Apocalypse Observed: Religious Movements and Violence in North America, Europe, and Japan

251 Pages·2000·4.55 MB·English

by  John R. Hall

APOCALYPSE OBSERVED
Apocalypse Observed is a book about religious violence. By analyzing five of the
most notorious messianic cults of recent years, the authors present a fascinating
and revealing account of religious sects and conflict. The subjects covered
include the apocalypse at Jonestown; the Waco siege; the terror campaign of
Aum Shinrikyō, the mystical apocalypse of the Solar Temple; and the Heaven’s
Gate collective suicide.
Through comparative case studies and in-depth analysis, the authors show how
religious violence can erupt not simply from the beliefs of the cult followers or
the personalities of their leaders, but also from the way in which society
responds to the cults in their midst. Apocalypse Observed will appeal to anyone
with an interest in religious cults and their place in society.
John R.Hall is professor of sociology at the University of California-Davis,
and has written widely on the sociology of religion. Philip D.Schuyler is
associate professor in the department of music, University of Washington.
Sylvaine Trinh is professor of sociology at Paris-Dauphine University and senior
researcher at the Centre d’Analyse et d’Intervention Sociologiques, Ecole des
Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
APOCALYPSE OBSERVED
Religious movements and violence in
North America, Europe and Japan
John R.Hall
with
Philip D.Schuyler and
Sylvaine Trinh
London and New York
First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection
of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2000 John R.Hall, Philip D.Schuyler, and Sylvaine Trinh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-97766-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-19276-5 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-19277-3 (pbk)
In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest
tradition away
from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The
messiah comes
not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of
Antichrist.
Walter Benjamin (1968, p.253)
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements viii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction 1
1 The apocalypse at Jonestown 15
2 From Jonestown to Waco 45
3 The violent path of Aum Shinrikyō 79
SYLVAINE TRINH WITH JOHN R.HALL
4 The mystical apocalypse of the Solar Temple 115
JOHN R.HALL AND PHILIP D.SCHUYLER
5 Finding Heaven’s Gate 155
Epilogue 189
Notes 217
Bibliography 223
Index 231
All text is authored by John R.Hall except where otherwise noted.
ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 Jim Jones at a Peoples Temple service during the early 1970s in a 23
publicity photograph that emphasizes the preacher’s charismatic
attraction to his followers.
1.2 Flanked by members of the musical group, the Jonestown Express, 36
California Congressman Leo Ryan makes remarks in the Jonestown
pavilion after dinner on 17 November 1978. During the evening a NBC
reporter received a note from two Jonestown residents who wanted
help leaving the community.
2.1 Vernon Howell, who later changed his name to David Koresh, soon 49
after he arrived at the Branch Davidians’ Mount Carmel settlement in
1981.
2.2 A US government helicopter makes a low pass over the Mount Carmel 69
compound during the standoff in early April 1993. Cut off from
ordinary communication with the outside world, Davidian members
have unfurled a banner that reads, “1st seal, Rev 6:12, PS 45, Rev 19,
PS2, PS18, PS35, KJV,” referring to chapters and verses of the King
James version of the Bible.
3.1 The Kamikuishiki compound of Aum Shinrikyō, with Mount Fuji in 94
the background. It was here that many of the group’s clandestine acts of
violence took place, and that sarin was manufactured.
3.2 On 25 March 1995, five days after the Tokyo sarin attack, a devotee in 109
the sect’s New York City headquarters sits facing photographs of
Asahara Shōkō and a sign that lists as the first of its ten
commandments, “Do not kill, but love.” The vast majority of sect
members had no knowledge of the violent acts perpetrated by the
group, and many continue to proclaim its innocence.
4.1 A secret sanctum of the Solar Temple in the basement of a farmhouse 117
in the village of Cheiry, Switzerland, where the authorities discovered
the bodies of eighteen people on the morning of 5 October 1994.
4.2 Luc Jouret, a homeopathic doctor born in the Belgian Congo, became 127
highly successful at lecturing in a charismatic style that introduced the
public to the outlines of the Solar Temple’s esoteric theology. This
undated photo was released by the Sûreté du Québec after the first
collective suicide by members of the group, in October 1994.
4.3 A surveillance photo of Joseph DiMambro arriving at Brisbane 139
Airport, Australia, late in 1993, released by the Australian Federal
vii
Police. DiMambro did not know about the moneylaundering
investigation that was under way, but the Transit letters clearly indicate
that Temple members believed themselves to be the object of a
conspiracy that included government agencies.
5.1 Bo and Peep at a meeting that they staged in northern California in the 162
mid-1970s.
5.2 One of thirty-nine bodies found in a house in Rancho Santa Fe, 182
California, as photographed by the San Diego County Sheriff’s
Department on 26 March 1997. Followers of Do—and the previously
deceased Ti—had prepared for years to reach the Next Evolutionary
Level Above Human.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present inquiry has benefitted from the involvement of many individuals. In
footnotes at the beginnings of various chapters, we extend our special thanks to
people who have contributed to the five case studies on which the book is based.
Yet the whole, we hope, is greater than the sum of the parts, and on that score we
especially note the help of two individuals. Thomas Robbins has recognized the
importance of studying collective religious violence since the mass suicide at
Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978, and by his example and his critiques, he has
encouraged us—and others—to approach a troubled subject in an engaged yet
independent way. No one who approaches the subject could do better than live
up to his example, and that has been our aspiration here. Second, Jenny Broome
has taken on the role of first reader of the book in typescript, and we thank her for
astute counsel and unfailing support during writing and revision. Her invisible
hand is to be found on the pages that follow. Beyond the help of individuals, the
research for this book was supported by a faculty research grant from the
University of California-Davis Academic Senate Committee on Research.
A previously published essay served as a working paper for this study:
‘Apostasy, Apocalypse, and Religious Violence: An Exploratory Comparison of
Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, and the Solar Temple,’ by John R.Hall
and Philip Schuyler, pp. 141–69 in The Politics of Religious Apostasy, edited by
David G.Bromley. Copyright © 1998 by David G.Bromley. Portions of this text
are reproduced in revised form with permission of Greenwood Publishing
Group, Inc., Westport, Conn.
Beyond all the help from others—without which this book would not exist—
as authors we thank one another for the enriching experience of sharing this
project. In particular, John R.Hall thanks Philip D.Schuyler and Sylvaine Trinh
for their contributions to the enterprise as a whole, beyond the specific chapters
where they are credited as co-authors. Collectively, we take responsibility for the
gap between this inevitably flawed book and our aspirations for observing an
Apocalypse that resists any rational accounting.
John R.Hall
Philip D.Schuyler
Sylvaine Trinh
ABBREVIATIONS
The following sources are cited in the text by abbreviations:
CNN Cable News Network
CT Chicago Tribune
IHT International Herald Tribune
JT Japan Times
LAT Los Angeles Times
NYT New York Times
SFC San Francisco Chronicle
USTD United States Department of the Treasury
WP Washington Post
WTH Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald