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This article examines the ways Hungarian political life and public debate were influenced by the news media's coverage of the 1993 conflict involving the Branch Davidians living at Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas and United States federal agents, in which a total of eighty-six people were killed. After the collapse of the Soviet political system, new religious movements began spreading rapidly in Eastern European nations at the beginning of the 1990s. The first anticult movements in Hungary were closely connected to the political conservativism and traditional religiosity represented by so-called "historical" Christian churches. The conservative governing parties aimed to restrict new religious movements by withdrawing financial support and by enacting a new law on religion and denominations resulting in anticult propaganda disseminated by the state. The news about the conflict and deaths at Mount Carmel Center played an important catalyzing role in the anticult parliamentary and press debates in Hungary. The tragedy of the deaths at Mount Carmel became one of the most important arguments in the hands of politicians in Hungary who wanted to limit freedom of religion for members of new religious movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a critique of the 2002 article "Timing and Music," by Stuart Albert and Geoffrey Bell, regarding the use of temporal sequences to find useful ways of understanding organizational timing. The article attempts to musically map the standoff in Waco, Texas between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and religious leader David Koresh in a way differing from that of Albert and Bell. The article discusses the importance of tension and release in the musical mapping of the incident, and states that it is an important detail that Koresh and his followers celebrated the Passover holiday.

In this article we expand on Albert's (1995) early attempts to apply music theory to the analysis of point-timing questions--questions of when to act. Building upon the Albert P5 model by applying concepts such as tonality, rhythm, musical shape, and harmony, we seek to understand why the FBI launched its assault upon David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, when it did. We suggest alternative solutions that might have resolved the crisis without the loss of life and consider the contribution of music theory to the problem of timing in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listening is typically taken for granted in interaction, and yet it has potential to become a conversational issue when one participant is not listening to the other’s satisfaction. This study focuses on that issue in the context of the crisis negotiations that took place during the standoff between the FBI and the Branch Davidians, in the Spring of 1993. Using concepts from grounded practical theory, it explores the intersection of talk and listening through analysis of “listening” as metatalk. The essay describes interactions in which the metatalk of listening reveals implicit negotiations about the meaning of listening and idealizing features of interaction. Implications reflect on the communication practices of listening, metatalk about listening, and crisis negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on how the author of "The Ashes of Waco" has presented the book. He mentions that he charged the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) with negligence and arrogance in their conduct of the raid at the Waco Branch Davidian in Mount Carmel Center which ended in the deaths of children. He states that he did not charge the agents of the government with the intent to murder or the murder of anyone.

The article presents an analysis of how law enforcement has or has not altered after the Waco Branch Davidian Disaster in Texas in 1993. The Waco disaster represented only one of many ways where the U.S. federal government agencies are curtailing American liberties and rights in the name of wars against terrorism, drugs and crime. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had always asserted that at no time during the 51-day siege or the last assault did they use arms against the Davidians.

The article examines the impact of the Waco Branch Davidian Disaster in Texas in 1993 in areas of law enforcement and the relationship between the state and religion. It states that many of the errors committed by the law enforcement atthe compound were traceable to widely held beliefs about new religious groups. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were imbued with similar notions about cults that influenced the larger society.

The article discusses the Waco siege as a compound that belongs to the Branch Davidians by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The group was suspected of federal gun control laws violation and a search and arrest warrant was attained by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The FBI launched an assault where a fire engulfed Mount Carmel Center in Texas in which 76 women, men and children, which include leader David Koresh, died.

The article presents information on upcoming conferences in 2013 and 2014 on new religions as well as calls for papers on the subject. Topics mentioned include research on utopianism and communitarianism, the connection between mental health and religion, and the 1993 Branch Davidian Disaster in Waco, Texas.

