Vernon Howell arrived at the Branch Davidian settlement outside Waco in 1981, a poor guitarist with a stammer and an extraordinary command of scripture. He could quote and cross-reference the Bible at a speed that impressed people who had studied it for decades, and after a violent internal succession struggle he took control of the group and renamed himself David Koresh.
His authority rested on one specific claim: that he alone could open the Seven Seals of the Book of Revelation.
That claim is worth examining structurally, because it is the purest example in this part of the guide of what Lifton calls sacred science — a doctrine placed permanently beyond challenge by making its interpretation a personal monopoly.
Every religion has texts. A text is, in principle, available to anyone, which means an ordinary religious leader can be argued with by a member who has read it. Koresh's position was that the meaning was sealed and had been revealed to him. A member who reached a different reading had not found an error in Koresh; they had demonstrated that they lacked the revelation.
The delivery mechanism reinforced it. Bible studies ran for many hours, often through the night, sometimes for fifteen hours at a stretch, with the community assembled and expected to attend. Sleep deprivation is not incidental to this format. Fatigue reduces the capacity for counter-argument, which Petty and Cacioppo's work identifies as the resource resistance requires, and it increases suggestibility. A long night lecture is a persuasion instrument as much as a teaching one.
The New Light doctrine, announced in 1989, held that all women in the community were spiritually married to Koresh and that other men were to be celibate. This is doctrine over person in its most direct form: the group's teaching overrides the member's family, and marriage — the strongest competing bond — is dissolved by revelation. Underage girls were among those he took as wives, which is the criminal core of the case and the reason for the investigation.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted a dynamic entry on 28 February 1993 to serve warrants relating to firearms. Four agents and six Davidians died. A fifty-one-day siege followed.
The siege was, from inside, prophecy confirmed. Koresh had taught that the Babylonians would come; armored vehicles surrounded the property, loudspeakers played sound through the night, and the electricity was cut. Every escalation was evidence. Tajfel's work predicts what external threat does to a bounded group, and the FBI's own behavioral experts argued at the time that pressure tactics were counterproductive against an apocalyptic group. They were overruled.
On 19 April 1993 the assault went in with CS gas. Fire broke out. Seventy-six people died, including more than twenty children.