William Branham was a Christian minister, usually credited with founding the post World War II faith healing movement. Whilst many Pentecostal Christians welcomed his evangelistic and healing ministry, and some even considered him to be a Prophet, a minority have accorded him an even higher status, believing that his ministry and teachings were supernaturally vindicated by God.

In May 1946, Branham reported receiving an angelic visitation, commissioning his worldwide ministry of evangelism and faith healing. His first meetings as a full time evangelist were held in St Louis, Missouri. Professor Allan Anderson of the University of Birmingham, has written that Branham’s sensational healing services, which began in 1946, are well documented and he was the pacesetter for those who followed.

U.S. Congressman William Upshaw, crippled for sixty-six years, publicly proclaimed his miraculous healing in a Branham meeting in a leaflet called I’m Standing on the Promises. William Branham also claimed that God’s miraculous intervention healed King George VI of England through his prayers.

Church ministers working with Branham in his meetings testified that he was able to reveal the thoughts, experiences, and needs of individuals who came to the platform for prayer. Branham claimed that this knowledge, which he called discernment, was given to him through visions.

On the night of January 24, 1950, an unusual photograph was taken during a speaking engagement in the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas. A photograph, the only one of its film roll that developed, shows an apparent halo of light appearing above Branham’s head. A copy is held in the Library of Congress photograph collection.

William Branham preached thousands of sermons, of which almost 1,200 have been recorded and transcribed. His sermons dealt not only with the doctrines that would secure his place in modern religious history, but with staples of Pentecostalism such as personal prophecy. There are some that would even go as far to say that he was a judgement prophet like Jonah was in bible days.

Branham also went outside traditional Christian theology in his rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity and in his denunciation of the Oneness concept. From the late 1940s to the early 1950s it appears that Branham did not publicly denounce the Trinity in his campaign meetings, however to his congregation in Jeffersonville he was more open regarding his preference to the Oneness position.

Criticism of Branham’s ministry has focused not only on doctrinal differences, but on an assumption that he supported astrology. This is based on his comment that God wrote three Bibles. He said these were the zodiac, the great pyramid and the Holy Bible. He believed the first two predated any written Scripture, and are not for Christians today.

The followers of William Branham tend to distance themselves from controversial exclusiveness and maintain their homes in their communities. There is no headquarters. These churches have no membership or members and have little, if any, organization. Voice of God Recordings, the major distributor of materials related to William Branham’s ministry, currently produce print, audio, and video materials in more than 60 languages and maintain offices in over forty countries.

The largest concentration of Christians following William Branham is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it is estimated that there are up to 2,000,000 followers. There are numerous churches following William Branham’s message in the United States and around the world. Branham’s followers should not be viewed as entirely monolithic as beliefs and interpretations of Branham’s teachings vary somewhat between groups.

Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, and the term is used especially for those dating to prehistoric times. The earliest known European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the paleolithic cave paintings is not known. The evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. Also, they are often in areas of caves that are not easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of transmitting information, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose.

The most common themes in cave paintings are large wild animals, such as bison, horses, aurochs, and deer, and tracings of human hands as well as abstract patterns, called finger flutings. Drawings of humans were rare and are usually schematic rather than the more naturalistic animal subjects. One explanation for this is that realistically painting the human form was forbidden by a powerful religious taboo.

When Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola first encountered the Magdalenian paintings of the Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain in 1879, the academics of the time considered them hoaxes. Recent reappraisals and increasing numbers of discoveries have illustrated their authenticity and have indicated high levels of artistry of Upper Palaeolithic humans who used only basic tools. Cave paintings can also give valuable clues as to the culture and beliefs of that era.

The paintings were drawn with red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. Sometimes the silhouette of the animal was incised in the rock first.

Henri Breuil interpreted the paintings as being hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals. As there are some clay sculptures that seem to have been the targets of spears, this may partly be true, but does not explain the pictures of predators such as the lion or the bear.

An alternative theory, developed by David Lewis-Williams and broadly based on ethnographic studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, is that the paintings were made by Cro-Magnon shamans. The shaman would retreat into the darkness of the caves, enter into a trance state and then paint images of their visions, perhaps with some notion of drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. This goes some way toward explaining the remoteness of some of the paintings, which often occur in deep or small caves, and the variety of subject matter, from prey animals to predators and human hand-prints.

