1945 Healing Revival: Branham's Stage Persona Reinvented
William Branham later claimed that his healing ministry began on May 6, 1946—the “very day” Israel became a nation—yet contemporary evidence shows he was advertising healing as early as 1936, Israel was not founded until 1948, and his reputation as a faith healer was already established by the mid-1940s. His earlier stage persona centered on a 1945 “vision” about losing control of Branham Tabernacle and white-robed followers, but this narrative was eventually displaced by the more convenient “1946 commission” story when his stage persona was later reimagined.
William Branham claimed that his ministry was divinely connected to the formation of the Nation of Israel. According to Branham, this happened on exactly May the 6th, 1946.
The very day that Israel was declared a nation again for the first time for twenty-five hundred years, that same night the Angel of the Lord sent me out to pray for the sick, the very same time, May the 6th, 1946, the Lord Jesus did that.
Branham, 54-0809E - The Manifestation Of Thy Resurrection To The People Of This Day
In a 1945 publication entitled "I Was Not Disobedient to the Heavenly Vision", William Branham describes events he claimed that happened during a revival that happened in the spring of that same year. This revival, Branham claimed, was the result of a "vision" describing the symbolic loss of control of his Branham Tabernacle and "white-robed" people that symbolically represented his new cult following. This is the last known publication describing the early versions of his stage persona.
According to newspapers, the 1945 "revival" lasted until the end of 1946. In July 1947, one of Branham's early campaign managers, W. E. Kidson, informed reporters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch that William Branham had been given the "gift of Divine Healing" two years prior, and that William Branham had had huge success in meetings in the fall of 1946.
By 1947, newspaper reporters in Jeffersonville noted that William Branham had been in the faith healing business for "several years".[1]
Points to Consider
- William Branham was advertising healing in his ministry as early as September 1936.[2]
- William Branham claimed that his ministry began the "very day" that Israel became a nation.[3] The nation of Israel did not form until 1948.[4]
- In 1947, this version of his stage persona was replaced with one describing a "1946 Commission" that initiated his career in "faith healing".
- This "vision", while important in William Branham's pre-1947 stage persona, did not appear to hold any significance in his later versions of his stage persona.
- The symbolic usage of people in white robes might also have been used literally given William Branham's close association with high-ranking members of the Ku Klux Klan[5]