2013 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco, Texas. On 18 April 2013 an academic symposium was held at Baylor University featuring more than half a dozen speakers who explored topics related to the Branch Davidian religions community, the raid and siege, the fire, and the aftermath. On 19 April 2013 a memorial stake was held in Waco that included speakers, a reading of the names of the dead, and the unveiling of a new museum exhibit about the Branch Davidians. The two events, recounted here, provided public forums for acknowledging and reflecting on the events that took place in Waco in 1993. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of new religious movements (NRMs) have spent considerable energy studying the role of news media in constructing public narratives about religious innovation. This article proposes that similar attention be paid to popular culture. It is argued that fictional media has a unique ability to shape public discourse about NRMs precisely because it is free to present any narrative its authors desire. Furthermore, a diachronic study of television and films over the last half-century reveals an ongoing public conversation about NRMs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article highlights some of the Waco Branch Davidian material holdings acquired by the Texas Collection at Baylor University and provides general information about the kinds of materials that have been acquired about this community and the siege and fire that occurred in 1993. I cite related materials in other collections to provide an overview of the kinds of records that are accessible, restricted, or inaccessible to the public regarding the David Koresh community and previous generations of religious communities who resided on the Mount Carmel property. To date, the collections at Baylor University and Texas State University-San Marcos are two of the most comprehensive efforts to preserve and provide access to a range of documentation about this community's history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the controversy, recently revived by British religious studies scholar, Kenneth C. G. Newport, that the Branch Davidians had a theological rationale for mass suicide and likely set fire to their own home. Newport couples the theological argument with assertions of "unassailable evidence" regarding the government's reports as if no alternative explanation is plausible. The paper challenges Newport's claim to the "unassailable evidence" found in government reports. Despite his largely uncritical acceptance of the official version of events, the reliability of the government's case is hampered in a number of ways. These include, among other things: false or misleading statements by federal officials; lost, mishandled, and/or concealed evidence; an independent arson report that challenges the government's conclusions; the suppression of evidence through extensive redaction and the use of procedural rulings; and exclusion of evidence in the federal civil trial. I also contend that the tragic denouement at Waco has to be viewed in the cultural context in which it emerged. Waco came to symbolize a deep political divide during a period of growing fears about "big government" and broad swaths of antigovernment sentiment, and, as such, served as a proxy for culture war battles in the early-to-mid 1990s. When examined against the backdrop of these disturbing machinations and conditions, the evidence supporting mass suicide at Mount Carmel is hardly unassailable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lee Hancock Collection of materials on the Branch Davidian case, located at the Loyola University New Orleans archive, contains an impressive set of internal memos, interview reports, and expert reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Texas Rangers, in addition to numerous government reports and documents relating to the criminal and civil trials. It also contains an array of news articles. The Hancock Collection provides important source materials relevant to research on the events in 1993 involving federal agents and the Branch Davidians, the subsequent trials and investigations, as well as media depictions. The federal documents in the Hancock Collection are particularly important in light of the withholding and destruction of source materials on the Branch Davidian case by United States agents and agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kenneth G. C. Newport's book, The Branch Davidians of Waco (2006) has placed responsibility for the 19 April 1993 fire at Mount Carmel Center, outside Waco, Texas, primarily on the Branch Davidians, arguing that they were motivated to die as a result of their apocalyptic theology of martyrdom. Newport writes that after the siege was initiated by the 28 February assault by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Branch Davidians' deaths in a fire were inevitable. On the other hand, listening to conversations recorded by surveillance devices in conjunction with selected negotiation audiotapes, the author found evidence that indicates Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had ample information that the Branch Davidians expected to die in a fire if the community was assaulted a second time. This raises questions about the intentions of FBI agents in proceeding with the 19 April tank and CS gas assault, especially since a recent breakthrough in negotiations likely would have resulted in the Branch Davidians exiting the residence. The author concludes that circumstantial evidence indicates that decision-making FBI agents knowingly applied extreme pressure to the Branch Davidians to prompt them to act on their theology of martyrdom, as part of a larger project of destroying evidence of illegal actions committed by federal agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two events in Texas which provide the basis for a viable policing model for closed religious communities. The incidents involved a search of the premises of a religious group known as the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) carried out by law enforcement officials in Eldorado in 2008 and raid of the religious group Branch Davidians by federal agents in Waco 1993. Challenges to enforcing the law in such communities are assessed. Also noted is the role of policing in religious communities.