R. Dale Guthrie has studied not only the most artistic and publicized paintings but also a variety of lower quality art and figurines, and he identifies a wide range of skill and ages among the artists. He also points that the main themes in the paintings and other artifacts, such as powerful beasts, risky hunting scenes and the over-sexual representation of women in the Venus figurines, are to be expected in the fantasies of adolescent males, who played a big part of the human population at the time.

Chartreuse is a color halfway between yellow and green. It is the most visible color to the human eye because it sits directly in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. Chartreuse is sometimes used for tennis balls to make them easier to see when playing tennis.

It is named because of its resemblance to the green color of one of the French liqueurs called Green Chartreuse. The liqueur is composed of distilled alcohol flavored with 130 herbal extracts, named after the Grande Chartreuse monastery where it was formerly produced, located in the Chartreuse Mountains. Today, it is produced in a factory in the nearby town of Voiron under the supervision of monks from the monastery.

Chartreuse has a very strong characteristic flavor. It is very sweet, but turns both spicy and pungent. Its taste varies depending upon the serving temperature. It is often served on ice, but can be added to cocktails or to a mixer. Some mixed drink recipes call for only a few drops of Chartreuse, so assertive is its flavor. Though the flavor is highly complex, anise is easily discernible as one of the ingredients.

The herb hyssop is also one of the most obvious major constituents of the flavor. Only two Chartreuse monks know the identity of the 130 plants, how to blend them and how to distill them into this world famous liqueur. They are also the only ones who know which plants they need to macerate to produce the natural green color. And they alone supervise the slow aging in oak casks.

The recipe was transmitted in 1605 from an alchemical manuscript that contained the recipe for an “elixir of long life”. The recipe eventually reached the religious order’s headquarters at the Grande Chartreuse monastery near Grenoble.

The monks intended their liqueur to be used as medicine. The monks that manufacture the Chartreuse liqueur do not speak. They live an ascetic life dedicated to prayer and contemplation in the French Alps near Grenoble. The monastery of La Grande Chartreuse has been destroyed by fire and rebuilt 11 times since 1084, the last time in 1676.

The two monks at La Grande Chartreuse who are privy to the liqueur’s formula no longer need to spend their days at Voiron distilling. Today’s computer technology allows the pair to oversee the process remotely via television monitors in their cells. This allows the monks more time to follow their vocation, which is prayer and contemplation.

Scrying, also called crystal gazing, is a practice that involves seeing things psychically in a medium, usually for purposes of obtaining spiritual visions and more rarely for purposes of divination or fortune telling. The media used are most commonly reflective, translucent, or luminescent substances such as crystals, stones, glass, mirrors, water or smoke. Scrying has been used in many cultures as a means of divining the past, present, or future. Depending on the culture and practice, the visions that emerge when one stares into the media are thought to come from God, spirits, the psychic mind, or the subconscious.

A toy known as the Magic 8-Ball consists of a plastic ball filled with an inky solution that contains a buoyant icosahedron. Each face of the icosahedron has different answers printed that appear to the consulter through a small window when held upright.

Although scrying is most commonly done with a crystal ball, it may also be performed using any smooth surface, such as a bowl of liquid, a pond, a crystal, or, as expert scryers can, a thumbnail. Scrying is actively used by many cultures and belief systems and is not limited to one tradition or ideology. However, like other aspects of divination and parapsychology, it is not supported by mainstream science as a method of predicting the future or otherwise seeing events that are not physically observable.

The visions that scryers see may come from variations in the medium. If the medium is water, then the visions may come from the color or ripples produced by pebbles dropped in a pool. If the medium is a crystal ball, the visions may come from the tiny inclusions, web-like faults, or the cloudy glow within the ball under low light.

One method of scrying using a crystal ball involves a self induced trance. Initially, the medium serves as a focus for the attention, removing unwanted thoughts from the mind in the same way as a mantra. Once this stage is achieved, the scryer begins a free association with the perceived images suggested.

