helping to
00:02:56start the word of faith movement.
00:02:57T.L.
00:02:58Osborne believed that William Branham was God in the flesh.
00:03:01So, when T.L.
00:03:02Osborne is reading the Bible and it says, no man is worthy to open the seven seals, well,
00:03:07he can bypass that scripture because he's looking at William Branham as though William Branham
00:03:12is God, not man.
00:03:14But before that mythology became widespread in the movement, there was this 1963 mystery cloud
00:03:23that happened.
00:03:24And there's so much more to the story.
00:03:26Now, Charles and I, we're going through the buildup of what happened in Branhamism as it
00:03:32was starting to transition into the charismatic movement and a little bit beyond this.
00:03:37So, anybody who's joining that podcast now, they're going to miss a lot of things because
00:03:41we long, long ago talked about the cloud.
00:03:45So, I thought it'd be good to have you on and to go through your research into the cloud,
00:03:49maybe combine it with some of mine and see if we can make something interesting for people
00:03:54who are just now joining in the podcast with Charles and I.
00:03:57So, welcome back.
00:03:59Yes, John.
00:03:59It's exciting to be back here and do another episode with you.
00:04:05I've wanted to cover some things that I was thinking of about the mystery cloud that appeared
00:04:10in 1963 as we know it.
00:04:13And this episode will be going into some details about that and just my take on the cloud as
00:04:18well.
00:04:19So, very happy to be here again.
00:04:22And, you know, in this episode, I just want people to know, the people that are seeing
00:04:27this, to know that I embrace the message as truth.
00:04:29I believe that God had sent a prophet and I embrace the scriptures that were taught around
00:04:34surrounding this, such as the Malachi 4 prophecy and so forth.
00:04:37And I once settled on these things and never thought I would ever change my mind.
00:04:42I just thought they were too solid.
00:04:43I even went to Jeffersonville in 1995 and I looked for the article myself and this was
00:04:51the actual page that I printed that day and I've kept it all these years.
00:04:58But as you can see, it only showed that 14 were converted in the tent meeting and I was
00:05:03looking for the mystic light over the minister at the river where they were baptizing.
00:05:09I never found that and I still wasn't shaking over this.
00:05:12It didn't bother me.
00:05:13I just figured since I was looking on microfiche, I just hadn't come across the correct paper
00:05:17and I, you know, just went on with that at the time.
00:05:21I also obtained many copies of the Life magazine that I could.
00:05:25So, I've got the copies, you know, of the cloud in the magazine as y'all have covered very
00:05:31well, you and Charles.
00:05:32And so, I had that and even when these calendars here were made available back in 1988-89,
00:05:42I've still got those showing the cloud on the cover.
00:05:46So, and inside the calendar on February the 28th, it says,
00:05:52Brother Brown meets seven angels on Sunset Mountain, February 28th.
00:05:57So, they were believing it at the time and putting it in these publications and all, the message
00:06:04put out.
00:06:05But I thought these things were just solidly based on the Bible and that no challenge could
00:06:09ever be won about it.
00:06:11Even after I had been in the message 14 years and heard the issues about the cloud for the
00:06:15first time, it, you know, really didn't bother me because I still held out the cloud could
00:06:19be supernatural.
00:06:20Even with the issues of the bridge, as we know y'all have talked about the bridge vision
00:06:26and learning about that, that didn't shake me from the message because I had other explanations
00:06:32of it, of course.
00:06:33But what eventually shook me from the message was when I began to minister to a congregation
00:06:38back here in my hometown and felt the responsibility to actually be correct in the scriptures.
00:06:46It was that time that I really discovered the errors in how, you know, Branham had taught
00:06:50the critical doctrines in Christianity, how he had to manipulate what the scriptures were
00:06:55actually saying, you know, to make it fit his beliefs and the ministry that he had and
00:06:59sway people to believe that he was the last day prophet.
00:07:03But I realized the Bible actually said something different and I could never reconcile the two.
00:07:09So, I usually took what the Bible, I always took what the Bible said, but I really had to
00:07:13bite my tongue when I spoke because I didn't want the congregation to hear things that were
00:07:18contrary to the message.
00:07:19So, I really had to dance around what I said a lot of times and I began to avoid things that
00:07:25Branham had said and the way he taught it.
00:07:28And at the same time, I was careful not to offend the congregation by trying to say something
00:07:31contrary at the time.
00:07:33But it was really only when I saw the true history that you had put out, began to read
00:07:38about that and seeing the underlying history of the message that I realized it was really a
00:07:43corrupt system.
00:07:44And then I had to come out and that was around 2019.
00:07:47You know, it's significant, especially during the years that you're talking about.
00:07:51You know, growing up in the message, we saw all kinds of different things and all kinds
00:07:57of different people.
00:07:58But the one thing that is common among all of them is they all have, to some extent, some
00:08:04version or variation of this cloud integrated in their propaganda.
00:08:08And, you know, for the outsiders who've never been in this and they're just kind of studying
00:08:13what is the message and how did the New Apostolic Reformation come from all of this mess, you
00:08:19have to realize that things like what we're about to talk about, you would never think
00:08:24about.
00:08:24So, you walk into a church and I'm not going to say all of them are like this, but I would
00:08:29say that there are a large number of churches that are like this.
00:08:32You walk into the building and in some cases, when you walk into the foyer, you're going
00:08:37to see two photographs.
00:08:40You're going to see the William Branham halo photograph, which was taken in the Houston
00:08:44Coliseum.
00:08:45We've talked about it in the podcast.
00:08:47And you're also going to see this cloud thing because they have tilted it sideways.
00:08:53So, they're not actually showing you the correct orientation of the photograph, but they've
00:08:59tilted it sideways and interestingly, the photograph itself was cropped because there were, if the
00:09:07photograph were to be expanded a little bit, there were actually two clouds, not one, because
00:09:12they, as we'll get into, they came from some testing during the height of the Cold War from
00:09:19Vandenberg Air Force Base.
00:09:21But there were two clouds.
00:09:22One of them, both of them were rings.
00:09:24One of them was a massive, massive ring and the other one was a little bit smaller.
00:09:29So, these two clouds were floating across Arizona, where you walk into the foyers of these churches
00:09:35and they'll have the orientation changed, where it kind of looks like, they're saying
00:09:41it looks like a head.
00:09:42And when I was in it, I believed it.
00:09:44Now that I'm out, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, yeah, no, that's not it.
00:09:48But they say that it looks like a head and it's the face of Jesus.
00:09:52And they say that the angels were circling in this ring and they were forming the face
00:09:58of Jesus as they came down to William Branham.
00:10:00And so, you walk into the churches, you'll see those two photographs.
00:10:04Now, some of the churches that are on the more extremist side will have, as you sit down
00:10:10in the congregation and you're sitting in the pews, you'll look up at the platform and
00:10:15some of them will have the cloud actually hanging behind the preacher, either to the right
00:10:20or to the left, and they'll have the halo photograph, either to the right or to the left.
00:10:25And yet, many of these men, I've been in the churches, many of them will say things like,
00:10:29now, we don't worship William Branham, but they've got all the relics behind them, man.
00:10:33So, it's like, if you're out of, you know, if you've never been in this movement and you
00:10:37are visiting the church, maybe with family or whatever, you hear them say that and you're
00:10:41kind of scratching your head, like, why do they have the relics behind the head if
00:10:45they're not worshiping Branham?
00:10:47And anyway, it is really significant.
00:10:49The funny part is that now there are, it's not as significant because now it's kind of
00:10:55widespread that this had no link whatsoever to William Branham, this mystery cloud.
00:11:02In fact, there are, I want to say it was probably the late 1970s.
00:11:08There were actually well-known figures within the message that were just kind of questioning
00:11:13it, and somebody, I think I recall who did, but somebody published this pamphlet that put
00:11:20the timeline together, and they recognized that William Branham was in another state when
00:11:25this happened.
00:11:26And though he claimed on recording to be standing right under this thing as it came down, he could
00:11:32not have been according to the timeline.
00:11:34I want to say that was like the mid-1980s.
00:11:37And so people started to wake up, including some named ministers in the movement, and just
00:11:42recognize, no, this isn't true.
00:11:44This story isn't true.
00:11:45It is mythology.
00:11:47And so it's not talked about as much today.
00:11:50So the followers today, by and large, aren't really aware how big of a deal this is.
00:11:56They've kind of discounted it.
00:11:57And so if there is raised a question, well, he said he was under this cloud.
00:12:02He never was.
00:12:03Many of them today are now manipulated to just simply say, I don't care.
00:12:07But for you and I, this was a big deal, man.
00:12:10This was really, this is the moment that defined the message movement for what it was.
00:12:15If you want to say William Branham had a quote-unquote message, this was it.
00:12:19This is the beginning of that message coming.
00:12:21And so the message that I grew up with and the one that exists today, they're two different
00:12:26things, but it's, I don't know that I could stress enough the significance of this.
00:12:32So yeah, John, I'm really excited to be talking about the cloud because I think there's some
00:12:36critical things people ought to know.
00:12:38That's the focus of today's podcast.
00:12:40So the significance of the cloud is basically what I see it as.
00:12:46It's like a capstone of Branham's ministry.
00:12:49He treated it like that, and people treat it as the Word of God was opened, so the opening
00:12:54of the Word.
00:12:54Others say Christ came down because he was looking down upon earth in the cloud.
00:13:01Branham's most inspired sermons ever were preached the following week when he preached
00:13:06the seals, and that's basically what is believed about that.
00:13:10Why is it important?
00:13:11Because this is prophetic vindication.
00:13:13If the cloud is true, and if everything that was said about the cloud and actually how
00:13:18the events took place was true, this is actually prophetic vindication.
00:13:22Prophecy was fulfilled, and the coming of the Lord was at hand if the coming of the Lord
00:13:26hadn't already happened.
00:13:28The issues with the cloud, though, what I will say is that when you look at the true history
00:13:33of the cloud, the cloud was misrepresented, you know, to the people, even from the beginning.
00:13:40You know, Branham was the first one to misrepresent the cloud, and it's due to this Life magazine
00:13:46that came out.
00:13:47And he saw that cloud in there, and somehow he managed to create this picture in his mind
00:13:55that I was out there close to that time.
00:13:57I could probably use this in my ministry because they're really saying they don't know what
00:14:02caused the cloud.
00:14:03Well, I can say it was the seven angels that met me.
00:14:06So there were intentional statements made which were never proven, nor were they true, and
00:14:13they were told to capture the minds of the people.
00:14:15So when you can come back and, you know, you went out there from a message you preached
00:14:21in December, and you say all these supernatural things that had happened to you, and all the
00:14:26dreams and visions so-called that they were told that put it all together, then you can
00:14:32build it up in the minds of the people that if some great thing took place, and people
00:14:36actually believe it, that's why it's called like a capstone of his ministry.
00:14:40And it really captured their minds, and it caused them to believe something untrue, and
00:14:44some of the facts are very untrue.
00:14:46But the whole story just centers around him.
00:14:49He made this cloud center around his whole ministry.
00:14:53And the ministry people, the ministers and the closest ones to it really controlled the
00:14:57narrative to what the congregation heard, even through the years when they heard
00:15:01the facts come out, they still control the narrative, and do so to this day, even.
00:15:09So that the real truth about the cloud was suppressed, and when it became known, you know, it was
00:15:15still, like I said, suppressed to this day.
00:15:17But we even have proof from the eyewitnesses on tape and on video that the testimony does
00:15:24not back up the story, but really it actually disproves it, because they emphatically say the
00:15:30ones that were out there hunting with him in Arizona say that never saw the cloud.
00:15:36They did hear a boom.
00:15:38They did see streaks in the sky, like for airplanes being made, and one of them did.
00:15:44And even there was a newspaper article we'll go in later, but, you know, the newspaper said
00:15:49there was military aircraft flying the area at the time and making such loud booms that
00:15:54it even broke windows in town.
00:15:56So we know very likely what probably caused this boom or loud noise they heard, the sonic boom.
00:16:03So where we go wrong, we'll get to where we go wrong with this cloud picture.
00:16:11Where the message people go wrong, I believe, is that they fail to step back from the story,
00:16:16from all the buildup and the hype and the things about it, and we let ourselves be caught up with it.
00:16:23It was, you know, we even look for the face of Jesus in there.
00:16:27We look for the angel's wings, and our minds can create that in the picture itself, and
00:16:32it may not even be there.
00:16:35We've not done our due diligence to really critically think about the event and line it up with the
00:16:40facts, the timeline even, which we know he wasn't even out there when this cloud appeared.
00:16:46We only have one person's account of the story.
00:16:50The other two couldn't even corroborate really all the facts that were told.
00:16:56And we only have William Branham's account of the story, and this person's had a known history
00:17:02of not telling the truth when it comes to supernatural things in his life, such as things like seeing
00:17:09visions while he was still crawling around as a baby or seeing the bridge vision that never
00:17:15really never happened, making up supernatural events surrounding the baptismal service or
00:17:20making up extra details about the little boy who was hit by a car to make himself shown that
00:17:27he was doing things clearly he didn't do just to make it appear like he was something greater
00:17:32than he was.
00:17:33And there's hundreds of other exaggerations, you know, that he did in his ministry.
00:17:37And I think that's where the key thing is about this cloud that we're looking at.
00:17:42This is, when you lay this out, it's just the same thing.
