Anthony Storr - Feet of Clay

The Book of Revelation was probably written around 95–96 A.D. In it, Jesus is portrayed as a warrior who leads a host of angels to defeat the Satanic forces ranged against him. Following the final defeat of evil, a Kingdom is established in which selected human beings, rendered immortal, live for ever in perfect peace and harmony. The opening of the book or scroll, which is sealed with seven seals, heralds a series of terrible events which, as in other apocalyptic visions, are bound to precede the final establishment of peace and order. When the first seal is broken, a white horse appears ridden by a rider armed with a bow and given a crown, who goes forth to conquer. The breaking of the second seal heralds a red horse and rider who is given a great sword and the power to make men slaughter each other. Breaking the third seal releases a rider on a black horse who carries a pair of scales and who appears to be the herald of famine. When the fourth seal has been broken, a sickly pale horse appears whose rider is Death. He is given power over a quarter of the earth, with the right to kill by sword, famine, epidemics, or wild beasts. After the fifth seal has been broken, the souls of those who have been slaughtered for the faith complain; but they are reassured, provided with white robes and told to wait until the tally of those destined to be killed for Christ’s sake is complete. The breaking of the sixth seal is followed by a violent earthquake. The sun turns black, the moon red, and the stars fall out of the sky. Following the breaking of the seventh seal by the Lamb of God, silence reigns in Heaven for half-an-hour. Then comes the destruction of a third of mankind, followed by the final defeat of the powers of darkness.

Koresh seems to have convinced his followers that he himself had the power to break the seventh seal, thus precipitating the catastrophes described in The Book of Revelation. He taught that God would return to earth with fire and lightning and establish a new kingdom in Israel, with Koresh on the throne. He persuaded his followers that death was only a prelude to a better life to come, in which they would be among the army of élite immortals who were destined to slaughter all the wicked on earth, beginning with the Christian church.

Koresh’s delusional system, like that of Jim Jones, took time to develop. At first, he alleged himself to be no more than a prophet, armed with special understanding of the Seven Seals. As his power increased, so did his claims for himself. When his defected disciple Marc Breault was asked whether Koresh believed himself to be the Son of God, Breault was emphatic that he did. When asked what control this gave Koresh over his followers, Breault replied: ‘Absolute control. I know it’s hard for you to understand this. But just imagine you believe someone is Jesus Christ. He can tell you anything. If you argue, you go to Hell. He’s the Son of God. Who wants to fight against God?’ 8By the time that his Texan prairie retreat was undergoing its terminal siege in April 1993, Koresh was claiming that he was God, and signing his letters Yahweh Koresh.

Ranch Apocalypse, as Koresh now re-named the Mount Carmel property, was a squalid enclosure. There was hardly any heating and no running water or proper plumbing. Members of the cult had to excrete into chamber pots and bury the contents in the ground. Water was supplied from a container brought in by truck. As in Jonestown, cult members soon developed a variety of ailments, including Hepatitis B. Koresh considered that seeking medical help was a threat to his authority, and forbade visits to doctors. He constantly imposed a string of varied dietary injunctions of an irrational kind. During one month, bananas were the only fruit allowed. It was forbidden to eat oranges and grapes at the same meal. On some days only vegetables were allowed; on others, food was restricted to fruit and popcorn. There was no hot food, and buying food from outside without Koresh’s direct permission was forbidden. Koresh used starvation as a punishment, and many members of the cult suffered from malnutrition, as members of Jones’s cult had done in Guyana. And, as in the case of Jones, Koresh himself was exempt from all dietary restrictions. His ridiculous rules and prohibitions were merely an added proof of his almost absolute power; on a par with the senseless and meaningless tasks which other gurus require of their followers. Another arbitrary exercise of power was Koresh’s practice of waking the entire compound at night, and compelling them to listen to his protracted expositions of the Bible, which sometimes went on for as long as fifteen hours.

The punishments instituted by Koresh were as savage as those employed by Jones. He taught that children as young as eight months old should receive corporal punishment for misbehaviour, and told their mothers that they would bum in hell if they refused to beat their children. Children were punished for the slightest misdemeanour by being beaten with a piece of wood known as a ‘helper’. Each child had his own ‘helper’ with his name written on it. A special room was set aside for these beatings. Koresh beat his own three-year-old son Cyrus so severely that it sickened Marc Breault, and no doubt contributed to Breault’s eventual disillusion. Several of the twenty-one children who were eventually released bore the marks of recent beatings. Another punishment was to immerse the offender in sewage and not allow him or her to bathe. Derek Lovelock, an English survivor of the terminal siege, nevertheless insisted that Koresh was ‘a very caring compassionate man,’ and denied the accusations of cruelty and sexual abuse, although he did admit that parents sometimes beat their children. 9He told William Shaw that the months he spent at the ranch were the happiest days of his life. ‘“We were one big family,” he says. “We all believed in the one belief, and agreed on the same points. We were all one community.”’ 10

Koresh was as sexually rapacious as Jim Jones, but his tastes were different. In 1983, Koresh married Rachel, the daughter of an official of the Branch Davidian Church. She was only fourteen years old, but no one objected. She bore him three children. In 1986, Koresh began sleeping with her younger sister, then twelve years old. When Koresh took command of Ranch Apocalypse, he split up families by ensuring that the men slept on one floor, the women on another. Severing family ties was one way of reinforcing allegiance to himself, and also made it easier for him to seduce the women he wanted. Koresh considered himself entitled to have sexual relations with any of the females in the compound, including girls of twelve and thirteen. One child who was too small for penetration was urged to use large tampons in order that her vagina might become able to accommodate him. 11

Koresh, like Jones, deteriorated mentally. He took a variety of vitamins and herbal remedies to cure what he called impotence, but drugs cannot be blamed for the development of his delusions as they can in the case of Jones. He was less obviously a confidence trickster than Jones; but when Breault was asked whether Koresh really believed what he was teaching or was just a con man, Breault replied: ‘I think a little of both. Vernon gets a craving. Then he finds the theology to justify that craving. When others buy into his doctrine, he starts believing it himself.’ 12

By 1986 he was teaching that he was entitled to a hundred and forty wives. When Ranch Apocalypse finally went up in flames, 17 of the 22 children who perished had been fathered by Koresh, who claimed that only he was allowed to procreate, and that part of his mission was to fill the world with righteous children.

At the beginning of the FBI siege, Koresh allowed those children who were not fathered by him to be released. The psychiatrists who interviewed them repeatedly heard stories about dead babies. Some children alleged that the bodies of babies were stored in a freezer until they could be got rid of. It is possible, though unproven, that Koresh sacrificed the children of cult members because he himself was not their father. He certainly tried to persuade his followers that ritual sacrifices of children might be necessary. It is fair to add that reports about the condition of the children who were released varies. In his book The Ashes of Waco , Dick J. Reavis is chiefly concerned with attacking the clumsy way in which the ATF *and the FBI handled the siege, which he considered entirely unjustified. He claims that there is evidence that the children within the compound were well cared for and quotes one psychiatrist who examined the released children as saying that there was no evidence of sexual abuse. When the FBI blasted holes in the compound buildings, they assumed that the mothers of small children would take the opportunity to escape with their offspring. None did so. The final holocaust was initiated by members of the cult, who used kerosene lamps to start the blaze. Not everyone who died was burned alive. Twenty-seven cult members, including Koresh himself, were shot.