Callers to Timothy Poleon’s NewSpin program last week swore they’d witnessed controversial prophet William Braham casting out a demon from a woman in the Town Hall. In case you hadn’t seen, the video is now on Youtube. In fact, in the latter part of Thursday’s TALK host Nicole Mc Donald, who’s been filling in for the show’s regular host Rick Wayne for a month now, played the video that is quickly making the rounds on the Internet.
This week’s show featured Elder Josiah Castang and Elder Felix Francois from Hebrew Israelites, a grouping with a local following of just about 30 members. The religious topic, rather unusual for TALK, may have just been what made Thursday night’s episode one of the most discussed yet.
The video focused on one of the most riveting moments of God’s Trumpet to the Nations lunchtime ministries featuring William Braham. The episode in the Town Hall starts with the prophet in his usual manner calling out a situation that perhaps related to someone in the audience. This time Braham called forth someone who’d been having dreams where they were urinating, only to wake up and find out they’d literally wet the bed.
“If it’s you don’t wait,” he said. “I want to pray for that person, let that person come.”
With that said a woman comes forward and she’s handed a cloth.
“Why are you shaking?” Braham asks and the woman doesn’t respond. The video captures her falling to the floor with a motion of the prophet’s hand then four men assist her to her feet. They set her on the ground but she starts twisting around violently on floor saying, “No, I tell you no,” in an accent that sounds strangely African, mouth foaming adding something along the lines of, “you cannot take me out, she is possessed.”
The men turn her to face the audience and some people scream and jump back and the woman continues moving about while the men hold her and look to the prophet for what to do next.
“See how the devil is destroying the life of this woman?” Braham says while Pastor Shorn Jules thrusts a microphone to the possessed woman’s mouth. Her face is contorted; eyes widened and there is now spit all over her face. “She belongs, she belongs, she belongs to me,” the woman is heard saying in a deep voice, eyes rolled back.
“We are going to cast the demon out,” Braham says at that point. “When I say fire we are going to cast the demon out.”
The congregation starts chanting “fire” along with him and the woman begins to jerk fiercely. Only then does Braham jump offstage and get into the mix. The congregation is now riled up, clapping, hands in the air and shouting “fire” and Braham is holding the woman’s head as the ritual continues. He motions for the others to let her go, they set her down on the floor and she’s doused with holy water from plastic spring water bottles.
The men struggle to hold her, at various points legs pressed against her chest, twisting her arms, holding her legs between their feet and the entire thing goes on until she starts screaming, “ I’m coming out!”
At that point another person in the crowd seems to require attention. The woman comes forward, seemingly possessed and people are holding their hands clasped together as if in prayer.
“You saw the video, it is very moving,” Elder Josiah Castang says responding to one of the questions posed by show host Nicole Mc Donald adding that he felt it was all a “well orchestrated dramatization.”
“At the end of the day when demons are being cast out, even when Christ cast out demons, the closest thing you should have there is pigs,” he said. “You send those demons into the pigs! Once you’re casting out demons they can fly everywhere. While they’re casting out demons they are asking her “Who sent you? Who are you?” and she’s explaining to them with a microphone in her mouth! This whole thing is like what’s going on there? The people around should have been very concerned. You have to be careful when you’re casting out demons. If there are vessels around that are unclean or unrighteous the demons simply harbour another host. This is not a joke. People don’t do that in open areas.”
“I heard the prophet on NewsSpin, I sat down and listened to him thoroughly and there I was able to deduce for myself based on hearing him what type of spirit was in him. It’s always good to try the spirits, to listen, to see before you just believe. Try to understand what’s really going on. From me reading the Torah (Old Testament) I’d say to you, a humble spirit is very important, and I remember a man called and prophet Braham lost it, literally. If he was going to win me over, that point of time, he lost it, he got angry. He was no longer a prophet, he became a man.”
“The old folks here, healers, they always tell you when they finished do not offer them any money,” he continued. “Money and healing don’t go together. Why couldn’t he accept food offerings? Why always money? Money is the root of all evil. I’m not here to judge the prophet. I’m speaking because we need to be aware of what’s going on. You have to be careful of whose hands you let lay upon you. Not everyone who comes in the name of the Almighty is who they say they are.”
“Is he really a true prophet, or is he false?” Castang contemplated aloud. “Based on the Torah, I would like to say clearly there are more signs proving he is false than saying he is true.”
“I concur. It’s one thing to perform miracles, Benny Hinn, all those men performed miracles,” Elder Felix Francois added. “The bottom line, whether or not they were sent by the creator. The mind is a very powerful thing. Our people are very desperate. We are living in a society plagued with desperate people. People need all kinds of healing and they will go for anything.”
One caller challenged Elder Josiah for calling the public exorcism ceremony well orchestrated.
“Let me give you some information because I was there,” the man who claimed to be prophet Braham’s driver said. “The man of God and the pastor, asked persons while they were casting out demons to cover themselves, (covered by the grace of God, the blood of Jesus, not in the physical sense), so they would be protected pray, pray and pray. I think that’s very bad for this man to say it was well orchestrated. Prophet Braham didn’t go anywhere in St Lucia. We picked him up on the airport and he hardly went anywhere to visit or see anyone. I personally know for a fact that neither Braham nor the church orchestrated this.”
Was he saying it was real the host questioned to which Braham’s driver responded: “This was not orchestrated. Prophet Braham doesn’t even know the woman. He’s never met her. I do not know her. The prophet never demanded anyone to pay him, this is unfair. There were rumours that the gentleman was arrested, that he was deported by immigration and he was just here doing things in the name of Jesus Christ! That’s all he was doing and look at all the criticism.”
Another caller to the show wanted to know whether it was possible to get in touch with anyone who’d been healed to find out their status now, particularly the woman in the video.
“I would like to see that woman then and now,” one man said. “It would put things into perspective. Let her give her testimony and put these things to rest. These things need to go to rest for us to understand. The money is the biggest issue there. If there were nothing about money there would be no issue. I know my people. No money, no issue. That’s the way we are, we like everything for free!”
The STAR contacted Pastor Shorn Jules, of God’s Trumpet to the Nations Ministry, as they had brought Braham to St Lucia. When asked whether it was possible to contact the woman from whom the demons were cast out he responded: “I can’t help you there,” and went on to say numerous people had come for ministering from other faiths and he couldn’t say for sure who she was. In fact, Jules said he hadn’t even had the opportunity to watch the video online since he hardly went online and he’d been “resting from a hectic past three weeks.” He said all the media attention over the past few weeks had gotten to him.
“You can probably call someone else or do research,” he said and when asked who might be the right person to call he responded: “I can’t help you there either.”
Jules said however, the ministry had been bringing down prophets for a long time now, the only difference this time around was this one was much more public. He said in future they would be looking into some of people who were healed and he promised to put the STAR in touch with some of these people.
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