00:17:45You know, I would even go a step further than that, because for William Branham to have been
00:17:49able to pull this off, where this is an event whenever other people were present.
00:17:55So for him to have been able to pull this off while other people were present, those people
00:17:59who were there could not have seen this cloud because the timelines don't match.
00:18:04He is there actually hunting in Arizona after this cloud has occurred.
00:18:08Those same people would have been in the state of Arizona when the cloud did occur.
00:18:13So they would know that those two events are not connected.
00:18:16William Branham's out of state.
00:18:17I see the cloud in the sky.
00:18:19He comes back into the state.
00:18:20We go hunting.
00:18:21So you have to have a cover up of sorts for this to happen.
00:18:25But more than that, all of the people who were not just in Arizona, but throughout the United
00:18:32States, this is a time of political unrest.
00:18:35There is the fears of Russian invasion.
00:18:38There's the fear of nuclear fallout war.
00:18:41You've got all of the missile testing as they're trying to produce defense systems that can ward
00:18:47off the Russian invasion that they feel is impending.
00:18:50You have all of this military action in the United States and abroad that is preparing for World
00:18:56War III.
00:18:57So the fear is very heightened and you have people who, now the people in Arizona, they're
00:19:03hearing, according to the newspapers, they're hearing blasts constantly.
00:19:07They're under constant fallout from the testing that's happening in the Air Force bases and
00:19:15the Army bases around them.
00:19:16So they're aware of all of these booms and these blasts.
00:19:20And I'm sure they had to have seen smaller rings as they're detonating missiles that aren't as
00:19:25high as this one was.
00:19:27And those people would never have critically tied the two together because they're brainwashed not
00:19:33to.
00:19:34But there comes a point at which they start to think through the timeline as they get
00:19:39older.
00:19:39And you start to recognize that, wait a minute, this was all missile testing.
00:19:44And it was all over the newspapers that they were doing this.
00:19:48And this mystery cloud, there was, yes, there was initially a mystery because it was classified
00:19:53what happened.
00:19:54But there came a point at which it was no longer classified.
00:19:57So every single person who is in the message of William Branham who stumbles across this,
00:20:02they have to cover it up.
00:20:04Otherwise, the whole thing, it's like opening the lid and all of a sudden, all of the dark
00:20:09secrets come out.
00:20:10There are people who kept the lids on this.
00:20:13And I think that is one of the biggest problems that we see with all of it today.
00:20:18Well, John, I just want to start with the known provable facts about the cloud.
00:20:23You know, when you can do all the research about it, and you and Charles have done great
00:20:26research, Peter Deiser and John Kenna and all others who have done the research, even Perry
00:20:34Green, you know, knew these facts.
00:20:36But the cloud was over Flagstaff in February 28th.
00:20:41It became visible when the sun went below the horizon.
00:20:44It was called a noctilucent cloud.
00:20:46As true scientists, it's true that scientists were puzzled at first.
00:20:49They were wanting to figure out what it was because it was such a phenomena that usually
00:20:54wasn't seen very often or maybe had ever been seen or photographed like it was.
00:20:59And it's true that the famous cloud, which message believers say was the head of Christ,
00:21:03was featured in Life Magazine, Science Magazine, and some other publications.
00:21:06It's true that there were actually two clouds in the sky that evening.
00:21:12There's only one minister in Ohio that preached a sermon on the cloud that even attempted to
00:21:17explain the two clouds.
00:21:19But he tried to explain that.
00:21:20And it's kind of interesting what he said.
00:21:22Maybe I'll mention that a little later on.
00:21:24It's also true that at Vandenberg Airfield, you know, two rockets were launched that day,
00:21:28that same day the cloud appeared.
00:21:30One was blown up, Thor rocket, and the other was listed on the records as partially successful.
00:21:37So I don't know if they also detonated that rocket as well.
00:21:40But since there were two clouds and two rockets in the sky that day, we might can assume that
00:21:45since it wasn't totally successful, maybe they did.
00:21:47It's not a lot of records I could find on that.
00:21:50Maybe I'll have more.
00:21:52It's also true that eventually scientists concluded the cloud was made up or blown up by
00:21:57the Thor rocket.
00:21:57It's true that the winds aloft at the same altitude as the cloud appeared, they say in
00:22:05the magazine or in the writings, it was tantalizingly close to the speeds needed to bring that blown
00:22:11up rocket fuel from Vandenberg to Flagstaff in the time calculated.
00:22:16So that's kind of interesting.
00:22:18At the same altitude, the winds aloft were very, very close to the speeds needed to move that cloud
00:22:24to Flagstaff in the time that it was seen.
00:22:27It's also true that these clouds are very common.
00:22:30You know, this isn't a unique cloud.
00:22:31They're made by the same mechanism as the cloud in 63 was.
00:22:34There's been many photographed even after this.
00:22:38It's also true that the newspapers during this time reported military aircraft cruising the
00:22:44area, causing sonic booms or blasts that broke windows.
00:22:48So it wouldn't be surprising that people in the area where Branham was hunting or later
00:22:53on in March, in the first week of March, would hear blasts like sonic booms.
00:22:58But a few more truths about this.
00:23:00It's also true that William Branham, on the flip side of this, used this cloud in his ministry
00:23:05to represent prophetic vindication.
00:23:08It's also true that he represented himself to be at the spot where the cloud ascended
00:23:12to the skies on February 28th.
00:23:16He represented himself to be there, but we know for a fact he actually wasn't.
00:23:21It's also true that Branham said that a mist went up from his feet and into the air to form
00:23:25that cloud.
00:23:27It's also true that Branham said he was, no, it was also true that Branham was in Houston,
00:23:32Texas on February 28th.
00:23:34He was not where the cloud appeared.
00:23:37It is true that he was hunting on the first week of March near Tucson, but we know that
00:23:42this is about 200 miles from where the cloud was spotted.
00:23:47Now, how do you say you're underneath the cloud when it's 200 miles to your north?
00:23:52It's also true that his eyewitnesses, which are his two closest friends who were hunting
00:23:56with him, heard a blast, as we've said, and Branham also relayed that he heard blast and
00:24:03a vision in December of 1962.
00:24:07It is true that his friends never saw a cloud, and one admitted never seeing anything.
00:24:12It is true that one friend admitted he never saw a cloud, but actually said he saw streaks
00:24:19in the sky, such as an airplane would leave.
00:24:22It's also true that the military was conducting Air Force exercises in the same area, and they
00:24:27left sonic boom so loud it broke windows in town.
00:24:30Now, it's true that Branham never spoke of seeing a cloud during the time he was in Tucson,
00:24:35Arizona, prior to seeing it in Life Magazine a couple of months later in May, May 17th.
