I am tearing my way through Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. For those of you who might not know, this book began as an investigation of the murder of Brenda Lafferty by her brothers-in-law Ron and Dan Lafferty in 1984. She was murdered for not being sufficiently submissive to her husband, for not being a good enough Mormon, she was also murdered because she resisted the demands of her husband and the demands of the rest of the Lafferty family to submit to polygamy and a fundamentalist interpretation of The Book of Mormon. Under the Banner of Heaven began as an investigation of the murder, but then morphed into a history of Mormonism in general. Hugely controversial book, obviously.
It fluctuates back and forth between the story of the Lafferty brothers’ descent into fundamentalism, and story of the beginning of the Mormon Church. The Lafferty brothers were born and raised as Mormons, but in the early 1980s got wrapped up in the fundamental strain of the Mormon Church (after meeting a man who called himself a “prophet” – along the lines of the wack-job who abducted Elizabeth Smart) and the Lafferty boys became convinced that killing their sister-in-law was what God wanted them to do. Dan and Ron remain unremorseful, in prison. They are still convinced that they live in God’s light; after all, they did what He asked. Oh, and not only did they kill Brenda Lafferty, but they also killed her infant daughter, stabbing her while she lay in her crib.
My thought, as I read this, is, overwhelmingly (and perhaps, way too simply): Jesus. I am so GLAD I wasn’t raised in that atmosphere. I am so GLAD that I didn’t grow up in a small village where everyone is also a Mormon, and the village is run by an elder, who marries me off when I’m 12 to a pockmarked 60 year old man who also happens to be my stepfather. I am glad I wasn’t raised to be submissive and obedient. I was raised to use my brain, my critical faculties … to judge for myself, to be able to make choices … to be able to say No to things I didn’t want, to stand up for myself.
The modern Mormon church wants to distance itself from the fundamentalist sects breaking off left and right, and yet it is obvious (from this book) that they’ve got a real dilemma on their hands.
There’s one moment in the book which, in particular, grips me – and this goes back to my fascination with cults, and brainwashing, and group-think.
Ron Lafferty was the oldest of the 6 Lafferty brothers (I think there are 6 of them). They were all raised to be good Mormons. Nothing too extreme, very mainstream, in a Mormon kind of way.
Ron was married to a woman named Dianne, also a Mormon (of course) and for 15 years they had what everyone describes as a wonderful and happy marriage. Ron was mild-mannered, he treated her well, she treated him well … all was fine. Meanwhile, the rest of the Lafferty boys started down the slippery slope into fundamentalism, and they all became completely convinced that THEY were the true holders of the true Mormon creed, and that the Mormon Church signed a deal with Satan when it gave up polygamy. They were all ex-communicated from the church.
Ron remained distant from all of this firebrand stuff.
All of the Lafferty wives became increasingly disturbed at the transformation of their husbands. Their husbands started talking to them about polygamy, about how they wanted to take on more wives … Their current wives went a bit rip-shit, in a submissive Mormon way.
Dianne (wife of Ron) became the leader of the wives and said to her husband, “Go talk some sense into your brothers. Please.”
So Ron went to meet with his 5 brothers, and began to tell them to cut out this polygamous talk, and to stop talking in this fundamentalist literalist way … His brothers spent a couple of hours talking to him about their ideas, and apparently Ron returned home to his wife Dianne a completely changed man.
He had had some kind of conversion experience. He had seen the light. He realized that he had completely strayed from the path of true Mormonism, the entire Mormon Church had strayed … Polygamy needed to be brought back, and harshly … The Church needed to be purified.
Everyone who knew him said that this dramatic personality change happened in the course of just one evening.
According to all of them: Ron Lafferty was one way on one day (mild, happy with his wife, reasonable), and the next day he was another way (a fundamentalist firebrand).
And less than a year later, he stabbed his sister-in-law and her infant daughter to death.
HOW does something like this happen?
Is our hold on our “selves”, whatever that means, so tenuous? What I’m really asking is this – and it’s something I’ve thought about often – (what with my continuous re-reading of Helter Skelter, etc.): What makes me different from Ron Lafferty? Or – is there no difference? Are we all equally susceptible to these kinds of personality changes? Have I just not been tested? Or …
I mean, look at what happened to Patty Hearst. That story has always deeply impressed me, made me think about things – like SELF – and what is the self – I don’t see all that much difference between Hearst and myself. But again, I don’t really know the answers to these questions.
Are any of us exempt from that kind of suggestion? Why does this question trouble me so much?
Is there something in Ron Lafferty that was MORE vulnerable?
Classic cult literature talks about people being susceptible to this kind of change-over during times of stress: divorce, going to college, moving … It is when you are perhaps a bit beaten down by the circumstances of life, that a cult can come right in and say, “If you follow us … you will never have to feel this way again…”
I feel like you literally could not pay me enough money in the whole fucking planet to go and live on a commune under David Koresh. Or Jim Jones. Or to submit whole-heartedly to ANY organization, which made such demands. I like individuality too much, I like freedom too much … I like Eminem too much. I like watching movies and immersing myself in pop culture too much. I like platform shoes and leather jackets.
