TRAUMA ASSESSMENT TEAM
Post-traumatic Stress Disorders Programs

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

APPENDIX I

Comments on the Social, Religious and Educational Experiences of the Children Living at Ranch Apocalypse

INTRODUCTION

A brief description of our preliminary understanding of the social, religious, and educational practices at Ranch Apocalypse is outlined below. This is a summary digestion collected from a variety of sources. The major sources of this information is the first group of children released from Ranch Apocalypse in early March, 1993.

The purpose of this is to provide important background information which will allow the families, teachers, case workers and clinicians working with these children understand something about the "world" these children grew up in. Some understanding of the social, religious, educational and psychosexual practices that these children were exposed to will make it easier to understand the context in which these children experienced the traumatic shoot-out of February 28, 1993.

It should be noted again that these are summary clinical impressions and the factual accuracy has not been documented at present. At the end of this description, a section outlining the clinical implications of being a child in this context is outlined.

A. SOCIAL
[ Family | Living Arrangements | Dietary Restrictions | Modern Conveniences | Daily Structure | Discipline ]

1. Family: For a variety of reasons the traditional family boundaries for most of these children had been dissolved. The children had the sense that David Koresh was the major father figure. He assumed a variety of paternalistic roles in this small religious community including being the major provider of cognitive information, moral and religious information, social and disciplinary guidance -- effectively defining the entire structure of the group.

   Group is, of course, the key word. These families lived together in a religious community. Communal or tribal boundaries were more articulated than traditional nuclear family boundaries. The outside was full of 'bad guys', unbelievers without the 'light', evil and hurtful people. The group was safe but under constant threat -- thereby all of these children were exposed to, and believed, the teachings regarding the evil intentions of strangers. A paranoid, suspicious view was taken of the outside. In addition, David Koresh made threats about keeping group secrets. At present, the majority of these children are keeping these secrets -- but hint at the sexualized nature of the secrets.

   Children were instructed to consider David their father. The children related at various times that they had been instructed to call their natural parents dogs and to call David father. Children who were not biologically David's or 'adopted' by David were called bastards. Traditional family boundaries were known but not very clear. The major familial relationships that these children were able to identify were mother and siblings. The children are able to talk about their fathers but primarily referred to David as their father or dad. When asked to draw family pictures, many of these children were confused or drew 'favorite' groups or clusters of people.

2. Living Arrangements: The group living arrangements were atypical for a conventional nuclear family. The first obvious difference was that men and women were separated. The men's quarters tends to be on the first floor of the ranch compound and the women and mothers with small children typically lived in the second story. The age of 12 was viewed as being a cut off for transition into adulthood. Boys that were age 12 and older were assigned to an apprenticeship. For example, one 12 year old boy was identified by the group of children as an 'electrician'. Unfortunately, it also appears that young girls at age 11 or 12 were identified as having entered adulthood. Some girls as young as 11 or 12 may have been identified by David as having 'the light' and thereby worthy to serve as one of David's multiple wives.

   Typically, a mother would live with her small children in a single room which contained beds and a desk. In a number of cases where families were large or when siblings could not get along, siblings were separated from mothers and other siblings and lived in other rooms with other same sex children. The boys and girls were typically not allowed to spend much time together and had separate activities throughout the day. The older boys were not allowed to go into to female quarters. According to CPS in one discussion with David Koresh in 1992, David related that males were not allowed to change diapers, "lest they be tempted" to sexually abuse the children.

3. Dietary Restrictions: The group had a number of dietary restrictions. The absolute prohibitions included pork and chocolate. In addition, sweets, candies, 'soda' and red meat were restricted or severely limited. A number of the children relate that some of the women were on popcorn and fruit diets -- "to keep them thin". There were a number of unusual ideas about combining vegetables and fruit in the same meal. Some of the children related that on one day they would have vegetables, on another day they would have fruit. When first placed in CPS care, the children frequently talked about how odd it was to have warm food. Children were rarely allowed to eat ice cream, on the other hand, David had ice cream whenever he wanted and the children knew and accepted this.
4. Modern Conveniences: The children were fascinated by running water and particularly by warm water. They were not used to bathing in warm water as there was no indoor plumbing. The children described using a pot for urinating and defecating which they would empty every day. In addition, there was a fascination about flushing toilets, most apparent with the young children. Ex-members of this community describe unsanitary conditions and poor upkeep of the compound grounds. On-going construction, including digging underground shelters, was a part of life at the ranch. Children were given some restrictions regarding access to these areas under construction but they report playing in the midst of this construction.
5. Daily Structure: A number of the girls related that they were able to sleep in as late as they wanted to. This is consistent with the histories they gave about some of them being asleep at the time the shooting started. In other places, CPS has elicited history, and in fact, the boys gave us history that they would wake, at times, very early in the morning, 5:30 AM and go to "gym." During gym they did a variety activities such as marching, drilling (possibly with firearms) and other physical activities that sounded very much like paramilitary exercises. The girls and the boys relate that the boys were given more freedom of access to the outside and outside play during the day.

