Lights, Magnets, and Prophets!

In the days of yesteryear, lights, magnets, and other interesting scientific advancements thrilled listeners and readers in ways that could never hold the interest of people today. Even in comics and in early television programs, villains used magnificent light beams, magnet weapons, and more to thrill the public. X-Men’s superhero Cyclops and villain Magneto are remnants from the days gone by, one having the superpower of a light beam and the other of magnetic power.

Comics were not the only money-making industry to use these thrills, however. Many of the self-proclaimed prophets, prophetesses, and “Divinely Inspired” leaders of sects and movements of the days of yesteryear made similar claims. Zion cult leader John Alexander Dowie, for example, claimed to have been visited by a “strange light” that made him realize that he was the reincarnation of the Old Testament Elijah the Prophet, and his cult of personality accepted his “supernatural light” claim as fact rather than fiction.

William Branham, whose ministry was deeply influenced by Dowie through Dowie cult members F. F. Bosworth and Gordon Lindsay, carried the strategy forward into the Post WWII Healing Revivals and Latter Rain Movement through similar claims. Branham claimed to have the power to move bracelets and to have been photographed by a “supernatural light”. Branham’s cult of personality was so thrilled by the claims that they looked beyond the stage lighting in the venues capturing the light, and never noticed that some of these “light” claims were added to his literature in later versions. The birth story in Branham’s “Man Sent From God” book, for example, was altered in later versions to include a “supernatural” light.

You can learn this and more on william-branham.org

John Alexander Dowie:
https://william-branham.org/site/research/people/john_alexander_dowie

Man Sent From God Book:
https://william-branham.org/site/research/topics/a_man_sent_from_god