There’s something deeper going on, though, in my distaste for all of that. I find it deeply frightening. The thought that our brains are so fragile. So porous. They can be imprinted upon.
That there might not be such a thing as an essential self. All is mutable, changeable.
But – what the hell happened to Ron Lafferty that night? Dianne, his wife, later testified at the trial, that she did not recognize her own husband when he came home. He had gone somewhere else, in his psyche – and she would never get him back. Because fundamentalism is, of course, so rigid, so unyielding.
i think you ARE very articulate about this….and on some level i imagine most deep-thinking people can relate. but i think it is also deep-thinking people who, while aware of this human susceptibility to suggestion, are less susceptible than your average person. i think the awareness is kind of a safeguard. i think the same thing sometimes about homeless people on the street in the midst of a very intense argument with themselves. what separates ME from THEM….and who is to say that there plight is not also my destiny? i think it boils down to empathy and a firm understanding of the fragility of human nature. you pose a number of very interesting questions…i can’t wait to talk to you about this book! amazning, no?!
their plight
Well, and then there’s the whole doctrine of submission and obedience and community which is so much a part of the Mormon creed – that might add to someone’s susceptibility.
But again – I really don’t know.
What I’m really saying is that perhaps Ron Lafferty was more susceptible to that personality-change because it was coming from his family members who were also Mormons –
I doubt that, after spending 4 hours with, say, a Hari Krishna, he would have had a similar conversion experience and suddenly shaved his head and dressed in orange robes.
The familiarity bred the conversion. The seeds had already been sown.
At least, that’s one guess.
Dear Tania, Jr.,
We would like you to come visit our little cult. We are bigamists, that is we recognize that God wants Man to take two mates–not like those polygamists who believe in more than two–that’s plum crazy. We believe that after spending time with our women folk(especially during the scheduled hours when they are allowed to speak)you will see God’s true design. Many of our women find that the New Discipline takes the feistiness right out of them–you seem like maybe you could benefit from this. It frees up the mind for other things like mating, cleaning, mating, etc. Unlike the polygamists you don’t have to wait a couple days to ‘be’ with your man. You get that honor most every day. Come on out and visit.
i think it’s a good guess. but i do think that some people are inherently more susceptible to suggestion than others. but i think it’s probably far more likely for a person broght up in the mainstream morman religion, which as you say inflicts a doctrine of submission and obedience, to cross over than for an average person to suddenly buy into this particular faith. i have forgotten….were any of the modern fundamentalists in the book converted from another religion altogether (or secularism)?
The Voice:
“mating, cleaning, mating, etc.” Now that gave me a good laugh.
Thanks for the invite.
But one question before I accept: Do you have any WBs in your cult compound?
The real thing holding me back, though, in saying Yes is that I just plain DO NOT LIKE TO SHARE.
Allison –
So far, no. All of them were raised in the mainstream Mormon Church and then – as they became increasingly fundamentalist – they got excommunicated, and created their own little offshoots. But all of it came from that main creed.
Oh, don’t you worry little Tania. You’ll get plenty used to sharin’–and Sharon, for that matter(she’s my First Mate).
I guess when you join a cult, you automatically start to drop you “g”s at the end of words, too?
Kudos, by the way, for your correct spelling of that name.
Fundamentalism is scary because its entire premise is signing away one’s right to free will. You’re no longer an independent person trying to get through life with God’s help, but rather you become a direct instrument for the expression of God’s will – usually meaning directing God’s wrath on people you didn’t like much anyway. Our lives are frequently difficult and complicated and people often don’t receive the rewards they feel they deserve. By signing away one’s right to free will, you’re eliminating any need for conscience, or for thinking in general. Anyone in the fundamentalist group who does show signs of conscience will be severely disciplined until the behavior ceases, or they leave the group (dead or alive). “It’s too bad that those thousands of people had to die, but it was God’s will for all their unholy acts.”
Of course, what’s always completely lost on all fundamentalists is that they’re really engaging in a supreme act of arrogance, presuming that THEY know precisely what God’s thinking and what He wants them to do.
All fundamentalists are dangerous. In point of fact, ANYONE who stops thinking about the consequences of their actions is extremely dangerous, because humans tend to behave as savagely as any other species when the constraints of civilization and conscience are not firmly in place.
There will probably always be fundamentalists, because it’s not a simple case of economic deprivation causing fundamentalism. There is a relationship between the two, but the roots of fundamentalism run very deep. It has a strong, unique appeal to the baser elements of human character that exist even in the absence of economic distress.
What’s most worrisome, for the entire human race, is that accellerating technology may in the future provide fundamentalists with massive destructive power they’ve never had before. If we don’t find effective ways to stop them, without becoming a police state in the process, our civilization could easily fall before the end of this century.