   Some of the girls report that they would wake in the morning, have breakfast, go back to their rooms where they would then nap or play with their small group of siblings. They would go down for lunch, go back to their rooms, sleep some more. There is a sense they spent a great deal of time in their rooms. A formalized school structure was hard to elicit from these children. A number of songs were taught to the children in context of their school, bible lessons and play. These songs had a variety of themes but usually were filled with violent, war-like and apocalyptic imagery.

   Free activities involved watching, particularly war movies. The children were not allowed to watch television, nor were they allowed to view many children's videos. They frequently talked about watching war videos. The young children talked about watching martial arts videos and war movies. The older children talked about riding their go-karts or dune buggies through the ranch compound. There was very little talk about any kind of traditional, competitive sports such as baseball, football, whistle ball, tag. They do talk about the swimming pool which apparently is recently finished.

   The great majority of these children relate that their play tended to be cowboys and Indians or war play. This was encouraged by the adults, particularly David. A number of the children also relate that they were encouraged to fight each other in staged fights observed by some of the adults or older children. If a child would not participate with true vigor, they were disciplined.

6. Discipline: It should be that these children had a number of strict behavioral and verbal prohibitions. Violations of these resulted in punishment, sometimes severe. These children, for example, expected to be hit when they spilled. The style of discipline often involved being beaten with what these children labeled 'the Helper'. The Helper sounds like it is a wooden paddle, some children have reported it is broken off from an oar, other children have labeled it as a rice stirrer. In any case it is some variation of a wooden spoon. Other forms of discipline included restrictions of food, sometimes for a day.

   These children had a difficult time making the adjustment to a non-physical form of discipline which was employed by the house parents and child care staff after being released from the ranch. These children have been disciplined physically, apparently from a very young age.

   A permeating and pervasive fear of displeasing David or betraying his 'secrets' is present in all of the children -- even those as young as 4 years old. The children have a sense that he will be able to punish them if they violate his prohibitions -- they even allude to the fact that he will be able to return from death and punish them or others who betray him.

B. RELIGIOUS

1. Chapel: Children talk about attending chapels on Saturdays. In addition, they talk about being in chapel sometimes during the week, although this is not the central religious activity of their day.

   The children have a sense of a strong, male, punitive and annihilating God. Many of the children talk about David Koresh as God. What they have been taught, aside from the apocalyptic message, seems to be among the permeating 'secrets' which these children are unwilling to share with us at present.

   The 'message' which David has preached includes some idea that since Jesus Christ was sinless, humans are unable to relate to Christ. Furthermore, that the return of the Messiah will be one who partakes in all human sins and debauches so that this new Messiah can relate to and, ultimately judge, humans. Apparently, David Koresh views himself as this new, sinful prophet or Messiah.

2. Bible Studies: This appears to be the central religious activity in which these children learned information about their religion. The core of their religion is traditional Christianity. Apparently the group called the Branch Davidians are an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. More recently, this specific group has requested that they be called Koreshians since they are following the teachings of David Koresh. Those specific teachings appear to be focusing on the Books from the Old Testament that involve the Prophets and the apocalyptic book in the New Testament, Revelations. The Apocalyptic message involves understanding the symbolism behind the Seven Seals and preparing for the end of the World and the second coming of Christ. Mr. Koresh related to his followers a number of revelations that he himself had which led to him having "new lights". These lights were insights which led to new understanding of the meaning and purpose of the Bible. According to affidavit by ex-group members, these 'lights' included having sex with other men's wives and having a strict prohibition on procreation by anyone but him.

   One group theme which comes from the children and from ex-group members is the theme of willingness to die for these new 'lights' and sacrifice everything for David (including your children). The sense of a besieged, misunderstood and 'special' group on the verge of the apocalypse permeates the religious teachings of David Koresh.

   The children relate an Apocalyptic script as follows. All of the children have been told that the 'bad' guys will come and kill the 'good' guys. The 'good' guys, of course, are the Koreshians. After the Koreshians are dead, David will come back to earth and kill all of the 'bad' guys who will burn forever in hell. He will chop their heads off and they will burn in hell. After this, all of the children will be reunited with their parents in heaven.