The technique of deliberately looking for and declaring these initial images aloud is done with the intent of deepening the trance state, wherein the scryer hears their own disassociated voice affirming what is seen within the concentrated state in a kind of feedback loop. This process culminates in the achievement of a final and desired end stage in which rich visual images and dramatic stories seem to be projected within the medium itself or directly within the mind’s eye of the scryer, like an inner movie.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement, said he used two stones called the Urim and Thummim, in his 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon. The Urim and Thummim is mentioned several times in the Old Testament. In Mormon theology it is an instrument prepared by God that assists man in obtaining revelation and in translating languages.

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional universe of Middle Earth, the Palantír is a stone that allows seeing what any other Palantír sees, and the Mirror of Galadriel is used as a type of scrying device used to see visions of the past, present, or future.

In the television show Charmed the main characters use crystals suspended over maps to scry for people. This is different from other forms because it just shows location and not a picture, which leads many people to call this practice dowsing.

Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, Christian mystic and theologian. Born in 1688, Swedenborg had a prolific career as an inventor and scientist. At the age of fifty-six he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and visions. This culminated in a spiritual awakening, where he claimed he was appointed by the Lord to write a heavenly doctrine to reform Christianity.

Swedenborg explicitly rejected the common explanation of the Trinity as a Trinity of Persons, which he said was not taught in the early Christian Church. Instead he explained in his theological writings how the Divine Trinity exists in One Person. Swedenborg also rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, since he considered both faith and charity necessary for salvation, not one without the other.

In 1744 he traveled to the Netherlands. Around this time he began having strange dreams. Swedenborg carried a travel journal with him on most of his travels. It provides a first-hand account of the events of his transformation. Analyses of the diary have concluded that what Swedenborg was recording in his Journal of Dreams was a battle between the love of his self, and the love of God.

There are three well known incidents of psychic ability reported in literature about Swedenborg. The first was from July 29, 1759, when during a dinner in Gothenburg, he excitedly told the party at six o’ clock that there was a fire in Stockholm, that it consumed his neighbour’s home and was threatening his own. Two hours later, he exclaimed with relief that the fire stopped three doors from his home. Two days later, reports confirmed every statement to the precise hour that Swedenborg first expressed the information.

The second was in 1758 when Swedenborg visited Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden, who asked him to tell her something about her deceased brother Augustus William. The next day, Swedenborg whispered something in her ear that turned the Queen pale and she explained that this was something only she and her brother could know about. The third was a woman who had lost an important document, and came to Swedenborg asking if a recently deceased person could tell him where it was, which he was said to have done the following night.

Swedenborg considered his theology a revelation of the true Christian religion that had become obfuscated through centuries of theology. However, he did not refer to his writings as theology since he considered it based on actual experiences, unlike theology. Neither did he wish to compare it to philosophy, a science he discarded because it “darkens the mind, blinds us, and wholly rejects faith”.

Visioning is a popular method in the studies of desirable futures that gives emphasis to values. The visioning process is based on the assumption that images of the future lead peoples’ present behaviours, guide choices and influence decisions. Images of the future can be positive or negative and cause different responses according to the perceptions.

Vision is usually seen as a positive, desirable image of the future and can be defined as a compelling, inspiring statement of the preferred future that the authors and those who subscribe to the vision want to create.

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed while using the visioning method. Vision comprises peoples’ values, wishes, fears and desires. In order to make the visioning process work it is necessary to ensure that it is not making an idealistic wish list, that vision is an image of the future shared by a whole community, and that the vision is translatable into reality.

Vision building is thinking in the future and determining where a person or organization wants to go. Individually, a vision will be different from visioning with a group. This way of visioning may work in this linear form of visioning, but there is a more powerful way of visioning which is called Field Process Visioning. It is a way of thinking about the vision as a surrounding field. 

The epitome of Field Process Visioning is captured in Cervantes’ statement, “The road is more important than the inn.” Here goals are minimized, and the road or the field is emphasized. In so doing, the ubiquitous nature of the vision arises into the present moment. Instead of having a destination to pull a person or organization forward, Field Process Vision permeates and guides the individual and the organization.

Clarity between the difference of vision and mission is essential. Vision is knowing where you want to go or what you want to become. Vision includes both tangibles, such as what products define you in the world, as well as intangible products such as the surrounding values, virtues and culture. Vision is like a collage of you and your family, or you and your organization, and you are all standing in the present while unfolding the future intention.

