Hello, My name is David Bunds and I am a former Branch Davidian. I was even a Branch Davidian before so-called "David Koresh" was. He was Vernon Howell when I first met him and that's what I will call him for the rest of my days. Good old Vern. Anyway I disagree with you that Vernon's personality is not an issue in evaluating his writings. On the contrary, unless you understand Vernon's personality and understand it very well, you will never fully understand his teachings. This is because the various obsessions and carnal desires that Vernon suffered from was a major force in shaping his beliefs and teachings. This is something that I know from experience. I was there. For example. Vernon was a pedophile. We normally think of pedophiles as men who like to have sex with little boys but it applies to any adult who likes to have sex with children, regardless of sexual orientation. It is a documented fact that Kiri Jewell (Sherri Jewell's daughter, she testified before congress) was no more than 11 years old when Vernon had sex with her and she might have been as young as ten, I cannot remember for sure. I think the majority of people would consider a 10 or 11 year old a child. I sure do because I have children myself of this age. Some may be offended that I would label Vernon a pedophile but it is only logical to do so in my opinion. Most people are disgusted by such behavior and rightly so. So why did Vernon insist on doing such things? Because he said that it was God's will. If he had not believed that he had permission from God to engage in sex with young girls he never would have done it because he could not have handled the guilt. How do I know this? Because I was there in October 1985 when he described in detail his ordeal on a trip he took with Michelle Jones from Palestine, TX to Los Angeles. Michelle was only eleven at the time and during the trip Vernon was tempted to an extreme degree to pull the car over (they were alone) and rape her. He said that it was only through extreme effort that he was able to resist doing such a thing. He gave God the victory and said that Satan was trying to destroy the message. If he had given in it would have too because there was no allowance for it in his message at the time. He had been preaching monogamy all the way. It was not until March of '86 that he began to teach polygamy and at first we thought that it would be just bigamy. But unknown to us at the time, less than a year after being tempted to rape Michelle he was having regular intercourse with her. She was only 12 years old. God does work in mysterious ways! Apparently as a reward for resisting his temptation to rape Michelle God gives Vernon what he wanted to do in the first place. This was all very secret at the time however. Very few people knew about it. Apparently Vernon felt comfortable bragging about when he resisted the temptation but didn't want to talk about acutally giving in. Why the change? Well between the two tempations Vernon got a "message" from God that it was ok for him to have more than one wife. Karen Doyle (Clive Doyle's daughter) was the first that he took and it was a major blow to the movement. It definitely took some getting used to. An entire theology was built up by Vernon around his marriage to Karen. She was supposed to have a daughter named Shoshanna and she was going to marry his firstborn son Cyrus. Nobody talks about this anymore becuase it never happened. Karen is unable to have children. But Vernon (or his god) didn't know this at the time. So after a few months he got up the never to force himself on Michelle. It was not consentual sex. I know this becuase we have several witnesses who heard Vernon's description of the event a few years later when he had become much more powerful and could confess such things with no risk of losing control of his followers. So Vernon's doctrine of polygamy (The House of David) rose out of his deep desire to have sex with young girls. Once he was able to convince himself that it was God's will then he was able to be free of guilt and have sex with as many young girls as he could get his hands on. This is one example of a docrine arising from a personality trait. That is enough for now. I could go on (boy could I) but I want to see how you are going to react to this. It is nothing personal but I do beleive that as an outsider looking in, you will have difficulty understanding this whole Branch Davidian thing. I mean the experience as a whole, the entire message from beginnng to end, which was always very much wrapped up in Vernon's personality. That bit you quoted from the Shower head tape is nothing compared to the bullshit my wife had to put up with from that man. When she visited Mt. Carmel in '96 she spit and danced on his memorial stone. She is glad he is dead. You may want to instantly judge her but if you are wise you will withhold judgement until you have heard her story. She was consistently the victim of the most evil parts of his nature. I do not blame her for the way she feels. Sincerely, David Bunds
David, Thanks for your mail, I appreciate you sending it to me, I am sure it is difficult writing about things that have affected you so deeply. You are right, of course, I am an outsider looking in, but then 99% of all the knowledge we have of the world is second hand - we have to make a judgement based on what we hear others tell us about events. For this reason I value your description of what happened. You say we need to understand Koresh/Howell's personality in order to understand his theology. I think we *can* understand things this way, but it is useful not to - at least it is useful to leave this out of the equation for a time. Why do I think this - after all, as you and Marc Breault point out one appears to be a simple justification for the other? My reasoning is that those in the group did not see things this way. As you said yourself, there was a time when the BD theology didn't support deviant behaviour. But why did the BD start to accept this behaviour? Because they were brainwashed? I think the "brainwashing cult" theories are too simple. People believed the doctrine because they accepted the arguments. They studied the texts and listened to the reasoning and in the end either accepted the theology on that basis or not at all. So to say Koresh/Howell came up with these theories because of this personality is like saying Karl Marx came up with his theories because of certain personality traits. Perhaps he did. but people accepted his ideas because of the reasoning contained in those ideas, not because of his personality. To take an extreme example, suppose we were able to show Einstein's theories were reflections of certain personality traits he had. Would this invalidate his theories? Not at all. To take the example further, would someone best understand Marx or Einstein's theories who knew their internal rationale or who knew their personalities? I would argue the former, for this is what it means to understand someone's ideas. The moral status of an individual does not affect this way of understanding ideas. Hitler no doubt had many "personality traits" in his Nazi beliefs. Yet people accepted these beliefs because of the reasons Hitler put forward to justify them. They did not accept them because they externalised Hitler's psychology, although we may find links between the two. I hope this clarifies my statement that we need to understand someone's ideas separately from their personality. I agree with you that there may be much of their personality in their ideas, and their ideas could not have arisen without their unique personality, but "ideas" by their very nature have a life of their own separate from the individual who created them, and as such ultimately need to be understood separately from that individual. I would be fascinated to know how you respond to this. If you have read Tabor and Gallagher's _Why Waco?_ you will know they hold that BD's were not brainwashed but accepted Koresh/Howell's arguments from scripture. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. So back to you - do you think BD's were brainwashed, or were they accepting arguments from scripture? Kind Regards John Mann P.S. Can I put your e-mail on my web site? I will put it on in full with no modifications.