   Some of the other content of these Bible studies apparently involves sexuality. Both by inference and direct comment from the children, as well as by history gathered by CPS and others, David talks about very explicit sexual things during these Bible studies.

   There is no doubt, based upon our groups consensus that the young girls in the first group of children released were exposed to inappropriate sexual ideations and possibly sexual behaviors. This continues to be an ongoing concern of those working with these children. Associations between sexuality and religion and power are present in a malignant form and permeate the thoughts and comments of the older girls released from the ranch.

C. EDUCATION

The majority of these children are between the ages of 4 and 11. These children received some structured,educational experiences at 'home'. Home being the Ranch Apocalypse Compound. Some of these children did attend public school in the Palestine, Texas or the Waco, Texas area prior to this home schooling experience. For the last two and half years, however, all the children have been home-schooled.

The quality of this educational experience is not known. There were certain subjects which were not taught. Apparently, history was not taught. A heavy concentration on Bible and Bible study took place. The majority of these children appear to be at least grade level with regards to reading. We were unable to get any true assessment of their capabilities to do simple math. One of the most important elements of an assessment for each of these children as they move to a new placement will be to do a thorough educational evaluation.

D. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Based upon the social structure, the religious ideas, and the educational experiences of these children, there a number of very important clinical implications.

The first implication is that these children are not at all used to typical family life. For that reason, many activities, even very simple activities, that one might anticipate would be familiar to a child are not going to be familiar to these children. They have a variety of prohibitions about foods they eat, words they say, secrets they can share, and any sense that they violated this appears to induce a great deal of fear. This fear, of course, is probably because they were significantly and severely disciplined for any breach of these prohibitions.

One positive element of the prohibitions as articulated above, is that they appear to have been evolving over time. Five years ago the same degree of unusual religious ideation in combination with sexuality was probably not as widespread. It has been in the last two years where the most severe behavioral, social and religious restrictions were imposed. The most malignant associations of power and sexuality and religion were pounded into these children's brains, therefore, for only the last 3 to 4 years.

One of the key cognitive scripts that these children carry around is that everyone, except those in their religious community, are 'evil' strangers and are bad. Establishing trust with their new families, with a new peer group, with a new church, in a new school setting will all be extremely difficult. Teachers, families, therapists will frequently see references to maintaining secrets and observe hyperviligance -- these children are waiting for others to harm them.

This group paranoia, of course, was unfortunately reinforced by the shoot-out experience which occurred on February 28, 1993. After having two or three years of their parents, David Koresh and other significant adults in their life telling them that strangers were going to hurt them, that the bad guys were going to come, and that they would have to defend their home against the evil ones, they indeed were put in that situation. Erasing a reinforced false idea like this is extremely difficult and will be a major task in any therapeutic approach.

Another element that will be extremely important clinically, is that these children were involved in a very life-threatening traumatic experience. All of these children during the first three weeks following the shoot-out exhibited typical and expected signs of an acute Post-traumatic Stress Response (e.g., anxiety, sleep disturbance, emotional numbing, avoidance, intrusive ideations, dissociation, physiological hyperreactivity). Furthermore, the three to four week period after this was characterized by being separated from 1) the group, 2) David, and 3) family members who had for the entire lives of these children, provided their entire set of social and emotional supports.

These children have been emotionally uprooted and when we 'replant' them we can expect a variety of difficulties. Children who are traumatized, particularly children who are traumatized and then placed in a situation where they do not have their typical, unusual, comforting supports, tend to develop a set of symptoms which are a persistence of those reactions above, often resulting in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). These children can be expected to exhibit elements of emotional numbing, avoidance of stimuli related to the original trauma, symptoms of pervasive anxiety, sleep difficulties, increased startle response, physiological hyper-reactivity, and many of these kids will develop overt depression and may have motor hyperactivity and distractibility.

A whole new set of internal landmarks and cognitive scripts will have to be provided for these unfortunate children. To, at the same time, acknowledge that what you have been taught may not be true and internalize something which you have been taught may be wrong and evil, is an extremely difficult task. Individual psychotherapy, a supportive, nurturing and understanding school setting and a nurturing, patient and tolerant family situation will all be required to minimize the long term adverse sequelae of living at the Ranch Apocalypse and surviving the shoot-out of February 28, 1993.

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Vice-Chairman for Research, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Chief of Psychiatry, Texas Children's Hospital
Director, Post-traumatic Stress Disorders Clinical Research Team, Houston VAMC
Baylor College of Medicine

March 25, 1993
Version 2.0
Background History: Koreshian Children