Of several recent books documenting the fiasco at Waco in 1993, I chose this one for no particular reason. The first 56 pages is an education of readers about the history of the Branch Davidians, best known for the lethal confrontations with federal law enforcement agencies at their compound, Mount Carmel, outside of Waco, Texas. A worldwide offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists, started in 1935, there were 144,000 members twenty years later. Over the ensuing years there were numerous internal conflicts, some of them violent, as various leaders tried to claim authority to set rules and to interpret biblical prophesies, particularly from the Book Of Revelation. The enigmatic Seven Seals in Revelations figures prominently in subsequent story. Constants included leaders who indulged in polygamy and pedophilia, a belief in the imminent second coming of Christ, and licentious indulgent lifestyles for the self-appointed prophetic bosses. David Koresh, the last undisputed prophet/leader married preteens, nullified marriages of Davidian couples, and copulated indiscriminately and openly with the ex-wives, fathering at least a dozen children. He indulged freely in booze and tobacco while prohibiting their use by his followers. During the initial firefight on February 28th, five or six Davidians and four federal agents were killed.
One of the followers explained their actions: “What if you lived two thousand years ago. Your’e a fisherman. Jesus walks up to you and says ‘Follow me’. That’s who we were.” They were also heavily armed with illegal military-grade automatic weapons and had Alaskan malamute dogs guarding the compound.
Australian Peter Gent, one of the group shot by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents on the first day, Feb 28, may have been a remote relative of mine, as the h in Ghent was a recent addition, and there are relatives in Australia. After the cease fire and stalemate of that first day when five Davidians and four ATF agents were killed, the FBI took over the government side of the conflict and a wounded David Koresh pleaded and preached on national media outlets from within the compound. A deal to end the standoff by agreeing to let Koresh address the nation on radio, in return for surrender, failed when Koresh, after his message had been aired, reneged, citing a direct command from God to wait. He thereby lost a lot of good PR he had gained with his talk. He did, however, release some children, one or two at a time and in later negotiations some adults also surrendered to authorities. On April 19th, after a fifty one day siege, the final conflagration began with tanks ramming the building and throwing tear gas canisters in and a few Davidians escaping. Seventy six of them died as the tinderbox building went up in flames. The fire was almost certainly set by the Davidians as a suicidal fulfillment of what they believed was prophesies from the Bible. Several Davidians inside committed murder-suicide, including Koresh.
The government agencies were rightly criticized retrospectively for their fatal excessive use of force, finally assaulting the compound with tanks and grenades when they could have arrested Koresh any time he left the compound unarmed to go to Waco’s Walmart or went walking or jogging around it. The several subsequent later investigations were widely criticized as a coverup. In some respects they probably were.
Although most radical cult followers are thought of by educated sceptics like me as gullible, poorly educated people looking for some meaning in their lives, education was seemingly no protection from the allure of this radical group. Davidians included at least two Harvard law school graduates, a university professor, a man with a Ph.D. in comparative religion from the University of Hawaii, a physicist from Australia and other university graduates from around the world. The man with the Ph.D. in religion later became Koresh’s negotiator with FBI agents.
The author concentrates on the ineptitude of the FBI handling of the crisis and the consequences leading directly to Tim McVeigh’s bombing in Oklahoma City, and the modern rise of radical right wing conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones of now defunct Info Wars infamy, and the prophet Q of QAnon. And he points out the danger of increasingly militarized law enforcement and of the also heavily armed conspiracy theorists. The connections of the Branch Davidian cult mentality to the Proud Boys, The Three Percenters, survivalists, and the January 6th 2021 Capital rioters are hard to ignore and the remaining Branch Davidians remain active in Waco. It would be very risky to smugly think that such groups could not survive in Canada- just consider Jordan Peterson’s admirers.
For me, an equally important lesson in this sad tale is the ease with which even well educated otherwise rational people can be duped into believing really whacky doctrines when they are dressed up as religious dogma. As scientific rationality gradually highjacked my brain in middle life, I began to doubt the Billy Graham-style Christian evangelism I had been taught as a youth. To reduce the resulting cognitive dissonance, out went the myths of creation, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the Second Coming of Christ, and heaven and hell. (I never did believe the cannibalistic Doctrine of Transubstantiation in which fresh bread and red wine become 2000 year old stale flesh and blood.) In came a vague sense of an obligation to enjoy life and to be useful here on earth, freedom to explore any and all new ideas, and the peace of mind of expecting to go nowhere- neither heaven nor hell.
This is not a fun read, but an incredibly important commentary on the scary times we live in and a warning that we all need to heed.
9/10.
Thanks, The New Yorker.
The Passionate Reader 