00:24:42It's also true that he planned to actually live in Arizona and planned to go hog hunting the
00:24:48first week of March and had been planning to eventually preach the seals, which he alluded
00:24:53to many times during his sermons as he worked his way through the book of Revelation, and
00:24:59actually using an outright copy in the works of other Bible scholars and theologians while
00:25:03he was doing it.
00:25:05It's also true that Branham told Jeffersonville congregation that he was going to Tucson because
00:25:09of some visions and dreams, and he relayed this in that sermon in December,
00:25:14Sirs, is this the time?
00:25:16It's true that the way Branham and his followers describe the event, they try to give you the
00:25:20mental picture of Branham being picked up by the angels off the ground and actually flying
00:25:25around in the sky with him while they made the cloud.
00:25:27That's one thing that really hit me hard after I started to deprogram and tried to understand
00:25:33what was happening to my head.
00:25:35What had they done to hijack my brain?
00:25:37Once I realized and recognized that all of the variations of the things that Branham himself
00:25:43said about this event, they can't all be true.
00:25:46You can take some of them and make them true.
00:25:48You can take others and make them true.
00:25:50But if you try to put them together, none of them make any sense.
00:25:54Honestly, it was my wife that first found this.
00:25:58She started going through putting together a timeline for me as I was working on my website,
00:26:02and suddenly she exclaimed and came into the room where I was, and she said,
00:26:06John, he's adding angels to this vision.
00:26:09I thought, what?
00:26:10Well, I go back and look, and before he goes out, he says, and I'm going out to receive a
00:26:14message.
00:26:15I can't remember his exact words, but he says, basically, I saw the number five in the shape
00:26:20of a pyramid, I saw five angels, and then he goes through this weird thing where he says
00:26:24five means grace, G-R-A-C-E, because in basic elementary math, you have to associate a simple
00:26:33word with the number five for the angels.
00:26:35Anyway, he does this, and he goes, and as it's growing, he's starting to realize, I think,
00:26:42that it would be very strategic if he were to preach the seven seals, but he mistakenly
00:26:48had five in this explanation of what was happening, and five doesn't work out.
00:26:54You've got seven angels, and so over time, he starts to change it, and he injects two
00:26:59angels to make it seven.
00:27:01That's just one of the many things that we found, but you're correct.
00:27:05People who are leadership in this movement have tried to take all of the things that
00:27:11can't be reconciled, and what they do is they create a bigger mythology on top of it, and
00:27:17their version of the mythology isn't even what William Branham said, and people who are
00:27:22trained and manipulated into the, indoctrinated into the message, they have no idea that the
00:27:28minister himself is creating mythology that isn't what William Branham said, and people,
00:27:33like you said, they don't do the due diligence.
00:27:35They don't go back and see, well, what did he actually say?
00:27:38They just take whatever the minister says at face value, and so what happens is that creates
00:27:43a new mythology.
00:27:45Those people kind of spread it, and it disseminates across the world, and what has happened today
00:27:51is people who are in the movement and people who are outside who have been, you know, maybe
00:27:56scholarly articles who are talking to people who were in the movement, none of them really
00:28:01have the clear picture of what William Branham said, because you can't reconcile what it
00:28:05was that he said.
00:28:07Have you ever wondered how the Pentecostal movement started, or how the progression of
00:28:12modern Pentecostalism transitioned through the latter reign, charismatic, and other fringe
00:28:17movements into the New Apostolic Reformation?
00:28:20You can learn this and more on William Branham Historical Research's website,
00:28:25william-branham.org.
00:28:27On the books page of the website, you can find the compiled research of John Collins,
00:28:33Charles Paisley, Stephen Montgomery, John McKinnon, and others, with links to the paper,
00:28:39audio, and digital versions of each book.
00:28:42You can also find resources and documentation on various people and topics related to those
00:28:47movements.
00:28:48If you want to contribute to the cause, you can support the podcast by clicking the contribute
00:28:53button at the top.
00:28:55And as always, be sure to like and subscribe to the audio or video version that you're
00:29:00listening to or watching.
00:29:01On behalf of William Branham Historical Research, we want to thank you for your support.
00:29:06Yeah, John, isn't it just amazing all the hype that's been built up around this so-called
00:29:12supernatural cloud when it was so natural?
00:29:14It was something that can be easily explained once you know the details behind it.
00:29:19And of course, people aren't going to know what the military's doing.
00:29:23They usually keep things secret, but the truth eventually came out.
00:29:27So I'm going to say a few things about what people's made up, you know, to try to explain
00:29:33these discrepancies.
00:29:35Various interpretations have been made up to explain the discrepancies in his story, such
00:29:41as, you know, since Branham wasn't in the area, the angels came down and made the cloud,
00:29:46which was February 28th, the angels just hung around and camped out until he came back from
00:29:51Houston and started hunting in the area.
00:29:55All right.
00:29:56That's kind of odd in itself.
00:29:58You know, I've never seen anything where God sent angels down to make a supernatural
00:30:03event happen and then wait around till the person comes back.
00:30:08You know, it just doesn't seem to make sense.
00:30:10And also, people have to explain, since the cloud wasn't visible in March when he was actually
00:30:15there hunting, when he had the vision, he says, the angels had already ascended back
00:30:19to heaven and only came to him by vision.
00:30:22So no one saw them but him.
00:30:25And the large cloud taken by cameras and put on life was the rocket explosion.
00:30:31Some people will actually admit that, while at the same time, they will say the second cloud
00:30:35took a right turn and came down to Tucson where Branham would be hunting.
00:30:40And that was told by the Ohio minister who preached the sermon on the cloud.
00:30:45But so since there were two clouds, he would admit that the first one was the rocket explosion,
00:30:52the largest cloud.
00:30:53But the smaller cloud off to the side was actually the angels coming down to Tucson.
00:30:59So that's another way to explain it.
00:31:01And there's another one that, you know, Brown's followers do use this cloud to vindicate his
00:31:06ministry, and they use the event as a capstone to show it was Revelation 10, verses 1 to 7
00:31:11being fulfilled, you know, when Christ came down to earth to put his one foot on the land,
00:31:16one foot on the sea.
00:31:17And at that time, you know, some will go so far as to say, and some have, that Christ came
00:31:23off the mercy seat.
00:31:24So now there's no more mercy.
00:31:25All that would be saved is sealed in, and there's no one else going to be saved after
00:31:301963 in March or February.
00:31:35They use it to say the Bible, the word, was now opened only to the bride.
00:31:39Anyone believe in the message, the bride is the only one that has the word open to them.
00:31:43And they use the event to say this was the time the exact scriptures were being fulfilled,
00:31:48Revelation 10, 1 to 7.
00:31:50They use it to tie Branham's third pull of his ministry when he said Christ would be
00:31:54embodied in the bride so they could speak things into existence.