Tania,
When you come to visit, don’t bring MikeR with you.
HAHAHA
The Mormon church has always struggled with polygamy. If I remember my history correctly it of course has its origins in the Bible and the social pragmatism of the first years of the Mormon settlement of what is today Utah. The women far outnumbered the men.
Today, on the border between UT and AZ there is a fundamentalist town run like a little feudal society with the “elder” who is really a religious despot that directs peoples lives and has involved the followers in child abuse and fraud to obtain fund from the federal government.
Of course, in a general sense, this happens in any organized religion. There are zealots and of course, the most danger zealot is the recently converted one.
j swift: Yeah, this book describes some communities like the one you describe.
Good point about the recent convert. SO true.
I think it’s pretty apparent that the mind can be seduced in any direction it’s environment leads.
Why are there hundreds of religions that people truly believe in?
Why do I want to buy that bagless vacuum cleaner after 5 minutes of watching the home shopping network?
I am deftly afraid of how our world may become “sound-bitten” right into oblivion by selfish, greedy people that have a microphone.
We must wage a war of thoughts and we must win.
I read the book when it came out. The amazing thing was what a great piece of journalism it was. The story didn’t write itself: he had to dig it up, put it together and make it coherent. The historical context he used to develop the story made it more than just another true crime piece.
Darren –
My To-Do list for tomorrow:
— Laundry
— Gym
— Shopping
— Wage a winning war of thoughts.
:)
Ed:
It amazes me how he got these people to open up to him, talk to him.
Thanks, Scott – I’ll check him out.
My god, how do you *stab an infant*?!?!? My hands shake just thinking about it. Freak.
I know, Emily. I know. God wanted them to do it, and so – no questions asked. They were that blinded to rationality.
“When you come to visit, don’t bring MikeR with you.”
Don’t give up so easily, Voice. If there’s all sorts of wild sex with wild women involved, you might just make a sale yet…
My uncle was Ron Lafferty’s roommate in college and I actually remember meeting him in the early 70’s (when I was 6 or 7). I remember looking at this ring he had made out of the end of a spoon and saying how neat I thought it was, and then Ron insisting my mom and I stay at their apartment while he made me one. He may have been described as a nice family guy later but he was very, very intense even then. My mom’s family is mormon (I live in Salt Lake), but very few of them exhibit the whack-job tendencies frequently attributed to mormons. That said, I was raised very much the same as you Sheila – to be my own person – and I am absolutely not mormon (for many reasons) even though there was some pressure to be one. I haven’t been ostracized or anything and my life in Salt Lake is pretty much MO free. My uncle who is an active mormon was unsurprised by the Lafferty family’s turn to the dark side. I think he was sad because his friend wigged out, but from the beginning that family’s chemistry was seriously screwed up.
Corrinne:
Woah. Just … woah.
Thanks for that perspective. Amazing.
I forgot to mention that I read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven back when it came out. I enjoyed an earlier book of his about the tragic experience on Mt. Everest titled Into Thin Air. He is a wonderful writer and orator. I listened to both of his books from audible.com while I walked my dogs.
I dont read. People read to me. Karen Walker
I read Into Thin Air about once a year. It’s one of my favorite books.
That would be…”I don’t read. I’m read to”
I was living in SoCal when the story came out of the cultists in San Diego that bought new tennies and killed themselves, having been convinced that a spaceship was coming to pick them up. I was haunted by the story that came out later that during their travels before the mass suicide they had stopped at someone’s house in Colorado, I think, and the man living there left with them the next morning and abandoned his family. I’m sure there was more to the story, but the idea that someone with a apparently normal life could be so easily seduced scared the hell out of me.
I also recommend Phillip K Dick BTW. He was an “early adapter” of LSD IIRC. I agree that short stories are the way to go, but also liked the novel “The Penultimate Truth”.
it’s rare that people change so dramatically overnight without some kind of dramatic or traumatic event…. i find it hard to believe the guy was normal before he left to talk with his brothers and abnormal when he returned….
on the other hand, our minds/bodies are very much interrelated…. and if you whack out the hormone levels … men or women, people can and will do some very strange things…. alot of cushings patients describe the emotional shifts which occur to them as the ‘mood swings from hell’ and most never had them before acquiring this condition…
a strong personality is unlikely to submit easily or even with alot of effort to doing strange things…. without the impact of extraneous forces…
people will do whatever they can in many cases to survive, but this situation isn’t a matter of survival, more likely a matter of persuasion….
wierd….
As a Catholic, I’ve always regarded Mormon theology as a nut-ball made-up religion. I get the creeps whenever I travel in Utah. I guess that’s how a Jew feels traveling through Bavaria.
I am a Southern Baptist and like the oracle, I have also regarded Mormon theology as a farly screwed up religion. The Theology is not very accurate according to the canonized bible. Also the “history” in the book of mormon is not proven where as the bible is, historically that is. As for the Fundamentalism I think they are dangerous to other mormons and real Christians alike. the book was great as well.