The article presents the author's insights on the Branch Davidians. It notes the tragedy on April 19, 1993 when the Mt. Carmel compound of the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists in Waco, Texas was burned. It also discusses the history of the Branch Davidians. Moreover, it cites the parallelism of the Waco incident to Euripedes' play entitled "The Bacchae."

This study is an analysis of several telephone conversations between FBI negotiators and David Koresh during the 51-day FBI-Branch Davidian standoff outside Waco, Texas, in 1993. The analysis shows how different reframing practices reveal interactional troubles the negotiators faced in dealing with the incompatibility of their legal frame for the situation and the Davidians' religious one. These practices shed new light on reframing in crisis negotiation steeped in moral conflict, describing it as a problematic conversational practice rather than a prescribed path to resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the author's experience in his participation in the two events, the sieges at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973 and at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in 1993. He chronicles his visits to both sites and accounts how he gets interested with sieges' anniversary. Finally, as an archivist, he documents his travels into archival material.

After the disastrous end of the Waco standoff in 1993, the Branch Davidian dead were idealized as martyrs by many on the radical right, despite the incompatibility between Davidian doctrine and right-wing ideology. This appropriation suggests the importance of martyrologists in identifying martyrs, as well as the increasing malleability of the concept of martyrdom. For martyrdom, as it appears in the right-wing treatment of the Waco affair, departs significantly from classical definitions of what constitutes a martyr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of the Branch Davidian incident in Waco, law-enforcement personnel and scholars of alternative religions (often called cults) entered a period of rethinking approaches and seeking more balanced information. It is with the hope that if theology and commitment of groups like the Branch Davidians is understood by police agencies, more effective approaches in dealing with these groups can be found. This paper will present a perspective on alternate religions, their thinking and theology, that may serve as a basis for lessons for negotiators in managing encounters with such groups. Perhaps such an understanding will help prevent tragedies like the Waco incident for future negotiators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the phenomena of self-fulfilling prophecy and escalating commitment in the context of the standoff between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas on February 28, 1993. Description of the event; Overview of deviation-amplifying loops in the Waco case which interacted with one another and caused organizational crisis; Discussion on perceived behavioral control.

Outside Waco, Texas, on 19 April 1993, a 51-day standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians concluded with a devastating fire. Despite the fact that FBI negotiators talked on the telephone with Koresh or his main spokesman almost every day, the negotiators were unable to bring the standoff to a peaceful end. A frustrating yet persistent aspect for the FBI negotiators was the Davidians' talk about the Bible and their religious beliefs, what agents dismissively described as 'Bible babble'. In this study, we analyze several exchanges between Koresh and one of the FBI agents. The analysis shows how the FBI's identifying their problem as 'Bible babble' contributed to the negotiation failure. Through their talk, Koresh was positioned as a biblical expert and the FBI agent as a novice. The FBI's talk also supported Koresh's face (not challenging the reasonableness of his beliefs). These two conversational patterns, we argue, legitimated God as a key party and Koresh as the person who could best speak for him. In the conclusion, we suggest how a renaming of the problem might have reshaped the FBI's moves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Offers insights for managers and organization theorists as to how managers make judgments concerning their employees. Review of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian Compound and the Challenger space shuttle launch disaster; Investigation of the two incidents; How the two tragedies could have been avoided.

Deals with a study which examined the changing views of the signs of millennial dawn in the tradition of Davidian and Branch Davidian movement. Description of the religious sector; Overview of how Davidian leaders provided new understandings of the millennium; Distinctive interpretations of the approaching millennial reign of Christ.