John, Yes, you may use my e-mail. I have no problem with that. I will give your e-mail a more substantial answer when I have more time. Thank you for your response. I will briefly discuss brainwashing. First let us define what it is. brainwashing: a process of systematically, forcibly and intensively indoctrinating a person to destroy or weaken his beliefs and ideas, so that he becomes willing to accept different or opposite beliefs and ideas. This is an extremely complex subject. Some of the things that the definition describes were going on. Indoctrination was definitely an every day occurrence and it was more or less systematic. More on some days, less on others. A lot more as his message matured and developed over the years. It was not forced however. You were pretty much free to leave at any time. However when it was going on it could be very intense and very long. Some of his studies could last 12 hours. As for destroying beliefs and ideas, as far as I can tell, a typical follower of Koresh already had certain beliefs and ideas that Koresh would use and capitalize on, i.e. a fear and respect of the bible, basic beliefs in God, uncertainty about their own salvation and the future in general, etc. So in conclusion I will say that according to this definition that brainwashing was not occuring while I was there. I do not consider myself to have been brainwashed. As to whether or not they were accepting arguments from scripture that is also a complex subject. Koresh was an extremely complex man and fully understanding his bible teachings is not easy. He did use scare tactics and fear in addition to arguments from the bible when preaching to people whether followers or not. I will discuss this subject with you further in a future e-mail. Thank you. David Bunds
Thank you for your very interesting comments. In practise there isn't a totally clear distinction between brainwashing and studying a subject in a very intense manner how you describe. I think within the SDA tradition there is a view that there is nothing wrong with very long Bible studies, nor with mixing study with fear.
On a related point, do you think Koresh was genuine in the sense that he believed what he said? In my judgement - from what I have read - I would say he did believe the things he was saying and he did follow what he thought the Bible had taught him.
John,
Did Koresh believe his own message?
You are correct. In spite of the conclusions of some, including FBI
officials, Koresh did beleive his own message. Those who allege that he
was a fake and was simply claiming to be a prophet for personal gain
only have completely failed to understand him or his message.
How do I know this? Well, I was there for over five years and
observed the man in many situations so it is my "feeling." For more
objective evidence, turn to the recording he left on mother's answering
machine on Feb. 28th right after he had been shot. He thought he was
dying and men in that condition typically tell the truth. It is clear
from what he tells his mother that he thinks he will be back in his
glorified state. He comforts her by telling her that he will be
merciful. This is because that had had a falling out previous to this
and he might have warned her that she was in danger of losing her soul.
Later,
David Bunds
Hi I've been discussing the meaning of Matt 16:13-20 with a Roman Catholic and realised that much of what I was arguing came from my reading Koresh on the key of David and the Rock of Daniel. This made me think of you and I suppose that there is an obvious question to ask you, following from your previous e-mails. If you accept that Koresh didn't brainwash you, and that he believed his own message, then how much of his teaching is it still possible to value? Tabor and Gallagher are biblical scholars who believed Koresh to be teaching doctines of genuine interest, so after all this time to reflect what do you believe it is still possible to value and where doctrinally do you think he went wrong? Kind Regards John Mann jon.mann@btinternet.com
John Mann wrote:
> How much of his teaching is it still possible to value? Tabor and Gallagher
> are biblical
> scholars who believed Koresh to be teaching doctines of genuine interest, so
> after all this time to reflect what do you believe it is still possible to
> value and where doctrinally do you think he went wrong?
First of all, I am not a believer in the inspiration of the bible so I will
writing this from a secular perspective.
Secondly I was kind brainwashed at certain points. I was kind of
self-brainwashed though. I don't blame Koresh for it.
In my opinion Koresh's doctrines are only of historical interest. It is
also my opinion that they are almost all (99%) crap.
Koresh's doctrines were self-serving. His message was that he was the Lamb
and because of this he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. Smoking,
drinking, screwing 10 year girls, spending money like water on whatever he
wanted, nothing was out of bounds for him as long as he could convince himself
and his followers that it was God's will that he do these things.
Koresh went wrong doctrinally in that he came to beleive that he was
inerrant, i.e. never wrong. He told me this personally. As a result of this
belief he beleived that every goddamned thought that came into his head was
inspired of God. Since his thoughts mostly dwelt on sex, drugs, guns, and rock
and roll that is what he ended up doing. He had absolute power is his little
world and you know what they say about absolute power.