00:32:00You know, even with all that and all that hype around the cloud, it's also true.
00:32:04Branham intentionally misled or misrepresented the cloud event to make it an event in his
00:32:10ministry and incorporate it into his ministry, which leads us to the conclusion that Branham
00:32:16intentionally lied about these events to boost his status as the final prophet of the age.
00:32:23You know, he even said in Standing in the Gap in June of 1963, he said,
00:32:29Now in so much as you noticed in Brother Jackson's dream.
00:32:33Now we know from what Charles has said, Brother Jackson never had a dream.
00:32:37And he even says that on tape.
00:32:42And I think y'all told that before.
00:32:45He also says, I saw seven angels in the form of a pyramid that swept down and picked me up.
00:32:51And I was brought east to open the seven seals for God.
00:32:55And we know if you're saying that the angels swept down and picked you up, I mean, you're
00:33:00trying to say to people that I was picked up in the air.
00:33:02I mean, what else does it mean?
00:33:03And then also him opening the seven seals.
00:33:07We know that he copied the works of Clarence Larkin in those seven seals.
00:33:12Now, another thing he says, talking about the Life magazine, he says, now here it is.
00:33:18The same time I was there.
00:33:20See the pyramid of the cloud?
00:33:22I was standing just below this.
00:33:25And see there the distinctive angel on the right hand side.
00:33:28See the pointed wing of it.
00:33:29Just exactly what was said.
00:33:31So, he's alluding in these quotes here from this message, Standing in the Gap, that he
00:33:38was there.
00:33:39The angels picked him up and they were formed.
00:33:42They went up from where he was.
00:33:44He was standing just below it.
00:33:45I mean, all these things allude to the fact that he was saying this, you know, about a
00:33:51month after he saw the thing in Life magazine.
00:33:53You know, it was him building up the story to build it in the minds of the people that
00:33:59this was a supernatural event.
00:34:01He also says in that message, how many remembers that I told you it sounded like a sound breaker
00:34:05on a plane?
00:34:07Well, of course it did, because planes were flying in the area.
00:34:12And then he also says in Standing in the Gap, the same message.
00:34:15And while I was praying on this subject, I was wondering what would happen to me.
00:34:17And you know where I was at?
00:34:19North of Tucson, east of Flagstaff, just exactly.
00:34:23So since he knows that the cloud was hovering kind of north of Flagstaff there that day on
00:34:30the 28th of February, he had to throw Flagstaff in there somewhere.
00:34:33But he claimed that he made it sound like he was north of Tucson, which is going toward
00:34:39Flagstaff.
00:34:39So he made it sound like he was far enough toward Flagstaff where that cloud could have
00:34:44been under over top of him.
00:34:47But Flagstaff is barely west of Tucson and 200 miles between them in the straight line.
00:34:52And from Rattlesnake Mesa, where we know he was at, the way the crow flies is actually
00:34:58183 miles.
00:34:59So pretty long ways.
00:35:01There was another message in Perseverant, August the 2nd of 63.
00:35:07He said there'll be a sound like a great blast, something like a breaker of an airplane, a
00:35:11sound breaker going forth.
00:35:13He also says, and I looked up and there was that white circle above me there circling around.
00:35:18Here comes seven angels coming, moving down out of the air, pick me up and said, go back
00:35:24to your home to the east right away and bring those seven seals for there is seven mysteries
00:35:29for the complete word is revealed now in these seven mysteries.
00:35:33So that's where they get the opening of the word doctrine.
00:35:37He said, if you've never heard, if you've ever believed, I said anything, ever said anything
00:35:43in a sermon inspired, you take them tapes of the seven seals.
00:35:46I'm not a tape salesman.
00:35:48Mr. Softman here sells tapes.
00:35:50Him and Mr. McGuire, I don't sell tapes.
00:35:53They take them.
00:35:54And if you've ever heard anything that's really, I can say, it's thus saith the Lord, get those.
00:35:59Now, that's kind of a strange statement to make.
00:36:02He's built up this cloud that he was here.
00:36:04The tapes were inspired.
00:36:06And yet he's preaching directly off the pages of Clarence Larkin's book is what he was preaching
00:36:13in the seal.
00:36:13So I guess really Clarence Larkin should have been the one to be called the prophet of the
00:36:17age because he's the one that brought so-called thus saith the Lord from the book of Revelation
00:36:22instead of Brother Branham.
00:36:26And the message, Perseverance, same one.
00:36:29He said, and you know, not at that time.
00:36:31I didn't know it.
00:36:31But the cameras from all over the country was taking the picture of that as the white cloud
00:36:36settled down.
00:36:36So, yeah, of course, he plays it up to the articles that were in the magazines and that
00:36:45that was him.
00:36:46And he was there and the clouds settled down upon him.
00:36:48He said, that, see, that was it right there.
00:36:51Just exactly the way it said, standing right under it when it come down and formed.
00:36:56So there he was.
00:36:58He was saying, again, he said this multiple times.
00:37:01He was standing right under it when it come down and formed.
00:37:06So he really built up the people's, in the people's minds, a legend and mythology surrounding
00:37:14himself in this, as we can see.
00:37:18Here's another one in O Lord, just once more in June 28th of 63, talking about him preaching
00:37:26the seals.
00:37:26But if you ever believe the words that I preach and you can afford it, get the seven seals.
00:37:31And first get, what time is it, sirs?
00:37:34Listen to that spoke six months before it happened.
00:37:38Now, here he is exaggerating a little bit, trying to extend his prophecy out or the message,
00:37:43what time is it, sirs?
00:37:45He spoke that in December.
00:37:47And, of course, two months later was February.
00:37:50So, again, he kind of exaggerated to make it appear like he spoke something way in advance,
00:37:55it seems like.
00:37:56And then later on in 65, when he was finishing up his ministry, he brings up the cloud again
00:38:02in a way, in what is the attraction on the mountain, to build it up in the minds of the
00:38:07people.
00:38:08He says, talking about his thing going out to Tucson, he says, what are you going to do?
00:38:14And it's what the people hunting with him, Fred Softman, said to him.
00:38:19He says, return home, for thus saith the Lord, the seven mysteries that's been hid in the
00:38:23Bible all these years, these denominations and everything, God is going to open those
00:38:27seven mysteries to us in these seven seals.
00:38:30There was that circle coming up from the earth like a mist forming.
00:38:34When it did, it went plumb up into the mountain, began to circle on westward from the way it
00:38:38come.
00:38:39Science found it after a while, 30 miles high, 25 miles across, just exactly in the
00:38:44circle of a pyramid.
00:38:45So, we can see from start to finish, after he saw this in Life magazine, you know, a couple
00:38:53of months after he preached the seals, then he began to latch on to the story of this cloud
00:38:57has something to do with my ministry, when actually it was very explainable.