Peter Senge, in The Fifth Disciple Field Book, says “The test of a vision is not in the statement, but in the directional force it gives the organization.” Mission is the reason for being and the work being pursued to realize the vision. 

Dr. Michael Beckwith states that “Visioning is a process by which we train ourselves to be able to hear, feel, see, and catch God’s plan for our life or for any particular project we’re working on. It is based on the idea that we’re not here to tell God what do or to ask God for things, but to absolutely be available for what God is already doing, to open ourselves up to what’s already happening.”

When Einstein said, “I want to know the thoughts of the creator, the rest is a detail,” he was demonstrating the difference between leadership and management. Management is concerned with the details of the vision, leadership with goals and values. Both are important and both have their place in the creative process in which an individual or organization is engaged as one brings dreams into actuality.

Zebras are African horses best known for their distinctive white and black stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. Unlike their closest relatives, horses and donkeys, zebras have never been truly domesticated.

They have been the subject of African folk tales which tell how they got their stripes. According to a Bushmen folk tale of Namibia, the zebra was once all white but got its black stripes after a fight with a baboon over a waterhole. After kicking the baboon so hard the zebra lost his balance and tripped over a fire, the fire sticks left scorch marks all over this white coat.

Some zoologists believe that the stripes act as a camouflage mechanism. This is accomplished in several ways. First, the vertical striping helps the zebra hide in grass. While seeming absurd at first glance, considering that grass is neither white nor black, it is supposed to be effective against the zebra’s main predator the lion, which is color blind. Theoretically, a zebra standing still in tall grass may not be noticed at all by a lion.

Additionally, since zebras are herd animals, the stripes may help to confuse predators. A number of zebras standing or moving close together may appear as one large animal, making it more difficult for a lion to pick out any single zebra to attack. A herd of zebras scattering to avoid a predator will also represent a confused mass of vertical stripes travelling in multiple directions making it difficult for the predator to track an individual visually as it separates from its herdmates.

More recent theories, supported by experiment, posit that the disruptive coloration is also an effective means of confusing the visual system of the tsetse fly. Alternative theories include that the stripes coincide with fat patterning beneath the skin, serving as a thermoregulatory mechanism for the zebra, and that wounds sustained disrupt the striping pattern to clearly indicate the fitness of the animal to potential mates.

Zebras have excellent eyesight. It is believed that they can see in color. Like most ungulates the zebra has its eyes on the sides of its head, giving it a wide field of view. Zebras also have night vision, although not as advanced as that of most of their predators, but their hearing compensates.

They also have great hearing, and tend to have larger, rounder ears than horses. Like horses and other ungulates, zebra can turn their ears in almost any direction. In addition to eyesight and hearing, zebras have an acute sense of smell and taste.

Modern man has had great impact on the zebra population. Zebras were, and still are, hunted mainly for their skins. The Cape mountain zebra was hunted to near extinction with less than 100 individuals by the 1930s. However the population has increased to about 700 due to conservation efforts. Both Mountain zebra subspecies are currently protected in national parks but are still endangered.

Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom made instruments that he built himself. Partch is famous for his 43 tone scale, even though he used many different scales in his work and the number of divisions is theoretically infinite.

He began to compose at an early age, using the equal tempered chromatic scale, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning, believing that this system was unsuitable for reflecting the subtle melodic contours of dramatic speech.

Interested in the potential musicality of speech, Partch invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice, and he developed musical notations that accurately instructed players as to how to play the instruments.

The compositional apex of Partch’s life came with the completion of Delusion of the Fury, a ritual theater piece that unifies musicians, dancers, and mimes into a corporeal performance. Built upon the timeless theme of life and death, Delusion of the Fury is based on two Japanese noh plays and an African folktale

Partch’s instruments have been housed in the Harry Partch Instrumentarium at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey since 1999. In 2004, the instruments crossed campus into the newly constructed Alexander Kasser Theater, which provides a large studio space in the basement. Concerts by Newband and MSU’s Harry Partch Ensemble may be viewed several times a year in this concert hall.