00:39:02So, yeah, John, we have really, he really built this up in the minds of the people and making
00:39:11them believe something, and I'm fixing to go into some things about that here in the
00:39:14next little segment.
00:39:15One thing that really hit me, you mentioned Clarence Larkin, and for all of the researchers
00:39:20who are on the outside looking into this, trying to understand what is branimism, Clarence Larkin
00:39:25is the dispensationalism element that branimism was built upon, and it was, you know, throughout
00:39:33the Lateran movement, that was what was the core doctrine.
00:39:36It was dispensationalism because they were dividing the church, the seven churches of
00:39:42Asia Minor that's described in the book of Revelation, they divided those into ages, and
00:39:46they added the word age to the seven churches in Revelation.
00:39:50And the setup for this was that we're in the last age, we're in the seventh, and that
00:39:56William Branham is the seventh angel messenger to the age.
00:40:00And one of the things that struck me, you talked about Branham saying he was lifted up,
00:40:04and there was a logical fallacy with his doctrines because he's talking about these seven angels,
00:40:12and though they were bringing the message of the seven seals, well, there's a logical problem
00:40:16if he's the seventh one, then there should be six up there, not seven, right?
00:40:21And so he catches himself.
00:40:23I don't know if you recognize this, but in one of the sermons, and I can't remember which
00:40:28one it was, but he starts talking about these seven angels, and he says, and I looked up,
00:40:33and did you notice that seventh one, his chest was out really far?
00:40:37He was, you know, he builds him up kind of like a narcissist would build up bragging on
00:40:42himself, right?
00:40:43And he himself realized the logical fallacy, and rather than let the crowd stop and scratch
00:40:50their heads and think, wait a minute, if he's the seventh, shouldn't there be six up there,
00:40:53not seven?
00:40:55He started distracting the focus and talking about how wonderful the seventh was as opposed
00:41:00to the others.
00:41:01So ironically, it turned into just a little bit of angel worship right there.
00:41:06Yeah, John, I just appreciate the comments.
00:41:09I just want to now step back.
00:41:13You know, we've said all this, we've given you the facts, we've given you the underlying
00:41:17story of all this cloud mystery that was supposed to vindicate a prophet's ministry.
00:41:25So where do we go from here?
00:41:27You know, what is our conclusions about all this?
00:41:29What should we be thinking?
00:41:31I think we need to be very concerned about it.
00:41:35I think message believers really need to be very concerned, especially if you,
00:41:39haven't come out of the message or haven't, at least if you don't know the truth, I think
00:41:44you need to be very concerned.
00:41:46And the reason why is because this thing is built on, and I hate to say it, but it's built
00:41:51on lies, things that are not true.
00:41:55And really, let's define what a lie is, the meaning of lie or lying.
00:42:00They actually call it a sin of making an untrue statement or acting in such a way as to leave
00:42:08a false or misleading impression, especially with the intent to deceive.
00:42:14Now, if you take everything that William Branham knew about what he did in Arizona, Tucson, and
00:42:21you take the things that he said about the cloud and what others have now done to build
00:42:26up the mystery or the legend surrounding the cloud and trying to explain it, even after
00:42:32knowing the facts, you know, from the very beginning, untrue statements were made.
00:42:38And the person was acting in such a way to leave a false impression upon the people or
00:42:44a misleading impression with the intent to deceive.
00:42:48That's what the meaning of lying is.
00:42:51Now, to give William Branham an excuse to lie about something like this, because you can
00:42:57find examples in the Bible where people do not tell the truth, especially commonly is
00:43:04mentioned Abraham.
00:43:05But if you look at the circumstances, what Abraham did when he told a lie, he told it to
00:43:10save his life.
00:43:12Basically, he did not want to get killed by the king because the king had taken his half
00:43:17sister, his wife, which he said, she's my sister, and the king was going to marry her
00:43:22on a couple of occasions where he had to lie his way out of that because he didn't want
00:43:28to get murdered by the king so he could have his wife.
00:43:32And God worked that out.
00:43:34But Abraham wasn't lying about, I'm a great prophet of this age, or I'm the great prophet,
00:43:40Pharaoh, king of Egypt, you need to listen to me.
00:43:42And making up stories about his life.
00:43:46You know, God vindicated Abraham.
00:43:49We have yet to see where God really vindicated William Branham in this.
00:43:55Now, okay, so now we know what lying, the meaning of a lie is.
00:44:00But now let's look at the characteristics.
00:44:02You know, the scriptures always condemn lying in the scriptures.
00:44:06Because Satan is designated as the father of the source of lies.
00:44:09Even John 8, 44 says, when the devil speaks, he speaketh a lie, he speaks of his own because
00:44:15he's a liar and the father of it.
00:44:18But you know, it is impossible for God to lie.
00:44:22So you would think that his ministers should do all they can not to intentionally tell lies.
00:44:29So in the final analysis about lying, it's a sin against God.
00:44:33The liar can even deceive his own self as well.
00:44:36I mean, there's some cases where a person telling the lie is actually deceiving his own self.
00:44:41And maybe there's some evidence of that in, you know, William Branham's life.
00:44:46Not only in the New Testament is lying condemned, but even the Old Testament is condemned in the
00:44:51Ten Commandments, you know, given false witness.
00:44:56References to lying appear in the references in scriptures talking about idolatry or heathen worship.
00:45:02False prophets and diviners are as deceitful lies.
00:45:09There are scriptures alluding to that in Isaiah 9, 15, Jeremiah 14, 14, and Ezekiel 13, 6.
00:45:18So honesty is a cardinal virtue of followers of Christ.
00:45:23And lying would be a basic opposite of that.
00:45:26We find in Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 16 to 19, it says,
00:45:34Here are six things that God hates.
00:45:38And one more that he loathes with a passion.
00:45:41All right.
00:45:42That's eyes that are arrogant, a tongue that lies, hands that murder the innocent,
00:45:46a heart that hatches evil plots, feet that race down a wicked track,
00:45:50a mouth that lies under oath, a troublemaker in the family.
00:45:53That's in the MSG version.
00:45:57But it does explain there's two parts in that scripture that talks about lying.
00:46:02Tongues that tell lies or a mouth that lies under oath.
00:46:06Now, usually a preacher in the pulpit is sort of like under oath,
00:46:10so help me God, I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
00:46:15Because that is a place of judgment.
00:46:18It's like a courtroom there, and you're supposed to be speaking the truth.
00:46:21And the King James Version mentions about the same scripture in Proverbs,
00:46:28a lying tongue is mentioned, and a false witness that speaketh lies, says it in that way.
00:46:34So lying, in some cases, can prevent a horrible evil from happening.
00:46:41Perhaps lying would be the best available option.
00:46:43It's similar to what the Hebrew midwives did when they lied to Pharaoh and said,
00:46:49you know, they were taking care of the baby.
00:46:50Well, the babies were too strong, and we didn't have time to throw them in the river.
00:46:55Or Rahab lying when she said, the spies are gone, and she was actually hiding them out.
00:47:01You know, there's some instances where, you know, lying could be justified in those cases.
00:47:06It may not be the right thing.
00:47:09It may not be right in God's eyes, but in situations like that, you know,
00:47:13a person is put under those circumstances, they may tell a lie.
00:47:17But in the circumstances of preaching the word, you know,
00:47:21no one should intentionally lie and misrepresent the truth.
00:47:25Those instances also in the Bible are extremely rare.
00:47:28But you can find in William Branham's ministry, lying is a constant throughout the ministry,
00:47:34nearly start to finish.
00:47:37Lying will still be a sin in those most extreme circumstances.
00:47:42You know, still be violating the character of God.
00:47:45So why would we say that just because Abraham lied in the Bible,
00:47:50well, that gives William Branham a pass to tell lies,
00:47:53and we can still trust him as a true prophet of God.
00:47:56So we see that most of the time when people are lying,
00:48:02it's either to seek to protect themselves, to promote themselves,
00:48:06or to harm somebody else.
00:48:08And that's why the lying is condemned as a sin.
00:48:11You know, you'll find in all the publications,
00:48:13such as y'all just alluded to recently,
00:48:16Perry Green's publications of the Acts of the Prophet.
00:48:20There's Owen Jorgensen's supernatural life of William Branham.
00:48:26He actually mentions that it was daybreak on Friday, March 8th when this happened.
00:48:32So even he had to admit the truth that it didn't happen February 28th.
00:48:37But he describes it in a way that the angels came back to him.
00:48:41So evidently, using that more correct date,
00:48:45you know, Owen's actually admitting that the angels had to come twice
00:48:49because he uses those correct dates, say, and more correct dates, we'll say.
00:48:53But the way he describes it would be exactly how it happened on February 28th.
00:48:57So if the story Owen Jorgensen put in his books is true,
00:49:02then the same events that formed the cloud on February 28th
00:49:05was also when it was visible to the people.
00:49:08With Branham not even being there,
00:49:10it also happened again on March 8th when a real blast was heard by people standing by,
00:49:15but no person saw the cloud, and only Branham was there to witness it,
00:49:19whether it was in vision or in reality.
00:49:23Here's a statement from Gene Norman,
00:49:25who was hunting with William Branham on rattlesnake Mesa,
00:49:28and I got this from Believe the Sign when that strange event happened.
00:49:33Gene said this, and it's quoted,
00:49:34I hunted, oh, probably half an hour, and then a blast went off.
00:49:38It sounded like it was right above my head.
00:49:40I looked up, and I didn't see nothing.
00:49:43Ah, yeah, I did.
00:49:44I seen something, but I didn't see the cloud in the form that it shows in the picture.
00:49:48When I looked up, I seen two long streaks like a plane leaving a trail.
00:49:54Two streaks with a great miles one way and miles the other way
00:49:58with a spot in between, a big spot, a space in between it.
00:50:02So the spot is not a cloud spot.
00:50:05It's actually two streaks of airplane with a big space in between them.
00:50:10That was an actual quote from Gene Norman, who was hunting with him.
00:50:14So we see he never saw a cloud, and the booms, like we said,
00:50:18the Arizona Republic in March 1st edition of that paper
00:50:22included an article called Shaken Up by Sonic Booms.
00:50:26The article tells of multiple sonic booms over the town of Springerville, Arizona,
00:50:30caused by aircraft from Williams Air Force Base.
00:50:34Some were so loud they cracked windows in the town.
00:50:39So I won't read the details about that, but the speed of sound, you know, 768 miles an hour.
00:50:47Rattlesnake Mesa is 80 miles southeast of Phoenix,
00:50:51and this was very close to where the airplanes took off,
00:50:53so it doesn't take long to go 80 miles when you're traveling at the speed of sound.
00:51:00William Branham described the same event in the sermon called The Seventh Seal on March 24th, 1963.
00:51:08He said,
00:51:08A little over a week ago, I was way back up in the mountains, nearly to Mexico,
00:51:12with two brethren, picking the sandbirds off my trousers leg,
00:51:16and a blast went off almost, looked like, shook the mountains down.
00:51:19And there's no mention of the cloud in that sermon at all.
00:51:22So if Gene Norman is really right,
00:51:24what actually looked like a plane leaving a trail was actually the plane leaving the trail.
00:51:28And then in Come Follow Me, in 1963, in June,
00:51:33and that's after he saw the magazine picture, he said,
00:51:36And they took the picture, you know, in the sky.
00:51:38And I didn't think much about it, never noticed it,
00:51:40so it began to impress me somehow the other day.
00:51:44And Brother Norman, Norman's father's here, told me, he said,
00:51:46Did you notice this?
00:51:48And I just looked.
00:51:49Right there was them angels, just as plain as they could be,
00:51:53sitting right there in that picture.
00:51:54And he's talking about the Life magazine he was shown in May.
00:51:58You see, I looked to see when it was,
00:52:01and it was time about a day or two before, a day or two after I was up there.
00:52:06I looked where it was at, northeast of Flagstaff or Prescott,
00:52:10which is below Flagstaff, which was just where we was at, just exactly.
00:52:16So he's always having to twist the story to make it appear like he was so close to where the cloud appeared,
00:52:24because now he's saying Prescott being below Flagstaff,
00:52:29and he was northeast of Tustan and east of Flagstaff,
00:52:33but he was still 200 miles away.
00:52:36Even if he was there at the time, the cloud, he was still too far away for it to be under him.
00:52:40I mean, you try standing under the sky, and then somebody go 200 miles away and see how close you are.
00:52:49If there was a cloud up in the sky, do you all see the same clouds?
00:52:54And what is the attraction in July of 65?
00:52:57He says,
00:52:58So he was trying to allude in his sermon that all of this was a sunset time,
00:53:17the finishing up of the age, the coming of the Lord in the twilight there of his ministry.
00:53:23And, of course, we talked about the military operation.
00:53:28So, John, I just think it all just goes to show that this thing was built on misrepresentations,
00:53:35untruths, and things that just were false altogether.
00:53:40So that's where I say message believers now need to be very careful in what they believe and what they say
00:53:46and how they're trying to interpret this cloud.
00:53:49Absolutely.
00:53:50I think that's the biggest thing.
00:53:51If you take anything away from this podcast episode, it's that if you're in whatever it is,
00:53:57whether it's Branhamism, whether it's something else,
00:54:00and you hear something that just sounds a little bit odd, sounds a little bit fantastic,
00:54:05it doesn't hurt to go check and see, is the thing actually true?
00:54:08Because you don't know the minister may be just creating his own mythology for whatever unknown reason.
00:54:14And that's what happened here.
00:54:15William Branham created his mythology.
00:54:17Then, once ministers start to recognize that, wait a minute, you can't really make everything he say add up to be true,
00:54:24so we'll make a bigger mythology around it.
00:54:27That's what happened here.
00:54:28And if the people who were listening to those ministers had have just stopped and thought,
00:54:33wait a minute, is this true?
00:54:34Let's go check.
00:54:35And went and checked.
00:54:36They would be able to just completely discount the whole thing.
00:54:39So I agree.
00:54:41This is something that people should do.
00:54:42It's an exercise we should all do.
00:54:44But thank you so much for doing this with me.
00:54:47So, John, it's been a great episode, and I really enjoyed speaking about this.
00:54:51And I just was trying to put together some things because y'all very much laid out the facts of this cloud many times before.
00:54:58But just to give another perspective of this, just to nail it down and to show that things built on misstatements, mistruths, lies, you just can't trust them.
00:55:09And how can you trust that this was ever an event in William Branham's life and ministry when it was built on such falsehoods?
00:55:18So, conclusion-wise, we can say the cloud was not even a supernatural event, but it was a very natural event,
00:55:24which was given some special significance by a man trying to portray himself as a great prophet of God, fulfilling prophecy.
00:55:32William Branham never once spoke anything about a cloud or a mist or a circle of light that ascended when he was there to receive the vision of the seven angels coming.
00:55:41The cloud, which formed an unspent rocket fuel from a blown-up rocket, was just a coincidence that it happened to form around the same time Branham said he was in the state of Arizona,
00:55:53not really where he was near the cloud at all.
00:55:57It's clear that he was 1,200 miles away when the cloud actually appeared.
00:56:02He was in Houston.
00:56:03And there's no significance to William Branham concerning this cloud at all.
00:56:07And there's no similar biblical precedent that we can say that angels, when they're delivering a message,
00:56:14they would actually come down to earth in a supernatural way and hang around for seven or so days while you're in another state waiting for you to return so they could deliver a message to you.
00:56:25But that's exactly what we're asked to believe.
00:56:27Or we'll ask Acts to believe that they ascended back up into heaven, came back down in some vision or in a real way to pick William Branham up in the sky to tell him to go back and preach the seals.
00:56:40That's what we're asked to believe.
00:56:43When it seemed there was no rational explanation for this cloud at the time, Branham was quick to use that cloud story.
00:56:50He said, as I pondered on it, he convinced himself and he convinced others that this event was related to him going out to Tucson and then fulfilling some of the things he spoke in the 1962 sermon in December.
00:57:03He equated this event, too, as the greatest in his ministry.
00:57:07However, it's clear from a side-by-side examination when he preached the seals, if you lay out Clarence Larkin's material and some other minister's material that he was studying at the time,
00:57:20he really got all his sermon material from those teachings of other well-known ministers that had preached many years before him.
00:57:28So people will explain that.
00:57:32They will say, well, he might have used other people's material, but it really wasn't the sermon itself that was important.
00:57:38It was what God was doing, you know, in the skies and in the cloud and the vindication.
00:57:43So we see that if people are going to say that and say, well, the sermon material is not very important,
00:57:49it's all the supernatural things surrounding it that show that God was opening the word to the bride.
00:57:55So it's all mysterious, it's all supernatural, it's all by revelation that only the bride will get.
00:58:01Well, you've just built the whole thing on a lie.
00:58:07You know, your whole message is built on a lie then.
00:58:10Your opening of the word, your Christ coming down, it's all built on something that's not even true.
00:58:16So either you've got to take the sermon content and say that was the most inspired he's ever preached, which was plagiarism,
00:58:23or you've got to take the supernatural side and say, well, all the supernatural events vindicated his ministry, which were built on lies.
00:58:31So how do you choose either?
00:58:33So by this time in Branham's ministry, he had a very strong core following, but not from the larger church world and not even around the world yet.
00:58:42His core followers were very eager to accept anything he told them as truth.
00:58:46He was made to be larger than life, even to the point of being God himself in the body of William Branham.
00:58:54This story gained traction and continues to this day to retain significance,
00:58:59even though the story is not corroborated with all the evidence we have now.
00:59:04As the message continues, what I see happening is the younger generation is being taught,
00:59:10is being, you could say, brainwashed, but being taught and they're getting their story down.
00:59:15They're being indoctrinated by people in positions of trust.
00:59:20And sometimes they use fear tactics to the congregation to just believe what these elders are saying to them
00:59:27without even trying to look at anything contrary, any other evidence, or you risk losing your soul.
00:59:32Now, these young ministers coming up under their fathers and now taking over the congregations,
00:59:40it's only going to continue and perpetuate these falsehoods unless people wake up now
00:59:46and begin to take a critical look at what's being said and what has happened in the actual historical context of all this.
00:59:53So this method of indoctrination that's happening now, even with the little kids, say, in homeschooling situations,
01:00:02it's going to continue to perpetuate these myths for a long time about this natural phenomena that happened.
01:00:09And only if time continues will the cloud myth eventually fade into obscurity, I think, John.
01:00:15I think we're in this for the long haul.
01:00:17And hopefully that many people will see these podcasts and begin to think critically on their own
01:00:22and begin to question, you know, why would people have to build such a story around a man that's untrue
01:00:30when if he was a true prophet of God, the story, his life and his ministry would stand on its own,
01:00:36on two feet and not have to be supported by, you know, something that's not true.
01:00:41Absolutely.
01:00:42If it's not true, it can only be mythology.
01:00:45It's myth, right?
01:00:47So there's no two ways to put it.
01:00:50You're either in Christianity and you're worshiping Jesus, Christ, or you're in mythology and worshiping the gods of mythology.
01:00:57It's one or the other.
01:00:59You can't have both.
01:01:00So, again, thank you for doing this.
01:01:02This is fascinating.
01:01:04Yeah, John, I appreciate the time we spent today.
01:01:07I appreciate the time you took to let me go over some things and all the comments that were made.
01:01:12And I look forward to doing some future podcasts with you.
01:01:15I've got some other ideas and I'll be, we'll be getting together in the coming days.
01:01:20Awesome.
01:01:21Yeah, let's do it.
01:01:22There's so much more that we could talk about.
01:01:24So thank you so much.
01:01:25If you've enjoyed our show and you want more information, you can check us out on the web.
01:01:29You can find us at william-branham.org.
01:01:32For more about the dark side of the new apostolic reformation,
01:01:34you can read Weaponized Religion from Christian Identity to the NAR.
01:01:39Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:01:42Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
01:02:12Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.